Tátrai Vilmos szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 95. (Budapest, 2001)
LICHNER, MAGDOLNA: Additional material to establishing the subject of Jacopo Bassano's Sleeping shepherd
The commentaries on Virgil written by Cristoforo Landino for the Medicis 64 do not favour the Christian interpretation, his main concern being textual and grammatical correctness. Ludovico (Juan Luis) Vives, on the other hand, treats the eclogues in his commentaries to Virgil, published in 1537 in Venice, as annunciations of the Messiah's arrival. 65 Yet Vives and Landino agree in one thing, namely that the poet, disguising himself in the figures of the simple shepherds, meditates on issues of existence, among others on the choice of life's path. Another prestigious writing of Landino, Disputationes camaldulenses, 66 in close connection with the commentaries to the Eclogues, deals with the problems of intellectual life. In this work he resumes the debate of the neoplatonist academy, established by the Medicis, on interpreting the words of the Virgilian shepherds. It went about the pros and cons of the 'scientific' (doctus), meditative existence versus 'ignorant' (indoctus), i.e. innocent state, about the meaning of 'otium', i.e. inactivity; on the other hand, the key issue was the evaluation of vita activa and vita contemplativa, respectively. A deciding participant of the debate was Alberti - it's to him we owe the term 'pastoral' - who had recourse to the biblical parable, that of the two sisters, Mary and Martha and their choice of fate concerning spiritual and secular activity. The text of the 'Disputationes' makes Alberti draw the conclusion: both sisters' choices were right, "ambae bonae". 67 The gesture of the recumbent shepherd seen both in the Adoration of the Galleria Borghese and in the Annunciation of Washington is repeated in two paintings from the 1560s in the motif of the sleeping shepherd, namely in the Budapest picture and in The Meeting of Jacob and Rachel at the Well (Torino, private collection), and also later, in the night scene of the late Annunciation to the Shepherds. The gestures are rather alike. The figure shown with drawn-up knees and closed eyes, leaning on his elbow, must have been an important element of the pictures made in the Bassano workshop, as two drawings of his are extant from those years. 68 One of them, Jacob's Ladder helps us to approach the meaning of this posture (fig. 75). The motif of sleep was a frequent subject in Italy and also in Venice in the first half of the 16th century, and had a peculiar though by no means disapproving - connotation. It is well shown by the story of Endymion, the shepherd that in his sleep unconsciously established contact with the transcendent world; in the neoplatonistic terms of Marsilio Ficino his state was the triumph 64 P. Vergilii opera cum commentario Christophori Landini, Florence 1487. 65 See note 34. 66 Camalduliensium disputationum Libri IV. I. (Strassburg 1508) recently published (ed. Peter Lohe) Florence 1980. 67 About the motivation of the participants in the discussion, the shades of the issue, its historical and ideological background see Patterson op.cit. (note 34.) 65-69. The iconography of the tombs for Medici and for Pope Julius by Michelangelo are the best known examples to the sculptural representation of the same domain of ideas, while they are also proofs to the survival of neoplatonist thought to the 16th century. See Tolnay, Ch. Studi sulla capella Medicea. I-II. L'Arte, 1934. 5-44. and 281-307; as well as Wilde, J., Zwei Modelle Michelangelos für Juliusgrabmal. Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien N.F.II. 1928, 199-218. 68 Young Shepherd, chalk drawing ca. 1566. Firenze, Museo Home, (deposited in the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi) and Jacob's Ladder, Vaduz, Stiftung Ratjen, also a chalk drawing.
