Resumen de "Disegn[ò] (...) ben dodici volte l'intera battaglia di Costantino (...)": un foglio ritrovato ed altre novità per Luca Giordano disegnatore
The "Relazione della vita di Luca Giordano" (1681) recounts two sojourns the young artist spent in Rome to study and draw from Antique and the great masters; the biography by Bernardo De Dominici then, points out that while working on Raffaello, Giordano copied "the whole battle of Constantine as many as twelve times". Evidence of this activity in Vatican is represented by a still unpublished drawing in red pencil whose style is analogous to the great "Old-style Battle" signed by the master and dated "1651". Therefore, by clarifying some sheets already known and through additions to the catalogue, new considerations are made about Giordano as a draftsman aiming first of all -and against the criticism trend of the last two decades- at enhancing the imprint of Ribera's graphic style, a real milestone to the development of the Neapolitan artist. The Spaniard has been in fact a reference since 1653 and a keystone to the work on the two canvases in San Pietro ad Aram, Luca's first public commission in 1654.
