Palazzo Farnese

“ This tower was surmounted by a noble cupola or dome, enriched with all the ornaments of architecture. The door of the building was of brass; and within-side the ashes of Cecilia were deposited in a fluted marble urn, of curious workmanship, which is still kept in the Palazzo Farnese. At present the surface of the ground is raised so much as to cover the first order of the edifice: what we see is no more than the round tower, without the dome and its ornaments; and the following inscription still remains near the top, facing the Via Appia. ”

“ Catharine,” the faces being portraits of the Pordenone family, and a fine fresco also by him, representing the dispute of St. Catharine. By him are likewise the frescoes in the eight compartments of the cupola; those in the pendentives are by B. Gatti. The most highly decorated church is S. Sisto (built in the 16th cent.) , with an Ionic atrium. Raphael’s Madonna, now at Dresden, was taken from S. Sisto.
The Palazzo Farnese is a great, unfinished, building, begun in 1558 by Margaret of Austria, now used as barracks. The Mandelli palace, now the Prefettura, has a handsome façade. ”

“ Temple of Peace. See Basilica of Maxentius. Theatre of Marcellus, its façade followed by Sansovino for the library of St. Mark’s, 122. Palazzo Cancelleria, façade, 112–114 (cut) ; window openings, north Italian, 112, 149; podium introduced beneath each order, 112; spacing of the columns of the order, 112, 114; projecting bays at each end, 113; portal of almost Greek purity of design, 114; court, 114. Palazzo Farnese, 116–118; window openings framed by structural members without structural meaning, 116, 117 (cut) ; removal of entablature between ressauts over window openings, 117 (cut) ”

“ Alas! three provinces and two trophies have emigrated to Naples with the rest of the Farnese marbles, one has been left behind in the portico of the Farnese palace in Rome, five provinces and four trophies are in the Palazzo dei Conservatori, two are in the Palazzo Odescalchi, one is in the101 Palazzo Altieri, two pieces of the entablature are used as a rustic seat in the Giardino delle Tre Pile on the Capitol, and another has been used in the restoration of the Arch of Constantine. ”

“ This character is apparent in the portico of the Massimi at Rome, the great altar of the metropolitan church of Siena, and the large gateway of the Sacrati palace at Ferrara, which is so finely ornamented that it is named among the rarities of that city, and, in its kind, even of Italy. But what chiefly establishes his reputation as a man of excellent and various genius, [Pg 425] is the Farnese palace, which is "executed with such exquisite grace that it appears created by enchantment, rather than built by human hands." ”

“ In the first great hall was found, in 1824, the immense mosaic pavement of the pugilists, now in the Lateran museum. Endless works of art have been discovered here from time to time, among them the best of the Farnese collection of statues,—the Bull, the Hercules, and the Flora,—which were dug up in 1534, when Paul III. carried off all the still remaining marble decorations of the baths to use for the Farnese Palace. The last of the pillars to be removed from hence is that which supports the statue of Justice in the Piazza Sta. Trinità at Florence. ”

“ On almost every Italian town, whatever succession of masters it may have known, some one family has left its dominant mark; and Parma is distinctively the city of the Farnesi. Late-comers though they were, their lilies are everywhere, over gateways, on palace-fronts and in the aisles of churches; and they have bequeathed to the town a number of its most characteristic buildings, from the immense unfinished Palazzo della Pilotta to the baroque fountain of parti-coloured marbles which enlivens with its graceful nymphs and river-gods the grassy solitude of the palace-square. ”

“ The visitor should not quit this compartment without noticing the collection of antique vases which it contains, amongst which the Medicean Vase (343) is a peculiarly elegant example of antique art. The elegant tripod (211) , and the antique fountain (357) , are also worthy of attention. Here also we find the celebrated group known as the Toro Farnese, or Farnese Bull. The original of this beautiful group, which is now preserved in the Museum at Naples, was discovered in the Baths of Caracalla at Rome, and derives its name from having been placed in the Farnese Palace in that city. ”

“ The finest Roman palace is the [Pg 180] Farnese, begun by San Gallo in 1530, continued by Michelangelo, and completed by Giacomo della Porta, each architect having altered the design. This building, notwithstanding its chequered history, is a dignified, impressive mass. It has only three storeys and a scarcely marked basement, and is nearly square, with a large quadrangle in its heart. It is very lofty, and has a great height of unpierced wall over each storey of windows, and is crowned by a bold and highly-enriched cornice—an unusual thing for Rome. ”

“ One year, at the time of the Carnival, when Ruberto Strozzi was giving a banquet at Rome to certain lords, his friends, and a comedy was to be performed at his house, Aristotile made for him in the great hall a prospect-scene, which, considering the little space at his disposal, was so pleasing, so graceful, and so beautiful, that Cardinal Farnese, among others, not only was struck with astonishment at it, but caused him to make one in his Palace of S. Giorgio, where is the Cancelleria, in one of those mezzanine halls that look out on the garden ”

“ Annibale, superior to both in power of execution and academic prowess, was inferior to either in taste and sensibility and judgment; for the most striking proof of this inferiority I appeal to his master-work, the work on which he rests his fame, the gallery of the Farnese palace: a work whose uniform vigour of execution, nothing can equal but its imbecility and incongruity of conception. If impropriety of ornament were to be fixed by definition, the subjects of the Farnese gallery might be quoted as the most decisive instances. ”

“ In the town of Parma there is one surpassingly strange relic of the past. The palace of the Farnesi, like many a haunt of upstart tyranny and beggared pride on these Italian plains, rises misshapen and disconsolate above the stream that bears the city's name. The squalor of this grey-brown edifice of formless brick, left naked like the palace of the same Farnesi at Piacenza, has something even horrid in it now that only vague memory survives of its former uses. ”

“ There is Petrarch’s Monument, too; and there is the Baptistery, with its beautiful arches and immense font; and there is a gallery containing some very remarkable pictures, whereof a few were being copied by hairy-faced artists, with little velvet caps more off their heads than on. There is the Farnese Palace, too; and in it one of the dreariest spectacles of decay that ever was seen—a grand, old, gloomy theatre, mouldering away. ”

“ The finest example in Rome is the Farnese palace, commenced in 1530 from the designs of Antonio di Sangallo; the design is astylar, as the employment of the orders is confined to the window dressings, the angles of the front having rusticated quoins; the upper storey, with the magnificent cornice which crowns the whole building, was designed by Michelangelo, and in the upper storey he introduced a feature borrowed from the Roman thermae, brackets supporting the three-quarter detached columns flanking the windows. ”

“ Here also are the Ruspoli, Fiano, Chigi, Sciarra, Salviati, Ferraioli, and Theodoli palaces, and before its demolition to enlarge the Piazza Colonna, the Piombino. The Costaguti in the Piazza Tartaruga, the Antici-Mattei, the Longhi and the Gaetani palaces, [Pg 173] the latter in the Via delle Botteghe Oscure, "the street of dark shops," are grouped at the foot of a further slope of the Capitol. More to the west, stand the huge Farnese palace the present seat of the French embassy and the Cancelleria built by Cardinal Riario nephew of Sixtus IV. and still papal property. ”

“ They had very judiciously transferred to their stage dresses the costume which, in the statue, strikes the spectator as so dignified; and one saw at once that the actor had studied the antique.
January 18, 1787.
Rome is threatened with a great artistic loss. The King of Naples has ordered the Hercules Farnese to be brought to his palace. The news has made all the artists quite sad ”

“ Julius, who was anxious to be on good terms with Charles on account of the council of Trent which was then sitting, ordered Farnese to hand Parma over to the papal authorities once more, and on his refusal hurled censures and admonitions at his head, and deprived him of his Roman fiefs, while Charles did the same with regard to those in Lombardy. A French army came to protect Parma, war broke out, and Gonzaga at once laid siege to the city. But the duke came to an arrangement with his father-in-law, by which he regained Piacenza and his other fiefs. ”

“ The Farnese theatre is one of those brilliant improvisations in wood and plaster to which Italian artists were trained by centuries of hurriedly-organized trionfi, state processions, religious festivals, returns from war, all demanding the collaboration of sculptor, architect and painter in the rapid creation of triumphal arches, architectural perspectives, statuary, chariots, flights of angels, and galleons tossing on simulated seas: evanescent visions of some pays bleu of Boiardo or of Ariosto, destined to crumble122 the next day like the palace of an evil enchanter. ”

“ This Titian, which doubtless passed into the Hermitage with the rest of the Barbarigo pictures, may have been the first foundation for the series of portraits of the Farnese Pope, and as such would naturally have been retained by the master for his own use. The portrait-group in the Naples Museum, showing, with Paul III., Cardinal Alessandro Farnese and Ottavio Farnese (afterwards Duke of Parma) , is, apart from its extraordinary directness and swift technical mastery, of exceptional interest as being unfinished, and thus doubly instructive. ”

“ From this place we followed the direct road and came to Caprarola, the palace of Cardinal Farnese, and the most famous in all Italy.106 I have seen nothing in this country to be compared with it. The upper part of the structure is in the form of a terrace built so that the tiled roof is invisible. It is pentagonal in shape, but has all the look of being a square. The interior is a perfect circle with wide corridors running round, arched and painted all over. The mass of building is immense, all the chambers being square and the large rooms [Pg 165] very beautiful. ”

“ But, although I was regarded with favour by those lords and was earning much, and my commissions were multiplying every day, I judged, since my men had departed and I had executed works in abundance in one year in that city, that it would be well for me to return to Rome. Which having done, the first work that I executed was for Signor Ranuccio Farnese, at that time Archbishop of Naples ”

“ But though envy for a time, by her insidious suggestions and subterfuges, may derive a mean pleasure in persecuting a man of genius, she can never hope to succeed in blinding the public, who ever decide impartially on the merits of individuals, and whose judgment is not disregarded even by princes. The Farnese gallery was opened, and Rome beheld in it a grandeur of style, which might claim a place after the Sistine chapel, and the chambers of the Vatican. ”

“ After the death of Tasso the whole work was confided to Vasari, whose task was rendered easier as the Court moved into the Palazzo Pitti. Bronzino was called in to decorate the Duchess’s former apartments on the second floor of the old palace. In the chapel he painted three episodes from the life of Moses and an altarpiece, which was considered so fine that the Duke sent it as a present to Granvela in Flanders, and another was painted by Bronzino, now in the Gallery of the Uffizi. ”

“ He is most pleasing in his small cabinet pictures, which are finished in the first style of excellence. One of the best of these, formerly possessed by the Duke of Urbino, is now in the collection of the noble family of Leopardi, in Osimo. It is a Nativity of our Lord, in Taddeo's best manner, but none of his productions have added so much to his celebrity as the pictures in the Farnese Palace of Caprarola, which were engraved by Preninner in 1748. They represent the civil and military history of the illustrious family of the Farnesi. ”

“ In order to gauge the talent with which Brunelleschi turned to signal advantage what in other hands would have been a cause of failure, one need only imagine any one of the Florentine palaces, with the exception of the Palazzo Vecchio, in the place of the Pitti palace, to realize what a miserably meagre impression they would make as the crowning edifice on the summit of the steep hill. ”

“ The family derived further advantages at the time of Pope Alexander VI., who was the lover of the beautiful Giulia Farnese, known as Giulia Bella, and created her brother Alessandro a cardinal (1493) . The latter was elected pope as Paul III. in 1534, and it is from that moment that the great importance of the family dates. An unblushing nepotist, he alienated immense fiefs belonging to the Holy See in favour of his natural children. Of these the most famous was Pierluigi Farnese (1503–1547) , who served in the papal army in various campaigns, but also took part in the sack of Rome in 1527. ”