Some Early Works by Girolamo Siciolante da SermonetaAuthor(s): Bernice F. DavidsonReviewed work(s):Source: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 48, No. 1 (Mar., 1966), pp. 55-64Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3048332 .Accessed: 14/02/2012 17:02

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Some Early Works by Girolamo Siciolante da Sermoneta 55

BERNICE F. DAVIDSON

Girolamo Siciolante has been called a rustic, an eclectic, a Mannerist. In varying degrees, each of these epithets contains some truth, but all are misleading and are tangential to the character and intentions of the artist. For although it cannot be denied that Siciolante was a painter with serious limitations, he is, nevertheless, a figure of considerable interest, and his work helped to shape certain significant trends in mid-sixteenth century Roman painting that generally have been neglected by historians. Indeed, on the whole, our knowledge of Roman

painting during the 1540's and 1550's is remarkably incom- plete and inaccurate. Siciolante is only one victim of our mis- conceptions. If a great many errors of attribution and chonol- ogy have been committed and perpetuated in the literature on Siciolante, this state of confusion has arisen because none of the personalities active in Rome at the time (with the excep- tion of Michelangelo) has yet been clearly distinguished or defined.

The bewilderment over Siciolante has been especially aggra- vated because a number of his early paintings and drawings have been considered the work of his master, Perino del Vaga. It is difficult to decide where this chain of error began: whether the uncertainty over which paintings and drawings were by Siciolante led to a faulty assessment of his personality as an artist (which in turn occasioned further misattributions) or whether the reticent nature of the man and his work prevented any clear comprehension of what he might or might not have been capable of producing. This article is an attempt to extract Siciolante from the tangle of misattributions and to assess his position in relation to the painting of his period.

The biographies of Siciolante written by Vasari and Bag- lione are respectful but impersonal. They include none of those details of character or behavior that in other "Lives" make their subjects so vivid to us. We are given only a very incom- plete, chronologically confused list of Siciolante's works, and not a single specific date. With the help, however, of docu- ments, dated paintings, and the invaluable contributions of Professor Zeri,' and by a closer examination of the character

of Siciolante's work, it is possible to expand somewhat the sketchy outlines of these earliest biographies.

According to Pantanelli, the historian of Sermoneta, Sicio- lante was born in 1521 in Sermoneta, one of the many fortress towns south of Rome held by the Caetani.2 His parents appear to have been prosperous for they were able to give their chil- dren a good education. One son entered the Church, and he became philosopher, theologian, and arciprete of Santa Maria in Sermoneta; another became a doctor, and a third son, a law-

yer.3 Given this family record of intellectual achievement, one surely ought not, as Venturi did,'4 attribute to Siciolante the mentality of a peasant. He too must have received professional training, and very likely it was in Rome, not the provinces. In fact, Siciolante probably was a pupil of Leonardo da Pistoia who seems to have been working in Rome in the late 1530's.r

At the age of twenty Siciolante received the first commission cited by Vasari-the high altar, inscribed with the date 1541, which he painted for the Badia of Santi Pietro e Stefano, near Sermoneta (now in the Palazzo Caetani, Rome; Fig. 1)." Had Baglione not mentioned Siciolante's associations with Leo- nardo da Pistoia one might easily overlook the traces of his influence on the Caetani Altar and on other paintings of the forties by Siciolante. The flat, oval faces of Siciolante's Ma- donnas, with their small features, long, straight noses, and tight little bow mouths must be derived from Leonardo. His precedent might account also for the clumsy drapery style- the zig-zag folds and heavy bunches of cloth that cluttered Siciolante's compositions for many years. These and other Leonardesque defects of the Caetani Altar are more immedi- ately striking than its virtues. The light contrasts seem over- intense, and the colors, to quote Venturi, poco scelti: faults again due to Leonardo's example.

The figures of the Caetani Altar are organically incoherent, inconsistent in proportions, and unconvincing in detail (e.g., the fingernails appear to have been pasted on, but not quite in the proper places). The large, awkward figures, which seem to have been assembled from chunks and slabs of stiffly joined wood, are crowded together in a manner that is almost

1 Federico Zeri, "Intorno a Gerolamo Siciolante," BdA, 36, 1951. Zeri published the first valid interpretation of Siciolante's work and many new attributions. In his Pittura e controriforma (Rome, 1957, cf. index) he extended his earlier contribution

by relating Siciolante to the Counter-Reformation. I am deeply grateful to Dr. Sydney J. Freedberg and to Dr. Anne D. Ferry for

their many valuable corrections of and comments on this essay. Neither, however, saw the final draft of the article, therefore neither can be blamed for condoning its errors. Dr. Konrad Oberhuber and Michael Hirst also have offered a number of

helpful suggestions. 2 Pietro Pantanelli, Notizie istoriche . . . di Sormoneta, Rome, 1906, II, 597. Panta-

nelli does not cite his source for this information but it may be taken from a 17th

century history of the Siciolante family, which once was in the Caetani archive but now apparently is missing. The birth-date should be regarded with some skepticism

as it may simply have been deduced from Vasari's statement that Siciolante was twenty when he painted the Caetani Altar (dated 1541).

3 Pantanelli, Notizie, II, 602. 4 Venturi, IX, 5, 591. 5 Giovanni Baglione, Le vite de' pittori, etc., Rome, 1935, 23. It must be Leonardo

Grazia da Pistoia to whom Baglione refers. Vasari does not mention Leonardo in connection with Siciolante. If Leonardo and Jacopino del Conte executed the Pala dei Palafrenieri for Saint Peter's around 1537 (cf. Zeri, "Intorno a Gerolamo Sicio- lante," 148 n. 6) then Siciolante may have served his apprenticeship under Leonardo in Rome at about that time.

6 Vasari-Milanesi, VII, 571. The altarpiece was moved from the abbey to the Palazzo Caetani sometime around the middle of the last century (cf. Gelasio Caetani, Domus Caetani, San Cassiano Val di Pesa, 1933, II, 55).

56 The Art Bulletin

physically disagreeable to behold. At the same time, the light- ing creates dark chasms among them, and their angular pos- tures and somewhat brooding expressions seem to isolate each figure both physically and spiritually. If Siciolante already knew paintings by Perino del Vaga, named by Vasari as his master, his influence was not yet strong enough to erase the ill-effects of Siciolante's earlier training. The Caetani Altar- piece has none of Perino's ease and harmony. It is an austere, almost a harsh painting.

A preparatory study in the Louvre for the Caetani Altar (Fig. 3) is executed somewhat more fluently than the painting, yet it too is clumsy and inconsistent.l In some passages the line is stiff and angular; in others it moves quickly through hooks and loops. Evidently, the more firmly decided Girolamo was about parts of the composition-for example, Sts. Peter and Stephen where pentimenti are confined mainly to the chalk under-drawing-the stiffer and more wooden his figures became. Obviously he was uncertain about the pose of the little St. John, for around this figure his pen wove a knot of suggestions and cancellations.

The chief interest of the drawing is that it reveals that the taut, massive structure of the painting was achieved through deliberate corrections of an originally much freer and more open design. To create a stronger, more architectonic arrange- ment, Siciolante reduced the space surrounding the figures and substituted for the tree a niche which blocks off most of the

landscape background. In time Siciolante grew more skillful at constructing figures and compositions, but the purposefully sober, monumental character of this first altarpiece continues throughout his work to culminate in such powerful, ascetic masterpieces as the Crucifixion in Santa Maria di Monserrato.

Stylistically very similar to the Caetani Altar is a painting, now lost, of the Madonna and Child, Sts. Peter, Paul and a donor, of which a photograph has been published with an at- tribution to Perino del Vaga.8 A study in the Victoria and Albert Museum for this painting (Fig. 2), also hitherto attrib- uted to Perino, resembles the more finished parts of the Louvre Madonna and Saints drawing.g Both painting and drawing lack any trace of the suavity, grace, and highly accomplished technique which distinguish the work of Perino del Vaga. The facial types, the stiff, disjointed structure of the figures, the drapery with its multiplicity of tight little folds, the peculiar

hands"? with their pasted-on fingernails all suggest Siciolante as the artist responsible for these works, at an early date around the time of the Caetani Altar. The composition of the Victoria and Albert drawing is already close to that of the painting, the major change being the way St. Peter's right hand is placed. In the painting, where his hand lies against the Madonna's arm, parallel to the picture plane, Siciolante apparently decided to evade the foreshortening problem, which clearly had defeated him in the drawing.

Another drawing, resembling the Caetani Altar in its com- position, and therefore probably from these same years, is the Marriage of St. Catherine in Christ Church, Oxford (Fig. 4), there attributed to Bagnacavallo.11 This quick sketch is related to both the Caetani Altar and the Victoria and Albert drawing in the Madonna's pose and in many details, for example, Cath- erine's splay-fingered hand which is so like St. Stephen's right hand in the painting or the hands of the Madonna in the draw- ing. The columnar figure of the bearded saint at the left is very similar to the Caetani St. Peter with his heavy arm and awk- ward swathings of drapery whose folds shift direction and collide repeatedly. The erratic, skidding character of the pen lines recalls passages of the Louvre drawing, although the lat- ter is a more controlled and finished study. The combination of long or short dashing strokes with rather fussy, tight, rounded strokes can also be seen in the Louvre study and occa- sionally in later sketches.

It has not been possible to determine whether the paintings and drawings discussed above were executed in Sermoneta for the Caetani or after Siciolante began his professional career in Rome, for we do not know exactly when he settled there. The first record of his presence in Rome is in 1543, the year he was inscribed in the Accademia di San Luca. 12 He must have

joined Perino's shop around that time. Vasari says that he executed an Annunciation on Perino's design in San Salvatore in Lauro and that he assisted Perino at the Castel Sant'Angelo, notably in the loggia overlooking Prati.13 The Annunciation was destroyed by fire at the end of the sixteenth century and the loggia is so badly preserved that one cannot judge its style or authorship.

However, Siciolante's earliest important surviving painting (Fig. 5), which might de dated around 1543-1545, obviously was influenced by Perino. Baglione said about this Piethi for

7 Louvre, No. 10.074 (tcole d'Italie XVIe). 376 x 273mm, pen and brown wash over black chalk. Mr. Philip Pouncey first identified the drawing as a study for the Caetani Altar. I am deeply grateful to Mlle. Roseline Bacou and the staff of the Cabinet des Dessins for their always generous assistance.

8 Giuliano Frabetti, "Sulle tracce di Perin del Vaga," Emporium, 127-28, 1958, 201, fig. 9. Evidently the attribution was made on the basis of an old photograph of a painting whose present location is unknown.

9 Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Dalton Bequest 1019-1900. 195 x 170mm, pen, brown wash, white heightening on grey paper. I am indebted to Mr. Peter Ward- Jackson of the Department of Prints and Drawings for his kind assistance.

10 In this drawing, in the Caetani Altar, and in the study for it, Siciolante places the two center fingers of a hand close together while the two flanking fingers are spread wide apart-a strained and awkward position in a hand held downwards.

11 Christ Church, Oxford, D. 31. 179 x 219mm, pen with brown ink. The works of neither of the Bagnacavalli have ever been studied systematically. When surveying the drawings attributed to them, one begins to feel that the only common de- nominator in these compositions is the figure of St. Catherine.

12 Accademia di San Luca, Vol. 2, Registro degli introiti, fol. 19. Gaetani Moroni

(Dizionario di erudizione storico-ecclesiastica, Venice, 1840, I, 51) states that Sicio- lante was listed among the founders of the Congregazione dei Virtuosi in 1543, but

Professor Ansaldi of the Virtuosi archive has kindly informed me that the Congre- gazione was not founded in that year and that Siciolante is not mentioned until 1544. Cf. also: J. A. F. Orbaan, "Virtuosi al Pantheon," RepKunstW, 37, 1915, 22. Moroni also mentions a high altar with a Salvatore in Santa Maria della PietA,

Cori, which he says was painted by Siciolante in 1542 (Dizionario, 39, 172). I have

SICIOLANTE I EARLY WORKS 57

Santi Apostoli (now in Poznan): "tutti vogliano; che sia disegno di Perino suo Maestro; ben egli e vero, che e assai benfatto, e mostra la bella maniera del Vaga."4 Siciolante must have studied Perino's now-ruined Descent from the Cross for Santa Maria sopra Minerva when designing his own Pieth." The figure of Christ may be derived from that altarpiece, as are more general elements, such as the pattern of descending curves linking the figures. In Perino's composition, these drooping, sagging movements form an almost unbroken chain whose repetitive effect is one of gentle sadness. Siciolante tried to apply this pattern of curves to a cubic structure which he borrowed from another Pieta--the painting by Sebastiano del Piombo now in Leningrad (Fig. 6). Sebastiano's diagonal alignment of figures and angular juxtapositions of block-like shapes, which carry emotional implications of stress and ten- sion, obviously appealed to Siciolante. But two such divergent ways of manipulating the movement of shapes and lines to convey two dissimilar moods could only meaningfully be con- trasted as Sebastiano himself contrasts them-playing the anguished violence of the mourners against the still, relaxed body of Christ. To fuse the two ways, as Siciolante attempts to do, merely dilutes the effects of each. The expressive possi- bilities of his composition are further weakened by his labored handling of the drapery, which becomes especially distracting in the senseless elaboration of folds in the foreground.

And yet, although the compositional ideas for the Pieta' seem confused and the execution often graceless and inexpert, a certain austere, forceful emotion is communicated through these massive, monumental figures plunged in solitary gloom. Siciolante's Pieth is, in a restrained way, dramatic and evi- dently deeply felt. One senses an intellectual and emotional concentration on the brooding atmosphere of tragedy, a con- centration that excludes rhetorical gestures such as Sebasti- ano's, or graceful posturing such as Perino's, that might de- tract from the mood of grief. In Siciolante's painting, the attitudes of the figures seem the direct and natural expression of their sorrow and are not imposed upon them by external for- mal considerations. They are not shaped and twisted to create complex patterns or flattened to make a design on the surface plane; the artist does not-as would Perino-interpose be- tween his figures and the spectator the screen of some orna- mental device. Only the body of Christ is flattened outward,

but he is presented to the spectator for contemplation and devotion, perhaps as the embodiment of the Eucharist."'

Siciolante seems to have possessed a mind (similar possibly to those of his brothers who turned to theology, the law, and medicine) which worked coolly and rationally, a mind which could deal cogently with what he considered to be the essential meaning of each new subject, and which rejected, perhaps as unworthy, or, at the least, as superfluous, any elaborations or adornments that might detract from the ideas he believed sig- nificant. Siciolante was not an imaginative man-often in later life he repeated his own compositions or copied from others- but the sober character of his work, unrelieved by any touches of fantasy, grace or wit, suggests a personality ruled by firm aesthetic, moral, and religious principles. In striking contrast to Perino and to the tradition and attitudes he represented, Siciolante rarely undertook commissions for secular decorative work. For the most part, he dedicated his career to painting church chapels and altarpieces. Although Perino, successful entrepreneur, might provide the commissions, neither his worldly tastes nor his artistic principles could have been en- tirely congenial to Siciolante. As the Poznan Pieth reveals, Perino's influence on Siciolante was only skin deep. His true sympathies lay closer to Michelangelo, Sebastiano del Piombo, and Daniele da Volterra.

Although the Pieth contains no specific references to Michel- angelo's Last Judgment, the painting's strong, clear-cut, mas- sive forms, each of which embodies and characterizes some aspect of grief, must have been the product of long and excep- tionally perceptive study of that fresco. Siciolante was twelve in 1533, when Michelangelo received the commission for the Last Judgment.-7 For the next nine years, the years of his training and apprenticeship, until 1541, when he produced his own first altarpiece, Rome had waited for the completion of the Last Judgment, destined, it was expected, to be the greatest painting by the greatest artist of those or perhaps of all times. That expectation must have weighed heavily on contemporary artists, especially on the young ones. Once the fresco had been unveiled, painting in Rome was never quite the same again. No one could compete, yet no one could hold undeflected to former ways.

Siciolante's Pieth reflects not a trace of the poetic imagina- tion that shaped Michelangelo's vision of heaven and hell.

been unable to find this painting. Siciolante's Salvator Mundi in the Collegiata, Cori, is surely of a much later date.

13 Vasari-Milanesi, V, 626, 628f. The date 1543 is carved on the loggia, but the painted decoration may be later.

14 Baglione, Le vite, 23. The painting is in the National Museum, Poznan. Apparently it was sold from the Cappella Muti in 1818 for funds to repair the chapel (cf. Marjan Gumowski, Muzeum Wielkopolskie w Poznaniu, Krakow, 1924, 9 n. 16). According to Milanesi (Vasari-Milanesi, VII, 571 n. 1) the painting was given to the painter Manno to restore and sell. It then passed to the collection of Count Raczynski in Berlin. I am grateful to Prof. Zdzislaw Kepinski for sending me the photograph of the Pieth and for permission to publish it.

15 Although the lower half of Perino's painting had been ruined in the flood of 1530, Siciolante could have known the studies for it (cf. A. E. Popham, "On some Works

by Perino del Vaga," BurlM, 86, 1945, facing p. 60, pl. Ic). Two drawings in Windsor are related to the Poznan Pieta. One of these is probably, as Philip Poun- cey suggests (A. E. Popham and Johannes Wilde, Italian Drawings of the XV and XVI Centuries in . . . Windsor Castle, London, 1949, 333, No. 928, fig. 179), an original study for the figure of Christ. Windsor No. 929, of the whole composition, as is noted in the catalogue, is either a weak copy or a totally reworked original: probably the former.

16 Cf. Frederick Hartt, "Power and the Individual in Mannerist Art," Studies in Western Art, II, Princeton, 1963, 229, for a discussion of Christ's body as the Eucharist.

17 Cf. Johannes Wilde, Italian Drawings in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum: Michelangelo and his Studio, London, 1953, 99f., concern- ing the date of the commission.

58 The Art Bulletin

And unlike most of his contemporaries, he rejected the riches of Michelangelo's pictorial vocabulary. From his youth, Sicio- lante must have shared those attitudes that were to character- ize the Roman Reformation after the Council of Trent: the

dogmatic conservatism that caused Paul IV to demand the destruction of the Last Judgment and that moved Giglio to condemn it because, among other errors, angels, who are eas- ily capable of supporting the world, should not be shown writhing beneath the weight of the Cross. s Siciolante would surely have agreed with Giglio that sforzi were both unneces-

sary and inappropriate for communicating religious meaning. Already, Siciolante's paintings of the 1540's seem occasionally to anticipate the decrees of the Council of Trent on art. His

Pieth for Santi Apostoli might almost have been painted in accordance with those principles of piety, clarity, and sim-

plicity established by the Council in 1563. What did, therefore, move him deeply in the Last Judgment were the sustained in- tensity of Michelangelo's piety and the strong, spare, unorna- mented manner in which he communicated his devotion. These are precisely the qualities that transcend the pictorial limita- tions of his own Pieth and rescue it from mediocrity."'

In the fall of 1545, Siciolante, apparently dissatisfied with the commissions available in Rome, decided that he might be more successful at a provincial court. Pier Luigi Farnese had been created Duke of Parma and Piacenza in August of that

year, and in September took formal possession of his terri- tories. From a letter Siciolante wrote on November 3 to his

patron, Bonifacio Caetani, we learn that he had by then reached Piacenza and presented himself to the duke.20 But unfortu- nately Pier Luigi did not evidence much interest in his work.

Possibly, at that time he needed fortifications rather than

paintings. Siciolante complained to Bonifacio that he would never have left Rome had he realized how meager the oppor- tunities would be. Thus far, the duke had only commissioned one work, "un quadro a olio assai grande dove sarra una ma- dona con cierte altre figure." If nothing more promising is offered, he says, he will return to Rome in the spring because he does not wish to waste time.

A Holy Family with Saint Michael, Little Saint John, and an

Angel (Fig. 9), now in the gallery at Parma, may be the paint- ing mentioned in Siciolante's letter; it is almost certainly the one described by Vasari as having been painted by Siciolante for Pier Luigi.21 This Holy Family, once attributed to Perino,

more closely approximates his style than any other completely independent commission of Siciolante's. Probably Siciolante wished to impress the duke by emphasizing his familiarity with the style of the papal court. It is often said that the paint- ing was influenced by Correggio. Perhaps the face of the Christ Child is reminiscent of Correggio putti (the arrange- ment of drapery in circular patterns over the Madonna's body also suggests Parmese influence) but Perino, rather than Cor- reggio, inspired most of the figure types, as well as the unusual softening of mood, forms, and lighting. The tender interplay of gestures and glances is almost unknown in any other period of Siciolante's career.

Although the drapery in the painting is still cluttered with unnecessary complications, Siciolante is beginning to arrange the folds in patterns that perform rhythmic functions in the composition. However, the colors in the painting still seem poorly planned: too varied and too intense. The harsh, rather metallic blue and bright vermilion of the Madonna's robe are not agreeable neighbors to the delicate couleurs changeants of rose and blue lining her mantle, to the olive-greens and rusts of Michael's garments, or to the deep blue-green swag of drapery over her head. The abrupt contrasts seem too astrin- gent for the gentle mood of the altarpiece.

Perhaps the study for another Holy Family with St. John, hitherto attributed to Perino, dates from this same period (Fig. 7).22 The pose of Madonna and Child recalls the study (Fig. 2) for the Caetani Altar, but their faces, and the some- what gentler mood and looser handling suggest a closer re- lationship to the Parma painting. The drawing style itself bears only a slight resemblance to Perino's, which is never so un- certain, so tangled with meaningless scribbles, corrections, and redundancies. The fussy character of the drawing is antici-

pated in the sketch for the Marriage of St. Catherine (Fig. 4), as well as by certain passages of the Caetani Altar study. A

parallel may be found in the treatment of drapery, veils, and hair in the Parma altarpiece.

In spite of Vasari's statement that Siciolante did many things for Pier Luigi, he mentions specifically only the Holy Family, and we know of nothing else. Siciolante's where-

abouts and activities for the years 1546 to 1548 are, therefore, a matter of speculation, and none of the the alternatives seems to account entirely satisfactorily for the facts at present avail- able to us. It generally has been assumed that Siciolante re-

18 Paola Barocchi, Trattati d'arte del cinquecento (Giovanni Andrea Giglio, "Dialogo . .. degli errori e degli abusi de' pittori circo I'istoria"), Bari, 1961, II, 46.

19 Daniele da Volterra's Deposition for the Cappella Orsini, Santissima Trinith dei Monti, was even more influential in introducing to painting of the forties a new

clarity, simplicity, and monumentality. But unlike the Pieth, the dramatic effect of the Deposition depends primarily on the empathic physical impression made upon the spectator. The Cross and ladders tower over him, their size and height alone awe-inspiring, and the large, sweeping gestures of the figures are stirring; they function precisely in the dual sense of that word. By comparison, Siciolante's Piet•h is constrained; concentrated rather than expansive. The meagerness of Siciolante's inventive powers places restrictions on the composition that tend to contribute to its

emotional intensity. Siciolante's lack of interest in formal problems was one of his most serious limitations, but Daniele's excessive concern with them was to prove even more harmful to the quality of his work.

20 Caetani archives (C. 4221). This letter and a few others by Siciolante were men-

tioned by Gelasio Caetani (op. cit., II, 56, and cf. index) but have been overlooked

by art historians, probably because the book is not easily available. I am very grateful to Mr. Hubert Howard for permission to use the archive, and to his archi- vist, Dr. Luigi Fiorani, for his assistance in transcribing some of the letters.

21 Vasari-Milanesi, VII, 573. The painting was first recognized by Hermann Voss as the Siciolante mentioned in Vasari (Die Malerei der Splitrenaissance in Rom und Florenz, Berlin, 1920, I, 104).

SICIOLANTE I EARLY WORKS 59

mained in Piacenza until Pier Luigi was assassinated in Sep- tember, 1547. He then, it is thought, fled to Bologna where he painted the San Martino Altarpiece, which is dated 1548. How- ever, as we shall see, the San Martino Altarpiece was com- missioned before June, 1547, and even if Siciolante departed from Piacenza as early as the spring of 1547, we are still left with the year 1546 to 1547 for which we have no known works by Siciolante. If, on the other hand, Siciolante went back to Rome in 1546, as he suggested that he might in his letter to Bonifacio Caetani, he must either have executed the San Martino Altar in Rome or returned to Bologna in 1548 to finish it. Until new documents or paintings are discovered, this problem must remain unsolved.

If Siciolante did return to Rome in 1546, he may have re- sumed work for Perino, perhaps assisting him at this time with the decoration of the Sala Paolina in the Castel Sant'Angelo.23 When one searches for individual artists among the many who executed Perino's designs in the Castel Sant'Angelo, the prob- lem seems almost hopeless. Certain assistants, such as Tibaldi, are, for the most part, easily distinguishable, but Siciolante did not have Tibaldi's fantastic, irrepressible imagination, or his technical ability. His contributions to the decoration are harder to identify. Although Vasari does not mention specifi- cally the frescoes of the Sala Paolina when he says that Sicio- lante worked for Perino in the Castel Sant'Angelo, a pair of allegorical over-door figures representing Hope and Love, with attendant putti (Fig. 8), can, I believe, be ascribed to him. Unlike the other graceful over-door figures, many of them executed by Perino's assistants, these are solid, chunky women with thick bodies, strong shoulders, heavy arms, and the broad, impassive faces of Siciolante's Madonnas. As in most figures painted by Siciolante, head, neck, and shoulders of these figures are put together with little feeling for their or- ganic relationship. Compared with the other slender, sinuous, elegant over-door ladies, these two seem to act their parts stiffly, like a pair of country girls who have strayed into so- phisticated society. Undoubtedly Siciolante followed Perino's cartoons as closely as he was able, for one can perceive the master's idea, but the execution, particularly of the drapery, shows that Siciolante still did not understand completely how various subtleties and implications of a subject can be com- municated through the formal design. The meaningless pro- liferation of drapery folds beneath the figure of Hope surely

does not convey Perino's intentions but is typical of Sicio- lante's work of these years.

Probably early in 1547, perhaps through a recommendation of Ercole Malvezzi, whom he might have known as governor of Parma under Pier Luigi, Siciolante received from another member of the Malvezzi family the commission for an altar- piece in the Carmelite church of San Martino, Bologna (Fig. 12).24 As the inscription on the altarpiece states, Matteo Mal- vezzi ordered the painting, but before it was completed he died, whereupon his heirs assumed the obligation. Work on the commission must, therefore, have begun before June, 1547, when Matteo died, and continued until 1548, the date on the

painting.25 A study in the Louvre for the San Martino Altar probably

represents the original project as it appeared before Malvezzi's death (Fig. 11).26 His heirs apparently decided to insert the

donor's portrait, based on some earlier likeness, since Mal- vezzi was over eighty when he commissioned the painting. In order to balance the portrait, St. Luke's bull was moved to the right and the inscription added. Although these changes can hardly be regarded as improvements, the base of the throne was also modified and, in the painting, provides a more satisfactory transition between the upper and lower halves. The Louvre drawing still shows strong traces of Perino's influence in some of the faces, in the plump, rounded modeling of Madonna and Child, and in a certain gentleness and suavity-especially in figures of the upper half-that have almost disappeared in the painting. In the drawing, the Ma- donna and saints bend and turn more gracefully, the drapery binds them together in flowing curves, the shadows are neither so dark nor so disruptive as they are in the painting, which, by contrast, one might almost imagine to be the product of some student of Giulio Romano. In Giulio's works Siciolante must have found inspiration for the stiff, statuary figures of his painting with their stiff torsos, and the tight, short curves of limbs and drapery, which do not form continuing rhythms, but are broken, abrupt accents. He also may have appropriated from Giulio the hard, clear light which isolates parts of the figures against the shadows.

The hieratic structure of the San Martino Altarpiece, a Madonna seated on a high throne above saints and donor, may be derived from Venetian or, more probably, from Ferrarese prototypes. Venetian Madonnas, however, are always sur-

22 Victoria and Albert Museum, Dyce 189. 180 x 135mm, pen and brown ink. It is pos- sible that a Holy Family in the Fassini collection (Venturi, IX, 5, fig. 316) may also date from these years. I have not seen the painting.

23 The surviving archives for Castel Sant'Angelo cover only the year 1545, but some, apparently incomplete, records for 1546, which can no longer be located, were published by A. Bertolotti, "Speserie segrete e pubbliche di Papa Paolo III," Atti e memorie delle R. R. deputazioni di storia patria per provincie dell'Emilia, n. s. 3, pt. 1, 1878. These archives included payments for work on the vault of the Sala Paolina in January, 1546. Throughout the many payments for work on this room in 1545, there are repeated references to the vault but none to the wall decoration. I assume, therefore, that work on the walls did not begin before February, 1546 at

the earliest. The grisaille roundel between the putti is not by Siciolante. 24 The Parma archives include many letters written by Ercole Malvezzi in Parma to

Pier Luigi in Piacenza. 25 For the inscription on Malvezzi's tomb cf. Descrizione della chiesa parrocchiale

di S. Martino Maggiore e luoghi annessi, Bologna, 1839, 18. Giuseppe Fornasini (Per le nozze Malvezzi-Sacchetti, Bologna, 1927, 75) says Malvezzi died on June 20 (XIII Kal. Julias on the tombstone). He also says that Malvezzi was born in 1470, an error if he died at the age of eighty-three, as he did according to both Fornasini and the tomb inscription.

26 Louvre, No. 10.055. 427 x 259mm, pen, brown wash, white heightening over black chalk. The drawing was first identified by Philip Pouncey.

60 The Art Bulletin

rounded by landscapes and skies, fruits, birds, or elaborate architectural settings. Even the Ferrarese examples, while sometimes simpler, never are reduced to so bare a stage as Siciolante's altarpiece. The only decorative details he includes are the attributes required for identification of the figures. All attention is concentrated on these figures which are pressed into a rigidly symmetrical oval, entirely filling the narrow slab of space.

Although the figures appear immovable within this inflexible oval pattern, the altarpiece, through purely abstract means, presents an animated appearance. Because of the crowded surface, because of the repetition of short, vigorous curves, and especially because of the range of bright hues, the paint- ing seems less frozen and somber than the photograph, which exaggerates the value contrasts, might lead one to think. The colors are much the same as those of the Parma altarpiece but are distributed with apparently greater calculation. The vermilion of the Madonna's robe, for example, is repeated in Jerome's cloak while the blue of her mantle is echoed in Luke's robe. Siciolante's love of couleurs changeants reaches extremes in the figure of St. Catherine which shimmers, like some exotic fish, with pinks and blues, violet and rose, olive and rust and pale green. Owing to the many couleurs change- ants throughout the altarpiece and to the smoothly finished application of paint, the surfaces gleam with a metallic lustre that again reminds one of paintings by Giulio Romano, or even of certain works by Raphael, such as the St. Cecilia Altar in Bologna.

But an esthetic response to its abstract design-far more ob- trusive in the photograph than in the painting-by no means is intended to predominate in one's total impression of the painting. The composition is not meant to beguile the viewer with its formal intricacies, or to distract him from the serious religious content of the painting. If the movements and atti- tudes of certain figures seem forced or unnatural, it is because Siciolante's figures usually are awkward, not because he has tried to shape them into ornamental patterns or dramatic poses. As in the Poznan PietYi, he seems to have rejected almost completely the decorative and rhetorical formulas so cherished by most of his contemporaries. The hard, clear forms of the figures, their minutely detailed surfaces, and highly in- dividualized faces recall--perhaps deliberately-ancient Ro- man portrait busts or the portraits of some Quattrocento artist such as Ghirlandaio. Siciolante means to convince us of the real-

ity of these figures. And then, having first acknowledged their physical presence, we are drawn to observe their spiritual state: the deeply serious concern with which they are debating some problem of religious import. These saints might be portraits of Malvezzi's fellow-citizens assembled to discuss a crucial

point of Church doctrine. They wear expressions of frowning intensity, but their gestures are so reserved and contained that without previous knowledge of the issue involved, we cannot guess the true significance of the altarpiece.27 Siciolante makes little attempt to communicate, beyond insisting on the realism of appearances. He makes no personal appeal to the spectator. His figures seem withdrawn from ordinary life and are not easily accessible. The tender human sentiment of the Parma

altarpiece has vanished, and in its place, in spite of the physical immediacy of the figures, is a mood of severe detachment from worldly affairs. These saints command worship, not for any mundane reason-for rich apparel, dramatic conduct, emo- tional appeal--but because of the gravity and authority of their demeanor, because of their evidently intense and exclu- sive concern with issues of theological importance. The disci- pline of the painting's formal design is the outward expression of the moral and intellectual discipline of the figures.

While certain other paintings of the thirties and forties (most of them by Florentines, e.g., Vasari's Immaculate Con- ception or Jacopino del Conte's Descent from the Cross) may have been as abstract in design as the San Martino Altar, their design is rarely matched by so rigorous an abstraction of spirit. For Vasari, the design becomes an end in itself, and he delights in playing with its possibilities. Nor can he often resist including elaborate bits of still life and other fanciful details to display his skill. In Jacopino's Descent from the Cross, the composition again serves a primarily decorative function-

although the painting is filled with gentle pathos-and pro- vides an ornamental frame for the graceful ballet of the Marys. By comparison, Siciolante's San Martino Altarpiece seems

puritanical: a Mondrian compared to a Braque. Restrained

yet intense, conservative, aristocratic, uncompromising-per- haps no earlier painting by any sixteenth century artist so

clearly embodies the spirit of the Roman Reformation. Siciolante could not have remained long in Bologna after

finishing the San Martino Altar. Lamo, writing a dozen years later, mentions, besides the altarpiece, only one other painting by Siciolante in Bologna, a nude woman, "bella fra molte altre

belle."28 Possibly also a drawing of St. Peter in the Uffizi (Fig.

27 I have not succeeded in penetrating the iconography of the altarpiece. While the presence of certain figures is easily accounted for-St. Martin, as titular saint, and B. Alberto Abbate, a local Carmelite (cf. Gasparo Bombaci, Memorie sacre de' gli huomini illustri . . . di Bologna, 1640, 65f.)-others are less explicable. Jerome may have been included because, with other hermit saints, he was especially revered by the Carmelites or because the Vulgate had just been established by the Council as the basic Scriptural authority. (St. Jerome, incidentally, is a curious transmogri-

fication of Michelangelo's Erithrean sybil.) But for the other three saints I have found no convincing explanation. Luke is especially puzzling. One would expect to find Matthew or even John. I wish to thank the Reverend John O'Malley, S. J. for his suggestions concerning the iconography of the altarpiece and for his as- sistance with the bibliography on the Roman Reformation.

28 Pietro Lamo, Graticola di Bologna ... [1560], Bologna, 1844, 27.

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SICIOLANTE

1. Madonna and Child with Saints. Rome, Palazzo Caetani (photo: Gabinetto

Fotografico Nazionale)

2. Madonna and Child, Saints and Donor. London, Victoria and Albert Mu-

seum, Dyce 1019-1900

3. Madonna and Child with Saints. Paris, Louvre, 10.074

4. Marriage of St. Catherine. Oxford, Christ Church, D 31 (courtesy of the

Governing Body of Christ Church)

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7. Holy Family with St. John. London, Victoria and Albert Museum, Dyce 189

8. Detail of over-door figures. Rome, Castel Sant'Angelo (photo: Gabinetto

Fotografico Nazionale)

9. Holy Family with St. Michael. Parma, Pinacoteca (photo: Anderson)

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10. St. Peter. Florence, Uffizi 13553

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12. Madonna and Child with Saints. Bologna, San Martino

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SICIOLANTE

13. Marriage of Alexander and Roxane. Rome, Galleria Borghese (photo: Ali-

nari)

14. Baptism of Clovis. Rome, San Luigi dei Francesi (photo: Gabinetto Fotografico Nazionale)

15. Study for the Assumption of the Virgin, Rome, Santa Maria dell'Anima. Formerly Geiger collection (photo: Witt Library)

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16. Caetani Chapel. Sermoneta, San Giuseppe (photo: Soprintendenza ai Monu- menti del Lazio)

17. Detail of the Caetani Chapel. Sermoneta, San Giuseppe (photo: Soprinten- denza ai Monumenti del Lazio)

SICIOLANTE I EARLY WORKS 61

10), there attributed to Perino, may have been executed at this time.29 The hard, shiny, crinkled-metal surface and dark shadows which eat away the saint's figure closely resemble the drawing for the San Martino Altarpiece. No painting for which the St. Peter was designed is known.

In October of 1547, while Siciolante was perhaps in Bologna, Perino del Vaga died, leaving many unfinished commissions and bestowing fresh opportunities upon the younger, less suc- cessful artists of his entourage. No doubt, as soon as he could get away, Siciolante returned to Rome to secure his share of this inheritance.

With other artists of Perino's circle, Siciolante took over the commission for a chapel in San Luigi dei Francesi. A contract had been signed on March 20, 1547 between Nicold Dupre' and Perino for painting and stucco in the chapel"o but by the time of his death the following October, Perino had been paid only fifty of the 250 scudi promised him. A few weeks later, on November 13, 1547, Jacopino del Conte contracted to finish the chapel in Perino's stead.-1 According to Vasari, Jacopino painted the altarpiece, as well as "molte cose" along with Siciolante.32 Of the two large side-wall frescoes, one, the Bap- tism of Clovis (Fig. 14), is attributed by tradition to Siciolante.

The Baptism probably was Siciolante's first independent fresco in Rome after Perino's death. One imagines that he felt a heavy responsibility for continuing the best traditions of Roman fresco painting and that he looked to the "old mas- ters," to Raphael and to Michelangelo for inspiration." In the Baptism he tried to recapture the harmonious symmetry, grandeur, and monumentality of the Stanza della Segnatura. He distributed his figures, like those of the School of Athens, in a

spacious, centralized architectural setting. As Professor Freed- berg has pointed out to me, the arrangement of figures resembles that of the Donation of Rome in the Sala di Costan- tino. Evidently, Siciolante considered borrowing from an obvi- ous source, the Baptism of Constantine, but, after studying the fresco, rejected its agitation and complexities, and referred to the Donation of Rome on the adjoining wall for his compo- sition.34 But only the bones of this composition interested him, not its surface appearance. The figures in Siciolante's Baptism move quietly and naturally; their few gestures are

controlled and deliberately placed. Beside their subdued de- votional attitudes even Raphael's figures seem almost operatic, Giulio's and Penni's frivolous. At the time that Siciolante

painted his Baptism, Michelangelo was finishing work on the Cappella Paolina. In Michelangelo's frescoes, Siciolante found authority for the bareness and sobriety of the Baptism. From them too he must have acquired certain peculiarities of his figure style, especially the tendency to treat the figures as de- tached rectangular units, contained and isolated in their re- sponses to the central dramatic action.

In the Baptism of Clovis, the colors are as muted as the expressive content of the fresco: soft ochre-yellows, pale greens, accents of rust and violet against the predominating grey of the architecture. There are no chattering bystanders, posturing courtiers, rich clothing, elaborate armor or coiffures. As in the Poznan Pieta and the San Martino Altar, Siciolante avoids any distractions to mind or eye. All attention is to be concentrated on the miracle of the sacrament. Within the ab- solute symmetry of the architecture, the figures are arranged in diagonals which converge at one point, on St. Remi, arch- bishop of Reims, as he is about to perform the act that will con- vert King Clovis to Christianity." It is a moment of wonder, of suspense, and of deliberation. As he waits for the consumma- tion of the act, the spectator's eye travels over the kneeling women, led by Queen Clotilda, up through the gesture of one man's hand to the crucified Christ in the center. Here he

pauses, contemplates the sacrifice at the heart of Christianity, turns again to the scene of conversion to Christ's church.

As a diagram of the triumph of Christianity, the composition certainly was skillfully planned. However, the Baptism of Clovis presents no passionate appeal for crusades against the unbeliever; its full religious impact is not immediately accessi- ble and can be understood only through deliberate effort. Siciolante was not, of course, exceptional in his intellectuali- zation of religious themes. The court of Paul III liked compli- cated allegories and imprese whose often farfetched meanings were already incomprehensible at the time without the original programs for guidance. Even Carnival carts, whose subject was, in one year at least, the triumph of the Church over the

infidel, were extraordinarily abstruse compilations of classi-

29 Uffizi No. 13553 F. Oval format, 215 x 159mm, black chalk, pen, grey-brown wash, white heightening, on brownish paper.

30 Umberto Gnoli, "Documenti senza casa," RivdA, 17, 1935, 216f. 31 Ibid., 217. Unfortunately Gnoli does not transcribe the text of this lost document

so that it is not possible to tell which statements are his own editorial interpreta- tion and which were actually contained in the document. He says Jacopino prom- ised to finish the chapel, Perino "essendo alcuni giorni innanzi morto," but he gives the date of the document as November 13, 1548. Since Perino died October 19, 1547, either the date Gnoli transcribes is incorrect or the statement is Gnoli's own mistake.

32 Vasari-Milanesi, VII, 416, 573. For the subjects of the scenes see Mgr. D'Armail- hacq, L'dglise nationale de Saint-Louis des FranGais A Rome, Rome, 1894, 131ff.

33 Some have seen the influence of Garofalo and other Emilian painters in this fresco.

It is undeniable that similarities exist between Siciolante and certain of these

artists, but I suspect that they result from parallel developments rather than from any significant, direct influence. The influence of Jacopino appears to me more obvious in the figure style of the fresco.

34 A drawing by Siciolante (or a copy after his drawing-it is hard to judge from the photograph) for the Baptism is, or was, in the Iaremitch collection, U.S.S.R. The drawing is closer than the fresco to the Donation of Constantine, both in the gen- eral disposition of figures and in individual motifs.

35 According to legend, the phial of holy oil was brought from heaven by a dove. Unless the dove has been lost through the deterioration and restoration of the fresco, it would seem that Siciolante eliminated it, although St. Remi's gesture suggests that the phial which he holds aloft may be miraculous. Strangely, the phial itself is so painted that it resembles a white dove.

62 The Art Bulletin

cal, contemporary, and Christian motifs.36 The remarkable thing about the Baptism of Clovis is certainly not its pondered, rational approach to one of the most stirring issues of the day, but rather the lucidity and simplicity with which Siciolante sets forth his ideas. One need only compare the Baptism with Vasari's frescoes executed a few years earlier in the Cancel- leria to grasp the unusual clarity of Siciolante's communica- tion and of the form in which it is presented.

Apart from the old masters-Michelangelo and Sebastiano del Piombo-Daniele da Volterra provides the only com-

parable development in Roman painting of the forties. By this time, Daniele must have begun work on the Cappella della Rovere in Santissima Trinita dei Monti. While the figures and

settings of these frescoes are even more self-consciously mon- umental than Siciolante's, the compositions lack his singleness and clarity of intention. In his second chapel in Santissima Trinit' dei Monti, Daniele's obsessive concern with complex problems of space, and the form and movement of figures within space, blights most of the frescoes with an arid, la- bored appearance. Only the Assumption retains all the dra- matic power of his earlier Deposition. In the Assumption, where he is at his best, Daniele far surpasses Siciolante. By comparison, Siciolante's composition seems limp and tepid, his forms devoid of energy, his figures but feebly expressive. In the Baptism, and in many subsequent works, Siciolante, by his intellectual approach, his emotional restraint, and his re- duction of pictorial means, sinks dangerously close to va-

pidity. During the spring and summer of 1549, Siciolante was

working on a commission for the French ambassador, Claude d'Urfe. On June 5, 1549, Siciolante wrote to Bonifacio Caetani

regretting that he could not come to Sermoneta to paint some rooms for him because he was behind on an "opera" which he had promised the ambassador.7 It would be tempting to identify this unfortunately vague reference with the chapel in San Luigi dei Francesi, but there appear to be no grounds for associating the chapel with D'Urf6.

However, probably sometime around 1549, Siciolante did return to Sermoneta to paint a chapel for Bonifacio Caetani in the church of San Giuseppe (Figs. 16, 17). Throughout his life, Siciolante maintained close ties with Bonifacio, addressed letters to him as patron, signed them as vassal, and performed many minor commissions for him. Sermoneta was only a few

hours ride from Rome, and it was even possible to go down for a day, as Siciolante offered to do on one occasion.38

Unfortunately, the Caetani archives apparently do not pre- serve any account books, other than notations of minor house- hold expenses, from before the end of the sixteenth century. It has been impossible, therefore, to fix a precise date to the chapel, but the cool, sharp light illuminating the frescoed scenes and the somewhat metallic treatment of the drapery (though less pronounced than in the oil medium) suggest a date of around 1548-1550, not much later than the San Mar- tino Altar. In spite of the difference in scale, the chapel frescoes are also closely related stylistically to the Baptism of Clovis. In fact, the small vault compartment with the Arrest of Christ might be considered a reduced version of that composition.

The chapel in San Giuseppe is perhaps the most attractive work Siciolante ever did, especially because of the unusually delicate, subtle range of colors, but also because of the hand- some proportions of the painted architecture, and the refined decorative detail. The general design of the chapel follows Peruzzi's Ponzetti chapel in Santa Maria della Pace, with a Madonna below, and compartments containing Old and New Testament scenes above. Some of the heads also seem to be derived from Peruzzi, as is the occasionally knifelike treatment of the drapery folds. But the prevailing influence is still Pe- rino's. The powdery pastel colors, the play of violets and bleached terra cottas against the cool, grey painted architecture resemble Perino's frescoes in the Palazzo Baldassini and prob- ably also the Madonna chapel in San Marcello.9 Many of the figures-for example, those in the Resurrection-are so like Perino's that one suspects them to be copies, although the models are not known. But it is significant that, for the most

part, these derivations seem to refer to works of the 1520's or earlier. Almost nothing-except perhaps the caryatids enfram-

ing the Madonna-reminds one of Perino's latest known chapel decoration, the Cappella Massimi in Santissima Trinita dei Monti.40

In fact, the Caetani chapel appears to signal, even more dis-

tinctly than the Baptism of Clovis, a deliberate return to the style of painting in Rome before the Sack. The flat, linear architecture with its crisp, delicate detail, the refined, thinly spaced grotesque ornament, the types and poses of figures, might almost persuade one that the chapel had been painted the year Siciolante was born. Nearly every figure is a by-now-

36 Cf. Vincenzo Forcella, Tornei e giostre, ingressi trionfali e feste carnevalesche in Roma sotto Paolo III, Rome, 1885, 87ff. (Carnival of 1545).

37 C. 4585 I. Siciolante does not actually name the ambassador, but D'Urf6 held the post from 1548 to 1551 (Rene Ancel, Nonciatures de France, Paris, 1909, I, 116).

38 C. 5463. It is possible that the "MO Girollamo" referred to in the letter is not Siciolante. Other references to Siciolante regarding minor commissions may be found in: C. 5810 I, November 15, 1556, concerning stone Siciolante brought from Monte Nero; C. 5933, January 1, 1557, concerning the design for an impresa (cf. also 5935, 5942); C. 9450 I, January 19, 1574, from Siciolante to Bonifacio Caetani

concerning a frame and various other items. There is also an undated letter (C.

5929 X) to Bonifacio, assigned in the archive, for no stated reason, to 1557, from Pietro Cella (who wrote the letter) and Siciolante explaining that they were not at fault in some housebreaking incident during Carnival. Undoubtedly there are other references to Siciolante among the hundreds of letters preserved in the archive, which I have barely skimmed. Siciolante may also have owned property in Ser- moneta for he is apparently listed in a census of the town as "Jeronimo Ciciulante"

(C. 6803, undated but assigned in the archive to 1559). 39 For Perino's studies for the Palazzo Baldassini and the San Marcello chapel see

Bernice Davidson, "Early Drawings by Perino del Vaga," Master Drawings, 1, pt. 3, 1963, pls. 2, 4a.

SICIOLANTE I EARLY WORKS 63

canonic type and evokes memories of the great masters and great monuments from the golden age before the Sack of Rome. Siciolante quotes Raphael, Michelangelo, Perino, and Peruzzi, just as they in their day had quoted from works of antiquity, and with the same fluency, the same confident blend- ing of ingredients to form a consistent whole. It is only through close comparison with the original sources of his in- spiration, with the Ponzetti chapel or with Raphael's Logge, that the neo-classical character of these frescoes becomes ap- parent. While the borrowings in the Caetani chapel have little in common with those ludicrously inappropriate lexicons of famous figures produced by some of his contemporaries, Sicio- lante does not entirely erase the quotation marks. There is a faintly self-conscious quality to his syntax. Each figure is a little bit isolated and set apart from its neighbors, with a mini- mum of overlapping, in an open, friezelike arrangement. The figures and the rhythmic patterns linking them are brittle and sharply defined. It is almost as though Siciolante were trying to adapt forms from the classical masters to a structural pat- tern that is intended to suggest the style of the late Quattro- cento, the frescoes of, say, Pinturicchio.41

Indeed, in many ways, Siciolante's paintings throughout his career recall-not always or entirely deliberately-the late Quattrocento. In his often awkward striving for monumental- ity of figures and settings, his careful surface realism, his nearly static compositions, his sober and impassive actors, Siciolante transmits the heritage of such fin de siecle painters as Domenico Ghirlandaio deep into the sixteenth century, to a time when the taste for revivals of the Quattrocento became common. His prosaic, somewhat archaistic translations of the art of his immediate predecessors-of Michelangelo and Sebas- tiano del Piombo in particular-had even larger, more direct consequences, for, with Daniele, his example gave significant impetus to the classicistic current in sixteenth century Roman art and led eventually to the kind of vacuous monumentality frequently seen in the work of such artists as Livio Agresti or Girolamo Muziano.

It is not the purpose of this article to follow Siciolante's activities beyond the 1540's, but because the next decade of his career remains a blank (no known documented works sur- vive from the fifties), I should like merely to suggest a few new dates and attributions to help fill the gap. Venturi lists only

two works, both lost, for these years: a coat of arms for Giulio III and an altar for Sant'Andrea in Via Flaminia, which, fol- lowing Bertolotti, he dates 1552.42 The only payments I have found for the latter appear in 1553 and 1554.43

Probably between 1550 and 1555, Siciolante painted some part of the decoration for the Palazzo Spada. Vasari says that he did a room with scenes from Roman history, but I can see no signs of his collaboration in the rooms with paintings of Roman subjects.44 However, a frieze with the story of Psyche in a small room at the front of the palace is so close to Sicio- lante's paintings of the late forties that if it is not his work, one must look for some hitherto unknown assistant or imitator. The frieze has been so heavily repainted, perhaps in the seven- teenth century, that it is impossible to reach any firm conclu- sions about the execution. The compositions are imitated from Perino's story of Psyche in the Castel Sant'Angelo.

Perhaps also during the 1550's Siciolante undertook another commission for fresco decoration, that of the Casino Olgiati- Bevilacqua. This so-called Villa of Raphael was destroyed in the last century, but three scenes from one frescoed ceiling- the Marriage of Alexander and Roxane (Fig. 13), the Archers, and the Offering to Vertumnis and Pomona-were detached and now hang in the Galleria Borghese.45 The frescoes, even before being detached, were in poor condition, but two of them seem to me to have been painted by Siciolante. The Archers may be by some other hand.

The powdery pastel colors of these works, dominated by greys and pale jade green, with touches of a golden yellow, wine, rose, and couleurs changeants, are very similar to, al- though cooler than, those of the Caetani chapel in Sermoneta. The faces of the figures are typical of Siciolante, with their bright eyes (the whites sharply defined, the irises very dark), their long, rather thick noses with bulbous tips, their short upper lips and small, pursed mouths, and their thick, curly hair with one lock falling over the forehead.

These frescoes generally have been considered the work of some immediate follower of Raphael-occasionally of Perino -but there has been little agreement concerning the attribu- tion, date, or relative quality of the three fragments. Such diversity of opinion is understandable since the frescoes were imitations of works by other artists, and since Siciolante, as in the Caetani chapel, deliberately tried to recreate the style of an earlier epoch.

40 For Perino's design for the Cappella Massimi see: J. A. Gere, "Two late Fresco Cycles by Perino del Vaga in the Massimi Chapel and the Sala Paolina," BurlM, 102, 1960, figs. 16, 17.

41 Wolfgang Lotz ("Mannerism in Architecture: Changing Aspects," Studies in West- ern Art, II, Princeton, 1963, 243f.) has found similar revival tendencies in Roman architecture of the fifties and sixties.

42 Venturi, IX, 5, p. 548. The arms of Giulio III are mentioned in Vasari-Milanesi, VI, 584.

43 Archivio di Stato, Camerale I, 1519, fols. 76, 86v. I am indebted to Dr. Anna Maria Corbo of the Archivio for helping me to locate the Sant'Andrea payments.

44 Vasari-Milanesi, VII, 572. Baglione, Le vite, 24. Cf. Jack Wasserman's arguments for dating the palace construction during the time of Paul III, "Palazzo Spada," AB, 43, 1961, 58-63. The fresco decorations may have been started during the late forties but probably were for the most part executed under Giulio III. Apparently Cardinal Capodiferro fell into disgrace with Paul IV, and after his election to the papacy lived far from Rome (Ancel, Nonciatures, I, 15f.). It is likely, therefore, that work on the palace ceased at that time.

45 Cf. Paola della Pergola, Galleria Borghese, Rome, 1957, II, Nos. 180-82, for the history and sources of the frescoes.

64 The Art Bulletin

Perhaps during the second half of the decade, Siciolante painted the Fugger chapel in Santa Maria dell'Anima. Schmid- lin cites a document dated April, 1549, in which the church authorities beg Anton Fugger to have his chapel painted; it was evidently not the first time the request had been made.46 Because of this document, the chapel usually is dated around 1549-1550, but, judging from stylistic evidence, Fugger must have delayed yet longer before he at last commissioned Sicio- lante to paint scenes from the life of the Virgin. These frescoes already approach Siciolante's late style and are so closely re- lated to the chapel in San Tommaso dei Cenci, dated 1565, that they can hardly have been painted a full fifteen years earlier. In the kneeling women of the Baptism of Clovis, one can find prototypes for the massive figures of the Fugger chapel whose ponderous drapery loops in abstract patterns that deny the laws of gravity and anatomy. The drapery folds of the Anima

figures are not yet completely molded into the pervasive, swinging curves that characterize the late works. One can still find clumsy bunches, angular accents, long, limp swags that break the rhythmic continuity. In these frescoes, and espe- cially in a preparatory drawing for the Assumption of the Vir- gin (Fig. 15), Siciolante appears to have been strongly influ- enced by Daniele da Volterra.47

Among other works that may date from this decade are three paintings in the Galleria Colonna.48 The Madonna and Child with St. John, once attributed to Giulio Romano, is vir- tually copied from that artist's altarpiece in the Anima. The Madonna and Child has already been recognized as Siciolante's work, but the two panels with Sts. Andrew and Catherine of Alexandria are still attributed to the school of Giulio Romano.49

The Frick Collection

46 Joseph Schmidlin, Geschichte der deutschen Nationalkirche in Rom, Freiburg, 1906, 243. I have been unable to locate this document. The church archives do not, so as I was able to discover, include any material on the chapel.

47 The present location of this drawing is unknown. When in the Geiger collection it was attributed to Fra Bartolommeo. A study by Siciolante for one of the kneeling apostles of the Fugger chapel vault is in the Albertina as Franciabigio (Alfred Stix and L. Frahlich-Bum, Die Zeichnungen der toskanischen, umbrischen und ramischen Schulen, Vienna, 1932, No. 164). Dr. Konrad Oberhuber has also recognized this drawing as a Siciolante. In the Fugger chapel frescoes and in later works, such as San Tommaso dei Cenci, there may be some oddly delayed influence from Pordenone's frescoes in Piacenza.

48 Madonna and Child with St. John, No. 219 (cf. Venturi, IX, 5, fig. 315); St. Andrew, No. 38; and St. Catherine of Alexandria, No. 40.

49 A few paintings that have been assigned to Siciolante's early years seem to me doubtful attributions. The Venus Urania in the Italian embassy in London might conceivably be a work of 1544-45 as has been suggested, but it is impossible to

judge from bad photographs a painting which is reputedly in poor condition (Zeri, "Intorno a Gerolamo Siciolante," 148, fig. 13). Neither the Chigi-Volpi di Misurata

(I have been unable to discover whether the painting is still in the latter collec-

tion) Holy Family (Zeri, loc.cit., 142, fig. 5) nor the Zagreb, Strossmayer Gallery Holy Family (Zeri, Pittura e controriforma, 107 n. 27) seem to me to be by Sicio- lante. The latter especially is too crude and coarsely simplified in execution, too

vulgarized in sentiment to be his. The former I would attribute to Jacopino del Conte. As Dr. Zeri has observed, Jacopino influenced the formation of Siciolante's

style; at times their paintings can be confusingly similar. The Annunciation in the church of the Cappuccini (Venturi, IX, 5, fig. 305) is by Siciolante but probably is not as early a work as Venturi considers it to be. The signature and possibly a date in the lower left-hand corner are obscured by abrasions and over-painting. The Noli Me Tangere hanging opposite the Annunciation is attributed to Siciolante in the church guide sheet but is by Marco Pino. The portrait of Paul III in Santa Francesca Romana, once assigned to Perino and attributed to Siciolante

by Voss (Spfitrenaissance, 109, fig. 23), looks more like Siciolante in the photo- graph than it does in actuality. The painting is very drab in tone-almost colorless -quite unlike Siciolante's vivid palette. The paint itself is dry and the individual brushstrokes often are visible, especially in the rather sallow flesh areas--again unlike the richly oily consistency of Siciolante's paint and its smooth, unbroken surfaces. Zeri (Pittura e controriforma, fig. 2) has published as Jacopino del Conte a portrait of Paul III with Ottavio Farnese, which is obviously related to the Santa Francesca Romana painting. In technique the latter seems to me closer to Jacopino than to Siciolante, but I am not entirely convinced Jacopino was its author. The Corsini (now Barberini) Holy Family (cf. Zeri, "Intorno a Gerolamo Siciolante," 141f.) I believe to have been at least partly executed by Jacopino. It is a puzzling work, much in need of cleaning, and may have been painted by more than one hand. The head of the Virgin closely resembles the head of one of the Marys in

Jacopino's San Giovanni Decollato Deposition.