Francesco Salviati's ceiling painting for Palazzo Grimani rediscovered

Apollo, Jan, 2004 by Andrea G. De Marchi

Having arrived in Venice, he was received courteously by the Patriarch Grimani and his brother Messer Vettorio, who showed his a thousand favours. For that Patriarch, after a few day's, he painted in oils, in an octagon of four braccia, a most beautiful Psyche to whom, as a Goddess, on account of her beauty, incense and votive offerings are presented; which octagon was placed in a hall in the house of that lord, wherein is a ceiling in the centre of which there curve some festoons executed by Camillo Mantovano, an excellent painter in representing landscapes, flowers, leaves, fruits, and other suchlike things. That octagon, I say, was placed in the midst of four pictures each two braccia and a half square, executed with stories of the same Psyche, as was related in the Life of Genga, by Francesco da Forli; and the octagon is not only beyond all comparison more beautiful than those four pictures, but even the most beautiful work of painting that there is in all Venice. (1)

Now that it is possible to study the original ceiling octagon painted by Francesco Salviati for the palace of Giovanni Grimani, the patriarch of Aquileia, at S Maria Formosa (Fig. 1), it is hard not to be struck yet again by the extent of Vasari's bias. The passage quoted above is a highly one sided view of the commission with which Vasari begins his account of Salviati's short stay in Venice, in which he pits the latter as the reigning champion of Florentine art against his rivals in Italian painting's other capital. (2) It is hard to make sense of Vasari's contention that the Psyche worshipped as Venus was truly 'the most beautiful work of painting that there is in all Venice', other than by bearing in mind his militant stand on all questions concerning politics and culture, which makes him such an archetypally opportunistic Italian intellectual. By way of criticism, there is little to add to the curt corrective provided by Luigi Lanzi more than two centuries ago. (3)

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

However, direct acquaintance with the work in question does allow us to examine and reject various interpretations, which already seemed distinctly dubious, and turn out to have been based upon limited and misleading information.

First and foremost, the painting's rediscovery allows it to be meticulously compared with a number of related drawings and prints. In one particular instance, namely in connection with a magnificent Head of a man in profile at Christ Church, Oxford (Fig. 2), (4) which had previously been tentatively identified as a study for an angel, it is now possible to associate it with this composition. In spite of the doubts that have been expressed on this score, the sheet is plainly by Salviati himself, and is a highly finished head study for the figure at the centre of the canvas, who is among the worshippers of the beautiful but mortal Psyche who will suffer at the hands of a vengeful Venus, as recounted in Apuleius's The Golden Ass. (5) The care with which Salviati rendered the chiselled features, and endowed them with a rhythmic energy worthy of Rosso Fiorentino, is explained by the central role played by this figure within the composition. (6) He represents a dynamic counterweight to the standing protagonist and serves as a kind of focal point around which the entire design is constructed. The attitude adopted by this figure echoes earlier contrapposto poses in works by Salviati, ranging from his most recent previous undertaking, the Visitation in the Oratorio di S Giovanni Decollato, Rome, by way of the Uffizi Adoration of the Shepherds, to the Incredulity of St Thomas in the Louvre. (7)

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

The ceiling octagon was the central element in an elaborate scheme, and was surrounded by flaming elements consisting of garlands and landscapes by Camillo Mantovano, together with a combination of painting and stucco by Giovanni da Udine. Both the formal language of the work and its subject-matter were inspired by antiquity, and motivated by the Grimani family's desire to harmonise the decoration with the collection of antique sculpture housed in their palace. Study of other related drawings and prints only serves to increase one's doubts concerning Vasari's trustworthiness, above all concerning Salviati's speed of execution, and his claim that the work was successfully completed 'after a few days'. (8)

Hitherto, the only available guide to the appearance of the work as a whole was an anonymous woodcut (Figs. 3 and 4). Formerly attributed to Niccolo Vicentino, the only name now securely associated with it is that of its publisher, Andrea Andreani.9 When it is compared with the finished canvas, it is apparent that there are a number of differences between them.

[FIGURES 3-4 OMITTED]

In both versions of the print, Psyche is differently posed and more closely resembles in attitude a figure study in the Lugt Collection (Fig. 5), (10) which was subsequently employed in Salviati's fresco of the Beheading of the Baptist in the Palazzo della Cancelleria, Rome, but has already--and rightly--also been associated with the Grimani ceiling by Catherine Monbeig Goguel. (11) In contrast, the final attitude adopted by the figure in question is closer to that of its counterpart on a sheet in Budapest (Fig. 6), hitherto the only known study for the Psyche.