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拍品专文
This remarkable and exceptionally well preserved altarpiece is a major work by Battista Zelotti, the Veronese master best known for his frescoes in a number of Palladio’s most impressive villas.
Zelotti, like his younger near-contemporary, Paolo Caliari, called Veronese, himself born in 1528, was a pupil of Antonio Badile. He and Veronese collaborated on what seems to have been their first secular commission for the Villa Soranzo at Treville, near Castelfranco, surviving fragments from which in the cathedral of that town, long regarded as Veronese’s earliest extant works, have recently been reattributed to Zelotti. The two artists also collaborated, presumably at Palladio’s behest, in the decoration of the Palazzo of Iseppo da Porto at Vicenza, in about 1551 and in that of his uncle, Francesco da Porto. By 1553-4, Zelotti and Veronese were sufficiently well-established to receive commissions for the Palazzo Ducale at Venice, the former supplying compartments for the ceilings in the Sala del Consiglio dei Dieci and the Sala dei Tre Capi. Zelotti was with Veronese, Titian, Tintoretto and others called in to supply decorative canvases for the Libreria Marciana in 1556-7, supplying three of the tondi of the main ceiling. With Veronese he was also involved in the decoration of the Palazzo Trevisan at Murano in the latter year.
The mid-sixteenth century was a period of great prosperity on the Venetian terra firma, as the number of new palazzi and villas of the period attests. Zelotti was chosen to decorate four by Palladio: the Villa Pojana (c. 1558); the Villa Foscari or Malcontenta (1562-3); the Villa Godi Valmarana at Lonedo (1565); and the Villa Emo at Fanzolo (c. 1566). Zelotti also worked in at least three further palaces by Palladio, the Palazzo Mocenigo at Padua (c. 1563-4), and the Palazzi Barbaran da Porto and Valmarana Braga at Vicenza (1566-7 and 1567-8 respectively). While decorative commissions predominated, Zelotti also executed a number of altarpieces: the earliest, a Pietà, was painted for the Palazzo Ducale (now in the church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo); the large Assumption of 1559 was supplied to the Abbey of Praglia, for which the artist also executed a number of works in tempera, including two organ shutters now in the Museo Civico at Padua; this was followed by two altarpieces for the Cathedral at Vicenza; by this powerful Entombment for the Corpus Domini there; and by two later altarpieces at San Rocco. With the exception of a Venus and Adonis at Dresden and a small devotional picture in the National Gallery of Ireland, the Entombment is the only picture catalogued in Brugnolo Meloncelli’s pioneering monograph on the artist outside Italy. It is exceptional of its date, circa 1566, and thus closely contemporary with the impressive frescoes of the Villa Emo, in Brugnolo Meloncelli’s opinion.
While the picture was attributed by Ridolfi and later writers to Zelotti, and engraved as by him by Zancon, it is understandable that when it reemerged Teresio Pignatti and other scholars considered it to be by Zelotti’s long-term associate Veronese. That the picture is by Zelotti was recognised by Brugnolo Meloncelli (op. cit.). The picture refects the shared artistic background of the two painters, their early experience of the world of Badile and their inevitable exposure to Titian in Venice. Zelotti must also have been aware of the work of Giuseppe Porta, il Salviati, and been conversant with developments elsewhere in Italy, at least through prints. His composition is remarkable not least for its dynamism, and the way that Christ’s left foot seems to intrude into the spectator’s space. Zelotti, like Veronese, had an innate understanding of the role of architecture, as the way the arm of the disciple behind him echoes and thus emphasises that of Christ himself. Passages like the turbaned head of Joseph of Arimathea and the head of the mourning Virgin are deeply expressive. Yet there is a hint of playfulness, which must have been invisible in the original setting of the altarpiece: the tiny human mask below the sarcophagus for example, itself of beautifully grey-veined marble.
The Church of the Corpus Domini was next to the Augustinian Lateran nunnery of that name in the borgo of the Porta Nuova at Vicenza. Both monastery and church were suppressed under the terms of a law of 25 April 1810 and subsequently demolished. A document of 1584 (see Brugnolo Meloncelli, op. cit., 1992, p. 113) establishes that there were then three altars, of which the main one was dedicated to Christ while the lateral altars both were surmounted by sculptures: the Entombment must thus have been the high altarpiece of what was clearly a church of relatively modest scale. By 1676, as Boschini states (op. cit.), fear of robbery had persuaded the nuns to keep the picture in their monastery, only returning it to the church for the feast of the Corpus Domini, celebrated sixty days after Easter. This may explain why the picture is not mentioned in some eighteenth-century accounts of the church. As the emotion and sense of volumetric projection of Zelotti’s composition demonstrate, the artist was fully aware of the liturgical significance of his altarpiece to the nuns.
Zelotti, like his younger near-contemporary, Paolo Caliari, called Veronese, himself born in 1528, was a pupil of Antonio Badile. He and Veronese collaborated on what seems to have been their first secular commission for the Villa Soranzo at Treville, near Castelfranco, surviving fragments from which in the cathedral of that town, long regarded as Veronese’s earliest extant works, have recently been reattributed to Zelotti. The two artists also collaborated, presumably at Palladio’s behest, in the decoration of the Palazzo of Iseppo da Porto at Vicenza, in about 1551 and in that of his uncle, Francesco da Porto. By 1553-4, Zelotti and Veronese were sufficiently well-established to receive commissions for the Palazzo Ducale at Venice, the former supplying compartments for the ceilings in the Sala del Consiglio dei Dieci and the Sala dei Tre Capi. Zelotti was with Veronese, Titian, Tintoretto and others called in to supply decorative canvases for the Libreria Marciana in 1556-7, supplying three of the tondi of the main ceiling. With Veronese he was also involved in the decoration of the Palazzo Trevisan at Murano in the latter year.
The mid-sixteenth century was a period of great prosperity on the Venetian terra firma, as the number of new palazzi and villas of the period attests. Zelotti was chosen to decorate four by Palladio: the Villa Pojana (c. 1558); the Villa Foscari or Malcontenta (1562-3); the Villa Godi Valmarana at Lonedo (1565); and the Villa Emo at Fanzolo (c. 1566). Zelotti also worked in at least three further palaces by Palladio, the Palazzo Mocenigo at Padua (c. 1563-4), and the Palazzi Barbaran da Porto and Valmarana Braga at Vicenza (1566-7 and 1567-8 respectively). While decorative commissions predominated, Zelotti also executed a number of altarpieces: the earliest, a Pietà, was painted for the Palazzo Ducale (now in the church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo); the large Assumption of 1559 was supplied to the Abbey of Praglia, for which the artist also executed a number of works in tempera, including two organ shutters now in the Museo Civico at Padua; this was followed by two altarpieces for the Cathedral at Vicenza; by this powerful Entombment for the Corpus Domini there; and by two later altarpieces at San Rocco. With the exception of a Venus and Adonis at Dresden and a small devotional picture in the National Gallery of Ireland, the Entombment is the only picture catalogued in Brugnolo Meloncelli’s pioneering monograph on the artist outside Italy. It is exceptional of its date, circa 1566, and thus closely contemporary with the impressive frescoes of the Villa Emo, in Brugnolo Meloncelli’s opinion.
While the picture was attributed by Ridolfi and later writers to Zelotti, and engraved as by him by Zancon, it is understandable that when it reemerged Teresio Pignatti and other scholars considered it to be by Zelotti’s long-term associate Veronese. That the picture is by Zelotti was recognised by Brugnolo Meloncelli (op. cit.). The picture refects the shared artistic background of the two painters, their early experience of the world of Badile and their inevitable exposure to Titian in Venice. Zelotti must also have been aware of the work of Giuseppe Porta, il Salviati, and been conversant with developments elsewhere in Italy, at least through prints. His composition is remarkable not least for its dynamism, and the way that Christ’s left foot seems to intrude into the spectator’s space. Zelotti, like Veronese, had an innate understanding of the role of architecture, as the way the arm of the disciple behind him echoes and thus emphasises that of Christ himself. Passages like the turbaned head of Joseph of Arimathea and the head of the mourning Virgin are deeply expressive. Yet there is a hint of playfulness, which must have been invisible in the original setting of the altarpiece: the tiny human mask below the sarcophagus for example, itself of beautifully grey-veined marble.
The Church of the Corpus Domini was next to the Augustinian Lateran nunnery of that name in the borgo of the Porta Nuova at Vicenza. Both monastery and church were suppressed under the terms of a law of 25 April 1810 and subsequently demolished. A document of 1584 (see Brugnolo Meloncelli, op. cit., 1992, p. 113) establishes that there were then three altars, of which the main one was dedicated to Christ while the lateral altars both were surmounted by sculptures: the Entombment must thus have been the high altarpiece of what was clearly a church of relatively modest scale. By 1676, as Boschini states (op. cit.), fear of robbery had persuaded the nuns to keep the picture in their monastery, only returning it to the church for the feast of the Corpus Domini, celebrated sixty days after Easter. This may explain why the picture is not mentioned in some eighteenth-century accounts of the church. As the emotion and sense of volumetric projection of Zelotti’s composition demonstrate, the artist was fully aware of the liturgical significance of his altarpiece to the nuns.