The Academy has maintained its international importance in the fine arts, thanks to its fundamental role in the teaching of drawing and for a series of annual competitions. In 1593, under the principality of Federico Zuccari, the teaching of drawing was established at the academic headquarters. At mid-eighteenth century pope Benedict XIV established the “Pictures Gallery in Capitol”, today’s Pinacoteca Capitolina, and the academicians served as directors of the gallery.
Female Model (Drapery Study) (1780) by Laurent BlanchardNational Academy of San Luca
The Academy directly ran the School of Life Drawing, housed in new premises designed by Ferdinando Fuga and built on the Capitol right underneath the room one of the picture gallery. The young artists, in order to practice on the female nude (it was inconceivable at the time to find at the school naked female models), would go upstairs in the two rooms then housing the picture gallery to copy from the paintings whose subjects justified the presence of nude women.
Male Nude (1759) by Nathaniel DanceNational Academy of San Luca
At the time of the French government the Academy was officially entrusted with the task of training artists and Antonio Canova decided to move the School of Life Drawing. The pictures with female nudes, by then long exhibited in the Capitoline rooms, having lost their precise and acknowledged didactic function, were at once deemed obscene. For this reason, in the aftermath of the election of Pope Leo XIII (1823), they were removed from the roomsand temporally placed in a “reserved cabinet” arranged in a room on the ground floor of the Palazzo dei Conservatori on the Capitol.
Room of the Reserved Cabinet (XVIIIth - XIXth century) by senza autoreNational Academy of San Luca
In 1836 Fortune by Guido Reni and workshop, and the detached fresco by Guercino were transferred to the Academy of Saint Luke. Eventually, in March 1845, all the works of the “reserved cabinet” were definitively donated to the Academy. The group consisted in twelve paintings: eleven are still in the gallery of the Academy.
the Fortune (1637) by Guido ReniNational Academy of San Luca
Fortune by Guido Reni was the first painting transferred to the Academy of Saint Luke. Fortune, played by a woman, holds a golden crown in the right hand, in the other holds a scepter and a palm tree. A cupid in flight tries to hold her for long, loose hair while the perfect Fortuna body, flying over the world.
Around 1637 Guido Reni realized two different versions of Fortune, which became very popular and were replicated many times in the workshop of the artist, occasionally with his own direct intervention. Recent restoration work has revealed the presence of a purse hidden behind the crown, confirming that this is indeed the Fortune painted by Giarola and finished by Guido Reni.
Venus and Cupid (1632) by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri detto il GuercinoNational Academy of San Luca
The fresco,Venus and Love, kept in storage at the Capitol, had never really been part of the Capitoline collection. Giovanni Francesco Barbieri called Guercino executed this fresco for Villa Giovannina, not distant from Cento, owned by count Filippo Maria Aldovrandi, and decorated by a few artists with scenes drawn from celebrated poems.
The fresco was ripped from the wall in 1786, or thereabouts, and moved to the family’s residence in Bologna, and then was donated to Pope Gregory XVI.
Perseus and Andromeda (XVIIth century) by Cavalier d'Arpino (Giiuseppe Cesari )National Academy of San Luca
Among the eleven works of the Capitoline collection there is this Perseus and Andromeda by Cavalier d'Arpino, the replica of an autograph on slate, today at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Giuseppe Cesari called Cavalier d’Arpino came back repeatedly to this famous mythological fable in various painting: Perseus fights against the sea monster to free Andromeda. She then became his spouse.
In this version the sudden arrival of Perseus riding Pegasus is a variation on the theme introduced by Ovid’s Metamorphosis and in the paiting an extensive intervention of his collaborators is quite likely. Cavalier d’Arpino was an important member of the Accademia di San Luca so much that he was appointed Prince in the 1600 e and re-elected in 1616 and 1629.
Susanna and the Elders (XVIth century) by Palma il Giovane (Jacopo Negretti)National Academy of San Luca
Susanna and the Elders by Palma the Younger is the one of the pictures belong to the original nucleus of the Pinacoteca Capitolina and came from the Sacchetti collection, whose best paintings were purchased for the Capitol in 1748.
In the famous episode narrated in the Old Testament, the young woman, Susanna, caught by surprise during a bath by two men, rejected their advances and, unfairly accused, was eventually rescued by an intervention of Daniel. Palma deploys the episode on various planes, focusing on the curvaceous central nude of Susanna backed by a maid, while the two elders hide behind a tree.
David and Bathsheba (1610) by Palma il Giovane (Jacopo Negretti)National Academy of San Luca
David and Bathsheba came to form part of the Academy’s collection in 1845, together with the companion piece of Sansone e Dalila. They were probably part of a pictorial cycle dedicated to a seductive female figures from the Bible. In this moment Palma adopted the models and mannerisms of Tintoretto e Tiziano.
The story focuses on Bathsheba which is represented in a room with echoes from contemporary trends and for the first time, in Venetian painting, completely naked.
Cupid and Psyche (1695/1700) by Benedetto LutiNational Academy of San Luca
Love and Psyche by Benedetto Luti, acquired in 1771 through the funds of the Museo Pio Clementino, is the only picture belong to the original nucleus of the Pinacoteca Capitolina who don’t came from the Sacchetti collection.
The painting represent the theme narrated in Lucio Apuleio's Metamorphosis in which Psyche discovers that her mysterious nighttime lover is none other than the god of Love himself. The feeble light represents the central moment of the fable but also of the difficulty in rendering the light-shade play. He was appointed academician of merit in 1694.
Triumphant Athlete (1813/1814) by Francesco HayezNational Academy of San Luca
In addition to teaching, the Academy took care of holding "Competitions" to promote o foster the three arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture Numerous essays of both famous and lesser known artists of these competitions have enrichied the academic collection. The heroic nude of Francesco Hayez, Triumphing athlete, is an example. The work entered in the academic collection in 1813 as the winning piece at the “Anonymous patron” competition.
Indeed, an unnamed philanthropist—to be identified with Antonio Canova, prince of the Academy of Saint Luke—starting 1812 had granted a generous allowance for the institution of two annual scholarships, respectively for a painter and a sculptor. The large heroic nude betrays the influence the Belvedere Apollo and his direct models are arguably some of Canova's most celebrated marbles, from Perseus to Palamedes, to Napoleon Bonaparte as Appeasing Mars.
