Baldassare Franceschini, called Il Volterrano

The attribution to Volterrano was first proposed by Catherine Monbeig Goguel, who recognised that both sides of this previously unknown drawing are connected with Volterrano's important early composition, The triumphal entry of Cosimo I into Siena, one of the artist's frescoes in the courtyard of Villa Petraia, near Florence (fig. 1).  In 1636, Don Lorenzo de’ Medici, the youngest son of the Grand Duke Ferdinando I and his wife Cristina of Lorena, commissioned the young Volterrano to paint two groups of frescoes, beneath the twin loggias of the internal courtyard of the villa.  This prestigious commission was the first public project undertaken by Volterrano after completing his education with Matteo Rosselli and Giovanni da San Giovanni, and the influence of both these masters is particularly relevant in these frescoes, as is an awareness of Pietro da Cortona's revolutionary Florentine frescoes of The Age of Gold and The Age of Silver, executed in the Stanza della Stufa, in Palazzo Pitti in 1637, just as Volterrano was starting his work at Villa Petraia.    

The handsome and extraordinary frescoes in Villa Petraia, completed around 1648, and the many related drawings which have survived, provide the main basis for the study and understanding of Volterrano’s early style.  The iconography of the series was devised by Don Lorenzo himself and Pier Francesco Rinuccini, to illustrate and celebrate illustrious episodes in the history of the Medici family.  The Entry of Cosimo I into Siena was the second fresco in the series to be executed, and a red chalk study for the whole composition is preserved in the Uffizi.¹  On the recto of the present sheet Volterrano has studied, full length, the pivotal figure of Fame, who is depicted in the fresco crowning Cosimo I.  This impressive allegorical female figure, who occupies almost the entirety of the page, holds a crown in her right hand, while with her left arm she seems to support a banner.  The figure in the drawing corresponds fairly closely with its painted counterpart, the most obvious differences being in the position of her left arm, and in the presence in the drawing of flowing drapery, behind the figure and to her left.

On the verso are a number of quick and spirited sketches of individual figures.  These include, towards the bottom right, first ideas for the same figure of Fame, but most of the studies on this side of the sheet relate to another figure, the soldier who appears at the left hand side of the painted composition.  (Also connected with this figure is a large academy study by Volterrano, made from the live model, in the Uffizi.²)  In a mise-en-page that is very characteristic of the artist, this soldier is here studied several times and in different poses, and there are also other quick sketches which could relate to the other two soldiers in the centre foreground of the fresco.  As this fine, double-sided sheet illustrates very clearly, Volterrano prepared every part of each of his frescoes with the greatest care, constantly reviewing even minor decorative details, a working method he would continue to use throughout his career, executing countless series of preparatory drawings of every sort, and a vast range of single figure studies, sometimes elaborately finished, as in the case of the recto of this sheet.  As is demonstrated by the academy study in the Uffizi, Volterrano, in the best Florentine tradition, studied his major figures first from the nude model.  Then he would explore his compositional ideas in characteristic quick, vibrant and energetic sketches like the ones seen here on the verso, and also through compositional drawings.  Only after this would he have made large and detailed studies of figures in more or less their final poses, such as the full-length allegorical figure on the recto of the present sheet.

Although it is an early work by the artist, this handsome double-sided sheet, executed in the artist’s favoured medium of red chalk, allows us to appreciate the origins of Volterrano's graphic style, and to understand the roots of his subsequent development.

¹ Inv. no. 3416 S; M.C. Fabbri, A. Grassi & R. Spinelli, Volterrano, Baldassarre Franceschini (1611-1690), p. 88, reproduced fig. 2
²  Inv. no. 3391 S; Fabbri et al., op. cit., p. 88, fig. 4