Conference | Cardinal Alessandro Albani
From ArtHist.net:
Cardinal Alessandro Albani: Collecting, Dealing, and Diplomacy in Grand Tour Europe
Collezionismo, diplomazia ed il mercato nell’Europa del Grand Tour
British School at Rome / Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, 11–13 December 2019
Organised by Clare Hornsby and Mario Bevilacqua
The British School at Rome and the Centro di Studi sulla Cultura e l’Immagine di Roma present Cardinal Alessandro Albani: Collecting, Dealing, and Diplomacy in Grand Tour Europe. Exploring the multifaceted life and career of Cardinal Alessandro Albani (1692–1779), the conference will bring together an international range of art historians alongside scholars of related humanistic disciplines to open a new chapter on the multifaceted life and career of the ‘Father of the Grand Tour’.
The two keynote lectures on Wednesday evening, 11th December at BSR, will be given by the noted senior scholars Carlo Gasparri and Salvatore Settis, curators of The Torlonia Marbles: Collecting Masterpieces, the spring 2020 exhibition of antique sculpture from the famed collections of the Torlonia family in Rome who own the Villa Albani Torlonia and the antiquities collected there by Cardinal Alessandro Albani.
The conference has groups of papers on different themes relating to Alessandro Albani’s life and career including his private life, his association with scholars and artists—particularly Johann Joachim Winckelmann and Giovanni Battista Piranesi, his diplomatic and political associations, his dealing and networking in the European art market and of course his antiquities collections—both those he sold and his third collection which remains largely intact at Villa Albani Torlonia in Rome. His particular connection with the British—both as Grand Tourists in Rome and politically as allies of the papacy —is a focus of this conference, notably the sale of his vast drawings collection including the Cassiano del Pozzo ‘Paper Museum’ to the English King George III through the dealing efforts of the architect brothers Robert and James Adam. His commission to the architect Carlo Marchionni for the new Villa outside the northern walls of Rome to house his collection and as a location to host parties for foreign dignitaries is also examined.
This conference is taking place only a few months before the long-awaited exhibition of the private Torlonia collection opens in Rome—a collection where many Albani objects have been kept—no doubt this gathering of researchers including both established and younger scholars from a variety of disciplines and international backgrounds will provide a valuable focus for discussion of the future directions for study and research on this most important figure of the Roman 18th century.
On Thursday 12th at BSR there will be a presentation by Adriano Aymonino and Colin Thom introducing the Adam letters digital publication project and a display of Albani-related rare books and early photographs of Villa Albani from the BSR library and archive collections alongside the volumes of The Paper Museum of Cassiano del Pozzo: A Catalogue Raisonné, published by the Royal Collection Trust.
The conference is open to all without charge; registration is welcome though not obligatory: albaniconvegno@gmail.com. An edited and expanded volume of essays based on the conference papers is planned. The conference is generously sponsored by The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and we thank our partners the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma, the Fondazione Torlonia, and the Royal Collection Trust.
Conference Coordination
Mario Bevilacqua, Direttore, Centro di Studi sulla Cultura e l’Immagine di Roma
Clare Hornsby, Research Fellow, British School at Rome
Honorary Committee
Elisa Debenedetti, Andrea De Pasquale, Marcello Fagiolo, Carlo Gasparri, Barbara Jatta,
Tim Knox, Maria Vittoria Marini Clarelli, Stephen Milner, Martin Postle.
Scientific Committee
Mario Bevilacqua, Amanda Claridge, Clare Hornsby, Ian Jenkins, Harriet O’Neill,
Susanna Pasquali, Jonny Yarker
W E D N E S D A Y , 1 1 D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 9
British School at Rome
18.00 Stephen Milner (Director BSR), Welcome
18.15 Keynote Address
• Carlo Gasparri, La collezione di sculture antiche in Villa Albani a Roma: Una storia ancora da scrivere
18.40 Keynote Address
• Salvatore Settis, Lo specchio dei principi: Fra Villa Albani e il Museo Torlonia
T H U R S D A Y , 1 2 D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 9
British School at Rome
9.30 Social and Cultural History
Chair: Adriano Aymonino
• Angela Cipriani, Il cardinale Alessandro Albani nei manoscritti del Diario di Romannella Biblioteca Casanatense, 1762–73
• Heather Hyde Minor, Winckelmann and Albani: Text and Pretext
• Ginevra Odone, Rivalità e gelosie tra antiquari: Il Conte di Caylus, il cardinale Alessandro Albani e i loro intermediari
• Brigitte Kuhn-Forte, Alessandro Albani e Winckelmann
10.45 Discussion and coffee break
11.30 Art and Diplomacy
Chair: Susanna Pasquali
• Maëlig Chauvin, Il cardinale Alessandro Albani e i regali diplomatici: l’arte al servizio della politica
• Susanne Mueller-Bechtel, Il principe ereditario di Sassonia Federico Cristiano, Alessandro Albani e le arti
• Matteo Borchia, I vantaggi della diplomazia: Alessandro Albani protettore di artisti tra Roma e l’Europa
12.15 Discussion followed by a lunch break
14.00 Art and Collecting: Museo Cartaceo
Chair: Clare Hornsby
• Adriano Aymonino and Colin Thom, Introducing the Adam Letters Project
• Lisa Beaven, Fashioning a New Classical Aesthetic: Camillo Massimo, Alessandro Albani, and the Palace at the Quattro Fontane
• Francesca Favaro, Il privilegio di copiare: Apprendere l’architettura nella biblioteca di Alessandro Albani. Le copie prodotte da B.A. Vittone (1704–1770)
• Rea Alexandratos, Albani Drawings and Prints in the British Royal Collection: George III’s Purchase of 1762
15.15 Discussion and coffee break
16.00 Painting
Chair: Maria Celeste Cola
• Robin Simon, The Significance of Alessandro Albani’s Patronage of Richard Wilson
• Steffi Roettgen, ‘Noi non siamo venuti che per vedere il Parnasso di Mengs’: Note sul complesso rapporto del pittore sassone con il cardinale Albani
17.00 Discussion and close
F R I D A Y , 1 3 D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 9
Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale
9.30 Archives, Library, and Literature
Chair: Andrea de Pasquale
• Andrea de Pasquale, Introduction to the session
• Alviera Bussotti, Alessandro Albani mecenate delle lettere
• Brunella Paolini, Alessandro Albani nell’archivio di famiglia di Villa Imperiale a Pesaro
• Antonio Becchi, Bibliotheca Albana Romana: Documenti inediti e prospettive di ricerca
10.30 Discussion and coffee break
11.15 Architecture: Villa and Architect
Chair: Marcello Fagiolo
• Susanna Pasquali, Phases of Construction at Villa Albani: What We Know So Far
• Patricia Baker and Giacomo Savani, ‘Contriv’d according to the strictest Rules of Art’: The Reception of Roman Baths and Gardens at Villa Albani
• Elisa Debenedetti, ‘Studi sul Settecento Romano’: Villa Albani nei Taccuini di Carlo Marchionni
• Alessandro Spila, Carlo Marchionni a villa Albani: Una possibile evoluzione progettuale
12.30 Discussion followed by a lunch break
14.00 Archaeology and Antiquarianism
Chair: Carlo Gasparri
• Eloisa Dodero, Da Palazzo Albani alle Quattro Fontane al Museo Capitolino: La nuova vita della collezione del cardinale Alessandro
• Caroline Barron, The Epigraphic Collection of Cardinal Alessandro Albani
• Elizabeth Bartman, Alessandro Albani as Restorer
• Christoph Frank, Drawing the Albani Collection: Giovanni Battista Piranesi and Some of His Contemporaries
16.30 Discussion and close
Exhibition | The Torlonia Marbles
From the Fondazione Torlonia . . . (In 1866 the Torlonia family bought the Villa Albani and its collection):
The Torlonia Marbles: Collecting Masterpieces
Musei Capitolini at Palazzo Caffarelli, Rome, 25 March 2020 — 10 January 2021
Curated by Carlo Gasparri and Salvatore Settis
From 25 March 2020 to 10 January 2021, ninety-six marbles from the Torlonia Collection will be on view to the public at a major show in Rome, in the new exhibition venue of the Musei Capitolini at Palazzo Caffarelli. The exhibition The Torlonia Marbles: Collecting Masterpieces is the first step of the agreement signed the 15th of March 2016 between the Ministry for the Cultural Heritage Activities and Tourism and the Torlonia Foundation, and is a result of the institutional agreement signed by the Directorate General for Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape and the Special Superintendency of Rome with the Torlonia Foundation itself. The scientific project for enhancing the collection is entrusted to Salvatore Settis, who is curating the exhibition with Carlo Gasparri; both are archaeologists and academics of the Accademia dei Lincei. The exhibition is organized by Electa, publisher of the catalog. The sculptures selected have been restored thanks to the contribution of Bvlgari.
This will be the opportunity to inaugurate the new prestigious exhibition venue in Roma Capitale of the Musei Capitolini at Palazzo Caffarelli. The choice of the location was dictated by the intention to focus the exhibition on the history of collecting. In this respect, the history of the Torlonia Museum at the Lungara (founded by Prince Alessandro Torlonia in 1875), with its 620 catalogued works of art, appears of outstanding importance. This collection is the result of a long series of acquisitions and some significant shift of sculptures between the various residences of the family. We can even say that the Torlonia Marbles constitute a collection of collections or rather a highly representative and privileged cross-section of the history of the collecting of antiquities in Rome from the 15th to the 19th centuries. The items on display are not only outstanding examples of ancient sculpture (busts, reliefs, statues, sarcophagi, and decorative elements), but also a reflection of a cultural process—the beginnings of the collecting of antiquities and the crucially important transition from the collection to the Museum, a process where Rome and Italy have had an indisputable primacy. In this way the exhibition traces the formation of the Torlonia Collection. The last of its five sections eloquently relates to the adjacent exedra of bronzes and the statue of Marcus Aurelius in the Musei Capitolini, bringing out the ties between the beginnings of private collecting of antiquities and the significance of the donation of the Lateran bronzes to the city of Rome by Sixtus IV in 1471.
The project to organize the exhibition of the Torlonia Collection in the renovated spaces of the new venue of the Musei Capitolini at Palazzo Caffarelli, restored to life by David Chipperfield Architects Milan. The March 2020 event is the first stage of a traveling exhibition, for which agreements are in progress with major international museums and which will conclude with the identification of permanent exhibition spaces for the opening of a new Torlonia Museum.
Also see the article by Elisabetta Povoledo from The New York Times (28 October 2019).
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