Study for the "Essequie" Conducted in San Lorenzo, Florence, in 1637 in Honour of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II (1637): Art, History and Details

Study for the "Essequie" Conducted in San Lorenzo, Florence, in 1637 in Honour of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II (1637) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Alfonso Parigi (Italian, 1606–1656).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Alfonso Parigi was the official court architect for the Medici, taking over after the death of his father, the great engineer, architect, and designer Giulio Parigi. Testifying to the Medici's interest in cultivating a culture of the macabre, this sheet is an elaborate study for the essequie (funerary rites) for the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II. Skulls and skeletons commingle with angels and garlands, and black draperies would have been hung to transform the church into a strange, macabre world. The Medici also commissioned artists and designers to create apparati, theatrical stage settings that were similarly elaborate, hell-like scenes. Designed only three years before the young Rosa would come to the court, this haunting sheet displays the grotesque artistic fantasia that was in vogue in Florence when Salvatore Rosa arrived.

Object facts

• Title: Study for the "Essequie" Conducted in San Lorenzo, Florence, in 1637 in Honour of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II
• Date: 1637
• Creator attribution: Alfonso Parigi (Italian, 1606–1656)
• Culture: Italy, Florence
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: pen and brown ink and brown wash with graphite and accents of pink, purple-grey and deep blue-black wash
• Dimensions: Sheet: 48.5 x 65.8 cm (19 1/8 x 25 7/8 in.)
• Collection: DR - Italian
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 2011.192

Collection credit

Norman O. Stone and Ella A. Stone Memorial Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Langdon, Helen. Salvator Rosa Paint and Performance. London: Reaktion Books, Limited, 2022. .

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.