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Gift exchange and art collecting: Padre Sebastiano Resta's drawing albums
Art Bulletin, The, Dec, 1997 by Genevieve Warwick
However, Resta also assessed the value of this divine favor and prestige in monetary terms. The identification of his drawings' value with a monetary price was central to Resta's economic thinking. This signals the fundamental way in which Resta's gift-giving economy differed from that of Trobriand Islanders and feudal Europe. While Resta sometimes made exchanges of drawings for drawings, his overall endeavor was to convert the value of his albums into funds, albeit for charity. By contrast, Mauss's islander exchanged his own carved shells for the carved shells of another, and feudal lords gave patronage in return for services. Resta's earlyseventeenth-century counterpart Count Arconati of Milan, who gave his Leonardo drawings to the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, in return was commemorated by a statue built in his honor.(36) Resta instead measured his success in financial terms.
While the failed Marchetti exchange laid bare Resta's judgment of prestige in terms of monetary success, it was an identification he sought to disguise. As if seeking absolution for his methods of trade he wrote, "God will judge according to the circumstances. The Lord works in many ways . . . all are trades for heaven so if one fails you can gain merit by another means, for by all these means we may become good merchants of glory.
Resta struggled with himself about which of these various paths to glory to take: "I am unsure whether I should give to the Ambrosiana Library in Milan, or sell and give the proceeds to the poor, or give to learned but impoverished gentlefolk for their benefit."(38) Overwhelmingly, however, he sought to sell and accrue funds for charity: "I thought of giving [a portrait of Charles V attributed to Titian] to the College in Milan . . . but it is better to sell it for my needs and those of others. Money for alms will be more useful than a hundred thank yous from a hundred officials."(39)
It was this attitude of privileging prestige through profit over "a hundred thank yous" that distinguishes Resta from the feudal past. In the economic context of the late seventeenth century, money was the most powerful signifier of prestige and the means through which Resta achieved heavenly and earthly glory. He sought to alienate his wealth to the Church in the form of money rather than art because honor lay above all in his success as God's capitalist.
Overall assessment of Resta's gift-giving choices makes clear that although he considered other avenues to honor, financial remuneration was the most important to his definition of status. Nonetheless, Resta occasionally donated paintings and drawings to the Church as art rather than as funds. For example, he decided to give a tondo of the Madonna and Child attributed to Raphael to the church of S. Francesco in Perugia as he had not received a good offer for it. "It is better to give well than to sell badly," he wrote.(40) But he expected outright donation to secure another kind of financial return - divine favor for the sale of his albums. The corollary to his practice of making financial profits for the Church was that God should move his earthly patrons to give generously.
