Commissioned by Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, a great-nephew of Pope Alexander VIII, this was part of a massive series, heroic in scale as well as narrative, of fifteen tapestries depicting the romanticized version of the Christians’ First Crusade into Jerusalem recounted in Tasso’s sixteenth-century epic poem, Gerusalemme Liberata (Jerusalem Delivered).

The Farnese table, one of the most beautiful and evocative pieces of Renaissance furniture in existence, was acquired by the Museum in 1958. Two years later, curator Olga Raggio presented it as a "rediscovered work by Vignola" in a magisterial article that has remained a model for subsequent studies in the history of furniture.[1]In its form-a marble top supported on three marble piers-the table reflects ancient Roman prototypes, such as are depicted in ancient frescoes.[2] Each pier is carved in the center of each side with a grotesque torso and a coat of arms and on each end with a sphinx emerging from foliage. The top is a slab of white marble sumptuously inlaid in ancient Roman style with many different colored marbles and with semiprecious stones called pietre dure. So rich is the inlay that the white marble matrix is visible only in the lines that surround various borders and the larger geometric figures, which include medallions, cartouches, rectangles, and ovals. In the center of the slab, enclosed within black slate borders decorated with pietre dure rosettes and stylized lilies, are two panels of Egyptian alabaster.[3]The coats of arms on the piers are embellished with six lilies carved on oval panels surmounted by a cross and a galero, or cardinal's hat. Lilies appear again on the tabletop, not only in the narrow pietre dure borders but also in the wide border of noble rosso antico marble, where they are bracketed by pairs of stylized peltae, or ancient Roman shields, which "protect" them, as important dignitaries would be guarded by armed foot soldiers. The lilies, rosettes, cross, and hat all refer to Alessandro Farnese (1520–1589), "the Great Cardinal," a man of enormous wealth and an enthusiastic patron of the arts.[4] He envisioned the precious table as a focal point in the state rooms of the Farnese Palace in Rome, which was under construction during the sixteenth century. This magnificent building housed not only a large collection of Renaissance and Mannerist paintings commissioned or acquired by Alessandro and other members of his family—portraits by Titian (ca. 1487–1576), frescoes by Annibale Carracci (1560–1609), Francesco Salviati (1510–1553), and Daniele da Volterra (1509–1566)-but also wonderful works of antique sculpture, such as the Farnese Hercules, the Urania, the Flora, and the Farnese Bull. Originally placed in the main hall of the palace, where it would have harmonized with both the contemporary and the ancient works of art that filled the room,[5] the Farnese table was later installed in the Philosophers' Hall, an elaborately furnished room next to the Carracci Gallery, on the Tiber side of the palace.[6] It is described as being in that room in all the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Roman guidebooks that mention the treasures of the palace. The German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) probably saw it there on his visit to Rome in the spring of 1787, although by then, in one of the largest art transfers in history, many of the paintings and sculptures had been removed to Naples by King Charles III of Spain (1716–1788), who had inherited the palace from his Farnese mother. Goethe said wryly, "If they could take also the Carracci Gallery, they would do it."[7]An inventory of the Farnese Palace compiled in 1653 indicates what a high value was placed on the table. In the absence of the owner of the house, the "large table of hard and soft stones, the center being of Oriental alabaster, supported by three marble feet in the shape of harpies with the arms of the Lord Cardinal" was protected "in a wooden box [with] a chain that loops to close it and in the middle a small mattress full of wool, covered with a quilted checkered cloth." There was also "a cover for this table, made of tooled and gilded leather with four fringes, decorated borders, and fleur-de-lys."[8] It is as though the table—which is so heavy that even with the aid of a modern lifting device it can only be moved by a dozen men—was regarded as an objet de vertu, some precious gold or rock-crystal bibelot that could easily be packed up in a beautiful leather case and travel with its owner.[9]The Farnese table and especially its top were created after the designs of Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola, who began working at the palace shortly before 1547 under the supervision of Michelangelo (he became the cardinal's chief architect about 1550).[10] Since Alessandro adopted the coat of arms carved on the table legs only in 1566, Vignola's design must date from or after that year. Inventories of the Farnese Palace made in 1566 and 1568 include references to other inlaid tables-two of alabaster, two of porphyry, and one set with many different types of stone.[11] It is thus probable that the Museum's table was under construction in the late 1560s-certainly by 1573, when Vignola died.Vignola's design masterfully contrasts the piers, whose vigorous modeling creates wonderful effects of light and shadow, with the flat, reflective, and richly colored top. Its ornamental details, such as the winged sphinxes and heraldic symbols, convey the idea of majesty and magnificence that would have been important to Cardinal Alessandro. A recent examination of the piers has disclosed slight residues of paint in small areas under the profiles supporting the top. This astonishing discovery may change the current estimation of the table, for if the piers were originally painted, then the overall appearance of the piece must have been quite different.[12]Many of Vignola's favorite decorative motifs appear on the tabletop, for example, the confronted peltae and the broken rectangles enclosing the Farnese lilies. He may have discovered them in the patterns of ancient Roman floors, such as the one in the Curia of Diocletian in Rome.[13] Other ancient works with peltae ornaments are to be found at Ostia, the port of ancient Rome,[14] where in 1547, shortly after Vignola began to work for Cardinal Alessandro, the architects went "to get colored marbles for the Palace."[15] All the stones used for the table are of ancient origin, and many of them were taken from the Baths of Caracalla, where excavations were begun in the 1540s under the supervision of the cardinal. For him and for his architects and stonemasons they represented the opulence of imperial Rome, the capital of a vanished empire, and their reuse must have seemed to be physical proof that Rome was indeed the Eternal City. The two alabaster panels were probably stripped from Egyptian monuments and brought to Italy in ancient times. They are of especial beauty, "the climax," as Raggio observes, "of the whole composition. Large, pure, and quiet, they fulfill the promise of their sumptuous frame. Their hard onyxlike translucent surface, marked by wavy, irregular amber[-colored] veins and elusive whitish formations, has the mysterious attraction of light clouds traveling through a misty sky, or of the frozen ripples of bottomless waters."[16]At the time the table was under construction, the sculptor Guglielmo della Porta was in charge of the palace workshop where ancient sculptures were restored and excavated stone was reshaped into furnishings for the rooms. Close inspection reveals that the piers were carved by more than one person. This is to be expected, for it reflects workshop practice: as master in charge, Della Porta supervised the workmen who transformed Vignola's designs into stone, carved major elements himself, and added the final touches. In creating these furnishings Della Porta and his masons were emulating ancient artists–not imitating them (imitatio) but attempting to surpass them (superatio).[17] The pietre dure and classical inlay are believed to have been done by a little-known French master named Jean Ménard, called in Italy Giovanni Mynardo, who was considered one of the finest craftsmen in stone intarsia and mosaic decoration working in Rome during the 1560s.[18]The Farnese table is listed in an inventory of the palace made in 1796 but not in one of 1834. The next record of the table's existence is in a fire-insurance document drawn up shortly after 1844 for Hamilton Palace in South Lanarkshire, Scotland.[19] We may suppose that, like many other Italian antiquities, the treasured table of the Farnese family was acquired by some English or Scottish grandee while on a tour of Italy. In 1919 it was sold at auction from Hamilton Palace to Viscount Leverhulme (1851–1925) for his London collection. Forty years later, in 1958, the monumental table, created to affirm the Great Cardinal's status, erudition, and taste, was transported across the Atlantic to be admired again, as one of the jewels of the Metropolitan Museum's encyclopedic collection.[Wolfram Koeppe 2006]Footnotes:[1] Olga Raggio. "The Farnese Table: A Rediscovered Work by Vignola." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 18 (March 1960), pp. 213–31.[2] For a pier from a prototypical Roman table, see John Morley. The History of Furniture: Twenty-five Centuries of Style and Design in the Western Tradition. Boston, 1999, p. 24, fig. 24. For a fresco in which such a table is depicted, see Morley, op. cit., p. 30, fig. 36. This fresco from the House of the Vettii in Pompeii had not been excavated at Vignola's time; however, similar illustrations of classical tables may have been accessible to him.[3] Enrico Dolci. "La cultura del marmo." In Eternità e nobilità di materia: Itinerario artistico fra le pietre policrome, ed. Annamaria Giusti, pp. 105–38. Opificio delle Pietre Dure. Florence, 2003, p. 109, fig. 2.[4] Elizabeth Clare Robertson. "The Artistic Patronage of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (1520–89." Ph.D. diss., Warburg Institute, University of London, 1986; and Bertrand Jestaz. "Le collezioni Farnese di Roma." In I Farnese: Arte e collezionismo, ed. Lucia Fornari Schianchi and Nicola Spinosa, pp. 49–67. Exh. cat., Palazzo Ducale di Colorno, Parma; Haus der Kunst, Munich; and Galleria Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples, Milan, 1995, p. 54.[5] Elizabeth Clare Robertson. "The Artistic Patronage of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (1520–89." Ph.D. diss., Warburg Institute, University of London, 1986.[6] Sylvia Ginzburg Carignani. Annibale Carracci a Roma: Gli affreschi di Palazzo Farnese. Saggi. Arti e lettere. Rome, 2000.[7] Quoted in Olga Raggio. "The Farnese Table: A Rediscovered Work by Vignola." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 18 (March 1960), p. 213.[8] Quoted in ibid., p. 215.[9] See Dirk Syndram and Antje Scherner, eds. Princely Splendor: The Dresden Court, 1580–1620. Exh. cat., Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and Fondazione Memmo, Palazzo Ruspoli, Rome. Milan, Dresden, and New York, 2004, p. 263, no. 141 (entry by Jutta Kappel).[10] On Vignola's work at the Farnese Palace, see Olga Raggio. "The Farnese Table: A Rediscovered Work by Vignola." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 18 (March 1960), pp. 223-25. See also John Morley. The History of Furniture: Twenty-five Centuries of Style and Design in the Western Tradition. Boston, 1999, pp. 107, fig. 189 (the present table), 108-9, fig. 192 (the Guicciardini table designed by Vignola and made in wood by Fra Damiano da Bergamo).[11] See Bertrand Jestaz. "Le collezioni Farnese di Roma." In I Farnese: Arte e collezionismo, ed. Lucia Fornari Schianchi and Nicola Spinosa, pp. 49–67. Exh. cat., Palazzo Ducale di Colorno, Parma; Haus der Kunst, Munich; and Galleria Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples, Milan, 1995.[12]  I am most grateful to Jack Soultanian Jr., Conservator, Department of Objects Conservation, Metropolitan Museum, for having confirmed and further investigated this observation, which was made when the table was moved in 2002.[13] See Federico Guidobaldi. "Sectilia pavimenta e incrustationes: I rivestimenti policromi pavimentali e parietali in marmo o materiali litici e litoidi dell'antichità romana." In Eternità e nobilità di materia: Itinerario artistico fra le pietre policrome, ed. Annamaria Giusti, pp. 15–75. Opificio delle Pietre Dure, Florence, 2003, p. 47, fig. 53. For similar shield-shaped forms (peltae), see ibid., p. 64, fig. 78. See also the sixth-century pattern illustrated in the same essay, p. 70, fig. 93, which is similar to the border design of the present table.[14] Alberto Di Castro, Paola Peccolo, and Valentina Gazzaniga. Marmorari e argentiari a Roma e nel Lazio tra Cinquecento e Seicento: I committenti, i documenti, le opere. L'universo barocco. Rome, 1994, fig. 23.[15] Quoted in Olga Raggio. "The Farnese Table: A Rediscovered Work by Vignola." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 18 (March 1960), p. 219.[16] Ibid., p. 218.[17] Wolfram Koeppe. "'...mit feiner Bildhauer-Arbeit verfertigte Stücke': Zu einem bislang unbekannten Schreibmöbeltypus der Roentgen-Werkstatt." Kunst & Antiquitäten, 1989, p. 37; see also Günter Irmscher. "Christoph Jamnitzer als Plastiker." Weltkunst 58 (October 15, 1988), p. 3067.[18] Jean-Nérée Ronfort. "Jean Mérnard (c. 1525–1582): Marqueteur et sculpteur en marbre et sa famille." In Antologia di belle arti, n.s., nos. 39–42 (1991–1992), p. 139; and Olga Raggio. "Rethinking the Collections: New Presentations of European Decorative Arts at The Metropolitan Museum of Art." Apollo 139 (January 1994), p. 8.[19] Olga Raggio. "The Farnese Table: A Rediscovered Work by Vignola." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 18 (March 1960), p. 215.

The model was first created by Algardi for a version in silver, which was presented to Pope Innocent X in 1646.

This pair of bookcases was formerly in the braccio nuovo, or new wing, of the Palazzo Rospigliosi, Rome, where it was listed in the inventory of 1722.The ovals in the crests were filled with painted and gilded allegorical devices and mottoes, which have been replaced by photographs. The motto on this bookcase reads: LABOR OMNIA VINCIT (work overcomes all) and on .2: NONDUM IN AUGE (not yet famous).

This tapestry is not a fragment, but is instead a small, devotional work. The representation of the praying Virgin Mary is based on a painted prototype by Guido Reni perpetuated in many derivative paintings.  The tapestry is attributed to weavers working in Rome at the San Michele manufactory, which had been founded in 1710 by Pope Clement XI to complement the wool and dyeing workshops at the orphanage of San Michele a Ripa. It is part of a large group of technically proficient tapestries, many made as diplomatic gifts, modelled after paintings in the Vatican collection. With the exception of a handful of more sophisticated tapestry series (like Gerusalemme Liberata, four pieces of which are also in The Met’s collection), these woven copies comprised the main activity of the San Michele weavers, alongside repair and restoration of older northern European tapestries in the papal collection.

Designed to sit comfortably in the hand, the handles consist of ornamented bases supporting half figures of satyrs. Crisp details, such as the snakes that frame the spoon’s shell-shaped bowl, contribute to the utensils’ sculptural quality. The set’s precious material and sophisticated decoration indicate that it was made for an affluent household. (See also companion fork and knife, and spoon, 47.52.1 and .2.)

This tapestry is one of eight that reproduce, in part, a set of twenty ordered in 1520 by Pope Leo X for the Hall of the Consistory in the Vatican.  The design was conceived as an allegorical celebration of the golden age under the Medicis and under Leo X in particular. The theme and format of the set may have been conceived by Raphael (both of the putti in this tapestry derive from lost paintings by him), but the designs were executed by his pupils.  Several of the preparatory sketches are in the hand of Giovanni de Udine, while the cartoons were painted in Brussels by Tommaso Vincidor, who traveled there for that purpose in 1520.The ground of the original set was woven in gold thread, which may account for its disappearance during the late eighteenth century, a period in which many historic tapestries were burned in order to extract the precious metals they contained.  The seventeenth-century reweavings imitate the golden effect with striations of yellow silk and wool.

The goldsmith and designer Giovanni Giardini made this object for Pope Clement XI (r. 1700–1712), who presented it to Giovanni Battista Borghese, King Philip V of Spain's ambassador to the Holy See. Later, it was part of the collection of the Princes of Thurn and Taxis in Sankt Emmeram Castle in Regensburg, Germany. Giardini's prized devotional objects were intended for private use or for small, intimate chapels. Their technical perfection is such that they outshine many fine works made in Rome during the same period. The combination of the light catching gilded metal and the lapis lazuli with its myriad flecks of sparkling golden pyrites has a mesmerizing effect. Lapis lazuli symbolizes the choir of saints in heaven, and the attention of the person using this stoup would be directed toward heaven, a treasury of everlasting joy. Set around the silver relief of Mary of Egypt in ecstacy, the lapis plaques also suggest that the saint is part of the company of heaven. A related object is preserved in the Schatzkammer, or Treasury, of the Residenz in Munich.

This tapestry bears a double portrait of Antonio Barberini and his wife Camilla Barbadora, the parents of Maffeo Barberini, late Pope Urban VIII.  The design consists of a medallion woven with several shades of yellow, bearing profile portraits of a man and a woman surround by the words ANTONIVS BARBERINVS ET CAMMILLA BARBADORA PARENTES ("Antonio Berberini and Camilla Barbadora: parents")   Below the medallion is a pedestal with conventionalized foliated ornament and the Barberini bee woven with yellow. The ground behind the pedestal is red. Above is a red swag with pendants of laurel leaves, a mask (man) and a large yellow jar filled with fruit and flowers. Repairs, some slits.

One of four pilaster panel tapestries commemorating the life of Pope Urban VIII.  This tapestry represents the facade of the Palazzo dell'Annona in Rome within a medalion woven wih several shades of yellow and orange, on which is a building with the papal tiara, keys, and a shield bearing the Barberini arms over the door. Around the building are the words VBERIORI ANNONAE COMMODO ("I provide for a richer harvest.")  Below the medallion is a pedestal with conventionalized foliated ornament and the Barberini bee woven with yellow. The ground behind the pedestal is red. Above is a red swag with pendants of laurel leaves, a mask (woman) and a large yellow jar filled with flowers. Repairs, some slits.

This tapestry was once part of an eight-piece set representing Giochi di Putti, or Cherubs’ Games. Pope Leo X commissioned the series as an allegorical celebration of the golden age under the Medici, and it was to be displayed in the Vatican’s Hall of the Consistory. Probably conceived by Raphael, the tapestries’ designs were executed by his pupils, including Giovanni da Udine. Tommaso Vincidor painted their cartoons (the full-size models copied by the weavers) in Brussels.Unfortunately, Leo’s Brussels-woven, sixteenth-century tapestry set does not survive, but multiple copies were made, including these seventeenth-century tapestries attributed to Flemish weavers working in Rome in the newly established tapestry workshop funded by the Barberini family. Here, the weavers used hatching to skillfully depict the volume and rosy hues of the putti’s flesh. A glorious range of dyes captures the abundance of fruit, vegetables, and flowers in the swags suspended behind them. The mustard yellow ground imitates the gilt-silver used in Leo’s lost original.

This high-relief sculpture of Saint Andrew standing in a shell-topped niche was originally on an altar in Old Saint Peter’s, Rome. Tiberio Alfarano’s 1571 plan of the basilica indicates where it was located inside the front wall.[1] A drawing made before the altar was dismantled in 1606 shows, above the altar, three saints in niches separated by finely decorated pilasters: Saint Paul to the left, Saint Peter in the center, and Saint Andrew at the right. In the drawing, Andrew turns his head slightly toward Peter and embraces with his left arm the cross on which he was martyred. Paul also twists his head toward Peter, and he holds his sword of martyrdom with his right hand —  his gestures are designed to mirror Andrew’s as the two flank the central saint. The reliefs of Peter and Paul —  without the pilasters —  are now in Boville Ernica, near Rome, where they were installed with Saint Andrew about 1612. Prominent on the structure that supported the saints in Old Saint Peter’s was the inscription "Guillermus de Perreriis Auditor hoc altare deo et SS Apostolis Dedicavit, An D MCCCCLXXXXI." [2] The French prelate Guillaume de Perrier commissioned this and several other altars for Roman churches in the 1490s. [3] Antonio Muñoz was the first to associate the Museum’s relief with the altar in Old Saint Peter’s, after it appeared on the market in 1909.[4]By the time Andrea Bregno carved the three reliefs he was nearing the end of an active and distinguished career. He is best known for funerary monuments of prelates, such as those in memory of Cardinal Ludovico d’Albret (died 1465) in Santa Maria in Aracoeli, Rome, and of Cardinal Cristoforo della Rovere and Cardinal Domenico della Rovere in Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome (died 1478 and 1501, respectively), as well as for altars, notably the Borgia Altar in Santa Maria del Popolo (commissioned 1473).[5] Many of these monuments and altars feature reliefs of single saints in niches. By the 1480s, after the influential sculptors Giovanni Dalmata and Mino da Fiesole had departed from Rome, Bregno’s large workshop dominated commissions in that city. Bregno collected antiquities, and his increasingly classicizing style reflects this interest; he was also celebrated for decorative carving on architectural ensembles, above all, the Piccolomini Altar (1485) in Siena Cathedral.[6] The solid stance of Saint Andrew’s body in the Museum’s relief and the sharply defined pleats of his robe show how closely Bregno had looked at classical sculpture in Rome. The delicate candelabrum motifs on the pilasters flanking the saint, also culled from ancient sources, give ample evidence of his refined architectural touch. Museum curator Olga Raggio related these stylistic traits to Bregno’s earlier work on the Borgia and the Piccolomini altars and affirmed that the fineness of the carving indicates that the master himself, and not his workshop, was responsible. [7] Her observation that Andrew’s features are similar to Andrea’s in the portrait of the artist on his tomb in Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome, may not be immediately apparent; however, there is little doubt the artist had a special affinity for his patron saint. Bregno and his workshop completed a number of similar marble reliefs for the various Perrier altars and for tombs; the Saint Andrew relief is particularly close to Saint James and Saint John in San Giovanni in Laterano, completed in Rome in 1492 – 93, just after the reliefs for Old Saint Peter’s. Often formed as triptychs of saints, reliefs by Bregno were subsequently erected in the Roman churches of San Paolo (1494), Santa Maria del Popolo (1497), and Santi XII Apostoli (undated, but evidently later in his career). Examination of Bregno’s reliefs for Santi XII Apostoli, now in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, reveals not only that the standard set in the Old Saint Peter’s reliefs at the beginning of the 1490s was retained at the end of the decade but also how Bregno used details to vary the basic model.[8] Saint James and Saint Philip fill their niches more amply and stand taller than Andrew in his, and the architectural decoration is more detailed, including beading, moldings, and scallop shells not seen in the Museum’s example. These are additions that might occur to a sculptor while working on later formulations of his original conception. It is the sensitive workmanship of the head and hands of Saint Andrew that distinguishes it as primary. The thin face with its precisely drawn brows and the meticulously veined hands with naturalistically spaced fingers are so finely rendered as to justify Olga Raggio’s ascription of the work directly to Bregno. While the sculptor refined the motif of the standing saint, a mainstay of his production over many years, he clearly took special care with this commission for the most exalted church in Christendom.[Ian Wardropper. European Sculpture, 1400–1900, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2011, no. 10, pp. 40–41.]Footnotes:[1] Tiberio Alfarano. Basilicae vaticanae antiquissima et nova structura. Edited by Michele D. Cerrati. Documenti e ricerche per la storia dell’antica basilica vaticana 1. Studi e testi (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana) 26. Rome, 1914, p. 70.[2] Giacomo Grimaldi. Descrizione della basilica antica di S. Pietro in Vaticano: Codice Barberini Latino 2733. Edited by Reto Niggl. Codices e Vaticanis selecti 32. [Vatican City], 1972, p. 133, fig. 47.[3] Ernst Steinmann. "Andrea Bregnos Thätigketi in Rom." Jahrbuch der Königlich Preussischen Kunstsammlungen 20 (1899), pp. 216–32, pp. 226 – 27.[4] Antonio Muñoz. "Ancora delle opera d’arte di Boville Ernica provenienti da S. Pietro in Vaticano." Bolletino d’arte 6, no. 6 (1912), pp. 239–45, p. 239. [5] See Emilio Lavagnino. "Andrea Bregno e la sua bottega." L’arte 27 (1924), pp. 247–63 and Gianni Carlo Sciolla. "Profilo di Andrea Bregno." Arte lombarda 15, no. 1 (1970), pp. 52–58 for overviews of these works.[6] Claudio Crescentini. "Roma, Sisto IV Della Rovere e il ‘gran compositore’ Andrea Bregno: Antiche Cristiane Memorie Marmoree." In I Della Rovere nell’Italia delle corti, vol. 2, Luoghi e opera d’arte, edited by Bonita Cleri, Sabine Eiche, John E. Law, and Feliciano Paoli, pp. 7–25. Proceedings of a conference held at Palazzo Ducale, Urbania, September 16–19, 1999. Urbino, 2002. For Bregno’s interest in classical art, see Michael Greenhalgh. "Andrea Bregno and the Antique." In Andrea Bregno: Il senso della forma nella cultura artistica del Rinascimento, edited by Claudio Crescentini and Claudio Strinati, pp. 244–63. Florence, 2008. Specifically on Bregno’s work in the Piccolomini Chapel in Siena Cathedral are: Francesco Caglioti. "La Cappella Piccolomini nel Duomo di Siena, da Andrea Bregno a Michelangenlo." In Pio II e le arti: La riscoperta dell’antico da Federighi a Michelangelo, edited by Alessandro Angelini, pp. 386–481. Siena and Cinisello Balsamo, 2005 and Francesco Caglioti. "Andrea Bregno, Pietro Torrigiani e Michelangelo, Cappella Piccolomini, e Giovanni di Cecco, Madonna col Bambino." In Le sculture del Duomo di Siena, edited by Mario Lorenzoni, pp. 174–81. Cinisello Balsamo, 2009.[7] Olga Raggio in The Vatican Collections: The Papacy and Art. Exh. cat. The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Art Institute of Chicago; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; 1983–84. New York, 1982, p. 43. [8] Ulrich Middeldorf. Sculptures from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. Vol. 1, European Schools, XIV–XIX Century. Complete Catalogue of the Samuel H. Kress Collection. London, 1976, p. 65; Michael Kühlenthal. "The Monument of Raffaele della Rovere in Santi Apostoli in Rome." In Andrea Bregno: Il senso della forma nella cultura artistica del Rinascimento, edited by Claudio Crescentini and Claudio Strinati, pp. 208–25. Florence, 2008, p. 215 and fig. 4, maintains these late reliefs are from Bregno’s workshop.

Commissioned by Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, a great-nephew of Pope Alexander VIII, this was part of a massive series, heroic in scale as well as narrative, of fifteen tapestries depicting the romanticized version of the Christians’ First Crusade into Jerusalem recounted in Tasso’s sixteenth-century epic poem, Gerusalemme Liberata (Jerusalem Delivered).As the crusaders reach the city of Jerusalem, two of the Christian leaders kneel in the foreground, both in Classical armor with garments of red, blue and yellow. The younger man is presumably Godfrey of Bouillon. Other mounted men in gray armor are seen behind. Rising in the background on the right are the walls of Jerusalem.

This tapestry is not a fragment, but is instead a small, devotional work. The representation is based on a painted prototype by Guido Reni, of which the most important iteration is in Rome’s Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica (Palazzo Corsini), perpetuated in many derivative paintings.  The tapestry is attributed to weavers working in Rome at the San Michele manufactory, which had been founded in 1710 by Pope Clement XI to complement the wool and dyeing workshops at the orphanage of San Michele a Ripa. It is part of a large group of technically proficient tapestries, many made as diplomatic gifts, modelled after paintings in the Vatican collection; with the exception of a handful of more sophisticated tapestry series (like Gerusalemme Liberata, four pieces of which are also in The Met’s collection), these woven copies comprised the main activity of the San Michele weavers, alongside repair and restoration of older northern European tapestries in the papal collection.

Four pilaster panel tapestries commemorating the life of Pope Urban VIII.  

50.3586:
This tapestry bears a double portrait of Antonio Barberini and his wife Camilla Barbadora, the parents of Maffeo Barberini, late Pope Urban VIII.  The design consists of a medallion woven with several shades of yellow, bearing profile portraits of a man and a woman surround by the words ANTONIVS BARBERINVS ET CAMMILLA BARBADORA PARENTES ("Antonio Berberini and Camilla Barbadora: parents")   Below the medallion is a pedestal with conventionalized foliated ornament and the Barberini bee woven with yellow. The ground behind the pedestal is red. Above is a red swag with pendants of laurel leaves, a mask (man) and a large yellow jar filled with fruit and flowers. Repairs, some slits.

50.3587:
This tapestry illustrates a medallion woven with several shades of yellow showing the interior of a library where a man in a long gown writes in a book. Around the edge are the words PROTONOT AP CONCILIATI ECCLESIAE REG REGALIVMQ SPONSAL TAB CONFICIT ("The apostolic protonotary completes the documents of the betrothal of the King who, with his princes, has been reconciled to the Church.")   Below the medallion is a pedestal with conventionalized foliated ornament and the Barberini bee woven with yellow. The ground behind the pedestal is red. Above is a red swag with pendants of laurel leaves, a mask (man) and a large yellow jar of flowers. Repairs, some slits.

51.2804:
This tapestry illustrates the facade of the church of Sta. Bibiana in Rome in a medallion, surmounted by a pediment bearing a cross, the papal tiara, keys, and shield with the Barberini arms.  Around the building are the words AEDE S BIBIANAE RESTITVTA ET ORNATA ("The church of Saint Bibiana rebuilt and embellished.")   Below the medallion is a pedestal with conventionalized foliated ornament and the Barberini bee woven with yellow The ground behind the pedestal is red. Above is a red swag with pendants of laurel leaves, a mask (woman) and a large yellow jar filled with flowers. Repairs and some slits.

52.262:
This tapestry represents the facade of the Palazzo dell'Annona in Rome within a medalion woven wih several shades of yellow and orange, on which is a building with the papal tiara, keys, and a shield bearing the Barberini arms over the door. Around the building are the words VBERIORI ANNONAE COMMODO ("I provide for a richer harvest.")  Below the medallion is a pedestal with conventionalized foliated ornament and the Barberini bee woven with yellow. The ground behind the pedestal is red. Above is a red swag with pendants of laurel leaves, a mask (woman) and a large yellow jar filled with flowers. Repairs, some slits.

This is a variant of the Reclining Venus with Cupid, now in Buckingham Palace, which was made for Lord Cawdor in 1814 and ceded by him to the Prince Regent. Our work, commissioned by the fourth earl of Darnley, was completed by Canova's assistents after his death and delivered to the earl at Cobham Hall in Kent in 1824. The original plaster model for the Naiad, completed in 1817, is in the Gipsoteca di Possagno.  Compositional prototypes include Canova's Pauline Borghese as Venus Victrix and an ancient Hermaphrodite, both in the Borghese Gallery, Rome. Numerous slight indentations throughout the marble may be visible remains of the pointing system.

Direct and dramatic, this bronze half-length statue represents a nude woman, aquatic from the waist down, who holds a scaly tail in each hand. Her long hair trails behind her to a set of fish gills that fan out from all sides of her body. She wears a pointed crown, which is clearly a later addition, though her roughened pate and open cranium indicate the presence of a previous crown. She would have been placed high so that the viewer could not see the top of her head. There is no physical evidence that this bronze was part of a fountain; rather, it appears to be an emblematic decoration.[1]The statue reflects traditional types of mermaid figures and in particular the mythic Greek sirens. The sculptured figure of a woman holding her own fish tails can be found on Romanesque capitals, and in the sixteenth century the image became a decorative motif for tapestries and small bronze candelabra.[2] The crown, however, indicates that this statue is a specific dynastic symbol. A great Roman family, the Colonna —  and especially the princely Paliano branch —  ​adopted this image as an emblem. As such, it appeared on their tombs in Rome, at San Giovanni in Laterano, and in the town of Paliano, as well as on furniture and in ceiling decorations.[3] A volume of personal and family devices (imprese) collected by Paolo Giovio illustrates and describes the emblem of Stefano Colonna and quotes his motto, "Contemnit tuta procellas" (She defies the tempests).[4] The most illustrious member of the family, Marcantonio Colonna (1535 – 1584), was celebrated for defeating the Turks at the battle of Lepanto in 1571.[5] A siren appears on his armor in a painting and tops two rostral columns on a stone relief memorializing the victory at Lepanto.[6] It would be particularly appropriate if, as in the stone memorial, the bronze Siren had originally been displayed on top of a column, since a cylindrical shaft was also a family emblem (colonna is Italian for column). Her gills would have spread down around it. The brusque chasing of her hair and some other features would be explained if the figure was meant to be seen from a distance —  for example, from a perch atop a column. A 1644 inventory mentions "a siren of bronze, with a crown on her head" standing in a small room in the Palazzo Barberini apartments of Cardinal Antonio Barberini.[7] Antonio’s brother Taddeo was the husband of Princess Anna Colonna, and until recently it seemed to be a foregone conclusion that Antonio had received the Siren from Taddeo. Archival research, however, has turned up an inventory of April 1627 that documents the sculpture as in the palace of the recently deceased Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte on the via di Ripetta.[8] Peter Bell has pointed out that it could have been purchased by Antonio Barberini directly from Del Monte’s heirs.[9] Thus, there is no proof that the Siren was owned by the Colonnas. Nonetheless its iconography points to them as the family most likely to have commissioned the Museum’s imposing and doubtless expensive bronze; moreover, it is not out of line to guess that it was one of many works created to celebrate the great victory of Marcantonio Colonna in 1571 and that it remained among the family’s possessions for some time. It is difficult to attribute the Siren directly to any artist, but its style is close to Roman bronze work of the period 1570 – 90. Museum curator Olga Raggio noted that Taddeo Landini’s bronze youths of 1581 – 84 on the Fontana delle Tartarughe in Rome, for example, have similar rhythmical poses and wet-looking, tousled hair.[10] Another comparison, one that James Draper has informally proposed, is with the bronze lions supporting the Vatican obelisk that Lodovico del Duca cast in 1586, after models by Prospero Antichi and Francesco da Pietrasanta (Saint Peter’s Square, Rome). The vigorous modeling of the lions’ manes was meant to be seen from afar, as was the Siren’s hair, and the statues have similar iconic roles as bronze decorations. Like the Vatican lions, the Siren was likely a collaboration between sculptor and bronze founder, who created a brilliant —  essentially Roman —  emblem.[Ian Wardropper. European Sculpture, 1400–1900, In the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2011, no. 28, pp. 90–92.]Footnotes:[1] A technical examination by Richard E. Stone on December 10, 1999 (report in the curatorial files of the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, Metropolitan Museum) showed that it has no residual deposit of silt or unfired clay that would point to its use as a fountain; the crown has an artificial patination and is clumsily worked, unlike the body of the figure.[2] A twelfth-century capital at the church of Saint-Maurice, Saint-Dié (Vosges), and a capital from the end of the twelfth century at the cathedral of Notre-Dame, Le Puy (Haute-Loire), are illustrated in Jacqueline Leclercq-Marx. La Sirène dans la pensée et dans l’art de l’Antiquité et du Moyen-Âge: Du mythe païen au symbole chrétien. Publication de la Classe des Beaux-Arts, collection in-4, ser. 3, vol. 2. Brussels, 1997, p. 135, ill. no. 72, p. 147, ill. no. 87. There are two bronze Mermaids in the Museum’s collection (Padua, first half of the sixteenth century, H. 5 in. [12.7 cm], acc. nos. 32.100.174 and 32.100.175).[3] Ermete Rossi. "Le statue di Alessandro Farnese e Marcantonio Colonna in Campidoglio." Archivio della Società Romana di Storia Patria 51 (1928), pp. 15–32, pp. 19 – 20.[4] Paolo Giovio. Dialogo dell’imprese military et amorose. Lyons, 1574. [Reprint ed., Dialogo dell’imprese. Philosophy of Images 6. New York, 1979.], p. 149.[5] The triumphal procession in Rome given in his honor after the victory by Pope Pius V and statues erected to him are described in E. Rossi 1928, pp. 19 – 32.[6] Alberto di Castro, Paola Peccolo, and Valentina Gazzaniga. Marmorari e argentieri a Roma e nel Lazio tra Cinquecento e Seicento: I committenti, i documenti, le opera. Universo barocco. Rome, 1994, p. 321, fig. 100. [7] Marilyn Aronberg Lavin. Seventeenth-Century Barberini Documents and Inventories of Art. New York, 1975, p. 178 (iv, inv. 44, no. 577).[8] Archivio di Stato, Rome, 30 Notai Capitolini, Paulus Vespignanus, ufficio 28, vol. 138, fols. 574r – 588v (entries published in Christoph Luitpold Frommel. "Caravaggios Frühwerk und der Kardinal Francesco Maria del Monte." Storia dell’arte, nos. 9–10 (1971), pp. 5–52, Appendix, pp. 30 – 49). Lucia Faedo (Lucia Faedo. "Girolamo Tezi e il suo edificio di parole." In Aedes Barberinae ad Quirinalem descriptae / Descrizione di Palazzo Barberini al Quirinale: Il palazzo, gli affreschi, le collezioni, la corte, edited by Lucia Faedo and Thomas Frangenberg, pp. 3–117. Pisa, 2005, pp. 50 – 55) connected the bronze Siren in the Palazzo del Monte with the one in the Palazzo Barberini, but she did not know of the existence of the Museum’s sculpture.[9] Peter Bell was the first to identify the Del Monte – Barberini bronze as the New York Siren; see Bell forthcoming.[10] Raggio in "Recent Acquisitions: A Selection, 1999–2000." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., 58, no. 2 (Autumn 2000), p. 24.

designed ca. 1689–93, woven 1739, Rome

designed ca. 1689–93, woven 1739, Rome

Description