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14 Pellegrino Tibaldi

BIOGRAPHY

Pellegrino Tibaldi was born in Puria Valsolda in 1527, as has been confirmed by various of the oldest historical sources, but was taken by his father to Bologna at a very young age. Malvasia, the 17th century biographer of Bolognese painters, claims that he there entered the workshop of Bagnacavallo junior. Briganti, in 1945, then reconstructs - his claims accepted by scholarly examination - Tibaldi’s early development, attributing to him certain paintings, such as the Madonna and Saints in the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Bologna, from the Church of the Santi Naborre e Felice, which in fact is actually signed by Bagnacavallo.It was not until 1990 that Vittoria Romani, recognizing the work of Tibaldi in the frescoes of the Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome, discerned the presence of the painter, at the time little older than twenty, in the Roman workshop of Perin del Vaga.Around the middle of the century Pellegrino returned again to Bologna to oversee the decoration of the Poggi Palace and the Chapel, belonging to the same family, in San Giacomo. These commissions created opportunities for other works outside of Emilia, particularly in Marches, first in Loreto around 1555 and then in Ancona, where his presence is first documented in 1554 but did not appear continuous until the end of the decade from 1558 until 1561, when the artist worked on the decoration of the facade of the Loggia dei Mercanti. Local history falsely attributes to him the works in Macerata as well, yet, however strongly a reflection of his style can be sensed, it is merely a demonstration of the important impact of his presence on the style of painting in the Marches in the 16th century.In the years spent in Ancona, in which Tibaldi oversaw predominately architectural work, he met Carlo Borromeo, then bishop of the city, who wanted Tibaldi with him in Milan; this most likely after another stay in Bologna, during which the panels here discussed were created.In his time spent in Milan Tibaldi was almost entirely concerned with architecture and developed a late 16th century structural language that would come to resonate in Europe at large. In 1588 he was summoned by Philip II, at the direction of Escorial, to decorate the Library and the Cloister of the Evangelisti, his last great undertaking. He died in Milan less than a decade later, in 1598.

Pellegrino Tibaldi(Puria Valsolda, Como, 1527 - Milano, 1598)


Saint Felix, Saint Nabor 1563

Pellegrino Tibaldi

6

Oil on panel 91 x 34 cm; 35.8 x 13.3 in


PROVENANCEBologna, Church of the Poor Clares, Convento dei Santi Naborre e Felice until the Napoleonic suppression of 1797Bologna, Regia galleria of the Regia Accademia di Belle Arti until 1882Parish church of Riolo di Castelfranco

LITERATUREUnpublished

The two panels represent the saints Felix and Nabor, recognizable from the inscriptions found below each figure. Independent and positioned in shallow recesses, the two soldiers, dressed in an antique manner, stand at a slight three-quarter profile, one facing right and the other left, as if about to look at one another. Both hold the palm of martyrdom and a spear. Saint Nabor, in an elegant gesture, rests his left foot on a winged helmet placed on the ground, emphasizing the artificiality of his pose as one not natural, but rather as that of an actor permitting his portrait to be painted.The paintings benefit from an excellent state of conservation: the structure has undergone no damage despite its relative thinness. The painted surface of Saint Felix has small amounts of flaking in the utmost section, some to the left of the head of the saint, around the border of the recess; other gaps of the same kind are found on the palm of martyrdom. At the left border of the panel can be seen, outside the gray of the painted recess, a band of gesso that was, perhaps, originally intended to be covered by the frame.The gaps in the panel of San Nabor are even more contained; those worth noting, still no larger than a half inch, are found just over the left temple of the saint and on his left shoulder. Here, too, the external border (on the right) exhibits the same band of gesso that, similarly, was meant to remain under the frame. The panels have not been recut on any side and even the bearding of the color appears to be entirely antique.They are two paintings of well-maintained quality, held in a noteworthy state of conservation and coming from one of the highest traditions of Italian Mannerism. The figures that move out from their recesses, too small to contain them, are depicted in full and ornate fashion, emphasized by the knowledgeable use of light that glows in the highlights of the skin and fades to gray in the areas of shadow around the face and on the legs that remain in the background. The physicality of the bodies, which seem to enter into dialogue with a developed, but certainly not exhausted, Michelangelesque style, is readable under the robes of highly polished colors, attached to the forms as if they were wet and plastered there. It is a manner of realizing the style that remains deeply tied to Romanesque solutions based on the model of Perin del Vaga. In these paintings, Tuscan of origin, one is reminded of his precise way of rendering clothes, of the elegance of the elongated hands that hold the palms, of the physicality of feet firmly placed on the ground and the drawn form of the face of Saint Nabor, his nose squared and eyebrows significantly pronounced. The example of del Vaga, however, is incorporated into these panels after some time. The paintings were in fact attributed to Pellegrino Tibaldi by Andrea De Marchi, the best to come from the workshop of Perino, whose team played an active part in the decoration of the Castel


1 Contrary to the thought of the oldest storiography, Pellegrino Tibaldi did non study in the workshop of Bagnacavallo senior, but rather in the Roman workshop of Perin del Vaga, as was demonstrated in V. Romani, Tibaldi dintorno a Perino, Padova 1990.

2 As in K. HeRmann FioRe, in Il Rinascimento a Roma nel segno di Michelangelo e Raffaello, exh. cat. (Rome 2011-2012), eds. M. G. Bernardini and M. Bussagli, Milano 2011, cat. 134, pp. 311-312.

3 The dating of which established by V. Romani, Problemi di Michelangiolismo padano: Tibaldi e Nasodella, Padova 1988, pp. 36-39.

4 F. CanepaRo, B. Rovetti, ‘“Intezione, Invenzione, Artifizio” in Palazzo Poggi a Bologna’, Ricerche di Storia dell’Arte, 91-92, 2007, pp. 57-67, in particular pp. 61. For the frescoes, above all regarding the critical reception, see W. BeRgamini, ‘Il mito di Ulisse in Palazzo Poggi’, in L’immaginario di un Ecclesiastico. I dipinti murali di Palazzo Poggi Bologna, eds. V. Fortunati and V. Mosumeci, Bologna 2000, pp. 113-125.

5 I think it pertinent the definition of S. tumidei, ‘Alessandro Menganti e le arti a Bologna nella seconda metà del Cinquecento: alla ricerca di un contesto’, in Il Michelangelo incognito. Alessandro Menganti e le arti a Bologna nell’età della controriforma, eds. A. Bacchi and S. Tumidei, Ferrara 2002, pp. 55-110, in part pp. 62, which in reference to Pellegrino Tibaldi emphasizes “la nuova libertà di manipolazione dello spazio” (the new freedom in the manipulation of space).

Sant’Angelo in Rome.1 All of these characteristics can be found already in his first certified work (signed and dated 1549), the Adoration of the Shepherds in the Galleria Borghese,2 where the style of Perino is combined with the example of Michelangelo, creating a painting considered to be one of the best in the whole of the 16th century in Italy; these characteristics become even more elevated in his masterpieces, the decorative works for the Poggi family, in Bologna, painted between 1550 and 1551.3 They constitute a work which, for Bologna, signified a definitive stamping of Raffaelism as well as of the classical painting of the beginning of the century, creating a change clearly seen through such painters as Prospero Fontana and Giovan Battista Ramenghi, called il Bagnacavallo junior, and reinforced by the presence of Giorgio Vasari. In truth the work of Tibaldi acts as an alternative parallel to the painter from Arezzo, whose style is slightly veiled by a Michelangelesque classicism and more measured, completely different, therefore, from the dizzying views of perspective of Pellegrino and the exaggerated spatial exuberance of his paintings.In my opinion the comparison between the panels of Saints Felix and Nabor and the figures that adorn the plumes in the room of Ulysses in the Poggi Palace in Bologna banishes any possible doubt regarding the validity of De Marchi’s suggestion: the four frescoed figures, difficult to identify,4 have the same stylized characteristics of our two soldiers, from the method of conceiving the bodies to the sculpture-like and almost wet creation of the drapery. Even the conception of space is the same; the figures in the Poggi Palace are held tightly in the same perspective boxes seen in the panels in discussion and, just as in the case at hand, the figures move out from surface and invade the space of the panel with a virtuosity that is typical of the best work of Tibaldi.5 Clearly the difference in size, financing, and prestige on the part of the commissioner reduce the Saints Nabor and Felix to a lesser tone in comparison to those compositions; all the same, the substantial commitment to the same ideas is not lost even, as can be seen, after more than a decade.The paintings most similar to those herein described, however, are the two horizontal panels with the Sibyl and Cupids (figs. 2-3), conserved in the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Bologna. The figures have the same chromatic qualities, made with vivid and polished colors, the same sensibility in light quality and, most significantly, the figures are found framed by the same identical grey boxes hold the knighted saints. The recent description in the general catalogue of the paintings of the Pinacoteca in Bologna,6 however, lowers these paintings to the level of works in a range of workshop production. Certainly, the dimensions found and some of the details, such as the faces of the cherubs found around the Sibyl in the yellow mantel, make these panels appear slightly less refined with respect to the predominant work of the painter. When more closely observed, however, it seems necessary to me to requalify the paintings and underline the presence of inventive aspects that cannot be attributed to a common painter: to begin with, the high quality of the drapery partakes of the same sensibility evoked in the two figures that were, evidently, intended to be seen in continuity along a horizontal axis. The Sibyl, dressed in green and found on the left, is turned toward the spectator with her head outside the false frame of stone and her body, positioned at a slant, receding almost to the point of placing her right foot in complete shadow. The other woman, on the other hand, is turned with her back to us, her left foot being the part farthest outside of the recess while her head remains framed inside the box, already almost obscured. The spatial rhythm of these figures, helped also by the presence of the cherubs, creates a horizontal chiasmus that, from my perspective, can only be the work of the master.Stylistically speaking our panels should be read together with the two sibyls

6 E. SamBo, in Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna. Catalogo Generale, 2. Da Raffaello ai Carracci, eds. J. Bentini, G. P. Cammarota, A. Mazza, D. Scaglietti Kelescian, A. Stanzani, Venezia 2006, cat. 95a-b, pp. 141-142. As can be seen the proposed date, c. 1550-1551, which is the same indicated in the foundational monograph of G. BRiganti, Il manierismo e Pellegrino Tibaldi, Roma 1945, pp. 82 and pp. 119, is reconfirmed by the one read in the lig of the list of works removed from the conquered monasteries, for which refer to note 7.


of the Pinacoteca Nazionale and, for this reason, it follows naturally to identify them with the two figures of the Saints Nabor and Felix which, at the beginning of the 19th century were documented together with them. The recent publication of the inventory of the Napoleonic suppression7 informs us that the two sibyls, our two saints, and two other figures of prophets all come from the Church of Santi Naborre e Felice in Bologna, and were panels adorning the frame of the choral altarpiece of the Poor Clares, a work signed by Bagnacavallo junior (fig. 1) and dated 1563. Such a date, it seems, could possibly coincide also with the style of the paintings which, as has been noted, are similar in, though not perfectly identical to, the artistry of the frescoes in the Poggi Palace, weaker and in a certain sense less refined, much like the panels that later followed the wall paintings, they come almost certainly after the work in the Marches between 1553 and 1560.8

All of these paintings were transferred to the former Regia Pinacoteca dell’Accademia di Belle Arti where they still appear together in the inventory

Reconstruction of the Altarpiece of the Church of the Poor Clares in the Convent of the Santi Naborre e Felice in Bologna: Giovanni Battista Ramenghi, called Bagnacavallo Junior, Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints, Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale (fig. 1); Pellegrino Tibaldi, Sybills, Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale (figs. 2-3); Saints Nabor and Felix, Grassi Studio; paintings of half figures of Prophets, documented but lost (a-b); grating for the Eucharist (comunichino) (c).

7 G. P. CammaRota, Le origini della Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna. Una raccolta di fonti, Bologna s.d. but 1997, pp. 337-342, in particular Monastero dei SS. Naborre e Felice, p. 340: “Nella chiesa interna: la tavola dell’altare che rappresenta la Madonna, San Francesco, San Giovanni, Santa Chiara, Santa Catterina e la Maddalena, nel piede del quadro vi sono sei caselle coi santi Naborre e Felice. Opera fatta nel 1563 bella e ben conservata” (In the interior church, the panel depicting the Madonnna, St. Francis, St. John, St. Clare, St. Catherine, and the Mary Magdalene, at the foot of the painting are six boxes with the Saints Nabor and Felix. Work created in 1563, beautiful and well conserved).

8 For the chronology of the works of the Marches and the presence of the painter between Ancona and Loreto see F. da moRRovalle, ‘Pellegrino Tibaldi a Loreto’, Arte Antica e Moderna, 27, 1964, pp. 356-359; G. paSquini, ‘Pellegrino Tibaldi’, in Lorenzo Lotto e le Marche. Il suo tempo, il suo influsso, exh. cat. (Ancona 1981), eds. P. Dal poggetto, P, Zampetti, Florence 1981, pp. 418-420; M. maSSa, ‘Appunti per una nuova cronologia delle opere di Pellegrino Tibaldi’, Notizie da Palazzo Albani, XVI, 1, 1987, pp. 43-51, in particular pp. 45-46.It is relatively difficult to understand if this 1563 refers only to frame or also to the dais of Bagnacavallo junior within it. E. SamBo, op. cit. (note 6), cat. 89, pp. 131-133, dates the painting to 1550, as suggested by stylistic data that presupposes the arrival of the dais of Sermoneta in Bologna in 1548 and eliminates the problem of the date brought forth by the inventories of the suppression, given the fact that “questa puntualizzazione non compare più negli inventari seguenti, quando la tavola è ricordata ormai priva degli elementi che in origine la componevano, tanto da far ritenere che la data si trovasse sulla cornice” (this clarification does not appear in subsequent inventories, where the panel comes to be remembered without the elements that originally were part of it, so much as to maintain only the date found on the frame).

In reality this point does not solve the problem, particularly since, if the inscription could refer to the painting as well, as given in S. tumidei, op. cit. (note 5), pp. 79, regardless of awareness of the same data used by Sambo, it can be taken for granted that this 1563 justifies an archaic turning point in the painting of Bagnacavallo that presents itself as “svolta iconica e sacrale della pittura bolognese” (the change in the iconic and sacred in Bolognese painting). In fact the style of the painting, as judged by G. BRiganti, op. cit. (note 6), pp. 61 and pp. 119, reflects more the style of the young Tibaldi and is restored to its true author first by A. emiliani, La Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna, Bologna 1967, pp. 243 (which announced the discovery of the signature found during restoration) and, from a critical perspective, by F. Bologna, ‘Il soggiorno napoletano di Girolamo di Cotignola con altre considerazioni sulla pittura emiliana del Cinquecento’, in Studi di storia dell’arte in onore di Valerio Mariani, Napoli 1971, pp. 147-165, in particular pp. 162-163, it becomes possible to recreate better the general beginning of the seventh dacade, far from the almost exaggerate movement of Prospero Fontana and Giorgio Vasari who influenced the Adoration of the Shepherds of Cento, the most Vasarian of Ramenghi’s works, datable to the end of the fifth decade, as reestablished by M. danieli, ‘Precisazioni su Giovan Battista Ramenghi detto il Bagnacavallo junior’, Storia e critica delle arti: annuario della Scuola di Specializzazione in Storia dell’Arte dell’Università di Bologna, 2, 2001, pp. 163-185, in particular pp. 167-174, and then again by P. eRvaS, Un modello di Vasari per i pittori bolognesi, Nuovi Studi, 12, 2007, pp. 117-119, in particular pp. 118. In the panels of Saints Nabor and Felix, in fact, a more concrete adhesion to the pictorial language of Tibaldi can be seen, sculpture-like and concrete, with the clothing, rigid and almost marble-like, cradling the forms of the bodies, the bodies statuesque and self-contained, which reflects a Raffaelism thought to be lost.


of 18119 and where they remained until 1883 when the two saints and the two figures of prophets were deposited in the parish church of Riolo di Castelfranco and, from there, dispersed and forgotten.10

The fortuitous rediscovery of the panels here described permits us to reflect on the hypothetical (and inevitably partial) reconstruction of the work in its entirety as well as its particular function in the interior of the church of the Porr Clares. Clearly the form of the panels, the sibyls horizontal and the two saints vertical, as has already been suggested by Elisabetta Sambo,11 does not permit them to constitute a dais, as was maintained in the Napoleonic inventory. In actuality the two paintings found in the Pinacoteca Nazionale were at the feet of the altar piece while the two saints were most probably placed along its flanks. There exists no data with regard to the two “half figures” of the prophets documented together with the panels here discussed,12 but it can be supposed that these, smaller in size, could have been placed along the sides of the sibyls and under the saints Nabor and Felix, at their base. Not knowing anything else about the dimensions of the frame or its structure it is not possible to know if, as suggested by sources, all of these paintings actually constituted the entirety of the original work. In this case it seems unusual that the two panels of the dais would leave between them such a large empty space. One possible solution to this problem is proposed again by the famous Napoleonic inventory, which states that this painting was found in the interior church of the nuns.13 The church of the Santi Naborre e Felice, the crypt of which goes back to one of the oldest ecclesiastic foundations of Bologna, was originally a Benedictine abbey, fallen into decay by the end of the 15th century and given to the Porr Clares in 1512, who then entered in January of the following year.14 This allowed for the commissioning of new paintings and, evidently, the reordering of the space according to their own needs.It is clear that the large panel of Bagnacavallo, as can be seen by the size and content, was intended to be placed on a central altar which, since it could not be the primary one in the Church (which was occupied by a large canvas painting of Orazio Smacchini15), had to correspond with the one in the interior church of the nuns. It could be thought, then, that between the two sibyls now found in the painting gallery there was the necessary space allowed the communion grate placed between the two sacred spaces, the church of the nuns and that of the faithful, and, possibly, a point of exchange. Even the examination of movement of the two sibyls previously discussed suggests a continuity and substantial autonomy which, it seems clear, render unnecessary the presence of other figures between the two tables.A recent study by Luisa Ciammitti,16 commenting upon the results of the restoration of the paintings in the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Bologna, demonstrates that the existence of composite paintings, which allowed space for the communion grate, was relatively normal occurrence in 16th century Bologna and that, furthermore, the presence in this church and in the analogue of Corpus Domini of paintings by Bagnacavallo junior leads to the thought that these paintings take part in a similar system.17 It is obvious that the problem at hands is one unconcluded and, given the state of the studies of the entirety of the church of Santi Naborre e Felice and its current fate as a military complex, one without a simple solution; however, it seems, to me, a possible road to pursue.

Alessandro Delpriori

9 G. P. CammaRota, op. cit. (note 7), in particular Catalogo dei Quadri esistenti nella Reale Pinacoteca della R. Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna, pp. 626-658, cat. 180 is the dais of Bagnacavallo, cat. 181-182 the two sibyls, cat. 183-184: “Altri due [quadretti] rappresentanti l’un S. Naborre, l’altro S. Felice. In ciascuno c’è una mezza figura di un profeta cm. 125 x 34” (Other two [paintings] representing the one St. Nabor, the other S. Felix. In each there is a half figure of a prophet, 49.2 x 13.3 in).

10 Ibidem, pp. 706, cat. 388-391.

11 E. SamBo, op. cit. (note 6), pp. 142.

12 See above, note 9. Here I renote the dimensions of the panels, 125 x 34 cm (49.2 x 13.3 in), as the paintings in discussion are measured 91 x 34 cm (35.8 x 13.3 in) here it is evident that the difference between the height established in the description and the true one indicates that the half figures of the prophets should have been almost square.

13 See above, note 7; erroneously L. meluzzi, ‘Le soppresse chiese parrocchiali di Bologna (VII)’, Strenna storica bolognese, XXI, 1971, pp. 143-174, in particular Saints Nabor and Felix, pp. 152-153, claims that the painting was in the vestry.

14 For information on the church, G. Rivani, ‘L’Abbadia dei SS. Naborre e Felice ora Ospedale militare di Bologna’, Strenna storica bolognese, XVII, 1968, pp. 67-90; more recently, A. Benati, ‘La chiesa di Bologna nell’alto medioevo’, in Storia della chiesa di Bologna, eds. P. Pradi and L. Paolini, Bologna 1997, pp. 7-96, in particular pp. 13 and A. Giacomelli, ‘Ordini religiosi in età moderna’, Ibidem, pp. 501-544, in particular pp. 506.

15 As in M. danieli, in Pinacoteca Nazionale… cit. (note 6), cat. 119, pp. 176-177.

16 L. Ciammitti, ‘La chiesa di Santa Maria degli Angeli. Committenti e pittori’, in I pittori degli angeli. Dipinti del secondo Cinquecento per un monastero femminile a Bologna, exh. cat. (Bologna 2003), ed. L. Ciammitti, Bologna 2003, pp. 9-28, in particular pp. 13-18.

17 Ibidem, pp. 14; C. BeRnaRdini, ivi, pp. 99-102, in particular pp. 101-102, note 11, smartly notes our dais as well, hypothesizing that the composite structure could be due to the situation herein suggested.