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Paragone Arte 94

Anno LXI – Terza serie – Numero 94 (729) Novembre 2010

Franco Moro : Una rilettura dei fasti farnesiani: Sebastiano Ricci, Paolo Pagani e Giovanni Evangelista Draghi

APPUNTI

Vedute possibili: finestre paesaggistiche nella ritrattistica di Leandro Bassano e Domenico Tintoretto (Meri Sclosa)

RICERCHE D’ARCHIVIO

Pietro Bracci e la protezione degli Orsini: dal monumento a Benedetto XIII al monumento a Benedetto XIV (Alessandro Agresti)

SUMMARY

Franco Moro
The monumental cycle of canvases known as the Fasti farnesiani (Piacenza, Museo Civico and Naples, Museo Archeologico) was commissioned by Duke Ranuccio II Farnese to decorate three rooms of the family palace in Piacenza with a narrative recounting the deeds of his famous ancestor, the condottiere Alessandro Farnese. This article brings a substantial revision to the discussion of these works, whose current attribution is based on slim documentary evidence suggesting most of them were painted by Giovanni Evangelista Draghi, with the partial collaboration of Sebastiano Ricci and other artists. Through a new reading of the documents, and above all stylistic analysis, the author affirms that most of the canvases were painted by Sebastiano Ricci between 1685 and the summer of 1687.

Meri Sclosa
This article considers some of the landscapes, seen through windows, that often enrich portraits by Leandro Bassano and Domenico Tintoretto, and underlines how the function of such panoramic backgrounds is not exclusively compositional or ornamental, but can take on the meaning of a visual clue to the identification of the sitters. These landscape notations often relate solely to the individual and although they lack the topographical objectivity of the eighteenth century, they define an imago urbis, or mental elaboration of a civic construct in a paradigmatic and always recognizable form, even when the definition of place is subject to whimsical treatment, as in the Portrait of the Duke of Candia, Giovanni Francesco Sagredo painted by the Cavalier Bassano.

Alessandro Agresti
Pietro Bracci is one of the best-known Roman sculptors of the eighteenth century, yet his artistic language remains largely under-studied, like that of his patrons and the cultural circles in which he moved. This essay seeks to reclaim his personal and creative stature, starting with his relations with the Orsini family, who commissioned three very important works: the monument to Benedict XIII in Santa Maria sopra Minerva, the statue of Saint Vincent de Paul, and the monument to Benedict XIV, both in the Basilica of Saint Peter’s.

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