* Antonio Acquili, called Antoniazzo Romano Rome circa 1435 - after 1508

Christa Gardner von Teuffel, 'New light on the Cross: Cardinal Pedro Gonzáles de Mendoza and Antoniazzo Romano in Sta.Croce in Gerusalemme, Rome', in Coming about... Festschrift for John Shearman, Cambridge, Mass., 2001, pp. 49-55; 
the drawing will also be included in the same author's forthcoming publication: From Duccio's Maestá to Raphael's Transfiguration: Italian Altarpieces and Their Settings.

This very important and rare work, first recognized and subsequently published by Christa Gardner, is the only known drawing by Antonio Acquili, called Antoniazzo Romano, and is connected with one of his more important works.  It is a preparatory study for the ambitious fresco cycle depicting the legend of the discovery of the True Cross, with Christ in Glory, executed sometime after 1491 by Antoniazzo, with the assistance of his workshop, in the apse of the Roman church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme (see Gardner, op. cit., p. 53, reproduced fig. 5).  No documents for the commission have survived, and both Spanish cardinals who were Titulars of the church, Pedro Gonzales de Mendoza (1492-95) and Bernardino Lopez de Carvajal (1495-1523), have been credited with it.  The attribution of the cycle to Antoniazzo and his workshop was first made by August Schmarsow in 1886, but was questioned by Mancini in 1956, followed by other scholars who assigned it to different artists: Pinturicchio, Palmezzano, Bernardino Fungai and Fiorenzo di Lorenzo.  This critical history is summarized by Gregory Hedberg, who convincingly argues that Antoniazzo, then in his sixties, was probably assisted by his sons Marcantonio and Bernardino and his nephew Evangelista in the execution of the fresco, but that he himself was primarily responsible for the design (see G. Hedberg, Antoniazzo Romano and his School, PhD dissertation, New York University, 1980, p. 95, note 239 and pp. 184-7).  

The discovery of this drawing, with the slightly later inscription on its verso which reads: Dicano di Baldassari /non di Baldassare/ ma di maestro/Delantoniazzo, adds strong documentary evidence for Antoniazzo's involvement in the design and execution of the cycle (see detail: verso fully illustrated in C. Gardner, op. cit., p. 51, fig. 2).  As Christa Gardner has also pointed out, the mention of Baldassarre Peruzzi is interesting as he was commissioned to restore the mosaics in the chapel of St. Helena, also in Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, for Cardinal Lopez de Carvajal, before 1509.  This inscription is the earliest known document associating Peruzzi with the church.  

The drawing depicts the lower level of the fresco where, in an Umbrian landscape, Antoniazzo illustrates the succession of events leading to the finding of the True Cross.  Starting at the left, St. Helena addresses Judas who points towards the spot where the three Crosses are to be found.  Next, St. Helena and her companions witness the testing of the True Cross; soldiers observe the single combat between Chosroes and Heraclius on the bridge; the victorious Heraclius, holding the True Cross, rides towards Jerusalem at the upper right, before approaching the city gate in penance, on foot.  The drawing records an earlier stage of the composition, prior to the insertion of the figure of the kneeling cardinal which prompted a number of important changes in the central section of  the fresco.  It is difficult to know the extent to which the appearance of the ancient apse, which was formerly covered by mosaics donated by the Emperor Valentinian III (419-455), may have conditioned Antoniazzo's design.  He obviously adopted the subdivision of the absidal surface in horizontal bands and most probably made separate studies for the upper part of the semi-dome.  The spirited and spontaneous execution of this drawing shows Antoniazzo's narrative qualities, mixed with a certain ingenuous charm, a characteristic shared by a number of artists of the quattrocento.