Giulio Clovio

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Portrait of Giorgio Giulio Clovio, pointing to his Farnese Hours, by El Greco.
Portrait of Giorgio Giulio Clovio, pointing to his Farnese Hours, by El Greco.

Giorgio Giulio Clovio (Croatian: Juraj Julije Klović; 1498–January 5, 1578), was a Renaissance illuminator, miniaturist, and painter, born in Croatia, who worked in Renaissance Italy. He was also a priest. He is considered the greatest illuminator of the Italian High Renaissance, and arguably the last very notable artist in the long tradition of the illuminated manuscript, before some modern revivals.

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[edit] Origins

Clovio was born in Grižane, near Crikvenica in Kvarner bay, Croatia, in what was then the the diocese of Modruš. [1]. Croatian sources claim that his name was probably Juraj Klović[2] and the Catholic Encyclopedia states that his original name was perhaps Glović[3], while J.W.Bradley speculates that Clovio's surname was Glovičić.[4]

[edit] Career

He is said to have trained in Dalmatia, and to have studied afterwards at Rome under Giulio Romano, and at Verosia under Girolamo dai Libri. He excelled in historical pieces and portraits, painting in minute detail, much of which needs to be seen with a magnifying-glass, and yet contriving to handle his subjects with great force and precision.

An illuminated page from his Colonna hours, John Rylands Library, Manchester.
An illuminated page from his Colonna hours, John Rylands Library, Manchester.

He worked in Venice, Florence and elsewhere, with a long active period in Rome where he died. He worked mostly for royal and clerical private collectors. His grave is in the Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli, the church containing Michelangelo's celebrated Moses.

Clovio arrived at Venice from Croatia at the age of 18 [1]. There he became a protégé of Cardinal Domenico Grimani and engraved medals and seals for him, as well as the Grimani Commentary Ms., an important early illuminated book (now Sir John Soane's Museum, London). By 1524 Clovio was at Buda, at the Hungarian court of King Louis II, for whom he painted the "Judgment of Paris" and "Lucretia". After Louis' death in the Battle of Mohács, Clovio travelled to Rome where he continued his career.

Clovio was a friend of the much younger El Greco, the celebrated Greek artist from Crete, who later worked in Spain, during El Greco's early years in Rome. Greco painted two portraits of Clovio; one shows the four painters whom he considered as his masters; in this Clovio is side by side with Michelangelo, Titian and Raphael. Clovio was also known as Michelangelo of the miniature. Books with his miniatures became famous primarily due to his skilled illustrations. He was persuasive in transferring the style of Italian high Renaissance painting into the miniature format.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder stayed with Clovio in Rome during his Italian trip of 1558; he executed a small medallion on a Clovio miniature (New York Public Library), but the six Bruegels in mentioned in Clovio's will have all disappeared.

His most famous work is the Farnese Hours, completed in 1546 for Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, which was nine years in the making (now Morgan Library, New York). He is pointing to this work in the El Greco portrait (above). This contains twenty-eight miniatures, mostly of Old and New Testament scenes, but with a famous double-page picture representing the Corpus Christi procession in Rome. It has splendid silver-gilt covers, although they are not by Benvenuto Cellini, as Vasari claimed. The British Library has his twelve miniatures of the victories of the Emperor Charles V, and other works. The Vatican library has a manuscript life of Frederigo III di Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, superbly illustrated by Clovio. The Towneley Lectionary is now in the New York Public Library and probably belonged to Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. Used during services, the book contained six majestic, full-page miniatures opposite miniature depictions of the Evangelists. The illustrations, introduced the relevant readings from the Scripture. They include the Resurrection and the Last Judgment.

Other illustrations by him are kept in libraries in Vienna, New York, Munich, and Paris, and other works are in many private collections. A small part of his work is viewable in Klovićevi Dvori ("Palace of Klović"), the art gallery dedicated to him in Zagreb.

According to a description written for publication by Antonfrancesco Cirni, he also designed many of the costumes for the famously elaborate wedding festivities of Ortensia Borromeo in March 1565, which were held in the Vatican and included a tournament in the Belvedere coutyard. Such duties were often expected of a Renaissance court painter. The costumes are carefully recorded in a series of anonymous etchings, some probably based on Clovio's design drawings.

[edit] 500th Anniversary

Croatia celebrated the 500th anniversary of his birth in 1998. The Croatian National Bank issued a special 200 kuna silver coin in commemoration. A monument to Clovio/Klović was also raised in Drivenik. The Croatian government recently made news by purchasing Clovio's The Last Judgement, a painting Clovio gave as a gift to Pope Clement VII. Bernardin Modrić released his film The Gospel According to Klović in 2006. The Vatican celebrated this anniversary with postal stamps.

[edit] Bibliography

  • Renaissance and Reformation, 1500-1620: A Biographical Dictionary (The Great Cultural Eras of the Western World) by Jo Eldridge Carney (editor) Greenwood Press 2001. Clovio Giulio p. 88-89
  • Histoire des arts industriels an moyen age et a l'epoque de la Renaissance: 2:e ed. [Illustr.] by Charles Jules Labarte - 1866 - Clovio (Giulio), miniaturiste italien, p. 256-8
  • The Life and Works of Giorgio Giulio Clovio, Miniaturist: with notices of his contemporaries, and of the art of decoration in the Sixteenth Century - by John William Bradley - 1891
  • Painters and Their Works: A Dictionary of Great Artists who are Not Now Alive by Ralph N James - 1896 - Clovio Giulio - p. 201-3
  • Memoirs of the early Italian painters, and of the progress of painting in Italy by Jameson (Anna) - 1859 Clovio Giulio-p. 269-270

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Vasari, Giorgio:Le Vite delle più eccellenti pittori, scultori, ed architettori, Volume 6, p.213.
  2. ^ "Croatians - Christianity, Culture and Art ", Croatian Government Bulletin, September / October 1999.
  3. ^ Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IV: article on Giorgio Clovio, by Louis Gillet, Robert Appleton Company, New York, 1908.
  4. ^ The Life and Works of Giorgio Giulio Clovio, Miniaturist: With Notices of His Contemporaries ... By John William Bradley; on the page 19 it reads:
    I have followed the statement of Sakcinski, the learned compiler of the Lexicon of South Slavonic Artists, who decides on the one I have already given. ... The name Giulio or Julius signed to many of his pictures, and by which in later life he was universally known,...
    The Lexicon of South Slavonic Artists is actually Slovnik umjetnikah jugoslavenskih od Ivana Kukuljevića Sakcinskoga U Zagrebu 1858 Tiskom Narodne tiskarne dra Ljudevita Gaja. On the Page 176 - it reads:
    Klovio Juraj Julio, najslavniji sitnoslikar. Rodio se g. 1498 u Grižanah, neznatnom selu hrvatskoga Primorja, u kotaru vinodolskom. Što mu bijehu roditelji i kako se zvahu, to se žalibože jošte ne zna. Neima sumnje da je njegovo prezime stoprv u Italiji, po običaju onoga vremena, preinačeno i potalijančeno. U cielom hrvatskom Primorju neima ni jednoga pisanoga spomenika, u kom bi se spominjalo ime porodice Klovio. Naprotiv dolaze u pismih onoga vremena: "Glovičić" i "Glavičić" u Grižanah i u Novom, "Glovon" i "Glavan" u Trsatu, "Glavić" u Bosni, a poslije u Dalmaciji i hrvatskom Primorju.
    Translation: Klovio Juraj Julio, the most celebrated miniaturist. He was born in the year of 1498 in Grižane, an unknown village of the Croatian Primorje (Adriatic coastline) in the Vinodol county. What were his parents and what are their names - unfortunately, it is not known yet. There is no doubt that his family name was one-hundred-and-first time - in Italy and according to the customs of those times - altered and italienized. In the whole Croatian Primorje there is no a single written monument in which the name of Klovio family was mentioned. Contrary to that there are - in the writings of that time - "Glovičić" and "Glavičić" in Grižane and in Novi, "Glovon" and "Glavan" in Trsat, "Glavić" in Bosnia, and after in Dalmatia and Croatian Primorje.
    Josip Juraj Strossmayer is quoted in this book written in the year of 1906:
    Nacrt života i djela biskupa J.J. Strossmayera: izabrani njegovi spisi, govori, rasprave i okružnice by Jugoslavenska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti, Tadija Smičiklas - 1906 - on the page 251 it reads
    "Najdivnije minijature, najuzvišenije slike svećenici su negda sami slikali, n.pr. naš Clovio, Angeliko Fiesole i brat mu Benedetto i.t.d."
    Translation: The most beautiful miniatures, the most elevated paintings the priests alone painted some time ago, i.e. our Clovio, Angeliko Fiesole and his brother Benedetto e.t.c.

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