The Notion of the Painter-Architect in Italy and the Southern Low Countries (Architectura Moderna) (Architectura Moderna, 11) 9782503548500, 2503548504

Citation preview

The Notion

Painter-Architect Southern Low Countries

of the

in Italy and the

ARCHITECTURA MODERNA Architectural Exchanges in Europe, 16th-17th Centuries Vol. 11

Series Editors: Krista De Jonge (Leuven) Piet Lombaerde (Antwerp)

Advisory Board: Howard Burns (Vicenza/Pisa) Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann (Princeton) Jean Guillaume (Paris) John Newman (London) Konrad Ottenheym (Utrecht) Ulrich Schütte (Marburg)

The Notion of the Painter-Architect in Italy and the Southern Low Countries

Edited by Piet Lombaerde

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Cover illustrations: Above left: Monogrammist TG, Architecture (Florence, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi) Right: Portrait of Pieter Coecke van Aelst, by Hiëronymus Wierix, 1572. (From: Dominicus Lampsonius, Pictorum aliquot celebrium e germaniae inferioris effigies, Antwerp, 1572)

© 2014, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. D/2014/0095/4 ISBN 978-2-503-54850-0 Printed on acid-free paper

Contents

Foreword vii Introduction ix Piet Lombaerde, editor Painter-Architects in Italy during the Quattrocento and Cinquecento Howard Burns

1

Die universale Zeichnung („disegno“) des Künstlers und/versus die „graphidis ­scientia“ des Architekten Werner Oechslin

9

Sebastiano Serlio as a Painter-Architect Sabine Frommel

39

Vignola, a Serious Training: Painting, Perspective, Architecture Bruno Adorni

59

From Lodge to Studio: Transmissions of Architectural Knowledge in the Low Countries 1480–1530 Oliver Kik

73

Humanae Societati Necessaria: The Painted Façade of the House of Frans Floris Edward H. Wouk

89

Wensel Cobergher (1556/61–1634): Painter, Antiquarian, Architect Tine L. Meganck

127

On the Peripatetics of the Sixteenth-Century Sketchbook Christopher P. Heuer

149

Painting and Painted Architectures in Genoa: What Peter Paul Rubens Probably Saw Stefano F. Musso

161

Frans Geffels, Rubens and the Palazzi di Genova Giulio Girondi

183

Rubens, Architectural Space and Light Piet Lombaerde

201

Reflections on the Digital Reconstruction of the Portico and Garden Pavilion of the Rubens House Stefan Boeykens

223

v

Contents Rubens: The Ingenious Master as an Architect? Carolien De Staelen

237

List of Illustrations

265

Selective Bibliography

277

Contributors 299 Index 303

vi

Foreword

Italy and the Southern Netherlands were especially productive in the field of architecture from the fifteenth to the beginning of the seventeenth century. But who were these specialists who excelled in drawing and disseminating a new architecture inspired by classical antiquity? Clearly, they were no longer the traditional artisans, but more likely to be members of guilds – such as the Guild of St Luke – whose specific skills allowed them to act as architects. One of the most clearly defined groups of these new master-builders were the painters. Antwerp was particularly successful in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with regard to its artistic output and the realization of architectural projects. There are also artists’ houses and studios with frescoes decorating the façades or the interiors, examples being the residences of Quinten Metsys, Frans Floris and of course the famous Rubens House. With the rise of the Baroque, it was generally assumed that a competent architect also possessed the skills of a painter or sculptor. This publication examines how the disciplines of architecture and painting could be practised by one and the same artist: the so-called painter-architect. The question as to whether the painter-architect was an architect who engaged in painting or a painter who practised architecture can be investigated from very different angles. The problem may be approached from a purely theoretical standpoint, or from the perspective of training and experience in the arts, or by examining the architectural representations in a painter’s oeuvre, or by studying buildings with painted façades and interiors. It is also possible to concentrate on the rendering of architecture in trompe l’oeil, or to examine architectural elements in painting as bearers of meaning. The authors who contributed to this publication were free to choose their own line of approach, thus broadening the debate on the notion of the painter-architect. This publication, the eleventh volume in the Architectura Moderna series, hopes to provide fresh insights into the relationship between the arts, more specifically painting and architecture. In early modern times, the fine arts and the liberal arts were closer than is frequently assumed. All too often, the study of architecture involves an approach that proceeds from a division between the sciences and the arts. During the Baroque, in particular, architecture was a Gesamtkunstwerk in which architecture, sculpture and painting came together and the liberal arts, especially geometry and arithmetic, played an important role. Most of the essays in this publication were supplied by participants of the international colloquium ‘The Notion of the Painter-Architect’, organized on 2–3 December 2011 by the Faculty of Design Sciences (University College of Antwerp, University of Antwerp) in cooperation with the Rubenianum, the centre of excellence for the study of Flemish art of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Some of the contributions are elaborations of lectures given at the colloquium; new chapters were also added, particularly with regard to Rubens. It was the late Frans Baudouin, the eminent Rubens researcher, who first applied the term ‘painter-architect’ to Rubens. He did this in March 2001 at the first international conference, held to mark the launch of the Architectura Moderna series. The theme of that conference was ‘The Reception of P.P. Rubens’s Palazzi di Genova during the 17th Century in Europe’. The international conference ‘The Notion of the Painter-Architect in Italy and the Southern Low Countries, 16th–17th Centuries’ was made possible by the Research Fund of the University College of Antwerp. In 2010–11 research was undertaken to determine whether Rubens could be considered an architect. Moreover, this marked the beginning of systematic, quantitative research into the way in which Rubens integrated architecture into his entire

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Foreword oeuvre: paintings, drawings, prints, tapestry designs and title pages. The question was also raised as to which examples from the architectural treatises present in his library might have influenced his representations of architecture and architectural ornaments. At the same time, digital research was carried out on the spatial coherence of the elements of the Rubens House, the results of which are published in this book. Much work was necessary to bring the project to a good conclusion, and for this we are deeply indebted to Stefan Boeykens (University of Leuven) and Sigurd de Gruyter (University College of Antwerp). We also thank Professor Emeritus Werner Oechslin, Nora De Poorter, and Ria Fabri for their interesting commentary and suggestions for research. We wish to express our gratitude to the Rubenianum, particularly to the curator Véronique Van de Kerckhof, for her help in organizing the conference at an exceptionally suitable venue: the Kolveniershof, right next to the Rubenianum, which houses the documentation centre and the archives of the Fonds Ludwig Burchard. We are also indebted to Ben Van Beneden, curator of the Rubens House, who was so kind as to comply with the wishes of the organization committee of the colloquium and to allow the contemporaneous exhibition ‘Palazzo Rubens. The Master as Architect’ to be included in the colloquium. Thanks are also due to Carolien De Staelen, who not only took an active part in the research, but also provided a great deal of help during the colloquium and the subsequent compilation of this publication. Our special thanks go to all the authors who contributed to this book. Their expertise and enthusiasm were invaluable in producing this volume in the Architectura Moderna series, which can be considered an original contribution to the annals of architectural history in the Southern Netherlands. Even so, this publication does not claim to be complete, and we are well aware of the questions left unanswered. For example, this volume does not treat a number of important painter-architects, such as Giulio Romano, Michelangelo and Vasari in Italy, and Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Lambert Lombard in the Southern Netherlands. A great deal of attention is paid to Peter Paul Rubens as a painter-architect and his connections with Italy. The impact made by the Genoan palazzi, particularly those in the Strada Nuova, is considered in this context. We discuss Rubens’s architecture, especially the Rubens House, in the context of his painted oeuvre in an attempt to arrive at a better understanding of it. Finally, attention is also paid to the influence of the architecture of antiquity on Rubens’s entire artistic production. By bringing together prominent historians of art and architecture from Europe and North America, this publication seeks, by means of interdisciplinary research, to shed new light on the sometimes complex relationship between architecture and painting in Italy and the Southern Netherlands during the fertile sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in the context of European artistic practice. Piet Lombaerde Series Editor

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Introduction Painter-Architect

or

Painter & Architect?

Piet Lombaerde

The term painter-architect can be used to describe, in a broad and not unambiguous way, certain practitioners of architecture active in Italy and the Low Countries between the fifteenth and the eighteenth century. Its use raises many questions. Were they artists or artisans – painters, sculptors, goldsmiths or carpenters – who also worked as architects? Or was the status of painter-architect bestowed by contemporaries or contemporary biographers on exceptional practitioners of painting and architecture? Or was it only later that researchers and specialists in the history of art and architecture began to use the term painter-architect to refer to these painters? Did a painter-architect have more to offer than an architect? Wouldn’t it be better simply to confer the status of architect on a number of painters, without calling them painter-architects? Or is the notion of a painter-architect an anachronism in a sixteenthand seventeenth-century context? This publication seeks to answer these questions. The various contributors to this book treat the notion of the painter-architect in entirely different ways, using a broad range of approaches. Rather than striving for completeness, this volume aims to launch a study of this complex research question in the field of architecture. It is also possible that a painter-architect never realized a building, but only wrote or published about architecture, or translated existing architectural works. Being an architect also entails a specific attitude to constructed reality in society. As Hans Gerhard Evers observed in 1942 about Rubens, in response to the discussion about whether this Antwerp master was also an architect: In the past decades, calling Rubens an architect has been repeatedly affirmed and repeatedly denied. As long as architecture is understood as the erection of walls, such as carried out by a building contractor, Rubens will admittedly be of no significance to architectural history … Those, however, who take architecture to include the spiritual law by which people live with one another, and recognize it as the expression of an organized world and attempt to transform it into a judicious creation – for such people Rubens is one of the architects.1 Thus architecture is more than merely building or designing structures; it is connected with a common body of ideas that helps to organize and shape the world according to its principles. The issue of the painter-architect also touches upon the definition of who exactly should be awarded the title of architect.2 This aspect, too, is examined in the present publication. The designation of architect occurs together with such concepts as engineer and engineer-architect. This is linked to the debate between the artes mechanicae and the artes liberales. The liberal arts of arithmetic and geometry are considered essential to building, and various artists – such as Hans Vredeman de Vries and, later on, Nicolaus Goldmann – used this fact to raise architecture to the level of the liberal arts (fig. 1).3   H.G. Evers, Peter Paul Rubens, (Munich 1942), p. 150.   S. Kostof (ed.), The Architect. Chapters in the History of the Profession, (Oxford 1977); L. Callebat (ed.), Histoire de l’architecte, (Paris 1998). On the rise of the term ‘architect’ in the Low Countries, see M. Hurx, Architect en aannemer. De opkomst van de bouwmarkt in de Nederlanden 1350–1530, (Nijmegen 2012).

1 2

  P. Lombaerde, ‘Introduction’, in: P. Lombaerde (ed.), Hans Vredeman de Vries and the Artes Mechanicae Revisited (Turnhout 2005), pp. 1–6; J. Goudeau, Nicolaus Goldmann (1611–1665) en de wiskundige architectuurwetenschap, (Groningen 2005), pp. 245–54.

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Piet Lombaerde

1. Hendrick Hondius, Portrait of Hans Vredeman de Vries, c. 1610. (From: Henricus Hondius, Pictorum Aliquot Celebrium Praecipuae Germaniae Inferiores Effigies, The Hague: Henricus Hondius, 1610).

2. Portrait of Giorgio Vasari as a painter and an a­ rchitect. (From: Delle Vite de’ piu e­ ccellenti pittori, scuttori et architetti di Giorgio Vasari, Bologna: Per gli Eredi del Dozza, 1647, vol. 2, p. 376).

 he definition of the ­architect and the status of ­architecture among T the arts in Italy The definition of the painter-architect harks back to the definition of architect given by Vitruvius and Alberti in Italy.4 The position of architecture with respect to the arts can also be found in Vasari, as outlined in Le Vite de’ più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori italiani (fig. 2).5 In Philander’s edition of Vitruvius, it is argued that the architect is, first and foremost, someone who is well acquainted with the science of drawing (Graphidos scientiam habere).6 Furthermore, geometry is the liberal art that teaches the architect to wield a ruler and pair  On this subject, see esp. Y. Pauwels, ‘L’Architecte, humaniste et artiste’, in: L. Callebat, o.c., 1998, pp. 63–85. 5   G. Vasari, Le Vite de’ più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori italiani…, (Florence 1550, 1568). G. Blum, Giorgio Vasari. Der Erfinder der Renaissance. Eine Biographie, (Munich 2011). 4

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 G. Philander, M. Vitruvii Pollionis de Architectura Libri Decem, (Tours 1552), p. 6. A discussion of this is to be found in: F. Lemerle, Les Annotations de Guillaume Philandrier sur le De Architectura de Vitruve. Livres I à IV (De Architectura), (Paris 2000), esp. pp. 66–74.

6

Painter-Architect

or

Painter & Architect?

of compasses. The architect is, moreover, at home in the fine arts, which include painting. Alberti is very explicit in defining the architect, who must be able to combine theory and practice and be well-versed in the most noble branches of learning: Before I go any farther, however, I should explain exactly whom I mean by an architect; for it is no carpenter that I would have you compare to the greatest exponents of other disciplines: the carpenter is but an instrument in the hands of the architect. Him I consider the architect, who by sure and wonderful reason and method, knows both how to devise through his own mind and energy, and to ­realize by construction, whatever can be most beautifully fitted out for the noble needs of man, by the movement of weights and the joining and massing of bodies. To do this he must have an understanding and knowledge of all the highest and most noble disciplines. This then is the architect.7 Vasari mainly examines the question of how these three fine arts relate to one another. His ideas on this subject can be found in his preface to the third book of Le Vite.8 The arts of painting, sculpture and architecture follow the same pattern. He distinguishes five categories that must be taken into account in the arts: the rule, the architectural orders, proportion, design and manner.9 As regards architecture, it should correspond as closely as possible to ancient ruins.10 The architectural orders enable one to distinguish various architectural styles, ‘so that each body is given its proper parts and one no longer confuses the Doric, Ionic, Corinthian and Tuscan order’.11 Like Vitruvius, Vasari maintains that proportion has to do with the correct relationship between the parts of a structure, which emerges from the ichnographia and the orthographia. This is also of importance in the portrayal of figures in sculpture and painting. The architectural design should be based entirely on nature. Keen observation is therefore vital, to enable the hand to transfer the design to a sheet or a panel. Time and again Vasari refers to painting, the primary source of his examples. The status of the architect in the Low Countries It may be asked in the case of the Southern Netherlands whether there were painters who could be considered architects before the arrival of the Renaissance from Italy. This concerns the period between 1480 and 1530.12 Oliver Kik examines this question in his c­ ontribution, and argues that the guild and family networks played a pivotal role in ­conveying architectural knowledge in those days, when such knowledge was still rather vague. Drawings and oral communication, rather than the written word, were then the primary channels for the transfer and exchange of architectural knowledge. Kik concludes that painters were not suddenly immersed in the practice of architecture; instead, the knowledge of geometry inherent in Gothic structures gradually caused the classical orders of antiquity to be incorporated into the new architecture. 7  L.B. Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books (trans. by Joseph Rykwert, Neil Leach, Robert Tavernor), (Cambridge, Mass. 1996), p. 3. 8   G. Vasari, Le Vite de’ più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori italiani…, (Florence 1550, 1568). The definition given in this book of disegno and what it means for architecture differs somewhat from the ideas of the Florentine Academy, even though it was founded at the instigation of Vasari. After the Academy was founded, mathematics came to play an increasingly important role. 9  G. Vasari, De levens van de grootste schilders, beeldhouwers en architecten. Deel 1 & 2, (s.l. 2010), pp. 282–287. G. Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti Pittori Scultori ed Architettori, (Florence 1568 and Milan 1906).

10  This idea made a comeback in the eighteenth century, as evidenced by the subject assigned in an architectural competition held at the Royal Academy of Arts in Antwerp. See: P. Lombaerde, ‘Het adagio van de klassieke orden en de perspectief (1663–1794)’, in: E. De Vos and P. Lombaerde (eds.), Van Academie tot universiteit. 350 jaar architectuur in Antwerpen, (Brussels 2013), pp. 32–53. 11   G. Vasari, o.c., 1568, p. 282. 12   K.J. Philipp, ‘“Eyn huys in manieren van eynre kirchen”. Werkmeister, Parliere, Steinlieferanten, Zimmermeister und Bauorganisatoren in den Niederlanden von 14. bis zum 16. Jahrhundert’, Wallraf-Richartz Jahrbuch, 50, 1989, pp. 69–113.

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Piet Lombaerde In 1539 Pieter Coecke van Aelst became one of the first to define architecture and the architect, in imitation of Vitruvius (fig. 3).13 In Die Inventie der Colommen met haren Coronementen ende Maten, the architect is described as the ‘supreme builder’ (opperbouwmeester): And therefore he must be ingenious, that is to say, he must have a sharp mind, also with regard to schooling …He must likewise be learned, and be able to make drawings or designs. In addition, he must possess knowledge of geometry, optics, arithmetic, history … astrology.14

3. Hiëronymus Wierix, portrait of Pieter Coecke van Aelst, 1572. (From: D. Lampsonius, Pictorum aliquot celebrium e germaniae inferioris effigies, Antwerp: apud viduam Hieronymus Cock, 1572).   K. De Jonge, ‘Vitruvius, Alberti and Serlio: Architectural Treatises in the Low Countries’, in: V. Hart and P. Hicks (eds.), Paper Palaces. The Rise of the Renaissance Architectural Treatise, (New Haven – London 1998), pp. 281–96; P. Lombaerde, ‘Architectura sine scientia nihil est’, in: P. Lombaerde (ed.), Comparative methodologies in architecture, art, design and science. Bringing the world into culture, (Brussels 2009), pp. 111–43. 14  P. Coecke van Aelst, Die Inventie der Colommen met haren Coronementen ende Maten, (Antwerp 1539) fol. 4r: ‘‘En hy moet daerom ingenioes sijn, dats scerp van verstande, ooc int onderwijs aennemende… Hy moet ooc gelittereert sijn, ende conne betrecken oft ontwerpe, Noch moet hy conne Geometriam, Opticam, ende Arithmeticam, kennisse veelder Historie…Musicam, Medicine…Astrologiam’. 13

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Adhering to Cesare Cesariano’s translation of Vitruvius, Coecke goes on to write that ‘architecture is the science of the architect’.15 But in the sixteenth century, the qualifications needed to act as an architect were the subject of fierce debate and even led to legal action in Antwerp and Utrecht. The artisans perceived architects as a threat to their livelihood and did their best to protect themselves. During these trials, passages from the work of Vitruvius and Alberti were cited as ‘proof’ that the architect was responsible for the design and the stonemason or bricklayer for its realization.16 It was also stated that artisans were not qualified to judge the design, which corresponds to disegno. The verdict did not provide a clear definition of architect.17  C. Cesariano, Di Lucio Vitruvio Pollione de Architectura, (Como 1521). In Pieter Coecke we read: ‘Architectura de scientie vanden Architect is’. 16  See S. Muller, ‘Getuigenverhoor te Antwerpen over het maken van ontwerpen van gebouwen in de 16de eeuw door schilders, goudsmeden, timmerlieden en metselaars’, in: Archief voor Nederlandse Kunstgeschiedenis, 4, (1881–1882), (Rotterdam 1976), pp. 227–45; P. Lombaerde, l.c., 2001, pp. 113–14; M. Hurx, De particuliere bouwmarkt in de Nederlanden en de opkomst van de architect (1350–1530), (unpublished PhD thesis, TU Delft 2010), (Utrecht 2010), pp. 46–48. 17   P. Lombaerde, l.c., 2009, pp. 111–31. 15

Painter-Architect

or

Painter & Architect?

Disegno Nevertheless, the painter-architect did not correspond to a profession or a trade, but rather to the status assumed by a painter or a painter-sculptor, such as Michelangelo (fig. 4). It is the status of an artist who practises the liberal arts, to which architecture indisputably belongs, because disegno – an activity typical of painters and sculptors – also lies at the basis of architecture. Christopher Heuer describes in his essay how, from the late Middle Ages through the Renaissance, artists, while travelling, depicted architectural elements and buildings in their sketchbooks. It is striking how drawing was constantly evolving towards disegno – in other words, the contemplation of how buildings or ancient ruins had actually been constructed. Drawing increasingly became a creative process and took on theoretical dimensions. This discussion about disegno and the role architecture played in it is treated in depth in Werner Oechslin’s introductory chapter in this publication. The painter Federico Zuccari, who in 1593 became the first director of the Roman Academy, was a great champion of art-theo4. Portrait of Michelangelo as a painter, a sculptor and retical debates – the so-called conversazione an architect, (From: Delle Vite de’ piu eccellenti pittori, virtuosa – and discussions concerning diseg­scuttori et architetti di Giorgio Vasari, Bologna: Per gli no.18 Disegno is the ability to give tangible Eredi del Dozza, 1647, vol. 2, p. 13). form to an idea by means of a depiction; to do this, an artist must come up with a creation or invention. The two – disegno and invention – are inseparable. Indeed, a general rule of the Roman Academy was that none of the three arts – painting, sculpture and architecture – was more worthy than the others, because disegno was a principle common to all three. It is in disegno that theoretical and practical knowledge come together. Drawing gives expression to this. This ideal set-up would soon be disrupted, however, because a year later, in 1594, the idea was put forward that painting was the mother of disegno and was therefore superior to the other two arts. This proposition was subsequently disputed by architects such as Giacomo della Porta, who appealed to the writings of Vitruvius (as translated by Daniele Barbaro), in which architecture is defined as ‘a branch of learning that consists of many disciplines’.19 But objections were raised by the academicians, and it was finally determined that ‘painting, sculpture and architecture belong to one body of

 N. Pevsner, Academies of Art, Past and Present, (Cambridge – New York 1940), p. 60. 19  D. Barbaro, I Dieci Libri dell’Architettura di M. Vitruvio, (Venice 1567), p. 6: ‘Architettura è scienza, di molte discipline, & di diverse ammaestramenti 18

ornata, da l cui giudicio s’approvano tutte le opere, che dalla altre Arti com piutamente si fanno.’

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Piet Lombaerde knowledge, in practice divided into three parts, in which painters, sculptors and architects can attain perfection’.20 The curriculum of the Academy of Florence referred to the ideas of Leon Battista Alberti, who linked disegno directly to mathematics. According to Alberti, contemporary artists must base their theoretical notions on geometry and arithmetic: ‘… sciences, or the purely mathematical arts, deriving from these perspective and symmetry’ (‘… scienze, o pure arti matematiche, cavandosi da questa la prospettiva e simmetria’). Knowledge of perspective and symmetry was judged to be essential. Since the foundation of the first art academies – in Florence in 1563 and in Rome in 1593 – it had been repeatedly asked to what extent the sciences, particularly geometry and arithmetic, provided the foundation of painting, sculpture and architecture.21  he versatility of the T painter-architect Italy is the prime example of a place where architecture played an important role in paintings and frescoes from as early as the 5. Unknown artist, perspective view on a square with fourteenth century.22 According to Howard fountain, fresco in the Teatro all’antica in Sabbioneta, Burns, this phenomenon was already perceivc. 1590. (photo by the author). able from 1300 onwards in the work of such artists as Duccio, Taddeo Gaddi and, above all, Giotto, who did not refrain from inventing (religious) architecture themselves, if their compositions required it. Architecture was manipulated to benefit the desired representation. Sometimes it deviated sharply from the actual structures. Nice examples of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century portrayals of such imaginary architecture are the perspective depictions of street scenes and townscapes. Sebastiano Serlio (1475-c. 1553) was one of the first to paint these typical, Renaissance, scenographic townscapes around 1520: the so-called ‘Strozzi Sacrati panels’, which are discussed in the contribution by Sabine Frommel. Her essay delves into an aspect of Serlio’s oeuvre that has hitherto been neglected, namely his artistic production between 1520 and 1527. All too often, Serlio is viewed only as an architect and the author of five volumes on architectural theory and a Libro estraordinario on the design of gateways. Yet his contribution to the genre of architectural painting was very important indeed, owing in part to his artistic vocabulary as a painter-architect – disseminated in his Second Book and in his surviving panels and drawings – as classic paradigms in the Renaissance. Other fitting examples of scenographic and imaginary street scenes are preserved in Sabbioneta, in both the Palazzo del Giardino (1578–1591) and the Teatro all’antica (1588–1590) by Scamozzi (fig. 5). Most of these are anonymous frescoes or panel paintings. As regards   See the article by Werner Oechslin in this volume.  On the founding of the Rome Academy, see esp. R. Alberti, Origine, Et Progresso Dell’Academia Del

20 21

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Disegno, De Pittori, Scultori, & Architetti di Roma, (Pavia 1604). 22   See Howard Burns’s essay in this book.

Painter-Architect

or

Painter & Architect?

imaginary townscapes, there is the famous ideal city with a centrally planned temple in the Palazzo Ducale in Urbino (attributed to the circle of Piero della Francesca, end fifteenth century) and the anonymous townscape preserved in The Walters Art Gallery (Baltimore). Various painters were not only very experienced in drawing architecture, but also knowledgeable about classical antiquity and the rules of perspective, which they used in their compositions and architectural drawings. Sometimes – as in the case of Raphael – they were even asked to design new buildings. Howard Burns observed that there were no painterarchitects in Venice because the guild regulations did not allow it. Only those familiar with handling stone were permitted to realize buildings. These included stonemasons and sculptors, but not painters. Things were different in Florence, where Ghiberti, Donatello and Michelangelo could also vouch for architectural designs. In Italy, moreover, there were not only painterarchitects and sculptor-architects, but also goldsmith-architects (Brunelleschi), car6. Lucas Vorsterman after Anthony Van Dyck, portrait of penter-architects (Giuliano da Sangallo), Wenceslas Cobergher, copper engraving, c. 1680. writer-architects (Alberti) and stonemasonarchitects (Bernardo Rossellino). In Burns’s view, Bramante and Leonardo da Vinci are distinct examples of painter-architects, even though the former was a builder and the latter was not. Because they also intervened in disputes about art and architecture, they represented the symbiosis of the painter, draughtsman and architect. Bramante is possibly also the author of three treatises on architecture: Pratica, Architettura and Modo di fortificare, of which only fragments survive.23 In the Southern Netherlands, Wenceslas Cobergher (1561–1634) is an example of a painter-architect and engineer who is much better known for his buildings and engineering projects than for his work as a painter (fig. 6).24 This issue is examined by Tine Meganck, who demonstrates that Cobergher was in fact well prepared to take up his duties at the court of the Archdukes Albert and Isabella in Brussels, thanks to the knowledge of classical antiquity that he had acquired in Naples and Rome. Richardot adds that painting was actually Cobergher’s main profession, but he seems to have stopped painting after his appointment as court architect and engineer in 1605. His successor, Jacques Francart (1583–1651), who also started out as court painter, remained active chiefly as an engineer-architect, publishing a model book containing

  H.-W. Kruft, A History of Architectural Theory from Vitruvius to the Present, (Princeton 1994), p. 62 and p. 466, n. 129. 24  J.H. Plantenga, L’Architecture religieuse du Brabant au XVIIe siècle, (The Hague 1925), pp. 3–46; 23

T. Meganck, De kerkelijke architectuur van Wensel Cobergher (1557/61–1634) in het licht van zijn verblijf te Rome, (Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België, Klasse der Schone Kunsten, vol. 60, 1998, no. 64), (Brussels 1998).

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Piet Lombaerde gate motifs.25 Here, too, his appointment to the post of court architect and engineer was based mainly on his knowledge and experience as a painter, but having assumed the new position, he devoted his attention almost exclusively to the more pragmatic tasks of designing and realizing buildings, carrying out infrastructural projects, and building fortifications. In the case of Wenceslas Cobergher, these tasks included land reclamation (the Moeren in West Flanders), whereas Jacques Francart directed his attention to the fortifications surrounding Scherpenheuvel.26 It must also be noted that quite a few painters in the Southern Netherlands devoted themselves to painting architecture. Sixteenth-century examples include Jan Gossaert, Pieter Pourbus, Barend van Orley, Maerten de Vos and particularly Hans Vredeman de Vries.27 They specialized in the depiction of Renaissance ornaments and buildings, at the same time demonstrating their familiarity with the laws of central (one-point) perspective. Rubens, too, fits effortlessly into this tradition. He was no copyist of late-Renaissance and Baroque ornaments, however, but proved to be particularly inventive in incorporating architectural elements in his oeuvre. This subject is investigated by Carolien De Staelen, whose systematic and quantitative research into Rubens’s oeuvre has enabled her to demonstrate that it was mainly after the period in which Rubens actively engaged with architecture that he made use of the rich vocabulary of architectural elements in his paintings, prints and tapestry designs. Architecture was used as an element of composition and order, rather than an end in itself. Rubens did not rely on any one model book or architectural treatise, but freely made use of architectural elements as a source of invention and adapted them to his representations. The artist’s house and studio Sometimes a painter or sculptor even designed his own house or studio or decorated it with frescoes. An example of this in Rome is Raphael’s own residence; Mantuan examples include the palazzi of Mantegna and Giulio Romano, the latter having previously designed his own residence in Rome (fig. 7).28 The painter Federico Zuccari built his own artist’s houses in 25  J.H. Plantenga, o.c., 1925, pp. 47–74; A. De Vos, Jacques Francart. Premier livre d’Architecture (1617), (Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België, Klasse der Schone Kunsten, vol. 60, 1998, no. 65), (Brussels 1998), pp. 22–25. 26  M. Bulthé, Bijdrage tot de studie van de eerste drooglegging en uitbating van de Moeren (1615– 1646), (Ghent 1959); W. Van Hille, ‘Notes sur l’histoire des Moeres en West-Flandre’, in: Liber Memorialis Leo van Ackere (Jaarboek 1979 van het Vlaams Centrum voor Genealogie en Heraldiek), (Kortemark – Handzame 1980), pp. 201–19; P. Lombaerde, ‘Utopie in der “verlassenen Landschaft”. Die neue Stadt Scherpenheuvel als “neues Jerusalem” in den Spanisch-Habsburgischen Niederlanden’, in: W. Oechslin (ed.), Heilige Landschaft – Heilige Berge, (Zürich 2014). 27   M. Friedländer, Jan Gossart and Bernart van Orley (Early Netherlandish Painting, 8), (Leiden 1971); P. Huvenne, Pieter Pourbus 1524–1584, (Brugge 1984); M. Ainsworth et al., Man, Myth, and Sensual Pleasures. Jan Gossart’s Renaissance. The Complete Works, (New Haven 2010); A. Zweite, Marten de Vos als Maler, (Berlin 1980); H. Borggrefe et al. (eds.),

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Hans Vredeman de Vries und die Renaissance im Norden, (Munich 2002). 28  M. Harder-Merkelbach, Erstehung von Rundhof und Rundsaal im Palastbau der Renaissance in Italien. Untersuchungen zum Mantegnahaus und zu den Traktaten des Francesco di Giorgio Martini, (Freiburg 1991); L. Wirth, ‘Die Häuser von Raffael in Rom und von Giulio in Rom und Mantua’, in: E. Hüttinger (ed.), Künstler Häuser von der Renaissance bis zur Gegenwart, (Zürich 1985), pp. 57–68. F.P. Fiore ‘La casa di Giulio a Mantova’, in: E.H. Gombrich et al., Giulio Romano, (Milan 1989), pp. 481–85. On Giulio Romano’s residence in Rome, see Ch. Frommel, ‘La Casa Romana di Giulio’, in: E.H. Gombrich et al., o.c., 1989, p. 296. On Giulio Romano as an architect in Mantua, see esp. K. Forster, ‘Giulio Romano, architect at the court of the Gonzagas’, in: Giulio Romano: atti del convegno internationale di studi su Giulio Romano e l’espansione europea del Rinascimento, (Mantua 1991), pp.293–301. In this context see also M. Bourne, ‘The Art of Diplomacy: Mantua and the Gonzaga, 1328–1630’, in: Ch. Rosenberg (ed.), The Court Cities of Northern Italy. Milan, Parma, Piacenza, Mantua, Ferrara, Bologna, Urbino, Pesaro, and Rimini, (Cambridge – New York 2010), pp. 138–95.

Painter-Architect

7. Façade of the house of Giulio Romano in Mantua, 1540–44. (Photo by the author).

or

Painter & Architect?

8. Interior of the house of Vasari in Arezzo, Sala del Camino, 1547.

Florence and Rome.29 Piero della Francesca is also thought to have designed his residence in Borgo San Sepolcro. Equally remarkable are the two palazzi occupied by Vasari, who from 1548 onwards lavishly painted the interior of the Casa del Vasari in Arezzo (fig. 8). Vasari’s other residence, in Florence, was put at his disposal by Cosimo I de’ Medici in 1561, and the painterarchitect subsequently decorated it with splendid frescoes.30 Something similar took place in the Southern Netherlands: it is possible that Quinten Metsys applied paintings to his own house in Antwerp. In this publication, Edward Wouk examines in more detail the painted façade of the house belonging to Frans Floris. The connection with his teacher, Lambert Lombard of Liège, is analysed in the light of Lampsonius’s biography of Lombard, which appeared in 1565, the same year that Floris painted the frescoes on the façade. Particular attention is paid to how and why Floris translated his artistic theories into this painted cycle. The most famous artist’s residence in Antwerp is that of Peter Paul Rubens, who himself designed the portico, garden pavilion and studio, and also applied frescoes to the rear façade of his studio (fig. 9). Stefan Boeykens employed 3D visualization techniques to analyse the relationship between the house, the portico and the garden pavilion, using the Building Information Modeling (BIM) methodology. He has ascertained that the figures in the garden pavilion are not arranged symmetrically, the reason being that the pavilion is not precisely aligned with the axis running from the gate to the inner courtyard and the portico. To achieve a symmetrical view along this visual axis, it was necessary to shift the statues. Was it Rubens the painter who adapted the architecture and the position of the statues to create the desired visual effect? Boeykens also analysed the relationship between the distances s­eparating the entrance gate, the portico and the garden pavilion,  C. Acidini Luchinat, ‘A Painter, Two Houses, One Destiny: Federico Zuccari in Florence and Rome’, in: Feier der Überleitung des Kunsthistorischen Institutes Florenz in die Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, (Florence 2003), pp.33–54.

29

30  M. Maetzke, La Casa del Vasari in Arezzo, (Florence 1988); A. Cecchi, ‘Le case Vasari in Arezzo e Firenze’, in: R.P. Ciardi (ed.), Casa di artisti in Toscana, (Florence 1998), pp. 30–77. See for Vasari as an architect: L. Satkowski and R. Lieberman, Giorgio Vasari. Architect and Courtier, (Princeton 1993).

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Piet Lombaerde obtaining an approximate ratio of 1:3 (1:2.84).31 The phenomenon of the oeillade is examined in more detail by Lombaerde, who also devotes attention to the incidence of light in the painter’s studio and Rubens’s museum. The roof construction above the studio appears to justify the hypothesis that there was once a dome. Painting in trompe l’oeil can be considered a demonstration of Rubens’s virtuosity as a painter and a draughtsman who had completely mastered the art of perspective. During his stay in Italy, Rubens was able to study the custom of painting façades in Mantua, Rome and especially Genoa. Genoa is particularly interesting, because painting frescoes in the salone in mezzo, as described in the introduction to his book Palazzi di Genova, was new to him and could serve as an example for a new type of city dwelling in the Southern Netherlands. Stefano Musso investigates the murals, both inside and out, of various palazzi in Genoa. The wall-paintings, which were applied to the façades of Genoan palazzi during the Renaissance, express the splendour that characterized the lifestyle of the new inhabitants.32 They express, above all, the connection between the interior and exterior of the buildings, and it is this unity of 9. Unknown artist, sketches for the portico of the construction that so fascinated Rubens during his stay Rubens House. These variations on the c­entral arch in Genoa. Rubens considered this a modern interare possibly copies of d ­rawings by P.P. Rubens. pretation of architecture. The possibility that Rubens (Russia, St Petersburg, Hermitage Library, n°14741). exerted an influence on Italian architecture is demonstrated by Giulio Girondi, who gives the example of the Southern Netherlandish painter and architect Frans Geffels, active at the court of Carlo II Gonzaga Nevers in Mantua.33 Of particular interest are the two large paintings, preserved in the palazzo of marquis Ottavio I Gonzaga di Vescovato in Portiolo, which depict both the ground-plans and the façades of this palazzo – exceptional subjects in Italian painting at the end of the seventeenth century. The Palazzo Sardi, the only edifice that can be attributed to Geffels with certainty, contains, in Girondi’s view, possible traces of the influence of the Rubens House. Geffels may well have sought inspiration in Rubens’s book Palazzi di Genova for his designs for the Palazzo Valentini Gonzaga. The question of whether Rubens was a painter-architect or could be designated as such for a short period in his career is the central question of Howard Burns’s contribution: when exactly can an artist be called a painter-architect?34 According to this author, ­painter-architects in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italy were nearly always employed by princely courts. Burns  See also P. Lombaerde, ‘The distribution and reception of Rubens’s Palazzi di Genova in the Southern Netherlands’, in: P. Lombaerde (ed.), The Reception of P.P. Rubens’s ‘Palazzi di Genova’ during the 17th Century in Europe: Questions and Problems, (Turnhout 2002), pp. 99–120, esp. pp. 111–12. 32  On this subject, see, most recently, E. Poleggi, Genova. Una civiltà di palazzi, (Milan 2002). 31

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 Little is known about Geffels, but see M.G. Sordi, ‘Geffels Frans’, in: Allegemeines Künstler-Lexicon (Munich-Leipzig 2006), vol. 51, pp. 7–9. 34  One of the first articles to treat the question of whether Rubens was a painter-architect was written by Frans Baudouin; see F. Baudouin, ‘Peter Paul Rubens and the Notion “Painter-Architect”’, in: P. Lombaerde (ed.), The Reception of P.P. Rubens’s ‘Palazzi di Genova’ during the 17th Century in Europe: Questions and Problems, (Turnhout 2002), pp. 15–36.

33

Painter-Architect

or

Painter & Architect?

gives the example of Francesco di Giorgio, who was not just a painter but also a sculptor, engineer, machine builder and architect. He worked in Urbino at the court of Duke Federigo da Montefeltro. The painter was praised for his intelligence, learning and organizational talent, which enabled him to execute complex artistic commissions involving various arts and technical aspects, and to supervise and realize projects. These qualities were also displayed by Rubens during his short stay at the court of Vincenzo I in Mantua, where he was asked to design and install, together with Antonio Maria Viani (1582–1632), the Galleria Grande in the Palazzo Ducale. Here art and architecture had to be in harmony, and Rubens, an outstanding painter, was also entrusted with the architectural design (fig. 10).35  rchitecture as a theoretical A matter Architecture should be seen not only as the conceptual formation and realization of well-considered buildings but also as the writing of architectural texts or treatises. It is this distinction that led Lodovico Guicciardini in his 1567 Descrittione di Tutti i Paesi Bassi to maintain that:

10. Anonymous artist (after P.P. Rubens’s sketchbook, ­formerly attributed to Anthony van Dyck), the Ionic order, c. 1613–50. (Chatsworth, The Devonshire Collection).

Pietro Coecke van Aelst, a great painter and great inventor of tapestry designs, who deserves praise, having brought from Italy the matrix of architecture, and having translated the excellent works of Sebastiano Serlio of Bologna in this Teutonic language [‘Pietro Couck d’Alost, gran’pittore & grande inventore di patroni da Tapezzerie, a cui si da laude d’haver’ portato d’Italia, la maestra dell’architettura, traducendo inoltre l’egregia opera di Sebastiano Serlio Bolognese in questa lingua Teutonica’]36 Pieter Coecke van Aelst, who received his training as a painter in the studio of Barend van Orley and became a member of the Guild of St Luke in 1527, sojourned in Rome and  See A. Luzio, La Galleria dei Gonzaga venduta all’Inghilterra nel 1627–28, (Milan 1913), p. 40: letter of 17 June 1604 from Vincenzo I Gonzaga to Annibale Chieppio: ‘il Prefetto [Antonio Viani] et Pietro Paolo [Rubens], al quale facciamo di ciò scrivere da Francesco nostro pittore [Frans Pourbus] sia fatto il disegno del compartimento oche s’ha da fare d’esse pitture nella Gallaria grande, sicchè al

35

ritorno nostro troviamo fatto il d.to disegno’. On this subject, see also P. Lombaerde, ‘Rubens the architect’, in: B. Uppenkamp, B. van Beneden and P. Lombaerde, Palazzo Rubens.The Master as Architect, (Brussels 2011), pp. 124–57. 36   L. Guicciardini, Descrittione di M. Lodovico Guicciardini patritio Fiorentino, di Tutti i Paesi Bassi, altrimenti detti Germania Inferiore, (Antwerp 1567), p. 93.

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Piet Lombaerde

11. Hiëronymus Wierix, portrait of Lambert Lombard as a painter and an architect. (From: D. Lampsonius, Pictorum aliquot celebrium e germaniae inferioris effigies, Antwerp, 1572). 37  R. Rolf, Pieter Coecke van Aelst en zijn architectuuruitgaves van 1539 met reprint van zijn ‘Die Inventie der Colommen’ en ‘Generale Reglen der Architecturen’, (Amsterdam 1978); see also K. De Jonge, l.c.,1998, pp. 281–96. 38  C. Grapheus, De seer wonderlijcke/schoone/ Triuphelijcke Incompst, van den hooghmogenden Prince Philips, Prince van Spaignen, Caroli des vijfden, Keysers sone. Inde stadt van Antwerpen, Anno, M, CCCCC, XLIX, (Antwerp 1550). 39  On Lambert Lombard as an architect, see esp. J. Helbig, Lambert Lombard, peintre et architecte, (Brussels 1892–1893). See, in general, J. Yernaux, ‘Lambert Lombard’, in: Biographie Nationale Supplément 7, (Brussels 1970), cols. 530–52; G. Denhaene (ed.), Lambert Lombard, peintre de la Renaissance, Liège, 1505/06–1566, (exhib. cat.),

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Constantinople. He took the five books by Serlio to the Low Countries and published translations of them in Dutch and French.37 Importantly, this painter immersed himself in architectural theory and the new idiom of the Italian Renaissance, which he used in his tapestry designs and his decorations for the triumphal entry of Charles V in Antwerp in 1549.38 He found treatises on architectural theory extremely useful in making paintings and tapestry designs. With regard to central perspective, he relied on Books I and II by Serlio. He is not known to have realized any buildings, however, in contrast to Lambert Lombard (1505–66), who was a painter, numismatist and architect, but not an author or publisher of architectural treatises (fig. 11).39 Dominicus Lampsonius calls Lombard pictor et architectus in his biography of the artist,40 and he also relates that Lombard learned the principles of painting and architecture from the Italian masters during his stay in Rome. His most important pieces of architecture are the Hôtel Torrentius in Liège and the Renaissance portal he designed for the Église Saint-Jacques. Another remarkable painter is Hans Vredeman de Vries, who concentrated on the rendering of perspective in his paintings, drawings and designs. For different kinds of buildings he used different types of perspective, ranging from linear perspective to axonometry and parallel perspective.41 Vredeman de Vries considered perspective (Liège 2006); E. Wouk, ‘Reclaiming the antiquities of Gaul: Lambert Lombard and the history of northern art’, Simiolus, 36, 2012. 40  D. Lampson, Lamberti Lombardi apud Eburones pictoris celebrissimi vite, (Brugge 1565), See also: J. Hubaux and J. Puraye, ‘Dominique Lampson Lambert Lombardi…vita. Traduction et notes’, Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Oudheidkunde en Kunstgeschiedenis, 18, 1949, pp. 53–77. 41  P. Dubourg-Glatigny, ‘Hans Vredeman de Vries und die Perspektive’, in: H. Borggrefe et al. (eds.), Hans Vredeman de Vries und die Renaissance im Norden, (Munich 2002), pp. 127–32; P. Lombaerde, ‘New Techniques for Representing the Object: Hans Vredeman de Vries and Hans van Schille’, in: H. Borggrefe and V. Lüpkes (eds.), Hans Vredeman de Vries und die Folgen, (Marburg 2005), pp. 101–08.

Painter-Architect

or

Painter & Architect?

an essential element of architecture. In his various treatises on perspective, architecture figures as its pre-eminent field of application,42 and this gave rise to an entire corpus of street scenes and townscapes in perspective. His model books on the classical orders and architecture contain numerous applications of perspective, which is hailed as the link between painting and drawing, on the one hand, and architecture on the other. Hardly any realized architectural projects by Hans Vredeman de Vries are known, yet he may be reckoned among the many painter-architects in the Low Countries. Sculptor-architects in the Southern Low Countries It is also striking that in the sixteenth-century Southern Netherlands sculptor-architects were active contemporaneously with painter-architects, but the former seem to have disappeared in the first half of the seventeenth century. Sculptors such as Jean Mone, Lanceloot Blondeel, Cornelis Floris III and Paludanus were known in the sixteenth century for their architectural oeuvre.43 Several among them adopted the title of master-builder, probably to indicate that they were well-acquainted with Renaissance writings and treatises on architecture and could be trusted to know the correct application of the orders of columns and the new ornaments in architecture. The 1593 trial in Antwerp between the deans of the bricklayers’ guild and those of the ‘image-carvers, sculptors and architects’ highlighted the debate on who should be allowed to construct buildings. The sculptors Raphael Paludanus, Cornelis Floris III, Jan and Robert de Nole argued that ‘special, excellent structures’ (‘zonderlinge en excellente gebouwen’), such as tombs and similar things, could be built by both sculptors and architects, who are the true teachers of the bricklayers and stonemasons, since the latter would not be able to realize buildings if they did not follow the ‘orders’ (‘ordonancien’) of the sculptors and architects.44 This trial was marked by the important pronouncement: And that the bricklayers mentioned above are more and better architects than the image-carvers has been sufficiently proven by the erection of the town hall, because even though Cornelis Floris and Paludanus may have designed the final building, yet it is true that the structure on which the embellishments had to be installed was made and put there by Mr Hendrik van Paesschen and Jan Daems, bricklayers, who also discovered the proper turning of the flight of stairs, which the aforementioned Floris and Paludanus, with all the arts at their disposal, could neither ascertain nor build.45 This is actually a dispute about competence in building: the sculptors and architects – practitioners of the liberal arts who, according to the masons, have no understanding  H. Vredeman de Vries, Perspective, 2 vols. (Leiden 1604–1605); H. and P. Vredeman de Vries, Architectura, (The Hague 1606–1607). 43  K. De Jonge and K. Ottenheym (eds.), Unity and Discontinuity. Architectural Relationships between the Southern and Northern Low Countries (1530–1700), (Turnhout 2007). 44  F. Baudouin, ‘Peter Paul Rubens and the Notion “Painter-Architect”’, in: P. Lombaerde (ed.), The Reception of P.P. Rubens’s ‘Palazzi di Genova’ during the 17th Century in Europe: Questions and Problems (Turnhout 2002), pp. 15–36. 45   J. Rylant and M. Casteels, ‘De metsers van Antwerpen tegen Paludanus, Floris, de Nole’s en andere beeldhouwers’, in: Bijdragen tot de geschiedenis 42

inzonderheid van het Hertogdom Brabant, vol. 31, 1940, pp. 185–203: ‘En dat de metsers in hetgeen voorschreven is meer en beter architect zijn dan de beeldsnijders is ook genoeg gebleken, uit het opmaken van het stadhuis, want hoewel Cornelis Floris en Paludanus het patroon van het opperwerk mogen hebben gemaakt, zoo is nochtans waarachtig, dat de grond waarnaar het opperwerk heeft moeten gedisponeerd worden is gemaakt en gesteld bij mijnheer Hendrik van Paesschen en Jan Daems, metsers, bij denwelken ook gevonden is de keer van den trap van de puie, die de voorschreven Floris en Paludanus met al hun kunst niet wisten te vinden noch te ordonneeren.’

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Piet Lombaerde of actual construction – versus the masons, who claim they are capable of both ‘ordering’ (i.e. making the design and issuing the instructions necessary to execute it) and bringing buildings successfully to completion. Of course this also has to do with the status of the artist versus the artisan, a discussion sparked in Florence by Brunelleschi, a goldsmith, who demanded the right to work as an architect but refused to pay dues to the stonemasons’ guild.46 It was they, after all – the stonemasons claimed – who knew the most about the orders of columns and the architectural elements. After this dispute in Antwerp there was a gap of more than fifty years before the sculptor Jan Peter van Baurscheit the Elder came along and declared himself capable of practising architecture.47 The subject of this debate is linked to the dispute between the Guild of St Luke and the Ambacht van de Vier Gekroonden, whose members included bricklayers, stonecutters, sculptors and slaters, but it is beyond the scope of this publication to delve into the complex issues surrounding the various trades and guild systems. Is the painter-architect different from the architect? Finally, what qualities were indispensable to the painter-architect? In his contribution Howard Burns asks a crucial question: how did painter-architects differ from architects? Again, what comes to the fore is the art of drawing, particularly the laws of perspective, since it is perspective that allows one to produce virtual architecture on a flat surface. Such drawings have many advantages: they are less expensive than models in clay or wood; they serve as a means of communication between the patron and the architect; they simulate impressions from particular viewpoints, and so on. They also demonstrate the enormous knowledge and skill of the designer, which convinces the viewer or patron even more of the architect’s qualities. Sometimes their drawings and paintings also display examples and models that exerted an influence on actual architecture, whether or not they – or their contemporaries or followers – were involved in its design themselves. The use and knowledge of central perspective is essential to such endeavours, since this method makes it possible to present a structure in its true three-dimensional form. In Italy, Vignola excelled in this technique. Bruno Adorni relates in his essay that Vignola was trained as a painter, and that Vasari presents him in Le Vite as both a painter and an architect. Vasari goes on to say that all of Vignola’s drawings testify to his skill in rendering perspective. Thanks to Serlio, Vasari was also active in Peruzzi’s studio. He was responsible for the architectural scenes in Primaticcio’s frescoes at Fontainebleau, and he drew the worm’s-eye view for the frescoes executed by Taddeo Zuccari in the Villa Farnese at Caprarola. Adorni also examines to what extent perspective influenced Vignola’s architecture, referring in this regard to the use of the ellipse as an anamorphosis of the circle in his design for the Gesù in Rome. In the light of Italy’s example, this theory – that perspective influenced architecture – is totally convincing as far as the seventeenth century in the Low Countries is concerned. A good example of this is Rubens’s architectural realization of his house, complete with studio, portico and garden pavilion. These structures form an entity, organized along an axis in accordance with geometric proportions. This represents Rubens’s application of the same method he used to create depth in his paintings, namely the juxtaposition of successive planes (foreground, middle distance and background) – a seeming division that produces a whole. It is possible that Rubens the painter also applied this to 46   L. Ettlinger, ‘The emergence of the Italian architect during the fifteenth century’, in: S. Kostof (ed.), o.c., pp. 96–123. 47  P. Lombaerde, ‘Jan Peter van Baurscheit d.Ä. und d.J.: zwei Generationen von Baumeistern in

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Antwerpen (Belgien) um 1700’, in: W. Oechslin (ed.), Architekt und/versus Baumeister. Die Frage nach dem Metier, (Zurich 2009), pp. 114–23.

Painter-Architect

12. Portrait of Baldassarre Peruzzi as a painter and an architect. (From: Delle Vite de’ piu ­eccellenti pittori, scuttori et architetti di Giorgio Vasari, Bologna: Per gli Eredi del Dozza, 1647, vol. 1, p. 143).

or

Painter & Architect?

13. Portrait of Raphael as a painter and an ­architect. (From: Delle Vite de’ piu eccellenti pittori, scuttori et architetti di Giorgio Vasari, Bologna: Per gli Eredi del Dozza, 1647, vol. 1, p. 71).

his architecture, after the example of Michelangelo. This issue is discussed in more depth by Lombaerde. It was not self-evident, however, that the laws of perspective were considered essential to the training of painters and architects in the Southern Netherlands, certainly not after 1640, when Rubens disappeared from the stage in the Antwerp school of painting. To remedy this situation, David Teniers took the initiative in 1663 to found a ‘Royal Academy’ after the examples of Rome and Paris. Although the charter of the Koninklijke Academie van Antwerpen clearly stated that its purpose was to provide instruction ‘in geometry, architecture and perspective’ (‘in de meet-, bouw- en doorzichtkunde’), no instruction in architecture was given, because no competent teachers of this material could be found in Antwerp and the city lacked the financial means to hire instructors from elsewhere.48 Nor were there any lessons in perspective until the mid-eighteenth century. Indeed, it was not until 1765 that instruction was offered in architecture and perspective. In the Northern Netherlands – which is not treated in this publication, however – the importance of perspective was thoroughly understood. Charles van den Heuvel and Koen Ottenheym mention the use of the term painter-architect in a booklet of 1628 by Jacques

48

  J. Van den Branden, o.c., pp. 171–72.

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Piet Lombaerde de Ville, an Amsterdam painter and art lover.49 De Ville states that painting architecture with the correct mathematical perspective is the most noble form of painting, and that the new generation of painters will be well-grounded in both the art of painting and the rules of architecture. He names as Italian examples Bramante, Raphael, Peruzzi and Giulio Romano (figs. 12, 13). In the Northern Netherlands, however, this gave rise not only to painter-architects, such as Jacob van Campen, but also to painters who specialized in perspective drawing and painting buildings and their interiors, such as Pieter Saenredam (fig. 14).50 These painters, he says, work completely in the tradition of Hans Vredeman de Vries, who had introduced this genre to printmaking and painting as early as the 1560s.51 This, then, is not a painter-architect but a totally different creature, namely the architectural painter, who is not, however, the subject of this publication.

14. Anonymous, Portrait of the Dutch ­ artist Pieter Saenredam, c. 1650. Allegories of Architecture, Painting and Drawing illustrate his status as Painter-Architect. (Koog aan de Zaan, Gemeentearchief Zaanstad).

 J. de Ville, T’samen-spreeckinghe, betreffende de architecture en de schilderkonst, (Gouda 1628); see esp. Ch. Van den Heuvel, ‘“T’samenspreeckinghe betreffende de Architectura ende Schilderkonst”. Schilders, architecten en wiskundigen over de uitbeelding van architectuur’, in: Incontri, 9, 1994, pp. 69–86; K. Ottenheym, ‘Inleiding: de schilder-architect’, in: J. Huisken, K. Ottenheym and G. Schwartz, Jacob van Campen, Het klassieke ideaal in de Gouden Eeuw, (Amsterdam 1995), pp. 9–11. See also: C. Heuer, The City Rehearsed: Object, Architecture, and Print in the Worlds of Hans Vredeman de Vries, (New York 2009), pp.199–200.

49

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50   J. Giltaij and G.M.C. Jansen, Perspectives: Saenredam and the architectural painters of the 17 th century, (Rotterdam 1991); W. Liedtke, ‘Delft Painting “in Perspective”: Carel Fabritius, Leonaert Bramer, and the Architectural Townscape Painters from about 1650 onward’, in: W. Liedtke, M.C. Plomp and A. Rüger, Vermeer and the Delft School, (New Haven – London 2001), pp. 99–129; J. de Hond and P. Huys Janssen, Pieter Saenredam in Den Bosch, (Eindhoven 2013), pp.42–43. 51   W. Liedtke, ‘Hans Vredeman de Vries and Architectural Painting in the Netherlands’, in: H. Borggrefe and V. Lüpkes (eds.), o.c., 2005, pp. 13–27.

Painter-Architects in Italy During the Quattrocento and Cinquecento*1 Howard Burns

From the time of Duccio and Giotto to the late Cinquecento one can note two ­important and apparently conflicting tendencies in Italy. The first was that architectural knowledge and imagination played an important role in the representation of both religious and n ­ on-religious subjects. I will start with the important role of architecture in painting in Italy from around the year 1300 onwards. In fact, most successful painters possessed knowledge of architectural forms and how to represent these in two dimensions. They usually had the capacity to adapt architectural schemes or existing buildings to their own pictorial purposes and often invented a­ rchitectural compositions which rivalled, or went beyond, those of the designers of real buildings. Imaginary architecture is not confined by considerations of site, budget and function. The second characteristic to be noted is that while some masters of painted ­architecture, like Giotto and Raphael, were called upon to design important architectural works. Others, like Giovanni Bellini and Paolo Veronese, were not. I want to answer why this was the case and to identify the painter-architect as a professional type; seeing in early Cinquecento Rome a paradigm for what happened ­ ­elsewhere. In a final section I will consider whether the painter-architect was in some way different from – or as Michelangelo believed, actually superior to – other architects. The subject matter of religious painting often involved architecture: for instance Jerusalem and its buildings. The temple, as in the presentation of the Virgin. Taddeo Gaddi, who follows the Biblical account of the building as a rectangular structure. Or Raphael who follows the view that the Mosque of Omar was in fact the Temple of Solomon (fig. 1). Peruzzi, at Santa Maria della Pace, conceives the Temple as resembling contemporary Roman ­temples (fig. 2). Interiors, as in scenes of the Last Supper. Banquets described in the New Testament, as Veronese’s Feast in the House of Levi (now at the Accademia in Venice); which from an architetural point of view is indebted to Sansovino, Palladio and Serlio. Christ’s sepulchre was also often developed as an architectural composition. As can be seen in the late Titian where the principal influences are Serlio and Giulio Romano. Scenes, from the life of saints involved both interiors and exteriors, and needed to arrive at a convincing representation of place and time, as attempted by Giotto in the Peruzzi Chapel at Santa Croce in Florence (fig. 3). Lasting iconographical traditions based on Roman legend, not scripture, of the collapse of the vault of the Tempio della Pace, identified with the Basilica of Maxentius, at the moment of Christ’s Nativity. This explains the Roman ruins in the background of many Adoration and Nativity paintings. For paintings with political significance, one should turn to Ambrogio Lorenzetti. The request for paintings that commemorated historical events in antiquity required an knowledge of ancient architecture on the part of painters.

  This contribution to the book is conform the lecture which the author gave during the International Conference ‘The notion of painter-architect in Italy and the Southern Low Countries’, Antwerp, Kolveniershof, 2–4 December 2011.

*

1

Howard Burns

1. Raphael, Marriage of the Virgin, 1504. (Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera).

2

Painter-Architects

in Italy

During

the

Quattrocento

and

Cinquecento

2. Baldassare Peruzzi, Presentation in the Temple, c. 1518. (Rome, Santa Maria della Pace).

3. Giotto, Life of St. John the Baptist, The Feast of Herod, 1320. (Florence, Church of Santa Croce, Peruzzi Chapel).

3

Howard Burns

4. Anonymous, ‘La città ideale’, end fifteenth century. (Urbino, Palazzo Ducale).

At the same time, the request for paintings commemorating more recent historical events or portraits where a reference to place was necessary, required the capacity to represent modern places and architecture convincingly. The diffusion of the new artistic and architectural culture created a demand for and appreciation of skill in perspectival representation on the part of painters. Important patrons and artistic experts approved and derived pleasure from a painter’s ability in inventing and painting or drawing imaginary ones – as in the Urbino city view – and not in designing real buildings (fig. 4). It is also shown by Peruzzi in a drawing which belonged to Vasari and is described by him with enthusiasm in his life of the artist. It was also used by him as the basis or architecture in his own works. As the result, many leading painters were not only expert in the use of architectural language and the perspectival representation of buildings, but they also exerted a powerful influence on architectural developments. Venice is a major centre where the architectural bravoure of painters contrasts with their almost total absence from the business of designing actual buildings. In Venice there was a immediate reason for the fact that painters were not directly involved with the design and construction of buildings. Guild regulations simply established that only those who worked as masons or as sculptors could be assigned jobs where stone was involved. These rules were paralleled by a particularly well-embedded elite of master masons, who monopolised official architectural positions and often passed on jobs from generation to generation. For example, Giusto de’ Menabuoi, Altichiero, Pisanello, Jacopo Bellini (fig 5.), Giovanni Bellini (San Giobbe altarpiece and S. Zaccaria altarpiece), Gentile Bellini (redesigning San Marco), Paolo Veronese. In Florence there were no regulations which excluded painters from designing buildings. A fact that would have been in contrast with Florentine artistic culture. It put drawing at the centre of all the arts, not only in theory, but also in practice. Resultingly, Ghiberti, Donatello, Maso Finiguerra, and Michelangelo all provided drawings for artists working in different materials and areas from their own. However, if one looks for major painters who also made significant architectural contributions only three come into view: Giotto, appointed architect of the Campanile and the city walls in 1324; Orcagna; and Giorgio Vasari, in the 1560s (fig. 6). This is a rather extraordinary situation. Still, as in Venice, painted architecture plays an important role in the work of a whole series of painters: Taddeo Gaddi, Agnolo Gaddi, Masaccio, Fra Angelico, Domenico Veneziano, Benozzo Gozzoli, Ghirlandaio, Filippino Lippi, Fra Bartolomeo and so on. Why did they not design buildings? Probably because it was not in their interest to do so.

4

Painter-Architects

in Italy

During

the

Quattrocento

and

Cinquecento

In contrast to the absence of ­ p ainter-architects one can note the ­number of those from other artistic c­ allings who become architects. There was the goldsmith-sculptor and active member of ­ the political elite, Brunelleschi (fig. 7). There was the papal functionary and famous writer and intellectual, Leon Battista Alberti. He did not only live by designing buildings and defended his amateur status, but was actually highly professional. There was Giuliano da Sangallo, a wood worker (fig. 8). Battista del Tasso, the architect of the Mercato Nuovo of 1547 in Florence, detested by Vasari, but favoured by Cosimo I. There were obviously also the ­architects with a stone-working ­background: Bernardo Rossellino, Giuliano and Benedetto da Maiano. And Michelangelo and Ammannati, of course. If we look outside the great ­centres, we can find other important painters of architecture, who were not – or only marginally – architects. Luca Signorelli in ­ Cortona, who was active in many cities of central Italy, including of course Orvieto. Fra Carnevale in Urbino. Piero della Francesca active in Urbino as well as in Umbria. He 5. Jacopo Bellini, Flagellation of Christ inside a Venetian may have designed his own house in Borgo palace, c. 1450. (Paris, Musée du Louvre). San Sepolcro and was the leading writer on perspective of his time, but never a working architect. At this point one might as well ask where are the painter-architects? One possible answer – certainly appropriate here – is that it were rich and succesful painters, with a solid architectural culture, who decided to design their own houses. Of whom probably Mantegna was the first. Mantegna himself, apart from his great knowledge of ancient architecture and his capacity to recreate the buildings of antiquity in his paintings, was also involved in other architectural projects, including the decoration of his own chapel at Sant’ Andrea, and the production of a project drawing for the cortile of the Castel San Giorgio in Mantua. A court functionary stated in a letter to the Marchese that it was so beautiful that it would be useful to take visitors to the palace. However, the key to Mantegna’s role as an architect is not his wealth, high status as a famous artist – created a Palatine Count by the Emperor Frederick III – or his knowledge of architecture. It is his position as a Court artist who was capable of designing anything. If we want confirmation of the fact that the great painter-architects were almost always court artists, we only have to look at other courts of the late Quattrocento and early Cinquecento. The most prominent and important painter-architect of the late Quattrocento was the Sienese Francesco di Giorgio. As a probable pupil and co-citizen of Vecchietta (himself

5

Howard Burns

6. Giorgio Vasari, the courtyard between the Uffizi’s two wings, Florence, 1560–81.

7. View on the dome of the Santa Maria del Fiore, the cathedral of Florence, designed about 1418 by Filippo Brunelleschi.

8. Giuliano da Sangallo, wooden model of Palazzo Strozzi, 1485. (Florence, Casa Buonarotti).

6

Painter-Architects

in Italy

During

the

Quattrocento

and

Cinquecento

a painter-architect), Francesco di Giorgio had wide interests and talents from the very start of his career. As well as being a painter, he was also in charge of Siena’s water supply, an expert on machines of all kinds and a brilliant sculptor in bronze. Federigo da Montefeltro recognised the usefulness of this range of skills. As Raphael’s father Giovanni Santi stated, it put him above all the masters at Urbino. He also demonstrated his confidence in him by entrusting him with diplomatic missions. Francesco di Giorgio at Urbino had his own group of personal collaborators. He could also count on the assistance of the Ducal administration for the many buildings he designed. It included Federigo’s army. Francesco di Giorgio therefore represented the extremely capable artistic director at a court, who has the intelligence and versatility to design and direct in several fields, but can also count on a whole administrative structure, not just a personal workshop, to supervise and execute a large number of projects in whole or in part. It should be added that Francesco di Giorgio’s activity as a painter was wholly or largely suspended at Urbino. His activity as a painter was only taken up again when he returned to Siena. In Milan, at the court of Ludovico Sforza, an analogous situation prevailed. Yet, the situation was different because of the personality of Ludovico and the much greater resources of the Duchy of Milan. Both Bramante and Leonardo were true painter-architects and both had initially worked as painters. Of the two, Leonardo invented, drew, advised, influenced but built little. Bramante on the other hand concentrated ever more on built architecture. Bramante, however, assumed a position of enormous influence as Julius II’s architect and companion in discussions on architectural, artistic and literary matters after 1503. After the death of Julius II, Leo X maintained Bramante as the principal architect at his court. Bramante’s own death left an enormous gap in a central area of papal activity. Leo’s decision to replace him by Raphael seems obvious today. Actually, it was also a brilliant and audacious decision and recognised Raphael’s capacity to delegate and to maintain his activity as a painter at the same time as assuming responsibility for architrectural projects, not just for the Pope, but also for his inner circle. It was Raphael’s example and the training Giulio Romano received as his assistant – both in architecture and painting – which enabled the 24 year old Roman artist to assume a similar role in Mantua, from 1524 until his death in 1546. Another outstanding Roman painter-architect of the first three decades of the sixteenth century is Baldassarre Peruzzi. Peruzzi was sienese, and probably a pupil of Francesco di Giorgio. A familiarity with both painting, architecture and military architecture, as well as with the study of the antique, was something he had learned even before working in Rome. However, it was Rome which enabled him to practice both painting and architecture – initially at the Farnesina, residence of Julius II’s banker, Agostino Chigi. Bramantino was a painter who had long shown great originality in his painted architecture. Falconetto, personal architect of a rich Paduan patron, Alvise Cornaro, was in fact a court artist at a very miniature domestic court. Michelangelo was not a true painter-architect. Michelangelo however, if we are to believe Francisco de Holanda, made an important comment on painter-architects. I want to use this to ask in my concluding section whether painter-architects were in any way different from other architects. Everyone recognised that drawing was essential for architects as it was for painters. Painters however might be more expert in perspective than most architects – as Bramante, Raphael, Peruzzi and Vignola certainly were. Perspective enabled, even at the level of quick sketches, to create virtual models of buildings, much more cheaply and rapidly than the building of wooden models (clay and

7

Howard Burns wax with Michelangelo). Painters could possess greater sensibility as to effects of colour, lighting and chiaroscuro – and explore these in their drawings. The painter-architect is an important figure in Renaissance architecure from the late Quattrocento onwards. He is largely a creation of the focus on disegno in the new system of the arts and of the new type of Renaissance court and ruler. The ruler liked to have able collaborators, who were also trusted intimates and who could direct whole sectors relating to the ruler’s image and not only to the administration. Giulio Romano, for example, was a minister of the arts and public works, as his title Prefect of Ducal Buildings, Prefetto delle Fabbriche Ducali indicates. The painter-architect courtier was paid for the whole range of his activities. Actually, more for the planning, design and overall supervision, than for the execution and delivery of specific works or for a day by day presence on the building site. One can also note that the painter-architect is often – sometimes almost exclusively – identified by the fact that he designed a very special house for himself: Mantegna, Francesco di Giorgio, Raphael, Giulio Romano (twice), Vasari (in two different cities), Federicio Zuccari (in Rome and Florence) and, of course, Rubens. Painter-architects were not necessarily better than other architects, but they were certainly not inferior, even in constructional skills. They were almost automatically good administrators and excellent architectural draughtsmen. The final point I want to make is that though many painters never built – as seen in Venice – the painted architecture of painters and of painter-architects, is not entirely dissociated from the world of built architecture. The painting can influence a built design – even over a period of several centuries. As John Shearman noted, Raphael’s organisation of the space in front of the Benediction loggia in the Incendio del Borgo anticipates his own insertion of the facade of Palazzo Branconio dell’ Aquila a few years later into the same space. Sansovino probably had both the fresco and Raphael’s palace in mind when he made the columns of the Loggetta in Venice jut out to narrow the focus on the clocktower.

8

Die

universale Zeichnung („disegno“) des Künstlers und/versus die „graphidis scientia“ des Architekten

Werner Oechslin

 uccaris vereinheitlichende Formel eines alle Künste gleichmässig Z ­bestimmenden dissegno Un corpo d’una sola scienza, divisa però in tre prattiche, le quali veramente unite fanno un perfetto Pittore, Scultore & Architetto. 

(Federico Zuccari, in: Romano Alberti, Origine, et Progresso dell’Academia del Dissegno, Pavia 1604, S.36.)

Die Akademien erkennen seit ihrer Gründung ihre besondere Aufgabe als Hüterinnen der grundsätzlichen Fragen der Kunst; und dazu gehört von Anfang an die Frage des disegno, die unbestritten mit der inventio, der Erfindung und Erschaffung eines Kunstwerkes verbunden ist, das seinerseits als Darstellung einer inneren Vorstellung und Idee in der äußeren Welt gilt. Dies sind Zusammenhänge, die bei genauerem Hinsehen schon für sich allein genommen genügend Konfliktstoff bieten. Schließlich kennen alle Künste und Kunstbereiche ihre je eigenen Traditionen, die, wie man schnell erkennt, nicht immer kompatibel sind. Konflikte und Differenzen in der Deutung der Prinzipien und ihrer Grundlagen sind vorprogrammiert und äußern sich auf verschiedene Weise. Über die Geschehnisse an der römischen Akademie in ihren Anfängen sind wir dank des 1604 publizierten Berichts ihres Sekretärs, Romano Alberti, gut informiert.1 Unter der Protektion Karl Borromäus gegründet, wurde Federico Zuccari zum ersten Principe gewählt, und daraufhin am 14.November 1593 die erste Sitzung abgehalten. Die dort von Zuccari den Mitgliedern mitgeteilten „avvertenze“ lassen erkennen, dass es um weit mehr als nur künstlerische Dinge gehen sollte. Im Zentrum standen moralische Vorstellungen, die die Voraussetzung jeglicher künstlerischer Tätigkeit bilden, die „virtù“, die zum „huomo felice“ führt, die „bontà dell’animo“, die „honesti, e civil costumi“ und die „unione, & fraterno amore“.2 Es sollte zum gemeinsamen, kontinuierlichen Studium angeregt und dabei die conversazione gepflegt werden, die diesen inneren Zusammenhalt stärken würde und auch Grundlage und lebendiger Quell „d’ogni scienza, & arte pratica“ sei.3 Auf dieser Grundlage gab man sich Regeln, wozu auch der Grundsatz gehörte, dass keine der drei Künste Malerei, Skulptur und Architektur in irgendeiner Weise bevorzugte Behandlung erfahren dürfe. Eingeführt wird dieses Prinzip mit der Feststellung, dass jede dieser drei Künste den gleichen Vater („essendo ciascuna figlia di un’medesimo Padre“) im disegno besitze.4 Schon zuvor hatte Zuccari mit Blick auf die Ausbildung das Diktum Apelles’ „nulla dies sine linea“ in Erinnerung gerufen und das Alphabet des Zeichnens („per dir così“) als Übungsgrundlage empfohlen, wonach die jungen „principianti“ Augen, Nase, Mund, Ohren und andere Körperteile zeichnen sollten.5   Cf. Romano Alberti, Origine, Et Progresso Dell’Accademia Del Dissegno, De Pittori, Scultori, & Architetti di Roma. Dove si contengono molti utilißimi discorsi, & Filosofici ragionamenti appartenenti alle sudette profeßioni, & in particolare ad alcune nove definitioni del Dissegno,della Pittura, Scultura, & Architettura [...] Recitati sotto il regimento 1

dell’Eccellente Sig. Cavagliero Federico Zuccari, & raccolti da Romano Alberti Secretario dell’Academia, Pavia: Pietro Bartoli 1604. 2   Id., S.2 ff.: „Prima Academia, à 14.Novembre, 1593“. 3   Id., S.4. 4   Id., S.13. 5   Id., S.5.

9

Werner Oechslin Zuccari möchte alles, so auch die theoretische Tätigkeit der Discorsi e ragionamenti auf die zeichnerische Grundlage der Künste beziehen. Die Theorie soll ja auch unmittelbar auf die Praxis, „circa al ben’operare“, ausgerichtet sein. Der disegno erscheint so als Mittelpunkt gerade dieser grundsätzlichen Bemühungen: però io laudo prima d’ogni altra cosa, che noi ci sforziamo di conoscere, che sia Dissegno, per cominciar’ dal capo, poiche sotto di questo come di general capitano, militamo tutti.6 Zuccari nimmt dabei vorweg, dass mit der Zeichnung der gesamte Prozess von der Vorstellung bis zur konkreten Umsetzung gemeint sei: „...s’intenda per Dissegno intellettivo, specolativo, e prattico“.7 Alles weist in unmissverständlicher Weise darauf hin, dass der Disegno das Thema darstellt, dem sich die Akademie als Kernpunkt aller künstlerischer, Theorie und Praxis zusammenfassenden Bemühungen widmen will. Doch die Einbindung der potentiell Beteiligten erweist sich sehr schnell als ein Hindernis; die Architektur beruft sich auf anderweitige Grundlagen und Interessen. Und die früh beschworene Gleichheit der 1. Daniele Barbaro, I Dieci Libri Dell’Architettura Di Künste war doch nicht so gleich, wie das M. Vitruvio Tradutti Et Commentati Da Monsignor Barbaro Zuccari vorab äusserte. Unzufrieden über Eletto Patriarca D’Aquileggia. Venedig, Francesco Marcolini, vorausgegangene Definitionen des disegno 1556. Titelblatt. legte der Principe der römischen Akademie am 17. Januar 1594 seine eigenen Überlegungen vor, in denen nun die Führungsrolle der Malerei klar hervortritt. Seine Diffinitione della Pittura hob mit dem Loblied an: PITTURA, figlia, & Madre del Dissegno, specchio dell’alma natura, vero r­ itratto de tutti i concetti, che imaginare, e formare si possano...8 Der Malerei sollte demgemäss eine Vorrangstellung gegenüber den andern Künsten zukommen, weil sie „con l‘arte, e con la mano, & con stromenti“ in unmittelbarem Bezug zum Zeichnen stünde, „in alevare, e nutrire il bambino con il latte delle sue mamelle“.9 Andererseits ließ er es offen, wie die Bildhauer und Architekten ihrerseits den disegno definieren wollten; entsprechende Einladungen ergingen. Doch insbesondere der Architekt Giacomo della Porta entzog sich dem „con vane, e non approvate scuse“.10 Schliesslich lenkte er ein und kündigte seine Teilnahme an den Beratungen   Id., S.14.  Ibid. 8   Id., S.25.

 Ibid.   Id., S.26.

6

9

7

10

10

Die

universale

Zeichnung („disegno“)

des

Künstlers

und/versus die „graphidis scientia“

an. An der nächsten Sitzung am 26. Januar erschien Giacomo della Porta freilich nicht, was dann Zeit gab, die verschiedenen Vorschläge für die impresa der Akademie zu diskutieren. Am 11. Februar folgten schliesslich einige Vertreter Giacomo della Portas der Einladung und bekräftigten, dass für sie alle nur die Definition Vitruvs der Architektur Gültigkeit beanspruchen könne, was sie mit dem Vorzeigen eines Exemplars Vitruvs und der entsprechenden Definition untermauerten. Nach langem Hin und Her lassen sich die Architekten auf eine Diskussion zu Vitruv selbst ein, die der Principe mit Bezug auf Daniele Barbaro kritisch angeht. Es geht um die Definition der Architektur als einer „scienza di molte discipline, e di diversi amaestramenti ornata“ (Vitruv I, I, 1). Zuccari flicht nun seine Argumente und seine Kritik in den Kommentar Daniele Barbarbos ein und wendet sich so gegen die Architekten: „ma lo troverete nel vostro Vitruvio“.11 Im Vordergrund steht die Stelle, an der Barbaro die Architektur mit anderen Wissenschaften und deren Zuständigkeiten vergleicht und Vitruvs Definition der Architektur als „scienza de molte discipline“ als nicht spezifisch genug kritisiert, „non sia propria ne particolare dell’Architettura“. Er fordere stattdessen eine „cosa diffinita“, die den Unterschied zu anderen Bereichen und Kompetenzen deutlich mache: „che essa diffinitione sia distinta e separata da ciascun’altra facoltà“.12 Vitruvs Formulierung „scienza di molte discipline“ sei dagegen nur eine ­allgemeine, auch anderen Wissenschaften eigene Umschreibung. Bei Barbaro liest sich der ­entsprechende Passus so: [...] pero Vitr. le [altre scienze] attribuisce alcune differenze che ­ristrigneno quello intendimento ­universale, & commune del predetto nome, & questo è ufficio della vera diffinitione, cioè dichiarire la natura, et la forza della cosa diffinitiva in modo, ch’ella da tutte l’altre cose separata, et distinta si veggia.13 Während Barbaro an dieser Stelle – Vitruv folgend – die ­besondere Notwendigkeit und Befähigung des Architekten zum Urteil (Vitruv I, I, 1: „Cuius iudicio probantur“) ­hervorhebt, fügt Zuccari hier unvermittelt einfach die besondere Rolle des disegno hinzu (fig. 1). Barbaro übersetzt Vitruv: „Dal cui giudicio s’approvano tutte le opere, che dall’altre Arti c­ ompiutamente si fanno.“14 Und Zuccari schreibt: dal cui giuditio s’approvano tutte l’opere che da altri compitamente si fanno, però che questa facoltà di giudicare in spetie particolare nasce del Disegno, della cui intelligenza s’intende, e conosce il bello, e il buono, e tutte le cose...15 Das wiederum lässt Zuccari sagen, dass das, was Vitruv beschreibt, genauso für die anderen Künste gelten müsste. Gerade diese Befähigung des Urteils beanspruchen die Architekten mit Verweis auf Vitruv jedoch in erster Linie für sich selbst. Das lässt Zuccari nochmals auf die vielfach abgestützte Kompetenz des Architekten zurückkommen, die er in der vitruvianischen Version jedoch als überrissen kritisiert; er ruft aus: „Qui forma un Dio, e non un huomo“.16 Es würde ausreichen, wenn man auch vom Architekten sagen würde „haver lettere, e dissegno“. Auch hier geht Zuccari nicht weiter auf Barbaro und Vitruv ein, der sich ja selbst gerade bezüglich eines umfassenden Wissens gegen die Maximalforderung eines Pytheos richtet und in erster Linie einen Ausgleich von theoretischem und praktischem Wissen fordert.17 Und natürlich, so noch einmal die Architekten gegenüber Zuccari, würde die Architektur in besonderer Weise von vielen   Id., S.35.  Ibid. 13   Cf. Daniele Barbaro, I Dieci Libri Dell’Architettura Di M.Vitruvio Tradutti et Commentati...., Venezia: Francesco Marcolini 1556, S.7. 14  Ibid. 15   Cf. Romano Alberti, Origine, 1604, o.c., S.35 f.

  Id., S.36.  Vgl. dazu: Werner Oechslin, ‘Der Architekt als Theoretiker’, in: Der Architekt. Geschichte und Gegenwart eines Berufsstandes, hrsg. von Winfried Nerdinger, München, London, New York: Prestel 2012, Bd. II, S. 586ff.

11

16

12

17

11

Werner Oechslin Wissensbereichen und Erfahrungen abhängen. Zuccari dreht jedes Argument wieder zugunsten des dissegno, den doch die Architekten in jedem Fall vorab beherrschen müssten. Zuccari setzt sich schließlich durch, genauer, er verfügt seine eigene Ansicht und Meinung (diremo sopra ciò l’opinione nostra) und schränkt die Architektur auf ihre spezifischen Merkmale ein. Die Architektur müsse durch ihre besonderen und nicht, wie Vitruv das vorschlage, mit den allgemeinen Eigenschaften erfasst werden: crediamo più propriamente, e particolarmente diffinire, e specificare essa Architettura con gli epiteti suoi più singolari, e non communi, come fece Vitruvio.18 In der Konsequenz bedeutet das Gleichbehandlung aller Künste, die zudem alle in gleicher Weise auf die Zeichnung angewiesen sind; und so folgt hier der Satz, dass Malerei, Skulptur und Architektur „un‘corpo d‘una sola scienza, divisa però in tre prattiche, le quali veramente unite fanno un perfetto Pittore, Scultore & Architetto“ bilden.19 Dieses Modell wird sich – zumindest in den Akademien – durchsetzen. Graphidis Scientia: die Rekonstruktion der Architekturzeichnung aus Vitruv Graphium vuol dire stilo da disegnare, e non pennello da dipingere. (Vincenzo Scamozzi, L’Idea della Architettura Universale, Venezia: Giorgo Valentino 1615, S.24. (fig. 2)) Der Auseinandersetzung an der römischen Akademie ging eine Entwicklung voraus, die sehr unterschiedliche Auffassungen zum disegno bei Malern und Bildhauern, respektive bei Architekten erkennen lässt. Dem Architekten hatte Vitruv die Kenntnis einer „graphidis scientia“ auferlegt (Vitruv I, I, 4); nur hier verwendet Vitruv das Wort ‚scientia’ nach der Definition der Architektur im ersten Satz ein zweites Mal. Auch wenn Vitruv die Notwendigkeit der Kenntnis in Geometrie davon getrennt auflistet, bietet es sich an, die ‚Wissenschaftlichkeit’ der Architekturzeichnung in deren Nähe, in den geometrischen Linien und Figuren zu begreifen.20 Nahe an der ratiocinatio, dem Begriff, mit dem Vitruv den ­‘theoretischen’ Anteil der Architektur in seiner Eingangsdefinition bezeichnet (Vitruv I, I, 1). ist ja auch das alte „more geometrico“ angesiedelt. Und in der aristotelischen Habituslehre ist dem „habitus faciendi“ der Architektur stets das „vera cum ratione“ beigegeben. Dass dies insbesondere die Zeichnung – oder modern ausgedrückt: den Entwurf – des Architekten betrifft, ist mit Blick auf die Tradition der Baupraxis in den Dombauhütten mehr als plausibel. Der Anreiz, dies gemäß solchen ‚wissenschaftlichen’, nämlich mathematisch verlässlichen Vorgaben, auch aus Vitruv zu entwickeln war gross. Bei Vitruv ist der gekonnte Umgang mit Lineal und Zirkel der geforderten geometrischen Kompetenz zugeordnet, deren besonderen Nutzen für die Architektur er betont. Vitruv belegt das konkret mit der erleichterten Aufzeichnung von rechten Winkeln (normae), Linien und Flächen und bezieht es auch auf die Berechnung der Linien und Strahlen des Lichteinfalls (Vitruv I, I, 4). Der Architekt benötig für seine Aufgaben und Bedürfnisse eine ‚mathematisch’ grundgelegte Form der Zeichnung. Daniele Barbaro berücksichtigt 1556 in seinem Kommentar zu diesem Passus der „peritia graphidos“ längst auch die Vorstellung der Zeichnung als jenes Vorgangs, durch den ein Geistiges in die äussere Welt geführt, körperlich wird. Doch   Cf. Romano Alberti, Origine, 1604, o.c., S.35 f.  Ibid. 20  Vgl. Werner Oechslin, ‘Geometrie und Linie. Die Vitruvianische ‚Wissenschaft’ von der 18 19

12

Architekturzeichnung’, S.20–35.

in:

DAIDALOS,

1,

1981,

Die

universale

Zeichnung („disegno“)

des

Künstlers

und/versus die „graphidis scientia“

Barbaro lässt keinen Zweifel offen, dass dies bezogen auf die Architektur nach Massgabe mathematischer Mittel geschieht. In seiner Definition erklärt er auch, welche konkreten Resultate dadurch erreicht werden können. Vitr.vuole, che non solamente habbiamo quelle prime, & universali, che rendeno le ragioni delle cose, ma anche gli essercitij, & le pratiche da quelle procedenti, & però quanto al dissegno vuole, che habbiamo facilità, & pratica, & la mano pronta à tirar dritte le linee, & vuole, che habbiamo la ragione di quelle, che altro non è, che certa, & ferma determinatione concetta nella mente, fatta con linee, & anguli ­approvata dal vero, il cui ufficio è di ­prescrivere à gl’edefici atto luogo, certo numero, degno modo, & grato ordine.21 Das also verbindet Barbaro mit der – vitruvianischen – „peritia de i lineamenti“. Zweifel darüber, dass diese besondere Kompetenz in der mathematischen Grundlegung der Architekturzeichnung und in deren zielgerichteten Anwendung ‚cum ratione’ liege, können bei dieser klaren Aussage nicht mehr aufkommen. Barbaro empfiehlt seinerseits diese besondere Befähigung auch für „pittori“, „scultori“, 2. Vincenzo Scamozzi, Dell’ Idea della architettura „intagliatori, & simiglianti“ und meint damit ­universale. Venedig, Giorgio Valentino, 1615. Titelblatt. den gekonnten Umgang im Bestimmen von Grössse, Umriss, oder der Dimensionierung eines Steinblockes, stets im Sinne der Präzisierung von Mass, Zahl und Figur. „Con linee & anguli“ bezieht sich präzis auf die euklidischen Postulate. Das prescrivere von Ort, Zahl, modus und ordo als berechenbares Resultat dieses zeichnenden Vorgangs entspricht der Definition Vitruvs der dispositio, mit denen er die – kodifizierten – Zeichnungsformen der Architektur beschreibt (Vitruv I, II, 2). Wörtlich folgt Barbaro dabei der Formulierung Leonbattista Albertis, mit der er einleitend im ersten Buch seines De Re Aedificatoria die Lineamenta – an der Stelle der vitruviansichen ratiocinatio – definiert: Lineamentorum omnis vis et ratio consumitur, ut recta absolutaque h ­ abeatur via coaptandi iungendique lineas et angulos, quibus aedificii facies comprehendatur atque concludatur. Atqui est quidem lineamenti munus et ­ officium ­praescribere aedificiis et partibus aedificiorum aptum locum et certum   Cf. Daniele Barbaro, 1556, o.c., S.19.

21

13

Werner Oechslin numerum ­dignum modum et gratum ordinem, ut iam tota aedificii forma et figura ipsis in ­lineamentis conquiescat.22 Mittelbar wird deutlich, dass sich seit Alberti ein Konsens zu einer mathematisch grundgelegten Architekturzeichnung gebildet und verfestigt hat. Dass Zuccari ausgerechnet mit Barbaro die Architekten von seiner Ansicht einer alle drei Künste gleichmäßig betreffenden Zeichnung überzeugen will, erweist sich so als reichlich tendenziös, wenn nicht gar verwegen. Er greift im Grunde genommen die Kompetenz des Architekten ausgerechnet dort an, wo sie sich längst der mathematischen Kenntnisse vergewissert und diese vertieft hat. Es gab ja auch verschiedene Bemühungen, die Architekturzeichnung noch ­wissenschaftlicher und in sich kohärent erscheinen zu lassen. Dabei schreckte man nicht vor einer Kritik Vitruvs zurück. Seit Raphaels Zeiten bemüht man sich, die scheinbaren Widersprüche innerhalb der Auflistung der “species dispositionis”, der unterschiedlichen Darstellungsformen aufzulösen, indem man neben ichnographia und orthographia auch die dritte Darstellungsform der scenographia mathematisch verlässlich – und nicht perspektivisch verformt – als sciographia, Schattenriss, Profil, Schnittfigur lesen wollte. Daniele Barbaro, der sich des Widerspruchs zu Vitruvs Intention durchaus bewusst ist, bemerkt diesbezüglich, man sollte, wenn man denn – aus philologischen Gründen – unbedingt an der scenographia festhalten wolle, zusätzlich eine vierte Darstellungsform festlegen, um in der Sache selbst zu einer befriedigenden Lösung zu gelangen.23 Das Bemühen um ein einwandfreies Instrument des Entwerfens, um ein kohärenten, aus kompatibeln Grundriss- Aufriss- und Schnittfiguren gebildetes Zeichnungssystems ist evident. Die Nähe zur – beweisführenden, ‘konklusiven’ – Geometrie unübersehbar. Insofern, nämlich mit Bezug auf die Verlässlichkeit der Methode des Entwerfens (oder der ‘Erfindung’), hatte die Architektur einen beträchtlichen Vorteil. Man hatte zwecks Verdeutlichung zuweilen sogar die begriffliche Fassung der Differenz bemüht und dem allgemeinen Begriff für Zeichnung, γραϕη′, die γραμμη′, als Bezeichnung der geometrischen Architekturzeichnung, gegenübergestellt. Ratiocinatio, lineamenta, Architekturzeichnung – im Grunde genommen synonym verwendete Begriffe – fanden sich so zusammen und erfüllten insgesamt die an die graphidis scientia geknüpften Vorstellungen und Erwartungen. Und es verstärkte den Drang, die Architektur insgesamt als Wissenschaft zu begreifen und zu begründen. Hatte Federico Zuccari argumentiert, die Architektur müsse sich auf ihre spezifischen Aufgaben konzentrieren und sich klar gegenüber andern Disziplinen abgrenzen, weist die Frage nach der scienza deutlich über diese Enge hinaus und fordert – ganz im Sinne der Autorität Vitruvs und der durch ihn als „scientia pluribus disciplinis et variis eruditionibus ornata“ definierten Architektur (Vitruv I, I, 1) – „cognitione universale“. Hier ist die Trennungslinie und der Grund des Konfliktes zu den anderen Künsten angezeigt. Die Differenzen sollten innerhalb der römischen Akademie zugunsten einer gemeinsamen Grundlage bereinigt werden; doch der Architekt wird davon unbeeindruckt auch in Zukunft anderen, zusätzlichen Ansprüchen folgen. Vitruvs unmissvertändliche Forderung nach einer „graphidis scientia“ stellt sich dabei – vorerst – in den Gegensatz zu Zuccaris „dissegno“. Doch beiden Auffassungen ist der Drang nach vertiefter Begründung beigesellt, und hier können sich die Ansichten wieder annähern, nicht zuletzt im gemeinsamen Ziel, der Kunst insgesamt eine universale Grundlage zuzuerkennen. Daniele Barbaros entsprechende Vorstellungen sind zurückhaltend, weil er die Architektur – der aristotelischen Habitus-Lehre folgend – und die Künste überhaupt auf ihre Aufgabe in der Praxis, im „fermamente fare, & operare drittamente, & con ragione fuori di se, cose utili alla 22  Cf. Giovanni Orlandi ed., Leon Battista Alberti, L’Architettura, Milano: Polifilo 1966, S.19. 23   Vgl. Werner Oechslin, ‘„Sottili Ragioni“. I Disegni Palladiani Per Le Editioni Vitruviane Di Daniele

14

Barbaro.’ in: Vitruvio e il disegno di architettura, (= Collana Del Centro Studi Vitruviani I.), Paolo Clini (Hg.), Venedig: Marsilio 2012, S.151–178; hier: S.161.

Die

universale

Zeichnung („disegno“)

des

Künstlers

und/versus die „graphidis scientia“

vita“, verpflichtet und damit an die äussere, kontingente Welt und mittelbar lediglich an ein vero contingente bindet. Andererseits weist Barbaro der Kunst gegenüber der blossen Erfahrung, aus der die Kunst entsteht („Nasce ogni Arte dalla Isperienza“), Vorteile ein. Sie ist entwicklungsfähig: „Il nascimento dell’Arti da principio è debole, ma col tempo acquista forza, & vigore.“ Und ihr ist, in dem schon bei Aristoteles dem „habitus faciendi“ beigegebenen „cum ratione“, ein tieferes Verständnis auch des Zusammenhangs von Ursache und Wirkung ermöglicht: Con tutto questo l’Arte è piu ecccellente, & piu degna della Isperienza, perche è piu vicina al sapere, intendendo le cause, & le ragioni della cosa.24 Vincenzo Scamozzi denkt das radikal weiter.25 Er spricht zwar auch von den „Scientie fative“. Doch fordert er darüber hinaus für den Architekten den „habitus dell’intelletto“ ein. Vitruvs Vorgabe der Architektur als einer scienza wird vollumfänglich respektiert; schliesslich sucht ja auch der Architekt “per via delle cause” zu Gewissheiten zu gelangen. Zu den besonderen Qualitäten der Architektur gehört, dass sie „indubitata nelle dimostrationi“ und „eccellentissima per il methodo“ sei. Beides, die „speculatione“ und die „certezza delle dimostrationi“ , sind zusammen mit anderen Eigenschaften dafür verantwortlich, dass die Architektur nicht nur eine „scienza“, sondern eine ganz besondere, herausragende sei: „mà frà le scientie verrà ad esser degnissima, e meritatissima d’ogni lode“.26 Wie es der Titel des Werkes Scamozzis anzeigt, geht es gerade ihm um „cognitione universale“. Und auch für ihn ist dies mit der „scienza“ und dem „per mezo della cognitione delle cause“ verbunden. Scamozzi beansprucht hier das auf den Grund gehende „intendere delle cose“ gegenüber dem blossen „cognoscere“. Er entwickelt diese Differenz wie Barbaro aus dem Vorteil der Kunst gegenüber der bloßen Erfahrung und beruft sich dabei auf Aristoteles: „perciò Aristoteles disse: Artem scientiam esse magis quam experimentum.“27 In Vitruvs Definition der Architektur führt der Begriff fabrica zur Praxis; Scamozzi kommentiert, „e qui si scopre l’operatione de’Capi mastri“. Aber er fügt gleich hinzu: Ma secondo noi, è un’habito scientifico, che risiede nella mente dell’Architetto, della cosa particolare o universale, che egli ha da far costruire. Insofern ist die Praxis ganz im Sinne Vitruvs mit der „ratiocinatio“ notwendigerweise verbunden. Mit Bezug auf Aristoteles beschreibt Scamozzi deshalb auch an dieser Stelle den ganzen Weg von der Konzeption bis zur Verwirklichung eines Bauwerks, von der Idee über die “lineamenti” zur Verfertigung “per via delle materie”. Das steht insgesamt für das wissenschafliche Vorgehen „per via delle cause“ ganz im Sinne der begrifflichen Klärungen, die Aristoteles in seiner Metaphysik vornimmt und auf die sich Scamozzi beruft: Causa enim domus ex qua fit motus est, artificium, & aedificatori: & causa, propter quam sit domus, est operatio; & materia domus est luctum, & lateres, & forma domus est terminus eius.28 Scamozzi bezieht sich wiederholt auf Albertis lineamenta und widmet der vitruvianischen graphidos scientia ein besonderes Kapitel. Er fordert für den Architekten die scientia   Cf. Barbaro 1556, o.c., S.6 (Proemio).  Vgl.dazu: Werner Oechslin, ‘Premesse a una nuova lettura dell’Idea della Architettura Universale di Scamozzi’, in: L’Idea della Architettura Universale di Vincenzo Scamozzi, reprint der Ausgabe 1615, Vicenza (CISA), 1997, S.xi-xxxvi; Werner Oechslin, ‘L’Architettura come scienza speculativa’, in: Franco Barbieri/Guido Beltramini hg., Vincenzo Scamozzi 1548–1616, (Ausstellungskatalog), CISA Vicenza, Venezia, 2003, S.23–31; Werner Oechslin, ‘L’idea della architettura universale: Vincenzo Scamozzis 24 25

Grundlegung einer Theorie der Architektur’, in: RIHAJournal 0060, Sonderausgabe „Vincenzo Scamozzi: Lektüren eines gelehrten Architekten“ (13. November 2012), http://www.riha-journal.org/ articles/2012/2012-oct-dec/special-issue-scamozzi/ oechslin-lidea-della-architettura-universale .26  Cf. Vincenzo Scamozzi, L’Idea della Architettura Universale, Venezia: Giorgio Valentino 1615, I, S.5. 27   Id., S.66. 28  Id., S.52. – Vgl. dazu ausführlicher: Werner Oechslin, Premesse, 1997, o.c., S.xxviii ff.

15

Werner Oechslin del Disegno und bemüht sich um die dem Architekten eigene Zeichnung („che propriamente s’aspetta all’Architetto“) in Abgrenzung zum Künstler wie übrigens auch zum Mathematiker.29 Er benützt den Begriff graphis und präzisiert: „Graphium vuol dire stilo da disegnare, e non pennello da dipignere.“ Er kennt die Nähe zu den geometrischen Figuren und betont andererseits, dass der Architekt nebst den Grund- und Aufrissen und den „scorcij“, den (verkürzten) perspekivischen Zeichnungen noch eine ganze Reihe unregelmäßiger Figuren beherrschen müsse, die nicht unter die Mathematik fallen. Deshalb fordert er vom Architekten auch entsprechende, ‚künstlerische’ Befähigungen: egli hà dibisogno d’una esquisita, e somma intelligenza del Disegno, e franchezza di mano, e leggiadria di lineare, & esquisitezza di toccar d’acquarelle.30 Doch auch dies wird deutlich vom “ritrare, e colorire le cose” des Malers abgesetzt. Wichtig erscheint Scamozzi, dass alles eingebettet bleibt in das von Vitruv beschriebene Profil des gebildeten Architekten, der beides, Theorie und Praxis beherrscht (Vitruv I, I, 16). Von dort übernimmt er auch die Abgrenzung gegenüber den Mathematikern. Scamozzis Argumentation ist ganz und gar auf den Architekten ausgerichtet – und Vitruv verpflichtet. Zuccari fand sich durch eine solche, offensichtlich auch bei der römischen Architektenschaft vorherrschende Position provoziert; und insofern blieben die unterschiedlichen Optionen trotz Zuccaris Entscheidung als Principe der römischen Akademie auch danach bestehen. Trotzdem lässt selbst Scamozzi erfahren, dass in der Praxis die Befähigung des Zeichnens, die franchezza di mano wie die leggiadria di lineare, für den Maler wie für den Architekten gefordert sind. Darin gibt sich natürlich eine alte Gemeinsamkeit über die ‘Grenzen’ hinweg zu erkennen. In grundsätzlicher Hinsicht mögen die Auffassungen noch so präzis getrennt sein, die Praxis findet immer wieder Wege, den gegenseitigen Nutzen zu entdecken. Der Konsens des disegno in dessen universaler Bedeutung ... solamente questo vogliamo noi che ci basti, che il dissegno sia come un vivo lume di bello ingegno, & che egli sia di tanta forza, & così necessario all’universale, che colui che n’è intieramente privo, sia quasi un cieco. (Gio. Battista Armenini, De’ veri precetti della Pittura... (1587), Venezia: Francesco Salerni 1678, S.24. (fig. 3)) Eine vertiefte Diskussion zum Disegno-Begriff ging im Umfeld der Akademie in Florenz insbesondere von Malern aus, wobei man sehr schnell vom Zeichnen (disegno) und von den Liniengefügen (linee, lineamento) zu den grundsätzlichen künstlerischen Fragen zu sprechen kam, wie ein Geistiges – durch den ‘disegno’ – in die äussere Welt tritt.31 Alles zielt auf eine Verwesentlichung der Frage, was Zuccari dann in Rom mit „Disegno assolutamente preso, cioè l’intellettivo“ umschreibt.32 Bevor man sich den „operationi sue particolari“ zuwende, müsse man umfassend den „Dissegno intellettivo, specolativo, e prattico“ kennen und begreifen.33 Das war nicht immer so. Giorgio Vasari bespricht 1550 den disegno in der Einleitung zu den Vite zu Beginn des Kapitels über die Malerei und bestärkt die Notwendigkeit des Beherrschens eines „disegno fondato“.34 Er bezieht sich dabei aber wesentlich auf das ‘Erfassen   Id., S.24 f.   Id., S.25. 31   Vgl. dazu immer noch: Wolfgang Kemp, ‘DISEGNO. Beiträge zur Geschichte des Begriffs zwischen 1547 und 1607’, in: Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft, XIX, 1974. S.219–240. 32   Cf. Romano Alberti, Origine 1604, o.c., S.25. 29 30

16

  Id., S.14.   Cf. Giorgio Vasari, Le Vite de piu eccellenti Architetti, Pittori, et Scultori Italiani..., Firenze: Lorenzo Torrentino 1550, S.72. (Zu Beginn dieses Kapitels ist die Rede von den „lineamenti“, die gleichsam eine Figur eingrenzen.) 33 34

Die

universale

Zeichnung („disegno“)

des

der Objekte’ auf Grund des Studiums der Natur und der Vorbilder „d’eccellenti maestri & di statue antiche di rilievo“.35 Es geht vordergründig um das ‘Herstellen eines Bildes’, das schon im ersten Satz dieses Kapitels – etwas gar sachlich – als „un piano coperto di campi di colori in superficie“ eingeführt wird.36 Diese – zugegebenermasse provokative, geradezu ‚modern’ klingende – Definition wird später gemäss dem Protokoll Romano Albertis in der römischen Akademie in der Sitzung vom 17.Januar 1594 als „difinitione non solo [...] bassa ma insipida“,37 als abgeschmackt bezeichnet, ohne dass allerdings die Ergänzungen Vasaris in der zweiten Ausgabe seiner Vite von 1568 erwähnt worden wären. Der Kommentar zeigt auf, wo sich die Interesssen auch im Rahmen einer Akademie und ihrer Ausrichtung teilen können: „... volendo più tosto insegnare di dipingere, che dichiarare che sia Pittura.“38 Letzteres stand damals vermehrt im Zentrum der Aufmerksamkeit. Und auch Vasari hat 1568 in der zweiten Ausgabe seiner Vite zu Beginn desselben 15.Kapitels die entsprechenden Ergänzungen hinzugefügt:

Künstlers

und/versus die „graphidis scientia“

3. Giovanni Battista Armenini, De’ Veri Precetti Della Pittura. Venedig, Francesco Salerni, 1678, Titelblatt.

Perche il Disegno, padre delle tre Arti nostre, Architettura, Scultura, & Pittura, procedendo dall’Intelletto, cava di molte cose un giudizio universale, simile a una forma, o vero Idea di tutte le cose della natura, la quale è singolarissima nelle sue misure; di qui è, che non solo ne i corpi humani, & degl’animali, ma nelle piante ancora, & nelle fabriche, & sculture, & pitture cognosce a ­proporzione, che ha il tutto con le parti, & che hanno le parti fra loro, & col tutto insieme.39

Vasari beschreibt den Prozess der Formgebung mittels des disegno. Die Rede ist von einem „giudizio universale“ und auch von der „proporzione, che ha il tutto con le parti“ entsprechend der Definition der Symmetrie bei Vitruv, für den ja auch das „iudicium“ als entscheidende Instanz gefordert wird.40 Wiederholt, so auch 1585 von Romano Alberti, wird die Symmetrie als  Ibid.   Id., S.71. 37   Cf. Romano Alberti, Origine 1604, o.c., S.24. 38  Ibid. 39   Cf. Giorgio Vasari, Le Vite de’ piu eccellenti Pittori, Scultori, e Architettori... Di Nuovo dal Medesimo Riviste Et Ampliate.., Frienze: Giunti 1568, S.43. 40  Ibid. – Cf. Vitruv I, II, 4 und I, I, 1 („...cuius iudicio probantur...“). Vitruv bezieht das Urteil auf die in der Definition der Architektur erwähnten anderweitigen Kenntnisse und Disziplinen. Barbaro (1556 op.cit., S.8) sieht darin einen weiteren Hinweis 35 36

auf den ‚wissenschaftlichen’ Charakter der Architektur („Ecco l’ultima differenza...“) und deren besondere Legitimierung („percioche il giudicare l’opere compiute dal l’Arti, è proprio di lei, & non d’altre“), was ihn wiederum zur Definition des Architekten führt, die er Leonbattista Alberti nachformuliert: „...& si conosce Architetto esser colui, il quale per certa, & maravigliosa ragione, & via, si con la mente, & con l’animo sa determinare come con l’opera condurre à fine quelle cose, che da il movimento de i pesi, dal compartimento de i corpi, dalla compositione dell’opere à beneficio de gli huomini commendate saranno.“

17

Werner Oechslin eine „scienza“ beschrieben, die vom Maler beherrscht werden muss (fig. 4).41 Bei Vasari wird deutlich, dass er die Zeichnung für alle Künste im Auge behält, auch wenn er an dieser Stelle vornehmlich von der Malerei spricht. Andererseits wird er die besondere Stellung der Architektur herausheben, wo ihm das angemessen erscheint. Vorweg definiert Vasari: si puo conchiudere, ch’esso disegno altro non sia, che una ­ apparente e­ spressione, & dicharazione del concetto, che si ha nell’animo, & di quello, che altri si è nella mente imaginato, e fabricato nell’Idea.42 „Padre delle tre Arti nostre“! Vasari wird nicht müde, den Nutzen der Zeichnung für alle Künste herauszustreichen, bisweilen mit unterschiedlichen Akzenten etwa dort, wo genauer von den „schizzi“ und – in deren Präzisierung – von „profili, dintorni, o lineamenti“ die Rede ist, und Vasari kommentieren lässt: E tutti questi [...] servono cosi all’Architettura, & Scultura, come alla pittura; ma all’Architettura massimamente; percioche i disegni di quella non sono composti se non di linee, il che non è altro, quanto al’Architettura, ch’il principio, e la fine di quell’arte....43

4. Romano Alberti, Trattato Della Nobilita Della Pittura. Composta Ad Instantia Della Venerabil’ Compagnia Di S. Luca, Et Nobil’ Academia Delli Pittori Di Roma. Rom, Francesco Zannetti, 1585. Titelblatt.

Es wird beides bestärkt, die gemeinsame Basis der Zeichnung als „padre delle tre Arti nostre“, aber auch die unterschiedliche Art und der unterschiedliche Gebrauch der Zeichnung beim Maler respektive beim Architekten. „Si come alla naturale generazione si richiede il Padre, & la Madre“, formuliert Barbaro; das Bild drängt sich überall auf, wo nach den tieferen Gründen und Ursachen gefragt wird.44 Vasari meint bezogen auf anderweitige Ansichten, der Vater der Zeichnung sei der Zufall, aus dem dann durch „uso“ und „sperienza“, unterstützt durch „cognitione“ und „discorso“ die Zeichnung enstanden sei, es wäre wohl besser, bloss von einem Anlass oder einer Gelegenheit zu sprechen, die dazu geführt hat; und dementsprechend erscheint es ihm vordergründig wichtiger, die konkreten Erfordernisse zu diskutieren.45 Das hindert die römischen Akademiker nicht, an ihrer Sitzung vom 17. Januar 1594 die Metapher in allen erdenklichen Varianten zum Zwecke der Definition der Malerei einzusetzen. Mal ist die „Pittura, figlia, & Madre del Dissegno“, mal der „Disegno“ „Padre della Pittura, Scultura, e Architettura“.46 Man findet sich jedenfalls im vertrauten familiären Verband.  Cf. Romano Alberti, Trattato della Nobiltà della Pittura, Roma: Francesco Zannetti 1585, S.33 („... ancor per venir alla seconda scientia similmente Geometrica chiamata Simetria...“). 42   Cf. Vasari 1568, o.c., S.43. 41

18

 Ibid.   Cf. Barbaro 1556, o.c., S.9. 45   Cf. Vasari 1568, o.c., S.43. 46   Cf. Romano Alberti, Origine 1604, o.c., S.25. 43 44

Die

universale

Zeichnung („disegno“)

des

Künstlers

und/versus die „graphidis scientia“

Der Begriff des disegno lässt also einiges offen, und trotz Übereinstimmung in den wesentlichen Fragen noch mehr an Deutungen zu. Giovanni Battista Armenini lässt in seiner Antwort auf die Frage „che cosa sia il disegno“ ein ganzes Spektrum möglicher Definitionen aufscheinen: Gli Huomini intellegenti di queste nobili arti, che più delle altre arti si trovano esser unite insieme, i quali sono i Pittori, gli Scultori, & gli Architetti si sono sforzati tutti di voler dare la sua diffinitione al Dissegno, si come quello ch’è il lume, il fondamento, & il sostegno delle predette arti, nè si sono durati esser stati varij fra essi, poiche tutti tendono à un fine.47 Das gemeinsame Ziel gilt als erkannt und die Einheit der Künste beschworen, doch bleibt die Differenz in der Erklärung unübersehbar: „Onde alcuni hanno detto...“; „Altri poi dicono più tosto...“! Armenini unterscheidet die beiden ‘extremen’ Positionen, derjenigen, die den disegno mit der „speculation nata nella mente, & un artificiosa industria dell’intelletto“, also wesentlich mit der Vorstellungswelt verknüpfen, und der andern, die den disegno’ in einer „scienza di bella, & regolata proportione di tutto quello che si vede“ in einer äusseren Welt ansiedeln, in der sich die Zeichnung tatsächlich im Sinne einer scienza, im Beherrschen und Umsetzen der Prinzipien, in Symmetrie und Proportion beispielsweise, operativ zu bewähren hat.48 Es handelt sich also nicht um sich ausschliessende Begründungen, doch bleibt die unterschiedliche Akzentsetzung zuweilen stark betont und verankert. Aber man vernimmt auch versöhnliche Töne. Immer wieder beziehen sich Autoren, so auch Armenini, auf Anekdoten, die etwa an Apelles knüpfen, der für ganz Griechenland die Einführung „per decreto publico“ des Zeichenunterrichts „à fanciulli“ gefordert habe. Es geht doch immer wieder um die ‚­universale’ Grundlegung der Zeichnung, wozu die Geschichte in nützlicher Weise beitragen kann. Und statt die unterschiedlichen Ansichten gegeneinander auszuspielen „ci basti“, sagt er – besinnt er sich auf eine plausible, alles einschliessende Formel: basti, che il dissegno sia come un vivo lume di bello ingegno, & che egli sia di tanta forza, & così necessario all’universale, che colui che n’è intieramente privo, sia quasi un cieco.49 Wie ein Licht, das alles durchleuchtet, von universaler Bedeutung und deshalb notwendig, ist der disegno. Und es bietet sich kraft dieser Metapher des vivo lumine an, das sehende Auge, l’occhio visivo, dem Blinden (quasi un cieco) entgegenzusetzen.50 Das Auge, das alles sieht, wird zum Symbol des mit dem „Dissegno“ verknüpften Vorgang des Erkennens, aus dem heraus alle von Menschen geschaffenen Formen enstehen. Deshalb hätte man schon zu Apelles’ Zeiten auf den entsprechenden Unterricht von Kindern gedrängt. Die universale Bedeutung des disegno als ‘Instrument’, das Intellekt und äussere Welt zusammenführen kann, ergibt sich also letztlich aus der Verbindung mit dem ‘Sehsinn’. Mit den entsprechenden Grundlagen war die damalige gebildete Welt bestens vertraut. In aristotelischer Tradition war man mit der Zuordnung des Sehsinns und dessen ‘Potenz’, Mass und Grösse (mensura/magnitudo), Teilung und Zahl (divisio/numerus), Begrenzung und Figur (terminatio/figura), Distanz und Bewegung (distantia & propinquitas/motus) erfassen zu können, bestens vertraut.51 Und die Verbindung der Vorstellungswelt und der äusseren

 Cf. Gio.Battista Armenini, De’ Veri Precetti della Pittura (1587), Venezia: Francesco Salerni in Biri, 1678, S.24. 48  Ibid. 49  Ibid. 47

 Ibid.  Vgl.u.a.: ‘Liber De Sensu et Sensato Aristotelis Secundum eximium Doctorem Sanctum Thomam de Aquino’, in: Aristoteles, Parva Naturalia, Venezia: Octavianus Scotus 1551, fol. 3 recto. 50 51

19

Werner Oechslin

5. Sehpyramide und Schnitt- / Projektionsfläche. In: Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola, Le Due Regole Della Prospettiva Pratica. Con i comentarij del R.P.M. Egnatio Danti dell’ordine de Predicatori. Matematico dello Studio di Bologna. Rom Francesco Zannetti, 1583. S. 13.

Sinneswelt war in der alten Optik längst modellhaft vorgezeichnet. Die Sehpyramide oder der ‘Sehkegel’ eines Vitellio brauchte nur in ein praktikableres Modell eines Liniengerüstes samt Projektionsfläche für die Lichtstrahlen übersetzt zu werden, wie das Albrecht Dürer erfolgreich vorgegeben hatte, um der Seherfahrung mittels Zeichnung gleichsam eine objektive Grundlage – in einem Liniengefüge – zuordnen zu können (fig. 5).52 Egnatio Danti hat die Bedeutung dieser „mirabile invenzione“ richtig eingeschätzt und darin die Demonstration der „origine di tutta l’Arte“ erkannt (fig. 6).53 Innere Welt der Vorstellungen und äußere Sinneswelt, das sind auch die Pole, die Zuccari von einem „disegno interno“ und einem „disegno esterno“ sprechen ließen , wobei nun allerdings nicht nur die Abbildung der äußeren Welt in der Abgleichung mit unseren Vorstellungen im Vordergrund steht. Die Malerei mag zwar – in den Worten Zuccaris – eine „scienza prattica“ und eine lobenswerte „operazione artificiosa“ sein, aber über allem steht die „Idea“ und ihr zugeordnet der disegno, dessen ‘innerer’ Teil, der „disegno interno“, nun vollends zu einer umfassenden Vorstellung intellektueller Fähigkeiten geworden ist.54  Vgl. Iacomo Barozzi da Vignola, Le Due Regole della Prospettiva Pratica...Con i commentarij del R.P.M.Egnatio Danti..., Roma: Francesco Zannetti 1583, hier insbesondere S.13 f. und S.55 f. 53   Id., S.56 und S.55. 54   Zuletzt zu Zuccaris Vorstellungen des Disegno mit deutlichem Bezug zur Kontemplationslehre cf.: Kemal 52

20

Demirsoy, ‘Disegno Interno, Amor Divino ed Arte: das Ganymed-Fresko des römischen Palazzo Zuccaro im Lichte der thomasischen Kontemplationslehre’, in: Tristan Weddigen (hg.), Federico Zuccaro. Kunst zwischen Ideal und Reform, Basel: Schwabe 2000, S.43–116.

Die

universale

Zeichnung („disegno“)

des

Künstlers

und/versus die „graphidis scientia“

6. Illustration zur Erläuterung der Perspektive. In: Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola, Le Due Regole Della Prospettiva Pratica. Con i comentarij del R.P.M. Egnatio Danti dell’ordine de Predicatori. Matematico dello Studio di Bologna. Rom Francesco Zannetti, 1583. S. 55.

Die Malerei äussert sich „in forma, specie et accidente“, aber gleichzeitig gibt sie auch die „cose che sono invisibili“ wieder, die dem „senso interno“ und dem „intelletto“ einverleibt sind.55 Herbe Kritik an einer ‘mechanistischen’ Heruntersetzung des künstlerischen Tuns und gegen eine Hintansetzung der Malerei gegenüber der Architektur konnte nicht ausbleiben.56 Andererseits kann man nachvollziehen, dass Zuccari in Florenz die Kritik nicht erspart blieb, er sei einseitig, gleichsam ‘theorielastig’ orientiert. Man muss es auch anders sehen und gesamthaft begreifen wollen. Zuccari hat das schwierige, dornenreiche Problem des Zusammenhangs innerer geistiger Vorstellungen mit der äusseren Welt mit seinem Begriff eines – universal geweiteten – „disegno“ der Welt der Kunst inkorporiert und diese darüber verfügen lassen. Umso weiter ist das Feld! Und es ist nicht verwunderlich, dass sich unter den voneinander abweichenden oder gar kontrovers vorgetragenen Auffassungen des ‘disegno’ auch weiterhin nebeneinander eher platonische, einer ‘Idea’ verpflichteten Varianten oder aber operative, den ‘disegno’ als Instrument und Methode betonenden Interpretationen – übrigens bis in moderne Zeiten hinein – finden. Doch das eine schliesst das andere nicht aus, ganz im Gegenteil. Es geht um durchaus komplexe Zusammenhänge, die mit dem Ziel der Schaffung eines künstlerischen Werkes  Cf. Federico Zuccari, Idea de’pittori, scultori et architetti, Torino, 1607; hier zitiert nach: Paolo Barocchi, Scritti del Cinquecento, Milano/Napoli: Ricciardi, I, 1971, S.1036. 55

  Id., S.1037.

56

21

Werner Oechslin beschrieben und beherrscht sein wollen. Dafür hält auch Zuccari in seiner „Idea de’pittore, scultori, et architetti“ (1607) das Modell einer ‘kausalen’ Verbindung bereit. Es gehe ihm darum die Erkenntnis zu verbreiten, „che cosa sia dissegno in genere et in specie in ordine alle nobilissime professioni pittura, scultura et architettura, le quali da questo dipendono come da causa di tutte l’operazioni nostre.“57 Im disegno finden die ausübenden Künste gleichsam das auf sie zugeschnittene Prinzip der Kausalität. Kausalität aber ist der Maßstab von Wissenschaft, den auch Vincenzo Scamozzi 1615 für die Architektur bemüht, die er „per via delle cause in universale, & in particolare, & anco in atto“ als wirksam erkennt.58 Es scheint, dass diesbezüglich der Maler wie der Architekt – auf der Suche nach Wahrheit – denselben Weg universaler Grundlegung und ‘Wissenschaft’ beschreiten. Nicht zufallig erwähnt Scamozzi – vorgängig detaillierterer Darstellung – die „Grafida“ die Zeichnung, schon bei der ersten grundsätzlichen Erörterung der ‘Wissenschaften’ und der Arti liberali zu Beginn seines Traktats.59 So besehen sind sich die unterschiedlichen Künste wieder sehr nahe. Den ‘universalen’ Vorstellungen des Intellekts und der Aspiration auf scienza antworten die konkreten Methoden der Kunst; und diese versichern sich noch so gerne bei ihrem verlässlichsten Partner, der Mathematik in ihren vielfältigen Anwendungen. Romano Alberti spricht von „non poche speculative scientie“, die sich diesbezüglich anbieten.60 Und er beginnt mit der Perspektive, die er mit Bezug auf Aristoteles der Mathematik wie der Physik zuordnet. Er beschreibt, wie der Maler vorerst über den ‘Sehsinn’ die Umrisse und andere Merkmale eines zu malenden Objekts – er wählt das Beispiel des menschlichen Körpers – aufnimmt, diese zusammen mit der Vorstellung dem Intellekt zur Beurteilung überträgt, um dann diese ‘Einsicht’ gepaart mit dem ‘Urteil’ schliesslich in das Bild zu übersetzen. Die verwendeten Begriffe dieser – insgesamt mit disegno umschriebenen – Kette von Erkenntnissen, Urteilen und konkreten Massnahmen sind raggi visivi, imaginatione, intelletto und schliesslich discorso, dem bei Vitruv der Begriff ratiocinatio und bei Alberti das “cum ratione” entspricht.61 Je grundsätzlicher dieser Erkenntisvorgang mit der auf dem disegno aufbauenden künstlerischen Tätigkeit verbunden wird, desto mehr kann von einer scienza die Rede sein. Der Künstler beruft sich auf diese Grundlagen, um sich seiner Aufgabe auf systematische Weise annehmen zu können; der Architekt hat dabei den Vorteil, dass er sich zudem auf die Autorität Vitruvs und dessen Empfehlung der Kenntnis einer „graphidis scientia“ berufen kann. So oder anders gelangt die Kunst über den disegno zu einer universal ausgerichteten, ‘spekulativen’ Fähigkeit, die im weitesten Sinne philosophisch grundgelegt oder tout court philosophisch ist. Die Universalität der Künste und die heilsgeschichtliche Perspektive (Peritiam Graphidos) Che è peritia de i lineamenti, che serve à pittori, à ­scultori, intagliatori, & simiglianti, la quale alle arti predette in quel modo serve, che le mathematice serveno alla filosofia. (Daniele Barbaro, I Dieci Libri dell’Architettura di M.Vitruvio Tradutti et ­Commentati..., Venezia: Francesco Marcolini 1556, S.10.) Le Scienze vengono da Dio. (Antonio Possevino, Coltura de gl’Ingegni, Vicenza: Giorgio Greco 1598, S.5.)  Cf. Zuccari, Idea de’ pittori, scultori et architetti, Torino, 1607; hier zitiert nach: Paola Barocchi, o.c., II, 1973, S.2062. 58   Cf. Scamozzi 1615, o.c., S.6. (Vgl.oben.) 57

22

  Id., S.2.  Cf. Romano Alberti, Trattato della Nobiltà, 1585, o.c., S.31. 61   Id., S.16. 59 60

Die

universale

Zeichnung („disegno“)

des

Künstlers

und/versus die „graphidis scientia“

Es gibt aber noch andere, grössere Welten, von denen aus ‚universale’ Ansprüche auf die Künste gelenkt und projiziert werden. Und dazu gehören in erster Linie die Religion und die Kirche. Der Bericht über die Anfänge der römischen Academia del Dissegno, die deren Sekretär Romano Alberti im Sinne der Auffassungen des Principe, Federico Zuccari, 1599 verfasste und 1604 in Pavia erscheinen liess, sind dem Kardinal Federico Borromeo gewidmet, der damals seinerseits in Mailand mit der Akademiegründung beschäftigt war und dazu später, 1620, die Leges observandae einleitend, schrieb: Non aliqua nobis humana causa fuit instituendi Scholam, sive Academiam hanc picturae et sculpturae, architectonicaeque artis, sed animo nostro propositum fuit, ut erudirentur artifices ad divini cultus opera, et aliquando meliores in eo genere artes eas faceremus.62 Das beschreibt den weiteren Rahmen und den geistigen Bereich, in den das konkrete operare des Kunstschaffenden gestellt und mit entsprechender Akzentuierung und Begründung ausgestattet werden soll: ut peritus aliquis disserat non solum de ipsa pingendi, vel sculpendi disciplina, sed de Christianarum quoque virtutum officiis.63 Insofern die Künste den Menschen im Sinne einer christlichen Lehre auf die „via salutis“ weisen sollen, liefert nun eben die Dottrina Cristiana die letzte Begründung. Heilslehre, Kunst und Architektur sind sich so besehen sehr nahe. In der weitverbreiteten, einschlägigen, der Instruktion einer christlichen Lehre gewidmeten Schrift benützt Robert Bellarmin, Augustinus nachfolgend, passend die Metapher eines Bauwerkes: Sant’Agostino ci dà la similitudine della casa [Serm.22, de verbis Domini]. Perchè siccome per fare una casa, è necessario metter prima il fondamento, e poi alzar le mura, e alla fine coprirla col tetto; e per far queste cose ci bisognano alcuni istrumenti. Così per fare nell’anima l’edificio della Salute, ci bisogna il fondamento della Fede, le mura della Speranza, il tetto della Carità, e gl’instrumenti, che sono i Santissimi Sacramenti(Fig. 7).64 Die Architektur gibt selbst das Bild heilsgeschichtlicher Vorsehung ab. In seiner Bibliotheca Selecta überprüft Antonio Possevino in diesem Lichte der via salutis Ursprung, Methode und zudem “pietas” der Architektur (fig. 8).65 Am salomonischen Tempel wird der direkte Einfluss Gottes mittels seiner sapientia, intelligentia & scientia erwiesen. Und so ergibt sich die grundsätzliche Frage, „an aedificandi ratio peti debeat ex uno Vitruvio. Num item ex Salomonici Templi, quae olim extabat structura“.66 Die Autorität Vitruvs wird zurückgestuft und dem die ‘Tatsache’ des gebauten salomonischen Tempels gegenübergestellt, dessen ‘Beweisführung’ ja gerade damals durch Prado und Villalpando, 1596–1604, erarbeitet und

  Cf. Federico Borromeo, ‘Leges observandae in Academia, quae de graphide erit’, in: Antonio Francesco Gori hg., Symbolae Litterariae Opuscula Varia..., Decadis Secondae Volumen Septimum, Roma: Pagliarini 1754. S.97–102, hier: S.97. – Vgl. Werner Oechslin, ‘„Doctrina & Veritas“ e prassi: esperienze milanesi di Borromini’, in: Manuela KahnRossi, Marco Francioli (hg.), Il giovane Borromini. Dagli esordi a San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, (Catalogo della mostra), Museo Cantonale d’Arte, Lugano, Milano: Skira 1999, S.437–451. 62

  Cf. Borromeo 1754, o.c., S.98.   Cf. Roberto Bellarmino, Dichiarazione della Dottrina Cristiana Composta per ordine di N.S.Papa Clemente VIII... Rivista, ed approvata dalla Congregazione della Riforma..., Lucca: Marescandoli, s.a., S.4. 65  Cf. Antonio Possevino, Bibliotheca Selecta de Ratione Studiorum, ... recognita novissime ab eodem, et aucta..., Köln: Johann Gymnicus 1607, II, S.246. 66   Id., S.247 (Titel von Cap.XVII). 63 64

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Werner Oechslin

7. Roberto Bellarmin, Dichiarazione della ­dottrina cristiana composta per ordine di N.S. Papa Clemente VIII. Lucca, Marescandoli, [o.D.]. Titelblatt.

8. Antonio Possevino, Bibliotheca Selecta De Ratione Studiorum. Ad Disciplinas, & ad Salutem omnium gentium procurandam. Recognita Novissime Ab Eodem, Et Aucta, & in duos Tomos distributa. Köln, Johann Gymnich, 1607. Titelblatt in Form eines Altaraufbaus mit der Ansicht der Stadt Köln und den Allegorien der sieben freien Künste.

publiziert wurde.67 Possevino stellt dementsprechend Herleitung und Geschichte der Architektur in ein anderes – jesuitisches – Licht, so wie das ja auch Rubens später in der Einleitung zu seinen Palazzi di Genova tut, wenn er die Überwindung der ‘barbarischen’ und ‘gotischen’ Architektur durch die „vera simmetria“ mit den „Tempij famosi fatti di fresco dalla venerabil Società di IESU“ in Brüssel und Antwerpen begründet.68 Possevino beruft sich seinerseits auf Ammanati und insbesondere auf Giuseppe Valeriani, den er „Pictor & Architectus, idemque iam Sacerdos societatis nostrae“ nennt.69 Kritik richtet sich nicht nur gegen das Ungenügen Vitruvs, sondern auch gegen den vielerorts bemerkten defectus Graphidis, was hier generell als ‘mangelnde Kompetenz’ verstanden werden muss, jedoch durch ‘mangelnde Kenntnis im  Cf. Hieronymi Pradi et Ioannis Baptistae Villalpandi e Societate Iesu In Ezechielem Explanationes et Apparatus Urbis, ac Templi Hierosolymitani Commentariis et Imaginibus Illustratus, Opus tribus 67

24

tomis distinctum, Roma: Zannetti I, 1596; Carolus Vulliettus, II, III, 1604. 68  Cf. Pietro Paolo Rubens, Palazzi Moderni di Genova..., Antwerpen, 1652, „Al Benigno Lettore“. 69   Cf. Possevino, Bibliotheca Selecta, o.c., II, S.247.

Die

universale

Zeichnung („disegno“)

des

Künstlers

und/versus die „graphidis scientia“

Zeichnen’ konkret ausgewiesen wird. Umgekehrt wird Juan Battista de Toledo gerade dafür gerühmt, dass er zwanzig Jahre in Italien zugebracht hat, „ut Graphidem primo, mox Architecturam addisceret“.70 Die Zeichnung geht also ­voraus, was Possevino nochmals ausgehend von Leonbattista Albertis Kritik an Vitruv in den Vordergrund stellt. Sie ist notwendig, wenn es denn um die Definition der einzelnen Formen und Körper von Gebäuden geht: „certe ipsa Graphidis ars, his optime d ­ isponendis pernecessaria est.“71 Und er fügt – ganz im Sinne der damaligen Diskussion zum „disegno“ – hinzu, dass der Zeichnung eine allumfassende Führungsrolle zukomme: directrix est graphis, ex qua Pictura, glyphice, Sculptura, caeteraeque artes, quas vocant Mechanicas, ­ ­rectius Banausicas, fluxere.72 Possevino setzt all dies in den noch viel grösseren, ‘heilsgeschichtlichen’ Zusammenhang, gemäss dem Gott alles, sapienza und scienza, zusammenfasst. Was der Mensch und was menschliche Intelligenz zu Wege bringt, findet darin seinen Urgrund. Ganz in diesem Sinne ersetzt Possevino die Autorität Vitruvs durch diejenige göttlicher 9. Antonio Possevino, Coltura de gli’ingegeni. Vicenza, Allmacht und des im Salomonischen Tempel Giorgio Greco, 1598. Titelblatt. – auch die Architektur konkret betreffenden – Offenbarungswissens. Der disegno passt in das Bild der göttlichen Vorsehung und verleiht der künstlerischen Erfindung und deren Instrumente eine universale Begründung. Possevino hat Teile dieser in der “Bibliotheca selecta” ausgebreiteten Argumentation 1598 in Vicenza in einer italienischen Übersetzung publiziert, die den Titel “Coltura de gl’Ingegni” trug und insbesondere den Zusammenhang menschlicher Vernunft mit göttlicher Weisheit und Intelligenz unter Beweis stellen sollte. Gott hätte die menschliche Natur so angelegt, dass sie stets nach „Religione, & Sapienza“ trachten würde (fig. 9).73 Er knüpft daran die im ersten Satz der Metaphysik geäusserte Überzeugung Aristoteles’, wonach der Mensch von Natur aus zu wissen verlange, und auch die Ausstattung mit den Sinnen, „specialmente quello de gli occhi“, was ihn insgesamt auf den Weg zur scienza führe.74 Dies wiederum wird unmissverständlich mit dem Satz „Le Scienze vengono da Dio“ verbunden, wobei hier einmal mehr Salomon als vermittelnde Instanz fungiert.75 Und natürlich beschränkt sich Possevino auch hier nicht auf diese grundsätzlichen Aussagen, er untersucht vielmehr bis in die Einzelheiten hinein die besonderen Eignungen und Fähigkeiten, die dem ingegno eingegeben sind, und  Ibid.  Ibid. 72  Ibid. 70 71

 Cf. Antonio Possevino, Coltura de gl’Ingegni, Vicenza: Giorgio Greco 1598, S.2. 74   Id., S.3. 75   Id., S.5. 73

25

Werner Oechslin folgt darin Juan de Huartes vielverbreitetem einschlägigen Werk des Esame degl’Ingegni. Aus der „buona imaginativa“ würden alle Künste und Wissenschaften entstehen, die sich dann in „figura, corrispondenza, harmonia & proportione“ äussern würden und die natürlich „il Dipingere“ genauso wie „il Disegnare“ und all die anderen Tätigkeiten im Rahmen der „artes“ betreffen.76 Die Argumentation göttlicher Herleitung von Kunst und Architektur beschränkt sich natürlich nicht auf die römische Kirche und die jesuitische ratio studiorum. Franciscus Junius leitet das erste Buch seiner Darstellung The Painting of the Ancients 1638 mit der Absichtserklärung ein: My purpose is, by God’s assistance, to set forth the Art of painting, as in old times it hath begun, as it was promoted, as it came to that wonderfull ­ perfection mentioned in ancient Authors. (fig. 10).77

10. Franciscus Junius, The Painting Of The Ancients in three Books: Declaring by Historicall Oberservations and Examples, The Beginning, Progresse, And Consummation of that most Noble Art. … Written first in Latine … And now by Him Englished, with some Additions and Alterations. London, Richard Hodgkinsonne, 1638. Titelblatt.

Und er präzisiert die ‘göttliche Unterstützung’ im ersten Satz des ersten Kapitels, in dem er Gott selbst – unter dem (viel später von Semper in gleicher Weise benützten) doppeldeutigen Begriff des κο′σμος als Welt und Ornament – den Ursprung allen Schaffens in der Weltschöpfung zuweist:

The good and great maker of this Universe, created the world after so glorious and beautifull a manner, ­ that the Greekes together with the Romanes, a ­consent also of the Nations perswading them thereunto, have called it by the name of an Ornament.78

Ornament! Das Grosse liegt im Kleinsten verborgen - gemäss dem göttlichen Schöpfungsplan. Junius verweist - gemäss der lateinischen Version - grundsätzlich (und auch mit Verweis auf Quintilian) auf die „perfectissimi exemplaris idea“. Es geht bei der künstlerischen Tätigkeit seiner Meinung nach nicht nur um “imitatio”, sondern weit mehr um contemplatio, auf dass sich der Künstler dem ganzen gottgeschaffenen Kosmos zuwende (fig. 11,12).79  Id., S.27: Possevino folgt hier der verbreiteten, 1575 erstmals spanisch publizierten und noch zu Lebzeiten des Autors ins Italienische übersetzten Darstellung von Juan de Dios Huarte Navarro, „Examen de Ingenios“. Eine spanische Ausgabe wurde auch von Plantin verlegt. Hier benützt die Übersetzung von Camillo Camilli: Gio. Huarte, Essame de gl’Ingegni de gl’Huomini, per Apprender Le Scienze, Cremona: Christoforo Draconi 1588.

76

26

  Cf. Franciscus Junius, The Painting of the Ancients, in three Bookes, London: Richard Hodgkinsonne 1638, S.1. 78   Id., S.3. 79  Hier gemäss der dem Text vorausgehenden Zusammenfassung in der Ausgabe Graevius’: Franciscus Junius, De Pictura Veterum Libri Tres, Rotterdam: Regneri Leers 1694, S.1. 77

Die

universale

Zeichnung („disegno“)

des

11. Franciscus Junius, De Pictura Veterum Libri Tres. Rotterdam, Reinier Leers, 1694. Titelblatt.

Künstlers

und/versus die „graphidis scientia“

12. Die in der Antike blühenden Künste. Frontispiz, Kupferstich, gez. von Adriaen van der Werff, gest. von Joseph Mulder, in: Franciscus Junius, De Pictura Veterum Libri Tres. Rotterdam, Reinier Leers, 1694.

Solch umfassendes Argumentieren und Begründen mag dazu beigetragen haben, dass Rubens in seinem Dankesbrief an Junius vom 1.August 1637 vollen Lobes war und das Werk „ad unguem satisfactum“ vollendet beurteilte.80 Unnötig beizufügen, dass Junius natürlich über die zentrale Bedeutung der Linien und der Zeichnung ausführlichst berichtet. Dass dies umgekehrt in grösserem Zusammenhang der religio des Menschen zu Gott steht, und dass die Bilder ihm (und seiner indignitas) und seiner Bindung zu Gott behilflich sein können, zieht sich wie ein roter Faden durch das entsprechende Schriftum. Wie wörtlich das Bild der im gleichen Begriff κο′σμος gegebenen Verbindung des Kleinsten mit dem Grössten aufgefasst werden konnte, lässt ein auf den ersten Blick ausgefallenes Beispiel erkennen, bei dem ausgerechnet die Zeichnung die entscheidende Rolle spielt. Es verweist einmal mehr auf den grösseren Zusammenhang, in dem menschliche Imaginationskraft betrachtet werden kann. In seinem wiederholt aufgelegten Werk Polyhistor Symbolicus, das der Deutung historischer Parabeln gewidmet ist und im ersten Buch die Welt insgesamt behandelt, erzählt der aus Troyes stammende Jesuit Nicolas Caussin, Plinius folgend, die Begegnung Protogenes’ mit Apelles (fig. 13).  Id., o.S. (zusammen mit Briefen von Hugo Grotius und Anton van Dyck abgedruckt nach dem 80

Widmungsschreiben von Junius und vor der Ode Joh. Georg Graevius’ zum Werk „De Pictura Veterum“).

27

Werner Oechslin Der Künstlerwettstreit äußert sich in ‘subtil’, kaum sichtbar auf eine Leinwand gesetzten Linien, in denen sich Protogenes und Apelles jedoch dank ihres tiefen Kunstverstandes und dank ihrer meisterlichen Künstlerschaft gegenseitig erkennen. Caussinus’ Folgerung in der Apodosis lautet so: „Deus in hac rerum universitate quasi in tabula subtilissima operum suorum duxit lineamenta, ex quibus agnosci potest.“81 Der göttliche Plan äussert sich in feinsten Linien, in denen sein Werk erkennbar wird. Und daraus ergibt sich zudem die Möglichkeit der Erhebung menschlicher Einsicht zur Gotteserkenntnis: „sic ex minimis etiam rebus Dei magnitudinem possumus colligere.“82 In den kleinsten Dingen schon lässt sich die Grösse Gottes erkennen. Zuvor, im ersten ‘Symbol’, hat Caussin von Platos Timaios ausgehend die Welt als Abbild Gottes erklärt, Mundus Dei Imago: „Maximus mundus sapientiae, sanctitatis, intellegentiae, vitae, rationum, formarum“.83 Umfassender lässt sich die Welt wohl kaum beschreiben; in ihr sind die rationes und die Formen enthalten, auf 13. Nicolas Caussin, Polyhistor Symbolicus. Electorum die sich der disegno bei allen unterschiedSymbolorum, Et Parabolarum Historicarum stromata, XII. lichen Deutungen und Akzentsetzungen Libris complectens. Paris, Simeon Piget, 1647. Titelblatt. immer wieder bezieht. Dem sprichwörtlichen ex ungue Leonem wird das ex linea Apellem, vel Protogenem84 an die Seite gesetzt, und beides stellvertretend als Schluss auf die Grösse Gottes, als ‘Gottesbeweis’ aufgefasst.  rs triplex – der (versöhnliche) Zirkelschlag und die Vereinigung der Künste A in der Poetik (fig. 14) Stringetevi per tanto, o belle Arti, in nobile, e gloriosa amicizia. (‘Orazione Dell’Illustrissimo,e Reverendissimo Signore Monsignor Cybo Presidente della Reverenda Camera Apostolica, Detta in Campidoglio per l’Accademia del Disegno. L’Anno MDCCVI, in: Giuseppe Ghezzi hg., Le Belle Arti in Lega con La Poesia per l’Accademia del Disegno Celebrata in Campidoglio il dì 6 Maggio 1706, Roma: Gaetano Zenobj 1706, S.19-36, hier: S.33.) Dieser Form des Denkens in Bezügen und Metaphern sind kaum Grenzen gesetzt. Ein Zirkel steht in Heinrich Engelgraves Lux Evangelica betiteltem Emblembuch als Illustration zu dem Zitat aus dem Johannesevangelium „Stetit in medio“ (fig. 15).85 Damit wird insbesondere   Cf. Nicolas Caussin, ‘Polyhistor Symbolicus’, in: Id., Symbolica Aegyptiorum Sapientia, Paris: Simeon Piget 1647, S.239. 82  Ibid. 83   Id., S.237. 81

28

  Id., S.239.   Cf. Heinrich Engelgrave, Lux Evangelica sub velum Emblematum ..., Köln/Amsterdam: Iacob à Meurs 1655, S.299 (Emblema XXIII; Dominica prima post Pascha.) 84 85

Die

universale

Zeichnung („disegno“)

des

Künstlers

und/versus die „graphidis scientia“

14. Einladungskarte der römischen Academia di San Luca zu einem Treffen am 11. November 1832 mit dem Motto der Akademie. Dargestellt ist zusammengefasst durch einen “Ouroboros” Zirkel, Pinsel und Meissel, die Symbole der drei Künste, die unter dem Motto der “Aequa Potestas” unter den ­ “disegno” gestellt sind. Kupferstich. 15. Emblem zu „Stetit in medio“ mit dem Zirkel. Kupferstich in: Heinrich Engelgrave, Lux Evangelica sub velum Sacrorum Emblematum recondita in Anni Dominicas Selecta Historia & Moralia Doctrina Variè Adumbrata. Köln, Jacob von Meurs, 1655. Emblem 23, S. 299.

Christus als mediator gedacht, womit wiederum das Heilsgeschehen insgesamt, einem ­göttlichen disegno gleich, in Erinnerung gerufen wird. „Medio stans perficit orbem“: auf diese Weise wirkt Gott in der Welt. Grundsätzlicher, universaler lässt sich das Bild des Zirkelschlags wohl kaum deuten. Man ist kaum überrascht, dass solche Bilder und Vorstellungen – und der Zirkel insbesondere – auch dort bemüht werden, wo das Zusammengehen der Künste symbolisiert werden soll. Er erscheint im Emblem der römischen Akademie. Natürlich hatte man früh an diese Frage gedacht; doch nach erster Lesung am 26. Januar 1594, und nachdem der Principe, Federico Zuccari, selbst (noch) keinen Vorschlag einbringen wollte, vertagte man das Geschäft, um sich spontan einer Anatomie, einer Sezierübung, zu widmen, zumal das damals besonders kalte Wetter eine solche Arbeit begünstigte.86 Doch eine „impresa dignissima“ drängte sich auf. „SIC OPERATUR“ wurde als Motto vorgeschlagen, weil die Zeichnung allseits ihre Wirkung im Werk zeige.87 Doch es bedurfte noch längerer Erörterung und Präzisierung der jeweiligen Wesensmerkmale der drei Künste, um eine tragfähige Basis 86

  Cf. Romano Alberti, o.c., S.27 f.

  Id., S.32.

87

29

Werner Oechslin und einen Konsens zu schaffen. (Die ersten Bemühungen verliefen ja parallel zur schwierigen Diskussion mit den Architekten.88) Bis man dann zu Formulierungen wie „Tre pratiche congiunte, e una scienza“89 fand, dauerte es; später prägt sich das als allseits überzeugende Lösung ein, um dann hundert Jahre nach der Akademiegründung Gegenstand vielfältiger, gelehrter Reflexion zu werden. Während der ganzen Amtszeit Zuccaris nehmen die grundsätzlichen Fragen des disegno, die Motti und Embleme miteinbegriffen, einen bedeutenden Platz im Akademieleben ein. Am Ende – sein Nachfolger Tomaso Lauretti hat mittlerweile das Amt angetreten – verabschiedet sich Zuccari mit dem Vorschlag der „Dieci attributi del Dissegno interno, & esterno“.90 Dabei wird besonders deutlich, dass dem disegno mittlerweile eine in der Tat universale Bedeutung zugewachsen ist: „Oggietto commune intorno di tutte, le intelligenze humane“, „Ultimo termine d’ogni compita cognitione humana“, „Quasi un’altro Nume...“ und auch „Una scintilla ardente della divinità in noi.“91 Das erinnert allenfalls an Nikolaus von Kues und seine Interpreten, die in den – allerdings geometrisch (verlässlichen) – Figuren bis zum Gottesbeweis schritten. Aber nun ist es die Zeichnung in grundsätzlicher, nicht ausschließlich die Hilfeleistung der Mathematik beanspruchenden Absicht und Bestimmung, die sich in der Vermittlung des Geistigen mit der äusseren Welt der entscheidenden Mittlerolle vergewissert und so an die Spitze der cognitione humana gelangt. 1695 feierte die Accademia del Disegno ihr hundertjähriges Bestehen und zelebrierte in einem triumphalen Gang zum Kapitol dieses Ereignis. Auf einem Carro di luce, begleitet von Apoll und der in Purpur gekleideten vaga Aurora, wurde der personifizierte ‘Hundertste’ durch die antiken Foren hindurch auf den Kapitolshügel geführt.92 Über dem Eingang erwartete eine Inschrift die Feiernden, die – in Anspielung an das berühmte „Roma quanta fuit, ipsa ruina docet“ – die drei römischen Foren „in triplici gloria“ mit den gefeierten, in der Akademie als „ars triplex“ in eins zusammengeführten Künste in Vergleich setzte: Quantum Roma fuit toti spectabilis Orbi

Hoc fuit triplici gloria Magna Foro.

Heìc spectare datur toto laudabilis Orbe

Ars triplex, alio celebrando loco.

Quisquis ades: Plausa geniali Academia fastos

Centenos recolit: dic bona Verba, Fave.93

Diesen geschichtlichen Zusammenhang symbolisierten die Namen Apelles’, Praxiteles’ und Vitruvs zusammen mit dem Bilde des ‚Phoenix aus der Asche’, mit dem nun auf die Tätigkeit der Accademia di S.Luca „Coloribus Statuis Aedificiis in Suis Professoribus“ verwiesen wurde.94 Auf dem Kapitol präsentierten sich die drei Künste „Formis, Modulis, Tabulisque“ und stellten sich der „gara delle tre Sorelle Pittura, Scultura, ed Architettura“, was dann der junge Placido Eustachio Ghezzi in seiner Orazione Accademica ausführlichst zur Darstellung brachte und ausschmückte.95 Da trat die Architektur nochmals auf und sprach zu Malerei und Skulptur: „Tacete Ambedue, che voi solo corteggiate le mie Opere, e non le eguagliate.“96 Der  Vgl.oben.   Cf. Romano Alberti, o.c., S.50. 90   Id., S.76. 91  Ibid. 92  Cf. Giuseppe Ghezzi, ‘Relazione’, in: Giuseppe Ghezzi hg., Il Centesimo dell’Anno M.DC.XCV. celebrato in Roma dall’Accademia del Disegno Essendo Prencipe Il Signor Cavalier Carlo Fontana 88 89

30

Architetto, Roma: Gio.Francesco Buagni 1696, S.3–22, hier: S.9. 93  Ibid. 94   Id., S.10. 95   Cf. Placido Eustachio Ghezzi, ‘Orazione Accademica’, in: Giuseppe Ghezzi (hg.), Centesimo, o.c., S.23–36. 96   Id., S.35.

Die

universale

Zeichnung („disegno“)

des

16. Giuseppe Ghezzi, Le Belle Arti Con La Poesia. Per L’Accademia Del Disegno Celebrata in Campidoglio il dì 6. Maggio 1706. … Relazione. Rom, Gaetano Zenobi, [1706]. Titelblatt mit dem Motto der Akademie.

Künstlers

und/versus die „graphidis scientia“

17. Chronos, die Musen, Minerva und Merkur führen das Bildnis des als Erneuerer der Künste gefeierten Papst Clemens XI zum Himmel. Kupferstich, gez. von Giuseppe Ghezzi, gest. von Giovanni Girolamo Frezza. Frontispiz zu: Giuseppe Ghezzi, Le Belle Arti Con La Poesia. Per L’Accademia Del Disegno Celebrata in Campidoglio il dì 6. Maggio 1706. … Relazione. Rom, Gaetano Zenobi, [1706].

Vortrag musste zu Ende kommen, zu einer Replik, so Ghezzi, blieb keine Zeit, worauf er dann ergänzte, Malerei und Skulptur hätten in den Archi di gloria, in den schönsten Nischen der Architektur, Platz gefunden, und alles hätte sich würdig in das Campidoglio degli applausi eingefügt. Man schritt darauf zur üblichen Preisverleihung und schenkte den erfolgreichen jungen Künstlern eine von Giovanni Hamerani gestaltete Medaille, deren Inschrift „Academìa Pictorum, Sculptorum & Architectorum Urbis“ von einem Ouroboros umfasst und zur Einheit gefügt war, einem „antichissimo Geroglifico del Centesimo“, wie die Festschrift anmerkt.97 Das Jubiläum von 1695 eröffnete eine besonders erfolgreiche Phase der römischen Akademie. Man gedachte anlässlich der zeitweilig alle Jahre stattfindenden Feier auf dem Kapitol in verschiedenster Weise des Wesens und des Zusammenspiels der Künste. 1706 stand die Ausweitung und Bindung an die ‘Poesie’ im Vordergrund. Aristoteles’ Poetik und Simonides bemühend war die Rede von der wechselseitigen Verbindung von Malerei und Poesie als mute Poesie respektive loquaci Pitture gewidmet (fig. 16, 17).98 Hinc Omnia!   Cf. Giuseppe Ghezzi hg., Centesimo, o.c., S.37.  Cf.Orazione Dell’Illustrissimo, ‘ E Reverendissimo Signore Monsignor Cybo Presidente della Reverenda Camera Apostolica, Detta in Campidoglio per l’Accademia del Disegno. L’Anno MDCCVI’, in: 97 98

Giuseppe Ghezzi hg., Le Belle Arti in Lega con la Poesia per l’Accademia del Disegno Celebrata in Campidoglio il dì 6.Maggio 1706..., Roma: Gaetano Zenobj, 1706, S.19–36, hier: S.32.

31

Werner Oechslin

18. Vignette mit Malwerkzeugen und Palette sowie dem Auge des Betrachters darüber. In: Giuseppe Ghezzi, Le Belle Arti Con La Poesia. Per L’Accademia Del Disegno Celebrata in Campidoglio il dì 6. Maggio 1706. … Relazione. Rom, Gaetano Zenobi, [1706]. S. 21.

19. Giuseppe Ghezzi, L’Utile Nelle Belle Arti Riconosciuto Nel Campidoglio Per L’Accademia Del Disegno Solennizata il dì 5. Maggio 1707. … Relazione. Rom, Gaetano Zenobi, [1707]. Titelblatt mit dem Motto der Akademie.

(fig. 18).99 Die Einheit der Künste wurde einmal mehr beschworen und Kardinal Cybo rief in seiner Festrede auf: Stringetevi per tanto, o belle Arti, in nobile, e gloriosa amicizia.100 1707 folgte ihm Kardinal Bentivoglio d’Arragona, der nicht nur auf die passende Wahl des mit der Perfektion des gleichseitigen Dreiecks kombinierten horazischen Mottos Aequa Potestas verwies; er führte auch aus, wie die noch so unterschiedlich geartete und auch unvollkommene virtù des Künstlers doch letztlich stets das gleiche Ziel vor Augen habe: „e siccome eadem figura omnibus, sed quaedam unicuique lineamenta deflexa, sic, & similes universi videmur, & inter se singuli dissimiles invenimur“.101 Und wie die sensi interni, wie der Intellekt über den Willen nach aussen tritt, um sich in den sensi esterni mitzuteilen, stellt er im Bild eines architektonischen Gehäuses dar, mit den nach aussen gerichteten Türen und Fenstern und andererseits mit dem innen über Treppen zu Raumfolgen verlängerten „lungo ordine di Potenze“.102 Die alten Themen werden immer wieder aufgenommen und neu diskutiert. 1705 hatte Bartolomeo Nappini ein Parere zum Emblem und Motto der Akademie vorgelegt. Er erging sich dabei in ausführlichsten grundsätzlichen Betrachtungen zum Umgang  Id., S.21. – So das Motto über dem der Orazione vorangestellten Emblem, das wie üblich Pinsel, Skalpell und Zirkel, zudem Palette und das Auge zusammenführt. 99

32

  Id., S.33.  Cf. Orazione Dell’Illustrissimo, l.c., S.27–49, hier: S.44 (nach Minucius Felix). 102   Id., S.37. 100 101

Die

universale

Zeichnung („disegno“)

des

Künstlers

und/versus die „graphidis scientia“

mit Emblemen und schlug dann eine umso überraschendere Begründung – und inhaltliche Bestätigung – des Symbols der römischen Akademie vor, das aus einer Notizia Matematica und aus einer Regola della Poetica enstanden sei.103 Die Wertigkeit der Künste wird also einmal mehr auch mathematisch interpretiert. Die (mathematische) Potenz über der Geraden ist ein Quadrat; über den drei gleichen Geraden des gleichschenkligen Dreiecks bilden sich in der Potenz drei identische Quadrate, wozu Clavius und dessen Euklidkommentar bemüht werden.104 Auf die künstlerische Potenz zurückgeführt heisst dies, dass alle drei Künste über die gleiche Bedeutung verfügen: „letteralmente con le Parole Aequa Potestas“.105 Später erinnert Nappini daran, dass das in der Mathematik so bedeutsame Dreieck das „simbolo così espressivo della Scienza“ sei, um dann gleich zu ergänzen, dass die durch Linien dargestellte Geometrie natürlich niemals perfekt sein könne (fig. 19).106 Umso mehr macht es Sinn, dass im Emblem der Akademie die drei Linien ‘symbolhaft’ durch die Instrumente der drei Künste dargestellt werden, um dann noch deutlicher die ‘Einheit der Künste’ ins Bild setzen zu können, so wie es offensichtlich Giuseppe Ghezzi erklärt haben wollte: Dice V.S. nel publicar la sua Impresa. Ho eletto dalle Matematiche dimostrazioni il Triangolo Equilatero, Corpo il più simbolico all’uguaglianza, & unità delle nostre tre belle Arti Pittura, Scultura, & Architettura, che giàmai rinvenir si possa, onde in luogo della semplicità delle sue tre perfette Linee, ho preso li tre principali Istromenti delle medesime tre Professioni, cioè, in vece dell’una il Penello, in vece dell’altra lo Scarpello, ed in vece della terza il Compasso tutto aperto a giacere, che uniti insieme, formano un perfetto Triangolo.107 „Scienza“, Universalität: Mathematik und Poesie vereint Ho eletto dalle Matematiche dimostrazioni il Triangolo Equilatero, Corpo il più simbolico all’uguaglianza, & unità delle nostre tre belle Arti Pittura, Scultura, & Architettura.  (Giuseppe Ghezzi, zitiert von Bartolomeo Nappa, Parere, in: Giuseppe Ghezzi hg., Il Premio trag li applausi del Campidoglio per l’Accademia del Disegno Celebrata il dì 7.Maggio 1705, Roma: Gaetano degli Zenobj 1705, S.71.) So fehlt eigentlich kein Argument, das nicht schon immer in der Diskussion des „disegno“ und mit besonderem Bezug auf das Zusammenspiel der rivalisierenden Künste diskutiert worden wäre. Durch die Poesie ist das Ganze noch besser zusammengeschnürt, die postulierte Einheit bestärkt (fig. 20). Oder umgekehrt, das System der Künste bildet im eigentlichsten Sinne eine Poetik. In der Zeit der aufkeimenden Debatte zum „disegno“ im 16.Jahrhundert hat Iulius Caesar Scaliger dazu die aktuellste Darstellung gegeben (fig. 21). Dort widmet sich der Autor der Frage, wie die Ideen in ‘verfestigter’ Form in die (äussere) Welt kommen, und antwortet: nicht ‘platonisch’, sondern gemäss der Einsicht: „sed nos efficimus“.108 Die Idea

103  Cf. Bartolomeo Nappini, ‘Parere... In forma di lettera al Signor Giuseppe Ghezzi, Pittore, e Secretario dell’Accademia del Disegno’, in: Giuseppe Ghezzi hg., o.c., S.61–79, hier S.64. 104  Ibid.

  Id., S.65.   Id., S.71. 107  Ibid. 108   Benützte Ausgabe: Iulii Caesaris Scaligeri Poetices libri septem, [Genf]: Petrus Santandreanus 1594, S.201. 105

106

33

Werner Oechslin

20. Emblem des Disegno – Feder und Pinsel – im Lorbeerkranz. In: Giuseppe Ghezzi, L’Utile Nelle Belle Arti Riconosciuto Nel Campidoglio Per L’Accademia Del Disegno Solennizata il dì 5. Maggio 1707. … Relazione. Rom, Gaetano Zenobi, [1707]. S. 51.

21. Julius Caesar Scaliger, Poetices libri ­septem. [Genf], Pierre d Saint-André, 1594. Titelblatt.

und der habitus faciendi der Kunst finden im konkreten Werk, dem Zielpunkt jeder Poetik, zusammen. Es geht auch hier, so wie das noch unter Zuccari mit dem sic operatur in die Diskussion geworfen wurde, in erster Linie um das ‘Machen’, um poiesis, und genauer und, ganz im Sinne von disegno interno/disegno esterno, um das „aus einer inneren in eine äussere Welt bringen“.109 Dies richtet sich nach den Fragen quod, quare, quo, quomodo und nach den jeweiligen Möglichkeiten und Verschiedenheiten der Künste. Es bildet den gemeinsamen Rahmen, in dem der Künstler agiert, und in dem er mit seinen Mitteln des disegno – nunmehr umfassend auf sämtliche künstlerischen Mittel ausgedehnt – die Vorstellungen im weitesten Sinne ins Bild setzt. Und der Vielfalt der Künste von Malerei, Skulptur und Architektur, und der in ihr gepflegten unerschiedlichen Befähigungen entspricht die alte Auffassung einer alles umfassenden Poetik. In der Widmung seiner Studie über Horaz’ Poetik an Alessandro Farnese erkennt Pomponius Gauricus in der von den Griechen geforderten frühen Ausbildung in der Poetik wie in der Mathematik das Erfolgsrezept einer diesen weiten, philosophischen Rahmen beanspruchenden Poetik: „...ob eam causam Graeci ferme omnes proprios filios, Tum

109  Vgl. dazu und zu dieser Akzentsetzung: Ghislain Kieft, ‘Zuccari, Scaligero e Panofsky’, in: Mitteilungen

34

des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Flroenz, XXXIII, 1989, Heft 2/3, S.355–368.

Die

universale

Zeichnung („disegno“)

des

Künstlers

und/versus die „graphidis scientia“

22. Peter Paul Rubens, Théorie De La Figure Humaine, Considérée Dans Ses Principes, Soit En Repos Ou En Mouvement. Ouvrage traduit du latin …, avec XLIV Planches gravées par Pierre Aveline, d’après les desseins de ce célebre Artiste. Paris, Charles-Antoine Jombert, 1773. Erste Textseite mit Vignette. Kupferstich, gez. von Charles Nicolas Cochin, gest. von Charles Baquoy.

Poetica, Tum mathematicis disciplinis, in primis tenerisque Annis sub optimis praeceptoribus erudiendos curaverunt.“110 On peut réduire les éléments ou principes de la figure humaine, au cube, au cercle, & au triangle. Pour former un cube, il faut commencer par décrire un quarré, lequel étant lui-même composé de quatre parties, est nécessairement engendré d’un nombre; car un est un, & demeure toujours un tant qu’il est seul: il peut alors être considéré comme un point... (fig. 22).111 Auch so lässt sich der Prozess künstlerischer Figurenbildung ‘de-komponieren’, um ihn dann wieder, in beliebiger Variation zur Anwendung zu führen. Mit dem zitierten Satz beginnt der im Original verschollene, heute desssen ungeachtet wieder ernster genommene Text der Thèorie de la Figure Humaine von Rubens, in der von Charles-Antoine Jombert besorgten französischen Übersetzung (fig. 23).112 Der Bezug auf die geometrischen Grundformen ­verweist auf die Vorstellungen zu den inneren, künstlerischen ‘Potenzen’, die 110  Cf. Pomponius Gauricus, Super Arte Poetica Horatii, Rom: Valerius Doricus & Aloysius Frater Brixiani, 1541, o.S. [A ii recto]. 111   Peter Paul Rubens, Théorie de la figure humaine, considérée dans ses principes... Ouvrage traduit du

latin de Pierre-Paul Rubens...; Paris: Charles-Antoine Jombert 1773, S.1. 112   Vgl. jüngst: Arnout Balis, ‘Rubens’ lost Theoretical Notebook’, in: The Rubenianum Quarterly, 1, 2011, S.3–4.

35

Werner Oechslin

23. Peter Paul Rubens, Théorie De La Figure Humaine, Considérée Dans Ses Principes, Soit En Repos Ou En Mouvement. Ouvrage traduit du latin …, avec XLIV Planches gravées par Pierre Aveline, d’après les desseins de ce ­célebre Artiste. Paris, Charles-Antoine Jombert, 1773. Titelblatt und Frontispiz mit Portrait und Lebensbeschreibung von Rubens. Kupferstich, nach Peter Paul Rubens, gest. von Pierre Aveline.

24. Ableitung eines Kopfes aus geometrischen Grundformen. Kupferstich, nach Rubens, gest. von Pierre Aveline, in: Peter Paul Rubens, Théorie De La Figure Humaine, Considérée Dans Ses Principes, Soit En Repos Ou En Mouvement. Ouvrage traduit du latin …, avec XLIV Planches gravées par Pierre Aveline, d’après les desseins de ce ­célebre Artiste. Paris, Charles-Antoine Jombert, 1773. Tafel 6.

kraft des d ­ isegno über Formen und Figuren den Weg in äussere Gestalt finden (fig. 24). Der von Jombert 1773 besorgten Publikation ist ein entsprechendes Zitat aus Ciceros De Natura Deorum auf die Titelseite gesetzt: Quae compositio membrorum, quae conformatio lineamentorum, quae figura, quae species, humana potest esse pulchrior? Omnium animantium formam vincit hominis figura.113 Das ist, auf das Paradigma und das Modell des menschlichen Körpers angewandt und unter Anspielung auf das Amor vincit omnia Horaz’, der verbindliche Hinweis auf die generierende Kraft der Linien und Figuren, das was der Vorstellung vom “disegno” stets zugrundelag. Unnötig anzufügen, dass dies alles – in Anbetracht der weitausholenden Grundlegung umsomehr – zur jesuitischen Vorstellung von Ausbildung und Wissenschaft ad maiorem Dei   Cf. Rubens, Théorie 1773, o.c., Titel.

113

36

Die

universale

Zeichnung („disegno“)

des

Künstlers

25. Afbeeldinghe van d’Eerste Eeuwe der Societeit Iesu voor Ooghen gestelt door de DuytsNederlantsche Provincie der selver Societeyt. Antwerpen, Plantinsche Druckerei, 1640. Titelblatt. Kupferstich, gez. von Abraham van Diepenbeek.

und/versus die „graphidis scientia“

26. Emblem zur Erziehung der Jugend mit der Darstellung eines Bildhauerateliers. Kupferstich, gez. von Abraham van Diepenbeek, in: Afbeeldinghe van d’Eerste Eeuwe der Societeit Iesu voor Ooghen gestelt door de Duyts-Nederlantsche Provincie der selver Societeyt. Antwerpen, Plantinsche Druckerei, 1640. S. 282.

gloriam passt. In der bei Plantin in Antwerpen 1640 verlegten Festschrift zum hundersten Geburtstag des Jesuitenordens ist das der Unterweisung der Jugend zugewiesene Emblem mit dem Motto und Bibelzitat Donec formetur Christus in vobis ausgeschmückt und als Atelier eines Bildhauers gestaltet (fig. 25, 26).114 Und das Bild, wonach aus drei Elementen ein verstärktes Ganzes – wie in dem Emblem „aequa potestas“ der römischen Akademie – entsteht, hat auch hier sinnvolle Verwendung gefunden; drei fackeltragende Putten vereinen die drei Flammen in einem Licht, womit der Weg des Lebens des Ordens „door gheleertheydt en stichtbaerheyt“ symbolisiert werden soll (fig. 27).115 Längst ist alles über den engeren Kreis der Kunst und der ‚poiesis’ hinaus auf die virtus und gute Lebensführung bezogen weitergedacht und natürlich in den heilsgschichtlichen Rahmen gesetzt worden. Auch die Jesuiten verbinden diese ‚Universalisierung’ mit der Ausrichtung auf das konkrete Tun in dieser Welt. Selbst da, wo nicht immer die Spitze erreicht werden kann, sieht die ratio studiorum einen konkreten Weg vor. „Satis in ea profecisse“;116 jedermann soll an dieser Tätigkeit, auf seinem Lebensweg beteiligt sein. Es geht – wie in der Vorstellung des disegno – stets darum, den universalen Anspruch und die ‘scientia’, genauso wie die konkrete, weltimmanente,  Cf. Af-Beeldinghe van D’Eerste Eeuwe der Societeyt Iesu voor ooghen ghestelt door de Duyts-Nederlantsche Pronvincie der selver Societeyt, Antwerpen: Plantin 1640, S.282.

114

  Id., S.286.   Hier zitiert nach der Ausgabe: Ratio atq. Institutio Studiorum Societatis Iesu, Dillingen. Ioannes Mayer 1600, S.9 (§.11.Mediocritas) 115 116

37

Werner Oechslin angewandte ‘ratio’ im Rahmen einer umfassenden Heilsgeschichte zusammenzuhalten. Und wieder auf die ‚artes’ bezogen: In der Übereinkunft der drei – oder mit der Poesie gar vier – Künste liess sich dies bei allen Differenzen und Querelen unter den Disziplinen umso besser erreichen und darstellen. Das Horaz entlehnte Emblem der aequa potestas hat das für die römische Akademie in mustergültiger Weise verkörpert und ist zum erfolgreichen Symbol dieser ‘idealen’ Symbiose geworden.

27. Emblem mit der Darstellung von drei Putten, die die Flammen von drei Fackeln zu einem Licht vereinigen. Kupferstich, gez. von Abraham van Diebenbeek, in: Afbeeldinghe van d’Eerste Eeuwe der Societeit Iesu voor Ooghen gestelt door de Duyts-Nederlantsche Provincie der selver Societeyt. Antwerpen, Plantinsche Druckerei, 1640. S. 286.

38

Sebastiano Serlio

as a

Painter-Architect*

Sabine Frommel

Trained as a painter-architect, Sebastiano Serlio had learnt “disegno” and perspective as part of his apprenticeship. This was a common practice during Renaissance, which had been followed by some of the most illustrious predecessors like Bramante, Raffaello and Peruzzi and the Bolognese artist was proud of this.1 Nothing however is known about his early training that probably took place in the bottegha of an artist in Bologna, his native city, at the end of the fifteenth century, perhaps that of Francesco Francia. In Pesaro, where Serlio lived from 1508 to 1517, he was active both as a painter and as an architect, but nothing survives of his work in this period.2 A document of 1509 tells us that at that date he was more than 25 years old, so that we can suppose that he was born around 1484 and not in 1475, as a baptismal register, which has not survived, suggests.3 His affirmation in the Seventh Book that his primi anni coincided with the erection of porticos of Bologna, which happened about 1497, would consequently fit with the beginning of his career.4 In Pesaro the Sforza assigned Serlio the prestigious commission to design a new shrine for San Terenzio, the patron of the city, in the cathedral, and, in the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, a funerary chapel and paintings of religious themes, like The birth of the Virgin.5 After his return to Bologna he most probably continued a similar artistic itinerary, and 1522–23, the date in which he came into contact with Peruzzi, marks a turning point in his production. So he acquired progressively a broad repertoire of skills, which allowed him to conceive theatre scenes and drawings for intarsia, to compose one of the more important treatises of the Cinquecento, and, after his appointment as architecteur et paintre at the court of France in 1541, to design monumental buildings and interior decorations.6 While his architectural œuvre and his theoretical work have been studied in detail, the scarce and hypothetical traces of his activity as a painter are still quite mysterious and will perhaps remain forever an enigma. This essay aims at reconnecting to our former researches and at reconsidering them in a wider context, so as to underline some particular aspects of the works that we attributed to Serlio and to thus define in more detail his artistic evolution from 1520 until his move to Venice in 1527.7 These  I want to express my gratitude to Eva Renzulli for the stylistic revision of my article. 1  S. Serlio, Secondo Libro, (Paris 1545), fol.18v: ‘Bramante suscitatore della bene accompagnata Architettura, non fu egli prima pittore & molto intendente nella Prospettiva prima che si desse ad essa arte? Il divino Raffaello da Urbino non era universalissimo pittore, & molto instrutto nella Prospettiva prima di che operasse nell’Architettura? Il consumatissimo Baldessar Peruzzi Sanese fù ancor lui pittore, & nella prospettiva tanto dotto’. 2   S. Frommel, Sebastiano Serlio architect, (Milan 2003), pp.13–14; P. Berardi, ‘Arte e Artisti a Pesaro. Regesti i documenti di età malatestiana e sforzesca II’, Pesaro città e contà, n.14, 2001, pp.162–70. 3  S. Frommel, o.c., 2003, p.38; P. Berardi, l.c., 2001, p.162. I thank Raffaella Zama for having attracted my attention on this publication. *

  S. Serlio, Settimo Libro, (Francfurt 1575), p. 158 (also in Vienna manuscript of the treatise, fol.22r (P.F. Fiore in: P.F. Fiore and T. Carunchio (eds.), Architettura civile: Libri Sesto Settimo e Ottavo nei manoscritti di Monaco e Vienna, (Milan 1994), pp.XV-XVI. 5  S. Frommel, o.c., 2003, pp.13–14; P. Berardi, l.c., 2001, pp.162–65. 6   S. Frommel, o.c., 2003, pp.13–31. 7   Ibid., pp.14–16 and 43–56; S. Frommel, ‘Serlio pittore: fantasma o realtà?’, in: Arti a confronto. Studi in onore di Anna Maria Matteucci, (Bologna 2004), pp.86–90; Id., ‘Sebastiano Serlio prospettico. Stages in his artistic itinerary during the 1520s’, in: Perspective, projections, design, ed. by M. Carpo and F. Lemerle, (London – New York 2008), pp.79–85; S. Frommel, ‘Un ritratto di Sebastiano Serlio?’, in . M.G. Aurigemma (ed.), Dal Razionalismo al Rinascimento, per i quarant’anni di studi di Silva Danesi Squarzina, (Rome 2011), pp.71–79 4

39

Sabine Frommel

1. Sebastiano Serlio (?), Theatre Scenography. (Ferrara, Pinacoteca Nazionale, inv. 405).

2. Sebastiano Serlio (?), Theatre Scenography. (Ferrara, Pinacoteca Nazionale, inv. 406).

considerations will be integrated by the analysis of some examples of prototypes contained in his drawings, paintings and books, which were interpreted by artists that came in contact with him and his production in France. The first testimonies of Serlio’s figurative art Some works, which seem to be early productions of Serlio have been attributed to Girolamo da Cotignola, his colleague and friend, probably already from the years in Pesaro.8 The two “Strozzi Sacrati-panels”, held in the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Ferrara, with urban scenographies dating from 1520, and almost certainly intended as theatre stages, are to be attributed more probably to Sebastiano than to Girolamo (figs.1,2).9 In the first panel

 P. Berardi, l.c., 2001, p.16. On the mysterious relationship between Serlio and Cotignola see also R. Zama, Girolamo Marchesi da Cotignola, (Rimini 2007), pp.32–38. 9  We had attributed the panels to Sebastiano Serlio in: ‘Serlio pittore: fantasma o realtà?’, pp.86–90. See also G. Agostini, ‘Sebastiano Serlio’, in: Gli Este a Ferrara, eds. J. Bentini and C. Balsamo, (Milan 2004), p.214; S. Frommel, l.c., 2004, pp.86–90; G. Marcolini, La collezione Sacrati Strozzi. I dipinti restituiti a Ferrara, (Milan 2005), pp.98–101; S. Frommel, l.c., 2008, pp.79–85; A. Bliznukov, ‘Per Girolamo Marchesi dagli esordi al soggiorno bolognese’, Proporzione, 8

40

N.S., 6, 2005 (2007), pp.52–58, esp. p.54; A. Donati, Girolamo Marchesi da Cotignola, (San Marino 2007), p.58, pp. 157–158; R. Zama, o.c., 2007, pp. 215–16; S. Frommel, l.c., 2011, pp.71–79 (cfr. A. Donati, o.c., 2007, no 68 with detail of the portrait in the preface). G. Pochat, Theater und bildende Kunst, (Graz 1990), pp.303–06; S. Frommel, l.c., 2004, pp.86–89; R.Tuttle, entry no 116 in Leon Battista Alberti e l’Architettura, ed.M.Bulgarelli, A. Calzona, M. Ceriana and F.P. Fiore, (Milan 2006), pp.532–33; S.Frommel, l.c., 2008, pp.79–85; R. Zama, o.c., 2007, pp.215–16; S. Frommel, l.c., 2004, pp.86–89.

Sebastiano Serlio the higher level of the palcoscenico and the lower one communicate by two flights of steps ­ converging in a pulpitum with three arcades (fig. 1). It’s an early example in which the spatial organisation seems to respond to Vitruvius’ description of the stage. A similar type will be employed by Serlio, around 1527–28, in his intarsia of the Martyrdom of St Catherine in the choir of San Domenico in Bologna and in his scena comica of his Second Book (fig. 3).10 The second panel – perhaps a comic scene- is dominated by buildings of a more sober language and announces some peculiarities of the Serlian vocabulary such as on the right side the triumphal arch hollowed by niches (fig. 2). In 1528 the artist used the same motif in his Prospettiva architettonica drawn in Venice, where for the first time he reconsiders the Roman buildings he had seen, such as the Belvedere courtyard (fig. 4).11 A close relationship exists between these compositions and the perspectival constructions and details of his Second Book (1545) that were probably conceived, at least in parts, already in the 1520s; in particular the fols. 33, 39, 40 reveal such analogies.12 On the other hand the tragic scene of the same treatise, which goes back to the same years, recalls Bramante’s famous scenography of 1490 and shows heterogeneous influences.13 Though the opus of Serlio as a painter has been long overlooked, we have tried to resuscitate some indications through the attribution to Serlio of the Adoration of the Magi and the sheperds (Cassa di Risparmio di Cesena, Inv.n.535)14 and of the predella panels of the Betrothal of the Virgin: the Nativity and Joseph’s Dream (Bologna,   S. Frommel, o.c., 2003, pp.52–54; S. Frommel, l.c., 2004, p.87. 11  Id., o.c., 2003, p.52. 12  Id., l.c., 2008, pp.89–94. 13   Ibid., p.91. 14   For a complete biography see: R. Zama, o.c., 2007, p.171; see particulary: D. Benati, ‘Girolamo Marchesi’, in: Banca Popolare dell’Emilia Romagna. I dipinti antichi, (Modena 1997), p.36; A. Mazza (ed.), La 10

as a

Painter-Architect

3. Fra Damiano da Bergamo (according to Sebastiano Serlio), Martyrdom of St Catherine, (tarsia). (Bologna, San Domenico). Galleria dei dipinti antichi della Cassa di Risparmio di Cesena, (Milan 2001), pp.71–83; V. Fortunati, ‘Spie indiziarie per la storia di una committenza: Battista Bentivoglio’, in: M. Faietti (ed.), Il Cinquecento a Bologna. Disegni del Louvre e dipinti a confronto, (Milan 2002), pp.17–24: S. Frommel, o.c., 2003, pp.71–83; A. Donati, o.c., 2007, p.68 and pp. 160–61; R. Zama, o.c., 2007, t.XXIV-XXV, pp.167–71.

41

Sabine Frommel

4. Sebastiano Serlio, Prospettiva Architettonica. (Florence, GDSU, 12230A).

Pinacotheca Nazionale).15 (figs. 5, 15, 16). All these works belonged previously to the catalogue of Girolamo da Cotignola, undoubtedly author of the principal panel of the Bolognese Betrothal,16 whereas the stylistic peculiarities of the other ones are far from responding to the latter’s profile. In the foreground on the right side of the Adoration we can see a portrait of a man, which seems to be an effigy of Sebastiano Serlio (fig. 5).17 The central vanishing point ­ perspective and elaborate architectural mise-en-scène express a virtuosity that is scarcely conceivable of Cotignola, but instead calls to mind Serlio’s compositional methods of the Ferrara panels and other works in the 1520 (figs. 1, 2). The painting is most likely inspired by the famous drawing conceived by Baldassarre Peruzzi for count Bentivoglio during his stay in Bologna (1522–23), which had an enormous influence on the local milieu (fig. 6).18 But Serlio’s interpretation differs in some fundamental points from the principles of Peruzzi, who engaged him as his assistant. His artistic behaviour sheds light on the traditions to which he adhered in this period and on the techniques used by a painter-architect representing and interpreting a religious subject, which had experienced a complex metamorphosis.

 religious subject with a wide artistic development: A the “Adoration of the Magi” To clarify the trends, which Serlio could have adopted or refused, we have to look at the Quattrocento from which a significant iconographic and semantic tradition had emerged. The sober style of the architectural fragment and the shape of the wooden structure of the Adoration contrast with the usual combination of a poor stable, according to 15  S. Frommel, o.c., 2003, p.49; S. Frommel, o.c., 2004, pp.89–90; A. Donati, o.c., 2007, pp.10–105 and pp.159–60; R. Zama, o.c., 2007, t.XII, XXIII, pp.163–66 (with complete bibliography). 16  The altarpiece had been commissioned by the Fathers of the monastery of San Giuseppe at Bologna for their church in Via Galliera. The oldest guidebook of the city, written by Pietro Lamo about 1560, mentions: ‘Altare magior ne una taula del sponcialicio

42

de ma Ma dipinta e ma Ieronimo da Codignola notabile’ (R.Zama, o.c., 2007, p.163). 17   S. Frommel, l.c., 2011, pp.75–76. 18  London, British Museum, inv.1994–5-14–49 (C.L. Frommel, ‘Baldassare Peruzzi als Maler und Zeichner’, in: Römisches Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte, XI, Beiheft, (Vienna – Munich 1967–68); M. Faietti, ‘Baldassarre Peruzzi’, in: Il Cinquecento a Bologna, ed. by M.Faietti, (Milan 2002), pp.159–61.

Sebastiano Serlio

5. Sebastiano Serlio (?), Adoration of the Magi. (Cesena, Fondazione di Cassa di Risparmio).

as a

Painter-Architect

6. Baldassarre Peruzzi, Adoration of the Magi. (British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings, inv.19945-14-49).

the biblical text,19 and ruins of Classical monuments proposed by artists of the fifteenth or the beginning of the sixteenth century (fig. 5). In such representations the ruin becomes a metaphor of a glorious but corrupt past, while the derelict stable symbolizes the beginning of a new epoch. According to pope Innocent III, the Roman temple of Peace, erected in the Roman Forum, collapsed in during the night of the birth of Jesus Christ.20 It does not astonish that in a period like the Renaissance artists tried to evoke the historical period of Antiquity in an idealized way, rather than taking their inspiration from Biblical sources or other religious traditions, whose descriptions are mostly vague. The Adoration was one of the most profitable occasions to associate religious themes with theoretical thought, to develop reconstructions of Classical building and at the same time to consider the evolution of architectural typologies. Renaissance artists had to be competent in several spheres and such a theoretical interest led to a field of experimentation of the new artistic idioms. The study of Vitruvius’s treatise had stimulated such speculations and some phenomena were easier to carry over in painting than in monumental buildings. In the first chapter of his De Architectura Libri Decem the Roman architect had dealt in a very concrete way with primitive forms of construction and their evolution. Filarete in his treatise of 1460–62 had illustrated such structures as made with tree trunks thus providing a suitable model for the painters.21 The heterogeneous and metamorphosing building, composed both with poor   The stable, belonging to the overcrowded guesthouse where the Virgin and Joseph tried to check in, is not described in a precise way (Lucas 1,2). Accordingly to the Historia Scolastica the Virgin gave birth to the Christ in a wooden covered passage, inserted between two houses of a narrow street. (Die 19

Legenda Aurea des Jacobus de Voragine, translated by R. Benz, (Heidelberg 1963), p.53). 20   Ibid., p.54. 21   Antonio Averlino detto il Filarete. Trattato di Architettura, ed. by A.M. Finoli and L. Grassi, ( Milan 1972), vol.2, pl.4, 5 (ff.5r/v); (H.-W. Kruft, Geschichte der Architekturtheorie, (Munich 1986), pp.56–57)

43

Sabine Frommel

7. Francesco di Giorgio, Nativity. (Siena, Sant Agostino).

8. Leonardo da Vinci, Adoration of the Magi. (Louvre, Département des Arts graphiques, R.F.1978).  Guillaume de Loris, Jean de Meung (1237–1280): ‘Jamais aucun homme n’a vu, à mon avis, une maison aussi extravagante. D’un côté elle est très brillante, car elle a de superbes murs d’or et d’argent, et toute la toiture est de la même facture, resplendissante de pierre précieuses toutes chatoyantes et gracieuses. Chacun la trouve extraordinairement belle. De l’autre côté, les murs sont de boue et ne sont pas plus épais qu’une main: cette partie est toute couverte de chaume. D’un côté elle se dresse, orgeuilleuse à cause de sa beauté merveilleuse, de l’autre elle tremale, pleine de frayeur, tant elle se tient là, fragile béante et fendue partout de crevasses, en plus de cinq mille 22

44

materials and with elegant features of precious materials, is also a topic in medieval literature, like the Roman de la Rose.22 It’s not however sure, that such literary sources actually had an influence on painting. The most famous Quattrocento masters shared such an interpretation and have represented it with an extraordinary variety. In Botticelli’s Adoration (Uffizi), for instance, the stable consists in a rudimentary structure made of tree trunks supporting a wooden roof with coffers and integrating a dilapidated wall of rusticated blocks, which seems inspired by Giuliano da Sangallo’s drawings of Antique ruins.23 A fragment of an antique portico with pillars and arcades is placed in the background on the left side. The milieu of Lorenzo de’ Medici had encouraged the dialogue between painters and artists providing a permeability of scientific and artistic topics. In his Adoration Filippino Lippi (London, National Gallery) sets the roof directly on the walls formed by smooth pale white stone blocks, which flank a long rectangular rundown lodging.24 Important impulses came furthermore from Francesco di Giorgio, Perugino and Leonardo and, thanks to Raffaello and Peruzzi, they strongly influenced Roman development of painted architecture during High Renaissance. In Siena young Peruzzi had certainly been impressed by the Nativity of Sant’Agostino (1488–94) signed by his master Francesco di Giorgio, a fresco dominated by a heterogeneous building composed by an Antique ruin and a primitive wooden endroits’. I thank Paulina Spiechowicz who drew my attention on this description. 23  See N. Pons’s entry in Filippino Lippi e Sandro Botticelli nella Firenze del ‘400 (catalogue of the exhibition), (Milan 2011), p.112. The rusticated stone blocks recall the drawing of the Settizonio in the Cod. Vat. Barberiniano 4424, fol.30. 24  See N. Pons, l.c., 2011, pp.108–11. S. Frommel, ‘Tradition religieuse contre invention à l’antique: Ruines dans la peinture de la deuxième moitié du Quattrocento’, in: K. Kaderka (ed.), Les ruines. Entre destruction et construction de l’Antiquité à nos jours, (forthcoming).

Sebastiano Serlio

as a

Painter-Architect

9. Baldassare Peruzzi, Adoration of the Magi and the shephards. (Louvre, Département des Arts graphiques, inv.1416).

construction framed by irregular tree trunks and covered by thatch (fig. 7).25 The theatre motifs, pillars with Corinthian semi-columns and an entablature decorated by dentils, reveal the architect’s skill for drawing classical organisms. We can only presume that for an architect with theoretical ambitions like Francesco di Giorgio, the concept of Vitruvian evolution of building forms, progressing from the simple wooden structure towards classical orders, influenced this invention. In the background, on the left side, figures a formation of rocks, which allude simultaneously to the birth of the Christ in the stable of Bethlehem and to his grave. In the Adoration in the Pinacoteca of Siena Francesco di Giorgio filled the scene with complex metaphoric allusions: the wooden shed leans against a rock, while a classical tempietto is visible in the background.26 Putting together in a close assemblage the natural formation, a tholos and an archaic construction, he evokes both Christ’s Passion and the evolution of construction.27 The fictive buildings function as a bridge between theory and building practice. Similar phenomena can be observed in the work of a painter like Perugino who did not have any real building experience. The gnarled wooden supports, which carry the roof  P.A. Riedl and M. Seidel (eds.), Die Kirchen von Siena, (Munich 2006), 1,1, pp.75–76 and 1,2, no 155–56. 25

  C. Cieri, ‘Disegno e ornament nell’opera pittorica di Francesco di Giorgio’, in: P.F. Fiore (ed.), Francesco di Giorgio alla corte di Urbino, (Florence 2004), p.31. 27   According to an Italian tradition the tholos is linked to the cult of the Virgin (see below). 26

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Sabine Frommel in earlier representations, will soon be transformed in upright jambs fitted out with bases and capitals, and then into stone pillars.28 There is no linear development of such features and different types can remain simultaneously valid, but when a painter shows a growing interest for architecture it is possible to attribute this to a theoretical consideration on the theme.29 Perugino’s contacts with Giuliano da Sangallo in Florence and with Luca Fancelli, his father in law, who had started his career supervising Leon Battista Alberti’s Mantuan buildings, may have provided him with the knowledge for such a reflexion. The wooden primordial huts are also the starting-point of architectural backgrounds developed on a square pattern, a kind of prefabricated system of baldachins, made by four pillars covered by cross vaults. The Holy Family is also often set in such sober “halls”, drawn in strong central perspective, while a balanced relationship is managed between figures and architectural frames.30 In these structures Perugino gets rid of both, the poor wooden hut and the classical ruins, and privileges an abbreviated language, which recalls architectural idioms of Leon Battista Alberti and Francesco di Giorgio.31 But the painter also invented a series of more complex building backgrounds, which amalgamate Pagan and Christian elements. In a drawing of the British Museum, for instance, the action is placed in front of an elegant colonnade completed by an entablature, while in the background on the left side a wooden hut is erected.32 Leonardo’s Adoration (Uffizi in Florence), one of the more impressing evocation of the Antique, also fluctuates between inspiration from the Biblical tradition and a free interpretation. In a preparatory drawing (Louvre), a heterogeneous construction in the foreground combines vertical and horizontal tree trunks on one side and elegant arcades adorned with pilasters and crowned by a cornice on the other (fig. 8). The Holy Family, which is placed in front of this construction, symbolizes the rupture between two epochs in an emphatic way. A monumental Antique ruin, one of the rare visions of classical tradition imagined by the Florentine master, appears in the background. In the definitive version, perhaps because he wanted to accentuate the dramatic effect of the action, the hybrid building disappears. The protagonists are now assembled independently in the foreground, while the grandiose ruin dominates in the background on the left side: two parallel flights of steps lead to a monument placed on a porticus with imposing pillars.33 This element reveals that Leonardo was well informed about recent architectural inventions like the podium of the church of San Sebastiano in Mantua or perhaps of the famous villa of Lorenzo de Medici at Poggio a Caiano. The Antique evocation is linked to the ideal of the revival of classical culture with which the whole period was imbued. The theme of Adoration lost popularity in High Renaissance and Raffaello and Michelangelo privileged deeper psychological emotion to narrative subjects, Baldassarre  The Adorations of the Collegio del Cambio (Sala dell’Udienza), of San Francesco in Montefalco, of the Galleria Nazionale dell Umbria in Perugia, of the Oratorio dei Bianchi in Città del Pieve and of Santa Maria delle Lacrime in Trevi testimony of such metamorphosis (F.F. Mancini, ‘Verso il tramonto: formule consumate e pagine di poesia’ in: Perugino il divin pittore, (Milan 2004), pp.136–38. 29  S. Frommel, ‘Perugino und die Architektur’, in: H. Hubach, B. von Orelli-Messerli and T. Tassini (eds.), Reibungspunkte. Ordnung und Umbruch in Architektur und Kunst (Festschrift für Hubertus Günther), (Petersberg 2008), pp.83–90; J. Niebaum, ‘Loggia und Zentralbauten: Bildarchitekturen im Werk Peruginos’, in: A. Schuhmacher (ed.), Perugino: 28

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Raphaels Meister (catalogue of exhibition), (Munich 2011), pp.79–105. 30  For instance in the Polittico Albani Torlonia Collegio del Cambio in Perugia (S. Frommel, l.c., 2008, p.86). 31  Characterized by sober details, his bottega could reproduce those patterns easily and assimilate them to different religious subjects. 32   L.Venturini, ‘Breve nota su Perugino disegnatore’, in: Perugino. Il divin pittore, (Milan 2004), pp.331–35. 33  S.Taglialagamba, Leonardo & le scale: un, ipotesi per Poggio a Caiano, introductions by S. Frommel and C. Pedretti, (Poggio a Caiano 2011), pp.31–35.

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Peruzzi is one of the few artists who dedicated several drawings and painting to the Adoration, linked to the Quattrocento tradition. Executed between 1504–06 in the apse of Sant Onofrio in Rome, the first attempt paraphrases Pinturicchio’s painting in the chapel of the cardinal Domenico della Rovere in Santa Maria del Popolo (1488–90).34 The scene is set in front of a poor wooden hut covered by a thatched roof. In 1514 the guild of the vine-dressers commissioned Peruzzi to paint an Adoration for the chapel in San Rocco. Here he goes back to the primitive system of the primordial hut.35 The Adoration of 1514-15, held in the Louvre, where stone and wooden features are combined in a new manner shows that he aimed at a more innovative solution:36 an antique ruin hollowed by deep niches, and sustained by a wooden scaffolding is placed in the background. The Holy Family is assembled in the foreground; to one side a structure reduced to two pillars supporting a wooden roof opens onto a shabby stable.37 The architectural features are much more imposing here than in Sant Onofrio and the restoration-site of the ruin in the background confers a genuine touch to the scene. More dramatic is the Holy Family of 1515 (London, collection Philip Pouncey), where the tree trunks and beams of the shanty seem to draw the viewer directly into the action.38 The triangular gable of the roof evokes the archaic house, which is derived from the Antique temple, also the archetype of the Christian church. The ancient theatre and a triumphal arch are placed behind Joseph, on the left side, thus the Pagan age engages with the new Christian one. In contrast in the Louvre drawing, the figures dominate the setting and the presence of the architectural features becomes undemanding scenery. The Bentivoglio drawing of the Adoration of 1522–23 shows a very different interpretation of the theme that is influenced by the Sala di Costantino in the Vatican where Raffaello had inaugurated a new type of historical painting (fig. 6). In particular the Adloctutio represents Ancient Rome with an astonishing topographic precision: the Ponte Elio, the mausoleum of Hadrian and, on the other bank of the river the mausoleum of Augustus, the meta romoli and the circus of Nero with obelisks are clearly distinguishable.39 So Baldassarre now abandons the wooden hut and focuses only on classical architecture. In placing the Holy Family in front of the ruin of a triumphal arch, he ties undoubtedly to glorify the birth of the Christ in an emphatic manner. The details of the elegant fluted columns, cornices and niches reveal that archaeological interest were more important for him than traditional rules.40 Antique fragments drawn with particular care lie on the ground and act as seats for some figures, while the protagonists are hidden in turbulent groups of figures and horses. The predilection to intensify the antique atmosphere also characterizes the Holy Family (1522) of another artist from Siena, Domenico Beccafumi, in the church of San Martino in his native town.41 The main actors are grouped next to a triumphal arch, while both the marvellous ruin and the central perspective emphasize the event. Very different from Beccafumi’s narrative flair, Peruzzi’s archaeological precision had greatly developed in Rome. The same is true for Giulio Romano, his Holy Family in Santa Maria dell’Anima is set in a semi-circular portico crowned by a   C.L. Frommel, l.c., 1967–68, p.48, ill.IIIa.   Ibid., pp.78–79, ill. XXIVa. 36   Ibid., p.85, ill.XXIb. The sheet is dated in 1513–15. 37   Ibid., pp.78–79, Ill.XXIVa 38   Ibid., pp.79–80, Ill.XXV. C.L. Frommel, in: Il Rinascimento a Roma. Nel segno di Michelangelo e Raffaello, ed. by M.G. Bernardini and M. Bussagli, (Milan 2011), p.280 39  After the death of Raffaello in 1520 work had been finished by Giovanfrancesco Penna and Giulio Romano S.Ferino Pagden, ‘Giulio Romano pittore e 34 35

disegnatore a Roma’, in: Giulio Romano (catalogue of the exhibition at Palazzo del Te), (Milan 1989), pp.85–88. 40  He could have known in Bologna la Pala Bentivoglio of Francesco Francia (1494) where the family is kneeling before a building of antique inspiration, figured in rather an ingenuous manner. 41  The picture is held in San Martino in Siena Domenico Beccafumi e il suo tempo (catalogue of exhibition), (Milan 1990), pp.146–49.

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Sabine Frommel barrel vault with octagonal coffers recalling the porticos of the Trajan market.42 The building is carefully arranged: the arcades oriented towards the garden are supported by Doric pillars to which respond, on the inner wall of the porticus, pilasters on high pedestals. If highly sophisticated representations of such ruins became more and more dominant, the coexistence of the wooden stable and a monumental building was far from losing its actuality. A composition of Raffaello, drawn probably by Giovanni Francesco Penni, shows the primitive hut in the foreground, a wooden temple in the background and a palace on the left side, adorned by marvellous Corinthian columns and projections of the entablature (fig. 10).43 This alludes to the idea that all the building types go back to the archaic hut and that the different types evolved in a rational and logical way, and is one of the most powerful representations of the Vitruvian theory of the origins of architecture.44  erlio’s “Adoration of the Magi S and the Shepherds” When Sebastiano painted his Adoration he could refer to a broad repertoire of tendencies and solutions. If he followed his master’s design in the general arrangement, he privileged the traditional combination of the wooden structure and the stone ruin, as Peruzzi had done in the drawing of the Louvre (figs. 5,6,9). But instead of a primitive stable made with tree trunks and a flat thatched roof, he uses a complex structure made of wooden beams and joists. The detailed and realistic manner in which it is shaped evokes carpentry, and thus Joseph’s profession – an unusual way to glorify the father of the Christ. It’s possible that Serlio also wanted to allude to his own training as a wood-worker, mentioned by Benvenuto Cellini.45 The frames recall drawings of ceilings and roof trusses armamenti di legnami of Serlio’s Seventh Book and other parts of his treatise.46 The wooden and the stone features are not independent as in Quattrocento painting or Peruzzi’s Adoration (Louvre),

10. Giovani Francesco Penni (according to Raphael), Adoration of the Magi. (Louvre, Département des arts graphiques).

 S. Ferino Pagden, ‘Giulio Romano pittore e disegnatore a Roma’, in: Giulio Romano, 1989, pp.76–77. 43   Raphaels Zeichnungen (Abteilung IX. Entwürfe zu Werken Raphaels und seiner Schule im Vatikan 1511/12 bis 1520), ed. K. Oberhuber, (Berlin 1972), p.48. 44   A variation is held in a private collection in Belgium signed by the Maestro di Paolo e Barnaba which 42

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reflects the influence of the Scuola nuova ( N. Dacos, ‘Tommaso Vincidor e la diffussione del Raffaelismo nei Paesi Bassi’, in: S. Frommel (ed.), Crocevia e capitale della migrazione artistica: forestieri a Bologna e bolognesi nel mondo (secoli XV-XVI), (Bologna 2010), pp.360–63. 45  B. Cellini, I trattati di Oreficeria e della Scultura, ed. by C.Milanesi, (Florence 1857), p.225. 46   S. Serlio, Settimo Libro, (Francfort 1575), pp.197–201.

Sebastiano Serlio

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but linked by struts, revealing the author’s expertise (figs. 5, 9). The action is set on a building-site occupied by numerous people who build up the whole wooden structure, sometimes in dangerous positions. In the lower part big beams are placed on pedestals, while craftsmen seem to be intensely discussing how to proceed with the upper part of the structure. Shortly before (1515– 20) Piero di Cosimo had painted a panel with a building site, which illustrates all the phases of the construction according to proceeding Vitruvian logic, from the supply and the transport of the building materials up to the execution guided and supervised by the architect and the achievement of the splendid palace all’antiquo.47 In such a scenario Serlio would have appreciated the narrative values produced by the succession of the different episodes of the building process. 11. Sebastiano Serlio (?), Adoration of the Magi, virtual In the building-site of his Adoration reconstruction of the building. the craftsmen are charged to complete the construction in a symmetrical manner, so that thanks to the regular succession of four arcades on the left side a longitudinal space crowned by barrel vault would arise (figs. 5,11). The fragment of the arch shows however that the ruin would have been much broader and that its design is not coherent. The façade would consist of two pillars hollowed by niches supporting an arcade and evoke an abbreviated triumphal arch. Such an interpretation is entirely new, but the arrangement is not clear because of the simultaneousness of two actions: the main scene with the Holy Family is hidden by the exaggerated behaviour of secondary actors. Perhaps Serlio wished to show that behind the Holy Family, crowned by a textile baldachin, work is taking place to renew the architectural language. The central perspective differs from Peruzzi’s «polycentric» spatial arrangement, which separates various episodes and makes the eye of the viewer wander (figs. 5, 6). Thanks to the lateral perspectives that significantly attenuate the centralising rigour and create a sort of fluidity, the space flows freely. In Serlio’s Adoration, on the contrary, spatial depth is suggested above all by the architecture: the painter enhances the perspective with the four strongly foreshortened arches and strengthens the effect through the broken arch in the background. Such arrangement recalls the two panels of Ferrara, but also the drawings of the Secondo Libro and intarsias of San Domenico of Bologna conceived before his move to Venice in 1527–28 (figs. 1, 2, 3).48 In the Miracle of San Dominic, for instance, the arcades that distinguish the palace on the right side are of an identical design (fig. 12). The sober language of the ruin has nothing in common with the splendid classical idioms of Peruzzi’s drawing – perhaps Serlio was not yet skilled enough to venture in this field (figs.5, 6). But it’s also possible that he had considered such an abbreviated style appropriate, as Rosso Fiorentino would also do in his   The panel is held in Sarasota, The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art (K.Weil-Garris Brandt, ‘Il rapporto tra scultura e architettura nel Rinascimento’, in: Rinascimento da Brunelleschi a Michelangelo, 47

2011, pp.87–98 see also in the same catalogue D. Lamberini ‘Piero di Cosimo. La costruzione di un palazzo’, pp.479–80. 48   S. Frommel, l.c., 2004, pp.90–91.

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13. Cherubino Alberti (according to Rosso Fiorentino), Adoration of the Magi. (The Metropolitain Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund, 1962, no. 62.602.302).

12. Fra Damiano da Bergamo (according to Sebastiano Serlio), Miracle of San Domenic, (tarsia). (Bologna, San Domenico).

Adoration of 1527 (fig. 13).49 The scale of the building in relation to the figures is a little less monumental than Peruzzi’s triumphal arch, whose dimension introduces a new relationship between figures and architecture. The highly original character of Serlio’s invention can clearly be set apart by comparison with other variations of Peruzzi’s cartoon drawn by artists during the same years in Bologna. Biagio Pupini has a much more traditional touch: the Holy Family of chiesa dell’Annunziata is assembled in a sober building whose arcades are supported by naked pillars; a unarticulated wooden structure leans against it (fig. 14).50 In the centre of the background stands a classical amphitheatre, emphasized by a triumphal entrance. Girolamo  Engraving by Cherubino Alberti held in the Metropolitan Museum of New York, Rogers Found, 1962, no 62.602.302 (S. Frommel, ‘Rosso Fiorentino e Francesco Primaticcio: architetture dipinte a 49

50

Fontainebleau (1533–1544)’, in: Horti Hesperidum, (Rome 2011), fasc.2, p.160. 50   M. Faietti, ‘Biagio Pupini detto Biagio delle Lame’, in : Il Cinquecento a Bologna, (Bologna 2002), p.130.

Sebastiano Serlio

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Painter-Architect

14. Biagio Pupino, Adoration in the church of Annunziata, Bologna.

da Treviso on the contrary placed the ruined triumphal arch in the foreground and groups the action around it, gives up the wooden structure and uses a suggestive perspective.51 The distinctive motif of the broad pilaster with niches of Serlio’s Adoration recurs in a similar form in the urban scenography held in Ferrara and in his “prospettiva architettonica” of 1528 and in the frontispiece of his Third Book of 1540 (figs. 1,2,4,17).52 The niches and the archivolts of the arch are carefully drawn, while the bare profiles of the impost of the pillars recall the abbreviated language of Giulio Romano. The combination of massive pillars and archivolts adorned by three fasces is astonishing, a mescolanza, which will be a more and more typical element of Serlio’s language. In further contrast to Peruzzi, who was a virtuoso in combining and blending buildings and figures, here there is a pronounced disjunction between figural composition and architectural background (figs.5, 6). To confer some appearance of order to the confused mass of swarming figures that fill the painting, they are organized in two ovals: the first encompasses the figures in the foreground, the second those in heaven above. The arrangement of Heaven reminds us of the famous paintings of the cupolas of Correggio in Parma. The teeming, turbulent, wildly gesticulating figural groups can be found in Serlio’s Second and Third Book, where the whirling putti in the heavenly sphere, for instance, look like the twisting air-borne figures in the colophon of the  London, National Gallery (see G. Sassù, ‘Qualche nota du Girolamo da Treviso’, Annuario della Scuola di Specializzazione in Storia dell’Arte dell’Università di Bologna, 1, 2000, pp.50–79; see also M. Faietti, 51

‘Baldassarre Peruzzi’, in: Il Cinquecento a Bologna, (Bologna, 2002), pp.159–61. 52  Peruzzi also uses the motive at the Cappella Ghisilardi (1525) and in the drawing for a chapel of San Giovanni in the cathedral of Siena.

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15. Sebastiano Serlio (?), Nativity, predella of Betrothal of the Virgin. (Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale).

latter one.53 They also remind us of the figures by Lorenzo Lotto, a close friend of Sebastiano, in San Bartolomeo (1516) or of his frescoes in the Oratorio Suardi at Trescone (1524).54 But the exciting expression of the figures does not fit with the religious subject and creates an artificial and Pagan atmosphere, underlined by the unassuming architecture. Together with the rather reduced scale of the figures, all this suggests that the painting assumed a private function of a picture of devotion or in a chapel.55 The treatment of the architectural detail is much more refined than the Ferrara panels of 1520 (figs.1,2,5). But neither the architectural features nor the figures depend from Roman prototypes that Sebastiano could have studied during his stay of 1523/25 in the Eternal city, guided by Peruzzi. In the predella panel of the Betrothal of the Virgin (Bologna, Pinacotheca Nazionale) figuring the Nativity, datable around 1523, he designed a variation on the theme of the architectural settings of the Adoration (fig. 15).56 The effect of the central perspective here is emphasized by the three openings of a stone construction used as a stable. The wooden scaffolding with beams and struts, also partly in ruins leans against the wall. The damaged barrel vault reveals that the building was more complex. The big fragment of entablature in the left foreground goes back not only to the Bentivoglio drawing and to antique details of the Prospettiva architettonica, but also to the frontispiece of the Fourth and Third Book of   S. Frommel, o.c., 2003, pp.47–48.   Ibid., pp.55–56. 55   The dimensions of the painting are 125,5 cm x 96,3 cm. 56   S. Frommel, o.c., 2003, pp.48–49. The architectural features of the predella are much more advanced 53 54

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than those of the main scene and suggest the hand of another artist. See also R. Contini, ‘Girolamo Marchesi, detto Girolamo da Cotignola’, in: Il Cinquecento a Bologna, o.c., pp.166–69.

Sebastiano Serlio

as a

Painter-Architect

16. Sebastiano Serlio (?), Joseph’s Dream, predalla of Betrothal of the Virgin. (Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale).

1537 and 1540 (figs.4, 17). The gesticulating figures are similar to those of the Adoration, while the figure of Saint Mary recalls Correggio’s style. In the predella panel with Joseph’s dream the elegant Serliana is quite surprising, and it is the only feature of this group of works that recalls a Roman model (fig. 16).57 The architectural details are represented with an astonishing exactness and a strong sense of coherence: Doric columns support an architrave adorned by two fasce that articulate also the archivolts of the arcade. Only a cornice at the level of the impost accentuates the rear wall of the little space, while the arcade repeats the design of the front one. But this feature does not echo Roman experiences. Serlio could have expanded his architectural culture, and enlarged the knowledge of the classical repertoire by such motives, thanks to Peruzzi’s stay in Bologna. All this induces us to think that Serlio conceived his Adoration in 1523–24 before leaving for the Wanderjahre in Rome (fig. 5). The work combines the experience of the Bentivoglio cartoon, elements from the Quattrocento and personal visions. The painting reveals that his style was already defined enough for him to be able to re-elaborate Peruzzi’s composition and carry it to another sphere. On the other hand the sober language of the ruin suggests that he still lacked in experiences with classic forms. Peruzzi was certainly conscious that only a direct experience of Roman antiquity and modern architecture in the Eternal city could complete the formation of his assistant and widen his horizon. In fact a comparison with the Perspettiva architettonica of 1528 testimonies that the Roman stay in 1523–25 had   The motive resembles to the courtyard of Palazzo Fusconi-Pighini in Rome, started by Peruzzi after his stay in Bologna. 57

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17. Sebastiano Serlio, Third Book. (Venice, 1540), frontispiece.

18. Antonio Fantuzzi (according to Sebastiano Serlio), veduta architettonica. (Christie’s, London, 2 December 2008).

induced changes and modern buildings like the Belvedere Courtyard had become a prototype for Serlio (figs. 4, 5). On the other hand the triumphal arch of the right side with the pillars hollowed by niches and the façade in front of it, a classical variation of Santa Maria in Galliera in Bologna, still shows archaic features. A Veduta architettonica by Serlio engraved by Antonio Fantuzzi in Fontainebleau after the arrival of the latter in 1541, which has surfaced recently on the art market, shows the morphological mutations that took place in the 1530s (fig. 18).58 The scene opens with a rusticated arcade which, recalls those of Giulio Romano at the Palazzo del Te, and also those used by Serlio for the frontispiece of the Terzo Libro of 1540 (fig. 17). But here the niches are rectangular and shallow as opposed to those of the Adoration and other representations of the 1520s. The spatial composition differs from the Prospettiva Architettonica of 1528 and abandons the central vanishing point in favour of a looser arrangement of the architectonical features (figs. 3, 4, 18).59 In the foreground a kind of courtyard or atrium is flanked on each side by two arcades crowned by an attic. On the right side there is a flight of stairs, while Antique fragments of columns and entablatures lie on the ground. A square dominated by an enormous obelisk erected in front of a building  The engraving had been bought at Christie’s in London in December 2009 (D. Cordellier, ‘Primaticcio, Serlio Lorenzo Penni e Jean Goujon tra Bologna e Francia’, in: S. Frommel (ed.), Crocevia e capitale della migrazione artistica: forestieri a Bologna e bolognesi nel mondo (secoli XV-XVI), (Bologna 2010), pp.196–97. 58

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 I disagree with the point of view of D. Cordellier that the Prospettiva Architettonica and the Veduta Architettonica are contemperary (‘Primaticcio, Serlio Lorenzo Penni e Jean Goujon tra Bologna e Francia’, 2010, p.196). 59

Sebastiano Serlio

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Painter-Architect

adorned by Corinthian columns and an imposing entablature is visible through the rear bays. In the background an arcade in an oblique position leads to a group of Antique ruins with a variation of the Pantheon and the fragment of a temple. The rejection of the rigid central perspective, the stronger contrasts between the architectural spaces and frames, the more articulate manner of Antique evocations and the rusticated epidermis all reveal clearly the artistic progress reached by Serlio in the Venetian period. Serlio as provider of architectural models in figural arts in France Drawings and engravings by Serlio were used for inspiration for frescoes and tapestries with religious themes like the Annunciation of the chapel of St Mary in the abbey of Chaalis or the History of Saint Mammes of the cathedral of Langres. Commissioned by cardinal Ippolito d’Este, Primaticcio executed the imposing fresco of the Annunciation in 1543/45, his first fictive architecture in monumental scale.60 The action is dominated by a Doric tholos which is carefully articulated by a frieze with consoles adorned by triglyphs alternating with metopes. It is placed in front of a palace that opens in wide arcades; at the right side a portico leads to a loggia in the background. The representation paraphrases the intarsia with the Baptism of Saint Dominic of the choir of the church San Domenico in Bologna, designed probably by Serlio before his move to Venice, inspired by Roman paradigms like Raphael’s Sermon of Saint-Paul (Victoria and Albert Museum).61 In France he could have given the cartoon to his colleague Primaticcio, – both of them came from Bologna and worked for the king of France in Fontainebleau-, who fitted it to the proportions of the wall. To strengthen the religious atmosphere he cut the street on the right side with the balconies and curious people and substituted the Palazzo del Podestà in the background, a Bolognese symbol, with a simple loggia. Primaticcio succeeded in a skillful manner to give a new meaning to this prototype in assimilating the tempietto to the Italian tradition of the rotunda dedicated to the Virgin.62 The link between St Mary and circular (or nearly circular) churches is visible both in Italian paintings like the Adoration of Francesco di Giorgio (Pinacoteca di Siena) or the Betrothal of the Virgin of Raffaello (Milan) and in monuments like Brunelleschi’s Santa Maria degli Angeli, In 1543 the cardinal of Givry, bishop of the cathedral of Langres, commissioned Jean Cousin the Elder’s drawings for the tapestries with scenes from the life of protector of the cathedral, Saint Mammès.63 Documents make clear that the artist had enjoyed great artistic   S. Frommel, ‘Hippolyte d’Este à Chaalis. Architecture projetée, architecture peinte’, Monuments et Mémoires de la Fondation Eugène Piot, 87, 2008, pp.154–71. On the history of the abbey and the restoration of the fresco of Primatice see J.-P. Babelon (ed.), Primatice à Chaalis, (Paris 2006). 61  S. Frommel, l.c., 2008, pp.154–71; see also M. Ricci, ‘”Varietà e “bizzaria”: Baldassarre Peruzzi e la tarsia lignea di Fra Damiano con il “Battesimo di San Domenico’ in: M.Pigozzi (ed.), La percezione, la rappresentazione dello spazio a Bologna e in Romagna nel Rinscimento tra teoria e prassi, (Bologna 2007), pp.87–112; M. Ricci, ‘Baldassarre Peruzzi, Leandro Alberti e la tarsia lignea di Fra Damiano Zambelli con il “Battesimo di San Domenico”’ in: Atti e memorie. Deputazione di Storia Patria per la Provincia di Romagna, 2005–2006, n.s., 56, pp.255–303. 62  Which trace back to Santa Maria Rotunda in Rome, dedicated in 609 or 610 by Boniface IV to the 60

Virgin and the Martyrs. Bernini’s round church of the Madonna at Ariccia reveals that also in the 17th century marvellous monuments emerged from this tradition. 63   J. Boudoin Ross, ‘Jean Cousin the Elder and the creation of the Tapestries of Saint Mammès’, The Art Bulletin, vol. 60, no1, 1978, pp.28–34; H. Zerner, L’Art de la Renaissance en France. L’invention du classicisme, (Paris 1996); P. Stein, ‘A new drawing by Jean Cousin the Elder for the Saint Mamas Tapestries’, Metropolitan Museum Journal, 37, 2002, pp.63–76; V. Auclair, ‘L’iconographie humaniste d’un héro chrétien. Jean Cousin et la teinture de SaintMammès (1543)’, in: Tapisseries & Broderies. Relectures des mythes antiques et iconographie chrétienne. Actes du Colloque d’Angers, (Angers 2009), pp.118–28; S. Frommel, ‘Jean Cousin le Père et l’architecture fictive: sa contribution à l’évolution des langages à l’antique en France dans les années 1540’, in: L. Baumer and S. Frommel (eds.), Les années 1540: regards croisées sur les arts et les lettres, (forthcoming 2013)

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19. Jean Cousin le Père, Saint Mamas at the Furnace. (cathedral of Langres).

20. Jean Cousin le Père, Saint Mamas at the ­tribunal of the governor of Cappadocia. (Louvre).

freedom for his inventions. The scene of the martyrdom of Saint Mammès, set in the cathedral, is dominated on the left by a rotonda with Doric columns, which recalls once again Raffaello’s Sermon of Saint Paul (fig. 19). Surrounded by a portico, the monument is much less detailed than the tholos of the Announciation of Chaalis. In the background, on the right side, there is a Greek cross church, crowned by a cupola. The artist varies in a skilful manner the ideal project of Sebastiano Serlio of a tempio sacro of his Fourth Book.64 Apparently he transformed the compact volume on the rusticated basement of the treatise into a central plan, which corresponds better to the religious atmosphere. Consequently the main façade is composed by only four bays, which create a rhythm in the wall on both sides of an arcade. According to the prototype however an attic with pediment crowns the central bay, and a high tambour and a cupola the crossing. Cousin removes the obelisks, which would have evoked the Pagan tradition. If the French painter had owned Serlio’s Fourth Book, he had just to turn the page to find another model suitable for his cycle, Serlio’s variation of the triumphal arch of Ancona.65 Cousin assimilated it to more traditional proportions: the volume is narrower and the single elements of a more vertical development (figs.20,21) The crowning pediment is sharper and the reliefs linked to the scene cover the epidermis. Cousin the Younger was also interested in Serlio’s work and seems to have known a drawing of the Adoration, which the Bolognese artist could have brought to Fontainebleau in 1541. In the Last Jugement (Louvre) of 1585, the French artist adopts the arrangement of oval groups to distinguish the sphere of earth and heaven. But instead of sober architectural features he uses fictive buildings from the Roman Quattrocento derived from the Niccoline Chapel in the Vatican, signed by Fra Angelico.66 The abbreviated architectural language of Serlio’s Adoration and the building-site with the unusual combination of the stone and wood structure remained nevertheless an isolated episode in painting of the sixteenth century.

  S. Serlio, Quarto, Libro, (Venise 1537), fol.LVIII.   Ibid., fol. LIX.

64 65

56

  Perhaps these were known in France thanks to Jean Fouquet who had worked in the Pope’s residence at the same time. 66

Sebastiano Serlio

as a

Painter-Architect

Serlio’s suitcase…. The little group of painted a­rchitectures by Serlio deal with some of the main tendencies of this time, but the Bolognese artist interprets them in a very particular manner. The collaboration with Baldassare Peruzzi in Bologna in 1522–23 certainly assumed an important role, but Serlio was far from imitating the Bentivoglio cartoon of his master (figs.5, 6). Too many experiences had been already engraved in his artistic imagination. The commissions for the Sforza in Pesaro and the exchanges with young artists, which had taken place in this town, had certainly left profound traces in his mind.67 In Urbino, he had been impressed by Girolamo Genga’s theatre settings and probably also by Correggio’s marvellous cupolas in Parma.68 When Sebastiano met Peruzzi in Bologna, he had reached the level of practiced master of about forty years, but it seems that he had not yet come in touch with Antique tradition. The archi21. Sebastiano Serlio, variation of the Arch of tectonic fragment of the Adoration indeed Ancona (Fourth Book), 1537, f.LIX. reflects the ingenious vision, which he had yet of this prodigious past. But even after his stay in Rome in 1523–25, which sharpened his eye for classic idioms, Serlio maintained a lot of his previous themes and motives (fig. 4). The transition between the pre-Roman period and repercussions of this experience were subtle, so that tradition and innovation coexisted in his opus. Unfortunately drawings or paintings with fictive architectures dating to the period that Sebastiano had spent at the French court from 1541 to his death in 1554 have not come to light. Perhaps they are hidden in the works of other painters or draughtsmen or, without having been identified, they have inspired further compositions. In any case the Bolognese artist had certainly brought along with him numerous drawings and copies, which circulated in France.69 Only further research will allow us to clarify this. Nevertheless he gave an important contribution to this artistic genre of painted architecture through his own works and, thanks to his treatise, he diffused a codified architectural language, which helped painter-architects in all cultural milieux to apply classical paradigms.

  P. Berardi, l.c., 2001, pp.163–64.  In his Libro Secondo (f.51v) Serlio admired the theatre stages of Girolamo Genga: ‘Questo già viddero gli occhi miei in alcune Scene ordinate dall’intendente Architetto Girolamo Genga, ad instantia del suo padrone Francesco Maria Duca di Urbino, dove io compresi tanta Liberalità nel Prencipe, tanto giudicio & arte nell’Architetto, & tanta bellezza nelle cose fatte, 67 68

quanto in altra opera fatta dall’arte, che da me sia stata veduta giamai’. Unfortunately nothing has survived of Genga’s scenographies. 69   S. Frommel, ‘Jacques Androuet Du Cerceau et Sebastiano Serlio: une rencontre décisive’, in: J. Guillaume and P. Fuhring (eds.), Jacques Androuet Du Cerceau, « un des plus grands architectes qui se soient jamais trouvés en France », (Paris 2010), pp.123–39.

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Vignola,

a

Serious Training: Painting, Perspective, Architecture

Bruno Adorni

It is agreed by Giorgio Vasari1 and Egnazio Danti,2 the two contemporary ­sixteenth-century biographers of Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola, that the architect started his apprenticeship as a painter, but had no inclination for the art. Vasari writes: I say that Iacopo Barozzi da Vignola, painter and architect from Bologna, who today is fifty-eight, in his childhood and youth was presented with the art of painting in Bologna; but did not take much advantage of this, because he did not follow the right direction from the beginning; and truth to say, his nature was much more inclined towards things of architecture than of painting, as was openly seen in his drawings and few works of painting, where architecture and perspective could always be seen.3 Danti’s biography draws on Vasari for the Bologna period, and covers mainly Vignola’s life after his time in Bologna. It unfortunately provides little information on his childhood or the time up to when he was practically banished from Bologna and summoned to Rome to work for Pope Julius III (Ciocchi del Monte) and then for the Farnese family. But today it is known that Danti’s ‘Life’ contains at least two major errors: Vignola’s father was not an aristocrat from Milan and his mother was not German. In reality his father was probably a cobbler and seller of crockery in Vignola, a small town near Modena. It was his wife who was Austrian, the daughter of an Austrian captain of infantry serving under the Papal Legation of Bologna.4 It is likely, however, that his father died when Vignola was eleven or twelve, and in these circumstances, in about 1518–19, the boy was probably sent to Bologna to stay with his father’s brother Stefano Barozzi. Stefano Barozzi may have been a painter, but nothing is known of his work. The young Vignola may also have been apprenticed to Girolamo Marchesi da Cotignola,5 who precisely between 1522 and1525 was highlighting the role of architecture in his paintings (fig. 1). In this he may have been influenced by his acquaintance with Sebastiano Serlio; in 1523 both Cotignola and Serlio were named as godfathers of the son of the painter Virgilio Baroni. More importantly, the two collaborated on decorating the St Benedict Chapel in the Church of St Michael in the Woods in Bologna. Surviving ­documents show they were paid twelve scudi, rather than the fourteen scudi previously stipulated, on 7 December. If Vignola was in fact apprenticed to Cotignola, it would thus have been easy for him to become a pupil of Serlio.   G. Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti Pittori Scultori ed Architettori, (Florence 1568), Milanesi 1906, vol. VII, pp.105–108; 130; 266–267; vol. V, p.432. 2  E. Danti, ‘Vita di M. Iacomo Barrozzi da Vignola, Architetto et Prospettivo Eccellentissimo’, in: J. Barozzi da Vignola, Le Due Regole della Prospettiva Pratica di M. Iacomo Barozzi da Vignola, (Rome 1583). 3   Vasari-Milanesi, vol. VII, p. 105. 4   B. Adorni, Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola, (Milan 2008), p.13. 5  See A. Donati, Girolamo Marchesi da Cotignola, (San Marino 2007); R. Zama, Girolamo Marchesi da 1

Cotignola. Pittore. Catalogo generale, (Rimini 2007). These authors do not follow S. Frommel, Sebastiano Serlio architetto, (Milan 1998), pp. 43–49 in attributing some paintings traditionally thought to be by Cotignola to Serlio. I believe however that the beautiful and detailed architecture in the Natività held at the Galleria Nazionale in Bologna and in the Adorazione dei Magi held by the Cassa di Risparmio di Cesena may in fact be the work of Serlio. I believe that the Serlian window shown in the Sogno di Giuseppe also held in the Galleria Nazionale in Bologna may be his work too.

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Bruno Adorni

1. Girolamo Marchesi da Cotignola, The Marriage of the Virgin. (Bologna, National Gallery).

2. Parmigianino (copy?), Allegorical portrait of emperor Charles V. (New York, Rosemberg & Sytiebel Collection).

But whoever Vignola’s master was, the city of Bologna was a stimulating artistic environment rich in paintings. Vera Fortunati in fact describes early sixteenth-century painting there as a polyphonic chorus. Raphael’s Ecstasy of St Cecilia was on display from 1514 and Correggio’s Noli me tangere (now in the Prado ) hung at the Casa Ercolani from 1518. At a crucial period in his artistic development, in his early twenties, Vignola may also have met Parmigianino who was in Bologna from the Sack of Rome (1527) until after the coronation of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in1530 (fig. 2). In a sense we may say that these great masters encouraged Vignola to find a different path for himself. Numerous artists, painters, sculptors and architects, including the young Vasari,6 were summoned to Bologna to turn it into a city like Rome for the occasion of the meeting between Pope Clement VII and Charles V in 1529–30. Vignola’s talents in perspective and drawing were doubtless in demand for this triumphant and ephemeral occasion, and it is likely that he too was called. A handwritten note by Peruzzi lists “Jacomo barozo pittore” among his assistants and as we shall see later, gives rise to an interesting hypothesis (fig. 3). It is likely that the teenage Jacopo’s interest in architecture led him into contact with Sebastiano Serlio who lived in Bologna from 1520 to 1525 and probably in part up to 1527.7   Vasari-Milanesi, vol. VII, p. 10 e p. 652.

6

60

 R. J. Tuttle, Piazza Maggiore:studi su Bologna nel Cinquecento, (Venice 2001), pp. 89–106; S. Frommel, o.c., 1998, pp.43–56.

7

Vignola,

a

Serious Training: Painting, Perspective, Architecture

3. Baldassarre Peruzzi, A “taccuino” (Antiquity), (Florence, Uffizi 410 Av.). A handwritten list of ­assistants showing Jacopo Barozzi as a painter.

Serlio may have introduced him to the Sienese architect Baldassarre Peruzzi who was in Bologna 1522–23; in any case Vignola must have been familiar with his work. This included the cartoon ‘Adoration of the Magi’ now in the London National Gallery, commissioned by Battista Bentivoglio and which met with immediate success in Bologna. Peruzzi’s work also included the beautiful doorway of St Michael in the Woods and the structure and Doric ­columns of the courtyard of the palace of Cornelio Lambertini, as well as plans for San Petronio.8 Vignola must also have known the Ghisilardi Chapel in St Domenic begun in 1530 and ­probably planned shortly before this date.9  M. Ricci, ‘Peruzzi felsineo. Lo scomparso palazzo Lambertini in via degli orefici e l’architettura bolognese del primo Cinquecento’, Bollettino d’arte, 85, 2000, pp.68–70. 9  S. Bettini, Baldassarre Peruzzi e la cappella Ghisilardi, (Reggio Emilia 2003), especially pp. 29–33 opines the project was dated 1522–23 when there is proof that Peruzzi was in Bologna. But M. Ricci, Fortuna di un tipo architettonico antico: l’arco onorario quadrifronte a Bologna (1529–1598), in “incontri di archittettura”, 2006, appears to me to be correct in dating the project 1530 in view of the similarity with many other drawings by Peruzzi from the 1530s, as mentioned by Bettini. A further reason is the similarity of the chapel with at least two 8

four-sided triumphal arches built in Bologna for the meeting between Charles V and Pope Clement VII. At the same time Peruzzi was working on the triumphal arches for to be built in Siena when the coronation was to be held in Rome. To Peruzzi’s disappointment, the arches were not required and he may well have re-directed his talents and energies towards the chapel in Bologna, if he was not directly involved in building the sets. The authoritative C. L. Frommel, ‘“ala maniera e uso delj bonj antiquj”: Baldassarre Peruzzi e la sua quarantennale ricerca dell’antico’, in: C.L. Frommel, A. Bruschi et al. (eds.), Baldassarre Peruzzi 1481–1536, (Venice 2005), pp.3–82, esp. p. 61, also dates the Ghisilardi chapel to about 1530.

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Bruno Adorni

4. Fra Damiano da Bergamo, The Finding of Moses, based on Vignola’s drawing. (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art).

5. Albrecht Dürer, Vision of St Eustace, engraving.

If Peruzzi returned to Bologna 1529–1530, it is especially likely that Vignola was part of his team in the preparations for the coronation of Charles V. We noted that “Jacomo barozo pittore” was elsewhere listed with the number of days worked alongside painters, including Giovanni da Udine, a goldsmith, a blacksmith and a miniaturist. Barozzi worked seventeen days. Wurm dates this note between 1518 and 1523,10 so it is likely that the young Barozzi later worked under Peruzzi on the coronation set. More circumstantial evidence is that Giovanni da Udine is known to have been in Bologna in 153011 and that Peruzzi was responsible for the set intended for the Emperor’s triumphal visit to Siena on the way to Rome, when it was thought that the coronation would take place there. Further evidence of Vignola’s painting is given by the intarsia The Finding of Moses on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which Fra Damiano da Bergamo based on Vignola’s earliest known work in painting and perspective (fig. 4).12 Vasari confirms this:  H. Wurm, Baldassarre Peruzzi Architekturzeichnungen, (Tübingen 1984), p. 15; C. L. Frommel, ‘ “Disegno” und Ausführung: Engänzungen zur Baldassarre Peruzzis figuralen Oeuvre’, in: W. Busch, R. Hausherr and E. Trier (eds.), Kunst als Bedeutungsträger.Gedenkschrift für Günter Bandmann, (Berlin 1978), p. 242, n.7. 11  This was a good opportunity for an expert in designing sets for important occasions. He received 10

62

the payment for his work for the Pope in Bologna perhaps February and July 1530 (cfr L. Cargnelutti (ed.), Giovanni da Udine/i Libri dei conti, (Udine 2000), p. 15. 12  J. G. Phillips, ‘A New Vignola’, Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 34, 1941, pp. 116–22; R. J. Tuttle, ‘La formazione bolognese’, in: R.J. Tuttle et al., Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola, (Milan 2002), pp. 115–16.

Vignola,

a

Serious Training: Painting, Perspective, Architecture

6. Fra Damiano da Bergamo, Baptism of Saint Dominic. (Bologna, Saint Dominic, ­probably based on Peruzzi’s drawing).

And his hand, almost before it was known, beautiful and capricious ­fantasies of various designs could be seen, mainly commissioned by Francesco Guicciardini, at that time governor of Bologna, and friends of his. The drawings were then reproduced on wood and colored as intarsia by Fra Damiano da Bergamo of the order of St Dominic in Bologna. On the wall of the building with a scarp, the intarsia shows clearly the coats of arms of Guicciardini and his wife. Guicciardini was governor of Bologna from 1531 to 1534 and numbered among his friends Leandro Alberti, chief counsellor of Fra Damiano, who may have coordinated contributions from Peruzzi, Serlio and Vignola for the intarsia works made for St Domenic in Bologna (fig. 6). Although the two intarsia were made at almost exactly the same time, the intarsia based on Vignola’s painting made for Francesco Guicciardini does not display the same sophisticated use of classical form as the one based on Peruzzi’s for the back of the arch in St Dominic, especially in the round temple in the foreground in Petruzzi’s design. In the Vignola intarsia, the buildings in fact almost reflect the “local” climate of Bologna in the early sixteenth century. The landscape shows mountain villages, like Dürer’s Vision of St Eustace, and perhaps even reflects the local culture in painting (fig. 5). But the fact that the architecture is on the right-hand side while the left is open to the landscape is innovative.

63

Bruno Adorni Historians such as Father Alce, Walcher Casotti and Orazi13 attribute the design of several intarsia at the back of the chapel (1530–35) and in the choir of St Dominic by Fra Damiano da Bergamo (1541–1551)14 to Vignola. This attribution is somewhat uncertain, except for the Last Supper (back of the eleventh choir stall in cornu evangelii) where a sort of thermal window at the end of the lunetted vault shows clear similarity to the interior of Saint Andrew on Via Flaminia (fig. 7). Vignola’s designs probably date somewhere between the years 1543, when he arrived in Bologna from Fontainebleau, and 1549, when Fra Damiano da Bergamo died. More precisely, they may well date from 1547 when he used semi-oval shapes in the Samoggia bridge, or from 1548 when he used an oval in the retaining wall at Corticella (fig. 9).15 The earliest evidence that Vignola was in Rome is dated 12 7. Bologna, Saint Dominic, Fra Damiano da Bergamo, November 1538: he was paid ten Last Supper (back of the e­ leventh choir stall in cornu scudi to paint twenty footstools for evangelii) based on Vignola’s drawing. the chambers of Pope Paul III in the Vatican.16 Also to note are the payments totaling fifty-five scudi dated 16 February and 1 March 1541 to “mastro Jachopo Barozzi da Vignola” “for items, works and painting for the scenery of the comedy”, a staging of Macchiavelli’s Clizia performed at the Villa Farnese for the Carnival festivities of 1541.17 Vignola on that occasion collaborated with the very interesting painter Perin del Vaga. Vignola’s extensive studies in art also included sculpture. He was in fact charged by the King of France, through Primaticcio, to make casts of several famous statues from the Classical world on display in Rome, and even supervise the technically difficult ­casting at Fontainebleau (fig. 10). To conclude our observations on Vignola’s period in France,  M. Walcher Casotti, Il Vignola, (Trieste 1960), pp. 8–19, V. Alce, Fra Damiano intarsiatore e l’ordine domenicano a Bergamo, (Bergamo 1995), pp. 134–36: La morte di San Domenico nella spalliera; A. M. Orazi, Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola, (Rome 1982), pp. 52–65. 14   Today the account by M . Hirst, ‘Francesco Salviati: some addictions and reflections’, in: C. Mobeig Goguel, P. Costamagna and M. Hochmann (eds.), Francesco Salviati et la Bella Maniera, (Rome 2001), pp. 68–89, is widely accepted; Salviati’s drawings 13

64

were used for many of the New Testament scenes in the choir of the Bologna church. 15  There are also similarities between the intarsia showing The Last Supper and the intarsia now in the sacristy cupboard showing Bread from heaven supplementing the brothers’ resources distant from the other intarsia from the Arch. It may have been made for the new position of the works. 16   F. Uginet, Le Palais Farnèse à travers les documents financiers (1535–1612), (Rome 1980), p. 22 note 66. 17   Ibid., p. 23.

Vignola,

a

Serious Training: Painting, Perspective, Architecture

8. Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola, Sant’Andrea sulla via Flaminia, interior.

(1541–43), note that architectural scenes in several drawings by Primaticcio are generally attributed to Vignola.18 To continue our observations on Vignola as a painter, note that for his architectural masterpiece, Villa Farnese in Caprarola, he provided the sketches for the complex architectural perspectives to be frescoed by his son in law Giovanni Battista Fiorini in the Sala di Giove in Villa Farnese at Caprarola (fig. 11). It is also likely that some of architectural perspectives from below to above in the fresco paintings by Taddeo Zuccari, particularly those in the Sala dell’Aurora, are based on Vignola’s drawings (figs.12, 13). And as a further observation on Vignola’s indirect link with painting, Borghini in 1584 wrote of the painter Bartolomeo Passerotti “He learnt his art from Jacopo Vignola architect and painter, and went to Rome with him where he studied drawing”,19 probably in 1550. Passerotti worked with Taddeo Zuccari,20 and it is also significant that he is praised by

 P. Roccasecca, Modelli, prospettografi e “scurto” delle figure nella prospettiva di Primaticcio, in S. Frommel, Francesco Primaticcio architetto, (Milan 2005), pp. 246–47, does not mention Vignola and states that the perspective in Minerva and Juno is not meticulous. 19   R. Borghini, Il Riposo, (Florence 1584), ed. M. Rosci, Milano 1967, pp. 565–66; confirmed by G. Baglione, Vite de’ pittori scultori et architetti dal pontificato 18

di Gregorio XIII del 1572 in fino ai tempi di Papa Urbano nel 1642, (Rome 1642), p. 6. This version is disputed for no good reason by Malvasia, Felsina Pittrice, (Bologna 1678), p. 193. 20  Apart from small errors, the most reliable account appears to be H. Bodmer, ‘Un ritrattista bolognese del Cinquecento: Bartolomeo Passarotti’, in: Il Comune di Bologna, (Bologna 1934), pp. 12–13; also A. Ghirardi, Bartolomeo Passerotti (1529–1592), (Rimini 1990), p. 29.

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Bruno Adorni

9. Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola, The plan of the bridge over the Samoggia near Bologna. (Bologna, Archivio di Stato).

Egnazio Danti in his introduction to the treatise “Second Rule of Practical Perspective”, which he considers the more important of Vignola’s two “rules”.21 It is also interesting that several times in the same volume Danti also cites Tommaso Laureti, whose architectural perspectives sometimes recall Vignola’s. He shows an engraving of the hall of the Vizzani Palace in Bologna by Laureti from below to above (fig. 14).22 This goes to show that “Two Rules of Practical Perspective” was influential for quadrature or architectural tromp l’oeil in Bologna and probably elsewhere. We now turn to the difficult question of the link between Vignola’s study of painting and perspective and his architecture. We are going to discuss whether his architecture was affected by his relationships with painters, sculptors and stucco decorators. In the mid-eighteenth century, Charles-Nicolas Cochin writing about Villa Farnese at Caprarola, noted a clash between the “lightly drawn arabesques” and the “very rational tastes” of “this masculine architecture” (figs. 15, 16, 17, 18). In the eighteenth century there was probably greater sensitivity to the difference between architecture and painting, which are today considered to belong to the same culture. We can probably reasonably say that Vignola accepted painting and decoration in general in his indoor designs as long as it did not dominate over the architectural design. And the courts were not prepared to do without it. It is likely that Vignola was not happy with the three-dimensional overflowing stuccos of Fontainebleau. He was probably not happy for painting to alter the layout of his architectural designs. He probably was only happy with rare alterations or additions to perspective   Ibid., p. 97.

21

66

  Ibid, p.88.

22

Vignola,

a

Serious Training: Painting, Perspective, Architecture

10. Francesco Primaticcio, Minerva (architectural perspective by Vignola?). (Paris, Musée du Louvre, Cabinet des dessins, inv. 8552).

he himself designed, as in the Sala di Giove at Villa Farnese at Caprarola (fig. 19) . Perhaps he could also accept alterations if he supervised them himself, as in the beautiful ‘from below to above’ design in Taddeo Zuccari’s Stanza dell’Aurora, where is a painted oval cylinder fretworked like a loggia, in a space similar to that in Saint Andrew’s on Via Flaminia (fig. 8). The intention of the cylinder was probably to maintain virtual equal height in all the rooms including those under the mezzanine. Riebesell believes that there was close collaboration between Vignola and the talented sculptor Guglielmo della Porta in decorating particularly the hall in the Farnese Palace in Rome. Working with della Porta, Vignola attempted to alter the perspective in the tetragon and very high salon with two rows of w ­ indows which he found there. He introduced Classical statues and polychrome furnishings for the large fireplace and table which are now on display

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Bruno Adorni

11. Caprarola, Farnese Palace, Sala di Giove, Giovanni Battista Fiorini, Architectural ­perspectives, based on Vignola’ drawings.

12. Caprarola, Farnese Palace, Sala dell’Aurora, Taddeo Zuccari, Architectural perspective from below to above probably based on Vignola’s drawing.

at the Metropolitan Museum in New York (fig. 20).23 It is more difficult to decide whether Vignola’s experience as a painter and perspectivist influenced his architectural ideas. It is probably the case that it did; it can be seen in his ability to perceive space in one glance in the Church of the Gesù and in the oval churches, as initially sketched by Peruzzi but realized by Vignola for the very first time. The ellipsis can be considered the anamorphosis of the circle, as in a sense demonstrated by the design of the corner of the upper Corinthian loggia in the Villa Farnese in Piacenza. Perspective and perception are what characterize Vignola’s ellipses. The entrance on the long side of the oval make it less obvious that the space 13. Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola, Rome, Sant’Andrea is not circular. sulla via Flaminia, dome. The church of Sant’Anna dei Palafrenieri is perhaps Vignola’s last word on the oval (figs. 21, 22). Lightly touching the Greek cross, the interior oval appears almost circular from the entrance. The sculpted travertine columns seem not to be attached to the alveolus (or zaina as it was called ) and almost form a free colonnade. They are closer together near the doors and further apart  C. Riebesell, ‘L’arredo architettonico del palazzo Farnese di Roma: Vignola e Guglielmo della Porta’, in: 23

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C. L. Frommel, M. Ricci and R .J. Tuttle (eds.), Vignola e i Farnese, (Milan 2003), pp. 35–59.

Vignola,

a

Serious Training: Painting, Perspective, Architecture

14. Tommaso Laureti, Engraving from Jacomo Barozzi da Vignola’s “Le due regole della prospettiva pratica”, Rome 1583.

15. Caprarola, Farnese Palace, Sala dei Fasti Farnesiani.

16. Caprarola, Farnese Palace, courtyard, the lower loggia.

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Bruno Adorni

17. Caprarola, Farnese Palace, spiral staircase.

18. Caprarola, spiral staircase.

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Vignola,

a

Serious Training: Painting, Perspective, Architecture

19. Caprarola (Viterbo), Farnese Palace, Sala di Giove, Architectural perspectives by Vignola.

20. Rome, Farnese Palace, Sala grande, Vignola, fireplace.

near the points of the Greek cross formed by the entrance, the presbytery and the two side chapels. It is not surprising that this fluid and rhythmic spacing, like the beautiful corners of the Farnese Palace in Piacenza, was of interest to Borromini (fig. 23).

21. Rome, Vatican, Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola, Sant’Anna dei Palafrenieri, plan (from Willich).

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22. Rome, Vatican, Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola, Sant’Anna dei Palafrenieri, interior.

23. Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola, Elevation of the upper loggia in the courtyard of the Farnese Palace in Piacenza (Archivio di Stato di Parma).

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From Lodge to Studio: Transmissions of Architectural Knowledge in The Low Countries 1480–1530* Oliver Kik

Peter Paul Rubens’s involvement in the design of the Antwerp Jesuit Church, the publication of his Palazzo di Genova, and the design of his own house make him an iconic illustration of how painters were involved in architectural design.1 By the beginning of the seventeenth century, a formal knowledge of Vitruvian architectural language had become a basic skill which every beginning artist was required to master. The previous century is often considered as a starting point for this involvement of the visual artist in architectural design. The architectural historian Ruud Meischke, for example, considered the increasing involvement of painters, sculptors and military engineers in architectural design as a phenomenon which originated at the dawn of the sixteenth century with examples such as Jacques Dubroecq and Jan Gossart.2 The Antwerp Town Hall can be regarded as one of the pivotal moments of this changing attitude towards architecture. The list of participants of the 1560 design competition included only names of print designers, painters, and sculptors who had established a good reputation in mastering the antique architectural language.3 The phenomenon of architectural commissions handed over to visual artists is explained by radical changes in mentality towards the concept of architecture. According to a traditional point of view, printed publications of Vitruvius, Alberti, and Serlio altered the character of the architect from being a master mason active on the building site to a different concept of the architect as an intellectual profession, theoretically incorporated in the Liberal Arts.4 It is our opinion that the formation of ‘the painter-architect’ is a much more complex process which was already set into motion before humanist intellectual notions of architecture came into play. In this article we will point out that the responsibility for architectural design cannot be clearly defined to one professional group, but was the shared skill of many artists involved in design in general. The main goal is to examine the process from  This research is part of the research project ‘Designing Architecture in the Low Countries 1480– 1640’, funded by the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO). For their assistance and critical remarks on a first draft of this paper I would like to thank dr. Krista De Jonge, dr. Konrad Ottenheym, dr. Pieter Martens, drs. Virginie D’haene and Anna Vaes. 1   On Rubens and Architecture: A. Blunt, ‘Rubens and Architecture’, The Burlington Magazine, 129 (1977), p. 617; F. Baudouin, ‘Peter Paul Rubens and the notion Painter-Architect’, in: P. Lombaerde (ed.) The Reception of P.P. Rubens’s Palazzi di Genova During the 17 th Century in Europe: Questions and Problems. (Architectura Moderna, 1), (Turnhout 2002), pp. 15–36; B. Uppenkamp, B. Van Beneden and P. Lombaerde, Palazzo Rubens. The Master as Architect, (Antwerp 2012). 2  R. Meischke, ‘Het architectonische ontwerp in de Nederlanden gedurende de late Middeleeuwen en de zestiende Eeuw’, in: R. Meischke (ed.), De Gotische Bouwtraditie, (Amersfoort 1988), pp. 186–91. *

 The twelve involved artists were Jan de Heere, Jacques Dubroeucq, Jan du Jardin, Lambert Suavius, Lambert van Noort, Louis du Foix, Nicollò Scarini, Wouter vanden Elsmer, Jan Metsys, Paludanus (Willem van den Broecke), Hans Vredeman de Vries and Cornelis (II) Floris: F. Prims, Het Stadhuis te Antwerpen. Geschiedenis en beschrijving, (Antwerp 1930); A. Corbet, ‘Cornelis Floris en de bouw van het stadhuis van Antwerpen’, Revue belge d’Archéologie et d’histoire de l’Art, 6, 1936, pp. 223–64; J. Duverger, ‘Cornelis Floris II en het stadhuis te Antwerpen’, Gentse Bijdragen tot de kunstgeschiedenis, 7, 1941, pp. 37–72; H. Bevers, Der Rathaus von Antwerpen (1561–1565). Architektur und Figurenprogramm (Hildesheim, Zürich and New York 1985); W. Kuyper, The Triumphant Entry of Renaissance Architecture into the Netherlands, (Alphen aan den Rijn 1994), pp.156–8; J. Lampo, Het Stadhuis van Antwerpen, (Brussels 1993). 4   See, for example, H. Miedema, ‘Over de waardering van Architekt en beeldend kunstenaar in de zestiende eeuw’, Oud Holland, 94, 1980, pp. 71–85. 3

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Oliver Kik architectural designers towards visual artists in the Low Countries at the end of the fifteenth century and the dawn of the subsequent century by focusing on the ways in which architectural knowledge disseminated through guild structures and family connections. Stylistic Novelty as Motivator The case of the Antwerp Town Hall illustrates that the experience of visual artists in designing antique architectural ornament is often considered as one of the main reasons for their increasing responsibility in the design of edifices. Almost a generation prior to the canonization of the Serlian architectural language by the painter Pieter Coecke van Aelst (1502–1550) in 15395 and before the first attempts were made around the early 1530s to construct edifices in the antique manner, painters, sculptors, woodcarvers, and printmakers in the Low Countries had already become experts in applying the style most favoured by the Burgundian-Habsburg court and civic elite. According to some scholars it was their expertise of the antique style which put craftsmen associated with the guild of St Luke one step ahead of those of the masons guild (the Vier Gekroonden).6 Examples to support this theory are easy to find. The Habsburg court painter par excellence, Jan Gossart was renowned for his architectural knowledge.7 Being one of the first to have studied antiquity in Rome as early as 1508, Gossart had first-hand knowledge of antique architectural and ornamental vocabulary which resulted in his involvement in architectural projects. A detailed design for the Tomb of Isabella of Austria is a first sign of his versatility in designing for different media (fig. 1). Some years earlier, the painter was also consulted in an often-quoted dispute over the antique design and feasibility of the casting of a copper choir screen, commissioned by the canons of the Utrecht cathedral in 1517.8 After the painter Hendrik de Zwart of Gouda had made   H. de la Fontaine Verwey, ‘Pieter Coecke van Aelst and the publication of Serlio’s book on architecture’, Quaerendo, 6, 1976, pp. 166–94; R. Rolf, Pieter Coecke van Aelst en zijn architektuuruitgaves van 1539; met reprint van zijn ’Die inventie der colommen’ en Generale Reglen der Architecturen’, (Amsterdam 1978); J. Offerhaus, ‘Pieter Coecke et l’introduction des traités d’architecture aux PaysBas’, in: J. Guillaume (ed.), Les traités d’architecture de la Renaissance (De Architectura, 3), (Paris 1988), pp. 443–52; K. De Jonge, ‘Vitruvius, Alberti and Serlio. Architectural treatises in the Low Countries 1530–1620’, in: V.  Hicks and P. Hart (eds.), Paper Palaces. The rise of the Renaissance Architectural Treatise, (London 2004), pp. 281–96; K. De Jonge and K. Ottenheym (eds.), Unity and Discontinuity. Architectural Relationships between Southern and Northern Low Countries (1530–1700) (Architectura Moderna, 5), (Turnhout 2007), pp. 41–50. 6   On the masons guilds in the Low Countries: C. van Cauwenbergs, Les Quatre Couronnés d’Anvers ou les Architectes Anversois du Moyen Age (1324– 1542), (Antwerp 1889); J. Duverger, De Brusselse Steenbickeleren. Beeldhouwers, bouwmeesters, metselaars enz. der 14e en 15e eeuw, met een aanhangsel over Klaas Sluter en zijn Brusselsche medewerkers te Dijon, (Antwerp 1933); F. Van Tyghem, Op en om de middeleeuwse bouwwerf, 5

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(Verhandelingen van de Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Letteren, Wetenschappen en Schone Kunsten van België 19), (Brussels 1966). 7  For Gossart and architecture, see: S. Herzog, ‘Tradition and Innovation in Gossart’s Neptune and Amphitrite, and Danae’, Bulletin Museum Boijmans-Van Beuningen, 19, 1968, pp. 25–41; A. Mensger, Jan Gossaert. Die Niederländische Kunst zu Beginn der Neuzeit, (Berlin 2002); S. Heringuez, ‘L’architecture antique dans le Neptune et Amphitrite de Jean Gossart’, Journal de la Renaissance, 6, 2008, pp. 107–18; E.M. Kavaler, ‘Gossart as Architect’, in: M.W. Ainsworth (ed.), Man, Myth and Sensual Pleasures: Jan Gossart’s Renaissance, (New York 2002), pp. 31–43; S. Heringuez, ‘Bramante’s Architecture in Jan Gossart’s painting’, Dutch Crossing, 3, 2011, pp. 229–48. 8  H.P. Coster, ‘Het koperen hek voor het altaar van St. Maarten in den Dom te Utrecht’, Bulletin van den Nederlandschen Oudheidkundigen Bond, 2, 1909, pp. 196–218; H. Van Miegroet, ‘Modern, antique, and novelty antique in 1517’, in: J. Vander Auwera (ed.), Liber Amicorum Raphaël De Smedt, (Leuven 2001), pp.153–71; K. Ottenheym, ‘Renaissancearchitektur und Architekturpraxis im städtischen Bereich’, in: N. Nussbaum, C. Euskirchen and S. Hoppe (eds.), Wege zur Renaissance, (Cologne 2003), pp. 211–13; K. De Jonge and K. Ottenheym (eds.), o.c., 2007, p. 22.

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1. Jan Gossart, Design for Tomb of Isabella of Austria, 1526–27. (© Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen Zu Berlin, Kdz 4646).

a design drawing for the choir screen, the Antwerp woodcarver Gregorius Wellemans was ordered to create a wooden model – in which all modern (i.e. Flamboyant Gothic) elements were to be avoided and replaced with antique ornament. Jan van den Eynde of Mechelen who, in the last stage, was asked to cast the choir screen, complained about the infeasibility of transporting the wooden design into copper. In 1522, Jan Gossart was asked to make a final verdict about the design and agreed with the goldsmith that Wellemans’ design was too complicated to be executed in copper. The document is often treated as evidence of Gossarts expertise in the antique style, even though the advice seems to have been of technical rather than stylistic nature. Another artist who was often considered as a sculptural and architectural adviser is Lanceloot Blondeel (1498–1561). In 1528 the Bruges painter, who had already shown his expertise of antique ornament in some of his panels,9 was contacted to make a design for a prestigious chimneypiece in the Alderman’s chamber of the Brugse Vrije, even though the Bruges stone cutter Willem Aerts had already delivered a design, three years earlier.10 Two decades later, in 1546, the Bruges City Council relied on Blondeel again, now for quite a different matter. To bypass the rapid silting up of the Zwin area – which was cutting off Bruges from its commercial access to the North Sea – the artist was asked to design plans for a new canal to the city as an alternative route (fig. 2).11 Although the ability of Blondeel to design antique ornament and architecture might help to explain his involvement in the c­ himneypiece, this

 See for example, L. Blondeel, The calling of St Peter and the healing of Hemorroïssa, 1525, Bruges Groeningemuseum, inv. 0000GRO0224.I. 10  L. Devlieger, De Keizer Karel-schouw van het Brugse Vrije, (Tielt 1987), pp. 45–50. 9

 P. Parmentier, ‘The struggle to maintain the Zwin’, in: Bruges and Zeebrugge. The city and the sea, (London 1995), pp. 64–69; M.P.J. Martens (ed.), Brugge en de Renaissance van Memling tot Pourbus, (exh. cat.), (Brugge 1998), p. 115; E. Tahon and V. Vermeersch (eds.), Lanceloot Blondeel, (Bruges 1988).

11

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Oliver Kik knowledge would have been of little help to him for such a complex engineering project.12 In order to answer the question why painters were commissioned architectural drawings it is clear that a purely stylistic explanation does not suffice. Designing Architecture

2. Lanceloot Blondeel, Bruges harbor p ­ roject, 1546. (Bruges City Archives, Kaarten en Plannen, inv. 14).

 Three years later, this project was given a second life, as also Pieter Pourbus was commissioned to make designs for revitalizing Bruges commercial life: P. Huvenne, Pieter Pourbus. Meester-schilder 1524– 1584, (Brugge 1984), pp. 25–26, 277–306. A similar case was the involvement of the painters Jan van Scorel and Jan Cornelisz. Vermeyen in the design of plans of the reclamation of the Zijpe River, near Utrecht in 1552. M.A. Faries, Jan van Scorel, his style and its historical context (Diss.), (Bryn Mawr 1972); M.A. Faries, ‘Jan van Scorel, terug uit Italië, in Utrecht en Haarlem’, in: J.P. Filedt Kok, W. Halsema-Kubes and W. Th. Kloek (eds.), Kunst voor de Beeldenstorm. Noordnederlandse kunst 1525–1580, (exh. cat.), (The Hague 1986), pp.180–81. 13  Although this might seem an obvious statement, the anachronistic term ‘architect’ to describe designers of Medieval architecture is used frequently. Literature on Villard de Honnecourt’s, for example, is still strongly centered on the question of the draftsman’s professional identity. For a discussion of this interpretation and alternatives, see C.F. Barnes, The 12

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At least until the late seventeenth century, the term architect remained a rather fluid term, which exceeded the mere design of edifices.13 Traditionally, architecture was designed by masons, stonecutters or – mostly – ornamental sculptors who had gained enough experience on building sites in order to be trusted with a large commission. Domien de Waghemakere, for example, who in 1521 provided the designs for the north tower of the Antwerp Church of Our Lady, came from a long family tradition of ornamental sculptors (cleenstekers). Between 1431 and 1445 his grandfather, Pieter de Waghemakere, received payments on various occasions for the delivery of pre-cut ornamental sculpture such as thresholds, a stone cross and lintels for the choir of the Church of Our Lady.14 It is safe to assume that any member who had joined Portfolio of Villard De Honnecourt (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Ms Fr 19093): A New Critical Edition and Color Facsimile, (Aldershot 2009), pp. 23–25. On the professional identity of the architect in the Low Countries, see K. J. Philipp, ‘“Eyn huys in manieren van eynre kirchen” Werkmeister, Parliere, Steinlieferanten, Zimmermeister und Bauorganisatoren in den Niederlanden von 14. Bis zum 16. Jahrhundert’, Walraff-Richards Jahrbuch, 50, 1989, pp. 69–113; E. Gerritsen, Zeventiende-Eeuwse Architectuurtekeningen. De tekening in de ontwerpen Bouwpraktijk in de Nederlandse Republiek, (Zwolle 2006); K. Ottenheym, ‘The Rise of a Profession: The architect in 17th-century Holland’, in: G. Beltramini and H. Burns (eds.), L’Architetto: ruolo, volto, milto, (Venice – Vicenza 2009), pp. 199–219; M. Hurx, ‘Architecten en gildendwang; vernieuwingen in de ontwerppraktijk in de vijftiende en zestiende eeuw?’, Bulletin KNOB, 108, 2009, pp.1–18. 14  C. Van Cauwenberghs, Les Quatre Couronnés d’Anvers ou les architects anversois du Moyen Ages, (Antwerp 1889), p. 20.

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the masons guild and gained enough reliability was able to deliver designs for architectural projects. These members were involved in a wide range of different crafts. In both Leuven and Brussels, this guild consisted of sculptors, stonecutters, masons and roof makers.15 The Antwerp masons guild also counted the ornamental sculptors among their ranks. Perhaps with the exception of the roof makers, all of them would have been more than able to design architecture ranging from small scale micro-architecture to large projects such as cathedral facades and towers. Both designs embedded within the same logic of constructive geometry. At least since the twelfth century, Gothic design principles were based upon a strict system in which the elevation and the three-dimensional projection of an architectural design were derived from a geometrical ground plan.16 Most ground plans show a superimposing of the structural levels with the use of basic Euclidian trigonometry. By the end of the fifteenth century, some of these geometrical rules of thumb were published as small instruction manuals such as the well-known Büchlein von der Fialen Gerechtigkeit (1486) of the Regensburger Mathes Roriczer and the contemporary smaller Fialenbüchlein (1487) of Hans Schmuttermayer.17 The latter addressed the booklet to “all masters and workshop assistants who make use of the noble and liberal art of Geometry.”18 Apart from designers of buildings this also included goldsmiths – like the booklet’s author himself – carpenters, stonecutters, sculptors and perhaps even painters. Fifty years later, Pieter Coecke van Aelst would not have a different readership in mind, when he addressed his Vitruvian booklet Die Inventie der Colommen to “painters, sculptors, stonecutter and all who derive pleasure from antique edifices.”19 The missing link? Goldsmith-engravers The career of Alart Du Hameel (c. 1460–c. 1506) offers an illustration of the thin boundaries between early modern professional groups.20 Documented as master mason of the main building sites of ‘s-Hertogenbosch (1478–1495), Antwerp (1484–1493) and Leuven (1495–1502), he was also responsible for one of the few tangible examples of   J. Duverger, l. c., 1941, p. 14; J. Crab, Het Brabants beeldsnijcentrum, (Leuven 1977), pp. 299–300. 16   Especially see, L.R. Shelby, Gothic Design Techniques. The Fifteenth-Century Design Booklets of Mathes Roriczer and Hanns Schmuttermayer, (London – Amsterdam 1977); L.R. Shelby, ‘The geometrical knowledge of Medieval master masons’, in: L.T. Courtenay (ed.), The engineering of Medieval cathedrals, (Aldershot 1997), pp. 27–62; R. Bork, The Geometry of Creation. Architectural Drawing and the Dynamics of Gothic Design, (Farnham 2011). 17   L. Shelby, o. c., 1977; F. Bucher, The lodge books and sketch books of Medieval architects, (New York 1979); U. Coenen, Die spätgotischen Werkmeisterbücher in Deutschland. Untersuchung und Edition der Lehrschriften für Entwurf und Ausführung von Sakralbauten, (Munich 1990); W. Müller, Grundlagen gotischer Bautechnik, (Munich 1990). 18  H. Schmuttermayer, Das Fialenbüchlein, 1487, fol. 1a: “zutrost vñ vntterweysung vnnserm nachsten vñ allē maisteren vñ gesellen die sich diser hohen vñ freyen kunst der Geo-metria geprauchen ir gemute speculirung vnd ymaginacion”. 19  S. Schéle, Cornelis Bos. A study of the Origins of the Netherland Grotesque, (Stockholm 1965), p. 23; 15

S. Schéle, ‘Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Cornelis Bos’, Oud Holland, 77, 1962, pp. 235–40; R. Rolf, o.c., 1978; K. De Jonge, l.c., 2004, pp. 281–296; K. De Jonge, ‘Standardizing antique architecture 1539–1543’, in: K. De Jonge and K. Ottenheym (eds.), o.c., 2007, pp. 42–49. 20  E. Van Even, ‘Alart Du Hameel, architecte ou maître-ouvrier des maçonneries de la ville de Louvain, 1495–1502’, Bulletin du commité de la province de Brabant de la Comission royale des Monuments, 8, 1881, pp. 40–43; C.V. Verreyt and M. Lehrs, ‘Alart Du Hamel of Duhameel’, Oud Holland, 11/12, 1894, pp. 7–25; E. Van Even, Louvain dans le passé et le présent, (Leuven 1895); C.F.X. Smits, De Kathedraal van ’s Hertogenbosch, (Brussels 1907), pp. 99–105; C.J.A.C. Peeters, De Sint Janskathedraal te ’s Hertogenbosch (De Nederlandse Monumenten van Geschiedenis en Kunst), (Den Haag 1985), pp. 39–41; H. Boekwijt, R. Glaudemans and W. Hagemans, De Sint-Janskathedraal van ’s- Hertogenbosch, (Alphen aan de Maas 2010), pp. 130–34; K. De Jonge, ‘ “Scientie” et “experientie” dans le gotique moderne des anciens Pays-Bas’, in: M. Chatenet, K. De Jonge, E.M. Kavaler and N. Nussbaum (eds.), Le Gotique de la Renaissance. Actes des quatrième Rencontres d’architecture européenne. Paris 12–16 juin 2007, (De Architectura 13), (Paris 2011), p. 205.

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3. Alart Duhameel, South Portal St John’s Cathedral ‘s-Hertogenbosch, 1478–95. (Photo Oliver Kik).  On constructive geometry in the Low Countries, especially see H. Vandevyvere, ‘Gothic Town Halls in and around Flandres, 1350–1550: A Geometrical Analysis’, Nexus Network Journal, 3, 2001, pp. 59–84; K. De Jonge, l.c., 2011. 22  Versions of the monstrance print are now in the Louvre, Rothshield collection, inv. 75 L.R. and Vienna, Graphische Sammlung Albertina. The Illustrated Bartch, 1991, p. 247, 0911.009. Verreyt suggested that the engraving might have been related to a commission which Du Hameel received for designing a monstrance which would later be executed by the Cologne goldsmith Hendrick de Borchgreve. Since there is no trace of the original monstrance this remains an assumption. C.V. Verreyt and M. Lehrs, l.c., 1894, pp. 10–11. Prints of the baldachin design are preserved in Dresden, London (British Museum), and Vienna, Graphische Sammlung Albertina. The Illustrated Bartsch, 1991, p. 248, 0911.010. Timmermans associates the design to Mattheus de Layens’ sacrament house in the Louvain church of St Peter’s. This would suggest a printing date later than Du Hameel’s arrival in Louvain in 1495. 21

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the application of constructive geometry in the Low Countries (fig. 3).21 In an engraved design for a monstrance and for a Late Gothic baldachin, Du Hameel was one of the first artists to experiment with the new medium of printed media as a channel to disseminate architectural designs (fig. 4).22 It was not uncommon for architectural designers to include goldsmith design into their work load.23 One of the earliest examples of architectural drawings, Villard de Honnecourt’s enigmatic sketchbook, combines architectural designs with those for woodcarvers, painters and goldsmiths.24 A similar example is the printed oeuvre of the Bruges Master W with the Key, a contemporary of Du Hameel.25 His prints reveal the different applications of ‘the Liberal Art of geometry’, ranging from similar monstrance designs to engravings depicting architectural elements such as an orthogonal elevation of a flying buttress (fig. 5). In an art market where most workshops relied on the integration and combination of various successful motives rather than individual originality, these designs were in high demand as workshop models of all crafts related to architectural design. The

A. Timmerman, Real Presence. Sacrament Houses and the Body of Christ c. 1270–1600, (Architectura Medii Aevi 4), (Leuven 2009), p. 185 23   On the relationship between goldsmiths and other artists in the Low Countries, see: L. De Ren, ‘Over samenwerking en verwantschap tussen Antwerpse beeldhouwers, schilders en zilversmeden tijdens het Ancien Régime’, in: L. De Ren (ed.), Zilver in Antwerpen. De handel, het ambacht en de klant, (Leuven 2011), pp. 127–45. 24  F. Bucher, ‘Micro-architecture as the “idea” of Gothic theory and style’, Gesta, 15, 1972, pp. 71–89; C. F. Barnes, ‘Le “problem” Villard De Honnecourt’, in: R. Recht (ed.), Les Battiseurs Des Cathedrales Gotiques, (Strasbourg 1989), pp. 209–23; C.F. Barnes, o. c., 2009. 25  M. Lehrs, Der Meister W A. Ein kupferstecher der Zeit Karls des Kuhnen, (Leipzig 1895); W. Boerner, Der Meister W, (Bonn 1927); M. Lehrs, Geschichte und kritischer Katalog des deutschen, niederländischen und französischen Kupferstichs im XV. Jahrhundert, vol. 7, (Nendeln 1930), pp. 1–101; The Illustrated Bartch, vol. 8, 1991, pp. 124–48.

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role of the new medium of printed engravings in the spread of models and the diffusion of architectural knowledge can hardly be underestimated. In contrast to traditional lodge books and individual workshop drawings, architectural design and their underlying technique could be accessed by a wider international audience. Prints of Master W with the Key, for instance, were copied rapidly by Israel van Meckenem (c. 1445–1503). Printed media, and especially their producers, were a crucial link between architectural design and the visual arts. Almost all of the early engravers in the Low Countries and Germany had a family background of goldsmiths or master masons. It is no coincidence that goldsmith designs and ornamental prints are one of the most frequently depicted subject matters during the final decades of the fifteenth century. Israel van Meckenem, Albrecht Altdorfer, Heinrich Aldegrever, Martin Schongauer, Peter Flötner, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Daniel Hopfer and Hans Holbein: they are just a few of the names of early German engravers who had come from a long family tradition of master masons and especially goldsmiths. Perhaps the most prolific example is that of Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528), whose father was a successful Nuremberg goldsmith. The young Dürer was probably introduced into the world of the printed image by his godfather, Anton Koberger, who himself had ceased his ­ occupation as a goldsmith to become one of the first successful printers and publishers.26 During his journey to the Netherlands in 1520–21, Dürer did not only have many encounters with the famous local painters, but he was equally eager to meet the Antwerp goldsmiths, such as ‘Alexander the goldsmith, a rich and stately man’ who he met

 E. Panofsky, The Life and Art of Albrecht Dürer, (Princeton – Oxford 1943), p. 5. 26

4. Alart Duhameel, Design for gothic Baldachin. (London, © British Museum).

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Oliver Kik at least twice during his sojourn.27 This Antwerp goldsmith is probably identifiable with the Master Alexander who is mentioned in a oft-cited Utrecht court case in 1542 in which the carpenter Willem van Noort was forced to join the masons guild, if he wanted to be able to design architecture. In the court case van Noort’s witnesses referred to famous Italian and Antwerp artists, under whom a certain Master Alexander.28 Goldsmith-engravers such as Dürer and his Antwerp colleagues had profound knowl­­ edge of designing architectural structures but were shifting their profession towards the ­visual arts through the use of printed woodcuts and engravings. When Du Hameel was putting his goldsmith designs into print, he combined it with the publication of folio prints which a­ nticipated the growing popularity of his close colleague Hieronymus Bosch. Both artists were m ­ embers of the brotherhood of Our Lady and might have collaborated for some commissions for St John’s church in ‘s-Hertogenbosch.29 Prints such as his Last Judgement not only illustrate his reliance on Boschian typology and style, but also shows an architectural designer bridging the ­disciplinary gap between architectural design and

5. Master W with the Key, Design for Flying Buttress, c. 1480. (Paris, Bibliothéque Nationale).  H. Rupprich, Dürer. Schriftlicher Nachlass, vol. 1, (Berlin 1956), pp. 152, 169. This was most likely Alexander of Brussels, who was inscribed in the Antwerp Guild of St Luke in 1516. He was also mentioned in a often-cited Utrecht court case in 1542 in which the carpenter Willem van Noort was forced to join the masons guild, if he wanted to design architecture. In the court case van Noort’s witnesses referred to famous Italian and Antwerp artists, under whom a certain Master Alexander. Pinchart also associated the artist with the anonymous medalist Alexander P.F., who in 1578 had cast a medal of the poet Jean Baptiste Houwaert, and had worked at the English court of Henry VIII. Since this implies a minimum age of ninety years old, this seems unlikely. A. Pinchart, Histoire de la gruavure des médailles en Belgique, (Brussels 1870); G..F. Hill, Medals of the Renaissance, (Oxford 1920), p. 134. 27

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28   S. Muller Fz., ‘Getuigenverhoor te Antwerpen over het maken van ontwerpen van gebouwen in de 16de eeuw door schilders, goudsmeden, timmerlieden en metselaars’, in: F.D.O Obreen (ed.), Archief voor Nederlandse Kunstgeschiedenis (vol. IV), (Rotterdam 1881–1882), pp. 227–45; G.W.C. Van Wezel, Het paleis van Hendrik III, graaf van Nassau te Breda, (Zwolle 1999), p. 121; K. Ottenheym, l.c., 2003, pp. 214–15. 29   Koldeweij draws attention to the stylistic relationship between composition of Hieronymus Bosch and those on a baptismal font, for which Du Hameel made the design and which the goldsmith Aert van Tricht executed. On the relationship between Bosch and Du Hameel, see G. Unverfehrt, Hieronymus Bosch. Die Rezeptzion seiner Kunst im frühen 16. Jahrhundert, (Berlin 1980), pp. 190–96; J. Koldeweij, Jheronimus Bosch. Alle schilderijen en tekeningen, (Gent – Amsterdam 2001), pp. 44–47.

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6. Alart Duhameel, Last Judgement, 1478–1506. (© London, British Museum).

the visual arts (fig. 6).30 Early print makers functioned as an intermediate between masons guilds and painters guilds, because they could maintain an independent position on the art market. Jan van der Stock indicated that as soon as printmakers started to produce images, the Antwerp St Luke’s guild made many attempts to force print-publishers to join the guild, resulting in several court cases.31 Since the obligation of early printers and engravers to join the guild remained very unclear until 1558, many printers of books and prints did not join the guild, and were thus free from any restrictions which guild ordinances might involve. We see that many of the peintre-graveurs of the generation between 1480 and 1530 were in fact goldsmiths and architectural designers who shifted their career towards painting, often with prints as intermedium. Family Matters One such career shift of almost legendary proportion is that of Quinten Metsys (1466– 1530). In one of the earliest written descriptions of Quinten’s life, the humanist Dominicus Lampsonius tells us the story of how his protagonist changed his craft from goldsmith to painting, due to his fiancée’s preference for the ‘soft brush strokes over the hammering sounds

 Copies in Berlin, Frankfurt, London (British Museum), and Vienna (Graphische Sammlung Albertina). The Illustrated Bartch, 1991, p. 233, 0911.002. 30

 J. Van der Stock, Printing images in Antwerp (Studies in Prints and Printmaking 2), (Rotterdam 1998), pp. 27–58. 31

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Oliver Kik of the smith’.32 Despite this romantic love story, Quinten’s family tree has some firm roots in architectural design and the goldsmith’s trade.33 His father Joos I Metsys (?–1482) arrived in Louvain in 1460 and held a prominent position in the city’s goldsmith guild of St Elois.34 It was probably also thanks to his close guild connections to master masons such as Matheus de Layens and Gillis Steurbout that his oldest son, Joos II Metsys (?–1529), was appointed to deliver new designs for the new west front of the church of St Peter’s in 1505 (fig. 7).35 This plan was both a structural and stylistic update of an earlier plan, commissioned to Steurbout in 1481.36 The staggering amount of sculptural and ornamental detail in the architectural drawing reveals the hand of an experienced draftsman. In comparison to the multiple contemporary examples of Gothic elevation drawings in Germany and Austria, the Louvain drawing shows an increased use of perspective and even includes anecdotic details such as a trumpet player on top of the middle tower (fig. 8). In contrast to the architectural drawings of Strasbourg or Vienna, the drawing style is more loose and less depended on auxiliary tools to maintain a strict geometrical ratio.37 Indubitably the experience of the young

7. Joos II Metsys, Design West front St Peter’s church Leuven, 1505. (Leuven, © Museum M, inv. 927).

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32  D. Lampsonius, Pictorum aliquot celebrium Germaniae inferioris effigies, (Antwerp 1572), fol. 9. Translation: “Before I used to be a Cyclopean smith, but when a wooing painter began to love on an equal footing with me, and the cautious girl objected to me that she liked the heavy thundering of hammers less than the silent paintbrush, love made me a painter. A tiny hammer, which is the sure note of my paintings, alludes to this. Thus, when Venus had asked Vulcan for arms for her son, you, greatest of poets, made a painter out of a smith.” Z. Van Ruyven-Zeman, The Wierix Family, in: J. van der Stock and M. Leesberg (eds.), The New Hollstein Dutch and Flemish etchings, Engravings, and Woodcuts, 1450–1700, (Rotterdam 2004), vol. 9, p. 168, no. 2024. 33   On the Metsys family and Quinten Metsys’s youth in Louvain, especially see L. Van Buyten, ‘Quinten Metsys en Leuven’, Arca Lovaniensis, 33, 2004, pp. 13–85. 34  In 1469 he appointed as guardian of the Chapel of St Elois. E. Van Even, L’Ancien Ecole de peinture de Louvain, (Leuven 1870), p. 326; L. Van Buyten, l.c., 2004, p. 37. 35   SAL, n° 1526, fol. 250v.-251v. 11th April 1526; Published in J. Crab, Het Brabants Beeldsnijcentrum Leuven, (Leuven 1977), pp. 332–33. 36   “Item meester Gielys Steurbout van den betrecke te beworpene van en drie torren die ghemaect sullen worden op ‘tsondersel dat ghemaect es voer den mommaers duere (…)”. SAL, n° 5105, fol. 129r., 134v.; F. Doperé, ‘Ontwerptekening voor de torenpartij van de Sint-Pieterskerk’, in: M. Smeyers (ed.), Dirk Bouts (ca. 1410–1475), een Vlaams Primitief te Leuven, (Leuven 1998), pp. 323–24; G.J. Bral, ‘De Westtorens van de SintPieterskerk in Leuven. Architectuurtekeningen en een stenen maquette van Joos II Metsys’, Arca Lovaniensis, 33, 2004, pp. 139–42, 151–52. 37   Especially see J.J. Böker, Gothic Architecture. Catalogue of the world’s largest collection of gothic architectural drawings in the Academy of fine Arts Vienna, (Salzburg 2005).

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Quinten among architectural designers must have shaped his artistic conception to a great extent.38 A precedent exists in the partnership between Gillis Steurbout and his father – a painter – Hubert Steurbout for the first St Peter’s design in 1481. For this project Hubert was asked to make a painted version on paper of Gillis’ design.39 The education of Quinten as a painter is still wrapped in clouds. In 1491, he is first mentioned in the Antwerp Liggeren without any record of his apprenticeship.40 Although some have proposed a training in the Louvain workshop of Albrecht Bouts, his experience as an architectural draftsman in his father’s workshop might have made him skillful enough to enroll as a journeyman in Antwerp, which would not be recorded in the guild registries.41 Although no architectural commissions can be associated with Quinten Metsys, architecture remains a constant presence throughout his oeuvre.42 His familiarity with architectural novelties is perhaps most telling in the S.-Anne altarpiece commissioned by the Louvain fraternity of St Anne in 1508–09.43 The painted architecture is proof of a good understanding of both antiecse and modern architecture. The main scene, St Anne with Christ and the Virgin, takes place in a cupola structure, which reminds us of Renaissance 8. Joos II Metsys, Design West front St Peter’s church Leuven architecture of Northern Italy. The cupola (detail), 1505, Leuven, Museum M, inv. 927. (Photo: Merlijn Hurx). structure and the two coffered barrel-vaults on each side adds a visual division and accentuates the main scene. Both Perugino and Cima de Conegliano have been suggested as possible visual source for Metsys’ architectural

  Given the drawings style, it is not even unthinkable that Quinten collaborated with the execution of the St Peter’s design in 1505. 39  “Item, meester Houbrecht, de schildere van den patroone van den torre te scildere, op pampier, hem vergouwen, 27 pl.”, SAL, n° 5086, fol. 97; F. Doperé, l.c., 1998, p. 324; G.J. Bral, o.c., 2004, p. 140. Hubert’s earliest mention is at the building site of St Peter’s in May 1439, for painting bas relief designs on the choir ribs. In 1499 he made designs for the sculptures of the city hall. E. Van Even, o.c., 1870, pp. 59–63. 40  P. Rombouts and T. Van Lerius, De Liggeren en andere historische archieven van het Antwerpse SintLukasgilde, vol. 1, (Antwerp 1864–1876), p. 43. 38

 N. Peeters and M.P.J. Martens, ‘Assistants in artist’s workshops in the Southern Netherlands. An overview of the archive sources’, in: N. Peeters (ed.), Invisible Hands? The Role and Status of the Painter’s Journeyman in the Low Countries c. 1450 – 1650, (Leuven 2007), p. 35. 42  Perhaps closest to architectural design is his participation in the festive decorations for the Joyous Entry of Charles V, on April 3rd 1520. The program of the event was devised by Peter Gillis, whose portrait Metsys had painted a few years earlier. L. Silver, The paintings of Quinten Metsys with catalogue raisonné, (Oxford 1984), pp. 14–15; L. Van Buyten, l.c., 2004, p. 52. 43  Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van België, inv. 2784. 41

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Oliver Kik novelty.44 Just as interesting as his antique architecture is Quinten’s reference to modern architecture, as the Brabantine Gothic was then called. In the outer left panel, the offering of the gifts of St Anna and St Joachim is set against the background of a window overlooking a Brabantine city view in which Larry Silver recognized the north tower of the Antwerp church of Our Lady, completed after a design of Domien de Waghemakere (fig. 9).45 This tower, however, would not be completed until 1521.46 At the same time, a simi­­ lar project was undertaken for the west front of the St Rombold church of Mechelen, designed by Rombout II Keldermans.47 This resemblance of Quinten’s imaginary church tower, more than ten years before the first Bradantine Gothic spire was completed, can be explained by his family network of master masons in Brabant. Both his father and brother had collaborated several times with the Keldermans family for projects in Louvain, especially with Matheus III Keldermans who was supervising on the building site of St Peter’s.48 Metsys’ story of a goldsmith who became a painter is not as exceptional as Lampsonius would want us to believe. In fact, many of the mayor players on the art 9. Quinten Metsys, St Anne triptych (left panel), 1508–09. market of the first half of the sixteenth cen(© Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van België, tury had close family ties to architectural Brussel, inv. 2784, Photograph: J. Geleyns/www.roscan.be). designers. Jan Gossart’s brother, Nicasius was active as a goldsmith and mason. His wife, Margriet ’s Molders, came from a family of retable carvers.49 Given the hereditary nature of crafts and the custom to marry within the

  H.T. Broadley, ‘The mature style of Quinten Massys’, Marsyas, 11, 1962, p. 105; A. de Bosque, Quinten Metsys, (Brussels 1975), p. 95; L. Silver, o.c., 1984, pp. 36–37, 202–03, J. Wood, ‘Perugino and the influence of Northern Art on devotional pictures in the late Quattrocento’, Konsthistorik Tidskrift, 58,1989, pp. 7–18. 45  Although the depicted building is most likely to be identified with the Antwerp church of Our Lady, many similar towers were designed but never finished such as St James in Antwerp, St Rombold in Mechelen, the church of Our Lady in Dordrecht, and of course the Louvain design itself. L. Silver, o.c., 1984, pp. 42, 202. Metsys depicted a similar gothic spire in 1514 in right panel of the Passion triptych, Coimbra, Museu Machado de Castro, inv. 11267. 44

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  L. van Langendonck, ‘The History of the Construction’, in: W. Aerts, The Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp, (Antwerp 1993), pp. 111–12. 47   Although the original design has been lost, a 1550 copy of the original drawing is still preserved in Mons. 48  D. Roggen and J. Withof, ‘Grondleggers en grootmeesters der Brabantsche gotiek’, Gentse Bijdragen tot de Kunstgeschiedenis, 10, 1944, p. 148. 49  J. Duverger, ‘Jan Gossaert te Antwerpen’, Bulletin Museum Boijmans - Van Beuningen, 1–3, 1968, p. 18; M.W. Ainsworth, ‘The painter Gossart in his artistic milieu’, in: M.W. Ainsworth (ed.), o.c., 2002, p. 14, 130. 46

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10. Jan Gossart, Deesis (Holy Virgin, Christ and Saint John the Baptist), 122 x 133 cm. (© Museo del Prado, Madrid, inv. P01510).

same guild – making the guild more than merely a metaphorical family – it seems possible to suggest that Gossart had a family background of sculptors, masons or goldsmiths.50 A design for a reliquary also seems to point towards this direction.51 Recent technical analysis of Gossart’s Deesis (Madrid, Museo del Prado) has clarified that the artist used gold leaf for the Gothic framework surrounding the Virgin, Christ and Saint John the Baptist (fig. 10).52 By applying this labor intensive technique, rather than just painting the tracery pattern in leadtin yellow, might be explained by his skills as decorative designer. In fact, the artist designed a small goldsmith work of thin gold leaf, which was pasted on the prepared panel. Perhaps it was not merely the painter’s stylistic expertise but also his technical know-how which ­influenced his patron’s decision to take a young and rather inexperienced architect-painter on

 This suggestion was already made by Friedländer: M.J. Friedländer, Die Altniederländische Malerei, vol. 14, (Berlin – Leiden 1937), p. 111; S. Alsteens, ‘Gossart as a draftsman’, in: M.W. Ainsworth (ed.), o.c., 2002, p. 96.

50

  New York (The Morgan Library and Museum), inv. III, 127b; M.W. Ainsworth (ed.), o.c., 2002, pp. 400–1, no. 110. 52   M.W. Ainsworth (ed.), o.c., 2002, p. 216. 51

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Oliver Kik his diplomatic visit to Rome?53 A third familiar case of a painter with architectural background is that of Frans Floris (1517–1570), whose lineage of master masons, stonecutters and land surveyors dates back to at least the beginning of the fifteenth century.54 His grandfather, Jan Florisz. de Vriendt, had been involved in the delivery of ornamental sculpture of the Antwerp church of Our Lady and is mentioned in the accounts as metsere, steenhouwere and erfscheyder.55 The career of the above mentioned Lanceloot Blondeel seems to be analogous.56 In 1561, the Bruges h ­ umanist poet Eduard de Dene (1505–1578) wrote a collection of literary epitaphs for renowned Bruges citizens. In Blondeel’s epitaph he leaves no doubt on the painter’s family background and training: Here lays buried the body of Lanslood Blondeel/ First he was a work man with masons trowel/and a great artist, after which he became a painter / following Apelles’s brush in painting /thus completing himself in Architecture.57 This last phrase is of particular interest since architecture is treated as superior to painting. The latter profession only provides completion to architecture. It is almost a reversal of Lampsonius’ vision of architects and goldsmiths as inferior to the Liberal Art of painting. Blondeel was not very shy about his background since his monogram was combined with the picture of a trowel in most of his work. Workshop Drawings More visual information on the transmission of architectural design techniques from architectural workshops to the painter’s studio is provided by a sketchbook attributed to the circle of the Amsterdam painter and sculptor Jacob Cornelisz. van Oostsanen (c. 1470–1533).58 The sketchbook of workshop drawings, known as the Berlin sketchbook and dated around the mid-1520s, offers a unique look on architectural interest and knowledge of a painter’s workshop. When browsing through the sketchbook, about 40% of all drawings are related to architectural design, ranging from exercises in perspective to ornamental details. This number already gives us some indication of the importance of architectural design within an early-sixteenth century painter’s workshop. Of particular interest in the context of designing methods is a sketch of a clustered column (fig. 11). Since some of the drawings can be traced in van Oostsanen’s painted oeuvre, we suggest that the column drawing was a design for a

  The reasons why Gossart was chosen to accompany Philip of Burgundy on his diplomatic mission is still unclear. A much more logical choice for the position would have been Gerard David. Since Philip of Burgundy strove to emulate the splendor of his father’s Burgundian court, David would not only have been a more mature artist, but also be the direct cultural inheritor of Philip the Good’s court painter Jan van Eyck. Gossart’s experience both as architectural designer and painter would make him more qualified to study antique architecture, given the patron’s knowledge of Vitruvius. 54  Van Mander, (ed. Miedema) The lives of the illustrious Netherlandish and German painters, from the first edition of the Schilder-boeck (1603–1604), (Doornspijk 1994–1999), fol. 239r; J. Duverger, o.c., 1933, p. 45, 55; C. van de Velde, Frans Floris (1519/20– 1570). Leven en Werken, (Brussels 1975), pp. 21–23. 53

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  Van de Velde, o.c., 1975, p. 22.   L. Devliegher, o.c., 1987, pp.87–92. 57   ‘Hier light. tvleesch begrauen van Landslood blondeel voormaels werckman ghevveist / met maetsers truweel groot constenare / schilder gheworden der naer Reyn naervolgher in pictura Apelles pincheel vvetenlick inde Architecture gheheel’. W. Waterschoot and D. Coigneau, ‘ Eduard De Dene, Testament Rhetoricael’, Jaarboek Koninklijke soevereine hoofdkamer van retorica De Fonteine te Gent, 2, 1976–77, p. 22. 58  Berlin, Staatlische Museen, Kupferstichkabinett, inv. KdZ 79 C2 a, fol. 34v. J.L. Carroll, The Paintings of Jacob Cornelisz. van Oostsanen (1472–1533), (Ph.D), (s.l., 1987). Many thanks to Ilona van Tuinen and dr. Daantje Meuwissen for sharing their information. The Stichting Jacob Cornelisz. van Oostsanen is preparing a critical facsimile edition of the sketchbook by 2013–14. 55 56

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painted version rather than for real architecture. Interesting in the context of the relationship between painter and architect is the fact that the draftsman applies the same geometrical principles as Duhameel in his goldsmith designs (fig. 4). In order to generate the perspective drawing of the column, the object was first rendered on a geometrical ground plan of three layers. These layers are individually grouped around the perspective drawing. Although very little is known about the training and background of the Amsterdam painter, the linear and decorative character of his early works led Jane Carroll to suggest that he received a goldsmith training.59 Conclusions These short biographical examples are an indication that external factors such as the new humanist Vitruvian ideals on the architectural profession and the expertise in antique architecture can only be offered as partial explanations for the emergence of the painter-­architect in the Low Countries. Guild- and family networks played a crucial role as transmission mechanisms of architectural knowledge. Within the diffusion 11. Workshop Jacob Cornelisz. Van Oostsanen, Berlin process, early printmaking seems to have Sketchbook, fol. 70r. (© Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen Zu Berlin, Kdz 79 C 2 a, fol. 34 verso). had a quintessential position as an intermediate between architecture and visual arts. Many early printmakers quickly combined their practice of engraving ornamental and architectural prints with lucrative figurative subjects and reproductive prints.60 Closely connected to this, is the way architectural knowledge was orally transmitted through family ties, rather than the study of architectural treatises. Small fragments such as the sketches in the Berlin sketchbook are pieces of evidence of how Gothic design principles were transmitted in painter’s workshop drawings. With its wide range of subjects – ranging from figural studies to sculptural and architectural drawings – the sketchbook shows a close resemblance to the spectrum of subjects treated by Villard de Honnecourt, about three centuries earlier. What connects these two sketchbooks is the fluid versatility of the architectural designer. The professional identity of the architect during the fifteenth and sixteenth century is at least to be described as fluid and transversal. However, this was not a strictly northern ‘Gothic’ phenomenon. It is not unusual

  J. Carroll, ‘Jacob Cornelisz. van Oostsanen en zijn uistraling’, in: J.P. Filedt Kok, W. Halsema-Kubes and W. Th. Kloek (eds.), Kunst voor de Beeldenstorm. Noordnederlandse kunst 1525–1580, (exh. cat.), (The Hague 1986), p. 131. 59

 Hans Vredeman de Vries’ print production of designs for architecture, furniture, goldsmith art or sculpture shows a clear continuity of this matter in printed media throughout the century. 60

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Oliver Kik that all major Italian architects of the Quattrocento hardly had any architectural education, since architecture was still a vague definition. Although the concept of architecture as Liberal Art might have been introduced on a theoretical level by Alberti and spread through early Vitruvius editions, this remained a theoretical level. By avoiding anachronistic categories such as goldsmith, mason, and (especially) architect we might come a little closer to the contemporary meaning of designing early modern architecture. Although being just as anachronistic, the term ‘designer’ would perhaps be most adequate to describe the conglomerate of people involved in architectural drawing. Of course, this also has its consequences for the concept ‘painter-architect’. For the generation between 1480 and 1530, many of the painters who designed architecture and sculpture where doing so because of experience gained though long lasting family traditions in masons- and/or goldsmith guilds. They are not painters who suddenly got mixed up in architectural practice, but quite the opposite. These ‘architect-painters’, could be considered as the bridging generation between a complex geometrical Gothic design practice and a more simplified classical ordering of antique architecture.61

  On the relationship between Gothic-antique practice and their different audiences, especially see: R. Bork, ‘The unspeakable logic of Gothic architecture’, in: M. Chatenet, K. De Jonge, 61

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E.M. Kavaler and N. Nussbaum (eds.), Le Gotique de la Renaissance. Actes des quatrième Rencontres d’architecture européenne. Paris 12–16 juin 2007, (De Architectura 13), (Paris 2011), pp. 187–98.

 umanæ Societati Necessaria: The Painted Façade H House of Frans Floris

of the

Edward H. Wouk

The exhibition Palazzo Rubens: The Master as Architect (Rubens House, Antwerp 10 September–11 December 2011) revealed the extent to which Rubens designed his house and decorated its exterior to reflect his artistic experience and project his status as both pictor ­doctus and virtuoso.1 Yet Rubens was not the first Antwerp artist to construct an imposing home and paint it with a cycle of images that would advertise his standing, skill, and erudition. About 1565, Frans Floris de Vriendt, the leading Antwerp artist of the mid-sixteenth century, decorated the façade of his newly completed house in the Arenbergtstraat with seven fictive sculptures in niches and a large overdoor composition representing a complex allegory of the visual arts.2 Although the house has vanished, the paintings on Floris’s façade were preserved in prints and drawings that permit a detailed reconstruction of the cycle and an interpretation of its meaning. The decoration of his house thus offers an early case study to examine how Netherlandish artists negotiated the conventions of their profession to express visually their artistic theory. Leading Italian artists had already established the practice of decorating their homes as a means to communicate theoretical concepts.3 Recent studies have suggested that their ideas may have motivated Floris’s decision to decorate his house, possibly influencing the cycle he painted on its façade.4 However, the contribution of his painted façade to a larger discourse on the status of the artist in the North has been largely overlooked. As I shall endeavor to show, many of the ideas Floris articulated on the exterior of his home, while informed by Italian artistic theory, may be traced to a more immediate source: his teacher, Lambert Lombard of Liège. In 1565, the same year in which Floris completed the façade of his home, the Bruges-born Latin secretary and amateur painter Dominicus Lampsonius published Lombard’s biography, the first art-historical treatise written in the Low Countries, under the title Lamberti Lombardi… Vita.5 This text provides a framework for understanding the visual I am grateful to Antoniette Guglielmo, Alison Hokanson, Tine Meganck, Marcie Muscat, and Stijn Alsteens for helpful comments. 1  See B. Uppenkamp, B. van Beneden and P. Lombaerde, Palazzo Rubens: The master as architect, (exh. cat.), (Brussels 2011), esp. pp. 74, 76. 2   K. van Mander, Het Schilder–boeck, (Haarlem 1604), fol. 241v; H. Miedema (ed.), Karel van Mander, the Lives of the illustrious Netherlandish and German painters, from the first edition of the Schilder-boeck (1603–1604), 6 vols. (Doornspijk 1994–99), vol. 1, p. 225: ‘Hy hadde oock zijn huys uytwendich beschildert met Pictura, en ander vry Consten uit den gelen als oft van Coper waer gheweest’. 3  For an overview of contemporary artists’ houses in Italy, see: A. Conti, ‘L’evoluzione dell’artista’, in: Storia dell’Arte Italiana, pt. I, vol. 2, (Turin 1979), pp. 205–11; for an overview of Italian and northern artists houses at the time, see E. Hüttiger (ed.), S. Settis (intro.), Case d’artista dal Rinascimento a oggi, (Turin 1992); trans. and rev. ed. of Künstlerhäuser von der

Renaissance bis zur Gegenwart, (Zürich 1985). Floris’s house is not mentioned in these studies. 4   Floris’s house has been discussed most extensively in the following sources: C. Van de Velde, Frans Floris: Leven en Werken, 2 vols., (Vlaamse Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten Van België. Klasse der Schone Kunsten, Verhandelingen 30), (Brussels 1975), vol. 1, pp. 34–36, 308–12, nos. S168–75; id., ‘The Painted Decoration of Floris’s House’, in: Netherlandish Mannerism: Papers Given at a Symposium in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 21–22 September 1984, G. Cavalli–Björkman (ed.), (Stockholm 1985), pp. 127–34; Z. Z. Filipczak, Picturing Art in Antwerp 1550–1700, (Princeton 1987), pp. 31-39; C. King, ‘Artes Liberales and the Mural Decoration on the House of Frans Floris, Antwerp, c. 1565’, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 52, 1989, pp. 239–56. 5   D. Lampsonius, Lamberti Lombardi apud Eburones pictoris celeberrimi vita ..., (Bruges 1565).

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Edward H. Wouk program on Floris’s house, which was embedded in a broader debate engendered by twin impulses. On the one hand, northern humanists in Floris’s circle invoked Italian art theory to exalt the status of the artist in the North, and, on the other, they aimed to define the history of Netherlandish art for an international audience in order to prove both the importance and the autonomy of their tradition following the near total neglect of northern art in the first edition of Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Artists, published in 1550.6 Floris mediated those concerns for his Antwerp audience, using the exterior of his house to advertise an elevated conception of the visual artist and to foster an appreciation for a distinctly Netherlandish approach to artistic production. By looking afresh at the construction of Floris’s home and the decoration of its painted façade, it is possible not only to recover a significant part of the tradition Rubens would follow in planning the decoration for his own house, but also, and more fundamentally, to appreciate Floris’s singular achievement in its own right. The present text revisits the context in which Floris painted his façade in order to explain how he translated his artistic theory into a cycle of paintings, and why he did so in a forum as public as the façade of his home. The Material Evidence Although Floris’s house remained in good condition until the nineteenth century, regrettably it was destroyed in 1816 and no physical traces remain.7 We have no knowledge of the inner arrangement or decoration of the house, although it was probably richly adorned. Karel Van Mander, Floris’s first biographer, provided a brief description of the exterior of the house, describing the artist’s use of tones of yellow paint to simulate the properties of bronze sculptures and reliefs on the façade. He also offered the only information handed down to us about the decoration of the interior of the house, noting that the master’s bedroom was sumptuously decorated with gilded leather and that fine ceramic works by Frans’s brother Jan, the famous ceramicist, could still be seen in the home at the start of the seventeenth century.8 A watercolor by Jan van Croes (fig. 1), commissioned by the Antwerp bourgmestre J. B. Della Faille around 1714, records the appearance of the house at that time. This large sheet was folded and bound with a later description of the edifice in the manuscript of Daniel

  G. Vasari, Le vite de più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori italiani, da Cimabue insino a’ tempi nostri, 3 pts. in 2 vols. (Florence 1550). 7  J. F. and J. B. Van der Straelen, Kronijk van Antwerpen 1770–1817, vol. 7, (Antwerp 1936), p. 263; Van de Velde, ‘The Painted Decoration’, p. 134, n. 20. I am grateful to Ann Baudouin, who has encouraged me to search again for traces of the house. As she has pointed out, it is possible that the foundation and one wall still exist, immured in a large parking garage in the Arenbergstraat. 8  Van Mander, Schilder–boeck, fol. 239r: ‘Jan Floris … was een man met beeldende fantasie en teekende en schilderde op dat aardewerk of porselein allerlei sierlijke historietjes en figuurtjes, waarvan Frans ere en aantal in his huis had, die het bezien zeer waard waren’. These works were not necessarily produced explicitly for the home, however, because Jan was 6

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summoned to Spain to serve as Philip II’s master of Azulejos, and his itinerary remains unclear. See A. Pleguezuelo, ‘Jan Floris (c. 1520–1567), a Flemish tile maker in Spain’, in: J. Veeckman (ed.), Majolica and Glass, From Italy to Antwerp and Beyond / Majolique et verre de l’Italie à Anvers et au–delà : la diffusion de la technologie au XVIe et au début du XVIIe siècle, (Antwerp 2002), pp. 123–44. While Van de Velde, ‘The Painted Decoration’, p. 132, suggested that the interior was decorated with a cycle of paintings of the Human Labors, recorded in engravings by Philips Galle and later published by Johannes Galle under the title Artes practicae, Manuales et honestae, there is little evidence to support this. For the prints, see E. Wouk, The New Hollstein Dutch & Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts 1450–1700, Frans Floris, G. Luijten (ed.), 2 vols. (Ouderkerk aan den IJssel 2011), vol. 2, nos. 148–55.

Humanæ Societati Necessaria: The Painted Façade

of the

House

of

Frans Floris

1. Jan van Croes, The House of Frans Floris. (Brussels, Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, Département des Manuscrits).

Papebrochius’s Annales Antverpienses ab urbe condita…,9 and it was used to produce a lithograph when those annals were subsequently published.10 A second, less accurate watercolor attributed to Egidius Linnig,11 possibly based on van Croes’s earlier drawing, served as the basis for an etching by Jean-Théodore-Joseph Linnig, included in Linnig and Merten’s popular Album Historique de la Ville d’Anvers, published with a description of the lost monument in 1868 (fig. 2).12   Pen and brown ink with blue wash, 330 x 415 mm; the drawing is bound with the manuscript of the Annales Antverpienses … of Papebrochius; Brussels, Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, Département des Manuscrits, Fonds Général, 7921 C, cat. no. 5329, fol. 40v–41. When the drawing was made, the house and its painted decor were still in good condition. See A. Thys, Historique des rues et places publiques de la ville d’Anvers, (Antwerp 1873), p. 372: ‘Vers l’année 1700, la façade avec ses peintures murales était encore dans un état de conservation assez parfait pour qu’il fût possible d’en faire un dessin exact. Ce fut le respectable ancien bourgmestre J. B. Della Faille, baron de Reeth et de Laer, que fit exécuter ce travail’. 10  Lithograph by Willem Linnig in: D. Papebrochius [van Papenbroeck], Annales antverpienses … 9

(Antwerp 1845), lithograph inserted between pp. 188 –89. 11  Watercolor, 272 x 346 mm, Antwerp, Vleeshuis Museum, conserved in the Prentekabinet, Museum Plantin–Moretus, Antwerp, inv. no. MT 17567; A.3359.18.64/66. On Egidius Linnig, see Biographie nationale de Belgique, vol. 12, (Brussels 1892–93), cols. 225–26. 12  Etching, 188 x 122 mm, in: J.-T.-J. Linnig and F. H. Mertens, Album Historique de la Ville d’Anvers, (Antwerp 1868), no. 35; for a description of the print, see T. Hippert and J.-T.-J. Linnig, Le peintre– graveur hollandais et belge du XIX siècle, 2 vols., (Brussels 1873), vol. 1, p. 649, no. 122, recording three states. The album contains sixty plates; cataloged in: ibid., pp. 640–54.

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2. Jean-Théodore-Joseph Linnig, La maison de Frans Floris, from Linning and Mertens: Album historique de la Ville d’Anvers, no. 35. (Brussels, Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, Cabinet des Estampes).

Yet as early as 1576, just six years after Floris’s death, the painted cycle on his façade was translated into a series of prints by a printmaker known only as Monogrammist TG.13 While it is uncertain where these rare engravings were made or published, they brought the decoration of Floris’s façade to an international audience and preserved the monumentality of its figural idiom. Each print reverses the original design, but appears to maintain its proportions and tonal values. Read in order from left to right as they appeared on the façade, the personifications represented: Diligence (fig. 3) with spurs;14 Use (fig. 4) with lute, music book, and pen;15 Poetry or Poesia (fig. 5) wearing a crown of laurels and holding a book, paper, and a swan;16 Architecture (fig. 6) with a level and mallet;17 Labor (fig. 7) with the hand of work;18 Experience (fig. 8) with a cobweb;19 and Industry (fig. 9) with a bird hovering above a vase. In addition to these seven single figures, Monogrammist TG paid particular attention to the multi-figure allegory that appeared between Poetry and Architecture above the door.   On previous attempts to identify this master TG as the Italian engraver Teodoro Ghisi, see G. K. Nagler, Die Monogrammisten, 5 vols., (Munich 1856–79), vol. 2, no. 712; vol. 3, no. 389. Van de Velde identified him as a publisher, possibly active in Delft; see C. Van de Velde, ‘ET MVNDVS EVM NON COGNOVIT, De Monogrammist T.G.’, in: F. De Nave (ed.), Liber Amicorum Leon Voet, (Antwerp 1985), pp. 595–611. 14   See G. de Tervarent, Attributs et symboles dans l’art profane 1450–1600, 3 vols., (Geneva 1958), vol. 1, cols. 157, 159. 15  Goltzius would later represent her with the same attributes in a print entitled Practice and Art; see F. W. H. Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish etchings, 13

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engravings and woodcuts ca. 1450–1700, 72 vols., (Amsterdam 1949–87; Roosendaal, etc. 1988–2010), vol. 8, p. 26, no. 123; M. Leesberg and H. Leeflang, The New Hollstein Dutch & Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts 1450–1700, Hendrick Goltzius, 4 vols., (Ouderkerk aan den IJssel 2012), vol. 2, p. 16, no. 200. 16   See de Tervarent, Attributs et symboles, vol. 1, cols. 128, 139, 181; vol. 2, col. 249. 17   Ibid., vol. 1, cols. 111, 159, 188; vol. 2, col. 322. 18  See Van de Velde, Frans Floris, vol. 1, p. 312, no. S173. 19  See de Tervarent, Attributs et symboles, vol. 1, col. 31.

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3. Monogrammist TG, Diligence. (Florence, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi).

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4. Monogrammist TG, Use. (Florence, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi).

He treated this complex image in a larger, signed print that serves as an introduction to the others in the series (fig. 10). The single-figure personifications, three to the left of the overdoor painting and four to the right, animated and embellished the façade with the sorts of idealized, heroic nudes on which Floris had built his reputation as a painter. Their elongated, sculptural bodies recall the drawings Floris made after ancient statues during his protracted visit to Rome in the 1540s,20 and their horizontal arrangement across the façade evokes the display of antiquities in Roman

 C. Van de Velde, ‘A Roman Sketchbook of Frans Floris’. Master Drawings, 7, 1969, pp. 255–86, 312–26. 20

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5. Monogrammist TG, Poetry. (Florence, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi).

6. Monogrammist TG, Architecture. (Florence, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi).

gardens and courts which Floris visited.21 The hanging garden of Cardinal Andrea della Valle, for instance, presented actual sculptures set in niches along a façade with garlands and other flora. The rhythmic effect of this display, recorded in a well-known drawing by Francesco   For an overview of the treatment of fictive painted sculpture in Italian Renaissance art, see K. Weil– Garris, ‘Raffaello e la scultura del Cinquecento’, in: C. Pietrangeli (ed.), Raffaello in Vaticano, (Milan 1984), pp. 221–31, esp. pp. 229–31. On the conventions for the representation of figures in niches, see F. Hartt, ‘Thoughts on the Statue and the Niche’, in: F. Hartt (ed.), Art Studies for an Editor, (New York 1975), pp. 95–116. Floris’s statues do not correspond to those on 21

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any specific Italian edifice; rather, they call to mind numerous buildings that either of the Floris brothers might have seen in Italy, possibly including the designs for the Academy of Bocchius engraved by Giulio Bonasone; see A. von Bartsch, Le peintre–graveur, 21 vols., (Vienna 1803–21), vol. 15, p. 177, no. 12. The print is recorded in two states and a simplified version possibly reflecting a different design for the project; ibid., vol. 15, p. 178, no. 12, copy.

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7. Monogrammist TG, Labor. (Florence, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi).

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8. Monogrammist TG, Experience. (Florence, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi).

da Hollanda (fig. 11), must have been similar to what Floris attempted to recreate on the front of his house.22 As a painted imitation of classical sculptures and reliefs, Floris’s facade was undoubtedly also inspired by the friezes all’antica that Polidoro da Caravaggio and

 This similarity was first signaled by R. Hedicke, Cornelis Floris und die Florisdekoration; Studien zur niederländischen und deutschen Kunst im XVI. Jahrhundert, (Berlin 1913), p. 103; the drawing is in Francesco da Hollanda’s Escorial Sketchbook, fol. 54r; a print of the collection was published by Hieronymus Cock; see L. de Pauw–de Veen, Jérôme Cock, Éditeur d’Estampes et Graveur, 1507 ? –1570 (Brussels 1970), 22

p. 73, no. 171. On the importance of this villa and its garden for northern painters in the sixteenth century, see N. Dacos, ‘Perin del Vaga et trois peintres de Bruxelles au palais Della Valle’, Prospettiva, 91–92, 1999, pp. 159–70. Van Heemskerck famously used this collection as the background for his Saint Luke Painting the Virgin of c. 1560 (Rennes, Musée des Beaux–Arts).

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9. Monogrammist TG, Industry. (Florence, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi).

Baldassari Peruzzi painted on numerous Roman homes in the years before the Sack of 1527.23 Ornamenting his façade with ‘painted’ sculptures not only showed the range of Floris’s skills and his ability to imitate the effects of sculpture in the manner of his Italian contemporaries, but also summoned well-known arguments of the paragone in which painting emerges as a superior medium to sculpture for its ability to create the illusion of three-dimensionality.24  For a general overview, A. Chastel, The Sack of Rome, 1527, (Princeton 1983). Floris’s drawing after Polidoro’s fresco in Piazza Madama is preserved in Paris, École nationale supérieure des Beaux–Arts, inv. no. M. 2171; see Van de Velde, Frans Floris, vol. 1, pp. 362–63, no. T27; vol., 2, figs. 124–25, and É. Brugerolles, Renaissance et maniérisme dans les écoles du Nord: dessins des collections de l’Ecole des beaux–arts, (exh. cat.), (Paris 1985), pp. 134–35, no. 66. 23

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 See L. Mendelsohn, Benedetto Varchi’s ‘Due Lezzioni’: Paragoni and Cinquecento Art Theory, 2 vols., (New York 1978), (diss. New York University); K. Weggengl et al., Wettstreit der Künste. Malerei und Skulptur von Dürer bis Daumier, (exh. cat.), (Cologne 2002); A. Nova, ‘Paragone–Debatte und gemalte Theorie in der Zeit Cellinis’, in: Benvenuto Cellini. Kunst und Kunsttheorie Im 16. Jahrhundert (Cologne – Weimar – Vienna 2003), pp. 183–202. 24

10. Monogrammist TG, Allegory of the Arts. (Florence, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi).

11. Francesco da Hollanda, Hanging Garden of Cardinal Andrea della Valle. (El Escorial, Biblioteca Reale, inv 28-1-20, vol. 54 c).

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Edward H. Wouk The Painter as Architect The figural elements of Floris’s façade were framed by a classicizing architectural program that highlighted the painted cycle and complemented its meaning. An entablature of triglyphs and metopes – real or painted – separated the principle floors, and the door was framed by columns in the Doric order made of ashlar.25 On the ground floor, trompe-l’oeil swags of garland, bucrania, and grotesque masks gave the ensemble an Italianate appearance.26 Yet the structure was clearly a hybrid, with the typically Flemish roof, doors, and casements betraying its Netherlandish character. The obvious asymmetry of the façade was a result of the 1565 addition of the door at right, presumably built to provide direct access to the studio. It was probably after this modification that Floris decorated the upper register with a painted cycle.27 Van Mander’s claim that Frans Floris turned to his brother, the architect and sculptor Cornelis, to design his home has never been questioned.28 It is worth considering, though, whether Frans Floris himself might not have played an active role in designing his home, either alongside his brother or on his own. Such a gesture would be consistent both with the ambitions he proclaimed in his painted decoration and with the precedent of Italian and Netherlandish forebears whose houses served as his models. In fact, Floris’s teacher, Lambert Lombard, was famously lauded as both a painter and an architect. The buildings most closely associated with his designs, including the Liège house of the Antwerp bishop and humanist Lévin Torrentius, show a sophisticated use of architectural orders.29 For his biographer Lampsonius, Lombard’s attention to architecture and his sensitivity to the use of orders provided additional proof of his erudition and his status as a pictor doctus.30

  See Van Mander, Schilder-boeck, fol. 240r; Miedema, Karel van Mander, vol. 3, p. 218, repeated in various sources, including Linnig and Mertens, Album historique, no. 35. On the ‘virility’ of the Doric order, see J. Onians, Bearers of Meaning: The Classical Orders in Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance, (Princeton 1988), pp. 124–25, 314–17. 26  Thys, Historique des rues, p. 371, writes that they were also painted: ‘La partie inférieure de la façade était ornée de festons et de médaillons peints sur un fond uni’. Hedicke, Cornelis Floris, p. 103, described the proportions of the width and height, as well as the overall appearance, which he derided as: ‘unantik and unitalienisch und zeigt die spielerisch=willkürlich=barocke Verwendung von Renaisanceformen durch die Niederländer an einem Beispiel. Nicht einmal ein besonderer Effekt wird hier erreicht. Es wirkt einfach barock und sinnlos und lehrt, wohin die maniera libera Vasaris führt. Dieses Motif findet sich schon am Rathaus im jonischen Geschoß um Halbfenster rechts und links vom Mittelrisalit’. 27   This was suggested by Van de Velde, ‘The Painted House’, pp. 129–30. See the documents cited in: F. J. Van den Branden, Geschiedenis der Antwerpsche Schilderschool, (Antwerp 1883), pp. 206–09, esp. p. 207, ‘Gansch ter zijde, rechts, was er nog eene boogvormige poort, langs waar men naar de stalling van het achterhuis kon rijden’. 25

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 Van Mander, Schilder–boeck, fol. 240r. See most recently A. Huysmans et al., Cornelis Floris, (exh. cat.), (Brussels 1996), p. 261, cat. no. A3. It should be noted that the attribution of the city hall to Cornelis Floris has also been questioned; see H. Bevers, Das Rathaus von Antwerpen (1561–1656), (Hildesheim – Zürich – New York 1985), pp. 12–13, with an overview of earlier attributions. Similarities between Floris’s house and the designs of Hans Vredeman de Vries have been pointed out by D. Nuytten, ‘Architectural and Technical Examples: Between Antique Modernity and Gothic Tradition’, in: P. Lombaerde (ed.), Hans Vredeman de Vries and the Artes Mechanicae Revisited, (Architectura Moderna, 3), (Turnhout 2005), p. 59. 29  On the house of Torrentius, see G. Denhaene, Lambert Lombard, Renaissance et Humanisme à Liège, (Antwerp 1990), pp. 20–21; G. Denhaene (ed.), Lambert Lombard, Peintre de la Renaissance, (exh. cat.), (Brussels 2006), pp. 469–71, under no. 120; R. Jans, ‘Une oeuvre Lambert Lombard identifiée à Liège: l’Hôtel Torrentius’, Bulletin de la Société Le Vieux– Liège, 7, 1967, pp. 213–19. 30   A. Puters, ‘Lambert Lombard et l’architecture de son temps à Liège’, Bulletin de la Commission royale des monuments et des sites, 14, 1963, pp. 281–332. 28

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12. Melchisedech van Hooren, The City Hall of Antwerp, published by Martin Peeters Hand-colored engraving. (Vienna, Graphische Sammlung Albertina, inv. 1949/849, p. 3).

Cornelis Floris had traveled to Rome in the 1530s, around the same time as Lombard, and it is likely that the two artists were acquainted.31 Upon his return to Antwerp from Italy, Cornelis chose to join the Painters’ Guild of Saint Luke rather than the traditional guild of the stonecutters (the Four Crowned Heads), which he apparently considered too mechanical for the elevated status he claimed for his profession.32 Certainly, the architectural vocabulary of Frans Floris’s house bears close resemblance to Cornelis Floris’s contemporary projects, most especially his design for the Antwerp City Hall (fig. 12). That monumental commission, carried   Cornelis Floris had been in Rome in the 1530s and returned home following the death of his father on 17 September 1538; see Van de Velde, Frans Floris, vol. 1, p. 42. Lambert Lombard returned home following the death of Érard de la Marck, although the exact date of his return has not been fixed; see Denhaene, Lambert Lombard, Renaissance et Humanisme, pp. 19–20. Lombard later studied Cornelis Floris’s sculptures; see, for instance, his masterful drawing of Cornelis Floris’s Prophet on the base of the tabernacle he sculpted for the Church of Saint–Léonard in Léau; drawing, 230 x 85 mm; Liège, Cabinet des Estampes et des Dessins de la Ville de Liège, Album d’Arenberg, no. N. 258; see Denhaene, Lambert Lombard, Renaissance et Humanisme, pp. 172–73, figs. 228–29. 32   See T. L. Meganck, ‘Cornelis Floris and the “Florisschool” in the Baltic’, in: Florissant: bijdragen tot 31

de kunstgeschiedenis der Nederlanden (15de–17de eeuw) : liber amicorum Carl Van de Velde (Brussels 2005), pp. 171–84, esp. pp. 171–72. On the Guild of the Four Crowns, see C. van Cauwenberghs, ‘La corporation des quatre couronnés d’Anvers’, Bulletin de l’Académie d’Archéologie de Belgique, 21–22, 1889, pp. 565–613. Indeed, the Floris brothers, sons of a stonecutter, appear to have been particularly concerned with their professional associations. Jan Floris, the aforementioned tile maker, was the first ceramicist to be admitted to the Guild of Saint Luke when he joined in 1551. See A. Pinchart, ‘Les fabriques de verre de Venise, d’Anvers et de Bruxelles au XVIe et XVIIe siècles’, Bulletin des Commissions royales d’art et d’archéologie, 21, 1882, p. 369.

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Edward H. Wouk out between 1561 and 1565/66,33 followed the prescriptions of the best-known architectural treatise in Antwerp at the time, Sebastiano Serlio’s Book on Architecture, which Pieter Coecke van Aelst had first introduced to Netherlandish audiences in 1539.34 Interestingly, Cornelis Floris incorporated two figures representing the civic virtues Prudence (Prudentia) and Justice (Justitia) on the City Hall, using recently published engravings by Hans Collaert after designs by Lombard as his models.35 These statues all’antica, carved by Philips de Vos, and completed in 1566, must have resonated with the painted figures on Floris’s nearby home, further emphasizing the similar modes of viewing that these two classicizing façades engendered despite their vastly different scales.36 Like the City Hall, Floris’s house is also distinguished by its alternating arched and rectangular shapes, heavy entablatures, and the imposition of a typically Flemish roof structure on an otherwise classicizing façade. However, there are also pronounced differences between the artist’s house and much of his brother’s work. Frans Floris’s façade, largely conceived as trompe l’oeil, demonstrates a great degree of painterly license, and architectural forms are freely combined to create a fantastical, eclectic appearance. One of the most distinctive elements, the Ionic volutes over the windows on the piano nobile, directly quotes an innovation that Giulio Romano pioneered in Villa Madama, where he detached these forms from their traditional grounding on pilasters and, in a provocative turn, placed them over fireplaces (fig. 13).37 Floris had visited Villa Madama and studied antique sculptures there, and he may have recorded this unusual architectural feature.38 A similarly exaggerated, even daring approach to architecture may be found in Floris’s painted and drawn oeuvre. In an early drawing of the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist (fig. 14), for example, Floris loosely interpreted architectural rules, elongating and freely combining Ionic columns and a Doric arch. Despite their improbable juxtaposition, these elements successfully create a credible setting all’antica for the biblical narrative.39

  See Bevers, Das Rathaus, passim.   On the importance of Serlio’s book for the Antwerp city hall, see Bevers, Das Rathaus, pp. 22–25. On the publication of Coecke’s treatise, see H. De la Fontaine Verwey, ‘Pieter Coecke Van Aelst and the Publication of Serlio’s Book on Architecture’, Quaerendo, 6, 1976, pp. 167–94. On Serlio’s treatment of the orders, see Onians, Bearers of Meaning, pp. 263–86. 35  See Bevers, Das Rathaus, p. 59; for the prints, see Denhaene, Lambert Lombard, Renaissance et Humanisme, pp. 93–94, fig. 105; Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish, vol. 4, p. 210, nos. 34–41. The engravings are dated 1557. 36   In 1587, Alessandro Farnese ordered that the third statue, a figure of Brabo, be removed and replaced by a statue of the Virgin still to be seen on the façade. The interior was never finished and was ruined in the fire of the Spanish Fury in 1576. Complete restoration was not carried out until the ninetieth century. See Bevers, Das Rathaus, pp. 93–114. 37  See C. L. Frommel, ‘The Roman Works of Giulio’ in: M. Tafuri, Giulio Romano, (Cambridge – New York 1998), pp. 56–89, here pp. 81–83. See also 33 34

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R. Wittkower, Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism, (New York 1962), pp. 83–84. I am grateful to Howard Burns for drawing this to my attention. Dieter Nuytten describes how this feature turns the windows into ‘columns’, and relates this ‘Mannerist’ play to the architecture of Hans Vredeman de Vries; see Nuytten, ‘Architectural and Technical Examples’, pp. 59–61. 38  See his drawing of the Dead Amazon with Her Child, formerly in Villa Madama, now in Naples, Museo Nazionale; pen and brown ink with wash, 216 x 292 mm, in Basel, Kunstmuseum, inv. U.IV,19; see Van de Velde, Frans Floris, vol. 1, pp. 347–48, no. T11; vol. 2, fig. 116; P. Bober and R. Rubinstein, Renaissance Artists and Antique Sculpture, (London – New York 1986), no. 143, pl. 143a; L. Barkan, Unearthing the Past: Archaeology and Aesthetics in the Making of Renaissance Culture, (New Haven 1999), pp. 178, 180, fig. 3.62. 39   Pen and brown ink with gray wash, 237 x 259 mm; Dresden, Kupferstich–Kabinett, inv. no. C 842; Van de Velde 1975, vol. 1, pp. 367–68, no. T33, vol. 2, fig. 131.

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Many Italian painters of the Renaissance aspired to work as architects, most notably Raphael, whose graceful treatment of the body, rational approach to composition, and hierarchical workshop structure Floris strove to emulate.40 Known as the Flemish Raphael, Floris also turned to Raphael’s model when he constructed a grandiose home to broadcast his celebrity. Like Raphael’s Roman palazzo, Floris’s house combined the functions of residence, studio, and gathering place where the artist ‘held court’, entertaining distinguished guests including fellow artists and illustrious nobility, possibly even the counts of 13. Giulio Romano, Fireplace of Villa Madama. (From: Egmont and Horn, who were drawn as Frommel, ‘The Roman Works’, p. 62, fig. 64). much to Floris’s larger-than-life personality as they were to his art.41 Indeed, Floris’s façade bears a pronounced resemblance to those designed by Raphael for Palazzo Spada and for Palazzo Branconio dell’Aquila, the latter thought at the time to have been the artist’s residence.42 Many northerners studied the Branconio dell’Aquila façade, including Maarten van Heemskerck, who recorded it twice (fig. 15), and later, of course, Rubens.43 The similarities between this house and the façade of Floris’s home are striking: the Palazzo Branconio dell’Aquila, also two-and-a-half stories high, was decorated with a façade set out in the Doric order, a monumental central entrance, a narrow frieze band between the ground floor and the piano nobile, niches for statues, swags of garland suspended between oculi, and framed spaces for historiated subjects. Robert Hedicke emphasized the similarities between Raphael’s ‘home’ and Floris’s new house in his 1913 monograph on Cornelis Floris and concluded: ‘The Flemish Raphael had thus built his own version of a palace of the Roman Raphael’.44 More than a Netherlandish ‘version’ of Raphael’s palace, however, Floris’s house represents a particular moment in the history of northern art, when painters began to address their status in images destined for the viewing public.

  As recorded most famously by Giorgio Vasari in the second edition of his Lives of the Artists; see G. Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori, in: G. Milanesi (ed.), Le opere di Giorgio Vasari, 9 vols., (Florence 1878–85), vol. 7, p. 585. On Raphael’s architectural theory and practice, see Onians, Bearers of Meaning, pp. 247–62. 41   According to Van Mander, Schilder–boeck, fol. 240r, it was at the instigation of Floris’s wife that he acquired this second home, eventually ruining himself through the debts he incurred. Raphael, according to Vasari, had also ruined himself through his devotion to women and his profligacy. See Vasari, Le vite, vol. 4, pp. 355, 366–67. 42   The palazzo is now destroyed. See C. L. Frommel, Der Römische Palastbau der Hochrenaissance. Veröffentlichung der Bibliotheca Hertziana, 3 vols., 40

(Tübingen 1973), vol. 2, pp. 13–22; vol. 3, pp. 7–9. In the sixteenth century, it was thought to have been Raphael’s final home, although he actually resided in Palazzo Caprini, built by Barmante for Adriano Caprini in 1501 and bought by Raphael in 1517. 43  Drawings by Van Heemskerck in the Berlin Sketchbook; see C. Hülsen and H. Egger, Die Römischen Skizzenbücher von Martin van Heemskerck im Kgg. Kupferstichkabinett zu Berlin, 2 vols., (Berlin 1913; reprint, Soest 1973), vol. 1, fol. 55v; vol. 2, fol. 53r. For Rubens’s later study of the palazzo, see B. van Beneden and B. Uppenkamp, ‘“La vera simmetria” Rubens’s Italian Examples’, in: Palazzo Rubens, pp. 36–37. 44  Hedicke, Cornelis Floris, p. 103: ‘Der vlämische Rafael hat also hier einen Palast des römischen Rafael auf seine Weise nachgebildet’.

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14. Frans Floris, Beheading of St John the Baptist. (Dresden, Kupferstich-Kabinett).

Ornamenting the Artist’s House In his 1465 treatise on architecture, the Florentine sculptor and architect Filarete described the ideal decoration of the artist’s house in an imaginary city called Sforzinda, suggesting a cycle honoring the artists of antiquity, each represented holding an example of his finest work as a demonstration of his virtue.45 This scheme, while imaginary, may have informed some of the actual examples of artists’ homes that Floris had seen. In Mantua,  Floris probably would not have known this manuscript treatise owned by the Medici but may have come into contact with some of the notions of the ideal city Sforzinda expounded therein as argued by King, ‘Artes Liberales’, p. 251; see J. R. Spencer, Filarete’s Treatise on Architecture, 2 vols., (New Haven – London 1965), vol. 1, p. 259; vol. 2, fol. 9r: ‘In this nineteenth book we will mention the inventors of many arts. On the interior of the entrance to this house [there were] all those who have been supreme in architecture, 45

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sculpture, figures, or any other science. All were portrayed and their names written below. For the most part the inventors held in their hands a painting of the work that they had done, that is, the most noble thing they had done. First were the architects…’. He goes on to list the architects, then the painters and ‘many inventors and discoverers of useful things’. As Spencer notes, the list may have been drawn from a list of commonplaces; the major sources are Vitruvius and Pliny as well as Alberti’s Della Pittura.

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where Floris studied frescoes in the Palazzo Ducale and the Palazzo del Tè,46 he most likely encountered the homes of Andrea Mantegna and Giulio Romano. Introduced to the work of Mantegna by Lombard, Floris would surely have been impressed with the seigniorial proportions of the painter’s home, which was built at great expense and incorporated some of the earlier suggestions from Filarete’s treatise.47 Giulio, for his part, placed a life-size figure of Mercury, protector of artists, over the door of his monumental house. In the salone, he interspersed fictive niche figures of the gods Mercury and Minerva with narrative scenes underscoring the nobility of his profession, likening painting to rhetoric, one of the seven Liberal Arts.48 The most significant precedents for Floris’s façade, however, were to be found in the interior spaces of the houses of his contemporary, Giorgio Vasari: his home in Arezzo, acquired in 1541 and decorated between 1542 and 1548, which Floris might have seen, as well as a larger residence in Borgo Santa Croce in Florence, given to Vasari by Cosimo I.49 In his Lives and in the decoration of his houses, Vasari told the story of the origin and rebirth of the arts and highlighted the salient 15. Maarten van Heemskerck, Palazzo Branconio achievements of his forebears to sustain inno50 dell’Aquila, from Berlin Sketchbook I fol. 55v. (Photo: vation among present and future artists. As Hülsen and Egger 1913). Patricia Rubin has argued, Vasari’s decorative campaigns demonstrate both his ‘passion for his profession’ and the equivalence he accorded text and image to convey his ideas.51

  As cited above in note 23.  The wall paintings of Mantegna’s house were destroyed in the seventeenth century; see E. E. Rosenthal, ‘The House of Andrea Mantegna in Mantua’, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 60, 1962, pp. 327–48, and G. Ferlisi, ‘La Casa del Mantegna: Dove l’armonia si dipinge nella pietra’, in: R Signorini (ed.), A Casa di Andrea Mantegna, Cultura artistica a Mantova nel Quattrocento, (Milan 2006), pp. 154–77. Less is known about Giulio Romano’s home in Rome; see L. Wirth, ‘Die Häusser von Raffael in Rome und von Giulio Romano in Rome und Mantua’, in: Künstlerhäuser von der Renaissance bis zur Gegenwart, (Zurich 1985), pp. 57–68. 46 47

  See F. Hartt, Giulio Romano, 2 vols., (New Haven 1958), vol. 1, pp. 236–41, and E. Marani, ‘La Casa Mantovana di Giulio Romano’, in: Giulio Romano, Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi su ‘Giulio romano e l’espansione europea del Rinascimento’, (Mantua 1989), pp. 321–26. 49  See L. Cheney, The Homes of Giorgio Vasari, (Frankfurt – New York 2006); a different chronology for the decoration of this space is given in: J. Albrecht, ‘Die Häuser von Giorgio Vasari in Arezzo und Florenz’, in: Künstlerhäuser, pp. 83–100. 50   F. Jacobs, ‘Vasari’s Vision of the History of Painting’, The Art Bulletin, 66, 1984, pp. 399–416. 51  P. Rubin, Giorgio Vasari: Art and History, (New Haven – London 1995), pp. 35–37. 48

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17. Giorgio Vasari, Poetry. (Arezzo, Casa Vasari. Photo: Artstor).

16. Giorgio Vasari, Painting. (Arezzo, Casa Vasari Photo: Artstor).

The exterior of the house at Arezzo has been altered, but it originally had five windows and a large central door with post-and-lintel construction, much like Floris’s home.52 About 1542, Vasari completed painting the Chamber of Fame, the first room in that house to be decorated, with a series of portraits including those of his teacher Andrea del Sarto, his hero Michelangelo, his father, and himself. These were interspersed among female personifications of the arts of Painting (fig. 16), Sculpture, and Architecture, as well as Poetry (fig. 17), each with an identifying attribute. In the center of the ceiling, an allegorical figure of Fame was shown seated on the celestial orb, sounding her trumpet.53 In the adjoining Chamber of Fortune, Vasari represented an allegory of Virtue with Envy on the ceiling, while on the walls he painted personifications of the virtues Labor, Plenty, Justice, Honor, Concord, Wisdom, Charity, Liberality, Immortality, and Prudence, all interspersed with illusionistic, framed ‘paintings’ depicting landscapes. This program was augmented, in the lower register, with grisaille narrative pictures representing the mythical discoveries of painting.54 Later, in his house in Florence, Vasari focused on the most celebrated myths of the origins of the arts, visualizing such foundational stories as Alexander Presenting Campaspe to Apelles according to Pliny’s Natural History. Vasari placed these historical paintings alongside a cycle of portraits of the most famous Renaissance painters to call attention to the achievements of modern

  For a reconstruction of the façade of Vasari’s house in Arezzo, see Cheney, The Homes, pp. 21–22. 53  Cheney, The Homes, pp. 29–31; see also King, ‘Artes Liberales’, p. 252. 52

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 Cheney, The Homes, p. 40; Rubin, Giorgio Vasari, pp. 35–37.

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Italian artists.55 Together, these images complemented the narrative of the 1550 Lives, which drew comparisons between the art of antiquity and that of the present, and constructed art history as a series of innovations and inventions that recurred over time, leading artists to ever-greater heights.56 Disegno and Art Theory in the North Lampsonius received a copy of Vasari’s Lives as early as 1560, and he and Lombard were attentive readers of the text. In 1564–65, they both wrote Vasari lengthy missives about Netherlandish art and artists. Their letters, which provided vital information for the second edition of the Lives, reveal the emergence of what Walter Melion has described as a selfconsciously Netherlandish discourse on art.57 Floris was undoubtedly familiar with the Lives and their early reception in the North, and it is not surprising, then, that when he composed a cycle of images for the façade of his residence and studio he was responding to many of the ideas Vasari expressed in his residences and his writings. This is most apparent in the overdoor scene, which shows Painting at her easel, Sculpture carving a statue, and a large figure seated on a globe, whose identity has proven to be a contentious issue. These figures are surrounded by six older men wearing the robes and laurel crowns of learned orators: one looks directly out of the picture, another holds a book, and a third performs mathematical calculations on a tablet. The other three men instruct two putto-like children who learn to sculpt and draw. In the sky, Apollo, the god of learning, shoots seven arrows for each of the Liberal Arts, while Fame places a crown of laurels on the head of one of the masters. Fame, Vasari wrote, was the reward due to the virtuous artist, who, like orators of the past, worked to acquire the honor of laurels rather than worldly gain.58 The overdoor painting – a representation of artistic creation – calls attention to the conditions and conventions of Floris’s profession.59 The picture was flanked by two vases all’antica and surrounded by an egg-and-dart frame, possibly to evoke its properties as an easel painting and not a wall painting. The status of this ‘painting’ as an independent, threedimensional object was reaffirmed when it actually was shown on an easel in a depiction of a larger Allegory of the Arts of c. 1620, which has been attributed to Jan Bruegel the Elder and Frans Francken the Younger.60 Van Mander, in his description of Floris’s house, also con-

 See M. Koshikawa, ‘Apelles’s Stories and the “Paragone” Debate: A Re–Reading of the Frescoes in the Casa Vasari in Florence’, Artibus et Historiae, 22, 2001, pp. 17–28, who argues convincingly that the decoration reflects issues Vasari was reconsidering for the second edition of his Vite, to be published in 1568 (as cited in note 40, above). The frescoes are illustrated in color in: U. Baldini and P. A. Vigato, The Frescoes of Casa Vasari in Florence, (Florence 2006). 56   Jacobs, ‘Vasari’s Vision’, p. 400. See also Z. Wazbinski, ‘L’idée de l’histoire dans la première et la seconde édition des Vies de Vasari’, in: Il Vasari, storiografo e artista, Atti del Congresso internazionale nel IV centenario della morte, (Florence 1976), pp. 1–25. 57   W. Melion, Shaping the Netherlandish Canon: Karel van Mander’s Schilder–boeck, (Chicago – London 1991). An excerpt from Lampsonius’s first letter, dated 55

30 October 1564, is in Vasari, Le vite, vol. 7, p. 590. That letter, as well as the missives by Lampsonius and Lombard, dated 25 and 27 April 1565, respectively, are reprinted in K. Frey, Der literarische Nachlass Giorgio Vasaris, 3 vols., (Munich 1923–40), vol. 2, pp. 114–16, no. 467, pp. 158–62, no. 492, pp. 163–67, no. 493. 58   This is made explicit at various points in the Lives. See Rubin, Giorgio Vasari, pp. 57–58. 59  On meta–painting in early modern art, see V. Stoichita, The self–aware image: an insight into early modern meta–painting, trans. A.-M. Glasheen, (Cambridge 1997). 60  Painting in the collection of the Duke of Wellington, Stratfield Saye; illustrated in Van de Velde, ‘The Painted Decoration’, p. 131, fig. 7; King, ‘Artes Liberales’, p. 247, fig. 12.

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Edward H. Wouk sidered the composition an independent picture, and he titled the work Pictura and other Liberal Arts.61 Subsequent authors have disagreed, though, generally taking issue with the identification of the central figure, the large female personification seated on the orb, who wears a castle-like headdress and firmly grasps a prominent pair of dividers or compasses. Carl Van de Velde identified the central figure as Architecture. According to his hypothesis, the overdoor would thus represent the three arts of disegno: painting, sculpture, and architecture, giving unusual prominence to architecture, the only Liberal Art represented both in the overdoor and as a single figure on the façade.62 Jochen Becker (1972) and Zirka Filipczak (1987), two scholars who have written extensively about Floris’s house, interpreted this figure as Geometria, the Liberal Art common to painting, sculpture, and architecture. Floris had shown the figure of Geometry (fig. 18) with similar attributes in his celebrated cycle of the Liberal Arts painted for the Antwerp merchant and collector Niclaes Jonghelinck, later engraved by Cort.63 In that image, Geometria, crowned with the headdress of architecture, measures a globe while two men observe her work. Geometry was accorded new importance in Italian treatises on art precisely for her associations with learning. As one of the liberal arts, Geometry was poised to elevate the status of the three arts of disegno, which all drew their authority from her principles. Leon Battista Alberti stressed this in Della Pittura, writing that the painter should be ‘as learned as possible in all the Liberal Arts, but first of all I desire that he know geometry’.64 Catherine King, in a seminal article on Floris’s façade (1989), suggested that the ­figure stood for the Liberal Arts in general, accorded the attributes of Geometry.65 More recently, however, King has revised her opinion to suggest that the figure might actually stand for the theoretical knowledge necessary for an artist to excel.66 This interpretation points to the possibility that the figure may, in fact, represent disegno itself. Disegno, meaning both drawing and design, is the technical and theoretical foundation of painting, sculpture, and architecture, uniting hand and intellect. According to Italian art theory, disegno is the shared philosophical and technical basis for both theory and practice.67 In his Lives and in the decoration of his homes, Vasari bolstered the claims of the Tuscan canon and elucidated his belief that disegno, the mother of these three arts, embodied the single law governing all of nature.68 Other arttheoretical texts of the Cinquecento had also stressed the indispensability of disegno.69 Anton Francesco Doni, for example, in his 1549 treatise entitled Disegno, compares disegno to the

 Van Mander, Schilder–boeck, fol. 241; Miedema, Karel van Mander, vol. 1, p. 225. 62  Van de Velde, 1975, I, p. 64; Van de Velde, 1985, p. 130. 63  The figure in the overdoor painting resembles Floris’s depiction of Geometry with the globe as she appears in his early etching of 1550 in the series of so–called Standing Liberal Arts, and in his painting for Jonghelinck, engraved by Cort and published by Cock in 1565; see Wouk, New Hollstein, vol. 2, nos. 125 and 135, respectively. 64  J. Becker, ‘Zur niederländischen Kunstliteratur des 16. Jahrhunderts: Lucas de Heere’, Simiolus, 6, 1972–73, p. 126; Filipczak, Picturing Art in Antwerp, pp. 36–38. See L.B. Alberti, On Painting, trans. J.R. Spencer, (New Haven – London 1956), p. 90. 65   King, ‘Artes Liberales’, pp. 240–41. 66  C. King, ‘Artist’s Houses: Mass–Advertising Artistic Status and Theory in Antwerp c. 1565’, in: M.–C. 61

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Heck (ed.), Théorie des arts et création artistique dans l’Europe du Nord du XVIe au début du XVIIIe siècle, (Lille 2002), pp. 173–89, here p. 184. This builds on an earlier comment made by Becker, ‘Zur Niederländischen Kunstliteratur’, p. 126, n. 86. 67  On the use of disegno in sixteenth-century Italy, see W. Kemp, ‘Disegno. Beiträge zur Geschichte des Begriffs zwischen 1547 und 1607’, Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft, 19, 1974, pp. 219– 40, and K. Barzman, ‘Perception, knowledge and theory of disegno in sixteenth-century Florence’, in: L. J. Feinberg et al., From studio to studiolo, (exh. cat.), (Oberlin 1991), pp. 37–48. 68  See Cheney, The Homes, pp. 87–186, figs. 1–15, esp. pp. 158–176. 69  For an overview of these, see P. Barocchi, Scritti d’arte del Cinquecento. La Letteratura Italiana; Storia e Testi, 3 vols., (Milan – Naples 1971), vol. 2, pp. 1899–2118.

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18. Cornelis Cort after Frans Floris, Geometry, engraving. (London, British Musuem, Department of Drawings and Prints).

ordering of the universe and the act of divine creation itself.70 In Floris’s painting, disegno’s stature and centrality bespeak her importance. Her mathematical, architectural, and geometric attributes relate to the singular properties of disegno, a learned and precise practice different from all other human endeavors.71 In his description of the Low Countries, the Florentine merchant and commentator Lodovico Guicciardini praised Floris specifically for his mastery of Disegno, using the Italian term to explain the artist’s salient achievement in bringing a new mode of painting to Antwerp.72 The concept of disegno assumed a vital function in the Floris studio, the first northern workshop organized according to an Italian model. Following Raphael’s example, Floris separated intellectual invention, a noble task reserved for the learned master, from   See Barocchi, Scritti, vol. I, p. 558: ‘Il disegno non è altro che speculazion divina, che produce un’arte eccellentissima, talmente che tu non puoi operare cosa nessuna nella scoltura e nella pittura senza la guida di questa seculazione e disegno... il primo disegno è un’invenzione di tutto l’universo, imaginato perfettamente nella mente della prima causa, inanzi chevenisse all’atto del rilievo e del colore, il qual rilievo volgarmente si chiama scoltura’. 70

 See R. Williams, Art, Theory, and Culture in Sixteenth-century Italy: From Techne to Metatechne, (Cambridge – New York 1997), pp. 29–72, esp. p. 51. 72  L. Guicciardini, Descrittione di Tutti i Paesi Bassi, (Antwerp 1567), p. 99: ‘Hor’ parliamo de vivi & primi porremo Fracesco Floris, pittore tanto eccellente nella sua propria professione d’inventione & disegno’. 71

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Edward H. Wouk the actual execution of a work of art, in which assistants might play a significant role. His surviving compositional drawings and his painted head studies bear witness to how the master worked out compositions in sketches, finished drawings (modelli), or oil sketches. These, in turn, might serve as a point of departure for his pupils, who followed his design to completion. Floris’s extraordinary exploration of printmaking was part of this larger phenomenon; he cultivated relationships with engravers who would translate his disegno as well as his maniera to the medium of engraving for the express purpose of disseminating his designs and style. More than an expedient, then, disegno was also crucial to elevating the artist’s status to that of a pictor doctus whose concetto took precedent over the work of his hands.73 The established iconography of disegno enabled Floris to represent the immateriality of the intellectual dimension of his work and provided a conceptual framework with which he and future generations could refashion northern artistic practice, removing it from the realm of the artes mechanicae to that of the artes liberales. The unusual prominence of the massive compass, or dividers, held by the central figure in the overdoor painting supports this interpretation for several reasons.74 In the Renaissance, dividers were an attribute of a range of virtuous, calculated activities – including labor, already present as a niche f­igure on the façade.75 Dividers were also associated with all three arts of disegno – and with the concept of disegno itself – as a symbol of misura, the property of measure that explains formal similarities and numerical relationships among objects and, by extension, reveals the proportions that underlie the arts.76 As the tool that enables the creation of the perfect circle, they were also an attribute of master designers. Filarete, for instance, represented himself proudly leading his assistants with dividers in a frieze on the doors of Saint Peters.77 Dividers were even associated with a specifically Italian approach to artistic practice, as Geoffroy Tory recorded in his typographic treatise, the Champfleury of 1529: ‘Les Italiens ont tousiours le compas et la reigle en la main’.78 Finally, as symbols of architecture, the dividers might also stand for the mathematical conception of disegno as set forth by Vasari, who relied heavily on ­architectural theory as a framework to present all three arts in more equal proportion.79 The symbolic values accreted to dividers would continue to expand along the lines Floris envisioned. Cesare Ripa, in his Iconologia, published at the end of the sixteenth century, used dividers to establish a distinction between personifications of Theory and Practice. While both rely on the instrument, Theory’s dividers are aligned with the celestial bodies that inspire her intellect  See E. Wouk ‘Frans Floris and Disegno: a Return to the Question’, ARS, 42, 2009, pp. 47–63; id., ‘Uno stupore ed una maraviglia: The Prints of Frans Floris de Vriendt’, in: id., New Hollstein, vol. 1, esp. pp. xxxiii–xxxiv. On Vasari’s use of the concepts of ‘idea’ and ‘concetto’, see E. Panofsky, Idea: A concept in art theory, trans. J. Peake, (Columbia 1968), esp. pp. 63–66. 74   See most recently K. Park, ‘Allegories of Knowledge’, in: S. Dackerman, Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe, (exh. cat.), (New Haven – London 2011), pp. 358–65. 75   K. Herrmann–Fiore, ‘Il tema ‘Labor’ nella creazione artistica del Rinascimento’, in: M. Winner (ed.), Der Künstler über sich in seinem Werk, (Weinheim 1992), pp. 245–92. 76  See W. Kemp, ‘Disegno’, pp. 227–29. Katherine Park has recently related the figure to practical mathematics which, she believes, was considered 73

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fundamental to a range of activities at the time, including artistic production; see Park, ‘Allegories’, passim. One of the most important treatises dealing with misura was Pomponio Gaurico’s De Sculptura, published in Florence in 1504; Lombard was familiar with this treatise and cited it in his letter to Vasari. Pino, discussed above, also addresses themes in Gaurico’s treatise; for these, see Barocchi, Scritti, vol. 2, pp. 1756–59. 77  F. Ames–Lewis, The Intellectual Life of the Early Renaissance Artist, (New Haven – London 2000), pp. 235–38. 78  G. Tory, Champ–fleury, (Paris 1529), p. 30. For a full examination of sixteenth-century uses of the term in French, see C. Occhipinti, Il disegno in Francia nella letteratura artistica del cinquecento, (Florence 2003), p. 382. As the author notes, in sixteenth-century usage, ‘compas’ meant dividers in the modern sense. 79  Williams, Art Theory, pp. 40–41.

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19. Frans Floris, The Awakening of the Arts. (Ponce, Puerto Rico, Museo de Bellas Artes, Fundacíon Ferrer).

toward ‘eminence, nobility, and sublimity’, whereas the experienced Practice supports herself on large dividers as crutches that affix her to the earth.80 The union of the Liberal Arts and the arts of disegno had been an overriding concern throughout Floris’s career. In his painting The Awakening of the Arts (fig. 19), an allegory of the 1559 Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis that once belonged to the wealthy merchant Niclaes Jonghelinck, Floris represented the three arts of disegno and the Liberal Arts as Roman sculptures brought back to life by Mercury after a period of war.81 The iconography of this picture, possibly developed from an earlier rhetorical play, recalls the woodcut appended to Vasari’s 1550 Lives (fig. 20) in which an angel with a torch symbolizing fame enlightens the arts of sculpture, architecture, and painting, blasting a trumpet to reawaken them after their years of slumber following the fall of Rome to the Barbarians, who lie defeated beneath.82 This  C. Ripa, Iconologia, P. Buscaroli, (ed.), 2 vols., (Padua 1618; Turin 1986), vol. 2, pp. 284–86, 294– 95. Dividers appear frequently in the Iconologia and bear a range of meanings; see, for instance, woodcuts illustrating Perfettione, where they inscribe a perfect circle, and Parsimonia, where they signify ‘l’ordine, & misura in tutte le cose’. Ibid., pp. 100–01, 111–12. 81  This was signaled by Van de Velde, Frans Floris, vol. 1, p. 4, n. 1. For the related print and preparatory drawing in Stockholm, see Wouk, New Hollstein, vol. 2, pp. 156–57, no. 138, with bibliography. 82   C. King, Representing Renaissance Art, (Manchester 2007), p. 37. This image of the Renaissance as a reawakening had its roots in an earlier discourse; see, 80

for instance, the famous letter of Marsilio Ficino to Paul of Middleburg, former denizen of the chief city of the province of Zeeland, near Antwerp, after the death of Lorenzo de Medici, dated 13 September 1492: ‘Si nous devons parler d’un âge d’or, c’est assurément de celui qui produit ses esprits d’or. Et que notre siècle soit précisément celui–là, nul n’en peut douter qui considère ses admirables inventions: notre siècle, notre âge d’or, a ramené au jour les arts libéraux qui étaient presque abolis, grammaire, poésie, rhétorique, peinture, architecture, musique et l’antique chant de la lyre d’Orphée. Et cela, à Florence’. Cited and trans. in: A. Chastel, Marsile Ficin et l’art, (Geneva 1954), p. 61.

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Edward H. Wouk woodcut was reprinted in the second edition of the Lives with a motto by Raphael Borghini: Hac sospite numquam hos perisse viros, victos aut morte fatebor (‘With this protection shall it be shown that these men never perished through death’).83 Like Vasari, Floris positioned himself as an active participant in the revival of the arts, using his skill to give new life to the three arts of disegno in his native Antwerp. The Northern Tradition To be sure, the primacy that Floris accorded disegno was based in large part on his own experience in Italy and his contact with Italian art theory. Yet Lombard had laid the groundwork for Floris’s practice of disegno in a project he termed his ‘grammar’. According to Lampsonius [Lombard] believed that in the masterpieces of antiquity there was something hidden that was more solid, ­fail-safe and sheltered from criticism. He called that knowledge a ‘grammar’, playing with the usual meaning of the word, but meaning by this that it consists of firm rules which he called the substantive core of art.84

20. Anon. woodcut, final page of Giorgio Vasari, “Le vite…,” 1550. (The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations).

Consequently, Lombard placed drawing at the center of his concern, studying erudite subjects and a wide range of visual material in pen-and-ink sketches. These drawings not only served as the basis for his sophisticated compositions, but also demonstrated the breadth of his learning and his status as a humanist figure. Floris, for his part, expanded this idea, incorporating modern as well as ancient art into his studies while retaining the formal rigor consistent with Lombard’s ‘grammatical’ approach to art. Early in his career, Floris produced similar drawings, and his so-called Roman Sketchbook so closely resembles Lombard’s own studies that it was once attributed to him.85 The emphasis Lombard placed on drawing was, in part, a reflection of his formative contact with Italian artistic practice and theory. Through his connection to the powerful Cardinal Reginald Pole, Lombard had met contemporary artists active in central Italy, including Baccio Bandinelli. According to Vasari, Bandinelli had established an academy in the

  See King, Representing Renaissance Art, pp. 36–38.   Lampsonius 1565, p. 14; French trans. in: J. Hubaux and J. Puraye, ‘Dominique Lampson, Lamberti Lombardi… Vita’, Revue belge d’Archéologie et d’Histoire de l’art, 18, 1949, p. 67. 83 84

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  See A. Michaelis, ‘Römische Skizzenbücher nordischer Künstler des 16. Jahrhunderts. III, Das Baseler Skizzenbuch’, in: Jahrbuch des Kaiserlich deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, 7, 1892, pp. 83–89; see also S. Reinach, L’album Pierre Jacques, (Paris 1902), p. 17. 85

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Vatican Belvedere for the instruction of young practitioners.86 The two prints purporting to represent his academy both show pupils gathered in a dark studio studying casts of ancient sculpture.87 In Agostino Veneziano’s engraving of 1531 (fig. 21), older members (including the master) deliberate and instruct the younger pupils, who work diligently at their drawings, while another elder transcribes the teacher’s lezione. In Eneas Vico’s later print (fig. 22), books have been added to emphasize the learned status of the concern, and the master prominently displays the heraldic insignia of the knighthood he had recently received from Charles V.88 The structure of Bandinelli’s academy, at least as it was represented in these engravings, inspired Floris’s overdoor painting, where teachers – one prominently holding a book – initiate young putti into the practice of the arts, teaching them to draw, measure, and sculpt. According to Lampsonius, Lombard first introduced this model of artists’ education in the Netherlands by combining practical training with theoretical instruction. The term ‘academy’ was not applied to Lombard’s workshop until the nineteenth century, yet his method of instruction apparently shared certain characteristics with Bandinelli’s lessons, emphasizing draftsmanship, the intellectual dimension the artist’s work, and the nobility of the learned artist.89 These concerns are reflected in Lombard’s own letter to Vasari, sent in 1565 under the same cover as a letter by Lampsonius and a manuscript copy of the Vita of Lombard, which Lampsonius wished to share with Vasari although it had not yet been printed. Addressing Vasari, Lombard flaunts his familiarity with the Vite and with the most important sculptures of ancient Rome as well as classical and Renaissance theories of art, invoking the writings of Alberti, who had famously advised that painters ‘make themselves familiar with poets, rhetoricians, and others equally well learned in letters’.90 Lampsonius stressed this exemplary aspect of Lombard’s life throughout his biography. In the peroration of that work, he states that he wrote the text so as to offer:   Lombard’s connection to Bandinelli is explored in: Denhaene, Lambert Lombard: Renaissance et Humanisme, pp. 74–75, 216–21; id., ‘L’Antiquité’, in: Denhaene, Lambert Lombard, Peintre de la Renaissance, pp. 59–61; J. Müller Hofstede, ‘Rubens in Italien’, in: Peter Paul Rubens 1577–1640, (exh. cat.), (Cologne 1977), p. 33, n. 39. According to Vasari, Bandinelli was first offered space in the Vatican in order to execute the reproduction of the Laocoön destined for François Ier; see Vasari, Le vite, vol. 6, pp. 145–54, and N. Pevsner, Academies of art, past and present, (Cambridge 1940), pp. 38–43. See also Barkan, Unearthing the Past, pp. 290–95. 87  Veneziano’s engraving, 274 x 301 mm: Bartsch, Le peintre–graveur, vol. 14, p. 314, no. 418; Vico’s engraving, 306 x 525 mm: Bartsch, Le peintre– graveur, vol. 15, p. 305, no. 49. On both of these prints, see D. Landau and P. Parshall, The Renaissance Print, (New Haven – London 1994), p. 286, and, most recently, B. Thomas, ‘The Academy of Baccio Bandinelli’, The Print Quarterly, 22, 2005, pp. 3–13. Thomas records a single impression of the Veneziano print in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, dated 1530; see ibid., p. 5, fig. 2; p. 11. 88  In this later engraving, Bandinelli emphasized his status and is now shown proudly wearing his 86

insignia of cavaliere as he appears in his self– portrait engraved by Niccolò della Casa. See E. Fiorentini and R. Rosenberg, ‘Baccio Bandinelli’s Self–Portrait’, The Print Quarterly, 19, 2002, pp. 34–44. The portrait print of Bandinelli was made after a drawn self–portrait by Bandinelli now in the Uffizi. As Bandinelli wrote in the ‘Memoriale’, ‘In my own Academy, [students] studied disegno under my [supervision] as can be seen in my drawing that I had printed’. See A. Colasanti, ‘Il Memoriale Di Baccio Bandinelli’, Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft, 18, 1905, pp. 406–43, esp. p. 429; translation in J. Woods–Marsden, The Renaissance Self–Portrait, (New Haven – London 1998), p. 146. The authenticity of the ‘Memoriale’ has been questioned; see L. Waldman, Baccio Bandinelli and Art at the Medici Court: A Corpus of Early Modern Sources, (Philadelphia 2004). 89  A. Wittert, Lettre de Lombard à Vasari: Notes sur la première école de gravure, (Liège 1874). Surprisingly, Lampsonius reserves the term ‘academy’ for the mechanical sort of workshops that Lombard rejects. On this subject, see Denhaene, Lambert Lombard, Renaissance et Humanisme, p. 265, n. 4. 90  Alberti, On Painting p. 91. For Lombard’s letter, see note 57, supra.

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21. Agostino Veneziano, The Academy of Baccio Bandinelli, engraving. (London, British Musuem, Department of Drawings and Prints).

his [Lombard’s] example (as though it were a painting of someone illustrious) before the eyes of young men dedicated to the arts, not only to inflame them to pursue the acquisition of the most complete knowledge from all talented men, but also to lead them to believe most truly that they cannot aspire to the great praiseworthiness that he [Lombard] has attained unless they unite scholarly learning with the study of art, following the precepts of Pamphilos, teacher of the greatest painter, and of Leon Battista Alberti the Florentine, of Albrecht Dürer, and of Pomponius Gauricus.91  Lampsonius, Lamberti Lombardi … , 37: ‘Atque haec quidem hactenus nobis de Lombard scripta sint, cuius ut privat hominis non totam vitam percurrere animus fuit, sed eatantum de illo persequi, quibus offenderem, quaenam ipse adiumenta pulcherrimis artibus apud Belgas adiunxerit: ut eius exemplo tanquam illustri pictura ante oculos posito adolescentes iisdem artibus deditos non solum ab absolutissimam earum scientiam omnibus ingenii 91

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viribus consectandam inflammarem, sed etiam in verissima stet illam persuasionem adducerem ut statuant se ad hanc tanta laudem adspirare non posse, nisi ex Pamphili illius, qui optima pictoris magister fuit, Leonis Battistae Alberti Florentini, Alberti Dureri, et Pomponii Gaurici praeceptis litterarum studia cum his artibus coniunxerint’. Translation based on Hubaux and Puraye, ‘Dominique Lampson’, p. 77, and King, ‘Mass-Marketing’, p. 184.

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22. Eneas Vico, The Academy of Baccio Bandinelli, engraving. (London, British Musuem, Department of Drawings and Prints).

In the same years that Lampsonius completed the Vita of Lombard, Floris would introduce a similar argument by composing the visual allegory for his façade. His cycle of wall paintings, which were visible to all those who passed his imposing home, advertised his abiding belief in the ‘precepts’ that Lombard had instilled in him some twenty-five years earlier while also addressing the interests of his expanding public in the Antwerp metropolis. The full title of Lampsonius’s biography is evidence of an intellectual link between that text and the overriding message of Floris’s façade captured in the inscription he placed above his door: HVMANÆ SOCIETATI NECESSARIA, or, the necessities for human society.92 Lampsonius named his work Lamberti Lombardi apud Eburones, pictoris celeberrimi vita, pictoribus, scultoribus, architectis aliisque id genus artificibus utilis et necessaria, thereby announcing its vital importance for the practitioners of all three arts of disegno. Yet the difficulty of his Latin prose and the small print run of the book precluded its wide-scale impact, both for artists with limited Latinity and for a larger public unable to procure the volume. It was through Floris’s façade, then, that many of Lampsonius’s ideas could reach a broader audience. His writings not only provide the terms with which to read Floris’s façade; they also suggest that Lampsonius played a decisive role in helping to devise its iconographic program. The dedicatory inscription on Floris’s house, the necessities for human society, unifies the figural elements of the façade behind a coherent argument for the importance of the visual arts, signaling each individual personification as an instrument for imparting social   The text on the TG print of the overdoor establishes that this inscription was painted on the house itself, presumably in the cartouche above the main door seen in the Jan van Croes drawing: ffloris pin[xit]. 92

Ante portam E.[dificii] S.[ui] Antwer.[piae] (Frans Floris painted it before the door of his house in Antwerp). See Wouk, New Hollstein, vol. 2, p. 160, no. 149.

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Edward H. Wouk virtue. This idea was underscored in the print cycle by Mongrammist TG. In those engravings, each figure is identified by his or her name, incorporated into a brief inscription either drawn from a classical author such as Virgil or Horace or composed in modern times. These inscriptions may have appeared on the house itself, or they may have been added to the prints to augment the visual argument of the series.93 In either case, these texts enhance the overall message of the façade by presenting a rousing exhortation for social improvement through the diligent approach to art: Labor is accompanied by Virgil’s famous epithet Labor omnia vincit, and Diligence and Industry bear close corollaries: Diligentiae omnia subijciuntur (All is subjugated by diligence) and Industria numen fautet (Divine will favors industry). Poetry is described literally as a saving grace: Dignum laude virum musae vetat mori (Let the worthy man be prevented from dying by the praise of the muses), while Architecture is accorded great importance as the ornament of cities for their social well-being (Architectura urbium ornamentum).94 Non cedit arti Usus for Usus, or Practice, again deals with the issue of the artist’s noble calling: Usus, shown with musical instruments and a board for tabulations, does not take the place of art.95 For audiences accustomed to viewing Floris’s allegorical prints, the façade of his house presented a familiar programmatic approach to imparting information. The painted cycle presupposes a structured reading similar to that of the Tabula Cebetis, Floris’s most celebrated allegory of the path to salvation shown as a progressive series of virtues, each embodied in a classicizing nude figure (fig. 23). That image, engraved by Philips Galle and published in 1564, recreates a celebrated lost painting according to the Pynax, an ekphrasis falsely attributed to Cebes of Thebes describing a work that once adorned the Temple of Saturn (fifth century B.C.).96 In the texts accompanying the print, Lampsonius praises Floris’s treatment of this humanist subject par excellence and explains its moral content, guiding the eye along a path leading to a Doric temple at its apex. The allegory on Floris’s façade, through similar visual rhetoric, also constructs a via virtutis, but one specific to the painter’s experience as mediator of virtue.97 Erudition was central to Floris’s development as a virtuous artist. An end in and of itself, it was also a means for Floris to elevate his profession collectively and, at a more p ­ ersonal level, to rival the standing of Italian painters and differentiate his production and the output of his workshop from the vast quantity of pictures for sale in Antwerp. As a ­consequence, he placed the personification of poetry, or Poesia, next to the central image of the apotheosis of the learned artist, emphasizing in unambiguous terms the parallel between painting and poetry according to Horace’s dictum ut pictura poesis.98 This again recalls the paragone, and   King, ‘Artes Liberales’, pp. 239–40, speculates, with reason, that the inscriptions may have been part of the original façade, perhaps painted beneath the niches and surrounded by the attributes. Jan van Croes did not represent all of the attributes in his drawing, either because he could not render them fully in the available space, or because they were already illegible. A contemporary source, which records that the façade was in good condition before it was torn down, makes no reference to the inscriptions; see Thys, Historique des rues, p. 372: ‘Vers l’année 1700, la façade avec ses peintures murales était encore dans un état de conservation assez parfait pour qu’il fût possible d’en faire un dessin exact. Ce fut le respectable ancien bourgmestre J. B. Della Faille, baron de Reeth et de Laer, que fit exécuter ce travail’. 93

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  These translations from King, Representing Renaissance Art, p. 49. 95   King, ‘Artes Liberales’, p. 243. 96   See Wouk, New Hollstein, vol. 1, p. lxviii; vol. 2, no. 95, with bibliography. 97   T. Weddigen, ‘Italienreise als Tugendweg: Hendrick Goltzius’ Tabula Cebetis’, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek, 54, 2005, pp. 90–139. 98  Of the vast literature on Horace’s famous dictum, see the classic studies of R. W. Lee, ‘Ut pictura poesis: The Humanistic Theory of Painting’, The Art Bulletin, 22, 1940, pp. 197–269, and W. Trimpi, ‘The Meaning of Horace’s Ut pictura poesis’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 36, 1973, pp. 1–34. 94

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23. Philips Galle after Frans Floris, Tabula Cebetis Carta Vitæ, engraving. (London, British Musuem, Department of Drawings and Prints).

the discussions of the relative merits of these two affective arts and the senses to which they appeal. Interestingly, the swan represented with Poesia is also a direct reference to the work of Horace, who in his Odes (2.20), likens the poet’s words to the creature’s immortal song.99 The arrangement again points to Vasari, who had represented Poesia (fig. 17) alongside Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture in order to visualize the sisterhood of these arts and showcase a range of inspiration available to the learned artist.100 By 1550, Floris had begun to test the boundaries of specific iconographies related to the arts in order to advance this point. In a rare series of etchings made in collaboration with Hieronymus Cock, Floris represented the seven traditional Liberal Arts in the company of Apollo and Minerva – the gods of learning – and a personification of Industry (fig. 24), described as the productive impetus uniting the arts through active study.101 These exceptional additions to the print cycle presented the

 F. Joukovsky, La gloire dans la poésie française et néolatine du 16e siècle: (des Rhétoriqueurs à Agrippa d’Aubigné), (Travaux d’humanisme et Renaissance 102), (Geneva 1969), pp. 335–38; King, ‘Artes Liberales’, p. 253. 100  Rubin, Giorgio Vasari, pp. 35–37, 140–41. Vasari again represented these three arts together in an 99

illusionistic space before a landscape in his Florentine home in 1574; see Jacobs, ‘Vasari’s Vision’, pp. 402–03. 101  For an analysis of this series, see Wouk, New Hollstein, vol. 2, nos. 120–29, with bibliography. The inscription on Industria, the tenth plate of the series, reads: Parturio cunetas [recte: cunctas?] studiis urgentibus arteis.

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Edward H. Wouk argument that the liberal arts, in their practical and diligent application, were necessary for the advancement of knowledge and that they could provide the visual artist with the necessary credentials to overcome the restrictions of his local artistic climate by combining hard work with intellectual expression for the betterment of his art and, in parallel, for his own fame and profit. As Ilja Veldman has argued in numerous studies, diligence was widely considered a chief characteristic of sixteenth-century Netherlandish culture in general, and of Netherlandish artists in particular, who mediated values of industry and diligent labor in their art, especially in moralizing print cycles which appealed to urban burgher classes eager to appreciate hard-earned wealth as a precondition of virtue.102 Floris’s house stood as an unmistakable monument to his apparent material success, and the paintings adorning its exterior related this display of wealth to his achievements as an artist. The emphasis on the practical application of theoreti24. Master IvH after Frans Floris and Hieronymus cal concepts, while present in Vasari’s own Cock, Industry, etching. (London, British Musuem, writings, has new prominence on Floris’s Department of Drawings and Prints). façade, where the arts of disegno and symbols of erudition are conjoined with images of Labor, Experientia, Industria, and Diligentia.103 Even before the publication of Vasari’s text, diligence was frequently associated with northern artistic practice. In his Disegno of 1549, for instance, Doni praised the unrivaled diligence of Flemish painters, particularly in their attention to the detailed treatment of surface, yet he deprecated their accomplishments by detaching their technical prowess from the realm of

 See, for instance: I. Veldman, ‘Images of Labor and Diligence in Sixteenth-century Netherlandish Prints: The Work Ethic Rooted in Civic Morality or Protestantism?’, Simiolus, 21, 1992, pp. 227–64; eadem, ‘Representations of Labour in Late SixteenthCentury Netherlandish Prints: The Secularization of the Work Ethic’, in: J. Ehmer and C. Lis (eds.), The Idea of Work in Europe from Antiquity to Modern Times, (Farnham – Burlington 2009), pp. 149–75. See also K. Thomas ‘Representations of Labour in images and Texts’, in: ibid., pp. 335–36, who proposes that these images reflect an earlier societal shift. 103  See Rubin, Giorgio Vasari, pp. 270–72. Adhering to courtly values to elevate the status of his artists, Vasari praises those painters who successfully resolve difficult challenges (difficoltà) with apparent ease, 102

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even when that ease may mask extensive labor. This relates, of course, to the larger debate over whether an artist’s skill is innate or developed; of the vast literature, see Williams, Art, Theory, esp. pp. 75–78. Vasari’s description of Bronzino’s diligence has attracted considerable attention recently; for positive readings of his diligent approach to art, see D. Parker, ‘Bronzino and the Diligence of Art’, Artibus et Historiae, 49, 2004, pp. 161–184; A. Barriault, ‘Vasari’s Bronzino: The Paradigmatic Academician’, in: Reading Vasari, (London – Athens, Georgia 2005), pp. 101–15. A more negative view is offered by K. Hope Goodchild , ‘Vasari Contra Bronzino’, Source, 28.2, 2009, pp. 28–32, and E. Pilliod, Pontormo, Bronzino, Allori: a Genealogy of Florentine Art, (New Haven – London 2001).

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the intellect, citing what was apparently a common aphorism in Italy at the time: ‘they have their brains in their hands’.104 Floris, aware of this critique of his tradition, used the painted cycle of his façade to claim diligence as a singular and positive attribute of northern artistic practice and theory, insisting that his technical excellence and working method were forces which united virtuosity and erudition. That Lombard, Lampsonius, and Floris appealed to Italian theoretical concepts to elevate the standing of their profession was by no means a disavowal of their own tradition. Rather, through diligence, Netherlanders could claim a particular approach to artistic creation, one in which fantasia and skill were combined, perhaps not always seamlessly, but certainly with greater ease than in Italy, where conflicting attitudes toward diligence gave rise to an artistic discourse that tended to spurn physical labor as somehow retrograde to the artist’s elevated reputation as a virtuous figure distant from the strains of practice.105 Using different modes of address – epistolary, biographic, and allegorical – Lombard, Lampsonius, and Floris all articulated a shared belief that northern painting merited the status of a liberal art, in no way diminished by diligence or adherence to ‘precepts’ or ‘rules’ that might, at first glance, seem to suggest a mechanical approach. On the contrary, for these men, studying artistic treatises and remaining diligent practitioners enabled the Netherlandish artist to give visual expression to his idea, or disegno interno, highlighting the ars et ingenium of his work and, in turn, demonstrating his learning.106 Diligentia, then, when combined with Labor, Experientia, and Industria, was both a historic attribute of Netherlandish art and a key to future success. It would continue to enable northern artists to distinguish themselves as outstanding practitioners of a liberal art, bolstered by their intellectual credentials and grounded in solid artistic training necessary to excel in diverse modes of production for audiences who valued their learning, skill, and effort.107 This assertion would have far-reaching consequences for Netherlandish artists. In an engraving of 1582, Hendrick Goltzius, heir to Floris’s style and his theories, would represent the figures of Diligence and Labor (fig. 25) from Floris’s façade as lovers entwined in an intimate embrace. His print, published by Philips Galle, bears an inscription in both Latin and Dutch that stresses the indispensability of these two attributes of assiduousness for the very act of artistic invention.108   Quoted in: P. Torresan, Il dipingere di Fiandra : la pittura neerlandese nella letteratura artistica italiana del Quattro e Cinquecento, (Modena 1981), p. 69: ‘La grazia e la pratica de’ velluti o altri drappi di seta, ancora che la dependa da’ panni e veli detti poco fa, per esserci una diligente pratica di colori sopra tutti gli altri maestri gli dipingon bene i Fiamminghi, in modo che gli fanno parer natrualissimi: tanto che i lori finit brocatti o rasi ingannano l’uomo. Perché in queste cose di leggier disegno gli’oltramontani chi aplicano più l’ingegno e la pratic ache gl’Italiani non fanno; onde si diche in proverbio, che gl’hanno il cervello nelle mani’. Torresan relates Doni’s comments to Michelangelo’s famous pronouncements on northern art in his purported dialogue with Vittoria Colonna, recorded by Francesco da Hollanda, for which see note 105 infra. 105   See S. Deswarte-Rosa, ‘Considérations sur l’artistecourtisan et le génie au XVIe siècle’, in: Actes du Colloque: La condition sociale de l’artiste XVIe-XXe siècles, (Paris 1987), pp. 13–28; eadem, ‘“Si dipinge col cervello et non con le mani.” Italie et Flandres’, Bolletino d’Arte, 100, 1997, sup.: Fiamminghi a Roma 104

1508–1608, atti del convegno internazionale, N. Dacos, ed., pp. 277–94. For the concept of fantasia in Italian art theory, see M. Kemp, ‘From Mimesis to Fantasia, the Quattrocento Vocabulary of Invention’, Viator, 8, 1977, pp. 347–98. 106  Panofsky, Idea, pp. 47–50, 85–93; Lombard discusses ingegno at length in his letter to Vasari; see Frey, Der literarische Nachlass, vol. 2, pp. 163–67. 107  This subject has been examined, particularly in relationship to the medium of engraving, by Melion, Shaping the Netherlandish Canon, esp. chs. 11–12. 108  I. M. Veldman, ‘Kunsten en wetenschappen als het meest zinvolle van het menselijk bestaan’, in: Florissant: bijdragen tot de kunstgeschiedenis der Nederlanden (15de–17de eeuw): liber amicorum Carl Van de Velde, (Brussels 2005), pp. 135–47. For the print, see Leesberg and Leeflang, New Hollstein, vol. 2, p. 16, no. 199. The inscription reads: Cum Labor & socias iungunt Industria palmas, | Ars quoq[ue] Palladiam meditatur pectore curam || Daermen geen Arbeit spaert noch gheen Diligentie | Sietmen dat Conste baert diversche Inventie.

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Edward H. Wouk Once again, we may trace the basis of this idea to Lombard. Pamphilos, the artist Lampsonius invoked at the conclusion of his Vita of Lombard, provided an ancient model particularly suited to Lombard’s artistic practice and the instruction he offered his pupils. The tutor of Apelles who ran an ‘academy’, Pamphilos was also ‘highly educated in every branch of learning, especially arithmetic and geometry, without the aid of which he maintained art could not attain perfection’.109 When Lampsonius compared Lombard to Pamphilos, he may have been aware that Erasmus had suggested similarities between this ancient painter and Albrecht Dürer in his De recta latini graecique sermonis pronuntiatione (Basel 1528), focusing on Dürer’s technical skill and high degree of learning.110 These were the very qualities Lombard and Lampsonius appreciated in Dürer’s work. Lombard scrutinized Dürer’s prints and his technical treatise, which he commended to his students for study. In their correspond25. Hendrick Goltzius, Diligence and Labor. ence with Vasari, both Lampsonius and (London, British Musuem, Department of Drawings Lombard upheld Dürer as an exemplary and Prints). modern artist, stressing his accomplishments as a printmaker and as the author of a treatise that they, as northern artists, found of greater practical use than the biographies in the Lives.111 Lombard’s reverence for Dürer and his treatise was one part of an overarching concern for the history of his own northern tradition. Lombard’s archeological investigations into the art of his region’s past convinced him that the Roman conquest had left a lasting imprint on the art of the Low Countries, which benefited from an autonomous antiquity that recent generations of artists had begun to recover. Like their Italian counterparts, northern artists had strayed from the representation of nature, yet Lombard maintained that a renewal of art had already begun in the North around 1450 with Schongauer and was furthered by Dürer, who based his art on firm rules and their diligent, systematic application.112  Pliny, Natural History, trans. H. Rackham, (Cambridge 1962), XXXV, 76: ‘primus in pictura omnibus litteris eruditus, praciupuae arithmetica et geometria, sine quibus negabat artem perfici posse, docuit neminem talento minoris... quam mercedem at Apelles et Melanthius dedere ei’, p. 317. This comparison was first discussed by King, ‘Massadvertising’, pp. 184–85. 110   E. Panofsky, ‘Erasmus and the Visual Arts’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 32, 1969, pp. 225–26. 111   On Lombard’s drawings after Dürer, see Denhaene, Lambert Lombard, Renaissance et Humanisme, pp. 109

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153–57. Lampsonius even asked Vasari to append a technical treatise like Dürer’s to the forthcoming edition of the Lives. Vasari refused to do so, stating that it was never his intention to write a technical guide. See Vasari, Le vite, vol. 7, pp. 590–92. Dürer, incidentally, acquired an imposing house and filled it with his collection, but nothing is known about how he decorated its exterior; see J. C. Smith, ‘Albrecht Dürer as Collector’, Renaissance Quarterly, 64, 2011, pp. 34–35. 112  E. Wouk, ‘Reclaiming the Antiquities of Gaul: Lambert Lombard and the history of northern art’, Simiolus, 36, 2012, pp. 35–65.

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While Lombard was the first northern artist of his generation to express these ideas in writing, his theories reflect the concerns of a growing circle of Netherlandish artists interested in the status of their profession. In 1563, the Antwerp landscape painter Cornelis van Dalem, a member of the lesser nobility keen to project his standing,113 decorated the façade of his house, De Cagie (The Coop) with sculptures of Minerva and Mercury, gods frequently paired, as we have seen, in depictions of literature and the arts. These deities appeared below a relief of Painting at her easel, labeled Pictura (fig. 26).114 Perhaps ironically, this personification, the first representation of Pictura in the North, was shown as a monumental Florislike nude of the sort Van Dalem himself generally did not paint.115 In an implicit acknowledgement of the pervasiveness of Floris’s allegorical vocabulary, Van Dalem placed this figure between two busts representing Albrecht Dürer and Jan van Eyck, labeled Germanorum Decus and Belgarum Splendor, respectively. As a renowned 26. L. van Opstal, The House of Cornelis van painter of exceptional landscapes, often Dalem. (Antwerp, Museum Plantin-Moretus, with figures in exotic dress, Van Dalem Stedelijk Prentenkabinet). chose to emphasize the most celebrated artists of the northern tradition, conscious of his debt to their example and of the value of such a statement on the front of his home. The idea of constructing a history of art through the portrayal of leading artists was just beginning to gain currency in Antwerp. In 1549, the leaders of the Florentine expatriate community in Antwerp were invited to adorn an arch for the triumphal entry of Charles V and Philip II. They chose a cycle of portraits representing their rulers, leading poets, and artists. Adhering to the canon that would frame Vasari’s Lives of the Artists to be published the following year, they would represent Giotto, the supposed founder of the Tuscan school,

 C. Van de Velde, ‘Archivalia over C. van Dalem’, in: Miscellanea Jozef Duverger: Bijdragen tot de Kunstgeschiedenis der Nederlanden, (Ghent 1968), pp. 237–45. 114  King, Representing Renaissance Art, pp. 41, 118– 20. The appearance is recorded in a watercolor by L. van Opstal in Antwerp, Museum Plantin–Moretus, Stedelijk Prentenkabinet, inv. A. LXXXV 34, inv. 1915. The façade was engraved by Jean-Théodore-Joseph Linnig in a print of 1848; see Hippert and Linnig, Le peintre–graveur hollandais et belge, vol. 1, p. 636, no. 75. 113

  F. Grossmann, ‘Cornelis van Dalem Re–examined’, The Burlington Magazine 96 (1954), pp. 42–51; D. Allart, ‘Un Paysagiste à Redécouvrir: Cornelis van Dalem (Anvers avant 1534 – Bavel near Breda 1573)’, Revue belge d’archéologie et d’histoire de l’art, 62, 1993, pp. 95–130; T. Michalsky, Projektion und Imagination: Die niederländische Landschaft der Frühen Neuzeit im Diskurs von Geographie und Malerei, (Munich 2011), pp. 249–54. 115

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Edward H. Wouk and Michelangelo, who had recently completed the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel.116 In that same year, the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke commissioned a ceremonial drinking vessel known as the poculum hilaritatis, or cup of lightheartedness, to be used at their gatherings.117 This luxurious object, made of precious metals befitting its importance, was ornamented with roundels depicting Apelles, Zeuxis, Raphael, and Dürer, bringing together the most excellent artists of antiquity and the northern and Italian Renaissances. Rather than represent only ‘their’ artists as the Florentines intended for the display of civic pride on their arch, the Antwerp guild appealed to a broader tradition. Their cup, an object ensconced in the guild’s ritual celebrations, was designed to showcase a variety of artists as models for Antwerp painters, who negotiated a range of historic and contemporary sources for the enrichment of their art. Lampsonius and Hieronymus Cock would later use the format of the artist’s portrait to construct the first history of Netherlandish art, Pictorum aliquot celebrium Germaniae inferioris effigies, a cycle of twenty-three portraits of 27. Jan Wierix, Frans Floris, from: Pictorum a ­ liquot artists, published in 1572 by the widow of celebrium Germaniae inferioris effigies (Brussels, Hieronymus Cock.118 Lampsonius’s verses Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, Cabinet des accompanying Floris’s portrait in that Estampes). series (fig. 27) are telling. Composed after the final, degenerate years of Floris’s career, they are tinged with regret for an opportunity wasted, rebuking the artist specifically for squandering his innate skills and work ethic. Had

116  J. Becker, ‘“Greater than Zeuxius and Apelles”: Artists as Arguments in the Antwerp Entry of 1549’, in: E. Golring (ed.), Court Festivals of the European Renaissance, Art, Politics and Performance, (Aldershot 2002), pp. 171–95. It appears that their arch was never completed, although its concept and design were recorded in the festival book published the following year, Cornelis Grapheus’s Le triumphe d’Anuers, faict en la susception du Prince d’Espagn[e]. 117   On this cup, see G. Van Hemeldonck, P. Baudouin et al., Antwerpse huiszilver uit de 17e en 18e eeuw, (exh. cat), (Antwerp 1998), p. 24; the vessel, melted down in 1794, may be seen in Cornelis de Vos’s Portrait

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of the Guildknaap Abraham Grapheus in Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, inv. 104; see K. van der Stighelen, De portretten van Cornelis de Vos (1584/5–1651): een kritische catalogus, (Verhandelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België, Klasse der Schone Kunsten), (Brussels 1990), pp. 25–31, no 7. 118  See most recently S. Meiers, ‘Portraits in Print: Hieronymus Cock, Dominicus Lampsonius, and Pictorum Aliquot Celebrium Germaniae Inferioris Effigies’, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 66, 2006, pp. 1–16.

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Floris not lost sight of these distinguishing characteristics, Lampsonius maintains, he would have been a northern painter second to none.119 Michelangelo and the Legacy of Floris’s Façade Although Papebrochius was mistaken in identifying the figure at the easel as a selfportrait of Frans Floris,120 he was correct in associating this female personification with Floris’s artistic practice and his self-consciousness. The picture she is fashioning – a female nude in contrapposto – is remarkably similar to that which Floris appears to be painting in his engraved portrait in the Pictorum aliquot celebrium Germaniae inferioris effigies.121 In both that portrait and Monogrammist TG’s print, the subject the artist paints – the sensuous nude – not only alludes to Floris’s figural idiom, for which he was praised by his contemporaries, but also to Pliny’s account of Apelles painting his famed model and lover, Campaspe, one of the foundational myths of the birth of western art described by Pliny the Elder and prominently represented by Vasari in his house atrezzo.122 Floris’s critics had already likened him to Apelles, and while such comparisons were commonplace in artists’ panegyrics, they nonetheless record Floris’s reputation as an artist who cultivated his self-image based on antique precedent.123 Floris’s decision to represent a figure in the act of painting a Floris-like nude demonstrates his self-aware approach to advertising his virtuosity by emphasizing ancient parallels to his classicizing style. Antwerp audiences readily identified Floris with the decoration of his façade and appreciated its visual program as a professional credo. In a well-known legal case of 1595, 119  The print of Floris, after a lost self-portrait, was engraved by Hieronymus Wierix; engraving, 225 x 132 mm. See M. Mauquoy-Hendrickx, Les Estampes des Wierix, 3 vols., (Brussels 1979–83), vol. 3, p. 348, no. 1748, pl. 245. The inscription reads: FRANCISCO FLORO ANVERPIANO, PICTORI | Si pictor quantum naturâ, Flore, valebas, | Tantum adiunxisses artis et ipse tibi, | Dum tibi multa libet potius, quàm pingere multùm | Nec mora te limae iusta, laborque iuuat : | Cedite clamarem, pictores, omnibus oris | Quos vel aui, nostri vel genuêre patres. Trans. Miedema, Karel van Mander, vol. 3, p. 48: ‘If you as painter, Floris, had added to yourself as much skill in art as you had bestowed on you by Nature – since you prefer to paint much, above making much work of painting, and you find no pleasure in spending time on the proper use of file and effort – then I would cry: yield, painters, whether you were brought forth by our fathers or our forefathers wherever’. The verses allude to Horace, Ars poetica, 291, where ‘limae labor et mora’ (‘the labor and delay of the file’, or the slow polishing of a literary work) are recommended for the poet. 120   See D. Papebrochius [van Papenbroeck], Annales Antverpienses..., vol. 3, p. 188: ‘Ibi inter fenestras apparent omnes eae conditiones, quae ad pictorem perficiendum requiruntur; supra portam vero in grandiori tabula pingens ipse exprimitur, eique assistentes artes operis directivae; quod tectorium hactenus utcumque servatum, ex annos circiter centum sexaginta perdurans, ne totum denique, ut coepit, diffluat, ipsum brevi forma excipiendum in

chartam mihi curavit optimus et saepe mihi laudatus laudandusque senex, Exconsul della Faille; et ego aeri incidendum dedissem, nisi per mortem pictoris, cui chartam commodaveram ipsam, cum aliis defuncti chartis venisset in manus alias quam oportuisset. Non ausim polliceri opus totum a Francisci manu esse, cum supra dixerim, discipulorum manibus uti solitum, ad ea quae facienda suscipiebat opera’. This is repeated in Van den Branden, Schilderschool, p. 207. See also Filipczak, Picturing Art in Antwerp, pp. 37–38. 121  Ann-Sophie Lehmann has recently identified Floris’s action in his portrait in the Pictorum aliquot celebrium Germaniae inferioris effigies as ‘verdrijven’, the technique often reserved for the treatment of nudes; see A. S. Lehmann, ‘Fleshing out the body. The “colours of the naked” in workshop practice and art theory, 1400–1600’, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek, 58, 2007–8, pp. 87–109, here p. 94. 122   See Jacobs, ‘Vasari’s Vision’, p. 403. Pliny, Natural History, XXXV, pp.79–97. 123   Floris was likened to Apelles by both Lampsonius and Lucas de Heere; see Van de Velde, 1975, vol. 1, pp. 2–3. On the topos of comparing modern artists with ancient forebears, see R. Wittkower and M. Wittkower, Born under Saturn. The Character and Conduct of Artists: A Documented History from Antiquity to the French Revolution, (New York – London 1963), pp. 5–7, and L. Barkan, ‘The Heritage of Zeuxis’, in: A. Payne et al. (eds.), Antiquity and Its Interpreters, (Cambridge 2000), pp. 99–109.

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Edward H. Wouk a master sculptor of Antwerp fell into trouble with the Guild of Masons for having registered his apprentices with the Guild of Saint Luke.124 The sculptor marshaled evidence for his argument by invoking art-historical precedents. He began by asserting that Michelangelo had depicted Sculpture as the mother of Painting and Architecture, which reflected a misapprehension on his part of descriptions by Ascanio Condivi and Vasari of the tomb design for Julius II, which mention the artes liberales as well as the artes mechanicae as part of the project. For Michelangelo’s biographers, ‘all the virtues were prisoners of death together because they would never find a man to favor or nourish them as he had done’.125 Next, the sculptor invoked local precedent, pointing out that Floris had represented Sculpture among the Liberal Arts (‘onder de vrije consten’) on the façade of his house. While the sculptor’s plea was summarily dismissed as a ‘most absurd notion’, his claim affirms the abiding value of Floris’s façade. It also demonstrates the degree to which at least some of Antwerp’s artistic community understood the theoretical dimension of Floris’s visual program and, in very practical terms, invoked it to elevate their status as artists.126 Only slightly later, Monogrammist TG’s print of Floris’s overdoor painting served as the basis for the largest panel (fig. 28), in a series of tapestries depicting the The Arts and Sciences, woven by Jan Leyniers of Brussels (1630–1686).127 The translation of the key image from Floris’s façade to the l­uxurious medium of tapestry points to the s­ignificance of his   Antwerp, Stadsarchief, Processen S 970, iii, fol. 10; transcribed in J. Rylant and M. Casteels, ‘De Metsers van Antwerpen tegen Paludanus, Floris, de Nole’s en andere beeldhouwers’, Bijdragen tot de Geschiedenis 31 (1940), p. 199, and in Van de Velde, Frans Floris, vol. 1, pp. 487–88, doc. nos. 98–99. For two analyses of this case, see Filipczak, Picturing art in Antwerp, pp. 16–18; King, ‘Artes Liberales’, pp. 239–56. A study of the reception of Michelangelo in the North remains to be written. 125   On Michelangelo’s designs for the Julius II tomb, see M. D. Garrard, ‘The Liberal Arts and Michelangelo’s first project for the tomb of Julius II (with a Coda on Raphael’s “School of Athens”)’, Viator 15 (1984), pp. 335–404. Condivi (1553) was the first to mention the Liberal Arts in relation to this cycle. Vasari made no mention of the Liberal Arts in the first (1550) edition, but then followed Condivi in the second edition and described the liberal arts and virtues, but identifies them with different figures; see Vasari, Le vite, vol. 7, p. 164. Condivi states that each figure had an attribute to facilitate recognition and states that the tomb included the Liberal Arts and Painting, Sculpture and Architecture: ‘Intorno, intorno di fuori, erano nicchie, dove entravano statue: et tra nicchia e nicchia termini, a I quali spora certi dadi, che movendosi da terra sporgevano in fuori, erano altre statue legate come prigioni: le quali rappresentavano l’arti liberali, similmente Pittura, Scultura, e Architettura, ognuna colle sue note, sicchè facilmente potesse esser conosciuta per quelchè era’. Quoted in Garrard, ‘The Liberal Arts’, p. 335, n. 1; this passage is also discussed by E. Panofsky, ‘Neoplatonic movement and Michelangelo’, in: Studies in Iconology: Humanistic 124

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Themes in the Art of the Renaissance, (New York 1967), pp. 190–92. 126  See, for instance, Federico Zuccari’s Lament of the Arts engraved by Cornelis Cort in 1579, which shows Painting and Architecture among the Liberal Arts, with Painting arguing their case in the court of heaven. See M. Winner, ‘Gemalte Kunsttheorie. zu Gustave Courbets “Allégorie réelle” und der Tradition’, Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen, 4, 1962, pp. 150–85, and I. Gerards–Nelissen, ‘Federigo Zuccaro and the Lament of Painting’, Simiolus, 13, 1983, pp. 44–53. Zuccari’s drawing of The Liberal Arts and Apollo (formerly New York, coll. Scholtz) is indebted to Floris’s representations of the Liberal Arts; see Winner, ‘Gemalte Kunsttheorie’, p. 169, fig. 14. 127   On these tapestries see J. M. González de Zárate, ‘De la stampa’, Archivo Español de Arte, 293, 2001, pp. 72–80. The tapestries arrived in Valladolid in 1808 with Pedro Bamseda and were brought to Vitoria by Nicasio José de Valesco. These eight tapestries are now in the collection of the Grupo Santander Bank (formerly Banco Hispano); see J. J. Junqueray Mato in: Colección Grupo Santander, (Madrid 2005), pp. 476–86. The other tapestries in the cycle, representing the Liberal Arts, are signed BB IAN LEYNIERS, but they do not correspond to Floris’s designs. On Jan Leyniers (1630–86), painter and tapestry designer and member of a large family of Brussels artists, see H. Göbel in: U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, vol. 23, p. 173, and A. Wauters, Les tapisseries bruxelloises, (Brussels 1877), pp. 317–20. Jean Leyniers achieved considerable fame and carried out important commissions for Louis XIV and Mazarin, many after designs by Charles Lebrun.

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invention and its resonance with patrons wealthy enough to afford such an artwork. It is fascinating to note that one of the few significant changes introduced in making the tapestry is the image on the easel: instead of a nude figure, the artist is depicting the Rape of Ganymede as it was drawn by Michelangelo for the young Roman nobleman Tomasso Cavalieri and disseminated through prints and numerous painted copies (fig. 29).128 Had the painter at the easel come to be interpreted as Michelangelo, the divine hero of Vasari’s Lives? The suggestion is tantalizing, and provides further evidence of the lofty interpretations accreted to Floris’s façade, and to his own reputation. In John Harrington’s translation of the Orlando Furioso, made at the same time as these tapestries, Floris was compared to Michelangelo and hailed as the greatest living Flemish artist.129 Taken together, these parallels with Michelangelo suggest the degree to which Floris ultimately fulfilled his ambition to be recognized internationally as a great artist and intellect. 28. Tapestry of the Story of Hector of Troy. (Madrid, Netherlandish artists soon followed Banco Santander). Floris’s example by decorating their homes with monochrome paintings related to their artistic profession. Bartholomaus Spranger (1546–1611), who began his career studying Floris prints, adorned the façade of his Prague home with a complex allegory representing putti painting, sculpting and drawing, surrounded by images of Mercury, Fame, and Rome and trophies all’antica flanked by Hercules and Justice. Van Mander notes that this cycle, like Floris’s, was painted in yellow to resemble a copper relief.130 No doubt the Dutch painter Cornelis Ketel (1548–1616), who also learned to draw by copying Floris prints, had Floris’s house in mind when he set out to decorate his own home with a series of monochrome paintings imitating copper sculpture. In a bold display of both his virtuosity and his eccentricity, Ketel painted the cycle with his feet! Although this extraordinary display of mastery over difficoltà was ­without precedent or succession, it nonetheless reveals how northern ­artists 128  On Michelangelo’s drawing of the Rape of Ganymede (Cambridge, Fogg Art Museum, inv. 1955.75), see S. Buck (ed.), Michelangelo’s Dream, (exh. cat.), (London 2010), pp. 118–22, cat. no. 3, with bibliography. The design was known through a print attributed to Béatrizet; see S. Bianchi, ‘Catalogo dell’opera incise di Nicola Beatrizet’, Grafica d’Arte, 14 (2003), p. 6, no. 35. 129  Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, book 3, trans. John Harrington (1591); see L. Silver, ‘Graven Images:

Reproductive Engravings as Visual Models’, in: Graven Images: The Rise of Professional Printmakers in Antwerp and Haarlem 1540–1640, (exh. cat.), (Evanston 1993), p. 8. On Michelangelo’s elevated status, see R. and M. Wittkower, The Divine Michelangelo, (London 1964). 130  Van Mander, Schilder–boeck, fol. 272v–273r; Miedema, Karel van Mander, vol. 1, pp. 349–50.

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Edward H. Wouk came to consider the exterior of their homes as the prime location for public statements about their profession and the singularity of their art.131 Rubens’s ‘Palazzo’ When Rubens designed and decorated his house in Antwerp, he was working within a local tradition that Floris had established, and, to a degree, he followed his predecessor’s model. Although Rubens appealed to a broader range of visual sources that reflected his own experiences and interests, his decision to foreground virtuosity and virtue in the subjects he chose to paint – and the means he used to do so – brings to the fore the importance of Floris’s precedent. Certainly, Rubens closely followed Italian examples in ‘reconstructing’ lost ancient paintings related to artistic creation in order to ally his art with antique paragons of excellence.132 His sources included not only central Italian works of the high Renaissance but also late sixteenth-century cycles by Federico Zuccaro in Florence and Rome and Venetian sources that were unknown to Floris.133 Yet, as Rubens knew, any appreciation of the painted decoration on his 29. Anon. engraver (formerly attributed to Nicolas Béatrizet house and studio might be understood in after Michelangelo), Rape of Ganymede, engraving. (London, dialogue with the façade of Floris’s house, British Museum, Department of Drawings and Prints). located just around the corner and still legible in its detail. Rubens adorned his house with trompe-l’oeil architectural orders and sculptures as Floris had done. He also appealed to similar conventions of allegory and illusion as a means to extol his artistic excellence before his public. Next to the pictures of ancient artists, reconstructed in grisaille to resemble reliefs, he painted Perseus and Andromeda, a two-dimensional wall painting of a recently finished ‘painting’, shown as though set out to dry. Elizabeth McGrath and Jeffrey Muller have associated the subject with virtue, both that of the hero, Perseus, and that of the painter, Rubens,

 N. Galley, ‘Cornelis Ketel: A Painter without a Brush’, Artibus et Historiae, 25, 2004, pp. 87–100. Ketel’s extraordinary program is described by Van Mander, Schilder–boeck, fol. 278v, Miedema, Karel van Mander, vol. 1, pp. 372–73. 131

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 See E. McGrath, ‘The Painted Decoration of Rubens’s House’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 41, 1978, pp. 245–77. 133  See Uppenkamp, Van Beneden and Lombaerde, Palazzo Rubens, passim. 132

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who gave pride of place to this moralizing image.134 The Perseus and Andromeda, while apparently ‘hanging’ in an inner court, may also have offered a modern response to the cycle on Floris’s nearby façade. It has already been observed that Rubens’s painting includes elements without precedent in the visual history of the story, for instance the winged Victory descending to crown the painter with laurels.135 This detail, possibly an echo of the winged figure Fame in Floris’s overdoor painting, points to larger thematic similarities between these two public reflections on the process of artistic creation and the virtues of the painter. Floris had laid the foundation for the acceptance of classicizing art in Antwerp, and Rubens, in this tour de force of illusionism, proclaimed his status as heir to that precedent. In its day, the façade of Floris’s house broadcast a radical message to Antwerp audiences: northern artists deserved to be considered practitioners of a liberal art as their Italian counterparts had been for well over a century.136 Floris used the exterior of his home as the prime venue to promote his understanding of the visual artist as a pictor doctus, and as an agent of change, exhorting his contemporaries to consider painting, sculpture, and architecture to be the equals of geometry, poetry, rhetoric, and their companions. While Floris was profoundly affected by his exposure to Italian art and theory, his teacher Lombard had opened the way for him to explore the intellectual dimension of his work without ceding his northern identity or overlooking the facets of his practice that distanced him from Italian paradigms. For his contemporaries and for future generations, Floris’s façade placed the concept of artistic virtuosity squarely within the scope of the Netherlandish tradition.

134   On Rubens’s house decoration, and the depiction of Perseus and Andromeda as a deceptive painting, see J. M. Muller, ‘The Perseus and Andromeda on Rubens’s House’, Simiolus, 12, 1981, pp. 131–46; McGrath mentions Floris’s house façade as a precedent for Rubens’s house; see McGrath, ‘The Painted Decoration’, p. 249. The engraving by Harrewijn that records the appearance of Rubens’s house was also based on a drawing by Jan van Croes. 135   J. B. Scott, ‘The Meaning of Perseus and Andromeda in the Farnese Gallery and on the Rubens House’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 51, 1988, pp. 250–60.

136  On the gradual arrival of Italian theoretical concepts in the North at this time, see Z. Z. Filipczak, ‘Selective Importation of Italian Theories of Art into the Netherlands, 1550–1640’, in: J. Brink and W. Gentrup (ed.), Renaissance Culture in Context: Theory and Practice, (Aldershot – Brookfield 1993), pp. 176–97. Floris’s visual plea has a precedent in the North in Jacopo de Barbari’s famous letter to his patron Fredrick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, in which the artist argued that painting deserved to be considered a liberal art; see P. Stirn, “Friedrich der Weise und Jacopo de Barbari,” Jahrbuch Der Preussischen Kunstsammlungen Berlin, 1925, pp. 130–34.

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Wensel Cobergher (1556/61–1634): Painter, Antiquarian, Architect Tine L. Meganck

An antiquarian painter as court architect In 1600 Jean Richardot (1579–1640), resident minister of the Archdukes at the Papal court in Rome, sent a laudatory report on Wensel Cobergher (1556/61–1634) to Brussels stating that: ‘In painting, his principal profession, he is excellent and held as one of the first in Italy, having embellished the most prominent churches of Naples and Rome, with very few masters who surpass him, and very skilled and fortunate in inventions, his hand fluent, easy and sweet.’1 While the report presents painting as Cobergher’s principal profession, no paintings by his hand have been preserved after 1605, the year he was officially appointed ‘architect and engineer’ at the Brussels court.2 Because his painted work predates his more famous architectural designs, it has been largely overlooked. Previtali and Leone de Castris have pointed to the importance of Cobergher for late sixteenth-century painting in Naples, but generally isolate his paintings from his later architectural activities in the Low Countries.3 Cobergher’s painted and built designs have not been studied in an integrated way. This is particularly problematic as Cobergher conceived his most illustrious design, the pilgrimage church of Scherpenheuvel (Montaigu) as a unique program of painting, sculpture, architecture and urban planning.4 Given this biographical partition (painter early in his career / court architect as a mature artist) the relationship between painting and architecture in Cobergher’s oeuvre is often perceived as difficult. Yet was this so? Early sources suggest in fact the contrary, that his success as a painter precisely facilitated his appointment as a court architect. The report sent by Richardot reveals that contemporaries regarded Cobergher as an excellent and inventive painter, an observation that contradicts the traditional art historical appraisal of Cobergher as a ‘mannerist’ painter soon eclipsed by the triumphant style of Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640).5 This article was sponsored by the IAP project P7/26 ‘City and Society in the Low Countries (ca. 1200ca. 1850)’ (Federal Science Policy, Belgium, within the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels). 1   They asked Jean Richardot to find out more about Cobergher in a letter dated 29 November 1600, and received the report probably soon after. On 26 January 1601 the Archdukes asked Richardot to officially invite Cobergher to present himself at the court in Brussels. See T. Meganck, De kerkelijke architectuur van Wensel Cobergher (1557/61–1634) in het licht van zijn verblijf te Rome, (Verhandelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België, Klasse der Schone Kunsten), (Brussels 1998), 60, no. 64, pp.15–31, with further references. We republish the report in appendix. 2  In 1613–4 Cobergher was paid for four paintings for the Church of the Discalced Carmelites in Brussels, but these have not been preserved. See on this payment in three installments: M. De Maeyer, Albrecht en Isabella en de Schilderkunst. Bijdrage tot

de Geschiedenis van de XVIIe-eeuwse schilderkunst in de Zuidelijk Nederlanden, (Brussels 1955), docs. 91, 93, 99. According to later witnesses only the main altarpiece depicting a Holy Family was by Cobergher while the four paintings for the side altars were by Theodore Van Loon, see Meganck, o.c., 1998, pp. 46–49. 3  G. Previtali; ‘Fiamminghi a Napoli alla fine del Cinquecento: Cornelis Smet, Pietro Torres, Wenzel Cobergher’, in: Relations artistiques entre les Pays-Bas et l’Italie à la Renaissance; Etudes dédiées à Suzanne Sulzberger, (Brussels-Rome 1980), pp. 209–17; P. L. de Castris, Pittura del Cinquecento a Napoli 1573–1609: l’ultima maniera, (Naples 1991), pp. 85–106 and 323–24. 4  Meganck, o.c., pp. 52–94; L. Duerloo and M. Wingens, Scherpenheuvel. Het Jeruzalem van de Lage Landen, (Leuven 2002). 5  H. Vlieghe, Flemish Art and Architecture 1585– 1700, (Pelican History of Art), (New Haven – London, 1998), pp. 19–20.

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Tine L. Meganck The report further accords much importance to Cobergher’s study of antiquities and describes his manuscript of ancient medals, still extant today in the Royal Library in Brussels, in detail (fig. 1).6 Indeed, it presents Cobergher as a fine courtier (‘[…] de bonne representation, courtois […]’) who conversed with cardinal-princes as Jacopo Boncompagni (1548–1612) and Cinzio (1551–1610) and Pietro Aldrobrandini (1571–1621) and was visited by many others in Rome with professions in ‘antiquities, painting and architecture.’ We contend in this essay that Cobergher’s installment as court architect relied first and foremost on his success as a painter and antiquarian. As such, the decision of Albert and Isabella to invite Cobergher follows a tradition of earlier architects at the Brussels court, in particular of Jean Mone (1485/1590?–1548/1549) and Pieter Coecke van Aelst (1502–1550). As Krista de Jonge has shown, their title of ‘artist of the emperor,’ responsible for architecture as well as other arts depending on it, was used to single them out as experts in the antique.7 Cobergher’s understanding of the antique, however, surpassed that of his predecessors. He lived and worked for more than twenty years in Naples and Rome, the heartland of the ancient Roman Empire, at a time when ancient remains, both pagan and early Christian, were investigated with a new, almost archeological zeal. Cobergher fully participated in this antiquarian culture. We know from a letter by Jacques Colius (1563–1628) from Naples to his uncle, the Antwerp geographer Abraham Ortelius (1527–1598) that Coberger was already working on his much praised manuscript of ancient medals in Naples in 1597.8 NicolasClaude Fabri de Peiresc (1580–1637), possibly the most famous antiquarian of the time, later relates that Cobergher had assembled, besides the book on ancient medals, three more books on the antique during his stay in Italy, on ancient architecture, on ancient painting and sculpture, and on the representation of the Gods, which however are not known to have not been preserved.9 Peiresc specifically mentions that Cobergher had studied the ancient monuments of Baia, Cuma, Pozzuoli and Capua in the surroundings of Naples, to correct the theoretical treatises of Palladio and Serlio against the evidence of built architecture. Peiresc writes this after his visit to Cobergher in Brussels in 1606, but both men almost certainly met in Rome circa 1600.10 We know that later in Rome Cobergher was in contact with Cardinal Cesare Baronio (1538–1607), whose archeological investigations of the lives and remains of early Christian saints were to rebut the Protestant attack on the cult of the saints and reformed Catholic iconography.11 He also befriended Joannes l’Heureux alias Macarius (1540–1614)   Royal Library of Belgium in Brussels ms 5575.  K. De Jonge, ‘The Court Architect as Artist in the Southern Low Countries 1520–1560’, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek, 59, 2009, (Zwolle 2012), pp. 111–35. 8   Abrahami Ortelii (geographi Antverpiensis)et virorum eruditorum ad eundem et ad Jacobum Colium Ortelianum (Abrahami Ortelii sororis filium) epistulae, cum aliquot aliis epistulis et tractatibus quibusdam ab utroque collectis (1524–1628). Ex autographis mandante Ecclesia Londino-Batava edidit Joannes Henricus Hessels, 1887 (reprint Osnabrück: Otto Zeller, 1969). From hereon as Abrahami Ortelii epistulae, no 309.11 (Colius to Ortelius, Rome, 18 October 1597): ‘Romam etiam commoratum venit Neapoli, Vincentius (Wensel vulgo) Cobergher, Belga pictor: qui numismatibus satis instructus aliquid instar Goltzij de ijs edere promittit, sed sero, vereor. Quibus jam intentus Stiglio.’ 6 7

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 Autograph of Peiresc, Royal Library, Brussels, MS II 878, fols. 11–12. See for a transcription J.M.M. Van de Gheyn, ‘Peiresc et Coebergher,’ Annales de l“Académie royale darchéologie de Belgique, 5th ser., 7, 1905, pp. 5–13. 10  Peiresc first travelled to Italy in 1600–1602, see P. Gassendi, Vie de l’illustre Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, transl. R. Lasalle et A. Bresson, (Paris 1992), pp. 43–46 (Rome) and 50–52 (Pozzuoli). 11  Antwerp, Plantin-Moretus Museum, archive, reg. XII, p. 245 and 248: Letters of Jan Moretus to Cardinal Baronius, Antwerp, 1603, mentioning that he has asked Cobergher to deliver a missal to the cardinal, published by De Maeyer, o. c., 1955, doc. 33. See also R. de Maio (ed.), Baronio e l’arte: atti del Convegno internazionale di Studi, Sora, 10–13 ottobre 1984, (Sora, 1985) and I. von zur Mühlen, ‘Nachtridentinische Bildauffassungen. Cesare Baronio und Rubens’ Gemälde für S. Maria in Vallicella in Rome, Münchener Jahrbuch der Bildenden Kunst, 41, 1991, pp. 23–60. 9

Wensel Cobergher (1556/61–1634): Painter, Antiquarian, Architect

1. Wensel Cobergher, Book of antique medals, pen on paper, Brussels, (Royal Library of Belgium Albert I, Manuscripts: MS 5575, fol. 28r. © Royal Library of Belgium Albert I, Brussels).

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2a. Wensel Cobergher, Resurrection, circa 1594, oil on canvas, 233 x 150cm, c. 1594, (Naples, San Domenico Maggiore, Capellone del Crocifisso. © Archivio dell’Arte Luciano Pedicini).

and maybe Philips van Winghe (1560–1592), two compatriots who were also pioneers of this archeologia sacra.12 Winghe’s antiquarian notebooks were inherited by Dionysius de Villers (1546–1620), canon of Tournai, in whose album amicorum Cobergher inscribed his signature in 1601.13  See note 43. See on l’Heureux, P. N. Miller, ‘The Antiquary’s Art of Comparison: Peiresc and Abraxas,’ in Ralph Häfner (ed.), Philologie unde Erkenntnis. Beiträge zu Begriff und Problem frühneuzeitlicher ‘Philologie’, (Tübingen 2001), pp. 57–94: 76. On Van Winghe, see C. Schuddeboom, Philips van Winghe (1560–1692) en het ontstaan van de christelijke archeologie, (Groningen 1996). 12

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  C. Sorgeloos, ‘Wenceslas Cobergher, Théodore Galle, une reliure turque: ‘l’album amicorum de Denis de Villers (d. 1620), chanoine de Tournai,’ in: E. Codicibus Impressisque. Opstellen over het boek in de Lage landen voor Elly Cockx-Indestege, Band III: Papier. Verzamelaars en Verzamelingen, (Leuven 2004), pp. 199–216.

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Wensel Cobergher (1556/61–1634): Painter, Antiquarian, Architect To better understand Cobergher’s status as an ‘antiquarian artist,’ on which we argue his qualities of painter-architect relied, this essay looks more closely at his professional networks and some of the paintings he made in Naples, Rome, Brussels and Antwerp. Many more paintings are attributed to Cobergher on stylistic basis, but all the examples we have selected are signed or documented as being by his hand. Paintings and patronage in Naples The earliest signed painting by Cobergher we know is the Resurrection, still in its original setting in the Capellone del Crocifisso in the church of San Domenico Maggiore in Naples (fig. 2a).14 The Carafa family, one of the oldest noble families in Naples, commissioned it to decorate their family altar.15 The inscription on the marble altar informs us that the Carafa di Montorio family had since long been patron of the altar, that pope Paul IV Carafa (Giovan Pietro, pope 1555–1559) had had it restored and consecrated, but that it was later alienated from the pope’s heritage. Francesco Carafa reacquired it in 1594, and at this occasion affixed the plaque and probably also installed the painting by the Flemish artist (fig. 2b).16 Cobergher conceived it from the outset as a commemorative painting. He inventively conceived 2b. Idem, with altar and sculpted frame. (© Archivio dell’Arte Luciano Christ’s empty tomb as an antique sarcophagus Pedicini). decorated with the portraits of the two most illustrious Carafa prelates, Pope Paul IV and his nephew Cardinal Alfonso Carafa (1540–1565), archbishop of Naples. He thus not only addresses the commemorative function of the painting, but also pays tribute to the longstanding antiquarian interests of the Carafa family. Diomede Carafa (1406–1487), probably the most illustrious forefather of Cobergher’s patrons, was among the first to promote excavations in the Neapolitans outskirts of Capua and Pozzuoli, and built his city palace in the all’antica style. As Bianca de Devitiis has pointed out, fifteenth‑century architecture in Naples was not so much based on the revival of the classical orders, but developed from a close study of ancient remains found in abundance in the city and its surroundings.17 The memory of Diomede was very alive at the Capellone del Crossifisso when Cobergher painted the Resurrection. Diomede had been a major benefactor of the splendid chapel and was buried in a magnificent marble tomb just meters from the

14   Oil on canvas, 233 x 150cm. Since latest restoration date ‘1588’ is visible in the lower left corner. According to the inscription the altar was dedicated in 1594. 15   E. Montani et.al. (eds.)., Flemish masters and other artists: foreign artists from the heritage of the Fondo Edifici di Culto del Ministero dell’ Interno. (exh. cat.), (Rome 2008), pp.82–83.

  Leone de Castris, o. c., 1991, p. 92 and fig. p. 96.  B. De Devitiis, ‘Building in local all’antica style: the palace of Diomede Carafa in Naples,’ Art History, 31, 4, September 2008, pp. 505–522. 16 17

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3. Raphael, Madonna of the Fish, oil on panel, 215 x 158 cm, originally in San Domenico Maggiore, Capellone del Crocifisso, now in Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, inv. POO297

4. Wensel Cobergher, Jubilee, 1594, San Pietro ad Aram in Naples, oil on canvas. (© Archivio dell’Arte Luciano Pedicini).

family altar that Cobergher’s new altarpiece was to decorate.18 The chapel further hosted some major artworks, most famously the Madonna of the Fish by Raphael (1483–1520) (fig. 3).19 Cobergher certainly studied this masterpiece, as we will see it echoed in his later paintings.20 We know that in 1596 Diogenes Carafa, another other member of the family, commissioned Cobergher to copy a painting by Raphael.21 Cobergher’s Resurrection further pays tribute to Raphael’s Liberation of Saint Peter from in the Stanza di Eliodoro.22 In 1594 Cobergher signed and dated another most curious painting, a Jubilee, still preserved in the church of San Pietro ad Aram in Naples (fig. 4).23 Through the open doors,  Bianca De Devitiis, Architettura e committenza nella Napoli del Quattrocento, (Venice, 2007), pp. 142–15; C. A. Fleck, ‘The local eye: formal and social distinctions in late quattrocento Neapolitan tombs’, C. Warr and J. Elliott (eds.)., Art and Architecture in Naples 1266–1713: New Approaches (Lalden, MA – Oxford 2010), pp. 38–82: 77–78, fig. 11. 19  In the Chapel of the Carafa della Spina hangs the Procession after Victory of Lepanto attributed to Cobergher. This painting originally decorated the Chapel of the Rosary, left of the apse, that later hosted Caravaggio’s Flagellation (now Museo di Capodimonte, Naples). The Carafa family, and the Dominicans, were very devoted to the Rosary. Pope Pius V, a Dominican, promoted its veneration after Victory of Lepanto. The 18

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painting depicts the Saint Peter’s basilica circa 1590 and shows strong similarities with Cobergher’s Jubileo of San Pietro ad Aram (see infra). See on this painting Flemish Masters and other Artists, o. c., pp. 83–86. 20  S. Beguin and C. Garofalo, Raffaello. Il catalogo completo delle opera (Santarcangelo di Romagna, 2002), no. 69. 21   Leone de Castris, o.c., 1991, p. 324 (Archivio Storico del Banco di Napoli, Banco Spirito Santo, giornale 12, f. 563). 22   I. Maietti in Flemish masters and other artists, o.c., 2008, p.82. 23   Oil on canvas, see Leone de Castris, o.c., 1991, p. 54, pp. 95–97. This author does not give the measurements, and as the painting hangs very high, we were not able to measure the painting during our visit.

Wensel Cobergher (1556/61–1634): Painter, Antiquarian, Architect probably of the church of San Pietro ad Aram, a procession advances toward the Porta Caeli, through which good souls access heaven. Angels guide the devout, some of which have a portrait-like nature. We recognize the monumental figure to the left flanking the doors as Pope Gregory XIII (Ugo Boncompagni, pope 1572– 1585).24 The figure to the right is Saint Peter, the first pope and patron saint of the Neapolitan church. Other saints, including Saint Magdalene and Saint Sebastian, are also present. We do not know the precise circumstances of the commission, but it is noteworthy that Cobergher again designed a remarkable commemorative painting. The opened doors refer to the ritual of the Holy Year or Jubilee, taking place every twenty five years, when the Porta sancta or Holy door of the Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome is opened and visited by thousands of pilgrims seeking special indulgences. 5. Early Christian altar on which Saint Peter allegGregory XIII had convoked the then last edly celebrated mass, still venerated as a relic, Jubilee of 1575, but Cobergher may depict (Naples, San Pietro ad Aram. Photo author). here the Jubilee as celebrated one year later, in 1576, at the Naples church dedicated to Saint Peter. The Church of San Pietro ad Aram had received special permission to celebrate the Holy Year one year after the Roman festivities, so that the Neapolitan pilgrims did not have to travel and to limit the influx of pilgrims in Rome itself.25 The Naples church, as its full title indicates, was founded on an early Christian shrine, and incorporates in its vestibule the altar on which Saint Peter allegedly celebrated mass and still venerated as a relic today (fig. 5). In 1581 Gregorius XIII gave special permission to the regular canons of San Pietro ad Aram to celebrate mass on the ancient altar of Saint Peter to liberate souls from purgatory. It may not be coincidence that Cobergher was commissioned to make a painting for one of the oldest churches of Naples. The study of Early Christian monuments was part his antiquarian interests, as testified by his contacts with Baronius, Macarius and Van Winghe, as we have seen. In depicting a cortege of good souls proceeding from the Porta Sancta to the Porta Caeli Cobergher transforms a historical pilgrimage into a spiritual experience. The commission of the painting for San Pietro ad Aram may further be linked to Cobergher’s close ties with noble and ecclesiastic patrons in Naples. Among the noblemen who according to the report sent by Richardot held Cobergher ‘in singular affection’ was Jacopo Boncompagni, the illegitimate son of Pope Gregory XIII and Duke of Sora,  Cobergher may have known the portrait of Gregory XIII included in the Adoration with Philip II, Gregorius II and Rudolph II by his teacher in Naples, the Flemish immigrant Cornelis Smet. See for 24

this painting, Previtali, o.c., 1980, fig. 2, 1589–90 and Leone de Castris, o.c., 1991, tav. 7. 25  G.A. Galante, Guida sacra delà città di Nappoli, (Napels 1872), pp. 274–279.

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Tine L. Meganck on the border between the Papal States and the Kingdom of Naples. Boncompagni had also been appointed as prefect of Castel Sant’Angelo (1572) and captain general of the armies (1575).26 He was moreover a patron of the arts, sponsoring among others the poet Torquato Tasso (1544–1595). Acknowledging his role in arms as well as in the arts, Andrea Palladio (1508–1580) had dedicated his edition of edition of Caesar’s Commentaries to Boncompagni.27 Contacts with Neapolitan antiquarians and naturalists The patronage of the Carafa and Boncompagni substantiates the report’s statement that Cobergher, who lived and worked in Naples for about sixteen years, was esteemed “as one of the first [painters] in Italy.” Cobergher’s Naples network further included distinct scholars and naturalists such as the antiquary Johannes Vincenzo della Porta, older brother of the famous physiognomist Giambattista della Porta (1535–1615)28 and the Naples architect, naturalist, and antiquarian, Niccolò Antonio Stelliola (1547–1623).29 According to Colius, Stelliola assisted Cobergher with his book on ancient medals.30 It is hard to know what to make of this claim that curiously echoes a similar rumor that Stelliola, whose own work is enigmatically lost, collaborated and was even largely the author of the Natural History of the well-known apothecary Ferrante Imperato (1550–1625).31 Already in 1588, Stelliola, encouraged by Cobergher, approached Ortelius for information for what he calls his De singulari historia, a work-inprogress on the history of singular things in nature and in art.32 He particularly inquired about fossils, unusual plants and animals such as the barnacle goose (supposedly born from driftwood, and without feet) as well as “something on color”, on which Stelliola writes that 26   U. Coldagelli, ‘Boncompagni, Giacomo,’ Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, 11, 1969, accessed as http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/ giacomo-boncompagni_(Dizionario-Biografico)/; see for a portrait: D. Franklin (ed.), De Raphaël à Carracci. L’Art de la Rome Pontificale, (exh. cat., Ottawa: Musée des beaux-arts du Canada), (Ottawa 2009), no. 316. 27  J. R. Hale, ‘Andrea Palladio, Polybius and Julius Caesar,’ Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 40, 1977, pp.240–55. With thanks to Howard Burns for this information. 28   Abrahami Ortelii epistulae, 147.1 (Vincenzo della Porta to Ortelius, Naples, 10 October 1586): ‘Ornatissime vir, respondi plus septies literis tuis quas tum a comuni nostro amico Vuenceslao pictore eximio, tum à Domino Hoefnaglium accept, sed ut tunc erat tota Belgia armis vecata credo ea de causa interceptas […].’ See on Giovan Vincenzo della Porta, P. Findlen, Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy, (Berkeley, CA 1996), p. 113. 29  S. Ricci, Nicola Antonio Stigiola, enciclopedista e linceo, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Classe di scienze morali, storiche e filologiche, Memorie, 8, (Rome 1996). 30   See note 8. 31  F. Imperato, Historia naturale libri XXVIII, nella quale ordinatamente si tratta della diversa condition di mininiere e piere, con alcune storie di piante et

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animale sinora non date in luce,’ (Naples 1599). Colius was also told this, see: Abrahami Ortelii epistulae, no 309.12 (Colius to Ortelius, Rome, 18 October 1597): ‘Est musaeum D. Ferdinando Imperato (si bene nomen memini) Neapolitano pharmacopaeo, optime instructum, excuccis siccisque, plantis, mineralibus, volucribus, quadrupedibus, reptilibus ect. (vidi), haec omnia describere et publica facere pollicetur ingenti volumine pharmacopaeus, sed opera id Stiglionis fieri nemo nescit, referente hoc mihi Antonio Houtappel, mercatori Belga non indocto.’ See also P. Mauriès, Cabinets of Curiosities, (London 2002), p. 155. 32  Abrahami Ortelii epistulae, 157.2 (Stelliola to Ortelius, Naples, 16 June 1588): ‘Sed animum nobis adiecit Venselaus pictor et juvenis suavissimorum morum; quid me de tua humanitate certum reddidit. Itaque contra quam institueram petens te adeo. Quid vero optem haec sunt. Scribimus opus cui nomen est de singulari historia. Quod et fossilium et plantarum et animalium historiam complectitur: Praeterea quaecunque sive natura sive manu facta ad idem propositum facere viderentur, opus quidem per se arduum, sed quod amicorum ope multum levetur: […]. Itaque ad Martinum de Vos per eundem Venselaum ut quaedam de colorum materia haberem; ea quoque in re te si quid nos juvare poeteris rogamus: Praeterea in anatum historia quae è marinis conchis prodeunt […].’ See for Stelliola’s nature studies also Findlen, op. cit., p. 226, 229.

Wensel Cobergher (1556/61–1634): Painter, Antiquarian, Architect had also contacted, again through Cobergher, Maarten de Vos (1531/32–1603), Cobergher’s former master in Antwerp.33 Stelliola later became member of the Academia dei Lincei, the famous Roman academy of naturalists, artists and other virtuosi who chose the sharp-eyed Lynx as the emblem of their observed study of nature.34 The Linceans’s detailed observations of the natural world produced among others the exquisite illustrations of plants, animals, fossils and antiquities – including some rare and singular examples that Stelliola must have loved – preserved in the so-called Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo (1588–1657). These drawings made by skillful but mostly anonymous artists advanced the study of nature and in turn inspired naturalist artworks. Cobergher’s paintings, and even more the Caravaggesque works of his later collaborator Theodore Van Loon (ca. 1582–1649) testify to this exchange.35 Given his close ties with Cobergher, it is very much possible that Stelliola was one of those ‘principal and well known’ architects with whom Cobergher had collaborated in Naples referred to in the report. In a letter of 1612 thanking the ‘prince’ of the Academy Federico Cesi (1585–1630) for his acceptance into the Accademia that same year, Stelliola promises to dedicate a volume of his forthcoming Encyclopedia Pythagorea (1616) to figural representation in the arts and another to art and nature.36 Stelliola’s encyclopedic interest in art should not surprise as the contest between art and nature, as displayed in such singular objects as fossils, is also central to art theory of the time.37 Another treatise of the originally 147 books of the Encyclopedia Pythagorea, of which however almost all other volumes were soon lost and of which the De singulari historia mentioned to Ortelius in 1588 may have been a preparatory stage, was dedicated to architecture. It was Stelliola, moreover, who in his same letter to Cesi proposed to give the noble science of architecture an honored place in the Lyncean curriculum.38 Architecture too, he writes, is an art: […] that operates simply and naturally, following the example of Nature our Mother, who exploits the individual virtù of everything and produces all her children with facility.39 Several Linceans, most famously Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), directed their eyes, aided by the newest telescopes, to the heavenly skies as well. Their observations, and especially the heliocentric worldview these demonstrated, did not meet the approval of the Church, as is well known. Like Galilei, Stelliola was condemned by the Sacred Office for his Copernican views. According to Macarius Cobergher greatly assisted Stelliola and almost singlehandedly

 P. Rombouts and T. van Lerius, De Liggeren en andere historische archieven van het Antwerpsch Sint Lucasgilde, (Antwerp-The Hague s.d.), I, p. 252. Cobergher is registered as an apprentice of De Vos in 1573. 34  D. Freedberg, The Eye of the Lynx. Galileo, his Friends, and the Beginnings of Modern Natural History, (Chicago 2002), pp. 113–114. 35  On the contacts of Theodore van Loon with members of the Academia dei Lyncei see I. Baldriga, L’Occhio della Lince. I primi lincei tra arte, scienza e collezionismo (1603–1630), (Rome 2002), pp. 220–233 and eadem, ‘Tussen Italië en de Zuidelijke Nederlanden: het artistiek–culturele parcours van Theodoor van Loon’, in: S. van Sprang (ed.), Theodoor van Loon. ‘Pictor Ingenius’ en tijdgenoot van Rubens, (Brussels – Ghent/Kortrijk 2011), pp. 43–62. 36  Baldriga, o.c., 2002, p, 9. 33

  On art and nature in early modern artistic literature see C. Goettler and T. L. Meganck, ‘Art, Nature and the Antique in the Spanish Netherlands,’ in: S. Dupré, B. De Munck, W. Thomas and G. Vanpaemel (eds.), Embattled Territory. The Circulation of Knowledge in the Spanish Netherlands, (Ghent, forthcoming). 38  J. Connors, ‘Virtuoso Architecture in Cassino’s Rome,’ in: J. Montaigu et al. (eds.) Cassiano dal Pozzo’s Paper Museum, (Milan 1992), II, pp. 23–40. 39   Stelliola to Cesi, Naples, 3 February 3 1612: ‘[…] già che sta appo di me determinato che, siccome la natura nostra madre, per quanto appartiene ad essa, produce li suoi nobilissimi parti con facilità, avvalendosi in ciò della propria virtù delle cose: così l’arte, seguace della natura, conseguisce con facilità l’opere all’ arte appartenenti […].’ Cited by Ricci, op. cit., p. 36, note 62, see also Connors, l.c.,1992, p. 27. 37

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Tine L. Meganck liberated him from Roman prison, and ever since ‘had great influence over him.’40 Cobergher was evidently well connected in Roman ecclesiastic circles, where he was regarded as an influential voice when judging matters of Catholic orthodoxy. In 1589 the sculptor-architect Michelangelo Naccherini (1550–1622) also turned to Cobergher for advice on how to deal with the ‘not so Christian’ behavior of his former master, the famous sculptor of Flemish birth, Giambologna (1529–1608). Cobergher, in turn, referred Naccherini to Vincenzo della Porta, his friend, as we have seen.41 The case was presented before the Roman Inquisition in Naples, but as Giambologna resided in Florence it was apparently suspended.42 The Roman Circle According to Macarius, who refers to Cobergher as ‘already my friend’ (‘iam mihi amicus’) in Rome in 1597, Cobergher had transferred to the Eternal City by that year.43 Besides his friendship with scholars and men of the Church, Cobergher soon connected with other members of the political, artistic and scholarly network of Fiamminghi in Rome. In 1601, the Marquis of Villafranca, a Spanish noblemen in service of the Vice-kingdom in Naples contracted Cobergher together with the Flemish painters Paul Bril (1554–1626), Jacques Francart I and Willem I van Nieulandt (1561?–1626) in Rome to paint two large series, one on hermits, and one of ‘emperors and ancient famous men.’44 The contract stipulates, interestingly, that Cobergher is supposed to oversee (‘come a lui parera’) the series of ninety hermits and to paint the 400 (sic!) paintings with ‘emperors and ancient famous men’ alone. By 1600, a Holy Year celebrated in Rome with great pomp, Cobergher was also in touch with Jean Richardot, the first envoy of the newly installed Archdukes of the Spanish Netherlands to the Holy See in Rome (1600–1604) and author of the laudatory report on his behalf. Through Richardot Cobergher probably met the young Peter Paul Rubens during his Roman years. Richardot the Younger was the son of Jean Grusset de Richardot, longstanding chief-president of the Privy Council who had employed Philip Rubens (1574–1611), older brother of the painter, as his private secretary and later as tutor of his younger sons.45 All three of them later became ‘contubernales’ or ‘friends and pupils’ of Justus Lipsius (1547–1606) in Leuven.46 In 1602 Philips accompanied Guillaume Richardot (1579–1640) as his tutor on his Italian tour. There they met with Philips’s brother Peter Paul who painted them together with Lipsius, possibly Galilei and some others as well as himself in his so-called Mantuan Friendship portrait of circa 1602.47 In service of the Duke of Mantua Vincenzo Gonzaga Peter Paul Rubens visited Rome in 1601–2, where he painted his first altarpiece, depicting Saint  Abrahami Ortelii epistulae 310.1–2: Macarius to Ortelius, speaking about letters of recommendation for Ortelius’ nephew Colius, Rome, 25 October 1597: ‘Dum Roma Neapoli transvolat, effeci ut literis commendaretur a Wenzel Coberger pictore nostrate (qui cum Neapoli plurimis annis egerit, Romae iam est mini amicus) mercatoribus belgis, eorum ut opera commodious et viseret urbem, et una Stigliolam conveniret uti fecit , […] multum apud eum potest Cobergher ut qui iuverit, et e carcere romano fere exemerit solus per amicos.’ 41  L. Amabile, ‘Due artistis ed uno scienziato Gian Bologna, Jacomo Svanenburch e Marco Aurelio Severino nel S.to Officio Napoletano,’ Atti della reale academia di scienze morali e politiche, 24, 1891, pp. 433–503: 444–49. 42   M. Cole, Ambitious Form. Giambologna, Ammanati, and Danti in Florence, (Princeton – Oxford 2011), pp. 193–94. 40

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  See note 40.   J. B. Ballbona, ‘Paul Bril, Wenzel Cobergher, Jacob Frankaert I, Willem van Nieulandt y los ermitaños de Pedro de Toledo, V marqués de Villafranca, Locus Amoenus, 9, 2007–08), pp. 127–54. 45  J. Vanhoutte ‘Van robins tot très grands nobles’: carrièreplanning en huwelijksstrategie bij het geslacht Richardot in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden (1540–1701), in: G. Marnef and R. Vermeir (eds.), Adel en macht: politiek, cultuur, economie, (Maastricht 2004), pp. 17–55 46  M. Morford, Stoics and Neostoics. Rubens and the Stoic Circle, (Princeton 1991), pp. 33–41. 47  Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz Museum, inv. Dep. 248, see F. Huemer, Portraits, (Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, XIX-I), (London 1977), pp. 163– 66, no. 37. This painting does not record but rather commemorates a scholarly friendship as Lipsius was not in Italy then. 43 44

Wensel Cobergher (1556/61–1634): Painter, Antiquarian, Architect Helen finding the True Cross (fig. 6), a commission by Archduke Albrecht mediated by Jean Richardot.48 No doubt Cobergher saw Rubens’s painting in the Jerusalem chapel of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, Albrecht’s titular church during his cardinalate and, as one of the seven early Christian basilicas, a much visited pilgrimage church in Rome.49 It has gone largely unnoticed that Cobergher also painted an altarpiece depicting Saint Helen and Emperor Constantine finding the Holy Cross (fig. 7) soon upon his return to the Low Countries, as we will discuss below. No paintings that are certainly by Cobergher’s hand have been identified in the Papal city, but we know that he painted his Saint Sebastian (fig. 8), now in the Musée des Beaux Arts in Nancy, during his Roman sojourn. Cobergher painted it for the chapel of the Young Hand Bow in the Church of Our Lady in Antwerp, which was inaugurated in 1599.50 That the guild chose a painter who by then had been living in Italy for almost 18 years shows that Cobergher’s success abroad had not gone unnoticed in his native country.51 Unlike the more traditional representations of de Saint at the moment of his torture, Cobergher depicts the moment just before 6. Peter Paul Rubens, Saint Helen f­inding the True Cross, the actual shooting with arrows. Cobergher c. 1601–2, oil on panel, 252 x 189 cm, originally in Rome, inventively narrates all the episodes of the Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, now in Grasse, Cathedrale saint’s life. In the foreground, next to the Notre Dame. (Photo author). illuminated saint, but shaded in the dark, stands the emperor Diocletian (ca. 250–88) in whose imperial guard Sebastian had served as an officer. In the background, on the first plane, the disclosure of Sebastian’s Christianity, an act of treason; further back, Sebastian pierced by arrows, and against the background of a Roman amphitheatre his second torture, battered to death. As in the Jubilee of San Pietro ad Aram, Cobergher merges mystery and history, situating the veneration of the saint  F. Huemer, Rubens and the Roman Circle. Studies of the First Decade, (New York – London 1990), pp. 89–91. 49  L. Duerloo, Dynasty and Piety. Archduke Albert (1598–1621) and Habsburg Political Culture in an Age of Religious Wars, (Farnham, Surrey – Burlington, VT 2012), pp. 23–24; 235–237. 50   Oil on canvas, 288,5 x 207,5 cm, now Nancy, Musée des Beaux-Arts, inv. 92. See: D. Bodart, Les peintres de Pays-Bas méridionaux et de la principauté de Liège à Rome au XVIIè siècle, (Brussels – Rome 1970), p. 35; H. Vlieghe, ‘Het altar van de Jonge Handboog 48

in de Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk te Antwerpen,’ Album Amicorum J.G. Van Gelder, (The Hague 1973), pp. 342–46; D. Freedberg, ‘The Representation of Martyrdoms During the Early Counter-Reformation in Antwerp,’ Burlington Magazine, 118, March 1976, pp. 128–38; Le premier musée de Nancy. De l’an II au sacre de Napoléon. Musée des beaux-Arts de Nancy, (Nancy 2002), no.139. 51  In a letter from Ortelius to Colius, dated 3 June 1598, there is talk of a possible return of Cobergher to Antwerp. See Abrahami Ortelii epistulae 322.6.

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7. Wensel Cobergher, Saint Helen and Emperor Constantine finding the Holy Cross, 1605, oil on panel, 255 x 192, Antwerp, Chapel of the Holy Cross, Antwerp, Saint James’s Church. (© KIK/IRPA Brussels).

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Wensel Cobergher (1556/61–1634): Painter, Antiquarian, Architect within Roman history. This interest in the historical and archeological evidence on the lives of the saints was then promoted by Baronius, whom, as we have seen, Cobergher befriended. In the same vein Cardinal Scipio Borghese (1576–1629), who we know later showed interest in acquiring Cobergher’s coin collection, promoted the study of the catacombs of Saint Sebastian and patronized the building of a new church (1609–1613) modeled after an early Christian basilica above the catacombs.52 Cobergher later followed this model for his design of the Antwerp church of Saint Augustine (1615–1618).53 In Cobergher’s Saint Sebastian painting, the sequencing of narratives is further reminiscent of the antique sculpted reliefs on Trajan’s column and the triumphal arches, monuments Cobergher undoubtedly studied in Rome.54 The seated emperor holding a consular baton and the Roman standard bearers, including the signifer with the helmet made of the skin and muzzles of a wolf are directly inspired by the attic reliefs on the Arch of Constantine (fig. 11).55 In the cathedral of Antwerp Cobergher’s Saint Sebastian hung in the second chapel at the right in the transept.56 There it stirred both envy and admiration. In 1601 it was damaged, according to one late source, by a jealous colleague.57 Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641) later studied it for his  A. Antinori, Scipio Borghese et l’architettura. Programmi, progetti, cantieri alle soglie dell’età barocca, (Rome 1995), pp. 31–138. 53  Meganck, o.c., 1998, 24 on Borghese’s interest in Cobergher’s coin collection and pp. 104–08 on the Saint Sebastian as a model. Later the Antwerp Saint Carolus Borromeus Church was inspired by early Christian basilicae, see F. Baudouin, ‘Peter Paul Rubens and the notion Painter-Architect,’ in: P. Lombaerde (ed.), The Reception of P. P. Rubens’s Palazzi di Genova During the 17th Century in Europe: Questions and Problems, (Architectura Moderna, vol. 1), (Turnhout 2002), p.17. 54  Maria Rosaria Nappi in Fiamminghi a Roma 1508– 1608. Kunstenaars uit de Nederlanden en het Prinsbisdom Luik te Rome tijdens de Renaissance, (exh.. cat. Brussels, Paleis voor Schone Kunsten), (Ghent 1995), nr. 60. 55  P. P. Bober and R. O. Rubinstein, Renaissance Artists and Antique Sculpture. A Handbook of Sources, 52

8. Saint Sebastian, c. 1598, oil on canvas, 288,5 x 207,5 cm, originally for the chapel of the Young Hand Bow in the Church of Our Lady in Antwerp, now in the Musée des Beaux Arts de Nancy, inv. 92. (© Musée des Beaux Arts de Nancy).

(London – New York 1986), no. 159 (Column of Trajan) and no. 182.d-iv (Arch of Constantine). 56  The altar itself, executed by Jan and Robrecht de Nole (after a design by Otto van Veen) is preserved and transferred to the Saint Jacobs Church in Antwerp, see R. Fabri and N. Van Hout (eds.), Van Quinten Metsijs tot Peter Paul Rubens. Meesterwerken uit het Koninklijk Museum terug in de Kathedraal, (Antwerp 2009), p. 51–52 and fig. 27. Cobergher’s painting is depicted in a similar position on a church interior by Isaak van Nickelen, (Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum) that is has mistakenly been identified with the Antwerp Our Ladies church, but is in fact an imaginary church interior. I thank Walter Liedke for this correction. 57   F. Jos Van den Branden, Geschiedenis der Antwerpsche Schilderschool, (Antwerp 1883), p. 595.

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9. Wensel Cobergher, Lamentation, 1605, oil on panel, 306,5 x 239,5 cm, originally for the main altar of the confraternity of the Seven Sorrows, Saint Gorik Church, Brussels, now in Brussels, Royal Museums of Fine Art of Belgium, inv. 124. (© Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels).

10. Anonymous, Virgin of Seven Sorrows, ­fifteenth Century, Register of the Confraternity of the Seven Sorrows, Brussels City Archive, ms. 3413, 2r. (Photo Susie Sutch).

Sebastian (Edinburg).58 A most tangible proof of Cobergher’s art in the Low Countries, it must have impressed the Archdukes, who just then made their Triumphal Entry as new rulers of these lands.59 Paintings in Brussels and Antwerp Cobergher definitively returned to the Low Countries in 1604 and was accepted as court servant (‘serviteur’) of the Archdukes the same year.60 Before he was officially installed as ‘architect-engineer’ in December 160561 Cobergher made two more paintings which have been preserved. The Lamentation (fig. 9), now in the Royal Museums of Fine Art in Brussels, originally decorated the main altar of the confraternity of the Seven Sorrows in the church of Saint Gorik in Brussels.62 Cobergher signed and dated it in 1605. This  S. J. Barnes, N. De Poorter et al., Van Dyck. A complete Catalogue of the Paintings, (New Haven – London), 2004, I. 44. 59   T. Cholcman, Art on Paper: Ephemeral Art in the Low Countries. The Triumphal Entry of the Archdukes Albert and Isabella into Antwerp, 1599, (Turnhout 2012). 60  De Maeyer, o.c., 1955, doc. 36. Cobergher is also registered in the Liggeren of the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1604. See Rombouts and Van Lerius, op. cit., I, p. 425. When he became court servant, he was probably exempted of Guild obligations. See also S. van Sprang, ‘Les peintres à la cour d’Albert et Isabelle: une tentative de classification,’ in: H. Vlieghe and K. Van der Stichelen (eds.), Sponsors of the Past. Flemish Art and patronage 1550–1700, (Proceedings of the symposium organized at the Katholieke Univerisiteit Leuven December, 14–15, 2001), (Turnhout 2005), pp. 37–46. 58

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  De Maeyer, o.c., 1955, doc. 40.  Oil on panel, 306,5 x 239,5 cm, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, inv. no. 124. The altarpiece by Cobergher is mentioned in the register of the Confraternity of the Seven Sorrows at Saint Gorik in Brussels, Brussels, City Archives, ms. 1499, 24v. L. Duerloo, ‘Archducal Piety and Habsburg Power, in: W. Thomas and L. Duerloo, Albrecht & Isabella 1598–1621. Essays, (Turnhout 1998), pp. 272–73, first mentioned this registration, which however does not specify that the Archdukes donated the painting. The author is also unaware that Cobergher’s painting is not lost, as he believes, but preserved in the RMFAB. The register has been correctly linked to the painting in the RMFAB by A. Delfosse, La ‘Protectrice du PaïsBas’. Stratégies politiques et figures de la Vierge dans les Pays-Bas espagnols, (Turnhout 2009), pp. 137–39. 61 62

Wensel Cobergher (1556/61–1634): Painter, Antiquarian, Architect original composition transforms one of the most frequently represented scenes of sacred history. By orienting the dead Christ with his head pierced by thorns toward the spectator he increases the empathic impact of the Lamentation, the most grievous of the Virgin’s seven sorrows. A woman in attendance at the far right has lifted the crown of thorns from Christ’s head and touches the sharp spines with her soft hands. The Virgin Mary holds the four nails that have pierced Christ’s hands and feet close to her heart, a gesture that echoes the traditional iconography of the Virgin of the Seven Sorrows with seven swords piercing her heart. Such an image illustrates the register of the confraternity in which the Archdukes also added their arms (fig. 10).63 Cobergher’s inventions are meant to heighten the sense of piercing pain, and move the viewer, a practice of meditation that Albrecht and Isabella strongly promoted.64 The Burgundian-Habsburg rulers had long stimulated the devotion of the Virgin of the Seven Sorrows, not only as a spiritual exercise, but also to promote their ideology of peace and ­territorial unity. Viewing the sorrows of the Virgin could stand as an example to stand firm and united at times of trouble.65 The emphatic Lamentation thus perfectly embodies the archducal aspirations of Catholic restoration, and announces Cobergher’s later design of the heptagonal pilgrimage church of Scherpenheuvel/Montaigu, an architectural meditation of the Seven Joys and Sorrows of the Virgin.66 That same year, 1605, Cobergher signed and dated the altarpiece with Emperor Constantine, Saint Helena and the Finding of True Cross for the Chapel of the Holy Cross in the Saint James’s church in Antwerp (fig. 7). It was commissioned by Judocus Robeyns, lord of Borgerhout and Bailiff of Antwerp, and a decisive leader in the October 1595 counterattack that expelled the rebellious States General from Lier, regaining that important city so close to Antwerp for Philip II.67 Various inscriptions refer to this victorious event and proclaim the patron’s allegiance to church and state.68 That Robeyns, who had his own portrait and that of his wife included, chose court artist Cobergher may be another sign of his loyalty to the central regime in Brussels. Archduke Albert was particularly devoted to Saint Helen and the True Cross. Before his betrothal to Isabella of Spain, he had been cardinal priest

  Brussels City Archive, ms. 3413, 2r.. I thank AnneLaure van Bruaene for kindly supplying me the image. See infra for her article with Susie Sutch, on the confraternity. In the same ms, on fols 45v-47r the Archdukes entered their coat of arms. See for these Duerloo and Wingens, o.c., 2002, p. 149. 64  See on aspects of empathy in contemporary devotional practices; see W.S. Melion, The Meditative Art: Studies in the Northern Devotional Print, 1550–1625, (Early Modern Catholicism and the Visual Arts Series, 1), (Philadelphia PA 2009). The spines of the crowns of thorns were venerated as relics, among others in Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome, see Huemer, Rubens and the Roman Circle, 1990, p. 89. 65  S. Speakman Sutch and A.-L. van Bruaene, ‘The Seven Sorrows of the Virgin Mary: Devotional Communication and Politics in the BurgundianHabsburg Low Countries, c. 1490–1520’, Journal of Ecclesiastic History, 61, 2, April 2010, pp. 252–75. 66   See T. L. Meganck and S. Van Sprang, ‘Paintings by Wensel Cobergher and Theodoor van Loon for the Brussels Chapel of Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows’ in: E. Snow (ed.), Sicut Lilium Inter Spinas: Essays on 63

the Seven Sorrows Confraternity of Brussels, (Turnhout forthcoming). 67   I thank Jeffrey Muller who generously let me read parts of his forthcoming book on the Saint Jacobs church in Antwerp. See also F. Prims, Geschiedenis van Antwerpen, (Antwerp 1977–85), VI-A, p. 139. 68   The (nineteenth-century copy of the) altar inscription reads: to the right “JUDOCUS ROBIJNS DOMINI DE BORGERHOUT ALIARUMQUE HUIUS URBIS DITIONUM DROSSARDUS VIR MILITARIS QUI ORDINES PRO PRINCIPE NOTRO DUXIT [our italics] ET ELISABETHA A DORNHOVEN EJUS UXOR IN FIDEI SUAE ET PIETATIS TESTIMONIUM IMPENSIS SUIS CURAVERUNT A° 1605”. In the middle: “IHS”. To the left: “PER CRUCEM CHRISTI SACROSANCTAM RESTITUTA GENERI HUMNO SALUTE QUAM VETERES AEVI PATRES SPERAVERUNT POSTERIORI CREDIDERUNT MARTYRES CONFIRMARUNT AD HELENA INVENTAM A CONSTANTINO AUG; ADORATAM ET EXALTAM HAC TABLA EXPRESSAM ORNARI HANC ARAM.” As Muller observes, the inclusion of donor portraits, would soon be forbidden by the decrees of the Archdiocese of Malines of 1607.

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Tine L. Meganck with the Roman church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme as titular church. He renounced the cardinalate in 1598, but in 1601 he commissioned an altarpiece for the Jerusalem chapel in his former titular church in Rome from Brussels. This commission should not be seen as a parting gift, but rather, as Luc Duerloo has suggested, as a gesture to honor the present imperial family and its defense of the Catholic doctrine, in particular at a time that the Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg was beset with difficulties.69 Albrecht’s envoy at the Holy See, Jean Richardot, friend and sup11. Detail of the attic of the Arch of Constantine (315 AD) with porter of Cobergher, as we have seen, the Aurelian reliefs, Antonine Period Rome, Forum Romanum. had chosen the young Rubens for this (Photo author). task (fig. 6).70 More than Rubens’s focused composition Cobergher imbeds his The Finding of the True Cross within ancient Roman imperial history. Most notably he includes Emperor Constantine, son of Saint Helen, adoring the cross, wearing the imperial aegis, and accompanied by Roman standard bearers directly drawn from the Arch of Constantine, a source particularly fitting for this painting (fig. 11). The female figure in profile to the right of the Saint Helen clad in a greenish toga recalls ancient Roman fresco painting. Not many ancient paintings had been discovered during the Renaissance, but according to Peiresc Cobergher knew something about it and prepared a book on it.71 In 1601 the so-called Aldrobrandini Wedding (figs. 12a, 12b) was discovered in Rome, an ancient frescoed frieze first owned by cardinals Cinzio and Pietro Aldobrandini, whom the report mentions as intimi of Cobergher. It was seen and described that same year by Peiresc.72 The formal similarities may indicate that Cobergher had the ancient fresco painting in mind when sketching the historical setting of his Saint Helen painting. The imperial mother herself wears an all’antica toga, while her sweet features and down cast eyes imitate in particular Raphael’s paintings of the Mother of God, such as the Madonna of the Fish that Cobergher copied in Naples (fig. 3). Restoring the Spanish Netherlands In the winter of 1605 Cobergher was officially appointed ‘architect-engineer’ of the Archdukes. Various architectural and organizational commissions rapidly followed; he designed churches, and often had a hand in the sculptural and painterly decoration; he was involved in the establishment of the so-called monti di pieta, an official borrowing system, in hydraulic works, in minerals exploitation.73 But no paintings signed by his hand after 1605  De Maeyer, o.c., 1955, p. 95 regarded the commission as a parting gift, but this is convincingly countered by Duerloo, o.c., pp. 235–37. 70   H. Vlieghe, Saints, CRLB, 2, (Brussels 1972), II, nr 110–12; M. Jaffé, Rubens in Italy, (Oxford 1977), p. 59. 71   See note 9. 72  F. Cappelletti, and C. Volpi, ‘New Documents Concerning the Discovery and Early History of the 69

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Nozze Aldobrandini,’ transl. C. Hope, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 61, 1993, pp. 274– 79, 276–77. 73  On his role in the establishment of the Monti di Pietà see P. Soetaert, De Bergen van barmhartigheid in de Spaanse, de Oostenrijkse en de Franse Nederlanden (1618–1795), (Brussels 1986).

Wensel Cobergher (1556/61–1634): Painter, Antiquarian, Architect

12a. Aldrobrandini Wedding, early Augustan, fresco, 224 x 92 cm, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, Museo Sacro, Sala delle Nozze Aldobrandini (or Sala di Sansone) © Musei Vaticani

12b. Detail of the Aldobrandini Wedding, early Augustan, fresco. Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, Museo Sacro, Sala delle Nozze Aldobrandinii.

are presently known. What does this course of events tell us about the status of the painterarchitect in the Southern Low Countries? When the newly installed Archdukes were looking for a person to assist them in rebuilding the devastated lands assigned to them, they selected a man who certainly had some experience in architecture – the report states that Cobergher had collaborated with major architects in

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Tine L. Meganck Naples and Rome, although no projects have been documented. But as we also know from the report and as the overview of his early painterly career has substantiated, the man of their choice was foremost celebrated as a painter and an antiquarian. The report specifically mentions Cobergher’s inventiveness with regard to painting (‘[...] concerning the inventions he is very able […]’). In their letter of acceptance the Archdukes also praise Cobergher’s ‘[…] knowledge and rarité d’esprit …in matters of fortification, architecture and painting.’74 All the paintings by Cobergher we have looked at show original inventions informed by his close understanding of Roman antiquities, both of the pagan remains and archeologia sacra, and ancient history. As such, Cobergher resembles the Italian sixteenth‑century painter-architects, Michelangelo, Giulio Romano, and above all Raphael, the painter whom we know he ­copied and imitated. For these painterarchitects artistic invention, in painting or in architecture, was the natural outcome of a close study of the antique. As we know from Raphael’s letter to Pope Leo X, the study of Roma antiqua ultimately served as a template for Roma instaurata, a restored Rome, capital of the Roman Catholic Church.75 What model could better serve the arch13. Robrecht de Nole, after a design of Cobergher, Evangelist ducal project of Catholic restoration, after Marc, 1622–1613, Avennes stone, 135 cm, vestibule of Church years of war and iconoclasm? Cobergher, of Our Lady, Scherpenheuvel. (Photo author). the antiquarian painter, had the perfect profile to become the master architect of this Belgica instaurata, the Spanish Netherlands that had been successfully liberated from Protestant upheaval. The Archducal restoration campaign involved physical rebuilding, ­persuasive visual promotion and decoration, as well as institutional reform and technical innovation. Cobergher advised the Archdukes in all these domains, and from at least 1622 onwards ­effectively carried the title of councilor (‘conseiller’).76 The Vitruvian ideal of a learned architect77 certainly fits Cobergher, and it may have shaped his function once he was appointed as court architect, architect-engineer and later  “[…]science and rarité d’esprit … en matière de fortification, d’architecture et de paincture.” See De Maeyer, o.c., 1955, doc. 36. 75  I. Rowland, The culture of the High Renaissance. Ancients and Moderns in Sixteenth-Century Rome, (Cambridge and New York), 1998, especially pp. 226–33, 234, 244. 74

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 De Maeyer, o.c., 1955, doc. 174 (Cobergher contracts Robert De Nole to make a sculptural frame for the main altarpiece of Montaigu, 1622): ‘Wenceslaus Cobergher, conseiller et premier architect de Son Altèze Sérénissime.’ 77  M. P. Vitruvius, Ten Books on Architecture, edited by I. Rowland and T. Noble Howe, (Cambridge – New York 1999), Book I, Chapter 1. 76

Wensel Cobergher (1556/61–1634): Painter, Antiquarian, Architect architect-general.78 To explain why the Archdukes assigned a successful painter as their court architect, however, the Vasarian notion of a painter as a ‘designer’ may be more informative.79 In the letter patent of 1605 they assign Cobergher as their ‘engineer-architect’ with the specific task to oversee the works and fortifications […] and anything related depending on architecture, painting and the other arts, with full power to make portraits, patterns and designs (‘pourtraicts, patrons, et déseignz’).80 These designs are related to Vasari’s theoretical notion of disegno as “[…] father of our three arts, Architecture, Sculpture and Painting […].”81 They were some sort of master sketches that were later refined and executed by Cobergher himself or by painters, sculptors and architects he subcontracted. The role of designer and supervisor that usually underpins the notion of painter-architect is exceptionally well documented in the case of Cobergher. Already in Rome, we have seen, he was contracted to supervise a large scale painting series executed by a group of Netherlandish artists. Back in the Spanish Netherlands he was often paid for artworks that we know were executed by others, including the Nole family of sculptors and the painter Theodore van Loon.82 14. De Nole brothers, after a design of Cobergher, High altar None of Cobergher’s preparatory designs of the Church of Our Lady of Scherpenheuvel, 1622–23, black, are known to have been preserved, as they white and red (Rance) marble. (Photo author). were mostly lost during the execution process, but some of his paintings offer an idea of how such architectural and sculptural designs would have looked like. The antique sculpture in background of Emperor Constantine, Saint Helena and the Finding of True Cross (fig. 7) prefigures the sculpture of Evangelist Marc   P. Lombaerde, ‘Architectura sine Scientia nihil est’, in: P. Lombaerde, Bringing the world into culture: comparative methodologies in architecture, art, design and science : liber amicorum offered to Richard Foqué, (Brussels 2009,) pp. 111–31. 79  On Vasari as architect, see L. Satkowski and R. Lieberman, Georgio Vasari: Architect and Courtier, (Princeton 1993). 80   De Maeyer, o.c., 1955, doc. 36. 81  ‘Perché il disegno, padre delle tre arti nostre architettua, scultura e pittura, procedendo dall’intelletto cava di molte cose un giudizio universale e una forma overo idea di tutte le cose della natura 78

[…].’ The phrase appears at the opening of chapter XV of the 1568 Vite. See G. Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568, ed. R. Bettarini and P. Barocchi, 6 vols., (Florence 1966–87), I, p. 111. See also De Jonge, l.c., 2012, esp. pp. 125–27. 82  See most recently for payments to Cobergher for works executed by Van Loon: S. van Sprang, ‘Van Loon en de schilderijen van de hertogelijke SintHubertus-kapel in Tervuren,’ in: S. van Sprang (ed.), Theodoor van Loon. ‘Pictor ingenius’ en tijdgenoot van Rubens, (Brussels 2011), pp. 43–52: p. 53.

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Tine L. Meganck (fig. 13) in the vestibule of the pilgrimage church of Scherpenheuvel for which Cobergher was paid but that was executed by Robrecht de Nole.83 The Porta Caeli on the Naples Jubilee (fig. 4) announces the marble high altar of Scherpenheuvel (fig. 14) for which Cobergher was also paid but that the De Noles sculpted.84 There remains a part to this story to be told, on Cobergher’s gradual outsourcing of his painterly tasks as he takes on more organizational responsibilities. While that part may explain further how and why those activities increasingly took priority over his painterly occupations, this essay has attempted to illustrate how and why his fame as a painter and antiquarian paved the way for his assignment as a court architect in the first place. Following the Vasarian notion of disegno, Cobergher’s expertise as a painter guaranteed his potential as a designer, in painting as well as in sculpture and architecture. His unprecedented knowledge of pagan and sacred archaeology ensured that his designs were inventive as well as historically grounded, thus fitting the latest counter-reformatory directives to present a more ‘correct’ image of sacred history. Cobergher’s reputation as an impeccable Catholic, who was well connected with the princes of the Church, and his fame as an excellent antiquarian and painter evidently attracted Albrecht and Isabella, who were remodeling their Brussels court, and planning a most comprehensive campaign of Catholic restoration in the Spanish Netherlands.

 In 1622 Cobergher contracts Robrecht de Nole for the high altar and the four evangelists and six prophets, ‘selon le desseing à luy donné en papier et le modelle de pierre par luy fait et coloré et monstré à Son Altèze Sérénissime’. See M. Casteels, De beeldhouwers De Nole te Kamerijk, te Utrecht en te Antwerpen, (Verhandelingen van de Koninklijke 83

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Vlaamse Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België, Klasse der Schone Kunsten, 16), (Brussels 1961), p. 372 and De Maeyer, o.c., 1955, doc. 174 and Meganck, o.c., 1998, pp. 88–89. 84   See previous note.

Wensel Cobergher (1556/61–1634): Painter, Antiquarian, Architect

Appendix Report on Wensel Cobergher, attached to a letter sent from Rome by Jean Richardot, to the Archdukes in Brussels and dated 1600 ARAB, Pap. d’Etat et d’Aud. , nr 627: Correspondance Historique, III, p. 343 r-v. The report was first published by A. Pichart, Archives des arts, sciences et lettre. Documents inédits, publiés et annotés (Ghent, 1860–1881), III, pp. 211–212. It was reprinted by J.H. Plantegna, L’architecture religieuse dans l’ancien duché de Brabant depuis le règne des archiducs jusqu’au gouvernement autrichien (1598–1713) (The Hague, 1926), p. 287. The report is cited in part by P. Saintenoy, ‘Wenceslas Cobergher, peintre. 1557 (?)-1634,’ Bulletin de l’Académie Royale d’Archéologie de Belgique,” 1923, 1, 218–256: p. 230 and M. De Maeyer, Albrecht en Isabella en de Schilderkunst. Bijdrage tot de Geschiedenis van de XVIIeeeuwse schilderkunst in de Zuidelijk Nederlanden (Brussels, 1955), doc. 15. Wencislaus Van Obbergen, ordinairement appelé à Rome Il signor Vincenzo, est natif de la ville d’Anvers, ayant servi aultresfoiz à ung paintre fameux nommé de Vos, est eaigé d’environ quarante ans, de bonne représentation, courtois, et lequel se fait bien vouloir de sa nation et des estrangiers. Il est marié pour la seconde fois depuis nagaires avecq une jeusne fille eaigée d’environ quinze à seize ans, natifve de Bruxelles, ayant le père d’elle demeuré à Paris et Rome quatorze ou quinze ans, se tenant encoires présentement audict Rome. Il parle italien, françois et flameng, et encor qu’il ne parle latin ny grecq, si est-ce toutesfoiz qu’il se sçaist si bien ayder desdictes langues que s’en sert en son estude de médailles et antiquitez, de telle manière qu’il peult estre réputé entres les médiocres versez, auquel estude desdictes médailles il surpasse la plus grande partie de ceulx qui sont à Naples ou à Rome, et les at collecté avecq tel soing qu’il n’y at espargné nul argent. Il a réduit les effigies en ung volume beaucoup plus grand que celui de Golzius, mettant l’ung et l’autre costé desdictes médailles, toutes tirées à la plume de sa main propre, avecq l’interprétation des inscriptions et figures en langue italienne, le tout en bon ordre, soit qu’on regarde le livre par luy composé et réduit, ou aussi les médailles qu’il at disposées en son comptoir par layettes, et at ung bon jugement de cognoistre les adultérines ou faulses. En la paincture, qu’est sa principalle profession, il est très-excellent, et est tenu pour ung des premiers en Italies ayant de ses tableaux abbelly les principalles esglises de Naples et Rome, et y at peu de maistres qui le surpassent et pour les inventions il est fort habille et heureulx, sa main est courante, facile et douce. En l’architecture il s’est employé plusieurs années soubz la conduyte des principaulx et plus renommez de Naples, il a fait tel progrès qu’à Rome et à Naples il a esté employé aux principaulx baptiments tant des maisons ou palais que des chasteaulx ou forteresses, et est fort excellent maistre à conduyre les fontaines ou rivières. Il est de fort bonne conversation comme dit est et l’ont en singulière affection le Signor Jacomo Boncompaigne, ducq de Sora, les cardinaux Cintzio et Aldobrandino, aussi le ducq de Sessa, et mesme est visité d’eulx et de tous aultres de la ville de Rome, faisans profession d’antiquitéz, painture ou architecture.

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Le Corbusier exulted in the bonds between modern architecture and film. A kineticism underwrote both. Only by “moving about,” he wrote in 1934, “can one see the order of architecture developing.”1 Le Corbusier, who knew all about Renaissance building, adored the way movies and photography could render classical structures new. Yet with characteristic audacity, he also invoked film as a pairing for architectural drawing – as a medium that could not just represent movement, but was itself born of manual and touristic itinerancy. Constant travel was an essential condition of artistic careers in late medieval North Europe. Undertaking a Wanderschaft, serving on a diplomatic mission, roving as pilgrim or religious refugee, travelling artisans looked at, talked about, and drew things, people, and landscapes. Van Mander touted travel as pedagogical; Castiglione urged it as a means to a gentlemen’s betterment. Journeys not only supplied aspiring artists with a repository of images, but aligned them with a newly global bourgeoisie. While travelling, artists kept diaries (Dürer) amassed visual material for publication (Lucas van Leyden), but above all, filled sketchbooks which too, were often passed from hand to hand, from place to place. No shortage of attention has accrued to books made on Northerner’s trips to Italy.2 Yet more locallymade exemplars of such items have not always been a focus. Two such sketchbook from the first decades of the sixteenth century, for example, raise questions about the medium’s “architectural” purview in the first age of print. * * * The “Antwerp Sketchbook,” is an oblong compilation of drawings now in Berlin (Kuperstichkabinett, sig. 79 C 2.) It seems to have begun around 1540.3 Consisting of a parchment cover and 101 bound sheets, it reveals sketches of landscape, city views, and figure studies. Little is known about the object’s provenance, but it may have been used at one point in the workshop of Herri met de Bles; a stray sheet from the folio has been identified in Stuttgart.4 Although there are several early seventeenth-century drawings grouped near the end of the sheaf, dated to 1604 and 1605, the majority of the sketches derive from one workshop, and were likely made between 1535 and 1543. Holm Bevers has studied the object in depth.5 Two subjects predominate across the Kupferstichkabinett pages: views of the Antwerp skyline, and drawn versions of other paintings. Architectural vistas figure prominently; folios 76v-77r (fig. 1) unfold onto a giant vista looking on the southwest corner of the town wall – the towers of the St.-Michielsabdij, the Onze-Lievevrouwkerk, and Minderbroederskerk all   “…c’est en marchant, en se déplaçant que l’on voit se développer les ordonnances de l’architecture.” Le Corbusier and P. Jeanneret, Oeuvre Complète, vol 2: 1929–1934, (Basel 1995), p. 24. 2  See, for example, J. de Meyere, ‘Alle Wege führen nach Rom’, in: D.A. Levine and E. Mai (eds.), I Bamboccianti, (Milan 1991), pp. 46–64. 3  F. C. Willis, ‘Zur Kenntnis der Antwerpener Kleinmeister des früheren 16. Jahrhunderts’, Monatshefte für Kunstwissenschaft, 7, 1914, pp. 43–7; J. Held, ‘Notizen zu einem niederländischen 1

Skizzenbuch in Berlin’, Oud-Holland, 50, 1933, pp. 273–88. 4  H. Bevers, ‘The Antwerp Sketchbook of The Bles Workshop in the Berlin Kupferstichkabinett’, in: N. E. Muller et al. (eds.) Herri met de Bles: Studies and Explorations of the World Landscape Tradition, (Princeton – Turnhout 1998), p. 19. 5  Bevers, l.c., 1998 and A. Dückers (ed.), Das Berliner Kupferstichkabinett: Ein Handbuch zur Sammlung, (Berlin 1994), no. IV.16, pp. 178–9.

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1. View of Antwerp. Black chalk and pen and black ink, 19 x 26.3 cm (each sheet). (Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, Inv. 79 C 2, fols. 76v-77r).

visible. The pen drawings show the demolition of the old Antwerp town wall for construction of the citadel, making it datable to about 1543. Other leaves focus on less-specific Antwerp vistas, for example on folio 40r (fig. 2); here we see four isolated townscapes with Gothic church spires. That the sheets were meant as preparatory sketches for painting backgrounds (as has been suggested) seem plausible; a poetic inscription on the inside cover the sheaf’s value for young artists.6 Certain motifs from the pages, in particular those dealing with architectural details, are taken from known paintings as well. A hilltop chateau on fol. 73v, for example, (fig. 3), comes after a detail from Herri met de Bles’ Road to Emmaus now in the Museum Meyer van den Bergh (fig. 4).7 Similarly, a panel of the Road to Calvary in Princeton, attributed to Herri met de Bles and dated to 1536, was the basis for the Berlin folio 31r.8 There is, interestingly, a sketchbook now in Brussels (Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, inv. 4630), likely from the 1540s, which contains many of the same motifs as the Berlin sheaf. Here too are compositions after Cornelis Massys and Lucas Gassel, some on colored ground.9 The “Errera Sketchbook,” as the Brussels work is known (the name comes from a former owner) reveals ink drawings after prints as well. These include cursory vistas of cites such as Crete (fig. 5) lifted from Bernard van Breydenbach’s 1486 pilgrimage account, an elaborate chronicle of an aristocrat’s journey to Jerusalem.10 In both cases, what seems to have occurred is a painting would have been set up and sketched as it passed through a workshop. The colored Bles panels now in Antwerp or Princeton would supply one more “site” to be drawn and reused alongside other vistas or views. The Berlin and Brussels sheets index not just the physical movement of a draughtsman from site to site, but the transit of his or her sources. The first eighty-three Berlin folios  “Nota – Kinderen van gheeste wilt In dit boeck v zinnekins stercken/Om oock als M. es constetlijck te connen werken.” The inscription likely postdates the first period of use. 7   L. Serck, Henri Bles et la peinture de paysage dans les Pays-Bas méridionaux avant Bruegel, (Ph.D. diss. Université catholique de Louvain), (Louvain-la-Neuve 1990), pp. 826–30. 8  R.A. Koch, ‘A Rediscovered Painting: The Road to Calvary by Henri met de Bles’, Record of the Princeton Art Museum, 14, 2, 1955, pp. 31–51. 6

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 L. Serck, ‘L’Album Errera et le Recueil d’esquisses de Berlin dans leurs relations réciproques et leurs rapports avec Henri Bles’, in: J. Toussaint (ed.), Actes du Colloque «Autour de Henri Bles», (Namur 2002), pp. 95–118. Serck argues that the Brussels sketchbook predates that in Berlin. 10   On Breydenbach’s peculiar amenability to copying, see E. Ross, Bernhard von Breydenbach’s 1486 Peregrinatio in terram sanctam, (University Park, PA 2013). 9

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2. Henri met de Bles. Four Town Views. Pen and brown ink, 19 x 26 cm. (Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, Inv. 79 C 2, fol. 40r).

are of consistent size and make11. The “narrative” suggested in the drawings as a group, then, becomes the narrative of things and sites being seen and drawn; a phase-by-phase pairing with the construction process of, say, an actual building. In the late Middle Ages, the sketchbook was a tool; at once updating the late workshop lodge folio12 and doubling as a diaristic record of sites seen when travelling around. Far from the repository of expression it would become in later eras, before the fifteenth century, bound sheets of parchment, vellum, or paper constituted something closer to a pattern-book, a hybridic cache of exempla.13 Such Musterbücher (or their variants) were recognized as products of physical or conceptual wandering. Villard de Honnecourt boasted early on of having been in many lands” (fig. 6)14 remarking that he had voyaged “widely”. His itinerancy, that is, was design credential enough. Moving around was, after all, the plight of most medieval artisans in Central and North Europe. After the Black Death of 1348–1350, towns sought to restrict immigration. They   Bevers, ‘The Antwerp Sketchbook’, p. 39.   In, for example, materials by Master WG and Hans Böblinger, see F. Bucher, Architector: The Lodge Books and Sketchbooks of Medieval Architects, (New York 1979), pp. 195–200; 375–381. 13  A. Nesselrath, ‘I libri di disegni di antichità – tentativo di una tipologia’, in: S. Settis (ed.), Memoria 11 12

dell’antico nell’arte italiana, (Turin 1984), vol. 3, pp. 87–147. 14  C. Barnes (ed.), The Portfolio of Villard de Honnecourt, A New Critical Edition and Color Facsimile, (Aldershot 2009), fol. 9v.

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3. After Henri met de Bles, Castle in a Rocky Landscape. Pen and brown ink, 19 x 26.3 cm. (Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, Inv.79 C 2, fol. 44v).

4. Herri met de Bles. Christ on the Way to Emmaus. Oil on oak, 34.1 x 50.5 cm. (Antwerp, Museum Mayer van den Bergh, inv. 40).

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5. Fortified City with a Port (Iraklion). Pen and charcoal? Album Errera, fol. 41r. (Brussels, Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Cabinet des Dessins, inv. 4630).

turned to the Wanderschaft as way to keep guilds closed and those masters who survived at home obligated to return after time abroad.15 By the fifteenth century travel had become increasingly institutionalized as a component as a of a young artists’ training of both hand and memory. A 1490 Cracow painter’s guild mandate explicitly ordered journeymen abroad for two years, “through another lands, so that [they], may finish [their] handwork, before [they] achieved mastership...”16 Once the master rank was indeed attained, the artisan’s wandering distance could be substantial. This was particulary the case for mason-builders. In the thirteenth century one “Mathieu de Paris” was recorded aiding cathedral construction in Trondheim.17 The Venetian Marco Ruffo went to Moscow along with builders from Florence and Rome to construct the Kremlin in 1480, and in the early fifteenth century, architects were employed throughout Mexico.18 Such an increase of travel seems not so much to have spread specific building styles from master to master. Rather it helped to transform guild structures, to make architectural innovations. More masters gained access to what had, in fact, always been there.19  On the general situation of craft guilds and immigration in late medieval Europe: W. Reininghaus, ‘Die Migration der Handwerkgesellen in der Zeit der Entstehung ihrer Gilden (14/15/Jahrhundert)’, Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, 68, 1981, pp. 1–21. 16   B. Bucher, Zunft- und Verkehrs-Ordnungen der Stadt Krakau, (Vienna 1889), p. 58; H. Huth, Künstler und Werkstatt der Spätgotik, (Darmstadt 1967), p. 89, n. 14. 15

 R. Bechmann, Villard de Honnecourt : la pensée technique au XIIIe siècle et sa communication, (Paris 1993), p. 26. 18   A. Voyce, ‘National Elements in Russian Architecture’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 16, 2, 1957, pp. 6–16. 19   As argued in R. S. Elkar, ‘Lernen durch Wandern?’, in: K. Schultz (ed.), Handwerk in Europa, (Munich 1999), pp. 213–32. 17

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6. Villard de Honnecourt. Folio 9v. Parchment. (Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France, MS Fr. 19093).

7. Iceland, 1350–1400. Pen and wash on v­ ellum. (Reykjavik, Institute for Icelandic Studies, Árni Magnússon Collection, inv. AM 673 a III 4to, fol. 12v).

Frequent companions on mason’s travels would be drawing tablets, shards or planks of wood covered with parchment or wax. Artists would often practice figure drawing in technique or copying from other artworks when travelling about around; in Italy sketchbooks were known as taccuini di viaggi.20 Such designs could, in turn, be passed around to other craftsmen or guild members at home. A compilation of vault designs and proportion puzzles by Wolfgang Rixner (c. 1445–1515) and Jerg Reiter (c.  1540–99) for example, was handed down as a lodge book from master to master, first in Stuttgart, then later in Zeil, near Bamberg.21 Guilds seem to have kept such pattern books under lock and key. Pattern pages have survived from Franconia, Saxony, and even Iceland, some on parchment, likely from monastic scriptoria (fig. 7).22 These would be used in the rendering of backgrounds, or sculptural details; as features of what we might deem “architecture,” they were not understood as a separate category of original to be copied. They were elements of design –  A. Nesselrath, Das Fossombroner Skizzenbuch, (London 1993), pp. 58–70. 21   L. R. Shelby, Gothic Design Techniques, (Carbondale, IL 1977). 20

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 H. Fett, ‘En islandsk tegnebog fra middelalderen (13 Jh.)’, Skrifter udgivne af Videnskabs Selskabet, II, 1910, pp. 3–29. 22

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8. Workshop of Benozzo Gozzoli. Drawing. (Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, inv. I. 562, fol. 31v).

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9. Florentine, 1520s? Views of Frescoes and Marquetry. Codex Escurialensis. (Escorial, 28-II-2, fol. 4r of Codex 51,00).

usually ornament – useful to painters as well as builders. The sketchbook associated with workshop of Benozzo Gozzoli from the 1460s (fig. 8) contains pen, ink, and drawings on prepared paper.23 The effect of the pages mimicked a kind of Serlian aesthetic.24 This bricolage approach became metaphorized across hundreds of sketchbook drawings from the following century (fig. 9). For art historians, medieval drawing books have sometimes proven an enigmatic species of thing; offering but “unambiguous information”25 as Julius von Schlosser put it, they simply amass or delineate templates. The Renaissance sketchbook, at least in one sense, changed this by tracking the gradual making of a composition over time; it posited art as a gradual building-up rather than a copying-out (Schlosser spoke of later sketchbooks revealing “das langsame Werden des Kunstwerkes.”26). By the late fifteenth century (to generalize grossly) drawings no longer emphasized the faithful transmission of some source – say, a bit   B. Degenhart and A. Schmitt, Corpus der italienischen Zeichnungen, 1300–1450, (Berlin 1968), vol 2, pp. 478–81. 24   A. Payne, ‘Creativity and bricolage in Architectural Literature of the Renaissance’, RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, 34, Autumn 1998, pp. 20–38. 23

 J. von Schlosser, ‘Zur Kenntnis der künstlerischen Überlieferung im späten Mittelalter’, Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses, 23, 1902, p. 282. 26  Schlosser, l.c., 1902, p. 284. 25

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Christopher P. Heuer of antique or scribal ornament – but that source’s displacement and transformation through a specific eye and hand.27 In this light, the “­transition from pattern-book to sketchbook,”28 that art history has long relied upon, refers to a process that was more complex. Rather than a simple embrace of the observed world, it represented a relocation of drawing’s sourcing: a move from imitation-mimesis to perception-mimesis. The sketchbook’s imbrication with the avowedly mobile designer, meanwhile, became a tenet of early modern art theory. In one of the earliest mentions of Leonardo’s treatise on painting, Luca Pacioli in 1498 spoke of “a worthy book on painting and human movements”.29 He spoke of a work linking the drawing book medium with the capture and re-enactment of actual human kinesis, in accords with Vitruvius’ architectonics: The movement of man must be learned after acquiring the knowledge of the members and the joints…one should observe man’s actions…making brief notations with a few marks… and to this end, be pleased to carry… a little book of leaves covered with bone-meal, and briefly note those movements with a silver stylus…30 Palladio, in the preface to his 1570 tract, went one better, and specifically fusing travel, draughtsmanship, and measurement in a preface about Rome: …I … set myself to search into the reliques of all the ancient edifices, that, in sight of time and the cruelty of the Barbarians, yet remain…I began very minutely with the utmost diligence to measure every one of their parts… that I have very frequently not only travelled in different parts of Italy, but also out of it, that I might be able, from such Fragments, to comprehend what the whole had been, and to make Draughts accordingly.31 The tone here unwittingly recalls Honnecourt “in many lands”, but new is travel as a means of measurement. This has particular significance for sketchbooks aimed at design, for their “narrative” in many cases, is the story of their own creation. But what about the association of moving and drawing? Within Roelant Savery’s ink and chalk Alpine landscape in London (fig. 10)32 – a minuscule draughtsman sits, watched by a companion – both overtaken by a vista of boulders and pine trees. Travel is suggested both by the sprawl of a valley before the two men, and the observer’s visual scanning across the surface of the sheet. Converging on the page is the experience of a journey, familiar from Pieter Bruegel’s epic Alpine views. It is not uncommon to find the artist at work in similarly rugged landscapes.33 In an oblong ink-and-wash sheet by the goldsmith Paulus van Vianen from 1603, (fig. 11) two draughtsmen are spied from close up, resting outdoors on two trees in a sloping landscape. Styluses in hand, they are engrossed in what are visibly books.

  On the general conditions of such books’ production, J.G. Alexander, Medieval Illuminators and their Methods of Work, (New Haven 1992). On drawing, seeing, and traction: C. de Zegher’s section ‘Surface Tension’, in: On Line, (New York 2010), pp. 9–123; 28   U. Jenni, Das Skizzenbuch der Internationale Gotik in den Uffizien: Der Übergang vom Musterbuch zum Skizzenbuch, (Vienna 1976). 29  In the dedication to De Divina Proportione, (Venice 1509) dated 9 February 1498; see the Fontes Ambrosiani, reprint, (Milan 1956), p. 4; “…al degno libro de picture e movimenti humani posto fine…” 27

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 Leonardo Codex Urbinas, fol 60r, as quoted in Pardo and Cole, Inventions of the Studio, (Chapel Hill 2005), p. 187, n. 28. 31   The Architecture of Palladio in Four Books, (London 1743), vol. 1, fol. Br. 32  H. Mielke, Pieter Bruegel: Die Zeichnungen, (Turnhout 1996), cat. 12, p. 78. 33   B. Weber, ‘Die Figur der Zeichner in der Landschaft’, Schweizerische Archäologie und Kunstgeschichte, XXIV, 1977, pp. 44–82. 30

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10. Roelandt Savery. Alpine Landscape with Draughtsman. Pen and ink and black chalk on paper, 39.6 x 27.7 cm. (London, Courtauld Institute of Art, Seilern Collection, D.1978.PG.9).

This sheet, in fact, turns out to itself have been part of a carried sketchbook at one point.34 Depicting the circumstances of its own making, the leaf visualizes a joint drawing expedition in the countryside (at the time Paulus was employed by the Archbishop of Salzburg); the slanted horizon could signal the viewpoint of the artist facing two companions out in the woods. These sketchbooks chart observations in time, over months or weeks of a journeyman’s roaming. They also track the movements of the eye hand: the itinerant alighting upon one copyable object then another, the drift from one slow, careful moment of labored transcription to a frenzied jotting of another. We see this in two leaves of a French sketchbook from the early fifteenth century that once faced each other (fig. 12). Here a draughtsman has collected a series of half-drawn figures: a gowned maiden appears in in two poses, one at rest, one with pleading hands outstretched; on the recto a serpent slithers across a nearly blank page.35 In the upper left of the verso a slashed outcrop of vertical pen strokes hastily describes a rocky outcrop and a city which dissolves into the rest of the page. These pen marks brandish their cursoriness; the hand’s quick jotting of forms (like the Brussels’ view   T. Gerszi, Paulus van Vianen. Handzeichnungen, (Hanau 1982), p. 193; Id., Die Salzburger Skizzenbuch des Paulus van Vianen, (Salzburg 1983), pp. 7–24. 34

 Florence, Uffizi, Inv. 18–324; see Jenni, o.c, 1976, pp. 31–2; 34–5. 35

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11. Paulus van Vianen. Wood with Two Draughtsmen. Pen and blue wash, 19.2cm  x 28.3cm. (Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, inv. 13612).

of Crete, fig. 5) appears one with the frenetic jumping from motif to motif. Seen now, the sheets reproduce the small and large movements from place to place that gave it creation by inducing the observer to do the same. This movement is different from the ocular roaming that Savery’s landscape invites, however. The latter piece bespeaks the laying down of line as line. Not line as a simulation of earthy contours, not line as imitation. This sheet tells the history of itself as an act of drawing, rather than a compendium of images. The line often narrates the visual experience of describing an architectural surface, just as the unfolding pages of sketchbooks emulated the travel from site to site.36 In the ­careful strokes of, say, Maerten van Heemskerck’s pen across the terrain around St Peter’s (fig. 13)37 one perceives also the timed sequences of Heemskerck’s own seeing as well as his description of those sites. Paint, even in its most abstract form, does this differently. The seventeenth‑century philologist Franciscus Junius prized the mimetic ability of line over color; writing in 1637 how it uniquely hosted “a similitude of Life and Motion.”38 Unlike painting, the drawn mark (much like the print) can make a thing or scene recognizable

 C. S. Wood, ‘Eine Nachricht von Raffael’, in: F. Teja Bach and W. Pichler (eds.), Öffnungen: Zur Theorie und Geschichte der Zeichnung, (Munich 2009), pp. 109–37 37   C. Hülsen and H. Egger, Die Römischen Skizzenbücher von Martin van Heemskerck, (1913–16), (2nd. ed Dorrnspijk 1975), II; A. J. DiFuria, Heemskerk’s 36

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Rome: Antiquity, Memory, and the Berlin Sketchbooks, (Ph.D. diss, University of Delaware 2008). 38   Junius, as in P. P. Fehl, K. Aldrich and M. R. Fehl, ‘Franciscus Junius and the Defense of Art’, Artibus et Historiae 2, 3, 1981, pp. 9–55.

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12. Anonymous French, c. 1420. Sketchbook pages. Pen on white paper. (Florence, Uffizi, inv. 2280 Fr-18306Fr) (Courtesy of the Ministry of Arts and Cultural Activity).

13. Maerten van Heemskerck, New St Peter’s, South Transept, pen and grain ink wash. (Berlin, Kupferstichkabinet, 79D2a).

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Christopher P. Heuer but – impoverished color – never claim to duplicate it.39 Line, therefore figured as a better record of not just optical but conceptual movement, indexing the past motion of the hand. Sketchbooks invoked the idea that manufacture is a time-based act – a sequence. Even out of sequence, the drawing still depicts (or suggests) a temporal flow – a step-by-step process of seeing and making from the ground up, Schlosser’s langsame Werden. Construction itself, as in the real world, takes place across time.40 When transformed into print, the sketchbook was to add another element to the transformational gesture from idea to vista to image; that of the social. Both the Roman views and Brabantine village scenes published by Hieronymus Cock in 1561 and 1562 were derived from plein air sketchbook sheets. Here, draughtsmen sit with tablets, not only drawing but gesturing and discussing what they see. Their staging as intermediaries – translators – suggests a remarkably self-conscious meditation on drawing as a vehicle of intellectual conveyance. In it converge the acts of travelling and laying down line. Le Corbusier, for his sake, filled dozens of carnets with views and sketches during his own pilgrimage to Greece, Turkey, and the Balkans in 1911. In certain instances he actually traced picture postcards into his sketchbook, or even copied out souvenir photos back in his studios in Paris or La-Chaux-de-Fonds.41 This is hardly disingenuous, particularly if one thinks about the sketchbook as a convergence of processes rather than an either/or repository of subjectivity. The Antwerp and Brussels draughtsmen, after all, had offered the same in their capture and transcription of the finished (or-in process) Bles panels. Villard de Honnecourt’s example is here actually not so far distant. For Le Corbusier, too, having “been in many lands” wrought an amassment of images. These were images rooted neither in architecture or painting tout court, but in that most kinaesthetic of acts – drawing – which historically scaffolded both.

 D. Lauwert, De betekenis van tekenen, (Bussum 1995), p. 69. 40   Ibid, p. 96. 39

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 B. Colomina, Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture and Mass Media, (Cambridge, MA 1994), pp. 282–325. 41

Painting and Painted Architectures in Genoa: What Peter Paul Rubens Probably Saw Stefano F. Musso

In 1982, Genoa organized a major international conference to complement an exhibition called Genua picta. Proposals for the discovery and recovery of painted facades. The proceedings of that conference with a subsequent publication devoted to the theme of the painted facades,1 considered as a fundamental characteristic of the urban, artistic and social identity of Genoa, are still key texts for understanding the roots, the raison d’être and the problematic aspects of this singular phenomenon. Since then, the real rediscovery of an Heritage that was, at those times, totally inconsistent, at risk of extinction, often ignored, or even the memory of which (together with its knowledge) had been lost, really begun. Since then, many steps have been made towards the preservation, protection, conservation, restoration and enhancement of that very special cultural heritage whose echoes and whose influences came up to Flanders, thanks to the work of Peter Paul Rubens, among others.2 He lived and worked in Genoa for quite a long time and left an extraordinary book of engravings about some buildings of the city that he decided to propose to the world of his times as models of a ‘new way of living and inhabiting’. He saw and recorded, therefore, this characteristic feature of our urban architecture and structure that, at least for a century at that time, had marked the transition from the Medieval age to the Renaissance. New plasters, painted and decorated by appealing to different themes and subjects, but also by using different artistic and executive techniques, had in fact concealed the results of the unification (re-fusion) of some oldest and separated building bodies to give life and form, precisely, to the new palaces. Those external wall surfaces were already become the media for some ideal representations of private splendours, of fantastic genealogies, or mythological exaltation of the new powerful, to the benefit of the entire urban scene and the city’s collective which was set to play the role of ‘Superb’ Republic (La Superba), within the concert of the Nations of Europe and in the Mediterranean basin at the time. Many and varied are the possible interpretations to explain this singular phenomenon that accompanied the life, the changes and transformations of Genoa at least until the dawn of the twentieth century. This contribution will account for them, albeit briefly. It will also propose, however, new possible interpretations, not strictly disciplinary, for an artistic, cultural and architectural Heritage of exceptional value. In fact, it can still reserve significant opportunities for research and interpretations on the different involved levels: historiographical, artistic, architectural, economic

 See the catalogue of the exhibition, with the same title: Genua picta. Proposte per la scoperta e il recupero delle facciate dipinte, (Genoa 1982); see also the proceedings of the congress hold in Genoa in 1982 on the same argument: G. Rotondi Terminiello and F. Simonetti, Facciate dipinte. Conservazione e restauro, (Genoa 1982). 2  The studies, the researches and the publications related to the presence of Peter Paul Rubens in Genoa are very numerous and several times they are diffusely mentioned also in this volume. For this reason, we 1

limit ourselves in quoting the catalogue of the first exhibition devoted to him in Genoa. See: G. Biavati, I. M. Botto, G. Doria, G. Fabbretti, E. Poleggi and L. Tagliaferro (eds.), Rubens e Genova, (Genoa 1977); we also refer to: P. Lombaerde (ed.), The Reception of P.P. Rubens’s Palazzi di Genova during the 17 th Century in Europe: Questions and Problems, (Architectura Moderna 1), (Turnhout 2002); H. Rott, Palazzi di Genova. Architectural Drawings and engravings, (Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, XXII, 1), (London – Turnhout 2002).

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Stefano F. Musso and ­productive, of material culture, of social and political costumes. The painted facades in Genoa, in fact, cannot simply (or exclusively) be read and interpreted as a ‘phenomenon of taste’, or as the result of an atavistic reluctance of the local clients to invest larger economic resources to build three-dimensionally decorated facades, made of stone, marbles or stuccoes (in any case also present in the cityscape). We cannot forget that, within those buildings, an immense and incredible variety of decorations sometimes open the walls and vaulted surfaces outwards, suggesting a contact with the world outside of those rooms, using the methods of the so-called quadraturismo and painting of illusion. There is, therefore, a sometimes direct and others times mediated dialogue, paused or layered within the long history of the buildings, including representations painted inside and outside of those walls, which is often ignored or sacrificed to the exaltation of a pure perception of (or from) the urban scene. With this, we risk forgetting that, especially in the century of Rubens, the ‘unity of the arts’ had a very deep meaning and that, on the whole question, powerfully acted the fundamental principle, or axiom (according to the definition proposed by Françoise Choay)3 of the ‘Building as a Body’ that would impose the need to not ever split up, beyond the legitimate, its internal and external spaces, forms and structures. The physical boundaries between the two worlds, on the other hand, consist of the walls that close its interior spaces, give shape to it and to the surrounding urban areas, by providing support to its eventual painted finishing. Even this aspect cannot be ignored or forgotten. The masonry construction techniques, defined in the documents of that time as alla moderna (‘modern fashion’), firmly rooted in Genoa right from the sixteenth century, may have played a non secondary role in facilitating (or partially determine) the growth and spread, in space and time, of the ‘fashion’ (or phenomenon) of the painted facades. The contribution brings its attention to these and other similar issues, as well as to the possible lines of research that still can be opened on the subject. A singular and ancient ‘phenomenon’ There are many possible interpretations of the phenomenon of the ‘painted facades’ in Genoa. Each of them has left considerable literary evidences and significant developments in research. Each of them provides an account of the phenomenon, seen from their singular point of view, developing some extremely consistent arguments, or outlining various scenarios, according with the available sources. Despite this, each of them seems to be partial and insufficient to give a definite explanation of the many expressions of the phenomenon itself, in time, space and matter. We know very well if not all, for example, about the chronological succession of themes, subjects and stories of the depictions that adorn the many painted facades in Genoa. Numerous and extensive studies have been devoted to clarifying the symbolic, ideological and political reasons (individual and collective) that ruled the subsequent iconological and iconographic variations, following the changing of the historical, political and economic context of the city. However, all these analyzes tend to withdraw into themselves and, even when they refer to other studies, of different matrix and nature, they primarily use them to support their internal arguments, believed to be prevalent as guides to the explanation of the birth and subsequent transformation in time of the phenomenon. Ezia Gavazza, for example,

 See: F. Choay, La regola e il modello: sulla teoria dell’architettura e dell’urbanistica, (Rome 1986).

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refers several times her work to Lauro Magnani’s one, while both of them remember the urban and architectural reading that Ennio Poleggi and Luciano Grossi Bianchi, or even before them Mario Labò, offered for this singular aspect of the city past history and life, right to mention some of the most important scholars who studied it. The problem is that from none of these disciplinary readings a convincing answer to the original question why really emerges. This crucial inquiry about the reasons because, here more than elsewhere, the painted facade has assumed the role that history recognized it, seems to remain unanswered and not only with regard to the architecture of the individual buildings but even more as a tool, a support or as an expression of a real urban program or, better, of many urban ‘programmes’ that have been interwoven in the space and in the physical body of the city, for more than four centuries. Historical or artistic origins and reasons A recurrent hypothesis about the origins of this way of finishing the building fronts refers to the particular vitality of the construction industry which, in the passage between Middle Ages and Renaissance, marked the life of the city.4 Genoa, during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, was still a closed settlement, with its main streets converging through the harbour and the so-called Ripa maris, the long and unique urban façade of the city towards the sea (fig. 1). The Ripa was the only public space of the town that did not ­possess any real piazza. Still in those times, the few very narrow streets that went parallel to the coast line were not so important, also because the communications and the movements of the merchandises were mainly ensured by boats and coastal navigation. The medieval buildings had some main recurrent constructive and morphological characters. They were tall and possessed many floors. They were built with bricks and stones (black and white on the external) and comprehended ‘tower houses’ and fondaci (warehouses), besides simple residential buildings. Across the city there were many lodges, arcades and porticos that were used as commercial spaces on the ground floors (open towards the streets with columns or pillars and pointed arches) while, in the upper floors, dwellings were hosted. According to the architectural features of the previous ages, the buildings usually had mullioned windows (with one, three, four or more lights), with made of bricks pointed arches and little stone columns dividing their lights. Some of them are still existing, survived from those periods, some have been re-found and recovered, while others were simply invented during the diffused restoration works carried out during the nineteenth century, in the climate of general reassessment of the Middle Ages, since they were destroyed or hidden in later periods. Some monumental groups of palaces (called alberghi), each one belonging to a single noble family and usually built around little private squares, were signed by monumental stone portals with the low-relief of Saint George killing the Dragoon that was the symbol of

 About the history of Genoa during the medieval period see: E. Poleggi and P. Cevini, Genova, (Bari 1981); L. Grossi Bianchi and E. Poleggi, Una città portuale del Medioevo – Genova nei secolo X-XVI, (Genoa 1980); E. Poleggi and F. Caraceni, ‘Genova e Strada Nuova’, in: “Storia dell’arte italiana”, (Turin 1983), vol. V, pp. 300–61 and, in particular, p. 361: “Nello spazio storico che cronologicamente coincide con la rinascenza dell’architettura e delle arti in Italia,

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questa città (Genova) politicamente instabile, che pure tesse stretti rapporti commerciali con le capitali della cultura, appare strettamente radicata alla sua dimensione medievale” (“In the historical space that chronologically coincides with the revival of the architecture and the arts in Italy, this city (Genoa) politically unstable, which also weaves a close relationship with the commercial capital of culture, appears closely rooted to its medieval dimension”).

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1. Cristoforo de Grassi, View of Genoa in 1597 (copy of a painting from c. 1481). The ­painting ­celebrates the expedition of the Genose navy to Otranto and shows an active harbour and a fortified town. The city seems already “coloured”, at least for the different materials employed in its b ­ uildings (conserved in: Genova, Galata Museo del Mare – from: E. Poleggi, Iconografia di genova e delle riviere, Genova: Carige 1976, pp. 110–111 – kindly provided by the author).

the ancient first Republic of Genoa. This urban and architectural structure and organization knew profound changes in the transition to the sixteenth century, when the first echoes and influences of the new Renaissance culture arrived in Genoa, from Rome and Florence. Many of the above described buildings of medieval origin were then transformed, linked or unified each other to create larger and more suitable buildings for the new needs, lifestyles and ways of living of the leading class. Still at the beginning of the Renaissance, the public Magistrates that ruled the city (Padri del Comune, i.e. ‘Fathers of the City’) controlled also all private activities among which the constructive initiatives were comprehended. The private clients continue using the traditional masons, artisans and builders coming from the Lombardy region, behind the mountains that close the town towards north, to refurbish and renew their ancient residences and buildings. Among them, we can remind the famous Magistri Antelami, a medieval guild that signed the constructive history of Genoa for several centuries. A new and more sumptuous decorum was obtained by diffusely using the ‘module’ deriving by the total or partial ‘unification’ of two or even more pre-existing buildings, giving them new facades, inner staircases

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and courtyards (or a ‘shafts of light’) thus realizing some totally new urban spaces, larger and more usable than the ancient ones.5 Some scholars think, at this respect, that the plaster appeared to clients, designers and builders of the time as the most suitable instrument (or the best technical solution), because more flexible and less expensive than a stone facing, to be adopted to confer a skin and a visible form, dignified and unified, to the ‘new buildings’.6 These, as we said, were not entirely new as they were built, in many cases, by pre-existing buildings which have had been so deeply transformed till the point that they partly lost and partly maintained their previews matter and the past, but no longer fashionable, forms or appearances. The new layers of plaster could in fact easily hide the several signs of those transformations such as: arches only partially destroyed, to lower the internal height of the floors, thus augmenting their number within the same volume; mullioned windows, with several lights, partially destroyed or closed and substituted with the new fashion rectangular openings; medieval portions of external face of the walls, made ​​of alternating bands of white and black stones, partially removed or interrupted; new portions of walls of different constructive characteristics inserted within the fragments of the oldest ones. Choosing this solution, the new surface of the facade became a free field of experimentation of simple colour finish or of more challenging decorative programs. This phase began when a new street, called Strada Nuova or Via

 See: E. Poleggi and F. Caraceni, ‘Genova e Strada Nuova’, in: Storia dell’arte italiana. Part 3, Vol. 5, (Turin, 1983), p.302: “La magistratura preposta agli sviluppi urbanistici, l’ Ufficio dei Padri del Comune,...., svolge… un’attività di controllo sulle iniziative private....(e) anche per gli interventi di ammodernamento e ristrutturazione delle vecchie case medievali i privati continuano ad affidarsi a tecnici di provato mestiere, quei magistri antelami di antica e ininterrotta provenienza lombarda che compaiono anche nel ruolo di impresari.... Per soddisfare l’esigenza di un più aulico decoro, sfruttano su vasta scala il modulo dell’accorpamento di due o tre edifici che permette di ricavare un cortile interno loggiato o almeno un pozzo d’ aria là dove era il portico...” (“The judicial authority to urban developments, the ‘Office of the City Fathers … plays … a control activity on private initiatives … also for the modernization and restructuring the old medieval houses, the private individuals continue to rely on proven technical craft, those magistri Antelami, of ancient and unbroken derivation from Lombardy which also appear in the role of businessmen .... To satisfy the ‘need for a more courtly decorum, they exploit on the large-scale the module of the unification of two or three buildings that allows to realize a courtyard with arcades or at least a well of ‘air where it was the porch ... “); “A partire dal 1528, riaffermato … il predominio dell’oligarchia aristocratica e riscattata l’autonomia politica, la nobiltà si organizza ... in committenza e sperimenta l’ innesto dell’intellettuale nella cultura architettonica e figurativa...... dopo gli anni ‘ 40 il committente Genovese ... cerca ormai

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nella cultura intellettuale la gratificazione del suo potere economico e politico....ma il suo rapporto con l’ architetto é ancora strettamente privato” p. 303, (“Since 1528, reaffirmed the dominance of the aristocratic oligarchy and redeemed its political autonomy, the nobility is organized …as purchasers and experiment the ‘engagement of’ the intellectual in the architectural and figurative culture….after the ‘40, the Genoese client looks in the intellectual culture for the gratification of his economic and political power .... but his relationship with the’ architect is still strictly private “). 6   On this argument see: E. Gavazza, ‘La immagine della citta’ nel suo spazio privato’, in: Genua Picta, (Genoa 1982), p. 19: “Che il parato murario a intonaco denoti una pratica connessa alla nuova soluzione edilizia dell’accorpamento degli edifici è già stato osservato ed è verificabile con frequenza di riscontri nelle stesure murarie entro le quali riaffiorano le tracce delle connessioni e delle bucature medievali. Una pratica che si riscontra a cominciare dalla seconda metà del sec. XV anche se i testi conservati sono sporadici e non tali da consentirci di individuare una costante di modelli stilistici”. (“That the walls plastered apparatus denotes a practice related to the new solution of the unification of buildings has already been observed and is checked by frequency of hits the walls within which the trace of the medieval connections and openings resurface. A practice that is found starting from the second half of the XV century even if the texts preserved are sporadic and not so significant to make us able to identify a constant stylistic models” – translation of the author)

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2. Bernardo Cantone, “Model of the plots for Strada Nuova”, drawing duplicated in 1584. It indicates the names of the land owners, of the streets and the dimensions of the plots. (Conserved in: Fondo “Magistrati dei Padri del Comune”, Archivio Storico del Comune di Genova – kindly provided by E. Poleggi).

Aurea (‘New Street’ or ‘Golden Street’, nowadays Via Garibaldi) was conceived and realized, during the second half of the sixteenth century.7 It was a true urban and architectural laboratory of the Renaissance, a private enterprise carried out by some noble families to build their new neighbourhood: a wide, rectilinear and regular urban space, completely different from the narrow, irregular and curved surrounding medieval streets that were partially demolished to allow the realization of this private speculation, as it has been defined by Ennio Poleggi. For this programme, the noble families invited in Genoa from Perugia architect Galeazzo Alessi who conceived the ‘model’ for a new type of palace, called a blocco (‘block palace’), characterized by a regular and squared plan, a inner courtyard delimited by open loggias on two floors and monumental staircases. The ‘model’ was perfectly adaptable to the soil of the chosen area, at the basis of the first hills towards north, on the border of the medieval city. The land was so divided in several plots, assigned to the various families, according to the plan designed by Bernardo Cantone (fig. 2). Further, the model was so successful and flexible that it ruled all the following urban renovation and enlargement phases till the first decades of the twentieth century, after it had been already transformed from a single family’s residence into an apartments block, suitable for the needs and the inhabiting ways of the new Middle Classes in town (fig. 3).

 The bibliography on ‘Strada Nuova’ is very wide but it is suggested at least to see: G.L. Gorse, ‘A classical stage for the Old Nobility: The Strada Nuova and Sixteenth-Century Genoa’, Art Bulletin, vol.79, 2, 1997, pp. 302–27; E. Poleggi, Strada Nuova: una

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lottizzazione del Cinquecento a Genova, (Genoa 1972); E. Poleggi and F. Caraceni, l.c., 1983, Vol. 5, pp. 300–361; F. Caraceni Poleggi, A renaissance street: via Garibaldi in Genoa, (Genoa 1993); P. Marchi (ed.), Strada Nuova, (Genoa 2001).

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3. Antonio Giolfi, Giuseppe Torricelli, Giovanni Lorenzo Guidotti, View of Strada Nuova from piazza Fontane Marose, 1769. The street is evidently enlarged to make the palaces more readable (from: E. Poleggi (ed.), Genova nel Settecento e le vedute di Antonio Giolfi, Milano 1986 – kindly provided by the author).

Painted decorations: models and derivations In several renovation works of those periods, a new plaster applied on an ancient or partially new wall was evidently sufficient to cover and hide all the signs of its previous transformations.8 The plaster could have been simply coloured, as in several residential buildings for people, or it could have been painted with fresco or dry decorations, like in many palaces belonging to noble families, rich merchants and bankers: the true lords of the town and of the Republic. According to the written historical and documentary sources, but also to the few survived samples of painted facades belonging to the fifteenth century, like that of the palace in Piazza Embriaci (fig. 4) or the more recent Palazzo Lercaro, in Via degli Orefici (fig. 5), the art historians agree that the motives of the fresco decorations initially derived from some Lombardy references. On the other hand, it is well known that masons, foremen, sculptors, stone cutters and also the ancestors of the modern architects traditionally arrived

 For the technological features of the traditional plasters in Genoa, see: G. V. Galiani and M. P. Cattanei, ‘Alcune note sui problemi tecnologici delle facciate dipinte a Genova’, in: Quaderno dell’Istituto di

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Discipline scientifiche e tecnologiche della Facoltà di Architettura, (Genoa 1981); T. Mannoni, ‘Materiali usati nelle facciate dipinte genovesi e loro stabilità nel tempo’, in: Genoa Picta, (Genoa 1982), pp. 118–20.

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Stefano F. Musso in Genoa from that region.9 Afterwards, the sources well document a strong influence of the work of some Roman painters, mainly Polidoro da Caravaggio or Perin del Vaga, with reference to some examples of painted facades realized in Rome during the previous

  See: E. Gavazza, l.c., 1982, pp. 19–20: “Quanto resta delle facciate del palazzo di Piazza Embriaci … attesta come l’area culturale di riferimento sia soprattutto lombarda con la trasposizione pittorica, nei motivi dei fregi a grottesca, di modelli tratti dal repertorio della scultura decorative, in consonanza e non solo stilistica ai portali in marmo e pietra che di questa fase del rinnovamento urbano costituiscono uno degli elementi significanti, e con la presenza inconfondibile della mantegnesca figura di armato”. (“What remains of the facade of the palace in piazza Embriaci … certifies that the cultural area of reference is mostly Lombard with the pictorial transposition, within the grotesque friezes, of some models derived from the repertory of decorative sculpture, in a not only stylistic consonance with the portals of marble and stone that are one of the significant elements of this phase of urban renewal, and the unmistakable presence of the armed figure typical of Mantegna”); further, Ezia Gavazza highlights the: “…persistenza del motivo a specchiature entro fregi a grottesche, ancora in pieno XVI sec (come nei palazzi Lercari di via Orefici)” (“... persistence of the mirrors pattern within. grotesque decorations, still in full sixteenth century”); see also: L. Magnani, ‘Iconografie e significati come messaggi della committenza’, in: Genua picta.Proposte per la scoperta e il recupero delle facciate dipinte, (exh. cat.), (Genoa 1982), p. 33: “…nei Palazzi Lercaro (via Orefici) l’antico è cifra simbolica limitata all’adozione di repertori decorativi composti sulla “regola…sicurissima e fondata nell’autorità del’antichi” (“…in the Lercaro Palaces (via Orefici), the ancient is a symbolic code that is limited to the adoption of decorative repertoires that are composed on the ‘... very safe and founded in the ancestors’ authority rule”). The passage in italic is from G. P. Lomazzo, o.c., 1584, ed. R. P. Ciardi II, 1975, p. 365.

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4. Palace in Piazza Embriaci, 2 – Traces of fresco d ­ ecoration – second half of the 15th century. (Photo: author)

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years.10 This influence was also due to the fact that, for instance, Perin Del Vaga, the most important Raffaello Sanzio’s pupil, escaped from Rome after the famous Siege of Landsknecht (1527) and found refuge in Genoa. He evidently brought with himself the seeds of the Renaissance culture and art, as it is testified by the diffusion in town of the so called ‘grottesche’, a type of decoration especially used for ceilings and loggias, that the renaissance painters imitated from some roman samples that were re-discovered in the ruins of the Domus Aurea, considered as a cave or a natural grotta. In these first and partly still preserved examples of fresco painted facades, the main decorative motives were constituted by: cornices, frames with spirals (geometrical or enriched with flowers and green elements), grotesque friezes but also ‘armed men’, deriving from some Andrea Mantegna’s examples, triumphs and various architectural elements like gables, columns, capitals, tympanums and so on. In the following decades, new and more complex decorative motifs were added to these 5. Palaces “Lercaro” – via Orefici 4 – second half of the 15th century. (Photo: author)  Ibid: where the author says that there is a: “derivazione dei motivi decorative dei fregi da modelli romani vicini all’area del Polidoro, attestante la penetrazione di un gusto più alla moda, seppure in un contesto più arcaicizzante….Una persistenza come epigono, quando già altri filoni culturali si sono imposti come direttrici di gusto nell’area di un rinnovamento che ha come poli di attrazione la cultura del Principe e Strada Nuova: poli di attrazione… in consonanza con un ruolo di simbolo della facciata caratterizzata da ‘Una impaginatura a storie’, inserite in una struttura architettonica che definisce il palazzo come perenne apparato celebrativo” ( “Derivation of the decorative motifs of the ornaments from Roman models close to the Polidoro’s area, attesting the penetration of a fashion taste, albeit in a more archaic context ..., persistence as a follower, when others cultural trends have already emerged as guidelines of taste in a renovation area that has its attractive pole in the Prince’s culture and in Strada Nuova: poles of attraction... in consonance with the role of symbol assumed by the facade characterized by “a pagination of stories” inserted into an architectural structure that defines the palace as a perennial commemorative apparatus”); L. Magnani, l.c., 1982, p. 40: “…Nicchie, positure, costumi trovano immediati 10

riscontri nella statuaria lombarda, dagli esempi tardo quattrocenteschi a quelli della prima metà del XVI secolo (Michele D’Aria, Antonio della Porta, Gio Giacomo della Porta…) fino ai primi del Seicento “ e il committente sembra prediligere la tipologia arcaicizzante… (“Niches, postures, costumes find immediate parallels in the statuary from Lombardy, by the late fifteenth century examples to those of the first half of the sixteenth century (Michele D’Aria, Antonio della Porta, Gio Giacomo della Porta ...) until the early seventeenth century… and the customer seems to prefer an archaic type”); L. Magnani, l.c., 1982, “L’esempio strutturale in cui inserire queste iconografie aggiornate lo offrivano ancora i modelli romani, palazzo Ricci e palazzo Milesi, con le facciate dipinte di Polidoro da Caravaggio, ma gli artefici ormai sono locali, i fratelli Calvi, più malleabili e pronti a recepire i riferimenti alla realtà politica necessari al committente”. (“The structural example in which to place these iconographies updated models are still offered by the Roman Palazzo Ricci and Palazzo Milesi, with facades painted by Polidoro da Caravaggio, but the authors are now local, the brothers Calvi, more malleable and ready to accept the references to the political reality that were necessary to the customer”).

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Stefano F. Musso simplest ones, so that the facades of new or renovated buildings gave support to much more rich and complex representations and even for true ‘epiphanies’ of unexpected stories, private or public, moral or symbolic, historical or mythological.11 There were also clear theoretical references for this new ‘fashion’, as it is demonstrated by the following passage by Sebastiano Serlio, according to which, speaking about the facades of the buildings: ‘…. it is possible to put some statues, or other sham things of marble or of other material, or even some histories or tales, painted on a wall…’.12 Other theoreticians and treatise writers of the time had, in many ways, recommended and endorsed the use of wall paintings as a way to decorate the facades of urban buildings. We are referring, in particular, to the more noble and socially relevant ones, given the nature of urban spaces they faced and the meaning that the building fronts could assume for the decoration of the city and of the families, or for the exaltation of their origin and their political, diplomatic or economic role. Among others, Gio. Paolo Lomazzo, in his treatise on the art of painting, says that: ‘…the public streets are reputed places of the Moon, and therefore according to the whims of various different artists, all the histories, fantasies, inventions, chiribizzi [freezes with grotesque] that are at the heart, can be painted outdoors…’.13 Where the Moon represents Diana, the Trivia divinity of the Latin Pantheon, lady of any elements, three-formed and nocturnal, under whose domain the public streets were set, according to the ancient myths. Subjects, themes, stories and intentions As already said, the most ancient preserved fragments of painted facades and the contemporary literary or documentary sources testify the prevalence of geometric and decorative motives. At the end of the fifteenth and at the beginning of the sixteenth centuries, some simple examples of ‘fault architectures’ (virtual, imitated, simulated), characterized by columns and

 See: L. Magnani, l.c., 1982, p. 33: “Dalla lettura delle frequenze iconografiche rilevate sulle facciate dipinte tra gli inizi del secolo XVI e i primi decenni del Seicento, non emerge certo la varietà e ricchezza tematica riscontrabile nelle contemporanee decorazioni interne ai palazzo stessi: i soggetti rappresentati permettono comunque di individuare alcune specifiche direzioni di interpretazione. Ad una tendenza decorativo-simbolica si affianca, per poi trionfare, una forma di retorica pittorica che, a sua volta, vedremo distinta in due tendenze: una retorica-privata, esaltazione personale del ruolo pubblico del committente e una retorica ‘di regime’, esaltazione corale di temi canonici in funzione di un’immagine dell’ordine repubblicano – immagine politica della città – a cui il singolo committente si attiene” ( “From the reading of the iconographic sequences that have been surveyed on the painted facades between the beginning of the XVI and the first decades of the XVII century, it does not emerge for sure the thematic variety and the richness that may be found in the contemporary decorations of the interiors of the same palaces. The represented subjects allow us in any case to identify some specific interpretative directions. To a decorative-symbolic 11

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tendency, a form of pictorial rhetoric, which will then triumph, is set beside and can be distinguished in two trends: a private rhetoric, personal glorification of the public role of the commissioner and a rhetoric of the ‘regime’, coral exaltation of canonical themes according to an image of the Republican order – political imagine of the city – to which the individual client follows”) 12  See: Serlio Sebastiano 1545, Libro II, ed. anastatica, 1978, p. 50, quoted in: E. Gavazza, l.c., 1982, p. 25: “Ancora si possono accomodare qualche statue, o altre cose finte di marmo o d’altro materiale, o alcuna istoria o favola dipinta sopra un muro”. 13   See: G. P. Lomazzo, Trattato dell’Arte della Pittura, Scoltura ed Architettura di Gio. Paolo Lomazzo Milanese, pittore, (Milan 1584), critical edition by R. P. Ciardi (ed.), (Florence 1975), vol. II, p. 305, quoted in: L. Magnani, l.c., 1982, p. 33 and note n. 1, p. 44: “Le strade pubbliche sono riputati luochi della Luna; e però secondo i vari e diversi capricci dei pittori. Tutte quelle istorie, fantasie, invenzioni, chiribizzi che si vengono a cuore, vi si possono dipingere all’aperto …”

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pilasters, cornices and gambles, belonged to a widespread practice craft, ruled by the composition methods of repertoire. In this respect, Gio. Paolo Lomazzo opposed, to the so called Mazzacani (i.e. masons or artisans), considered as Sebastiano Serlio’s students, the architects trained in the true ‘art of painting’ right from the beginning of their activity and who were allowed ‘to vary the orders’ and to ‘compose what they want(ed)’.14 After those first periods and expressions, various architectural elements appeared to give order to the facades, incorporating those ancient motives and some new ones to serve, as we said, to new purposes, always in the service of the owners of the palaces and for the benefit of the city. Thus, on many facades, ‘Armed men’, ‘Prisoners’ and ‘Naked men’ were represented, with different symbolic meanings and intentions. These figures were sometimes painted together with (or in alternative to) various and nowadays almost unknown, or un-recognisable, personages and stories of the Greek and Latin Mythology (Ulysses, Hercules, the Centaurs, Herma, Hydra…). Also Classical and Pagan Deities were recurrent subjects for the painters. They are now definitely forgotten but, at those time, they were quite well known, at least for scholars, artists and intellectuals. The owners of the palaces, the clients, chose therefore them because they aimed to be considered well cultivated and belonging to the same cultural level, searching, also in this way, a sort of legitimacy for their richness and power. It is the case of the Palazzo di Stefano Squarciafico (now Doria-Invrea), in the square with the same name, with the frescos painted by the brothers Calvi, between 1567 and 1571, representing Mars, Minerva, Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, The Rape of the Sabine and various scenes of conversation between Lovers (fig. 6). Similar subjects appear also in the Palazzo di Giovanni Battista Grimaldi (known as Palazzo della Meridiana), built between 1536 and 1544 incorporating a pre-existing building from the XV century. Its back facade, towards the gardens, in particular, was decorated by Aurelio Busso, a pupil of the roman painter Polidoro da Caravaggio, perhaps with Giovanni Battista Castello, with a sequence of monochrome panels showing the transposition of the myth of Hercules, of the Hydra of Lerrna and of Hercules struggling against the Centaurs. The figurative programme was, evidently, a metaphor of the client’s personal virtues and of his quality of powerful (fig. 7).15 On others facades, for the same hagiographic and genealogical purposes, the owners and the painters preferred heroes and characters of the Roman History (the ‘Caesars’, Muzio Scevola, Orazio Coclite and others). On the main façade of Palazzo di Angelo Giovanni Spinola, in Via Aurea, built between 1558 and 1564, the fresco decoration was realized in two phases (1592–94 and 1558–64). It is based on a simulated architectural partition, with niches within which are figures of sham bronze (representing armed men, naked   See: F. Boggero, ‘La struttura dipinta: la trattatistica, i modelli locali’, in: Genoa Picta … quoted, pp. 57–65. The passage from G. P. Lomazzo, o.c., 1584, ed. R.P. Ciardi, II, 1975, pp.355–56, is reported at p.57. 15  See: E. Gavazza, l.c., 1982 , p. 22: “Sono strutture di sintesi in consonanza alla struttura unitaria dell’architettura” (“They are synthetic structures in consonance to the unitary structure of the architecture”); L.Magnani, l.c., 1982, who describing other painted facades, like that of Palazzo Saluzzo in Via Lomellini, at pp. 37–38 notes that these metaphoric figures lead to: “Esempi di virtù civica che trovano frequentissimi riscontri nei discorsi ufficiali letti e stampati in occasione dell’elezione dei Dogi o negli elogi funebri (“Examples of civic virtues which find very frequent pendants within the official speeches that were read and printed in the occasion of the Dogi’s elections or 14

of the funeral orations”); L. Magnani, l.c., 1982, p. 39 for whom, both for the fresco by Busso in Palazzo Grimaldi and for other lost examples, but also for the frescos by Luca Cambiaso in Palazzo Grillo Spinola in Piazza delle Vigne, two possible reading trends are possible: “…il primo, dove le fatiche dell’eroe sarebbero l’allegoria della vittoria sui vizi e quindi della virtù perchè la fortezza di Hercole fu dell’animo, non del corpo… (“..the first one where the labors of the hero would be an allegory of victory over vice and therefore of the virtue because Hercole’s fortress was of the soul and not of the body…”); the second one in which: “La facciata si presenta … come un “Manifesto” del ruolo del committente e della famiglia attraverso l’allegoria del mito…” (“The façade is therefore regarded as a” manifesto “of the role of the client and of the family, through the allegory of the myth”).

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6. Palace “di Stefano Squarciafico” (now called “Doria Invrea”) – Frescoes by Fratelli Calvi 1565 – 1567. (Photo: author)

 G.P. Lomazzo, o.c., 1584, ed. R.P. Ciardi, II, 1975, p. 299, reported in E.Gavazza, l.c., 1982, p.27. 16

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men, prisoners, winged genies and other mythological ­figures...) with the portraits of Caesars, different Triumphs, various Emperors, the ‘Fame’ and the ‘Victory’. It is a rich iconography that was considered by Gio. Paolo Lomazzo as ‘proportionate to the royal palaces and to the Princes’ houses’.16On the other hand, the palace belonged to the Spinola Family who gave to the empire the governor of the Low Countries, Agostino (fig. 8). In other palaces of the same period, the ‘Cardinal Virtues’ (Justice, Temperance, Fortitude, Prudence) appear together with other symbolic and metaphoric figures, conceived as linked to some single representatives or their entire family and, therefore, considered as capable to glorify them in an evident way. Their values, virtues and qualities were thus shown in the public space of the city, transferring and translating them into the public sphere of the Republican ruling system, for its benefit and strengthening, trough an evident attempt and intention of education and of moral edification that was directed to all the citizens. At the same purposes, also various outstanding personages of the contemporary history, local and European, with representatives of the most important, rich and powerful Genoese noble families were selected in other cases. It is again the case of the Palazzo di Giovanni Battista Grimaldi (called della Meridiana), where the wide vault of the main room on the first floor was decorated in 1566 with frescos by one of the most famous Genoese painter, Luca Cambiaso who represented ‘Ulysses who shoots the Proci’ (in the central panel of the vault) and (inside its lateral lunettes) the portraits, among others personages, of Giovan Battista Grimaldi, the owner of the palace (dressed as a Caesar), and those of the Emperors Charles V and

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7. Palace “di Giovanni Battista Grimaldi” (now called “la Meridiana”) – built: 1536-44 – Back Facade towards the garden – Frescoes by Aurelio Busso and Giovanni Battista Castello. (Photo: author)

Philip II (fig. 9).17 It was a clear choice linked to the role that the family played within the European context of those times, a sort of glorification of its status built on the basis of the ancient history and expressing its aspiration and ambitions, both on the political and the economic level. In the monumental atrium on the ground floor of the already mentioned Palazzo di Angelo Giovanni Spinola, in Via Aurea, there are the portraits of some famous representatives of the family, dressed as ancient Romans Emperors, seated on high bases, in form of coloured statues, painted by the brothers Calvi.18 In this way, a single iconographic and political programme sometimes linked the interiors of the palaces to the external urban spaces. This means that the facades of these palaces begun ‘immense canvases’, true sceneries ready to receive (or to make possible) the representation of the owner’s splendour, richness, values, role and ambitions extending the ‘inner (or interior) and private space’ to the ‘public’ one. The facade could have been conceived, at that point, as a new occasion or a new place for a private expression (or epiphany) for the owner’s glory, but also for highlighting the links existing (or desired) between his personal supposed and affirmed values, virtues and characteristics and those that were assumed, as fundaments, by the Oligarchic Republic (ruled alternatively by the various noble families).

17  About the choise of personalities belonging to the past and to the present history of the family, that owned the palace, see: L. Magnani, l.c., 1982, pp. 39–40: “…un gruppo di affreschi esterni…aveva indicato, nella prima metà del XVI secolo, una direzione alternativa: rinunciando ad ogni mediazione, venivano effigiati personaggi moderni, gli uomini illustri della famiglia. Anche in questo caso l’esempio veniva dagli antichi che “avevano nelle case loro le immagini e ritratti dei suoi maggiori per memoria delle virtù loro e per imitazione dei posteri” (“…a group of external frescoes ... had shown, during the first half of the XVI century, an alternative direction: giving up any mediation, modern characters, the eminent men of

the family, were portrayed. Also in this case the example derived from the ancient that “had, in their houses, the images and portraits of their ancestors as a memory of their virtues and for the imitation of the followers”), the passage in Italic is from G.P. Lomazzo, o.c., 1584, ed. R.P. Ciardi, p. 14. 18  See: E. Gavazza, l.c., 1982, p. 27 and note n. 16, where the scholar notes that already G. Paleotti admitted, in these kind of decorative programmes, the use of representations of famous and noble men, because they could “...offer examples to a good way of leaving” being them a medium of “excitement of the followers towards the virtues of the ancestors”.

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8. Palace “di Angelo Giovanni Spinola” in Via Garibaldi, 5 – built: 1558–64 – frescoes: painted 1592–94. (Photo: author)

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9. Palace “Giovanni Battista Grimaldi – la Meridiana” – built: 1536-44 – The vault of the main room on the noble floor – Frescoes by Luca Cambiaso, 1566. (Photo: author)

It is not a case that, sometimes, this programme was so powerful and long lasting that it involved more facades of a given street (especially if radically reformed within the ancient medieval town), realizing a global public, political, educational and communicative intervention for the benefit of the Republic.19 It is the case of the facades in Via di Scurreria, opened in 1584 to realize a new connection between Piazza Campetto and Piazza San Lorenzo (the square of the Cathedral), cutting the medieval urban fabric after the construction (better, refurbishment) of the Palace belonging to Gio Battista Imperiale

 See, on the role that some painted facades assumed in the framework of urban renewal processes of those times: E. Gavazza, l.c., 1982, p. 22., according to whom they: “…dopo la metà del XVII secolo, adeguano ad una nuova funzionalità la novità dei modelli cinquecenteschi che anche la trattatistica suggeriva come adatti alla casa del signore, ordinandoli secondo una visibilità di percorso.” (“…after the mid-seventeenth century,

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they adapt, to a new functionality, the novelty represented by the sixteenth-century models, which also the treatises suggested as suitable for the lord’s house, sorting them according to a path visibility”). The references, in this case, are: A. Palladio, I Quattro Libri dell’Architettura, (Venice 1570), Libro II, cap. I, and: G.. P. Lomazzo, o.c., 1584, ed. R. P. Ciardi, p. 229.

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Stefano F. Musso and thus realizing a new space for the view or a new path of visibility.20 This new urban space, a sort of street façade was conceived as coherent and consequent with the public programmes already mentioned, aimed to offer a new solution for the ancient and d ­ ifficult problem of the mobility within the medieval city.21 Similar programme seems at the basis also of the new square named Piazza Valloria, opened during the sixteenth century by demolishing some oldest buildings to give visibility to the new façade of Palazzo Peirano.22 What Rubens certainly saw but did not explicitly or completely record The facades we mentioned are between those that Peter Paul Rubens saw when he arrived and lived for a while in Genoa. For this reason, it is particularly intriguing the fact that the many incisions he realized of various palaces are very similar to each other, even if they are not corresponding to the original status of the buildings, neither to the present one. We know and we saw, for example, that on some of these facades the same architectural elements are painted while, in others, they are built in marble and stone, or modelled in stucco. We can add another example to analyze this problem, comparing between them the incision that Rubens left of it and the graphic survey of its present status. We refer here to the Palazzo di Paolo Battista e Nicolò Interiano (now Interiano–Pallavicini), in Piazza Fontane Marose, built between 1565 and 1567 but later deeply refurbished. Rubens inserted the drawing of its façade in the 1622 edition of his famous Book Palazzi di Genova (fig. 10). For this reason, of course, it can not record the transformation that the façade suffered during the eighteenth century (insertion of the balcony, for example, with the correspondent demolition of the tympanum over the portal). In any case, we know with certainty, thanks to the rich and detailed documentary sources, that the façade Rubens saw was already painted, even if those original frescoes would have been modified in correspondence with the recalled works carried out on the whole façade and even later. Further, some fragments of those frescos are still preserved and in place because, when the façade was once again repainted, during

  See in this respect: G. Grossi Bianci and E. Poleggi, o.c., 1980, pp. 288–94, 295 and 321, plus note n.63; about the characters of the painted facades of the new street, see: E. Gavazza, l.c., 1982, pp. 24–25, where she notes that: “Qui il parato dipinto diventa tessuto unificante dell’intera strada ricavata dal taglio sottrattivo delle case che si aprivano sui vicoli di tangenza…e che ora si affacciano sulla nuova strada ...Lo schema adottato per le facciate degli altri palazzi (della nuova via) è quello del parato a specchiature architettoniche sugli interassi, con figure…(ormai illeggibili nel 1982 e oggi in parte restaurate, n.d.r.).e un alto fregio, decorato con colori molto vivi, che corre lungo tutto lo sviluppo della strada” (“Here the painted decoration becomes a unifying fabric of the entire road that was realized by cutting for subtraction of the houses that belonged to the narrow streets in tangency ... and that now face the new street ... the scheme adopted for the facades of other buildings (of the new road) is that of the architectural mirrors on the distances, with figures .(unreadable in 1982 and now partly restored, n.d.r.) and with a high frieze decorated with very vivid colours, which runs throughout the development of the street “) 20

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 See: G. Rosato, ‘Città costruita e città dipinta: un’indagine sul rilievo e sulla struttura prospettica’, in: Genua Picta, ...,quoted, pp. 66–75; F. Simonetti, ‘ La lettura di documentazione, di veduta e di rilevamento’, ivi, pp.78–84 22   See: E. Gavazza, l.c., 1982, pp. 25, where she notes that, in the new facade of Palazzo Veneroso, in Piazza Valloria: “…il parato murario che intende unificare la sutura dei due edifici accorpati è organizzato sulla tradizione dello schema ad interassi ed è fatta per essere vista a distanza, dallo sbocco del vicolo Valoria …i personaggi in nicchia (Cesari e Armati) sono proiettati sulla superficie resa come un grande cartone d’apparato che, pur nella ricca articolazione degli elementi architettonici, non diventa architettura” (“… the apparatus of the wall that tries to unify the suture of the two joined buildings is organized following the traditional scheme signed by the distances and it is conceived to be seen in the distance, from the end of the Valloria lane... the personages in the niches (Caesars and Armed men) are projected on the surface of the façade that is transformed in a great cartoon for an apparatus that, despite the rich articulation of the architectural elements, does not become architecture “). 21

Painting the nineteenth century, they were saved and inserted in the renewed decoration that, in any case, reproduced the original architectural scheme that Rubens certainly saw. The fact is that there is no evidence of them in the Rubens’ drawing or, better, the architectural elements he records are painted as well as the other parts of the facade that he seems to ignore (fig. 11). It is of course possible to argue that, for Rubens’ consideration, interests or goals, the general architectural features of the palaces (structures, plan, volume, architectural elements, distribution and spatial organization) were much more important than their superficial external appearances. But he was a painter. It is so difficult to really understand why he seems to have been completely uninterested to those urban canvases, rich of complex fresco decorations that were so important for the Genoese nobles and that he wanted to propose, as an example, to their correspondent in the Low Countries and in northern Europe. There is also another and not banal aspect of the question that should be at least highlighted and it is the fact that the colours and the paintings are always very difficult to be faithfully represented within an incision, through its technical and expressive powers and limits. The question, anyway, remains unsolved and intriguing, open perhaps to new future researches.

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10. Palace “di Paolo Battista e Nicolò Interiano” (now called “Interiano – Pallavicini”) in Piazza Fontane Marose, 2 – built: 1565–67 – Drawing by P. P. Rubens 1622. (From: H. Gurlitt, Peter Paul Rubens: Genua – Palazzi di Genova 1622, der Zirkel, 1924, Palazzo G, Taffel 26 – Library of the Faculty of Architecture of Genoa)

 ainted facades: architectures P and not ‘canvases’ Speaking about the façade of Palazzo di Giovanni Battista e Nicolò Interiano (now Interiano-Pallavicino), in piazza Fontane Marose, Ezia Gavazza quotes Ennio Poleggi and Luciano Grossi Bianchi who said that it assumes the ‘aspect of a backdrop for the square’ which is adaptable to being seen as a theatrical space (E. Poleggi and G. Bianchi 1980, p. 265). Then, she adds: ‘The sequence of figures inserted in the niches, within a painted trompe d’oeil lay out, rather than by architectural elements, still perceptible while under the repainting, make it similar

11. Palace “Paolo Battista e Nicolò Interiano” (now called “Interiano – Pallavicini”) in Piazza Fontane Marose, 2 – built: 1565-67 – The painted facade nowadays. (Photo: author)

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12. Palace “Peirano” in Piazza Valloria – 16th century – “Caesars” and “Armed men” painted after 1597 by unknown artists. (Photo: author)

to a large stage-cartoon, on which the figures in niches follow one another, on different layers, and to which is given, as it is still possible to read on the remained ones, a message with clear political allusion, already anticipated, but not so well made explicit, on the façade of the Palazzo Peirano, on via Giustiniani: ‘Justice’ and ‘Fortitude’ on the first floor, ‘Prudence’ and ‘Temperance’, on the second one, denote their image as city’s virtues, under the meaning ascribed to them by the Doge’s commitment that, not many years afterwards, will set them as the foundation of the public virtues in the Doge’s palace, as they will be symbolized in the great paintings by Gio. Andrea de Ferrari, Domenico Fiasella and Gio Andrea Ansaldo’23 (now conserved in Palazzo Tursi, the Major House of Genoa). One of the main problems we have, at the end of this quick journey within the painted Genoa in the age Rubens knew and frequented it, is exactly represented by this interpretation, because a painted façade, for sure, is not simply a canvas, it is architecture, in the deepest meaning of the word. We cannot forget this reality, although it could seem trivial, if we really would like to understand the phenomenon we are speaking about, saving its ­material and survived traces (fig. 12). A painted façade, in fact, must be built before been painted and if the decoration is conceived and realized, or executed, as a ‘true’ or ‘good fresco’, according to the definitions offered by Giorgio Vasari or by Cennino Cennini, the painter must know how it is built (consistency, materials, surface’s characters, irregularities and so on) but also how to prepare the last layer of the plaster that covers it and that will embody the pigments he is going to use till it will be wet, thus ensuring their long lasting, after it will be dried, because capable to resist against the attacks of the aggressive agents of the surrounding environment. The painter   See: E. Gavazza, l.c., 1982, p.30.

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has to know, further on, how to dissimulate the borders, i.e. the edges that the realization process of the fresco will create between the parts of the facade he will be able to paint, till the plaster is wet, dissimulating them, within the final result of his fatigue, in a non disturbing way. Theses considerations bring us back to the initial questions we proposed, trying to summarize the different reasons that have been proposed, by different scholars and disciplinary readings or analyses, to explain the presence, diffusion and duration of the painted facades in Genoa.  pen questions and new research O direction

13. Painted Facades in Piazza “San Pietro in Banchi” – S. Vrancx, Private Collection in Genova (from: Genua Picta, Genova: Saegep 1982, tav. XIV)

We said, according to different opinions, that the painted facades were realised because: a) the need of sparing money, but several of them were executed for some of the richest families of the Republic; b) the narrow spaces of the ancient city did not allow the perception of three-dimensional finishing, but they were realised also in wider urban spaces; c) the flexibility and the easy refurbishing of the façade they allowed, but several of them resisted for several centuries, till our present times and with no significant changes, a part those provoked by a normal maintenance. As it is easy to be understood, at this point, the proposed questions are still in front of us and the answers we already mentioned do not close in a definite way our interrogation. Let us start from the argument that links the tradition of the painted facades to the confined spaces of the medieval city which would have made difficult, if not impossible, to read and appreciate facades adorned with decorations in relief which are specific, for example, of a stone finish. But this observation, even if apparently convincing, does not explain why clients, builders, and craftsmen realized the complex decorative programmes we considered till now, with the techniques of mural painting. Moreover, there are facades belonging to the same age that are characterized by a strong three-dimensionality, like those of many palaces in Strada Nuova. Why, then, this ‘plastic or three-dimensional solution’ was not widely adopted throughout the city? Was it only for economic reasons? It seems difficult to agree, since a same family sometimes adopted, in the mean span of time, both solutions. The preference for painted facades, then, would have been the sign and the fruit of the consciousness that, thanks to it, it would have been easier to shape the will of a self-representation, of individuals or of families, that several scholars usually highlight among the reasons to explain this phenomenon? Maybe, at the end, this was really a prevailing reason. A smooth and painted surface could really deal with the selected stories, or embody the desired representation of the concepts the owners wanted to communicate to the world, with faster and cheaper execution or more effective communicative power, than that it would be possible to obtain with a façade signed by architectural and figurative elements in relief. To achieve comparable effects and purposes, in fact, this last would have been be very rich, in the attempt to match the narrative density of the painted surfaces, through the use of low- or of high-relieves or, even more, of sculptures in the round (which is also much more expensive). Examples of this kind, not surprisingly, do not exist, or are limited to a few isolated decorative elements. It is perhaps not true, therefore,

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14. Palace “Paolo Battista e Nicolò Interiano” (now called “Interiano – Pallavicini”) in Piazza Fontane Marose, 2 – built: 1565–67 – Scheme of the perspective construction of the painted facade in relation with the surrounding urban spaces. (From: Genua Picta, Genova: Sagep 1982, p. 31)

that similar three-dimensional facades were not realized only because they could have not been visible from the tight urban spaces on which they faced. Such reasoning is plausible in part for the construction of the new facades in the lanes of the old (medieval) town. Strada Nuova or Piazza Fontane Marose, on the contrary, would have allowed a satisfactory perspective for these three-dimensional facades, as they partly did. It is true, moreover, that there are rich facades of this kind, built and continually reformed between sixteenth and nineteenth century, within all the ancient city, but they are significantly devoid of figures, ‘stories’ or figurative contents whatsoever (fig. 13). One could then argue that actually the spring that triggered and sustained the process of creation and dissemination of the painted facades, through centuries of history of Genoa, has been widely of economic nature, in the sense of a search of results appropriate to the pursued aims (communication, celebration, good practice of building and living) rather than in terms of a simple statement of cash account. Certainly, from the early and few examples still preserved in the body of the city, passing through different phases of intense change and ‘modernization’ of the urban structure, a sort of continuity of doing that became building, housing and urban planning tradition, raised. The kinetic power inherent in that first spring, or its moment, were well maintained for a long time, marked by the predominance of changing communicative intents. This status

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of things lasted at least until the protagonists of this adventure lost the ability to read those decorations, with the codes for their decryption, so that the basic elements and the figurative meanings of those early enterprises, turned into a simple ‘fashion’ and, perhaps, all this happened, once again, for purely economic reasons. It was clearly very different the use of a facade to establish and express lineage, legitimacy and the weight of power after the reform of the Oligarchic Republic operated by Andrea Doria (the Admiral who defeated the Turks in the Lepanto battle) rather than at a later stages of his relentless decline, destined to be fulfilled with the French Revolution, the establishment of the Liguria Republic and the end of the Anciénne Regime. All these arguments, however, leave in shade other possible reasons that led to dissemination and permanence of the phenomenon of the painted facades in Genoa, starting from the technological ones. On a pre-existing masonry, made of bricks or stones, the application of a plaster was perhaps the only way to provide continuity and unity to its external surface, making it also available to possible painted decorations, as we already commented. The external finishing of a new masonry, however, could have been as well realized with various coatings made, for example, of stone blocks or slates. This, however, might have been at odds, as noted, with the intent to use such surfaces as ‘canvas or scenic backdrops’. However, there is also another reason that can explain the adoption of this solution: the consistency and the compatibility between the constructive characteristics of a traditional Genovese plaster (made of three layers of mortar lime, with a decreasing granulometry towards its external surface) with the characters of a way of building new walls, called alla moderna (modern fashion), that spread off in the city since, at least, the first half of the sixteenth century. They are built with rough-cut stone elements, flakes and fragments directly caved in the quarry, belonging to very compact and resistant to compression limestone, combined with large amounts of very strong and tenacious air lime mortars. The edges and the jambs of the openings were thus usually weak points of these walls and were generally sewn and reinforced with stone jambs, carefully squared and clamped into the surrounding masonry, or with coated bricks. Also the corners of the buildings tended to be weak. Since 1574, by the way, an ordinance of the City Fathers obliged to bind the buildings of the city on each floor, even in the absence of vaulted and pushing structures, in order to close the masonry boxes that were very fragile in the corners because the difficult and irregular connections between the walls converging in them. Considering also these problems, the painted decoration of the fronts and, in particular, its panels and architectural partitions (string courses, cornices in correspondence of the internal ceilings or of the windowsill, pilasters, etc..) could effectively conceal the variations that could have invested the plaster in correspondence of the critical points of the below masonries, because of their geometrical discontinuities, consistency and materials, with the associated variations in thermal inertia. The signs of the pontate or of the ‘days’, that characterized the time and the process of execution of the painted decoration, are still slightly visible on some facades, and this explain another possible advantage for the usage painted finishing on the plasters. This last reason, combined with the many others already mentioned so far, perhaps helps us to understand the particular distribution and persistence of the phenomenon of the painted facades in Genoa (fig. 14). A plaster, on the other hand, may very well resist to the salty rainy and windy climate of the city. Its painted finishes undoubtedly suffer for the action of its aggressive agents in ways that are not yet entirely clear, according to many variables hardly predictable and controllable, but they can last for centuries as the existing facades testify. Further, these finishes can be physically renovated (partly retouched, repainted or completely re-done), in various ways and even with some frequency, while maintaining or innovating the denotative and connotative contents of the existing decorations.

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15. Map with the distribution of the survived painted facades in 1982. (From: Genua Picta, Genova: Sagep 1982, p. 31)

We ought perhaps to take due account also of this particular aspect of the problem. Also these reasons, however, cannot be assertive in themselves, nor they are sufficient to explain, in a definite way, what happened some centuries ago. They certainly can not give us a complete explanation of the phenomenon of the painted facades in Genoa, as it always happens in any attempt to reconstruct a past of which only some fragmented and interrupted material traces remain. It is up to us, in any case, to protect and preserve them, so as not to lose the idiosyncrasies and uniqueness of this place.

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Frans Geffels, Rubens

and the

Palazzi di Genova

Giulio Girondi

The aim of this paper is to focus on the figure of the Flemish painter and architect Frans Geffels (who worked at the court of the Gonzaga-Nevers) and his possible cultural connection with Peter Paul Rubens as testified by some patrician palaces in the baroque Mantua.1 Frans Geffels was born in Antwerp on August 15, 1625;2 his mother (who died in 1639) ran a shop selling cheese, butter and oil, and his father (who died in 1652, when Frans was already working abroad) was a labourer in the local sugar refinery.3 In 1635 his family enrolled him in the Guild of Saint Lucas as an apprentice painter, and in 1645, after ten years in the workshop of Daniel Middeler, he entered the same guild as a “master painter”.4 Archive documents do not clarify the context of Geffels artistic training and cultural background; but we know the reasons of his appointment as “nostro pittore et architetto, o sia prefetto” (our painter and architect, that is, prefect) by the Duke of Mantua Charles II Gonzaga Nevers in which we find that the Flemish artist was appreciated not only as “pittore talentuoso” (talented painter), but even as a distinguished master “nella architettura e prattica nell’invenzione di macchine” (in architecture and the invention of theatre devices).5 We do not know definitely how Geffels learned all these artistic skills, but we could, perhaps, hypothesise analysing his master’s workshop. Nowadays, Daniel Middeler is best known as an engraver and publisher rather than as a painter: his editorial masterpiece is Celeberrimi legati ad pacificandum Christiani nominis orbem… published in 1648 with several engraved portraits by Anselmus van Hulle, Conrad Waumans, Paulus Pontius, Cornelis Galle, Pieter de Bailliu, Theodor Dirck Matham and Antony van der Does.6 The presence of Geffels in Middeler’s workshop could explain how the Mantuan “prefetto” became both a skilled painter and a well-known engraver. If we consider Middeler as a publisher in Antwerp (one of the cultural capitals of northern Europe), we could speculate about the presence of several books in his workshop, and perhaps, even architectural treatises. Regarding the generation immediately preceding Geffels, we must definitely consider the polyhedral figure of Peter Paul Rubens, painter really interested in architecture. Almost certainly Middeler and his pupils knew Rubens’ Palazzi di Genova, published in 1622, and certainly one of the best known books on architecture (not only in Antwerp), written by Rubens – as he clarified in the introduction – with the conviction “di fare un’opera meritoria verso il ben publico di tutte le Provincie Oltramontane” (to make a meritorious work for the public good of all the transalpine provinces).7 This expression seems a clear invitation on the part of the great master to young artists such as Geffels, to read this book. In addition to this, Geffels almost certainly visited (or at least knew) the Rubens House, one of the most celebrated   G. Stolfi, ‘Mantova’, in A. Scotti Tosini (ed.), Storia dell’architettura italiana: Il Seicento, (Milan 2003), vol. 2, pp. 192–199. 2   M.G. Sordi, ‘Geffels Frans’, in: Allegemeines künstler lexicon, (Munich – Leipzig 2006), vol. 51, pp. 7–9. 3  G. Pastore, ‘Biografia di Francesco Geffels’, Civilta mantovana, 19, 1969, p. 51. In Antwerp documents, the name Geffels is even written Scheuffens, Geuffels, Govers, Scheuffels or Geuffens. 4   P. Rombouts and T. Van Lerius, Les liggeren et autres archives historiques de la gilde anversoise de Saint 1

Luc, (Antwerp – The Hague, 1864–76), vol. 2, pp. 73, 75, 167, 172. 5  Archivio di Stato di Mantova, Archivio Gonzaga, b. 55, Registro 107, c. 21, April 4, 1663; published in G. Pastore, l.c., 1969, p. 51. 6   P. Berghaus, ‘Graphische Porträts’, in: Büchern des 15. bis 19.Jahrhundert, (Wiesbaden 1995), p. 90. 7   P. Lombaerde (ed.), The reception of P. P. Rubens’s Palazzi di Genova during the 17 th century in Europe: Questions and Problems, (Turnhout 2002).

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Giulio Girondi buildings in baroque Antwerp.8 From these considerations, we could perhaps establish that Geffels as an architect was not really an experienced designer who received his education on major construction sites, but rather an artist interested in architecture and in its esthetic issues. Geffels in Mantua Links between Mantua and Antwerp during the sixteenth and the seventeenth century are well known: the Mantuan engraver Giorgio Ghisi worked in the engraving workshop of Hieronimus Cock,9 and the Sadeler family translated into prints some drawings by Ippolito Andresi10 and Antonio Maria Viani.11 We should also consider the passion for Flemish art of Duke Vincent I Gonzaga, who make a journey in Flanders,12 and who wanted both Rubens and Pourbus at his court.13 After the end of the direct Gonzaga family line (1628), and the sack of Mantua (1630–31), the new dukes of the Gonzaga Nevers line continued to host Flemish artists, such as Daniel Van Den Dyck – ducal painter from 1658 till his death in 166314 – who, probably, served as a link between Frans Geffels and the court of Charles II Gonzaga Nevers, perhaps a little before 1659,15 year in which Frans is documented in Mantua and in the Gonzaga palace at Maderno.16 In 1660–61 Geffels worked in Vienna,17 where he returned in 1667–68.18 From 1661 Geffels lived in Mantua: in 1661 he probably designed the palace at Portiolo of Ottavio Gonzaga di Vescovato (a courtier of a cadet line of the ducal family);19 and in 1663 – after the death of Van Den Dyck – was appointed ducal prefect for art and architecture.20 In 1664 Geffels became father of a girl (born to Domenica Binelli)21 and received Mantuan citizenship.22 Finally, in 1670 the regent duchess Isabella Clara named him “aiutante d’onore del duca” (aide of honor to the Duke).23 In Mantua Geffels had some economic success, as testified by several purchases of land, buildings and of a little palace for his family in what is now called Via Calvi, unfortunately transformed during the eighteenth century.24 For the ducal family Geffels worked inside the palaces (unfortunately almost all lost) of Maderno (c. 1659), Marmirolo (166225 and 1663)26 and Favorita (1673),27 and designed important equipment for parties and funerals, such as the ones in 1668 and 1685 for the deaths of Charles II and Isabella Clara,28 the mother of the last duke Ferdinand Charles  F. Baudouin, ‘The Rubens house at Antwerp and the Château de Steen at Elewijt’, in: F. Baudouin, Rubens in context: Selected studies, (Schoten 2005), pp. 175–89. 9   T. De Cesare, ‘Hieronymus Cock e la stamperia «Aux Quatre Vents» di Anversa’, Grafica d’arte, 84, 2010, pp. 8–15. 10  R. Berzaghi, ‘Ippolito Andreasi’, in: S. Marinelli (ed.), Manierismo a Mantova: La pittura da Giulio Romano all’eta di Rubens, (Milan 1998), p. 168. 11  C. Tellini Perina, ‘La pittura a Mantova nell’età di Vincenzo’, in: S. Marinelli, o.c., 1998, p. 184. 12  R. Piccinelli, ‘Le facies del collezionismo artistico di Vincenzo Gonzaga’, in: R. Morselli (ed.), Gonzaga: La Celeste Galeria. L’esercizio del collezionismo, (Milan 2002), p. 341. 13   C. Tellini Perina, l.c., 1998, pp. 177–207. 14  R. Piccinelli, Collezionismo a corte: I Gonzaga Nevers e la «superbissima galeria» di Mantova, (Florence 2011), pp. 37, 86–87. 8

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15  G. Pastore, ‘Francesco Geffels’, in: Il seicento nell’arte e nella cultura, (Milan 1985), p. 124. 16   R. Piccinelli, o.c., 2011. 17   G. Pastore, l.c., 1969, pp. 50–51. 18   Ibid., p. 54. 19  P. Parmigiani, ‘La residenza dei Gonzaga di Vescovato a Portiolo: Casa forte, corte, villa’, Civiltà mantovana, 30, 1995, pp. 57–79. 20   Supra, note 5. 21   G. Pastore, l.c., 1969, pp. 53. 22  Ibid. 23   Archivio di Stato di Mantova, Scalcheria, b. 12, March 12, 1670, quoted in R. Piccinelli, o.c., 2011, p. 136. 24   E. Marani, ‘Vie e piazze di Mantova: Analisi di un centro storico’, Civiltà mantovana, 25, 1971, p. 69. 25   G. Pastore, l.c., 1969, p, 51. 26   R. Piccinelli, o.c., 2011, p.80. 27   Ibid., pp. 87, 89. 28  M. Pigozzi, ‘Gli apparati effimeri di Geffels e la collaborazione con Andrea Seghizzi’, in: Il seicento nell’arte e nella cultura, (Milan 1985), pp. 186–95.

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depicted in a famous portrait perhaps by Geffels.29 The Flemish artist also worked for private families: in 1677, with the death of Odoardo Valenti Gonzaga, the baroque transformation of his palace ended prematurely,30 while the great palace of Benedetto Sordi was built between 1680 and 1694.31 Opposite the Sordi palace Geffels completely rebuilt the church of Saint Martin between 1680 and 1693.32 Geffels private life was not so happy, as testified by his three testaments of 1683, 1689 and 1694.33 In the second one, the artist wrote about the death of his wife and daughter. In 1691 Geffels, now old and “infermo di corpo” (infirm) remarried his servant,34 but their daughter Francesca died in 1693,35 and one year after – in February 12, 1694 – Geffels himself died, aged 68.36  he palace of the marquis Ottavio I Gonzaga di Vescovato at Portiolo. Possible T stylistic connections with the house and the villa of Francesco Zanetti The great influence of Rubens art could probably be recognized in Geffels architectural works in Mantua. In particular we can summarize that the ducal prefect obtained from the Flemish master the artistic language of late Italian mannerism that characterizes the Rubens House in Antwerp. Perhaps Geffels’ first important architecture in Mantua is the palace of Ottavio I Gonzaga di Vescovato at Portiolo, a small village in the southern Mantuan countryside, near the well known Saint Benedict abbey at Polirone. In 1661 Ottavio Gonzaga wrote to the Duke about his intention of “rendere habitabile” (to make liveable) his “casa di Portiolo” (house at Portiolo)37 and asked his lord to let him concentrate to “provvedere del materiale per la mia poca fabbrica di Portiolo” (provide for some building material for my small building at Portiolo).38 In reality the “small building” was a “bellissimo palazzo nuovamente eretto” (a wonderful, newly built palace), as Salvatore Castiglioni – brother of the great master Giovanni Benedetto – called it in a letter to the marquis Ottavio Gonzaga in 1662, when the “palazzo” had been almost finished.39 The palace and the garden appeared completed in 1690, as testified by important watercolors executed for Pirro Maria II (the son of Ottavio)40 depicting the aristocratic residence and the garden (fig. 1), but documents clarify that the park was still not finished in 1700.41

  R. Signorini, La dimora dei conti d’Arco in Mantova, (Mantua 2000), p. 150. 30  G. Girondi, Abitare nella Mantova barocca: Palazzo Valenti Gonzaga, (Mantua 2009). 31  M. Marubbi, ‘Palazzo Sordi’, Arte Lombarda, 2, 2000, p. 78. 32  M.G. Sordi, ‘La chiesa di San Martino in via Pomponazzo’, in: R. Golinelli Berto (ed.), Quaderni di San Lorenzo, (Mantua 2009), vol. 8, p. 113. 33  Archivio di Stato di Mantova, Archivio notarile, Sebastiano Sissa, b. 8695bis, March 20, 1683; Camillo Viva, b. 9625bis, January 29, 1689; Camillo Viva, b. 9626bis, February 15, 1694. Also the “codicilli” were drawn up in February 15, 1694. All these documents are published in G. Pastore, l.c., 1969, pp. 57–61, 63. 34   G. Pastore, l.c., 1969, p. 61. 35   Ivi, p. 63. 36   Ivi, p. 65–66. 29

  Archivio di Stato di Mantova, Archivio Gonzaga, b. 2800, April 1, 1661, c. 37, quoted in G. Pastore, l.c., 1985, p. 161. 38   Archivio di Stato di Mantova, Archivio Gonzaga, b. 2800, April 1, 1661, c. 38. 39  Archivio di Stato di Mantova, Archivio Gonzaga, b. 791, July 30, 1662, partially published in A. Luzio, La galleria dei Gonzaga venduta all’Inghilterra nel 1627–1628: Documenti dagli archive di Mantova e Londra, (Milan: Cogliati, 1913), p. 309. 40   Archivio di Stato di Mantova, Archivio De Moll, b. 44, published in: P. Parmigiani, l.c., 1995, p. 69. 41  In September 12, 1700 the “talia pietra” Stefano Tivani signed an invoice for some statues for the garden at Portiolo: Archivio di Stato di Mantova, Archivio notarile, Giulio Cesare Mutti, b. 6222bis, January 2, 1708, post mortem inventory of Pirro Maria 2nd Gonzaga, quoted in P. Parmigiani, l.c., 1995, p. 68. 37

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Giulio Girondi

1. Gaetano Mettacodi, Corte di Porthiolo, watercolour, 1690. Mantua, Archivio di Stato, Archivio De Moll, b. 44. (© Archivio di Stato di Mantova).

The traditional attribution of this important palace to Frans Geffels – suggested since the 1960s42 – is based first of all on the style of the architecture; in addition on the direct knowledge between Ottavio Gonzaga and the Flemish artist, testified by the dedication of some of Geffels’ engravings to the nobleman defined by the artist as “mio signore e padrone” (my lord and master).43 Moreover scholars have noted the presence in a room inside the palace of “due quadri più grandi bislonghi in tella con pitture del Geflis rappresentanti una cena et un’accademia, cornice nera” (two larger and longer paintings on canvas with pictures by Geflis depicting a dinner and an academy, black frame), testified by one post mortem inventory dated 1731.44 In reality, this document does not mention the original late seventeenth‑century furniture of the palace; indeed another post mortem inventory, dated 1710, records all the pieces of art transferred from Portiolo to Mantua to save them from the Po flood and from the War of Spanish Succession.45 In this document paintings by Geffels are not reported, but Mantuan art scholars have not noted two other very interesting pieces of art documented in 1710 as coming from the great hall of Portiolo:  M. Palvarini Gobio Casali, ‘Una villa-castello: Il Palazzo gonzaghesco di Portiolo’, in Palazzi e ville del contado mantovano, (Florence: Vallecchi, 1966), p. 18 firstly attributed the main façade to Geffels, but this opinion had been rejected by C. Perogalli, M.G. Sandri and L. Roncai, Ville delle province di Cremona e Mantova, (Milan 1981), p. 60; G. Pastore, l.c., 1985, p. 131; P. Parmigiani, l.c., 1995, p. 58; Stolfi, ‘Mantova’, p. 398; Piccinelli, Collezionismo, p. 136 confirmed the attribution to Geffels, while A. Ferrari, ‘Portiolo e il Sebregondi’, Civiltà mantovana, 120, 42

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2010, pp. 6–11 proposed earlier years and the name of Nicolò Sebregondi. 43   G. Pastore, l.c., 1985, pp. 131, 138 note 44. 44  Archivio di Stato di Mantova, Archivio notarile, Antonio Forza, Febrary 12, 1731, post mortem inventory of Giovanni Gonzaga di Vescovato, quoted in: P. Parmigiani, l.c., 1995, p. 63. 45   Archivio di Stato di Mantova, Archivio notarile, Giulio Cesare Muti, b. 6222ter, January 8, 1710 (but in July 30, 1710), post mortem inventory of Ottavio 2nd Gonzaga di Vescovato, quoted in: P. Parmigiani, l.c., 1995, p. 63.

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and the

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2. The palace of Ottavio I Gonzaga di Vescovato at Portiolo: The façade towards the ­garden. (Photo: author).

Due tele grandi dipinte le cui cornici, e telari sono in Portiolo uno dipinte piante et architettura con il prospetto del palazzo di detto luogho, e diversi ­puttini con fiori, et un cavallo insellato [Two large painted canvases whose frame and braces are at Portiolo, one painted [with] plans and architecture with the façade of the palace of that place, several putti with flowers, and a saddled horse]. This iconography is very interesting because, even though representations of familiar possessions are quite popular in Renaissance and baroque Italy, a depiction of a design with “plans and architecture with the façade” which is not a drawing made on paper to present the project, but great canvases to adorn the great hall of an important palace is almost certainly unique, at least in the Duchy of Mantua. The presence of large paintings in which architecture becomes the main subject for visual arts seems to suggest that probably this great palace was designed not by a common master builder, but by a famous architect, perhaps Frans Geffels himself. Regarding this palace (fig. 2), we should mention at least the main portal and the decorated windows of the façade towards the garden. The main portal is characterized by pilasters with ionic capitals (featured by festoons between the volutes) and two frontons one inside the other according the michelangelesque model of Porta Pia in Rome. The windows show elaborated stucco frames with volutes in the lower corners and frontons characterized by mascheroni. Windows of that kind also appear in the courtyard of the house in 55, Via Corridoni, whose main façade shows marble decorations (portal and windows; fig. 3) quite close to Geffels’ style. Giuse Pastore was the first who tentatively attributed

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Giulio Girondi

3. The house of Francesco Zanetti, Mantua: The façade towards Via Corridoni. (Photo: author).

  G. Pastore, l.c., 1985, pp. 131–32.  Archivio di Stato di Mantova, Archivio notarile, Ottavio Mazzi, b. 5605, November 23, 1696 (but the document is dated September 17, 1698), quoted in G. Pastore, l.c., 1985, pp. 132, 138 note 45. 48   M.T. Sambin De Norcen, ‘La decorazione a stucco nelle ville del contado mantovano’, in: F. Monicelli (ed.), Scultura in villa nella Terraferma Veneta, nelle Terre dei Gonzaga e nella Marca Anconetana, (Verona 2004), pp. 304–05. 46 47

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this house to the Flemish artist, proposed the years 1660s/70s and suggested the Mantuan businessman Francesco Zanetti (his sons Giuseppe and Angelo still owned the house in 1696) as the possible patron, perhaps the same Francesco who was one of Geffels’ wedding witnesses in 1663.46 In any case we have a ­description of the house drawn up in 1696 testifying that in this year the building was already ­characterized by a “bona architettura” (good architecture) and by “ornamenti delle ­finestre” (decorated windows).47 Regarding the relationship between Geffels and the Zanetti family, we should consider also the villa owned by Francesco Zanetti at Montanara di Curtatone.48 Here, the ceiling of the staircase recalls the one of the “camerone stuccato” (the stucco room) in the Valenti Gonzaga Palace and, in addition to this, the frescoes depicting the Prodigal Son painted in the main rooms of Zanetti Villa were executed using the same cartoons of the already quoted “camerone stuccato”. Perhaps, these cartoons was executed by Geffels – as his portrait in the lower right-hand corner of the Banquet seems suggest – but the frescoes were painted by another artist.49 Indeed, the style suggests a painter from Lombardy, perhaps, as recently affirmed by Stefano L’Occaso, Giovanni Battista Botticchio (from Crema, died in 1666).50 In conclusion, even though we definitely do not know archive documents about the presence of Frans Geffels in the Zanetti Villa, we perhaps could speculate that Francesco Zanetti may have involved the Flemish artist in the restoration of his villa in the 1660s. Unfortunately, the decorations of the facades had been mostly reconstructed at the end of the nineteenth century,51 but ­perhaps the architectural frame of the main  M.G. Sordi, ‘Palazzo Valenti Gonzaga a Mantova’, in: R. Morselli (ed), Ritratto di una collezione: Pannini e la galleria del cardinale Silvio Valentini Gonzaga, (Milan 2005), p. 112, note 15. 50  S. L’Occaso, ‘Itinerario diacronico nelle collezioni cameral’, in: G. Malacarne et al., Dai Gonzaga agli Asburgo: L’inventario del 1714 di Palazzo Ducale, (Verona 2008), p. 117, note 74. 51   C. Perogalli, M.G. Sandri and L. Roncai, o.c., 1981, p. 268. 49

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4. The villa of Francesco Zanetti, Mantua: The main entrance. (Photo: author).

entrance (fig. 4) and the decorations surrounding the windows (fig. 5) can maintain some memories of the original ornaments.52 Indeed, the windows of the ground floor are very similar to the ones in the main façades of the Sordi Palace and of the mantuan house of Francesco Zanetti. In addition to this, we can compare some windows of the noble floor of Francesco’s villa (the ones with rounded frontons) with the ones of the Gonzaga Palace at Portiolo and, above all, with the windows in the courtyard of Francesco’s house in 55, Via Corridoni. The palace of Benedetto Sordi and the house of Pompeo Salvi If we can not be completely sure about the attribution to Geffels of Ottavio Gonzaga’s palace, on the other hand we know of the certain presence of the Flemish artist in the palace of Benedetto Sordi (fig. 6). First of all, we can find the portrait of the Flemish artist in a statue in the main loggia.53 In this palace Geffels painted some large canvases representing famous battles; in particular the post mortem inventory of the artist – drawn up in 1694 – recorded “Un altro quadro più grande rappresentante la presa di Belgrado fatta dall’imperatore l’anno   Perhaps, we can date to the late 17th century also the rusticated arches of the lateral wing in the east side of the entrance court. 53   M.G. Sordi, l.c., 2005, p.112 note 15. 52

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Giulio Girondi

5. The villa of Francesco Zanetti, Mantua: Detail of the main façade. (Photo: author).

1688 fatta per il signor Bened[etto] Sordi da porre nella sua sala” (a larger painting depicting the conquest of Belgrade by the emperor in 1688 for Mr Benedetto Sordi to put in his hall).54 This “large painting” – in 1694 still in Geffels’ home-workshop – almost certainly must be the Battle of Belgrade, signed 1688 and still in the great hall of the Sordi Palace today.55 The Sordi Palace is the only surviving civil architecture which seems to be begun and finished (at least almost completely) by Geffels and, indeed, we should start considering this work to understand his cultural debt to Rubens. In particular, though the external facades are quite original, the main court seems inspired by the Rubens House. First of all, the main court is asymmetrical and surrounded by different buildings – as in the Rubens House – with the perspective axis which ends in a nymphaeum and, on one side, an unexpected expansion of space which introduces the façade of the great Belgrade hall (fig. 7). In addition to this, even though the main court of the Sordi Palace shows some elements derived from the Mantuan tradition – such as the big eaves inspired by classical entablatures – several decorative elements seem to be derived from Rubens’ heritage: banded columns, rusticated arches, large inverted corbels, balustrades, large arched windows without architectural frames.  Archivio di Stato di Mantova, Archivio notarile; Camillo Viva, March 8, 1694, published in: G. Pastore, l.c., 1969, pp. 66–68. 54

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  M.G. Sordi, ‘Giovanni Battista Barberini a Mantova: Il salone di Belgrado in palazzo Sordi’, Arte Lombarda, 2, 2000, pp. 39–43. 55

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6. The palace of Benedetto Sordi, Mantua: Detail of the main façade. (Photo: author).

In the main court of the Sordi Palace we can also find herms, that Geffels also used in the courtyard of the Valenti Palace (fig. 8) and in the frame of the altarpiece of the Christian Doctrine in Saint Martin’s Church. Herms – possibly referred to the late seventeenth century, and perhaps inspired by Geffels, or by Geffels himself – appear even in another unpublished architectural frame of an altar in the transept of the Cathedral. All these herms are so different from the mannerist ones used in Mantua during the sixteenth century – for instance, we could mention the grand façade of Giovanni Battista Guerrieri Gonzaga’s palace (1597–1600)56 – which, perhaps, could be derived from the ones that characterise the Rubens House and the Centurione house, one of the palaces published by Rubens in Palazzi di Genova. The plan lay-out of the Sordi Palace is also very different from Mantuan renaissance tradition; in particular, the entrance hall is not the classic narrow corridor, but a large hall with columns, directly connected to the loggia which surrounds the court, and well lighted thanks to two windows near the main door, as in many examples published in Palazzi di Genova.

 G. Pastore, ‘Nella facciata fatta parte di stucho e parte di marmore’, in: G. Coppadoro (ed.), Antonio 56

Maria Viani e la facciata di Palazzo Guerrieri, (Florence 2010), pp. 37–44.

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Giulio Girondi

7. The palace of Benedetto Sordi, Mantua: Detail of the main court. (Drawing by the author).

Banded columns, rusticated arches, balustrades and large arched windows also c­ haracterize the house in 44, Via Corridoni, that shows a façade (fig. 9) and a great court (fig. 10) that directly recalls Geffels’ style. The Salvi family lived in this house at the end of the

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8. The palace of Odoardo Valenti Gonzaga, Mantua: The main court. (Photo: author).

seventeenth century and descendants still lived here at the end of the eighteenth century.57 Giovanni Pompeo Salvi – “pubblico negoziante” (public merchant) “nativo di Lugano stato de s[igno]ri Svizzeri” (born at Lugano in Switzerland)58 – bought the house in the “c[ontra]ta Ursi” in 1677.59 The bill of sale described the building as a “pallatio” (a palace) surrounded by  The countess Margherita Salvi Beffa lived in this house in 1785, as testified by the Catasto Teresiano housed in the Archivio di Stato di Mantova: see M. Vaini (ed), La città di Mantova nell’età di Maria Teresa, (Mantua: Publi Paolini, 1980), p. 237, No. 103. 58  The quote comes from the testament of Giovanni Pompeo: Archivio di Stato di Mantova, Archivio notarile, Ottavio Mazzi, b. 5603, 30 luglio 1692. About Giovanni Pompeo as a merchant see: Archivio di Stato di Mantova, Magistrato camerale antico, ingegneri cameral, b. 13, No 29, February 25, 1717 (about a credit with the Austrian administration for some munitions) and A. Gobio, Juris consultationes decisivae (Mantua: 1723), vol. 2, p. 42; A. Mansi, Consultationum sive rerum judicatarum (Venice: 1708), vol 6, p. 209. The 57

testament of Giovanni Pompeo mentions his father: Pompeo Salvi. Almost certainly, also Pompeo was born in Switzerland. A notary from Morcote with this name is documented in 1642 (see Bollettino storico della Svizzera Italiana, LXXLX, 1967, p. 67). 59  Archivio di Stato di Mantova, Archivio notarile, Francesco Bertesi, b. 2462, June 16, 1677. Pompeo Salvi bought the house in via Corridoni from Francesco Bressani, who bought it five years before from Marco Marconi (Archivio di Stato di Mantova, Archivio notarile, Francesco Bertesi, b. 2461, March 26, 1672) who inherited the house from his father Zaccaria Marconi. Zaccaria’s testament is housed in the Archivio di Stato di Mantova (Archivio notarile, Vincenzo Ricciardi, b. 7947, October 31, 1649).

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Giulio Girondi four streets – all still visible in the Catasto Teresiano (1785) – c­haracterized by an “appotheca” (a pharmacy) and a “forno” (a bakery). Almost certainly, Giovanni Pompeo Salvi was the patron of the transformation of this house and, after the works all the shops documented in 1677 disappeared. We can date the baroque architecture between the purchase of the house in 1677 and Giovanni Pompeo’s death in 1727,60 but considering the very close relationship between this house and the Sordi Palace (1680–94), perhaps, we should propose these same years also for the house in Via Corridoni.  he palace of the marquis Odoardo T Valenti Gonzaga The Geffels/Rubens/Palazzi di Genova connection is much clearer in the Valenti Gonzaga Palace. The post mortem inventory of Odoardo Valenti Gonzaga, written in 1678 (the gentleman died one year before) testifies that “qual palazzo essa signora marchesa seguita a farlo fabbricare per ridurlo a perfezione e si deve far fabricare specialmente buona parte de la facciata verso il giardino” (the Marchioness [Odoardo’s widow] continues to build this palace to complete it and a large part of the facade towards the garden has to be finished).61 In reality, this façade remained unfinished, like the main one facing the street. Even the architectural box seems to be a great unfinished baroque work: for instance, a real staircase is missing, and the old sixteenth century stairs have survived to the present day, even if we could perhaps recognize the unfinished external walls (partly reconstructed during the recent restorations) designed to host the baroque 9. The house of Giovanni Pompeo Salvi, Mantua: The façade towards Via Corridoni. (Photo: author). staircase at the beginning of the main succession of rooms. Almost certainly the palace was designed with two main floors, at least on the main street (fig. 11), even though we are now unable to understand the original vertical connections.

  In the testament of Giovanni Pompeo we can read that the document was read in 1727 (July 28). 60

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 Archivio di Stato di Mantova, Carte Valenti, b. 2, published in G. Girondi, o.c., 1995, pp. 51–60 61

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10. The house of Giovanni Pompeo Salvi, Mantua: Detail of the court. (Photo: author).

The second main floor remained a very large attic till the restorations in the 1970s, and, perhaps, the idea of completing it to make it livable was abandoned almost immediately as testified by the extrados of the vault of the Octagonal Room (located on the first floor above the entrance) that would have just superceded the level of the second floor – executed only in the 1970s.62   G. Girondi, o.c., 1995, pp. 85–90.

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11. The palace of Odoardo Valenti Gonzaga, Mantua: Longitudinal section before r­estorations. (Drawing by Silvio Fante).

12. The palace of Odoardo Valenti Gonzaga, Mantua: The vault of the ­“camerone ­staccato”. (Photo: author).

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In addition to this, the uncompleted main façade of the baroque palace (fig. 13) shows quite archaic features that could be dated to the 1650s, therefore before Geffels arrival in Mantua.63 Moreover, the post mortem inventories of 158764 and 158965 testify that the ­general lay-out of the baroque plans follow the ones of the renaissance palace built by Valente Valenti before his death in 1531.66 Reminders of the old house are present in the façade (consider the chiselled entablature, demolished to build a new unfinished second main floor) and on the ground floor (consider the capitals of the loggia and of the hall between the court and the garden, where even late sixteenth‑century frescoes are still preserved). On the other hand, the inventory of the 1678 tells us that the apartments on the ground and first floors were at that moment completely inhabitable, well furnished and decorated, as testified by description of the “camerone stuccato” (the stucco room). In the ceiling of this room we can find frescos depicting the Prodigal Son (fig. 12), executed with the same cartoons used in the Zanetti Villa and probably painted by the same artist.67 As already 13. The palace of Odoardo Valenti Gonzaga, Mantua: The main façade. (From: Il Seicento nell’arte e nella cultura, Cinisello Balsamo, Milan: Silvana, 1985, p. 128).  Ibid., chapter 5. E. Marani, ‘L’architettura’, in: E. Marani and C. Perina (ed.), Mantova: Le arti, (Verona 1965), vol. 3, p. 178 attributed the facade to Nicolò Sebregondi and dated this architecture to the 1650s. The ideas of Marani had been repropesd by F. Gandolfini, Nicolò Sebregondi architetto, dissertion degree, (Università degli Studi di Padova, Facoltà di Magistero, rel. C. Semenzato: 1971/1972), pp. 105–107 and by M. Roversi, L’opera mantovana di Nicolò Sebregondi, dissertation degree (Università degli Studi di Firenze, Facoltà di Architettura, rel. F. Borsi: 1988/1989), pp. 230–235. On the other hand, G. Pastore, l.c., 1985, p. 132, and more recently, G. Pastore, ‘Palazzo Valenti Gonzaga’, in: R. Signorini (ed), Palazzo Valenti Gonzaga in Mantova, (Mantua 1993), pp. 54–60 attributed this facade to Frans Geffels and this hypothesis has been assumpted even by M.G. Sordi, l.c., 2005 while G. Carrai, Nicolò Sebregondi, tra Roma, Mantova e Boemia, doctoral dissertation in History of architecture, (Università degli 63

Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Storia dell’Architettura e della Città, rel. A. Rinaldi: 2003), p. 205 has opened the problem again without a definitive assumption, but excluding the name of Frans Geffels. 64  Archivio di Stato di Mantova. Archivio notarile, Federico Galvani, b. 4605, September 10, 1587. Post mortem inventory of Carlo Valenti Gonzaga, published in: G. Girondi, o.c., 1995, p. 92. 65  Archivio di Stato di Mantova. Archivio notarile, Silvio Serra, b. 8584, August 8, 1589. Post mortem inventory of Tiberio Valenti Gonzaga, published in: G. Girondi, o.c., 1995, pp. 92–93. 66  Archivio di Stato di Mantova, Archivio notarile, Gian Bartolomeo Sanpaolo, b. 822A, November 22, 1531, quoted in G. Girondi, o.c., 1995, p. 13. 67   M.G. Sordi, l.c., 2005, p. 112 note 15 affirms that the decorations of the Zanetti Villa are of lower quality than the frescoes of the “camerone stuccato”, while S. L’Occaso, l.c., 2008, p. 117, note 74 affirms that the frescoes were executed by the same artist.

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Giulio Girondi said, almost certainly Geffels executed the cartoons, as suggested by his portrait. In addition to this we should emphasize that the post mortem inventory of Duke Charles II Gonzaga Nevers – drawn up in 1665 – included in the ducal palace at Marmirolo a series with the “Historia del Figliol Prodigo” (The story of the Prodigal Son) perhaps – as recently suggested – these too by Geffels.68 The Flemish artist did not executed the frescoes in Valenti Gonzaga himself; recently Stefano L’Occaso attributed these paintings to Giovanni Battista Botticchio, who died in 1666.69 Therefore, if really this artist worked in the Valenti Gonzaga Palace, we have to assume that Geffels was involved in that building since 1660s. The post mortem inventory of Odoardo Valenti Gonzaga (1678) does not refer to the main court, whose architectural devices are typical of Geffels’ style, and therefore we do not know if it was finished by Odoardo Valenti Gonzaga, before the 1677, or by his widow in the following years. One of the main features of the court is that its architecture was designed for 14. The palace of Odoardo Valenti Gonzaga, Mantua: only one main floor, even in the counter-façade The ground floor before ­restorations. (Drawing by Silvio (now almost completely reconstructed during Fante). the recent restoration) and, thereafter, we should conclude that the project for the court was designed after the decision to complete only the first of the two main floors. From these considerations, we could perhaps conclude that Frans Geffels was asked to complete, with a lower profile and a less expensive design, the baroque transformation of the palace begun by another architect, perhaps Giuseppe Luziano (or Luziani) from Cremona, as testified by some scholars from this town in the eighteenth and nineteenth century.70 68  Piccinelli, Collezionismo, p. 115 reminds that paintings depicting The Profigal Son are testified also recorded in the post mortem inventory of the duchess Anna Isabella di Guastalla (1704) and in a later description (1713). 69   S. L’Occaso, l.c., 2008, p. 117, note 74. 70   C. Tellini Perina, ‘Stucchi secenteschi a Mantova’, in: S. Marinelli, o.c., 1998, pp. 240–41, 244 note 19. G.B. Zaist, Notizie istoriche de’ pittori, scultori, ec architetti cremonesi, (Cremona 1774), vol. 2, p. 51: “[…] precorsa la fama del suo esimio valore, richiesto ei venne da Ferdinando II duca di Mantova, che lo costituì prefetto delle fabbriche, e delle fortificazioni, ed in seguito fu tenuto eziando in gran conto da quella primaria nobiltà, non solamente per la sua rara virtù, ma per la singolar sua modestia, di lui servendosi in diverse fabriche particolari” (The Duke of Mantua Ferdinand 2nd [sic. Ferdinand Charles or Charles 2nd] requested him because of his fame and value and appointed him prefect for buildings and fortresses, and after also the nobility appreciated him, not only for his virtues, but even for his

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singular modesty and using he for several buildings). G. Grasselli, Abecedario biografico dei pittori, scultori ed architetti cremonesi, (Milan 1827), p. 151: “[…] ridusse a miglior forma diversi palazzi di Mantova, fra i quali, quelli dei Valenti, Andreasi, Guerrieri.” (He transformed several palaces of Mantua into better buildings, such as the ones of Valenti, Andreasi, Guerrieri). G.B. Biffi, Memorie per servire alla storia degli artisti cremonesi, (Cremona 1989), p. 227: “[…] Ridusse a forma più grandiosa, ed architettura buona, a miglior comodo ed uso vari palagi in Mantova rinomati, e singolarmente quelli de marchesi Amorotto, Andreasi, Valenti, Guerrieri ecc.” (He transformed several famous palaces in Mantua into grander buildings, and good architecture, into more comfortable residences, such as those of the marquis Amorotto, Andreasi, Valenti, Guerrieri ecc.). G. Amadei and E. Marani, Antiche dimore mantovane, (Mantua 1977), p. 20 attributed to Giuseppe Luziano a stucco ceiling in the Andreasi-Amorotto palace (now called Castiglioni) in Sordello Square. In addition to this, see Supra, note 58.

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Consequently, Geffels focused on the ornamental displays of the apartments, on the architectural lay-out of the court and, almost certainly, on the design of the entrance spaces that we are now going to analyse.71 Almost certainly, the old renaissance palace showed, perhaps in the same position as the current atrium, a narrow corridor that led into the centre of the “logia”, still visible and quoted in the inventory of 1589. However, this scheme introduced an important problem in the architectural lay out of the palace because the street and the court had different guidelines. The baroque transformation – that, at least as a hypothesis, I would like to present as designed by Geffels – shows an interesting solution: the atrium became an elliptical space which can combine different geometrical axes; after this atrium, we find a small squared space (backstairs are on the right, accessible from the “tinelli”) and, then, 15. P.P. Rubens, Pianta prima del palazzo the large renaissance loggia (fig. 14). This del sig.r Luigi Centurione. (From P.P. Rubens, Palazzi di Genova, fig. 25). lay-out seems to recall the plan of the above mentioned Centurione Palace published by Rubens in the Palazzi di Genova. In this palace too we find an ­elliptical entrance hall, a small squared space with the stairs and, then, a loggia (fig. 15). The only difference is the shape of the ground floor: rectangular for the Centurione Palace and trapezoidal for the Valenti Palace. As a result, in the Genoese house the e­ lliptical plan for the atrium seems to have been ­chosen only for aesthetical ­reasons, while in the Mantuan palace this choice served to ­connect ­different ­geometrical axes. To ­conclude, ­perhaps Geffels was inspired by the plan of the Centurione Palace published by Rubens not so much (or not only) because of ­stylistic ­reasons, but because this characteristic ­geometrical layout could serve to solve a ­concrete architectural issue.

  G. Girondi, o.c., 1995, chapter 6.

71

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Architecture features on a regular basis in Rubens’s rather extensive painted and drawn oeuvre. Roughly one-tenth of his paintings contain architectural elements, ranging from columns, arches and the serliana to the depiction of entire buildings, often inspired by classical antiquity.1 Fredlund and Blunt were the first to focus on this aspect, but the influence of architecture on Rubens’s pictorial oeuvre cannot be assessed simply by measuring the occurrence of architectural ornaments. After all, architecture consists primarily in the creation of spatial forms and structures. The question, therefore, is how Rubens attempted to create a sense of space in his paintings. Scenographia Rubens devoted much attention to scenographia – a fundamental concept in Vitruvian architecture – which influences spatial creations in two different ways. The most common and best-known manner of representation is that of linear perspective. Like every painter of his time, Rubens was well acquainted with the method of linear perspective. In certain of his paintings, such as those made for the Jesuit Church in Antwerp (fig. 1) and for Whitehall in London, Rubens depicted the subject as seen from below – di sotto in sù, or from the s­ o-called worm’s-eye view – which maximizes the spatial effect.2 In these paintings, the architectural  On Rubens and architecture, see esp. A. Blunt, ‘Rubens and Architecture’, The Burlington Magazine, 119, 1977, pp. 609–21. Other contributions on Rubens and architecture include: A. Schoy, Histoire de l’influence italienne sur l’Architecture des Pays-Bas, (Brussels 1879), pp. 309–72; Id., ‘Rubens architecte et décorateur’, L’Art. Revue hebdomadaire illustrée, 7, 1881,1, pp. 196–200; O. Van de Castyne, ‘La question Rubens dans l’histoire de l’architecture’, Revue Belge d’archéologie et histoire de l’art, 1, 2, 1931, pp. 101–19; J. H. Plantenga, ‘Rubens en de bouwkunst’, Heemschut. Orgaan van de bond Heemschut, no. 7–10, 1934, pp. 1–8; B. Fredlund, Arkitektur i Rubens Maleri. Form och Funktion, (Ph.D. diss. Göteborg University), (Göteborg 1974); R. Tijs, Rubens en Jordaens. Barok in eigen huis, (Antwerp 1983); Id., De andere Rubens, ( Leuven 2004), pp. 173–99; F. Baudouin, ‘Architecturale motieven op schilderijen van Rubens: enkele voorbeelden’, in: K. Van der Stighelen (ed.), Munuscula Amicorum. Contributions on Rubens and his colleagues in honor of Hans Vlieghe (Pictura Nova X), 2 vols., (Turnhout 2006), vol. 1, pp. 199–212; B. Uppenkamp, B. Van Beneden and P. Lombaerde, Palazzo Rubens. The Master as Architect, (Brussels 2012). Several master theses at the University College Artesis, Faculty of Architecture, analyze different aspects of Rubens as a painter involved in architecture: A. Devroe, Van Rubens’ huis tot Rubenshuis. Een bouwhistorische studie, (master

1

thesis, Faculty of Architecture (Antwerp 2008); C. Verbraeken, De positie van architectuur in het oeuvre van P.P. Rubens: schilderijen, wandtapijten en architecturale verwezenlijkingen, (master thesis, Faculty of Architecture) (Antwerp 2011); N. Timmermans, P.P. Rubens als architect: architectuur in het oeuvre van P.P. Rubens: olieverfschetsen, tekeningen, titelpagina’s en wandtapijten (master thesis, Faculty of Architecture), (Antwerp 2011); J. Creemers, P.P. Rubens als architect: invloed van architectuurtraktaten op zijn oeuvre, (master thesis, Faculty of Architecture), (Antwerp 2011); V. Mulkens, P.P. Rubens als architect: bevraging van de architecturale elementen in het Rubenshuis, de jezuïetenkerk, de Sint-Michielsabdij en de Waterpoort (master thesis, Faculty of Architecture), (Antwerp 2011). F. Baudouin and N. De Poorter, Rubenshuis (The Rubens House), (Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, part XXII, 2), (Turnhout-London, forthcoming). 2  J.R. Martin, The Ceiling Paintings for the Jesuit Church in Antwerp (Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, part I), (New York – London 1968); F. Baudouin, R. Fabri and P. Lombaerde, The Antwerp Jesuit Church (Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, part XXII, subpart 3), (Turnhout – London, forthcoming). G. Martin, The Ceiling Decoration of the Banqueting Hall (Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, part XV), (London 2005).

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1. Peter Paul Rubens, Esther before Ahasverus, modello. (London, Collection Count Seilern).

elements – such as the base, the shaft, the capital and the cornice – are drawn in correct ­perspective. Perhaps Rubens had been inspired to use this technique by the examples he found in Le due regole della prospettiva pratica by Vignola and Egnazio Danti, in which reference is made to Giulio Romano, who had mastered this manner of drawing to perfection.3 A second way in which scenographia operates can be seen in a number of panel paintings by Serlio, as well as in three woodcuts from his second book on perspective (fig. 2).4 Buildings are viewed as geometric bodies and therefore juxtaposed in such a way that they  J.B. da Vignola and E. Danti, Le due regole della prospettiva pratica di Jacomo Barozzi da Vignola con i comentarij del R.P.M. Egnatio Danti, (Rome 1611), pp. 88–89.

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 S. Serlio, Il primo (-secondo) libro d’Architettura di Sebastiano Serlio, (Venice 1551). With regard to Serlio’s panels, see the contribution by Sabine Frommel in this book. 4

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2. Sebastiano Serlio, the tragic stage (Tragica), detail. (S. Serlio, translated by P. Coecke van Aelst, Den tweeden boeck van Architecturen Sebastiani Serlii, Antwerp: Mayken Verhulst, 1553, capit.3, f°41v°).

act as screens or stage sets and, as such, can be moved to the back, thus strengthening the feeling of depth. This form of scenographia was described by Daniele Barbaro in his book La Prattica della Perspettiva, which was published in Venice in 1569. Palladio used it in 1584 in his design for the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, and in 1588–90 Scamozzi applied this concept in creating the Teatro all’Antica, a small court theatre he designed at Sabbioneta for the Gonzaga family (fig. 3). Combining the two manners of representation – central (one-point) perspective and the stage-like setting – reinforces the illusion of depth. Both techniques make use of a central axis. The first method entails the pure application of linear perspective, by arranging the buildings sequentially and symmetrically on either side of a central axis. The second method can be called orthographic, as defined by François de Aguilón.5 This mathematician and Jesuit

  F. de Aguilón, Opticorum Libri Sex, (Antwerp 1615), Book 6, p. 456: ‘…deinde assurgentis fabricae singulas per se facies quasi directe observas ex Orthographices praeceptionibus depinxerunt. Est porro Orthographice frontis observa imago, ut infra docebimus’. See also

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N. Poppe, ‘Facie ad faciem’, ‘vincula et via’. Rol en betekenis van het licht in de religieuze architectuur van Aguilón en Guarini, (Ph.D. diss., University of Antwerp), (Antwerp 2012), pp. 91–93.

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Piet Lombaerde father, with whom Rubens had repeated contact, distinguishes three kinds of perspective: orthographic, scenographic and stereographic.6 In orthographic perspective, the buildings are projected perpendicularly on the picture surface or panel: …then, according to the rules of orthography, the views of the rising ­ constructions are depicted, one by one, as though seen frontally. Because the image of a frontal view is orthographic, as I shall later demonstrate.7 A sense of depth is created on the picture surface by placing parallel planes at calculated distances from one another. In painting, this is done by combining figures or scenes in the foreground, middle ground and background – or possibly even more planes – into a unified whole. A well-­ considered composition can give rise to a totalizing effect that creates a feeling of depth regardless of the perspective or optical lines. 3. Andrea Palladio and Vincenzo Scamozzi, The Rubens’s most successful paintings are fine Teatro Olimpico: perspective stage, Vicenza, examples of this, such as the Deposition in c.1584. (Photo by the author). Antwerp Cathedral. In certain cases this gives rise to a totalizing vision or Gestalt, in which the spatial image is compacted, as it were, into a whole. Rubens provides clear examples of this, both in his oil sketches and in the painting Henri IV Consigns the Regency of France to Marie de’ Medici, which he made in 1622 (figs. 4 a-h).8 This painting depicts the portico and garden pavilion of Rubens’s house, combined into one, all-embracing composition. Central perspective was not employed to this end; it is merely the meticulous placement of the façade of the garden pavilion in the central arch of the portico that produces this overall effect. Here two typical architectural elements frequently used by Rubens – namely the three-part geniculated arch of Michelangelo’s Porta Pia and the central section of the serliana – are positioned so as to fit together perfectly. But is the overall effect seen in the Maria de’ Medici painting merely a virtual representation conjured up by Rubens, or can it actually be observed in the garden of the Rubens House?

  F. de Aguilón, o.c., 1613, Introduction.  Ibid., 1615, p. 456: “..deinde assurgentis fabricae singulas per se facies quasi directe obversas ex Orthographices praeceptionibus depinxerunt. Est porro Orthographice frontis obversa imago, ut infra docebimus”.

6 7

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  For the painting, see Paris, Musée du Louvre, Marie de’ Medici cycle, no. 9 (Louis XIV collection, 1696, inv. 1779). On this cycle see J. Thuillard and J. Foucart, Rubens, la Galerie Médicis au Palais de Luxembourg, (Paris 1969). For the oil sketch, see Munich, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Alte Pinakothek. See also F. Baudouin, l.c., 2006.

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4. Peter Paul Rubens, Henry IV consigns the Regency of France to Marie de’ Medici, 1622. (Paris, Louvre, Marie de’Medici cycle, Louis XIV collection, 1696, inv.1779).

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b

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d

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4 a-h. Peter Paul Rubens, Henry IV consigns the Regency of France to Marie de’ Medici, 1622. (Paris, Louvre). Dissection of the painting in consecutive parallel planes.

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5. Plan of the Rubens House, the courtyard, the portico, the gardens and the garden ­pavilion. (Drawing by Stephan Boeykens).

In a single glance The portico and the garden pavilion – which were completed at more or less the same time as the painting, in 1622 – are positioned in such a way that they also function as a single Gestalt. The painting mentioned above helps us to determine the position from which the whole can be viewed to best advantage. From the entrance to the inner courtyard, the portico and the garden pavilion are positioned in such a way as to fit perfectly inside one another (figs. 5, 6, 7). The distances between them represent the geometric proportion 1:3, meaning that the height of the central arch of the portico corresponds to one third of the total height of the garden pavilion. This allows the garden pavilion to be seen in its entirety through the opening of the portico when viewed from the street, from a place just in front of the entrance.9 From the entrance it is twenty-three paces to the portico, and then another forty-five paces to the garden pavilion. The buildings themselves have no perspective lines, but their sequential situation along a central axis affords the viewer a coherent overall picture. The observer experiences a spatial image that fits together perfectly, consisting of elements situated at varying distances from one another. As the observer moves towards the objects along this axis, the objects  P. Lombaerde, ‘The Distribution and Reception of Rubens’s Palazzi di Genova in the Southern Netherlands: a status questionis’, in: P. Lombaerde, The Reception of P.P. Rubens’s ‘Palazzi di Genova’

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during the 17th Century in Europe: Questions and Problems, (Turnhout 2002), pp. 99–120, esp. pp. 111– 12. See also the article by Stephan Boeykens in this volume.

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6. Diagram of the alignment of entrance, courtyard, portico, garden and garden pavilion in the Rubens House, Antwerp. (Reconstruction by Piet Lombaerde and Stephan Boeykens).

7. Ratios between the Rubens House, p ­ ortico and garden pavilion (Reconstruction by Piet Lombaerde and Stephan Boeykens).

seem to shift and the total picture is pulled apart, as it were, which merely intensifies the feeling of depth. An earlier application of this principle, in which each successive object in the spatial setting can be seen in a single glance along one axis, can be found in the project that Michelangelo carried out for the Palazzo Farnese in 1546, when he was working for Pope Paul III.10  On this palace and the projects by Michelangelo, see: G.C. Argan and B. Contardi, Michelangelo, (London 2012), pp. 264–71. 10

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Piet Lombaerde A ­description of this is given by Giorgio Vasari in Le vite de’ piu eccelenti pittori, scultori e architettori: At the same time Michelangelo made designs for a bridge crossing the Tiber in a straight line with the palace, so that it would be possible to go direct to another palace and gardens that they owned in the Trastevere, and also from the principal door facing the Campo di Fiore to be able to see at a glance the courtyard, the fountain, the Strada Julia, the bridge, and the beauties of the other garden, all in a straight line as far as the other door opening on to the Strada di Trastevere. This was a marvellous undertaking which was worthy of that pontiff and of Michelangelo’s talent, judgement, and powers of design.11 Gerd Blum pays particular attention to this in his biography of Vasari, and connects this idea – the combination in one setting of various prospects and distant views, along one visual axis – with Vasari’s realization of the Uffizi in Florence.12 This enfilade effect had already been seen in paintings by Piero della Francesca, in the Villa Medici at Poggio a Caiano, in the ‘perspective gallery’ (Galleria prospettiva) of the Palazzo Spada and even in Palladio’s Villa Rotonda.13 Blum defines the effect created by these arrangements as follows: The Baroque, more spatially commanding enfilade as a “stringing together” of doors and interior spaces on one axis, so that when the doors are open, this gives rise to a long suite of rooms, which can also be perceived as a s­ imultaneous image of a series of door openings inserted inside one another.14 It is not known if Rubens also took Michelangelo’s project for the Palazzo Farnese in Rome as the example for his sequence of gate, portico and garden pavilion along one axis. Rubens did, however, own a copy of Vasari’s Vite, given to him by Gaspar Gevartius some time after 1635.15 Rubens not only read this work but even corrected and underlined some passages. By this time the Rubens House – along with its gate, portico and garden pavilion – had been finished for twenty years, but Rubens may well have read the relevant passage earlier in another copy or copies. Abraham Bosse gives an account of such an interpretation of architectural space. In Manière universelle de M. Desargues pour pratiquer la perspective par Petit-pied comme le géométral, published in Paris in 1648, he discusses the extraordinary effect produced by looking with one eye along a single axis, within a limited field of vision (fig. 8).16 This phenomenon is described as œillade. Bosse advises us to:   G. Vasari, Delle Vite De piu’ Eccelenti pittori, scultori e architettori di Giorgio Vasari, (Bologna 1647), vol. 2, part 3, p. 170: ‘all’hora Michelagnolo ordinò, che si dovessi a quella dirittura, fare un ponte, che attraverfassi il fiume del Tibere, accioche si potessi andare da quel palazzo in Trastevere a un’altto lor giardino, e palazzo, perche per la dirittura della porta principale, che volta in campo di Fiore si vedessi a una occhiata il cortile, la fonte, strada Giulia, & il ponte, e la belezza dell’altro giardino, fino all’altra porta, che riusciva nella strada di Trastevere, cosa rara, e digna di quel Pontefice, e della virtù, giudicio, e disegno di Michelagnolo’. English translation taken from Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists, vol. 1, Penguin Classics, (Harmondsworth 1965), reprinted 1987, p. 390. 12   G. Blum, Giorgio Vasari der Erfinder der Renaissance. Eine Biographie, (Munich 2011), p. 131. See also: Id., 11

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Idealer Ort und inszenierter Ausblick. Architektur und Landschaft in der italienischer Renaissance. Von Leon Battista Alberti über Andrea Palladio bis zu Giovanni Battista Agucchi, (Habilitationschrift, University of Basel), 2010, 2 vols., vol. 1, pp. 208–11. 13   Ibid., p. 211. 14  Ibid., pp. 211–12: “Die barocke, raumgreifendere Enfilade als “Aneinanderfädelung” der Türen von Innenräumen auf einer Achse, so dass bei geöffneten Türen eine langgestreckte Raumflucht entsteht, die zugleich als Simultanbild ineinandergeschachtelter Türöffnungen wahrgenommen wird.” 15   See esp. P. Arents, De Bibliotheek van Pieter Pauwel Rubens: een reconstructie, (Antwerp 2001), pp. 104–05. 16  A. Bosse, Manière universelle de M. Desargues pour pratiquer la perspective par Petit-pied comme le géométral, (Paris 1648).

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search for the suitable place from which to view the entire scene, so that the observer can easily survey the whole in a single glance – or œillade – without having to move his eye.17 The œillade is also described as actively experiencing that which is observed. First one views an object or objects along an axis and perceives the scene in its entirety, and subsequently – while moving closer along this axis – its component parts. These parts can then be seen in detail from close up. Bosse goes on to assert that ‘one will notice that the greatest visual satisfaction consists in viewing an object first in a single œillade and afterwards in detail’. This unique experience – obtained from a specific position and taking into account the correct geometric proportions of the buildings and their component parts – can also be associated with the concept of concinnitas, as explained by Leon Battista Alberti in his De Pictura and De Re Aedificatoria. This concept – which refers to the situation in which all the parts of a painted image or an 8. Abraham Bosse, perspective view along a central axis, architectural object fit together so well that no 1647. (From: A. Bosse, Manière universelle de M. Desargues part can be taken away or added or altered pour ­pratiquer la perspective par petit pied…, Paris, 1647, without disturbing the harmony of the whole fig. 149). – is essential to the notion of perfect beauty. Rubens seems to have used this term – which was known from the writings of Leon Battista Alberti – to describe beauty in both the architectural and painterly context. Concinnitas – which can be defined as the beauty arising from the harmony of proportion – is connected with number – the numbers of things – lineamente – the outline, or shape – and position – the positions of these shapes relative to one another.18 We can assess the presence of these qualities in the overall picture presented by Rubens’s portico and garden pavilion. Trompe l’oeil At the beginning of the seventeenth century, attempts were also made – as part of the study of visual perception – to explain how the faculty of human reason functions, and how visual images enter our brains and cause us to see three-dimensional images. An especially popular subject in this context is the study of optical illusion – known in painting as trompe 17  Id., La pratique du trait à preuves de M. Desargues Lyonnois pour pratiquer la coupe des pierres en l’architecture, (Paris 1643). This reference is mentioned in : Ph. Boudon, Richelieu, ville nouvelle. Essai d’architecturologie, (Paris 1978), pp. 51–52: ‘Chercher l’endroit convenable pour regarder en sorte que d’une

seule œillade le regardant puisse facilement en voir toute l’étendue, sans aucune façon, changer la position de l’œil.’ 18  J. Ryckwert, N. Leach and R. Tavernor, Leon Battista Alberti. On the Art of Building in Ten Books, (Cambridge, Mass. – London 1996), pp. 302–03.

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9a. Palazzo Podestà (Genoa, Via Garibaldi), c. 1560: façade of stucco. (Photo by the author).

9b. Palazzo Cattaneo Adorno (Genoa, Via Garibaldi), c. 1585: quadratura painting on the façade. (Photo by the author).

l’oeil, which literally means ‘deceiving the eye’. Painters in particular excelled in this, so it is hardly surprising that Rubens, too, used trompe-l’oeil in the construction of his house, though it is rather odd that he hardly ever used this method in his paintings or prints. During his stay in Italy, Rubens had seen examples of trompe-l’oeil representations on buildings in various cities, including Rome, Genoa and Mantua. A recent publication by Jeremy Wood discusses the facciate, or façades, of Roman palazzi painted by Polidoro da Caravaggio and Taddeo Zuccaro.19 The Strada Nuova in Genoa boasts a rich variety of façades: some are stuccoed, with ornaments in relief, while others are painted with seemingly threedimensional trompe-l’oeil effects, and still others display a mixture of sculptured and painted decoration (figs. 9a and 9b).20 A beautiful example is the Palazzo Cattaneo Adorno, whose façade is completely covered in trompe l’oeil, even though Rubens had Nicolaes Ryckemans engrave these murals for his book Palazzi di Genova as though they were in stucco.21 It must be noted, however, that the engraver could hardly have done otherwise, considering that the drawing Rubens delivered to him as a model for the engraving did not differentiate between the parts painted in trompe l’oeil and the architectural elements in relief. As far as Rubens’s own house is concerned, it is not known to what extent he intended to use such trompe-l’oeil paintings to decorate the walls facing the inner courtyard. We do get the impression, however – going by the print Jacob Harrewijn made after a design executed  J. Wood, Rubens. Copies and Adaptations from Renaissance and Later Artists. Italian Artists II. Titian and North Italian Art, 2 vols. (Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard 26, 2), (London – Turnhout 2010). 20   See E. Poleggi, Strada Nuova. Una lottizzazione del Cinquecento a Genova, (Genoa 1968); C. Altavista, ‘Peter Paul Rubens’s Palazzi di Genova: built Architecture and drawn Reality’, in: P. Lombaerde 19

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(ed.), The Reception of P.P. Rubens’s ‘Palazzi di Genova’ during the 17th Century in Europe: Questions and Problems, (Turnhout 2002), pp. 37–50. 21  H. Rott, Rubens Palazzi di Genova. Architectural drawings and engravings, 2 vols. (Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, 22, 1), (London – Turnhout 2002), vol. 2, figs. 212–13.

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10. Jacob Harrewijn, after Jacob Van Croes, view of the north and east façade of the Rubens House (detail), engraving, 1692. (Antwerp, Rubens House).

by Jacob van Croes in 1692 – that sections of the north side of Rubens’s workshop were finished in sculptured stone. This would have created an even greater display of trompe l’oeil, namely a three-dimensional symbiosis of painting and sculpture. With regard to the paintings that possibly adorned the façade on the left upon entering the courtyard, this wall is known to have been decorated, wholly or in part, with a large trompe-l’oeil representation of an open gallery with a figure, two parrots and a little dog (fig. 10). Above this seemed to hang a painting depicting Perseus freeing Andromeda. I say ‘seemed’ because, as Baudouin rightly observed, this trompe-l’oeil painting was actually part of one large fresco.22 Rubens’s interest in painting façades may well have been kindled by Serlio’s Book IV, in which Chapter 11, ‘On the ornaments of paintings inside and outside buildings’, Serlio discusses in detail the importance of the architect’s instructions, which must guide the painter in the application of decoration to the façades of buildings.23 Another possible source for the deliberate combination of painted scenes and work in relief is the ‘giardino secreto’, or secret garden, of the Palazzo Te in Mantua, where Giulio Romano applied friezes depicting Aesop’s fables – in alternating stucco and fresco – to the three walls surrounding the grotto in the garden.   F. Baudouin, ‘De fresco’s op de gevels van Rubens’ werkplaats: enkele addenda’, Academiae Analecta. Mededelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België, vol. 57, 1, 1998, pp. 3–24. 22

 S. Serlio, Book IV, Chapter 11. See the translation edited by Pieter Coecke van Aelst, Regelen van Metselryen op de vijf manieren van Edificien ..., (Amsterdam 1606), ‘Capittel elfste: Vande ornamenten der picturen binnen ende buyten de edificien’. 23

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Piet Lombaerde Optics and light In addition to architectural space, light plays a large part in the work of Rubens. The study of light belongs to the discipline of optics, which in turn concentrates on perspective. The books in Rubens’s library reveal that he was well acquainted with theoretical writings on optics. Also in his own house on the Wapper, Rubens directed his attention to the incidence of natural light in two rooms in particular: his museum – the so-called pantheon – and his pupils’ studio. As far as Rubens’s museum was concerned (fig. 11), it was a round structure – a rotunda – possibly inspired by the Pantheon in Rome. The earliest descriptions of Rubens’s museum are those by Sperling, Bellori, von Sandart and De Piles.24 The Danish physician Otto Sperling visited Rubens and his studio in 1621. He was the first to describe the museum in Rubens’s house: Afterwards he [Rubens] had one of his servants give us a tour of his glorious palazzo and show us his antiquities and Greek and Roman statues, of which he owned a great number.25

11. View of the cupola with oculus in the Museum of the Rubens House. (Photo by the author).

24   G.P. Bellori, Le Vite De’Pittori, Scultori Et Architetti Moderni, (Rome 1672), p. 245; R. De Piles, La vie de Rubens, (Paris 1699), pp. 12–14. 25  W.G. Brieger and W.S. Johnson, Otto Sperlings Studienjahre nach dem Manuscript der Kgl. Bibliothek zu Kopenhagen herausgegeben, (Copenhagen 1920).

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No more details were given by Sperling, but the allusion to the Pantheon (the Rotonda) in Rome can be found in Pietro Bellori: …constructed in his house in Antwerp a round room with a single oculus at the top, similar to the Rotonda, ­ [aiming] for the perfection of ­uniform illumination, & in this place [he installed] his precious museum.26

 P. Bellori, o.c., 1672, p. 12: ‘fabric nella sue casa di Anversa una stanza rotunda con un solo occhio in cima à similitudine della rotunda di Roma per la perfettione del lume uguale, & in questa coloco il suo prettioso museo’. 26

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In 1675 the German art theorist Joachim von Sandrart described the museum as follows: He also built for himself a very comfortable and beautiful house, ­ and in it, next to the garden, a Kunstkammer in the form of a rotunda, with light coming in at the top, ­ shining ­ everywhere most advantageously on all the wellplaced rare paintings and statues, both by his hand and by other distinguished artists, alongside other collected curiosities.27 Finally, Roger De Piles wrote in 1699: Between the inner courtyard and the garden, he built a room in the form of a rotunda, like the Pantheon in Rome, and during the day, light entered only from above through a single opening in the centre of the dome.28

12. Frans Mols, plan of Rubens’s house drawn from memory, end of 18th c. (Brussels, Royal Library, Manuscripts, Ms. 5726, f°10).

We also find the ground-plan of this rotunda in Mols’s rough sketch of the Rubens House (fig. 12).29 This sketch shows a completely circular room drawn in ground-plan, but Harrewijn’s engraving of 1692 depicts this room as semicircular, with a straight connecting piece.30 This engraving does, however, indicate two sources of natural light, namely an oculus set into the semi-dome, and a side window that gives onto the garden facing east. This window creates a problem: did this second source of light exist originally or not? The descriptions by Bellori, Sandrart and Piles do not mention the existence of this window. Research into the incidence of light has shown that most of the light in the room entered through the oculus and that the light entering through the high, narrow window would have provided only local illumination (fig. 13).31 Rubens had at his disposal various descriptions of the Pantheon in Rome (fig. 14), including Pieter Coecke’s translation of Serlio, of which Book III – on Roman antiquities – features a number of drawings of the Pantheon, as well as a description of how light entered

  J. von Sandrart, Teutsche Academie der Edlen Bau Bild und Mahlerey-Künste, (Nürnberg 1675), p. 292: ‘Auch baute er sic hein sehr bequemes schönes Haus und darein neben den Garten eine Kunst Cammer in der Form einer Ritonda mit Einen von oben herab fallenden Liecht, so überan vortheilschaft alle darinnen befindliche und in gute Ordnung gestellte rare Gemälde und Statuen so wol na seiner Hand als anderer fürnemsten köstlere neben mehrer veramleten Cüriositäten uberschein.’ 28   R. De Piles, o.c. 27

  Brussels, Royal Library, Manuscripts, Ms. 5726, f°10.  This situation was confirmed by excavations carried out in 1938. See T. Ruyten, Nota aangaande de opzoekingswerken welke de heropbouw van het Rubenshuis voorafgingen, (Rubenshuis, Archief van het museum, pp. 1–16), (Antwerp 1954). 31  S. de Gruyter, Studierapport: lichtinval in Rubens’ leerlingenatelier en museum, (unpublished research paper, University of Antwerp, Faculty of Design Sciences), (Antwerp 2012). 29 30

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13. The rotunda of the Museum with simulation of the incidence of light on the floor (reconstruction by arch. Sigurd de Gruyter, 2012).

14. Sebastiano Serlio, the Pantheon in Rome. (S. Serlio, translation by Pieter Coucke van Aelst, Le troisieme livre de Sebastien Serlio B. Auquel sont figurez & descriptz les Antiquitez de Rome, Antwerp, 1550, pp.3–4).

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15. Jacob Harrewijn, after Jacob Van Croes, domed room of the painter’s studio, detail, 1692. (Antwerp, Rubens House).

the building through a central opening in the roof.32 The advantage of light entering from above is that its diffusion guaranteed each object in the room sufficient illumination. Another possible source is Book IV of Palladio’s publication.33 Mantegna, too, made use of a large oculus in the centre of his house in Mantua.34   P. Coecke van Aelst, Het derde Boeck, handelende van de aldervermaerste Antique edifificien van Templen/Theatren/Amphitheatren/Paleysen…, (Amsterdam 1616), fols. 3–4. Fol. 12 contains an illustration of the temple of Vesta in Tivoli with a circular plan and an open oculus in the cupola. Fol. 15 contains a description of a small temple near Rome; it is smaller than the Pantheon, but also circular and with an open oculus at the top of the cupola. Of particular interest are the windows in the walls. 32

 A. Palladio, I quattro libri d’architettura (Venice 1570), Book IV, pp. 80–82: the Pantheon; pp. 93–94: the temple of Vesta. 34  M. Harder-Merkelbach, Erstehung von Rundhof und Rundsaal im Palastbau der Renaissance in Italien. Untersuchungen zum Mantegnahaus und zu den Traktaten des Francesco di Giorgio Martini, (Freiburg 1991). 33

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16. Trusses where the thrust is borne by the sleeper beams of the lower attic floor, Rubens House. (Photo by the author, 2012).

With regard to the studio used by Rubens’s pupils, every author who described it emphasized that natural light entered the room only from above. Sperling, for example, wrote an account of the pupils’ studio: We also saw a large room that had no windows, but light entered from above through a large hole in the middle [of the ceiling]. Sitting in that room were many young painters, all busy on different pieces for which Mr Rubens had made a preliminary drawing in chalk.35 It is possible that the Rubens House once had a central opening in the roof of the room that served as the pupils’ studio. By the time Harrewijn made his print in 1692, however, this central aperture had been boxed in by a closed dome, which was flanked by two oculi, positioned symmetrically with respect to the centre of the low, wide dome that decorated the ceiling and caught the light entering through two skylights (fig. 15). In both situations, the light would have flowed from the attic into the studio through openings in the ceiling. Sperling’s description does not exactly match the bedroom of Canon Hillewerve, who possibly converted the pupils’ studio for this purpose. In Harrewijn’s print we see a dome but no central opening. Perhaps it was sealed up and replaced by two smaller, round openings in the dome, which would then have received daylight deflected from the roof, in which there were skylights, facing north and south at the height of these openings. There is no obvious explanation for the contradictory descriptions and representations by Sperling and Harrewijn, but from a constructive viewpoint, there are indications that a domed construction once existed above the pupils’ studio. An analysis of the existing roof-supports, which documents show to have retained their original structure, reveals that two trusses, located in the middle of the roof, display a different construction from the adjacent trusses (fig. 16).36 The two innermost trusses run across the entire attic. Their principal rafters are anchored to sleeper   W.G. Brieger and W.S. Johnson, o.c., 1920.

35

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  S. de Gruyter, o.c., 2012, p. 8.

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17. View from the east on the partly demolished painter’s studio of the Rubens House. (Antwerp, City Archives).

beams, which form the division between the two attic floors. The anchoring is achieved by splitting up the principal rafters between the lower floor of the attic and the sleeper beams at the height of the intermediate floor (figs. 17, 18). This means that the thrust normally exerted on the outer walls can now be borne by the higher sleeper beams. In the case of the other trusses, the thrust is borne by the sleeper beams of the lower attic floor. Thus a constructive solution was sought for keeping the middle of the attic completely open, in order to build a dome, without endangering the stability of the roof. It is not known exactly how the pupils’ studio was illuminated. The first possibility is the situation reported by Sperling: the lack of windows would have meant that light entered only indirectly through the opening at the top of the dome. According to a light study carried out with the Daysim software package, this scenario would have left the pupils’ studio insufficiently lit (fig. 19).37 Both Mols’s groundplan and Harrewijn’s engraving show windows on the north side of the pupils’ studio, which contradicts Sperling’s assertion. It is possible that these windows were covered with cloths or curtains, in order to obtain softer lighting. The same study also revealed that light entering through two openings in the dome, situated beneath two skylights, would be more intense than light entering through only one central opening. Lastly, it has been hypothesized that there were windows in the south wall, on either side of the fireplace. They were supposedly sealed up when Canon Hillewerve converted the studio into a bedroom. There is no concrete evidence to prove this theory, however. The central oculus in the dome might have been used to hoist paintings – with the help of the wheel still present in the attic – from Rubens’s studio on the ground floor up to the pupils’ studio (fig. 20). This would have necessitated a   Ibid., pp. 12–15.

37

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18. Model of a trusses, where the ­principal rafters are anchored to sleeper beams, Rubens House. (Reconstruction by arch. Sigurd de Gruyter, 2012).

19. View on the dome inside painter’s ­studio, Rubens House. (Reconstruction by arch. Sigurd de Gruyter, 2012).

20. General view on the roof with the wheel, the cupola and the pupil’s studio, Rubens House. (Reconstruction by arch. Sigurd de Gruyter, 2012).

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21. Peter Paul Rubens, study of trees reflected in the water at sunset, c.1635. (London, The British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings).

hatch between the two floors. Clearly, we still need answers to many questions, such as how the pupils’ studio was properly lit and how the larger canvases were moved around. According to de Piles, Rubens wrote an essay on the effects of light and shadow in his Theoretical Notebook.38 Unfortunately, this important notebook is lost, but a drawing by Rubens called Trees Reflected in the Water, preserved in the British Museum in London, tells us something about his interest in shadows (fig. 21). This study of trees in a landscape at sunset bears the following inscription: The trees reflected in the water are much darker and more perfect than the trees themselves.39 Held links these words of Rubens to Aguilón. In Book V of Opticorum Libri Sex, Aguilón distinguishes between the ‘umbra perfecta’, the perfect shadow, and the ‘umbra diminuata’, the diminished shadow.40 The first, the actual core of the shadow, is darker than the edges, which are therefore less pronounced. Admittedly, shadows and reflections are two different optical phenomena, but the choice of words is telling. Rubens speaks of a more perfect reflection, just as Aguilón refers to a perfect shadow. In Held’s opinion, this wording is no coincidence.41

  R. de Piles, o.c., p.36: “Il y avoit des observations sur l’Optique, sur les lumières & les ombres.” P. Lombaerde, l.c., 2012, p. 145. 39  London, The British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings: Peter Paul Rubens, Trees Reflected in Water at Sunset, c. 1635–40. G. Glück, 38

De landschappen van Peter Paul Rubens, (Antwerp – Amsterdam 1940), p. 41. 40  F. de Aguilón, Opticorum Libri Sex philosophis iuxta ac mathematicis utiles, (Antwerp 1613). 41  J. Held, ‘Rubens and Aguilonius: New Points of Contact’, The Art Bulletin, 1979, pp. 257–64.

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Piet Lombaerde Conclusion Rubens succeeded in an original way in transposing the technique of depicting successive scenes (foreground, middle distance, background), which is typical of Baroque painting, in the designs of his own house. In doing so, he managed to make – from his position as a painter – a unique contribution to architecture. Rubens, the painter-architect, can therefore be seen not only as an artist who borrowed architectural elements for use in his paintings, but also as the reverse: an architect who went in search of methods used in painting and spatial rendering that were applicable to his rare building projects. Rubens’s use of this representational technique is perfectly in keeping with one of the three kinds of perspective explained by François de Aguilón in the sixth book of his Opticorum Libri Sex (1613), namely orthographia. The Rubens House displays – through its successive entrances to the house, the portico and the garden pavilion – an exceptional application of an enfilade, which is in keeping with the œillade, as this term was later defined by the French artist Abraham Bosse. To achieve this visual effect, Rubens used a specific mathematical ratio: 1:3. In addition to these spatial effects, however, Rubens also had an eye for the lighting effects in both the pupils’ studio and his museum of antiquities. He would have had to experiment with the installation of domes with central oculi in order to achieve the effect of softly dispersed light inside his museum and the pupils’ studio. There are still many questions as to the appearance of these two spaces and the lighting effects Rubens finally created. Clearly, a great deal of research is still required to unravel the complex interrelationship of painting, architecture, perspective and light in the whole of Rubens’s oeuvre. Sculpture, too, must be given a prominent place in these studies. Such research should go further than merely the analysis and description of idiom and style. It must try to get to the heart of the concept of the ‘painter-architect’: in other words, to search for the common denominator, as it were, that underpins the perception and experience of space in all its dimensions, forms and meanings.

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Reflections on the Digital Reconstruction of the Portico and Garden Pavilion of the Rubens House Stefan Boeykens

This article presents a digital, geometrical analysis of the relative positioning of the portico and garden pavilion of the Rubens house in Antwerp (Belgium) in regard to the main entrance of the house. While this is not a fully accurate historical reconstruction, the creation of a three-dimensional model allowed assessing certain geometrical properties of the site and how they can be related back to the depiction of the architecture into the iconography of Rubens. Based on a combination of available blueprints from fairly recent site measurements and photographic imagery taken on site, we were able to derive a reasonably accurate 3D reconstruction in a limited timeframe, sufficient for 2D and 3D visualization and a geometrical analysis of the optical effects that are apparent in the site. In addition, the article reflects on the applied software-based methodology, including the benefits and pitfalls of Building Information Modeling (BIM), which is increasingly being used for the modeling and management of digital building models worldwide, but is not oriented towards historical models. However, the use of BIM allowed maintaining a consistent link between 2D and 3D graphics, which is not available with other CAD-based 3D modeling or 2D drafting techniques. Introduction and context The Rubens House in Antwerp, built in 1611–18, was his own residence and he was deeply involved in the concepts and realization. Throughout the centuries, a large part of the site has been modified and eventually rebuilt, leaving only the Portico and the Garden Pavilion as reasonably “original” or authentic parts of the house and the connecting garden. Figure 1 displays the Rubens house as it exists today, including the portico, through which the garden pavilion can be noticed. As described by Lombaerde (2002) there is an apparent optical line that can be drawn from the entrance of the house on the Wapper street through the middle arc of the portico towards the top façade of the garden pavilion. An initial rough model was made to verify this assumption and this formed the initial hypothesis to be further elaborated in a more extensive model of not only the portico and pavilion but also the garden and the main house. This elaboration is the subject of this article. The use of 3D modeling software for Digital Cultural Heritage purposes has been described in general by Alkhoven (1999) and the techniques described have become common place for historical 3D reconstruction and visualization. Vandevyvere et al. (2005) describe a reconstruction framework and methodology that is meant to assist the interpretation process. All possible resources and documents are organized into a resource table, the so-called “meta-file”, to collect not only the references but also meta-information about accuracy, known facts and a relation with the project. They describe how 3D visualization techniques can be utilized beyond pure photorealistic visualization to represent aspects of the project, e.g. color-coded images are used to indicate levels of certainty within the reconstructed model.

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1. Rubens House (left), Portico and Pavilion (right). (Photo by the author).

Boeykens (2011) further discusses not only the use of 3D visualization techniques such as rendering and animation, but also the potential of real-time environments using gaming technology, to insert interactivity into the 3D model and to allow the visitor to walk around a site in real-time, as if they were inside a computer game. The Building Information Modeling Methodology The reconstruction is an application of the Building Information Modeling (BIM) methodology in an historical context. BIM is an approach that uses digital building models to support the construction process. In BIM, a building is created as a virtual model, in three dimensions, using specialized software that not only captures the 3D geometry, but also the information that is required for the interpretation and construction of the building. In contrast with traditional Computer-Aided Design (CAD) systems, the main entities in BIM are not generic, geometric objects, such as lines or volumes, but parametric entities that represent actual building elements, such as walls, floors, doors and roofs. Each object has different possible representations and carries along not only information about the object itself, such as material quantities or dimensions, but also the relations between elements. The application of this methodology is rising worldwide, with a strong rise in countries such as Norway, Finland, the Netherlands and the United States. The use of BIM is reshaping the construction industry as it allows partners in building projects to improve their collaboration and communication through the exchange of models instead of documents (“drawings”).

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The main drivers for BIM adoption are increased productivity, lowering of failure costs and improved communication between partners. In the rest of this article we assume the reader to understand some basic premises of the usage of BIM in the context of building modeling. No other familiarity is required otherwise: •  The full building is modeled as a series of parametric objects; •  Different representations are used to visualize these objects, including 2D drawings, 3D Perspective and axonometric views, sections and elevations, but also listings of text-based information for analysis purposes; •  Moreover, the same model can be filtered in different ways to allow for a wide variety in the information that is displayed in these representations; •  All possible documents relate to the same model, indicating a forced consistency between drawings, schemes and visualizations. The applied BIM software in this study is Graphisoft ArchiCAD, accompanied by Trimble SketchUp for 3D reconstruction from photographs and Maxon Cinema4D for photorealistic rendering and animation. The application of BIM for historical reconstruction is not new, but not common either. Martens and Peter (2012) collected a wide variety of 3D models of Jewish synagogues in Vienna (Austria) and have developed a structured modeling approach throughout the series of reconstructions. While they did apply the same BIM software as was used here for the Rubens house, the focus thus far has been mostly on the level of generating usable 2D documents (plans, sections and elevations) and 3D visualization (renderings). Boeykens et al (2012) discuss the combination of the structured modeling approach from Martens and Peter with the metafile methodology as described earlier by Vandevyvere. While the potential of parametric modeling as made available by BIM applications is also mentioned, it is thus far not fully applied. It has to be noted that commercial BIM software is strongly focused on current design praxis and as such does not provide much library content or dedicated modeling support for historical projects. However, recent additions to the used software that became available in the course of the project have provided hugely improved modeling functionality for freeform geometry, albeit mostly based on planar surfaces. This is a trend with many CAD and BIM systems, which inherit some of the modeling toolset that made the SketchUp software so widely popular with architects and designers, as it allows a less constrained approach that still supports accurate modeling. The user of the BIM software can create custom objects more easily, but mostly as static geometry. To inhibit parametric behavior, additional scripting is required, which only makes sense when objects will be reused in other projects. As such, a large part of the model is created as unique geometric objects, suitable for this specific project. In addition, the possibility of inserting images, photographs and even PDF documents as underlays during modeling was an important aid for the reconstruction process, once all references were properly scaled. Other authors mention the increased integration of surveying techniques, such as Laser scanning and Photogrammetry into a BIM methodology. Arayici and Tah (2007) specifically describe a case study where point clouds, resulting from the laser scanning process, are being integrated into a BIM model. Murphy et al (2009) also mention the importance of point clouds for historical reconstruction to be integrated into a BIM process.

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2. Portico model.

Elaboration of the 3D Reconstruction The reconstruction is carried out in different models, which are assembled for the analysis schemes. At any time, changes in the models are reflected in the assembly model, which allows further refinement throughout the reconstruction process. The Portico The first section that was reconstructed involved the portico. A series of scans of blueprints from the City of Antwerp were available to be used as reference drawings for the reconstruction. While the overall dimensions are respected as much as possible, it was decided that for the purpose of the analysis, some simplification was justified. The statues and other sculptures were replaced with extruded silhouette profiles, as they are not influencing the analysis. In addition, some irregularities of the actual built portico were straightened and assumed to be largely symmetrical as to diminish the modeling efforts. While this is not acceptable for a restoration context where accurate preservation is intended, this was acceptable for the geometrical analysis in this study. The portico as modeled is depicted in fig. 2, which shows a perspective view from within the cortile, but elevated above eye height.

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3. Garden Pavilion model (left) and current ­situation (right). (Photo by the author).

While the available blueprints were reasonably detailed, it was found that there were several inconsistencies between some of the sections and the plan drawings, which are often unavoidable in 2D drafting. Simple overlaying the available drawings already displayed ­differences that had to be interpreted to form a consistent 3D model. In addition, much of the sculptural detail was deliberately omitted, to avoid extremely long and cumbersome modeling efforts, which would also stress the software and ­available hardware to make the model unmanageable. The main statues have been included as extruded outline models, starting from the silhouette as visible in the elevation drawings. Garden Pavilion Two hand-drawn documents were used to reconstruct the majority of the pavilion layout, which was made symmetrical as much as possible, where relevant. However, the positioning of the middle statue at the back wall was clearly offset from the symmetry axis, which will be further discussed for the analysis in the next section. The model is quite detailed, although the statues are simplified, as visible in fig. 3. The baluster and the front arch and columns indicate a symmetrical concept, although the actual pavilion has some noticeable asymmetrical elements. Garden While a scaled garden layout drawing was also available, it proved to be not so r­epresentative for the actual state of the garden, so it was mainly used to provide the overall dimensions of the site and to assist the assembly.

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4. Garden Model.

All plants and garden accessories have been simplified, to not place too much burden on the modeling system, while still allowing convincing visualizations. The main point-of-interest is the garden path connecting the portico with the garden pavilion. It is seemingly perpendicular to the portico and forms the main dividing axis, although the garden is only partially symmetrical. The Rubens House The main house, which has been completely rebuilt throughout the ages, was not the main focus of the reconstruction. It is included to place the other models in a more complete context and to include the main entrance passage, which is assumed to be the primary pointof-view for which the sequence entrance-cortile-portico-garden-pavilion has been envisaged. The model contains the frontal façade, with the main openings and arched entrance passage and the overall shape of the roofs and roof vaults. The position of the windows and entry arch is fairly precise, whereas the roof and its extensions are an approximation. The neighboring houses are indicated as grey volumes with an overall faithful roof shape. Overall site and context It has to be noted that in the scope of the project there was no room for full site measurements, as the analysis did not require it. So a deliberate choice to work from available resources was deemed a feasible alternative. While there was also an effort to integrate available aerial photography and maps of the larger area, they were inconsistent and lacked the required detail to assist the reconstruction of the site, so they were mainly used to fill in some of the gaps that were not available from the other resources, such as roof shapes or slopes.

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5. Rubens House Model.

6. Aerial image of the site (Bing, Microsoft).

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7. Rubens House: site model (SketchUp model by Nick Oberg, as user “SittingDuck”).

An existing Google Earth model of the whole site1 was imported as well, but showed widely differing roof heights and was mostly disregarded in the final model. It has been used while modeling to place the other buildings in context. Analysis The reconstruction is divided in a few separate models, which have to be assembled to create the overall site model. This allowed the reconstruction of multiple possible interpretations of the site. •  The first assembly restores as much as possible the actual situation, which is mostly assessed and compared from the garden plan and the aerial imagery. •  The second assembly is a theoretical ideal situation where the entrance arch of the house, the central axis of the portico, the garden path and the garden pavilion are all assumed to be oriented identically around a central symmetry axis. This is clearly not a faithful reconstruction, but rather how the ideal concept of the whole site could be interpreted, e.g. how it “could have been”, in the mind of the painterarchitect Rubens. •  The final assembly is based on situation in paintings and drawings. It requires a distorted positioning of the different elements on the site, to more closely resemble the sequence of portico and pavilion as depicted in some of the paintings that refer to this site.   http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=1a354a50ad35179948905349b0d69f29

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8. Assembly from different sections.

The actual assembly of the parts of the site can be seen in fig. 8. It shows the different parts of the site when joined in a single overview model. The adjoining buildings are represented as basic volumes. We are in particular interested in the geometrical ratio between the heights of the middle arc of the portico and the top of the garden pavilion, in comparison with their mutual position. As mentioned by Lombaerde (2002), these ratios are apparently derived from a central viewer position, located closely to the entrance arch of the Rubens house. Fig. 9 shows a sequence of vistas that occur when the visitor steps through the arched passage door onto the cortile, where the pavilion appears inside the middle arch of the portico. Within the assembly model, we can display this sequence as a cutout from the model. We use the theoretical, ideal assembly, where the house, portico and pavilion are all aligned perpendicularly, which is not the case on the actual site. By shifting the whole line-of-sight upward, to be placed more or less on eye-height, we can indicate this line visually on top of the site assembly and derive the ratios a/c and d/e (with c = a + b) as depicted in fig. 11 and fig. 12. Both ratios, when measured on the model, resolve to 0,35 and are (almost identical). This is very close to the ideal ratio: a/c = d/e = 1/3 While the theoretical, ideal assembly would place all elements on a single, symmetry axis, this requires shifting of the statues and the roof elements of the pavilion towards this axis, which is clearly a distortion of the actual position of these elements. The difference between the actual and the idealized situation is clearly visible in the pavilion, as shown in fig. 13.

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9. Sequence of views from street to portico. (Photos by the author).

10. Cutout of the assembly, along the garden path.

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11. Line of sight through section.

12. Ratios between cortile/portico and garden/pavilion.

13. Difference between actual (left) and ideal (right) model of the pavilion.

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Stefan Boeykens The movement of the statue in the pavilion is an indication of how the actual perspective is shifted to compensate for these differences and to still provide a seemingly symmetrical line-of-sight in the actual situation. Several historical resources depict the ensemble of the portico and pavilion. Where they allow the viewer to have an impression of the ambience of the site, it is by no means accurate or faithful to the actual dimensions. They are however interesting as they helped with the restoration. Drawings by Jacob Harrewijn are seen as the oldest relevant depictions of the Rubens house and the relation between the house, portico and garden. To approximate the positioning of the viewer 14. Jacob Harrewijn: view of the inner court, the portico from these drawings, we have to manipulate and garden pavilion. (1684). the position of the garden pavilion and the portico, to arrive to a similar viewpoint. This drawing gives the impression that the whole courtyard is wide and open, where in reality it is much more enclosed. To reconstruct a view that resembles this image, we need to remove the Rubens house and position the viewer further away and at an elevation. It also requires a wider view angle to have a similar perspective (about 90°). Another Harrewijn drawing, from 1692, removes the portico and shortens the cortile and also the distance between house and garden pavilion. It suggests a perpendicular positioning of the different parts, which is in line with the main concept of the site. This last situation is impossible to recreate from the current model, due to the many differences with the actual site. It can be approximated with non-uniform scaling of the

15. Viewpoint resembling the Harrewijn 1684 engraving.

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16. Jacob Harrewijn: view of the Rubens House, (1692).

different parts of the model. As an alternative, we stretched the height of fig. 17 almost 50% to get a ratio more akin to the drawing. While these drawings have no dimensional value for the 3D reconstruction, they do present an insight into the conceptualization of the site. Conclusions and reflection 3D reconstruction of historical buildings and sites is not a new development. Advanced visualization has played a pivotal role in making the reconstruction results accessible to a wide audience, especially when applied with animation and real-time

17. Non-uniformly stretched image from 3D assembly model

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Stefan Boeykens techniques. While traditional CAD systems allow for quite accurate modeling and drafting of historical sites, this article explained some of the benefits of the application of BIM in historical reconstruction and also some of the aspects in which BIM software and libraries need to be improved. The interpretation of different possible variations of the Rubens house site is only possible through the use of 3D modeling techniques. Precisely though the usage of a BIM environment with sufficient support for complex geometry, displaying different alternative versions and model linking for the assembly, the same model could be presented in different layouts, without the need for several disconnected models. The trend towards the usage of BIM for architectural design and construction cannot be denied anymore. Future reconstructions will more and more benefit from better-structured approaches and the added levels of information the BIM provides. To assist this evolution, future work will focus more on the elaboration of an optimized object library for reconstruction work. Parametric building objects that can be applied in a variety of reconstruction projects not only assist the modeling efforts, but also the collection and extraction of information from the model. The increased power of software and hardware, further help improving the possible amount of reconstruction detail. However, static geometric modeling is always created at a fixed level of detail. The model creator deliberately has to decide to which level of detail the model needs to be elaborated. The use of parametric objects will further facilitate the automatic generation of lower and higher detailed models from the same master BIM model. Whereas the Rubens house model is sufficient for the intended purposes, the next step could be a more complete reconstruction of other buildings on this site. In addition, the modeled environment can be used to allow a true real-time representation, e.g. for online viewing and dissemination. The usage of these techniques has already been proven valuable in other reconstruction cases, e.g. using gaming technology on tablets or smartphones or via the web browser. Acknowledgments The digital reconstruction of the Rubens House model was carried out under supervision of Piet Prof. Lombaerde from Universiteit Antwerpen, as part of the “Rubens as architect?” research project in 2012.

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Carolien De Staelen

Introduction Rubens, the ingenious master, the inventor of the Southern-Netherlandish baroque, the diplomat etc. Undeniably Peter Paul Rubens was a very gifted man who’s fame reached out far behind the borders of Brabant, even in his own time. Nevertheless there is one aspect of his richly gifted life, on which scientists disagree.1 Whether the masters’ virtuosity was also applicable to another artistic field, namely the architecture, is a pressing question which stays unanswered in most cases. After all, such an approach requires a full measure of ‘out of the box’ thinking, with which one clearly moves outside the comfort zone of the traditional research. Therefore, this feeling of uneasiness is undeniably connected with the conclusion that the sources which shine its light on this aspect of Rubens’ life, are at least scarce and circumstantial. His sketchbook, commonly known as the theoretical notebook and whose existence was confirmed by different contemporaries, was unfortunately destroyed in the eighteenth-century fire at the Louvre. The only thing that is left of this source are four partially copied versions which all four are can be derived from drawings based on the Latin version of Serlio’s book concerning the column orders.2 Moreover, Michael Jaffé was convinced that another book of architecture also can be accredited to Rubens. While making this statement he referred to the note of ‘noch een cleyn boecken van Rubbens met architectuer’ in the estate of Erasmus Quellinus in 1679. The fact that Rubens owned two similar books, one dedicated to the human anatomy and the other so-called Costume Book, does not rule out the possibility of the existence of a third book with an architectural theme. Unfortunately, this manuscript was also lost during the centuries.3 Nevertheless Rubens may indeed be called the author of a unique book on architecture, the Palazzi di Genova. Although his example was copied in Italy – especially in cities like Rome, Florence or Venice – the book stayed unmatched in the Netherlands.4 With its unique concept Rubens made a clear statement. Never before an author published ground-plans (ichnographia), cross ­sections (sciographia) and façades (orthographia) all at once in one book. The resemblance with Barbaro’s Vitruvius edition from 1567 regarding this unusual representation is striking.  This article was realized due to the academic research project ‘Rubens as an architect’ led by prof. dr. P. Lombaerde of the University College Antwerp – departement of Design Sciences. 1  When the Danish doctor Otto Sperling, during his journey in the Netherlands in 1621, also visited Antwerp, he didn’t omit to see Rubens in his home. On the occasion of this event, he noted in his personal documents that he had visited the ‘weitberühmten und kunstreichen Maler Rubbens’. M. Rooses, ‘De vreemde reizigers Rubens of zijn huis bezoekende’, in: Rubens-Bulletijn, 5, 1910, p. 221. 2   P. Lombaerde, ‘Rubens als architect’, in: B. Uppenkamp, B. Van Beneden and P. Lombaerde, Palazzo Rubens. De meester als architect, (Brussels 2011), p. 128. See also: A. Balis and D. Jaffé, The Theoretical Notebook, *

(Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, part XXV), (London – Turnhout, forthcoming). 3   M. Jaffé, Van Dyck’s Antwerp Sketch Book, (London 1966), I, p. 42; P. Lombaerde, ‘The Significance of the Two Volumes of Rubens’s Palazzi di Genova for Architectural Theory’, in: P. Lombaerde (ed.), The Reception of P. P. Rubens’s Palazzi di Genova During the 17 th Century in Europe: Questions and Problems, (Architectura Moderna, vol. 1), (Turnhout 2002), p.53; P. Lombaerde, l.c., 2011, pp. 128–29. 4  C. Altavista, ‘Peter Paul Rubens’s Palazzi di Genova: built Architecture and drawn Reality’, in: P. Lombaerde (ed.), The Reception of P. P. Rubens’s Palazzi di Genova During the 17 th Century in Europe: Questions and Problems, (Architectura Moderna, vol.1), (Turnhout 2002), pp. 37–38.

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1. Hendrik Causé, Specimina Magnificentiorum in civitate Antverpiensi Locorum et operum. (Antwerp, Stedelijk Prentenkabinet, PK.OP.18312).

In his fourth book, Barbaro too applied a similar view on the structure of a round temple.5 During his life Rubens acted several times as an architect. The renovation of his own house and workshop are excellent examples. That is why you can find the culmination of Rubens so called other architectural realizations in Henri Causé’s copperplate, with the most striking buildings of the seventeenth-century Antwerp (fig. 1).6 In the center of the copperplate three arches are shown, taken from the designs of Rubens’s Pompa Introitus Ferdinandi, which played a central role in the welcoming ceremony of Cardinal-Infant Ferdinand in Antwerp anno 1635. Besides this masterly example of baroque gate design the viewer can observe three other buildings which are commonly architecturally related to Rubens, namely the Jesuit church, the porch of the St Michael’s abbey and the Watergate. Drawings from his hand concerning the sculptural decoration for the façade, including the magnificent medallion above the entrance, show in every way that his part in the Jesuit Church was much greater than the breathtaking but unfortunately entirely   M. Vitruvii Pollionis de Architectura Libri decem, cum commentariis Danielis Barbari, (Venice 1567). Rubens bought this book with his good friend Balthasar Moretus in 1615.

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  Specimina magnificentiorum in civitate Antverpiensi locorum et operum, copperplate by Henri Causé, Stedelijk Prentenkabinet Antwerpen.

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destroyed ceiling paintings.7 The use of the broken arch and the broken pediment as seen on the Porta Pia, the sumptuously decorated segment arches and the use of the Ionic capitals with festoons, point out the strong influence of Michelangelo’s late work of which Rubens was a great admirer. In this free interpretation and the perfect integration of the architectural forms and sculptural elements, so typical for the Antwerp Jesuit Church, one longs to see the hand of the master.8 Both Barbara Haeger and Frans Baudouin are convinced that the unique concept of the façade, where the architectural framework gives structure to the pictorial element and therefore is amplifying its meaning, can only be credited to Rubens creative spirit, although there isn’t one single archival source that supports this hypothesis.9 The claim that Rubens was responsible for the design of the Porta Regia or so called Watergate and the porch of St Michael’s abbey is also disputable for the same reason. Undeniably there are obvious stylistic similarities but without archival sources to support the hypothesis, it’s impossible to substantiate the claim.10 On the other hand the Jesuit Church illustrates how the interaction between the different arts like architecture, ornamentation and the art of painting was vital for the creation of the baroque Gesamtkunstwerk. With their visual and optical effects, like the use of different kinds of perspective and asymmetrical compositions, Rubens’s ceiling paintings explore the boundaries of new spatial possibilities and create a direct connection between the paintings and the visiting church-goer.11 The assignment for the Antwerp ceiling paintings wasn’t Rubens’s first experience with such a commission. A letter from Vincenzo I Gonzaga to his secretary Annibale Chieppio, dated June 17th 1604, shows that the duke put Rubens and his court architect and painter Antonio Maria Viani in charge with the design of a compartment of the Great Ducal Gallery. Therefore, Rubens was already familiarized with the duality of the topic from the beginning of his career.12 Moreover, it wouldn’t be his last great assignment and quoting his own words, he was born for the assignment for the British Whitehall and the Spanish Torre de la Parada, and regarding the hall in the New Palace, I confess that I am by natural instinct better fitted to execute very large works than small curiosities. Everyone according to his gifts; my talent is such, that no undertaking, however vast in size or diversified in subject, has ever surpassed my courage.’13

 B. Haeger, ‘The Façade of the Jesuit Church in Antwerp: Representing the Church Militant and Triumphant’, in: P. Lombaerde (ed.), Innovation and Experience in the Early Baroque in the Southern Netherlands. The Case of the Jesuit Church in Antwerp, (Architectura Moderna, vol. 6), (Turnhout 2008), pp. 112–13; L. Burchard and R.A. d’Hulst, Rubens Drawings, 2 vols., (Brussels 1963), vol. 1, pp. 184– 87. For the paintings see: J. R. Martin, The Ceiling Paintings for the Jesuit Church in Antwerp, (Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard. Vol. I), (New York – London 1968). 8  A. Blunt, ‘Rubens and Architecture’, in: The Burlington Magazine, 119, 1977, pp.614–21; P. Lombaerde, ‘Introduction’, in: P. Lombaerde (ed.), Innovation and Experience in the Early Baroque in the Southern Netherlands. The Case of the Jesuit Church in Antwerp, (Architectura Moderna, vol. 6), (Turnhout 2008), pp.23–25. 9  B. Haeger, l.c., 2008, pp. 120–21; F. Baudouin, ‘Peter Paul Rubens and the Notion ‘Painter-Architect’’, 7

in: P. Lombaerde (ed.), The Reception of P.P. Rubens’s Palazzi di Genova during the 17 th Century in Europe: Questions and Problems, (Architectura Moderna, vol. 1), (Turnhout 2002), p. 32. 10  F. Baudouin, ‘Peter Paul Rubens and the Notion ‘Painter-Architect’, l.c., 2002, p. 15; R. Tijs, De andere Rubens. Activiteiten - Interesses - Leefwereld, (Leuven 2004), pp. 294–95. 11   R. Harbison, Reflections on Baroque, (Chicago 2000), pp. 35–37. 12   P. Lombaerde, l.c., 2011, p. 124. 13  Quote from his letter to the British agent William Trumbull. R. Saunders Magrun (trans. & ed.), The Letters of Peter Paul Rubens, (Evanston Illinois, 1991), p. 77; B. Haeger, l.c., 2008, p. 124; J. Vander Auwera and B. Schepers, ‘Rubens als ondernemer: eerder getalenteerd tot grote werken dan tot kleine curiositeiten’, in: Rubens- een genie aan het werk. Rondom de Rubenswerken in de Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten België, (Tielt 2007), p. 213.

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Carolien De Staelen Rubens’s assignment as a court painter also gave him the opportunity to be engaged in different architectural realizations. Nevertheless, strictly speaking, only during the renovation of his own house and workshop one can call him a real architect. Therefore, Rubens as an architect is an ambiguous fact. Beyond doubt architecture extremely fascinated him, a fact that can be deduced from the many letters concerning architectural themes, his extensive book collection and his own paintings. But at the same time there is not one single document in which he, following the example of Italian predecessors as Giulio Romano, Mantegna or Raphael, appropriates the title of architect or painter-architect.14 It is abundantly clear that the painter was moved by the architectural theme in different kind of ways. So it is no wonder that researchers like for instance Anthony Blunt, August Schoy, Jan Hendrik Plantenga and Björn Fredlund were tempted to take the theme in hand.15 Their approach, however, was as different as the publications themselves. In his article Blunt took a shot to reveal Rubens’s sources which created his own architectural style and tried to define its position in the ­development of the baroque style.16 Fredlund on the other hand chose another approach by looking systematically to the symbolic meaning of the architectural elements Rubens integrated into his compositions.17 Finally, the ‘Palazzo Rubens’ exhibition that could be visited during the fall of 2011 at the Rubens house, attempted to approach the subject through the realization of the Rubens house itself. Once again researchers tried to find Rubens’s sources in Italy, but in spite of the well-meant attempts of interpretation, the question of Rubens as an architect stayed shrouded in mystery. In this article we will leave the real buildings for what they are and try to follow partly in Fredlund’s footsteps by focusing on the intangible buildings of the master. Never before one ventured to make a systematical analysis of the architectural elements in not only Rubens’s paintings, but also in his drawings and oil sketches, his designs for title pages, tapestries and the arches of Ferdinand’s Joyous Entry. Could it be possible that contrary to the fiercely disputed red-brick counterparts these paper inventions can lift a shedding concerning Rubens’s ideas about architecture, how he used them and their evolution throughout his forty-year-old career? Architecture in Rubens’s oeuvre When one browses through the pages of Michael Jaffé’s Rubens: Catalogo complete, one can’t deny that architectural elements make an essential part of Rubens’s compositions.18 While admiring them, they never get boring, because Rubens knew perfectly how to use these virtual bricks inventively. In paintings like The Garden of Love (Prado) or the Rape of the Sabine Virgins (National Gallery of London) the impressive temples and buildings claim a very dominant place, making them an essential part of the composition. These paintings contrast sharply with for example the Adoration of the Magi from the collection of the KMSKA where only a lonely column can be found in the background or with the portraits   P. Lombaerde, ’Architectura sine scientia nihil est’, in: P. Lombaerde, Bringing the world into culture. Comparative methodologies in architecture, art, design and science, (Antwerp 2009), p. 123. See for the library of P.P. Rubens: P. Arents, De Bibliotheek van Pieter Pauwel Rubens: een reconstructie (bewerking door Frans Baudouin, Lia Baudouin, Elly Cockx-Indestege, Jacques De Bie & Marcus de Schepper), (Vereniging der Antwerpse Bibliofielen), (Antwerp 2001) and also F. Baudouin, ‘Rubens and his books’, in: R. De Smet (ed.), Les humanistes et leur bibliothèque – Humanists and their Libraries. 14

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Actes du Colloque international – Proceedings of the International Conference. Bruxelles, 26–28 août 1999, (Leuven 2002), pp. 231–46. 15  A. Schoy, ‘Rubens architecte et décorateur’, L’Art. Revue hebdomadaire illustrée, 7, 1881, pp. 196–200; J. H. Plantenga, ‘Rubens en de bouwkunst’, Heemschut. Orgaan van de bond Heemschut, 7–10, 1934, pp. 1–8. 16   A. Blunt, l.c., 1977, pp. 609–21. 17  B. Fredlund, Arkitektur i Rubens Maleri. Form och Funktion, (Ph.D. diss. Göteborg University), (Göteborg 1974). 18   M. Jaffé, Rubens: Catalogo completo, (Milan 1989).

Rubens: The Ingenious Master

as an

Architect?

of prominent citizens and nobles where the viewer can’t see much more than the base of a ­column. Trying to claim exhaustiveness, Jaffé mixed paintings and oil sketches in his catalogue, therefore the repetition of the same or similar compositions creates a certain distorted image. Nevertheless one can deduce 139 paintings with architectural elements from Jaffe’s catalog, which makes a share of 17.53% on a total oeuvre of 793 paintings.19 In her book Rubens: Scenes from history, published in the Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard series, Elisabeth McGrath already pointed out the causal connection between Rubens’s production of paintings and his purchasing pattern at the Officina Plantiniana of his dear friend Balthasar Moretus.20 Therefore it is not surprising that all relevant prints regarding architecture, like the editions of Vignola, Barbaro’s and Philanders comments on Vitruvius, Scamozzi, Francart and de Caus, were purchased during the period 1613–1620 and found their way into his extensive library.21 It can hardly be called a coincidence that in this same period the renovation of his own house and the building of the Jesuit Church were taking place, a fact that also Max Rooses could not fail to notice.22 Subject to some exceptions the existing literature mainly stresses the Italian sources of inspiration, unfortunately forgetting the actual treatises of architecture, although there are very obvious overlaps. The discovering that one out of six paintings contained architectural elements suggests at least that it was more than an ordinary caprice, but how they were spread in time and which he used can learn us at least as much. Although Anthony Blunt wasn’t able to find a distinct stylistic evolution in Rubens’s architectural designs, he did see an upward trend of the appearance of architecture in Rubens’s paintings upward of the late years of the second decennium. While claiming that this rising trend was probably inspired by Rubens’s cooperation on the decoration of the Jesuit Church, Blunt fails to substantiate these assertions mathematically.23 Numerical data to substantiate or contradict this hypothesis is until now unavailable. In the following we try to find out whether Rubens’s attitude towards architecture changed indeed during his long lasting career. Paintings Before starting with the chronological analysis of the use of architectural elements throughout Rubens’s oeuvre it is necessary to create a contemporary time frame. Although the four chosen time frames are obviously artificial, they clearly define an indicative part of Rubens’s life. The first one contains Rubens’s earliest works, his journey to Italy. This comes to an end when in 1608 he returned hastily to Antwerp. During the following fourteen years his career expanded enormously and with the acquisition of the commissions for the series of Marie de Medici and the ceiling decoration of the Jesuit Church, his international fame only increased.24 In view of the above mentioned hypothesis, the year 1621, is the next   To achieve these figures, we selected all completed paintings from Jaffé’s Catalogo completo. Oil sketches, designs for title pages, designs for various tapestries, the Pompa Introïtus and the paintings of the Torre de la Parada who were not by his hand, we left out of the counting of his total oeuvre. Some recently discovered works, like the Massacre of the Innocents (Toronto) and Bathseba at the fountain were added as well as the painted ceilings of the Jesuit Church, who were destroyed by fire. As for the paintings containing architectural elements, we wielded a clear criterion. A base or shaft of a column has to be visible at least, so staircases or pilasters are not included. 19

For the same reasons we did not record any case of doubt. In this way the figures with which we work are an absolute minimum. 20   E. McGrath, Rubens subjects from history, (Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, Vol. 13, part I), 2 vols., (London 1997), vol.1, pp. 60–67. 21  F. Baudouin, ‘Rubens and his books’, l.c., 2002, p. 239. 22   M. Rooses, Rubens’ Leven en Werken, (Amsterdam – Antwerp – Ghent 1903), p. 140. 23   A. Blunt, l.c., 1977, p. 621. 24  J. Vander Auwera and B. Schepers, l.c., 2007, p. 214.

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Carolien De Staelen Table 1: Paintings with architectural elements per time frame Period I (until 1608) II (1609–1621) III (1622–1633) IV (1634–1640) TOTAL

Absolute number of ­paintings with ­architectural elements (‘A’)  11  48  48  32 139

Percent distribution of paintings with ‘A’ per time frame 7.92 34.53 34.53 23.02

100.00%

Source: Unpublished database ‘Rubens as architect’

Table 2: Periodic ratio of paintings of his total oeuvre with respect to the paintings with ‘A’ elements Total oeuvre Period

Percentage/ period

Paintings with ­architectural elements Absolute Percentage number of paintings paintings  11 15.71%

I (until 1608)

Absolute ­number/ period  70

II (1609–1621) III (1622–1633)

391 196

49.31% 24.72%

 48   48

12.27% 24.49%

IV (1634–1640)

136

17.15%

  32

23.53%

TOTAL

793

100.00%

139

8.82%

Source: Unpublished database ‘Rubens as architect’ benchmark with the completion of the Jesuit Church but gets even a stronger dimension with the ending of the Twelve Years Truce and the death of the archduke Albrecht. The third period takes off with the publication of Rubens’s only book Palazzo di Genova in the spring off 1622.25 After her husband deceased, archduchess Isabella repeatedly made an appeal on Rubens’s diplomatic services. At the same time her own death in 1633 meant the end of this parallel career and forms the last milestone in our time frame. From 1634 on the fifty-yearold chose a more quiet existence with his new wife and during these years he bought the magnificent estate ‘het Steen’. The fourth and last period at last ends with Rubens’s death in 1640.26 As soon as one looks at the periodical spread of the 139 paintings with architectural elements, one notices that period II and III are being well matched as far as the absolute numbers are concerned. Although Rubens, during his stay in Italy, found himself in the

  P. Lombaerde, ‘The Significance of the Two Volumes of Rubens’s Palazzi di Genova’, in: P. Lombaerde (ed.), o.c., 2002, pp. 52–53. 25

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 S. Van Sprang, ‘Rubens en Brussel, een meer dan hoffelijke relatie’, in: Rubens- een genie aan het werk. Rondom de Rubenswerken in de Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten België, (Tielt 2007), p. 16. 26

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Architect?

Table 3: Absolute number of paintings with architectural elements /category Category

Mythological Religious Allegorical Historical Landscape Portrait

Total

Absolute   24

% 17.27%

  67

48.20%

  8

5.76%

 14   2   24 139

10.07% 1.43% 17.27%

100.00%

Source: Unpublished database ‘Rubens as architect’

Table 4: Categorical division of Rubens’s total painting oeuvre Category

Mythological Religious Allegorical Historical Landscape Portrait Miscellaneous27 Total

Absolute 150

% 18.92

310

39.09

 16

2.02

 38  39 195  45 793

4.79 4.92 24.59 5.67

100.00%

Source: Unpublished database ‘Rubens as architect’ middle of the actual buildings, architecture did not make an essential part of his early compositions which mostly stayed restricted to portraits and some religious themes. On the other hand, the paintings dating from his late career contained 23% of the total production, a percentage that equals their percentage compared to Rubens’s total production in that same period. These figures sharply contrast when we make a similar comparison for the other time frames. In period III architectural elements were incorporated in one out of four compositions and although the absolute number of paintings in period III was identical, the gigantic total production during this period is responsible for the remaining percentage of 12%. 27 When we look closer at the thematic classification of the paintings, a clear t­endency becomes visible, as the religious works with 48% of the total number of paintings with architectural elements clearly distinguishes themselves from the other thematic ­categories. Mythical scenes and portraits share the second place with only 17.27%, the historical scenes (10.07%), allegorical (5.76%) and the landscapes (1.43%) close the thematic grade. Therefore they follow the identical trend which can be found in table 4 concerning Rubens’s total  The category ‘miscellaneous’ contains hunting scenes and all other paintings which didn’t fit in the other thematic categories. 27

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Carolien De Staelen oeuvre. Although the percentages that can be found in Rubens’s total oeuvre are less defined in contrast with the works with architectural elements, it concerns the same three categories. A confrontation of the different mediums: conclusions All things considered Rubens used a specially adapted form- language depending on the medium for which he designed. Paintings, tapestries, title pages, the Pompa Introitus, they all are characterized by a specific use of certain architectural elements. The oil sketches, on the other hand, don’t present specific characteristics, what’s due to the fact that their concept can’t be considered as a delineated entity. Since they contain all the preparatory designs, the influences of the specific other media regularly intertwine. This mishmash makes it impossible to formulate specific conclusions regarding the use of architectural elements in the oil sketches. Table 5 summarizes the entire analysis and illustrates how the other media are characterized by a clearly delineated architectural use. Naturally this does not exclude any overlaps. At the time the base structure of buildings almost always contained Roman arches and barrel vaults so that one can’t assume a specific meaning after their numeric amount. The absence of barrel vaults in the compositions of tapestries and the low frequency of both the arch as the barrel vault in compositions of title pages however, is meaningful as regards the used architectural elements for this medium. Title pages indeed, showed very delineated compositions and offered less place for these elements. Moreover the table also visualizes very remarkable differences in frequency. In comparison with the other media, the paintings show the most varied architectural use. The different types of columns, the rusticated pilaster, the geniculated arch, rustica, Rubens’s portico and garden pavilion, the arch and the barrel vault, the pediments, the serliana motif, temple buildings, they are all prominently present in the compositions of the paintings. For the tapestries, title pages and Pompa Introitus, Rubens drew from a much smaller corpus of elements, which therefore presents much more distinguishable characteristics. On the tapestries we can see the Tuscan and twisted columns, the caryatids and temple buildings emerge as dominant elements, while the title pages in that respect are much more restricted and the dominant elements are limited to the caryatids, the curved pediment and Michelangelo’s pedestal. The arches and stages from the Pompa Introitus are also characterized by caryatids, combined with Doric columns, geniculated arches, arches and barrel vaults. The three latter media have different overlaps, yet at the same time they are also quite different in nature because of the various arrangements for implementing the individual elements. Furthermore, they also excel by using caryatids and the pedestal of Michelangelo, exactly just the two elements which found only an exceptionally application on the paintings. This pedestal designed by Michelangelo is also the only tangible element which made its way to Rubens’s paper designs. The portico and garden pavilion on the other hand appeared only on the paintings and corresponding oil sketches. In some cases there seems to exist a correlation between the use of certain elements and the subject category of the work in question. That the various manifestations of the combination of the pediment and the arch or Rubens’s invention of the rusticated pilaster and the geniculated arch mainly dominated in religious subjects, is admittedly indicative, but because of the dominance of religious works in Rubens’s oeuvre this isn’t very surprising. However, the frequent serliana motif is completely absent in that popular subject category. All the more so, since there were several examples of serliana applications on religious architecture in Italy, for instance the Chigichapel designed by Raphael or the serlian windows of the Roman goldsmiths church Sant’Eligio degli Orefici at the Via Giulia. Possibly a mentality shift is the base for this evolution, since the above mentioned examples can be dated very early in time.

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Table 5: Summary of the frequency of architectural elements per examined medium Paintings

Oil sketches

Tapestries

Title pages

Pompa Introitus

Doric/Tuscan column

XX

XX

XX

X

XX

Modern Ionic column Corinthian column Composite column Twisted column

x

X

x

X

x

XX

XX

-

X

x

x

X

x

-

x

XX

XX

XX

X

Caryatids

x

XX

XX

XX

Rusticated pilaster XX

XX

-

-

Geniculated arch

XX

XX

-

X

Rustica

XX

XX

XX

XX

Rubens’s portico

x

X

-

-

Rubens’s garden pavilion Arch

X

X

-

-

x XX x XX x -

XX

XX

XX

X

Barrel vault

XX

XX

-

X

Michelangelo’s pedestal Pediment

x

X

-

XX

XX

XX

x

-

Curved pediment

-

-

x

XX

Serliana

XX

XX

-

-

Temple buildings

XX

XX

XX

X

Segmental Arch

-

-

-

X

Dome

XX

XX

-

-

Half dome

-

-

-

-

Combination pediment-arch

X

X

-

-

XX XX XX XX x x x

Legend: XX = broad frequency; x = moderate to small frequency Source: Unpublished database ‘Rubens as architect’ Later on, the serliana motif increasingly starts to appear in garden facades or garden architecture, as can be seen in Rubens’s own garden pavilion.28 Probably Rubens thought this  B. Uppenkamp and B. Van Beneden, ‘La vera simmetria’, in: B. Uppenkamp, B. Van Beneden and P. Lombaerde, o.c., 2011, pp. 68–71. 28

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Carolien De Staelen motif to be too frivolous for the triumphant message the religious paintings were radiating. Nevertheless the serliana motif on the tower of the Jesuit Church illustrates that the motive was indeed used in seventeenth-century Southern Netherlandish religious architecture. For some authors, the presence of this motif is a convincing argument for Rubens’s involvement in the design.29 The same link between garden architecture and frivolity applies on the use of caryatids. They only appear exceptionally on paintings and when they do, the caryatids are virtually invisible. Their application in the Pompa Introitus, the tapestries and the title pages are, as already mentioned, legion. The nature of the assignment is also linked with the use of certain architectural elements. Large commissions, regardless the used medium, such as the series for Maria de Medici, the Pompa Introitus and the series of tapestries are characterized by a much more exuberant architectural use in contrast with the ordinary paintings or prints. To what extent the client mixed therein is difficult to detect. The preserved contract between the painter and Maria de Medici postulated that the queen could reject or ask customization of paintings at any time, but whether this also involved the interpretation of the background, is very doubtful. At any way the contract does not specify this.30 Also regarding the use of the architectural elements spreaded over the four selected periods, the analysis revealed interesting findings. The use of the different columns was evidently subjected to an evolution with a clear shift from the elegant Corinthian column during the first three periods to the strong Doric/Tuscan column in period IV. Despite the overwhelming preponderance of the total number of paintings in period II, the emphasis for the most relevant elements could be found in period III and IV, such as for the serliana and the pediments. Therefore Anthony Blunt was correct assuming that the use of architectural elements in Rubens’s works increased with his age. Yet, not all architectural elements dominated in these periods. Temple buildings had a numeric overweight in period II, while the rusticated pilaster and the geniculated arch were definitely the most stable elements. From their first appearance in the middle of period II (1614) their presence was spread equally over the remaining periods. It is possible that the persistence of this motif can be attributed to Rubens’s own invention or in other words a unique composite motif that reflects his own portico. On the other hand, this general conclusion does not apply for the title pages, since the most important architectural designs with gates or portal compositions appeared very early in his career and dominated in period II. Significance of architecture For Rubens, the medium of the oil sketch was a modus operandi that worked perfectly. Thanks to these sketches he was able to judge the impact of figures on the composition, the surrounding context and the use of color. Therefore the comparison of the oil sketches to the finished product was a very thankful exercise, concluding that Rubens regularly opted to omit certain elements and figures or to resize images in function of the compositional balance. In that way, changes or pentimenti reward us with a glance at Rubens’s creative process.31 After an extended analysis of the emerging elements in Rubens’s oeuvre, we will consider in this paragraph the role of the architectural elements in these compositions. Are these indeed

 F. Baudouin, ‘Peter Paul Rubens and the Notion ‘Painter-Architect’, l.c., 2002, p. 16. 30  J. Guerreau, ‘Les contrats passés entre Rubens et Marie de Médicis concernant les deux galeries du Luxembourg’, Rubens-bulletijn. 5, 1910, pp. 216–20. 29

246

 J. Held, The Oil Sketches of Peter Paul Rubens. A Critical Catalogue, 2 vols., (Princeton – New Jersey 1980), vol.1, p.4. 31

Rubens: The Ingenious Master

2. P.P. Rubens, Ignatius of Loyola, Oil sketch, 1616–17. (Vienna, Gemäldegalerie, Kunsthistorisches Museum).

as an

Architect?

3. P.P. Rubens, Ignatius of Loyola, Painting, 1618. (Vienna, Gemäldegalerie, Kunsthistorisches Museum).

always the first elements to appear or did Rubens systematically add them afterwards in function of the composition? In his catalog of oil sketches, Julius Held wrote that Rubens always started with the largest and most prominent figures, while the more isolated characters, the sky and the landscape elements, were added later on. As an exception on the rule he did distinguish compositions that were surrounded with what he called ‘framing elements’. Since they defined the scene in which the story took place, Rubens started with this framework.32 On the other hand, in his Ph.D thesis Fredlund clearly felt that in Rubens’s paintings architecture was subordinate to the figurative composition. He derived this conclusion from the lack of architectural elements on Rubens compositional drawings. Here only the figures emerged and played a dominant role.33 By means of several examples he also showed that architecture in Rubens’s work was not necessarily creating depth nor was placed in a linear perspective. Instead the architecture was always improving the composition of the figures.34 Again the above mentioned changes between the composition of the modello and the final painting of the Miracle of Saint Ignatius of Loyola show this perfectly. Fredlund was even able to detect signs of an earlier version. A comparison of the three different stages shows very clearly that although the protagonist remains the same, Rubens changed the spatial effect of the composition only by playing with the architectural elements (figs. 2, 3). In the final painting the   Ibid., p. 10.   B. Fredlund, o.c., 1974, p.192.

32

  Ibid., p.187.

34

33

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Carolien De Staelen architecture offers a framework of horizontal and vertical lines which only intensified the concentrated and determined attitude of the main character.35 Yet, some drawings are preserved which incorporated architecture right from the start. The Garden of Love and the Martyrdom of St Stephen show this undeniably. Two versions of drawings with The Garden of Love as subject show how the combination of both resulted into the famous final canvas (figs. 4, 5). Although the architectural elements on The Garden of Love underwent quite some changes between the 4. P.P. Rubens, The Garden of Love, drawing, 1632–34. stadium of drawing and painting, the other (Fletcher Fund). work showed more linearity. The unique temple building with dome on the Triptych of St Stephen was already prominently present on the drawing, but showed more details in the final version (fig. 6). Two more examples show again that both deletions as additions of architectural elements were possible in a later stage. For instance, the architectural background of The Miracle of St Francis of Paola underwent some small changes. On the bozzetto we can see on the leftside a column without capital next to a portal, while the saint is rising from a raised stage. The modello, on the other hand, is already characterized by another cut of the composition, enabling the artist to emphasize on length, while a second, smaller stage was added to the left. 5. P.P. Rubens, The Garden of Love, oil ­painting, c.1633. On the second modello Rubens replaced the (Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado). main stage by a bridge and he added an arch to enhance the depth of the composition (fig. 7). On the left side of the main character the viewer now perceives three columns instead of two, while they also received a detailed finish. Some compositions, like the one of the Triptych of St Ildefonso underwent a retrenchment (fig. 8). The massive round building in the background of the modello was in the final version replaced by a portal. Despite the sometimes overwhelming architecture in Rubens’s compositions, she actually is less important than one might initially believe. In the cases examined, Rubens always gave priority to the composition, so despite his obvious love for the subject and its frequent use throughout his oeuvre, architecture always occupied a subordinate role. If architectural elements did not fit into a composition, they were invariably modified in favor of an optimal image. On the other hand Rubens had learnt the important lesson that he could convey a more veiled message through the use of architectural elements or ornamentation. In his treatise, Serlio was very clear about the meaning and method of application of the different   Ibid., p.185.

35

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Rubens: The Ingenious Master

6. P.P. Rubens, The Martyrdom of St Stephen, (1616–17). (Valencienne, Musée des Beaux-Arts).

as an

Architect?

7. P.P. Rubens, The Miracle of St Francis of Paola, Modello 2. (Winchcombe, Sudeley Castle).

orders, but things could even be more subtle. During the Middle Ages a column already figured as an attribute of authority and power, but it is Titian’s merit to link certain persons to a clearly defined emblematic role. Thanks to its ‘strength’, ‘polish’ and ‘heigth’ characteristics he could communicate the essential qualities of the portrayed nobleman to the spectator. The frequent appearance of the column in numerous portraits of the seventeenth-century European aristocracy is therefore due to Titian’s expressive use of the column.36 The many portraits in Rubens’s oeuvre with pedestals against the background illustrate this influence and show how the columns add value to the dominant portraits. Rubens and the Italian and Southern Low Countries’s treatises of architecture With his huge and famous library Rubens honored the title of pictor doctus. Among his erudite contemporaries he was therefore regarded as the expert in for instance the area of classical iconography. His correspondence shows that this was one on several themes for which one repeatedly asked him for advice.37 As a result of his interest, not

  J. Onians, Bearers of Meaning. The Classical Orders in Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, (Princeton 1988), p. 304. 36

  E. McGrath, o.c., 1997, vol.1, p. 59; J. Raeymaekers, ‘De herkenning van Philopoemen: Rubens en Justus Lipsius’, in: De Zeventiende Eeuw, 15 (1999), p. 200. 37

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Carolien De Staelen

8. P.P. Rubens, Triptych of St Ildefonso, (1630–31). (Vienna Kunsthistorisches Museum).

one of the leading architectural treatises from the sixteenth and seventeenth century was missing in his own personal collection. On his shelves one could find at least three different editions of Vitruvius: the Amsterdam edition of Serlio dating 1616 and the annotated versions by Barbaro and Philander.38 His purchase of L’idea della architettura universale by Vincenzo Scamozzi (1616) and the Premier livre d’architecture by Jacques Francart (1617) also traces back to the archives of Balthasar Moretus. Moreover, several important works were a part of the library of Rubens’s son Albert, who inherited a significant part of his father’s collection. Therefore, it is more than likely that Rubens owned Alberti’s De re aedificatoria, Palladio’s I quattro libri dell’architettura and Vignola’s Regola delli cinque ordine d’architettura supplemented with Michelangelo’s book with gates or at least knew the works from very closely.39 Rubens’s book ownership also reveals his deep interest in the subject and the aspect that we wish to highlight here is to what extent these treatises have influenced his work. By comparing elements from Rubens’s oeuvre with the most important treatises we want to examine whether a clear influence can be deduced from a certain book or author.

  Van de architecturen vyf boeken Sebastiani Serlii. Overgeset uyt d’Italiaensche in Nederduytsche sprake door Pieter Coecke van Aelst, Amsterdam, 1616; Vitruvius, De architectura libri decem cum commentariis Danielis Barbari.., (Venice 1567); Vitruvius, M. Vitruvii Pollionis de Architectura Libri 38

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Decem augustum, omnibus omnium editionibus longè emendatiores, collatis veteribus exemplis. Accesserunt, Guilielmi Philandri Castilionii, ciuis Romani annotationes .., (Lyon 1552). 39   P. Lombaerde, l.c., 2011, pp., 130–32.

Rubens: The Ingenious Master

as an

Architect?

Italy As architectural influence is concerned, Italy is always among the first countries to focus on. Anthony Blunt already compared different buildings from Italian cities and prints from for instance Montano as a possible source of inspiration for Rubens’s works.40 With ‘La vera simmetria. Italy as a model’ was dedicated an entire chapter to the theme in the catalog Palazzo Rubens.41 In this paragraph we will therefore not consider the Italian architectural realizations which he could have seen during his journey. On the contrary, we will look into the Italian treatises and their potential influence on Rubens’s work. A few of the most important books from Rubens’s library will be considered here with authors as Serlio, Barbaro, Philander, Vignola and Michelangelo. Serlio Serlio’s De Architectura, and consequently also the Dutch edition of Pieter Coecke van Aelst from 1616, may be called the first architectural model book. He furnished the book with plenty of prints and offered its readers a huge range of choices concerning ornaments, floors and variations on capitals and column bases. Applying dif9. Pieter Coecke van Aelst, Dat Vierde Boeck. Regelen der ferent kinds of decorative elements on differMetselryen op de vijf manieren van Edificien…, Amsterdam, ent orders was also a flexibility he permitted 1606, f°lic, v°: Composite order. on which Vignola however disagreed.42 Indeed, in his Regola Vignola, he tried to achieve a general rule with clearly defined proportions and decorations for each order.43 Some exceptional examples suggest that Rubens did not limited himself and applied decorations freely, tending himself regarding this aspect rather towards Serlio. On the Triumph of the Eucharist series he applied a decorative motif on the Tuscan columns that was obviously borrowed from Serlio’s decoration of a column base. Serlio, on the other hand, suggested this waved motif on the Composite order, while Barbaro applied it on an Ionic column (figs. 9, 10, 11, 12). In this case Rubens borrowed this motive literally, but exerted his artistic freedom by applying it on a different order!   A. Blunt, l.c., 1977, pp. 610–12.  B. Uppenkamp and B. Van Beneden, ‘La vera simmetria’, in: B. Uppenkamp, B. Van Beneden and P. Lombaerde, o.c., 2011, pp. 34–75. 42   F. Lemerle, ‘On Guillaume Philandrier: Forms and Norm’, in: V. Hart and P. Hicks (eds.), Paper Palaces: 40 41

the rise of the Renaissance architectural treatise, (New Haven – London, 1998), pp. 192–94. 43   R.J. Tuttle, ‘On Vignola’s rule of the five orders or architecture’, in: V. Hart and P. Hicks (eds.), Paper Palaces: the rise of the Renaissance architectural treatise, (New Haven – London, 1998), pp. 199–218.

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Carolien De Staelen

10. Daniele Barbaro, I dieci libri dell’architettura di M. Vitruvio…, Venice, 1567, Ionic order.

12. Detail column base of The adoration of the secular hierarchy.   P. Lombaerde, l.c., 2011, pp. 128–29.

44

252

11. P.P. Rubens, J. Raes, J. Fobert and H. Vervoert, The adoration of the secular hierarchy, tapestry, 1628. (Madrid, Convent of the Descalzas Reales).

A similar derivation of a decorated pedestal base (to Serlio) can be found on the portrait of Pieter Pecquius. This Corinthian column base with meander motif however, did not appear in Serlio’s treatise, but was published as a solitary print in 1528 (fig. 13).44 The resemblance though is so striking that Rubens certainly must have known this print. Unfortunately, on this portrait of the Chancellor of Brabant, the capital of the column is not revealed to the viewer, making it impossible to determine whether in this specific case Rubens followed the column order suggested by Serlio. Serlio relied mainly on the preserved manuscript of Vitruvius, but besides some illustrations he also added thematic changes.

Rubens: The Ingenious Master

as an

Architect?

The Composite order, which he describes as ‘an almost fifth style, a blend of pure orders, the most extravagant of all architectural styles’, was missing in Vitruvius’ fourth book.45 This addition, however, remained a constant in all subsequent treatises as the emergence of the Composite capital in Rubens’s oeuvre, as seen on The Martyrdom of St Catharina (1615) and The Last Supper (1631–32). Besides the decorative motifs of the column bases Rubens also drew from Serlio’s book for some other decorative 13. Agostino Veneziano after Serlio, Corinthian column base elements. The woman’s torso with mulwith meander motif, 1528, engraving, 1528. (Wolfenbüttel, tiple breasts which Serlio applied on a Herzog August Bibliothek). Corinthian mantelpiece he reused in a background niche of the painting The Discovery of the child Erichthonius (1615) (figs. 14, 15).46 On the same chimney appear Greek sphinxes or in other words a woman’s head on a winged lion body. Rubens also processed these elements in his design for the Arcus AD.D. Michaelis, as well as the ball of fire which adorned the middle of the fireplace. Barbaro In terms of decorative motifs Barbaro’s influence on Rubens is hardly noteworthy, but more important was dissemination of his authentic message, which can be deduced from Rubens’s Palazzi di Genova.47 In imitation of Barbaro’s unique interpretation of the sciographia, Rubens applied the same systematic use of longitudinal and cross sections for buildings (fig. 16). This method distinguishes him from any other author, so we can postulate with certainty he gained this inspiration from Barbaro. Finally, yet one other image from Barbaro can be designated as a source of inspiration, but not necessarily in the architectural sense. After designing the triumphal arches and stages for the Joyous Entry of Ferdinand, Rubens got to work to design a triumphal chariot on the occasion of Ferdinands victory at the Battle of Kallo. The eponymous ‘chariot of Kallo’ that was also included in the Pompa Introitus has indeed striking similarities with a carriage on the last pages of Barbaro’s edition of Vitruvius (figs. 17, 18). Although Rubens’s chariot was longer, an extra horse was added and the female term on the backside was replaced by a male satyr term. We can see clear similarities in contrast to the other examples of chariots which were presented at the recent Rubens exhibition Rubens

 V. Hart and P. Hicks, ‘On Sebastiano Serlio: decorum and the art of architectural invention’, in: V. Hart and P. Hicks (eds.), Paper Palaces. The rise of the Renaissance architectural treatise, (New Haven – London 1998), p. 148. 46   Sebastiano Serlio. On Architecture. Vol.&. Books I-V, (trans. and ed. by V. Hart and P. Hicks), (New 45

Haven – London 1996), Book IV, 181 v°: Corinthian mantelpiece; P. Rubens, The Discovery of the child Erichthonius, (1615), Vaduz, Sammlungen des regierenden Fürsten von Liechtenstein. 47   P. Lombaerde, l.c., 2011, p.127.

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Carolien De Staelen examined – Triumph on wheels (fig. 19).48 With his design, Rubens clearly had this carriage in mind, but according to his own habit he adjusted the motif quite freely to his own taste or needs. Philander

14. Pieter Coecke van Aelst, Dat Vierde Boeck. Regelen der Metselryen op de vijf manieren van Edificien…, Amsterdam, 1606, f°lviii, r°: Corinthian mantlepiece.

  Rubens examined. Triumph on wheels. Sketch of the chariot of Kallo, Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp as a guest in Museum Rockoxhuis, Antwerp, 11.02.2012–13.05.2012. 48

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In 1544 Guillaume Philander published his notes on Vitruvius’ De Architectura. Being Serlio’s student his treatise therefore follows largely that of his teacher. Philander not only analyses the orders of columns in the same systematic way, but he also reproduces some specific details.49 Yet, there are some remarkable points where Philander clearly distinguishes himself. One of them is his significant contribution to the improvement of the Ionic volute. Alberti’s volute was characterized by two turns, while Serlio’s triple curl was more oval by it’s creation from semicircles. In contrast, Philander takes one of Dürers spirals as starting point and by the use of octants and the progressive spiral he realizes a perfect round shape! Moreover, his proportions of the orders also differed from earlier treatises. Although he held on to Serlio’s ratio’s of 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 for the Tuscan, Doric, Ionic and Composite columns, he did not apply these ratio’s only on the shafts instead on the entire column including base and capital.50 Unfortunately it’s ­impossible to verify these proportions on Rubens’s paintings. In most cases columns aren’t show in their entire length on his paintings and where it is actually the case a quick calculation shows that the decorative role of these columns always overrides the architectural accuracy. In the end Rubens’s paintings don’t learn us anything about whose rules of proportion he followed.

  F. Lemerle, l.c., 1998, p.186.   Ibid., p.192.

49 50

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Architect?

15. P.P. Rubens, The Discovery of the child Erichthonius, (1615). (Vaduz, Sammlungen des ­regierenden Fürsten von Liechtenstein).

16. Daniele Barbaro, I dieci libri dell’architettura di M. Vitruvio…, Venice, 1567, Libro Quarto, p.198–99: Tempio ritondo detto Peripteros.

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17. Daniele Barbaro, I dieci libri dell’architettura di M. Vitruvio…, Venice, 1567, Libro Decimo, p.470.

18. T. Van Thulden after P.P. Rubens, Chariot of Kallo, etching from: J.C. Gevartius, Pompa Introitus..., Antwerp, Jan van Meurs, 1641–42.

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Vignola Like Philander, Vignola also strove to a fixed rule of proportions and although both applied the same proportions for the Tuscan and Doric order, those of the Ionic, Corinthian and Composite order differ. Anyway, for the Doric columns of the portico in his garden, Rubens used the ratio of 1:8 which clearly shows that he followed Vignola’s modular system and distanced himself from Serlio’s 1:7 ratio.51 Again, a further examination of the paintings makes no sense because he gave preference to decoration instead of an accurate use of the proportions. Michelangelo  In fact, Nuova et ultima aggiunta delle porte d’architettura di Michel Angelo Buonarroti, does not count as a separate treatise. Michelangelo never published in his own name, but in Vignola’s Regola from 1582 one did attribute to him a separate book with gate designs. The most striking characteristic of Michelangelo’s work in Rubens’s paintings 19. P.P. Rubens, Oil sketch of the chariot of Kallo. (Antwerp, is most certainly the geniculated arch with KMSKA). chamfered corners as can be seen on the Porta Pia (fig. 20). Numerous variants of this distinctive element of Rubens’s own portico can be admired in Rubens’s paintings: Lot’s family fleeing from Sodom, The Garden of Love, The Statue of Ceres in a niche and St Ambrose receives emperor Theodose are only a few examples of Rubens’s applications (figs. 21, 22, 23). For the temple building in the painting The conclusion of the peace of Angers from the series of Maria de Medici, Anthony Blunt referred as a source of inspiration to an engraving of Montano (fig. 24).52 In this case however, the similarities are hard to find, what makes the entrance portal of the same temple much more interesting, since Rubens clearly derived this motive from Michelangelo. The gate of the Capitoline with its frame, the small protruding ornaments on the top and the volutes are almost copied identically (fig. 25). Rubens even retained the combination with the flanking Modern Ionic columns with festoons. Michelangelo also used these Modern Ionic columns for his design of the Palazzo dei Conservatori. The motive clearly impressed Rubens, since he applied it regularly on his works, like for instance on Bathseba at the fountain (fig. 26) and The Miracle of St Ignatius of Loyola.  F. Lemerle, l.c., 1998, p.196; B. Uppenkamp and B. Van Beneden, l.c., 2011, p. 65. 51

  A. Blunt, l.c., 1977, p. 613.

52

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20. Michelangelo, Nuova et ultima ­ aggiunta.., Siena, 1635, fig. XXXXI, Porta Pia.

21. P.P. Rubens, Statue of Ceres in a niche (1614). (St Petersburg, Hermitage).

22. P.P. Rubens, Lot’s family fleeing from Sodom, (1625). (Paris, Louvre).

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23. P.P. Rubens, St Ambrose receives emperor Theodose, (1616–17). (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum).

as an

Architect?

24. P.P. Rubens, The conclusion of the peace of Angers, (1622–25). (Paris, Louvre).

Also regarding the use of pediments Rubens kept a close eye on Michelangelo’s work. The curved pediments which repeatedly appeared in his designs for the Pompa Introitus, title pages and in his portico can also be admired at Michelangelo’s Porta Pia. Although it wasn’t published in the book of gates, Michelangelo also used a curved pediment in the vestibule of the Bibliotheca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence (fig. 27). On The Statue of Ceres in a niche we can see a strongly inspired variation on this theme. Southern Netherlands Despite his obvious love for Italy and Italian art, Rubens was above all a citizen of Antwerp and the Southern Netherlands. He received his basic training in Antwerp, so his work must certainly have been influenced by local styles. The first one to consider is Hans Vredeman de Vries. This designer-architect resided for a very long time in Antwerp and due to his model books and published prints he enjoyed a huge popularity during the sixteenth and early seventeenth century. Hans Vredeman de Vries During his career Hans Vredeman de Vries dedicated an entire publication by the name Caryatidum vulgus to variations on male and female terms and/or cariatydes (fig. 28).

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25. Michelangelo, Nuova et ultima ­aggiunta.., Siena, 1635, fig. XXXXII, Gate of the Capitoline.

26. P.P. Rubens, Bathseba at the fountain (1635). (Dresden, Gemäldegalerie).

The analysis already showed that Rubens also derived the caryatids with the twisted pedestal on the portrait of the Gerbier family from this work (fig. 29). This is even more remarkable since Italian treatises barely pay attention to caryatids. Barbaro was the only one who took the liberty to add an image of cariatyds in his book, while Rubens repeatedly used them in certain media, like the title pages and the Pompa Introitus. It seems that Rubens also borrowed another frequently occurring element from the designs of Vredeman de Vries. In his Perspective (1604–05) and Architectura (1606–07) we see a staircase with porch appear very similar to the one applied by Rubens on the left inner panel of The Descent from the Cross at the Antwerp Cathedral,53 but even so at the Bathseba at the fountain, The Miracle of St Frances of Paola and the altarpiece of St Roch (Aalst) (figs. 30, 31). Francart That other homegrown treatise Premier Livre d’architecture of Jacques Francart also seems to have been a meager source of inspiration. With an accumulation of elements this treatise clearly represents the typical baroque style and in that sense it relates closely to Rubens’s designs for the title pages and the Pompa Introitus, but real actual replications

 T. Fusenig and B. Vermet, ‘De invloed van Hans Vredeman de Vries op de schilderkunst’, in: H. Borggrefe, T. Fusenig and B. Uppenkamp 53

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(eds.), Tussen stadspaleizen en luchtkastelen. Hans Vredeman de Vries en de Renaissance, (Ghent – Amsterdam 2002), p. 176.

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Architect?

27. Michelangelo, Study for a door between the reading room and vestibule, Laurentian Library, Florence, 1519–59. (Florence, Casa Buonaroti, A 98).

28. Hans Vredeman de Vries, Caryatidum vulgus, Amsterdam, c.1565, plate 8: Male and female terms.

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29. P. Rubens, The Gerbier Family, (1630). (Washington DC, National Gallery of Art).

30. Hans Vredeman de Vries, Perspective, Leiden, (1604–05), Part II, plate 9.

are rare. Francart also regularly applies (broken) curved pediments and one of his gates is also decorated with a festoon, as is the case in the front of the Arcus Philippei in the Pompa Introitus. On the other hand, Francart also gives examples for medaillions, which

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31. P.P. Rubens, The Descent from the Cross, (1612–14). (Antwerp, Cathedral of Our Lady).

he incorporated in his own gates. Similar medallions reflect in Rubens’s designs for the title pages, but exact copies could not be found. Conclusion In his article dating from 1934 Plantenga wasn’t that mistaken when he stated that Rubens indeed was not an architect in the literally meaning of the word.54 Although he conducted the renovation of his own house and one suspects that he was closely involved with the design of the Jesuit Church in Antwerp, these realizations do not make him a thoroughbred architect. That he was passionate about the topic and especially about the ornamental aspect of architecture, however, should be clear. The numerous applications in his oeuvre and the various treatises of architecture in his extensive library, speak volumes on that area. The analysis shows indeed that he not only regularly consulted these treatises but also applied their content, because when there is one title Rubens definitely deserved, is surely that of master of the invention. Like no other he could create innovations with existing elements, which he in the style of Michelangelo picked up from different contexts and transformed them into a whole new motive, whereby his extensive knowledge on various topics gratefully came in handy. The two Southern-Netherlandish and five Italian treatises clearly show that Rubens did not focus on one certain treatise or author. Moreover, Rubens was not only aware of the content of these works, such as the application of Barbaro’s sciographia in his Palazzi di Genova and Vignola’s rule of proportion prove, he also looked for and found decorative inspiration in for instance Serlio’s model book or the prints of Hans Vredeman de Vries. Throughout this analysis Rubens revealed himself to be a true chameleon who   J.H. Plantenga, l.c., 1934, p.8.

54

263

Carolien De Staelen perfectly handled different styles depending on the medium he was designing for. The title pages, the stages and arches for the Pompa Introitus and the tapestries were surely characterized by a whole different set of architectural elements than the paintings. That these architectural elements indeed were more frequently used in the period after the completion of the realizations in brick, was already pointed out by Anthony Blunt, but could indeed be proven through this extensive analysis. The only exception on this rule was the medium of the title pages, whose most impressive designs coincided with Rubens’s architectural exploits. By following the evolution from drawing, bozetto, modello to the final painting, we finally learned that architectural elements repeatedly underwent changes or even were replaced if they did not fit into the context or needs of the composition. Architecture was, in other words, not the determining factor, but was an interesting means to achieve the ultimate goal, which was creating the perfect composition for that specific scene. This appears all the more from the incorrect application of the proportion of the columns. Although Rubens was perfectly aware of Vignola’s rule of proportions and he applied it during the construction of his portico, he disregarded them when it concerned his paintings. This also proves that Rubens considered these architectural elements merely as a decorative element, wherein the decorative role always prevailed over the architectural accuracy. Despite his love for architecture the heart of the painter always dominated that of the architect. We may wonder if Rubens as an architectural fanatic was unique? His free dealing with the theme and his unique creations were certainly to his own genius, but in se he was also part of a deep-rooted tradition. Ever since the breakthrough of the renaissance painting in the Southern Netherlands at the beginning of the sixteenth century, many leading painters such as Jan Gossaert known as Mabuse improvised with architectural backgrounds. An extremely flourishing genre with interior church views even originated in the Low Countries, in which the Neeffs generation excelled.

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Introduction (Piet Lombaerde) Fig. 1: Hendrick Hondius, Portrait of Hans Vredeman de Vries, c. 1610. (From: Henricus Hondius, Pictorum Aliquot Celebrium Praecipuae Germaniae Inferiores Effigies, The Hague: Henricus Hondius, 1610). Fig. 2: Portrait of Giorgio Vasari as a painter and an architect. (From: Delle Vite de’ piu eccellenti pittori, scuttori et architetti di Giorgio Vasari, Bologna: Per gli Eredi del Dozza, 1647, vol. 2, p. 376). Fig. 3: Hiëronymus Wierix, portrait of Pieter Coecke van Aelst, 1572. (From: D. Lampsonius, Pictorum aliquot celebrium e germaniae inferioris effigies, Antwerp: apud viduam Hieronymus Cock, 1572). Fig. 4: Portrait of Michelangelo as a painter, a sculptor and an architect. (From: Delle Vite de’ piu eccellenti pittori, scuttori et architetti di Giorgio Vasari, Bologna: Per gli Eredi del Dozza, 1647, vol. 2, p. 13). Fig. 5: Unknown artist, perspective view on a square with fountain, fresco in the Teatro all’antica in Sabbioneta, c. 1590. (Photo by the author). Fig. 6: Lucas Vorsterman after Anthony Van Dyck, portrait of Wenceslas Cobergher, copper engraving, c. 1680. Fig. 7: Façade of the house of Giulio Romana in Mantua, 1540–44. (Photo by the author). Fig. 8: Interior of the house of Vasari in Arezzo, Sala del Camino, 1547. Fig. 9: Unknown artist, sketches for the portico of the Rubens House. These variations on the central arch are possibly copies of drawings by P.P. Rubens. (Russia, St Petersburg, Hermitage Library, n°14741). Fig. 10: Anonymous artist (after P.P. Rubens’s sketchbook, formerly attributed to Anthony van Dyck), the Ionic order, c. 1613–1650. (Chatsworth, The Devonshire Collection). Fig. 11: Hiëronymus Wiericx, portrait of Lambert Lombard as a painter and an architect. (From: D. Lampsonius, Pictorum aliquot celebrium e germaniae inferioris effigies, Antwerp, 1572). Fig. 12: Portrait of Baldassarre Peruzzi as a painter and an architect. (From: Delle Vite de’ piu eccellenti pittori, scuttori et architetti di Giorgio Vasari, Bologna: Per gli Eredi del Dozza, 1647, vol. 1, p. 143). Fig. 13: Portrait of Raphael as a painter and an architect. (From: Delle Vite de’ piu eccellenti pittori, ­scuttori et architetti di Giorgio Vasari, Bologna: Per gli Eredi del Dozza, 1647, vol. 1, p. 71). Fig. 14: Anonymous, Portrait of the Durch artist Pieter Saenredam, c. 1650. Allegories of Architecture, Painting and Drawing illustrate his status as Painter-Architect. (Koog aan de Zaan, Gemeentearchief Zaanstad).

Painter-architects in Ialy during the Quattrocento and Cinquecento (Howard Burns) Fig. 1: Raphael, Marriage of the Virgin, 1504. (Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera). Fig. 2: Baldassare Peruzzi, Presentation in the Temple, c. 1518. (Rome, Santa Maria della Pace). Fig. 3: Giotto, Life of St John the Baptist, The Feast of Herod, 1320. (Florence, Church of Santa Croce, Peruzzi Chapel). Fig. 4: Anonymous, ‘La città ideale’, end fifteenth century (Urbino, Palazzo Ducale). Fig. 5: Jacopo Bellini, Flagellation of Christ inside a Venetian palace, c. 1450. (Paris, Musée du Louvre). Fig. 6: Giorgio Vasari, the courtyard between the Uffizi’s two wings, Florence, 1560–81.

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Fig. 7: View on the dome of the Santa Maria del Fiore, the cathedral of Florence, designed about 1418 by Filippo Brunelleschi. Fig. 8: Giuliano da Sangallo, wooden model of Palazzo Strozzi, 1485. (Florence, Casa Buonarotti).

Die universale Zeichnung („disegno“) des Künstlers und/versus die „graphidis ­scientia“ des Architekten (Werner Oechslin) Fig. 1: Daniele Barbaro, I Dieci Libri Dell’Architettura Di M. Vitruvio Tradutti Et Commentati Da Monsignor Barbaro Eletto Patriarca D’Aquileggia. Venedig, Francesco Marcolini, 1556. Titelblatt. Fig. 2: Vincenzo Scamozzi, Dell’ Idea della architettura universale. Venedig, Giorgio Valentino, 1615. Titelblatt. Fig. 3: Giovanni Battista Armenini, De’ Veri Precetti Della Pittura. Venedig, Francesco Salerni, 1678, Titelblatt. Fig. 4: Romano Alberti, Trattato Della Nobilita Della Pittura. Composta Ad Instantia Della Venerabil’ Compagnia Di S. Luca, Et Nobil’ Academia Delli Pittori Di Roma. Rom, Francesco Zannetti, 1585. Titelblatt. Fig. 5: Sehpyramide und Schnitt- / Projektionsfläche. In: Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola, Le Due Regole Della Prospettiva Pratica. Con i comentarij del R.P.M. Egnatio Danti dell’ordine de Predicatori. Matematico dello Studio di Bologna. Rom Francesco Zannetti, 1583. S. 13. Fig. 6: Illustration zur Erläuterung der Perspektive. In: Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola, Le Due Regole Della Prospettiva Pratica. Con i comentarij del R.P.M. Egnatio Danti dell’ordine de Predicatori. Matematico dello Studio di Bologna. Rom Francesco Zannetti, 1583. S. 55. Fig. 7: Roberto Bellarmin, Dichiarazione della dottrina cristiana composta per ordine di N.S. Papa Clemente VIII. Lucca, Marescandoli, [o.D.]. Titelblatt. Fig. 8: Antonio Possevino, Bibliotheca Selecta De Ratione Studiorum. Ad Disciplinas, & ad Salutem omnium gentium procurandam. Recognita Novissime Ab Eodem, Et Aucta, & in duos Tomos distributa. Köln, Johann Gymnich, 1607. Titelblatt in Form eines Altaraufbaus mit der Ansicht der Stadt Köln und den Allegorien der sieben freien Künste. Fig. 9: Antonio Possevino, Coltura de gli’ingegeni. Vicenza, Giorgio Greco, 1598. Titelblatt. Fig. 10: Franciscus Junius, The Painting Of The Ancients in three Books: Declaring by Historicall Oberservations and Examples, The Beginning, Progresse, And Consummation of that most Noble Art. … Written first in Latine … And now by Him Englished, with some Additions and Alterations. London, Richard Hodgkinsonne, 1638. Titelblatt. Fig. 11: Franciscus Junius, De Pictura Veterum Libri Tres. Rotterdam, Reinier Leers, 1694. Titelblatt. Fig. 12: Die in der Antike blühenden Künste. Frontispiz, Kupferstich, gez. von Adriaen van der Werff, gest. von Joseph Mulder, in: Franciscus Junius, De Pictura Veterum Libri Tres. Rotterdam, Reinier Leers, 1694. Fig. 13: Nicolas Caussin, Polyhistor Symbolicus. Electorum Symbolorum, Et Parabolarum Historicarum stromata, XII. Libris complectens. Paris, Simeon Piget, 1647. Titelblatt. Fig. 14: Einladungskarte der römischen Academia di San Luca zu einem Treffen am 11. November 1832 mit dem Motto der Akademie. Dargestellt ist zusammengefasst durch einen “Ouroboros” Zirkel, Pinsel und Meissel, die Symbole der drei Künste, die unter dem Motto der “Aequa Potestas” unter den “disegno” gestellt sind. Kupferstich. Fig. 15: Emblem zu „Stetit in medio“ mit dem Zirkel. Kupferstich in: Heinrich Engelgrave, Lux Evangelica sub velum Sacrorum Emblematum recondita in Anni Dominicas Selecta Historia & Moralia Doctrina Variè Adumbrata. Köln, Jacob von Meurs, 1655. Emblem 23, S. 299. Fig. 16: Giuseppe Ghezzi, Le Belle Arti Con La Poesia. Per L’Accademia Del Disegno Celebrata in Campidoglio il dì 6. Maggio 1706. … Relazione. Rom, Gaetano Zenobi, [1706]. Titelblatt mit dem Motto der Akademie.

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Fig. 17: Chronos, die Musen, Minerva und Merkur führen das Bildnis des als Erneuerer der Künste gefeierten Papst Clemens XI zum Himmel. Kupferstich, gez. von Giuseppe Ghezzi, gest. von Giovanni Girolamo Frezza. Frontispiz zu: Giuseppe Ghezzi, Le Belle Arti Con La Poesia. Per L’Accademia Del Disegno Celebrata in Campidoglio il dì 6. Maggio 1706. … Relazione. Rom, Gaetano Zenobi, [1706]. Fig. 18: Vignette mit Malwerkzeugen und Palette sowie dem Auge des Betrachters darüber. In: Giuseppe Ghezzi, Le Belle Arti Con La Poesia. Per L’Accademia Del Disegno Celebrata in Campidoglio il dì 6. Maggio 1706. … Relazione. Rom, Gaetano Zenobi, [1706]. S. 21. Fig. 19: Giuseppe Ghezzi, L’Utile Nelle Belle Arti Riconosciuto Nel Campidoglio Per L’Accademia Del Disegno Solennizata il dì 5. Maggio 1707. … Relazione. Rom, Gaetano Zenobi, [1707]. Titelblatt mit dem Motto der Akademie. Fig. 20: Emblem des Disegno – Feder und Pinsel – im Lorbeerkranz. In: Giuseppe Ghezzi, L’Utile Nelle Belle Arti Riconosciuto Nel Campidoglio Per L’Accademia Del Disegno Solennizata il dì 5. Maggio 1707. … Relazione. Rom, Gaetano Zenobi, [1707]. S. 51. Fig. 21: Julius Caesar Scaliger, Poetices libri septem. [Genf], Pierre d Saint-André, 1594. Titelblatt. Fig. 22: Peter Paul Rubens, Théorie De La Figure Humaine, Considérée Dans Ses Principes, Soit En Repos Ou En Mouvement. Ouvrage traduit du latin …, avec XLIV Planches gravées par Pierre Aveline, d’après les desseins de ce célebre Artiste. Paris, Charles-Antoine Jombert, 1773. Erste Textseite mit Vignette. Kupferstich, gez. von Charles Nicolas Cochin, gest. von Charles Baquoy. Fig. 23: Peter Paul Rubens, Théorie De La Figure Humaine, Considérée Dans Ses Principes, Soit En Repos Ou En Mouvement. Ouvrage traduit du latin …, avec XLIV Planches gravées par Pierre Aveline, d’après les desseins de ce célebre Artiste. Paris, Charles-Antoine Jombert, 1773. Titelblatt und Frontispiz mit Portrait und Lebensbeschreibung von Rubens. Kupferstich, nach Peter Paul Rubens, gest. von Pierre Aveline. Fig. 24: Ableitung eines Kopfes aus geometrischen Grundformen. Kupferstich, nach Rubens, gest. von Pierre Aveline, in: Peter Paul Rubens, Théorie De La Figure Humaine, Considérée Dans Ses Principes, Soit En Repos Ou En Mouvement. Ouvrage traduit du latin …, avec XLIV Planches gravées par Pierre Aveline, d’après les desseins de ce célebre Artiste. Paris, Charles-Antoine Jombert, 1773. Tafel 6. Fig. 25: Afbeeldinghe van d’Eerste Eeuwe der Societeit Iesu voor Ooghen gestelt door de DuytsNederlantsche Provincie der selver Societeyt. Antwerpen, Plantinsche Druckerei, 1640. Titelblatt. Kupferstich, gez. von Abraham van Diepenbeek. Fig. 26: Emblem zur Erziehung der Jugend mit der Darstellung eines Bildhauerateliers. Kupferstich, gez. von Abraham van Diepenbeek, in: Afbeeldinghe van d’Eerste Eeuwe der Societeit Iesu voor Ooghen gestelt door de Duyts-Nederlantsche Provincie der selver Societeyt. Antwerpen, Plantinsche Druckerei, 1640. S. 282. Fig. 27: Emblem mit der Darstellung von drei Putten, die die Flammen von drei Fackeln zu einem Licht vereinigen. Kupferstich, gez. von Abraham van Diebenbeek, in: Afbeeldinghe van d’Eerste Eeuwe der Societeit Iesu voor Ooghen gestelt door de Duyts-Nederlantsche Provincie der selver Societeyt. Antwerpen, Plantinsche Druckerei, 1640. S. 286.

Sebastiano Serlio as a painter-architect (Sabine Frommel) Fig. 1: Sebastiano Serlio (?), Theatre Scenography. (Ferrara, Pinacoteca Nazionale, inv. 405) . Fig. 2: Sebastiano Serlio (?), Theatre Scenography. (Ferrara, Pinacoteca Nazionale, inv. 406) . Fig. 3: Fra Damiano da Bergamo (according to Sebastiano Serlio), Martyrdom of St Catherine, (tarsia), (Bologna, San Domenico). Fig. 4: Sebastiano Serlio, Prospettiva Architettonica. (Florence, GDSU, 12230A). Fig. 5: Sebastiano Serlio (?), Adoration of the Magi. (Cesena, Fondazione di Cassa di Risparmio). Fig. 6: Baldassarre Peruzzi, Adoration of the Magi. (British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings, inv.19945-14-49).

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Fig. 7: Francesco di Giorgio, Nativity. (Siena, Sant Agostino). Fig. 8: Leonardo da Vinci, Adoration of the Magi. (Louvre, Département des Arts graphiques, R.F.1978). Fig. 9: Baldassare Peruzzi, Adoration of the Magi and the shephards. (Louvre, Département des Arts graphiques, inv.1416). Fig. 10: Giovani Francesco Penni (according to Raphael), Adoration of the Magi. (Louvre, Département des arts graphiques). Fig. 11: Sebastiano Serlio (?), Adoration of the Magi, virtual reconstruction of the building. Fig. 12: Fra Damiano da Bergamo (according to Sebastiano Serlio), Miracle of San Domenic, (tarsia), (Bologna, San Domenico). Fig. 13: Cherubino Alberti (according to Rosso Fiorentino), Adoration of the Magi (The Metropolitain Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund, 1962, no. 62.602.302). Fig. 14: Biagio Pupino, Adoration in the church of Annunziata, Bologna. Fig. 15: Sebastiano Serlio (?), Nativity, predella of Betrothal of the Virgin. (Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale). Fig. 16: Sebastiano Serlio (?), Joseph’s Dream, pedrella of Betrothal of the Virgin. (Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale). Fig. 17: Sebastiano Serlio, Third Book. (Venice, 1540), frontispiece. Fig. 18: Antonio Fantuzzi (according to Sebastiano Serlio), veduta architettonica. (Christie’s, London, 2 December 2008). Fig. 19: Jean Cousin le Père, Saint Mamas at the Furnace. (cathedral of Langres). Fig. 20: Jean Cousin le Père, Saint Mamas at the tribunal of the governor of Cappadocia. (Louvre). Fig. 21: Sebastiano Serlio, variation of the Arch of Ancona (Fourth Book), 1537, f.LIX.

Vignola, a serious training: painting, perspective, architecture (Bruno Adorni) Fig. 1: Girolamo Marchesi da Cotignola, The Marriage of the Virgin. (Bologna, National Gallery). Fig. 2: Parmigianino (copy?), Allegorical portrait of emperor Charles V. (New York, Rosemberg & Sytiebel Collection). Fig. 3: Baldassarre Peruzzi, A “taccuino” (Antiquity), (Florence, Uffizi 410 Av.). A handwritten list of assistants showing Jacopo Barozzi as a painter. Fig. 4: Fra Damiano da Bergamo, The Finding of Moses, based on Vignola’s drawing. (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art). Fig. 5: Albrecht Dürer, Vision of St Eustace, engraving. Fig. 6: Fra Damiano da Bergamo, Baptism of Saint Dominic. (Bologna, Saint Dominic, probably based on Peruzzi’s drawing). Fig. 7: Bologna, Saint Dominic, Fra Damiano da Bergamo, Last Supper (back of the eleventh choir stall in cornu evangelii) based on Vignola’s drawing. Fig. 8: Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola, Sant’Andrea sulla via Flaminia, interior. Fig. 9: Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola, The plan of the bridge over the Samoggia near Bologna. (Bologna, Archivio di Stato). Fig. 10: Francesco Primaticcio, Minerva ( architectural perspective by Vignola?). (Paris, Musée du Louvre, Cabinet des dessins, inv. 8552). Fig. 11: Caprarola, Farnese Palace, Sala di Giove, Giovanni Battista Fiorini, Architectural perspectives, based on Vignola’ drawings. Fig. 12: Caprarola, Farnese Palace, Sala dell’Aurora, Taddeo Zuccari, Architectural perspective from below to above probably based on Vignola’s drawing.

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Fig. 13: Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola, Rome, Sant’Andrea sulla via Flaminia, dome. Fig. 14: Tommaso Laureti, Engraving from Jacomo Barozzi da Vignola’s “Le due regole della ­prospettiva pratica”, Rome 1983. Fig. 15: Caprarola, Farnese Palace, Sala dei Fasti Farnesiani. Fig. 16: Caprarola, Farnese Palace, courtyard, the lower loggia. Fig. 17: Caprarola, Farnese Palace, spiral staircase. Fig. 18: Caprarola, spiral staircase. Fig. 19: Caprarola (Viterbo), Farnese Palace, Sala di Giove, Architectural perspectives by Vignola. Fig. 20: Rome, Farnese Palace, Sala grande, Vignola, fireplace. Fig. 21: Rome, Vatican, Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola, Sant’Anna dei Palafrenieri, plan (from Willich). Fig. 22: Rome, Vatican, Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola, Sant’Anna dei Palafrenieri, interior. Fig. 23 Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola, Elevation of the upper loggia in the courtyard of the Farnese Palace in Piacenza (Archivio di Stato di Parma).

From lodge to studio: transmissions of architectural knowledge in the Low Countries 1480–1530 (Oliver Kik) Fig. 1: Jan Gossart, Design for Tomb of Isabella of Austria, 1526–27. (© Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen Zu Berlin, Kdz 4646). Fig. 2: Lanceloot Blondeel, Bruges harbor project, 1546. (Bruges City Archives, Kaarten en Plannen, inv. 14). Fig. 3: Alart Duhameel, South Portal St John’s Cathedral ‘s-Hertogenbosch, 1478–95. (Photo Oliver Kik) Fig. 4: Alart Duhameel, Design for gothic Baldachin. (London, © British Museum). Fig. 5: Master W with the Key, Design for Flying Buttress, c. 1480. (Paris, Bibliothéque Nationale). Fig. 6: Alart Duhameel, Last Judgement, 1478–1506. ( © London, British Museum). Fig. 7: Joos II Metsys, Design West front St Peter’s church Leuven, 1505. (Leuven, © Museum M, inv. 927). Fig. 8: Joos II Metsys, Design West front St Peter’s church Leuven (detail), 1505, Leuven, Museum M, inv. 927. (Photo: Merlijn Hurx). Fig. 9: Quinten Metsys, St Anne triptych (left panel), 1508–09. (© Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van België, Brussel, inv. 2784, Foto: J. Geleyns/www.roscan.be). Fig. 10: Jan Gossart, Deesis (Holy Virgin, Christ and Saint John the Baptist), 122 x 133 cm. (© Museo del Prado, Madrid, inv. P01510). Fig. 11: Workshop Jacob Cornelisz. Van Oostsanen, Berlin Sketchbook, fol. 70r. (© Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen Zu Berlin, Kdz 79 C 2 a, fol. 34 verso).

Humanæ Societati Necessaria: the painted façade of the house of Frans Floris (Edward H. Wouk) Fig. 1: Jan Van Croes, The House of Frans Floris (Brussels, Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, Département des Manuscrits). Fig. 2: Jean-Théodore-Joseph Linnig, La maison de Frans Floris, from Linning and Mertens: Album historique de la Ville d’Anvers, no. 35. (Brussels, Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, Cabinet des Estampes). Fig. 3: Monogrammist TG, Diligence. (Florence, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi). Fig. 4: Monogrammist TG, Use. (Florence, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi).

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Fig. 5: Monogrammist TG, Poetry. (Florence, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi). Fig. 6: Monogrammist TG, Architecture. (Florence, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi). Fig. 7: Monogrammist TG, Labor. (Florence, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi). Fig. 8: Monogrammist TG, Experience. (Florence, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi). Fig. 9: Monogrammist TG, Industry. (Florence, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi). Fig. 10: Monogrammist TG, Allegory of the Arts. (Florence, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi). Fig. 11: Francesco da Hollanda, Hanging Garden of Cardinal Andrea della Valle (El Escorial, Biblioteca Reale, inv 28-1-20, vol. 54 c). Fig. 12: Melchisedech van Hooren, The City Hall of Antwerp, published by Martin Peeters Hand-colored engraving. (Vienna, Graphische Sammlung Albertina, inv. 1949/849, p. 3). Fig. 13: Giulio Romano, Fireplace of Villa Madama. (From: Frommel, ‘The Roman Works’, p. 62, fig. 64). Fig. 14: Frans Floris, Beheading of St John the Baptist (Dresden, Kupferstich-Kabinett). Fig. 15: Maarten van Heemskerck, Palazzo Branconio dell’Aquila, from Berlin Sketchbook I fol. 55v. (Photo: Hülsen and Eggar 1913. Fig. 16: Giorgio Vasari, Painting. (Arezzo, Casa Vasari Photo: Artstor). Fig. 17: Giorgio Vasari, Poetry, (Photo: Artstor). Fig. 18: Cornelis Cort after Frans Floris, Geometry, engraving. (London, British Musuem, Department of Drawings and Prints). Fig. 19: Frans Floris, The Awakening of the Arts. (Ponce, Puerto Rico, Museo de Bellas Artes, Fundacíon Ferrer). Fig. 20: Anon. woodcut, final page of Giorgio Vasari, Le vite, 1550. (The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations). Fig. 21: Agostino Veneziano, The Academy of Baccio Bandinelli, engraving. (London, British Musuem, Department of Drawings and Prints). Fig. 22: Eneas Vico, The Academy of Baccio Bandinelli, engraving. (London, British Musuem, Department of Drawings and Prints). Fig. 23: Philips Galle after Frans Floris, Tabula Cebetis Carta Vitæ, engraving. (London, British Musuem, Department of Drawings and Prints). Fig. 24: Master IvH after Frans Floris and Hieronymus Cock, Industry, etching. (London, British Musuem, Department of Drawings and Prints). Fig. 25: Hendrick Goltzius, Diligence and Labor. (London, British Musuem, Department of Drawings and Prints). Fig. 26: L. van Opstal, The House of Cornelis van Dalem. (Antwerp, Museum Plantin-Moretus, Stedelijk Prentenkabinet). Fig. 27: Jan Wierix, Frans Floris, from: Pictorum aliquot celebrium Germaniae inferioris effigies. (Brussels, Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, Cabinet des Estampes). Fig. 28: Tapestry of the Story of Hector of Troy. (Madrid, Banco Santander). Fig. 29: Anon. engraver (formerly attributed to Nicolas Béatrizet after Michelangelo), Rape of Ganymede, engraving. (London, British Museum, Department of Drawings and Prints).

Wensel Cobergher (1556/61–1634): Painter, Antiquarian, Architect (Tine L. Meganck) Fig. 1: Wensel Cobergher, Book of antique medals, pen on paper, Brussels, (Royal Library of Belgium Albert I, Manuscripts: MS 5575, fol. 28r. © Royal Library of Belgium Albert I, Brussels).

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Fig. 2a: Wensel Cobergher, Resurrection, circa 1594, oil on canvas, 233 x 150cm, c. 1594, (Naples, San Domenico Maggiore, Capellone del Crocifisso. © Archivio dell’Arte Luciano Pedicini). Fig. 2b: Idem, with altar and sculpted frame. (© Archivio dell’Arte Luciano Pedicini). Fig. 3: Raphael, Madonna of the Fish, oil on panel, 215 x 158 cm, originally in San Domenico Maggiore, Capellone del Crocifisso, now in Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, inv. POO297 Fig. 4: Wensel Cobergher, Jubilee, 1594, San Pietro ad Aram in Naples, oil on canvas. (© Archivio dell’Arte Luciano Pedicini). Fig. 5: Early Christian altar on which Saint Peter allegedly celebrated mass, still venerated as a relic, (Naples, San Pietro ad Aram. Photo author). Fig. 6: Peter Paul Rubens, Saint Helen finding the True Cross, c. 1601–2, oil on panel, 252 x 189 cm, originally in Rome, Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, now in Grasse, Cathedrale Notre Dame. (Photo author). Fig. 7: Wensel Cobergher, Saint Helen and Emperor Constantine finding the Holy Cross, 1605, oil on panel, 255 x 192, Antwerp, Chapel of the Holy Cross, Antwerp, Saint Jacob’s Church. (© KIK/IRPA Brussels). Fig. 8: Saint Sebastian, c. 1598, oil on canvas, 288,5 x 207,5 cm, originally for the chapel of the Young Hand Bow in the Church of Our Lady in Antwerp, now in the Musée des Beaux Arts de Nancy, inv. 92. (© Musée des Beaux Arts de Nancy). Fig. 9: Wensel Cobergher, Lamentation, 1605, oil on panel, 306,5 x 239,5 cm, originally for the main altar of the confraternity of the Seven Sorrows, Saint Gorik Church, Brussels, now in Brussels, Royal Museums of Fine Art of Belgium, inv. 124. (© Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels). Fig. 10: Anonymous, Virgin of Seven Sorrows, fifteenth Century, Register of the Confraternity of the Seven Sorrows, Brussels City Archive, ms. 3413, 2r. (Photo Susie Sutch). Fig. 11: Detail of the attic of the Arch of Constantine (315 AD) with the Aurelian reliefs, Antonine Period Rome, Forum Romanum. (Photo author). Fig. 12a: Aldobrandini Wedding, early Augustan, fresco, 224 x 92 cm, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, Museo Sacro, Sala delle Nozze Aldobrandini (or Sala di Sansone) © Musei Vaticani Fig. 12b: Detail of the Aldobrandini Wedding, early Augustan, fresco. Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, Museo Sacro, Sala delle Nozze Aldobrandinii. Fig. 13: Robrecht de Nole, after a design of Cobergher, Evangelist Marc, 1622–1613, Avennes stone, 135 cm, vestibule of Church of Our Lady, Scherpenheuvel. (Photo author). Fig. 14: De Nole brothers, after a design of Cobergher, High altar of the Church of Our Lady of Scherpenheuvel, 1622–23, black, white and red (Rance) marble. (Photo author).

On the Peripatetics of the Sixteenth-Century Sketchbook (Christopher P. Heuer) Fig. 1: View of Antwerp. Black chalk and pen and black ink, 19 x 26.3 cm (each sheet). (Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, Inv. 79 C 2, fols. 76v-77r). Fig. 2: Henri met de Bles. Four Town Views. Pen and brown ink, 19 x 26 cm. (Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, Inv. 79 C 2, fol. 40r). Fig. 3: After Henri met de Bles, Castle in a Rocky Landscape. Pen and brown ink, 19 x 26.3 cm. (Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, Inv.79 C 2, fol. 44v). Fig. 4: Herri met de Bles. Christ on the Way to Emmaus. Oil on oak, 34.1 x 50.5 cm. (Antwerp, Museum Mayer van den Bergh, inv. 40). Fig. 5: Fortified City with a Port (Iraklion). Pen and charcoal? Album Errera, fol. 41r. (Brussels, Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Cabinet des Dessins, inv. 4630). Fig. 6: Villard de Honnecourt. Folio 9v. Parchment. (Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France, MS Fr. 19093).

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Fig. 7: Iceland, 1350–1400. Pen and wash on vellum. (Reykjavik, Institute for Icelandic Studies, Árni Magnússon Collection, inv. AM 673 a III 4to, fol. 12v). Fig. 8: Workshop of Benozzo Gozzoli. Drawing. (Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, inv. I. 562, fol. 31v). Fig. 9: Florentine, 1520s? Views of Frescoes and Marquetry. Codex Escurialensis. (Escorial, 28-II-2, fol. 4r of Codex 51,00). Fig. 10: Roelandt Savery. Alpine Landscape with Draughtsman. Pen and ink and black chalk on paper, 39.6 x 27.7 cm. (London, Courtauld Institute of Art, Seilern Collection, D.1978.PG.9). Fig. 11: Paulus van Vianen. Wood with Two Draughtsmen. Pen and blue wash, 19.2cm x 28.3cm. (Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, inv. 13612). Fig. 12: Anonymous French, c. 1420. Sketchbook pages. Pen on white paper. (Florence, Uffizi, inv. 2280 Fr-18306Fr) (Courtesy of the Ministry of Arts and Cultural Activity). Fig. 13: Maerten van Heemskerck, New St Peter's, South Transept, Pen and grain ink wash. (Berlin, Kupferstichkabinet, 79D2a).

Paintings and Painted Architectures in Genoa: what Peter Paul Rubens probably saw (Stefano Musso) Fig. 1: Cristoforo de Grassi, View of Genoa in 1597 (copy of a painting from 1481ca.). The painting celebrates the expedition of the Genose navy to Otranto and shows an active harbour and a fortified town. The city seems already “coloured”, at least for the different materials employed in its buildings (conserved in: Genova, Galata Museo del Mare – from: E. Poleggi, Iconografia di genova e delle riviere, Genova: Carige 1976, pp. 110–111 – kindly provided by the author). Fig. 2: Bernardo Cantone, “Model of the plots for Strada Nuova”, drawing duplicated in 1584. It indicates the names of the land owners, of the streets and the dimensions of the plots. (Conserved in: Fondo “Magistrati dei Padri del Comune”, Archivio Storico del Comune di Genova – kindly provided by E. Poleggi). Fig. 3: Antonio Giolfi, Giuseppe Torricelli, Giovanni Lorenzo Guidotti, View of Strada Nuova from piazza Fontane Marose, 1769. The street is evidently enlarged to make the palaces more readable (from: E. Poleggi (ed.), Genova nel Settecento e le vedute di Antonio Giolfi, Milano 1986 – kindly ­provided by the author). Fig. 4: Palace in Piazza Embriaci, 2 – Traces of fresco decoration – second half of the 15th century. (Photo: author) Fig. 5: Palaces “Lercaro” – via Orefici 4 – second half of the 15th century. (Photo: author) Fig. 6: Palace “di Stefano Squarciafico” (now called “Doria Invrea”) – Frescoes by Fratelli Calvi 1565 – 1567. (Photo: author) Fig. 7: Palace “di Giovanni Battista Grimaldi” (now called “la Meridiana”) – built: 1536-44 – Back Facade towards the garden – Frescoes by Aurelio Busso and Giovanni Battista Castello. (Photo: author) Fig. 8: Palace “di Angelo Giovanni Spinola” in Via Garibaldi, 5 – built: 1558- 64 – frescoes: painted 1592-94. (Photo: author) Fig. 9: Palace “Giovanni Battista Grimaldi – la Meridiana” – built: 1536-44 – The vault of the main room on the noble floor – Frescoes by Luca Cambiaso, 1566. (Photo: author) Fig. 10: Palace “di Paolo Battista e Nicolò Interiano” (now called “Interiano – Pallavicini”) in Piazza Fontane Marose, 2 – built: 1565–67 – Drawing by P. P. Rubens 1622. (From: H. Gurlitt, Peter Paul Rubens: Genua – Palazzi di Genova 1622, der Zirkel, 1924, Palazzo G, Taffel 26 – Library of the Faculty of Architecture of Genoa) Fig. 11: Palace “Paolo Battista e Nicolò Interiano” (now called “Interiano – Pallavicini”) in Piazza Fontane Marose, 2 – built: 1565-67 – The painted facade nowadays. (Photo: author) Fig. 12: Palace “Peirano” in Piazza Valloria – 16th century. – “Caesars” and “Armed men” painted after 1597 by unknown artists. (Photo: author)

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Fig. 13: Palace “Paolo Battista e Nicolò Interiano” (now called “Interiano – Pallavicini”) in Piazza Fontane Marose, 2 – built: 1565–67 – Scheme of the perspective construction of the painted facade in relation with the surrounding urban spaces. (From: Genua Picta, Genova: Sagep 1982, p. 31) Fig. 14: Map with the distribution of the survived painted facades in 1982. (From: Genua Picta, Genova: Sagep 1982, p. 31)

Frans Geffels, Rubens and the Palazzi di Genova (Giulio Girondi) Fig. 1: Gaetano Mettacodi, Chorte di Portiolo, watercolour, 1690. Mantua, Archivio di Stato, Archivio De Moll, b. 44. (© Archivio di Stato di Mantova). Fig. 2: The palace of Ottavio I Gonzaga di Vescovato at Portiolo: The façade towards the garden. (Photo: author). Fig. 3: The house of Francesco Zanetti, Mantua: The façade towards Via Corridoni. (Photo: author). Fig. 4: The villa of Francesco Zanetti, Mantua: The main entrance. (Photo: author). Fig. 5: The villa of Francesco Zanetti, Mantua: Detail of the main façade. (Photo: author). Fig. 6: The palace of Benedetto Sordi, Mantua: Detail of the main façade. (Photo: author). Fig. 7: The palace of Benedetto Sordi, Mantua: Detail of the main court. (Drawing by the author). Fig. 8: The palace of Odoardo Valenti Gonzaga, Mantua: The main court. (Photo: author). Fig. 9: The house of Giovanni Pompeo Salvi, Mantua: The façade towards Via Corridoni. (Photo: author). Fig. 10: The house of Giovanni Pompeo Salvi, Mantua: Detail of the court. (Photo: author). Fig. 11: The palace of Odoardo Valenti Gonzaga, Mantua: Longitudinal section before restorations. (Drawing by Silvio Fante). Fig. 12: The palace of Odoardo Valenti Gonzaga, Mantua: The vault of the “camerone staccato”. (Photo: author). Fig. 13: The palace of Odoardo Valenti Gonzaga, Mantua: The main façade. (From: Il Seicento nell’arte e nella cultura, Cinisello Balsamo, Milan: Silvana, 1985, p. 128). Fig. 14: The palace of Odoardo Valenti Gonzaga, Mantua: The ground floor before restorations. (Drawing by Silvio Fante). Fig. 15: P.P. Rubens, Pianta prima del palazzo del sig.r Luigi Centurione. (From P.P. Rubens, Palazzi di Genova, fig. 25).

Rubens, architectural space and light (Piet Lombaerde) Fig. 1: Peter Paul Rubens, Esther before Ahasverus, modello. (London, Collection Count Seilern). Fig. 2: Sebastiano Serlio, the tragic stage (Tragica), detail. (S. Serlio, translated by P. Coecke van Aelst, Den tweeden boeck van Architecturen Sebastiani Serlii, Antwerp: Mayken Verhulst, 1553, capit.3, f°41v°). Fig. 3: Andrea Palladio and Vincenzo Scamozzi, The Teatro Olimpico: perspective stage, Vicenza, c.1584. (Photo by the author). Fig. 4: Peter Paul Rubens, Henry IV consigns the Regency of France to Marie de’ Medici, 1622. (Paris, Louvre, Marie de’Medici cycle, Louis XIV collection, 1696, inv.1779). Fig. 4 a-h: Peter Paul Rubens, Henry IV consigns the Regency of France to Marie de’ Medici, 1622. (Paris, Louvre). Dissection of the painting in consecutive parallel planes.

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Fig. 5: Plan of the Rubens House, the courtyard, the portico, the gardens and the garden pavilion. (Drawing by Stephan Boeykens). Fig. 6: Diagram of the alignment of entrance, courtyard, portico, garden and garden pavilion in the Rubens House, Antwerp. (Reconstruction by Piet Lombaerde and Stephan Boeykens) . Fig. 7: Ratios between the Rubens House, portico and garden pavilion (Reconstruction by Piet Lombaerde and Stephan Boeykens). Fig. 8: Abraham Bosse, perspective view along a central axis, 1647. (From: A. Bosse, Manière ­universelle de M. Desargues pour pratiquer la perspective par petit pied…, Paris, 1647, fig. 149). Fig. 9a: Palazzo Podestà (Genoa, Via Garibaldi), c. 1560: façade of stucco. (photo by the author) Fig. 9b: Palazzo Cattaneo Adorno (Genoa, Via Garibaldi), c. 1585: quadratura painting on the façade. (photo by the author) Fig. 10: Jacob Harrewijn, after Jacob Van Croes, view of the north and east façade of the Rubens House, engraving, 1692. (Antwerp, Rubens House). Fig. 11: View of the cupola with oculus in the Museum of the Rubens House. (Photo by the author). Fig. 12: Frans Mols, plan of Rubens’s house drawn from memory, end of 18th c. (Brussels, Royal Library, Manuscripts, Ms. 5726, f°10). Fig. 13: The rotunda of the Museum with simulation of the incidence of light on the floor (reconstruction by arch. Sigurd de Gruyter, 2012). Fig. 14: Sebastiano Serlio, the Pantheon in Rome. (S. Serlio, translation by Pieter Coucke van Aelst, Le troisieme livre de Sebastien Serlio B. Auquel sont figurez & descriptz les Antiquitez de Rome, Antwerp, 1550, pp.3–4). Fig. 15: Jacob Harrewijn, after Jacob Van Croes, domed room of the painter’s studio, detail, 1692. (Antwerp, Rubens House). Fig. 16: Trusses where the thrust is borne by the sleeper beams of the lower attic floor, Rubens House. (Photo by the author, 2012). Fig. 17: View from the east on the partly demolished painter’s studio of the Rubens House. (Antwerp, City Archives). Fig. 18: Model of a trusses, where the principal rafters are anchored to sleeper beams, Rubens House. (Reconstruction by arch. Sigurd de Gruyter, 2012). Fig. 19: View on the dome inside painter’s studio, Rubens House. (Reconstruction by arch. Sigurd de Gruyter, 2012). Fig. 20: General view on the roof with the wheal, the cupola and the pupil’s studio, Rubens House. (Reconstruction by arch. Sigurd de Gruyter, 2012). Fig. 21: Peter Paul Rubens, study of trees reflected in the water at sunset, c.1635. (London, The British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings).

Reflections on the Digital Reconstruction of the Portico and Garden Pavilion of the Rubens House (Stephan Boeykens) Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.

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1: 2: 3: 4: 5: 6:

Rubens House (left), Portico and Pavilion (right). (Photo by the author). Portico model. Garden Pavilion model (left) and current situation (right) (Photo by the author). Garden Model. Rubens House Model. Aerial image of the site (Bing, Microsoft).

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of Illustrations

7: Rubens house: site model (SketchUp model by Nick Oberg, as user “SittingDuck”). 8: Assembly from different sections. 9: Sequence of views from street to portico. (Photo’s by the author). 10: Cutout of the assembly, along the garden path. 11: Line of sight through section. 12: Ratios between cortile/portico and garden/pavilion. 13: Difference between actual (left) and ideal (right) model of the pavilion. 14: Jacob Harrewijn: view of the inner court, the portico and garden pavilion (1684). 15: Viewpoint resembling the Harrewijn 1684 engraving. 16: Jacob Harrewijn: view of the Rubens House, (1692). 17: Non-uniformly stretched image from 3D assembly model.

Rubens: The Ingenious Master as an Architect? (Carolien De Staelen) Fig. 1: Hendrik Causé, Specimina Magnificentiorum in civitate Antverpiensi Locorum et operum, (Antwerp, Stedelijk Prentenkabinet, PK.OP.18312). Fig. 2: P.P. Rubens, Ignatius of Loyola, Oil sketch, 1616–17. (Vienna, Gemäldegalerie, Kunsthistorisches Museum). Fig. 3: P.P. Rubens, Ignatius of Loyola, Painting, 1618. (Vienna, Gemäldegalerie, Kunsthistorisches Museum). Fig. 4: P.P. Rubens, The Garden of Love, drawing, 1632–34. (Fletcher Fund). Fig. 5: P.P. Rubens, The Garden of Love, oil painting, c.1633. (Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado). Fig. 6: P. Rubens, The Martyrdom of St Stephen, (1616–17). (Valencienne, Musée des Beaux-Arts). Fig. 7: P.P. Rubens, The Miracle of St Francis of Paola, Modello 2. (Winchcombe, Sudeley Castle). Fig. 8: P.P. Rubens, Triptych of St Ildefonso, (1630–31). (Vienna Kunsthistorisches Museum). Fig. 9: Pieter Coecke van Aelst, Dat Vierde Boeck. Regelen der Metselryen op de vijf manieren van Edificien…, Amsterdam, 1606, f°lic, v°: Composite order. Fig. 10: Daniele Barbaro, I dieci libri dell’architettura di M. Vitruvio…, Venice, 1567, Ionic order. Fig. 11: P.P. Rubens, J. Raes, J. Fobert and H. Vervoert, The adoration of the secular hierarchy, tapestry, 1628. (Madrid, Convent of the Descalzas Reales). Fig. 12: Detail column base of The adoration of the secular hierarchy. Fig. 13: Agostino Veneziano after Serlio, Corinthian column base with meander motif, 1528, engraving, 1528. (Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek). Fig. 14: Pieter Coecke van Aelst, Dat Vierde Boeck. Regelen der Metselryen op de vijf manieren van Edificien…, Amsterdam, 1606, f°lviii, r°: Corinthian mantlepiece. Fig. 15: P.P. Rubens, The Discovery of the child Erichthonius, (1615). (Vaduz, Sammlungen des ­regierenden Fürsten von Liechtenstein). Fig. 16: Daniele Barbaro, I dieci libri dell’architettura di M. Vitruvio…, Venice, 1567, Libro Quarto, p.198–99: Tempio ritondo detto Peripteros. Fig. 17: Daniele Barbaro, I dieci libri dell’architettura di M. Vitruvio…, Venice, 1567, Libro Decimo, p.470. Fig. 18: T. Van Thulden after P.P. Rubens, Chariot of Kallo, etching from: J.C. Gevartius, Pompa Introitus..., Antwerp, Jan van Meurs, 1641–42. Fig. 19: P.P. Rubens, Oil sketch of the chariot of Kallo. (Antwerp, KMSKA). Fig. 20: Michelangelo, Nuova et ultima aggiunta.., Siena, 1635, fig. XXXXI, Porta Pia.

275

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of Illustrations

Fig. 21: P.P. Rubens, Statue of Ceres in a niche (1614). (St Petersburg, Hermitage). Fig. 22: P.P. Rubens, Lot’s family fleeing from Sodom, (1625). (Paris, Louvre). Fig. 23: P.P. Rubens, St Ambrose receives emperor Theodose, (1616–17). (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum). Fig. 24: Rubens, The conclusion of the peace of Angers (1622–25). (Paris, Louvre). Fig. 25: Michelangelo, Nuova et ultima aggiunta.., Siena, 1635, fig. XXXXII, Gate of the Capitoline. Fig. 26: P.P. Rubens, Bathseba at the fountain (1635). (Dresden, Gemäldegalerie). Fig. 27: Michelangelo, Study for a door between the reading room and vestibule, Laurentian Library, Florence, 1519–59. (Florence, Casa Buonaroti, A 98). Fig. 28: Hans Vredeman de Vries, Caryatidum vulgus, Amsterdam, c.1565, plate 8: Male and female terms. Fig. 29: P. Rubens, The Gerbier Family, (1630). (Washington DC, National Gallery of Art). Fig. 30: Hans Vredeman de Vries, Perspective, Leiden, (1604–05), Part II, plate 9. Fig. 31: P. Rubens, The Descent from the Cross, (1612–14). (Antwerp, Cathedral of Our Lady).

276

Selective Bibliography

1. SOURCES

1.1 Archival Sources 1.1.1. Unpublished Archival Sources BELGIUM Antwerp: City Archives (Felixarchief) Processen S 970, iii, fol. 10. Plantin Moretus Museum Archive, reg. XII, p. 245 and 248. Brussels: Royal Library of Belgium Albert I Manuscripts: M  S 5575 (Wensel Cobergher, Book of antique medals); MS II 878, fol. 11–12 (NicolasClaude Fabri de Peiresc, autograph letter with an account of the books on the antique by Cobergher); Papebrochius, Annales Antverpienses, 7921 C, cat. no. 5329, fol. 40v–41. ITALY Mantua, Archivio di Stato Archivio De Moll, b. 44. Archivio Gonzaga, b. 55, Registro 107, c. 21, April 4, 1663. b. 791, July 30, 1662. b. 2800, April 1, 1661, cc. 37–38. Archivio notarile, Francesco Bertesi, b. 2461, March 26, 1672; b. 2462, June 16, 1677. Antonio Forza, b. 4485bis, Febrary 12, 1731. Federico Galvani, b. 4605, September 10, 1587. Ottavio Mazzi, b. 5603, 30 luglio 1692; b. 5605, November 23, 1696. Giulio Cesare Mutti, b. 6222bis, January 2, 1708; b. 6222ter, January 8, 1710. Vincenzo Ricciardi, b. 7947, October 31, 1649. Gian Bartolomeo Sanpaolo, b. 822A, November 22, 1531. Silvio Serra, b. 8584, August 8, 1589. Sebastiano Sissa, b. 8695bis, March 20, 1683. Camillo Viva, b. 9625bis, January 29, 1689; b. 9626bis, February 15, 1694 and March 8, 1694. Carte Valenti, b. 2, January 7, 1678. Scalcheria, b. 12, March 12, 1670. RUSSIA St Petersburg, Hermitage Library, n°14741. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA New York, The Morgan Library and Museum Inv. III, 127b. 1.1.2. Published Archival Sources Rombauts P. and Van Lerius T., De Liggeren en andere historische archieven van het Antwerpse SintLucasgilde, Antwerp, 1864–76.

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Selective Bibliography 1.2. Books: sixteenth to eighteenth century Af-Beeldinghe van D’Eerste Eeuwe der Societeyt Iesu voor ooghen ghestelt door de DuytsNederlantsche Provincie der selver Societeyt, Antwerp: Plantin, 1640. Alberti R., Trattato della Nobilità della Pittura, Rome: Francesco Zannetti, 1585. Alberti R., Origine, Et Progresso Dell’Academia Del Disegno, De Pittori, Scultori, & Architetti di Roma, Pavia: Pietro Bartoli, 1604.

Cesariano C., Di Luigi Vitruvio Pollione de Architectura, Como: G. da Ponte, 1521. Coecke P., Die Inventie der Colommen met haren Coronementen ende Maten, Antwerp: Peeter Coucke van Aelst, 1539. Coecke P., Van de architecturen vyf boeken Sebastiani Serlii. Overgeset uyt d’Italiaensche in Nederduytsche sprake door Pieter Coecke van Aelst, Amsterdam, 1616.

Armenini G.B., De’Veri Precetti della Pittura, Venice: Francesco Salerni in Biri, 1678.

Danti E., ‘Vita di M. Iacomo Barrozzi da Vignola, Architetto et Prospettivo Eccellentissimo’, in: I. Barozzi da Vignola, Le Due Regole della Prospettiva Pratica di M. Iacomo Barozzi da Vignola, Rome: Francesco Zannetti, 1583.

Baglione G., Vite de’pittori scultori et architetti dal pontificato di Gregorio XIII del 1572 in fino ai tempi di Papa Urbano nel 1642, Rome: Fei, 1642.

de Aguilón F., Opticorum Libri Sexphilosophis iuxta ac mathematicis utiles, Antwerp: Officina Plantiniana, 1615.

Barbaro D., I Dieci Libri Dell’Architettura Di M. Vitruvio Tradutti et Commentati…, Venice: Francesco Marcolini, 1556.

de Piles R., La vie de Rubens, Paris: François Muguet, 1699.

Aristoteles, Parva Naturalia, Venice: Octavianus Scotus, 1551.

Barbaro D., De Architectura Libri decem, cum commentariis Danielis Barbari, ­ Venice: Francesco de’ Franceschi and Giovanni Criegher, 1567. Bellarmino R., Dichiarazione della Dottrina Cristiana Composta per ordine di N.S. Papa Clemente VIII…Rivista, et approvata dalla Congregazione della Riforma…, Lucca: Marescandoli, s.a. Bellori G.P., Le Vite De’Pittori, Scultori Et Architetti Moderni, Rome: Vivarelli, 1672. Borghini R., Il Riposo, Florence: Appresso Giorgio Marescotti, 1584. Bosse A., La pratique du trait à preuves de M. Desargues Lyonnois pour la coupe des pierres en l’architecture, Paris: Pierre des Hayes, 1643. Bosse A., Manière universelle de M. Desargues pour pratquer la perspective à petit pied…, Paris: Pierre des Hayes, 1647. Caussin N., Symbolica Aegyptiorum Sapientia, Paris: Simeon Piget, 1647. Cellini B., I trattati di Oreficeria e della Scultura, ed. by C. Milanesi, Florence, 1857.

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de Piles R., Cours de peinture par principes, Paris: Chez Jacques Estienne, 1708. De Ville J., T’samen-spreeckinghe betreffende de Architectura ende Schilderkonst, Gouda: Pieter Rammaseyn, 1628. Engelgrave H., Lux Evangelica sub velum Emblematum, Cologne – Amsterdam: Iacob à Meurs, 1655. Gauricus P., Super Arte Poetica Horatii, Rome: Valerius Doricus & Aloysius Frater Brixiani, 1541. Ghezzi G., Il Centesimo dell’Anno M.DC.XCV. celebrato in Roma dall’Accademia del Disegno Essendo Precipe Il Signor Cavalier Carlo Fontana Architetto, Rome: Gio. Francesco Buagni, 1696. Ghezzi G., Le Belle Arti in Lega con la Poesia per l’Accademia del Disegno Celebrata in Campidoglio il di 6. Maggio 1706, Rome: Gaetano Zenobj, 1706. Gobius A., Juris Consultationes Decisivae Civiles & Criminales, Mantua: Ex Typographia S. Benedicti, 1723. Gori A.F., Symbolae Litterariae Opuscula Varia.., Decadis Secondae Volumen Septimum, Rome: Pagliarini, 1754.

Selective Bibliography Grapheus C., De seer wonderlijcke/schoone/ Triuphelijcke Incompst, van den hooghmogenden Prince Philips, Prince van Spaignen, Caroli des vijfden, Keeysers sone. Inde stadt van Antwerpen, Anno, M, CCCCC, XLIX, Antwerp: Gillis van Diest, 1550. Guicciardini L., Descrittione di Tutti i Paesi Bassi, Antwerp: Guglielmo Silvius, 1567. Guicciardini L., Description de touts les Pais-Bas, autrement appellés la Germanie Inférieure, ou Basse Allemagne, Antwerp: Christophle Plantin, 1582.

edidit Joannes Henricus Hessels, 1887. (reprint Osnabrück: Otto Zeller, 1969). Palladio A., I quattro libri d’architettura, Venice: Dominico dei Franceschi, 1570. Philander G., M. Vitruvii Pollionis de Architectura Libri Decem augustum, omnibus omnium editionibus longè emendatiores, collatis veteribus exemplis. Accesserunt, Guilielmi Philandri Castilionii, ciuis Romani annotationes.., Tours: Apud Ioa. Tornaesium, 1552. Possevino A., Coltura de gl’Ingegni, Vicenza: Giorgio Greco, 1598.

Huarte G., Essame de gl’Ingegni de gl’Huomini, per Apprender Le Scienze, Cremona: Christoforo Draconi, 1588.

Possevino A., Biblioteca Selecta de Ratione Studiorum, Cologne: Johann Gymnicus, 1607.

Imperato Ferrante, Historia naturale libri XXVIII, nella quale ordinatamente si tratta della diversa condition di mininiere e piere, con alcune storie di piante et animale sinora non date in luce, Naples: C. Vitale, 1599.

Prado H. and Villalpando I.B., In Ezechielem Explanationes et Apparatus Urbis, ac Templi Hieroslymitani Commentariis et Imaginibus Illustratus, Opus tribus tomis distinctum, Rome: Zannetti I, 1596.

Junius F., The Painting of the Ancients, in three Bookes, London: Richard Hodgkinsonne, 1638.

Ratio atq. Institutio Studiorum Societatis Iesu, Dillingen: Ioannes Mayer, 1600.

Junius F., De Pictura Veterum Libri Tres, Rotterdam: Regneri Leers, 1694. Lampsonius D., Lamberti Lombardi apud Eburones pictoris celeberrimi vita: pictoribus, sculptoribus, architectis, aliisque id genus artificibus vtilis et necessaria, Bruges: Hubert Goltzius,1565. Lampsonius D., Pictorum aliquot celebrium Germaniae inferioris effigies, Antwerp: Apud viduam Hieronymi Cock, 1572. Laugier Abbé, Essai sur l’Architecture. Nouvelle édition, Paris: Duchesne, 1760. Lomazzo G.P., Trattato dell’Arte della Pittura, Scoltura ed Architettura di Gio. Paolo Lomazzo Milanese, pittore, Milan: Appresso Paolo Gottardo Pontio, 1584 (critical edition by R.P. Ciardi, Florence, 1975). Ortelius A., Abrahami Ortelii (geographi Antverpiensis)et virorum eruditorum ad eundem et ad Jacobum Colium Ortelianum (Abrahami Ortelii sororis filium) epistulae, cum aliquot aliis epistulis et tractatibus quibusdam ab utroque collectis (1524–1628). Ex autographis mandante Ecclesia Londino-Batava

Ripa C., Iconologia, Padua: Paolo Tozzi, 1618. Rubens P.P., Palazzi Moderni di Genova, Antwerp: Giacomo Meursio, 1652. Rubens P.P., Théorie de la figure humaine, considérée dans ses principes...Ouvrage traduit du latin de Pierre-Paul Rubens, Paris: CharlesAntoine Jombert, 1773. Scaliger I.C., Poetices libri septem, Geneva: Petrus Santandreanus, 1594. Scamozzi V., L’Idea della Architettura Universale, Venice: Giorgio Valentino, 1615. Serlio S., Secondo Libro, Paris: Jean Barbé, 1545. Serlio S., Il settimo Libro d’Architettura, Francfort: André Wechel pour lui-même et pour Jacopo Strada, 1575. Van Mander K., Het Schilder-Boeck, Haarlem: Paschier van Wesbvach, 1604. Van Mander K., Het Schilder-Boeck, Amsterdam: By Jacob Pieters Wachter, 1618. Vasari G., Le Vite de piu eccellenti Architetti, Pittori, et Scultori Italiani..., Florence: Lorenzo Torrentio, 1550.

279

Selective Bibliography Vasari G., Le vite de’ più eccellenti Pittori Scultori ed Architettori...Di Nuovo dal Medesimo Riviste Et Ampliate..., Florence: Appresso di Giuliani, 1568.

Von Sandrart J., Teutsche Academie der Edlen Bau Bild und Mahlerey-Künste, Nürnberg: J. Von Sandrart, 1675.

Vasari G., Delle Vite de’ piu eccellenti pittori, scuttori et architetti di Giorgio Vasari, Bologna: Per gli Eredi del Dozza, 1647, 3 vols.

Vredeman de Vries H., Caryatidum vulgus, Antwerp: Gerard de Iode, c. 1565.

Vignola I. Barozzi da, Le Due Regole della Prospettiva Pratica...Con i commentarij del R.P.M. Egnatio Danti..., Rome: Francesco Zannetti, 1583. Vignola I. Barozzi da, Regola delli Cinque Ordini d’Architettura. Nuova et Ultima aggiunta delle Porte d’Architettura di Michel Angelo Buonaroti Fiorñtino Pittore Scultore et Architetto Eccel. lmo, Siena: Bernardino Oppi, 1635.

Vredeman de Vries H., Perspective, Leiden: Hendrick Hondius, 2 vols., 1604–05. Vredeman de Vries H. and P., Architectura, The Hague: Hendrick Hondius, 1606–07. Zaist G.B., Notizie istoriche de’ pittori, scultori, ec architetti cremonesi, Cremona: Pietro Richini, 1774. Zuccari F., Idea de’pittori, scultori et architetti, Turin: Per Agostino Disserolio, 1607.

2. SECONDARY LITERATURE Adorni B., Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola, Milan, 2008. Agostini G., ‘Sebastiano Serlio’, in: J. Bentini and C. Balsamo (eds.), Gli Este a Ferrara, Milan, 2004. Ainsworth M. et al., Man, Myth, and Sensual Pleasures. Jan Gossart’s Renaissance. The Complete Works, New Haven, 2010. Alberti L. B., On Painting, (trans. J. R. Spencer), New Haven – London, 1966. Alberti L.B., On the Art of Building in Ten Books, (trans. Joseph Ryckwert, Neil Leach, Robert Travernor), Cambridge (Mass.), 1996. Alce V., Fra Damiano intarsiatore e l’ordine domenicano a Bergamo, Bergamo, 1995. Alkhoven P., ‘The Reconstruction of the Past: The Application of New Techniques for Visualization and Research in Architectural History’, in: CAAD Futures, 1991, pp. 549–66. Allart D. ‘Un Paysagiste à Redécouvrir: Cornelis Van Dalem (Anvers Avant 1534-Bavel Near Breda 1573)’, Revue belge d’archéologie et d’histoire de l’art, 62, 1993, pp. 95–130. Altavista C., ‘Peter Paul Rubens’s Palazzi di Genova: built Architecture and drawn Reality’, in: P. Lombaerde (ed.), The Reception of P. P. Rubens’s Palazzi di Genova During the 17th Century in Europe: Questions and Problems, (Architectura Moderna, vol.1), Turnhout, 2002, pp. 37–50.

280

Amabile L., ‘Due artistis ed uno scienziato Gian Bologna, Jacomo Svanenburch e Marco Aurelio Severino nel S.to Officio Napoletano’, in: Atti della reale academia di scienze morali e politiche, 24, 1891, pp. 433–503. Amadei G. and Marani E., Antiche dimore mantovane, Mantua, 1977. Ames-Lewis F., The Intellectual Life of the Early Renaissance Artist, New Haven and London, 2000. Antinori A., Scipio Borghese et l’architettura. Programmi, progetti, cantieri alle soglie dell’età barocca, Rome, 1995. Arayici Y. and Tah J., ‘Towards Building Information Modelling for Existing Structures’, Structural Survey, 26, 2007, 210–22. Arents P., De Bibliotheek van Pieter Pauwel Rubens: een reconstructie, (Vereniging der Antwerpse Bibliofielen), Antwerp, 2001. Assidini Luchinat C., ‘A Painter, Two Houses, One Destiny: Federico Zuccari in Florence and Rome’, in: Feier der Überleitung des Kunsthistorischen Institutes Florenz in die Max-Planck Gesellschaft, Florence, 2003, pp. 33–54. Auclair V., ‘L’iconographie humaniste d’un héro chrétien. Jean Cousin et la teinture de SaintMammès (1543)’, in: Tapisseries & Broderies.

Selective Bibliography Relectures des mythes antiques et iconographie chrétienne, Actes du Colloque d’Angers, Angers, 2009, pp. 118–28.  Babelon J.-P., Primatice à Chaalis, Paris, 2006. Baldini U. and Vigato P.A., The Frescoes of Casa Vasari in Florence, Florence, 2006. Baldriga I., L’Occhio della Lince. I primi lincei tra arte, scienza e collezionismo (1603–1630), Roma, 2002. Baldriga I., ‘Tussen Italië en de Zuidelijke Nederlanden: het artistiek- culturele parcours van Theodoor van Loon,’ in: S. van Sprang (ed.), Theodoor van Loon. ‘Pictor Ingenius’ en tijdgenoot van Rubens, Brussels – Ghent/Kortrijk, 2011, pp. 43–62. Balis A., ‘Rubens’ lost Theoretical Notebook’, The Rubenianum Quarterly, 1, 2011, pp.3–4. Ballbona J. B., ‘Paul Bril, Wenzel Cobergher, Jacob Frankaert I, Willem van Nieulandt y los ermitaños de Pedro de Toledo, V marqués de Villafranca, Locus Amoenus, 9, (2007–2008), pp. 127–15. Barkan L., Unearthing the Past: Archaeology and Aesthetics in the Making of Renaissance Culture, New Haven, 1999. Barkan L. ‘The Heritage of Zeuxis’, in: Antiquity and Its Interpreters, ed. A. Payne et al., Cambridge, 2000, pp. 99–109. Barnes C.F., The Portfolio of Villard de Honnecourt (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Ms Fr 19093): A New Critical Edition and Color Facsimile, Aldershot, 2009. Barnes S. J. and De Poorter N.(eds), Van Dyck. A complete Catalogue of the Paintings, New Haven – London, 2004. Barocchi P., Scritti d’arte del Cinquecento. La Letteratura Italiana; Storia e Testi, 3 vols., Milan – Naples, 1971. Barzman K., ‘Perception, knowledge and theory of disegno in sixteenth-century Florence’, in: L.J. Feinberg et al., From studio to studiolo, (exh.cat.), Oberlin, 1991, pp. 37–48. Baudouin F., ‘De fresco’s op de gevels van Rubens’ werkplaats: enkele addenda’, Academiae Analecta. Mededelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België, vol. 57, 1, 1998, pp. 3–24.

Baudouin F., ‘Peter Paul Rubens and the notion Painter-Architect,’ in: P. Lombaerde (ed.), The Reception of P. P. Rubens’s Palazzi di Genova During the 17th Century in Europe: Questions and Problems, (Architectura Moderna, vol. 1), Turnhout, 2002, pp. 15–36. Baudouin F., ‘The Rubens house at Antwerp and the Château de Steen at Elewijt’, in F. Baudouin, Rubens in context: Selected studies, Schoten, 2005, pp. 175–89. Baudouin F., ‘Architecturale motieven op schilderijen van Rubens: enkele voorbeelden’, in: K. Van der Stichelen (ed.), Munuscula Amicorum. Contributions on Rubens and his colleagues in honor of Hans Vlieghe, (Pictura Nova X), 2 vols., Turnhout, 2006, vol.1, pp.199–212. Baudouin F. and De Poorter N., Rubenshuis (The Rubens House), (Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, part XXII, 2), Turnhout – London, forthcoming. Becker J., ‘Zur Niederländischen Kunstliteratur des 16. Jahrhunderts: Lucas de Heere’, Simiolus, 6, 1973–72, pp. 113–27. Becker J., ‘“Greater than Zeuxius and Apelles”: Artists as Arguments in the Antwerp Entry of 1549’, in: E. Golring (ed.), Court Festivals of the European Renaissance, Art Politics and Performance, Aldershot, 2002, pp. 171–95. Beguin S. and Garofalo, C., Raffaello. Il catalogo completo delle opere, Santarcangelo di Romagna, 2002. Benati D., ‘Girolamo Marchesi’, in: D. Benati and L. Peruzzi (eds.), Banca Popolare dell’Emilia Romagna. I dipinti antichi, Modena, 1997, pp.48–51. Berardi P., ‘Arte e Artisti a Pesaro. Registi i ­documenti di età malatestiana e sforzesca II’, Pesaro città e contà, 14, 2001, pp.162–70. Berghaus P., Graphische Porträts: In Büchern des 15. bis 19, Wiesbaden, 1995. Bernardini M.G. and Bussagli M. (eds.), Il Rinascimento a Roma. Nel segno di Michelangelo e Raffaello, Milan, 2011. Berzaghi R., ‘Ippolito Andreasi’, in: S. Marinelli (ed.), Manierismo a Mantova: La pittura da

281

Selective Bibliography Giulio Romano all’eta di Rubens, Milan: Silvana, 1998, pp. 161–72. Bettini S., Baldassarre Peruzzi e la cappella Ghisilardi, Reggio Emilia, 2003. Bevers H., Das Rathaus von Antwerpen (1561– 1565): Architektur und Figurenprogramm, Hildesheim, Zurich – New York, 1985.

Boeykens S., ‘Using 3D Design Software, BIM and Game Engines for Architectural Historical Reconstruction’, in: Designing Together – Proceedings of the 14th international conference on Computer Aided Architectural Design Futures, ed. by P. Leclerq, A. Heylighen and G. Martin, Liège, 2011.

Bevers H., ‘The Antwerp Sketchbook of The Bles Workshop in the Berlin Kupferstichkabinett’, in: N.E. Muller et al. (eds.), Herri met de Bles: Studies and Explorations of the World Landscape Tradition, Princeton – Turnhout, 1998, pp.9–22.

Boeykens S., Himpe C. and Martens B., ‘A Case Study of Using BIM in Historical Reconstruction – The Vinohrady Synagogue in Prague’, in: H. Achten, J. Pavlicek, J. Hulin and D. Matejovska (eds.), Physical Digitality – Digital Physicality. 30th eCAADe Conference Proceedings, Prague, 2012, pp. 729–38.

Bianchi S. ‘Catalogo dell’opera incise di Nicola Beatrizet’, Grafica d’Arte 14 (2003), pp. 3–12.

Borggrefe H. et al. (eds.), Hans Vredeman de Vries und die Renaissance im Norden, Munich, 2002.

Biavati G., Botto I.M., Doria G., Fabbretti G., Poleggi E. and Tagliaferro L. (eds.), Rubens e Genova, Genoa, 1977. Biffi G.B., Memorie per servire alla storia degli artisti cremonesi, ed. L. B. Gregori, Cremona, 1989.

Bork R., ‘The unspeakable logic of Gothic architecture’, in: M. Chatenet, K. De Jonge, E.M. Kavaler and N. Nussbaum (eds.), Le Gotique de la Renaissance. Actes des quatrième Rencontres d’architecture européenne. Paris 12–16 juin 2007, (De Architectura 13), Paris, 2011, pp. 187–98.

Bliznukov A., ‘Per Girolamo Marchesi dagli esordi al soggiono bolognese’, Propozione, N.S., 6, 2005 (2007), pp.52–58.

Boudoin Ross J., ‘Jean Cousin the Elder and the creation of the Tapestries of Saint Mammès’, The Art Bulletin, 60, 1978, 1, pp.28–34.

Blum G., Idealer Ort und inszenierter Ausblick. Architektur und Landschaft in der italienischer Renaissance. Von Leon Battista Alberti über Andrea Palladio bis zu Giovanni Battista Agucchi, (Ph.D. diss. University of Basel), Basel, 2010, 2 vols.

Bral G.J., ‘De Westtorens van de Sint-Pieterskerk in Leuven. Architectuurtekeningen en een stenen maquette van Joos II Metsys’, Arca Lovaniensis, 33, 2004, pp.139–52.

Blum G., Giorgio Vasari. Der Erfinder der Renaissance. Eine Biographie, Munich, 2011. Blunt A., ‘Rubens and Architecture’, The Burlington Magazine, 129, 1977, 894, pp.609-21. Bober P. and Rubenstein R., Renaissance Artists and Antique Sculpture: A Handbook of Sources, London – New York, 1986. Bodart D., Les peintres de Pays-Bas méridionaux et de la principauté de Liège à Rome au XVIIè siècle, Wetteren, 1970. Bodmer H., ‘Un ritrattista Bolognese del Cinquecento: Bartolomeo Passarotti’, in: Il Comune di Bologna, Bologna, 1934, pp.12–13.

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Contributors

Bruno Adorni (1946). University degree from ‘Politecnico’ Milan, Italy. Dissertation on the history of architecture 1972. Student and collaborator of Paolo Portoghesi, Eugenio Battisti and Manfredo Tafuri. Founder member and later secretary of “Europa della Corti”, international study centre chaired by Alberto Tenenti. Full Professor of History of Architecture since 1980. Teaching: ‘Politecnico’ Milan to 1998, University of Ferrara to 2002, University of Parma currently. Publications include: -L’architettura farnesiana a Parma 1545–1630, Parma 1974; L’architettura farnesiana a Piacenza 1545–1600, Parma 1982; Alessio Tramello, Electa Milano 1998; Quasi un Sacro Monte/San Girolamo a Reggio Emilia di Gaspare Vigarani (with Elio Monducci), Diabasis Reggio Emilia 2001; Benedettini a Reggio Emilia (ed. with Elio Monducci), Diabasis Reggio Emilia 2002; -Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola (ed. with R.J.Tuttle, C.L.Frommel, C. Thoenes) Electa Milan 2002; -La chiesa a pianta centrale tempio civico del Rinascimento, ed., Electa Milan 2002; L’architettura in area lombarda ed emiliana, in A. Bruschi ed., Storia dell’Architettura Italiana/il primo Cinquecento, Electa Milan 2002; L’architettura a Parma sotto i primi Farnese 1545–1630, Diabasis Reggio Emilia 2008; Santa Maria della Steccata a Parma/ da chiesa “civica” a basilica magistrale dell’Ordine costantiniano, (ed.) Skira Milan 2008; Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola, Skira Milan 2008. Stefan Boeykens is an architect-engineer from Leuven, Belgium, who is working at the KU Leuven Department of Architecture, Urbanism and Planning, which he joined after a few years of architectural practice. He is mainly researching Building Information Modeling (BIM). This was also the main subject of his PhD in 2007 on “Design Phase and Scale Level transitions in a Digital Building Model”. Within BIM he is especially interested in the methodological aspects of BIM for the architectural design process, which includes support for the early-design phases, advanced 3D geometry and interoperability aspects of a purely digital workflow. Dr. Boeykens is responsible for the teaching of digital design tools, through the courses of “Architectural Computing”, in close collaboration with Prof. Andrew Vande Moere, where he teaches 3D modeling, rendering and animation, parametric design and BIM. He has a broad interest in 3D modeling in the context of architectural design and visualization and has extensive experience with several programming languages and software tools. He is also a strong supporter of open content and sharing of knowledge, especially for education and learning. The digital reconstruction of the Rubens House model was carried out under supervision of Prof. Lombaerde from University Antwerp, as part of the “Rubens as architect?” research project in 2012. Howard Burns is a 1961 graduate of Ancient and Modern History from Cambridge University where he was a King’s College Fellow. He later taught art and architectural history at the Courtauld Institute in London and held the titles of Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Cambridge and Fellow at King’s College. He was the Robert C. and Marian K. Weinberg Professor of Architecture at Harvard University and Professor of architectural history at the University in Ferrara. His additional teaching titles include Fellow at the Villa I Tati in Florence, Professor at the University IUAV in Venice, Visiting Professor at MIT and Senior Lecturer in the History of Architecture at Harvard University. In addition he has given courses and lectures at Cambridge, London, in the United States and in Italy, often in collaboration with

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Contributors other scholars including Anthony Blunt, John Shearman, Micheal Hirst, G ü lru Necipoglu, Manfredo Tafuri, James Ackerman, Jorge Silvetti and William J. Mitchell. He currently is professor of the History of Architecture at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. Carolien De Staelen studied History at the University of Antwerp and Ghent. In 2007 she completed her doctoral dissertation regarding the Antwerp material culture in the sixteenth century at the University of Antwerp. Her publications relate to sixteenth and seventeenth century Antwerp: C. De Staelen, ‘Rubens’s Samson and Delilah’ in the National Gallery: new facts relating to its provenance’, in: The Burlington Magazine, CXLVI (2004), 467–469; C. De Staelen, ‘Een venster op de materiële leefwereld van Elisabeth Moretus’, in: Volkskunde, 105 (2004), nr. 3, 217–241; C. De Staelen, ‘Kunst voor de burgerij’, in: Beelddenken. Vijf eeuwen beeld in Antwerpen, Schoten, 2011, 202–203. Sabine Frommel is Professeur (Directeur d’études) of Renaissance Art History at École Pratique des Hautes Études (Paris-Sorbonne, France) since 2003. In her work she concentrates on the relations between France and Italy, particulary on Italian artists residing at the French Court in the sixteenth and seventeenth century (Leonardo, Serlio, Vignola, Primaticcio, Bernini) and vice versa on French Masters in Italy (Delorme, Lescot, Bullant, Percier and Fontaine). In her studies on literary descriptions of architecture and in her research on the representation of buildings and ruins in paintings she aims to broaden the scope of Architecture History in order to foster an interdisciplinary dialogue. Further studies concern historiographical questions, and the comparative analyses of Germany, France and Italy. Her latest publications include Opus Incertum 5. Disegni rinascimentali di architettura (with Amedeo Belluzzi), Florence, 2008; Bomarzo: Sacro Bosco, Milan, 2009; Primatice architecte, Paris, 2010; La réception des modèles cinquecenteschi dans les arts français du XVIIe siècle, Paris/Genève, 2010; Crocevia e capitale della migrazione artistica: forestieri a Bologna e bolognesi nel mondo (secoli XV–XVI), Bologna, 2010; Les sciences humaines et leurs langages: Artifices et adoptions (with Gernot Kamecke), Rome, 2011 ; La Place du chœur. Architecture et liturgie du Moyen Âge aux Temps modernes (with Laurent Lecomte), Paris/Rome, 2012 ; Crocevia e capitale della migrazione artistica : forestieri a Bologna e bolognesi nel mondo (secoli XV–XVI), Bologna 2012. Giulio Girondi (Ph.D., Politecnico di Milano). Architect Girondi in currently writing a book provisionally entitled “Residenze patrizie a Mantova: Decorazioni del Rinascimento e del Manierismo” (Rome, L’Erma di Bretschneider). His publications related to patrician residences in Renaissance and Baroque Mantua include: ‘I Gonzaga di Vescovato: L’origine dei tre rami della casata e l’apice della famiglia nel panorama delle élite mantovane di Antico Regime’, Postumia, 3, 2011, pp. 61–103. ‘The influence of the model: The court of Mantua and the aristocratic palaces of the Renaissance’, in J. Correia, (ed.), 1st International Meeting EAHN: Book of Abstract, cd of papers, Guimaraes: Centro de Historia de Alem-Mar, Escola de Arquitectura da Universidade do Minho, European Architectural History Network, 2010, pp. 363–375. Abitare nella Mantova Barocca: Palazzo Valenti Gonzaga, Mantua: Sometti, 2009. Architettura e Acqua lungo il corso del Mincio da Bell’Acqua a Garolda, Mantua: Sometti, 2005. Palazzo Bonatti in Mantova, Mantua: Sometti, 2004. Christopher P. Heuer is assistant professor at Princeton University in the Department of Art and Archaeology. His field of emphasis is Netherlandish and German art and architecture, and his first book, The City Rehearsed: Object, Architecture, and Print in the Worlds of Hans Vredeman de Vries (1526–1609) (London and New York, 2009), was recently awarded

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Contributors a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. Before coming to Princeton in 2007, Heuer held fellowships at Columbia University, The Getty Research Institute, and the Centre Canadien d’Architecture, Montreal. Between 2000 and 2002 he was the Samuel H. Kress fellow at the Kunsthistorisch Instituut Leiden. His writing has appeared in Res, Word and Image, Artforum,  JSAH, The Burlington Magazine, Kunstschrift, and Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes. Currently, Heuer is at work on a translation of an Alois Riegl lecture and a second book about print and failure.  Oliver Kik is researcher at University of Leuven and Utrecht University, and is currently preparing a doctoral dissertation “Between the Lines”, on Architectural designing practice in the Low Countries during the sixteenth century 1480–1550. Publications include contributions to the Lucas van Leyden catalogue (Leiden 2011) and the forthcoming catalogue on Michiel Coxcie (Leuven, 2013). His research area is the representation of architecture in painting, prints and drawings. Piet Lombaerde studied civil engineering in architecture at the Catholic University of Leuven (1973). He obtained at the same university in 1982 his Ph.D. in Urbanism. Since 1989 full professor in History and Theory of Architecture and Urbanism at the Higher Institute of Architectural Sciences Henry van de Velde (UA -University Association of Antwerp). Founding member of the Centre for Cultural and Urban History (University of Antwerp). His currently research is focused on the theories of architecture, fortification and the city during the Early Modern Times in Western Europe, especially in the Low Countries. Problems of innovation, experience, modeling, conceptualization and achievement, hand in hand with the influences of technical arts and sciences on this processes are his main theoretical concern. As Series Editor, together with Krista De Jonge, of ‘Architectura Moderna’ (Brepols), he edited the books The Reception of P.P. Rubens’s ‘Palazzi di Genova’ during the 17th Century in Europe: Questions and Problems, Turnhout: Brepols International, 2002 and Hans Vredeman de Vries and the Artes Mechanicae revisited, Turnhout: Brepols International, 2005. He organised several International Symposia: on Hans Vredeman de Vries and the technical and applied arts around 1600, in the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen (KMSKA); on Jesuit Architecture and the invention of space: the St Carolus Borromeus Church of Antwerp, Museum Rockox House, 9 December 2005; on The notion of the painter-architect in Italy and the Southern Low Countries, Kolveniershof and Rubens House, 2–3 December 2011; and recently on The Image of the City Transformed 15th – 18th Century, in the Museum MAS, Antwerp, 23–24 May 2013. Tine Meganck is a researcher at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels, funded by the Interuniversity Attraction Pole (IAP) City and Society in the Low Countries, a research program of the Belgian Science Policy (2007–2011; 2012–2017). Her major research interests are early modern art, art theory and visual culture in the Low Countries in a global perspective; interactions between early modern artists, antiquarian, humanists, naturalists. Her master thesis on the ecclesiastical architecture of Wensel Cobergher has been awarded and published by the Royal Belgian Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts in 1998. She received her PhD in Art History from Princeton University, Princeton, NJ (USA) in 2003 with a dissertation “Erudite Eyes: Artists and Antiquarians in the Circle of Abraham Ortelius (1527– 1598).” From 2005–2007 she held a Return Grant of the Federal Science Policy of Belgium to study the art, theory and metaphysics in the writings of Peter Paul Rubens and to contribute to the exhibition Rubens. A Genius at Work, RMFAB, Brussels, 14.09.2007–27.01.2008. She is currently finishing a book on The Fall of the Rebel Angels (1562) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.

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Contributors Stefano Francesco Musso, graduated in Architecture in 1984, is full professor of restoration, Dean of the Faculty of Architecture and Director of the School of Specialization in Architectural and Landscape Heritage of the University of Genoa. He is president of the EAAE (European Association for Architectural Education) and member of the PhD in Conservation of Architectural Heritage of the Politecnico di Milano. Among his many publications, the main concern the theoretical debate on restoration (Questioni di storia e restauro, Alinea, Firenze 1988; ‘Conservation/restoration of built Heritage. “Dimensions of contemporary culture”, in: P. Lombaerde, L. Lee (ed.) Bringing the World into Culture. Comparative Methodologies in Architecture, Art, Antewerpen: UPA Edition, 2009, pp.86–107), the non-destructive analytical and diagnostic methods for the analyses of existing bulidings (Architettura, segni e misura, Bologna: Esculapio, 1995; Recupero e restauro degli edifici storici, Roma: EPC Libri, 2010), the intervention techniques for restoration (Tecniche di restauro, Torino: UTET, 2003 – with B.P. Torsello), the and safeguard and rehabilitation of rural architecture (Guida alla manutenzione e al recupero dell’edilizia rurale, Marsilio, Venezia 2001, Guida agli interventi di recupero dell’edilizia diffusa nel Parco Nazionale delle Cinque Terre, Marsilio, Venezia 2006; Architettura rurale nel Parco del Beigua. Guida alla manutenzione e al recupero, Marsilio, Venezia 2008 – with G. Franco). Werner Oechslin. Geboren 1944; Studium der Kunstgeschichte, Archäologie, Philosophie und Mathematik; Promotion Zürich 1970. Lehrtätigkeit am MIT 1975, 1978, danach FU Berlin, Genf, Harvard. Habilitation Berlin FU 1980. Prof. in Bonn 1980–1984, seit 1985 an der ETH Zürich. Vorsteher des Instituts gta 1986–2006. Gründer der Bibliothek Werner Oechslin in Einsiedeln. Edward H. Wouk is Lecturer in Art History and Visual Studies at the University of Manchester. He completed his doctoral dissertation on Frans Floris de Vriendt at Harvard University in 2010, and is the author of numerous publications about Floris and his milieu, including The New Hollstein Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, 1450–1650. Frans Floris de Vriendt (2 vols., Sound & Vision Publishing, 2011), which was awarded the WolfgangRatjen Prize from the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, Munich. His article “Reclaiming the antiquities of Gaul: Lambert Lombard and the history of northern art” (Simiolus 36, 2012), was awarded the Alfred Bader Prize in 2012. Other publications include essays and entries on Pieter van der Heyden, Hieronymus Cock, and Dirk Bouts, and contributions to the forthcoming catalogue of paintings in the collection of Bernard Berenson at Villa I Tatti. He has held post-doctoral fellowships at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, where he collaborated on the project ‘Visualising Knowledge in the Early Modern Netherlands’.

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Index Page numbers in boldface type refer to captions of figures

A Aesop: 213 Ahasverus: 226 Albert, Archduke: 137, 141 Albert and Isabella (Archdukes): XV, 127, 128, 140, 141, 146, 147 Alberti, Cherubino: 50, 50 Alberti, Leandro: 55, 63 Alberti, Leon Battista: X, XI, XII, XIV, XV, 5, 13, 14, 15, 17, 22, 25, 73, 74, 88, 102, 106, 111, 112, 210, 211, 250, 254 Alberti, Romano: XIV, 9, 11, 12, 16-8, 18, 22, 23, 29, 30 Aldegrever, Heinrich: 79 Aldobrandini, Pietro: 142 Aldobrandini Wedding (Nozze): 142, 143 Alessi, Galeazzo: 166 Alexander: 104 Alexander P.F. (medalist): 80 Alexander Master (goldsmith): 79, 80 Altdorfer, Albrecht: 79 Altichiero da Zevio: 4 Ammannati, Bartolomeo: 5 Andresi, Ipolito: 184 Andromeda: 124, 125, 213 Angers: 55, 257, 259 Ansaldo, Gio. Andrea: 178 Antwerp: VII-IX, XI, XII, XVII, XIX-XXIII, 1, 24, 37, 37, 38, 73-84, 86, 89-92, 98, 99, 99, 100, 106, 107, 109, 110, 113, 114, 119, 119-25, 128, 131, 135, 137, 138, 139, 139-41, 146, 149, 150, 150, 151, 152, 160, 183-5, 201, 203, 203, 204, 209, 210, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 219, 221, 223, 236, 237, 238, 238-41, 254, 256, 257, 259, 260, 263, 263 Arenbergstraat: 90 Cathedral of Our Lady (O.-L.-Vrouwekathedraal): 76, 84, 86, 137, 139, 139, 204, 260, 263 Chapel of the Young Hand Bow: 137, 139 Citadel: 150 City Hall (Town Hall, Stadhuis): 73, 74, 98, 99, 99, 100 House De Cagie: 119 House of Frans Floris: V, VII, XVII, 89, 90, 91, 92, 92, 93, 98-100, 103-6, 113, 116, 123-5 Jesuit Church (St Carolus Borromeus): 73, 201, 203, 238, 239, 241, 242, 246, 263  Minderbroederskerk: 149 Plantin Press (Officina Plantiniana): 37, 38, 241 Royal Academy of Fine Arts (Koninklijke Academie): XI, XXIII Rubenshuis (Rubens House): VI -VIII, XVII, XVIII, XVIII, 89, 124, 125, 183, 184, 185, 190, 191,

201, 204, 208, 209, 210, 212, 213, 214, 214, 215, 215, 217-20, 218-20, 222-36, 224, 229, 230-3, 235, 240 Garden: 228, 235, 245 Garden Pavilion: 211, 224, 227, 233, 235, 244, 245 Museum (Pantheon, Rotunda): XVIII, 214, 214, 215, 216, 235 Portico: XVIII, 211, 224, 226, 234, 244, 245, 257 St Augustine Church: 139 St James Church (St. Jacobskerk): 84, 138,141 Chapel of the Holy Cross: 138 St Michael’s Abbey (St. Michielsabdij): 238, 239 Wapper: 214, 223 Apelles: 9, 19, 27, 28, 30, 86, 104, 105, 118, 120, 121 Apollo: 105, 115, 122 Arezzo: XVII, XVII, 103, 104, 104 Casa del Vasari: XVII, 103, 104, 104 Ariccia: 55 Church of the Madonna: 55 Ariosto, Ludovico: 123 Armenini, Giovanni Battista: 16, 17, 19

B Baia: 128 Balkans: 160 Bamberg: 154 Bamseda, Pedro: 122 Bandinelli, Baccio: 110, 111, 112, 113 Barbaro, Daniele: XIII, 10, 11-5, 17, 18, 22, 203, 237, 238, 241, 250, 251, 252, 253, 255, 256, 260, 263 Baroni, Virgilio: 59 Baronio, Cesare: 128, 133, 139 Barozzi da Vignola, Giacomo: see Vignola Barozzi, Stefano: 59 Bathseba: 241, 257, 260, 260 Béatrizet, Nicola (Nicolas): 123, 124 Beccafumi, Domenico: 47 Belgrade (Belgrado): 189, 190 Bellini, Gentile: 4 Bellini, Giovanni: 1, 4 Bellini, Jacopo: 4,5 Bellori, Pietro: 214, 215 Bentivoglio, Battista: 41, 42, 47, 52, 53, 57, 61 Bentivoglio d’Arragona: 32 Bernini, Gian Lorenzo: 55 Bertesi, Francesco: 193 Binelli, Domenica: 184 Blondeel, Lanceloot: XXI, 75, 76, 86 Bocchius: 94 Bologna: XVI, XIX, 20, 21, 39, 41, 41, 42, 47-52, 50, 51, 53-5, 57, 59, 60, 61-6, 64, 66 Casa Ercolani: 60 Palazzo Cornelio Lambertini: 61 Palazzo del Podestà: 55

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Index Palazzo Vizzani: 66 Piazza Maggiore: 60 Samoggia bridge: 64, 66 San Domenico (St. Domenic): 41, 41, 50, 61 Ghisilardi Chapel: 51, 61 San Giuseppe monastry: 42 San Petronio: 61 Santa Maria in Galliera: 54 St Andrew: 64,67 St Michael in the Woods: 59,61 St. Benedict Chapel: 59 ViaGalliera: 42 Via Flaminia: 64, 67 Bonasone, Giulio: 94 Boncompagni, Jacopo: 128, 133, 134 Boncompagni, Ugo (Pope): 133 Boniface IV: 55 Borghese, Scipio: 139 Borghini, Raffaello (Raphael): 65, 110 Borgo San Sepolcro: XVII, 5 House of Piero della Francesca: XVII, 5 Borromeo, Federico: 23 Borromini, Francesco: 23, 71 Bos, Cornelis: 77 Bosch, Hieronymus: 80 Bosse, Abraham: 210, 211, 211, 222 Botticchio, Giovanni Battista: 188, 198 Botticelli, Sandro: 44 Bouts, Albrecht: 83 Bouts, Dirk: 88 Brabant: XV, XXI, 77, 82, 84, 147,160, 237, 252 Brabo: 100 Bramante, Donato: XV, XXIV, 7, 39, 41, 74 Bramantino (Bartolomeo Suardi): 7 Bressani, Francesco: 193 Bril, Paul: 136 Bronzino, Agnolo: 116 Bruegel the Elder, Jan: 105 Bruegel, Pieter: 156 Brugge (Bruges): 75 Chamber of the Brugse Vrije: 75 Brunelleschi, Filippo: XV, XXII, 5, 7, 49, 55 Brussels (Brussel): XV, 74, 77, 80, 122, 127, 128, 129, 131, 140, 140-2, 146, 147, 150, 153 Church of St Gorik: 140, 140 Church of the Discalced Carmelites: 127 Busso, Aurelio: 171, 173

C Caesar: 33, 34, 134, 171, 172, 176, 178 Calvi, (Brothers): 169, 171, 172, 173 Cambiaso, Luca: 171, 172, 175 Campaspe: 104,121 Cantone, Bernardo: 166, 166 Caprarola: XXII, 65-7, 68-71 Villa Farnese: XXII, 65-7, 68-71 Sala del Aurora: 65, 67, 68 Sala di Giove: 65, 67, 68, 71

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Caprini, Adriano: 101 Capua: 128, 131 Carafa, Alfonso: 131 Carafa, Diogenes: 132 Carafa, Diomede: 131 Carafa, Giov. Pietro (Pope): 131 Carafa, Francesco: 131 Carafa di Montorio (family): 131, 132, 134 Caravaggio, Michelangelo: 132 Carlo II Gonzaga Nevers: XVIII, 183, 184, 198 Castello, Giovanni Battista: 171, 173 Castiglione, Giovanni: 149 Causé, Hendrik: 238, 238 Caussin, Nicolas: 27, 28, 28 Cavalieri, Tomasso: 123 Cebes of Thebes: 114 Cellini, Benvenuto: 48, 96 Cennini, Cennino: 178 Centaurs: 171 Ceres: 257, 258, 259 Cesariano, Cesare: XII Cesena: 41, 43, 43, 59 Cassa di Risparmio di Cesena: 43, 59 Cesi, Federico: 135 Chaalis: 55, 56 Chapel of St. Mary: 55, 56 Charles II Gonzaga Nevers: 183, 184, 198 Charles V (Emperor): XX, 60, 60-2, 83, 111, 119, 172 Chieppio, Annibale: XIX, 239 Chigi, Agostino: 7, 244 Christ (Christus): 1, 5, 29, 37, 43, 45, 47, 48, 78, 83, 85, 85, 131, 141, 152 Cima da Conegliano, Giovanni Battista: 83 Cinzio (cardinal-prince): 128, 142 Clavius, Christopher: 33 Clement VII: 60, 61 Clement VIII: 23, 24 Cobergher, Wenceslas (Wensel): V, XV, XV, XVI, 127-46, 129, 130, 132, 138, 140, 144, 145, 147 Cochin, Charles-Nicolas: 35, 66 Cock, Hieronymus: XII, 95, 106, 115, 116, 120, 160, 184 Coclite, Orazio: 171 Coecke van Aelst, Pieter: VIII, XII, XII, XIX, XX, 74, 77, 100, 128, 203, 213, 215, 217, 250, 251, 251, 254 Colius, Jacques: 128, 134, 136, 137 Colyns de Nole, Hans: XXI Colyns de Nole, Robert: XXI Constantine (Emperor): 137, 138, 139,141, 142, 142, 145 Constantinople: XX Cornelisz. van Oostsanen, Jacob: 86, 87, 87 Cornelisz. Vermeyen, Jan: 76 Correggio, Antonio da: 51, 53, 57, 60 Cort, Cornelis: 106, 107, 122 Corticella: 64 Cortona: 5 Cosimo I de’Medici: XVII, 5

Index Cousin theElder, Jean: 55, 56, 56 Cousin the Younger, Jean: 56 Cracow: 153 Cranach the Elder, Lucas: 79 Crema: 188 Cremona: 186, 198 Cuma: 128 Cybo (Cardinal): 28, 31, 32

D da Caravaggio, Polidoro: 95, 132, 168, 169, 171, 212 da Cotignola, Girolamo: 40, 42, 59, 60 Daems, Jan: XXI da Hollanda, Francesco: 95, 97, 117 dal Pozzo, Cassiano: 135 da Maiano, Benedetto: 5 da Maiano, Giuliano: 5 da Montefeltro, Federigo: XIX, 7 Danti, Egnazio: 20, 20, 21, 59, 66, 136, 202 da Sangallo, Giuliano: XV, 5, 6, 44, 46 da Triviso, Girolamo: 51 da Udine, Giovanni: 62 David, Gerard: 86 da Vinci, Leonardo: XV, 44 de Aguilón, François: 203, 204, 221, 222 de Bailliu, Pieter: 183 de Borchgreve, Hendrick: 78 de Caus, Salomon: 241 de Dene, Eduard: 86 de Ferrari, Andrea: 178, 186 de Grassi, Cristoforo: 164 de Heere, Jan: 73 de Heere, Lucas: 106, 121 de Holanda, Francisco: 7 de Honnecourt, Villard: 76, 78, 87, 151, 153, 154, 156, 160 de Huarte, Juan: 26 de la Marck, Érard: 99 de Layens, Matheus: 78, 82 della Casa, Niccolò: 111 della Faille, Jean Baptiste:  90, 91, 114, 121 della Francesca, Piero: XV, XVII, 5, 210 Della Porta, Antonio: 169 della Porta, Giacomo: XIII, 10, 11, 169 della Porta, Giambattista: 134 della Porta, Guglielmo: 67, 68 della Porta, Johannes Vincenzo: 134, 136 della Rovere, Domenico: 47 della Valle, Andrea: 94, 95, 97 del Tasso, Battista: 5 del Vaga, Perino (Perin): 64, 95, 168, 169 de’Medici, Cosimo I: XVII de Medici, Lorenzo: 44, 46, 109 de’ Medici, Marie: 204, 205, 207, 241, 246, 257 de’Menabuoi, Giusto: 4 de Nole, Jan (Hans): XXI,122,139, 145 de Nole, Robrecht: XXI, 122, 139, 144, 145, 146 de Piles; Roger: 215

Desargues, Pierre: 210, 211, 211 d’Este, Ippolito: 55 de Valesco, Nicasio José: 122 de Ville, Jacques: XXIV de Villers, Dionysius: 130 de Vos, Cornelis: 120 de Vos, Maerten: XVI, 134, 135,147 de Vos, Philips: 100 de Waghemakere, Domien: 76, 84 de Waghemakere, Pieter: 76 De Zwart, Hendrik: 74 Diana: 170 di Cosimo, Piero: 49 di Giorgio Martini, Francesco: XVI, 217 Dijon: 74 Diocletian: 137 Donatello: XV, 4 Doni, Anton Francesco: 106, 116, 117 Dordrecht: 84 Church of Our Lady: 84 Doria, Andrea: 181 Dubroeucq, Jacques: 73 Duccio di Buoninsegna: XIV, 1 du Foix, Louis: 73 du Hameel Duhameel), Alart: 77, 78, 79, 81 du Jardin, Jan: 73 Dürer, Albrecht: 20, 62, 63, 79, 80, 96, 112, 118-20, 149, 254

E Egmont and Horn (Counts): 101 Emmaus: 150, 152 Erasmus: 118 Erichthonius: 253, 255 Esther: 202

F Fabri de Peresc, Nicolas-Claude: 128 Fabritius, Carel: XXIV Falconetto, Giovanni Maria: 7 Fancelli, Luca: 46 Fantuzzi, Antonio: 54, 54 Farnese, Alessandro: 34, 100 Farnese (Family): 59, 68 Favorita: 184 Ferdinand, Cardinal-Infant: 238, 240, 253 Ferdinand Charles (Duke of Mantua): 184, 198 Ferrara: XVI, 40, 42, 49, 51,52 Fiasella, Domenico: 178 Filarete: 43, 102, 103, 108 Finiguerra, Maso: 4 Fiorini, Giovanni Battista: 65, 68 Flanders: XVI, 161, 184 Florence (Firenze): XIV, XV, XVII, XXII, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 46, 103-6, 108, 109, 124, 136, 153, 164, 210, 237, 259 Academy: XI, XIV, 16 Bibliotheca Medicea Laurenziana: 259

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Index Borgo Santa Croce: 103 Campanile (Duomo): 4 Casa Buonaroti: 261 Casa Vasari (House of Vasari): XVII, 8, 103, 104, 105, 106, 115 City Walls: 4 Mercato Nuovo: 5 Santa Croce: 1, 3 Peruzzi Chapel: 3 Santa Maria degli Angeli: 55 Uffizi: 6 Floris II, Cornelis: 73, 95, 98, 99, 100, 101 Floris III, Cornelis: XXI. Floris de Vriendt, Frans: V, VII, XVII, 86, 89-125, 91, 92, 102, 109, 115, 116, 120 Floris de Vriendt, Jan: 86, 90 Florisz. de Vriendt, Jan: 86 Flötner, Peter: 79 Fobert, Jacob: 252 Fontainebleau: XXII, 50, 54-6, 64, 66 Fouquet, Jean: 56 Fra Angelico: 4, 56 Fra Bartolomeo: 4 Fra Carnevale: 5 Fra Damiano da Bergamo: 41, 50, 55, 62, 62-4, 63, 64 Francart (Franckaert), Jacques (Jacob): XV, XVI, 136, 241, 250, 260, 262 France: 40, 54-7, 64, 108, 204, 205, 207 Francia, Francesco: 39, 47 Francken the Younger, Frans: 105 François I: 111 Franconia: 154 Frederick III (Emperor): 5

G Gaddi, Agnolo: 4 Gaddi, Taddeo: XIV, 1, 4 Galilei, Galileo: 135, 136 Galle, Cornelis: 183 Galle, Johannes: 90 Galle, Philips: 90, 114, 115, 117 Galle, Théodore: 130 Ganymede: 123, 124 Gassel, Lucas: 150 Gaurico (Gauricus), Pomponio: 108 Geffels, Frans (Francesco): V, XVIII, 183-99 Genga, Girolamo: 57 Genoa (Genova, Genua): V, VIII, XVIII, 161-99, 164, 166, 167, 177, 179, 182, 212, 212 Palazzo Luigi Centurione: 191, 199, 199 Palazzo di Angelo Giovanni Spinola: 171, 173, 174 Palazzo Cattaneo Adorno: 212, 212 Palazzo di Gio. Baptista Grimaldi (Meridiana): 171, 172, 173, 175 Palazzo di Paolo Battista e Nicolò Interiano: 176, 177, 177, 180

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Palazzo di Stefano Squarciafico (Doria-Invrea): 171, 172 Palazzo Grillo Spinola: 171 Palazzo Lercaro: 167, 168, 169 Palazzo Peirano: 176, 178,178 Palazzo Podestà: 212 Palazzo Saluzzo: 171 Palazzo Tursi: 178 Piazza Campetto: 175 Piazza delle Vigne: 171 Piazza Embriaci: 167, 168, 168 Piazza Fontane Marose: 167, 176, 177, 177, 180, 180 Piazza San Lorenzo: 175 Piazza Valloria: 176, 178 Ripa maris: 163 Strada Nuova (Via Aurea, Via Garibaldi): VIII, 163, 165, 166, 166, 167, 169, 176, 179, 180, 212 Via degli Orefici: 167, 168, 169 Via di Scurreria: 175 Via Giustiniani: 178 Via Lomellini: 171 Gerbier (family): 260, 262 Gevartius, Gaspar: 210, 256 Ghezzi, Giuseppe: 28, 30, 31, 31, 32, 33, 34 Ghezzi, Placido Eustachio: 30 Ghiberti, Lorenzo: XV, 4 Ghirlandaio, Domenico: 4 Ghisi, Georgio: 184 Ghisi, Teodoro: 92 Giambologna (Giovanni Bologna): 136 Gillis, Peter: 83 Giolfi, Antonio: 167 Giotto (di Bondone): XIV, 1, 3, 4, 119 Givry, Cardinal of: 55 Goldmann, Nicolaus: IX Goltzius (Golzius), Hendrick: 92, 114, 117, 118, 147 Gonzaga: XVI, XIX, 183-5, 188, 203 Gonzaga, Giovanni: 186, 191 Gonzaga, Odoardo Valenti: 185, 193, 194, 196, 197, 197, 198, 198 Gonzaga, Silvio Valentini: 188 Gonzaga, Vincent I (Vincenzo): XIX, 136, 184, 239 Gonzaga di Vescovato, Ottavio I: XVIII, 184-6, 187, 189. Gonzaga Nevers, Charles II: XVIII, 184, 198 Gossaert (Gossart), Jan:  XVI, 73-5, 75, 84, 85, 85, 86, 264 Gossaert (Gossart), Nicasius: 84 Gouda: 74 Gozzoli, Benozzo: 4, 155, 155 Greece: 160 Gregorio XIII (Gregory XIII, Ugo Boncompagni): 65, 133 Gregorius II: 133 Guarini, Guarino: 203 Guicciardini, Francesco: 63 Guicciardini, Lodovico: XIX, 107 Guidotti, Giovanni Lorenzo: 167

Index H Haarlem: 76, 123 Hadrian: 47 Hamerani, Giovanni: 31 Harrewijn, Jacob: 125, 212, 213, 215, 217, 218, 219, 234, 234, 235 Henry IV: 204, 205, 207 Henry VIII: 80 Hercules: 123, 171 Herma: 171 Hillewerve, Henricus: 218, 219 Holbein, Hans: 79 Hopfer, Daniel: 79 Horace (Horatius, Horaz): 114, 115, 121 Houwaert, Jean-Baptiste: 80 Hydra: 171

I Iceland: 154 Ignatius of Loyola: 247, 247, 257 Imperato, Ferrante: 134 Imperiale, Gio. Battista: 175 Innocent III: 43 Iraklion: 153 Isabella Clara (regent duchess): 184 Isabella of Austria: 74, 75 Isabella of Spain: 141, 242

J Jerusalem: 127 Temple of Solomon: 1 Jesus Christ: see Christ Jombert, Charles-Antoine: 35, 35, 36, 36 Jonghelinck, Nicolaes: 106, 109 Jordaens, Jacob: 201 Julius II: 7, 122 Julius III: 59 Junius, Franciscus: 26, 26, 27, 27, 158 Jupiter: 171

K Kallo: 253, 254, 256, 257 Keldermans, Matheus III: 84 Keldermans, Rombout II: 84 Ketel, Cornelis: 123, 124 Koberger, Anton: 79

L La-Chaud-de-Fonds: 160 Lamo, Pietro: 42 Lampsonius, Dominicus: XII, XVII, XX, XX, 81, 82, 84, 86, 89, 98, 105, 110-4, 117, 118, 120, 121 Landsknecht: 169 Langres: 55, 56 Cathedral: 55, 56 Laocoön: 111 Laureti, Tommaso: 66, 69

Léau (Zoutleeuw): 99 Church of Saint-Léonard: 99 Lebrun, Charles: 122 Le Corbusier: 149, 160 Leo X: 7, 144 Lepanto: 132, 181 Leuven (Louvain): 77, 82, 136 St Peter’s (Sint-Pieterskerk): 82, 83 Leyniers of Brussels, Jan: 122 Liège: XVII, XX, 89, 98, 137 Église Saint-Jacques: XX Hôtel Torrentius: 98 Lier: 141 Linnig, Egidius: 91 Linnig, Jean-Théodore-Joseph: 91, 92, 98, 119 Linnig, Willem: 91 Lippi, Filippino: 4, 44 Lipsius, Justus: 136, 249 Lomazzo, Gio. Paolo: 168, 170, 171-3, 175 Lombard, Lambert: VIII, XVII, XX, XX, 89, 98-100, 103, 105, 108, 110-3, 117-9, 125 Lombardy: 164. 165, 167-9, 185, 188, 190 London: 201, 221 Whitehall: 201, 239 Lorenzetti, Ambrogio: 1 Lotto, Lorenzo: 52 Louis XIV: 122, 204, 205 Low Countries: V, VII, IX, XI, XII, XX- XXII, 73, 74, 76, 78, 79, 83, 87, 89, 107, 118, 127, 128, 137, 140, 141, 143, 172, 177, 249, 264 Lugano: 193 Luziano (Luziani), Giuseppe: 198

M Macarius (Jean l’Heureux): 128, 133, 135, 136 Macchiavelli, Niccolò: 64 Maderno: 184 Gonzaga Palace: 184 Madrid: 252 Convent of the Descalzas Reales: 252 Torre de la Parada: 239, 241 Mantegna, Andrea: XVI, 5, 8, 103, 168, 169, 217, 240 Mantua (Mantova): XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX, 5, 7, 46, 102, 103, 136, 183-91, 186, 189, 190, 191, 193-8, 193, 197-9 Castel San Giorgio: 5 Catasto Teresiano: 193, 194 Cathedral: 191 House of Francesco Zanetti: 185, 188, 189 House of Mantegna: XVI, 5, 103, 217, 240 House of Giulio Romano: XVI, XVII, XVIII, 8, 103 Palazzo Benedetto Sordi: 185, 189-91, 191, 192, 194 Palazzo Giovanni Battista Guerrieri Gonzaga: 191, 198 Palazzo (del) Te: 47, 54, 103, 213 Palazzo Ducale: XIX, 103, 188 Galleria Grande: XIX

307

Index Palazzo Odoardo Valenti Gonzaga: 193, 194, 196-8 San Martino (church of Saint Martin): 185, 191 San Sebastiano (church): 46 
Via Corridoni: 187, 188, 189, 192-4, 194 Villa of Francesco Zanetti: 185, 188, 189, 190, 197 Marchesi da Cotignola, Girolamo: 40, 41, 52, 59, 60 Marconi, Marco: 193 Marmirolo: 184, 198 Mars: 171 Masaccio, Tommaso: 4 Massys, Cornelis: 150 Master Alexander: 80 Master IvH: 116 Master W with the Key: 78, 79, 80 Matham, Theodor Dirck: 183 Mathieu de Paris: 153 Mazarin: 122 Mechelen (Malin): 75, 84 St. Romboutskathedraal (St Rombold): 84 Melanthius: 118 Mercury: 103, 109, 119, 123, 171 met de Bles, Herri (Henri): 149, 150, 151, 152, 160 Metsys, Jan: 73 Metsys, Joos I: 82 Metsys, Joos II: 82, 82, 83 Metsys, Quinten: VII, XVII, 81, 82-4, 84 Mettacodi, Gaetano: 186 Mexico: 153 Michelangelo: VIII, XIII, XV, XXIII, 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 46, 47, 49, 104, 117, 120-4, 124, 136, 144, 204, 209, 210, 239, 244, 245, 250, 251, 257-9, 259-61, 263  Middeler, Daniel: 183 Milan (Milano, Mailand): XVI, 7, 55, 59 Minerva: 31, 65, 67, 103, 115, 119, 171 Modena: 59 Moeren: XVI Mols, Frans: 215, 215, 219 Mone, Jean: XXI, 128 Monogrammist TG: 92, 93-7, 121, 122 Montanara di Curtatone: 188 Moretus, Balthasar: 238, 241, 250 Moretus, Jan: 128 Moscow: 153 Kremlin: 153 Muti, Giulio Cesare: 186

N Naccherini, Michelangelo: 136 Naples (Napoli): XV, 100, 127, 128, 130, 131-6, 132, 133, 142, 144, 146, 147 San Pietro ad Aram: 132, 132, 133, 133, 137, 141 San Domenico Maggiore: 130, 131, 132 Capellone del Crocifisso: 130, 131, 132 Nappini, Bartolomeo: 32, 33 Neeffs (family): 264 North Sea: 75

308

O Omar: 1 Mosque: 1 Orcagna: 4. Ortelius, Abraham: 128, 134-7 Orvieto: 5 Otranto: 164 Our Lady: 76, 80, 84, 86, 137, 139, 141, 144, 145, 263

P Pacioli, Luca: 156 Palladio, Andrea: 1, 128, 134, 156, 175, 203, 204, 210, 217, 250 Paludanus, Guillielmus (Willem van den Broeck): XXI, 73, 122 Pamphilos: 112, 118 Papebrochius, Daniel: 91, 121 Paris: XXIII, 5, 28, 28, 35, 35, 36, 39, 67, 76, 80, 96, 108, 147, 153, 154, 160, 204, 210, 211, 211, 214, 258, 259 Louvre: 41, 47, 48, 48, 56, 56,  67, 78, 204, 205, 207, 237, 258, 259 Parmigianino: 60, 60 Passerotti, Bartolomeo: 65 Paul III: 64, 209 Paul IV: 131 Paul of Middleburg: 109 Pecquius, Pieter: 252 Peeters, Martin: 99 Penni, Giovanni Francesco: 48, 48 Penni, Lorenzo: 54 Perseus: 124, 125, 213 Perugia: 46, 166 Perugino: 44, 45, 46, 83, 84 Peruzzi, Baldassarre (Baldassari): XXII, XXIII, XXIV, 1, 3, 4, 7, 39, 42, 43, 44, 45, 47, 48, 49-53, 55, 57, 60, 61-3, 61, 63, 68, 96 Pesaro: XVI, 39, 40, 57 Santa Maria delle Grazie: 39 San Terenzio: 39 Philander (Philandrier), Guillaume: X, 241, 250, 251, 254, 257 Philip II: 90, 119, 133, 141,173 Philip the Good: 86 Piacenza: XVI, 68, 71, 72 Villa Farnese: 68, 71, 72 Pinturicchio, Bernardino: 47 Pisanello: 6 Pius V: 132 Pliny (Plinius): 102, 104, 118, 121 Po: 186 Poggio a Caiano: 46, 210 Villa of Lorenzo de Medici: 46, 210 Pole, Reginald (Cardinal): 110

Index Polybius: 134 Pontius, Paulus: 183 Pontormo: 116 Portiolo: XVIII, 184-7, 187, 189. Palace of Ottavio Gonzaga: XVIII, 184, 185, 187, 189 Possevino, Antonio: 22-6, 24, 25 Pourbus, Frans: XIX Pourbus, Pieter: XVI, 75, 76, 184 Pozzuoli: 128, 131 Prague: 123 Praxiteles: 30 Primaticcio, Francesco: XXII, 50, 54, 55, 64, 65, 67 Protogenes: 27, 28 Pupini, Biagio: 50

Q Quellinus, Erasmus: 237

R Raes, Jan: 252 Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio): XV, XVI, XXIII, XXIV, 1, 2, 7, 8, 14, 46, 48, 48, 55, 60, 101, 107, 120, 122, 132, 132, 134, 142, 144, 240, 244 Reiter, Jerg: 154 Richardot, Jean: XV, 127, 133, 136, 137, 142, 147 Richelieu (city): 211 Ripa, Cesare: 108, 109 Rixner, Wolfgang: 154 Robeyns, Judocus: 141 Romano, Giulio: VIII, XVI, XVII, XXIV, 1, 7-9, 47, 48, 51, 54, 100, 101, 103, 144, 202, 240 Rome: XIV-XX, XXII, XXIII, 1, 3, 7, 8, 47, 50, 53, 55, 57, 59, 60-2, 64, 65, 67, 68, 69, 71, 72, 74, 86, 93, 96, 99, 103, 109, 111, 123, 124, 127, 128, 131, 133, 134-7, 137, 139, 141, 142, 142, 144, 145, 147, 153, 156, 158, 164, 168, 169, 171, 187, 202, 210, 212, 214, 215, 216, 217, 237 Academia dei Lincei: 134, 135 Academia di San Luca (Academy): 29, 30 Arch of Constantine: 139, 142, 142 Basilica of Maxentius: 1 Belvedere courtyard: 41, 54, 111 Campo di Fiore: 210 Capitoline: 257, 260 Ciocchi del Monte: 59 Circus of Nero: 47 Forum Romanum: 142 Il Gesù: XXII, 68 Mausoleum of Augustus: 47 Mausoleum of Hadrian: 47 Palazzo Branconio dell’Aquila: 8, 101, 103 Palazzo Caprini: 101 Palazzo dei Conservatori: 257 Palazzo Farnese: 68, 209, 210 Palazzo Fusconi-Pighini: 53

Palazzo Spada: 101, 210 Pantheon (the Rotonda): 55, 214, 215, 216, 217 Piazza Madama: 96 Ponte Elio: 47 Porta Pia: 187, 204, 239, 257, 258, 259 Raphael’s Palazzo: XVI, 101 Santa Maria Rotunda: 55 San Rocco (church): 47 Santa Croce in Gerusalemme: 103, 137, 137, 141, 142 Santa Maria dell’Anima: 47 Santa Maria della Pace: 1, 3 Santa Maria del Popolo: 47 Chigi Chapel: 244 Santa Maria in Vallicella: 128 Sant’Eligio degli Orefici (church): 244 Sant’ Onofrio (church): 47 Strada di Trastevere: 210 Strada Julia: 210 Temple of Peace (Tempio della Pace): 1 Temple of Saturn: 114 Via Giulia: 244 Villa Madama: 100, 101 Roriczer, Mathes: 77 Rossellino, Bernardo: XV, 5 Rosso Fiorentino, Il: 49, 50, 50 Rotterdam: 26, 27 Rubens, Peter Paul: V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, XVI-XIX, XVIII, XIX, XXI-XXIII, 8, 24, 27, 35, 35, 36, 73, 89, 90, 101, 111, 124, 125, 127, 128, 135-7, 139, 141, 142, 145, 161-78, 177, 183-5, 190, 191, 193, 194, 199, 199, 201-22, 202, 205, 207-9, 215, 221, 237-64, 247- 50, 252, 255-60, 262, 263 Rubens, Philip: 136 Rudolph II: 133 Ruffo, Marco: 153 Ryckemans, Nicolaes: 212

S Sabbioneta: XIV, XIV, 203 Palazzo del Giardino: XIV Teatro all’Antica: XIV, XIV Sabine Virgins: 240 Saenredam, Pieter: XXIV, XXIV Salvi, Giovanni Pompeo: 189, 193, 194, 194, 195 Salvi Beffa, Margherita: 193 Samoggia (river near Bologna): 64, 66 Sansovino: 1, 8 Savery, Roelant: 156, 157, 158 Saxony: 125, 154 Scamozzi, Vincenzo: XIV, 12, 13, 15, 16, 22, 203, 204, 241, 250 Scarini, Nicollò: 73 Scevola, Muzio: 171 Scherpenheuvel (Montaigu): XVI, 127, 141, 144, 145, 146 Schmuttermayer, Hans: 77

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Index Schongauer, Martin: 79, 118 Seghizzi, Andrea: 184 Serlio, Sebastiano: V, XII, XIV, XIX, XX, XXII, 1, 39-57, 40, 42, 43, 49, 50, 52-4, 57, 59-61, 63, 73, 74, 100, 128, 170, 171, 202, 203, 213, 215, 216, 237, 248, 250-4, 253, 257, 263 Sforza (family): 39, 57 Sforza, Ludovico: 7 Sforzinda: 102 ‘s-Hertogenbosch: 77, 78 St John’s Cathedral (Sint-Janskathedraal): 77, 78 Signorelli, Luca: 5 Siena: 7, 44, 44, 45, 47, 51, 55, 61, 62 Cathedral: 51 San Martino (church): 47 Sant’Agostino (church): 44 Water Supply: 7 Sluter, Claus (Klaas): 74 Smet, Cornelis: 127, 133 ’s Molders, Margriet: 84 Sodom: 257, 258 Solomon (Salomon): 1,23, 25 Sordi, Benedetto: 185, 189-91, 191, 192, 194 Sperling, Otto: 214, 218, 219, 237 Spinola, Angelo Giovanni: 171, 173, 174 Spinola family: 172 Spinola, Grillo: 171 Spranger, Bartholomaus: 123 St Ambrose: 257, 259 Stelliola, Niccolò Antonio: 134 Steurbout, Gillis: 82, 83 St Anna: 84 St Catharina: 253 St Francis of Paola: 248, 249, 260 St Helen: 137, 137, 138, 141, 142, 145 St Ildefonso: 248, 250 St Joachim: 84 St John the Baptist: 3, 85, 85, 100, 102 St Luke: 95 St Luke Guild: VII, XIX, XXII, 74, 80, 81, 99, 120, 122, 140 St Magdalene: 133 St Peter: 75 Strasbourg: 78, 82 St Roch: 260 St Sebastian: 137, 139, 139, 140 St Stephen: 248, 249 Stuttgart: 149, 154 Suavius, Lambert: 73

T Tasso, Torquato: 134 Teniers, David: XXIII Titian: 1, 212, 249 Torrentius, Lévin: 98 Torres, Pietro: 127 Torricelli, Giuseppe: 167 Trescone: 52 Oratorio Suardi: 52

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Trondheim: 153 Turkey: 160

U Ulysses: 171, 172 Umbria: 5, 46 Urbino: XV, XVI, XIX, 4, 4, 5, 7, 39, 49, 57 Palazzo Ducale: XV Utrecht: XII, 74, 76, 80, 146 Cathedral (Dom): 74

V Valenti, Valente: 197 Valladolid: 122 van Baurscheit the Elder, Jan Peter: XXII van Breydenbach, Bernard: 150 van Campen, Jacob: XXIV van Croes, Jacob: 213, 213, 217 van Croes, Jan: 90, 91, 91, 113, 114, 125 van Dalem, Cornelis: 119, 119 van den Dyck, Daniel: 184 van den Elsmer, Wouter: 73 van den Eynde, Jan: 75 van der Does, Anthony: 183 van Dyck, Anthony: XV, XIX, 27, 139, 140, 184, 237 van Eyck, Jan: 86, 119 van Heemskerck, Maerten: 95, 101, 103, 158, 159 van Hooren, Melchisedech: 99 van Hulle, Anselmus: 183 van Loon, Theodore: 127, 135, 141, 145 van Leyden, Lucas: 149. van Mander, Carel (Karel): 86, 89, 90, 98, 101, 105, 106, 121, 123, 124, 149 van Meckenem, Israel: 79 van Meurs, Jacob: 28, 29 van Meurs, Jan: 256 van Nickelen, Isaak: 139 van Nieulandt, Willem I: 136 van Noort, Lambert: 73 van Noort, Willem: 80 van Orley, Barend: XVI, XIX van Paesschen, Hendrik: XXI van Scorel, Jan: 76 van Thulden, Theodoor: 256 van Vianen, Paulus: 156, 157, 158 van Winghe, Philips: 130, 133 Vasari, Giorgio: VIII, X, X, XI, XIII, XVII, XVII, XXII, XXIII, 4, 5, 6, 8, 16-8, 59, 60, 62, 90, 98, 101, 103-6, 104, 108-11, 110, 115-9, 121-3, 145, 146, 178, 210 Vatican: 47, 56, 64, 71, 72, 94, 111, 143 Belvedere courtyard: 41, 54, 111 Castel Sant’Angelo: 134 Niccoline Chapel: 56 Sala di Costantino: 47 Saint Peter ‘s Basilica: 132, 133, 158, 159 Sant’Anna dei Palafrenieri: 68, 71, 72  Sistine Chapel: 120

Index Vecchietta: 5 Veneziano, Agostino: 111, 112, 253 Veneziano, Domenico: 4 Venice: XV, 1, 4, 8, 39, 41, 49, 54, 55, 156, 175, 193, 202, 203, 217, 237, 238, 250, 252, 255, 256 Accademia: 1 Loggetta: 8 San Marco: 4 Venus: 82, 171 Verhulst, Mayken: 203 Veronese, Paolo: 1, 4 Vervoert, Hans: 252 Viani, Antonio Maria: XIX, 184, 191, 239 Vicenza: 25, 203, 204 Teatro Olympico: 203, 204 Villa Rotonda: 210 Vico, Eneas: 111, 113 Vienna: 39, 82, 184, 225 Vignola, Giacomo (Jacopo, Jacomo) Barozzi da: V, XXII, 7, 20, 20, 21, 59-68, 65, 66, 68-72, 202 Vignola (town): 83, 71 Villa Farnese (Caprarola): 65, 67, 68, 71 Sala di Giove: 65,67, 68, 71 Villafranca, Marquis of: 136 Villalpando, Juan Bautista: 23 Virgin: see Our Lady

Vitruvius: X-XIII, XV, 41, 43, 73, 74, 86, 88, 102, 144, 156, 237, 241, 250, 252-4 von Kues, Nikolaus: 30 von Sandart, Joachim: 214 von Schlosser, Julius: 155, 160 Vredeman de Vries, Hans: IX, X, XVI, XX, XXI, XXIV, 73, 87, 98, 100, 259, 260, 261, 262, 263 Vulcan: 82

W Waumans, Conrad: 183 Wellemans, Gregorius: 75 Wierix, Hiëronymus: XII, XX, 82, 121 Wierix, Jan: 82, 120, 121

Z Zambelli, Fra Damiano: 55 Zanetti, Francesco: 185, 188, 189, 189, 190, 197 Zeebrugge: 75 Zeeland: 109 Zeil: 154 Zeuxis: 120, 121 Zijpe (River): 76 Zuccari (Zuccaro), Federico: XIII, XVI, XVII, 8-12, 14, 16, 20-3, 29, 30, 34, 122 Zuccari, Taddeo: XXII, 65, 67, 68 Zwin: 75

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