5
Maria Ines Aliverti
The visit to Cremona by Margaret Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Spain on 26 November 1598 could be considered a minor ceremonial event in the context of the Queen’s journey through Italy in the years 1598–1599. This essay examines the ambitious festival designed for the visit of Margaret of Austria, against the backdrop of the Cremonese artistic and ceremonial culture. Both the intrinsic and the occasional reasons why it was never fully achieved will be explored here, in keeping with the purpose of interpreting the documentary sources and their most apparent inconsistencies as loose parts of an incomplete ensemble. As I have dealt with this journey on former occasions,1 and as Margaret’s progress is already known, I shall not dwell upon these matters. Cremona is the case in point here. We need only remember that Margaret’s marriage by proxy to the young King of Spain, Philip III, had just been celebrated by Pope Clement VIII in Ferrara, on 15 November, together with that of Albert Archduke of Austria to the Spanish Infanta, Isabella Clara Eugenia, the daughter of Philip II. In consequence, Margaret was expected to make her entrance into Cremona as a queen in a city of her own, the first city of the State of Milan she would encounter on her route from the duchy of Mantua to the capital (Milan).
Margaret of Austria, accompanied by her mother Maria of Bavaria, her uncle and brother-in-law Albrecht of Austria, the papal legate Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, and by an important cortège, made her entry into Cremona: she was dressed in mourning and ‘she was mounted upon a white palfrey harnessed in mourning wise’.2 The illustrious guests spent the night in Cremona and left the city the day after, on 27 November.
Such a short stay (only one night) did not justify in principle the extraordinary ceremonial entry that was put on for the occasion. Its emphatic character was almost in competition with the celebrations that Juan Fernández de Velasco, VII Constable of Castile and governor of the State of Milan, was preparing in the capital, particularly the Queen’s entry, whose apparati were described in a printed account by the architect, Guido Mazenta (or Magenta), who was entrusted with the general scheme of festive decoration.3 Surprisingly the pageantry in Cremona was not accompanied by a printed account consistent with the importance of the ceremony and the investment made by the city itself. Only short notices of the ceremonies in Cremona were published at the time in printed descriptions: in two avvisi issued in Rome, in the genre of proto-journalistic reportages,4 and more or less extensively in the livrets which presented a general account of the journey as the Narratione del viaggio by Biagio Zerli,5 the anonymous English description Briefe discourse of the voyage,6 both published in 1599, and the Breve trattato by Giovan Battista Grillo,7 issued some years after the events.
The case is even more puzzling if we consider the level of Cremonese culture where, at the end of the sixteenth century, printing and publishing workshops were quite able to provide a memorial record of festive events. Both the printers active in Cremona at the time – Barucino Zanni (or de Giovanni) and Cristoforo Dragoni – were involved in publications dealing with the double royal wedding of 1598 and 1599, as Rita Barbisotti has pointed out in an article that I have initially drawn on for the identification of the sources related to Margaret’s entry into Cremona.8
Barucino, who belonged to the rich and cultivated Jewish community in Cremona, had probably formed a sort of joint venture with publishers and printers in other cities to produce livrets, literary compositions or documents related to the double Spanish marriage.9 His editorial policy for the events comprehended Zerli’s general accounts of Margaret’s ceremonial progress from Ferrara to Milan,10 the reprint of the statute agreements and concessions endowing the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia with the Spanish dominion of the Low Countries,11 and the livret describing the apparato for the Queen’s entry into Milan.12 Both Zerli’s account of the journey and Mazenta’s livret were issued in 1599, a year after the Queen’s passage into Cremona. The other, more important Cremonese publisher was Cristoforo Dragoni, who had a privilege as official printer of the Government of the City. For the occasion of the royal wedding he issued two erudite poetical compositions in Latin: the Cremonae Genethliacon in 1598 and the Epithalamium regium Austrium in 1599.
Considering all this publishing activity, and the great investment made by the city on the occasion of Margaret’s triumphal entry, it is astonishing that only brief descriptions of the ceremonies in Cremona were printed by publishers active in other cities.13 In the context of Cremonese publications for Margaret, which clearly aimed to illustrate the dynastic significance of the double wedding, an official livret describing in detail the ‘apparato’ and the entry into Cremona is absent. This failure in the festive project of 1598 can be explained by considering the relevant aspects of festival culture as developed in Cremona during the cinquecento.
A first basic question concerning Cremona as a seat of dynastic festivities could be formulated approximately as follows: under what conditions, at the end of the sixteenth century in Italy, was a city which was not a capital of a territorial state and its representatives able to organize a major festival ceremony? By ‘major festival ceremony’ I mean a ceremony which corresponded in its complex organization, sumptuous display, economic impact and memorable outcome to the high standard of ceremonies held in the most important Italian capitals. Some related questions arise: was a project such as this welcomed as an opportunity? Was its margin of failure higher? And if so, why?
Our common experience in studying festivals makes us aware of a series of prerequisites for a city which had the ambition to organize a major festival ceremony. Let us recapitulate those prerequisites which should be taken into consideration. They partly concern geographical, political, social and economic assets: a location on a main road (commercial, military or religious); a leadership controlling civic institutions and representative groups (aristocracy and professions); and the corresponding financial resources or, at least, the credibility necessary to raise extra funding. They also partly concern the city as an urban, architectural and cultural context: an urban layout allowing an adequate distribution of ceremonial events (including city gates, main streets, open and closed spaces, etc.); an urban policy supporting traditional and public consensus about the use and significance of public buildings and areas (religious and civic); a shared acknowledgment of the importance of some private areas and buildings which had a representational role in shaping the final image of a city (for instance the institution of the rolli or ruoli which listed the private buildings on the basis of their luxury and appropriateness in order to receive illustrious guests); cultural institutions (academies, universities, libraries and collections, etc.); and an adequate level of cultural and artistic productions and workshop activities (publishers and printers, architects, painters, craftsmen, intellectuals, poets and musicians).
A final factor which helped greatly in this type of festive programme was the ceremonial culture of the city itself, established by long practice in organizing public ceremonies and festival activities. A ceremonial culture implies a shared memory rooted in local traditions, regularly updated on the basis of civic and religious norms, and of conventions in etiquette and ceremony.
In the sixteenth century, the city of Cremona met most of the conditions required. Lying on the north bank of the River Po, between the watercourses of the two tributaries Adda and Oglio, Cremona was the gate to the State of Milan and the second city of the most important Spanish dominion in Italy, gloriously boasting its Roman foundation.14 The production and trade of common fabrics (fustians, linsey-woolseys, and mixed fabrics of wool and flax, and cotton and flax) formed the heart of the city’s economy, which was not in competition with the Milanese production of fine gold-and-silk fabrics.15
Due to its central geographical location in the Po area and its economic relevance, Cremona had frequently been elected as a stopping point in princely journeys through northern Italy.16 Habsburg passages after 1535 were not always celebrated by triumphal apparati, but only when magni principes made their entry in the State of Milan through Cremona as dukes (Charles V in 1541) or on the occasion of their first passage on their way from or to Spain (Philip in 1549; Rudolph and Ernest in 1563). No special apparati were organized for the return journey (Maximilian and María in 1551). Non-Habsburg magni principes were simply welcomed, as in the case of Henri III entering the State of Milan in 1574 on his way to the capital.
At the end of the sixteenth century Cremona benefited from considerable demographical expansion. The ruling class of old nobles had been joined by new emerging families. During the second half of the century, the associations of craftsmen and merchants, organized in the Universitas Mercatorum, had considerably increased their political weight in the city government. Various political conflicts between nobles and merchants had finally and progressively led to a political and social bloc comprising the mercantile and landowning aristocracies17.
From the middle of the century, Cremona had received extraordinary artistic input from the presence of a renowned family of versatile artists (the Campi) involved in an ambitious programme to remodel the artistic culture of the city.18 This creative concept, which responded to social transformations in the ruling class, was characterized by a high intellectual concern with the specificity of Cremonese culture. One outstanding achievement in this context was the cartographic work of Antonio Campi, who designed a map of the Cremonese territory (Tutto il cremonese et soi confini et sua diocese) and an ichnographic plan of the city (Urbis Cremonae species): the first was engraved in 1571, possibly by Giovan Antonio Galletti, and the second during 1582–1583 by David de Laude.19 The city plan was, and still is, considered a masterpiece. All the important buildings – civic and religious, public and private – were described in detail: their architectural ground plans were drawn with precision and identified by appropriate inscriptions, listing, for private palaces, the names of the owners.20 Antonio’s aim in this graphic synthesis was undoubtedly to represent the urban structure as a well-organized ensemble: the layout dominated by spacious and straight roads to reach the newly renovated central area of the ‘Platea Major’ (Piazza Maggiore) from the city gates,21 the functional distribution of the main buildings in the various urban areas, the modern architectural scheme conceived for the palaces of the aristocracy. The Cremonese palaces had been renovated or newly built in two distinct periods corresponding to different growth phases in the urban and social context. Palazzo Trecchi, Palazzo Raimondi and Palazzo Stanga were built along the road called the Strata Magistra under the dukedom of the Sforza at the end of the fifteenth century and early sixteenth century.22 The Trecchi Palace, in the district (vicinia) of the church of Sant’Agata, was designated a residence for the Habsburgs and other magni principes visiting Cremona; it had hosted Louis XII, Charles V, Philip of Habsburg, Rudolf and Ernest of Habsburg, Henri III and Christina of Denmark.23 The second phase, which took place in the years after 1560, was marked by the omnipresent activity of the Campi.24 The owners were wealthy families who had recently reached the top of the social scale and were determined to remain there, like the merchants Vidoni and the rich merchant bankers Affaitati, whose firm ruled a network of businesses all over Europe, and served the Hacienda Real of Castilla.25 As a consequence the list of the private buildings considered appropriate for receiving illustrious guests included new entries. Already in 1551, Archdukes Maximilian and María were hosted for one night by Giovan Battista Affaitati, but his palace at this time may not have satisfied all the requirements for a residence for magni principes.26 In 1561 work began on a sumptuous new Affaitati Palace, in the district of the church San Leonardo, for the descendants of the ennobled Giovan Carlo Affaitati. This palace was finally established as the leading residence for the Habsburgs, and the Queen of Spain was hosted here in 1598.27 The Contrada dritta, where the new Affaitati palace was built, completed the system of the Cremonese Via Triumphalis, extending it along the Roman cardo.28 A large portion of the oligarchy (Stanga, Affaitati, Ugolani, Barbò, Gallarati, Meli, Visconti, del Pesce) was concentrated there in palaces which, at the end of the sixteenth century, formed a well developed and modern complex of luxury residences, either renovated or new, whose impressive ensemble at the time could be compared to that of the newly conceived, but not yet completed, Strada Nuova in Genoa. In general we can say that during the sixteenth century Cremona was superbly suited for the reception of princes, often accompanied by immense retinues, as it ensured a system whose adaptation or new conception appropriately met the needs of this sort of relatively frequent ceremonial event.29
This process of refurbishing or building private residences had been paralleled by a systematic concern with religious buildings, energetically pursued by two eminent archbishops who followed one another on the archiepiscopal chair of Cremona: Nicolo Sfondrati (1560–1590, later Pope Gregory XIV, 1590–1591) and Cesare Speciano (1591–1607). The restoration of ancient religious buildings or the edification of new complexes was particularly improved after the pastoral visit of Carlo Borromeo in 1575, which can also be considered a landmark in the festive culture of the city. The archbishop hastened the application of the Tridentine rules, improved by his own meditation on religious architecture, ordered the renovation of the Platea Major and the expulsion of mercantile activities from around the cathedral, and pressed the local government to eliminate the medieval and popular feasts such as the Battagliola and the Festa del toro, organized in Piazza Maggiore for the Assumption (14 and 15 August respectively), and other minor entertainments traditionally held in front of the churches.30 At the turn of the century there was still a balance between two images of Cremona: as a ‘princely’ city matching the original artistic programme of the Campi, and as an eminent ‘religious’ centre whose architectural and artistic culture strictly conformed to outside parameters.31 The fact that the visit of the pious Margaret of Austria took place at this historical turning point plays a significant part in our understanding of this circumstance. The two maps of the territory and of the city were included by Antonio Campi in a book published in 1585, whose title announced the high purpose of the author: Cremona fedelissima città et nobilissima colonia de Romani (Figures 5.1 and 5.2).32
5.1 Agostino Carracci after Antonio Campi. Title page of Antonio Campi, Cremona fedelissima città et nobilissima colonia de Romani […], (Cremona 1585) Copyright © Biblioteca di Storia delle Arti (Università di Pisa)
5.2 Agostino Carracci after Antonio Campi, Cremona fidelis in Antonio Campi, Cremona fedelissima città et nobilissima colonia de Romani […] (Cremona 1585) Copyright © Biblioteca di Storia delle Arti (Università di Pisa)
This magnificent folio volume, dedicated to Philip II, presented, in different sections, a chronological account of local history (starting with the mythical foundation of the city), the description of the most important edifices, and the biographies and iconographies of the dukes and duchesses of Milan. The book was intended to display a perfect image of the city, realized or in progress, founding its reputation as the second capital of the state not only on the basis of its wealthy economy but also on the basis of its fidelity to Austria and its genuine nobility and/or notability.
Antonio’s book completed and enhanced all the efforts made in previous years to reshape and embellish the city, especially by the Campi or those connected to them. In a sense we can say that this city was theirs, just as the city of Florence in the same years could have been said to be Vasari’s.33 As an inevitable final touch, this urban ‘total design’ required festival and ceremonial activities as the most appropriate practice to reveal a sense of the city.34 The ceremonial palimpsest is inscribed in the city as well as in the living memory of its inhabitants. It contributes to giving form to the city, conceived as a social and monumental space where past and present entertain a permanent dialogue, and to render this form communicable. For inhabitants and visitors the memory of the city is made present by its monuments, which bear a mute but eloquent trace of the events they witnessed (historic as well as ceremonial and festive).
This enterprise of Cremona fedelissima could be compared in many regards to that of Venetia città nobilissima by Francesco Sansovino.35 It is far more significant, considering that Cremona was then classified among the cities whose rank was immediately below that of the great territorial capitals.36
Antonio Campi lists and comments on the triumphal and ceremonial entries into Cremona, as they were essential stages in consolidating the urban image and the memory of the monumental city, providing further signs of its nobilitas. Describing all the ceremonial visits, Antonio underlines his personal contribution and that of other members of the family (particularly Giulio) and associated artists, in the invention of the most important triumphal apparati, dwelling especially on their description.37 No doubt he was aware that the Campi had brought the Cremonese culture to completion in this field, too.
Antonio featured the allegorical personification of Cremona fidelis, engraved by Agostino Carracci (Figure 5.2), as an indispensable visualization of the long-lasting labour of building a new urban image: ‘she’ was represented as a woman in armour, seated on a lion with the River Po at her feet. This iconography, which proved very successful both in books and in ephemeral decorations,38 had been conceived by the Campi and displayed in various triumphal apparati of Habsburg entries in their ducal dominion of Milan, not only as an isolated figure but also in a decorative context representing the cities of the state.
The statue of Cremona fidissima Populi Romani colonia probably appeared for the first time in the triumphal apparati welcoming Charles V on his ducal entry into Cremona on 18 August 1541, the invention of which was assigned by Antonio, in his Cremona fedelissima, to his brother Giulio and to Camillo Boccaccino.39 Once again Cremona was featured in one of the two arches erected in Piazza Maggiore to display the allegorical personifications of the cities of the dukedom. It subsequently appeared in Milan on 22 August 1541; here the first ephemeral decoration for Charles V’s triumphal entry, conceived by Giulio Romano, consisted of a series of statues representing the eight cities of the State of Milan, displayed on the bridge before the gate (Porta Ticinese): Milan, Cremona, Pavia, Lodi, Como, Novara, Alessandria and Tortona. This iconography, undoubtedly visualizing the clear political project of the new duke and emperor, emphasized the position of Cremona. In his description Albicante puts Cremona just after Milan, confirming its symbolic status as the second city of the dukedom and the true rampart of its security.40 After its invention in 1541, the allegorical personification of the cities occurred almost systematically in Habsburg entries into their dukedom.41 At the end of the century, when the Queen of Spain made her triumphal entry into Cremona, the city was allegorically celebrated in the ephemeral decoration at the Porta Nuova, later Porta Margherita.
As was previously observed, the lack of a detailed printed description of the Cremonese apparati of 1598 is astonishing since the number, importance and erudite display of erected arches deserved such a memorial record. However, three manuscript accounts exist, housed in the Biblioteca Statale di Cremona. The first was composed by Cristoforo Schinchinelli,42 a nobleman and one of the six leading figures involved in the organization and, very probably, the inventor of the apparati; the second and third manuscripts, which are similar, were composed by Giuseppe Bresciani, a local seventeenth-century historian,43 writing some years after the events. Bresciani was still a child in 1598, and so was a mere spectator of the event; he draws abundantly on Schinchinelli’s description. Writing his account at a much later date, he makes use of other sources and reports too.
What was Schinchinelli’s description intended for? Barbisotti, who discovered the manuscript, thinks that the account was intended for submission to the civic government (the Deputati della Comunità) who had entrusted Schinchinelli with organizing the entry.44 But the title of the manuscript, the use of the past tense, the order of the matters exposed and the exactness of the description indicate that all the decisions concerning the entry and its apparati had been made. Schinchinelli’s original purpose was possibly to publish a livret, which could be disseminated at the time of the entry and used by people attending the festive ceremony to read the elaborate apparati, to understand them and to remember them once the events were over. His text closely conforms in all respects to the codified genre of printed accounts depicting triumphal apparati. As the available copy of the manuscript is not an autographical piece, it might also respond to a later initiative of publishing the text, undertaken when the events were over, in the hope of leaving printed evidence. It is worth considering that a similar initiative was undertaken by the printer Barucino, who published in Cremona Mazenta’s description of the arches erected in Milan and Zerli’s Narratione del viaggio one year after the events (1599). In any case, the plan to publish a description of a Cremonese entry, new for Cremona, had failed both at the time of the entry and a year later, when Barucino may have been interested, either for economic reasons or to enhance his prestige, in completing the series of printed livrets concerning Margaret. The publication of a detailed description was absolutely in keeping with the extraordinary public expenditure for Margaret’s entry.
The Queen, who was in mourning on a white palfrey, progressed under a precious canopy with Cardinal Aldobrandini. The group of illustrious visitors, including the Archduchess Maria, the Archduke Albert and the Constable of Milan Juan Fernández de Velasco, was escorted into the city by 40 Gentlemen Merchants richly dressed and riding horses: ‘al merchants appareld in white damask embrodered with little flowers and leaves of gold, and thereon they wore their caped cloakes of black velvet’. Magnificent garments were also worn by the 36 noblemen of Cremona, who rode ‘a foot before the Queen’.45 The fact that the Gentlemen Merchants flanked the queen, albeit in a cortège distinct from that of the nobles, was an evident mark of the civic and symbolic status they had obtained after the political conflicts concerning the number and selection of their representatives in the city government. Nothing similar had happened in 1541 or in 1548. Five triumphal arches, ‘excellent well made and beautified with divers significations’,46 were erected in the streets where the Queen and her cortège were to pass. The two gates of the city used in the ceremony, Porta Nuova and Porta S. Luca, were decorated with ephemeral apparati (Figure 5.3).
We cannot go into detail here about the form and allegories of the arches. The accounts in the Cremonese manuscripts are similar, apart from a few inconsistencies. An exceptional series of drawings illustrating the arches erected in Cremona in 1598, discovered by Arnalda Dallaj, helps to visualize the written descriptions.47 In my opinion the drawings were prepared with a view to a printed edition. The finished state, the sizes of the sheets48 and the systematically arranged presentation (elevations and plans) suggest that the drawings were to be engraved, presumably in a great folio volume of the same size as Campi’s Cremona fedelissima. The artist who drew them (not necessarily the inventor of the apparati) intended them to illustrate a literary description. Considering their number and relevance, this publishing project was substantial and unusual, as in general printed festive descriptions were issued as quarto volumes.
Why did the manuscript describing the entry and the drawings of the arches remain unpublished?
At this stage of the development of the royal entries in North Italy, the form of the Habsburg entry was standardized sufficiently to allow rapid invention. Both allegorical devices and dynastic iconography were firmly established by well-known erudite and antiquarian catalogues and series of engraved portraits: works by Pietro Valeriano (1556), Vincenzo Cartari (1556), Cesare Ripa (1593), emblem books and various catalogues of Ancient Roman coins. Habsburg iconography, in particular, had been codified in a collection of prints engraved by Gaspare Osello (or Gaspar ab Avibus), from drawings by Francesco Terzi. This series, entitled Austriacae Gentis Imagines, was printed many times from 1557 onwards and was commonly used as a reference book for Habsburg entries.49 With regard to Margaret’s entry into Cremona, Schinchinelli’s source explicitly indicates that Terzi’s invention inspired the portraits of the arch dedicated to the House of Austria.50
5.3 Scheme of Margaret of Austria’s triumphal progress into Cremona (26–27 November 1598), outlined on the basis of the plan of Cremona by Antonio Campi (1583) Note: See Table 5.1 for the ephemera 1 to 9. 1–7. Itinerary on 26 November; 7–9. Itinerary on 27 November: a. Palazzo Affaitati; b. Palazzo Stanga; c. Palazzo Trecchi. Copyright © 2014 Maria Ines Aliverti and Alberto Martini – Dipartimento di Storia delle Arti (Università di Pisa)
A brief comparison with the apparati erected in Milan for the Queen’s entry, described by Guido Mazenta in his printed livret, would be useful (see Table 5.1), both to discuss the attribution of the Cremonese drawings and to evaluate their political significance. The celebration programme was very similar in its narrative sequence, and in this case, too, no drawing illustrated the printed description of the entry, first published in 1598.51
Nevertheless an earlier variant of this description, dated 1597, is available in a manuscript version, illustrated by a set of five drawings.52 This variant is related to festive celebrations planned in Milan for another Habsburg princess from Styria betrothed to the Infante: Gregoria Maximiliana, an older sister of Margaret, who died after preparations for the wedding had begun. In consequence, and after intensive and hasty negotiations, the choice fell on Margaret. The programme of the arches was updated by slight modifications, since the two Habsburg sisters were almost interchangeable in the context of dynastic celebration, considering both the iconographic themes and the accompanying inscriptions.
This period of uncertainty about the choice of bride for the Infante, which lasted for several months, at least until June 1598, was marked by the illness of Philip II. The king, aware that he was close to death, was particularly eager to reach a final settlement. Both affective and political reasons were decisive in hastening the double Habsburg wedding: that of the Infante to Margaret of Austria and that of the Infanta to Archduke Albrecht. To allow Margaret to make her progress into the state as the expected Queen of Spain, the Constable proposed that the weddings and related stately celebrations should be held in Cremona,53 a decision which implied a longer sojourn by the Queen in the city. On 18 July, as attested by Bresciani,54 a letter from the Constable reached the governors of the city with a request to arrange the preparations. The Cremonese programme was still scheduled for the first days of September 1598: the bride would arrive in Trieste and then continue to Cremona sailing on the Po, in order to avoid the risks of a plague that had reached the North of Italy.55 The occasion was exceptional and preparations must have begun with all appropriate magnificence, including a festival book to illustrate the extraordinary display of triumphal arches. Only this circumstance justified such pomp in a city which was not normally intended for long princely sojourns. However, the programme failed as the proposal made by the pope to the reluctant Spaniards to celebrate the double marriage in Ferrara was officially accepted by the king of Spain just before his death on 13 September 1598.56
Table 5.1 Comparative scheme of the triumphal apparati for Margaret of Austria in Cremona and in Milan: dedication of arches and other ephemeral realizations
Copyright © 2014 Maria Ines Aliverti
In this state of uncertainty a relatively reduced programme was confirmed after Philip II’s death, when it was clear that the Queen would make her entry into Cremona with all the necessary magnificence. Cremonese representatives and families wishing to confirm their advantageous position for receiving the illustrious guests, such as the bankers Affaitati, could breathe again. Finally, all was not lost!
Unfortunately it was too late to prepare a festival book capable of illustrating such a magnificent display of triumphal arches. Moreover, and lamentably, the weather which had persecuted poor Margaret during her progress through Italy had been particularly bad in Cremona for many days preceding the Queen’s entrance. The beautiful apparati and their decorations were almost destroyed on the day of the ceremony (26 November). Considering that a printed description was produced not only as a memorial record but also as a guide to the mythological, religious, civic and political allegories on the surfaces of the arches, the fact that the apparati were turned into illegible and faded surfaces may have caused Schinchinelli, the governors and/or the printers to renounce the plan for a publication.
5.4 Arch of the city of Cremona at the Porta Nuova Source: Drawing, 417 x 273 mm: Milan, Civico Gabinetto dei Disegni del Castello Sforzesco, Inv. RB 2046. Copyright © Courtesy of Civiche Raccolte Grafiche e Fotografiche (Milan)
5.5 Prospect of the right wing of the ephemeral apparato at the Porta Nuova. The statue of Cremona is the second from the right Source: Drawing, 417 x 1048 mm (detail). Milan, Civico Gabinetto dei Disegni del Castello Sforzesco, Inv. RB 2057-2058. Copyright © Courtesy of Civiche Raccolte Grafiche e Fotografiche (Milan)
The plan was later taken up by Bresciani, who implemented Schinchinelli’s description, aiming at a printed and illustrated account.57 In fact the drawings of the Milanese collection correspond more closely to Bresciani’s than to Schinchinelli’s text. In particular Bresciani’s passage concerning the apparato of the Porta Nuova is consistent with four drawings.58 This complex decoration was composed of a central arch (Doric order and superimposed Ionic order) entirely dedicated to Cremona, which is represented on top as a young woman in the act of welcoming the Queen (Figure 5.4), and two wings on either side of the arch, which formed a hemicycle displaying the personification of the eight cities of the State of Milan (Figure 5.5).
As the 1598 ceremonial programme had failed in substance, Bresciani possibly intended to restore its loose parts, even enhancing the pomp of the entry by some extra evidence: this is the case of the hemicycle which is not mentioned in Schinchinelli’s description. The project of a luxury folio edition, unusual for festival books before 1598, was in line with Habsburg festival books of the seventeenth century.59 To Bresciani’s eyes it re-established the glorious and princely image of Cremona fidelis, created by the Campi, which in the meantime had faded considerably.
Notes
1 Acknowledgements: The research for this chapter was undertaken with the support of the Italian MURST (Ministero dell’Università e della Ricerca Scientifica e Tecnologica) granted in 2004. I am grateful to Francesca Galli Aliverti, to the staff of the Biblioteca Statale di Cremona and to Rita Barbisotti, former director of the Library, for their help. I also wish to thank my colleagues Lucia Nuti for her essential advice and Mark Eaton for the revision of the English text.
M. I. Aliverti, ‘Il viaggio italiano di Margherita d’Austria regina di Spagna (1598–1599): le descrizioni a stampa’, in P. M. Catedra and M. L. Lopez Vidriero (eds), La Memoria de los Libros: Estudios sobre la historia del escrito y de la lectura en Europa y América (2 vols, Salamanca, 2004), vol. 2, pp. 321–36; M. I. Aliverti, ‘Travelling with a Queen: The Journey of Margaret of Austria (1598–1599) Between Evidence and Reconstruction’, in M.-C. Canova, J. Andrews, M.-F. Wagner (eds), Writing Royal Entries in Early Modern Europe (Turnhout, 2013).
2 A briefe discourse of the voyage and entrance of the Queene of Spaine into Italy: With the triumphes … in the cittyes of Ostia, Ferrara, Mantua, Cremona, Milane … (London, 1599), p. 11.
3 G. Mazenta, Apparato fatto dalla città di Milano per ricevere la serenissima regina d. Margarita d’Austria sposata al potentiss. re di Spagna D. Filippo III, nostro signore (Milan, 1598 and 1599; two issues). See F. Marchesi, ‘Margherita d’Austria a Milano tra lutto e festeggiamenti d’occasione: i preparativi e l’ingresso’, in M. I. Aliverti (ed.), Il viaggio attraverso.
4 One from a series of short accounts by Beccari: B. Beccari, Le pompe maravigliose fatte nella città di Cremona, & di Milano, per l’arrivo … Margherita d’Austria (Rome, 1598); the other anonymous: La solennissima entrata fatta dalla regina di Spagna nella [sic !] città di Cremona e di Lodi & il superbissimo apparato fatto in Milano di statue, & porte, & archi trionfali In Roma: appresso Bartholomeo Bonfadino (Rome, 1598).
5 B. Zerlij, Narratione del viaggio della serenissima Margherita d’Austria regina di Spagna, cominciando da Ferrara, Ostiglia, Mantova, Cremona, & Lodi, … (Cremona, 1599).
6 A briefe discourse [… ].
7 G. Battista Grillo, Breve trattato di quanto successe alla maestà della regina d. Margarita d’Austria n.s. dalla città di Trento fine d’Alemagna, e principio d’Italia fino alla città di Genova … (Naples, 1604). Margaret’s voyage from Styria to Spain is narrated in full by Bochius in the opening of his Historica narration, see J. Bochius, Historica narratio profectionis et inaugurationis serenissimorum Belgii principum Alberti et Isabellæ Austriæ arciducum […],(Antwerp, 1602), but the author did not witness the journey and its account is a mere collection of previously published descriptions of entries into various Italian cities.
8 R. Barbisotti, ‘Gli archi eretti a Cremona nel 1598 per la venuta di Margherita d’Austria e la Descrittione di Cristoforo Schinchinelli’, Strenna dell’A.D.A.F.A., 37 (1997), pp. 125–50; see also R. Barbisotti, ‘La stampa a Cremona nell’età spagnola’, in Giorgio Politi (ed.), Storia di Cremona: L’età degli Asburgo di Spagna (1535–1707) (Azzano San Paolo, 2006), pp. 478–511.
9 See Aliverti, ‘Il viaggio italiano di Margherita d’Austria regina di Spagna (1598–1599)’.
10 Zerlij, Narratione del viaggio. For a critical approach to this and other general accounts of the journey see Aliverti, ‘Travelling with a Queen’.
11 Dichiaratione et nota de’ Capitoli pubblicati nella Congregatione de’ Stati de Brabanti, sotto il dì 12. d’Agosto 1598, … (Rome and Cremona, 1598).
12 G. Mazenta, Apparato fatto dalla città di Milano per ricevere la serenissima regina, d. Margarita d’Austria sposata al potentiss. re di Spagna d. Filippo III … (Milan and Cremona, 1599).
13 See note no. 4.
14 See G. Muto, La città, lo Stato, l’Impero, in Politi (ed.), Storia di Cremona, pp. 12–57.
15 Other, smaller-scale manufacturing activities were leather and metalwork. Artisans made up around half the population. The data of the census taken in 1576 list a population of 34,388 inhabitants, which was destined to grow in the following decades (over 40,000 were recorded in 1621). See A. Abbiati, ‘Lo spazio urbano, la società e il lavoro: un’ipotesi di ricerca sulla Cremona di fine Cinquecento’, Bolletino storico cremonese, N.S. 1 (1995), pp. 59–86.
16 The following are the most important entries and sojourns before that of the Queen of Spain in 1598: Louis XII King of France: 23 June 1509; Massimiliano Sforza Duke of Milan: 16 November 1512; Francesco II Sforza Duke of Milan: 1525, October 1526–June 1527, 25 September 1530; Renée of France: 8 November 1528 (on her way to Reggio Emilia to get married to Ercole II d’Este, Duke of Ferrara); Charles V Holy Roman Emperor: 5 March 1533 (on his way to Spain; stops until 7 March), 18 August 1541 (official triumphal entry as Duke of Milan), 14 June 1543 (stops in Cremona until 27 June before and after his meeting with Pope Paul III Farnese in the nearby Busseto: 20–25 June); Maximilian Archduke of Austria/Maximilian II as Holy Roman Emperor from 1564 and his wife: 4 December 1551, 4 July 1548 (on his way to Spain to get married to the Spanish Infanta, Maria Archduchess of Austria); Philip Archduke of Austria/Philip II as King of Spain from 1555: 9 January 1549 (coming from Milan on his way to Brussels), 16 June 1551 (on his way back to Spain); Maximilian Archduke of Austria/Maximilian II as Holy Roman Emperor from 1564 and his wife: 4 July 1548 (on his way to Spain to get married to the Spanish Infanta, Maria Archduchess of Austria); 4 December 1551 (on his way back to Austria); Rudolf/Rudolf II as Holy Roman Emperor from 1576, and Ernst, Archdukes of Austria: 21 December 1563 (on their way to the court of Spain: triumphal entry and foot tournament); 7 August 1571 (on their way back from the court of Spain: no triumphal entry); Henri III King of France and IV of Poland: 8 August 1574 (on his way from Poland to France); Christina of Denmark, as widow of Francesco II Sforza, last Italian Duke of Milan, died in 1535: 21–28 November 1578 (on her way from Loreto to the castle of Tortona). For a general survey of the Cremonese entries and sojourns see L. Maggi, ‘Tra effimero e realtà. Impianto urbano e percorsi di parata a Cremona nel Cinquecento’, in Mina Gregori (ed.), I Campi: Cultura artistica cremonese del Cinquecento (Milan, 1985), pp. 386–91, drawing upon local sources. I have occasionally completed some dates on the basis of main known sources relating Habsburg journeys, such as Vandenesse and Calvete de Estrella. More rarely coming from the Brenner route and the Venetian ‘terraferma’ the Austrias passed through Verona, Desenzano (Lake Garda), Lonato, Brescia and Orzinuovi, reaching the territory of the state of Milan to the north of Cremona (Soncino) without entering the city. This, in September to October 1581, was the itinerary of the widowed Empress Maria returning to her native Spain, greeted in Soncino by the Cremonese representative on 3 October.
17 See G. Politi, Aristocrazia e potere politico nella Cremona di Filippo II (Milan, 1976), pp. 75–102 and 449–50.
18 The Campi family: Galeazzo (1477–1536) and his sons Giulio (c. 1507–1572), Antonio (1523–1587) and Vincenzo (1536–1591), and their associate the homonymous though unrelated Bernardino Campi (1522–1591), dominates Cremonese painting from 1510 to around 1590. The work of Giulio and Antonio as architects in the design of ephemeral apparati, decorations and buildings, and in restorations, is known, though has still not been fully investigated. For a general survey see M. Gregori (ed.), I Campi: Cultura artistica cremonese del Cinquecento (Milan, 1985).
19 De Laude or de Lodi, also re-engraved the map of the territory in 1583. Like the printer Barucino de Giovanni, he belonged to the Jewish community. See R. Barbisotti, ‘Libri illustrati, intagliatori e incisori a Cremona nel Cinquecento’, in Gregori, I Campi, pp. 333–46.
20 The inscribed names include the Decurioni (the major city representatives) then in charge. See G. Jean, ‘Antonio Campi. Piante di palazzi cremonesi alla fine del Cinquecento’, Il disegno in architettura 8/17 (1998), pp. 21–6; M. Visioli, ‘ “Quasi un vivo simulacro della Patria Nostra”: la pianta di Cremona di Antonio Campi, 1582–1583’, in M. Folin (ed.), Rappresentare la città: Topografie urbane nell’Italia di antico regime (Reggio Emilia, 2010), pp. 253–76.
21 Porta Nova (east), Porta Omnium Sanctorum (north-east), Porta S. Luca (north-west, in the direction of Milan), Porta Po (south-west). The Porta S. Michele (east) which had deserved some major triumphal entries in the first half of the sixteenth century, was demolished in 1542 to make way for the new imposing rampart of S. Michele. The new east gate, Porta Nova, was then built, giving access to a via recta flanked by new buildings (Quarterium domorum novarum), which joined the old road leading to the Platea Maior and was almost aligned with it. From the Platea Maior to Porta S. Luca the triumphal progresses followed the Strata Magistra (now Corso Garibaldi).
22 For a general survey see L. Azzolini, Palazzi del Quattrocento a Cremona (Cremona, 1994); A. Scotti, ‘Cremona nobilissima: architettura e città tra Cinquecento e Seicento’, Bollettino storico cremonese, N.S. 2 (1995), pp. 173–84; L. Azzolini, Palazzi del Cinquecento a Cremona, (Cremona, 1996); A. Scotti, ‘Architetti e cantieri: una traccia per l’architettura cremonese’, and D. Lana, ‘Riflessioni e appunti sull’edilizia civile a Cremona tra Quattro e Cinquecento’, both in Gregori (ed.), I Campi, pp. 371–80 and 392–6; Giacinta Jean, La ‘casa da nobile’ a Cremona: Caratteri delle dimore aristocratiche in età moderna (Milan, 2000).
23 On Palazzo Trecchi as residence for princely or illustrious guests see A. Giussani, ‘L’ospitalità ai principi nel Palazzo Trecchi’, Cremona, 9 (1937), pp. 351–86; S. Leydi, ‘ “Un negotio veramente essorbitante, et di dura digestione”? La distribuzione delle cariche nella pubblica amministrazione a Cremona e i funzionari cremonesi nello stato di Milano (1531–1630)’, Bollettino storico cremonese, N.S. 1 (1995), pp. 13–58, in particular pp. 19–21; L. Azzolini, Palazzo Trecchi in Cremona (Cremona, 1998). The expense and effort that the privilege of hosting princes involved were compensated for by exemption from ordinary and special taxes, granted to the Trecchi by Francesco II Sforza in 1527: the exemption remained in force until 1567.
24 The authors and the original structures of the major Cremonese palaces of this time are often a controversial question. Nevertheless projects and restorations, even when ascribed to other architects (see Francesco Dattari for the new Palazzo Affaitati), must be considered in the context of the renewed image of the city created by the Campi.
25 See R. Carande, Carlos V y sus banqueros: La Hacienda real de Castilla (Madrid, 1949).
26 Significantly, in 1551 the brothers Giovan Carlo and Giovan Battista Affaitati had offered to contribute a huge sum towards the organization of a crusade against the Ottomans.
27 The Archduke Albert and the Archduchess Maria were hosted together with the Queen in Palazzo Affaitati. The Constable Velasco was lodged in Palazzo Stanga in the district of S. Luca. The Trecchi Palace was reserved for Philip William, Prince of Orange. A list of palaces where the princely visitors and other illustrious guests were hosted in 1598 is given by Giuseppe Bresciani in his manuscript account of the entry dated in the early seventeenth century (Biblioteca Statale di Cremona, MS Bresciani 30), pp. 35–6 (see note no. 42).
28 The name ‘Contrada dritta’ (today via Palestro) is recorded in plans after that of Antonio Campi. It prolonged the section of the Strata Magistra coincident with the cardo.
29 Although we must underline the fact that eminent aristocrats sometimes tried to keep away from this onerous pleasure, and were forced to fulfil their duty by the government.
30 See N. Arrigoni, ‘ “Cremona festeggiante”. Feste a Cremona tra il XVI e il XVII secolo’, Bollettino Storico Cremonese, N.S. 1(1995), pp. 179–99, in particular pp. 182–8.
31 For a survey of civil and religious architecture at this turning point, especially after the orders of the Jesuits and the Barnabites were established in the city, see Scotti ‘Cremona nobilissima’.
32 A. Campi, Cremona fedelissima città et nobilissima colonia de Romani rappresentata in disegno col suo contado et illustrata d’una breve historia delle cose più notabili appartenenti ad essa et de i ritratti naturali de duchi et duchesse di Milano e compendio delle lor vite (Cremona, 1585 [1582–1585]). The complex publishing history is brilliantly reconstructed by Rita Barbisotti in the Presentazione to the facsimile edition (Cremona, 1990), pp. v–xi.
33 Unjustly, Vasari did not include the Campi in his Vite (except for a short passage in the Life of two Ferrarese artists: Benvenuto Garofolo e Girolamo da Carpi) and so deserves a rebuke from Antonio, who, in a passage in his Cremona fedelissima (Libro Terzo, pp. liii–lv) extols the Cremonese school, listing all the artists with laudatory comments.
34 See B. Lamizet, Le Sens de la ville (Paris, 2002); L. Nuti, Cartografie senza carte: Lo spazio urbano descritto dal Medioevo al Rinascimento (Milan, 2008), pp. 142–52.
35 F. Sansovino, Venetia citta nobilissima et singolare, descritta in XIIII libri … (Venice, 1581)
36 This classification was established by the geographer and cartographer Giovanni Antonio Magini in his Italia, a monumental work begun in 1594 and published in 1620. In the first rank Magini listed the six capitals of territorial states (Rome, Naples, Venice, Genoa, Milan and Florence) and in the second rank comprehending 11 cities – not independent (like Bologna) or capitals of minor states (like Mantua) – he included Cremona. On the genesis of this sort of classification see G. Ricci, ‘Sulla classificazione delle città nell’Italia del Rinascimento’, Storia urbana, 64 (1993), pp. 3–33.
37 Campi, Cremona fedelissima, in particular for ceremonial entries see ‘Libro Terzo’, p. xxviii (Giulio Campi and Camillo Boccaccino in 1541: entry of Charles V) and p. xliiij (Antonio Campi in 1563: entry of the Archdukes Rudolf and Ernst).
38 R. Barbisotti, ‘Cremona “domina”. Le raffigurazioni della città nei libri cremonesi del Cinque–Seicento’, Cremona, 27–28 (1997–1998), pp. 67–77.
39 Campi, Cremona fedelissima, ‘Libro Terzo’, p. xxviij.
40 [Giovanni Alberto Albicante], Trattato del’intrar in Milano, di Carlo V C. sempre Aug. con le proprie figure de li archi … (Mediolani, Apud Andream Calvum, 1541), n. p.
41 The allegorical statues of the eight cities were displayed for Philip of Habsburg in Milan, on the occasion of his triumphal entries in late 1548, J. C. Calvete de Estrella, El felicíssimo viaje d’el muy alto y muy poderoso Príncipe don Phelippe, ed. Paloma Cuenca (Madrid, 2001), p. 59. Possibly a similar iconography was used in Cremona to welcome the prince on 9 January 1549, but Calvete’s report only dwells on the inscriptions of the arches, Felicíssimo viaje, pp. 81–2. Neither does Antonio Campi enter into detail about these arches: Cremona fedelissima, ‘Libro Terzo’, p. xxxiij.
42 C. Schinchinelli, Descrittione et dichiaratione de gli archi fatti dalla Città di Cremona per la venuta della M[aes]tà della Regina N. Sig.ra secondo l’inventione et forma prescritta da Christoforo Schinchinello eletto da detta Città, MS sixteenth century, 16 fols rv n.n., Biblioteca Statale di Cremona, Miscellanea BB.2.4/9, ed. by Rita Barbisotti, in Barbisotti, Gli archi eretti a Cremona nel 1598, pp. 136–50. The manuscript is not autographical but a contemporary copy.
43 G. Bresciani, ‘Venuta di donna Margarita d’Austria …’, in Funzioni diverse di Cremona, MS seventeenth century, fols 9r–23r, Biblioteca Statale di Cremona, MS Bresciani 25; G. Bresciani, ‘Entrata in Cremona della Ser.ma Regina di Spagna l’anno MDLVXXXXVIII’, in Apparati trionfali fatti nella città di Cremona per l’ingresso in essa de diversi illustrissimi personaggi, MS seventeenth century, fols 1–39, Biblioteca Statale di Cremona, MS Bresciani 30. This second text is an extended version.
44 Barbisotti, ‘Gli archi eretti a Cremona nel 1598’, p. 133.
45 For a complete description see A Briefe Discourse, pp. 11–12.
46 For the dedication of the arches see Table 5.1.
47 Series of 18 drawings (graphite, pen, brown ink and brown wash) from the Raccolta Luca Beltrami, Milan, Civico Gabinetto dei Disegni del Castello Sforzesco, Inv. RB 2042–2059. See A. Dallaj, ‘Gli “Heroi austriaci”, Cremona e il Malosso: i disegni per gli apparati del 1598’, Te. Quaderni di Palazzo Te, N.S. 2(1995), pp. 34–47; A. Dallaj, ‘Disegni per l’ingresso di Margherita d’Austria a Cremona, 1598’, in G. Bora and M. Zlàtohlavek (eds), I segni dell’arte. Il Cinquecento da Praga a Cremona (Milan, 1997), pp. 370–8. Dallaj initially attributed the apparati to Giovan Battista Trotti called Il Malosso, while in the successive article she revised the attribution, assigning the decorative project to Antonio Maria Viani in collaboration with Carlo Pallago.
48 The sizes of most of the sheets are 415 to 419 mm x 270 to 277 mm. The first figure (415 to 419) is constant, while in three sheets the second figure corresponds approximately to a multiple of 270 (537 mm, 545 mm, 1048 mm): it may refer to illustrations on folded pages.
49 The series was first engraved earlier (probably in 1557), and subsequently in 1558, 1569 and 1573. See G. Streliotto (ed.), Gaspar ab Avibus: Incisore cittadellese del XVI secolo (Cittadella, 2000).
50 Schinchinelli, Descrittione et dichiaratione, p. 138. See also Bresciani, ‘Entrata in Cremona della Ser.ma Regina di Spagna’, p. 9.
51 See note no. 3. The dedicatory letter to the Constable’s son, Iñigo Fernández de Velasco Ninth Count of Haro, is dated 6 December 1598.
52 MS 2908, Biblioteca Nacional de España, Madrid. The dedicatory letter of Guido Mazenta brings the date 22 July 1597. In a recent contribution Stefano Della Torre accurately reconsiders the manuscript in relation to the artistic and organizational role of the Mazenta family. He ascribes to Alessandro Mazenta the Arco di Porta Romana, formerly attributed to Aurelio Trezzi. S. Della Torre, ‘“Non di legno, ma di pietre”: la Porta Romana di Milano, apparato non effimero’, in N. Riegel and Damian Dombrowski (eds), Architektur und Figur. Das Zusammenspiel der Künste. Festschrift für Stefan Kummer zum 60. Geburtstag (Munich, 2007), pp. 217–25; S. Della Torre, ‘Gli apparati trionfali del 1598’, Studia Borromaica, 22 (2008), pp. 81–99.
53 This can be inferred from a letter sent by the Florentine ambassador to the Imperial court, Concini, to the Grand Duke Ferdinando de’ Medici, dated in July 1598. Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Mediceo del Principato, 4355, fol. 270rv.
54 Bresciani, ‘Entrata in Cremona della Ser.ma Regina di Spagna’, fols 1–2.
55 See two messages from Monsignor Regini to the Secretary of the Grand Duke Ferdinando, Belisario Vinta, from Stainz, on 7 September 1598, Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Mediceo del Principato, 887, fol. 330r and fol. 331r.
56 The news of Philip II of Spain’s death arrived in Italy in the first days of October.
57 See Bresciani, ‘Venuta di donna Margarita d’Austria …’, fol. 22r.
58 Milano, Civico Gabinetto dei Disegni del Castello Sforzesco, inv. no. RB 2058–2057, RB 2059, RB 2046, RB 2047. Compared to Bresciani’s description, the drawings are in reverse, a detail which confirms they were destined to be engraved and printed.
59 Especially starting from 1602, when Plantin published in Antwerp the Historica narratio by Bochius: see note no. 7.