Rocznik Muzeum Narodowego w Warszawie (3(39).2014)

Paul Joannides

I Gianfrancesco Penni’s Two Versions
of The Holy Family with Saint John
and Saint Catherine'

I
When Raphael died, unexpectedly and prematurely, on 6 April 1520, he bequeathed his un-
finished projects and his “business” to the Florentine Gianfrancesco Penni and the Roman
Giulio Pippi, called Giulio Romano. Both had collaborated extensively with the master, but
we are largely ignorant of details and Vasari is little help. No documentation concerning
Penni survives from before Raphael’s death; for Giulio there is no more than a contract of 1519
concerning a building with which Raphael was not involved.2
It is only after April 1520 that Raphael’s heirs come into historical focus. Within two months
Giulio was quarrelling with Giovanni da Udine over their respective shares of the decoration
of Villa Madama, as we learn from a letter of Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici of 4 June 1520. In this
matter Giulio’s co-heir Penni is not mentioned.3 Gianfrancesco’s name first appears, together
with Giulio’s, in an art-dealing rather than an artistic context, the purchase of antique marbles
from the estate of the dealer Ciampolini on 5 September 1520; Gianfrancesco is cited alone in
the sale of “sete teste antiche” to Mantua on 5 April 1525.4 In addition, Gianfrancesco witnessed
both the marriage of Giulio’s sister to the sculptor Lorenzetto on 23 February 1523 and Giulio’s
property settlement with his widowed stepmother on 13 December 1525.5 Although they are not
at first individually distinguished, the giovane di Raffaello, derided as the semidei by Sebastiano
del Piombo, are referred to frequently in artistic documents of the early 1520s and clearly formed

1 My warm thanks are due to the authors of the complementary articles on Gianfrancesco Penni’s two
paintings in the Journal: Grażyna Bastek, Barbara Łydżba-Kopczyńska, Elżbieta Pilecka-Pietrusińska, Iwona
Maria Stefańska and David Love as well as to Agnieszka Morawińska, Ewa and Zuzanna Unicka, and Paul Taylor
for assistance of various kinds.
2 Tommaso Vincidor - by whom no paintings have yet been identified - witnessed a legal document con-
cerning Raphael on 10 January 1517 and no doubt was a close collaborator; although not one of Raphael’s heirs, he
seems to have seen himself as their equal, referring to “li mei conpagi, cue Zulio lo Jan Franciecho” in a letter sent
to Leo X from Flanders on 20 July 1521; see John Shearman, Raphael in Early Modem Sources, vol. 1 (New Haven
and London, 2003), pp. 700-01.
3 Daniela Ferrari, Giulio Romano. Repertorio di fonti documentarie, vol. 1 (Rome, 1992), pp. 6-7; Shearman,
Raphael in Early..., op. cit., pp. 599-601.
4 Ferrari, op. cit., p. 83.
5 Ibid., pp.31,113.