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Six Drawings from the Column of Trajan with the Date 1467: and a Note on the Date of Giacomo Ripanda
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 August 2013
Extract
The reliefs of the column of Trajan lie before the world in the two sumptuous publications of Fröhner and Cichorius, where they are reproduced with all the accuracy of modern technical process; but, in an age when historical composition is out of favour, they fail to awaken interest outside the immediate circle of antiquaries and historians. In the Early and Middle Renaissance, on the other hand, when the only view of the column was obtained either from the neighbouring houses, or by means of scaffolds or other perilous devices, artists discovered in its sculptures a treasury of form and expression, whence they freely transferred to their own compositions single motives, and even whole scenes. The six dated sheets reproducing reliefs of the Trajan column now published on plates XXXVI., XXXVII., XXXVIII. afford an unexpected proof of the interest awakened by the column as early as the year 1467. They belong to the rich collection of Italian drawings at Chatsworth, and are reproduced by the kind permission of His Grace the Duke of Devonshire.
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- Copyright © British School at Rome 1913
References
page 176 note 1 The same omission is noticeable in Bartoli's print, where, however, it follows from the error of placing the river-god much too far to the left, within the cave, so that his right arm could not possibly reach out to the boats. Bartoli's prints are generally thought to be based on Muziano's drawings.
page 177 note 1 See Hermann Egger, Codex Escurialensis: ff. 60 v, 61, 61 v, 62 v, 63, 63 v, 64 v; a sketch of the whole column in f. 53 v. This sketch-book has been shewn by Egger to be by a scholar of Domenico Ghirlandajo.
page 177 note 2 Now generally attributed to Amico Aspertini (ab. 1475–1572), see von Fabriczy, C. i L'Arte, viii. (1905), 401 sqq.Google Scholar; P. G. Hübner, Le Statue di Roma, Grundlagen für eine Geschichte der Antiken Monumenten in der Renaissance, p. 49; the sketch-book is described and analysed by Robert, C., Röm. Mitth. xvi. 1901, pp. 209–243Google Scholar. The drawings from the Trajan column occur on ff. 9, 9 v, 18 v, 19, 22 v, 37 v, 38, 38 v.
page 177 note 3 Baglioni, Vite d. Pittori, p. 51. The uncritical statements go back to Chacon's Preface, and have been lepeated as lately as by Frohner, in his Preface to La Colonne Trajane.
page 177 note 4 For this and other sources relative to Ripanda see Appendix.
page 178 note 1 Müntz, , Les Arts à la Cour des Papes, ii. p. 30Google Scholar; cf. Onni Okkonen, Melozzo da Forli u. seine Schule (1910), p. 20.
page 178 note 2 Müntz, ib. p. 7.
page 178 note 3 Müntz, ib. p. 134.
page 178 note 4 See Appendix.
page 178 note 5 E. Steinmann, Die Sixtinische Kapelle, p. 103, where the paintings are attributed to the years 1508–9.
page 179 note 1 Numerous drawings after the antique must have circulated in the School of Pollaiuolo. Antonio himself was indebted to the antique for more than one suggestion of design; his ‘Hercules slaying the Hydra’ (Uffizi, Florence), for instance, follows a composition familiar on gems and mural terracottas; the beautiful drawing in the Brit. Mus. of a ‘Prisoner brought before the Judge’ (M. Cruttwell, Pollaiuolo, Pl. XXIV.; Berenson, B., Drawings of Florentine Painters, i. p. 28 fGoogle Scholar. and Pl. XVIII. (R. half only) is certainly dependent upon the frequently recurring composition on the column of Trajan of barbarian prisoners brought before Trajan (e.g. Reinach, , Reliefs, i. 17, 34Google Scholar). The subject is one that does not seem to have received the attention it deserves; see, however, the remarks of Warburg, A., ‘Dürer u. die Italienische Antike,’ in Verhandlungen der 48 Versamml. deutscher Philologen zu Hamburg. (Okt. 1905.Google Scholar)
page 179 note 2 Burger, Fritz, das Konfessionstabernakel Sixtus IV, u. sein Meister, in Jahrbuch der Konigl. Preussischen Kunstsammlungen, xxviii. (1907), pp. 95 ff., 150 ffGoogle Scholar. A. Venturi, however, Storia dell' arte Italiana, v. pp. 1120–28, and Paolo Giordani ‘Studi sulla Scultura Romana del Quattrocento’ in L'Arte, 1907, pp. 263 ff., have shown that the sculptors of the ciborium imitated the Antonine reliefs on the Arch of Constantine in Santa Martina (now in Palazzo di Conservatori, Helbig, , 1891, Papers iii. Plate XXIII. fGoogle Scholar), even more closely than the column. To Giordani's excellent observations on the composition of the relief with the ‘Crucifixion of Peter,’ I would add that not only is the group to the r. of the cross taken, as he points out, straight from the ‘Marcus Aurelius receiving conquered barbarians’ on one of the Conservatori reliefs, but that the Imperial group has also been utilized, with sides reversed, for the two horsemen (wearing turbans or caps) with a soldier at their side, on the l. of the cross. For the names of the sculptors of the ciborium see especially Giordani's article, p. 272. For the date of its completion, presumably the year of Jubilee 1470, see Tschudi, H. v. ‘das Konfessionstabernakel Sixtus IV. in S. Peter zu Rom’ in Jahrbuch der Königl. Preussischen Kunstsamml. viii. (1887), p. 12Google Scholar.
page 180 note 1 Bernardino Baldi was a painter and died in Bologna in 1650. His notes on antiquarian subjects seem to be still in MS.; see Thieme-Becker, ii. p. 392.
page 180 note 2 Antonio di Paolo Masini: the first edition of his Bologna Perlustrata appeared in 1650. On p. 740 he places Ripranda [sic] under the date 1510 among the artists not otherwise mentioned in his work, and refers to f. 188 of Achillini's Viridario, a poem published at Bologna in 1513, in which the literary men of that and other cities are mentioned.
page 181 note 1 Since I wrote the above Miss K. K. Radford, of our School, has made a copy of the first few pages of the Vatican MS., and Miss E. Jamison, a student of the School, has compared this copy with the Chigi codex, and has ascertained that the two MSS. are undoubtedly copies, with slight variants, of the same original.
page 182 note 1 On the other hand it is impossible to accept all the references to a ‘maestro Jacopo’ brought by Bertolotti under the name of Ripanda as applying to the same artist. See Bertololti, , ‘Artisti Bolognesi Ferraresi ed alcuni altri del già Stato Pontificio in Roma’ in Documenti & Studii pubblicati per cura della R. deputazione di Storia Patria per la Prov. di Roma, vol. i. 1886Google Scholar.
page 182 note 2 I surmise these Lateran frescoes to be those on the tabernacle above the high altar of the basilica, which, after being attributed to Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, are now given to Antoniazzo; so that in this case again there probably was confusion between the two men.
page 183 note 1 Likewise referred to by Egger, , Codex Escurialensis i. p. 17Google Scholar.
page 183 note 2 I ought to mention that in the collection of the Archduke Ferdinand in Vienna, there exists a drawing of immense length with the reliefs of the Trajan column. It is often attributed to Giulio Romano, but I am advised by competent authority that it is almost certainly later. Steinmann, however (loc. cit.), makes the passing suggestion that it might be the work of Ripanda.
page 183 note 3 A further reference to Ripanda has been discovered by Miss Radford in this treatise; it is as follows: ‘Pigliando poi per Borgo Vecchio incontro al Cantarelli,’ v' è una facciatina a colore forse del Ripanda nel principio del suo operare.'