ANTON DOMENICO GABBIANI

(Florence, 1652 – 1726)

The Martyrdom of the Santi Quattro Coronati

Pen and brown ink, brown wash, and black chalk on paper
10 ⅜ x 10 ⅜ inches (26.4 x 26.5 cm)

Provenance:   

Private Collection, UK

After initial training under Justus Suttermans and Vincenzo Dandini, in 1673 Anton Domenico Gabbiani embarked for Rome where he spent three years studying at the Medici-sponsored Accademia per artisti fiorentini. There he came under the influence of Ciro Ferri, then Director of the Accademia alongside Ercole Ferrata. The impulsive handling of this powerful composition was clearly inspired by Ferri’s drawings, as well as those of his master, Pietro da Cortona.[i] Gabbiani returned to Florence in 1680 to begin an independent career. The present drawing probably dates from around this time and is preparatory for a now lost painting by Gabbiani that once hung in the tenth-century Oratory of Santa Maria Primerana in Fiesole.[ii]

The subject of the drawing and Gabbiani’s ex-voto painting is the Martyrdom of the Santi Quattro Coronati. Representations of the martyrdom of these four saints, condemned to death in the third century AD by the Emperor Diocletian, are comparatively rare.[iii] Their images were venerated in Italy, albeit sporadically, since around 1300, but the late sixteenth century witnessed a long-lasting surge in depictions of their martyrdom, commissioned by the Guilds of stonemasons, carvers, and sculptors. The quarries around Fiesole had been mined since the Etruscan era by generations of highly trained local artisans.[iv] As their patrons and protectors, the Santi Quattro Coronati were of special significance to the city, hence the decision to commission Gabbiani’s painting for the Oratory. The Oratory itself was central to civic life and was a place of special devotion for sculptors. It is replete with works in marble, polychrome terracotta, and marble ex-votos, notably the portrait relief of the sculptor Francesco da Sangallo thanking the Virgin for her intercession.[v]             

Gabbiani’s composition in the present drawing shows a mass of writhing bodies as the martyrs—two tied back-to-back to the column and two on the ground—are mercilessly flailed for refusing to sculpt a pagan image. At the upper left, Diocletian presides over the execution. Gabbiani worked freely and rapidly, with great boldness and spontaneity. His handling was heavily influenced by Ferri and Cortona, as is clear in comparison with the latter’s Martyrdom of Saint Erasmus in the Uffizi (Fig. 1).[vi] Our drawing is similar in figure types, technique, and energy, yet manifestly Gabbiani’s in style. Whether presentation drawings, modelli, or compositional designs, Gabbiani’s drawings share three distinct features: wild chalk underdrawing (as at the right of the present sheet), robust, stocky figure types, and distinctively heavy pen lines in emulation of Ferri and Cortona. His style is at its freest and most animated when, as in the present sheet, he is in his inventive mode. A comparable example is found in his Rape of the Sabines (Fig. 2).[vii] Violent movement is conveyed by rapid and spontaneous tangled lines emerging from the web of swirling chalk—the more intense the scene, the denser and more animated his penwork.[viii]  

Our drawing was at some point cut in half, as is evident from the framing lines surrounding all but the top of the sheet, as well as the shafts of light and cloud formations that finish abruptly at the topmost edge. Crucially, however, what survives is consistent with the information provided by Giglioli in his 1933 census of art and antiquities in Fiesole—that Gabbiani’s painting of the Martyrdom of the Santi Quattro Coronati was vertical in format. He also recorded that a pair of angels seated on clouds were shown in the upper part of the composition.[ix] The discarded section of the original sheet would doubtless have included the cloud-borne angels that appeared above the martyrdom scene.

The sheer number of early references to Gabbiani’s lost painting testify to its critical acclaim. It originally hung in the Oratory at ground level beneath the organ, making it accessible to worshippers. It was first documented in 1776 by Angelo Maria Bandini, followed by Domenico Moreni in 1792 for whom Gabbiani was “valente,” a powerful artist.[x] Filippo Traballesi’s tract of 1802 confirms that it was relocated above the niche displaying Andrea da Fiesole’s sculpted Pietà, adjacent to the High Altar.[xi] There it remained into the nineteenth century, when it was praised in the early guidebooks of Francesco Fontani and Giuseppe del Rosso.[xii] Gabbiani’s ex-voto disappeared sometime after 1933, the year in which it was described by Giglioli. It was the property of the Opera of Santa Maria Primerana, the body responsible for its fabric, which commissioned the ex-voto. Sadly, by the 1930s it was in a terrible (“cattivo”) state, its surface badly cracked and its pigments discolored.

Fiesole’s quarries were a valuable source of Pietra serena of the finest quality, used to decorate major Florentine monuments from Brunelleschi’s Pazzi Chapel to Michelangelo’s Medici Chapel, but the process of extraction was extremely dangerous. Given the dimensions of Gabbiani’s painting and the context in which it was displayed, it evidently functioned as a votive offering in memory of the generations of local stonemasons and quarrymen who had died, and for those who had recovered from injuries sustained as a result of their profession. The present drawing is all that remains of what was obviously an impressive and—especially for Fiesole—a highly meaningful and valued work, before which generations of stoneworkers would have expressed their devotion, given thanks, or prayed for protection. Moreover, it stands as a valuable record of what was among the most dramatic renderings of the subject for this period.[xiii]

We are grateful to Dr. Simonetta Prosperi Valenti Rodinò for confirming Gabbiani’s authorship of this drawing.

[i] See: Jörg Martin Merz, Pietro da Cortona und sein Kreis: die Zeichnungen in Düsseldorf, Munich, 2005, pp. 240-244.

[ii] Dr. Maria Pia Zaccheddu of the Musei di Fiesole has confirmed that the painting is now nowhere to be found in Fiesole, nor is there any memory of it among members of the local curia. It was last recorded in 1933. See footnote 9.

[iii] The martyrs (named Claudio, Nicostro, Semproniano, and Castorio) were rock carvers in the quarries of Pannonia. Their skill enraged their fellow quarrymen who accused them of performing magic rituals before taking up their tools, and reciting prayers and psalms as they carved. Shortly after their martyrdom, their remains were transported to Rome where the basilica of the Santi Quattro Santi Coronati was dedicated to their memory. Their legend is complex and was conflated with that of the Quattro Martiri di Roma, anonymous Roman soldiers also put to death by the same Emperor. See: Lia Barelli, Il complesso monumentale dei SS. Quattro Coronati a Roma, Rome, 2009, pp. 7-10; and Renzo Dionigi, SS. Quattuor Coronati: Bibliography and Iconography, Milan, 1998, p. 16.

[iv] The quarries also served as workshops and schools where craftsmen were trained, ensuring the continuity of local tradition. See: Patricia Lee Rubin, Images and Identity in Fifteenth-Century Florence, New Haven & London, 2007, p. 65.

[v] Signed and dated 1542, along with the ex-voto of Francesco del Fede of ca. 1575. For the Oratory’s role in civic life, including swearing-in ceremonies of the Podestà and Gonfalonieri, see: Amanda Lillie, “Fiesole: Locus amoenus or Penitential Landscape?,” I Tatti Studies. Essays in the Renaissance, vol. 11, 2007, p. 37.

[vi] Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi, inv. 3032 S.

[vii] Sold at Christie’s, London, 29 November 1977, lot 18. Compare also his Allegorical Figure seated in Clouds (Munich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, inv. 9912).

[viii] Compare his Allegory of ‘Fortuna’ Triumphing over ‘Caso’ (Aldo Bartarelli, “Antonio Domenico Gabbiani e i Medici,” Rivista d’Arte, vol. 27 (1951–1952), fig. 1) and his more finished Death of Saint Peter Martyr (Thomas Williams Fine Art, 2004, cat. no. 14).

[ix] Odoardo Hillyer Giglioli, Catalogo delle cose d’arte e di antichità d’Italia: Fiesole, Rome 1933, pp. 253-254 (published by the Direzione generale delle Antichità e delle Belle Arti). By this time the painting had been moved from its original location (see footnote 11) to the Cantoria opposite the organ. He wrote: “In alto sulle nuvole, due angeli.”

[x] Angelo Maria Bandini, Lettere XII. ad un amico nelle quali si ricerca, e s’illustra l’antica, e moderna situazione della città di Fiesole …, Florence, 1776, col. 123: “La Tavola dei Santi quattro Coronati, che resta sotto l’organo, è opera del Gabbiani.” Domenico Moreni, Notizie istoriche dei contorni di Firenze, vol. 3, Florence, 1792, p. 177: “La Tavola dei Santi quattro Coronati, che rimane sotto l’Organo è del valente Gabbiani’. It hung alongside a painting then attributed to a student of Cristofano Allori, the subject of which is not known. Bandini was Bibliotecario of the Laurentian Library; Moreni, the Canon of San Lorenzo, Florence.

[xi] Filippo Traballesi, Memorie relative alla chiesa e alla miracolosa immagine di S. Maria Primerana di Fiesole…, Florence, 1802, p. 17: “Sopra di questa Nicchia vedesi la Tavola de’ Santi Quattro Coronati Opera del valente Gabbiani.”

[xii] Francesco Fontani, Viaggio pittorico della Toscana, vol. 2, Florence, 1827, pp. 19-20: “Merita lode pure…la Tavola rappresentante i Santi quattro Coronati opera del Gabbiani.” Giuseppe del Rosso, Guida di Fiesole e suoi dintorni, Florence, 1846, pp. 124-125 (with parallel texts in Italian and French): “Quivi stava collocata una pietà, opera rarissima di Andrea da Fiesole…i si osservano ancora due altri quadri, che uno è del Gabbiani, l’altro della scuola degli Allori.”

[xiii] Compare the static earlier rendering by Jacopo Ligozzi (Lucilla Conigliello, Jacopo Ligozzi. Le vedute del Sacro Monte della Verna, i dipinti di Poppi e Bibbiena, Poppi, 1992, p. 31, pl. 37), and that by Gabbiani’s contemporary, Filippo Abbiati (Castiglione Olona, Museo Civico Branda S27). Representations by artists from Cortona’s circle appear to have set the conventions for representing the subject, all of which are evident in Gabbiani’s drawing: an arena with Diocletian presiding over the execution from an elevated throne, angels descending in an aura of light, and the distinctive column surmounted by an iron ring. See: James Byam Shaw, Drawings by Old Masters at Christ Church, Oxford, Oxford, 1978, no. 655 (attr. Lenardi); Catherine Loisel in Rome à l’apogée de sa gloire. Dessins des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, Toulouse, 2006–2007, cat. no. 25 (incorrectly described as the Age of Iron). Similar formulae are found in a print of 1684 attributed to Giovanni Battista Mercati (Bartsch XX, 1, 146) and in Francesco Trevisani’s altarpiece of 1688 for the stonemasons’ chapel in the Duomo, Siena (See: Frank R. Di Federico, “Francesco Trevisani and the Decoration of the Crucifixion Chapel in San Silvestro in Capite,” Art Bulletin, vol. 53 (1971), p. 53).