DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.67657#0152
A. IV.J
Otto Prints.
65
it is known that Lorenzo was paying court to a certain Lucrezia,
recently identified as a Donati,1 who had been married to Niccolo
Ardinghelli in the same year. That Lucrezia’s marriage did not
interfere with Lorenzo’s gallantries we learn from another letter of
Alessandro Macinghi-Strozzi, describing the fete given by Lorenzo in
honour of Niccolo’s return from the Levant in 1466. A further link
in the connexion with the engravings is given by Pulci in his poem
on Lorenzo’s Ciostra of 1469, where in alluding to past gallantries lie
makes special reference to the motto ‘ che vuol fede amor,’ the sub-
stance of which occurs on the engraving in question and on several
of the other Otto prints. Lucrezia was fifteen when she married
in 1465, and Lorenzo was born in 1448, so that, the hypothesis being
accepted, the probable date of the engravings (about 1465-67, or in
any case not more than two or three years later) completely accords
with our theories as to the production of the Otto prints as well
as the Prophets and Sibyls in the workshop of Finiguerra’s heirs
soon after the master’s death in 1464.
Some difficulty in respect to the date of the series may be held to
arise from the fact2 that one of the plates of the Chastisement of Cupid
(A. IV. f 6) seems to have been adapted from Schongauer’s S. Sebastian
(B. 59). As will be seen in a more detailed discussion of a similar
point in connexion with the Prophets,3 there is every reason to
think that Schongauer’s activity commenced about or soon after 1460,
but the difficulty in the present case is that the N Sebastian has
generally been regarded as belonging to the master’s later period.
Nothing, however, is more uncertain than the sequence and dates
of Schongauer’s several engravings.4 Nor is the fact of the adaptation
itself quite beyond doubt. In every case in which such adaptations
from E. S. or Schongauer occur in the Prophets and Sibyls, the
typically German character of the originals is absolutely preserved
in the details of the copies. On the other hand the Cupid of the Otto
print is thoroughly Italian in character, and none of the characteristics
of form seen in the N Sebastian are repeated. The two points of
striking likeness are the position of the hands above the head, and
that of one foot over the other.
1 See G. Poggi, Rivista cl’Arte, 1905, July-August. For a long discussion
of the amours see Cesare Carocci, La Giostra di Lorenzo de' Medici, Bologna,
1899.
2 Noted by Lehrs, Chronik fur vervielfaltigende Kunst, IV (1891), p. 3,
and Pr. Jahrbuch, XII (1891), p. 127, and accepted by Colvin, Florentine
Picture Chronicle, p. 40.
3 See p. 140.
4 Seidlitz places the S. Sebastian in the earlier period along with the
Passion series (Repertorium fur Kunstwissenschaft, VII. 177).
F
Otto Prints.
65
it is known that Lorenzo was paying court to a certain Lucrezia,
recently identified as a Donati,1 who had been married to Niccolo
Ardinghelli in the same year. That Lucrezia’s marriage did not
interfere with Lorenzo’s gallantries we learn from another letter of
Alessandro Macinghi-Strozzi, describing the fete given by Lorenzo in
honour of Niccolo’s return from the Levant in 1466. A further link
in the connexion with the engravings is given by Pulci in his poem
on Lorenzo’s Ciostra of 1469, where in alluding to past gallantries lie
makes special reference to the motto ‘ che vuol fede amor,’ the sub-
stance of which occurs on the engraving in question and on several
of the other Otto prints. Lucrezia was fifteen when she married
in 1465, and Lorenzo was born in 1448, so that, the hypothesis being
accepted, the probable date of the engravings (about 1465-67, or in
any case not more than two or three years later) completely accords
with our theories as to the production of the Otto prints as well
as the Prophets and Sibyls in the workshop of Finiguerra’s heirs
soon after the master’s death in 1464.
Some difficulty in respect to the date of the series may be held to
arise from the fact2 that one of the plates of the Chastisement of Cupid
(A. IV. f 6) seems to have been adapted from Schongauer’s S. Sebastian
(B. 59). As will be seen in a more detailed discussion of a similar
point in connexion with the Prophets,3 there is every reason to
think that Schongauer’s activity commenced about or soon after 1460,
but the difficulty in the present case is that the N Sebastian has
generally been regarded as belonging to the master’s later period.
Nothing, however, is more uncertain than the sequence and dates
of Schongauer’s several engravings.4 Nor is the fact of the adaptation
itself quite beyond doubt. In every case in which such adaptations
from E. S. or Schongauer occur in the Prophets and Sibyls, the
typically German character of the originals is absolutely preserved
in the details of the copies. On the other hand the Cupid of the Otto
print is thoroughly Italian in character, and none of the characteristics
of form seen in the N Sebastian are repeated. The two points of
striking likeness are the position of the hands above the head, and
that of one foot over the other.
1 See G. Poggi, Rivista cl’Arte, 1905, July-August. For a long discussion
of the amours see Cesare Carocci, La Giostra di Lorenzo de' Medici, Bologna,
1899.
2 Noted by Lehrs, Chronik fur vervielfaltigende Kunst, IV (1891), p. 3,
and Pr. Jahrbuch, XII (1891), p. 127, and accepted by Colvin, Florentine
Picture Chronicle, p. 40.
3 See p. 140.
4 Seidlitz places the S. Sebastian in the earlier period along with the
Passion series (Repertorium fur Kunstwissenschaft, VII. 177).
F