Figure 35: A Note on the Word Modello

 

Michael Hirst and Carmen Bambach Cappel

The Art Bulletin 74.1, March 1992, 172-173.

 

Letter

 

In her long and very generous review of my book an Michelangelo's drawings (The Art Bulletin, LXXII, 3, 1990, 493-498), Carmen Bambach Cappel rightly draws attention to the problems attending attempts to classify and narre Italian Renaissance drawings. She raises doubts about the appropiateness of employing, as I have done, the word "modello" to designate demonstration drawings "done expressly for patronal approval, criticism, or rejection" (my p. 79), pointing out that we find no examples of such usage in many cinquecento sources, including Michelangelo's own letters. I had cited Alberti's use of the term to sanction my own adoption of it, confining myseif to one source for reasons of brevity.

 

The issue is, however, a real and interesting one, and to further discussion of the problem I list here a few examples, taken, for the most part, from kinds of sources that Professor Cappel does not consider and that seem to me to endorse the usage I adopted. They are listed in chronological order.

 

(1) Columns for the Loggia dei Lanzi (1376):

"... due cholonne ... fiant et edificentur grosse … , modo et forma, quibus est modellus seu exemplum, disignatum in quodam folio per me Jacubum, notarium subscriptum" (K. Frey, Die Loggia dei Lanzi zu Florenz, Berlin, 1885, 285, doc. c. 6.)

 

(2) Commission to Piero del Pollaiuolo for the altarpiece for the Chapel of S. Bernardo in Palazzo Vecchio, Florence (December 1477):

"... dicti Domini ... locaverunt Piero olim Jacobi del Pollaiuolo pictori ... ad pingendam et de novo faciendam et fabricandam et pingendum quandam tabulam altaris cappelle pallatii dicte dominationis Sancti Bernardi; et modo et forma et prout et sicut apparet in modello et seu in pictura existente ..." (C. Milanesi, Documenti inediti risguardanti Lionardo da Vinci, Florence, 1872, 15. The painting to be replaced was by Bernardo Daddi.)

 

(3) Drawing for the spalliera in a room in Palazzo Vecchio (1481):

the Operai "declaraverint modellum ordinatum ... qui steterit applicatus ad ostium Camere Armorum circa faciendo spallieras ... in sala que vulgariter dicitur la sala de' LXXta." (Florence, Archivio di Stato, Operai del Palazzo, 2, fol. 9r, 15 Jan. 1481; reference from Nicolai Rubinstein.)

 

(4) Documents for the decoration of the Sala dell'Udienza in Palazzo di S. Jacopo, Pistoia (November 1496):

Donnino and Angelo di Domenico promise to paint "... più figure secondo il modello el quale modello è soscritto di mia mano ..."; a following reference describes the modello as a drawing: "... considerata che fu allogata a ffare più figure nella Audientia nuova a maestro Domenicho ... secondo il disegnio soscripto di mia mano...." (P. Bacci, "I Pittori Fiorentini Donnino e Agnolo di Domenico a Pistoia," Rivista d'arte, iv, 1906, 1ff.)

 

(5) Commission for Ridolfo Ghirlandaio to paint an altarpiece for S. Pietro Maggiore, Pistoia (1508):

the patrons "... locaverunt et concesserunt Ridolfo Dominici Ghirlandaio, pittori de Florentia ... una tabulam pro altari capelle Sotietatis S. Bastiani preditti, cum illis figuriis et aliis rebus, modis formis et condittionibus, prout et sicut continentur et est designatum in modello per ipsum Ridolfum fatto, existente penes dittum presbiterum Leonardum ..." (Florence, Archivio di Stato, Notarile antecosimiano G.671, Vespasiano di Bartolommeo da Pistoia, fol. 124 r-v; found by David Franklin and cited by W. Griswold, Master Drawings, xxvii, 1990, 221, n. 24).

 

These examples are, it will at once be noted, exclusively Tuscan. It would exceed the scope of this brief note to address the question of the employment of the word elsewhere in Italy, although its usage extended as far as the Marche (see, for example, its adoption in a document of 1523 published in G. Fabiani, Cola dell Amatrice secondo i documenti ascolani, Ascoli Piceno, 1952, 173-174: "Magister Cola" agrees to paint an altarpiece for Ascoli Cathedral "... cum figuris prout in designo et modello ...").

 

A valuable if all too brief discussion of the etymology and trecento usage of modello can be found in A. Grote, Studien zur Geschichte der Opera di Santa Reparata zu Florenz in Vierzehnten Jahrhundert, Munich, 1960, esp. 113ff., indicating important instances of its adoption in documents published by Guasti relating to the Florentine Duomo, which I feel that I scarcely need to add here.

 

It would be of great interest to establish whether the usage of the term declined as the 16th century progressed. This would involve the consideration of a massive amount of material. Here, we can note that Vasari adopts it in his Life of Rosso; writing of the latter's project for S. Maria delle Lagrime at Arezzo, he tells us that, for Giovanni Pollastra, the inventor of the complex programme, Rosso "... fece ... un bellissimo modello di tutta I'opera, che è oggi nelle nostre case d'Arezzo" (Vasari-Milanesi, v, 164.)

 

Again, in view of the ambiguity that Dr. Cappel detects in the interpretation of Alberti's remark about "Modulosque in chartis ...," it is interesting to note that Vasari's friend Cosimo Bartoli, in his well-known translation of Alberti's text into Italian, translated the phrase as "schizzi e modelli su per le carte...." (See Della architettura, della pittura e delle statue di Leonbatista Alberti, trans. C. Bartoli, Bologna, 1782, 319.)

 

MICHAEL HIRST

Courtauld Institute ofArt

London WC2R ORN England

 

 

Reply

 

By urging caution in my review of Michael Hirst's book with regard to the use of the term modello (for reasons given in my pp. 497-498, with bibliography), I hoped to draw attention to a term commonly used in the literature an Italian 15th- and 16th-century drawings and design theory, but whose identity, at least relative to those of schizzo (sketch) or cartone (cartoon), is yet to be critically assessed. Professor Hirst's book and letter do much to redress this imbalance. Nevertheless, in my opinion, we have accepted too confidently a post-Renaissance, modern interpretation of modello as we have read the term in the Italian Renaissance primary sources.

 

Professor Hirst's letter rightly cites some documents, as well as a sentence in Vasari's biography of Rosso, that passingly mention the term modello as probably designating drawings. In its broadest meaning, the term modello applies to any object (or person) serving as an example, model, or type to be emulated.

 

The early dictionaries by the Tuscan Accademia della Crusca invoke the term's descent from the Latin "modulus" or "typus." Cf. definitions in Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca, 1st edition (1612), 2nd edition (1623), 3rd edition (1691), 5th edition (1910), as well as N. Tommaseo, Dizionario della lingua italiana, Milan-Naples-Palermo-Rome, 1915, v, 314-315; S. Battaglia, Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, Turin, 1961, x, 644-648.

In this sense, not only can a drawing offer a preliminary "model," which encompasses the use of the term in Hirst's examples, but also a three-dimensional representation and even a painting. For example, Andrea Pozzo's Perspectiva pictorum et architectorum (1700-17) refers to the production of a preliminary, painted model before the painting of a full-scale fresco, a modello colorito. (See Pozzo, II, "Breve instruttione per dipingere a fresco," unpaginated, sections five to six, on disegnare and graticolare).

Giovanni Battista Armenini's characterization of a cartoon as "un perfettißimo eßempio, et un modello di tutto quello ch'egli hà fare" is thus not to be taken literally. (See De' veri precetti della pittura, Ravenna, 1587, 100.)

In a specialized usage, the term modello designates a three-dimensional modei. This is, however, its most common meaning in early writings on art and in the Michelangelo correspondence. (Cf. above citations, as well as F. Baldinucci, Vocabolario toscano dell'arte del disegno, Florence, 1681, 99-100.)

 

Further, a distinction must be made between, on the one hand, the vocabulary used in writings that refer to the keeping of records - documents of payment, letters, contracts, or listings - and, an the other, that used in descriptive passages of treatises whose function was pedagogic and which thus offered a formal artistic discourse. Hirst's thoughtful account overlooks this distinction. The question persists. Why do both editions of Giorgio Vasari's introduction to the Vite omit, in a chapter seminal to the formation of both a theory and vocabulary on disegno, the term modello as denoting a drawing rather than a plastic, three-dimensional model? (See G. Vasari, Le vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568, ed. R. Bettarini, annot. P. Barocchi, Florence, 1966, I [Testo], 117-121).

 

Vasari's omission of the term modello in his designation of drawing types is arguably not accidental. This omission of the term modello, as it refers to drawing, occurs in such other treatises as Raffaele Borghini's Il riposo (1584), Giovanni Battista Armenini's De' veri precetti della pittura (1587), and Filippo Baldinucci's Vocabolario toscano dell'arte del disegno (1681). Such evidence seems to suggest that drawings functioning as modelli, as demonstration of a work to be carried out, were not recognized to be a formal drawing type. They were termed disegni. This is contrary to our modern expectation, for we think of modelli as being a relatively specific, preliminary drawing type. (On this point, see bibliography cited in my review, p. 497, n. 32.)

This conclusion appears to be further supported by the tentative statistical study of the Michelangelo correspondence that I offered in my review of Hirst's book (<The Art Bulletin, 72.3, Sept. 1990>, pp. 497-498):

<reference: Il Carteggio di Michelangelo, ed P. Barocchi and R. Ristori. Florence, 165-83>

 

In approximately thirty-four letters of the Michelangelo correspondence the term modello and its variants, modelo, modegli, or modelli, designate more or less clearly a three-dimensional model: an obvious example is "sendo richiesto dal Papa sopra dicto del modello di decta opera, venni da Charrara a Firenze a farlo; e così lo feci di legniame …“
In approximately twenty other letters the use of modello is less definite, though here, too, it can be argued that the reference is to three-dimensional models rather than drawings. Soderini's "Io vorrei facessi uno modello, o vogl[i]amo dire disegno, di quella cosa vi scripsi," in a letter of 24 July 1518, or Rosselli's "àne fatto fare uno ischizo o vero disegno di detta fac[i]ata," in a letter of 4 February 1526, suggest a self-conscious attempt on the part of artists and non-artists to use artistic terms correctly. Finished, non-full-scale drawings are usually designated as disegni in the early Italian primary sources, though disegni sometimes encompass such other relatively finished drawings as studies after the model.
The drawing type is sometimes further described, e. g., "disegni ... rilevati in buona forma e con più amore e fatica ... con tutta quella diligenza che si può," or "disegno finito."
In fact, in the Michelangelo correspondence the majority of drawings intended to be reviewed by a patron or sent to a workman is designated as disegnio or disegno: the term occurs in approximately eighty-four letters and it must refer to relatively finished or precise drawings rather than quick sketches, which were designated as schizzi. The term schizo or schizzo, including the phrase "un poco di schizo," occurs in approximately eleven letters, while cartone or chartone occurs in approximately fourteen letters. Not surprisingly, these three categories of drawing types correspond to those listed by Vasari in his introduction about painting ...

 

I did not, and still do not, find entirely convincing Hirst's citation of Leon Battista Alberti's treatise an painting (1435, 1436) as sufficient justification for his adoption of the term modello in discussing Michelangelo's "demonstration drawing, done expressly for patronal approval, criticism, or rejection. The word has the sanction of no less an authority than Alberti, who employs it in his Della pittura for drawings made on paper to work out narrative compositions." (Cf. Hirst, p. 79; my review, pp. 497-498.)

The evidence offered by Vasari's introduction to the Vite, both because of its date and the proximity of its author to Michelangelo, would seem to carry more weight than the laconic, somewhat ambiguous reference in Alberti's treatise. As I have pointed out, Vasari yields no such justification.

 

In passing allusions to the term modello, judgment of whether an early author refers to a preliminary drawing or a preliminary three-dimensional model is difficult, because the two were inextricably linked in the Tuscan tradition of design. (A. Grote, Das Dombauamt in Florenz 1285-1370, Munich, [ 1960], 113, which Hirst cites in bis letter, also concedes this point.) This difficulty is in fact to blame for the dissent in the literature regarding interpretation of the earliest possible recorded uses by painters of sculptural models - for example, the famous concluding passage in Lorenzo Ghiberti's Second Commentary, which does not even use the word modello. (See further, L. Fusco, "The Use of Sculptural Models by Painters in Fifteenth-Century Italy," The Art Bulletin, LXIV, 1, 1982, 175-194, especially 184-186, with bibliography; J. Schlosser, Lorenzo Ghibertis Denkwürdigkeiten [I Commentarii], Berlin, 1912, 1, 50-51).

 

An important part of Tuscan 15th- and 16th-century design practice consisted of drawing after sculptural models representing the human figure (modelli), usually fashioned of wax or clay, to study foreshortening, chiaroscuro, disposition of draperies, and counterpoints of pose. Vasari's introduction to the Vite established the practice's place amidst a sequence of drawing types leading to the execution of a composition - schizzi, disegni, modelli, cartoni (modelli being the only non-drawing).

The listing of modelli, along with schizzi and cartoni, in Andrea Gilio's Degli errori e degli abusi de' pittori circa l'istoria (1565) should thus probably be interpreted as three-dimensional models, according to the Vasarian precept, rather than as drawings. (See Trattati d'arte del cinquecento fra manierismo e contrariforma, ed. P. Barocchi, Bari, 1961, II, 29: "esso [pittore] ne deve fare gli schizzi, i cartoni, i modelli, e non si confidar ne la mente, perché è labile.") The term means the same in Armenini's Precetti when it is casually mentioned with less explanation, both before and after the discursive section on clay models. (See De' veri precetti della pittura, Ravenna, 1587, 94-97.)

 

In their treatises, Renaissance theorists totally integrated discussion of sculptural models into that of drawing practice, because the sculptural quality of painting was a fundamental ideal in their conception of disegno. This is one of the reasons why the term modello has become confusing today. That modelli do not seem to have constituted a formal drawing type, as I have proposed, and the frequency with which the term is used in its meaning of three-dimensional model in the primary sources help dispel some of this confusion.

Research on the theory and period vocabulary of disegno, relative to the extant corpus of Italian Renaissance drawing types, is sorely needed to disentangle this problem.

 

CARMEN BAMBACH CAPPEL

Fordham University Bronx, N.Y. 10458