Lettera di messer Bartolomeo Ammannati architetto, e scultor fiorentino. A gli honoratissimi Accademici del disegno

AMMANATI'S FAMOUS LETTER TO THE ACCADEMIA DEL DISEGNO

4to (208x154 mm). [8] leaves. Collation: A-B⁴. Italic type. Woodcut printer's device on title page, woodcut initial. Modern carta rustica. Small stain around a repaired tiny hole going through each leaf. Bookplate of Giannalisa Feltrinelli (see sale Christie's London, 2 June 1998, lot 1091).

Rare first edition (it was reprinted in Florence in 1687) of Ammanati's famous letter to the Accademia del Disegno, the artist's guild at Florence, in which he denounced the display of nude sculpture, including his own colossal figure of Hercules in Padua and the Neptune fountain in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence.

One of the leading Mannerist sculptors and architects in Florence, Ammannati worked for Cosimo de' Medici on his programme of public works, remodelling Palazzo Pitti and the Boboli gardens, and building the Ponte Santa Trinita and the Neptune fountain in the Piazza della Signoria. Under the influence of the Counter-Reformation, however, at the end of his life Ammannati reconsidered his artistic expression and his art became more religious in tone. The present letter expressed his remorse at depicting nude bodies in his previous art, despite the importance of the shape of the body in his earlier work. As an example of virtuous sculpture from his last period, Ammannati cites in the letter the tomb of Giovanni Boncompagni, commissioned by Gregory XIII in 1572 for the cemetery of Pisa, which depicts Christ between Peace and Justice.

Although Ammannati doesn't mention it directly in the letter, this radical change may have been due to his advancing age and his new collaboration as patron and architect for the Jesuits, for whom he designed and financed the renovation of the church and college of San Giovannino. It was probably around 1572, thanks to the influence of his wife Laura Battiferri, that Ammannati began to be more involved in the activities of the Society of Jesus in Florence (cf. V. Kirkham, Creative Partners: The Marriage of Laura Battiferra and Bartolomeo Ammannati, in “Renaissance Quarterly”, LV, 2, 2002, pp. 498-558).

“When the first Jesuits arrived in Florence in 1551, they hoped to set up a community for twelve members of their order with the support of the Duchess Eleonora di Toledo. During the first few years, the Florentine Jesuits experienced many setbacks, and finding a permanent residence was one of their main concerns. For several years, they were forced to occupy a number of unsuitable, rented houses. They probably expressed their troubles to Eleonora, because in 1554 her husband, Duke Cosimo I de'Medici, donated the medieval church and the rectory of San Giovannino to them. The location was almost perfect: a central position, easily reached by students from all over town. However, the medieval building was too small and in a state of disrepair […] In Florence, due to the absence of a devoted and wealthy patron, no improvement of the accommodation of the Jesuit community was forthcoming. Almost fifteen years after establishing their foundation in Florence, the Jesuits still faced an insecure future. In 1566 a committee of supportive and prominent citizens was founded to find a solution, and it is likely that Ammannati soon became involved with their work […] Indeed, Ammannati's assistance proved to be of great value. His close involvement with the construction of the new complex was exceptional; Ammannati not only proposed to make the designs, he and his wife also offered to take care of a substantial part of the expenses. The couple had agreed to pay for the construction of the college as early as 1577, although Ammannati hoped to persuade Giacomo Salviati, the cousin of Francesco de' Medici, to be the main patron of the church. It seems that Salviati pulled back, making Ammannati responsible for bearing the cost of both the church and school. The best proof of Ammannati's and Battiferri's generosity was the decision of the childless couple in 1581 to make the Jesuit community in Florence their heir. His sympathy with the Jesuits was in keeping with his religious awakening at the end of his life. In 1582, when Ammannati was seventy-one, he wrote a well-known letter to all the artists in Florence expressing remorse for the character of his artistic oeuvre and warning his colleagues to refrain from making unchaste images. He repented for creating the sensual ignudi for the Neptune fountain on Piazza della Signoria in Florence, saying that it was improper to erect these kinds of images in a public place, where the statues could evoke impure thoughts. This change in thinking might have sprung from the prospect of his death, for Ammannati was old and probably in bad health, but it seems that his contact with the Jesuits was in part responsible […] Following the decision to enlarge the existing site, Bartolomeo Ammannati planned a new building. In 1579 the construction of the new nave of the church began, and already in 1581 the church was consecrated after the first three bays were built. However, after this successful start, the acquisition of new land largely failed, compelling Ammannati to adjust his design. In 1590 he produced a carefully made plan, which is now preserved in the Archivio di Stato in Rome (ASR) […] The complex of San Giovannino is adapted to its specific situation. Ammannati had to create a design that complied with the new ideological and functional demands of the Jesuits while taking into account the grave spatial and financial limitations. The final design of 1590 demonstrated his flexibility and acute observation, which were architectural skills championed in Antonio Possevino's encyclopedia, the Bibliotheca selecta (1593). Possevino consulted Valeriano and Ammannati for his chapter on architecture, which is wellknown for its dismissal of blind adherence to Vitruvius's De architectura […] The Florentine Jesuits were particularly proud of overcoming the problems they encountered in building their church. In 1581, when San Giovannino was consecrated, the annual report remarked with enthusiasm that the people considered it almost a miracle that, in spite of many setbacks, the church was built so swiftly that it seemed to have appeared suddenly. The admiration of San Giovannino is apparent in its influence on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century churches in Florence and Tuscany. Several churches were inspired by Ammannati's system of alternating chapels and confessionals in niches […] But although Ammannati did not have the stature of a Farnese or a Borromeo, and although his support for the Jesuits did not spring from political aspirations, he had one thing in common with those grander patrons. He, too, wanted to demonstrate his stature, and the prospect of burial in the church is likely to have pleased him. Ammannati and Laura Battiferri were granted this unusual privilege in recognition of their zeal for the Jesuit cause, because without their ongoing efforts the new complex would never have been accomplished. The couple were even permitted to decorate the chapel of Saint Bartholomew with an altarpiece. The altarpiece that Ammannati commissioned from Alessandro Allori is still visible in the second chapel on the left, and it is said that the couple are depicted on the lower right. Clearly, Ammannati could not have wished for a better expression of his prestige, to be buried in front of the chapel of Saint Bartholomew in a church he designed and financed. He was highly satisfied with his achievement, as he wrote to the Accademia del Disegno in 1582, boasting that, through his contribution, the very beautiful San Giovannino (la bellissima Chiesa di S. Giovannino) was being erected. Even though their sepulcher must have originally been no more than a humble stone with an inscription, it drew prestige from the lack of other private tombs. In that sense Ammannati's intentions were not so far removed from those of Farnese at Il Gesù. San Giovannino would be his mortuary monument” (M. Hurx, Bartolomeo Ammannati and the College of San Giovannino in Florence: Adapting Architecture to Jesuit Needs, in: “Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians”, vol. 68, no. 3, September 2009, pp. 339-341 and 351-354).

“Lo stesso Bartolomeo Ammannati, accademico della prima ora, amico di Vasari e Borghini, considerò la scomparsa degli amici il momento opportuno di scrivere, nel 1582, una ‘lettera agli Accademici del Disegno'. In quello scritto, dato alle stampe, rivendicava a sé un metodo didattico, diretta espressione di una discussione accademica, capace di far comprendere ai giovani artisti il vero metodo di fare l'arte. L'obiettivo dell'Ammannati era però un altro. Sempre più vicino alle pratiche della pietà della Compagnia di Gesù, da poco instaurata anche a Firenze, l'architetto esprimeva il suo pubblico confiteor pregando tutti i membri dell'Accademia affinché non raffigurassero nudità ‘coprendo quelle parti che si deono ricoprire e che vedere non si possono se non con vergogna, e che ragione et arte ricoprir c'insegna, è grandissimo e gravissimo errore'. Il messaggio, rivolto proprio a quegli allievi del disegno, era tra le più insidiose mistificazioni scritte nel periodo. L'Ammannati, infatti, nel testo loda spesso il magistero michelangiolesco, al quale è perfino dedicato l'epitaffio finale, ma al contempo, con un'abile espediente retorico, sublima le pulsioni estetiche ed artistiche del Buonarroti in un'aurea di eterea castità e vergogna: ‘i buoni cristiani sempre facevano le buone e belle figure'. Ecco che, ribaltando le prospettive, persino una presunta frase attribuita al divino artista diveniva, nelle mani di sapienti pedagoghi, strumento di potere e di pressione sull'animo delle giovani generazioni. Del resto lo stesso Ammannati, il 28 aprile del 1583, fece dono all'Accademia di un torso michelangiolesco non finito, un modello ricevuto dallo stesso Granduca e identificato oggi con l'eponimo di Dio Fluviale, previsto da Michelangelo come ornamento di una tomba dei duchi di casa Medici ai lati dei sarcofagi di San Lorenzo. L'episodio, apparentemente in contraddizione, rappresentando il modello una divinità nuda - ma non evidentemente sessuata - si può inquadrare perfettamente nella concezione accademica dell'Ammannati per cui occorreva studiare, copiare, ispirarsi (anche secondo le indicazioni del De pictura di Leon Battista Alberti), ma con discernimento. Nella piccola collezione dell'Accademia si aggiungeva così, alla copia in gesso del Cristo della Minerva di Michelangelo di cui, oltre che per la didattica, si disponeva largamente per l'uso liturgico interno all'accolita, il ‘modello di terra cruda grande in sur una basa di lengio' che rimarrà preziosa reliquia, per almeno due secoli, di un padre a cui mai fu permesso di fare da padrone” (E. Sartoni, Arte e potere. Il mito di Michelangelo padre e “fondatore” dell'Accademia del Disegno, in: “L'immortalità di un mito. L'eredità di Michelangelo nelle arti e negli insegnamenti accademici a Firenze dal Cinquecento alla contemporaneità”, S. Bellesi & F. Petrucci, eds, Florence, 2014, pp. 47-48).

Bartolomeo Ammannati was a prominent sculptor and architect of the Italian Mannerist period. He began as a pupil of Baccio Bandinelli before working under Jacopo Sansovino and Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli. In the 1530s and 1540s, Ammannati collaborated on Sansovino's project for the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice and Montorsoli's tomb for the poet Jacopo Sannazaro in Naples. Between 1544 and 1548, he worked as a sculptor and architect in Padua for the humanist and antiquarian Marco Mantua Benavides. Ammannati's tomb for Benavides in the Church of the Eremitani illustrates his take on Michelangelo's unfinished wall tombs in the Medici Chapel. In 1550, Ammannati married Laura Battiferra, an accomplished poet and a prominent figure in the devotional culture of Counter-Reformation Italy. He traveled to Rome where he undertook important commissions related to the papal family, including tombs for the Del Monte in S. Pietro in Montorio and portions of Julius III's Villa Giulia, on which he collaborated with Giorgio Vasari and Jacopo Vignola. In 1555, Ammannati returned to Florence to serve under Duke Cosimo I de' Medici. His works during this period exemplify Mannerism at its height, from the bronzes of the Neptune Fountain to the courtyard of the Palazzo Pitti. As architect and engineer, he was also responsible for the Ponte Santa Trinità and the Column of Justice. In his later years, Ammannati took on architectural projects outside of Florence and he grew increasingly dedicated to the Jesuit order. He and Laura left their possessions to the Jesuits and helped with the reconstruction of the church of S. Giovannino in Florence, funding a chapel where they were buried (cf. Ch. Avery, Ammanati [Ammannati], Bartolomeo [Bartolommeo], in: “Grove Art Online” J. Rodenbeck, ed., New York, 2003).

Edit 16, CNCE1542; Gamba, 1192; Schlosser-Magnino, pp. 373-375; USTC, 809077.

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