Giovanni Guerra and the illustrations to Ripa's "Iconologia"

• Autores: Stefano Pierguidi
• Localización: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, ISSN 0075-4390, Nº 61, 1998, págs. 158-175
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • The designs for engravings for the 1603 edition of Ripa's Iconologia have been traditionally attributed to Giuseppe Cesari, but there is good evidence that Giovanni Guerra worked on the illustrations. Only “Persuntione” and Ardir magnanimo e generoso were reproduced in the 1975 sale catalog for six drawings by Guerra and are thus available for comparison; these are obvious counterparts to the relevant figures in the Iconologia. In the former drawing, for example, the depiction of the right arm in armor, rather than the left, confirms that this is a preparatory drawing for a woodcut, made with the process of reversal in mind. The four other drawings sold in 1975 refer to figures illustrated in 1603, and so presumably they too were for the woodcuts. Guerra probably made other preparatory drawings for the 1603 edition; his graphic style is seen elsewhere in the book, with his drawing in the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, for example, recalled in the position of the legs and the slender proportions of Collerico per il Fuoco and Furore.