M issing M onuments to W omen in early modern Churches
Brief summary
Directly connected to the conference theme of “Commemorations”, this
workshop proposes to address tomb monuments of early modern women in Italy and
France that do not survive completely intact or in their original locations. These
monuments, which often included dedicatory inscriptions and sometimes portraits,
were dismantled, shuffled, reduced, appropriated, and led to a reception across time
that included a pervasive loss of knowledge of influential women in early modern
society and the skewed historical perspective that such women were not publicly
commemorated. Analyzing these changes is a way to consider the historically specific
reception of public artwork honoring women and comparing these monuments with
the changes to other—including men’s—tombs from the same sites will be helpful to
point to the political motivations or gender bias that came into play, when appropriate.
Organizers
Linda Nolan, PhD
John Cabot University, Department of Art History and Studio Art
Fields: Art History; Classics
Specializations: Italian Baroque/Early Modern sculpture and prints; history of
collecting and display; Classical tradition.
Brenna Graham, PhD
Beloit College
Fields: Art History; Gender Studies
Specializations: Italian Renaissance sculpture and portraiture, Visual Culture; Literary
reception of Renaissance Artworks.
Amy E. Cymbala, PhD candidate
The University of Pittsburgh, The Henry Clay Frick Department of the History of Art
and Architecture
Fields: Art History; Gender Studies
Specializations: Italian Renaissance/Early Modern sculpture; Visual Culture; Women’s
Networks of Patronage in Early Modern Rome
Contact Person
Linda Nolan
Department of Art History and Studio Art
John Cabot University
Via della Lungara, 233, Rome, Italy, 00165
+39 389 434 2285
[email protected]
Description of the workshop
This workshop looks at church monuments in Italy and France commissioned
by and for early modern women that do not survive completely intact or in their
original locations. Women commissioned costly floor tombs, portraits, and dedicatory
freestanding sculpture and paintings by highly skilled and well-known artists in some
of the most important sacred spaces in early modern society. Yet, with the rise of art
collecting, shifting of political tides, competitions between families, and the ravages of
time (preservation, theft), early modern tomb monuments and their related works of
art and inscriptions do not always survive as they were intended. In addition to
proposing new questions and ways of approaching the monuments, we will address
practical problems in researching such monuments, including loss and interpretation
of dedicatory inscriptions, new resources for researching monuments, and the
challenges in interpreting the fragments that sometimes still remain.
Comparative and interdisciplinary focus: The study of tomb monuments to women
requires comparative and interdisciplinary approaches due to the historical context,
but also the components of the physical monument. In terms of historical context, the
monuments figured in sacred spaces that were socially and politically contested during
the early modern period. Though they vary in size and adornment, women’s
monuments are sometimes rich architectural spaces with painted altarpieces,
freestanding or relief sculptures, inscriptions in Latin, and painted backdrops, and
could be the setting for elaborate liturgical practices. These memorials are comprised
of material, visual, and inscriptional evidence that all work in tandem to commemorate
women. The foundational methods of art history (formal analysis,
iconography/iconology, and technical analysis) are essential. But the profitable social
historical approach to art that defines the best scholarship in the field of art history
has not yet fully taken up comparative and micro historical approaches to tomb
monuments dedicated to women.
Format: The panel will be structured as follows: Each organizer will take five to
seven minutes to introduce her case studies, in particular, present the key
visual/material and inscriptional evidence by means of a brief PPT presentation
(slides), and present the key research problems particular to each case study. Then,
questions directly related to the case studies and the readings will invite discussion
and further questions from the participants of the session.
Innovation: The panel moves beyond the foundational art historical approaches
to tomb monuments that focus on discrete elements, such as the portraiture or the
valuable art object separate from the monument, development of iconography,
materials, and the monument as an index of artistic development. By looking at
monuments across time and in comparison with monuments made for men, the
reasons for why the monuments were dismantled, and within the larger context of the
social-political context (physically, the site; conceptually, the time in which the
monument was dismantled), we hope to create a discussion of the problems in
researching tomb monuments to women in the early modern period.
Recent conferences on related topics:
See recent program from the conference “Fifty Years after Panofsky’s Tomb
Sculpture”, June 2014, Courtauld Institute, London. The conference focuses on the
foundation aspects of the study of tomb monuments.
http://www.courtauld.ac.uk/researchforum/events/2014/summer/jun21_FiftyYearsAfterP
anofsky.shtml
See the follow up conference that responded to the June 2014 “Panofsky” conference,
due to lack of material inclusion (limited to marble). The follow up conference
focused instead on brass monuments, but also limited itself to mainly iconographic
and artistic production concerns.
http://www.mbs-brasses.co.uk/mbsmeetings.html
List of readings
“Facts Sheets” for each case study listing key information and research problems [1 page
each case study]
Anon. Res Historica. Descriptio Ecclesiae Santa Maria Super Minerva. [18 century].
XI.2890a. Dominican Archive, Rome. English translation of section describing
monuments [1 page].
th
Bacci, Andrea. Del Tevere, Libro quarto…di tutte le prodigiose inondationi dal principio di
Roma, insino all'anno 1530 aggiuntevi l'altre sin'a quest'ultima del 99. Rome: Stampatori
camerali, 1599. English translation of section describing damage to churches [1 page].
Federici, Fabrizio and Jörg Garms. “Testimony of a Cultural Phase, and Source for
Lost Monuments: The Collection of Drawings of Tombs in Windsor,” and “Paper
Pantheons: Drawings and Prints of Tombs in the Early Modern World,” Tombs of
Illustrious Italians at Rome: L’Album di desegni RCIN 970334 della Royal Library at Windsor.
Florence: Olschki, 2011, pp. 36, 47-49. [3 pages]
Federici, Fabrizio. “Francesco Gualdi e gli arredi scultorei nelle chiese romane,”
Arnolfo di Cambio. Una rinascita nell’Umbria medieval. Exh. Cat, Perugia and Orvieto,
July 7 2005 – January 8, 2006, eds. V. Garibaldi and B. Toscano. Cinisello Balsamo:
Silvana Editoriale, 2005, pp. 91-95. English translation of section. [4 pages]
McClellan, Andrew. “Alexandre Lenoir and the Museum of French Monuments,” Inventing
the Louvre: Art, Politics, and the Origins of the Modern Museum in Eighteenth-Century Paris.
Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994, pp. 155-157. [3 pages]
Richardson, Carol M. “The St. Peter’s Problem - The monument of Eugenius IV and
the problem of survival,” Reclaiming Rome: Cardinals in the Fifteenth Century. Leiden:
Brill, 2009, pp. 345-50. [4 pages]
Strocchia, Sharon. “Remembering the Family: Women, Kin, and Commemorative
Masses in Renaissance Florence.” Renaissance Quarterly 42.2 (1989): pp. 635-639, with
the rest of the article as suggested reading. [5 pages]
Zuraw, Shelley. “Two further unusual aspects” and “Power and presence in Rome,”
The Sculpture of Mino da Fiesole (1429-1284), Ph. D dissertation, New York University,
1993, pp. 966-68. [3 pages]
Monument Fact Sheet
Memorial for Francesca Pitti Tornabuoni (died in childbirth, precise age unknown but
assumed later 30s-early 40s)
Date: after 1477, based on Francesca’s death on 23 September of that year
Location: Originally in the Tornabuoni chapel (now the Nari Chapel) in Santa Maria
sopra Minerva, Rome. The tomb was dismembered in the seventeenth-century at
which point the pieces of Francesca’s tomb were dispersed, and only possible
fragments remain.
Patron: Giovanni Tornabuoni (Francesca’s husband)
Tomb type: Though no longer extant, a variety of sources can be used to reconstruct
the appearance of Francesca’s tomb, including early descriptions found in Vasari,
Roman guidebooks, mentions in a descendant’s will, and a sketch by Martin van
Heemskerck, which is assumed to depict Francesca’s effigy. Additionally, the still
extant tomb of her nephew Francesco, which was originally located in the same
chapel and is now located next to the antifacciata of Santa Maria sopra Minerva,
provides comparative information. Francesca’s tomb was likely a wall monument
composed of an effigy lying on a bier or sarcophagus placed below three sculpted
Virtues. The Tornabuoni Chapel was also originally frescoed with episodes from the
lives of the Virgin and John the Baptist by Domenico Ghirlandaio, as recorded in
Vasari. However, when the chapel was sold to the Nari family in the seventeenth
century and subsequently remodeled, both the frescoes and Francesca’s tomb were
lost.
Related tombs: Mino da Fiesole’s tomb of Francesco Tornabuoni
History: The only extant sculpture which scholars have widely acknowledged must
come from Francesca’s monument is a relief currently in the Bargello Museum,
depicting a childbirth scene on the right and the presentation of the child to its father
on the left. Despite the long association of the Bargello relief with the tomb of
Francesca Pitti Tornabuoni, initially suggested by Alfred Reumont in 1873 and
maintained in much of the ensuing scholarly tradition, there is only circumstantial
evidence that the relief was present on the tomb.
The Virtues that Vasari describes as part of the monument likely adorned the
wall above the effigy, similar to the arrangement of the Tartagni monument in San
Domenico, Bologna. Various sculptures have been suggested as these Virtues,
including a set in the Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris.
Additional clues to the appearance of Francesca’s tomb can be found in Martin
van Heemskerck’s Roman Sketchbooks dating from the 1530s, where there is a small
sketch of an effigy of a woman atop a sarcophagus supported by acanthus scrolls.
Lying on the woman’s chest is an infant, an unprecedented mother-and-child double
effigy on a Renaissance commemorative monument. The drawing has been associated
with Francesca Pitti Tornabuoni since 1934, when Hermann Egger connected the
sketch, a letter written by Giovanni Tornabuoni to his nephew Lorenzo de’Medici
informing him of Francesca’s death, and the Bargello relief. In Heemskerck’s
notebooks, the effigy is adjacent to a sketch of the corner of a sarcophagus supported
by sphinxes, clearly identifiable as part of the tomb of Francesco Tornabuoni.
Attribution Unknown, though frequently attributed to Verrochio or his Workshop,
The Death of Francesca Pitti Tornabuoni, after 1477, marble, Bargello, Florence
Martin van Heemskerck, usually identified as the Effigy of Francesca Pitti Tornabuoni,
Roman Sketchbooks, 1530, Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin,
Preussischer Kulturbesitz.
RENAISSANCE
RONA GOFFEN
QUARTERLY
Editedby
BRIDGET GELLERT LYONS
AssociateEditors
COLIN EISLER
WALLACE
T. MACCAFFREY
Rememberingthe Family: Women,Kin,
and Commemorative
Masses
in RenaissanceFlorence*
by SHARON T. STROCCHIA
In August
1465 Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi, mother of the art
and
builder Filippo Strozzi, arranged for an annual set of
patron
masses in the parish church of SantaMariaUghi. Her purpose, as she
said, was to commemorate the souls of"all our dead," "tutti e nostri
passati" (sic). In her record of the commission, Alessandra carefully
outlined the conditions of the bequest. She noted, for example, the
location of the land donation whose proceeds subsidized the masses
and the day the ten masses were to be performed, and made alternate
arrangements should the priests of Santa Maria Ughi fail to uphold
their obligations. Yet within this context of legal specifications and
formulae, Alessandra remained curiously vague about one of the
program's essential clauses: namely, the precise identity of "all our
dead. '
In both their precision and ambiguity, commemorative bequests
made by women like Alessandra Strozzi offer an important new observation on the Florentine family. In contrast to recent studies of
family and gender in other areas of Europe, the study of Florentine
kinship has been marked by the surprising absence of feminist perspectives that illuminate the relation between gender, family struc*Iwould like to thankthe HarvardUniversity Centerfor ItalianRenaissanceStudies
(VillaI Tatti), Florence,andthe National Endowment for the Humanitiesfor theirgenerous support, and Stanley Chojnackifor his helpful comments on an earlierdraft.
IAlessandraMacinghi-Strozzi, Letteredi unagentildonna
fiorentina(Florence, 1877),
545, note B.
[635]
636
RENAISSANCE
QUARTERLY
ture, and the dynamics of women's power.2 Historians have instead
focused attention on such issues as the role of household versus lineage in creating a modern conjugal unit, or the demographics of
family organization. Even novel work, like that analyzing the fictive
kin of Florentine confraternities, has passed lightly over the issue of
gender distinctions in relation to ritualkinship.3 A feminist perspective on women and gender has recently begun to enter historical discourse on the Florentine family through the essays of Christiane
Klapisch-Zuber, whose portrayal of women as displaced and disempowered nevertheless needs to be critically examined.4
This essay aims to redress some of these imbalances in recent historiography by asking a fundamental question: based on patterns of
family remembrance, how did women in Renaissance Florence define and experience kinship as compared with their male kin? In assessing the relation between gender and kinship, commemorative
masses commissioned for dead relatives offer a particularly useful
source for several reasons. First, memorial masses were in themselves implicit family statements; the very act of remembrance,
which reinvested the memory of dead kin among the living on a regular and formal basis, aimed at the continual integration of the kin
group as it moved both backward and forward in time. Second, as
a source for family history, commemorative bequests help docu2Theintroductionby David Nicholas, TheDomesticLifeof a MedievalCity: Women,
Children, and the Family in Fourteenth-Century Ghent (Lincoln, NE, and London, 1985),
reviews the recentinterpretationsof, andbibliographyfor, Europeanfamily structures
in general, with a particularemphasison northernEurope.
3Fromthe growing literatureon the Florentinefamily, I refer here only to several
divergent views and approaches:on family structures, RichardGoldthwaite, Private
Wealth in RenaissanceFlorence(Princeton, NJ, 1968), and F. W. Kent, Household and Lin-
Florence(Princeton,NJ, 1977); on family demographics,David Hereagein Renaissance
(Paris,1978),now translihy andChristianeKlapisch-Zuber, Lestoscanset leursfamilles
lated as TuscansandtheirFamilies(New Haven and London, 1985); on ritual kinship,
Ronald F. E. Weissman, Ritual Brotherhoodin RenaissanceFlorence(New York, 1982). By
contrastwith Florentinehistoriography,Venetiankinship and genderissues have been
ably exploredby StanleyChojnacki.See his two importantarticles,"PatricianWomen
in Early Renaissance Venice," Studies in the Renaissance21 (1974): 176-203, and "Dow-
ries and Kinsmen in Early RenaissanceVenice," Journalof Interdisciplinary
History5
(1975): 571-600. His more recent work adds an importantperspectiveon age distinctions: "KinshipTies and Young Patriciansin Fifteenth-Century Venice," Renaissance
Quarterly38 (1985): 240-70, and "PoliticalAdulthood in Fifteenth-Century Venice,"
American Historical Review 9I (1986): 79I-8I0.
4Klapisch-Zuber, Women, Family, and Ritual in RenaissanceItaly (Chicago, 1985).
SNatalieZ. Davis. "Ghosts,Kin, andProgeny:Some Featuresof FamilyLifein Early
Modern France," Daedalus (spring 1977): 87-114.
REMEMBERING
THE FAMILY
637
ment the elusive area of affective ties among family members, as
well as delineate family organization on both the domestic and larger
social level. Finally, because commemorative commissions, performances, and problems were documented by ecclesiastical institutions to which women had regular access, these church records balance the lineage-heavy pages of family diaries and throw their
patrilineal messages into sharp relief.
For historians, the complexity of relations among women, kin,
and commemoration is intensified by the conflicts and tensions inherent in the Florentine family system. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Florentine society faced the structural contradictions of combining a dotal system with a patrilineal one, which
placed women in a highly ambiguous and vulnerable position as
members of two families.6 The contradictions in this arrangement
were especially pronounced for the Florentine elite. As dowry prices
spiraled upwards throughout the fifteenth century, husbands increasingly depended on the dowries their wives brought them from
other lineages to provide capital for business ventures and to legitimate their social place.7 But what husbands received, fathers had
later to give. Enriched by the economic resources of their brides,
husbands confronted the transfer or loss of their own patrimony
when, as fathers, they dowered their daughters in an escalating marriage market. While some of these problems were resolved during
the sixteenth century, when a more concentrated property entailment safeguarded dowries, in republican Florence the family represented an arenain which a powerful patrilinealideology conflicted
with social practice.8
60n problems resulting from Florentine family structures, see Klapisch-Zuber,
Women, I 17-3 I. On the dowry system in Florence: Julius Kirshner, "Pursuing Honor
while Avoiding Sin: The Monte delle Doti of Florence," Studi senesi 89 (1978): 175-258.
Venetian social structures mitigated to some extent against the kind of dowry wars seen
in Florence; see Chojnacki, "Dowries."
7Kirshner and Anthony Molho, "The Dowry Fund and the Marriage Market in
Early Quattrocento Florence, "Journal of ModernHistory 50 (1978): 403-38; Herlihy and
Klapisch, Tuscans, 222-26.
8Serious attention needs to be paid to family changes during the Medici principate.
For now, see Samuel Berner, "The Florentine Patriciate in the Transition from Republic
to Principato, 1530-I609," Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 9 (1972): 3-15.
More specialized studies include Paolo Malanima, I Riccardidi Firenze (Florence, 1977),
and Tim Carter, "Music and Patronage in Late Sixteenth-Century Florence: The Case
I Tatti Studies I (1985): 57-104.
ofJacopo Corsi (1561-1602),"
638
RENAISSANCE
QUARTERLY
The competition between the dotal and lineal faces of the family
intruded not only in the economic marketplace but also behind the
closed doors of domestic life. It was in the households of the urban
patriciatethat patrilinealideology met the daily test of cognatic and
conjugal arrangements. The conflict between family regimes
worked to carve out a central social position for patrician women,
on the one hand, and to fragment their social identity on the other.
Women wove and continued to sustain a powerful web of family
relationships through marriage and the creation of parentado.Yet
this same central position also exerted competing claims on a woman's status and affection in everyday life. As daughters, patrician
women depended on paternalwealth for the dowry that guaranteed
their status as wives.9 Should they be widowed, custom granted
them the right of returning to their natal fold, but often at the expense of abandoning the children born in their conjugal union. IoThe
economic needs of a dotal and lineal system both created and confused ties of affection between fathers and daughters, husbands and
wives. Although the Florentine family system was governed by a
patrilineal ideology, family life itself was characterizedby tensions
between economic and affective relations.
Moreover, Florentine demographic patterns fostered a tangle of
family relationships that often made kinship temporary and somewhat vague. Late marriages for men, around age thirty-two for a
first marriage, coupled with a relatively low life expectancy, trun-
cated the conjugal experience for many Florentine males. Although
women married at the much younger age of about sixteen to eighteen, the high incidence of death in childbirth commonly shortened
the length of their naturaland married lives. Patricianwomen under
about age forty who survived childbirth and who outlived their husbands frequently remarried. These second or even third marriages
created a new set of alliances that further served their natal families'
purposes and that further confused kin relationships. II In this society of multiple marriages, where women both bound and broke patrilines, kinship was a critical yet tenuous bond.
9Diane Owen Hughes makes a similar point in connection with women's clothing
in her article "Sumptuary Law and Social Relations in Renaissance Italy," 69-99 in Disputes and Settlements:Law and Human Relations in the West, ed. John Bossy (Cambridge,
I983).
Women, 117-31.
'Klapisch-Zuber,
"Ibid., 120-21; Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber, Tuscans, 202-31.
REMEMBERING
THE FAMILY
639
Given these competing family claims, my first objective in this
essay is to explore what commemorative patterns reveal about gender-based experiences of kinship, including conflicts in family allegiances and affiliations. In particular, I want to focus on women's
response to their splintered social identity as part of two or even
three families by comparing their commemorative patterns with
those of their fathers, brothers, and husbands. To what extent did
women's visions of the family they remembered correspond to the
family pictures of their male kinsmen? Second, I want to explore the
problem of family structure and sentiment from a different perspective by examining how commemorative masses to some extent resolved conflicts in family relationships. What I hope to suggest in the
course of the essay is not a single historical model of the Florentine
family but rather multiple, complex representations that describe
the actual and idealized human relations of both women and men.
In one important sense, the commemorative habits of Florentine
men and women were remarkably similar. From a numerical standpoint, the cultural imperative to honor kin through masses was experienced by and availableto both men and women in roughly equal
proportions. Between 1360 and 1500, women sponsored about half
the total number of perpetual programs established at ecclesiastical
institutions scattered throughout the city. The confraternity of San
Pier Martire, one of the oldest and wealthiest laud-singing companies in the city, for example, listed thirty-seven women and thirtysix men among its donors when the group compiled a commemorative ledger in 1423. Of the ninety programs listed in the company's
1427 Catasto report, forty-nine (54%) had been instituted by men
and forty-one (46%) by women. I2 The endowment records of the
Benedictine convent of San Pier Maggiore describe a world similarly balanced between genders. Between 1367 and 1488, twentynine women and twenty-seven men commissioned a total of fiftyfour perpetual programs at the convent.I3 This gender equation,
'IUnless otherwise noted, all manuscriptscited arehoused in the Archivio di Stato
di Firenze (hereafter ASF). See Conventi Religiosi Soppressi, 102, vol. 326. Testaments
of San Pier Martire, 1421-1423; Catasto, vol. 185, fols. 763-796v.
I3San Pier Maggiore, vol. 38 (Summary of Obligations and Charges). According to
the preface (unpaginated), this compilation was made in 1668 in order "to know the origins and foundations of all the [convent's] obligations," since some programs had to be
Monument Fact Sheet
Tomb monument to Marta Porcari
Date: after 1512
Location: S. Maria sopra Minerva, Rome. Originally located near the Tribune area
Patron: Marta Porcari provided funding for her chapel, while one of her heirs
Metello Vari contracted with Michelangelo for the Risen Christ.
Components of monument: tomb slab (lost), inscription (lost, but recorded), sculpture
of Christ by Michelangelo Buonarroti, niche for sculpture (lost, but recorded) and
an altar (lost).
Inscription:
Metello Vari and P. Paul Castellani, Romans,
Erect this Altar
According to the will of Marta Porcari
With a third part of the expenses, and dowry,
Which Metello completes from his own resources
Dedicated to God Almighty
Metellus Varus, & P. Paul Castellanus
Romani Martiae Portiae testamento
hoc altare erexerunt
cum tertia parte impensarum, et dotis,
quae Metellus de suo supplens
Deo Opt. Max. Dicavit
The inscription no longer survives, but is recorded in early guidebooks in the
16 century. In the early 20th century, one author turns “Martiae” (Martha) into
“Matthiae” (Matthew), “Metellus Verus et P. Paul. Castellanus, Romani, Matthiae
Porciae festo, hoc altare (p. 235) erexerunt, cum tertia parte impensarum et dotis
quae Metellus de suo supplens, Deo. Opt. max. dicavit” (Berthier 1910, 230, fn.1),
although by the time of Berthier’s publication, the inscription was already
removed.
th
Print after sculpture in original niche
Michelangelo’s Risen Christ. Woodcut. Le cose maravigliose dell'alma città di
Roma… Rome, Franzini 1600, 71 (Source: Bibliotheca Hertziana)
Anon. Res Historica. Descriptio Ecclesiae Santa Maria Super Minerva. [18th century]. XI.2890a. Dominican Archive, Rome. [1 page]. pp. 10-­‐11: “Il Salvatore del Bonaroti. Davanti al pilastro che divide l’Altar maggiore dalla Porticella vi é sopra un gra [sic] piedestallo, o sia base fatto tutto di marmo mischio la gran statua fatta dal Bonaroti del S.mo Salvatore quale abraccia con ambe le mani la Croce, con una canna, e corda, stromenti della sua passione, con due armi di stucco a piedi indorate, una delle quali consiste in una tore con alcune onde quella, che é a sinistra con ponesi tutta di scacchi. Al lato del piedestallo verso l’Altar Mag vi é una lapide in cui si legge = Metellus Varus, et P. Paul = Castellanus, Romani = Martiae Porciae Testo = hoc Altare erexerunt = cum tertia parte inpen = sarum, et dotis, quae Met = ellus de suo suplens = Deo. Opt. Max. Dicavit … In faccia al de[tto] piedestallo sotto li piedi del Salvatore si legge in lettere di metallo dorato. Ave Benignissime Jesu = Salvatore Mundi = Miserere mei = Sopra poi al Salvatore medemo [sic] in un mezzo cerchio che attornia [attorenica?] lo Spirito santo in forma di Colomba al di sotto si legge = Tu es Filius meus dilectus in te … In questo istello pilastro o colonna quasi in cima si cede un arme Cardinalizia in un pezzo di pietra quale consiste in due filze di stucchi in quartati con due aquile nere. Brandi, Ambrogio. Cronica Breve raccolta dal P[riore] N[ost]ro e Predicatore Fr. Ambrosio Brandi Rom[ano] della Chiesa e Convento della Minerva di Roma Dell’Ord[in]e de Predicat[or]e. Liber C. XIV. Liber C. (Due volumi). AGOP, Roma. Fol. 11v: “… et appariva questo Tempio da principio molto piú bello, che non apparisce oggi; má per l’inondazioni del Tevere fú alzato il pavimento di esso alcune braccia, come lo dimostrano le basi de Pilastri che con l’occasione di cavare nuove Sepolture si vedono sotterrate é sepolte il che dimostrano anche alcune lapidi di sepolture antiche che spesso si trovano sottoterra al piano dell’antico pavimento.” Bacci, Andrea. Del Tevere, Libro quarto…di tutte le prodigiose inondationi dal principio di Roma, insino all'anno 1530 aggiuntevi l'altre sin'a quest'ultima del 99. Rome: Stampatori camerali, 1599. [1 page]. p. 48: “Gran giuditio di Dio, che ne i luoghi più bassi, & donde le chiaviche hanno havute le bocche più aperte da sfogare, per le Chiese, in Sant’Apostolo, alla Minerva, à S. Rocco, & alla Rotonda baßissima, la forza dell’acque hanno sfondati i pavimenti, e le sepolture, e sbalzati fuora gli avelli di gravißimi marmi, & per le strade dove ha potuto scorrere, ha sfondati li condotti sotto terra, desertevi le selciate, & scorzati i mattonati, come se vi fosse stato il fuoco, è venuto infangando per tutto i pozzi e le cisterne, e le fontane per Roma, & impite specialmente le cantine, le stalle, e le stanze sotterranee, & lasciatovi un lezzo, & una creta tanto viscosa, che manco si la lascia scavare con le pale, e per sgombrarle essendo forzati a buttarle per le ripe, non è senza dubbio de’ molti, che non le restringano, e venghino à causare peggiori effetti de prima, che dio l’averta.” McClellan, Andrew. “Alexandre Lenoir and the Museum of French Monuments,” Inventing the Louvre: Art, Politics, and the Origins of the Modern Museum in Eighteenth-­‐Century Paris. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994, pp. 155-­‐157. [3 pages] McClellan, Andrew. “Alexandre Lenoir and the Museum of French Monuments,” Inventing the Louvre: Art, Politics, and the Origins of the Modern Museum in Eighteenth-­‐Century Paris. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994, pp. 155-­‐157. [3 pages] Monument Fact Sheet
Memorial for Faustina Lucia Mancini (died at the age of 24)
Date: 1544
Location: Santa Maria in Aracoeli, Cappella San Giacomo
Patron: Paolo Attavanti (husband of Faustina)
Tomb type: Marble wall tomb with epitaph plaque and sarcophagus with decorative garland relief ;
portrait bust on socle of the deceased inserted in a niche within the obelisk
Original appearance preserved in Windsor drawing (RL 11789), produced by Francesco Gualdi, which
was likely presented to Cardinal Mazarin in 1646.
Related Mancini tombs: Tomb for Lucio Mancini (in the church of Santi Apostoli, Rome 1514)
History: The scholar Elena Bianca di Gioia has most recently suggested that the original bust of Faustina
was taken down in 1670, and replaced by an idealized portrait bust of Ortenzia Mancini Mazzarino as
Faustina (now in the Museo di Roma). Faustina’s tomb was further dismantled in the 19th century,
being reused for the monument of Barbara Clarelli, making the current monument a pastiche of
sixteenth, seventeenth, and nineteenth century elements.
Little has been recorded relative to the seventeenth-century renovations of the monument but the
particulars of when Faustina’s bust was taken down from the monument are worthy of further
examination here. Moreover, the repurposing the monument’s sarcophagus within the 19th century
monument for another women opens up broader discussion relative to gender, family, historicism, and
the protracted role of women’s monuments within the commemorative landscape of Roman churches.
Francesco Gualdi,Tomb of
Faustina Lucia Mancini (RL
11789)
Tomb of Barbara Clarelli.
1870. Santa Maria in Aracoeli.
THE ALBUM OF DRAWINGS RCIN 970334
IN THE ROYAL LIBRARY AT WINDSOR CASTLE
INTRODUCTION
I. T e s t i m o n y
o f a c u l t u r a l ph a s e a n d s o u r c e f o r
LOST MONUMENTS: THE COLLECTION OF DRAWINGS OF
TOMBS IN W i n d s o r
Rome is recognized as one o f the main centres fo r the
funerary art o f every age. There are two main reasons for
this: first, the peculiar conditions that have concurred to
conserving the heritage o f Roman funerary sculpture; and
second, the 7nille7iarian force o f attraction exe7'ted by a city
in which, over the ce7ituries, 7iiany illust7ious 77ien, who
had moved thither or were te77iporarily resident there, met
their death. In the post-classical period the city’s particu
lar sociopolitical character, and especially the nature o f
the elective monarchy o f the papacy, ensured that the rul
ing dites that succeeded each other in holding the reins o f
power were renewed with unexampled frequency and
rapidity. Each new holder o f power wished to leave a
magnificent memorial o f himself in stone, thus contribut
ing to the stratification o f a heritage o f extraordinary rich
ness (fig- 1), which long constituted an indispensable
model fo r funerary art throughout Europe. So it is clear
that the documentary culture that revolves round this her
itage, and that has left a testimony o f it in the form o f
drawings and prints, should also be considered with the
greatest attention.
The volume R C IN 970334 in the Royal Eibrary at
Windsor Castle, with the title Tombs o f Illustrious Ital
ians at Rome, contains ahriost exclusively drawings o f
to77ib slabs and funerary monuments in Rome. The draw
ings are the wo7~k o f various artists and are executed in
various t e c h n i q u e s . T h e volu7ue e7ite7"ed the English
royal collections in 1762, together with drawings and
prints from the Albani library, where it had been preserved
at least since 1 736.-'' Ever since its arrival in England —
i f not even earlier — the volume was commonly consid
ered one o f the albums o f drawings that make up the
Museo Cartaceo, the ‘p aper 77iuseum’, o f Cassiano dal
Pozzo.
The first scholar to reject the alleged link between the
Windsor album and the famous collector and patron o f
archaeological and scientific studies was Ingo Herklotz in
I9 9 2 N Herklotz proposed instead to establish a connec
tion between the Windsor sylloge and a group o f Vatican
codices, first attributed by Eorcella to the antiquary and
collector Erancesco Gualdi, in luhich the same script used
in the m arginalia o f many drawings in the volume R C IN
970334 is frequently encountered. This attribution needs,
however, to be more precisely defined, on the basis o f the
fact that the compilation o f these codices should be ascribed
in the main not to Gualdi himself but to a close collabora
tor, hitherto little known, Costantino Gigli. So a decisive.
36
though not (as we shall see) exclusive role should be
attributed to Gigli also in the genesis o f the Windsor syl
loge.
The volume in the Royal Library is quite unique in the
context o f the antiquarian interests and documentation
campaigns in the first h a lf o f the seventeenth century. It
testifies to the vigour and variety o f the antiquaiian and
archaeological erudition that characterized cultivated cir
cles in Rome during this period. The collection falls out
side the more widespi'ead interests in classical and Christ
ian antiquities during this period, whose major legacies
were Cassiano’s Museo C artaceo’’* and Antonio’s Bosio’s
Roma sotterranea.'"* It focuses attention, instead, on fa r
more recent periods, as late as the second h a lf o f the
Cinquecento, represented by a large number o f wall-mon
uments, and especially on the last centuries o f the Middle
Ages.
In its preference fo r tombs dating between the thirteenth
and fifteenth century, the Windsor album represents,
indeed, a significant testimony o f the reviving interest in
the medieval period in seventeenth-century Rome. It can
be compared, in this sense, with Erancesco Gualdi’s trea
tise Delle m em orie sepolcrali, to whose realization Gigli
himself contributed, as we shall see later.
The other main source o f interest in the Royal Library
codex consists in the fact that a good number ofi the cnonuments illustrated in its drawings have since been lost,
while o f others only fragments have been preserved,
recomposed or completed more or less freely; some tombs
have been shorn ofi parts not considered essential, while
others have even been 7'e-used fo r purposes other than
those fo r which they were originally intended.'^'' So the vol
ume is not only the historiographical dociwient o f a cul
tural phase, but also enriches our knowledge o f a genre o f
art that is exceptionally well-represented and fi)reserved in
Rome, and permits us (though with the caution due to fre
quent imp7'ecisions) to reconstruct the original appearance
o f 77ionu7nents that are now mutilated.^''
II. C h a r a c te r is tic s o f t h e c o l l e c t i o n
The album is bound in h a lf calf in an English
book-binding o f the later eighteenth century (440x300
mm), with brown leather backstrip gilt-ruled with raised
bands, English title (Tombs o f Illustrious Italians at
Rome) gilt-lettered in the second compa7iment,^^ marbled
paper sides, leather corners (fig. 2).
The drawings are mounted on paper passepartouts,
measuring on average 438x285 mm. Variable in size, the
drawings were in many cases cropped at the time they were
V. Pa pe r Pa n t h e o n s : d r a w i n g s
THE m o d e r n pe r i o d
a n d pr i n t s o f t o m b s i n
Throughout the ages, and fo r many reasons, tombs have
aroused great interest among the living, who have hon
oured, and sometimes venerated, them for the remains they
enclosed, or investigated them fo r the information trans
mitted by their epitaphs, or simply admired them fo r their
beauty. It was not until the period o f Humanism, howev
er, that a tradition o f studying funerary monuments —
their iconography, their epigraphy — developed. It was
only then that humanists, or the artists working fo r them,
began to copy them in prints and drawings, and to repro
duce ancient burials, from simple cinerary urns to mausolea. It was not until the second h a lf o f the Cinquecento,
however, that this tradition extended its field o f investiga
tion to more recent periods.
The first field in which we would expect to fin d testi
monies o f an interest in tombs is obviously that o f family
m em oria; not only due to the natural devotion to one’s
own ancestors or an interest in reconstructing the history
o f one’s own family — at least since genealogies began to
trace a fam ily’s origins back to real and no longer leg
endary epochs^'^^^ —, but also due to the fact that, as is
repeatedly underlined in the jurisprudence o f the period,
coats o f arms, sepulchres and epitaphs were also legal doc
uments and able to prove a fam ily’s particular rights,
beginning with the ius patronatus over a chapel.^^^^
Attention, in this regard, was generally focused on the
inscriptions alone, ignoring the figurative components, as
is eloquently shown by a letter o f Antonio Dal Pozzo to his
son Cassiano on 20 April 1614: “I wish you to inquire
about the church in which Cardinal Puteo and the Arch
bishop o f Bari Pozzo, who was the cousin o f the said car
dinal, were buried. I think both are buried in [Santa
Maria sopra] Minerva. See i f there is an epitaph o f the
one or the other and send me a copy o f anything you find,
advising me in what chapel and in what part o f the
church they are buried; because o f all the dead o f our
House in Piedmont I have been able to discover the
churches [in which they are buried], the epitaphs, the days
o f their death, and have digested them into a book that
will serve for our descendents”.^'^^’'
Cases however are not lacking in which family m em o
ria registered not only the epitaphs, but also the visual
appearance o f family tombs: a fine example o f this is the
dossier compiled by a nobleman o f Rieti, Francesco
Crispolti, to prove his eligibility to be admitted to the Hos
pitaller Order o f St. John o f Jerusalem (Knights o f
Malta): a dossier that also includes representations o f
tomb slabs and monuments in demonstration o f the antiq
uity and prestige o f his family (fig.
We may also
cite the drawings o f Pisan tomb slabs made by one o f the
main exponents o f sacred erudition in the Rome o f the
Barberini, the abate Costantino Gaetani, who was inter
ested not least in the sepulchres o f his (supposed) ancestors
ffig. 16). Although o f mediocre quality, the drawings o f
this ecclesiastic are significant examples o f the freedom
with which tomb slabs o f this type were reproduced, extrap
olating the figure o f the deceased from its funerary con
text: the figure, in this case, is shown not recumbent but
standing, with his feet resting on an invented floor.
Yet
this freedom is conspicuously absent in the Windsor codex,
in which the tomb slabs are reproduced in the main admit
tedly with their proportions altered and some elements
deformed, but invariably in their entirety and respecting
the rectangular format o f their tomb type.
The mention o f the abate Gaetani introduces us to the
vast field o f ecclesiastical historiography and erudition in
which great attention was paid to medieval figurative tes
timonies, albeit to a fa r lesser degree than to the monu
ments o f the Early Christian period, to which greater
attention was drawn not only fo r purely antiquarian
motives but also by virtue o f their possible apologetic use
in the ongoing conflict with Protestants. So, i f the burials
o f the first Christians fou n d a great investigator in Anto
nio Bosio, who reproduced them with some degree o f fideli
ty and commented on them in his pioneering study o f
Roman catacombs, published three years after his death,
the folio Roma sotterranea (1632), the tombs o f medieval
popes were especially studied by those interested in recover
ing the verae effigies o f the popes o f previous centuries.
In the reproduction o f these tombs, consequently, prefer
ence was often shown fo r reproducing only the papal por
trait”, ignoring all the rest; or, i f the deceased were repro
duced in his entirely, he was extrapolated from his
funerary context and converted from a funerary effigy into
a living person, in the manner o f Gaetani.
It is clear
that in this approach — and in that ascertainable in other
cases, in which the tombs o f sovereigns or humanists were
being taken into consideration — the status and historical
importance o f the deceased counted fo r much. The same
cannot be said o f the Windsor album, in which the status
o f the deceased does not seem to be o f paramount impor
tance: though it comprises representations o f many tombs
o f popes and important cardinals, it also contains those o f
many obscure persons. So the album as a whole cannot be
placed in the tradition o f the study o f viri illustres, in
which the English title o f the album. Tombs of Illustrious
Italians, would like to situate it.
Iconographic interests, like those described above, were
often combined with other types o f curiosity, such as that
in the various kinds o f historical costumes, or suits o f
armour, weapons and accessories represented on tombs.
Evidence o f a more purely antiquarian interest can be
fo un d in the texts o f the Vatican archivist Giacomo
Grimaldi’s Instrum enta autentica (1 6 1 9 -1 6 2 0 ) and
also — in the field o f the historiography o f may institu
tions — in the work o f Felice Contelori.
We need how
ever to point out that, apart from motivations linked to
interests o f historical, genealogical and antiquarian type,
there was another strong incentive that prompted men o f
learning o f the period to take into consideration the sepul
chres o f the past and to register their appearance, namely,
the acknowledgement that many o f them had been
destroyed or ran the risk o f being lost. The implementation
o f provisions on funerary monuments issued by some popes
in the period o f the Council o f Trent and the consequent
“deplorabile strage d ’iscrizioni, di urne, di m arm i”'"^®)
undoubtedly represented an important spur fo r this grow-
47
ing consciousness; and the wholesale demolitions that
accompanied the wave o f the modernization or remodel
ling o f churches in baroque Rome helped to keep it alive
in the following decadesd"''^^ The documentary culture,
which grew with particular vigour in Rome in the aftermath o f the study o f antiquity, and received a decisive
impulse with the traumatic event o f the demolition o f the
old St. Peter’s,
therefore included among the privileged
objects o f its attention funerary monuments and tomb
slabs. The M em orie sepolcrali o f the cavalier Gualdi,
and not least the Windsor album itself were one o f the
principal testimonies o f this new interest. This tradition
was continued in the first decades o f the following century
by the eru d it Francesco Valesio, indefatigable explorer o f
the churches o f Rome (figs. 17 and
and culminat
ed, at the start o f the nineteenth century, in the campaign
o f documentation ordered by the antiquarian and natural
ist Auhin-Louis M illin during his period o f residence in
Rome ffig. cat. 187a).
The consideration, in which the tombs o f the past in
Rome were held, torn between interests o f various kinds
and insensibility to the need to preserve them fo r posterity,
can be placed in a wider perspective, comprising the rest
o f the peninsula and various regions o f Europe. Here too
different approaches can he identified. Historical or
genealogical interest in tomb sculptures thus led the histo
rians o f the House o f Savoy to pay attention to the sepul
chres o f the dynasty.
It also inspired the monumental
campaign o f reproduction conducted in Flanders by the
painter Antoine de Succa, commissioned to “faire la
recherche des genealogies effigionaires des princes et
princesses” who had held power in the region in the
past.^'^-’' Comparable, instead, to Gualdi’s M em orie
sepolcrali and the Windsor album in terms o f the spirit o f
conservation that inspired it, in the face o f an unstoppable
wave o f destruction, is the Sepoltuario fiorentino com
posed by Stefano Rosselli around 1657: a manuscript
corpus o f Florentine tombs, illustrated with schematic
reproductions o f them.^'"’'^'’
In French medieval studies, funerary sculpture drew the
attention o f more than one erudit, in an intextricable
intertwining between historical interests proper and anti
quarian curiosity that is not always possible, or justifiable,
to separate.
In his insatiable curiosity fo r every aspect
o f nature, history and art, the great Nicolas-Claude Fabri
de Peiresc (15 80-1637), astronomer, student o f fossils
and flora, collector o f antiquities, polymath, commissioned
many drawings o f the tombs o f French kings and noble
men, at least in part gathered with the intention — never
realized — o f publishing a collection o/M onum ens de la
m onarchie frangoise, o f the kind that Montfaucon would
send to the press over a century later.^'"~^'> Even more signif
icant than the drawings, however, is the instruction that
de Peiresc sent to a painter by the name o f Thomas, com
missioned to design the tomb o f Ogier and Benoit in Saint
Faron at Meaux: the two points on which de Peiresc most
insisted were: first, the absolutely faithful rendering o f
each o f the figures sculpted in the tomb, with all their
“deformities”, and without succumbing to the temptation
to adjust them to contemporary taste or contemporary rep
48
resentative practice; and second, the scrupulous reproduc
tion o f costumes and footwear, urged with a vehemence
that is a clear indication o f an approach o f antiquarian
type on the part o f Peiresc, who was also interested in
changing fashions o f dress over the centuries.
Several decades after the death o f the Provengal erudit,
French medieval tombs found another great and indefatiga
ble investigator in the aristocratic Roger de Gaignieres
(1642-1715), who, apart from collecting manuscripts,
works o f art and memorabilia o f the Middle Ages, promoted
the realization o f a “paper museum” o f limitless extent,
totally focused on the Middle Ages, in which the lion’s share
was taken by thousands o f reproductions o f funerary monu
ments and tomb slabs. This was o f enormous importance,
given that a large part o f them have since been lost.
To see tombs o f the medieval period not only drawn, but
also translated into copperplate prints and published, we
need to await another h a lf century or so until the arrival
o f the Age o f the Enlightenment, and the publication, in
1729, o / the M onum ens de la m onarchie frangoise o f
Bernard de Montfaucon ( 1 6 5 5 - 1 7 4 1 The quality o f
many o f the engravings o f tombs in this corpus, and their
resemblance to the originals, is variable, but in general
the images are accurate, although — in contrast to Gaig
nieres — the tombs are not always reproduced in their
entirety; a preference is sometimes shown for extrapolating
the figures o f the deceased alone (in ways we have already
seen in other cases).
In the British Isles, too, a lively and variegated interest
in historic tombs began to be expressed in the seventeenth
century. Apart from many printed books on churches and
monasteries that in many cases include engravings o f
funerary monuments,
we should cite, in this regard, the
extremely rich manuscript repertoire assembled by the gen
tleman antiquary Thomas Dingley (f 1695) in the second
half o f the seventeenth century. With the explicit aim of
deriving a History from Marble, Dingley transcribed
inscriptions and drew coats o f arms, seals and tombs in
many counties in England, which he then annotated pro
fusely.
He was motivated by a strong sense o f indignation
about the wretched state o f ancient tombs, spoliated o f their
most precious materials and constantly under threat from
the “sordid opinion in some people that Tombs and M onu
ments, with Epitaphs, relish o f Romish Superstition and
Popery”.^^^^ Ireland can also he included in this rapid sur
vey in the form o f the mid seventeenth-century M onumenta Eblanae, which consists o f a collection o f representations
o f tombs in Dublin. Due to the difficulties posed by its inter
pretation, it can be compared with the Windsor sylloge.^^"^^
Within this wider European survey o f repertoires o f
tombs and funerary monuments a unique place is occu
pied by the M onum enta sepulcrorum published for the
first time at Breslau in 1574 and consisting o f 125
engraved plates depicting tomb slabs, monuments and
inscriptions. The plates were produced by the engraver
Tobias Fendt. The collection, whose huge success through
out Europe is testified by the numerous editions published,
under slightly varied titles, between the last decades o f the
sixteenth and the end o f the following century, was for
long the only printed sylloge o f reproductions o f tombs.
ARNOLFO 076-101 2-11-2005 12:47 Pagina 91
Francesco Gualdi e gli arredi scultorei
nelle chiese romane
Fabrizio Federici
Il collezionista di origini riminesi Francesco Gualdi
(1574 circa - 1657) fu senza dubbio il testimone più
attento e allarmato della rimozione degli arredi
scultorei di molte chiese di Roma nel corso della
prima metà del Seicento, a seguito dei restauri, dei
rifacimenti radicali e delle demolizioni che interessarono l’edilizia sacra cittadina in quell’epoca. Alla
base dell’impresa più vasta e significativa del cavalier Gualdi, l’inedito trattato Delle memorie sepolcrali, ci
fu proprio la volontà di documentare la ricchezza
del patrimonio di lastre tombali figurate tre-quattrocentesche custodito nelle chiese romane, nella
piena consapevolezza del suo interesse dal punto di
vista storico-genealogico e antiquario e del fatto
che le lastre per prime, in virtù della loro facile amovibilità e della scarsa considerazione in cui erano tenute, correvano il rischio di andare distrutte. E a riprova della vastità del perduto in questo ambito e
dell’importanza documentaria del trattato, basti
considerare che sono scomparse oltre la metà delle
novantasei tombe riprodotte nelle xilografie che
dovevano illustrare l’opera1.
Già alla fine degli anni venti del Seicento Gualdi
mostrò un particolare interesse nei confronti della
scultura sepolcrale di età medievale. Fra le tavole da
lui fatte eseguire per l’edizione del 1630 delle Vitae
Pontificum di Alonso Chacon (Ciacconius), raffiguranti monumenti sepolcrali, monete e medaglie di
diversi papi, da Onorio III a Urbano VIII, spicca l’incisione che riproduce il sepolcro di Onorio IV e di
sua madre Giovanna Savelli Aldobrandeschi nella
chiesa di Santa Maria in Araceli (fig. 1), sormontato
dal baldacchino originale, oggi scomparso e sostituito da una copertura settecentesca2; mentre per
un’ulteriore riedizione delle Vitae, cui si lavorava nei
primi anni trenta, il cavalier Gualdi commissionò
una tavola che riuniva, in una maestosa abside, diverse effigi di Bonifacio VIII (fig. 2), tra cui il monumento funebre di Arnolfo, privo del mosaico torritiano che in origine lo sovrastava. Tuttavia fu solo
nel 1677 che venne pubblicata una terza edizione di
Chacon, nella quale fu inclusa anche la tavola dedicata a papa Caetani, mancante però di ogni riferimento a Gualdi, scomparso ormai da vent’anni3.
In numerosi punti delle Memorie sepolcrali – la cui stesura, a opera di Gualdi, dello storico Costantino Gigli e degli antiquari Gauges de’ Gozze e Ottavio
Tronsarelli, è da situare nei primi anni quaranta del
secolo4 – si deplorano le continue distruzioni di antiche “memorie”; nella prima versione dell’avviso Al
lettore, in particolare, è posto sotto accusa il meccanismo che, nella gran parte dei casi, provocava la
scomparsa delle lastre terragne:
“Simili disordini irreparabili vengono cagionati in
gran parte da una certa dannosa introduttione di dar
a cottimo, cioè ad opera finita, alcuni edifici; ma
pensando noi a’ successi accaduti a’ nostri giorni degli antichi tempij demoliti, ed altri istaurati, per la
conventione solita farsi da’ deputati poco intendenti, e meno caritativi in conceder a conto di pagamento al capo maestro muratore le rovine degli ammassati marmi, co’ quali ci hanno comprese anchora centinaia delle nostre antiche lapidi sepolcrali; e
con simili altri modi, e patti giornalmente vien deteriorata la veneranda antichità ecclesiastica”5.
In altri passi del trattato si suggerisce l’adozione di
provvedimenti legislativi tesi a fermare tali “disordini irreparabili”; parlando, ad esempio, della quattrocentesca lastra di Maria Cenci, già in Sant’Agostino
e ora al Museo di Roma (fig. 3), Gualdi afferma con
forza:
“È cosa certamente degna di provedimento, e di rimedio l’abuso introdotto d’alterare le capelle, e rimuover le lapidi sepolcrali, che si pongono a’ defonti in loro perpetua memoria [...]. Pure hoggi il simile
vedesi esser seguito del marmo sepolcrale di Maria
de’ Cenci alla gotica lavorato, che non era più dentro
LA SCULTURA TARDOMEDIEVALE, O DELL’UBIQUITÀ PERDUTA
91
ARNOLFO 076-101 2-11-2005 12:47 Pagina 92
1. Incisione raffigurante
il sepolcro di Onorio IV
e di Giovanna Savelli
Aldobrandeschi
(da Chacon 1677)
4. Xilografia
che raffigura la lastra
tombale di Munio di
Zamora in Santa Sabina
(Savignano sul
Rubicone, Biblioteca
della Rubiconia
Accademia dei
Filopatridi, sala I,
scansia III, palchetto
VI, ms. n. 47, f. [83r])
2. Tavola che riunisce
diverse sculture
raffiguranti Bonifacio VIII
(da Chacon 1677).
la cappella da lei fabricata, e dotata come dalla medesima inscrittione si può comprendere, e stava non
so come questa pietra nel mezzo del pavimento della
detta chiesa, e la capella non vi si vede più, né punta
di essa notitia alcuna si ritrova, come se non fosse mai
stata eretta, e pure è vecchia, e nobile famiglia […]”6.
Il nobiluomo riminese, peraltro, non si limitò a invocare l’intervento delle autorità nelle pagine del suo
trattato, ma agì in modo tale da riuscire ad ottenerlo;
è indubitabile, infatti, che si debba scorgere la sua influenza alla base di un singolarissimo editto del cardinale di Sant’Onofrio Antonio Barberini, del 2 ottobre
1640, che proibiva la rimozione dalle chiese di “memorie, inscrittioni, e lapidi”7; e se sicuramente il provvedimento ebbe un’efficacia pressoché nulla (eccezion fatta, forse, per gli anni immediatamente successivi alla sua emanazione), esso in ogni caso rappresenta la testimonianza più emblematica di come la multiforme azione in difesa del “patrimonio” condotta da
un colto esponente della piccola nobiltà riuscisse a incidere sulla politica di tutela nella Roma barberiniana.
Nonostante la gran parte delle notizie trasmesseci dalle Memorie sepolcrali sia relativa, conformemente alla tematica del trattato, a epitaffi e lastre terragne del Tre92
presenti su questa e su altre testimonianze della produzione artistica romana degli ultimi anni del Duecento:
3. Xilografia
che riproduce la lastra
tombale di Maria Cenci
già in Sant’Agostino
(Savignano sul
Rubicone, Biblioteca
della Rubiconia
Accademia dei
Filopatridi, sala I,
scansia III, palchetto
VI, ms. n. 47, f. [37r])
cento e del Quattrocento, non mancano passaggi su
opere d’arte d’altro genere – affreschi, tavole, sculture
– e più antiche. È il caso di un brano relativo a uno
scomparso ciborio duecentesco, su cui vorrei soffermarmi, a mostrare il contributo che le Memorie possono offrire a un’indagine sulle “assenze” e per fornire nel
contempo alcuni esempi dell’attenzione rivolta da autori seicenteschi a questa tipologia di arredo sacro.
All’interno del capitolo dedicato alle memorie della
famiglia Capizucchi – uno dei pochi di cui il cavaliere riuscì a far eseguire, nel 1653-1654, delle prove
di stampa, conservate alla Biblioteca Casanatense8 –
spicca un interessante passaggio su una perduta opera del tardo Duecento romano, il ciborio di Santa
Maria in Campitelli, del quale già all’epoca di Gualdi non sopravviveva che una sola facciata, presumibilmente murata in una parete del presbiterio della
chiesa. Se la menzione del “tabernacolo grande” è
giustificata dalla sua natura di testimonianza dell’antichità e della devozione della nobile famiglia, il discorso prende immediatamente una piega “storico-artistica”, concentrandosi sull’iscrizione con la firma di
“Magister Deodatus” e sulla datazione dell’opera:
“Ma vestigij di memoria più antica si scorgono nell’istessa chiesa, in un ciborio, o tabernacolo grande,
di fattura gothica, già isolato; del quale hoggi si vede solamente la facciata principale; dove sotto la finestrella delle reliquie, son poste due armi di questa
famiglia fatte di musaico; cioè, una fascia d’oro per
isghembo in campo azzurro; col nome dell’artefice
di quell’opera, espresso con queste parole: Magister
Deodatus fecit hoc opus. Dal qual nome si riconosce il
tempo, in cui fu fatta quella machina: percioché
Deodato sopradetto lavorava verso gli anni
MCCXC essendo esso stato figliuolo di maestro
Cosimo, o Cosmato, come appariva da una memoria posta già nella chiesa vecchia di San Iacomo in
Settignana, per testimonianza di veduta dell’abbate
don Costantino Gaetano, con queste parole: Deodatus filius Cosmati et Jacobus fecerunt hoc opus e può essere
che Iacomo fusse il Torrita, il quale fece in quel tempo la tribuna di Santa Maria Maggiore, e vi lasciò il
suo nome. Ma Cosmato, padre di Deodato, fece la
cappella del Sancta Sanctorum nel Laterano, fatta
rifare da Niccolò III della famiglia Orsina, creato
pontefice l’anno MCCLXXVII”9.
Come chiarito da una nota a margine, l’opera di
Gaetani cui si fa riferimento è l’edizione della Vita di
papa Gelasio II di Pandolfo Pisano, pubblicata nel
163810; nel commento dell’abate notevole attenzione è dedicata, sulla scorta di quanto era avvenuto
per papi più recenti nella seconda edizione delle Vitae Pontificum di Ciaccone (1630), al mecenatismo di
Gelasio e ai suoi interventi in Santa Maria in Cosmedin, in San Bartolomeo e al Laterano. Per quanto riguarda la prima chiesa, l’attenzione si appunta
anche in questo caso sul ciborio, opera di un “non
contemnendus artifex” che alcuni, sulla base degli
stemmi posti su di essa, volevano commissionata da
Gelasio II e che l’autore giustamente riferisce al
pontificato di un altro papa Caetani, Bonifacio VIII.
A questa conclusione l’abate perviene non attraverso un’analisi stilistica, a quest’altezza cronologica
ancora rarissima per le opere medievali11, ma incrociando le informazioni fornitegli dalle iscrizioni
“Decipiuntur autem nonnulli, qui ciborium super illud altare non contemnendi artifiicis [sic] opus, asserunt Gelasij iussu factum fuisse. Nam inscriptio,
quae in eodem ciborio legitur: ‘Deodatus me fecit’,
non Gelasij II sed Bonifatij VIII tempore, ciborium
illud factum docet: sub huius enim, non illius pontificatu, Deodatus vixit; ut non solum ex alijs eiusdem
operibus, sedente Bonifacio, in Urbe factis apparet,
sed ex patre illius Cosmato, qui Nicolai III pontificatu floruit. Ita enim legitur in Oratorio Lateranensi, quod dicitur Sancta Sanctorum, quodque Cosmatus a fundamentis extruxit: ‘Magister Cosmatus
fecit hoc Opus’. Filium vero Cosmati fuisse Deodatum, antiqua inscriptio in Ecclesia Sancti Iacobi,
iuxta portam vulgo Septimianam, in haec verba docet: ‘Deodatus filius Cosmati, et Iacobus fecerunt
hoc Opus’”12.
Dunque il passo delle Memorie sepolcrali riportato più
sopra riprende da questo di Gaetani non solo la citazione dell’iscrizione in San Giacomo a porta Settimiana, ma anche l’accenno all’attività – databile
con certezza – di Cosmato al Laterano; ciò che è
nuovo nel testo di Gualdi è il riferimento a Jacopo
Torriti. Non si tratta dell’unica menzione del grande mosaicista nelle Memorie; a lui è infatti attribuita
la lastra tombale lavorata a mosaico di Munio di Zamora in Santa Sabina, che è riprodotta in una delle
xilografie del trattato più singolari e, nel complesso,
meno aderenti all’aspetto dell’originale (fig. 4).
Gualdi ha parole di elogio per Torriti:
“Fra’ Menio o Mugnone zamorrese di natione spagnuolo come attesta l’inscrittione sudetta, per il suo
valore, e bontà meritò d’essere il settimo maestro
generale della sua religione de’ Predicatori, ed essendo morto nell’anno 1300 sotto il ponteficato di
Bonifatio VIII, Giacomo Torritio valente artefice di
que’ tempi nelle opere di musaico con disegno gotico, lo effigiò in pietra sepolcrale nel pavimento di
Santa Sabina; come fece ancora del sudetto pontefice nella Cappella di San Bonifatio da lui eretta nella Basilica Vaticana, hoggi demolita per cagione della fabrica del maraviglioso tempio di San Pietro, e
lavorò parimente la tribuna di Santa Maria Maggiore, con quella di San Giovanni Laterano, in un fregio della quale effigiò se stesso con altri frati francescani, che fin’ad hoggi si conserva”13,
ma poco dopo torna a farsi sentire, in una veste pungente e ironica, la consueta condanna seicentesca
per l’arte “rozza” del medioevo: “Il lavoro del sepol-
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ARNOLFO 076-101 2-11-2005 12:47 Pagina 94
epoca fra le opere anonime e i nomi degli artisti a
noi noti: tuttavia l’ipotesi di Gualdi è significativa di
una volontà di definire le identità dei principali artisti medievali e di metterle in rapporto tra di loro,
come aveva fatto l’abate Gaetani, al fine di fare chiarezza su un’epoca ancora oscura.
Tornando al ciborio di Santa Maria in Campitelli,
bisogna aggiungere che, alcuni anni dopo la morte
di Gualdi (1657), lo storico Vincenzo Armanni riprese in un’opera sulla famiglia Capizucchi il passo
delle Memorie sepolcrali relativo al tabernacolo; o, per
meglio dire, quasi lo copiò, se si eccettua la scomparsa del riferimento a Torriti e la trasformazione di
“Deodatus” in “Adeodatus”16. Quindi, nel 1680, lo
stesso Armanni ripubblicò la “sua” trattazione del
ciborio, aggiornandola sulla base delle più recenti
vicende edilizie della chiesa; è così possibile ripercorrere in tutto il suo sviluppo la progressiva distruzione dell’opera, dalla riduzione a una sola “facciata” all’espunzione dallo spazio sacro dei frammenti
superstiti, il cui passaggio dalla visibilità e dalla memoria pubblica alla dimensione privata e familiare fu
il preludio alla loro completa dispersione:
5. Incisione raffigurante
il perduto ciborio
di Santa Maria
in Campitelli
(da Ciampini 1690)
cro è di maniera gotica, come anche la figura del padre Munio è rozzamente condotta, et accompagna
assai l’infelicità del sepolto”14 (che fu rimosso da diversi incarichi).
Agli occhi di Gualdi e dei suoi contemporanei, Torriti era una delle poche figure dell’arte romana medievale di cui si sapeva e si poteva dire qualcosa; al
di là delle notizie vasariane, cui non pare si prestasse granché attenzione, era sulla base delle firme di
Jacopo in Santa Maria Maggiore, in San Giovanni in
Laterano e nel mosaico della tomba di Bonifacio
VIII che si cercava di ricostruire la sua figura, all’occorrenza tentando pure, come nel caso della lastra
di Munio, di ampliare il suo corpus, qualora la tecnica impiegata e il dato cronologico autorizzassero
l’operazione15.
L’erroneo riferimento a Torriti nel passo sul ciborio
di Santa Maria in Campitelli può contrariare, per
quell’associazione azzardata fra il nome tanto diffuso di Jacobus e quello dell’artista, che ricorda certi
forzati collegamenti operati ancora nella nostra
94
“Nella chiesa di Santa Maria in Campitelli (nel cui
rione questa famiglia trovasi havere habitato per
molti secoli), fu dai signori Capizucchi fatto fare un
tabernacolo grande di fattura gottica, isolato, e di
quattro facciate, che, nella prima rinovazione della
fabrica di detta chiesa quasi disfatto, restò sino alla
seconda rinovazione, seguita nel ponteficato di
Alessandro VII con la facciata principale, dove sotto la fenestrella delle reliquie erano poste quattro armi della famiglia Capizucchi fatte di musaico, cioè
una banda d’oro in campo azzurro posta per
isghembo in quattro targhe. E v’era espresso il nome
dell’artefice con queste parole ‘Magister Adeodatus
fecit hoc opus’. E da costui si fa congettura del tempo, quando fu fatta quella machina, essendo che egli
vivesse intorno al 1290, figliuolo di maestro Cosimo, o Cosmato: il che si fa evidente da una memoria posta già nella chiesa vecchia di San Giacomo in
Settimiana, veduta anche, e testimoniata dall’abbate
Costantino Gaetano scrittore di molta erudizione,
nella vita di papa Gelasio Secondo, la quale dice:
‘Deodatus Filius Cosmati, & Iacobus fecerunt hoc
opus’, e questo Cosmato fece la cappella del Sancta
Sanctorum nel Laterano restaurata da Nicola Terzo
della famiglia Orsina, che fu eletto in Pontefice l’anno 1271. Da che si raccoglie, che Adeodato figlio di
Cosmato vivesse circa l’anno 1290 nel qual tempo
fosse fatto quel tabernacolo. Nell’ultima rinovazione della detta chiesa fu detto tabernacolo totalmente disfatto, restando i fragmenti di quello appresso i
signori Capizucchi, come anche la figura presa dall’originale”17.
E fu probabilmente da questa “figura presa dall’originale” che Giovanni Ciampini trasse l’incisione del
ciborio (fig. 5) inserita nei suoi Vetera Monimenta,
pubblicati dieci anni dopo il Ragguaglio di Armanni18; nel frattempo (1685) fu posta nella chiesa di
Santa Maria in Campitelli – dove ancora oggi si trova – un’iscrizione che descriveva il “quadratum ta-
bernaculum” e ne ricordava l’artefice: se, evidentemente, la conservazione fisica del monumento non
interessò più di tanto, ciò che premeva, in primo
luogo ai Capizucchi, era “sui memoriam ad posteros
[...] transmittere”, tramandare il ricordo di una prova
tangibile dell’antichità e del prestigio di questa nobile casata19.
Desidero ringraziare il professor Bruno Toscano per la sua
disponibilità e per avermi proposto di partecipare al catalogo
con questo contributo; ringrazio inoltre, per il prezioso aiuto, Giovanna Capitelli, Beatrice Cirulli e Paola Picardi.
fatto molte memorie, inscrittioni, e lapidi […]. Con il presente
publico editto ordiniamo, e comandiamo a tutti [i] superiori delle chiese, tanto secolari, quanto regolari, che per l’avvenire non
ardischino di muovere né far muovere quelle che hoggi vi sono,
sotto qualsivoglia pretesto […]”.
8
Roma, Biblioteca Casanatense, ms. 1327, ff. 134r-139r.
9
Ivi, f. 136r. Sul ciborio cfr. Claussen 1987, pp. 214-216.
10
Pisano 1638. Su Gaetani, figura di spicco dell’erudizione sacra
romana della prima metà del Seicento, cfr. Ceresa 1998.
11
Fanno eccezione le acute e ben note riflessioni di Giulio Mancini sullo sviluppo della pittura medievale romana, in Marucchi,
Salerno 1956; su Mancini e l’arte medievale cfr. Previtali 1964,
pp. 44-47.
12
Pisano 1638, p. 51.
13
BAV, Cod. Vat. Lat. 8252, p. III, f. 572r.
14
BAV, Cod. Vat. Lat. 8252, p. III, ff. 572v-573r. Per la tomba di
Munio cfr. Garms, Juffinger, Ward-Perkins 1981, pp. 277-278.
15
È singolare che tra Otto e Novecento il nome di Torriti come
autore della lastra in Santa Sabina sia stato riproposto da diversi studiosi, sulla base di un passo di Francesco Maria Torrigio, ripreso da Ferdinand Gregorovius: così Strzygowski 1888, p. 181,
attribuisce l’opera a Jacopo, mentre Frothingham 1885, p. 56, si
limita a sottolineare che “this assertion cannot be verified […]
but the date would correspond with the period of the artist’s stay
in Rome”; infine Davies 1910, p. 359, afferma che “the mosaic is
probably by Jacopo de Turrita, but absolute proof is wanting”.
16
Armanni 1668, pp. 14-15. Nel volume spiccano altri due “prestiti” dal trattato di Gualdi, ossia le raffigurazioni delle perdute
lastre tombali di Ludovico e Gregoria Capizucchi, che non sono altro che traduzioni calcografiche delle due xilografie fatte
realizzare dal nobiluomo riminese per le Memorie sepolcrali. Su Armanni cfr. Coldagelli 1962.
17
Armanni 1680, pp. 228-229.
18
Ciampini 1690, pp. 181-182. Per un esame dell’illustrazione di
Ciampini cfr. Claussen 1987, pp. 215-216. L’incisione conferma
quanto riportato da Armanni 1668, p. 14, e da Armanni 1680, p.
228, circa la presenza di quattro stemmi dei Capizucchi, mentre
smentisce Gualdi, che parla di “due armi di questa famiglia fatte
di musaico”.
19
Il testo dell’iscrizione è riportato in Ciampini 1690, p. 182.
1
Su Gualdi cfr. Franzoni, Tempesta 1992; sul trattato cfr. Federici 2003. Chi scrive sta svolgendo, sotto la guida del professor
Salvatore Settis, ricerche su Gualdi finalizzate alla stesura della
tesi di perfezionamento presso la Scuola Normale Superiore di
Pisa; la tesi sarà l’edizione critica delle Memorie e vedrà la luce per
i tipi delle Edizioni della Scuola Normale.
2
Ed. cons. Chacon 1677, II, coll. 251-252. Sul monumento Savelli cfr. Garms 1994, pp. 70-73, e Gardner 1992, pp. 102-104.
Sia la fig. 1 che la fig. 2 sono tratte da uno splendido esemplare
delle Vitae con tutte le incisioni colorate a mano, conservato
presso la Bibliotheca Cathariniana di Pisa (colloc. A CO8 010,
1-4).
3
Chacon 1677, II, coll. 315-316. Dell’iniziativa di Gualdi di dedicare una tavola alle sculture raffiguranti Bonifacio VIII ci informa un passo di una lettera di Andrea Vettorelli a Ferdinando
Ughelli, del 12 maggio 1631: “Il cavalier Gualdo ha raccolto diversi antichi monumenti di papa Bonifacio, et saranno con rame
intagliato rappresentati in un foglio: come le medaglie di alcuni
altri sommi pontefici” (BAV, Cod. Barb. Lat. 3244, f. 162v). Prima di essere inclusa nell’edizione delle Vitae del 1677 la tavola –
che raffigura monumenti di Anagni, Bologna, Firenze, Orvieto e
Roma e che per la sua natura di pastiche è molto vicina all’incisione relativa a Onorio III commissionata da Gualdi per l’edizione
del 1630 (cfr. Chacon 1677, II, coll. 47-48) – illustrò nel 1651 il
volume di J. Rubei (S.R. Wilfrid) Bonifacius VIII e familia Caietanorum (cfr. Rubei 1651 S. Urciuoli, in Righetti Tosti-Croce 2000,
pp. 134-135).
4
Cfr. Federici 2003, p. 149.
5
BAV, Cod. Vat. Lat. 8251, p. III, f. 541v.
6
BAV, Cod. Vat. Lat. 8252, p. II, ff. 310r-v. Sulla lastra di Maria
Cenci cfr. Garms, Juffinger, Ward-Perkins 1981, pp. 324-325.
7
Roma, Biblioteca Casanatense, PerEst. 18/6, n. 413: “Essendoci stato presupposto, che in alcune chiese, e luoghi pij contro
ogni debito di giustitia, e pietà christiana, siano state levate de
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