The Bishop of Rome baptising Tiburtius with Two Clergymen

Author: Alicia Rojas Costa

This pen-and-ink drawing, attributed to Lorenzo Costa, is a preparatory study for one of the frescoes of the cycle of Cecilia and Valeriano in the Oratory of Santa Cecilia in Bologna, painted between 1505 and 1506. The drawing was used by the artist for the scene of Cecilia and Valerian Crowned by an Angel (fig.).^[1] Cecilia was a Roman woman forced to marry the noble patrician Valerian. However, her devotion towards Christ made her convince her husband to receive the sacrament of baptism and follow a life of chastity. The Rotterdam sheet relates to the baptism of Valerian’s brother Tiburtius, who was persuaded in turn to convert by his brother’s fierce devotion.

The study was used for the small group of figures on the right-hand side of the fresco background, where the bishop of Rome, Urban, is baptising Tiburtius, in front of two other clergymen. Tibertius himself is not present in the drawing, but the outlines of the figures on the sheet have been pricked to transfer the design to another surface.

As noted by Brown in 1966, Philip Pouncey was the first scholar to link this preparatory design with the frescoes of Santa Cecilia in Bologna, ascribing this sheet to the Ferrara School and in particular to Lorenzo Costa.^[2] Nevertheless, this attribution has also been controversial, since it is still not fully clarified which frescoes were accomplished by Lorenzo Costa himself and which ones were finished by the two other main artists of this commission: Francesco Francia (1447-1517) and Amico Aspertini (1474/1475-1552). Several minor artists of the region of Bologna also took part in the execution of this cycle.^[3] Yet, the fresco designs were entrusted to Costa, Francia, and Aspertini, renowned artists of the Bentivoglio court.

Another drawing relating to the same fresco cycle survives and is now in Florence.^[4] This drawing, also attributed to Costa, is a composition study for the fresco depicting Cecilia Disputing with Almachius, the seventh scene from the fresco cycle in Bologna. Faietti supported the attribution of Costa to the Rotterdam sheet on the basis of another drawing of a group of four women, now in London.^[5] According to her, the hatching and cross-hatching and the typology of the faces of both drawings are key to ascribing the Rotterdam drawing to Costa’s hand. She maintains that this style is closer to Costa than to any of the two other main artists of this commission.^[6] The lack of spontaneity in the strokes of the Rotterdam sheet, and the lightness with which contours and movement are treated, in comparison to other Costa’s designs, reflects the fact that it was the final iteration of the figures before they were transferred to the fresco.