Front Matter (“Table of Contents”, “Author’s Preface”, “List of Abbre­via­tions”). Down­load PDF here

Raffaele Riario, Jacopo Galli, and Michelangelo’s Bacchus, 1471–1572

Kath­leen W. Christian

Raffaele Riario, Jacopo Galli, and Michelangelo’s Bacchus 1471–1572

Author’s Preface

List of Abbreviations

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 epIlogue

Appendix I English Trans­la­tion and Latin Text of Bernar­dino Capella and Gaspare Manio de Clodiis, Eclogue and Panegy­rics for Cardinal Riario

Appendix II Sources and Docu­ments in the Original Language Bibliography

Author’s Preface

This book deve­loped from an invi­ta­tion to speak on Michelangelo’s Bacchus at the sympo­sium Michel­an­gelo and His World in the 1490s, held at the Metro­po­litan Museum of Art in 2012. Over the follo­wing years, grap­pling with this topic led me into comple­xi­ties that only seemed to deepen and myste­ries that only seemed to multiply. Was Michel­an­gelo really a ‘forger’, and did Cardinal Riario reject the Bacchus soon after he commis­sioned it? What was Riario’s point of view and how does the Bacchus fit with his patro­nage more broadly? What was the rela­ti­onship of the Bacchus to the Slee­ping Cupid and to Riario’s recon­s­truc­tion of San Lorenzo in Damaso? What role did Jacopo Galli play in the crea­tion of the Bacchus and in Michelangelo’s career, and what insight might the Galli-Balducci bank records offer? In what ways did the ambi­tions and inte­rests of Riario, Galli, and Michel­an­gelo align or diverge? This book offers a re-exami­na­tion of these ques­tions from new perspec­tives and an invi­ta­tion for further debate.

From a personal perspec­tive, this book preserves treasured memo­ries of places and people from the past—so many that it is now impos­sible to name them all. I will never forget the gracious­ness of hosts Kath­leen Weil-Garris Brandt and the late James Draper at the Michel­an­gelo sympo­sium of 2012, and the exem­plary work of those who presented at this event has been a constant inspi­ra­tion. My work on this manu­script began when I was a lecturer at the Open Univer­sity, where I bene­fitted from rese­arch funds and the support of colle­agues, in parti­cular Leah Clark. I am grateful to colle­agues who invited me to present at confe­rences and semi­nars where I could benefit from engaged, insightful audiences—to Glenn Richardson, for a paper on Raffaele Riario at the confe­rence Renais­sance Cardi­nals: Diplo­mats and Patrons in the Early Modern World in Twickenham; Flora Dennis, for a presen­ta­tion at the Univer­sity of Sussex; Kate Lowe, for a seminar at the Insti­tute of Histo­rical Rese­arch; Margaret Meserve, for a paper at The Promise of the Vatican Library confe­rence at Notre Dame; the orga­nisers of Faking it: Forgery and Fabri­ca­tion in Late Medieval and Early Modern Culture, for a paper at this confe­rence at the Univer­sity of Gothen­burg; Sebas­tian Hierl, for a lecture to the Friends of the Library of the American Academy in Rome; and Martin Szew­czyk, for a presen­ta­tion at the confe­rence La fabrique de l’Antique.

What allowed me to develop my rese­arch into its current form was the bles­sing of a Donald and Maria Cox Post­doc­toral Rome Prize at the American Academy in 2016–2017. It was because of this crucial year of support, and the encou­ra­ge­ment of the fellows and the inspi­ring director, Kim Bowes, that I was able to complete the rese­arch and to begin writing in earnest. This rese­arch would not have been possible, as well, without the resources of nume­rous archives and libra­ries, inclu­ding the American Academy library, the Biblio­theca Hertziana, the Vatican library and archives, the State Archives of Florence, Naples, and Rome, and the Archivio Capitolino.

Among the many friends and colle­agues whom I relied upon for their feed­back, advice, and support were Piers Baker-Bates, Costanza Barbieri, Tatjana Bartsch, Susanna de Beer, Stefano de Bosio, Molly Bourne, Karl-Magnus Brose, Bianca de Divitiis, David Drogin, Barbara Furlotti, Robert Gaston, Leon Grek, Clare Guest, Phil­ippa Jackson, Fran­cesca Mattei, John Paoletti, Madda­lena Spagnolo, Will Sten­house, Claudia Wede­pohl, and Ed Wouk. Exchanges

with Diane Booton, Enzo Borsel­lino, Marco Pelle­g­rini, and Bern­hard Schirg offered important insights. Tom Cohen’s exper­tise in reading legal docu­ments was inva­luable, and I owe thanks to Paul Davies and Ortolf Harl for permis­sion to use their photo­graphs. I am grateful to Bill Sherman and Tristan Weddigen for their support in recent years and am, as ever, profoundly indebted to the late John Shearman and to Salva­tore Settis, who first inspired me to explore these topics. It was John Shearman’s lectures on Michel­an­gelo that were the starting point for many of the ques­tions discussed in this text. Special thanks, as well, go to Caro­line Elam, whose rese­arch on Lorenzo de’ Medici’s sculp­ture garden has been funda­mental for this study. Her comm­ents on the first proposal for this book, her edits on the manu­script in a near-final form, and her unique exper­tise have been invaluable.

Heart­felt thanks go to my colle­agues at the Institut für Kunst- und Bild­ge­schichte at the Humboldt-Univer­sität zu Berlin for their encou­ra­ge­ment, as well as to the wonderful student assistants in Berlin who dedi­cated many hours to prepa­ring the manu­script and illus­tra­tions: Pernille Dybvig, Olga Lysak, Jorinde Miller, Luise Mörke, and Clara Sawatzki. I am grateful as well for last-minute photo­graphs from the Archivio di Stato in Rome by Giorgia Pietropaolo.

The anony­mous readers of this manu­script, Cammy Brot­hers, and Carolyn Yerkes helped to move this project forward and to publish it in the new book series at Harvey Miller, All’antica. I am profoundly grateful to Johan Van der Beke for his faith in this venture and for being a patient and accom­mo­da­ting editor.

Support for the e‑book edition of this text was graciously provided by the open access publi­ca­tion fund of the Humboldt-Univer­sität zu Berlin.

Finally, I owe the deepest grati­tude to my family—my parents, Bill and Elinor Chris­tian; my brother, Bill Chris­tian; Brigitte Baeder; and the late Dixon and Kate Roy Christian—for their support and guidance. It is with all my love that I dedi­cate this book to Andreas and Lian Baeder, whose humour and unwa­ve­ring pati­ence have sustained me every step of the way.

List of Abbreviations

AAV Vatican City, Archivio Apos­to­lico Vati­cano Cam. Ap. Camera Apostolica

Div. Cam. Diversa Came­ralia Intr. et Ex. Intro­itus et Exitus Reg. Vat. Registri Vaticani

AB Florence, Archivio Buonarroti

ADP Rome, Archivio Doria Pamphilj ASC Rome, Archivio Storico Capi­to­lino ASF Florence, Archivio di Stato

lB Eredità di Lemmo Balducci

map Archivio Mediceo avanti il Principato

ASM Milan, Archivio di Stato

cvS Cart­eggio Visconteo Sforzesco

ASMn Mantua, Archivio di Stato ag Archivio Gonzaga

ASN Naples, Archivio di Stato arS Archivio Riario-Sforza

ASR Rome, Archivio di Stato

Coll. Not. Cap. Collegio dei Notai Capitolini

Notai dell’A.C. Notai del tribu­nale dell’Auditor Camerae

AV Rome, Archivio Storico del Vica­riato di Roma BAV Vatican City, Biblio­teca Apos­to­lica Vati­cana BL London, British Library

BNN Naples, Biblio­teca Nazio­nale di Napoli

CensusIDs

CensusIDs refer to records in the Census of Antique Works of Art and Archi­tec­ture Known in the Renais­sance, https://database.census.de. CensusIDs are provided for the antique and rele­vant Early Modern artworks mentioned in this text.

Curren­cies

The follo­wing abbre­via­tions are used for currency values:

b bolo­gnini

d ducati

k carlini

 ducati

 scudi

Abbre­via­tions for currency largely follow the conven­tions adopted in Rab Hatfield, The Wealth of Michel­an­gelo, Studi e testi del Rina­sci­mento europeo, 16 (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e lette­ra­tura and Isti­tuto Nazio­nale di Studi sul Rina­sci­mento, 2002).

The tran­sac­tions cited in this text are made in several diffe­rent curren­cies. ‘Ducats’ cited here are either ducats of carlini (ducati di carlini) or Cameral ducats (ducati di Camera). One ducato di carlini was equi­va­lent to 10 carlini and to 75 bolo­gnini. During the papacy of Julius II, accounts begin to be calcu­lated in ducati di giuli rather than ducati di carlini, with each ducat equi­va­lent to 10 giuli.

Cameral ducats (ducati di Camera), also known as fiorini papali, had diffe­rent values than ducats of carlini and were worth some­what more than ducati di carlini when the curren­cies were converted, at variable rates, in the Galli-Balducci accounts; in the context of the Sant’Agostino altar­piece commis­sioned from Michel­an­gelo in 1500, for example, 60 Cameral ducats equalled 78 ducats of carlini.

In the 1530s in Rome, gold ducati di Camera were replaced by scudi d’oro.

map 1 The Rione Parione and surroun­ding areas, based on the Catasto Urbano (1818–1824), showing:

1. San Salva­tore in Lauro
2. Palazzo of Girolamo Riario
3. Piazza Sant’Apollinare
4. Sant’Agostino
5. Piazza Navona
6. Stables of the Palazzo San Giorgio
7. Banda sinistra of the via dei Leutari
8. Casa grande of the Galli
9. San Lorenzo in Damaso
10. Palaz­zetto of the Galli on Piazza San Lorenzo in Damaso
11. Arco di Santa Margherita
12. Campo de’ Fiori
13. Ruins of the Theatre of Pompey.

map 2 Map based on the Catasto Urbano (1818–1824) showing the hypo­the­tical loca­tion (in orange) of the proper­ties of the Sant­acroce and Signo­retti, the old cardinal’s palace of San Lorenzo in Damaso, the stables of the old cardinal’s palace, and the old basi­lica of San Lorenzo in Damaso before its recon­s­truc­tion by Cardinal Riario, based on Mari, ed., Palazzo della Cancel­leria, tavola vI.

map 3 Map based on the appro­xi­mate area of proper­ties once owned by Jacopo Galli (red) and Cardinal Riario (yellow), based on the Catasto Urbano (1818–1824).