Aportes Metodológicos:

The question remains, however, what we should make of these sources. Do they not belong to some fruitless pastime, far removed from the interest of artists and critics? To answer this question, we should look somewhat closer at the way in which they relate to other kinds of texts. To begin with, we may note that the topics here described are not confined to poetry alone. Although we may safely say that poetry was the most common playground for those with a literary interest in the arts, the topics present in these poems as well as their specific kind of language return in other texts as well. Whereas the Vite written by Baglione and Baldinucci’s Notizie dei professori del disegno are largely devoid of ekphraseis, at least where sculpture is concerned, and accordingly leave little room for such responses, this cannot be said of those by other seventeenth- century authors, such as Bellori and Passeri.91 _{Yet, in Bellori’s careful descrip-}

tions of the works of Duquesnoy and Algardi (the only sculptors he discusses) life and breath are, as we have seen, also no more than adjectives: the marbles live and breathe only in their expression of emotion, in their gracefulness, in their spirit [spirito] or actions [atto].92 _{Bellori’s account may not surprise, the}

author being known for his systematic approach to art; his style is one of ana- lyzing step by step the figure’s pose, gestures, expressions, and actions.93 _{It is in}

a similar line that we can also read Passeri’s text, his use of these terms being even more restricted than with Bellori. His description of Francesco Mochi’s

91 _{On Baldinucci’s traditional approach see Montanari 2006, p. 100.}

92 _{Bellori/Borea 1976, p. 403: ‘Mostrò l’industria del lavoro in questo gruppo di due figure di} tutto rilievo che vivono e spirano nell’affetto del Santo vecchio e nella grazia soavissima dell’angelo…’, p. 291: ‘si avviva nello spirito, e nell’atto.’

Veronica (fig. 5) discussed above is therefore quite exceptional. Passeri’s ap- proach towards Mochi’s work seems indeed quite different from that by the poets who contributed to Grignani’scollection of poems on the Veronica. Ra- ther than adopting their lyrical vocabulary, he chooses a more rational style. Nonetheless, his words echo the same sentiment that we can find in the poetry on the work. In comparing Passeri’s text with that of Tortoletti, we have seen that both address the same point: the apparent contradiction between the statue’s fixed marble essence and a suggestion of movement. Both, also, stress their point by implicitly discarding the fact that movement is only suggested in the work: for Passeri it ‘is no longer a permanent statue […], but rather a per- son that passes,’ for Tortoletti the figure walks, even talks and expresses emo- tions. Although wholly different in style, the exceptionality of the passage within Passeri’s work suggests that it may nonetheless be indebted to Grignani’s collection; in fact Passeri himself indicates that he has taken note of the publi- cation.94 _{Be this as it may, his analytical approach results in a text that is no less}

rhetorical than that of the poets. Indeed, if his addition between brackets that he speaks ‘without meaning offence’ might suggest he had discovered some marring peculiarity in the work, he actually gives it the largest praise one could give.

Another way the poetic discourse may enter in other texts is through anec- dotes. Even though Baldinucci, as Domenico Bernini, somewhat more often resides to actual ekphrastic descriptions in his Vita of Bernini than in his Notizie dei professori, here as well he seldom makes use of the commonplaces found in encomiastic poetry; only in his introduction he speaks once, very generally, of the ‘marbles, that thanks to his [i.e., that of Bernini] chisel live and speak’.95 _{It is}

remarkable to see, then, that Bernini’s alleged capacity to give life to marble is primarily expressed through anecdotes rather than through the application of literary conventionalities. An anecdote recounted by Domenico Bernini of the severe illness that struck pope Urban VIII shortly after his election, and his subsequent recovery, is interesting in this context. To calm the people, who due to his long absence believed him to have died, the pope appeared at his win- dow. ‘But in vain,’ thus writes Domenico, for

94 _{Passeri/Hess 1934, p. 134: ‘...andò in giro alla Stampa una raccolta di varie poesie in sua} lode...’

95 _{Baldinucci/Samek Ludovici 1948, p. 72: ‘…i marmi, che mercé del di lui scalpello vivono e} parlano…’

the people started to shout, that this is not their Pope Urban, but the body of Urban, that through Bernini’s artifice had been held intact, and moved. They having seen only shortly before in that same window the Cavalier, and none other than his could be the invention of giving movement to a body already dead…96

The Pope was not ‘allegedly brought back to life,’ as has been suggested, but was, more interestingly, actually thought to be very dead still.97 _{Bernini is here}

presented not as a magician, but as the ‘supreme trickster’. The anecdote wants to say: you cannot believe your eyes when Bernini is present, and everybody knows it. It suggests that others, even all, have been fooled before by Bernini, and are not willing to be fooled again. Rather than making explicit the topoi of encomiastic poetry, they are here merely implicit, seemingly taken for granted. In fact, the anecdote can only be understood if we know Bernini’s reputation as an ‘animator of marbles’ while, by taking it for granted, this very reputation is presented as a truth. Contrary to poetry, then, anecdotes allow the author to anchor these encomiastic topoi in a historical setting, providing the rhetorical means to suggest a social consensus. In this particular case, consensus is con- veyed by ‘the people’—if the people say it is so, who is the reader to doubt?— more often one or more authoritative figures are introduced, exchanging some witticism.98

Even though it may seem from the previous examples that the specific vo- cabulary we found in ekphrastic poetry is only implicitly present in the genre of the Vite, this is not necessarily the case. We may contrast Bellori’s sophisticated approach with the more poetic ekphrasis of the Bolognese author Carlo Cesare Malvasia. The latter, ‘indirectly measures the quality of a work of art through its capacity to allure [allettare] the spectator, to suggest to the latter emotions and intellectual digressions, and to solicit an immediate response, also of an artistic nature, such as the creation of sonnets or other panegyric poetry.’99 _{This ap-}

proach shows itself, among others, in a more extensive play with the topos of

96 _{Bernini 1713, p. 36: ‘Mà in vano; Poiche comincio il Popolo ad esclamare, Quello non esser il}

loro Pontefice Urbano, mà il Corpo di Urbano, che per arteficio del Bernino si manteneva intatto, e si move- va: Haver’essi veduto poco prima in quell’istessa finestra il Cavaliere, & altra che sua non poter essere l’invenzionde di dar moto ad un Corpo già morto’.

97 _{Fehrenbach 2005, pp. 1-2.}

98 _{See e.g. the anecdotes on Bernini’s Bust of Pedro de Foix Montoy, infra pp. 51-54 and on his}

Apollo and Daphne, infra p. 201.

99 _{Perini 1989, p. 179: ‘Tale approccio indiretto misura la qualità di un’opera d’arte sulla sua} capacità di allettare lo spettatore, di suggerirgli emozioni e divagazioni intellettuali e di solleci- tare un’immediata risposta di natura anch’essa artistica, quale la creazione di sonetti o altri componimenti poetici di elogio.’

the vivacious image. Thus we read of painted figures ‘with such animation and spirit, that they seem to breathe,’ of flesh ‘alive and tender,’ and even of those that ‘have such a movement and make such an uproar that it seems they want to leap out of the painting.’100 _{Malvasia’s style is that of the poet Giovan Bat-}

tista Marino, which through the marinist poet Cesare Rinaldi, found an eager public among the members of the Bolognese Accademia dei Gelati.101 _{As a mem-}

ber of this literary academy, Malvasia undoubtedly was well aware of the exten- sive production of poetic responses on the local artistic production, in particu- lar that of Guido Reni, which developed in the wake of these poets.102 _Unfor-

tunately, we might say, Malvasia has confined himself to the art of painting; the Bolognese sculptor Alessandro Algardi, though praised by him as a ‘new Guido’, is only mentioned in passing.103 _{What his approach does show, how-}

ever, is how different literary genres may overlap and may actually be put into service by the author. Obviously, this counts for the poetic discourse described above as well. Even if Malvasia is exceptional in the sense that he literally in- corporates the topoi of encomiastic poetry in his writing, others do so by differ- ent, less obvious means. Indeed, as the examples from Passeri and Baldinucci show, neither the more systematic art literature has been left unaffected by the poetic discourse, introducing interesting ways to engage with, further em- phasize and make credible what poets have rather bluntly stated.104

A more direct way of dealing with these topoi that we have not yet touched upon is introducing poetry by others. These often have the character of a sort of ‘illustrations’ to the text. The well known verses on Bernini’s Sepulchral monument to Pope Urban VIII (fig. 13), published by Baldinucci as the work of Cardinal Angiolo Francesco Rapaccioli, though published in 1649 in the Poesie de signori academici Disinvolti di Pesaro as by one Sebastiano Baldini, show an inter- esting example.105 _{Let us first look at some elements of Baldinucci’s description} 100 _{Examples taken from the life of Guido Reni, in Malvasia/Zanotti 1841, vol. 2, p. 12: ‘Sul} gusto di Rafaelle una graziosa giovane […] sovra la qui spalla una compagna più vecchia, sul gusto di Correggio, posta la mano e la testa ridente, guardano ambedue gli spettatori, con tan- ta vivacità e spirito, che par che spirino. […] Sul gusto di Tiziano un pastorello che sonando un flauto con certe mani di viva e tenera carne, viene attentamente da un altro […] ascoltato.’ And on p. 17: ‘E veramente le figure di quella tavola anch’esse hanno una mossa e fanno un strepito, che pare vogliano balzar fuori del quadro.’

101 _{Cf. Perini 2005.}

102 _{Colantuono 1997, pp. 110 ff., Emiliani 1995, p. 270.}

103 _{Malvasia/Zanotti 1841, vol. 2, p. 26: ‘…fu scolpita da un nuovo Guido [Reni] in marmo, e fu} l’Algardi Bolognese…’ Malvasia seems to have known Algardi quite well.

104 _{For an interesting example in Bellori’s work see Colantuono 2002.}

105 _{Baldinucci/Samek Ludovici 1948, p. 87; cf. Tamburini 1649, p. 223 for the whole sonnet:} ‘Per il Sepolcro di Papa Urbano VIII. eretto in S. Pietro Vaticamo dal Signore Cavagliere …

that precede these verses.106 _{The bronze figure of the Pope he describes as}

‘sitting on a throne, in the act of blessing, expressed so true to life [al vivo] that more one could not desire,’ whereas Death, the other figure that is mentioned in the poet’s lines, is more extensively described as ‘shameful and proud at the same time, with his winged back turned towards the outside, with the head somewhat veiled and covered, and the face turned to the back, with a large book in his hands,’ being ‘in the act of writing’.107 _{It is this writing figure of}

Death, that, as Baldinucci recognizes, is the foremost focus of the concetto that underlies the monument. As in a marinist conceit, he signals the pope’s demise in his very being while, at the same time, he immortalizes him by inscribing his name in the large book he is holding; what is mortal is at the same time immor- tal.108 _{It is not by chance, then, that the poet takes this figure as his point of}

departure:

Bernini has contrived the great Urban so alive, and so well is the spirit impressed in the hard bronzes,

Bernino, Con una Statua di bronzo del PP. & una Morte, che in un Libro scrive il nome del medesimo. || Del medesimo. [= Sebastiano Baldini] || L’Arte vivo il Grande Urbano hà finto, | E sì nè duri bronzi d’Alma impressa; | Che per torgli la fe, la morte istessa | Sta sul Sepolcro a dimostrarlo estinto. || Pur guardo indagator riman convinto, | E gl’inganni la man solo confessa; | A tropo ancor di rimirar non cessa, | Se à lo stame vitale è’l fuso avvin- to. || Bernin sei tù, che con Prometea mano, | Quasi aprendo a le tombe hoggi le porte, | Lo richiamo a la vita in Vaticano. || Mà pur del tuo valor non è gran sorte | Far vivo il mor- to Urban, se fai d’Urbano | Immortali i Sepolcri in faccia a morte.’ The sonnet is, with some minor differences, also at BAV, Barb.lat. 3891, f. 102r, where, due to a repair, the last verses are not fully legible. The verses are repeated, with some variations, in Bernini 1713, p. 73, who attributes them to Cardinal Giovanni Giacomo Panzirolo, Pope Innocent X’s secretary of state. Montanari 2006, p. 88 has argued that in Baldinucci’s Bernini Vite, ‘poetic texts are not introduced as ekphrastic equivalents of the works, as in Bellori’s Vite; instead they are used in an apologetic manner, to reaffirm the universal approval achieved by Bernini, above all among influential Roman academies.’ Such an interpretation seems, particularly in the ex- ample discussed here, a bit too one-sided; in fact such an apologetic function can very well exist next to that of ekphrasis.

106 _{Montanari 2006, p. 96, argues that this is one of the few authentic descriptions in the work.} 107 _{Baldinucci/Samek Ludovici 1948, pp. 86-87: ‘…la grande statua di bronzo rappresentante la}

figura d’ Urbano sedente in trono in atto di benedire, espresso così al vivo che più non può desiderarsi.’ And on p. 87: ‘…in bronzo la Morte, la quale vergognosa e superba in un tempo stesso, col tergo alato volto all’infuori, col capo alquanto velato e coperto, e colla faccia volta all’indietro, con un gran libro in mano […] si fa vedere in atto di scrivere…’

108 _{The concetto of the tomb is discussed by Wilkinson 1971, who gives relatively little attention to} the figure of Death. A more extensive discussion of the figure is in Kauffmann 1970, pp. 115-127, whereas Panofsky 1964, p. 221 particularly stresses its importance. For the Italian term concetto, to be translated either as ‘concept’ or ‘conceit’, see Mirollo 1963, pp. 116-117.

that to rob him of his belief Death himself is on the sepulchre to show him [to be] deceased.109

We see that the poet stresses the lifelikeness of the pope’s image in the same terms as used by Baldinucci; indeed, the former may have incited the latter to do so. Yet, whereas for Baldinucci the vividness of the bronze is primarily an artistic accomplishment, for the poet it forms the point of departure for a fur- ther play with the concetto itself. As has been argued by Catherine Wilkinson, Bernini has expressed his concetto here ‘not in attributes to the figures but in their subtle expressions and gestures – in their naturalness and seemingly life- like quality.’110 _{It can, accordingly, only be understood if the spectator takes}

these elements into account. Although from the lines cited by Baldinucci it remains somewhat unclear who it actually is that is to be robbed by Death of his belief, in the following verse of the sonnet we see that it is indeed the indaga- tor, the enquiring spectator.111 _{The poem sets out with the suggestion of a spec-}

tator who engages with the monument, who lets his eyes be deceived by Bern- ini’s vivacious art only to suddenly realize the significance of the looming figure of Death. With this, the poem is not only, as Baldinucci suggests, a specimen of the author’s wit, but can also be read as a complement to the biographer’s own description. Where Baldinucci describes what is seen, the poet shows what it can achieve.

Even though the more ‘scientific’ manner of description is here placed next to actual poetry, the two are never totally independent. In the alternative ap- proaches to the phenomenon of vivacious sculpture apparent in the genre of Vita, the more conventional rhetoric of praise found in contemporary poetry is never totally absent.112 _{A similar picture arises if we look at other sources. The}

brief entries in city guides, to give an example, though seldom giving an oppor- tunity for more elaborate discussions of works of art, occasionally fall back on the literary discourse sketched above. One of the more striking examples can be found in Carlo De Lellis’ description of the Cappella Cacace in the Neapolitan

109 _{Baldinucci/Samek Ludovici 1948, p. 87: Bernin sì vivo il grande Urbano ha finto, | E sì ne’} duri bronzi è l’alma impressa, | Che per torgli la fé morte stessa | Sta sul sepolcro a di- mostrarlo estinto.’

110 _{Wilkinson 1971, p. 62.}

111 _{Tamburini 1649, p. 223: ‘Pur guardo indagator resta convinto; | E gl’ inganni la man solo} confessa; | A tropo ancor di rimirar non cessa | Se à lo stame vitale è’l fuso avvinto.’ 112 _{That poetry forms an important intertext of the artist biography has been noted by Delbeke,}

church of San Lorenzo Maggiore and Andrea Bolgi’s sculptures made for this chapel (fig. 14).

Equally rich for the preciousness of the stones and for the abundance of the gold, there are two statues and two busts of marble, sculpted by Andrea Bolgi of Carrara, who has been called from Rome especially for this effect. [And he is] truly the Am- phion of this century, for he has animated the stones of the images just mentioned, which, though the originals [i.e., the figures portrayed] are lifeless and without speech, they on their part, readily start to speak, so much are they alive.113

Although, at the time they were made, Bolgi’s sculptures were exceptional in the Neapolitan context for their vivacious, Bernini-esque quality, De Lellis’ description, indeed an anomaly in the genre of the city guide, can be traced to a specific source. As has been suggested by Riccardo Lattuado, the author must have been acquainted with Francesco Antonio Cappone, who, in 1654, pub- lished an extensive collection of poems on Bolgi’s Cacace marbles. The collec-