Jacopo Galli’s Bacchus, 1497–1505

Illus­tra­tion page. See the complete open-access PDF for the image.

8 Jacopo Galli’s Bacchus 1497–1505

Perhaps from the time that Michel­an­gelo completed the Bacchus in 1497, Jacopo Galli may have displayed the statue in his house. There is little doubt that Galli presented it as part of his anti­qui­ties coll­ec­tion, conside­ring the original circum­s­tances of its commis­sion by Riario, as well as van Heemskerck’s drawing from the 1530s of the statue among the Galli marbles (see Fig. 215). This chapter will explore possible reasons for Galli’s owner­ship of the Bacchus and contex­tua­lise its display within his anti­qua­rian and lite­rary milieu. Between Michelangelo’s arrival in Rome in 1496 and Galli’s death in 1505, the banker played a pivotal role in Michelangelo’s career. During this period, Galli faci­li­tated several major commis­sions, inclu­ding the Young Archer now in Manhattan, the Vatican Pietà, a painted altar­piece for Sant’Agostino, statues for the Picco­lo­mini altar in Siena, and the Bruges Madonna (see Figs 5, 187, 193, 198–201). Galli was a promi­nent figure in the Roman huma­nist scene, dedi­ca­ting himself to poetry, theatre, and the arts. In the early Cinque­cento, his house in Parione and his vigna near Castel Sant’Angelo became meeting places for notable lite­rary figures such as Jacopo Sado­leto, Tommaso Inghi­rami, Camillo Porcari, and Pietro Bembo. This lite­rary circle and its poten­tial inte­rest in the Bacchus will be examined with refe­rence to Sadoleto’s philo­so­phical dialo­gues, letters from Galli’s asso­ciates, and the Galli-Balducci accounts. Over­looked or under­ex­plored sources offer valuable insight into Galli’s role in the artistic, commer­cial, and anti­qua­rian spheres, confir­ming his status as one of the most intri­guing figures of the Roman Renaissance.

Riario’s Fail­ures and Galli’s Successes

Soon after Michel­an­gelo completed the Bacchus, a series of misfor­tunes brought the Riario into decline, both in Rome and in the Romagna. Pope Alex­ander VI turned against the family follo­wing the murder of the Duke of Gandia, the pope’s son, in the summer of 1497. Alex­ander VI’s other son Cesare Borgia, who had been groomed for a career in the Church and elevated to the cardi­na­late at the age of eigh­teen, gradu­ally tran­si­tioned into the role of the Borgia family’s secular prince. Alex­ander VI and Cesare set their sights on seizing Imola and Forlì from the Riario to estab­lish a Borgia-controlled state in the Romagna. By the spring of 1498, the pope attempted a marriage between his daughter Lucrezia Borgia and one of Cate­rina Sforza’s sons.¹ More radical plans emerged as Alex­ander VI began nego­tia­tions with the new King of France, Louis XII. As Duke of Orléans, Louis had fought in the Italian wars and had been bitterly betrayed by the Duke of Milan, Ludo­vico Sforza. Shortly after ascen­ding to the French throne, King Louis allied with Venice in a joint campaign against the Sforza. Seeing an oppor­tu­nity to secure terri­to­ries for Cesare, the pope sought to benefit from an anti­ci­pated French inva­sion of Lombardy. In August 1498, Cesare Borgia took the bold step of resig­ning his cardi­na­late. He sold his bene­fices to the highest bidder, while his cardinal’s hat was given to Georges d’Amboise to appease the French King. Borgia then travelled to France to arrange

a noble marriage and obtain the title of ‘Duke of Valen­ti­nois’. In December, Pope Alex­ander VI annulled Louis XII’s marriage, allo­wing the King to wed Anne of Brittany, the widow of the previous King, and secure control over her territories.

This exch­ange of favours soli­di­fied the French-Borgia alli­ance against the Sforza-Riario. By March 1499, Alex­ander VI had declared Cesare the Vicar of Imola and Forlì, and in May, Cesare achieved a long-sought marriage with a French noble­woman. By October, with Cesare’s assis­tance, King Louis XII successfully ousted the Sforza from Milan, freeing French troops to support Cesare’s Italian campaigns. Streng­thened by the French, Cesare Borgia laun­ched his assault on Imola on 21 November 1499, and on the same day, Raffaele Riario hastily fled Rome. Accor­ding to the diary of Johann Burchard, the papal Master of Cere­mo­nies, a certain musi­cian Tomma­sino Cospi of Forlì was appre­hended for attemp­ting to assas­si­nate the pope using poisoned letters. Fearing he would soon be impli­cated as a co-conspi­rator and impri­soned in Castel Sant’Angelo, Riario escaped on the pretext of going on a hunting trip. His first stop was the Orsini strong­hold at Mont­ero­tondo on the via Salaria. After dismissing most of his retinue, he continued inco­gnito to Sarzana, and from there even­tually reached Savona.²

Within weeks, Cesare Borgia over­threw the Riario-Sforza, captu­ring both Imola and Forlì. Cardinal Riario had no choice but to await Alex­ander VI’s death, and he would remain in exile for nearly four years. Initi­ally, he sought refuge in Pavia, the bishop’s seat of Ascanio Sforza, but spent the majo­rity of this period in France, where Sforza had been taken as a prisoner and where Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere had also fled.³ The pope’s death in August 1503 finally enabled Riario to re-enter Rome in triumph on 9 September 1503.⁴ Resuming his duties as Came­ra­rius, he presided over the conclave held later that month. Although Riario garnered signi­fi­cant support for his own candi­dacy,⁵ the Sienese Fran­cesco Todes­chini Picco­lo­mini (Pope Pius III) emerged victo­rious. The new pope died less than a month after his elec­tion, trig­ge­ring another conclave. Once again, Riario was among the leading candi­dates,⁶ but when it became clear that he would not secure suffi­cient votes, he backed the elec­tion of

Giuliano della Rovere, hoping that Della Rovere would recipro­cate by resto­ring Imola and Forlì to the Riario.⁷ Della Rovere emerged victo­rious, ascen­ding to the papal throne as Julius II. With the assis­tance of Jacopo Galli, Cardinal Riario demons­trated his support for Julius by commis­sio­ning elabo­rate and costly trium­phal arches in front of his palazzo to cele­brate the new pope’s possesso.⁸

Cardinal Riario set out on a hard-fought campaign to restore Girolamo Riario’s heirs to power in the Romagna and to curtail the influence of their mother, Cate­rina Sforza. Sforza, deter­mined to defend her posi­tion, moved quickly to win back Imola for her first-born son, Otta­viano. Mean­while, Cardinal Riario devised a contras­ting stra­tegy to claim Imola for himself and for Ottaviano’s younger brother, Galeazzo. A rivalry for Imola unfolded between Otta­viano Riario-Sforza (supported by Cate­rina Sforza) and Galeazzo Riario-Sforza (backed by Cardinal Riario).⁹ Letters from the Vene­tian ambassador Antonio Gius­ti­nian reveal Riario’s deter­mined efforts, span­ning more than six months, to support Galeazzo. One proposal involved Julius II offe­ring his niece’s hand in marriage to Galeazzo and gran­ting the couple control over Imola. Another sugges­tion, aimed at winning the support of Imola’s Guelph faction, proposed that Cardinal Riario marry his own daughter to their leader, Giovanni Sassa­telli.¹⁰ When news of these pros­pects reached Imola, the city erupted in cele­bra­tion, with the popu­lace shou­ting the names of Galeazzo and Cardinal Riario and raising Girolamo Riario’s stan­dard over the Palazzo Comu­nale.¹¹ For a brief moment, Raffaele Riario tasted victory. The situa­tion dete­rio­rated, however, in the ensuing months as violence broke out in Imola, and as the Sassa­telli accused Riario of orchest­ra­ting a coup against them. Ulti­m­ately, Pope Julius II inter­vened to resolve the conflict by decla­ring that Imola would not revert to the Riario, but would instead come under direct control of the Church.

Gius­ti­nian vividly describes the bitter disap­point­ment of the Cardinal. Riario complained that the pope had aban­doned the Riario who were, like the Della Rovere, ‘crea­ture de papa Sisto’. The Cardinal threa­tened to leave Rome and return to exile, either in France or in Spain.¹² At a wedding cele­bra­tion at the Belve­dere, Riario made a last-ditch effort to secure an advantage

fig. 179 Antonio Tempesta, Map of Rome, detail, New York, Metro­po­litan Museum of Art, Acces­sion no. 1983.1027(1–12), Edward Pearce Casey Fund, 1983. 1645 (first printed in 1593). Photo: The Metro­po­litan Museum of Art, New York, public domain.

fig. 180 Giovanni Battista Nolli, Nuova pianta di Roma, detail. 1748. Photo: Wiki­media Commons, public domain.

fig. 181 Giovanni Battista Nolli, Nuova pianta di Roma, detail showing the Galli vigna by the Tiber. 1748. Photo: Wiki­media Commons, public domain.

Illus­tra­tion page. See the complete open-access PDF for the image.

for himself and for the Riario heirs. He presented the pope with Imola on behalf of his cousins, asking in exch­ange for the pope’s promise to find them another terri­tory of appro­priate dignity. The picture Gius­ti­nian paints of Riario at this moment is one of sheer desperation:

Certainly the Cardinal conceals, but not well enough, the passions of his soul, putting faith in the vain judge­ments of the astro­lo­gers, who predict a short life for the pope, and offer the Cardinal hope that he might succeed him.¹³

In August 1504, the pope claimed Imola for the Church; the repa­ra­tions for the Riario were meagre, and no substi­tute terri­tory for the heirs of the Conte ever arrived.¹⁴

Cardinal Riario’s decline, which began in 1499, contrasts starkly with Jacopo Galli’s rising prospe­rity. Galli’s pres­tige reached a new level in 1498, when he served as one of the three Conser­va­tors of Rome, an office reserved for Roman patri­cians and one of the highest in the city’s muni­cipal govern­ment.¹⁵ Follo­wing Riario’s depar­ture from Rome in 1499, Galli further enhanced his posi­tion by step­ping in to fill the gaps left open by the Cardinal’s absence. Galli inhe­rited Riario’s rela­ti­onship with Michel­an­gelo and became the sculptor’s sponsor, patron, and promoter, as is discussed below. Galli no doubt also played a key role in ongoing work at San Lorenzo in Damaso, helping to ensure the comple­tion of the basi­lica and the cortile of the palace. As was noted in Chapter 3, his agency in the day-to-day opera­tion of the buil­ding site can be inferred from the thou­sands of payments to workmen and suppliers that left the conto della fabbrica at the Galli-Balducci bank in these years. In the last decade of his life, Galli’s own busi­nesses flou­rished. The Galli-Balducci bank expanded its opera­tions, ship­ping goods across the Medi­ter­ra­nean to desti­na­tions such as Elba and Sicily. They opened a branch of their bank in Naples and streng­thened their part­ner­ship with the Fazzi bank in Florence.¹⁶ By the time of his death, Galli owned nume­rous proper­ties, inclu­ding most of the shops and houses between the Piazza di San Lorenzo and the Piazza di Parione. The Isola Galli reached a size that could imitate that of the baro­nial compounds of Rome such as the Orsini family’s nearby Monte Giordano, as is visible in the maps of Giovanni Battista Falda (see Fig. 67), Antonio Tempesta (Fig. 179), and Giam­bat­tista Nolli (Fig. 180), as well as in the Catasto Urbano (Maps 1 and 3).

The extent of Galli’s property empire is clari­fied in an inven­tory of his beni immo­bili compiled in the days follo­wing his death in 1505, listing all his vigne, houses, and shops. It even names the tenants who were renting from him at the time [Appendix ii.18]. The inven­tory lists two vigne owned by Galli: one outside the Castel Sant’Angelo which he inhe­rited from his father  ¹⁷ and another in the Rione Ripa, next to the Tiber. It seems he purchased the latter vigna in May 1500 from Antonio Jaco­bini, as is suggested by a record in the Galli-Balducci accounts.¹⁸ In 1599, when it belonged to Galli’s descen­dant Leone Lancia­rini Galli, the vigna

was described as an ‘artichoke garden and a house, in Ripa near the river, adja­cent to the gran­aries of the Camera [Apos­to­lica]’.¹⁹ Nolli’s map of Rome locates the picturesque setting of this vigna, which is labelled on the map as the Orto Galli (Fig. 181).

The inven­tory also lists the palaz­zetto facing Cardinal Riario’s palace and the church of San Lorenzo, and the casa grande facing the palace of Cardinal Carafa on the north side of the Isola Galli. Galli resided in the smaller palaz­zetto, a house whose appearance is preserved in rare nine­te­enth-century photo­graphs of the Piazza della Cancel­leria (see Figs 1, 71). The façade of

fig. 182 Ales­sandro Specchi, Palazzo della Cancel­leria, Il quarto libro del nuovo teatro delli palazzi in pros­pet­tiva di Roma moderna. 1699. Photo: Rijks­mu­seum, Amsterdam, public domain.

Galli’s resi­dence is depicted in eigh­te­enth-century prints by Ales­sandro Specchi (Fig. 182) and Giuseppe Vasi (Figs 72–73), while a seven­te­enth-century map of Piazza San Lorenzo (Fig. 183) clari­fies the layout of this noble house (labelled ‘Ill.mo Sig.re March[es]e Galli’) and its close proxi­mity to Riario’s church and palace.²⁰ Accor­ding to the 1505 inven­tory, the palaz­zetto featured a well, a cortile, stables, and three ground-floor shops, which were rented at the time to a Flemish arquebu­sier, a German lutemaker, and a Floren­tine shoe­maker.²¹ Even in the nine­te­enth-century photo­graphs (Figs 1, 71), shops are visible on the ground floor along­side the large portal of Galli’s house—a promi­nent land­mark for traffic ente­ring Piazza San Lorenzo from Campo de’ Fiori. Exten­ding west­ward from this property was a row of houses and shops facing San Lorenzo in Damaso, all of them owned by Galli (Map 3). In 1505, these were rented to a variety of tenants, inclu­ding a cobbler, a lutemaker from Perugia, a Floren­tine tailor, and others. Further north along the via dei Leutari as it turned toward the Piazza di Parione was a domus with a cour­tyard. Galli rented this house to Cardinal Riario as a resi­dence for Corrado Sansoni, a rela­tive of Riario who had accom­pa­nied the Cardinal from Savona to Rome.²² Adja­cent to this property was another domus rented to a chap­lain of San Lorenzo in Damaso, followed by a shop and a resi­dence with a cour­tyard leased to the Neapo­litan painter Gero­nimo Picus. Addi­tional shops on the street were rented to a tavern keeper, a lutemaker, an aromat­a­rius (an apothe­cary or spice dealer), and a carpenter. The 1505 inven­tory also describes Galli’s pres­ti­gious casa grande, then unoc­cu­pied, across the street from the Pasquino and the palace of the Cardinal of Naples. As was noted in Chapter 3, Galli purchased this palace—the current Palazzo Bona­dies-Lancel­lotti on the via di San Pantaleo (see Figs 66, 184, Map 3)—from the Sant­acroce family in 1505.²³ Th is large domus included stables, cour­ty­ards, a well, and three ground-floor shops fron­ting the via Papalis and the Piazza di Parione.²⁴ Galli likely intended to move into this grand palace, but he died only a few months after acqui­ring it.

fig. 183 Map of the Piazza della Cancel­leria, Rome, Archivio di Stato, Colle­zioni disegni e mappe – Colle­zione I, 80 – 244 / 1. Post 1689–ante 1740. Photo © Minis­tero della Cultura. All rights reserved.

The Display of the Bacchus in Galli’s House

This vast Isola was a major Roman land­mark, a domain that repre­sented not only Jacopo Galli’s wealth, but also his refined and cultured public iden­tity. In his palaz­zetto facing the Piazza San Lorenzo, Galli put this persona on view with a coll­ec­tion of anti­qui­ties and other artworks, inclu­ding Michelangelo’s Bacchus. The first recorded mention of Michelangelo’s statue of Bacchus inside Jacopo Galli’s house appears in Raffaele Maffei’s Urban Commen­ta­ries, published in March 1506. Maffei’s ency­clo­paedic compen­dium describes the statue within a brief discus­sion of the works of renowned pain­ters and sculp­tors. In this section, Maffei praises Michel­an­gelo, high­lighting his achie­ve­ments with the Pietà in St. Peter’s, the colossal David ‘in front of the curia of Florence,’ and the ‘rather profane,

fig. 184 Giuseppe Vasi, Piazza di Pasquino o dei Librari, Delle magni­ficenze di Roma antica e moderna, Libro secondo, plate 24, Stan­ford Univer­sity, David Rumsey Map Center. 1752. Photo: David Rumsey Map Center, Stan­ford Libra­ries, cc by-nc-sa 3.0.

yet nevert­heless artful’ Bacchus ‘in the atrium of the house of Jacopo Galli.’²⁵ Although Maffei’s book was published in February 1506, the passage mentio­ning the Bacchus must have been written before Jacopo Galli’s death in June 1505.²⁶ If Galli had already died at the time of writing, Maffei would no doubt have referred to him as ‘olim Jacobus Gallus’ (‘the deceased Jacopo Galli’). Maffei is a trust­worthy source who presu­mably saw the Bacchus first­hand in Galli’s house, as he had dealings with the Galli-Balducci bank and knew Jacopo Galli perso­nally.²⁷ Moreover, the Maffei brothers—Raffaele, Antonio, and Mario of Volterra—were allies of Raffaele Riario. Antonio Maffei, indeed, had lost his life during the Pazzi conspi­racy as the inex­pe­ri­enced would-be assassin who had attempted to kill Lorenzo de’ Medici in the Cathe­dral of Florence.²⁸

As Maffei puts it, Jacopo Galli displayed the Bacchus in an ‘atrium’. Maarten van Heemskerck’s famous drawing of the Bacchus in the house of Jacopo’s son Paolo Galli (Fig. 215) responds to a cour­tyard that might be described as an ‘atrium’, where torsos, a recli­ning figure, and a sarco­phagus deco­rated with garlands and Cupids are displayed. It is likely that Maffei took sight of Michelangelo’s statue in this space, presu­mably as part of an anti­qui­ties coll­ec­tion. While the drawings of van Heems­kerck (see Figs 215–16) and the guide­book descrip­tion of Ulisse Aldro­vandi [Appendix ii.31] shed light on the contents and display of the Galli sculp­tures several decades after Jacopo’s death, the only known sources for Jacopo’s anti­qui­ties coll­ec­tion that date to his life­time are epigra­phic sylloges, that is, manu­scripts contai­ning lists of antique inscrip­tions. These sylloges, the earliest of which is thought to have been compiled between c. 1488 and 1498, make note of more than two dozen antique inscrip­tions ‘in domo d. Ioannis Galli scrip­toris peniten­tia­riae’ or ‘in domo cuiusdam Galli offi­ci­alis poeni­ten­tia­riae’.²⁹ Surely, the allu­sion to ‘Johannes’ (Giovanni) is a mistaken refe­rence to Jacopo Galli, who acquired the venal office of apos­tolic scriptor some­time before April 1489.³⁰ The names Jacopo and Giovanni are easily confused, since both can be abbre­viated as ‘Io.’, and there is no Giovanni Galli known from this time. By 1521, the compi­la­tion of antique inscrip­tions known as the Epigram­mata Anti­quae Urbis, published by Jacopo Galli’s friend Giacomo Mazzocchi, placed most of these inscrip­tions in the house of ‘Io. Galli scrip­toris peniteni­ta­riae’ in Parione (Fig. 185). Certainly, ther­e­fore, the house in ques­tion was that of Jacopo Galli.³¹ Even if these antique inscrip­tions are all that is docu­mented in Galli’s coll­ec­tions during his life­time, there can be little doubt

that he also coll­ected sculp­ture. In the late Quat­tro­cento, there are very few survi­ving written descrip­tions or drawings that comment upon coll­ec­tions of ancient sculp­ture, and there are many important Roman coll­ec­tions formed in the fifte­enth century that are now undo­cu­mented.³²

Defi­ni­tive answers to the ques­tions of how, why, and when Michelangelo’s Bacchus came into Jacopo Galli’s posses­sion remain elusive. If Michel­an­gelo lived with Galli while working on the Bacchus, it seems impro­bable that the statue left Galli’s house before Maffei described it in 1506, less than a decade after its crea­tion. As was previously suggested, given that Riario’s palace was under­going recon­s­truc­tion at the time of Michelangelo’s arrival, it is plau­sible that any statues in Riario’s coll­ec­tion were stored with Galli for safe­kee­ping, which would help to clarify why Michelangelo’s Bacchus stayed in Galli’s house for many years.

Jacopo Galli’s posses­sion of the Bacchus cannot be explained, however, as a mere prac­tical neces­sity. The statue’s even­tual transfer to Galli must somehow reflect the deep alli­ances and loyal­ties that bound toge­ther Riario and Galli. The inte­rests of Riario and Galli converged and over­lapped through the proxi­mity of Galli’s house to Riario’s palace, their joint efforts in rebuil­ding San Lorenzo in Damaso, and Galli’s role as Riario’s trusted agent. Chris­toph Frommel has made the plau­sible sugges­tion that Riario may have given Galli the Bacchus as a gift, possibly as a reward for Galli’s manage­ment of the Cardinal’s affairs during his exile. While this hypo­thesis is appe­aling, other scena­rios proposed by Frommel—that Riario traded the Bacchus for an ancient statue or allowed Galli to keep it in lieu of paying the artist’s fee—can likely be discounted.³³ Given the comple­xity of the ties between Riario, Galli, and Michel­an­gelo, as well as the profound meaning the Bacchus held in their shared circle, it is diffi­cult to imagine the statue being bartered or used as a form of payment. It became, moreover, the personal posses­sion of Galli, handed down to his sons, rather than an asset of the Galli-Balducci bank. No defi­ni­tive ratio­nale has been disco­vered as to why the Bacchus remained in Galli’s house, but its presence there undoub­tedly reflects endu­ring bonds and mutual obli­ga­tions between two long-term allies.

As is discussed in further detail below, up until his death in 1505, Galli was also a friend, ally, and agent of Michel­an­gelo. He secured commis­sions for the artist, coun­ter­si­gned his contracts, and stored his blocks of Carrara marble. Beyond acqui­ring the Bacchus, Galli also obtained

fig. 185 Epigram­mata Anti­quae Urbis, ed. by Giacomo Mazzocchi, fol. 96 v, detail, Munich, Baye­ri­sche Staats­bi­blio­thek, Res/2 Arch. 103 <urn:nbn:de:bvb:12bsb10196158‑2>. 1521. Photo: Baye­ri­sche Staats­bi­blio­thek, Munich, NoC-nc/1.0.

a figure of a Young Archer by the sculptor (see Figs 5, 187). These circum­s­tances raise the possi­bi­lity that Michel­an­gelo himself may have played a role in the display of the Bacchus at Galli’s house. Later in his life, Michel­an­gelo gifted his Rebel­lious Slave and Dying Slave (Fig. 161)—unfinished statues from the tomb commis­sion for Julius II—to a close friend, Roberto Strozzi. Strozzi, along with Luigi del Riccio (the busi­ness manager of the Strozzi bank), cared for Michel­an­gelo during an illness in 1544. As a gesture of grati­tude, Michel­an­gelo entrusted the Slaves to Strozzi, ensu­ring they remained with an ally and protector.³⁴ In this case, Michel­an­gelo made certain that his works were displayed by the most trusted members of his imme­diate circle. Regard­less of how Galli’s owner­ship of the Bacchus was nego­tiated, the final arran­ge­ment likely reflected the artist’s personal preferences.

Jacopo Galli in Michelangelo’s Early Career

Until his death in 1505, Jacopo Galli supported Michel­an­gelo in nume­rous ways. After the sculptor’s arrival in Rome in late June 1496, it seems that Galli hosted him at his resi­dence on the via dei Leutari for a little over a year. Condivi and Vasari mention this arran­ge­ment, which is corrob­orated by other sources, most notably a September 1496 entry in the Galli-Balducci accounts, which records the deli­very of wine to Galli’s house ‘for Michel­an­gelo’.³⁵ The artist received a final payment for the Bacchus in July 1497 and was likely still lodging with Galli in August, when his brother Buonar­roto visited Rome. On 19 August, Michel­an­gelo wrote to his father that Buonar­roto had arrived safely but was staying in an osteria, since the artist himself was ‘living with others’ and had ‘nowhere conve­nient’ to host his brother.³⁶ In November 1497, Michel­an­gelo departed Rome for an extended trip to Florence and Carrara. He failed to write back to his friends, promp­ting a complaint from his assistant, Piero d’Argenta, in a letter dated 13 January 1498. D’Argenta remarked on the absence of any commu­ni­ca­tion, espe­ci­ally with Jacopo Galli, writing: ‘Messer Jacopo and all of us marvel that he hasn’t written a single word’.³⁷

Midway through the commis­sion for the Bacchus, in March 1497, Michel­an­gelo opened his own account at the Galli-Balducci bank. Its records then trace the artist’s move­ments within the networks of Galli and Riario as he sought new patro­nage. They reveal that soon after comple­ting the Bacchus, on 27 June 1497, Michel­an­gelo with­drew the modest sum of 3 carlini for a panel ‘in order to paint it.’³⁸ This brief notation—the earliest known record of Michelangelo’s career as a painter—has prompted considerable debate. Hirst linked the panel to the Manchester Madonna (Fig. 186), but the small amount with­drawn is insuf­fi­cient for a wooden panel as substan­tial as that of the Manchester Madonna, which is made of thick poplar planks.³⁹ The artist’s exact inten­tions for the modest panel remain uncer­tain. Yet it is perhaps

rele­vant that around this time Jacopo Galli was prepa­ring a team of buil­ders, wood­wor­kers, and pain­ters to reno­vate the palaz­zetto on the Piazza San Lorenzo. On 21 July 1497—less than a month after Michel­an­gelo purchased his panel—the Galli-Balducci accounts docu­ment payments for pain­tings intended for an upper-floor sala of Galli’s house. Perhaps, Michel­an­gelo may have been asked to paint a modest panel to adorn a room or piece of furni­ture in Galli’s house, even though no payment for such a work appears in the artist’s account.

Hirst later revised his view on the panel, asso­cia­ting it instead with a now-lost small altar panel of St. Francis Recei­ving the Stig­mata created for San Pietro in Montorio in Rome. Some­thing of the appearance of this panel can be gleaned from two prints that Antonio Lafréry

fig. 187 Michel­an­gelo Buonar­roti, Young Archer, New York, The Metro­po­litan Museum of Art (on loan from French Repu­blic). 1497?. Photo © Raffa­ello Bencini / Bridgeman Images.

fig. 186 Michel­an­gelo Buonar­roti, Manchester Madonna, London, The National Gallery (Bought, 1870), inv. ng809. c. 1494. Photo © The National Gallery, London.

issued in the 1560s or 1570s based on the small altar­piece (Fig. 188).⁴⁰ The earliest refe­rence to the panel, in the manu­script of the ‘Anonimo Magli­a­be­chiano’ written between 1537 and 1542, describes it as a small tavola. It depicted Saint Francis recei­ving the stig­mata and was ‘desi­gned and perhaps coloured’ by Michel­an­gelo. In his first edition of the Lives, Vasari describes the panel as a Stig­mata painted by Michel­an­gelo ‘nella maniera antica’ [Appendix II.27].⁴¹ In the second edition, however, Vasari revised his account, describing the work as a colla­bo­ra­tion between Michel­an­gelo and Cardinal Riario’s barber:

Michel­an­gelo became friends with a barber of Cardinal [Riario], who was a painter capable of colou­ring in tempera with great skill but lacking in disegno. Michel­an­gelo made a drawing of Saint Francis recei­ving the stig­mata, which the barber then coloured very dili­gently on a small panel at San Pietro in Montorio [Appendix II.34].

A seven­te­enth-century Spanish visitor to the church mentioned the panel and attri­buted its colou­ring not to Riario’s barber, but to Michelangelo’s assistant, Piero d’Argenta. In the current scho­lar­ship, d’Argenta is gene­rally regarded as the likely creator of the work, while the idea that Riario’s barber painted the panel has largely been dismissed.⁴²

fig. 188 Print after a lost Stig­mata of St. Francis, printed by Antonio Lafreri, Real Biblio­teca del Monas­terio de El Escorial, inv. 28-II‑8, fol. 246 r. 1560s or 1570s. Photo © Patri­monio Nacional, Real Biblio­teca del Monas­terio de El Escorial.

The idea that Riario’s barber indeed painted a panel based on a drawing by Michel­an­gelo gains credi­bi­lity, however, when viewed along­side previously over­looked sources. The ­Galli-Balducci accounts record nume­rous payments to Riario’s barber, a figure named ‘Rossino’ who is defined as the ‘barbiere del R.mo Cardi­nale di San Giorgio’. The accounts reveal that Rossino worked closely with other members of Riario’s house­hold, parti­cu­larly in matters related to the care of horses and the acqui­si­tion of equestrian equip­ment.⁴³ Rossino’s perso­na­lity comes to life in letters published by Matteo Bonfini of Ascoli, a lecturer at the Studium Urbis. Bonfiini served as a secre­tary of Cardinal Riario and, for some time, also rented out a house and a shop in the Isola Galli.⁴⁴ In 1514, Bonfini published a coll­ec­tion of six letters he had written to Cardinal Riario between the years 1510 and 1511.⁴⁵ The letters reveal that Bonfini had served Riario for eight years, until the Cardinal had dismissed him from his service. By publi­shing a coll­ec­tion of letters to Riario, Bonfini hoped to win back the Cardinal’s favour. He framed this coll­ec­tion with a story about Riario’s barber, who was known as ‘Rossino’. Accor­ding to Bonfini, Rossino brought him a number of letters the barber had received from Giuliano Galli (Jacopo Galli’s son). One of these letters included the sugges­tion that Bonfini should write to Riario to try to make amends with the Cardinal and regain his favour. This sugges­tion gave Bonfini the confi­dence to offer Riario his six letters, which combined flat­tery for the Cardinal with tactful appeals for renewed support.

The fifth of these letters, dated 13 January 1511, describes a humo­rous dialogue between Bonfini and Rossino. Rossino had visited Bonfini the previous evening, reques­ting to see the ‘letters addressed to our common Lord’—referring to the first four letters from Bonfini to Riario printed in the compi­la­tion. Rossino insisted that Bonfini read the first letter in Latin aloud and explain its meaning. Hearing the letter, Rossino responded enthu­si­a­sti­cally, decla­ring, ‘That’s an excel­lent, most stylish letter, and most deser­ving of being written by a genius from our region’, seemingly allu­ding to their common origin in the Marches. Bonfini laughed, amazed that Rossino had suddenly changed ‘from a barber into a critic and an exac­ting judge of lite­ra­ture’. When Bonfini read out the second letter, however, Rossino complained that it poss­essed a certain ‘annoying quality’:

Rosinus has become an expert in letters, in spite of being igno­rant and utterly untouched by any of the arts. Turning to him, I said, ‘Well, you fool, where is this annoying quality to which you refer?’ ‘I can’t put it into words’, Rossino replied. ‘All I know is that both are good letters, but the first one is far better.⁴⁶

After further ques­tio­ning, Rossino arti­cu­lates the reason for his irri­ta­tion: Bonfini should not ‘complain about his needy circum­s­tances’ to Riario. There was no need to over­whelm the Cardinal with direct requests for help, since he is so gene­rous that his assis­tance will come

natu­rally. Bonfini was taken aback by the wisdom of the barber’s words, writing, ‘it seemed to me that I had heard a prophecy not from Rosinus, but from an oracle of Apollo’.⁴⁷

While the letters are lite­rary cons­truc­tions intended to flatter and delight Riario, they provide valuable insight into Rossino’s grega­rious perso­na­lity and the ease with which he operated inside the circles of Riario and the Galli. Bonfini’s portrayal of Rossino, moreover, offers an intri­guing parallel to Vasari’s account of the panel for San Pietro in Montorio. In both Bonfini’s letters and Vasari’s biography, Rossino is repre­sented as an enthu­si­a­stic amateur. Whether posi­tio­ning himself as a huma­nist capable of criti­quing Bonfini’s letters, or as a painter able to paint a panel after Michelangelo’s drawing, he mirrors the erudi­tion and skills of the promi­nent figures at Riario’s court. In this sense, Bonfini’s vivid charac­te­ri­sa­tion adds credi­bi­lity to Vasari’s claims regar­ding Rossino’s role in the execu­tion of the Stigmata.

Michelangelo’s next known under­ta­king was a statue that the artist mentions in a letter he wrote to his father in August 1497. In this letter, Michel­an­gelo reveals that he had recently begun a figure in marble for his own plea­sure (‘per mio piaciere’) after a commis­sion from Piero de’ Medici—then in exile in Rome—had fallen through. Despite the recent alli­ance between Lorenzo il Magni­fico and Riario through common objec­tives in Imola, it comes as some­thing of a surprise that de’ Medici’s son was able to commis­sion a statue from Michel­an­gelo when the artist was still part of Riario’s entou­rage in Rome. There is, however, further evidence of the good rela­ti­onship between Riario’s house­hold and Piero de’ Medici around this time, parti­cu­larly in the context of the anti-Savo­na­rola faction that surrounded Riario: Fra Mariano da Genaz­zano was one of Piero de’ Medici’s staun­chest allies in Rome, and he actively campai­gned to help de’ Medici return to power in Florence.⁴⁸

While the wording of Michelangelo’s letter to his father is ambi­guous, the artist implies that after Piero had reneged on his commis­sion, he was left with an uncarved marble block and could use it however he wished. Michel­an­gelo had spent a total of ten ducats on the marble for de’ Medici, having first bought a block that was ‘no good’ and then a second, better one, that was no longer required for Piero’s statue. Each block had cost him five ducats.⁴⁹ In March 1498, Michel­an­gelo paid thirty ducati di karlini into Piero de’ Medici’s account, presu­mably as a refund to de’ Medici for money advanced on his failed commis­sion.⁵⁰ Which sculp­ture Piero may have ordered from Michel­an­gelo, but then decided against, is not known; living in exile, he presu­mably would not have wanted a large figure, an infe­rence that is supported by Michelangelo’s rela­tively modest expenses for marble.

It is probable that Michel­an­gelo used the marble block for the Young Archer, or wing­less Cupid, which even­tually came into the posses­sion of Jacopo Galli. Accor­ding to Condivi’s

Vita of 1553, after Galli commis­sioned the Bacchus, ‘Messer Jacopo Galli also wanted [Michel­an­gelo] to make a Cupid’, a statue that was then visible in the house of Jacopo’s sons Giuliano and Paolo Galli [Appendix ii.29].⁵¹ It has only been recently accepted in the scho­lar­ship that the Galli Archer is a figure owned by the French govern­ment now on loan to the Metro­po­litan Museum (Fig. 187; see also Fig. 5). Before conside­ring further whether this Archer was indeed the inven­tion ‘for plea­sure’ Michel­an­gelo made in 1497,⁵² it is first neces­sary to step back to consider the Archer itself and the heated debate over its attri­bu­tion to Michelangelo.

In his guide­book to Roman coll­ec­tions composed in 1550, Ulisse Aldro­vandi described the Galli Archer in an upper room of Paolo Galli’s house (the palaz­zetto Galli on Piazza San Lorenzo). Aldro­vandi called it ‘a naked Apollo with quiver and arrows at his side and a vase at his feet’ [Appendix ii.31]. Follo­wing Aldro­vandi, in the 1960s, Ales­sandro Parronchi iden­ti­fied the Galli Cupid as a statue whose photo­graph he had come across in an auction cata­logue.⁵³ The statue’s where­a­bouts were then unknown, and Parronchi’s attri­bu­tion failed to gain wide­spread support. The hypo­thesis was largely forgotten until decades later when, remar­kably, the figure whose photo­graph had caught Parronchi’s atten­tion was redis­co­vered at the Payne Whitney mansion in Manhattan, a buil­ding that serves as the Cultural Services office of the French Embassy located only a short distance from the Metro­po­litan Museum of Art (Figs 5, 187). James Draper, sculp­ture curator at the Met, announced the redis­co­very of the statue that had attracted Parrochi’s inte­rest in his mono­graph on Bertoldo di Giovanni of 1992. Initi­ally, Draper considered the figure as ‘too obviously unana­to­mical to be by Michel­an­gelo’.⁵⁴ Yet NYU Professor Kath­leen Weil-Garris Brandt revi­sited Parronchi’s hypo­thesis and attri­buted the statue to Michel­an­gelo, igni­ting a lively and conten­tious debate about the author­ship of the ‘Manhattan marble’.⁵⁵

The New York statue depicts a slender archer moving dyna­mi­cally in a spiral­ling pose, his head thrown back­wards and upwards. In its current, frag­men­tary state, the compo­si­tion has lost much of its elegance. Origi­nally, the figure stret­ched his now-missing right arm across his body to pull his quiver towards him while exten­ding his left arm behind his back to draw an arrow. A quiver, ending in a lion’s paw, is secured tightly across the figure’s body with a strap. A tall vase at the figure’s feet is now missing, but once supported the statue’s weight. Due to its slim form, an attri­bu­tion to Michel­an­gelo was long contested. James Beck dismissed the statue as ‘a modern fake’, while Hirst attri­buted it to Bertoldo.⁵⁶ Criti­cism of the figure in the 1990s and 2010s echoed reac­tions to the Bacchus: like the Bacchus, the Archer seemed to lack ‘physical subs­tance’, as if its sculptor were ‘ill at ease with fully deve­loped three-dimen­sional form’.⁵⁷ However, the disco­very of sixte­enth-century drawings depic­ting the statue ulti­m­ately convinced many scho­lars, inclu­ding Draper, to support Weil-Garris Brandt’s attri­bu­tion to Michel­an­gelo.⁵⁸ Draper’s publi­ca­tion of a sixte­enth-century drawing by Jean-Robert Ango

(Fig. 189) confirmed the original presence of the vase described by Aldro­vandi. The drawing also clari­fied the cross-body pose of the right arm.⁵⁹ With refe­rence to this sketch, Draper was able to high­light the strong parallel—initially observed by Parronchi—between the compo­si­tion of the Young Archer and the bronze Orpheus of Bertoldo di Giovanni, Michelan­gelo’s mentor at the Medici sculp­ture garden (see Fig. 154).⁶⁰ The attri­bu­tion to Michel­an­gelo gained further support in 2003, when Paul Joann­ides published an early Cinque­cento drawing with the Archer seen from four diffe­rent angles on the recto (Fig. 190) and sket­ches after an ignudo of the Sistine Ceiling on the verso.⁶¹

There can now be little doubt that the New York Archer is the Cupid by Michel­an­gelo that was once owned by the Galli. Addi­tional corrob­ora­tion that the Galli Cupid and the New

fig. 190 Anony­mous, Young Archer, Current loca­tion unknown. c. 1510–1520. Photo © Christie’s Images / Bridgeman Images.

fig. 189 Jean-Robert Ango, Young Archer, New York, Cooper-Hewitt, Smit­h­so­nian Design Museum, inv. 1977–110- 2–13. Post 1759–ante 1773. Photo: Smit­h­so­nian, public domain.

York statue are the same figure comes from Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo’s Trat­tato dell’arte della pittura published in 1584. Lomazzo noted that the Cupid sculpted by the divine Michel­an­gelo for Jacopo Galli resem­bled a Cupid painted ‘by our Titian, resting on Venus’s shoulder’—a refe­rence to the shy putto hiding behind Venus in Titian’s Venus Blin­ding Love, whose pose mirrors that of the Galli Young Archer (Fig. 191).⁶² As Caglioti has argued, the marble Archer incor­po­rates a graceful figural torsion that Michel­an­gelo learned from Bertoldo’s statu­ettes, a preferred compo­si­tional stra­tegy that Michel­an­gelo revi­sited repea­tedly throug­hout his career: the figure shifts its weight to one leg, allo­wing the other leg to bend and rotate. One arm reaches across the body towards the bent leg, while the head follows the move­ment of the arm, but twists at a more extreme angle as the chin tilts upwards. A compa­rable use of torsion can be seen in wooden St. Jerome in Faenza, a sculp­ture alter­na­tely attri­buted to Donatello and Bertoldo (Fig. 192), Bertoldo’s Orpheus (see Fig. 154), the child St John the Baptist in Michelangelo’s Manchester Madonna (see Fig. 186), and the mischie­vous satyr of Michelangelo’s Bacchus (see Fig. 131).⁶³ It is this distinc­tive twist that Lomazzo reco­g­nised in Titian’s shy putto (see Fig. 191). In the Manhattan Archer, the strap across the body—a trade­mark of Michelangelo’s sculpture—enhances the sense of the body as a rest­ric­tive container, which has been driven to a state of rest­less­ness by the move­ments of the soul. Bertoldo had devised the spiral­ling compo­si­tion to repre­sent the musi­cian Orpheus, who seems drawn towards the sound of heavenly music; the Archer expresses a similar idea of a year­ning, upward-moving spirit batt­ling against the body’s cons­traints. In addi­tion to the Floren­tine work of Donatello and Bertoldo, it is plau­sible to specu­late that the frag­mented Pasquino

fig. 191 Titian, Venus Blin­ding Love, Rome, Galleria Borg­hese. c. 1565. Photo © bpk / Alinari Archives / Mauro Magliani.

group (see Fig. 85), which by 1501 was displayed near Galli’s house at the Piazza di Parione, may have offered inspi­ra­tion to Michel­an­gelo as he carved the Young Archer.⁶⁴ Paral­lels can be observed between the two figures, parti­cu­larly in their twis­ting poses and the strap across the chest.

There is good reason to believe not only that the Manhattan Archer is the Galli Archer, but also that it is the statue Michel­an­gelo told his father he would carve ‘for plea­sure’ in August, 1497. Its size and the quality of its marble seem appro­priate for a block that had cost Michel­an­gelo five ducats, that is, half the price of the marble for the Bacchus. Further insight can be gained, moreover, from sources that have not previously been brought to bear upon the Archer—namely, the Galli-Balducci records concer­ning Jacopo Galli’s deco­ra­tion of two camere in his house in the summer of 1497. As was mentioned, when Aldro­vandi visited the Galli palaz­zetto in 1550, he saw Michelangelo’s Archer ‘in a room further up near the sala’. In this upper room Aldro­vandi also found a ‘rather beau­tiful’ bust of Marcus Aure­lius, as well as other heads and frag­ments [Appendix ii.31]. This space likely corre­sponds to one of the upper rooms that Jacopo Galli deco­rated in July and August 1497, which were described as a sala over­loo­king the street and two camere.⁶⁵ As was mentioned, the wooden panel that Michel­an­gelo purchased on 27 June 1497 might be connected to these deco­ra­tions. Conside­ring that the Young Archer was visible in an upper room of the house during Aldrovandi’s time, it is also plau­sible that Michel­an­gelo made the work for an upper camera in 1497, when Galli was furnis­hing several rooms with pain­tings, sculp­ture, and coll­ec­ta­bles. Galli was a supporter and customer of the anti­qua­rian book­seller Giacomo Mazzocchi,⁶⁶ and the camere may corre­spond to spaces for a library or studiolo where he could keep books and display precious objects such as portraits, medals, coins, or statu­ettes.⁶⁷ It is notable in this regard that in the seven­te­enth century, the palaz­zetto on the Piazza della Cancel­leria was home to an important studiolo. When a descen­dant of Jacopo Galli, Fran­cesco Galli, lived there, sources of the 1680s describe his well-known library and came­rino or ‘studio di anti­chità’, seemingly located up a flight of stairs in a mezza­nine floor of the house, which combined natu­ralia, gems, medals, sea shells, and other precious objects. Fran­cesco Galli’s cabinet of curio­si­ties, while suited to a Seicento taste, is possibly the direct successor of a camera origi­nally set up by Jacopo Galli in the fifte­enth century for the display of precious objects, inclu­ding Michelangelo’s Archer.⁶⁸

No payment for the Archer appears in Galli’s accounts from this period, suggesting that Michel­an­gelo may have presented it to Galli as a gift at a time when the artist was likely living in his house. The subject of the Archer appears perfectly suited to Galli’s culti­vated taste, comple­men­ting his refined appre­cia­tion of clas­sical art and conti­nuing the spirit of rivalry with the antique seen in the Bacchus. It echoes Cardinal Riario’s commis­sion of ‘some­thing beau­tiful’ intended to be juxta­posed with antique works. With its twis­ting pose, the Archer forms a fitting coun­ter­part to the Bacchus, parti­cu­larly through its formal resem­blance to the grape-eating satyr. Both the Archer and the Bacchus explore themes of spiri­tual libe­ra­tion, with the Archer evoking Diony­sian imagery, as indi­cated by the animal-paw motif of the quiver. In

fig. 192 Bertoldo di Giovanni, possibly with Donatello, St. Jerome, Faenza, Pina­coteca Comu­nale. c. 1465–1466. Photo © Comune di Faenza, Pina­coteca Comunale.

fig. 193 Michel­an­gelo Buonar­roti, Pietà, Vatican, St. Peter’s Basi­lica. 1498–1499. Photo © Luisa Riccia­rini / Bridgeman Images.

Illus­tra­tion page. See the complete open-access PDF for the image.

its imagi­na­tive compo­si­tion, the Archer rivals poetry, appearing to arise from the intellec­tual, anti­qua­rian, and philo­so­phical discus­sions that took place in Galli’s house and vigna.

Michel­an­gelo may have moved directly from the dimi­nu­tive Archer to a very diffe­rent work: the Pietà which he sculpted for the French Cardinal Jean Bilhères de Lagraulas (Fig. 193).⁶⁹ A long career in Rome was laid open to him by the success of this extra­or­di­nary sculp­ture, made for the Cardinal’s tomb in the mauso­leum of Santa Petro­nilla at Old St. Peter’s. The patron, Cardinal Bilhères, was a French aris­to­crat and Abbot of the Cathe­dral of Saint-Denis. In Rome, he cham­pioned the inte­rests of the French royalty and their cult centres: Santis­sima Trinità dei Monti, San Luigi dei Fran­cesi, and Santa Petro­nila, the chapel of the French Kings at St. Peter’s, which he chose as his place of burial.⁷⁰ Cardinal Bilhères ordered the Pietà with the inten­tion of displaying it in a niche set behind an altar and above his tomb,⁷¹ making the sculp­ture Michelangelo’s most visible and pres­ti­gious commis­sion to date. Th ere can be little doubt that the artist’s connec­tions to Riario and to Galli had helped him to win this pres­ti­gious project. The Riario were allied with the French commu­nity in Rome, as is seen in their rela­ti­onships with Th omas James and Cardinal d’Estouteville. Riario supported Bilhères and had perso­nally appointed him to the office of governor of Rome, or Vice-Came­ra­rius, in 1492.⁷² Jacopo Galli also played a critical role as an inter­me­diary between Michel­an­gelo and Bilhères by serving as a guarantor of the contract, the survi­ving copy of which Galli wrote out for Michel­an­gelo in his own hand (Fig. 194).⁷³ In this docu­ment, dated 27 August 1498, Galli pledged that the Cardinal would make the agreed payments and that Michel­an­gelo would deliver the sculp­ture in one year. Galli guaran­teed, moreover, that the statue would be ‘the most beau­tiful work in marble in Rome today, and that no master today could do better’.⁷⁴

It is diffi­cult to know whether the prac­tice of guaran­te­eing works of sculp­ture was an unusual one in the Roman context, given how few contracts for sculp­ture survive. Where one does find paral­lels in Rome are in the payments to artists

fig. 194 Jacopo Galli (scribe), Contract for the Vatican Pietà, Florence, Casa Buonar­roti, Archivio Buonar­roti, II–III, no. 1. 27 August 1498. Photo © Casa Buonar­roti, Archivio Buonarroti.

made by the Fabbrica di San Pietro, a subdi­vi­sion of the Camera Apos­to­lica charged with the cons­truc­tion and deco­ra­tion of St. Peter’s. Bankers often stepped in as guaran­tors for artists working for the Fabbrica, ensu­ring that they would be held respon­sible for comple­ting important commis­sions.⁷⁵ Perhaps Jacopo Galli’s role as Michelangelo’s guarantor was based upon custo­mary agree­ments between Rome’s merchant-bankers and the Camera Apos­to­lica.⁷⁶ What seems most remar­kable about Galli’s pledge, however, is that it proposes to guarantee the sculpture’s ‘beauty’ and artistic supre­macy; that Galli himself is trusted to ensure these quali­ties speaks to the banker’s repu­ta­tion as a connois­seur, as well as to his own coll­ec­tions of art.

After Michel­an­gelo depo­sited the first inst­al­ment of his fee for the Pietà at the Galli-Balducci bank in November 1497, he purchased a horse ‘per andare a char­rara’ and with­drew cash. By 29 December he reached Florence, and by February 1498 he arrived at the marble quar­ries in Carrara. Some­time before 10 March 1498, Michel­an­gelo returned to Rome, where he awaited the deli­very of the marble blocks he had selected.⁷⁷ A long delay followed, and it was only in June 1498 that the marble ship­ments began to arrive.⁷⁸ By August of that year, Michel­an­gelo was paying rent to a certain Fabrizio Puli­gato, an aromat­ario (spice dealer or phar­macist) and asso­ciate of Jacopo Galli.⁷⁹ It seems likely that Galli had helped to arrange the artist’s accom­mo­da­tion with his friend Puli­gato, after the ship­ments from Carrara arrived in June and July 1498, when Michel­an­gelo urgently required a place to trans­port his marble blocks. The sculptor paid his rent to Puli­gato on 21 August 1498, and on 27 August, toge­ther with Galli, he signed the contract for the Pietà. Two days later, Michel­an­gelo received fifty ducats from Cardinal Bilhères via the Galli-Balducci bank, and then on 30 August Michel­an­gelo paid ten ducats ‘per fare portare e marmj a chasa’, that is, to take the marble blocks to Puligato’s house in the Rione Arenula.⁸⁰ It seems that Galli’s assis­tance was crucial in ensu­ring timely payouts and in resol­ving the artist’s requi­re­ments for a storage and working space; acting as a midd­leman, Galli was able to find solu­tions to prac­tical problems and unlock oppor­tu­ni­ties for Michel­an­gelo when necessary.

The connec­tion between Galli, Michel­an­gelo, and Puli­gato at the time the sculptor was carving the Pietà is evident in the fact that Michel­an­gelo and Puli­gato, on the same day, both served as witnesses to a docu­ment nota­rised at Galli’s house. Michel­an­gelo and Puli­gato were present in Galli’s house on 7 September 1498, ten days after the contract for the Pietà was signed, to witness an act drawn up in two parts: the first was witnessed by Master Sancto, mattress maker of the Rione Parione and by ‘Michel­an­gelo the Floren­tine, sculptor’, and the second by

a leather­worker named Alessio and by Michelangelo’s land­lord, Puli­gato.⁸¹ The conver­gence of these indi­vi­duals in Galli’s house at this moment sheds light on the banker’s role as an inter­me­diary between Michel­an­gelo and Puli­gato. With the help of Galli and his broad network, Michel­an­gelo was able to create the Pietà, a sublime master­piece carved from the best possible block of imported Carrara marble and finished to perfec­tion in a timely manner.

Accor­ding to the Galli-Balducci accounts, Michel­an­gelo paid over 130 ducats for at least two ship­ments of marble from Carrara to Rome. As Rab Hatfield has noted, this amount of marble far exceeded what was needed for the Pietà.⁸² Michel­an­gelo appar­ently expected to receive other commis­sions in Rome, where Carrara marble was a highly prized commo­dity. When Michelangelo’s father wrote to urge him to return to Florence in December 1500, he advised his son that he could store his remai­ning supply of Carrara marble with his friends: ‘If you can’t finish the marbles, keep them with one of your friends and when the time comes it won’t be diffi­cult for you to return there.’⁸³ Follo­wing his father’s advice, in February 1501, Michel­an­gelo left his excess Carrara marble blocks with Jacopo Galli, who paid the sculptor eighty ducats as a secu­rity against their value.⁸⁴ Given this sequence of events, it is plau­sible that Galli influenced Michelangelo’s decision to quarry addi­tional marble in Carrara and main­tain a reserve supply in Rome. Galli’s invol­vement in Michelangelo’s marble supplies is suggested by the storage of the marble blocks with Puli­gato, by their transfer to Galli’s own house, as well by the sale of some of Michelangelo’s excess marble to the Floren­tine sculptor Pietro Torri­giani after Michel­an­gelo had departed for Florence. The fact that Galli was autho­rised to sell part of Michelangelo’s marble stocks points to a likely part­ner­ship with the artist, who had perhaps autho­rised Galli to act as manager of his marble. This scenario is further supported by Galli’s role as a merchant engaged in the trade of buil­ding mate­rials.⁸⁵ One can imagine that Galli aimed to support Michel­an­gelo by acting as the guarantor of the artist’s Roman studio, combi­ning the sculptor’s talents—demonstrated by the display of the Bacchus and the Cupid along­side anti­qui­ties in Galli’s house—Galli’s resourceful­ness, and an abun­dant supply of high-quality marble.⁸⁶

On 2 September 1500, shortly after comple­ting the Pietà, Michel­an­gelo received a payment of sixty Cameral ducats for a new commis­sion, once again won with the help of Jacopo Galli. This work was an altar­piece for Sant’Agostino paid for by the estate of Giovanni Ebu (also known as Giovanni da Viterbo), Bishop of Crotone.⁸⁷ Throug­hout the 1490s, Giovanni da

Viterbo was connected to Riario. He likely lived with Cardinal Riario, since he frequently served as a witness to docu­ments signed in Riario’s resi­dence. When the bishop drew up his will, he named the Cardinal as his universal heir. After his death in November 1496, plans were made by Riario’s asso­ciates to bury the Bishop in a chapel at Sant’Agostino, a church where several of Riario’s fami­liars were laid to rest (Map 1.4).⁸⁸ To liqui­date the Bishop’s estate, the Cardinal’s procu­rator, Barto­lomeo de’ Dossis, took posses­sion of his house in the Rione Ponte, not far from Sant’Agostino. Its sale, assisted by Jacopo Galli, raised 1000 ducats, 500 of which were given to the Augus­ti­nian friars for a chapel in their church.⁸⁹ Part of these funds were earmarked for the chapel’s deco­ra­tion, inclu­ding the sixty cameral ducats paid to Michel­an­gelo for an altar­piece on 2 September 1500.⁹⁰ The decision to hire Michel­an­gelo to paint the altar­piece is unsur­pri­sing, given Jacopo Galli’s role in the selec­tion process; the artist’s bond at this moment with Galli is evidenced by his purchase of a barrel of vino corso from the banker on 22 September.⁹¹ Galli’s and Michelangelo’s asso­ciate Fabrizio Puli­gato may also have been somehow involved in the Sant’Agostino commis­sion, since in that same month there are curious, as of yet unex­plained tran­sac­tions between the Friars of Sant’Agostino, Puli­gato, and Galli in the Galli-Balducci accounts.⁹²

Michel­an­gelo would ulti­m­ately abandon the Sant’Agostino altar­piece and depart Rome for Florence. As was noted, the artist’s father wrote to Michel­an­gelo in December 1500 urging him to return home, while hinting at new oppor­tu­ni­ties there. By February 1501, Michel­an­gelo had arranged to store his marble supplies with Jacopo Galli in prepa­ra­tion for his depar­ture.⁹³ The artist indeed found success in Florence, where he was soon able to secure the pres­ti­gious commis­sion for the marble David (Fig. 214). He left behind the Sant’Agostino altar­piece and in November 1501, a painter named ‘Maestro Andrea’ was assi­gned the task of comple­ting it. As a second-choice artist, Maestro Andrea would receive a fee lower than Michelangelo’s.⁹⁴ While the iden­tity of this Andrea remains myste­rious, he was likely a German artist, since the friars of Sant’Agostino had already employed a painter referred to as ‘Andrea pictore todesco’ for other work in 1497.⁹⁵

In the art-histo­rical lite­ra­ture, considerable debate has focused on whether Michelangelo’s unfi­nished Entomb­ment in London (Fig. 195) is the panel Michel­an­gelo was asked to paint for Sant’Agostino, but did not complete. Mancusi-Ungaro was the first to asso­ciate the London Entomb­ment with the commis­sion for Sant’Agostino when he published the relevant

Galli-Balducci records in 1971.⁹⁶ Hirst later supported this proposal, arguing that the unfi­nished London Entomb­ment is the altar­piece Michel­an­gelo began for Giovanni da Viterbo’s chapel. Hirst called atten­tion to the panel’s Roman proven­ance (it was in the Farnese coll­ec­tion in Rome in 1644), its rela­tively large size, its funerary theme, and its overall simi­la­rity to other works by Michel­an­gelo dated to around 1500.⁹⁷ In an article of 1994, Alex­ander Nagel backed this thesis when he published payments for the deli­very of a ‘new’ altar­piece in Sant’Agostino on 18 June 1502, the same day that Maestro Andrea received his final payment. Two months later, the account books of Sant’Agostino record the instal­la­tion of a blue curtain to cover a ‘tavola della Pietà’, presu­mably Andrea’s altar­piece. Michelangelo’s London Entomb­ment, Nagel argued, would also have been an image suitable for an altar dedi­cated to the Pietà.⁹⁸

While there is every reason to believe that the London Entomb­ment was painted by Michel­an­gelo, the asso­cia­tion between this panel and the aborted commis­sion for Sant’Agostino is almost certainly erro­n­eous.⁹⁹ In March 1501 the accounts of Sant’Agostino indi­cate that the commis­sio­ners spent forty Cameral ducats on a wooden panel and twenty-six ducats on gilding it.¹⁰⁰ The panel for the altar­piece was ther­e­fore paid for with a signi­fi­cant portion of the five-hundred-ducat fund desi­gnated for all of the expenses related to Giovanni da Viterbo’s chapel. It is highly unli­kely that this exten­si­vely gilded panel was the one Michel­an­gelo used for the London Entomb­ment, since it was an expen­sive object that the admi­nis­tra­tors of the bishop’s estate would have had no reason to relin­quish to Michel­an­gelo. After the Floren­tine with­drew from the commis­sion, they would have offered their panel to Maestro Andrea, and then after its comple­tion installed it in Sant’Agostino. It is probable, moreover, that the London Entomb­ment does not date to Michelangelo’s Roman period, but to his time in Florence in the early Cinque­cento. Paul Joann­ides and Achim Gnann have proposed that an extra­or­di­nary study by Michel­an­gelo of a female nude (Fig. 196) served as a prepa­ra­tory drawing for the London altar­piece. As Hirst was the first to observe—the vertical edge of the panel is sket­ched on the left side of the sheet, just to the left of the knee­ling nude.¹⁰¹ The presence of this line suggests that the drawing was made in prepa­ra­tion for pain­ting the altar­piece, to work out the compo­si­tion of the figures in rela­tion to the edges of the panel. However, it can be dated to the period when Michel­an­gelo was working in Florence c. 1503/4, since sket­ches for the Battle of Cascina appear on its verso (Fig. 197). As Gnann has argued, these circum­s­tances suggest that the London panel fits within the Floren­tine, rather than Roman phase of Michelangelo’s early career. It betrays simi­la­ri­ties with the Doni Tondo, a Florentine

fig. 195 Michel­an­gelo Buonar­roti, Entomb­ment, London, National Gallery, inv. Ng790. c. 1504?. Photo © The National Gallery, London.

fig. 196 Michel­an­gelo Buonar­roti, Study for the London Entomb­ment, Paris, Louvre, Dépar­te­ment des Arts graphi­ques, inv. 726 r. 1503–1504?. Photo © rmN-Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre) / Th ierry Le Mage.

fig. 197 Michel­an­gelo Buonar­roti, Study for the Battle of Cascina, Paris, Louvre, Dépar­te­ment des Arts graphi­ques, inv. 726 v. 1503–1504?. Photo © rmN-Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre) / Th ierry Le Mage.

Illus­tra­tion page. See the complete open-access PDF for the image.

commis­sion, and with studies Michel­an­gelo made after Leonardo’s St. Anne Cartoon, which was first exhi­bited in Florence in the summer of 1501.¹⁰² These argu­ments, considered as a whole, credibly disas­so­ciate the Entomb­ment from the Sant’Agostino chapel.

As Michel­an­gelo prepared to leave Rome for Florence, toge­ther with Galli he became involved in yet another commis­sion that the artist would ulti­m­ately never complete. His assign­ment was to carve a set of fifteen small marble statues for Cardinal Fran­cesco Tode­schini Picco­lo­mini, the nephew of Pope Pius II, who would himself be elected pope in 1503. In 1501, Cardinal Picco­lo­mini requested these marble statues to complete an altar in the Cathe­dral of Siena (Fig. 198).¹⁰³ It is highly probable that, once again, Michelangelo’s connec­tions to Cardinal Riario and to Jacopo Galli played a signi­fi­cant role in secu­ring this commis­sion. Piccolomini

fig. 198 Andrea Bregno and Michel­an­gelo Buonar­roti, Picco­lo­mini Monu­ment, Siena, Duomo. 1481–1504. Photo © Foto Marburg, Albert Hirmer and Irmgard Ernst­meier- Hirmer.

had been one of the execu­tors of the testa­ment of Cardinal Bilhères, and in this role would have colla­bo­rated at least indi­rectly with Michel­an­gelo and Galli on the commis­sion for the Pietà.¹⁰⁴ The statues Cardinal Picco­lo­mini ordered were meant to fill the final gaps in an elabo­rate monu­ment initiated in the 1480s by the sculptor Andrea Bregno. Picco­lo­mini envi­sioned this altar as his burial site in Siena should he die ‘far from Rome’ (as fate would have it, he died in Rome and was buried near Pius II in St. Peter’s Basi­lica). For some time, the Cardinal sear­ched for a statuario to under­take the task of sculp­ting the small statues. Initi­ally, he appears to have sought the services of Cris­to­foro ‘il Gobbo’ Solari, without success. Between 1498 and 1499, Pietro Torri­giani began working on a statue of Saint Francis for the Cardinal, but left it unfi­nished. By 22 May 1501, discus­sions with Michel­an­gelo were underway, and the

fig. 199 Michel­an­gelo Buonar­roti, St. Paul, Picco­lo­mini Monu­ment, Siena, Duomo. 1501– 1504. Photo © Foto Marburg, Albert Hirmer and Irmgard Ernst­meier-Hirmer. fig. 200 Michel­an­gelo Buonar­roti, St. Peter, Picco­lo­mini Monu­ment, Siena, Duomo. 1501– 1504. Photo © Foto Marburg, Albert Hirmer and Irmgard Ernstmeier-Hirmer.

artist outlined his terms for a contract.¹⁰⁵ By June, an agree­ment had been signed by Picco­lo­mini as patron, Michel­an­gelo as sculptor, and Galli as guarantor. Since it took twenty days, between 5 June and 25 June, for all three parties to add their signa­tures, some have suspected that Michel­an­gelo had already left Rome for Florence, and that the contract had to be sent back and forth from Rome.¹⁰⁶

Andrea Bregno had begun the Picco­lo­mini monu­ment in Carrara marble, and the Cardinal required Michel­an­gelo to use marble of the same quality—pure white Carrara marble, free of veins. He also required the timely comple­tion of his statues. Thus Galli guaran­teed that Michel­an­gelo would produce fifteen figures over the next three years, commit­ting not to under­take any other work. He pledged that Michel­an­gelo would carve the figures in ‘new’ Carrara marble and would not make the statues out of pieces joined toge­ther.¹⁰⁷ Other clauses in the contract speci­fied that Michel­an­gelo was required to finish the ‘drapery and the head’ of the St. Francis begun by Torri­giani, without compen­sa­tion, as a matter of ‘honour, cour­tesy, and huma­nity’. The first two figures to be finished by Michel­an­gelo would, as was noted in Chapter 7, be subject to expert evalua­tion to ensure they were ‘better executed and finished, and of a higher degree of perfec­tion than any modern figures in Rome today’.¹⁰⁸ These were ambi­tious terms that Michel­an­gelo would quickly flout. Just a few months later, in August 1501, he signed a new contract with the Floren­tine Opera del Duomo for the David, viola­ting his earlier agree­ment with the Cardinal. As was the case with the Sant’Agostino altar­piece, commit­ments begun in Riario and Galli’s circle in Rome unra­velled after Michel­an­gelo shifted his focus to commis­sions in Florence. In the end, the artist completed only four figures, inclu­ding statues of Sts. Peter and Paul (Figs 199–200). The unfi­nished commit­ment would plague Michel­an­gelo for decades, as the Cardinal’s heirs continued to press for their statues, while the niches on Cardinal Piccolomini’s monu­ment remained empty.¹⁰⁹

Another new commis­sion won through Jacopo Galli—the Bruges Madonna (Fig. 201)—helped to disrupt Michelangelo’s work on the Siena altar. Although Michel­an­gelo carved the Madonna in Florence, the statue was made for patrons in Rome: the Mouscron family, wealthy Flemish cloth merchants whose busi­ness was based near Piazza del Paradiso, close to Campo de’ Fiori and to the Isola Galli.¹¹⁰ The Mouscron had no doubt been moved by the Vatican Pietà and its Nort­hern Euro­pean sensi­bi­lity, since the Bruges Madonna imitates the Vatican statue in many ways, not least in its repre­sen­ta­tion of the Virgin’s youthful and serene beauty.

There can be little doubt that Jacopo Galli was the inter­me­diary who brought Michel­angelo toge­ther with the Mouscron. Galli had long backed the Mouscron’s lucra­tive cloth busi­ness, and the Galli-Balducci account books docu­ment his signi­fi­cant finan­cial dealings with them. The bank regis­ters reveal that Galli was himself a customer of their firm, regu­larly purcha­sing fine fabrics from the company, some imported from as far away as London.¹¹¹ In 1502, shortly before Michel­an­gelo won the commis­sion for the Bruges Madonna, the accounts reveal a

fig. 201 Michel­an­gelo Buonar­roti, Bruges Madonna, Bruges, Onze Lieve Vrou­we­kerk. 1501–1504. Photo © Paul Maey­aert. All rights reserved 2024 / Bridgeman Images.

Illus­tra­tion page. See the complete open-access PDF for the image.

sharp increase in busi­ness conducted by the Galli-Balducci bank on behalf of the Mouscron, inclu­ding tran­sac­tions worth thou­sands of ducats.¹¹² That same year, Galli also served as a guarantor for the family. In a docu­ment witnessed by the ‘librario’ Giacomo Mazzocchi and signed in Mazzocchi’s shop, Galli guaran­teed that the Mouscron would be able to pay a 2000ducat fine if they ever committed an offense against a certain aromat­ario (a phar­macist who was perhaps also a provider of dyes), Andrea Matta­buffi [Appendix ii.14].¹¹³ Appar­ently, when a dispute with Matta­buf­fia­rose, Galli stepped in to help the Mouscron resolve the matter.

It was probably Jacopo Galli who orga­nised the now-lost contract for the Bruges Madonna. Payments for the statue went through the Galli-Balducci bank, which received one hundred florins for Michel­an­gelo in two inst­al­ments.¹¹⁴ From the outset, the need to ship the statue from Florence, where it was carved, to Bruges posed a signi­fi­cant logi­stical chall­enge. As was the case with the Vatican Pietà, Galli was likely enlisted to guarantee the contract and assist as an inter­me­diary and problem-solver. The ship­ment of the Bruges Madonna was ulti­m­ately handled after Jacopo Galli’s death by the Balducci bank, as evidenced by a letter to Michel­an­gelo from Giovanni Balducci, nephew of Bald­as­sare Balducci and cassiere of the bank. In August 1506, Giovanni provided Michel­an­gelo with detailed instruc­tions for deli­ve­ring the Bruges Madonna to its patrons. Accor­ding to the letter, the Floren­tine merchant Fran­cesco del Pugliese would arrange the ship­ment of the statue from Florence to Viar­eggio and oversee its onward trans­port to Flanders. If Del Pugliese was unable to manage the ship­ment, Michel­an­gelo was instructed to take the statue to Viar­eggio himself, where trusted cont­acts of the bank would ensure its journey northward. Any expenses Michel­an­gelo incurred during the trans­por­ta­tion were to be reim­bursed by ‘Boni­fazio Fazzi e compagni’, the Floren­tine part­ners of the Balducci.¹¹⁵ Balducci’s letter provides valuable insight into the Galli-Balducci bank’s behind-the-scenes opera­tions on Michelangelo’s behalf, illus­t­ra­ting their role as mana­gers of the Bruges Madonna. Ulti­m­ately, Balducci’s invol­vement in resol­ving logi­stical issues likely stemmed from a guarantee signed by Jacopo Galli, which pledged the bank’s respon­si­bi­lity for the statue’s deli­very. In this sense, his letter serves as indi­rect evidence of the part­ner­ship between Michel­an­gelo and Jacopo Galli, whose exten­sive network and resources played a vital role in supporting the artist’s early successes.

Galli’s busi­ness skills provided Michel­an­gelo with the pros­pect of a bril­liant career in Rome, backed by wealthy patrons, by Galli’s exten­sive busi­ness cont­acts, and by Parione’s anti­qua­rian culture. The banker’s steady hand ensured the comple­tion of the Bacchus, the Vatican Pietà, figures from the Picco­lo­mini monu­ment, and the Bruges Madonna—a signi­fi­cant propor­tion of the sculp­tures that Michel­an­gelo would ever fully finish during the course of his long career. On a personal level, Galli seems to have been the inter­me­diary Michel­an­gelo needed to navi­gate his rela­ti­onships with ‘great men’, whom Michel­an­gelo some­times found diffi­cult to tole­rate. The artist’s rela­ti­onship with Galli was profound and multi­faceted, paral­leling that which Michel­an­gelo would have with Luigi del Riccio, a merchant-banker and

agent of the Strozzi, in the 1530s and 1540s. Del Riccio acted as an inter­me­diary for Michelangelo’s commis­sions, helped him to acquire marble, managed the publi­ca­tion of his poems, and commis­sioned a tomb for his nephew Cecchino Bracci from the artist. Like the Galli, the Del Riccio family won pres­tige over decades from their close asso­cia­tion with Michel­an­gelo, which they show­cased by displaying copies of his Pietà and Risen Christ in their chapels in Santo Spirito in Florence.¹¹⁶

Coun­ter­ba­lan­cing any plans Galli and Michel­an­gelo might have made to continue their rewar­ding part­ner­ship was the artist’s growing sense of remorse over his absence from Florence, which became palpable in letters of 1500 between Michel­an­gelo and his father.¹¹⁷

Michel­an­gelo never finished the Sant’Agostino altar­piece and the Picco­lo­mini statues, commis­sions that suited the inte­rests of Galli and his network, but could scar­cely match Michelangelo’s own ambi­tions. The panel for Sant’Agostino, commis­sioned by a member of Riario’s inner circle, was not compel­ling enough to persuade Michel­an­gelo to remain in Rome. For the Picco­lo­mini altar in Siena, a curial patron offered Michel­an­gelo a rather rest­ric­tive commis­sion to complete a monu­ment already begun by Andrea Bregno. Neither project fully mate­ria­lised after Michel­an­gelo returned to Florence, drawn there by home­sick­ness and by the excep­tional chall­enge of the David, a work that—unlike the Sant’Agostino or Siena commissions—allowed him to continue his trajec­tory of bold, inno­va­tive statues created in rivalry with the antique. Galli’s sights were set too low, his outlook too narrowly focused on the Roman scene at a time when Michel­an­gelo hoped to avoid ordi­nary ‘work­shop’ projects and to open up new oppor­tu­ni­ties in Florence. Even if their part­ner­ship was strained, however, Galli’s death in 1505 deprived the artist of an irre­placeable anchor, and his career would never be the same. Inevi­tably, one wonders how Michelangelo’s life would have deve­loped differ­ently if Galli had continued to support him, and if quite as many of the sculptor’s works would have been left ‘non-finito’.

Jacopo Sado­leto, Pietro Bembo, and Galli’s Lite­rary Circle

Ascanio Condivi’s biography of Michel­an­gelo immor­ta­lised Jacopo Galli as the artist’s trusted friend and a genti­luomo romano di bello ingegno. Belie­ving Galli to be the patron of the Bacchus, Edgar Wind, Phyllis Bober, and others unders­tood this ingegno as Galli’s capa­city to support the artist’s ambi­tion to sculpt the Bacchus in the spirit of Ficino’s Neopla­to­nism.¹¹⁸ Tradi­tio­nally, scho­lar­ship has focused on the conti­nua­tion in Rome of the Floren­tine intellec­tual milieu that had shaped Michel­an­gelo during his forma­tive years, while the circle of Riario and Galli was little studied. In the past twenty-five years, however, rese­arch has yielded new perspec­tives on the comple­xity and diver­sity of Rome’s intellectual

and anti­qua­rian culture. The focus has moved beyond popes and cardi­nals to the role of Roman nobi­lity, who have been brought to light by studies on promi­nent fami­lies such as the Porcari and the Leni.¹¹⁹ The multi­faceted persona of Jacopo Galli himself has begun to emerge in articles by Frommel, Baldini, Lodico, Piras, and others.¹²⁰ Still, as a merchant and an intellec­tual engaged with local artisans, cardi­nals, and ever­yone in between, Galli has not fit the conven­tional model of the ‘patron’ that is typi­cally discussed in the art-­his­to­rical lite­ra­ture. There is much more to be explored, with the help of the Galli-Balducci archives, in the varied dimen­sions of Galli’s identity.

As was noted in Chapter 3, Galli likely received a huma­nist educa­tion, follo­wing a course chosen for him by his father, Giuliano. As Galli became more wealthy and as he rose to promi­nence, he became a patron of letters in his own right. Friends began to acknow­ledge their debts to Galli in their works, as was the case when Bald­as­sare Crassi, in 1498, published a coll­ec­tion of letters by Matteo Bossi.¹²¹ In the preface to this work, Crassi stated that he had placed Bossi’s letters ‘in Galli’s hands’ and invited Galli to judge whether Bossi’s letters had surpassed Cicero’s.¹²² Among the huma­nists and lite­rati of the Rione Parione, there was no shortage of compe­ti­tion for Galli’s patro­nage and favour. One was Giacomo Mazzocchi, the Bergamese book­seller and lite­rary figure, whom Galli supported in the early stages of his career. Mazzocchi is best known as the publisher of the Epigram­mata Anti­quae Urbis, a compi­la­tion of antique inscrip­tions visible in Roman coll­ec­tions, inclu­ding that of the Galli. He had a book­shop at Campo de’ Fiori where in 1502, as was noted, Jacopo Galli signed a guarantee for the Mouscron family [Appendix ii.14].¹²³ In November 1502, the Galli-Balducci accounts record a payment of twenty-five ducats from Jacopo Galli to ‘Iac. o libraro per librj’, no doubt a refe­rence to purchases Galli made at Mazzocchi’s book­shop.¹²⁴ Mazzocchi expressed his grati­tude to Galli in the first book that he is known to have edited, which was printed by Johannes Besi­cken on 10 May 1505, shortly before Jacopo’s death. This work was a compi­la­tion by the late-antique author Vibius Sequester listing geogra­phical names mentioned by Virgil, Ovid, and other Latin poets. Presen­ting himself as a ‘Romanae Acade­miae biblio­pola’ (book­seller of the Studium Urbis), Mazzocchi dedi­cated the volume to Galli, ‘the most humane, but also the most learned of the Romans’. ‘You have won for yourself the praise of the people and the bene­vo­lence of the good’, he wrote, ‘through the arts of libe­ra­lity, hospi­ta­lity, and favour’. In his devo­tion to Galli, Mazzocchi joined many other ‘learned men who respect and honour’ him [Appendix ii.15].¹²⁵

As is reve­aled by the Galli-Balducci accounts, Jacopo Galli was also a patron of the theatre, staging perfor­mances in one of his anti­qua­rian vigne. Among the most fasci­na­ting entries in the bank records are payments, one appar­ently made by Jacopo Galli’s wife Saulina, for the perfor­mance of come­dies. Since Saulina’s payment, made in November 1500, appears

in the accounts toge­ther with others that relate to Galli’s vigna at Ripa (see Fig. 181), it was almost certainly here that the produc­tion took place.¹²⁶ In January and February 1501, funds left Galli’s account for painted scenery to be used in the perfor­mance of another comedy, whose title is once again unnamed. The bank records reveal that on 21 January, Galli paid a certain Giovanni ‘per tavole per la chomedia’. On 10 February, he made another payment to an unnamed master ‘per pignere per la chomedia’.¹²⁷ This perfor­mance was staged during Carnival, a time when come­dies were allowed and put on in abun­dance. The report of the Vene­tian ambassa­dors on 17 February that year noted that even the pope had stayed out late at night watching come­dies.¹²⁸ Also on 17 February, the Galli-Balducci accounts (see Fig. 7) record a payment for ‘chan­del­lierj’, torches that were likely required for after-dinner perfor­mances. Addi­tional payments were made around the same time for fabric and for the services of a certain ‘lagrassa schar­pel­lino’.¹²⁹

By far the most signi­fi­cant source for Galli’s lite­rary and huma­nist acti­vi­ties is a pair of philo­so­phical dialo­gues composed by Jacopo Sado­leto after Galli’s death.¹³⁰ Born in Modena and educated in Ferrara, Sado­leto arrived in Rome some­time between 1498 and 1503, when he was made a canon of San Lorenzo in Damaso.¹³¹ He was protected by Cardinal Oliviero Carafa of Naples until the Cardinal’s death in 1511. As Madda­lena Spagnolo has suggested, while in Cardinal Carafa’s service, Sado­leto was likely one of the early archi­tects of Parione’s famous lite­rary contest, the Festa di Pasquino.¹³² He had an affi­nity for antique statues, as is known from the poem he wrote about the Laocoön (the De Laocoontis statua) soon after its disco­very in January 1506.¹³³ During his time in Rome, while he was atta­ched to the house­hold of Cardinal Carafa on Piazza di Parione, Sado­leto befri­ended Jacopo Galli. Looking back on his rela­ti­onship with Galli in 1505, after the banker’s death, Sado­leto wrote that he had ‘greatly loved’ Galli and felt ‘deprived of a most tender and sacred friend­ship’.¹³⁴ His most signi­fi­cant tribute to this friend­ship was the De laudibus philo­so­phiae libri duo, two dialo­gues that Sado­leto described as a defence of philo­sophy which he had upheld ‘some years ago in the suburban villa of Jacopo Galli against the eloquent, but rather unjust, accu­sa­tion of […] Tommaso Fedro’.¹³⁵ Sado­leto wrote the first dialogue, the Phaedrus, at Carpen­tras between c. 1521 and 1523, he completed the second, the Horten­sius, in 1535, and he published the two dialo­gues toge­ther in 1538. Both of the dialo­gues describe a discus­sion between himself, Jacopo Galli, Tommaso Inghi­rami, and Fran­cesco Cedrario in Galli’s vigna near Castel Sant’Angelo ‘on the morning of the Floralia’, the ancient Roman festival of flowers.¹³⁶

The purpose of Sadoleto’s dialo­gues was to argue for the merits of philo­sophy, using Jacopo Galli as an example of philosophy’s bene­fits. ‘In his early youth [Galli] had devoted himself fully’ to philo­sophy, Sado­leto writes, and he ‘has now returned after a long interval’, having stepped back from mercan­tile affairs.¹³⁷ Galli left behind a life chasing after mate­rial posses­sions, knowing that just as a statue by Daedalus seems beau­tiful and perfect because it is held toge­ther by chains, the best way of living is under­girded by philo­sophy.¹³⁸ Turning away from busi­ness affairs, Galli now favours intellec­tual pursuits and learned conver­sa­tions. His friends ‘consider nothing more acces­sible’, Cedrario tells Galli, ‘than your person, your house, your assis­tance, your grace, your purse, your autho­rity’.¹³⁹

In the first dialogue, Sado­leto intro­duces the case against philo­sophy, presented by Tommaso ‘Fedra’ Inghi­rami (the character ‘Phaedrus’ in the dialogue). Inghi­rami argues that philo­sophy is an empty pursuit that offers few social bene­fits. The grea­test heroes of history were not philo­so­phers, but statesmen like Caesar, Romulus, Gaius Mucius Scae­vola, or Marcus ­Curtius—figures who achieved great­ness because of their virtue, prudence, and disci­pline. Rome had become an empire because of these illus­trious heroes and had declined due to the corrupting influence of Greek philo­sophy. The second dialogue, titled Horten­sius in honour of Cicero, pres­ents Sadoleto’s rebuttal. Sado­leto argues that philo­sophy is the highest of human pursuits, since it alone can allow human­kind to rise above mundane concerns. Huma­nity is made in God’s likeness and can only draw closer to God by culti­vating the rational facul­ties, its most divine aspect. Jacopo Galli won Sadoleto’s admi­ra­tion by turning his back on the worldly affairs of merchant banking and embra­cing philo­sophy. Now, Galli offered living proof of the vali­dity of Sadoleto’s claims.

The dialo­gues can by no means be unders­tood as accu­rate accounts of past events, not least because they were composed decades after Galli’s death. Sado­leto wrote them looking back with nost­algia on a past era to pay tribute not only to Jacopo Galli but also to Galli’s grandson, Jacopo Galli the Younger, who was Sadoleto’s friend.¹⁴⁰ They borrow from a Greek voca­bu­lary of philo­so­phical settings to describe Galli’s villa: Sado­leto and his compa­n­ions gather in a hyppo­dromus, walk through gardens, and pass through a painted porticus, a xystus, and a cour­tyard with an exedra.¹⁴¹ Although these places are richly imagi­na­tive, the ‘hippo­drome’ Sado­leto asso­ciates with Galli’s villa is perhaps not enti­rely invented, since fifte­enth-century topo­graphers commented on the ruins of a theatre or hippo­drome in the area of the Galli vigna, a place called ‘Caiano’ outside Castel Sant’Angelo. Giovanni Rucellai noted the presence of ‘culisei et teatri’ here, Flavio Biondo described ruined walls and rows of seats, and

Andrea Fulvio observed the remains of a circus.¹⁴² The Rome map of Ales­sandro Strozzi (1474) includes an image of this crumbling ancient struc­ture, labelled ‘cyrcus’, located not far from the Castel Sant’Angelo (Fig. 202).¹⁴³ Chris­tian Hülsen linked these descrip­tions with an ancient buil­ding excavated in the eigh­te­enth century: an oblong buil­ding, curved at one end like a ‘hippo­drome’, which Hülsen iden­ti­fied either as the Circus of Hadrian or the Nauma­chia.¹⁴⁴

Just as the settings of Sadoleto’s dialo­gues are parti­ally grounded in the memory of Galli’s vigna, the interlo­cu­tors, as well, are inspired by the former members of Galli’s lite­rary circle, whose friend­ships with Galli and with Sado­leto are exten­si­vely corrob­orated by letters and other sources.¹⁴⁵ The Phaedrus features Camillo Porcari and Blosio Palladio, two men who are said in the dialogue to attend ‘daily gathe­rings’ at Galli’s house.¹⁴⁶ Certainly

fig. 202 Ales­sandro Strozzi, Map of Rome (detail), Florence, Biblio­teca Medicea Lauren­ziana, ms Redi 77, fols vii v –viii r. 1474. Photo © Minis­tero della Cultura. All rights reserved.

Jacopo Galli was indeed a close friend of Camillo Porcari, a Professor of Rhetoric at the Sapi­enza who was a member of Galli’s extended family.¹⁴⁷ The tomb­stone of San Lorenzo in Damaso of Fran­cesco Cedrario, who features promin­ently in the Phaedrus, was paid for by his ‘opimus amicus’, Jacopo Sado­leto (Fig. 203).¹⁴⁸ This tomb offers a mate­rial trace of the personal connec­tions that brought toge­ther promi­nent lite­rary figures in Jacopo Galli’s house and vigna. Another character named in the Phaedrus, the Roman nobleman Evan­ge­lista Madda­leni de’ Capo­di­ferro, memo­ri­a­lised his friend­ship with Galli with a poem of mour­ning written after Galli’s death.¹⁴⁹ Capodiferro’s manu­scripts also include poems lamen­ting the death of Jacopo Galli’s daughter Grazia and Galli’s wife, Saulina [Appendix ii.13].¹⁵⁰

In Sadoleto’s dialo­gues, the character ‘Phaedra’ remem­bers the renowned Vene­tian huma­nist Pietro Bembo as Jacopo Galli’s ‘guest and friend’ (‘hospes & amicus’). Bembo, Phaedra states, once declared that Rome’s ancient monu­ments made the city glorious, but Rome owed her real sple­ndour to Galli.¹⁵¹ Galli’s friend­ship with Bembo was not a fictional cons­truct devised by Sado­leto, but a genuine bond that evolved during Bembo’s visits to Rome. Conside­ring Bembo’s promi­nence as an intellec­tual and lite­rary figure, his connec­tion with Galli and his invol­vement in the philo­so­phical circle memo­ri­a­lised by Sadoleto’s dialo­gues merit closer exami­na­tion. Starting in 1497, Bembo spent several years at the d’Este court in Ferrara, where he began to write his first important work in Italian, Gli Asolani, and where he befri­ended Jacopo Sado­leto. In May 1502, Bembo briefly visited Rome before retur­ning to Venice by July.¹⁵² Shortly after his return, in the autumn of 1502, he wrote to Tommaso Inghi­rami in Rome and sent gree­tings to Jacopo Galli, Camillo Porcari, and other mutual friends. ‘I beg you to send me’, he wrote to Inghi­rami, ‘at some time in the future, a letter or two, and to greet Jacopo Galli (that man beloved by the Muses), who has done so much for me, and Camillo Porcari, Madda­leni [Evan­ge­lista Madda­leni de’ Capo­di­ferro], Lorenzo [Lorenzo Grana] […] and espe­ci­ally Jacopo Sado­leto of Modena’.

In March 1503, Bembo wrote to Sado­leto, sending his gree­tings once again to Galli with the message that Galli should not circu­late the poems from the

fig. 203 Tomb of Fran­cesco Cedrario, Rome, San Lorenzo in Damaso. Post 1513–ante 1521. Photo: Author.

Asolani that Galli had copied and kept priva­tely in his house, since Bembo had in the mean­time made many revi­sions to the text.¹⁵³ As a sign of trust, Bembo had permitted Galli to copy from an early draft of the Asolani, a set of dialo­gues on love written in Petrar­chan Italian. Bembo would have seen Galli once again in March 1505, when he travelled to Rome in the company of his father, Bernardo Bembo. In this short period, animated by conver­sa­tions about anti­qui­ties and works of art, Riario, Galli, Bembo, Sado­leto, and Michel­an­gelo were all toge­ther in Rome.¹⁵⁴

Bembo’s friend­ship with Galli grew stronger during these encoun­ters, as is reflected in the Vene­tian poet’s outpou­ring of grief when he heard of Galli’s death in June, 1505. After Sado­leto informed Bembo that Galli had died so soon after their last meeting, Bembo wrote:

First I am saddened that, as you write, Jacopo Galli has died; he was an honest man, he longed for the company of educated men, he held you in the warmest affec­tion, and I owe him a great deal. So it was that your letter reduced me to tears, and it led not only to tears, but also to the compo­si­tion of a little poem of mour­ning. For I could not help commit­ting some­thing to verse amid such profound grief. I am sending this to you. If it seems the right thing, you should show it to those who will approve.¹⁵⁵

The poem Bembo included in this letter to Sado­leto can likely be iden­ti­fied as the Galli Epita­phium, a compo­si­tion that he included in the printed edition of his Opera:

Epitaph for Gallus. O Rome, harassed by too harsh a fortune, was it right that you suffer so often the ulti­mate loss? He, Gallus, your descen­dant, your great delight, Gallus, first glory of the Aven­tine land. Gallus, most plea­sing guest of the Muses and Phoebus, to whom father Phoebus himself gave his own lyre, and whom the goddess Muses, his own Melpo­mene, and Calliope, bound with laurel and proclaimed their poet. He poss­essed restraint and most persua­sive grace, and zeal for the right, and honesty of heart and candour. Fair Plenty smiled on him with wide-open horn. As did the gracious nymphs and the half-goat god, and mother Ceres, her greying hair bound round with spikes of grain, filled his fields with joyful harvests. For him the sulp­hu­rous Nar, for him the Farfarus with its black waters, and Lake Fucinus, who augments your waters, O Rome, and the Almo and the Anio and the Tiber and father Numicus all ordered their waters to flow more boun­ti­fully. Your favou­rite, my Rome, your wit and your charm and hope, the strength and breath of your old age, Gallus, because of whom you have forgotten your trou­bles in earlier times, is dead: alas for the gods bereft of love and law!¹⁵⁶

The ‘Gallus’ Bembo hono­ured with this epitaph, a proud Roman and a wealthy man on whom Plenty has smiled ‘with wide open horn’, is surely Jacopo Galli.¹⁵⁷ Bembo’s letter and poem reveal that Galli was himself a poet: Galli was a ‘man beloved by the Muses’, crowned with laurel by Melpo­mene and Calliope. Jacopo Galli’s poetic corpus remains to be redis­co­vered, and the attri­bu­tion of any parti­cular works to him is hindered by the fact that there were several poets of the late Quat­tro­cento and early Cinque­cento who called them­selves ‘Gallus’. Bembo’s praise, none­theless, sheds light on the signi­fi­cance of Galli’s lite­rary career. Bembo’s decision to leave an early draft of his Asolani with him is another affir­ma­tion of Galli’s lite­rary creden­tials. It reveals that Galli’s inte­rests were focused not only on the Latin poetry favoured by Pomponio Leto and most Roman huma­nists, but also on verna­cular Italian verse.

Bembo’s Galli Epita­phium, hono­u­ring Jacopo Galli, anti­ci­pates a now-lost poem which Bembo composed for Galli’s tomb in early 1506, at the request of Sado­leto. While this funerary epitaph is easily confused with the Galli Epita­phium, the poem Bembo composed for Galli’s tomb was only five hexa­me­ters long, and was ther­e­fore signi­fi­cantly shorter. In a letter of 5 May 1506, written to congra­tu­late Jacopo Sado­leto on his De Laocoontis Statua, Bembo discusses this funerary epitaph:

As for what you say about Gallus’ tomb, well, have you not seen suffi­cient inep­ti­tude in that little poem of mour­ning of mine, but are now actually invi­ting me to write his epitaph? But I have of course grati­fied your wishes. And I have ther­e­fore completed an inscrip­tion in five hexa­me­ters. If by chance it appears to you that these are more than is needed, you may easily shorten it by omit­ting the first two verses. If you think them unac­cep­table, then disre­gard the entire little page. I cannot find adequate words to thank Camillo Porcari, who, you write, made public mention of me in his eulogy, by prai­sing me exten­si­vely and solemnly […] If you could also send me a copy of his oration, I shall owe you ever­y­thing, second only to him’.¹⁵⁸

Regrett­ably, no record of this funerary inscrip­tion remains, and Jacopo Galli’s tomb, once located in San Lorenzo in Damaso, no longer survives. Nevert­heless, the very fact that Bembo composed this epitaph places Galli among a select group of distin­gu­ished friends whom the poet chose to honour in this way.¹⁵⁹

The character of Galli’s vibrant intellec­tual circle comes to light through Sadoleto’s dialo­gues, Bembo’s letters, and other sources. Clearly, the group’s inte­rests centred on poetry, philo­sophy, and anti­qui­ties, and it is intri­guing to imagine how Galli’s anti­qua­rian coll­ec­tions and

Michelangelo’s Bacchus featured in their discus­sions. One ques­tion that arises is whether Galli’s lite­rary friends discussed the concept of imitatio in the Bacchus. Bembo’s well-known theory of imitatio was grounded in the notion that Cicero was the only valid model for writers of Latin prose. He arti­cu­lated his argu­ment during a famous debate in 1512, which pitted his belief in the exclu­sive imita­tion of a single, supe­rior clas­sical model—Cicero—against Giovan Fran­cesco Pico della Mirandola’s belief in eclectic imita­tion. Ulti­m­ately, Bembo and Jacopo Sado­leto, whose portraits are depicted side by side by Vasari in the Sala dei Cento Giorni (Fig. 204), emerged victo­rious in the imitatio debate, leading to the imple­men­ta­tion of Cice­ro­nian ideals during their time as secre­ta­ries to Pope Leo X. Even­tually, Ciceronianism’s popu­la­rity in Rome led Erasmus to denounce it as a form of pagan excess in his Cice­ro­nianus, published in 1528. The roots of the move­ment go back, however, to the early years of the Cinque­cento, when Jacopo Galli’s circle was appar­ently a crucible for it. Erasmus would have inter­acted with Galli’s friends during a stay in Italy from 1506 to 1509, shortly after Galli’s death. At that time, the German huma­nist formed close connec­tions to Cardinal Riario and Tommaso Inghi­rami, an expe­ri­ence that informed the anti-Cice­ro­nian stance he would later express. When the staunch Cice­ro­nian Battista Casali named the key supporters of the move­ment in an invec­tive against Erasmus of 1518 or 1519, he listed Camillo Porcari, Jacopo Sado­leto, Pietro Bembo, Bernardo Capella, and Fedra Inghirami—essentially, the core members of Jacopo Galli’s intellec­tual circle.¹⁶⁰

Galli’s inte­rest in the Italian poetry of Bembo’s Gli Asolani also hints at his early enga­ge­ment with Cice­ro­nia­nism. For Bembo, the revival of Italian as a lite­rary language was closely tied to

fig. 204 Giorgio Vasari, Sala dei Cento Giorni, Remu­n­e­ra­zione delle virtù, with portraits of Jacopo Sado­leto and Pietro Bembo stan­ding behind Paul III, Rome, Palazzo della Cancel­leria. 1540s. Photo © Andrea Jemolo / Bridgeman Images.

his Cice­ro­nian ideals. While Latin, in his view, had reached its ulti­mate perfec­tion with Cicero and could not evolve further, Italian was a living language—capable of ongoing deve­lo­p­ment, refi­ne­ment, and adapt­a­tion to contem­po­rary life. Thus, while Latin remained an immu­table relic of the past, Italian became a preferred language for spoken and lite­rary expres­sion in the present.¹⁶¹ Many ques­tions remain unans­wered: could Michel­an­gelo have taken part in these discus­sions through his connec­tion to Galli? And could Galli’s group have engaged with the concept of imitatio in rela­tion to Michelangelo’s Bacchus? Bembo himself, in the Prose della volgar lingua published in 1525, addressed the compe­ti­tion with anti­quity in Michelangelo’s sculp­ture, taking a simpli­fied view of the artist’s approach by defi­ning it as a ‘close appro­xi­ma­tion’ of the antique. Michel­an­gelo and Raphael were the most dili­gent of the many artists who, Bembo wrote, ‘know and see that ancient works come closer to perfec­tion than those made there­after’.¹⁶² Perhaps Galli’s circle of friends attempted to frame the Bacchus in terms of their own inte­rest in a ‘Cice­ro­nian’ imita­tion of the antique. Or perhaps they were able to perceive the full comple­xity of Michelangelo’s Bacchus, a modern statue that, like Gli Asolani, uses a Tuscan language rather than a strictly clas­sical one to produce an enti­rely new invention.

Another focus of Galli’s lite­rary circle, without ques­tion, was Rome’s famed coll­ec­tions of antique sculp­ture. Galli’s friends were reco­g­nised for their anti­qua­rian inte­rests and for their coll­ec­tions, inclu­ding that of Camillo Porcari, who lived near Galli in the Rione Parione.¹⁶³ Tommaso Inghi­rami was reco­g­nised as one of Rome’s leading autho­ri­ties on antique sculp­ture, and when the Belve­dere Hercules and Tele­phus (Fig. 205) was disco­vered in Campo de’ Fiori in 1507, it was Inghi­rami who was called upon to iden­tify the statue’s subject. As a contem­po­rary observer reports, ‘Fedra says it’s not Hercules but Commodus’, that is, a statue of the Roman emperor Commodus in the guise of Hercules, a sophisti­cated assess­ment that high­lights his deep under­stan­ding of ancient art.¹⁶⁴ Further insight into the enga­ge­ment of Galli’s circle with antique sculp­tures is offered by Pietro Bembo’s De Virgilii Culice et Terentii fabulis liber, a work he composed soon after his visit to Rome in 1502. Although it was not published until 1530, Bembo seems to have largely completed it by 1505, when the Aldine press secured a privi­le­gium to print it.¹⁶⁵ The text, set in Rome in the 1490s, pres­ents an imagined

dialogue between the Vene­tian Ermolao Barbaro and Giulio Pomponio Leto. It takes place in the presence of Tommaso Inghi­rami, whom Bembo credits with informing him about the discus­sion.¹⁶⁶ Conceived as a tribute to his friends and to anti­qua­rian culture of Rome, the work honours Pomponio Leto’s legacy while promo­ting two valuable manu­scripts Bembo had inhe­rited from his father Bernardo: a fifth- or sixth-century copy of Terence’s come­dies and a Caro­lin­gian compi­la­tion of works attri­buted to Virgil (BAV, MS Vat. lat. 3226 and MS Vat. lat. 3252).

The setting of Bembo’s dialogue is Barbaro’s anti­qua­rian garden and sculp­ture coll­ec­tion at Santa Maria sopra Minerva. Arri­ving there, Pomponio Leto finds Barbaro contem­pla­ting a damaged marble statue of a recli­ning man, described as ‘lying in a casual and inde­co­rous manner on the ground […] without a head, without feet and even without hands, but with his

fig. 205 Hercules and Tele­phus, Vatican, Musei Vati­cani, Museo Chia­ra­monti, inv. 1314. Early 2nd century ce. Photo © bpk / Scala.

left arm folded in a garment, a figure similar to one depicted by van Heems­kerck in the Galli coll­ec­tion (see Fig. 215).¹⁶⁷ As Barbaro and Leto observe the statue, they lament the frag­men­ta­tion of Rome’s ancient sculp­ture, drawing a parallel to the loss and corrup­tion of clas­sical lite­rary works. Although the texts of Catullus, Ovid, Horace, and Virgil have survived, like antique statues, they are now frag­mented and incom­plete. This fictional dialogue encap­su­lates a central theme of Roman huma­nism: ancient statues that were once ‘another popu­la­tion in stone’, but now lie pitifully broken on the ground, symbo­lise the even more tragic and wide­spread loss of antique texts. Barbaro and Leto lament the state of the Pantheon and the Vatican Obelisk, noting how these once-grand struc­tures were now obscured by unsightly modern shops and markets. Just as the neglect of anti­quity has marred the beauty of ancient monu­ments, igno­rance has allowed clas­sical texts to become corrupted by scribal error, false attri­bu­tions, and other forms of neglect.¹⁶⁸ Bembo’s dialogue offers an eloquent expres­sion of the anti­qua­rian culture of early sixte­enth-century Rome, shed­ding light on the topics of discus­sion that inte­rested Jacopo Galli and his network. It offers insight into the inte­rests of ‘men of letters’ in archaeo­lo­gical disco­veries, anti­qui­ties coll­ec­tions, the juxta­po­si­tion of antique and modern, and the importance of preser­ving and reve­ring the remai­ning frag­ments of ancient sculp­ture. The anti­qui­ties coll­ec­tion of Jacopo Galli, with the modern Bacchus set inside it, must have provided nume­rous oppor­tu­ni­ties to dwell upon these themes. Galli’s coll­ec­tion was not merely an accu­mu­la­tion of arte­facts, but a deli­be­rate, meaningful evoca­tion of the cultural and lite­rary ideals he shared with his friends.

* * *

From the time of the crea­tion of the Bacchus until his death in 1505, Jacopo Galli was a pivotal figure in Michelangelo’s career, balan­cing his role as Cardinal Riario’s trusted agent with his role as protector of artists and men of letters. Galli’s loyalty both to Riario and to Michel­an­gelo likely explains the transfer of Michelangelo’s Bacchus to his house, where it was undoub­tedly displayed toge­ther with anti­qui­ties. Over time, Galli’s part­ner­ship with Michel­an­gelo was instru­mental in secu­ring crucial successes, above all the Pietà. In support of their colla­bo­ra­tive enter­prise, the Bacchus adver­tised Michelangelo’s status as the only modern sculptor in Rome worthy of compa­rison with the antique masters. With his growing prospe­rity, Galli stepped up his profile through his friend­ship with leading lite­rary figures. By the first years of the Cinque­cento, his home and his vigna became gathe­ring points for his intellec­tual circle, who would likely have adopted Michelangelo’s Bacchus and Young Archer as conver­sa­tion pieces capable of animating philo­so­phical, lite­rary, and artistic topics.