Raffaele Riario, Jacopo Galli, and Michelangelo’s Bacchus, 1471-1572
Kathleen W. Christian
- Pages: approx. 420 p.
- Size:220 x 280 mm
- Illustrations:48 b/w, 191 col., 1 maps b/w, 2 maps color
- Language(s):English
- Publication Year:2025
- € 100,00 EXCL. VAT RETAIL PRICE
- ISBN: 978-1-915487-11-7
- Hardback
- Forthcoming (Feb/25)
- ISBN: 978-1-915487-24-7
- E-book
- Forthcoming
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A new interpretation of Michelangelo’s Bacchus and its Roman context
Kathleen Christian is Professor of Early Modern Art at the Institut für Kunst- und Bildgeschichte of the Humboldt-Universität in Berlin. She is also Director of the Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance. She has published widely on the reception of antiquity in the Early Modern period and together with Cammy Brothers co-directs the Harvey Miller book series All’antica.
On Michelangelo’s first day in Rome, in June 1496, Cardinal Raffaele Riario asked him if he could create ‘something beautiful’ in competition with the antique. The twenty-one-year old sculptor responded to this unique challenge with the statue of Bacchus now in the Bargello museum. This statue, as well as the Sleeping Cupid which first brought Michelangelo to Riario’s attention, have long been shrouded in mystery, and the Bacchus as well as its patron have long suffered from critical censure.
Through a comprehensive analysis of overlooked and previously-unpublished sources, this study sheds new light on the Sleeping Cupid, the Bacchus, and a fascinating period in the history of Renaissance Rome when the careers of Riario, Galli, and Michelangelo were closely intertwined. It considers the rise of the Riario dynasty starting with the election of Pope Sixtus IV in 1471, Riario’s partnership with Jacopo Galli in the reconstruction of the palace now known as the Palazzo della Cancelleria, the attempted sale of Michelangelo’s Sleeping Cupid in Rome as an antiquity, Riario’s patronage of the Bacchus, and the Bacchus’s display in the house of the Galli up until its sale to the Medici in 1572. Taking a broad, interdisciplinary perspective, it offers a fundamental reassessment of Cardinal Riario’s career as a patron, of Jacopo Galli’s role as an intermediary for both Riario and Michelangelo, and of Michelangelo’s collaboration with Riario and Galli.
Author’s Preface
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: The Rise of the Riario, 1471-1484
Chapter 3: Cardinal Riario, the Galli, and the Reconstruction of San Lorenzo in Damaso, 1484-1499
Chapter 4: Familiars, Humanists, and Preachers, 1480s-1490s
Chapter 5: Artists, Antiquities, and a Vigna in Trastevere, 1480s-1490s
Chapter 6: The Case of the Sleeping Cupid, 1496
Chapter 7: Raffaele Riario’s Bacchus, 1496-1497
Chapter 8: Jacopo Galli’s Bacchus, 1497-1505
Chapter 9: The Bacchus in the House of the Galli, 1505–1572
Appendix I: English Translation and Latin Text of Bernardino Capella and Gaspare Manio de Clodiis, Eclogue and Panegyric for Cardinal Riario
Appendix II: Sources and Documents in the Original Language
Bibliography