Amico Aspertini, Portrait of Alessandro Achillini, ante 1521. Uffizi.
My Friends of the Uffizi newsletter arrived the other day with the triumphant announcement that, thanks to their purchase of a portrait by Amico Aspertini for the Uffizi collections, this years “I Mai Visti” (the never-before-seen) exhibit will feature this and related paintings. Some explanation is clearly required to understand the importance of the somewhat disturbingly anti-aesthetic portrait that is the star of the show.
Paolo Giovio in Jean-Jacques Boissard, Bibliotheca chalcographica (1652-1669) - Wikimedia Commons
The portrait of Alessandro Achillini by Amico Aspertini (lots of A’s there) is believed to be a previously “lost” painting that was part of the collection of “famous men” commissioned by the poet Paolo Giovio. Giovio started this project in Florence, but the resulting collection was set up in his now-lost villa at Borgo Vico on Lake Como (which he finished building in 1543).
Text and image play close, complementary roles in Giovio’s Museum: below each portrait hung a description of the lives and accomplishments of each subject. The collection is intricately connected to Giovio’s literary activity, in particular to the writing of the Elogia virorum litteris illustrium (there is an english translation available online) or lives of illustrius men.
The portrait of Achillini dates to around 1521, at which point the subject was long dead. Achillini (1463-1512) was a doctor and philosopher from Bologna and a professor at the University of Padova when Giovio was there as a student. He is, in fact, depicted at the podium, with the characteristics that Giovio ascribes to him in his Elogia: smiley, somewhat “fluid”, and distracted in his appearance. In fact, the figure in the portrait indicates with his finger – a gesture of speaking – but does not exude authority; rather he seems like an affable and somewhat hyperactive professor. One hopes that the colour of his face is due to the ravages of time; the greenish hue could easily be the underpainting used below a flesh tone, and not the intended effect. Nonetheless this is the part that I find rather disturbing about this painting. The other “odd” element is the irregularity of the face and its depiction off-axis; this, according to curator Elisabetta Fadda, is because the artist was influenced by Netherlandish and north-European art, particularly by Albrecht Durer, who often represented the harsh physiognomy of his subjects.
The Medici family had always been interested in portraits of famous or exemplary men, and had been collecting them since the 15th century. Some of these, like Andrea del Castagno’s fresco of Boccaccio, are displayed in this exhibit. In 1552, Cosimo I de’Medici sent the portrait artist Cristofano dell’Altissimo to Como to copy the best works of Giovio’s Museum – portraits of “santi, poeti, navigatori” (saints, poets, and explorers) – and bring them back to Florence where they would be part of the map-room at Palazzo Vecchio. This project was not fully completed, but is reconstructed at the show now on at the Sala Reali Poste of the Uffizi. Here is a comparison of one of Giovio’s paintings and the corresponding derivative work by Cristofano.
Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio, Portrait of Michele Marullo, Ante 1521, Como, Museo Civico
Cristofano dell’Altissimo, Michele Marullo, Firenze, Uffizi
The resulting copies, as well as loan works from Como and other locations, are on display at eye-level in the exhibit. You have seen these paintings before, but you didn’t get to look at them closely: they are the ones that line the corridors of the Uffizi Museum way up near the ceiling. The “Mai Visti” exhibit is a great opportunity to learn about the historical characters described in Giovio’s Elogia Doctorum through the wall text that accompanies each portrait, much as it did in Giovio’s villa.
THE SHOW:
Santi, Poeti, Navigatori – Dec 16 2009 until Jan 31 2010
Sala delle Reali Poste – Piazzale degli Uffizi
Open daily 10-17, closed Monday
entrance is FREE
Catalogue: Polistampa (in italian only) € 18,00
Website: www.santipoetinavigatori.it
