Alessandro Algardi was an Italian high-Baroque sculptor active
almost exclusively in Rome, where for the latter decades of his
life, he was the major rival of Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Algardi was
born in Bologna, where at a young age, he was apprenticed in the
studio of Agostino Carracci. However, his aptitude for sculpture
led him to work for Giulio Cesare Conventi (15771640), an artist of
modest talents. By the age of twenty, Ferdinando I, Duke of Mantua,
began commissioning works from him, and he was also employed by
local jewelers for figurative designs. After a short residence in
Venice, he went to Rome in 1625 with an introduction from the Duke
of Mantua to the late pope's nephew, Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi,
who employed him for a time in the restoration of ancient
statues.
Propelled by the Borghese and Barberini patronage, Gian Lorenzo
Bernini and his studio garnered most of the major Roman sculptural
commissions. For nearly a decade, Algardi struggled for
recognition. In Rome he was aided by friends that included Pietro
da Cortona and his fellow Bolognese, Domenichino. His early Roman
commissions included terracotta and some marble portrait busts,2
while he supported himself with small works like
crucifixes.Algardi's first major commission came about in 1634,
when Cardinal Ubaldini (Medici) contracted for a funeral monument
for his great-uncle, Pope Leo XI, the third of the Medici popes,
who had reigned for less than a month in 1605. The monument was
started in 1640, and mostly completed by 1644. The arrangement
mirrors the one designed by Bernini for the Tomb of Urban VIII
(162847), with a central hieratic sculpture of the pope seated in
full regalia and offering a hand of blessing, while at his feet,
two allegorical female figures flank his sarcophagus. However, in
Bernini's tomb, the vigorous upraised arm and posture of the pope
is counterbalanced by an active drama below, wherein the figures of
Charity and Justice are either distracted by putti or lost in
contemplation, while skeletal Death actively writes the epitaph.
Algardi's tomb is much less dynamic. The allegorical figures of
Magnanimity and Liberality have an impassive, ethereal dignity.
Some have identified the helmeted figure of Magnanimity with that
of Athena and iconic images of Wisdom.3 Liberality resembles
Duquesnoy's famous Santa Susanna, but rendered more elegant. The
tomb is somberly monotone and lacks the polychromatic excitement
that detracts from the elegiac mood of Urban VIII's tomb.4
In 1635-38, Pietro Boncompagni commissioned from Algardi a
colossal statue of Philip Neri with kneeling angels for Santa Maria
in Vallicella, completed in 1640.5 Immediately after this, Algardi
produced an interactive sculptural group representing the beheading
of Saint Paul with two figures: a kneeling, resigned saint and the
executioner poised to strike the sword-blow, for the church of San
Paolo, Bologna. These works established his reputation. Like
Bernini's characteristic works, they often express the Baroque
aesthetic of depicting dramatic attitudes and emotional
expressions, yet Algardi's sculpture has a restraining sobriety in
contrast to those of his rival
With the death of the Barberini Pope Urban VIII in 1644 and the
accession of the Pamphilj Pope Innocent X, the Barberini family and
their favorite artist, Bernini, fell into disrepute. Algardi, on
the other hand, was embraced by the new pope6 and the pope's
nephew, Camillo Pamphilj.7 Algardi's portraits were highly prized,
and their formal severity contrasts with Bernini's more vivacious
expression.8 A large hieratic bronze of Innocent X by Algardi is
now to be found in the Capitoline Museums.Algardi was not renowned
for his architectural abilities. Although he was in charge of the
project for the papal villa, the Villa Pamphili, now Villa Doria
Pamphili, outside the Porta San Pancrazio in Rome, he may have had
professional guidance on the design of the casino from the
architect/engineer Girolamo Rainaldi and help with supervising its
construction from his assistant Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi.9 The
casino was a showcase for the Pamphili collection of sculpture,
ancient and contemporary, on which Algardi was well able to advise.
In the villa grounds, Algardi and his studio executed
sculpture-encrusted fountains and other garden features, where some
of his free-standing sculpture and bas-reliefs remain.In 1650
Algardi met Diego Velzquez, who obtained commissions for his work
from Spain. As a consequence there are four chimney-pieces by
Algardi in the Royal Palace of Aranjuez, and in the gardens, the
figures on the fountain of Neptune are also by him. The Augustinian
monastery at Salamanca contains the tomb of the Count and Countess
de Monterey, another work by Algardi.
Algardi's large dramatic marble high-relief panel of Pope Leo
and Attila10(164653) for St Peter's Basilica was widely admired in
his day, and reinvigorated the use of such marble reliefs. There
had been large marble reliefs used previously in Roman churches,11
but for most patrons, sculpted marble altarpieces were far too
costly. In this relief, the two principal figures, the stern and
courageous pope and the dismayed and frightened Attila, surge
forward from the center into three dimensions. Only they two see
the descending angelic warriors rallying to the pope's defense,
while all others in the background reliefs, persist in performing
their respective earthly duties.The subject was apt for a papal
state seeking clout, since it depicts the historical legend when
the greatest of the popes Leo, with supernatural aid, deterred the
Huns from looting Rome. From a baroque standpoint it is a moment of
divine intervention in the affairs of man. No doubt part of his
patron's message would be that all viewers would be sternly
reminded of the papal capacity to invoke divine retribution against
enemies.Algardi died in Rome within a year of completing his famous
relief, which was admired by contemporaries.In his later years
Algardi controlled a large studio and amassed a great fortune.
Algardi's classicizing manner was carried on by pupils (including
Ercole Ferrata and Domenico Guidi). Antonio Raggi initially trained
with him. The latter two completed his design for an altarpiece of
the Vision of Saint Nicholas (San Nicola da Tolentino, Rome) using
two separate marble pieces linked together in one event and place,
yet successfully separating the divine and earthly spheres. Other
lesser known assistants from his studio include Francesco Barrata,
Girolamo Lucenti, and Giuseppe Peroni.
Algardi was also known for his portraiture which shows an
obsessive attention to details of psychologically revealing
physiognomy in a sober but immediate naturalism, and minute
attention to costume and draperies, such as in the busts of
Laudivio Zacchia, Camillo Pamphilj, and of Muzio Frangipane and his
two sons Lello and Roberto.12In temperament, his style was more
akin to the classicized and restrained baroque of Duquesnoy than to
the emotive works of other baroque artists. From an artistic point
of view, he was most successful in portrait-statues and groups of
children, where he was obliged to follow nature most closely. His
terracotta models, some of them finished works of art, were prized
by collectors
Monument of Pope Leo XI1634-44
Marble
Basilica di San Pietro, Vatican Algardi's tomb for Leo XI was built
at the same time as Bernini's tomb for Urban VIII, and it clearly
borrows some of its concept from Bernini's work. The figures of
Liberty and Majesty at the sides were executed by Ercole Ferrata
and Giuseppe Peroni.
Monument of Pope Leo XI1634-44
Marble
Basilica di San Pietro, Vatican
Bust of Pope Innocent X
-
Marble
Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome
Bust of Donna Olimpia Maidalchini
1646-47
Marble, height 70 cm
Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome
The combination of minute attention to detail and miraculous
tonal control are the most engrossing feature of Algardi's busts.
When the need arose, he cold also produce a striking performance,
as in the splendidly imposing bust of Donna Olimpia Maidalchini,
one of the greatest portraits of the period. Disagreeable and
domineering, Donna Olimpia did not exude charm, but as the
sister-in-law of Pope Innocent X she was a power in Rome during his
reign. Algardi transmutes his unpromising sitter into an image of
majesty and determination, the tilt of her head and the expression
of her face being amplified by a billowing veil. Unusually, Algardi
reverses the normal approach to flesh and drapery tones by giving
the latter a bright, milky sheen and leaving the former matt. This
transposition was dictated by Algardi's emphasis upon the veil
which is so integral to the bust's impact.
St Mary Magdalene1629
Stucco, over life-size
San Silvestro al Quirinale, Rome
St John the Evangelist
1629
Stucco, over life-size
San Silvestro al Quirinale, Rome
Bust of Cardinal Giovanni Garzia Mellini1637-38
Marble, life-size
Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome
Algardi's portrait busts are much less flamboyant or
self-consciously artistic in character than those of Bernini. Where
Bernini sought movement and engagement in his portraits, Algardi's
approach was more understated, and more concerned with evoking
presence through minute attention to physiognomy. His busts seem
more aloof because they functioned generally as part of funerary
monuments where meditation and piety were the primary requirements.
The hallmarks of his approach to portraiture were established by
the mid-1630s, when he created the bust of the papal advocate,
Monsignor Antonio Cerri, and the posthumous portrait of Cardinal
Giovanni Garzia Mellini. The bust of Mellini stands in his chapel
in Santa Maria del Popolo and shows the Cardinal turning towards
the altar, his left hand on his heart and his right hand holding
his place in a prayer book. The work was much admired in Algardi's
day, and the critic Bellori praised the illusion of the deceased
'almost kneeling, in the act of praying to the altar'. The bust
conveys a sense of Baroque piety and an assured technique: the lace
appearing at the Cardinal's sleeves and the short cape carelessly
folded behind his left hand are brilliantly observed, and such
details contribute to the uncanny sense of a physical presence in
the niche.
The Meeting of Leo I and Attila
1646-53
Marble, height: 750 cm
Basilica di San Pietro, Vatican
After the death of Pope Urban VIII his relatives, hopelessly in
debt, fled Rome and with them were discredited all the artists who
had been closely associated with them, including Bernini. Algardi's
opportunity had come and his great contribution to the High
Baroque, the relief of the Meeting of Leo I and Attila was
commissioned by Innocent X for St Peter's in 1646. The composition
of this relief is modeled on Raphael's representation of this
crucial episode in the history of papacy in the Stanza Eliodoro.
The huge relief was completed in 1653, and shows a compromise
between the Grand Manner as expressed by Bernini and his own
classicising tendencies. The treatment of the highly dramatic
subject is remarkably restrained, and this coolness is further
emphasized by the smooth, evenly worked marble, which is in direct
contrast to Bernini's differentiation of texture and sparkling
surfaces. The relief was the prototype for a great series of
sculpted altarpieces which replaced painted altarpieces in the
second half of the century whenever circumstances permitted.
Beheading of St Paul
c. 1650
Marble, height: 286 cm
San Paolo Maggiore, Bologna
Virgilio Spada, a career ecclesiastic whose family had
established itself in Bologna engineered one of Algardi's greatest
triumphs of the 1630s, the dramatic altarpiece of the Beheading of
St Paul for the Bolognese church of San Paolo Maggiore. Unusual in
Rome, such sculptural altars were not unknown in Venice and in the
region around Bologna. Algardi created a masterpiece without equal
in Baroque sculpture. Often compared to painted altarpieces,
Algardi's tableau exploits the traditional strength of sculpture by
achieving a fully rounded, spatially complex group which plays upon
the contrasting types and emotions of the figures. Having
established action frozen in time, the sculptor sets a spiral
pattern in motion, from the poised right arm of the executioner
through the shoulders and arms of the kneeling saint and back to
his assailant's right leg and drapery. The centre of the
composition is a void, and tension builds up because of the
imminent execution and the inevitability of martyrdom.