DESARROLLO 11. Aprobación de los Puntos de Agenda
K. SUSPENSIÓN DE DESEMBOLSOS
IV. Presentación Plan Anual Operativo FOSEP 2021
In addition to the circles we outlined in the previous chapter, Domenicos also began to frequent members of the Spanish community who resided in Rome, many of whom had connections to both Fulvio Orsini and Federico Zuccaro. Among these acquaintances was almost certainly Pablo de Céspedes (1538/48-1608), who was a scholar as well as a painter, and the author of the treatise Discurso de la comparación
de la antigua y moderna pintura y escultura (1604)1. Céspedes had received a
classical education, which involved a grounding in Greek, Hebrew and Latin2, and, while in Rome3, he studied the antiquities on offer, alongside modern painting by the likes of Raphael and Michelangelo. Céspedes also maintained close contact with literary notables, such as Fulvio Orsini, whom he visited in the Farnese Palace4, had connections with Roman art dealers5, and kept an eye on ancient fragments that came onto the market. Considering the close relationship between Domenicos and Orsini, the Spaniard must have come to know the Cretan through the Roman scholar. Undoubtedly, the two artists had much in common. Not only were they both foreigners and of the same age, but they had arrived in Rome around the same time and were both interested in studying the city’s art treasures, ancient and modern. Céspedes also seems to have shared Domenicos’ interest in architecture, judging from the great number of architectural treatises found in the Spaniard’s library, which outnumbered those on painting6. More importantly, however, they both believed in the nobility of their profession, and promoted the model of the learned artist. It is noticeable that they went to Spain around the same time, and both contributed to the transmission of Italian ideas about the status of the artist, attempting to change
1 A. Palomino, Lives of the Eminent Spanish Painters and Sculptors, Engl. transl. N. Ayala Mallory, Cambridge, 1987, p. 63.
2 Ibid, p. 62; J. Brown, Images and Ideas in Seventeenth-Century Spanish Painting, Princeton, 1978, pp. 30-32.
3 Hänsel, Der spanische Humanist Benito Arias Montano, p. 134, where the author mentions that Céspedes arrived in Rome around 1568-1569; Agosti & Hirst, ‘Michelangelo, Piero d’ Argenta and the ‘Stigmatisation of St. Francis’’, p. 683; Brown, Images and Ideas in Seventeenth-Century Spanish
Painting, pp. 30-31.
4 J. Rubio Lapaz, Pablo de Céspedes y su circulo: Humanismo y contrareforma en la cultura Andaluza
del Rinacimiento al Barocco, Granada, 1993, p. 29, note 25.
5 Ibid, p. 28, note 23; F.M. Quilez Corella, ‘La cultura artística de Pablo de Céspedes’, Boletín del
Museo e Instituto Camón Aznar, 39, 1990, pp. 65-86.
6 P. Muller, ‘Pablo de Céspedes: A letter of 1577’, The Burlington Magazine, 138, 1996, pp. 89-91, esp. p. 89, note 4; for Céspedes’ enthusiasm for the art of Quattrocento, G. Agosti, ‘Su Mantegna, 5 (Intorno a Vasari)’, Prospettiva, lxxx, 1995, pp. 61-89, esp. pp. 61-67.
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longstanding attitudes toward the dignity of the visual arts7. Yet there are other points of convergence between the two artists that are worth considering, as they point to the broader artistic circles that El Greco was frequenting during this time.
For one thing, while in Rome Céspedes came to know Federico Zuccaro, most probably through their mutual friend, Cesare Arbasia (1547-1607)8, whom Federico described in a letter to Giambologna as a ‘most notable painter’ (‘valorosissimo pittore’)9. Arbasia’s connection to Céspedes extended to a close collaboration on the façade of a residence in the Corso10, decorated in the manner of Polidoro da Caravaggio, and the frescoes for the Orsini Chapel in the church of S. Trinità dei Monti11. These works, and the time he spent studying ancient and modern art, as well as fresco technique, gave him an entry into the Zuccaro circle. A focal point for this group of cultivated artists was the house and garden of Sebastiano Caccini and his wife Brigida Bralia on the Corso12. It is extremely likely that Domenicos too would have been among their guests, along with Pasquale Cati (c.1550-c.1620) from Jesi13,
7 For Céspedes’ role see M.N. Taggard, ‘‘Ut Pictura Poesis’: Artists’ Status in Early Modern Cordoba’,
Artibus et Historiae, 17, 1996, pp. 69-82, esp. pp. 73-75.
8 Aurigemma, ‘Lettere di Federico Zuccari’, p. 212, note 24. For Cesare Arbasia see DBI, vol. ΙΙΙ, pp. 729-730; M. Bressy, ‘Giunte a Cesare Arbasia pittore Saluzzese del Cinquecento’, L’Arte, lxii, 1963, pp. 321-334.
9 D. Heikamp, ‘I viaggi di Federico Zuccaro’, Paragone, 105, 1958, pp. 40-63, esp. p. 57; Muller, ‘Pablo de Céspedes: A letter of 1577’, p. 90; Waźbiński, ‘Lo studio –La scuola fiorentina di Federico Zuccari’, pp. 288, 336 note 66; Federico met Giambologna in 1565 in Florence for the wedding preparations of Francesco de’ Medici and they were tied with a close friendship. It seems that Arbasia and Zuccaro had collaborated in a number of cases, the most important of which was probably the decoration of the dome of the Florentine cathedral in 1575; Acidini Luchinat, Taddeo e Federico
Zuccari, vol. ΙI, p. 116, note 25, rejects such a theory.
10 Céspedes started his career in Rome as a façade painter, following the lead of Polidoro da Caravaggio, Taddeo and Federico Zuccaro and Raffaellino da Reggio; G. Baglione, Le vite de’ pittori,
scultori et architetti dal pontificato di Gregorio XIII del 1572 in fino a’ tempi di Papa Urbano Ottavo
nel 1642, ed. J. Hess & H. Röttgen, Vatican, 1995, p. 30; Palomino, Lives of the Eminent Spanish
Painters and Sculptors, p. 63; F. Titi, Descrizione delle pitture, sculture e architetture esposte al publico in Roma, Rome, 1763, p. 379; M. Bressy, ‘Cesare Arbasia: Pittore Saluzzese del Cinquecento
(1547-1607)’, L’Arte, lx, 1961, pp. 46-47, note 111. For Raffaellino’s career as façade painter, see Wollesen-Wisch, ‘The Archiconfraternita del Gonfalone and its Oratory in Rome’, pp. 222-247; Marciari, ‘Raffaellino da Reggio in the Vatican’, p. 187.
11 The main altarpiece of the Orsini Chapel depicts the Deposition of Christ by Daniele da Volterra, while Céspedes painted Adam and Eve, scenes from the life of the Virgin and the four Evangelists on the dome of the chapel; D. Angulo Iñiguez, ‘Los frescos de Céspedes en la inglesia de la Trinidad de los Montes de Roma’, Archivio español de arte, xi, 1967, pp. 305-307.
12 Caccini from Pistoia was the owner of a house that Federico was renting and he seems to have acted as his agent when the painter was away from Rome; Aurigemma, ‘Lettere di Federico Zuccari’, pp. 207-208; Muller, ‘Pablo de Céspedes: a letter of 1577’, p. 90: “Céspedes first mentions an earlier letter sent from Barcelona to Caccini by way of a certain Bonfil…”.
13 Among Cati’s most important paintings from this period were the Martyrdom of St. Lawrence for the church of S. Lorenzo in Panisperna (1575?) and the decoration of the Altemps Chapel in S. Maria in Trastevere (1588-1589); a drawing of his, depicting a Deposition, was found in Antonio Tronsarelli’s collection; Lafranconi, ‘Antonio Tronsarelli: A Roman Collector of the Late Sixteenth Century’, pp. 540, 547, no 98, fig. 45.
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who would later work with El Greco’s pupil-assistant, Lattanzio Bonastri, at Palazzo Altemps14. That El Greco did indeed frequent this environment is hinted at in the opinions he expressed later in his ‘postille’, which were more or less in harmony with the ideas expounded by Zuccaro and Céspedes15. Like El Greco, Céspedes respected Taddeo’s art, and his style shows signs of Federico’s influence16, while all three artists, members of the Accademia di San Luca17, would defend the notion that painting was an intellectual undertaking that belonged to the liberal arts, and required practice and theory. The fact that in 1586-87 Federico would visit both Céspedes in Guadalupe18 and El Greco in Toledo surely reflects that their association in Rome was not merely circumstantial.
While in Rome, Céspedes became very close to Benito Arias Montano, one of the leading intellectual lights of the Spanish community in the city19, whom we have encountered in the previous chapter as the possible sitter of El Greco’s Copenhagen portrait. Proof of the amicable association between Montano and Céspedes can be gleaned from the latter’s reference to Montano as ‘particular patrón mío’ (‘my special patron’)20; and Céspedes would later refer to this long-lasting friendship21. Montano also knew and admired Federico Zuccaro, for whom he composed a Latin poem that
14 Like Bonastri, Cati painted scenes from the life of Moses (1591) at Palazzo Altemps; Scoppola & Vordemann, Palazzo Altemps, pp. 62-73; it is likely that Bonastri introduced Domenicos to other painters from Siena as well, who gathered around the Sienese archconfraternity of S. Caterina da Siena in Via Giulia.
15 For Céspedes’ ideas see Rubio Lapaz, Pablo de Céspedes y su circulo, pp. 171-176. 16 Muller, ‘Pablo de Céspedes: a letter of 1577’, p. 90.
17 Like Domenicos and Federico, Céspedes was registered in the Accademia di S. Luca; D. Martinez de la Peña y Gonzalez, ‘Artistas Españoles en la Academia de San Lucas (documentos de los siglos XVI y XVII)’, Archivio Español de Arte, xli, 1968, pp. 297, 306; the formation of the Accademia di San Luca served a variety of purposes, including the care and teaching of the young artists who were arriving in Rome; Williams, ‘The Artist as Worker in Sixteenth-Century Italy’, in Taddeo and Federico Zuccaro:
Artists Brothers in Renaissance Rome, pp. 99-101.
18 Zuccaro was describing in a letter dated in May 1586 his visit to the convent of Guadalupe, where he met Céspedes, who was by then racionero (prebendary) in the Cathedral of Cordova; Heikamp, ‘Vicende di Federigo Zuccari’, p. 228, doc. VI.
19 Céspedes acquired his broad education at the Univeristy of Alcalá de Henares, a centre of humanistic study; Montano had also been educated there. For Céspedes’ education see Muller, ‘Pablo de Céspedes: a letter of 1577’, p. 89.
20 S. Hänsel, ‘Federico Zuccari, Benito Arias Montano und der Lamento de la Pittura’, in Der Maler
Federico Zuccari, p. 152.
21 Palomino, Lives of the Eminent Spanish Painters and Sculptors, p. 66, where it is quoted what Céspedes said about Montano: “Arias Montano, a most learned man, whom I revere as much for his singular erudition and incomparable kindness as for the great friendship we had for so many years”; Rubio Lapaz, Pablo de Céspedes y su circulo, p. 29; Hänsel, Der spanische Humanist Benito Arias
Montano, p. 134, where the author suggests that Céspedes and Montano may have met through
Ambrosio Morales, with whom Céspedes came into close contact when he was studying at Alcalá de Henares; Morales had also written comments on Montano’s work, Rheticorum libri IIII.