How does Caprioli Adoration elucidate its Style?
In 1826 Paolo Brognoli, an art scholar and collector, published the first nineteenth-century guide of Brescia. For the correct attribution and dating of the works discussed, he undertook a series of archival researches, which led him for the first time to elaborate precise stylistic considerations for his observations. For the Ark of Sant'Apollonio, in particular, he conducted careful research in the municipal archives, which allowed him to partially reconstruct the circumstances of its commission. He could not locate the contract with the sculptor who worked on the ark, but noted its interesting similarities to a monument by the same chisel from 1494 that had an inscription in the memory of Luigi Caprioli, which was, of course, the Caprioli Adoration. This was the first time a work was connected to another by Cairano not on the basis of prior literary sources but by purely stylistic consideration. Meanwhile, independently, Meyer formulated the same conclusion.Subsequent artistic criticism framed the work either to one of Cairano's followers or even Tamagnino, and to various periods between the end of the fifteenth to the beginning of the sixteenth century.In 2008, Vito Zani proposed assigning the work to Gasparo Cairano, based on previously cited analogies with the ark of Sant'Appollonio. In 2011, the proposal was rehearsed in an extensive monograph on Brescian sculpture edited by Valerio Terraroli. The Caprioli Adoration was recognised as the greatest example of narrative sculpture of the Renaissance Brescia. Cairano is shown to refer directly to the oblong squares of the base of Certosa of Pavia by Amadeo and Benedetto Briosco between 1492 and 1501. Moreover, he demonstrates a technical mastery in the precise perspectives of the squares as well as in the use of a monolithic block, which was not strictly necessary for a work of this kind.The face of Mary makes the first female appearance in his oeuvre, less mediated than the male figures that Cairano was to apply in his cycle of the Caesars in the Palazzo della Loggia (Brescia). These considerations date the work to the last five years of the fifteenth century. The artefact, indeed, is the first private commission undertaken by Cairano, undertaken while he was in the midst of the construction of the church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli.
Palazzo della Loggia (Brescia) Renaissance perspective Tamagnino church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli Gasparo Cairano Brescia