L’inventario dei quadri Barberini del 1812: un puzzle archivistico | The Barberini Inventory of 1812: an Archival Puzzle

Abstract

This essay examines and arranges in correct sequence the pages of an inventory of paintings of the famous Barberini art collection dated 1812, preserved in the Barberini Archive of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. This inventory is a remarkable document that makes us aware of the condition of that collection of paintings immediately before the division between the two branches of the family (Barberini and Barberini Colonna di Sciarra) which took place in 1812. For the evaluation of the division they relied on two expert painters Vincenzo Camuccini and Gaspare Landi whose attributions reflect the taste and artistic culture of their time. At that date, over a thousand paintings were reckoned, some of which were by celebrated authors, later scaled down. The total value of the paintings was nearly 50,000 Roman «scudi». The file contains two identical inventories, one of which is dateless with the estimates of the paintings divided into two lists «A» and «B» with classes of different importance and value however homogeneous. In this inventory there is a page that reports two series of paintings marked as «excepted» to mean that there was still no agreement about their division. All of them seem to have ended up to the Barberini branch. The other inventory lists the same works, in the same sequence, but without any estimate and rather concise; drafted «January 6, 1812», it served as a receipt for the paintings collected by Maffeo Barberini Colonna di Sciarra’s proxy in August 19, 1812. A loose «bifoglio» with two lists of paintings has been then attached, the exchange of which between the parties was authorized. The author focuses on the exchanges and some attributions, postponing the comparative analysis of a large number of still unpublished Barberini inventories to a future study. Finally, the identification of the painting Lot and his daughters, the Barberinis attained through the Colonna family, is resolved.