The exhibition organized in the gallery of the Accademia di San Luca in Rome on the occasion of the fifth centenary of Raphael’s death on the myth of Urbinate (curated by Francesco Moschini, Valeria Rotili and Stefania Ventra) revolved around a strong point: the Putto reggifestone attributed to Raphael since the nineteenth century, but considered by some scholars to be a copy and even a fake. This fragment of fresco (115 x 48 cm) – singular also because it was executed on a curved surface – came out of nowhere in 1829, during the gray pontificate of Leo XII: he kept it in his studio in via del Vantaggio, near Piazza del Popolo, the neoclassical painter Jean-Baptiste Wicar, portraitist of the Bonaparte family, a fine collector and skilled merchant. On his death he had left his collection of 1300 drawings (with splendid Raphael’s autographs) to the Lille Museum and the most precious work (then valued at 500 scudi) to the Academy of San Luca, perhaps to excuse himself for having collaborated in the requisitions. Napoleonic of many Italian masterpieces.
Raphael in Sant’Agostino
Since 1834, when it was exhibited in the academic gallery, the mysterious Putto it met with great success especially among painters, as attested by the numerous nineteenth-century copies. Everyone recognized the affinity with one of the putti who flank theIsaiah frescoed by Raphael in Sant’Agostino (1513 ca.) – later confirmed by the perfect superimposition of the two figures – but someone has always questioned the authorship of Urbinate. Two articles published in 1960 rekindled the discussion on autography. In the first Luigi Salerno supported the hypothesis that it was a fake created by Jean-Baptiste Wicar himself, without however explaining why the “forger” had kept the painting for himself instead to pass it off as an original at a considerable price. Pico Cellini, who had just restored theIsaiah of Sant’Agostino, identifying in the Putto what remained of the first version of the same prophet, mentioned by Vasari, which Raphael would have made in the curved space of an arch or a chapel and then destroyed to remake it on a pillar of the church (above the Madonna and Child with Saint Anne sculpted in 1512 by Sansovino).
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Central Institute of Restoration
In 1962 the work was subjected to chemical investigations and in 1968 to a conservative intervention conducted by the Central Institute of Restoration, but the operations were not considered as directives on the autograph and the debate continued albeit neglecting an important acquisition: Alessandro Conti connected the child of San Luca to a «puttino in fresco quarried in Rome by the hand of Raffele» mentioned in 1603 in the Bentivogli collection by Francesco Cavazzoni’s guide to Bologna.
The merit of the exhibition promoted by the Accademia di San Luca was the opening of a study site to answer the many unresolved questions. The curators have chosen to re-examine the fresco involving specialists of different expertise. Claudio Falcucci, a nuclear engineer expert in diagnostic investigations, found traces of the preparatory drawing and the compatibility of the pigments used by Raphael in Sant’Agostino.
Silvia Ginzburg, Professor of History of Modern Art at the University of Roma Tre, assuming that theIsaiah had been commissioned by Egidio da Viterbo (humanist linked to Leo X and general of the Augustinians) has traced confirmations on the Bolognese provenance of the Putto, reconstructing the relations of the friars of Sant’Agostino with the Bentivogli, heirs of the blessed Elena Duglioli (client of the Santa Cecilia sent by Sanzio to Bologna, where the Putto may have been sent as a test of the painter’s skill) Paolo Violini, who led the restoration of numerous Raphael paintings in the Vatican, found that the surface of the fresco was heavily clouded by the alteration of the synthetic protectors applied in 1968.