Publication of this volume has been made possible by Università degli Studi di Roma “Tor Vergata” and Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici, Università degli Studi di Roma Tre thanks to the generous support of Fondazione Deloitte.
Frontispiece
Michelangelo, Last Judgment, 1536–1541. Vatican City, Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel.
Perino del Vaga, Model for the spalliera of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, 1542, tempera on canvas, 240 × 980 cm. Rome, Galleria Spada.
Art direction and cover Paola Gallerani
Designed by Elisabetta Mancini
Editing by Wendy Keebler
Separation by Premani srl, Pantigliate (Milano)
Printed by Petruzzi, Città di Castello (Perugia)
All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S.
Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers.
ISBN: 978-88-3367-127-7
© Officina Libraria, Rome, 2021
Printed in Italy
6 Edith Gabrielli
The Polo Museale del Lazio and Research
10 Mariastella Margozzi Foreword
11 Adriana Capriotti Preface
12 Barbara Agosti and Silvia Ginzburg
Editors’ Note
13 Silvia Ginzburg
Perino on Michelangelo, 1
29 Barbara Agosti
Perino on Michelangelo, 2
38 Michela Corso and Antonio Geremicca
Perino’s Model for the Spalliera of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment
56 Lorenzo D’Amici
Perino’s Invention for the Spalliera and Its Reception between the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: The Drawings
82 Adriana Capriotti
From Perino’s Spalliera to Bernardino’s Frieze: Reuse and Reinvention in Cardinal Spada’s Studiolo
91 Silvia Ginzburg
Coup de théâtre: Gian Lorenzo Bernini and the Setup of Perino’s Spalliera
94 Appendix: Documents on Perino’s Life and Works, 1537–1547
edited by Barbara Agosti, Gloria Antoni, Valentina Balzarotti, Serena Quagliaroli
152 Bibliography
159 Index
3. Perino del Vaga, Study of a male nude figure, ca. 1522, pen, brown ink, traces of black chalk, 377 × 195 mm. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Cote B 3 rés (2), f. 11.
the limits established by architecture to a mere decorative goal without any relation to those limits.7 The single elements that are part of the decorative apparatus are therefore harmonized in a result that has the effect of correcting the architecture. Painting is here emancipated from the architectonic space in which it is placed, to the extent that it even seems to deny it. This produces an inversion of the hierarchical relationship between painting and architecture that Vasari understood well, when writing about the vault in Michelangelo’s biography: “In these compartments (partimenti) he used no rule of perspectives in foreshortening, nor is there any fixed point of view, but he accommodated the compartments (partimenti) to the figures rather than the figures to the compartments (partimenti), being satisfied to execute those figures, both the nude and the draped, with the perfection of design.”8
This way of conceiving of the painting as completely free from spatial boundaries would have profound consequences until the seventeenth century and beyond. Perino seems to have been the first and, for a long time, the only one to understand it and to make it his own, with all the contradictions that may be implied, and he transmitted it to the next generations.9
This concept of decoration implies a radical shift, as the partimenti are no longer considered elements of separation but rather are thought of as elements of connection. Thus, the emphasis is assigned to elements that were previously regarded as of secondary importance.10 The spalliera conceived of as a base for the Last Judgment is the extreme result of this type of attention paid to the ornament in Michelangelo’s formal horizon by the artist himself—an aspect that has been completely neglected by the rediscovery in a “heroic” key of the artist from the eighteenth century onward and was just recently recovered.
As has been pointed out, it was Michelangelo himself who between the third and
7. Wilde 1978, pp. 51–56.
8. Vasari 1550 and 1568 (1912–1915), ix, p. 32.
9. “Until he decorates the Loggia of Palazzo Doria, the painter will not resolve the problems triggered by the paradoxical combination of illusionistic effects and highly ornamental compositional schemes” (Davidson 1966, p. 17). On the importance of this development in the artistic culture of the sixteenth century, and on Perino’s role in this context, see Romani 1997, especially pp. 25, 29–30, 38–39.
10. On the distinctive role of partimenti, see De Marchi 2013.
4. Michelangelo, Study for Christ Carrying the Cross of Santa Maria sopra Minerva and other anatomical studies, recto, ca. 1520, pen and brown ink, red chalk, traces of black chalk, 235 × 207 mm, Private collection.
7. Michelangelo, Libyan Sibyl, 1511–1512. Vatican City, Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel.
disease had already arrived at the beginning of the previous year.17
Vasari said Perino left Rome with Piloto, “the goldsmith who was a close friend of his,” and for whom in Florence he would execute a painting.18 Perino’s arrival seems therefore to have shortly followed Giovanni da Udine’s sojourn in Florence, from the autumn of 1521 to the spring of 1522. Their time there could have even overlapped. Giovanni had been asked to execute the stucco decorations and paintings in the Medici palace in via Larga, in the room that had been created by closing a loggia. Here Michelangelo had
17. Davidson 1963b, p. 19; Davidson 1966, p. 4; Hirst 1966, p. 401.
18. Vasari 1550 and 1568 (1912–1915), vi, pp. 201-202, 205.
inserted for the first time the finestre inginocchiate 19 The hypothesis that Perino had decided to leave Rome because he had been invited to join in on these decorative works has
19. Cecchi 1983, pp. 23–25. The documents as read by Hirst 2004 and Hirst 2011, pp. 187–188, place in a tight sequence Michelangelo’s execution of the finestre inginocchiate, which the scholar dates to 1521, and Giovanni da Udine’s decoration. His work there should be connected to the mention of his collaborator and plasterer Domenico da Forlì’s arrival in Florence from Rome in September 1521 with a letter for Michelangelo (Il carteggio di Michelangelo, 1965–1982, ii, p. 319). In this context the arrival in Florence of Piloto—to whom Michelangelo asked to execute the gelosie of the windows—together with Perino in spring of 1522 could be a clue in favor of this hypothesis. For the opinion dating Michelangelo’s windows to 1524 see Zanchettin 2011 and Beltramini 2020, pp. 143–145, whom I thank.
8. Perino del Vaga, Vertumnus and Pomona, 1527, red chalk, outlines drawn with pen and indented with metal stylus, 176 × 137 mm. London, British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings, inv. no. 5226-96.
13. After Michelangelo, Male nude (from an original model by the master, ca. 1501–1503), wax, h. 50 cm, Florence, Casa Buonarroti.
14. Perino del Vaga, Study for Saint Sebastian, ca. 1534, red chalk, 235 × 188 mm. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. no. RP-T-1948-525.
de’ Medici, which had just then been completed by Michelangelo and would become such important references for the artists to come. The influence of the sculptures of the Medici Chapels is clearly visible in the gigantic figures, which can be seen from outside, as they stand on the walls of the Loggia degli Eroi in Palazzo del Principe. As the preparatory drawings show (fig. 10), Michelangelo’s statues are read here through Parmigianino’s chiaroscuro filter.36
During one of his sojourns in Florence, Perino must have taken inspiration from a copy of the cartoon of the Battle of Cascina, which had been destroyed, as can be seen in a sheet with studies for the frescoes of the Cappella di San Giorgio e San Giovanni in the Duomo in Pisa (fig. 11). Here Perino studied again the complex articulations of the human bodies that Michelangelo had brilliantly displayed.37 Some elements of this much
36. Ginzburg 2015, p. 44, figs. 13–14.
37. Vienna, Graphische Sammlung Albertina, inv. no. 122 (Popham 1945b, pp. 89–90, tab. II, A; E. Parma, in Perino del Vaga 2001, p. 174, no. 67; Geremicca 2017, p. 100, fig. 8). Sketches after the Battle of Cascina appear on the upper part of a sheet with studies for the altar of Sant’Erasmo: Vienna, Graphische Sammlung Albertina, inv. no. 13172 (Davidson 1966, pp. 30–31, no. 22, fig. 19; E. Parma, in Perino del Vaga 2001, pp. 148–150, no. 46).
earlier Michelangelesque model can also be found on the ceilings of the two main rooms in Palazzo Doria, particularly in the lost fresco of the Shipwreck of Aeneas, which can still be visualized through the drawings, and in the figures displayed on the foreground of The Fall of the Giants (fig. 12).38 The animated small figures that determine the rhythmic arrangement in the background of the scene seem to depend instead on more recent achievements of Michelangelo, to the point where one wonders whether Perino, during
38. On the drawings connected with the two ceilings and for further information on the history of the palace, see Askew 1956; Davidson 1959; Davidson 1966, pp. 24–29, nos. 17–20; Oberhuber 1966; Parma Armani 1986, pp. 73–152, 263–281, nos. a.ix.1–17; Boccardo 1989, pp. 25–75; E. Parma, in Perino del Vaga 2001, pp. 208–209, no. 99; p. 212, no. 103; pp. 216–230, nos. 106–116; Stagno 2005, pp. 5–54.
15. Perino del Vaga, Nativity with Saints Catherine of Alexandria, John the Baptist, Sebastian, Roch, James the Greater (Basadonne Altarpiece), 1534, oil on panel transferred to canvas, 274.4 × 221.1 cm. Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, Samuel H. Kress Collection.
21. Francesco Salviati, Design for the Casket of Pier Luigi Farnese (?), ca. 1541–1543, pen, brown ink and brown wash, traces of black chalk, 162 × 303 mm. Florence, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe, inv. no. 1577 E.
Opposite page
22. Manno Sbarri and Giovanni Bernardi with plaques of rock crystal carved after drawings by Perino del Vaga, Farnese Casket, ca. 1543–1561. Naples, Museo e Gallerie Nazionali di Capodimonte.
Florence by the end of August 1543. This date can be considered a terminus ante quem for the commission of the casket by Pier Luigi and the execution of this project, which appears very close to Perino’s models. The scheme and the rhythm of the composition are the same as those Perino had conceived for the basamento of the Stanza della Segnatura. The decorative motifs are also typical of Perino, such as the pair of nudes sitting back to back, modeled after the nudes of the Sistine vault, or the ironically grotesque masks similar to the ones invented for the windows of the Sala Regia, or the unsettling head with the strange headdress that appears identical to the one in the project for the spalliera (see entry XV), or the tassels formed by the festoons that create a direct link between the works executed in Genoa and the decorations of Castel Sant’Angelo. The terribilità of the Sistine fresco was gradually investigated by Perino, without him ever abandoning his prominent decorative inclination. On the contrary, he managed to concentrate in the foreground the vertiginous spatiality of the Judgment, while at the same time giving the dramatic boldness of the forms a strenuously elegant grace. This process can be appreciated in the preparatory drawings with mythological subjects for the rock-crystal plaques of the casket commissioned by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (fig. 22). This marvelous microarchitecture was the result of a collaboration that involved Perino for the design, Bernardi for the crystals, and Manno Sbarri for the goldsmithing.23
This sequence of drawings clearly shows how Perino was gaining a deeper understanding of the vertiginous space of the Judgment and is gradually abandoning the frieze-like composition that he adapted from the antique reliefs.24
Perino’s most talented collaborators would show themselves to be the most intelligent interpreters of Michelangelo’s lesson. For example, Daniele da Volterra would establish a touching and close relationship with the old Michelangelo, and the young Pellegrino Tibaldi, who since the very early stages of his career worked alongside Perino on the decoration of the Sala Paolina in Castel Sant’Angelo, would prove to be the most precocious and extraordinarily free interpreter of the Judgment 25
23. E. Parma, in Perino del Vaga 2001, pp. 302–307, nos. 170–174.
24. Agosti 2019.
25. Romani 1990; Romani 2003.
II
Circle of Perino del Vaga (?)
Copy after Perino’s lost study for the spalliera (?)
Pen and brown ink, brown wash; 67 × 145 mm.
Notre Dame, Indiana, University of Notre Dame, Snite Museum of Art, inv. no. 2014.061.149 .
Provenance: Eugène Susini (1900–1982); London, Sotheby’s, July 2, 1997.
Bibliography: Old Master Drawings, Sale Catalogue, July 2, 1997, p. 12, no. 3; Olszewski 2008, i, pp. 321–322, no. 261.
The drawing was purchased by John D. Reilly in 1997 at the Sotheby’s sale that took place on July 2, 1997 (lot. no. 3). It bears two collector marks: the first, in blue, showing the letters “ES” closely intertwined (Lugt 3769), belongs to Eugène Susini, while the other, which is in a fragmentary state, has not been yet identified.
According to the information provided by the museum, several scholars were asked to give their opinion on the drawing. In the same year of its acquisition, Laura Giles, curator of prints and drawings at Princeton University, confirmed the relationship with the spalliera, without, however, expressing her opinion on the attribution to Perino, which was later confirmed by Catherine Monbeig Goguel in 2002 (oral communication to the museum).
Unlike the Uffizi sheet (entry I) and its multiple
derivations, this drawing includes the second male figure on the right and presents substantial differences compared with the frieze in the Palazzo Spada. These are mainly relative to the garland of fruit and the figures around it. The female figure of Victory, for instance, is not touching the garland, as in the painting, but is raising her left arm, covering the mascherone placed behind her. The most relevant differences, however, can be detected in the male figure, since his legs are not covered with a foliage decoration, and his face is shown frontally rather than from a three-quarters point of view. Moreover, instead of resting his right arm on the garland, the young man is supporting the rich decorative elements.
The current state of studies on the surviving drawings related to Perino’s spalliera does not allow any definite conclusion on the original prototype for this sheet, perhaps directly drawn from the model or from a study for both of its sides. Nevertheless, the variations seem to reflect a different stage of the creative process, possibly after the Uffizi sheet no. 726 E.
The attribution to Perino has reached a general consensus. However, it appears problematic from both a technical and a stylistic point of view. The drawing is definitely of high quality, but in many respects, it does not appear consistent with Perino’s
technique. The winged female figure of Victory is probably the one that appears closest to Perino’s style. However, the same cannot be said for the putti and for the male figure. Unlike other drawings executed in pen and ink, in which Perino’s skill in the use of this technique is apparent, the present sheet shows a more rapid handling of the pen, with the use of circular traits that are not consistent with Perino’s style, as, for example, in the curly hair of the male figure. Also, the anatomy of the figures is not very accurate in certain places (as in the right arm of the male figure on the left).
III
Circle of Perino del Vaga (?)
Copy after Perino’s drawing for the spalliera
Pen and brown ink, brown wash, over traces of black chalk; 350 × 520 mm.
Vienna, Graphische Sammlung Albertina, inv. no. 464.
Provenance: Earl Gelosi; prince of Ligne; Duke Albert von Sachsen-Teschen.
Bibliography: Wickhoff 1892, p. CCXVI, S.R. 554; Parma Armani 1986, pp. 340–341, no. d.ii; Birke and Kertész 1992–1997, i, pp. 262–263, no. 465; E. Parma, in Perino del Vaga 2001, pp. 282–283, no. 153.
The attribution of this drawing has been long debated. In the past, it has been credited to Perino but also qualified as a copy after Salviati (Wickhoff 1892). More recently, it has been attributed to Pellegrino Tibaldi (Birke and Kertész 1992–1997), and it has been included as such in the museum catalog.
This is an accurate, almost identical copy of the left portion of Perino’s spalliera, which faithfully reproduces most of the compositional elements that can be found in the Uffizi sheet (entry I).
The female figure of Victory and the telamon stand out majestically against the rich architectural background, which does not include the elegant marble decoration that is represented in the Uffizi sheet. Other significant variations can be traced in the decorative panel on the left, particularly in the putti: the putto holding a lily, next to the figure of Victory, in the Uffizi sheet is not included here, unlike the other putto, in correspondence with the mixtilinear motif at the center of the panel (entry IV).
Despite these differences, it seems noteworthy that all the other elements included in the Uffizi sheet have been carefully registered by the copyist. For example, the decorative motif suggested on the architectural frames on the left and on the architrave supported by the figure of Victory is featured exactly in the same position and with the same characteristics. The same can be said of the numerous leaves sticking out from the garland that the young male is carrying on his shoulders.
The two drawings also share close similarities in terms of technique, especially in the rendering of certain details; for example, the architectural elements in both compositions are executed in black
Tuscan-Roman school, second half of the sixteenth century
Copy after a lost study by Perino for the spalliera (?)
Pen and brown ink, brown wash; 136 × 286 mm.
London, Victoria and Albert Museum, inv. no. CAI. 399.
Provenance: Ionides Bequest 1901 (Lugt 488).
Bibliography: Ionides Collection 1904, p. 12, no. 399 (attributed to Parmigianino); Ward-Jackson 1979, p. 175, no. 371; Parma Armani 1986, pp. 340–341, no. d.ii, fig. 365; E. Parma in Perino del Vaga 2001, pp. 282–283, no. 153.
Compared to the drawing in the Albertina, inv. no. 464 (entry III), and to that in the Victoria and Albert Museum, inv. 3135 (entry IV), this sheet appears considerably different in terms of both quality and technique. It seems to be the work of a less skilled artist, as can be judged from the general stiffness of the composition. The architectural elements have been drastically reduced, and the chiaroscuro effects have been achieved through wider areas, with a hatching that has been quickly executed with the brush.
A further difference, which appears substantial, is the presence of the fruit and flower basket on the head of the female figure. This allows us to distinguish this sheet from the one at the Uffizi (entry I) and to qualify it rather as a derivation from the
model today in the Galleria Spada or from a later study, now lost, which included this element in the project.
The hypothesis that the drawing is a direct copy of the canvas in the Palazzo Spada seems less convincing, since it appears that the artist encountered some difficulties in rendering the figures located at the opposite ends of the composition, as if they were presented in a fragmentary state in the original prototype (they are instead clearly visible in the canvas). Rather than focusing on a different part of the composition, the copyist has extended the surface of the drawing and tried to complete it according to his own invention. In doing so, he has disregarded the mirroring juxtaposition of the figures, particularly regarding the sphinx and the telamon, which are instead isolated and surrounded by decorative bands or curls. Similarly, the putto placed above the mixtilinear element at the center of the decorative panel has not been paired with its companion (as in the canvas in the Palazzo Spada, which shows the two putti lovingly hugging each other), and its figure has been excessively extended in order to occupy all the available space.
VI
Florentine school, late sixteenth century (?)
Copy after a lost study by Perino for the spalliera (?)
Pen and brown ink; 337 × 453 mm.
Florence, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe, inv. no. 960 S.
Provenance: Emilio Santarelli; Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe (1866).
Bibliography: Davidson 1966, pp. 51–52, no. 49.
The drawing (erroneously attributed to Giorgio Vasari) was first connected to Perino’s project for the spalliera by Bernice Davidson in 1966. Since then, it has no longer been mentioned in the literature.
It shows only the two main figures of the composition as it appears in the canvas in the Palazzo Spada. This copy, in fact, seems closer to the group of drawings deriving directly from the canvas, rather
XII
Francesco Curia
Study for a male nude from Perino’s model for the spalliera
Pen and brown ink; 75 × 95 mm. Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, inv. no. NMH 690/1863.
Provenance: Nicodemus Tessin (1676); Gustav III transferred to the Royal Library (1777); Royal Museum (1794); Nationalmuseum (1866).
Bibliography: Bjurström 1996, p. 229, no. 42; Bjurström and Magnusson 1998, no. 917; di Majo 2002, p. 19.
The sheet was part of the Stockholm album that included a conspicuous group of drawings by Curia.
Like the other drawing at the Nationalmuseum (entry X), this is an important testimony of Curia’s attention for Perino’s work and for the spalliera in particular: the figure included by Perino in the form of a caryatid in his model for the spalliera now in the Galleria Spada is here carefully studied.
In this case, the artist isolated the figure of the telamon, investigating its anatomy with particular attention, despite the fact that the handling of the pen is here even more rapid and without the use of wash.
As for the Figure Studies mentioned above, also in this case, the observation of Curia’s technique suggests that this drawing was executed directly in front of the model. It would otherwise be hard to explain the rapid execution of these sketches (in some parts almost abbreviated), which even juxtapose different versions of the same figure. If they were copied after another graphic model, one would expect a much more defined result.
Thus, it can be plausibly assumed that these studies were carried out by the Neapolitan artist directly in front of the spalliera. As previously suggested, this would be a proof that the model for the spalliera was still visible in Rome at the time of Gregory XIII.
XIII
François Bourlier (attr.)
Study after Perino’s model for the spalliera; The Nine Muses Surrounding the Globe
Pen and brown ink, brown and gray wash, over traces of red chalk; 394 × 269 mm.
Paris, Musée du Louvre, Département des arts graphiques, inv. no. RF 899, recto, Album Perrier François, f. 15.
Provenance: Colonel Carl Andreas Krag; bequeathed to the museum in 1880 through the mediation of Christian Höst, bookseller from Copenhagen.
Bibliography: Boubli and Prat 1997, pp. 272–273, no. 1060; Loisel 2004, p. 152, no. 205.
The Perrier album, now at the Louvre, represents one of the most important testimonies to the interest nurtured by French artists toward Italian art. Among the almost two hundred drawings included there, it is possible to identify several copies of artworks that were visible at the time in Italy. These include archeological remains but also paintings and drawings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
The lower section of the sheet shows a copy after Ludovico Carracci’s drawing of the Allegory of History—which at the time was in the collection of Francesco Angeloni; it was then acquired by Mariette and is now at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford (Parker 1956, p. 86; Loisel 2004, p. 152)—while in the upper section, a copy after Perino’s canvas now in the Palazzo Spada is included.
The drawing agrees with the left side of the central section of the canvas painted by Perino. Unlike Perrier’s copy on canvas, commissioned by Bernardino Spada, the drawing still includes the papal insignia, which will later be substituted by the French artist with a fruit and flower basket similar to the one that appears on top of the Victory’s head.
This is again an extremely important detail of the composition, as it shows that this copy was executed after a lost drawing, or more probably after the model for the spalliera itself, and certainly not after the sheet at the Uffizi (entry I), as in the case of the other sheets analyzed here: the one at the Victoria and Albert Museum (entry V), the one at the Uffizi (entry VI), and the one from the Resta Codex (entry VII).
FROM PERINO’S SPALLIERA TO BERNARDINO’S FRIEZE: REUSE AND REINVENTION IN CARDINAL SPADA’S STUDIOLO
