Currently not on view
Design for the Ceiling of the Salone d’Onore in the Hercolani Palace, Bologna,
ca. 1797–98
Flaminio Innocenzo Minozzi, Italian, 1735–1817
x1968-193
This highly finished contract drawing relates to the artist’s illusionistic fresco decoration for the ceiling of the main hall of the Hercolani Palace in Bologna (today the Department of Political Science of the University). At the bottom of the sheet, Minozzi signed his name —“Flaminio Minozzi Pit.ore ed Architetto f.”— claiming his dual status of painter (pittore) and architect (architetto). The second signature, in the lower right corner—“Filippo Hercolani approvo”— indicates that Minozzi’s patron, a member of the aristocratic Hercolani family, approved the final design. A flap applied to the upper right corner hides an earlier version of the design, with a different solution for the shape of the central opening and for the architectural elements around it.
Information
Title
Design for the Ceiling of the Salone d’Onore in the Hercolani Palace, Bologna
Dates
ca. 1797–98
Medium
Pen and brown ink with watercolor over graphite, on cream laid paper
Dimensions
35.3 × 48 cm (13 7/8 × 18 7/8 in.)
frame: 62.2 × 77.5 × 2.5 cm (24 1/2 × 30 1/2 × 1 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Frank Jewett Mather Jr.
Object Number
x1968-193
Inscription
Inscribed recto, lower left, in brown ink: Flaminio Minozzi Pit.ore ed Architetto f.; lower right, in brown ink: Filippo Hercolani approvo, with scale of measurement in piedi di Bologna below; inscribed verso, on mount, lower right corner, in graphite: No. 162
Marks/Labels/Seals
Watermarks: Shield with posthorn and two words (right side); J. Honic. n Rogge and edge of a design (Churchill 409) (correction overlay, left side)
Reference Numbers
Gibbons 442
Culture
Materials
Frank Jewett Mather Jr. (probably given to the Art Museum in the 1940s).
- Felton Gibbons, Catalogue of Italian Drawings in The Art Museum, Princeton University, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977)., Vol. 1: p. 77, no. 204 (illustrated in Vol. 2 under the same catalog number)
- Laura Giles, Lia Markey, Claire Van Cleave, et. al., Italian Master Drawings from the Princeton University Art Museum, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2014)., p. xviii, fig. 1
