The Architectural Setting in the Portrait of Ugolino Martelli by Bronzino
2013; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 82; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/00233609.2012.699002
ISSN1651-2294
Autores Tópico(s)Renaissance Literature and Culture
ResumoClick to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. Previous Research: Palazzo Strozzi in Florens was host to the exhibition Bronzino. Artist and Poet at the Court of the Medici from September 2010 to January 2011. (The exhibition catalog was printed by the editors Carlo Falciani & Antonio Natali, Bronzino. Artist and Poet at the Court of the Medici, Florence, 2010.) This was the very first exhibition devoted wholly to the works of Bronzino, a neglected Renaissance artist. About 70 of his paintings were exhibited but not that of Ugolino Martelli. Over the last decades, this portrait has been studied mainly by the art historians Elizabeth Cropper, Rudolf Wildmoser, Maurice Brock, Novella Macola and by the classical philologist Nigel G. Wilson: Elizabeth Cropper, »Prolegomena to a New Interpretation of Bronzino's Florentine Portraits«, Renaissance Studies in Honor of C. H. Smyth, edited by Andrew Morrogh et al., vol. II, Florence, 1985, pp. 149–162. Rudolf Wildmoser, »Das Bildnis des Ugolino Martelli von Agnolo Bronzino«, Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen Vol. 31, 1989, pp. 181–214; Maurice Brock, Bronzino, translated from the French by David Poole Radzinowicz and Christine Schultz-Touge, Paris, 2002; Novella Macola, Sguardi e Scritture: Figure con Libro nella Ritrattistica italiana della prima metà del Cinquecento, Venezia, 2007, pp. 69–76 and 169–172; Nigel G. Wilson, »Greek inscriptions on Renaissance paintings«, Italia Medioevale e Umanistica, 35, 1992, pp. 215–252. Important for the understanding of Martelli's life is also: Vanni Bramanti, »Ritratto di Ugolino Martelli (1519–1592)«, Schede umanistiche, 1999:2, pp. 5–53. 2. C. McCorquodale, Bronzino, London 1981, p. 52, comments this portrait only in passing. 3. We may read the title (in translation), »NINTH BOOK OF THE ILIAD BY HOMER«, and the subtitle, »The ninth (book) is (about) an embassy to the disobedient Achilles«. The text quotes the first six verses of Book 9: »Thus held the Trojans their watch, but the Achaeans were held by a wondrous panic, the comrade of numbing fear, and with grief intolerable were all the best men stricken. Just as two winds stir up the teeming deep, the North Wind and the West Wind that blow from Thrace, coming up suddenly, and immediately the dark wave [etc.]«. Homer compares the (interior) agitation of the Greeks to an (exterior) agitation of the elements (the winds and the sea). On the right page, Bronzino quotes the verses 7–14: the dark wave »rears itself in crests and casts much seaweed out along the shore, so were the hearts of the Achaeans torn within their breasts. But the son of Atreus [Agamemnon], stricken to the heart with great distress, went about ordering the clear-voiced heralds to summon every man by name to the place of assembly, but not to shout aloud; and he himself toiled among the foremost. So they sat in the place of assembly, deeply troubled, and Agamemnon stood up weeping like a fountain of dark water«. Homer, The Odyssey with an English translation by A. T. Murray in two volumes. 2nd edition revised by W. F. Wyatt, Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, MA, and London 1999. 4. Cropper, 1985, p. 151. 5. The Widener Collection 1942.9.115. 6. Michelangelo created one of the most influential window designs of all time for the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi. It is known as a kneeling window because the shape of the consoles (supporting the windowsill) which reach almost to the ground like a pair of legs. About architectural anthropomorphism, see David Hemsoll, »The Laurentian library and Michelangelo's Architectural Method,« Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 116, 2003, pp. 59–60. Vitale Zanchettin, »A new drawing and a new date for Michelangelo's ‘finestre inginocchiate’ at Palazzo Medici, Florence«, The Burlington Magazine, no. 153, March 2011, pp. 156–162, concludes that the year 1524 is a terminus ante quem for the invention of kneeling windows. The historian of art comments also (p. 158–159): »In the case of Palazzo Medici, the merits of such a solution were as aesthetic as they were practical: on the other hand, the bold aedicules created a chiseled and geometrical contrast to the rustication of the pre-existing quattrocento façade and the window frames are more boldly framed than those on the upper stores; on the other, the windows had to be sufficiently ample to throw enough light into the internal loggia while being sufficiently high to escape the attentions of the mob who were prone to stoning the windows on festivals; they also had to be opened from the inside and this necessitated a stair leading up to them.« 7. The use of piatra del fossato (commonly referred as pietra serena; Michelangelo called it macigno) by Michelangelo in the Laurentian library is compared to fine silver-work (by Vasari): William E. Wallace, Michelangelo at San Lorenzo. The Genius as Entrepreneur, Cambridge, 1994, p. 148. 8. For the earlier bibliography on the portrait of Panciatichi, see Antonio Geremicca in Vasari, gli Uffizi e il Duca, edited by Claudia Conforti, Florence, 2011, p. 224, who gives the following commentary about its architectural setting: »La tipica bicromia brunelleschiana connota difatti le scorniciature modanate del semiarcone posto sul sfondo come, nell'edificio di destra, quelle dell'arco cieco destinato a ospitare lo stemma gentilizio dei Panciatichi. Peculiari della villa fiorentina sono invece le lisce ammorsature angolari dell'edificio centrale che, scorciato, mostra una sequenza di tre finestre a edicola, versione semplificata di quelle michelangiolesche della Biblioteca Laurenziana, ripetutamente adottate da Vasari nel fronte degli Uffizi. Una città immaginaria − debitrice, almeno per gli edifici posti dietro il semiarcone, alle prospettive di Fra Carnevale − nella quale le architetture denunciano incoerenze prospettiche, probabile tributo alla pittura d'oltralpe amata da Pontormo o riferimento alla doppia cittadinanza dell'effigiato.« Geremicca adds: »Bronzino mette in campo un linguaggio sincretico«. 9. We have a document in the Archivio di Stato, Firenze (ASF), Carte Strozziane, Serie V, 1481, fol. 15, registering a payment made to the carpenter Giuliano di Baccio d'Agnolo, attesting that Luigi di Luigi Martelli had a frame made for a portrait of his son in June 1540. Wildmoser thinks that this information could refer to the present painting or to some other portrait of Ugolino, such as that in the Washington National Gallery (not by Bronzino) or to some third unknown portrait. (Wildmoser, 1989, pp. 182–183.) 10. Bramanti, 1999, p. 8. 11. Marco Antonio Romoli, Notizie riguardanti la vita di monsignore Ugolino Martelli vescovo di Glandeva, Firenze, 1759, p. 21. 12. Cf. U. Martelli, Lettere a Piero Vettori (1536–1577), a cura di V. Bramonti, Manziana, Roma, 2009. 13. Wildmoser, 1989, p. 183. »Academy of the Burning Ones«. Its emblem features Hercules on Mount Oite with the motto »Arso il mortale al ciel n'andrà l'eterno« »Burned as mortal, to heaven will he ascend as eternal«. 14. Wildmoser, 1989, p. 184; Cropper, 2004, pp. 23 and 27. »Academy of the Wet Ones. « Originally it was a parody of the Paduan Academy, but became the prestigious Accademia Fiorentina. E. Cropper, »Pontormo and Bronzino in Philadelphia: A Double Portrait«, Pontormo, Bronzino and the Medici. The Transformation of the Renaissance Portrait in Florence, ed. C. B. Strehlke, Philadelphia 2004, pp. 1–33 (23 and 27–28). 15. Bramanti, 1999, p. 5. Romoli, 1759, p. 44: »titolo di Glandeva, risiede in Entrevaux, piccola città a una mezza lega di là da Glandeva«. 16. Romoli, 1759, p. 56; Wildmoser, 1989, p. 184; Bramanti, 1999, p. 53. 17. Cf. Brock, 2002, p. 126. 18. Cropper, 1985, pp. 151–155, has the merit of helping to bring light and order to this confusion. 19. Cropper, 1985, p. 152. The modern »Via della Spada« is close to the Basilica di Santa Maria Novella. 20. Wildmoser, 1989, pp. 201–202; Cropper, 1985, pp. 154–155. I have controlled this in situ. In 1738, this branch of Martelli family employed the architect Bernardo Ciurini to transform several houses into the present palace. In 1999 the palace and its contents were acquired by the State. 10 years later the Museum Casa Martelli was inaugurated. 21. Bramanti, 1999, p. 7. 22. Mazzino Fossi, Bartolomeo Ammannati. Architetto, Morano, 1967, pp. 127–140. 23. Ammannati considered the building of S. Giovannino degli Scolopi very important, a sort of religious testament, and he was buried there at his death in 1592 (cf. Fossi, 1967, p. 135). 24. Cropper, 1985, p. 155. 25. Wildmoser, 1989, p. 201. Brock, 2002, p. 120. Cropper, 1985, p. 155, writes: »The corroborative evidence for the true appearance of Luigi di Luigi's palace has literally been demolished, and the veracity of Bronzino's painted architecture is finally laid open to question. Bronzino adapted a Florentine architecture as much as he did the sculpture of David.« 26. The staircase has since then disappeared. This entrance has two rooms on either side: the room on the left is today a secretary and the room on the right is today a small gym for volleyball. 27. Georgia Clarke, Roman House - Renaissance Palaces. Inventing Antiquity in Fifteenth-Century Italy, Cambridge, 2003, p. 178. She does not comment the Palazzo Martelli in her book. 28. Cf. the portico of Palazzo Pitti by Ammannati (cf. Fossi, 1967, p. 50). 29. Brock, 2002, p. 120. 30. Today this room is a secretary. 31. In The Architecture, VI, C, V, Vitruvius states that vestibules (vestibula), courtyards (cava aedium) and peristyles (peristylia) should be open to visitors whether invited or not. (Cf. James R. Lindow, The Renaissance Palace in Florence. Magnificence and Splendour in Fifteenth-Century Italy, Hampshire, 2007, p. 96.) In the case of Palazzo Martelli the visitors could enter from the entrance of Piazza di S. Lorenzo. Much public in this part of the palace would mean much prestige to the Custodian of Law and Lord of Balia (the titles of Luigi di Luigi Martelli). Cf. Lindow, 2007, p. 98, who writes in general about the Roman and the Renaissance palace. There was perhaps a second entrance also from Via de’ Martelli 9 but it was probably controlled. This room does not contain anything today with the exception of students and teachers entering and sorting from the school. 32. Malcolm Andrews, Landscape and Western Art, Oxford, 1999, pp. 108–110. He does not mention the Bronzino painting. 33. The anonymous referee of my paper points out that the question of indoor-outdoor draw our attention to the shadows under the window-heads (lintels above the window-apertures): are these shadows insignificant? Or do they refer to the sunlight? 34. Norbert Schneider, Il Ritratto nell'Arte: Grandi Capolavori 1420–1670, trad. di Paola Bertante, Colonia, 1995, p. 78. Wallace, 2004, p. 135, writes: »The library reading room and entrance vestibule were largely erected in less than three years. The foundations were begun in August 1524 and the walls and roof were finished by April 1527.« The ceiling of the Biblioteca Laurenziana bears the Coat-of-Arms of Cosimo I (his motto Festina lente »make haste slowly« illustrated with a tortoise with a sail upon its back) who came to throne in 1537. 35. It is of course tempting to see an allusion to this famous library as Martelli is portrayed as immersed studying, but Bronzino does not represent a library. Additional informationNotes on contributorsKalle O. Lundahlc/o Istituto Svedese di Studi Classici,Via Omero 14, 00197 Rome, Italy
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