1530-1540<\/p>\n
After mentioning the Piet\u00e0<\/i> that Rosso made for Montmorency (P.23<\/a>) and the miniatures that he executed for Francis I (L.52<\/a>), Vasari (1568, II, 211; Vasari-Milanesi, V, 171) reported: \u201cFece app[re]sso un libro di notomie per farlo sta[m]pare in Fra[n]cia, del quale sono alcuni pezzi di sua ma[n]o nei [sic<\/i>] n[ost]ro libro de\u2019disegni\u201d (see Wyatt, 1859, 359; and Kurz, 1937, 36).\u00a0 This passage does not appear in the 1550 edition.<\/p>\n None of Rosso\u2019s drawings for this book are known.\u00a0 Two drawings in Edinburgh that have been associated with this project are certainly not by him (Fig.Edinburgh, D(NG)601<\/a> and Fig.Edinburgh, D(NG)601, verso<\/i><\/a>).1<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 Domenico del Barbiere\u2019s engraved Two Skeletons and Two Flayed Male Figures<\/i> (Fig.RE.3<\/a>) has been thought to be after a design by Rosso, and hence related to the anatomy drawings mentioned by Vasari.\u00a0 But the style of Barbiere\u2019s figures indicates that the engraving is of his own design.<\/p>\n As early as 1852, Choulant (1920 [1852], 152-155, 393) suggested that the woodcuts illustrating Charles Etienne\u2019s De dissectione partium corporis humani<\/i> published in Paris in Latin in 1545 (Fig.Etienne, 1545, Title Page<\/a>) and in French in 1546 might be after drawings by Rosso.2<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 Choulant did not press his case and also suggested Jean Goujon.\u00a0 The attribution to Rosso was not pursued by Kusenberg, 1931, 106, 204, n. 268, nor by Barocchi, 1950, 253, but was mentioned by Schlosser, 1924, 204-205 (Schlosser Magnino, 1956, 232-233, referring to Mathias Duval and E. Cuyer, Histoire de l\u2019anatomie plastique<\/i>, Paris, 1899, 89), which Kusenberg noted.\u00a0 Brieger, 1938, 340, gave the designs to the School of Fontainebleau.\u00a0 Bucci, 1969, 146-151, brought up the names of Jean Cousin, Jean Goujon, and Rosso as the author of the illustrations, and illustrated Rosso\u2019s Moses Killing the Egyptian and Defending the Daughters of Jethro<\/i> in this context (Fig.P.14a<\/a>).<\/p>\n In 1955 Kellett commented that the long series of male dissection figures in Etienne\u2019s book was based on drawings by Rosso, a thesis he elaborated in 1957 and 1958.3<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 Kellett recognized that the illustrations in Etienne\u2019s De dissectione<\/i> were not all in the same style.\u00a0 Some of the plates of female figures in Book Three he saw were derived from the Loves of the Gods<\/i> engraved by Caraglio from drawings by Rosso and Perino del Vaga.\u00a0 Rosso\u2019s figure of Proserpina (Fig.E.46a<\/a>) was used in two of the plates on pages 260 and 281 (Fig.Etienne, 1545, 260<\/a> and Fig.Etienne, 1545, 281<\/a>).\u00a0 But what interested him most was the set of eight figures related to the illustrations in Giacomo Berengario de Carpi\u2019s Commentaria…super anatomia Mundini<\/i>, Bologna, 1521 (Fig.Berengario, 1521, f.82 verso<\/i><\/a> and Fig.Berengario, 1521, f.520 recto<\/i><\/a>), and the immediately following set of twenty-five plates showing young men hooked up on trees (Fig.Etienne, 1545, 168<\/a>), leaning against rocks (Fig.Etienne, 1545, 175<\/a>), set on architecture (Fig.Etienne, 1545, 208<\/a>), and sprawling in great chairs (Fig.Etienne, 1545, 241<\/a>).\u00a0 Kellett added to these plates three from Jacques Kerver\u2019s Les Figures et Portraicts des parties du corps humanin<\/i>, published in Paris in 1557 and in 1575, that reused the plates of Etienne\u2019s book with several other plates.4<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 Kellett believed that the Zodiac Man (Fig.Kerver, 1575, 2 verso<\/i><\/a>) and the two plates of the Planet Man (Fig.Kerver, 1575, 3 recto<\/i><\/a>), all bearing the date 1533, of Kerver\u2019s book belonged with the other two groups.\u00a0 Kellett concluded that the designs of the two sets and of the Zodiac Man and the Planet Man were based on drawings that Rosso had brought with him to France from Borgo Sansepolcro, where, according to Vasari, he had studied cadavers at the time that he was executing the Christ in Glory<\/i> for Citt\u00e0 di Castello in 1529 and 1530 (L.34<\/a>).\u00a0 He translated Vasari\u2019s reference to \u201cuna bellissima notomia\u201d that Rosso made in Borgo Sansepolcro as \u201cfine anatomical studies\u201d that formed a \u201cbook of anatomical studies\u201d that he took to France.\u00a0 Kellett (1955, 84) attempted partially to prove his case by comparing the plate of one of the brain figures on page 253 (Fig.Etienne, 1545, 253<\/a>) with Rosso\u2019s Narcissus<\/i> engraved by Delaune (Fig.E.49<\/a>), an argument accepted by Huard and Grmek, 1965, 7-8.\u00a0 Paolo Galluzzi, in Corte, mare, mercanti<\/i>, 1980, 178, no. 5.38, also saw the influence of Rosso\u2019s drawings and pointed out specifically the Narcissus-like image.\u00a0 At least in the case of the figure on page 253, Brown Butters and Elam, 1980, 362, accepted Rosso\u2019s authorship.\u00a0 Mayor, 1984, 50, 68, 94, 95, Fig. 63, also stated that Rosso brought an anatomical manuscript to France in the hopes of having it printed, and related the image on page 253 to the fallen figure in the foreground of Rosso\u2019s Moses Killing the Egyptian and Defending the Daughters of Jethro<\/i> (Fig.P.14d<\/a>), a comparison already implied by Bucci in 1969 (see above).<\/p>\n Although she recognized the use of Rosso\u2019s figure of Proserpina for the images on pages 260 and 281 of Etienne\u2019s De dissectione<\/i> of 1545 (Fig.Etienne, 1545, 260<\/a> and Fig.Etienne, 1545, 281<\/a>), Kornell, 1989, 842-844, 847, did not accept that any of the other plates in this book were derived from designs by Rosso.5<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 She found neither the comparison with Rosso\u2019s Narcissus<\/i> nor with his Moses<\/i> painting convincing evidence for the attribution of the image on page 253 to Rosso.\u00a0 Nor did she accept the attribution to Rosso of the Zodiac Man or the two versions of the Planet Man in Kerver\u2019s book of 1557.\u00a0 Kornell also expressed the opinion that the \u201cuna bellissima notomia\u201d that Vasari said Rosso made in Borgo Sansepolcro was most likely not a book of anatomy that he would seek to have published in France but instead a single drawing.\u00a0 However, she did recognize that his study of cadavers, from which he would have made drawings, and the making of the single drawing in Borgo mentioned by Vasari \u201cwould have served him well for the later book on anatomy\u201d that he would create in France (see L.34<\/a>).6<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n Although it cannot be ruled out entirely that Rosso thought about producing a book of anatomy while he was still in Italy, Kornell is probably right in emphasizing that the drawings made specifically for an anatomy book that Vasari mentioned would seem to have been created in France in the 1530s.\u00a0 It is the date of 1532 on two of the prints of the Berengario series and of 1533 on the plates of the Zodiac Man and the Planet Man that encouraged Kellett to believe that all the prints that he attributed to Rosso were done from drawings that he had brought from Italy.\u00a0 The preface to Etienne\u2019s book clearly indicates that it was completed up to the middle of the third book as early as 1539, that is while Rosso was still alive.\u00a0 This means that all of the plates that Kellett attributed to Rosso were designed by that time.\u00a0 Difficulties postponed the actual publication of the book until five years after Rosso\u2019s death.<\/p>\n In looking at the woodcuts it is important to keep three things in mind.\u00a0 First, they are somewhat crudely cut, by Fran\u00e7ois Jollat, whose name and symbol appear on four of them.\u00a0 Second, from the proportions of the figures and the foreshortening of various parts of them, the drawings on the blocks seem also to have been inept.\u00a0 Last, all the plates, except possibly one (Fig.Etienne, 1545, 237<\/a>), that present internal details show these details on inserts, suggesting, as Kellett already indicated, that the figures were originally conceived for a different kind of project.\u00a0 These characteristics make it very difficult to read back to drawings of the figures on paper on which the woodcuts could have been based, drawings, furthermore, that may well not have had the settings and subsidiary details that appear in the plates, not to mention the internal dissections.<\/p>\n Taking all of these conditions into consideration, it is still impossible to see in the Berengario series any similarity to Rosso\u2019s art.7<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 Nothing of the proportions of the figures, the description of their heads, hands, and feet, or their poses find any comparison in work by this artist.\u00a0 The case is somewhat different with the second set of twenty-four young men hung up on trees, propped against walls, set up on architecture, placed in chairs, and posed in landscapes (see above).<\/p>\n However, this group is not homogenous.\u00a0 The first seventeen, not counting the image on page 189 that belongs to the Berengario series, show slender young men variously presented in five different ways interspersed amongst themselves: hung up on trees (5), seated on a ruined wall (4), seated on a kind of altar or shrine (4), seated on architectural ruins (3), and seated in a large chair (1).8<\/sup><\/a> The distinction between their presentations is not quite so clear as this listing of them may seem to indicate, for the altar and ruins and even the chair share characteristics.\u00a0 The next set of seven forming the brain series show older and more muscular men.9<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 Of this group the first two figures in a landscape are stylistically similar in the simplicity of their forms and poses (Fig.Etienne, 1545, 236<\/a> and Fig.Etienne, 1545, 237<\/a>).\u00a0 The other five are pictorially the richest of all the plates in the poses of the figures, in the description of their external anatomy – only the tops or backs of their heads are cut open – and in their settings.<\/p>\n None of the subsidiary details of architecture and ornament in any of these prints, and this includes the Berengario series, show any resemblance whatsoever to what can be found in Rosso\u2019s art.\u00a0 Thus what has to be considered is the figures only on the assumption that the architecture and ornament, and the landscapes, were added by whoever prepared the figures for the prints.\u00a0 The first two figures on pages 236 and 237 (Fig.Etienne, 1545, 236<\/a> and Fig.Etienne, 1545, 237<\/a>) suggest, in the largeness of their forms and the clarity and even ease of their poses, contact with recent Roman art.\u00a0 But otherwise there is nothing about them that specifically indicates Rosso.\u00a0 It is only the last five on pages 239, 241, 242, 246, and 253 that might be associated more closely with Rosso\u2019s art (Fig.Etienne, 1545, 239<\/a>; Fig.Etienne, 1545, 241<\/a>; Fig.Etienne, 1545, 242<\/a>; Fig.Etienne, 1545, 246<\/a>; Fig.Etienne, 1545, 253<\/a>).\u00a0 One sees certain correspondences, if not identity, with the various nudes that appear throughout the Gallery of Francis I.\u00a0 As noted by Mayor, the figure on page 253 does recall one in the foreground of the Moses Killing the Egyptian and Defending the Daughters of Jethro<\/i>.\u00a0 Figures from the works he did in Rome are also comparable.\u00a0 Therefore, it should be left open as a possibility, although I am not at all convinced that it is true, that these figures go back to drawings that Rosso made in France for a book of anatomy that he wished to have printed there.<\/p>\n Although Etienne\u2019s book was published in 1545, it is known that all the plates here considered were prepared in 1539, and most likely in Paris.\u00a0 Consequently, if, as Vasari says, Rosso was himself working on anatomical drawings to be printed as a book in France, it seems that he would have been aware of the preparations that were being made for Etienne\u2019s publication in the 1530s.\u00a0 Perhaps it was work on this book that prevented Rosso\u2019s own from being published. \u00a0But it is also possible that Rosso\u2019s work touched upon the conception of Etienne\u2019s book that might imitate it in certain respects, perhaps even by using some of Rosso\u2019s drawings.\u00a0 Until more conclusive evidence to the contrary appears, it seems better to leave the matter thus rather than to exclude altogether the possibility that Rosso\u2019s project had something bearing on what appears in this book.<\/p>\n There is still the matter of the three plates of 1533 in Kerver\u2019s book of 1557.10<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 Of these only the plate of the Planet Man seen from the front on page 3 recto<\/i> suggests Rosso at all (Fig.Kerver, 1575, 3 recto<\/i><\/a>).\u00a0 The muscular shoulders, arms, and legs recall those of the French Seated Male Nude<\/i> (Fig.D.68a<\/a>), although this kind of musculature can also be found earlier in his art, as in the Gods in Niches<\/i> (E.26-45<\/a>).\u00a0 However, the surrounding figures of the planets do not look like Rosso at all, and thus if the main figure is his, it would have to be supposed that he did not intend it necessarily to be used to represent the Planet Man, nor for that matter to show the internal organs.\u00a0 It is likely that Rosso\u2019s book on anatomy was to be concerned only with skeletal and muscular structure without any consideration of the internal organs.11<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a>2<\/sup> De dissectione partium corporis \/ humani libri tres, \u00e0 Carolo Stephano, doctore Me.= \/ dico, editi. Un\u00e0 cum figuris , & incisionum decla= \/ rationibus, \u00e0 Stephano Riuerio Chirugo co[m]positis \/ Cum priuilegio \/ Parisiis \/ Apud. Simonem Colinaeum \/ 1545<\/i>.\u00a0 There is a French edition of the following year: La dissection des parties du corps \/ humain diuisee en trois liures, faictz par Charles Estienne \/ docteur en Medecine: auec les figures & declaratio[n] des in \/ cisions, composees par Estienne de la Riuiere Chirurgien. \/ Imprime a Paris, chez Simon de Colines, 1546, Auec priuilege du Roy<\/i>.\u00a0 All of the images used in this entry for the figures of the 1545 Latin edition of Etienne\u2019s book are from the volume in the History of Science Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries, website (the smaller images), and from the Historical Anatomies on the Web Project, The History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health.\u00a0 There is also available a microfilm of the 1546 edition from The Army Medical Library, Washington, D.C., Acc. No. 6235.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/a>3<\/sup> See also Kellett\u2019s text in Medical Illustrations and the School of Fontainebleau<\/i>, exh. cat., King\u2019s College, University of Durham, Newcastle upon Tyne, 10th – 19th July 1957, On the occasion of the meeting of the British Medical Association.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/a>4<\/sup> Les \/ Figures et por- \/ traicts des parties du \/ corps humain. \/ A Paris. \/ Par Jaques Keruer, rue S. Jaques, \u00e0 la Licorne. \/ 1557<\/i>.\u00a0 There is a second edition with the same title and the date 1575.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/a>5<\/sup> Kornell, 1989, 843, Fig. 48, shows page 281 (305 of the 1546 edition), Rosso\u2019s figure reversed.\u00a0 This page also appears in Bousquet, 1964, 247, with no reference to Rosso.\u00a0 Page 260 (283 of the 1546 edition) shows only the legs and the upper part of the left arm used, in the same direction.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/a>6<\/sup> Kornell, 1989, 847, brought up \u201cwhat nature of book Rosso was planning in France and at what kind of market it was to be aimed,\u201d suggesting that it may have been a collaborative effort with Rosso providing the illustrations to a medical text, or a book of anatomy for artists.\u00a0 This cannot be known for sure, but if the book was Rosso\u2019s project, as the history of the study of anatomy within Rosso\u2019s own career presented by Vasari and visible in Rosso\u2019s work would seem to suggest, then most likely it was to be a book for artists, like the ones planned by Leonardo and Michelangelo, mentioned by Kornell.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/a>7<\/sup> On the following pages in the copy of the 1545 edition in the British Museum (C.112 n.7) and pages in brackets in the copy of the 1546 edition in the New York Academy of Medicine: 149 [151], 150 [152], signed and dated 1532, 151 [153], signed and dated 1532, 161 [168], 163 [171], 165 [174], 166 [175], 170 [179], and 189 [202].\u00a0 The last was not included in this set by Kellett but this must have been an oversight as stylistically it is identical to the others in it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/a>8<\/sup> In the editions of 1545 and 1546 (see preceding note) they are found on pages: 168 [177], 172 [181], 175 [185], 180 [191], 190 [203], 196 [210], 202 [216 but numbered 194], 205 [219], 208 [223], 210 [225], 213 [228], 218 [235], 221 [238], 224 [241], 228 [246], 229 [247], and 230 [248].\u00a0 Kellett included page 189 [202] in this set but clearly it belongs to the Berengario set.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/a>9<\/sup> In the 1545 and 1546 editions (see note 7), pages 236 [255], 237 [256], 239 [258], 241 [261], 242 [262], 246 [266], and 253 [275].\u00a0 Kellett included page 250 [271] but the figure here is derived from Perino\u2019s Mars and Venus<\/i> engraved by Caraglio (see Kornell, 1989, 843, Figs. 49-50, 844).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/a>10<\/sup> See note 4.\u00a0 The pages are unnumbered.\u00a0 The Zodiac Man is on page 2 verso<\/i>, the Planet Man on page 3 recto<\/i> (front view) and page 3 verso<\/i> (back view).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/a>11<\/sup> On the interest in anatomy at the time in relation to Domenico del Barbiere\u2019s Two Skeletons and Two Flayed Male Figures<\/i> (RE.3<\/a>), see Wardropper, 1985, 56-60.\u00a0 Kornell, 1989, 847, and n. 44, speculates on the kind of book Rosso planned, whether a medical book for which he would have done illustrations of a text by someone else, or a book of anatomy for artists by Rosso alone.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 1530-1540 After mentioning the Piet\u00e0 that Rosso made for Montmorency (P.23) and the miniatures that he executed for Francis I (L.52), Vasari (1568, II, 211; Vasari-Milanesi, V, 171) reported: \u201cFece app[re]sso un libro di notomie per farlo sta[m]pare in Fra[n]cia, del quale sono alcuni pezzi di sua ma[n]o nei [sic] n[ost]ro libro de\u2019disegni\u201d (see Wyatt, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"parent":826,"menu_order":65,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-7853","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7853","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=7853"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9096,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7853\/revisions\/9096"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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