Descrizione
Storia dell’arte 3, Luglio – Settembre 1969
Herwarth Röttgen
Giuseppe Cesaris Fresken in der Loggia Orsini. Eine Hochzeitsallegorie aus dem Geist Torquato Tassos
The plan to fresco the small loggia of the Palazzo del Sodalizio dei Piceni in via Parione in Rome with an allegorical program based on « Omnia vincit Amor » was raised again in 1589 when the palace was inhabited by Virginio Orsini. The task of the pictorial decoration was given first of all to Federico Zuccari who probably had to finish it for the wedding of the same Orsini with Flavia Peretti, niece of Pope Sisto V, celebrated in April 1589 in Rome. The decorations, however, were not executed since Zuccari himself had neglected the conditions of the established contract (van Mander). Only after 1593 when the palace was acquired by Corradino Orsini, who took up these ideas, was the decorating of the loggia revived, taking up also the iconographical program conceived for the wedding of his relative Virginio. This time the commission was entrusted to Giuseppe Cesari, at that time at the peak of his artistic fortunes, which he carried out between 1594/95. The principal theme of the frescoes is an allegory of Love and of the Wedding, referring to the wedding Orsini-Peretti. The refinement of the poetical idea realised in the picture, and hitherto never examined, presumes that the author was Torquato Tasso, who was the most brilliant of a group of poets closely attached to Virginio Orsini.
