Casa Buonarroti

Exhibitions

Andrea Commodi 
attraction for Michelangelo 
to the anxiety of the new

by Gianni Papi and Annamaria Petrioli Tofani 
Florence, Casa Buonarroti, May 17-August 31, 2012

A.Commodi, Self – Casa Buonarroti

In the twenties of the seventeenth century Commodi Andrea (1560 – 1638), Florentine painter, after long stays in Rome and Cortona, had definite return to Florence. Thus began frequenting the Casa Buonarroti, the artist, which amounts to a gift to Michelangelo the Younger, a beautiful self-portrait in the show, but also the devout and large copy of Michelangelo’s work preserved and exhibited the great-grandson. In fact it still stands at the Prints and Drawings of the Uffizi in Florence a large group of autograph sheets of Commodi in which you recognize copies of drawings and sketches by Michelangelo. Starting from here, the exhibition aims to pull copies of the originals by Michelangelo, making this way a comparison of unique visual effect, and with scientific verification in terms of collectability. 
But the importance of the exhibition goes beyond the reconstruction of the relationship distance between Michelangelo and Andrea Commodi. The Commodi, in fact, is an artist who deserves far more attention than he has been given. In the context of Florentine painters of his peers and classmates, and respect to his teachers Alessandro Allori and Santi di Tito, he quickly demonstrates – in particular as regards their ordeals graphs – a markedly experimental and inquisitive, powerfully conformist. In studies dating back to the eighties of the sixteenth century, when the artist is confronted with Michelangelo, is beside the devout homage to the great master, a stretch that same expressionist tribute. More or less in recent years has also placed the famous drawings taken from posed models of incredible innovation and modernity, which broke with academic tradition in search of a true yield of crude and often violent-level mark, but at luministic . This is a phenomenon that, on the graph, is unmatched in his time which corresponds to a real zero in the face of a new language expressiveness.

Andrea Commodi
Studies of women’s profiles – Maternity – Studies of figures
Cabinet of the Uffizi drawings and prints

Even as regards the production of pictorial Commodi, albeit much less clear, he pursues an innovative project that distinguishes it from what brought the art scene of the late sixteenth-century Rome, before the advent of large public and revolutionary texts of Caravaggio. 
The exhibition aims to give testimony, therefore, with an important selection of graphics (over forty drawings) and an equally important selection of paintings, the rich personality of this artist cultured and complex, as already said, he spent a long and fruitful stay Rome: about thirty years, from 1592 to 1622, with a break of at least three years of Cortona. Among the works on display stand the beautiful Consecration of the SS. Today the Saviour Cathedral of Cortona and the prestigious Jesuit Board of paintings with Stories of St. Ignatius.During the Roman period Commodi also devised one of the luckiest iconography on St. Charles Borromeo, one of the saint who prays for the end of the plague on his knees before the altar, exemplified by the precious copper now on display at the Museo Civico di Fano.

Michelangelo Two wrestlers – Casa Buonarroti 
Andrea Commodi, Two wrestlers (Michelangelo) – Prints and Drawings of the Uffizi

Also in Rome, he was awarded the prestigious commission, perhaps more than during the second decade of the seventeenth century could touch a single artist: the decoration of the apse of the Pauline Chapel in the Palace of Monte Cavallo (ie, the Palazzo del Quirinale), with a large fresco the Fall of the Rebel Angels, which should have the extension of the Last Judgement by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel. But perhaps the ultimate scope of Michelangelo induced his Commodi, frightened by the impossible comparison, to abandon the enterprise. The project remains a large group of drawings and a renowned comp – now at Palazzo Pitti in the show – which probably documents a part of the composition.

The exhibition was organized with the decisive contribution to the Ente Cassa di Firenze.

Catalog Publishing Polistampa

Andrea Commodi 
Dispute of Saint Catherine – Cortona, Church of San Domenico 
Study for the ‘Fall of the Rebel Angels’ – Florence, Palazzo Pitti

Useful Information
Title: “Andrea Commodi. Michelangelo anxiety attraction for the new ” 
venue: Casa Buonarroti, Florence, Via Ghibellina 70 
Opening: 17 May – 31 August 2012 
Admission: € 6.50 full price; € 4.50 groups and secondary schools of second degree ; € 2.25 primary and secondary schools; € 8.50 cumulative with the monumental complex of Santa Croce 
Time: 10-17, closed on Tuesday

Upon booking, special openings after hours for groups

Exhibition information
tel +39 055 241752 Fax +39 055 241698 [email protected] www.casabuonarroti.it

Press
Susanna Holm, Sigma CSC tel +39 055 2340742 Fax +39 055 244145 [email protected]

Between the Foundation and Casa Buonarroti ‘Association Cultural Metamorphosis of Rome has in place a partnership that includes the organization of major events including exhibitions.

Casa Buonarroti and the Monumental Complex of Santa Croce are an important meeting point in the name of Michelangelo’s masterpieces of early youth exhibited in Casa Buonarroti to the place of burial, always called by the Artist, in the Basilica of Santa Croce.