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Res. Katalogtext: Description in Italian Paintings: Three Centuries of Collecting, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2015, cat.no. 79: 

FORMER INV. NOS.: 149 (M. 1796–97); 38 (F. 1798); 99 (M. 1804);
KM 930.

TECHNICAL NOTES: The support consists of a medium-coarse,
densely woven, plain-weave linen fabric. It has been lined with glue
and mounted with staples on a Martelli strainer. The tacking edges
are cropped. The ground is red-brown. The paint layer is heavily
cracked, with a few retouches along the edges. The varnish is yellowed.
The painting is in fair condition. Documented restoration:
1924: Cleaning, removal of varnish and damage caused by water.

PROVENANCE: Martelli 1804.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: NM Cat. 1867, p. 6 (as Niccolò Circignani, called
il Pomarancio); Sander 1872–76, III, p. 101, no. 99 (as Pomarancio);
NM Cat. 1958, p. 233 (as anonymous, 17th century); NM Cat. 1990,
p. 420 (as anonymous, 17th century).

This painting was attributed to Cristoforo
Roncalli, called Pomarancio (1551–1626), both by
Martelli and by Corvi and Tofanelli.¹

In 1589 Roncalli was commissioned by Orazio
Rucellai to paint frescoes for four chapels in
the church of Sant’Andrea della Valle.² Orazio
was a member of the famous Rucellai family of
Florence, and possibly he wanted a Tuscan artist
to decorate his chapel. It is likely that Roncalli
was introduced to him by Virgilio Crescenzi,
who was also patron of a chapel in the church.
However, work on Rucellai’s chapel did not begin
until 1603. It was completed in September 1605,
after Rucellai had died and was entombed in the
chapel.

Unfortunately, there are only a few remnants
of Roncalli’s decorations in situ today: at the
beginning of the 18th century the whole cycle
deteriorated, possibly because, as it seems, it was
painted in oils on stucco. Amongst the lost masterpieces
is his famous altarpiece of the subject
most favoured as a symbol of the Counter-Reformation,
St Michael Defeating the Demons. This
painting was held in the highest esteem throughout
the 17th and 18th centuries, but its influence
on later artists’ interpretations of the subject,
such as those of Guido Reni and Luca Giordano,
seems constantly to have been forgotten or
ignored.³

Fortunately, though, an engraving executed
in 1618 after Roncalli’s lost altarpiece can help
us to understand something of the power of the
original.⁴ Two preparatory drawings relating to
the painting also survive. In the studies, Roncalli
“elaborates on observations made directly from
the model”,⁵ with the aim of perfecting the interplay
of characters and harmonizing the composition.
One of the drawings contains studies for
the demons. The other drawing must be quite a
late study, as it shares the general characteristics
of St Michael in the engraving, which seems to
be a faithful adaptation of the lost painting. The
pose of the nude, covered in part by an undulating
cape, was influenced by Raphael, but it
has been suggested that the composition partly
derives from an engraving after a drawing of the
Fall of Icarus by Giuseppe Cesari.⁶

In the study, St Michael holds in his right
hand the traditional lance, while in the engraving
he brandishes a bundle of bright flames,
with his arm raised higher. This permits him to
advance unhindered into the foremost plane of
the composition, without the lance diminishing
the imposing forward gesture. Roncalli was
greatly interested in sculpture and perhaps this
made him strive for an almost tangible three-dimensionality
in the figure’s reach in the painting.
His execution of the lower part of the torso of
St Michael was most probably influenced by the
Laocoön. To some extent, this could also be true
of the dramatic juxtapositions of the demons and
the use of a serpent entwined around limbs. The
influence of this sculpture would not only lend
plasticity to the painting but also, by association,
reinforce its symbolism: the pagan defeated and
the Catholic Church triumphant.⁷

The present painting would appear to have the
hallmarks of an oil study for the colours of a fresco,
perhaps even a modello for the composition,
combining summarily executed parts with finely
painted details such as the beautiful Mannerist
face of the archangel. However, placing the work
in Roncalli’s creative sequence poses a problem,
given the way it differs from the engraving, and
given the close similarities between the drawings
and the engraving. If it was painted as a study
for the altarpiece, it would be contrary to the
typical working process of the artist at this time.
The oil study would have to have been an early
draft, a macchia, in which elements found in the
finished painting, like the bundle of flames and
the halo shape of the undulating cape, are present,
but where the pose of St Michael is quite
different. Also, the demon in the oil study seems
to be a composite of the two central demons in
the Roncalli painting, as seen in the engraving:
the one directly below the archangel, with the
dramatically outstretched hand, and the one to
the right, with the accentuated, finely detailed
shoulder blades and the head turned in an
upside-down profile. The pose of St Michael in
the Uffizi drawing, together with the shape of
his cape, on the other hand, corresponds almost
exactly to the engraving.

Even if it is possible, it is unlikely that Roncalli,
after painting an oil study, would return to
drawing preliminary studies. The few previously
known oil studies by this artist are all quite close
to the corresponding paintings, and if the present
painting is viewed as an oil study by him it
contradicts this pattern.⁸ In all likelihood, the
present work was instead painted later, with the
Roncalli painting as inspiration. In fact, it could
probably not have been produced without the inspiration
from his lost masterpiece, perhaps best
evidenced by the idiosyncratic use of the bunch
of flames instead of a sword or lance.

With this in mind, several characteristics of
the study point to a 17th-century artist such as
Luca Giordano (1634–1705). Giordano executed
two large altarpieces of the same subject, now in
Berlin and in Vienna, and also made extensive
use of oil studies.⁹ Comparing the Giordano
paintings with the Roncalli engraving, it is quite
probable that Giordano used Roncalli’s interpretation
as a template, while also retaining influences
from Raphael’s and Guido Reni’s famous
paintings of the subject.

Of the two Giordano paintings, the present
work is closer to the one in Berlin, especially if
we consider the figure of St Michael: his torso,
outstretched right arm and in particular the
profile of his face, hair and neck. The compositional
relationship between the head, torso and
wings is close between the present painting and
the Berlin painting. However, as regards St Michael’s
raiment, there is a closer resemblance to
the Vienna painting. There, the movement of the
flowing cape is quite similar to that found in the
oil study, though it does not create a halo around
the archangel’s head in the same way. In the
Vienna picture we also find the figure closest to
the Satan of the present work. The demon in the
lower centre has the same kind of pose, with the
articulated shoulder blades and the upside-down
profile of the face.

However, unlike Giordano’s paintings, the
present work retains the bundle of flames held by
the archangel in the Roncalli painting. The chain
around Satan’s neck is also missing in both of
Giordano’s works, a feature that is instead found
in Guido Reni’s interpretation of the subject (c.
1636, in the church of Santa Maria della Concezione,
Rome). In addition, the legs of Satan in
the present painting are similar to yet another
representation of the subject, this time Cavaliere
d’Arpino’s.¹⁰

The Roncalli painting is mentioned in guidebooks
as late as 1763, and must readily have been
drawn on for inspiration by Roman artists in the
17th and 18th centuries, together with the earlier
interpretations.¹¹ This is true of both Luca Giordano
and Guido Reni. In all likelihood, the artist
who painted the work at hand would have been
familiar with all the predecessors. Giacinto Brandi’s
altarpiece in the Collegiata di San Michele
Arcangelo in Fermo bears the close resemblance
to the present work as well as to the famous
predecessors. Although St. Michael brandishes a
sword in this painting and his face is turned more
towards the viewer, the depiction of his body,
especially the positioning of his limbs, is very
close to the Nationalmuseum painting. However,
at this point I only know this painting through a
poor b/w photograph and cannot make a closer
comparison between it and the present work.¹²

It is clear that characteristics such as the
bundle of flames and the halo-like cloak were
associated with Roncalli’s altarpiece to such a
degree that it was natural both for Martelli and
for Corvi and Tofanelli to attribute the painting
to him, although this strong association probably
also meant that they were thrown off the
right track in their assessment of it. Through its
early attribution, and its association with the lost
altarpiece, the present work is nevertheless of
importance in reassessing Roncalli’s influence on
later artists’ interpretations of an integral theme
of the Counter-Reformation.
dp

1 NM Archives, Kongl. Museum, F:1, Catalogue du Cabinet
de Martelli (à Rome).
2 Kirwin 1978, pp. 18 ff., 38–39, 57, note 101, pl. 49; Kirwin
1979, pp. 52–54, cat. nos. 29–31, figs. 31–32, 34.
3 Pepper 1984, p. 272, cat. no. 154, pl. 180.
4 Kirwin 1978, fig. 49.
5 Kirwin 1978, p. 38.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
8 Pouncey 1977, pp. 223–225.
9 Cassani and Sapio 2001, pp. 146–149, cat. nos. 35, 36.
10 Röttgen 1973, pp. 129–132, cat. nos. 49–51.
11 Kirwin 1978, pp. 18 ff., 38–39, 57, note 101; Kirwin 1979, pp.
52–54, cat. nos. 29–31.
12 Fondazione Federico Zeri, Università di Bologna, Catalogo
Fototeca, Giacinto Brandi, San Michele Arcangelo,
Collegiata di San Michele Arcangelo, Fermo, numero
scheda: 47737, numero busta: 0487 [End]

Foto: Erik Cornelius / Nationalmuseum 2010

Ärkeängeln Mikael besegrar Satan