The many proposals to reconstruct the original layout of the altar have left some problems still unsettled. A closer reading of the numerous documents, some not taken into consideration, permits a simpler solution especially for the predella, which has been primary theme of debate.
A unique late 16-/early 17th-century Italian codex of 115 watercolor images belonging to the New York Public Library has been considered for some forty years to be a sample book of a commedia dell'arte company. Recent findings show that it belongs instead to the genre of "blow book" used by magicians, and that it depicts a range of Renaissance entertainments that includes comedy, music, dance, cavalcades, tournaments and scenes of hellfire.
Christ Mocked was one of the last "invenzione" by Titian. Several replicas of varying quality are known. This article proposes a new history for this "invenzione", including its formal and iconographic sources. It also identifies the first version, now lost, with a work owned by Philip II in the Escorial and analyses the various changes Titian introduced in the subsequent replicas.
The Saint Roch published here for the first time is identified as the pendant to Lotto's Saint Sebastian in a private collection in Bologna. The two canvases may in turn be identified as the principal fragments of the work painted by the artist in 1549-1550 for the church of Santa Maria Posatora, outside Ancona.
This study looks at early testimony, the 1682 inventory of the Caliari house, and three examples of "replicas" by the heirs or shop of Veronese to reconsider how such paintings were made. The collaborative nature of the making of a mature "Veronese" or a work by Paolo's "Haeredi" is stressed along with the complexity of Veronese's process. It is suggested that "replicas" may have been produced by the reuse of Veronese's modelli or oil sketches, and it is noted that many chiaroscuro modelli and oil sketches of similar small scale are listed in the inventory. By squaring the modelli, whether executed in monochrome or in color, the composition could have been transferred by assistants to more than one canvas.
New and Distinctive Aspect of Domenico Brusasorci
Roger Rearick, one of the few scholars who understood the artistic prominence of the Cinquecento Veronese, apart from Paolo Caliari, would have undoubtedly been interested in the painting we are publishing here. The painting, a Santa Maria Maddalena, which comes from a still unknown villa in the Verona area, brings to mind the prototype of the long-haired Maddalenas by Gianfrancesco Caroto, master of Domenico Brusasorci. In addition, the nearly square-shaped canvas (114 × 107 cm.), seems to perfectly suit the sense of carnality emphasized in the figure. The work can be dated to the artist's juvenile years, definitely before 1554 when his distinguished benefactor, Gerolamo Fracastoro, died.
It is probable that the painting could be the same one mentioned by Bartolomeo dal Pozzo in 1718, "una mezza figura di Maria Maddalena. Di Domenico Brusasorzi bella al pari di Raffaello", and seen in Verona in the collection of Count Alvise Fracastoro, "in casa del Conte Alvise Fracastoro a' SS.Apostoli". At the beginning of that century the collection was described as a small 16th century interesting selection of works by Domenico and Felice Bruasorci and of Sante Creara, pupil of the latter. There is a charming possibility that the patron could reasonably be that Gerolamo Fracastoro (1478-1554), eminent humanist and physician, depicted in the frescoes of Palazzo Fiorio della Seta in Verona by Domenico between 1553 and 1554. After 1568 Gerolamo was also portrayed in the altar-piece for the Loggia del Consiglio in Verona painted by Orlando Flacco together with Bernardino India. Moreover he also received the honour of a statue by Danese Cattaneo, ordered in 1555 and placed on the arch of the Logge in Piazza dei Signori four years later in 1559.
A lifelong collector of old master paintings, Liotard owned from an unknown source what he treasured as a fine Venus by Titian, first recorded in 1756, sold in Paris in 1788, hence lost. No exact model is known. A late 18th-century engraving by Romanet is almost certainly after this work. Vanderlyn's Ariadne Asleep, painted in Paris c. 1810, offers a comparable composition. Liotard copied the Titian twice in pastel , probably in the 1760s, and in 1781 made his largest mezzotint after it for his treatise, where he praised it in the chapter on Grace. Another among his rare classical themes is the Callipygous Venus of 1774, which he copied in pastel in London after a plaster cast and likewise turned into a mezzotint.