Two paintings from the Dal Pozzo Collection
Landscapes with Exotic Birds
Two paintings, executed in oil on canvas, each 153 × 191 cm.
Antonio Cinatti is one of several artists who have lately come to notice through investigation of the inventories of the Dal Pozzo picture collection. Eight paintings are attributed to him therein, of which these two depicting large wading birds in marshlands at “Dawn” and “Dusk” are the only ones thus far linked to the documentary evidence. They expand our knowledge of Cassiano dal Pozzo’s prolific collecting and patronage, and indicate how his vast compendium of images on paper (”Museo Cartaceo”) was exploited for the production of natural history paintings. Another six paintings on canvas and eleven oils on paper are attributed to Cinatti in other Roman inventories. Those works, commissioned by Monsignor Jules Mazarin (after 1641 Cardinal Mazarin), Paolo Maccarani, and Prince Camillo Pamphili, still await identification.
price on request
- Subjects
- Art - Collectors and collecting - Dal Pozzo (Cassiano), 1588-1657
- Paintings - Artists, Italian - Cinatti (Antonio), active 1609-1635
- Science - Ornithology
- Authors/Creators
- Cinatti, Antonio, active 1609-1635
- Artists/Illustrators
- Cinatti, Antonio, active 1609-1635
- Owners
- Dal Pozzo, Cassiano, 1588-1657
- Dal Pozzo, Cosimo Antonio, died 1740
- Dal Pozzo, Gabriele, died 1695
- Dal Pozzo-Boccapaduli, Maria Laura, died 1771
- Other names
- Dal Pozzo, Carlo Antonio, 1606-1689
- Dal Pozzo, Cassiano, 1588-1657
- Maccarani, Paolo, 1583-1667
- Mazarin, Jules, 1602-1661
- Pamphili, Camillo, 1622-1666
- Peiresc, Nicolas-Claude Fabri de, 1580-1637
- Solinas, Francesco, born 1958
Cinatti, Antonio
fl. Rome 1609 – 1635
Two Landscapes with Exotic Birds
i. ‘L’alba’ (Dawn), featuring Phoenicopterus roseus (Greater Flamingo), Vanellus vanellus (Common Lapwing), Porphyrio porphyrio (Purple Swamphen), Anas penelope (Wigeon), and unidentifiable ducks
ii. ‘Il tramonto’ (Dusk) featuring Numenius arquata (Curlew), Grus grus (Grey Crane), Ardeola ralloides (Squacco Heron), Vanellus vanellus (Common Lapwing), Anas clypeata (Shoveler), Platalea leucorodia (European Spoonbill), Phalacrocorax carbo sinensis (Southern Cormorant), Plegadis falcinellus (Glossy Ibis)
Rome, c. 1630–1635
Oil on canvas (relined). Each painting 153 × 191 cm. In British 20th-century reproduction frames by Paul Mitchell.
provenance
commissioned circa 1630 by Cavaliere Cassiano dal Pozzo (1583–1657) and/or his younger brother, Carlo Antonio dal Pozzo (1606–1689), for the palace they shared in via dei Chiavari, Rome — transferred by fidecommesso to Carlo Antonio dal Pozzo1 — by inheritance to his second son, Gabriele dal Pozzo (d. 1695)2 — by inheritance to his widow (born Anna Teresa Benzoni, after her remarriage in 1697 the Marchesa Lancellotti de’Ginnetti; d. 1736), and held in custody for their son, Cosimo Antonio dal Pozzo, displayed in the Palazzo Lancellotti-Ginnetti, Rome3 — Cosimo Antonio dal Pozzo (d. 20 February 1740), displayed in the Palazzo Lancellotti-Ginnetti, Rome4 — by inheritance circa 1739 to his daughter Maria Laura dal Pozzo — Maria Laura dal Pozzo (married 1728 Pietro Paolo Boccapaduli; d. 1771), displayed in the Palazzo Boccapaduli (later Guerrieri), via dei Falegnami, Rome — by inheritance within the Boccapaduli family, Rome — consigned anonymously as ‘Escuela italiana, siglo xvii’ (and without provenance) to Sotheby’s España, S.A., ‘Pintura antigua, impresionista y moderna’, Madrid, 16 June 1992, lot 2 — consigned anonymously as ‘Italian School, late 17th century’ (and without provenance) to Sotheby’s, ‘Old Master Paintings’, London, 21 April 1993, lot 181 — the present owner
exhibited
Rome, Galleria nazionale d’arte antica, Palazzo Barberini, 29 September–26 November 2000
Biella, Museo del territorio Biellese, 16 December 2001–16 March 2002
Brescia, Palazzo Martinengo Cesaresco, 19 January–9 June 2019 (‘L’alba’ only)
literature
Francesco Solinas, ‘Poussin et Cassiano dal Pozzo: notes et documents sur une collaboration amicale’ in Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665): actes du colloque organisé au Musée du Louvre par le Service culturel, du 19 au 21 octobre 1994, sous la direction scientifique d’Alain Mérot (Paris: Musée du Louvre, 1996), i, pp.300, 328–329, 336 (both paintings reproduced, figs. 9–10)
I segreti di un collezionista: le straordinarie raccolte di Cassiano dal Pozzo 1588–1657, catalogue of an exhibition held at the Galleria nazionale d’arte antica, Palazzo Barberini, Rome, from 29 September–26 November 2000, edited by Francesco Solinas (Rome: Edizioni De Luca, [2000]), pp.104–107, nos. 106–107 (both paintings reproduced)
Francesco Solinas, L’Uccelliera. Un libro di arte e di scienza nella Roma dei primi Lincei (Rariora et mirabilia, 2) (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2000), pp.103, 109–110 (both paintings reproduced, plate xxix a–b)
Arabella Cifani and Franco Monetti, ‘Cassiano Dal Pozzo. Rome’ [review of the exhibition] in The Burlington Magazine 143, no. 1174 (January 2001), pp.56–58 (‘L’alba’ reproduced, p.57 fig. 73)
I segreti di un collezionista: le straordinarie raccolte di Cassiano dal Pozzo 1588–1657, catalogue of an exhibition held at the Museo del territorio Biellese, Biella, from 16 December 2001–16 March 2002, edited by Francesco Solinas (Rome: Edizioni De Luca, 2001), pp.266–268, nos. 188–189 (both paintings reproduced)
Alberto Cottino, ‘Le origini della natura morta fiorentina: Jacopo Ligozzi, l’illustrazione scientifica e i primi naturalisti’ in Luce e ombra: caravaggismo e naturalismo nella pittura toscana del Seicento, catalogue of an exhibition held at the Centro per l’arte Otello Cirri and Museo Piaggio ‘Giovanni Alberto Agnelli’, Pontedera, from 18 March–12 June 2005, edited by Pierluigi Carofano (Pisa: Felici Editore, 2005), p.ccv (‘L’alba’ reproduced, fig. 4)
Mina Gregori, ‘Divagazioni su un quadro di pesci di Antonio Tanari’ in Paragone / Arte 57 (2006), nos. 65–66, pp.33–34 (both paintings reproduced, figs. 32–33)
Henrietta McBurney and Carlo Violani, Birds, other animals and natural curiosities, The paper museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo : a catalogue raisonné : drawings and prints in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle, in the British Library, the British Museum, the Institut de France and other collections. Series B, Natural history, Parts 4–5 (London 2017), volume i, p.65 (both paintings reproduced: ‘L’alba’ on p.318 as Comp. fig. 122; ‘Il tramonto’ on p.376 as Comp. fig. 151)
Gli animali nell'arte: dal Rinascimento a Ceruti, catalogue of an exhibition held at the Palazzo Martinengo, Brescia, 19 January–9 June 2019, curated by Davide Dotti (Cinisello Balsamo [Milan]: Silvana Editoriale [2019]), no. 72 (‘L’alba’ exhibited; entry by Alberto Cottino); also illustrated pp.50, 228 (discussion by Alessandro Canci, Paolo Luschi, Elisabetta Palagi)
Antonio Cinatti is one of several artists who have lately come to notice through investigation of the inventories of the Dal Pozzo picture collection. Eight paintings are attributed to him therein, of which these two depicting large wading birds in marshlands at ‘Dawn’ and ‘Dusk’ are the only ones thus far linked to the documentary evidence. They expand our knowledge of Cassiano dal Pozzo’s prolific collecting and patronage, and indicate how his vast compendium of images on paper (‘Museo Cartaceo’) was exploited for the production of natural history paintings. Another six paintings on canvas and eleven oils on paper are attributed to Cinatti in other Roman inventories. Those works, commissioned by Monsignor Jules Mazarin (after 1641 Cardinal Mazarin), Paolo Maccarani, and Prince Camillo Pamphili, still await identification.
The Dal Pozzo Quadreria
The two earliest of the known Dal Pozzo inventories, taken in 1689 and 1695, were discovered in the Archivio di Stato di Roma and partially published in 1973 by Arnauld Brejon de Lavergnée, with a tight focus on the French pictures in the collection.5 In the mid-1980s, Timothy Standring and Donatella Sparti independently discovered in the Archivio Storico Capitolino (Fondo Boccapaduli) a series of later inventories, including one taken in 1740 by Antonio Maria Bozzolani, which incorporates the citations and attributions of individual pictures in the inventories of 1689 and 1695, with Bozzolani’s own attributions and observations, and is thus the most detailed inventory of the Dal Pozzo picture collection known.6
On the evidence of the inventories, entire galleries and corridors of Cassiano’s palace in via dei Chiavari were filled by paintings of birds or animals, interspersed by still-lifes of flowers, fruits and vegetables. Nearly all the pictures of this type have been lost, or else survive unrecognized. Of the numerous pictures commissioned by Cassiano from the young Nicolas Poussin (perhaps as many as fifty paintings), at least eight depicted birds, including one of an ostrich in large format and two of eagles; yet none of these remarkable paintings is known to survive.7 Also lost is a huge painting of an ostrich in a landscape by Pietro Testa, which was inscribed on the back ‘Strutio Camelus à Pietro Testa Lucese dipictus’.8 The paintings by Cinatti in the Dal Pozzo collection narrowly escaped the same fate.
In the inventory taken in 1695, eight paintings are variously credited to Antonio Cinatti:
50. Quadro su la porta in tela d’Imperatore9 di diversi ucellami d’Antonio Cinanio (fol. 259 recto)
52. Altro [quadro] parimente grande con varii ucelli del Cinato Fiorentino (fol. 259 recto)
58. Altro [quadro] di 4. palmi rappresentante un’Struzzo del Cinato (fol. 259 verso)
62. Un’quadro più grande d’Imperatore con varii Ucelli del Cinato (fol. 259 verso)
63. Altro [quadro] di 4. palmi con un’Ucello del Cinato (fol. 259 verso)
69. Altro [quadro] di 7, e 9 [palmi]10 di varii Ucelli del Cinato (fol. 259 verso)
71. Altro [quadro] di 7, e 9 [palmi] di varii Ucelli del Cinato (fol. 259 verso)
75. Altro [quadro] di 4 palmi con Aquila, Lepri, et altro del Cinato (fol. 260 recto)11
All were displayed in 1695 in the same ‘Stanza contigua al suddetto Gabinetto’ (i.e. the ‘Gabinetto sopra le Scale’), together with twenty-five paintings (most still-lifes of flowers and fruits) attributed by the notary to Pietro Paolo Bonzi, detto il Gobbo dei Frutti e dei Carracci; Mario Nuzzi, detto de’Fiori; Juan Van der Hamen y León; Vincenzo Leonardi; ‘Danara’; Tommaso Salini, detto Mao; or ‘d’incerto Autore’.
Although the Dal Pozzo collection was protected by fidecommesso, a number of pictures were sold or given away while it under the control of Cosimo Antonio dal Pozzo, and Cosimo’s only child, Maria Laura, soon filed suit against her father to protect her inheritance. In 1740 the court ordered that an impartial inventory of the collection (by then installed in the Palazzo Lancellotti-Ginnetti) be drawn up to establish not only the value of the estate but also how much of it had been liquidated illegally. This is the aforementioned inventory by Bozzolani. Organised in two parts, it lists the paintings seen by Bozzolani, and then ‘Quadri che sonon nel Inventario di Gabrielle del Pozzo e non si sono trovati nel Eredita della donatione Cosimo Antonio dal Pozzo’.12 Bozzolani’s descriptions are quite exceptional: the subject, dimensions, and the frame of each painting are noted; and the corresponding citation and attribution (information recorded on the backs of the canvases) from the two preceding inventories are given, with corrections as necessary.13
It appears that only two of Cinatti’s paintings remained in the Dal Pozzo quadreria in 1740.14 Bozzolani identifies them as the two largest paintings by Cinatti recorded in the 1695 inventory (nos. 69, 71), corrects previous measurements, comments on their state of preservation, describes their frames, and transcribes inscriptions on the reverses:
227 Altro quadro in tela di palmi otto e sei per traverso rappresentante un Lago con Varie sorte d’Ucellami indiani, un poco perduto di colore15 Con Sua cornice fatta à cassa tinta color di noce e oro Con Iscrizzione dietro Phocicuptatus [Phoenicopterus] Mas et femina et Prophisio ad viou depic: ab Antonio Cinatti. Questo e nel Inventario di Gabrielle [i.e. the inventory of 1695] al n 70 [i.e. 69, in the version of 1695 inventory cited under provenance] = Altro di 7 [palmi] E 9 [palmi] di Vari Ucelli del Cinaso
231 Altro quadro in tela di palmi otto, e sei per traverso rappresentante un Paese con Lagho d’Aqua, et anetre che volano in aria ed altri animali Volatili Indiani, Sfondato, Scrostato, e Perduto di colore, con sua cornice fatta à cassa tinta Color di Noce con filetti dorati con Iscrizzione dietro Eius Scarbus, Ardeo Albardeola, Anatres Vannellus, Numenius ab Antonio Cinatto depicq. Questo e nel Inventario di Gabrielle [i.e. the inventory of 1695] al n 67 [i.e. 70] = Altro di 7 [palmi] E 9 [palmi] di vari uccelli del Cinaso16
The unusual subject of the first painting – male and female flamingos in a landscape – was noted in 1987 by Francesco Solinas, in a study of the scholarly interchange between Cassiano and the eminent French savant Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc (1580–1637).17Their common interest in the flamingo is abundantly documented: the flamingo featured in Peiresc’s correspondence with Cassiano from March 1627 through May 1628, and again in October 1634 and January 1635;18 Peiresc commissioned drawings of flamingos captured in Provence, which were presented to Cassiano when he passed through Auch in 1625;19 and Peiresc also procured a flamingo’s skin, and possibly the live bird which Cassiano kept in the courtyard of his palace.20 In a letter to Cassiano dated 17 May 1629, Peiresc referred to the flamingo skin he had dispatched to Rome, and its potential use for a painting of flamingos in a landscape which Cassiano intended to commission.21 Solinas published the entry from Bozzolani’s inventory (no. 227), suggesting that it might document the very painting of flamingos anticipated in Peiresc’s letter.22
In 1992, Solinas recognized two paintings that had been entered without attribution or provenance in an auction in Madrid,23 and reoffered in 1993 in London on the same terms,24 corresponded exactly with the descriptions of Cinatti’s paintings given in Bozzolani’s inventory (nos. 227, 231). The paintings were duly published by Solinas in 1996 with an attribution to Antonio Cinatti and Dal Pozzo provenance.25 Solinas noted analogies between the paintings and the studies of flamingos that Cassiano had obtained in 1625 and also with studies of birds drawn by Vincenzo Leonardi for Cassiano’s ‘Museo Cartaceo’. At the time, Solinas dated the two paintings circa 1628–1632 ‘par la présence de certains oiseaux et par l’absence de certains autres’;26 in 2000, when they were exhibited in the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica di Palazzo Barberini, he revised their date to ‘attorno al 1635–6’, partly on the evidence of ‘un esemplare di fenicottero impagliato’ sent to Cassiano by Peiresc in the winter of 1634.27 Solinas speculates that the two paintings may have been intended as models for a series of tapestries depicting natural history to be woven in the Barberini factories, a project initiated about 1634 and evidently abandoned during Cassiano’s financial crisis in 1636–1637.28
Cinatti in other Roman inventories
In January and April 1635 ‘Antonio Cinatt [sic]’ was paid a total of thirteen scudi for
tre quadri di Animali29
commissioned by Monsignor Jules Mazarin (after 1641 Cardinal Mazarin). The payments appear in the accounts of one of Mazarin’s agents in Rome, Paolo Maccarani. The first payment of eleven scudi (31 January) reached Cinatti by a circuitous route suggestive of a change in his circumstances. The painter Pietro Paolo Benincasa,30 who was owed six scudi for flower paintings supplied to Mazarin, was paid instead a total of seventeen scudi, and instructed to give the balance to Antonio Mariana della Corgna for the benefit of Cinatti. The second payment of two scudi (13 April), ‘per aver fatto rifare gli Campi delli quadri di Animali’, evidently was made directly to Cinatti.31
Antonio della Corgna (or Cornia), himself a painter, served as an agent and appraiser for Cardinal Antonio Barberini, Mazarin, and others.32 He was the appraiser for the Ludovisi collection in 1633 and for the Vittorio Amedeo i Savoia collection in 1635. From 1631, Della Corgna lived in or near the Piazza degli Otto Cantoni (now absorbed by Piazza Augusto Imperatore) in the parish of San Lorenzo in Lucina, sharing a house there with the painter Andrea Pancrazio. In 1635, Cinatti became a neighbour, moving to the Vicolo degli Otto Cantoni33 after a long period of residence in the parish of San Andrea delle Fratte.34 Cinatti’s change of accommodation may signify a new dependence on Della Corgna for patronage, a decline (or curtailment) of his work for Cassiano.
A posthumous inventory of the possessions of Paolo Maccarani records in the ‘Camera passata la Galleria’ of his palace on the Quirinale two large paintings of fowl by Cinatti, displayed in gilt frames:
Due quadri compagni tela d’Imperatore con diversi pollami e vitelli cornici dorate del Cinami [sic].35
An inventory of paintings kept by Prince Camillo Pamphili in via del Corso, taken circa 1648–1652, records
Un Quadro in tela d’imperatore con diversi animali, di mano del Cinatti, con sua cornice noce, et oro.36
A post-mortem inventory of the same collection (7 August 1666) records eleven framed quadretti in carta displayed in the ‘Stanze delle donne’:
Un quadro in carta con varii animali morti dipinti ad’oglio al naturale cioè Pico, Pizardella, due Frescioni, cornice tinta di nero, mano del Cinati (fol. 48 recto)
Due quadretti in carta coloriti ad’oglio misura di palmi 1 ½ in uno una Statua morta, e nell’altro varii pesci con una locusta, corniccetta nera. mano del Cinatti (fol. 48 recto)
Due quadretti in carta, in uno un fagiano nell’altro una Gozzola pratarola misura da due palmi alti 2 ½ cornice nera. mano del Cinatti (interpolated entry on fol. 90 recto)
Un quadretto in carta d’una Gallina pratarola colorita in piedi, misura di due palmi scarsi mano del Cinatti (fol. 48 verso)
Trè quadretti in carta misura di ½ palmo cornicette nere. Uno di una testa d’asino l’altro d’un Anatretto e l’altro di due teste di Capre. mano del Cinatti (fol. 48 verso)
Un quadro in carta colorito con oglio misura di un palmo dentro d’una Granuola, con una Cocciola marina, cornice nera. mano del Cinatti (fol. 48 verso–49 recto)
Un quadro in carta con due Cotogni del Naturale d’acquarella misura d’un palmo mano di Cinatti (fol. 49 recto)37
and raises to twenty-five the number of works by Cinatti which are known through documents.
Antonio Cinatti
This archival material tells us little about Cinatti; it does not explain how he was formed as a painter of natural history and landscape, and eventually came to work for Cassiano. Was Cinatti one of the young artists (‘giovani ben intendenti del disegno’) whom Cassiano engaged to work on the ‘Museo Cartaceo’, or was he more a beneficiary of the Paper Museum than a contributor to it, utilising its many drawings of birds in his own paintings in preference to studying nature? With what entry work did Cinatti gain admission to the Accademia di San Luca in Rome?38 These are just a few of many questions for which at present no answers can be provided.
Although the place and date of Cinatti’s birth are unknown, he undoubtedly was a Tuscan. An ‘Antonio Cinatti’ is mentioned in Baldinucci’s notice of the painter and architect Giovanni Caccini, as among those involved in the decoration of the Pucci family chapel (Oratorio di San Sebastiano) in the Chiesa della Santissima Annunziata in Florence (consecrated November 1608).39 Archival research identifies him further as ‘Antonio di Francesco Cinatti’, establishes the precise dates of his participation in this project (June 1607–October 1608), and clarifies his contribution: gilding the costolone, rosini and stucco of the cupola (the latter by Mariotto di Lorenzo Tosini), and also gilding (‘applicato l’oro’) the ‘centro quadri della cupola’ and ‘gli affreschi del [Bernardino] Poccetti’.40 A glimpse of Cinatti’s character is seen in unpublished rime (‘Nel Lavorar di stucco nella cupola di S. Bastiano’) composed by a friend and fellow-worker, the sculptor Agostino Ubaldini.41 Further evidence of Cinatti’s activities in Florence awaits discovery.
Cinatti evidently departed Florence for Rome in late 1608 or early 1609. In thirty-one stanzas of terza rime addressed ‘Al Mag.co Antonio Cinatti in Roma’ and subscribed 1 June 1609, Ubaldini reminisces about their adventures together in Florence, complains of his long wait to receive news from Rome, requests Cinatti to convey warm regards to mutual friends in Rome (including the Florentine sculptors Mariotto Tosini and Bernardino Cennini), and entreats him to greet a ‘Signor Grazia mio padrone’ and – on behalf of the sculptor Gherardo Silvani – the canon lawyer ‘Don Ser Francesco’.42 The intimate tone of these verses suggests that Cinatti, Ubaldini (1578–1623), and Silvani (1579–1675), were more or less the same age.
In September 1609 Cinatti was working ‘nelle stantie della Rocca di Frascati’, together with Valerio Orsini (Ursini), son of the Florentine painter Francesco Orsini, and reputedly a former pupil of Domenico Passignano.43 The ‘Rocca di Frascati’ (also known as the ‘Villa di Frascati’ despite its location within the city walls, between Piazza Paolo iii and Piazza San Rocco), was a medieval castle-like structure purchased from the Colonna family in 1479 by Cardinal Guillaume d’Estouteville and refashioned into a palace. Owned by the Apostolic Chamber, the rocca was the seat of Frascati’s governor, an office held by the Maggiordomo Pontificio, then Cardinal Scipione Borghese, who used it from 1611 to 1624 to lodge guests when the Borghese palaces were full.44 A plan of the ground floor drawn circa 1600 may show rooms decorated in 1609–1610 by Cinatti and Orsini.45
Cinatti worked simultaneously (18 September 1609–12 June 1610) in Rome on unspecified decorative projects on the Quirinale (Monte Cavallo), presumably the residence of Scipione Borghese.46
In October 1612, Valerio Orsini gave a deposition in the trial of Agostino Tassi for the rape of Artemisia Gentileschi. Orsini testified that he had been introduced to Tassi by Cinatti a few years earlier (‘da due anni e più’), that he obtained some paintings for Tassi to sell in Livorno,47 and that he afterwards shared Tassi’s lodgings in via di Sant’ Onofrio, until Easter 1611.48 Although Cinatti’s name occurs at no other point in the trial proceedings, it is speculated that he was then working in Tassi’s workshop, and that he may have evolved there into a painter of landscape and natural history.49
Though Agostino Tassi exaggeratedly claimed to have a thousand assistants and collaborators, he certainly had many. They were engaged on major fresco cycles for palaces, including the Palazzo Quirinale (September 1611–February 1613), Villa Peretti-Montalto at Bagnaia (June 1613–August 1614), Palazzo Lancellotti (1617–1623), and Villa Aldobrandini in Monte Magnanapoli (1625–1626); cartoon designs for tapestries; and ephemeral decorations for festivals. To achieve a harmonious result, Tassi strictly controlled the design, and disguised the different hands at work by allocating different tasks to different people. Thus one assistant might paint – often in tempera, not in true fresco – in the background, another buildings, a third small figures, while a specialist might execute large figures.50 Apprentices went to Tassi to learn to draw and to ‘copy’ and sometimes paid him for instruction. For many middling artists, Tassi’s workshop provided a comfortable career, such that it was unwise to break out of the connection.
Cinatti is next documented in 1617–1619, working as a salaried assistant to Fra Paolo Novelli in the decoration of the Refectory of the Abbazia di Monteoliveto Maggiore, the mother house of the Olivetan order at Chiusure, about twenty miles south-east of Siena.51 A scaffold was erected in late April 1617 and in September Novelli returned to Rome to recruit additional hands. Four assistants are identified in the subsequent accounts: a ‘Maestro Matteo’, ‘Pietro Antonio Piemontesi’, an unnamed ‘Francesi Pittore’, and ‘Maestro Antonio Cinati’52 (also referred to as ‘Antonio Fiorentino’).53 The patronage for this commission was in the hands of Cardinal Scipione Borghese and he (or the painter Giovanni Battista Crescenzi, the leading intermediary in the Borghese family’s artistic ventures) is a possible link between Cinatti’s employments.
By Easter 1620, Cinatti was again in Rome.54 He was among a large group of painters and indoratori working in the Casino Ludovisi in 1621–1622. The celebrated vault frescoes on the ground floor and piano nobile were painted by Tassi in collaboration with Guercino and unnamed assistants; Domenichino, Pomerancio, Giovanni Battista Viola, and Giovanni Luigi Valesio, together with unnamed assistants, painted other rooms. Cinatti is specifically credited in the accounts with the decoration of a small room on the second floor (now lost).55
In 1622, Cinatti was lodging in the ‘Casa della S[igno]ra Virginia del Conte’ with the painters Filippo d’Angeli, detto Filippo Napoletano (1587–1629) and Francesco Berretta da Pavia.56 Filippo had recently returned from Florence, where for three years he had been painting landscapes, genre scenes, citrus fruit and shells for the Medici.
Cassiano began employing artists about 1620, but it is doubtful that Cinatti commenced work for him much before 1630. Although Cassiano is said to have employed thirty artists on the ‘Museo Cartaceo’ over a period of as many years or more,57 only about a dozen are recorded by documents, and half of these can be identified with specific drawings. Constrained by relatively modest means, Cassiano employed draughtsmen at the beginning of their careers whose services were not as expensive as their established colleagues; for sentimental reasons, he preferred artists from Tuscany (although born in Piedmont, Cassiano lived from the age of about eight until 24 in Pisa). It is thus conceivable that Cinatti, although not mentioned in the documentary sources, was one of the anonymous hands contributing drawings to the ‘Museo Cartaceo’.
Both Cassiano and his brother, Carlo Antonio, were enthusiastic naturalists, with particular interest in exotic birds, and ornithology was a prominent theme of the ‘Museo Cartaceo’ from its inception.58 The first task of the first draughtsman Cassiano employed, Vincenzo Leonardi, was to prepare a suite of bird drawings for illustration in a book which Cassiano presented to the Accademia dei Lincei in 1622.59 Although Leonardi continued to provide Cassiano with drawings of birds for the next two decades – he was the principal copyist of natural history in the dal Pozzo ‘studio’ and drew also animals, citrus fruit, and other subjects, including antiquities – he could not have provided more than a fraction of the hundreds of drawings of birds once contained in the Museo Cartaceo.60 Pietro Testa is claimed as a contributor of ornithological drawings for the ‘Museo Cartaceo’;61 more names are likely to come to light.62
Cassiano valued stylistic consistency and imposed a ‘house style’ on his many draughtsmen, specifying carefully finished drawings in pen, ink and wash (rather than pen alone), the pen concentrating on recording minutiae, the wash subtly used to cast shadow and define the form. Drawings borrowed from other collections were copied in this ‘house style’ and some drawings that entered the ‘Museo Cartaceo’ from other sources – as gifts, by purchase, or bequest – were recopied in the same manner.
When Cinatti commenced painting ‘Dawn’, he could refer to the ‘Museo Cartaceo’ for the studies on vellum by ‘Monsieur Dupont’ of a male and female flamingo in flight, and standing in different positions, with anatomical details, which had been prepared for Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc and acquired by Cassiano in 1625.63 Also available to him were some drawings made to illustrate a projected treatise by Cassiano on the species.64 One of these shows details of the head, beak and tongue of a flamingo, the last regarded as a culinary delicacy, and discussed in the Peiresc-Cassiano correspondence. It could be a copy of a drawing by ‘Monsieur Dupont’ which is now lost, or else an original study (probably by Leonardi) from a dead specimen.65
Altogether, fourteen birds are depicted in ‘Dawn’: five adults and one juvenile flamingo, a pair of ‘courting flamingos’, a lapwing, a small rail (black with red bill and eyering, too darkened to determine its affiliation more precisely), two purple swamphens, a widgeon, and two ducks (neither identifiable). All these birds presumably were painted from drawings in the ‘Museo Cartaceo’. One drawing Cinatti did not use – depicting a mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) and inscribed ‘Pozzuolo a Roma’66 – reminds us that for verifying details and the accuracy of colours Cinatti had recourse also to Cassiano’s Gabinetto of stuffed birds and Voliera of live birds.
The painting designated ‘Dusk’ depicts another fourteen birds. Once again, the selection seems arbitrary. The principal bird, positioned in the centre of the canvas, is a squacco heron, a migratory bird from sub-Saharan Africa to marshlands in Italy, and derives from a watercolour by Leonardi commissioned for the ‘Museo Cartaceo’.67 Also represented are a cormorant, an ibis, two grey cranes, two spoonbills, a drake Shoveler, a sandpiper (unidentifiable), and several birds depicted in ‘Dawn’: two more lapwings, two more wigeons, and another purple swamphen.
Cinatti’s activities after about 1635 are unknown. Solinas speculated that he returned to Tuscany, and attributed to him four paintings in the Franceschi Marini–Frescobaldi collection of domesticated and wild birds in landscapes which appear to have been executed ‘alla fine del quarto decennio’.68 As in ‘L’alba’ and ‘Il tramonto’, the birds in those pictures appear to have been studied separately, and then placed together in the landscape. None is linked to an entry in the Dal Pozzo collection inventories; however, several birds are depicted with a degree of scientific exactitude, and thus could depend from drawings produced for the ‘Museo Cartaceo’ which are lost or have yet to be identified.
Bibliography
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biella 2001
I segreti di un collezionista: le straordinarie raccolte di Cassiano dal Pozzo 1588–1657, catalogue of an exhibition held at the Museo del territorio Biellese, Biella, 16 December 2001–16 March 2002, edited by Francesco Solinas (Rome 2001)
cavazzini 2001
Patrizia Cavazzini, ‘Appendix I: Documents relating to the trial of Agostino Tassi’ in Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi, catalogue of an exhibition held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 14 February–12 May 2002, edited by Keith Christiansen & Judith Walker Mann (New York & New Haven 2001), pp.432–444
cottino 2005
Alberto Cottino, ‘Le origini della natura morta fiorentina: Jacopo Ligozzi, l’illustrazione scientifica e i primi naturalisti’ in Luce e ombra: caravaggismo e naturalismo nella pittura toscana del Seicento, catalogue of an exhibition held at the Centro per l’arte Otello Cirri and Museo Piaggio ‘Giovanni Alberto Agnelli’, Pontedera, 18 March–12 June 2005, edited by Pierluigi Carofano (Pisa 2005)
freedberg 2002
David Freedberg, The eye of the Lynx: Galileo, his friends, and the beginnings of modern natural history (Chicago & London 2002)
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Mina Gregori, ‘Divagazioni su un quadro di pesci di Antonio Tanari’ in Paragone / Arte 57 (2006), nos. 65–66, pp.3–48
jaffé 1989
David Jaffé, ‘The Barberini circle: some exchanges between Peiresc, Rubens, and their contemporaries’ in Journal of the History of Collections 1 (1989), pp.119–147
lhote & joyal 1989
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mcburney 1989a
Henrietta McBurney, ‘History and contents of the dal Pozzo collection in the Royal Library, Windsor Castle’ in Cassiano dal Pozzo: atti del seminario internazionale di studi [held 18–19 December 1987], edited by Francesco Solinas (Rome 1989)
mcburney 1989b
Henrietta McBurney, ‘Cassiano dal Pozzo’s drawings of birds’ in Il Museo Cartaceo di Cassiano dal Pozzo. Cassiano naturalista (Quaderni puteani, 1) (Milan 1989), pp.37–47
mcburney 1992a
Henrietta McBurney, ‘Cassiano dal Pozzo as ornithologist’ in Cassiano dal Pozzo’s Paper Museum. Volume ii(Quaderni puteani, 3) (Milan 1992), pp.3–22
mcburney 1992b
Henrietta McBurney, ‘Cassiano dal Pozzo as scientific commentator: ornithological texts, and images of birds from the Museo Cartaceo’ in Documentary culture: Florence and Rome from Grand-Duke Ferdinand I to Pope Alexander VII (Villa Spelman Colloquia, 3), edited by Elizabeth Cropper (Bologna 1992), pp.349–362
mcburney 2017
Henrietta McBurney and Carlo Violani, Birds, other animals and natural curiosities, The paper museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo : a catalogue raisonné : drawings and prints in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle, in the British Library, the British Museum, the Institut de France and other collections. Series B, Natural history, Parts 4–5 (London 2017)
pizzorusso 1989
Claudio Pizzorusso, A Boboli e altove: sculture e scultori fiorentini del Seicento (Studi [Accademia toscana di scienze e lettere “La Colombaria”], 101) (Florence 1989)
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I segreti di un collezionista: le straordinarie raccolte di Cassiano dal Pozzo 1588–1657, catalogue of an exhibition held at the Galleria nazionale d’arte antica, Palazzo Barberini, Rome, 29 September–26 November 2000, edited by Francesco Solinas (Rome [2000])
solinas 1989
Francesco Solinas, ‘Percorsi puteani: note naturalistische ed inediti appunti antiquari’ in Cassiano dal Pozzo: atti del seminario internazionale di studi [Naples, 18–19 December 1987], edited by Francesco Solinas (Rome 1989), pp.95–129
solinas 1996
Francesco Solinas, ‘Poussin et Cassiano dal Pozzo: notes et documents sur une collaboration amicale’ in Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665): actes du colloque organisé au Musée du Louvre par le Service culturel, du 19 au 21 octobre 1994, sous la direction scientifique d’Alain Mérot (Paris 1996), pp.289–336
solinas 2000
Francesco Solinas, L’Uccelliera. Un libro di arte e di scienza nella Roma dei primi Lincei (Rariora et mirabilia, 2) (Florence 2000)
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Donatella Livia Sparti, ‘Criteri museografici nella collezione dal Pozzo alla luce di documentazione inedita’ in Cassiano dal Pozzo: atti del seminario internazionale di studi [Naples, 18–19 December 1987], edited by Francesco Solinas (Rome 1989), pp.221–240
sparti 1990a
Donatella L. Sparti, ‘The dal Pozzo Collection again: the inventories of 1689 and 1695 and the family archive’ in The Burlington Magazine 132 (1990), pp.551–570
sparti 1992
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Timothy J. Standring, ‘Some pictures by Poussin in the Dal Pozzo collection: three new inventories’ in The Burlington Magazine 130 (1988), pp.608–626
standring 2000
Timothy J. Standring, ‘Come fare l’inventario dei beni dal Pozzo: una disputa legale sul Fidecommesso’ in I segreti di un collezionista: le straordinarie raccolte di Cassiano dal Pozzo 1588–1657, catalogue of an exhibition held at the Galleria nazionale d’arte antica, Palazzo Barberini, Rome, 29 September–26 November 2000, edited by Francesco Solinas (Rome [2000]), pp.200–224
Abbreviated references are expanded in bibliography.
1. Probably the pictures designated ‘[303–304] Due quadri tela d’Imperatore grandi figurate di diversi uccellami con cornici color di noce filettata d’oro, non si sà l’Autore’ in the posthumous inventory prepared by Bernardinus Palumbus Perellus in 1689 (Archivio di Stato di Roma, Trenta Notai Capitolini, ufficio 25, vol. 419, 11 October 1689, fol. 222 verso); transcribed by sparti 1992 p.188.
2. The pictures displayed on the ‘3a Facciata’ in the ‘Stanza Contigua al Suddetto Gabinetto’ (i.e. the ‘Gabinetto Sopra le Scale’) and given the citations ‘69. Altro [quadro] di 7, e di 9 [palmi] di varii Ucelli del Cinato’ and ‘71. Altro [quadro] di 7, e di 9 [palmi] di varii Ucelli del Cinato’ in the inventory prepared by the notary Maurius Clarici in 1695 (Archivio di Stato di Roma, Trenta Notai Capitolini, ufficio 6, vol. 210, 5–7 March 1695, fol. 259 verso); transcribed by sparti 1992 p.208.
3. Probably the pictures displayed in the ‘Sala’ of the Palazzo Lancellotti-Ginnetti and designated ‘Due altri Quadri compagni misura di palmi sette, e dodici in circa con diversi ucelli, e cornice color di noce filettata d’oro’ in an inventory of 1729 (Rome, Archivio Storico Capitolino, Fondo Boccapaduli, Mazzo i, fol. 1 recto); transcribed by sparti 1992 pp.234–235.
4. The pictures are described in ‘Osservazioni fatte dal. Sig. Perito pittore sopra all’Inventario da quadri ereditatij del Signore Commendore Cosimo Antonio dal Pozzo’, prepared before 30 April 1741 by Antonio Maria Bozzolani, as a deposition in litigation between Maria Laura dal Pozzo and her father Cosimo Antonio; see note 16 below.
5. Arnauld Brejon de Lavergnée, ‘Tableaux de Poussin et d’autres artistes français dans la collection Dal Pozzo: deux inventaires inédits’ in Revue de l’Art 19 (1973), pp.79–96. An inventory of Cassiano’s estate at the time of his death in 1657 has yet to be discovered.
6. standring 1988 pp.608–626; sparti 1989 pp.221–240; sparti 1990a pp.551–570; standring 2000 pp.200–224.
7. In 1715 paintings from the Dal Pozzo collection were exhibited in the cloister of the church of San Salvatore in Lauro. A list made by the organizer of the exhibition, Giuseppe Ghezzi, attributes eight bird subjects to Poussin; see Francis Haskell and Sheila Rinehart, ‘The Dal Pozzo collection: some new evidence’ in The Burlington Magazine 102 (1960), pp.324–325, nos. 12, 90–91, 113, 118–119, 124, 134; Brejon de Lavergnée, op. cit. (note 5), pp.88, 92–93; Mostre di quadri a S. Salvatore in Lauro (1682–1725); stime di collezioni romane, note e appunti di Giuseppe Ghezzi, edited by Giulia De Marchi (Miscellanea della Società Romana di Storia Patria, 27) (Rome 1987), pp.301–317.
8. standring 2000 p.218.
9. A canvas of the size called ‘tela d’Imperatore’ is approximately 99 × 133 cm (either vertical or horizontal).
10. 155 × 213 cm (one Roman palmo equals 22.5 cm; see standring 1988 p.611).
11. Post-mortem inventory of Gabriele dal Pozzo (see note 2), published by sparti 1990a p.563 and sparti 1992 p.208 (latter text used here). The paintings here offered for sale are nos. 69 and 71.
12. standring 1988 pp.609–610; standring 2000 pp.200–224.
13. At some time in the seventeenth century, inscriptions in Latin Roman capitals had been written on the backs of the canvases. These inscriptions (now usually covered by relining canvas) identify the artist and sometimes the subject or origin of the painting. Marius Clarici, the notary who took the inventory in 1695, made use of these inscriptions (and presumably others he found on the fronts of the canvases and frames), as did Bozzolani for the inventory he prepared in 1740; see Denis Mahon, ‘Poussin in the dal Pozzo Collection’ in The Burlington Magazine 127 (1985), p.900; standring 1988 p.613 note 32; and compare reproductions of inscriptions in Maurizio Fagiolo Dell’Arco, Jean Lemaire: pittore “antiquario” (Rome 1996), pp.146–148 figs. 9.13–9.24 (inscriptions on versoes of five paintings by Poussin) and p.149 (note 19); rome 2000 nos. 61, 62, 102. Our canvases have yet to be photographed with x-rays to confirm the inscriptions beneath the relining canvases.
14. The lost paintings are cited by Bozzolani according to the numeration of a copia simplex of the 1695 inventory in the family’s possession. The lost paintings by Cinatti are nos. 49, 57, 61, 69, 74 (i.e. nos 50, 58, 62, 63, 75 in the official version of the 1695 inventory, published by sparti 1992 pp.204–229); see standring 1988 p.610 note 15, standring 2000 pp.219–220. A third painting by Cinatti, entered in Bozzolani’s inventory (fol. 51 recto) without number or supplementary information, was doubtfully present in 1740: ‘[unnumbered entry] Questo e nel Inventario di Gabrielle al n 51 [i.e. 52] = Altro Parimente Grande con vari Uccelli parimente del Cinato fiorentino’ (standring 2000 p.218). The collection remained thereafter ‘largely, though not wholly, intact’ until 1771, when another inventory was made by the Sienese artist Giovanni Sorbi (standring 1988 p.610).
15. Bozzolani refers constantly to the ‘cattivo stato’ of the Dal Pozzo pictures and Standring supposes that ‘their varnish must have darkened very considerably’ (standring 1988 p.624 note 83).
16. standring 2000 p.218, transcribing the version of the 1740 inventory in the Dal Pozzo archive (Rome, Archivio Storico Capitolino, Fondo Boccapaduli, Pozzo i, arm iii, div. iii, fols.49–50); see also solinas 1989 pp.111–112 note 67, sparti 1989 p.240 note 39, sparti 1992 p.129. The official notarial copy is preserved in the Archivio di Stato di Roma, Trenta Notai Capitolini, Eugenio Angelico, ufficio 24, volume 420, 29 February 1740, pp.201–284 (standring 1988 p.610 note 15).
17. solinas 1987 pp.111–112 note 67.
18. lhote & joyal p.44 (Lettre iii: 4 March 1627), p.48 (Lettre iv: 2 June 1627), p.51 (Lettre v: 1 July 1627), p.53 (Lettre vi: 25 September 1628), p.55 (Lettre vii: 2 November 1628), p.59 (Lettre viii: 28 February 1629), p.66 (Lettre ix: 17 May 1629), p.150 (Lettre li: 5 October 1634), p.170 (Lettre lix: 31 January 1635). Peiresc gave Cassiano an autograph copy of his own discourse on the flamingo, written about 1605 (the original is Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, Ms Dupuy 669, folios 39–42, see freedberg 2002 p.422 note 73; transcription and translation by McBurney and Violani, in mcburney 2017 pp.812–817. For the copy, in Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, see Solinas in rome 2000 p.105).
19. Two drawings are known, both executed by a ‘Monsieur Dupont’ on vellum: one sheet (240 × 312 mm) is lettered ‘Phoenicopterus, seu lingulaca. Ex littore Phocaico’ and shows a standing male and a standing female (discussed and reproduced by jaffé 1989 pp.123, 128 fig. 9, 137–138, 144 note 39; solinas 1989 pp.102–104 fig. 6; McBurney, in quaderni puteani 1993 pp.169–170 no. 101 fig. 2; solinas 1996 pp.300, 328 note 69; freedberg 2002 p.422 note 73, located in the collection of Laurence and Aurea Morshead, sold by Bonhams, ‘Old Master Paintings’, London, 3 December 2014, lot 1; gregori 2006 pl. 35 fig. a; mcburney 2017, pp.316–319 no. 121); the other sheet (327 × 458 mm) shows two flamingos in flight, with details of tongue, beak and webbed foot appropriately lettered (sold by Sotheby’s, ‘Property from the estate of James R. Herbert Boone’, New York, 16 September 1988, lot 160; also reproduced by solinas 1989 p.103 fig. 7; McBurney, in quaderni puteani 1993 p.170; gregori 2006 pl.35 fig. b; mcburney 2017, pp.316–319 no. 122).
20. On 9 February 1629, Cassiano’s brother, Carlo Antonio dal Pozzo, invited Johann Faber to examine ‘due uccelli nuovi, cioè il Fenicottero et una Grue viva, quale in casa haviamo’ (letter cited by solinas 1989 p.97 note 14; compare mcburney 1992a p.3 note 2; mcburney 2017 p.318).
21. ‘Mi rallegro che dalli Phoenicopteri ella habbia trovato da sodisfarsi [of the skin of a flamingo sent to Rome circa February 1629], stimando ch’l suo quadro sia cosa nobilissima in questo soggietto’; see solinas 1989 p.112 note 67; lhote & joyal 1989 p.66 (latter text cited).
22. solinas 1989 pp.111–112 note 67.
23. Sotheby’s España, S.A., ‘Pintura antigua, impresionista y moderna’, Madrid, 16 June 1992, lot 2: ‘Escuela italiana, siglo xvii. Aves exoticas en paisajes… una pareja’. The paintings were unsold at the auction, but sold afterwards by private treaty.
24. Sotheby’s, ‘Old Master Paintings’, London, 21 April 1993, lot 181: ‘Italian School, late 17th Century’.
25. solinas 1996 pp.300, 328–329, 336 (both paintings reproduced, figs. 9–10).
26. solinas 1996 p.329 note 71 and captions to figs. 9–10.
27. Solinas in rome 2000 p.105; see also solinas 2000 p.102 note 311.
28. solinas 1989 p.106 note 47; Francesco Solinas, ‘Sull’atelier di Cassiano dal Pozzo: Metodi di ricerca e documenti inediti’ in Cassiano dal Pozzo’s Paper Museum. Volume ii (Quaderni puteani, 3) ([Milan] 1992), p.64 note 21; solinas 1996 p.329 note 71; Solinas in rome 2000 pp.106–107, 109; solinas 2000 pp.109–110.
29. Rome, Archivio Storico Capitolino, Archivio Maccarani, Reg. 3, C.3; entries transcribed by Michela di Macco, ‘Note su Antonio Mariani detto della Corgna pittore “insigne nel copiare” e “stimatore delle pitture”’ in Studi in onore di Giulio Carlo Argan (Florence 1994), p.210. Patrick Michel, Mazarin, prince des collectionneur: les collections et l'ameublement du cardinal Mazarin (1602–1661); histoire et analyse (Paris 1999), pp.28, 50 (note 34).
30. See Godfried Joannes Hoogewerff, Nederlandsche kunstenaars te Rome (1600–1725): uittreksels uit de parochiale archieven (The Hague 1942), p.6, where Benincasa is identified as an Italian painter (not a ‘Bentveughel’) living in the parish of S. Maria del Popolo in 1623–1625.
31. One of Cinatti’s ‘tre quadri di Animali’ may be no. 879 in the post-mortem inventory of Mazarin’s collection, wrongly credited to Della Corgna: ‘Un autre [tableaux] faict par Anthoine de la Corne representant un paysage de figures d’animaux avecq une cabane garny de sa bordure de bois doré, hault d’un pied huict pouces [54 cm], prisé la somme de soixante livres cy’ (Inventaire dressé après le décès en 1661 du cardinal Mazarin, transcribed by Tomiko Yoshida-Takeda, Paris 2004, p.169). An animal subject is atypical of Della Corgna, a painter of mostly religious pictures; see Di Macco, op. cit. (note 29), pp.192–216, with post-mortem inventory of his studio contents (taken 27 April 1654).
32. On 8 September 1634 Cardinal Antonio Barberini bought eight pictures by various artists from Della Corgna; see Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, Seventeenth-century Barberini documents and inventories of art (New York 1975), pp.21–22 document 171. In 1646 Della Corgna negotiated the sale to Mazarin of a group of Ludovisi paintings; he was still in supplying works of art to Mazarin in 1653 (Lettres du Cardinal Mazarin pendant son ministère, edited by M. A. Chéruel and G. d’Avenel, Paris 1872–1906, vi, pp.14, 69).
33. Di Macco, op. cit. (note 29), p.208.
34. Cinatti is recorded in the ‘Stati d’Anime della Parrocchia di San Andrea delle Fratte’ (Archivio Storico del Vicariato di Roma) in 1620–1624, 1626–1627, 1629–1633; see Friedrich Noack, ‘Cinatti, Antonio’ in Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, edited by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker (Leipzig 1912), vi, p.605, based on Noack’s ‘Schedarium der Künstler in Rom’ (http://db.biblhertz.it/noack/data.xml; link); Alla ricerca di ‘Ghiongrat’: studi sui libri parrocchiali romani (1600–1630), edited by Rossella Vodret (Rome 2011), pp.155, 222 no. 175.
35. ‘Inventarium bonorum […] Pauli Macarani pro Equite Lelio Macarano’, 15 August 1667 (Rome, Archivio Storico Capitolino, Archivio Urbano, Sez. viii, volume 20, Notaio Michelangelus Matteus Capitolino, [unnumbered: p.207, item 26]); Di Macco, op. cit. (note 29), pp.207–208.
36. ‘Nota di guardarobba del principe Camillo Pamphilj’ (Rome, Archivio Doria-Pamphilj, bancone 91/14, fol. 205 item 47); published by Giovanna Capitelli, ‘Una testimonianza documentaria per il primo nucleo dalla raccolta del principe Camillo Pamphilj’ in I capolavori della collezione Doria Pamphilj da Tiziano a Velázquez, catalogue of an exhibition held at the Fondazione arte e civiltà, Milan, 28 September–8 December 1996 (Milan 1996), p.72.
37. ‘Inventario e descrizione di tutti e singoli beni trovati dopo la morte della chiara memoria dell’illustrissimo e eccellentissimo Signor Principe Don Camillo Pamphilj…’ (Rome, Archivio Doria-Pamphilj, scaffale 86, n. 23, folios 48 recto–49 recto, 90 recto); published by Jörg Garms, Quellen aus dem Archiv Doria-Pamphilj zur Kunsttätigkeit in Rom unter Innocenz x (Vienna, Cologne & Graz 1972), p.352.
38. The date of Cinatti’s admission is not given by sparti 1992 p.129 note 12, citing ‘Nota delli nomi et Cogniomi delli Sig.ri Pittori Academici di San Luca et messi per Alfabeto’ (Rome, Accademia di San Luca, Archivio, busta no. 105, [unnumbered folio]). On 22 September 1619 Cinatti was appointed to the committee charged with organising the academy’s annual festival (Archivio di Stato di Roma, Trenta Notai Capitolini, ufficio 15, 1619, part iii, volume 81, fol. 742 recto); he is recorded in other notarial documents as present at meetings of the academy on 5 January 1620 (Archivio di Stato di Roma, Trenta Notai Capitolini, ufficio 15, 1620, part i, volume 83, fol. 48 recto) and 1 September 1624 (Archivio di Stato di Roma, Trenta Notai Capitolini, ufficio 15, 1624, part iii, volume 101, fol. 213 verso). These documents are digistised: ‘The History of the Accademia di San Luca, c. 1590–1635: Documents from the Archivio di Stato di Roma’ (http://www.nga.gov/casva/accademia/index.shtm; link). Unless Cinatti is to be identified with the ‘Sig.r Antonio nel corso incontro li ss.ri Gaetani / all’Herbarolo’, he does does feature in the ‘Nota delli Sig.ri Pittori, che deuono pagare all’Accademia in S. Luca nella chiesa di Santa Martina per elemosina, et sostenimento della Chiesa, come qui di sotto notati per Alfabeto, tanto Pittori, Scultori […] sottoposti all’ Accademia, et Congregatione’ (Rome, Accademia di San Luca, Archivio, filza 166, no. 68, fol. 14 verso; published by Michelangelo Piacentini, ‘Documenti per l’arte Barocca: Gli artisti in Roma nel 1634’ in Archivi, series 2, vol. 6, 1939, p.161).
39. Filippo Baldinucci, Notizie de’ professori del disegno da Cimabue in qua: per le quali si dimostra come, e per chi le bell’ arti di pittura, scultura, e architettura lasciata la rozzezza delle maniere greca, e gottica, si siano in questi secoli ridotte all’ antica loro perfezione, edited by Francesco Saverio Baldinucci (Florence 1700), iv, p.53; The Pouncey index of Baldinucci’s Notizie, edited by Brian Tovey (Florence 2005), pp.89, 305. The artist is first entered in the ‘Libro di tasse’ of the Florentine Accademia del Disegno in 1606 (last mentioned in 1627); he was first ‘squittinato’ 11 June 1613 (again in 1618 and 1629), and ‘eletto Arotto’ 12 September 1624 [link].
40. Maria Cecilia Fabbri, ‘La sistemazione seicentesca dell’Oratorio di San Sebastiano nella Santissima Annunziata’ in Rivista d’arte, fourth series, 44 (1992) pp.71–152, especially pp.80–81 figs. 5–6 (illustrations of the cupola) and Documents 17, 20, 21, 23, 28 (records of payments to Cinatti, transcribed from Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Carte Riccardi). Despite being repeatedly named in these accounts as ‘Maestro Antonio Cinatti’, Cinatti does not appear in the registers of matriculates in the Florentine academy (Accademia delle arti del disegno); see Gli accademici del disegno: elenco cronologico, edited by Luigi Zangheri (Florence 1999).
41. The references to Cinatti in Ubaldini’s verse were first published by Domenico Maria Manni, ‘Notizie della vita di Agostino Bugiardini altrimenti Ubaldini, scultore e poeta fiorentino’ in Raccolta d’opuscoli scientifici, e filologici, xxxviii, edited by Angelo Calogierà (Venice 1748), pp.333–334; the autograph manuscript (Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana, Fondo Moreniana, Ms. 34) is published by pizzorusso 1989 pp.125–183.
42. pizzorusso 1989 pp.158–161.
43. Payments to Cinatti and Orsini for their work at Frascati are entered in the ‘Mandati de danari delle fabriche ordinarie spediti da monsignore Thesauriere generale alla depositeria della Camera, 1609–1614’, Archivio di Stato di Roma, Camerale i, Fabbriche, Reg. 1537:
fol. 89 verso: ‘A di 5 settembre 1609… A Antonio Cinatti e Valerio Orsino pittore d[anari] trenta m[one]ta [pagati] a bon *** conto delle pitture che fa [sic] in Frascati. *** Scudi *** 30.’
fol. 91 recto: ‘A di 19 sett[embre 1609]… A m[astr]i Antonio Cinatti e Valerio Orsino pittori scudi trenta di m[onet]a a bon conto delle pitture fatte e da farsi nelle stantie della Rocca di Frascati. *** Scudi *** 30.’
fol. 95 verso: ‘A di 26 ott[obre 1609]… A m[astri] Antonio Cinatti et Valerio Orsino pittori scudi quaranta m[one]ta [pagati] *** a bon conto delle pitture che fanno p[er] serv[itio] della Rocca di Frascati. Scudi *** 40.’
fol. 107 recto: ‘A di 6 feb[braio 1610]… Ad Antonio di Fran[cesco] et Valerio Orsino pittori scudi venticinque m[one]ta [pagati] a bon conto delle pitture fatte et da farsi nelle stantie della Rocca di Frascati. *** Scudi *** 25.’
fol. 121 verso: ‘A di 12 giug[n]o [1610]… A Antonio Cinatti e Valerio Orsino scudi cinquanta m[onet]a per resto di scudi 175 simi[li] che importa lavordo [sic] fatto tra di loro col. S[?] giovanni gatta [?] [a?] serv[itio] delle pitture che hanno fatti [sic] nelle stantie della rocca di Frascati’.
These five payments are indexed by Anna Maria Corbo and Massimo Pomponi, Fonti per la Storia Artistica Romana al tempo di Paolo v (Rome 1995), p.65. bertolotti 1876 p.222 transcribes the payment dated 5 September 1609 from an unspecified ‘Registro Mandati’; he adds from the same source a further payment ‘30 maggio. 1610. Ad Antonio di Francesco [Cinatti] et Valerio Orsini pittore scudi 25 a buon conto delle pitture fatte e da farsi nelle stantie della rocca di Frascati’ which is not indexed by Corbo & Pomponi.
44. ‘Spese Andate Diverse da 1611 a 1624 … De Banchetti Diversi … Pranzi e Colationi Diversi da 1611 a 1622’ (Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Archivio Borghese, 3500bis); cited by Tracy L. Ehrlich, Landscape and identity in early modern Rome: villa culture at Frascati in the Borghese era (Cambridge 2002), p.349 note 196.
45. The plan is annotated ‘di sopra sonni dieci stanze, et la Cappella Villa di Frascati’ (Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Carte Strozziane, i, 233, fol. 135); reproduced by Ehrlich, op. cit. (note 44), p.167 fig. 113. The rocca is mistaken by solinas 1996 pp.328–329 note 70 as a garden pavilion situated in the park; see also cottino 2005 p.ccv.
46. Payments to Cinatti are entered in a ‘Conto del signor Roberto Primi per li denari ricevuti e pagati per le fabriche ordinarie dalli palazzi Vaticano e Monte Cavallo dalli 6 di dicembre 1608 per tutto il 21 marzo 1615’, Archivio di Stato di Roma, Camerale i, Fabbriche, vol. 1542, Reg. 1:
p.6 (later numeration 5 [recto]): ‘E a di d[ett]o [i.e. 18 September 1609] scudi trenta m[one]ta pagati a Ant[oni]o Cinatti e pittore. *** Scudi *** 30.’
p.7 (later numeration 5 [verso]): ‘E a di d[ett]o [i.e. 19 September 1609] scudi trenta m[one]ta pagati a Ant[oni]o Cinatti e pittori. *** Scudi *** 30.’
p.8 (later numeration 6 [recto]): ‘E a di d[ett]o [i.e. 24 October 1609] scudi quaranta m[one]ta pagati a Ant[oni]o Cinatti e pitt[or]e. *** Scudi *** 40.’
p.10 (later numeration 7 [recto]): ‘E a di d[ett]o [i.e. 30 January 1610] scudi venticinq[ue] m[one]ta pagati a Ant[onio] Cinatti e pitt[or]e. *** Scudi 25.’
p.12 (later numeration 8 [recto]): ‘E a di 12 giugno [1609] scudi cinquanta m[one]ta pagati a Ant[onio] Cinatti e pittori. *** Scudi *** 50.’
The payment on 12 June 1610 is not indexed by Corbo & Pomponi, op. cit. (note 43), p.135.
47. Patrizia Cavazzini, Painting as business in early seventeenth-century Rome (University Park, pa 2008), p.130.
48. ‘Valerio figlio di Francisco Ursino fiorentino pittore abitante a Roma’ was deposed on 5 October 1612 as a witness in defence of Nicolò di Bernardino de Felice (known as Nicolò Bedino), who had worked as an apprentice for both Tassi and Orazio Gentileschi; his evidence is discussed and published in full for the first time by cavazzini 2001 pp.287, 440–441, 444.
49. solinas 1996 p.329 note 70; Solinas in biella 2001 p.269.
50. Patrizia Cavazzini, ‘Towards a chronology of Agostino Tassi’ in The Burlington Magazine 144 (2002), pp.396–408, especially p.401; Patrizia Cavazzini, ‘Agostino Tassi and the organization of his workshop: Filippo Franchini, Angelo Caroselli, Claude Lorrain and the others’ in Storia dell’arte 91 (1997/1998), pp.401–431.
51. Tom Henry, ‘Publishing Fra Paolo Novelli’s frescoes at Monteoliveto Maggiore’ in Studi di storia dell’arte in onore di Denis Mahon, edited by Maria Grazia Bernardini (Milan 2000) pp.165–176.
52. ‘Più piastre dua a maestro Antonio Cinati Pittore per mano del P[adre] Fatt. per suo salario – L 14’ (Siena, Archivio di Stato, Conventi, 240, volume 2, fol. 22); cited by Henry, op. cit. (note 51), p.175.
53. ‘Per mandare Ant.o Fiorentino a Montoliveto lire quarantasei e usatogli cortesia à suoi huomini lire 14 in tutto – L 60’ (Siena, Archivio di Stato, Conventi, 240, vol. 2, fol. 23); cited by Henry, op. cit. (note 51), p.175.
54. Sonia Amadio, ‘Artisti famosi e nomi senza opere nella parrocchia di Sant’Andrea delle Fratte’ in Arte e immagine del papato Borghese (1605–1621), edited by Bruno Toscano (San Casciano 2005), p.26; Alla ricerca di ‘Ghiongrat’, op. cit. (note 34), p.222.
55. Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Archivio Boncompagni Ludovisi, Libri Mastri, A (1621–1623), pp.31, 131, cxxxi; cited by Carolyn H. Wood, ‘The Indian summer of Bolognese painting: Gregory xv (1621–23) and Ludovisi art patronage in Rome’, PhD dissertation, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1988, pp.48, 106 (note 39).
56. Archivio Storico del Vicariato di Roma, ‘Stato d’anime di S. Andrea delle Fratte’, volume 36, fol. 207: [1622] ‘Isola di S. Ruspoli. Filippo D’Angeli pittore | Angelo Barlese, Jacomo Voniero | Francesco Baretta, pittore | Antonio Cinassi pittore | Giovanni discepoli stampatori’, transcribed by Carlo Stefano Salerno, ‘Su Jacob Isaacsz van Swanenburgh in Italia e alcune “stravaganze di scheletri” di Filippo Angeli’ in Fiamenghi che vanno e vengono non li si puol dar regola: Paesi Bassi e Italia fra Cinquecento e Seicento: pittura, storia e cultura degli emblemi, edited by Irene Baldriga (Sant’Oreste [Rome] 1995), p.95 (note 93); variant transcriptions by Lisa Della Volpe, ‘Documenti inediti sulla vita di Filippo Napoletano’ in Storia dell’arte 100 (2000), p.38; Alla ricerca di ‘Ghiongrat’, op. cit. (note 34), p.222 no. 175 and p.295 no. 605. In 1623, Filippo moved to a house in the Strada Paolina, and Cinatti and Berretta moved to a house ‘app[ress]o l’Oratorio’ also occupied by the sculptors Francesco Stati (1592–1627) and Pietro Antonio Martini.
57. This estimate of thirty artists is made by Francesco Solinas and Anna Nicolò, ‘Cassiano dal Pozzo and Pietro Testa: new documents concerning the Museo Cartaceo’ in Pietro Testa, 1612–1650: prints and drawings, catalogue of an exhibition shown at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 5 November–31 December 1988, by Elizabeth Cropper; with essays by Charles Dempsey [et al.] (Philadelphia 1988), p.81.
58. Donatella L. Sparti, ‘Carlo Antonio dal Pozzo (1606–1689): an unknown collector’ in Journal of the History of Collections 2 (1990), p.8; mcburney 1992a pp.3–22; mcburney 1992b pp.349–362.
59. Giovanni Pietro Olina, Uccelliera overo Discorso della natura, e proprietà di diversi uccelli, e in particulare di que’ qui cantan: con il modo di prendergli, conoscergli, allevargli, e mantenergli (Rome 1622). More is known than just a few years ago about Leonardi; see Silvia Danesi Squarzina and Luisa Capoduro, ‘Nuove date e nuovi nomi per le incisioni della “Galleria Giustiniana”’ in Studi di storia dell’arte in onore di Denis Mahon, edited by Maria Grazia Bernardini (Milan 2000), pp.155, 161–162, and Henrietta McBurney, ‘“So Many Celestial Animals So Vividly Drawn”: the drawings of birds in the Paper Museum’ in mcburney 2017 pp.61–64.
60. Five volumes of bird drawings were in the ‘Museo Cartaceo’ when it acquired by George iii, of which one remains at Windsor (Royal Library 27599–27690), a small folio containing drawings mostly by Leonardi and connected with the illustrations in Olina’s Uccelliera; see mcburney 1989 p.92; Solinas in rome 2000 no. 109. The other four volumes were sold by the Royal Librarian sometime after the First World War and their contents (apparently 191 sheets) are now widely dispersed; see mcburney 1989 p.88 nos. 23–26; freedberg 2002 pp.18, 62–64, 419 note 17. mcburney 2017 describes 208 drawings: Group a, nos. 1–103, drawings related to Olina's Uccelliera (all but one credited to Vincenzo Leonardi); Groups b, nos. 104–173, drawings commissioned from Leonardi and other (unidentified) hands; Groups c, nos. 174–181, drawings collected rather than commissioned for the Museo Cartaceo; Group d, nos. 182–208, 'Later dal Pozzo drawings', by several (unidentified) artists.
61. mcburney 1989b p.37.
62.Henrietta McBurney, ‘“So Many Celestial Animals So Vividly Drawn”: the drawings of birds in the Paper Museum’ in mcburney 2017, especially pp.64–65.
63. See above note 19.
64. Cassiano wrote discorsi on the toucan, cormorant, pelican, bearded vulture, and ruby-throated hummingbird (the first two were published and the other three survive in manuscript); see mcburney 1992b; transcriptions and translations by McBurney and Violani, in mcburney 2017 pp.787–793 (pelican), 795–812 (bearded vulture and hummingbird), 817–822 (toucan and cormorant). His projected discorso on the flamingo is indicated by a letter from Peiresc to Cassiano (28 February 1629; lhote & joyal 1989 p.59).
65. Watercolour 533 × 402 mm. Reproduced by freedberg 2002 p.22 fig. 1.7 with an attribution to Vincenco Leonardi and located in the collection of Sven Gahlin (p.422 note 73); mcburney 2017 pp.438–439 no. 182 with attribution ‘Italian, second half of the seventeenth century’ and location ‘Private collection, UK’.
66. This sheet is one of four studies of ducks from the ‘Museo Cartaceo’ which reappeared in the Boone sale (see above note 19) and were again dispersed: lot 171, a pintail duck, watercolour 309 × 417 mm, inscribed Anas Caudacuta Gesn; lot 172, a female goldeneye duck, watercolour 302 × 315 mm, inscribed Anas Platyrinchos. Ald. | Pozzuolo a Roma; lot 181a, a hybrid duck (mallard and pintail cross), 332 × 434 mm; lot 181b, a merganser duck, watercolour 337 × 452, inscribed Lat. Boschas Maior, Siue Anas Torquata. See now mcburney 2017 nos. 115, 109, 111 and 114 respectively.
67. Watercolour 477 × 344 mm (Windsor, Royal Library 28741). Reproduced by mcburney 1989a p.89 fig. 15; McBurney, in quaderni puteani 1993 pp.173–174 no. 104; freedberg 2002 p.23 fig. 1.8; Martin Clayton, Holbein to Hockney: drawings from the Royal Collection, catalogue of an exhibition held at the Queen’s Gallery, Holyrood House, Edinburgh, November 2004 (London 2004), p.108 no. 42 (dated ‘c. 1630–1640’); mcburney 2017 pp.362–363 no. 144.
68. solinas 1996 p.329 note 70; Solinas in biella 2001 pp.268–270 nos. 191–194. More probably, he died in Rome in 1637. An ‘Antonio fu Francesco Cinatti,’ almost certainly the artist, gave his testament to the notary Tranquillo Pizzuti on 3 December 1636 and again on 9-11 April 1637; see Claudio De Dominicis, Indice dei Testamenti Romani presso l’Archivio di Stato di Roma. Volume II (anni 1630-1644) (Rome 2020) [link].