{"id":2199,"date":"2011-11-23T15:18:43","date_gmt":"2011-11-23T19:18:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.vassar.edu\/rosso\/"},"modified":"2013-03-28T16:35:13","modified_gmt":"2013-03-28T20:35:13","slug":"d-38-design-for-an-altar","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/catalogues\/drawings\/d-38-design-for-an-altar\/","title":{"rendered":"D.38 Design for an Altar in S. Maria delle Lagrime, Arezzo"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_2352\" style=\"width: 221px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/files\/2011\/11\/D.38a-Design-for-an-Altar-color.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2352\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2352\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/files\/2011\/11\/D.38a-Design-for-an-Altar-color-211x300.jpg\" width=\"211\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/files\/2011\/11\/D.38a-Design-for-an-Altar-color-211x300.jpg 211w, https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/files\/2011\/11\/D.38a-Design-for-an-Altar-color-105x150.jpg 105w, https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/files\/2011\/11\/D.38a-Design-for-an-Altar-color.jpg 580w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 211px) 100vw, 211px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2352\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">D.38 Design for an Altar<\/p><\/div>\n<p>1529<\/p>\n<p>London, British Museum, no. Pp. 2-119.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/files\/2011\/11\/D.38a-Design-for-an-Altar-color.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">Fig.D.38a<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/files\/2011\/11\/D.38b-bwbook-Lagrime-Altar-London.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">Fig.D.38b<\/a> bw<\/p>\n<p>Pen and ink and wash, heightened with white, over slight traces of black chalk, on light gray-green washed or prepared paper, 47.2 x 33.2; arched at the top and cut on all sides; the drawing is very badly rubbed, and many of the white highlights, especially above, have turned black; a piece missing and filled in at the lower left beneath the third caryatid; the arched area in the center has been cut out, filled, and given a greyish wash; laid down; wm, partially visible on the surface of the paper at the upper right, a quatrefoil probably framing some device that is not visible.\u00a0 Inscribed in a cartouche on Mariette\u2019s mount: <em>Rubeus \/ Florentinus<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>PROVENANCE: P.-J. Mariette (Lugt 1852: sale, Paris, 1775, lot 677); Robert Udny (Lugt 2248); E. Lelli? (Lugt 2852, <em>Suppl\u00e9ment<\/em>); bequeathed to the museum in 1824 by Richard Payne Knight.<\/p>\n<p>LITERATURE:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Basan (Mariette sale), 1775, 104, under no. 677, as Rosso.<\/p>\n<p>Kusenberg, 1931, 137, 142, no. 50, Pl. LXXV, as Rosso, 1530-1540.<\/p>\n<p>Berenson, 1938, no. 2444B, as Rosso and as inspired by Michelangelo\u2019s ideas for the tomb of Julius II.<\/p>\n<p>Popham, 1939, 29, as Rosso.<\/p>\n<p>Barocchi, 1950, 252, n. 9, Fig. 235, as too mediocre for Rosso.<\/p>\n<p>Blunt, 1953, 40, n. 27 (1973, 409, 32), as Rosso\u2019s, based on the tomb of Julius II.<\/p>\n<p>Tolnay, IV, 1954, 107, as Rosso\u2019s preparatory drawing for an engraving based on the Julius Tomb of 1516 or 1532.<\/p>\n<p>Berenson, 1961, no. 2444B.<\/p>\n<p>Carroll, 1964 (1976), I, Bk. I, 228-234, II, Bk. II, 360-367, D.38, Bk. III, Fig. 101, as a copy of a lost drawing of about 1532-1533; \u201cAddition to the Preface,\u201d 1976, vii, as autograph.<\/p>\n<p>Carroll, 1966, 170, 171, Fig. 4, 173-175, 179, as Rosso, done in France between late 1530 and late 1533.<\/p>\n<p>Eisler, 1969, 244, n. 162, 245, as by or after Rosso, and as probably dating from the 1530s.<\/p>\n<p>Zerner, in <em>EdF<\/em>, 1972, 247, under no. 279, and <em>Fontainebleau<\/em>, 1973, I, 77, under no. 279, mentions the drawing in relation to Alberti\u2019s engraving of this composition.<\/p>\n<p>B\u00e9guin, \u201cMa\u00eetre Roux,\u201d 1972, 102, as Rosso.<\/p>\n<p>Clifford, 1974, 393, as a much damaged drawing by Rosso.\u00a0 T<\/p>\n<p>urner, 1986, 150, no. 108, 151, Color Pl.<\/p>\n<p>Carroll, 1987, 10, 25-30, 41, 162-167, no. 55, with Fig., as Rosso, 1529, for an altar in S. Maria delle Lagrime in Arezzo.<\/p>\n<p>B\u00e9guin, 1988 (1989), 11, Fig. 5, 12, as Rosso, and of the French period.<\/p>\n<p>Carroll, 1989, 15-17, Fig. 30.<\/p>\n<p>Ciardi and Mugnaini, 1991, 150, as Rosso and as for the miraculous image of the Madonna delle Lagrime.<\/p>\n<p>Joukovsky, 1992, 132, 173, n. 1, accepted the French dating of this drawing in relation to the use of architecture and sculpture by Rosso in the Gallery of Francis I.<\/p>\n<p>Franklin, 1994, 236, 252, Pl. 202, 253-255, 266, as by Rosso, as possibly for S. Maria delle Lagrime, the capitals of which are like those in the drawing, and for an altar some eight meters high; the seated figures presumably prophets in the context of the altar\u2019s Marian imagery.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This drawing is very closely related to an engraving by Cherubino Alberti inscribed: <em>Rubeus \/ Florentinus \/ Inuentor<\/em> and <em>Cherubinus <strong><sup>.<\/sup><\/strong> Albertus .-\/ Excussor \/ Romae- <strong><sup>.<\/sup><\/strong>1<strong><sup>.<\/sup><\/strong>5<strong><sup>.<\/sup><\/strong>7<strong><sup>.<\/sup><\/strong>5\/ <\/em>(<a href=\"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/files\/2012\/04\/E.4a-Alberti-Altar-Florence-1579ss.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">Fig.E.4a<\/a>).\u00a0 The print shows several additions, but where it coincides with the drawing it is of the same size and reproduces the same image almost exactly, but in reverse.\u00a0 There are, however, a few slight differences.\u00a0 At the top of the drawing, the top of the socle has a different design and the swags below it are not elaborated with leaves.\u00a0 The second cherub in the drawing stands behind his torch, which rests on a base, while in the print the comparable figure holds a torch without a base.\u00a0 However, in the drawing, the body of the cherub can be seen through the base and stem of the torch, suggesting that the elimination of them might be indicated here by the draughtsman.\u00a0 The capitals in the engraving are somewhat elaborated.\u00a0 At the bottom of the drawing, the end plinths have perpendicular outer faces, while they are shallowly curved in the engraving, changed by the engraver, it would seem, to match the profile of the entablature above.\u00a0 Furthermore, in the print, the top of the altar table is the same at both ends, while in the drawing it is partly cut back at the left.\u00a0 What the engraver has done here is merely regularize the two sides of the drawing, where alternative designs are presented.\u00a0 The other changes in the print are very slight elaborations or reductions, which can be understood fairly easily as the result of Alberti\u2019s interpretations of the drawing.\u00a0 Eliminating one section of the socle above could have been made to reduce the height of the structure so that it would fit into Alberti\u2019s overall design for his print, with the setting for the missing statue placed within an architectural frame of piers supporting an arch.\u00a0 The height of the available copper plate might also account for this slight adjustment.<\/p>\n<p>The figure of Charity surmounting the altar in the engraving needs to be considered an original part of Rosso\u2019s conception of this architectural and sculptural ensemble.<a href=\"#endref1\"><sup>1<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 A socle requires something to support and the figure of Charity is conspicuously absent from the group of Virtues that appear below as caryatids.\u00a0 Furthermore, the style of the other group in the print is easily related to that of Rosso\u2019s women and children in his <em>Allegory of the Virgin<\/em> of 1529 (<a href=\"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/files\/2011\/11\/D.33Aa-Allegory-color-from-British-Museum-data-base.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">Fig.D.33Aa<\/a>) and in his <em>Mars and Venus<\/em> of 1530 (<a href=\"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/files\/2011\/11\/D.42a-bw-Mars-and-Venus.-Louvre.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">Fig.D.42a<\/a>).\u00a0 It must also be concluded that the top of the sheet is cut and that originally it was not arched.<\/p>\n<p>Alberti\u2019s piers and arch that frame the altar stylistically bear no relation to the altar structure itself.<a href=\"#endref2\"><sup>2<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 Also an addition is the figure of Christ in the center; the cross that Christ holds and the shadow of the chalice at his feet overlap the niche in which the figure is placed in areas where the drawing shows no such details.\u00a0 However, this figure with its cross and chalice is derived from a late French work by Rosso that is known from a print (<a href=\"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/files\/2012\/04\/E.156-Christ-in-a-Niche-New-York.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">Fig.E.156<\/a>) and its copies.\u00a0 The two groups of putti on the front of the altar are borrowed from an engraving of the <em>Nymph of Fontainebleau<\/em> by Milan and Boyvin (<a href=\"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/files\/2012\/04\/E.4a-Alberti-Altar-Florence-1579ss.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">Fig.E.103<\/a>).\u00a0 These borrowings by Alberti support the information of his inscription on the engraving that gives the basic design of the print to Rosso (on this and the other inscriptions on the print, see <a href=\"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/files\/2012\/04\/E.4a-Alberti-Altar-Florence-1579ss.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">E.4a<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>As in Alberti\u2019s print, the drawing shows immediately beneath the plinths on which the front caryatids stand the upper surface of an altar table.\u00a0 Assuming that this surface would be about one meter from the floor, the British Museum drawing represents a very large structure, approximately 5.5 meters high.\u00a0 With the statue of Charity above, the structure would have to be 5.5 to 7 meters high, to which would have been added the height of the altar itself and that of any steps on which the altar would be raised.\u00a0 The front of the altar table and the steps may have originally been in the drawing, as they are in Rosso\u2019s <em>Design for a Chapel<\/em> (<a href=\"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/files\/2011\/11\/D.37a-Altar-Gathering-of-Manna.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">Fig.D.37a<\/a>), with the front of the altar undecorated.\u00a0 The altar would have been about the same size as the chapel.\u00a0 As a design for an altar rather than a small tabernacle, the central arched area in the drawing would most likely not have been fitted with a door, but would have enclosed a niche, as shown in Alberti\u2019s print, or a painting.\u00a0 However, the depiction of steps leading up to this area and the boldly sculptural design of the whole altar suggest that the lower center part was a niche for a statue, as Alberti understood, but not for the one shown in the engraving.<\/p>\n<p>The best preserved passages of this very badly damaged drawing reveal a draughtsmanship of deftly drawn pen lines and surely applied washes that is similar to the handling of Rosso\u2019s <em>Mars and Venus <\/em>of 1530 (<a href=\"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/files\/2011\/11\/D.42a-bw-Mars-and-Venus.-Louvre.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">Fig.D.42a<\/a>), although the latter, made for King Francis I, is more painstakingly executed.\u00a0 Were the altar drawing not in such poor condition, the handling of it would probably be overall quite like that of the skillfully, if not exquisitely, executed <em>Design for a Chapel <\/em>of 1528-1529.\u00a0 The <em>Design for an Altar<\/em> is not superbly executed and the drawing of some details is less precise than one might expect from Rosso\u2019s finest drawings.\u00a0 Nevertheless, the draughtsmanship of it does not reveal the hand of a copyist as does the very conscientious draughtsmanship of the Aretine <em>Madonna della Misericordia<\/em> in the Louvre (<a href=\"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/files\/2011\/11\/D.35-Copy-Paris-color-Misericordia-.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">Fig.D.35 Copy, Paris, color<\/a>).\u00a0 Consequently, it is more likely that the <em>Design for an Altar<\/em> is an autograph work rather than a copy of a lost drawing by Rosso.<\/p>\n<p>As will be indicated below, the date of the drawing is very much dependent on what one supposes was the statue that was to occupy the central niche.\u00a0 It is odd that Alberti did not include it in his engraving and odd, too, that the section of the drawing where the statue would be has been cut out (by Alberti?).\u00a0 It could be thought that the statue was not by Rosso and that Alberti, wishing the entire image that he engraved to be by Rosso, replaced this statue with another after a design by the latter, as he also added after Rosso\u2019s design the singing boys on the front of the altar.\u00a0 It might in addition be thought that the removed statue had a particular and local meaning in Arezzo that Alberti considered inappropriate for a print made in Rome for the Roman market and for distribution elsewhere.\u00a0 The statue was probably not one in Rome.\u00a0 At the same time, the fact that Alberti engraved this altar suggests, as Borea (1980, 251) indicated, that it was designed by Rosso in Italy, as is true of the other three compositions by Rosso that Alberti engraved (see E.1-3).\u00a0 These latter designs all date from between mid-1527 and 1529, within the period after Rosso fled Rome and before he went to France.\u00a0 There is, therefore, good reason to look for a date for the <em>Design for an Altar<\/em> within this same period.<\/p>\n<p>It is most likely that the altar was designed by Rosso for the church of S. Maria delle Lagrime in Arezzo to house its miraculous image of the weeping Madonna.<a href=\"#endref3\"><sup>3<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 On 29 September 1528, the Compagnia of the Madonna delle Lagrime decided to ask Andrea Sansovino to design an altar for its statue which was to be moved from the old oratory to the newly constructed church (Corradini, 1960, 124, and Franklin, 1994, 253-254, 294, n. 96-99, for this and other information below).<a href=\"#endref4\"><sup>4<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 On 15 October, the Compagnia decided not to move the statue and then on 25 November agreed to have an altar designed for the oratory (see also Azzi, 1931, 40), but the artist is not specified.\u00a0 Vasari (1568, II, 122; Vasari-Milanesi, IV, 522) mentions that Sansovino made a drawing for an \u201cornamento\u201d for this church with four figures, each four <em>braccia<\/em> high, but that this project was never realized because of Sansovino\u2019s death, which occurred in March or April 1529.\u00a0 It seems unlikely that Sansovino did anything as the result of the Compagnia\u2019s decision of 29 September 1528, which was abandoned on 15 October 1528, perhaps only days after Sansovino would have learned of the earlier decision.\u00a0 The project Vasari records must be the one related to the decision of 25 November, the day after Rosso was commissioned to do a series of frescoes for this church (see D.31-34).\u00a0 With statues four <em>braccia<\/em> high, Sansovino\u2019s project would have been one of considerable size.<\/p>\n<p>The miraculous statue, a polychrome terracotta image of the Madonna and Child made about 1430 by Michele da Firenze, is approximately 1.50 meters high and is now placed above the high altar of the church in a large structure designed for it around 1600.<a href=\"#endref5\"><sup>5<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 Prior to its placement there, the statue seems to have been on an inconspicuous altar, perhaps the original one that Sansovino was to replace.<a href=\"#endref6\"><sup>6<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 In Rosso\u2019s drawing, the niche can be calculated to be about 1.60 meters high, just the right size to contain the miraculous statue, the very closed composition of which would have been completely contained within the limits of the niche. \u00a0Iconographically, all of the parts of Rosso\u2019s altar, including the missing figure of Charity above, support the probability that the central image of the structure was the Madonna and Child.\u00a0 One should also note that prior to the miracle of the weeping statue in 1490, the church (then a small oratory), the beginning of the new and very much larger construction of which dates from that year, was called, as it is today, SS. Annunziata.\u00a0 Above the niche in Rosso\u2019s drawing is a relief of the Annunciation.<\/p>\n<p>Although I formerly thought that this drawing was done at the very beginning of Rosso\u2019s French period, further evidence given above makes it most likely that it was done within the year before he left Italy.\u00a0 On stylistic grounds there is no reason why this should not be the case, even though architecturally the altar most resembles what appears in some of Rosso\u2019s Fontainebleau frescoes.\u00a0 One has merely to believe that the architecture of the altar anticipates the buildings in the French pictures and that the architecture in the latter is not dependent on anything especially new that Rosso learned in France.\u00a0 Vasari (1568, II, 209; Vasari-Milanesi, V, 165) tells us that Rosso made drawings for \u201cfabriche\u201d in and around Arezzo and we also know that while there he owned a copy of Vitruvius\u2019 treatise on architecture (see <a href=\"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/catalogues\/documents\/doc-13\/\">DOC.13<\/a>).\u00a0 Rosso seems to have made an intensive study of architecture at this time, perhaps in anticipation of the career he would have in France, and this study may well account for the difference between the architecture of the <em>Design for a Chapel<\/em> of 1528-1529 (<a href=\"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/files\/2011\/11\/D.37a-Altar-Gathering-of-Manna.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">Fig.D.37a<\/a>) and that of the <em>Design for an Altar<\/em>.\u00a0 The use of caryatids may well be dependent upon Rosso\u2019s study of Vitruvius and his discussion of them in the first book of <em>The Ten Books on Architecture<\/em>, with illustrations in Renaissance editions.\u00a0 What does appear certain is that the architecture of the altar is more sophisticated and inventive than that of the chapel and hence that the altar is a later work.<\/p>\n<p>B\u00e9guin\u2019s opinion that the design was made in France is dependent upon the placement of Charity at the top of the monument, a virtue important to Francis I, and on Alberti\u2019s use of the two prints of French images by Rosso to complete Rosso\u2019s scheme for his engraving of 1575.\u00a0 However, the interest in Charity on the part of the King that she brings forth belongs to 1517 (see also Lecoq, 1987, 384-386, and B\u00e9guin, <em>Paragone<\/em>, 1989, 8-14), more than a decade before Rosso would have made his drawing in Arezzo.\u00a0 Furthermore, Rosso designed his monumental altar to contain all seven virtues, of which one had to be placed in a central position.\u00a0 And as B\u00e9guin said herself, Charity is the \u201cvertu qui contient toutes les autres.\u201d\u00a0 Hence, its placement on top of the altar appears easily justified.\u00a0 As to the use of the French prints: there were no Italian printed images that would have served Alberti\u2019s purpose.\u00a0 If the drawing were made in France, it is surprising that it was not engraved by an engraver working there, such as Milan or Boyvin.<\/p>\n<p>The decision by the Compagnia on 29 September 1528 to have Sansovino design a new altar for its statue seems to be related to the assumption that this statue would be moved from its location in the oratory to the high altar of the newly constructed church.\u00a0 But when it was decided on 15 October of the same year not to move the statue from the oratory, the decision on 25 November 1528 to have an altar built was for one to be erected in that oratory itself.\u00a0 Sansovino\u2019s design for this altar may be preserved in a drawing in Lille (<a href=\"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/files\/2011\/11\/Sansovino-Lille.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">Fig.Sansovino, Lille<\/a>).<a href=\"#endref7\"><sup>7<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 Rosso\u2019s drawing would seem to have been done for an altar to be situated in the same location.<a href=\"#endref8\"><sup>8<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 It was probably done after Sansovino died at the end of March or the beginning of April 1529.\u00a0 As Rosso fled Arezzo in early September 1529, and at that time abandoned his fresco project for S. Maria delle Lagrime (see D.31-34), the <em>Design for an Altar<\/em> must have been done before that time.<\/p>\n<p>The drawing could be one that Rosso left behind in Arezzo when he fled in September 1529 and one that was inventoried in 1532 (see <a href=\"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/catalogues\/documents\/doc-13\/\">DOC.13<\/a>), designated as \u201cuno desegno in carte verde.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>COPY, PRINT: Cherubino Alberti, E.4 (<a href=\"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/files\/2012\/04\/E.4a-Alberti-Altar-Florence-1579ss.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">Fig.E.4<\/a>).\u00a0 Engraving.<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr align=\"left\" size=\"1\" width=\"33%\" \/>\n<div>\n<p><a name=\"endref1\"><\/a><sup>1<\/sup> The Charity in Alberti\u2019s engraving is related to a drawing in Edinburgh (<a href=\"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/files\/2011\/11\/Edinburgh-D826-bw-Charity.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">Fig.Edinburgh, D826<\/a>), National Gallery of Scotland, no. D826.\u00a0 Pen and brown ink, 17.3 x 7.1; faintly inscribed in darker brown ink at the bottom: <em>rosso<\/em>.\u00a0 PROVENANCE: Davis Laing; The Royal Scottish Academy.\u00a0 LITERATURE: Carroll, 1966, 173, n. 22, as reflecting Rosso\u2019s draughtsmanship but certainly not autograph.\u00a0 Andrews, 1968, I, 110-111, II, Fig. 753, as a copy after Rosso.\u00a0 B\u00e9guin, 1988 (1989), 12, Fig. 7, as a copy after Rosso perhaps by L\u00e9onard Thiry.\u00a0 Franklin, 1994, 254, as a copy recording the figure of Charity at the top of Rosso\u2019s altar.\u00a0 This drawing shows the group in reverse of what appears in the print, indicating that the former was not copied from the latter.\u00a0 But the socle in the drawing is as it appears in the print and not as in the British Museum drawing, although the swags are simplified as in the latter.\u00a0 The penmanship of the drawing vaguely suggests that it may have been copied from a drawing by Rosso that would most likely also have had washes and possibly white heightening.\u00a0 However, that drawing would not have been from what has been cut from the top of the British Museum drawing unless it was the draughtsman of the Edinburgh drawing who eliminated the missing section of the socle.\u00a0 In this case, the drawing may go back to Alberti\u2019s shop.\u00a0 An alternative conclusion is that the print is actually based on another version of the British Museum drawing in which the socle had its slightly different design and in which also other small differences, as noted above in the print, may have appeared.\u00a0 The other version could have been a <em>disegno di stampa<\/em> especially made by Alberti or by someone in his shop from which the engraved plate was actually made.\u00a0 B\u00e9guin\u2019s suggestion that the Edinburgh drawing may be by Thiry does not seem acceptable on the basis of what we know of this artist (see now especially Brugerolles and Guillet, 1994, 92-129).\u00a0 The attribution to Thiry would also seem dependent on Rosso\u2019s drawing having been done in France, which I think is not the case.\u00a0 B\u00e9guin also thought (1988 [1989], 12, and Fig. 8 ) that the drawing was similar to the <em>Virgin and Child<\/em> by Geoffrey Dumonstier but in its actual details this is not true.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><a name=\"endref2\"><\/a><sup>2<\/sup> They are also not related to the architecture of the church of S. Maria delle Lagrime in Arezzo, in the oratory of which (see below) this altar would most probably have been built.\u00a0 Nevertheless, Alberti\u2019s framing of the altar with architecture may indicate that he had some idea of the intended location of the altar.\u00a0 The cutting of the top of Rosso\u2019s drawing into an arch may have been determined by the example of Alberti\u2019s print.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><a name=\"endref3\"><\/a><sup>3<\/sup> See Dezzi Bardeschi, 1964, 59, 97, n. 22.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><a name=\"endref4\"><\/a><sup>4<\/sup> See also Silvano Pieri, \u201cLa Compagnia della SS. Annunziata dal XIV al XVIII Secolo,\u201d <em>Annunziata Arezzo<\/em>, 1990 (1993), 26, 27, Fig. 1, 31, 46-51.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><a name=\"endref5\"><\/a><sup>5<\/sup> On this statue, see Mario Salmi, \u201cLa Madonna delle Lacrime di Arezzo,\u201d <em>Rassegna d\u2019Arte<\/em>, XV, 1915, 263-264; Giuseppe Fiocco, \u201cMichele da Firenze,\u201d <em>Dedalo<\/em>, XII, 7 July 1932, 542-563; Mario Salmi, <em>Onoranze a Guido d\u2019Arezzo. Mostra d\u2019Arte Sacra della Diocesi e delle Provincia dal Sec. XI al XVIII<\/em>, exh. cat., Arezzo, 1950, 19-20, no. 26.\u00a0 The high altar was designed by Ridolfo Sirigatti and apparently executed in 1601 (Thieme-Becker, XXXI, 1937, 102; but Dragoni, 1759, 44, says the altar was begun in 1591 and finished at the end of 1599 on the design of Bernardo Sirigatti).\u00a0 Photographs of this altar are found in Venturi, XI, I, 1938, 477, Fig. 436, and in Dezzi Bardeschi, 1964, 58, 62, 68, and 71.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><a name=\"endref6\"><\/a><sup>6<\/sup> Dragoni, 1759, 44, said that before its placement on the high altar, the statue was also moved earlier because \u201cil posto del suo antico altare, per esser rimasto nel fondo, ed in un canto della chiesa, parea non molto decoroso.\u201d\u00a0 From this remark, made over 150 years after the statue was moved, it is not possible to tell where precisely the statue had been &#8211; if, in fact, Dragoni really knew.\u00a0 But it would have been in the atrium of the church that was built on the site of the old oratory (see Coradini, 1960, 117, and Dezzi Bardeschi, 1964, 63-65, 74, on the original location of the Trecento oratory at the right end of the atrium that replaced it, behind its still existing fa\u00e7ade).\u00a0 The location of the altar in the atrium is also indicated by frequent references to it in relation to Marcillat\u2019s round window of the <em>Marriage of the Virgin<\/em>, which is in the wall at the far right end of the atrium (see Silvano Pieri, \u201cLa Compagnia della SS. Annunziata dal XVI al VII Secolo,\u201d in <em>Annunziata Arezzo<\/em>, 1990 [1993], 48; and Giovanna Virde, \u201cLe Vetrate della Chiesa della SS. Annunziata in Arezzo,\u201d in <em>Annunziata Arezzo<\/em>, 1990 [1993], 192-194, and n. 87).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><a name=\"endref7\"><\/a><sup>7<\/sup> Lille, Mus\u00e9e Wicar, no. 53v, B457, Pl. 798.\u00a0 Pen and ink and wash, 21 x 14; inscribed in ink across the bottom: <em>di maestro adrea dalmonte a San Savino<\/em>; in the upper right corner in ink: <em>H3<\/em>; at the lower left, in pencil: <em>457<\/em>.\u00a0 From a photograph, the drawing appears to be a page from a notebook.\u00a0 The drawing has been related to the Lagrime altar by Luigi Grassi (see D.37, n. 1).\u00a0 Vasari stated that Sansovino\u2019s project had four statues, each four <em>braccia<\/em> high.\u00a0 The drawing shows a central niche which would have been for the miraculous image, and areas at left and right which could be for statues but, shaded as they are, could have been filled with paintings.\u00a0 Above are sketches for three large statues; at the ends are sculpted torches.\u00a0 If this drawing is for the Lagrime altar then Vasari was wrong in saying it had four figures by Sansovino.\u00a0 Franklin, 1994, 294, thinks Grassi was wrong.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><a name=\"endref8\"><\/a><sup>8<\/sup> On the identification of this location with the atrium of the church, see n. 6.\u00a0 If the altar that Rosso designed was not for the high altar because the Compagnia wanted to keep its statue at the location where the oratory had been, then perhaps the altar was meant for the left end wall of the atrium where there is now a door.\u00a0 Still, the high altar is more possible and the Compagnia could have changed its mind again.\u00a0 It was for the upper walls of the central bay of this atrium that Rosso was commissioned to do a series of frescoes on 24 November 1528 and all the documents referring to Rosso, and to Soggi, concerning the frescoes locate them as above the altar of the Madonna delle Lagrime, which must, then, have been in the new atrium and apparently in the present center bay of it (see Preface to and D.31-34).\u00a0 The iconography of the altar is compatible with and does not duplicate that of these frescoes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>1529 London, British Museum, no. Pp. 2-119. Fig.D.38a Fig.D.38b bw Pen and ink and wash, heightened with white, over slight traces of black chalk, on light gray-green washed or prepared paper, 47.2 x 33.2; arched at the top and cut on all sides; the drawing is very badly rubbed, and many of the white highlights, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"parent":820,"menu_order":41,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2199","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2199"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3019,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2199\/revisions\/3019"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}