{"id":3751,"date":"2012-04-04T16:47:51","date_gmt":"2012-04-04T20:47:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.vassar.edu\/rosso\/?page_id=3751"},"modified":"2013-02-21T17:42:42","modified_gmt":"2013-02-21T22:42:42","slug":"e-1-alberti-magi","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/catalogues\/engravings\/e-1-alberti-magi\/","title":{"rendered":"E.1 Adoration of the Magi"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

E.1 Alberti, Adoration of the Magi, III<\/p><\/div>\n

Engraving by Cherubino Alberti, 36.2 x 26.5 L + 2.3 margin below L to P (New York).<\/p>\n

Three states, all with blank margin below:<\/p>\n

I.\u00a0 Inscribed bottom center: 1574<\/em>.<\/p>\n

II.\u00a0 Inscribed with date, and at the bottom, toward the right, Alberti\u2019s cipher.<\/p>\n

III.\u00a0 Inscribed with date and at lower left: Cum priulegio summi Pontificis \/ Rubeus florentinus inuen<\/em>, and at lower right: Romae <\/em>followed by Alberti\u2019s cipher.<\/p>\n

Fig.E.1<\/a> (State III, New York)<\/p>\n

Heinecken, I, 1778, 95.\u00a0 Bartsch, XVII, 1818, 54, 12 (State III only).\u00a0 Le Blanc, 1854-1890, I, 8, 13.<\/p>\n

COLLECTIONS: Berlin, 224-20; 225-20 (both III).\u00a0 Florence, 1571ss (I).\u00a0 Florence, Marucelliana, Vol. XIII, no. 35 (III).\u00a0 London V,1.135 (II); 1874,0808.487 (III).\u00a0 New York, 62.602.302 (III).\u00a0 New York, William H. Schab, Catalogue 74 (1987), 32-33, no. 25, Fig. (III).\u00a0 Paris, Arsenal, Vol. 168 (2), no. 66 (III) (see Sch\u00e9fer below).\u00a0 Paris, Ba 12, f. 5; Eb 13; RC 36f (all III).\u00a0 Poughkeepsie, no. 864.1.432 (III).\u00a0 Vienna, It.I.37, p.9; It.II.21, p.66 (both III).<\/p>\n

LITERATURE:<\/p>\n

Sch\u00e9fer, 1894-1929, col. 555, no. 66.<\/p>\n

Kusenberg, 1931, 157, 159, Pl. LXXXIX, 2 (Paris, Ba 12).<\/p>\n

De Witt, 1938, 32.<\/p>\n

Carroll, 1964 (1976), I, Bk. I, 148-152, III, Fig. 73 (Paris, Ba 12).<\/p>\n

Shearman, 1966, 171, n. 37, as possibly after the cartoon made for Domenico Alfani in Perugia in 1527.<\/p>\n

Carroll, 1967, 299-302, Fig. 5 (Paris, Ba 12), as in reverse of Rosso\u2019s cartoon made for Alfani in Perugia in the spring or summer of 1527.<\/p>\n

Borea, 1980, 251-252, no. 633, as after Rosso\u2019s cartoon for Alfani.<\/p>\n

Buffa, IB<\/em>, 34, 1982, 130 (London, III).<\/p>\n

Carroll, 1987, 41, 144-146, no. 48, with Fig. (New York, III).<\/p>\n

Carroll, 1989, 15, Fig. 28 (New York).<\/p>\n

Franklin, 1994, 158-160, Pl. 159 (London, II), believed that the differences that can be found between Alberti\u2019s print and the painting of different proportions that Alfani made from Rosso\u2019s lost drawing are almost certainly due to the printmaker.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Alberti\u2019s authorship of this print and Rosso\u2019s authorship of its design have never been questioned, although Franklin questioned the fidelity of the engraving to Rosso\u2019s lost drawing.\u00a0 The engraving is based upon \u201cun cartone di una tavola de\u2019 Magi\u201d that Rosso made for Domenico Alfani in Perugia shortly after the Sack of Rome in May of 1527 (see L.20<\/a>).\u00a0 Alberti\u2019s engraving is in reverse of Rosso\u2019s lost cartoon, as we know from the direction of Alfani\u2019s painting (Fig.Alfani<\/a>).\u00a0 The cartoon was made in the late spring or summer of 1527.\u00a0 According to Vasari, it was still owned by Domenico Alfani when the first edition of the Lives<\/em> was written.\u00a0 But by the time of the second edition, he had died.\u00a0 His son, Orazio, lived until 1583, active as a painter in Perugia.\u00a0 Alberti may have obtained Rosso\u2019s \u201ccartone\u201d from him.<\/p>\n

Franklin\u2019s belief that the composition of the print was significantly altered by Alberti seems to me belied by the evidence of the print itself and by its relation to Alfani\u2019s more square painting.\u00a0 Simply removing from the print a strip of sky above and an even smaller strip below brings the two works into the same proportions.\u00a0 These additions by Alberti may have been related to the size of the plate that Alberti had, as Franklin suggested, or to a wish by Alberti to make the scene in 1574 slightly more spacious.\u00a0\u00a0 This probably allowed for Alberti to add the star with its rays at the upper right, a detail that Franklin would give to Rosso as his only supernatural detail in the scene.\u00a0 It is also possible that a very small amount was added to the composition at the left and right.\u00a0 Otherwise, the scene is most likely very close to what Rosso invented, except that the engraving is in reverse.\u00a0 Thus the print has almost the same fidelity as the Altar<\/em> (Fig.E.4a<\/a>) that Alberti engraved after Rosso\u2019s surviving drawing (Fig.D.38a<\/a>).\u00a0 Alfani altered Rosso\u2019s design in so many ways as to completely change its intrinsic iconographical meaning, especially in the placement of the Child on a block of stone, as though on an altar, and his being touched by both Mary and Joseph, the latter detail only in the print and one that Franklin pointed out as due to Rosso.\u00a0 I would suspect that the very foreshortened kneeling and almost prostrate magus in the engraving was beyond the powers of Alfani to appreciate and probably to reproduce and hence that magus in the painting has a much simpler pose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Engraving by Cherubino Alberti, 36.2 x 26.5 L + 2.3 margin below L to P (New York). Three states, all with blank margin below: I.\u00a0 Inscribed bottom center: 1574. II.\u00a0 Inscribed with date, and at the bottom, toward the right, Alberti\u2019s cipher. III.\u00a0 Inscribed with date and at lower left: Cum priulegio summi Pontificis \/ […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"parent":824,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3751","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3751","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=3751"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8611,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3751\/revisions\/8611"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}