The Last Judgment (1549)
Marcello Venusti (1512/15-1579)

Programme Note "MEDITATION ON HUMANISM, BEAUTY AND POWER" The Farnese Collection has noble roots: Pope Paul III Farnese (1463–1549; r. 1534) amassed a collection that grew over the following two centuries thanks to acquisitions made by his heirs until 1731, when the last male descendant, Antonio Farnese, died, leaving his collection to his niece, Elisabetta Farnese (1692–1766), Queen consort of Spain. She then passed the collection down to her son, Charles of Bourbon (1716–88), Duke of Parma and Piacenza, who was crowned sovereign of the newly created Kingdom of Naples in 1734. Given her familial heritage, Elisabetta understood the importance of investing the new Neapolitan king with a dynastic collection, a symbol of power and wealth. From 1735 to 1739, the collection journeyed from Parma and Rome to finally, the Capodimonte Palace in Naples, which was commissioned by Charles and designed by Giovanni Antonio Medrano. The collection continued to grow under the reign of Charles, and his son and successor Ferdinand IV of Naples (1751 –1825), and during both the French Decade (1799–1815) with acquisitions made by Joachim Murat, and the tenure of the Savoy family, who succeeded the Bourbons in 1861 with the Unification of Italy. In the 1930s, the Savoy ceded the palace to the Italian State, which continued acquiring works for the collection. In 1957, Capodimonte opened to the public as an art museum. When Alessandro Farnese (1463–1549), later known as Pope Paul III, began to collect and commission art, such endeavours were an aristocratic expression of knowledge, power, and status. Acquiring art was one of his strategies to realise his noble ambitions, which he achieved with his ascension to the papacy in 1534 and the elevation of his territories in Parma and Piacenza to a duchy in 1545.He was a patron of many great artists of his time, such as Michelangelo, Raphael, and Titian. He commissioned several portraits from the latter featuring various members of the Farnese family, including himself. As Pope, Paul III called Michelangelo (1475–1564) from Florence to Rome to paint The Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel. To commemorate this monumental achievement, his grandson, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (1520–1589), commissioned Marcello Venusti (1512/1515–1575) to copy the fresco as a celebration of their patronage. Paul III also hired Michelangelo to supervise the construction of St. Peter’s Basilica. To the humanists, beauty was considered an expression of truth, virtue, and morality. Artists such as Titian (1488/90–1576), Parmigianino (1503–1540), and Bronzino (1503–1572) explored this concept through their depictions of finely-dressed courtly women, their elegance an external manifestation of their moral character. This section features some of the most famous female portraits from the 16th century. Parmigianino depicts Antea with striking realism, positioning her body frontally at centre, gazing the viewer. Her extremely elegant and detailed clothes and jewelry, refined hand gestures and inscrutable gaze, reveal the artist’s extraordinary skill in fostering a psychological connection between his subjects and the viewers. In his Portrait of a Lady, Bronzino explores a similar concept. The pose of the noble model and the great descriptive attention to the textures of her garment through smooth brushwork are hallmarks of the Florentine painter’s strongly realistic style.In contrast to the polished surfaces of Parmigianino and Bronzino, Titian rendershis sensuous Danaë in a swirling cloud of loose brushwork. Texture and colour work together to enhance the luminosity that bathes the central figure. The art historian Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) wrote that when Michelangelo saw the painting, he celebrated its colourism but criticised its lack of disegno, or drawing, fundamental for Florentine artists. Physical strength, expressed through well-built, muscular bodies, was considered an expression of the masculine virtues of power, rationality, and discipline. The paintings of Annibale Carracci (1560–1609) illustrate these ideas. Carracci came from a family of painters. His studio was famous for producing works that synthesised the study of nature with the idealised forms of classical sculpture and 16th century painting. In Rome at the end of the 16th century, both Carracci and his rival, Caravaggio, produced a new approach to naturalism that was fundamental to the development of early modern art. In the 16th century, systematic archaeological excavations took place throughout Rome, unearthing ancient sculptures, frescos, and architecture that were influential to local artists and collectors. The Farnese were active collectors of such ancient works, like the Farnese Hercules and Farnese Bull discovered in the Baths of Caracalla in 1546. Fittingly, the Farnese hired Carracci to paint classically inspired frescoes in their luxurious palace in Rome. Carracci’s two academic nudes testify to the importance of classical art in his production. Like many artists of his time, he looked to examples of ancient sculptures as models for his paintings. His keen attention to the musculature of bodies is best depicted in Bacchus and the River Allegory, which the underlines with luminous flesh tones and the soft chromatism of the surrounding landscape.