ITALIAN ART MARKET in 17th Century I
Roman Artists and Art Market in Seventeenth Century
1. The Roman Religious and Political Background:
2. Artists’ Demographics, living and social conditions
3. Artists’ Training:
4. Art Dealers, Market and Regulation
5. Genres of Painting and Market Value
6. Sales, Marketing, exhibitions
Background:
During the seventeenth century, the change of large forces brought new features to Roman art market and the community of painters there. The Counter-Reformation strengthened the central power of the Papacy so that, as regular clients for art, the papal court’s monopoly in power and wealth ensured their generous patronage in art. As the center of Catholic church, Roman painters enjoyed the major share of this generosity, which brought them earnings for comfortable life and elevation to their social recognition. In addition to the patronage in art, during the Counter-Reformation, art institutions in Rome experienced a revolution and new regulations were gradually built up through a newly-founded academy, the Accademia di San Luca. This development in the education system influenced the traditional way of artists’ training under studio, workshops, and educational institutions, and offered them intellectual education that promoted the prestige of painters’ group. The city of Rome, as an influential marketplace, attracted immigrants, including a painters’ community, from throughout Italy and all of Europe to Rome. The growing market and population generated active trade in art and gradually changed the preference for different genres. The popularity of landscape painting and genre painting tremendously increased the prices of the former and mildly increased for the latter. In the meantime, traditionally valued paintings maintained their popular status as before, and history and religious painting still priced and ranked the highest among other genres. Although successful artists could earn up to a conformable living level and left estates for descendants, the general painters’ social level and working condition remained modest at best.
The significant factor for the career of Roman artists was the stability of the art market as determined by the overall demographic and economic conditions. In the seventeenth century, Rome had become a cosmopolitan city, the hub of European religion and diplomacy, and center of one of the major art markets. Overpassed by Netherlands and England as the leading country of trade and finance, Italy experienced a general economic decline and series of losses in population through famines and outbreaks of plagues, particularly those of 1630–31 and 1652–57.[1] But bureaucratic Rome maintained a stable population growth and became an attractive place for immigrants from all social levels. Many young men from aristocratic or wealthy family went to Rome to study in the religious institution and became clergy, while the poor searched for jobs, food, and charity in Rome. Subsequently, in 1600, at the beginning of the century, the population of Rome reached 102,000 with a steady growth every year to 120,000 inhabitants by mid-century, and reached 135,000 in 1700 as the third largest city in Italy.[2] Meanwhile people from all over Europe traveled to Rome on pilgrimages and as tourists. More than 50,000 believers traveled to Rome during religious events and holidays and another 30,000 tourists traveled to Rome annually, benefiting the economy through spending on goods and services, supporting the large numbers of shops and a range of lodgings, making charitable donations, and stimulating Roman expenses on public works.[3] In the economic aspect, marbles, jewels, textiles, wine, and the art business benefited thousands of shops and markets, and the construction of churches and palaces generated large number of job opportunities. Therefore, the stable growth of population and the prosperity of Rome created the positive environment for art commissions and sales.
In seventeenth century Rome, the dominance of the Papacy over both Roman and European affairs, as well as its wealth, ensured its political and social interests in the support of art. The high turnover rate of Popes’ terms introduced endless opportunities for artists in Rome. Because of the need for visual propaganda to impress their Roman subjects and travelers who came to Rome for religious worship, the Pontiff and his family devoted a large amount of money from their high income toward the patronage of art. This conspicuous and often public art patronage further encouraged the art purchases among the popes, cardinals, patricians and prelates. As the desire for art patronage increased in the seventeenth century Rome, more people chose to become painters and foreign painters flocked to Rome to capitalize on opportunities. The comparably modest population and the sufficient number of people in art patronage services, like the workshops and dealers, guaranteed the supply of paintings and other art forms to the upper eschelon of the art market. The massive growth in size of art market in seventeenth century Rome provided artists optimal conditions to sell their works. The increase in size of the market contributed to the change of art education and market regulation in the first half of the seventeenth century in Rome.
[1] Sonnimo, 53
[2] Spear, Painting for Profits，33
[3] ibid
1. The Roman Religious and Political Background
The unique political structure in Rome ensured that only one group of people held the secular and spiritual power over the city. As the capital of papal states, Rome was the center of Italian and European diplomatic affairs and the seat of the Papacy and around fifty cardinals, many heading vast households amounting to mini-courts, employing hundreds of well-educated gentlemen as administrators and diplomats.[1] Rome had an unusually high number of population classified as these “courtiers of cardinals” at about 8,400 around 1650.[2] During the seventeenth century, Rome was governed by two political forces, the Pope, who was bishop of Rome and head of the Catholic Church, and the municipal authorities, the Senator and conservators. The Pope, an absolute ruler in matters of both faith and the State, led the Cardinal chamberlain who oversaw 12 clerks that supervised the city’s military defense, tax and toll collection, prison, and important supplies.[3] Compared to the Papal authorities, the state official had modest powers, only over Roman civic services. Although the municipal officials comprised laymen and not clergy, the state authorities were picked from the same social class of families with landed income or even from the same town or same family as the Pope.[4] Therefore, although the Roman government seems twofold, municipal authorities generally sided with the Papacy and the Catholic church, who had the indisputable authority over the city of Rome. Moreover, papal rule imposed a hierarchical structure and the nepotism spoils system specific to Rome. The Pope’s relatives, especially his nephews, customarily became his closest advisors and second in command. The Pope needed someone he trusted to supervise everyday issues, and the tie of blood were seemed to guarantee the unquestionable loyalty.[5] For example, Pope Urban VIII made two of his nephews as cardinals and his third nephew as the Prefect of Rome. Thus, Rome was governed nearly exclusively by the Pope and his family during the Pope’s lifetime.
Between Sixtus V’s (1585–90) reconstruction of Rome as a center of artistic production to Alexander VII’s (1655–1667) final flourish of Papal building, Rome went through eleven popes, which means several families’ wealth as well as the papal incomes were invested in art during this relatively short period of time. The Papacies of Clement VIII, Paul V to Gregory XV, and especially Urban VIII, Maffeo Barberini, with his two brothers and three nephews, promoted the baroque style buildings and decoration of Rome that “through the possession of a city palace, mausoleum, collection/gallery, suburban villa and country house near Frascati became a social norm for the papal relatives of the seventeenth century”[6] In addition to political power, Papal family patronage made a significant the economic impact in Rome. To take the single example of Pietro Aldobrandini, whose uncle Pope Clement VIII also made him as a cardinal, this nepotist acquired two palaces and built the Aldobrandini Villa at Monte Magnanapoli in Rome, which he desired to make as the most noble palace in all of Italy.[7]
Popes and Cardinals in the early seventeenth century highly patronized artists, offering lucrative commissions, and certain Popes poured money in the construction of both religious and civic buildings projects. For example, Sixtus V (1585–90) spent 25,000 scudi on the functional Acqua Felice fountain, but 38,000 scudi for the pure spectacle of moving and re-erecting the obelisk at St. Peter’s.[8] The later Popes in the seventeenth century exceeded the massive investment in art by Sixtus V. Paul V (1605–1621) spent over 1,200,000 scudi on four art projects, including the completion of the New Saint Peter’s, which surpassed the total spending during the previous 100 years.[9] Moreover, the Borghese Popes’ family members devoted an eighth to a fifth of their annual income to art patronage, which was about 25,000 to 40,000 scudi, equal to 80 times the annual salaries of an artisan.[10] Thus, the monetary power of the church gave Papal families the economic privilege to spend lavishly on art.
Besides their ability to purchase art, the Pope’s and his family members employed art patronage as a political agenda especially in this period. Apart from religious construction for pilgrims, the devout believers and the propaganda of the post-reformation Church, sophisticated appreciation and understanding of art was limited to a small group of people with the access to higher education. Only groups with money and the social connection to the experts could order frescos and sculptures in palaces or cloisters. Therefore, art became an enhancement of prestige for the higher social levels and helped mark the distance between middle and upper classes. When a new pope gained authority, art patronage reflected his new social power. Such visual propaganda distinguished the newly elite papal family from common citizens and showcased their noble lifestyle and intellectual aristocracy among elites. After the death of a pope, the 70 cardinals of the Roman church would elect the next ruler of Rome, whose family would then rule Rome politically and economically with money, social status, and dignity. For the Pope’s relatives, specifically his nephews, who had to justify their new power gained through nepotism, art patronage became a vehicle of social advancement for promoting their power position.[11] So the Pope and his family had the need to display their power through conspicuous art patronage among the circles of the upper classes.
[1] Storey, 57
[2] Spear, 33
[3] Nussdorfer, 148–151
[4] ibid
[5] Scott, 4
[6] Reinhardt, 89
[7] Robertson, 57
[8] Spear, 34
[9] ibid
[10] Reinhardt, 89
[11] Reinhardt, 83
2. Artists’ Demographics, living and social conditions
Because of the proper market for art established by the high demand from the clients and sufficient services for the sale, more painters appear in the seventeenth century Rome than previously. In 1665, Bernini said there were 200 painters in Rome, while Baglione, a leader of Rome’s painting Academy, wrote 140 biographies of painters who died between 1572 and 1642 in his Vite.[1] On average, 80 of those painters were active in Rome during any of the years covered in the book, which was a comparably large number to other cities in Europe at that time. The definition of painter ranged wider than the definition today, these records only encompassed the high-end artists at that time. For example, an anonymous Giovanni Battista was said to be a painter, but his profession was making paper festoons to decorate a ceiling of a barbershop.[2] Compared with other cities in Europe, Roman access to the painter profession was less restricted , which attracted painters to come and work in Rome. Considering the number people who came to Rome only to become painters and the low requirement to paint, the number of painters remaining active in Rome at any given moment must have vastly exceeded Bernini’s and Baglione’s counts.
But no historical record covered the actual number of Roman painters or may be useful to calculate the estimation, due to the lack of consistency in using last name or full name of the painter in provenance, in the spelling of the name, and in painters used names.[3] Painters with same first name or last name are hard to differentiate between. The record of the same artist name may be spelled differently due to the fact that changing of vowels and consonants was extremely common. Moreover, some painters changed their original names and adopted the name of family they were working for. Foreign painters, who went to Rome for work, were often distinguished by first name and their place of origin. Therefore, the actual number of painters working in Rome could have been much larger than the total record.
At that time, the record of census categorized the Roman populace economically into the rich (ricche), the poor (povere), the comfortable (commode), and the destitute (miserabili).[4] The social stratification of that time differed from the criteria of rich and poor in modern time. The income levels and nobility did not necessarily connect to the social status. The poor included all the people who lived off their wages, and without possession of real estate, sufficient liquid equity to ensure their appropriate social status. [5] The early modern Italy faced a prominent economic inequality and the number of poor and comfortable ranged from 75 percent to 98 percent of the population after 1559.[6] The incomes of painters within the comfortable group could be strengthened with investments. For example, Giovanni Battista Gaulli’s property of three apartments generated a yearly income of 178 scudi from rent.[7] Moreover, painters’ usual contact to the noble circles that their relationship with patrons “established artists an indisputable socio-economic support” and “such as client-based relationship lasted in the best instance for a lifetime.”[8] Therefore, the artist’s social status and recognitions were bounded by his patron and the social climbing process was through the wealth and influence of his patrons. Roman artists were the richest in Italy in the seventeenth century at their death. Pietro da Cortona left an estate worth more than 100,000 scudi, while the richest artist in Venice, Loth, only left around 32,000 ducats, equal to 13,714 scudi.[9]
Although artists had the opportunity to climb above the level of comfortable and below the nobility, these successful cases do not represent the majority group of Roman painters. A census of Rome taken in 1656 in the region of Campo Marzio, lists the number of anime (baptized person) household categorized economically.[10] In the list of 15,543 baptized people, 100 of them were painters, of which the number from households of comfortable and poor was equal and no one came from the rich. Although no census conducted research on the whole painters’ group, this census of a region represents the poor life condition of painters. Artists endured certain limitation to their social climbing. Because the fortune and merit of painters were tied with their individual quality, they could not transfer social status to their descendants.[11] For example, Bernini became the richest and most acclaimed artists of his lifetime, but his descendant ended up at mid-level rank without inheriting a noble title.[12]
[1] Spear, 40
[2] Cavazzini, 18
[3] Cavazzini, 14–16
[4] Ago, 259
[5] Ago, 260
[6] Storey, 180
[7] Ago, 262
[8] Reinhardt, 88
[9] Ago, 271; Rosand, 196.
[10] Spear, 43
[11] Ago, 272
[12] ibid
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