La Fortuna come Giustizia: la Calunnia di Apelle nelle Imagini di Cartari

Since the first edition of Le Imagini con la spositione de i dei de gli antichi (Images and descriptions of ancient gods) by Vincenzo Cartari – printed in Venice in 1556 – a large descriptive space was reserved to the figure of Fortune. Due to the multiplicity of its meanings and to its topical interest, this personification was widely used during the Renaissance age and beyond, in different areas of artistic production. Cartari – supported by a number of sources that at different times and in various ways identified and characterized the figure of Fortuna (including Pausanias, Virgil, Horace, Aulus Gellius, Catullus, Dante and Petrarca) – draws with a decided and effective sign the multiple aspects of the goddess. Cartari compares, among others pagan deities, Fortune to Nemesis and to Nemesis-Justice, suggesting an identification between these figures. Starting from this triple overlap of Fortune, Justice, and Nemesis, Cartari introduces a digression on the theme of just judges and false accusations, which starts from the description – mediated by the summary of an ancient ekphrasis by Lucianus of Samosata – of the celebrated painting of the 4th century BC, the Calumny of Apelles. The first edition of Cartari’s treaty, in 1556, was not provided with illustrations. Only in 1571 the work was enriched by engravings, created by Bolognino Zaltieri, but here the picture of Calumny was non included. Only in the next edition, in 1615 – this time published in Padua by the erudite Lorenzo Pignoria, and enriched with new illustrations by Filippo Ferroverde – the image of Calumny finally appears. The new engraver greatly enriched the text, inserting the ancient subject described by Lucianus in two different representations (both present also in Cartari's following reprints): one is included within the text, in the digression on the theme of calumny; the other one is added to Pignoria's commentary to the work. The two images, although outlined by the same artist, consist in two different interpretations of the famous theme. The first engraving, in the text, is one of the few versions of Calumny subverting the specifications given by Lucianus' ekphrasis, since it is composed as a frontal picture, built around the central figure of the judge. The second engraving, in the commentary, is a mirrored and simplified copy of an original and renowned interpretation of the subject, a work by Federico Zuccari painted around 1569.