Frescos by Moretto discovered in Milan following the form&info pattern

Until some weeks ago, when aspiring art historian Federico Giani had the opportunity to scrutinise the documents preserved in the official archive of the Milanese sanctuary of Santa Maria presso San Celso, most of the decorated vaults covering the church’s ambulatory left side were attributed to Callisto Piazza, including that dedicated to Saint Paul.

 

But as Giani pointed out, the price of 715 lira paid between 1540 and 1541 to Alessandro Bonvicino, more commonly known as Moretto da Brescia, for painting just the Saint Paul falling from his horse on the eigth span (counting from the right side of the building) was too high, also for that masterpiece. Then Giani took some professional pictures of the vault where the painting is placed and pass them – with no further indications – around scholars, some of them from the art history department of the Università degli Studi di Milano, where he is doing his PhD. The response has been unanimous: the author of those frescos is not Piazza, but Moretto himself, that is to say not just a good artist, but the same leading master who inspired the Caravaggio’s Conversion of Saint Paul for Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome, as Roberto Longhi at first noticed, and whose paintings are in the collection of museums such as the National Gallery in London, the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Wien, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and of course also the recently reopened Accademia Carrara in Bergamo.

 

As Giani told to CFA there were many discordant elements in the attribution to Callisto Piazza. The quality of these frescos, for instance, is evidently higher then those in the other sectors, and some unheeded sources from the XVII century reported that Moretto painted also some frescos while working at the Saint Paul’s conversion. Moreover, the ray of light striking the Saint seems to be coming from the figure of Jesus painted on the wall, according to a clear mannerist pattern which also involves the angels depicted on the vault, who are holding tablets with quotes from the Saint Paul’s letters.

 

Funny enough, Giani stated that his discovery was due to the attention he paid to documents more than to his still under development eye. From our point of view we may conclude by stressing once again the fundamental link between form and information, which doesn’t assist only contemporary artists. Panofsky docet.

November 25, 2020