Letter About a Review
1980; College Art Association; Volume: 62; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/3050077
ISSN1559-6478
Autores Tópico(s)Renaissance and Early Modern Studies
ResumoThe penultimate paragraph of my recent review (March, 1980, 165) of E. Verheyen's The Palazzo del Te in Mantua contains an error that might have been allowed to stand were it not for the prodding of a colleague, Dr. Joanna Woods-Marsden, who expressed concern that this building born in Marani's pages may now enter the literature as an established fact. We have enough Gonzaga buildings, existing and vanished, to deal with as it is, without having to struggle with imaginary ones. The letter is cited by Marani to prove the existence of a destroyed building on the grounds of the Ducal Palace in Mantua distinguished by its use of the motif of the labyrinth, and the document is in one of the few Libri dei Copialettere in the Mantua Archives containing the correspondence not of the Marquis but of his brother Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga (Busta 2896, Libro 97, 136-137). It is addressed from Bologna on December 4, 1479 and refers to work undertaken or projected for the villa in Rome. Accordingly, whatever its value for Gonzaga iconography, it has nothing to do with the topography of the palace in Mantua. A brief but important discussion of the villa is found in David Coffin's The Villa in the Life of Renaissance Rome, Princeton, 1979, 183-185, a book that, unfortunately, I did not read until after the proofs of the Verheyen review had been returned to the editor. Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga's interest in the motif of the labyrinth, which became one of the Gonzaga imprese, may still have some bearing on the question of the interpretation of the labyrinth in the drawing in the so-called Heemskerck sketchbook, and more generally on still unresolved questions concerning the Palazzo del Te in Mantua.
Referência(s)