1513

Frescoes, SS. Annunziata, Florence.

DOCUMENT: A.S.F., Conv. Sopp. 119 (SS. Annunziata), no. 705 (Libro del Camarlingo, Entrata e Uscita, October 1512 to 1516), c. 105 r.:

[219] 19 September 1513: “A (spese di) muraglia a dì decto Lire 3 soldi 10 suon per fare dua arme a la camera del generale [of the Servi] portò Giohanne batista rosso — lire 3 soldi 10”

[238] 30 September 1513: “A straordinario a dì decto lire 8 soldi 8, sono per l’arme dipinte dela sala del padre generale, portò Giovanni Batista decto el Rosso — lire 8 soldi 8”

The first document published by Shearman, 1960, 153.  Berti, 1983, 54, 55, mentioned as “lunettoni” commissioned in 1513.  Carroll, 1987, 14, 33, n. 8, mentioned.  Franklin, 1994, 4, 14, 272, n. 52, 296, Appendix A, DOCUMENTS 4a-b, Appendix A, 316, published the first document in a very slightly different form, and also the second, from which the text above is given.  Marchetti Letta, 1994, 8-9, mentioned the arms as of the superior-general of the Servites.

Gino Corti informed me that just before this item the “generale” is mentioned as: “maestro Areglio [= Aurelio] d’Arezo, nostro generale.”  In a document of 1 December 1513 commissioning two frescoes to Francesco di Lazzaro Torni (see under P.3) he is named as: “maestro Aurelio nostro padre priore.”  However, from published sources Franklin (1994, 272, n. 52) identified the Servite general from 1512-1522 as Angelo d’Arezzo, and (1994, 272, n. 47) the prior from 1513 to 1514 as the Florentine Aurelio di Michelangelo Lotti.

These are the earliest documents relating with certainty to work by Rosso.  I have not been able to determine where the “camera del generale” or “sala” was nor anything else about these works.  If they were merely coats-of-arms without any flanking figures they could not have shown much of Rosso’s youthful style.  Vasari mentions figures flanking other coats-of-arms that Rosso painted slightly later at the Annunziata (L.5 and L.8).  His omission of the earlier ones from Rosso’s “Life” may indicate that, as merely coats-of-arms, they were too insignificant to mention.