A new book in the series All’antica is planned for release in May in print, and in ebook format.
Jacopo Galli, and Michelangelo’s Bacchus, 1471–1572, Kathleen W. Christian
On Michelangelo’s first day in Rome, in June 1496, Cardinal Raffaele Riario asked him if he could create ‘something beautiful’ in competition with the antique. The twenty-one-year old sculptor responded to this unique challenge with the statue of Bacchus now in the Bargello museum. This statue, as well as the Sleeping Cupidwhich first brought Michelangelo to Riario’s attention, have long been shrouded in mystery, and the Bacchus as well as its patron have long suffered from critical censure.
Through a comprehensive analysis of overlooked and previously-unpublished sources, this study sheds new light on the Sleeping Cupid, the Bacchus, and a fascinating period in the history of Renaissance Rome when the careers of Riario, Galli, and Michelangelo were closely intertwined. It considers the rise of the Riario dynasty starting with the election of Pope Sixtus IV in 1471, Riario’s partnership with Jacopo Galli in the reconstruction of the palace now known as the Palazzo della Cancelleria, the attempted sale of Michelangelo’s Sleeping Cupid in Rome as an antiquity, Riario’s patronage of the Bacchus, and the Bacchus’s display in the house of the Galli up until its sale to the Medici in 1572. Taking a broad, interdisciplinary perspective, it offers a fundamental reassessment of Cardinal Riario’s career as a patron, of Jacopo Galli’s role as an intermediary for both Riario and Michelangelo, and of Michelangelo’s collaboration with Riario and Galli.
Table of Contents
Author’s Preface
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: The Rise of the Riario, 1471–1484
Chapter 3: Cardinal Riario, the Galli, and the Reconstruction of San Lorenzo in Damaso, 1484–1499
Chapter 4: Familiars, Humanists, and Preachers, 1480s–1490s
Chapter 5: Artists, Antiquities, and a Vigna in Trastevere, 1480s–1490s
Chapter 6: The Case of the Sleeping Cupid, 1496
Chapter 7: Raffaele Riario’s Bacchus, 1496–1497
Chapter 8: Jacopo Galli’s Bacchus, 1497–1505
Chapter 9: The Bacchus in the Houses of the Galli, 1505–1572
Appendix I: English Translation and Latin Text of Bernardino Capella and Gaspare Manio de Clodiis, Eclogue and Panegyric for Cardinal Riario
Appendix II: Sources and Documents in the Original Language
Bibliography
