The Search for original surtace coatings plays a vital role in the study and understanding not only of how paintings were made, but also, and more importantly, of how they appeared. Although many late nineteenth- and twentieth-century varnishing materials have been well documented (and are often found to remain on the surfaces of pictures), it is exceedingly rare to be able to identify an original surface remaining on an old-master painting. There are useful written sources describing varnish recipes, materials and application techniques (the most familiar of these being, of course, Cennino Cennini's Libro dell'arte),l but it is often difficult to discover direct links between such textual references and what actually remains on the surfaces. Although this is primarily because most original surfaces on older paintings have been lost during past cleanings, it is also a consequence of the fact that much of the complex scientific technology required for this type of identification has been developed only very recently.

Three contracts, recently discovered in the Archivio della Pia Casa dei Catecumeni e Neofiti in Rome,l shed light on the patronage and decoration of the chapel of St Charles Borromeo, the first chapel on the right of the church of the Madonna dei Monti (Figs.12 and 13). Established through a bequest to the Madonna dei Monti by Andrea Baceini, who died on 1 3th October 1614, the chapel was decorated in 1621-22 under the direction of the Arciconfraternita di S. Giuseppe dei Catecumeni e Neofiti, a confraternity affiliated with the church which supervised the institutions in Rome concerned with the care and religious education of newly- converted Jews and Muslims.2 The confraternity commissioned two artists to decorate the chapel: Giovanni da San Giovanni (Giovanni Mannozzi), who was responsible for the frescoes depicting the miracles of St Charles Borromeo and other scenes (Figs. 15-20), and Innocenzo Tacconi, who provided the altar-piece of the Madonna and Child appearing to St Charles Borromeo (Figs. 13 and 14). While Giovanni's involve- ment in the chapel decorations has long been known, if little discussed,3 Tacconi's participation is a complete surprise. In the absence of any indication in early guide books as to the altar-piece's attribution, later authors have either presumed that Giovanni da San Giovanni was its author or have left the matter open.4

The St Jerome altar-piece by Antonio Vivarini and his brother- in-law and partner, Giovanni d'Alemagna, now in the Kunst- historisches Museum in Vienna (Fig.21), occupies a significant place within the history of the early renaissance at Venice. As the earliest dated work from the Vivarini workshop it can tell us much about the origins of an artistic dynasty which held an influential position in Venetian culture for over fifty years. Similarly, as one of the first Venetian responses to the innovations of foreign sculptors working in the Veneto, it prefigures artistic trends more commonly associated with the response of Squarcione and his shop to the sculpture of Donatello later in the decade. However, despite these credentials, the work has received only fragmentary consideration since its rediscovery and publication by Leo Planiscig in 1922.1 The present article identifies the work's patron and indicates something of its early history, also considering the wider context in which the altar-piece was created in greater detail than has previously been possible. Since rather few patrons of the Vivarini partners or of their Venetian contemporaries are known from this early period, the study facilitates fresh insights into the conditions which fostered the stirrings of new formal approaches in Venetian painting.

On 13th March 1610 Scipione Borghese organised a magnificent funeral in S. Maria Maggiore for his recently deceased uncle, Giovanni Battista Borghese. In doing so, he followed the recently established aristocratic trend for spectacular funerals in Italy. The Flemish architect Giovanni Vasanzio whom he selected to design the catafalque, and the 'pittori piu eccellenti di Roma ' who painted the canvases that decorated the nave, were all to participate in various later commissions of the cardinal-nephew, whose household has been justly described as the 'cradle of Baroque Art'.l

No other ruling family in Italy took such advantage of confiscations resulting from legal actions in order to enrich their collections as did the Farnese. As is well known, in 1612 they seized paintings belonging to the Sanseverino, the Torelli, the Masi and the Sanvitale di Sala Baganza.l Later, in 165O, it now emerges, they confiscated important paintings that had belonged to Giacomo Gaufrido, who was condemned to death at Piacenza on 5th January that year and was executed three days later. Gaufrido was born Jacques Godefroi at La Ciotat in Provence, and originally came to Italy to study at the University of Bologna, where he forged friendships with several scholars and men of letters.2 Among his own numerous literary compositions are two letters describing Guido Reni's Rape of Helen, one published in Latin in 1632, addressed to Abbot Claudio Fieschi,3 and the other addressed to the poet Claudio Achillini and dated 6th January 1633.4 Initially employed as a French tutor by Odoardo Farnese, Duke of Parma, Gaufrido gained the duke's confidence and went on to become his secretary, receiving numerous favours including the tides of marchese di Gastelguelfo and conte di Felino.5 In 1644 the duke held celebrations for his favourite's marriage the previous year to Vetruria Anguissola of Grazzano, from a noble Piacentine family.6 The poet Bernardo Morando composed an epithalamion entitled Venere la celeste for the occasion,7 and the duke gave the couple a cabinet of ebony inlaid with ivory and silver intarsia, including the Gaufrido and Anguissola coats of arms flanking those of the Farnese; it survives, and is now in the Fondazione Rizzi at Sestri Levante.8 The newly-weds settled in Piacenza in a palace in via S. Lazzaro rented from Francesco Sforza Fogliani.9 At Odoardo's death in 1646 Gaufrido's position at court was confirmed by his son Ranuccio, but the defeat of the army he commanded against the papal troops at S. Pietro in Gasale on 13th August 1649 occasioned his arrest and trial on charges of treason.l0