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| Amico Aspertini Sketchbook Foreground - Circular building and Giraffe Background - Arcaded loggia ca. 1530-40 drawing on paper British Museum |
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| Amico Aspertini Sketchbook Foreground - Four Bacchic figures including Pan Background - Arcaded loggia ca. 1530-40 drawing on paper British Museum |
"The figures in the foreground are freely based on a sarcophagus previously in Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome and now in the British Museum. Aspertini had recorded other parts of this sarcophagus already."
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| Amico Aspertini Sketchbook Foreground - Two statues of captive barbarians Background - High rusticated façade of two bays ca. 1530-40 drawing on paper British Museum |
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| Amico Aspertini Sketchbook Foreground - Fabulous creatures, animals, and antique nudes Background - Triumphal arch ca. 1530-40 drawing on paper British Museum |
"As observed by Bober, the two fallen nude warriors are based on statues from the 'Small Pergamene' dedications. The first copies the 'Dead Gaul' from the Grimani collection in Venice, the second is based upon the 'Falling Gaul' in the same collection. The rest of the folio is devoted to various small sketches which include: a lion seated on a high base, a griffin, several crocodiles, a reclining Sphinx (too generalized for identification with any of those in Rome at this period – on the Capitol, in the Galli, Savelli, Cesi or Mattei collections)."
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| Amico Aspertini Sketchbook Foreground - Nativity scene Background - Landscape with antique ruins ca. 1530-40 drawing on paper British Museum |
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| Amico Aspertini Sketchbook Foreground - Frieze of putti Background- Nativity scene set before ruins ca. 1530-40 drawing on paper British Museum |
"The putti on the lower tier are similar to those in a drawing by Aspertini of unknown location, and possibly based on an untraced sarcophagus. Bober compares the poses of the putti to those carrying garlands found in the Codex Pighianus, which are based on a lost sarcophagus once in the Soderini Collection by the Mausoleum of Augustus in Rome. The figures of the Nativity recall the art of Lorenzo Lotto."
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| Amico Aspertini Sketchbook Foreground - Virgin and Child Background - Antique ruins ca. 1530-40 drawing on paper British Museum |
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| Amico Aspertini Sketchbook Foreground - Nude and clothed figures, including river god Background - Virgin and Child behind parapet ca. 1530-40 drawing on paper British Museum |
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| Amico Aspertini Sketchbook Foreground - Studies of architectural details Background - Nativity scene ca. 1530-40 drawing on paper British Museum |
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| Amico Aspertini Sketchbook Foreground Woman and child with elephant Background - Classical doorways with figures ca. 1530-40 drawing on paper British Museum |
"The elephant was maybe inspired by 'Anone' – the pachyderm given by the King of Portugal in 1514 to Pope Leo X as a coronation present. Images of it were certainly circulating, like the woodcut by Philomates or the lost painting by Raphael."
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| Amico Aspertini Sketchbook Foreground Studies of capitals and man reading under aedicula Background - Landscape with river, bridge and town ca. 1530-40 drawing on paper British Museum |
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| Amico Aspertini Sketchbook Foreground - Seated nude with scroll Background - Bearded man seated at a desk under an apse ca. 1530-40 drawing on paper British Museum |
"For the niche in the background, Bober reports Wittkower's suggestion that it is based on the Laocoön niche in the Belvedere Court in the Vatican. . . . On the other hand, this could be just part of Aspertini's interest in decorative architectural elements and structures, as it can be seen in some painted panels found in the church of San Girolamo della Certosa in Bologna. . . . The position of the seated nude in the foreground holding a scroll over the head would seem to refer to some frieze or ceiling decoration."
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| Amico Aspertini Sketchbook Foreground - Antique-figures Background - Corpse on slab under baldacchino ca. 1530-40 drawing on paper British Museum |
"Bober notes that the semi-nude figure seen from the back on the left is copied from the scene of 'Amors and Nymphs' frescoed by Peruzzi in the Sala delle Prospettive in the Palazzo della Farnesina in Rome. She also points out that the figure on the right, another version of the reclining river god . . . with his arm changed to a beckoning gesture, is after the figure in Peruzzi's 'Apollo and Daphne' in the same salone. In the background, a figure is lying on a slab under an open baldacchino composed of stylobate, four columns and a pediment roof. To the right, a figure of Hercules and the hydra."
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| Amico Aspertini Sketchbook Cityscape with corpse being dragged away after a fresco by Mantegna ca. 1530-40 drawing on paper British Museum |
"Inspired by the right half of Mantegna's Transportation of St Christopher's Body at the Eremitani. Bober observes that, for one of such antiquarian bias, Aspertini curiously omits the classical elements of setting present in the original fresco. And in fact, the setting is fairly different from that of Mantegna, as Aspertini chose to have the perspective depth illusion on both sides of the composition, rather than only on the right, and the corpse is not that of a giant. It is also interesting to note that in this drawing the figures actually seem to be well integrated within the architectural structures, whereas in many of the other sheets of this album, when figures and architectures are combined, they don't necessarily relate to each other."