GIROLAMO SICIOLANTE DA SERMONETA
Sermoneta 1521-Rome 1580
Madonna
oil on canvas, cm 33×21
The identification of the cardinal portrayed in profile in one of our paintings as the Venetian Pietro Bembo (1470-1547), a prominent intellectual of the sixteenth century, proves crucial for dating the works, as highlighted by Alessandro Nesi. The scholar has indeed demonstrated that Bembo’s effigy is clearly inspired by a celebratory medal, typically attributed to Danese Cattaneo and produced around 1547, the year of the litterateur’s death. This allows us to assert that our two paintings, although likely not conceived as a pendant but perhaps as part of a series, were executed after that date, in the second half of the century.
Nesi has identified the author of the two panels, which depict a bust of a Saint (or possibly an elderly Madonna) in addition to the portrait of Bembo, as Girolamo Siciolante, whom he describes as “one of the most valid and well-known exponents of Roman Michelangelesque classicism in the Counter-Reformation era.”
To support his attribution, Nesi proposes various comparisons for both figures. The male portrait, though derived from a medal and thus less stylistically conclusive, would, according to Nesi, recall one of the prophets flanking Christ on the left in the Transfiguration in the Roman church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, with its “angular and sharp” features. Of considerable interest is also the comparison of the female head with those appearing in several works by Sermoneta, characterized by “the face with a long and sharp nose, a small mouth, and a prominent, rounded chin.” Among these, Nesi suggests the Saint Catherine of Alexandria about to be decapitated in the Cesi altarpiece in Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, the Saint Agnes from the Sacred Conversation in Calcinate di Bergamo, and the Saint Catherine of Alexandria from the Sacred Conversation on the high altar of San Martino in Bologna. We also recall the Madonna present in the Holy Family with Saint John the Baptist formerly in the Volpi di Misurata collection in Rome, documented in the Zeri photo archive (n. 16225).
A portrait of Pietro Bembo similar to ours in composition, perhaps taken from the same medal but evidently by a different hand and attributed to the Venetian school, is documented in a private Roman collection.
Pietro Bembo