c. 1513<\/p>\n
Fresco in a tabernacle, Villa Bartoli, Marignolle.<\/p>\n
Vasari, 1550, 796, in the \u201cLife\u201d of Rosso: \u201ccon pochi maestri volle stare alla arte, avendo egli une certa sua opinione contraria alle maniere di quegli; come si vede fuor della porta a San Pier Gattolini di Fiorenza, a Marigniolle un tabernacolo lavorato a fresco con un’ Christo morto; dove cominci\u00f2 a mostrare, quanto egli desiderasse la maniera gagliarda, e di grandezza piu de gli altri leggiarda, e maravigliosa.\u201d\u00a0 Vasari, 1568, II, 205 (Vasari-Milanesi, V, 156), the same with the following change: \u201c… a Marigniolle in un tabernacolo lavorato a fresco, per Piero Bartoli,…\u201d<\/p>\n
This is the first independent work of art by Rosso that Vasari mentions, following immediately upon the reference to his study of Michelangelo\u2019s cartoon, which seems to have taken place in 1513 (see L.3<\/a>), and before the execution of the arms of Lorenzo Pucci, for which Rosso received payment in October and November 1513 (see L.8<\/a>).\u00a0 It is therefore likely that Rosso\u2019s lost fresco was also executed in 1513.<\/p>\n At this date it is unlikely that Piero Bartoli commissioned the work as he was born in 1500.\u00a0 Probably the fresco was done for his father Matteo di Cosimo Bartoli (1474-1525).1<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 Vasari may have gotten his information from Piero\u2019s brother, Cosimo, with whom he had an extensive correspondence in the 1560s and visited twice in Venice and probably saw also in Florence before the second edition of the Lives<\/i> (see Bryce, 1983, 131-144).\u00a0 Cosimo was three years younger and had either forgotten who commissioned this fresco when he was a child and\/or wanted to advance the reputation of his brother whom he frequently tried to help.<\/p>\n Marignolle is a little over 2 kilometers southwest of the Porta Romana (where the church of S. Pier Gattolini is situated).\u00a0 According to Carocci, II, 1907, 376, the Bartoli villa there is now the Villa Miliotti.\u00a0 Bryce, 1983, 24 and n. 20, 32, also indicated that the Bartoli villa is now the Villa Miliotti (Soldaini) on via della Grillaia, and that it suffered both before and during the siege of 1530, it and its other building still \u201crovinate\u201d in 1534.\u00a0 Kusenberg, 1931, 182, n. 7, no. 3, stated that the tabernacle no longer exists.\u00a0 This was confirmed in Giulio Lensi Orlandi Cardini, Le ville di Firenze di l\u00e0 d\u2019Arno<\/i>, Florence, 1954, 147-148.<\/p>\n Natali, 1991 and 1992, bravely suggested that Rosso\u2019s ruined frescoes still exist in a tabernacle related not to the villa at Marignolle, which was not owned by Piero\u2019s branch of the family, but to the one at nearby Colombaia, which a map of 1580-1595 illustrates near to property named as still belonging to Matteo, Piero\u2019s son, although he had already died in 1575.\u00a0 The tabernacle bears the Guicciardini arms which Natali believes were added to the tabernacle when that family acquired some of the Bartoli property after Matteo\u2019s death, and the map mentioned above shows a tabernacle in this location labeled \u201cMaesta di Girolamo Guicardini.\u201d\u00a0 The barrel vaulted and domed structure on the map does not look like the existing tabernacle, which has a fresco on the wall at the end of its shallow barrel vault where the building on the map is open.<\/p>\n Unfortunately the map does not show the Bartoli villa at Colombaia, nor Colombaia, and it is not clear that the property on the other side of the road noted as belonging to Matteo Bartoli ever extended so far to include the Guicciardini tabernacle, which is actually on another road at a fork that leads to a Guicciardini villa.<\/p>\n The fresco has deteriorated to such an extent that only the figure of the Virgin is visible, and it only dimly.\u00a0 It cannot seriously be compared with the Virgin in Rosso\u2019s Assumption<\/i> of 1513-1514 at the Annunziata.\u00a0 The one detail more or less fully visible in the tabernacle fresco is the layering of the drapery over the Virgin\u2019s left thigh, which does not resemble Rosso\u2019s rumpled drapery at all.<\/p>\n Natali gives an interesting account of the iconography of the scene showing the Madonna above with the Child standing beside Her, and, it seems, Joseph of Arimathea below supporting the dead Christ with St. Jerome at his feet.\u00a0 He related the double appearance of the Virgin and Christ to the writings of St. Jerome and to the nearby convent of the Campora dedicated to \u201cSanta Maria sul poggia del Santo Sepolcro\u201d and founded by \u201cla congregazione agostiniana dei Girolamini.\u201d\u00a0 If the fresco can be read sufficiently to make these connections Natali has offered a reasonable and interesting explanation of the picture.\u00a0 But he has not shown that such an iconography was possible so early in Rosso\u2019s career, around 1516, as he would date the fresco.\u00a0 As Natali reported, A. Conti dated the picture in the second half of the century as \u201cun frutto della cultura controriformata.\u201d\u00a0 This seems to be quite likely.\u00a0 I also wonder if this fresco is the kind of picture that Vasari would have referred to so simply as a \u201cChristo morto.\u201d\u00a0 If the existing tabernacle is in fact the same one much reworked as appears in the map of 1580-1595 then it might be worth noting that there it is labeled as belonging to Girolamo Guicciardini, whose namesake appears in the fresco.\u00a0 Unfortunately I cannot accept this fresco as Rosso\u2019s.<\/p>\n Franklin, 1994, 4, 6, 8-12, 14, Pls. 8-10, thought the attribution to Rosso must be approached with considerable caution, but dated it as his before his work at the Annunziata; he also thought the commissioner may have been Piero di Cosimo Bartoli, the uncle of Cosimo Bartoli, Vasari\u2019s friend from whom he would have gotten his information.\u00a0 Costamagna, 1994, 94, n. 25, as by Rosso, confirming in part his orientation to the shop at S. Marco.\u00a0 Ciardi, 1994, 58, 71, the Madonna as related to Rosso\u2019s Assumption<\/i>, the Child to the one in the picture in Frankfurt that he gives to Rosso [RP.10].\u00a0 Mugnaini, 1994, 127, refers to it as supposed by Rosso.\u00a0 Mentioned in Nova, 1995, 553.<\/p>\n For the drawing formerly in the Grahl Collection that Kusenberg thought might be a first study for the fresco, see RP.1<\/a>.<\/p>\n