MORONI, Giovanni Battista

Moretto was born in Albino, in the foothills of the Alps. The neighbouring towns of Brescia - home of his teacher Moretto - and Bergamo, where Moroni worked from 1554, were situated in a frontier region between Milan and Venice, Central Italy and Southern Germany. We first encounter Moroni in 1546 in Trent, painting altarpieces during the initial session of the Council convoked there to heal and reform the Church. When the Council of Trent closed in 1563, it had, however, formalised the rift between Catholics and Protestants. Moretto, deeply responsive to the injunctions of the Council, followed its prescriptions of doctrinal Catholic orthodoxy, clarity and realism in religious art. Throughout his life Moroni modelled his religious paintings on those of Moretto. But his real talent lay elsewhere, and it is as a portrait specialist that we prize him today.

The abbess, descended from one of the most important families in Bergamo, was widowed young and went on to found the Carmelite convent of Sant’Anna in Albino in 1525. The inscription on the painting records her likely death date of 1557. Moroni has been unsparing in his depiction of the abbess: she is unadorned and wrinkled and has a small goitre. At the same time this is a painting of marvelous elegance, with its painterly medley of grays and its sympathetic portrayal of the elderly woman’s inward gaze.

Moroni was held to be the best portraitist of his age. Even Titian himself put Moroni’s ability to paint his models ‘al vero’ before his own. Born in Albino near Bergamo, Moroni was Moretto’s pupil in Brescia until about 1543, but he was strongly influenced by other artists, too, such as Savoldo, Lorenzo Lotto, and Titian. Apparently he hardly ever left the area around Bergamo. By about 1560 he had become the leading painter of the region and set the course of the Lombard school. He was particularly favoured by the aristocracy as a portraitist, but he also received several ecclesiastical commissions.

The commission to paint formal portraits of two members of the Madruzzo family, which ruled as prince-bishops in Trent from 1539, was one of the most prestigious of Moroni’s early career. Depicting the brothers Gian Lodovico (1532-1600) and Gian Federico (c. 1530-1586), they were to hang with a portrait that Titian painted of the young men’s uncle Cardinal Cristoforo Madruzzo (1512-1578).

A Latin inscription on the lower right identifies the subject and gives the date of the painting: 1565.

This is a typical example of an alternative form of portraiture to Titian’s heroic and solemn type, Tintoretto’s uneasy and dramatic renderings, and Lotto’s subtly tormented and introspective works. Moroni’s portrait is purely bourgeois and combines the measure of Veronese’s portraits with the more worldly effects of Moretto. The result is entirely new, for it amounts to the discovery of a different type of ethical and psychological balance.

Inevitably influenced by the example of Titian, yet making quite a distinctive contribution to their genre, were the portraits by Giovanni Battista Moroni, a painter working in the town of Bergamo on the western fringe of Venice’s mainland empire. One of this finest is the Portrait of Don Gabriel de la Cueva, later Duke of Alburquerque, in which the pose of the Spanish nobleman - soon to become governor of the nearby city of Milan - is lent grandeur by the abstract geometry of the architectural foil behind him. Moroni’s handling of paint is thinner and drier than that of Titian, and parts of the costume are rendered with an attention to detail that by this date had become foreign to the pictorial tradition of Venice itself.

The reputation of Moroni of Bergamo rests primarily on his numerous portraits although, like his master, Moretto da Brescia, he also painted altarpieces and religious compositions. His models were, for the most part, the patricians, bourgeois scholars and artisans living in the small towns of Northern Italy. Usually he painted them at work with the tools of their particular trade: the scholar is seen holding a book or writing implements, the tailor is about to cut his cloth.

According to a later inscription at the top right, this is a portrait of Jacopo Contarini, Podesta of Padua. However, Padua never had a Podesta of this name and, since it is known that Jacopo Foscarini filled that office when the picture was painted, we can only assume that the inscription is inaccurate and that the portrait is indeed of Foscarini. He is shown as a distinguished man of middle age with an air of seriousness that commands respect. Only the serene harmony of greys and reds resolves the sombre mood of the painting.

That the subject of this haunting portrait was a soldier is apparent from the shiny pieces of plate armour (of local manufacture) at his feet and from his costume of leather doublet, chain mail, under-doublet of black satin and the plain white linen collar of the shirt worn beneath. (The long sword is less a military appurtenance than a badge of nobility.) His legs are encased in black trunks and hose; he wears a brace to correct the weakening of the muscles of his left ankle, a condition known as ‘drop-foot’, caused either by disease or a wound. His Italian nickname, ‘Il Cavaliere dal Piede Ferito’ (Knight of the Wounded Foot), refers to this. Standing firm with legs wide apart, he leans lightly on a magnificent jousting helmet crested with ostrich plumes and surmounted by a red disk, carved with the sun’s face, from which rises a rare and costly osprey feather. Less extravagant ostrich plumes curl on his black velvet cap.

Like many of Moroni’s sitters the cavaliere is posed against a shallow light-coloured background of marble and part-ruined stone to which ivy, emblem of fidelity, clings and from which seedlings sprout. The background serves many functions: it justifies the semblance of outdoor light while keeping our attention from wandering off through a distant landscape; it sets off the sitter’s slender silhouette with its complex outline; its neutral tone combines and echoes the hard colours of costume and helmet, and the matt surface provides a foil for the whole range of textures in the sitter’s dress, armour, flesh and hair; it provides a geometric grid within which the figure is firmly anchored; and it furnishes a ledge on which to place the helmet and give the sitter something to do with his left arm, motivating the hand’s negligently elegant gesture. Finally, the eroded architecture suggests endurance, a metaphor for the knight himself.

This painting shows the portrait of an unidentified gentleman with his helmet on a column shaft which may symbolise the sitter’s fortitude or, since it is broken, his misfortunes. In the 19th century this portrait was attributed to Titian.

The inscription below is NOSCE TE APHTON (Recognize yourself). Formerly it was attributed to Tiitan as a portrait of Aretino due to an erraneous reading of the last word of the inscription (Areton instead of Aphton).

This portrait represents an elderly, bearded gentleman whose forehead is marked with a pronounced tumour. He wears a luxurious coat lined with lynx and a gold cross and chain with the Lion of Saint Mark (a Venetian honour). A painting belonged to the Albani family in the eighteenth century, and later the sitter was identified as Gian Gerolamo Albani (1509-1591). This identification is debated.

According to the inscription at the bottom, the painting represents a young man of the age 29. His features show some similarities with the sitter of Moroni’s famous portrait. The Tailor in the National Gallery, London.

Moroni was one of the most accomplished portraitists in Lombard painting in the 16th century. For a long time he did not obtain the recognition he deserved, because some of his best portraits were attributed to Titian. His teacher was Moretto da Brescia (Alessandro Bonvicino), like-wise a skilled portraitist. There is no documented evidence of Moroni ever having visited Venice, but his oeuvre demonstrates that he was familiar with the work being done there.

One of Moroni’s most significant innovations was in the painting of devotional works in which the donor plays a dominant, integral role. Although his teacher, Moretto da Brescia, may have previously explored this approach, Moroni was the first to realize its full potential. This impressive painting is the greatest example of Moroni’s accomplishment in this field.

The identity of this mysterious person with enigmatic smile is not known. The painting is signed in lower right: “Jo(hannes) Baptista / Moronus p(inxit)”.

Moroni’s style was already mature when he painted this splendid picture which summarizes his qualities as a portrait-painter. There is an intense truthfulness about the face of the sitter whose clothing and environment are littered with symbolic allusions. Moroni’s sense of light and colour can neatly be linked to the Bergamo tradition established by Lorenzo Lotto but perhaps even more to the Brescia school.

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The painting represents a tailor resting during his work.

Like Moretto’s earlier likenesses of Brescian noblemen sympathetic to the Holy Roman Emperor and Titian’s portraits of the emperor and others, early aristocratic portraits by Moroni use the full-length, life-size format. By the 1570s, however, the fashion for portraiture had spread from nobles to the professional classes. Yet this sympathetic depiction of a tailor at his work remains unique. It has been plausibly suggested that Moroni executed the painting in exchange for services rendered - perhaps a suit in that fashionable Spanish black coat proffered by the tailor. The tailor wears a less stylish costume of red and buff, albeit with a Spanish ruff.

The realism of the painting, dispassionately even-handed in its description of objects, details of costume, physiognomy and expression., should not blind us to its artful geometric structure. The three-quarter length format is justified by the table. Instead of creating the usual barrier between sitter and spectator, it forges a friendly link between them through the angle at which it is set, and because of the unaffected way it enables the tailor to pause before cutting his cloth in order to address the viewer.

The painting represents a tailor resting during his work.

Like Moretto’s earlier likenesses of Brescian noblemen sympathetic to the Holy Roman Emperor and Titian’s portraits of the emperor and others, early aristocratic portraits by Moroni use the full-length, life-size format. By the 1570s, however, the fashion for portraiture had spread from nobles to the professional classes. Yet this sympathetic depiction of a tailor at his work remains unique. It has been plausibly suggested that Moroni executed the painting in exchange for services rendered - perhaps a suit in that fashionable Spanish black coat proffered by the tailor. The tailor wears a less stylish costume of red and buff, albeit with a Spanish ruff.

The realism of the painting, dispassionately even-handed in its description of objects, details of costume, physiognomy and expression., should not blind us to its artful geometric structure. The three-quarter length format is justified by the table. Instead of creating the usual barrier between sitter and spectator, it forges a friendly link between them through the angle at which it is set, and because of the unaffected way it enables the tailor to pause before cutting his cloth in order to address the viewer.

The artists of the Italian renaissance introduced fundamental innovations in portraiture, including, in particular, a new type of realism and convincing lifelikeness. This painting affirms Moroni as a master of his craft. The three-quarter figure stands by a table addressing the viewer directly. She holds a cloth bag in one hand and a “caccia dei pulci” (flea fur) in the other. Flea furs were worn for sanitary reasons from the Middle Ages on, in order to keep fleas and other blood-sucking insects away from the human body. They could be made of weasel fur - as this one - or of ermine, polecat or sable fur. During the Renaissance, flea furs were fashionable accessories in aristocratic garb.

Formerly, the painting was attributed to Titian.