1537-1538<\/p>\n
Grodecki (1975, 103, 110, V.(I.) 16) published the following document of 24 May 1544 from the \u201cproc\u00e8s-verbaux capitulaires\u201d of Notre Dame (here slightly corrected):<\/p>\n
Paris, Archives Nationales, Fonds capitulaires de Notre-Dame, LL 143, p.623.<\/p>\n
\u201cCommunicetur cuidam italo pictori (hic domino cardinale de Turnone requirente) protractus certe ymaginis supra voltas ecclesie incepte per defunctum dominum de Rossis.\u201d<\/p>\n
This request refers to a cartoon or drawing by Rosso for a work he planned for or began on a vault in Notre Dame and left incomplete at his death in November 1540.\u00a0 One can probably assume that the unnamed Italian painter, who had been recommended by Cardinal Fran\u00e7ois de Tournon, wanted the cartoon or drawing from the Chapter of Notre Dame in order to complete Rosso\u2019s work.<\/p>\n
Although, as Grodecki pointed out (105, n. 35), the word \u201cymaginis\u201d could refer to sculpture or to a panel painting (see also B\u00e9guin, 1989, 829, n. 7),1<\/sup><\/a> it is most likely, given the reference to the \u201cymaginis\u201d as on the vaults of Notre Dame, that the work was a wall painting.\u00a0 This is also indicated by the fact that Rosso\u2019s cartoon or drawing was to be given to a painter.\u00a0 Grodecki suggested that it might be related to a document of 7 February 1538 (DOC.35<\/a>) that authorized Rosso, while painting in Notre Dame, to wear lay clothes.\u00a0 It might also be possible to associate this \u201cymaginis\u201d with Rosso\u2019s plans for the alteration of the vaults near the \u201caltaris ardentium\u201d in Notre Dame authorized by the chapter on 19 December 1537 (L.54<\/a>) if one thinks of this work as preparation of the vaults so that a painting could be executed upon them.\u00a0 Assuming these associations to be true, then the cartoon or drawing that was wanted in 1544 could already have been made late in 1537, or early in 1538.<\/p>\n Grodecki (103, 105, ns. 35, 36) brought up the possibility that the lost work by Rosso was related to the cartoon that Vasari said Rosso made for a painting for the \u201cCongregazione del capitolo, dove [Rosso] era canonico\u201d (L.57<\/a>) or to the cartoon of Augustus and the Tiburtine Sibyl<\/i> (L.58<\/a>) that was found among Rosso\u2019s things at the time of his death.\u00a0 But she also believed that it was not done for the Chapter of Notre Dame because it was not mentioned more often or more explicitly in the \u201cproc\u00e8s-verbaux capitulaires.\u201d\u00a0 Nevertheless, it is to be noted that it was this Chapter that had Rosso\u2019s cartoon or drawing.<\/p>\n It is likely that the cartoon by Rosso that Vasari related in one place to the \u201cCongregazione del capitolo\u201d and the cartoon that he mentioned elsewhere as representing Augustus and the Tiburtine Sibyl<\/i> are the same.\u00a0 As this cartoon was found at the time of Rosso\u2019s death, it seems reasonable to conjecture that it was a project that he was at work on when he died.\u00a0 As a cartoon, it was obviously made as a model for a painting that he was actually going to execute, and because the cartoon was preserved it is probable that it was for a painting that had not yet been done, or completed, by mid-November 1540.\u00a0 Furthermore, it would appear that the \u201cCongregazione del capitolo\u201d was the Chapter of Notre Dame rather than the other one in which Rosso also had a canonicate, that of \u201cSanta Capella,\u201d although Vasari seems partly to have confused it (that is, the Chapter of Sainte Chapelle) with that of Notre Dame.\u00a0 The visionary subject of Augustus and the Tiburtine Sibyl<\/i>, showing the emperor looking up to the apparition of the Virgin and Child in the sky, would be a fine subject for a painting on a vault, especially in a cathedral dedicated to the Virgin Mary.\u00a0 Vasari said that this cartoon showed the king, the queen, soldiers, and a crowd of people, which seem also appropriate for a picture in the cathedral of Paris, and perhaps especially appropriate for one above or near to the \u201caltaris ardentium,\u201d where the king\u2019s body would be placed before its burial at Saint Denis.2<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 If this was the picture that was still incomplete in 1544 then it is possible that it was a royal commission and for this reason was not otherwise mentioned in the \u201cproc\u00e8s-verbaux capitulaires of Notre Dame.\u201d\u00a0 This could account for the Cardinal de Tournon\u2019s involvement in the matter.\u00a0 In 1544 he was one of the king\u2019s principal advisors3<\/sup><\/a> and he may have been acting on behalf of Francis I when he recommended the Italian painter who was presumably to finish the wall painting begun by the king\u2019s former painter.\u00a0 As the painting was in Notre Dame, the carrying out of the king\u2019s commission could have been entrusted to the Chapter of Notre Dame because it had jurisdiction over the vaults on which the picture would have been painted.4<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 It was this chapter, of which Rosso was a member since September 1537 (DOCS.31-35), that had been holding his cartoon or drawing since his death.5<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 It was also this chapter that commissioned Rosso on 27 October 1537 to make a design for a screen to enclose their choir (L.53<\/a>), from which his wall painting would probably have been visible. This choir screen was being paid for by the king.<\/p>\n On the possible location of the vaults on which Rosso\u2019s wall painting would have been executed, see L.56<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a>1<\/sup> B\u00e9guin seems to want to connect this \u201cymaginis\u201d to Rosso\u2019s lost painting of St. Michael<\/i> (L.61<\/a>), but no references connect this painting to Notre Dame.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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