Giovanni Leonardo Ceruso as a Mendicant Friar

Giovanni Leonardo Ceruso, a mendicant friar, walking holding a mug with two children accompanying him.

Engraving, 1600, Lettered in lower margin with six lines of biography and with a dedication to Hieronimo Aquila by the engraver. With privilege 'Cum privilegio summi pontificis' and permission 'Superiorum permissu Romae Anno Iubilei'.

Excellent work, printed on contemporary laid paper with "anchor in circle with star" watermark, trimmed to platemark, in very good condition.

This can be dated 1600 from the privilege granted in the Jubilee year.

Giovanni Lorenzo Ceruso (1551 – 1595), detto il Letterato, born in the diocesi of Salerno, in 1551, his first occupation was a teacher of the parish school. The scholars on account of his good knowl edge of Latin and his habit of writing on the ground with a chopstick called him Letterato.

Coming to Rome, because he lacked money he was accepted as a groom in the Medici court, then going to Loreto, he returned to Rome in 1582. On seeing great poverty and abandoned babies, he cared for them first in small rooms in the Cortile di Chigi in Banchi. Moving elsewhere with the orphans, he found housing on via Giulia near the church of Santo Spirito della Nazione del Regno di Napoli. From there he moved to San Lorenzo in Panisperna and then he obtained a place near Madonna de’ Miracoli.

Ceruso’s life and his acts of charity were written Marcello Mansi and published in Rome 1625 “Vita di Gio. Leonardo Ceruso detto Letterato”: "in order not to make the children idle, he began to pair them up two by two, and he followed them and with much mortification they went singing prayers and begging alms through the City.”

Ceruso Died on February 15, 1595. His popularity and fame were such that soon after his death "the Governors of the Putti" as a sign of gratitude had a portrait made "between the door of the Oratory and that of the House" "from the natural with the habito, which he used to carry around Rome with the cassette in his hand."

More interestingly, Mansi recalls that a second portrait was commissioned by the Confraternity of the Oratory of Death to be placed at his burial place, in front of the high altar of the Church of Santa Maria dell'Orazione e Morte (in Via Giulia); removed along with the ex votos by order of Pope Urban VIII because he had not yet been declared Blessed, the portrait "in better form" was “reprinted in copperplate by Villamena”  with the long inscription at the bottom.

The engraving belongs to the series that is called, incorrectly according to Michael Bury, "The Six Trades of Rome": “One of what are incorrectly called the Six Cries of Rome. Although some of these figures appear to be real individuals, familiar to Villamena and to those to whom he dedicated the prints, the tradition out of which they come is that of representations of trades. There are Flemish engravings that could have had an influence, for example the interesting series of Four Elements of 1597, which figured trades, by Claesz Jansz. Clock (Hollstein nos.12-15). But there were already prints of subjects very close to Villamena's circulating in Rome in the 1580s as is suggested by the roast chestnut seller ('il Caldarostaro') and the chimney sweep ('il spazzo Camino') listed among the prints of Pietro de' Nobili in 1584 (Lincoln, 2000, p.187). As McTighe (1993, p. 87) pointed out, this figure of Geminiano demonstrates a very different attitude to the one adopted in Carracci's “Arti di Bologna”. Villamena makes the figure grotesque. In the doggerel verse in the margin it is said that his shout is so loud that it would make Hell shake. It is clear that this is meant to be humorous and Villamena is in a tradition that goes back to Dürer's Peasant at Market (Bartsch VII.99.89)" (cf. Michael Bury, 'The Print in Italy 1550-1620', BM 2001 cat.116)

Bibliografia

Le Blanc 96; Kühn-Hattenhauer 1979 pp.129-33; cfr. Michael Bury, 'The Print in Italy 1550-1620', BM 2001 cat.116; cfr. M. Mansi Vita di Gio. Leonardo Ceruso detto Letterato”, 1625.