Studi sul Settecento Romano

 

Rivista annuale, ANVUR classe A

 

Studi sul Settecento Romano 37

Cardinal Alessandro Albani. Collezionismo, diplomazia e mercato nell'Europa del Grand Tour
Collecting, dealing and diplomacy in Grand Tour Europe

 

a cura di Clare Hornsby - Mario Bevilacqua

 

 

La collezione di sculture antiche in Villa Albani a Roma: una storia ancora da scrivere

 

Carlo Gasparri

 

The catalogue of antique sculptures in the Villa Albani, published in five volumes between 1989 and 1998 by P. C. Bol, has not been accompanied by systematic research into the origin of the sculptures themselves and how the collection was formed. This research is made difficult by the absence—or lack of knowledge—of any archive of the Albani family that might provide information on the acquisition of the sculptures, their origins, or the identity of the restorers and the dates of their work. This information can therefore only be gathered from antiquarian literature and from contemporary written and visual sources. The aim of this essay is to provide a review of the information that has emerged from those sources over the last thirty years, making it possible to modify—sometimes considerably modify—or to complete the “biographies” of the Albani marbles already provided by the Bol catalogue.

 

 

Lo specchio dei principi: fra Villa Albani e il Museo Torlonia

 

Salvatore Settis

 

The collections of classical sculpture in the Villa Albani are an essential part of the long history of collecting antiquities in Rome, which was the centre of European collecting and also for the genesis of the museum-as-institution.

The moment when Villa Albani became the property of the Torlonia family in 1866 and the collections of the Torlonia Museum can both be seen in a similar light, albeit with a significant leap in chronology and context. That is why the exhibition I Marmi Torlonia. Collecting Masterpieces, which opened on 12th October 2020 at the Capitoline Museums, was conceived as a cross-section—going backwards in time, from 1876 to the fifteenth century—of the history of the collections. This essay coordinates these themes, proposing a new focus on the early (“pre-collecting”) accumulation of antiquities in Rome throughout the fifteenth century, as attested by Manuel Chrysoloras as early as 1412; and, at the other extreme, reading the Torlonia Museum in the context of a united Italy after the mid-nineteenth century, seeing its founder Alessandro Torlonia in the context of the intellectual paths of other collectors such as Giovan Pietro Campana, but also art historians and politicians such as Giovanni Morelli.

 

 

“Our good friends the English”.
Cardinal Albani, the British and the creation of the Grand Tour

 

Jonny Yarker

 

È universalmente accettato che l’arte e la politica furono le due forze trainanti della carriera di Alessandro Albani: l’una strettamente al servizio dell’altra, spesso con una tale sovrapposizione da oscurare i veri fini del cardinale. La mutevolezza di questa dinamica è perfettamente espressa nel suo rapporto con la Gran Bretagna e gli inglesi. Inizialmente intimo dei giacobiti in esilio, a partire dal 1726, Albani lavorò attivamente per smussare l’effetto negativo che la loro presenza a Roma esercitava nelle relazioni tra papato e Gran Bretagna. Questo rifletteva una convenienza economica tanto quanto un’ambizione politica: si riteneva che la permanenza degli Stuart a Roma facesse perdere alla città un’entrata dai viaggiatori inglesi di 400.000 corone all’anno. Nel 1748, con la conclusione della guerra di Successione Austriaca, Albani poté agire attivamente per attrarre i ricchi viaggiatori britannici, così contribuendo a consolidare le basi di quella strutturazione del Grand Tour britannico negli ultimi decenni del secolo. Il saggio esamina lo sfondo politico e diplomatico dei rapporti di Albani con la Gran Bretagna, entro cui collocare il suo ruolo come “padre” del Grand Tour.

 

 

The Adam brothers, Cardinal Albani,
and the sale of the dal Pozzo-Albani drawings collection to George III

 

Colin Thom

 

Gli anni che Robert e James Adam trascorsero come Grand Tourists in Italia nel 1750-1760 furono fondamentali per la loro maturazione come architetti. La corrispondenza tra di loro e con altri membri della famiglia costituisce la fonte migliore per conoscere le loro speranze, ambizioni e raggiungimenti in quel periodo. L’inizio di un nuovo progetto di digitalizzazione di questa corrispondenza offre l’opportunità di riesaminare l’acquisto nel 1764 da parte di James Adam, per conto di Giorgio III, della straordinaria collezione di disegni del cardinale Alessandro Albani: l’apice delle attività dei fratelli Adam come mercanti e connoisseurs. Il saggio illustra il contesto in cui si svolse la trattativa, identifica e considera le varie persone coinvolte, ed esamina le possibili influenze che un collezionista dello status di Alessandro Albani può aver avuto sui fratelli Adam, il loro gusto e stile eponimo.

 

 

Alessandro Albani mecenate delle lettere

 

Alviera Bussotti

 

The essay will focus on Alessandro Albani’s role as patron of literature, with particular reference to the Accademia degli Arcadi in the years of its transition from the custodianship of Francesco Maria Lorenzini to that of Giuseppe Morei (1741-1766). Some significant case studies will be examined: two texts by Gioacchino Pizzi, commissioned by Albani himself, and some examples of “dramma per musica” (opera librettos) dedicated to him by the Arcadian poets Giovanni Baldanza and Gaetano Roccaforte. The aim here is to ascertain whether there is a connection between Albani’s political and diplomatic appointments and his literary patronage; to verify to what extent the heroic tone of the texts examined can be seen as a metaphor of the political situation traceable to the cardinal’s contemporary diplomatic activity.

 

 

Alessandro Albani e il collezionismo cardinalizio di antichità nel Settecento:
note di storia sociale

 

Maria Pia Donato

 

Throughout his long life, Alessandro Albani was a collector of antiquities unparalleled in scale and magnificence and was the generous patron of scholars, antiquarians and artists. He was, in fact, one of the last representatives of a specific early modern Roman culture of collecting that was centred on the patronage activities of the cardinals, bringing together antiquarianism and sacred erudition. In the eighteenth century, however, such a pattern faded away for various reasons, which this essay sets out to explore. The declining ecclesiastical revenues and expenditure, the lower social status of cardinals and prelates at the Roman curia, the neo-tridentine ideals of piety combined with the rocketing prices of antiquities on the international market, discouraged cardinals to engage in antiquities collecting, as the most prestigious collections passed into secular hands.

The social and material history can, it is argued, also offer some new clues for understanding the intellectual transformation of Roman antiquarianism. The decline in cardinals’ patronage meant that their erudite clientele had less easy access to benefices and positions within the curial structures. A greater gap emerged between an elite of scholars in the most important Roman cultural institutions and the general mass of more modest ecclesiastic scholars and “amateurs.” Furthermore, whereas Roman antiquarianism had traditionally featured a closeness of topics and sources between historical studies on early Christianity and the middle ages and those of classical antiquity, a clearer divide began to emerge in this area as well.

 

 

Rivalità e gelosie tra antiquari.
Il conte di Caylus, il cardinale Alessandro Albani e i loro intermediari

 

Ginevra Odone

 

This essay examines the relationship between the French antiquarian the Comte de Caylus and Cardinal Alessandro Albani. We know from letters left by Caylus that, on the advice of his intermediary Paolo Maria Paciaudi, he wanted to have the most interesting antiquities in Rome drawn and published, including those in Albani’s collection. The drawings for this so-called “secret project” were entrusted to an artist dear to Caylus, a certain Louis, student at the Académie de France, who was later replaced by Hubert Robert (1733–1808). However, the Frenchman’s project was blocked by Johann Joachim Winckelmann, the cardinal’s librarian, who did everything he could to prevent Paciaudi and Robert from gaining access to the Albani collection. In fact, the French artist’s drawings were limited to a few views of the villa and its gardens; the refusal to grant permission should be seen in the context of the rivalry and jealousy existing between Winckelmann and Caylus.

 

 

Alessandro Albani e Winckelmann

 

Brigitte Kuhn-Forte

 

Cardinal Alessandro Albani is undoubtedly the most important figure in Winckelmann’s Roman life. The first contacts date back to 1756, generated by their shared passion for antiquity. In 1758, the prelate offered him accommodation and a salary and the following year the archaeologist moved into Palazzo Albani, officially as librarian, but in reality much more, in both positive and negative senses. The relationship between the two was often idealized as a unique partnership between a learned collector and a great scholar, an equal friendship; this however is only partially true. Winckelmann acted as antiquarian and advisor, but also as a companion. In his correspondence he sometimes complained about the excessive commitments placed on him by Albani which distracted him from his research and writings. However, the positive aspects of this professional and scholarly relationship prevailed; for example, consultation on the purchase and restoration of antiquities destined for Villa Albani, the project for the Museo Profano Vaticano, the cardinal’s support for Winckelmann’s career, his active participation in the preparation of the unpublished Monumenti Antichi Inediti, and finally a sincere, mutual affection between the two men.

 

 

Alessandro Albani as Restorer

 

Elizabeth Bartman

 

Alla lunga lista dei ruoli del cardinale Alessandro Albani deve essere aggiunto quello di restauratore: i contemporanei lo chiamavano – non necessariamente intendendolo come complimento – “restauratore in capo”, presumibilmente a causa della sua decisa propensione a intervenire sulla statuaria antica. Anche se la prassi di integrare le sculture antiche danneggiate era ormai diffusa da almeno un secolo prima di Albani, fu durante la sua vita che il restauro integrativo divenne a Roma una vera e propria industria, incoraggiata dai mercanti (spesso essi stessi scultori/restauratori), e richiesta dai collezionisti. Esaminando vari marmi associati al Cardinale, questo saggio indaga su quanto egli possa aver plasmato le pratiche del restauro nel XVIII secolo, e in che misura egli approvasse le teorie di Winckelmann e le pratiche dello scultore/restauratore Bartolomeo Cavaceppi.

 

 

Affinità elettive ante litteram? Considerazioni sui rapporti fra Villa Albani e Villa Adriana:
le collezioni di antichità

 

Cristina Ruggero

 

Could Emperor Hadrian’s ancient villa at Tivoli have provided the model for Cardinal Alessandro Albani, both in the design of his eighteenth-century suburban residence and in the choice of and display of antiquities there? Alleged links between the two sites, though plausible, are not always supported by documents and sources and those that do exist have often been interpreted to suggest the existence of what is called in this essay “elective affinities.” In reality, Hadrian’s Villa, like many other ancient sites, was a possible model of reference for the cardinal, not least because, at the time, it was one of the villas best known for its antiquities and its unique architectural remains. However, only a small number of finds from the Hadrianic site are recorded in the cardinal’s collections. The paper attempts to reconstruct what links may have existed between the two villas and Albani’s behaviour and choices related to this connection.

 

 

Da Palazzo alle Quattro Fontane al Museo Capitolino:
la nuova vita della collezione del cardinale Alessandro Albani

 

Eloisa Dodero

 

The events that led to the purchase of Cardinal Alessandro Albani’s collection by Pope Clement XII Corsini in December 1733—the action that established the Capitoline Museum in the Palazzo Nuovo on the Capitoline Hill—are well known. The aim of this essay is to analyse how the new arrangement of the cardinal’s collection in the Capitoline affected the evaluation of the sculptures that were kept during the 18th century in the family palace at Quattro Fontane. Secondly, an attempt will be made to understand if and how Alessandro continued to take an interest in his “first” collection, which was mainly divided between Dresden and the Capitoline. It is not difficult to imagine that Johann Joachim Winckelmann would have shared with the cardinal an interest in the display methodology in the museum as well as joining in his patron’s concern for the fate of the Dresden treasures during the tragic years of the Seven Years’ War.

 

 

Cardinal Alessandro Albani’s epigraphic collections
and their influence on collecting in the eighteenth century

 

Caroline Barron

 

Alessandro Albani è stato a lungo celebrato come un protagonista nella storia del collezionismo del XVIII secolo. La storiografia si è concentrata sui suoi acquisti di antichità, soprattutto sculture e busti, mentre poca attenzione è stata riservata alle iscrizioni: il cardinale acquisì un gran numero di epigrafi, che – come il saggio chiarisce – esercitarono una forte influenza nella valutazione delle iscrizioni come fonti essenziali per lo studio della storia antica, e come ciò poteva essere comunicato attraverso il loro allestimento. Il saggio considera le diverse fasi in cui le iscrizioni entrarono nelle collezioni del cardinale, come vennero interpretate, e come influenzarono i collezionisti sia in Italia che all’estero. La valutazione in cui Albani tenne il materiale epigrafico si dimostra cruciale per sanzionare il valore delle iscrizioni antiche – e più in particolare, nella prima parte del secolo, le lastre funebri dei colombari – come antichità da collezione.

 

 

Residing at the Palazzo alle Quattro Fontane: the shared classical aesthetic
of Cardinal Camillo Massimo and Cardinal Alessandro Albani

 

Lisa Beaven

 

Il saggio ipotizza che le attività antiquarie di Camillo Massimo, con la documentazione, la raccolta di pitture antiche, e l’esposizione di importanti antichità nel palazzo alle Quattro Fontane, siano state decisive nella formazione del gusto antiquario di Alessandro Albani. Il giovane Albani era cresciuto nello stesso palazzo, con molte delle antichità Massimo ancora in situ. Visto in questa luce il palazzo può essere inteso come un importante tramite tra i due uomini, e un punto di continuità tra gli approcci all’antico nel Seicento e nel secolo successivo. La famiglia Albani conservò l’esposizione di antichità Massimo all’ingresso del palazzo, e Alessandro Albani commissionò un ciclo decorativo di dipinti che si riferiva esplicitamente alla tomba dei Nasonii in un ambiente dove Camillo Massimo aveva ospitato diversi esempi di pittura murale antica rinvenuta negli scavi. L’attenzione di Camillo Massimo per il potenziale estetico dell’arte classica fu condivisa da Albani, come poi dimostrerà nell’allestimento delle antichità nella Villa Albani.

 

 

Alessandro Albani’s patronage of Richard Wilson: redirecting European art

 

Robin Simon

 

Dei molti interventi del cardinale Albani a favore degli artisti britannici a Roma negli anni centrali del XVIII secolo, pochi ebbero effetti di così vasta portata come la sua protezione di Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782), che a Roma per quasi sei anni, nel 1751-1757, si affermò come pittore di paesaggio, con l’esito che il corso della pittura di paesaggio inglese ed europea venne profondamente cambiato. Il saggio esplora inoltre l’amicizia di Wilson con Anton Raphael Mengs e la loro interazione all’interno del circolo artistico più influente della Roma del tempo. Si evidenzia infine il ruolo di due dei seguaci di Wilson, Johannes Wiedewelt e Johan Mandelberg, che dopo il soggiorno romano contribuirono a diffondere il Neoclassicismo in Scandinavia.

 

 

La villa del cardinale Albani: nuove ricerche sulle fasi di acquisizione dei terreni (1745-1768)

 

Susanna Pasquali

 

Cardinal Alessandro Albani built his grandiose villa by acquiring, over a period of twenty years, several vineyards outside Porta Salaria at the northern edge of Rome. Forty years after the research already carried out on the sequence of these land acquisitions, the present author is returning to this subject; to what is already known, is now added an important group of unpublished letters concerning the early stages of the acquisition process (dating from 1745–46) and information on the individual sellers and other documents that have since been published. By correlating the areas of land gradually acquired with the buildings erected on them, the author proposes an identification of different concepts for the villa, that were both successive and overlapping.

 

 

Villa Albani nei Taccuini Torlonia

 

Elisa Debenedetti

 

In studying Carlo Marchionni’s drawings—thanks to the authorisation granted by the Torlonia Foundation—the author focuses on eight sheets that finally make it possible to clarify Marchionni’s relationship with Giovanni Battista Nolli regarding the Casino at Villa Albani, as well as the more complex one with Cardinal Albani himself, with whom Marchionni had collaborated since 1728 on the other family villas at Anzio and Castelgandolfo. In the drawings, one can already see the connection formed between an imagined parterre and the terrace by means of the double staircase, bridging the differences in height. With the fountains however, Marchionni is the sole author and he dedicates numerous drawings to these (the Fountain of the Nile, the Fountain of the Horse, the Aedicule of Jupiter), and also to the last construction, that of the “Coffee house”, dating from 1764-65. Additionally there is the unforgettable drawing of the exedra, in which the image takes the place of the project and the architecture appears in a sublime and dreamy vision. Regarding the interior decoration of the Galleria Nobile, which is briefly mentioned here, the reader is directed to the author’s essay in the forthcoming volume dedicated to Villa Albani, edited by Carlo Gasparri.

 

 

Carlo Marchionni a Villa Albani: una possibile evoluzione progettuale

 

Alessandro Spila

 

The villa that Cardinal Alessandro Albani planned on the Via Salaria to house the last of his collections of antiquities is the highest expression of his patronage. The ambition to create a complex of buildings inspired by antiquity was entrusted to Carlo Marchionni, an architect who was not always able to realise the great collector’s ambitious visions. As Anna Ottani Cavina suggested, the challenge of “separating Marchionni’s ideas from Albani’s with the most powerful of lasers,” remains to be answered; that is, to distinguish the personal contributions of the client from his architect’s solutions, as well as from those of other partners in the project such as Nolli, Piranesi, Clérisseau, or Mengs. Moreover, scholarly criticism of Marchionni’s architecture still presents substantial shortcomings today. Of the approximately three hundred drawings in the three Torlonia albums, described by Joachim Gaus but still unpublished, only a few have been made public, for example when permission to take photographs was exceptionally granted to Ugo Mulas in 1962. On the basis of the few drawings found so far in Rome, New York and Berlin, this essay puts forward a hypothesis regarding the evolution in design of the Casino at Villa Albani; born from the remodelling of a pre-existing structure (perhaps conceived by Nolli), via various proposals for extensions and modifications by Marchionni, up to the final structure as it was built.

 

 

Tracce documentarie sugli artisti al servizio del cardinale Alessandro Albani (1755-1765)

 

Maria Barbara Guerrieri Borsoi

 

The essay presents a new source for the study of the patronage of Cardinal Alessandro Albani, namely his bank account at the Banco di S. Spirito, and focuses on the years in which it was used with a particularly notable frequency (from 1755 to 1765). There are difficulties inherent in the use of this documentation and the type of information that can be extracted from it, but the analysis focuses on the painters, since we also have information from other sources about those who were in Albani’s service at the villa on the via Salaria. The most highly paid artist in the accounts examined is Nicola La Piccola and therefore the second part of the essay is dedicated to rethinking his work at the Villa, with particular reference to the Coffee-house and the Room of Antinous.

 

 

“Noi non siamo venuti che per vedere il Parnasso di Mengs”.
Aggiornamenti sul rapporto del pittore sassone con Alessandro Albani

 

Steffi Roettgen

 

From 1752, which was the year of Mengs’s arrival in Rome, until 1779, the year that both he and Albani died, contacts between Alessandro Albani and Anton Raphael Mengs were frequent and friendly and extended to the painter’s family. There are at least three works by Mengs in which Albani played a decisive role. The first is the copy of Raphael’s School of Athens for Northumberland House in London, a commission that is amply documented through the cardinal’s diplomatic correspondence with Sir Horace Mann; secondly, the frescoes in the gallery of the Villa Albani and finally the altar painting for the basilica of St Peter’s, a commission that was obtained thanks to Albani’s intervention. This essay aims to illuminate Albani’s diverse roles here; as intermediary, patron or ecclesiastical dignitary. It will also focus on the genesis of the frescoes in the Albani Gallery in the light of iconographic research and on Winckelmann’s possible role in the choice of subjects for the Gallery.

 

 

Albani drawings and prints in the British royal collection

 

Rea Alexandratos

 

La collezione di stampe e disegni acquistata da re Giorgio III dal cardinale Alessandro Albani nel 1762 si componeva, come è noto, di circa 200 grandi volumi, tra cui disegni del Domenichino e di altri artisti barocchi italiani dalla collezione di Carlo Maratta, disegni architettonici di Carlo Fontana, e il ‘Museo cartaceo’ di Cassiano dal Pozzo. Non resta alcun inventario dell’insieme della collezione al tempo del cardinale, e non venne stilata alcuna registrazione dell’acquisto fatto dal re prima dello smantellamento di molti dei volumi entrati nella Biblioteca Reale e la fusione con i materiali di grafica della Collezione Reale. Basandosi sulla Collezione Reale attuale, i suoi inventari e la storia delle varie dispersioni, il saggio mira ad aggiornare la vicenda della vendita Albani e a riassumere i dati sul maggior numero possibile dei 200 volumi menzionati da James Adam, negoziatore della vendita.

 

 

Il privilegio di copiare: apprendere l’architettura nella biblioteca Albani

 

Francesca Favaro

 

This essay examines the privilege granted by Cardinal Alessandro Albani to a young architect from Turin, Bernardo Antonio Vittone (1704–1770), consisting of access to his library to study and copy the rich collection of architectural drawings by Carlo Fontana (1638–1714), kept there until 1762. Evidence of this prestigious and rare privilege can be found in the presence of a large number of copies of drawings produced by Fontana’s atelier over at least two decades, conserved in two albums of drawings by Vittone at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. By opening up his library to Vittone, Cardinal Albani played a significant role in that architect’s professional development. Used for the practice of drawing and the study of architectural grammar, Fontana’s drawings, now dispersed in collections in Italy and England, were in fact an essential tool for the young professional to learn about architecture: a process that took place in stages and began with the practice of copying.

 

 

Il catalogo dei libri di casa Albani della Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma

 

Andrea De Pasquale

 

The Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma holds an important manuscript catalogue in three volumes that lists about 12,000 works from the “Libreria di Casa Albani.” This catalogue then passed to the Boncompagni family, as can be seen from the inscription of this collection on the spine, obliterating that of the Albani. It was subsequently bought by the National Library in 1899. As is well known, French revolutionaries confiscated the entire patrimony of the Albani family; the arrival of the Neapolitans led to further looting and the books, as well as numerous statues, were sent to Naples. It was not until 1815 that Carlo and Cardinal Giuseppe Albani demanded the return of the confiscated property and succeeded in recovering a large part of it. The catalogue of the Library appears to date from those years and is a snapshot of the situation of the Albani Library rebuilt and expanded by Cardinal Giuseppe. It is, therefore, important historical evidence, giving us the chance to understand the extent of that library’s holdings, before it was broken up following the death of Prince Filippo in 1852.

 

 

“Per ubidir alli comandi della Santità Vostra”.
Cronaca di viaggio di Alessandro, Carlo e Bernardina Albani (1706)

 

Brunella Paolini

 

In 1706, the then fourteen-year-old Alessandro Albani, nephew of pope Clement XI, began a journey to his hometown of Urbino and the nearby territories, in the company of his mother Maria Bernardina Ondedei and of his older brother Carlo. The correspondence in the Albani family archive (now kept in the Villa Imperiale at Pesaro) records his movements and his meetings from July to November of that year. The study of these documents, written by Alessandro and Carlo, with the exception of a single autograph letter written by Maria Bernardina, allows us to see with the eyes of the two young and curious travellers the places, the cities, the monuments and the art as well as the commercial activities and the weather conditions of that particular period; highlighting the dispositions and personalities of the authors of the letters, all of which are addressed to Clement XI.