意大利十六世纪风格主义画家布龙齐诺（Bronzino）传记（奥尔加画廊）

 

 

布龙齐诺（Agnolo Bronzino）出生于1503年11月17日。可用的少量信息显示他有一个温和的血统，是蒙蒂塞利郊区屠夫的儿子。由于来自下层阶级，他很可能没有姓氏。他的全名是 Agnolo di Cosimo di Mariano di Agnolo di Antonio di Agnolo di Toro。

他的早期训练是在一位身份不明的艺术家的监督下进行的，随后不久便与拉法利诺·德尔加博（Raffaellino del Garbo，1466-1527）进行了数年的合作。之后，布龙齐诺加入了蓬托尔莫（Pontormo，1494-1557）工作室，从中学习了他独特的艺术风格。布龙齐诺是导师的狂热崇拜者，他很快将成为蓬托尔莫最亲密的朋友之一。从所有可用的证据来看，布龙齐诺似乎没有什么个人野心，也没有争取成名，宁愿过一种更隐蔽、更简单的生活。

他作为画家的职业生涯始于1522年秋，罗马爆发瘟疫之后。尽管采取了所有预防措施，但这种疾病迅速蔓延到城市范围以外，并横扫整个乡村到达佛罗伦萨，导致同年11月死亡。为了逃避瘟疫，蓬托尔莫接受了装饰圣洛伦佐教堂的委托，将布龙齐诺一起带走。虽然布龙齐诺在这次冒险中扮演的角色主要是助理，但他还是设法画了两幅画作，《死亡基督与两个天使》（约1522年）和《圣劳伦斯的苦难》（约1522年），画在卡尔特修道院中两个半月形拱顶上。遗憾的是它们都没有保存下来。

瘟疫在第二年的春天消退，并于1523年3月22日完全消失。然而，蓬托尔莫和布龙齐诺一直留在切尔托萨直到1525年，在这期间布龙齐诺有时间用微缩模型画装饰几部天主教加尔都西会教士的宗教书籍。他们回到佛罗伦萨后不久，蓬托尔莫和布龙齐诺被委托为佛罗伦萨圣菲利西塔的卡波尼教堂创作几幅画。虽然在这个项目中，布龙齐诺也主要担任助理，但艺术史学家瓦萨里认为，至少有两个教堂的壁画是归于他的。由于他们非常相似的风格，许多现代艺术史学家对蓬托尔莫和他的学生究竟谁画了哪些壁画存在观点分歧，但最常被归因于布龙齐诺的是《圣马克》（1525-1528）和《圣卢克》（1525-1528）。

布龙齐诺的第一个个人委托是在他帮助装饰卡波尼教堂的同一时期接到的卡波尼家族的订单。在这个委托订单中，布龙齐诺《与圣伊丽莎白和婴儿圣约翰施洗者》（The Holy Family，1525-26）描绘了神圣家族，这是他最著名的作品之一，标志着他开始了自己的职业生涯。

随后的许多委托都是顾客及其亲属的肖像，包括《洛伦佐·伦兹肖像》（1527-28），《绿衣女郎》（1528-32），《男人肖像》（1530年代）和《年轻人肖像》《年轻雕塑家画像》（1530年代）。大约在这个时候，在罗马解体后不久，佛罗伦萨被神圣罗马帝国皇帝查理五世的势力围困，这激怒了布龙齐诺为他的一个客户画了《十万殉道者的殉难》（1530-32）。这幅画基于蓬托尔莫的壁画《圣莫里斯殉难》和《泰班军团》（Theban Legions，1529-30），看起来很像另一位艺术家作品的“缩写”版本，仅重现原作的左上角，描绘了殉道者的痛苦和天使送他们去洗礼。

在城市向帝国军投降后，恢复了流亡的美第奇家族的权力，布龙齐诺再次离开佛罗伦萨，据称是去寻找更多的客户，但他的离开也可能是因为受到另一次瘟疫爆发的严重影响，这些瘟疫是皇帝雇佣兵中的山地人带入城市的。

布龙齐诺很快在佩扎罗（意大利东部港市）找到了工作，他加入了来自意大利各地的一群艺术家的行列，其中包括吉罗拉莫·根加（Girolamo Genga，1476-1551），若弗琳诺·迪·库里（Raffaellino del Colle，1490-1566），门佐奇·弗朗西斯科（Francesco Menzocchi，1502–1574），巴蒂斯塔·多西(Battista Dossi,1490-1548），以及卡米利奥·曼托瓦诺（Camillo Mantovano，？-1568），他们在前一年被邀请到那里工作一年，装饰乌尔比诺公爵的皇家别墅一楼的八个大厅。由于许多艺术家参与了这个项目，并且有些壁画在接下来的几年里进行了翻新和重新绘制，所以不清楚别墅中的哪些作品是由布龙齐诺完成的，尽管有些记录表明他主要负责装饰描绘赫拉克勒斯劳役大厅和大礼堂（有些画可能与若弗琳诺配对）。然而，他在乌尔比诺公爵的工作并没有以别墅壁画的完成而结束，《一位夫人与狗》（1532-33），《阿波罗和马西亚肖像》（1530-32），以及公爵的儿子《古德巴尔多二世肖像》（1532年）都被认为是受公爵委托而作的。

布龙齐诺有点突然地回到佛罗伦萨，这在很大程度上归功于蓬托尔莫，他写信给他的同行艺术家，告诉他最近爆发的瘟疫已经过去了，还说他在画家弗朗西亚比吉奥（Franciabigio，1482-1525）和安德烈·德尔·萨托(Andrea del Sarto,1486-1530)的去世之前没有离开他们。 波吉欧凯诺的美第奇别墅项目尚未完工，亚历山德罗·德·美第奇任命蓬托尔莫完成别墅的装饰，而布龙齐诺很快就加入了他的壁画工作。但这个项目以及卡尔基的美第奇别墅（也被分配到蓬托尔莫和布龙齐诺）的装饰，由于亚历山德罗在1537年被暗杀而昙花一现，在此之后别墅的所有工作都停止了。

尽管如此，在美第奇别墅的工作期间，甚至在项目取消之后，布龙齐诺还收到了美第奇家族和其他顾客的许多佣金。这一时期他最著名的一些作品包括他的托莱多的埃利奥诺拉教堂（1541-43），《圣母怜子图》（1543-45），《维纳斯和丘比特的寓言》（1545）和美第奇家族的许多成员肖像。

众所周知，布龙齐诺是一位狂热的诗人，尽管他的作品很少出版。当时，诗歌被视为一种轻松的追求，最适合朋友和家人的娱乐，而不是独立的艺术形式。

绰号“布龙齐诺”的意思是“小青铜器”，首先在一份关于在圣特丽尼塔教堂支付《圣母怜子图》与《抹大拉的玛丽亚》（1529年）付款的文件中证实，其历史可以追溯到1529年，艺术家的名字被标记为“Agnolo di Chosimo pitore ditto Bronzino”，这是否“布龙齐诺”绰号的起源不得而知。最流行的理论包括，它是因为画家头发的颜色，或者他喜欢在他的许多画作中使用这种颜色。其他消息来源表明，这个绰号源于他的同性恋取向，因为当时铜（青铜的主要成分）也被用作肛门的俚语。这一理论也得到了一些事实的支持，即布龙齐诺没有任何形式的妻子或女性伴侣的记录。然而，大约在1528年左右，布龙齐诺结识了居住在佛罗伦萨的居民克里斯托弗诺·阿罗里(Cristofano Allori,1577-1621)，两人成了非常亲密的朋友，而布龙齐诺一直在阿罗里的家中居住。阿罗里在1541年夏天去世，而布龙齐诺被留下来照顾他的遗孀、四个孩子、他的母亲和侄女。对于这样规模的寄养家庭来说，布龙齐诺可能没有兴趣建立自己的家庭也就不足为奇了。

在他照顾的四个孩子中，最小的亚历山德罗.阿罗里(Alessandro Allori，1535 -1607)后来成为他最好的学生、继承人和艺术继承者。亚历山德罗不仅将自己称为“布龙齐诺”，而且他和他的兄弟塞巴斯蒂亚诺一起，都成为布龙齐诺遗嘱中的两位受益者，继承了艺术家的整个工作室和绘画工具。像他的养父一样，亚历山德罗钦佩蓬托尔莫的作品，并最终成为布龙齐诺的亲密朋友。

布龙齐诺于1572年11月23日去世。

Bronzino was born on November 17, 1503. What little information is available reveals that he was of modest descent, being the son of butcher from a suburb of Monticelli. Due to his hailing from a lower class, he most likely did not have a surname. His full name was Agnolo di Cosimo di Mariano di Agnolo di Antonio di Agnolo di Toro.

His early training took place under the supervision of an unidentified artist, followed shortly afterwards by several years of work with Raffaellino del Garbo (1476-1524). Afterwards Bronzino joined the studio of Pontormo, from whom he learned his distinctive artistic style. Bronzino was an avid admirer of his mentor and would soon become one of Pontormo’s closest friends. From all available evidence, Bronzino seemed to have little personal ambition and did not strive for fame, preferring to lead a more secluded, simple life.

His career as a painter only really began in autumn of 1522, after an outbreak of the plague in Rome. Despite all precautions, the disease quickly spread beyond the city limits and swept across the countryside to Florence, causing several deaths by November of the same year. In trying to escape the epidemic, Pontormo took on a commission to decorate the Certosa di San Lorenzo, taking Bronzino along with him. Although Bronzino’s role in this venture was mainly that of an assistant, he nevertheless managed to paint two paintings, Dead Christ with Two Angels (circa 1522) and Suffering of Saint Lawrence (circa 1522), in the lunettes above the front door of the charterhouse, neither of which has, unfortunately, survived.

The plague receded towards spring of the following year, and was gone completely by 22 March 1523. However, Pontormo and Bronzino remained at the Certosa until 1525, giving Bronzino time to decorate several of the Carthusian monks’ religious books with miniatures. Shortly after their return, Pontormo and Bronzino were commissioned several paintings for the Capponi Chapel in Santa Felicita, Florence. Although during this project, too, Bronzino mainly served as an assistant, at least two of the frescos in the chapel are attributed to him by art historian Vasari. Due to their very similar styles, many modern art historians are divided in their opinions on exactly which frescos were done by Pontormo and which by his student, but the ones most often attributed to Bronzino are St. Mark (1525-28) and St. Luke (1525-28).

Bronzino’s first individual commission was ordered around the same time period as he was helping decorate the Capponi Chapel, by the same family that owned it. For this commission Bronzino painted the Holy Family with Saint Elizabeth and the Infant Saint John the Baptist (1525-26), one of his more renowned works and what finally started his professional career.

Many of the commissions that followed were portraits of the patrons and their relatives, beginning with Portrait of Lorenzo Lenzi (1527-28), Lady in Green (1528-32), Portrait of a Man with a Book (1530s) and Portrait of Young Sculptor (1530s). Around this time, soon after the Sacking of Rome, Florence was besieged by the forces of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, which inspired Bronzino to paint Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand Martyrs (1530-32) for one of his clients. The painting, based on Pontormo’s fresco Martyrdom of St. Maurice and the Theban Legions (1529-30), looks much like an “abbreviated” version of the other artist’s work, recreating only the upper left corner of the original, which depicts the suffering of the martyrs and the Angel sent to baptize them.

After the city’s surrender to the imperial troops, who reinstated the exiled Medici family to power, Bronzino left Florence once again, allegedly in search of more clients. However, his departure was probably also heavily influenced by another outbreak of the plague, brought into the city by landsknechts in the employment of the emperor.

Bronzino soon found employment in Pesaro, where he joined a group of artists from all over Italy, among them Girolamo Genga, Raffaellino del Colle, Francesco Menzocchi, Dosso and Battista Dossi, and Camillo Mantovano, who had been invited there a year prior to decorate eight halls on the first floor of the Villa Imperiale by the Duke of Urbino. Due to so many artists being involved in the project, and some of the frescos being renovated and redrawn over the following years, it isn’t clear which of the works in the Villa were done by Bronzino, although some records indicate that he (in some cases perhaps paired with Raffaellino) was mainly tasked with decorating the Hall depicting the Labors of Hercules and the Grand Hall. His employment by the Duke of Urbino did not end with the Villa, however, and the Portrait of a Lady with Dog (1532-33), Apollo and Marsyas (1530-32), as well as a portrait of the duke’s son, Guidobaldo II della Rovere (1532), are all believed to have been done in service of the duke.

Bronzino’s somewhat abrupt return to Florence was due in no small part to Pontormo, who wrote to his fellow artist, informing him that the most recent outbreak of plague had passed, but not before claiming the lives of painters Franciabigio and Andrea del Sarto, leaving their projects in the Medici villa at Poggio a Caiano unfinished. Alessandro de’ Medici appointed Pontormo to finish the villa’s decoration, and Bronzino soon joined him to work on the frescos. However, this project, as well as the decoration of the Medici villa in Careggi (also assigned to Pontormo and Bronzino), was short-lived because of Alessandro’s assassination in 1537, after whose death all work on the villa ceased.

Nonetheless, between work on the Medici villas and even after the projects’ cancellation, Bronzino received many commissions from the Medici family, as well as other patrons. Some of his best known works from this period include his paintings in the Chapel of Eleonora of Toledo (1541-43), Lamentation (1543-45), An Allegory of Venus and Cupid (1545), and his many portraits of members of the Medici family.

It is known that Bronzino was an avid poet, though very few of his works were ever published. At the time, poetry was viewed as a frivolous pursuit suited best to the entertainment of friends and family, rather than an independent art form in itself.

The nickname “Bronzino,” meaning “little bronze,” was first attested to in a document concerning the payment for the Pietà with Mary Magdalene (1529) in the church of Santa Trinatà, dating back to 1529, where the artist’s name is listed as “Agnolo di Chosimo pitore ditto Bronzino.” The origins of the nickname are unknown. The most popular theories include that it was a reference to the painter’s hair color, or his preference to use this color in many of his paintings. Other sources suggest that the nickname arose in light of his homosexuality, since, at the time, copper (a prime constituent of bronze) was also used as a slang term for the anus. This theory is also somewhat backed by the fact that Bronzino is not recorded to have ever had a wife or female companion of any sort. However, no solid evidence exists to prove either what Bronzino’s hair color or his sexual preferences were, and his choice not to marry may be explained by the following fact:

Sometime around 1528, Bronzino became acquainted with Cristofano Allori, an armorer living Florence, and the two became such close friends that Bronzino eventually took up residence in Allori’s house. Allori passed away in the summer of 1541, and Bronzino was left to look after his widow, Dianora Sofferoni, his four children, his mother and his niece. With a foster family of this size, it would be unsurprising that Bronzino might have had no interest in starting a family of his own.

Of the four children left in his care, the youngest son, Alessandro Allori, would become his best pupil, heir and an artistic successor of sorts. Alessandro would not only dub himself “Bronzino,” but he, along with his brother Sebastiano, would also be one of two sole beneficiaries named in Bronzino’s will, inheriting the artist’s entire workshop and painting tools. Like his adoptive father, Alessandro admired the works of Pontormo and would eventually become a close friend of the painter in Bronzino's stead.

Bronzino died on November 23, 1572.

Bronzino: Painter and Poet at the Court of the Medici by Carlo Falciani, Antonio Natali. Mandragora, 2010.

The Drawings of Bronzino by Carmen C. Bambach, Janet Cox-Rearick, George R. Goldner. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2010.

Bronzino by Maurice Brock. Flammarion, 2002.

Pontormo, Bronzino, and the Medici: The Transformation of the Renaissance Portrait in Florence by Carl Brandon Strehlke. Pennsylvania State Univ Pr, 2004.

Pontormo, Bronzino, and Allori: A Geneaology of Florentine Art by Elizabeth Pilliod. Yale University Press, 2001.

Bronzino: Renaissance Painter as Poet by Deborah Parker. Cambridge University Press, 2000.