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The bronze and porphyry portrait of Pope Urban VIII by Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Tommaso Fedeli by STEFANO PIERGUIDI
THE BRONZE AND porphyry bust of Pope Urban VIII, still in the collection of the Barberini family (Figs.9–12), was mentioned by Nicodemus Tessin the Younger in his travel notes of 1687–88,1 and is described in several guides to Rome dating from the end of the seventeenth century onwards as one of the most exceptional pieces in the collection at the Barberini palace at the Quattro Fontane in Rome.2 Always said to be the work of Bernini, or made ‘after Bernini’s design’, the bust was relegated to workshop status by Stanislao Fraschetti in 1900, a judgment that was reconfirmed by Rudolf Wittkower.3 Recently, thanks to an archival discovery, Tomaso Montanari has been able to identify the portrait as one of the items on the list of Bernini’s work drawn up by his son Pier Filippo Bernini in 1675–76, following his father’s instructions, a catalogue subsequently published, with a few modifications, as an appendix to Bernini’s biography by Filippo Baldinucci in 1682.4 Thus, the bust is one of only five portraits of Urban VIII that Gian Lorenzo wished to record for posterity among his works. On that list the bronze and porphyry bust is described simply as ‘di metallo’, and in the possession of ‘Abb.e Braccese’. It appears in the will opened in Rome on 26th January 1685 of the abbé Giovanni Braccese, who had served as secretary to several members of the Barberini family:
made to the sculptor Tommaso Fedeli for making the ‘mozzetta di porfido’, a cape made of porphyry.7 Other documents in the Barberini archive make it possible to substantiate Bacchi’s suggestion and to attribute the sculpting of the porphyry bust to Fedeli, made by order of Taddeo Barberini and paid for in three instalments between August 1630 and March 1631; the involvement of Bernini in making the portrait, documented by the payment, confirms the autograph status of the bronze head, as Braccese recorded in his will. The document noted by Bacchi, which was found by Marilyn Aronberg Lavin8 but never transcribed in full, is an order for payment (contromandato) in the account books of Taddeo Barberini, signed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini: 15 scudi as the completion of the 55 scudi paid to Tommaso Fidele [sic], which is the agreed price for the porphyry mozzetta of Our Lord [the Pope] made at my command for the aforementioned piece, having given him 40 scudi with two orders of payment, of 20 scudi each, that will be paid upon receipt.
According to Montanari’s thesis, the work could have been commissioned by Braccese himself, who owned it in the mid1670s and who left it in his will to Cardinal Carlo Barberini, whom he had served as secretary. It is first cited in Carlo’s inventory in 1692 (without any reference to Gian Lorenzo Bernini).6 Montanari’s hypothesis suggests a later date for the bust than that of c.1632 proposed by Andrea Bracchi; to Bracchi we owe the connection between the bust and the payment of March 1631
Therefore, we are not dealing with the payment for a piece of porphyry consigned to the sculptor,9 but with the balance of the payment for making ‘della mozzetta di porfido di N.S.re’, that is, for a headless bust of the pontiff:10 the head to be cast in bronze, if that had not already been done, on a model furnished by Bernini, who was responsible for ordering the payment to the specialist porphyry carver. The payments to Fedeli were correctly recorded among Taddeo Barberini’s accounts, but were not easily traced, because they are found in the last account book of Taddeo’s father, Carlo Barberini, dated 1629–30, after Carlo’s death in Bologna on 26th February 1630. Taddeo’s accountants continued to use his father’s account book for the two first payments ‘a buon conto’, each of twenty scudi, dated 20th August and 8th November 1630, in which ‘a porphyry bust’ is mentioned.11 The third payment, the one cited by Aronberg Lavin, is dated 26th March 1631, and appears in the first of Taddeo’s own account books.12
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As a legacy I leave to the aforementioned most eminent Cardinal Carlo Barberini, my master, the porphyry bust with the metal head of Urban VIII of blessed memory, the head, by Cavalier Bernini.5
N. Tessin: Travel notes 1673–77 and 1687–88, ed. M. Laine and B. Magnusson, Stockholm 2002, p.306. 2 A. Bacchi: ‘Ritratto di papa Urbano VIII Barberini’, in idem, et al., eds.: exh. cat. I marmi vivi: Bernini e la nascita del ritratto barocco, Florence (Museo Nazionale del Bargello) 2009, p.254, with earlier bibliography. 3 S. Fraschetti: Il Bernini: la sua vita, la sua opera, il suo tempo, Milan 1900, pp.145–46; R. Wittkower: Bernini: the sculptor of the Roman Baroque, rev. ed. London 1995, p.244, cat.19 (7). 4 On Bernini’s works, see C. d’Onofrio: Roma vista da Roma, Rome 1967, pp.434–38 (for the bust p.434, no.21); T. Montanari: ‘Bernini e Cristina di Svezia: alle origini della storiografia berniniana’, in A. Angelini, ed.: Gian Lorenzo Bernini e i Chigi tra Roma e Siena, Cinisello Balsamo 2008, p.403; F. Baldinucci: Notizie de’ Professori del Disegno da Cimabue in qua, 1st ed. 1681–1725, ed. F. Ranalli, Florence 1845–47, V, p.696; T. Montanari: ‘Ritratto di papa Urbano VIII Barberini – Addendum: un nuovo documento sulla provenienza dell’opera’, in Bacchi, op. cit. (note 2), pp.256–58.
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‘Per raggion di legato lascio al suddetto eminentissimo signor cardinale Carlo Barberini mio signore il busto di porfido con testa di metallo della santa memoria di Urbano VIII, di mano, la testa, del cavalier Bernini’; ibid., p.256. 6 M. Aronberg Lavin: Seventeenth-century Barberini documents and inventories of art, New York 1975, p.450, no.559; Montanari, in Bacchi, op. cit. (note 2), pp.256–57. 7 Ibid., p.256. 8 Aronberg Lavin, op. cit. (note 6), p.16, doc. 132. 9 ‘. . . scudi quindici a comp.o di scudi 55 pagati a Tommaso Fidele che importano il prezzo d’accordo della mozzetta di porfido di N.S.re fatta di mio ordine per d.o pezzo havendoli datoli scudi 40 di moneta con 2 mandati di scudi 20 l’uno che con ricevuta verranno ben pagati’; Bacchi, op. cit. (note 2), p.256. 10 For Fedeli, see D. Di Castro: ‘Tommaso Fedeli, virtuoso del porfido’, Antologia di Belle Arti 43/47 (1993), pp.150–57. 11 ‘un busto di porfido’; Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Archivio Barberini (hereafter cited as AB), Computisteria 8, fols.83r and 93r. 12 AB, Computisteria 192, fol.21r.