Nobilissima Ianuensi familia Justinianorum dynastarum olim Chij in mari Aegeo
(Noble genovese family, dinasty from Chios, Aegean sea )
In the XVIIIth century the East India Companies of England, France and the Netherlands
ruled over many coastal towns and their neighbouring territories in India, Indochina and
Indonesia. An early example of such a mixture of trade and politics can be found in the
Maona Giustiniani which ruled over the island of Scio (Chios), in the Aegean Sea for more
than two centuries, from 1347 to 1566. The name "maona" is of uncertain origin,
maybe from the genovese voice "mobba" equivalent to union, or also from the name
of one ship or also a word most likely of Arab origin Maounach (=trading company). The
origin therefore is tied more families combined in rising of partnership
("lodges"). Such "societies" were of the true ones and own Lordships
with a lot of armies, soldiers and fiscal autonomy and too times their politics were in
contrast with that one of the same Republic that had originated to them. The history of
the island of Chios from the fourteenth century to sixteenth closely is tied to that one
of the family Giustiniani, noble from Genoa that assumed the control of the island in that
time. It is only a legend that one that sees the two lineages Genoa and Venice to come
down from the progeny of Giustiniano, Roman emperor of east, Mark and Angelo lived on 720
d.C. Probably "Giustiniani", but the news is not sure, would derive from the
Giustiniani Palace of Genoa the seat of the company was, already possessed from homonymous
family from Venice, in that age, in good relationships trades with the Genovese Republic.
This palace, dominate still in quarter Giustiniani in Genoa, adorned of the coat-of-arms
of the family and from several trophies gained in the war of Chioggia (Venice). In the
XIVth century the Genovese were competing with the Venetians for the control of the
trading routes in the Levant and in the Black Sea. Venice had a firm hold on Negroponte
and Candia and Genoa needed a secure trading post along the route to Constantinople (for a
page on Genoese trading routes click here ). Therefore in 1346 the Republic decided to
occupy the island of Scio and the nearby port of Focea (famous port of alum mineral) on
the Asian mainland. Because the finances of the Republic were in very poor health some
rich traders were asked for loans to be repaid after the completion of the expedition. On
February 26, 1347 the Republic granted to these traders the revenues of Scio and Focea
allowing them to directly manage the exploitation of the two territories for an initial
period of 29 years. The traders founded the Maona Giustiniani and later on obtained an
extension of the initial "lease". The noble family Giustiniani as a
“Society” based on “actions”, the first stock exchange documented of
the history in the world. Twelve Nobles, Genovese Patricians decided a union among us, to
form a “society” and to form together a family. They even take away their former
names to have a new one: “Giustiniani”: they made “A Campagna”, as if
“they were born from the same father and the same mother” (“Compagniam de
pecunia non faciam cum aliquo habitante ultra Vultabium et Savignonem et Montem altum,
neque ultra Varaginem” from “Leges Genuenses” - year 1157). The first 12
partners were: Nicolò de Caneto de Lavagna, Giovanni Campi, Francesco Arangio, Nicolò di
S.Teodoro, Gabriele Adorno, Paolo Banca, Tommaso Longo, Andriolo Campi, Raffaello de
Forneto, Luchino Negro, Pietro Oliverio and Francesco Garibaldi. But others family enjoyed
in (and others come out) during the centuries (in 1528 after Doria reform these are the
family present in “albergo” Giustiniani: Arena, Argiroffo, Banca, Benvenuto,
Bona (1561), Bonfante, Briandate, Cavatorta, Chiazza (1561), Corsi, Figallo, Figari
(1561), Giustiniani, Leopardi, Massone (1561), Moneglia, Mongiardino, Morchio, Gavazzi, di
Passano, Ponte, Prandi, Prato, Rebuffo, Rocca, Roccatagliata, Salvarrezza De Secto,
Vallebona, Vallerai (1561), Vegetti). On june 8, 1363, the status of the island vis-à-vis
Byzantium is finally settled when Emperor John V Paleologos concedes the island to the
Genoese Giustiniani family in return for an annual payment of 500 gold hyperpera.
These Lords Giustiniani started a “collegiate” system of government. Each of the
twelve partner having his own part of duty: equal was their fortune and equal were their
titles. An example (probably the only) that a noble title pass one to the other not by
blood, but to sell a “share” in a society. The island is famous for its scenery
and good climate. Its chief export is mastic a gum exuding from the bark of a tree grown
up in the southern part of the island. Unlike many other Greek towns, Chios was not built
on high ground providing a natural defence; it did not have an acropolis, a citadel where
the inhabitants could oppose an effective resistance to the assaults of the enemy. The
Genoese found some Byzantine fortifications, but eventually decided to build a new set of
walls, which would protect their new acquisition. Maona Giustiniani promoted farming in
Scio and in particular in Kampos, a plain to the south of the town. Each farm was
surrounded by walls, often rather high, having the objective to minimize the erosion of
the soil due to the meltemi the strong wind which blows on the Aegean. The walls and the
buildings were erected making use of Thymiana, a local stone with warm yellow and red
tones. Each farm had a deep well to intercept the flow of abundant underground waters.
Overall the texture of buildings, gates, boundary walls, etc. is still very consistent and
the majority of the modern additions respect the old architectural patterns. The farms of
Kampos could be easily protected from corsar raids by the Genoese ships in the harbour of
Scio, but the southern tip of the island was exposed to this risk. For this reason the
peasants lived in fortified villages, which have retained their peculiar layout. The
villages did not have walls, but the external houses were lined up to form a barrier. They
did not have doors or windows on this side (now they have been opened). At each corner of
the village there was a tower and there was only one gate giving access to the village.
This structure is still very well preserved in Mesta. The defence of Mesta was entrusted
to the villagers themselves. The corsairs who had managed to penetrate inside the village
found themselves in a maze of very narrow alleys covered by archways through which the
villagers could easily move and repel the assailants. This layout is impressively similar,
although the buildings of Mesta are not so high, to the carrugi, the very narrow streets
of the medieval quarter of Genoa. The fortifications of the villages were completed by a
large tower at the centre of the village. It could be reached only through very narrow
streets and it did not have openings at the ground floor. The tower of Mesta has been
pulled down to provide the village with at least one open space, but nearby Pirgi has
retained much of its pirgos (tower). In the XIVth century several powers were competing
with Genoa for the supremacy in the Aegean Sea (Venezia in the Aegean sea): first of all
Venice with its many fortresses on the Greek mainland and on Crete, then the declining
Byzantine Empire, weak from a military viewpoint and torn apart by dynastic quarrels, but
rich in gold and diplomatic skills; it was usually at peace with the Genoese, but
occasionally it made alliances with Venice against them. Franks, Catalans, Neapolitans,
Florentines, all having some possessions, either on the Greek mainland or on the islands,
were other players in the game. On the Asian side of the Aegean Sea in the meantime, the
Ottomans were laying the foundations of their great empire. Genoa, Venice, the Byzantine
Empire, all sought alliances with them as they provided a valiant military force,
believing that their lack of naval skills would have always hindered their expansion. It
was with the help of the Genoese fleet that they initially set foot in Europe in 1354. In
1431, a fleet of 30 Venice’s ships with to the head Andrea Mocenigo and Dolfino
Venier tighten of besiege Chios. The Maona arranges in besieged fortress only 300 armed
commands to you from Leonardo di Montaldo, but it resists stoically to the repeated
attacks of the overwhelming enemy forces. In the day of Christmas on1431 attracting the
enemy in the port only defended from cargo vessels, it goes around it, and opening the
doors of the fortified castle it delivers to a powerful and victorious attack against the
Venetians, picked of surprise. The besiege to Chios was removed the 17/1/1432. Andrea De
Marini definitively defeats the Venetians in the Aegean sea on april 1432. Mocenigo and
Venier of return to Venice are executed in order to have badly municipal besiege to the
fortress of Chios. In the 1432 there was the definitive peace between Genoa and Venice,
also because the Ottoman common enemy made itself more and more pressing in the
possessions of the Republics in the Aegean. The island of Chios was governed from the
Maona Giustiniani with two councils: "large Council" and a "small Council
of the forty". Beyond the citadel there were 36 fortified castles. The fifteen
castles of Chios beyond the Citadel were: Colla, Calomoti, Cardamile, Lamista, Late,
Lecovere, Melanete, Pannuccelli, Perparea, Pigri, Pitio, Sant’Elena, S.Giuliano,
Valisso (the most fortified) and Vigo. The island of Chios had just an independent bishop,
the first one was Manfredo De Coronato in the 1363 successes was all or by the Pallavicini
family or by the Giustiniani family until the 1879 (Ignazio Giustiniani). The island had
numerous Churches, convents and hospitals. One of they was also to Rome for the Maonesi
indigent, founded in the 1530 from the bishop Benedict Giustiniani. The population of
Chios in XV the century oscillated between 90,000 and 120,000 inhabitants, having a
constant increment with the Christians you escape yourself from the Ottomans enclosures or
redeems by the Maona. The dominant rank, the first class, was the Giustiniani with their
familiar ones. Then they came, like second class, the "Burgenses", of Latin
blood, nearly all from Genoa, for the more traders or small large estate owners in order
to conquer relief places I had like only road that one to become related with the
Giustiniani (between they the families Paterio, Navone, Sanginbene, Campanaro, Ciprocci,
Cavallini, Coresio). To the third level the "Greek archons", the population of
Greek blood for the more dedication to small commerce.
To the fourth level all the given over persons of Greek origin to the jobs you serve them,
in the hollow ones of mastic and agriculture. To the fifth level the Hebrew, given over
for more to the usury, forced living in the “ghetto” (could only exit during the
Saint week), and to carry a yellow hat, beyond making in sure moments of the year action
of subjection and submission to the Giustiniani. To the sixth level the foreigns not
resident in the island. In 1453 when the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II launched his attack
against the walls of Constantinople, a Genoese contingent of volunteers from Chios went to
Constantinople to join the limited forces of the Emperor. They were led by a gallant young
soldier called Giovanni Giustiniani Longo, who played a crucial role in the siege of the
city, until his being wounded during the final Ottoman assault signalled the forthcoming
defeat. The Genoese fortifications of Scio included a very deep moat, now a dusty
parking-lot, which isolated the town with the exception of one point of access. After the
fall of Constantinople, Genoa had to come to terms with the Sultan. Because he rightly saw
that only Venice could actually challenge his expansion aims, he preferred to establish a
good relationship with Genoa and Scio was not threatened by the Ottomans. However, Maona
Giustiniani had to agree to yearly pay the Sultan a large amount of gold and to grant him
a supply of mastic, a gum exuding from the bark of a tree grown up in the southern part of
the island. The Ottomans, at all costs tried to take the definitive control on the
islands. On the pretext of militarily support the credit pretension of the Genovese
nobleman Francisco Drapperio, in the comparisons of the Maona for one left of Alum, in the
spring of 1455, one powerful Ottoman fleet berths to wide of Chios. Turkish admiral
Hansabeg saw the good fortification of the island, estimated that it was not the case to
risk an attack. The Genovese Republic engaged in the war with Alfonso of Aragon, very not
being able to help its far colonies was limited to arm two Galee with 800 men to the
commando with Peter Giustiniani (still major of Soverein of Malta during Lepanto battle
against Turks october 1571) and invoke the aid of the Pope and the King of England Henry
VI. In autumn 1455, 20 Turkish trireme commant from Junusberg, move towards Chios,
although that a storm from there disperses the greater part, the Turks conquer without to
fight New Focea on 24 December 1455 and the island of Lesbos. In the 1481 the Giustiniani
abandons the island of Samo and leaves Nicaria the Knights of S.Giovanni, which already
before they had left Cos. These islands lacking in ports and nearly desert, were already
of insufficient interest are to the Giustiniani that to the Turks. Also Genoa begins to
fear the power of the Giustiniani, 2 March 1558, to Costantinopoli a plenipotentiary one
of the Doge, Francisco de Franchi Torturino negotiates in order to yield the rights of the
exploitation of Chios to the Turks. Maona Giustiniani continued to rule Scio until 1566,
when a delay in the payment of the yearly tax gave Sultan Suleyman the Great the pretext
to make his last conquest. The 14 avril 1566 a fleet of 80 galley, commandant from
Kapudanpascià Pialì arrive to the port of Chios that in short succeeds to occupy without
to fight in spite of the intercession of the “podestà” Vincenzo Giustiniani.
That did not prevent that the island endured a violent pillage, the Churches was all
destroyed or converted in Mosques, very soon all that of beautiful, works them and useful
to Chios it was depredated or had. Vincenzo Giustiniani with the others 12 governors and
the other Giustiniani more in sight were made and capacities to Costantinopoli captive. 21
young Giustiniani between the 12 and 16 years they were separates to you from the parents,
forced to abjure the catholic faith and to enlist themselves in the body of the janissarys
3 of they were folded to the Ottoman will, the others 18 were were slaughtered after
atrocious tortures the 6 September 1566. in what was called the massacre of Scio. These
last ones were canonized from the Church. A painting* about this martyrdom is in the
palace of "dogi" to Genoa. The heads of the Maona were imprisoned in Crimea,
where many died, to the survivors, for intercession of the French ambassador, in the 1567
it was granted to it to return to Genoa, with the vain hope to look at itself recognized
an indemnification for the loss of the island. Most of them returned to Chios, their
fatherland. There was still a bishop of Chios in the XIX century: Ignazio in a 1830 and
other with the same name in 1879. Now there aren’t people with this surname in Chios.
The old dominions of the Giustiniani in the Dodecaneso, under the Turkish game, went very
soon in ruin. Chios was reduced in a den of thieves and pirates. The few Latins remained
were imprison by Ottomans. The greater part of the remained population was plebeians. All
the Churches of the island were destroyed excepting the Dominican' s convent and the
Chapel of Franciscans. The wealthiest Giustiniani families who chose to leave the island,
also to Genoa, escaped to Rome, Ancona, Amatrice, Messina, Palermo, Caprarica of Lecce,
Smirne, Alessandria, and generally all around the Mediterraneo area. One on these
Giustiniani survived was Giuseppe Giustiniani that moved to Rome. where his brother in law
Cardinal Vincenzo Giustiniani introduced him to the papal court. He married his three
daughters to members of the Roman aristocracy and his son Benedetto became a cardinal in
1586. In 1590 he bought what today is known as Palazzo Giustiniani (now siege of Senate of
the Italian Republic) and in 1595 the fief of Bassano Romano (the old name was
“Bassano di Sutri”). He increased the fame and celebrity of Giustiniani’s
family, being the patron of Caravaggio finest artist painter. The renowned prestigious and
fabulous collections of Caravaggio master pieces are today scattered in museums and
private collections around the world (Giustiniani collection of
antiquitiesby Christina Strunck). When his highness the Prince of Bassano Romano,
Marquees Vincenzo Giustiniani died, he decided (by testament to bequeath) and left a part
of his riches to his descendants Giustiniani. It’s usual that in the testaments of
lords Giustiniani a part of the riches went to all Giustiniani, also if their aren’t
direct descendents. In particular in the Marquees Vincenzo Giustiniani’s testament,
after a very long contentious lasted (along) 1631 to 1953, a judgement decided that who
can prove to be a descendant of the first “twelve Giustiniani” and to have a
ancestor in the gold book of the nobles of Genoa, it was heir and Genovese patrician and
lords of Chios. At the end, there were 288 heirs and heiresses divided in 12 lines. But
most of heirs did’nt participate in this contentious and probably don’t know
still today to be heirs of this family. It’s import to emphasize that the genovese
nobility is a republican nobility, nobles as persons who participated to the city
government not as feudal nobility as like we are accustoms to mean. Now, I’m engaging
in maintaining the attention lives on the history of this family. You can find a lot of
information on my web site in Italian (www.giustiniani.info ). On April 17, 2004, I
organized in Bassano Romano (Viterbo - Italy), with the patronage of Senate of the Italian
Republic and The Sovereign Military Order of Malta, in collaboration with the Communal
Administration and the Italian-Greek Alliance, a convention: "From Giustiniani to the
Eurpean Union: a continuous dialogue". At this event has participated teachers and
administrators of the Italians Municipalitys of: Mirano (Venice), Ortona (Chieti),
Caprarica (Lecce), Amelia (Terni), Lari and Fauglia (Pisa), the French Municipality of
Bastia (Corsica island), and the Greeks Municipalitys of Chios, Homiroupolis, Aghios Minas
and Ionias. The various relations have analyzed the history of Giustiniani during the
centuries, from republic of the sea during XIV century in the Levant until the arts
collections on XVI century of the famous maecenas Vincenzo and Benedetto Giustiniani*
(both born in Chios), and to the architectonic suggestions of the Giustiniani’s
palaces around Mediterranean area. A long travel between history and a culture in order to
re-establish, in the European spirit, the old ties among people of various cultures and
society. The taken part administrators, in order to give followed to this initiative, also
to the aim to realize a permanent organism, among several subjects, with the purpose to
safeguard the historical-cultural assets, for the full valorisation of situated palaces,
objects, memories of the Giustiniani family. This organism will be able to introduce
proposed of integrated participations, financed by structural European founds, for
twinning between the various communities and recovery of historical and artistic site,
traditional villages in state of abandonment and degradation. This summer it started in
Chios a new project about Giustiniani family, a coproduction Italian-French and Greece
have started the movie (cultural documentary) about the long travel of Giustiniani family
around Mediterranean area. On December 1, 2005, after 18 months of work, in the
prestigious Giustiniani Palace in Roma, was proposed the book of the convention. Now I
hope there will be others occasions to continue the “dialogue” about the history
of Giustiniani
Camillo Cungi, Allegory in Honour of the Giustiniani Family (Windsor Castle, The Royal Collection)
The Giustiniani Collection by Silvia Danesi Squarzina
On the occasion of theCaravaggio e i Giustiniani exhibition (in Rome, at Palazzo Giustiniani, 26 January - 15 May 2001), by courtesy of the Electa publishing house we reproduce from the catalogue part of the essay by Silvia Danesi Squarzina on the Giustianini collection.
A sense of vanity regarding earthly things and the contradictory desire to perpetuate the memory of itself by means of a collection which is inimitable and innovative compared with current taste, a monument and summing-up of the first forty years of 17th century culture; an arc of time that has as its background the union of politics and religion and, in the foreground, an idea of reality as revelation, as a flash of light, a going beyond the formal conventions, to astonish and transgress, through the dazzling ascent of everyday language (hoggidism, a term introduced by the scholars of baroque literature) as embodied by Caravaggio, to which followed the European phenomenon of Caravaggism and its slow eclipse. Certainly we cannot comprehend and appreciate the centrality of Caravaggio's language if we do not realise, particularly in the century we are dealing with, how the task of global communication was entrusted to painting.
A characteristic of this great commission is the fact of being immersed in the active and binding financial life of its particular time.
The term Baroque, commonly used in order to define painting and sculpture in the Italian 16th century, is inadequate in defining the taste of the merchant class for collecting in that age, a class which was modified compared with its great 14th century predecessors but which conserved in its genetic patrimony the chromosome of adherence to facts, to reality.
Dominators of financial markets thanks to the modernity of the instruments used (bills of exchange, banks, etc.) the Genoan merchants controlled the key positions in the European economy through loans to popes and sovereigns. They were buoys, cardinal points around which rotated the games of power and the changes in politico-cultural fortunes.
To what must we attribute the interest, no longer only specialised, but by now widened to a vast public, towards great collecting? This is a subject for study in which it is possible to see impressed in the work of art also the man to whom it was destined, as a co-creator together with the artist himself. For some time now research into the history of art has opened up new curiosity concerning the preferences of the patrons and towards the collections as a whole. "Collecting" is conceived as a fulfilled work of art in itself, needing to be safeguarded in its integrity, a reflection of its time, an instrument of conscience. The importance of conserving picture galleries, each intended as a whole, was much felt by the collectors themselves who, in order to prevent their heirs either selling or splitting them up, used an important juridical instrument, that of the trust. This tie has preserved great Roman collections such as the Borghese, the Spada, the Doria Pamphilj and so on. Unfortunately it has not saved that of the Giustinianis, which was among the most beautiful, and the economic difficulties of the heirs have decreed its progressive dispersal which began halfway through the 18th century and came to a conclusion in the 19th.
The Giustinani family was Genoan and gave doges to the Superba. A branch of the family had created an immense fortune by trading in mastic and alum on the island of Scio, in the Aegean sea, with a global vision of the markets and the economy through an associative structure called "maona", a forerunner of modern joint stock companies. All its members took the name Giustiniani. In 1566, Giuseppe Giustiniani left the Greek island of Scio chased out by the growing intrusion of the Turks who, due to a production crisis, had not been paid the customary tribute, and moved to Rome. There, the brother of his wife Gerolama, Cardinal Vincenzo Giustiniani (7 August 1519 - 2 October 1582), general of the Dominican foundation of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, enjoyed great prestige and power and guaranteed support inside the Curia. Giuseppe brought with him his children and great sums in cash judging from the possessions and offices which he quickly purchased. The alliances of his brother-in-law, the far-sighted Dominican cardinal, from Filippo Neri to Carlo Borromeo, both destined to be made saints, oriented those of Giuseppe and his descendants, including matrimonial choices, human and social relationships contracted between the oratory of the Filippines and pauperist religious orders. Alliances with banking circles are also noted. All this in the framework of great administrative and financial ability, typical of the Genoan and peculiar to the Giustiniani family, who loaned money to half Europe, sometimes to both the contenders in conflicts taking place.
The cash that the noble merchant used immediately assured him an important position in the equilibri of Roman society, characterised by an agrarian aristocracy short of liquidity. He became responsible for the Depositeria Pontificia. For his two sons, Benedetto (Scio, 5 June 1554 - Rome, 27 March 1621) and Vincenzo (Scio, 13 September 1564 - Rome, 27 December 1637), he was to procure a role of importance. Relevant characteristics of their lives were the great reserve, parsimony, lack of ostentation of their riches and power, as well as their innovative artistic choices towards the developing realism in the style of Caravaggio. It is fitting to fix the date of the death of the father of the two collectors Benedetto and Vincenzo in 1600 as being the start of our treatment of the subject, even if some paintings can already be referred to his purchases, begun with Venetian painting, that of Ferrara and obviously that of Genoa. The initials GG impressed in the wax seal on the back of some works among which the Natività on a panel by Palma il Vecchio - inv. 1621, 216, which reappears in inv. 1638, II, 17 attributed to the "early manner of Titian", Berlin, Gemäldegalerie - and the Garofalo di Colonia (see diagram) are perhaps the initials of Giuseppe Giustiniani. Bernardo Castello, the Genoan painter, a great friend of the poet Giovanni Battista Marino, and painter of the frescoes in the room of Psyche (1605) in Palazzo Giustiniani at Bassano Romano (formerly Bassano di Sutri) had painted a Natività dated 1582 (inv. 1600, 85) for Giuseppe, today in the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore, which in fact became part of Benedetto's collection after the death of his father Giuseppe. This same artist was commissioned, after October 1582, the date of the death of Cardinal Vincenzo Giustiniani, to make the altar-piece for the family chapel in Santa Maria sopra Minerva featuring the Predica di San Vincenzo Ferreri, dated 1584. Both these works contain the face of Giuseppe who commissioned them. The altar-piece of the Minerva shows us the youthful Benedetto wearing canonicals and also the face of Vincenzo as a young boy.
Until 1621, the date of the death of the first-born, the Giustiniani collection grew due to a perfect understanding between the two brothers, Cardinal Benedetto and the Marquis Vincenzo. The former had the task of linking the fortunes of the family to success with the pontifical curia, while the latter that of assisting this rise in importance with careful purchases of art, long-lasting, and the fruit of an infallible aesthetic sense, as well as with hard work in handling the finances of the family's growing riches. Since the subject of the current exhibition are the paintings, we can therefore only merely mention the palace building and the antique sculptures, which would be important subjects for another order of research.
We do not know when Vincenzo began to accumulate the statues which in the inventory of 1638 we see situated in the gallery and in the rooms of the palace in San Luigi dei Francesi as well as in other residences. The inventory on the death of Cardinal Benedetto lists the contents of the gallery in 1621, and in it we find 39 paintings - among which Cambiaso, Dosso, Francia, Giorgione (?), Veronese, Titian, an interesting copy of a work by Bramantino, Calvaert, Baglione, Caravaggio, Passignano and Pomarancio - and very few statues. This has raised the question to which archaeologists have not provided an answer as to the whereabouts at that date of the statues owned by Vincenzo? Perhaps the collection had not yet reached the huge number of items that we gather it contained seventeen years later and probably many antique pieces were in the villa at Laterano, owned by the Marquis (while the villa at the Muro Torto belonged to Benedetto).
The statues seem to have had various changes of location, not only a long time after 1638, but already after 1621, when Vincenzo inherited the whole palace. For some time the attention of scholars of the 17th century and antiquity has been directed to the gallery of Palazzo Giustiniani. Understanding its fruition is fundamental given the role model that it represented for its time.
So far the part played by the decoration of the walls is not clear: a sort of tapestry on which to hang paintings or rather a heritage of the first proprietors of the building, whitewashed, according to Lucia Guerrini, by Vincenzo himself. It has also been suggested that some sculptures were placed on shelves attached to the walls on which are frescoed great twisted columns inspired by the pergola of the ancient basilica of St. Peter's, composed of columns which according to legend came from the temple of Solomon. As a result of the Solomon stories on the ceiling, paid to Ricci and Lanzone, this decoration is similar to the decoration of the church of Santa Susanna in Rome, to be dated after 1598. It may have caught the interest of Vincenzo who, not by chance, in his Discourse above the architecture actually nominates that church. If it is the decorative model used by the Giustinianis on the basis of what we know of the decoration of the nave of Santa Susanna, we also must post-date the fake architecture on the walls of their gallery to the end of the 16th or the early years of the 17th century. Now that the date of birth of Matteo Zaccolini has been firmly established, not 1590 but 1574, it is plausible to believe what Baglione writes regarding the collaboration of the Theatine brotherhood in the architectural-perspective arrangement of the four stories of Santa Susanna painted by Baldassare Croce after 1598.
It is of some importance to notice Vincenzo Giustiniani's interest (he writes of the importance of understanding the laws of perspective) regarding Zoccolini, who was to be the focus of attention not only on the part of Domenichino but also of Cassiano dal Pozzo and Poussin, in other words the protagonists of the Marquis' circle. The Theatine order to which Zoccolini belonged had contacts with the Genoan family. Both in the church of Santa Susanna and in the large but not too large gallery of Palazzo Giustiniani, the use of artists and skilled workers from the work sites of pope Sixtus V gave to the whole an out-moded aura, not in line with the evolution of the times. It is the clever illusionary result of the huge twin columns, placed like wings to the backgrounds, that renews the overall conception and not only by rendering the spatial dimension even greater.
Therefore the decoration of the gallery came in three different phases: the pictures of the story of Solomon in the ceiling paid for on 4 July 1590 possibly at the act of acquiring the palazzo, but in which the Giustinianis had been already living for more than a year; the grotesques with small landscapes in the ceiling to be referred, as says Fioravante Martinelli and as one gathers from the comparison with the repertory of the etchings of the latter, to the huge Tempesta workshop; and finally, immediately afterwards, the decorating of the walls. But above all (this is the point we most want to make) to attribute to Vincenzo (who certainly supervised the works also in the rooms destined to his brother) the decision to decorate the walls, makes clear to us his technical programme. He intended to lay out the collections in two well-distinct "places" consecrated by antiquarian memories: gallery and pinacotheca (the famous three rooms of ancient pictures). And that was how it was to be if, as I have already stated, on Benedetto's death in 1621, the pictures in the gallery numbered no fewer than 39. Vincenzo, his heir, was to drastically reduce the number to only 15. The use evoked in the Discourse above the paintings to "parare compitamente le pareti con quadri" (to fittingly fill the walls with pictures) is therefore not valid for the gallery, arranged so as to house statues. And in point of fact the gallery in palazzo Giustiniani at Bassano Romano entrusted to Albani does have its walls entirely frescoed. The gallery is a space outside time, in which antiquity is intimately revisited and which opts for sculptures, placed on the floor or on large stools. These pieces of furniture, frequently bearing the family crest, were sometimes made by cabinet makers such as Claude Pernet di Lorraine ("two pedestals in walnut one carved in the shape of sirens and the other in the likeness of the god Terminus").
To sum up briefly the layout of the palazzo we can say that until his death the father Giuseppe (1600) lived in the wing towards via Giustiniani, a wing which in 1621 seems to have been available to Benedetto together with all the rooms on the side towards via dei Crescenzi and including the gallery. Vincenzo, until 1621, lived in the so-called "noble second floor", if we like to call it by an expression in use in Genoan palazzi. But he kept for himself the already described three rooms of the noble first floor, irregularly shaped, and situated on the front towards San Luigi dei Francesi.
In the years in which the noble first floor was almost entirely at Benedetto's disposal, apart from the gallery his study also seems to be of particular importance in the itinerary offered to the 17th century visitor. Apart from twelve busts of Roman emperors, Benedetto kept in this room three important fragments of three lost mosaic cycles of the ancient St. Peter's: San Giuseppe (inv. 1621, 160), from the Natività of Oratorio of Giovanni VII, Gesù Bambino (inv. 1621, 175), from the tomb of Bonifacio VIII, and the Testa della Madonna (inv. 1621, 159) from the Deesis, which decorated the ancient facade of the Vatican Basilica. The inventory of 1793 still lists them all and regarding the Madonna points out that she has a star on her shoulder, therefore this is a confirmation that it must be the mosaic bought with the other two in Rome from the antiquarian Bonieno da Sevastjanov and now in the Pushkin museum. Also in his study, Benedetto kept the St. Peter and St. Paul which had been part of the fresco of the Sogno di Costantino. In the framework of studies on Christian archaeology, it would seem that his objective was to have a small reliquary of various parts of the ancient basilica, in the years in which he was the provost of Paolo V Borghese (1605-1621) at the Fabbrica di San Pietro. Vincenzo then moved the whole of this group of Christian antiquities into the third room of ancient pictures (1638, II, 236, 237, 238, 239 and 240).
But the palazzo is not a background for the collection. The focus of attention of scholars is verging towards ever more analytical aspects, complementary to artistic history. The archives of the great patrician families provide valuable precision concerning attribution and the dating of key works. One of the reasons for the scholarly attention devoted to the Giustiniani family is the abundance of documents still conserved which invite research of various types. Given the mass of papers examined by us (more than 400 large folders kept in the Archivio di Stato in Rome, as well as numerous other sources and archives) we can claim to know almost everything about the Giustinianis, regarding their life style, furnishings, possessions and, most of all, their collections, the type and composition of which are by now clear to us. Therefore it becomes even more necessary to interpret the data in our possession, to animate the scenario and transform a waxworks museum into a theatre full of living figures, the dimension of which is ever more Italian, despite its numerous intellectual and practical life openings towards a more than European space. On the other hand, we must resist the temptation of the anecdote and the proliferation of historical data in order to dedicate specific attention to the picture collection which is the main objective of our research.
The inventories on the death of Marquis Vincenzo Giustiniani, compiled in February 1638 and published by Luigi Salerno in 1960, made it possible to reconstruct the entity and high quality of the whole, almost six hundred paintings and approximately two thousand ancient sculptures. These inventories reveal a great expert and are most useful in refining modern conoisseurship in that they contain, for the picture collection, the names of the artists resulting from the lists presumably dictated according to Vincenzo's own wish when he made a new will on 22 January 1631 (see diagram) and instituted the tie of a trust. The few errors of attribution concern certain old acquisitions by Benedetto the memory of which had been lost and the ancient pictures; the Madonna col Bambino e i santi Giuseppe e Francesco (inv. 1621, 50) by Dosso Dossi in the inventory of 1638, despite the fact that Vincenzo was an expert on Dosso is mentioned as being attributed to Sebastiano del Piombo, but even contemporary scholars have had doubts. Rediscovering, in 1994, the inventories of the elder brother, Cardinal Benedetto, the first being published between approximately 1600 and 1611 (108 paintings) and the second dated 1621 (300 paintings), and comparing them with those of the younger brother, it has been possible for me to track down the first nucleus and retrace numerous paintings which had been dispersed.
A 500-year-old marble statue of Christ will form the centrepiece of a blockbuster exhibition on Michelangelo at the National Gallery after curators negotiated a deal to bring it to London from its permanent home in a monastery in Italy.
The statue of the Risen Christ, weighing almost a ton, is one of almost 30 works which will go on show at the National Gallery next year in its first major exhibition on perhaps the greatest of all Renaissance artists in more than 20 years.
The Michelangelo exhibition, two years in the making, could set new visitor records. The show, which opens in March 2017 and runs until the end of June, will focus on Michelangelo’s friendship and collaboration with the artist Sebastiano del Piombo and their acrimonious falling out.
Nude Christ by Michelangelo, Long Forgotten, Will Be Shown in London (By Elisabetta Povoledo)
It might seem odd that a nearly seven-foot-tall statue of Christ by Michelangelo — and a nude one at that — would go unnoticed for centuries.
But that’s what happened to “Risen Christ,” a monumental figure that was transferred to a country church about 35 miles from Rome in the 17th century and that fell into oblivion until 1997, when scholars attributed it to the Renaissance master.
“It was thought to be an imitation” of a Michelangelo, and “not a faithful one at that,” said the Rev. Cleto Tuderti, prior of the San Vincenzo Monastery on the outskirts of Bassano Romano, near Viterbo, where the statue was taken in 1644. “Certainly, no one thought it was by Michelangelo.”
Father Tuderti says he is convinced that the unknown provenance of the work ensured its salvation through the ages.
When Napoleon’s troops invaded Italy at the end of the 18th century, they sacked Bassano Romano but did not touch the statue, he said. During World War II, the Germans “set up a command post in Bassano,” but they did not loot the statue, he continued. And when the Odescalchi family donated the badly dilapidated monastery to Father Tuderti’s predecessor in 1941, they removed other artifacts, but not the statue, he said cheerfully.
“Fortunately, no one knew it was an original,” said Father Tuderti, who belongs to the Sylvestrine Benedictine order. “That’s what saved it, and preserved it here, in situ.”
Since the statue was identified as a Michelangelo, however, the monastery has gladly shown off its treasure, allowing the statue to travel to exhibitions around the world, including in Rome, Berlin and Mexico City.
Soon, it will be one of the showpieces of an exhibition on Michelangelo and the painter Sebastiano del Piombo that is set to open at the National Gallery in London on March 15 and to run through June 25.
“Risen Christ” was commissioned in 1514 by Metello Vari, the nephew of a wealthy Roman patrician, Marta Porcari, whose will required her heirs to build a chapel in her memory in the church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva in Rome. Documents show that Vari asked Michelangelo to sculpt a life-size figure of a standing, nude Christ holding a cross.
But Michelangelo abandoned work on the statue after finding a deep, black vein cutting through the left cheek. He returned to Florence and fretted over the aborted commission. “I’m dying of anguish,” he wrote to Leonardo Sellaio, a bank agent, in December 1518.
Soon after, the artist began a second version of “Risen Christ,” which he completed in 1521. That work is still in the church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva.
But Michelangelo also gave Vari the first, incomplete statue, which fell into obscurity after Vari’s death in 1554. It was acquired in Rome roughly 50 years later by the Giustiniani family, wealthy collectors — and famously patrons of Caravaggio — who presumably did not know the statue’s genesis.
Another artist was commissioned to finish the statue, and in 1644, the Christ was transferred to the recently built church of San Vincenzo Martire in Bassano Romano, where it remained on the main altar until 1979.
The prior at the time, the Rev. Ildebrando Gregori, chose to dedicate the main altar to devotion of the Holy Face of Jesus, and he moved the “Risen Christ” to the sacristy.
The “Risen Christ” was known only from writings describing Michelangelo's work on a statue of that description until Dr. Irene Baldriga and Prof. Silvia Danesi Squarzina of La Sapienza University in Rome, who were working on the Giustiniani archives, tracked down the statue in 1997.
After other documents emerged and the attribution to Michelangelo was confirmed, there was some discussion about where the statue should go and in what guise. Michelangelo had sculpted a nude Christ because, in 1514, “reverence for classical antiquity and the timeless beauty of the human body” still held sway, Professor Squarzina said. Later, in keeping with the mores of the Counter-Reformation, a bronze cloth was added to cover the Christ’s groin.
“The monks didn’t want a nude statue on the main altar, but we wanted to display it as Michelangelo had created it, so we arrived at a compromise,” said Professor Squarzina, who had the backing of the state’s art authorities. The bronze cloth was removed, and the statue was placed in a side chapel where it is protected by alarms and a heavy metal grate.
Both versions of the statue will be exhibited at the National Gallery (the Minerva one in a plaster cast), so that they can be studied side-by-side for the first time.
“The evolution between the two versions is fascinating and ties into Michelangelo’s relationship with Sebastiano,” the focus of the exhibition, said Matthias Wivel, the National Gallery’s curator of 16th-century Italian paintings. The statues “help us tell this story,” he said.
Sebastiano, moreover, was involved in the haphazard installation of the second version of the statue in the Minerva, which he described in panicky letters to Michelangelo. Those letters will also be included in the London show.
Father Tuderti says he hopes that the statue’s notoriety will bring more visitors to the monastery, which runs a bed-and-breakfast. Few locals come to the site, he said, perhaps not knowing that there was a Michelangelo to behold.
“Viterbo is closed mentally, like their Etruscan forbears, they’re more appreciative of what’s on the table” and in their farms, Father Tuderti said. “I hope they don’t hear me,” he joked.
After London, the statue is set to travel to Japan for other exhibitions, he said.
Some art experts fear that the statue — which weighs around a ton and has to be transported using military planes — has been traveling more than it should, putting it at risk of damage or loss.
But Father Tuderti says that the attribution to Michelangelo has been a godsend, and that the money the monastery makes from lending it for exhibitions has paid off large tax debts and is helping to finance the construction of a monastery in the Republic of Congo.
“The statue was identified at the right time,” he said. “We were in financial difficulty, and this statue now brings us a little help every once in a while.”
A "magnetic" statue, which remained intact during the passage of the Landsknechts in the sixteenth century, then of the Jacobin hordes, of Napoleon's troops but, above all, of General Kesserling's Nazis... Why?
The diary of a revolutionary Corsican priest, who lived in the 17th century, tells the story of a Christ Carrying the Cross begun by Michelangelo and then abandoned by him because of the presence of a "black vein" which appeared in the white marble at the level of the face. The statue was later finished in 1620 by a young Gian Lorenzo Bernini on behalf of the Marquis Vincenzo Giustiniani. In 1644 it was taken to the Church of San Vincenzo in Bassano Romano and there it remained forgotten and ignored until 1999 when it was finally attributed to Michelangelo.
Interwoven with the story of the statue will be a tale of love between a young ex-prostitute named Clelia and Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
In the summer of 2016, two young people: Åsa and Davide, with the help of an elderly abbot, will reconnect the broken threads that linked a great discovery and an unfinished love story that will have a final act of resurrection...
THE CRISTI PROJECT The proposal of The Third Christ Carrying The Cross Giustiniani marks the beginning of a new chapter, harmonizing with the two original renditions sculpted by the revered artist Michelangelo Buonarroti half a millennium ago. The sculptor Pablo Damian Cristi has embarked on a monumental project: the creation of The Third Christ Carrying The Cross Giustiniani.
This ambitious project was proposed by Giustiniani family in 2018. Thus, under the skilled hands of Cristi, the journey of The Third Christ Carrying The Cross Giustiniani begins.
This visionary pursuit seeks to honour the legacy of the past while forging an unbreakable bond with the present, infusing The Third Christ Carrying The Cross Giustiniani with an ethereal essence that resonates beyond time.
With unwavering dedication, Pablo Damian Cristi embarks on an extraordinary quest to bring the ideal Trinity to completion, breathing life into a sculpture that unites the realms of tradition and innovation in a symphony of divine artistry.
The Third Christ Carrying The Cross Giustiniani by artist Pablo Danian Cristi in its current phase of en plein air work (December 2023) in London at the Royal Exchange
Nude Christ by Michelangelo, Long Forgotten, Will Be Shown in London (By Elisabetta Povoledo)
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