Maurilio Lovatti
The Assumption of the Virgin Mary with the Apostles by Giacomo Zoboli in Duomo Nuovo, Brescia
Giacomo Zoboli (1681-1767), sometimes referred to as Jacopo, one of the greatest and most famous Italian painters of the Eighteenth century, born in Modena, after having painted for a few years in his city, moved to Rome around 1712-13, and worked mainly in the capital. Many of his masterpieces are visible in the churches of Rome, in particular in the basilicas of Santi Carlo e Ambrogio al Corso, Sant'Eustacchio, Sant'Apollinare, Santa Maria in Trastevere and in the church of San Giovanni della Pigna and in the national galleries of Palazzo Barberini and Palazzo Corsini. His paintings were also commissioned by the Monastery of the Visitation in Madrid and the Monastery of the Holy Cross in Coimbra in Portugal. In Rome his fame grew steadily: in 1718 he became a member of the Accademia dei Virtuosi al Pantheon and in 1725 of the prestigious Accademia di San Luca, to the point of being considered in Rome, in his time, after the death of Sebastiano Conca, as the greatest living painter after Pompeo Batoni. In Brescia, three paintings of religious subjects by Zoboli are preserved: the altarpiece of the Assumption of the high altar of the Duomo Nuovo, Saint Philip Neri kneeling before the Virgin Mary, in the Church of Santa Maria della Pace and the Assumption and the Angels, altarpiece of the high altar of the old church in the Chiesanuova district.
The
presence of these important works by the Modena painter in the Lombard city
is certainly due to the Venetian Cardinal Angelo Maria Querini,
Bishop of Brescia from 1727 to 1755. Querini, remembered above all as the
founder and patron of the Queriniana Library in Brescia, opened to the
public in 1750, among the most learned scholars of the eighteenth century,
was on friendly terms with the Popes of the time, in particular Innocent
XIII (1721-1724), Benedict XIII (1724-1730) and Clement XII
(1730-1740), while with Benedict XIV (1740-1758) he had several
veiled controversies. Querini corresponded with European intellectuals, such
as Voltaire, and was even received by Newton. He was also
Prefect of the Vatican Library, member of the Accademia della
Crusca, the
Royal Academy of Berlin and the Academy of the Incogniti in Vienna.
Almost the same age as Zoboli, Querini, who was born in 1680, met the painter during
his time in Rome (from 1714 to 1721), before being appointed archbishop of
Corfu in 1723, then Venetian. Having arrived in Brescia in March
1728, after
being appointed cardinal on 26 November 1727, he immediately took care of
resuming work on completing the Duomo Nuovo (new Cathedral). In fact,
construction work on the Brescia cathedral had begun way back in 1604, when
the Venetian Marino Zorzi was bishop, but it had proceeded very
slowly, both due to lack of money and the plague epidemic, which had caused
an interruption from 1630 to around 1670. When Cardinal Querini arrived in
Brescia, there were practically only the walls, the roof of the cathedral,
the apse and the two front chapels. The high altar, the presbytery and the
choir were not yet built , as well as
the dome. To paint the altarpiece of the high altar Querini personally chose
and commissioned Giacomo Zoboli in 1732. The work that we can still admire
today was positioned in 1735 and is considered by scholars to be a very
successful work, which shows inventive ability and a wise use of color.
The Assumption of the Virgin Mary with the
Apostles by Giacomo Zoboli, main masterpiece in Duomo Nuovo,
Brescia (1733-1735)
The large painting (650 by 350 cm) was executed entirely in Rome, as the Bishop
himself informs us in his pastoral letter of 2 August 1732. In this letter
Cardinal Querini communicates that the same high altar of the cathedral,
composed of ancient marbles and gilded bronzes, was made in Rome and
exhibited, before being transported to Brescia, in Palazzo Venezia, his
Roman domicile (his nomination as Cardinal had made him titular of the
annexed basilica of San Marco Evangelista). The Cardinal adds, referring to
Giacomo Zoboli: “Ordinammo nell'istesso tempo
pure a Roma il gran quadro che ha da occupare tutta la facciata di mezzo del
coro, avendo scelto a tal fine uno dei più eccellenti, ed accreditati
Pennelli di questa Città” (At the same time we also ordered in
Rome the large painting that is to occupy the entire central facade of the
choir, having chosen for this purpose one of the most excellent and
accredited painters of this city.) Considering that at that time
the majority of the people were illiterate, the paintings in the churches,
and even more so in the cathedral, had an educational and almost
catechetical function, and evidently Bishop Querini considered Zoboli's
style particularly suitable for transmitting the authentic meaning of the
Assumption of the Virgin, which at that time was not yet a dogma of the
Catholic Church (it was proclaimed by Pope Pius XII in 1950) but was deeply felt by
the Christian people, in particular after the Council of Trent.
Zoboli was perhaps initially inspired by Moretto's Assumption,
present in the Duomo Vecchio (there is no evidence that he came to
Brescia), but he worked in a creative and dynamic way. He also compared
himself with Emilian models, first of all the Carracci brothers, and with
the grandiose and rhetorical compositions "alla romana", a legacy
of his training in the capital. Certainly one of the models that inspired
him was The Assumption of the Virgin of 1593 by Agostino Carracci (1557-1602)
for the Zaniboni chapel of San Salvatore in Bologna, today preserved
in the Pinacoteca Nazionale of the Emilian city. Almost certainly the main
source from which he drew inspiration, given the notable analogies, is the
"Madonna
Assunta" by Francesco Bassano Dal Ponte (1549-1592), the main
altarpiece of the church of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome, which is also
two hundred metres from the basilica of Sant'Eustachio, for which Zoboli
created between 1727 and 1729 the two paintings that made him famous (the Visitation
and Saint Jerome Listening to the Trumpet of the Last Judgement).
Like Carracci and Bassano, along the arched canvas Zoboli places the
apostles in the lower part and the Virgin in the upper part, supported by
flying angels, who opens her arms and is depicted in a slight twist. The
lower part of the painting, where the apostles are depicted, is the
liveliest and has the greatest visual impact. The apostles are depicted with
very eloquent and suggestive facial expressions, which show attitudes of
amazement, fear, devotion, awareness of the extraordinary nature of the
event they are experiencing. In the center is Peter and around him the
painter arranges his companions symmetrically, all arranged around the
sarcophagus where they had laid and watched over the body of the Virgin Mary
before she was assumed into heaven. Zoboli shows a certain realistic
modernity in the cut of the bodies of the apostles placed to the side.
Emphasis, crowding of twisting figures and bright colours characterise the
entire work, completed in 1735, and derive from the Roman pictorial
environment, in which Zoboli trained and was influenced by Guido Reni
(1575-1642), Carlo Maratta (1625-1713) and his friend Sebastiano
Conca (1680-1764) and are emblematic of a pictorial style very different
from the Venetian one then predominant in Brescia and in the other cities of
the Republic of Venice. Precisely for this reason Cardinal Querini
had chosen Zoboli. Querini loved the academic style of Roman painters and
the theatrical, scenographic, even spectacular effects of Roman painting of
the time. Giacomo Zoboli had in fact already painted two paintings for Pope Benedict
XIII in Rome, later donated by Pope Pius IX to the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio
e Carlo al Corso, where they are still located, in which the influence
of Guido Reni is at its maximum.
Querini's choice proved to be a good one, and Zoboli's painting was a great
success, even popular. When on April 21, 1737, Easter Sunday, the Bishop
celebrated the first holy mass at the new altar in front of Zoboli's altarpiece,
in a sort of solemn inauguration, a large crowd gathered in the square in
front. Querini intended the ceremony to be reserved for the city authorities
and noble families, as was the custom at the time. But the crowd was such
that the guards sent by the Podestà were unable to contain the crowd
that wanted to see the new altar and Zoboli's painting, and so the Podestà
himself decided to allow everyone access to the cathedral. Antonio Fappani
wrotes: “Il grande evento,
sottolineato da un elevato discorso del cardinale, è celebrato in sonetti,
stampe, medaglie commemorative che ne diffondono l'eco nella Penisola
italica e oltre i suoi confini” (The great event, underlined by an
elevated speech by the Cardinal, is celebrated in sonnets, prints,
commemorative medals that spread its echo in the Italian peninsula and
beyond its borders).
Painting by Giacomo Zoboli in Rome, Modena, Brescia and in other locations (in italian)
Documents about death an burial of Giacomo Zoboli
Saint Philip Neri kneeling before the Virgin Mary (1745) by Giacomo Zoboli in the church of Santa Maria della Pace in Brescia
- Giacomo Zoboli (1681-1767) Treccani -Dizionario biografico degli italiani (in italian)
- Giacomo Zoboli (1681-1767) Wikipedia