Gaspar van Wittel, called Vanvitelli Amersfoort 1652/3 - 1736 Rome

Rome, Chiostro del Bramante, 26 October 2002 - 2 February 2003, Gaspare Vanvitelli e le origini del vedutismo, no. 48.

G. Briganti, Gaspar van Wittel, ed. L. Laureati & L. Trezzani, Milan 1996, p. 211, cat. no. 218, reproduced in colour p. 210, p. 221, under cat. no. 247, and p. 404, under cat. no. D332;
L. Trezzani, in Gaspare Vanvitelli e le origini del vedutismo, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Chiostro del Bramante, 26 October 2002 - 2 February 2003, p. 154, under cat. no. 42, and pp. 166-7, cat. no. 48, reproduced in colour and with detail.

This View of the Abbey of Saint Nilus at Grottaferrata was painted by Vanvitelli as part of a pair, its pendant being a View of Tivoli today in a Roman private collection.¹  The freer brushwork visible in both paintings, though in part due to the large dimensions of the canvases, is characteristic of Vanvitelli’s mature style and the paintings can be dated to the 1720s. The Abbey of Saint Nilus was painted by the artist on numerous occasions, from a number of different viewpoints, but this is by far his most monumental interpretation. Two other paintings taken from the same viewpoint are known: one, signed, was formerly in a private collection, Geneva, and the other was cited in the 2002-3 exhibition catalogue, but these are both on a much smaller scale (35 by 45 cm. and 26.4 by 48.4 cm. respectively).²  The view combines the panoramic setting of the Alban hills with topographical accuracy: indeed the main composition of the painting closely follows Vanvitelli’s ink and wash drawing of the Abbey, taken from the same angle, in the Biblioteca Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele, Rome (see fig. 1).³  That drawing was dated by Briganti to the 1690s but Vanvitelli often returned to compositions on different occasions throughout his career, and in this case another drawing of the same view exists, signed and dated 1713, which was formerly in Berlin.⁴

The Basilian Abbey of Grottaferrata, believed by some to occupy the site of Cicero’s roman villa, is located close to Frascati, on the lower slopes of the Alban hills (Monte Cavo and the town of Rocca di Papa are visible in the background of Vanvitelli’s painting). The abbey was founded in 1004 by Saint Nilius on the spot where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to him, bidding him to found a church in Her honour. The name Grottaferrata probably derives from the two sepulchral rooms with barred windows, transformed in medieval times into a christian chapel (“crypta ferrata”) which is still visible from the church’s nave. In 1473 Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, nephew to Pope Sixtus IV, ordered bastions to be built and the abbey was fortified. The church of Santa Maria which lies at the centre of the abbey contains frescoes by Domenichino illustrating episodes from the lives of Saints Nilus and Bartholomew, and it also houses an altarpiece by Annibale Carracci. The church’s 12th-century campanile towers above the abbey complex and is visible from all sides (as Vanvitelli’s numerous viewpoints show).

1. Briganti, see Literature, p. 221, cat. no. 247, reproduced in colour on p. 222.
2. For the first see Briganti, op. cit., p. 210, cat. no. 217; for the second see 2002-3 exhibition catalogue under Literature.
3. Also reproduced in Briganti, ibid., pp. 404-5, cat. no. D332.
4. Idem, p. 306, cat. no. D19, reproduced.