ALBANI, Francesco

Albani was a painter belonging to the Bologna school. He was influenced by Domenichino and Raphael, and worked in the workshop of Annibale Carracci in Rome.

Francesco Albani, an exponent of the classical ideal, chose a format for his four tondos which, in his own words, “softened” his pictorial expression. The subject matter is taken from Philostratus (Eikones I,6) who describes the games of cupids throughout the four seasons: throwing apples in spring, the fiery furnace of summer, Venus and Adonis taking their farewell in autumn and sleep in winter.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 11 minutes):

Vivaldi: Concerto in F major RV 293 op. 8 No. 3 (Autumn)

The ceiling painting represents Jupiter and Ganymede. The architectural painting was executed by the specialist Angelo Michele Colonna.

The picture shows the painting on the ceiling vault of the piano nobile loggia in the Palazzo Verospi, painted by Francesco Albani. The depictions are: Phoebus-Apollo and Personifications of the Seasons in the centre panel; Genii of Morning and Evening Twilight in the ovals; The Planetary Gods; Genii of Morning and Night with their Children Sleep and Death in the spandrels.

Since antiquity, colonnades and porticoes with painted decoration have been distinguishing features of the palaces of ruling houses. In the seventeenth century the main focus in the painting of a loggia, an indispensable feature of the piano nobile in palaces and villas in Rome and elsewhere, was the vault. The original pattern for the Roman loggia was the loggia of the Villa Farnesina, painted by Raphael with free-floating figures in the spandrels and caps of the vault. The piano nobile loggia in the Palazzo Verospi, painted by Albani follows this pattern, but borrowings from the ceiling of the Galleria Farnese, from Reni’s Aurora and Guercino’s Aurora are also present.

Albani is a typical representative of the reform movement introduced by Carracci. As a student of the Bolognese artists and a colleague of Annibale who collaborated on the decoration of the Aldobrandini lunettes, he had developed a degree of confidence in his choice and application of stylistic means that allowed him not only to handle large wall areas, but also to create small and intimate devotional pictures.

In his Sacra Famiglia or Holy Family Albani finds that characteristic blend of sovereign grace and delicacy that today’s spectator may find slightly disturbing. Those of us who regard such emotional emphasis and charm with some suspicion tend to forget the specific tasks and needs these pictures were intended to fulfil in order to satisfy a highly educated and cultivated group of buyers. The usual setting for pictures on this theme was a niche in the bedroom of a patrician house or palace intended for devotional purposes. This function also explains some of the typical traits of such a picture: the intimacy of a family gathering, framed by fragments of great architecture, the gestures of devotion of the two angels and the meditative attitude of the elderly Joseph - all signals with which the contemporary spectator would have been able to identify clearly.

This drawing is a sketch for the figure of Mercury in Albani’s Fall of Phaethon fresco in the Galleria, Palazzo Odescalchi Giustiniani, Bassano Romano. It is an animated and seemingly spontaneous preliminary drawing.

Francesco Albani, an exponent of the classical ideal, chose a format for his four tondos which, in his own words, “softened” his pictorial expression. The subject matter is taken from Philostratus (Eikones I,6) who describes the games of cupids throughout the four seasons: throwing apples in spring, the fiery furnace of summer, Venus and Adonis taking their farewell in autumn and sleep in winter.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 13 minutes):

Vivaldi: Concerto in E major RV 269 op. 8. No. 1 (Spring)

Francesco Albani, an exponent of the classical ideal, chose a format for his four tondos which, in his own words, “softened” his pictorial expression. The subject matter is taken from Philostratus (Eikones I,6) who describes the games of cupids throughout the four seasons: throwing apples in spring, the fiery furnace of summer, Venus and Adonis taking their farewell in autumn and sleep in winter.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 10 minutes):

Vivaldi: Concerto in G minor RV 315 op. 8. No. 2 (Summer)

Albani painted many versions of this subject. One of the best is the large altarpiece in the church of San Bartolomeo in Bologna, to which this painting is closely related.

In 1621, Ferdinando Gonzaga, the Duke of Mantua, commissioned a series of The Story of Venus for his Villa Favorita. Completed in 1633, these pictures are enlarged versions of the round compositions of a cycle formerly executed for the prince Borghese towards 1615-17. The Cupids Disarmed belongs to the series.

Although in Rome Albani worked for Guido Reni in the chapel of the Quirinal Palace, he remained in these years essentially devoted to Domenichino’s type of classicism. Even before returning to Bologna, his special gift led him towards light-hearted and appealing representations of myth and allegory in landscape settings of the sort that is perhaps best exemplified by the Four Elements in Turin, painted in 1626-28.

In the allegory of Air, the chariot-borne Juno is surrounded by female figures personifying meteors. She orders Aeolus, who sits on a rock below, to unleash the winds.

Although in Rome Albani worked for Guido Reni in the chapel of the Quirinal Palace, he remained in these years essentially devoted to Domenichino’s type of classicism. Even before returning to Bologna, his special gift led him towards light-hearted and appealing representations of myth and allegory in landscape settings of the sort that is perhaps best exemplified by the Four Elements in Turin, painted in 1626-28.

In the allegory of Earth, the ancient earth goddess Berecynthia, crowned and holding a globe, rides in a lion-drawn chariot. She is accompanied by Flora, Ceres and Bacchus, surrounding them are cupids carrying out various agricultural tasks.

Although in Rome Albani worked for Guido Reni in the chapel of the Quirinal Palace, he remained in these years essentially devoted to Domenichino’s type of classicism. Even before returning to Bologna, his special gift led him towards light-hearted and appealing representations of myth and allegory in landscape settings of the sort that is perhaps best exemplified by the Four Elements in Turin, painted in 1626-28.

In the allegory of Fire, Cupids in the foreground make arrows in the forge of Vulcan, who is reclining on the left. Venus rides across the sky in her chariot and distributes burning torches to cupids. Semele lies on the right, her heart already pierced with love’s arrow, and her lover Jupiter hovers in the centre, clutching thunderbolts.

Although in Rome Albani worked for Guido Reni in the chapel of the Quirinal Palace, he remained in these years essentially devoted to Domenichino’s type of classicism. Even before returning to Bologna, his special gift led him towards light-hearted and appealing representations of myth and allegory in landscape settings of the sort that is perhaps best exemplified by the Four Elements in Turin, painted in 1626-28.

In the allegory of Water, Galatea on a shell chariot is pulled by dolphins, surrounded by nereids, tritons, river gods and cupids. On the foreground shore, to the left, nereids and cupids are playing with pearls and coral.

The composition and figural types of this Holy Family or The Rest on the Flight into Egypt, especially the statuesque Madonna, owe much to Annibale Carracci, while the soft modeling and freshness of colour, emphasized by the luminosity of the copper support, is highly characteristic of Albani.

Small, highly finished cabinet pictures were a specialty of Albani’s production and proved to be enormously popular with collectors, especially in France. Many were painted on copper, a technique he had learned during his years working in the studio of Denys Calvaert, a Flemish artist who had settled in Bologna and operated a successful workshop.

This devotional image of the Holy Family appears to have been particularly popular and it is known in a number of variations.

The picture shows the view of the Galleria, looking south. Between the doors the scene depicting the Sirens is visible.

Vincenzo Giustiniani (1564-1637) was one of the most brilliant, and knowledgeable lovers of art in early seventeenth-century Rome. He assembled a renowned collection of roughly 1.800 works of classical sculpture and 600 paintings, among them eleven of Caravaggio’s most important works. He purchased a villa at Bassano Romano in 1595 which was then thoroughly remodeled and enlarged. The artists who painted there between 1595 and 1604 all worked in the Mannerist style.

The north wing of the enlarged palace was erected in 1607-09 and the painted decoration was accomplished in 1609-10. There are three rooms in the north wing, the Sala della Felicità Eterna ( painted by Paolo Guidotti in 1610), the Sala di Diana ( painted by Domenichino in 1609) and the Galleria (painted by Francesco Albani and assistants in 1609-10).

In the Galleria, Albani painted the legend of Phaethon, the youth who disrupted the path of the sun. The protagonists in Albani’s wall pictures are seen reacting with violent gestures and upward gazes at the central event of the fall of Phaethon on the ceiling. The entire Phaethon legend, as related in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, is illustrated on the ceiling and walls in episodes that are part dramatic, part lyrical. Albani designed the eight scenes on the walls as imaginary tapestries.

Albani’s cycle was highly praised through the whole of the eighteenth century. Later the Phaethon cycle and its painter came to be forgotten, and have only now rediscovered by art historian and appreciated anew.

In the Galleria, Albani painted the legend of Phaethon, the youth who disrupted the path of the sun. The protagonists in Albani’s wall pictures are seen reacting with violent gestures and upward gazes at the central event of the fall of Phaethon on the ceiling. By contrast, the assembly of gods in heaven is comparatively static - except for the figure of Phaethon plunging earthward upside-down. Apollo has raised an arm as a sign of his sadness, and Jupiter is flinging his thunderbolt. Mercury is pointing at the tumbling youth.

This scene is on the east wall of the Galleria in the Palazzo Odescalchi Giustiniani, Bassano Romano.

This scene is on the west wall of the Galleria in the Palazzo Odescalchi Giustiniani, Bassano Romano.

Following the pattern of Raphael’s Sala di Constantino in the Vatican, the large wall paintings in the Galleria imitate wall hangings some with rich borders partially turned back in trompe l’oeil effects.

This scene is on the east wall of the Galleria in the Palazzo Odescalchi Giustiniani, Bassano Romano.

This scene is on the west wall of the Galleria in the Palazzo Odescalchi Giustiniani, Bassano Romano. The river god Eridanus and the Ligurian king Cycnus transformed into a swan are established motifs in the iconography of the legend.

This scene is on the north wall of the Galleria in the Palazzo Odescalchi Giustiniani, Bassano Romano. This is the only scene in the room for which there is no suggestion in Ovid. The woman usually is identified as Venus, although the figure can be also a personification of Vanitas.

This painting was probably painted as a pendant to Annibale Carracci’s Landscape with Diana and Callisto (collection of the Duke of Sutherland, St Boswells). Carracci developed the composition of The Toilet of Venus several years after his Landscape with Diana and Callisto, and the greatest part of its execution was left to Albani, his pupil. ALbani later painted his own interpretations of Carracci’s mythological inventions.

In 1621, Ferdinando Gonzaga, the Duke of Mantua, commissioned a series of The Story of Venus for his Villa Favorita. Completed in 1633, these pictures are enlarged versions of the round compositions of a cycle formerly executed for the prince Borghese towards 1615-17. The Toilet of Venus belongs to the series.

Francesco Albani, a follower of the Carracci in Bologna, was famous and popular with his contemporaries for his graceful, if somewhat sentimental religious and mythological paintings.

Francesco Albani, an exponent of the classical ideal, chose a format for his four tondos which, in his own words, “softened” his pictorial expression. The subject matter is taken from Philostratus (Eikones I,6) who describes the games of cupids throughout the four seasons: throwing apples in spring, the fiery furnace of summer, Venus and Adonis taking their farewell in autumn and sleep in winter.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 11 minutes):

Vivaldi: Concerto in F minor RV 297 op. 8 No. 4 (Winter)