THE FERRARA ARTISTS, FRANCESCO DEL COSSA AND ERCOLE DE’ ROBERTI
After working in the Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara, Francesco del
Cossa decided to return to Bologna, where he produced some important
works, such as the perspective fresco in the church of the Baraccano
(1472). With Ercole de’ Roberti, he also painted the monumental polyptych
for the Griffoni family chapel in San Petronio (1473), which was dismantled
in the 18th century and is now divided among several museums.
Both leading figures of the Bolognese Renaissance, they were later
responsible for the decoration of the Garganelli chapel, located on the
northern side of the ancient Bolognese cathedral of San Pietro. The work
was carried out consecutively between 1477 and 1485: Cossa worked
on the slab for the tomb of Domenico Garganelli (Bologna, Museo Civico
Medievale) and painted the “eight-sided” vaulted ceiling with numerous
figures foreshortened from below.
After his death (1478), the project was
continued by Ercole, who worked on the side walls, with the Crucifixion on
the right and the Death of the Virgin on the left.
The chapel, which the young Michelangelo had praised as being
“una meza Roma di bontà – half of what is good about Rome”, collapsed
with the rest of the mediaeval nave in the early 17th century. There is
only one remaining precious fragment of the paintings that Count
Alessandro Tanari had detached “a massello” [10.2], while the sacristy of
Saint Peter's Cathedral houses a partial copy of the Crucifixion painted by
Francesco Carboni around 1610.
