Andrea della Valle
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Cardinal Andrea della Valle (November 29, 1463 – August 3, 1534) was an Italian clergyman and art collector.
Of an ancient family of Roman nobles whose family tomb is in Santa Maria in Aracoeli, he was elected bishop of Crotone in 1496. In 1503-05 he directed the Apostolic Chancery, and served as Apostolic secretary during the pontificate of Pope Julius II. He was transferred to the titular diocese of Miletus in 1508, which he resigned in favor of his nephew Quinzio Rustici on November 26, 1523. He participated in the Fifth Lateran Council, 1512, and was created cardinal priest in the consistory of July 1, 1517. He participated in the conclaves of 1521-22 and 1523. As archpriest of the patriarchal Liberian basilica (1520) he ceremonially opened and closed the Holy Door in the Jubilee Year of 1525.
Cardinal della Valle is best remembered, however, as the collector of one of the first collections of Roman antiquities that marked the High Renaissance. Inspired by the Cortile del Belvedere, in 1520 he commissioned the sculptor architect Lorenzetto Lotti to create a suitable setting for the sculptures and inscriptions and other antiquities that he had amassed, the result of a generation of rediscoveries at the turn of the 16th century. On the main floor of the palazzo courtyard the sculptures were displayed in a sort of loggia, described by Giorgio Vasari as a hortus pensilis or hanging garden (giardino di sopra) that included planted raised boxes and an aviary. The architectural framing and the great care with which the ensemble was presented— as decorative as it was scholarly, evoking Classical harmony, symmetry and equilibrium— was a model for other Roman collections. Many visitors left written impressions during the 16th century, and more than one artist made sketches. Martin Heemskerck's drawing was etched by Hieronymus Cock in 1558 and circulated among connoisseurs of the Antique.
At his death the Palazzo Valle passed to his nephew, Camillo Capranica, and gained the name Palazzo Valle-Capranica. In 1584 the collection was purchased en bloc by Cardinal Ferdinand de' Medici and dispersed among various Medici dwellings, mostly at the Villa de Medici in Rome, but transferred in part to Florence, where della Valle sculptures can be seen today in the Palazzo Pitti and the Boboli Gardens, in the Uffizi and at the Medici villa at Poggio Imperiale, A theatre was built in the Cardinal's courtyard, which gave its name to the via Teatro Valle
[edit] References
- Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church: "Andrea della Valle"
- Bibliothèque National: "Dessins de la Renaissance" Two drawings of the collection at Palazzo Valle, one by Martin Heemskerck (1498-1574), who was in Rome ca 1532– 1536, the other attributed to Hendrick van Cleve, ca 1550. Illustrated. (in French). Among identifiable pieces, the Marsyas of the Uffizi, the Apollo with Lyre of Poggio Imperiale, the Minerva of Palazzo Pitti and others.
