PhD Program in Historical studies
Rubens between Mantua and Madrid
The connoisseurs artists, diplomats and politicians who dashed between Spain, Italy and Flanders for three decades, from the early years of the seventeenth century, got to know the symbolic power of the Gonzaga collection. The person responsible for transforming Europe’s cultural network was he who transformed and exported the message of the collection: Pieter Paul Rubens. The commissions that, since 1600, he was given by Vincenzo GonzagaVincenzo I Gonzaga (1562-1612) was the Duke of Mantua and Monferrato since 1587 until his death. He was one of the great princes of the Italian Renaissance, a lover of luxury and feasts but also a powerful patron of artists and writers. Among others, he freed Torquato Tasso from captivity, hosted the composer Claudio Monteverdi at the court and hired the Flemish artist Pieter Paul Rubens as painter and diplomat. After his first and never consummated marriage with Margherita Farnese, the daughter of the Duke of Parma, Vincent married his second wife Eleonora de’ Medici, daughter of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. and his wife Eleonora de’ Medici, show that the artist entered into the heart of the family to portray all its components in the private and intimate sphere. The following years were a crescendo of commissions for him, which set him apart from the quiet and obedient Pourbus who had been chosen as court painter. Travel, appraising works of art, diplomatic missions, all were as important for Vincenzo as Rubens’s artistic talent, which gave him enormous freedom within the ducal collections. During the early years of the seventeenth century, the journey of Rubens to Valladolid and then to Madrid as a servant of the Duke of Mantua to bring gifts to Philip III and the Duke of Lerma was fundamental. During the trip from Livorno to Valladolid, the artist, who presented himself as a draftsman and painter of the “Most Serene Duke of Mantua”, had experienced problems with the packaging of his shipment and some of the 50 paintings that he had brought as a gift were damaged. Undaunted, he adjusted some, repainted others and his resourcefulness was rewarded with the complete satisfaction of the Duke of Lerma, who placed them on the walls of his residence. At this time the extraordinary artistic career of Rubens the diplomat-artist began, who distributed the pictures in the gallery of the Duke to his liking and turned them into an unicum, so that they lost their individual value, acquiring sense as a whole. The report of July 18, 1603 compiled by Annibale Iberti, the Mantuan ambassador in Spain regarding the success of the Spanish mission, is a masterpiece of diplomacy. Iberti tells of the way in which the painter had prepared the paintings in the gallery, putting each one of the frames to make them bigger and that the Duke believed them to be all original. The mission, in addition to being a personal success for the Flemish painter, marked the emergence of Vincenzo I as a collector and patron who was always up to date and attentive to what was fashionable in the Iberian peninsula. On this occasion, the Spanish Duke commissioned his equestrian portrait to Rubens (Madrid, Museo del Prado, image). Here, mindful of his Italian experience, the Flemish artist was inspired by the famous portrait of Charles V on horseback by Titian (Madrid, Museo del Prado), which was reformulated in the Baroque manner, providing greater dynamism, tension and monumentality. After his extraordinary success with this work, the Spanish court tried to convince him to stay, but he found the role that he played in the Italian court of the Gonzaga more attractive, where he knew with certainty that he still had much to learn.