ATTRIBUTED TO GIOVANNI DA UDINE (1487–1564)

A STUDY FOR PART OF THE DECORATIONS IN THE PAPAL LOGGIE AT THE VATICAN
Bears inscription l.m. Marco da Faenza
Pen & ink on laid paper
40.6 x 20.7 cm
 
PROVENANCE:
With Hal O'Nians, London;
From whom purchased August 1964 (for £45),
Private Collection, Canada
 
LITERATURE:
Cf. N. Dacis, Le Logge di Raffaello, Rome (1986), pp.31-37, pls. XCI & M
 
EXHIBITED:
London, Hal O'Nians, Old Master Drawings Exhibition, April 1964, no.91 (as Marco Marchetti)
 
 
 
 
The present work was likely a preliminary study for part of the Papal Loggie, with the relevant section reproduced in Giovanni Ottaviani's print series of the 'Loggie de Rafaele nel Vaticano' (publ. 1760-69), specifically 'The bottom half of the pilaster between the seventh and eighth bays of the Raphael Loggia' (see fig. III below). The main section of the seventh bay of the Loggie shows four scenes from the life Joseph, while the eighth (and ninth) show the story of Moses. 
 
Although the entire decorative scheme is today associated with Raphael, Giovanni da Udine was responsible for much of the 'grotteschi' and decorative details that surround the main body of the frescoes and the well-known subject paintings. This sheet is therefore a fascinating link to some of Raphael's best-known masterpieces, and provides a rare opportunity to see the history behind the finished paintings. 
 
 
Our drawing can be compared to a number of further sheets attributed to Giovanni da Udine in institutional collections, the closest of which we have identified is one in the Codice Resta, in the Biblioteca Communale di Palermo (see figs. I & II below), which also includes studies for the decoration of the Papal Apartments in the Vatican. Other representative examples of Da Udine's hand which can be examined in relation to the style of the present sheet include a Sketchbook Sheet of Ornamental Studies (Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, acc. no. 1985.327.2); Orpheus singing to the animals and various sketches of vases and heads, (Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich, inv 2250 v); Etudes de grotesques and Croquis d'ornements (Louvre Collections, Paris, INV 11094 & 3349); a Copy after an Ancient Roman Fresco (Royal Collections, Windsor, RCIN 909567); and a Studio per motivi decorativi di logge (Raccolte Storiche dell'Accademia di Brera (Fondo Frizzoni, Milan, FF3529).
 
 
Giovanni da Udine was born in Udine and was apprenticed to Giovanni Martini and subsequently to Giorgione in Venice. After these studies, he joined Raphael's workshop in Rome, where he became particularly inspired by the Roman decorations discovered in the recent excavations of the city's classical sites. The young artist is thought to have discovered his forte when he went with Raphael to see the newly uncovered Domus Aurea, the Emperor Nero's 'Golden House'.  The scene was described in Vasari's Life of Giovanni da Udine: 
 
'[After] the excavations [were] made at S. Pietro in Vincula, among the ruins and remains of the Palace of Titus, in the hope of finding figures, certain rooms were discovered, completely buried under the ground, which were full of little grotesques, small figures, and scenes, with other ornaments of stucco in low-relief. Whereupon, Giovanni going with Raffaello, who was taken to see them, they were struck with amazement, both the one and the other, at the freshness, beauty, and excellence of those works, for it appeared to them an extraordinary thing that they had been preserved for so long a time.'
 
Among the various projects that Giovanni worked on with Raphael, the Papal Apartments (or Loggie) provided perhaps the best opportunity for him to show off his inventive designs and considerable skill: hundreds of feet of wall-space were covered in beautiful and intricate designs of flora, fauna, caryatids, putti and other ingenious decorations, all of which tie together the now-celebrated scenes from Antiquity and scripture that Raphael produced in a harmonious whole. 
  
 
When Raphael died in 1520, Giovanni continued to work with the master's successor Giulio Romano for the remainder of his time in Rome. Returning to his hometown in 1527 after the sack of Rome, Giovanni was soon after summoned to Florence by the Medici, from whom he received a number of decorative commissions. By 1534, he was back in Udine, where he was involved in many further interior projects, though the majority of these were sadly unrealised or are no longer visible. Giovanni Da Udine was buried in the Pantheon in Rome, just as his friend and collaborator Raphael had been. 
 
 
 
The 16th century saw the rise of a new class of artists who specialised primarily in painting the decorative elements of large interior commissions, but who were also able to make their name in this field and not remain anonymous, as once they might have. The taste for grotteschi (literally 'Grotesque' decorations) of the sort that had abounded in classical Rome, with decorative designs incorporating flowers, putti and anything else that the artist could include, flourished during this period. Indeed, many of artists who specialised in the field (Giovanni da Udine included) sustained entire careers with commissions of this sort.
 
Jennifer Montagu wrote recently of this broad category of artist, ‘Most of these painters of elegant and inventive grotesques were known only to specialists: their names appear in the accounts for decorations of the time…and a few scholars had begun the task of differentiating between them. If this was difficult to achieve by examining the paintings…the distinction between their drawing styles if often easier.’ (1)