Domenico Guidi

Giovedì 13 luglio 2017, ore 17:30
Sala Convegni, Palazzo Ducale di Urbino
INAUGURAZIONE

Mostra: IL RITRATTO RITROVATO.
IL CARDINALE GIANFRANCESCO ALBANI E LE ARTI, TRA ROMA E URBINO

13 luglio – 29 ottobre 2017
Urbino - Palazzo Ducale, Salotto della Duchessa

[press release] Il Direttore della Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Peter Aufreiter, è lieto di aver promosso e realizzato questa mostra, curata da Lucia Simonato, sul bellissimo busto-ritratto in marmo del cardinale Gianfrancesco Albani, che di recente è stato rintracciato dalla studiosa presso il Dipartimento di Giurisprudenza dell’Università “Carlo Bo” di Urbino, andando ad arricchire il catalogo dello scultore carrarese Domenico Guidi.
Ospitata nel raffinato Salotto della Duchessa del Palazzo Ducale di Urbino, l’elegante esposizione restituisce un importante tassello alla conoscenza non solo dell’attività dell’artista, ma anche del suo committente, il cardinal Gianfrancesco Albani. In un vero e proprio ‘concerto di arti’, tra dipinti di Carlo Maratti, disegni di Giuseppe Passeri, medaglie degli Hamerani, ritratti in marmo e in bronzo di Lorenzo Ottoni e Guidi, la presentazione del busto intende anche fare luce sulle scelte collezionistiche e di patronage dell’Albani, che già prima di diventare papa con il nome di Clemente XI è riuscito a donare ad Urbino un “secondo Rinascimento”.
Collaborano alla mostra, con i loro prestiti, collezionisti privati, musei italiani e stranieri, l’Istituto Centrale per la Grafica, il Comune di Urbino e, in primis, l’Università di Urbino.

A friend and executor of Algardi, the medallist Gaspare Morone continued his collaboration with the Bolognese sculptor's pupils even after his death, especially with Girolamo Lucenti and Domenico Guidi. This is proved by the decoration commissioned by Morone's sister for the Chapel of the Magi in Santa Maria del Suffragio, Rome, completed in 1678, where both Morone and his brother-in-law Pietro Martire Neri were buried; marble portraits of them were made by Lucenti (to judge by its style) and Guidi, respectively. The latter's work is now also confirmed by hitherto neglected documentary evidence. Beyond a review of the principal phases of this little-known commission, the article investigates some aspects of the relationship between medal-making and sculpture in Rome during the second half of the seventeenth century, with special focus on the multi-faceted figure of Lucenti (bronze-caster, medallist, sculptor), chosen by Morone to succeed him at the Roman Mint, after his death in 1669, as official engraver.

This article is dedicated to Alessandro Algardi's roman tomb, never requested according to his last will, and so probabably never realized. Exactly, it is dedicated to the process of building wich Giovan Pietro Bellori refears in his Vite, by describing an already done tomb, and by let believe this misunderstanding to other historians until 20th century. By examinating again all the documents about the question, it's possible to recognize the origins of the misunderstanding, not done as a pure mistake, but as a weapon of persuasion, among connoisseurs and Algardi's admirators, to let them build a monumental tomb soon, feeling this absence like something of innapropriate for a so important artist like him.

Ercole Ferrata (Pellio di Sotto, Como, 1610 - Rome, 1686) was an important sculptor in Seventeenth-century Rome, following two protagonists such as Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Alessandro Algardi. The eight wooden sculptures from Ferrata’s studio, deposited by his heirs in the parish church of San Michele in Pellio di Sotto and now displayed in the Museum of Scaria Intelvi since 1966, testify to the strong and lasting bond with the native valley. In his will, drawn up in 1685, the sculptor ordered the materials of his studio to be intended for the public benefit and, above all, of his homeland. To these eight small wooden sculptures, we can now add an ivory Crucifix, mentioned in pastoral visits in the Nineteenth century, then forgotten and considered missing, which is proposed here to be recognized in the one mentioned in the inventory of the sculptor’s house, particularly in his bedroom, where Ferrata died in 1686. Therefore, the Crucifix and the eight models are testimonies of an exceptional human and artistic experience; they offer the opportunity not only to reconsider the history of the dispersion of Ferrata’s studio, but also to better understand its organization, then to measure Ferrata’s long legacy in Lombard sculpture between Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries.

Il contributo riconsidera complessivamente il gruppo di busti in bronzo della cappella Franzone, variamente discussi fra Alessandro Algardi e Domenico Guidi, collegando a queste opere due busti in terracotta di Domenico Guidi, forse originariamente concepiti come parte di questa serie.

Upon his elevation to the cardinalate in 1690, Gianfrancesco Albani began to take on a key role in the art policy of the State of the Church, as much in Rome as in the city where he was born, Urbino. As cardinal he anticipated various aspects that became central when he rose to the papal throne as Clement XI (1700–1721): his interest in Raphael and the Vatican Stanze, his relationship with academies and the attention he reserved for the Marche territory. The research presented in this volume, which developed out of the discovery, at the University of Urbino, of a marble portrait of Albani made by Domenico Guidi in 1692, aims to offer an initial contextualisation of Albani’s relationship with the arts, and in particular his collecting activity and ties to a few particular painters and sculptors he met while a prelate. To these he entrusted, once he became pope, the artistic direction of Clementine Rome and the launch of a ‘second Renaissance’ in Urbino. First and foremost, Carlo Maratti.