Spencer Alley: Agents and Artists serving Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga

Friday, October 2, 2020

Agents and Artists serving Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga

Ippolito Costa
Virgin and Child with Four Saints
ca. 1525-30
oil on canvas
Palazzo Ducale, Mantua

Fermo Ghisoni
The Deposition
ca. 1539-40
oil on canvas
Palazzo Ducale, Mantua

Fermo Ghisoni
Assumption of the Virgin
before 1575
oil on canvas
Santuario della Beata Vergine Maria
della Grazie di Curtatone

attributed to Battista Angolo del Moro
Virgin and Child
with St John the Baptist, St Thomas
and members of the Marcello family
ca. 1569
oil on canvas
Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

Paolo Farinati
Ecce Homo
1562
oil on canvas
Museo di Castelvecchio, Verona

Paolo Farinati
The Presentation in the Temple
ca. 1550-1600
oil on canvas
Museo di Castelvecchio, Verona

Giulio Campi
Virgin and Child
with St Catherine of Alexandria, St Francis
and Donor Stampa Soncino
1530
oil on panel
Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

Domenico Brusasorci (Domenico Riccio)
Adoration of the Magi
ca. 1553
oil on canvas
Chiesa di San Francesco al Corso, Verona

"In November, 1546, Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga received tidings of Giulio Romano's death and sent the news on to his brother Ferrante. It is worth citing his letter at length here because it gives us a sense of how highly the ruling family of Mantua regarded the late artist: We lost our Messer Giulio Romano for which I am very sorry; it seems to me that I have lost my right hand. . . . Like those who always try to find something good in something bad, I can only pretend that the death of this rarest of men has at least been useful in ruining my appetite for building, for silver and pictures etc. since I no longer have the desire to have anything made that is not designed by that handsome genius. Having finished these few that I have at hand, I think as I have said that I will bury all my desires with him. May God give him peace, and I am certain of it since I knew him as a good and pure man in this world and I hope he is known so to God as well."

"In the mid-sixteenth century the economy in the duchy of Mantua was flagging and the ruling family was forced to make deep cuts in spending. Nevertheless, Ercole Gonzaga, being used to the magnificence of his brother's court and having been educated by his sophisticated mother, Isabella d'Este, did not renounce the trappings of a refined life. Going forward, he kept his private behavior as the scion of a noble house distinctly separate from his public role as a rigorous and austere spiritual shepherd and prince of the Church."

"In 1549 Cardinal Gonzaga promoted the architect Giovanni Battista Bertani, one of Giulio Romano's most prominent pupils, to the duchy's office of Prefect of Building Works. Having inherited the artistic style and workshop organisation of his master, Bertani made architectural designs and drawings for paintings that he handed over to his team of assistants, who were then entirely responsible for their execution. His versatility and skill as a draftsman brought Bertani an undisputed prestige at court, which he maintained until his death in 1576. . . . Bertani completed the rebuilding of the cathedral in Mantua that Giulio Romano began in 1545. In the early 1550s he was put in charge of decorating the church's interior and came up with a proposal for ten altarpieces to be commissioned both from local artists like Ippolito Costa and Fermo Ghisoni, and from foreign painters. The latter group included Girolamo Mazzola Bedoli . . . Giulio Campi . . . Battista [Angolo] del Moro, Domenico Brusasorci [also called Domenico Riccio], Paolo Farinati, and the very young Paolo Veronese. Only twenty-four at the time, Veronese's altarpiece, now in the Musée des Beaux Arts in Caen, offered the faithful a surprisingly intense and violent vision of The Temptation of Saint Anthony."

– from The Art of Mantua: Power and Patronage in the Renaissance by Barbara Furlotti and Guido Rebecchini, translated by A. Lawrence Jenkens (Getty, 2008)