The Sacchetti Family, Their Art Patronage and Political Aspirations (review)

In this book, Lilian H. Zirpolo examines the patronage interests of the Sacchetti family after their transfer from Tuscany to Rome. The trajectory of the study follows this family's rise and decline in fortune and political importance from the seventeenth to the early eighteenth century. The result is a far-reaching work that explains the progress and ambitions of leading members of the family as shown through highly self-conscious commissions and displays of art.

The book is divided into five chapters and a conclusion. In chapter 1, the construction and decoration of the Sacchetti Chapel at S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini opens the investigation, framed by its commission, which the committed but inexperienced Giovanni Sacchetti had left in his will. A detailed inventory of selections, an analysis of these works, the arrangements, and the artists follows, so as to lead to an assessment of the rhetorical effect the chapel promised for the benefit of its patrons. Zirpolo focuses on the significance of choosing the promising painter Giovanni Lanfranco in order to assure that the family's chapel stand out in inventiveness while at the same time having the images conform to and therefore satisfy criteria of the Counter-Reformation church. From this is teased out the Sacchetti's allegiance to the church's policies together with their hopes to climb the papal ladder. A similar rigour reappears in the ensuing chapters. In chapter 2, Marcello Sacchetti's role as patron of artists and art adviser to Pope Urban viii takes the focus. Chapter 3 explores the domestic arena of art display in the villa at Castelfuoco, where less accomplished artists were employed to produce a program harmonious with Renaissance theory of appropriate decoration insofar as it should reflect the status of the patron. As Zirpolo writes, however, the gallery frescoes imply more, indicating the Sachetti's wish for advancement, specifically by Cardinal Giulio in his ecclesiastical career. The language here occasionally leans towards conjecture, as some unsupported claims and conditional phrases crowd together ('the idea ... was undoubtedly Marcello's'; 'while Marcello may have provided the incentive'; 'in fact, it was his knowledge of the subject that most likely prompted Alexander viii ... to appoint him Prefect of the Congregation of Rites'). In the next chapter, the author studies Giulio's successful career hand-in-hand with his patronage, notably marking a new stage in which the Sacchetti begin to commission established masters for family aggrandizement. For example, patronage of the Bolognese school is linked to a desire to furnish the Sacchetti family collection of Bolognese art reform whereas Giulio's construction and decoration of the Villa del Pigneto, being similar to the Palestrinian sanctuary owned by the Barberini, is linked to demonstrating his allegiance to the pope and so too his papal aspirations. Chapter 5 charts the decline of the family, occurring with the second generation in Rome, during which patronage of the foreigner, Van Wittel, and the lending of the family's collections for exhibitions signal both a persistent and restricted commitment to the arts of their times.

It is in the tightly woven and persuasive conclusion that Zirpolo brings together all the connections between political status, financial resources, fashion, and art commissions that surfaced at every turn. Great changes in artistic taste and patronage ability are clearly marked out by historical differences, site, and audience. Thus the study finishes with a flourish, presenting a greater understanding of the Sacchetti's art patronage evolving as a whole. The changing face of this patronage is a challenging subject, given the many divergences in the patrons' artistic understanding, patriotism, ecclesiastical concerns, resources, and sites. Zirpolo's thoroughness and clarity at each stage elucidates these particulars meaningfully, illuminating the passage of the Sacchetti as patrons of the arts and the significance of art display in self-presentation and propaganda from the early modern period to the Enlightenment.