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Lot Essay
Long considered lost and rediscovered only in recent times, this is one of Vasari's most prominent early paintings, executed in 1542 for his friend and patron, the Florentine financier and collector Bindo Altoviti (1491-1557). Vasari's precise descriptions of the painting, a preparatory drawing in the Louvre (fig. 1), and a much smaller and slightly later replica of the painting, now in the Chigi Saracini collection, Siena, enabled Laura Corti, who first published the Pietà in 1996, to identify it with the one commissioned by Bindo Altoviti. The circumstances of the commission are well known. Following an invitation to stay in Altoviti's Roman Palazzo near Castel Sant'Angelo, Vasari visited his patron in the fall of 1542. During this stay, which lasted until the end of June of the following year, Vasari painted the Pietà in Altoviti's house. The artist listed the painting, for which he received 50 gold scudi, in his Ricordanze, the inventory of his own commissions (Frey, op. cit., II, no. 129). He also described it in detail in his autobiography at the end of the second edition of the Vite, published in Florence in 1568. Vasari wrote: 'I went to Rome, where, having been received by the above-named Messer Bindo [Altoviti] with many kindnesses, I painted for him in a picture in oils a Christ the size of life, taken down from the Cross and laid on the ground at the feet of His Mother; with Phoebus in the air obscuring the face of the Sun, and Diana that of the Moon. In the landscape, all darkened by that gloom, some rocky mountains, shaken by the earthquake that was caused by the passion of the Saviour, are seen shivered into pieces, and certain dead bodies are seen rising again and issuing from their sepulchres in various manners; which picture, when finished, was not displeasing to the gracious judgement of the greatest painter, sculptor and architect that there has been in our times, and perchance in the past' (Vasari, op. cit., pp. 671-2).
Vasari's description matches the present painting precisely, even the measurements given in the Ricordanze (3 x 21/3 braccia= c. 176 x 136.5 cm) correspond with the present ones. Vasari only omitted to mention the four instruments of the Passion in the foreground of the painting - the nails, the ointment vase, the crown of thorns, and the sponge - painted with particular care and arranged like a still life. The name of the greatest painter, sculptor and architect, who according to Vasari's account did not disesteem his painting, was of course Michelangelo, and Vasari's Altoviti Pietà is in many ways a tribute to this artist. Vasari clearly paraphrased Michelangelo's marble Pietà of Saint Peter (c. 1497-1500), while the slumped body of Christ lying on the ground rather than being supported by the Virgin, is a reference to Sebastiano del Piombo's famous Pietà at Viterbo, of c. 1516-7, for which Michelangelo had provided the cartoon. Vasari's preparatory drawing in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (fig. 1), thoroughly executed in pen and brown ink over a faint sketch in black chalk, differs in several respects from the final painting, most notably in the position of Christ's head and the direction of the Madonna's gaze. While she is looking down at her Son in the painting, she is giving the impression as though looking up in the drawing. This can be explained by the fact that in the drawing the Madonna's head is closely modelled, in reverse, on another famous work by Michelangelo, the Doni tondo in the Uffizi (c. 1503-4), which Vasari knew well, as he described it in detail in the vita of the artist (Vasari, op. cit., VII, p. 158). However, Vasari ultimately decided to depict the Virgin turning towards her Son and giving her features closer to those of the Pietà of Saint Peter. Another reference to Michelangelo are the rising dead bodies in the left background, not yet included in the drawing, which are indebted to the fresco of the Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel, which was unveiled only about a year earlier, on 25 December 1541.
The blending of Christian and mythological elements, such as the representation of Apollo and Diana in a Pietà, was a rather unusual iconographic invenzione. As Corti (op. cit., 1996, pp. 159-60) has pointed out, the presence of Phoebus Apollo (the 'Sun-God'), who 'obscures the face of the sun', and that of Diana (the 'Moon-Goddess'), who obscures that of the moon, are to be understood in eschatological terms. While the moon (with the rocky mountains shaken by the earthquake below) symbolizes the Old Testament, the sun (with a view of Jerusalem in the guise of Roma antica below) represents the New Testament. Just as the moon needs the sunlight, the Old Testament will remain obscured until being illuminated by the gospels. At the same time, however, Vasari also drew on the medieval tradition of representing the disks of the sun and the moon in renderings of the Crucifixion, a motif that Vasari reused many years later in his altarpiece of the Crucifixion in the Church of S. Maria del Carmine, Florence (1560). As Corti further suggested, the invention of this rather complicated concetto, which also required the knowledge of patristic texts, lay in in the hands of the humanist Paolo Giovio. On various occasions in the 1540s Paolo Giovio advised Vasari on iconographically complex paintings, most notably the elaborate Allegory of Justice of 1544, now at Capodimonte, Naples, and the fresco decoration of the Sala di Cento Giorni in the Palazzo della Cancelleria, Rome, of 1546. Both works were commissioned by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, to whom Vasari, as he tells us in his autobiography, was introduced after the Pietà had been shown to the Cardinal.
The Altoviti Pietà was conceived as a private devotional image and not as an altarpiece to be displayed in public space. Its appreciation required a certain erudition and an antiquarian taste, qualities that Bindo Altoviti certainly did not lack. A member of the Florentine nobility, Altoviti lived in Rome in close vicinity to the Vatican, where he was banker of the Curia and also held the post of Depositario della Fabbrica di San Pietro. He was a strong opponent to the Medici in Florence, and after the assassination of Duca Alessandro de' Medici in 1537, whose portrait Vasari had painted in 1534 (Uffizi, Florence), Altoviti is known to have expressed his content with the murder, having sent a generous present to the assassin Lorenzino. This did not prevent him, however, from acquiring paintings and sculptures by Florentine artists or invite them to stay and work in his Roman house. From the early 1540s he was a keen supporter of the youthful Vasari who, upon the assassination of Duca Alessandro, was left without a permanent employment and was working on various projects in Bologna, Venice, Florence, Arezzo, and Rome.
Altoviti commissioned several works from Vasari in the 1540s and 1550s. In 1541 Vasari painted the altarpiece of the Allegory of the Immaculate Conception, still in situ in the Altoviti family chapel in the Church of S. Apostoli, Florence. This was one of Vasari's most successful paintings, several other versions, partly autograph and partly executed by his workshop, are still extant (Corti, op. cit., 1989, no. 20). Its composition was highly influential far into the next century. Paintings of the subject by Naldini, Santi di Tito, Cigoli, Empoli, Rosselli, and many others reflect the importance of Vasari's invenzione (L. Corti, C. Davis , op. cit., pp. 107-8). In 1544 Vasari painted a smaller replica for Altoviti's Roman Palazzo, which is now in the Uffizi (Corti, op. cit., 1989, p. 37, illustrated). The close ties between Vasari, Altoviti and Michelangelo are further documented by another commission. About a year after the completion of the Pietà, Vasari painted a Venus with Cupid, now-lost, for Altoviti, which was based on a design by Michelangelo (Frey, op. cit., II, p. 861, no. 136), and in 1544 he painted a Madonna and a portrait of Altoviti's brother Giambattista. In the early 1550s, before Vasari entered the service of Duke Cosimo de' Medici in 1555, he decorated two Loggias with frescos, one in Altoviti's villa outside of Rome, and the other in his Roman Palazzo, which was unfortunately demolished in 1888. While the latter frescoes are now lost, those of the villa are now exhibited at the Palazzo Venezia, Rome.
In addition to a typically antiquarian collection of antique coins, busts and reliefs, Altoviti owned some of the finest works by Florentine artists. Around 1515 Raphael made a portrait of the youthful banker, now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., which Vasari mentions in the vita of the artist (Vasari, op. cit., IV, p. 181). Altoviti also owned Raphael's Madonna dell'Impannata, now in the Galleria Palatina, Florence, and Michelangelo's cartoon for the fresco of the Drunkenness of Noah on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Around 1550 Benvenuto Cellini, who also stayed in Altoviti's house in Rome, cast a splendid portrait bust of his patron, now in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (C. Avery, Benvenuto Cellini's Bronze Bust of Bindo Altoviti, Connoisseur, CXCVIII, May 1978, pp. 62-72). Francesco Salviati made a now-lost portrait of Altoviti and painted a fresco of the coat-of-arms of Pope Paul III on the facade of Altoviti's Roman Palazzo, which Vasari praised in the artist's vita (Vasari, op. cit., V, p. 516).
The Altoviti Pietà is a significant addition to the painted oeuvre of Giorgio Vasari and an important document for the history of early collecting in Renaissance Rome. One of the artist's most personal works, it further testifies to the close relationship between Vasari and one of the most prominent collectors and patrons of his time.
Dr. Florian Härb
Vasari's description matches the present painting precisely, even the measurements given in the Ricordanze (3 x 21/3 braccia= c. 176 x 136.5 cm) correspond with the present ones. Vasari only omitted to mention the four instruments of the Passion in the foreground of the painting - the nails, the ointment vase, the crown of thorns, and the sponge - painted with particular care and arranged like a still life. The name of the greatest painter, sculptor and architect, who according to Vasari's account did not disesteem his painting, was of course Michelangelo, and Vasari's Altoviti Pietà is in many ways a tribute to this artist. Vasari clearly paraphrased Michelangelo's marble Pietà of Saint Peter (c. 1497-1500), while the slumped body of Christ lying on the ground rather than being supported by the Virgin, is a reference to Sebastiano del Piombo's famous Pietà at Viterbo, of c. 1516-7, for which Michelangelo had provided the cartoon. Vasari's preparatory drawing in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (fig. 1), thoroughly executed in pen and brown ink over a faint sketch in black chalk, differs in several respects from the final painting, most notably in the position of Christ's head and the direction of the Madonna's gaze. While she is looking down at her Son in the painting, she is giving the impression as though looking up in the drawing. This can be explained by the fact that in the drawing the Madonna's head is closely modelled, in reverse, on another famous work by Michelangelo, the Doni tondo in the Uffizi (c. 1503-4), which Vasari knew well, as he described it in detail in the vita of the artist (Vasari, op. cit., VII, p. 158). However, Vasari ultimately decided to depict the Virgin turning towards her Son and giving her features closer to those of the Pietà of Saint Peter. Another reference to Michelangelo are the rising dead bodies in the left background, not yet included in the drawing, which are indebted to the fresco of the Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel, which was unveiled only about a year earlier, on 25 December 1541.
The blending of Christian and mythological elements, such as the representation of Apollo and Diana in a Pietà, was a rather unusual iconographic invenzione. As Corti (op. cit., 1996, pp. 159-60) has pointed out, the presence of Phoebus Apollo (the 'Sun-God'), who 'obscures the face of the sun', and that of Diana (the 'Moon-Goddess'), who obscures that of the moon, are to be understood in eschatological terms. While the moon (with the rocky mountains shaken by the earthquake below) symbolizes the Old Testament, the sun (with a view of Jerusalem in the guise of Roma antica below) represents the New Testament. Just as the moon needs the sunlight, the Old Testament will remain obscured until being illuminated by the gospels. At the same time, however, Vasari also drew on the medieval tradition of representing the disks of the sun and the moon in renderings of the Crucifixion, a motif that Vasari reused many years later in his altarpiece of the Crucifixion in the Church of S. Maria del Carmine, Florence (1560). As Corti further suggested, the invention of this rather complicated concetto, which also required the knowledge of patristic texts, lay in in the hands of the humanist Paolo Giovio. On various occasions in the 1540s Paolo Giovio advised Vasari on iconographically complex paintings, most notably the elaborate Allegory of Justice of 1544, now at Capodimonte, Naples, and the fresco decoration of the Sala di Cento Giorni in the Palazzo della Cancelleria, Rome, of 1546. Both works were commissioned by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, to whom Vasari, as he tells us in his autobiography, was introduced after the Pietà had been shown to the Cardinal.
The Altoviti Pietà was conceived as a private devotional image and not as an altarpiece to be displayed in public space. Its appreciation required a certain erudition and an antiquarian taste, qualities that Bindo Altoviti certainly did not lack. A member of the Florentine nobility, Altoviti lived in Rome in close vicinity to the Vatican, where he was banker of the Curia and also held the post of Depositario della Fabbrica di San Pietro. He was a strong opponent to the Medici in Florence, and after the assassination of Duca Alessandro de' Medici in 1537, whose portrait Vasari had painted in 1534 (Uffizi, Florence), Altoviti is known to have expressed his content with the murder, having sent a generous present to the assassin Lorenzino. This did not prevent him, however, from acquiring paintings and sculptures by Florentine artists or invite them to stay and work in his Roman house. From the early 1540s he was a keen supporter of the youthful Vasari who, upon the assassination of Duca Alessandro, was left without a permanent employment and was working on various projects in Bologna, Venice, Florence, Arezzo, and Rome.
Altoviti commissioned several works from Vasari in the 1540s and 1550s. In 1541 Vasari painted the altarpiece of the Allegory of the Immaculate Conception, still in situ in the Altoviti family chapel in the Church of S. Apostoli, Florence. This was one of Vasari's most successful paintings, several other versions, partly autograph and partly executed by his workshop, are still extant (Corti, op. cit., 1989, no. 20). Its composition was highly influential far into the next century. Paintings of the subject by Naldini, Santi di Tito, Cigoli, Empoli, Rosselli, and many others reflect the importance of Vasari's invenzione (L. Corti, C. Davis , op. cit., pp. 107-8). In 1544 Vasari painted a smaller replica for Altoviti's Roman Palazzo, which is now in the Uffizi (Corti, op. cit., 1989, p. 37, illustrated). The close ties between Vasari, Altoviti and Michelangelo are further documented by another commission. About a year after the completion of the Pietà, Vasari painted a Venus with Cupid, now-lost, for Altoviti, which was based on a design by Michelangelo (Frey, op. cit., II, p. 861, no. 136), and in 1544 he painted a Madonna and a portrait of Altoviti's brother Giambattista. In the early 1550s, before Vasari entered the service of Duke Cosimo de' Medici in 1555, he decorated two Loggias with frescos, one in Altoviti's villa outside of Rome, and the other in his Roman Palazzo, which was unfortunately demolished in 1888. While the latter frescoes are now lost, those of the villa are now exhibited at the Palazzo Venezia, Rome.
In addition to a typically antiquarian collection of antique coins, busts and reliefs, Altoviti owned some of the finest works by Florentine artists. Around 1515 Raphael made a portrait of the youthful banker, now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., which Vasari mentions in the vita of the artist (Vasari, op. cit., IV, p. 181). Altoviti also owned Raphael's Madonna dell'Impannata, now in the Galleria Palatina, Florence, and Michelangelo's cartoon for the fresco of the Drunkenness of Noah on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Around 1550 Benvenuto Cellini, who also stayed in Altoviti's house in Rome, cast a splendid portrait bust of his patron, now in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (C. Avery, Benvenuto Cellini's Bronze Bust of Bindo Altoviti, Connoisseur, CXCVIII, May 1978, pp. 62-72). Francesco Salviati made a now-lost portrait of Altoviti and painted a fresco of the coat-of-arms of Pope Paul III on the facade of Altoviti's Roman Palazzo, which Vasari praised in the artist's vita (Vasari, op. cit., V, p. 516).
The Altoviti Pietà is a significant addition to the painted oeuvre of Giorgio Vasari and an important document for the history of early collecting in Renaissance Rome. One of the artist's most personal works, it further testifies to the close relationship between Vasari and one of the most prominent collectors and patrons of his time.
Dr. Florian Härb