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Lot Essay
Giacinto Gigli describes in his Roman Diary (1608-70) the festival depicted in this picture, which used to take place annually in Rome until the mid-seventeenth century: 'On the first day of May no one was expecting to see the festivity which used to take place in the Campidoglio and in the courtyard of the Palazzo Papale, because it had been abandoned. They used to plant a mast with food hanging, and people were competing to get to the top of the mast which was smooth and full of soap.'
The present work is very close in style to the painting of the same subject exhibited in Rome last year (Private Collection, Florence; exhibited Caravaggio e il Genio di Roma, Rome, Palazzo Venezia, 10 May-31 July 2001, no. 80). That painting has the Medici coat-of-arms on the lower right, perhaps indicating that it was a commission for that family, for whom Tassi worked in Livorno and then Rome, in the Palazzo Firenze; the fact that the arms also show the Papal insignia suggest that the commission may date from the brief Pontificate of Leo XI, in 1605.
The representation of religious or civil festivities was a tradition that was well-known in fresco painting, for example in the work of Matteo Bril and Antonio Tempesta, and was one that appealed to Tassi. His frequent contact with Flemish painters, who often visited his workshop, may well have influenced his taste for such works. Even in his early works in Florence, Passeri (G. B. Passeri, vite, 1679; ed. J. Hess (1934), pp. 117--29 recounts that he depicted many decorations for theatrical events and festivals, including in 1608 the wedding of Cosimo II de' Medici and Maria Maddelena of Austria, and this contact with such occasions may have inspired his subsequent fondness for their depiction.
The present work is very close in style to the painting of the same subject exhibited in Rome last year (Private Collection, Florence; exhibited Caravaggio e il Genio di Roma, Rome, Palazzo Venezia, 10 May-31 July 2001, no. 80). That painting has the Medici coat-of-arms on the lower right, perhaps indicating that it was a commission for that family, for whom Tassi worked in Livorno and then Rome, in the Palazzo Firenze; the fact that the arms also show the Papal insignia suggest that the commission may date from the brief Pontificate of Leo XI, in 1605.
The representation of religious or civil festivities was a tradition that was well-known in fresco painting, for example in the work of Matteo Bril and Antonio Tempesta, and was one that appealed to Tassi. His frequent contact with Flemish painters, who often visited his workshop, may well have influenced his taste for such works. Even in his early works in Florence, Passeri (G. B. Passeri, vite, 1679; ed. J. Hess (1934), pp. 117--29 recounts that he depicted many decorations for theatrical events and festivals, including in 1608 the wedding of Cosimo II de' Medici and Maria Maddelena of Austria, and this contact with such occasions may have inspired his subsequent fondness for their depiction.