CECCO BRAVO

Armida, the protagonist, is one of the most intense and moving figures in Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso: a beautiful Muslim princess, extremely gifted in the art of magic, is sent by her uncle to the Christian army, with the task of distracting the soldiers with her cunning and seduction. Falling hopelessly in love with the crusader, Rinaldo, Armida abducts him to take him to the Fortunate Isles, conjuring up a palace and enchanted gardens in order to keep him there. Carlo and Ubaldo, companions of Rinaldo, are able to enter the fairytale kingdom, where they find the young man and convince him to return to his army. The abandoned Armida falls into despair and fury. She climbs to the top of the mountain, calls to her all the spirits of hell and then leaves to join the Egyptian ranks in order to get revenge. This is the image chosen for the painting by Cecco Bravo, where the bold sensuality of the young woman is accentuated by the transparencies of her clothing and by the pearls and ribbons she wears. The regular profile of her face is like that of an antique cameo, emphasised by full lips, eyes looking off into the horizon, and the arm lifting the magical sceptre.

An astonishing variety of animals surround Armida: dragons, serpents and demons from the circles of Hell as described by Tasso. Never truly frightening, but rather bizarre and subservient to the satirical, burlesque vein that flows through Florentine paintings from the mid-17th century, becoming a particular feature, these monsters seem inspired by the limitless range of inventions taken from ancient grotesques and the variations they offered to the whole Mannerist generation and beyond, through to the dazzling sorcery of Salvator Rosa.

The scene is not complete because the canvas has been cut down on the left side, so there is a piece missing that perhaps corresponds to a section of landscape that contained other fantastical apparitions. The painting therefore must have been wider than it is today.

After his initial training at the workshops of Rosselli and Bilivert, Cecco was seeking his own original path, which included travel to study in the north, reflections on Venetian culture, and participation in the freer examples of painting by his contemporary, Francesco Furini. His research is hesitant in its effusive style, with paintings built around brush strokes in strident colour, in contrasting transparencies and more consistent uses of texture, with flashes of light and back light effects.

This picture, dated to the 1650s, was certainly painted for a private chapel.

The so-called Salone di San Giovanni in the Palazzo Pitti is in what were formerly the summer apartments of the Medici dynasty and today house the Museo degli Argenti.In light, airy frescoes , speckled with gold-like silk tapestries, Giovanni da San Giovanni, assisted by a select team of Florentine painters from the early 17th century (Cecco Bravo, Ottavio Vannini, Francesco Furini) celebrated the marriage, in 1635, of Fernando II to Vittoria della Rovere, the last heir of the Urbino dynasty. The frescoes exalt the destiny of Florence, cradle of the arts and heir to classical civilisation. The frescoes tell how Western culture, driven away by the triumphant Islam after the fall of Constantinople, found a welcome in Italy, and particularly in the Florence of Lorenzo the Magnificent.

The detail shows Lorenzo surrounded by artists and the Muses.

In this painting Cecco Bravo illustrates an episode from ancient history, taken from Book VI of Homer’s Odyssey, which represents the moment when Ulysses turns down the proposal of King Alcinous and Queen Arete to marry their daughter Nausicaa.

It can be noted that Cecco’s style contains both Florentine and Venetian elements.

The picture shows the south wall of the Salone Terreno (Room of Giovanni da San Giovanni) on the ground floor of the Palazzo Pitti.

The Palazzo Pitti in Florence, purchased from the Pitti family by the wife of Duke CosimoI de’ Medici in 1549 and renovated and expanded by Bartolommeo Ammanati, served as a residence of royal proportions for roughly 350 years. It was occupied by the dynasties of the Medici, the Habsburgs, and finally the Savoyards, and subjected to constant adaptations and alterations. Intensive use by ruling families resulted in the lavish decoration of all floors. Fresco painters from three centuries contributed to the fixed decor of the public rooms and living quarters. Of its numerous apartments two suites of rooms stand out because of their decoration, function and size. These took their present form under Grand Duke Ferdinando II de’ Medici (1610-1670), and for the most part they were spared later encroachments owing to their high-quality frescoes. These are the reception rooms in the left (north) wing used by Ferdinando II. The rooms on the cooler ground floor, directly connected with the Boboli Gardens by way of a loggia and a terrace, served him as a summer apartment (Appartamento d’Estate); his winter quarters (Appartamento d’Inverno), reached by way of a large staircase and capable of being heated, lie directly above these on the piano nobile.

Several different painters worked on the decoration of the large hall on the ground floor (Salone Terreno). Its virtuoso wealth of forms, the scenographic bravura of its architectural painting, and its strikingly original programmatic concept, makes the room an outstanding example of seventeenth-century Florentine painting, standing as it does between tradition and modernism. The east wall of the Salone and the ceiling was painted by Giovanni da San Giovanni in 1635-36, the south wall by Cecco Bravo in 1638, the west wall by Ottavio Vannini in 1639-41, and the north wall by Francesco Furini in 1640-42.

The wall paintings deal with Lorenzo de’ Medici and the return of the Golden Age under his rule. Cecco Bravo’s frescoes present Lorenzo, who is always shown in fifteenth-century costume, as protector of the Muses and Apollo and as a bringer of peace.