Bellori on Painting

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

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Stichting voor Nederlandse Kunsthistorische Publicaties is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve andextend access to Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art.

http://www.jstor.org

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=svnk

http://www.jstor.org/stable/20355327?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

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


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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).


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.


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

Bellori on Painting

Documents

fico soprintendenza

naturalis

le vite de

louis xiv

carlo cesi

arte antica

la teuli

camerino farnese