GIULIO CAMPI | A STATUE OF APOLLO IN A NICHE

Santo Varni (his inventory numbering on the backing, now lost: n. t^o 916 coll.z. S. Varni)

S. L'Occaso, Giulio Romano "Universale", Mantua 2019, p. 188 (as Mercury), and note 13

This impressive, large sheet with a standing Apollo in a niche, holding a cornucopia and looking to the right, is executed in a highly controlled and polished manner, with a decorative emphasis on the richness of the drapery that is totally characteristic of Giulio Campi’s mature style. All the same, it is not surprising that this drawing bears on the verso an almost contemporary attribution to Giulio Romano; Campi's debt to Giulio has been discussed and acknowledged by many scholars. Most recently, Stefano L’Occaso has written about the subject, analysing the influence of Giulio's inventions on a number of Cremonese painters (see Literature). The moment of Giulio's strongest influence on the young Campi seems to have been around 1540.

Stylistic parallels can be drawn with a number of other sheets by Giulio Campi, such as the two full length allegorical studies of Prudence and Justice in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.¹ These were first attributed to Giulio Campi by Jonathan Bober and related to the extravagant ephemeral decorations made for the entry of Emperor Charles V into Cremona, on 18 August 1541.² Moreover, the present drawing can be closely associated with a sheet at the British Museum: Kneeling figure of a bearded man in chains, which is characterized by a similar ample and loose pleats of the drapery, clearly influenced by Giulio Romano and also datable to 1541.³ The British Museum drawing was attributed to Campi by Philip Pouncey and also relates to the decoration of one of the triumphal arches erected to honour the entry of the Emperor Charles V into Cremona.  

Strongly lit by the use of the biacca, this statue of Apollo has a sculptural monumentality enhanced by its exaggeratedly long proportions, emphasized by the perspective 'da sotto in su'.  It is plausible that the present drawing was executed for the same 'apparati festivi', relating perhaps to the embellishments of one of the many triumphal arches, or to one of the ornamental statues placed along the emperor’s route. Antonio Campi (1522-1587), the younger brother of Giulio, in his ‘Cremona fedelissima’, published in 1585, described the festivities for the sovereign’s visit, and besides the monumental pictorial decorations he recorded the installation of statues, executed in stucco, at several points along the emperor’s route.⁴

1. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, inv. nos. B5 res, vol. II, ff. 20-21

2. J. Bober, 'Cremonese Drawings for the Entry of Charles V: New Attributions and an Interpretation', Master Drawings, Vol. XXVI, no. 3 (Autumn 1988), pp. 219-232, pls. 4-5

3. London, British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings, inv. no. 1936,1010.4. See also another drawing with a female captive related to the same project, inv. no. 1936,1010.5 

4. See: 'Cremona fedelissima città et nobilissima colonia de Romani rappresentata in disegno col suo contado et illustrata d’una breve historia delle cose, più notabili appartenenti ad essa, et de i ritratti naturali de duchi, et duchesse di Milano, e compendio delle loro vite...', Cremona 1585, pp. xxvii-xxviii