Barberini patronage

This chapter examined Claude's seaports through their relationship with contemporary theatre and the intellectual and cultural life of the Barberini era. In particular it linked Claude's sunsets to both the intense scientific study of the sun taking place in these years and Urban VIII's use of the solar imagery as his personal iconography.

Oggetto della tesi è il libro di Giovanni Battista Ferrari dal titolo "De Florum cultura", nella sua edizione italiana del 1638.
Gesuita, umanista, orientalista e letterato, professore di ebraico al Collegio Romano dal 1618 fino al 1647, Ferrari coltiva lungo tutto il corso della sua vita gli studi botanici che lo qualificarono come appassionato intenditore di storia naturale e, più in particolare, di piante ‘peregrine’.
L’impresa editoriale di De Florum Cultura è sovraintesa da Cassiano dal Pozzo (1588-1657), che propone gli argomenti dei testi, curandone l’intero iter redazionale, fino ad individuare i più opportuni canali per il finanziamento della stampa. Così, grazie ai suoi uffici, la realizzazione di questo compendio botanico-floreale è sostenuta economicamente da Francesco Barberini (1597-1679), cardinal nipote del pontefice Urbano VIII, del quale Cassiano è il "ministro delle arti".
Il libro ha un ricchissimo apparato iconografico, che raffigura specie botaniche rare ritratte "al vero", schemi di aiuole di giardini ideali e reali, strumenti di giardinaggio e composizioni floreali per apparati e banchetti. A queste immagini "tecniche" si affiancano tavole di carattere mitologico, che illustrano le favole che Ferrari ha composto, riecheggiando le Metamorfosi di Ovidio,  per visualizzare i temi della floricultura e dell’orticultura ma, soprattutto, per ammonire e per dilettare il lettore.
Gli artisti coinvolti in questa impresa sono gli stessi che lavorano per la corte pontificia  barberiniana e per i committenti ad essa collegati, Cassiano in particolare: Pietro da Cortona, Andrea Sacchi, Guido Reni, Giovanni Lanfranco per le favole, Claude Mellan, Anna Maria Vaiana, Johann Friedrich Greuter per le incisioni di tutte le tavole, oltre all'anonimo autore che disegna le tavole botaniche.
Soggetto principale di questo manuale "sui generis" sono le piante esotiche, i fiori ‘peregrini’, introdotti in Europa nella seconda metà del XVI secolo e, da quel momento, coltivati, acquistati, conservati e collezionati con la stessa cura e lo stesso entusiasmo che i collezionisti riservavano alle opere d’arte.
Padre Ferrari e Cassiano dal Pozzo tentano di tradurre nello stile elegante e colto della corte barberiniana, l’idea di una grande enciclopedia illustrata del ‘theatro della natura’, come stavano facendo con ben altro rigore e spirito scientifico, Federico Cesi e i suoi compagni Lincei: le loro sparse, anche se prestigiose, singole edizioni, furono naturalmente seguite e curate da Cassiano, proprio come il De Florum Cultura di padre Ferrari.

Qui l'abstract in inglese, per il quale mi sono servita delle ottime note di Robert F. Erickson dal sito "Illustratedgarden.org".

Giovanni Battista Ferrari was born in Siena in 1583 and entered the Jesuit Order in Rome in 1602.
His subsequent career included a Professorship of Hebrew and Rhetoric at the Jesuit College in Rome, a position as horticultural advisor to the papal family, and the authorship of a number of important books.
He also became a close associate of the scholar Cassiano dal Pozzo (1588-1657) who was an advisor to the Barberini family. Through this connection, Ferrari joined an important circle of men of science in Rome, and was appointed to manage the new garden at the Barberini Palace, which was unique as a showplace for the newest and rarest plants from the distant regions of Asia, Africa, and America.
The cultivation of new specimens led Ferrari to the subject of botanical nomenclature, and he became a leading 17th century source for nomenclatural definition.
Ferrari’s greatest works were De Florum Cultura (1633) and Hesperides sive de Malorum Aureorum cultura (1646). The earlier book, translated into Italian in 1638 as "Flora overo cultura di fiori", was dedicated to Cardinal Francesco Barberini, nephew of Pope Urban VIII, and a patron of the arts and sciences. De Florum Cultura was a horticultural book emphasizing the planting and planning of gardens. In it, Ferrari discussed the cultivation and decorative qualities of flowers, particularly of the new and exotic species which were then being planted in a number of new Roman gardens. He also gave close attention to the names of plants, for the introduction of new species from remote parts of the world had the potential to overwhelm the existing systems of plant nomenclature. Ferrari attempted, through careful descriptions and analysis, to name and classify the new species, and his efforts were unique and valuable.
In addition to its botanical and horticultural parts, De Florum Cultura included a number of excellent botanical plates—most of them by the Dutch print-maker, Cornelis Bloemaert (1603-84). Also in its contents were Ferrari’s original allegorical stories. These were tales about the gods in the horticultural scene or about fantastic happenings in the gardens such as the transformation of a thieving gardener into a snail. The tales were illustrated by engravings done by Johann Friedrich Greuter from the drawings of a number of young artists: Andrea Sacchi, Guido Reni and Pietro da Cortona. A final notable element of Ferrari’s book is the inclusion of the first printed botanical illustration ever made on the basis of a microscopic investigation. It is an illustration of the seeds and seed- pods of the Chinese Rose (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis L.) successfully cultivated in Rome by Ferrari himself in the Barberini Gardens.

Seventh-Century Barberini Documents and Inventories of Art, New York University Press, 1975. The Barberini family was a ruling force in 17th-century Rome. Its most prominent member, Maffeo Barberini, who became Pope Urban VIII (1623-1644), and his three nephews, Cardinal Francesco, Cardinal Antonio, and Prince Taddeo, were not only official religious and civic leaders, but prime movers in the art and cultural activities as well. Together they amassed collections of paintings, sculpture, antiquities, and decorative arts, legendary in their own time in terms of quality and quantity. This volume documents their patronage and describes in detail the " Galleria Barberini " in its age of glory. Transcribed in these pages are some five hundred documents of payments, contracts, orders, bills, and memoranda of various sorts, and more than twenty inventories dating from 1608 to 1704. The material was gathered from the manuscript records of the Barberini family archive, housed today in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, and not previously available for public consultation. The advantages of treating so large a chronological span of a private archive as a unit include fuller pictures of the careers of certain artists than available before, and recognitions of works of a considerable number of heretofore unknown artists. Frequently the documents produce as many as five or six references to one object, each adding precious fragments of new information, defining shifts in taste, views of attribution, repairs, copies, and even monetary value. Besides transcribing the actual documents, the author has created a summary inventory (Master Index) for the whole century in which every reference to a given object is brought together with dates, dimensions, and other data in abbreviated form. Here the reader may ascertain quickly where the object is mentioned and see at a glance its 17th-century history. The primary function of the publication is as a research tool for art historians who specialize in problems of identifying, attributing and dating Baroque paintings and sculpture. Because of the scope of the material published, plus indications of further unpublished information in the Barberini Archive, archaeologists, social and economic historians, musicologists, and theater and costume historians, will also find much that is useful. Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, 1973 I wrote this overly long abstract in 1973 to explain the intent and structure of the original publication. Somewhere in the 1990s the Getty Provenance Index took over the material, rearranged and renumbered it and entered it into the Getty Provenance database system. Several years later the ACLS Humanities E-Book project (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI) scanned the book itself and made it available for licensing. With restrictions, the electronic PDF can be found in the catalogs of institutions that have paid the fee. The current 742 page PDF was made from the first copy I received from the press. It is presented here, of course, free of charge, down loadable and OCR-ed and therefore is (or should be) fully word-searchable. MAL, February, 2016

Furnishing academies: notes on the cultural patronage of Cardinal Francesco Barberini, addenda to Bernini`s and Cortona’s work for the Accademie di San Luca and degli Humoristi.

The artistic and cultural patronage of Cardinal Francesco Barberini (1597 - 1679) is well known and one of the most important in seventeenth century Rome. As part of the cultural strategies employed by Barberini politics, the support of academic institutions was certainly one of the major activities, it also involved thorough architectural interventions, durable or ephemeral, for the academies spaces. This paper presents new archival evidence from Cardinal Francesco Barberini 's Giustificazioni relating to two small interior architetctural interventions financed by the Prelate and commissioned to the two major artists of his circle: Bernini and Cortona, respectively for the Accademia di San Luca in the former headquarters at Santa Martina, and the Accademia degli Humoristi at the Palazzo Mancini.

Il volume prende in considerazione la variegata e cospicua produzione di medaglie papali, condotta a Roma durante il regno di Urbano VIII, per indagare il ruolo che rivestì (tanto nella sua portata comunicativa, quanto nella sua valenza storico artistica) la medaglistica pontificia in età moderna. Nel saggio vengono analizzati, in tre distinti capitoli, i processi creativi (dalla scelta dei temi alla stesura dei programmi, dalla selezione dei modelli iconografici all'esecuzione materiale, dal contributo di singoli artisti all'impiego di strumenti meccanici di riproduzione), le funzioni (tanto devozionali, quanto di rappresentanza, sotto il controllo inquisitoriale e in rapporto a precise cerimonie) e la fortuna visiva e letteraria (dall'affermarsi di una valorizzazione in chiave seriale in medaglieri poetici, in riproduzioni ad affresco e nel collezionismo, fino alla creazione di una trattatistica specifica, modellata sui contemporanei interessi antiquari) delle medaglie papali tra Cinque e Seicento, identificando nel pontificato di Urbano VIII il momento in cui questo oggetto venne consapevolmente innalzato a strumento ufficiale di autorappresentazione pontificia. Nel catalogo l'organizzazione dei singoli esemplari per raggruppamenti tematici non solo è funzionale ad una loro più attenta valutazione tecnica (in rapporto allo stato dei conii, al reimpiego di questi in coniazioni arbitrarie, ecc.), ma anche ad una più efficace indagine delle iconografie, sia nel loro dialogo con la medaglistica precedente, sia nel complessivo contesto della produzione artistica urbaniana.

In the 17th century, the “century of information” and of the emergence of a new global public sphere, the Barberini were keenly aware that in order to display the high status of their family they need not only the acquisition and multiplication of material and financial wealth, but also an increase in their “cultural capital” – according to Bourdieu’s famous definition – which could be converted into social and symbolic capital. But collecting artworks would not be enough. It was also necessary to collect a wider range of objects in keeping with the new concerns of the emerging sciences. These objects were not only of a purely material nature, as they included also abstract instances such as information and those curiosities and wonders that we would dismiss today as marginal phenomena from the perspective of traditional art collecting. Yet they take on a meaning of their own in the Barberini family’s strategic self-portrayal.

Personaggio ben inserito all’interno della corte barberiniana, in qualità di medico di papa Urbano VIII, il senese Sebastiano Vannini manifestò nella sua produzione letteraria (rimasta quasi integralmente manoscritta) uno spiccato interesse verso le arti figurative. Se il suo ampio testo in volgare Diporti curiosi circa sagre antiche pitture (1642) si concentra sugli affreschi e i mosaici del tardo Medioevo romano, alcuni tra i suoi numerosi componimenti poetici latini sono dedicati a opere realizzate da Gian Lorenzo Bernini per il pontefice in San Pietro (il Baldacchino, la tomba di Urbano e quella di Matilde di Canossa), nonché a una scultura berniniana quale il busto del re d’Inghilterra Carlo I, che si inseriva a pieno titolo nella strategia diplomatica di papa Barberini.
A queste rime inedite, che rappresentano una fonte significativa per meglio conoscere la genesi e la più antica ricezione di alcune tra le principali creazioni di Bernini, se ne accompagnano altre che ci permettono di conoscere meglio la biografia di Vannini e in particolare lo stretto rapporto che egli intrattenne con il suo maestro, il noto connoisseur Giulio Mancini.

This paper discusses the first laudatory ode addressed to the Polish Jesuit poet Mathias Casimirus Sarbievius (Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski, 1595-1640), by the Frenchman Gilbertus Joninus (Gilbert Jonin, 1596-1638), originally published in 1630. The composition is an appraisal of the many different topics which Sarbievius' poetry covers, beginning with his odes to the pope, followed by patriotic lyrics, poems with an aeronautocal theme, compositions about chaste, heavenly love, and finally that which the Pole wisely omits. In the ode's conclusion, Sarbievius is compared to Horace, probably for the first time. The article also makes a comparison between the 1630 and 1632 editions of Joninus' eulogy.

The early period of the Accademia di San Luca is traditionally interpreted as an important moment in a longer history of theorization, professionalization, and institutionalization of the arts. Historians of art usually focus on the academy’s attempts to control artistic education and the art market in Rome. This article takes a different approach by providing a reconstruction of the manifold activities carried out by the academy during a single year: 1629. This microhistorical approach, which makes use of archival sources such as minutes of meetings and account books from the Archivio di Stato and the Archivio dell'Accademia Nazionale di San Luca, shows that during this “normal” year other activities, such as celebrating religious feasts and maintaining patronage relations, were at least as important for the academy as education and controlling the profession. Therefore, precisely by narrowing the focus to a single year of the academy’s activity it is possible to arrive at a less reductive and more comprehensive understanding of this institution.
In particular, the article discusses four cultural practices carried out by the Accademia di San Luca in 1629: 1. Guild-administrative, 2. Religious-confraternal, 3. Artistic-educational, and 4. Patronage practices. These practices are reconstructed and distinguished from each other by focusing on the skills that were required from, the rules that were observed by, and the goals that were pursued by the participants. Moreover, the article shows how these practices could converge with each other, as in the case of the organization of the feast of St. Luke, or come into conflict with each other, as in the election of the new principe. Finally, the various types of power relations that were at work in this institution are discussed, e.g. between different types of artists (painters, embroiderers, sculptors) or between the academicians and their patron (Cardinal Francesco Barberini).

The aim of this article is to report some of the results obtained through the investigation of archival resources, which have allowed to make likely hypotheses on the development of staging techniques and theatrical devices of some spectacles staged by the Barberini in Rome between 1628 and 1656. Since for most of these spectacles there is not a detailed description, the investigation of primary sources, including reports, avvisi, letters, engravings, and contemporary manuals of scenography and theatrical sketches has been particularly helpful and has permitted to shed new light on the following aspects: artists and artisans hired to stage the performances, places chosen to stage them, furbishing of these places, building of the stage, position of the orchestra, main staging techniques, lighting, theatrical machinery and devices, methods for removing the curtain.

In the 17th century, the “century of information” and of the emergence of a new global public sphere, the Barberini were keenly aware that in order to display the high status of their family they need not only the acquisition and multiplication of material and financial wealth, but also an increase in their “cultural capital” – according to Bourdieu’s famous definition – which could be converted into social and symbolic capital. But collecting artworks would not be enough. It was also necessary to collect a wider range of objects in keeping with the new concerns of the emerging sciences. These objects were not only of a purely material nature, as they included also abstract instances such as information and those curiosities and wonders that we would dismiss today as marginal phenomena from the perspective of traditional art collecting. Yet they take on a meaning of their own in the Barberini family’s strategic self-portrayal.

This panel is the first of a series of seminars planned to present studies and researches on the art and cultural patronage of the Barberini family in Rome and Europe, between the last quarter of the XVIth century and the end of the XVIIth.
Prepared in decades of alliances and diplomatic agreements, with the support of family finances, the reign of Pope Urban VIII, born Maffeo Barberini (Florence  1568 – Rome 1644) lasted twenty-one years and determined the political future of the Papacy in Europe as well as the diffusion of a new artistic style and taste throughout the Continent. Born in a noble Florentine family of merchants and bankers, Maffeo was formed in Pisa by illustrious scholars, he soon went to Rome where he was destined to the ecclesiastical career. Helped by his uncle Monsignor Francesco (Florence 1528 – Rome 1600) an apostolic notary, the young and bright cleric entered the entourage of Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini (Rome 1571 - 1621), nephew of the ruling Pope Clement VIII (Reg. 1592 – 1605). Educated by those prodigious politicians and diplomats, Maffeo himself a distinguished writer and  poet, elaborated an amazingly detailed programme to cover all aspects of the Government of the Church. Differently from the less structured and organized reign of Paul V Borghese (Reg. 1605 – 1622), who made him a Cardinal in 1606, Maffeo’s political project involved all the Arts, architecture, painting and sculpture, as well as the literary and historical studies, the erudite disciplines, the new research in the natural world promoted by the “scientists“ of the Accademia dei Lincei. From 1623, and especially throughout the first decade of his reign, Pope Urban VIII, his nephews Cardinals Francesco (Florence 1597 – Rome 1679) and Antonio Barberini (Rome 1607 – Nemi 1671) along with their ministers, clever agents and talented artists formed an extraordinarily resourceful government which used all the Arts and the Letters to attract and seduce the rest of the world to the Roman Catholic faith. In a famous letter written to Galileo Galilei (Pisa 1564 – Arcetri 1642), the historian Agostino Mascardi (Sarzana 1590 - 1640) defines the election of Maffeo Barberini to the Papacy as a Mirabil Congiuntura. As a renovated Mirabilia Urbis Romae of the High Renaissance papacies, the new marvel of the Roma Barberina sparkled throughout Europe with the objective of diffusing the arts of the newly created Propaganda Fide (1622).
This panel has been called to testimony the liveliness of “Barberini studies” after the major colloquium organised in Rome in December 2004 and its proceedings published in 2008

The object of study for the Thesis of "Scuola di Specializzazione", the particular case of the "Ponte Ruinante", represented a particularly representative subject for many questions concerning the conservation of Baroque Architecture. Aspects such as the theatrical fiction, the simulation of noble materials, here together with reflections on the Antiquity and on the aesthetic value of the Ruins, have represented an interesting test-bed for the application within the basic concepts of the “critical-conservative restoring”. Starting from some initial considerations on the "conceptual value" of architectural materials, which in Palazzo Barberini represents the dominant theme applied on a large scale, this short essay deals with the architectural and constructive analysis (based on archival documents) of the Ponte Ruinante, in order to arrive at the historical understanding of the artifact in question, and outline the guiding ideas for its preservation project, respectful of the multiple cultural values inherent in it.

Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Cambridge, UK.

Margherita Costa (c. 1600–after 1657) was one of the most prolific female authors of seventeenth-century Europe. As a singer and rumoured courtesan, she made her way in the courts and theatres of Rome, Florence, Turin, Paris, Venice, and perhaps even Germany. Costa was a 'virtuosa' performer on both stage and page: between 1630 and 1654, a period marked by a decline in secular women's writing in Italy, she produced fourteen full-length printed works across a remarkable range of genres, topics, and registers. Her unique position on the margins of courtly society allowed Costa to move more freely across the literary stage than any other female writer of her generation, switching easily between high and low style, decorous elegance and erotic allusions, encomiastic speeches and satirical parody. This literary versatility, combined with her talent as a performer, earned her the support of an enviable collection of elite patrons, including the Medici, the Barberini, the French royal house, and the Dukes of Braunschweig-Lüneburg. Though this charismatic 'virtuosa' inspired admiration in her contemporaries and left behind an astounding literary legacy, her oeuvre remains understudied. This dissertation is the first study to take a more comprehensive approach to Costa's trajectory as a 'virtuosa' on the literary stage of the Seicento, from her early works in Florence in the 1630s to her last full-length publication in Venice and final printed poems in the 1650s. Rather than only focussing on one period of her literary career, the central aim is to give readers an understanding of Costa's extraordinary adaptability in different cultural and patronage contexts. Her journey opens a window onto the society and culture of a travelling musician and woman writer with a striking ability to succeed in an environment increasingly hostile to female public engagement.

Arriving in Rome from Florence during the pontificate of Gregory XIII, Antonio Tempesta painted numerous frescoes in the Vatican papal palace and on commission from illustrious prelates. Towards the end of the Sixteenth Century, the artist became famous for his strong inventive skills in the production of prints depicting scenes of hunts and battles. At the same time the Florentine began to be assiduously employed by refined collectors for the execution of precious stone paintings. Although these aspects of Tempesta's activity have already been extensively investigated, this study intends to shed light on the painter's little-known production of easel paintings. In particular, some unpublished monochrome paintings by Tempesta executed between 1595 and 1630 are presented. Retracing the stylistic progress of the artist, the author investigate his relationships with the most illustrious clients of the time and the presence of his grisailles in the most important Roman noble collections, including the Giustiniani, the Colonna and the Peretti Montalto.

For the holy year of 1675, Cardinal Francesco Barberini commissioned a silver gilt and crystal frame, embellished with bees, to surround and protect the relic of the Volto Santo in St Peter's. New documents published here allow us to trace the genesis of the project to 1636 and to assign the invention of the frame to Gianlorenzo Bernini.

The Flemish painter Michele Desubleo (* 1601, Maubeuge; † 1676, Parma) had a successful career in Italy. In Rome, Bologna and Venice, he established contacts with some of the most renowned painters and art collectors of his time and secured honourable commissions. He thus represents a special case of an immigrant painter. However, the artistic recognition he received during his lifetime could not prevent Desubleo’s name from rapidly disappearing from art historical literature after his death.

This monograph explores for the first time the complex mechanisms that led to the success and oblivion of a foreign painter in 17th century Italy. The study reveals the multi-faceted picture of a gifted artist and traces his unusual rise far from official career paths.

The book deals with “San Bonifazio”, a libretto by Giulio Rospigliosi (1600-1669, pope Clement IX from 1667) staged in 1638 with the music by Virgilio Mazzocchi at the Roman court of the cardinal-nephew Francesco Barberini.
Through archival sources, it retraces the opera’s various scenic events with particular reference to its productive and receptive context. The dramaturgy of the libretto is analyzed in the light of the theatrical, literary and, ultimately, cultural horizon of the time.
The libretto of “San Bonifazio” was never published, although between the Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries it enjoyed considerable circulation in manuscript form: this volume offers a critical edition of the libretto, with a summary catalog of the witnesses known to date.

This article examines a hitherto unknown episode of the European fame of Guido Reni, presenting new evidence concerning the fate of one of his most impressive and renown late works, the Bacchus and Ariadne. Commissioned in 1639 by the powerful Cardinal Francesco Barberini (1597–1679), the painting was intended as a diplomatic gift to the Queen of England, Henrietta Maria (1609–1669), wife of Charles I. Yet, after its completion in 1640, the large canvas was shipped not to London, but to Rome, where it would remain with Cardinal Barberini for the following six years. New evidence from the Diaries of the bohemian Cardinal Adalbert von Harrach (1598–1667) reveals that cardinal Barberini changed his mind about the painting’s destination, proposing instead that the work be given as a diplomatic gift to Walter Leslie (1606–1667), a Scottish diplomat in the service of the emperor Ferdinand III who visited Rome in spring 1645. This episode sheds new light on Cardinal Barberini’s political acuity, calling attention to his pragmatism in international relations and adaptability in using paintings as instruments of persuasion and influence in foreign affairs. Finally, the article discusses also the material legacy of the large canvas that, according to contemporary sources, was literally cut into pieces by the servants of Madame d’Emery, the wife of France’s finance minister Michel Particelli (1596–1650), who was shocked by the lascivious nudity of Guido’s deities.

Little attention has been given up to now to the autonomous dimension of Giovanni Ciampoli’s work, mainly known as a disciple of Galileo and a secretary of Urban VIII. The book reconstructs his initiatives to create a group of ‘new’ philosophers and ecclesiastics inside the Roman Curia, and analyses the surviving part of his Filosofia naturale, here completely published for the first time, revealing a surprising intellectual portrait of Ciampoli.

Il saggio intende esplorare il processo di elaborazione braccioliniana del mito di Ero e Leandro, tenendo conto del riadattamento scenico delle tipologie tragicomiche verso le declinazioni ‘maritime’ e verso le forme e gli stili del dramma per musica cortigiano, del- le implicazioni fra tradizione classica e influenza letteraria seicentesca, e del travestimento allegorico-mitico entro cui leggere velati riferimenti alle vicende biografiche della famiglia Colonna.