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Lot Essay
For the Church Jubilee of 1600, Girolamo Bernerio da Correggio, Cardinal of Ascoli and prior of Santa Sabina, commissioned from Federico Zuccaro the decoration of the vault and walls of the newly built chapel of Saint Hyacinth in the Roman Basilica of Santa Sabina. The side walls are frescoed with two episodes from the life of the Saint Hyacinth, the Canonization and the Clothing (fig. 1). The present double-sided drawing shows Federico’s first ideas for the scene of The Canonization of Saint Hyacinth, an episode which occurred just a few years earlier, in 1594, when Pope Clement VIII canonized Hyacinth, a Dominican friar from Cracow (1185-1257).
Federico worked extensively on this project, as attested by the existence of several preparatory drawings for the scene. Another preliminary study of this scene was recorded by John Gere in a private collection in Paris (J. Gere, Il Manierismo a Roma, Milan, 1971, no. 37, ill.), while a more elaborate and finished version is in the Morgan Library and Museum, New York (inv. 1973.30; Renaissance into Baroque, op. cit., no. 100, ill.), and a further compositional study - very close to the final fresco - is in the Ėcole des Beaux-Arts in Paris (inv. 441; E. Brugerolles and D. Guillet, Disegno. Dessins de Taddeo et Federico Zuccari dans les collections de l’Ėcole nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, exhib. cat., Paris, Ėcole nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, Ajaccio, Musée Fesch, 2007, p. 80, no. 16, ill.).
Through this series of drawings, Federico progressively worked out the elaborate scene, changing several times the position of the Pope, the structure of the baldachin and the figures in the foreground. This study, spirited and immediate, belongs to the beginning of the sequence. On the recto Federico captured the whole scene from a distance, while on the verso he drew a closer-up version focusing on the figure of the Pope, sketched twice both seated and standing.
Fig. 1. Federico Zuccaro, The Canonization of Saint Hyacinth by Pope Clement VIII. Basilica of Santa Sabina, Rome.
Federico worked extensively on this project, as attested by the existence of several preparatory drawings for the scene. Another preliminary study of this scene was recorded by John Gere in a private collection in Paris (J. Gere, Il Manierismo a Roma, Milan, 1971, no. 37, ill.), while a more elaborate and finished version is in the Morgan Library and Museum, New York (inv. 1973.30; Renaissance into Baroque, op. cit., no. 100, ill.), and a further compositional study - very close to the final fresco - is in the Ėcole des Beaux-Arts in Paris (inv. 441; E. Brugerolles and D. Guillet, Disegno. Dessins de Taddeo et Federico Zuccari dans les collections de l’Ėcole nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, exhib. cat., Paris, Ėcole nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, Ajaccio, Musée Fesch, 2007, p. 80, no. 16, ill.).
Through this series of drawings, Federico progressively worked out the elaborate scene, changing several times the position of the Pope, the structure of the baldachin and the figures in the foreground. This study, spirited and immediate, belongs to the beginning of the sequence. On the recto Federico captured the whole scene from a distance, while on the verso he drew a closer-up version focusing on the figure of the Pope, sketched twice both seated and standing.
Fig. 1. Federico Zuccaro, The Canonization of Saint Hyacinth by Pope Clement VIII. Basilica of Santa Sabina, Rome.