The Prints and Drawings Collection of the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche

The core of the drawings collection consists of works formerly belonging to the Viviani family of Urbino. This significant bequest took place in two distinct stages: the first transfer, made to the Gallery on a temporary loan by Filippo Viviani in March 1920, and subsequently formalised as a bequest in 1922, comprised 166 works; the second acquisition took place in 1934 thanks to the intervention of Giuseppe Pace, who, acting on the wishes of his aunt Adele de Buzi, widow of Filippo Viviani, added the remaining drawings from the family collection to the paintings mentioned in his aunt’s bequest. This second transfer, comprising 107 drawings, was only finalised in 1936, following lengthy negotiations with the heirs.

The Viviani collection is notable for the predominance of drawings attributed to Federico Barocci and his closest collaborators and followers. It is plausible that these works originate largely from a workshop collection, as suggested by the presence of numerous copies, variations and study sketches. A well-established tradition, though lacking documentary evidence, attributes the collection’s formation to the painter Antonio Viviani, known as ‘il Sordo’, one of the most renowned pupils of the Urbino master. In addition to the substantial collection of Barocci’s own works, the collection includes numerous drawings by other artists from the Marche region active between the late 16th and early 17th centuries, among whom those attributed to Federico Zuccari, Claudio Ridolfi, Antonio Cimatori, known as il Visacci, Giorgio Picchi, and the brothers Antonio and Ludovico Viviani stand out. This group of local works is complemented by an important selection of drawings by masters from other artistic contexts, among which, for their quality and rarity, those attributed to Giuseppe Puglia, known as ‘il Bastaro’, Cesare Sermei, Cecco Bravo, Giovan Battista Trotti, known as il Malosso, and a precious preparatory study by Vittore Carpaccio for the figure of the Madonna and child at the centre of San Giobbe Altarpiece, now housed in the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice.

The two large seventeenth-century cartoons deserve a special mention; they entered the Gallery in 1915, after the Albani family had previously donated them to the Comunità of Urbino for the artistic education of young people. These are the extraordinary cartoons by Annibale Carracci and Domenichino, preparatory studies respectively for part of the vault of the gallery in Palazzo Farnese in Rome and for one of the frescoed lunettes in the Chapel of the Treasure of San Gennaro in Naples Cathedral. Two further, smaller cartoons, attributable to Federico Barocci and his workshop, come from the collections of the Municipality of Urbino.

The Galleria Nazionale delle Marche also houses a significant collection of prints, comprising just under 900 items, most of which were acquired during Luigi Serra’s directorship. The collection, which is diverse and of varying quality, is divided into two main groups: on the one hand, engravings depicting historic views, maps and monuments of the Marche region; on the other, prints by old masters from the Marche such as Simone Cantarini, Federico Barocci, Domenico Peruzzini, Luca Ciamberlano, Matteo Piccioni and Paolo Fidanza. Over time, further acquisitions were added to this original collection: 25 woodcuts by Adolfo De Carolis (1925), 72 antique prints purchased from Adele Turchi (1931) and 40 etchings and lithographs donated by Antonio Carbonati (1958). Thanks to these additions, the Gallery’s collection of prints is now one of the largest and most significant in the Marche region.