La 'Discesa dalla croce' di Giovan Francesco Romanelli per Sant'Ambrogio della Massima a Roma ritrovata nel Palacio Real di Aranjuez

Résumé

The ‘Descent from the Cross’ by Giovan Francesco Romanelli for Sant’Ambrogio della Massima in Rome, rediscovered in the Palacio Real di Aranjuez. The article presents the lost ‘Descent from the Cross’ painted by Giovan Francesco Romanelli for the church of Sant’Ambrogio della Massima in Rome. Attributed to an anonymous 18th–century Spanish master, the work has been individuated by the author in the chapel of the Palazzo Reale of Aranjuez (Madrid, Patrimonio Nacional).The existence in the Uffizi of a preparatory drawing for the figure of the Christ in the ‘Deposition’, in which an inscription attests to the execution of the painting in question, indirectly confirms the provenance of the work from the Roman church. According to the early sources, the painting was placed on an altar executed by Bernini for the Colonna family, and was probably commissioned by the Abbess of the convent, Gabriella Maurelli. The work, datable to between 1660 and 1662 (the year of Romanelli’s death), should be studied in connection with two other paintings of the Crucifixion by the artist’s master Pietro da Cortona, the first of which is in Palazzo Barberini, the second in Castelgandolfo. The author also highlights the influence of Romanelli’s canvas on the ‘Descent from the Cross’ by Charles Le Brun, and offers several considerations on the unusual iconography of the Virgin.