Catalogue-2014-Jean-Luc-Baroni

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Pelagio Palagi
Bologna 1775-1860 Turin
A Meeting of Artists in Classical Dress, Gathered before the Busts of the Renaissance Masters: An
Academy of Drawing in the Palazzo di Venezia, Rome.
Black chalk heightened with white gouache on buff coloured paper, within framing lines. The artist has named
himself and some of the artists depicted along the edges of the tunics and in an album: Palagi/ Giuseppe Guizzardi/
Gius. Cllignon/ Basiletti. Two of the three busts are also inscribed: [RA]FAEL, BUONARROTI.
279 x 452 mm. (11 x 17 ¾ in.)
This impressive drawing is not only one of the best graphic works by Pelagio Pelagi but it documents a magical
moment, which was to have important ramifications for Italian and European art of the 19 th century 1 . In March
1806, having won the painting competition at the Academy in Bologna, Palagi received a grant to live in Rome
for four years. There he met Giuseppe Guizzardi, winner of the prize in 1804 and other prizewinning students
from the Academies of Venice and Milan. The artists met regularly in the Palazzo di Venezia, then Embassy of
the Serenissima, which was established as the Accademia d’Italia in 1812 through the efforts of Antonio Canova.
Palagio, along with Minardi, became the leader of this group of artists, creating a cultural salon which he proudly
called “nostra accademia”. The young students would meet on a daily basis, often dressed all’antica as recorded
in a portrait of Giuseppe Guizzardi painted by Pelagi in 1807 (now in the Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Bologna)
as well as in the diary entries of the members. They drew obsessively from nude models and from classical basreliefs.
This drawing, an important testimony published here for the first time, vividly records an extraordinary
period of apprenticeship; a creative furnace which soon produced a new artistic language for Italy. This new
model of study was quite revolutionary and caused controversy in the Academies from which these artists came.
In a letter dated 4 July 1807, Count Carlo Filippo Aldrovandi, the new president of the Bolognese Academy, wrote
to Palagi in Rome “L’Accademia di Bologna … knows how to evaluate the time wasted in your gigantic Roman
drawings” 2 ; drawings which, now, are amongst the finest examples of European neoclassicism. A terminus post
quem exists for this actual work both in the fact that Basiletti and Guizzardi left Rome in the first months of 1809
and in the information given in a letter by Palagi to his Bolognese friend, the engraver Francesco Rosaspina. This
letter also testifies to the central role Palagi played in these meetings: “It is already more than three weeks that
we have been meeting in my palace and more precisely in my apartment, a brigade of my friends have installed
themselves to draw in the evening from reliefs, and at the end of this month, we will work from a live model.
Guizzardi, who works hard and with whom I make many studies, is one of the members of our academy. As are
Basiletti, Minardi, Comerio, Marchesi, student from Milan, Colignon from Florence and others” 3 . Pelagi therefore
appears to be describing to Rosaspina the very scene which is depicted here and beyond the artists whose
names are given by Pelagi, we must moreover presume that, as the physiognomies are quite distinct and realistic,
the other portraits could also be identified amongst the list of artists given in the letter. Hovering above them
all, represented by the three busts, are the spirits of Raphael and Michelangelo for painting and sculpture and
Socrates, example of virtue and knowledge, for philosophy. Palagi presents the scene in a classical environment,
reminiscent of a Roman “gymnasium”, over which Minerva, protector of the arts and intellectual activity, also
presides, depicted on a relief in the right hand corner.
Destined to have a burgeoning career as a history painter, in those Roman years Palagi was involved in the
most prestigious artistic projects undertaken in Napoleonic Rome 3 . Between 1811 and 1813, a project for the
decorations of the Palazzo Imperiale intended for the use of Napoleon, contributed to the diffusion of a new
figurative language and brought together a large number of Italian and foreign painters and sculptors amongst
which, Ingres, Giani, Camuccini, Pinelli, Conca and Thorvaldsen along with Palagi.
Towards the end of 1815, Palagi moved to Milan where he stayed until 1832. He became a sought after portraitist,
as well as the prime exponent of a romantic style, very different from that of his rival Francesco Hayez, with whom
he became engaged in a battle of masterpieces. This ended only in 1832, when Palagi moved definitively to Turin,
summoned by Carlo Alberto di Savoia. For him, the King created the role of Painter for the Royal Palaces, making
Palagi responsible for all elements of the decorative programme from the pictorial decoration to the furnishings,
fabrics and ornaments for the Royal Palace in Turin and all of the other residences of the Sabauda crown.
Francesco Leone
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