Giulio Cesare Procaccini

Il volume cerca di ricostruire per la prima volta la vicenda artistica di Ottavio Amigoni, ingiustamente ritenuto un ritardatario di poco conto nel panorama artistico bresciano, partendo dalla formazione genovese fino alle acquisizioni emiliane e lombarde che caratterizzano la sua produzione.

Incontri in Biblioteca | marzo Gli Incontri in Biblioteca della Fondazione Federico Zeri proseguono con la consueta presentazione di libri e cataloghi di storia dell'arte. Questo ciclo di conferenze è dedicato alla presentazione di tre monografie su protagonisti della pittura del Cinquecento e del Seicento in Italia. Girolamo da Carpi (1501-1556), poliedrico e raffinato pittore attivo fra la corte estense di Ferrara e Bologna; Giulio Cesare Procaccini (1574-1625), una delle personalità più originali, e fino a ora misconosciute, della pittura lombarda del XVII secolo; Giovan Battista Moroni eccezionale autore di ritratti che a Roberto Longhi apparivano cosı̀ "veri, semplici, documentari da comunicarci addirittura la certezza di averne conosciuto i modelli". Agli incontri partecipano le autrici e gli autori.

Il contributo analizza le presenze lombarde della galleria di pitture del ministro plenipotenziario di Maria Teresa a Milano, conte Carlo Firmian, politico e diplomatico di rango e uomo di insaziabili curiosità culturali, che ne fanno uno dei grandi collezionisti dell'Europa illuminista. In questo contesto riveste un ruolo di prim'ordine il filone leonardesco, stimolato dal noto Venanzio de Pagave, dominato da una "Leda stante" attribuita dal de Pagave allo stesso Leonardo e qui ipoteticamente identificata con la copia della collezione Johnson del Philadelphia Museum of Art. Firmian possedeva, inoltre, una "Maddalena" attribuita a Luini qui identificata con la bellissima penitente di Giampietrino in collezione padovana, e la famosa "Madonna di Menaggio" di Luini oggi al Louvre, di cui si ricostruisce l'itinerario collezionistico. Tra le opere del Seicento lombardo, si segnalano un'importante allegoria politica del tardo Giulio Cesare Procaccini, "La pace che frena la Guerra" oggi al Louvre, rintracciata nella collezione milanese settecentesca del "Questore Olivazzi", e tre quadri del Cairo barocco. L'''"Artemisia" è approdata alla Pinacoteca Civica di Pavia, mentre il "Tobia e Tobi" è qui identificato con quello commissionato all'artista nel 1657 dai milanesi fratelli Porro.
Appassionato di paesaggi e vedute, Firmian colleziona anche una coppia di fantastiche "Grotte marine con pastori e pescatori", già identificate dall'autrice con i due discussi pendants divisi tra il Museo di Belle Arti di Budapest e una collezione privata. Secondo la tesi qui argomentata, le due "Grotte" Firmian sarebbero state dipinte a Firenze intorno al 1705 da Alessandro Magnasco in collaborazione con il paesista e animalista tedesco attivo a Roma Philipp Peter Roos detto Rosa da Tivoli, e costituirebbero una preziosa testimonianza del soggiorno fiorentino del Roos, finora ignoto agli studi.

NOTA: Nel ben noto catalogo della mostra di Magnasco del 1996, l'autrice ha segnalato il testamento e l’inventario post mortem di Firmian con il "Catalogo delle Pitture, e Sculture" della sua collezione (1782 e '83), sconosciuti agli studi e da lei rintracciati nel fondo Notarile dell'Archivio di Stato di Milano. Questa preziosa scoperta è stata oggetto di una miserabile rapina, compiuta sotto gli occhi di tutti.

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The book investigates the artistic trajectory of the three Procaccini brothers: Camillo (1561- 1629), Carlo Antonio (1571-1631) and Giulio Cesare (1574-1625) the most important family of painters working in Northern Italy at the start of the seventeenth century.

The Procaccini’s work is here analysed by interconnecting their individual stories and understanding their success as the combination of mutual artistic choices, high level of specialisation and precise business organisation. In doing so, the book updates the modern scholarly literature, which has focused on the Procaccini’s individual careers, underestimating both their connections as family members and the importance of their bottega as the key locus of artistic growth and stylistic innovation.

The book will be of interest to scholars studying art history, early modern studies, the art market, Italian studies, and Italian history.

In questo saggio sono stati resi noti e studiati alcuni documenti inventariali, datati tra Sei e Settecento, che riguardano tre significative collezioni milanesi: la quadreria del nobile Giulio Bonacina (che possedeva dipinti riferiti a Carlo Cane, Claude Lorrain, Giulio Cesare Procaccini, Giuseppe Nuvolone); la collezione della nobile Margherita del Pozzo Bonacina (con quadri di Carlo Preda, Camillo Procaccini, Carlo Antonio Rossi); la quadreria del reverendo Gerolamo Bertachino (nella quale erano presenti dipinti lombardi di Michelangelo Nuvolone, Giulia Cerana, Daniele Crespi e Giovan Ambrogio Figino, ma anche diversi quadri attribuiti ad artisti famosi come Tiziano, Raffaello, Dürer, il Veronese, Bramante, Lorrain, Rubens, Correggio, lo Spagnoletto, Parmigianino, Michelangelo).

After revealing new documentary sources to recompose the pictorial collections belonging to Pedro de Toledo, the 5th Marquis of Villafranca, and particularly to reunite
Camillo and Giulio Cesare Procaccini’s pictorial series of the Life of the Virgin and the Passion of Christ, respectively, this article proposes incorporating the hitherto unknown Way to Calvary to the second series and begins to delineate the first series beginning with The Visitation of the Virgin at the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Texas, The Presentation of the Virgin Mary at the Prado Museum of Madrid and The Adoration of the Shepherds and Marriage of the Virgin currently in the art market. Moreover, for the first time, the Procaccini collection belonging to Don Pedro de Toledo is linked to The Ecstasy of the Magdalen by Giulio Cesare exhibited at the National Gallery of Art in Washington.
`(I must point out that unfortunately the text contains a serious misprint on p. 97. Where the dimensions (247.2 x 147.5) are stated, they should read 217.2 x 147.5 cm.)

The study investigates the artistic trajectory of the three Procaccini brothers: Camillo (1561-1629), Carlo Antonio (1571-1631) and Giulio Cesare (1574-1625), one of the most important families of painters of the early Italian Seicento. Descending from Emilian background, the Procaccini influenced the evolution of Lombard art, establishing a famous workshop in Milan and playing a fundamental role in the artistic renovation of the Borromean era, one of the most fascinating periods in Milanese art history. Procaccini’s work is here analysed under the reciprocal perspective of the family workshop, interconnecting their individual careers and understanding their success as the combination of mutual artistic choices, high level of specialisation and precise business organisation. In doing so this study updates the modern scholarly literature, which has generally focused on the Procaccini’s individual careers, underestimating both their connections as family members and the importance of their workshop as the key centre of artistic growth and stylistic innovation.

The author discusses a painting, considere lost, by Giulio Cesare Procaccini: the ‘Holy Family and the Angels’, originally in the sacristy of
the church of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome. Regarding this painting,
the scholars knew about many copies (in Milan, Museo Poldi Pezzoli; Correggio, Museo Civico; Grenoble, Musée des Beaux-Arts) and various
engravings put into print.
Most likely, the painting was removed from the church of San Luigi dei
Francesi, a first time, during the Napoleonic occupation of Rome, and then returned to the church after the 'Restoration'. The painting was lost
track of again at the end of the nineteenth century.
Through the study of the sources and the stylistic comparison with the
copies, the author has identified the Holy Family and the Angels by Giulio Cesare Procaccini in a painting sold in an Florentine Auction (in 1933) of Andrea Robilant’s collection.
The ‘Holy Family with Angels’, dating to ca. 1612, is ver y interesting
in order to understand the stylistic evolution of Giulio Cesare Procaccini:
he, at this stage of his career, is very attached to Correggio’s style,
an artist with whom he was often confused.
No less important are the material characteristics of the painting, characterized by many ‘pentimenti’.

In 1667, Malvasia travelled to Milan to collect information about the brothers Camillo, Carlo Antonio, and Giulio Cesare Procaccini. Eighty years earlier, in 1587, these three Emilian painters had left Bologna to find better opportuni¬ties in Lombardy. Once there, they transformed the local artistic tradition and inaugurated an extraordinary season of artistic production culminating in the spiritual patronage of Federico Borromeo. Read in modern terms, their story can be understood as an example of a seventeenth-century migration that led to sudden success and remarkable achievement. As a centre of artistic growth and stylistic innovation, the Procaccini workshop played a fundamental role in development of Lombard art. This paper investigates the business strategies adopted by the Procaccini family in Milan. It explores how the brothers expanded their workshop by developing different specializations, using influential contacts, and establishing joint ventures with smaller botteghe.

Le Musée d’art et d’histoire de Genève possède plus de 260 peintures italiennes et une dizaine de tableaux espagnols qui constituent l’ensemble le plus important d’oeuvres d’art de ces écoles existant en Suisse. Issue d’un premier noyau possédé par la Société des Arts à la fin du XVIIIe siècle, la collection s’est enrichie de plusieurs tableaux envoyés par Napoléon en 1804. Peu après l’ouverture du Musée Rath en 1826, elle s’est agrandie avec des chefs-d’oeuvre baroques acquis à Rome par la famille de Sellon. Durant la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle, Walther Fol et Gustave Revilliod, qui donnent leur propre collection à la ville de Genève en 1871 et en 1890, l’enrichissent d’oeuvres de « primitifs ». Au cours du XXe siècle, quelques dons plus ponctuels viennent compléter les collections. En 1979, un premier catalogue des peintures italiennes a été publié par Mauro Natale.
Le présent ouvrage en propose une mise à jour qui integre le petit noyau de tableaux espagnols et les peintures italiennes entrées depuis au musée. A travers l’analyse complète de chaque oeuvre, il cherche à replacer la collection dans une histoire du goût.

BEYOND WORKSHOP BOUNDARIES:  THE LUINI AND THE PROCACCINI

My paper will explore interrelations between the workshops of the brothers Luini and the brothers Procaccini in late 16th century Milan. Milanese draftsmanship of the Cinquecento still remains an understudied and underappreciated subject area and the processes of collaboration and competition between these workshops, two of the most important in the city, have eluded even the best informed experts in the field of old master drawings.

Through comparative analyses of selected works from the oeuvre of Aurelio and Giovan Pietro Luini on the one hand, and Camillo and Giulio Cesare Procaccini on the other, I aim to clarify their reciprocal influences, their workshop collaborations and the effects of these on their art.

‘Who changes country, changes his fortune’ thus begins Malvasia’s account of the Pro-caccini family in the second volume of the Felsina Pittrice, a 17th century history of Bolo-gnese painting. In 1667 Malvasia travelled to Milan to collect information about Camillo (1561–1629), Carlo Antonio (1574–1630) and Giulio Cesare (1574–1625), three Emilian painters who in 1587 left Bologna to find better opportuni¬ties in Lombardy where, throughout three decades, they transformed the local artistic tradition, inaugurating an extraordinary season of artistic production characterized by the spiritual patronage of Cardinal Federico Borromeo and represented by a generation of painters known as pes-tanti: the painters of the plague. Read in modern terms, the Procaccini’s story can be understood as an example of 17th century migration characterized by sudden success, remarkable achievements and precise busi¬ness organiza¬tion. In Milan the family devel-oped a successful workshop orga¬nized halfway between a bottega familiare and a private art school, following a tradition already exemplified by the Carracci’s Bolo¬gnese activity. By employing different artistic specializations, excellent contacts with local patrons and join–ventures with smaller workshops, the Procac¬cini rapidly controlled the Milanese art mar-ket, renovat¬ing the Lombard artistic tradition with the pictorial novelties drawn from the art of Correggio and the Carracci as well as from the naturalistic developments of contemporary Flemish paint¬ers such as Jan Soens, Paul Brill and Jan Brueghel. Starting from these premises, my dissertation investigates the business strategy adopted by the Procaccini, highlighting the fundamental role played by the bottega familiare in the devel-opment of the brothers’ individual careers as well as in the transition of Lombard art from late Mannerism to early Baroque.