Provenance
Mattias de’ Medici, Villa di Lappeggi (Florence), 1652-1667
Cardinal Francesco Maria de’ Medici, Villa di Lappeggi (Florence), 1667-1711
Andrea di Girolamo Gerini Bonciani and by inheritance, Florence, 1711-1766?
Lord William Russell, London, 1766?-1809
Hazlitt Gallery, London, 1977
John Frederic Tillotson, London, until 1980
Christie’s, London, 1980, 1985
Private collection, Turin

Literature
F. Baldinucci, Notizie dei professori del disegno da Cimabue in qua [Florence 1681-1728], by F. Ranalli, vol. V, Florence 1847, p. 211
L. Salerno, Pittori di paesaggio del Seicento a Roma, Rome 1977, II, p. 635, fig. 105.1 
N. Barbolani di Montauto, Pandolfo Reschi, Florence 1996, p. 94 (illustrated)
G. Sestieri, I Pittori di Battaglie. Maestri italiani e stranieri del XVII e XVIII secolo, Rome 1999, p. 185, fig. 63
E. Gavilli, Lappeggi, luogo di delizie del Serenissimo principe Mattias, in «Arte Musica Spettacolo. Annali del Dipartimento di Storia delle arti e dello spettacolo», I, 2000, pp. 267-268, fig. 5

In a luxuriant mountainous landscape, under a clear sky with violet reflections, a large number of soldiers have gathered, streaming in from all sides to converge towards the centre of the composition, crowning a small group of men who, in a circle, seem to be animatedly discussing matters of great importance. In the distance, to the right, we can see a bridge with an attached building, probably a customs post, as the river disappears into the narrow valley between the two mountains. The densely populated scene is carefully orchestrated, and although animated by numerous characters in a variety of poses and vivid details, such as the military procession descending from the mountain on the left, everything contributes to drawing attention back to the central group. The atmosphere is solemn, full of expectation and tension: one can almost hear the buzzing and chattering of the onlookers; even the horses are nervous, barely restrained by the squires.

The scene is decidedly unusual for Burgundy, famous for such dramatic and eventful battles, and is unique in his production. The aforementioned inventorial citations point us towards an episode from the first Castro War, which fortunately a detailed chronicle of the time, Del Mercurio, overo Historia de' Correnti Tempi by Vittorio Siri, allows us to definitively specify. The author reports on a series of meetings between Duke Odoardo Farnese and his associates, which took place in the autumn of 1642 between Ponte a Centino, site of the military camp, and the Gregorian Bridge, near the town of Acquapendente, recognisable on the right. The negotiations, which were to establish the terms of peace between the Farnese and the pope to avert the precipitation of events into a bloody war, were attended, together with the Duke of Parma, Prince Mattias, the Marquis Gabriele Riccardi, Major Butler to Grand Duke Ferdinand II of Tuscany, General Marquis Alessandro del Borro, field master, Marquis Giacomo Gaufrido, councillor to the Farnese, Hugues de Lionne, minister and secretary of state to King Louis XIV, and Count Fulvio Testi, councillor and secretary of state to the Duke of Modena. The inventory of 1652 certifies the presence of the Duke of Parma in the painting, but a comparison with the portraits of the time shows that some of the seven figures mentioned are indeed well recognisable in the lively group in the centre of the painting.

The defenders are gathered around a war drum that serves as an improvised writing desk, which has the flavour of an anecdote coming straight from the stories of Prince Mattias, on which one of them is drafting the terms of the agreement that would lead to the uncertain peace of Castel Giorgio. These agreements would in fact soon be broken by the Barberini, opening a period of conflict that would only end with the military victories of the Grand Ducal army led by Mattias, an ally of the Farnese, in 1643.

In dialogue with this scene of high diplomacy were not the battle paintings, placed elsewhere, but the direct consequence of them. Again from Siri's chronicle, we learn that at the conclusion of the victorious siege of Mongiovino, Mattias nevertheless wanted to pay homage to the adversaries of the papal army before their final surrender, rendering to the camp master Vincenzo della Marra "l'honore del rimbombo delle bombarde" (the honour of the bombardier's rumbling), then sending him prisoner to Florence with "demonstrations of extraordinary courtesy". Siri also does not fail to list the most excellent prisoners, naming together with Marra the colonels Biagio Fusco, Carlo Pio di Savoia and Fabrizio Carafa, a veritable 'review' as described by the inventories, and which a copy of the painting, which recently emerged on the antiques market, confirms.  The dialogue between the two paintings thus takes on a highly symbolic value that goes beyond the celebration of Mattias' military valour. The prince here intends to emphasise his own qualities as a prudent and shrewd politician, but also as an adversary as implacable as he is loyal, as a magnanimous triumphant. It is an entirely private celebration, anchored in two well-defined episodes in which he is the protagonist together with other clearly recognisable characters, and therefore less expendable on a dynastic level than the battles in the Sala del Trucco.

The painting can be dated to the summer of 1652, when Burgundy was staying in Lappeggi as a guest of the prince. Confirmation comes from the aforementioned inventory of December of the same year, which mentions the work in the wardrobe of the villa, already framed. We are in front of the recognised masterpieces of Cortese, in an extremely happy phase of his production, despite the troubled family situation. If the two battles of the Thirty Years' War seem to anticipate the gloomy and sulphurous style influenced by Salvator Rosa, the painting in question denounces memories of the painter's early Roman phase, evident in the light and luminous colours, almost taking on Flemish intonations in the almost chilling rendering of the mountain crowned by the fortified town, perhaps suggesting the now declining season, as in the broad and vibrant sky, almost a reminder of the works of Claude Lorrain.

Precisely with regard to the sky, the painting must have been reduced at the top, as would also be shown by the portion of painted canvas folded over the frame that emerged during the restoration. According to inventory indications, the canvas must originally have measured approximately 125 cm in height compared to the current 92 cm, while the width remained practically unchanged at approximately 134 cm. A copy of the painting attributed to Pandolfo Reschi that appeared on the antiquarian market would confirm that the portion of the sky was wider, while certifying its integrity on the width.

After Mattias' death in 1670, the villa in Lappeggi passed to Cardinal Francesco Maria de' Medici, who held it until his death in 1711. The cardinal embellished the residence with numerous interventions, making it a true place of delight, the seat of a lively court that often attracted even Grand Prince Ferdinand.

Mattias' collection, however, did not reach the prelate intact: upon the prince's death, Grand Duke Ferdinand II had the four famous paintings in the 'Sala del Trucco' (Make-up Room), among others, removed and soon exhibited in the flats of the Pitti Palace in Florence.

The other two paintings in the 'Passing Room', on the other hand, had a markedly different fate: they remained in the possession of Francesco Maria, who kept them in their original position, as evidenced by an inventory of the villa drawn up in 1696, as well as that compiled immediately after the cardinal's death in February 1711. Francesco Maria had destined all his possessions to the Congregation of Charity of St. John the Baptist, the 1711 inventories were therefore preliminary to the sale, which took place on several occasions that same year in Florence, in the uninhabited Palazzo Salviati in Via del Corso. The major families of the Florentine nobility participated in the dispersal of the collection, competing for the numerous masterpieces from Lappeggi.

In particular, the two paintings by Borgognone, together with a select group of works, were acquired by Andrea di Girolamo Gerini Bonciani, of a collateral branch of the Gerini family. Excluding the expenditure of 193 scudi for a large canvas by Volterrano, the two paintings by Cortese turn out to be the most significant item for Bonciani, amounting to 274 scudi for the pair. The works are perhaps recognisable in the two 'paintings' by Borgognone exhibited in 1724 by Ottavia Quaratesi, widow of Gerini Bonciani, on the occasion of one of the periodic exhibitions at the SS. Annunziata for the feast of St. Luke.

The two paintings are still found, without attribution, in a 1766 inventory drawn up after the death of Andrea Carlo Gerini Bonciani, which was followed by an auction to settle some family debts. The fate of the two works from that time is less clear: the collateral branch was extinguished with Carlo Andrea Gerini Bonciani Pappagalli in 1833, and the entire estate thus reverted to the main branch, which was headed at the time by Marquis Carlo di Giovanni Gerini. A part of the 'household goods and furniture' was sold in the same year to the merchant Andrea Braschi, while the remaining part of the estate, and thus also of the collection, reached the palace of the marquises, but there is no trace of the two Borgognone paintings.

If the 'Review of Men on Horseback' remains untraced to this day, for the 'Peace Treaty' there is a possible indication in an English auction in 1809, in which a painting by Borgognone appears which, due to its size and broad description, albeit with a misinterpretation of the scene, seems to fit our work. The work in question came from the collection of Lord William Russell, an eccentric member of the English aristocracy and Member of Parliament, who like much of the Anglo-Saxon nobility often visited Italy and Florence in particular.

It was probably from this moment that the painting's English history began: in 1977, Luigi Salerno reported the work at the Hazlitt Gallery in London, from which John Frederic Tillotson, a collector known for his collection of paintings of the Barbizon School, acquired it in all likelihood. It is not difficult to imagine that Burgundy's sensitivity as a landscape painter and the quality of his brushwork could have fascinated even an amateur of Barbizon painting. Upon the collector's death in 1984, the painting was offered at auction by the heirs through Christie's in London, from where traces of it have been lost until today.

Traces for the painting's visual fortune

As stated above, the influence of Burgundy's style on his successors has long been known and acknowledged, yet it was precisely the works executed for Mattias that were of crucial importance in the Florentine scene for the formation of the battle painters, who were immediately confronted with these capital works, the echoes of which can be found in paintings executed almost a century later.

A possible early consonance between the paintings of the prince and certain works in the collection of Marquis Alessandro Del Borro, a famous Florentine man-at-arms who had shared with Mattias both the experience of the Thirty Years' War and the more recent engagement in the First War of Castro, where he had held the position of lieutenant to the Medici prince, has already been suggested. In fact, an inventory of the Del Borro family from 1657-1658 shows three large paintings depicting some battles of the First Castro War, and another three with 'other enterprises' that, if one wants to follow the parallelism with Mattias, could represent battles of the Thirty Years' War. These paintings must have been made before 1654, the year of the marquis's departure from Florence for the war in the Greek islands. While this could confirm an early knowledge of Borgognone's paintings, which were fired around 1652, the differences between the subjects, and the news that a certain animosity had already existed between Mattias and Del Borro prior to 1649 regarding their respective military merits in the Castro War, advise against bringing the two cycles together. Indeed, delving further into the realm of hypothesis, one could imagine that Mattias was only too happy to commission a new cycle of works to differentiate himself from his cumbersome lieutenant and claim his own supremacy: in this sense, then, the scenes of assembly and surrender assumed a key role in the prince's new narrative.

The immediate resonance of Borgognone's works indeed seems to have proved Mattias right, given the interest they immediately aroused among collectors and artists. According to sources, it was above all Pandolfo Reschi who was confronted with these paintings, almost picking up the baton of battle painting left in Florence by Salvator Rosa and Cortese. The naturalised Florentine Pole entered the employ of Marquis Pier Antonio Gerini, who called him around 1670 to measure himself as a copyist with the Burgundian paintings in his collection. Later, around 1680, Reschi entered the service of Francesco Maria de' Medici, whose chamberlain he also became, with the task of copying the four battles already in the Sala del Trucco in Lappeggi. The replicas were to be larger than the originals, and with larger landscape inserts: they were evidently not intended to take the place of the originals from the outset, which were replaced by Pier Dandini's frescoes. In 1711, the copies of the battles were acquired by the Riccardi, and later found their way onto the market.

The sources do not specify whether Francesco Maria de' Medici's commission included the two Borgognone works that remained in Lappeggi; however, confirmation may come from the copy of our painting attributed to Reschi himself, mentioned above. The Polish version is in fact larger in size, confirming what has been handed down in the sources, while stylistically, as Barbolani points out, one notices 'a greater airiness [...] and a lighter palette than that of the French painter'. This version clearly shows us that the cycle was also conceived by Mattias' successors in a unified manner, despite the separation of the paintings, and that all six figures attracted the same attention.

Almost a century after the execution of the cycle, the works were still a source of inspiration. This is demonstrated by a painting that has recently re-emerged on the market, a Military Scene with a Treaty Signature that Giancarlo Sestieri attributes to the hand of Francesco Antonio Simonini.

The artist, originally from Parma, had, like Borgognone, a tormented and straying life, which led him in 1748 to Florence, first in the employ of Muzio Piccolomini, a Sienese gentleman, and later in the service of Marquis Andrea Gerini, thanks to whom he was admitted to the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in 1749. During his stay in the city, he certainly had access to the paintings by Borgognone in the local collections, including, given his relations with Marquis Gerini, those of the collateral branch of the Gerini Bonciani family: sources also report that he made several copies of paintings by Cortese. In our case, we can observe how Simonini's copy resolves itself into a free re-interpretation of the original: the Parmesan artist takes up the three groups of figures in the foreground in an almost literal manner, inserting them, however, into a phantasmagorical setting of besieged fortresses in a decidedly harsh and barren river landscape, far from both the verdant setting of the original and the lighter setting of Reschi.

The recovery of Borgognone's painting has thus made it possible to better contextualise the copies by later painters, also allowing us to assess how the artists positioned themselves in front of the original and which elements appealed to them most, in the light of their patrons' expectations and changing tastes.

luca giacomelli