Early 1528<\/p>\n
Drawing made for Giovanni Antonio Lappoli, in Borgo Sansepolcro, Vincenzo Borghini Collection, Florence.<\/p>\n
Vasari, 1568, III, 384 (Vasari-Milanesi, VI, 11), in the \u201cLife\u201d of Lappoli: \u201cMa cessato finalmente quella influenza in modo, che si pot\u00e8 comminciare a conversare insieme; un fra Guasparri conventuale di San Francesco, allora guardiano del convento di quella citt\u00e0, allog\u00f2 a Giovan\u2019Antonio la tavola dell\u2019Altar maggiore di quella chiesa per cento scudi, accio vi facesse dentro l\u2019Adorazione de\u2019Magi: perche il Lappoli sentendo, che\u2019l Rosso era al borgo san Sepolcro, e vi lavorava (esendosi anch\u2019egli fuggito di Roma) la tavola del la compagnia di Santa Croce; and\u00f2 a visitarlo.\u00a0 E dopo havergli fatto molte cortesie, e fattogli portare alcune cose d\u2019Arezzo, delle quali sapeva, che haveva necessit\u00e0, havendo perduto ogni cosa nel sacco di Roma, si fece far un bellissimo disegno della tavola detta, che haveva da fare, per fra Guasparri.\u00a0 Alla quale messo mano, tornato, che fu in Arezzo, la condusse, secondo i patti, in fra un\u2019anno dal di della locazione, e in modo bene, che ne fu sommamente lodato.\u00a0 Il quale disegno del Rosso, l\u2019hebbe poi Giorgio Vasari, e da lui il molto Reverendo Don Vincenzio Borghini Spedalingo degli Innocenti di Firenze, e che l\u2019ha in uno suo libro di disegni di diversi pittori.\u201d<\/p>\n
This account of Lappoli\u2019s painting follows upon Vasari\u2019s telling of the artist\u2019s escape from Rome to Arezzo after the Sack of early May 1527 but also after his subsequent flight from Arezzo for a few months because of the plague.\u00a0 Vasari then goes on to say that not much later Lappoli became guarantor of the contract that Rosso made to execute a series of frescoes for the church of S. Maria delle Lagrime in Arezzo.\u00a0 This took place on 24 November 1528 (see the Preface to D.31-34<\/a>).\u00a0 Rosso had fled from Rome to Perugia.\u00a0 He then went to Borgo Sansepolcro where he was already by 23 September 1527 when his altarpiece in that town was commissioned (P.19<\/a>).\u00a0 It cannot be exactly determined when Lappoli visited Rosso in Borgo Sansepolcro at the time that he was executing his Piet\u00e0<\/i> there.\u00a0 Late 1527 is possible, or early 1528.\u00a0 But given Vasari\u2019s remarks about Lappoli having been out of Arezzo for a few months because of the plague and the date of the Lagrime commission, early 1528 seems a more probable time for the visit.\u00a0 Rosso himself visited Arezzo at some time between late March, at the earliest, and April 20, 1528 (see L.22<\/a>), by which time the Borgo Sansepolcro Piet\u00e0<\/i> may have been completed.\u00a0 Lappoli\u2019s visit to Rosso would quite likely have taken place before this time.<\/p>\n Rosso\u2019s drawing, which Vasari owned and then gave to Vincenzo Borghini, is lost.1<\/sup><\/a> But the altarpiece that Lappoli painted from it has always been identified as the painting still in the church of S. Francesco depicting the Adoration of the Magi with Sts. Francis and Anthony of Padua<\/i> (Fig.Lappoli, Magi<\/i> a<\/a>; Fig.Lappoli, Magi<\/i>, b<\/a>; and Fig.Lappoli, Magi<\/i>, before restoration<\/a>; Kusenberg, 1931, 42, 192, n. 120; Barocchi, 1950, 73, n. 1, 244; Carroll, 1967, 302-303, Fig. 8, before restoration; Freedberg, 1971, 320; 1975, 464; Maetzke, in Giorgio Vasari<\/i>, 1981, 326-327, no. 5 and Figs. 239, 240, after restoration; Rudolph, 1982, 122; M.G. Sassoli, in Pittura,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinquecento<\/i>, 1987, I, 362; Carroll, 1987, 25, 34, n. 64; Forlani Tempesti, 1992, 94-96, Fig. 5); Franklin, 1994, 177-181, Pl. 140; Casciu, 1994, 22, Color Fig., 23, no. 5; Costamagna, 1994, 321, under A113.2<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 Vasari says only that Rosso gave Lappoli a drawing without specifying what kind.\u00a0 But from the altarpiece itself it would appear that this drawing was quite complete and not merely a drawing of nudes as he had given Lappoli for his earlier Visitation<\/i> (L.17<\/a>).\u00a0 The faceting of the drapery and the costumes in the painting resemble those in Rosso\u2019s Sansepolcro Piet\u00e0<\/i>, even if Lappoli has reduced their sharp description and decorative effectiveness.\u00a0 Very much altered would seem to be the heads from what Rosso\u2019s drawing showed, although the head of St. Francis is characterized in a rather Rossoesque manner.\u00a0 Two or three heads at the upper right look like portraits.\u00a0 The general darkness of the painting may well preserve a tonality that was indicated in Rosso\u2019s drawing but that Lappoli might also have seen in Rosso\u2019s contemporary Piet\u00e0<\/i>.<\/p>\n For a copy of a drawing related to details of this painting, see D.26B<\/a>.3<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n