The anticlassical heights of Marcello Fogolino

Marco Tanzi
The discovery in a private collection of a large painting representing the 'Conversion of Saul' dating from the late activity of Marcello Fogolino has made possible a comprehensive analysis of the variegated artistic production of this painter from Vicenza. Fogolino was in the pay of both Venice and the Empire, a murderer, a spy, continually on the move between Veneto, Friuli, Trentino and the Marches, and in all probability also active in Mantua and Rome. The 'Conversion' is his masterpiece, executed in the 1530s, at the height of the anticlassical period. Though characterised by a highly distinctive individual style, there are important parallels with prominent unconventional artists from northern Italy such as Giovanni Antonio da Pordenone, Girolamo Romanino and Dosso Dossi, with whom he had direct contact in Pordenone and Trento. The painting also suggests a certain familiarity with Raphael's tapestry of the same subject for the Sistine Chapel, which for a period were in the house of Cardinal Grimani in Venice, and with the landscapist tendencies – a mix of rovinismo and archaeological cataloguing – of north European painters active in Rome. Also attributed to Fogolino, again in the 1530s – when he was an exponent of the Trento figurative renewal in the worksites created by Prince-bishop Bernardo Cles – are other works in private and public collections (an 'Adoration of the Magi' in the Pinacoteca of Siena), which contribute to identifying the hand of a specific assistant in the frescoes of Castello di Malpaga, near Bergamo, possibly his brother Matteo. Reconsideration of the various phases of the painter's activity now confirms his authorship – proposed by Giuseppe Fiocco in 1943 though subsequently dropped by most scholars – in substantial potions of the fresco decoration of the church of Sant'Antonio Abate in San Daniele del Friuli. This was an important cycle representative of Paduan anticlassicism, brought to completion between 1513 and 1522, which is impossible to attribute exclusively to Pellegrino da San Daniele, as is generally accepted. Fogolino's contacts with Romanino, under the aegis of Bernardo Cles, have shed new light on the Brescian painter, with the publication of various unpublished works, including the two lost tondos of the altarpiece executed for Santa Giustina in Padua in 1513-1514. These contacts are, lastly, the occasion for a more attentive assessment of the artistic production of 197 the so-called 'Maestro V di Nave', a painter active in Brescia and its environs in the same years as the early activity of Romanino and Altobello Melone, at the beginning of the 1510s. The former was a Brescian painter of a strong nature, certainly influenced by the young Romanino, who, in the few works that can be attributed to him, in terms of style and qualitative level was on a par with the two artists from Brescia and Cremona. It is almost certain he died young since it is impossible to trace paintings by him after 1515.

Index

Max Seidel The myth of the 'Master of Rimini'. Reflections on the discovery of a masterpiece
read abstract » pag. 3-41
Francesco Caglioti “Un tondo bozzato di Nostra Donna”, the work of Benedetto da Maiano
read abstract » pag. 42-73
Marco Tanzi The anticlassical heights of Marcello Fogolino
read abstract » pag. 74-101
Monica de Cesare, Hedvig Landenius Enegren The 'Athlete' of Segesta. Statuette of discus thrower from the sanctuary of Contrada Mango
read abstract » pag. 102-113
Antonella Dentamaro New developments regarding Jacopo della Pila, with a digression on some Neapolitan sculptures in the Victoria and Albert Museum
read abstract » pag. 114-141
Stefano L’Occaso Titianesque portrait of Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga
read abstract » pag. 142-147
Alessandro Brogi The 'Night' by Ludovico Carracci
read abstract » pag. 143-155
Andrea Daninos The art collection of Antoine Benoist
read abstract » pag. 156-175
Federica Maria Rovati The fortune of Christo in Italy 1963-1978
read abstract » pag. 176-195