The painting is being presented as a work of an exquisitely Mannerist conception. It is – in painterly terms – ideally suited to be represented in smaller dimensions. The image itself is built up in little, tense strokes that produce a metallic and scintillating pictorial effect. The light, coming from the left, reverberates upon the smooth surface of the armour with ripples of brilliant colourful flashes of light on the princess’s dress that blows in the wind. Halfway down the painting on the left there is the sidelong trajectory of the horse rearing. The latter appears to be dressed up for a game or tournament rather than for a real battle. The horse dominates a horrifying dragon twisted around itself, with a look imbued with blood and a broken spear running through his neck. The movement of the steed is re-echoed, on the left, by the escaping princess who is fleeing the scene and moving her arms and legs in an agitated way, winding her body in the typical sixteenth-century manner of the figura serpentinata. The horse’s stance is clearly inspired by the famous fresco, Marco Curzio, by Giovanni Antonio Pordenone on the facade of Palazzo Talenti d’Anna in Venice. This was an image that was well-known to artists from the mid-Sixteenth century, thanks also to the etching taken from it by Niccolò Vicentino[1].

The length of the figures and the sophistication of some of the details (above all the elegant princess with her complex hairstyle), remind us of the style of Bernardino Campi from Cremona and his characteristic – yet cold and cerebral - pictorial interpretation of the work of Parmigianino, in which the fluid and delicate rhythm of the great painter from Emilia and his followers (from Mazzola Bedoli to Lelio Orsi) cool down into more perfect forms. Comparisons with the female figures of some of Bernardino’s works from the 1670’s and the 1680’s are highly significant, from the Saint Barbara of the Sant’Antonio Abate altarpiece in Milan (1565) to the Santa Cecilia in the altarpiece of San Sigismondo in Cremona (1566) and to the Magdalene in the Pietà with Saints in Brera (1574)[2]. Furthermore, there is also a more generic relationship with some other works, in the rather evident movement of the arms and hands (that are datable to the period from the 1540’s to the 1560’s), to the artists Giulio and Antonio Campi from Cremona (but not relatives of Bernardino). This relationship may also be observed in some characteristic choices of colour, such as dull green, golden yellow, orange-red and light blue.

None of these similarities are however so evident as to produce an actual attribution. Indeed, compared to the cold and rarefied elegance of attributed works by Bernardino, to the fluid and curvaceous style of Giulio Campi and to the more intense realism – marked and familiar – of Antonio Campi, the Saint George reveals the signs of a temperament that, on one hand, is more intellectual and cerebral than the one by Giulio and Antonio Campi but that, on the other hand, is more “grammatically incorrect” than Bernardino Campi’s work. This unusual, manifold pictorial sensitivity is also highly visible in the more rippling and tense application of colour that, in the same way, distinguishes itself both from the polished Parmigianinesque calligraphy of Bernardino and from the softer and more “rubbery” work of Giulio and Antonio Campi. The proportions of the characters’ bodies are also striking – with their hands and their heads slightly over-sized – as is the spirited expression of the warrior Saint in rigorous profile with his pronounced hooked nose and large dark eyes.

If we look at all those artists who worked around the figure of Bernardino Campi in the 1560’s and the 1570’s (thus avoiding any form of research into a follower of the aforementioned Giulio and Antonio Campi, more difficult in terms of our attribution in that they were without the large and articulated entourage of their fellow painter) we need to discard any hypothesis that points in the direction of Carlo Urbino, Giuseppe Meda, Giovanni Antonio Sacchiense and the little-known Lattanzio Grassi[3]. None of these painters more or less linked to Bernardino Campi appear, in any case, to be recognisable in terms of style when compared to the painting under examination, in the application of minute and at times irregular colour and in its unusual “loaded” sensitivity. On the contrary, some of these characteristics may on the other hand be found in the works of the Milanese, Giovan Paolo Lomazzo (1538-92), known especially as one of the most important theorists of Mannerism. He was also an important artist and his uncommon pictorial repertoire is, still today, in need of being rediscovered.

Indeed, there are several elements that are compatible with the artistic “manner” of Lomazzo. If, for example, we look at the pictorial construction of the Saint George – with his head in such perfect profile almost like a pivot for the twisted rotation of a body in a pose that is slightly unstable – we witness the characteristic motif of the painting of the artist, more than visible in the characters positioned to the sides in the frescoes of the Adoration of the Magi and the Adoration of the Shepherds in Santa Maria Nuova in Caronno (works that have been documented with certainty)[4] or in the figure of the Saint John in the Crucifixion (signed), previously in San Giovanni in Conca in Milan and today in the Valmadrera parish church[5]. The design of the face, with large sunken almost almond-shaped eyes, is also typical of the works of Lomazzo and may be compared to more than just one similar feature in signed or documented works, such as the profiles of the Saint Paul on the altarpiece of the Foppa Chapel in San Marco, Milan, the Virgin in the Crucifixion at the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, and the Christ in the two Agonies in the Garden in San Carlo al Corso, Milan, and the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan[6] (in this last painting the design of the hands also reminds us of the similar feature in the figure of the princess in the copper work with Saint George). Even the rare and fortuitous combination of the white-pink colour, visible in the matching of the horse’s plumes to the fair colouring of the animal, is an aspect that frequently comes back in Lomazzo’s artistic repertoire, in one of the steeds in the processions of the Adoration of the Magi at Caronno and in the dress of the Virgin in the Crucifixion in Brera.

In a “difficult” painter like Lomazzo, often able to change face and to transform his own pictorial ductus even in the space of one same painting (valid examples are the Noli me tangere now at the Pinacoteca in Vicenza and the altarpiece of the Foppa Chapel in San Marco in Milan), minor yet distinctive details are the ones that often aid in the recognition of a work – details that are either identical or, in any case, very similar and that cross over the various changes in the style of the artist. Among these details, the way in which the little vegetable bushes are painted beneath the horse’s hooves is extremely significant, with semi-wilted leaves, bathed in profile by the slightest of reflections and with an almost “meaty” consistence. This is a particular detail that is almost identical to the crown of a vine-leaf that runs around the straw hat worn by Lomazzo himself in his Self-Portrait as an Abbot of the Accademia della Val di Blenio today at the Pinacoteca di Brera. Even a more generic element (although in no way evidential) such as the mannequin-like rigidity in the movement of the characters (as in the posture of the princess which would appear to bring to mind the Leonardesque drawings of the so-called Huygens Codex) is clearly compatible with Lomazzo’s painting.

If it is to be accepted, the attribution of the Saint George and the Dragon might however find further confirmation in problematic works such as the mysterious mythological – or allegorical? – image known as “La Barca” (“The Boat”), today on the antique market (with the female figure to the left that is in no way dissimilar to the princess fleeing the dragon and saved by the warrior Saint)[7], or such as another little-known painting with the Suicide of Cleopatra in a full-length representation at the Musée Girodet in Montargis[8], in which, among other things, there is a bush similar to the one in the painting under examination. There are other similarities, too that, although not irrefutable, are nevertheless a useful support in these hypotheses. I am referring to the diagonal lance at the bottom of the painting that is throwing some shadow onto the ground (in the same position as the sword of Saint Paul in the altarpiece in Milan at San Marco), or the way of drawing the double drapes of the princess, open into two folds over her stomach and on her legs in movement and fluctuating in opposite directions. The complicated twirls of these garments are to be found, as a matter of fact, in many figures of multi-coloured angels that populate the glory of the angels in the apse of the Foppa Chapel, the utmost fantastical artistic display by the painter.

However, beyond any sort of attribution of the painting to the unique repertoire of Lomazzo (which should be taken with a degree of caution), the high quality of the painting is, in any case, of considerable importance as is the sophisticated application of colour (which has been well preserved despite some surface paint loss on the face and the hands of the princess). There is, moreover, a pictorial ductus (or style) that is more irregular in comparison with the techniques of those artists from Parma or Cremona, and also in comparison with the aptly called “Second School of Fontainebleau”, a movement whose imitators sometimes showed a style that was insidiously close to the late Lombard or Emilian Mannerism.

Details of the utmost elegance and sophistication come to the forefront here, such as the whimsical image of the dragon twisted around itself. The mocking faces in the middle ground (quite similar to the caricatural drawings of the Accademia della Val di Blenio, now at the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan)[9], dressed in unusual clothes and exotic head garments which remind us of Caucasian costumes. The unusual setting of the scene should also be noted since it would appear to have been set near a fortress with the heavy grating of a wooden gate.

If we return to the aforementioned attribution hypothesis, it might be important to remember that – as already often mentioned by scholars of considerable authority (Giulio Bora and Giovanni Romano) Lomazzo in his own theoretical writings - which deserve to be taken, as with all autobiographical texts, with a certain amount of caution - had done everything in his power to conceal his previous affinity (personal and, in all probability, also stylistic) with Bernardino Campi, to the actual point that he even omitted to mention any reference to his early work of the frescoes in Santa Maria Nuova at Caronno (1560-65)[10], undertaken in the presbytery of the same church that housed an altarpiece by the artist from Cremona.

After having studied these works with youthful admiration around the sixth and the beginning of the seventh decade of the Sixteenth century, Lomazzo detached himself, in the later, more mature years of his artistic production, from the style of Bernardino and Antonio Campi, setting himself up as the standard bearer and defender of the Leonardesque traditions of the Milanese School. This was a tradition that was undermined in those years – a period that more or less coincided with the episcopate of Carlo Borromeo (1560-84)[11] – by the “invasion” of painters hailing from Cremona or, more generally, from eastern Lombardy.

In particular, by appearing onto the scene in Milan in the early 1550’s, Bernardino Campi had initially attracted into his circle some young, local painters such as Giuseppe Meda and, also, Lomazzo, whose artistic training with Giovan Battista della Cerva, a pupil of Gaudenzio, had hastened in him a certain amount of impatience[12]. Throughout the 1570’s, when Campi had already antagonised most of the local painters with his various intrigues in order to obtain the sought-after commissions of the Gonfalone di Sant’Ambrogio and the altarpieces of the organ of the Cathedral, Lomazzo also made him the object of rather heavy criticism in his writings, both in his works of poetry later collected in his volume of the Grotteschi (published in 1587) and in the pages of the Trattato (released in 1584)[13].

If the attribution was proven, the copper work with the Saint George might be a further example of Lomazzo’s skill at undertaking precious little paintings of smaller dimensions, along with the evocative painting with the Agonies in the Garden of the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, the twin painting with the Crucifixion signed and dated 1565 – unfortunately taken from this latter institute in the 1960’s (visible however in an unpublished photograph, known to scholars including Roberto Paolo Ciardi)[14] – and works such as the «picciol quadro» - small picture – that reproduced the Titian-like portrait of Giovan Battista Castaldo, a work that is now lost and of which Giovan Paolo mentions in his rhyming autobiography[15].

Mauro Pavesi



[1] On the chiaroscuro print of Marco Curzio: M. Muraro, A Rosand, Tiziano e la silografia veneziana del Cinquecento, Venice 1976, p. 138.
[2] On the altarpiece of Sant’Antonio Abate (1565): G. Bora in Pittura a Milano. Rinascimento e Manierismo, curated by M. Gregori, Milan 1998, p. 270; for the altarpiece of Brera (inv. 331): Id. in I Campi e la cultura artistica cremonese del Cinquecento, exhibition catalogue [Cremona 1985] curated by M. Gregori, Milan 1985, pp. 167-168; for the altarpiece of San Sigismondo: M.C. Rodeschini Galati in Pittura a Cremona dal Romanico al Settecento, curated by M. Gregori, Milan 1990, p. 273; M. Tanzi, I Campi, Milan 2004, p. 27.
[3]On Sacchiense: C. Furlan, Un inedito di Antonio Sacchiense, in «Kronos» 13, 2009, pp. 103-108; on Grassi (author of an interesting altarpiece at Calolziocorte, near Lecco): G. Virgilio, Lattanzio Grassi e la bella pala cinquecentesca di San Martino a Calolziocorte, in «Trapassato presente», 1, 2009, pp. 31-50.
[4]For the documentary evidence of the frescoes in Caronno, that, as a matter of fact, Lomazzo never mentioned in his writings (although payment is documented for 1566): P. C. Marani, Un dipinto poco noto di Bernardino Campi e la Scuola di Carità di Caronno Milanese, in «Arte Lombarda», 49, 1978, pp. 16-23, p. 16, n. 8; P. Zaffaroni, in Chiesa della Purificazione. Caronno Pertusella, Florence 2007, pp. 198-205.
[5]For the Crucifixion of Valmadrera (signed with the monogramme «PL»): F. Moro, Per il censimento delle opere d’arte della provincia di Lecco, in «Museo vivo», 3, 1993, pp. 4-16, p. 11; for the provenance from San Giovanni in Conca: L. Lanzeni, Due ‘Crocifissioni’ di Giovan Paolo Lomazzo già nella chiesa milanese di S. Giovanni in Conca, in «Proporzioni», n.s., IV, 2003, pp. 39-78; on the chronology: M. Pavesi, New insights on Giovan Paolo Lomazzo’s artistic career, in From Theory to Practice. Lomazzo’s aesthetic principles reflected in the art of his time, conference proceedings [Boston, RSA panel 2016] edited by L. Tantardini, Boston-Leiden 2017, currently being printed.
[6]Please see both F. Rosi in Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, vol. II, Milan 2006, pp. 161-165 e F. Porzio in Rabisch. Il grottesco nell’arte del Cinquecento, exhibition catalogue [Lugano 1998] curated by M. Kahn-Rossi, F. Porzio, Milan 1998, pp. 315-316.
[7] For the painting please see: B. Agosti, Lungo la Paullese 2 (verso Milano), in Quattro pezzi lombardi (for Maria Teresa Binaghi), Brescia 1998, pp. 125-141, 1997 p. 139 (as a Milanese painter «between Figino and Lomazzo»); M. Tanzi, Il capolavoro rudolfino di Paolo Piazza, in «Prospettiva» 103-104, 2001, p. 155; Id. in Le meraviglie dell’arte. Important Old Master Paintings, exhibition catalogue [Monte Carlo, Maison d’Art, 2005], pp. 43-48.
[8]On the Cleopatra: F. Elsig, Cléopatredans le miroir de l’art occidental, exhibition catalogue [Geneva 2004], curated by C. Ritschard, Milan 2004, pp. 92-93; G. Kazerouni, L’automne de la Renaissance: d’Arcimboldo à Caravage, exhibition catalogue [Nancy, 2013] curated by C. Stoullig, F. Collette, Paris 2013, pp. 300-301; for the attribution to Lomazzo: Pavesi, New insights, cit.
[9] Please see the works by G. Bora, Da Leonardo all'Accademia della Val di Bregno: Giovan Paolo Lomazzo, Aurelio Luini e i disegni degli accademici, in «Raccolta Vinciana», XXIII, 1989, pp. 73-101; F. Porzio, Lomazzo e il realismo grottesco: un capitolo del primitivismo del Cinquecento, in Rabisch. Il grottesco nell’arte del Cinquecento, exhibition catalogue [Lugano 1998] curated by M. Kahn-Rossi, F. Porzio, Milan 1998, pp. 23-36; F. Rinaldi, Bernardino Luini «mediolanensis», Aurelio Luini e Giovan Paolo Lomazzo: disegni firmati tra autografia e documento, in «HortiHesperidum» 4, 2014, pp. 9-57.
[10]Please see for example: G. Romano in Gaudenzio Ferrari e la sua scuola. I cartoni cinquecenteschi dell’Accademia Albertina, exhibition catalogue [Turin 1982], Turin 1982, p. 252.
[11]G. Bora, Milano nell’età di Lomazzo e di San Carlo: riaffermazione e difficoltà di sopravvivenza di una cultura, in Rabisch, cit., pp. 23-36.
[12]G. Romano in Gaudenzio Ferrari, cit., p. 252.
[13]Ibid.
[14] R.P. Ciardi, Lomazzo, Giovan Paolo, in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, vol. 65, Rome 2005, pp. 462-463.
[15] We may understand this from a rhyme by Lorenzo Toscano in Lomazzo’s poetic autobiography in his Rime (Milan 1587, p. 544): ideally speaking to the Tuscan artist he praises him for having grappled with an attempt to imitate «l’occhio di Tizian, / la forza immensa / ne i moti» portraying Castaldo as «grave di furor».