PETERZANO, Simone

The scene described in this painting was inspired by Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso (Canto 19, 20-36), an epic poem published in 1516 and an inexhaustible source of subjects for painting. Here the figures of Angelica and Medoro are presented as a treatment of the Pietà in ‘chivalric’ mode,

This painting is an early example in the artist’s career of a synthesis between his Venetian experience and the impact of Lombard realism.

Despite his Bergamasque roots and his training in Venice, Simone Peterzano, Caravaggio’s teacher, made many preparatory drawings before beginning to paint. Compositional sketches in pen and ink were followed by studies for each figure, using the same technique, before he finished with drawings of the details, taking them from life. In turning to details of the figures, Peterzano studied anatomy by numerous drawings in black chalk or charcoal with white heightening on dark prepared paper. One such study depicts a bearded face associated with a shepherd at the left of the Adoration of the Shepherds, frescoed in the presbytery of the Certosa di Garegnano, Milan.

The drawings of fruits, vegetables and flowers, done in oil on prepared paper, are part of an extraordinary cache of drawings acquired by the Musei Civici of Milan in 1924 from the local church of Santa Maria presso San Celso. They were attributed to the workshop of Simone Peterzano, because many of the drawings in the group are demonstrably by him, and because in subject matter they seemed appropriate to the activity of the workshop. However, the more than two thousand five hundred drawings are enormously varied in style and date. Approximately one thousand have had a traditional association with Peterzano’s workshop. There is no direct evidence that this sheet came from that section comprised of work by Peterzano and his students.

The drawings of fruits, vegetables and flowers, done in oil on prepared paper, are part of an extraordinary cache of drawings acquired by the Musei Civici of Milan in 1924 from the local church of Santa Maria presso San Celso. They were attributed to the workshop of Simone Peterzano, because many of the drawings in the group are demonstrably by him, and because in subject matter they seemed appropriate to the activity of the workshop. However, the more than two thousand five hundred drawings are enormously varied in style and date. Approximately one thousand have had a traditional association with Peterzano’s workshop. There is no direct evidence that this sheet came from that section comprised of work by Peterzano and his students.

The drawings of fruits, vegetables and flowers, done in oil on prepared paper, are part of an extraordinary cache of drawings acquired by the Musei Civici of Milan in 1924 from the local church of Santa Maria presso San Celso. They were attributed to the workshop of Simone Peterzano, because many of the drawings in the group are demonstrably by him, and because in subject matter they seemed appropriate to the activity of the workshop. However, the more than two thousand five hundred drawings are enormously varied in style and date. Approximately one thousand have had a traditional association with Peterzano’s workshop. There is no direct evidence that this sheet came from that section comprised of work by Peterzano and his students.

This drawing is a preparatory study for the figure of the Persian Sibyl frescoed by Peterzano on the left wall of the chancel of the Certosa di Garegnano.