[95] Chapter 4
So far three works have been discussed: three paintings were proposed, but only two were completed. The last work that Barocci proposed for the Chiesa Nuova and that the Oratorian fathers carefully considered was Nativity of the Virgin, intended for the high altar. In the end, the painting for the high altar was completed by Peter Paul Rubens, but despite the change in artist, there are hidden continuities between the original iconographic program and Rubens’s final painted arrangement that reveal details about Oratorian spirituality, putting into final relief the Oratorians’ devotion to Mary.
The saga of the high altar began immediately with the installation of Presentation of the Virgin in 1603. Barocci must have been particularly ambitious, for he sent word with those delivering the painting to Rome that he would be happy to paint the altarpiece for the high altar as well.1 The high altar was dedicated to the birth of the Virgin (Deparae Virgini) and [96] Saint Gregory the Great. Following the set Marian dedication of the altars, this altar was preordained to be decorated with a Nativity of the Virgin. The youth who delivered Barocci’s message also brought drawings and sketches of a possible work, implying that Barocci was well aware of both the program and the need. The documents recall an aborted canvas (already “mezza fatta” and “sbozzo”) for the king of Spain: a Nativity of the Virgin begun some twenty years prior but eventually switched for a copy of another work (The Calling of Saint Andrew). Andrea Emiliani has hypothesized that this “sbozzo” was the basis for the work completed by Barocci’s pupil Alessandro Vitali, the Nativity of the Virgin now in San Simpliciano, Milan, and formerly in a church in Montegranaro, near Ascoli Piceno (plate VII).2w This chapter affirms Emiliani’s suggestion and recovers the intent of this work for Oratorian spirituality.
As part of the church fabric, the altar was to be paid for out of the general funding. The Oratorian fathers had used Federico Borromeo’s money for the accouterments of the altar and directed the Cesi’s munificence toward completing the façade.3 The honor of the high altar per se, however, was promised to Bishop Cesi, who upon discovering Cardinal Federico Borromeo’s stemma on the high altar withdrew his funding, creating a temporary financial crisis; indeed, work on the façade stopped in March 1603.4 But although money—and the shortage of money—directly dictated whether Barocci’s work was commissioned, it did not influence the Oratorians’ desire for the work, which seems to have been earnest.
Just after Barocci had received a payment (20 March 1603) for Saint Ambrose’s Pardon of Theodosius,5 Ludovico Vincenzi wrote to Guidobaldo in Milan (16 April 1603) that “Il Baroccio finalmente finì il quadro per Roma,”6 showing the Milanese, and hence Borromeo’s, concerns. It is only with this in mind that we can understand Barocci’s offer to paint the high altar, reported to Borromeo in a letter of 7 May 1603. Considering the money he and the Opera del Duomo were paying for the Milan cathedral projects, it is easy to understand Borromeo’s advice to the Roman Oratorian father Flaminio Ricci on 13 June 1603 to wait until September to decide on the matter.7
[97] As everyone waited, Flaminio Ricci again wrote to Borromeo (27 June 1603),8 but in vain, for payments continued to Barocci and his assistant Vitali for the Milan cathedral projects. On 14 July 1603 the Opera decided on a payment for Vitali and on 22 July more moneys were ordered for Barocci for the altarpiece of Saint Ambrose’s Pardon of Theodosius.9 There is little doubt that the Oratorian fathers and Federico Borromeo would have liked Barocci to paint the high altar of the Chiesa Nuova; however, the Oratory’s money problems and Borromeo’s own payments for the Milanese works at the time slowed his decision about the high altar. Shortly thereafter, Barocci’s involvement with the high altar became more or less impossible when the pope contacted the Duke of Urbino (13 August 1603) to commission an altarpiece by Barocci for his family chapel in Santa Maria sopra Minerva. The slow and elderly Barocci could not be pulled from this papal commission to work on the Chiesa Nuova. Already on 1 October 1603 Barocci received his first payment (283.38 scudi) for the Institution of the Eucharist for Santa Maria sopra Minerva. By the time Flaminio Ricci wrote to Borromeo again in 1604, the opportunity to engage Barocci for the high altar had largely passed.10
A complex series of events then occurred. Since 1580 the medieval Madonna della Vallicella had occupied the altar of the Purification of the Virgin (1L). This painting was associated with many miracles, among which was one recorded later in Pietro da Cortona’s fresco over the nave (in which Neri beheld the image miraculously keep the old church from falling upon it after a beam had broken). The painting was moved to the high altar by a decree of 2 August 1606, seemingly without any premeditation.11 However, already in 1604—when Barocci’s project was weakened but still alive—the medieval image was included in Ricci’s and Borromeo’s discussions of the high altar.12 The need to accommodate the image, as well as the reliquaries Baronio had recently provided to honor the martyrs buried beneath the altar, ultimately led to the abandonment of the prescribed iconographic subject of the Nativity of the Virgin in favor of Rubens’s eventual sacra conversazione.13
[98] After Angelo Cesi died in November 1606, his family rapidly lost interest in Chiesa Nuova projects and the Madonna della Vallicella already upon the altar provided a makeshift solution until a new benefactor came on the scene, Cardinal Giacomo Serra. His money enabled the Oratorians to resume discussions of a true high altarpiece, but by then he had in mind his own protégé, the young Peter Paul Rubens.14 If Borromeo had not already been making payments to Barocci’s workshop in 1604, he may have been willing to fund the altarpiece and the high altar might very well have been adorned by a Barocci painting, whether The Nativity of the Virgin or something else closer to Rubens’s invention. Thus we can see how close Barocci truly came to completing the altarpiece for the high altar of the Chiesa Nuova, the “più bella e superba occasione in tutta Roma,” as Rubens excitedly wrote back to Mantua.15
For a few months in the summer of 1603, the fathers of the Congregation of the Oratory considered Federico Barocci’s proposal to finish a previously begun altarpiece for the high altar of the Chiesa Nuova in Rome. Different explanations have been offered for why this idea was rejected, the most popular being the arrival on the scene of Cardinal Serra, his protégé Peter Paul Rubens, and money to pay for the altarpiece. It has been suggested that Barocci’s proposed altarpiece for the Chiesa Nuova is The Nativity of the Virgin, now in the Milanese church of San Simpliciano (plate VII). There are good reasons for accepting this suggestion. Considering the glory this work almost received, it has received too little attention from art historians. No doubt this is because it was finished by Barocci’s pupil Alessandro Vitali, and not too successfully at that. Nevertheless, the opportunity to publish the picture in color and reflect on its pedigree allows us to reclaim a Barocci near-masterpiece.
The only evidence about this work comes from a letter written by the Oratorian Flaminio Ricci in Rome to Cardinal Federico Borromeo in Milan. Ricci informs us that Barocci’s “giovane” brought with him the news that Barocci could paint the altarpiece for the high altar of the church. We can surmise that this was his pupil Antonio Viviani, who subsequently stayed on in Rome and worked in San Gregorio Magno, in the Sforza Palace, and in Paul V’s apartments in the Vatican.16 Ricci then related this to Borromeo: “the aforesaid Barocci would gladly paint the Nativity for the high altar . . . he has a work that is half done, having already for the Duke of Urbino made a drawing and sketch for the King of Spain, which he abandoned when the Duke changed his mind and having made a Saint Andrew in its place, and for this expressed the hope to have it finished in two years.”17
[99] Indeed, Barocci did complete a Calling of Saint Andrew (Musées Royaux des Beaux Arts, Brussels) in 1583 for a Pesarese church and painted a copy of it for the king of Spain a few years later (fig. 4.1, now in El Escorial).18 This would place the period of production in the mid- to late 1580s, which means that the work Barocci had apparently begun was abandoned at that time in favor of the simpler copy, only to be raised again in negotiations with the Oratorians. So the questions are (1) Can we safely assume that this is the work Barocci referred to during his negotiations? (2) To what degree had the work been finished and how much can therefore be ascribed to Barocci or how much to Vitali? (3) What are the sources for the iconography of the altarpiece? and finally (4) Why was the idea of the Barocci altarpiece ultimately rejected?
Is the Nativity of the Virgin in San Simpliciano the Correct Work?
The Roman letter only makes reference to a “Natività.” So we must ask: Was the painting now in San Simpliciano the work referred to? “Natività” is most easily taken to mean a Birth of Christ, and Edmund Pillsbury suggested that the incomplete Nativity in the Rasini Collection, Milan (an early version of the Prado and Ambrosiana Nativity already discussed), is the work referred to in the letter.19 Although the fact that it is unfinished satisfies Barocci’s story to the Oratorians, this work is surely too small (133 x 107 cm). It is a devotional altarpiece and could not have served on the high altar of a major Roman church.
The first clue is that the letter refers to a painting that was originally intended for the king of Spain. That the king most likely wanted a substantial work is suggested by the size of the painting actually delivered: the Calling of Saint Andrew (in El Escorial) is 320 x 236 cm.20 Searching around for other paintings, the Madonna della Gatta, recently restored at the Uffizi, is of the proper size; this painting shows Zachariah and Elizabeth visiting the Holy Family and therefore could be mistaken for a Nativity. But it was painted in the 1590s and would not have been “mezza fatta” in 1603, so it cannot be the painting mentioned.21 The case for Barocci-Vitali’s Nativity of the Virgin in Milan looks the most promising.
[100] Fig. 4.1: Same-scale comparison of (left) Federico Barocci, The Calling of Saint Andrew, ca. 1588, oil on canvas (El Escorial, Lessing Images) and (right) Federico Barocci and Alessandro Vitali, Nativity of the Virgin, ca. 1588–1603, oil on canvas, San Sempliciano, Milan (Suprintendenza per i beni storici artistici ed etnoantropologici per le province di Milano).
[101] The problem is that a work that was half completed and of sufficient quality to be offered to the king of Spain and the Oratorians ought to be better known—through copies, preparatory drawings, and the like—if it was really so important. Whatever Barocci proposed for the king and the Oratorians would have had to be a compelling work that required much preparation. As the Nativity of the Virgin stands today, it does not seem to satisfy these criteria. However, the iconography in that work has a trecento source and more preparatory graphic work exists than has been supposed. Not surprisingly, more versions of the painting do exist, including an identical copy now in a parish church outside of Milan and a version executed exclusively by Vitali in Sant’Agostino, Fermo.22 The echoes of this painting are found in so many later works that this apparently insignificant work is clearly more influential than previously thought.
The similarity in size between the Nativity of the Virgin (320 x 230) in San Simpliciano, Milan, and the Calling of Saint Andrew is striking (see fig. 4.1), and gives credibility to the idea that Barocci was instructed to complete a work of a set size for the king of Spain. A rereading of an old document helps confirm this connection. A painting for the king is first mentioned in 1583, in the Duke of Urbino’s correspondence with his Florentine ambassador. Francesco Maria wrote to Simone Fortuna in regard to the Grand Duke of Florence’s request for a portrait of himself and in passing mentioned a work requested by the king of Spain for the Escorial.23 A letter of 1586 from the Duke of Urbino to his agent in Madrid, Bernardo Maschi, notes that it has been two years (“doi anni”) since a large painting (“un quadro grande”) was ordered from Barocci.24
Things get even more interesting when we also consider a similar request for a painting from the king of Spain’s ambassador in Rome, the Count of Olivares, Guzman (ambassador from 1582 to 1592). In a letter of February 1588 from the Duke of Urbino’s minister in Rome, Grazioso Graziosi, to Duke Francesco Maria II, the minister mentions the long desire (“alcuni mesi”) by the Spanish ambassador, Guzman, for a work of 10 by 15 palmi (about 2 by 3 meters), which is very close to the sizes of both Birth of the Virgin and Calling of Saint Andrew.25 The painting was to be an Epiphany or an Adoration of Christ (“Epifania cio’e’ l’Adoratione del Re”). [102] Of course, the naming of the subject opens up the possibility that Barocci later changed the subject from a Nativity of Christ to one of Mary. The letter was only written five months before the delivery of Calling of Saint Andrew. Although it speaks of a painting for the Count of Olivares and not the king of Spain, it is possible that Barocci began the count’s painting and since he became quickly occupied with a painting for the king, he later conflated the patron.
In fact, Barocci may have conflated the two paintings because the Duke of Urbino was pressuring him to work instead on a painting for the king. Indeed, the work for the Count of Olivares was never delivered. After the duke informed his ambassador in Rome, Grazioso Graziosi, how difficult it was to get a picture from Barocci, Graziosi suggested that Barocci himself write to the Spanish ambassador to make the refusal more credible.26 These exchanges went back and forth.27 In the end, as also happened to a later Spanish count, the grandees simply didn’t have enough clout to sway the overworked and temperamental Barocci.28
Perhaps with the arrival of this letter and after beginning work on the Nativity of the Virgin, Barocci, under pressure from Duke Francesco Maria II, simply decided to copy a work. In this context—with the Spanish ambassador living in the Palazzo della Rovere in via Lata with Graziosi—one can easily imagine Barocci starting blindly on a work, only to have its subject changed. The time constraint might have even caused his decision to simply paint a copy.
If that is how the Nativity of the Virgin was left, what remains to be explained is what happened to it next. Fert Sangiorgi has hypothesized that Barocci may have already shopped the altarpiece to the convent of the Angelic Sisters of Saint Paul at San Paolo Converso (July 1600) when they were seeking a work by Barocci.29 The first evidence of a Barocci work in Milan is the letter of Guidobaldo Vincenzi to his brother Ludovico in Urbino. He speaks on behalf of the nuns of San Paolo Converso, as a go-between to Urbino. He indicated that there was a space of 3 by 4 braccie, and asked his brother to find out if Barocci’s recently completed Last Supper (1599, Duomo, Urbino) might be copied [103] by a good pupil. The subtext to all this is that Barocci had been negotiating two commissions with the Duomo of Milan and the nuns probably asked for a copy because they knew they had no chance of acquiring an original.30 Guidobaldo went on to confirm that the squarish Last Supper would not work, but that he was interested in copies of the Stigmatization of Saint Francis (1595, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino) or the now-lost Assumption (formerly Duomo, Urbino). But crucially he also asked about “anco se vi fosse qualche altra cosa.”31
This “other thing” might have been the Nativity of the Virgin that was unfinished in Barocci’s workshop. The possibility suggested by Sangiorgi is especially enticing because the Angelic Sisters of Saint Paul in possession of San Paolo Converso was headed by the prioress Paola Antonia Sfondrato,32 sister of Cardinal Paolo Emilio Sfondrato, a devotee of Filippo Neri. Cardinal Sfondrato had been unsuccessfully seeking a painting by Barocci at just that time, and his interest in Francesco Vanni (and Guido Reni) was precisely motivated by his appreciation for Barocci’s style. Finally, Cardinal Federico Borromeo, the archbishop of Milan, was at that time helping negotiate Barocci’s works with the Duomo and was himself a follower of Filippo Neri. More than anyone, Borromeo would have been aware of what was available in the Barocci workshop for—if such can be said of Barocci—quick delivery. Thus an “Oratorian orbit” linked Barocci to these various agents in Milan.
The idea that the Nativity of the Virgin was completed in some way for such a Milanese body as the Angelic Sisters must be discounted, however, for two reasons. First, the size doesn’t work out: 3 by 4 braccie (assuming one braccio is about 58.4 cm) equals 233.6 x 175.2 cm, much smaller than the Nativity of the Virgin’s 320 x 230 cm.33 More importantly, the documentation related to the painting finds its origins in the town of Montegranaro near Ascoli Piceno, which is just right for the kind of studio work the Nativity of the Virgin seems to have ended up as. Therefore, it is best to leave the San Paolo Converso scenario as an enticing possibility that has no proof supporting it. Nevertheless, this letter indicates a date close to that of Barocci’s proposal for the Chiesa Nuova that suggests how the letter might have spurred Barocci to think about how he could finish and sell this altarpiece.
What Did the Nativity of the Virgin Look Like When It Was Promised to the Oratorians?
It is important to ask the question, “What did the work look like at the time?” if only to know how much Barocci contributed and how much his workshop—probably Alessandro [104] Vitali—added. What exactly did Barocci mean when he said that half the work was done (“fatiga mezza fatta”) and when he said he had made “un disegno et sbozzo”? It is clear that he made a drawing; this is confirmed in Flaminio Ricci’s letter of 7 May 1603 to Federico Borromeo that mentions a “disegno.” But “sbozzo” is more ambiguous. Either he “made a sbozzo” in the nominative sense or he “sbozzo-ed it,” in the past participle. In an earlier publication I surmised that he meant “roughed out,” as in abbozzato.34 However, a reconsideration of the term sbozzo, especially in light of the analysis of the term by Maurizio Calvesi, leads one to abandon that interpretation in favor of drawings.35
The term sbozzo first of all occurs in an Oratorian context in the commissioning of the work that would supplant Barocci’s project, Rubens’s Adoration of the Madonna della Vallicella. In the document of 25 September 1606, the artist was told to paint “il detto quadro . . . secondo il disegno, o sbozzo mostrato loro dal detto signor Pietro Paolo.”36 Here, disegno and sbozzo are used as synonyms, and have an equal meaning. There is clearly no reference to underpainting, sketching, or blocking-in of the final painted support. Next we have a document relating to Caravaggio: a 5 April 1600 commission for a lost work. The work, the contract says, must “conforme allo sbozzo per esso signor Michelangelo fatto per detto signor Fabio.”37 This document is obviously interesting for the lack of drawings from Caravaggio’s hand that survive. But again it is clear that the document refers to something already finished that was shown to signor Fabio. This cannot refer to a roughed-out painting. Finally, independent corroborating evidence comes from the contemporary edict published by the cardinal vicar of Rome, Cardinal Rusticucci. In his instructions to painters working in Rome and the requirements they must adhere to, Rusticucci notes that artists must submit a drawing or “sbozzo” to local authorities before beginning work.38 This third bit of information seems decisive in showing three instances in a Roman milieu around 1600 of the use of sbozzo referring to some kind of preparatory drawing.
If the phrase “disegno et sbozzo” must refer to two drawings, this suggests an advanced idea of the composition. Unfortunately, only one potential candidate exists: a quick sketch in charcoal and pastel in the Düsseldorf Kunstmuseum der Stadt (fig. 4.2).39 The technique is similar to the pastel used for the compositional sketch for the Vatican Annunciation (1584) and the Sodalizio dei Piceni Virgin and Child and Saints, originally for the Franciscan church of Cagli (ca. 1590).40 Are there any other drawings for which preparatory drawings could have been made? Is it plausible that they weren’t kept because no one recognized a Barocci work in them?
[105] Fig. 4.2: Federico Barocci, Kneeling woman, compositional study, ca. 1585, chalk on paper, Düsseldorf, inv. 162 (Stiftung Museum Kunstpalast-Horst Kolbert, Düsseldorf /ARTOTHEK).
To return to the letter of 1603, Ricci wrote that Barocci had already made a “disegno et sbozzo.” In light of Barocci’s working method, this does not refer merely to a quick drawing like the one in Düsseldorf. This is especially true since the “fatiga mezza fatta,” that is, half the work was done. Rather, Viviani must have been using disegno to refer to a black and white disegno compito, which was perhaps more finished and could be called, after Bellori, a cartoncino, and using sbozzo to refer to a color sketch. Since the Nativity was replaced by The Calling of Saint Andrew, it is worthwhile to point out that Barocci [106] may have painted just such a sbozzo for it, the one now in the Contini-Bonacossi Collection in Milan.41 Thus sbozzo still refers to a small portable drawing, but hints at the eventual meaning of bozzetto.
Some evidence for more extensive graphic preparation is found in an unpublished drawing in Berlin (fig. 4.3). Never connected to a painting project, this drawing is exactly to scale of the baby Virgin Mary’s arm. It follows Barocci’s tendency to work out pastels for the flesh parts of his paintings. It cannot be a sole drawing; perhaps others will turn up once people begin looking for them. More importantly, since the work is full size, it proves that a cartoon existed for the painting (which would be necessary for the two copies), given further proof it was “mezza fatta.” Some use of the same terminology is found in Barocci’s correspondence for his commission of the Lamentation of Christ, agreed to in 1600 but still not done in 1608. Barocci wrote that “ho fatto il cartone, et mezzo abozzato l’opera et tutte le altre fatiche da me sollite farsi, ho compite.”42
Normally, for Barocci, this would mean that the painting was literally “half done,” and had gone through enough drawings to support a light study, and perhaps a color study. Judging again from Barocci’s other works, it would mean that Barocci also would have finished the cartoon and even blocked in the canvas. But here the rest of the story must be qualified, for there are interesting clues about the surviving drawings to help us see pretty clearly that the Nativity has the hallmarks of a studio picture, undertaken with elements from other works. First of all, the Düsseldorf study is done hastily in a manner not typical of an autograph work, but similar to that for the partly workshop Virgin and Child and Saints, which lacks a proper surviving modello. Also, the life-size drawing of the putto’s leg is in chalk and not in pastel. Many contemporary works use pastel for life-size figures. The use of chalk is a time-saving shortcut.
Thus, I do not believe that disegno and sbozzo refer to true light and color models (there is no beautiful painted bozzetto for the composition lost in some collection waiting to be found) but rather to simpler drawings, whose finish and quality were stretched in Barocci’s description. When Viviani mentioned the drawings, they were tangible proofs that the slow Barocci could actually deliver the work in the two years he mentioned, and also showed what he would attempt. What Viviani did not let on—or perhaps did not know—is that the work he was promoting for his master was already an expedient that would not share the same painstaking preparation as either the Visitation or Presentation of the Virgin in the same church.
This fact can be proven by glancing at a timeline. If indeed Barocci was panicking in 1588 because the work he had started was switched from being for the Count of Olivares to being for the king of Spain, he would have turned to what he was presently working on. In this case it would have been the Circumcision for the Oratory of the Name of Jesus in Pesaro (1590, Louvre, Paris). Indeed, I believe that the very reason the Duke of Urbino asked Barocci to switch to a copy was because he realized that the hodgepodge he was going to deliver to the Count of Olivares was not suitable for a major diplomatic gift to the king of Spain.
[107] Fig. 4.3: Federico Barocci, Arm of a child, study, ca. 1583, chalk on paper, inv. 20158 (bpk, Berlin/Kupferstichkabinett/photo by Volker-H. Cutter/Art Resource).
Looking at the Nativity of the Virgin as we see it today, its debt to the Circumcision is obvious. The Zachariah figure on the left and the sole angel both derive from the Circumcision, as do the genre details in the foreground. What is more surprising is that they are taken from the painting at life-size, that is, they are literal borrowings (see fig. 4.4). The same is true for the head of the baby Virgin, which is derived from the head of little Saint John in the Madonna della Gatta, the maid in profile on the left is also flipped from the Visitation, and finally the figure bearing the Virgin Mary is a clever adaptation of the figure of Saint Sebastian, all from works of the 1580s.
In sum, the Nativity of the Virgin appears to be a work very much like the Virgin and Child and Saints (ca. 1590, Sodalizio dei Piceni, Rome).43 Although composed of different elements, it was undertaken with authorship by Barocci.44 But what then was Barocci talking about in his message to the Oratorians? If the Nativity was merely analogous to other workshop pictures, a derivative work with, however, autograph preparatory drawings, it would not follow that Barocci would demand the extraordinary fee of 800 to 1000 scudi. Nor for that matter would he find it fit for a high altar in Rome rather than a provincial church. This paradox can be resolved by realizing that Barocci would not have allowed the work to proceed as is.
[108] Fig. 4.4: Same-scale comparison of (left) Federico Barocci, Circumcision, 1590, oil on canvas (Musée de Louvre, Alfredo Dagli Orti/The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY); (center) Federico Barocci and Alessandro Vitali, Nativity of the Virgin, ca. 1588–1603, oil on canvas, San Sempliciano, Milan (Soprintendenza per i beni storici artistici ed etnoantropologici per le province di Milano); and (right) Federico Barocci, Visitation of the Virgin and Saint Elizabeth, 1586, oil on canvas, Chiesa Nuova, Rome (photo by author).
Barocci followed a very standard pricing structure, where he expected less money for his collaborative works. For example, while Barocci painted the Last Supper in the Duomo for 600 scudi, his assistant Vitali (with his assistance) received some 250 to 300 scudi, slightly [109] less than half (this is consistent with copies from within a workshop). Therefore there is only one conclusion about the Nativity: graphically the work was well advanced and at its abandonment represented an autograph but incomplete Barocci. It was only later that (probably) Vitali simplified the forms and coarsened the drawing on the way to completing it. In other words, at the time of passing along his message, the work still had the potential to be an authentic Barocci.
In a recent study, I argued provocatively that there are no true independent commissions from the brush of Vitali before Barocci’s death.45 First of all, this suggests that many of them are not really Vitali commissions at all, but rather joint commissions given to Vitali with the provision that Barocci supervise the work and contribute partially to it.46 As a practical consequence, examining any commissions will show that they are derived—usually very literally—from previous works by Barocci. This is true of the Saint Agatha in Prison (Museo Albani, Urbino), the little-known Vision of Saint John of Patmos (Cathedral, Fermo), and [110] Saint Ambrose’s Pardon of Theodosius (Duomo, Milan). Each derives from a previous Barocci commission: Immaculate Conception (Galleria Nazionale, Urbino), Presentation of the Virgin (Chiesa Nuova, Rome), and Stigmatization (Galleria Nazionale, Urbino), respectively.47
What this means for the Nativity of the Virgin is that elements that are unaccounted for cannot be casually attributed to Vitali’s intervention, and this strengthens the chronological placement of the major work on the canvas to circa 1588. The principal element is the figure of the maid who holds the newborn Virgin Mary. It must be held extremely suspicious to suggest that Vitali simply invented the figure circa 1603, because graphically he did not operate in this way. If he had invented this figure, how can one explain its genesis? Given Barocci’s involvement with this picture—on the model, as noted already, of the Virgin and Child and Saints in the Sodalizio dei Piceni—we may make a further comparison to another derivative but autograph work, the Madonna of Saint Lucy in the Louvre.48
The figure of the Virgin Mary in the Madonna of Saint Lucy actually precedes the similar but not identical figure in the Madonna del Rosario in Senigallia.49 In other words, Barocci’s intervention was so strong for this seemingly workshop picture that he actually invented figures in it. This is not unusual when one considers the situation with the Saint Agatha in Prison, a joint commission with Vitali, that later served as the model of the much more famous Beata Michelina.50 What Barocci was doing in the Nativity of the Virgin was pioneering a figure type that he would explore much more vigorously in the figures of Saint John and the Virgin in his later Crucifixion with Three Saints in Genoa.
The same logic applies to the baby Virgin Mary figure. In the same way, the figure of the baby Virgin Mary from the Nativity became the model for the Christ child in the Madonna della Gatta (Uffizi). Thus we may surmise that the Nativity, if it was actually based on Barocci’s extensive drawings, sat in the workshop for some years. He appears to have dusted it off first for San Paolo Converso and then for the Oratorians, before it was eventually finished (by Vitali) for a Marchegian church.
The very reason that Vitali entered the picture is, of course, because Barocci was extremely busy and Vitali’s assistance allowed the master to complete more works. Observers still noted relative authorship, and Vitali’s intervention meant a reduced price. This is what patrons like the nuns of San Paolo Converso wanted: a work that would not cost too much and that they could expect to receive in a short time. This explains why the work, in spite of its off-putting faces painted a little too blandly by Vitali, is of such chromatic quality. Furthermore, if the canvas was sitting in the studio for so many years, and Sangiorgi’s hypothesis is correct that Barocci saw an opportunity to sell it when the nuns of San Paolo Converso approached him, he might have worked on it more. When the Chiesa Nuova commission fell through, Barocci probably did work on the Nativity of the Virgin to get it ready to sell to a provincial church in [111] Montegranaro, although with Vitali’s intervention. Therefore, the work for the Chiesa Nuova would have been his, and worth the high price tag, and the one that the Marchegian church got was aided by Vitali and therefore probably—were we to discover the payments—cost less.
The Iconography
Since we can be reasonably sure that the San Simpliciano Nativity of the Virgin is the painting intended for the high altar of the Chiesa Nuova, it deserves more attention. It has never, until now, been reproduced in color. This has hurt its chances for an adequate assessment of its quality and interest. Also the finishing of the faces by Vitali is not of the highest quality, and certainly below Barocci’s standard. Nevertheless, given the argument that this painting was largely conceived of by Barocci, it is worth close consideration.
It is clear that the painting’s inspiration comes from Andrea del Sarto’s treatment of the same subject in the cloister of Santissima Annunziata in Florence. The atmosphere and treatment, in addition to the cozy interior with the large fireplace, derive directly from Sarto’s picture. If Barocci began to think of this work in the 1580s, it makes sense because he also reinterpreted Sarto’s Visitation from the same church for his version in the Chiesa Nuova. What is striking is Barocci’s use of the stark profile in both the Nativity and the Visitation. The resting of the elbow of the holy grandmother, Saint Ann, also occurs in another Florentine source, Domenico Ghirlandaio’s fresco in the choir of Santa Maria Novella.
However, the reaching over of the body is alien to both, as is the skewed bed. Here, a source suggested to me by Hayden Maginnis is quite suggestive. The lost fresco by Pietro Lorenzetti on the exterior of the Ospedale of Santa Maria della Scala in Siena (ca. 1335) seems to have shown the bed skewed in this angle with the emphatic leaning of Saint Ann and a prominent maid warming a blanket before the fire. The fresco does not exist today, but is known in important versions such as that of Sano di Pietro (fig. 4.5) and the Osservanza Master’s Birth of the Virgin (1440s, Museo di Arte Sacra, Asciano). Sano’s predella adorned an altarpiece originally in the Cappella dei Signori of the Palazzo Pubblico.51 This might seem like an obscure source, but the Ospedale was one of three artistic poles in the city of Siena, along with the cathedral and Palazzo Pubblico. The fresco was also extremely well known, and influenced Francesco di Giorgio’s grisaille fresco in the Bichi chapel of Sant’Agostino (1488–94) in Siena and other very public monuments.52 Maginnis has also stressed that Siena was along every itinerary leading from Florence to Rome.53 We know that Barocci visited Florence at least twice, and it is logical to assume that he had been in Siena.54 In a chapel in which Francesco di Giorgio—the collaborator of Barocci’s grandfather on the engines of war reliefs outside of the Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale—painted this subject, Barocci would have taken notice and perhaps been led to the original with more assurance.55
[112] Fig. 4.5: Sano di Pietro, Birth of the Virgin, 1448–1452, tempera and gold on panel (University of Michigan Museum of Art, Museum purchase made possible by the Thirtieth Anniversary Project and the Friends of the Museum of Art, 1977/2.1).
Many nativities of the Virgin have the features of a skewed bed, leaning Ann, or maid warming a blanket, but rarely all three. The warming blanket is very rare, although Federico Zuccaro popularized it in a print of the Nativity of the Virgin engraved by Cornelis Cort (perhaps Zuccaro and Barocci noted the feature together while passing through Siena together?).56 This feature became extremely popular in works featuring the nativity in the late sixteenth century but it is not shown with the other distinguishing elements of the Sienese iconography—the perspective vanishing point at the left and the skewed bed. [113] Another print by Cort, issued in 1568, shows the “Sienese” leaning Virgin.57 It is as if Barocci, ruminating over these examples, decided to combine Cort’s sources based upon his memory or knowledge of Lorenzetti’s original.
In this context, the similarity of Barocci’s altarpiece to Sano’s predella is striking. Whereas the Osservanza Master’s composition has a turned fireplace (like the Düsseldorf drawing), Sano’s is flat against the far wall. The maid in Barocci’s work is a mirror image of Sano’s. Maginnis notes the awkwardness of the Sano example, as in the eccentric placement of the Virgin, and suggests that for this reason the Osservanza Master’s version is closer to Pietro Lorenzetti’s original. This may be true. But the affinities between Barocci’s work and that of Sano, which Barocci would have seen in the chapel of the Palazzo Pubblico, are quite striking.
There are of course deeper reasons why Barocci might have been influenced by Lorenzetti’s trecento prototype. As we know from previous discussions of archaism and miraculous icons like the Madonna della Vallicella, such images were appreciated for their powers and their spiritual authority. The stark profiles in Barocci’s Visitation and Nativity were specifically intended to lend these modern religious works some of the spiritual authority of the earlier prototypes. We have already seen how Barocci repeatedly enlivens iconic images with narrative details. This is a case where he seems legitimately to have sought out a venerable image as inspiration for his painting. Interestingly, where we would expect the drawing in Düsseldorf to be more obviously retrospective, which it is to a degree with the infant Mary placed centrally and iconically, the opposite appears to be the case. He began more conventionally and as he proceeded sought to invoke more directly Lorenzetti’s prototype. Instead of dissimulating the trecento source, he makes it unmistakably recognizable.
Why Did the Oratorians Choose a Non-Narrative Altarpiece?
The investigation of the Barocci-Vitali Nativity of the Virgin in San Simpliciano, Milan, sheds light on why it never made it to the high altar of the Chiesa Nuova. The most important insight comes from the research of Ilse von den Mühlen, who published the architectural drawings by Giovan Battista Guerra for the high altar. She showed how Guerra intended from the start to include the Madonna della Vallicella above the altarpiece, which suggests the transformation of the altar into a reliquary place.58
Whether the intention was for Barocci’s painting to stand alone with the Madonna della Vallicella above it, as in Guerra’s plan, or to have the Madonna della Vallicella appear within [114] the painting, as in Rubens’s eventual solution, the Nativity of the Virgin is simply too small for either of these options to have worked. However, this did not spell directly the end of a Nativity of the Virgin, because in 1604 when Barocci’s proposal had not yet been rejected the image was included in discussions of the high altar.59 If I may quote my formulation of 2003, “Still, the need to accommodate the image, in addition to the reliquaries that were recently provided by Baronio to honor the martyrs buried beneath the altar, ultimately led to the abandonment of the prescribed iconographic subject of the Nativity of the Virgin in favor of Rubens’s eventual sacra conversazione.”60
In addition to the iconographic and practical reasons for the substitution, there is also an economic justification. Barocci had proposed to paint the altarpiece for between 800 and 1,000 scudi, a sizable amount. As a general expenditure for the Congregation, the cost of the altar was to be covered by the order and the Oratorians simply had no money at the time. If their primary benefactor, Cardinal Federico Borromeo, had not been busy spending money—ironically on other Barocci projects in Milan—we might see a Barocci on the high altar of the Chiesa Nuova today. This is of course what made Serra’s proposal so attractive. He in effect transferred the logic of the side chapels’ patronage to the high altar. Serra’s proviso was that the high altarpiece had to be by Rubens, who was paid only 300 scudi. Indeed Rubens ended up working very hard for that fee, because his initial painting was rejected and his final version of the high altarpiece consisted of three paintings. By providing funds for the high altarpiece, Serra solved the problem with Barocci’s expensive proposal.
Nevertheless, there are undoubtedly deeper issues at work here. They can be summarized by the Oratorians’ desire to mark the high altar sufficiently as a repository of holy substance. In these years most Roman churches were obtaining massive sacramental tabernacles on their high altars; notably among them was the Gesù. The Oratorians resisted this liturgical development because the emphatic presence of the relic of Christ would have conflicted with the Marian message of the altarpiece cycle’s iconography. Pietro da Cortona’s fresco of the Saint Michael and Angels with the Instruments of the Passion in the sacristy suggests that the Eucharist may have been reserved there, and discussions as late as the 1650s suggest that the Oratorians were lax in definitively moving the Eucharist to the high altar.61 As noted previously, the tabernacle that Cirro Ferri eventually designed for the high altar is relatively modest by Roman standards.
Increasingly, the promotion of the cult of the Madonna della Vallicella had given the Oratorians outlets for reconsidering the high altar’s iconography. To be sure, as Laura MacCaskey has pointed out, no church in Rome actually had a Nativity of the Virgin on its high altar and it is possible that the triumphalist tenor of the times might have regarded this subject as metaphorically putting the church under scrutiny.62 One reason to think [115] that the Oratorians might actually have been happy with this radical iconography is that the subject of the altarpiece for the high altar was only formulated around 1590, well into the triumphalist phase of Counter-Reformation art.63 In fact, when deliberations began with Barocci, this phase was just beginning. The fact that in 1606 the idea was entertained of taking away the Madonna della Vallicella shows just how equivocal the Oratorian fathers were about leaving the icon on the high altar. In fact, apart from subsidiary fresco decoration in the chapels, the subject of the Nativity of the Virgin was never assimilated into any other space in the church; if the fathers of 1606 were not happy with Rubens’s altarpiece and had moved the Madonna della Vallicella, the subject very well could have made its way back there.64
As MacCaskey argues, the inscription on the façade, “non macula est in te,” ought to have diffused the maculist tendencies of the high altar. This seems to throw some doubt on the idea that the Nativity of the Virgin must have overwhelming maculist valence. The subject of the Nativity of the Virgin appeared in many churches of orders believing in the Immaculate Conception, including Valeriano’s in the Jesuit Gesù and Domenico Passignano’s in the Barberini chapel in Theatine Sant’Andrea della Valle, while others presented the subject in contexts not incompatible with immaculist claims, like Andrea Lilio’s in Santa Maria Maggiore, Guido Reni’s in the Quirinal Palace, and Cavaliere D’Arpino’s in Santa Maria di Loreto.65 Seen in this light, the iconography on the high altar of the Chiesa Nuova provides something of a thematic parallel to the circumcision on the high altar of the Gesù. It focused on thematic issues highly significant to the respective orders, and both fit in with the larger decoration and stood outside of it.
It is in this context that a Nativity of the Virgin had to be reconciled somehow with the altar as a space of relics and indeed the tabernacle. Thus, it seems clear that the decision eventually to go with Rubens’s tabernacle form was based on all three of these factors together—rededication of the altar as a reliquary, money, and the politics of reserving the Host—each complexly interrelated. Whatever the exact causes, by 1606 it was clear that no directly narrative altarpiece would be used. Instead, Rubens was instructed that “In da un lato, son li Santi Martiri Papia e Mauro, dall altra li Santi Nereo et Achilleo et Flavia Domitilla, in mezzo, San Gregorio Papa, di sopra, la Madonna Santissima con molti altri ornamenti.”66
[116] Nevertheless, in light of the discussion in chapter 2, it can be seen how the notion that Rubens’s altarpiece is completely nonnarrative is not true. As noted, the Feast of the Conception of Mary on 8 December had been celebrated as the Immaculate Conception since the time of Sixtus IV. Because the Madonna della Vallicella—as translated in the late sixteenth century under the influence of Baronio—was understood as a variant of the Madonna of Loreto and carried with it strong immaculist connotations, it also carries with it some narrative charge as the conception and, to a degree, birth of the Virgin Mary. Therefore, Barocci’s rejected altarpiece was replaced, in a more than figurative sense, by the icon itself, connotative of the Holy House of Loreto where Mary was born.
By this time Barocci had already begun work on the Institution of the Eucharist for Pope Clement VIII and Vitali had been instructed to complete the Nativity of the Virgin for a Marchegian church. If by chance Barocci had been engaged for the Nativity of the Virgin, we would see a different, much finer, painting. As it ended, the work was still caught within the Oratorian orbit through the interests of some patron who was influenced by all the discussion surrounding Barocci by Cardinal Borromeo, Cardinal Sfondrato, and his sister, and who recognized the desirability of these works.
The Institution of the Eucharist for Santa Maria sopra Minerva
It was probably seeing Barocci’s Presentation in the Chiesa Nuova at its unveiling in 1603 that led Pope Clement VIII four months later to commission the Institution of the Eucharist for his family’s Aldobrandini Chapel at Santa Maria sopra Minerva (plate VII).67 The pope had already been the guest of the Duke of Urbino (during his possession of Ferrara in 1598) and had seen Barocci’s works and received a small gift of a gold holy water flask painted by Barocci.68 On 13 August of 1603 the pope communicated with the Duke of Urbino’s minister, Giacomo Sorbolongo, about an altarpiece, and he in turn contacted the duke.69 Given the issues we have been discussing, is it possible the pope knew that Barocci’s high altar idea would falter? Did he advance himself opportunistically?
The pope did not have the money issues temporarily plaguing the Oratorians and he was able to win from Barocci one last great work. However, the very reason that the pope was aware of these happenings was because, very much like Federico Borromeo, he was [117] very close to the Oratory. The Institution of the Eucharist, like the works for Milan Cathedral, can thus be considered a sort of sublimated Oratorian work. Recall that Neri had been Clement VIII’s confessor until the former’s death in 1595, and that honor was continued by Cesare Baronio. Baronio and Silvio Antoniano were at the heart of Clement’s numerous Jubilee year (1600) projects in the Navi Piccole and Nave Clementina.70 Furthermore, as Zygmunt Wazbinski has pointed out, Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte, the childhood friend of Duke Francesco Maria II della Rovere, was then presently aiding the Medici with their tombs in Santa Maria sopra Minerva.71
By this time, the Cavaliere d’Arpino was the pope’s most important artist (as Guerra and Nebbia had been for Sixtus). A middle-aged man, d’Arpino was ideal to direct projects like the monumental transept decorations of Saint John Lateran and occasionally provide a fresco or altarpiece himself. What status did Barocci hold now in Clement’s eyes? Barocci was a famous, and also an excellent, painter of altarpieces. The pope needed a devotional altarpiece, and for a combination of prestige and service, no one (not even the Cavaliere) could provide a better product.72
It is useful to pause and consider the prestige of this commission at Santa Maria sopra Minerva. Although Institution of the Eucharist was not painted for a papal building, one should recall that Clement’s work on his family chapel was succeeding Sixtus V’s massive work; and after Clement’s death and Paul V’s immediate plans to provide a pendant chapel to Sixtus’s, the Aldobrandini family would have ensured its richness. Furthermore, Santa Maria sopra Minerva was especially sought after because of its deposits of the relics of Saint Catherine of Siena. The chapel was outfitted with the best polychromy and statues; Barocci’s altarpiece was its final touch.
Not unlike the Oratorian fathers, the pope desired to relate the work closely to its context, and he made the artist intimately aware of the small space available, the design of the chapel, and the way the altarpiece would be shadowed by the backlighting of the window.73 The Duke of Urbino warned that Barocci had been particularly sick and would require patience, yet the artist soon provided two drawings, which the duke’s minister, Malatesti, made available to the pope. Among them may be that now found in Chatsworth, showing Satan accompanying Judas at his communion, which Christ signaled with a mere piece of bread.74 This would be quite a strongly propagandistic iconography if maintained.
[118] According to Bellori, the pope was unhappy with the representation of the devil so near to Christ in depicting Judas’s betrayal, which could have led to confusions, and Barocci then corrected it.75 However, the pope then wished it to be darkened to a night scene—so that it would be in conformity with the actual gospel—and finally accepted Barocci’s plans.76
While this is the kind of control to be expected of a pope or sovereign, it is also quite consistent with the pattern we have seen with Oratorians and their artists. Both the models are prepared at one-fifth (1:5) the size of the altarpiece, which is consistent with a medium-sized altarpiece by Barocci.77 Interestingly, while only a couple of drawings survive that clearly prepare the ink models shown to the pope, there are at least five drawings for a lost cartoon or other intermediate drawing or painting at 1:3 scale.78 These studies are mostly black and white chalk on tinted paper, and represent objects more or less as they will appear in the final painting, with slight adjustments to contours and lighting.
The painting was not finished when Pope Clement died in 1605, when Barocci was already in his seventies. Meanwhile, although the Saint Ambrose’s Pardon of Theodosius was installed for Milan, they still awaited its companion, the Lamentation of Christ. Borromeo was sensitive to the pan-Oratorian need to balance Barocci’s unique slowness against the demand for his work and now he saw the problems he would have faced with a high altarpiece project. Not long after the final payment (July 1607) for the Institution of the Eucharist for Rome, Giovan Battista Talento Fiorenza was writing from Milan to Francesco Maria II (30 April 1608) complaining about Barocci’s tardiness in regard to the Lamentation of Christ.79 Barocci (21 May 1608) wrote that he was almost finished with this work but the death of his brother—the instrument-maker Simone Barocci—made it difficult for him to work.80
On 24 July 1608 the duke reported to Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, nephew of the deceased Pope Clement VIII, that the Institution of the Eucharist was finished. In 1609 it was installed in the chapel, which had not yet been finished because of the cardinal’s exile. With [119] the rise of the Borghese family, the cardinal remained a threat in the Eternal City and found it best to stay away from Rome after his uncle’s demise. The final negotiations were done with this nephew, but in the end Barocci’s extravagant, nearly 1,500 scudi fee was paid directly by the duke, as a gift to the pope’s memory.
In conception the Institution of the Eucharist is not so different from the Presentation, save for the nocturnal setting. The preponderance of black makes the yellow and orange of the apostles’ already bright robes that much more brilliant. The foreground shadowed figures and theatrical drape across the top enhance the illuminated emergence of the miraculous scene. If this is a sublimated Oratorian work, its subject is firmly Christological and does not reflect the Marian focus of the Chiesa Nuova. The chapel was dedicated to the Crucifixion and the larger church hosted the Archiconfraternità del Santissimo Sacramento, indulgences for which were renewed by Paul V in 1607. All these facts refer directly to the act of communion featured in Barocci’s work.81 In this, it is highly affirmative of the Catholic sacrament of communion and its proper use.
Filippo Neri was particularly devoted to administering frequent communion to his devotees and was instrumental in developing the Forty Hours (Quarant’ore) devotion at Santa Maria sopra Minerva. In adopting this chapel, the Aldobrandini family was affirming a tenet of the reforming church as well as the devotion of Neri. But even here Neri had a particular relationship to the holy Host that is reflected in Barocci’s treatment. For Neri, the miracle of transubstantiation is an overwhelming, awesome fact, which caused him to tremble and stutter while performing mass. It is as if Christ’s direct presence was too powerful to behold. In pictorial form, Barocci presents a vision of harmony as the apostles (with the exception of Judas) take communion. Peter is foremost, and the Host that stands for Christ undergirds the succession of the popes as Peter stands for Christ. Both the Dominicans and the Oratorians had a corporate ethos, and that ethos inspired Clement VIII and is reflected in Barocci’s suave treatment.
There was some negative critical reception by 1611; comments sounded that the painting was too small and was overwhelmed by the statues and niches of the chapel.82 Gary Walters has taken this criticism to mean that Barocci’s works “never were meant for the bruising Roman light nor, for that matter, to shed light themselves on the Church Triumphant.”83 While he may be correct that the work loses itself in the chapel, John Shearman has remarked positively how, when the painting is seen in situ in the chapel, “its figures have seemed to glow like jewels among black velvet.”84 We can raise the question of who could have successfully negotiated such a commission. The pope, after all, requested a night scene in a dark chapel. Furthermore, if it is correct that Carlo Maderno’s altar [120] design had to accommodate the flanking statues already in place, then Barocci was faced with a fixed area.85
Walters also hints that because of the critical comments about the painting, the Duke of Urbino was forced to pay for it. This is an assumption of quite far-reaching consequences. It suggests that the work was for all practical purposes rejected and that it remained in the chapel only due to the duke’s intervention. But it was not unusual that Barocci’s fee was paid by Francesco Maria II, who did so for royalty as an act of generosity and respect.86 The further inference that Barocci did not fit in with the times is more debatable. Bellori noted that the painting was held in such high esteem by the pope that he “not only gave Barocci the highest praise, but also presented the artist with a golden necklace of great value.”87 Bellori was of course wrong that the pope was alive to receive the work, but the story points to a seicento writer’s positive assessment of a work he could be expected to know something about.
This chapter has spent a great deal of time examining what an altarpiece dedicated to the Nativity of the Virgin could have meant for the Chiesa Nuova. Although Barocci’s potential participation was only an option for a short period of time, the subject had long been set aside for the most important space in the church, the high altar. By examining what Barocci actually did produce and left aside, we get a better idea of how his artistic thought could have rounded out the experience in the Chiesa Nuova. It seems that Barocci would have happily accommodated this project into his busy schedule for the honor and importance of the commission. This receptivity explains how successfully he executed the Institution of the Eucharist for the pope’s personal family chapel in Santa Maria sopra Minerva. Although a Christological subject was called for, due to the dedication and associations of the chapel, the final painting can be called a kind of sublimated Oratorian work to the degree that it stresses concord in the church and Christ’s perfectly institutionalized authority in overseeing the most important sacrament: communion.
Notes
1. Flaminio Ricci to Borromeo, 7 May 1603, ACO, B.IV.19, fol. 61v, quoted incompletely in Olsen and Emiliani but completely by von den Mühlen, “S. Maria in Vallicella,” 269–70: “Al Signore Cardinale Borromeo. Milano. Essendo venuto qua un giovane del Baroccio a portare il quadro che Monsignore di Todi ha fatto pe la sua cappella della Presentazion nella nostra chiesa, si è lasciato intendere, che il predetto Baroccio farebbe volontieri me.o il quadro della Natività per l’altar maggiore, sì per haver particolare genio a quella istoria, che non solamente a questo della Presentazione con tutto che sia riuscito maraviglioso, et di stupore a tutta Roma, come per trovarsi la fatiga mezza fatta, havendone di già per ordine del Duca d’Urbino fatta un disegno et sbozzo per il re di Spagna, che gli restò poi essendosi detto Duca mutato di pensiero, et havendole fatto fare un S. Andrea in luogo di quello et per questo ricordata speranza che si haverebbe finito in due anni. Per tanto mi è parso avisarne Vostra S. Illustrissima per non lasciarsi uscire cosi bella occasione di dare compimento al detto Altar maggiore condotto a quel buon stato nel quale hora si vede per causa di Vostra S. Illustrissima havendoci ella somministrata con molto charita tutta la spesa, che ne si e fatta. Poiche con ottocento, o al più mille scudi, che si dassero fra termine di due anni il pittore ce la d avere finito, et alla Congregatione restasse una perpetua memoria della charità Sua. Non intendendo pero ella essergli grave in ciò ne in nessuna altra cosa oso proponerle semplicemente l’occasione per et i loro bisogni restando poi sodisfatti di tutto quello che sarà di sodisfattione a V. S. Illustrissima alla quale favecamo tutti humilmente riverenza et per questo diamo dal DD. larga renunce causa di tanti benefici fatti alla Congregazione sua devotissima 7 di Maggio.”
2. Nativity of the Virgin, San Simpliciano, Milan, 320 x 230 cm; Emiliani, Federico Barocci, 2:348, 367; Emiliani, Federico Barocci [2008], 2:282–93; Alpini, Pinacoteca di Brera, no. 86.
3. An agreement of 28 June 1595 assured Bishop Cesi’s rights to “mettere l’arme sue”; Ponnelle and Bordet, St. Philip Neri and the Roman Society of His Times, 419.
4. Cesi’s contribution was 15,000 scudi to Borromeo’s 4,000. It is interesting that Angelo Cesi and Borromeo had corresponded before about artistic matters. Cf. A. Cesi to F. Borromeo, 4 September 1599, BA, G. 185, fol. 91, regarding a “ritratto di B. Jacapone.”
5. ASFD, Ordinazioni Capitolari, quoted in Bonomelli, “Federico Barocci e la committenza milanese,” 22: “lire 570 imp. a buon conto della tavola di S. Ambrogio, qual esso va’ pingendo.”
6. Ludovico Vincenzo to Guidobaldo Vincenzo, 16 April 1603, BUU, busta 38, fasc. IV, fol. 609, in Sangiorgi, Committenza milanesi a Federico Barocci, letter XXVI, 40.
7. Federico Borromeo to Flaminio Ricci, 13 June 1603, ACO, B.IV.9, fol. 706, first published in Squarzina, “I Giustiniani e l’Oratorio dei Filippini,” 381 (incorrectly as Baronio; my transcription is also adjusted): “M. R. Padre mio Car[issi]mo. Io non son alieno dall’opera propostami da V[ostra] P[aternità] con la sua lettera: et per l’inclinazione chi io ho ai padri, et alla chiesa, volontieri l’impranderei. Ma per altri rispetti di considerationi, io non posso hora deliberari, ne promettere cosa alcuna di certo. Al prossimo Settembre io potrò meglio far risolutioni, et mi riserbo a gli’ tempo di dire a V. P. gl’ch’io giudicarò di poter fare. Adesso io mi rac[coman]do alli orationi sui, e di gli altri padri agli sarà contenta di salutar per parti mia. Et Dio nostro signori la contenti.”
8. Flaminio Ricci to Federico Borromeo, 27 June 1603, BA, G. 191 inf., fol. 107r (cited but not transcribed in Calvesi, Le realtà di Caravaggio, 402n147): “Restano tutti i Più sodisfattiss.i [sic] risponde VS. Ill.na in materia del quadro per l’Altar Maggiore della n.ra chiesa, et in conseguenza con molt’obbligo alla sua buona volontà, che ne dimostra, et ne ha fatto conoscer più volte con gl’effetti. Et perche la Devot.e et part.e Affett.e che ciascuno le porta è grande come sà può credere che ci compiaceremo tuti di quello, che in ogni tempo sarà di sodisfatt.e a VS. Ill.ma.”
9. ASFD, Ordinazioni Capitolari, cited in Bonomelli, “Federico Barocci e la committenza milanese,” 22: “ducatoni cento che fano lire cinquecentosettanta imperiali.”
10. Flaminio Ricci to Federico Borromeo, 4 March 1604, ACO, B.IV.10, fol. 425, quoted in Russo, “I Cesi e la Congregazione dell’Oratorio,” 120–21; and von den Mühlen, “S. Maria in Vallicella,” 270. Squarzina, “I Giustiniani e l’Oratorio dei Filippini,” 381, noting a letter of March 6, says a new patron—Giustiniani, the predecessor of Serra—was proposed. However, she gives no reference. The letter does not seem to exist. If instead she meant the letter of March 4, it does not support the discussion of a new patron at that time.
11. On the celebrations that accompanied the translation, see Russo, “La Madonna della Vallicella.”
12. See the uncited passage of the letter cited in note 10 (Ricci to Borromeo, 4 March 1604), where reference is made to the Madonna along with the other accoutrements of the altar (ACO, B.IV.10, fol. 424).
13. This is the main finding of von den Mühlen, “S. Maria in Vallicella,” 269–70. She ascribes the change in program to Cesare Baronio.
14. Cardinal Giocamo Serra offered 300 scudi for the high altar only if the young Rubens was selected; Jaffé, Rubens and Italy, 94–95.
15. Jaffé, Rubens and Italy, 119n27.
16. Viviani is documented in Urbino around 1600 but begins receiving payments at San Gregorio Magno, of which Cesare Baronio was comendatore, in November 1603, surely not a coincidence; O’Neil, “Patronage of Cardinal Cesare Baronio.” Viviani’s work in San Gregorio Magno is discussed in the next chapter.
17. Flaminio Ricci to Borromeo, 7 May 1603, ACO, B.IV.19, fol. 61v. For a fuller discussion of this passage, see chapter 2, n26.
18. Calling of Saint Andrew, 315 x 235 (Brussels) and 320 x 236 cm (El Escorial); Emiliani, Federico Barocci, 1:188–97; Emiliani, Federico Barocci [2008], 2:5–18. The copy of the Calling of Saint Andrew was delivered to King Philip II in July 1588, perhaps after Francesco Maria II was inducted into the Order of the Golden Fleece; cf. Gronau, Documenti artistici urbinati, 160–61. It should be pointed out that although it was no doubt simpler to copy this painting, it is not an insubstantial work. According to John Marciari, the painting bears pentiments and is generally of superior quality. The duke stressed the fact that Barocci had painted it from scratch and not as a copy, which is confirmed by the pentimiento of the man with an oar in the background.
19. Pillsbury, review of Federico Barocci, by Emiliani.
20. The painting was mailed 18 July 1588 and arrived 14 November of the same year; Gronau, Documenti artistici urbinati, 161.
21. The painting is not dated. I connect it to payments made in the Duke of Urbino’s Libro di Spese, from 1588 to 1592; however, there is no agreement. See Natali, Il Miracolo della Madonna della Gatta; and Emiliani, Federico Barocci [2008], 2:138–49.
22. For the copy, see Nativity of the Virgin, Parrocchiale, Copreno (outside Milan), (apparently) formerly in San Maria della Torre, Urbino; Alpini, Pinacoteca di Brera, no. 47. It can be verified to be two-thirds (66 percent) smaller than the original and hence derived from the cartoon. For Vitali’s independent work, see Birth of the Virgin, 264 x 178 cm, Sant’Agostino, Fermo, commissioned by Silvio Sciarra, placed 1609; Dania, Pittura a Fermo, 73–74, fig. 24. This version seems to be Vitali’s complete invention and the result is not impressive.
23. Francesco Maria della Rovere to Simone Fortuna, 8 October 1583, ASF, filza 285, fol. 465, in Gronau, Documenti artistici urbinati, letter CXCVIII, 154.
24. Francesco Maria della Rovere to Bernardo Maschi, 11 May 1586, ASF, filza 286, fol. 515, in Gronau, Documenti artistici urbinati, letter CCVI, 158.
25. Grazioso Graziosi to Duke Francesco Maria II della Rovere, 2 February 1588, ASF, Cl. I F.107, fol. 10–11: “Vostra alt.za si raccordara’ che alcuni mesi sono il Sig. Amb. Di Spagna mi motivo’ di dessiderare un quadro di mano del Baroccio per una sua Capella di Spagna et che io gia per qualche pesua quanto sia difficil cosa di’posser’havere dusfattione di esso Baroccio gli andai motivando tutte le difficulta’ cosi della natura come della complesione et delle molte opere con’che sempre lui si ritrovava et soprattutto la impossibilita’ de v’e’ che stanti le dette sue qualita’ et il non essere ne con meni ente, ne possibile di levarti del tuo trove, V. Alt.za possa con tutta la sua authorita’ cavare di esso niente qui construtto di quello che comportino le medesime sue qualita’ allegandoli anco qualire esempio di cose passate nei servizi propri di V. A. oper’se a per’altri le sodisfattione de’ quali lepremessero più che le sue. Talire per all’hora mi parve di vedere de S.C. restasse sodisfatione. Hora come che più non raccordarse di questo raggionamento a metta lama m’ha di nusus afrontas del medesimo prantandom un disegno in mano dell’opera che vuole, et uncaricandomi di mandarlo a V. Alt.za con pregarela in suo nome, che voglia interponersi a fare acettare quest’opera a detto Baroccio et nonostante che io gli habbia movivato in contrario le medesime difficulta’ s.E. non dimeno ha valuto ad ogni modo ch’io mando questo disegno supplicando l AV a provarsi di farle questo favore. Il Disegno credo che verra con questo ma in caso che il Corr. Facesse difficulta’ di portarlo VA intanto verra’ pensando alla risolutione da farne quando legiungera’. Il quadro ha’ da’essere in Tela largo palmi dieci, et alto quindici con l’Istoria dell’Epifania cio’e’ l’Adoratione del Re.”
26. Francesco Maria della Rovere to Grazioso Graziosi, 11 February 1588, ASF, filza 163, fol. 1395, in Gronau, Documenti artistici urbinati, letter CCLXXIX, 195–96; Grazioso Graziosi to Francesco Maria della Rovere (suggesting that Barocci should himself write), 17 February 1588, ASF, filza 169, fol. 837, letter CCLXXX, 196.
27. Francesco Maria della Rovere to Grazioso Graziosi, 22 February 1588, ASF, filza 163, fol. 1408, in Gronau, Documenti artistici urbinati, letter CCLXXXI, 197; Francesco Maria della Rovere to Grazioso Graziosi, 15 January 1589, ASF, filza 313, fol. 440, in Gronau, Documenti artistici urbinati, letter CCLXXXII, 197; Francesco Maria della Rovere to Grazioso Graziosi, 21 June 1590, ASF, filza 288, fol. 504, in Gronau, Documenti artistici urbinati, letter CCLXXXIV, 198.
28. This is the Count of Chinchón, Diego Fernández Cabrera-Bobadilla (d. 1608), who requested a Barocci painting. A work by an unknown author was shipped in 1606 and lost for two years until it finally surfaced in Madrid in 1608.
29. Guidobaldo Vincenzi to Ludovico Vincenzi, 12 April 1600, BUU, busta 37, fasc. IV, fol. 420, in Sangiorgi, Committenza milanesi a Federico Barocci, letter XIV, 28–29.
30. Verstegen, “Federico Barocci, Federico Borromeo and the Oratorian Orbit.”
31. Guidobaldo Vincenzi to Ludovico Vincenzi, 7 June 1600, BUU, busta 37, fasc. IV, fol. 414, in Sangiorgi, Committenza milanesi a Federico Barocci, letter XVI, 30–31.
32. On the church’s decoration, see de Klerck, Brothers Campi. Cf. de Klerk, “La chiesa di San Paolo Converso.” On Paola Sfondrato, see Baernstein, Convent Tale.
33. Interestingly, it is exactly the size of the Madonna della Gatta: 233 x 179 cm.
34. Verstegen, “Federico Barocci, Federico Borromeo and the Oratorian Orbit,” following Emiliani (Federico Barocci, 348, 367) who similarly interpreted sbozzo as abbozzato.
35. Calvesi, “Uno ‘sbozzo’ del Caravaggio.” The document was first published by Massetti, “Un dipinto del Caravaggio.”
36. Jaffé, Rubens and Italy; Calvesi, “Uno ‘sbozzo’ del Caravaggio,” 150.
37. Calvesi, “Uno ‘sbozzo’ del Caravaggio,” 150.
38. Rusticucci, “Editto per gli altari et pitture.”
39. Kunstmuseum der Stadt, Düsseldorf, inv. FP 168 (recto), charcoal and pastels on colored paper, 21.5 x 20.8 cm; Emiliani, Federico Barocci, 2:2, fig. 811; Emiliani, Federico Barocci [2008], 2:283, fig. 76.1.
40. Virgin and Child with Saints Geronzio and Mary Magdalene and Donors, ca. 1590, 270 x 213 cm, Sodalizio dei Piceni, Rome (formerly San Francesco, Cagli); Olsen, Federico Barocci, 226–27; Emiliani, Federico Barocci, 2:272–75; Emiliani, Federico Barocci [2008], 2:118–27. For the drawings specifically, see Bertelà, Disegni di Federico Barocci, 2:23, 120.
41. Illustrated in Borea, Review of Mostra di Federico Barocci by Emiliani; Emiliani, Federico Barocci [2008], 2:18.
42. Federico Barocci to the Deputies of the Fabbrica del Duomo, 21 May 1608, in Annali della fabbrica del duomo di Milano, 5:56; and Sangiorgi, Committenza milanesi a Federico Barocci, letter XLIII, 51.
43. Virgin and Child with Sts. Geronzio and Mary Magdalene, and Donors, ca. 1590, 270 x 213 cm, Sodalizio dei Piceni, Rome (formerly San Francesco, Cagli); Olsen, Federico Barocci, 226–27; Emiliani, Federico Barocci, 2:272–75; Emiliani, Federico Barocci [2008], 2:118–27.
44. Here is a good place to mention an omission. Earlier, I had ascribed a cartoon fragment to the Madonna di San Simone (ca. 1566, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino). It is clearly for the painting in the Sodalizio dei Piceni; Verstegen, “Three Cartoon Fragments for Barocci’s Madonna di San Simone.”
45. Verstegen, “Barocci, Cartoons, and the Workshop.”
46. See for example the contemporary documents published by Franco Negroni for the Barocci-Vitali Saint Agatha in Prison (1598, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino); “Appunti su A. Vitali, C. Ridolfi e G. Cialdieri.”
47. Verstegen, “Barocci, Cartoons, and the Workshop,” figs. 2b, 4b.
48. For the Madonna of Saint Lucy, see Olsen, Federico Barocci, 224–26; Emiliani, Federico Barocci, 2:128–35; Di Giampaolo, “Federico Barocci: Un disegno per la Santa Lucia del Louvre.”
49. For the Madonna di Rosario, see Olsen, Federico Barocci, 186–88; Emiliani, Federico Barocci, 2:265–71; Emiliani, Federico Barocci [2008], 2:107–17.
50. Verstegen, “Barocci, Cartoons, and the Workshop,” figs. 3a, 3b.
51. Maginnis, “Lost Frescoes of Siena’s Ospedale di Santa Maria della Scala.” Cf. Norman, Siena and the Virgin, 93–95.
52. See Seidel, “Die Fresken des Francesco di Giorgio in S. Agostino in Siena.”
53. Maginnis, World of the Early Sienese Artist, 17.
54. Fontana, “Evidence for an Early Florentine Trip by Federico Barocci.” According to Bellori, after installing his Madonna del Popolo in Arezzo (1579), Barocci toured Florence and was invited by the Grand Duke of Tuscany to become court painter.
55. Joseph Connors pertinently notes in his review of the 1993 Francesco di Giorgio exhibition in Siena (Review of Francesco di Giorgio architetto): “Here the Birth of the Virgin is shown in a room close in style to the private apartments in the Palazzo Ducale at Urbino, and the Nativity takes place in front of a stable that echoes, with a little more decoration, the nave of Urbino Cathedral.”
56. Cornelis Cort, Birth of the Virgin, after Federico Zuccaro, 1568; Bierens de Haan, L’Oeuvre gravé de Cornelis Cort, 45, no. 19; Sellink, Cornelis Cort, 2:84, no. 94.
57. Cornelis Cort, Birth of the Virgin, after Federico Zuccaro?, 1578; Bierens de Haan, L’Oeuvre gravé de Cornelis Cort, 20; Sellink, Cornelis Cort, 2:84–85, no. 95. The design for this print is usually attributed to Federico Zuccaro as well; however, he and Cort seem to have parted ways in 1578, and as Wendy Thompson points out (“Federico Zuccaro’s Love Affair with Florence”), if it were by Zuccaro then Cort surely would have added his name to the print. Furthermore, the drawing connected to the print, in Brussels, has no connection to Zuccaro; Bierens de Haan, L’Oeuvre gravé de Cornelis Cort, 45, no. 19.
58. von den Mühlen, “S. Maria in Vallicella.” She ascribes the change in program to Cesare Baronio. Related is Steven Ostrow’s discussion of the rejection of Rubens’s first altarpiece (Grenoble) because it was not adequately a tabernacle; Art and Spirituality in Counter-Reformation Rome, 174–80.
59. Flaminio Ricci to Federico Borromeo, 4 March 1604, ACO, B.IV.10, fol. 425.
60. Verstegen, “Federico Barocci, Federico Borromeo and the Oratorian Orbit,” 23.
61. Barbieri, Barchiesi, and Ferrara, Santa Maria in Vallicella, 38, 143–47.
62. MacCaskey, “Tainted Image/Sacred Image,” 146: “a representation of the Virgin’s Nativity at the high altar, as envisioned by Filippo Neri in 1575, would have contradicted the notion of triumph prevalent in Rome at the time of Neri’s decorative program.” It is worth pointing out that, at least as the Nativity of the Virgin appears now, the child is not being washed, avoiding potential maculist readings.
63. Barbieri, Barchiesi, and Ferrara, Santa Maria in Vallicella, 167n87.
64. Eugenie Strong identifies a scene of the Dormition of the Virgin in the vault fresco by Aurelio Lomi as the Nativity of the Virgin, but see Barbieri, Barchiesi, and Ferrara, Santa Maria in Vallicella, 78.
65. Fra Valeriano, Nativity of the Virgin, Chapel of the Madonna della Strada, Chiesa Nuova; included with the image is the inscription “quae est ista quae progreditur quasi aurora consurgens?” (Who is she that cometh forth as the morning?,” from Song of Sol. 6:10); Bailey, Between Renaissance and Baroque, 251. For other examples, see Domenico Passignano, Nativity of the Virgin, left lunette, Chapel of the Assumption, Theatine church of Sant’Andrea; Andrea Lilio, Nativity of the Virgin, fresco along upper nave, Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome; Pietrangeli, Santa Maria Maggiore, 298; Guido Reni, Nativity of the Virgin, Annunciation Chapel, Quirinal Palace; Mann, “Annunciation Chapel in the Quirinal Palace,” 130; Cavaliere d’Arpino, Nativity of the Virgin, choir lateral, Santa Maria di Loreto; and Lingo, “Greek Manor and a Christian Canon,” 34.
66. Incisa della Rochetta, “Documenti editi e inediti sui quadri del Rubens nella Chiesa Nuova,” 163–67.
67. Institution of the Eucharist, 290 x 177 cm; Olsen, Federico Barocci, 209–10; Emiliani, Federico Barocci, 2:377–85; Emiliani, Federico Barocci [2008], 2:296–310. Barocci received payments on 1 October 1603 (283.38 scudi), 23 September 1604 (200 scudi), and in 1607 (1,000 scudi), for a total of 1,483.38 scudi.
68. The visit to Pesaro took place on the 3rd and 4th of May 1598. For the flask painting, a copy of which is in the National Gallery of Scotland, see Olsen, Federico Barocci, 199. In addition, the pope’s nephew Pietro Aldobrandini was in constant contact with the duke from 1598 to 1601 for the purchase of properties from the estate of the duke’s widow, Lucrezia d’Este.
69. Giacomo Sorbolongo to Duke Francesco Maria II, 13 August 1603, ASF, filza 149, fol. 1652, in Gronau, Documenti artistici urbinati, 176–77: “Stasera uerso il tardi il Papa mi ha fatto chiamare, et quando sono stato dentro, mi ha detto ridendo, che se bene era cosa leggieri, per la quale mi hauea fatto dimandare, era però un suo gusto et seguitò, come fà fabricare una Capella qui nella Minerua in memoria de’ suoi, Padre, Madre et fratelli, et desiderando, che nell’altare di essa ci fosse il quadro fatto da uallente huomo, se bene qui ce ne sono et in particulare ha Iseppino, non dimeno si sodisfarebbe assai hauerlo di mano del Baroccio . . .”
70. Chappell and Kirwin, “Petrine Triumph,” 119–70; Freiberg, Lateran in 1600.
71. Wazbinski, Il Cardinale Francesco Maria del Monte.
72. The aformentioned letter of 13 August 1603 mentions d’Arpino, who is referred to as “Iseppino.” The same letter continues asking that d’Arpino not be told about the commission; Abromson, Painting in Rome during the Papacy of Clement VIII, 93–94: “desidera non si sappia da altri tal pratica, massime per rispetto d’Iseppino.”
73. On 27 August 1603 the duke notified the receipt of all the designs of the chapel (Emiliani, Federico Barocci, 2:377). The chapel was frescoed by Cherubino Alberti with a Triumph of the Holy Cross.
74. Chatsworth (inv. 361), 33.9 x 46.1 cm; see Scrase, Touch of the Divine, 168–70, no. 59. For the iconography, see Velli, “Federico Barocci, Clemente VIII e la ‘comunione di Giuda.’” She suggests in her iconographical analysis that this would have been a totally unique Communion of Judas. It should be noted that demons are not uncommon in such pictures. For example, the Cantagallina brothers included one in their Last Supper (1604), now in the Museo Civico of Sansepolcro.
75. Bellori, “Life of Federico Barocci,” ed. Pillsbury and Richards, 20; and Bellori, “Vita di Federico Barocci,” ed. Borea, 198: “disse il Papa che non gli piaceva il Dimonio si dimesticasse tanto con Giesù Christo.” Contemporary documents only record the pope’s wish to change the gesture; Malatesta Malatesti to Duke Francesco Maria II, in Gronau, Documenti artistici urbinati, 181: Roma, 22 November 1603: “si potesse desiderare alquanto più aperta et espressa l’attione dell’Istitutione del S.mo Sacramento col moto della mano più staccata in atto di porgerlo.”
76. Malatesta Malatesti to Duke Francesco Maria II, 21 February 1604, ASF, filza 151, fol. 81v, in Gronau, Documenti artistici urbinati, 183: “vorrebe vedere la mano del Christo più vicino all’atto del communicare e più staccata dal petto, come fin all’hora parmi li scrivessi, l’altra che vi s’aggiunghino lumieri, che rimostrino esser stata di notte tale institutione stantissima, e però mando l’un e l’altro.” Efforts to ascribe the Pope’s request to a fashion for Caravaggio’s works seems unlikely.
77. See Marciari and Verstegen, “Grande quanto l’opera,” 22–23, on the similarly sized Senigallia Entombment, which also has a modello at 1:5 scale.
78. At 1:5 scale, these are Uffizi 11282 and Berlin 20253. At 1:3 scale, the drawings are Getty no. 83.GB.279, Berlin Kupferstichkabinett 20334, 20331, 20329, 20318, and Uffizi 11605.
79. Giovan Battista Talento Fiorenza to Francesco Maria II, 30 April 1608, ASF, filza 195, fol. 1042, in Gronau, Documenti artistici urbinati, 186; and Sangiorgi, Committenza milanesi a Federico Barocci, 50.
80. Federico Barocci to the Deputati della Fabbrica del Duomo, 21 May 1608, in Annali della fabbrica del duomo di Milano, 5:56, and Sangiorgi, Committenza milanesi a Federico Barocci, 51: “Ho fatto il cartone, et mezzo abozato l’opera, et tutte l’altre fatiche da me solite farsi ho compite, resta solo che vi rimette le mane, il che di già avrei fatto se non mi succedeva la morte di mio fratello, qualie mi ha travagliato tanto, che ancor io gli ho havuto a fare compagnia, et sono stato un mese in letto.”
81. On the church, see Palmerio and Villetti, Storia edilizia di S. Maria sopra Minerva in Roma; on the confraternity, see Black, Italian Confraternities in the Sixteenth Century, 96.
82. BAV, Urbino lat. 1079, fol. 185, quoted in Orbaan, Documenti sul Barocco in Roma, 187; and Emiliani, Federico Barocci, 2:379–80: “con molte figure che per esser piccole non corrispondono alla grandezza delle statue poste nelle faciata e nei nicchi della medesima cappella ornata di marmi finissimi.”
83. Walters, Federico Barocci, 149.
84. Shearman, “Barocci at Bologna and Florence,” 50.
85. Hibbard, Carlo Maderno and Roman Architecture, 133–35.
86. The most conspicuous cases are Barocci’s works for the Hapsburgs, The Flight of Aeneas from Troy (lost) for Rudolf II in Prague, and the Calling of Saint Andrew (Escorial) for Philip II and the Nativity (Prado) for Philip III and the Crocifisso Spirante (Prado) for Philip IV. All were paid for directly by the Duke of Urbino.
87. Bellori, “Life of Federico Barocci,” ed. Pillsbury and Richards, 20; and Bellori, “Vita di Federico Barocci,” ed. Borea, 198: “oltre le lodi grandissime, donò al Barocci una collana d’oro di molto valore.”