18th century Rome

Il baule dell’operista. Drammi e musiche, compositori e cantanti in viaggio tra Roma e Venezia nel Settecento, in Venezia, Roma. Due città fra paralleli e contrasti, a cura di Susanne Winter, Roma-Venezia, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura – Centro Tedesco di Studi Veneziani («Venetiana» 3), 2006, pp. 69-91

IN S. de Cavi (ed.), Dibujo y ornamento: Trazas y dibujos de artes decorativas entre Portugal, España e Italia (ss.XVI-XIX), Roma-Córdoba, De Lucca-Diputación de Córdoba, 2014

This chapter deals with the first generation of Spanish architects pensioners in Rome, mainly with Domingo Lois Monteagudo and his ecclectic work during his stay in Rome supported by San Fernando's Fine Arts Academy. Monteagudo's "taccuino dei disegni" is the starting point to study not only its contents but also the circle where it was created. His drawing notebook allow us to go deeper in the understanding of the strong influence exerted by the Académie de France in the training of young artists and also its role as a melting pot in the central years of the Eighteenth-Century  in Rome. The notebook serves as an excuse to reconsider the influence of French artists as well as Piranesi in the development of the decorative arts especially through ornamental drawings.

On the basis of published and unpublished sources, this paper discusses the influence that the visit made by the Austrian numismatist Joseph Eckhel (1737–1798) to Rome in 1772–3 had on the late eighteenth-century arrangement of the coin collection assembled by Queen Christina of Sweden (1626–1689), then in possession of the Odescalchi family. Furthermore, the author tries to assess the impact of this collection on the work of Eckhel, a key figure in numismatic scholarship.

A review of the exhibition catalogue Antonio Balestra. Nel segno della grazia (winter 2016) can carry out a new crit- ical point of view on this 18th century acclaimed painter in Venice, where he lived up to 1718, and in Verona, his birthplace.
About his Roman formation, Balestra’s relationship with the learned Francesco Bianchini and the rapports of the latter with the circle of Cardinal Ottoboni should be point- ed up. In Rome, Balestra studied old and contemporary paintings, from Raphael to Carracci and Lanfranco, from his teacher Maratti to Luca Giordano, Baciccio and Sebas- tiano Ricci: at the same time, the young artist could have considered the two canvases painted by Ludovico Antonio David for the church of Sant’Andrea al Quirinale. Throughout his Venetian years, Balestra was recorded as a “noble” master. He was a close friend of Rosalba Carriera and her ‘clan’: in 1701, he sketched on the retro of a let- ter to Rosalba a humoristic drawing, a particular figurative category linked to caricaturist production of another friend of them, Anton Maria Zanetti di Girolamo. The latter’s al- bum in Giorgio Cini Foundation contains caricatures of three men entitled “del Balestra”. Otherwise, the sources state that Zanetti was a pupil of Balestra, evidence now attested by the etchings after Saint John the Baptist for San Nicolò in Verona and after a Charity, maybe the painting formerly in Algarotti’s collection.
The autobiography sent to Lione Pascoli remains an im- portant document. This manuscript mentions a painting for Camaldoli Abbey, today in the Diocesan Museum of Pi- enza. Other archival records are related to the friendship between the Veronese painter and Gabriel Mesquida, an artist born in Maiorca: the so-called self-portrait of Bal- estra in Castelvecchio Museum, not exposed in the exam- ined exhibition, seems to be a portrait of Mesquida.
The cousin of Zanetti, Anton Maria Zanetti di Alessandro, wrote in 1771 that Antonio Balestra had a “school” in Venice. The well-known Giambattista Tiepolo sheet Scu- ola del Nudo (1716-18 ca.) represents a classroom with two teachers, here identified as Gregorio Lazzarini and Balestra (the “corrector” named by Morassi in 1971). Following an educational assignment started in 1690, the couple of Venetian painters are leading a life drawing class: among the participants, Tiepolo, the genial pupil of Lazzarini.

The dense mythology and the many entertaining but mostly malicious anecdotes that surrounded the enigmatic but widely influential Philipp von Stosch (1691-1757) already in his lifetime have made him one of the most interesting but also misrepresented—because still insufficiently studied—figures in the history of collecting. Once a key actor in the antiquarian circles of early eighteenth-century Rome and Florence, where he was based for most of his life, Stosch is now chiefly known as the author of a beautifully illustrated study of ancient engraved gems signed by their artists (Gemmae antiquae caelatae/Pierres antiques gravées, 1724), and as a prominent collector of gems catalogued and published by Johann Joachim Winckelmann. The full picture is of course much more complex. Born in Küstrin, Brandenburg, Stosch spent his early years travelling widely across Europe before settling permanently in Italy in the early 1720s. Through his contacts with leading figures in the Republic of Letters like François Fagel, Richard Bentley, Bernard de Montfaucon, Sebastiano Bianchi, Francesco Ficoroni, Anton Francesco Gori, and notably Alessandro Albani, he gained access—even where others had failed—to most principal collections of the time, and expertly positioned himself at the very centre of an extensive international network that included scholars, collectors, royalty, popes, clergymen, statesmen and more or less everyone worth knowing in the world of collecting and dealing. These contacts, who were expertly cultivated, kept Stosch exceptionally well-informed of everything that was happening in the field: no collection remained unknown to him and no items of any significance were excavated, came on the market, or changed hands without his knowledge. Initially encouraged by his patron François Fagel to start collecting coins and medals, Stosch soon turned to engraved gems, which he confessed to Fagel had become “ma passion… ma folie dominante”. After having established himself in Italy, his homes in Rome and later Florence became natural meeting-points for local antiquarian circles as well as for expatriates and grand tourists, and figured prominently in for example the travelogues of Charles de Brosses and Johann Georg Keyssler, the drawings and diaries of the artist Pier Leone Ghezzi, and the correspondence of the two Horaces (Walpole and Mann), Albani, Winckelmann, the Count Caylus, J.J. Barthélémy, and many others. While in Rome Stosch greatly widened his collecting interests to include ancient sculpture, paintings, drawings and prints, rare books and manuscripts, maps, naturalia, arms and armour. His fervent collecting activities culminated in his astonishing Topographical Atlas project, which at the time of his death comprised no less than 324 bound volumes of maps, prints and drawings documenting the buildings and monuments of Rome, including all the drawings left by the architect Francesco Borromini. Described by Carl Justi as an ‘oracle for collectors’ but ‘zurückhaltend im Punkt des Mein und Dein’, Stosch was an expert in promoting his own collections and very generous in allowing fellow collectors and antiquarians access to them for study purposes, but extremely reluctant to part with any of his cherished items unless offered something more attractive in return. ‘I find I cannot live without Stosch’s intaglia [sic] of the Gladiator with the vase’, wrote Horace Walpole yearningly in a letter to the British Envoy in Florence, Horace Mann, who was trying his best to procure that particular and other gems for his friend from Stosch’s closely guarded collections, to no avail. The gem in question was instead presented as a gift to Viscount Duncannon, the Earl of Bessborough, in return for securing Stosch’s pension from the British Crown. Because Stosch’s collecting was not funded by his dealing in antiquities alone, but notably by the money he received from the British government for spying on the Old Pretender, James Stuart, who was staying in Rome as the Pope’s guest. This latter assignment most likely contributed to Stosch’s forced exile from the city in 1731 and his move to Florence, where his constantly growing museo soon required separate housing in the palazzo Ramirez de Montalvo, where the local antiquarians, letterati and freemasons intersected with the city’s expatriate community and many foreign visitors. Stosch’s close association with the British, as an informant but also as co-founder of the first masonic lodge in Florence together with Horace Mann and others, made him especially well-connected among British expats, grand tourists and collectors. From time to time, Stosch also expressed the wish to leave Italy and settle in Britain and possibly obtain a position at Oxford, which he had once visited as the guest of Richard Bentley. Based on a current book project, this talk traces and analyses Philipp von Stosch’s collecting activities and network building, from his formative grand tour (1709-17), through his Roman (1722-31) and Florentine (1731-57) periods, to his death and the complicated and drawn-out sale of his vast estate. It also considers the afterlife of parts of Stosch’s rich collections, including the notorious affair of the valuable manuscripts that were later found to have been stolen from the Vatican Library.

The life of the Dubrovnik Croatian Latin writer Rajmund Kunić (1719-1794) has hitherto been discussed in commemorative publications, lexicons and encyclopaedias, as well as literary historical studies. Kunić entered the Jesuit novitiate in 1734 in Rome. Following the completion of his studies of grammar, rhetoric and philosophy, he lectured in Fermo 1742/43, from where he moved to Città di Castello. By 1747/48 he was appointed professor of literature in Florence. In the following year he began theological studies during which, from 1751, he lectured in the Novitiate of St Andrew on the Quirinal Hill. In 1765 he was appointed Professor at the Roman College and it was during that period, in 1773, that the Jesuit order was abolished. This event marked a major turning point in his life and in his literary activity: although he remained a priest and continued to teach, Kunić
established a close relationship with aristocratic and salon circles of Rome, especially the salon of Maria Pizzelli and the circle around Baldassare Odescalchi. In these social circles Kunić was highly respected for his erudition and levelheadedness. A study of his literary oeuvre reveals that he by and large abandoned longer poetic forms, such as elegy and carmina; he published his famous rendition of the Iliad and turned his attention to epigram as a form especially suitable for salon socializing. This essay also reveals hitherto unknown information that expands the knowledge of Kunić’s life.

Professora de história da arte (idade Moderna) na Université de lorraine em nancy RESUMO instalado no Vaticano entre 1771 e 1793, o Museu Pio Clementino sempre foi considerado um modelo, tanto na escolha como na exibição das esculturas. este trabalho analisa as estratégias de exibição do museu, com a intenção de renovar o debate sobre as opções de arquitetura feitas por Michelangelo Simonetti no Vestibolo Rotondo e na Galeria das Estátuas. Aliás, impressões feitas no final do século XVII dessas salas provam que os modelos arquitetônicos que Simonetti e seus patronos ilustres tinham em mente eram herança da antiga Roma dos séculos XVII e XVIII. Ao decifrarmos as estratégias de exibição dos mármores nessas duas salas, compreendemos melhor como e por que a percepção da arte mudou tão radicalmente entre o início e o fim do século. Entre o estudo da tradição visual e da história do gosto, este artigo é o primeiro passo de uma pesquisa maior, que pretende reescrever alguns capítulos da historiografia artística pelo estudo da exposição e da percepção visual, em vez do estudo de textos. AbStRACt realized in the Vatican between 1771 and 1793, the Museo Pio Clementino has always been considered as a model, as well for the choice of sculptures as for their display. This paper is focused on strategies of display. it wishes to renew the debate on the architectural choices made by Michelangelo Simonetti in the Vestibolo rotondo and in the Gallery of Statues. as a matter of fact, printed views of these rooms made at the end of the 18th century prove that architectural models that Simonetti and his illustrious patrons had in mind were an heritage of the antique as well as of 17th-and 18th-century rome. When we decipher better the strategies of display of marbles in these two rooms, we understand better how and why the perception of art changed so radically between the beginning and the end of the century. Between study of visual tradition and history of taste, this article is a first step of a larger research which wishes to rewrite some chapters of artistic historiography through the study of display and visual perception rather then through the study of texts. * Daniela Gallo is currently professor of early Modern art history at the Université de lorraine in nancy. She is specialized in the reception of antiquity from the renaissance to the beginning of the 19th century and in neoclassical sculpture. her latest books include histoire de l'art dans l'antiquité (2005), a new French edition of Winckelmann's Geschichte der Kunst des alterthums, and Modèle ou Miroir ? Winckelmann et la sculpture néoclassique (2008). / Daniela Gallo é atualmente professora de História da Arte (Idade Moderna) na Université de Lorraine em Nancy. É especialista na recepção da Antiguidade, do Renascimento ao começo do século XIX e na escultura neoclássica. Seus últimos livros incluem Histoire de l'art dans l' Antiquité (2005), uma nova edição francesa de Winckelmann's Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums, e Modèle ou Miroir? Winckelmann et la sculpture néoclassique (2008).

ABSTRACT. Even if the widely influential German scholar and collector Philipp von Stosch (1691-1757), active in Rome and Florence in the first half of the eighteenth century, was in several ways instrumental in the trade in antiquities that was then emerging as a major international market, he has remained one of its most controversial, enigmatic and misrepresented—because inadequately studied—actors. In 1755, J.J. Barthélémy reported to the comte de Caylus in Paris that Stosch had “plundered” the whole of Italy, and still kept the country enchained through his many contacts. Such exaggerated and mostly malicious comments and anecdotes are numerous and should certainly not be taken literally, but they hint at a complexity that is only fragmentarily known and deserves critical examination. Through extensive travelling and association with key figures in the Republic of Letters like François Fagel, Richard Bentley, Bernard de Montfaucon, Sebastiano Bianchi, and notably Alessandro Albani, Stosch expertly positioned himself at the centre of a powerful international network which kept him exceptionally well-informed on all that was happening in the world of collecting and dealing: no notable collection remained unknown to him and no ancient artworks of any significance were discovered or changed hands without his knowledge. Stosch was able to maintain and further cultivate this extensive network during his forced exile in Florence (1731-57), where his own constantly growing  “museo” in the palazzo Ramirez de Montalvo became an important meeting-point for the city’s antiquarians and foreign community, and also attracted many foreign visitors. Stosch’s close association with the British, as a spy and freemason, made him especially well-connected among British expats, grand tourists and collectors. Although knowledge of specific transactions and artworks involved is patchy, the extent and significance of Stosch’s dealing and collecting activities may be reconstructed via correspondence and his well-documented networks, where objects and information were constantly exchanged. Building on extensive archive material and contemporary sources, this paper explores Stosch’s substantial contribution to the history of collecting and his overlapping roles as scholar, collector, agent, dealer and trend-setter—especially in the field of classical and neoclassical gems, where he made a considerable and lasting impact.

This paper deals with the knowledge and the use made by Johann Joachim Winckelmann of ancient coins, with his weaknesses (his knowledge of numismatic literature seem to have been obsolete), his errors seldom (he was abused by forgeries: Antiogonus Doson and Virgil) but alos his novelties. Pace what has sometimes been written, Winckelmann developed a true interest for ancient coins. Did he not consider the head of Arethusa on Syracusan coinage as a model of unsuperable beauty? With no surprise, questions of style and engraving are the one on which he most focused. He may even have been among the very first to recognize the utility of a die-study (for Thebes in his Monumenti Antichi). One gives a full list of all the numismatic passages in the Geshcichte and the Monumenti antichi as well as in his large correspondence (see the four volumes edited by Rehm).

Political, diplomatic, cultural and artistic relations (including music and the visual arts) between Rome and Lisbon in the 18th century have, at different times, aroused the interest of several scholars. However, these research fields have often been approached in parallel paths within the traditions of each of the disciplines, without establishing in most cases a true dialogue between the different areas of knowledge and disregarding cross-cutting issues. On the other hand, the study of artistic relations and cultural transfers presupposes an in-depth and up-to-date view of the historical and social context of each city in their own peculiarities. This international conference intends to promote new approaches to the history of music and the arts through multidisciplinary dialogue that involves different points of view. The meeting will gather researchers at different stages of their careers, with backgrounds ranging from various fields (namely political, cultural and arts history and musicology, among others). The program addresses topics such as arts, music and diplomacy; royal, aristocratic and cardinalic patronage; circulation of people between Rome and Lisbon (in the political, religious, scientific, intellectual and artistic spheres); circulation of musical repertoires and works of art; the training of musicians and artists and their professional careers; artistic, intellectual and sociability networks; spaces and institutions linked to music and the arts; stylistic issues and performance practices. Parallel with the symposium, the National Library of Portugal hosts the exhibition "From the Tagus to the Tiber: Portuguese musicians and artists in 18th century Rome", curated by Pilar Diez del Corral and Cristina Fernandes.

ABSTRACT: This article explores male friendship and networks among the local and international communities in eighteenth-century Rome, Naples and especially Florence of the late Medici and Reggenza periods. It discusses various antiquarian activities that took place in learned societies, academies, masonic lodges and private homes etc., and how the various intersecting informal clusters of actors (antiquarians, expats, grand tourists, ciceroni, dealers, forgers, and collectors) influenced the study and collecting of ancient artworks, and the general reception of ancient art and culture. The article also includes a critical discussion of male homosociability in the aftermath of Queer Theory.