Giostra del Saracino, Celebration held in Piazza Navona in 1634

Etching, 1634, signed in plate at lower right.

Derived from a subject by painter Andrea Sacchi, it depicts the Giostra del Saracino, a celebration held in Piazza Navona, in honor of Alexander Charles Wasa, on February 25, 1634.

The creator of the Saracino feast, as we learn from the monogram A.S. that appears in the lower left corner of the engraving, was Andrea Sacchi; Francesco Guitti, on the other hand, was the set designer.

Alexander Charles Wasa (Warsaw 1614 - Lviv November 19, 134), the brother de king of Poland, had arrived in Rome on 1634; we know how the visits of sovereigns and foreign dignitaries to Rome in the seventeenth century were occasions for great festivities, as punctually happened on this occasion as well. Cardinal Antonio Barberini, together with many prominent personalities of the city, devoted himself to the organization of a singular spectacle: the Saracen Joust was held in Piazza Navona on February 25, 1634; in fact the foreign guest, for reasons that came up suddenly, left on January 23, but preparations proceeded anyway and the feast was held for the appointed date. A detailed report documenting the feast, as often happens on such occasions, was edited by Mascardi. A group of men of culture and artists were responsible for the organization of the grandiose Joust: set designer Francesco Guitti, Francesco Caetano and Zongo Ondodei, Fulvio Testi and the painter Andrea Sacchi, a pupil of Antonio Barberini, took care of the preparatory drawings for the spectacle.

We are facing a moment in which the Roman aristocracy, proposing a spectacle that echoes the feudal world and makes use of so much grandeur and magnificence, wants to express its great power and the pageantry it can still show off: the tournament is no longer a combat, but the representation of a fight, whose real protagonists are the column and the bee, that is, the symbols of the emerging Roman families of the time: the Barberini and Colonna, who tower over the prow of the ship set up for the joust.

A painting by Filippo Gagliardi, Andrea Sacchi and Manciola (Inv. MR 5699) inspired by the same occasion is preserved at the Museo di Roma: surprising are the similarities found especially between our engraving and this oil painting; in fact, it is not uncommon to find, between engravings illustrating well-known events in seventeenth-century Rome and coeval paintings, several points of contact, so much so as to endorse the hypothesis that engravings exerted a decisive influence on the many types of pictorial representations.

François Collignon (or Louis François, c. 1609 – 18 January 1687) was a French engraver, print-seller and publisher. Collignon was born in Nancy, France. He initially locally trained in the studio of Jacques Callot, in 1626 for four years (see Marot in GBA 85 1975, p.24), in 1631 in Augsburg and in 1634 in Rome. Returned to Paris by 1636, where worked with Israel Henriet on Callot estate, but also for other publishers; Della Bella godfather of his son Etienne baptised in Paris in 1643. Settled in Rome with his French wife in 1646/7, where seems to have worked less as a printmaker, but became major figure as publisher. His early work in Rome was published jointly with Orazio Marinaro. His print shop in Rome was in San Tommaso in Parione alla cantonata del vicolo della posta vecchia del Papa incontro al Toson d'oro. He produced works for artist including Pietro Testa, Cornelis Bloemaert, Pietro da Cortona, Nicolas Poussin, Charles Le Brun, Simon Vouet, and Jean Le Pautre. He died in Rome January 18, 1687. The Flemish publisher and engraver Arnold van Westerhout who lived in Rome at that time bought the stock of François Collignon after his death, for 4.200 scudi.

A fine impression, printed on contemporary laid paper without watermark, with margins, traces of paper creases visible on verso, small restored tears in white margin, otherwise in excellent condition. Rare.

Bibliografia

M. Fagiolo, Carandini, Corpus delle feste a Roma, La festa Barocca, 1977, pp. 87-92; S. Tozzi, Incisioni barocche di feste e avvenimenti. Giorni d’allegrezza, pp. 155-158, n. III.16.