Gli affreschi della facciata del Palazzetto Massimo Istoriato: un disegno di Polidoro da Caravaggio per le 'Storie di Giuditta'

• Autores: Monica Latella
• Localización: Bollettino d'arte, ISSN 0391-9854, Vol. 99, Nº. 24, 2014, págs. 61-84
• Idioma: italiano
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • The façade frescoes of the Palazzetto Massimo Istoriato: a drawing by Polidoro da Caravaggio for the 'Judith Cycle'.

    The fresco decoration of the façade of the Palazzetto Massimo Istoriato, commissioned in 1523 by Domenico Massimo on the occasion of his son Angelo's marriage to Antonietta Planca degli Incoronati, has not benefitted from particular historiographical or critical attention despite its being the only such façade that has survived largely intact up to our day. The article intends to fill this gap in the literature, beginning with the identification of the iconographic subject: represented over the entire surface of the façade are not generic "biblical episodes", as has been up to now sustained, but rather the history of a single biblical figure, Judith. Further study of the reasons that led Domenico Massimo to prefer a subject so unusual for this period in Rome, enables considerations on the political position of the Massimo family and their relations with the papacy of Clement VII. On the basis of an autograph drawing by Polidoro da Caravaggio that is seen to be perfectly superimposable on one of the frecoed figures from the façade of the Palazzetto, and on a series of stylistic affinities, it is proposed that the artist of the cycle is indeed none other than Polidoro, a painter who at the time these frescoes were painted was reputed the authority par excellence of façade decoration.