Ippolito Buzzi
Encyclopedia
Ippolito Buzzi (1562–1634) was an Italian sculptor from Viggiù
, near Varese
, in northernmost Lombardy
, a member of a long-established dynasty of painters, sculptors and architects from the town, who passed his mature career in Rome. His personality as a sculptor is somewhat overshadowed by the two kinds of work he is known for: restorations to ancient Roman sculptures, some of them highly improvisatory by modern standards, and sculpture contributed to architectural projects and funeral monuments, where he was one among a team of craftsmen working under the general direction of an architect, like Giacomo della Porta
- in projects for Pope Clement VIII
, or Flaminio Ponzio
- in projects for Pope Paul V
- who would provide the designs from which the work was executed, always in consultation with the patron.
Buzzi also turned his hand to garden sculpture of a high order, such as caryatids for the Teatro delle Acque in the Villa Aldobrandini
, Frascati, works that were in the process of completion from 1603, with water features designed by Orazio Olivieri and Giovanni Guglielmi. Eva-Bettina Krems suggests that Pietro Aldobrandini
's secretary, Monsignor Giovanni Battista Agucchi, is a likely candidate for the connection that introduced Buzzi to Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi.
From about 1620 Buzzi was virtually the house restorer for Cardinal Ludovisi, who possessed in his villa on the Quirinale one of the finest collections of Roman sculptures in Rome, and commissioned repairs from Gian Lorenzo Bernini
—whose minor restorations to the Ludovisi Ares
are discreet—and Alessandro Algardi
, who supported himself with restoration work, as well as Buzzi. Some of Buzzi's restorations are minor interventions to satisfy the taste of the day, as with the Ludovisi Dying Gaul
; while others are more creative and incur the uneasy dissatisfaction of twenty-first century writers on antiquities, especially when unrelated fragments were assembled, to create essentially new compositions, such as Buzzi's Amore and Psyche in the Ludovisi collection. A Hermaphroditus
belonging to Ludovisi was restored by Buzzi, 1621-23; it was later purchased by Ferdinando II de' Medici and is in the Uffizi
. Buzzi restored the marble group in the Prado now identified equally as Castor and Pollux
or as Orestes and Pylades providing the headless torso with an ancient bust of Antinous
, the emperor Hadrian's favorite.
Examples of a kind of hybrid sculpture that typifies some aspects of Roman taste of the time are two portrait heads that are fitted to antique Roman busts; they stand side by side in the Palazzo dei Conservatori, Sala dei Capitani: one is a head of Alessandro Farnese by Buzzi, 1593, the other a head of Carlo Barberini by Gian Lorenzo Bernini
, 1630.
In the other main aspect of his career, Buzzi was a member of the team of sculptors who cooperated under the direction of Giacomo Della Porta in the redecoration of the transept in the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano, 1597-1601, under the direction of Clement VIII Aldobrandini
, providing high reliefs in what has been called one of the most harmonious manifestations of Late Mannerism
in Rome.
Della Porta was also responsible for the architectural framework and the overall design of the richly sculptural monument that was erected by Clement VIII Aldobrandini to commemorate his parents Salvestro Aldobrandini and Luisa Dati, in the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva
; Buzzi, again part of Della Porta's team, executed the allegorical figure of Prudence and the sculpture in a niche of Clement VIII himself, probably his most prominent commission, though he was doubtless provided with a design.
In a similar commission, this time under the direction of Flaminio Ponzio
Buzzi was one of the team of sculptors working in the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore
on the funerary Pauline Chapel commissioned by Paul V Borghese
, 1611. Ponzio was somewhat constrained in his architectural framing by the necessity of making the architecture correspond to the chapel facing it across the nave, of Sixtus V Peretti
, by Domenico Fontana
, completed in the previous generation. Here Buzzi contributed one of five relief panels illustrating Scenes of the Pontificate of Paul V and one of those beneath the papal tomb, where Pietro Bernini
was responsible for another panel and the caryatid figures, while Buzzi's countryman Silla executed the sculpture of Paul V blessing.
Another project of Paul V was the Acqua Paola (1612), erected in emulation of the stylistically more successful Acqua Felice
. The architect for the fountain where the aqueduct arrived in Rome was Flaminio Ponzio, and Buzzi was part of the team, though his contribution may have been limited to the sculptural Borghese coat-of-arms supported by two putti, that crowns the cornice of the triumphal arch feature, through which nothing may pass.
In the church of San Giacomo in Augusta o degli Incurabili, Buzzi's Saint James was completed in about 1615. In the Gesù
(third chapel on the right) Buzzi contributed one of the Angels in the angle niches. In Orvieto
, his Saint Bartholomew may be seen in the Duomo.
Viggiù
Viggiù is a comune in the Province of Varese in the Italian region Lombardy, located about 50 km northwest of Milan and about 8 km northeast of Varese, on the border with Switzerland...
, near Varese
Varese
Varese is a town and comune in north-western Lombardy, northern Italy, 55 km north of Milan.It is the capital of the Province of Varese. The hinterland or urban part of the city is called Varesotto.- Geography :...
, in northernmost Lombardy
Lombardy
Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...
, a member of a long-established dynasty of painters, sculptors and architects from the town, who passed his mature career in Rome. His personality as a sculptor is somewhat overshadowed by the two kinds of work he is known for: restorations to ancient Roman sculptures, some of them highly improvisatory by modern standards, and sculpture contributed to architectural projects and funeral monuments, where he was one among a team of craftsmen working under the general direction of an architect, like Giacomo della Porta
Giacomo della Porta
Giacomo della Porta was an Italian architect and sculptor, who worked on many important buildings in Rome, including St. Peter's Basilica. He was born at Porlezza, Lombardy and died in Rome.-Biography:...
- in projects for Pope Clement VIII
Pope Clement VIII
Pope Clement VIII , born Ippolito Aldobrandini, was Pope from 30 January 1592 to 3 March 1605.-Cardinal:...
, or Flaminio Ponzio
Flaminio Ponzio
Flaminio Ponzio was an Italian architect during the late-Renaissance or so-called Mannerist period, serving in Rome as the architect for Pope Paul V.Ponzio was born in Viggiù near Varese, and he died in Rome...
- in projects for Pope Paul V
Pope Paul V
-Theology:Paul met with Galileo Galilei in 1616 after Cardinal Bellarmine had, on his orders, warned Galileo not to hold or defend the heliocentric ideas of Copernicus. Whether there was also an order not to teach those ideas in any way has been a matter for controversy...
- who would provide the designs from which the work was executed, always in consultation with the patron.
Buzzi also turned his hand to garden sculpture of a high order, such as caryatids for the Teatro delle Acque in the Villa Aldobrandini
Villa Aldobrandini
The Villa Aldobrandini is a villa in Frascati, Italy, property of the Aldobrandini family. Also known as Belvedere for its charming location overlooking the whole valley up to Rome, it was rebuilt on the order of Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, Pope Clement VIII's nephew over a pre-existing edifice...
, Frascati, works that were in the process of completion from 1603, with water features designed by Orazio Olivieri and Giovanni Guglielmi. Eva-Bettina Krems suggests that Pietro Aldobrandini
Pietro Aldobrandini
Pietro Aldobrandini was an Italian Cardinal and patron of the arts.He was made a cardinal in 1593 by his uncle, Pope Clement VIII. He took over the duchy of Ferrara in 1598 when it fell to the Papal States...
's secretary, Monsignor Giovanni Battista Agucchi, is a likely candidate for the connection that introduced Buzzi to Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi.
From about 1620 Buzzi was virtually the house restorer for Cardinal Ludovisi, who possessed in his villa on the Quirinale one of the finest collections of Roman sculptures in Rome, and commissioned repairs from Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Gian Lorenzo Bernini was an Italian artist who worked principally in Rome. He was the leading sculptor of his age and also a prominent architect...
—whose minor restorations to the Ludovisi Ares
Ludovisi Ares
The Ludovisi Ares is an Antonine Roman marble sculpture of Mars, a fine 2nd-century copy of a late 4th-century BCE Greek original, associated with Scopas or Lysippus: thus the Roman god of war receives his Greek name, Ares....
are discreet—and Alessandro Algardi
Alessandro Algardi
Alessandro Algardi was an Italian high-Baroque sculptor active almost exclusively in Rome, where for the latter decades of his life, he was the major rival of Gian Lorenzo Bernini.-Early years:...
, who supported himself with restoration work, as well as Buzzi. Some of Buzzi's restorations are minor interventions to satisfy the taste of the day, as with the Ludovisi Dying Gaul
Dying Gaul
The Dying Gaul , formerly known as the Dying Gladiator, is an ancient Roman marble copy of a lost Hellenistic sculpture that is thought to have been executed in bronze, which was commissioned some time between 230 BC and 220 BC by Attalus I of Pergamon to celebrate his victory over the Celtic...
; while others are more creative and incur the uneasy dissatisfaction of twenty-first century writers on antiquities, especially when unrelated fragments were assembled, to create essentially new compositions, such as Buzzi's Amore and Psyche in the Ludovisi collection. A Hermaphroditus
Hermaphroditus
In Greek mythology, Hermaphroditus or Hermaphroditos was the child of Aphrodite and Hermes. He was a minor deity of bisexuality and effeminacy. According to Ovid, born a remarkably handsome boy, he was transformed into an androgynous being by union with the water nymph Salmacis...
belonging to Ludovisi was restored by Buzzi, 1621-23; it was later purchased by Ferdinando II de' Medici and is in the Uffizi
Uffizi
The Uffizi Gallery , is a museum in Florence, Italy. It is one of the oldest and most famous art museums of the Western world.-History:...
. Buzzi restored the marble group in the Prado now identified equally as Castor and Pollux
Castor and Pollux (Prado)
The Castor and Pollux group is an ancient Roman sculptural group of the 1st century AD, now in the Museo del Prado, Madrid.Drawing on 5th- and 4th-century BC Greek sculptures in the Praxitelean tradition, such as the Apollo...
or as Orestes and Pylades providing the headless torso with an ancient bust of Antinous
Antinous
Antinoüs or Antinoös was a beautiful Bithynian youth and the favourite of the Roman emperor Hadrian...
, the emperor Hadrian's favorite.
Examples of a kind of hybrid sculpture that typifies some aspects of Roman taste of the time are two portrait heads that are fitted to antique Roman busts; they stand side by side in the Palazzo dei Conservatori, Sala dei Capitani: one is a head of Alessandro Farnese by Buzzi, 1593, the other a head of Carlo Barberini by Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Gian Lorenzo Bernini was an Italian artist who worked principally in Rome. He was the leading sculptor of his age and also a prominent architect...
, 1630.
In the other main aspect of his career, Buzzi was a member of the team of sculptors who cooperated under the direction of Giacomo Della Porta in the redecoration of the transept in the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano, 1597-1601, under the direction of Clement VIII Aldobrandini
Pope Clement VIII
Pope Clement VIII , born Ippolito Aldobrandini, was Pope from 30 January 1592 to 3 March 1605.-Cardinal:...
, providing high reliefs in what has been called one of the most harmonious manifestations of Late Mannerism
Mannerism
Mannerism is a period of European art that emerged from the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520. It lasted until about 1580 in Italy, when a more Baroque style began to replace it, but Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century throughout much of Europe...
in Rome.
Della Porta was also responsible for the architectural framework and the overall design of the richly sculptural monument that was erected by Clement VIII Aldobrandini to commemorate his parents Salvestro Aldobrandini and Luisa Dati, in the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva
Santa Maria sopra Minerva
The Basilica of Saint Mary Above Minerva is a titular minor basilica and one of the most important churches of the Roman Catholic Dominican order in Rome, Italy. The church, located in the Piazza della Minerva in the Campus Martius region, is considered the only Gothic church in Rome. It houses...
; Buzzi, again part of Della Porta's team, executed the allegorical figure of Prudence and the sculpture in a niche of Clement VIII himself, probably his most prominent commission, though he was doubtless provided with a design.
In a similar commission, this time under the direction of Flaminio Ponzio
Flaminio Ponzio
Flaminio Ponzio was an Italian architect during the late-Renaissance or so-called Mannerist period, serving in Rome as the architect for Pope Paul V.Ponzio was born in Viggiù near Varese, and he died in Rome...
Buzzi was one of the team of sculptors working in the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore
Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore
The Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major , known also by other names, is the largest Roman Catholic Marian church in Rome, Italy.There are other churches in Rome dedicated to Mary, such as Santa Maria in Trastevere, Santa Maria in Aracoeli, Santa Maria sopra Minerva, but the greater size of the...
on the funerary Pauline Chapel commissioned by Paul V Borghese
Pope Paul V
-Theology:Paul met with Galileo Galilei in 1616 after Cardinal Bellarmine had, on his orders, warned Galileo not to hold or defend the heliocentric ideas of Copernicus. Whether there was also an order not to teach those ideas in any way has been a matter for controversy...
, 1611. Ponzio was somewhat constrained in his architectural framing by the necessity of making the architecture correspond to the chapel facing it across the nave, of Sixtus V Peretti
Pope Sixtus V
Pope Sixtus V , born Felice Peretti di Montalto, was Pope from 1585 to 1590.-Early life:The chronicler Andrija Zmajević states that Felice's family originated from modern-day Montenegro...
, by Domenico Fontana
Domenico Fontana
Domenico Fontana was a Swiss-born Italian architect of the late Renaissance.-Biography:200px|thumb|Fountain of Moses in Rome....
, completed in the previous generation. Here Buzzi contributed one of five relief panels illustrating Scenes of the Pontificate of Paul V and one of those beneath the papal tomb, where Pietro Bernini
Pietro Bernini
Pietro Bernini was an Italian sculptor. He was the father of one the most famous artists of Baroque, Gian Lorenzo Bernini....
was responsible for another panel and the caryatid figures, while Buzzi's countryman Silla executed the sculpture of Paul V blessing.
Another project of Paul V was the Acqua Paola (1612), erected in emulation of the stylistically more successful Acqua Felice
Acqua Felice
The Acqua Felice is one of the aqueducts of Rome, completed in 1586 by Pope Sixtus V, whose birth name, which he never fully abandoned, was Felice Peretti. The first new aqueduct of Early Modern Rome, its source is at the springs at Pantano Borghese, off Via Casilina...
. The architect for the fountain where the aqueduct arrived in Rome was Flaminio Ponzio, and Buzzi was part of the team, though his contribution may have been limited to the sculptural Borghese coat-of-arms supported by two putti, that crowns the cornice of the triumphal arch feature, through which nothing may pass.
In the church of San Giacomo in Augusta o degli Incurabili, Buzzi's Saint James was completed in about 1615. In the Gesù
Church of the Gesu
The Church of the Gesù is the mother church of the Society of Jesus, a Roman Catholic religious order also known as the Jesuits. Officially named , its facade is "the first truly baroque façade", introducing the baroque style into architecture ,. The church served as model for innumerable Jesuit...
(third chapel on the right) Buzzi contributed one of the Angels in the angle niches. In Orvieto
Orvieto
Orvieto is a city and comune in Province of Terni, southwestern Umbria, Italy situated on the flat summit of a large butte of volcanic tuff...
, his Saint Bartholomew may be seen in the Duomo.