Landscape with a Zampogna Player

Workshop of Castrucci Cosimo e Giovanni

This commesso, or Florentine mosaic, was made with different types of jasper, including Bohemian green, Alsatian yellow and German white. First mentioned in connection with the Borghese Collection in 1693, it was most likely executed in the 1610s in the workshop of Cosimo and Giovanni Castrucci. It shows a hilly landscape with the sky executed in German jasper rock and the lush vegetation in Bohemian green; a zampogna player is depicted in the lower left hand corner.

Object details

Commentary

Together with the Landscape with a Man and a Dog (inv. no. 505), this work is in all likelihood one of two small compositions ‘of landscapes in precious gemstone’, noted by Iacomo Manilli in 1650 at the Casino di Porta Pinciana, where the cultured poet saw it together with two others preserved in the Borghese Collection (The Promised Land, inv. no. 494; The Sacrifice of Isaac, inv. no. 490).

It is still unclear when this Florentine mosaic entered the family collection. According to Paola della Pergola (1959), the work was purchased in 1634 by Prince Marcantonio Borghese, who through his chamberlain Domenico Baroncino signed several receipts, thus entering into possession of an unspecified number of compositions in ‘fine stone’. Although some critics unhesitatingly accepted Della Pergola’s thesis (Herrmann Fiore 2006), it is marred by the fact that the documents she cited – while undoubtedly attesting to the interest of the Borghese family in this artistic genre – cannot with certainty be associated with the work in question, as they lack precise descriptions.

In addition, as Sara Staccioli rightly observed (1972), Scipione Borghese took an interest in ‘certain flowers made in gemstones’ as early as 1612, which Pietro Strozzi judged to be ‘rare pieces’ in a letter to the rich and powerful cardinal. This document allows us to hypothesise that the works of this kind already formed part of the collection of the Casino di Porta Pinciana in the time of the ambitious and curious cardinal-nephew.

Whichever theory is correct, it is certain that this Landscape became part of the Borghese Collection prior to 1693, when that year’s inventory of the belongings of the Palazzo di Ripetta lists it as item no. 266 – the number is still visible in the bottom right hand corner – with the description of ‘a small work, roughly one span high, completely executed in precious gemstone, with a landscape. Black frame. Artist uncertain’ (Inv. 1693; see Della Pergola 1959). In all likelihood this entry corresponds to that in the 1790 inventory which reads ‘a commesso in gemstone, Gallery of Florence’ (Inv. 1790; see Della Pergola 1959): for the first time, this note rightly associates the work with Florentine artistic circles. Indeed, like other commessi in the Borghese Collection (inv. nos 491, 493 and 522), this panel shows clear similarities with products of the workshop of Cosimo and Giovanni Castrucci, Florentine artists active at the court of Rudolf II in Prague from 1596 (see, most recently, Iommelli 2022).

This connection, which Sara Staccioli (1972) already noted in her discussion of two other panels in the Borghese Collection, applies to the mosaic in question as well, whose compositional scheme perfectly corresponds to that of the Landscape with a Chapel and a Bridge realised by Cosimo in 1596 and held today at the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna (inv. no. 3037). In both works, the figure in the foreground on the extreme left is placed near a hut with a sloped roof and two windows on its façade; likewise, both show trees with long trunks and curled foliage as well as a block of houses in the distance built around a central tower. In addition, the same materials were used in each – white jasper for the sky, brownish yellow for the houses and Iberian green for the vegetation – even though the Viennese work is chromatically richer and varied. These clear similarities suggest that the Borghese Landscape was also a product of the workshop of the two Florentine masters, who probably executed the work in Prague and sent it as a gift to the Borghese family; alternatively, it could have been made in Florence or Rome, to where the two artists could have travelled during their journeys between Tuscany and the Kingdom of Bohemia.

As pointed out by Neumann and reported by Staccioli (Neumann 1957; see Staccioli 1972), this composition – like the Landscape with a Man and Dog – was realised on a slate support medium covered by a thin layer of adhesive, on which the various gemstone tiles were skilfully placed. These stones came almost exclusively from eastern and central Europe and were widely used in the Medicean workshops.

Antonio Iommelli