mjhurst
The recent threads have gone in so many directions I thought perhaps these two works might be more comfortable in their own. A tourist website includes the following comment.
Note also that the family is facing outward, not at the Virgin and Child. This is the family's portrait, with Virgin and Child as accoutrement.
David J. Drogin, (the chapter "Bologna's Bentivoglio Family and its Artists", in Artists at Court, 2004) described the works as follows. He begins with the context, including a facing painting.We now come to the most interesting part, both historically and artistically, of the church -- the Bentivoglio Chapel. This was founded in 1445 by Annibale Bentivoglio, and afterwards enlarged by Giovanni II, Lord of Bologna, on the occasion of his coming off victorious from the conspiracy of the Malvezzi family. He caused it to be decorated by two paintings in gouache showing the triumph of Life and Death by Lorenzo Costa in 1488, and the Apocalyptic Vision in the big lunette, restored later by Carlo Cignani, who added the nude figure of the shepherd and the Annunciation.
At San Giacomo Maggiore, Giovanni II decorated the Bentivoglio Chapel after its consecration in 1487. Here, Giovanni created a space that articulated a linear, dynastic continuity and his connections to other courts. As the family's main devotional site, the chapel was important for the dissemination of the useful imagery; it was here that Giovanni brought visiting dignitaries and created knights after he received the privilege, broadcasting his princely glory. On this subject and the chapel's decoration, Ghirardacci wrote that the chapel "not only for a private gentlemen, but also for an emperor, would have been appropriate" (non solo ad un gentilhuomo privato, ma ad un imperatore sarebbe bastevole). Its importance is underlined by the apparent absence of a chapel inside the palace; this required papal dispensation, whcih the Medici received but the Bentivoglio did not.
Costa is the chapel's most significant presence, although Francia painted the altarpiece of 1494. Costa's portrait (dated 1488) of Giovanni II, Ginevre, and children before a Virgin and Child is informative in several respects.... As Paul Nieuwenhuizen noted, in some respects the painting is more a group portrait than a devotional image (note the hats on Giovanni's and sons' heads), despite the inscription that declares it as such. More importantly, the portrait defines membership: during tensions with Sante's descendants, it delimits dynasty, picturing Giovanni's heirs adjacent to another Costa painting of his ancestors.
Note also that the family is facing outward, not at the Virgin and Child. This is the family's portrait, with Virgin and Child as accoutrement.
Across from the family portrait, Costa painted two allegorical processions dated 1490: the Triumph of Death and the Triumph of Fame (and Fortune), subjects provided by Petrarch's Triumphi.... Parallels between Petrarch's text and Costa's images are scarce; Petrarch's verses were likely an inspirational source, rather than a specific textual one. Nevertheless, there are some correspondences. In the Triumphus Mortis, for instance, Petrarch wrote: "Here were those that were called happy, popes, rulers, emperors; now they are nude, miserable and mendicant. Where now are their riches? Where are their honors?" ... In Costa's painting, behind the carriage of Death appear a pope, a bishop, a cardinal, and others in courtly and military dress. Naked figures follow, expressing in spatial arrangement the chronology of Petrarch's verse.... Elsewhere, Petrarch wrote of living, virtuous women and a noble company who come to witness if Death is kind. In the painting, there are portraits of Bentivoglio daughters standing before the procession as onlookers, representing these virtuous women. Recall too that the family, using the chapel and gathered before these paintings, brought into being Petrarch's witnesses of noble company. When physically absent, they were (and are) nonetheless present in painted form, opposite in Costa's portrait of the family. The group portrait helps the viewer identify the Bentivoglio family members represented in the Triumph paintings.
The Triumph of Fame (and Fortune) appears to have fewer correspondences between text and image. Warriors and scholars are enumerated in Petrarch's text, however the image yields few clues that permit definitive identification. The painting's most enigmatic feature is the sky-borne tabellone. Here, small figures interact in abbreviated, enigmatic narratives. Deciphering these, Wendy Wegener suggested that the painting conflates a Triumph of Fame -- the natural partner to the Triumph of Death in a Petrarchian framework -- and a Triumph of Fortune, in which the roundel represents a Wheel of Fortune. In it, historical and literary events around its circumference mark degrees of Fortune's favor according to the position on the wheel.
The Bentivoglio's interest in Fortune is demonstrated by a tournament in 1490, the same year that Costa painted these scenes. There is a general parallel between these scenes and ones enacted in Bolognese piazze, supported by similarities between festivals and the ceremonial splendor in the paintings. There is also a specific parallel to the 1490 celebrations, as in the painting, Giovanni II, Annibale II, and others appear in Fame/Fortune's entourage, aligning Bentivoglio leaders with Fortune's favors, just as occurred in the spectacle itself.Endnote: From the top, clockwise, the scenes represent Ventidius Bassus, the mule diver[sic] who became Tribune; the Greek athlete Milo bound to a tree being devoured by beasts; the Samnites defeating the Roman army at the Caudine Forks; the physician of Alexander the Great; the Lydian king Croesus spared from burning by the Persian emperor Cyrus; Augustus and cavalry fallen in a ravine after a bridge collapse; Philip of Macedon's murder; and Julius Caesar fleeing Pompey. Scenes of Creation and Cain slaying Abel are at center. Wendy Wegener, "Mortuary Chapels of Renaissance Condottieri" (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1989), pp. 194-205.
In the Bentivoglio Chapel, as in Petrarch's poem, fame and its immortality come not only to warriors (as Annibale I and Giovanni II are represented), but also to famous thinkers. Petrarch wrote that, contemplating the warriors in Fame's entourage, he could not take his eyes from them, until a voice encouraged him to look to the side, where he saw renowned philosophers. Standing before the painting, one sees on the left Antongaleazzo's professor tomb. This is, perhaps, a spatial-artistic parallel that demonstrates the range of Bentivoglio success under Fame and Fortune's (and Knowledge's) aegis. This conflation also appears with Giovanni II's figure in the Triumph of Fame (and Fortune), as he is addressed by two figures, one in robe and turban, the other armored with a sword. Nieuwenhuizen suggested that they represent Giovanni's equal interest in the active and contemplative life, or litterae and arma, qualities combined in the ideal prince.