bellori on painting
TRANSCRIPT
Bellori's Art: The Taste and Distaste of a Seventeenth-Century Art Critic in RomeAuthor(s): Hans RabenReviewed work(s):Source: Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, Vol. 32, No. 2/3 (2006), pp.126-146Published by: Stichting voor Nederlandse Kunsthistorische PublicatiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20355327 .Accessed: 26/04/2012 10:10
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I2?
Bellori's art: the taste and distaste of a seventeenth-century art critic in Rome*
Hans Raben
introduction Fulminating against the products of
modern art is not an invention of nineteenth-century
critics shocked by the audacity of works they did not un
derstand. The man who expressed his abhorrence of
some of the art of his age in such words as "specters in
stead of shapes," "works that are not natural children
but bastards of nature," and who felt that their makers
"satisfy themselves with ugliness and errors," was the
learned gentleman Giovanni Pietro Bellori (1613-96), the highly esteemed Roman antiquarian and officer of
the Accademia di San Luca addressing an audience of
academicians and members of Roman society in 1664.1
He obviously considered this text sufficiently important to have it printed eight years later as an introduction to
his biographies of artists. Since then it has acquired al
most canonical status as one of the earliest declarations
of the principles of Classicism.
In the last few decades, numerous students of seven
teenth-century Italian art have sought to clarify Bellori's
ideas against the background of the culture of papal Rome.2 This has resulted in a picture of a man of contra
dictions. To name but a few: he rates the artistic stand
ing of his native Rome higher than that of any other city, but in support of this claim he writes the biographies of
ten artists from northern Italy, three Flemings, one
Frenchman and only one Roman. He received great
praise for his biographies but was unable to muster fi
nancial support for a second, enlarged edition.3 In his
biography of Agostino Carracci, he criticizes the artist
for rubbing shoulders with members of the upper class, while at the same time admiring Rubens and Van Dyck for their ability to move freely in the circles of princes and noblemen. And, perhaps most striking of all, his de
scription of works of art is often so extremely literary and formal as to make one wonder which qualities he re
ally admired, but then all of a sudden he inserts a phrase that betrays a genuine sensitivity to pictorial details.
When we add to this his reputation as a theoretician of art and the wide range of his activities as an art critic,
collector, antiquarian, papal commissioner for Roman
antiquities, occasional poet, and custodian of Queen
Christina of Sweden's medals, the question urges itself
upon us what the ideas were that moved him in his ap
proach to the art of his day, and in a wider sense what his
position in the culture of his day was.
This study focuses on what seems to be the uneasy re
lationship between Bellori the art-lover and the art he saw around him in Rome. It sets out to find an answer to
two questions: precisely what art did he condemn so
strongly, and what arguments, theoretical or otherwise,
* The author is greatly indebted to Professor Anton Boschloo and Mrs
Nelke Bartelings for their helpful critical remarks.
i Giovanni Pietro Bellori, Le Vite de'pittoriscultori et architetti mo
derni, ed. E. Borea, Turin 1976 (ed. princ. Rome 1672), with LTdea del
pittore, de Ho scultore e delV architetto S celta dalle bellezze naturali superi ore alia Natura, on pp. 13-25. Here esp. pp. 21, 22: "...larve in vece di
figure... opera non figliuole, ma bastarde della natura,... si assuefanno
alia brutezza ed a gli errori." For Bellori's biography see K. Donahue,
"Bellori," in A.M. Ghisalberti (ed.), Dizionario biogr?fico degli Italiani, in progress, Rome i960-, vol. 7, pp. 781-89.
2 Two recent publications of a general nature which reflect the
scope of Bellori research are E. Borea et ai, exhib. cat. L 'Idea del bello:
viaggio per Roma nel Seicent o con Giovan Pietro Bellori, 2 vols., Rome
(Palazzo delle Esposizioni) 2000; J. Bell and T. Willette (eds.), Art his
tory in the age of Bellori: scholarship and cultural politics in seventeenth
century Rome, Cambridge 2002.
3 Prior to the twentieth-century reprints, the 12 biographies were
only republished in 1728 in a pirated edition in Naples, with an added
biography of Luca Giordano (1632-1705), a painter whose art must
have been thoroughly uncongenial to Bellori; see T. Willette, "The
second edition of Bellori's Lives: placing Luca Giordano in the canon
of moderns," in Bell and Willette, op. cit. (note 2), pp. 278-91.
127
did he advance to justify his judgments? In order to an
swer those questions we shall focus primarily on the few
texts in which he expressed himself on the art and artists
of Rome: his Nota on the libraries and collections of
Rome (1664), his discourse of the same year before the
Accademia di San Luca, and his Vite.4 Finally, we shall
take a short look at some of his final writings on art dat
ing from the 1690s. Before undertaking an analysis of his writings it is im
portant to recognize that Bellori's interest in the arts ex
isted from an early date, but that he published little on
aesthetic subjects during the first 50 years of his life.5
His early interest is evident from the fact that he was
working on a number of artists' biographies from the
late 1640s on, and that he filled the post of secretary of
the Accademia di San Luca in 1652 and again in later
years.6 During that time his activities in the field of anti
quarian studies were more marked, witness his various
publications, especially on numismatics.7 It is as an anti
quarian that he is constantly mentioned until the end of
his life, in Italy and abroad.
visiting ROME with bellori In 1664, while he was
still working on his artists' biographies, his first publica tion of some importance on art appeared: the Nota on
the libraries and collections of Rome. This was a purely informative and not a scholarly work, undertaken at the
request of the publishers as an appendix to a guide to the
papal administration. It contains as much information
on Roman libraries as on private art collections. To this
Nota he characteristically added an essay on Roman an
tiquities.9 Yet, as his first comprehensive public com
ment on the art of Rome, the Nota deserves to be looked
into more closely.
Few collections seem to have escaped his attention.
He mentions 62 (including his own) in alphabetical or
der, of which he discusses 23 in detail and 19 with refer ence to their most prominent works. He identifies 53
painters, almost evenly divided between the Seicento
and before. However the frequency with which they are
mentioned varies considerably.10 To a certain extent
this may have depended on the number of works pre sent in the collections. An analysis of the frequency with
which particular artists appear in combination with the
qualifications, if any, which Bellori uses in referring to
them or their work, should shed more light on the ques tion of whether his personal preference also played a
role. It is also useful to examine the relationship be tween Bellori's account of the composition of the collec
tions and their actual composition as evidenced by con
temporary inventories.
In the light of Bellori's reputation as the staunch ad
vocate of what later came to be called Classicism, the re
sults of an analysis along these lines are not without sur
prises. It was to be expected that artists like Annibale
Carracci and Guido Reni would receive full honors.
They do. But on the other hand, several artists who
would not at first sight seem to belong to Bellori's fa
vorites are quite frequently mentioned, and what is more striking is that in some cases they receive laudato
ry comments. One example is Caravaggio, who else
where is repeatedly held up as an example of the dangers to which modern art was exposed, but whose Supper at
Emmaus is singled out as being "very beautiful" (fig.
4 Giovanni Pietro Bellori, Nota delli musei, librerie, galerie et orna
menti di statue e pitture ne ' palazzi, neue case e ne
' giardini di Roma,
Rome 1664, in V. Romani, Biblioteche romane del Sei e Settecento, Rome
1996. See also the edition by E. Zocca (ed.), Rome 1976; P. Barocchi et
al. (eds.), "Corpus Inform?tico Belloriano," http://biblio.cribecu.
sns.it/bellori/index.html, Pisa 2000/01. See note 1 for his discourse
and Le Vite.
5 Apart from the explanatory legends for Carlo Cesi's engravings after the Carracci frescoes in the gallery of the Farnese palace, Argu mento della Galleria Farnese dipinta da Annibale Carracci disegnata e in
tagliata da Carlo Cesio, Rome 1657, his early publications relating to art
were restricted to a few occasional poems; see P. Barocchi, "Gli stru
menti di Bellori," in Borea et al., op. cit. (note 2), vol. 1, pp. 55-71. 6 For a very complete overview of the gestation of Bellori's Vite see
D.L. Sparti, "La formazione di Giovan Pietro Bellori: la nascita delle
Vite e il loro scopo," Studi di Storia delVArte 13 (2002), pp. 177-248.
7 For his antiquarian and literary activities see Barocchi et al., op. cit. (note 4). In a letter of 1657 Bellori himself wrote about his "innate"
talent, which led him to the "memories of antiquity" ("...io mi lascio
condurre dal mi? innato talento verso le antiche memorie"); quoted in
G. Previtali, "Introduction," in Bellori, op. cit. (note 1), pp. xvii-lx,
esp. p. xx (reprinted with updated bibliography in Borea et al., op. cit.
(note 2), pp. 165-82, esp. p. 165). 8 Girolamo Lunadoro, Relatione d?lia Corte di Roma, Rome 1664.
9 Delli vestigi delle pitture antiche dal buon sec?lo de ' Romani, Baroc
chi et al., op. cit. (note 4), pp. 56-66. Although Bellori's name does not
appear in the Nota, his authorship was confirmed by the English travel
er, Sir Philip Skippon, who visited Bellori in 1665; see Donahue, op. cit. (note 1), p. 783.
10 See Appendix.
128 HANS RABEN
i Michelangelo Merisi da Cara
vaggio, The supper at Emmaus, 1606. Milan, Brera (with the
authorization of the Ministero
per i B?ni e le Attivit? Culturali)
As a corollary of his preference for Classicist art, Bel
lori also acquired the reputation of being an enemy of
Mannerism. This makes his generous treatment of the
frescoes by two noted Mannerists in the salotto of the
Palazzo Farnese, Francesco Salviati (1510-63) and Tad
deo Zuccari (1529-66), all the more remarkable. Their
work is specifically included under the heading of the
"magnificent decorations" of the palace, which he de
scribes as "one of the wonders of the world."14 In the de
scription of another collection, Taddeo's Fall of St Paul
is even mentioned among the "most exquisite pic
tures."15 Even if the Nota is not a critical essay, Bellori's
unexpected praise for these artists raises the question of
what one is to make of his later severe pronouncements.
i)." Moreover, the artist and his works are repeatedly
mentioned in the same breath as painters like Annibale
Carracci, Guido Reni and Domenichino, who repre
sented the highest art for Bellori. Even more remarkable
is the frequent appearance of Giuseppe Cesari, the Ca
vali?re d'Arpino, who would later receive very unfavor
able treatment in the biography of Annibale Carracci.
He, too, is mentioned several times in the company of
the star performers, and in one case his paintings are in
cluded among "very beautiful works... by other famous
painters."12 Another unmistakable sign of at least a se
lective appreciation of the Cavali?re is to be found in an
other document, in which his Taking of Christ is called
"his best work" (fig. 2).13
il Bellori, op. cit. (note 4), p. 44: "belissima." 12 Ibid., p. 43: "...bellissimi quadri ad olio di Guido Reni, Guercino
da Cento, Giuseppino, Mich?le da Caravaggio, & di altri celebri pit tori."
13 Giovanni Baglione, Le Vite de 'pittori, scultori et architetti dal pon
tifica to di Gregorio XIII. del 1572. In fino a ' tempi di Papa Urbano Otta
vo nel 1642, ed. V. Mariani, Rome 1935 (ed. princ. Rome 1642), p. 370, transcribed on p. 11. See also the edition by J. Hess and H. R?ttgen, 3
vols., Rome 1995. These words of praise are to be found in the notes
that Bellori scribbled in the margin of his copy of the Baglione. They are all the more remarkable in that those notes also contain harsh criti
cism of the painter.
14 Bellori, op. cit. (note 1), p. 24: "L'una delle meraviglie... del
mondo per magnificenza di... pitture."
15 Bellori, op. cit. (note 4), p. 36: "...adobbate le camere delle piu es
quisite pitture; tra queste... caduta di San Pavolo storia grande di Tad
deo Zuccheri."
Bellori's art: the taste and distaste of a seventeenth-century art critic in Rome 129
2 Giuseppe Cesari, il Cavalier d'Arpino, The taking of Christ,
1596/97. Rome, Galleria Borghese (Archivio fotogr?fico
Soprintendenza Sp?ciale per il Polo Museale Romano)
A last example of the light which Bellori's Nota seems
to throw on his critical views concerns Pietro da Cor
tona. This artist is mentioned as often as Andrea Sacchi
(who was definitely one of Bellori's favorites), in one
case among "painters of repute" with special reference
to his Rape of the Sabine women (fig. 3).16 Later, in the
life of Carlo Maratti, dating from the 1680s, he is even
characterized as "no less excellent an architect than a
painter."17 Perhaps Bellori's attitude towards the early
Baroque, of which Pietro da Cortona was a prominent
representative, may have been less negative than is gen
erally supposed.
If the inclusion of these artists among those who de serve praise is curious, equally remarkable is the lack of
praise in other cases. Thus the distinctly cool treatment
of Claude Lorrain, another great favorite of Roman col
lectors, is surprising. His luminous landscapes and har
bor views, often peopled with classical deities, heroes
and heroines, cannot be called heretical (fig. 4). He is
hardly better treated than a far less distinguished
i6 Ibid., p. 49: "Opere di pittore di fama; tra le quali... Titiano,...
Guido,... Alberto Duro, il ratto d?lie Sabine di Pietro da Cortona [em
phasis added]."
17 Bellori, op. cit. (note 1), p. 585: "...architetto non meno che pit tore eccellente."
The rape of the Sabine women, ^HHfii^^^^^^^P*^^^^^^H^^^^^H8?iflSAi?ltP!^^^^^^^^^^^^E^^^^^^^^I
130 HANS RABEN
4 Claude Gell?e le Lorrain, Coastal view with Apollo and
the Cumaean Sibyl,
1645/1649. St Petersburg, Hermitage
5 Giovanni Battista Viola,
Landscape with a hunting
party, after 1603. London, National Gallery
Bellori's art: the taste and distaste of a seventeenth-century art critic in Rome 131
painter like Giovanni Battista Viola (fig. 5). This aloof ness cannot be explained by objections to landscape painting as such, because, as we shall see, Bellori did ap
preciate landscapes painted by Annibale Carracci and Domenichino.
It has been suggested that some of the unexpected
praise for particular artists might be the result of the wishes of the owners of the works in question.18 Al
though Bellori may at times not have been above some
diplomatic flexibility, I believe that it would be going too far to ascribe to him an almost venal quality. He may
not have felt free to air serious criticisms, but where he
really might have had insurmountable objections to a
particular artist he would probably have chosen to ig nore him. This is indeed one of the questions to which his Nota gives rise.
who is missing? A comparison between Bellori's choice in the Nota and the names of the artists featuring in a sample of contemporary inventories or surveys of
six prominent Roman collections reveals that at least 70
painters did not pass the test (if there was one). It is
highly unlikely that their absence can be explained by their owners' wishes. This seems to confirm our suspi
cion that Bellori's personal preferences did play a role after all. It is a colorful group: most painters of the sec
ond half of the sixteenth century are neglected (with the
exception of the two just mentioned and of the Vene tians Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto and Bassano). This
fate is, of course, shared by Pieter van Laer, better
known as Bamboccio, and his like-minded northern and Italian colleagues, who depicted people, as Bellori
phrased it on the authority of Aristotle in his discourse, as "worse than ordinary," which in practice meant all
those who specialized in scenes of daily life (fig. 6).19 The followers of Pietro da Cortona are not saved by the
modest appreciation for their tutor. Nor are the expo
nents of the newer tendencies of the later Seicento, like Mattia Preti, or of the high Baroque to be found (fig. 7). Another striking example is the absence of Herman van
Swanevelt, who during his long stay in Rome (1627-39)
6 Pieter Bodding van Laer, called II Bamboccio, The cake-vendor,
1630. Rome, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica in Palazzo Barberini
(Archivio fotogr?fico Soprintendenza Sp?ciale per il Polo Museale
Romano)
7 Mattia Preti, The flight of Aeneas from Troy, c. 1630. Rome, Galleria
Nazionale d'Arte Antica in Palazzo Barberini (Archivio fotogr?fico
Soprintendenza Sp?ciale per il Polo Museale Romano)
18 G. Perini, "Una certa idea di Raffaello nel Seicento," in Borea et
al., op. cit. (note 2), vol. 1, pp. 153-61, esp. p. 158. 19 Bellori, op. cit. (note 1), p. 16: "...dipinse I peggiori." It did not
help that Pieter van Laer was a member of the Accademia di San Luca
and an acquaintance of Nicolas Poussin.
132 HANS RABEN
8 Herman van Swanevelt,
Landscape with a scene from the Old Testament, 1630.
The Hague, Museum
Bredius
acquired considerable popularity with Roman collectors
(fig. 8).20 But of course he was closely associated with
Claude Lorrain.
In some of these cases the absence of a name may have
been indicative of Bellori's distaste for some of the art in
Rome. It thus provides at least the beginning of an an
swer to my first question concerning his appreciation of
art in the city. In the absence of a clear criterion for the
exclusion of individual artists, the answer to the second
question about the arguments behind his judgment must obviously wait. His silence may have been a defen
sive tactic to avoid problems with the owners, but the
fact that he would soon take the offensive encourages us
to continue the search.
a theory of sorts In the autumn of that same year
1664 Bellori the theorist came out in the open. He vol
unteered to deliver a discourse before the Accademia di
San Luca as part of the efforts undertaken in 1663 by tne
then principe, the painter Pier Francesco Mola, to estab
lish a more literary educational schedule in the acade
my, something that Bellori must have supported whole
heartedly.21 One senses his feeling that his discourse
with the resounding title that he later gave it, "The Idea
of the painter, the sculptor and the architect, selected
from natural beauty, superior to Nature," should con
tain a substantial message.22 It seems to foreshadow the
argument, which he uses later, that there are so few ex
ceptionally good painters, because it pretends to estab
20 Van Swanevelt's work is to be found in the Doria Pamphilj and
Barberini collections, among others (22 and 35 paintings respectively). 21 In 1663 the painters Carlo Cesi and Giovanni Battista Passeri had
been appointed to speak. Passeri had this and other speeches printed; see N. Turner, "Four academy discourses by Giovanni Battista
Passeri," Storia delTArte 19 (1973), pp. 231-47.
22 Bellori's sense of self-esteem must have been well developed, for
he refused to abide by the rule that speeches to be delivered before the
Accademia had to be reviewed in advance by two members. Bellori did
not give in, the session was postponed for a week and the speech was
read by somebody else; see A. Cipriani, "Bellori ovvero VAccademia," in Borea et al., op. cit. (note 2), vol. 2, p. 481.
Bellori's art: the taste and distaste of a seventeenth-century art critic in Rome 133
lish a theoretical foundation for the selection of superior art. Bellori's reputation as a great theorist starts here.
As is well known since Panofsky's study of the con
cept of Idea in art theory, Bellori's text is a curious mix
ture of Neo-Platonist and traditional Renaissance no
tions enriched with numerous quotations from classical
authors.23 He also leans heavily on the ideas contained in
the well-known manuscript of a treatise on art theory
written at the beginning of the century by Monsignor Giovanni Battista Agucchi (1570-1632), a friend of his
patron Angeloni, who was the first to recognize the in
vigorating role of the Carracci in Roman art.24
Let us follow Bellori's line of thought in some de
tail.25 He begins by stating that the "highest and eternal
intellect constituted... the first forms called Ideas." But
while "celestial bodies" remain beautiful forever, "sub
lunar bodies," and especially human beauty, suffer from
"deformities and disproportions." That is why "noble
painters and sculptors, imitating that first maker, also
form in their minds an example of superior beauty."
Keeping this example in mind they emend nature "with
faultless color or line." This, writes Bellori, is "Idea,...
the goddess of painting and sculpture." According to
him it is "born from nature" but "it overcomes its origin and becomes the model of art."26 To clinch the argu
ment he adds that "the Idea of the painter and the sculp tor is that perfect and excellent example of the mind,"
(emphasis added) and that "Idea constitutes the perfec tion of natural beauty."27 The attentive reader (or mem
ber of the audience at that session of the Accademia di
San Luca where Bellori had his speech read out in 1664) will be forgiven if he or she is slightly puzzled by this
concept of an Idea which is first supposed to be formed
in the mind of the artist who imitates the "first maker"
and uses it to correct nature, but which at the same time
has its origin in "nature." We are expected to under
stand that there is an ideal nature next to imperfect na
ture. However, even the latter is of importance to the
artist, since half a page later our author recommends
that the artist select the Idea of the highest beauty from
different bodies, because nature cannot show perfection in one single body.28 The conclusion must be that the
author's Idea is a hybrid notion originating from the in
teraction between different sources, the exact impor
tance of the respective factors being left open.29
Perhaps it is not entirely appropriate to apply strict
Cartesian standards to Bellori's reasoning. Looking
closely at his text it becomes clear that the speech was
above all a piece of good old-fashioned rhetoric de
signed to impress upon the audience what he obviously believed to be a cardinal question for art and the artist:
the need to follow the ideal middle way between unbri
dled fantasy and the slavish copying of nature.30
There is a strong suspicion that the passages on theo
ry were dictated less by philosophical considerations
than by the orator's desire to keep his options open in
both respects: the artistic mind and sensory experience.
Stressing the role of the artist's mind might open the
23 E. Panofsky, Idea: a concept in art theory, New York 1968 (ed.
princ. 1924), pp. 105-11.
24 D. Mahon, Studies in Seicento art, London 1947, Appendix 1, pp.
241-58. Bellori quotes a small part of Agucchi's text (with modifica
tions) in his biography of Domenichino, as did his Bolognese counter
part Malvasia.
25 I have generally followed the translation given in Panofsky's
Idea, cit. (note 23), pp. 154-75, with the exception of what I consider to
be a few inaccuracies there.
26 Bellori, op. cit. (note 1), pp. 13,14: "Quel sommo ed eterno intel
letto... costitui le prime forme chiamate idee.... Ma li celesti corpi... restarono sempre belli.... Al contrario avviene de'corpi sublunari
soggetti... alla brutezza... e particolarmente l'umana bellezza si con
fonde... li nobili pittori e scultori quel primo fabbro imitando, si for
mano anch'essi nella mente un esempio di bellezza superiore, ed in esso
riguardando, emendano la natura senza colpa di colore e di lineamento.
Questa idea, overo dea della pittura... originata dalla natura supera l'o
rigine e fassi originale delfarte." The translation cannot render the pun in the Italian text of "Idea" being the "dea della pittura." Bellori, like
the good rhetorician he must have been, continues his word play in the
next paragraph. 27 Bellori, op. cit. (note 1), p. 14: "Idea del pittore e dello scultore ?
quel perfetto ed eccellente esempio della mente.... Cosi l'idea costitu
isce il perfetto della bellezza naturale."
28 This is, of course, the famous topos of Zeuxis who, when he want
ed to paint the portrait of the beautiful Helena, had to select separate details of perfect beauty from five different maidens of Crot?n. See
Bellori, op. cit. (note 1), p. 15, and Panofsky, op. cit. (note 23), p. 157.
29 The judgment of E. Cropper, "L'Idea di Bellori," in Borea et al.,
op. cit. (note 2), vol. 1, p. 82, that "one of Bellori's conspicuous contri
butions to the debate on esthetics is the fact that he derives the Idea nei
ther from nature, nor from God, but from the mind of the artist," seems to be based on the first part of Bellori's analysis only. As such it is
of course not incorrect, but in my view it does not reflect the exact na
ture of Bellori's thinking. As for the originality of his theory, see the
next paragraph.
30 Bellori's rhetorical qualities have been highlighted, among others
by E. Cropper, The ideal of painting: Pietro Testa 's D?sseldorf notebook, Princeton 1984, pp. 169,170.
134 HANS RABEN
door to the artificial inventions of those who, as he said,
do not know truth, and by resorting entirely to their
technical routine create "specters instead of shapes." It
is generally assumed that here he is referring to the fol
lowers of Mannerism. On the other hand, overempha
sizing the importance of observing nature could lead to
an anti-intellectual approach to art as practiced by the
"Naturalists," who, according to the speaker, "satisfy
themselves with ugliness and errors."31 So in the
process of this balancing act, the lack of clarity of the ar
gument was obviously deemed less important as long as
the orator's main point was made clear, namely that art,
if correctly conceived, is superior to nature, and that
this kind of art was under constant threat from both too
much and too little respect for nature.32 The fact that he
could or would not define the borderline more precisely allowed him considerable freedom to accept or reject
paintings whose qualities might place them on either
side, as he did in the Nota. This somewhat opportunis tic practice does not make our search for the arguments
behind his judgment any easier.
Bellori's rhetorical qualities have long been recog nized. Curiously, they have hardly been considered in
connection with his theoretical discourse. The theoreti
cal principles which he needed for his rhetorical perfor mance have a strong sense of d?j? vu. His wrestling with
the dichotomy between the mind picture of the painter and the imitation of nature as the combined sources of
supreme beauty reflects a problem for art theory that
had been around since the Renaissance. When Previtali
wrote that Bellori "dusted off the old theory of Idea, he was probably very near the mark.33 The Idea was one of
those notions with a long history in theoretical discus
sions, as Panofsky has demonstrated, referring among
others to a number of sixteenth-century authors, such as
the painter Giovanni Battista Armenini, and even earli
er the sculptor Vincenzo Danti.34 They develop the same traditional notions, like the intended perfection of
nature and the imperfections of matter, the role of the
artist's mind in improving upon visual reality, and the
selection of the best parts.35
THE ART OF DESCRIBING ART Bellori's discourse, which hardly contains any names of artists, provides
only scant information on how he viewed the art of
Rome. Apart from the indications that we found in his
Nota, his judgment of actual works of art must be found
elsewhere, primarily in his Vite published in 1672.36
Only nine painters were admitted in his selection, with
the argument that there are too few excellent artists.
That argument, in combination with the subsequent in
sertion of his academy discourse in the Vite, seems to
suggest that here at last we might find the result of a se
lection on the basis of theoretical criteria. As the publi cation contains almost 200 descriptions of paintings it
constitutes an extremely valuable source of information
to check Bellori's critical standards.37 When examining
them for indications of his views it is important to keep in mind that he began composing a series of artist's bi
ographies some time in the 1640s. It is only to be expect
ed that his ideas will have evolved during this long process of preparation.
We shall, first, examine the notions he uses to indi
cate the qualities of the paintings he describes and, next,
31 Bellori, op. cit. (note i), pp. 21, 22: "Quelli che si gloriano del
nome di naturalisa;" see also Panofsky, op. cit. (note 23), p. 168. Bellori
invokes the authority of Aristotle and Pliny for his condemnation of the
"Naturalists." However, his interpretation of his sources differs con
siderably from what they really say; cf. E. Borea in Bellori, p. 16, note
3. Neither the Dionysius mentioned by Aristotle (Po?tica II, 2) nor the
one (probably not the same) found in Pliny (Naturalis historia XXXV,
113, 148), are in any way criticized by their authors for being naturalis
tic. The same applies to Piraeicus; see Pliny, Naturalis historia xxxv, 112: "celebre... in penicillo" ("famous for [his] brush").
32 As Panofsky, op. cit., (note 23), p. 84, has written: "During the
Renaissance the Idea concept had helped to conceal the gap between
mind and nature."
33 Previtali, op. cit. (note 7), p. xxxvm: "Bellori... rispolver? la teo
ria dell'Idea nella sua formulazione rinascimentale"; see also Borea et
al., op. cit. (note 2), p. 169.
34 Panofsky, op. cit. (note 23), p. 228, note 31; Giovanni Battista
Armenini, De' veri precetti della pittura, ed. Marina Gorreri, Turin
1988 (ed. princ. Mantua 1586); Vincenzo Danti, IIprimo libro del trat
tato delle perfette proporziuni di tutte le cose che imitare, e ritrarre si pos sano con Farte deldisegno, in P. Barocchi (ed.), Trattati d'arte del Cinque cento, 3 vols., Bari 1960-62 (ed. princ. Florence 1567), vol. 1, pp.
215-67. Bellori owned both books; see G. Perini, "La biblioteca di Bel
lori," in Borea et al., op. cit. (note 2), vol. 2, p. 675.
35 See, for instance, Armenini, op. cit. (note 34), p. 156, and Danti,
op. cit. (note 34), pp. 240, 264, 265.
36 For practical reasons we shall limit ourselves to the biographies of the painters in his selection.
37 In the present context my analysis of Bellori's descriptions is lim
ited to the search for his aesthetic response. His descriptive technique, its sources, and the comparison with other authors has been dealt with
extensively in G. Perini, "L'arte di descrivere: la t?cnica dell' ecfrasi in
Malvasia e Bellori," / Tatti studies: essays in the Renaissance 3 (1989),
pp. 175-206. See also Cropper, op. cit. (note 30), p. 170.
Bellori's art: the taste and distaste of a seventeenth-century art critic in Rome 135
analyze some of the biographies which contain the most
outspoken comments.
In view of the fact that some authors recognize a
strong theoretical foundation in the biographies one
must ask what that foundation is.38 As we have seen,
Bellori's pivotal theoretical concept of Idea can hardly be considered a well-defined philosophical notion. Its
vagueness might of course be an advantage in that it
lends itself to greatly varying applications. Neverthe
less, the analysis of Bellori's texts shows that he uses it
rather sparingly.39 And when he refers to it, the original
meaning as the supreme mental image in the artist's
mind which he needs to correct the defaults of nature
subtly changes into a variable quality. It can be not only "beautiful" or "noble," but also "routine," "poor" and
even "ugly."40 It may be obtained secondhand as the
"idea of Correggio" or Raphael, or the "idea of an an
tique marble."41 Also the dividing line between the ideal
mental image and its practical counterpart, conceit (con
cetto), that is to say the translation of an idea into the de
sign of a painting, tends to become blurred.42 In this re
spect Bellori does not distinguish himself from earlier
authors. There is little trace in his writings of a strong theoretical basis such as he expounded in his academy
speech.
Insofar as he felt that he needed theoretical concepts to indicate the quality of the paintings he describes, he
fell back mainly on those time-honored notions that
form part of the doctrine of Ut pictura poesis: invention
(invenzione), conceit (concetto), expression (espressione), emotions (affetti), decorum (decoro) and variety (vari
et?).43 These notions belong of course to the standard
armory of Cinquecento and Seicento writers on art, but
even their more frequent use does not necessarily mean
that they constitute Bellori's critical standards. Their use is just as unevenly spread among the painters in the
Vite.44 All this means that his criticisms?including his
selection of the 12 protagonists?depended on a wide
variety of criteria other than those found in his academy discourse.
A third category of terms, without reference to theo
retical notions, suggest a more subjective appreciation of paintings. It comprises all those expressions like
beauty (bellezza) and its near-synonyms loveliness
(venusta) and charm (vaghezza), which?as opposed to
Idea?appear frequently. They rarely serve to indicate
more than general praise for an artist or his oeuvre; still,
in four types of passage these words refer to a specific
quality of paintings: the "beauty" or "charm" of variety, the "beauty" and sometimes also the "elegance" and the
"pure style" of the folds in a garment, the "loveliness"
of the expression of heads, and the "charm" of exotic
dress.45
These findings seem to confirm the impression that,
38 See especially the contributions of Elizabeth Cropper and Clau
dio Strinati in Borea et al., op. cit. (note 2).
39 Only in the later biography of Guido Reni does it appear more
frequently (ten times), less often in those of Annibale Carracci (seven) and Carlo Maratti (six), and only twice in Domenichino's and once in
Poussin's biography. Even his boundless admiration for Raphael does
not seem to depend primarily on Idea. The word occurs only three
times in the 63 pages of his description of the Vatican Stanze, De
scrizzione delle imagini dipinte da Rafaelle d'Urbino nelle camere del
Palazzo Apost?lico Vaticano, Rome 1695. See Barocchi et al, op. cit.
(note 4).
40 Dionysius Calvaert, Reni's first teacher, was a painter "with a
routine idea" ("idea pratica"), see Bellori, op. cit. (note 1), p. 488.
Raphael's detractors accuse him of having "the poor idea of a potter"
("umile idea d'un vasaio," p. 633); Reni recognizes the existence of an
"idea of ugliness" ("idea della brutezza," p. 530).
41 Ibid., p. 385: "...seguitando ancora l'idea del Correggio," p. 496: "...ne' quali dipinti Guido seguit? l'istessa idea di Rafaelle nel quadro di Bologna," and p. 68: "In questa imagine raramente condotta Anni
bale seguit? l'idea d'un marmo antico."
42 The notion of concetto is not immune to confusion either, as we
read in Poussin's biography that the painter "prevailed in the conceit
(concetto) of such a noble and novel design (invenzione)," ibid., p. 463.
This passage concerns two paintings ordered by Cardinal Giulio
Rospigliosi, Time and truth and Et in Arcadia ego.
43 As against some 30 references to Idea, one-third of which are
found in the Vita of Guido Reni, the other notions occur about 200
times (with thanks to Barocchi et al., op. cit. (note 4).
44 More than half of the total number of references to invention is
found in the three Vite of Annibale Carracci, Domenichino and Carlo
Maratti. The proportion for the emotions and expression is more than
two-thirds in the same Vite, with the addition of that of Nicolas
Poussin.
45 Cf. the following examples, Bellori, op. cit. (note 1), p. 58: "...ve
dendosi il tutto con istupenda variet? disposto talmente che nella simil
itudine le cose sono dissimili, e sempre si cangiono alia bellezza"
("...when one sees the whole arranged with stupendous variety [i.e. of
the ornaments in the frieze of the Galleria Farnese], in such a way that
in their similarity they are dissimilar and transform themselves into
beauty"), p. 62: "S'accresce la vaghezza nella variet? del atto" ("...the charm of the variety of attitude"), pp. 267 and 556: "...venusta dell' aria
d?lie teste" ("...the loveliness of the expression of heads"), and p. 274: "...accrescendo con la vaghezza de gli abiti peregrine la bellezza de' ri
tratti" ("...increasing the beauty of the portraits by the charm of exotic
dress").
136 HANS RABEN
for Bellori, his art theory carried little weight as a critical
instrument. We will test this conclusion with a careful
reading of two of the best thought-out biographies, those of Annibale Carracci and Caravaggio.
annibale and the FARNESE puzzle Annibale Car
racci's biography, the sonorous opening movement of
Bellori's composition, provides us with interesting but
also contradictory indications of his approach to artists
and their works. We are immediately confronted with one of his fundamental themes, the role of Annibale as
the savior of the art of painting, which since Raphael had sunk into a deplorable state of decline.46 Caravaggio and the Cavali?re d'Arpino are introduced as dangerous elements whose pernicious influence Bellori's hero had
to overcome, but nowhere does our critic mention any
other names of painters, Mannerist or otherwise, who
were guilty of causing the decline of painting.47 In Bellori's view, Annibale's oeuvre has no weak
spots, but, being presented as the personification of Ro man supremacy in the arts, the artist had to come to
Rome to produce his best works with the examples of
Raphael and antiquity before his eyes. The climax of his
activity is to be found in the frescoes of the Palazzo Far
nese, to which the bulk of Bellori's description is devot
ed. As he wrote in his Nota, these frescoes were "one of
the wonders of the world." But when we read his de
scription we are expected to believe that this miracle
consists purely in a moralistic Neo-Platonist allegory rather than in its pictorial qualities.48 Even where colors are referred to, their signification is mostly allegorical.49
9 Annibale Carracci, Jupiter and Juno, c. 1600. Rome, Palazzo Farnese
(Ambassade de France)
46 The idea of the degeneration of sixteenth-century painting was
of course far from new. It is already to be found, with fewer rhetorical
flourishes in, among others, Armenini, op. cit. (note 34), pp. 21-22, and
Agucchi, Mahon, op. cit. (note 24), p. 247.
47 L. Spezzaferro, "Caravaggio," in Borea et al., op. cit. (note 2), vol. 2, pp. 271-82, esp. p. 272, has labeled as a rhetorical artifice Bel
lori's use of Caravaggio and the Cavali?re d'Arpi?o in the role of oppo sites of the saving genius. As for the absence of names of painters of the
Mannerist period, it is also remarkable that no critical observations are
found in Bellori's spontaneous and often critical marginal notes in his
copy of Baglione's book of biographies, Baglione, op. cit. (note 13). In
"Gli onori della pittura, e scoltura," his speech at the prize-giving cere
mony in the Accademia di San Luca in 1678 he called that other post
Raphaelite, Pellegrino Tibaldi a "most excellent artist;" see Barocchi et
al., op. cit. (note 4), p. ni. There he mentions him together with all
other illustrious examples like Raphael, Titian, Michelangelo and
Rubens.
48 See, for instance, Bellori, op. cit. (note 1), pp. 60-61,76-77. Even
then, Bellori's moralistic interpretation is in some respects probably in
correct. On the interpretation of the frescoes see C. Dempsey, "Et nos
cedamus amori," The Art Bulletin 50 (1968), pp. 363-74. See also the
comments of M. Fumaroli, "La Galeria di Marino et la Galerie
Farn?se," in idem, L'Ecole du silence: le sentiment des images au XVIle
si?cle, Paris 1998, pp. 49-69, esp. p. 68, who in the context of a detailed
analysis of the socio-cultural environment sees in the paintings a ten
dency to devalue pagan mythology without accepting, however, an al
legorical system that could be deciphered in a moral and mystical sense.
49 In the description of Hercules at the crossroads in the Camerino
Farnese, the red mantle of virtue and the blue tunic are "signs of divine
valor" ("...sono contrasegni di valor divino"), and the yellow robe of
the woman representing voluptuousness "reminds us that its delights
dry up like grass and dwindle like straw" ("...ci ammonisce ch'I suoi
diletti si seccano in herba, e che svaniscono come la paglia"); see Bel
lori, op. cit. (note 1), pp. 48-49. One of the rare exceptions is the so
called Galatea fresco by Agostino Carracci, which he calls "delicately colored" ("...colorita delicamente"), p. 67.
Bellori's art: the taste and distaste of a seventeenth-century art critic in Rome 137
As several authors have noted, Bellori almost complete
ly disregards the most obvious qualities of the paintings, their full-blooded naturalism and sensual accents, their
subtle humor and slightly disrespectful look at mytho
logical figures (fig. 9). Recognizing that Bellori was al
ways preoccupied with the literary interpretation of
paintings and that allegorical elements formed an essen
tial part of almost any pictorial representation in his day, we must still wonder what his reasons may have been for
this formalistic approach to one of the high points of
modern Roman painting.50 What looks like a justifica
tion, in the introduction to the paintings of the Galleria, that their beauty "requires an attentive and intelligent
spectator whose judgment does not depend on what he
sees but on his intellect" is not much more than a stock
phrase of a Seicento intellectual; it should not necessari
ly exclude a real appreciation of the intrinsic qualities of
the paintings.51
Only here and there do we find a sign in the text that
he really admired the paintings in the Palazzo Farnese
for more than their allegorical quality. When he winds
up his discussion of the Galleria Farnese he revels, al
beit only in general terms, in the expression of the senti
ments in numerous figures, the draping and the lifelike
nudes with which Annibale (supreme praise!) equaled the beauties of Greek art. There are even (very modest) indications of a more personal reaction to the pictorial values of the paintings. The figure of Bacchus in the
central ceiling fresco of the Galleria is called "delicate
and soft" and it has a "very beautiful nude body."52 A
really "painterly" quality is ascribed to the mock stucco
figures, which "show a relief transfused with air and a
very soft light."53 He refuses, however, to notice any
"sentimental" detail, even as an expression of the emo
tions (affetti) of the figures depicted, as he does else
where, for instance in the case of Annibale's impressive late Piet?. There he praises the painter because he "de
picted with great expressiveness a little angel who
touches one of the thorns of the crown with his finger and suffers pain from the prick."54
Bellori the critic does not easily give himself away. If
we look for a motive for his extremely reductive inter
pretation of this "wonder of the world" we might sup
pose that he simply thought that Cardinal Odoardo, by
exposing such lusty scenes in a manifestly public space like the Galleria, did not sufficiently observe the rules of
decorum.55 But perhaps the explanation is more compli
cated, even political. By the time he completed his life of
Annibale he was already involved in his campaign for
the recognition of Rome's supremacy in the arts, espe
cially vis-?-vis his French friends. He needed the fres coes of the Galleria Farnese as the convincing proof of
the unique virtues of the Carracci as the successors to
Raphael, and indeed as saviors of modern painting.
Taking into account that the French official view was far more prudish than his own, and certainly than the Car
racci's, this meant that he could not afford to weaken his
proud statements by the risk of possible criticisms as to
the propriety of the frescoes. He may also have had re
gard to the fact that the palace housed the French em
bassy (as it does today). His solution was as deft as it was
intellectually satisfactory: to propose a learned and al most irrefutable interpretation. The skills of the
rhetorician were put to excellent use, but they hardly
help us to find an answer to our questions about his own
taste and distaste. At least one thing is certain: he did
not claim their superiority on the basis of theoretical
considerations. Our search for his criteria must continue.
50 His accompanying texts to Carlo Cesi's series of engravings after
the same Farnese paintings presented an interpretation that was just as
literary. The same is true of the Latin captions that he wrote in 1677 for
Pietro Aquila's series of engravings of the gallery, Galeriae Farnesianae
icones... a Petro Aquila delineatae e incisae, Rome 1677. Both texts in
Barocchi et al., op. cit. (note 4).
51 Bellori, op. cit. (note 1), p. 56: "...la loro forma richiede spetta tore atiento, ed ingegnoso, il cui giudicio non risiede nella vista, ma
neU'intelletto."
52 Ibid., p. 61: "...egli ? si delicato, e molle," and "...non toglie alla
vista parte alcuna del bellissimo corpo ignudo."
53 Ibid., 56: "...s'avanzano con un rilievo trasfuso d'aria, e di lume
dolcissimo."
54 Ibid., p. 100: "Fecevi con molta espressione, un Angioletto che
tocca col dito una spina della corona, e duolsi della puntura."
55 According to R. Zapperi, "L'ignudo e il vestito," in Briganti et al.
(eds.), Gli amori degli dei, Rome 1987, pp. 43-68, Cardinal Odoardo
Farnese supposedly defied the oppressive policy of the bigoted Clement vm by sponsoring the paintings of the Galleria. The word
decoro, which has a wide range of connotations, does not appear once in
Annibale's biography, not even when Bellori mentions the artist's lack
of care for his outward appearance or, in the case of Agostino Carracci, his series of erotic prints (for which the artist was severely rebuked by Clement vm). Those prints, known as the Lascivie, are euphemistically listed in the Vite under Agostino's "prints of his own invention"
("stampe d'inventione") as "a booklet with playful scenes of nude
women, 16 in number" ("Un libretto di scherzo di Donne ignude nu
mero 16"); see Bellori, op. cit. (note 1), p. 129.
13? HANS RABEN
io Annibale Carracci (with Innocenzo Tacconi), Sleeping Venus with cupids, 1600/01. Chantilly, Mus?e Cond?
(Photo RMN/? Ren?-Gabriel Oj?da)
a test case Bellori may have considered his exceed
ingly dry interpretation of Annibale's masterwork the
only approach open to him, given its location and his own objectives. That he was able to judge Annibale in a
quite different manner is shown by his extensive de
scription of a painting to which he devotes a separate
chapter?Annibale's Sleeping Venus, also painted for
Odoardo Farnese (fig. 10).56 He gives the key to this dif
ference, calling the work "memorable because of the
lightheartedness (scherzo) of its subject."57 Bellori's taste for scherzi will be discussed later. Here that little
phrase deserves our particular attention because it justi
fies his sudden abandonment of his preceding heavy handed declarations. It leads us to expect that because of
the character of this work he allows his aesthetic re
sponse to go beyond an iconographie analysis. It con
firms that he considered this kind of response out of
place when he discussed the paintings in the gallery. His
text is especially interesting because it can be compared to the well-known description of the same painting that
Monsignor Giovanni Battista Agucchi had written 60
years earlier.58 Bellori's text is much shorter and al
though, unlike Agucchi, he is more reticent about the
physical details of Venus's beauties, he does venture
56 Bellori, op. cit. (note i), pp. 101-03. It is generally recognized that Annibale's disciple Innocenzo Tacconi is at least responsible for
large parts of the painting in the Mus?e Cond?, assuming that it is not a
copy after the lost original; see S. Ginzburg Carignani, Annibale Car
racci a Roma: gli affreschi di Palazzo Farnese, Rome 2000, pp. 156-59.
57 Bellori, op. cit. (note 1), p. 101: "...per lo scherzo dell'inventione
? degna di memoria."
58 For Agucchi's description see Carlo Cesare Malvasia, Felsina
Pittrice, ed. G. Zanotti, Bologna 1841 (ed. princ. Bologna 1678), pp.
360-67. It is not clear whether Bellori knew the text, although he was
well aware of other writings by Agucchi, whom he mentions several
times in the Vite. For the background of Agucchi's descriptive tech
nique see Perini, op. cit. (note 37), p. 184.
Bellori's art: the taste and distaste of a seventeenth-century art critic in Rome 139
several remarks on the different charms of her body.59
Always the literary man, he does not of course let him
self get carried away by these sensations. He takes shel
ter, as it were, behind one of his constant rhetorical the
ses, that painting is more worthy of admiration than
poetry, and ends his description on a philosophical note,
quoting the last line of a sonnet by Petrarch "what de
lights the world is a brief dream."60 One wonders whether he also thought of the other lines of the poem in
which the poet, who has become a different man, laments his youthful errors.
The difference between Bellori's and Agucchi's texts
has often been commented upon. For our purpose, the
common elements are more interesting. Bellori does not
wholeheartedly follow the learned Agucchi, who seems
to have looked upon the painting as a feast for the sens
es, but he does recognize some of the qualities he stu
diously ignored in the frescoes of the Galleria Farnese.
Obviously he needed to define this painting as a scherzo first in order to justify his freedom to enjoy details other
than iconographical ones and the virtual absence of
moralizing. It is impossible to establish to what extent it was a dogmatic distinction between different kinds of
painting or indeed, as I surmised, political judgment. In
any case it lifts a corner of the veil with which he cov
ered his personal appreciation of the art of the Carracci in the Galleria.
THE LIMITS OF LIGHTHEARTEDNESS He Called the
Sleeping Venus a scherzo, a term he employs not infre
quently in various biographies to denote playful details or even a complete painting with a lighthearted sub
ject.61 The literary origin of the scherzo must have ap
pealed to Bellori, especially because of the possibility to
attribute an allegorical significance to such conceits.
Bellori was not a man to miss an opportunity to instruct
his public.62 For the same reason, though, we should
give particular weight to the absence of any interpreta tive remarks in many places where he deals with scherzante details. These show that in those cases Bellori
must have been primarily amused by the simple literary aspect of the narrative content of such scenes. Thus his
description of Annibale's St Roch giving alms (1595; Dresden, Gem?ldegalerie) contains an appreciative re
mark on "the charming detail [scherzo] of a father... who
keeps an eye on his little son who puts one hand on his
leg and with the other shows him a gold coin in his open
fist," and also on "a little boy who in his childish way lifts his little shirt and catches the alms with it."63 He also takes pleasure in the inclusion of three little boys
eating apples in Domenichino's frescoes of the Four car
dinal virtues in San Carlo ai Catinari. Likewise he en
joyed the several 'low-life' elements in St Cecilia giving alms by the same artist in San Luigi dei Francesi: fight ing boys, a mother boxing the ears of her little son, and even the secondhand clothes dealer signaling the price of the saint's gifts.64 Here, at least, the only hint of a ref
erence to a non-pictorial criterion may be his comment
that it was painted "with proper sentiments." Another even more characteristic example is his description in
the biography of Domenichino, of various almost hilari ous incidents in the frescoes depicting the miracles of St
Nilo: a horse that has lost its balance, two peasants hit
ting a mule on the head and pulling its tail, another mule that has collapsed under its load, and an ox-driver beat
ing his animals.65 Bellori calls these figures a "jest" (scherzo) with which the painter animated his scenes. He seems to have liked them, as did Roman patrons.
If we believe that it needs a story to amuse a literary man, it is wise to remember that he also expressed him
self in warm terms on the landscapes and vistas of Anni
bale Carracci, Domenichino, Van Dyck and Poussin,
59 Agucchi devotes a quarter of his rapturous description to a de
tailed analysis of Venus's beauties in a way that seems even to have shocked a modern commentator like Denis Mahon, who found "some
passages bordering on the risqu?,'" see D. Mahon, Studies in Seicento
art, London 1947, p. 149. 60 Petrarch, IIcanzoniere, sonnet 1: "...che quanto piace al mondo ?
breve sogno." 61 Bellori employs the term some 30 times, especially in the biogra
phies of Annibale, Barocci and Domenichino. 62 Thus A. Colantuono, "Scherzo: hidden meaning, genre and
generic criticism in Bellori's Lives, "in Bell and Willette, op. cit. (note
2), PP. 239-56.
63 Bellori, op. cit. (note 1), p. 41: "...un padre, che... con vago scher zo attende ad un figliuolino, che li pone una mana su la gamba, e lieto con l'altra gli mostra uno scudo d'oro col pugno aperto," "un bambino, che puerilmente alza la camiciuola, e vi raccoglie dentro l'elemosina," "scherzo Domenico con propriet? d'affetti." Bellori knew this paint
ing, which was in Reggio Emilia, from the etching by Guido Reni to
which he himself refers.
64 Ibid., p. 326.
65 Ibid., pp. 313-15. The frescoes are in the Cappella dei Santi
Fondatori in Grottaferrata.
140 HANS RABEN
several of which contain nothing that resembles an isto
ria.66 We are forced to conclude that his tastes were
more catholic than we may sometimes have expected.
caravaggio Caravaggio's Vita is an essential object of
our examination for several reasons. His shadow looms
large at the beginning of Annibale's Vita. As we have
seen, Bellori needed him there in one of his rhetorical
episodes to demonstrate how "painting approached its
end" and was saved by Annibale, just as he used the
artist in his academy discourse. He had already praised
Caravaggio's Supper at Emmaus in his Nota on Roman
collections. When he now deals with Caravaggio's oeu
vre in his biography we find that he expresses not a little
appreciation for a considerable number of works. His
early paintings are considered "delicate, pure and with
out those shadows that he used later."6"7 He adds a flat
tering comparison with Giorgione. There is even a word
of praise for the still lifes with carafes, flowers and fruit
that he is supposed to have painted when he was em
ployed in the workshop of the Cavali?re d'Arpino. In
several cases of paintings outside Rome, he mentions
their favorable reception. He appreciates the Penitent
Magdalen (1594/95; Rome, Galleria Doria Pamphilj) for its "pure, uncomplicated and true color" and the
"simplicity of the whole figure," although she is also
used to illustrate Caravaggio's habit of picking up his
models from the street.68 The angel in the Rest on the
flight to Egypt (1595/96; Rome, Galleria Doria Pam
philj) is called "very beautiful," the Entombment of Christ (1602-04, Vatican, Pinacoteca Vaticana), though
not an early painting, is "among his best works," and the
two versions of the Supper at Emmaus (c. 1601; London,
National Gallery, and 1606; Milan, Brera), although different in coloring, merit praise for their "rendering of
natural color."69 In this case, however, the moralist
added one of his critical asides; they are deficient in
terms of decorum, "as Mich?le often lapses into lowly and vulgar forms." Nevertheless the list of praise of in
dividual paintings could easily be doubled.
Although outspoken criticism of individual works is
not entirely lacking, it concerns only eight paintings out
of the more than fifty that Bellori discusses: lack of
decorum, including the representation of grapes, figs and pomegranates "out of season," and the cap of the
innkeeper in the Supper at Emmaus, lack of action, and
two cursory remarks on composition and lack of ac
tion.70 Otherwise his critical remarks (some 11 in all) are
mostly couched in general terms. They concern the
artist's naturalism and his dependence on models, his
disregard for antique statues and Raphael, and above all
his use of heavy shadows in his later paintings.71 Only at
the end of the Vita does Bellori abruptly burst out with
one of his familiar philippics: "he had neither inspira
tion, nor decorum, or design or knowledge whatsoever
of the principles of painting" and he started the repre sentation of lowly subjects.72 It needed Annibale Car
racci, he writes, to illuminate people's minds. Then, at
the very end there is again this dispassionate statement
that Caravaggio's pictures are highly appreciated wher
ever there is regard for painting.
This apparent contradiction suggests that Bellori had a problem in sorting out his reasons for his appreciation
and his criticism of the artist. Caravaggio's Vita was in
all probability first drafted at a very early stage.73 It is ev
ident that Bellori admired the painter's works in those
years. The famous poem Alia pittura that he contributed
to Giovanni Baglione's Le vite del pittori of 1642 (and that he later repudiated in the marginal notes in his copy of Baglione's book) contains more lines of profuse praise
66 In some 15 passages Bellori calls landscapes by various painters
"very beautiful." For his landscapes Annibale Carracci is called "un
surpassed, except by Titian" ("...h? superato ogn'altro, eccettuando
Titiano"), and Poussin deserves "great praise for the excellence of his
landscapes" ("Si deve gran lode ? Nicol? nelPeccellenza de'paesi"); see
ibid., pp. 98 and 471 respectively.
67 Ibid., p. 213: "...dolci, schiette, e senza quelle ombre, che egli uso
poi." 68 Ibid., p. 215: "...una tinta pura, facile, e vera, accompagnata dalla
semplicit? di tutta la figura."
69 Ibid., pp. 221: "...ben tra le megliori opere, che uscissero dal pen nello di Mich?le," 215: "...e PAngelo ? bellissimo," 223: "...alia lode
delPimitatione del colore naturale... degenerando spesso Mich?le nelle
forme humili, e vulgari."
70 Ibid., p. 231: "...vi assiste l'Hoste con la cuffia in capo, e nella
mensa vi ? un piatto d'uve, fichi, melagrane, fuori di Stagione."
71 Even then, his remarks on Caravaggio's use of light and color
lend themselves to different interpretations, cf. Spezzaferro, op. cit.
(note 47), pp. 271-74.
72 Bellori, op. cit. (note 1), p. 230: "...non erano in lui, ne inven
tione, ne decoro, ne disegno, ne scienza alcuna della pittura."
73 See Borea's report of the recent discovery of a letter of 1645 in E.
Borea, "Bellori 1645: una lettera a Francesco Albani e la biograf?a di
Caravaggio," Prospettiva: Rivista di Storia delVArte Antica e Moderna
100 (2000), pp. 57-69.
Bellori's art: the taste and distaste of a seventeenth-century art critic in Rome 141
for this painter than are devoted to the Carracci.74 He
deals with the pictorial qualities of Caravaggio's works
to a far greater extent than he does in the biography of
Annibale Carracci. Problems of light and color feature
repeatedly in remarks that do not necessarily reflect a
negative attitude; they might well reflect at least a hesi
tant interest in the artist's experimental technique.75
Most of Bellori's initial appreciation survived in the
1672 version of the biography, but since the days when
Bellori wrote his ode to painting, both he and the condi
tions under which he operated had changed.76 It is im
portant to bear in mind that as the years went by his crit
ical views were dominated more and more by his
objective of maintaining the supremacy of Italian, that
is, Roman art. To reconcile this with his increasing
propensity to ally himself with the French he must have
recognized that it was imperative to adapt his original text. Maybe he did not find this too difficult, because his
own views about the painter may well have become less
favorable over the years, although he maintained his
words of praise for specific paintings. In any case, Cara
vaggio was a much less likely champion to reinforce the
cause of Rome in view of the predominant Classicism in
the French Academy and of the fact that Caravaggio's art had consistently been deprecated in France over sev
eral decades.77 Annibale, whose reputation he consis
tently molded into that of Raphael's modern equivalent,
provided by far the best chances to demonstrate the
artistic supremacy of Rome. Caravaggio served to give
maximum effect to the entrance of Annibale on the Ro
man art scene in the 1590s.
In its present form, important parts of Caravaggio's
Vita still show us a Bellori who had not yet lost all of his
spontaneous appreciation for that complicated artist, al
though his own conservatism had grown over the years,
and political and opportunistic considerations were
starting to influence his stand.78 Just as he may have
thought it expedient to propose a stilted interpretation of the Farnese frescoes, he would have felt that his orig inal appreciation for works by Caravaggio had to be
wrapped up in ideological reservations. Insofar as theo
ry was involved, it was limited to the requirement of his
tory painting and decorum. That is a far cry from the se
vere judgments in his academy discourse.
color and light Just as Annibale Carracci's Vita
gave rise to questions about the role o? scherzo and other
narrative elements in Bellori's appreciation of painting, his interest in Caravaggio's use of light and color leads to an examination of the importance of these qualities for his aesthetic views. In this biography he betrays an
awareness of pictorial qualities that goes beyond his pre dominant literary interest. In other biographies howev
er, notwithstanding hundreds of passages in which he
refers to light and color, they only very rarely serve to il
lustrate a painting's pictorial qualities or an artist's par
ticular stylistic characteristics.79 The few exceptions,
however, Poussin's Triumph of David and The Eucharist, Andrea Sacchi's Vision of St Romuald, and Federico
Barocci's Last Supper, betray a real, if only sparingly
demonstrated sensibility to other than graphic and nar
rative values.80 Whatever theoretical notions he may
74 For Alla pittura see Barocchi et al., op. cit. (note 4). Even if the
occasional nature of this poem would not justify a too literal interpreta tion of its intentions, I see no other reason than genuine admiration as
to why Bellori should extol the virtues of Caravaggio more than those
of Carracci, certainly not as a kindness to Baglione, who was far from
being a friend of the painter.
75 For a more far-reaching interpretation see Spezzaferro, op. cit.
(note 47), p. 272.
76 Previtali, op. cit. (note 7), p. xxn, sought the cause of his change of mind in his contact with Poussin, who is reported to have disliked
Caravaggio's art profoundly; see also Borea et al, op. cit. (note 2), p.
165. Spezzaferro, op. cit. (note 47), p. 272, on the other hand, considers
that Bellori's appraisal of the artist is a curious mixture of admiration, half-hidden theoretical considerations, "petit-bourgeois" prejudice and political objectives.
77 See C. Goldstein, "Forms and formulas: attitudes towards Cara
vaggio in seventeenth-century France," Art Quarterly 34 (1971), pp.
345-54
78 Borea, op. cit. (note 73), p. 65, does not mince her words in stat
ing that when he adapted his text Bellori was "emotionally inhibited by a mixture of moral, theoretical, political and opportunistic prejudices"
(" ...emotivamente frenato per forza di pregiudizi morali, teorici,
politici, opportunistici").
79 It is obvious that I cannot share Cropper's view, who feels that
Bellori paid as much attention to the analysis of color and light as to the
action portrayed; see E. Cropper, "La pi? bella antichit?: history and
style in Bellori's Lives", in P. Ganz et al. (eds.), Kunst und Kunsttheorie
1400-1900, Wiesbaden 1991, pp. 145-73, esP- P- IQ8. The references to
color are very unevenly spread among the biographies; approximately two-thirds of them are to be found in the Vite of Annibale Carracci,
Domenichino and Carlo Maratti. It also seems significant that three
quarters of the passages where a specific color is mentioned do not con
cern coloring as part of the stylistic qualities of the painting in question, but are about the draperies of the figures.
80 Bellori, op. cit. (note 1), pp. 468,432, 549 and 197 respectively.
142 HANS RABEN
have adhered to, they do not enter into this particular
aspect of his art criticism.
an uneasy crusader Bellori's major antiquarian
works appeared in the last 20 years of his life. Writings on painting were limited to several texts devoted to
Raphael. That burst of writing on Raphael in the 1690s has a frantic quality. He appears to have been exasperat
ed by the way a younger generation failed to respect that
artist, whom he not only regarded as the icon of Roman
art but who was also a cornerstone of his thesis of Ro
man supremacy in the arts. Moreover, his strategy of
maintaining a close partnership with France based on
the understanding that Rome remained the original source of high art did not seem to bear the fruit he must
have expected. France and its "machine ? gloire" of
Louis xiv operated by Colbert and his successors were
not ready to recognize Roman leadership in art.81 The
relations of France with Rome, in art as well in politics,
were riddled with more or less serious incidents in this
period.82 He may at one time have imagined that the
good old days of Fran?ois 1 had returned, as he seems to
suggest in an unexpected aside in Poussin's Vita, but he
cannot have been insensitive to increasing signs of
French disregard for Italian art.83 His last texts on
painting seem to indicate that he was up in arms to de
fend his ideal. One was his pamphlet devoted to Marat
ti's Daphne transformed into a laurel tree, the other his
description of the Raphael Stanze.84
Carlo Maratti's painting had an unhappy fate that re
veals the change in French appreciation. Bellori dis
cusses the picture in his late biography of the artist. In
1681 it was commissioned on behalf of Louis xiv, an un
usual event which Bellori describes as "one of the most
prized commissions in the service of the Most Christian
Majesty."85 He does not mention what happened after
wards. To begin with, there was a problem about its
high price but, worse, the painting did not please the
French authorities.86 It was first relegated to the
Dauphin's palace and then ended up in the storage de
pot of the Louvre.87
Notwithstanding Bellori's silence on these events?
or perhaps precisely because of that?it is tempting to
speculate that the 16-page, separate analysis that Bellori
devoted to the Daphne painting, which is addressed to a
"foreign cavali?re," might have been written in defense
of the painting.88 Apart from the analytical quality of the
description, it seems above all to be an apologia because
8i The expression is Marc Fumaroli's, quoted by T. Montanari, "Bellori e la politica artistica di Luigi xiv," in O. Bonfait (ed.), L'Id?al
classique: les ?changes artistiques entre Rome et Paris au temps de Bellori
(1640-1700), Paris 2002, pp. 117-38, esp. p. 117. On p. 124 Montanari
also quotes F?libien, not a stranger in Rome, as having written that
painting "n'est pas un art que les Italiens ayent invent?."
82 In 1669, Bellori's good friend Errard, then director of the French
academy in Rome, had tried to buy the unique Ludovisi collection of
classical statues. The later Cardinal Camillo Massimi made every effort
to prevent the deal; see Montanari, op. cit., (note 81), p. 122. Bellori
was only appointed Commissioner of Roman Antiquities in 1670, but
he must undoubtedly have been involved in the Ludovisi affair because
of his association with Camillo Massimi. Later, in 1685, Errard's suc
cessor, La Teuli?re, managed to lay his hands on nine paintings by Poussin. In 1686 there was another clash between the pope and France
regarding the export of statues; see T. Montanari, "La politica cult?
rale di Giovan Pietro Bellori," in Borea et al, op. cit. (note 2), pp. 46
47
83 Bellori, op. cit. (note 1), p. 447, wrote: "King Fran?ois the First
to whose memory our arts and all scientific disciplines and noble facul
ties, which were restored by this generous prince, will always be oblig ed" ("...re Francesco primo, alla cui memoria saranno sempre tenute le
nostre arti e tutte le scienze e facolt? nobili"). La Teuli?re, then the di
rector of the French academy in Rome, wrote in 1692 that "they [the
Romans] have permitted themselves the liberty of abandoning the
styles of Raphael, Michelangelo and Carracci" ("...la libert? que l'on
s'y est donn? d'abandonner... les mani?res de Rapha?l, de Michel
Ange, du Carrache"), quoted in O. Bonfait, "F?libien lecteur de Bel
lori," in idem, op. cit. (note 81), pp. 86-104, esp. p. 87. In the light of
Bellori's public declarations, he may well have agreed with that judg
ment, while deeply deploring it.
84 Barocchi et al., op. cit. (note 4), ibid, for Dafne trasformato in lau
ro, pittura delsignor Cario Maratti.
85 Bellori, op. cit. (note 1), p. 609: "...uno de' maggiori pregii del
suo pennello fu l'essere impiegato in servigio della Maest? Cristianissi
ma."
86 Ibid., p. 609, Bellori mentions the price, 1,250 scudi, and politely
qualifies it as a sign of "the generosity of this great king" which "in
creased the excellence of the work" ("...la magnificenza di si gran re ac
crebe il pregio all'opera col premio di mille dugento cinquanta scudi").
87 Cf. A. Schnapper, "La cour de France au XVIIe si?cle et la pein ture italienne contemporaine," in J.-C. Boyer (ed.), Seicento: la pein ture italienne au XVIIe si?cle et la France, Paris 1990, pp. 422-37, esp. p.
431. Matters certainly did not improve when Antoine Coypel, director
of the French academy in Rome in the crucial years 1672-76, was
awarded the same commission for the palace in Versailles in 1688. Ten
years later Maratti was reported to be still seriously annoyed. His ruf
fled feathers would not have been smoothed when, in 1697, his Madon
na and Child, presented to Louis xiv by Cardinal Janson, suffered the
same fate.
88 See Barocchi et al., op. cit. (note 4).
Bellori's art: the taste and distaste of a seventeenth-century art critic in Rome 143
of the emphasis he puts on the ingeniousness of Marat
ti's "anachronism," defending the manner in which the
artist had maintained the sacrosanct unity of action, even though he included several consecutive actions in
the painting. He may have been thinking of French crit
icisms of offenses against that principle. His text was
obviously intended to demonstrate Maratti's ortho
doxy.89
His 63-page description of the Raphael's frescoes in
the Vatican Stanze is an impressive text in its own right,
containing even certain innovations in comparison with
the descriptions in the Vite. In some respects it is also a
response to some of F?libien's criticisms of the fresco.90
The latter were directed at such details as the depiction of the apostles Peter and Paul, who only appeared in At
tila's dream, and the contemporary dress of the cardi
nals. His lengthy justification of these "anachronisms"
is marked by one of his familiar diatribes, counting his
nameless opponent among those who "are ready to de
liver... a bad judgment on things that are above their in
telligence."91 Bellori's reaction could be interpreted as a
sign of his increasing hypersensitivity to the neglect of
the eternal values of Roman art and of Roman suprema
cy in the arts.
conclusion The analysis of Bellori's academy dis course in combination with his judgments of specific
works of art has shown that there are strong reasons to
doubt whether his reputation as a theorist of Classicist
art is correct. My reading of that discourse leads to the
conclusion that the central notion of Idea was far too
vague to serve as an effective critical instrument and to
provide criteria for selection. This conclusion was con
firmed by the analysis of Bellori's own practice in his
painters' biographies. I find that the concept of Idea
played only a subordinate role, and that it was subject to
variable interpretations. The academy discourse, I sug
gest, should be regarded as a rhetorical outburst against
developments in modern art that the speaker judged
dangerous, rather than as a contribution to art-theoreti
cal thinking. Thus he needed Caravaggio momentarily to illustrate one of his theses, but he could praise em
phatically several of his paintings in a different context.
His more generous qualifications of the works of this
and other artists in his Nota on Roman collections is also a sign that in practice his approach to art was probably less dogmatic.
I feel that the decisive point for the interpretation of
his views on art is the inherent and growing contradic
tion between his genuine appreciation of different kinds
of painting on the one hand and his increasingly urgent sense of mission to prove that Rome remained the capi
tal of art on the other. The first factor enabled him to ap
preciate and even to enjoy a variety of manifestations in
painting. Of course he looked at art with the eyes of a
seventeenth-century letter ato, that is to say with a strong
tendency to use literary parallels and Aristotelian cate
gories, but that did not prevent him from enjoying land
scapes and expressing praise for narrative elements and
some types of genre. Occasionally he showed his sensi
bility to purely pictorial values of color and light, and even some Mannerists escaped his anathema.
The limitations of this open-mindedness are also
clear. His deep-rooted antiquarian outlook often caused
him to pay excessive attention to non-pictorial aspects
of a painting as soon as he took up his pen. This may have acquired a particular significance over the years as
his need for secure values, such as the remnants of an
tiquity possessed, increased when he became more and
more worried about the supremacy of Rome in the arts.
As a consequence he was even less able to look with an
un jaundiced eye at new developments in Roman art
such as the popular paintings depicting low-life scenes, which did not sufficiently pay their due to the sublime
values of antiquity, and which lacked respect for that
venerable requirement of a history theme. The differ
89 It is interesting to see that Bellori here uses the arguments with
which Lebrun rejected criticism of Poussin's Gathering of the manna in
the Acad?mie royale; see A. M?rot (ed.), Les Conf?rences de l'Acad?mie
royale de peinture et de sculpture au XVIIe si?cle, Paris 1996, p. m. See
also F.H. Dowley, "Thoughts on Poussin, time and narrative: The Is
raelites gathering manna in the desert," Simiolus 25 (1997), pp. 329-48.
He had already conducted an extensive defense of Annibale's anachro
nisms in various frescoes of the Camerino Farnese; see Bellori, op. cit.
(note i), p. 55.
90 Bonfait, op. cit. (note 81), pp. 98-99.
91 Bellori, op. cit. (note 39), p. 36: "...alcuni sono pronti a dar
giudizio, e mal giudicare le cose superiori alia loro intelligenza."
144 HANS RABEN
ence with the works of numerous French painters who
flocked to Rome can only have accentuated his dis
taste.92
It is important to recognize that his views must grad
ually have changed during his long life under the influ
ence of his increasingly political objectives. His admira
tion for French policy in fostering the arts may have
been founded on the belief that it was an example of
laudable emulazione based on the recognition of Rome's
superior qualities in the arts. To him, France must have
seemed the best ally in his crusade for Rome.93 This
commitment to French ideas confronted him with a se
rious problem when French policy in the arts appeared to deny the primacy of Roman art. This seems to have
intensified his crusade, directed in the end at France as
much as at his compatriots.
His increasing preference for a very restricted group
of painters may have been shared by his French friends, but it had its price. His later disregard for contemporary art must have isolated him to a considerable extent from
the Roman art scene, where new developments were re
ceived with open arms. In its turn this may have rein
forced his inclination to regard France as a mainstay of
orthodoxy, increasing at the same time his perplexity at
the evolution of French policy. I set out to find names and reasons behind Bellori's
strong but generalized statements. What I found was a
man capable of enjoying the art of rather more artists
than his pronouncements would suggest. As to his re
jection of some kinds of painting, with very few excep tions Bellori did not expose himself by identifying the
objects of his distaste. We can only infer his judgments from his silence on many names in sixteenth and seven
teenth-century art. I also found that Bellori's apprecia
tion of art was only to a limited extent based on explicit theoretical criteria. When he felt that he needed them he
seems in many cases to have been satisfied with referring to those well-tried traditional notions like the require
ment of history painting and action, the expression of
sentiments, variety and (rarely) decorum.
The Bellori who emerges from this study is a man
torn between conflicting ideas. He loved art but he loved
Rome more, and his single-minded sense of mission ul
timately led to a failure to understand the changing world of the final years of the Seicento.
THE HAGUE
92 Cf. J.-C. Boyer, "Bellori e i suoi amici francesi," in Borea et al.,
op. cit. (note 2), pp. 50-54, esp. pp. 52-53. It should also be noted that
many French artists in Rome, unlike most of their northern colleagues, were regular members of the Accademia di San Luca; see M. Lanfran
coni, "Da Vouet ? Poussin: la communit? francese nelP Accademia di
San Luca," in Bonfait, op. cit. (note 81), pp. 211-22. This fact was un
doubtedly of great importance to Bellori.
93 After this article was completed I came across Montanari's inter
esting introduction to a recent English translation of Bellori's Vite: T.
Montanari, "Introduction," in Giovan Pietro Bellori, The lives of the
modern painters, sculptors and architects, ed. H. Wohl, New York 2005. He comes to a similar conclusion concerning the importance of the
French connection.
Bellori's art: the taste and distaste of a seventeenth-century art critic in Rome 145
Appendix
The number of times painters are mentioned in the Nota
Mentions Seicento
25 artists Quattrocento, Cinquecento 28 artists
19 Annibale Carracci
Guido Reni
15
13
Titian
Raphael
10 Caravaggio Giulio Romano
Francesco Albani
Guercino
Domenichino
Giovanni Lanfranco
Cavali?re d'Arpino Nicolas Poussin
Polidoro da Caravaggio Veronese
Andrea Sacchi
Pietro da Cortona
Bassano ("il vecchio")
Correggio Albrecht D?rer
Leonardo da Vinci
Antonio Carracci
Claude Lorrain Parmigianino Taddeo Zuccari
Sisto Badalocchio
Agostino Carracci
Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione Giovan Domenico Cerrini
Anthony Van Dyck Orazio Gentileschi
Francesco Giovan Grimaldi
Carlo Maratti
Pier Francesco Mola
Salvatore Rosa
Giovanni Bellini
Bronzino
Bruegel
Giorgione Holbein
Lorenzo Lotto
Michelangelo Andrea Mantegna
Perino del Vaga Baldassare Peruzzi
146
Mentions Seicento Quattrocento, Cinquecento 25 artists 28 artists
Lo Spagnoletto Sebastiano del Piombo
Giovanni Battista Viola Pirro Ligorio Pordenone
Francesco Salviati
Andrea del Sarto
Tintoretto
Federico Zuccari
In ten cases Bellori singles out specific works by an artist for individual praise.
Francesco Albani, The four elements
Annibale Carracci, Resurrection and Landscape with women crossing a stream
Titian, Bacchanal and Portrait of a man in black
Caravaggio, Supper at Emmaus
Domenichino, Truth revealed by Time and Rachel
Holbein, Portrait of Thomas More
Nicolas Poussin, The Seven Sacraments
Raphael, Loggia of Psyche
Polidoro, scherzi
Guido Reni, St Jerome and Birth of the Virgin