Central Italian School, second half of the 16th century, Prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane

Central Italian school, second half of the 16th century

Prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane

Oil on canvas, 80,5 x 65,5 cm

Christ's prayer in the garden/grove of Gethsemane, located on the western side of the Mount of Olives outside the eastern walls of the Holy City of Jerusalem, is one of the most significant moments of the Christian religion and therefore one of the most finely analyzed subjects in the artistic field. The iconography that is specific to it implies precise symbolism, starting from the three apostles present at the event, Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, James and John. It is no coincidence that the three are the same as those of the Transfiguration: if this is in fact the occasion in which Jesus reveals the unspeakable nature of the True God, showing himself to be One and Triune, the prayer in the garden is the clear prelude to the death of Christ himself. The recurrence of the three is justified in the Pauline explanation that the truth shown through the Transfiguration can only be achieved with the death of Christ; the three are therefore a symbol of the imminent but necessary death of the Son so that the redemption of the human race can take place through the Passion. In the painting, Jesus' need to die is also symbolized by the cup extended to him by the angel, mentioned only in Luke (22,43:26,39), to whom Christ addresses the words "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me!" (Mt. XNUMX:XNUMX), and metaphorically containing the blood of sacrifice. In the distance, on the right, it is possible to observe the band of soldiers led by Judas approaching.

The painting is clearly influenced by the lessons of Michelangelo and Raphael borrowed in the Roman context (especially for the rendering of the apostles), here taken from the Central Italian school, perhaps specifically Cremonese. Compare this oration with the almost identical one by Marcello Venusti (Mazzo di Valtellina, 1510 – Rome 1579). Venusti learned Raphael's vocabulary through the master Perin del Vaga, a direct pupil of the artist from Urbino, to which he added Michelangelo's figurative analysis when the Roman patrician Tommaso de' Cavalieri passed on to him the mythological drawings that Michelangelo had donated to him. Venusti also enjoyed copying many of Michelangelo's works, including the replica, on canvas, of the Last Judgement commissioned by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (1549). Similarly, Girolamo da Carpi (Ferrara, 1501 – ibid. 1556), author of an oration with the same setting, following an apprenticeship with Benvenuto Tisi, known as Garofalo, converted to the Raphaelesque style through Giulio Romano, whom he met in Mantua. Further proof of the common Roman substratum, but tempered by Emilian figurativism, is the Saint Peter lying in the foreground, which can be seen in a painting of the same subject by Giulio Campi (Cremona, 1502 – ibid., 1572), now preserved in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana and datable between the 1529s and 1566s; Campi too, before embracing the Mannerist looseness of Camillo Boccaccino, had been influenced by Giulio Romano, at the time an indomitable source of artistic innovation. The same Christ returns instead in a private collection oration by the Roman by adoption Taddeo Zuccari (Sant'Angelo in Vado, 1559 – Rome 1613) who, at just fourteen years of age, was profoundly influenced by Raphael and Correggio when he reached the capital. The same magnetism, in more advanced years, recurs in Ludovico Cardi known as Cigoli (Cigoli di San Miniato, 1536 – Rome, 1603) who is heavily indebted in style, see the oration in the Civic Museum of Montepulciano, to Santi di Tito (Florence, 1558 – there 1564), who in turn adopted Raphaelesque classicism after a trip to Rome between 1521 and 1601 (where he also accompanied Federico Zuccari, brother of Taddeo, in the decoration of the Casina di Pio IV). As a final comparison to the present canvas, it is possible to consider an oration, owned by the diocese of Faenza Modigliana, by Giovan Battista Ramenghi (Bologna, XNUMX – ibid., XNUMX), a bold supporter of the most conservative Emilian school, of declared dependence on Raphael, in opposition to the rising Bolognese star of the Carracci.