The della Valle collection was more important than that of the Sassi, and was the finest of all those that were being formed in the early part of the sixteenth century. There is a full notice of it by Michaelis in the Jahrbuch, 1891, p. 218 f., who prints the inventory drawn up at the time of the sale of the collection in 1584 to Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici, by whom the antiques were removed to the Villa Medici, whence many of them, including most probably the ‘Medici Venus,’ found their way to Florence.
Fig. 8.—Portion of a Plan of Rome, from Nolli, Nuova Pianta di Roma, 1748.
607, Palazzo Pamphili Doria.
610, Torre Millina.
615, S. Tommaso in Parione.
620, Piazza Pasquino.
625, Palazzo Massimi.
653, Via di Parione.
783, Piazza della Valle.
794, Palazzo Capranica.
795, Teatro della Valle.
806, Palazzo Medici, or, Madama.
808, S. Luigi dei Francesi.
The dotted portion marks the line of the recent Corso Vittorio Emanuele. The site of the Sassi Palace, near S. Tommaso, is marked by a cross.
The della Valle were a family of high importance, counting many branches and numerous houses in that part of Rome, south-east of the Piazza Navona, where church and piazza and palace and theatre still keep alive their name. The most important member of the family was Cardinal Andrea della Valle, one of Leo X’s creations of 1517. Vasari introduced him into the fresco in the Palazzo Vecchio at Florence representing Leo X with his Cardinals, that is given as a favourable specimen of Giorgio’s painting on Plate I. His is the uppermost figure on the extreme right of the picture. Referring to this fresco, Vasari describes him in his third ‘Ragionamento’ (Opere, VIII, 158) as ‘quel cardinale della Valle, che fece in Roma quello antiquario, e che fu il primo che mettessi insieme le cose antiche, e le faceva restaurare.’ About the last clause a word will be said later on.
Lanciani (l.c., I, 123) draws attention to the vast estates, urban and suburban, possessed by these wealthy proprietors, and the opportunities thus afforded of obtaining antique treasures for the mere trouble of digging for them. Nobles who had official charge of the streets and open places could turn the opportunities of their position to account for the same purpose, and in the first half of the century lovers of ancient art did not buy antiques but simply dug for them. Cardinal Andrea, Lanciani says, ‘era appassionato scavatore,’ and he made excavations in the Thermae of Agrippa near which his palace lay, and in the vineyards of the Lateran. Several writers of the early part of the century celebrate this collection. One (Fichard, in Frankfurtisches Archiv, Frankfurt, 1815, III, 68) writes, in 1536, that the Cardinal’s house was the real treasury of Roman antiquity, and he singles out for notice the same porphyry wolf about which Vasari writes, ante, p. [28]. There were so many statues there, he says, that you would have thought everything ever found in Rome had been brought together to that one place! The whole collections of the family however were divided among three or four palaces, but Andrea had the lion’s share. He built a new palace for his treasures early in the century and displayed the best pieces in a court. There were to be seen a Venus, that was probably the Medicean, and the Florentine Ganymede, both now in the Uffizi, Nos. 548 and 115, and close to these above a window the porphyry wolf of which we hear from Vasari. The present location of this piece is not known, but Michaelis suggests it might be looked for at the Villa Medici or at Florence. Vasari also mentions ‘two prisoners bound,’ also of porphyry, as being in the garden of the palace (ante, p. [29]). These are mentioned in the inventory referred to above (Jahrbuch, 229) as ‘two barbarians, draped, of porphyry, 11 palms high.’ They were transported from the Villa Medici at Rome to Florence in 1790, and are now very familiar to visitors in Florence, for they stand just within the Boboli Gardens, one on each side of the main walk that leads up towards the Amphitheatre. They are about eight feet high, of porphyry, with heads and hands of white marble. Two similar figures are to be seen in the Louvre, under the staircase at the top of which is the Niké from Samothrace.
Della Valle was not content with his fine house and museum, but desired another which he began to build about 1520. The work was directed by Lorenzo Lotti (Lorenzetto) a pupil and assistant of Raphael, and Vasari gives us an account of it in his life of the former artist (Opere, IV, 579). In connection with this we have from Vasari an interesting notice of the beginning of the practice of ‘restoring’ antiques, which from this period onwards was an established custom. When Lorenzetto, he tells us, was building for the Cardinal Andrea della Valle the upper garden of his palace, situated where is now the Teatro della Valle (see Fig. 8), he arranged niches and other places for the Cardinal’s antiques. ‘These were imperfect, some wanting a head and others arms, while others again were legless, and all were in some way mutilated. Nevertheless the artist managed everything excellently well, for he got good sculptors to make again everything that was wanting, and this led to other lords doing the same thing, and having many antique fragments restored. This was done for example by Cardinals Cesis, Ferrara, and Farnese, and in a word by all Rome. And in truth these antiques, restored in this fashion, have a much more pleasing effect than those mutilated torsos, and limbs without a head, and such-like fragments.’ On the restoration of the Papal antiques see Note, postea, p. 116.
THE PORPHYRY TAZZA OF THE SALA ROTONDA OF THE VATICAN.
[See § 2, Of Porphyry, ante, p. [32].]
Ascanio Colonna, who was brother to the famous Vittoria Colonna the friend of Michelangelo, was one of the chief representatives of the imperial interests in Italy, in the stormy times of the first half of the sixteenth century. Charles V made him in 1520 Grand Constable of Naples. With Pope Paul III he had a bitter feud, and the Pope seized on his possessions. On the election in 1550 of Julius III, the new Pope, in order to please the Emperor, reinstated Ascanio, and it was on the occasion of this reconciliation that Colonna presented to the Pope the famous basin of porphyry of which Vasari writes. The ‘vineyard’ for which the Pope destined it was connected with the casino and villa outside the Porta del Popolo which bear the name of the Pope and where is now installed the Villa Papa Giulio Museum. The tazza in question is the superb bowl that occupies the centre of the Sala Rotonda in the Vatican Museum. It is said to have been found temp. Julius II, in the Thermae of Titus (Pistolesi, Il Vaticano Descritto, V, 206), and after remaining for a time at the papal villa it was conveyed by Clement XI to the Vatican and placed in the court of the Belvedere, now the Cortile Ottagono. Francesco de’ Ficorini (Le Vestigia e Rarità di Roma, Roma, 1744, bk. II, ch. 2, p. 15) says that in this court was the ‘gran conca di porfido,’ and another of white oriental granite, both found in the Thermae of Titus. When Clement XIV (1769–75) added the octagonal colonnade in the interior of the Cortile, the tazza was apparently no longer needed there, for soon afterwards Pius VI, who with Clement was the creator of the Museo Pio-Clementino, placed it in his newly constructed Sala Rotonda, where it remains. Pasquale Massi in his Indicazione antiquaria del Ponteficio Museo Pio-Clementino, 1792, p. 118, speaks of ‘una vastissima tazza di porfido di palmi 62 di circonferenza tutta massiccia (all of one piece), la quale si trovava già in Vaticano trasportatavi dalla Villa di Giulio III, fuori di Porta del Popolo, ed ora squisitamente risarcita.’ This restoration was completed in 1792 and was no doubt carried out by the same artists whom Pius VI employed for the repair of the porphyry sarcophagi noticed ante, p. [27]. In this way the work, which Vasari says in the text had to be left unfinished, was finally accomplished. Cancellieri (Lettera ... intorno la maravigliosa Tazza di Porfido, etc., Roma, 1822) makes the surprising statement that at one time the tazza had been mended with pieces of white granite!
