RICERCA ITALIANA     

Research program

Humanistic research and new technologies - multimedia and diagnostic tools as scientific fundaments and technical resources for conservation, museology and art techniques

University Co-ordinator

Università degli Studi di GENOVA - ITALIANISTICA ROMANISTICA ARTI E SPETTACOLO - ()

Research Unit Leader

Maria Clelia Galassi

Description

The research intends to elaborate and to come out an inventory of paintings that takes origin from models of Italian Renaissance. On these paintings will be conducted historical and critical researches and also documentary and technical researches in order to individuate the following productive categories:
· Serial paintings and replicas linked to the prototype, that means autograph or painted by helpers in the studio under the control of the Master or immediately after his death
· Faithful or varied copies that take origin from famous prototypes and that have been painted in unconnected contests with the Master and in different places and time
· Fraudulent Copies or pastiches painted ex novo or by hyper restorations that means repaint some part or the whole of old paintings
The work will be organized in several phases.

Phase 1 (first year):
Historical and documentary research on the diffusion of Renaissance prototypes and verification of:
a) Work organization in the Italian Renaissance studios
b) The different ways that allowed the famous prototypes to be know ( drawings, cartoons, tracings, engravings, photographies)
c) The contests of the artistic market that helped, in the centuries, the phenomenons of replicas, copies and fakes

Phase 2 (first year):
Identification and cataloguing, based on the existing bibliography, of groups of paintings originated by famous renaissance prototypes in order to construct a significant corpus to proceed with the research. Particularly, the topics we want to work on are: a) serial paintings done in the studio of Lorenzo di Credi and their diffusion by copies and fakes; b) the production of copies from prototypes based on Raffaello; c) the use of renaissance prototypes by restorers and fake-makers on the end of the XIX century and in the beginning of the XX century. The choice of the paintings of this third point is been based on the information gave by the recent catalogues on the fakes in Italy (see the bibliography) that give us the possibility to enucleate a significant number of works of art conserved in public institutions and for that reason easy to consult.
During the research work could be individuated others trends on which investigate.

Phase 3 (first year):
Inspection and project for the reflettographic campaign. In this phase will be determined which paintings will be examined by high resolution scanner reflectography.

Phase 4 (first and second years):
Verification, by a graphic computerized systems, of the compositional correspondence and of the dimensional correspondence between prototype and each single derivations maybe taken from cartoons and tracings.

Phase 5 (first and second years):
Reflettographic and macrophotographic research on the paintings of the corpus and if is possible on their prototypes in order to verify the technique of the underdrawing and the paint texture used in each prototype and in its derived.

Phase 6 (first and second years):
By bibliographic research or by the archives of the museums interested in the work, finding information on the executive technique that defines the prototypes.

Phase 7 (second year):
Critic elaboration of techniques files acquired during the phases 5 and 6. Particular attention will be done to the features of the underdrawings (the instruments used, particularity of the graphic ductus, presence of pentimenti, corrections or shifting), to the recognition or not of technical analogies with the prototype, to the presence or not of techniques of mechanical transferring of the image. These are precious information that can be fundamental to identify the replicas done in the workshop and the copies done outside the workshop, the same thing is for recognize the fakes and the hyper restorations. The acquisition of these information compared with the historical and critical information acquired during the preliminary cataloguing (Phase 2) will enable us to define precisely the nature of each paintings taken in exam in relation with the prototype or in relation with other derivations.

Phase 8 (second year)
Editing of the inventory in order to the publication.

ASSIGNMENT
In the field of a research work that wants to be done in sintony some assignments have been distributed remembering the different scholastic careers and researches conducted before by the researchers.
Maria Clelia Galassi will be in charge for the organization of the work in Renaissance workshops, focusing on the situation in Tuscany during the XVI century and above all on the serial production and replicas of Lorenzo di Credi and on the derivated copies from the Master’ s prototypes.
Daniele Mignanego will be in charge for the particular phenomenon of diffusion and copy of the Raffaello’ s prototypes focusing on Madonna del velo and Madonna della quercia.
Maddalena Vazzoler will face the topic of the copies ‘s production in the academic field and the falsifications in the XIX and XX centuries.