Rome in the Footsteps of an XVIIIth Century Traveller

You may wish to see a page covering Villa Ludovisi first.
Guido Reni (1575-1642) and Francesco Albani (1578-1660) appeared in Rome shortly after 1600, Lanfranco (1582-1647) and Domenichino (1581-1641) came soon after, and the younger Guercino (1591-1666) arrived in 1621. (..) In the succeeding years these Bolognese artists firmly established a style in Rome which by and large shows a strengthening of the rationalist and classical tendencies. (..) From about 1608 onwards these masters were responsible for a series of large and important cycles of frescoes. Their activity in this field is an impressive testimony to their rapidly rising star. (..) Illusionism on the grandest scale was here introduced into Roman church decoration, and it was this that spelt the real end to the predominance of the classicism of the second decade. (..) This step had been taken by Guercino in the decoration of palaces. One should not forget that this artist belonged to a slightly younger generation; thus already in his earliest known work, carried out in his birthplace, Cento, he reveals a breaking away from the Carraccesque figure conception.
Rudolf Wittkower - Art and Architecture in Italy - 1600-1750 - Penguin Books 1953

Scuderie del Quirinale - 2024 Temporary Exhibition on Guercino and the Ludovisi: portraits of Guercino and of Pope Gregory XV (Alessandro Ludovisi) both by (il) Guercino (the Cross-eyed) whose name was Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (see a fresco at Grottaferrata which portrays Guido Reni, il Domenichino and Guercino)

Between 1616 and his visit to Rome in 1621 Guercino painted a series of powerful altarpieces which entitle him to rank among the first artists of his time. Guercino's years in the Holy City were confined to the reign of Gregory XV. from 1621 to 1623. (..) When he appeared in Rome in 1621, it seemed a foregone conclusion that his pictorial, rather violently Baroque manner would create a deep impression and hasten a change which the prevailing classical taste would be incapable of resisting. Wittkower

Madrid - Museo del Prado: Susanna and the Elders (1617)

(Guercino's works before 1621) show a progression towards Baroque movement, the merging of figures with their surroundings, form-dissolving light effects, and glowing and warm colours. In addition, contrapposto attitudes become increasingly forceful, and there is an intensity of expression which is often carried far beyond the capacity of Lodovico Carracci, for whose early style Guercino felt the greatest admiration. Wittkower
Contrapposto is an Italian term that is used in the visual arts to describe a human figure standing with most of its weight on one foot, so that shoulders and arms twist off-axis from the hips and legs in the axial plane.
This painting was made for Cardinal Alessandro Ludovisi in 1617, while the artist was in Bologna and the future pope was the Archbishop of the town. It remained in the Ludovisi Collection until 1664 when it was sold to the King of Spain. It may explain why the Ludovisi commissioned Guercino to decorate the main hall of Casino del Monte.

Galleria Doria Pamphilj: Erminia finds wounded Tancredi (1618-1619), an episode of "Gerusalemme Liberata" (Jerusalem Delivered) by Torquato Tasso (published in 1581). See another episode involving Tancredi in a XIXth century fresco at Villa Giustiniani

Another important work by Guercino before its Roman period depicts a dramatic episode of "Jerusalem Delivered" and it was acquired by Donna Olimpia Maidalchini, sister-in-law of Pope Innocent X Pamphilj, for her palace at S. Martino al Cimino.
In the poem, Erminia is the Princess of Antioch who falls in love with Tancredi, a Crusader and to help him, she betrays her own people. Eventually she becomes a witch. When Tancredi is dangerously wounded in combat, she uses her powers and heals him, by cutting off a portion of her hair to bind his wounds. This is the scene most represented of her story.
At Tancred's name thither she ran with speed.
Like one half mad, or drunk with too much wine,
And when she saw his face, pale, bloodless, dead,
She lighted, nay, she stumbled from her steed:
Her springs of tears she looseth forth, and cries,
"Hither why bring'st thou me, ah Fortune blind?
Where dead, for whom I lived, my comfort lies,
Where war for peace, travail for rest I find;
Tancred, I have thee, see thee, yet thine eyes
Looked not upon thy love and handmaid kind.
(..) The dame perceived that Tancred breathed and sighed,
Which calmed her grief somedeal and eased her fears:
(..) She had to bind his wounds, in so great need.
But love could other bands, though strange, provide.
And pity wept for joy to see that deed.
For with her amber locks cut off, each wound She tied:
O happy man, so cured, so bound !
Torquato Tasso - Jerusalem Delivered - Book XIX - Translation by Edward Fairfax (1600)

Casino del Monte - Sala dell'Aurora: Aurora (Dawn/Daybreak) on her chariot (you may wish to see the same subject by Mattia Preti in a 1661 ceiling of Palazzo Pamphilj di Valmontone)

Between 1621 and 1623 he executed, above all, the frescoes in the Casino Ludovisi for the Cardinale nipote of Gregory XV. The boldly foreshortened Aurora charging through the sky which opens above Tassi's quadratura architecture is the very antithesis of Guido's fresco in the Casino Rospigliosi. There is here an extraordinary freedom of handling, almost sketch-like in effect, which forms a deliberate contrast to the hard lines of the architecture and must at the time have appeared at a reversal of the traditional solidity of the fresco technique. Wittkower

Sala dell'Aurora: (left) Old Tithonus, Aurora's lover; she asked Zeus to make Tithonus immortal, but she forgot to ask that he be granted eternal youth; (right) three fading stars one of whom pours dew

In the next room is the famous Aurora of Guercino, painted in fresco on the coved cieling, and scarcely inferior to that of Guido. The goddess is seated in her car drawn by two horses, chasing away the darkness and scattering flowers: immediately behind her is old Tithonus lifting a curtain and extending his arms as if to detain his flying spouse; and before her car are young female figures representing the Hours, who are extinguishing the stars of night, a poetic idea, but less beautiful than the bright female forms that encircle the car of Day in Guido's Aurora.
Rev. Jeremiah Donovan - Rome Ancient and Modern - 1843

Sala dell'Aurora: other details showing views of the casino and of the gardens

In another Casino is Guercino's great work of the Aurora, which covers the ceiling and is detailed into compartments. If compared with the Aurora of the Rospigliosi pavilion, its composition will be found less obvious and its story more learned. In allegorizing Nature, Guercino imitates the deep shades of night, the twilight grey, and the irradiations of morning with all the magic of chiaroscuro (*); but his figures are too mortal for the region where they move. The work of Guido is more poetic, and luminous, and soft, and harmonious. Cupid, Aurora, Phoebus form a climax of beauty, and the Hours seem as light as the clouds on which they dance. At such ceilings you gaze till your neck becomes stiff and your head dizzy.
Joseph Forsyth - Remarks on Antiquities, Arts, and Letters in Italy in 1802-1803
(*) chiaroscuro (It. light-dark) a term used to describe the effects of light and dark in a work of art, particularly when they are strongly contrasting. It is most frequently discussed in relation to paintings of the XVIIth century.
Guido Reni and Domenichino were very highly praised in the early XIXth century. Guercino too, but he ranked third.

The Day

At either end the figures of Day and Night, emotional and personal interpretations with something of the quality of cabinet painting foster the mood evoked by the coming of light. Wittkower
In the lunette to the left is Daybreak or Lucifer holding a torch in one hand and flowers in the other. Donovan
Here the billiard-table is old-fashioned, perhaps a trifle-crooked; but you have Guercino above your head, and Guercino, after all, is almost as good as Guido.
Henry James's account of his visit to Villa Ludovisi in 1873.
The Aurora by Reni is surrounded by an intact frame, whereas in the lunettes by Guercino, the architectural frame painted by Agostino Tassi is broken to create illusionistic effects. At the end of the XVIIth century this approach reached its apex in the illusionistic ceiling of Andrea Pozzo at S. Ignazio.

The Night

In the opposite lunette is Night, represented by a seated female, musing drowsily over a book, while her dark cave is thrown open to the coming light, which breaks beautifully on her and two sleeping children, her only companions, save the sullen owl and flapping bat, which are escaping from its unwelcome ray. The chiaroscuro of this famous fresco is truly magical; but the Aurora of Guido is an ethereal being, this of Guercino, a mortal; and the Daybreak and Night in the lunettes are so detached as to break the unity of the composition. Donovan

Detail of the Burial and Reception into Heaven of St Petronilla (see the whole painting at Musei Capitolini)

Under the influence of the Roman atmosphere, which was charged with personal and theoretical complexities, Guercino's confidence began to ebb. Already in the great Burial and Reception into Heaven of St Petronilla of 1621 (Rome, Capitoline Museum) there is a faint beginning of an abandonment of Baroque tendencies. The figures are less vigorous and more distinctly defined, the rich palette is toned down, and the composition itself is more classically balanced than in the pre-Roman works. It is a curious historical paradox that Guercino who, it is not too much to say, sowed the seeds in Rome of the great High Baroque decorations, should at this precise moment have begun to turn towards a more easily appreciated classicism. But in the very picture where this is first manifest, the idea of lowering the body of the saint into the open sepulchre in which the beholder seems to stand has a directness of appeal unthinkable without the experience of Caravaggio (see the Burial of St. Lucia by Caravaggio). Thus a painterly Baroque style, an echo of Caravaggio, and a foretaste of Baroque-Classicism combine at the crucial phase of Guercino's career. The aftermath, in the painter s home-town. Cento, must be mentioned in a different context. Wittkower

2024 Temporary Exhibition: Reggio Emilia - Basilica della Madonna della Ghiara: Christ Crucified with the Virgin Mary, the Magdalene, St. John the Baptist and St. Prospero, patron of Reggio Emilia (1624-1625)

The population of Cento, by the last census, is 4,572: (..) its great interest arises from its being the birth-place of Guercino. The churches are full of the works of this great artist; and his house, which it was his delight to cover with his paintings, is still preserved without any alteration or change, save what has been produced by time. (..)
Guercino had for Cento that love of locality, if we may so say, of which Italian painters and sculptors have in all ages offered numerous examples: he preferred residing in his native town to the titles and offices of first painter to the kings of France and England. (..) This great artist, really born a painter, the magician of painting as he has been surnamed, was also a pious, moderate, disinterested, and charitable man. (..)
Madonna della Ghiara. The plan of this church is a Greek cross. The architectural details are good. The interior is covered with frescoes. Large and small there are upwards of 200 compartments thus decorated, and in good preservation. (..) A Crucifixion, by Guercino seems a fine picture, but it is dirty and ill seen.
John Murray - Handbook for travellers in Northern Italy - 1843

2024 Temporary Exhibition: Modena - Galleria Estense: Venus, Mars and Cupid (1633)

Modena - The duke's palace is a magnificent building, in which there are several rich apartments, a considerable library as well in printed books, as manuscripts, and a very rich gallery of paintings.
Thomas Nugent - The Grand Tour - 1749
The collection of paintings in the Ducal Palace is large: some are good, but the best, including the Notte of Correggio, were sold in the last century, and are now the chief ornaments of the Dresden gallery. Murray
You may wish to see the Death of Dido which Guercino painted in 1631 for Cardinal Bernardino Spada.
The image used as background for this page shows a 1650 etching by Israel Silvestre, a French print dealer, depicting Casino del Monte.
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