Carlo Maratti and His Pupils in the Baptismal Chapel of Saint Peter's

Abstract

Carlo Fontana's and Carlo Maratti's projects for the redecoration of the baptismal chapel in Saint Peter's during the papacy of Innocent XII were the theme of a paper by Francis H. Dowley in vol. XLVII of The Art Bulletin.1 In the following we would like to investigate again the role Maratti and his school played in this undertaking in the light of hitherto unknown documents and drawings which supplement the theses Professor Dowley put forth. Professor Dowley rightly accepts the attribution, which has gone unchallenged since the appearance in 1762 of Chattard's Nuova descrizione del Vaticano, of the three paintings in the baptismal chapel to, respectively, Maratti (Baptism of Christ), Andrea Procaccini (St. Peter Baptizing the Centurion Cornelius, left), and Guiseppe Passeri (St. Peter Baptizing Sts. Processus and Martianus, right). Thus, Maratti's responsibility for the Baptism of Christ is as indisputable as his collaboration on the lateral panels of Procaccini and Passeri is problematic. As the letters by Maratti (November 26, 1695) and La Teulibre (January 10, 1696) cited by Professor Dowley (pp. 65f.) show, the commission for all three altar paintings actually appears to have been given to Maratti alone. In this connection three more documents which have kindly been made known to me by Dr. Hellmut Hager at the Archivio della Rev. Fabrica di San Pietro should be mentioned.2 One of these acknowledges payment on November 23, 1695 to the painter Albertoni: Paolo Albertoni, pittore, Sc. 80 per sua ricognizione d'aver tradotto, e dipinto da piccolo in grande il Battesimo di S. Gio: p. la nuova Cappella che si sta facendo. It is evident from this that Maratti left the task of transferring the model to full scale, i.e., the actual execution, to Albertoni, who also received payment in 1698-1699 for chiaroscuro frescoes in the chapel (according to Dr. Hager's information). The date of this entry places the abovementioned letter by Maratti to the Grand Duke Cosimo III de' Medici, written only three days afterward, in a new light. If, as the document indicates, the Baptism of Christ was already completed at this time and Maratti was asking the Grand Duke for una stanza assai grande e alta in order to paint le pitture for the new baptismal chapel, then only the lateral altar paintings can be meant.3 The second document brought to my attention by Dr. Hager concerns the delivery of canvas for these pictures, for which on November 13, 1697 Claudio Guio, tessitore, was paid the amount of 32 scudi conseg.te al Sig. Carlo Maratta Pittore p. servirsene p. li due quadri laterali. Yet, as late as March 18, 1698 Maratti received a partial payment for the three pictures he was painting for the chapel: A Sig. Carlo Maratta Pittore Scudi tre Cento mta a Conto delli tre quadri che sta facendo p. ponerli nella Cappella del Battesimo 6 vero p. Copiarli di musaico nell' Istessa Cappella. Professor Dowley rightly considers the two Budapest drawings for the side panels by Procaccini and Passeri to be crucial to the question of how great Maratti's responsibility was for the pictorial designs.4 Since he agrees with Edith Hoffmann that both sketches are by Andrea Procaccini, b cause the hardness of the line is untypical of Maratti, he is left with wo alternatives for the genesis of the compositions: either the drawings are careful copies by Procaccini of Maratti's designs or they are independent works. Professor Dowley gives little credence to e idea that Procaccini alone was responsible for the side paintings and prefers to see in the designs the result of felicitous adjustments, or skillful variations, within the framework of a composition already laid out by Maratti. In fact, the Budapest drawings may well be the designs submitted by Marat i together with a corresponding, apparently lost, drawing for the Baptism of Christ before he turned to the execution of his painting (i.e., the Baptism of Christ). Three rather coarsely executed pen and wash drawings in the Berlin Kupferstichkabinett, which Dr. Peter Dreyer has kindly brought to my attention, relate to the paintings of the baptismal chapel (Figs. 1-3).5 Two of them, approximately equal in size, are exact copies of he Budapest compositions. The third shows the Baptism of Christ a d deviates from Maratti's painting to the same degree that the Budapest drawings differ from the paintings of Procaccini and Passeri. The angel between Christ and John and the standing and seated seraphim on the right, especially, do not yet correspond to the final version. Another copy after the lost design for the Baptism of Christ (evidently by the hand of Passeri) is mentioned by Professor Dowley in his note 85. It has in the meantime been published by H. Voss as the work of Maratti.8