Chapter 5 From Sculpture to Print to Sculpture. Parmigianino, Caraglio and the Mystery of the Barberini Faun
In: Sculpture in Print, 1480–1600Search for other papers by Marzia Faietti in
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Abstract
The resemblance of the Barberini Faun (now in Munich) to the engraving by Gian Giacomo Caraglio, Jupiter and Antiope (B. XV, 73, 10) is so compelling that it should not be undervalued. The author advances the hypothesis that, during the restorations carried out in 1679 by the sculptors Giuseppe Giorgetti and Lorenzo Ottoni, the statue was integrated with the help of the engraving and consequently was interpreted as a faun along the lines of the erotic meaning of Antiope. The initial idea for the figure of Antiope in Jupiter and Antiope, however, must have come from the preparatory studies by Parmigianino for his Madonna and Child with Saint John the Baptist and Saint Jerome (London, National Gallery) which Maria Bufalini, wife of Antonio Caccialupi, had commissioned on 3 January 1526 for the family chapel in San Salvatore in Lauro. The origin of Caraglio's Antiope from Parmigianino’s Saint Jerome (the artist’s sole Roman public commission) provides an eloquent example of the recurring intersection between religious topics and erotic subjects, and of the frequent contamination between sacred and profane figures.
In addition, the author underlines the fact that the starting point for the solution of Saint Jerome in the Bufalini-Caccialupi altarpiece can be traced specifically to the famous Laocoon, discovered in Rome in early 1506. In other words, Parmigianino focused his attention on the aching figure of the priest in the sculptural group and imagined it in slow movement as in a slow motion film sequence, in order to gradually change the posture with slight but constant deviations; the final result was Saint Jerome in the Roman painting and, through new changes, Antiope printed by Caraglio.
Therefore, the crossover between the Christian visionary nature of Saint Jerome in the Bufalini-Caccialupi altarpiece and the patheticism of the Laocoon gave rise to the erotic figure of Antiope which Parmigianino then entrusted to Caraglio's burin for his Jupiter and Antiope. The print in turn seems to have guided the integrative restoration of the fragmentary statue later known as the Barberini Faun, contributing to the fortune of one of the most famous models of classicism.