Giovanni Stradano: le più strane e belle invenzioni del mondo

The anniversary exhibition in Florence of Giovanni Stradano (the Flemish artist also known as Jan van der Straet or Johannes Stradanus) was an exceptional event (closed 18th February). Born in 1523 in Bruges – where his first monographic show was held in 2008–09 – he was active until 1545 in Antwerp; he then left for Italy and remained in Florence from c.1554 until his death in 1605. The Museo di Palazzo Vecchio was an ideal setting for the exhibition since Stradano worked there until 1565 in the service of Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici on new decorations under the guidance of Giorgio Vasari.
The bilingual catalogue encompasses a large part of the artist’s contribution to the palace’s refurbishment and includes many preparatory drawings for the panel paintings in the large gold-coffered ceiling in the Salone dei Cinquecento, on the first floor, which he executed in close collaboration with Vasari, and for the circular panel in the centre of the ceiling in the Sala di Penelope, on the second floor. In her introductory essay Valentina Zucchi discusses all of Stradano’s many frescos in the palace, among which are a number of accurate street views and cityscapes, together with the two paintings in the Studiolo by him, as well as the many panel paintings he executed with Vasari.
Although by sifting out Stradano’s works (and collaborations) from the overall decorative programme Zucchi makes it easier to understand his input into this shared endeavour, this is at the expense of a general insight into Vasari’s complex project. On the positive side, it is easy to gain an understanding of Stradano’s part in the overall scheme, although this was easier for the visitor to the exhibition – especially as the selected drawings and prints were often presented close to the related final works – than it is for the reader of the catalogue.
Unlike many of his predecessors and colleagues, Stradano did not make preliminary studies; his draughtsmanship focused instead on working out the narrative and space of the final composition. Although a number of small sketches by him, including early ideas or spontaneous visual concepts that anticipate a completed composition, have survived in the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York, these tell another story, closer to the inception of the creative process than to the final composition, and perhaps for that reason were omitted from the exhibition.
In her introduction to the catalogue, Alessandra Baroni, the exhibition’s curator and the author of Stradano’s catalogue raisonné, demonstrates that his fresco Firework for the feast of St John on the palace’s first floor refers to a real pyromanic explosion at the centre of Piazza della Signoria, which she interprets as a celebration of ‘military power through the glorification of fire and gunpower [. . .] with which Cosimo had consolidated his power throughout Tuscany and found allies on the European front as far as the new continent of America, the Quarta Pars of the known world’ (p.22). The fire-breathing device in question has its origin in a woodcut in Vannoccio Biringuccio’s book De la pirotechnia, published in 1540, which illustrates the larger context for the fresco in the areas of scientific and technological discoveries, especially regarding mining, metallurgy and military armament. This is reflected also in Stradano’s print series Nova reperta, published by Philips Galle (c.1591; Castello Sforzesco, Milan; cat. no.59), which illustrates such groundbreaking inventions as the rearing of silkworms, the mechanical clock, the compass, as well as gun powder, book printing and oil painting.
Stradano’s participation in the ceiling decoration of the Salone dei Cinquecento is documented in six preparatory drawings (nos.2–7). These reveal not only his gift as a draughtsman but also his ability to add a touch of individuality to many of the martial subjects, especially the soldiers, commanders and horseman. The contrast between two of the drawings for the Salone’s large ceiling is revealing. That for Capture of Vicopisano near Pisa ( c.1565; Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence; no.2) is a bluntly simple composition ? the commanderin- chief is seen from the back in the middle of the battlefield – executed in a dramatic chiaroscuro style. The other, for Triumph after the war against Siena (no.7; Fig.14), is very different: it depicts the victorious entry of Cosimo I’s army shortly before entering Florence through the Porta Romana. They are shown from behind and so the three soldiers on horseback at the end of the squad are highlighted, drawing the viewer’s attention to their horses’ hindquarters. This gives the composition a sculptural element and, in this reviewer’s mind, provides additional justification for Baroni’s argument in the catalogue that Stradano was primarily responsible for the painting.
Stradano’s importance as a designer of tapestries has attracted considerable attention. Consisting of some thirty designs,4 they are of great importance both in his work and within the larger context of tapestry production in Florence, initiated by Cosimo I, who with the support of the Flemings Jan Rost and Nicholas Karcher, both hired in 1545, established two tapestry workshops there. Many of Stradano’s tapestries must have decorated the Palazzo Vecchio. His biographer, Raffaello Borghini, reports in his treatise on art, Il Riposo (1584), that the artist designed a History of Siena, a series of six tapestries, which has not survived, but once hung in the Salone dei Cinquecento. However, most of the artist’s tapestries would have been woven for the Medici court, although their exact destinations are often unknown.
Of the two tapestries by Stradano in the exhibition, both lent by the Museo Nazionale di Palazzo Reale, Pisa, only one, a depiction of the reception of the Duke of Calabria, son of Ferdinand I, King of Naples, by Lorenzo the Magnificent, was originally in Palazzo Vecchio (c.1570; no.20). The other, Bear hunt (1566–77; no.21), is one of numerous hunting tapestries designed by Stradano, of which a dozen are known today. Others are recorded in a handful of modelli or in drawings for prints reproducing the designs. Originally part of a series of thirty-six tapestries (twenty-eight designed by Stradano and eight by Alessandro Allori) that were hung in twenty rooms in the apartments of the Medici villa at Poggio a Caiano, Bear hunt attests to Stradano’s flair for stagelike and eye-catching settings. The large architectural frame, which makes an exciting visual transition from reality to a theatrical space, is artfully adorned with densely interwoven plant motifs, hunting trophies, hunters and clumsy bears, which add a further decorative flourish.
The exhibition included fifteen drawings linked to the Hunt tapestries, or to prints after them. One sheet (1567; Musée du Louvre, Paris; no.23) is thematically related to an existing tapestry, Wolf hunt with traps (1567; Uffizi). A drawing of an ostrich hunt (1567; Louvre; no.25) may also relate to a tapestry, in which case the richly detailed organic frame on the associated engraving, printed by Hieronymus Cock (1570; Albertina, Vienna; no.22), may provide an idea of the general appearance of this lost work. Baroni explains that many of these, such as the Fight in the arena between a lion, a bull, a bear and two wolves (c.1596; Louvre; no.31), combine the influence of real courtly spectacles with descriptions of such events by Pliny the Elder, whose writings were also drawn on for A Roman gladiator fighting one of Hannibal’s elephants (no.30; Fig.15). Another influence is the pioneering natural history studies by Jacopo Ligozzi, such as his drawing of a blue and yellow macaw, the Brazilian Ara ararauna (1577–88; Uffizi; no.53), which demonstrates the Medicis’ growing scientific interest in zoology and botany.
Stradano’s versatility found transatlantic expression in his preparatory drawings for a series of engravings, Americae retectio, a picture atlas engraved by Adraen Collaert and published by Philips Galle c.1589, having been created in collaboration with the humanist Luigi Alamanni (1558–1603), a member of the Accademia degli Alterati. In three of the preparatory drawings (c.1589; Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence; nos.55–57) the explorers Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci and Ferdinand Magellan are depicted on the decks of their carracks in a way that iconographically reveals the artist’s familiarity with a wide range of literary sources in the areas of physics, astronomy, the exploration of the New World and the ancient poets Virgil and Homer. This is evident also in the drawing Penelope and the handmaidens (1560–61; École des Beaux-Arts, Paris; no.45), made for the central panel painting in the ceiling of Sala di Penelope (and for one of his two paintings in the Studiolo, Ulysses, Mercury and Circe). Also linked to Homer is a delicate, recently discovered drawing Ulysses and the sirens (1587–1600; Castello Sforzesco; no.47), in which the hero is bound to the ship’s mast while his crew rows past the singing nymphs and a pile of skeletons.
Given the context of the exhibition in a building decorated with panel paintings and frescos by the artist, and with limited space at their disposal, the organisers decided not to include many other paintings by Stradano. Among them was a charming Allegory of virtues (1572; private collection; no.40), which in its colour palette and composition recalls the late Mannerist style of Allori, Ligozzi and Jacopo Zucchi, whose sensual Golden Age (c.1578–81; Uffizi; no.63) was on show. A small copy (1581; Museo di Casa Vasari, Arezzo; no.41) after Stradano’s monumental altarpiece of the Crucifixion in the Galli Chapel in SS. Annunziata, painted in 1569, highlights well not only how he adapted the elegant style of his Mannerist colleagues, but also how much he depended on Vasari’s altarpieces, in this case his Crucifixion in S. Maria del Carmine, painted in 1560–63. By contrast, Charity of St Martin (no.42; Fig.16) is painted in his own introspective, somewhat rigid style, which recalls the artistic traditions of his homeland.
This first comprehensive display of Stradano’s eclectic work in Italy, embracing a large range of themes and media and shown in the context of his most important long-term commission, provided important insights into the artist, especially into the breadth of his interests in technology, historical subjects and natural history and the way these reflected contemporary scientific, geographical and ethnographical discoveries. His visualisations of these themes are exceptional features of the work of ‘Giovanni Stradano fiammingo’ – an artist up to now too often and wrongly perceived as sober, scholarly and dry, despite being considered, at the time of his death, one of the most outstanding artists in Italy.