Pinacoteca of Faenza - Guide to 100 works

copertina guida pinacoteca ingl.qxp_ita 02/12/17 09:59 Pagina 1

N

ISB

,00

15

7 0014 43 -9 .c.

€

88

8-

97

www.emil.it

EMIL edizioni

GUIDE TO 100 WORKS OF THE PINACOTECA FROM THE MIDDLE AGES TO THE XX CENTURY

PINACOTECA COMUNALE DI FAENZA

GUIDE TO

100 WORKS OF THE PINACOTECA

FROM THE MIDDLE AGES TO THE XX CENTURY

EMIL edizioni

i

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_1-13 prima parte 02/12/17 09:26 Pagina 3

PINACOTECA COMUNALE DI FAENZA

GUIDE TO

100 WORKS OF THE PINACOTECA

FROM THE MIDDLE AGES TO THE XX CENTURY

BY

CLAUDIO CASADIO

LE GUIDE

EMIL edizioni

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_1-13 prima parte 02/12/17 09:26 Pagina 4

Cover: Image of the work reproduced on page 31 Cover last page: Image of the work reproduced on page 76

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_1-13 prima parte 02/12/17 09:26 Pagina 5

100 Works of the Pinacoteca From the Middle Ages to the XX Century

City of Faenza Municipal Department of Culture Mayor Giovanni Malpezzi Vice Mayor Head of Municipal Department of Culture Massimo Isola Culture Sector Director Benedetta Diamanti The Municipal Pinacoteca of Faenza Via S. Maria dell'Angelo 9 Director Claudio Casadio Restoration Technician Domenica Manfredi Texts and files by Claudio Casadio Translation by Codice di Irene Guerra & C. snc Bagnacavallo (RA)

EMIL edizioni Via Lombardia 83 95045 Misterbianco (CT) Tel. +39 095.537116 Fax +39 095.7560660 E-mail: info@emil.it Editor-in-Chief Giovanni Mirulla Printed in Italy by Tipografia Euroteam – Nuvolera (BS) © 2017 EMIL srls/ The Municipal Pinacoteca of Faenza First edition in English December 2017 All rights reserved The reproduction of any part of this work by any means is prohibited.

EMIL also publishes, among other works: D’A, a publication of design and craftsmanship, and La Ceramica Moderna & Antica (Modern & Ancient Ceramics) ISBN 978-88-943140-0-7

Publication made possible thanks to regional financing of the Regional Law 18/200 “Law concerning libraries, historical archives, museums, and cultural resources.

2017 Museum Plan”.

The images of the works herein were created by the Institute for Artistic, Cultural, and Natural Resources of the Region of Emilia-Romagna as part of the cataloguing project financed by Regional Law 18/2000

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_1-13 prima parte 02/12/17 09:26 Pagina 6

The term Pinacoteca means a gallery of paintings and, in ancient Greece, it was used in reference to a collection of painted wooden panels (πίνακες), especially when they were votive in nature. This term and the type of collection spread throughout Italy with the first Museums (for example, the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan, the Pinacoteca Vaticana in Roma, Pinacoteca Estense in Modena) and even in Germany (Alte Pinakothek in Munich).

Today the Pinacoteca of Faenza is more than a collection of votive paintings, having evolved into a true figurative art museum with both religious and secular paintings and sculptures of various periods. For the purposes of this publication and future communications, it was decided to maintain this historic term in reference to the gallery: the Pinacoteca of Faenza.

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_1-13 prima parte 02/12/17 09:26 Pagina 7

INDEX

Introduction

8

by Vittorio Sgarbi

Two hundred years of Pinacoteca history

10

by Claudio Casadio

100 Works of the Pinacoteca From the Middle Ages to the XX Century

14

Essential Bibliography

93

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_1-13 prima parte 02/12/17 09:26 Pagina 8

INTRODUCTION

by Vittorio Sgarbi I feel at home in Faenza. It is not only a city where I have lots of friends, but also a place where I can indulge in my ultimate expression of snobbery, or where I began pursuing my spontaneous, irresistible attraction for the artists of Domenico Baccarini’s group of young followers that gave rise to many men of letters and cultures being united in a sort of “Cenacle”. Actually, I realise that I never reached the point of becoming a snob due to an excess of decency towards history and for my tastes, which are simple and traditional, entrusted to the recognised values inherent to art. Yet towards the end of the 1970s, while other prevailing tastes pointed towards Futurism as being all the rage, my passion for Domenico Baccarini and his young artist friends was sparked and continues to grow stronger and stronger today, and with good reason.

One confirmation came to me through the enormous satisfaction with which I recently acquired yet another set of drawings by Domenico Rambelli, an extremely demanding and highly original artist in the elaboration of an idiom that is never descriptive or repetitive. This passion initially led me to frequent homes and collections of Faenza, then to work with great conviction together with Dino Gavina to donate the bronze monument in honour of Alfredo Oriani to the city.

8 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

The last unfulfilled desire of Domenico Rambelli was to create this monument in Faenza, but the plaster cast remained in his studio in Rome. We found it and, in 1990, on a lovely day in May, we held the inaugural ceremony for a work that, although it was not situated in the square Rambelli would have chosen, honours him as a great artist.

I then collaborated, making a contribution to the catalogue, with the show held in 2008 on the great exhibition of one-hundred years earlier and I gave a long interview for the video about Domenico Rambelli, which then won the Guidarello Award in 2014.

By wandering around the workshops and studios of the city, I have gained an understanding of the profound link that Faenza’s artists have with the past of this territory and how they succeed adapting such a rich artistic tradition to contemporary tastes and movements.

While recently writing an article on the works of Aldo Rontini, I connected his work to what he had seen and experienced as a child in his birthplace of Brisighella, as narrated by the splendid paintings on wood

by Giuseppe Ugonia, and to how much can be gathered in Faenza, city of ceramics and the dreams that inspire them. However, for the art of Aldo Rontini, I also referred to another source of inspiration, which is in the city: there is no doubt that Aldo Rontini reconceived, in a synthetic form, the dry and ascetic forms of Donatello’s St. Gerome on display in the Pinacoteca. This is a statue that in and of itself makes a visit to the Pinacoteca worthwhile.

Everything in the St. Jerome of Faenza

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_1-13 prima parte 02/12/17 09:26 Pagina 9

Introduction refers to a mature Donatello: from the realism of the anatomy with the vein-riddled limbs subjected to Gothic lengthening that compensate for the rounder Greek-Roman inflections, to the peculiarity of the pose that enhances viewing of the profile, twisting around himself, one foot uncertainly gripping the steep crag, his withdrawn torso drawing tension upwards to the tilted head, wrought and moving. Donatello’s San Girolamo pays homage, out of Tuscany, to the naked and secularised nude that Florence would have revealed through the Adam and Eve by Masaccio, another father of the Renaissance, in the Brancacci Chapel.

There are many masterpieces to be admired in the halls of the Pinacoteca. Few works are as intriguing as the splendid Bertoni altar piece, which stands witness to the Ferrarese painting in the land of Romagna.

Refined in the use of colours, after the lesson learnt in Venice, and in the composition is the altar piece by Marco Palmezzano commissioned by the Confraternity of San Michelino that, in 1497, requested a work that could be judged as the worthiest and the most beautiful of any other painting existing in Faenza and paid the artist for it only after approval from a special commission had been obtained.

The documentation on a painter like Biagio d’Antonio of Florence is unique. An artist who worked in the Sistine Chapel and is present in the Uffizi Gallery and in many museums worldwide, d’Antonio is bestrepresented in the halls of the Pinacoteca of Faenza, which houses the greatest number of his works displayed in a single collection. While visiting the halls featuring sixteenth-century works, one name that is

often repeated is that of Bertucci, a family of Faenza that boasts several generations of artists who were always innovators. Look for the large altar piece dated 1506 and observe the grotesque figures used in the decoration: Roman artists had been painting these fantasy figures for only a few years after having seen them in the grottos of the Esquiline Hill, or in Nero’s Domus Aurea.

The youngest of the family, present in the Pinacoteca with an altar piece dedicated to the Birth of the Virgin Mary, was condemned as being heretical, but he continued to paint according to his times. Even after his death his works continued to be criticised. During your visit, and in this useful guide, you will find other works of a Pinacoteca that boasts a collection of quality that stands witness to art through the centuries.

In the large hall of altar pieces, I would encourage you to take your time in front of the Caravaggesque Biagio Manzoni and Ferraù Fenzoni, an artist from Faenza who worked in Rome and in Orvieto.

Another collection not to be missed are the works of twentieth-century Italian artists recently bequeathed by Augusto Vallunga and now exhibited in two special halls.

However, what makes the Pinacoteca of Faenza so very dear to me, as it will not be difficult to understand after everything I have already written above, is the collection of Baccarini’s Cenacle of artists. Painting, but above all sculpture, to be seen and savoured as the expression of beauty that has always been produced in Italy and is duly represented in the Pinacoteca as a legacy that should be increasingly seen, studied, and appreciated.

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 9

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_1-13 prima parte 02/12/17 09:26 Pagina 10

TWO HUNDRED YEARS OF PINACOTECA HISTORY Preface by Claudio Casadio

The Municipal Pinacoteca of Faenza is a typically Italian figurative art gallery combined, at least up to a precise moment of its lengthy existence (or as of the remodelling that took place at the beginning of the 1920s), with the Municipal Museum.

Hence, historically speaking, the collection of paintings was accompanied by a varied and rich eclectic collection of archaeological and numismatic artefacts, relics of the city’s history and of the period of the Risorgimento and, in particular, an anthology, even if only partial, of the local production of ceramics, the pride and glory of this city, and important drawing collections.

The founding date of the Pinacoteca is 1797, when the Municipality acquired from Giuseppe Zauli, founder of the Municipal School of Design, a consistent collection of prints, drawings, plaster casts, and paintings to which, beginning in the same year and the following ones, the works of art (mostly paintings) from places of worship suppressed as a result of the implementation of the Napoleonic suppression.

10 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

Until 1864, the life of the School of Design and of the artistic collections co-existed, given that the prints, plaster casts, and paintings served as models for the students. Even the location of the two Institutes was the same: following a series of moves, both the School and the Pinacoteca were situated in the ex-convent of the Servants of Mary, which also housed the Municipal Library.

The second fundamental growth spurt in the artistic patrimony took place in 1867, thanks to the suppressions imposed by the young unitary State.

In 1875, following the industrial agrarian artistic Exposition, in which a “Review of artistic and antique objects” was organised, it was decided to open the Pinacoteca to the public regularly with the inauguration that took place in February 1879 in the ex-convent of the Jesuits, where the Exposition had been held.

The volume of the collections, which had been seen and studied up to that point mostly by the teachers and students of the school and perhaps a few isolated travellers, had indeed become too large as to convince the municipal government to appoint its first director, independent of the School, Federico Argnani (1822 – 1905) who can today be considered the refounder of the Pinacoteca. Even back then the institute could have been considered of great value in terms of both interest and economically, as demonstrated by the artistic historiography that has dealt with the works belonging to the Pinacoteca.

The author that opens the list for every

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_1-13 prima parte 02/12/17 09:26 Pagina 11

Preface bibliographic citation is Giorgio Vasari, followed by almost all the scholars who founded art history in Italy and have known and frequented the sites of the Pinacoteca over the decades between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Filippo Baldinucci, Luigi Lanzi, Giovan Battista Cavalcaselle, Adolfo Venturi, and Pietro Toesca are only some of the illustrious names that have worked on the paintings and sculptures present in the Pinacoteca collections.

In the nearly thirty years during which Federico Argnani directed the institution, in addition to creating the first real exhibition system he convinced the regents of the Congregazione di CaritĂ (a state institute established to meet the needs of the poor) and of the Monte di Credito bank (currently the Cassa di Risparmio di Cesena) to deposit many of the works in their possession, thereby inaugurating a determined acquisition policy that, if it failed to prevent the distancing of many masterpieces from Faenza, in any cases succeeded in substantially increasing the original collections.

Furthermore, he collected part of the massive amounts of archaeological specimens that came to light thanks to the intense building activity of towards the end of the century.

The result of such intense efforts was, in fact, the opening to the public of the Pinacoteca and the annexed Municipal Museum. At the same time, Argnani was preparing the first inventory of the Pinacoteca and, in 1881, published the first printed catalogue of the collections.

Having become the ultimate municipal museum institution, the Pinacoteca and the Municipal Museum began playing an increasingly important role thanks to Argnani commitment, which it maintained until his death on 18 June 1905.

Following the brief directorship of the artist Tommaso Dalpozzo, who died in February of 1906, the artist and scholar Achille Calzi was called upon to take charge. Under Calzi, who was contemporaneously a teacher and headmaster of the Municipal School of Design, the Pinacoteca and the study of the pictorial history of the city opened a new chapter that met with serious difficulties a few years later.

Having published in 1909, together with Messeri, the fundamental study entitled Faenza nella storia e nell’arte (Faenza in History and in Art), participated in important national events like the 1911 show in Florence dedicated to the Italian portrait and completed the organisation with the

compilation of a new general inventory in 1917, Achille Calzi found himself dealing with two different projects. On one side, there was Gaetano Ballardini, with his intense drive aimed at established the Museum of Ceramics. Ballardini, as everyone knows, was working on a museum structure that would support artistic craftsmen on an international level and had his eye on the collection of ceramic works belonging to the Pinacoteca. On the other, in contrast with Achille Calzi, there was the Superintendent of the Galleries of Emilia and Romagna, Francesco Malaguzzi Valeri, who from the end of 1919 began proposing a new organisation of the Pinacoteca. His project reduced the Pinacoteca to just one collection of paintings and sculptures that should have exhibited only a selection of works in settings that were decorated and furnished, deliberately omitting any educational intention or prospect for development and acquisitions.

The intense debate among the different proposals and requests reached a turning point due to the unexpected death of Achille Calzi on 19 December 1919 and the successive dissolution of the Municipal Council in January 1920 with the nomination of Furio Petroni as prefectorial commissioner. As soon as 3 February 1920, the new Commissioner ratified the cancella-

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 11

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_1-13 prima parte 02/12/17 09:26 Pagina 12

tion of the curator’s position from the list of municipal employees, giving rise to the beginning of a mass depletion of hundreds of works of all types: ceramics, archaeological artefacts, Risorgimento and Torricelli relics, paintings, prints, coins, and the sixteenth-century map by Virgilio Rondinini.

The sole changes were the creation of a fifteenth-century wooden ceiling in a small hall and a Renaissance fireplace in pietra serena sandstone from the City Hall.

With the elimination of the position of curator from the organisation, an honorary assignment was bestowed upon Count Luigi Zauli Naldi, art aficionado and collector, who in 1923 succeeded in inaugu rating a small modern Gallery in three small rooms separate from the Pinacoteca. However, he resigned in 1926 following several disappointments and, most likely, disputes with the Municipal administration.

In 1930, a long period of commissions went to the artist Roberto Sella, Headmaster of the Municipal School of Design, who was also entrusted to act as curator. After some reorganisation as a consequence of the construction of an interior wooden staircase to connect the two floors, promoting some new studies, including those of Roberto Longhi, important for gaining a better understanding of painting in Faenza, during the 1930s there were some valuable donations that began with Michele Bosi in 1929 and ending with a binding of 143 paintings by Giacomo Pozzi, with donations by Dr. Paolo Galli in 1938 and Gioacchino Regoli.

Both World Wars left considerable damage, but the Pinacoteca reopened in 1950 with a due revision, thanks to the efforts of Roberto Sella and promoted by scholars 12 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

like Roberto Longhi and various local researchers, including the outstanding Ennio Golfieri and Antonio Corbara. Roberto Sella continued working at the helm of the Pinacoteca until his death on 1 January 1955, when he was succeeded by Antonio Archi, nominated as honorary curator, who remained in office from June 1956 until his death in January 1976.

Archi immediately took it upon himself to introduce the important works of the Pinacoteca to the world: he saw to it that a guide-catalogue was published, the second one after Argnani’s in the history of the museum, and promoted an important monograph compiled by Ennio Golfieri. In 1969, thanks to the support of the Zauli Naldi family, the Modern Art gallery was inaugurated. This collection was housed in some rooms of the main floor of the Zauli Naldi Building and closed in January 1981.

Over these more recent decades, numerous donations have been made by private citizens: in many cases individual pieces, in others complete collections that belonged to families. Over the past ninety years, these gifts have by far made the largest impact on both antique and contemporary collections. In particular, during the postwar period, the donations of Domenico Beltrani in 1952 included works of nineteenth and twentieth century artists who were important on a national level and others who represented local artistic tradition.

In 1965, Luigi Zauli Naldi left about fifty paintings, including a valuable collection of still lives. Francesco Papiani also made contributions, while Ennio Golfieri left the works of his own important collection between 1985 and 1993.

Numerous artists who worked in Faenza during the twentieth century also contributed significant and important collections of works to the Pinacoteca, including

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_1-13 prima parte 02/12/17 09:26 Pagina 13

Preface Domenico Rambelli, Giovanni Guerrini, Ercole Drei, Gianna Boschi and Giuseppe Tampieri. Other individual works of artists, including Abbati, Bedeschi, Forlani, Gurioli, Lenzini, Marabini, Massari, Patruno, Roda, Romagnoli, Saviotti, Sella, Tavanti and Timoncini, were donated following shows.

The problem of exhibition space, which is a constant in the history of the Pinacoteca, emerged again publicly in 1976 when various and often contrasting hypotheses and solutions were discussed during a conference.

Ever since, various positions have been taken, based on studies and proposals conditioned, among other things, by some precise episodes like the definitive closing of the Modern Art Gallery in 1981 due to considerable leaks in the roof that made it necessary to remove the paintings immediately. Later that same year, there was also the temporary closing of the Antique section, from October 1981 to June 1982.

Then it was decided to close the halls to the public in 1988 in order to proceed with the inevitable renovation made necessary by, among other things, the need to comply with increasingly specific security and safety regulations and the decision to end the gallery’s co-existence with the Classical High School due to its needs for autonomous scholastic activities.

The inauguration of the new exhibition halls on 19 March 2005 made it possible to allow the reopening of the historic exhibitions, thereby marking the end of an initial important and significant phase

that, according to the Municipal Admistration’s ongoing requalification plans like the Historic District Strategic Plan in 2003, should bring about the unification of all the Pinacoteca spaces, from the Antique Art and Modern Art Galleries to the warehouses and offices, in the Palazzo degli Studi. In this way, the oldest museum in Faenza would undergo the requalification and renovations worthy of the overwhelming quality and value of the patrimony it houses.

The event that was by far the most important since the reopening of the exhibition halls was certainly the donation of the Bianchedi Bettoli/Vallunga Collection.

Thanks to the voluntary bequest of Augusto Vallunga, and to the agreement and willingness of his widow Maria Grazia Bianchedi Bettoli, in 2010 the collection that included works of twentieth-century Italian artists was acquired and it was possible to exhibit more than thirty paintings of enormous value.

There were many artists of international renown - from De Chirico to Morandi, from CarrĂ to Savinio, from Severini to Sironi, from Campigli to Gentilini - present in this collection, to which the Pinacoteca dedicated two special halls. This is a collection to be seen in any case, even for the extraordinary quality of each individual work.

Augusto Vallunga, a man of superb culture and an art enthusiast, indeed acquired paintings for his own collection, paying careful attention to select significant and important works by each artist.

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 13

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:27 Pagina 14

1. Anonymous Byzantine-Ravenna, Pluteus illustrating Original Sin, VI century, marble, 86x110x5 cm, Inv. n. 51

The slab was probably originally one of the plutei of the presbytery of the Basilica of S. Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna. It depicts the episode of Original Sin: the figures of Adam and Eve are stylised alongside an amphora from which two lush grape vines and a fig tree are growing. A serpent is also coming out of the amphora and is turning right toward the figure of Eve. The presence of a smaller snake at the foot of the cantharus adds a sense of spontaneity to the scene.

The composition of the depiction is of vaguely oriental origins. In the centre, there is a symbolic value, in this case the vessel that contains the water of eternal life, in a

14 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

paradisiac setting with animals and plants to communicate with an established traditional language deriving from the GreekRoman world and interpreted with new paleo-Christian values where, for example, the birds that perch on the large leaves can be read as the faithful stopping on clusters of grapes, the emblem of Christ, of divine grace and eternal life. Reused as a tombstone, it was found in the Osservanza Cemetery in Faenza.

On the back, not visible as it is against the wall, there is an inscription dedicated to the policeman Ildebrando Topi, who died in 1821.

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:27 Pagina 15

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century

A parvis cross depicting on the front the “right hand of God” and on the back a lamb with a cross to its side.

Patrizia Capitanio wrote that the mystical lamb’s body, surmounted by a cross and sculpted on one side of the limestone, “in terms of style, does not have a natural appearance, but is sculpted in a stylised fashion”. Its head is turned backward to symbolise that it is looking at those who will follow it (or the flock of souls that will follow Christ). On the other side of the cross there is a divine hand with the first three fingers extended sculpted in the stone, an iconography that refers to the Trinity and the

bestowal of the blessing. On the side of the hand giving the blessing are the words “dextera domini fecit virtutem”, a phrase from Psalm 117 verse 16 and on the side of the lamb there are words that can be made out as “agnes mactatur / christus de cruce levatur” of an Easter sequence that can be traced to a poetic-liturgical form that was very common during the Carolingian era.

Hence the cross can be dated to approximately the two centuries around the year 1000, or the period of the Church of St. Anthony in the Borgo Durbecco, where the parvis stood.

2. Anonymous Romanesque, Cross from a parvis, XI century, marble 104x85x12.5 cm, Inv. n. 48

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 15

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:27 Pagina 16

3. Anonymous Romanesque Adriatic, Part of ambon: lion of St. Mark, XII century, Istrian stone, 113x54x17, Inv. n. 53

4. Anonymous Romanesque, Christ blessing and the Saints Giles and Eutropius, XII century, limestone, 49x103x12 cm, Inv. n. 49

The figure of the lion, a symbol of the evangelist Marco, adorned the Romanesque ambon of S. Maria Foris Portam. Along with this work, the Pinacoteca also houses a second part of the ambon with the winged ox of St. Luke. The ambon is the parapet of the apse or pulpit present in medieval churches.

The lion is depicted rearing in profile, looking towards the right and with the book of the Gospels between its front paws. Its head is framed by a halo that is barely in relief and the wings are opened, covering the entire width of the slab. The ox is depicted seated, facing left with its wings unfolded, while it holds the book of the Gospels between its front hooves. A small halo encircles its head, which is not depicted in profile but as seen from above.

As Anna Tambini wrote, these two slabs appear to be in Romanesque style for their vigorous forms and for the spontaneous realism of the rearing lion captured while roaring, although maintaining the stylised motifs in the calligraphic curls of the mane and in the wings that almost evoke leafy elements. The work can be considered from the Adriatic area and dated around the second half of the XII century.

The inscription on the edge is dated 1127.

This work depicts Christ the Redeemer in the centre blessing with his right hand, with the index and middle fingers extended. With his left hand he is holding the Gospels opened to a page reading Ego sum lux vera, or two excerpts from the Gospel of St. John. To the sides of the Redeemer are two sculpted figures identified by Francesco Lanzoni, who in 1910 documented the discovery of the stone, as Saints Giles the Abbot and Eutropius Bishop. To the side of St. Giles is a hind because, as the Golden Legend (Leggenda Aurea) narrates, he was nourished by her

16 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

milk during his hermitage. The sculpted figures are corpulent and massive; with large hands, wide faces, crude noses, and thick and heavy wavy hair. These are characteristics of Romanesque art of the Po River plain, where the vital weight of the figures and the physical volume of the bodies were preferred to the Byzantine transcendental style and to the mystical space of the golden background�.

From the demolished Church of Saint Eutropius, the stone was found in the home of Corso Mazzini, which today bears the number 64, where the church once stood.

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:27 Pagina 17

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century

In the board to the side of Christ’s body is a decoration in gold and silver enriched with mirrors and glass paste applications that lends great colourful impact to the composition as a whole. In addition to the extraordinary skill of the artist, the work is outstanding for a stylistic evolution that begins with the persistence of Byzantine features like the obvious linearity, the tendency toward stylisation, the circular brush strokes in Christ’s body - characteristic of early thirteenth-century paintings to attain a more human sense of drama and use of colours that reinforces the decorative elements.

The author of the crucifix has been identified as an artist who worked for Franciscan

sites from Assisi to Camerino and as far as Bologna. In a recent study, Anna Tambini proposed that this work dates to approximately 1270. A date that could also be coherent with its potential original home in the church of St. Francis, which was constructed in 1271.

The presence of only St. Francis at the foot of the Crucifix reinforces the hypothesis that is was originally intended for such a location with the Franciscan brothers, where about the middle of the thirteenth century there was already a Compagnia della Santa Croce (Congregation of the Holy Cross).

5. Master of Franciscan Crucifixes, Crucifix, XIII century, tempera on canvas applied to wood with inserts in gemstones and glass paste 198x157 cm, Inv. n. 97

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 17

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:27 Pagina 18

6. Master of Faenza, Crucifixion and Assumption of St. John the Evangelist, XIII century, wood, 35x28 cm + frame 15 cm, Inv. n. 98

The wood has a golden base and is divided into two parts. The upper part is a representation of Jesus’s crucifixion. The lower part has a depiction of the Assumption of St. John the Evangelist as narrated, according to a commonly accepted interpretation of Anna Tambini, from a medieval legend. The identification of the Saint is confirmed by the similarity of the clothing with the St. John beside the cross in the upper composition.

In this depiction the moment when John is about to die and has gone down into the grave that he had his disciples dig, is then lifted by an angel and almost pulled out forcibly by Christ who appears with two Saints to save him. The emotions of the figures, from John’s disciples who are already grieving the death of Christ, who runs toward his favourite apostle, are achieved with great skill and much more modern tones compared to thirteenth-century Byzantine tradition. The author, considered an innovator who shunned Byzantine tradition, is identified as the Master of Faenza, who worked there between 1260 and 1280.

Another three paintings on wood kept in the Pinacoteca of Bologna are attributed to the same master.

7. Giovanni da Rimini, Madonna with Child, two Angels and Saints Francis, Michael the Archangel, Augustine, Catherine and Clare, 1300 ca., wood, 50x35 cm + frame 11 cm, Inv. n. 92 The wood has a golden base and is divided horizontally into two parts, according to a thirteenth century tradition. The upper part features a portrayal of the Madonna with an infant in her arms, posed according to the Byzantine model of the Pelagonitissa, while two angels hold rich drapery around her shoulders. In the lower part, there are portraits of five saints. At two extremes are St. Francis and St. Clare, who are depicted slightly in profile compared to the frontal poses of the central figures, where St. Michael the Archangel, St. Augustine, and St. Catherine of Alexandria can be recognised.

Recognised by critics as the work of Giovanni da Rimini, in 1924 by Raimond Van Marle and in 1937 by Roberto Longhi, it was considered one of the earliest famous works

by Giovanni da Rimini. According to this appraisal, which was created during the fervent years around 1300, it would be one of the oldest demonstrations of artists in Rimini reacting immediately to the work of Giotto in the city.

18 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:27 Pagina 19

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century 8. Anonymous Gothic, Saint George and the dragon with the princess and the patron, XIV century, Istrian stone, 84x47x12 cm, Inv. n. 54 The work is dated 1339 and comes from the old church of the Dominican Order. The inscription in Gothic letters commemorates the construction of St. George's Chapel in 1339 as Andrea Cacciaguerra, “father of astrology and serious physician” desired. The patron is portrayed kneeling on the right, offering a small church.

In the representation to the left is St. George on a horse barded and dressed as he flies over the dragon in the form of a large bird with folded wings. On the right, the princess his grasping the jaw and the ear of the dragon to prevent it from striking the knight.

This is characteristic of the Romanesque sculpture of the Po River plain, with signs of movement, naturalism, and expressiveness in the images of the dragon and the knight. The dragon, similar to a basilisk, winds its snake-like tail around the horse’s hoof. St. George is portrayed dressed in a tunic and cape, with his foot resting firmly in the stirrup, in the act of stabbing the lance into the dragon’s jaws, while the horse is rearing and leaping on his hind legs, almost bending its head towards the monster.

9. Anonymous, Heraldic deeds of Astorgio I Manfredi, XIV century, limestone, 109x68 cm, Inv. n. 200 The plaque comes from the demolished Castle of Ceparano in Faenza, constructed by order of Astorgio I Manfredi as the inscription commemorates.

Actually made in two parts, the upper part is the sculpture of Manfredi’s so-called “caprone sarcinato” (laden billy goat), with the motto in a Saxon language reading “WAN ICH MACH” (“if only I could”), standing witness to the Germanic origins of the feudal medieval. Below is the writing that recalls the construction of the castle with the date 1378.

The half-length portrait of the “caprone sarcinato”, who is burdened with a full sack, can be identified in a dromedary with its head hidden under a helmet with a crest in the form of a unicorn’s head. Later versions of this heraldic coat-of-arms were used, for example, by the bishop Federico Manfredi with the entire body of the animal crouched and holding the quartering of the Manfredi coat-of-arms in between his front legs.

Another demonstration of the use of this coat-of-arms is in the majolica tondi, produced in the workshop of Andrea della Robbia, found in the Cathedral of Faenza and created around 1475.

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 19

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:27 Pagina 20

This polypthych can be dated to around 1330-40, probably from the antique monastery of S. Martino in Poggio, on the island, a settlement of Franciscan sisters just outside of Faenza near the Lamone and Marzeno rivers. The Madonna is in the centre with two saints to the sides, who can be 20 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

identified as St. Martin and St. Agnes of Assisi, and the kneeling commissioner, a nun of the Poor Clares order. Below there are, from right to left, St. Christopher, St. Clare, St. John the Baptist, St. Catherine of Alexandria, St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Louis of Toulouse. In the compartments above, in

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:27 Pagina 21

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century

the centre is the Crucifixion with scenes from Christ's life to the sides. Agony in the Garden, the taking of Christ - with the three scenes of the kiss of Judas, Christ’s arrest, and Peter cutting off the ear of the high priest’s servant – the Deposition and a cusp with St. Lawrence and St. Anthony the Ab-

bot. The author is unanimously agreed to be a master who knew very well the school of Rimini while creating his later works, applying such expertise with great freedom and also drawing upon some aspects of the school of Bologna.

10. Anonymous, Rimini, Polyptych, XIV century, wood, 142x252 cm + frame 6 cm, Inv. n. 93

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 21

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:27 Pagina 22

11. Art of the Embriachi, Annunciation, Crucifixion, Agony in the Garden, and Saints. In the doors, two angels praying, XV century, inlays in bone, ivory, and ebony, 66x4.5 cm, Inv. n. 202

The portable altar piece, with inlays in bone, ivory, and ebony, in the form of a triptych and still in a somewhat Gothic style, is attributed to the well-known workshop of Baldassarre of the Embriachi, who worked in Florence from 1370-1380 and then in Venice until about 1430.

The work, which came from the Cappuccini Convent in Faenza, can be traced back to about 1400. During these years, the workshop was already operative in Venice, where Baldassare had moved for political reasons between 1391 - 1393 and where he died in 1406.

Beginning with the door to the left, above

22 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

there is a depiction of the Annunciation, set in a humble little room and, below, there are two saints: St. James the Great and St. Anthony the Abbot. The central door bears a depiction, above, of the scene of the Crucifixion and below that of the Baptism of Christ; finally in the door to the right there is, above, the Agony of Christ in the Garden; below there are St. Michael the Archangel and deacon saint (perhaps St. Stephen).

The other important aspect of this triptych in Faenza is the decoration on the exterior of the doors. There are two profiles of angels in monochromatic hues painted on a red background.

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:27 Pagina 23

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century Master of San Pier Damiano is a formal name given to an artist who worked in the Late Gothic style in Faenza and whose catalogue was compiled by Anna Tambini. One of the two saints portrayed in St. John the Baptist, who can be recognised by his traditional attributes: a camel hair cape and the cartouche with the words “ecce agnus dei ecce qui tollis peccata mundi”. The other board bears the likeness of a saint traditionally recognised as St. Vitus the Martyr, but is it likely to be the image of St. Terence. Indeed, it depicts a young saint with a thick head of hair, dressed as a soldier and holding the palm of martyrdom in his left hand and a banner with a cross in his right hand.

This symbol can be linked to St. Terence, the long-time patron saint of Faenza. Statutes dating back as far as 1414 include him among the patron saints, together with St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. Apollinaris.

Both boards come from the polyptych that Master of San Pier Damiano created during the 1420s for the Church of Santa Maria Foris Portam. Other parts of the polyptych are at the Diocesan Museum of Faenza and at the Ravenna Museum of Art.

12. Master of S. Pier Damiano, St. John the Baptist, XV century, two wooden panels in a single container [in the other no published table: St. Vitus], each panel measuring 30.5x19 without the frame, Inv. N. 95 and 94

Experts tend to agree that these three panels came from a single polyptych. The fact that the boards share the same dimensions tends to confirm this theory. For St. Francis, it is assumed that it was in a cusp or that it was cut down at a later date, perhaps during a restoration that somewhat modified the painting.

St. George is depicted with armour, a sword, and a standard as he tramples the dragon.

St. Francis is portrayed in three-quarters with missal in his right hand and a cross in his left hand. Instead, St. Rocco is wearing a hat that extends behind his shoulders while raising his left leg to show his wound. He is holding a stick in his left hand.

In describing these works, Anna Tambini has called attention to the detailed markings on St. Francis’s face, the elegance of the lines and rhythms present, above all in St. George, who is drawn with a metal armour with a Nordic style and a strong sense of realism and the quotidian, highlighted for example in the execution of the studs in the iron mail.

Anna Tambini envisions the artist of these works as having been on the point of breaking away from his Late Gothic legacy in search of an innovative naturalness. According to this scholar, this work can be dated approximately 1460.

13. Anonymous Late Gothic, St. Francis, XV century, three boards in a single container [in the other not published tables: St. George and St. Rocco], two of the boards measuring 86x28 cm, one measuring 42x27 cm without the frame, Inv. N. 90, 91 and 96

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 23

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:27 Pagina 24

14. Master of San Pier Damiano, Coronation of the Virgin and Saints, Dead Christ, and the Annunciation, 1440 ca, fresco, 220x160 cm

This pseudo polyptych fresco of the ex-Congregazione di CaritĂ (a state institute established to meet the needs of the poor) was made famous by Ennio Golfieri in 1956 and connected it to a group of works that he attributed to Guglielmo di Guido del Peruccino and generally assigned to the Master of San Pier Damiano, basing his reasoning on the panel housed in the Ravenna Art Museum. To the left of the Coronation of the Virgin there is a martyred saint that could be Saint Perpetua, the church from whence the fresco came. Anna Tambini pointed out how the figures contemporaneously present

24 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

both Late Gothic elements and proto-Renaissance accents. Late Gothic is manifested in the soft and fluid rhythms of the Virgin, with the cape that slips over her lap, and the Archangel with a coiffure characterised by a sort of pompadour. The advancing in the foreground of the Redeemer's knee is highlighted by the folds in the cape, and the torso of Christ the Suffering Redeemer is slightly twisted, with the halo cropped and with an intense chiaroscuro characterising the elements that foreshadow the Renaissance in this work.

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:27 Pagina 25

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century

15. Donatello, St. Jerome, mid-XV century, polychromatic wood, 141x35x26 cm, Inv. n. 168 This wooden sculpture comes from the chapel of the Manfredi family in the Church dell’Osservanza, dedicated to St. Jerome since 1444.

The commissioning of the work can be traced to Astorgio II Manfredi, lord of the city of Faenza since 1443, hired by the Republic of Florence beginning in 1446.

This statue of St. Jerome can be dated to approximately 1454-1455.

Vasari, in the life of Donatello recalls that «in the city of Florence he worked on a St. John and a St. Jerome in wood».

The saint is depicted standing. His head, tilted slightly to the left, is characterised by a thick, greying hair that falls onto his chest, together with a long beard. He is holding a stone in his left hand and is using it to beat on his chest. The sculptor demonstrates extraordinary skill in detailing the veins protruding from under his skin. The stance of his limbs encourages the viewer not to observe the statue from the front, thanks to which the serpentine effect of the sculpture is enhanced.

The work is also characterised by an attempt to combine naturalness and expressionism in the saint’s face to exalt the mystical ideal of his ascetic lifestyle.

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 25

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:27 Pagina 26

16. Circle of Bartolomeo Bellano (?), Christ as the Suffering Redeemer and angels, 1460 ca, polychromatic papier mâché relief, 85x78 + frame 5 cm, Inv. n. 204

This work can be dated to about 1460 and was acquired by the antiques dealer Ernesto Monti in 1937.

Christ, almost seated on the edge of the sarcophagus, is supported by two weeping angels. His body is still above the tomb, his knees inside it, and his sides are covered by a double white and blue loincloth. The face of the central angel is extremely expressive, representing the culmination of the pyramid composition formed together with Christ’s arm and the dramatic power expressed by the work.

This artefact in papier mâché is a rare exam-

26 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

ple of art created using and economic technique. These works are part of the highquality artistic craftsmanship intended for private devotion and also includes glazed ceramics, works in polychromatic earthenware and wooden sculptures.

The model of Faenza relief can certainly be attributed to Donatello’s workshop. The exasperation of the physiognomical features that characterises the suffering angels finds a significant parallel with the Pulpit panels made by Bartolomeo Bellano under the direction of Donatello for the Church of St. Lawrence in Florence.

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:27 Pagina 27

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century

This board of Christ as the Suffering Redeemer on a black background with a cross has a composition that draws on Nordic tradition. The image, dominated by the despondent face of Christ, is drawn with a clean line capable of attaining the highest points of formal execution, like in the draping of the loincloth or the strands of hair, or the outstanding figure of the face and torso with a luminous and limpid field of colour, or of meticulously following contours. The work shares strong stylistic impact with the Bertoni altar piece. Colour palette, subtle anatomies, the protruding bones, the crisp folds of the loincloth, the resemblance of the face with that of St. John the Evangelist and the

hands with that of the Blessed Bertoni are the main aspects of similitude. In any case, the interest in and desire to experiment with the Ferrara stylistic idioms is evident. According to Golfieri, the painting is formally inspired by the Ferrara school and spiritually reminiscent of the Florentine style.

For Anna Tambini the closest reference to this work are some models of the 1450s1460s, which can be found in artists from Ferrara during the Late Gothic transition towards the Renaissance. In keeping with Anna Tambini’s interpretation, this Christ as the Suffering Redeemer would therefore pre-date the Bertoni Altar Piece.

17. Master of the Bertoni altar piece, Christ as the Suffering Redeemer, second half of the XV century, wood, 76x53 cm + frame 8 cm, Property of the Cassa di Risparmio di Cesena, Inv. n. 207

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 27

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:27 Pagina 28

18. Desiderio da Settignano (circle), Fireplace, second half of the XV century, pietra serena sandstone, 238x295x25 cm, Inv. n. 199

The creation of the fireplace, which around 1480 decorated the current City Hall, then residence of the Manfredi family, can be traced to the Florentine workshop of Desiderio and Geri da Settignano.

The grandiose fireplace in pietra serena sandstone bears simple and harmonious architectural lines and is decorated with festooned candelabras on the sides. In the centre is a lovely circular festoon with a lamb tied to the column, against which the mouth of Aeolus is blowing, lifting up vortices of leafy volutes. It is possible that this symbol represents the undertakings of Carlo II Man-

28 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

fredi Lord of Faenza from 1468 to 1477. To the sides are two putti, winged and wellformed, holding a garland similar to those of the Spinelli portal in the Basilica di Santa Croce in Florence. On the outer parts, there is a heraldic coat-of-arms of the Manfredi family, with the lancet for bloodletting, the cord used as a tourniquet for finding the vein before cutting, and at the top the wound of open vein dripping blood. Overall, this fireplace is similar to the one found in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, which is also attributed to Desiderio da Settignano.

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:27 Pagina 29

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century The representation of St. John the Baptist as a child became quite common in Tuscany during the fifteenth century when his image, in keeping with the spirit of the times, which was wont to humanise the supernatural and exalt the themes of affection, were preferred, in particular for private prayer. Many statues, prevalently in marble or earthenware, representing St. John the Baptist between the ages of infancy and adolescence, fall into the context of family religiosity and, with the intention of the fifteenth-century humanists to provide a didactic example of virtue.

The artist is uncertain. According to most art history experts, it is not by Donatello, as its first collector, the man of letters FrĂ Sabba da Castiglione, who around 1515, had settled in the Commandry of Borgo Durbecco, had hoped, or as Vasari always sustained during the sixteenth century.

The work may however always refer to one of the leading figures on the artistic scene of Florence during the high point of the Renaissance. Experts suggest perhaps Antonio Rossellino or Benedetto da Maiano, while others sustain a close link with Desiderio da Settignano, dating the work between 1470-1480.

Both of these examples of Tuscan chests come from the convent of San Maglorio as a result of the Napoleonic suppression. Characterised by carved reliefs, with plaster and gilding, they are traditionally identified as the two nuptial chests commissioned by Galeotto Manfredi, Lord of Faenza, to give to his mistress Cassandra Pavoni when she took her monastic vows to join the convent of San Maglorio.

Generally used to contain a dowry of clothes, but also jewellery and money, they would become a part of the bedroom furniture.

Anna Tambini has recently hypothesised a link between these chests and the wood-

19. Benedetto da Maiano, St. John the Baptist as a Child, second half of the XV century, marble, 40x31x18.5 cm, Inv. n. 196

working production of Venice. In particular, the scholar notes similarities between the two chests in Faenza and the frame created by Jacopo da Faenza for the famous triptych of Giovanni Bellini in the Basilica di Santa Maria dei Frari in Venice.

These similarities especially regard the frieze with acanthus leaves on the chests, with a characteristic motif of bud amidst the leaves and the decoration enhanced by the chromatic contrast of the gilded plaster and blue background. Anna Tambini also maintains that there are decorative similarities with other chests in the area of Venice.

20. Anonymous Tuscan (XV Century), Chest, second half of the XV century, carved and gilded wood, 47x167x47 cm, two chests are present, Inv. n. 205

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 29

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:27 Pagina 30

21. Sperandio Savelli, Medallion of Galeotto Manfredi, 1477, bronze, diameter 6.8 cm, Inv. n. 213 On the front of the bronze medallion created in 1477 is the profile of Galeotto with the words “Galeotus Manfredus invictus martis alumpnus”, while on the back is the company of the blooming palm with the signature of the artist “Opus Sperandei”.

From Mantua, in May 1477 Sperandio Savelli went from working as a goldsmith, sculptor, and painter at the court of Ferrara at the service of the seigniory of the Manfredi, engaged to work for five years in bronze, marble, lead, painting, and goldsmithing. His contract was cut short, however, in November of the same year, due to the struggle between the two brothers Galeotto and Carlo II, which ended with the strengthening of Galeotto’s power.

For the new lord of Faenza Sperandio created the medallion that celebrates Galeotto for his military prowess (“Alunno di Marte” - or “Pupil of Mars” - is written on the front of the medallion), while the medallion for Carlo II remains unfinished.

For Anna Tambini the medallion of this Mantuan artist, who was the most prolific medallist of the XV century, especially talented in portraits, is «among his best works for the clarity of the design and for the realistic effectiveness of the portrait, which is a very true likeness of this lord of Faenza».

22. Anonymous, Heraldic deeds of Galeotto Manfredi, second half of the XV century, sandstone, 85x70 cm, Inv. n. 201 Set in a terracotta frame, the circular bas relief in sandstone bears an emblem of the Manfredi family that can be identified as that of Galeotto Manfredi, born in 1440 and Lord of Faenza from 1477 to 1488. Divided into two sectors by the flowering palm curved in a moon shape, on the right is a crowing cockerel perched on the palm leaf, a symbol of Galeotto. In the other part of the tondo is the traditional symbol of the Manfredi family, reproduced also in the fireplace attributed to the workshop of Desiderio da Settignano, consisting of the lancet used for bloodletting, the cord used as a tourniquet, and the wound dripping blood.

The flowering palm is the symbol of Galeotto, of which many have survived, sometimes flanked by a cartouche with the words “Justus ut” to recall Psalm 92:12: The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree. He will grow like a cedar in Lebanon.

30 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:27 Pagina 31

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century

The large painting of the Virgin on a throne with child, enlivened on the sides by four angels playing musical instruments, with St. John the Evangelist to the right and a portrayal of the blessed Giacomo Filippo Bertoni (who died in May 1483 from tuberculosis and was immediately honoured in the city) genuflecting on the left is a work that testifies to an interest in and appreciation of the culture of Ferrara.

This is particularly evident in the background landscape, rocky and fluvial, dotted with buildings and figures of an obvious naturalistic and symbolic value, the reference to Francesco Del Cossa is so strong that Anna Tambini wrote that she could «assume

that he frequented del Cossa’s workshop or even used his sketches». The attribution of this work, defined by Ennio Golfieri as being «singularly admirable and enigmatic», indicating Ferrara’s Lorenzo Costa as the potential artist, has always been complex. Traditionally, this painting was attributed to Leonardo Scaletti, an artist from Faenza. Anna Tambini has recently proposed that the author may be Giovanni Orioli of Faenza, known for the portrait of Lionello d’Este, which is now at the National Gallery in London.

The date of the painting was gathered from the date of Bertoni’s death (1483).

23. Master of the Bertoni Altar Piece, Virgin with Child, putti playing musical instruments, St. John the Evangelist and the Blessed Giacomo Filippo Bertoni, after 1483, wood, 136.5x200 + frame 22 cm, Inv. n. 175

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 31

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:27 Pagina 32

24. Biagio d'Antonio, Annunciation, circa 1475, tempera on wood, 113x223 cm + frame 18 cm, Inv. n. 195

The masterpiece by the Florentine artist, created about 1475, is from the Parish of Fossolo, currently dedicated to St. Peter, but it was originally in an oratory situated in the landholdings of the Manfredi family and consecrated to the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The painting of the “Annunciation” became part of the collection of the Pinacoteca after being acquired in 1887.

Likely the crowning of a polyptych, the lunette is dated by Roberta Bartoli, author of the most recent and comprehensive monograph on Biagio D’ Antonio, at circa 1475, when Biagio created the Ragnoli altar piece

32 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

in Faenza, now kept in Tulsa (Oklahoma).

The Annunciation was a popular theme in Florentine painting. The composition is in many ways somewhat similar to the painting that Leonardo da Vinci created, probably between 1472 and 1475, and that can be traced to the shared youthful activities of the two artists in Verrocchio’s workshop. The two figures of angels on the left, unaware of the sacred event taking place, demonstrate the influence of Verrocchio’s art, while the posture of the Virgin and the idea of the open door through which the viewer can glimpse inside a room was inspired by Leonardo.

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:27 Pagina 33

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century

It was not until the mid-twentieth century that Ennio Golfieri identified this work as the one commissioned by the Dominican Order in 1483 to Biagio d’Antonio for the high altar of their church.

The work had an official function, being the altar piece for the high altar of the church of an Order of Preachers and certainly Biagio d’Antonio had to conform with the austerity and severity of the Dominican commission. The triptych, set in a Gothic frame, depicts the Virgin on a throne in the centre with the Infant in her arms, still stylistically

reminiscent of Verrocchio, and to the sides the figures of the saints that recall the school of Domenico Ghirlandaio. One must not forget that at that date, D’Antonio had recently returned to Faenza after having collaborated with Ghirlandaio on the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel in Rome.

Significant aspects of the work are the meadow abloom at the foot of the Virgin, the presence of vases of flowers on the throne, according to Flemish models and some brilliant anatomic and luminist details in the saints to the right.

25. Biagio d’Antonio, Madonna with Child, Angels, and Saints Dominic, Andrew, John the Evangelist, and Thomas Aquinas, commissioned in 1483, wood, 185x304 cm + frame 15 cm, Inv. n. 124

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 33

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:27 Pagina 34

26. Biagio d'Antonio, Christ as the Suffering Redeemer, post-1492, wood, 87.5x56.5 cm + frame 13 cm, property of the Cassa di Risparmio di Cesena, Inv. n. 176

Following the confirmation of Biagio d’Antonio as the artist in 1935, the dating of the work was proposed by Sauro Casadei, who established it after 1492, the year of the founding of the Banca del Monte di Faenza, which was already the owner of the painting.

The work tends to reflect Nordic tastes: the half-figure of Christ emerges from the dark background, his eyes half-closed and the crown of thorns on his head. He is flanked by two angels to whom the symbol of the Passion is entrusted (the Cross and the nails) which are also distributed on the frame. In the background there are the lance, the ca-

34 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

ne, and the column, while on the edge of the sarcophagus there are the hammer and pincers. The surreal illumination, in this nocturnal background from which the figures emerge, highlights some details of the painting and conveys a sensitivity that is near to similar experiences of a young Leonardo.

There is also another work with the same iconographic subject attributed to Biagio. It can be found in the sacristy of the Duomo of Faenza, confirming that this city remains the largest nucleus of works by the Florentine artist in the world.

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:27 Pagina 35

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century

Most likely created during the last decade of the fifteenth century, this work is part of a category of serial production, to the point that the artis’'s studio became a sort of “workshop”, possibly with the use of cardboard models. In any case, all of the models known constantly demonstrate high levels of formal elegance and technical skills. According to Roberta Bartoli, the Madonna of Faenza is in any case one of the most intense works by Biagio for the private sector, with the usual drawing of inspiration from Leonardo’s Madonna of the Carnation for its setting in a spacious room with two mullioned windows

in the background wall. The surface textures, the materials, and the effect of the shadows are impeccable; the range of the thicknesses of the fabrics - note the masterful execution of the opalescence that gradually increases in density in the layering of the veil on her head - and the iridescence in the lighter colours can on one hand induce a comparison with the softness of the Perugino’s surfaces, while on the other they echo the geometric reductions of Emilian painting and, more specifically, of Costa, who was already influenced by the Florentine school.

27. Biagio d’Antonio, Madonna with Child and Saints John as a young boy and Anthony of Padua, last decade of the XV century, wood, 60x48.5 cm, Inv. n. 194

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 35

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:27 Pagina 36

28. Biagio d’Antonio, Madonna with Child, two Angels, and Saints John the Evangelist and Anthony of Padua, commissioned in 1504, wood, 173x146 cm + frame 13 cm, Inv. n. 122

The work was commissioned by the widow of Vincenzo Bazzolini with a deed dated 1504, made known by Grigioni, to decorate the altar of the family chapel in the church of St. Francis in Faenza. It remained on display there until the Napoleonic suppression.

The work underwent a complex attribution process before Corbara recognised the altar piece commissioned to D’Antonio by Bazzolini’s widow in the altar piece of the Pinacoteca. Intuition confirmed during the 1949 restoration of the painting, which revealed the perfect conformity of the subject with the description of the client, after having

36 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

provided the true identity of the two saints to the sides, which seemed to be Bonaventure and Bernardino of Siena following a repainting that occurred perhaps during the seventeenth century. The style of this work is typical of that later period of the artist where, even if the figures of the saints are still reminiscent of Verrocchio, the central part of the Madonna on the throne with the Infant is decidedly closer to that of contemporary Romagna artists. The commission of this painting also called for a crowning depicting the Annunciation, which has unfortunately been lost.

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:27 Pagina 37

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century

This tempera on canvas seems smaller than the original dimension at least on three sides.

It is traditionally believed to be part of a standard of the Monte di Pietà, founded in 1492. The pigment of the colour applied to the canvas was worn to the point of highlighting the flat colours used to prime for the painting and the drawing of the contours.

Antonio Corbara attributes this work to a follower of Melozzo from the Romagna region and underlines the high quality where everything is accurate and precious, but with some outstanding details, like the quick and spontaneous drawing that outlines the

figures and the loose and glossy tresses of St. John. Other details that Corbara pointed out to demonstrate the artist’s hand are the parting of Christ’s straight hair, his crown woven with a thick stem, the forked, curly goatee, and the same sinuous contour of the hips. For the Madonna, Corbara calls attention to the fortitude of feeling and the influence of the majestic altar pieces of Ercole Roberti. St. John’s rapt expression of pain is also particular, or in any case stylised.

Below is a view of a city, identified as Faenza, but also with details reminiscent of Forlì.

29. Anonymous from Romagna, Madonna, Christ the Suffering Redeemer and Saints John, Peter, Francis, and Jerome, late XV century, canvas, 104x87 cm + frame 8 cm, Property of the Cassa di Risparmio di Cesena, Inv. n. 209

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 37

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:27 Pagina 38

30. Tommaso Bragadin (?), Madonna with Child, last decade of the XV century, wood, 50.5x40 cm + frame 12 cm, Inv. n. 181

This work was acquired in 1884 and comes from the collection of Leonida Caldesi, the famous photographer from Faenza, who was exiled to London, a commander under Garibaldi and celebrated by Carducci as the “Leone di Romagna” - or the “Lion of Romagna”. It is a painting in which the «underlying Mantegnesque background seems to soften towards a fondness for the lagoon styles between Antonello and Giovanni Bellini», as Ennio Golfieri wrote in 1964, later attributing the work to Tommaso Bragadin, a painter whose works are unknown but is nonetheless documented. Recently, Sergio Momesso, for the exhibition dedicated to

38 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

Andrea Riccio and a passion for Renaissance antiques held in Trento in 2008, dated this work at about 1490, attributing it to Angelo di Silvestro, also known as “lo Zoppo”, in spite of lingering doubts. Mauro Lucco and Andrea De Marchi identified a group of works, including the Madonna of the Pinacoteca, attributing them to Angelo Zoppo, who is identified, thanks to Raimondo Callegari’s research, as Angelo di Silvestro, one of the last pupils welcomed by Francesco Squarcione in his workshop in Padua. The frame has friezes painted in gold. It dates to the sixteenth century.

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:27 Pagina 39

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century

Commissioning the painting on the 12th June 1497, the patrons, priors of the brotherhood known as the Confraternita di San Michelino, requested a work that would be judged by art experts as being worthier and more beautiful than any other painting in existence in Florence. The result - which immediately pleased the patrons when they completed payment three years after making their request - was, as Giordano Viroli wrote, «one of the ultimate achievements of Palmezzano’s early works» where the influence of the master Melozzo is combined with the coherence of his experiences of the

Venetian school. Of particular note are the two saints to the sides, with a St. Michael Archangel dressed, according to Carlo Grigioni, «more than in just armour, but in heroic beauty» and St. James the Younger, a mild, dignified, and intent figure.

The background landscape is also very important to this work, with innovative symbolic scenes and detailed naturalistic descriptions. The setting is enclosed in an architectural complex capable of maintaining equilibrium, lending a full and mature regality to the sacred figures.

31. Marco Palmezzano, Madonna with Child on throne between St. Michael the Archangel and St. James the Younger, in the lunette The Eternal Father and cherubs, commissioned in 1497, wood, 179x75 cm; 92x182.7 cm (lunette), Inv. n. 112 and 113

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 39

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:27 Pagina 40

32. Marco Palmezzano, Tobiolo and the Archangel Raphael, first decades of the XVI century, two tables [in the other not published St. Augustine], wood, respectively 149x62.5 cm + frame 8 cm, Inv. n. 111 and 108

The two paintings of St. Augustine and the Archangel are certainly two fragments from the same polyptych.

The testimony of Oretti and the presence of St. Augustine would solve the case in favour of the church of St. Augustine as its original setting.

In both paintings the figures are set in a sumptuous architecture with columns and pillars decorated with grotesques on a gold background. St. Augustine is portrayed standing with a white mitre embellished with precious stones set in gold, a red cope with gold decorations, and a dark robe. He is lost in reading a book he his holding in his hand, while in the other he is holding a pastoral staff. In the other painting, the Archangel with the child Tobias, who is younger than in the narration of the Biblical episode. Tobias offers his finger to the angel and in the other hand is holding a fish. The brush strokes, the palettes, and the use of warm lighting are elements borrowed from Venetian painting, and in particular from that of Giovanni Bellini; they also represent a moment of consolidation in the career of Marco Palmezzano.

33. Marco Palmezzano, St. Ambrose (?), first decades of the XVI century, two tables [in the other not published St. Jerome], wood, respectively 62.5x62.5 cm + frame 8 cm, Inv. n. 110 and 109 A recent restoration revealed that the two paintings, in addition to being similar in size, also present similar grains in the wood, justifying the hypothesis that they were part of the same complex.

We cannot know if they were originally fulllength or half-length figures when Marcello Oretti saw them in 1777 in the sacristy of the church of St. Augustine. The figure in the red cap with the white gown, captured reading the book of Sacred Scriptures, has been identified as St. Jerome. The other figure with the pastoral staff, book, white mitre and richly decorated cope has been interpreted in various ways: as a Doctor of the Church, as St. Augustine, or as St. Ambrose.

In these two paintings the influence of Venetian painting, and in particular Bellini, is evident: a light from above illuminates and exalts the faces of the two saints. Someone has also hypothesised that these two paintings, together with those of St. Augustine and the Archangel, were part of a single Augustinian altar piece, while others maintain they were part of a different one.

40 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:27 Pagina 41

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century 34. Giovanni Battista Bertucci Sr., Mary Magdalene, 1510 ca., [in the other not published St. John the Baptist], wood, respectively 111.5x54 cm + frame 8 cm, Inv. n. 171 and 172 These are the side compartments of the famous altar piece commissioned by Venerio Mengolini to G.B. Bertucci for the family chapel in the Church of the Monastery of St. Catherine, suppressed during the Napoleonic era. The polyptych was removed from its original location and became private property. It was then disassembled and dispersed. The central board with the Adoration of the Magi was lost during the war to the Berlin Museum, the lunette with the Coronation of the Virgin, which had previously been in a private collection in Graz, is now in a private collection in Vienna.

Mary Magdalene and St. John are depicted in full figure and turned three-quarters, one with hands joined in prayer and glancing skyward, the other pointing skyward, holding a cane cross and bowl in the other hand.

These two dreamy figures stand out against a luminous landscape in tones of green and pale blues; in addition to the affinity with the style of Pinturicchio and Perugino, and with methods common to the culture of Costa and Francia, two artists from Bologna, in the drapery of Mary Magdalene’s robe and the composition of the landscape, we can also perceive an extension of Bertucci’s knowledge of Florentine painting.

35. Giovanni Battista Bertucci Sr., “Noli me tangere” with Saints Peter and Andrew, 1510 ca., wood, 175x175 cm + frame 4 cm, Inv. n. 120 This work depicts the “Noli me tangere” episode from the Gospel with Christ between St. Peter and St. Andrew in pink robes with green capes. St. Mary Magdalene is kneeling in front of Christ in supplication. In the background is the Renaissance gateway to a city and some human figures.

The inclusion of the Arch of Constantine, and the composition in general, call attention to the influence of the Roman artistic setting. The reference to Rome and its artistic landscapes are certainly not surprising, if we consider that precisely during those years the Seigniory of the Manfredi was coming to an end and Faenza was becoming a part of the Papal States.

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 41

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:27 Pagina 42

36. Giovanni Battista Bertucci Sr., Virgin with Child and Angels with Saints Young St. John, Hippolytus, Benedict, Lawrence, and Romuald, in the coping Eternal Father, 1506, triptych of wooden boards: central 194x85 cm, sides 135x59 cm, coping 70.5x86 cm, Inv. n. 115

In the tag on the lower end of the painting the viewer can read the signature and the date 1506. This is the first dated work by Bertucci, created to fulfil a commission of the Camaldolese for the church of St. Hippolytus in Faenza. In this church the painting was disassembled and the central panel, for the presence of a keyhole, was used during the Baroque period to close a niche.

Following the Napoleonic suppression, the work became part of the Municipal Pinacoteca.

The triptych presents a blatant influence of Perugino, which prevails over the other components, which are typical of the Romagna

42 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

school. In the central panel, there is the Virgin standing with two angels who are holding the cape open, an iconography deriving from the “Virgin of Mercy�, commonly found in Umbrian circles but an innovation on the panorama of Faenza. In the side panels, inside the rooms that open onto a landscape there are the Saints: St. Hippolytus in the right one wearing battle dress, and St. Benedict in the left wearing the habit of the order. St. Lawrence, with the dalmatic, and San Romuald in a monastic robe. In the coping is a half-figure portrait of the Eternal Father between two little adoring angels.

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:27 Pagina 43

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century

From a writing on the step of the throne emerges the date of the work - 1511 - and the name of a certain Giacomo Cittadini, who commissioned it. Even today, however, the exact origins are unknown, but probably related to the demolished church of the Celestines in Faenza. It was attributed to Bertucci by all the artistic literature, beginning with Argnani who praises it as «the truthful drawing of the nude, the grace and the expression of the heads... the lavish draperies... and the ever so elegant background

landscape». The work was also appreciated

by Calzi, who exalted the figures of the four saints, located to the sides of the throne, recognising characteristics of the Venetian school in the painting.

The figure of St. Anthony, according to Buscaroli, «with his extraordinarily humane air», derives «…from the type of young monk that Pinturicchio was so fond of, with the circular mophead…and the quiff on the forehead».

37. Giovanni Battista Bertucci Sr., Virgin with Child and Saints Bernardino of Siena, John the Baptist, Pope Celestine and Anthony of Padua, 1511, wood, 123x175 cm + frame 6 cm, Inv. n. 178

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 43

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:27 Pagina 44

38. Giovanni Battista Bertucci Sr., Nativity with Saints Jerome, Young John, John the Evangelist and Bernardino of Siena, 1510 ca., wood, cm. 145x147 cm + frame 25 cm, Inv. n. 174

This work depicts a Nativity. The Virgin is in the centre of the composition, kneeling in front of the cradle with the Infant. The scene is set outdoors; to the left of the viewer there is the stall with the oxen and ass, and to the right the view can glimpse three small human figures.

In this case this is the representation of the flight to Egypt, or an insertion of another episode of the life of Christ inside a painting dedicated to something else.

44 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

This solution makes it possible to strengthen the value of the tale told in images.

Critics unanimously agree that Bertucci the Elder is the artist. The painting is set in a lovely wooden frame, painted and gilded, with botanical decorations.

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:28 Pagina 45

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century

The work - defined «a rare and important painting» by Antonio Corbara - is of unknown origins. As early as the first years of the twentieth century the artist was identified as Giovanni Battista Bertucci the Elder, but while in 1931 Buscaroli claimed the work was from his younger period, so between the end of the fifteenth century and the early years of the sixteenth century, Corbara places it during the last period of Bertucci’s career, or after 1510. The altar piece demonstrates that even Giovanni Battista Bertucci, wrote Antonio Corbara in 1939 in a study dedicated to Mannerism in Faenza, felt the need to adapt to the times that were changing quickly, flying even. «That frag-

ment of painting that is in the undated altar piece of the Epiphany - wrote Corbara - at the top left and that has often attracted the attention of the critics, has an unusual vivacity and vitality, it is a juicy, flavourful painting, from which the intention to rejuvenate oneself transpires, going a bit crazy as did Aspertini with his extravagant methods». Noting the «high and shrill colourism of the vibrant reds with the light blues, alternated with a few notes of yellow and white», Corbara also connected the work with Ferrara, and more precisely with Dosso Dossi, the elder the two Dossi brothers, during the high point of his career.

39. Giovanni Battista Bertucci sr., Adoration of the Magi, post-1510, wood, 174x139 cm, Inv. n. 119

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 45

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:28 Pagina 46

40. Alfonso Lombardi, Virgin with Child and Saints John the Evangelist and John the Baptist, 1524, glazed earthenware, 280x300 x116 cm, Inv. n. 87

Alfonso Lombardi, also known as il Cittadella due to his father’s trade as Captain of the Fortress, was born in Ferrara in 1497, or shortly thereafter. He moved to Bologna as soon as he turned twenty and created, as a young man, this group of earthenware pieces with a nineteenth-century inscription that refers to 1524. Created for the Archconfraternity of the Beheaded John the Baptist (S. Giovanni Decollato), which had its oratory behind the City Hall in a now demolished building that once stood in front of what is now Piazza della Molinella, the works were transferred and housed in the

46 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

Pinacoteca in 1879 for the first public opening and were exhibited in an eye-catching location at the end of a long hall that was originally the entrance to the Pinacoteca.

Venturi, in the chapter dedicated to sixteenth-century sculpture in his History of Italian Art published in 1935, defined this group as being among the most representative of Alfonso Lombardi, «who never gives up repeating the commonplace of Roman academicism, cloaking sacred figures in classic embellishments, seeking the showiness of the composition».

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:28 Pagina 47

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century 41. Pietro Barilotto (?), Eternal Father giving his blessing, early XVI century, Istrian stone, diameter 100 cm, Inv. n. 69 The stone tondo, sculpted in relief, has the Eternal Father giving his blessing in the centre, half-length, with a garland of laurel leaves and fruit. The Eternal Father is bearded, has a triangular nimbus, and is holding a sphere of the earth in his left hand while giving his blessing with the right. The work, attributed to Pietro Barilotto by Antonio Corbara, most likely comes from the Church of St. Bernard, which was destroyed during World War II. It was acquired in 1922 from Gaetano Ballardini, to whom it was given by a bricklayer.

From the Church of St. Bernard, which had been the property of the Humiliati religious order, suppressed by Pius V in 1570, there is also documentation of a stone frieze that decorated the exterior door, a work by Barilotto of which two fragments are still in the collection of the Pinacoteca.

42. Antonio Liberi, also known as Antonio di Mazzone, Madonna with Child and Saints Peter, Paul, Dominic, Luke, and Mark the Evangelists, after 1527, wood, 240x132 cm + frame 3 cm, Inv. n. 144 The Madonna is portrayed in the centre under a large vault, seated with the naked Child in her arms surrounded by five saints: from above left, St. Paul with a book in his hand, St. Peter holding keys, and St. Luke leaning on an ox, his emblem; kneeling, to the right, below the Virgin and Child, is St. Dominic accompanied by a dog, symbol of faith and of the Dominicans (from the Latin, Domines cani), while below him is St. Mark with the lion, his emblem. Antonio di Mazzone is an artist who hails from the area of Faenza, but worked above all in the region of the Marches. He was a painter and architect, attributes which are evident in his paintings, where all the subjects are set in solemn architectural spaces. When he returned to Faenza, he worked for the Dominicans, creating this altar piece, which was installed on the altar of the convent dormitory. This painting became a part of the Pinacoteca of Faenza collection following the Napoleonic suppression.

Antonio di Mazzone was commissioned by the city of Faenza to build the new bell tower of the Cathedral, which however was never completed in that the artist died under the rubble of the same.

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 47

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:28 Pagina 48

43. Sigismondo Foschi, Madonna with Child and Saints Paul, John the Baptist, Benedict (?), Sebastian, Catherine, and Apollonia, documented from 1520 to 1532, wood, 173x170 cm + frame 9 cm, Inv. n. 143 The Madonna is portrayed in the centre, seated on a throne while the naked Infant in her arms is pointing at Saint Catherine.

To the right, standing, there are St. Paul, St. John the Baptist, St. Benedict, and St. Sebastian. In the foreground, at the feet of the step of the throne are St. Catherine in a red and blue cape to the left; St. Apollonia in a green cape and violet gown to the right.

The work comes from the Foundling Hospital annexed to the Church of St. Mary in Faenza, probably originally installed in the church or in the oratory of the institute.

Little is known of Sigismondo Foschi: his dates of birth or death are unknown, and there is reference to him beginning only in 1520, the year during which he was commissioned to paint a panel for the Church of St. Francis in Faenza. Most likely, Foschi was a pupil or in any case a follower of Fra’ Bartolomeo and Andrea del Sarto.

44. Sigismondo Foschi, Madonna with Child and four saints, references from 1520 to 1532, wood, 240x160 cm + frame 17 cm, from the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan, Inv. n. 1823 The large panel was originally on the high altar of the Church of St. Bartholomew in Faenza. In 1811, following the Napoleonic suppression, it was sent to the Brera Museum in Milan. In 2002 the work was given to Faenza. There is a well-known anecdote concerning the famous Andrea Appiani who, having been charged by the Napoleonic government to impound the works of art for the new Kingdom of Italy, when faced with this painting apparently exclaimed: “What a beautiful Bartolomeo!”, attributing it to the Florentine artist Fra Bartolomeo. The work confirms Sigismondo Foschi’s references made to the work of Fra Bartolomeo and Andrea del Sarto, characterising the use of colour according to the methods of early Florentine Mannerism. As Anna Tambini wrote in a study on Sigismondo Foschi, published in 2015, the altar piece «demonstrates the perfect assimilation of the poetics of the monk. Above all in the spatial effect.

In the example of the famous nuance of Leonardo, which had become a standard in the syntax of Fra Bartolomeo, Foschi uses a dense chiaroscuro, mellow, that annuls the mathematical rigour of the fifteenth-century concept of space and lends an exciting and vibrant sensation through the intense transitions between light and shadow».

48 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:28 Pagina 49

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century

In a setting with nuances of greys and blues, in the foreground we find portrayals of Christ and John the Baptist with their feet immersed in the River Jordan. Christ’s hands are joined in prayer while the Baptist raises the lustral bowl. In the middle ground to the right, two angels are holding Jesus’s garments, while to the left is a group of Jews.

From above, God the Father, encircled in a band of light and clouds, observes the scene surrounded by little angels, while he sends the dove of the Holy Spirit. In the background is a fortified city that represents Jerusalem.

The work comes from the demolished church of St. John the Baptist of the Camaldolese in Faenza. This painting became a part of the Pinacoteca of Faenza collection following the Napoleonic suppression. It was attributed to Scaletti according to the commission contract dated 29 January 1536, in which the artist is also called Figurino or Luca da Faenza. Vasari cites him as a collaborator of Giulio Romano in Palazzo Te in Mantua between 1528 and 1538. Scaletti probably produced this work in Mantua, where he was working during the year he received this commission.

45. Luca Scaletti, Baptism of Christ, first half of the XVI century, wood, 310x206 cm + frame 12 cm, Inv. n. 148

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 49

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:28 Pagina 50

46. Giacomo Bertucci aka Jacopone da Faenza, Christ’s deposition from the cross, 1552-1553, wood, 380x235 cm + frame 10 cm, Inv. n. 137 Bertucci was born in Faenza in 1502 to a family of artists: his father Giovan Battista il Vecchio and uncle Girolamo Bertucci were the first to train him as an artist. In 1520 Bertucci was living in Rome, then between 1534 and 1539 he received his first commissions in Faenza and, between 1540 and 1543, he decorated the cupola of San Vitale in Ravenna.

This work was produced for the Church of St. Rocco in Faenza. In 1539 the confraternity of San Rocco contracted him to create a painting depicting the life of their saint, which Bertucci was very late in completing and hence was cited. An agreement was reached, according to which the artist would have been able to select the subject he preferred. As a result, the work was completed between 1552 and 1553.

In a setting of hillsides, at the foot of the cross we are given a glimpse, with the deposition of the body of Christ born by two bearers onto a white cloth, while all around the Apostles and pious women are expressing their despair and supporting the Madonna, who has fainted. There are St. John and another of the apostles arriving on the left.

47. Giacomo Bertucci aka Jacopone da Faenza, Dispute on the coronation of the Madonna, with Saints Benedict, John, and Matthew the Evangelist, John the Baptist, Pope Celestine and the commissioner, 1565, wood, 380x254 cm + frame 10 cm, Inv. n. 135 This work was produced in 1565 but was commissioned in 1562 by the Celestine monk Giovanni Battista Paravicini of Brisighella for the Church of the Celestines in Faenza.

The scene is divided into two parts: above, on a band of clouds is the depiction of the moment of the coronation of the Madonna

by God the Father and Jesus Christ; below is the portrayal of the theological dispute between St. Benedict the Abbot in a white mitre, the Apostles St. John, with his emblem the eagle, and St. Matthew with the book of the Angel; in the centre, we see St. John the Baptist pointing at the sky and embracing the kneeling patron who commissioned the painting. Saint Pope Celestine is standing and giving his blessing. The painting was acquired by the Pinacoteca following the Napoleonic suppressions.

50 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:28 Pagina 51

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century

This scene depicts the dinner at the home of Simon the Pharisee in the moment that Mary Magdalene washes Jesus’s feet.

The work comes from the demolished church of St. Matthew in Faenza, the presence of which was documented in 1573 by Bishop Marchesini, an apostolic visitor.

It is evident that the artist had many difficulties in creating large altar pieces: Corbara wrote of a Marchetti who was unable to reach an organic and rational composition, in which the expressions all resembled each other and the figures were arranged with no criterion. The predominant presence of yellow and pink demonstrates that

Marchetti makes reference to Federico Barocci, without however obtaining excellent results, creating a series of pale tones that are monotonous and mawkish. This altar piece is populated by numerous figures, some around Christ, others in the background; the setting consists of a part of a room with columns with an ample curtain on the right.

Marchetti was trained in Rome. In Florence he worked in Palazzo Vecchio, under the direction of Vasari, who praised Marchetti for his talent in ornate painting. One example of this mastery is the fresco on the main vault of the Molinella in Faenza.

48. Marco Marchetti, Christ at the home of the Pharisee, 1586, wood, 230x166 cm + frame 5 cm, Inv. n. 158

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 51

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_14-52 02/12/17 09:28 Pagina 52

49. Nicolò Paganelli, Presentation of Jesus at the Temple, 1585, wood, 260x165 cm + frame 7 cm, Inv. n. 159 This work depicts the presentation of Jesus at the Temple. The scene is set inside a noble and classic architecture of ample dimensions. The altar piece can be divided into two overlapping zones: above the sacred scene is set amidst a large crowd; below elements of the painting in general, including a young girl with a small dog by her side who is offering a basket of doves and, to the far left, a beggar. Below and to the right are the two commissioners. The painting is dated 1585, according to documents that cite some payments.

Nicolò Paganelli is an artist from Faenza; few of his works have survived. In this work in question, in the centre, we can find his initials.

Paganelli collaborated with Vasari in 1560 in the decoration of the Hall of Leo X in Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, together with Marco Marchetti, another artist from Faenza. He later moved to Rome.

Thanks to this experience, he began working in the style of international Mannerism, using a fresh and florid colour combined with a natural tendency towards quotidian events, paying great attention to details.

50. Giovanni Battista Armenini, Assumption of the Madonna, 1565-1580, wood, 340x220 cm, Inv. n. 155 The career of Armenini the painter is not marked by many works. He became famous thanks to this treatise “On the True Precepts of the Art of Painting”, published in Ravenna in 1587. In this treatise he makes reference to his training in the circles of Perin del Vaga in Rome, narrating having produced an Assumption of the Virgin in the workshop of Bernadino Campi in Milan. It is impossible, as Anna Colombi Ferretti also concludes, that this can be identified with the Assumption in Faenza, which came from the Church of Santa Maria ad Nives in Faenza where, in 1777 it was documented as hanging in the choir. According to Ferretti, the work was created during the years when Armenini returned to Faenza because, even if there are references to Perin del Vaga’s painting, the tone of the painting and the figure kneeling to the right demonstrate ties with Jacopone Bertucci. In the opinion of Anna Colombi Ferretti, the painting also references another artist from Faenza, Giulio Tonducci, for «a certain flair for large figures with evident outlines, in an effort to attain a generalised monumentality accompanied, and almost juxtaposed, by somewhat commonplace chromatisms».

52 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:31 Pagina 53

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century

In Bertucci’s painting, signed on the lower right and dated 1586, there is no intimacy of a birth, but rather a clamorous and overcrowded scene of the interior of a dwelling, in a two-dimensional vertical composition, closed and almost suffocated in a setting with no depth and filled with figures that cover every bit of space in three overlapping zones. In the first we find women occupied in tending to the new-born Mary, in the second her mother Anna is in her bed surrounded by other women with, to the side and distant, the only man present in the scene.

In the third section, above, there is a group

of little angels playing musical instruments in a stream of light. A model for this painting was identified in the fresco with the Nativity of the Virgin painted by Andrea del Sarto in the Cloister of Vows (Chiostrino dei Voti) at the SS. Annunziata in Florence in 1514.

Another piece of information on the history of this painting was provided by Gian Marcello Valgimigli, who reported documents on the “censorial� intervention of Bishop Francesco Negrone (who held this position in the diocese of Faenza from 1687 to 1697) imposing the summary covering of the audaciously visible bosoms of women.

51. Giovanni Battista Bertucci il Giovane, Birth of the Madonna, 1586, oil on canvas, 320x200 cm, Inv. n, 1353

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 53

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:31 Pagina 54

52. Filippo Bellini, St. Francis receives the stigmata, after 1594, oil on canvas, 335x225 cm + frame 9 cm, Inv. n. 130 In the altar piece, which was already above the high altar in the Church of St. Francis in Faenza, the saint is portrayed kneeling and illuminated by a stream of light from above. In a setting that prefigures landscape painting, to the left is a Franciscan monk intent on reading, while in the centre some men are tending to their horses.

Filippo Bellini, a native of Urbino and artist attentive and updated on Roman painting, had works distributed throughout Marches territory but also worked in the region of Romagna.

The convincing attribution of this painting to Filippo Bellini was made by Anna Colombi Ferretti, according to whom the painting cannot have been installed in the church in Faenza before 1594, having evidently been influenced by Barocci’s famous canvas produced for the Cappuccini in Urbino, paid for in that same year. The resemblance is outstanding, yet not at all slavish. It is the sense of a large nocturnal vortex present in the Faenza work, outlined by flashes of light, with the celestial vision in the upper part (missing in the Barocci), crowded and pictorially beautiful, «that gives a measure of diversity to Bellini’s painting».

53. Ferraù Fenzoni, Christ conducted to Calvary, 1622-1630, oil on canvas, 100x130 cm + frame 11 cm, Inv. n. 141 Fenzoni is an artist from Faenza who studied in Rome, where he created a large number of works and cycles of invaluable frescoes. He later moved to the city of Todi and other cities in the region of Umbria, where he received a number of commissions. In 1599 he returned to Faenza, where he continued his career: for example, from 1612 to 1616 he decorated three chapels in the Duomo of Faenza.

Fenzoni’s bonds to Roman culture persisted, but he was also influenced by the school of Ludovico Carracci of Bologna, whose style softened his work.

The origins of this work are unknown, but it was attributed to Fenzoni by Argnani. If so, it was certainly part of his later works, datable between 1622 and 1630. The hardness of the drapery and of the anatomic effect, together with the dull colour, are typical of his later years. The horizontal development of the composition is appropriate for the storyline and the movements of the compact group of figures are angular yet rotating.

54 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:31 Pagina 55

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century 54. Ferraù Fenzoni, The burial of Christ in the sepulchre, 1623, oil on canvas, 280x190 cm + frame 10 cm, Inv. n. 140 During the artist’s career there is a persistence of images relative to the deposition.

Fenzoni often dealt with this theme during his years in Rome, then in Todi, and increasingly so in Faenza; the reason being perhaps an ardent desire to join the cult of Corpus Christi, favoured by the Counter-Reformation. This deposition in particular, produced in 1623, comes from the artist’s family chapel in the Church of St. Cecilia, which has since been destroyed.

Ferraù Fenzoni had a style of painting, as commented by Anna Colombi Ferretti in a study of altar paintings in Romagna during the Counter-Reformation, where «even the crowded setting and its spatial imminence maintain discoveries of Manneristic origins».

A specificity of Fenzoni’s paintings is the careful application of the pigment, characterised by an «accurate balance of surface effects, both rich and contrasting» where the prevailing gloom and obscurity are the key to calculating the effectiveness of the beams of light, of the fibrous lustre of a cloth, of the penumbra, or the luminous rhythm precisely on the pictorial passages that required a more complicated technique».

55. Ferraù Fenzoni, Christ in the Pool of Bethesda, 1600, oil on canvas, 338x225 cm + frame 10 cm, Inv. n. 136 This work was produced in 1600, as demonstrated by documents cited by Valgimigli affirming that on 16 July of that year, a monk was sent to Bologna to buy the colours needed for the painting. Fenzoni gave much thought to the conception of the painting, which became his debut in this homeland and hence, as the many sketches demonstrate, he tried various solutions before arriving at the final composition.

The scene is set in a classical style of architecture and depicts a dense group of figures making a variety of gestures and looking in different directions encircling the central figure of Christ while he steps down into the pool to heal the paralysed man. Fenzoni focuses on describing the draping of fabrics and also includes, in the lower left, a still life consisting of a flask, a bowl, and a bag of bread. The personages in the foreground are described in detail, each one being characterised in their gestures, facial expressions, and clothes. This painter stands out for his search for obvious almost excess expressiveness in his figures and in their behaviours, a hyper-realism of some faces and in the two groups of men, standing at Christ’s side, who are carrying the infirm on their shoulders.

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 55

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:31 Pagina 56

56. Ferraù Fenzoni, Death of the Madonna, 1562-1645, oil on canvas, 271x143 cm + frame 7 cm, Inv. n. 133 This work was produced later in Fenzoni’s career. It is divided into two parts: above there is Christ in glory surrounded by multitude of angels while preparing to receive his mother’s soul; below the defunct Madonna is laid out, surrounded by the Apostles, Mary Magdalene, and other grieving bystanders crowded together, giving rise to a frenetic scene.

The altar piece comes from the demolished church of St. Paul, was then relocated to the Pinacoteca following the Napoleonic suppression.

Fenzoni had already painted this same subject in a work for the Basilica of Sant’ Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, the storyline of which is replaced in this one by a crowded composition and the uncontrolled agitation of the figures.

56 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:31 Pagina 57

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century

This work depicts, in an extremely realistic and crude fashion, the scene of the martyrdom of St. Eutropius. The body of the beheaded saint is being held by some men while his head is on the ground next to a man who is gathering the yellow cape and pastoral staff. From above, the Archangel Gabriel is holding a palm, the symbol of martyrdom, and overlooking the scene.

Roberto Longhi examined Biagio Manzoni in detail, defining him a “borderline Caravaggesque”, indicating how precisely in the Martyrdom of St. Eutropius the artist has attained an explicitly “austere” result in the tradition of Caravaggio, for the «literal truth that runs through the work as a whole, prone

to the most blatant brutality in the pondering of martyrdom: nothing more need be said, given the graphic image of saint’s headless neck in the foreground as if in a display of fresh cold meats».

About this work, Daniele Benati wrote, in the catalogue of the exhibition that the city of Forlì dedicated to Cagnacci in 2008, that «the wealth of references to early seventeenthcentury Roman painting that Manzoni is capable of making is astonishing, beginning with Caravaggio himself, cited here in the rogue in jacket and red knee-length trousers, which evokes the martyrdom of St. Peter in the Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo».

57. Biagio (?)

Manzoni, Martyrdom of St. Eutropius, documented from 1629 to 1648, oil on canvas, 271x178 cm + frame 10 cm, Inv. n. 134

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 57

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:31 Pagina 58

58. Rutilio Manetti, The Holy Family, 1571-1639, oil on canvas, 96x123 cm + frame 11 cm, Inv. n. 8

As Marco Ciampolini wrote in the notes on the work lent to the exhibition “Caravaggio and Europe” held in Palazzo Reale in Milan in 2005, in this painting «the reality and incidence of light is examined, a light that in the painting not only reveals the truth, but defines above all the volumes of the Madonna and Child, two statuesque figures but with an evident rustic air».

The «St. Joseph is an old man bearing the signs of the merciless passing of time: and it will be this ostentation of the truth that suggested the old attribution to Ribera». This is a composition, continue Marco Ciampoli-

58 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

ni’s notes, that is «clear and balanced» with «the powerful personages shaped like statues by a precise light source, typical of Rutilio Manetti from the late 1620s».

«These were the years when the master – concluded Marco Ciampolini’s notes – after the interest in the structured forms of the classicists, in particular for Guercino, and the in-depth studies on contrasted luminism and the artificial light sources of Gherardo delle Notti waned, he turned more scrupulously to the sounding of reality introduced

by Caravaggio».

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:31 Pagina 59

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century

Signed at the bottom in the centre: “Benedictus Marinus Urbinas Ping. 1617“, this work represents the Gospel episode of the Holy Family’s return after the flight to Egypt; they are holding hands in a naturalistic setting, framed by a curtain supported on the sides by winged putti. To the sides the two saints: Catherine of Alexandria and Francis of Assisi. «It’s a small theatre – wrote Anna Colombi Ferretti – where St. Catherine and St. Francis contemplate – and mediate for the viewer – a scene that appears behind the opened curtain, where the serene tone of the quotidian gives the idea of a simple outing.

The fictional artifices, which still evoke an aristocratic and intellectual Manneristic ancestry, are moulded to lend a popular appeal», concluded Anna Colombi Ferretti.

Even in this work, Benedetto Marini demonstrates his ability to create a balanced composition, with a figurative capacity that, although it originated in Mannerism, in any case was aware of the culture of the CounterReformation, with its penchant to describe everyday life in a popular idiom and, in some way, made evident in the case in question by the pretence of the theatre, with reference to the Baroque.

59. Benedetto Marini, Return from the flight to Egypt with Saints Catherine of Alexandria and Francis, 1617, oil on canvas, 240 x 170 cm + frame 2 cm, Inv. n. 156

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 59

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:31 Pagina 60

60. Benedetto Marini, Madonna with Child, St. Michael the Archangel and a Saint Bishop, 1615, oil on canvas, cm. 270x200 cm, Inv. n. 995

The origins of this altar piece by Benedetto Marini are unknown. As Anna Colombi Ferretti wrote in her study on altar paintings during the Counter-Reformation in the Romagna region of Italy published for the exhibition held in Forlì at the Oratorio di San Sebastiano in 1982, the artist from Urbino, a pupil in his hometown of Claudio Ridolfi around 1611, completed only a few works for his city (the Pietà for the S. Croce church is well-known), before traces of him reappear in Faenza, where he collaborated in 1616 with Fenzoni in the fresco decorations of the two side chapels to the high altar in the Cathedral, without creating an assimilation of styles between the two. The painting exhibited, the cleaning of which revealed the date 1615, was the first of the series. In the canvas of the Pinacoteca of Faenza, the Child is playing with cherries in a familial setting, as might happen in a less solemn work and in a smaller format, intended for private devotion; St. Michael is captured in the moment he triumphs over the demon, sheathing his sword; the bishop turns his head, in a contemplative profile typical of Marini, in a trusting act of intercession.

61. Alessandro Tiarini, Virgin with Child and Saints Martin, Clare, Francis, Anthony of Padua, 1619 ca., oil on canvas, 300x200 cm + frame 12 cm, Inv. n. 152 This work was completed for the high altar of the Church of the Convent of St. Clare in Faenza around 1619, or during the period when Tiarini was engaged in the Basilica della Madonna della Ghiara in Reggio Emilia. There are depictions of St. Martin and three Franciscan saints, St. Anthony of Padua, St. Francis, and St. Clare paying homage to the Virgin and Child. The child’s glance is attracted by St. Martin’s gesture, who is depicted in the act of dividing his cape with a pauper, an allusion to the charitable mission of the convent, but also to the zone of St. Martin in Faenza, where the convent originally stood. St. Clare is portrayed, in a privileged position, at the foot of the throne, holding the ostensory with which she saved the convent from the Saracens. The sketch for the altar piece is housed at the National Gallery of Ottawa in Canada. Characteristics typical of Tiarini are the narrative of the scene and the reference to Carracci’s motifs. Alessandro Tiarini was an artist from Bologna, a pupil of Prospero Fontana, a collaborator of Benedetto Cesi, and active in Florence from 1599 to 1606, where he also worked in the workshop of Passignano.

When he returned to Bologna, he was influenced by the works of Ludovico Carracci.

60 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:31 Pagina 61

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century 62. Alessandro Tiarini, Conversion of St. Paul, 1577-1668, oil on canvas, 288x194 cm + frame 7 cm, Inv. n. 151 This work depicts a frantic scene: in the centre there is Saul who, blinded by a sudden flash of light, falls off his startled horse.

Supported by soldiers, of whom one flees in fright, Saul attempts to protect his face from the blinding flash of light caused by Jesus, who appears amidst the clouds in a ray of light while pronouncing the words “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”

Saul was travelling to Damascus, where he was to collect Christ’s followers and conduct them in chains to Jerusalem. Instead, following this lightning strike, he was converted to Christianity and changed his name to Paul. The dramatic tone of the scene is intended to engage the viewer.

The attribution to Tiarini can be traced to Argnani and was accepted and confirmed successively by other critics. Argnani also confirmed the impetuous characters together with a warm and brilliant palette that Tiarini failed to maintain throughout his career. The altar piece comes from the Church of St. Paul in Faenza.

63. Franz Pourbus Jr., Portrait of Charles I King of England, 1615 ca., oil on canvas, 54x45 cm + frame 8 cm, Inv. n. 16 The painting in oil on canvas portrays the King of England Charles I (Stuart), who lived between 1600 and 1649, while his reign over England and Scotland began in 1625. Hence the official portrayal of a king, or better a Prince, seeing as the painting can be dated about 1615. This dating is plausible as the Prince is donning the emblem of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, which he was invested with in 1611. The subject is portrayed half-length, wearing elegant garments, a silk doublet, embroidered in gold and very fitted. A black velvet ribbon bears a medallion and the doublet is embellished with buttons and a belt decorated with sparkling precious stones.

The portrait is generally attributed to Franz Pourbus Junior, but Sir Oliver Miller, curator of the Queen’s collections, in 2000 proposed attributing it to Robert Peake, an English painter who portrayed the Prince, his brother, and sister, and in 1616 was paid for three portraits of Prince Charles.

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 61

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:31 Pagina 62

64. Justus Sustermans, Portrait of Charles X King of Sweden, 1655-1660, oil on canvas, 148x114 + frame 13 cm, Inv. n. 17

The painting is a portrait of the King of Sweden Charles X, who lived from 1622 until 1660, depicted here full length with is hair loose over his shoulders, his right hand resting on his hip, wearing a white shirt and black waistcoat. It is most likely the work of a Flemish painter of considerable renown, who worked in European courts. The paint-

ing was acquired by Leonida Caldesi in 1884: but how it arrived in Faenza is unknown. It is only known that Caldesi began working as an antiques dealer, and for this reason it is believed that he purchased the painting and then sold it to the Pinacoteca.

This portrait of considerable dimensions was initially attributed to Murillo, whose name was soon substituted by that of Sustermans, as the critical literature concurs. The Flemish painter arrived in Italy in 1620 and stopped in Florence, where he became the official portraitist of the Medici family thanks to a combination of two talents that were very important to the Florentine court: aulic portrait painting combined with an intense realism. Archi maintains that this painting is one of Sustermans’s «most alive and engaging» works; Golfieri, considering it «among the most valuable of the painter of the Tuscan grand-ducal court», believes it was completed between 1665 and 1660, a date which would also correspond to the high point of the artist’s career, in turn demonstrated, as Golfieri himself points out, by «the aulic composition of the portrait, the thick and spontaneous brush strokes, the eloquent expressiveness of the face».

65. Bernardo Strozzi (?), Judith with the head of Holofernes, 1581-1644, oil on canvas, 68x90 cm + frame 15 cm, Inv. n. 11 In this work, Judith is portrayed in a closeup while walking with the head of Holofernes on a plate and a knife in her left hand; two men are observing the scene from a distance.

The attribution of this painting has been debated heatedly; until 1922 it was exhibited as having been created by Tiepolo, then various other names were proposed; more recently there is a concurrence with the attribution made by Golfieri to Bernardo Strozzi, the author of a series of Judith, Salome, and Delilah holding the decapitated heads in their hands or on trays.

Bernardo Strozzi was born in Genoa in 1581 and entered the Order of Friars Minor Capuchins at the age of seventeen, where he continued to paint. The popularity of his works enabled him to obtain permission to leave the Order, although his departure gave rise to several difficulties.

He produced many works for the Doria family, who were Genovese nobility. This situation made it possible for him to broaden his artistic knowledge, consolidate his fame as a painter, and to participate in some prestigious undertakings.

The artist produced a plethora of works, but with little variety in the subjects replicated by him or by his pupils.

62 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:31 Pagina 63

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century

On the base of an opinion voiced by Longhi, the work was assigned to a talented Genoan portraitist and follower of Van Dyck, Giovanni Bernardo Carbone.

In 1964 Golfieri indicated a potential attribution to an anonymous Flemish artist who worked with Frans Pourbus the Younger, but the painting is more similar to the style of Carbone, who in his portraits favours fulllength figures dressed in a sophisticated fashion à la Van Dyck, with meticulously detailed objects.

The painting was touched up during the eighteenth century with the addition of the palm tree and, according to Calzi, Archi, and Golfieri, the background and organ painted to replace a table were painted by “another hand”.

These changes transformed the subject, which was likely a simple seventeenth-century lady, into St. Cecilia. The woman, pretty and expressive, all in all manifests the gifts of a talented portraitist in the details.

66. Giovanni Bernardo Carbone (?), Portrait of a girl, 1614-1683, oil on canvas, 179x116 cm + frame 8 cm, Inv. n. 13

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 63

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:31 Pagina 64

67. Jakob Ferdinand Voet (?), Portrait of a Magistrate (?), late XVII century (?), oil on canvas, 76x60 cm + frame 17 cm, Inv. n. 15

The subject is portrayed half-length with long, loose tresses and wearing a black toga and white collar. The background is dark red. Considered by experts like Golfieri to be one of the most fascinating paintings of the Pinacoteca, it is an excellent portrait, although its origins and artist are unknown.

The work has always been considered a masterpiece. It has been attributed to various artists and, in the end, the name of Jacob Ferdinand Voet was proposed. However, the question has never been finalised.

64 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

The portrait of the magistrate depicted halflength is in any case the type of portrait Voet was known for. The artist preferred a frontal pose, his models have an intimate and goodnatured expression, but more profound elements and a psychological introspection are missing. The figures are mostly set against a stark brown and uniform background, with no perspective or objects, with slight illumination around the silhouette of the subject that exalts the contours, especially of the sides of the face.

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:31 Pagina 65

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century 68. Giovanni Gioseffo Dal Sole, Artemisia drinking her husband’s ashes, 1697 ca, oil on canvas, 62x46 cm + frame 23 cm, Inv. n. 3 The attribution to Giuseppe Antonio Del Sole was possible thanks to the recent discovery of a document, the act of purchase of some works of art sold by Lorenzo Antonio Fantini, a merchant from Bologna, to the Mazzolani family in 1697, where the payment of this work is included.

It is mentioned that the panting was in a gilded frame, which is still present, and so may be considered original. The work was entrusted to the Pinacoteca as a deposit from the Congregazione di CaritĂ , founded in compliance with the wishes of the Mazzolani family. The painter from Bologna demonstrates in this Artemisia a talent for working with a vibrant and rich palette, blending a solemn and controlled compositional elegance and formal abstraction in the style of Guido Reni, in any case from the region of Emilia, with appealing hues of Venetian extraction, thereby attaining admirably graceful and refined results. The subject is the episode in which Artemisia, the queen of Caria, despondent over the death of her beloved husband Mausolus, is not satisfied after having erected the most beautiful tomb in the world (the Mausoleum), and drinks the ashes of her husband mixed with her own tears, thereby becoming the living sepulchre of her irreplaceable consort.

Giuseppe Recco, to whom the attribution of this work is agreed, is considered one of the most original and brilliant of all the seventeenth-century Italian painters. He has been attributed the specialisation in fish, like in the painting of the Pinacoteca, but in reality he produced a vast amount of work that covered a wide range of genres, from more traditional Neapolitan subjects like fish and the interior of pantries, to flowers, curiosities, and vanitas.

The cultural references of Giuseppe Recco have always been widespread, including even elements of knowledge of Roman, Spanish, and Flemish still life.

In any case, by recognising a particular talent in the genre of fish, Giuseppe Recco humbly transfigures matter with lyrical touches of light and the sparking of colour against a shadowy background. Hence this Neapolitan painter remains anchored in a Neo-Caravaggism that shuns Baroque diversions and is capable of turning a composition into a moment of absolute lyrical transfiguration, where each individual element constitutes an isolated episode of light-colour. The result achieved with the basket full of shellfish and oysters is also brilliant.

69. Giuseppe Recco, Still Life with cuttlefish, fish, lobster, and a basket of oysters, 1634-1695, oil on canvas, 68x90 cm + frame 10 cm, Inv. n. 241

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 65

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:31 Pagina 66

70. Giovanni Battista Ruoppolo, Still Life with vegetables, fruit, bread, and a strip of tuna, 1661, oil on canvas, 74.5x101 cm + frame 7 cm, Inv. n. 242

This painting arrived in the Pinacoteca in 1965 as bequeathed by Count Luigi ZauliNaldi, who was also among the leading experts of Italian still life. Previously the work had been in the collection of Amendola di Torre Annunziata.

It had also been exhibited in the memorable show of Naples-Zurich-Rotterdam in 1962, during which the studies of Italian still life

71. Felice Boselli, Butcher’s: interior of a shop, 1720 ca., oil on canvas, 133x174 cm + frame 2 cm, Inv. n. 246

66 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

received a systematic start-up. This painting in particular was the subject of a rich and, in many ways, interesting critical debate. As of today, the most accredited attribution is to Giovanni Battista Ruoppolo, a leading figure in the genre of Neapolitan painting.

Of extreme interest is the date 1661, which can be found, upside-down, on the sheet of paper underneath the tuna: it is, therefore, an example of the youthful production of this artist, when he had not yet begun experimenting with the Baroque style. During this phase, the clarity of the light and the brilliance of the colours enhance the prolific and original arrangement of the objects. The care taken with each individual element of the composition is outstanding, for the contrasts of light and shadow and for the effectiveness of the surfaces of the objects. The colour and the texture of the pigments are evidence of tasteful choices made that were to prevail in the years to come.

Within the vast production of this painter, this is one of the masterpieces that best summarises and highlights his spirit and exceptional stylistic vigour.

All of Boselli’s expressive world can be found in this painting, which is very-well known and has been exhibited on many occasions since the “Exhibition on 17th and 18th-century Italian Painting” in Florence in 1922.

Around the mid-1930s, it became part of the Zauli-Naldi picture gallery from the Maggi Collection in Piacenza: in 1983 an expert restoration made it possible to recover, in addition to the dense and intense pictorial material, the figure of the elderly client, which had been covered.

We are in the presence of a “summa” of this artist’s production, which resembles the ancient and contemporary tradition of Still Life painting in the Po Valley territory, reinterpreted with an omnivorous, yet acutely selective attention.

It would appear to be chronologically dated during the height of his career, perhaps around 1720. This work confirms that Boselli represents the pure expression of one of the more secular aspects of “Po Valley” culture: a quasi-physical belonging to a quotidian reality studied in its less elegant and more palpable aspects of life.

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:31 Pagina 67

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century

Recognised by Giacomo Bargellesi in the monograph published in 1961 as one of the masterpieces of Arcangelo the painter.

Since then the critical acclaim for this painting has been notable, as are its numerous presences in Still Life shows, beginning with the now mythical exhibition in Naples in 1964. The quintessence of the composition is one with the light, which marks and reveals the basket and the figure of the dog that could almost be called “human”, studied with an expertise of the chromatic material worthy of a great artist.

When Antonio Paolucci visited the Pinacoteca in 2012 he said of this work: «The painting depicts a small black and white dog while sleeping. A hunting dog. Behind him is a basket, a humble rush basket. Typical of farmers. And then there are two, small, dead birds. One could say: why paint a such a modest, such a humble subject? But this is precisely the beauty of this painting: a silent life, having succeeded in representing a humble moment of common life and delivered it in a painting. This is the beauty of painting».

72. Arcangelo Resani, Dog and basket, 1670-1740, oil on canvas, 59x73.5 cm + frame 9 cm, Inv. n. 239

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 67

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:31 Pagina 68

73. Carlo Magini, Still Life: soup tureen, saucepan, eggs, and bottle, 1720-1806, oil on canvas, 55x79 cm + frame 10 cm, Inv. n. 248 This painting is emblematic of the style of Carlo Magini and of his world: there are tables, laid or not, full of dishes, cutlery, foods ready to be cooked or ready to be tasted; often there is also a packet of spices, often included as a sort of monogram.

The subject is always against an empty wall, simple, that exalts the objects, which are never disturbed by human figures, but highlighted by a calm yet bright light.

Such silent admiration can find a poetic parallel only in the Still Life of Giorgio Morandi, more than a century later, as Cesare Brandi observed in 1986.

This painting stands out in Magini’s catalogue for an element that is seldom present - the tablecloth. It almost seems like it was taken from the trunk where the dowry is kept, where it was carefully laid: the crisp and clear creases highlight the shadow caused by the light coming from the left with extraordinarily subtle expertise. Here, it almost seems that we can feel the weave of the fabric between our fingers, rough, thick, “poor” - like the world of his subjects.

Among these, even the beautiful soup tureen of contemporary manufacture of Pesaro, is outstanding.

74. Carlo Magini, Still Life: bread, onions, candlestick, bottle, 1720-1806, oil on canvas, 56x79 cm + frame 10 cm, Inv. n. 244 Already in the Ojetti collection, it was exhibited at the Eighteenth Century Italian Painting show that, in 1974, from Leningrad then moved to Moscow and Warsaw, like the Arcangelo Resani’s “Dog and basket”.

What is awesome is Magini’s capacity to “play” with objects, moving them from one painting to another with combinations that are always different: it should suffice to compare this painting with other works published in the 1990 monograph. The braids of the onions are identical, the earthenware vessel with the ladle (which passes to the left) is identical, and so on: variations on the same theme, probably at a distance of years, without noticing the passage of time.

68 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:31 Pagina 69

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century

In the centre of the work is a vase of flowers, in the lower part a tray with grapes and figs, while to the sides there are two birds, at least one of which has a parrot’s beak.

The flowers in the vase are mostly roses and tulips. Some, as often happens in paintings of flowers, are wilted, symbolising the frailty of life. The work entered the Pinacoteca with the Pozzi donation in 1936.

There are many testimonies of a diffuse floral decoration in the eighteenth-century Venetian setting, of which the painting in the

Pinacoteca is certainly an excellent example, so that we can hypothesise a production carried out by more than one artist and according to characteristics that changed over time. A grainy pigment, the composition complete with all the sketches drawn in the various paintings, a balance of colour and tones intensified by lighting effects that manifest a creative energy of quasi-impressionistic imprinting make this work one of the most beautiful floral decorations attributable to the school of Francesco Guardi.

75. Francesco Guardi (?), Flowers, grapes, and two birds, 1712-1793, oil on canvas, 88x81 cm + frame 7 cm, Inv. n. 1097

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 69

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:31 Pagina 70

76. Auguste Rodin, Mrs. Russell, 1888, bronze, 32x17.5x24 cm, Inv. n. 520

The face of the woman portrayed in this bronze has marked features, with her hair pulled back in a chignon. The model has classic lines and the composition, representative of the artistic maturity of the sculptor, can be dated at 1888 thanks to its resemblance to a similar portrait belonging to the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo. The mould was in any case used for other works in later

70 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

years, until the Minerva, which can be dated at 1910.

Thanks to the acquisition of the recent publication of the catalogue of the bronze works in the Rodin Museum it is now possible to identify the bust as the portrait of Anna Maria Antonietta Mattiocco della Torre (18631908), the wife of Australian painter John Peter Russell.

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:31 Pagina 71

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century

This bronze portrays the face of a woman with her eyes closed and short hair. The modelling includes only the face and the sides of her head, almost in the shape of a mask.

This is an excellent example of the portraitism of Rodin, playing on the ambivalence between “finished” and “unfinished” (the latter being somewhere between the Michelangelesque and Impressionistic echoes): the person, more than being portrayed in a classic sense of the term, is captured in a moment

of existential suspension, brimming with an interior energy indifferent to every detail.

This work reached Faenza, together with the other sculpture, for the Esposizione Torricelliana in 1908, thanks to the interest of critic Ricciotto Canudo.

The two works came with a letter signed by the artist that authorised G. Ballardini to keep them and in 1924 they were delivered to the Pinacoteca.

77. Auguste Rodin, Portrait of his wife Rose Beuretl, [1908], bronze, 26x16x16 cm, Inv. n. 519

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 71

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:31 Pagina 72

78. Domenico Baccarini, Bust of a woman with hands folded (Thought), 1900, glazed earthenware, 76x41x41 cm, Inv. n. 1629

Domenico Baccarini was defined by Gino Severini, who knew him as a twenty-year-old in Rome, «a sculptor from the region of Romagna» who «made beautiful drawings».

This bust of a woman is a work from 1900, and is indicated in a letter of the family preserved in the Municipal Archive as Baccarini’s first work. In a photograph of the artist’s studio, full of sculptures, Domenico Baccarini is captured precisely in the middle, with this work by his side. The woman of the statue is actually his sister Giovanna, who is portrayed in a half-length bust, in a position with her hands joined,

72 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

holding a flower and glancing down in a pensive mood. On the base, to the right, the word Pensiero (Thought) is engraved, the title of this sculpture. Claudio Spadoni, in the catalogue of the show held in Ravenna in 2007 during the celebrations for the centennial anniversary of the artist’s death, wrote that his bust is the eighteen-year-old Domenico Baccarini’s masterpiece, where “references to realistic sculpture are attenuated in the softness of the material from which the intent face of the young woman is moulded, captured in an instant of melancholic meditation”.

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:31 Pagina 73

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century 79. Domenico Baccarini, Portrait of his sister Giovanna (Waiting), 1903, oil on canvas, 99x59 cm + frame 5 cm, Inv. n. 697 In the catalogue of the exhibition on Liberty (Art Nouveau) held in Bologna in 1977, Orsola Ghetti Baldi wrote that this work has a solemnly naturalistic painting, where the sculptural definition of the figure is sought through the application of living and contoured chromatic zones, although the romantic chiaroscuro persists. This characteristic confirms the influence of the Tuscan school, of Giovanni Fattori and Silvestro Lega above all, who are recalled in its linear purity. Baccarini had then returned from his stay in Florence and perhaps this oil painting was a sort of attempt to put his recent artistic experiences to the test. However, although the values of compactness of the colour and the linearity are evident in the figure, the background with its rhythmic geometric composition creates a certain contrast, accentuating the solidity of the work.

Baccarini, the dogged experimenter of technique that he was, attempted in the same year other approaches, always in the sector of portraits in oil paints. The portraits of 1903 were actually an opportunity to study the technique of the stringy division of the pigment that, as can be observed in the drawings, was to be a long-term priority.

80. Domenico Baccarini, La Bitta, 1904, plaster, 49.5x30x28 cm, Inv. n, 1566 Elisabetta Santolini, nicknamed Bitta, was the beloved muse of Domenico Baccarini.

The life companion of the artist from 1903, early in 1906 she was portrayed by Baccarini in a wide variety of poses. From the innocent, ecstatic and melancholy young girl of this sculpture, reproduced in various others, Bitta was to be portrayed as the emblem of motherhood, pregnant, while nursing or bathing the infant Maria Teresa, and even in works in a more Expressionistic style. With this work, which can be dated early 1904, Baccarini had already completed his first attempts at sculpture where, after having terminated the course in sculpting at the School of Design in 1900, he demonstrated prodigious skills and manifested a willingness to try new symbolic motifs. It was during these years that Baccarini also created basreliefs with interesting spatial modulations and new symbolic figures, like in the sculpture Sensations of the soul created in 1903 or in the production of ceramic objects where he opens up to hints of Art Nouveau and floral designs with beautiful results.

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 73

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:31 Pagina 74

81. Domenico Baccarini, La Bitta nursing Maria Teresa, [1904], oil on canvas, 49x60 cm + frame 10 cm, Inv. n. 684 Elisabetta Santolini is the woman that Domenico Baccarini loves intensely and from their union a daughter, Maria Teresa, was born on 4 August 1904. Mother and daughter are represented in this work, as they were in many others of this artist from Faenza who died at the age of 24 in 1907.

In his portraits «Baccarini delves – wrote Renato Barilli – digs frenetically into the facial features, whether they are his own, those of his relatives, mother, sister and, particularly, the woman he loved, Bitta». And so, for Renato Barilli «even Baccarini, whose works span the turn of the century, is an Expressionist, or a lover of an unforgiving, bitter, impertinent figuration more or less the same way that Barcelona’s Picasso was, at the school of Isidoro Nonell». In the image captured by Baccarini, the viewer is impressed mostly by the overwhelmingly expressive component focussed on Bitta’s intense glance and on the red element that occupies the entire centre of the painting, in contrast with the background of white linens hanging to dry and the intermediate space with a table laid for a meal and a basket to reinforce the description of the domestic interior, as interpreted by Domenico Baccarini.

82. Domenico Baccarini, Motherly kiss, 1905, plaster, 89x64x64 cm, Inv. n. 892 This large sculpture in the round is one of the most important of Baccarini’s works.

Dated 1905, this piece is characterised by its intense realism, similar to that of Giovanni Prini, but also for the tenderness of the emotions it succeeds in conveying. The female figure is traditionally inspired by Bitta, Elisabetta Santolini, the life partner of Domenico Baccarini from 1903 until the end of 1905. On 4 August 1904, their daughter Maria Teresa was born, and subsequently portrayed in this motherly kiss. On the female figure portrayed, Ennio Golfieri had already written in 1982 that “strangely, Bitta’s expression resembles that of Baccarini’s mother” and, in fact, a comparison with Baccarini’s other works leads one to think that the person portrayed, more than Bitta is actually the artist’s mother, Maddalena Bassi.

74 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:31 Pagina 75

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century

Baccarini painted an extensive series of selfportraits. Already during his schooling in Faenza and later in Florence, he took scholastic life drawing lessons beginning with the nude and the figure, then worked on his own portraits as a study of reality. Over the following years this research became more psychological, attentive to introspection, reflecting this trend both in and out of the world of art. It was not a coincidence that the last drawing by the artist is a dramatic self-portrait with the words “last days” to the side.

In this self-portrait dated 1905, Domenico Baccarini appeared self-confident, with a

proud and provocative pose, as Antonella Pozzi Imolesi emphasised in a study on Baccarini’s self-portraits, in keeping with the canons of the dandyism defined by Baudelaire. To obtain the atmosphere of disorientation and strong expressiveness, he gave an intense luminosity to the face, with a definition of movement and blurring of the background, but also partially of the body, like the hands. This is how he develops a selfportrait that, if one begins with a self-confident figure, seems to develop the representation of the double and the ego other than self or - put more simply - one’s own ghost.

83. Domenico Baccarini, Self-portrait with soutane, [1905], oil on canvas, Inv. n. 682

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 75

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:31 Pagina 76

84. Domenico Baccarini, Humanity facing life [Human passions], [1904-1906], oil on canvas, triptych, left panel 241x101 cm, central panel 198x302 cm, right panel 241.5x102 cm, Inv. n. 1111

This is the most impressive and formal work known of Baccarini, left unfinished due to his death. The painting was sketched in Rome during the months of June-July of 1904.

When he left Rome in 1904, Baccarini brought the painting to Faenza, where he attempted to finish it, but soon gave up and abandoned it.

The triptych, wrote Claudio Spadoni, on the occasion of the show dedicated to Baccarini in 2007, «marks a profuse greater effort by this artist from Faenza for a hugely ambitious work.

A pictorial panel that approaches the Ex-

76 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

pressionistic area, in aspiring to offer a moral narration, that is both magniloquent and unsettling. A tangle of nudes crouching or prone, in a circle in the central panel, where a single figure with the face of Bitta is facing the viewer. There is the echo of Michelangelesque drama in those earth-soiled nudes swarming as if they were figures in one of Dante’s circles.

In the side panels, there is more naked and suffering humanity, almost modern damned without distinction of age, all sharing the same skin tone and immersed in a sinister atmosphere and in an undefined space».

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:31 Pagina 77

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 77

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:31 Pagina 78

85. Domenico Baccarini, Young girl amidst lilies, [1906], oils and pastels on canvas, 119x59 cm + frame 2 cm, Inv. n. 694 Orsola Ghetti Baldi, in the description of the work drafted in 1997, highlighted the «suggestive layout reminiscent of Gaetano Previati’s style, given the lilies and the mystical pose of the woman wrapped in fluid garments». However, continued Orsola Ghetti Baldi in her notes, «the Previatesque model is reseen and corrected by means of a synthetisation: we are not seeing a completely fluid painting where the lines of the drawing even succeed in emulsifying the figures and the landscape in a fascinating arcane fusion; here contours are not only blurred, but are underlined, even if only by an extremely delicate stroke; the background then becomes the main decorative independent element in relation to the figure in the foreground, recalling even Bistolfi’s willowy women-angels.

Everything comes together in a chromatic scheme of pastel tones, which are very suited to the symbolic romantic languor of this scene».

Claudio Spadoni, in the catalogue of the show held in Ravenna in 2007, commented on this work, defining it «of a diffuse, intense pink and an elegance, a lightness that is more Nabis than Art Nouveau, given that Baccarini knew the painting of those young artists bewitched by the Gauguin’s period in Brittany about fifteen years before».

86. Ercole Drei, Self-portrait, 1908, marble, 48x40x24 cm, Inv. n. 1745

78 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

In 1908 Ercole Drei participated in the First Biennial Exhibition of arts in Romagna, held as part of the Torricelli exhibition for the sixth centennial anniversary of the birth of Faenza’s Evangelista Torricelli, with eight works. These were the years when the young sculptor was still applying the realistic naturalism lessons learnt about the nineteenthcentury school at the Municipal School of Drawing directed by Antonio Berti and continued on to the Fine Arts Academy in Florence.

But it was precisely during those years that Drei also opened up to new suggestions, beginning with symbolism absorbed in Baccarini’s cenacle in Faenza and the influences of Art Nouveau and Liberty that were spreading even in Italy during the first years of the twentieth century. The self-portrait in marble, elaborated in deliberate contrast between the material left raw and the central cropping up of the masterfully defined face, is a work open to these new ideas.

The work, as Franco Bertoni wrote for the show held in 1986, is inspired «by symbolist models in the allusive dichotomy between the mass of inert and formless material of the block and the emerging of the almost iconic face from it».

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:31 Pagina 79

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century Of the unheeded prophetess of the Trojans, loved by Apollo and condemned not to be believed because she had refused his advances, Ercole Drei seems to have mostly likely captured the sense of withdrawal and repressed anguish she felt at the time when, after the conquest of Troy, she was dragged away from the Temple of Athena where she had taken refuge by Ajax. Drei evolved the nineteenthcentury model towards a more fluent pose with its fulcrum in the long, cascading tresses. The mythological theme is reinterpreted

by Ercole Drei in the mainstream of contemporaneity, investigating with total participation and almost psychological perspicacity a particular state of the female spirit. (from the notes of Franco Bertoni for the catalogue of the show entitled “Art Nouveau. Baccarini’s Cenacle” held at the International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza in 2007, Electa Editore).

87. Ercole Drei, Cassandra, 1910, plaster, 114x60x70 cm, Inv. n. 893

This work was presented at the Biennale di Venezia in 1907. Antonio Berti was the teacher of the School of Drawing and precisely in those years decided to retire, concluding his extensive career as a teacher culminating in the training of the group of artists dubbed Baccarini’s cenacle.

This portrait, created also to express his gratitude to his own teacher, in no way veiling the almost paternal sense of authority, introduces a noticeable stylistic innovation in the Rambelli’s youthful production. This work is not so different from models by Rodin and Bourdelle that inspired it, although still faithful to the preference for a classically composed naturalist art.

In any case, an attempt to assert his independence is being made and, although remaining in naturalism, a compressed perspective and hand moulding that is particularly visible in the roughing out of the moustache and other facial features. This work also manifests an underlying aspiration to compose synthetic blocks and thereby reduce the descriptive values. Moreover, the bust is larger than life, something that seemed useless to critics at the time, but that perhaps we can interpret as a presage of the sculptor’s monumental ambition.

88. Domenico Rambelli, Portrait of the Painter Antonio Berti [or] My teacher, 1907, plaster and bronze, 73x47x38 cm, Inv. n. 1427

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 79

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:31 Pagina 80

89. Domenico Rambelli, Commoner singing [or] singing, 1922, bronze, 33x20x26 cm, Inv. n. 1593

Exhibited for the first time at the Primaverile fiorentina of 1922, it is thought to have been created during the same year. The woman’s head is combined with a strong sense of Primitivism seeking to expand, a characteristic of Rambelli’s artistic research in the successive 1920s and ’30s. In this sculpture Rambelli still remains in a context of classical and severe forms, but reclaims the characters of popular realism and connects with expressions of archaic Primitivism. It is a work that the author, according to the testimony

80 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

of Giovanni Costetti and Francesco Sapori, thought «would find its ideal setting on the bow of a ship». For this work, like for some others of his works, Rambelli thought of a social destination that would justify its symbolic significance. In this sense, the artist elaborated the futuristic conception of art, connected to the technology of modern life, but combined it with an aspiration towards an art that offers, also thanks to larger formal dimensions, new values capable of universal communicability.

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:31 Pagina 81

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century

This is a trial in bronze for one of the three figures that comprise the Monument to the Fallen in Viareggio. In the figure of the dying sailor, Rambelli succeeds in demonstrating the signature characteristics of his style: synthetic, expressively tense, formally reductive, but also elastic and dynamic. In the monument of Viareggio, the statue of the dying sailor is located to the right of the one of the infantryman, slightly raised and positioned diagonally on the base. And while the dying infantryman, laying parallel to the base and closed within the squared volume of his uniform, is agonising on the ground, the figure

of the dying sailor is flinging himself forward in a final and futile attempt to grasp the last instants of his fleeting life.

The work displayed here is the bronze bust of the sailor, whose incomplete anatomic forms, in addition to echoing the impression of a classical artefact, makes it possible to better appreciate the dynamic lines of torsion. (from the notes of Andrea Di Nardo for the catalogue “Art nouveau. Baccarini’s Cenacle�, a show held at the International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza in 2007, Electa Editore).

90. Domenico Rambelli, The Dying Sailor, 1925-27, bronze, 115x74x63 cm, Inv. n. 1596

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 81

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:31 Pagina 82

91. Domenico Rambelli, Portrait of Titti Papini, 1924, plaster, 118x34x37 cm, Inv. n. 1589

This work, created in 1924 in Viareggio, was displayed at the Biennale Romana in 1925.

Like other works created in family and private circles, Rambelli pursued an insistent predominance of ornamental motifs in a style or work of art, still in synch with Decò aspects characterised by a simple and coquettish vein that seduces the viewer immediately. Even in the profile of the full-length figure, with its slightly undulating rhythm, with a stylised and symmetrical signature, the persistence of the Art Nouveau (Liberty) style can still be recognised. Following what Orsola Ghetti Baldi wrote, the work is related to Baccarini’s pretty little girls, but stripped of their realistic character because a dry profile takes over, that focusses on a few essential data, typical of the trend at that time: the tom-boyish dress, the Mary Jane shoes.

This figure of a young girl is also to be connected - in an endless circle of taste among the members of the Baccarini cenacle - to some works by Francesco Nonni, which is to say the children sculpted in ceramic or certain of his illustrations for children.

This work was restored recently thanks to the Arts, Cultural and Natural Assets Institute of the Region of Emilia-Romagna.

92. Domenico Rambelli, Infantryman sleeping, 1926-27, plaster, 84x138x85 cm, Inv. n. 1598

Recognition for the quality of the Brisighella monument, of which this work is a detail in plaster, came to Rambelli immediately. «It was standing in front of the Monument to the Fallen of Brisighella that the maturity of Domenico Rambelli’s art suddenly became apparent» was written in Emporium magazine of 1932. «The Infantryman of Brisighella sleeps, – continues the writing of Gian Carlo Polidori – calm and resigned, he is one of the many anonymous series of “poor souls”, who knew all the most atrocious ordeals of the war, the sleep of a wakeful, light, and yet calm slumber, embracing his musket as a mother embraces a babe: there is not the affected, excessive and inappropriate elegance of those infantrymen that in sculpture defame the war and the sacred infantry, in the squares of Italy.

This is an Infantryman Christ, heavy-set and inelegant, achieved with an ample sculpture, monumental, calm yet solemn», concludes the article. And precisely this sculpture «is characterised by the easily dynamic intersection of solid volumes, the reduction of anatomical forms to the swelling of the material, the opulent Primitivism that uses geometrical concepts and techniques as Moore did». It was positively judged in the 2007 exhibition dedicated to Baccarini’s cenacle.

82 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:31 Pagina 83

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century

From the collection of Madame Pomaret, promoter of the Galerie de la Renaissance, came «l’Astrologue meridien», a work dated 1929 and created in the Parisian artist’s most prolific year of production.

Here, for the only time in the painting of these years we contemporaneously find the geometric animations of the skies, characterised by very bright, almost fluorescent colours and the invention of the three-dimensional gears. Both these new iconographies can be seen as incredible anticipations of pop art and the contemporary world of graphic art, but it is also possible to trace some

pedigree in the scenography of futuristic theatrical production of the 1920’s.

The geometric motifs that cover the skies and the rooms in Savinio’s works can also find references in themes and images reinterpreted by artists of the Cubist school.

Savinio’s painting from this period is therefore in keeping with the complex Parisian scene of the 1920s, where even a nostalgia for elements of metaphysical language can be noted, like the man with the small oval head and the scenographic representation, mixed with specific references to the world of antiquities.

93. Alberto Savinio, The Meridian Astrologist, 1929, oil on canvas, Bianchedi Bettoli / Vallunga Collection, 65x81 cm with frame and passe-partout 94.5x110 cm, Inv. n. 1775

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 83

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:31 Pagina 84

94. Giorgio De Chirico, The Shores of Tessaglia, 1926, oil on canvas, Bianchedi Bettoli / Vallunga Collection, 93x73 cm with frame and passe-partout 122x103 cm, Inv. n. 1757

In 1926 there was a definitive break with the Surrealists; De Chirico for a while had already declared being interested in the trade and for this reason was looking at art in the museums, feeling the need for more solid bases. With the new artistic period, which led to the overcoming of the metaphysics of the first decade of the twentieth century, other themes entered De Chirico’s art: mannequins of faceless human figures, horses at the seaside, outdoor furniture, and gladiators.

In this work a single horse held by a man is on the seashore in a landscape with metaphysical presences (the pedestal without the statue and the building with the portico), with a construction that could be a smoke-

84 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

stack or a lighthouse and that, in any case, presents an abundance of symbols. The composition, with its homogeneous palette, becomes an evanescent entity that is suitable to the myth and to the dreamlike unveiling of the return to origins of his natal Greece. This extraordinary painting also has a complex history, which was admirably reconstructed

by Maurizio Fagiolo dell’Arco. The work, which reappeared at an auction held by Sotheby’s in London in 1984, is to be considered a replica, with a few variations, of another painting considered a masterpiece by Giorgio de Chirico already published by Roger Vitrac in 1927.

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:31 Pagina 85

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century

This lovely tempera falls under a homogeneous group of works in which objects and presences that are now familiar (the fruit bowl, the pigeon, the fish) are associated with scenery of Roman ruins, sometimes “inhabited” by theatrical masks or antique statues.

Now that the rigours of the “golden proportion” and all the encumbrances of rigid symmetries of his season of call to order had been abandoned, Severini invented free and arbitrary perspectives fitted into each other, where the crooked architrave of Etruscan origin prevails mysterious and suggestive, perhaps in reference to De Chirico’s meta-

physics. Interior and exterior spaces, past and present are mixed up, like in the contemporary paintings of the other “Italian painters of Paris”, within an ambiguous allusiveness that nods to Surrealism, but somewhat more intentionally reclaims its profound classical and Italian roots. (from the notes of Daniela Fonti for the catalogue of the Bianchedi-Bettoli/ Vallunga Collection published in 2012 by the Bononia University Press. Daniela Fonti is the author of the Catalogue Raisonné of Gino Severini’s works published in 1988, where this work is annotated under number 522).

95. Gino Severini, Still life with ruins and fish, 1930, tempera on cardboard, Bianchedi Bettoli / Vallunga Collection, 52x62.5 cm + frame 78.5x90 cm, Inv. n. 1778

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 85

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:31 Pagina 86

96. Carlo CarrĂ , Marina at Forte dei Marmi, 1940, oil on canvas, Bianchedi Bettoli / Vallunga Collection, 40x50 cm with frame and passepartout 62x71.5 cm, Inv. n. 1754

Versilia with its beaches, sail boats, and seaside huts, was from 1925 the nearly exclusive scenario from whence CarrĂ drew inspiration for his compositions dedicated to Forte dei Marmi. The painting represents an excellent example of this production that, from the 1920s until his death, was often modulated on a consolidated stylistic modulation: the huts are set in a desert landscape, on the coast of a sail-less sea, which needs no detailed description.

A masterful rigour supports the composition, structured on the orderly harmony of

86 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

the straight lines, slightly varied from the somewhat undulating profile of the terrain; the luminosity is terse, the chromatic palette is peaceful, with appealing contrasts between pink and blue, far from the vibrant, ephemeral and changing vision of Impressionism, also because it is subject to the pithiness of this truly architecture-landscape with which it forms a single synthesis. (from the notes of Sauro Casadei for the catalogue of the Bianchedi-Bettoli/ Vallunga Collection published in 2012 by the Bononia University Press).

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:32 Pagina 87

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century

The season of Mario Sironi’s urban landscapes did not end in the 1920s. Beginning in 1940-1941, and more frequently after 1942, Sironi returns to this theme that during the 1930s he had all but abandoned. The most obvious difference between the Outskirts of the 1940s (and ‘50s) and the previous ones consists precisely in a less “stiff” drawing that compromises the solidity of the contours, and in a more material brush stroke that insinuates a greater sense of physicality to the work, but also of vulnerability.

This last period was also when the Outskirts of Faenza was produced, characterised by a

diagonal vector of the tram tracks similar to those of the Outskirts of Paoletti, and also by a density of the brush stroke that brings it closer to works like the two Urban Landscapes by Mattioli in 1944 or the Gasometro (Gasholder) that is now in the Boschi Di Stefano Museum-Home in Milan, painted around 1945.

It should therefore be dated during those years. (from the notes of Elena Pontiggia for the catalogue of the Bianchedi-Bettoli/ Vallunga Collection published in 2012 by the Bononia University Press).

97. Mario Sironi, Blue Outskirts with Tram, 1944-45, oil on canvas, Bianchedi Bettoli / Vallunga Collection, 30x42.5 cm with frame and passepartout 55.5x67.5 cm, Inv. n. 1779

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 87

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:32 Pagina 88

98. Giorgio Morandi, Still Life, 1953, oil on canvas, Bianchedi Bettoli / Vallunga Collection, 30x43 cm with frame and passepartout 53.5x66, Inv. n. 1768

This still life is part of a large and renowned group of compositions, described also by Marilena Pasquali in the catalogue of the Morandi Museum of Bologna, which includes about twenty paintings produced between 1953, as in this case, and 1956 with the last work of the group, which is part of the Morandi Museum of Bologna collection. This series can be defined as “square partitions”, due to the characteristic lining up of objects collected into two lines with a composition closed to make a square or, in some rare cases like this one, slightly wider to compose a rectangle.

88 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

The overall height of the objects is the same, but those in the back row are a darker presence, not fully recognisable in their corporeity, while the objects in the foreground are coloured in a characterising way and have their own strong formal identity. This still life, listed under the number 858 in the general catalogue of Morandi’s works edited

by Lamberto Vitali, was part of a private collection in Milan, was sold in an auction by Christie’s in London in 1992 and was later acquired by the Vallunga at the Marescalchi Gallery in Bologna.

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:32 Pagina 89

From the Middle Ages to the XX Century

An extremely personal work, even exquisite,

by Massimo Campigli. A typical example of his art, which is also part of one of the most important series in the artist’s career: the cycle of the “Steps” included about 40 canvases produced during the years between 1953 and 1957.

The motif of the three women on a staircase, which at first glance seems to present no problems, when scrutinized more carefully becomes very complex. Campigli modifies the typical principle of the female figure portrayed in a frontal position, in size, in colour, in dress, and in the position of her arms, in

a square, semi-circle, and rhombus shape, fundamental geometric forms or “hieroglyphics”: An agreement between the individual elements is created by the uniformly lightcoloured background. Everything is woven together, the female figures blend into the surrounding architectural elements.

Another characteristic of Campigli’s work is also the rigid division of the painting both vertically and horizontally. (from the notes of Eva Weiss for the catalogue of the Bianchedi-Bettoli/ Vallunga Collection published in 2012 by the Bononia University Press).

99. Massimo Campigli, Steps,1955, oil on canvas, Bianchedi Bettoli / Vallunga Collection, 75x64 cm with frame and passepartout 99x90.6, Inv. n. 1753

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 89

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_53-90 02/12/17 09:32 Pagina 90

100. Franco Gentilini, Nude (n. 1), 1956, oil on sanded canvas, Bianchedi Bettoli / Vallunga Collection, 75x51 cm with frame and passe-partout 97x71.5 cm, Inv. n. 1763

This painting was executed in the midst of the discovery of sand as a base for painting, following a phase of research between 1950 and 1953 when this material sometimes appeared as an expressive element beside the traditional application of oil colours.

The pale sandy base is predominant here, even though it is usually dark; the lines of the drawing are similar to those of works on paper, free and vibratile on the surface, to outline “a full-page” portrait of a girl that will become instead, after the female nudes featured in the paintings of his years in Faenza,

90 - Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza

one of the icons of Gentilini’s painting: the gentility of the pose, the pensive gaze speaks to us of the softness and physical fragility typical of “his” women.

And yet, it seems that the subject is not the focus of Gentilini’s interest, but rather the tracing of the line, vibratile, that illuminates the contours of the volumes defined in positive-negative, almost monochrome, and of mysterious shadows (from the notes of Laura Turco Liveri for the catalogue of the Bianchedi-Bettoli/Vallunga Collection published in 2012 by the Bononia University Press).

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_91-96 02/12/17 09:33 Pagina 91

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_91-96 02/12/17 09:33 Pagina 92

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_91-96 02/12/17 09:33 Pagina 93

ESSENTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY Below is a bibliographic selection of the most important publications for knowing the works and the history of the Municipal Pinacoteca of Faenza.

The extensive bibliography on the works housed in the Municipal Pinacoteca of Faenza can be consulted on the website managed by the offices at: http://www.racine.ra.it/pinacotecafaenza/ita/pubblicazioni.htm

Archi A., La Pinacoteca di Faenza, Faenza, 1957.

Argnani F., La Pinacoteca Comunale di Faenza descritta e illustrata, Faenza, 1881.

Bentini J. (a cura di), Art Nouveau a Faenza. Il cenacolo Baccariniano, catalogo mostra Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche in Faenza, Milano, Electa, 2007.

Capitanio F., Sulle vie del Medioevo: Croci Viarie nel territorio di Faenza, Faenza, Carta Bianca Editore, 2006.

Casadei S., La Pinacoteca di Faenza (1917-1926) un caso emblematico, in “Romagna arte e storia”, anno V, numero 13, gennaio-aprile 1985, pp. 99-112.

Casadei S., Pinacoteca di Faenza, Bologna, Calderini, 1991.

Casadei S., Casadio C., Pinacoteca Comunale di Faenza, Ravenna, Sistema museale della Provincia di Ravenna, 2007.

Colombi Ferretti A., Pedrini C., Tambini A., Storia delle arti figurative a Faenza. Il Cinquecento parte prima, Faenza, Edit Faenza, 2015.

Dirani S., Spadoni C. (a cura di),

Domenico Baccarini. Catalogo generale delle sculture e dei dipinti con i disegni delle collezioni comunali di Faenza, Milano, Electa, 2007.

Ferretti M., Storia delle arti figurative a Faenza. La scultura nel Quattrocento, Faenza, Edit Faenza, 2011.

Golfieri E., Pinacoteca di Faenza, Faenza, 1964.

Paolucci A., La Pinacoteca di Faenza, piccolo pantheon della pittura romagnola, a cura della Sezione di Faenza di Italia Nostra, Faenza, Tipografia Faentina, 1998.

Tambini A., Pittura dall’alto medioevo al tardogotico nel territorio di Faenza e Forlì, Castelbolognese, Grafica Artigiana, 1982.

Tambini A., Storia delle arti figurative a Faenza. Le origini, Faenza, Edit Faenza, 2006.

Tambini A., Storia delle arti figurative a Faenza. Il gotico, Faenza, Edit Faenza, 2007.

Tambini A., Storia delle arti figurative a Faenza. Il Rinascimento, Faenza, Edit Faenza, 2009.

Vitali M., La Pinacoteca, in “Faenza nel Novecento”, Faenza, Edit Faenza, 2003, pp. 675-694.

Guide to the Pinacoteca of Faenza - 93

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_91-96 02/12/17 09:33 Pagina 94

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_91-96 02/12/17 09:33 Pagina 95

pinacoteca ingl ok.qxp_91-96 02/12/17 09:33 Pagina 96

Published by EMIL editions - Misterbianco (CT) - www.emil.it Printed in Italy in December 2017 by Euroteam – Nuvolera (BS)

copertina guida pinacoteca ingl.qxp_ita 02/12/17 09:59 Pagina 1

N

ISB

,00

15

7 0014 43 -9 .c.

€

88

8-

97

www.emil.it

EMIL edizioni

GUIDE TO 100 WORKS OF THE PINACOTECA FROM THE MIDDLE AGES TO THE XX CENTURY

PINACOTECA COMUNALE DI FAENZA

GUIDE TO

100 WORKS OF THE PINACOTECA

FROM THE MIDDLE AGES TO THE XX CENTURY

EMIL edizioni

i