A family affair: the Liechtenstein Museum's exhibition of one of Italy's greatest private family collections is a revelation

Apollo, Feb, 2008 by Robert Oresko

For most students of Italian patronage and collecting, the Borromeo family of Milan are most closely associated with two key figures of counter-reformation culture, Cardinal St Carlo Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan from 1563, and his first cousin, Cardinal Federico Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan from 1595. The cultural interests of both cousins--notably Federico's foundation of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in 1607 and the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in 1618--were explored and celebrated in an exhibition at the Museo Diocesano, Milan, in 2005-06, 'Carlo e Federico. La luce dei Borromeo nella Milano spagnuola'.

This new exhibition, organised by Mauro Natale, soon to retire as professor of the history of art at the University of Geneva, breaks many moulds of the history of collecting. Rather than exploring the purchases of Carlo and Federico, Natale looks at how other members of the family have enriched the collections of paintings and sculpture. The exhibition was first shown at the Museo Poldi-Pezzoli, Milan, and Annalisa Zanni's penetrating article in the catalogue demonstrates the distinct parallels in collecting between the Borromeo collections and those of the Milanese museum. The exhibition is currently at the Liechtenstein Museum in Vienna, another notable private collection.

A careful reading of the splendid catalogue reveals several members of the Borromeo family who played key roles in the history of the collection following the period of the celebrated two cardinals. The unmarried Vitelliano VI Borromeo (1620-90) bought pictures from earlier centuries, including St John the Evangelist at Patmos by Bartollomeo Suardi, 'il Bramantino' and, in Modena in 1679, an arresting Portrait of a Man as Martyr by Vincenzo Catena (Fig. 1). His elder brother, Renato II (161-385), brought further additions through his marriage in 1652 to Giulia, daughter of Bartolomeo, conte d' Arese (1610-74). So significant was this match that the couple's descendants bore the surname 'Borromeo Arese'. On Arese's death, a number of important paintings passed into the Borromeo collection, among them a striking pair of Sophonisba and Dido by the Milanese Giovanni Piero Rizzoli, 'il Gianpietrino'.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

A second major influx of pictures occurred during the 1830s. In a brilliant essay, the editors of the catalogue, Andrea Di Lorenzo and Mauro Natale, attempt to disentangle the complex history of what they call 'La Pinacoteca Borromeo-Monti'. Giovanni Battista Monti was employed as the 'amministratore di casa' by Gilberto v Borromeo (1751-1837), and he acquired a significant collection of paintings that passed on his death in 1830 into the hands of his employer's family. These form the nucleus of the exhibition, as no fewer than 13 of the pictures on display were in Monti's hands. Among his acquisitions were a Porlrait of a Man by a collaborator of Rogier van der Weyden, dated to c. 1440-50, two deeply impressive images of the Archangel Gabriel (Fig. 2) and The Virgin of the Annunciation by Vincenzo Foppa, born in Brescia, a Susanna and the Elders by Bernardino Luini and a spectacular Madonna and Child with St Joseph and St Anthony Abbot by Gaudenzio Ferrari.

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

It is not only the quality of these pictures that is striking--their history is of capital importance for the study of collecting. All were owned by Monti, but they were bequeathed by him in 1830 not to his employer, Gilberto v Borromeo, but rather to Gilberto's 15-year-old son, Gilberto VI (1815-85). Gilberto VI clearly took his responsibilities as custodian of the family collections very seriously, and he played a major role in the cultural life of Milan of the ottocento as director of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, president of the Accademia di Brera, member of the council for the administration of the Duomo of Milano and founder of the Societa Storica Lombarda. His interest in a document-based history of art is demonstrated by his collection of autographs of artists, of which a selection forms part of the exhibition. These are not mere signatures, but complete documents: an account for the purchase of marbles by Michelangelo dated 1518, a long letter from Pirro Ligorio, dated from Ferrara in 1573, including several drawings, and an elevation and ground plan of 1580 by Pellegrino Tibaldi, an architect closely associated with Carlo Borromeo, of the church of S Gregorio, called the Lazaretto, in Milan.

The Borromeo were--and continue to be--a major dynasty of collectors and custodians of their inherited tradition. Thanks to their foresight in 1943, the collections were transferred from the Palazzo Borromeo in Milan to the relative security of the family property of Isola Bella. Maria Canella's perceptive essay in the catalogue, 'I Borromeo trail xvII e il XIX secolo', is indispensable for the history of the family, but a geneaological table would have been helpful. One other weakness of the catalogue is the absence of any discussion of the frames; the paintings are reproduced in the catalogue without their sometimes highly elaborate and gilded surrounds.