The tapestries

The custom of covering the walls of aristocratic residences with tapestries was early and widespread in Genoa, at least in part due to the close economic ties linking the city from the fourteenth century with Flanders, where were the most important workshops specialized in this sort of production. Palazzo del Principe is important from the point of view of the history of collecting “tapesarie”. In the inventory of the possessions of Andrea Doria himself on the occasion of his death (1560) are listed about two hundred “cloths”, some of which were woven to designs of Perin del Vaga, as integral part of the monumental project of autocelebration represented by the palace of Fassolo. Andrea Doria subsequently enriched the imposing legacy of tapestries inherited from Andrea with important commissions. As result of many dispersions and inheritance divisions, the only series which can be admired with all its elements united is that of the Battle of Lepanto; this has only recently been again displayed in the Genoese residence for which it was woven, after a long transferral to the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj in Rome.

The series celebrates the “most sensational military event of the sixteenth century in the Mediterranean” (Braudel): the victory won by the Christian fleet over the Turkish one, at the entrance to the Gulf of Lepanto, on 7 October 1571. The battle marked the success of the “Sacred League”, entered into on 20 May of the same year by Spain, the Papacy and Venice, under the auspices of Pope Pius V, in a climate of crusade against the infidels, and effectively brought to an end the Turkish supremacy of the seas which had lasted for decades.

The whole included six great tapestries portraying six scenes of the voyage of the Christian army and of the battle, as well as three “partitions” (long, narrow elements which were placed between the windows with allegorical personifications of the allied powers of the “Sacred League” (Spain, Rome and Venice). Two pieces over the windows with the arms of the household completed the series. The “partition” portraying Spain is in another private collection, and the whereabouts of the two pieces to go over the windows is unknown. All the other pieces are displayed today in the Gallery of Giovanni Andrea.

The sequence of the episodes represented begins with the Departure from Messina of the Christian fleet (I); there follows the Navigation along the Calabrian coasts (II), the Meeting of the opposing fleets (III), Battle and Victory of the Christian fleet (IV), the Flight of the seven Turkish galleys (V) and the Re-entry of the victorious fleet into Corfu (VI). The battle scenes are enclosed in false architectural frames, consisting of a base, which carries a caption flanked by allegorical figurations and by noble columns on which rest female figures symbolizing the virtues necessary after the battle and the fame which derives from it: note, for instance, in the second tapestry of the series, Vigilance denoted by the typical attributes of the cock, the lion and the stork, which holds a rock in its claw, a precise illustration of the elements connoting this figure according to the tradition recorded some years later in the Iconologia of Cesare Ripa (1st edition 1593), the most widespread “manual of images” at the end of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The heraldic eagle of the Doria, held up be winged putti, dominates all the scenes.

The series was commissioned by Giovanni Andrea Doria, who had commanded the right “horn” of the Christian fleet at Lepanto, as a future reminder of his role in the important occasion and probably as defence against the criticisms against him by the Venetians, in particular about his behaviour during the clash. In 1581-81 Lazzaro Calvi (1512-1603) executed six preparatory designs and Luca Cambiaso (1527-1585)- the main protagonist in painting of the second half of the sixteenth century in Genoa, from his formation following the great Roman examples to the experiences of the last years spent in the service of Philip II - realized some preparatory cartoons for the series, known as “patroni”.

The “patroni” were then sent to Bruxelles, where the tapestries were woven, as is shown by the marks on them, which consist of a double B and the escutcheon adopted by the city after 1528 (Boccardo 1986). In 1591 the completed series of the tapestries reached Genoa.

The preparatory cartoons relative to the central portion of tapestries III and IV of the series (respectively the Meeting of the opposing fleets and the Battle) are still in the Palazzo del Principe, and half of the cartoon relating to the central scene of the last episode, the Re-entry into Corfu. Naturally, on account of the techniques of weaving, the scenes portrayed on the tapestries are the mirror-image of the design on the cartoons. The “patroni” have had mixed fortunes; mentioned in an inventory of 1620 (thirty-eight pieces of painted paper….with the History of the naval Battle), they were then glued onto the fronts of cupboards (the gap where the keyhole was is still visible) and confused with scenes of the Siege of Corone painted by Lazzaro Calvi on “cupboards of the Cloakroom”, until Boccardo recognized their iconography and their function.

The documents published in the last century by Merli and Belgrano register much larger payments to Luca Cambiaso than to Calvi, of whom six designs are recorded. Since from a stylistic point of view the refined frame which encloses the battle scenes and the personifications of the powers of the Sacred League portrayed on the “partitions” would seem to be by Cambiaso, while not by him the minute depiction of the clashes between galleys, it is probable that the roles of the two artists were quite distinct. Lazzaro was responsible for the designs of the battle itself, that is to say six scenes, which corresponds with what appears in the documents, some of which survive as mentioned above, and Luca for the preparation of the cartoons, now unfortunately lost, for all the decorative apparatus.

It must be remembered that Luca Cambiaso and his helpers were also responsible for the six great canvasses with scenes of the Battle of Lepanto, with allegorical figures standing above them, on the walls of the Gallery of the King in the “Palacio De verano” of the monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, the monastery in which Cambiaso, summoned by Philip II, worked from the end of October 1583 up to his death in Spetmber 1585 (Magnani 1995). These are fairly similar, as regards portrayal of the episodes represented, to the tapestries of Palazzo del Principe.

The depicting of the Battle of Lepanto was very popular with al the powers of the Sacred League: in Genoa, in addition to the tapestries ordered by Doria, we can mention the significant example of the series of frescoes commissioned by Ettore Spinola, who had commanded at Lepanto the “Capitana” of the Republic of Genoa, positioned in the central ranks of the Christian fleet, for his palace in Strada Nuova (Palazzo di Angelo Giovanni Spinola), in which unfolds a series of episodes similar to those depicted in the tapestries woven for Giovanni Andrea, with a few variations.

According to the documents which register the payment of the authors of the cartoons, the series was supposed initially to have decorated the principal room of the east apartment of Palazzo del Principe (the “room of Aeneas” decorated with lost portrayal by Perin of Neptune who calms the waves after the shipwreck of the hero), to take the place of the series with Stories of Dido prepared in the time of Andrea. An inventory of 1741 informs us that the tapestries of the Battle of Lepanto were at that time usually employed to adorn the walls of the Room of the Giants.