Per Giovan Battista Lombardelli, Pasquale Cati e Vespasiano Strada disegnatori

Until now, the drawings of the Marchigian artist Giovan Battista Lombardelli, active in the Marches, Umbria and Rome during the last quarter of the sixteenth century, have remained little known (unlike his paintings), forming a body of work based on uncertain attributions and lacking any comprehensive analysis. As well as affirming his authorship of four unpublished drawings — in the Drawings Cabinet of the Uffizi Gallery, preparatory for the cycle of frescoes in the Palazzo Cesi in Acquasparta — the article also considers the sheets attributed (early on, in many cases) to Lombardelli, some demonstrably autograph and connected with known works, and others discarded. Of special importance is the group of drawings in the Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica in Rome, attributed decades ago by Walter Vitzthum; others are in the collections of the Musée du Louvre and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Among the rejected drawings, two distinct groups divided between various public collections are here given to the painters Pasquale Cati and Vespasiano Strada. In the case of Cati, whose firmly attributed drawings are extremely rare, there are three red chalk studies, preparatory for the Moses cycle in Palazzo Altemps, Rome. As for Strada, by whom only one secure drawing was known, five sheets are attributed here, all preparatory for the frescoed lunettes in the cloister of Sant’Onofrio al Gianicolo. Every work examined clarifies these artists’ careers and style, enabling us to identify and resolve the confusion surrounding many drawings in the complex and sometimes still cloudy phenomenon of Late Roman Mannerism.