Coppertopp, Thuper Thleuth!
I've been super-busy, completing rewrite number three of Mother of the Bride, which is an agonizingly slow process, in part because I am *so* ready to be working on something else. My muse has already shifted gears back into novel mode, because it's autumn, the novel-writing season.
When I find myself blocked on the script, I do research for the novel, or else go through my collection of visuals, looking at my characters and trying to slip back into their skins again, since I haven't spent any time with them since January.
While looking at this picture of Pinturicchio's Disputation of Saint Catherine, something struck me about it:
I have read in historical sources that Pope Alexander put all of his favorite children in this picture, Vanozza's kids. And I have seen the picture of Lucrezia as Catherine mentioned and sited as a portrait of her:
I have also seen the picture of Joffre and Sancia standing together sited as portaits of them:
But I have only ever seen one reference to one of these figures being Juan, and none about Cesare being in the painting.
Doesn't that strike you as odd, given how much time historians, both professional and amateur, have spent parsing every existing scrap of information about the Borgia family? I decided to rectify the situation, and spent a few hours staring at the figures in the picture and comparing them against other existing portraits, because I'm a freak like that. (And also because a scene in my novel discusses this painting and the characters who are portrayed in it in detail.)
We have several confirmed pictures of Cesare from other sources. There are these sketches done by Leonardo da Vinci while he was in Cesare's service:
There is also this portrait, bearing his name, that was almost certainly painted during his lifetime:
And there's this one painted by Altobello Meloni that isn't confirmed but is traditionally held to be him:
I have my doubts about that, given that Meloni wasn't born until 1490, so he would have to have been very, very young (like, 13 or thereabouts) when this was painted. Cesare was a very wealthy and powerful duke. Would such a prestigious assignment have been given to an assistant artist who wasn't even old enough to shave yet? Possible, but doubtful. The picture might have been posthumous, but if it was, how would he know what Cesare looked like unless he was copying from another portrait that has been lost to history? Either way, it makes the portrait useful, but less authoritative as an accurate indicator or what he looked like.
We have no pictures of Juan, although I have seen this one sited as possibly being him (or Cesare):
So, given the evidence we have in these pictures and what can be seen in the mural itself, can we figure out who is Cesare and who is Juan?
This painting is very busy, and there are a number of figures vying for attention. I kept flipping back and forth, unable to decide which ones most closely resembled the portraits I had. I found Prince Djem based on another portrait I had of him, and I found Pinturicchio himself. But I couldn't decide which ones were the guys I was looking for.
Then, I pulled up the entire mural and looked at it fresh, and suddenly, it punched me in the face. Rodrigo had three favorite children: Lucrezia, Juan, and Cesare. (He was less fond of poor Joffre.) There are three figures in this picture that are bigger and more prominent by far than all the others - Lucrezia, the philosopher standing behind her, and the Turkish-looking mounted figure on the far right. Go ahead, go back and look, see for yourself. I'll wait.
See it?
That has to be them. So, the only question is, which one is Juan and which is Cesare? At first glance, the rider more closely resembles the portraits we have of Cesare.
But! Juan is recorded to have been really in to Turkish-style fashions at this time - he wore a Turkish outfit to Lucrezia's wedding to Giovanni Sforza. Very flashy. Also, if you look at the nose, you will notice that it is larger and more aquiline than Cesare's is in any of his confirmed portraits. Cesare had his mother's straight nose and was said to have fine features. The rider's features are a bit more coarse, and the nose more like a scaled-down version of his father's huge schnozz.
That would mean that this is Juan:
But can the philosopher possibly be Cesare? He looks nothing at all like the pictures we have.
I found myself second-guessing my findings. The evidence was firm that the rider was Juan, but the remaining guy doesn't look like the existing pictures of Cesare. What was I missing? Then, it bitch-slapped me again.
Duh! Cesare was still a priest. Those other pictures were done when he was older and had renounced the cassock. The only description we have of him at the age of eighteen, which is when this was painted, said that he wore his hair in a small tonsure, like a simple priest. Most clergy with rank as high as his wore large tonsures (a spot on the top of the head that they shaved to mark themselves as priests). But Cesare was young and somewhat vain. Not as vain as Juan, but still. For someone who didn't want to be a clergyman at all, it had to be galling to shave your hair every day into a style that screamed, "Priest!" So he kept it as low-key as he could get away with. But he still would have worn his hair shorter and probably would have shaved his face as well, just like his father did. And the fine features are there - the straight nose, the high cheekbones, the square jaw.
That means that this is Cesare Borgia, aged eighteen:
Mystery solved! It's too bad that novels don't do the photo gallery thing. I would totally put this in.
When I find myself blocked on the script, I do research for the novel, or else go through my collection of visuals, looking at my characters and trying to slip back into their skins again, since I haven't spent any time with them since January.
While looking at this picture of Pinturicchio's Disputation of Saint Catherine, something struck me about it:
I have read in historical sources that Pope Alexander put all of his favorite children in this picture, Vanozza's kids. And I have seen the picture of Lucrezia as Catherine mentioned and sited as a portrait of her:
I have also seen the picture of Joffre and Sancia standing together sited as portaits of them:
But I have only ever seen one reference to one of these figures being Juan, and none about Cesare being in the painting.
Doesn't that strike you as odd, given how much time historians, both professional and amateur, have spent parsing every existing scrap of information about the Borgia family? I decided to rectify the situation, and spent a few hours staring at the figures in the picture and comparing them against other existing portraits, because I'm a freak like that. (And also because a scene in my novel discusses this painting and the characters who are portrayed in it in detail.)
We have several confirmed pictures of Cesare from other sources. There are these sketches done by Leonardo da Vinci while he was in Cesare's service:
There is also this portrait, bearing his name, that was almost certainly painted during his lifetime:
And there's this one painted by Altobello Meloni that isn't confirmed but is traditionally held to be him:
I have my doubts about that, given that Meloni wasn't born until 1490, so he would have to have been very, very young (like, 13 or thereabouts) when this was painted. Cesare was a very wealthy and powerful duke. Would such a prestigious assignment have been given to an assistant artist who wasn't even old enough to shave yet? Possible, but doubtful. The picture might have been posthumous, but if it was, how would he know what Cesare looked like unless he was copying from another portrait that has been lost to history? Either way, it makes the portrait useful, but less authoritative as an accurate indicator or what he looked like.
We have no pictures of Juan, although I have seen this one sited as possibly being him (or Cesare):
So, given the evidence we have in these pictures and what can be seen in the mural itself, can we figure out who is Cesare and who is Juan?
This painting is very busy, and there are a number of figures vying for attention. I kept flipping back and forth, unable to decide which ones most closely resembled the portraits I had. I found Prince Djem based on another portrait I had of him, and I found Pinturicchio himself. But I couldn't decide which ones were the guys I was looking for.
Then, I pulled up the entire mural and looked at it fresh, and suddenly, it punched me in the face. Rodrigo had three favorite children: Lucrezia, Juan, and Cesare. (He was less fond of poor Joffre.) There are three figures in this picture that are bigger and more prominent by far than all the others - Lucrezia, the philosopher standing behind her, and the Turkish-looking mounted figure on the far right. Go ahead, go back and look, see for yourself. I'll wait.
See it?
That has to be them. So, the only question is, which one is Juan and which is Cesare? At first glance, the rider more closely resembles the portraits we have of Cesare.
But! Juan is recorded to have been really in to Turkish-style fashions at this time - he wore a Turkish outfit to Lucrezia's wedding to Giovanni Sforza. Very flashy. Also, if you look at the nose, you will notice that it is larger and more aquiline than Cesare's is in any of his confirmed portraits. Cesare had his mother's straight nose and was said to have fine features. The rider's features are a bit more coarse, and the nose more like a scaled-down version of his father's huge schnozz.
That would mean that this is Juan:
But can the philosopher possibly be Cesare? He looks nothing at all like the pictures we have.
I found myself second-guessing my findings. The evidence was firm that the rider was Juan, but the remaining guy doesn't look like the existing pictures of Cesare. What was I missing? Then, it bitch-slapped me again.
Duh! Cesare was still a priest. Those other pictures were done when he was older and had renounced the cassock. The only description we have of him at the age of eighteen, which is when this was painted, said that he wore his hair in a small tonsure, like a simple priest. Most clergy with rank as high as his wore large tonsures (a spot on the top of the head that they shaved to mark themselves as priests). But Cesare was young and somewhat vain. Not as vain as Juan, but still. For someone who didn't want to be a clergyman at all, it had to be galling to shave your hair every day into a style that screamed, "Priest!" So he kept it as low-key as he could get away with. But he still would have worn his hair shorter and probably would have shaved his face as well, just like his father did. And the fine features are there - the straight nose, the high cheekbones, the square jaw.
That means that this is Cesare Borgia, aged eighteen:
Mystery solved! It's too bad that novels don't do the photo gallery thing. I would totally put this in.