Gemme D’Arte Antica Italiana
July 22, 2007 12:27 am CollectibleGemme
D’Arte Antica
Intaliana
Rassegna Illustrativa
Di Quadri E Sculture
Dal Sec. XIII Al Sec. XVI
In Raccolte Private
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Prefazione
Di
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Alfieri & Lacroix
Milano Fairfieldsbooks
In these times when the discovery of an important work of art is considered a sensational event,it can be taken as a great privilege to introduce to the public an entirely unknown collection in which every piece is significant and several are of great importance.
Though I became personally acquainted with many of these pieces only a very short time ago,they have all been know to Senator Professor A. Venturi whose opinion will hold good with many who love Italian art of by gone days. 
For such works as in this collection go under the most illustrious names-Raphael,Leonardo,Botticelli,Domenico Veneziano etc.,etc.-I refer the reader to the attributions of professor A. Venturi,that appear in this volume. He was the first to make these attributions with which other critics have pronounced themselves in agreement. However,we cannot very well follow the order of importance or beauty and my survey therefore will be based on chronology and schools.
Of the Thirteenth century there is only one picture,but it is a remarkable example of the art of that remote period,so few specimens of which exist in private hands.Not only does this monumental painting reveal very refined draughtsmanship and colour effects,but we can ascribe it to one of the few masters whose names have come down to us: Coppo di Marcouvaldo,a Florentine artist who was taken prisoner at Siena and who worked from 1260 until 1276. We have several documents concerning him and a signed work (cf.my ‘Development of the Italian Schools of Painting”,1,p.275).
In connection with the two works which represent the Sienese school of the Fourteenth century,we mention the names of the two greatest painters of the city:Simone Martini and Ambrogio Lorenzetti.
The exquisite little Madonna by the former artist is quite a youthful production in which the influence of his master,Duccio,is still clearly evident in the type of the Virgin and in the archaically-shaped hands,though the Child Jesus,on the contrary,reveals Simone’s own conceptions. 
The Half length Madonna with the lively Infant Christ in her arms is a work by Ambrogio Lorenzetti. It still reflects Giotto’s influence which,however, is much more marked in the Madonna of 1319 at Vico l’Abate.Consequently I consider it to be a fairly early production of Ambrogio’s brush though not an example of his very first manner.
A very important Florentine picture of the Fourteenth century is the Pieta by Niccolo di Pietro Gerini who reveals himself here as a staunch adherent of Giottos style as it was handed over to him by Taddeo Gaddi.
The international calligraphic group of the first part of the Fifteenth century is exemplified by several panels. This fascinating artistic movement spread all over Europe and many specimens of it are to found in Italy.
of exceptional importance is the Assumption of the Virgin received in heaven by God the Father and angelic musicians. The colours are so beautiful and brilliant that we are at once strongly reminded of French miniature painting. It has already often been pointed out that around the year 1400,and sduring the first half of the Fifteenth century an artistic link united some of the artists in France with those in Lombardy,where this rare an joyous painting was executed. A comparison with the frescoes of the Zavattari at Monza dispels all doubt as to the authorship of this beautiful panel It should not be forgotten that lombard paintings of this period are extremely few in number.
The collection possesses two works by Jacobello del Fioire,who,with Giambono,represented this late Gothic manner in Venice one is a half length figure of the Madonna with the Child,and has been attributed by me to this master Development of the Italian Schools of Painting, VII fig.227 th other painting, in which the Virgin,on a low seat,offers a flower to the Child Jesus,has a particulary rich decorative effect.
Sassetta and Giovanni di Paolo gave a somewhat different aspect to this style in Siena. It is with great pleasure that I re-discover the panel by Sassetta of the Virgin and Child seated on a niche shaped throne and surrounded by four angels,which I saw very many years ago when I was a mere youth,in a private collection in Rome and afterwards in that of Signor L. de Spiridon and since then remembered with joy. On account of its heavenly charm and grace, the Assumption by Giovanni di Paolo will delight all those whose have pentrated into the realms of rare enchantment which form the quintessence of the Sienese school.
As for the pictures of the full blown Renaissance,their quality and importance are really outstanding. We can hardly imagine a more enjoyable specimen of Florentine Renaissance art of the Fifteenth century than the portrait of a lady in profile attired in a magnificent blue robe an elegant head dress,a work which only Paolo Uccello could have painted. It is one of those images which,as it were,has the power of recalling to us a whole period.
Uccellos art,thought not by his own brush,is also found in a magnificent cassone panel with the triumph of a prince with Oriental animals and in the two small lateral panels which belong to this same cassone.
Botticellis Allegory of Peace is such an outstanding achievement that many pages would be required to give a right idea of its importance and this privilege has been reserved for Professor A.Venturi. The important panel of the Dream of Joseph,seems to us to be the work of that great and fantastic poet of the brush who was Piero di Cosimo.
We are brought into the immediate environment of another genius,Piero della Francesca,by a large picture. depicting the beheading of St. John the Baptist.The marvellously subtle play of light and shade,the grey tints,the breadth of treatment,the Oriental type of Herods daughter and the able handling of the plastic values are all elements which point to Pier. The proportions,and more especially the perfect rendering of quick movements are due to another brush and one wonders if this could not be a youthful production of Signorelli,when still under the almost complete domination of Piero.
Certainly by Luca Signorelli is a predella panel which represents a woman carrying away a nude man killed in battle. Here we are dealing with a painting of Lucas early manner in which we can still detect Pieros influence. In this panel,however,the authors personality has already affirmed itself and we obtain a clear expression of it The almost monchrome painting which contains but scant colouring apart from greys and whites,show a virtuosity which only a great master could attin.
By the celebrated master of the Sienese school of the Fifteenth century,Francesco di Giorgio,we find a panel of the Madonna adoring the Child and two angels,a very characteristic work of that particular late manner in which he executed the Adoration of the Child in the church of S. Domenico,Siena,which some critics believe to have been painted around the year 1493.
Melozzo da Forli really forms a link between Central and Northern Italy and consequently I shall mention here a monumental Madonna and Child on a gold background,which reveals interesting points of similarity with his early works.
Among the productions of the schools of Northern Italy there is a most striking Madonna by Coss,one of the gems of this collection . It may indeed seem surprising tha such a significant and characteristic specimen of this great master of Ferrara could remain hidden away until now, more especially as paintings of the leading Ferrarese artists are very scarce and we naturally imagined that at the present day all of them had been identified. This picture, which in every point corresponds perfectly to the wall paintings in the Schifanoia Palace,is consequently a highly welcome addition to our knowledge of the Ferrarese school.
No doubt the panel showing an allegory of love was also painted at Ferrara. Eros seated with bow and arrow and a youth near a mountain with a poetic landscape as background. We find her a certain relationship with Ercole Roberti.
I have already published as a product of the collaboration of Gentile and Giovanni Bellin [Development of the Italian Schools of Painting XVII fig.89] the adoration of the Magi,which is a piece of painting of extrordinary quality. We recognize Giovanni Bellini’s hand also in a knee lengthfigure of the Madonna seated with the nude child standing on her lap. The whole evolution of this artist’s long career separates this work of his mature age from the previous picture.
If not Antonello da Messina I do not know who could have painted the half length Madonna with the new Child apparently standing on her hand, against an orange-brown curtain which conceals half of the landscape. Moreover on the label,so usual for Antonello.parts of this masters signature can still be deciphered. The Flemish factors,such as the Gothic drapery of the Virgins head-dress,the colour of the curtain and the minutely executed landscape,are proof that it ws at a fairly early phase that the painter achieved this work in which, however, there is no lack of Italian elements. In the marvellous hands,which are treated like objects d’art,we again find the Flemish spirit. The majesty the deep feeling and the magic charm which make every production of Antonello’s brush so precious,have attained their full development here.
A great Milanese master painted the enchanting portrait of a youth with long shiny curls,that has been published several times under different names and again quite recently as the work of Bramantino which, in my opinion, it certainly is not. I am much more inclined to classify it as the outcome of a certain mood of Boltraffio.
We shall close our survey of the paintings of this period by mentioning a most important altar piece by Defendente Ferrari. We admire her the perfect technique in which, once again, Italian characteristics intermingle with those borrowed from more northern countries.
It is but natural that among the productions of the Sixteenth century,the school of Venice should from the principal group in which we find a new an precious contribution to the study of the problem of Giorgione.It is the bust on an elegantly dressed lady,her head in profile,whose red robe bordered with grey lace forms a seting of refined colour. It is obviously a work of the beginning of the Sixteenth century although not entirely devoid of reminiscences of he Fifteenth.
Titian is represented under different aspects. There is a lovely picture of a warrior in which we find his genius at its best. Like several others of his masterpieces of portraiture,it was painted round about 1540. In the same class may be placed the irgin and Child, with a female adorer and St. Jerome in a landscape,which no doubt was executed a few years earlier.
As far a beauty and quality are concerned there can be no objection to the opinion that another Venetian picture of about the middle of the Sixteenth century. or slightly berfore, is likewise a work by Titian. In fact, we should be at a loss if we had to suggest another possible name for this canvas of a woman,seen almost from the back,playing a little musical instrument. The subtle painting of the flesh offers us all that could be expected of Titians genius.
Very happily represented are two other Venetian masters, Cariani and Palma il Vecchio. By each of them we find a portrait which represents its author in a dignified manner.
By the brush of Bartolomeo Veneto,more Venetian in name than in art,the collection contains ab big and luminous protrait of a nobleman,no doubt a citizen of Norther Europ, in which the artist,with his usual directness,brings us into intimate personal contact with one of his elegant contemporaries.
Great richness of attire is shown by Bronzino in a finely painted portrait of Princess Giovanna of Austria and we shall end our enumeration of the paintings with a female head by Correggio,possibly the study for a Madonna,which has the refreshing spontaneity of a sketch.
Few pieces of sculputre,but all exquisite,belong to this choice collection of works of art.
There is a Romanesque Madonna standing,carved in wood and still polichromed,which displays archaic and noble majesty. I am inclined to believe that it is a production of the Abruzzi where the greatest school of sculpture in wood that Italy ever had flourished in the middle Ages. The exceptional importance of the sculptural activity that developed in the Abruzzi is not yet sufficiently known/
From another Madonna, in carved wood, seated with the Child Jesus standing on Her knee, there seems to emanate the pride and dignity of Roman art,as interpreted by Arnolfo di Cambio,while the Drapery shows a refined appreciation of Gothic Lines.
The relief of Christ on the Cross, with the seated Virgin and St. John and two angels above, is a masterpiece of the school of Pisa. In the figure of the Saviour we observe so much simi8larity with that by Giovanni Pisano on the pulpit of Pistoia,that it seems most likely that also this relief is due to the same chisel.
For the relief of God the Father giving His blessing amid four Cherubs, which was no doubt executed in Venice, the name of Bartolomeo Buon suggests itself to us.
We take leave of this collection with a word of homage to an exceptionally beautiful production of the most glorious perod of the Florentine school of sculpture. This Putto holdin a dolphin is so well known that it seems superfluous to add much to all that has already been said an written about it. It should, however, be realized that this marvellous statue is a genuine masterpiece of the town of Florence, moreover, it is of a standard such as it is but rarely reached even by the universally known and recognized treasures in the choicest public collections. This exquisite Putto, which prepares the way for the particularly graceful expression of infantile charm so dear to French scuptors, tree centuries later, gives rise to a query; Verrocchio or Leonardo? and makes us wonder where we should draw the exact line of demarcation between these two geniuses. I studied this question when dealing with Verrocchio as a painter [Develoopment of the Italian Schools of Painting XI Chap. 5] and must say that in this case I am rather inclined to favour Leonardo,notwithstanding our very imperfect knowledge of his activity as a sculptor.
Our visit to this really outstanding collection is now at an end.
Those who truly love the specimens of Italian art of the great centuries, when its wealth flowed so lavishly because it met with such deep admiration and such perfect understanding,will be grateful to the fortunate owner of this collection for making it known to the public.
Speaking with a wide experience, I think it can be said that, although not exceptionally large,there are few private collections today which, as regards quality, can compete with this particular group.
Stumble it!
