Ars: časopis Ústavu Dejín Umenia Slovenskej Akadémie Vied (44.2011)

Prague. From the drawings unambiguously connect-
ed with Cremona, it was 10 sheets in 1956, 7 sheets
in 1957, and probably the last sheet was purchased
as late as 1972. In ail of these putchases, it may be
ptesumed that they otiginally wete patt of the lost
Teplice album. The Bratislava collection remained
more or less outside professional interest and its
more detailed examination only began recently, in
connection with the restoration of several sheets.
The collection of old Italian drawings in the
SNG in Bratislava now comprises 70 sheets, the
provenance of which includes Venice, Lombardy,
Bologna and Rome; they date from the 16^ — 18^
centuries. The Cremona drawings are important
because of their high quality and the possibility of
exact identification.
The earliest drawing in the Cremona set in the
collection at the SNG is not very large in size, it
rather being a pmw př/Ařro by Camillo Boccaccino
(1504/1505, Cremona — 1546, Cremona), Hgoyy A
řA Gí2Ačz%ww (ArA/? (Luke 22.39-46) [Fig. 1]. The
drawing with the motif of the kneeling Christ sup-
ported by an angel is done in loose penwork with
distinct contours and many radical délétions in inte-
rior modeliing, Similarly, in the drawing on the verso,
depicting probably a warrior [Fig. 2], several repeated
contours consist of diminutive arches and the interior
modeliing is indicated by hne hatching. Especially the
recto drawing, a figurai group done by several précisé
dynamic lines, betrays an expert hand and associâtes
this sheet with northern Italy, in particular Cremona
in the hrst half of the cinquecento. The loose treat-
ment and freedom from detail ascribes the Bratislava
drawing to the similar, not very extensive work of
Camillo Boccaccino from Cremona. The warrior on
the verso has a parallel in several of his drawings done
with the same technique, deposited in the Louvre
m Pans (Inv. Nos. 10281, 5930BIS, 5930TER, etc.),
but a real proof is provided by a drawing from the
Prague NG, depicting Heracles. The development of
the basic contour and the arches of interior modeliing
are almost identical in the Bratislava and the Prague
drawings. Similar analogies are found for the motif
of the Hgoyy h? /A Gř/Ačy%M72ř (AfA??. At the end of
the thirties and the beginning of the forties of the
cinquecento, Boccaccino executed designs for one
part of the décoration of the church of S. Sigismondo
in Cremona. Among other things, he designed there

the gf (VAA AAEy^^- And the recto
of the Bratislava drawing matches with these stud-
ies in its loose penwork, usmg hints rather, but with
a strong emphasis on the dramatic character of the
scene. In 1541, on the occasion of the ceremony
of the arrivai of Emperor Charles V in Cremona,
Boccaccino produced many designs for décorations
with allegorical thèmes and many hgures of warriors.
Like in the Prague drawing of Heracles, the verso of
the Bratislava drawing with the picture of a probably
ancient warrior in action with a shield is connected
with this event. The Bratislava drawings (r+v) clearly
belong to the oiWfn? of Camillo Boccaccino, which
might be dated relatively accurately around 1540.
From approximately the same period, another
drawing cornes from Bratislava, A/?Ay o/ A&AAAL???
[Fig. 3], which I attribute to one of the protagonists
of Cremona painting in the cinquecento, Giulio
Campi (1502?, Cremona — 1572, Cremona). Sparing
pen lines handled with suprême précision dehne both
the main contours and, in several moves of the pen,
the inner modeliing of the drapery of the figure,
complemented by radical hatching indicating the
conditions of light. Thus may be characterized both
the drawing of the A/?Ay o/ ?? A<?AAAL%7? and the verso
with the AEFy g/ /A E?y??7V g/ O/FÆw [Fig. 4], the
painterly treatment of which almost unambiguously
attribute s it to the Campi family from the Cremona
school. For comparison, a good deal of material is
provided by the set of Gulio's drawings in the NG
in Prague and by drawings from many world collec-
tions. From outside Prague there is for instance the
much related Efgwt? gf VAiAAL??? from the Louvre,
with identical, somewhat illogical ending of the right
hand of the seated man (Inv. No. 5662, partly also
8718.2) or the more figurai and a little later Dy)oAA??
yAow /A (5wy from the Albertina in Vienna (Inv. No.
2022). Tentatively, the two Bratislava drawings (r+v)
may be associated with the christological cycle in St.
Margareťs church in Cremona, hnished by Giulio in
1547 as a sketch of figurai types. This allows setting
the origin of our drawings around the middle of the
ňfties of the cinquecento.
Several décades later is another indisputably
Cremona drawing, g/ /AEf^v/vy gf 7AoHpoyAy
[Fig. 5], which may be safely linked with Bernardino
Gatti, also known as Sojaro (1496, Pavia — 1576,
Cremona).

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