P 1 : KsF
0521551331 c 01 -p 3 CUNY 160 /Joannides 052155 133 1 January 11 , 2007 10 : 14
CATALOGUE 45 WHOLLY OR PARTIALLY AUTOGRAPH SHEETS 223to descry and covered by a design for an elaborate wall
tomb), the third on the verso. Treves, the first to do so,
also noted on this verso a sketch of a moving man that
she plausibly considered to be related to theAeneas, sup-
porting her suggested dating.
Further reinforcement for a dating of 1555 – 6 is pro-
vided by the other drawings on both the recto and the
verso of CB 19 F, a series of sketches of wall tombs and
sarcophagi, and three of staircases. The tomb designs,
which no doubt all prepare the same project, were for-
merly misleadingly connected with the tomb of Cecchino
Bracci in Santa Maria in Aracoeli, of c.15 4 2,butthey are
considerably later in date and imply a much more sub-
stantial structure. More materially, one of the designs,
that on the lower left of the verso, leads directly to a
larger ruled drawing for a tomb found on the recto
of a sheet in Casa Buonarroti (CB 103 A/B 264 /Corpus
613 ;black chalk,35 0× 200 mm), which is probably no
earlier than155 7.Together with another sheet in Casa
Buonarroti (CB 124 A/B 160 /Corpus 612 ;black chalk
and37 6× 417 mm), it formed a large composite sheet
( 726 × 417 mm maximum) the verso of which carried
a full-sizemodelloin black chalk and wash for a win-
dow in the drum of the wooden model of St. Peter’s,
under preparation by Michelangelo in155 8 (see Cat.
54 ). The tomb on CB 103 Arecto, apparently unexe-
cuted, was no doubt that of a cleric or aristocrat and,
given the coincidence of date, and the other drawings
on CB 19 F, it may well have been intended for della Casa
himself.
The sketches of a staircase are certainly not, as was
sometimes believed in the past, for that of the Palazzo
dei Senatori; nor, in the compiler’s present view, are
they for that of the Villa Belvedere, as first suggested
byWilde ( 1953 a), followed by Hirst ( 1963 ) and, until
recently, by the compiler. Michelangelo was involved in
the design of the Villa Belvedere staircase in155 0– 1 and
because the staircase sketches on CB 19 F overlay at least
some of the tombs, and because the tombs overlay at
least some of the figures, this would, if that identifica-
tion were correct, entail a date for both Della Casa’s pan-
els of c.155 0.However, although the staircase sketches
do seem close to the Belvedere project in their appar-
ent form, the resemblance is deceptive. They are in fact
rough sketches made by Michelangelo in response to
Vasari’s enquiry, in late 1555 , about his intentions for the
staircase of thericettoof the Laurentian Library. This is
made clear by the verso drawing on CB 19 F, which shows
two flights of some six to eight steps in profile, lead-
ing up to a platform and three or four further stairs,seen in plan (as noted elsewhere, it is characteristic of
the aged Michelangelo to draw forms perpendicular to
one another as though they are on the same plane), a
reprise of a scheme that he had considered for thericetto
staircase in the15 2 0s (see CB 92 A/B 89 /Corpus 525 ;black
chalk and pen, 390 × 280 mm, maximum).
The Baptist Filling His Bowlhad already been repre-
sented by Michelangelo within the first decade of the
cinquecento, although in radically different form, stand-
ing, facing forward, and looking back to the spring from
which he fills his bowl (see Cat. 59 ). In the present
treatment, Michelangelo ignored this idea and reverted
to a still earlier conception, found in a painting in the
Walker Art Gallery Liverpool (Inv. 2783 ; oil on panel,
77. 4 × 228. 6 cm) ofEpisodes in the Early Life of Saint John
the Baptistin which the young Baptist fills his bowl at a
spring, posed similarly to the present drawing. The Liver-
pool painting, universally agreed to be by a close follower
of Ghirlandaio, seems to be by the same hand as another
depicting thePreaching of Saint John the Baptist(New York,
Metropolitan Museum of Art; oil on panel, 75. 6 × 209. 6
cm), which formed parts of the same scheme ofspalliera
paintings as theBirth of Saint John the BaptistbyFrancesco
Granacci (also in the Metropolitan Museum). It has been
suggested by Fahy (reported by Treves, 1999 – 2000 ) that
thePreachingis by the young Michelangelo, in which case
so, presumably, would be the painting in Liverpool; but
this is not an attribution to which the compiler could
readily assent.
Treves perceptively suggested that the present sheet
remained with Daniele and his heirs, and this is borne out
bythe presence on the sheet of a number by the Irregular
Numbering Collector and by the drawing’s reappearance
in the Ottley sale of 1814 ,inwhich the provenance, given
in the 1804 sale as Buonarroti, was corrected to Cic-
ciaporci. The companion sheet, CB 19 F/B15 0/Corpus
36 8, seems however to have remained with Michelangelo
and his heirs: the Saint John on CB 19 Fisamong the
drawings copied by Andrea Commodi c.15 8 0on Uffizi
1859 9Frecto. This sheet also contains copies after three
other drawings: W 83 /Corpus 391 and 33 /Corpus 236 ,
both acquired by the British Museum from the Buonar-
roti Collection in 1859 and CB 69 F/B 143 /Corpus 91 ,
still in Casa Buonarroti.History
Daniele da Volterra?; The Bona Roti Collector?;
The Irregular Numbering Collector; The Cavaliere
d’Arpino?; The Cicciaporci family and Filippo Ciccia-
porci?; Bartolommeo Cavaceppi?; William Young Ottley,