Month: April 2019

Leonardo’s St Jerome coming to US

Ex Cathedra

St. Jerome Praying in the Wilderness by Leonardo da Vinci is coming to the US in July. It will go on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the master’s death. The  painting is part of the Vatican Museum’s collection, which, inconceivably vast though it is, only has this one painting by Leonardo da Vinci. As a matter of fact, it is the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci in Rome. It is also one of maybe a half-dozen paintings whose attribution to Leonardo da Vinci has never been in doubt.

Four of the 15 or so surviving Leonardo paintings are incomplete, and St. Jerome is one of the four. The lion is still a drawn outline, as are Jerome’s foot, his robe draped on the ground, left hand, outstretched right arm holding a stone, one of his attributes, with which he will beat his chest. A church in the upper right of the panel is also a rough outline.

The painting represents Jerome (A.D. 347–420), a major saint and theologian of the Christian Church. The scene is based on the story of his later life, which he spent as a hermit in the desert, according to the 13th-century Golden Legend. The penitent Jerome—aged, gaunt, and nearly toothless—kneels in prayerful meditation before a cave in a rocky landscape. Reclining before Jerome is the tame lion, his companion in the desert and a central figure in the story of Jerome’s life. The saint’s face and gestures convey Leonardo’s theories on human physiognomy and the psychology of expression.

In its unfinished state, the painting shows us that Leonardo did not proceed in a wholly disciplined way. He was particularly interested in creating a detailed, anatomically correct under drawing for the saint’s ascetic body. The elegant silhouette of the reclining lion seems now especially powerful, because there is almost no modeling beyond the outlines. A close examination of the paint surface reveals the presence of Leonardo’s fingerprints, especially in the upper-left portion of the composition. Leonardo used his fingers to distribute the pigments and create a soft-focus effect in the sky and landscape.

Leonardo was painfully slow at painting, which is one of the reasons his oeuvre is so miniscule. He started this panel around 1483 when he was in Milan. When he died in Amboise, France, in 1519, it was still far from finished. We don’t know who commissioned it or why Leonardo kept altering it and working on it nigh onto 40 years.

The work is currently on display in a new location, the Braccio Di Carlo Magno on the left side of St. Peter’s Square, instead of in its usual spot in the Pinacoteca Vaticana. Access is free and the location is much more conducive to quiet contemplation than the frenetic mob scene in the Vatican Museum.

The Met’s exhibition runs through October 6th, 2019, after which St. Jerome will head back across the Atlantic the Paris where it will join other masterpieces by Leonardo at the Louvre’s quincentenary Leonardo exhibition.

Reenactor shot with medieval cannon

Modern(ish), Renaissance

A woman was hit by a cannon ball during rehearsals for a historical battle reenactment commemorating the 500th anniversary of the death of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I in Mindelheim, Swabia, southern Germany. The 23-year-old woman was loading a medieval cannon when the weapon fired unexpectedly, hitting her directly on the arm.

Police have confirmed that the woman had the necessary licence for handling cannons. They also have indicated that they do not believe the injuries were the result of deliberate action on the part of another individual.

The injury was severe. She had to be flown by helicopter to a hospital in Munich where surgeons immediately operated to save her arm from amputation. It appears they were successful, although some news accounts report she lost a finger.

She was one of 350 reenactors from the Confederation of Upper Swabian Landsknechts (named after a famed corps of mercenaries ) engaged in the group’s yearly “Spring Drill Weekend.” I’m not sure why an event commemorating the death of Maximilian I on January 2nd, 1519, would require a battle reenactment completely with medieval cannon fire beyond the fact that people just dig firing cannons. Maximilian didn’t die on the battlefield or of a wartime injury or illness. He was traveling from the royal palace in Innsbruck to attend parliament in Linz, a long, arduous journey for a man who had already been sick for a long time at this point. From the description of his symptoms, it was probably colon cancer that claimed his life. He was 60 years old.

In his younger days he had name for himself as an outstanding jouster and military leader, however. His nickname was “the Last Knight,” because he embraced the idealized virtues of chivalry and was an avid student of the “seven knightly responsibilities” (riding, climbing, shooting, swimming, wrestling, dancing & courting, jousting). At the same time, influenced by humanist philosophy, Maximilian was a great patron of the arts, spoke and read multiple languages and introduced modern concepts and technologies to the field of battle.

One example of of his novel approach was his founding of the first Landsknecht army in 1488. He wanted a reliable, well-trained, organized force that could be called up whenever necessary instead of a mishmash of feudal lords with troops loyal to them, assorted mercenaries and infantry that had to be levied and dissolved before and after every conflict. The Landsknechts were highly successful, developing a reputation for skill that saw them fight all over Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Maximilian’s successor as Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, sent them to fight the French in Italy in 1527. When they didn’t get paid in a timely fashion, they mutinied. The 14,000 Landsknecht soldiers formed the majority of the troops who decided to get paid via pillage and infamously sacked Rome. Some of them made themselves at home in very grand style indeed. In the Hall of Perspectives in the Villa Farnesina, the room where Agostino Chigi had held his lavish wedding banquet just nine years earlier, restorers found this written on the wall close to the marital bedroom: “1528 –  “Why should I who write not laugh – the Landsknechts have set the Pope on the run.”

I almost wrote about that episode in the post on the restoration of The Wedding of Alexander and Roxanne, but decided it was a bit too tangential. It goes to show just how extra of a nerd I am that I was pleased to have a pretext to bring it up now courtesy of the reenactment group even though the news story it pivots off of is so grim.

Maximilian has made his presence felt on this here long blog before now, btw.  The Triumphal Procession, a gouache 117 feet long painted by Albrecht Altdorfer in praise of the Emperor’s military accomplishments, ancestors mythical and real, pagentry and wealth, went on display for the first time since 1959 in 2012 at the Albertina Museum in Vienna. A complete print of another of the works in that series, The Arch of Honour of Maximilian I, a monumental woodcut engraved by Albrecht Dürer, was displayed in 2015 after an incredible restoration by conservators at the National Gallery of Denmark’s Statens Museum for Kunst. The British Museum’s print was conserved around the same time and the process was so excellently documented I had to post about it to share the videos and images. Last but certainly not least, Maximilian was the first husband of adolescent duchess and all-around hardass Anne of Brittany.

Stolen Breeches Bible returned

Looting, Modern(ish)

A 404-year-old Bible that was stolen from the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh in the 1990s has been returned after being found in a museum in the Netherlands.

“After being identified as stolen, officers from the Leiden Museum, along with the DA’s office here in Pittsburgh, the FBI in the Netherlands and the FBI in the Netherlands and the FBI art crime team arranged for the return of the Bible,” said [FBI agent Robert] Jones.

The theft was discovered many years after it happened, in April 2017 insurance audit of the library’s holdings. Auditors found out that 314 books were missing from the Oliver Room, the rare books room which can only be accessed by scholars and researchers by prior appointment. It is not and has never been open to the public. The value of the lost books and pages added up to an estimated $8 million.

An investigation revealed that the thefts had taken place over a period of two decades. It was an inside job, an obscenely cupidinous betrayal by Gregory Priore, the sole archivist for the Oliver Room’s collection who systematically removed entire books or pages with important maps or images, cut out with an X-acto knife, and walked them down the block to book seller John Schulman, co-owner of the Caliban Book Shop. Schlman would pay him up front and then sell the books and amputated pages at a profit. Because all the most effective hypocrites hide in plain sight, Schulman had once been the chairman of the ethics committee Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America. Priore was fired when the thefts were discovered. Last year Priore and Schulman were charged with multiple counts of theft, conspiracy and other crimes related to the scheme.

The FBI Pittsburgh office has been looking for the 314 missing items and have so far recovered 18 books and 293 maps, plates and pamphlets. The 1615 Geneva Bible was traced to the American Pilgrim Museum in Leiden via the sale receipt from its 2015 acquisition by museum director Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs from a private seller for $1,200. Its estimated market value today is around $5,500, but Pittsburgh paid something in the neighborhood of $12,000 to get the Bible back from the museum safely.

The Pilgrims didn’t own this particular volume, as far as we know, but it was translated by English Protestant expatriates in Geneva during the reign of  Catholic Queen Mary and a copy of this version of the Bible was known to have accompanied the pilgrims on the Mayflower. Bangs planned to display it at future exhibitions on books owned by the Pilgrims.

The edition is also known as the Breeches Bible after an unusual translation of Genesis 3:7. Instead of the King James Version’s “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons,” in this version Adam and Eve go beyond the basic crotch-concealment of a fig leaf apron into full lower-body coverage. “Then the eyes of them both were opened, and they knewe that they were naked, and they sewed figtree leaves together, and made themselves breeches.”

Wild boars unearth medieval coin hoard in Slovakia

Medieval, Treasures

Wild boar can now join badgers as some of the most effective archaeologists of the animal kingdom. Diligent boars in the Choč mountain near Likavka, Slovakia, unearthed a large hoard of silver coins and two gold coins from the late 15th, early 16th century and then generously left them behind for a nice married couple to find during a hike. The couple had the presence of mind not to touch the coins. They alerted archaeologists and waited for three hours at the find site to ensure somebody less morally upright than they and the boars wouldn’t interfere with the treasure.

Because of the couple’s responsible approach, Slovakian archaeologists had the extremely rare opportunity to excavate a coin hoard in situ. Usually they only see them when people show up to their offices with bags of loot and dump them out on their desks. Over an area of two square meters (about 21 square feet), archaeologists recovered more than 1600 silver Hungarian denarii.

In the shallow hole, there was the broken clay bottom of a jug with coins that were, thanks to corrosion, attached to the remains of the fabric on the inner side of the jug. Nearby, there was a metal pot-lid.

The treasure was covered by a fine layer of soil. We can assume that the person who covered the coins was in hurry. The treasure was located near to an historical trade road.

Researchers suspect that the coins were buried around 1527, a year in which a dynastic conflict over the Hungarian throne broke out between Ferdinand of Habsburg, (brother of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V) and  John Zápolya, Voivode of Transylvania. John was crowned king by one faction of nobles, Ferdinand by another. While John was busy dealing with a peasant uprising, Ferdinand invaded Hungary. In September of 1527, Ferdinand’s forces, mostly German and Austrian mercenaries but with a few thousand allied Hungarian troops, soundly spanked John Zápolya’s Hungarian army. Ferdinand was crowned King of Hungary on November 3rd, 1527, but the upheavals were far from over. Zápolya regrouped and returned in 1528 with a new army. Ferdinand defeated him again, and this time Zápolya turned to the Ottoman Empire to fight his battles for him. By 1529 Suleiman the Magnificent had not only kicked the Germans and Austrians out of Hungary but was laying siege to Vienna.

Whoever buried this hoard had a lot to lose in this war-torn period. A labourer at that time earned between 6 and 10 silver coins per day. They’d never see a single gold coin in their life and certainly wouldn’t be able to get their hands on two of them on top of thousands of silver ones.

The coins are still being counted and cleaned. Once they’ve been thoroughly documented and researched, the hoard will be exhibited in the Liptov museum in Ruzomberok. As for the finders (the human ones), they will reap the rewards of their conscientiousness.  The monetary value of the coins will be determined by experts, and because the finders acted in total accordance with cultural heritages laws by leaving the treasure at the find site and calling archaeologists, they have earned the right to a finder’s fee in the amount of 100% of the market value. I hope they buy the boars some acorns or carrion or something with some of that cash.

Farnesina wedding frescoes to be restored

Renaissance, Roma, Caput Mundi

A High Renaissance fresco in the Farnesina palace in Rome will undergo a much-needed restoration this year. The Wedding of Alexander and Roxanne by Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, known as Il Sodoma (the Sodomite), has suffered from its proximity to the rising damp and constant traffic of the Tiber. There are cracks, areas where the paint is lifting, surface deposits from water and grime and plaster loss. The cleaning, protective glazes, consolidation of plaster and paint, stucco repair and reconstruction of missing wood elements are expected to be completed within the calendar year.

Bazzi, a contemporary of Raphael and Pinturicchio, was particularly sought out for his frescoes. He counted two popes and the nobility of Siena and Rome among his patrons. The Sienese banker Agostino Chigi, treasurer to Pope Julius II, owner of an international monopoly in alum and the richest man in Rome, hired Il Sodoma along with the likes of Raphael and Sebastiano del Piombo to decorate the interior of his villa in Trastevere.

Built as an bright and airy suburban palace, this home was planned and executed as a showpiece of untrammeled wealth. Unusually for his time, Chigi used it as a headquarters for his banking business as well as his personal home, and he wanted the design to convey all the grandeur money could buy. Raphael’s Triumph of Galatea and Cupid and Psyche cycles adorn the loggia on the ground floor.

The frescoes in the master bedroom on the first floor had a more private audience in mind. Sodoma painted scenes from the life of Alexander the Great: his marriage to Roxanne and his magnanimous reception of the family of Darius after the Persian defeat at the Battle of Issus. (Ten years later he would marry one of those family members, Darius daugther Stateira. Roxanne had her killed a year later after Alexander’s death.)

The principal scene is the wedding which occupies the north wall. Although it’s not really the wedding so much as the beginning of the honeymoon. Alexander holds out his crown, offering it to his new bride, while she sits on their marriage bed, eyes demurely downcast, body covered in name only by a gossamer drape of fabric, a winged Amorino at her shoulder and a bunch more at her feet.

Chigi commissioned the work in 1519 to welcome his own bride in High Renaissance style, and the symbolism of great king marrying the daughter of a minor Bactrian nobleman was pointed. Agostino’s love life had been checkered, to put it mildly. He had had been a lover of the celebrated courtesan Imperia, among many others, but his attempts at securing social advancement through marriage, most notably with Margherita Gonzaga, daughter of the Duke of Mantua Francesco Gonzaga, never came to fruition. In 1511, he met a pretty young girl in Venice. She was from a poor family, had none of the advantages of rank and wealth he was looking for in a spouse, but he fell in love with her and moved her into the villa to live with him. Over the next seven years, they had four children together.

Then, perhaps faced with an encroaching sense of his mortality, Agostino decided to make it legal. On August 28th, 1519, the feast of St. Augustine, his name day, Agostino Chigi wed Francesca Ordeaschi. Pope Leo X was the officiant. He threw in a little extra service when he legitimized Agostino and Francesca’s children after the wedding.

Agostino Chigi died in 1520. The villa was in 1580 by  Cardinal Alessandro Farnese the Younger who gave it his name (in explicit contravention of the terms of Chigi’s will). It remained in Farnese hands until 1735 when it was given to the Bourbon King Charles III of Spain and King of Naples and Sicily by his mother Elisabetta Farnese, Queen Consort of Spain. In 1927 the Farnesina was acquired by the Italian state. Today it is the seat of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, a prestigious national science academy.