Gaspare Marcaccioni
Provenance
Gaspare Marcaccioni (1620–16 74), Rome; his widow,
Elena Pozzi Corticelli Marcaccioni (d. 1703); her son,
Sebastiano Corticelli (1647–1727), Osimo; his daughter
Vittoria Nappi Cancellieri (b. 1679); her son
Carlo Nappi Cancellieri (d. 1766); his sister
Elena Nobili (d. 1775), Jesi; her daughter
Anna Caterina Nobili (b. 1731); thence by descent to
Private collection, New York
Exhibited
Osimo, Palazzo Campana, Da Rubens a Maratta, 29 June–15 December 2013
Bibliography
(Possibly) Giovanni Pietro Bellori, Le Vite de’ Pittori, Scultori e Architetti Moderni, Turin, 1976, p. 607.
Stella Rudolph, ‘Il ruolo problematico e condizionante di Carlo Maratti nella carriera del suo allievo Niccolò Berrettoni,’ in Liliana Barroero and Vittorio Casale, eds., Niccolò Berrettoni, 1998, pp. 33, 37, footnote 33.
Costanza Costanzi, ‘Spigolature marattesche: appunti e riflessioni su alcune opere di Carlo Maratti nelle Marche’, in Costanza Costanzi and Marina Massa, eds., Il Magistero di Carlo Maratti nella pittura marchigiana tra Sei e Settecento, Milan, 2011, pp. 50-52, reproduced fig. 12.
Xavier F. Salomon, ‘Gasparo Marcaccioni (1620–74), his portrait by Carlo Maratti and his chapel’, The Burlington Magazine, London, 2012, vol. 154, no. 1314, pp. 630-636, reproduced fig. 18.
Loredana Lorizzo, ‘Carlo Maratta e la chiesa di Santa Maria dell’Anima: il restauro della pala di Giulio Romano e la Nascita della vergine per la sacrestia’, Rivista d’Arte, Florence, 2013, series V, vol. III, p. 246, footnote 16.
Xavier F. Salomon, in Vittorio Sgarbi, ed., Da Rubens a Maratta, Camerano, 2013, exh. cat., pp. 156-157, reproduced no. 44.
Francesco Petrucci, ‘Maratta: nuovi ritratti,’ Valori tattili, Riglione, 2019, vol. 13, p. 47-48, reproduced fig. 6.
Stella Rudolph and Simonetta Prosperi Valenti Rodinò, Carlo Maratti (1625–1713), tra la magnificenza del Barocco e il sogno d’Arcadia, Dipinti e disegni, Rome, 2024, reproduced on the cover.
Archival Sources
Il testamento di Gasparo Marcaccioni, 1674, Archivio Marcelli Flori, vol. 18, fols. 310r-312 v.
Memorie spettanti alla famiglia Marcaccioni romana, 1700, Archivio Marcelli Flori, vol. 17, fols. 101r-102v.
Contratto di Cessione del Patrimonio di Sebastiano Corticelli alla figlia Vittoria e altra scrittura relativa, 1724, Archivio Marcelli Flori, vol. 9, fols. 129-32, 143.
Testamenti, istrumenti, scritture ed altro appartenenti alla famiglia Nappi Cancellieri, 1727, Archivio Marcelli Flori, vol. 9, fols. 88-89.
Ultime volontà e patrimonio di Sebastiano Corcelli, 1727, Archivio Marcelli Flori, vol. 9, fols. 133-36.
Scritture, memorie, privilege ed altre cose spettanti alla famiglia Nappi Cancellieri di Osimo: Inventario di tutti li mobile (anche quadri) che sono in casa Corticelli Nappi Cancellieri, 1727, Archivio Marcelli Flori, vol. 11, fols. 1r-7r.
Diversi inventari dei beni mobile, stabili, crediti, ecc. (anche quadri) della famiglia Nappi Cancellieri, 1734, Archivio Marcelli Flori, vol. 11, fols. 27r-34r.
Scritture, memorie, privilege ed altre cose spettanti alla famiglia Nappi Cancellieri di Osimo, 1766, Archivio Marcelli Flori, vol. 10, fols. 368r-380v.
Disposizioni in punto di morte di Elena Nappi Cancellieri Nobili, 1775, Archivio Marcelli Flori, vol. 9, fols. 558r-559v.
Stima de quadri fatta dal Sig.re Alessandro Rossi, 1776, Archivio Marcelli Flori, vol. 10, fols. 238r-241r.
Essay
In his Life of Maratti, Giovan Pietro Bellori describes Gaspare Marcaccioni, in these words: ‘Nor any less praiseworthy is the portrait of Gasparo Marcaccioni, who being the accountant and chief minister of Cardinal Antonio Barberini deploys with both hands a book containing the first three even numbers namely from 1 to 2, from 2 to 4, from 4 to 8, similarly the odd numbers from 1 to 3, from 3 to 9, from 9 to 27; beneath this sits the motto: NUMERIS NATVRA GVBERNAT’. Although Bellori’s description does not exactly match the present portrait, likely referring to a nearly identical version in the Lichtenstein Collection, Vaduz (GE 159), his praise for the work can undoubtably be applied to the present picture.
This intimate and vivacious portrayal is testament to Marcaccioni’s personal relationship with the artist, whom he considered a close friend. Compared to formal full-length portraits, such as Cardinal Antonio Barberini (Palazzo Barberini, Rome), Maratti’s depiction of Marcaccioni is relaxed, his brow slightly furrowed and his lips parted as if he was speaking, recalling similar portraits of Maratti’s companions such as Bellori himself. Marcaccioni’s position in Maratti’s circle of tastemakers alongside artist Andrea Sacchi, Charles Errard, the director the French Academy in Rome, and the antiquary Michel-Ange de la Chausse is further emphasized in Bellori’s writings, as he categorized this portrait as one of Maratti’s ‘friends and persons whom he found most congenial’, which ‘he made gladly.’ Outside of this friendship, Marcaccioni patronized several of Maratti’s contemporaries—at the time of his death, he owned paintings by Ciro Ferri, Giacinto Brandi, Mario Nuzzi, Jusepe de Ribera as well as copies after Paolo Veronese. Unsurprisingly, Marcaccioni also collected works by Maratti; his Madonna by the artist was his most treasured picture in his collection.
Our painting, once feared lost, has remained within Marcaccioni’s family through to the present day. It first appears in the 1727 inventory of Sebastiano Corticelli, Marcaccioni’s step-son, as ‘a portrait of Gasparo Marcaccioni in a gilt frame’, alongside other works such as a St. Jerome by Ribera. Several years later, it is listed as ‘a picture portraying Gasparo Marcaccione in the guise of a philosopher, by Carlo Maratta, gilded frame’ in the inventory of Vittoria Nappi Cancellieri, Corticelli’s daughter. The current frame is probably the original mentioned in this inventory, which Marcaccioni’s widow purchased in 1674. Maratti’s countersignature on the bill indicates his approval of the frame’s design.
Gaspare Marcaccioni demonstrates Maratti’s sensitivity to the nuances of facial expression and bodily posture, which Bellori singled out when discussing his mastery of portraiture: ‘as Carlo is equally deliberate and excellent in portraits as in every other study of painting, before anything else it is his customary practice and his principle to observe, together with the face, the natural attitude of the body and the characteristic pose that each person habitually assumes.’ The features of the sitter resemble those of Marcaccioni’s bust in his chapel at S. Maria del Suffragio, although here he appears somewhat older and less idealized. This informs the proposal to date the picture to the last two years of Marcaccioni’s life, as his likeness perfectly reflects the features of a man of fifty, thus matching the date for the companion piece, the portrait of Bellori. This chronology places the work at the height of Maratti’s fame, as he was reputed the ‘caposcuola della pittura romana’—the leading painter in Rome—following the death of Pietro da Cortona in 1669.
Updated in July 2025