You may not find this terribly rewarding unless you're included here, so this is a good time for casual and random browsers to turn back before they get too caught up in the sweep and majesty of the proceedings and can't let go.
In the last webpage, we were running out of space and now we're carrying over some more of the best works, most or all from the first half of the 17th century.
This is called 'Vanitas', by the 'Candlelight Master' ('active in Rome between 1630 and 1635'). The info panel, after wondering who the Candlelight Master might have been, offers this inspired description of the picture: 'The genre is one of intimate meditation and is intended to encourage reflection, almost literally, in fact -- by pointing at the skull, the woman directs our gaze towards a dark mirror, in which all we can see is the reflection of the weak flame of the lamp that is running out and that, not surprisingly, is sitting atop an hourglass and some books that are now closed.'
This is an odd picture entitled 'Allegory of Painting', dated to 1630-1635 and presumed to be by Artemisia Gentileschi -- and in fact that might very well be a self-portrait of Artemsia, many of whose women subjects do seem to be self-portraits and look rather like this one. On the other hand, the subject does look somewhat like her friend the French painter, Simon Vouet, with whom she had a professional relationship and influenced each other's styles whilst they were both working in Rome in the 1620s, at which time he made his own portrait of Artemisia. And that has raised the possibility for some that the painting is actually by Simon Vouet himself (though in that case a few years later, after he'd been summoned back to France (see info panel).
This interesting Crucifixion was donated by Giovanni Lanfranco in 1628 to Pope Urban VIII Barberini, who had made him a Knight of the Order of Christ in that year; the Pope then gifted it to his nephew Cardinal Francesco Barberini.
The 'Penitent Magdalene' is a famous work by Guido Reni, done in 1631-1632, and given to Antonio Barberini in 1641. It's said to be a outstanding example of 'sacred beauty' ('divinely inspired, elegantly pathetic, sensual yet restrained', with 'scattered signs of penitence throughout the austere cave').
Guercino's treatment of the 'Flagellation of Christ', 1657-1658, a very large painting donated to the Chigi Pope Alexander VII. It's said that it's intended to remind viewers of the whip and flagellation post brought from Jerusalem in 1223 and venerated in the Church of St Prassede.
A vigorous 'Saul and David' (1646) by Il Guercino and his workshop, based on the story of the king's angry jealousy in I Samuel 18.
This is an interpretation of St Luke also by Il Guercino and his workshop, one of a series of the four evangelists, two of which have got lost. Instead of portraying Luke as an evangelist or physician, this calls upon the legend that the Virgin appeared to him so that he could paint her. Here he holds a drawing in the eastern church tradition of an iconographic depiction of Mary holding the Christ Child at her side. (Luke was traditionally represented as an ox or bull, as top right.)
This is 'Woman Wearing a Turban (supposed portrait of Beatrice Cenci)', from about 1650 and formerly attributed to Guido Reni. It's apparently almost universally agreed now that, not only is that very likely to be Beatrice Cenci, the artist was Ginevra Cantofoli (1618-1672), the female artist in Bologna who trained with Elisabetta Sirani under Sirani's father Giovanni Andrea Sirani. Beatrice in this picture looks almost exactly like Ginevra's self-portrait from the same period.
A very large building, great workout
Now, apparently, a Galleria Borghese connection
This is Titian's 'Sacred and Profane Love', 1614, which is supposed to be in the Galleria Borghese, but here it is. There is some kind of exhibition billboard (which we scooted past) extolling the close relationship between the Borghese and the Barberini and Corsini collections. So let's see how this goes.
Yep, the Virgin with Child and St John by Lorenzo di Credi, ca. 1495, also appears to be on loan from the Galleria Borghese.
And Bronzino's John the Baptist, too, dated ca.1560
And this horrible thing from ca.1513 from the bottega or workshop of Andrea del Sarto
And lots more!
Including this fine 1495 Adoration by Fra Bartolomeo (Bartolomeo della Porta of Florence), who's possibly best known for his classic portrait of Savonarola, by whom he was influenced for a time
Who can pass up a Cranach? Lucas Cranach the Elder, 'Venus and Cupid with a honeycomb', 1531, also being given a home till the Galleria Borghese's ready to get it back
'Minerva getting dressed' (ca.1613), by the splendid Lavinia Fontana (1552-1614) from Bologna, and then moving to Rome with her family in 1604 to take up the post of Portraitist in Ordinary at the Vatican. She's widely understood to have been the first female professional artist in western Europe, whilst her husband, the Count of Imola, led in the raising of their eleven children.
She was also probably the first female artist to paint female nudes, which (according to Wikipedia) has led to some controversy; some experts have argued that she must have used live nude models, whilst others, like her biographer Caroline P. Murphy, point out that, in those days, if anyone had found out that she'd used nude models her social reputation would have been badly harmed, and that in any case 'while body parts are well rendered, the figures as a whole are disproportionate' (Lavinia Fontana, Yale, 2003).
That Minerva doesn't seem 'disproportionate'.
We continue exploiting our good fortune to be here whilst all this good stuff from the Borghese is here waiting for us: this is Gian Lorenzo Bernini's selt-portrait, ca. 1623, at the age of about 24 or 25.
This is a copy of a picture of St John the Baptist by Raphael, 'second quarter of the 16th century'. Also from the Borghese.
After a tiny bit of research, we've discovered that 'From March 29 to July 28 2024, fifty paintings from Galleria Borghese will be transferred to the South Wing of the main floor of Palazzo Barberini', due to 'an ambitious renovation and conservation project', one which is apparently running past its target date. But we're very grateful anyway.
That's what we fled right past earlier.
Time to leave, alas.
We haven't exhausted the wonders of the Barberini by any means, but we've got a deadline. The Palazzo Farnese downtown has been the home of the French embassy since 1874 and seldom open to the public, and lo! the French decided a while ago to make semi-nice, with guided tours 2 or 3 times an afternoon three days a week. Kristin booked us an appointment two months in advance, and we must be on time, no refunds.
Leaving the Barberini now, we're trying not to look up at the huge distraction, by staring down at our shoes, but it's hard not to sneak a peek at it and hurry.
At this point, we were planning to come back in a few days, but alas destiny intervened.
Out in the palazzo courtyard and across the . . .
. . . Piazza Barberini, with its Fontana del Tritone ('a sea god surrounded by dolphins')
Now we're headed downtown pell mell.
There he is, our favorite 16th century friar/philosopher, Giordano Bruno, who was declared a heretic by the Roman Inquisition and in February 1600 burnt at the stake here in the Campo de' Fiori. We've been killing time before showing up at the Palazzo Farnese a block away 30 minutes before our group tour -- but it's time now.
Can't see much of the palazzo at the moment, sorry. Here's a photo from Wikimedia Commons taken by Myrabella in 2009.
So we check in, empty our pockets, show passports etc., and wait half an hour off to the left watching that woman checker at the table try to humiliate all the harmless tourists for our group of 25 trying to figure out what she's yapping about. The other checker and the two soldiers were polite. No bags are allowed in, phones must be on airplane mode, and NO PHOTOS!! (My interest was already waning, and now that!)
Work was begun on the palace in 1515 but was vastly upgraded when Alessandro Farnese became Pope Paul III in 1524, with designs by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger and other successive architects coming along like Michelangelo, Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola, and Giacomo della Porta. Interior decoration in the early 17th, most notably the fresco cycle in the Galleria Carracci, was led by the brothers Annibale and Agostino Carracci.
When the last of the Farnese dynasty died in the early 18th century, ownership of this and the rest of the Farnese properties and art collections passed to the Bourbon dynasty in Naples, but after the unification of Italy, the French purchased the palazzo in 1874 to serve as their embassy. There was an ensuing history of public resentment to foreign ownership of such a national treasure, and in 1936 Mussolini repossessed it for Italy and granted France continued use of it on a 99 year lease. (New negotiations are to begin on that in 2035, and locals we talked to believe that the French are extremely worried about that.)
This was our guide for the hour-long tour, knowledgeable, well-spoken (in English, too), directing us through a number of halls and rooms amid a vast number of offices still plowing through their embassy and diplomatic chores. (As in many guided tours, people can't linger at the parts they like the best, so my recollections, just days later, were that I liked it all in general but can't remember any of it. That's why I always bring a camera, and nearly everywhere these days, 'No Flash' has taken over from 'No Photo'. But perhaps the French government is concerned about spies, which makes some sense.
So now we're out on the street, in the Piazza di Santa Caterina della Rota ('of the Wheel', i.e. of Alexandria); that's the tiny church behind the restaurant and carpark, but it's not clear whether it's in service anymore. The scaffolding of the Farnese is just behind on the right.
We're turning towards home now -- the French embassy's gardens out the back of it reach over Via Giulia by a little bridge to the Tiber banks.
So we're on the Via Giulia now, and that's the Villa Farnese's bridge past its little garden to outbuildings on the Lungotevere boulevard. It appears that that arch was a beginning for Michelangelo's short-lived plan to build a bridge all the way across the Tiber to a Farnese property there, which was later incorporated into the Chigi Palace, which was in turn bought by the Farneses in 1584 and is now the Villa Farnesina.
The Via Giulia is a lovely road that runs a full kilometre parallel to the Lungotevere and the river.
That's the back of the Basilica di San Giovanni Battista near our bridge, and . . .
. . . that's our bridge. Dinner at Sor’ Eva.
The next day: the Villa Farnesina
19 October 2024
After Kristin's visit with her friend Ewa in the morning, we're scurrying down the Via della Lungara, which runs parallel to and just below the Lungotevere up on the left.
This is inside the compound of the Villa Farnesina on the Via della Lungara, backed against the Lungotevere main road and the river.
Tickets in hand, here we go, round to the northwest side. The building was built for Agostino Chigi, the superrich banker from Siena, treasurer to Pope Julius II della Rovere, by Baldassare Peruzzi, a student of Bramante. The most interesting thing about the place, perhaps, is that it was never intended to be an urban palace for the Chigi family, which already had its main palace here in the city centre and its super-palace home base in Siena; it was meant to be a fun suburban getaway outside the downtown.
Chigi called up frescos by well-known artists like Raphael, Sebastiano del Piombo, Guilio Romano, and Il Sodoma (Giovanni Bazzi, who worked mainly in Siena; Vasari gave him the indecent nickname but said that Bazzi didn't mind it).
The Farnese family acquired the villa in 1577 (and changed its name). After the decline of the Farnese generally, the villa went with their patrimony to the Bourbons of Naples and then, in 1861, to the Spanish ambassador to Rome. It's now owned by the government, with other establishments just across the Via della Lungara in the Villa Corsini, part of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei ('lynx').
We've been directed to a tiny room on the ground floor, when we just want to dash up to the Raphael rooms, but okay . . .
. . . that's great. Can we go upstairs now?
Here we go, up to the piano mobile to see the good stuff. Kristin's been here often, probably, but me, only once.
Don't try to walk out onto that balcony at the far end -- it's Peruzzi's trompe-l'œil fresco showing a fictional city and countryside.
The fireplace decoration is a little hard to make out, but it seems to have to do with bunch of naked guys banging on an anvil. For reasons known only to themselves.
This odd sort of thing is called the Knife-Grinder (or 'the augur sawing a stone', oh thanks), but the original is in Florence's Uffizi Gallery Tribune. Peruzzi, who designed this whole room, got the loan of the original for the wedding banquet of Agostino Chigi and his long-time girlfriend, the Venetian Francesca Ordeaschi (who was 'the toast of Rome'), set for August 1519. Alas, Agostino ('the richest man in Europe'; he'd cornered the Pope's alum market around Volterra) died in April 1520 (having got the Pope to legimate his four children with Francesca).
In this room, we have Sodoma's fresco cycle of the life of Alexander the Great . . .
. . . including the marriage with Roxana.
Now, cover your eyes, we're entering Raphael's Loggia of Cupid and Psyche, all about gods and goddesses who feel that they don't really require very much clothing -- it's the . . .
. . . saga of Cupid and Psyche all right, as revealed in Apuleius' 2nd century novel The Golden Ass.
They're all there -- there's Mercury, without his trousers again . . .
. . . and 'The Wedding Banquet of Cupid and Psyche'
-- Hey, do you come here often? [from an earlier visit]
The Palazzo Corsini across the road
We'll check out the Villa Farnesina gardens, though . . .
. . . this isn't the right season for gardens.
-- 'Nuff o' this, yeah?
-- Oh, come on.
The Villa Farnesina in its glory
Next up: A walk round Trastevere and a visit to the Galleria Corsini
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