Renaissance Porticoes and Painted Pergolas: Nature and Culture in Early Modern Italy (Visual Culture in Early Modernity) [1 ed.] 1472460537, 9781472460530

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Renaissance Porticoes and Painted Pergolas

This book is the first study of the portico and its decorative program as a cultural phenomenon in Renaissance Italy. Focusing on a largely neglected group of porticoes decorated with painted pergolas that appeared in Rome and environs in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, it tells the story of how an element of the garden— the pergola—became a pictorial topos in portico decoration and evolved, hand in hand with its real cousin in the garden, into an object for cultural emulation among the educated patrons of early modern Rome. The liminality of both the portico and the pergola at the interface of architecture and garden is key to the interpretation of these architectural and painted forms, which rests on the intersecting frameworks of the classical tradition, natural history, and the cultural identity of the aristocracy. In the mediating space of the Renaissance portico, the illusionistic pergola created an art gallery, a natural history museum, and a virtual garden where one could engage in leisurely strolls, learned conversations, appreciation of art, and scientific investigation, as well as extensive travel across time and space. The book proposes the interpretation that the illusionistic pergola was an artistic formula for the early modern perception of nature. Natsumi Nonaka received her Ph.D. in Architectural History from the University of Texas at Austin in 2012. Her specialization is art and architecture in early modern Italy. She taught architectural history at the University of Texas at Austin and is currently teaching art history at Montana State University.

Visual Culture in Early Modernity Series Editor: Kelley Di Dio

A forum for the critical inquiry of the visual arts in the early modern world, Visual Culture in Early Modernity promotes new models of inquiry and new narratives of early modern art and its history. The range of topics covered in this series includes, but is not limited to, painting, sculpture and architecture as well as material objects, such as domestic furnishings, religious and/or ritual accessories, costume, scientific/ medical apparata, erotica, ephemera and printed matter. Making and Moving Sculpture in Early Modern Italy Edited by Kelley Helmstutler Di Dio Food and Knowledge in Renaissance Italy Bartolomeo Scappi’s Paper Kitchens Deborah L. Krohn Visual Cultures of Foundling Care in Renaissance Italy Diana Bullen Presciutti Genre Imagery in Early Modern Northern Europe New Perspectives Edited by Arthur J. DiFuria Material Bernini Edited by Evonne Levy and Carolina Mangone The Enduring Legacy of Venetian Renaissance Art Edited by Andaleeb Badiee Banta The Bible and the Printed Image in Early Modern England Little Gidding and the Pursuit of Scriptural Harmony Michael Gaudio Prints in Translation, 1450–1750 Image, Materiality, Space Edited by Suzanne Karr Schmidt and Edward H. Wouk Imaging Stuart Family Politics Dynastic Crisis and Continuity Catriona Murray Sebastiano del Piombo and the World of Spanish Rome Piers Baker-Bates Early Modern Merchants as Collectors Edited by Christina M. Anderson Visual Culture and Mathematics in the Early Modern Period Edited by Ingrid Alexander-Skipnes

Renaissance Porticoes and Painted Pergolas Nature and Culture in Early Modern Italy Natsumi Nonaka

First published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2017 Natsumi Nonaka The right of Natsumi Nonaka to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this title has been requested ISBN: 978-1-4724-6053-0 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-22913-3 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction

vi xii 1

1

Mediating spaces: portico, loggia, and pergola

10

2

Classical tradition and vernacular culture: Villa Farnesina and the First Loggia of Leo X

44

Visual encyclopedia and trellised walkways: Medici Gardens and the Villa d’Este

73

3

4

5

6

Pictorial fiction and cultural identity: Villa Giulia and Villa Farnese

104

Wunderkammer and trompe-l’œil garden: Palazzo Altemps and the Loggia of Cardinal Borghese

130

Collecting nature: virtual flora and fauna

161

Epilogue Appendix Bibliography Index

187 198 200 223

Illustrations

Photo credits belong to the author unless otherwise specified.

Plates 1 Villa Farnesina, Rome. Loggia, panel painting of the Marriage of Cupid and Psyche. 2 Villa Farnesina, Rome. Loggia, detail of the swags that form the pergola framework. 3 Palazzo Grimani at Santa Maria Formosa, Venice. Sala a Fogliami with bower of foliage. 4 Villa Medici, Rome. Garden pavilion, Stanza degli uccelli, ceiling and south wall. 5 Villa d’Este at Tivoli. Ground-level corridor, mosaic and stucco pergola. 6 Villa Giulia, Rome. Semicircular portico, center, jasmine pergola. 7 Villa Giulia, Rome. Semicircular portico, north end, jasmine pergola. 8 Villa Giulia, Rome. Semicircular portico, north arm, rose pergola. 9 Villa Giulia, Rome. Semicircular portico, north arm, vine pergola. 10 Villa Giulia, Rome. Semicircular portico, south arm, vine pergola, detail. 11 Villa Farnese at Caprarola. Fountain of Venus, painted bower on the vault. 12 Villa Farnese at Caprarola. Circular portico, ground-level, painted pergola, section 1 (above) and section 2 (below). 13 Villa Farnese at Caprarola. Circular portico, ground-level, painted pergola, section 4 (above) and section 10 (below). 14 Villa Farnese at Caprarola. Piano nobile, Corridor of the Tower. 15 Palazzo Altemps, Rome. Loggia, piano nobile, general view. 16 Palazzo Altemps, Rome. Loggia, ceiling between first and second bays from west. 17 Palazzo Altemps, Rome. Loggia, ceiling between second and third bays from west. 18 Palazzo Altemps, Rome. Loggia, west wall, lunette with Orsini bear and Altemps goat. 19 Palazzo Altemps, Rome. Loggia, north wall, lunette with putti and ostrich. 20 Palazzo Altemps, Rome. Loggia, north wall. 21 Loggia of Cardinal Borghese, Palazzo Rospigliosi-Pallavicini, Rome. Painted pergola, general view.

Illustrations

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22 Loggia of Cardinal Borghese, Palazzo Rospigliosi-Pallavicini, Rome. Painted pergola, detail. 23 Villa Lante at Bagnaia. Palazzina Montalto, loggia. 24 Villa Lante at Bagnaia. Palazzina Montalto, loggia, detail of painted dome with netting and birds.

Figures 1.1

Cubiculum M, Villa of Publius Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Rogers Fund, 1903, 03.14.13a–g. 1.2 Nile Mosaic from Palestrina, section 19, Berlin piece. Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, inv. Mos. 3. 1.3 Santa Costanza, annular vault of the ambulatory, section IX with vintage scene. 1.4 Columbarium of Pomponius Hylas. Giampietro Campana, Di due sepolcri romani del secolo di Augusto scoverti fra la via Latina e l’Appia presso la tomba degli Scipioni, Rome, 1840. 1.5 Francisco de Hollanda, cupola of Santa Costanza. Francisco de Hollanda, Os desenhos das antiqualhas que vio Francisco d’Ollanda: pintor portugés, Madrid, 1940. 1.6 Garden with a pergola. Pietro de’ Crescenzi, Libro della agricoltura, Venice, 1495. © Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Rare Book Collection, Washington, D.C. 1.7 Title page, Boccaccio, Decamerone, Venice, 1492. Wikimedia Commons PD-Art. 1.8 Poliphilus’s encounter with the nymph at the pergola. Francesco Colonna, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, Venice, 1499. Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin. 1.9 Jacopo de’ Barbari, Map of Venice, ca. 1514, detail with the Giudecca. Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin. 1.10 Jacopo de’ Barbari, Map of Venice, ca. 1514, detail with San Giorgio Maggiore. Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin. 1.11 Casa dei Cavalieri di Rodi, Rome. Loggia with painted trees. 2.1 Villa Farnesina, Rome. Loggia, general view. 2.2 Villa Farnesina and Vigna Farnese, plan. Paul Letarouilly, Edifices de Rome moderne, Paris, 1868. 2.3 Andrea Mantegna, Madonna della Vittoria, 1496. Louvre inv. 369. Wikimedia Commons PD-Art. 2.4 Sant’Andrea in Mantua, Cappella Mantegna, 1507. Painted pergola on the vault by Correggio. Wikimedia Commons PD-Art. 2.5 Loggetta of Cardinal Bibbiena, Vatican. Ceiling and wall with animals and grotesques. Scala/Art Resource, NY. 2.6 First Loggia of Leo X, Vatican. Scala/Art Resource, NY. 2.7 First Loggia of Leo X, decorative scheme of the vaults. 2.8 First Loggia of Leo X, vault II. Photo © Musei Vaticani.

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18 20

21

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24 26

27

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30 33 48 50 51 52 55 58 59 61

viii 2.9

2.10

2.11

2.12

3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4

3.5

3.6

3.7 3.8 3.9 3.10

3.11

3.12

3.13

Illustrations Catacomb of Petrus and Marcellinus, vault decoration. Josef Wilpert (ed.), Die Malereien der Katakomben Roms. Freiburg im Breisgau, 1903, pl. 61. Catacomb of Petrus and Marcellinus, vault decoration. Josef Wilpert (ed.), Die Malereien der Katakomben Roms. Freiburg im Breisgau, 1903, pl. 73. Architectural ruins with draftsmen. Virgil Solis, The little book of architecture ruins, Nuremberg, 1550–1562, after Jacques Androuet Du Cerceau, Duodecim fragmenta structurae veteris commendata monumentis a Leonardo Theodorico, Orléans, 1550. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Pergola gallery at Montargis. Jacques Androuet Du Cerceau, Les plus excellents bastiments de France, Paris, 1576. © Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Rare Book Collection, Washington, D.C. Correggio, Refectory of the Abbess, Camera di San Paolo, Parma, 1519. Photo: Ghigo Roli. Parmigianino, Stufetta of Diana and Actaeon, Rocca Sanvitale, Fontanellato, 1523–1524. Photo: Ghigo Roli. Dosso Dossi and Battista Dossi, Sala delle Cariatidi, Villa Imperiale, Pesaro, 1529–1538. Photo: Antonio Quattrone. Marco da Faenza, painted pergola at the foot of the stairs leading from the Room of Leo X to the Quarter of the Elements, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, 1550s. Marco da Faenza, painted pergola at the top of the stairs leading from the Room of Leo X to the Quarter of the Elements, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, 1550s. Marco da Faenza, painted pergola at the top of the stairs leading from the Room of Leo X to the Quarter of the Elements, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, 1550s. Grotto of Buontalenti, Boboli Gardens, Florence, 1574. First Chamber, dome. First Loggia of Gregory XIII, decorative scheme of the vaults. First Loggia of Gregory XIII, vault IX. Photo © Musei Vaticani. Baldassare Peruzzi, plan for an urban garden with a pergola, ca. 1527. Uffizi 580A. Polo Museale Regionale della Toscana – Gabinetto Fotografico. Ambrogio Brambilla after Mario Cartaro, The Belvedere Garden in the Vatican, from Antonio Lafréry and Claudio Duchetti, Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae, engraving, 1579. Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Rom. Anton van den Wyngaerde, Panorama of Rome, ca. 1540. Detail with the Riario garden in Trastevere. Hermann Egger, Römische Veduten, II, Vienna, 1932, pl. 112. Giovanni Colonna da Tivoli, plan of a pergola for the Ghinucci garden (1554). Vat.Lat.7721, 15r. © 2015 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.

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67 74 75 76

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79 80 83 83

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Illustrations 3.14 Giovanni Colonna da Tivoli, details of a pergola for the Ghinucci garden (1554). Vat.Lat.7721, 15v. © 2015 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. 3.15 Etienne Dupérac, Villa d’Este at Tivoli, 1573. Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1941. 41.72.(3.64). 3.16 Girolamo Muziano, view of the garden at Villa d’Este at Tivoli, ca. 1568. Salone, Villa d’Este at Tivoli. 3.17 Villa d’Este at Tivoli, ground-level corridor, rustic fountain. 4.1 Giovanni Antonio Dosio, Map of Rome, 1561. Detail with the Villa Giulia, via Flaminia, the pergola, and the Tiber River. Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Rom. 4.2 Mario Cartaro, Map of Rome, 1575. Detail with the Tiber River, the pergola, the via Flaminia and the Fontana Pubblica, and the Villa Giulia. A. P. Frutaz, Le piante di Roma, Rome, 1962, vol. II, Cartaro Piccola, CXXV, tav. 237. 4.3 Villa Giulia, semicircular portico, view from south end. 4.4 Giovanni Battista Falda, The Nymphaeum at the Villa Giulia, after a sixteenth-century print by Hieronymus Cock. Le fontane di Roma nelle piazze e luoghi publici della città: con li loro prospetti, come sono al presente, disegnate et intagliate da Gio. Battista Falda; date in luce con direttione e cura da Gio. Giacomo de Rossi, Roma, 1675–1691. American Academy in Rome, Arthur & Janet C. Ross Library. 4.5 Giuseppe Vasi, Villa Farnese at Caprarola, plan. Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Rom. 4.6 Painted view of the Villa Farnese at Caprarola. Villa Lante at Bagnaia, Palazzina Gambara. 4.7 Painted view of the town of Caprarola and the approach to the Villa Farnese. Villa Farnese at Caprarola, vestibule. 4.8 Villa Farnese at Caprarola. Circular portico, ground level (below), piano nobile (above). 5.1 Master of the Die after Raphael and Giovanni da Udine. Three putti with ostrich before a garland. Engraving, published by Antonio Lafréry, ca. 1530–1540. Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund 1949. 5.2 Palazzo Altemps, Rome. Loggia, fountain at east end. 5.3 View of the interior of Palazzo Altemps, north-south longitudinal section (above), left side detail of section (below). Giovanni Battista Falda, Nuovi disegni dell’ architetture, e piante de palazzi di Roma de più celebri architetti. Rome: Giovanni Giacomo de Rossi, 1655. American Academy in Rome, Arthur & Janet C. Ross Library. 5.4 Quirinal Garden, ca. 1615. Reconstruction plan by Howard Hibbard. Reprinted with permission of the University of California Press Journals. 5.5 Room of the Winds at the Villa Aldobrandini, Frascati. Giovanni Battista Falda, Le fontane delle ville di Frascati nel Tusculano con li loro prospetti, 1691, pl. 7. American Academy in Rome, Arthur & Janet C. Ross Library.

ix

90 93 95 96

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106 107

110 116 117 118 119

135 136

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Illustrations

5.6 5.7 5.8 5.9 5.10 5.11

5.12 5.13

6.1

6.2 6.3

6.4

6.5

6.6

6.7

6.8

6.9

7.1

Casa Zuccari, Rome. Vestibule of Hercules, ceiling. Casa Zuccari, Rome. Loggia of the garden, ceiling. Villa Lante at Bagnaia. Palazzina Gambara, loggia. Palazzo Lancellotti, Rome. Sala della Pergola, 1621–1623. Courtesy of Patrizia Cavazzini. Villa Lante at Bagnaia. Giacomo Lauro, Antiquae Urbis Splendor, Rome, 1612. Courtesy of Vincent J. Buonanno. Horti Farnesiani on the Palatine, Grotta della pioggia, vault decoration. Ministero dei beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo – Soprintendenza Speciale per il Colosseo, il Museo Nazionale Romano e l’Area Archeologica di Roma. Alessandro Allori and workshop, Women on a Terrace, 1589. Loggetta, Palazzo Pitti, Florence. Photo: Antonio Quattrone. Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi, Stanza della Primavera, Villa Falconieri, Frascati, 1672. Soprintendenza per Belle Arti e Paesaggio per le province di Roma, Frosinone, Latina, Rieti, e Viterbo – Archivio Fotografico. Pietro Andrea Mattioli, Commentarii in sex libros Pedacii Dioscoridis Anazarbei de materia medica. Venice, 1565. Illustrations by Giorgio Liberale da Udine and Wolfgang Meyerpeck. Pages 244–245 showing citrus species. Courtesy of the Smithsonian Libraries and the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Horti Farnesiani, plan. Giovanni Battista Falda, Li giardini di Roma, Rome, 1670. Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin. Cardinal Pio’s garden. Giovanni Battista Ferrari, Hesperides, Rome, 1646. Courtesy of the Getty Research Institute and the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Museum of Ferrante Imperato in Naples. Ferrante Imperato, Dell’historia naturale, Venice, 1672. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (85-B1669). Museum of the Jesuit College in Rome. Giorgio de Sepi, Romani Collegii Societatis Iesu Musaeum celeberrimum, Amsterdam, 1678, frontispiece. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2983–889). Giovanni Battista Ferrari, De florum cultura libri IV, Rome, 1633. Title page. Courtesy of the Getty Research Institute and the Biodiversity Heritage Library. The metamorphosis of Limace and Bruno. Giovanni Battista Ferrari, De florum cultura libri IV, Rome, 1633. Courtesy of the Getty Research Institute and the Biodiversity Heritage Library. The metamorphosis of Melissa. Giovanni Battista Ferrari, De florum cultura libri IV, Rome, 1633. Courtesy of the Getty Research Institute and the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Arrangement of cut flowers in a classicizing vase. Giovanni Battista Ferrari, De florum cultura libri IV, Rome, 1633. Courtesy of the Getty Research Institute and the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Beatrix Farrand, Wisteria Arbor. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C.

147 148 149 151 152

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Illustrations 7.2 7.3

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Boston Public Library, 1895. Vestibule with fictive pergola on the ceiling. William Brantley van Ingen, vine pergola and allegory of L’Allegro/Mirth. Vault and lunette in the bay to the south of the staircase leading up to the gallery of the Rotunda, 1897. Jefferson Building, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. William Brantley van Ingen, jasmine pergola and allegory of Il Penseroso/Thoughtfulness. Vault and lunette in the bay to the north of the staircase leading up to the gallery of the Rotunda, 1897. Jefferson Building, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Grace Lincoln Temple, interior decoration, 1901. Entrance vestibule from the Enid A. Haupt Garden. Smithsonian Castle, Washington, D.C. Grace Lincoln Temple, ceiling decoration with illusionistic pergola, 1899. Entrance vestibule from the Enid A. Haupt Garden. Smithsonian Castle, Washington, D.C.

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Acknowledgements

This book is the fruit of many conversations over the years with friends and scholars who shared their insights and criticisms, offering their expertise and encouragement along the way. I would like to thank Anthony Alofsin, Richard Cleary, Christopher Long, Louis Waldman, and Jonathan Bober, who read early drafts. Katherine Rinne, Richard Etlin, Denis Ribouillault, and Francesco Passanti provided many invaluable comments. Dottoressa Giuseppina Cerulli Irelli and Michael O’Neill and Edward O’Neill provided support in Rome. I extend particular gratitude to Miroslava Benes and Rabun Taylor, who believed in the project from the very start and without whose dedicated support this book would not have seen its day. My research started, took form, and reached completion during various sojourns in Rome. It was my own experience of loggias and porticoes with painted pergolas in the villas and palaces in Rome and environs that provided the cognitive and perceptual impetus of this study. Many research institutions and libraries in both the United States and Italy generously contributed to its making. Dumbarton Oaks provided a summer fellowship and two short-term residencies in Garden and Landscape Studies; the Lemmerman Foundation and the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture granted awards that allowed me a critical residency in Rome during the earlier stages of this project. The American Academy in Rome; the Académie Française; the Archivio di Stato in Rome, Parma, and Naples; the Archivio Segreto Vaticano; the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana; the Bibliotheca Hertziana; the British School at Rome; and the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, greatly facilitated my research. I am also grateful to the directors and responsabili in Italy who opened doors to sites and collections – to Antonio Paolucci, director of the Musei Vaticani, who facilitated access to the Vatican Loggias and approved a photographic campaign in the First Loggias of Leo X and of Gregory XIII, and to his staff at the Archivio Fotografico, especially Rosanna Di Pinto. The Polo Museale del Lazio and Enrico Ciavoni granted me permission to conduct investigations and photographic campaigns at the Villa Farnese at Caprarola and the Villa Lante at Bagnaia. Fernando Sereni of Germina Campus provided access to the Palazzo Rospigliosi-Pallavicini, specifically the Loggia of Cardinal Scipione Borghese. Many institutions and individuals graciously provided photographs and granted permission to reproduce them in the book: Dumbarton Oaks, the Harry Ransom Center, the Getty Research Institute, the Soprintendenza Speciale per il Colosseo, il Museo Nazionale Romano e l’Area Archeologica di Roma, the Soprintendenza per i Beni Storici, Artistici, e Etnoantropologici di Lazio, the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana,

Acknowledgements

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the Bibliotheca Hertziana, the Polo Museale Regionale della Toscana, the Smithsonian Libraries, the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Vincent Buonanno, Patrizia Cavazzini, Ghigo Roli, and Antonio Quattrone. The Textbook and Academic Authors Association has generously supported my acquisition of images. Finally, I wish to thank Erika Gaffney, former editor at Ashgate, and Isabella Vitti and Julia Michaelis at Routledge, for moving the project forward during a difficult time of transition.

Introduction

This book is the first study of the portico and its decorative program as a cultural phenomenon in Renaissance Italy. It tells the story of how an element of the garden – the pergola – became a common pictorial motif in portico decoration and evolved, hand in hand with its real cousin in the garden, into an object for cultural emulation among the educated patrons of early modern Rome. Three types of decoration are prevalent in portico spaces of this era: grotesques, landscapes and topographical imagery, and illusionistic pergolas. Grotesques consist of fanciful surface ornament inspired by antique painting and composed of small motifs including hybrid figures and vegetal and architectural elements. Landscape and topography, by contrast, tend to deemphasize surfaces, creating illusionistic viewsheds, sometimes on a large scale. The illusionistic pergolas – painted trelliswork covered with climbing plants and peopled with birds, small animals, and sometimes human or mythological figures such as putti or fauns – fall somewhere between these extremes in their treatment of surface and depth; they help delineate and articulate the vaults on which they appear but also create the illusion that the vaults of the portico are really open to the sky, bedecked with flowers and fruit, and inhabited by a wide variety of creatures. While grotesques, landscapes, and topographies appear in a wide range of Renaissance contexts and are well known to scholars,1 the illusionistic pergola as a subject in its own right remains largely unexamined. Yet it is a Renaissance cultural phenomenon of high significance, reflecting the practice of collecting horticultural and ornithological specimens and the geographical and intellectual expansion characteristic of the age. As this study demonstrates, the full-blown trend begins in Rome. Major villas and palaces in Rome and its environs incorporated a portico decorated with an illusionistic pergola. Examples appear in clusters marking three distinct periods: first, in the 1510s; second, from about 1550 to 1580; and third, between 1590 and 1620. After the third period, the illusionistic pergola persisted as a theme of portico decoration, but its primacy faded. Although its seeds seem to have blown in from northern Italy, as a fully developed cultural phenomenon the genre took root in Lazio, with important secondary manifestations in Tuscany, Emilia-Romagna, Veneto, and Lombardy. The central and northern Italian examples were confined to the sphere of the patronage of a single family, to non-recurrent sporadic manifestations, or to imitations of the trend in Rome. Thus the geographical focus of this book will be primarily on Rome and Lazio. Most of these pictorial fictions were executed in fresco and a few in mosaic and painted stucco. The term “illusionistic pergola” is used to refer to the pictorial motif in its entirety in its architectural setting, with all its cultural connotations. Vaulting

2

Introduction

from the ornamented wall surface over the architectural interior, it constituted a nexus of complex interrelationships between architecture, the pictorial arts, garden culture, and nature. The multivalence of the design and concept of the illusionistic pergola is striking, and the form of portico decoration throws into relief the unique liminality of the pergola as symbol. The encasing portico or loggia was a fundamentally unstable, hybrid space, sharing the formal and phenomenological properties of several more thoroughly resolved architectural forms – the great hall, the corridor, and the colonnaded porch, among others. Its dominant visual field, the lateral view outward, lay athwart its axis of movement, generating an intentionally distractive effect. It embodied the edges of things, the line between confinement and expansion, inside and out, the self and the other, cultural certitudes and broad exploration. The image of the pergola painted or modeled on walls and vaults heightened this ambiguity by extending the illusion of openness, in which the architecture dematerializes to give way to a virtual garden with sky, birds, and vegetation. *** The principal objectives of this book are threefold. First, it documents the development of the pergola, a simple garden structure, into an artistic motif in the Western tradition, tracing its origins in Roman antiquity (where it was already adopted into the fictive realm), observing its cultural significance in the high Middle Ages, and recognizing its reemergence as a sophisticated topos in the Renaissance. Second, it seeks to define the iconographical properties of the motif in its illusionistic guise – how it functioned as a bearer of symbolism, as a cognitive tool to stimulate the mind, and as an engine of delight. Third, it aims to understand how this motif operated within space – as an intensifier of spatial liminality, as an amplifier of the dynamics of illusionism, and as a bearer of meaning by virtue of its encompassing form. Liminality and knowledge are the key themes that recur throughout this study. The illusionistic pergola borrowed the garden pergola’s ambiguity, its middling state between inside and outside, solidity and permeability. Pictorially, the permeability is rendered by glimpses through the tracery of treillage and verdure to the sky above. Symbolically, the illusionistic pergola weaves together the human world of artifice with the natural world of spontaneous growth. Sometimes the iconography commemorated a special occasion in the life of its sponsor – a liminal event such as a marriage or a signal achievement. This practice may have borrowed from older traditions in which certain judicial and governmental proceedings – audiences with important persons, the issuing of decrees, court hearings – were conducted under a canopy or in the shade of a bower of arboreal foliage. Geographically, the illusionistic pergola wavers between “here” and “there,” namely domestic and foreign, by intermixing species of familiar plants and animals with recently imported ones. Culturally, it wavers between the native or familiar and the new or exotic. Hackneyed mythological themes borrowed from well-known Roman traditions were combined with up-to-date woodworking styles, tectonically implausible wooden frameworks, or fashionable cut-flower arrangements. The genre could assume a didactic function, especially as a visual encyclopedia of flora and fauna; indeed, some of the finest examples of this tendency predate the diffusion of printed illustrated encyclopedias. It taught by consolidating what was already learned and introduced the unfamiliar, often like a hidden-objects game, infrequently and unpredictably.

Introduction

3

The portico’s elongated gallery-like form encouraged a museum-style attentiveness similar to the specimen galleries of early men of science. In the Renaissance, knowledge had another dimension besides the intellectual; it was understood as an instrument of political and social power. Thus the ability to control it was of utmost importance to powerful patrons. The illusionistic pergola was one of the most important devices by which a particular class of knowledge – natural history – was advertised among the elite and thus appropriated into the aggregate of their political and cultural potency. The study and collecting of natural history, alongside art and scientific culture, were among the most popular aristocratic pursuits. The Farnese, the Barberini, and the Borghese among other aristocratic families collected plant species, including the fashionable and expensive bulb species. These were planted in the Horti Farnesiani on the Palatine, the Barberini garden on the Quirinal, and the Villa Borghese. The species grown in these aristocratic gardens naturally made their appearance in the illusionistic pergolas they commissioned, often in nearby loggias, or in the botanical and horticultural treatises published under their patronage. This suggested that the patron, by controlling the knowledge of botany, horticulture, and natural history writ large, also exercised a certain degree of control not just over producing or owning the depicted species, but also – and perhaps more importantly – over the means of knowledge production. Just as we might recognize the weaving together of nature and the manmade in the structure of a garden pergola, we can perceive that the fictive, painted pergola is a symbolic means by which man can control nature and turn it to his advantage, training its tendrils upon his social and political frameworks. It suggested superior knowledge and skill, high mobility, and a degree of control, real or supposed, over the geographic regions from which the species originated. New World species such as the turkey and maize laid cultural (if not political) claim to the territories represented by those species by papal families who sought to demonstrate the expansion of Christianity beyond Europe. Domestic species naturally represented the land over which the powerful families ruled, for land was a major tool of power and control. The possession of land was an effective strategy for consolidating power, and every mode of representing it in a positive and productive light was exploited. The frequent combination of illusionistic pergolas with views of the landscape strengthened this association.2 The huge array of species in the painted pergola at the Villa Farnesina can be considered a hegemonic equivalent of the Sala del Mappamondo at the Villa Farnese at Caprarola – the great hall representing the map of the known world – and the representation of geographic territories sponsored by the Medici and the popes.3 Cartography is also related to the visual art of natural history, as maps from this period had an encyclopedic dimension and often included, in addition to the geographic and topographic features, the flora or fauna that typically represented the region. The earliest known maps in an architectural setting in the Renaissance were connected to foreign exploration and reflect a profound interest in topography as a kind of cultural appropriation.4 Maps were the focus of interest for rulers not only as visual aids to conducting business and exploration but also as impressive decorative schemes for the interior with an aesthetic of their own.5 Thus the illusionistic pergola, considered within the context of the cultural identity of the leaders of society in the age of early globalization, starts to acquire a truly international dimension. The three frameworks I employ for interpreting the illusionistic pergolas can themselves be seen as cultural embodiments of the duality of local and global, or

4

Introduction

confinement and expansion. The first is the classical tradition. From the fifteenth century onwards, the study and emulation of classical antiquity was considered an essential part of the culture of both aristocratic patrons and professionals. The study of the antique was an important component of the education of artists and designers. Antiquity served as one of the most significant sources of inspiration for painters, both in terms of motifs and subject. Proponents of the illusionistic pergola, Mantegna, Raphael, and Giovanni da Udine among them, studied ancient Roman painting and sculpture from original sources surviving from antiquity and introduced Romaninspired forms and motifs in their painted works. From Brunelleschi to Borromini, architects conducted on-site investigation of ancient architecture as part of their formal training. Giuliano da Sangallo, Baldassare Peruzzi, and Vignola, whose names are connected to the architecture of the major sites of the illusionistic pergolas, made measured drawings of ancient monuments in Rome before they embarked on their careers. The documentation of Rome’s antiquarian legacy and the reconstruction of its monuments formed a graphic tradition in its own right, for which Giovanni Antonio Dosio, Francisco de Hollanda, Maarten van Heemskerck, Pirro Ligorio, and Etienne Dupérac, among many others, made significant contributions. This tradition, from which the bird’s-eye view of landscapes may have developed, also intersected with mapmaking in its manner of visualizing topography. The second framework is natural history. The sixteenth century was a dynamic period in which the geographic expansion of the known world to the east and west resulted in the redrawing of political, economic, and cultural boundaries. This led to an expansion of knowledge and the consequent establishment of new academic disciplines. We see the emergence of new professionals – the naturalist, the scientist, the mathematician, and the cartographer – equipped with highly specialized knowledge, informed not only by texts transmitted from antiquity but also by the direct observation of the physical world. Patronage continued to provide stable employment and prestige, but recognition in princely courts was not necessarily a prerequisite for the establishment of the new professions. Spheres of professional activity other than the patronage system emerged in the sixteenth century. In the cultural centers of northern and central Italy – Milan, Venice, Florence, and Bologna – appeared professionals who studied botany as their primary occupation, among them Luca Ghini and Andrea Cesalpino, first and second directors of the Botanical Gardens of Pisa. Long collected and harvested for their medicinal properties, plants now became the focus of more general scientific study, and new flora from the East and the New World made their way into plant taxonomy. The third framework is the social identity of the patrons. The commissioning of villas, palaces, and artworks continued to be the province of the aristocracy, but the world of knowledge was not theirs alone. Antiquarian culture and classicism, as a pedigree of authenticity, functioned as an effective tool for establishing and enhancing social status. In a similar way, the culture of natural history became an important tool for social advancement. In this period collecting became increasingly varied, both in the objects collected and in the social class of the collectors. A wide range of items from antiquities to natural history specimens – not only paintings, sculptures, coins, and gems, but also printed books, plants, animals, birds, and stone specimens among others – became objects of interest to the collectors; the displays of the collected objects also grew more varied. Collecting was not only a matter of assembling objects of interest; visibility and accessibility of the collection were equally important. The

Introduction

5

activity was no longer confined to monarchs, aristocrats, and the princes of the Church; merchants, scholars, and artists also engaged in it. Collecting and study promoted a lively interaction between the members of the cultured class and played an important role in shaping the identity of the cultured individual. Barriers of the old worldview started to break down as geographic exploration and the direct observation of nature created the need for a new paradigm in order to understand the changing world. The classical tradition and antiquarian culture on the one hand and natural history and science on the other became the two seemingly conflicting approaches by means of which to negotiate the transition to a modernized perception of the universe. Antiquity had handed down an accepted canon, which the newly emerging discipline of natural history used as a kind of mediator for recognition. Curious blends of myth and science entered the discourse of the early modern treatises of natural history, which sought to incorporate new and sometimes disorienting scientific knowledge by means of mythological metaphor or allegory into a culturally acceptable worldview. *** Seeking an appropriate manner in which to decorate the porticoes and loggias of villas and palaces, artists of this era found the pergola to be the perfect vehicle, both formally and discursively, to merge the comfortable verities of classicism (the pergola was known, after all, from Roman visual prototypes) and the brave new world of scientific knowledge, especially in the botanical realm. Although examined in some detail or mentioned in passing in studies dedicated to a site or a building, this genre has not yet received systematic treatment from a broad cultural perspective. One exception is Eva Börsch-Supan’s Garten-, Landschafts- und Paradiesmotive im Innenraum: Eine ikonographische Untersuchung (1967), a chronological survey of garden and landscape depictions and nature motifs in interiors from antiquity through the eighteenth century. This book – and particularly a ten-page section in the chapter on Renaissance and Mannerism dedicated to the “illusionistische Pergola” – became the starting point of my investigation and has provided the foundation on which my argument is built.6 Alongside Börsch-Supan’s work, Philippe Morel’s study of the painted pergola at the Villa Medici in Rome, “Un teatro di natura,” in volume three of La Villa Médicis (1991b), provided a line of inquiry and a perspective of cinquecento painted pergolas to build on and to develop further. Composed of a survey of cinquecento and early seicento painted pergolas and an iconographical analysis and interpretation of the depicted botanical, ornithological, and zoological species in the Villa Medici pergola, Morel’s chapter is particularly inspiring for characterizing the frameworks of antiquarianism and scientific culture as the background of the emergence of the genre, discussing the decoration of the pergola within the cultural context of early modern Rome and Tuscany. Carla Benocci’s La pergola d’uva e il vino (2014) provides a broad thematic perspective on the vine pergola, particularly as it connects to wine culture. Its documentation of known sites with representations of vine pergolas has enriched my thinking on the topic. Other works have been thought provoking in various ways. Maria Adriana Giusti’s chapter “Illusione del giardino” in the edited volume by Marcello Fagiolo and Giusti Lo Specchio del Paradiso: L’immagine del giardino dall’Antico al Novecento (1996)7 identifies issues such as the origins of the genre in classical antiquity, the transitional

6

Introduction

space between indoors and outdoors, and the fusion of architecture and nature. Angela Negro’s Il giardino dipinto del Cardinal Borghese (1996) identifies the sixteenth-century tradition of painted pergolas (pergola or pergolato)8 and situates the Loggia del Pergolato (Loggia of Cardinal Borghese) in the Borghese estate on the Quirinal in Rome within it. Several works document and analyze individual examples, for instance, Patrizia Cavazzini’s Palazzo Lancellotti ai Coronari (1998) on the painted pergola in the Sala della pergola and Isabella Dalla Ragione’s Tenendo inanzi frutta (2009) on the painted pergolas in the loggias at the Palazzo Vitelli a Sant’Egidio in Città di Castello and Castello Bufalini in San Giustino in Umbria. Works focusing on real pergolas include David Coffin’s Gardens and Gardening in Papal Rome (1991) and Katherine Swift and Paul Edward’s Pergolas, Arbours and Arches (2001). Coffin’s book has a section documenting pergolas from the tenth to the sixteenth century in Rome.9 Swift and Edward’s work consists of a guidebook to England’s historic gardens with surviving pergolas and arbors and a practical manual for making such garden furnishings, accompanied by a set of essays by garden historians delineating the historical continuity of the pergola from antiquity through the modern period. A unique approach to Renaissance pergolas is proposed in Alain Gruber (ed.), History of Decorative Arts: Renaissance and Mannerism (1994). In his chapter on knotwork, Gruber insightfully includes examples of painted trelliswork featuring this artful interlacing style, emphasizing ephemeral structures that were set up for processional or theatrical purposes but that are known only through their representation in the pictorial arts.10 Denis Ribouillault’s Rome en ses jardins (2013a), dealing with the representation of landscapes in sixteenthcentury Rome, makes a significant advance in emphasizing the dialogue between painted and real landscapes.11 The question of the view and viewing is also taken into consideration, as well as the popularity of these landscape depictions in loggias. By virtue of their quantity, quality, and content, as well as their importance in the ornamentation of architecture, the illusionistic pergolas deserve careful study, interpretation, and contextualization. The contributions of the aforementioned works have paved the way for a systematic study providing both iconographical analysis and cultural context. The subject requires an interdisciplinary approach at the intersection of architecture, pictorial representation, garden culture, and natural history. Vernacular culture, artisanal tradition, and ephemeral architecture, which have often eluded the attention of traditional art history scholarship, also come into play. In this study, the illusionistic pergola is interpreted not just as a style in interior decoration or a revival of an antique genre; it is treated more broadly within the society and culture of sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Rome as a cultural phenomenon among the educated class and a vehicle for the expression of their cultural identity. The materials examined in this study are the depictions of pergolas in fresco, mosaic, and stucco, as well as the archival sources and ancient and early modern texts that provide supporting evidence. Besides the introduction and the epilogue, the study is composed of six thematic chapters discussing the evolution of the illusionistic pergola in parallel with its real counterpart in the garden. Chapter 1, “Mediating Spaces: Portico, Loggia, and Pergola,” is dedicated to the function and meaning of portico spaces – the architectural setting of the illusionistic pergolas. The pergola is classified within the broader category of verdant architecture, which shares the ephemerality of outdoor theater and festival architecture, and thus belongs to that other great tradition of architecture which complemented the solid, surviving built structures. The chapter examines the spatial characteristics of these

Introduction

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semi-interior spaces and their social and cultural functions, contextualizing them within the classical, medieval, and early Renaissance traditions. It emphasizes the spatial ambiguity shared by porticoes, loggias, and pergolas, which blended indoors with outdoors and served as mediating spaces between two distinct worlds or states of being, “inside” and “outside.” Chapter 2, “Classical Tradition and Vernacular Culture: Villa Farnesina and the First Loggia of Leo X,” examines the first period of the efflorescence of the illusionistic pergolas (1517–1520). The patrons of this first wave were the popes and the cardinals in the papal entourage. Giovanni da Udine, who trained in northern Italy as a specialist of nature motifs and grotesques and joined Raphael’s workshop, is credited as the first artist to use the illusionistic pergola as portico decoration on a large scale. Located within the city of Rome, the painted pergolas from the first period had a strong connection to antiquity in terms of their spatial articulation and depicted motifs of nature. Two thematic strands are visible in Giovanni’s work: the temporary festoon bower, associated with special occasions; and the semi-permanent pergola, covered with typical plants trained on a trellis such as vine and citrus species, conveying less temporal and often more casual connotations. The first appeared in the quattrocento in the art of northern Italy and was brought to Rome by Andrea Mantegna; the second, which came to dominate the genre, seems to have been Giovanni’s own invention, inspired by antique prototypes. Real pergolas – simple, unadorned garden trellises whose forms had been passed down unchanged from the Middle Ages – came to be seen as aesthetically pleasing objects to be appreciated in their own right and were used as models for their painted counterparts. Chapter 3, “Visual Encyclopedia and Trellised Walkways: Medici Gardens and the Villa d’Este,” focuses on the period after 1520 through the second period (1550– 1580). It examines examples of the illusionistic pergolas in northern Italy, including those commissioned by the Medici. These latter examples were three-dimensional pictorial encyclopedias of botany, ornithology, and zoology; the idea was subsequently brought to Rome via the family’s networks. The chapter highlights the importance of real pergolas, which became a central component of villa gardens from this period and developed a sophisticated design rich with meaning. At the Villa d’Este at Tivoli, the elaborate cruciform carpentry pergola accommodated fountains and aviaries; it was probably conceived to form a pendant to the mosaic pergola on the vault of the ground-level corridor in the villa building, which recreated an ancient Roman cryptoporticus. The second period of the efflorescence of the illusionistic pergolas (1550–1580) is the subject of Chapter 4, “Pictorial Fiction and Cultural Identity: Villa Giulia and Villa Farnese.” Examining the finest examples of the type in the papal and aristocratic villas outside Rome, the chapter highlights a common strategy of Renaissance villa designers to create real and fictive versions of pergolas within reach of each other spatially and semantically, thereby generating a conversation between the two. The Villa Giulia’s monumental carpentry pergola, serving as the ceremonial approach from the landing point on the Tiber, anticipated the semicircular portico of the villa proper, which displayed a painted pergola on its annular barrel vault. A third, real pergola covered the loggia beyond the semicircular sunken nymphaeum. The kinship between the real and fictive pergolas was not revealed by direct lines of vision but was made clear only through the kinetic process of movement and discovery. Of all the sixteenth-century villas, the Villa Farnese at Caprarola featured the largest number of pergolas and

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related structures, in both real and painted forms. The painted example on the vault of the portico of the circular courtyard and the painted bower on the piano nobile resonated with verdant architecture in the villa’s garden, which accommodated several pergolas and bowers. Chapter 5, “Wunderkammer and Trompe-l’œil Garden: Palazzo Altemps and the Loggia of Cardinal Borghese,” examines two masterworks of the third period of efflorescence (1590–1620). The examples from this phase belong to city palaces and were commissioned mostly by papal and aristocratic patrons but also by the professional class. The decoration is brought to a highly sophisticated level of perfection, becoming a Wunderkammer of botanical and ornithological specimens. It also brings into dialogue, even confrontation, the culturally familiar and the foreign. It often merges the familiar with the exotic, introducing foreign species recently discovered or cultivated. The decoration is not confined to the ceiling but starts to invade the walls, thus transforming the entire portico into an exuberant trompe-l’œil garden. It becomes part of the tradition of the architectural illusionism of trompe-l’œil and quadratura; the depicted pergola framework becomes more elaborate, reflecting the carved woodwork tradition and the art and craft of treillage. The decorated porticoes reach the height of their character as occasional spaces. Chapter 6, “Collecting Nature: Virtual Flora and Fauna,” shows how the illusionistic pergola reflected the burgeoning scientific interest in the collecting of flora and fauna. The newly introduced horticultural specimens, including exotic species from the Orient and the Americas, often seem to have been rushed into the repertory of the illusionistic pergola even before they were included in plant books and horticultural treatises. The precise representation of flora and fauna in the painted pergolas leads to the intersection between natural history as an academic discipline and the visual arts. Herbals and illustrated natural history books such as Giovanni Battista Ferrari’s Flora (1633) (on the cultivation of flowers) and Hesperides (1646) (on the cultivation of citrus species), Ulisse Aldrovandi’s Ornithologiae (1599) and Dendrologiae (1668), and Giovanni Pietro Olina’s Uccelliera (1622) are examined in connection with the culture of collecting, the scientific study of plants and animals, and the emerging profession of the botanist and the natural historian. The chapter emphasizes the habit of mixing myth and science in the natural history discourse of the time, a tendency that extends to the representation of flora and fauna in the illusionistic pergolas. The epilogue reassesses the genre in both form and concept and anchors it within the broader context of the rise of modern science, early modern globalization and cultural exchange, and the representation of nature. It concludes by looking forward to the revival of the pergola around the turn of the twentieth century on both sides of the Atlantic.

Notes 1 On grotesques, see Dacos 1969 and Morel 1997; on landscapes see Ribouillault 2013a; on topographical and cartographical depictions see Fiorani 2005 and Rosen 2015. 2 On the representation of the villas and gardens and the views of family estates within the villa, see Coffin 1998. 3 On painted maps in the Renaissance, see Almagià 1952, vol. III, Schultz 1990, and Fiorani 2005. On the Guardaroba of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence and the Galleria delle Carte Geographiche at the Vatican, see Fiorani 2005 and Rosen 2015. Giovanni Antonio Vanosino da Varese painted the maps in the Sala del Mappamondo at the Villa Farnese at Caprarola

Introduction

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5 6 7 8 9 10 11

9

(1574) and the Terza Loggia or the Loggia della Cosmografia (Gregory XIII wing) at the Vatican (1580s). Almagià lists, as one of the earliest examples of such maps, the carte geographiche in the Sala del Scudo (before 1342) and the mappamondo (1479) by Venetian cosmographer Antonio Leonardi both in the Palazzo Ducale in Venice and the Sala del Mappamondo at the Palazzo Venezia commissioned by Paolo II from Venetian cosmographer Girolamo Bellavista. On the meaning and use of maps in the sixteenth century, see Kagan 1989; Maier 2015; Schulz 1990; Woodward 2007. Börsch-Supan 1967, 251–260. Fagiolo and Giusti 1996, 30–41. Negro 1996, 51. Coffin 1991, 178–181. Gruber 1994, 78. Ribouillault 2013a, 257–299.

1

Mediating spaces Portico, loggia, and pergola

The central architectural focus of this study is porticoes – loggias, porches, and colonnaded spaces in the sixteenth- and early-seventeenth-century villas and palaces in Rome and Lazio. Porticoes were an essential component of the architecture of aristocratic villas and city palaces and exemplified a renewed sensibility towards nature. Partially open and serving as mediating spaces between indoors and outdoors, they reflect the impulse to draw nature into the interior. Their ambivalence goes far beyond the blurring of physical boundaries; they served as loci of entertainment and display and thus of concentrated iconographies that blend two distinctive worlds of meaning, those of the inside and the outside. Inspired by the physical proximity to the outdoors, their decorative program has particularly favored the representation of nature. The decorated environment of porticated spaces resonated with the ephemeral spaces of verdant architecture in the garden – pergolas, arbors, bowers, and pavilions made of less permanent materials such as wood and vegetation – and of temporary structures constructed for particular occasions or events – festooned trellises and canopies of hung tapestries in the outdoors. It is no coincidence that the illusionistic pergolas accompanied these tectonic semi-interior spaces. The architectural setting of the illusionistic pergolas, porticoes, and loggias will be the subject of this chapter. Etymology and usage, ambiguity between inside and outside, intersection between architecture and garden, the tectonic and the organic, various cultural traditions (classical, medieval, and early Renaissance), aristocratic identity, and the ideology of views and visibility will be discussed to achieve a broad understanding of these in-between spaces.

Lexicographical review: portico, loggia, pergola Examination of terminology reveals an interesting intersection between the architectonic feature, portico/loggia, and the garden structure, pergola. Surprisingly our three key words – portico, loggia, and pergola – show a considerable overlap in their etymology. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the portico as “a colonnade, arcade, porch” and describes it as “a covered ambulatory consisting of a roof and columns at regular intervals.” It defines the loggia as “a gallery or arcade having one or more sides open to the air.” One definition emphasizes movement within a tectonic space, while the other emphasizes exposure to the outdoors, openness, and spatial ambiguity. Interestingly, the word portico even had an obsolete usage that meant “a pergola in the garden.” The etymology of the word loggia is strong evidence for the vegetal origin of architecture and persuasive of the interchangeability of architecture with verdant structures.

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In early modern times, the word seems to have been used almost exclusively in reference to architecture in Italy, as it is so specified in French dictionaries.1 Yet its origins are not in classical Latin but in medieval German. It is putatively derived from laubia, a Latinized form of the Germanic word Laubja,2 meaning bower, arbor, or pergola; this in turn comes from the German Laub meaning foliage. Variants of laubia are many, some most likely reflecting local dialects (laupia, lobia, lovia, logia, logea, loga, loja, lotgia, loza, lobium, logium, lovium). We may surmise that the space created by the shade of the foliage or bower, in the manner of a natural baldachin, came to be used as a dignified setting for certain social activities or events and later developed into a more properly defined architectonic space. The word loggia further reveals an interesting intersection between the feature it defines and the pergola. Salvatore Battaglia’s Grande dizionario della lingua italiana (1986) gives the primary meaning of the word as “building or part of a building open to the exterior by means of colonnades or arcades.”3 The Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca (1729–1738) defines it as “an open structure supported by columns or pillars.”4 The loggias of interest to this study formed parts of private residences, many built in Rome in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. But the early instances of the laubia, the presumed ancestor of the loggia, deserve scrutiny. The word is recorded in judicial documents from the ninth to the twelfth centuries, and civic loggias in northern Italy are considered to have developed from the laubia.5 Although the word is of Germanic origin, real instances of the laubia have almost always been found in Italy. The word is used in the placita, or proceedings of the court hearings dating from the Carolingian and Ottonian periods (A.D. 774– 1100). These documents often included the location and the description of the laubiae where such court hearings took place, which the emperor or his representative and the imperial judge attended. The descriptions in these documents show that a number of laubiae were not buildings in the proper sense, but rustic or makeshift structures such as arbors or pergolas; some were even described as laubia frascata (arbored laubia) as opposed to laubia edificata (built laubia).6 The rustic origins of the loggia can also be observed lexicographically; loggia was in fact interchangeable with pergola. In early botanical treatises, both terms referred to structures in a garden or a rustic setting covered with climbing plants.7 The dictionary of the Accademia della Crusca lists pergula among the equivalent words to loggia in Latin; and in Salvatore Battaglia’s Italian dictionary, the sixth meaning of loggia is listed as “pergola or rustic portico.” Leon Battista Alberti does not use the word laubia in his De re aedificatoria (1485), preferring instead classical Latin terms related to gardens such as porticus, ambulatio, and gestatio. Ambulatio and gestatio were originally words used in the context of the ancient Roman villa and garden. In Lewis and Short’s Oxford Latin Dictionary, ambulatio is defined as a promenade or a place for walking usually near the dwelling, covered or uncovered, whereas gestatio is a promenade, a place for taking air. The difference appears to lie in the degree of proximity to the house and the emphasis on walking. Porticus is distinctly different from the two prior; it is defined as “a walk covered by a roof supported on columns, a colonnade, arcade, gallery, porch, portico.” In the first Italian edition of Alberti’s treatise (1546), ambulatio, gestatio, and porticus are not translated literally; the translator seems to have found only two corresponding words, portico and loggia, with equivalent meaning and thus was unable to distinguish between the original three Latin words.8 Authors writing in Italian had no scruples

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Mediating spaces

about using the word loggia, which was commonly used by the fourteenth century with the primary meaning given in Battaglia’s Italian dictionary.9 The etymology of the word pergola reveals its humble origins as well as its architectural connotation. Battaglia’s Italian dictionary gives us the most familiar definition of the word in the modern sense: “a framework covered with climbing plants, most typically vine, used as a decorative feature in gardens.”10 The cited sources show that the word had been used in this sense since as early as the thirteenth century. However, the original meaning of the Latin word pergula, from which the modern Italian word pergola was derived, was not the ornamental garden structure covered with climbing plants, but a modest appendage to a building, often with a utilitarian function. Dictionaries of the Latin language and encyclopedias of antiquity all list “a more or less open attachment in front of a building, serving as booth, shop, or stall” as its primary meaning, and “a framework for supporting vine” comes only second.11 Georges Lafaye, author of the entry pergula in Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines, mentions that the word, derived from the verb pergere (to go forward), may originally have been used to mean an open passage linking parts of an estate, as in the pergola in the Boscoreale cubiculum fresco (ca. 40 B.C.),12 and that from there, a prolonged trellis in the form of a tunnel covered with vegetation along a promenade came to be included in the meaning.13 The etymology of the word suggests a connotation of forward movement.14 In ancient Rome the usage of the word in its primary meaning seems to have been far more common than its second. The primary meaning itself was a rather loose definition designating any kind of space that was attached to a main building, often of a temporary or flexible character. The pergula could be a space used for various purposes, not only for mercantile activity, such as banker’s or money-exchanger’s shops,15 but also for artists’ studios and showrooms, classrooms for young pupils, or dining spaces in front of an inn.16 Given the preference of the ancient Romans for outdoor dining, the pergola as an outdoor space of an inn appears to have been significant, as we see a number of references to inns equipped with a pergula.17 It was not a solid structure, but a flexible space that could be adapted easily to the needs and conditions of the location. More often referring to modest structures made of inexpensive makeshift materials, the word came to be used metaphorically in the expression natus in pergula to mean a person of humble origin.18 It appears that, contrary to the modern assumption, plants were initially not considered the essential component of the ancient Roman pergola. Rather than the aesthetic aspect of the design, the function of the structure and the space it constituted would have been its foremost characteristic. Most likely because of its spatial ambiguity blurring boundaries between inside and outside, tectonic and organic, architecture and nature, as well as its mediating function as transitional space between indoors and outdoors, the pergola came to intersect semantically with the portico and loggia.

The classical tradition The pergola as we understand it in the modern sense, namely a framework for supporting climbing plants, appears in various antique sources including texts, pictorial representation, and archaeological remains. Originally a utilitarian structure for agricultural production, a simple support for vine, it developed into an ornamental structure in the pleasure garden. The pictorial presence of pleasure pergolas is attested

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from around the turn of the first century B.C. The Nile Mosaic of Palestrina (ca. 100 B.C.), discussed later, shows a dining pavilion in the form of a latticework structure covered with vine. A large number of stylized depictions of gardens with latticed fences and pergolas survive in the middle-class houses of the Vesuvian region.19 The pergola was a common ornamental motif of the Fourth Style, along with the aedicula and the candelabrum. In the Pentheus Room of the House of the Vettii, yet unknown in the Renaissance, a pair of pergolas is depicted on either side of the panel painting of the Punishment of Dirce. However, the earliest representation of a pergola in ancient Roman painting is the decoration of the cubiculum M of the so-called Villa of Publius Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale (40–30 B.C.) (Figure 1.1).20 The north wall of the cubiculum M in the Boscoreale Villa is composed of three panels; those to the right and left each contain a pergola. The three panels are separated by bright scarlet shafts, which rise from a calyx of gilded acanthus leaves and are crowned by gilded Corinthian capitals. Spiraling golden tendrils climb up the shafts forming circular whorls encrusted with gems.

Figure 1.1 Cubiculum M, Villa of Publius Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Rogers Fund, 1903, 03.14.13a–g.

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The panel on the right shows a grotto with a spring-fed fountain, overhung by ivy and inhabited by birds of various colors. Beside the fountain is a statuette of the goddess Diana-Hecate. Above the grotto is the stone pergola, a solid structure, asserting its presence against the blue sky. The stone pillars on the sides, held together by wooden beams, support a segmental arch, which sets the curve of the wooden trellis of the roof. Adjoined to the pergola is a stone parapet à jour with scale patterns wrought in stereotomy, similar to those in the garden paintings from the Villa of Livia. The panel at the center, the left part of which is disrupted by the real window, is a monochrome yellow picture. It depicts a landscape with fishermen on a bridge and strolling figures on a hill. Above the picture is a glass bowl containing fruit (xenia), a large bird perched on a curtain, an arcaded structure, and the blue sky beyond. The panel on the left, the right half of which is disrupted by the real window, forms a symmetrical pendant to the panel on the right. The north wall of the cubiculum M, especially the right and left panels with the grotto, spring, and pergola, is painted in such a way that it creates an illusionistic expansion of space. Fictive planes open up in the wall, as though the room was really open to the landscape outside, with no barriers between inside and outside. In fact, the development of the Second Style can be read as a process of the opening up of the wall.21 A comparison of the cubiculum M at the Boscoreale Villa with cubicula in earlier villas confirms the developmental process. An early example of the Second Style, the decoration of the House of the Griffins in Rome (first quarter of the first century B.C.) exhibits architectural forms – painted walls articulated by columns – in perspective, but the walls are still closed and do not allow for a glimpse of the landscape or the sky beyond. A few decades later, in the Villa of the Mysteries (60–50 B.C.) and in Villa A at Oplontis (formerly called Villa of Poppaea) (50–40 B.C.), the center part of the wall opens up and the zone beyond is revealed, with architectural elements such as receding porticoes or tholoi that emphasize perspective and depth, vegetation, and the sky. The partition wall, beyond which the outdoors is hypothetically present, is still very high in cubiculum 16 with two alcoves at the Villa of the Mysteries.22 In Alcove A, the rear wall is painted with a high partition wall that goes up almost four-fifths of its height, occupying the majority of the wall’s surface. It is articulated by columns supporting three barrel-vaulted ceilings with the blue sky barely visible on the other side. Alcove B reveals more of what is behind the partition wall. The partition wall with orthostats (large stone slabs set vertically as a revetment at the lower part of the wall) is still high, about two-thirds of the height of the alcove wall. At the center columns support architraves springing into an arch in the middle, in the manner of a serliana, avant la lettre. The partition wall is closed and does not have a door. Behind it is hung a black stage curtain, cheekily betraying the theatrical artificiality of the whole scene; beyond this emerge the upper part of a tholos against a blue sky. The partition wall is lower in cubiculum 11 with two alcoves at Oplontis Villa A, and the center part is left open with no wall.23 In the badly damaged left alcove, the surviving part shows a columnar structure with a broken pediment. The intercolumniations are closed by a partition wall that goes up to about two-thirds of the height of the alcove wall. The new feature here is the partition wall being pierced by an opening at the center. Through the opening is visible another columnar structure composed of squatter columns, accommodating a standing female figure. There may have been a black curtain below, but the lower part has been lost. In the right alcove, there is also a columnar structure whose

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intercolumniations are closed by a partition wall with an opening at the center. A black curtain is hung low covering only the lowest quarter of the height of the alcove wall, above which is visible a trabeated structure against a blue sky. Thus we see that while the partition wall in cubiculum 16 in the Villa of the Mysteries was a solid structure with no opening at all, the one in cubiculum 11 in Oplontis Villa A had become partially open, interrupted at the center, revealing more of the outdoors that lie beyond. Finally, the north wall of the Boscoreale Villa (40–30 B.C.) had become almost completely open to the landscape but for the yellow monochromatic picture. This latter feature almost seems a remnant of the partition wall, as though it were a last resistance to the entire opening up of the wall onto the illusionistic outdoors. Masks and oscilla that usually denote boundaries24 are largely absent, but the xenia,25 the curtain, and the birds seem to function as markers of boundaries in this context. The dove on the foreground in front of the raised platform, the bowl of fruit placed on the partition screen, and the long-tailed green bird perched on the curtain seem to indicate the various cognitive thresholds ranging between the real and the illusory worlds. Within the cubiculum M at Boscoreale, the process of the opening up of the walls towards the landscape is observable through the comparison of the lateral panels and the north wall. Looking, in sequential order, at the lateral walls of the cubiculum, at those of the alcove, and finally at the rear wall, we observe a gradual diminuendo of the partition walls, which tend to become lower and lower until they eventually disappear. The black curtain is hung lower in the lateral panels of the alcove than in the middle panels of the lateral walls of the cubiculum. The north wall is almost completely open towards the landscape, but for the partition screen. But the screen itself, although it obstructs the view, has a different character from the regular partition walls. It is in the form of a tableau of monochrome landscape painting, which makes it far more evocative of the real landscape outdoors than a regular partition screen. Another step forward and this screen will disappear completely, as we see in the garden paintings from the underground triclinium (30–20 B.C.) of the Villa of Livia at Prima Porta. The pergola in the Boscoreale cubiculum, with its adjoining parapet, appears as the boundary between the real and the illusory worlds, inviting the viewer to leap the fence and enter the picture. Passing through the pergola notionally, one enters the fictive plane that opens up by means of the trompe-l’œil effect of painting. The landscape is not in any way an accurate representation of reality. Rather, it is an idealized representation of nature, more of a compilation of images of the countryside stored in the memory. The grotto with a fountain offering cool shade to the wayfarer is a locus amoenus, frequently associated with the worship of a deity. The statuette of DianaHecate, goddess of nature, evokes the sacral setting of the grotto. The overhanging ivy leaves allude to Dionysus, the deity associated with the sensuous pleasures of life. The vine, growing from the ground beside the pergola, climbs up and covers the trellis, heavy with ripe fruit. Gifts of bountiful nature, the grapes are the symbol of abundance and exuberance, as well as an allusion to the Dionysiac pleasures of life. The spring-fed fountain brimming with water is yet another image of plenty. Birds of various colors are present, perched on the solid rock, on the rim of the fountain, or maintaining a precarious balance on the ivy. We can almost hear the rippling of water or the chirruping of the birds or feel the refreshing air and the coolness of the grotto. In addition to vision, the sense of the ear and the touch, namely the aural and the haptic, are called into motion. More than any other wall in the cubiculum, the north wall evokes a sensation of animation and movement. In contrast to the absence of

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figures and the relative quietude of the cityscapes and sanctuaries depicted on the lateral walls, we are confronted by an enlivening landscape animated by birds, rippling water, green foliage, and ripe fruit, lit by bright sunshine. It is as though, all of a sudden, everything has come alive, inviting the viewer to participate in the pleasures of life, to enjoy the bounties of nature, and to celebrate its animating exuberance. An idealized nature that is adapted and embellished to the needs and taste of man, it is a sanitized version of the real agrarian landscape. The emphasis is on the idealized aspects of rural life rather than on the reality of rustic frugality and hard labor. Textual evidence speaks first of the utilitarian pergola and later of the pleasure pergola. Ancient Roman literature suggests that the pergola originated as a humble structure made of inexpensive materials and became an independent architectural space and an entity of its own from the turn of the first century A.D. In agricultural literature, pergula is first used to refer to vine supports in viticulture by Columella (late first century A.D.), but it does not appear in the earlier agricultural treatises by Cato (234–149 B.C.) or Varro (116–27 B.C.).26 Palladius (fourth century A.D.) used pergula and iuga to refer to two different types of vine-training.27 But it was Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger who introduced the notion of the pergola as a covered walkway for pleasure. The former mentions that “a single vine protected the open walks with its shady trellises”28 in the Portico of Livia in Rome. It may even be possible that the vine was planted at the same time as the Portico’s dedication in 7 B.C. and that, by the time Pliny the Elder (A.D. 23–79) was writing his Natural History, it had been proliferating for many decades and had grown to an enormous size. The focus here is not the decorative feature of the vine and its potential for use in pleasure gardens, but rather the extraordinary character of this particular vine, capable of providing shade for the entire walkway as well as producing a large amount of grape juice yearly. Although the kinetic experience of strolls in the shade of the vine is implied, the main focus remains the utilitarian function of the pergola as support for the vine. It is only in the letters of Pliny the Younger that we find descriptions of spaces shaded by vine that are intended purely for the enjoyment of the outdoors. Two letters by Pliny the Younger (A.D. 61/62–113) are valuable sources on ancient Roman gardens, one describing his Laurentian villa (letter II.7 to Gallus) and the other his Tuscan villa (letter V.6 to Domitius Apollinaris). A “shady walk of vines” is mentioned in his letter on the Laurentian villa: On the inner side of the path surrounding the garden was a shady walk of vines, soft and yielding to the tread even for barefoot strollers.29 It is not clear from the text whether the vine was supported by a framework or grown without props to form a natural bower. But as an outdoor walkway made of vegetal materials, it would fall into the broader category of the pergola. The description certainly conveys the agreeable sensation of walking through a covered walkway formed by vines and notable for the coolness of its shade and the softness of its floor. In Pliny’s letter on the Tuscan villa, we find the full description of a dining pergola: At the upper end is a semicircular bench of white marble, shaded with vine supported by four small columns of Carystian marble. From the bench, the water, gushing forth through several small pipes as though pressed out by the weight of the people

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reclining on it, is caught in a stone channel, and received in a slender marble basin and thus inconspicuously restrained, so that the basin would always be full without ever overflowing. At supper, the heavier dishes are placed around the margins, while the lighter ones swim around in the form of boats and water birds. Opposite is a fountain which is constantly emptying and refilling; for the water, shooting high up in the air and falling unto itself, is received and elevated in connected basins.30 In this passage the word pergula is not used, but the description of the structure, namely the four small marble columns supporting the framework covered with the vine above and the couch below, points to an outdoor dining space of a type that has been documented by archaeological evidence. Thus in Pliny’s descriptions above, we have two types of pergolas: the arbored passageway and the leafy dining pavilion. The notion of the ambiguity between indoors and outdoors can also be observed in Pliny descriptions of other types of garden structures. He describes a garden room in his Tuscan villa where the walls are painted with foliage and birds perched among the branches31 and another in which the vine climbs up to the roof and covers the entire building so that one has the sensation of being in a wood.32 The presence of fountains in these rooms is yet another indication of the outdoors brought indoors. Archaeological remains of pergolas in antiquity attest to the existence of both utilitarian and pleasure pergolas. The House of Octavius Quartio (II.2.2), a middle-class residence in the southeast quarter of Pompeii, contained several pergolas in the garden.33 A vine pergola shaded the dining space beside the canal on the upper-level terrace garden. In the lower-level planted garden, arbored passageways flanked a long canal, which was interrupted by two rectangular fishponds shaded by vine pergolas. These pergolas were as decorative as they were utilitarian. The vine covering the pergolas was intended for the production of grapes, and the fishponds also required at least partial shade during the day.34 But they were also for the enjoyment of the outdoors – the vegetation, the shade, the coolness, and the fountains. The garden of Oplontis Villa A also had a decorative pergola.35 This shaded the ambulatio (no. 91), a strolling space along the fountain garden on the south side of the large swimming pool (60 × 17 m). Surrounded by promenades, this pool was part of the villa’s eastern block, an expansion executed in the 60s A.D. The east and west sides of the pool were also fashioned as strolling spaces. Along the west side, there was a colonnaded portico (no. 60); the marble columns of the colonnade were taller and more widely spaced in front of the large entertainment room (no. 69) to allow for a transverse axial vista across the pool and beyond to the Lattari Mountains. Along the east side of the pool was a sculpture garden (no. 98), where statue bases were found. Root cavities behind each statue base show that various species of trees, including plane trees, oleander, and lemon, were planted.36 The House of the Stags at Herculaneum (IV.2), an elegant patrician residence overlooking the Bay of Naples, had a decorative pergola that stood on a cliff at the edge of the property. It was flanked by two small gardens on the terrace overlooking the sea, commanding a magnificent view. Enjoying considerable visibility from the sea, it was a belvedere for taking in the seascape. From the triclinium on the north side, there was an axial vista through the garden, the oecus, and beyond the pergola to the sea. The pergola served as a framing device for the view of the bay to be enjoyed from an elevated viewpoint. According to Jashemski, the desire for a bit of green was an intrinsic part of the Roman character; vine-covered pergolas were not the monopoly of the wealthy, and

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those without gardens would grow vines on their balconies to create an arbor of shade.37 Indeed the pergola would have been far from a luxury item accessible only to the upper class. Considering its etymological origins, the pleasure pergola may originally have been born of the modest desire to possess a garden among the lower ranks of society. Because of its spatial ambiguity, rusticity, and fundamental charm, the pergola gained popularity among all ranks of society. Later on, if aristocratic property-holders such as those of the House of Stags found it elegant enough to serve as a belvedere and a visual focus, they would have started to see a new charm in its rustic simplicity, in line with their intrinsic taste for a bit of the countryside in their urban living. Representations of pergolas from antiquity, when seen through the cultural lens of the Renaissance, would have acquired a different meaning from the original. A fragment of the Nile Mosaic of Palestrina38 tells an interesting history that reveals something of the early modern interest in the pergola. The part of the mosaic that concerns us is section 19 (Figure 1.2).39 It shows a pergola of reed latticework, covered by vine

Figure 1.2 Nile Mosaic from Palestrina, section 19, Berlin piece. Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, inv. Mos. 3.

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bearing abundant fruit, standing in the middle of the water on two small islets and forming a vault spanning the channel. Inside the pergola, on either side of the channel, there is a stone bench on which are reclining participants in a drinking party. On the far side, a woman and two men recline on the stone bench, which is lined with red cushions. Another woman stands behind the couch holding a triangular harp.40 The near side is mostly a modern reconstruction. The pergola with banqueters was a typical motif of Nilotic scenes and represented the feasting of the people at the time of the inundation of the Nile.41 Here the dining or banqueting function of the pergola as well as the act of passing through it is highlighted. A man wearing a pilos (a felt or leather cap) and a loincloth has punted his papyrus canoe through the pergola with a cargo of lotus flowers that he has gathered. His clothing indicates that he belonged to the class of poor fishermen and peasants.42 The canoe is depicted in such a way that we could sense its swift movement in the water, and the direction of the man’s punting pole suggests that he has just passed through the pergola. The man, going briskly about his simple everyday labor, is an antithesis to the banqueters, idly indulging in revelry. The history of section 19 is more complex than the rest of the mosaic, and is suggestive of the significance of the pergola in the garden culture of early modern Italy. Between 1624 and 1626, upon Cardinal Lorenzo Magalotti’s request, the mosaic was cut into sections to facilitate its transportation to Rome, without a plan of the original being made. Cardinal Magalotti, who had the mosaic brought to Rome, kept one single piece for himself, namely the one depicting the pergola, and gave the rest to his nephew, Cardinal Francesco Barberini.43 In 1628, Cardinal Magalotti presented the pergola piece to the grand duke of Tuscany, Ferdinando II de’ Medici. The piece was subsequently acquired by the antiquarian and connoisseur Antonio Francesco Gori in 1742, and from Gori’s possession went to Bayreuth, eventually ending up in Berlin, where it is currently housed in the Pergamon Museum.44 It seems significant that of all the components of the mosaic, Cardinal Magalotti kept this piece to himself. When he presented it to Ferdinando II de’ Medici, he would have hoped to impress the grand duke, one of the most important art collectors of the time, and gain his favor. Obviously the piece would have been prized for its artistic value as an authentic work of ancient Roman mosaic, but it is also true that the banqueting scene under a pergola still had resonance among the cultured class in the 1620s. As we shall see, during the decades around the turn of the seventeenth century, the loggias at the Palazzo Altemps and the Loggia of Cardinal Borghese on the Quirinal Hill were decorated with illusionistic pergolas and were probably used as dining spaces. It was also around this time that in the Horti Farnesiani on the Palatine,45 the Grotta della pioggia, whose vault was painted with a vine pergola with musicians, was constructed as a dining space in the garden. The spatial setting of the fourth-century church of Santa Costanza at Rome is another suggestive precedent for the illusionistic pergola; the ambulatory is decorated with mosaics depicting vintage scenes (Figure 1.3).46 In the vintage scenes IV and IX, the vault is covered by vine growing from the four corners of the compartment. The vine spreads in informal scrolls all over the ceiling, bearing abundant fruit, and is populated by harvesting putti and birds. At the center of both compartments is a bust figure. The one in compartment IX is original. Attempts have been made to identify the bust with a historical personage – Constantia or Flavius Hannibalianus, nephew of Constantine.47 The identification with Christ may also be possible as an embodiment of the symbolism of the vine.48 At the groundlines on each side of the scene is depicted a putto with a whip directing the oxen pulling a cart

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Figure 1.3 Santa Costanza, annular vault of the ambulatory, section IX with vintage scene.

loaded with grapes towards a roofed structure, where three other putti are treading the grapes. The trough in which the grapes are dumped for the three putti to tread has, on the exterior, three fountainheads in the form of lion heads, from which water is pouring forth. In compartment IX, which preserves a larger percentage of original mosaics than compartment IV, another putto is present beside the cart; on one side, one carries a bucketful of grapes on his shoulders, and on the other, one cracks his whip at the oxen. Overall, the depicted vine forms an illusionistic arbor that becomes part of the colonnaded space of the ambulatory. A prototype of the pictorial decoration of vine scrolls49 used to form part of the architectural space can be found in the interior of the Columbarium of Pomponius Hylas in Rome (A.D. 19–37) (Figure 1.4).50 On the barrel-vaulted ceiling are painted informal vine scrolls inhabited by putti and birds. On the upper wall of the apse, similar vine scrolls with two Victories and a female figure are painted. The vine used as decoration in a funerary context may have been derived from one actually grown in tomb gardens.51 Although the Columbarium of Pomponius Hylas was yet unknown to Renaissance architects, its conventional decorative scheme of the ceiling with the vine motif doubtless could be viewed in other tombs and grotte around Renaissance Rome, thus inspiring the idea of creating three-dimensional pergola-like spaces in porticated architecture. But Santa Constanza may well have served as the most important single influence on the Renaissance motif. The mosaic decoration of the church’s lost central cupola,52 as we know through

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Figure 1.4 Columbarium of Pomponius Hylas. Giampietro Campana, Di due sepolcri romani del secolo di Augusto scoverti fra la via Latina e l’Appia presso la tomba degli Scipioni, Rome, 1840.

the drawings by Francisco de Hollanda (Figure 1.5)53 made through direct observation and those by Pietro Santi Bartoli54 based partly on the former, appears to be strikingly similar to the Renaissance illusionistic pergola of the anthropomorphic pavilion type, of which a typical example resides at the Villa Imperiale at Pesaro (1529–1538). Since Santa Costanza was mentioned in major travel guides from the turn of the sixteenth century55 and many artists were familiar with the building, it would have had a significant impact on Renaissance painting. At that time, Santa Costanza was known not as a church, but as “Templum Bacchi” from its vintage scenes and a pavement mosaic depicting Bacchus originally thought to have been located there.56 Apparently the vintage scenes on the ambulatory vault were the most impressive when compared to the other vault compartments with their more abstract patterns, as Francisco de Hollanda even placed one of them at the center of his drawing of the interior. Its use as a kind of illusionistic arbor in the architectural space of the annular ambulatory would have left quite an impression on visitors, and there can be little doubt that it influenced the Renaissance tendency to decorate transitional, vaulted spaces with a painted vine pergola. In some cases, such as the semicircular portico at the Villa Giulia or the circular courtyard at the Villa Farnese at Caprarola, even the annular shape of the vault is retained.

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Figure 1.5 Francisco de Hollanda, cupola of Santa Costanza. Francisco de Hollanda, Os desenhos das antiqualhas que vio Francisco d’Ollanda: pintor portugés, Madrid, 1940.

The medieval and early Renaissance tradition Medieval and early Renaissance sources depict the pergola as a typical component of the pleasure garden, an intimate space in a natural setting, and a liminal structure mediating between two states of being or two worlds. Throughout the Middle Ages, the pergola was widely diffused as a utilitarian structure, but its potential for furnishing a sensuous experience of nature was already acknowledged.57 The aesthetic potential of the pergola was recognized in the labors of the months, the iconographical tradition of depicting scenes from agricultural life in medieval books of hours. These were personal prayer books for laymen, representing the largest single category of surviving illuminated manuscripts.58 They were produced outside of ecclesiastical control, and their standardization of content and decoration developed from secular tradition59. The calendar pages were decorated with scenes of the monthly labors and occupations of peasants and the pastimes of their feudal lords. January was a time for feasting, March for pruning. April was depicted with a garden scene. July was a time for wheat harvesting, September for vine harvesting. And December was for killing the pig and baking bread. The making of the pergola was a typical activity of the months of March and April, when tree trimmings were available from the pruning regimen, and conveyed a sense of the season and the outdoors.

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The motifs of these books were often carried over into depictions on a larger scale. The fresco by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, The Effects of Good Government in the Countryside (1338–1340), at the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena contains realistic depictions of daily life in the countryside including the cultivation of the fields and the transport of goods to the city. Towards the upper left of the composition, a vine pergola is visible adjacent to a farm building. The Hall of the Months in the Palazzo Schifanoia (1469– 1470) at Ferrara, frescoed by Francesco del Cossa and Ercole de’ Roberti, includes the construction of a pergola in one of the panels for the month of March. Peasants are shown binding the hewn tree trunks that serve as the upright supports to the horizontal poles that form the roof. The uprights are forked at the top to cradle the horizontal poles. In late fifteenth-century Italy, we also see the revival of an aspect of the ancient Roman pergola: dining in the outdoors. Jacopo del Sellaio’s (1441–1493) The Banquet of Ahasuerus (ca. 1485)60 depicts a banquet scene in the garden. The right half of the scene features a garden divided into foreground and background by means of a threearched arcade. In the background, framed by arches, is a walled garden with a fountain. In the left half of the scene is a banquet table in diagonal arrangement, where the guests are seated. Above the table is a grape-laden pergola of a simple barrel-vaulted form, with horizontal and vertical timber framework. The grapevine is shown with just the fruit to emphasize the transparency of the structure rather than the exuberance of the vegetation. The scene brings to mind the ancient Roman tradition of outdoor dining, a custom which may have been revived around this period. The painting evokes the joys of feasting alongside the enjoyment of nature. Already in Pietro de’ Crescenzi’s (1233–1321) Libro della agricoltura,61 the most important literary source on medieval gardens, the pergola is presented as a typical feature in rural Italy. The published editions of Crescenzi’s work contain several woodcuts of the pergola. The title page shows an imposing Italian farmstead; outside the enclosure, an orchard and a vine pergola on the right shade a well, and open fields and a dovecote appear on the left. This would have been a typical landscape encountered in rural Italy of the time.62 The 1495 edition includes another woodcut with a pergola, a serenata scene set in a small garden (Figure 1.6). A man with a lute sits on the wall and plays music for his lady who listens standing. There are vegetable beds in the foreground and a vine pergola in the background. The carpentry framework of the pergola forms a gabled roof; potted vines intertwine the structure climbing up the supports and covering the roof. The path between the planted beds forms the central axis of the garden, leading to a fountain housed within the pergola, the view of which is framed by the arched opening. Low latticework fences enclose the planted areas, very much like those in medieval monastery gardens. A rabbit is digging in the vegetable bed. The intimate space of the garden encourages privacy and seclusion, and the props play a double role as everyday setting and cliché symbols: the fountain as source of life, the vine as exuberance and abundance of nature, and the rabbit as symbol of fertility. Because of the intimate space it creates, the pergola often came to be used as a setting for the encounter of lovers or scenes related to love. In addition to the visual images of the pergola, Crescenzi’s description of a hall made of living trees in his Libro della agricoltura may have had a significant influence on the creation of verdant architecture. In book VIII chapter ii, Crescenzi defines the pergola as architecture “in the form of a house or a pavilion.”63 What is noteworthy about this passage is the way it defines the pergola not as a structure related to agricultural production, but as a space within the garden. Thus the pergola could be

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Figure 1.6 Garden with a pergola. Pietro de’ Crescenzi, Libro della agricoltura, Venice, 1495. © Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Rare Book Collection, Washington, D.C.

something entirely different from the traditional flat-roofed carpentry trellis supported by masonry columns or the coppice-pole arbor. Not only could it be like a pavilion, it could also be like a house. It is a space created by means of organic materials in imitation of architecture, to be inhabited and to be enjoyed. This unique definition of the pergola is carried on to chapter iii, “De i Giardini de Re, e de gli altri Illustri e ricchi Signori (Gardens of Kings and Other Illustrious and Wealthy Lords),” in which there is mention, not of a pergola in the conventional sense, but of one in the form of a house. Crescenzi describes the hall constructed of standing trees as follows: In the garden also build a palace with walkways and chambers all made of wood, in which the king and queen may come and stay with the gentlemen or ladies when the weather is dry and clear. That palace should be constructed in this manner: measure and note all the space of the walkways and chambers, and instead of the walls, let there be planted fruittrees if it pleases the lord. Those trees will grow well, as will cherry trees or apple trees, and elms and willows will also grow well so that the walls and the ceilings will all be made of them. But one could easily and promptly construct the palace of dry wood, and around it plant vines so that

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they would cover the entire building. In the garden, one could also construct a large canopy with dry wood, or with evergreen trees, and cover them with vine.64 Here, two types of structures are envisioned: first, a house or room made entirely of living trees, namely by planting trees all around the planned space of the room so that their trunks form the walls and their foliage the ceiling; second, a house or room made of carpentry and then covered with vine on the exterior. The idea of an architecture of nature set forth in Crescenzi’s treatise, probably derived from the aesthetic of Gothic architecture, may have had far greater impact on Renaissance designs than has been acknowledged. The passage, and its later realizations in the form of Renaissance garden bowers, would certainly have informed the decoration of the natural bower in the Sala delle asse in the Castello Sforzesco in Milan and the Corridor of the Tower in the Villa Farnese at Caprarola discussed in Chapter 4. By the early Renaissance, the pergola became an indispensable structure in pleasure gardens and acquired a central presence in the garden for its visually attractive form and place-making quality. A passage from the Third Day in Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decamerone illustrates this point. A group of seven Florentine ladies and three gentlemen take refuge from the city fleeing the plague of 1348 and arrive at a residence in the countryside. The garden is described as an Elysium: “if paradise were to be created on earth, they could not think of it in any other form than that of this garden.”65 It has wide paths covered with vine pergolas and red and white roses blooming on either side, a flowering meadow with lush green grass surrounded by plantings of trees, and a fountain with abundant water.66 The striking feature of this ekphrasis of the garden is the emphasis on the sensuous experience of nature. The various elements of the garden are described as perceived through sight, sound, smell, and touch. Water is not only visual; it is tactile. The trees not only offer a shade agreeable to the eye; the fragrance of their blossoms and fruit pervade the air. Here a veritable paradise, reminiscent of the ancient garden frescoes from Pompeii, Rome, and Prima Porta, has been created. The pergola, no longer a utilitarian structure for agricultural production, is considered an almost indispensable component of the pleasure garden. It certainly serves the function of providing agreeable shade and protection from the weather; but it is also an object to be admired in its own right. It is as though the covered walkways connecting buildings in the medieval monastery were brought out into the open and constructed with vegetal materials. The movement of walking through it stimulates the senses. By means of its materiality and spatial arrangement, the pergola invites an active interaction with the surrounding nature. By the late quattrocento, the pergola had become such a typical garden component that it was often used to represent a garden. The title page of the 1492 edition of the Decamerone shows the seven ladies and three gentlemen seated in front of a pergola (Figure 1.7). Illustrations for the Third Day from the manuscripts of the Decamerone67 also show garden scenes with a pergola. While these illustrations would have been based on the ekphrasis of the garden in the text, the frontispiece illustration has no explicit reason to show a pergola unless it was typically understood to represent a garden. The pergola also has a space-making quality and creates a cloistered, intimate environment with a degree of privacy and seclusion. This property of the pergola is central to the Decamerone’s setting because the protagonists are seeking refuge from the plague. The pergola would have symbolized precisely such a haven, which enabled them to be liberated

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Figure 1.7 Title page, Boccaccio, Decamerone, Venice, 1492. Wikimedia Commons PD-Art.

from social visibility and normal codes of behavior and indulge in the sensuous enjoyment of nature. Pergolas also play an important role in Francesco Colonna’s prose fiction Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499). First printed in Venice by the humanist publisher Aldus Manutius, it is one of the most important sources for artistic and architectural designs in the Renaissance and Baroque periods and also includes illustrations depicting scenes in which pergolas play a symbolic role.68 Written in the Venetian dialect peppered with obscure Graecisms and Latinisms, the story relates the dream quest of the hero Poliphilus for Polia, the object of his love. The book’s 172 woodcuts had a significant impact on contemporary visual culture; a large number of them featured architecture, antiquities, and scenes inspired by the antique.69 The author of these woodcuts is unknown. In 1545, a second Italian edition was published, replacing eight woodcuts. In 1546 an abridged French translation appeared with an entirely new set of illustrations, which was reissued in 1554 and 1600. The French editions are particularly interesting for their illustrations, which are different in style from the 1499 Venice edition and include more details of architecture and garden structures. There are frequent occurrences of the word pergula or pergulato in the Italian edition and treille or treilliz, or occasionally berceau, in the French edition.

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Significantly, a pergola is used to indicate a key turning point in the story, which occurs at least twice. In one scene, Poliphilus encounters the beautiful nymph bearing a burning torch in her hand. In both the Venice and the French editions, two scenes with the pergola are included, before and after the encounter. One shows Poliphilus on one side of the pergola and the nymph approaching from the other (Figure 1.8).70 The second shows Poliphilus and the nymph walking side by side with the pergola in the background.71 The Venice 1499 edition and the French 1554 edition present the pergola in a language appealing to the senses: “I beheld before me a fine pergola with flowering jasmine, with curving roof, painted all over with fragrant flowers of three kinds mingled together.”72 Here the pergola is used as a setting for love; its function as a passageway may also evoke the ritual of marriage. It turns out that Poliphilus falls in love with the beautiful nymph with the torch, who later declares that she is Polia. The scenes before and after the encounter emphasize the liminal character of this rite de passage, in which the confronting pair stand at either end of the gatelike pergola. The torch, here borne by the nymph, is an ancient symbol of sexual passion and marriage. The second scene with a pergola represents the site of the sepulcher of Adonis in the garden on the Isle of Cythera, where Venus comes to honor her lost lover every year. Here the pergola is an appropriate prop in a setting for the celebration of love. Poliphilus and Polia visit the site to pay homage to Venus. The tomb of Adonis is

Figure 1.8 Poliphilus’s encounter with the nymph at the pergola. Francesco Colonna, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, Venice, 1499. Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin.

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depicted as a sarcophagus with a pergola erected above. Intertwined in the pergola is the rose, the flower frequently associated with Venus since antiquity. This time, the illustration of the pergola-sepulcher appears three times in both the Venice 1499 and Paris 1554 editions. The first illustration shows the short side of the sarcophagus with a fountainhead in the form of a snake spouting water into a hexagonal basin. The long side of the sarcophagus bears reliefs that depict scenes from the story of Venus and Adonis, Venus bathing, and a large shield bearing the letters “ADONIA.” The pergola above the sarcophagus is made of poles bound with withies. A trellis fence encloses the garden in which it stands. The second illustration shows the pergolasepulcher with the statue of a seated Venus atop the sarcophagus, holding her child in her arms. Venus’s chair has an ornamental eagle head at the back and feet imitating a lion’s paws. The nymphs pay reverence to the goddess, one kissing her foot, and five others kneeling. On the side of the sarcophagus are depicted the scene of the death of Adonis caused by the wild boar and a large shield bearing the inscription “IMPURA SUAVITAS.” The meaning of this inscription remains unclear. The garden fence shows a variety of patterns. The third illustration shows the pergola-sepulcher from a wider angle, from the fountain side of the sarcophagus. Venus is seen from the back, framed by the pergola covered with roses. The place where Venus is seated is arranged differently from the other two illustrations, which show a flat surface. Here Venus’s chair is placed on a pedestal on the rear side of which is attached the snake fountainhead, and the goddess is enshrined in an aedicula. Venus is doubly framed, by the pergola and the aedicula. Beneath the pergola, stone benches are placed on either side. In the foreground, the nymphs play music and Polia makes a garland of flowers, which she prepares to place on Poliphilus’s head. Venus’s presence in the scene appears ironic, because her back is turned to the action, the celebration of the love of Poliphilus and Polia. It appears as though, the ceremonial ritual of paying homage to the goddess being over, they can now indulge in the pleasures of nature and life. The depiction of Venus underneath a pergola in the garden brings together pagan and Christian strands. Venus is the pagan goddess of love, while the representation of a female figure beneath a pergola may have come from the Christian iconography of the Madonna of the pergola, a theme discussed later in Chapter 2. The flowering garden may allude to the garden in which the Madonna is frequently represented in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The rose is the flower of Venus, but also of Mary. Especially in the third illustration, the pergola is a framing device for Venus, as well as for the fountain, the source of life – but the latter emerges, morbidly, from a sarcophagus. The ambiguous nature of this pergola could hardly be more explicit. The antipodal values of life/death, front/back, inside/outside are all palpable and symbolically pregnant in this imagery. Colonna’s illustrators did not invent these notions, but it could be argued that the pergola as an artistic topos, due to the great influence of the Hypnerotomachia among architects and designers, was never the same thereafter. Contemporaneous with the first edition of the Hypnerotomachia, Jacopo de’ Barbari’s Map of Venice (ca. 1500), a bird’s-eye view of the city, is one of the earliest surviving examples of topographical representation containing architectural and landscape details. 73 It shows that the pergola was a common element in the gardens of the time, even in a topographical environment such as

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Venice. Gardens are scarce in the densely built-up area along the Grand Canal and are mostly found in the outskirts – the Giudecca with the largest concentration of gardens, San Giorgio Maggiore, Murano, and the Arsenal and San Pietro in Castello neighborhood among others. Plots that have gardens belong to either religious complexes – monasteries or churches – or private residences. Wherever there is a garden, there is almost always a pergola. Five of the six woodcut pieces that constitute the map include gardens, each with one or more pergolas. In the bottom left sector of the Map representing the left half of the Giudecca, six residences and one religious complex are shown (Figure 1.9). The plots are defined by rectilinear contours but are irregular in shape, some with part of their property jutting into a neighbor’s land. The buildings are located on the north side of the plots facing the city, with direct access from the water; courtyards and gardens are located on the south side. Two residences on the extreme left have gardens in addition to courtyards with a well at the center. The bottom center sector of the Map is dominated by large religious compounds, San Giovanni Battista and San Giorgio Maggiore. In the gardens shown on the map, three types of plantings can be distinguished: first, trees and high plants that are usually arranged along the enclosure; second, low plants at the center of the garden space, probably vegetables; and third, plants grown on a pergola. The pergolas in Barbari’s map can be classified into two types according to their form: flat-roofed tunnels and barrel-vaulted tunnels (tonnelle). Freestanding pergolas in the middle of the garden tend to be tonnelle-type pergolas; in some cases they are straight, in other cases they are L-shaped. They range from short tunnels in modest residential plots to large-scale pergola walkways in the gardens of monasteries and churches. Flat-roofed pergolas are usually constructed against a wall, with few exceptions, and they seem to be purely utilitarian, in contrast to freestanding

Figure 1.9 Jacopo de’ Barbari, Map of Venice, ca. 1514, detail with the Giudecca. Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin.

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Figure 1.10 Jacopo de’ Barbari, Map of Venice, ca. 1514, detail with San Giorgio Maggiore. Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin.

pergolas, which have a space-defining quality. At San Giorgio Maggiore, we find pergolas representing both types (Figure 1.10). They would have been passageways connecting separate buildings, support for climbing plants in the kitchen gardens, and shady walkways in pleasure gardens. Two sets of flat-roofed pergolas run along the south walls, one straight and the other slightly curved in conformity with the enclosure. These were probably vine pergolas, judging from their flat-roofed form and relatively large-scale, as well as their placement in an open space on the south side. We also find two sets of tonnelle-type pergolas: one is composed of two shorter pergolas together forming an L-shape, leading from the monastery church to the residential quarters; the other set, with its three parts arranged in roughly zig-zag form, is located in the open space on the east side. This pergola complex is particularly interesting for the strolling figures interacting with them. In the densely built-up city fabric of Barbari’s map, figures are rarely depicted; but here a man and a woman are shown standing inside a tonnelle-type pergola, while another pair stands beside it. Although cursorily sketched in minuscule scale, apparently these figures are not laborers working in the vegetable plot or on the maintenance of the garden. From their stance and dress, they are clearly enjoying a leisurely stroll and a cultured conversation in the garden, represented as staffage like those in the settecento vedute.

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The relatively widespread use of pergolas in the Venetian context points to the flexible nature of the pergola, easily adaptable to gardens with various functions and to the existing topographical conditions of the site. In places with limited land resources such as Venice,74 pergolas seem to have proliferated precisely because of their confined environments; their serene enclosures created a variety of experience that open vistas could not. Even a boat features a pergola-canopy of the tonnelle form on Barbari’s map; it is depicted near the Arsenal. Dutch and Flemish garden prints such as Hans Vredeman de Vries’s (1527–1606) Hortorum viridariorumque elegantes multiplicis formae (1583) and David Vinckboons’s (1576–ca.1632) Venetian Party in a Château Garden (ca. 1602) show that the floating pergola became a fashionable form of entertainment in garden parties later in the cinquecento. Odoardo Fialetti’s View of Venice (1611), painted a century later than Jacopo de’ Barbari’s map and featuring pergolas at San Giorgio Maggiore and the residences on the Giudecca, shows that they were flourishing components of Venetian gardens.75 In Tuscany where, unlike Venice, land was the source of wealth, we observe, in the villas of the Medici in the Mugello region north of Florence, the typical evolution of the pergola from a utilitarian structure for agricultural production to a shady walkway for the enjoyment of nature. In the quattrocento villas of Il Trebbio (1427–36) and Cafaggiolo (1451), agricultural bases and fortified complexes both renovated by Michelozzo for Cosimo the Elder, utilitarian pergolas were constructed for training vine grapes. It is at Il Trebbio that we see the transitional stage of a utilitarian pergola becoming one for strolling and enjoyment of nature. Giusto Utens’s view (1598/99), made approximately 170 years after Michelozzo’s restructuring of the whole estate, depicts the villa as seen from the south: a castellated building with a watchtower surrounded by walls and fences; the land gradually slopes down to the Sieve valley on the north side; a green space in front of the building has two arbors made of evergreens clipped in the form of domes; to the right of the main building is the overseer’s cottage, and further right is the vegetable garden, divided into eight square beds, flanked on either side by a vine pergola.76 The two pergolas had existed from the fifteenth century.77 The one on the side of the building stands to this day, while traces of the other are observed on the opposite side. The existing vine pergola is supported by twentyfour brick columns on a podium of masonry.78 The pergola at Il Trebbio is the earliest surviving example in the Renaissance of this type of pergola with brick and masonry supports and a flat roof of timber beams. Michelozzo may have designed it after ancient models as a structure with both aesthetic and utilitarian functions.79 The existing vine pergola, the vegetable patches, and the now lost other pergola were situated at two different levels on the terraced slope. Stairs led down from the upper terrace, which still supports the existing pergola, to the vegetable garden and the other vine pergola on the lower terrace. The terrace garden was already known in Tuscany in the fourteenth century and became more popular in the fifteenth.80 Terracing, an effective method of arranging space on sloping ground, was reiterated in major Italian gardens of other regions in later period. At the Villa Medici at Cafaggiolo, a fortified farm complex with the amenities of a country residence,81 the pergolas create a space separate from the vegetable plots, enlivened by an ornamental fountain. Utens’s view shows a crenellated structure with a watchtower and a garden with planting beds with an axial path terminating in a fountain flanked by vine pergolas. By the late cinquecento, the Medici villas at Ambrogiana (1587) and La Petraia (ca. 1594), both designed by Bernardo Buontalenti for Ferdinando I de’ Medici82 as venues

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for leisure activities, entertainment, and scholarly gatherings, accommodated pergolas that were shady walkways laid out in playful designs. Utens’s lunettes of Ambrogiana and La Petraia show villa buildings now devoid of castellated elements; the towers are belvederes rather than watchtowers. The gardens are composed of square compartments with plantings of flowers and herbs in ornamental patterns. At Ambrogiana, tonnelle-type pergolas define the square compartments by surrounding them on three sides. At La Petraia, tonnelle-type pergolas are arranged in segments of a circle in each of the four compartments, which as a whole form two concentric rings. The role of the pergola was to delineate the geometric forms used in the design, as well as to provide shady walkways for the kinetic enjoyment of the garden. We see here the transformation of the utilitarian pergola into an indispensable design component of a pleasure garden.

Loggias in Roman aristocratic residences The loggias of the fifteenth-century houses in Rome, some of which were decorated with motifs of nature, must be understood in the context of the cultural connotations of the aforementioned portico and loggia types. The quattrocento Roman house, in general, had the following characteristics: asymmetry, upper story with cross windows, stuccoed walls sometimes decorated with sgraffito, and a tower on one side often with a loggia.83 Numerous variations of this architectural typology survive, the most monumental manifestation of it being the Palazzo Venezia.84 When referring to loggias in quattrocento Roman houses, Italian architectural historians writing in the mid-twentieth century used the term lovium – one of the many variants of the medieval Latin laubia used in Rome.85 Fiorini and Tomei both describe the lovium as an important space in the Roman aristocratic residence: the substitute of the salon or the dining room, where one could enjoy the sunshine and fresh air for most of the year in the mild climate of Rome. The loggia was usually located on the upper floors of the building, in some cases at the top of the tower, as in the Casa di via del Governo Vecchio and the Palazzo Capranica. The location of the loggia may suggest the relatively private character of the space.86 But it is more likely to have been used not only for the relaxation of the family but also for the entertainment of close family friends. In that it was a privileged space with a view, it conforms to Alberti’s description of the prince’s salon or dining room, which also had a belvedere function.87 The lovium was an index of nobility and sophistication in the quattrocento, and the possession of it carried prestige.88 Writing about Tuscan residential architecture, Patzak notes that the “famiglie di loggia” (families of the loggia) were held in high esteem among the landed aristocracy.89 Among quattrocento Roman residences equipped with loggias, two are worthy of further mention: the House of Cardinal Bessarion (ca. 1460) in suburban Rome near the via Appia and the Casa dei Cavalieri di Rodi (ca. 1466) in the heart of the city adjacent to the Markets of Trajan. The first is a small two-story building with a loggia on the upper story. It is generally classified as a villa because of its location outside the city and its modest scale and simple plan.90 Tomei describes it as a villetta, a typical rural residence. The piano nobile was occupied by the loggia and the main hall, with a few small rooms; the ground floor housed the service quarters. The loggia was the centerpiece of the whole building. It was articulated by four arches which opened onto the garden and had a window on the short side on the via Appia. The wall decoration

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was dominated by the color green, apparently to create an atmosphere evocative of the foliage outside. From the state of preservation it is not possible to distinguish further details. A small room adjacent to the loggia had wall decorations depicting green foliage and pomegranates. A room on the ground floor was decorated with a fresco depicting a large tree with exuberant foliage.91 The Casa dei Cavalieri di Rodi is more important in terms of scale and surviving decoration (Figure 1.11).92 It stands out among the other examples of the quattrocento Roman house equipped with a loggia, in terms of scale, location, and decoration. The house was built in the twelfth century upon ancient remains, partly resting on the left hemicycle of the Forum of Augustus. The creation of the loggia dates from 1470, under the patronage of cardinal Marco Barbo, nephew of Pope Paul II (Pietro Balbo, pontificate 1464–1471).93 The loggia of the house enjoyed both views and visibility. Five large arches on the long side, three more on the short side, and one on the other long side opened onto a vast panorama of the city, underneath which lay buried yet unknown the glory of ancient Rome. The structure itself, built on ancient foundations, gave the impression of towering over its surroundings. The surviving fresco decoration is a valuable example of landscape representation in a quattrocento loggia. On the rear wall and the adjoining short wall is depicted a garden landscape framed by painted pilasters. Above

Figure 1.11 Casa dei Cavalieri di Rodi, Rome. Loggia with painted trees.

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a high parapet, a park with a variety of trees – cypress, pine, laurel, palm, apple, orange, and pomegranate – extends into the distance.94 The natural scenery does not include any figures. The painted parapet echoes the real parapet on the open sides of the loggia. During the season when sunlight comes in as far as the rear wall, the arches of the open sides of the loggia cast a shadow on the fresco, creating an interesting play with the painted pilasters. The painter of the fresco has not yet been identified, but a stylistic connection to the Florentine school of landscape representation has been suggested, in particular Benozzo Gozzoli.95 In regard to the landscape framed by architectural elements, a parallel can be found in the fresco fragment from the Palazzo dei Catellini da Castiglione in Florence (late fourteenth century), on which a painted garden with trees and birds is depicted as though viewed through a Gothic arcade.96 While the depiction of the trees in this fresco is still stylized and static, in the loggia of the Casa dei Cavalieri di Rodi the variety of the trees in regard to their species and form, their spatial arrangement, and a sense of perspective have resulted in a more dynamic landscape. This effect may also be due to the nature of the space to which these decorations belonged: the garden fresco in the Palazzo dei Catellini da Castiglione decorated an interior room, in contrast to this airy loggia with a panoramic view. The idea of adorning a loggia with elements of nature would have been derived most naturally from the openness of the physical space, the connection to the outdoors, and the view. The real view of the landscape expanding into the distance would have inspired the virtual expansion of the loggia’s physical space by means of a trompe-l’œil landscape. The loggia of the Casa dei Cavalieri di Rodi was not oriented due south, where the prestigious vestiges of antiquity now lie – the Imperial Fora, the Roman Forum, and the Palatine Hill. Instead, it was oriented west, and thus decisively towards the Palazzo Venezia, the Barbo family residence in Rome. A monumental expression of quattrocento residential architecture, the Palazzo Venezia, completed by 1471, was contemporaneous to the loggia of the Casa dei Cavalieri di Rodi. The Basilica of San Marco adjacent to it was built with a loggia on the façade (1460–1465), which is often compared to the Benediction Loggia at St. Peter’s.97 Given the priority of views and visibility, the sightlines would have been carefully predetermined. In the fifteenth century, the Imperial Fora were still built over and the Roman Forum lay half-buried under a cattle pasture; they had not yet become a unified landscape invested with ideological meaning. However, building on ancient foundations was already a symbolic gesture of appropriation and dominion of antiquity. And establishing sightlines between the family’s important bases in the papal capital, one of which, the Palazzo Venezia, was obviously an architectural landmark, was the spatial expression of their dynastic power. Loggias intended as viewing belvederes were almost always present in aristocratic residences built in the city and the suburbs. The Villa Baldassare Turini on the Gianicolo (now Villa Lante al Gianicolo) (1519–1525) has a loggia that enjoys a superb view of Rome. Its vaulted ceiling is decorated in classicizing stucco with vegetal patterns.98 The decoration was considered the work of Giovanni da Udine,99 but recent scholarship attributes it to Giulio Romano.100 The Palazzo di Firenze (1516–1530) had a two-tiered loggia on the garden side, built under the patronage of Julius III Del Monte.101 The Palazzo Farnese (1515–1546), designed by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, Michelangelo, and Vignola, has a three-tiered loggia on the garden façade. The tier on the piano nobile may not have been a loggia in the strict sense, but the

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Carracci Gallery on the same story, when seen from the Trastevere side, would have been accentuated by the columns and arches of the first-floor and third-floor loggias. The three-tiered loggia composition would have made the garden façade as monumental and impressive as the main façade on the piazza. The Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne (1534), designed by Baldassare Peruzzi, was located in the built-up quarter of Rome, where views would have been difficult to obtain. Nonetheless, it is interesting to note that the loggia on the piano nobile overlooking the courtyard had landscape paintings on the rear wall. The paintings have not survived, but Letarouilly’s illustration shows how the pillars of the loggia served as a framing device for the painted landscapes.102 To the viewer entering the courtyard from the vestibule, these would have appeared framed by the pillars. The technique is the same as the one employed in the Hall of the Perspectives at Villa Farnesina (1519), where Baldassare Peruzzi had painted fictive landscapes of city views and natural scenery framed by columns. Loggias with painted decoration evocative of the outdoors would become a popular feature in aristocratic residential architecture throughout the cinquecento as privileged spaces for display and entertainment. This architectural form, suffused with the new sensibility towards the natural world – the merging of indoors and outdoors, the proximity of nature, fictive landscapes, sightlines, and framing – was a Renaissance phenomenon. The complex play of factors created a powerfully centrifugal aesthetic expressed through an illusionistic expansion of space but paradoxically resolved into meticulous, lapidary detail meant to stimulate the senses and elevate the mind.

Views and visibility Loggias, which almost by definition were in an elevated position, often functioned as belvederes for taking in a panorama. Their arched openings served as framing devices for views over the garden and the landscape. As an accent on the building façade, they were also eye-catchers in their own right. The view from the loggia has its origins at least in classical antiquity. Ancient Roman villas and gardens often contained structures that functioned as overlooks and belvederes.103 In the House of Augustus on the Palatine, there was a secluded place in the upper story called Syracusae et Technyphion.104 Augustus retreated to his Syracusae when he had work to pursue in private or without interruption. In the Horti Maecenatiani on the Esquiline, Nero is presumed to have watched the great fire of A.D. 64 from a lofty tower.105 At the Laurentian villa of Pliny the Younger, there were two towers. From one he had a fine view of the ocean and the villas scattered here and there along the coast, and from the other he could see the entrance to his own villa, the vegetable garden, and the orchard.106 As for his Tuscan villa, Pliny describes it as being situated in the “grand amphitheater of nature,” commanding superb views of the surrounding countryside and the Apennines.107 These literary examples show that the tower in the ancient Roman villa and garden was both a retreat from which to enjoy the views of the natural surroundings detached from mundane cares and a watchtower for commanding the entire estate, thereby keeping all activities within the precincts under symbolic surveillance. The symbolism of the tower in this sense also applies to the tower-like buildings in Hadrian’s Villa, the Roccabruna and the Tempe pavilion.108 These buildings are in themselves significant components of the villa’s landscape. Besides their practical function as watchtowers (and in the case of Tempe, a security point), they were most likely belvederes for taking in the view. Like the so-called Greek Library, these were places where the emperor could

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command a sweeping view of the estate and the activities going on within it as well as the landscape beyond. They provided a symbolically elevated position that gave the emperor a sense of control over his subjects, state affairs, and his realm. The concept of the view in the design of Renaissance villas was theorized by Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472) in De re aedificatoria (1485). Alberti considers not only views of natural landscapes from the villa but also the visibility of the villa itself as an important factor in the site choice for a villa: I would advise that the dwelling of the nobility occupy a place in the countryside which is not particularly fertile, but outstanding in other aspects; the advantage of every breeze, of the sun, and of the view, indeed every pleasure should be seized from it. It should offer easy access from the countryside, and receive arriving guests in truly noble environs. It shall be viewed and command views – of a city, fortresses, the sea or the sweeping plain. It shall put before the eyes prominent hilltops; the delights of gardens; and the enticements of fishing and hunting.109 Many Renaissance villas were built following Alberti’s prescription, those of the Medici among them. The view as well as visibility was essential, and patrons and designers were fully aware of the connotations of viewing. Angelo Poliziano (1454– 1494) reported Cosimo de’ Medici saying that Cafaggiolo had a better view than Fiesole, because at Cafaggiolo, everything one could see from it belonged to the Medici, while at Fiesole it was not so.110 Here the view is associated with dominion. The Villa Medici at Fiesole (1451–1457) was constructed on a steep slope, where the artificial terracing of the ground proved to be a great challenge. The site was chosen for its view over Florence, the city governed by the Medici, and the surrounding countryside, where the Medici owned property. Ackerman interprets the form and function of the Villa Medici at Fiesole symbolically in terms of views and landscape.111 Because the villa was used for gatherings of humanists and the promotion of humanistic studies, its physical elevation was associated with the elevation of the mind. The Villa Medici at Poggio a Caiano (1480) was expressly designed to be seen and admired from afar. It enjoys a sweeping prospect of the surrounding countryside as well as a remarkable visibility of its own.112 Enea Silvio Piccolomini (1405–1464), later Pope Pius II (1458–1464), also emphasized the importance of the view in his writings and building projects. In his Commentarii rerum memorabilium, he makes frequent reference to the views of the countryside surrounding his native town of Corsignano. He commissioned Bernardo Rossellino (1409–1464) to redesign the town and to transform it into a Renaissance city named Pienza with a cathedral, a piazza with portico, and a papal palace with garden (1459–1462). He describes the three-tiered loggia on the south side of his palace and the surrounding landscape one could see from it. In the original Latin text, the word porticus is used for the loggias: On the fourth side, facing the south and the graceful figure of Mount Amiata, they constructed three porticoes, the second over the first and the third over the second, supported by stone columns. The first, carrying a lofty, noble vault, offered a walkway alongside a lovely garden; the second, carrying an elaborate, brightly painted wooden ceiling, offered cheerful winter accommodations with high balustrades; the third was similar, but with a less ornate coffered ceiling.113

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Here the interaction with nature and the landscape is consciously brought into focus. The view acquires a symbolic meaning, as it relates to the spiritual dominion of the world as much as to the elevating effects of the landscape.114 Pius II also mentions the palace’s ortus pensilis with plantings, usually translated as the hanging garden – a garden built on terracing.115 He does not give further details on how it was organized. Trees were probably planted along the paths, and the vine may have been trained on a trellis. Like the loggias of the palazzo, the hanging garden at Pienza would have been designed to take in the views of the countryside. The concept of the view in loggias was carried over into the seventeenth century, though with a shifting emphasis to accommodate changes is taste and scale. At the Villa Aldobrandini at Frascati (1601–1605; 1613–1614) designed by Giacomo della Porta and Carlo Maderno for Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, nephew of Pope Clement VIII, the symbolism associated with the view is given full expression. The villa complex is nestled in the north slope of the hill, commanding the town of Frascati and the Roman Campagna. Views and visibility were its most outstanding features, of which the patrons were fully aware. Agucchi, the cardinal’s majordomo, describes at length the natural beauties and the landscape surrounding the villa. He stresses the unique quality of the villa’s setting and its superb view extending to the Tyrrhenian coast, the Apennines, and the mountains of Viterbo, a panorama he likens to no other place in the world. The following passage from Agucchi’s description of the villa, “Relatione della Villa Belvedere,” emphasizes its connection to the surrounding landscape in which it is embedded, in such a way that architecture and nature complement one another: From every window of the house, and particularly from those with balconies, one is confronted with the full view of the Apennines to the northeast; in front to the west the city of Rome and the Roman Campagna; between west and south the sea; castles, lands, cities, everything in this vast, grand countryside seems to yield to this house and to serve as an ornament for it.116 To view Rome from a distant eminence may be a source of simple delight, but it is also a symbolic act of control. Only the papal capital’s most privileged citizens could secede from the city’s workaday world, the negotium, and pause to take it all in, to curate and rationalize the miniaturized urbs like a museum exhibit on display or explain it in the confident, comprehensive language of an owner and connoisseur: One can see that the ancient imperial city of Rome, queen of nations, conqueror of the world, and head of the true Religion, dominates the Roman Campagna. This is what makes the view from Frascati and its villas unique. From here one can clearly distinguish the details. Just as the head of the Church Militant dominates here in Frascati, so does the material Church in the most noble edifice of St. Peter’s rise up and dominate Rome as the prime church in the world, displaying her grand, high cupola for miles around, which surpasses in height any building from antiquity that resides in our memory.117 When seen as a locus of command and control, the loggia of the Renaissance villa or palace is too important, and too heavily charged with ideological signification, to be considered apart from its decorative schemes. At first blush, the painted pergola,

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with its connotations of gentle contemplation, privacy, and intimacy, might seem a strange companion to this architecture of power, scope, and distance. But in fact the construct of the relaxed, contemplative life in the Renaissance, like the schole and otium of Roman antiquity, is always enmeshed in the discourse of power and dominion. An intelligible universe is an orderly one, trained by the ruler’s or the gardener’s hand.

Notes Translations of Latin and Italian texts are mine unless otherwise stated. 1 Pierre Richelet, Nouveau Dictionnaire François, 1710: Loge: Donjon, ou Belvédère en Italie, elevé au-dessus de la maison. Emile Littré, Dictionnaire de la langue française, 1878: Loge: Galerie, portique en avant-corps pratiqués à l’un des étages d’un edifice; il ne se dit qu’en parlant des édifices d’Italie. 2 M. Cortelazzo and P. Zolli, Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 1999; J. F. Niermeyer and C. Van De Kieft, Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, 2002; C. Dufresne Du Cange, Glossarium mediae et infimae Latinitatis, 1954. 3 Edificio o parte di un edificio aperti verso l’esterno, almeno da una parte, mediante colonnati o arcate che possono anche essere munite di vetrate (Salvatore Battaglia, Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 1986). 4 Edificio aperto, che si regge in su pilastri, o colonne. Lat. Pergula, ambulacrum, peristylium, porticus, xystus. Gr. Περιστύλιον, ξυστός. 5 Sexton 1997, 22–28. Civic loggias, such as the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence or the Loggetta of Sansovino in the Piazza San Marco in Venice, were independent structures built by the state from the ninth to the fourteenth centuries in northern Italy and Tuscany. Examples of this architectural typology are not found in Rome or in Lazio. 6 Sexton 1997, 27–28. 7 Mattioli 1548, 273: i fagiuoli . . . ricuoprono, avolgendosi e salendo in alto, pergole, loggie, capanne e fenestre; Durante 1585, 201: E il gelsomino una pianta molto a proposito per convestire nei giardini le spalliere le loggie e le pergole e le capanne, cosi esser molto habile a cio fare, come per la vaghezza, & molto raro odore dei suoi fiori. 8 Alberti Latin 1485, V.1: insunt tamen partes aliquae / alioquin commode quas usus et consuetude ita uiuendi efficit / ut putentur penitus necessariae uti est porticus ambulatio / gestatio et eiusmodi. (Alberti Italian 1546, 90, V.1: Sono cotali case per necessita fabricate, ui sono tutta uia alcune parti commode, lequali l’uso e costume di uiuere le ha fatte giudicare necessarie, come il portico, la loggia e simili). Alberti Latin V.18: Habebunt quidem praeter lassitatem sinus / etiam porticum / ambulatione / gestationem / atque hortorum delitias et eiusmodi. (Alberti Italian 114, V.18: Habbia oltre l’atrio ampio, anche il portico, la loggia, l’horto, e simili delitie). 9 Boccaccio, Decamerone, Intro. 61: In sul colmo della quale [montagnetta] era un palagio con bello e gran cortile nel mezzo, e con loggie e con sale e con camere. 10 Armatura costituita da gratici di legno o di ferro, orizzontali o incurvati a formare una volta a botte, sostenuti da due file di colonnine o anche appoggiati su un lato al muro di un edificio, funge da sostegno per piante rampicanti e specialmente per le viti, dando luogo a gallerie vegetali che sono spesso allestite a scopo ornamentale nei giardini. 11 See Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (1900– ); Lewis-Short Oxford Latin Dictionary (1996); Pauly-Wissowa, Paulys Real-encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft (1903– ); Saglio ed., Dictionnaire des Antiquités Grecques et Romaines (1877). 12 See fig. 1.1. 13 Saglio, Edmond (ed.), Dictionnaire des Antiquités Grecques et Romaines, Paris: Hachette, 1877, v. 4, 392–393: Le mot semble avoir designé à l’origine un passage non clos (etym pergere) mettant en communication diverses parties d’une même propriété . . . De là vient qu’on l’a appliqué par exemple à une treille dont les arceaux se prolongent le long d’une allée [trichila = bower, arbor, summer house].

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14 In English, the word pergola has two different meanings: first, a garden structure for walking through, consisting of a usually wooden framework covered with vegetation; second, a bower or vegetal canopy above a seating area. The connotation of movement in the first forms a contrast to the sedentary character of the second. The word arbor was also used with both meanings, thus interchangeably with pergola (Oxford English Dictionary, 1989). The French berceau (Emile Littré, Dictionnaire de la langue française, 1957–1960) and the Italian pergola (Salvatore Battaglia, Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 1986) also had both meanings and were used with both sedentary and kinetic implications. The English pergola was derived from the Italian pergola, which in turn had its origins in the Latin pergula. 15 Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia, XXI.8: argentarium sua pergula in forum prospexisse (the money-exchanger has his shop facing the forum). 16 CIL, IV 138: locantur tabernae cum pergulis suis (inns with pergolas to let). 17 Année Epigraphique 1968 n. 165 [Etr.; saec. II]; Reynolds 1966, 59: tabernas cum pergulis . . . aedificare (to build inns with pergolas). Année Epigraphique 1986 n. 25 (Romae; a. 6); CIL (Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum) VI 14844: trichilam cum pergula et pavimento (in sepulcro communi) (pavilion with pergola and pavement). 18 Petronius, Satyricon, 74,14: hic in pergula natus est, aedes non somniatur (one born in an upper room of a shop does not dream of a house). 19 Jashemski 1993, 394–404. 20 On the Boscoreale frescoes, see Lehmann 1953. 21 Beyen 1960, Bd. 1, and Ling 1991, 23. 22 Mazzoleni 2004, 104. 23 Mazzoleni 2004, 127. 24 On depicted masks in Roman painting, see Allrogen-Bedel 1974 and Gallistl 1995. On oscilla see Taylor 2005. 25 On xenia as a boundary, see Bryson 1990. 26 See Marcus Porcius Cato, De Agri Cultura, XXXII–XXXIII; Marcus Terrentius Varro, Res Rustica, I.viii; Columella, Res Rustica, III.ix.2: ita fertiles ut in iugo singulae ternas urnas praeberent, in pergulis autem singulae denas amphoras peraequarent (translation Loeb edition). 27 Palladius, III.xii.5: quae altius coluntur, ut in iugo vel pergula (vine that are grown higher, on yokes or on a pergola). 28 Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia, XIV.11: una vitis Romae in Liviae porticibus subdiales inambulationes umbrosis pergulis opacat, eadem duodenis musti amphoris fecunda (a single vine in the colonnades of Livia at Rome protects the open walk with its shady trellises, while at the same time it produces 12 amphorae of juice yearly) (translation Loeb edition). 29 Pliny the Younger, letter II.7: Adiacet gestationi interiore circuitu vinea tenera et umbrosa nudisque etiam pedibus mollis et cedens. 30 Pliny the Younger, letter V.6: In capite stibadium candido marmore vite protegitur; vitem quattuor columellae Carystiae subeunt. Ex stibadio aqua velut expressa cubantium pondere sipunculis effluit, cavato lapide suscipitur, gracili marmore continentur atque ita occulte temperatur, ut impleat nec redundet. Gustatiorum graviorque cena margini imponitur, levior navicularum et avium figures innatans circumit. Contra fons egerit acquam et recipit; nam explusa in altum in se cadit iunctisque hiatibus et absorbetur et tollitur. 31 Pliny the Younger, letter V.6: Est et alium cubiculum a proxima platano viride et umbrosum, marmore excultum podio tenus, nec cedit gratiae marmoris ramos insidentesque ramis aves imitata pictura. Fonticulus in hoc in fonte crater; circa sipunculi plures miscent iucundissimum murmur. (There is another room, close to the nearest plane tree, which enjoys the verdure and the shade; the podium is decorated with marble all over, and the wall above painted in imitation of boughs and birds perched among the branches, which has an effect nonetheless lovelier than the marble. In this room is a small fountain, whose water, flowing through several small pipes into a basin, produces a most agreeable murmuring sound.) 32 Pliny the Younger, letter V.6: Mox zothecula refugit quasi in cubiculum idem atque aliud. Lectus hic et undique fenestrae, et tamen lumen obscurum umbra premente. Nam latissima

40

33

34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43

44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55

56 57

Mediating spaces vitis per omne tectum in culmen nititur et ascendit. Non secus ibi quam in nemore iaceas, imbrem tantum tamquam in nemore non sentias. Hic quoque fons nascitur simulque subducitur. (Next one retreats to a small alcove in the same room but separated from it. There is a couch and windows on every side, but the light is dim and the room is in the shade, for a flourishing vine climbs up to the top and covers the entire roof. Here you can imagine yourself lying in a wood, except that you would be protected from the rain. Here, too, a fountain rises and instantly disappears.) On the House of Octavius Quartio, see Francesca Tronchin, An Eclectic Locus Artis: The Casa di Octavius Quartio at Pompeii, dissertation, Boston University, 2006, http://www. tronchin.com/abstract.html; Jashemski 1993, 78–83; Richardson 1988, 340; Salza 1987, 171; Zanker 1995, 147–149. See Higginbotham 1997, 25–29. Fish needed to find shade and a respite from the heat of the day. Supplementary architecture was employed to shade exposed piscinae. Pergulae or vine arbors provided shade not only for dining areas but also for fishponds as well. Jashemski 1993, 293–301. On Oplontis Villa A, see Gazda and Clarke 2016. Jashemski 1993, 298–301. Jashemski 1979, 337. On the Nile Mosaic, see Meyboom 1995 and La Malfa 2003. Meyboom 1995, 33–34, 70, 261. Meyboom 1995, 33, 261. Meyboom 1995, 34. Meyboom 1995, 28, n. 82. See Giuseppe Maria Suares (librarian to Cardinal Francesco Barberini), Praeneste Antiquae Libri Duo, Rome, 1655: In the meantime, the pieces of the mosaic in Rome passed from Peretti’s heir, Francesco Peretti, to Cardinal Lorenzo Magalotti, who gave them to his nephew, Cardinal Francesco Barberini. Magalotti kept one piece, which was replaced in the mosaic by a copy (cited in Whitehouse 1976, 6). Whitehouse also cites a Da Pozzo note published by Lumbroso in 1875: Il Cardinal Magalotto . . . riserbato per se un solo pezzo, qual donò al Gran Duca (cited in Whitehouse 1976, 93, chap. 2, n. 42). Meyboom 1995, 33, n. 128. On the Horti Farnesiani on the Palatine, see Morganti 1990. The numbering of the compartments is based on Matthiae 1967. See Matthiae 1967, 5, and reconstructions of the compartments I–XI in vol. II, Grafici dei restauri. Matthiae 1967, 22. Christ used the metaphor of the vine in his parables. “I am the true vine, and my father is the husbandman” (John 15:1); “I am the vine, ye are the branches” (John 15:5). On the scroll motif as an ornament, see Riegl 1893 (English translation 1992). On the Columbarium of Pomponius Hylas, see Campana 1840. Farrar 1998, 178–179. See Amadio 1986 and Polacco 1983. Escorial 28-I-20, f. 22; Escorial 28-I-20, f. 27. Glasgow University Library n. 64, f. 81; Windsor Eton College, The Braddeley Codex CV 105.49; Windsor Castle, A22, f. 9567; Glasgow University Library n. 65, f. 83. See Murray 1972. Francesco Albertini, Opusculum de Mirabilis Novae & Veteris Romae (1510): Templum Bacchi apud exxlesiam [sic] sancte Agnetis depictum opere musiuo com uitibus & piscibus (temple of Bacchus adjacent to Sant’Agnese, with mosaic depicting vines and fish); Fra Mariano, Itinerarium Urbis Romae (1518): Contiguum huic templo divae Agnetis, Bacchi templum est, opere rotundo; Cuius testudo supra viginti quatuor binatas columnas erigitur, totum miro ac pulcro opere musivo ornatum (adjacent to the church of the divine Agnes is the temple of Bacchus, a rotunda; its dome is supported by twenty-four columns, and entirely decorated with beautiful work in mosaic). A drawing by Bartoli records the mosaic with the Bacchic scene. See Polacco 1983. Medieval writers such as Albertus Magnus (ca. 1193–1280) and Jean Froissart (ca. 1338– ca. 1410) refer to the agreeable shade created by the foliage of trees and the bower of vines and pleasant promenades along shady paths and walkways. See Albertus Magnus, De vegetabilibus Libri VII, Berlin, 1867, Book I; Froissart 1871, t. 15, 166–167. Froissart records a visit to Eltham Castle near London in 1395: en gambiant les galleries de l’ostel à

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58 59 60 61

62

63 64

65 66

67 68 69 70 71 72

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Eltem où faisoit moult bel et moult plaisant et umbru, car icelles galleries pour lors estoient toutes couvertes de vignes. (we strolled along the walkways at Eltham Castle, where it was very pleasant and cool, as these walkways were all covered with vine.) Jones 1986 and Webster 1938. Alexander 1990, 437. Florence, Uffizi inv. 1890, n. 491. On the cassoni paintings of Jacopo del Sellaio, see Pons 2010. On Crescenzi and his work, see Bauman 2000 and 2002. Crescenzi was an early humanist and a specialist in law. The treatise, first written in Latin in the tradition of ancient Roman agricultural writers, was widely circulated in manuscript form before being published. The first Latin edition, Opus Ruralium Commodorum, was published in Augsburg in 1471, antedating by one year the publication of Rei Rusticae Scriptores (1472), a compilation of the texts of ancient Roman agricultural writers, Cato, Columella, Varro, and Palladius. An illustrated Italian edition came out in 1495, and several editions appeared during the sixteenth century. It was a bestseller, so to speak, of the early Renaissance period, and every cultured aristocrat would have counted the volume in his library. See Calkins 1986, 160. Contemporary visual sources represent similar scenes as part of the labors of the months. Other examples of pergolas in the Monatsbilder tradition include the Limbourg Brothers’ Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry (1416), months of April and June; Pieter Brueghel the Younger’s (1561–1638) painting Spring and Pieter van Heyden’s print Spring (1570), both after Pieter Brueghel the Elder, depict the labors of the months of March, April, and May, with two men constructing a pergola made of coppice poles. Crescenzi 1561, Book VIII, chapter ii, 160: Inoltre vi si faccia le pergole nel piu acconcio & convenevol luogo, in forma di casa, o di padiglione. Book VIII, chapter iii, 161. faciasi anchora nel detto giardino un palagio con caminate & camere di soli arbori nel quale possa dimorare il re o la Reina co suoi baroni o donne nel tempo asciuto & chiaro: il quale palagio si potra convenevolmente in cotal manera formare. Misurirsi & segninsi tutti li spatii della caminata & delle camere & nelle luoghi delle pareti si piantino arbori fruttiferi se piacera al signore: I quali arbori crescano agevolmente si come sono ciregi & meli ovi si piantino, & varra meglio salci o bedilli o olmi & cosi per tagliamenti come perpali & pertiche & vimini per piu anni si procuri il loro crescimento in tanto che le pareti el tetto si faccia di quelli. Ma potrassi piu tosto & agevolmente fare il palagio o vero casa predetta di legname secco & intorno ad esso piantare le viti & tutto ledificio coprire. Potrassi anchora nel detto giardino fare grande copritura di legname secco: o darbori verde & coprire di viti. Decamerone 1492, 75–76: se paradiso si potesse in terra fare, non sapevano conoscere che altra forma che quello del giardino gli si potesse dare. Decamerone 1492, 75–76: vie ampissime tutte diritte come strali coperte di pergolati di viti . . . le lato . . . delle quai vie tutte di rosai bianchi & vermigli & di gelsomini erano quasi chiuse, un prato di minutissima herba, & verde tanto che quasi nera pareva, dipinto tutto forse di mille varieta di fiori, chiuso dintorno di verdissima & vivi aranci e di cedri . . . non solamente piacevole ombra agli occhi, ma anchora all’odorato facevan piacere, una fonte di marmo bianchissima . . . gittava tanta acqua et si alta verso il cielo, che poi non sanza dilettevol suono nella fonte chiarissima ricadeva. Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, ca. 1435; Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, Paris ms. 5070, fol. 168r. Published in Campitelli 2009, 21, Figure 8 and Swift and Edwards 2001, 24. On the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, see Godwin 2002. One famous example is the illustration of the elephant carrying an obelisk, which inspired Bernini in the design of the elephant that stands in the Piazza Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome. Venice 1499, i, iii verso; Paris 1554, 49v. Venice 1499, 4 folios after i, iiii (without page number); Paris 1554, 51r. Venice 1499, I, iii verso: Et ecco dinanti ad me vedo solo una artificiosa pergula di floroso gelsamino, cum procera incuruatione, depicta degli tutto degli sui odorabili flosculi del triplice colore commixti. Paris 1554, 49r: Lors regardant a l’entour de moy, ie vey seulement vne belle treille de Gensemoy, toute semee de ses fleurs blanches, qui rendeoient une odeur fort agreeable.

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73 On Jacopo de’ Barbari’s Map of Venice, see Balistreri-Trincanato 2009; Balistreri-Trincanato and Zanverdiani 2000; Howard 1997; Romanelli/Biadene/Tonini 1999; Schulz 1978; Schulz 1990; Schulz 2008. 74 On Venetian gardens, see Hunt 2009. 75 Odoardo Fialetti, View of Venice, 1611, oil on canvas, Eton College. See Howard and McBurney 2014. 76 Pozzana notes that the “two vineyards” mentioned in the land registers probably referred to the two vine pergolas. See Pozzana 1996, 148–150. The vineyards are mentioned in the land registers of 1427, 1446, and 1451. See also Fabiani Giannetto 2008, 10–19. 77 Fabiani Giannetto 2008, 206–207, n. 43. Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Scrittoio delle Regie Possessioni 4112, “Campione dei beni patrimoniali della famiglia Medici, 1456” fol. 6r: Uno chasamento a trebbio per nostra abitazione ridotto in forteza chon chorte, loggia interna, volte, sale e altri [e]difici, chon una torre in becchatelli sopra la porta, chon ponte levatoio et po . . . to attorno merlato, et altri [e]difici tutti ridotti in forteza, et chon due pratelli, l’uno dinanzi murato intorno, l’altro di verso la Scarperia, chon istalle et uno orto allato a detto chasamento di verso Spugnole murato intorno chon pergole et alberi fruttiferi. (A fortified building at trebbio used for our residence with courtyard, inner loggia, cellars, rooms and other buildings, and with two small meadows, one of which is in front [of the building] and it is walled, the other is oriented toward Scarperia, with stables and a kitchen garden to the side of the said building oriented toward Spugnole. It is walled and has pergolas and fruit trees.) 78 The pergola of the columnar type is already attested in antiquity; it has fallen out of use in present-day Tuscany but can still be seen in Campania, in particular on the islands of Ischia and Capri. See Pozzana 1996, 151. 79 Fabiani Giannetto also acknowledges the dual function of the pergola at Il Trebbio. Fabiani Giannetto 2008, 23. 80 Pozzana 1996, 150. 81 Vasari 1906, vol. II, 442. 82 Lazzaro 1990, 70–72, 84–87. 83 Heydenreich 1996, 69; Tomei 1977, 87. 84 Major examples of quattrocento Roman palazzi with loggias are the following: Albergo dell’Orso, Casa di via del Governo Vecchio, Casa Bonadies, Casa del Burcardo, Casa dei Fiorentini, Casa dei Mattei in Piscinula, Casa degli Anguillara, Casa del cardinale Bessarione, Casa dei Cavalieri di Rodi, Palazzo Capranica, Palazzo Martinello. See Fiorini 1951, 63–65; Heydenreich 1996, 67–69; Tomei 1977, 87–98, 249–265. 85 Fiorini 1951, 64; Tomei 1977, 89. 86 Lilius 1981, 81. 87 Alberti 1998, 120, V.2: The rooms used by the prince for receiving guests and for dining should be given the noblest setting. This may be achieved with an elevated position and a view over sea, hills, or broad landscape. 88 Tomei 1977, 87–89. 89 Patzak 1912, vol. I, 39. 90 Lilius 1981, 49; Tomei 1977, 92–95. 91 Coffin 1979, 64–66; Tomei 1977, 92–94. 92 On the Casa dei Cavalieri di Rodi, see Danesi 1989; Piras and Subioli 1990. 93 The completion date has been determined based on the following inscription incised above one of the doors of the loggia: IUSSU PAULI II PONTIFICIS MAXIMI EX PROVENTIBUS PRIORATUS, M. BARBUS VINCENTINUS PRAESUL TT. S. MARCI PRAESUBITER CAR. AEDES VETUSTATE COLLAPSAS AUGUSTORE ORNATU RESTITUIT. 94 Börsch-Supan 1967, 242–243, Figure 154; Ricci 1930, 181. 95 A number of scholars have suggested an attribution. Ricci 1930, 181: Benozzo Gozzoli or Alessio Baldovinetti; Tomei 1977, 97: Fra Angelico or Benozzo Gozzoli; Börsch-Supan 1967, 243: Benozzo Gozzoli or Pinturicchio. 96 Börsch-Supan 1967, 225, Figure 142; the fresco fragment is currently housed in the Museo di S. Marco, Firenze. 97 Heydenreich 1996, 59; Tomei 1977, 83–86, 109–112. 98 On the stucco decoration of the loggia of the Villa Lante al Gianicolo, see Carunchio and Örmä 2005, 134–150.

Mediating spaces 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109

110 111 112 113

114 115 116

117

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Montini and Averini 1957. Carunchio and Örmä 2005, 133–150. For the Palazzo Firenze, see Aurigemma 2007. Letarouilly 1868, pl. 289. Grimal 1984, 261–264. Suetonius, Aug. 72.2; Richardson 1992, 374. According to Richardson, Syracusae probably refers to the isolation of the island of Ortygia, and technyphion meant “little workshop.” Horace, Carm. 3.29.10; Suetonius, Nero 38.2; Richardson 1992, 200. Pliny the Younger, Letters II.xvii, 12–13. Pliny the Younger, Letters V.vi. For the Roccabruna and the Tempe pavilion (according to traditional nomenclature, or the East Belvedere and the West Belvedere respectively, according to MacDonald and Pinto). See MacDonald and Pinto 1995, 58–61. Alberti, De re aedificatoria, Libro V, Capitolo XVII. Orlandi and Portoghesi 1966, 414– 415: Caeterum tecta ingenuorum velim occupent locum agri non feracissimum sed alioquin dignissimum, unde omnis aurae solis aspectusque commoditas et voluptas liberrime capiatur. Faciles ad se ex agro porrigat aditus; venientem hospitem honestissimis excipiet spatiis; spectabitur, spectabitque urbem oppida mare fusamque planitiem, et nota collium montiumque capita, ortorum delitias, piscationum venationumque illecebras sub oculis habebit expositas. Galetti 1997, 68. A passage from Poliziano’s letter cited in Ackerman 1990, 290, n. 24: Cosimo predetto solera dire che la casa loro di Cafagiuolo in Mugello vedera meglio quella di Fiesole, perche cio che quella vedera era loro, il che di Fiesole non arrevia. Ackerman 1990, 78. Ackerman 1990, 80. Pius II, Commentaries, 1984, vol. 2, 547: Ad quartum latus, cui meridies et Amiata mons aspectu gratissimus obiicitur, tris porticus erexerunt, quarum seconda prime et tertia secunde superincumberent, columnis innixe lapideis. Prima sub testudine alta et nobili deambulationem iuxta ortum prebuit amenissimum; altera sub contignatione coloribus et picturis ornatissima mansionem hyberno tempore iocundissimam prebuit pluteis . . . elevatis; similis conditio tertie, quamuis lacunari minoris artificii. The sense of viewing the landscape from an elevated vantage point and the cognitive and elevating effects of it may go back to Petrarch’s ascent of Mount Ventoux on April 26, 1336, described by the poet in Epistolae familiares 4.1. See Petrarca 2006; Bek 2015. Pius II, Commentaries, 1984, vol. 2, 550: Ortum pensilem faceret vitibus et arboribus aptum cautione adiecta. D’Onofrio 1963, 87–88: Et è così bella questa veduta che, stando in questo posto in qual si voglia parte et in ogni fenestra della casa et particolarmente sopra tre ringhiere di essa, scuopre gran parte delli Appennini verso tramontane e levante; in faccia più à ponente la città di Roma et la sua campagna; tra ponente et mezzogiorno il mare; per la campagna castelli, terre, città, et tutto quello che in vastissimo et grandissimo paese sitrova pare che a questa casa faccia piazza et ornamento. D’Onofrio 1963, 89: In essa si vede riseder l’antica et imperatrice città di Roma dominatrice delle genti, vincitrice del mondo et capo della sua vera Religione che questo solo potria far singolare la veduta di Frascati et delle sue ville. Si scuoprono le parti di essa, et si come se inalza quivi il capo della Chiesa militante così si dimostra pomposamente la Chiesa materiale et inalzandosi la nobilissima fabrica di S. Pietro et levando anco essa il capo come prima Chiesa del mondo quanto può l’occhio scorgere si dimostra, mettendo fuori alla veduta di molte miglia la sua grandissima et altissima cupola che di altezza supera qualsivoglia antica fabrica della quale à noi remanga in qualunque maniera memoria.

2

Classical tradition and vernacular culture Villa Farnesina and the First Loggia of Leo X

The illusionistic pergola was an Italian Renaissance invention and, moreover, a cultural phenomenon that started in Rome in the early decades of the cinquecento. In Rome from the 1510s, porticoes and loggias in aristocratic residences began to be decorated with fictive pergolas. Rendered in paint or in stucco, they featured realistic depictions of plants, birds, and small animals within a trelliswork structure represented three-dimensionally across the vaulted ceiling. In addition to their aesthetic value as ornamentation of an architectural space, they were cultural documents that reflected the sensibility towards nature and the cultures of natural history and collecting. As the decorated semi-interior space was often a venue for entertainment, recreation, and display, the illusionistic pergolas played an important role in the social life of the aristocracy. The illusionistic pergola was not simply a stylistic novelty, but more fundamentally, it was a new way of experiencing the outdoors, which developed in association with the opening up of the building towards the exterior by means of porticoes and loggias. It can be considered a development of the trend to decorate interiors with painted nature and gardens. This trend can be observed at least from the fourteenth century, when elements of nature began to appear in the background of painted scenes on the walls of aristocratic residences. The frescoes in the Room of the Deer (1343) in the papal palace at Avignon, in the Palazzo Davanzati (ca. 1348), and in the Palazzo Catellini da Castiglione (ca. 1395) in Florence show scenes with trees and flowers, revealing a renewed appreciation of nature.1 Porticoes and loggias were mediating spaces due to their ambiguous location between indoors and outdoors. An interpenetration of alternate forms of sensory experience suffused these semi-interiors, where nature flowed in from outside. Equipped with the amenities of the indoors while allowing for the enjoyment of the outdoors, they lent themselves most readily to a trompe-l’oeil decoration of nature. This aesthetic device, offering a view of the garden and the surrounding landscape, betokened a new form of appreciation of nature in the fifteenth century. Pope Pius II Piccolomini’s palace and garden (1459–1462) in Pienza, designed by Bernardo Rossellino, exemplified this new sensibility. Earlier, if one sought to enjoy nature, transporting oneself physically to the garden or to the countryside was necessary, as we see in the case of the group of ladies and gentlemen leaving the city heading to a villa in the countryside in the Third Day of Boccaccio’s Decamerone. The three superimposed loggias of the Piccolomini palace overlooking the garden and the surrounding countryside indicate that the experience of nature could be made possible through modifications in architectural design, but the active thematic interpenetration of architectural form and gardenlike adornment

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would have to wait until the sixteenth century. In the porticoes and loggias from the early cinquecento, we see that by architecturally opening up the building of the city palace or the suburban villa to the outdoors and adorning these semi-interior spaces with trompe-l’œil images of nature, one could appreciate and even study nature without going out into the open air. This chapter focuses on the illusionistic pergolas created in Rome during the first period of their appearance, 1517–1520. Three major examples date from this period, the Loggia of Cupid and Psyche at the Villa Farnesina (1517), the Loggetta of Cardinal Bibbiena in the Vatican Palace (1517–1519), and the First Loggia of Leo X in the Vatican Palace (1519). All three projects feature decorations of loggias, which are dominated by the figure of one artist, Giovanni da Udine.

Giovanni da Udine Giovanni da Udine (1487–1561) was the artist who first adopted the illusionistic pergola on a monumental scale in loggia decoration. He pioneered a genre that would take root in Rome and Lazio and become a highly emulated form. Giovanni was involved in all projects relevant to the pictorial topos during the first phase of its development in Rome. His critical history presents controversial evaluations in regard to his work and has not fully acknowledged his contribution to the tradition of the representation of nature. He was an artist who, instead of training to become an all-round figure painter like many others, defined himself early on in his career as a specialist of nature motifs. Vasari is our most important source on his formation and career.2 Giovanni was born in Udine in Friuli to a family of embroiderers, dyers, and decorators of textiles.3 As a boy he showed excellent talent in drawing; he accompanied his father on hunting expeditions and, in his spare time, sketched animals that were commonly encountered in the daily life of northern Italy, such as dogs, hares, goats, and birds. He was apprenticed to the painter Giovanni Martini in Udine and to Giorgione in Venice. While in Venice, Giovanni heard of the activities of Raphael and Michelangelo. Wishing to work with them, he obtained a letter of recommendation and went to Rome, where Raphael saw his talent and took him into his workshop. Vasari emphasizes that Giovanni excelled in the depiction of nature, animals, drapery, instruments, vases, landscapes, houses, and verdure.4 The decision to become a specialist in natural history painting – the depiction of plants, birds, and animals – was the painter’s own, made fairly early in his career. He already appears to have seen himself clearly as a painter of nature around the time he started to work for Raphael. Two collaborative works by Raphael and Giovanni da Udine reveal Giovanni’s talent in the depiction of marine fauna and musical instruments, which today would be classified as objects of natural history or still-life painting. One is S. Cecilia (1515),5 and the other is The Miraculous Draught of Fishes (ca. 1515).6 In Raphael’s workshop, Giovanni Francesco Penni assumed the role of preparing the drawings from the sketches given to him by the master. From those drawings, the paintings were executed by Raphael and Giovanni da Udine. Through the comparison of the preparatory drawings and the paintings, Dacos concluded that the finished product in both of these cases exhibited a significant change in the depiction of the “props.”7 The musical instruments in the painting of S. Cecilia are more numerous and varied than in the preparatory drawing. And while there are no fish or birds at all in the drawing for The Miraculous Draught of Fishes, in the painting the fishing net and the boat are brimming

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with them, and depicted on the shore are three storks hoping to get their part of the catch. The accurate depiction of musical instruments and marine fauna in these paintings is noteworthy. It would have been precisely this remarkable talent of Giovanni’s, nurtured in the culture of the north, that led to his success in Raphael’s workshop in Rome. Divisions of labor characterized the workshop of Raphael, who received more commissions than he could have handled by himself, especially after he was nominated architect of St. Peter’s, and the papal commissions were projects on an unprecedented scale.8 He was the supervising figure painter, with several other assistant figure painters under him. Giovanni Francesco Penni, as mentioned earlier, often did the preparatory drawings based on sketches provided by the master, and Giulio Romano painted robust, forceful figures. Other assistants – Perino del Vaga, Tommaso Vincidor, Pellegrino da Modena, Polidoro da Caravaggio, Raffaellino del Colle, Luca Penni, Vincenzo Tamagni, Bartolomeo di David, Guillaume de Marcillat, Alonso Berruguete, Pedro Machuca – were all more or less figure painters. No painter except Giovanni da Udine excelled in the depictions of nature. Raphael saw Giovanni’s extraordinary talent in the drawing of animals, birds, and plants and seemed to have grasped from the very outset his almost indispensable importance for the workshop. Raphael assigned particular tasks to Giovanni, such as the animals in the Biblical scenes on the vault or the grotesque ornaments or festoons of fruit on the walls and pilasters in the Loggia of Raphael (Second Loggia of Leo X, 1517–1519) at the Vatican. It is possible that Raphael may have wanted to distinguish himself in the Loggia of Raphael by including more depictions of nature in the Biblical scenes, in a kind of artistic rivalry with Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling (1508–1512) dominated by robust human figures with very little natural background. It seems at least likely, given the sensibility towards nature observable from the previous century, that pictorial representation of nature would have appeared more and more appealing to patrons. Thus Giovanni acquired a unique role in the workshop that made him distinct from the other painters and enabled him to work more as a collaborator of Raphael than as his assistant.9 As Dacos has pointed out, Giovanni’s preparatory drawing for Pilaster VII in the Loggia of Raphael is particularly suggestive of this division of labor.10 In the drawing is depicted a tree with various birds including an owl. On the finished pilaster, a birdcatcher is present at the foot of the tree, spying on the birds. But in the preparatory drawing, the figure is not fully sketched out.11 It could have been a statement on the part of Giovanni that his specialty was in the depiction of nature and that the figures were the work of others. As a painter of nature, Giovanni studied both nature and works from antiquity. Sketching from life was one of his pursuits that shaped the direction of his career. Vasari mentions that he sketched the animals in the papal menagerie.12 There was an aviary at the Belvedere Palace, where he would also have sketched the birds.13 He kept a book of bird drawings, which gave delight and amusement to Raphael.14 And he learned the art of depicting fruit, flowers, and foliage from a Flemish painter, identified as Jan Ruyssch, who was active at the Vatican around this time.15 The study of the antique was another of Giovanni’s pursuits. Vasari notes that he was especially interested in the grotesques in ancient Roman painting. Raphael and Giovanni conducted on-site investigation of the Domus Aurea, thought to be the Baths of Titus at the time. Visiting the “grottoes,” they were stupefied with the freshness, the beauty, and the quality of the ancient Roman paintings. Giovanni left his signature “ZUAN DA

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UDENE FIRLANO” on the cryptoportico wall. But when it came to applying his knowledge of ancient Roman painting to the decoration of the Loggia of Raphael, Giovanni produced not an imitation or recreation of the antique but his own version of the grotesque. Among his ornamental designs, there are no grotesques supported by candelabra; he preferred vegetal motifs such as acanthus scrolls and trees.17 For him, the grotesques were more of an occasion to combine antique forms and his favorite animal and bird motifs to create a novel design. In addition to ancient Roman painting, he studied the technique of ancient Roman stucco. Experimenting with various recipes, he ultimately settled on mixed powdered white travertine and powdered white marble, which in Vasari’s estimation constituted the rediscovery of the ancient recipe.18 Giovanni applied the technique in the stucco decorations of the Loggia of Raphael and the loggia at the Villa Madama on Monte Mario.19 He was also involved in the decoration of the Palazzo della Cancelleria; he worked on the classicizing decoration of the Stufetta of Cardinal Riario in collaboration with Baldassare Peruzzi. The vault of the room was adorned with a painted pergola; the trellis formed of concentric circles supported the foliage of four trees growing out of the four corners.20 The composition of these trees recalls the design of ancient Roman mosaics that depict vine or trees in similar positions.21 Despite his important role in the art of natural history, few studies have attempted to discuss the original achievements of Giovanni da Udine, treating him instead as one of the artists in Raphael’s workshop. Nicole Dacos and Caterina Furlan’s Giovanni da Udine 1487–1561, published in 1987, remains the only work dedicated to the artist. In the preface to the book, Dacos explains that this lacuna in art historical criticism was partly due to the negative impact the premature death of Raphael would have had on the careers of the artists in his workshop.22 It is true that Raphael’s death in 1520 and the sack of Rome in 1527 caused the decline of artistic activity in the papal capital. It caused a disruption in their careers, deprived them of the opportunity for full recognition, and forced them to leave Rome to find employment in other cities. Giulio Romano went to Mantua to work for the Gonzaga, and Baldassare Peruzzi returned to his native Siena. However, Giovanni da Udine’s case cannot be explained by these reasons alone. His neglect in art historical scholarship appears to be due more to a critical bias based on the presupposed hierarchy of subjects in art.23 Mythological painting was given the highest value, followed by history painting. Next came portraiture, and then genre painting. Landscape painting occupied a low place in the hierarchy. It focused on “rustic” subjects which were considered low style in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries but started to attract attention in the sixteenth century. Similarly, nature painting or the depiction of animals and flowers, although practiced by artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Dürer from the late fifteenth century, was considered more of a training exercise in preparation for a more serious work than an end in itself and did not constitute a genre in its own right until the seventeenth century. It is highly likely that the change in the appreciation for nature that we observed in the appearance of the loggia as a central component of an aristocratic residence and the subsequent efflorescence of villa culture constituted the background in this shift between “high” and “low,” the recognition of the “low” as having an aesthetic value comparable to the “high,” or an inversion of the “high” and “low.”24 This bias may have long existed not only among the artistic patrons who commissioned works of art in the Renaissance but also modern art historians who studied them. While there are numerous works from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries dedicated to the documentation of the Loggia of Raphael at the Vatican – by Pietro Santi Bartoli, Giovanni

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Volpato, and Agostino Valentini among them – to my knowledge, there are no works from this period that include illustrations of the First Loggia decorated by Giovanni da Udine.25 The remainder of the chapter is dedicated to Giovanni’s pergolas and will demonstrate his crucial role in establishing the illusionistic pergola as a standard ornamentation of loggias. After Giovanni, the pictorial aesthetic would become a topos in portico decoration throughout the cinquecento in Rome, Lazio, and beyond.

Villa Farnesina Giovanni’s first illusionistic pergola was the decoration of the Loggia of Cupid and Psyche at the Villa Farnesina. This is the first example of a painted pergola used in a portico space in Rome. The villa was commissioned by the Sienese banker Agostino Chigi from Baldassare Peruzzi in 1505; construction started in 1506, and the building was completed between 1510 and 1511.26 Architecturally, the building is characterized as “a loggia flanked by towers,” a villa typology that most likely had its origins in antiquity and spread from the Veneto to other areas in Italy in the quattrocento.27 The suburban location in the Trastevere was presumed to be the ancient site of the gardens of the emperor Geta. The Loggia of Cupid and Psyche was a five-arched portico opening out onto the garden on the north side. The Loggia’s ceiling was frescoed in 1517 in preparation for Agostino Chigi’s marriage to Francesca Ordeaschi.28 As an appropriate setting for the marriage, Raphael designed the entire ceiling as an illusionistic pergola (Figure 2.1).

Figure 2.1 Villa Farnesina, Rome. Loggia, general view.

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Fruit swags framed scenes from the story of Cupid and Psyche, based on the narrative in Apuleius’s The Golden Ass. On the ceiling are two rectangular panels representing the main scenes – the Banquet of the Gods and the Marriage of Cupid and Psyche (Pl. 1), while the spandrels surrounding them show various episodes in the story. Raphael provided drawings for the figured scenes, which were executed by his assistants, Giulio Romano, Giovanni Francesco Penni, and Raffaellino del Colle. Giovanni da Udine played a crucial role in this project: he was sole painter in charge of the festoons that composed the frame of the pergola, richly adorned with plants of various species. Giovanni would also have been responsible for the birds – the doves of Venus, the eagle of Jupiter, the peacock of Juno and another that hovers over Psyche as she is borne to Olympus, as well as swallows and any other birds accompanying the putti.29 This painted loggia, however, does not have the recognizable elements in a real pergola – supporting posts of wood or stone, flat or arched roof, and the typical plants trained on the structure such as vine, roses, and jasmine. Instead, its vegetal motifs are presented in a framework of festoons that follow the architectural lines of the ribs of the vaults, resulting in a bowerlike form supported by the painted pilasters veined to imitate marble. Behind and above them, the blue sky is visible. The festoons rise above the pillars as though supported by them. These are painted, on the garden side, on the real pillars that support the arches and correspond to those articulating the opposite wall. The arches on the garden side answer the thermal windows on the opposite wall, each framed by a festoon; on the two short sides there are two identical thermal windows. Here we see the emergence of the idea of a pictorial decoration composed of festoons and pillars becoming a fictive three-dimensional structure. It is an architectonic-pictorial bower that creates a mediating space between the architectural interior and the garden. According to Frommel, the decoration of the loggia with a fictive “pergola” on the vault was intended to create a symbiosis between architecture and garden, where real pergolas stood covered with climbing plants (Figure 2.2).30 But unlike growing vines, festoons, made mostly or entirely of cut greenery and plucked fruits and flowers, mark a special, transitory moment – in this case the wedding banquet of Cupid and Psyche. Even the great rectangular panels representing the main scenes from the story are represented as tapestries rigged tautly to the bowerlike framework, their borders scalloped to convey the variability in tension (Pl. 1). Real tapestries and swags may have been used in similar collaborative ways to shade and enliven celebratory events in the outdoors. Here, the Olympian heaven-themed “tapestries” are suitably positioned across the apex of the vault, the sky peeking in around them. The dense foliage of the festoons is studded with a variety of vegetables, fruits, and flowers (Pl. 2). Festoons are explicitly evocative of antique culture in which they were associated with festive occasions. They are ubiquitous in Roman art, appearing as relief sculpture on cinerary urns, altars, sarcophagi, and public monuments like the Ara Pacis Augustae; they were also common ornamental motifs in mosaics and frescoes. In the late antique mosaic of the Lamb of God at S. Vitale in Ravenna (A.D. 547), similar fruit-studded greenery was used to emphasize the ribs of the vault. In the fifteenth century, festoons were used by artists including Donatello and Mantegna who studied the antique. Thus the pavilion-like pergola frame made of festoons in the Loggia of Cupid and Psyche can be considered a form borrowed from the classical tradition. It evokes a pergola without representing it explicitly. It also derives from verdant structures that were temporarily or more permanently set up in the gardens of the time. If we may distinguish two types of such verdant structures – first, the

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Figure 2.2 Villa Farnesina and Vigna Farnese, plan. Paul Letarouilly, Edifices de Rome moderne, Paris, 1868.

semi-permanent pergola in the garden with a vegetal framework covered with growing vines, flowering plants, and trees; second, the temporary pavilion for ceremonies and pageants decked with swags made of cut boughs and flowers – the depicted structure at the Villa Farnesina would definitively fall into the latter category: it is occasional and celebratory, marking a special event with particular historic resonance. Giovanni da Udine’s choices would be understandable, if we consider a genre of northern Italian painting representing domed spaces whose vaults were decorated with painted pergolas and representations of vegetal bowers.31 A number of paintings from the region form a category termed the Madonna of the pergola. Giovanni Boccati (ca. 1420–1480) painted a Madonna seated under a vegetal canopy covered with roses (1446).32 In fact, he created a whole series of paintings in which the Madonna was seated under a trellis covered with roses; some of them, including the Madonna of the Pergola, appear to be a combination of a trellis with climbing plants and ephemeral arrangements of cut boughs and flowers woven into the trelliswork.33 Cima da Conegliano (ca. 1459– 1517) also painted a Madonna under a pergola; in this case, there is no doubt that the vegetation adorning it is a living garden vine.34 Distinct from either Giovanni Boccati’s or Cima da Conegliano’s Madonnas is Mantegna’s (1431–1506) Madonna della Vittoria (1496), which shows the Madonna and Child under an elaborate vegetal bower made of fruit swags richly adorned with citrus fruits (Figure 2.3).35

Figure 2.3 Andrea Mantegna, Madonna della Vittoria, 1496. Louvre inv. 369. Wikimedia Commons PD-Art.

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Mantegna used festoons to delineate the architectural form of the niche-recess for the Virgin; he may have preferred them to representations of living, growing plants specifically because of their function as symbols celebrating an ephemeral but momentous event – in this case the Virgin’s intervention in the Gonzaga victory at the Battle of Fornovo in 1495. A similar arrangement of greenery studded with citrus fruits was painted by Correggio in the Cappella Mantegna (1507) at Sant’Andrea in Mantua (Figure 2.4). Being a memorial to Mantegna, it too has the character of marking an occasion, the great painter’s funeral. Correggio subsequently painted an impressive fictive pergola on the vault of the Camera di San Paolo (1518) in Parma (Figure 3.1). Like the Loggia of Cupid and Psyche, classical mythology informs the decorative program of the Camera; Diana on her chariot presides over the fireplace, while the circular openings in each of the sixteen divisions of the trellis-vault reveal hunting dogs and putti in various poses. The architectural form of the dome over the abbess’s dining hall translates into the ribbed structure of the painted trellis. In the manner of Mantegna, the dense foliage covering the trellis seems to be entirely of the ephemeral type, its greenery cut and arranged upon the framework. Whether a trellis covered with vine or roses or swags loaded with fruit, the function of these verdant structures of a more temporary character would have been to create a dignified setting for an important person or event. In Mantegna’s vegetal bowers and pergolas composed of fruit swags, birds and small animals are also depicted, as in ancient Roman relief sculptures and garden paintings.

Figure 2.4 Sant’Andrea in Mantua, Cappella Mantegna, 1507. Painted pergola on the vault by Correggio. Wikimedia Commons PD-Art.

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Small birds perched on the vegetal frame, as well as the fruit that adorns it, are depicted in a realistic manner, anticipating the birds and fruit in the painted pergolas of the sixteenth century. With his strong antiquarian background, Mantegna solidified the connection between the pergola and the antique, anchoring the pergola motif within the classical tradition. It was Mantegna, in fact, who played a key role in the introduction of the illusionistic pergola to Rome. He was the first to use a fictive pergola three-dimensionally in a vaulted space: the now lost chapel of Innocent VIII at the Belvedere (1488). Decorated by Mantegna, it featured a painted pergola composed of festoons on its vault. This lost chapel is likely to have been the direct source of inspiration for Giovanni da Udine’s illusionistic pergolas. Thus it was most likely the festoon-type pergola, and not the living vegetation type that dominated the genre later, that was first employed in Rome. The chapel was demolished in 1776, and it is known only from descriptions in eighteenth-century guidebooks by Agostino Taja (1750) and Giovanni Pietro Chattard (1762). The following is Taja’s description: The small cupola of this chapel is decorated with some fictive compartments containing figures of round shape, which are intertwined with each other in the manner of latticework, interrupted by fifteen putti holding festoons.36 Vasari does not refer to the fictive pergola but describes a scene above the chapel’s altar of the baptism of Christ by St. John the Baptist, stylistically “more miniature than painting,” emphasizing the careful execution of the details.37 It is clear from Taja’s description that the decoration of the chapel vault in the Vatican was of the fruit-swag type, the hallmark of Mantegna’s style. The vault decoration of the Cappella Mantegna in Sant’Andrea in Mantua, mentioned prior, in which trelliswork bordered by swags with flowers in the arched openings provided the frame for the domed space, surrounding a central oculus accommodating the coat of arms of the Mantegna family, may give us an idea of the decoration of this lost chapel. As such, it was appropriate for the festive and occasional, rather than the durative and casual, nature of the scene depicted beneath it: the baptism of Christ. Most likely derived from earlier precedents in Rome, the depicted trellis on the ceiling of the Loggia of Cupid and Psyche is apparently of the fruit-swag type, but the sheer number and variety, as well as the realism and scientific precision of the plant species, transform the pictorial decoration into a visual encyclopedia of botany. The bands framing the nine thermal windows are festoons of single plant types, such as oak, laurel, olive, ivy, and roses. The plants that appear in the festoons framing the two central scenes, the Council of the Gods and the Marriage of Cupid and Psyche, and the surrounding spandrels in which are shown the major episodes of the story have been studied by Giulia Caneva.38 Her study has identified about 165 botanical species and has classified them into the categories of cereals, vegetables, nuts, fruit, flowers, and fungi. Her phytogeographical analysis has shown that the majority of the depicted species came from the Old World, while five species including maize had their origins in the Americas.39 Considering that plant species from the New World had only started to be introduced into Europe since 1492, it is remarkable that they had become diffused in a relatively short period and that they were studied and depicted in such a precise manner. This degree of realism may not have been achieved were it not for the painter’s strong interest in naturalia. Caneva notes that the identification of all the

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depicted botanical species, with only a few exceptions, has been possible because of the scientific accuracy of the pictorial representation and the extraordinary botanical knowledge of the artist.40 Here, too, Mantegna can be considered a prototype: his swags in the Madonna della Vittoria were studded with bright, colorful fruit including citrus species. However, in terms of the variety of the species depicted, Giovanni’s virtuosity stands alone. In the iconography of Western painting, flowers and fruit had been commonly invested with a symbolic meaning.41 Viewers would have been expected to understand the shared language of the symbolism of plants and the message implied by the decoration as a whole. In regard to the species represented in the Loggia of Cupid and Psyche, attempts to read a sexual connotation in some of the vegetables have been made by Vasari among others.42 It is appropriate to interpret the rich vegetal decoration as an expression of fertility and prosperity that would be hoped for the Chigi family as a result of the marriage. In that sense, the decoration of the Loggia of Cupid and Psyche resonates with the Augustan iconography employed on the Ara Pacis and in the garden paintings of the Villa of Livia. The plant species in the Loggia of Cupid and Psyche also anticipates the works of Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1526– 1593), who, half a century later, also depicted vegetables, fruit, and flowers in a scientific manner, but assembled ingeniously to form portraits. Arcimboldo’s works made use of the symbolic meanings of fruit and vegetables and were invested anew with ideological meaning: they were an expression of homage to his patrons, Ferdinand I, Maximilian II, and Rudolf II, and the celebration of the reign of the Habsburg dynasty.43 Like Arcimboldo, Giovanni accorded attention to plant symbolism but also emphasized the observation of real specimens and the scientific understanding of the natural world. The originality of the artist lay in the direct observation of nature where vegetables, fruit, and flowers were regarded as botanical species of scientifi c interest, in addition to being carriers of ideological and symbolic meanings.44 The pergola-like pavilion composed of festoons in the Loggia of Cupid and Psyche remains the framing device for the figured scenes and consequently at first glance appears only to have had a secondary role in the entire composition. However, its systematic presentation in painting of a large number of botanical species was the first of its kind in the Renaissance. Such an astonishing repertory of naturalism (in its principal sense) should be recognized as a feat of virtuosity equal to, if not exceeding, the figural paintings it accompanies. Executed before the earliest publication of illustrated botanical treatises starting in the 1530s,45 the painted decoration of the Loggia of Cupid and Psyche presented to its educated and scientifically curious audience many of the botanical species known in Europe in the 1510s. Many of the specimens must have been painted or at least sketched from life, a task that would have involved significant time and resources in its own right. Giovanni’s fresco antedated the illustrated herbals based on the direct, scientific observation of plants, starting with Otto Brunfels’s Herbarum Vivae Eicones (1530). In publication, maize first appeared, more than two decades after Giovanni’s fruit swags at the Villa Farnesina, in Leonhart Fuchs’s De Historia Stirpium (1542). Already impressive for the sheer variety of the species depicted, Giovanni’s extravagant ensemble would have been understood as the expression of hopes for abundance and prosperity as mentioned prior. But it could also have served as another kind of intellectual ornament, in which viewers would engage themselves in a kind of cognitive exercise identifying the species already familiar to them

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or those that had been recently introduced from the Americas. One might even imagine games being played in this loggia to match unusual or exotic fruits and vegetables served on the table to those represented overhead. More vivid and realistic than the colored woodcuts in the illustrated herbals, the plants depicted on the vault of the Loggia of Cupid and Psyche served a genuinely didactic function; viewers would have perused them as one would look at color illustrations in a modern encyclopedia of botany and horticulture.

Loggetta of Cardinal Bibbiena If the Loggia of Cupid and Psyche at the Villa Farnesina was a painted encyclopedia of botany, Giovanni’s second work of interest, the Loggetta of Cardinal Bibbiena (1517–1519), was a painted menagerie with a classicizing twist (Figure 2.5). Cardinal Bibbiena, Bernardo Dovizi (1470–1520), was a humanist, writer, and papal nuncio to France. The three-arched Loggetta was part of the cardinal’s apartments equipped with a stufetta (bath) in the Vatican Palace. It was located back-toback to the utmost extremity of the Third Vatican Loggia.46 In the documents it is referred to by the term loggia, although in scale it differed greatly from the papal Loggias.47 The Loggetta was a corridor 3.12 by 15.75 meters, with a barrel-vaulted

Figure 2.5 Loggetta of Cardinal Bibbiena, Vatican. Ceiling and wall with animals and grotesques. Scala/Art Resource, NY.

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ceiling and three balustraded arches (4.34 by 2 meters each) alternating with four smaller arches, evoking the rhythm and proportion of triumphal arches with a larger central arch flanked by two smaller arches. As Redig de Campos notes, one of the “due altre loggie” mentioned in Marcantonio Michiel’s letter of May 19, 1519,48 focusing on the Second Loggia (Loggia of Raphael) that was in the process of being decorated at the time, was the First Loggia of Leo X, while the other should refer to the Loggetta of Cardinal Bibbiena, since the Third Loggia was decorated only in 1560.49 For the Loggetta, Raphael, overburdened with other projects, devised a general framework and put Giovanni da Udine in charge; he left the details entirely to the improvisation of the artists.50 Consequently, Giovanni da Udine, Giulio Romano, Giovanni Francesco Penni, Perino del Vaga, Pellegrino da Modena, Alonso Berruguete, and Pedro Machuca were given freedom of design. Dacos notes that the walls have no trace of preparatory layers of stucco; thus the motifs would have been directly painted in a spontaneous manner, as one would do a drawing, without the aid of cartoons.51 The decoration of the Loggetta was the product of a playful improvisation all’antica on the part of the individual artists.52 The artists expressed their interpretation of the grotesque and Fourth Style painting in spontaneous ways, giving free vent to invention and playfulness. Against a white background were painted various motifs inspired by the decoration of the Domus Aurea: grotesques, aedicules, slender festoons, and scrolls. Attributed to Giovanni is the stylized pergola-like band that runs the entire length of the barrel-vaulted ceiling at its crown. Its “frame” consists of wave patterns on the sides, enclosing two rows of rectangular compartments, each divided from the others by delicate vegetal motifs which, although more or less stylized, are evocative of grapevine, ivy, and jasmine. In each compartment, Giovanni painted an animal. Some were imaginary animals such as a griffin, a unicorn, a winged Pegasus-like creature, and a winged hybrid vegetalhuman figure, which may have been inspired by the decoration of the Domus Aurea; others were domestic animals he would have studied from nature, including an owl, an eagle, a horse, a bull, and a boar. Some others may have been modeled on their real counterparts in the papal menagerie, such as the lion and the elephant. An elephant named Hanno, a gift from King Emmanuel of Portugal to Pope Leo X in 1514, became the pope’s favorite.53 Hanno lived only two years after coming to Rome but was the model for three elephant representations in the Loggia of Raphael and the source of inspiration for the Elephant Fountain by Giovanni at the Villa Madama, commissioned by Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, later Pope Clement VII.54 In some cases, minor discrepancies suggest that, lacking opportunities of direct observation, Giovanni complemented his limited knowledge of a specific animal with imagination. The giraffe has only one horn projecting from its forehead like a unicorn’s and the camel rears like a horse. Giovanni possibly knew about the giraffe in the possession of the Medici, another diplomatic gift to the family from the sultan of Egypt, and the rhinoceros woodcut (1515) by Dürer. It appears, however, that his primary resource for his painted representations of animals, whether real or imaginary, would have been his direct observations of the models, the real animals he sketched from life, and the mythical and hybrid creatures he saw in the Domus Aurea and other antique sites. For the ensemble of the stylized pergola with animals, the ceiling decoration of the cryptoportico 92 in the Domus Aurea on the Oppian Hill (A.D. 64–68) has been suggested as the source of inspiration.55 This is the long corridor which runs east-west on

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the north side of the Octagonal Hall. The ceiling was decorated in the so-called wallpaper pattern,56 consisting of square grids delineated by tendrils on a white ground and square compartments inhabited by birds, animals, and mythical figures. In the Loggetta of Cardinal Bibbiena, Giovanni filled in the square compartments not only with imaginary animals like those in the ancient Roman prototype but also with animals from real life. His “pergola” populated with animals appears less stylized and more animated than the one in the Domus Aurea. He painted another similar pergola with animals and grotesques in the Palazzo Baldassini in Rome.57 Here a vaulted room on the ground floor, now called Sala di Giovanni da Udine, is decorated in an almost identical composition. Along the crown of the ceiling runs a pergola-like frame divided into compartments each containing an animal; the walls are decorated with aediculae and delicate grotesque motifs.

First Loggia of Leo X While Giovanni da Udine’s role in the decoration of the Loggia of Cupid and Psyche at the Villa Farnesina and the Loggetta of Cardinal Bibbiena was defined by his relationship to Raphael and others in his workshop, the vault decoration of the First Loggia of Leo X was a unique instance in which he was given sole responsibility. Because Raphael was overburdened with commissions especially in the final years of his life before his death in 1520, it would have been convenient for Giovanni to be in charge of projects that did not involve figured scenes. This gave Giovanni the liberty to experiment at leisure with his favorite motifs and devise an original and playful design. The Vatican Loggias comprise three wings surrounding the Cortile di San Damaso, the first wing on the west side of the Cortile, the second on the north, and the third on the east. Each wing had four stories: the ground-level floor and three floors above it. The first wing was designed by Bramante and Raphael and was built during the first two decades of the cinquecento.58 Approximately sixty-five meters long and four meters wide, each of its loggias was articulated in thirteen bays. Those on the first, second, and third floors were called the First Loggia, the Second Loggia, and the Third Loggia respectively. Raphael, following the antique canon described by Vitruvius, used the three classical orders on the façade of the Loggias: Doric for the first, Ionic for the second, and Corinthian for the third, in the manner of the Flavian Amphitheater. A drawing by Maarten van Heemskerck (ca. 1535–1536)59 gives us an idea of the appearance of the Loggias in the 1530s, when only the first wing had been built. The second wing articulated in eleven bays, and the third wing, in eight, were built under Gregory XIII (pontificate, 1572–1585) and Sixtus V (pontificate, 1585–1590) respectively.60 The three classical orders of the first wing were replicated on its successors. Our focus here is the First Loggia of the first wing (Figure 2.6), which has attracted far less scholarly attention than the Second Loggia (the so-called Loggia of Raphael),61 perhaps precisely because of its rustic subject and “low style” decoration. Giovanni da Udine was the sole author of the decorative scheme.62 The work was in progress in 1519, as we know from a letter of Marcantonio Michiel (May 4, 1519),63 and was completed by December of the same year, as recorded in his diary (December 27, 1519). This was the year before Raphael’s death (on April 6,

Figure 2.6 First Loggia of Leo X, Vatican. Scala/Art Resource, NY.

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Figure 2.7 First Loggia of Leo X, decorative scheme of the vaults.

1520). Of the total of the thirteen bays in the First Loggia, Giovanni painted the vaults of eight in the guise of fictive pergolas (Figure 2.7). The decoration was admired by Vasari, who described it as follows: “Then Giovanni did the decoration of the loggia below [the Second Loggia], the compartments with stuccoes and paintings, in a different way from the walls and vaults of the other loggias; nonetheless, these were beautifully done through the elegant invention of fictive pergolas in latticework divided into compartments and covered with vine heavy with grapes, clematis, jasmine, and roses, and inhabited by all kinds of animals and birds.”64 The decoration of a large-scale space as a series of illusionistic pergolas had no precedent in Renaissance Rome. The First Loggia and the Second Loggia (Loggia of Raphael) are often considered in parallel: in the documents, the two are frequently mentioned together and compared to one another. Architecturally, they were identical, except for the presence of niches in the wall of the Second Loggia and for the form of the vaults: sail vaults in the First Loggia and truncated cloister vaults (volte a specchio) in the Second. The Second Loggia was begun sometime earlier, but their decoration followed related schemes. The following passage from the diary of Marcantonio Michiel is suggestive in many ways: December 27, 1519. Rome. In these days, the first loggia of the palace was furnished with decorations, namely one of the three loggias built one above the other and facing Rome to the southwest. It was painted with foliage, grotesques and other similar fantasies, in vernacular style, with few expenses, and in vivid colors. Because the space was open to the public, although located on the first floor, one could go there on horseback. But in the loggia above, closed to the public and for the private recreation of the Pope, decorated shortly before, there were paintings of great value and elegance. Raphael of Urbino provided the drawings for them, and in addition the Pope put many statues there that he had kept in his cabinet as well as those collected by Pope Julius II. They were placed in the niches made alternately with the windows opposite the columns or pilasters.65

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This passage contains a number of important implications. There was a marked difference between the First Loggia and the Second Loggia in terms of accessibility and function. Michiel mentions that the First Loggia could be reached on horseback. In fact there were horse ramps that led up from the courtyard to the first floor, which were only converted into stairs in the nineteenth century under Sixtus IX (pontificate 1846–1878). Thus access to the First Loggia, a space for a promenade on horseback, was not restricted in principle, but most likely only visitors of rank and culture, namely aristocrats, ecclesiastics, and intellectuals, were admitted. In contrast, the Loggia of Raphael on the level above was the Pope’s private museum of antique sculpture restricted to special guests and members of his entourage. Access to this space was a privilege bestowed only on those closest to the Pope. The hierarchy of accessibility and function implied the hierarchy of space, which was in turn reflected in the decoration. The First Loggia was decorated in a rustic style with vivid colors, executed by the assistant in the workshop, while the Second Loggia was decorated in high style by Raphael himself, assisted by artists in his workshop, and paved with majolica tiles from the workshop of Luca della Robbia. The evaluation of the First Loggia’s decoration has been largely negative, among contemporaries of the sixteenth century and modern art historians alike, especially when compared with the Loggia of Raphael. Dacos notes the poor quality of the decoration as a whole, due to the absence of Biblical scenes as well as the repetition and the drastic simplification of the decorative system.66 However, within the tradition of the portico decorated with motifs of nature, the First Loggia can be considered an innovative work in creating a large-scale space that offered the illusion of being immersed in nature. Dacos acknowledges that the design of the vaults as illusionistic pergolas was a novel idea which was not likely to have been Raphael’s. Indeed the originality of the decoration of the First Loggia of Leo X lies precisely in Giovanni’s solution of using the illusionistic pergolas for the first time in a monumental space. A close examination of the decorative scheme of the vaults of the First Loggia reveals a systematic arrangement based on the principles of symmetry and alternation. The frescoes on the vaults were restored in the second half of the nineteenth century by Alessandro Mantovani; the colors that appear too vivid to be from the cinquecento are the result of this repainting and reflect the style of the time.67 But the original symmetrical arrangement of pergolas and coffers has been preserved. Vault VII was the central vault, and vaults VI and VIII, V and IX, IV and X, III and XI, II and XII, and I and XIII formed pairs and corresponded with one another in design (Figure 2.7).68 Vault VII bore the coat of arms of Leo X. Vaults VI and VIII, V and IX, III and XI, and II and XII were decorated as pergolas. Each pair of pergolas exhibited a distinctive form of trelliswork; thus there were four different types of trellises. The rest of the vaults were painted with different patterns of coffers. Vault I had diamond coffers; vault IV had coffers of intersecting circles. Vault VII, the central vault, was designed like the dome of the Pantheon, with square coffers defined within concentric circles. Vault X had hexagon coffers, and vault XIII had diamond coffers like vault I. While the eight vaults painted as pergolas were designed in a symmetrical manner, the four vaults with coffers emphasized variety and did not necessarily adhere to the principle of symmetry. Giovanni’s realism enables us to distinguish the type of trelliswork as well as the plants that covered it. The depicted pergolas are either of the type made of coppice poles or the type made of laths. For the plants, we can distinguish at least vine,

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jasmine, clematis, and roses, as noted by Vasari. Vaults III and XI, of the coppice-pole type, are covered with vine (Vitis vinifera) laden with grapes. This would have reflected the form and materials of the utilitarian pergolas used for training vine. Vaults II and XII, of the lath type, are covered with jasmine (Jasminium officinale) and melangolo (Citrus aurantium) (Figure 2.8). Both were used on pleasure pergolas. The melangolo, or bitter orange, was introduced into Europe by the Arabs in the eleventh century.69 Citrus species became a fashionable collectible among the aristocracy from the latter half of the sixteenth century. Cinquecento treatises on agriculture, villas, and gardens mention citrus plants trained on pergolas.70 Vaults V and IX, of the lath type, are adorned with roses (Rosa x alba) and species in the morning glory family (Convolvulaceae). The rose had a symbolic meaning deeply rooted in Christian iconography, but its depiction here may also have derived from botanical and horticultural interests, reflecting the popularity of the rose in pleasure gardens. In vault V, the star-like white flower may be identified as the Peganum harmala and the trumpet-form flower as the Convolvulus arvensis of the morning glory family.71

Figure 2.8 First Loggia of Leo X, vault II. Photo © Musei Vaticani.

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Giovanni’s pictorial realism extends to the animals and birds in the pergolas, which tend to be small domestic species. We see rabbits, cats, squirrels, and mice – small animals familiar in daily life and which would fit in the light structure of the pergola. A monkey is included, but no large animals from the menagerie are depicted. For the birds, domestic species commonly seen in everyday life, such as swallows, owls, and falcons, are represented, along with a parrot with exotic plumage. In addition to the artist’s natural penchant for the depiction of animals, the “peopled scrolls” of antiquity may have been a source of inspiration for the “peopled trellises,” as it were, of the First Loggia. It has been suggested that Giovanni was familiar with ancient Roman reliefs depicting acanthus scrolls inhabited by small animals and that he was inspired by them in the ideation of the pilaster designs.72 Dacos indicates that the arrangement of the scrolls on Pilaster IX of the Loggia of Raphael was so similar to the acanthus scrolls on an ancient Roman relief that it could have been copied from it. The ancient relief in question was a fragment originally in the Della Valle collection and one of the pieces that were subsequently inserted on the façade of the Villa Medici in Rome.73 Dacos notes that the animals had been changed in the process of transposition. On the ancient Roman relief, the scrolls are inhabited by an eagle, a peacock, small birds, a lizard, and a bee; among the scrolls painted on Pilaster IX of the Loggia of Raphael, we see a squirrel, a mouse, a weasel, a snake, and a snail. The ancient Roman acanthus scrolls were inhabited by small animals and birds familiar to sculptors of Rome and southern Italy. Thus we see that Giovanni adopted the general arrangement of the ancient Roman scrolls but peopled them with animals familiar to him from everyday life. In respect to nature motifs in the pictorial decoration of the loggia, there are various sources of inspiration. One is the garden rooms decorated with motifs of nature in antiquity. The letters of Pliny the Younger, widely circulated among intellectuals by this time, contain descriptions of such rooms. Pliny describes a garden room in his Tuscan villa where the wall was painted with motifs of boughs and birds perched among the branches.74 However, for a painter like Giovanni da Udine, who worked from life, the inspiration would more likely have been visual: certainly Mantegna’s vault decoration of the lost chapel of Innocent VIII at the Belvedere and the domed spaces whose vaults were decorated with painted pergolas and representations of vegetal bowers in northern Italy. The loggias in quattrocento houses in Rome would also have provided a model. Among them, the loggia of the Casa dei Cavalieri di Rodi was a typical example of a semi-interior space decorated with motifs of nature. Like the quattrocento private loggias in Rome, the Vatican Loggias were partially open to the exterior, as we see in Maarten van Heemskerck’s drawing (ca. 1535); it was only in the nineteenth century that they were closed by means of glass panes to protect them from the elements. Pius IX, who converted the cordonata (horse ramps) within the Loggia into a modern staircase, introduced the glass windowpanes for the protection of the decorations.75 Because of the close physical relationship with the outdoors, both in terms of accessibility and open design, elements evocative of nature from the outdoors would have been appropriate for its decoration. The Cortile di San Damaso on which the Loggias looked out may have been planted at the time, and the Vatican Gardens had accommodated pergola structures since the reign of Nicholas V (1447–1455).76 Accessibility on horseback already implied the loggia’s dynamic connection to the outdoors. Its entire space would have been designed with the rhythmical progression of a horse’s gait and the

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raised vantage point of its rider in mind. The alternation of coffers and pergolas provided a sense of variety for visitors on horseback and created the illusion of passing through indoor and outdoor spaces alternately. The higher viewpoint compared to that of a stroller would have allowed for close appreciation of the details of the painted pergolas on the vaults. The spatial arrangement of the Loggia was undoubtedly inspired by antique models. The space of the First Loggia, as of the Loggia of Raphael above it, was not perceived as a continuous whole, but rather as a series of thirteen semi-independent units articulated by arches and pilasters. When Bramante designed the loggias, the Tabularium (78 B.C.)77 at the northwest end of the Forum Romanum had inspired him with the idea of subdividing the interior into vaulted units.78 Consequently, Giovanni da Udine may have seen the loggia not as a unified space but rather as an enfilade of rooms displaying rhythmic variation. The idea of the illusionistic pergola as the decoration of a vault, then, was conveniently suited to the loggia; like a poetic stanza (literally, “room”), each unit was of uniform proportions, but of variable content. While a certain degree of symmetry would be required for the unity of the whole, a variety in the design of the pergolas was necessary for avoiding the impression of monotony. Dacos discusses the general system of the pairing of the bays, explaining that each of the corresponding bays was designed as a repetition of the other.79 However, we have already seen that the four coffered vaults I, IV, X, and XIII exhibited a variety in the shape of the coffers. The eight vaults with illusionistic pergolas are symmetrical pairs, at least in terms of the trellis forms, but the animals depicted in each of the vaults are different. Vaults VI and VIII do not contain any animals at all and are covered with the dense foliage of vine. If the loggia was perceived as a succession of vaulted units like the Tabularium, the patterns of ancient Roman ceiling painting may have provided design ideas. The decoration of vaults in catacomb paintings and early Christian churches, baptisteries, and tombs that exhibited concentric, converging, axial, diagonal, or radial patterns have informed the trellis patterns in the painted pergolas. Their mention in early guidebooks for pilgrims testifies that a fair number of catacombs around Rome were known in the Renaissance – the cemeteries of Callixtus, Domitilla, Priscilla, Praetextatus, S. Sebastiano, and Petrus and Marcellinus among them.80 As Giovanni da Udine was interested in the Domus Aurea, he would plausibly have had a similar interest in the catacombs. The influence of antiquity is most keenly felt in the formal arrangement of vaults II, V, IX, and XII, which have square or hexagonal openings on the four sides, through which is seen a glimpse of the blue sky. For the formal classification of the depicted trellises, a helpful model is the ancient Roman ceiling decoration types proposed by Hetty Joyce.81 Our vault decoration types differ from Joyce’s, but her concepts of concentric, converging, axial, diagonal, and radial forms are useful in classifying the types of latticework patterns of the depicted pergolas. The trellis forms can be classified into four categories: first, concentric type (vaults II and XI); second, concentric and radial type (vaults III and XI); third, converging and diagonal type (vaults V and IX); fourth, axial and diagonal type (vaults VI and VIII). A comparable composition in the vault decoration of catacombs would be a central circle at the crown of the vault containing the Good Shepherd and semicircles or squares on the four sides containing scenes or episodes such as those of Jonah (Figure 2.9). This axial arrangement can develop several variations. A central circle

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Figure 2.9 Catacomb of Petrus and Marcellinus, vault decoration. Josef Wilpert (ed.), Die Malereien der Katakomben Roms. Freiburg im Breisgau, 1903, pl. 61.

can be further surrounded by concentric circles;82 a central hexagon or an octagon can appear;83 in addition to the scenes on the four sides, four other scenes can be arranged diagonally;84 or the compartments containing scenes from a story can also be arranged radially around the central circle.85 Relevant to the composition of the painted pergolas may be a type of catacomb decoration with a central figure surrounded by smaller circles and squares on the sides and diagonals (Figure 2.10). A print by Jacques Androuet Du Cerceau after Léonard Thiry depicting an antique structure with vaulted arches proves the awareness of Renaissance artists of such design compositions: the intrados of the arch shows patterns strikingly similar to those in catacomb paintings (Figure 2.11). As the composition of catacomb vaults had a circle at the crown, the arrangement could be readily adapted to the vaults of the Loggia, since all the vaults, including those decorated with pergolas, were to have a circle at the crown bearing the coat of arms of the reigning Pope. The idea of having square or hexagonal openings on the four sides of the trellis may also have come from the composition in the catacomb vaults. These were always symmetrically arranged, and symmetry was one of the core

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Figure 2.10 Catacomb of Petrus and Marcellinus, vault decoration. Josef Wilpert (ed.), Die Malereien der Katakomben Roms. Freiburg im Breisgau, 1903, pl. 73.

design principles of the loggia. A good parallel of this type of design would be the painted vault of the Stufetta of Cardinal Riario in the Palazzo della Cancelleria, dating from 1520, another likely work of Giovanni’s.86 It too was painted as an illusionistic pergola. The concentric pattern of the latticework of the pergola was formed by intersecting parallel and radial lines, interwoven with climbing plants that grew out of the four pendentives. Birds inhabited the foliage, and a garland of fruit with grapes, apples, oranges, lemons, and roses adorned the oculus, through which was visible the sky.87 Edwards has already suggested the possible influence of catacomb paintings on its design.88 This is the earliest known example of an illusionistic pergola showing trees not just covering the trelliswork on the vault but also growing on the walls. Whatever the extent of pictorial influence, the most obvious point of departure for Giovanni’s trellis design would have been real garden architecture created by the art

Figure 2.11 Architectural ruins with draftsmen. Virgil Solis, The little book of architecture ruins, Nuremberg, 1550–1562, after Jacques Androuet Du Cerceau, Duodecim fragmenta structurae veteris commendata monumentis a Leonardo Theodorico, Orléans, 1550. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

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and craft of treillage. Two types are observed in the material of the depicted trellises as briefly mentioned earlier: coppice poles bound by withies (vaults III and XI; VI and VIII) and laths bound by withies (vaults II and XII; V and IX).90 Both types would have been modeled on their counterparts in reality; the coppice-pole type and the lath type were utilitarian pergolas commonly seen in the agricultural landscape of the time. However, the lath type depicted here also includes features of the carpentry type, the treillage that was intended for the pleasure garden, in its hexagonal and rectangular openings. The window-like openings on the four sides, in the form of elongated hexagons or lunettes, were probably also copied from reality. The sketchbook of Giovanni Colonna da Tivoli (1554)91 contains drawings of the design for a cruciform pergola with a crossing pavilion carrying a hemispherical dome, which housed fountains and aviaries (Figs. 3.13–14). The dome is formed by a densely interwoven trelliswork on a diagonal grid. Its drum, the spandrels below, and the repeating bays along the four arms have window-like openings designed into the carpentry framework. Its domes consist of an orthogonal grid of latticework framed below by four pediments, each of which carries a small circular window. Carpentry pergolas of the cruciform type, prevalent in Italy, are recorded in prints and maps from the latter half of the sixteenth and the seventeenth century; those will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 3.92 The art and craft of treillage in Italy probably developed in parallel with France, where we also see pergolas of various forms and functions. The pergola gallery at Montargis, recorded in Jacques Androuet Du Cerceau’s Les plus excellents Bastiments de France (1576–1579), shows a carpentry structure of arches, vaults, and interwoven vertical and horizontal timbers intended to be covered with ivy (Figure 2.12). This structure also exhibits circular windows on the dome, evocative of the design of the vault painting types discussed earlier. Giovanni’s designs, then, are grounded in reality, but it is equally evident that a certain degree of fantasy is present too. If real treillage pavilions had consisted of latticework as thin as the diamond patterns that fill in the interstices between the sturdier beams in the depicted trellises of vaults II and XII, they would have been too fragile to withstand the elements and would not have served their primary function as semipermanent outdoor structures. Clearly the illusionistic pergolas were originally

Figure 2.12 Pergola gallery at Montargis. Jacques Androuet Du Cerceau, Les plus excellents bastiments de France, Paris, 1576. © Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Rare Book Collection, Washington, D.C.

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modeled on real pergolas, but once they were adopted as artistic motifs they started to develop a life of their own. They no longer had to be structurally durable or feasible; pictorial values became all-important. Window-like openings among the dense foliage of the overarching vaulting showing a glimpse of the sky and serving as a perch for birds would have seemed an attractive and interesting idea, but in real pergolas they would have compromised the shade-giving canopy that provided welcome relief from the sun – a feature which, it is worth observing, is almost always conveniently “off stage” in painted pergolas.93 *** In the First Loggia of Leo X, for the first time in Renaissance Italy the illusionistic pergola became the centerpiece of the decoration of a large-scale architectural space. It was no longer an auxiliary framing device for the more important figural scenes, as it was in the Loggia of Cupid and Psyche at the Villa Farnesina. It was not a decorative motif included in a larger composition of grotesques in the antique style, as it was in the Loggetta of Cardinal Bibbiena. It was the focus of attention in its own right and was developed to its full potential. Just as there were “peopled scrolls” in antiquity, so were there “peopled trellises” in the Renaissance. The design was born of the experiment of an artist who, after being trained in the Venetian cultural sphere, became a master in the depiction of nature and developed his passion into a genre. The use of this design in a small vaulted space had been experimented by Mantegna, but it was Giovanni who first applied the scheme systematically on a monumental scale. The “peopled trellises” in the First Loggia of Leo X demonstrate how the artist could be the carrier of ideas and forms of the tradition in which he was trained and, combining them with those of the courtly culture in which he worked, could produce a novel, forceful design. A conscious reference to the antique, it also drew from vernacular culture. Because of its impressive and unprecedented scale, as well as for the ingenuity and novelty of its design, it became the prototype for a new genre. Together with Mantegna’s precocious but modest chapel vault nearby, Giovanni’s creation of the “peopled trellises” thus marked the start of the tradition of the illusionistic pergola in Rome and its environs.

Notes 1 See Fagiolo and Giusti 1996, 20–23. On the painter of the frescoes of the Room of the Deer, Matteo Giovanetti, and the painting in Avignon, see Blume 2015; Castelnuovo 2004, 1996, and 1991. 2 Vasari 1966, V, 446–456. 3 Bartolini 1987, 3. 4 Vasari 1966, V, 447: per dirlo in una parola, tutte le cose naturali, d’animali, di drappi, d’instrumenti, vasi, paesi, casamenti e verdure, intantoche niun de’ giovani di quella scuola il superava. 5 Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale, inv. 577. 6 London, Victoria and Albert Museum, ROYAL LOANS.2. 7 Dacos and Furlan 1987, 15–24. 8 Raphael was nominated architect of St. Peter’s on August 1, 1514. See Golzio 1971, 33–34. 9 Dacos and Furlan 1987, 21. 10 Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Kupferstich-Kabinett. 11 Dacos and Furlan 1987, 68.

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12 Vasari 1966, V, 450: e Giovanni sopra le cornici di quell’opera ritrasse di naturale molti papagalli di diversi colori, i quali allora aveva Sua Santità, e così anco babuini, gattamamoni, zibetti et altri bizarre animali. 13 Vasari mentions an aviary of Julius II in the Belvedere, near the corridor in which Peruzzi painted the figures of the months in chiaroscuro. See Vasari 1966, IV, 317. 14 Vasari 1966, V, 447: Ma sopratutto si diletto sommamente di fare uccelli di tutte sorti, di maniera che in poco tempo ne condusse un libro tanto vario e bello, che egli era lo spasso e il trastullo di Raffaello. 15 Dacos 2008, 35; Dacos and Furlan 1987, 31. 16 Dacos and Furlan 1987, 35. Vasari 1966, V, 448: Non molto dopo, cavandosi da San Pietro in Vincola fra le ruine et anticaglie del palazzo di Tito per trovar figure, furono ritrovate alcune stanze sotterra, ricoperte tutte e piene di grotteschine, di figure piccole e di storie, con alcune ornamenti di stucchi bassi. Per andando Giovanni con Rafaello, che fu menato a vederle, restarono l’uno e l’altro stupefatti della freschezza, bellezza e bonta di quell’opere. 17 Dacos 1969; Dacos and Furlan 1987, 68–75. 18 Vasari 1966, V, 449. On the stuccoes, see also Elet 2007. 19 Dacos 2008, 48–124 and Dacos and Furlan 1987, 75–96, 111–114. 20 See Museo Nazionale di Castel Sant’Angelo 1984. 21 See Dunbabin 1999; Ling 1998, 82–83. 22 Dacos and Furlan 1987, 9–10. 23 In Patricia Emison, Low and High Style in Italian Renaissance Art (1997), the “low” is defined in reference to rural landscape, subjects characterized by their closeness to nature, the non-noble people who inhabit that world, namely peasants, their agricultural labor, and rustic poverty. The “high” refers to heaven, the opposite end of the spectrum in respect to ground, earth, landscape, and nature, thus in painting the religious subjects including the Virgin Mary and Christ, as well as the nobility, wealth, and culture, the urban world of the educated elite who engage in the leisurely pursuits of humanism and antiquarianism. See Emison 1997, xv–xxxi. 24 Emison discusses the inversion of “high” and “low” in artists interested in the rustic such as Giorgione, Giulio Campagnola, and Michelangelo. Emison 1997, 91–168. 25 A number of guidebooks include textual descriptions of the First Loggia, those by Agostino Taja (1750) and Giovanni Pietro Chattard (1762) among them. 26 On the construction details of the Villa Farnesina, see Frommel 1961. The villa now bears the name of its subsequent owner, the Farnese; in 1579 Cardinal Alessandro Farnese acquired the villa, located across the Tiber from the Palazzo Farnese in Campo Marzio. In 1735 it passed into Bourbon possession through the marriage of Elisabetta Farnese to the king of Spain, Philip V. Since 1927 it has been owned by the Italian State and is currently the seat of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. 27 See Ackerman 1990, 305. 28 Poggi, Barocchi, and Ristori 1967, vol. II, 138, letter of Leonardo Sellaio to Michelangelo, Firenze Archivio Buonarroti: A di primo di gennaio 1518. . . . Bastiano à presso e finito, e riesce di modo che quanti intendenti ci sono lo metono di grandisima lungha sopra a Rafaello. È schoperta la volta d’Agostino Ghisi, chosa vituperosa a un gran maestro, peg[i]o che l’ultima stanza di Palazo asai. 29 See Dacos and Furlan 1987, 29. 30 See Frommel 1961, 45. 31 Börsch-Supan records an early example of a vault decoration of a vegetal bower in the Abbey of Viboldone in Milan dating from the fifteenth century. Börsch-Supan 1967, 251. 32 Perugia, Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria. On Boccati, see Zampetti 1971. 33 Besides the Madonna of the Pergola, Boccati painted a number of embowered Madonnas, exhibiting an interesting variety in the form of the canopy. The Enthroned Madonna (1450–1460, Ajaccio, Museo Fesch) shows an architectural canopy above the Madonna in a garden setting. In the Madonna of the Orchestra (ca. 1463, Perugia, Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria), a large rose trellis covers the entire group of the Madonna and the child and the music-making angels, but a separate architectural canopy with a classicizing frieze, instead of a vault of vegetation, is depicted above the Madonna. The Madonna with six

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49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62

Classical tradition and vernacular culture Angels (1460–1470, current location unknown; Zampetti 1971, Figure 112) shows the Madonna and music-making angels underneath a vegetal trellis. Sacra conversazione (1483), Church of S. Bartolomeo, Vicenza. Paris, Louvre, inv. 369. Taja 1750, 403: La picciola cupoletta di essa Cappelletta e ornata di alcuni finti spartimenti di figura tonda tra se intrecciati insieme a modo di una ingraticolata, interrotta da quindici putti, che sostengono alcuni festoni. Vasari 1966, III, 552–553: Andato dunque a Roma con molto esser favorito e raccomandato dal marchese, che per maggiormente onorarlo lo fece cavaliere, fu ricevuto amorevolmente da quel Pontefice e datagli subito a fare una picciola cappella che è in detto luogo; la quale con diligenza e con amore lavorò così minutamente che e la volta e le mura paiono più tosto cosa miniata che dipintura, e le maggiori figure che vi sieno sono sopra l’altare, le quali egli fece in fresco come l’altre, e sono S. Giovanni che battezza Cristo, et intorno sono popoli che spogliandosi fanno segno di volersi battezzare. Caneva 1992. Zea mays maize; Cucurbita pepo zucchini; Cucurbita maxima pumpkin; Cucurbita moschata; Phaseolus vulgaris green beans. See Caneva 1992, 81–84. See Pl. 2 for a depiction of the maize. Caneva 1992, 51. On botanical symbolism in Italian painting, see Levi D’Ancona 1977 and 1983. See Dacos and Furlan 1987, 26; Morel 1985; Vasari 1966, V, 452. See DaCosta Kaufmann 2009. Dacos emphasizes the scientific dimension of Giovanni’s depiction as follows: l’operazione compiuta da Giovanni . . . consiste nell’aver liberato fiori e frutti dal loro contenuto religioso, in qualche mode nell’aver laicizzati. See Dacos and Furlan 1987, 29. The first scientific works on plants published in Europe were Otto Brunfels, Herbarum vivae eicones (Strasbourg, 1530), and Leonhart Fuchs, De historia stirpium (Basel, 1542). Redig de Campos 1967, 109–111, Figure 48. The Loggetta faced the Cortile del Maresciallo. Golzio 1971, 48, letter of Pietro Bembo from Rome to Bibbiena in Florence, June 20, 1516: Al Card. Di S. Maria in Portico a Firenze. Bastami darui contezza . . . che la loggia, la stufetta, le camere, i paramenti del cuoio di V. S. sono forniti, et ogni cosa l’aspetta . . . A XXX. Di Giugno M. D. XVI. Di Roma. Golzio 1971, 57, letter of Pietro Bembo to Bibbiena, July 19, 1517: Al Card. Di S. Maria in Portico. In Francia. Di nuouo la loggia di V. S. si ua edificando et torna bellissima. Et le camere di N. S. che Raffaello ha dipinte si per la pittura singolare et eccellente, et si anchor perche quasi sempre stanno ben fornite da Cardinali, sono bellissime . . . A XIX. Di Luglio M. D. XVII. Di Roma. Golzio 1971, 98, letter of Marcantonio Michiel, May 4, 1519: (copia di una letera di ser Marco Antonio Michiel di ser Vetor data 4 magio 1519 scrita a Venecia a Antonio di Marsilio suo amicissimo) . . . raphaele di Urbino ha dipinto impalazo 4 camere dil pontefice [le Stanze], et una loggia longissima [la Seconda], et va drieto dipingendo due altre loggie che saranno cose bellissime oltre che ha la cura de la fabricha de San Pietro, che va lenta per il mancar dil danaro . . . in roma el di 4 di magio 1519. Vasari 1966, V, 455. Dacos and Furlan 1987, 44. Dacos and Furlan 1987, 55. Dacos and Furlan 1987, 60. Dacos 2008, 116. Bedini 1998, 164–168; Dacos and Furlan 1987, 149–150. Dacos 1969, 28–33. See Ling 1991, 92–93. See Montini and Averini 1957. The Palazzo Baldassini, Via delle Coppelle 35, Roma, currently houses the Istituto Luigi Sturzo. Giovanni’s pergola decorates the ceiling of the ground-floor room housing the library called the Sala di Giovanni da Udine. Redig de Campos 1967, 100–102, 108–109. Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek. Redig de Campos 1967, 170–171. On the Loggia of Raphael, see Dacos 2008. Dacos and Furlan 1987, 101.

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63 Golzio 1971, 98. See no. 48 above. 64 Vasari 1966, V, 450: Seguitando poi Giovanni di fare sotto queste logge il primo ordine da basso, fece con altro e diverso modo gli spartimenti de’ stucchi e delle pitture nelle facciate e volte dell’altre logge; ma nondimeno anco quelle furon bellissime per la vaga invenzione de’ pergolati finti di canne in varii spartimenti, e tutti pieni di viti cariche d’uve, di vitalbe, di gelsomini, di rosai e di diverse sorti animali e uccelli. 65 Golzio 1971, 103–104, Diarii of Marcantonio Michiel: Adi 27 dicembre 1519. Roma. . . . In questi giorni istessi fu fornita la loggia sotto del Palazzo de le tre poste una sopra l’altra, rivolte verso Roma a greco, et era dipinta a fogliami, grottesche et altre simili fantasie assai vulgarmente, et con poca spesa, benche vistosamente. Il che si fece perche l’era commune, et ove tutti andavano etiam cavalli, benche sii nel primo solaro. Ma in la sop.a posta immediate per esser tenuta chiusa et al piacere solum del Papa che fu fornita poco avanti, vi erano pitture di gran precio et di gran gratia, el disegno delle quali viene da Raffaello d’Urbino et oltra di questo il Papa vi pose molte statue, chel teniva secrete nella salva roba sua parte et parte gia comprate per papa Iulio, forsi a questo effetto, et erano poste in nicchii incavati tra finestre alternamente del parete opposito alle colonne over pilastri. 66 Dacos and Furlan 1987, 101. 67 Dacos and Furlan 1987, 106. 68 The decorative scheme of the First Loggia of Leo X is based on on-site investigations of the Vatican Loggias conducted by the author on October 11, 2010, and June 15, 2011. 69 Caneva 1992, 125. 70 Agostino Gallo, a Bresciano and author of Le vinti giornate dell’agricoltura, et de’ piaceri della villa, mentions the garden of the counts Martinengo with pergolas of lemons. See Gallo 1580, 124: Io vi potrei dir’ancora de gli altri diuersi horti belli poiche ve ne sono d’altre forme pur assai, fra i quali non posso tacer quello cosi singolare de’ Magnifici Conti Martinenghi di Barco per li pergolati di limoni, per vie salegiate, & per li murelli forniti di pitari, & d’altri bei vasi pieni di varie gentilezze, che rendono gran satisfattione a tutti per gli odori, che gettano; senza ch’e accompagnato da piu riuoli correnti, dalla limpida peschiera, & dalla bellissima Fontana: la quale per esser fabricata con mirabilis arte, forte che non ne ha vnaltra simile tutt’Italia. 71 See Caneva 1992, 158–160. 72 Dacos 2008, 40–46; Dacos and Furlan 1987, 68. 73 The sculpture relief is currently housed in the Uffizi. 74 Pliny the Younger, Letters, V.vi, 384–385: Est et alium cubiculum a proxima platano viride et umbrosum, marmore excultum podio tenus, nec cedit gratiae marmoris ramos insidentesque ramis aves imitata pictura. 75 I owe this information to Dottoressa Adele Breda of the Musei Vaticani. 76 See Campitelli 2009, 11–26. 77 Richardson 1992, 376–377. 78 Dacos 2008, 20. 79 Dacos and Furlan 1987, 101–102. 80 Murray 1972; Oryshkevich 2003. 81 Joyce 1981, 69–93. Joyce’s period of focus is the second and third centuries A.D. 82 Wilpert 1903, pl. 51b. 83 Wilpert 1903, pls. 55, 131, 151. 84 Wilpert 1903, pls. 61, 72, 217. 85 Wilpert 1903, pl. 196. 86 See Museo Nazionale di Castel Sant’Angelo 1984. 87 Museo Nazionale di Castel Sant’Angelo 1984, 21–33; Schiavo 1964, 195. The idea of the plants growing from the pendentives at the four corners may have come from ancient Roman vine mosaics which depicted vine growing out of the four corners. The vintage scene in mosaic on the annular vault of S. Costanza is a typical example. 88 Edwards 1982, 72–73; Dacos and Furlan 1987, 101. 89 The first treatise on treillage was published by André Jacob Roubo only in 1774: Roubo, M. L’Art du Menuisier Ebéniste. Par M. Roubo fils, Maître Menuisier. IIIe Section de la IIIe Partie de L’Art du Menuisier. Paris. M.DCC.LXXIV. 90 On the types of pergolas according to their materiality, see Chapter 5. 91 Vat. Lat. 7721, 15r, 15v, and 16r.

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92 Cruciform pergolas existed in the Villa d’Este at Tivoli, the Quirinal Gardens, the Villa Medici, and the Horti Farnesiani in Rome. See Etienne Dupérac’s print of the Villa d’Este at Tivoli and the maps of Etienne Dupérac (1575), Giovanni Maggi (1625), and Giovanni Battista Falda (1676) in Frutaz 1962. 93 One precedent for this tendency may have been the Fourth Style paintings of the Domus Aurea. The theatrical manner of many of the Domus Aurea frescoes, which still retained the slender architectural elements of the Third Style, shows the sky through slender architecture. Giovanni da Udine may have had these features of the Fourth Style paintings in mind as he worked on his pergolas.

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Illusionistic pergolas in northern Italy As with so many artistic genres, the practice of creating illusionistic pergolas was interrupted by a period of political instability in Rome. We must wait until around 1550 to witness its return to fashion. The sack of Rome in 1527 sapped the artistic creativity of the papal capital, and many artists who were the practitioners of the genre, Giulio Romano, Baldassare Peruzzi, and Giovanni da Udine among them, were obliged to leave Rome to seek employment in other cities.1 However, the new genre did not entirely languish in the interim. In the 1530s and 1540s works relevant to the trend were produced in central and northern Italy, where fictive trelliswork was born. And real pergolas continued to flourish in the gardens of Rome and prepared the way for the second period of illusionistic pergolas. Artistic networks played an important role in the transmission of the form. A number of the northern and central Italian examples of fictive vegetal pavilions and bowers were by artists who had been involved in the projects of illusionistic pergolas in Rome; others appear to have developed independently of the Roman tradition. At the Castello di Belcaro (1525) in Siena, the three-bay loggia opening onto the garden was decorated by Baldassare Peruzzi and Giorgio di Giovanni. Each of the three vaults represented an illusionistic pergola formed by a simple diamond trellis adorned with fruit. The quadripartite compartments of each vault, delineated by the trellis, bore scenes with mythological figures including Diana, the Three Graces, and Europa. Here the “tapestry” motif seen at the Villa Farnesina makes a reappearance on a smaller scale, suggesting that for special occasions, real trellises may have been constructed to accommodate such canopies made of canvas and painted with mythological scenes. Giorgio di Giovanni brought the motif of the diamond trellis with fruit to the Palazzo Chigi Saracini, also in Siena, where he painted an illusionistic pergola on the vault of the three-bay loggia opening onto the courtyard.2 In these examples, the trellis pattern follows the ribs of the vault. One typology, characterized by the use of thick green vegetation covering the trelliswork, developed in the Parma cultural sphere. This strand was derived from Mantegna’s vegetal structures, since its most consequential artist, Correggio, had been involved with the painted pergola of trelliswork covered with thick greenery studded with citrus fruits in the Cappella Mantegna (1507) at Sant’Andrea in Mantua. Correggio devised the illusionistic pergola on a larger scale in the Camera di San Paolo in Parma (1519) (Figure 3.1). Here architecture inspired the trellis form. This hall, the refectory of the abbess Giovanna da Piacenza, is a rectangular room carrying a richly painted cloister vault.

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Figure 3.1 Correggio, Refectory of the Abbess, Camera di San Paolo, Parma, 1519. Photo: Ghigo Roli.

Sixteen fictive ribs radiate from the crown of the vault towards the periphery, in a manner perhaps intended to evoke those of the dome of the octagonal Baptistery at Parma by Benedetto Antelami (1150–1230). Correggio’s ribs take the form of coppice poles dividing the dome into compartments. Each compartment is filled in with diamond trelliswork covered with thick green vegetation, cut and arranged on it, and a fruit tassel hung from the crown, which is formed by an intricate ribboned knotwork. Circular openings in the compartments show putti without wings holding objects related to hunting: one putto is holding a hunting dog, another a deer’s head, and a third a bow. The hunting theme is in accordance with Diana, the goddess of chastity,

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Figure 3.2 Parmigianino, Stufetta of Diana and Actaeon, Rocca Sanvitale, Fontanellato, 1523– 1524. Photo: Ghigo Roli.

represented on the fireplace. Parmigianino’s illusionistic pergola in the Room of Diana and Actaeon (1523–1524) at the Rocca Sanvitale at Fontanellato near Parma (Figure 3.2), apparently shows an awareness of Correggio’s Camera di San Paolo, but adopted the concept of the temporary pavilion in the outdoors. The room, considered to be the stufetta of Paola Gonzaga, wife of count Galeazzo Sanvitale, was painted with a diamond trellis covered with thick green vegetation, creating the illusion of a vegetal pavilion under the sky. The center of the painted trellis is open in a roughly octagonal shape, surrounded by wickerwork intertwined with pink and white roses, showing a blue sky. Beneath the pergola are painted, within lunettes resulting from the spandrellike elements that supposedly attach the vegetal bower to its supports, figures from the myth of Diana and Actaeon, along with putti and members of the Sanvitale family. The theme of the decoration, the bathing of the goddess Diana, resonates with the function of the room. The spandrel-like components each have circular openings through which the blue sky is visible. Thus the entire painted structure embodies the concept of a temporary pavilion set up outdoors. There were also isolated examples that probably developed independently of trends in other cultural centers. The illusionistic pergola in the Sala delle Cariatidi at the Villa Imperiale in Pesaro (1529–1538) by Dosso Dossi and Battista Dossi is a vegetal pavilion supported by anthropomorphic trees. The caryatids, partly transformed into foliage in the

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lower and upper parts of their bodies, appear to be mediators between the ground where plants grow and the vegetal pergola, which in turn supports the fictive wooden frame surrounding the panel picture at the center of the ceiling. The picture represents Francesco Maria della Rovere, the villa’s patron, on a military expedition, which is again rendered in occasional “tapestry” manner ( Figure 3.3 ).

Figure 3.3 Dosso Dossi and Battista Dossi, Sala delle Cariatidi, Villa Imperiale, Pesaro, 1529– 1538. Photo: Antonio Quattrone.

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Putti perched on the corners of the wooden frame serve as telamones, hoisting the picture over the central void. The anthropomorphic vegetation in the Camera delle Cariatidi is composed of a number of species, including oak, ivy, and myrtle, which have a classical connotation in their allusions to Zeus, Dionysus, and Venus. The objects hanging from the wooden frame, which include a Panpipe and Bacchic cymbals, a caduceus, a harp, bows with quivers and hunting horn, a viol, and a lute, appear to have both classical and contemporaneous pastoral connotations. Inspiration from the antique is obvious; specifically, the caryatids that metamorphose into the supports for the vegetal pergola bear a striking similarity to those in the lost cupola decoration of Santa Costanza in Rome as recorded in the drawings of Francesco de Hollanda (Figure 1.5). The Villa dei Vescovi at Luvigliano (1535–1542) near Padua, designed by Giovanni Maria Falconetto as a quadrangular block on a raised platform oriented to the cardinal points, featured loggias on the east and west sides connecting the villa building to the surrounding landscape. The interior of these loggias were painted around 1542 with trellises covered with vine and marsh reeds populated with putti by Lambert Sustris, a painter of Dutch formation who had moved to northern Italy.3 The typology of the vine trellis as decoration of villa interiors would continue to be popular throughout the sixteenth century in the Veneto; other prominent examples include the Palladian villas, Villa Emo at Fanzolo and Villa Barbaro at Maser.4 In the Venetian cultural sphere, we also see the painted bower, characterized by the absence of a trellis structure but the inclusion of a variety of plant and animal species. The Sala a Fogliami (1539) at the Palazzo Grimani at Santa Maria Formosa in Venice5 (Pl. 3) was painted by Camillo Mantovano (d. 1568),6 who had worked at the Villa Imperiale at Pesaro. The triangular vaults around the periphery are painted with grotesques, while the lunettes framed by them show birds and figural scenes with cryptic inscriptions. Trees and crops grow out of the spandrels between the vaults, and their branches or stalks join above to form a natural bower. A loose precedent representing the foliage of trees forming a natural bower is Leonardo da Vinci’s Sala delle asse at the Castello Sforzesco in Milan.7 However, the boughs and branches of the depicted mulberry trees in Leonardo’s fresco are carefully calculated to form an intricate knotwork pattern, while the depiction of the exuberant foliage at the Palazzo Grimani is freestyle and naturalistic. The depicted birds are mostly domestic, such as owl, woodpecker, magpie, swallow, robin, and goldfinch. Animals include a cat, a squirrel, and a dormouse. The depicted plants are more varied. Fruit-bearing trees including black and white grapes, apples, citrus fruits, figs, and pomegranates are depicted emphasizing abundance, very much like the ancient Roman garden frescoes from the Villa of Livia at Prima Porta. Botanical species introduced from the Americas, maize and tobacco, also appear in the fresco, which makes it comparable, as a document of cultural exchange, to the Loggia of Cupid and Psyche at the Villa Farnesina. An important strand of the genre developed in Florence under Medici patronage. The Medici played a significant role in the development and transmission of the form and concept of the illusionistic pergola through their networks and dynastic seats in Tuscany and in the papal capital. The scrittoio (small study) of Cosimo I in the Palazzo Vecchio (1550), where plants and animals are painted in a realistic manner by Bachiacca (Francesco Ubertini Verdi), shows the Medici’s strong interest in the study of nature.8 The decoration has survived in a deteriorated condition, but we can distinguish birds, fish, and plants depicted with scientific accuracy, an attempt at an anthology of flora and fauna so to speak.9 Elsewhere in the building, a number of other

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painted pergolas are present. The ceiling of the stairs leading from the Sala di Leone X to the piano nobile is decorated with a series of three small illusionistic pergolas, all painted in the 1550s and attributed to Marco da Faenza.10 The first, a barrel-vaulted section at the foot of the stairs, shows a grid imitating the trelliswork of a pergola with an oculus at the center (Figure 3.4). A sky with crimson clouds is glimpsed beyond the oculus, where two putti are playing. The plants – grapevine, ivy, jasmine, and roses – are delicately rendered, and small birds and animals – a parrot, finches, a rabbit, and a mouse – are depicted, while butterflies flutter among them. The form of the trellis, the presence of the putti, the distribution pattern of the animals, and white bands with marsh reeds that flank the section resemble those of the painted pergola at the Villa Giulia treated in Chapter 4. The second pergola is a more stylized decoration of a sail vault (Figure 3.5), composed of festoons evocative of those in the Loggia at the Villa Farnesina. Four concentric circles of greenery intersect with radial festoons to form the semblance of a coffered dome. In the “coffers” are depicted grotesque masks and imaginary winged creatures, along with small birds. The third pergola decorates an irregularly shaped vault adjacent to the sail vault (Figure 3.6).

Figure 3.4 Marco da Faenza, painted pergola at the foot of the stairs leading from the Room of Leo X to the Quarter of the Elements, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, 1550s.

Figure 3.5 Marco da Faenza, painted pergola at the top of the stairs leading from the Room of Leo X to the Quarter of the Elements, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, 1550s.

Figure 3.6 Marco da Faenza, painted pergola at the top of the stairs leading from the Room of Leo X to the Quarter of the Elements, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, 1550s.

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This simple pergola was painted with only one species of plant, the jasmine, and a few fluttering birds. The commonality among these pergolas is their encyclopedic character: the depiction of plants and birds is not just an evocation of nature or an expression of rusticity, but a rearranged nature that emphasizes an artificial, scientific clarity and an almost academic interest in the taxonomies of the animal and plant kingdoms. The wheel of garlands, although differing somewhat in content, is an academic exercise as well, singling out the kinds of classical and classicizing motifs that only a connoisseur would fully appreciate. The painted pergolas of the Medici tend towards a visual encyclopedia of zoology, ornithology, and botany, reflecting their strong interest in collecting and natural history.11 The Grotto of Buontalenti (1574) in the Boboli Gardens, designed by Bernardo Buontalenti for Francesco de’ Medici and decorated with frescoes by Bernardino Pocetti, has a three-chambered structure, each featuring a different illusionistic pergola. The first chamber, fashioned as a rustic grotto peopled with animals and creatures associated with a bucolic context, is presented as a painted menagerie, most likely intended to display animals in the Medici collection (Figure 3.7). The vault has an oculus at the center, and painted rocks and vegetation form the pergola frame. A gazelle, a lynx, leopards, and goats (Cosimo I’s sign of the zodiac) are depicted in a precise, scientific manner, along with Pan with a reed pipe and satyrs. This painted menagerie forms a pendant to the Grotto of Animals at the Villa Medici at Castello, which is a display of animals in sculpture. The second chamber contains

Figure 3.7 Grotto of Buontalenti, Boboli Gardens, Florence, 1574. First Chamber, dome.

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the group sculpture of Paris and Helen (1560) by Vincenzo de’ Rossi, with a rose trellis with birds painted on the walls of the exedra behind them. The third chamber contains the statue of Venus emerging from the waves (1570) by Giambologna. On the dome is depicted a vine pergola with diamond latticework showing the pale blue sky through the oculus. A “window” in the latticework echoes the real window across from it, and on the walls are depicted plants whose stems form an undulating curved pattern. These representations in various artistic media were not just the reflection of the enthusiasms of a single family; they brought to the fore a broad cultural trend centered on the relentless acquisition of knowledge and specimens in the Age of Discovery, accompanied by an intense interest among the European aristocracy and a concomitant trend to professionalize those who sought to codify this brave new world.12 The pergola as an expression of the Medici’s scientific interest is especially manifest in the garden pavilion (1576–1577) at the Villa Medici on the Pincio Hill in Rome, which houses a visual encyclopedia of flora and fauna in the guise of an illusionistic pergola.13 Constructed on the Aurelian wall, the eastern boundary of the property, as a retreat for Ferdinando de’ Medici, the pavilion comprises two rooms, called the Stanzino di Aurora and the Stanza degli uccelli after their decorations. The ceiling fresco of the Stanza degli uccelli, a room measuring six by six meters, is fashioned as a trellis where plants, birds, and animals are represented with scientific precision (Pl. 4). Jacopo Zucchi, to whom the fresco is attributed, appears to have modeled the decorative scheme on the precedents in the Palazzo Vecchio and the Boboli Gardens. However, in contrast to other illusionistic pergolas, which depict the sky glimpsed through the trellis, here there is no hint of a sky, or depth of any kind. On a plain white background, animals, birds, and plants, artfully arranged among the grid of the trelliswork, are painted with scientific precision. As Morel points out, the pergola reflects the scientific interest of the Medici, especially in botany, zoology, and ornithology, and the white background may have been adopted for the purpose of emphasizing its character as a scientific illustration.14 For one thing, the plain background evokes the paper on which the illustrations appeared in printed copies of natural history treatises; for another, the animal and bird specimens are shown in repose, and mostly in profile, the better to recognize their identifying characteristics. A total of 58 botanical species and 108 zoological and ornithological species are represented.15 The birds can be identified by consulting the ornithological encyclopedias of Pierre Belon and Conrad Gessner, especially the latter.16 Identifying the sources of information on the plants is more challenging, but the early illustrated botanical treatises including those of Otto Brunfels and Leonhart Fuchs, as well as Mattioli’s commentaries of Disocorides, served as references.17 The scientific depiction of the plants and animals transforms the entire vault into a three-dimensional visual encyclopedia of natural history. Here the playful multivalence of other examples of the genre is minimized; overt religious, occasional, or political symbolism seems to be entirely absent. Instead, what we see is a different kind of semantic complexity immersed more deeply than before in the realm of intellectual inquiry: an awareness of a newly emerging kind of institution, the museum of natural history, in which specimens were arranged along walls and across ceilings; and a recently established class of scientific books on botanical and faunal subjects. More will be said about this new efflorescence in the visualization of scientific inquiry in Chapter 6. The decoration also resonates with the Villa Medici’s garden, where pergolas and trellises existed along with a menagerie.18 The most striking difference between the illusionistic pergolas in Rome and those created in northern and central Italy is the nature of the space they decorated. Those in

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other regions were decorations of fully enclosed interiors. A number of examples in Florence had some connection to the outdoors, such as their location in a garden pavilion or a grotto. In Rome, the liminal nature of the architectural spaces decorated with the illusionistic pergola was acknowledged from the start. In northern and central Italy, such semi-interiors start appearing only after 1550, the Loggia degli aranci at the Palazzina Marfisa (1559) in Ferrara among them, and, highly likely, under the influence of Roman precedents. Although the Villa dei Vescovi (1542) had loggias painted with vine trellises, these covered only the walls and did not extend to the ceiling; thus the spatial logic appears to have been somewhat different from the loggias in Rome and Lazio.

The second period of illusionistic pergolas in Rome Rome regained momentum as an artistic capital under Paul III Farnese (pontificate, 1534–1549). The Vatican once again became an important hub of artistic activity, and commissions increased under the subsequent popes Julius III Del Monte, Pius IV de’ Medici, and Gregory XIII Boncompagni. From 1550 we see the second period of the efflorescence of the illusionistic pergolas. This period saw not only the appearance of the genre across a broader geographic region, but also the emergence of a number of artists specializing in the depiction of nature. During the first period, Giovanni da Udine monopolized the commissions of the genre, but now each work was executed by a different artist, Pietro Venale or Prospero Fontana at the Villa Giulia, Matthijs Bril at the Vatican Loggia, and Antonio Tempesta at the Villa Farnese. As we have seen, a separate strand of painted pergolas developed in Florence from around 1550. The Florentine and Roman traditions converged in the garden pavilion of the Villa Medici in Rome, when Ferdinando de’ Medici commissioned Jacopo Zucchi to paint a fictive pergola in one of the rooms. Zucchi was an artist in the workshop of Vasari. Another artist from the same workshop, Cristoforo Gherardi, painted the loggia (ca. 1550) of the Palazzo Vitelli at Città di Castello.19 The decoration consisted of a vine pergola peopled by mythological figures including Neptune and putti. The rich variety of the fruit and vegetables, along with birds and animals, evokes the Loggia of Cupid and Psyche at the Villa Farnesina, most likely the source of inspiration for Gherardi, who was in Rome around 1543. The Vatican saw the return of the illusionistic pergola in the First Loggia of Gregory XIII. Under Gregory XIII Boncompagni (pontificate 1572–1585) was built the second wing of the Vatican Loggias, adjacent to and continuing the existing four-storied first wing, but articulated in eleven bays instead of thirteen. Designed and executed by Ottaviano Mascherino, Lorenzo Sabbatini, and Matthijs Bril, the decorative scheme of the First Loggia of Gregory XIII (1575)20 was modeled on the First Loggia of Leo X, adopting a similar alternating pattern of vault decoration (Figure 3.8). In its eleven bays, vaults III, IV, VI, VIII, and IX were painted as fictive pergolas, while vaults II, V, VII, and X were painted with coffers. But unlike the First Loggia of Leo X whose central vault (vault VII) carried a coffer vault bearing the name of the pope, here the central vault (vault VI) depicts a pergola in the manner of a quadratura, an innovation that appears to have no correlate in real pergola architecture. Masonry balustrades with intertwining plants merge architectonic and organic design elements. Vaults I and XI, at both ends of the Loggia, also carried a pergola of the quadratura type. This type of pergola was not seen in the First Loggia of Leo X. The quadratura-type pergolas on vaults I, VI, and XI (Figure 3.9) can be attributed to Ottaviano Mascherino, while Matthijs Bril would have been responsible for the plants and the birds.

Figure 3.8 First Loggia of Gregory XIII, decorative scheme of the vaults.

Figure 3.9 First Loggia of Gregory XIII, vault IX. Photo © Musei Vaticani.

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Vaults III and IX, and VI and VIII were symmetrically designed, each pair carrying the same type of trellis.21 As with its earlier counterpart, the painted vegetation emphasizes exuberance and abundance. Apart from the use of the quadratura-type pergola, a number of other aspects of the loggia show a departure from its precedent. The sky is painted in a pale blue or is full of clouds, in contrast to the vibrant azure of the vaults in the First Loggia of Leo X.22 While Giovanni da Udine confined his fauna to small birds and animals familiar in everyday life, Matthijs Bril introduced exotic species such as the turkey in vault IV and the parrot in vault IX. The turkey not only evokes the New World and the introduction of new species to Europe but also the territorial expansion of Christianity.23 The dominant plant species are jasmine, red and white roses, and vine, typical climbing plants that had already appeared in earlier representations of pergolas. The trellis forms appear to be inspired by Giovanni da Udine’s pergolas but have become more elaborate and refined. Vault IX combines carpentry with carved woodwork, anticipating the painted pergola at the Palazzo Altemps. This detail may be attributed to Bril, who was most likely familiar with the northern tradition of carved woodwork.

Pergolas in sixteenth-century gardens A continuing interest in semi-interior spaces partially open to the outdoors throughout the sixteenth century and beyond is manifested in the popularity of pergolas and green walkways in the garden alongside their fictive counterparts in porticated spaces. An important characteristic of the second period is the strengthened connection between the painted pergola and its immediate referent, the garden, which accommodated pergolas and trellises. Real pergolas became more elaborate in design and even imitated monumental architecture. One popular type was the cruciform pergola with a domed pavilion at the crossing, the arms pierced with windows for views out onto the garden. An early example is found in a project drawing by Baldassare Peruzzi (ca. 1527) (Figure 3.10).24 It shows a plan of an urban garden, of an irregular quadrangular plot bordered by public streets on two sides; the garden has intersecting paths on which a cruciform pergola has been superimposed. The pergola consists of diamond latticework vaulting supported on masonry columns. The crossing pavilion accommodates niches at the diagonals, one of which was adorned with a fountain. Peruzzi’s form takes a strikingly experimental pose, representing in its outlines only the surface of a vaulted structure while minimizing or utterly erasing the thickness of walls and the volumes of piers or buttresses. It was, in effect, pure form without mass or structure. Pergolas served as an alternative to masonry porticoes and arcades in the circulation system of the garden. They also provided agreeable spaces for entertainment, in particular, outdoor dining, as many contemporaneous representations of courtly life demonstrate. A closer examination of the prominent examples of real pergolas in the mid-sixteenth century – those in Paul III’s giardino segreto in the Vatican Gardens, in the Ghinucci Garden on the Quirinal, and at the Villa d’Este at Tivoli – will highlight the lively interaction between architecture and ephemeral garden structures.

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Figure 3.10 Baldassare Peruzzi, plan for an urban garden with a pergola, ca. 1527. Uffizi 580A. Polo Museale Regionale della Toscana – Gabinetto Fotografico.

The giardino segreto of Paul III The popes not only provided political and social stability in Rome but also set the tone for artistic and cultural patronage. From the early sixteenth century, gardens created in the Vatican became a model for landscape design.25 Documentation of these gardens includes details of pergolas. Papal archives relevant to the Vatican Gardens refer to a maintenance or renewal project under Paul III in the garden of his predecessor, Clement VII Medici (pontificate, 1523–1534).26 Documents dating from December 1541 to August 1542 record payments for wooden columns and wires, most likely replacements, as well as repairs to the shutters of a structure supporting myrtle and roses.27 The shuttered structure would imply a pergola walkway made of carpentry with windows at regular intervals.28 This pergola, when it was first created, appears to have been freestanding, without any relation to other garden structures or to the interior of the palace. The systematic use of pergolas in garden design in Rome starts in the giardino segreto29 of Paul III in the Vatican Gardens. Constructed in the late 1530s and early 1540s, this garden, referred to as the giardino novo (new garden) in the papal accounts, to distinguish it from the giardino vecchio (old garden) of Clement VII, falls in between the first and second periods of the illusionistic pergolas.30 Jacopo Meleghino, architect and supervisor of the Belvedere and Antiquities under Paul III, was responsible for its creation. The cruciform pergola in the giardino segreto of Paul III is one of the earliest documented examples of a pleasure pergola in Roman gardens. It is still visible in a view of the Belvedere created by Mario Cartaro in 1574, in which the garden of Clement VII is designated by the letter K, and the giardino segreto of Paul III, located at mid range to the right, by the letter L (Figure 3.11).

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Figure 3.11 Ambrogio Brambilla after Mario Cartaro, The Belvedere Garden in the Vatican, from Antonio Lafréry and Claudio Duchetti, Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae, engraving, 1579. Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Rom.

A contemporary parallel is the large cruciform pergola in the Riario gardens in the Trastevere, recorded in Anton van den Wyngaerde’s panorama of Rome of about 1540 (Figure 3.12). This pergola does not appear to have a crossing pavilion, but the carpentry framework of the tunnel-like arms show the hoops (cerchi, from which the word cerchiata, meaning a pergola held together by cerchi in early modern Italy, was derived) commonly used in pergola structures at the time. Garden furnishings for supporting climbing plants – pergolas, trellises, and espaliers – were important design elements in early modern gardens. These served not only the practical function of providing necessary support for the plants but also the aesthetic and social function of display. The giardino segreto of Paul III was planted with a variety of trees, many of them supported on espaliers. After the leveling of the terrain in July 1537,31 citrus and other fruit trees were planted. The citrus trees, mainly the much sought-after melangoli (bitter orange), were procured in Naples.32 From there, in November 1537, 1,500 of them were transported by ship to Rome.33 Meleghino oversaw the transportation of these trees from the Ripa, the port of Rome on the Tiber, to the Belvedere.34 Giovanni Ladro, vineyard keeper, procured fruit trees of diverse

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Figure 3.12 Anton van den Wyngaerde, Panorama of Rome, ca. 1540. Detail with the Riario garden in Trastevere. Hermann Egger, Römische Veduten, II, Vienna, 1932, pl. 112.

species.35 From November 1537 through March 1538, plantings continued; Meleghino was paid for supervising the overall work in the garden, and Romolo Lucerta, gardener, was paid for making espaliers for the citrus trees.36 Pomegranates and laurels were also trained on espaliers.37 Artisanal knowledge and vernacular craftsmanship played an important role in the creation of garden furnishings including pergolas and espaliers. The carpenters and craftsmen who were involved in their design remained largely unknown, but there are exceptions. The maker of the cruciform pergola, constructed along the intersecting paths, was Hieronymo (Girolamo), called “Il Bologna” in the accounts.38 This Hieronymo appears to be a different person from the Ferrarese architect Girolamo da Carpi, described by Vasari as a skilled carpenter and a specialist in treillage, who designed pergolas and pavilions for the Villa Carafa on the Quirinal, rented by the Farnese and subsequently the Este, the latter of which we will discuss more in the section on the Villa d’Este at Tivoli. Patron and artist networks provided channels of transmission of forms and avenues of further activity for the artists. Hieronymo “Il Bologna” and Meleghino are also documented working in the Quirinal villa, during the period when it was rented to the Farnese; in 1549, he was paid for the construction of a pergola there. In October of the same year, just before the death of Paul III, Hieronymo “Il

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Bologna” was paid for the remainder of the amount allocated for the construction of the pergola.39 The Farnese and Este gardens were undergoing a burst of imported creativity whose center of gravity was in the north, for Jacopo Meleghino and Girolamo da Carpi were both from Ferrara, and Hieronymo obviously was from Bologna. Paul III’s pergola in the giardino segreto exhibits a lively interaction between high architecture and vernacular craft. In constructing pergolas, carpenters were imitating high architecture, applying motifs and structural principles borrowed from stone architecture and combining them with light, diaphanous, and translucent materials and surfaces. The carpentry framework covered with plants created an alternative architectural space, which offered strollers the agreeable experience of being immersed in nature while being protected from the sun. Sixteenth-century maps have recorded sufficient details to reconstruct the form of green architecture. In the maps of Rome by Mario Cartaro (1576) and Etienne Dupérac (1577), we see Paul III’s cruciform pergola, composed of a domed crossing and four barrel-vaulted arms, all covered with vegetation, serving as a shady walkway in the enclosed space of the garden. In Dupérac’s map, we can even distinguish the carpentry ribs of the structure. In the view of the Belvedere (Figure 3.11), we see window-like openings piercing the sides of the four barrel-vaulted arms. Regular openings such as these enabled the strollers to gain a view of the garden during their promenade through the vegetal tunnel; we may presume that they were shuttered to limit the intrusion of direct sunlight into the shaded corridor.40 Connecting different structures and spaces by means of tunnel-like passages and creating a circulation network between multiple architectural and landscaped spaces appears to be a prominent characteristic of Paul III’s architectural projects. A vaulted underground passageway was dug in 1538, connecting the giardino segreto of Paul III to the giardino vecchio of Clement VII. The vault of this underground passageway was painted.41 Probably provided with natural light, it would have evoked the ancient Roman cryptoporticus. The pergola too, with its repeating windows and long barrel vaults, may have been conceived as a reimagining of the ancient Roman cryptoporticus above ground, but with the added “ecclesiastical” motif of a dome at the crossing. Paul III also constructed a walkway connecting his villa of Aracoeli on the Campidoglio, also designed by Meleghino, to his residence at the Palazzo of San Marco (subsequently called the Palazzo Venezia).42

The Ghinucci garden on the Quirinal The pergola appears to have become a fashion in Roman gardens by the mid-sixteenth century; celebrated gardens in and around Rome reveal a particular taste for the cruciform type, including those on the Quirinal Hill in Rome. The Villa Carafa on the Quirinal acquired the cruciform type with a domed crossing pavilion, as we see in a fresco in the Salone at the Villa d’Este at Tivoli.43 The villa on the Quirinal, the property of Oliviero Carafa, cardinal of Naples, was rented to the Farnese around the time of the creation of the giardino segreto of Paul III and subsequently to the Este, eventually passing into papal hands.44 Under the Este, several garden structures including pergolas were constructed by Girolamo da Carpi and other carpenters.45 Giovanni Colonna da Tivoli’s drawings for the Ghinucci garden on the Quirinal reveal interesting ideas on the relationship between architecture and garden structures. His sketchbook in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, containing design drawings for

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Figure 3.13 Giovanni Colonna da Tivoli, plan of a pergola for the Ghinucci garden (1554). Vat. Lat.7721, 15r. © 2015 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.

this garden, enables us for the first time to move closer to the subject and understand details of the treillage pergolas that were created in this period.46 The drawings record practical details for a cruciform pergola in the Paolo Ghinucci garden on the Quirinal Hill located across the street from the Villa Carafa.47 Folio 15r, bearing the note the garden of M. Paulu Gianucci,48 shows the plan of a quadripartite garden with a cruciform pergola (Figure 3.13). The pergola is composed of a crossing pavilion and four arms, with niched parapets at regular intervals. The pavilion has an octagonal plan about 6 meters (20 piedi) wide, and each of the four arms is about 9 meters long (30 piedi) and 3 meters wide (10 1/2 piedi).49 The parapets were to be convenient for leaning on with arms crossed, about 1.2 meters (4 1/4 piedi) high.50 This anticipates that strollers would pause to appreciate the view of the compartments. In the four compartments stand ornamental treillage structures in the form of obelisks (of which only two are shown).51 Folio 15v, bearing the note “of M. Paulu Giannucci on Monte Cavallo,”52 shows the crossing pavilion53 and the obelisk54 in elevation, the details of the diamond latticework of the dome and the niche of the crossing pavilion,55 the parapet, and an armature formed by multiple beams (Figure 3.14).56 A note indicates that the four arms were to be entirely covered with ivy.57 Folio 16r shows further details in section of the construction of the barrel-vaulted arms, the

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Figure 3.14 Giovanni Colonna da Tivoli, details of a pergola for the Ghinucci garden (1554). Vat.Lat.7721, 15v. © 2015 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.

fastening of three chestnut beams with pegs at nine points to form the curve of the vault. If these structures were built at all, they have not left any material trace, but the drawings are suggestive of the high level of technique achieved in the craft of carpentry in this period. The minute measurements and details of construction reveal a practical concern. These drawings would have been working drawings for the carpenters, who were to assemble the pergola on-site. These carpentry pergolas had come far from the utilitarian pergola; they were much more elaborately designed and often combined multiple functions to provide a garden experience fully engaging the senses. The Ghinucci pergola was not just a simple structure providing a shady promenade and a support for climbing plants in a pleasure garden. The niches of the crossing pavilion were intended for specific functions.58 A handwritten note on folio 15v indicates that, at the four corners of the central pavilion, there were to be fountains, and above these, netted cages for birds. Not only the fresh air and the scent of the vegetation, but also the view and the sound of water combined with the song of birds orchestrated a sensuous experience of nature. The garden was to be perceived not only by means of visual cues but also aural, olfactory, and haptic cues as well. A carpentry pavilion housing a fountain and an aviary may have been born of a lively exchange of design ideas between Italy and France in this period. The idea of

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the garden fountain and pavilion would have been transmitted to France around the turn of the sixteenth century by Pacello da Mercogliano, a Neapolitan gardener recruited by Charles VIII to create gardens in France. The French king was impressed by the beauty of Italian gardens during his Italian campaign and felt the need to import the Renaissance style garden in his home country, which hosted a particularly strong tradition of bird culture. At some point, the fountain and the birds appear to have converged in the carpentry pavilion. Antonio de Beatis, chaplain and scribe of cardinal Louis of Aragon, traveled with the cardinal to France in 1517–1518 and described in his travel diary an elaborate pavilion of carved wood in the garden of the Château of Gaillon (1503–1510) designed by Pacello.59 This pavilion, located at the central intersection of paths in the compartment garden, not only housed a fountain, as Antonio de Beatis mentions, but also accommodated aviaries in the four netted projections at the diagonals.60 In Rome, however, the idea of birds in a garden pavilion may also have been derived from antique inspiration. We may think of this structure as a Renaissance interpretation of Varro’s Aviary, which had become well known by 1550 through Pirro Ligorio’s reconstruction. This type of pergola with the combination of treillage, vegetation, fountain, and aviary was to become a popular design element of the villas and gardens in Rome and its environs from the mid-sixteenth century onwards. The domed crossing of the cruciform pergola may also have been inspired by a traditional form in high architecture, the centralized church plan of the Latin cross. A contemporary model was not far to seek: St. Peter’s, for which a Latin-cross plan was adopted after proposals of a Greek-cross plan. The overall design coincided conveniently with the intersecting pathways in a quadripartite garden. A rectangular plot divided into four compartments by intersecting paths was the basic plan for the secular pleasure garden, and this also had an ecclesiastical origin: the medieval cloister garden. A striking characteristic of this kind of pergola is that the structure was designed to be a visual focus of the garden; as such, it was furnished with details worthy of a monumental structure. Already in the early decades of the cinquecento, the pergola in Peruzzi’s drawing contained the essential components of a focal structure: the cruciform design with central crossing pavilion accommodating one or more fountains. The latter feature calls to mind the wellhead often found at the crossing in monastic cloisters. Obelisks were an overt nod to antiquity and were used as ornaments in architectural design from the early sixteenth century.61 And as we have seen, aviaries were added not just to enhance the aesthetic experience, but to enrich the intellectual and cultural discourse surrounding the pleasure garden. The domed cruciform pergola embodies a tension between the architectonic and the organic, as well as the ambiguity between indoors and outdoors. While combining the elegant artistic motifs and compelling volumetric allure of high architecture, the actual structure – a light, diaphanous, translucent vault made of organic materials and permeable to dappled light, breezes, and the sounds and smells of the garden – offered an immersive experience unlike any other. This is nature trained to imitate architecture, but it imitates in a radically collaborative way, creating illusion without deceit. The painted loggias and their kin, by contrast, present a more studied and complex kind of allusive experience. Not only do they take the referential mise en abyme of artifice one step further – now architecture imitates nature imitating architecture – but they strive for a higher degree of realism while simultaneously weaving into the web a rich iconography of the unreal: metaphor, symbolism, embodiments of allegory, myth, and even pure fancy. These take the viewer beyond the pure pleasure of direct experience

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into the realm of a thinking man’s game. Both types of semi-interior spaces would become regular features of villa design in the second half of the sixteenth century: the organic structure creating an interior in the midst of the outdoors, delighting the senses with direct experience, and the tectonic surface creating an illusionistic exterior in the indoors, ripe and redolent with allusion. Within easy access, and sometimes view, of each other, they could hardly have avoided creating a dialogue.

The Villa d’Este at Tivoli The Villa d’Este at Tivoli (1550–1572), together with the Villa Giulia and the Villa Farnese discussed in Chapter 4, is significant to our study for its systematic incorporation of real and fictive pergolas in the overall design. The villa was created for Cardinal Ippolito II d’Este of Ferrara by the architect and archaeologist Pirro Ligorio.62 Among the wealthiest cardinals of the time, second only to Cardinal Alessandro Farnese in terms of income,63 Ippolito supported his lifelong artistic patronage and collection of antiquities with his extraordinary wealth. Tivoli offered a unique opportunity for archaeological excavations, as the region was dotted with remains of ancient Roman villas. Ligorio was employed as the cardinal’s archaeologist and conducted investigations of the nearby Hadrian’s Villa. Ippolito’s interest in pergolas is already evident in the Villa Carafa on the Quirinal, which he rented in 1550. This villa had acquired a pergola under the Farnese, who were renting the property before the Este.64 Ippolito expanded and improved the garden and commissioned Girolamo da Carpi (1501–1568), an architect skilled in the art of carpentry, whom Ippolito brought to Rome in 1549, to work on the pergolas, trellises, and pavilions.65 A view of the Quirinal garden by Girolamo Muziano in the Salone (decorated 1565–1569) of the Villa d’Este shows the pavilion in the form of a pedimented quadrifrontal arch without projecting arms, with an octagonal drum and dome surmounted by a lantern.66 Agostino del Riccio (1541–1598), in Del giardino di un re, which remained unpublished until the twentieth century, comments on Ippolito’s lavish expenses on his gardens, mentioning that “he spent nine thousand scudi for the nails that make the semicircular hoops for the barrel-vaulted cerchiate (pergolas).”67 Girolamo da Carpi is an exceptional case in which the creator of a carpentry pergola is acknowledged as an artist by a contemporary arbiter of taste. Vasari’s evaluation of him is as follows: As Girolamo also delighted in architecture, he designed many buildings for private individuals, and served Cardinal Ippolito of Ferrara in this respect, who had bought the garden of the cardinal of Naples at Montecavallo in Rome, surrounded by numerous vineyards. Girolamo was taken by the cardinal to Rome, and served him not only in the buildings but also in the truly regal woodwork of the garden, to the amazement of all. Indeed, I do not know of anyone who could surpass him in wood, his works were afterwards covered with beautiful verdure.68 Verdant architecture was a key component also at Ippolito d’Este’s other villa, the Villa d’Este at Tivoli. Two real pergolas (ca. 1565)69 are documented there: a pergola led from the entrance gate on the north side of the estate to the walled enclosure of the compartment garden, where at the intersection of paths stood a cruciform pergola. Represented in Etienne Dupérac’s etching (1573) of the Villa d’Este, the cruciform pergola played an important role in the axial layout of the garden (Figure 3.15).70

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Figure 3.15 Etienne Dupérac, Villa d’Este at Tivoli, 1573. Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1941. 41.72.(3.64).

Its northwest-southeast axis corresponded with the central alley bisecting the garden longitudinally. Dupérac’s bird’s-eye view shows that this axial path was the most direct approach to the villa building from the north entrance. From below, the axial vista was composed of the cruciform pergola, the bridge over the fishpond, the stairs through a planted area, the Fountain of the Dragons, and a series of three small fountains leading up the hill to the villa building. Sixteenth-century visitors explored the garden from both below and above. The approach from below, entering from the gate located at the lowest end on the northwest side, offered a dramatic view along the garden’s central axis culminating in the towering villa building at the top. The pergola’s role was similar to that of the pergola at the Villa Giulia, which, as we shall see, served as the villa’s ceremonial corridor of approach, linking the landing point on the Tiber to the via Flaminia and directing visitors towards the villa building. In a similar way, the pergola at the Villa d’Este established a goal-oriented path, indicating the direction to follow in order to reach the building, which could only be glimpsed through or over the greenery.

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In addition to setting the central axis, the pergola also provided a sensuous spatial experience of verdant architecture. French traveler Nicolas Audebert toured the garden from above.71 This approach, then as now, enabled the visitor to gain an overall view of the sloping garden before descending into it. Audebert’s description of the pergola at the Villa d’Este is suggestive of the contemporaries’ perception and experience of green walkways. He notes that the pergola was high and as wide as a garden path,72 which suggests that it would have been of a scale, in both width and height, that offered ample walking space for a man of average stature. Thus the pergola is perceived within the kinetic experience of walking and strolling, as a continuation of the garden allée as it were, like an allée having the same width but covered with a ceiling and walls of vegetation, so that it assured the continuation of the promenade and the rhythm of walking. The garden path becomes an alternation of open and covered spaces, allowing for a variegated spatial experience. The vault of the pergola was covered with vine and the sides were lined with espaliered fruit trees. In light of parallels recorded in Giovanni Colonna’s or Peruzzi’s drawings, it is highly likely that the cruciform pergola at Tivoli also included water features. The octagonal pavilion at the crossing and the four octagonal pavilions in the compartmented beds would most likely have housed small fountains. Ippolito would no doubt have been familiar with French garden pavilions made of carpentry, which often included such features. Given the patron’s strong connection to the French court, certain components of French gardens probably served as inspirations for the design of the Este gardens at the Quirinal and at Tivoli.73 Audebert mentions that the tennis court at the Villa d’Este was of French influence and that this one and another in Ferrara were the only examples in Italy at the time.74 The crossing pavilion of the cruciform pergola may even have accommodated small aviaries or netted cages of birds. Here again the pergola not only engaged the visual sense but also the aural, olfactory, and haptic senses as well, enhancing a sensuous garden experience. The pergola and its subsidiary structures borrowed forms from stone architecture. Constructed along the intersecting pathways that divide the square compartment garden planted with herbs, the carpentry pergola’s four arms were barrel-vaulted tunnels, with arched openings at regular intervals on the sides. As depicted in Girolamo Muziano’s fresco in the Salone of the Villa d’Este (Figure 3.16), and Raffaellino da Reggio’s fresco in the loggia of the Palazzina Gambara (decorated 1574–1576) at the Villa Lante at Bagnaia,75 the crossing pavilion was a two-storied octagonal structure with a dome. Each of the four compartments of the square garden was further divided into four parts by intersecting paths, at the center of which stood a single-storied octagonal pavilion with arched doorways and a lantern dome. At the end of the paths on the edge of the compartment garden stood pedimented portals also made of carpentry and covered with vegetation. The cruciform pergola in the Villa d’Este garden was more than just an ornamental structure. Its complex structure and sophisticated design made it an alternative architecture in organic materials. Dupérac’s etching confirms the details shown in the frescoes. Thus the pergola and its subsidiary structures at the Villa d’Este borrow forms from stone architecture – the arch, the dome, the pediment, the barrel vault, and the octagonal plan. At Tivoli, we see the coordinated use of real and fictive pergolas, which we will discuss in more depth in Chapter 4. Responding to the real pergolas in the garden, an illusionistic pergola was created in the villa building.76 The ground-floor corridor of

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Figure 3.16 Girolamo Muziano, view of the garden at Villa d’Este at Tivoli, ca. 1568. Salone, Villa d’Este at Tivoli.

the villa building, fashioned as a cryptoporticus with raking windows, was conceived as a pendant to the real pergolas.77 The corridor’s ceiling decoration in mosaic and painted stucco, which has survived from the cinquecento only on a section of the vault, represents a pergola intertwined with vine and roses and inhabited by birds (Pl. 5). Notwithstanding the relatively good condition of the surviving fragment, this vault has not yet attracted much scholarly attention.78 The diamond trellis covered with vine bearing fruit and roses in bloom were typical features observed also in the painted pergola at the Villa Giulia. The ceiling decoration was conceived in coordination with the three rustic fountains lining the wall (Figure 3.17). Although they exhibit a certain degree of variety, they were not designed to evoke a recognizable landscape like the fountain in the Salone, which bears a view of the round temple at Tivoli rendered in mosaic and painted stucco. Nonetheless, the corridor fountains, like the pergola, are decorated in mosaic and colored stucco and bear a stylistic similarity to the fountain in the Salone. The entire ensemble would have been by the hand of Curzio Maccarone. The corridor embodies the now familiar concept of the ambiguity of indoors and outdoors. The representation of plants and birds in the mosaic and stucco pergola resonated with the real pergolas in the garden, which were covered with vine and other

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Figure 3.17 Villa d’Este at Tivoli, ground-level corridor, rustic fountain.

plants and probably housed fountains and aviaries. The fountains add a new layer of complexity to the discourse of the portico. On the one hand, waterplay tends to evoke the exterior and the garden, but long Mediterranean tradition also associates water sources with numinous interior spaces, caves, and grottoes.79 The fountains in the corridor, with their rustic pumice-encrusted niches, clearly evoke the latter. Yet

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simultaneously, the arches enclosing the central fountain niche suggest a garden espalier, each voussoir representing a citrus tree “trained” within it. The citrus motif accords with the theme of Hercules and the garden of Hesperides played out in the fountains and grottoes in the garden. Hercules was a favorite figure in Renaissance villas,80 but here it was also a reference to Ercole d’Este, a prominent member of the Este family. We may also recall that the cruciform pergola in the lower garden was lined with citrus trees on the sides. Draped over the fountain is a massive stucco swag heavy with fruit. The birds in the mosaic and stucco pergola echoed the real birds in the aviaries in the treillage pavilions in the garden, as well as those that perched and sang and flew freely among the foliage of the pergolas. We should also note that the illusionistic pergola ran transverse in relation to the longitudinal axis set by the real pergola in the garden. The pergolas, both fictive and real, may have been arranged more systematically than they appear at first sight; they were created to act as semantic and aesthetic counterpoints to one another. The ground-floor corridor was an explicit reference to the antique, its raking openings at regular intervals in the barrel-vaulted ceiling, imitating the ancient Roman cryptoporticus, as Vincenzo Scamozzi confirms in the section on loggias in his treatise L’idea dell’architettura universale (1615): The ancients were aware that walking in the open air was beneficial for the health, so they created public and private porticoes, both above and under ground; some of those built above ground, being covered with vegetation, were nonetheless called cryptoporticoes. At the Villa d’Este at Tivoli, there is a cryptoportico . . . extending all the length of the rooms on the first floor, along which are arranged fountains whose waters provide a pleasant murmur.81 The rooms on the garden level were designed as an enfilade, with doors on the garden side leading to adjacent rooms. The corridor would have been part of the original monastery complex, but the decoration of the ceiling and the addition of the three fountains indicate it was redesigned as a strolling space all’antica. And it would have been interpreted as such by contemporaries. Scamozzi acknowledges the preference of the ancients for semi-interior strolling spaces such as porticoes and cryptoporticoes and emphasizes that walking in loggias and galleries – the contemporary equivalents of porticoes and cryptoporticoes – is also beneficial for the health. He also observes that porticoes and cryptoporticoes in ancient Rome were often decorated with painted vine forming a fictive bower overhead. The corridor at the Villa d’Este follows this model, transforming a monastic corridor into an intellectual space for the appreciation of art and cultured conversation. The connection to the antique was also expressed by reference to classical mythology. As we just saw, the central fountain in the corridor bears the citrus motif. In the context of the villa’s broader iconographic program, these fruits represent the golden “apples” won by Hercules in the Garden of the Hesperides. The citrus fruit is a leitmotiv in the entire iconographical program of the villa, resonating especially with the decoration of the Grotto of Diana in the garden, which also had a stylized bower of orange fruit and leaves executed in mosaic. The iconography of the rustic mosaic-and-stucco pergola in the corridor raises a puzzle. In between the diamond trellis patterns, the pergola has blank white spaces where birds or other figures are represented. The largest of these blank spaces shows a winged allegorical figure with a trumpet from which is suspended a banner. The figure seems to hold another trumpet or similar object in the left hand; the bell of the

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instrument would have been below the hand, but this part of the image is lost and crudely patched. A smaller, poorly preserved figure hovers to the right. An impulsive reading might suggest a herald angel preceded by a cherub, but two factors discourage this interpretation. In Renaissance and Baroque art, a winged figure with two trumpets, one in use and the other in the idle hand, most likely represented the allegory of Fame. She may also be represented with just a single trumpet. As for the “cherub,” this figure seems to have undergone extensive patching and repair, as the irrational clustering of large and small tesserae would suggest. And the tone of its body, to the extent that the body can be delineated, is decidedly gray when compared to the warmer flesh tones of the herald. What is this flying figure beside the personification of Fame? One clue to our problem may be provided by the Fountain of the Owl in the garden. On its attic, two winged figures support the Este coat of arms bearing heraldic eagles. On the fountain itself, a stone eagle presides at the crown of the pediment between two fleurs-de-lis, while two others flank the fountain on either side. The Este eagle is one of the most frequently repeated motifs in the entire villa. Appearing also on the Fountain of the Sleeping Nymph in the entrance courtyard, the Alley of the Hundred Fountains, the Fountain of the Dragon, the ceramic tiles on the Oval Fountain’s basin, and the mosaic pavement just off the Water Organ, it is omnipresent in the garden, and especially in conjunction with water features. Together, these figures make sense. In the illusionistic pergola in the loggia at the Palazzo Altemps (1592), a winged figure with a trumpet is depicted beside putti playing with the heraldic animals of the Altemps (goat) and the Orsini (bear) (Pl. 19). Thus the shadowy figure to the right of the Allegory of Fame at the Villa d’Este may logically have been the heraldic animal of the Este, namely the eagle, as an accompanying harbinger of glory. In addition, the eagle sometimes accompanies Herculean imagery in Roman art as a symbol of Jupiter, the hero’s father. Cardinal d’Este’s virtue would thereby have been acknowledged in the world of artistic and cultural patronage, if not in the real world of ecclesiastical bureaucracy. The corridor fashioned as a crypoporticus would have been conceived not primarily as a visual encyclopedia or a picturegame of mythological references, but rather as the locus for the celebration of the patron – in praise of his virtue, his culture, his connoisseurship of the antique – and ultimately his achievements in the hierarchical world of papal Rome. We will see a recurrence of this more overtly political approach to the genre in Chapter 5. Just as real pergolas sought to evoke the grandeur of stone architecture without an excess of imitation, blending the suggestion of axiality and directionality with freedom of movement, so the fictive pergolas on the vaults of arcades or fenestrated corridors were cognitive and semantic halfway-places, merging the structured kind of behavior and symbolism attached to formal architecture with the more relaxed, less regimented character of the outdoors. Here the imagery of myth, science, and ideology mingled with the lush verdure of the garden. More often than not, these two formats coexisted in a single villa or palace compound, the one gently encouraging the exploration of the other, though perhaps never by direct reference. Their mingled components of “inside” and “outside,” woven together into simple or sumptuous fabrics to please the eye and stimulate the mind, were intuitively understood, but the very presence of both domains so abundantly evoked in one place encouraged dual thinking that paired all that is local, proprietary, and familiar (inside) with all that is foreign, contested, and strange (outside).

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Notes 1 Giulio Romano executed the classicizing stucco decoration of the loggia (1525) of the Villa Baldassare Turini (Lante) al Gianicolo, which bears some resemblance to a trellised pergola. But the coffers with vegetal motifs appear to represent the trelliswork in highly abstracted form. On the loggia of the Villa Lante al Gianicolo, see Carunchio and Örmä 2005, 133–150. 2 Bibliotheca Hertziana U.Pl.D 67019 (first bay with grotesques and pergolas motifs). 3 Seccomani 2012. 4 On the Villa Emo, see Gasparini and Puppi 2009; Poggendorf 1995. On the Villa Barbaro at Maser, see Howard 2011; Burns 2008; Crosato 2004; Azzi Visentini 1996. 5 On the Sala a Fogliami at the Palazzo Grimani, see Bristot 2008, 90–99. 6 Camillo Mantovano (Camillo Capelli) was a painter active in the mid-sixteenth century. His date of birth is unknown. He was probably born and trained in Mantua. From 1534 to 1537 he is documented at the Villa Imperiale in Pesaro, working on the decoration of the villa under Girolamo Genga with Francesco Menzocchi and Raffaellino del Colle. In 1539 he went to Venice and probably stayed there until his death in 1568. Vasari describes him as a painter “specializing in landscapes and nature, . . . excelling in the depiction of scenery, flowers, foliage, and fruit.” See Vasari, Milanesi 1881, VI, 318; VII, 18; Thieme-Becker, Künstler Lexikon, V, 537. 7 On the Sala delle asse, see Fiorio and Lucchini 2007; Kemp 2006, 167–178; Palazzo 2015; Paoli 2013. 8 Allegri and Cecchi 1980, 49; Morel 1991, 59. 9 See Allegri and Cecchi 1980, 49. Vasari describes the decoration as follows: il Bachiacca andato al servizio del duca Cosimo, perché era ottimo pittore in ritrarre tutte le sorti d’animali, fece a Sua Eccellenza uno scrittoio tutto pieno d’uccelli di diverse maniere e d’erbe rare, che tutto condusse a olio divinamente. Fece poi di figure piccole, che furono infinite i cartoni di tutti i mesi dell’anno (Vasari 1966, VI, 455). 10 Allegri 1980, 179–180. 11 For the Medici, painting was a means of displaying the collection. The Tribute to Caesar by Andrea del Sarto in the Salone of the Villa Medici at Poggio a Caiano and The Gathering of Manna by Bachiacca depict in scientific manner a variety of domestic and exotic of animals, many of which were from the animal collection of the Medici. 12 See Lazzaro 1990, 179; Lazzaro 1995. 13 See Morel 1991, 45–88; especially on the pergola as a catalogue of nature, 63–88. 14 Morel 1991, 76. 15 Morel 1991, 64, Figure 71. 16 Belon 1555; Gessner 1555. See Morel 1991, 66–71. 17 Morel 1991, 71–76. 18 See Butters 1991c, 351–410; Butters 2010. 19 Dacos 1989, 67–68; Dalla Ragione 2009. 20 On the First Loggia of Gregory XIII, see Hess 1935; Hess 1936; Morel 1991, 60–61. 21 Vault III with vine and the turkey may have been the model for a vault in the cloister of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, fashioned as a vine pergola inhabited by birds, attributed to Francesco Nappi and dated to around 1615–1616. 22 Hess 1935, 1272. 23 Partridge reads a similar symbolism in the turkey in the illusionistic pergola at the Villa Farnese at Caprarola. See Partridge 2001, 278. 24 See Coffin 1991, 127. 25 On the Vatican Gardens, see Campitelli 2009. 26 Clement VII’s garden is depicted in Mario Cartaro’s view of the Belvedere (1574). 27 Archivio di Stato di Roma, Camerale I, Tesoreria Segreta 1290, Fol. 39: (a di 25 Novembre 1541) e piu scudi nove baiocchi sessanta pagati al p.to Lucerta per pagar’ cento colone di legno, et 42 filagnole p refar parti delli Telari delli spallier’ di mortella et di rose dell giardino vecchio di Belveder’ 9.60. Fol. 40: (a di 17 Decembre 1541) e piu scudi decedotto baiocchi venti pagati a Lucerta p pagar’ colonne 142 di legno et 151 filagnola comprate per refar’ parte delle gelosii’ alle spallier’ di mortella et di rose nel horto vecchio di Belveder’ 18.20.

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Fol. 40: (a di 23 Decembre 1541) e piu scudi otto baiocchi 27 1/2 pagati a Lucerta p pagar colonne 77 di legno et filagnole 50 comprati p refar parte alle Gelosii’ alle spalliere di mortella et rose nel horto vecchio di Belvede’ 8.27 1/2. Fol. 46: (a di 24 Genaro 1542) e piu scudi sedici pagati a Lucerta p pagar’ 152 filagnole et 72 colonne di legno comprati p refar’ parte alle spalliere’ di rose et mortelle del horto vecchio di Belveder’ 16. Archivio di Stato di Roma, Camerale I, Tesoreria Segreta 1290, Fol. 49: E piu deue’ dar’ a di 18 Marzo 1542 scudi venti pagati a m.o Hierony.o falegname’ et comp.o a buon conto delle Gelosie che fanno alle spalliere’ di rose del horto vecchio di Belveder’ 20. Fol. 50: a di 4 Aprile e piu scudi quindici pagati al p.to Lucerta p darli a m.ro Hieronymo falegname’ a buon conto delle spallier’ che fa di novo nel horto vecchio di Belveder’ 15 e piu scudi otto al p.to Lucerta p comprar’ 800 para di cerchi p far parte delle gelosie del p.to horto di Belveder’ 8. Payments to Hieronymo, carpenter, for the fixing of the pergola continue until August 14, 1542. The giardino segreto was a term for enclosed private gardens in Italy, usually of a formal design, located close to the residence building. From January 22 to July 15, 1536, there are payments to Christoforo da Ogia, mason, for the leveling of the terrain for the construction of the “giardino novo.” See Dorez 1932, t.2, 20–61. First mention of work after the leveling appears on July 15, 1537, when Meleghino is paid for ropes that were used in digging ditches in the new garden. On September 22, 1537, Ioanni Aloysi, gardener, is paid for making a trip to Naples for the purchase of citrus trees. See Dorez 1932, t.2, 148 (Fol. 75a): et piu a di 22 detto (1537) scudi 10 pagati a don Loysi, giardiniere di Belvedere, per le spese di andare a Napoli per melangoli et altri arbori di agrumi da piantare nel giardino novo di Belvedere. On November 15, 1537, Giovanni da Castelamare, boatman, is paid for transporting the trees from Naples. Dorez 1932, t.2, 161 (Fol. 81b): et piu scudi 26 baiocchi 50 pagati a Giovanni da Castelamare, barcarolo, per sua mercede di havere condotto 1500 piante de arbori, de agrumi dal Regno per piantarle nel giardino novo di Belvedere. Dorez 1932, t.2, 162 (Fol. 82a): 16 novembre, 1537, et piu scudi 3 baiocchi 90 pagati al predetto Meleghino per tanti che ha spesi delli soi in far portare da Ripa in Belvedere tutti li agrumi venuti da Napoli. Dorez 1932, t.2, 162 (Fol. 82a): 16 novembre, 1537, et piu scudi 4 pagati al predetto Meleghino per pagarli a Giovanni Ladro, vignarolo, per diece arbori de diversi frutti che ha robbati per piantarli nel giardino novo di Belvedere. Dorez 1932, 162–196. Dorez 1932, 249 (Fol. 125b): 12 ottobre 1538, et piu scudi 10 pagati a don Antonio, giardiniere, per darli a Luca suo nepote per haverlo adiutato a refare alcune spalliere di melangoli, melegranate et de lauri in Belvedere. Dorez 1932, 282 (Fol.12a): 13 marzo 1544, et piu scudi 21 pagati al Bologna, falegname in Borgo, per pagare 210 travicelli di castagno per far parte delle spalliere de melangoli de l’horto novo di Belvedere. Dorez 1932, 296 (Fol. 19a): 3 giugno 1544, et piu scudi 15 pagati al Bologna, falegname, per lo prezzo de 1500 para de cerchi comprati per far pare delle spalliere de melangoli nel horto novo di Belvedere. Dorez 1932, 304 (Fol. 23a): 17 luglio 1544, et piu adi 19 scudi 20 pagati al Bologna falegname a bon conto delle spalliere che’l fa nel giardino novo di Belvedere. Coffin 1991, 180–181. See Campitelli 2009, 67. Dorez 1932, 185 (Fol. 93b): adi primo Febraro 1538, et piu scudi 10 baiocchi 35 pagati al Meleghino per pagare opere 79 poste a cavare la terra sotto la volta che va dal giardino novo di Belvedere nel vecchio. Dorez 1932, 246 (Fol. 124a): 5 ottobre 1538, et piu adi 7 scudi 10 pagati a mastro Jacomo, pittore, a bon conto della pittura che’l fa nella volta della via che passa da l’un giardino nell’altro di Belvedere. Coffin 1979; De Michelis 2010. On the pergola at the villa Carafa, see Coffin 1991, 180–181.

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44 In 1536, the Farnese were already renting the villa Carafa. In 1545, Orazio Farnese renewed tenancy for another five years. See Coffin 1979, 189–190. 45 See Coffin 1991, 180–181. 46 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Ms. Vat.Lat. 7721, fols. 15r, 15v, and 16r. Published in Micheli 1982, 39–41, 64–65. Folios 15r and 15v are published in Coffin 1991, 178–179, figs. 147 and 148; Frommel 2005, 84, figs. 8 and 9. 47 Coffin 1991, 127, 178–181, 190–191. Andrea Fulvio’s Antiquitates Urbis (1527) mentions that Girolamo Ghinucci, auditor of the Camera and elected cardinal in 1535, owned a vigna on the Quirinal. From Giovanni Colonna da Tivoli’s sketchbook with the date of 1554, we know that the garden was in the possession of Paolo Ghinucci, who still owned the property in 1562. By 1565, Tommaso Ghinucci, architect and hydraulic engineer, had acquired it and gave the land to the cardinal of Ferrara as an expansion of his villa across the street. 48 GIARDINO.DE.M.PAULU.GIANUCCI. 49 Lengths are converted into metric units, based on the measurement system in use in the Papal States (1 piede = 0.298 m). See Guidi 1839. 50 questi parapetti so(no) da pog(g)iare alle braccia. 51 One of the obelisks is accompanied by the note, “obelisco di cerchj.” “Cerchio (sing.)/cerchi (pl.)” was originally used to mean the wooden hoops placed at regular intervals to hold the carpentry pergola together. By this time it had become the term for treillage structures in general. A derivative, “cerchiata,” was also used to mean treillage structures. Another contemporary term for the carpentry pergola was “cocchio.” See Campitelli 2009, 68. 52 de Me(sser) Paulo Giannucci/ a m(on)te Cavallo. 53 8 angoli sopra li a(n)ditj / et sopra le fonti et vciellere. 54 ci passa u(n) travjcellotto / p(er) mez(z)o come colon(n)a / armata di pezzi. 55 “filagnoli” is used to mean the diamond trelliswork. “no 16” beside the dome most likely indicates the sixteen ribs with which it is to be composed. 56 vere est isto armato. 57 viale d(e)l giardino et per tutto sta ed(e)ra. 58 From the upper left corner it reads, clockwise: fonte; fonte; di sopra gabia; vcellera sopra. 59 Antonio de Beatis 1979, 113: In the middle of the garden is a very beautiful fountain with marble urns chased with figures and a putto on top; water is thrown very high from a number of sources. It is enclosed in a large pavilion of carved wood, very richly decorated in pure azure and gold. It has eight sides, each terminating in a half-dome, and is very spacious and magnificent. 60 Loisel 1912, I, 285: Au Gaillon, l’archevêque de Rouen, Charles VIII de Bourbon, frère naturel de Henri IV, possédait un grand parc “bien muré et fourny d’orangers, de fontaines à grandes cuves de marbre qui coulaient en divers endroits, et d’un delectable jardin avec fruitiers, grands cyprès, et vollières d’oyseaux.” Ces dernières flanquaient les quatre côtés d’un elegant pavillon octogone, surmonté d’une calotte sphéroidale qui s’élevait au milieu du jardin; elles renfermaient, entre autres: des faisans, des paons, des perdrix, des outardes, des pigeons, et des “poulles daindes.” (Citations drawn by Loisel from A. Deville, Comptes de dépenses de la construction du Château de Gaillon, Paris, 1850.) 61 See Curran 2007; Curran 2009. Later, in the urban planning of Sixtus V (1585–1590), obelisks were used as markers and visual foci, in St. Peter’s Square in 1586 and in the Piazza del Popolo in 1589, both by Domenico Fontana. 62 On the construction of the villa see Coffin 1960, 3–13; Coffin 1979, 311–340. Ippolito was the second son of Duke Alfonso I d’Este, third duke of Ferrara, and Lucrezia Borgia, daughter of Pope Alexander VI. He was nominated archbishop of Milan at age ten, and upon completion of his humanistic studies, sent to the French court. He held offices associated with the French court and enjoyed various ecclesiastical privileges resulting from his close ties with France. In 1550, following his first failure in the conclave, He was appointed governor of Tivoli by Pope Julius III. He purchased land adjoining the governor’s residence, which was part of the former Franciscan convent built on the remains of a Roman villa. In 1555, after a second disappointment in the conclave followed by an exile in Lombardy, he was reinstated as governor of Tivoli in 1559. He acquired additional plots of land and

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destroyed existing buildings including churches to procure land for the garden. The leveling of the terrain, the installation of the water system, and the layout of a grid of perpendicular paths were carried out from 1563 to 1565. Ligorio supervised the work on the fountains from 1567 to 1568 executed by Curzio Maccarone, the most prominent fontaniere of the time and, with other humanists in Ippolito’s circle, established the iconographical program of the villa to celebrate the Cardinal’s lineage and virtue. On Cardinal Ippolito II d’Este’s biography and financial aspects of his life, see Hollingsworth 2004; Hollingsworth 2008. See Coffin 1991, 180–181. Payment for a pergola in the Villa Carafa was made in 1549 to architect Jacopo Meleghino and in 1550 to the carpenter Girolamo “Il Bologna,” who took over and completed the structure. Coffin 1979, 203; Coffin 1991, 53. Coffin 1979, 316–317; Ribouillault 2005. On Girolamo Muziano and the representation of nature and landscapes, see Tosini 1996; 2001; 2008. Del Riccio, Agostino in Heikamp 1981, 85: haveva speso novemila scudi in chiodi per far cerchiate a mezza botte. Vasari 1966, vol. V, 418, Girolamo da Carpi: E nel vero non so chi altri si fusse portato meglio di lui in fare di legnami [che poi sono stati coperti di bellissime verzure]. See Coffin 1960, 16. Coffin dates the pergola in 1565, from a payment document of March 28, 1565, to the carpenters Mattheo and Jacomo for constructing the two pergolas. On the pergola at Tivoli, see Barisi, Fagiolo, and Madonna 2003, 73ff. See Audebert 1981, 69–87. Audebert, 85, 1001–1004: Continuant cest allee, on entre dessoubz une fort haulte treille contenant la largeur de l’allee, et est couverte de lierre, croysee d’une aultre pareille treille qui passe au travers, au milieu desquelles ya une tonnelle fort haulte et large. (Continuing along this garden path, one enters a very high pergola having the width of the garden path, and covered with ivy. It intersects with another pergola extending transversally. At the crossing, there is a very high and large carpentry pavilion.) Pergolas in the gardens of Blois have been recorded by Antonio de Beatis, chaplain and scribe of cardinal Louis of Aragon, who traveled with the cardinal to France in 1517. Antonio also describes the garden at Gaillon with an aviary and an impressive fountain pavilion at the center of the main garden. See Antonio de Beatis 1979, 111–114, 134. Nicolas Audebert mentions a “jeu de paume” at Tivoli at one end of the villa building, which he describes as one of the two he has seen in Italy, the other at Ferrara. Nicolas Audebert 86, 1053–1056: Au bout du palais, du coste qui regarde les champs, il y a un fort beau Jeux de Paulme qui est chose remarquable en Italie parce que ce jeu n’y est en usage, et n’y en ay veu aultre que cestuy cy et un aultre qui est a Ferrare. Coffin 1979, 343. The description of the garden of the Villa d’Este at Tivoli, probably written around 1571, mentions a number of pergolas and pavilions of verdure. See Coffin 1960, 142–150. Coffin also notes the purchase of wood for the repair of the pergola in the Secret Garden. See Coffin 1960, 99, n. 13: Jan. 17, 1587, 7.68 scudi “per sedici Arcarezzoli condotti a Tiuoli et seruite alla Pergola del Giard.o secreto” (Archivio di Stato di Modena, Registri del Card. Luigi d’Este, Pacco 183, Registro de mandati, 1587, f. 41r). See Lamb 1966, 81. Carl Lamb refers to the decoration of the ceiling together with the fountains, referring to the use of materials such as stone, pebbles, and shells to evoke the rustic nature of the ambience. See Lamb 1966, 81. See Lavagne 1988. Hercules is included in the decorative program of the Villa Farnese at Caprarola, in the ceiling fresco of the loggia on the piano nobile. Scamozzi 1615, 328: Conoscendo gli Antichi quanto si convenisse alla sanita dell’huomo il passeggiare al fresco, pero facevano in publico, e in privato alcuni Portici sopra e sotto terra, perche gli uni, e gli altri erano freschi, & ombrosi ancora, che fussero sopra terra, chiamaronli indifferentemente Cripti Portici, e piu propriamente Grotti Portici: de’ quali ne habbiamo tocco nel Laurentino di Plinio Secondo: e de’ publici si puo dire, che siano quelli a lato sotto le Therme di Antonino nel Monte Aventino, e di Filippo Imperatore ne

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gli Horti di San Pietro in Vincola molto lunghi, e di honesta larghezza, & altezza, i quali havevano il lume per alcune lunette ne fianchi delle loro volte, & erano ornati di Pitture di Viti, e simili cose le quali fino hoggidi si sono conservate molto belle. A Tivoli nella Vigna d’Este (esempio delle cose delitiose, e belle) vi e un Cripto Portico sotterra, a lungo alcune stanze del primo piano del Palazzo, rincontro alle quali s’ergono diverse fontane, che rendono mormorio grandissimo. Questo Portico riceve lume ad’alto ne’ fianchi della volta, e le stanze sotteranee.

4

Pictorial fiction and cultural identity Villa Giulia and Villa Farnese

Illusionistic pergolas in Lazio (1550–1580) Between the year 1550, when work began on the Villa Giulia, and 1580, when the illusionistic pergola at the Villa Farnese at Caprarola was being painted, we see the rise of this genre outside of Rome, in the immediate suburbs and in the countryside of Lazio, where prominent families established bases for villeggiatura. These country residences of the papal and aristocratic families were located within an area of about eighty kilometers to the north and east of Rome, in the hill towns dotting the edge of the plain called the Roman Campagna. The illusionistic pergolas created outside of Rome, whether in the suburban area just outside the city walls or in the hill towns to the north and east of Rome, were no less impressive than those created within the city boundaries in terms of originality, artistic quality, and scale. The second period of the genre’s efflorescence is characterized by a heightened interest in real pergolas as an ornamental pendant to their fictive counterparts. As we briefly saw in Chapter 3, now pergolas started to imitate high architecture in earnest, borrowing forms and structural principles from it. No longer conceived principally as an architecture of seclusion, they were in several instances designed to be part of a larger circulation system of the estate. In such a system, painted pergolas were conceived to be in dialogue with their real counterparts in the garden. Indeed, the systematic arrangement of real and fictive pergolas within the same estate to serve as semantic and aesthetic counterpoints is a striking characteristic of this period, and it will be an important theme in this chapter.

The Villa Giulia The Villa Giulia (1550–1555), the suburban residence for Pope Julius III Del Monte located north of Rome outside the Porta del Popolo, is noteworthy for its use of the pergola as a key element in the design. The villa was designed by Giorgio Vasari, Bartolomeo Ammannati, and Vignola.1 Julius III planned the itinerary from the Vatican to his villa in such a way that he would be able to arrive at his villa without stepping onto properties other than his own. Plans for acquisitions of land in the Prati area, roughly across the Tiber from the villa landing, are documented.2 A private boat for crossing the Tiber was purchased in February 1551.3 A monumental pergola 178 meters long was constructed from the river landing on the east bank to the via Flaminia, where a fountain, the Fontana Pubblica, marked the entrance to the villa. The pergola is remarkable for its scale, which surpassed that of any ordinary garden structure and

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rivaled urban projects such as arcaded galleries and porticoed promenades. Bartolomeo Ammannati, in a letter of May 2, 1555, addressed to his artistic patron Marco Benavides in Padua, describes the pergola as follows: There is a pergola, barrel-vaulted or arched, extending to the river, covered with vegetation, 80 rods [178 meters] long. At its end was the port on the Tiber created conveniently for disembarking when Pope Julius III comes to spend time for amusement at this beautiful villa.4 From cinquecento maps (Figs. 4.1–4.2),5 the pergola appears to have been the type of the simple tunnel-like corridor commonly found in contemporary pleasure gardens, except that it was not located within the usual setting of a garden and that it was extremely long. The barrel-vaulted pergola type is often referred to as cerchiata in cinquecento sources, cerchi being the wooden hoops that fastened the structure together at regular intervals, which are visible in Dosio and Cartaro’s maps. It took nine months to construct this pergola: payment documents in the papal archives mention a Battista da Frosinone, carpenter, who received monthly payments from September 1551 to May 1552 for work on the pergola.6 The pergola immersed the visitor in the villa atmosphere immediately after the boat ride as a prelude to the authentic villa experience lying at the other end. Its tunnel-like form encouraged a linear movement towards the destination, with a purposeful and ceremonial directionality, but its essence as a structure made of timber and vegetation tempered this sense of purpose with the gentler, more muted signals of the garden. The villa’s surroundings, as recorded in cinquecento maps, were open land with no

Figure 4.1 Giovanni Antonio Dosio, Map of Rome, 1561. Detail with the Villa Giulia, via Flaminia, the pergola, and the Tiber River. Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Rom.

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Figure 4.2 Mario Cartaro, Map of Rome, 1575. Detail with the Tiber River, the pergola, the via Flaminia and the Fontana Pubblica, and the Villa Giulia. A. P. Frutaz, Le piante di Roma, Rome, 1962, vol. II, Cartaro Piccola, CXXV, tav. 237.

prominent structures other than the Fontana Pubblica and Sant’Andrea in via Flaminia. In this relatively featureless environment, the pergola functioned as the ceremonial approach to the villa and symbolically as a transitional path between city and country. To serve the practical purpose of a shady promenade linking the two worlds, its structure and vegetation were simple and organic. The walkway needed to provide not only protection from the sun but also the sensation of nature: not just shade, but the shade of leaves. Otherwise a canopy would have sufficed, not unlike the one depicted in the fresco in the Sala dei Fasti Farnesiani at the Villa Farnese at Caprarola, under which François I is shown receiving Charles V accompanied by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese.7 The Villa Giulia offers a unique spatial experience of immersion in the rustic setting, articulated by a series of pleasant surprises. One approached it from the Tiber walking through a long, barrel-vaulted pergola possibly perforated by windows that offered views to the right and left. At the far end, across the via Flaminia, the frontal image of the villa building, a rusticated triumphal arch motif repeated on a smaller scale on the upper story, reveals nothing of the arrangement of spaces that unfold inside. The villa’s plan is a repetition of semicircular and square components: the curved portico behind the main façade followed by the square courtyard, then the curved sunken nymphaeum8 followed by the square garden beyond. Pictorial decoration and nature elements further enhanced the atmosphere. The semicircular portico was decorated with an illusionistic pergola (Figure 4.3), and the lunate sunken nymphaeum was adorned with sculptures and a real pergola flanked by aviaries.

Figure 4.3 Villa Giulia, semicircular portico, view from south end.

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The fictive pergola painted on the annular vault of the semicircular portico is one of the finest examples of its kind.9 The attribution, however, is still contested. The papal accounts of the years from 1551 to 1555 mention the names of two painters, Prospero Fontana and Pietro Venale da Imola. Both have their advocates as the sole creator of this feature: while some scholars have argued for Fontana as the creator of the illusionistic pergola,10 others still attribute it to Pietro Venale, a somewhat obscure character.11 The latter’s most common appellation is an abbreviated form of Pietro Giovenale. In Thieme-Becker’s Künstler Lexikon, he is listed as Pietro Mongardini, with dates of birth and death yet unknown, and only briefly described as a grotesque painter and a stuccoist. He was employed in the Vatican from 1541 to 1568 and was a member of the Accademia di San Luca from 1576 to 1583. If we accept this description, his profile appears strikingly similar to that of Giovanni da Udine, also a specialist in the depiction of nature and grotesques, as well as a skilled stuccoist. Pietro Venale’s membership in the Accademia di San Luca can be taken as a certain degree of guarantee of his painter’s skill. The representation of plants and especially of the birds in the painted pergola of the Villa Giulia presupposes the presence of a painter skilled in the depiction of nature motifs and animals. If Fontana was active mainly as a figure painter, Pietro Venale cannot be entirely eliminated from the involvement in the decoration of the semicircular portico. In the absence of evidence other than stylistic quality, here again there may have been the possibility of a division of labor between figure painters and painters specializing in natural motifs and grotesques. Under those circumstances, perhaps Prospero Fontana painted the putti and the satyrs, while Pietro Venale handled the trelliswork, plants, birds, and grotesques. If Giovanni da Udine can be considered the first painter in Renaissance Rome specializing in nature motifs and grotesque ornaments, Pietro Venale belongs to the second generation of such painters, who started to form a distinct identity from the second half of the sixteenth century. This generation included Matthijs Bril, Paul Bril, and Antonio Tempesta, who produced landscape paintings, a genre that became popular in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. All of them produced illusionistic pergolas in the major villas and palaces in and around Rome. The illusionistic pergola at the Villa Giulia borrowed from precedents but also introduced new elements as well. The combination of the painted pergola on the vault and the grotesques on the walls echoes the decorative system of the prototype at the Vatican, the First Loggia of Leo X. But with a continuous annular vault rather than a series of discrete vaulted bays, it presents a distinct spatial framework. Although decorated bands at intervals separate the annular vault into sections, the unity and continuity of the space are more important than in the Vatican Loggia. One inspiration would have been the annular ambulatory mosaic of Santa Costanza, which is divided into a number of sections, including two with vine harvest scenes. The painted pergola at the Villa Giulia is divided into nine sections: a central cross-vaulted bay at the entrance of the portico from the vestibule, and four symmetrical sections extending along either arm, all divided by white bands in relief that spring from pilasters on the wall and piers. The marsh reeds peopled by small birds and insects depicted on the white bands that separate the sections recall the candelabrum motifs in ancient Roman painting.12 These are flanked by narrower white bands that bear a meandering linear pattern intertwined with delicate plant motifs. The decorative program can be schematized according to the species of the depicted plants: (A) jasmine, (B) roses, and (C) vine. These three are the typical plants trained

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on real pergolas. They alternate regularly on the nine sections of the vault. The central cross vault bears the design of a treillage pergola covered with jasmine (type A). Adjacent to it, on either side, there are narrow sections with roses (type B). Following these on either side are long sections with pergolas covered with vine (type C). After these, narrow sections with roses appear (type B′). Finally, at the extremities on either side are the sections with pergolas covered with jasmine (type A′). Thus the entire ensemble can be perceived as having a rhythm of ABCBABCBA. The whole breaks down into two long sections with vine, three square sections with jasmine, and four narrow sections with roses. At first glance, the sections with vine appear to dominate because of their length, their central location in each arm, and their depiction of various species of large birds. However, the jasmine sections stand out by virtue of their square form, placement at the center and either end of the semicircular portico, as well as the playful putti depicted in pairs. The rose sections stand out especially for the red and white colors of the blooming flowers. Overall, the three plant species are given more or less equal emphasis, and their breakdown in unequal numbers and lengths may have been for the purpose of introducing variety. The depicted patterns of trelliswork also vary by section, but all of them bear some kinship to the vault of the real pergola across the courtyard. Hieronymus Cock’s print shows the view of the sunken Nymphaeum and the architecture beyond: the loggia with a serliana on the second story is covered by a carpentry roof intertwined with plants, which would suggest a shortened pergola of the kind depicted in the semicircular portico, complete with circular openings (Figure 4.4). But unusually, it served as the canopy over a monumental loggia-like hall incorporated into the piano nobile of the villa building itself, thus blurring the distinction between the real and fictive genres of the pergola. On either side stood symmetrical aviaries, creating an ensemble of nature on display.14 The type (A) pergola (Pl. 6) resembles the diagonal type in catacomb paintings, also observed in vaults V and IX in the First Loggia of Leo X. From a square opening at the center, painted carpentry ribs conforming to the groins of the vault radiate diagonally dividing the pictorial space into four triangular compartments. Each compartment has a lunette-shaped window delineated by the painted carpentry ribs revealing the sky beyond upon which are seated pairs of putti. Vermillion clouds dot the pale blue sky, suggesting dawn or sunset. The oculus shows a blazing gold sky with eight putti around the edge, two of which appear to be playing hide-and-seek. The design evokes frescoes painted with the di sotto in su technique, for example, the painted oculus of the ceiling of the Camera Picta by Andrea Mantegna. The remaining spaces are entirely filled in with diamond trelliswork made of thin splints (“filagnoli”) bound by withies. Type (A′) pergolas at the extreme ends of the two arms of the semicircular portico are identical in form to the type (A) pergola, except for the oculus, now a small opening in the treillage showing only small birds (Pl. 7). A cloudy, dusky sky is visible. Putti are gathering jasmine and putting it into a basket or a flat vessel or making a wreath with it. In three of the lunettes, beside the putti is depicted one large bird (eagle, pheasant, quail) together with a number of small birds. Small flags with the Del Monte emblem on them, held by a putto, add a dynastic touch. The formal arrangement of type (A) and (A′) pergolas reflects the catacomb tradition, particularly in the axial arrangement of the lunettes in relation to the central oculus or opening. Type (B) and (B′) pergolas bear the design of pergolas covered with red and white roses ( Pl. 8 ). A grid of large squares formed by carpentry ribs is filled in with diamond trelliswork. Three openings

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Figure 4.4 Giovanni Battista Falda, The Nymphaeum at the Villa Giulia, after a sixteenthcentury print by Hieronymus Cock. Le fontane di Roma nelle piazze e luoghi publici della città: con li loro prospetti, come sono al presente, disegnate et intagliate da Gio. Battista Falda; date in luce con direttione e cura da Gio. Giacomo de Rossi, Roma, 1675–1691. American Academy in Rome, Arthur & Janet C. Ross Library.

are depicted in the trelliswork: an octagon at the center and two squares rotated fortyfive degrees each near the haunches of the vault. A pair of putti occupies each octagonal opening. The sky in the type (B) pergolas appears to have more sun-gilded clouds than those in the type (B′) pergolas. The type (C) pergolas occupy large sections and bear the design of vine pergolas laden with black and white grapes (Pl. 9). Some of the vine leaves have turned, suggesting the autumn harvest season. Trelliswork is arranged as in the type (B) pergolas. The longitudinal edges on both sides of the section have four openings, octagonal, circular, circular, and octagonal, each revealing the blue sky.

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Along the crown of the annular vault are five openings, circular, diamond, elliptical, diamond, circular. The elliptical opening is further flanked by two more diamond openings. One of the elliptical openings features two fauns stealing grapes, a scene perhaps inspired by a celebrated passage in Statius’s Silvae (2.2.100–106) (Pl. 10). One faun has climbed onto the other’s shoulders and looks around furtively as he reaches for a bunch of grapes. Apart from this, no indication of a harvest is present. The putti of the Villa Giulia – some winged, some not – were a novel element in illusionistic pergolas at this time. Putti were present in the illusionistic pergola of the Villa Farnesina, many of them carrying various attributes of the gods; they were depicted as accompanying figures to the deities of the Olympic pantheon, who were the major players in the narrative, for filling in the spaces left over from the depiction of the mains scenes. The Villa Giulia marks their first known appearance in this context as major figures creating scenes of small everyday drama worthy of attention in their own right. Here they are also frequently represented in pairs, as they will be later in the Loggia of Cardinal Borghese. Charles Dempsey argued the invention of the Renaissance putto, plump male toddlers referred to as “spiritelli” in the fifteenth century, that first appeared in sculpted works by Donatello among others.15 Whether these are derived from ancient Roman pictorial sources cannot be ascertained, but the putti at the Villa Giulia bear a similarity to the winged cupids and psychai engaged in the crafts and other activities such as metalworking, perfume-making, fuller’s work, and chariot-racing in the miniature rendering of everyday activities in the putti frieze at the House of Vettii in Pompeii. They gaze out from the window-like openings, watch birds, and clamber over the trelliswork structure. One is urinating, and a couple of them appear to engage in sexual play. Interestingly, the idea of putti in Renaissance pictorial representation goes back to the founding father of our genre, but it finds expression in an entirely different medium. It can be sought in a now lost set of eight tapestries of the Grotesques attributed to Giovanni Francesco Penni and Giovanni da Udine, executed between 1519 and 1521, and another set of twenty tapestries known as the giocchi di putti designed by Giovanni da Udine and Tommaso Vincidor, intended for the Sala di Costantino at the Vatican commissioned by Leo X from Raphael and his workshop.16 The tapestries have been reconstructed by means of the preparatory drawings, cartoons, and sixteenth-century engravings, as well as later weavings. Raphael’s designs for both series had an antique source, Philostratus’s Imagines, a collection of essays describing sixty-five paintings displayed in Naples in the third century AD, of which one depicts Venus and erotes in a garden with trees, where they are playing and picking fruit (Imagines I.6). These tapestry designs, contemporaneous with the first period of the illusionistic pergolas, were woven in Antwerp, Bruges, and Brussels based on designs by artists in Raphael’s workshop; in spite of their shared lineage they do not appear to have had an immediate impact on the design of the illusionistic pergolas. The intersection between tapestries and painting can be observed from the 1540s when tapestry manufactories were established in Italy at Ferrara, Mantua, and Florence.17 The movement of ideas between textiles and fresco painting went in both directions. An instance of tapestry design inspired by fresco painting is the five-piece set Metamorphosis of the Gods, which depicted landscapes with gods and goddesses transformed into trees, plants, water, and animals, with each scene framed by two columns and an entablature.18 These were designed by Battista Dossi and were executed in the workshop of Jan Karcher in Ferrara around 1545. The inspiration for these compositions was the fresco in the Sala delle cariatidi (1529–1530) at the Villa

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Imperiale at Pesaro, where Battista Dossi and Dosso Dossi painted caryatids metamorphosing into trees that support a wooden panel framing the battle scene on the ceiling. It is also from the 1540s that we witness the appearance of tapestries representing pergolas and putti. The pergola existed as a motif in tapestries in the Netherlandish workshops, but it appears that it was the Italians who first peopled them with putti. Three tapestries from this period deserve mention, all belonging to the same series but woven in different workshops. The first is The Dance from the fourteen-piece Puttini series (ca. 1552–1557), woven in the workshop of Willem Pannemaker in Brussels, attributed to Giovanni Battista Lodi da Cremona, who acted as an adviser and agent for Ferrante Gonzaga.19 This tapestry shows an avenue fashioned as a pergola walkway with poles at regular intervals supporting the flourishing vine. It frames a portico at the end and leads to a city, most likely the Mantua of the Gonzaga. The vine forms an intertwined trellis-like bower overhead in a manner evocative of Leonardo’s painted mulberry bower at the Sala delle asse. Underneath the natural bower, putti are dancing. The second is also entitled The Dance from the fourteen-piece Puttini series, but a different weaving from the aforementioned (ca. 1540–1545, woven in the workshop of Nicolas Karcher, Mantua), and was designed by Giulio Romano, thus an Italian manufacture in the tapestry atelier sponsored by the Gonzaga.20 This is a circular, gazebo-like pergola supported by poles driven into the soil of the marshy terrain and covered with vine laden with heavy fruit. Putti dance underneath and frolic in the foliage. The diversity of fruits on the vine may have been inspired by Giovanni da Udine’s fruit swags at the Villa Farnesina. The third tapestry, The Barque of Venus-Fortune designed by Giulio Romano, is also from the set of the Puttini (ca. 1540–1545, woven in the workshop of Nicolas Karcher, Mantua).21 This too depicts a circular pergola covered by vine overhung with grapes and pears in a similar terrain. Tracking the ownership of the tapestries depicting pergolas and putti might reveal a more precise network of influences, but it is possible to formulate the following hypothesis. Putti were introduced into tapestries designed by artists in Raphael’s workshop in the 1510s. Sparked, perhaps, by the little erotes among the vines on the vault of Santa Costanza at Rome, the merging of putti and pergola in tapestries first appears in the 1540s in works designed by artists who formerly belonged to Raphael’s workshop, including Giovanni da Udine, Giovanni Francesco Penni, and Tommaso Vincidor, and in the examples manufactured in the Italian ateliers. The combination putti-pergola was subsequently incorporated into the design of illusionistic pergolas in the 1550s by artists who were up-to-date with the artistic production in multiple genres. If we accept this hypothesis, it is no wonder that the presence of putti among pergolas is characterized in a pagan, rather than a Judeo-Christian, mode. Never are these the cherubim that so densely peopled church vaults and chapel walls of the era; they remain the mischievous and rambunctious erotes of the Roman tradition. In general, Christian symbolism takes a muted role in fictive pergola iconography, while the pagan genre scene and its dramatis personae run rampant among the more forthrightly displayed elements of the here and now. That fact is significant in its own right. To the extent that devotion is reflected in this genre, it is manifested, if at all, through a more abstract symbolism, especially of fruiting or flowering plants. Both on the surface and beneath it, these were extroverted spaces that occasioned learned games of cultural and increasingly scientific association and recognition. They were frames from which one could pick, like so many grapes or roses, allusions to classical lore, contemporary society, and Christian faith – or references to an ever diversifying natural history. An anthropologist might distinguish between the profane, “etic” conceits of classicism

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and the sacred, “emic” abstraction of the Christian symbolism, seeing in these two phenomena the very duality of inside and outside that so thoroughly permeates the genre, but in truth, a thoroughly familiar and comfortable paganism was more at home here than any mode of religious experience. In a similarly binary mode, familiar plants and animals began to be interspersed with exotic imports of the kind that were gradually making their way into the consciousness of western society. The representation of the birds at the Villa Giulia portico marks this new direction towards classification, but in a decidedly Eurocentric way. While the animals and birds in the First Loggia of Leo X appear to have largely reflected Giovanni da Udine’s personal interest in familiar animals in the daily life of northern Italy, the pergola at the Villa Giulia features a more systematic selection of bird species according to two categories: large fowl depicted realistically except for their tendency to appear frontally when their position would suggest a vantage point di sotto in su, and smaller birds, many in flight, representing the common species in everyday life. Those from the first category are a peacock displaying its feathers, a cormorant about to feast on a fish, a stork stepping gingerly on a carpentry rib, a majestic cock with a red crest, a somewhat obscure parrot, and owls. These species are represented only once, except for the owls, and only in the type (C) pergolas covered with vine. In type (B) pergolas with roses and type (A) pergolas with jasmine, an eagle, a pheasant, and a quail are depicted, but far more numerous are swallows and other common species or cursorily drafted figures that convey little more than “birdiness.” Most of these species appear to have been familiar species already known in Italy, though the parrot would no doubt have drawn special interest. Perhaps the birds in the first category were among those that were kept in the aviaries, while those in the second category were seen in the garden and the surrounding countryside. In a sense the painted pergola may have been intended as a kind of bird guide, although it did not yet aim for a visual avian encyclopedia in the manner of the roughly contemporary Medici pergolas. The plants are all common varieties and thus in some cases susceptible to longestablished layers of meaning. The vine, roses, and jasmine are in full bloom or laden with heavy fruit, emphasizing abundance and prosperity. The vine and roses were common motifs in Christian iconography. To a viewer with particularly religious sensibilities, the vine was synonymous with Christ, and its wine with Christ’s blood. Its prominence in the painted pergola may also have been a simple elaboration on the Vigna Giulia, the productive lands that extended beyond the formally designed architectural complex. Indeed the pope was often referred to symbolically as the guardian of the Lord’s garden in the Christian sense. The red and white roses were frequently used in Marian iconography, the former symbolizing martyrdom and the latter virginity.22 Numerous paintings in the Renaissance depict the Madonna and child in a garden setting, where red and white roses are planted in the background or are trained on trellises, hedges, or pergolas.23 The jasmine, a plant with an agreeable scent, does not have an apparent connection to Christian iconography. Here it may simply have been included as a plant commonly trained on pergolas in Italy, as it is today. More important than the individual components in the overall design scheme of the villa appears to be the rich experience resulting from the cross-reference between water, flora, and fauna. Their manifestations in the artificial forms of fountains, pergolas, and aviaries orchestrated a sensuous experience of nature in a way that would not have been possible with stone architecture alone. The monumental carpentry pergola covered with vegetation led visitors from the landing point on the Tiber to the

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Fontana Pubblica on the via Flaminia through a tunnel of vegetation, enlivened most likely by the natural presence of birds. The Fontana Pubblica, the monumental entrance to the villa, accommodated behind its facade a fishpond surrounded by aviaries.24 Both are design concepts imbued with classical connotations. The semicircular portico of the villa offered a simulacrum of nature by means of its painted pergola featuring plants and birds that challenged the viewer to identify them by species, as well as an intellectual experience of the classical tradition through the grotesques on the walls and the putti in the painted pergola. It was a space for strolling, conversing, enjoying the painted decorations, and perhaps a bit of competition in the game of interpretation. Furthermore, the loggia beyond the sunken nymphaeum was covered by a pergola roof and flanked by aviaries.25 The systematic use of pergolas in the site planning of the Villa Giulia is apparent in their coordinated arrangement. The real and fictive examples set the rhythm for a variegated and sophisticated spatial experience. Nature and the outdoors were meant to be experienced by moving through space in a sequence of visual, aural, olfactory, and haptic sensations gained through movement. The first pergola, constructed as a ceremonial approach to the villa, may have been designed along the lines of the spatial arrangement of hide-and-reveal, also evident in the design of the built complex of the villa in its repetition of semicircular forms in different guises, which aimed to generate visual surprises. Walking through the lightweight, verdant tunnel was a prelude to another experience in the semicircular portico of the villa, which stood literally at the threshold of indoors and outdoors. The linear traversal of the monumental pergola anticipated a similar yet different annular movement in the semicircular portico of the villa. The experience of walking through a real garden feature was followed by that of walking through or pausing in its fictive equivalent, but simultaneously, one moved from the notional architecture of the pergola to the real architecture of the portico. Its tectonic vault was painted with a fictive pergola covered with vine, roses, and jasmine and inhabited by birds of various hues. While the physical exercise of walking stimulated reflection, the painted pergola encouraged the more interactive mental exercise of identifying the depicted plant and animal species along with their symbolism. Continuing across the court, visitors would then have encountered a third, similar structure, the trellis roof of the loggia on the east side of the sunken nymphaeum. Flanked by aviaries, it created a semi-interior space of greenery enlivened by the song of birds, which in turn opened up onto the planted garden beyond. The spaces created by the real and fictive pergolas offered a sensuous experience of nature, either in the form of real vegetation and birds in a light, airy, ephemeral structure under the sky or painted plants and birds on the tectonic surface in a more permanent architectural frame. All these spaces were transitional, but with varying sensory and intellectual demands. All were in dialogue with one another, but not necessarily by direct quotation or lines of vision; their kinship was made clear only through the process of movement and discovery. The systematic arrangement of the pergola, fountain, and aviary, one triad outside the villa proper and another inside it, created a rhythm of repetition in the spatial experience of the villa. The aviaries with real birds behind the Fontana Pubblica served as a prelude to the painted birds in the semicircular portico; these in turn anticipated the aviaries flanking the loggia beyond the sunken nymphaeum. From the Fontana Pubblica through the courtyard of the sunken nymphaeum to the structures on the far side, the Villa Giulia offered a sensuous experience of nature through the soft texture

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of water, vegetation, and bird netting set against the stone of architecture, the sculptural figures of the caryatids, and the reclining river gods. The architectural space of the Villa Giulia cannot be understood through the analysis of architecture alone. The pergola served as a key element in the kinesthetic experience of the villa, embodying the cinquecento sensibility to opening up the architecture towards the exterior and inviting nature into the interior. The pergolas at the Villa Giulia exhibit a coordinated perception of nature, as well as a desire to create mediating spaces with varying degrees of the blending of indoors and outdoors. As a kind of leitmotiv, they played a key role in orchestrating a sensuous experience of nature at the Villa Giulia.

The Villa Farnese at Caprarola The Villa Farnese at Caprarola is another key site for this study. Here at least three painted pergolas or bowers are known to us: first, in the annular portico of the groundfloor circular courtyard whose ceiling carried a now familiar type of pergola; second, in the “Corridoio del torrione” (Corridor of the Great Tower), a narrow corridor on the piano nobile, whose ceiling was painted with trees with intertwining branches forming a fictive bower overhead; and third, at the Fountain of Venus in the Winter Garden, whose vault was painted with a vegetal bower of fruit swags and birds. A monumental country residence of the Farnese family, the counterpart of their city palace in the Campus Martius, the villa was a synthesis of their artistic and architectural patronage.26 Located in the town of Caprarola, about seventy kilometers north of Rome and fifteen kilometers southeast of Viterbo, the estate was acquired in 1504 from Francesco Maria Riario della Rovere by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese senior, later to become Pope Paul III. Sometime before 1535, Alessandro Farnese senior commissioned designs for a rocca, a fortified castle, from Antonio da Sangallo the Younger and Baldassare Peruzzi. The original plan was to construct a hunting base rather than a villa. By the time of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese junior, grandson of the pope, an elegant country residence for entertaining was ever more in demand than a fortified castle. The construction of the pentagonal palazzo, the piazza in front and the twin formal gardens – the Winter Garden and the Summer Garden – directly behind it, dates from 1557 to 1573.27 Vignola, the architect employed in major Farnese building projects, was the chief designer of the estate. Especially for the interior courtyard, a variety of forms had been proposed – a pentagonal plan (Peruzzi), a circular or square plan (Sangallo), and a decagonal plan (Pacciotti) – but Vignola proposed a synthesis of all the plans, and the pentagonal form enclosing a circular courtyard was adopted in the end (Figure 4.5).28 The twin gardens were laid out at the same time as the construction of the pentagonal palazzo (1557–1560), while the upper gardens comprising a water chain, a giardino segreto, and a fountain garden beyond the casino were of later date (1578–1584).29 The casino and the water chain were created for the visit of Pope Gregory XIII in 1578. The Summer Garden had a real pergola covering the axial path that led from the palazzo to the Fountain of the Deluge. The construction of this pergola is documented in the “Libro delle misure del’Illustrissimo et Reverendissimo Farnese a Caprarola.”30 In this document, the Summer Garden is referred to as the giardino nuovo and the central pavilion as the tribuna. This suggests that the Summer Garden was laid out after the Winter Garden. Fabio Arditio, who accompanied Gregory XIII on his visit, provides a valuable contemporary account in his travel diary.31 He observes that the

Figure 4.5 Giuseppe Vasi, Villa Farnese at Caprarola, plan. Bibliotheca Hertziana – MaxPlanck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Rom.

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Summer Garden was not yet completed at the time of his visit. The fresco in the Palazzina Gambara at Bagnaia shows a barrel-vaulted tunnel pergola with an octagonal pavilion at the center (Figure 4.6). The arched roof would have been made of separate timber ribs attached to the wooden supports, and then covered with vegetation. The archival document mentions the “archareggie,” referring to the arched ribs of the dome of the central pavilion. Arditio also mentions another pergola supported by satyrs in front of the Fountain of the Deluge.32 The Winter Garden did not have a real pergola, probably because of its location on the north side, or its use in the winter season, which made such a structure unnecessary. But at the end of the axial path leading out from the palazzo was the Fountain of Venus, whose vault was decorated with an illusionistic bower (Pl. 11).33 Steps between the two gardens led to an agreeable shady walkway created by the foliage of the various species of trees – juniper, elm, and fir among them – and pergolas covered with vine.34 Arditio also refers to a terrace-like area near the summit of the hill surrounded by towering chestnut trees and enclosed by pergolas covered with ivy and other greenery.35 Real pergolas at the Villa Farnese, however, did not play the role of the ceremonial approach corridor as they did at the Villa Giulia or the Villa d’Este at Tivoli. Most likely they were not as elaborately designed in emulation of high architecture,

Figure 4.6 Painted view of the Villa Farnese at Caprarola. Villa Lante at Bagnaia, Palazzina Gambara.

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but rather were rustic structures derived from vernacular tradition. At the Villa Giulia and the Villa d’Este at Tivoli, the real pergola served as a prelude to the villa experience and established a visual and kinetic goal for the visitors. At Caprarola, the ideological function of attracting attention to the architecture of dynastic display was already fulfilled by alternative means. Vignola created anew the main street climbing up to the palace from the provincial road, and that street took on the function performed by the real pergolas at the other two sites. The street provided a ceremonial ascending approach and a framed view of the façade of the palazzo (Figure 4.7).36 While the real pergola preceded the villa experience at the Villa Giulia and at the Villa d’Este for those who entered the villa from the garden, at Caprarola the villa building came first. The structure in the Summer Garden does not appear to have had any other function than to provide a shady walkway between the planted compartments. But it may have echoed the pergola in the giardino segreto of Paul III in the Vatican Gardens or the illusionistic pergola in the circular portico in the villa itself. The pergola supported by satyrs in front of the Fountain of the Deluge was an extension of the grotto, which also served to provide shade for strollers. The vine pergolas along the path to the upper gardens appear to have been generic structures with little architectural distinctiveness. Alongside the historic, geographical, and mythological imagery that decorates the rooms of the palazzo, the illusionistic pergola in the circular portico on the ground level and the illusionistic bower in the Corridor of the Tower on the piano nobile are among the most distinctive and significant features in the villa’s decoration. In terms of scale, form, and design, the decoration of the annular vault of the portico surrounding the circular courtyard on the ground level is a prominent example of the illusionistic pergola we know from this period (Figure 4.8).37 At Caprarola, the classic combination of the painted pergola and grotesques, first established in the First Loggia of Leo X, and continued in the semicircular portico of the Villa Giulia, was split in two levels. The circular portico on the ground level depicted a pergola, while the one on the piano nobile was decorated with grotesques.

Figure 4.7 Painted view of the town of Caprarola and the approach to the Villa Farnese. Villa Farnese at Caprarola, vestibule.

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Figure 4.8 Villa Farnese at Caprarola. Circular portico, ground level (below), piano nobile (above).

Perhaps this reflects a hierarchy in the perception of certain artistic motifs, where grotesques may have been considered a noble form of decoration more appropriate for the piano nobile. Since the ground level was closer to the outdoors, the decoration reflected this proximity. The pianterreno, as it was called, was literally the level of the ground with which the portico formed a continuity in such a way that the elements of the outdoors flowed naturally, as it were, into the architectonic space of the portico. Neither the artist responsible for the decoration nor its date is known for certain. Faldi lists artists whose activities at Caprarola have been documented.38 Among them, only Jacopo Bertoja (1544–1573) and Antonio Tempesta (1555–1630) are known to

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have been skilled in the depiction of nature and landscapes.39 Partridge tentatively attributes the decoration to Tempesta. 40 Arditio describes the frescoes of the ground-floor rooms depicting the mythological origins of Caprarola and the four seasons, as well as the underground cistern beneath the courtyard, but makes no reference to the decoration of the ground-level circular portico.41 He only mentions that there were niches along the courtyard to accommodate statues and openings to provide lighting to the underground level. Either the decoration of a fictive pergola seemed too ordinary for comment, or it had not yet been painted. Given its impressive scale and artistic quality, the latter possibility seems more likely. Arditio in fact notes that some rooms on the ground floor were yet to be decorated. If we accept this hypothesis, we should exclude Jacopo Bertoja as the artist, as he died in 1573; thus we join Partridge in identifying Antonio Tempesta as the artist in charge, but with due caution. Given the similarities in the trellis frame in such mature examples as vault IX of the First Loggia of Gregory XIII and the Loggia of Palazzo Altemps (discussed in Chapter 5), this work can certainly be dated to the last quarter of the sixteenth century. Close examination of the iconography reveals several contrasts with its closest formal parallel at the Villa Giulia. There is more variety in the depicted treillage forms and plant species. While the painted pergola at the Villa Giulia expressed the temporal extremes of the day (dawn or dusk), here the passing of the seasons is given expression. In terms of formal composition, the decoration of the annular vault is composed of ten pairs of wide and narrow sections. As the ground-level portico is supported by ten piers alternating with ten arches, the wide sections correspond to the arched openings, while the narrow sections correspond to the piers. Our examination begins from the wide section that lies at the entrance from the vestibule. The appendix shows details of the pergola frame, the trellis pattern, and the species of the birds and plants in each section. The trellises of the painted pergola at the Villa Giulia and the Villa d’Este at Tivoli were relatively simple structures composed of a frame of carpentry ribs with surfaces in between filled in with diamond trelliswork of thinner splints. The pergola at Caprarola exhibits a far more elaborate design. All narrow sections (indicated by N in the appendix) are composed of trelliswork with a hexagon opening at the center and a square opening above and below it, flanked by side bands of diamond trellis. The wide sections (indicated by W in the appendix) display two types of trelliswork that are used alternately (Pl. 12). The odd-numbered sections exhibit a treillage pattern which can be described as “cartouche with fleur-de-lis,” as the pergola framework is composed of curvilinear and rectilinear forms resembling a cartouche. Within it a central frame contains a large bird with the Farnese fleur-de-lis at the four corners, a rectangle with semicircular reentrants, two on the long sides and one on the short sides, a form evocative of plans of Roman baths. The semicircular reentrants of the short sides are concave in sections 1W, 3W, 7W, and 9W, while in section 5W they are convex. The even-numbered wide sections exhibit a treillage pattern in which the central elliptical void contains a large bird, while on the four sides are a pair of elongated rectangles and another pair of rectangles with a projection resulting in the shape of a T, each one of the pair facing the other. This type, which can be called “oval surrounded by rectangles,” may have derived from the decorative patterns in catacombs, as it exhibits an axial arrangement of the squares and rectangles on the four sides in relation to the central oval. The trellis in the narrow sections resembles those in the painted pergolas at the Villa Giulia and may have been copied

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from real trellises in the garden. But the pergolas in the wide sections, especially of the “cartouche with fleur-de-lis” type, are composed of complex curves that are not seen in the previous examples. Although the pergolas on vaults III and IX in the First Loggia of Gregory XIII showed curved forms of carpentry, those at Caprarola took them further. They anticipate the elegant carpentry structure of the illusionistic pergola in the loggia of the Palazzo Altemps (ca. 1592). It is possible to suppose that there was a significant development in the art of outdoor carpentry in the second half of the sixteenth century that made such complex, swirling curves and elaborate patterns feasible. If that is the case, the illusionistic pergola can be read not only as a sophisticated form of pictorial art but also as a cultural document that swiftly mimicked the practice of the art and craft of garden furnishings. For the publication on the art of treillage, we must wait until André Jacob Roubo’s L’art du treillageur ou menuiserie des jardins (Paris, 1769–1775), which includes illustrations of elaborate forms and patterns. Giovanni Colonna da Tivoli’s sketchbook is the only extant visual documentation of treillage from the designer’s standpoint in the sixteenth century, but it does not show such complex curvilinear patterns as these. Adding to the complexity of the pergola framework, the trellis pattern in between the carpentry ribs also exhibits variety. The diamond trellis is the most frequently used pattern; it is found in all sections except for 1W and 9N. The next most used pattern is the orthogonal grid, which is seen constantly in all sections of the painted pergolas at the Villa Giulia and also at the Villa Medici. A new element introduced here is the scale pattern (sections 1W, 2W, 2N, 4W, 9N, 10W, 10N). This goes back to antiquity and was frequently used in mosaics, wall and vault paintings, and stone grillwork, especially parapets and transennas. In the Renaissance it again became a popular motif, especially in stonework and painting. At the Villa d’Este at Tivoli, it is used in the stereotomy of the balustrade overlooking the Oval Fountain. Birds, plants, and other natural features expressed an evocation of the rural life of the countryside. The birds depicted in the pergola at the Villa Farnese are mostly common domestic species, except for the turkey and the parrot. In general, there is a strong preference for the color white; white eagles, a white turkey, a white cock, and several other generic white birds are depicted. Birds framed by the central cartouche or the central oval appear to have been given more emphasis than others. These include an eagle (1W), white eagles (2W, 3W), a mallard duck (4W), and swans (7W, 10W). The other sections contain small, generic birds. Among other notable species are a white turkey, an owl, a cock and a white cock, a hawk, a falcon, a pheasant or partridge, and a quail. Except for the owl, these were birds for the table and consequently species associated with the rural life of the villa.42 Many small birds are represented in generic manner, perched or in flight. These were included more for their evocation of rusticity than for the realistic representation of an object of scientific interest. In contrast to Giovanni da Udine or Jacopo Zucchi, the painter of the illusionistic pergola at Caprarola appears to have had less interest in the scientific depiction of bird species. But that is not a serious hindrance for the evocation of the rural setting of the villa through the depiction of more common domestic bird species, especially those related to hunting. The depicted plants were also species familiar in the Italian countryside. In addition to the typical plants trained on the pergola, vine, roses, and jasmine – the three species represented in the illusionistic pergola at the Villa Giulia – the illusionistic pergola at Caprarola further features melangoli (Pl. 13, painted pergola, section 4), pomegranates, and blackberries. Blackberries appear to be an appropriate choice as a

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frutta di bosco, evocative of the wooded surroundings of Lazio, where every hunter would have encountered them in dense, almost impenetrable thickets. Butterflies are depicted among the blackberry leaves and spiraling stems. Glimpsed through the depicted trelliswork and the plants, half of the sections show cloudy skies, while the other half show pale blue skies dotted with white clouds. They do not suggest the passage of time in a single day, as in the pergola at the Villa Giulia. Although there are a number of sections with vine laden with grapes, sections 10W and 10N show leaves that have turned red and yellow, while the remaining sections show green leaves (Pl. 13, painted pergola, section 10). For its immediate proximity to the outdoors, the illusionistic pergola at Caprarola appears to be more of an evocation of the rural atmosphere associated with the villa life in the countryside. However, its symbolic function as a visual encyclopedia of birds and plants will become clear as we examine the space of the circular courtyard as a whole. The kinetic experience of the villa would have been as follows. After the ceremonial approach along the main street, which reveals only a narrow cropped view of the palace façade until one reaches the piazza in front, visitors on horseback would ascend the cordonata (stepped ramps) from either side to the ground-level entrance, while those in carriages entered from the underground. The underground level, designed by Vignola, served to accommodate the smooth entry of the visitors, as well as for housing utilities. It was a kind of garage in the modern sense, with the large pillar cistern carved hollow out of bedrock at the center serving also as a rotary for the carriages. Leaving the carriage, visitors took the spiral stairs to the ground-level and, as those who had entered from the ground level entrance had done, admired the vestibule with painted landscapes including two views of Caprarola (Figure 4.7). From here, before proceeding to the piano nobile, they would first have explored the circular courtyard with the illusionistic pergola. The pergola was, however, not the only decoration in the circular courtyard. Partridge brings to the fore its dynastic dimension by interpreting the courtyard as a space for the display of the Farnese family genealogy.43 His study includes a complete listing and scheme of the coats of arms displayed along the wall. The Farnese are represented with the two great powers in European politics, the Hapsburgs and the French Valois, to whom they were related through marriage. All other marriage connections are represented, including the Orsini, Aldobrandini, and the Portuguese monarchy. These marriages are also celebrated, with emphasis on the historic dimension, in the frescoes of the Room of the Farnese Deeds on the piano nobile.44 There, large panels of painted scenes present the Farnese family in an international context. Their illustrious members were represented as the key players and mediators of the two ongoing rivalries, France and the Hapsburg Empire, in the events that shaped the history of early modern Europe. The purpose of Partridge’s article was to demonstrate that the circular courtyard was intended as the culmination of the villa’s decorative program. Partridge proposes an interpretation of the illusionistic pergola within the framework of Christian symbolism and dynastic propaganda.45 According to his view, the decoration of the circular portico was primarily didactic. The eagle (1W) was a symbol of Christ and also stood for Pope Paul III. The turkey (1W) not only reflects geographic discovery and the introduction of new species to Europe but also the expansion of Christianity to the New World. The cock and turtledove (1W) imply vigilance and love. The owl, hawk, and swallow (1W) symbolize wisdom, victory, and redemption. The cat with a mouse in its mouth (1W) and a serpent (4W) represent the sin of mankind.46

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The leaves that have turned (10W) imply the cycle of the seasons, the passage of time, and the inevitability of death. Pomegranates symbolize the Church through which atonement is achieved, the white and red roses the purity and the suffering of the Virgin, the embodiment of the Church. Small generic birds and butterflies are age-old symbols of liberated souls. The impressive scale of the courtyard space, its painted pergola studded with emblems of Christian symbolism, matches the solemnity of the dynastic display of the coat of arms. Partridge’s interpretation points to an important iconographic dimension that probably concerned all painted pergolas created at the time. The depicted plants and birds were not just scientific species as the modern viewer would imagine, but each of them was coded with various symbolic meanings and cultural connotations, which the contemporary viewer would have understood or tried to decode. Christian symbolism would have played an important role in such iconographic schemes, as Partridge demonstrates in his article, given the fact that the painted pergolas were all commissioned by the princes of the Church. However, such symbolism is oblique and abstract, its religious meaning not openly expressed, and we must not leave unnoticed the other semantic layers, probably just as important as the Christian one. An additional framework of interpretation would have been provided by the reference to the antique. As Partridge also acknowledges, the eagle is not only an attribute of Jupiter, but became a symbol of Christ; in the Farnese context, the eagle and its association with Jupiter and his thunderbolts were adopted as the symbolic imagery alluding to Pope Paul III and his absolute spiritual power of excommunication.47 Butterflies represented flitting souls in antiquity and would also have been seen in connection to antique scroll reliefs peopled with small everyday creatures including insects. Roses would have been associated with the notion of beauty and love, as they were traditionally the flower of Venus. Citrus fruits would perhaps have evoked the myth of Hercules and the golden “apples” of the Hesperides and thus deification through virtue. Here as at the Villa d’Este, Hercules was a central figure in the iconographical program;48 the Sala d’Ercole, the loggia on the piano nobile overlooking the town and the landscape beyond, featured a ceiling decoration narrating the mythic origins of the local Lake Vico – Hercules striking the ground with his club, which resulted in the formation of the lake. The vine would have evoked not only Christ and the sacraments, but also Dionysus and the power of wine, not to mention ancient Roman villa life and agricultural production, familiar among the cultured class through ancient Roman agricultural treatises and contemporary vigne. Even the circular portico itself, intended as a visually stimulating promenade, evoked the ancient Roman ambulatio or peripatos, a space designed for contemplative strolling in circuits, for its own sake. A third framework would have been the evocation of the rustic setting, vernacular culture, and the landscape beyond the garden. The ordinary character of most of the depicted birds and plants suggests that the painted decoration may also have been intended to create an agreeable sensation of rusticity. It may also have served as a prelude to the expanding view over the countryside from the loggia of the piano nobile. Arditio relates that one ascended the ceremonial spiral staircase, the Scala Regia, to the piano nobile and toured the circular portico decorated with grotesques and with niches accommodating busts of Roman emperors. He comments on the loggia and the view it offered over the town of Caprarola and the surrounding countryside. The notion of the view and its symbolic meaning – dominion over the landscape – played a significant part in the perception and experience of the villa.

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The Corridor of the Tower, between the Room of Solitude and the Cabinet on the piano nobile, is painted with an extraordinary illusionistic bower (Pl. 14). The decoration has not been mentioned in any of the works on Caprarola, and the artist is yet to be identified. On the walls are depicted trees at regular intervals whose branches and foliage are joined above to form a vault of greenery. On the lower part of the wall are depicted yellow curtains screening the trunks. Branches grow symmetrically from the trunks and intertwine with those of adjacent trees in a manner resembling a basketweave, forming a pattern similar to that of a trellis. To form these patterns, the branches are bound together with golden ropes, which form intricate knots and loops. On the ceiling, the dense foliage admits a series of circular gaps, like oculi, showing glimpses of the pale blue sky. The oculi too are framed by the knot patterns. At the center of the ceiling is depicted the Farnese coat of arms. The tree trunks, the intertwining branches, the intricate knot patterns, the sky glimpsed through the dense foliage, and the way the leaves are depicted, some in darker and some in lighter shades of green, are all strikingly similar to the ceiling decoration of the Sala delle asse (ca. 1498) at the Castello Sforzesco, where Leonardo painted a forest of mulberry trees with trunks and foliage drawn inward by ropes to form a vault. Leonardo’s ropes alternately lash together crossing boughs and hang in decorative loops; the trunks rise around the periphery as though they were columns supporting the ceiling. The artist of the Caprarola bower probably would have been schooled in the northern Italian painting tradition and would have been familiar with Leonardo’s work, but he would also have studied the art of the trained bower as well as the ornamental pattern of knotwork. Knotwork, also called interlace in decorative art, forms a distinct group of ornamental motifs.49 One detail seems to echo the real examples of verdant architecture in the garden. Arditio mentions a terrace surrounded by very tall chestnut trees and closed in by pergolas “clothed in ivy and other greenery”; the very same effect can be seen around the edges of the painted oculi, where the smaller, more delicate, lobed leaves of ivy or a similar climbing plant can clearly be seen feathering out in tendrils beyond the larger, heart-shaped leaves of the trees. The yellow curtain adds a sense of occasion to the scene, but also of enclosure. It may be an echo of canvas tents or roofless enclosures used to create temporary rooms in the outdoors on occasions such as hunting or feasting. Other details suggest autonomous artistic decisions, for example, the way in which the lowest interlace patterns of the branches echo the shape of the cartouche at the crown of the vault. Already in the Trecento, Crescenzi had written of trained bowers in architectural terms (see Chapter 1). His treatise, published only in 1471 but widely distributed before that date in manuscript form, clearly had an influence on Renaissance taste and practice. The fictive bowers at Castello Sforzesco and Caprarola were modeled on their real counterparts in the garden, in effect, living pergolas made of the boughs of living trees, but naturally with a heavy emphasis on verdure over flowers and fruits. Giovanvettorio Soderini doubtless had read Crescenzi; he talks of room-like spaces in the garden created with vegetation and greenery. Soderini’s description suggests that those spaces were indeed perceived like rooms in standard architecture, except in terms of their materiality. The reference to architecture is particularly striking in the passage that follows. A flat space covered like a pergola, with the roof made of all kinds of foliage and walkways and pathways likewise covered with foliage of trees, the branches

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bent above to form a barrel-vault, and a series of rooms enveloped in greenery, arranged in the lowest, sunken cool places, which resemble a large, spacious palace, as seen today in Rome in the Villa d’Este. Nor are there lacking pilasters and proportioned columns wrapped in ivy, walls covered with laurustinus, jasmine, and periwinkle, with chambers, rooms, salons, loggias, and kitchens on all sides, and covered above with all sorts of greenery.50 This kind of transposition of design ideas between architecture and garden may in fact have been a familiar notion at the time. Raffaello Borghini’s Il Riposo (1584) contains a detailed description of a ragnaia (bird thicket), a planted space for catching birds, which, in the author’s use of architectural terms to describe its elaborate form and design, is also understood in relation to stone architecture.51 Borghini describes the ragnaia as a square structure, divided by the main intersecting paths into four compartments, each subdivided into four parts by small intersecting paths. In each compartment, trees are planted in regular rows, their foliage forming a bower. At the four corners are also trees, higher than the others, in the guise of the four corner towers of a fortification. The fact that bower trees were customarily woven into a kind of inverted basket, drawn inward with ropes, and sometimes decked in ivy or other climbing plants on the exterior as if to create diaphanous “walls,” suggests additionally that they were meant to bear a certain formal semblance to buildings; undoubtedly they were pruned accordingly, and the ivy climbing over their exteriors would also have added an evocative touch of venerable monumentality. Caprarola, a showcase of villa culture, feature the largest number of pergolas and related structures, in both real and painted form, of any of the sixteenth-century villas in the environs of Rome. Its verdant architecture, like its other genres of art, were created and displayed with a conscious interplay of reference and meaning. The species of plants or birds that appear in these real and fictive pergolas were those familiar in rural life and especially suited to the hunting culture that had inspired the original building on the site. These spaces may also reflect a rivalry between the Farnese and the Medici, who were equally interested in verdant architecture. The Villa Medici at Castello had a tree house with small fountain jets.52 The Villa Medici at Pratolino also had a tree house: a large oak whose thick foliage formed a bower, with a ramp equipped with small water jets leading up to a platform, all shown in Stefano Della Bella’s etching (1652).53 If the real pergolas at the Villa Giulia and the Villa d’Este at Tivoli can be characterized as high architecture in rural dress, those at the Villa Farnese at Caprarola would be rustic architecture reinterpreted through the aesthetics of high taste. This aspect of the Villa Farnese at Caprarola is all the more remarkable considering the general dynastic and didactic character of the fresco decorations in the palazzo.54 Religious, mythological, and historical themes that enhance the family’s prestige dominate the decorative program in the interior of the palazzo. However, the examination of the pergolas at Caprarola reveals that the motivation of pleasure and amusement was abundantly present, even if ideology too was habitually woven into the villa’s leafy pleasances. Their effects on the visitor were achieved often in unexpected ways through the combination of common elements in the rural setting. The pergola was created as a rustic structure, but one possessing a distinctive aesthetic serving as a worthy counterpart to the high culture of the urban sphere.

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Notes 1 On the Villa Giulia, see Bafile 1948; Coolidge, 1943; Fagiolo 2007; Falk 1971. The papal archives record Vignola’s regular presence at the site. Vignola received monthly salary as an architect starting February 1, 1551, which continued until July 1554. Archivio di Stato di Roma Camerale I serie 18 Fabbriche 1517, 1519. On August 18, 1551, there is question of making a window in Vignola’s room: Addi 18 di agosto 1551 per far acconciare una finestra alla camera di Vignuola architetto (Fabbriche 1517, 53r). This passage suggests that Vignola was given a room in the villa, where he could stay for close supervision of the construction. However, Ammannati’s contribution is considered significant especially in the area of the sunken nymphaeum. 2 Falk 1971, 105. 3 Archivio di Stato di Roma, Camerale I serie 18 Fabbriche 1517, 29v. Addi 29 febraio 1551 scudi 36 b.25 a m.ro Andrea Schiavone per pagar una barca comprata ad Orta per servirsene nella fab.ca della vigna di N.S.re. Addi detto scudi 9 b.22 al detto per spese d’acconciar detta barca e farla venire a Roma. 4 Pesaro, Biblioteca Oliveriana, ms. 374, vol. II, fols. 91–96; cited in Falk 1971, 171–173. Vi è una pergola in volta, o vero archo, che v’ha insino al fiume, coperta di verdura, longa ottanta canne, nel fine vi è il porto fatto comodamente per smontar di barcha, quando papa Giulio veniva a spasso a così bella villa. 1 rod (canna architettonica) = 2.234 meters. 5 The pergola at the Villa Giulia is recorded in the maps of Rome by Fabio Licinio (1557), Giovanni Antonio Dosio (1561) (Figure 4.1), Giovanni Francesco Camocio (1569), Mario Cartaro (1575) (Figure 4.2), and Ugo Pinard (1555), all of which show a barrel-vaulted tunnel pergola linking the Tiber River to the villa’s entrance on the via Flaminia. See Frutaz 1962 for these maps. 6 Archivio di Stato di Roma, Camerale I serie 18 Fabbriche 1517, 58r, 61v, 65r; Fabbriche 1519, 11r, 15r, 19r, 24v. 7 See Faldi 1981, 154–155. 8 Mirka Benes interprets the design of the sunken nymphaeum at the Villa Giulia as inspired by the form of a crypt in a church, with balustrades from which one looks down onto the space below and double stairs leading down to it. In that sense, the design is again imbued with Christian iconography. 9 The illusionistic pergola at the Villa Giulia has not been studied in detail. Brief mention is made in Allain and Christiany 2006; Börsch-Supan 1967; Negro 1996. 10 Nova 1988, 142–144; Ribouillault 2014. 11 Benocci 2014, 26–38; Morel 1991, 57; Sgubini Moretti 2000. 12 The marsh reeds are also observed in Marco da Faenza’s decoration peopled with small insects and birds and other small figures of the ribs that articulate the ceiling of the stairs leading from the Sala di Leone X to the Quartiere degli Elementi in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. See Allegri 1980, 178–179. 13 The First Loggia of Leo X also featured all three species, with the addition of a citrus species – the melangoli, or bitter orange. 14 See Coffin 1979, 164–165. Ammannati also mentions the twin aviaries in his letter of May 2, 1555: Nel uscire vi son due uccelliere le quale rispondeno nella fonte (Falk 1971, 173). 15 Dempsey 2001, 1–61. 16 See Campbell 2002, 225–233. 17 Campbell 2002, 483–505. 18 Campbell 2002, 486, Figure 210. 19 Campbell 2002, 393, Figure 184. 20 Campbell 2002, 490, Figure 212. 21 Campbell 2002, cat. no. 58. 22 Tongiorgi Tomasi and Hirschauer 2002, 19. 23 The Madonna paintings by Stefan Lochner, Stefano da Verona, Bernardino Luini, Martin Schongauer, Domenico Veneziano, and Pseudo Pier Francesco Fiorentino all feature red and white roses in the background. 24 The aviaries behind the Fontana Pubblica were constructed around the period from October to December 1553. Payment records of the copper netting for the aviaries refer to it

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31

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in various ways: uccelliere della peschiera (the aviaries of the fishpond); uccelliere della Fontana publica (aviaries of the Fontana Pubblica); uccelliere di dietro alla Fontana publica (aviaries behind the Fontana Pubblica). See ASR, Camerale I serie 18 Fabbriche 1519, 72v, 73r, and 75r. On the reconstruction of the Fontana Pubblica with aviaries, see Fagiolo 2007, 67, Figure 9. See note 14 above. For basic information on the architecture and gardens at the Villa Farnese at Caprarola, see Coffin 1979, 281–311; Faldi 1981; Lazzaro 1990, 99–108; Portoghesi 1996. Coffin 1979, 285–286. For a comprehensive discussion of the design of the circular courtyard, see Partridge 2001. Coffin 1979, 299–310. Archivio di Stato di Roma Camerale III 518, 45r (July 16, 1563): per haver piantato 14 colonne di legno e’ murate per la pergola acanto la Fontana alto l’una piedi 22, per haver tirato il tufo in opra 11 archi di legname sopra dette colonne larg l’uno di uomo piedi 20 eccetoli doi che fanno la crociera; 115v (November 13, 1573): P haver messo 16 archareggie p la tribuna dl giardino novo cio 8 curitate (dentate?) et 8 messe sopra l’una lunga piedi 20. Orbaan 1920, 385: Il giardino di questo appartamento e fatto di novo et pero non e ancora stabilito bene. All’entrar che vi si fa per la porta della camera et per il ponte si ritrovano due statue di donne, come ne l’altro, dopo le quali e un alto et bellissimo pergolato assai spatioso, che copre tutto il viale principale, in capo et faccia del quale e un altro bellissimo sostenuto da sei grandi satiri et huomini salvatici con varie caverne che si distenda in infinito, tutto fabricato di tartari e di pumici, che sembrano veramente quivi prodotto dalla natura e da l’acqua, che continuamente quivi piove tra le pietre, che discendendo con gratissimo mormorio, viene a fermarsi in una peschiera, dove sono alcuni scogli vestiti di musco, di giuncho, d’edera et altre herbe, intorno a quali guizzano molti sorti di pesce. Pergolas supported by satyr telamones or similar anthropomorphic forms are observed in paintings and tapestries from this period both in Italy and the Netherlands. Examples include the Codex Maggi, pls. 16–17 attributed to Ludovico Pozzoserrato; Banquet in a Formal Palace Garden by Ludovico Pozzoserrato; Pieter van Heyden, Spring (1570), engraving after Pieter Brueghel; Abel Grimmer, Spring, painting after Pieter Brueghel. Orbaan 1920, 380: In questo giardino sono tre fonti: la prima e principale e dall parte opposta alla porta de dove si entra, in capo del viale di mezzo dentro ad una loggietta quadra coperta di sopra a padiglione, tutta dipinta, con tre portoni che la chiudano, ove e un bellissimo nicchio ed in esso una Venere di marmo ignuda con due figurine da i lati, fatte per termine, posta sopra un monte ornato di pumici, coralli et varie conchiglie marine, et tenendo un catino con ambe le mani, dal cui fondo sorge un grandissimo bollor d’acqua, si bagna tutti. Arditio’s description of the fountain does not include details of the vault decoration. From what has survived, we can distinguish a pergola formed by fruit swags with an oculus at the center, and four arched openings alternating with four rectangular openings around it, showing the blue sky beyond. The oculus is framed by a circular wreath made of various fruits, evocative of the festoons by Giovanni da Udine in the Farnesina loggia. The bands that separate the lateral openings show scale patterns, frequently used in the illusionistic pergola in the circular portico. We can also distinguish vine, melangoli, apples, and pomegranates, which were also depicted in the illusionistic pergola of the circular portico. Each of the openings appears to contain a bird: an owl in the oculus, and a red turkey, a white parrot, and another white bird in the lateral openings. Orbaan, 1920, 386: Tra questo giardino e l’altro del primo appartamento, che confinano – e si va da questo a quello per uno bellissimo portone – si sale per molti gradi a un monte, non molt erto, ma tutto serrato et unito con detti giardini, dove sono bellissimi vie coperte di ombre, con buschetti di ginepri et piantate d’olmi, d’abeti et d’altre sorti di albori diritissimi con varie pergolate d’uve. Orbaan 1920, 386: Da una parte e una spatiosa piantata d’arbori, di castagni, compartiti insieme con egual ordine et misura. Da l’altra si fa hora un barco da mettervi animali et vicino alla sommita del monte e un bellissimo piano circondati da grossissimi et altissimi arbori di castagni, serrati intorno da cerchiate, vestite di edera et altre verdure.

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36 Fagiolo compares the axial approach to the palazzo at Caprarola (650 meters) constructed by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese to that to the Palazzo Farnese in Rome, the Via dei Baullari (230 meters) constructed by Paul III. See Fagiolo 2007, 114–119. 37 On the circular portico as an architectural form and its painted iconography, see Partridge 2001. 38 Faldi 1981, 107. 39 Bertoja was active in Parma, where he executed the frescoes in the Palazzo del Giardino. He painted the ceiling decoration of the Room of Ariosto, where a panel picture at the center is supported by the trunks of the trees in the manner of an illusionistic bower. He was employed in the cantiere at Caprarola from 1569 until 1573, the year of his death. However, Diane De Grazia, author of the only monograph on Bertoja, does not mention the illusionistic pergola among his œuvre (De Grazia 1991). Partridge, on the other hand, suggests Antonio Tempesta hypothetically. He dates the decoration of the ground-level circular portico from 1579 to 1581, but his attribution to Tempesta is accompanied by a question mark. Tempesta was an artist of broad interests and capacities; human figures, animals, and nature motifs occupied a significant part of his repertory, which covers a variety of media from fresco to etching. His map of Rome (1593) exhibits his ease in the representation of trees, plantings, and landscapes. The loggia on the piano nobile of the Villa Giustiniani at Bassano Romano, whose decoration is attributed to Tempesta, features a small painted pergola on one of its three arch soffits. On the Villa Giustiniani at Bassano Romano, see Bureca 2003. Eckhardt Leuschner, in his exhaustive study of Tempesta’s œuvre, discusses the landscapes on the walls of the Scala Regia at Caprarola, because those were mentioned by Vasari, and attributes them to Tempesta, who was active at Caprarola from 1580 to 1583. However, Leuschner does not refer to the illusionistic pergola (Leuschner, 2005, 50–52), probably because no written evidence has yet surfaced, either in the biographies of painters or in the archives. 40 Partridge 2001, 276. 41 Orbaan 1920, 369–370. 42 The hunting and catching of birds that eventually ended up on the table would have been a far more important activity in early modern Italy than has received general attention. The papal archives mention payments, in some cases a salary, to a uccellatore, which appears to have been the designation for a person who provided the service of catching birds or procuring them for hunting. The uccellatore was responsible for catching the birds that were to be put in the ragnaia, an area of planted thicket where the hunting of birds took place. The following fragmentary evidence from the papal archives gives us an idea of the activities of the uccellatore and his importance in the bird culture of the time. See Archivio di Stato di Roma, Camerale I, Tesoreria Segreta 1299: (fol. 14v) Addi 9 di agosto a Pietro uccellator’ di N.S’. scudi dodici b.30 cio e scudi 8 do et ¼ per pagar’ un cavallo per uso di uccellar’ et scudi 3 per una Ragna da Torto’ 12.37; (fol. 15r) Addi v di settembre 1560 scudi 2 a Pietro uccellator’ er pagar’ tante giornate di un garzone ad uccellare in campagna 2; (fol. 15v) Addi x di settembre 1560 scudi 2 b.60 a Pietro uccellator’ per oper’ et spese fatti ad uccellare; (fol. 16v) Addi 25 di settembre 1560 a Pietro uccellator’ per salario di un mese cominciato a mezzo, il mese pnte del garzone ad uccellar’ al Boschetto scudi Quattro et scudi tre allui modo per suo salario comincio a detto tempo 7; (fol. 17v) Addi 19 di ottobre 1560 a Pietro uccellator’ cio e scudi 4 per sua provisione del garzone et scudi 3 per lui conto dell’uccellar’ di un mese cominciato add 15 del pnte 7; Addi 20 di ottobre 1560 per tante spese di detto luogo et del boschetto per l’uso dell’uccellar’ scudi 8. Giovanni Pietro Olina’s Uccelliera (1622) documents in part this bird culture, as well as the rising interest in the more scientific study of birds. 43 Partridge 2001, 259–278. 44 See Partridge 1978. 45 Partridge 2001, 277–278. 46 The cat bears a striking similarity to Giovanni da Udine’s cat, also with a mouse in its mouth, in the pergola on vault III in the First Loggia of Leo X and suggests a possible quotation. 47 Partridge 2001, 277–278. 48 Partridge 1971 and 1972. 49 Gruber 1994, 21–112.

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50 Giovanvettorio Soderini, Il trattato degli arbori, Bologna, 1904, 244–245 (cited passage towards the end of section 244 and beginning of section 245): (244) E [se] possi avere uno spazio di sito capace d’assai, accomodisene uno piccolo appartato per l’uso della casa piu familiare e vicino, pieno dei piu pregiati arbori che si ritrovino; e l’altro, ove si possi piu lontano, si facci grande et agiato, piu all’aperto e piu universale, facendovegli compartire dentro da quelle parti che venghino meglio accomodati, e piu a ridosso e difesa dei venti maglini o cattivo aere delle selve; [con] spelonche, laghi fatti a mano, fonti in grotte adornati e con disegno ripieno abbondante di prati, vivai e boschetti dei piu pregiati arbori di verdura, come lauri, cerasi di Trabisonda, o, se lo comporti il paese, d’ogni sorte agrumi e altre delizie, con pergole, spalliere, cupole, padiglioni d’arbori, di olmi, mori e quercie, sulle piu importanti vedute formate in varii garbi col gastigo de’ legnami che gli guidino a che foggia altrui vogli, non che altro d’un tempio, d’in edifizio, o piano a coprire a uso di pergola, e con capanne coperte di varie sorte d’arbori e passeggiate et anditi similmente coperti di tutte sorte di questi, piegati di sopra in volta di mezzo cerchio, e finalmente un ordine di stanze rivestite di verdura, ordinate in maniera, che nei piu bassi e concavi luoghi e freschi, per l’estate ombrosi, (245) rassembrino un gran palazzo e spazioso, quale si vede oggi in Roma, nella Vigna Estense. Ne vi manchino pilastri, colonne proporzionate fasciate d’ellera, muri di lentaggine, gelsomini e periploca rinvestiti, con le sue camere, sale, salotti, loggie e cucine tutte dalle bande, e di sopra rinvestite di varie sorte di verzure, che tutto si puo fare secondo il giudicio di coloro che di quest’arte, che gli antichi chiamavano Topiaria (formando ancora di bossolo e mortella di Spagna e rosmarini franzesi, che sono obbedientissimi alle forbici, statue, figure, colossi, obelischi e simil fantasie), piu se n’intendino; e sopra tutto nella parte dei domestici arbori (perche nelle selve talora il mettergli a rinfusa e di diverse sorte fa piu bella vista, imitando la natura che si diletta sempre di variare) osservando di piantare per tutto con modo di misura proporzionata equidistante e con l’ordine sempre quincunciale, il che dara mostra di bella vista, e giovera alla sanita e variazione degli arbori. 51 See Borghini 1584, 129–131. Nel mezo della sommita, con grande artificio piantato, in forma quadra verdeggia il boschetto, il quale de pari lunghezza per ogni parte braccia 72 occupando, in ventiotto ordini di piante egualmente distanti e compartito, che di 28 in ogn’ordine faccendo il numero, contengono in tutto 784 piante, fra le quali si comprendono quattro ordini di pilastri murati, e coperti di Ellera, che in cambio di Allori e di lecci le latora delle due strade principali, che in croce il boschetto dividono adornando (percioche venendo a piombo sopra le mura che fanno due vie sotteranee, come appresso dira, non vi si sarrebbon potute le piante abbarbicare) vanno il componimento degli altri arbucelli seguitando. E sono le piante di maniera distinte, & ordinate che da ciascuna delle prime quattro vedute, fuor che dove s’innalzano i pilastri, si veggono sempre l’uno dopo l’altro un leccio, & un alloro seguitare; i quali a tale ufficio sono stati eletti, perche d’ogni stagione, essendo di verdi foglie vestiti, e quasi sempre di coccole pieni, allettano gli uccelli, e piu che altre piante porgono a quelli soave, e grato ricetto. Le due vie maestre da pilastri contenute, e che hanno sotto di loro due a tre vie sotteranee in volta della medesima larghezza, e lunghezza, dividono il boschetto in quattro parti: e ciascuna d’esse da due altre viette divisa viene in se stessa a formare quattro quadri, talmente che tutto il boschetto in sedici quadri eguali e distinto: e per tutto dove dette vie s’incrocicchiano insieme, si forma uno spatio quadro, il quale essendo di sopra a modo di gelosia di verdi rami, e di frondo coperto, concede all’uccellatore nell’andare attorno nascosta ritirata, & a gli altri; che sotto star vi volessero fresco diporto. Nelli quattro angoli poi del boschetto si veggono con bella proportione a guisa di torrioni, innalzarsi quattro bertesche di lecci, e d’allori, che sopravanzando di quattro braccia l’altre piante, e corrispondendo d’altezza a gli alberi, che coprono, e nascondono il casino del toccatoio, fanno vago componimento, e dilettevole a rimirare. 52 Montaigne, Travel Diary, November 23, 1580. 53 Zangheri 1987, vol. I, 156. 54 De Grazia 1991, 50–51.

5

Wunderkammer and trompe-l’œil garden Palazzo Altemps and the Loggia of Cardinal Borghese

The illusionistic pergolas of the third period Little more than a decade after the pergola-adorned circular courtyard at the Villa Farnese at Caprarola, we see the reemergence of the genre in the heart of Rome. The Loggia of the Palazzo Altemps (1592) followed by the Loggia of Cardinal Borghese on the Quirinal (1610–1616), both decorated with painted vine pergolas populated by putti and birds, embellished with cut flowers arranged in classicizing vases, were in many ways novelties of the genre that reflected contemporary horticultural practices and the culture of natural history. These together with a variety of other examples in Rome created during the first decades of the seventeenth century constitute the third period of the genre. They roughly fall in two categories: first, those that introduced new horticultural and ornithological species into the repertory, representing the broader cultural trends that became prevalent during the sixteenth century; second, those that drew heavily from precedents in design but were distinguished by the shift in patronage and change in scale. The masterpieces in the first category – the loggia of the Palazzo Altemps and the Loggia of Cardinal Borghese on the Quirinal also called the Loggia del Pergolato – will be discussed in detail in separate sections. The second category includes a number of examples that represent the potential and the popularization of the pictorial topos. These will be discussed together in the section on the development of the illusionistic pergola in the seventeenth century.

Palazzo Altemps The genre that flourished in the villas outside the city walls and the hill towns in Lazio was rapidly imported into the city of Rome. While most previous examples in Rome were located in suburban areas such as the Villa Farnesina, the Vatican, and the Villa Giulia, with plenty of garden spaces, from the 1590s the pictorial topos was adopted in the decorative program of city palaces with no extensive gardens of their own. The Palazzo Altemps,1 just north of Piazza Navona, accommodates an illusionistic pergola in the north loggia of the piano nobile. The residential complex had developed from a preexisting medieval structure, which was transformed into a Renaissance palazzo incorporating surrounding houses under the ownership of Girolamo Riario (1443–1488) and Francesco Soderini (1453–1524). After the Altemps family acquired the property in 1568, the remodeling of the building and interior was continued under Marco Sittico Altemps (1533–1595), with Martino Longhi and several architects working under him. Of the two loggias on the piano

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nobile overlooking the central courtyard, the south loggia was left unadorned, while the north loggia was lavishly decorated. The frescoes in the north loggia were restored in the 1980s following the building’s acquisition by the Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo in 1982. A semi-interior space opening onto the courtyard by means of five large open arches flanked by Ionic pilasters3 answered by a door and four rectangular windows lining the rear wall, the north loggia was clearly intended as a space for the self-presentation of the cultured patron (Pl. 15). The vaults and walls were adorned with an illusionistic pergola, which retained the role and core meaning of those from previous periods: a centerpiece of display carrying classical connotations and a pictorial encyclopedia of natural history. The loggia also accommodated antique sculptures; these were positioned strategically to interact with the frescoes on the walls and vaults. An ornamental fountain, installed on the east end, served as the terminus of the visual axis from the entrance at the west. The illusionistic pergola in the north loggia was a novelty for a number of reasons: first, its urban location with no answering garden; second, the representation of cut flowers in vases; and third, the extent to which it interacts meaningfully with other components of the loggia. Its attention to minute details in the depiction of the flowers, the vases, the birds, and the elaborately carved pergola structure signals a significant departure from the traditional form of the painted pergola. Anticipating a new trend, it heralded the third period of the efflorescence of illusionistic pergolas in Rome and Lazio. A trompe-l’œil garden rendered illusionistically on the vaults and walls of the loggia, the pictorial decoration was commissioned by Marco Sittico Altemps and executed under his grandson Giovanni Angelo Altemps (1576–1620). It was a collaborative work of painters with different specialties, one of whom was Antonio Viviani (1560– 1629).4 Pietro Petraroia, author of the chapter on painting in the edited volume by Scoppola on the Palazzo Altemps, recognizes Viviani’s style in the personifications of Fame with trumpet and Victory with wreath and palm leaf depicted at the loggia’s west and east ends respectively. For the nonfigural components of the painting, no artist has yet been established; Petraroia assumes a different hand for the depiction of the elaborate wooden framework of the pergola and the plants and birds.5 Division of labor was quite common, as in the loggia at the Villa Farnesina, the First Loggia of Leo X, and, as we shall see, the Loggia of Cardinal Borghese on the Quirinal. It is highly likely that a painter specializing in naturalistic motifs would have been responsible for the pergola component. The plants and the birds, the essential components of the pergola, required precise scientific knowledge of the individual species. The artist was probably one of an emerging group of painters who were skilled in the depiction of nature motifs. The illusionistic pergola at the Palazzo Altemps is a unique case among the known examples of painted pergolas in Rome and Lazio for its depiction of an elaborately carved piece of woodwork. The ornamental carved woodwork that appeared in the illusionistic pergolas in the First Loggia of Gregory XIII and in the circular courtyard at Caprarola was here developed further and acquired a new dimension. While most painted pergolas represent a structure modeled on their real counterparts – simple pergolas made of coppice poles or laths bound by withies – the Altemps pergola exceeds the imitation of reality and enters the realm of tectonic fantasy. In real life, the pergola’s heavier octagonal quadratura arrangement crowning the vault between each bay could not have been supported by the carpentry framework below it, nor could

132 Wunderkammer and trompe-l’œil garden the four spindly balusters rising from the cardinal points of two of these octagons have supported the tiered structure above. Ornamental elements such as the goat head, female herm, scrolls, balustrades, and curved forms evocative of cartouche are repeatedly used. For the use of the wooden herm-like figures on either side of the arched pergola, a northern origin has been suggested.6 A type of pergola supported by decorative herm-like figures is observed not only in northern art but also in Italian art, in particular in painting, prints, and tapestries attributed to artists who were aware of the artistic trends in both regions.7 The elaborate wooden carvings and openwork along with the sophisticated curvilinear forms may find precedents in the illusionistic pergola of the First Loggia of Gregory XIII, where vaults III and IX combined carpentry with carved woodwork, and at the circular courtyard of the Villa Farnese at Caprarola, where curvilinear cartouche-like forms made of carpentry were depicted. The craftsmanship on display here may have been influenced by the woodwork tradition in the Tyrol; the Altemps family was originally from Hohenems in this region. Examples of wooden tracery, carved wood, and marquetry inlay used as architectural ornaments in doorways, gables, and facades are found north of the Alps in the sixteenth century, in particular in France, Switzerland, and Austria.8 The painted wooden ribs of the pergola framework follow the architectural lines, namely the ribs of the vaults; thus there are four vaults each painted with a wooden framework and on either end half-vaults with half the wooden framework. Diamond latticework fills in the surfaces in between the ribs. All four vaults are marked at the center by a wooden octagonal frame, within which, receding perspectivally, appear slightly smaller forms, rectangles with semicircular projections in the two inner vaults and octagonal balustrades in the two outer vaults. The former is somewhat similar to the cartouche-like form at the Villa Farnese at Caprarola. The center of each bay receives no particular emphasis; the octagonal balustrades open, oculus-like, onto a cloudy sky with generic birds in flight or perched on the wooden frames, while the cartouche-like forms carry a plain wooden disk on thin splints, with the same sky above. Here, as in previous periods, the illusionistic pergola functioned as the vehicle of display of natural history through the representations of plants and birds, rendered both aesthetically and scientifically. The carpentry pergola is covered with the exuberant foliage of grapevine laden with fruit. Both black and white grapes are depicted. Some of the leaves have turned, indicating the passing of the seasons. Vases are depicted in pairs in each bay, one placed above the springing point of the arches and the other at the corresponding point on the opposite wall. Below each vase is depicted a bird. The octagonal frames enclosing rectangles with semicircular projections are supported by wooden ribs that bear goat-head and putti motifs. The goathead motif, representing the heraldic animal of the Altemps, the ibex or rock goat, is employed everywhere, perhaps echoing the ubiquity of the classical motif of the bucranium. The octagonal balustrades are supported by ribs in the form of a pair of female hip herms with goat heads in between. In paintings, prints, and tapestries representing gardens, hip herms usually appear at the ends of tunnel-form pergolas. But here they are used as part of the support for the vases, following the curved contour of the pergola structure. The birds positioned below the vases are framed by these herms; they are made larger and with more detail than other generic birds such as swallows and doves, shown among the foliage of the grapevine. On the rear wall, from west to east, are represented a peacock spreading its tail, a turkey

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spreading its tail, a crane with an eel, a cock, a white duck, and a pheasant. On the courtyard side are represented, from east to west, a pheasant, a capercaillie (grouse) with young, a crane, a turkey, and a peacock. The pairs of birds facing one another are the same species except for the duck and capercaillie. Macaws perched on the wooden frame add an exotic touch. Birds were represented in scientific detail in the illusionistic pergolas of the previous period, at the Villa Giulia, the Villa Farnese at Caprarola, and the Villa Medici. But here a new element is introduced into the repertory: vases with cut flowers (Pls. 16–17). They mark a significant departure from precedents. The flowers reflect species that were collected and cultivated in gardens in the sixteenth century, and their ephemerality projects an occasional aspect upon the more durative or seasonal symbolism of the living plants trained on the treillage structure. In the illusionistic pergolas of the first and second periods, the depicted living plants were predominantly the vine, roses, and jasmine. In the Altemps pergola covered with vine, a number of new horticultural species made their appearance – not on the pergola proper but emerging from these urn-like vases. They reflected the contemporary interest in horticulture, especially in colorful floral species. The dianthus species are abundantly displayed, along with white trumpet-form flowers, which may be convolvulus arvensis, of the morning glory family. Roses, traditionally represented climbing up and covering the pergola structure, are here represented as cut flowers. Just as the birds on both sides – the courtyard side and the rear wall – mostly corresponded to one another, the vases above them also displayed the same species of flowers. In the bays on the extreme east and west ends, single species are displayed. Nearest to the entrance at the west end, above the peacocks, there are terracotta vases with white lilies (rear wall) and orange lilies (courtyard side). Nearest to the east end, above the pheasants, terracotta vases hold purple irises (rear wall) and white irises (courtyard side). Between the first and second bays from the west end, a marble vase displays red roses (rear wall) and a bucchero vase white roses (courtyard side) (Pl. 16). In the central bays, we see arrangements of multiple varieties in terracotta vases. Between the second and third bays from the west end, there are white carnations with red streaks and jasmine (rear wall) and red carnations and jasmine (courtyard side) (Pl. 17). Butterflies are depicted among the jasmine. Between the third and fourth bays from the west end, there are red carnations, myrtle, and white flowers of trumpet-like form on either side. Between the fourth and fifth bays from the west end, there are white vases with salmon-pink carnations on either side. The combination of different species of flowers in one vase perhaps reflects the early experiments in the art of flower arrangement. Clearly the emphasis has shifted from rusticity and the countryside to sophistication and urban taste. A number of depicted motifs are inspired by antiquarian culture, the vases holding cut flowers among them. Their form and low-relief ornamentation recall a particularly cherished class of Roman cinerary urns (Pl. 16). On their exterior appear classicizing reliefs in two tiers: the lower tier with stylized motifs such as swags and the upper tier with figural scenes. As demonstrated by Polidoro da Caravaggio’s vases painted on the early sixteenth-century façade of the Palazzo Milesi in Rome, Renaissance artists’ interest in antique cinerary urns appears to be purely design oriented, disregarding the original funerary context of the artifact. The Palazzo Altemps vases push the trend further through their use as ornamental vessels for the display of cut flowers. Antiquestyle vases, devoid of their original cultural connotations, had become a sophisticated

134 Wunderkammer and trompe-l’œil garden ornament in early modern Rome. This trend would be continued in the use of vases as classical ornament on architecture and gardens. The decoration also makes a dynastic statement through the depiction of the heraldic animals of the Altemps and the Orsini families, but in a different way from the illusionistic pergolas of the previous periods. In the lunettes above the west entrance and the east end of the loggia, on either side of the personifications of Fame and Victory, putti are shown interacting with the Altemps goat and the Orsini bear, each of which rears up and scares a prostrated putto (Pl. 18). In each scene another putto looks on, as though to make sure his comrade is okay, while a third seems to restrain the animal. The Orsini bear is included because Giovanni Angelo Altemps was descended from the Orsini family on the maternal side. The playfulness and the light humor with which these scenes are depicted form a stark contrast with the more explicitly dynastic and didactic character of the illusionistic pergolas of the second period. The swags represented in the lunettes with the putti are derived almost entirely from classical models. Swags flanked by tassels decked with billowing red ribbons appear in six lunettes: the two lunettes on each of the west and east short sides and the outermost two lunettes on the rear wall. Each lunette contains three putti and an animal or a bird. The swags are composed of dense green foliage heavily laden with flowers, fruits, and vegetables, stylistically similar to those painted by Giovanni da Udine in the Villa Farnesina loggia. Vegetables including turnips, beets, zucchini, and garlic clove; fruit including apples, grapes, figs, and a pineapple; and flowers such as pansies and violets can be discerned.9 The species of the flowers are different from those displayed in the vases as cut flowers. The colorfulness of the swags along with the red ribbons creates an atmosphere of festivity and joviality. Here the painted putti motif, antiquarian in inspiration, already present in the Loggia of Cupid and Psyche at the Villa Farnesina, and introduced in the semicircular portico at the Villa Giulia as pairs, comes together in full bloom with the development of the putti motif in tapestries in the 1540s and 1550s. 10 In the Altemps loggia, the putti have become the major players in the human drama going on alongside the display of flowers and birds. The direct source here was probably Raphael’s cartoons for the tapestries or the tapestries woven based on designs by artists in Raphael’s workshop. In the first lunette from the entrance on the rear wall are depicted three putti playing with an ostrich (Pl. 19). A reproductive print after Raphael showing three putti with an ostrich seems most likely to have been one of the sources (Figure 5.1). Compared to the print, the ostrich at the center remains the same, but the putti have been changed. The scene probably refers to ostrich races in ancient Roman times, but also to Renaissance depictions of pageants with chariots pulled by birds. The putti may have been inspired by the Hellenistic statue type of a boy struggling with a goose, of which numerous copies were found in Rome, as well as by Renaissance sculptures of spiritelli including Andrea del Verrocchio’s Putto with Dolphin (1479, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence). One putto has tied a ribbon around the ostrich’s neck, probably to serve as reins. In the first lunette from the east side on the rear wall showing putti playing with a swan, the bird also has a ribbon tied around its body in the manner of reins, which a putto holds. The scenes are reminiscent of paintings depicting a festival entertainment at Fontainebleau by Antoine Caron (1521–1599), The Triumph of Spring, featuring a chariot pulled by swans operated by a putto, and The Triumph

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Figure 5.1 Master of the Die after Raphael and Giovanni da Udine. Three putti with ostrich before a garland. Engraving, published by Antonio Lafréry, ca. 1530–1540. Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund 1949.

of Winter (c. 1568), with a chariot pulled by cranes with ribbons as reins.11 In the Altemps lunette, the apparently annoyed ostrich looks back to see what the tots are up to. A second putto is mounted on horseback on the ostrich, and a third is plucking its tail feathers, which he has arranged in his hair. The putto with feathers in his hair may have been intended as a parody of the allegory of the New Continent. Thus the scene has a festive connotation, as well as the humor of burlesque. As an element of the outdoors brought indoors, the fountain on the east wall is another important component of the loggia space (Figure 5.2). Work started on the fountain in July 1594, when the painted decoration of the loggia was already completed. The artists responsible for the fountain were stuccoist Pompeo dell’Abate and sculptor Silla Longo.12 The painted stucco decoration is in line with the design of fountains in sixteenth-century villas, in particular those by Curzio Macarone at the Villa d’Este at Tivoli and the Villa Farnese at Caprarola. On these fountains, the local landscapes of Tivoli and Caprarola are represented in reference to the surroundings of the villa. In both cases, the fountain, traditionally an outdoor feature, was brought under a roof, creating a tension between interior and exterior

136 Wunderkammer and trompe-l’œil garden

Figure 5.2 Palazzo Altemps, Rome. Loggia, fountain at east end.

that suits the natural ambiguity of the spatial experience in a loggia. Here the fountain, of antique inspiration, constituted the focal point for one entering the loggia from the west entrance on the opposite side. Giovanni Battista Falda’s north-south longitudinal section (ca. 1675) shows the fountain with a broken pediment featuring a shell motif at the center and two Altemps goats facing one another atop it (Figure 5.3).

Figure 5.3 View of the interior of Palazzo Altemps, north-south longitudinal section (above), left side detail of section (below). Giovanni Battista Falda, Nuovi disegni dell’architetture, e piante de palazzi di Roma de più celebri architetti. Rome: Giovanni Giacomo de Rossi, 1655. American Academy in Rome, Arthur and Janet C. Ross Library.

138 Wunderkammer and trompe-l’œil garden It also shows at least two satyrs in front of the broken pediment; the central niche, accommodating a fountain basin, was flanked by nude male figures in the guise of telamones. 13 Thus the fountain was peopled with satyr-putti; we see that although they have goat legs, their plump bodies resemble putti. It seems probable that a statue of Venus was placed in the niche above the fountain basin. No Venus statue has been documented in the loggia, and the inventory of the sculpture collection mentions only one statue of her, located not in the loggia but in the stairway.14 However, the shell motif and the satyr-putti figures are appropriate to the sea-born goddess, a deity of the garden as well as of pleasure. The Venusian presence may have been suggestive rather than explicit. Most important for our purpose is the clear thematic interaction between the fountain and the painted pergola: for the putti in the latter, winged like erotes, also suggest the presence of Venus. They contribute to the atmosphere of joviality which pervades the space, where the playfulness far surpasses the didactic aspect of the heraldic imagery, but they, along with their mother Venus, also introduced an element of eroticism to create a seamless blend – as so often in antique art – with the Dionysiac temper of the grapevine. Another new feature introduced in the illusionistic pergola are the wooden supports depicted on the rear wall, the pillars, and the east end wall, which created the illusion of a unified space (Pl. 20). In the previous periods, a clear division had been made between the ceiling and wall decorations: the pergola decoration was intended only for the ceiling, and a separate scheme was devised for the walls. The Vatican Loggia of Leo X and the semicircular portico at the Villa Giulia had grotesque decorations on the walls, which do not appear to have an explicit connection to the painted pergolas. In the circular portico of the Palazzo Farnese at Caprarola, the painted pergola started to creep down from the ceiling onto the walls, but the walls were still decorated with ornamental mask motifs and coats of arms. At the Palazzo Altemps, the pergola and the walls are continuous. The depicted pergola is supported by six wooden supports painted on the rear wall, answered by an equal number on the pillars, and by one other wooden support depicted on the east wall. These supports go all the way down to the socle. Where they meet the vault, they carry threedimensional pilaster capitals of a simple, vaguely Doric form. Like the framework above, they are made of elaborately carved woodwork with curvilinear contours, pierced with openings, through which is shown a vinestock growing out of the ground. Here for the first time the painted pergola appears not as an illusionistic bower that extends overhead, but rather as a structure that creates a unified threedimensional space. This style develops into the late seventeenth-century villa interiors, where the ceiling and wall decorations merge seamlessly, giving the impression of the entire room being immersed in nature. Most fascinating, however, are the ways in which the painted pergola interacted with other art and furnishings within the portico itself. The space must be seen as a whole, where all the elements within it together made a cultural statement. The sculpture displayed in the loggia was one important component in the cultural meaning of the space. The Altemps loggia, like porticoes in other villas and palaces, was a display room for the family’s sculpture collection, a kind of museum of antiquities. The inventories record several antique sculptures that were located in the loggia from its creation in the 1590s. Apart from statues of deities including Apollo and Mercury,15 among the

Plate 1 Villa Farnesina, Rome. Loggia, panel painting of the Marriage of Cupid and Psyche.

Plate 2 Villa Farnesina, Rome. Loggia, detail of the swags that form the pergola framework.

Plate 3 Palazzo Grimani at Santa Maria Formosa, Venice. Sala a Fogliami with bower of foliage.

Plate 4 Villa Medici, Rome. Garden pavilion, Stanza degli uccelli, ceiling and south wall.

Plate 5 Villa d’Este at Tivoli. Ground-level corridor, mosaic and stucco pergola.

Plate 6 Villa Giulia, Rome. Semicircular portico, center, jasmine pergola.

Plate 7 Villa Giulia, Rome. Semicircular portico, north end, jasmine pergola.

Plate 8 Villa Giulia, Rome. Semicircular portico, north arm, rose pergola.

Plate 9 Villa Giulia, Rome. Semicircular portico, north arm, vine pergola.

Plate 10 Villa Giulia, Rome. Semicircular portico, south arm, vine pergola, detail.

Plate 11 Villa Farnese at Caprarola. Fountain of Venus, painted bower on the vault.

Plate 12 Villa Farnese at Caprarola. Circular portico, ground-level, painted pergola, section 1 (above) and section 2 (below).

Plate 13 Villa Farnese at Caprarola. Circular portico, ground-level, painted pergola, section 4 (above) and section 10 (below).

Plate 14 Villa Farnese at Caprarola. Piano nobile, Corridor of the Tower.

Plate 15 Palazzo Altemps, Rome. Loggia, piano nobile, general view.

Plate 16 Palazzo Altemps, Rome. Loggia, ceiling between first and second bays from west.

Plate 17 Palazzo Altemps, Rome. Loggia, ceiling between second and third bays from west.

Plate 18 Palazzo Altemps, Rome. Loggia, west wall, lunette with Orsini bear and Altemps goat.

Plate 19 Palazzo Altemps, Rome. Loggia, north wall, lunette with putti and ostrich.

Plate 20 Palazzo Altemps, Rome. Loggia, north wall.

Plate 21 Loggia of Cardinal Borghese, Palazzo Rospigliosi-Pallavicini, Rome. Painted pergola, general view.

Plate 22 Loggia of Cardinal Borghese, Palazzo Rospigliosi-Pallavicini, Rome. Painted pergola, detail.

Plate 23 Villa Lante at Bagnaia. Palazzina Montalto, loggia.

Plate 24 Villa Lante at Bagnaia. Palazzina Montalto, loggia, detail of painted dome with netting and birds.

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important pieces displayed were the twelve busts of Roman emperors still in place today,16 each standing before one of the supporting piers. Rising from behind each emperor on the pier itself, a painted vinestock emerges. The painted vine and the statues of the ancient Roman emperors appear to convey a dynastic message by means of a formula of classical language familiar to the aristocratic milieu. A striking characteristic of this illusionistic pergola is that the vine is depicted far down the walls; in fact it is shown as though growing from the same level as the busts of the emperors, aligned with them. Consequently it seems as if the vinestock is emerging from the emperors’ heads and growing upward from them. This suggests that the grapevines have symbolic meaning. Since vines have long duration and many branches, they may point to the strong roots of antiquity that continue to bear fruit in the present: the root of the antique and of the Dionysiac, but in this configuration also signifying, perhaps, admiration for the wellspring of authoritative statecraft from the good and wise emperors. Thus the emperors themselves, and their characters, could be seen as the root and model of their successors in power in Rome, including the Altemps and the Orsini. The Altemps are the caretakers of the vine of antiquity, carrying on the tradition of the emperors. The vine was steeped in symbolism, both pagan and Christian, as we have seen, and its iconography here seems to refer to both. Associated with the notion of the Dionysiac and wine and the merriment that accompanies wine-drinking, it also evokes a metaphor familiar to the class of papal aristocracy, the notion of the pope as the keeper of the Lord’s vineyard. Roman villas were vigne, namely vineyards for the production of grapevine. The age and maturity of the vine forms a marked contrast with the contemporary style of the woodwork and the brevity or temporality of the cut flowers. The woodwork, most likely derived from the Tyrolean craft tradition, should represent the Altemps themselves, keepers and supporters of the vine of antiquity. The idea is reinforced by the fact that it bears the omnipresent goat symbol. The cut flowers, combined with the cinerary urn form of their containers, appear to symbolize the brevity and beauty of life. Along with the all’antica swags, they represent ephemeral, occasional events and create a gentle tension with the enduring seasonal vines. The cut flowers also represent the new trend of displaying sought-after horticultural specimens. The horticultural flowers in the vases; the vegetables, fruits, and flowers studding the swags; the featured birds and the generic birds – these all transform the loggia space into a Wunderkammer or museum of natural history, reflecting the latest trends in the collecting culture in Rome. Its specimens, and its very design, emphasize the binary nature of the space in many ways: both inside and outside, old and new, comfortable and challenging, familiar and exotic, timeless and temporal, Christian and pagan. The exuberant details of the painted decoration, the ornamental fountain, and the sculpture encouraged movement around the space. In this sense, the Altemps loggia retains a strong connection to the porticoes of antiquity that combined a promenade and an art gallery, but now with the characteristic flavor of the curiosity cabinet. Landscape depictions enhance the atmosphere of rusticity. But with the Palazzo Altemps, the rusticity has moved into the very heart of the city. The new trend of the cultured class was to seek to experience nature and the rustic without having to retire far out into the countryside; rus in urbe was the new norm. Once again the loggia,

140 Wunderkammer and trompe-l’œil garden with its fictive pergola, rates as a transitional, liminal space. The landscapes flanking the main entrance on the west side show generic hunting scenes, both characterized by the presence of one large tree that provides the accent. Huntsmen on horseback or on foot are depicted in the foreground; a water feature with people on a boat or a rustic cottage in the middle ground lead the eye to a focal point in the distance. The landscapes are framed by painted red curtains on either side, which suggest that they are views from a window. These depicted landscapes create an illusionistic expansion of space and emphasize the sophisticated rusticity that is the essential characteristic of the pergola. This function of depicted landscapes will be explored further in the Loggia of Cardinal Borghese, which we will examine in the following section.

The Loggia of Cardinal Borghese on the Quirinal The Loggia of Cardinal Borghese in the Borghese estate on the Quirinal accommodated the other fine example of the illusionistic pergola from the third period of its efflorescence. Its importance lies not only in its elaborate design with ornamental details signaling the new trend of painted pergolas, but also because it is recorded in a number of archival and textual sources. The Borghese estate on the Quirinal corresponded roughly to the present-day property of the Rospigliosi-Pallavicini – a triangular plot defined by the modern streets of Via della Consulta, Via XXIV Maggio and Via Nazionale. At the time of Borghese ownership (1610–1616), it included within its confines the Baths of Constantine and extended far beyond the Via Nazionale, the construction of which in the 1870s destroyed the lower garden.17 The Loggia of Cardinal Borghese forms a pendant and an important comparandum to the loggia at the Palazzo Altemps. Both share the representation of a vine pergola with birds, cut flowers in vases, putti, and landscapes. Cardinal Scipione Borghese (1576–1633), nephew of Pope Paul V Borghese (pontificate, 1605–1621), embarked on a series of construction projects during his uncle’s reign. The Loggia of Cardinal Borghese was one of the garden loggias in the Quirinal estate constructed by Scipione from 1610 to 1616.18 Hibbard’s plan of the Borghese estate on the Quirinal shows at least four structures labeled “casino” – Casino di Psiche, Casino delle Muse, Casino Patriarcha Biondo, Casino dell’Aurora – all of which were in fact loggias partially open to the exterior (Figure 5.4).19 The loggia of our focus was created by remodeling the Casino Patriarcha Biondo acquired in 1610, so-called from its former owner Patriarch Fabio Biondo, Pope Paul V’s majordomo and prefect of the Apostolic Palaces.20 The decoration of the interior, consisting of a painted pergola on the ceiling and landscapes in the lunettes, was executed from 1610 to 1612 by Paul Bril and Guido Reni (Pl. 21).21 Bril, a painter of nature motifs, was responsible for the grapevine covering the trelliswork and the horticultural and ornithological species; Reni was a figure painter in charge of the putti. Baglione mentions the Borghese pergola as a work by Paul Bril in his biography of painters; he comments on the maturity of Bril’s landscapes and situates him in the Italian landscape tradition established by Titian and Annibale Carracci.22 After Vasari’s account of the life and works of Giovanni da Udine, this is the only instance of a painted pergola referred to in the biographies of artists.

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Figure 5.4 Quirinal Garden, ca. 1615. Reconstruction plan by Howard Hibbard. Reprinted with permission of the University of California Press Journals.

This painted pergola has a relatively simple structure, closer to the more traditional form seen in the example at the Villa Aldobrandini than to the more elaborate one with complex curves and multiple tiers at the Palazzo Altemps (Figure 5.5). The loggia opens onto the exterior by means of three arched openings, but its interior space is composed of five bays on the long sides and two bays on the short. Thus the crossvaulted ceiling creates two lunettes on the short sides to the north and south, five on the rear wall on the west side, and two at either end of the east side, which is open to the garden. The lunettes bear landscapes painted by Bril. His pergola, which

Figure 5.5 Room of the Winds at the Villa Aldobrandini, Frascati. Giovanni Battista Falda, Le fontane delle ville di Frascati nel Tusculano con li loro prospetti, 1691, pl. 7. American Academy in Rome, Arthur and Janet C. Ross Library.

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is coextensive with the vault but does not extend down the walls, is represented as a trelliswork structure exhibiting alternating patterns of four concentric circles and octagons. The main ribs, painted as sturdy timber frames, correspond to the architectural ribs of the vaults. The ribs of the circles and the octagons are connected with a latticework of light coppice poles bound by withies forming a pattern reminiscent of a cobweb. The vine, with black and white grapes amidst lush foliage, is depicted in a manner commonly observed in painted pergolas. The leaves are painted in different shades of dark and light greens, and a few of them appear to have turned. The depicted birds are also traditional species observed in the painted pergolas of the first and second periods. Above each lunette accommodating a painted landscape, an opening in the trelliswork structure frames a large bird: a peacock, a turkey, a cock, an eagle, a falcon, and a bittern. In the oculi crowning the concentric and octagonal patterns, and in other openings, smaller birds including a mallard duck and a parrot are depicted. There are also small animals including a mouse and a cat, which were also commonly seen in the painted pergolas from the previous periods. The more novel aspect of this pergola consists in the depiction of horticultural species in fashion. At the springing point of each arch, a pair of putti is depicted above a vase holding cut or planted flowers (Pl. 22). The motif of vases holding flowers combined with pairs of putti was first introduced in the pergola at the Palazzo Altemps, but compared to the richly ornamented vases with classicizing reliefs in the Altemps loggia, most of the vases here are relatively plain with smooth surfaces, though they come in a variety of colors from white or terracotta to beige alabaster with streaks. In the Altemps pergola, white marble vases held single species of flowers, while terracotta vases held two or three species. In the Borghese pergola, most vases hold flowers of a single species. One exception is the white vase on the west side holding yellow jonquils, white lilies, and orange marigolds. The white vase on the east side holds marigolds. The vases on the north side each hold, from west to east, orange lilies, irises, white lilies and red tulips, and oleanders. Those on the south side each hold, from west to east, white lilies, red carnations (dianthus), myrtle, and red roses. The depicted flowers most likely reflected the real species that were planted in the gardens of the time. Roses, jasmine, carnations, myrtle, and citrus species including melangoli and lemon are frequently mentioned in an important archival source on the Borghese estate on the Quirinal, the misure e stime (measurements and estimates), executed at the time of the sale of the property to the Altemps in 1616.23 This handwritten document includes the description of the garden, as well as of the painted pergola.24 The plants are reported to be either trained on trellises or planted in vases. Those planted in vases include the citrus species, dianthus, and jasmine. The aristocracy competed fiercely for the collection and display of new species and varieties of ornamental plants. Much sought after and expensive, these would have inspired the depiction of cut flowers in vases that appear in the painted pergola. Compared to its predecessor at the Palazzo Altemps, the Borghese pergola appears to reduce the scope of its classical quotation. The paired figures mostly lack wings. The exceptions are one winged Eros who appropriately handles the red carnations, symbols of love, and the winged pair of putti with the myrtle, the sacred plant of Venus. The landscapes in the lunettes present views of the countryside familiar through the activities of villeggiatura and hunting. The two adjacent landscapes on the west side appear to exhibit continuity in the skyline and the foreground. But those on the rear south wall do not seem to be a continuous landscape interrupted by architectural

144 Wunderkammer and trompe-l’œil garden elements, but instead seem to be loosely interconnected by means of the theme of rusticity. A marine scene, a riverine scene with a boat, a monastery in the countryside with traveling monks, and a dense forest scene are depicted. As in the Altemps loggia, the landscapes served to enhance the rustic atmosphere defined by the pergola. The landscape lunettes appear as though they were arched windows giving us a glimpse outside, appearing on all four sides, except for the bays that opened onto the real garden. Thus this loggia takes the Altemps loggia a step further in the illusionistic expansion of space, but only well above eye level; the walls remained quite plain. They create the sensation of a smooth transition from indoors to outdoors and the illusion of being in the midst of nature. The juxtaposition of a painted pergola with its diaphanous and translucent interior space and the landscapes that extend far out into the countryside attempts to create a plausible balance between immediacy and distance as well as varying degrees of the merging of indoors and outdoors, resolving into a sensation of liberation in the open countryside. Scipione Borghese’s decision to sell the Quirinal estate to Giovanni Angelo Altemps in 1616, only a few years after the completion of the decoration of the painted pergola in the garden loggia, appears to be particularly suggestive of the mentality of the new generation of the landed aristocracy. Why would Scipione have let go so soon the loggia with a beautiful painted pergola, the hallmark of aristocratic culture? Scholars have speculated on the reasons behind the sale of what appeared to be a prestigious property. Howard Hibbard suggests that for Scipione the development of the Villa Borghese on the Pincio (the current Villa Borghese) may have made the Quirinal estate unnecessary.25 Tracy Ehrlich conjectures that, after 1613, Scipione’s interest in the Quirinal estate waned because of his acquisition in that year of the Villa Mondragone at Frascati from the Altemps and that, to finance this purchase, he forced upon Giovanni Angelo Altemps an exchange of the Mondragone with the Quirinal.26 Weighing the Mondragone against the Quirinal, the former seemed far more attractive in terms of overall value. From the practical viewpoint of land management, there would have been no point in keeping two estates located close by; one suburban villa for entertainment would have sufficed, and that one was to be the Pincio estate outside the city walls. The Quirinal estate had certain qualities prized by traditional patrons of the illusionistic pergola, who took pride in such possessions and often used the decorated space for dynastic display. Comparing the Borghese estates of the Mondragone and the Pincio to the Quirinal, one can say that the new estates represented a significant augmentation in scale over the traditional one. With the new form of landowning and management, there may have been a significant shift in the aesthetic perception of space, namely a preference for large-scale properties over the traditional villa estate divided into relatively intimate spaces, where loggias and porticoes played a significant role. The acquisition and possession of real large-scale landscapes would have made the illusionistic expansion of space by means of pictorial representation appear obsolete.

Real pergolas in seventeenth-century gardens It was not the loss of interest in pergolas that resulted in what appeared to be the waning of their illusionistic counterpart; rather it appears to be a reflection of the gradual change in the kind of spatial experience sought in the garden. Real pergolas continued to be a constant element in gardens in Rome and its environs through the seventeenth century. Matteo Greuter’s panoramic view of Frascati (1620) shows the Villa Belpoggio

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with an elaborate pergola composed of three parallel walkways, each equipped with a domed pavilion midway along it. But among the Frascati villas represented in Greuter’s view, only the Villa Belpoggio has a pergola.27 The Villa Borghese in Rome also accommodated a pergola walkway covered with thick vegetation, as shown in Joseph Heinz’s view (1625).28 The Palazzo Borghese at Artena in Lazio had a loggia with a painted wall decoration representing a garden with pergola (ca. 1623).29 Giovanni Battista Ferrari’s Hesperides (1646) mentions citrus species trained on a pergola in the garden of Cardinal Pio Carlo Emmanuele30 with an illustration of a monumental walkway made of carpentry serving as support for the citrus trees planted along the sides at regular intervals. Falda’s map of Rome (1676) depicts an elaborate cruciform pergola in the Horti Farnesiani on the Palatine. The pergola was costly to build and maintain, requiring constant inspection and care, but it appears to have been a popular and convenient means of support for the sought-after plant species which could be trained on its vaultlike framework. It was a vertical garden, as it were, and allowed for the display of plants not only at ground level but also at eye level and overhead. With the increased interest in collecting plants and rare horticultural specimens, there may have been a shift in emphasis from the cumulative sensory experience of walking through a rustic structure covered with traditional plants of the vine, roses, and jasmine to the careful observation and appreciation of a wider variety of the plants in more scientific detail. Despite the continuing presence of pergolas in gardens, it is noteworthy that none of the seventeenth-century gardens in Falda’s Li giardini di Roma (1670) are depicted with a pergola. The pergolas no longer received the same degree of attention they had been accorded in the previous periods. Falda’s garden prints emphasize large spaces of plantings and groves, aviaries, ragnaie (bird thickets), fountains, and long avenues that connect the various areas in the garden. In many gardens in Rome, including the papal Quirinal Garden, the Villa Borghese, the Villa Ludovisi, and the Villa Pamphilj, we see an emphasis on arboriculture, evident in large areas with regular rows of planted trees occupying a large part of the estate. For one thing, the scale of the garden had changed. The enclosed gardens that accommodated the pergolas, herbs and flowers, usually located close to the villa building, had become no more than one small unit within a vast estate. The pergola, whether a simple tunnel or a cruciform walkway, was more appropriate for a formal garden of a relatively small scale, where every element was minutely calculated to be in its place. As a result of land acquisition on a large scale, most typically exemplified by the Borghese, it was no longer possible to apply a compact symmetrical design to the entire estate. This was probably one of the reasons why patrons started adopting the landscape style, which was more conveniently suited to the organization of large estates. With the changing scale of the garden, interest developed in a different kind of spatial experience than that of strolling in a compartment garden with a cruciform pergola. This change may have been due in part to the rise of new families that sought to establish their standing in Rome in new ways. Previously, the great artistic patrons belonged to the families that already had a significant presence in the papal capital, namely the Medici, the Este, and the Farnese. They sought to express their social status mainly through an iconographical approach to architecture and gardens.31 They used images that carried dynastic and cultural meanings and conveyed a clear message to those literate in that visual language. Within the limited physical space of the Renaissance villa and garden, these families experimented with combinations of images for the self-presentation of the educated patron. The Villa d’Este at Tivoli and the Villa Lante at Bagnaia are

146 Wunderkammer and trompe-l’œil garden typical examples of iconographical gardens. Around the turn of the seventeenth century, we see the emergence of new families that experimented along alternative avenues in the expression of their upward social mobility. The Borghese, followed by the Barberini, the Ludovisi, and the Pamphilj, looked to the Farnese, the Medici, and the Este as models and continued to regard architecture and gardens as tools for consolidating and enhancing their social status in the capital. But in addition to the traditional iconographical approach, the newly emerging papal families, especially the Borghese and the Pamphilj, turned to large-scale landowning as their primary tool for social stability. The Borghese unified the pleasure villa and the pastoral economy on an unprecedented scale.32 Landowning was investment in social status and had always been part of the aristocratic strategy for the stabilization of power, but never in Rome had it been exercised on such a vast scale. The great expanse of landed estates suggested that the outdoors could now be experienced on a spectacular scale. This also brought about a significant change in garden design. Now landscape parks came into fashion. The spatial experience sought in them was entirely different from the cloistered intimacy of previous gardens. The pergola, whose existence depended largely on the preference for an intimate spatial experience, gave way to other design features such as grand staircases and monumental fountains. The pergola could be constructed on a monumental scale rivaling an architectonic arcade or a building-lined street, as we have seen at the Villa Giulia, but apparently it could not measure up to the sensibility corresponding to the vast scale of landowning practiced by the new social elites. The emerging generation of the landed class no longer invested meaning in the possession of the illusionistic pergola, and such decorated semi-interiors were no longer used as focal spaces of dynastic display. As a prelude to this change in the experience of the garden, the illusionistic pergola started to mediate a new aesthetic that corresponded to the sensibility of the era. Interior decoration that evoked the outdoors started to take on an even bolder form of illusionism – one that created the sensation that the entire interior space was immersed in nature. In the post-Tridentine era, after a period of ornamental restraint during the pontificates of Gregory XIII and Sixtus V, from the reign of Clement VIII Aldobrandini along with his cardinal nephew, Pietro Aldobrandini, luxury and pompous display was again more overtly pursued. Within this new trend of the Baroque era, the spatial ambiguity that once constituted the essence of the illusionistic pergolas seems to have yielded to other design concerns. Emphasis now shifted to the formal qualities, the design component, and the fashionable appearance of the decoration, at the expense of didacticism, immersive spatial effects, and classical allusions. Artists experimented in the painted form of the pergola, especially in its materials: not only carpentry structures but also open masonry forms appeared. The most recent developments in horticulture and the art of treillage were reflected in the pictorial decoration. As rustic structures such as the aviary were transformed into highly sophisticated architecture in this period, so too the illusionistic pergola was sought after not so much for its evocation of the countryside or its antique connotations but as a form of a visually appealing medium for the expression of sophisticated taste.

The illusionistic pergola in the seventeenth century In this new era, the illusionistic pergola was created on a smaller scale than in the previous periods and enjoyed a broader patronage, but on a socially lesser plane, than it ever had before. Traditionally, its patrons were the powerful aristocratic families

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that counted wealthy cardinals and one or even two popes among their family members – the Medici, the Este, the Farnese, and the popes who exercised lavish artistic patronage such as Leo X, Julius III, and Gregory XIII. However, towards the end of the sixteenth century, the social composition of the patrons of art and architecture began to change. Architectural decoration of high quality ceased to be an exclusive privilege of the popes and the cardinals and the aristocratic families to which it once belonged; now it was within reach, in a few instances at least, to non-aristocratic professionals or non-papal ecclesiastics.33 It became an accessible and feasible option for persons of lesser means, in most cases on a reduced scale. A typical example of such an illusionistic pergola in a non-aristocratic context is the one created by Federico Zuccari (1542–1609) in his own residence on the Pincio, the Casa Zuccari.34 Federico used the pictorial topos for the vault decoration of the vestibule of Hercules and the adjacent room, the so-called loggia of the garden (1593– 1603). The ceilings of both rooms were painted with a fictive pergola covered with red and white roses with a profusion of flowers in full bloom. The loggia of the garden would have been a semi-interior space partially open to the outdoors (the side which opened onto the garden has since been closed) and conforms to the norm we have seen thus far, but the vestibule was an enclosed room; thus the notion of the painted pergola as decoration of a portico space was only loosely applied. But as at other sites, the fictive pergola served as a framing device for various scenes. In the vestibule of Hercules, the central panel on the ceiling showed a landscape of Tivoli recognizable from the round temple above the waterfall (Temple of the Sibyl), and the openings in the trelliswork framed scenes depicting the labors of Hercules (Figure 5.6).

Figure 5.6 Casa Zuccari, Rome. Vestibule of Hercules, ceiling.

148 Wunderkammer and trompe-l’œil garden In the loggia of the garden, the central panel on the ceiling depicted the apotheosis of the painter, while the openings surrounding it framed the personifications of the Virtues and the eight lunettes served as frames for the portraits of four generations of the Zuccari family (Figure 5.7).35 Federico used the painted pergolas for presenting subjects that were most important to him: Hercules, who in the Renaissance was considered a paragon of moral strength; the Virtues, which constituted the moral standards of his life; and his family. Hercules was an important figure in the decorative programs in Renaissance villas and is present at the Villa d’Este at Tivoli and the Villa Farnese at Caprarola. Federico was involved in the decoration of both. The idea of a space decorated with the painted pergola as a setting for family portraits, in particular, may have been inspired by the circular portico of the Villa Farnese at Caprarola, which, as discussed in Chapter 4, served as the setting for the dynastic display of coats of arms of the Farnese and the prominent families they were related to through marriage. The illusionistic pergolas at the Casa Zuccari were of considerably smaller scale than their precedents, but they still strived to create an illusionistic expansion of space. They continued the aristocratic tradition of dynastic display and revealed the pride of the patron in the possession of a loggia with a painted pergola. One of the changing parameters was the materiality of the depicted structures and playing with the notion of the interchangeability of stone and vegetal structures. Instead of imitating the rustic pergola made of coppice poles and withies commonly encountered in the garden, the artists of the early seventeenth century expanded on ideas introduced in the loggia of the Palazzo Altemps, experimenting with variations in materiality. Quadratura-like stone structures with half-open ribbed domes and balustrades peopled with birds, some covered with the foliage of vine, came to be depicted in

Figure 5.7 Casa Zuccari, Rome. Loggia of the garden, ceiling.

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porticoes and rooms whose decorative schemes explicitly aimed for an illusionistic expansion of the physical space. The decorations of the loggia of the Palazzina Montalto at the Villa Lante at Bagnaia and of the Sala della pergola in the Palazzo Lancellotti in Rome are fine examples of the changing forms of the illusionistic pergola. At the Villa Lante at Bagnaia, a painted masonry structure in the loggia of the Palazzina Montalto appears to imitate the form of trelliswork in earlier painted pergolas. The Villa Lante, originally created for Cardinal Giovan Francesco Gambara (1533– 1587) from 1568,36 accommodated casinos of twin design: the Palazzina Gambara on the east side and the Palazzina Montalto on the west side. The two casinos were built at different periods, under Cardinal Gambara and Cardinal Montalto respectively, as indicated by the inscriptions on the topmost layer of blocks on their façades. The twin design is attributed to Vignola.37 The casinos have an identical exterior appearance of a cubic block topped by a belvedere equipped with a three-arched loggia opening onto the topiary garden, yet their decorative schemes are totally different. In the loggia of the Palazzina Gambara (decorated 1574–1578), the ceiling is painted with grotesques and small panel pictures. The walls are divided into compartments by painted herms, each compartment showing the views of the garden and park of the Villa Lante, the Villa d’Este at Tivoli, the Villa Farnese at Caprarola, and the town of Bagnaia (Figure 5.8).

Figure 5.8 Villa Lante at Bagnaia. Palazzina Gambara, loggia.

150 Wunderkammer and trompe-l’œil garden The theme of the decorative program is the local topography and the major villas and gardens to be emulated.38 In the loggia of the Palazzina Montalto (decorated 1613–1615), the painted decoration attributed to Agostino Tassi (1566–1644) displays a consistent theme of landscape and villa life, but exhibits a different style (Pl. 23). The rear wall is adorned with generic landscapes framed by painted pilasters and cornices. The ceiling is dominated by two domes inhabited by birds, painted on the vaults in between the three arches of the loggia façade. Here, instead of a trelliswork structure in wood, a quadratura-like structure in stone is depicted. Quite contrary to its rustic surroundings, the entire loggia appears to have been decorated to evoke the sensation of being inside a grandiose architecture of masonry construction. The pilasters on the walls framing the landscapes, the vaults of the three bays marked by oculi and defined by stone balustrades, the octagonal dome with an octagonal opening and inhabited by birds, and an illusionistic architecture on the end wall composed of pilasters and cornices identical to those framing the landscapes on the wall that appears to extend the loggia three bays further beyond the wall – these all create the impression of being inside a palace rather than a rustic country residence. Even the painted tie-rods spanning the domes and serving as perches for the birds not only add a touch of realism but also emphasize the weighty materiality of stone and its massive static loads (Pl. 24). Perhaps a transformation that involves the crossing of boundaries may be in progress. The pergola, originally a rustic structure, is nowhere to be seen here, and yet many of its visual cues are present. It has been transformed into an elaborate quadratura-like structure and is being grafted onto a high-style architecture evocative of the urban sphere. The emphasis is no longer on the vegetation that was an indispensable component of the pergola, but on the luxurious appearance of this structure inhabited by birds. Unlike the earlier representations of pergolas, the depicted masonry structure in the Palazzina Montalto is not covered with plants of any kind. Ribs are painted in the octagonal opening, and we can barely discern netting covering the surfaces in between those ribs; grills or nets also cover the windows in the dome. This detail suggests that the structure is an aviary of the sort that characteristically featured netted domes framed by ribs. The view of an aviary in Giovanni Pietro Olina’s Uccelliera (1622), for example, shows a two-storied masonry structure with balustrades and netted domes. Here the aviary is no longer the simple, unadorned rustic outbuilding of the cinquecento. The fanciful element introduced in the Villa Lante, it would seem, is the extension of the depicted high-style architecture nearly to the crown of the dome. Instances of such intersections of rustic simplicity and urban sophistication are found in Rome too. A similar balustrade structure is painted on the vault of the Sala della Pergola in the Palazzo Lancellotti in Rome (1617–1621),39 also attributed to Tassi (Figure 5.9). Its material is ambiguous; it could be made of stone or of a blond wood such as fir. It appears to have imitated forms in other depicted carpentry pergolas, for instance, the circular openings that served as frames for the birds and the sky; in real life, these could only be rendered in wood. The birds perched on the ribs and balustrades, parrots and peacocks, add a familiar note of luxury, but the structure is covered with vine only sparsely, as though it were a remnant of earlier tradition. This is not the lush, exuberant vine that we saw in the pergolas of the Villa Giulia, the Villa Farnese, the Palazzo Altemps, or the Loggia of Cardinal Borghese, but a delicate, frail vine more attuned to the aesthetics of the Rococo.

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Figure 5.9 Palazzo Lancellotti, Rome. Sala della Pergola, 1621–1623. Courtesy of Patrizia Cavazzini.

In these examples, a movement towards imitation of stone architecture, if not depiction of it, is observable. In the mid-sixteenth century, real pergolas had realized sophisticated designs by borrowing forms from stone architecture and realizing them in light materials to emphasize a diaphanous and translucent effect, and this trend was also reflected in their painted counterparts. The idea of borrowing classical forms and rendering them in light materials was considered novel at the time. However, in the first decades of the seventeenth century, priorities had changed. The pergola, originally a light garden structure, began to be depicted as if it were a stone structure, though its evident material might be ambiguous, and the architecture was emphasized over the greenery. The rise in popularity of grand aviaries, which in the greatest villas and gardens consisted of masonry substructures, seems to have influenced this trend by way of the traditional artistic metonymy that associated exotic birds with pergolas. At one time, the aspiration and the virtuosity of imitating stone architecture in light materials was considered the ultimate form of sophistication. Fifty years later, the execution in prestigious stone of structures of rustic origin such as aviaries had become the height of fashion. For the pergola, however, as we have no surviving evidence of examples built in stone in high design, the idea appears to have remained a pictorial fantasy. The representation of stone (or imitation-stone) pergolas in the architectural interiors of villas appears to coincide with an increasing interest in the aviary in aristocratic

152 Wunderkammer and trompe-l’œil garden gardens from around 1600. Carrying a classical connotation, aviaries had become a common feature in gardens from the mid-sixteenth century. Major cinquecento villas included an aviary, the Villa Giulia, the Villa d’Este at Tivoli, and the Villa Lante at Bagnaia among them. Originally, these were rustic structures made of timber, or if they were masonry, constructed in a plain, vernacular style. In Giacomo Lauro’s view of the Villa Lante at Bagnaia (1612) based on an earlier view by Tarquinio Ligustri (1596), the aviaries marked by the numbers 8 and 17 were twin structures arranged in pairs along the central axis – the first pair on either side of the Fountain of Lights right behind the twin casinos, and the second pair at the top of the garden (Figure 5.10). Architecturally, they appear to be nothing more than plain outbuildings, devoid of ornamentation. Hunting lodges of the Farnese at Caprarola or the Este at Bagni di Tivoli, each designed as a cubic block topped by a belvedere-like structure that served also as a dovecote, were derived from the vernacular farmhouse style.40 Aviaries as independent structures of high style did not exist before the seventeenth century. Around 1600, an important change in aviary architecture began to take place: a dramatic transformation into sophisticated garden pavilions designed by the prominent architects of the time.41 The twin aviary pavilions (1600–1633) of the Horti Farnesiani on the Palatine Hill in Rome, recorded in numerous prints beginning with the one included in Giovanni Battista Falda’s Li giardini di Roma (1670), were elegant masonry structures with curvilinear roofs. They

Figure 5.10 Villa Lante at Bagnaia. Giacomo Lauro, Antiquae Urbis Splendor, Rome, 1612. Courtesy of Vincent J. Buonanno.

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formed part of an elaborate fountain complex and were the visual foci of the garden’s monumental façade. The design is attributed to Vignola, Giacomo del Duca (1520– 1604), and Girolamo Rainaldi (1570–1655), architects employed by the Farnese family. The Borghese Aviary (1617–1618) was part of this new trend. The structure with the twin roofs to the left of the villa building, designed by Giovanni Vasanzio (1550– 1621) for Cardinal Scipione Borghese, was intended to house the cardinal’s collection of birds.42 It was a high-style masonry structure with two exotic-looking meshed skylights. Joseph Heinz’s painting shows, besides these, a pair of simple meshed structures in the background.43 These conform to the more traditional form of the domed aviary and may have been used to house the birds awaiting the construction of their new luxurious home. The Borghese Aviary requires further discussion because of its interior decoration featuring an illusionistic pergola. As the collecting of birds was one of the occupations of a gentleman, in addition to the collecting of antiquities and horticultural species, Scipione was engaged in the collecting of birds, especially rare exotic species. With the transparent roof of netting and the fresco depicting a pergola structure with birds perched or in flight, the intention was to create an enclosed space that gave the illusion of the outdoors. The painter has been identified as Annibale Durante from a payment document with a date of June 20, 1618. The Aviary was a two-chambered structure; each chamber was considered an independent aviary, and they are referred to as uccelliere in plural in the documents.44 The rooms where the birds were kept were decorated with frescoes with depictions of birds; therefore, live birds were kept in a place where fictive birds were depicted. The frescoes have been poorly preserved, but archival documents describe in detail what had been depicted. On the vault of the corridor between the two chambers was painted a pergola of wooden framework covered with vine and jasmine.45 The decoration of the vaults of the two chambers was partially restored from 1997 to 1998. It shows a wooden pergola on which are perched birds of various species.46 The plants have not been restored, but one can see that the timber framework of the pergola is composed of the familiar forms of rectangles, ovals, and semicircles held together by ribs. The details are difficult to reconstruct, but the fictive pergola in the Borghese Aviary may have been closer in form to that of the Loggia of Scipione Borghese on the Quirinal. Annibale Durante, the painter of this pergola, was also involved in the decoration of the palazzo at the Borghese estate on the Quirinal in 1616, and thus he would have been familiar with the loggia decorated with the pergola by Bril.47 The one striking feature is the variety of the depicted birds – peacocks, macaws, parrot, stork, grouse, chaffinch, skylark, turkey, goose, jay, robin, nightingale, magpie, swallow, and sparrow.48 From the current state of the fresco, it is hard to say how it would form a parallel to the encyclopedia of birds and animals of the painted pergola at the Villa Medici on the Pincio Hill, but the precision and the variety of the birds are remarkable. Other decorative trends came into play that led to the transformation of the painted pergola into a broad perspective out onto the landscape creating a seamless continuity between inside and outside. In the ceiling decorations of the first decades of the seventeenth century, there appeared frescoes that showed a blue sky surrounded on all four sides by a wooden or stone balustrade, in which the sky occupied a greater part of the depicted space. The so-called Sala dei putti at the Villa Grazioli decorated by Agostino Ciampelli (1560–1630)49 and the Grotta della pioggia at the Horti

154 Wunderkammer and trompe-l’œil garden Farnesiani50 have ceilings with open-sky balustrades made of wood and stone respectively. At the Villa Grazioli, most of the ceiling space is occupied by the sky, populated by floating putti. The wooden railing is filled in with diamond trelliswork and is covered with exuberant vine. The trelliswork has elliptical openings at regular intervals, where birds are perched. Large birds such as a peacock and pheasant are depicted perched on the railing, while other generic birds are depicted perched or in flight. The Grotta della pioggia is the grotto-like chamber in the Horti Farnesiani, constructed under Cardinal Odoardo Farnese (1573–1626) in the 1620s. The vault of this grotto is decorated with a fresco depicting an open-sky stone balustrade (Figure 5.11). An arched structure covered with vine is built on the balustrades, along which a group of six musicians are playing musical instruments. The arches have ornamental circular openings in the spandrels. Like the example at the Palazzo Lancellotti, it is a stone or an imitation-stone pergola and is covered with vine only sparsely. The focus of interest is more on the illusion of openness towards the sky to counteract the enclosed, subterranean character of the Grotta della pioggia. The open-sky balustrade type may have been derived from precedents in the Florentine cultural sphere. One example is the ceiling decoration in the loggia (1589) of the Palazzo Pitti by Alessandro Allori (1535–1607). Allori’s fresco depicts a scene with women on a terrace surrounding a stone balustrade, engaged in hanging out the laundry, washing hair, or bathing a dog (Figure 5.12). Interestingly, the clothesline traces a roughly elliptical form, as if to suggest an abstracted oculus, which in turn frames a blue sky with birds in flight and the Medici coat of arms supported by a pair of putti. At each of the four corners of the balustrade, pairs of urns hold plants that rise and serve as supports for the clothesline, like the remnants of a vegetal structure. Given the Medici’s interest in painted pergolas, as we have seen at the Palazzo Vecchio and the Boboli Gardens in Florence and the Villa Medici on the Pincio in Rome, Allori’s fresco could be considered a variation on the fictive pergola. These open-sky balustrades expanded the oculus to the point of occupying the entire ceiling. The structure with roof that was meant to provide cover has shrunk, and the sky has become the predominant feature overhead.

Figure 5.11 Horti Farnesiani on the Palatine, Grotta della pioggia, vault decoration. Ministero dei beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo – Soprintendenza Speciale per il Colosseo, il Museo Nazionale Romano e l’Area Archeologica di Roma.

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Figure 5.12 Alessandro Allori and workshop, Women on a Terrace, 1589. Loggetta, Palazzo Pitti, Florence. Photo: Antonio Quattrone.

These frescoes seem to hint at the future of illusionistic representations of nature in architectural interiors. Later in the century, entire interiors would be decorated as though they were the outdoors, such as the Stanza della Primavera at the Villa Falconieri at Frascati (Figure 5.13). This villa, originally called Villa Rufini, was built by Alessandro Rufini around 1549. It is shown on Greuter’s view of the Frascati villas (1620) as a cubic block with four corner towers and a loggia on the façade. In 1628 it passed into Falconieri property, where it remained until 1883.51 In the 1660s, the building was enlarged by the construction of two wings on either side, and the façade was remodeled, resulting in an impressive Baroque appearance. The expansion and the remodeling, formerly attributed to Borromini, are now considered the work of Ciro Ferri (1634–1689), from the circle of Pietro da Cortona.52 The focus of our interest is one of the rooms in the side wing, the Stanza della Primavera, painted in 1672 by Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi (1606–1680). Because of its late seventeenth-century date, the decoration of this room falls outside the scope of the third period of the illusionistic pergolas, but it nevertheless shows the new direction in which the design of the painted interior was heading. The Stanza della Primavera exemplifies the kind of spatial experience that came to be sought after in the seventeenth century paralleling the appearance of large-scale estates with vast stretches of land. In this room, the sensation of the outdoors is predominant, its natural vistas extending in every direction. Grimaldi painted the entire room as an illusionistic garden, adorned with statues, fountains, and vases filled with flowers and trees with exuberant foliage growing up to the sky. The architecture has melted away almost entirely; instead, the visitor has the sensation of

156 Wunderkammer and trompe-l’œil garden

Figure 5.13 Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi, Stanza della Primavera, Villa Falconieri, Frascati, 1672. Soprintendenza per Belle Arti e Paesaggio per le province di Roma, Frosinone, Latina, Rieti, e Viterbo – Archivio Fotografico.

strolling in one of the huge, dense, parklike hillside gardens favored by the cream of seventeenth-century society. The boundary between wall and ceiling is nonexistent; a seamless continuity has been realized. The doors appear to have been eclipsed, invaded by the foliage of trees, and have become part of the overall trompe-l’œil garden. The trees, fountains, and statues are used as props to create a sense of depth, revealing Grimaldi’s experience in stage design.53 Beyond the garden is a landscape of the Roman campagna that extends into the distance and merges with the sky. The triumph of Flora, with garlands and accompanied by putti with baskets full of flowers, at the center of the ceiling, is attributed to Ciro Ferri, who worked on the painted decoration in 1680. Reference to classical culture is omnipresent: columnar architecture with figural reliefs, putti holding swags among the foliage, statues of deities associated with the garden – Diana, Venus, Bacchus, and Apollo – and the marble herms. The illusion of being immersed in the garden and surrounded by nature is stronger than ever. The spatial experience is no longer that of the cinquecento loggias and porticoes with the merging of indoors and outdoors. In those semi-interior

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transitional spaces one still responded to an overall architectural organization. Grimaldi is known to have executed around this time a similar decorative program for the casino of the Chigi located at the Quattro Fontane, which unfortunately has not survived.54 *** The change in the sensibility towards the outdoors and the surrounding landscape demanded a more dynamic expression of nature. The expanding scale of gardens found an alternative expression in the painted interior, where trompe-l’œil gardens and the painted equivalent of large-scale landscapes came to be depicted. In the Stanza della Primavera at the Villa Falconieri at Frascati, the illusionism was pushed forward to the extent that the interior could be perceived almost as though it were the outdoors. The painted pergola was no longer capable of expressing this new dynamic sensation of the outdoors. Although it appears to have maintained a constant presence in the interior after the mid-seventeenth century, it was no more than a visually appealing decorative motif, devoid of the connotations that once constituted its essence. It no longer had the momentum that animated the creation of the painted pergolas at the Vatican, the Villa Giulia, the Villa Farnese at Caprarola, or the Palazzo Altemps. For the revival of the pergola and its pictorial representation, we must wait until the nineteenth century, when small-scale gardens with intimate spaces would again come into focus. Only then would the spatial connotations of the pergola be re-appreciated and its design potential re-explored.

Notes 1 On the history of the palazzo and its owners, see Scoppola 1987, 9–142. 2 Scoppola 1987, 90, Figure 122. 3 The north loggia on the piano nobile has an approximate length of eighteen meters and a width of four meters. See Scoppola 1987, Figure 99. 4 Antonio Viviani’s name is mentioned in a payment document from 1592. Scoppola 1987, 293: Adi 2 giugno 1592 Antonio Viviani Pittore Urbinate . . . a buon conto deli scudi trecento che se li deue per la Pittura che fa in una loggia del Palazzo di Roma. 5 De Angelis d’Ossat 1997, 86; Scoppola 1987, 226–227. 6 Scoppola 1987, 228. 7 See Chapter 4, n. 32. 8 See Gruber 1994, 390–402. 9 De Angelis d’Ossat 1997, 111. 10 Grazzini 1982, 109, Figure 44; Scoppola 1987, 228. 11 See Ehrmann 1986; Gruber 1994, 78; Leutrat 2012. 12 Scoppola 1987, 293: Fontana della detta loggia dipinta del Palazzo di Torresanguina di Roma di detto [5 luglio 1594] scudi quaranta de moneta per mandato no 174 fatto a maestro Silla Longo per prezzo di tre figurette di marmo che sono . . . 255. (Archivio Altemps in Gallese, Libri mastri, 1593–95); A di 16 luglio a Pompeo dell’Abate stuccatore cento scudi di moneta che sono a buon conto dei lavori di stucco che ha fatto et fa per la fonte della loggia depinta del nostro palazzo di Roma e per le nicchie delle statue et teste di imperatori del nostro giardino. (Archivio Altemps in Gallese, Mandati, f. 79v). 13 Scoppola notes that Falda’s north-south longitudinal section shows only two satyrs/putti, instead of three; however, he adds that Falda’s print does not reflect the executed design and that the nineteenth-century inventory may be a more reliable document. (Scoppola 1987, 42, no. 69). The inventory of 1835 mentions three boys: Da un lato di detta loggia vasca di marmo con architettura ionica di mosaico con tre satiretti, e due caproni rotti, e dorati a oro buono; dale parti vi sono due statue con due conche in testa alte l’una compresa la

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14 15 16 17

18

19 20 21

22

23 24

25 26 27 28 29

conca palmi 5 3/4, siegue nel mezzo di una vasca una colonella di marmo di diametro palmi 1 alta palmi 3 1/3 sopra la quale vi è una tazza centinaia di greta con quattro delfini nel mezzo intrecciati con boccaglio per gettar l’acqua, e altro boccaglio nel mezzo. Siegue nel davanti di detta tazza tre ragazzi intrecciati di marmo bianco due de’ quali giacenti sopra di sasso di marmo lavorato ed una mascherina da un lato (Scoppola 1987, 305–306, Archivio Altemps in Gallese, Inventario dei beni appartenenti al duca Giuseppe Maria Altemps rogato dal notaio Giuseppe Franchi, f.32v, 1835, 25 luglio). Scoppola 1987, 189, no. 43. Scoppola 1987, 146. De Angelis d’Ossat; Scoppola 1997, 85; Scoppola 1987, 190, no. 46. For a general architectural history of the Borghese estate on the Quirinal, see Hibbard 1964. M. Moretti, Tronco inferiore della Via Nazionale, Archivio Capitolino, Roma, reproduced in Hibbard 1964, Figure 2. The lost lower garden is documented in an anonymous view showing the east side of the Borghese estate on the Quirinal (Vienna, Graphische Sammlung Albertina, It. Az. Rom. 1255). On the Quirinal estate of Scipione Borghese, see Hibbard 1964 and 1971; Negro 1996 and 2003. The ownership of this property changed frequently. In 1616, even before it was completed, Scipione sold it to Giovanni Angelo Altemps. In 1619 the Altemps sold it to the Bentivoglio. In 1641 it entered the possession of Cardinal Mazarin, and in 1686 it passed into Rospigliosi hands. Of the former Borghese garden loggias, the Casino dell’Aurora is open the first day of every month with free admission. The Loggia of Cardinal Borghese is located in a wing in the present Palazzo Rospigliosi-Pallavicini; the palazzo is occupied by the Confederazione Nazionale Coltivatori Diretti (Coldiretti) (see Negro 2003, 100, n. 2), but the loggia of Cardinal Borghese is administered by Germina Campus, Centro Congressi Rospigliosi (Director Fernando Sereni): http://www.congressirospigliosi.it/location.html. Hibbard 1964, 170, Figure 9, no. 5. Negro 2003, 88. Paul Bril’s name appears in the payment documents. Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Archivio, Borghese, 23, Rincontro di Banco 1607–1614, 134r (cited also in Negro 2003, 89): (August 2, 1612) a M.s Paolo Bricchi Pittore . . . per resto di s. 700 p. saldo e intero pagam.to di tutte le Pitture fatte in quindici mesi, loggia et altro. Baglione 1995, Vita di Paolo Brillo Pittore, 296–297: Ne’ tempi poi di Paolo V, opero varij paesi; ma particolarmente nel Giardino a Monte Cauallo, che fu poi de’ Signori Bentivogli, & era all’ora del Cardinale Scipione Borghese, formo i paesi, che sono nella loggia verso la strada. E lauorando in vn’altra loggetta, dentro del Giardino, vna volta verso la via, che guarda all’horto di S. Agata, vi ha rappresentata co’l suo pennello vna pergolata d’vue diuerse, con varij animali dal naturale assai belli, & eccellenti. E vi sono alcuni paesi vaghissimi, che furono da lui felicemente condotti dopo, ch’egli rimoderno la sua prima maniera Fiamemga; essendosi egli grandemente auanzato, dopo hauer veduto i belli paesi d’Annibale Caracci, e copiato paesi di Titiano rarissimo dipintore; ond’egli dal buon giuditio portato muto soggia, e diede piu nel buono, & accostossi assai al naturale, & alla buona maniera Italiana, come se ne sono veduti alcuni da lui in questo vltimo eccellentemente espressi, & acquisto tal credito, che non vole a dipingere, se non gli erano pagati cento scudi l’vno i suoi paesi. Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Archivio Borghese, 308, t. LXVI, 397r & v, 398r & v. Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Archivio Borghese, 308, t. LXVI, 393v: [A di 24 sett. 1616] (Al Pal)azzetto o Casino d.o del Patriarcha Per la pittura della loggia a man mancha della facc.a di d[etto] fatta dal S.r Pauolo Brilli nella quale vi e dipinta (una) pergola con diversi animali et uccelli (con doi puttini) con ciaschedun peduchio et paesi nelle (lunette con pilastri) incontro le colone il tutto (fatto) con diligentia et esquisitezza stimano (ogni cosa insieme) scudi 700. Hibbard 1964, 164–165. Ehrlich 2002, 40–45. On the Villa Belpoggio, see Tantillo Mignosi 1980, 78–80. Joseph Heinz, Villa Borghese (1625), oil on canvas, collection of Principessa Maria Carla Borghese. See Campitelli 2008, 18, fig. 8. See Cola and Borghese 1997; Serangeli 2000.

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30 Ferrari, Hesperides, 1646, 145: in hortis Caroli Emmanuelis Cardinalis Pij, veterum certaminum voluptatem proximo amphitheatro non inuidentibus: quod in ijs Pomonae cum Flora innocens est & voluptarium perpetua de amoenitate certamen. Mediam illic palmis circiter ducentis longe procurrentem pergulam contexunt trabeculae duae ac triginta, in quadrum dolartae, summa in parte circulo duplici praeferratae, atquae opere caementitio stabilitae: his praeterea infixi ad sublimem concamerationem arcus serrei, transuersique asserculi binos inter palmos cancellatim adiuncti. Haec autem pergula, intermicantis aurei mali viridissimo vestitu nitide opacata, sub tegetibus magnifice hibernat. 31 On the iconographical approach to gardens, see Coffin 1991, 76–102. 32 Ehrlich 2002, 197–201. 33 The Dominican church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome has a vault with an illusionistic pergola in the cloister. The cloister (1559–1566) was commissioned by Vincenzo Giustiniani, master general of the Dominican Order. The decoration of the vaults, dating from around 1615–1616, is considered the work of Francesco Nappi, one of the painters working on the decoration of the cloister. At the Palazzo Giustiniani-Odescalchi at Bassano Romano constructed by marquis Vincenzo Giustiniani, the loggia whose decoration is attributed to the school of the Zuccari in 1604 contains the depiction of a small pergola on the intrados of the right arch (viewed from the exterior), but it seems a mere afterthought. I owe this information to Michael O’Neill. Bureca’s work on the Villa Giustiniani at Bassano Romano briefly touches on the decoration of the loggia, but no mention is made of this small detail of a pergola. See Bureca 2003, 151–152. 34 The House of Federico Zuccari (built 1591–1593) is currently the seat of the Bibliotheca Hertziana, Via Gregoriana 28, I-00187, Roma. The painted pergola and other interior decoration by Federico Zuccari and his assistants have been preserved. See Acidini Luchinat 1998, vol. 2, 200–203. 35 On either side of the doorway appear Federico’s grandfather, Taddeo Zuccari, and granduncle Angelo Zuccari, a cappucin monk. Next to Angelo comes Ottaviano Zuccari, Federico’s father, with his wife, Antonia, and daughter, Bartolomea. Taddeo and Federico Zuccari, sons of Ottaviano, follow. In the next lunette are other sons of Ottaviano, Giovanni Antonio, Lucio, Giovan Giacomo, Maurizio, and Luigi. The sixth lunette portrays Federico Zuccari and his wife, Francesca Genga. The seventh lunette shows the sons of Federico – Ottaviano, Alessandro Taddeo, Orazio, and Girolamo – and the eighth the daughters of Federico – Isabella, Cinzia, and Laura. See Acidini Luchinat 1998, 208–215. 36 For a detailed account of the history of the villa and documentation, see Lazzaro 1974 and 1990; Sabine Frommel 2005. 37 The attribution to Vignola has been contested. Bruno Adorni and Marcello Fagiolo, following David Coffin and Claudia Lazzaro, defend the authorship of Vignola, while Christoph Frommel and Richard Tuttle support the idea of Tommaso Ghinucci as the villa’s designer. See Ribouillaut 2011, 227, n.21. 38 Contemporary parallels of the representation of the villa within the villa can also be found at the Villa d’Este at Tivoli, the Villa Farnese at Caprarola, and the Villa Medici in Rome. See Coffin 1998; Lazzaro 1990, 245; Ribouillault 2005; 2008a; 2011. As Lazzaro noted, the represented villas or estates are usually those in the patron’s possession. The Palazzina Gambara’s loggia is a rare example in which estates belonging to persons other than the patron are depicted. However, they can be interpreted as prominent examples of villas and gardens that would serve as models to be emulated and perhaps also, according to Mirka Benes, a homage to patrons greater than oneself. 39 On the Palazzo Lancellotti in Rome, see Cavazzini 1998. 40 Coffin 1979, 133–145; Lazzaro 1985. 41 See Nonaka 2014/15. 42 On the Aviary Pavilion of the Villa Borghese on the Pincio, see Campitelli 2003 and 2008. 43 See n.27 above. 44 Campitelli 2008, 45. 45 See Campitelli 2008, 137. Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Archivio Borghese, b. 4170: Et prima per la volta dell’andito tra le due Uccelliere quale e fatta con diversi compartimenti di legname e viti con uva et foglie con diverse pianti di gelsomini et ripieni i vani di diversi uccelli

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46

47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54

e animali il tutto sino al posamento della volta importa scudi cento. Reference cited by Campitelli. See Campitelli 2008, 137. Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Archivio Borghese, b. 4170: Per haver fatti diversi compartimenti di legname et infiniti uccelli nell quadri sopra li Archi delle sudette due uccelliere di lunghezza di palmi 20 importa luna scudi 12 e in tutto quattro insieme scudi 50. Reference cited by Campitelli. Campitelli 2008, 49. Campitelli 2008, 54–55. Tantillo Mignosi 1980, 141–162. Currently the villa has been transformed into a hotel, the Park Hotel Villa Grazioli, of the group Relais et Châteaux. See http://www.villagrazioli.com/ italiano/gallery.html. On the Horti Farnesiani on the Palatine, see Morganti 1990. On the Villa Falconieri at Frascati, see Tantillo-Mignosi 1980, 83–104. Currently the villa is the seat of CEDE (Centro Europea dell’Educazione) and INVALSI (Istituto nazionale per la valutazione del sistema educativo di istruzione e di formazione). The attribution to Cirro Ferri is Joseph Connors’s. I owe the information to Mirka Beneš. Tantillo Mignosi 1980, 96. Tantillo Mignosi 1980, 96.

6

Collecting nature Virtual flora and fauna

The illusionistic pergolas were embedded in the culture of collecting and the study of natural history in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italy. They reflected the species of flora and fauna that were the object of collecting as well as those newly introduced from the East and the New World. They were in themselves an artistic display of the collection of flora and fauna, a visual encyclopedia of natural history with a degree of artistic license. They sprang from and flourished in a particular cultural climate before modern science was established, in which myth and scientific observation coexisted, blending traditional classicism and lore with new scientific rigor. The painted pergolas at the Villa Giulia, the Villa d’Este, and the Palazzo Altemps show how mythic structures were interwoven with the display of flora and fauna. Plants rendered with scientific precision mingled with figures from classical myth such as putti and the personifications of Victory and Fame. This may seem like pure whimsy, but in fact it reflected an ambiguity that is evident at the heart of early modern scientific inquiry itself. This chapter will digress from direct consideration of the pergolas themselves to explore a parallel trend in early modern Europe: the emergence of natural history as an object of scientific study, a trend with immediate implications for the development of the pergolas’ artistic programs. It will examine the intersection of collecting culture and the illusionistic pergolas through the discussion of key figures and trends relevant to the study of natural history. Thereby it will trace hypothetically the rise and development of the scientific disciplines, which first encouraged the unique creative florescence of pergola imagery and then brought it to an end.

Artists of nature In the first half of the sixteenth century, the interest in natural history, especially in relation to the pictorial arts, was more prominent in northern Italy. Florence was the center for the humanistic studies through rediscovered Greco-Roman texts; Rome, with its profusion of ancient ruins, inscriptions, and artworks, was the center for antiquarian studies. But in cultural centers in northern Italy, such as Milan, Venice, Padua, and Bologna, where archaeological remains of antiquity were not so abundant, interest in the natural world became a prominent characteristic of the Renaissance. It was in Padua, the Venetian center for academic studies, and Bologna, with its own university, that botanical studies flourished. The first botanical garden in Europe was the Orto Botanico of Pisa, created in 1543 under Medici patronage;1 the following year, the Orto Botanico of Padua, commissioned by the Venetian Republic, was established as the first botanical garden with civic sponsorship.2 Artists with strong interests in

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natural history were based or trained in the cultural centers of northern Italy as well as those north of the Alps. Among them were Leonardo da Vinci, Giovanni Bellini, and Giovanni da Udine.3 This trend had an impact on the illusionistic pergolas on various levels, and styles and concepts were transmitted through the relocation of artists. Not to mention Giovanni da Udine, the first artist to apply the decorative scheme of the illusionistic pergola on a monumental scale, Leonardo da Vinci, well known for his interest in science,4 is the author of the painted decoration of the Sala delle asse, most likely the model for the illusionistic bower at the Villa Farnese at Caprarola. The establishment of botany as a scientific discipline was a milestone in the development of modern science. During the sixteenth century, the study of plants was established as an independent discipline; it was long considered to be a branch of medicine, the equivalent of modern pharmacognosy rather than botany.5 Plants and their medicinal or pharmacological properties were an indispensable part of the knowledge of a man of medicine. It is also for this reason that the first botanical gardens, created from the mid-sixteenth century in Italy, were usually associated with the school of medicine at the university. Moreover, the term botany was not in common use in the sixteenth century. The study of plants was described as the study of herbs, or semplici. Thus the early botanical gardens were not called botanical gardens, but giardini di semplici, or herb gardens, and manuscript or published works on plant knowledge were referred to as herbals. Botany would be recognized as a science in itself only at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The illustrated herbals, published throughout the sixteenth century, were necessary antecedents to this development. The first scientific herbals in the Renaissance, Otto Brunfels’s Herbarum vivae icones (Strasbourg, 1530) and Leonhart Fuchs’s De Historia Stirpium (Basel, 1542), were published in the German cultural sphere.6 In Italy Pietro Andrea Mattioli published the commentaries of Dioscorides’s De materia medica, the only herbal that had been transmitted from antiquity (Figure 6.1).7 Mattioli professed himself the direct descendant of the ancients through his publication and claimed the privilege of being part of the classical tradition.8 Sixteenth-century herbals were not encyclopedias of botany in the modern sense, but manuals of plants compiled for the purpose of knowing the materials out of which medicinal compounds were made. They offered instruction on how to recognize plant species, what kind of medicinal effects they had, and how to use them in actual medical practice. They often included references to things other than botanical properties, which may appear to be non-scientific from a modern perspective but were perceived by contemporaries as relevant to plant knowledge.9 Alongside herbals that focused on the botanical aspect of plants, a significant number of works included references to plant lore or plant myth. Partly because of the coexistence of seemingly opposing currents in the field of natural history – scientific investigation and the remnants of the non-scientific – herbals continued to be diverse. Giovanni Battista Della Porta’s Phytognomonica (1588), submitted to the Accademia dei Lincei for his application to membership, was based on the argument that plants bearing a visual resemblance to human organs would have the power to heal diseases affecting them. The tension between science and superstition, alongside the idea of antiquity as an authoritative model and a mark of pedigree, was a familiar theme in the intellectual discourse of the time. These are observable in the discussion surrounding the establishment of botany as an academic discipline and its official integration into the physician’s training. On the one hand, natural history was gaining respectability in the academic

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Figure 6.1 Pietro Andrea Mattioli, Commentarii in sex libros Pedacii Dioscoridis Anazarbei de materia medica. Venice, 1565. Illustrations by Giorgio Liberale da Udine and Wolfgang Meyerpeck. Pages 244–245 showing citrus species. Courtesy of the Smithsonian Libraries and the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

hierarchy, and naturalists and botanists gradually acquired the status of respectable professionals appointed to professorships and directorships within academic institutions, Luca Ghini, Andrea Cesalpino, and Gabriele Falloppia among them. On the other hand, there were scholars such as Leonhard Thurneisser and John Dee, who specialized in astrology and alchemy in addition to plant studies and various other fields, and who relied on the patronage of Renaissance monarchs for their livelihood. The establishment of botany as a scientific discipline took the process of a gradual separation of science from superstition and the prioritization of direct observation of nature over tradition and mystical practice. This development – the intellectualization of an applied trade – involved adherence to the classical tradition as an authoritative canon and a model of knowledge. It resembles a similar situation surrounding the profession of the painter and the architect in Renaissance Italy. A century earlier, Alberti had written treatises on painting and architecture to provide those artisanal trades with intellectual frameworks. In order to elevate painting and architecture to high art – a discipline that could occupy the interest of a learned prince in the same manner as literature or music – Alberti used the authority of the antique. Referring to ancient precedents was an effective way of conferring authenticity on the subject. Alberti’s De pictura and De re aedificatoria played an

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important role in establishing the painter and the architect as intellectual professionals occupying a higher position in the social hierarchy than the uneducated craftsman.10 Natural history entered the firmament by another route, introducing an empirical and concrete dimension to the theory-dominated discipline of medicine. The cultural climate in northern Europe prepared the ground for the development of botanical studies based on direct observation and experiment. The relative freedom from the classical tradition and the merchant culture born of trade and exchange in the Netherlands favored a practical approach and the direct scientific study of the physical world. Three Flemish scholars, Rembert Dodoens, Charles de L’Ecluse, and Matthias de L’Obel, contributed to the advancement of plant studies, not only in their scientific methods of investigation, but also by establishing a scholarly network of communication through correspondence and publication.11 The paucity of antique remains in the northern regions would also have encouraged artists to focus on nature, landscape, and the topography of the land unencumbered by a classical perspective. Northern artists excelled in the depiction of nature and landscapes; a significant number of Dutch and Flemish artists brought this expertise with them to Italy.12 We have seen that Matthijs and Paul Bril undertook the depiction of nature in the First Loggia of Gregory XIII and the Loggia of Cardinal Borghese on the Quirinal respectively. The Bril brothers also executed the landscapes in the Vatican Palace and made a significant contribution to landscape painting in Italy.13 Giusto Utens, who painted the lunettes of the Medici villas and their gardens for Ferdinando de’ Medici, was also a Flemish artist who trained in the north and made his career in Italy. Ludovico Pozzoserrato was the Italianized name of Lodewijk Toeput, a Flemish painter trained in the workshop of Tintoretto, whose most renowned work is Pleasure Garden with Maze (1579–1584, Hampton Court). Pozzoserrato was based in Treviso and specialized in depictions of outdoor dining and entertainment in a garden setting, with pergolas, pavilions, and walkways covered with vegetation. These artists were mediators in the transmission of landscape painting and motifs of greenery through networks and patronage. During the course of the sixteenth century, the illustration of natural history became an artistic subcategory; this continued in the still-life genre of flower painting that flourished in the seventeenth century. The specialization of artists and the division of labor in the workshop became more pronounced over time. The specialists in the depiction of nature not only executed commissions from aristocratic patrons but also served the naturalists, newly established as intellectual professionals, in the documentation of botanical, ornithological, and zoological species. Jacopo Ligozzi was an artist of nature who elevated plant illustration to an art. He was employed as a draughtsman by Grand Duke Francesco I de’ Medici from 1577 and made drawings of plants and animals until 1591. From 1587 he became court painter to Grand Duke Ferdinando I de’ Medici.14 Ligozzi depicted plants accurately and to scale, but without neglecting aesthetic effects. He decorated the Tribuna degli Uffizi, intended to house the naturalia and the artificialia in the Medici collection. Here he painted the wainscot (no longer extant) with a frieze of birds, fish, plants, and shells. The Medici had an earlier depiction of a similar kind, the scrittoio of Cosimo I (before 1552) decorated by Bachiacca in the mezzanine level of the Palazzo Vecchio. The Uffizi Tribuna would have been decorated along the same lines. Ligozzi also contributed to the documentation of Ulisse Aldrovandi’s private museum, consisting of specimens of minerals, plants, and animals collected, studied, and classified by the Bolognese naturalist. Aldrovandi’s project resulted in an encyclopedia of natural history illustrated with almost 7,000 drawings.15 Thus Ligozzi can be characterized as the first artist specializing in the scientific illustration of plants.

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Gardens as display spaces and museums of natural history The illusionistic pergolas are visual encyclopedias of natural history with a degree of artistic license. The species of flora and fauna can be depicted as realistically as possible, but because they belonged to the aesthetic realm, they did not necessarily have to meet rigorous scientific standards of precision. In the garden pavilion at the Villa Medici, for example, the specimens of plants, birds, and animals are arranged in a seemingly random manner; obviously, their arrangement is different from the taxonomical arrangement in a botanical or zoological treatise. The illusionistic pergola followed its own order of arrangement, one that makes the whole a composition agreeable to the eye. This aesthetic approach was also used in other forms of display in the garden. In the sixteenth century, the garden served as the display space for zoological, ornithological, and lapidary specimens.16 The first chamber of the Grotto of Buontalenti in the Boboli Gardens is a painted menagerie (Figure 3.7). The Grotto of Animals in the Villa Medici at Castello is a menagerie of sculpted mammals, birds, fish, and other marine animals in various colored stone arranged in the form of a fountain. From the turn of the seventeenth century, the garden also became the display space of horticultural collections. The compartment gardens in the Horti Farnesiani and the garden of the Palazzo Barberini accommodated plantings of floral species, especially the colorful bulb flowers that came into fashion from the late sixteenth century (Figure 6.2). As Hervé Brunon noted, the arrangement of these flower gardens was similar to that of the botanical gardens of the period.17 Citrus species were often displayed on pergolas for visitors to walk through, as in Cardinal Pio’s garden in Rome (Figure 6.3).18

Figure 6.2 Horti Farnesiani, plan. Giovanni Battista Falda, Li giardini di Roma, Rome, 1670. Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin.

Figure 6.3 Cardinal Pio’s garden. Giovanni Battista Ferrari, Hesperides, Rome, 1646. Courtesy of the Getty Research Institute and the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

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In contrast to aristocratic gardens, the museums of naturalists, apothecaries, and physicians generally appear to show less concern for the style of display. The museums of Francesco Calzolari in Verona, Ferdinando Cospi in Bologna (later annexed to Aldrovandi’s museum), and Ferrante Imperato in Naples share a seeming indifference to aesthetics in the display of objects,19 but their startling visual effect may in fact reveal a kinship to contemporary garden pergolas (Figure 6.4). In Calzolari’s and Cospi’s museums, horizontal shelves filled with objects cover the entire wall from floor to ceiling. Shelves and cabinets partitioned into sections are set against the walls and filled with objects, leaving no free space. Even the ceiling is not exempt from this horror vacui; objects are attached and displayed wherever space is available, hanging like fruit from a bower. The arrangement of the objects is in a sense evocative of Giorgio Liberale’s illustrations for Matthioli’s herbal, where the illustrated page is filled with details (Figure 6.1). Liberale’s crowded style forms a strong contrast with Ligozzi’s, which always left a certain amount of blank space. These early modern natural history museums give the impression of a crowded storage room rather than a carefully designed space to be seen and appreciated. The emphasis appears to have been more on the public display of the richness and the variety of the collection rather than on the individual experience of learning and discovery through direct contact with the specimens on exhibit. The arrangement is as distracting as it is monotonous,

Figure 6.4 Museum of Ferrante Imperato in Naples. Ferrante Imperato, Dell’historia naturale, Venice, 1672. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (85-B1669).

Figure 6.5 Museum of the Jesuit College in Rome. Giorgio de Sepi, Romani Collegii Societatis Iesu Musaeum Celeberrimum, Amsterdam, 1678, frontispiece. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2983–889).

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since the objects are placed too close to one another, and in most cases, no single object stands out among the others.20 There seems to have been little concern for attracting the viewers’ interest to specific objects and engaging them to examine them more closely. However, this kind of arrangement may be seen in a different perspective. In contrast to the botanical gardens, which were designed within the Italian garden tradition,21 the collectors may not necessarily have sought the intervention of an architect or designer to devise a style of display in the museums of natural history. This crowded clutter, on closer examination, has its own rules of display centered on the principle of taxonomy. The issue here was more about collecting, cataloguing, and arranging the objects in systematic order than arranging them in a hierarchical or aesthetically pleasing way. The continuous display on walls and ceilings, and especially the preference for including the ceiling as part of the display, may have been derived from the decorative scheme of palaces and villa buildings, where the interior decoration covered not only the walls but also extended to the ceiling. Our illusionistic pergolas follow such a decorative pattern. It would have appeared natural for the contemporary visitors to these museums to have something to look at not only on the walls but also on the ceilings. There is in fact a strong connection between the illusionistic pergolas in loggias and these display spaces of collections; both served a didactic function, conveying knowledge or eliciting recognition by encouraging and engaging visitors to examine carefully the displayed objects, whether in real or painted form, on the walls and the ceiling. Collecting raised questions about how to classify, identify, and store the collected objects to maximize their value as sources of knowledge. The shelves with subdivisions and drawers of identical form and size would have facilitated classification, identification, and ease of access. The memory theater would most likely have provided a model for these catalogue displays.22 Such places were more akin to books and treatises rather than to museums in the modern sense; they were visual encyclopedias in three dimensions. Athanasius Kircher’s Roman College Museum as illustrated in a publication of 1678 appears to show a compromise between the two forms of display, artistic and taxonomic (Figure 6.5). The corridor is an impressive space with wall and ceiling frescoes depicting scientific subjects and an aligned display of colossal obelisks but nevertheless shows a similarity with the museums of Calzolari, Imperato, and Cospi in the monotony of the horizontal arrangement of specimens in the left foreground. The illustration emphasizes the sensation of awe inspired by the scale of the space as suggested by the relative smallness of the visitors represented in the foreground.

Scholars of natural history From the latter half of the sixteenth century, we start seeing a new form of upward social mobility among the aristocracy. The traditional dynamic was to strive for political and territorial power and the election of a family member to the papacy, and this model did not change appreciably. However, there appeared a few who distinguished themselves by means of intellectual cultivation and played an important role in the advancement of scientific knowledge and scholarly study. These include Ulisse Aldrovandi, collector and scholar of natural history; Federico Cesi, founder of the Accademia dei Lincei, the first scientific society in Rome; and Cassiano dal Pozzo, a

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scholar and collector whose greatest legacy is the documentation of his collection. In terms of wealth and social status, these intellectual aristocrats may not have reached the same level as the powerful papal families; however, alongside botanists, mathematicians, scientists, artists, and architects, they became active proponents of professional social mobility in early modern Italy. Ulisse Aldrovandi is a case in point. His father was secretary major to the senate of Bologna, and his mother was of noble birth, related to Pope Gregory XIII.23 He received a broad education in law, letters, philosophy, logic, and mathematics at Padua and Bologna and graduated with a degree in medicine and philosophy from the University of Bologna in 1553.24 He traveled widely in France, Spain, and Italy and went on several expeditions for the investigation of plants and other natural subjects in the company of plant specialists – Francesco Calzolari, an apothecary whose museum of natural history was briefly discussed earlier;25 Luca Ghini, a naturalist who held the directorship of the botanical garden and the lectureship of simples at Pisa; and Gabriele Falloppia, an anatomist who held the lectureship of simples at Ferrara, Pisa, and Padua. Aldrovandi was appointed to the new chair in natural history at Bologna in 1561 and to the Protomedicato in 1565.26 In spite of his training and qualifications, Aldrovandi never taught or practiced medicine in his career, although his medical degree would have qualified him to do so. Instead, he diverged to natural history. In the opinion of the physicians of the time, the study of natural history was regarded as supplementary to the more essential precepts of medicine and hardly worthy as the primary occupation for a man of talent.27 In the mid-sixteenth century, lecturing on medicinal plants became part of the medical curriculum, but the difference in social status and salary was evident compared to the more highly regarded teaching of theoretical and practical medicine.28 Aldrovandi exemplified the emergent modern scholar of his time. He contributed to the introduction of a scientific approach to nature through collecting and publication. He collected animals, plants, and minerals – the naturalia, as they are termed. He also collected artificialia – artifacts of material culture from antiquity as well as from the New World.29 His private natural history museum was widely known in Italy; the visitor’s book preserves the names, ranks, and dates of those who visited it. In 1579, his museum’s holdings counted 14,000 objects and a herbarium composed of 6,000 desiccated specimens. At the time of his death in 1605, these numbers had climbed to 18,000 and 7,000 respectively.30 After his death, the private museum, remarkable in scale and in the breadth of the collected objects, was transferred to the city of Bologna and was maintained as a civic institution by the senate of the city.31 In addition to building a museum of encyclopedic scope, Aldrovandi promoted greater visibility of his collection by means of documentation and publication. He mobilized a group of artists specializing in the illustration of nature to make drawings documenting his collection and created a virtual museum alongside its real counterpart. He published extensive studies on ornithology, zoology, ichthyology, entomology, and dendrology. He developed an innovative methodology for the study of natural history through precise documentation and classification of the objects in the collection. Aimed more at advancing research than using the collection as a tool for enhancing social status, his collecting activities set a new direction for an intellectual professional. Aldrovandi’s interest in documentation was already manifest in his earliest work, the catalogue of ancient Roman statues in the private collections in Rome,32 published as an appendix to Lucio Mauro’s Le antichità della città di Roma (Venice, 1556). This

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is a valuable contemporary catalogue of the antique sculptures collected by Roman patrons in the sixteenth century. In the field of natural history, Aldrovandi’s predecessors included French apothecary and naturalist Pierre Belon and Swiss physician and naturalist Conrad Gessner, who both published on natural history. Aldrovandi’s first publication in natural history was Ornithologiae (Bologna, 1599), an extensive work in three volumes, with woodcut illustrations by Lorenzo Bennini, Cornelio Schwindt, and Jacopo Ligozzi. It was an encyclopedia of birds that built upon Belon’s Histoire de la nature des oyseaux (Paris, 1555) and Gessner’s Historia animalium (Zürich, 1551–1558). New ways of classification had been proposed in these two works: alphabetical arrangement in Belon and taxonomic categories in Gessner. But Aldrovandi’s work, discussing 450 species in contrast to Gessner’s 250, was an ambitious project to present the animal kingdom as a systematic structure of families and orders. In addition to the morphological characteristics of the subjects, Aldrovandi also discussed their treatment in myths, coins, and emblems, as well as their culinary and pharmacological uses. The illustrations recreated the natural habitat of the birds by representing the species of the trees and shrubs necessary for their nidification or alimentation. A combination of natural history and antiquarianism, Aldrovandi’s Ornithologiae was a broad cultural approach to the study of birds rather than a purely scientific one. A characteristic of the Ornithologiae, which also finds a resonance in Giovanni Battista Ferrari’s Flora overo de florum cultura (1633), is the inclusion of the “uccelli fantastici,” imaginary winged creatures such as harpies and griffins. Tommasini and Taliaferri comment that these creatures still had their place in the animal world of the sixteenth century.33 But their inclusion in Aldrovandi’s bird study is suggestive of the blurry boundary between science and myth in this period and the general perception of the natural world as a harmonious mixture of the two. The same mentality can be observed in Aldrovandi’s fascination with a “dragon.” The auspicious creature that made a timely appearance in Bologna on May 13, 1572, the very day Ugo Boncompagni was scheduled to return to his hometown for investiture to the papacy as Gregory XIII, was probably just a species of reptile. But by calling it a dragon, not only the intellectual community of Bologna but also Aldrovandi himself were recognizing the animal not in the modern zoological sense, but in a more comprehensive way, as a simultaneously natural and supernatural creature rich with all its connotations of iconography, symbolism, and myth. The sensation caused by a dragon’s appearance in Bolognese society is only understandable if we take into consideration the lack of doubt in general, among the intellectuals of the time, as to the appropriateness of discussing real and mythological animals in the same arena. As a relative of the new Pope, Aldrovandi claimed possession of this rare animal with two feet for his museum, which immediately attracted a large number of gentlemen visitors.34 The Boncompagni subsequently adopted the dragon on their coat of arms. Aldrovandi had written a study of dragons, entitled Dracologia, which at the time was still in manuscript form and was published posthumously in 1640. In the winter of 1572, after the incident of the dragon, there were so many requests for the manuscript version that Aldrovandi protested that he had neither the time nor the scribes to meet the demands.35 Aldrovandi’s Ornithologiae may have been modeled on the discourse of ancient Roman natural history treatises such as book X of Pliny’s Historia naturalis which focuses on birds both real and mythical.36 A mythical example in Pliny’s treatise would be the firebird (incendiaria avis), which is observed to be carrying fire.37 This kind of mixture appears

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to have been a familiar concept among early modern intellectuals, but amidst this curious pluralism, Aldrovandi strived to focus solely on the observable characteristics of the specimens he collected, and that aspect of his work can be considered successful. The tempera and watercolor drawings of plants and animals in his collection by Giovanni Neri, Jacopo Ligozzi, and Cristoforo Coriolano, among others, exhibit the realism and the precision of scientific illustration.38 Federico Cesi contributed to the advancement of modern science by founding the first modern scientific academy in Rome, the Accademia dei Lincei (Academy of the Lynxes).39 Born into a noble Umbrian family connected to the old baronial families of the Caetani and the Orsini, Federico became interested in the plants, animals, and fossil remains that he found during his explorations in the countryside surrounding his estate at Acquasparta. In 1603, the eighteen-year-old Cesi founded an academy of science with three of his friends, Francesco Stelluti, Anastasio de Filiis, and Dutch physician Johannes Heck. Cesi called his academy the Accademia dei Lincei, not just after Lyncaeus, the perspicacious member of the Argonauts, but above all the lynx, for its keen eye. The academy’s founders constituted a small circle of individuals who were dedicated to scientific research and engaged in experiments and direct observation of the natural world. During Cesi’s lifetime, it did not number more than twenty Linceans at its height. Prominent members include Giovanni Battista della Porta, Galileo Galilei, Francesco Barberini, and Cassiano dal Pozzo. The academy played an important role in the establishment of science as a socially accepted discipline by supporting scientists such as Galileo, who was at variance with the Catholic authorities. The discord between science and the Church was inevitable, and the efforts of individual scientists as well as of those who supported them became the main driving force in changing the cultural climate. Cassiano dal Pozzo, in particular, played a facilitating and sponsoring role, which proved crucial for the protection of the activities of the Linceans. He is the only other figure comparable to Aldrovandi who devoted himself to documenting natural history.40 Cassiano received a university education, but in the field of law. Born into a family that held prominent positions at the court of the dukes of Savoy, he was educated at the University of Pisa and graduated with a degree in civil and ecclesiastical law in 1607. He served as Cardinal Barberini’s secretary and accompanied the cardinal on a diplomatic mission to Paris in 1625 and to Madrid in 1626. On his return to Rome in 1626, Cassiano and his brother Carlo Antonio (1604–1689) moved into a palazzo on the Via dei Chiavari, where they begun to build a collection of paintings, books, medals, and drawings. Cassiano acquired Federico Cesi’s collection after the latter’s untimely death in 1630; in 1633 he bought the books, manuscripts, and scientific instruments in Cesi’s library and museum and incorporated Cesi’s collection of drawings into his own drawing collection.41 Cassiano called his drawing collection the Museo Cartaceo (Paper Museum).42 It consisted of illustrations documenting ancient Roman architecture and antiquities on the one hand and natural history on the other. In the latter category, the fossil, the fungi, and most of the flower drawings would have come from the Cesi collection, while the drawings of birds and citrus fruit were most likely commissioned by Cassiano himself.43 The use of the term “paper museum” shows that the word “museum” had already become an established term to designate a collection and, moreover, that a collection on paper could have a cultural value in its own right, equivalent to the collection of real objects.44 Perhaps an analogy can be made with the case of an architect’s completed works and the built or unbuilt projects

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recorded on paper. The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo made the collection available to a wide public and facilitated access to a larger audience. Like Aldrovandi, Cassiano also conducted scientific research on natural history and published the results as books; however, the books did not always bear his name as author. The drawings of birds and citrus fruits that formed part of his Museo Cartaceo were commissioned for publications on natural history. The bird drawings were to accompany Giovanni Pietro Olina’s Uccelliera (Rome, 1622). The citrus fruit drawings were intended for Giovanni Battista Ferrari’s Hesperides sive de malorum aureorum cultura et usu (Rome, 1646). Birds and citrus fruit were popular subjects of natural history, and they represented two of the favorite and fashionable pastimes of the affluent class, hunting and collecting. Although Cassiano played a key role in the preparation of these two works, the Uccelliera and Hesperides, his authorship is scarcely mentioned in either.45 Hesperides is presented as the work of the Jesuit priest and professor, Giovanni Battista Ferrari, who was also the author of Flora sive de florum cultura (1633).46 Cassiano had done more than provide funding for the publication of Hesperides. He had gathered the majority of the information contained in it and assembled many of the citrus drawings and the designs for the allegorical plates. However, his name appears only twice throughout the book, and not as its author.47 As Freedberg points out, the meagerness of the references to Cassiano, notwithstanding his major involvement in the project, applies even more to the Uccelliera. Presented as the work of a lawyer, Giovanni Pietro Olina, and merely dedicated to Cassiano, it was a comprehensive study of birds based on firsthand observation,48 containing not only ornithological knowledge, but also information on methods of bird hunting and trapping, culinary uses, their songs, and the cages and aviaries where the birds were to be kept. Like Aldrovandi’s Ornithologiae (1599), it was an avian encyclopedia with a mixture of scientific knowledge, folklore, and mythology.49 It was the result of Cassiano’s own research and was presented to Cesi as Cassiano’s work, as a proof of the latter’s qualification for membership in the Accademia dei Lincei.50 Why then is Cassiano not listed as the author but just as the dedicatee? Freedberg suggested that the suppressed authorship may have been due to the modesty of the gentleman-virtuoso,51 but perhaps it had to do more with what was considered prestigious at the time. Passages referring to Cassiano in Flora and Hesperides do not fail to designate his museum as his greatest achievement, and indeed a veritable “Parnassus.” Possessing a museum and a collection, then, carried much greater weight in aristocratic circles than having a scientific publication under one’s name. As many works were dedicated to aristocratic patrons who sponsored the works by providing funding, to gentlemen-virtuosi like Cassiano, it may have appeared to bring more prestige to be celebrated as a patron with a significant collection and to be mentioned in a dedication than to be designated as the author of a book. Amidst the cultural climate of the time, we may see this intellectual stance as a reflection of the mentality among intellectuals, who found themselves fluctuating in conflict between being “aristocratic” and “scientific.”

Horticultural treatises A notable phenomenon from the early seventeenth century is the appearance of books specifically focused on flowering plants, which in style and content were clearly intended not primarily as herbals, but to promote the enjoyment of the ornamental

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and aesthetic qualities of flowers.52 One of the most important among them is Giovanni Battista Ferrari’s Flora sive de florum cultura (1633). Published in the same year as Galileo’s trial, it was the first significant work on horticulture focusing on the ornamental aspect of flowers including their use and display. It featured the species that had been introduced to Rome from the latter half of the sixteenth century, including cherished tulips and the bulb species, many of which had already appeared in the illusionistic pergolas of the third period at the Palazzo Altemps and in the Loggia of Cardinal Borghese on the Quirinal. In contrast to the florilegia published at the time, which consisted mainly or solely of illustrations, the text was the main component of the work, though it was supplemented by numerous illustrations. The Latin edition of 1633 was dedicated to Cardinal Francesco Barberini, nephew of Pope Urban VIII. Francesco was a collector of flowers, and many species were cultivated in the garden of the Barberini palace on the Quirinal.53 The Italian edition Flora overo cultura di fiori (1638) was dedicated to Anna Colonna Barberina, Taddeo Barberini’s wife. Giovanni Battista Ferrari, as mentioned earlier, was the listed author of Flora and Hesperides. Ferrari completed his humanistic studies in Siena and moved to Rome in 1602, where he joined the Society of Jesus and was appointed professor of Hebrew and Rhetoric at the Collegio Romano as well as horticultural consultant to Cardinal Francesco Barberini. Flora is divided into four books, each with a different focus: book I on the creation of the flower garden, garden furnishings, and tools; book II on the description of the different species of ornamental flowers (with particular emphasis on bulb species); book III on the planting and cultivation of flowers; and book IV on the various ornamental uses of flowers. The illustrations included in the book fall into two categories: first, images of flowers, planting designs for compartment beds, garden tools, arrangement of flowers, and vessels for the display of cut flowers; second, plates of a mythological or allegorical nature that imply a narrative. The inclusion of the latter is a notable characteristic of Ferrari’s works.54 The episodes visualized in these illustrations, peopled with classical divinities and personifications of natural forces, provided advice on questions related to gardens and explained natural phenomena by imposing mythical origin on animals and plants. At first glance they may appear to be drawn from ancient sources, but they were all inventions of Ferrari’s. The purpose of these mythological illustrations was to convey scientific or horticultural knowledge in the guise of a classical fable, a type of discourse for incorporating new knowledge into the existing paradigm. This pseudo-classical mythology served as a mediator in the process, providing a familiar narrative framework for interpreting raw natural phenomena. These mythological plates were executed by the artists under Barberini patronage – Johann Friedrich Greuter, Andrea Sacchi, Pietro Berrettini, Claude Mellan, Pietro da Cortona, and Guido Reni. Ferrari’s discourse, though dressed in this fanciful clothing, aimed to impart serious scientific horticultural knowledge. In that sense, Ferrari’s Flora still belongs to the type of discourse on the perception of nature recognizable in Sandro Botticelli’s Primavera (1478), which represents a natural phenomenon, the advent of spring, in the form of an allegory: the nymph Chloris, through contact with Zephyr, is transformed into the goddess Flora, scattering flowers all over the universe. The same applies to Ferrari’s other work on citrus species, Hesperides sive de malorum aureorum culturum et usu (1646). Hesperides evokes the golden apples Hercules recovered from the Gardens of Hesperides as the justification and the valorization for a manual and a treatise on the cultivation and enjoyment of citrus species.

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Here again we note the coexistence of myth and science in the mentality of the intellectuals of the age. The attempt to separate the two may be a strictly modern notion, alien to the early modern perception of the physical world. The coexistence of myth and science would have been perceived as an authentic mode of discourse reflecting the order of things inherited from antiquity. With paganism safely vanquished, classical mythology was widely accepted by the Church as a cultivated means of allegorical discourse. But certain aspects of science – most notoriously, the theory of the heliocentric universe adopted by Galileo, which meant an end to the Church’s Aristotelian and Ptolemaic worldview55 – still appeared too radical in the early seventeenth century to be delivered in an unmediated manner, unchecked by the proper modes of authority. In the era of Galileo’s downfall, it paid dividends to couch even the relatively safe subject of botany in the pleasingly familiar, relaxed, and smiling manner of the mythographer. The title page of Flora is a typical example of the coexistence of myth and science in the natural history discourse of the time (Figure 6.6). An etching designed by Pietro da Cortona and engraved by Johann Friedrich Greuter, it shows a garden with a classicizing quadrangular portico with arched openings on all four sides. On the side facing the viewer, above the arch is the Barberini coat of arms with a plaque inscribed FLORA SIVE FLORUM CULTURA, the book’s title. The depicted figures in the foreground are Flora and the four nymphs symbolizing the four seasons.56 To the left is a herm of the bifrontal Janus, on which is inscribed REDIMITUR FLORIBUS ANNUS (the year is reborn with flowers). A nymph is putting a flower wreath on his head, while another puts a garland around his neck and body. On either side of the herm are vases holding cut flowers for making the garlands and the wreaths; one of them has the sign of Aries, and the other of Cancer. These signs of the zodiac correspond to the Spring equinox and the Summer solstice, indicating the seasons represented by the two nymphs. Roses are scattered on the ground. To the right, two other nymphs are making wreaths. The vases they are holding bear the signs of Libra and Capricorn, representing Autumn and Winter. The central figure, Flora, adorned with flowers in her hair, points to garden tools – sieve, hoe, trowel, watering can – with her left hand, while her right gestures towards the inscription on the podium of Janus. The substitution of Janus for Priapus, the deity more commonly associated with gardens, emphasizes the cyclical sense of time, for Janus bears the faces of a young and an old man, and he traditionally ushers in the new year. The illustration proposes a diachronic understanding that the garden changes constantly all the year round and consequently celebrates the enduring reign of the Barberini throughout the recurring seasons. The portico evokes the title pages of architectural treatises of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Those by Palladio, Serlio, Vignola, and Scamozzi show on the title page a classicizing portal through which the reader will be led into the world of architecture. In our case, the depicted portal can be interpreted more directly as the one leading to the Barberini garden on the Quirinal, or its virtual form as recreated in the book, where the reader would find the same flowers as in the real garden.57 An illustration in chapter IV of book I, “On the Maintenance of Gardens and the Gardeners,” designed by Andrea Sacchi and engraved by Greuter, is a typical example of a pseudo-mythological narrative relating the origin of creatures in the garden. It shows a piazza recognizable as the one in front of the Barberini palace on the Quirinal, with Flora and her four attendant nymphs, a putto, and two men who are brothers and gardeners, Limace and Bruno (Figure 6.7).58 Through a portal, a garden with

Figure 6.6 Giovanni Battista Ferrari, De florum cultura libri IV, Rome, 1633. Title page. Courtesy of the Getty Research Institute and the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

Figure 6.7 The metamorphosis of Limace and Bruno. Giovanni Battista Ferrari, De florum cultura libri IV, Rome, 1633. Courtesy of the Getty Research Institute and the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

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compartment beds and a portico is revealed, which most likely refers to the Barberini garden. The portal, flanked by hip herms and crowned by a pair of reclining figures with baskets on their heads, bears the Barberini coat of arms, and an inscribed plaque beneath it reads: HIC VER ASSIDUUM / MELIO QUAM CARMINA / FLORES / INSCRIBUNT. OCULIS / TU LEGE / NON MANIBUS (Here, flowers, better than poems, proclaim eternal Spring. Read with your eyes, not with your hands). This formula refers to the Lex Hortorum, frequently found in Roman gardens in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It is a way of referencing the antique by using a Latin formula and at the same time emulating other prominent gardens in Rome. This inscription lays down the rules for the visitor of the garden: one is invited to enjoy viewing the blooming flowers, but not to pluck them. Flora is inflicting punishment on the two gardeners, Limace for neglecting the care for the flowers, and Bruno for having plucked and stolen them. Flora has struck them with a flower in her hand, which transforms Limace into a slug snail (lumaca in Italian, thus there is a play on words) and Bruno into a caterpillar. Both creatures are harmful to the garden; thus the story is an etiological myth, explaining the origins of garden pests in a classical mythological guise. It is told in an Ovidian vein, but it is an entire invention of Ferrari’s and has no earlier literary or iconographic source. The illustration at the end of the book, designed by Pietro da Cortona and engraved by Greuter, is a pseudo-myth as well, relating the story of another metamorphosis (Figure 6.8). The setting is a garden with a palace building and a fountain recognizable as those in the Barberini estate on the Quirinal. The actors here are Apollo crowned by a laurel wreath; Melissa (“honeybee”) and Florilla (“little flower”), twin daughters of Heaven and Earth; and their five attendant damsels. Except for Apollo, the figures appear to be fictive characters invented by Ferrari. Melissa is a follower of the Muses and devoted to the arts, while Florilla is a follower of Flora and has created a garden of delights.59 The group settles down under the shade of a laurel tree to hear Melissa sing a celebration of the beauty of the garden, accompanied by the cymbal of one of the attendants. The other damsels all have musical instruments – sistrum, tambourine, and triangle. Deeply moved by her sister’s enchanting song, Florilla languishes and is transformed into flowers. Melissa changes the tone of her song to a lament and herself undergoes a metamorphosis into a swarm of bees. Apollo incises the words “HIC DOMUS” (Here is our abode), alluding to the Barberini palace set amidst a flowery garden that attracted bees. The scene was most certainly a reference to the famous episode in book IV of Vergil’s Georgics referring to the bees. But more directly, it appears to be a pseudo-mythological episode invented by Ferrari for the specific purpose of the celebration of the Barberini, whose coat of arms bore bees. It references the topos of the Golden Age, brought to Rome by Barberini rule. The contrast of this mythological discourse with the practical and scientific information on flowers presented in books II and III, as well as the coexistence of two kinds of discourse in Ferrari’s work, makes it a unique example of a seventeenth-century treatise on horticulture. As in Aldrovandi’s work, this mixture of myth and science may have been a necessity in the society of Rome at the time, as an acknowledgement that the traditional approved world order continued to be valid. The inclusion of both may have been a practical solution as well as a strategy for publishing purely scientific knowledge, which could not yet stand on its own as an approved subject.

Figure 6.8 The metamorphosis of Melissa. Giovanni Battista Ferrari, De florum cultura libri IV, Rome, 1633. Courtesy of the Getty Research Institute and the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

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This long digression from our principal topic has been for a purpose: to provide a deeper and broader cultural context within which to understand it. Illusionistic pergolas, too, can be seen as an irrational (if delightful) mixture of myth and science in that they depict mythological figures such as putti, satyrs, and goddesses alongside the realistic forms of plants and birds rendered in a manner evocative of scientific study. And this curious blend of fact and fancy may perhaps have emerged from similar motives, marking the conceptual threshold between the “inside” of received culture, so often couched in a classical guise, and the “outside” of new knowledge – knowledge which was culturally contested and over the control of which various aristocratic interests often competed fiercely. The painted pergola at the Villa Giulia uses pairs of putti as a recurring motif, as well as the vine-harvesting satyrs, the latter most likely as a direct reference to classical prototypes. Its cognate in the Loggia of Cardinal Borghese also uses pairs of putti as a recurring motif, alongside the most sought-after species of flowers displayed in vases. The splendid example in the Altemps loggia includes the allegorical figures of Victory and Fame for the celebration of the Altemps and the Orsini families. The use of mythical figures in illusionistic pergolas is selective, since not all figures from classical mythology are represented. Although we have seen the interest in supernatural or extraordinary creatures like the “dragon” in Bologna in the 1570s, these do not appear as specimens in the illusionistic pergolas or similar contexts; if they appear at all, they belong to the apparatus of myth. When patrons adopt a mythical creature or figure in their artistic displays, there is a reason for the choice; it almost always indicates or is associated with an ideological purpose. The unicorn in the Grotto of Animals at the Villa Medici at Castello is a typical example. The mythical animal was invested with the beneficial role of purifying water and providing it in abundance to Florence; it in turn became an allegory of the Medici and the prosperity of the city under their rule.60 Mythical creatures or figures included in the illusionistic pergola would have been perceived as elements of a common visual language used by the aristocratic patrons to express the awareness of a shared cultural background and the ability to engage in a discourse with those who were familiar with its logic. Myth may have been used for rendering palatable the impact of pictorial subjects of nature such as plants and birds depicted with scientific accuracy, in much the same way as in Ferrari’s Flora. It may also have been used to assist in the recognition and appreciation of the value of such subjects newly introduced into the artistic repertory. In either case, myth would have been consciously used as a tool for negotiating the tension between the accepted old world order and the emerging new one and to allow for a smooth transition to the new perception of the world without causing commotion or chaos. After all, this tension is central to the discourse of the decorated porticoes of the Renaissance. Physically, they stood at the border between “inside” and “outside.” Symbolically, a comparable dichotomy between interior and exterior was often manifested in their imagery. Their herms, gods, putti, grotesques, grapevines – all symbols of a comfortable old order of cultural understanding grounded in the antique, their meanings perfectly comprehensible to the privileged classes of Europe – negotiated gently with the natural history of a brave new world of exploration and discovery. In the most ingratiating manner imaginable, the laden greenery of the painted pergola provided a metaphorical framework of cultural domination by which, literally and figuratively, the fruits of globalization, conquest, and colonization could be enjoyed.

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Effortlessly, seamlessly, the flora and fauna from home and abroad blended into a single, perfect ideological vision. One consequence of this trend was to render the artistic program of fictive pergolas among the most up-to-date documents of natural history and horticultural practice available. Published works, in fact, could lag rather far behind. In Ferrari’s Flora of 1633, for example, various uses of cut flowers are proposed by means of illustrations. When we think of the illusionistic pergolas in the Altemps loggia (1592) and in the Loggia of Cardinal Borghese (1610–12), illustrations from Ferrari’s Flora represent a rather belated recognition of actual practices in floral display that were already widely diffused (Pls. 15–17; 21–22). Cut flowers were used to make sumptuous bouquets or arrangements,61 and there were vessels for cut flowers that had holes to keep the stems in place. Flower arrangements of this sort would have become possible only after the cultivation of a variety of ornamental flowers in the garden had become widespread from the turn of the seventeenth century. Illustrations from Flora show classicizing vases with cut flowers (Figure 6.9).62 The vases, with strigillated patterns and acanthus motifs, appear to have been modeled on Roman cinerary urns. The handles on either side are in the shape of snakes. The species of the cut flowers placed in the vases were tulips, narcissi, and dianthus. The display of cut flowers in vases of classicizing design, even though it may have been a novelty in the 1590s when the Altemps pergola was painted, would have been a common practice by the 1610s when the Loggia of Cardinal Borghese was painted. Illustrations of such vases in Ferrari’s treatise on horticulture in the 1630s appear to acknowledge that the display of cut flowers was no longer a novelty but by then a widespread practice. Thus the illusionistic pergolas more speedily reflected current practice than illustrated books. This may have been due to the artistic license of painting – especially on private estates – that allowed artists to innovate without reservations. Printed books required papal authorization before publication, and this was apt to cause delays. *** Modern science – or to be more precise, the modern scientific mentalité – begins with Galileo and his rupture with the Catholic Church.63 As the cultural elite realized that the direct observation of nature might generate conflicts with the traditional worldview, they were faced with stark choices that could no longer countenance the comfortable coexistence of myth and science. With the rise of the Enlightenment, intellectuals began to separate what could be proven through direct observation and experiment from what could not, eliminating the latter from the domain of scientific research, and to embrace a new, unmediated scientific discourse at the expense of the traditional one imbued with myth and lore. This may have brought about a significant change in their patrons’ attitude towards myth. When we observe in parallel the falling out of fashion of the illusionistic pergola after the third period of efflorescence and the progressive rupture between myth and science, we are tempted to see a connection between the two phenomena. Created in a cultural climate that embraced the coexistence of myth and science, the pergolas used a formal and artistic code that conveyed the intellectual cultivation of the patron and the education of the patron and the painter. The genre may have been something akin to coins or medallions minted by various rulers and political and religious leaders on

Figure 6.9 An arrangement of cut flowers in a classicizing vase. Giovanni Battista Ferrari, De florum cultura libri IV, Rome, 1633. Courtesy of the Getty Research Institute and the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

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the model of ancient Roman coinage. Presenting themselves in the manner of ancient emperors, usually in profile relief, they sought to convey a set of specific ideological messages promoting the image of an enlightened and educated ruler with an understanding of antique culture, a legitimate claim to power, and an authentic connection to the great men of antiquity. At a time when science started to exclude from consideration what could not be proven by means of experiment or reasoning, the tendency to fold together scientific accuracy and the whimsy of mythical allusion may have lost some of its appeal. Whatever the reason, the patrons no longer found the illusionistic pergola a compelling vehicle for the expression of scientific discovery or cultural identity. Although we encounter sporadic recurrences of the genre in the eighteenth century,64 they lack momentum and freshness and appear to be little more than empty clichés. The revival of the pergola and its fictive counterpart in the late nineteenth century is a phenomenon closely related to the recovery of this lost function. Their reemergence cannot be entirely explained by design considerations alone because they were closely related to the expression of the cultural identity of those who commissioned them. The modern revival of the pergola, as before, was not just a phenomenon centered on its form and function or the aesthetic or kinesthetic experience it offered. Above all it carried cultural meaning.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

On the botanical garden at Pisa, see Garbari, Tongiorgi Tomasi, and Tosi 1991. Garbari, Tongiorgi Tomasi, and Tosi 1991, 29. On still-life painting in Italy, see Zeri and Porzio 1989. See Capra 2007. Azzi Visentini 1984, 12; De Koning in Minelli 1995, 57. Anderson 1977; Blunt and Raphael 1979; Minelli 1995, 20. The major editions of Mattioli’s commentaries of Dioscorides’s De materia medica are as follows: 1544 Venice, first Italian edition in five books; 1548 Venice, Italian edition in six books; 1554 Venice, Latin edition (revision of 1544 and 1548 editions) with small woodcuts; Venice 1565, Latin edition with large woodcuts by Giorgio Liberale da Udine and Wolfgang Meyerpeck first included in the Prague edition of 1563. Anderson 1977, 168; Blunt and Raphael 1979, 136; Findlen 1994, 248–256. Anderson 1977, 182–186, 197–198. See Kostof 1977, 124–160. For a concise summary of the careers and contributions of the three Flemish botanists Dodoens, L’Ecluse, and L’Obel, see De Koning in Minelli 1995, 24–25. See Hendriks 2003; Fiamminghi a Roma 1995; Rinaldi and Luciani 1988; Schmidt 1999. See Hendriks 2003. Tongiorgi Tomasi 2002, 39–40. Ligozzi’s drawings collection (housed in the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi) consists of seventy-eight works in gouache on paper. The manuscript and the illustrations are held in the University of Bologna Library. See Lazzaro 1995. Brunon states in regard to the planted compartments of the Villa Medici in Rome that there was no clear difference in layout between the compartment gardens of a villa and the botanical gardens. See Brunon 1999, 71. See Coffin 1991, 178–181. On these museums of science, see Findlen 1994. Ferrante Imperato’s museum has a large crocodile at the center of the ceiling, which would have been intended as the eye-catcher in the collection. On botanical gardens in sixteenth-century Italy and their connection to Italian garden tradition, see Azzi Visentini 1984, 69–104; Brunon 1999, 71; Lazzaro 1990, 20–21.

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22 On the art of memory from antiquity to the Renaissance, see Carruthers 2008; Yates 1966. 23 For Ulisse Aldrovandi’s biography, see Simili 2004, 7–8, 131–143. 24 Simili 2004, 132–133. 25 Findlen 1994 includes illustrations of some of the famous natural history museums of the time, that of Francesco Calzolari (1521–1600), p. 118, Figure 8, from Benedetto Ceruti and Andrea Chiocco, Musaeum Francisci Calceolari Iunioris Veronensis, Verona, 1622; Ferrante Imperato (1550–1625), p. 39, Figure 2, from Ferrante Imperato, Dell’historia naturale, Venice, 1672 (reproduced in this volume); and Ferdinando Cospi (1606–1686), p. 120, Figure 9, from Lorenzo Legati, Museo Cospiano annesso a quello del famoso Ulisse Aldrovandi e donato alla sua patria dall’illustrissino Signor Ferdinando Cospi, Bologna, 1677. 26 On the protomedicato in sixteenth-century Italy, see Findlen 1994, 263–266. 27 Falloppia’s letter to Aldrovandi (Padua, January 23, 1561) typically expresses that view. Di Pietro 1970, 56: Non scrivendo rimarrete un herbolaio. Sicchè mi dispiace che habbiate fatto questo transito, non perchè la professione me dispiaccia la quale sapete che anchora io indegnamente faccio, ma perchè mi piace più la prima et mi pare più degna in ogni conto et vi confortarei come vero e fedele amico di ritornare alla prima ogni volta che lo potiate fare con vostro honore, lasciando questa a chi la vole così potessi io lassar la mia, et quella dell’Anatomia, et attendere solo alla medicina come lo farrei et farò volentieri quando mi venga occasione. (I do not wish to imply that you will simply be a herbalist. However, it displeases me that you have made this transition – not because I dislike the position, which you know that I still perform unworthily, but because I liked the first one better. It seems to me the one worthy in every respect, and I will embrace you as a true and faithful friend if you return [to medicine] at the first opportunity that you can do so with honor, leaving the other to whoever wishes it. Thus I am able to leave my duties in materia medica and those in anatomy to attend only to medicine, as I would and will do voluntarily as the occasion arises.) (English translation from Findlen 1994, 255.) 28 See Findlen 1994, 255. At the University of Bologna, Girolamo Cardano (Pavia, 1501– Rome, 1576) was paid 521 scudi to teach theoria (theoretical medicine) from 1562 to 1570, while Aldrovandi’s salary for teaching natural history was 400 scudi. Girolamo Mercuriale (1530–1606) received 5,400 lire to teach theoria from 1587 to 1593. 29 For basic information on Aldrovandi’s museum, see Findlen 1994, 17–31. Aldrovandi’s museum was also important for its “book of friends,” in which visitors were required to write their names. The “book of friends” shows the social dimension of the museum. See Findlen 1994, 137–146. On Aldrovandi and antiquities, see A. Brizzolara, “Lo studio delle antichità” in Simili 2004, 95–115; on objects from the New World, see L. Minelli, “Le culture del Nuovo Mondo” in Simili 2004, 90–94. 30 G. Olmi, “Il collezionismo scientifico” in Simili 2004, 20. 31 Findlen 1994, 24. 32 The full title of Lucio Mauro’s book reads as follows: LE ANTICHITA DELLA CITTA DI ROMA. Breuemente raccolte da chiunque ha scritto, o antico o moderno; per Lvcio Mavro, che ha voluto particolarmente tutti questi luoghi vedere: onde ha corretti di molti errori, che ne gli altri scrittori di queste antichita si leggono. Et insieme anco di tutte le Statue antiche, che pertutta Roma in diuersi luoghi, e case particolari si ueggono, raccolte e descritte, per M. Vlisse Aldroandi; opera non fatta piu mai da scrittor alcuno. 33 S. Tommasini and M. Tagliaferri, “La ricerca zoologica” in Simili 2004, 60–61. 34 Findlen 1994, 17. 35 Findlen 1994, 20. 36 On the influence of Pliny the Elder’s Natural History in the early modern age, see MacHam 2013. 37 Pliny the Elder, Historia naturalis, X. xvii.36. 38 See Simili 2004, 36–48, 70–80. 39 For Cesi’s biography, see Freedberg 2002, 65–77. 40 Haskell and MacBurney in Freedberg and Baldini 1997, 9–12. 41 Cassiano made the purchase not just to help Cesi’s widow, Isabella Salviati, but above all to ensure that the collection would not be lost, especially under the challenging circumstances that affected the Academy, at a time when its most prominent member, Galileo, was undergoing trial. See Freedberg 2002, 59–60.

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42 The drawings have been published in two series: Series A, Antiquities and Architecture in 10 volumes, and Series B, Natural History, in 8 volumes. Series A documents ancient, medieval, and Renaissance architecture, mosaics, paintings, sarcophagi, metalwork, glass, and terracotta, among other works of art, and is formed mostly by the drawings housed in the Windsor Castle Royal Library, the British Museum, the British Library, and Sir John Soane’s Museum. Series B documents fauna, flora, fungi, geological specimens, citrus fruit, and birds and is formed mostly by the drawings housed in the Windsor Castle Royal Library, the Library of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, and the Institut de France in Paris. See Freedberg and Baldini 1997, 6, 29–30. 43 Freedberg and Baldini 1997, 35–39. 44 The idea that drawings could provide as much valuable information as can be gained from the direct observation of the object itself would have existed already in the early sixteenth century, when architects considered the documentation of ancient architecture in Rome as part of their professional training. Giuliano da Sangallo and Baldassare Peruzzi, among many others, created a collection of drawings of ancient architecture, which in turn became sources of inspiration for other architects. However, access to the drawings of architects would have been largely coincidental, depending on the artistic network and the location. 45 Freedberg 2002, 57. 46 Both works mention Vincenzo Leonardi (fl 1621–c.1646) as the author of the drawings on which the engraved illustrations were based. The mythological plates in Flora were made by Johann Friedrich Greuter and Cornelis Bloemaert, among others, based on the designs of Pietro da Cortona, Guido Reni, Andrea Sacchi, and Giovani Lanfranco, and the illustrations of flowers were made by Cornelis Bloemaert. Bloemaert was also responsible for the illustrations of the citrus fruits in Hesperides, based on the drawings by Vincenzo Leonardi, as well as the mythological plates, based on the designs by Nicolas Poussin, Domenichino, and Andrea Sacchi among others. One typical example is the robin, of which a drawing by Vincenzo Leonardi (Windsor RL 27626) was made into an etching for the illustration of the Uccelliera (Uccelliera, 1623, 15). As Freedberg has pointed out, the connection between the two is apparent, with the difference that in the etching, naturally, the right and left appear reversed (Freedberg, 2002, 54–55). 47 First, at the beginning of Book II where Cassiano is mentioned for his extraordinary erudition and keen eye for art (Hesperides, 1646, 99); second, in Book III chapter 35, where his Museum is referred to as a Parnassus (Hesperides, 1646, 360). 48 Freedberg 2002, 59. Before the Uccelliera, Cassiano had also prepared at least four separate treatises on birds, which are preserved in manuscript form. These focused on the toucan, the bearded vulture, ruby-throated hummingbirds, and the Dalmatian and European pelicans respectively. 49 Freedberg also acknowledges the presence of non-scientific material as a significant characteristic of the Uccelliera: folkloric, culinary, and fabulous and emblematic material of the kind that characterizes writers like Aldrovandi is still present in the Uccelliera (Freedberg 2002, 58). 50 One had to submit a work on a scientific subject to be admitted to the Academy. 51 Freedberg 2002, 58. 52 These include Emanuel Sweert’s Florilegium (Frankfurt, 1612), Basilius Besler’s Hortus Eystettensis (Nürnberg, 1613), and Crispijn van de Passe’s Hortus Floridus (Arnheim, 1614). Emanuel Sweert’s work is composed of two parts, the first focusing on bulb plants, and the second on seed plants. Basilius Besler’s impressive large-format work, dedicated to the Bishop of Eichstätt near Nürnberg, is composed of a short text of twenty-four pages and 367 engraved illustrations. It is a catalogue of the flowers grown in the bishop’s garden, classified according to the season of their bloom. The majority of the species fall into either the Spring or the Summer categories, while Autumn and Winter occupy only a limited percentage of the whole volume. Crispijn van de Passe’s work is composed solely of engraved plates depicting ornamental flowers – tulips, narcissus, hyacinths, and crocus among them – with no accompanying text. The title page shows a formal garden with pergola walkways surrounding a central compartmented space with planting beds. The pergolas have hip herms supporting the structure at regular intervals. Like Besler’s work, Crispijn van de Passe’s florilegium also takes a four-part composition, and the flowers are arranged according to

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the season. The striking feature of these florilegia is their attention to bulb species and newly introduced species including the tulip. See MacDougall 1994, 219–347. Cardon in Ferrari 2001, xliv–xlv. Freedberg 2002, 76. Tongiorgi Tomasi in Ferrari 2001, xii–xiii. Cardon suggests a slightly different interpretation: Flora comes to take abode in the Horti Barberini to open a new era, the age of flowers, under the auspices of the eminent patron, Francesco Barberini. See Cardon in Ferrari 2001, xlvii. The story of the transformation of Limace is related in Ferrari 2001, 49–54. Ferrari 2001, 511–512. Châtelet-Lange 1968, 57–58. Ferrari 2001, 399, 405. Ferrari 2001, 419, 421. For the biography and basic information on Galileo, see Freedberg 2002, 101–147 and Tongiorgi Tomasi 2009. See Fagiolo and Giusti 1996, 30–43 and Tantillo Mignosi 1980, 217–30. Examples of the genre from the eighteenth century include: Villa Taverna-Borghese, Frascati, Galleria dei paesaggi (1735) by Giuseppe and Domenico Valeriani and Ignazio Heldmann; Certosa di Calci, Pisa, Loggia del Priore (1765) by Giovanni Antonio Guidetti, Cassio Natilli, and Angelo Somacci; Villa Campolieto, Resina, salone (1770) by Fedele Fischetti.

Epilogue

What is the real cultural significance of this artful arrangement termed the illusionistic pergola? The pergola, a structure originally of rustic inspiration, transposed into the realm of high architecture in the villa, becomes a veritable showcase of the intellectual expansionism of the Renaissance. More than just a vehicle for the self-presentation of the educated patron, the pergola rendered in paint or stucco – with its almost limitless capacity to present the novelties of nature in a way that its real cousin could not – must be considered a quintessential expression of aristocratic cultural identity. It represented the educated patron’s awareness of the arts and the sciences, as well as the latest developments in geopolitics. It embodied a fundamental tension between antiquity and modernity, sophistication and rustication, and nature and culture, as well as the dynamic expansion of the known world in both geographical and mental terms. It reflected the culture of internationalism, scientific studies, and collecting and documentation to the extent of becoming a constantly updated visual encyclopedia of botany, ornithology, and zoology. It was perceived as a kind of treasured centerpiece of the villa or palace to be shown ceremoniously to visitors. Boldly drawn along the edges of architecture, creating a permeable and inviting border between mass and void, inside and outside, domestic and foreign, and familiar and exotic, it consciously referenced the advancing edges of civilization and human inquiry. Tracing ethereal views onto walls, piers, and vaults, it subverted solid, anchored, Old World classicism with airy, outward-looking expansiveness and expressivity. In the mediating space of the Renaissance portico between architecture and garden, the illusionism of the representation of nature created an art gallery, a natural history museum, and a virtual garden where one could engage in leisurely strolls, learned conversations, appreciation of art, and scientific investigation, as well as a delightful evocation of antiquity and the Middle Ages, along with the newly discovered regions of the ever expanding world. *** Our story comes to a close with the return to popularity of the pergola in the modern period. The pergola was a timeless element in vernacular garden culture, and after the Renaissance it never completely disappeared from the scene. We have seen, for example, that the first published manual on treillage emerged in the eighteenth century in France. Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781–1841) used the pergola as a key design element in the Court Gardener’s House and the Roman Baths at Schloss Charlottenhof (1829–1836), where it was conceived as a mediating structure between indoors and outdoors as well as an adaptation of forms and ideas from antiquity. But notable new

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examples were intermittent until the late nineteenth century witnessed a conscious revival of the form and concept. This revival appears to be related to the quest for an individual experience of nature as well as a renewed interest in the garden aesthetics of Roman antiquity. Jean Claude Nicolas Forestier (1861–1930) restored the Bagatelle in Paris among others, reintroducing the French formal style in the Perennial and Rose gardens, where he used the pergola as a display device and an extension of the flowerbed in the vertical dimension. A resurgence of interest in treillage, the art and craft of carpentry relevant to pergola construction, emerged in France from the turn of the twentieth century. Numerous French pavilions in World Expositions and other fairs were created in this technique.1 It became a favorite style for garden structures and furnishings in urban and country residences, the majority of them designed by the landscape architect Achille Duchêne (1866–1947).2 Duchêne, who also worked in the restoration of historic gardens, drew from the tradition of treillage in France. He and the firm Tricotel played a crucial role in the revival of the art and practice of treillage and its adaptation in modern design.3 Duchêne also executed works for foreign clients, which encouraged the transmission of the style to other countries.4 One of his clients, Elsie de Wolfe, an American interior designer, contributed to the introduction of treillage to the United States, where the style enjoyed popularity in architecture, interior design, and garden design. In England, the revival of the pergola around the turn of the twentieth century owes much to the garden designer and writer Gertrude Jekyll, the first woman to pursue garden design as a profession. Her garden designs, theorized in her chapter on pergolas in Gardens for Small Country Houses (1913), were based on the aesthetics of the vernacular cottage garden and embroidery. Her focus was on the plantings of flowers, but her garden schemes were conceived more in terms of shapes, textures, and broad masses of color than individual plants. She saw her garden at Munstead Wood in Surrey as a series of seasonal scenes, appearing like pictures in a gallery with different exhibitions planned throughout the year.5 She experimented with color scheme and planting composition and designed borders and pergolas that expressed volume as much as color. Her drifting borders constituted by horizontal as well as vertical plantings demonstrated that plantings of floral species could be more than carpet bedding typically seen in the parterre de broderie of French formal gardens. Jekyll’s designs and ideas had a significant impact on the American gardens of the Country Place Era.6 Charles Platt (1861–1933), Ellen Shipman (1869–1950), and Beatrix Farrand (1872–1959), who shared a strong interest in the flower garden, designed pergolas in which horticultural elements played a central role.7 The three designers also shared an affinity for the Italianate tradition of garden design.8 Pergolas in the gardens of the Country Place Era were adorned with flowering plants or merged with colorful planting compositions in their immediate surroundings. The emphasis on the horticultural elements in pergola design may have been a notion developed in the context of English and American gardens. Jekyll’s ideas on the pergola and planting compositions had a significant influence on the pergolas by the American landscape architects, who, combining the Italian tradition and the Jekyll style, created distinct designs of their own. The American pergola was born of the marriage of the Italian pergola and the English flower garden. The pergolas both fictive and real created in the United States in this period were based on historical precedents. A direct descendant of the Renaissance garden

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Figure 7.1 Beatrix Farrand, Wisteria Arbor. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C.

tradition is the Wisteria Arbor at Dumbarton Oaks9 in Washington, D.C., designed by Beatrix Farrand for Mildred and Robert Bliss in the 1930s (Figure 7.1). The Blisses’ acquisition of the Georgetown property, subsequently named Dumbarton Oaks, stemmed from the desire to have a country residence within the city and a base for their growing Byzantine and pre-Columbian art collection,10 very much in the Renaissance villa tradition. As Farrand explicitly states in her Plant Book, the Arbor Terrace was designed in the Italianate style as a giardino segreto, and the inspiration for the form came from an illustration of the pergola gallery at the Château of Montargis in Jacques Androuet Du Cerceau’s Les plus excellents bastiments de France (vol. I, 1576).11 Du Cerceau’s pergola gallery is a treillage structure composed of three ogivalroofed pavilions with arched openings interconnected with barrel-vaulted galleries (Figure 2.11). The Wisteria Arbor on the Arbor Terrace is a barrel-vaulted gallery in carpentry with three arched openings on either side, the central arches framing the fountain on the rear wall. It retains its connection to stone architecture in the ornamental use of the capitals of the pillar supports and the keystones above the arches. It was intended as an intimate space for quiet study and inspiration. A stone plaque with an inscription from Dante’s Purgatorio, “Quelli ch anticamente poetaro leta dell oro/ & suo stato felice forse in parnaso esto loco sognaro,”12 was placed on the wall. A lead bookcase was placed in a niche to encourage visitors to linger and read while sitting on the benches, but it soon proved to be impractical, owing to the dampness of the site.13 A

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wall fountain was designed to alleviate the austere impression of the high retaining wall of the Rose Garden against which the Arbor was placed. A number of drawings show that various design possibilities were discussed. One drawing shows a lion’s head14 and another a satyr.15 The current fountainhead, purchased in Versailles in 1947, represents a river god surrounded by sheaves of wheat, from the Bliss coat of arms, and cattail buds.16 The sheaves of wheat evoke Ceres, the goddess of harvest, and resonate with the Blisses’ motto, “Quod metis severis” (Reap what you sow). The scope of this renewed interest in pergolas both fictive and real at the turn of the twentieth century in the United States is yet to be assessed. But parallel to the interest in real pergolas, we also observe the emergence of painted examples in the East Coast from around 1900, which consciously referenced the historical tradition of illusionistic pergolas. They are used in buildings of cultural institutions such as libraries and museums. One example is the Boston Public Library (1895), where the vaulted ceiling of the entrance hall bears a mosaic vine trellis with ancient Roman satyr masks (Figure 7.2).17 The pergola symbolically serves the function it served in Renaissance villas, namely an approach to the villa experience that awaited visitors at the other end. Here a symbolical journey of the mind is exemplified in the passing through of the vaulted corridor fashioned as an illusionistic pergola, the ascending of the stairs, past the gateway guarded by lions, into the realm of knowledge, celebrated by the murals of the Muses by Puvis de Chavannes in the second-floor loggia. It is a symbolic approach

Figure 7.2 Boston Public Library, 1895. Vestibule with fictive pergola on the ceiling.

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to the cultivation of the mind, evoking the culture of antiquity and the classical tradition. The fictive pergola in a building for learning is also employed in the Library of Congress. In the Thomas Jefferson Building, two vaults (1897) on the second floor, located on either side of the marble staircase leading up to the gallery of the Rotunda, the domed Central Reading Room, were adorned with fictive pergolas. The artist was the mural painter William Brantley Van Ingen (1858–1955).18 The vault on the south side shows a painted trellis with vine, and the one on the north with jasmine (Figures 7.3–7.4). Birds and animals are largely absent, and the depiction of plants is more or less stylized, but the exuberance of nature is emphasized. The vaults are not in themselves the primary visual foci, but serve to highlight the lunettes beyond. These bear allegories representing Milton’s well-known poems – L’Allegro (Mirth) south of the staircase and Il Penseroso (Thoughtfulness) on the north.19 L’Allegro is represented as a young woman with two children in the season of spring. Il Penseroso is represented as a pensive woman in meditation amidst the turning leaves of autumn. The seasons of the vault decorations do not match those of their corresponding lunettes: L’Allegro is paired with vine grapes and Il Penseroso is paired with jasmine in blossom. Here the illusionistic pergola plays a suggestive role, evoking the culture and literary world of the Renaissance in which cultivated natural beauty is presented as the locus for inspiration, meditation, and elevation of the mind. Van Ingen’s painted vaults may have been

Figure 7.3 William Brantley van Ingen, vine pergola and allegory of L’Allegro/Mirth. Vault and lunette in the bay to the south of the staircase leading up to the gallery of the Rotunda, 1897. Jefferson Building, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

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Figure 7.4 William Brantley van Ingen, jasmine pergola and allegory of Il Penseroso/Thoughtfulness. Vault and lunette in the bay to the north of the staircase leading up to the gallery of the Rotunda, 1897. Jefferson Building, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

inspired by the contemporary revival of pergolas in garden design, but they appear to be only loosely connected to the tradition of the illusionistic pergola. The choice of the decoration seems to have been based simply on its ornamental quality, which would have appealed to the taste of the time. We cannot even be certain whether the artist or the patrons were aware of the tradition of the illusionistic pergola. In contrast to the mosaic pergola in the Boston Public Library and Van Ingen’s painted pergolas in the Library of Congress, which remained unclear in terms of sources of inspiration, a fictive pergola in a museum setting, namely the Smithsonian Castle, has a demonstrated connection to the Renaissance tradition. The Smithsonian Castle’s former Children’s Room (1901), the current south vestibule of the building opening out onto the Enid A. Haupt Garden, features a vine pergola inhabited by birds of colorful plumage.20 The Children’s Room was commissioned by the then Smithsonian secretary Samuel P. Langley (1834–1906; Smithsonian secretary 1887–1906) in 1899 as a venue for natural history exhibits aimed at a young audience. Langley’s guiding principle was a loose paraphrase from Aristotle, “Knowledge begins in wonder.” For the room to serve an educational purpose for children, Langley believed that a novel approach to exhibit and display was necessary. Designed by Washington architects Joseph Hornblower and James P. Marshall, the room accommodated an aquarium

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filled with fish of bright hues and gilt cages suspended from the ceiling containing live birds. The exhibit cases were placed at a child’s-eye level, and the original Latin labels were replaced by more entertaining inscriptions. A special kaleidoscope designed by Langley with a triangular tank at the end containing live fish was installed. Langley had wanted to recreate Correggio’s illusionistic pergola in the Camera di San Paolo he had seen in Parma. The interior designer Grace Lincoln Temple (1864–1953)21 is responsible for the Room’s ornamental details (Figure 7.5).

Figure 7.5 Grace Lincoln Temple, interior decoration, 1901. Entrance vestibule from the Enid A. Haupt Garden. Smithsonian Castle, Washington, D.C.

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Lincoln was one of the first women to work in the decoration of public buildings. Soft colors and vivid imagery were chosen to create an appropriate setting for the experience of nature for young visitors. However, creating an exact copy of Correggio’s fresco proved to be too expensive, and consequently Langley asked Lincoln for a variation on the theme. Lincoln’s design consisted of a diamond-trellis pergola with hexagonal openings showing a light blue sky, adopting formal characteristics in a stylized way drawing directly from the iconographical tradition of the illusionistic pergola (Figure 7.6). The pergola is intertwined by grapevine with leaves rendered in light and dark hues of green and birds perched at the edge of the hexagonal openings, just like its presumed ancestors in the Renaissance. The birds, not as numerous as in the Italian precedents, appear to belong to species familiar and recognizable to children such as house martins, parrots, and eagles. They are also rendered in bright colors, such as red, blue, and yellowish green, for the purpose of clarity for the young audience. The painted birds were intended to look down on the live birds in the cages below, whose lively song in turn was meant to animate their cousins perched above. The shady bower of the vine peopled with birds created an atmosphere of nature most suitable for the exhibit, and the interaction of the one with the other would have further stimulated the sense of wonder of the young visitors.

Figure 7.6 Grace Lincoln Temple, ceiling decoration with illusionistic pergola, 1899. Entrance vestibule from the Enid A. Haupt Garden. Smithsonian Castle, Washington, D.C.

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The Smithsonian pergola is a conscious reference to the tradition of the illusionistic pergola in terms of form, function, and concept: first, for the typical motifs of a Renaissance painted pergola – diamond trellis, hexagonal openings, grapevine, and birds; second, for its use in a museum of natural history; and third, for exploiting the vestibule’s spatial ambiguity between inside and outside. It references the idea of the painted pergola as a museum of natural history; the culture of collecting, the collections of plants, birds, and animals that were displayed in the garden, and the controlled clutter of display galleries for Renaissance collections of natural specimens; and the function of the fictive pergolas as a didactic tool. It was Langley’s idea to evoke the pergola’s natural history connection by using it as a decoration for his Wunderkammer, in a setting for children to discover the wonders of the natural world. The dialogue between the living birds and their depicted counterparts resonates with the dynamics of the Renaissance illusionistic pergola. The knotwork ornaments of the gilded molding also evoke, if only coincidentally, those used in a number of Renaissance examples of fictive pergolas including Langley’s original source of inspiration, Correggio’s Camera di San Paolo. The location at the intersection of indoors and outdoors is yet another way in which the current Castle’s entrance vestibule from the garden adheres to its Renaissance model. The Children’s Room was converted into an office in 1939, and the decoration was completely painted over. When the space underwent further renovation to be adapted to its current use in 1987, the Smithsonian paintings conservator recovered Lincoln’s decoration from under the layer of pigment, and the pergola decoration reappeared largely intact. It appears in fact to be the ideal decoration for the room with its new function precisely because of its connection to the outdoors and the garden. Whether as a more or less direct reference to its Italian Renaissance precedent or a happy coincidence resulting from a purely aesthetic decision, the Smithsonian pergola appears to be a perfect embodiment of the illusionistic pergola in form, function, and concept. *** Across time and space, the illusionistic pergola still has the potential to connect with the modern world and reveal something of the fundamental relationship between ourselves and nature. The pergolas rendered in paint or stucco are revealed to be multivalent embodiments of emerging ideas and sensibilities in regard to the perception and experience of nature, but softened and tempered with familiar and traditional ideas and forms. Bound into these ideas and sensibilities, however, were the more fundamental values and strategies that reflected the dynamic social interactions and networks of early modern Rome. It is precisely the set of cultural meanings associated with the illusionistic pergola that makes it worthy of study and that still resonates with modern design values and strategies. The illusionistic pergola is related to our instinctive differentiation between shelter and openness, the feeling of transition when we move from the indoors to the outdoors or vice versa, and how we feel about mediating spaces that provide a smooth passage from the one to the other. It also stimulates our basic cognition of familiar and exotic, domestic and foreign, ancient and modern, ephemeral and permanent. It reflects how we perceive new data, classify them, and incorporate them into our existing paradigm of the world or how we create a new paradigm providing a rational explanation of a new situation and how we position

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ourselves in front of a changing world. Our approach to consider the illusionistic pergola not just as a decorative motif or style but as a cultural phenomenon has enabled us to gain new insights into the early modern perception and experience of nature. It was an artistic formula for negotiating the smooth transition from an old worldview to a new one as well as an expression of cultural identity fluctuating between the ancient and the modern. Moreover, it was a cognitive process by means of which one makes sense of the world in constant flux. The tunnel-like frame of porticoes and loggias, wavering between interior and exterior, can be seen as a metaphor for the Renaissance mind as it negotiated a new cognitive topography between an internal rationalism, governed by familiar classical verities, and the brilliant and perpetually surprising outer world of global expansion. The dynamics of the illusionistic pergola in early modern Rome resonate with the ways in which we perceive nature and establish our relationship with it as well as our repeated attempts to adjust our understanding of an ever-changing world.

Notes 1 See Van Reyndorp 2006, 52–55. 1900, Exposition Universelle Paris, Palais de horticulture, M. Gautier, Architecte en Chef des Bâtiments et Palais Nationaux; 1907, Exposition du Livre au Grand Palais, Portique de M. Deglane, Architecte Conservateur du Grand Palais des Beaux Arts; 1910, Exposition Universelle de Bruxelles, Section française, galerie de treillage de Guirard de Montarnal, Architecte du gouvernement. 2 See Van Reyndorp 2006, 72–141. 1895, Petit Salon, Palais Rose, for Boniface de Castellane, by Achille Duchêne; end of the nineteenth century, Palmarium, garden in Boulogne-Billancourt, for Albert Kahn, by Achille Duchêne; before 1903, treillage portico, Château de Baillon, Achille Duchêne; before 1904, treillage portico, Condé-sur-Iton, for comte de Jarnac, by Achille Duchêne; 1903–1910, Villa Trianon, Versailles, for Elsie de Wolfe-Lady Mendl, Achille Duchêne; 1907, Salon de Madame, Champs-sur-Marne, for the Cahen d’Anvers family, by Achille Duchêne; 1910, treillage portico, Hôtel Matignon, for the Matignon family, by Achille Duchêne. 3 See Van Reyndorp 2006, 142–163. 4 Duchêne produced designs for clients in Herzèle (Belgium), Nordkirchen (Germany), Stenockerzeel (Netherlands), Paington (England) and California and New York. 5 Jekyll says in Colour Schemes for the Flower Garden (1914): I am strongly of the opinion that the possession of a quantity of plants, however good the plants may be themselves and however ample their number, does not make a garden; it only makes a collection. Having got the plants, the great thing is to use them with careful selection and definite intention . . . it seems to me that the duty we owe to our gardens and to our own bettering in our gardens is so to use the plants that they shall form beautiful pictures. 6 On gardens of the American Country Place Era, see Karson 2007. 7 Gardens with pergolas designed by Charles Platt include: Maxwell Court (Rockville, CT), Faulkner Farm (Brookline, MA), Dingleton House (VT), Gwinn (Cleveland, OH), and Pomfret (CT). Those by Ellen Shipman include: Magee Garden (1916, Mount Kisco, NY), Devore Garden (1924, Fredericksburg, VA), Williams Garden (1925, Greenwich, CT), Tucker Garden (1926, Mount Kisco, NY), and Ralph P. Hanes Estate (1929, WinstonSalem, NC). 8 On Charles Platt and his garden designs, see Cortissoz 1913; Morgan 1995 and 1985. On Beatrix Farrand and her work, see McGuire and Fern 1982; Pearson 2009; Tankard 2009. On Ellen Shipman and her work, see Tankard 1996. 9 On the Dumbarton Oaks Gardens, see Karson 2007, 149–179; Tankard 2009, 143–157. On the design of the Wisteria Arbor, see Lott 2001, 16–19 and 2003. 10 Balmori in McGuire and Fern 1982, 99. 11 See “Wistaria Arbor and Herb Garden” in Beatrix Farrand’s Plant Book (1941), edited by Diane Kostial McGuire. Farrand 1993, 71–72: It [=the Arbor Terrace] is not a display

Epilogue

12

13 14 15 16 17 18

19 20 21

197

garden but, rather, one in which shaded seats can be occupied under the big Wistaria arbor, which was placed in this position in order to minimize the rather overwhelming height of the stone wall which was needed to retain the northeast corner of the Rose Garden. This arbor was modified from a design of Du Cerceau [from his drawing of the Chateau Montargis]. It is planted almost entirely with Wistaria, mainly of the lavender variety but with some few plants of white. The Wistaria Arbor is designed so as to be seen from below, so that the hanging clutches of the flowers will make a fragrant and lovely roof to the arbor. See Farrand-Bliss Correspondence in the Garden Library at Dumbarton Oaks cited in Lott 2003, 209. The cited passage is from Dante, Purgatorio, Canto XXVIII, ll. 139–141. English translation by Caroline Phillips, a friend of Mildred Bliss, as quoted in a letter to Mildred Bliss, dated July 9, 1933: Those who in olden times, sang of the Golden Age, and its happy state, perchance dreamed in Parnassus of this place. Phillips, in the same letter, thanked Mildred Bliss for the visit to the garden and suggested quotations from Dante as inscriptions to be included in the garden: I have found three little extracts from Dante’s Earthly Paradise at the end of Purgatorio, which I think fit into your garden. There might one day be a stone or block of wood to carry them on, if you want some words of the Divine Poet in your wood. Farrand 1993, 72. Lott 2001, 16. Lott 2001, 19. Lott 2003, 213, n. 13. The cattails on either side of the river god’s head recall those depicted in Italian Renaissance paintings, for example, Botticelli’s Birth of Venus (ca. 1482). Wick 1977, 19–26. William Brantley Van Ingen (1858–1955) is an American mural painter born in Pennsylvania. He was trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts under Christian Schuessele (1824–1879) and Thomas Eakins (1844–1916), John La Farge (1835–1910) in New York, and Léon Bonnat (1833–1922) in Paris. Major works include murals for the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia, the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. (1897), and the Rotunda of the Administration Building at Balboa Heights in the Panama Canal Zone (1914–1915). See American Art Annual. Biographical Directory of American Artists 1929, 817; American Artist 1960, 10. Cole and Reed 1997, 118. Information on the design of the Children’s Room can be found in the online Smithsonian Archives, http://www.si.edu/ahhp/childrens%20room%20exhibit/decorativedesignofthe childrensroom.html and in Field, Stamm, and Ewing 1993. Grace Lincoln Temple (1864–1953) was one of the first women interior designers in the U.S. who worked on government commissions in addition to the decoration of private residences. She was born in Boston and was educated at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. After teaching art in Cleveland for several years, she moved to Washington, D.C. around 1896. She rearranged the East Room at the White House for Mrs. Grover Cleveland and worked on the interior decoration of the president’s home in Princeton. She was in charge of the interior decoration of the United States Government Building at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (St. Louis World Fair, 1904). Landscape and nature as wall decoration appears to have been one of her many interests; among innumerous activities, she gave a lecture “Old Landscapes, Old Wallpapers and Their Story” at St. Margaret’s Church Parish Hall, Washington, D.C., on January 15, 1936. See Washington Post, July 3, 1903; January 16, 1936; February 24, 1953.

Appendix Component analysis: the painted pergola at the Villa Farnese at Caprarola∗

Sections Pergola frame

Trellis pattern Birds

1W

Cartouche with fleur-de-lis

Grid Scale

1N

Square-hexagon- Diamond square

2W

Oval surrounded Grid by rectangles Scale Diamond Square-hexagon- Scale square Diamond Cartouche with Grid fleur-de-lis Diamond Square-hexagon- Grid square Diamond Oval surrounded Grid by rectangles Scale Diamond Square-hexagon- Diamond square Cartouche with Grid fleur-de-lis Diamond ? Square-hexagon- Diamond square

2N 3W 3N 4W

4N 5W 5N

6W 6N 7W 7N 8W

Oval surrounded by rectangles Square-hexagonsquare Cartouche with fleur-de-lis Square-hexagonsquare Oval (lost) surrounded by rectangles

Grid Diamond Diamond Diamond Diamond Diamond

Plants

Eagle, turkey, Roses (red) cock, owl, small birds, cat and mouse White bird Vine (black grapes) Blackberries White eagle Jasmine

White bird White eagle Small birds Falcon?

(lost) Small birds

Cloudy

Cloudy

Cloudy

Vine (black and Cloudy white grapes) Pomegranate Cloudy Vine (black and Cloudy white grapes) Melangoli Cloudy

Mallard duck and white duck Serpent Small white bird Melangoli Jasmine Small birds Vine (black and white grapes) Small birds Jasmine Roses (red and white) White bird Pomegranate Falcon Small birds Swan White cock (lost)

Sky

Roses (red) Melangoli Vine (black and white grapes) Roses (red) Melangoli Jasmine

Pale blue sky White clouds Pale blue sky White clouds Pale blue sky

Pale blue sky Pale blue sky White clouds Pale blue sky White clouds Pale blue sky White clouds Pale blue sky

Appendix Sections Pergola frame 8N 9W

Trellis pattern Birds

Square-hexagon- Diamond square Cartouche with Grid fleur-de-lis Diamond

199

Plants

Sky

(lost)

Melangoli

Pale blue sky

Hawk/falcon Pheasant/ partridge Small birds Small birds

Pomegranate

Pale blue sky White clouds

9N

Square-hexagon- Scale square

10W

Oval surrounded Grid by rectangles Scale Diamond

Swan

10N

Square-hexagon- Scale square Diamond

Small birds

Jasmine Cloudy Vine (black and white grapes) Vine (black and Cloudy white grapes, red and yellow leaves) Roses (red and Cloudy white) Vine (black grapes, red and yellow leaves)

Note ∗ The numbering starts from the section corresponding to the entrance from the vestibule in a counter-clockwise direction. There are a total of ten pairs of wide (W) and narrow (N) sections.

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Index

Alberti, Leon Battista 11, 32, 36, 163 Albertini, Francesco 40n55 Albertus Magnus 40n57 Aldrovandi, Ulisse 164, 167, 169–72 Allori, Alessandro 154–5 Altemps: Giovanni Angelo 131, 134, 144; Marco Sittico 130–1 Ammannati, Bartolomeo 104–5 Antelami, Benedetto 74 Arcimboldo, Giuseppe 54 Arditio, Fabio 115, 117, 120, 123–4 Audebert, Nicolas 94 aviary 46, 90–1, 94, 114, 126n24, 146, 150–3 Bachiacca 99n9, 99n11, 164 Barbari, Jacopo de 28–31 Barberini 3, 146, 174–8; garden 3, 165, 174–8 Barberini, Francesco 19, 40n43, 172, 174 Bartoli, Pietro Santi 21, 47 Belon, Pierre 81, 171 Berruguete, Alonso 46, 56 Bertoja, Jacopo 119–20 Besler, Basilius 185n52 Boboli Gardens (Florence): Grotto of Buontalenti 80–1, 154, 165 Boccaccio, Giovanni: Decamerone 25–6 Boccati, Giovanni 50 Borghese 3, 146; estate on the Quirinal 6, 140–1; see also Loggia of Cardinal Borghese (Loggia del Pergolato) Borghese, Scipione 153 Borghini, Raffaello 125 botanical gardens 4, 161–2, 165, 169–70 Bril, Matthijs 82, 84, 108 Bril, Paul 140–1, 153, 164 Brunfels, Otto 81, 162 Buontalenti, Bernardo 31, 80–1, 164 Calzolari, Francesco 167, 169–70 Camera di San Paolo 52, 73–5, 193, 195 Cappella Mantegna (Mantua) 52, 73

Caravaggio, Polidoro da 46 Caron, Antoine 134 Cartaro, Mario 85–6, 88, 105–6 Casa dei Cavalieri di Rodi 32–4, 62 Castello di Belcaro (Siena) 73 Castello Sforzesco (Milan): Sala delle asse 25, 77, 124 catacomb 63–5, 71n86, 109, 120 cerchiata 86, 101n52, 105 Cesalpino, Andrea 4, 163 Cesi, Federico 169, 172–3 Ciampelli, Agostino 153 Cima da Conegliano 50 Clement VII 56, 85, 88 Clement VIII 37, 146 Cock, Hieronymus 109–10 Colonna, Francesco 26–8 Columbarium of Pomponius Hylas 20–1 Correggio 52, 73–5, 193, 195 Cospi, Ferdinando 167, 169 Cossa, Francesco del 23 Crescenzi, Pietro de’ 23–5, 124 cryptoporticus 7, 88, 95–7 dal Pozzo, Cassiano 169, 172–3 de Beatis, Antonio 91 della Bella, Stefano 125 della Porta, Giovanni Battista 162, 172 del Riccio, Agostino 102n68 d’Este, Ippolito 92, 94 Dodoens, Rembert 164 Domus Aurea 46, 56–7, 63 Dosio, Giovanni Antonio 4, 105 Dossi, Dosso 75–6, 112 Dosso, Battista 75–6, 111–12 Du Cerceau, Jacques Androuet 64, 66, 67, 189 Dupérac, Etienne 4, 88, 92–4 Durante, Annibale 153 Durante, Castore 38n7 Dürer, Albrecht 47, 56 Elephant Fountain (Villa Madama) 56

224

Index

Falda, Giovanni Battista 110, 136–8, 142, 145, 165 Falloppia, Gabriele 163, 170 Farnese 3, 87–8, 92, 145–8 Farnese, Alessandro: Cardinal 92, 106, 128n36; Pope see Paul III Farnese Gardens see Horti Farnesiani Ferrari, Giovanni Battista 8, 173; Flora 8, 171, 174–9; Hesperides 166, 173 Ferri, Cirro 155–6 Fialetti, Odoardo 31 Fontana, Prospero 82, 108 Francisco de Hollanda 4, 21–2, 77 Froissart, Jean 40n57 Fuchs, Leonhart 54, 81, 162 Gaillon, château of 91 Gambara, Giovan Francesco 149 Genga, Girolamo 99n6 Gessner, Conrad 171 Gherardi, Cristoforo 82 Ghini, Luca 4, 163, 170 Ghinucci garden (Rome) 84, 88–90 giardino segreto of Paul III 84–8 Giorgio di Giovanni 73 Giovanni Colonna da Tivoli 67, 87–90, 94, 121 Giovanni da Udine 4, 7, 34; biography 45–8; First Loggia of Leo X 57–63; Loggetta of Cardinal Bibbiena 55–7; Villa Farnesina 48–54 Girolamo da Carpi 87–8, 92 Giulio Romano 73; Loggetta of Cardinal Bibbiena 56; Raphael’s workshop 46–7; tapestry 112; Villa Farnesina 49; Villa Lante al Gianicolo 34 Gregory XIII 57, 146–7, 170; First Loggia of Gregory XIII 82–3, 131–2, 164; visit to Caprarola 115, 120–1 Greuter, Matteo 144–5, 155 Grimaldi, Giovanni Francesco 155–7 grotesque 1, 7, 180; Giovanni da Udine 46–7, 56–7, 59, 68; Palazzo Vecchio 78; Pietro Venale 108; tapestry 111; Villa Farnese 118–19, 123; Villa Giulia 114, 138; Villa Lante, Palazzina Gambara 149 Hadrian’s Villa 35, 92 Heemskerck, Maarten van 4, 57, 62 Heinz, Joseph 145, 153 herbal 8, 54–5, 162, 173 Hieronymo “Il Bologna” 87–8 horticulture 3, 133, 146, 174, 178, 181 Horti Farnesiani 3, 152–4 House of Cardinal Bessarion 32–3 House of Octavius Quartio (Pompeii) 17 Hypnerotomachia Poliphili 26–8

Imperato, Ferrante 167 Julius II 59, 69n13 Julius III 34, 82, 202n63, 104–5, 147 labors of the months 22 landscape, representation of 4–5, 47, 108, 164; Casa dei Cavalieri di Rodi 33–4; Casa Zuccari 147; Loggia of Cardinal Borghese 141, 143–5; in loggias 1, 3, 6, 35; Palazzo Altemps 139–40; Vatican Palace 164; Villa Borghese, Aviary 153; Villa Farnese 120, 122; Villa Lante (Bagnaia) 149–50; Villa of Publius Fannius Synistor 14–16 Lauro, Giacomo 152 L’Ecluse, Charles de 164 Leonardo da Vinci 47, 77, 124, 162 Leo X 45–7, 111; First Loggia of Leo X 56, 57–68, 82, 84, 109 Ligorio, Pirro 4, 91–2, 102n63 Ligozzi, Jacopo 164, 167, 171–2 Ligustri, Tarquinio 152 L’Obel, Matthias de 164 loggia: etymology 10–12 Loggia of Cardinal Borghese (Loggia del Pergolato) 6, 8, 19, 130–1; painted pergola 140–4, 150, 164, 174, 180–1; putti 111, 180 Lorenzetti, Ambrogio 23 Macarone, Curzio 95, 102n63, 135 Machuca, Pedro 46, 56 Madonna of the pergola 28, 50, 69n33 Mantegna, Andrea 4, 7; Camera Picta 109; Madonna della Vittoria 50–1, 54; study of the antique 49, 52–3; vegetal depictions in a vaulted space 62, 68, 73 Mantovani, Alessandro 60 Mantovano, Camillo 77 Marcillat, Guillaume de 46 Mascherino, Ottaviano 82 Mattioli, Pietro Andrea 81, 162–3 Mauro, Lucio 170 Medici 3, 31, 36, 56, 77, 80–1, 145–7; botanical gardens 161; Ferdinando de’ 19, 31, 81–2, 164; Francesco de’ 80 Meleghino, Jacopo 85–8 memory theater 169 menagerie 46, 55–6, 62, 80–1, 165 Michelozzo 31 Muziano, Girolamo 92, 95 Nappi, Francesco 159n32 Nile Mosaic of Palestrina 13, 18–19 Olina, Giovanni Pietro 8, 150, 173 Oplontis Villa A 14–15, 17

Index Pacello da Mercogliano 91 Palazzina Marfisa (Ferrara) 82 Palazzo Altemps (Rome) 8, 130; allegory of Fame 98; ancient sculpture 138–9; dining loggia 19; indoor fountain 135–8; painted pergola 130–40, 143–4, 148, 150, 157; painted woodwork 84, 120–1, 138 Palazzo Baldassini (Rome) 57 Palazzo Borghese (Artena) 145 Palazzo dei Catellini da Castiglione (Florence) 34, 44 Palazzo della Cancelleria: Stufetta of Cardinal Riario 47, 65 Palazzo Farnese (Rome) 34, 128n36 Palazzo Grimani (Venice) 77 Palazzo Lancellotti (Rome) 6, 150–1, 154 Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne (Rome) 35 Palazzo Piccolomini (Pienza) 36, 44 Palazzo Pitti (Florence): Loggetta 154–5 Palazzo Schifanoia (Ferrara) 23 Palazzo Vecchio (Florence) 77–81, 134, 154, 164 Palazzo Venezia (Rome) 32, 34, 88 Palazzo Vitelli (Città di Castello) 6, 82 Parmigianino 75 Passe, Crispijn van de 185n52 Paul II 33 Paul III 82, 85–8, 115, 128n36 Pellegrino da Modena 46, 56 Penni, Giovanni Francesco 45–6, 56 Penni, Luca 46 pergola: etymology 12 Peruzzi, Baldassare 4, 73; garden with pergola 84–5, 91, 94; Palazzo della Cancelleria 47; Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne 35; Villa Farnese 115; Villa Farnesina 35, 48 Petrarch: ascent of Mount Ventoux 43n113 Pius II 36 Pliny the Elder 16, 171 Pliny the Younger: Laurentian villa 16, 35; Tuscan villa 16–17, 35, 62 Pocetti, Bernardino 80 Pozzoserrato, Ludovico (Toeput, Lodewijk) 127n32, 164 putti 1, 161, 180; Camera di San Paolo 52, 74; chapel of Innocent VIII 53; Loggia of Cardinal Borghese 130, 140, 143; Palazzo Altemps 98, 130, 132, 134–5, 138; Palazzo Vecchio 78; Palazzo Vitelli 82; Rocca Sanvitale 75; Santa Costanza 19–20; tapestry 111–12; Villa dei Vescovi 77; Villa Falconieri 156; Villa Farnesina 49; Villa Giulia 108–13, 114; Villa Grazioli 153–4; Villa Imperiale 77

225

Quirinal: Barberini palace and garden 3, 174–8; Borghese estate 6, 19, 130–1, 140–4, 153, 164, 174; Este gardens 94; Ghinucci Garden 84, 88–9, 92; Villa Carafa 87–8 Raffaellino da Reggio 94 Raffaellino del Colle 46, 49 Raphael 4; First Loggia of Leo X 57–63; Loggetta of Cardinal Bibbiena 56–7; tapestry 111–12, 134; Villa Farnesina 48–9; workshop 7, 45, 46–7 Reni, Guido 140, 174 Roberti, Ercole de’ 23 Rocca Sanvitale 75 Rossellino, Bernardo 36 Roubo, André Jacob 121 Sabbatini, Lorenzo 82 Santa Costanza 19–22, 77, 108, 112 Santa Maria sopra Minerva 99n21 Sellaio, Jacopo del 23 Sixtus V 146 Soderini, Giovanvettorio 124 Sustris, Lambert 77 Sweert, Emanuel 185n52 symbolism: plants 54, 112, 114, 122–3, 133; vine 19, 139 Tamagni, Vincenzo 46 Tassi, Agostino 150 Tempesta, Antonio 82, 108, 119–20 treillage 2, 8, 67, 146; Du Cerceau 189; Ghinucci garden 89; Giovanni Colonna da Tivoli 121; Girolamo da Carpi, specialist of treillage 87; Palazzo Altemps 133; revival 188; Roubo, treatise on treillage 121, 187; Villa d’Este 91, 97; Villa Giulia 109, 120 Urban VIII 174 Utens, Giusto 31–2, 164 Vaga, Perino del 46, 56 Varro: agricultural treatise 16; aviary 91 Vasanzio, Giovanni 153 Vasari, Giorgio: aviary of Julius II 69n13; chapel of Innocent VIII 53; First Loggia of Leo X 57–9, 61; Giovanni da Udine 45–7; Girolamo da Carpi 87, 92; Villa Farnesina 54; Villa Giulia 104; workshop of 82 Vatican: chapel of Innocent VIII 53, 62; First Loggia of Gregory XIII 82–4; First Loggia of Leo X 7, 56, 57–68, 82, 84, 109, 138; Gardens 62, 84–6, 130; giardino segreto of Paul III 85–8, 118; Loggetta of Cardinal Bibbiena 55–7; Loggia of Raphael 46–7

226

Index

Venale, Pietro 82, 108 Verocchio, Andrea del 134 Vigna 50, 113 Vignola, Jacopo Barozzi da 4; architectural treatise 175; Palazzo Farnese 34; Villa Farnese 115, 118, 122; Villa Giulia 104; Villa Lante (Bagnaia) 149 Villa Aldobrandini (Frascati) 37, 141–2 Villa Barbaro (Maser) 77 Villa Belpoggio 144–5 Villa Borghese (Rome) 3, 144–5; Aviary 153 Villa Carafa (Rome) 87–9, 92 Villa dei Vescovi (Luvigliano) 77 Villa d’Este (Tivoli) 7, 92–8, 101n63; cruciform pergola 84, 92–4, 125; cryptoporticus 94–7; indoor fountain 95; mosaic and stucco pergola 94, 97–8; Salone 94–5 Villa Emo (Fanzolo) 77 Villa Falconieri (Frascati) 155–7 Villa Farnese (Caprarola) 7, 21, 25, 82, 104, 106, 115–25, 130, 148–52, 157, 162, 198–9; circular portico 119–22; corridor of the tower 124, 162; grotesques and nature motifs 118; indoor fountain 135; maps 8n3; painted pergola 120–3, 132–3, 138, 150; painted view 118; real pergola 115–18, 125 Villa Farnesina (Rome) 3, 7; garden 49; Hall of the Perspectives 35; Loggia of Cupid and Psyche 48–50, 53–5 Villa Giulia (Rome) 7, 21, 82, 92, 104–15, 130; carpentry pergola 7, 93, 104–5, 117, 125, 146; Fontana Pubblica 104, 114; grotesques and nature motifs 138; painted

pergola 78, 95, 108–13, 120–2, 133–4; putti 108–13; sunken nymphaeum 106, 114; systematic use of pergolas 114–15, 118 Villa Giustiniani (Bassano Romano) 128n39 Villa Grazioli (Frascati) Villa Imperiale (Pesaro) 77 Villa Lante (Bagnaia); Palazzina Gambara 94, 117, 149, 159n36; Palazzina Montalto 149–50 Villa Lante al Gianicolo 34 Villa Ludovisi 145–6 Villa Madama (Rome) 47, 56 Villa Medici (Rome) 5, 62, 81–2, 121, 133, 153–4, 165 Villa Medici (Tuscany): Ambrogiana 31; Cafaggiolo 31; Castello 80, 125, 165, 180; Fiesole 36; Il Trebbio 31; La Petraia 31; Poggio a Caiano 36; Pratolino 125 Villa Mondragone (Frascati) 144 Villa of Livia (Prima Porta) 14–16, 54, 77 Villa of Publius Fannius Synistor (Boscoreale) 13–16 Villa of the Mysteries 14–15 Villa Pamphilj 145–6 Vincidor, Tommaso 46, 111–12 Vinckboons, David 31 Viviani, Antonio 131 Vredeman de Vries, Hans 31 Wyngaerde, Anton van den 86–7 Zuccari, Federico 147–8 Zucchi, Jacopo 81–2, 121