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Federico Borromeo and the Ambrosiana: Art patronage and reform in seventeenth-century Milan
330
Publications Digest
(pro-eedings published in I985 under the title The Origins of Museums, Impey and eds.) would appear to have MacGregor, provided the catalyst. 1992 saw the bicentenary of the foundation of the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm and a modest symposium, organised in cooperation with the Royal Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities, to outline the situation in Europe in 1792, was held there 26 June 1992. The five papers presented are printed in the languages in which they were delivered, while the Preface contributed by Per BjurStrom provides the background. Krzysztof Pomian, in ‘De la collection particuliere au mu&e d’art’, characterizes the differences between museums and other collections before tracing the early history of art collections in Italy from that established by Sixtus IV in Rome (1471) to the substantial group established during the 18th century. Setting aside those founded in Basle (1661) and Oxford (1683), the museum remained an Italian phenomenon until c. 1750 and Pomian discusses the intellectual environment in which thev developed, and their character, before turning to those founded in Northern Europe from the 1750s and the developments in France after the Revolution. In ‘Phvsiocratic ideals and national galleries’, Per BjurStrom notes the importance of the Diisseldorf Gallery (completed 1714, but reorganized by Lambert Krahe in 1756) as a model and discusses the organization of the Uffizi (1769) and the Upper Belvedere in Vienna (178 1) before providing an account of Gustavus III’s projects for his Royal Museum which ultimately provided the basis for the Nationalmuseum. Andrew McClellan, in ‘The museum and its public in eighteenth-century France’, explores the connection between contemporary ideas concerning education and the nature of the public for which museums were being created, with particular reference to the Louvre before and after the Revolution. In ‘The development of the early art museum in Britain’, Giles W’aterficld provides an extensive review of private and public picture galleries, almost entirely in London, from the mid-I&h century until the opening of the Dulwich Picture Gallery and the National Gallery, while Henning Bock. in ‘Furstliche
und offentliche Kunstsammlungen im 18. und friihen 19. Jahrhundert in Deutschland’, covers more briefly the same period in Germany, from the Dresden and AnhaltDessau collections, and the activity of the Boisseree brothers in Cologne, to the development of the Berlin museums, 1797-1830. All five essays are well supported by footnotes providing the sources of the information included. 1993.3.23.2 Federico Borromeo and the Ambroriana: Art Patronage and Reform in Seventeenth-Century Milan, by Pamela M. Jones. 253 X
174 mm, xiv + 386 pp., with black and white illustrations. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993, E55.00 US$95.00 (ISBN 0 521 42051 2). Cambridge University Press, The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK. Cardinal Federico Borromeo (1564-l 63 1) occupies an honoured position in the early history of museums, by virtue of his foundation of the Ambrosiana in 1618, but his motives have previously been insufficiently studied and Pamela Jones makes a major contribution in clarifying the function of the constitutent parts of the Ambrosiana within the broader pastoral programme he was undertaking as Archbishop of Milan. A tripartite institution including a major library, an art museum and an art academy, the Ambrosiana was founded ‘as an official diocesan institution whose purpose was to reform sacred scholarship and the figurative arts in response to the decrees of the Council of Trent’ which his cousin, San Carlo Borromeo, had done so much to formulate. Unusual for the period is the overwhelming amount of documentary material available well over 30,000 items - as well as his own two treatises on art, his guidebook to the collection - Musaeum - and his rules for the academy. This wealth of material has enabled Pamela Jones not only to reconstruct Fedcrico Borromeo’s collecting activity, but also why he collected or commissioned specific works for the Ambrosiana. The main bodv of the text constitutes Part One and the foundation of the Ambrosiana is discussed in the context of
Publication 7s Digest
her survey of Federico Borromeo’s life (Chapter I), while his own conception of sacred art’s three functions - devotional, didactic and documentary - are interpreted in chapters 2-4. Of particular interest for the history of collections is Catalogue I (paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures) which provides the first record of the contents of the Ambrosiana museum, together with a valuable summary account of the develop-
331
ment of the collection, and Catalogue II which covers the collection of portraits of famous persons displayed in the library. The appendices print the codicils to Federico Borromeo’s Will, dated 15 September 1607 and 1 April 1611, which include previously unpublished lists of works destined for the Ambrosiana, together with the Official Act of Donation of the Ambrosiana Collection (28 April 1618).
Publications Digest
(pro-eedings published in I985 under the title The Origins of Museums, Impey and eds.) would appear to have MacGregor, provided the catalyst. 1992 saw the bicentenary of the foundation of the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm and a modest symposium, organised in cooperation with the Royal Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities, to outline the situation in Europe in 1792, was held there 26 June 1992. The five papers presented are printed in the languages in which they were delivered, while the Preface contributed by Per BjurStrom provides the background. Krzysztof Pomian, in ‘De la collection particuliere au mu&e d’art’, characterizes the differences between museums and other collections before tracing the early history of art collections in Italy from that established by Sixtus IV in Rome (1471) to the substantial group established during the 18th century. Setting aside those founded in Basle (1661) and Oxford (1683), the museum remained an Italian phenomenon until c. 1750 and Pomian discusses the intellectual environment in which thev developed, and their character, before turning to those founded in Northern Europe from the 1750s and the developments in France after the Revolution. In ‘Phvsiocratic ideals and national galleries’, Per BjurStrom notes the importance of the Diisseldorf Gallery (completed 1714, but reorganized by Lambert Krahe in 1756) as a model and discusses the organization of the Uffizi (1769) and the Upper Belvedere in Vienna (178 1) before providing an account of Gustavus III’s projects for his Royal Museum which ultimately provided the basis for the Nationalmuseum. Andrew McClellan, in ‘The museum and its public in eighteenth-century France’, explores the connection between contemporary ideas concerning education and the nature of the public for which museums were being created, with particular reference to the Louvre before and after the Revolution. In ‘The development of the early art museum in Britain’, Giles W’aterficld provides an extensive review of private and public picture galleries, almost entirely in London, from the mid-I&h century until the opening of the Dulwich Picture Gallery and the National Gallery, while Henning Bock. in ‘Furstliche
und offentliche Kunstsammlungen im 18. und friihen 19. Jahrhundert in Deutschland’, covers more briefly the same period in Germany, from the Dresden and AnhaltDessau collections, and the activity of the Boisseree brothers in Cologne, to the development of the Berlin museums, 1797-1830. All five essays are well supported by footnotes providing the sources of the information included. 1993.3.23.2 Federico Borromeo and the Ambroriana: Art Patronage and Reform in Seventeenth-Century Milan, by Pamela M. Jones. 253 X
174 mm, xiv + 386 pp., with black and white illustrations. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993, E55.00 US$95.00 (ISBN 0 521 42051 2). Cambridge University Press, The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK. Cardinal Federico Borromeo (1564-l 63 1) occupies an honoured position in the early history of museums, by virtue of his foundation of the Ambrosiana in 1618, but his motives have previously been insufficiently studied and Pamela Jones makes a major contribution in clarifying the function of the constitutent parts of the Ambrosiana within the broader pastoral programme he was undertaking as Archbishop of Milan. A tripartite institution including a major library, an art museum and an art academy, the Ambrosiana was founded ‘as an official diocesan institution whose purpose was to reform sacred scholarship and the figurative arts in response to the decrees of the Council of Trent’ which his cousin, San Carlo Borromeo, had done so much to formulate. Unusual for the period is the overwhelming amount of documentary material available well over 30,000 items - as well as his own two treatises on art, his guidebook to the collection - Musaeum - and his rules for the academy. This wealth of material has enabled Pamela Jones not only to reconstruct Fedcrico Borromeo’s collecting activity, but also why he collected or commissioned specific works for the Ambrosiana. The main bodv of the text constitutes Part One and the foundation of the Ambrosiana is discussed in the context of
Publication 7s Digest
her survey of Federico Borromeo’s life (Chapter I), while his own conception of sacred art’s three functions - devotional, didactic and documentary - are interpreted in chapters 2-4. Of particular interest for the history of collections is Catalogue I (paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures) which provides the first record of the contents of the Ambrosiana museum, together with a valuable summary account of the develop-
331
ment of the collection, and Catalogue II which covers the collection of portraits of famous persons displayed in the library. The appendices print the codicils to Federico Borromeo’s Will, dated 15 September 1607 and 1 April 1611, which include previously unpublished lists of works destined for the Ambrosiana, together with the Official Act of Donation of the Ambrosiana Collection (28 April 1618).