Carlo Crivelli (Venice, 1430? - Ascoli Piceno, 1495) was an Italian painter
Originally from Venice, he formed in Padua and later worked mainly in the south of the Marche, becoming in fact the most important active artist on the Adriatic basin, except for the Donatello Influenced Youth in Laguna, his art was still in the balance One with perspective novelties, intense expressionist and incisive and nervous design, on the other with a sumptuous decorative late-gothic matrix, made of mottled marbles, precious fabrics, fruits and animals, golden arabesques and often pastel applications
While remaining, by choice, isolated from the great renaissance renaissance art that crossed the peninsula, Crivelli continually renewed with originality and formal research never interrupted: "He is not silent, nor shows himself to be paying for a discounted and repeated creativity ; But seek new non-compositions, but new formal solutions, almost subdued by the need for impossible perfection "(Zampetti, 1986). His research was different from that of contemporaries, but no less complicated: he did not seek the atmospheric breath of countryman Giovanni Bellini, but he tried to insert moments of truth in a strong archaic and abstract pattern
The knowledge of Carlo Crivelli's life is related to scarce documents that concern him and to many of his signature on his works which, although often fragmented and dispersed, allow to reconstruct his movements
A document dated 13 October 1444 attests that Carlo Crivelli is the son of the painter Iachobus de Chriveris, who lives in Venice in the parish of San Moisè and has a younger brother named Vittore. A third brother, named Ridolfo da Ricci in 1834, is likely to never be There was no work known to his father's activity; he probably was among the followers of Jacobello del Fiore or Michele Giambono. No known document conveys the date of Charles's birth, which dates back to the years 1430-1435, because he had to be an adult When, on March 7, 1457, he was sentenced to six months in prison and two hundred lire a fine, "because, in love with Tarsia, the wife of Venetian sailor Francesco Cortese, raped her from the house of her brother Francesco and kept her hidden for many months, Having her carnal relationships with contempt of God and the sacred bonds of marriage "The story of the concubine with the sailor's wife, evidently absent from long-term, dest scandal and was probably the reason why the artist walked away, without ever return from his hometown
Although there is no documentation, it is thought that Carlo was an apprentice of Antonio Vivarini, Giovanni d'Alemagna and Bartolomeo Vivarini, the latter well-informed of contemporary pictorial culture of Padua, founded on the school of Francesco Squarcione; To this he had to look at the young Crivelli, in particular the Dalmatian peoples Giorgio Culinovič, Giorgio Schiavone, Andrea Mantegna, Marco Zoppo, as well as the Florentines passing through that city such as Filippo Lippi and Donatello It is not clear whether the artist, even before the sentencing, a direct contact with the Paduan school, or merely mediated by Vivarini
With regard to the early years in Venice, no work is certainly referable to the artist. The works recalled by the Venetian historian Carlo Ridolfi (1648) in his home city are all lost, namely a San Fabiano and Mystical Wedding of St. Catherine in the Church of San Sebastian and the Stories of St. Leon Bembo in the San Sebastiano chapel at San Lorenzo; The same fate is touched by those quoted by Boschini in 1664 A couple of Madonna signed (Madonna Huldschinsky in San Diego, Madonna with Child and putti in Verona), already in Venetian monasteries, are related to the early sixties and reveal Paduan influences even if Bottari wanted to recognize connections with Domenico Veneziano Even older, according to Zampetti's hypothesis, would be the Speyer Madonna in the Giorgio Cini Foundation, in which a more protorazmic culture is breathed, linked to Jacopo Bellini
After the arrest of '57, the artist had probably ended up in Padua, where he had to have been particularly affiliated with Giorgio Schiavone, followed by Zara, a city then under Venetian rule, where Schiavone was at least since 1461 Here Crivelli is Quoted in two notarial acts of June 23, 1463 and September 11, 1465, as a painter, citizen and inhabitant of the Dalmatian city, or resident for at least a few years
No work is known about the Zaratine period Two Madonna with the Child and two angels, now in Zagreb and New York, who were approached by the painter from Prijatelj, show some sign of weakness, which is to refer to the activity of brother Vittore In those years it was in the Dalmatian city (up to 1476), rather than at a lower profile held by Carlo to "adapt to the local school". At this time, the same Madonnas of Verona and San Diego could be assigned at this time, In which the artist qualifies as "Venetian", and therefore probably outside his home region
In any case, in 1468, he signed the Polittico di Massa Fermana and in 1469 he was already in Ascoli Piceno, where he had already been able to come into conflict with A citizen for an administrative matter of which documentary remains remain On February 16, 1469, he was in the court of law against such a Savino master Giovanni d'Ascoli and elected his prosecutors Ulysses of ser Antonio da Venezia and Corradino Pasqualucci of Ascoli Aside This mention, however, the first works of the artist in the Marches gravitate all around Fermo, like the polyptych of Porto San Giorgio (1470), executed for the church of San Giorgio of that city on the commission of such a Giorgio, albanese here emigrated to follow Of the Turkish conquest
In any case, since 1473, the documents indicate the permanent residence of the artist in Ascoli when he executes the polyptych of Sant'Emidio for the Duomo The stay in the city is finally supported by the purchase of a house on June 17, 1478, for 10 Ducati, in the San Biagio district
He married at an undefined date with an Iolanda, perhaps Abruzzo of Atri, from whom he had Diana's sons and a male who died in August 1487; The two adopted a little girl, Biasiola
It has been hypothesized that in recent years the artist had visited Ferrara, where there were works by Rogier van der Weyden, or perhaps Tuscany, but no documentary evidence suffraga these proposals: the life of the Crivelli seems to occur without interruption and until death in Piceno His fame, or perhaps his entrepreneurial spirit, led him to go to several centers in the district, where he signed numerous altarwares
Particularly significant are some stays at Camerino, a city in the direction of Varano and live culturally, where several painters, including Girolamo di Giovanni and Giovanni Boccati, who had to know Crivelli already from the common alunnato at Squarcione in Padova were active Also some foreign masters, such as Niccolò Alunno, who had to have a certain ascendant on the Venetian colleague, though not artistically inferior
In 1482 he signed the Polyptych of San Domenico di Camerino, to which he had to proceed and follow other more or less demanding duties, so it is believed that for all the eighties the artist had to alternate stays in Ascoli and Camerino, with the tendency to stretch The stops in the second, as evidenced by a document of 1488 in which it is remembered as "commodious" in the city of Varano, or inhabited with a fixed residence. In those years was decorated the Ducal palace and it is not unlikely that even the Crivelli vi He had put his hand, although it is not possible to trace it in the scarce known fragments
In late maturity, he received some new extras such as the new structure of the altarpiece in the face of the most repetitive polyptych: an extraordinary example is the Annunciation of Ascoli in 1486 The peculiarity of the work - originally placed in the church of the Most Holy Annunziata In Ascoli Piceno - it is in the testimony of the Master's mastery of Renaissance innovations. If it is true that the Crivelli characterizes its production in antiquing terms, in line with the Venetian tradition preceded by Bellini, this is not due to the lack of knowledge Of Renaissance pictorial values Crivelli's archaism thus appears to be a deliberate and conscious choice
In Ascoli the death of the only male son was recorded in Ascoli in 1488, of which no name or age is mentioned, but it must have been quite young: for the funeral, in the book of the entrance of the cathedral is registered the donation of two pounds Wax on the part of the artist This is the last trace of the artist's presence in Ascoli, while commissions out of town are abolished On May 10, 1488, he was handed over to him by the Polyptych of the Cathedral of Camerino, a prestigious work destined to ' The main altar of Camerino's cathedral
With the approach of old age, the artist is constantly moving, between Camerino, Matelica, Fabriano and Pergola. In this context, a singular episode, a concession in 1490 of the title of miles by Ferdinando d'Aragona, prince of Capua and the future king of Naples Ferdinand, in a difficult time for his state, maintained good relations with Ascoli but was in conflict with the Church State, so that in September 1491 he defeated the Tronto occupying large areas of the stop Ascolorated under Pontifical Jurisdiction Since August 1491 Ascoli, too friend of the young leader, had been excommunicated by Cardinal Balue and his churches hit by interdictions While Pope Sixtus IV moved to gather alliances to block his opponent, He withdrew his troops, leaving in trouble the ascolans "who had to suffer a lot of humiliation." Here, then, the title received by the painter fits ambiguously in the Context of relations with neighboring states of the time
In this document, Crivelli is admitted among the family of the prince and is not remembered either as a Venetian or as a painter, reminding him of the fidelity of the citizenship of Ascolan to the Neapolitan monarchy: Ferdinand was after all the nephew of Francesco Sforza, who for a long time had held the lordship of the city With the accent on the town's "fidelity", makes the granting of the title to the painter as a move to revel in the sympathy of the ascolans, otherwise it is difficult to explain. Since then, Crivelli always has the title in the signature of his works
Certainly after the commander's departure the honor put the painter in a light not so serene and perhaps it was the origin of his departure from the city In the last few years there is a shrinking movement. A last document reminds him of Fabriano, where on 7 August 1494 Delivered a shovel
The death of the painter lies between the completion of the Pala di San Francesco in Fabriano and the request dated 7 September 1495 to be declared universal heir by Brother Vittore, resident in Fermo. His brother proved that he did not know the familiar situation of Carlo , Declaring that he did not have children, and obviously ignored his marriage: it is the total absence of contacts between the two for many years: in the same document, Vittore admitted, in part, that he had neglected his brother and was his debtor , Meaning probably in the field of art. A tradition of local historiography indicated that Carlo had died in Fermo and buried in the church of San Francesco, but Vittore's letter to the magistrate ascolano denied the news; It is not even said that he died in Ascoli, rather than in one of his stays at Pergola, Matelica or Fabriano
The family situation of the painter emerges only from documents after his death, linked to the complicated inheritance issue The name of his wife Iolanda appears for the first time in a document of 1500, when Charles had disappeared for five years; She had to be much younger than her husband if, after the end of the hereditary cause in 1511, she was still alive in 1524. She had controversies with her son, Diana's husband, after her daughter's death, trying not to include her as her heir; Not including Charles, the son of Biasola, who had the name of his adoptive grandfather
Similar to another Venetian transplanted in the Marche, Lorenzo Lotto, Crivelli also suffered a certain eclipse in the artistic historiography Ignored by Vasari, mentioned hastily by Venetian historians of the seventeenth century, had to wait until the end of the eighteenth century to have a polished judgment on his work By chance, by an original character of the lands where Crivelli worked, Abbot Luigi Lanzi He wrote: "It is a painter worthy of being known by the power of color rather than by drawing; And his greatest merit lies in small histories, where he puts vague villages, and gives the figures grace, movement, expression For the juice of the colors and for a design nerdy this painter can rightly call himself pregavolissimo among the ancient We please To introduce in all his paintings of fruits and vegetables, giving preference to fishing and citriol; Even though it was all about accessors with such a skill that in the endlessness and love did not give way to the confrontation of the Flemish people. It will not be useless to mention that his paintings are tempered and therefore at times, and are kneaded with tenacious gums that hold to any corrosive; Why they kept it lucid "
The delay of this first acknowledgment lies essentially in the peripheral dislocation of his works, which were not seen either by a scrupulous investigator like Vasari In the 18th century the interest of the artist had to be reborn within the lively as well as the wretched market Antique art works: it is witnessed by the addition of false signatures to works of his school, as well as the first removal of his polyptych from the Marche, by perceived connoisseurs like Cardinal Zelada
After Lanzi, Amico Ricci was thoroughly examining his work, dedicating him an entire chapter in his Historical Memories of the Arts and Artists of the March of Ancona (1834). Understanding already the importance of trade between Venice and the Marche, he wrote: "If the painting had increased in Venice by one of our Marcheans (alluding to Gentile da Fabriano), he did not have a smaller one among us for a Venetian, which in these places led and spread a lot of light." Ricci also began reconstructing the biography and Of the artist's catalog, which, though not without errors, provided a basis for subsequent studies
Meanwhile, from the end of the eighteenth century to the first half of the nineteenth century until the forced removal of the Pala Ottoni from Matelica in 1862, the so-called "Crivelli case" was consumed, or the almost unique story in the artistic historiography with which an author was rediscovered And critically evaluated while at the same time his work came out humiliated by removals and wild smears that made his work unrecognizable and sometimes irrecoverable
Thus, from the end of the nineteenth century to the present day, criticism, besides having to give the artist the right weight and reconstructing his biography, was forced into the long, tireless task, still unfinished, to rebuild the fragments of the great polyptychs altar
Apart from the collections associated with the Roman cardinals, rather circumscribed and born at the end of the 18th century, apart from the Napoleonic spoliation that brought to Brera many Marxist works (1812), it was the British that demonstrated the greatest collective interest on Crivelli, Then they have largely come to the National Gallery in London, where the largest museum collection of works by the painter, who already occupied the first hall of the museum, is present and is now in an entire environment of Ala Sainsbury Such a highlight of Crivelli in The Anglo-Saxon world is explained with the growing wave of pre-Raphaelite taste: more than Florentines, Crivelli summed up, for the group of William Morris and his followers, all the elements that were pleasing to the movement, such as artisan skill, decorative taste, Gothic nostalgia and the kind of figures, always in balance between ideal detachment and human proximity to the spectator It is easy to understand how I To the economic and cultural decadence of pre-Community Italy facilitated the field to British collectors, who did not escape the Annunciation of Ascoli discarded by Brera to buy a (false) Caravaggio, nor did they have difficulty picking up the Pala Ottoni of Matelica despite Cavalcaselle He had reported it among the works to be saved for the artistic heritage of the new state
Important contributions to the critics of the artist were those of Cavalcaselle (1871), and the first monograph by Ruthford (1900), in which the artist was finally brought to the formation alveo of the Renaissance Padovano Trascurabile, for the frequency of errors The study of Drey (1927), while interesting hypotheses were made by Lionello Venturi (1907) Illuminating a step by Berenson: "There is so far no formula that does not deform our idea of fifteenth century Italian painting and at the same time renders justice To an artist like Carlo Crivelli who is among the most genuine of every country or country; And never tastes, even when the so-called "great masters" become tedious [] But the Crivelli should have been studied for itself, and as a product of stationary, if not even reactionary conditions She spent most of life far from the great currents Cultural [] He remained out of the Renaissance movement, which is a movement of constant development »
Important also the short but significant lines dedicated to the Crivelli by Roberto Longhi in Viatico (1946), but it was with the 1952 exhibition in Ancona, where it was actually the rediscovery of the "Triptych" of Montefiore (actually a section of a polyptych ), Which started the studies of Zampetti, with a more accurate reconstruction of the painter's catalog, updated in succession in the following years The exhibition raised the artist's critical interest with new contributions In 1961 the new catalog of the National Gallery, with Martin Davies's most up-to-date records, rebuilt the Polyptych of Montefiore dell'Aso and clarified the double origin of the so-called "Polyptych Demidoff", with the help of Zeri, who on the other same same year published an important essay on the artist
Zeri's indications were confirmed and developed by the two monographs of Anna Maria Bovero (1961 and 1975). In 1961 the monographic exhibition in Venice clarified some aspects of the painter's work. Among the numerous studies followed by Gioia Mori (1983) and By Teresa Zanobini Leoni (1984)
Carlo Crivelli's influence was deeply rooted in the Marche region, and first invested his brother Vittore, to whom were added painters such as Pietro Alemanno, young Cola dell'Amatrice and many others, including Lorenzo d'Alessandro and Stefano Folchetti Vincenzo Pagani passed from Crivelli's influence to that of Lorenzo Lotto, almost as witnessing the passage of the witness between the two great Venetians in Marche's art
Though no direct relationship can be established, cues of Crivelli's pungent realism, related to the objects, the moods of the characters, to everyday life, were developed for other roads only in the 17th century, starting from the Lombardy school and Caravaggio
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