Raffaello Borghini a Trimalchio of Renaissance

Scant frequent is presence of Satyricon, a Roman romance with a dinner very luxurious, carried out in rich villa of Trimalchion, a cortigian of imperator Nero, during the 1 century after Christ, in city of Capua, in Italy; Raffaello Borghini(1537-1588) written his Riposo, a description, very boring and useless, but that has took the source from the Satyricon, where the luxurious is principal argument, that the author, this is Trimalchio show off during all the romance, some step: “The usual megalomany, in the painting Trimalchio has made painted a ideal triumph, the principal steps of his life and his social growth, from slave to rich freedman, he is painted with caduceus with snakes, usually attributed to Mercury, god of commerce, and accompanied by Minerva, goddess of intelligence and cunning. The fates are three Clotho Lachesis and Atropos symbols of destiny…”; this luxurious villa is as to the pleasant panorama that we can read in the Riposo, a dialogue carried out in a Rinaissance villa in Tuscany whose owner is called the Vecchietto: “ to it much cypresses around bushy grass, that seems almost black for blooms painted…”and the synthetic description of painters of chapel: “…is set the chapel in are painted the Ascension of Christ and the Apostles, and on the vault some angels very beautiful of Francesco Pagani(notices from 1502 to 1548) that if the death didn’t remover to word so soon , he is going to be painter very excellent”, we must also consider that this dialogue is set in Tuscany Renaissance, therefore the artistic culture is predominant, in fact, the description of some rooms of a mister Ridolfo, description of this artistic works is predominant: “In the first beyond the thousand heads, hands and legs, and torsos, and other fragments of statues, whose the wells are full, and models of horses and other animals, and we can see the Night, Aurora, and other figures Michelangelo’s(1475-1564), that are in sacristy of church of Saint Lorenz, and same greatness, of chalk created through the great diligence…the second(room) has much things of ancient marble, some painters of very beautiful towns of Flanders, a model  of Apostle of Sansovino(Francesco Sansovino, 1486-1570, a Florentine sculptor and architect) and a great drawing of Michelangelo…”; these descriptions, absolutely imaginative, although took from real examples. But also Borghini failed in this book because he attributed to Michelangelo a sculpture that the sculptor has never sculpted, and an painting work in the Secret room of Francesco de Medici(1541-1587), Borghini hints to a sculpture that Michelangelo could not sculptured because died. The source of this book is Satyricon though in modern version; we can think the Riposo as a cultural vacancy of rich lords of Florence, that pass the time among the nature, painters and sculptures, therefore art both natural and artificial, as the lords of Renaissance past the days of rest in their villas; it is certainly a description of art works, but is also a document of life during 16^th century.

Alessandro Lusana