MASTERPIECE
"THE BANQUET"
oil on canvas, 160 x 94 cm
Camillo PROCACCINI (Parma, 1561 – Milan, 1629) and assistants
with interventions by Annibale and Agostino Carracci
Biography and critical essay
Camillo Procaccini was born in Parma on March 3, 1561, to Ercole and his second wife, Nera Sibilla. Trained in his father's workshop, as early as 1571, at just ten years old, Camillo was registered with the Arte dei bombasari e dei pittori of Bologna (where the family had returned after a long stay in Parma), thanks to the prestige enjoyed by Ercole within the institution. The artist's first work is S. Giovanni Battista alla fonte (1577), now at the Galleria Estense in Modena, which reveals a reflection on the models offered by Raphael, Michelangelo, and Pellegrino Tibaldi.
In 1582, a trip by Procaccini to Florence with the painter Gian Paolo Bonconti is attested. In the same year, Camillo signed the contract for the Assunta of Ss. Gregorio e Siro in Bologna, likely completed the following year.
In 1583, the artist had a son from his wife, Francesca Dall'Olio, but both must have died shortly after, as they do not appear in subsequent documents (Arfelli, 1959). During this period, Procaccini was involved by Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti in the execution of the Stories of St. Peter that decorated the presbytery of the cathedral of Bologna, and in the same construction site, he also frescoed the crypt together with Bartolomeo Cesi (1584-85).
Of both these complexes, executed under Paleotti's strict directives for the iconographic choices, rigidly tied to the Counter-Reformation canons, few fragments remain, while the decoration of the prelate's chapel, also in the cathedral, completed by 1585, where Camillo collaborated with Cesi and Giovanni Battista Cremonini, is lost.
In addition to these prestigious commissions that attest to his early affirmation in Bologna, the artist worked for other prominent clients in the city, executing in 1584 the Adoration of the Shepherds, formerly in the Ghislieri chapel in S. Francesco (Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale), in which echoes of the painting of Correggio and Federico Barocci can be perceived, and by 1585 the altarpiece, now lost, for the country villa of Ulisse Aldrovandi, indicative of the relations between Camillo and the naturalist (Mazza, in Camillo Procaccini, 2007).
The lost frescoes (known through early 20th-century photographs) in the church of S. Clemente in the Collegio di Spagna in Bologna (1582-85), whose monumental imprint finds its reference points, in the Bolognese context, in Cesi and Bartolomeo Passerotti, are situated in parallel with the aforementioned works.
One of the most significant moments of the master's youth is represented by the first decorative campaign of the presbytery of S. Prospero in Reggio Emilia, executed between 1585 and 1587: in the Universal Judgment of the apsidal basin, Camillo moved with an executive freedom unprecedented in his career, combining echoes of the painting of Federico Zuccari with an exuberant narrative vein full of charged and grotesque humors. Alongside this decisive undertaking, the painter received other commissions in the city, including the canvas with S. Rocco communicating with the plague-stricken (formerly Dresden, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, lost in 1945 and known through photographs) for the local oratory dedicated to the saint, a work counterbalanced by the Alms of S. Rocco, executed by 1595 by Annibale Carracci.
In the shadow of these highly significant commissions, the artists active in Reggio promoted, in 1586, the establishment of an Academy of Painting and Sculpture, under the guidance of Procaccini (Artioli - Monducci, 1973). Despite this prestigious recognition, the master decided to accept the invitation of Count Pirro I Visconti Borromeo, moving to Milan in 1587 (Berra, 2002) and leaving the frescoes in S. Prospero unfinished, which he would complete only ten years later.
The circumstances of the meeting between Camillo and Count Visconti Borromeo, a crucial event for the painter's career, remain elusive; according to Carlo Cesare Malvasia (1678, 1841), before arriving in Lombardy, the artist would have made a trip to Rome following the Milanese nobleman, a piece of information for which we have no precise confirmation.
Upon his arrival in Milan, Camillo was employed by Pirro I, between 1587 and 1589, in the secular decoration of the villa of Lainate and the spectacular environments of its nymphaeum (Morandotti, 2005). The immediate success enjoyed by these first works, which, testifying to a full adherence to the painting of the Zuccari, Correggio, and Barocci, were highly innovative in the Milanese figurative context, is attested as early as 1587, when Giovan Paolo Lomazzo, in his Rime published that year, celebrates a Sacrifice of Isaac by the artist (Lomazzo, 1587, 2006).
In addition to his activity in Lainate, Camillo established himself in that period as a painter of the sacred area and completed in Milan, by 1590, the Assumption of the Virgin, formerly in S. Francesco Grande (Pinacoteca di Brera; Cassinelli 2004-2005) and the Transfiguration, formerly in S. Fedele (Isola Bella, Borromeo collection; Cassinelli - Vanoli, in Camillo Procaccini, 2007), immediately translated by himself into an engraving.
During this fertile season, the master also experimented with the technique of etching, dedicating four prints to the theme of the Rest during the Flight into Egypt, inventions capable of fascinating local masters, including the emerging Giovan Battista Crespi, known as Cerano. Camillo's considerable talent is also revealed in his prolific activity as a draftsman, within which the youthful works depicting caricatured heads stand out (Cassinelli - Vanoli, in Camillo Procaccini, 2007). The master's conspicuous pictorial and graphic production has been the subject of a unique and fundamental monographic reconnaissance (Neilson, 1979).
A Stato delle anime of 1590 attests that Procaccini, then unmarried, lived in Milan with his brothers Carlo Antonio and Giulio Cesare and with his father Ercole (Besta, 1933), from whom he obtained the emancipatio the following year, that is, autonomy and independence also in collecting the profits of his activity (Berra, 2002). In the same year 1591 Procaccini completed the Martyrdom of S. Agnese for the Duomo of Milan (Isola Bella, Borromeo collection), the first commission received by the master in that construction site and started the cycle dedicated to the Stories of the True Cross in Riva San Vitale, in Canton Ticino (1591-92).
In 1592 Procaccini's fame on the Milanese scene reached its peak with the commission of two doors for the southern organ of the Duomo, completed in 1595: especially in the scenes with the Triumph of David the master revealed a language updated on the trends of the most modern reformed painting, which distanced itself from the tests of the other artists then in the city, anchored to the Mannerist tradition. To testify to the success of these creations, the fabricators of the Duomo entrusted the painter with the execution of another pair of doors destined for the northern organ (1600-02).
In the face of this significant affirmation, from the end of the sixteenth century, however, there is a progressive decline in the artist's creative tension and a decisive change in his figurative language which, having become more paused and severe, would have made Camillo one of the most effective interpreters of the counter-reformed canons advocated by Federico Borromeo.
The refinement of this successful formula, to which the master would have remained faithful throughout his subsequent career, allowed him, thanks to a flourishing workshop able to replicate and vary his inventions, to cope with the growing demand for his works destined for numerous centers in Lombardy and northern Italy, which already in a first census conducted in the second seventeenth century by Malvasia (1678, 1841) were perceived as «a phalanx of innumerable works».
The new course undertaken by the painter is already testified, moreover, by some commissions received in 1594, such as the canvas with the Apostles at the tomb of the Virgin in S. Maria Maggiore in Bergamo (not yet completed in 1596) and the paintings in S. Maria di Campagna in Pallanza, on Lake Maggiore.
On the personal front, in 1595 Camillo is married to Anna Pagani, from whom he would have numerous children and who would have survived him (Caprara, 1977).
Around the end of the last decade of the sixteenth century Procaccini decorated the choir of the church of S. Angelo in Milan and in 1597 he returned to Reggio Emilia to complete the frescoes in the basilica of S. Prospero, receiving further commissions in the city (Cadoppi, 2014).
In addition to this return to Emilia, in 1600 the Pentecost in the church of the Ospedale Maggiore of Lodi was paid to the painter (Cavalieri - Comincini, 2010), to which is to be approached the version of the same subject, of higher quality and perhaps slightly earlier, today in the Duomo of Cremona (Tanzi, 2015).
The commitments in the sacristy and in the chapel of S. Gregorio in S. Vittore al Corpo in Milan (1601-02) also date back to the very early years of the seventeenth century, and by 1603 Camillo completed the decoration of the sacellum dedicated to S. Giuseppe in the sanctuary of the Madonna Addolorata of Rho (Frangi, 1992).
Throughout the first decade of the century the artist was also summoned to Piacenza, where he was active on several occasions: in particular, he executed the monumental and agitated Massacre of the Innocents in the prestigious building site of S. Sisto (1600-05) and between 1605 and 1609 he took part in the cycle of frescoes and canvases for the apse and the presbytery of the cathedral: a highly significant undertaking, to which Ludovico Carracci was also summoned (Longeri Corradini, 2000).
In the meantime, between 1605 and 1607, Procaccini had completed the canvases destined for the chapel of the Immaculate Conception in S. Francesco in Lodi (Cavalieri - Comincini, 2010). The Mystical Marriage of S. Caterina in the parish church of Castiglione delle Stiviere (Marinelli, 1994) and the Madonna and Saints formerly in S. Domenico in Cremona (now in the parish church of Isola Dovarese, in the Cremonese zone) also date back to 1606.
In 1607 the master had also completed the cycle of paintings for the collegiate church of Bellinzona, and the participation in the series of canvases with the Allegories of the Savoy Provinces for Carlo Emanuele I of Savoy, executed together with Cerano, Pier Francesco Mazzucchelli, known as the Morazzone, Giovan Mauro della Rovere, known as the Fiamminghino, and his brother Giulio Cesare, probably dates back to 1608.
Camillo was responsible for the Allegory of Aosta, now lost, of which a graphic testimony remains at the Biblioteca Reale of Turin, probably a trace provided to him for the execution of the work (D'Albo, forthcoming).
The economic well-being achieved by Procaccini also thanks to this frenetic production is reflected in the purchase, in 1609, of a house in the parish of S. Calimero in Milan, where the artist lived for the rest of his life (Caprara, 1977).
In 1610 Procaccini participated in the apparatus for the canonization of St. Charles Borromeo and in the same period he worked on the chapel of S. Diego d'Alcalá in S. Angelo in Milan, while in 1611 he was again summoned by the Fabbrica of the Duomo of Milan for the decoration of the ceiling of the northern sacristy. To these enterprises must be brought closer the Assumption of the Virgin in the church of S. Alessandro in Milan (1612-13) and the Martyrdom of S. Teodoro in the Trivulzio chapel in S. Stefano in Milan (1613; Squizzato, 2013).
In the second half of the second decade of the seventeenth century, Procaccini completed other important commissions both in Milan, where he executed the organ doors of the basilica of S. Vittore al Corpo (1615-16) and decorated the chapel dedicated to the Virgin in S. Maria del Carmine (1616-19), and for the church of the Certosa di Pavia, for which he licensed, in 1616, the altarpieces with the Annunciation and the Veronica.
In 1618 the artist painted the canvas with the Dispute between S. Ambrogio and S. Agostino placed in front of the Baptism of S. Agostino by Cerano in the presbytery of the church of S. Marco in Milan, and the Birth of the Virgin in S. Maria delle Grazie in Brescia is dated to the same year. Camillo's fortune in the Venetian domains, of which Brescia was part, is also attested by the canvases for the chapel of S. Carlo Borromeo in S. Nicola da Tolentino in Venice (circa 1618; Neilson, 1979).
As further testimony to the success enjoyed by the painter at the court of Savoy, in 1619 he was paid for some works destined for the apartments of Cristina di Francia in the palace of S. Giovanni in Turin, executed in collaboration with his brother Giulio Cesare (Failla, forthcoming).
At the beginning of the third decade of the seventeenth century the master participated in the cycle of the Old Testament heroines in S. Maria di Canepanova in Pavia (1620-23) with two canvases depicting Maria sister of Moses and Rebecca at the well (Bertazzoni, 1993), to which can be compared, for sustained quality, the Martyrdom of S. Bartolomeo at the Museo Camuno of Breno, in Val Camonica, dated 1622.
In slightly later times Procaccini painted the Crucifixion in S. Alessandro in Milan (1623-26), while between 1624 and 1625 he was involved in the frescoes with Musical Angels in the choir of the church of Ss. Paolo e Barnaba in Milan.
As the culmination of an intense career, in 1627 Gómez Suárez de Figueroa duke of Feria, Spanish governor in Milan, commissioned Procaccini two paintings, now lost, destined for the collections of the royals of Spain and set up in the Salon Nuevo of the Alcázar of Madrid (Pierguidi, 2012).
His last work is perhaps the Adoration of the Magi in the parish church of Biumo Inferiore, in Varese, which bears the inscription in capital letters «HIC CAMILLI PROCACINI MANUS INCLYTAE CECIDERUNT» (Zani, 1999).
The severe features of Camillo are known to us thanks to a portrait, in which he appears around fifty-five years old, now kept at the Pushkin State Museum of Moscow, referred to in a dubious way to his brother Giulio Cesare; another lost and probably later effigy, perhaps a self-portrait, was engraved in the seventies of the eighteenth century by Antonio Francesco Albuzzi (1772-1778, 2015).
The artist died in Milan on August 21, 1629.
Sources and Bibl.: G.P. Lomazzo, Rime ad imitazione de i Grotteschi usati da’ pittori (1587), edited by A. Ruffino, Manziana (Roma) 2006, pp. 428 s.; Id., Rabisch. Giovan Paolo Lomazzo e i Facchini della Val di Blenio (1589), edited by D. Isella, Torino 1993, 130 s.; C.C. Malvasia, Felsina pittrice: vite de’ pittori bolognesi (1678), I, Bologna 1841, pp. 212-220; G.A.F. Albuzzi, Memorie per servire alla storia de’ pittori, scultori e architetti milanesi (1772-1778), edited by S. Bruzzese, Milano 2015, ad indicem.
B. Besta, Alcune notizie per una storia degli artisti milanesi del Seicento, in Archivio storico lombardo, LX (1933), 4, p. 456; U. Thieme - F. Becker, Künstlerlexikon, XXVII, Leipzig 1933, pp. 413 s.; A. Arfelli, Per la cronologia dei Procaccini (e dei figli di Bartolomeo Passarotti), in Arte antica e moderna, 1959, n. 8, pp. 457-461; N. Artioli - A. Monducci, Scuole e Accademie reggiane di pittura nel Cinque e Seicento. Documenti editi e inediti, in Strenna del Pio Istituto Artigianelli, 1973, p. 24; V. Caprara, Nuovi reperimenti intorno ai Procaccini, in Paragone, XXVIII (1977), 333, pp. 95-100; N.W. Neilson, C. P. Paintings and drawings, New York-London 1979; A. Morandotti, Per l’attività di C. P. nell’antico Stato di Milano: il ciclo di Torre Garofoli, in Arte lombarda, n.s., 1984, nn. 70-71, pp. 137-143; N. Artioli - E. Monducci, Gli affreschi di C. P. e Bernardino Campi in San Prospero di Reggio Emilia, Reggio Emilia 1986; D. Benati, C. P., in Pittura bolognese del ’500, edited by V. Fortunati Pietrantonio, II, Bologna 1986, pp. 861-863; N.W. Neilson, in Pinacoteca di Brera. Scuole lombarda, ligure e piemontese 1535-1700, Milano 1989, pp. 344-362; M.C. Chiusa, Sant’Angelo in Milano. I cicli pittorici dei Procaccini, Milano 1990; F. Frangi, in Pittura tra Ticino e Olona. Varese e la Lombardia nord-occidentale, edited by M. Gregori, Milano 1992, pp. 257 s., 266 s.; A. Morandotti, ibid., pp. 258 s.; G. Bertazzoni, Committenza e significato del ciclo delle eroine veterotestamentarie in S. Maria di Canepanova a Pavia, in Artes, I (1993), pp. 62 s.; S. Marinelli, Note da Felice Brusasorci a Pietro Ricchi, in Verona Illustrata, VII (1994), p. 75; S.A. Colombo, in Pittura tra il Verbano e il Lago d’Orta dal Medioevo al Settecento, edited by M. Gregori, Milano 1996, pp. 274-276; M. Dell’Omo - F.M. Ferro, La pittura del Sei e Settecento nel novarese, Novara 1996, ad ind.; G. 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Il Ratto di Elena di Guido Reni e la sua replica tra Madrid, Roma e Parigi, Roma 2012, ad ind.; O. D’Albo, in Museo Camuno di Breno. Guida ai dipinti, edited by F. Piazza, Torino 2013, pp. 40 s.; A. Squizzato, I Trivulzio e le arti. Vicende seicentesche, Segrate 2013, pp. 76 s., 199; I. Bianchi, Saints and martyrs «in si strane guise tormentati». The frescoes by Bartolomeo Cesi and C. P. in the crypt of Saint Peter’s Cathedral in Bologna, in Autopsia: Blut- und Augenzeugen. Extreme Bilder des christlichen Martyriums, edited by C. Behrmann - E. Priedl, München 2014, pp. 127-143; A. Cadoppi, Nuove notizie sulla pala di C. P. per la chiesa di S. Vitale (poi S. Girolamo), in Reggio Storia, XXXVI (2014), 142, pp. 15-23; Alessandria e Asti nel Seicento: repertorio antologico della pittura genovese e lombarda, edited by A. Morandotti - G. Spione, Genova 2014, ad ind.; La peinture en Lombardie au XVIIe siècle. La violence des passions et l’idéal de beauté (catal., Ajaccio), edited by F. Frangi - A. Morandotti, Cinisello Balsamo 2014, ad ind.; G. Berra, Il «Martirio di sant’Agnese» di C. P. per il Duomo di Milano: precisazioni sulla datazione, in Valori Tattili, 2015, nn. 5-6, pp. 131-143; M. Tanzi, La Zenobia di don Álvaro, Milano 2015, ad ind.; P. Vanoli, Il «libro di lettere» di Girolamo Borsieri: arte antica e moderna nella Lombardia di primo Seicento, Milano 2015, ad ind.; O. D’Albo, I Lombardi «primi mastri che sieno in Europa»: il ciclo delle Province Sabaude e altre imprese per Carlo Emanuele I, in Scambi artistici tra Torino e Milano 1580-1714. Atti del Convegno, Torino... 2015, edited by A. Morandotti - G. Spione, Segrate forthcoming; M.B. Failla, La fortuna dei lombardi negli acquisti e nelle committenze di Vittorio Amedeo I per il Palazzo di San Giovanni, ibidem.
Prof. Giovanni Morsiani
www.palazzodelbuonsignore.com
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PRIVATE NEGOTIATION
Measures H x L x P cm. 94,0 x cm. 160,0 x