[Roberto Canonici (1568-1631)] - photo 1
[Roberto Canonici (1568-1631)] - photo 2
[Roberto Canonici (1568-1631)] - photo 3
[Roberto Canonici (1568-1631)] - photo 4
[Roberto Canonici (1568-1631)] - photo 5
[Roberto Canonici (1568-1631)] - photo 6

[Roberto Canonici (1568-1631)]

Lot 29
09.07.2025 10:30UTC +01:00
Classic
Sold
£ 12 600
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1449856
Lot 29 | [Roberto Canonici (1568-1631)]
Estimate value
£ 12 000 – 15 000
[Roberto Canonici (1568-1631)]
Extract from the will of Roberto Canonici, in Italian, manuscript on paper [Ferrara, c.1627-31]
A record of the exemplary collection of Italian paintings and drawings assembled by the Ferrarese gentleman Roberto Canonici (1568-1631): a hitherto-unknown manuscript, apparently contemporary with the notarised version deposited in the State Archives of Ferrara.

270 x 205mm, i + 38 + iii leaves, apparently complete although the text ending abruptly on f.38v, catchwords survive, modern pencil foliation, single columns of 29 lines (light waterstaining throughout not affecting legibility, occasional spots of ink acidification). Contemporary vellum binding, inscribed ‘1627/ Testamento del Sig:re Ruberto Canonici..’ (stained, some tears to edges).

Provenance:
(1) Presumably produced for the family of Roberto Canonici, perhaps for one of his executors. The will is offered alongside five further documents relating to his estate [described below] in a contemporary vellum wallet binding.

(2) The documents apparently remained in Ferrara, in a private collection, from the 17th century until the 21st century.

Contents: Disposition of assets and conditions of the will ff.1-23, headed on f.1 ‘A di primo Genaro 1627 nella mia Casa porta in Ferrara’, in which his nephew Giacinto is named as his heir and including the stipulations that the collection be kept together, that no copies of the works should be made (f.17v), and that a copy of the will should be printed within a year of his death (f.22) and then reprinted every 40 years; inventory of the paintings, comprising artist attributions, brief descriptions of the works, whether they are framed, and a value for each, opening with a Madonna attributed to Francesco Francia and including works by Bellini, Benvenuto Tisi, Bartolomeo Ramenghi, Ludovico Mazzolino, Giovanni Battista Benvenuti, Parmigianino, Innocenzo da Imola, Dosso Dossi, Annibale Carracci, Titian, Sebastiano del Piombo, Lorenzo Costa, Girolamo Marchesi, Pisanello, Correggio, Raphael, Scarsellino, Francesco Salviati, Battista Franco Veneziano, Henry met de Bles, Antonello da Messina, Benedetto Coda, Gaspare Venturini; Giacomo Raibolini; Sebastiano Filippi, Paolo Veronese, Girolamo Da Carpi, Andrea Schiavone, Tintoretto, Jacopo Bassano, Mantegna, Guido Reni, Lorenzo Lotto, Polidoro da Caravaggio and others, along with a small number unattributed ff.24-35v; inventory of the drawings, comprising artist attributions, briefer descriptions, generally without values, featuring a number of the artists mentioned above and including works by Giulio Romano and Durer, alongside a self-portrait by Titian (‘Il Ritrato di Tiziano fatto di sua mano’ f.36v) ff.35v-37; further items, including letters on architecture, a writing desk, a box from China, bronzes, and sculptures ff.37-38v, ending abruptly after ‘Duoi Evangeli dell’ In principio erat verbum’.

The Ferrarese gentleman Roberto Canonici (1568-1631) went to great lengths to ensure that his exceptional collection of paintings and drawings was not only appreciated by his contemporaries during his life – up to four visitors from the Ferrarese public were allowed every day – but would be preserved intact after his death. Conditions attached to the will he drew up in January 1627 with the notary Giovanni Battista Brunaldi were designed to prevent the dispersal of the collection: they prohibit his heir Giacinto from deaccessioning or even lending the pieces kept in the building on Via San Benedetto and included the stipulation that the will be reprinted every 40 years. Despite Roberto’s wishes, an edition produced in 1632 was to be the first and only one: this booklet became so rare that Giuseppe Campori made a singular exception in his Raccolta di cataloghi ed inventarii inediti di quadri, statue, disegni, bronzi, dorerie, smalti, medaglie, avori, ecc. dal secolo XV al secolo XIX of 1870 (pp.104-138) to include the inventory of the Canonici collection, noting the extreme rarity of the edition. The stringent measures attached did not prevent the dispersal of the collection within a generation, hastened by a fire in 1638 which destroyed some of the works and the building that housed them, but Canonici's will preserves in documentary form the treasure trove of paintings and drawings amassed by this Renaissance tastemaker.

The notarised version of Roberto Canonici’s will, which is held at the Archivio di Stato di Ferrara, has been studied by Valentina Lapierre (Cappelletti, Ghelfi and Vicentini (eds.), Una storia silenziosa: Il collezionismo privato a Ferrara nel Seicento (2012), pp. 60-64). Many of the works survived the 1658 fire, but the conflagration represented a force majeure that allowed Giacinto to disperse the collection: he seems to have begun to sell some of the paintings within a week of the fire. Alongside attributions and brief descriptions in the inventory of the paintings, Canonici adds for each his own valuation, to be paid by his heir if he removes the item from the collection or if it suffers damage. These values range from 25 to 500 crowns, with the largest estimate attached to only two paintings: an Adoration of the Shepherds attributed to Titian and a Holy Family with Saint Anne by Andrea del Sarto. A Nativity by Pisanello is valued at only 30 crowns. Certain of the works can be identified in museum collections around the world – two paintings depicting the Passion of Christ by Carpaccio (attributed by Canonici to Mantegna) are held by the Metropolitan Museum in New York (11.118) and the Staatliche Museen, Berlin, while three paintings by Scarsellino are now in the Pallavicini Gallery in Rome and the Musée des Augustins of Toulouse – and others have passed through the rooms at auction, but there is still much work to be to done to reconstruct the collection. The present manuscript is hitherto unrecorded and has not been compared against the copy in Ferrara. While the text is almost identical to that reproduced in the Campori edition, it ends abruptly before the end of the inventory, and its survival alongside newly-discovered documents relating to the administration of the Canonici estate dating from 1630 onwards suggests it was produced before the printed edition.

[With six further manuscripts on paper, in Italian:]
Will of Leonello Canonici, 20 January 1630. 305 x 210mm, 5 pages, in the hand of notary Giovan Battista Squarcioni, paper wrappers;
document dated 27 May 1632, recording that Fra Francesco Vareti, a Friar of the Church of Santo Stefano, has received a printed copy of the will of Roberto Canonici from Giovan Battista Nicoli. 275 x 203mm, one page, bifolium;
document recording the efforts of Giacinto Canonici to resolve issues around the legacy of the late Roberto Canonici, in order to ‘conservare/ illesa e intatta l’heredità e beni lasciatali dal detto Signor Roberto’ (‘To conserve / unharmed and intact heredity and goods left by the said Mr. Roberto’), by paying out various sums of money to members of the Canonici family to keep the collection intact, dated 1635 in margin. 10 pages, 310 x 235mm;
two documents written for Cardinal Ciriaco Rocci, Cardinal Legate of Ferra, 26 March 1638, relating to the investigation of the fire [of 16 March 1638] ‘in which are perished more than the most of furniture for a great value, even most of the paintings, paintings, treasure chests, medals, stones and other things’ of the Canonici collection. 304 x 215mm and 270 x 195mm, single pages on bifolia;
and an extract of a 16th-century document stating a Canonici family claim to land in Bondeno, copied in Ferrara, 18 August 1752. 290 x 203mm, 13 pages.
All together in a contemporary limp vellum wrapper, tag and button surviving, inscribed ‘D. RUBERTI DE CANO / CUM ILLIS DE DONATO / ET ILLIS DE BONIEO’ (stained, scattered small losses and edges a little tattered, most notable at the spine)
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