Giangiacomo Gandolfi

The Strange Case of Raphael’s Planetary Hours: How Astronomy and Iconography Reveal a Neoclassical Forgery

Abstract

Due to the lack of information about their provenience and to their unmistakable Renaissance flavor, the so-called ‘Hours of Raphael’ set of engravings has baffled art connoisseurs for a long time, although critical voices on their authenticity have been sometimes raised. Still, in 2012 the historian Mary Quinlan-MacGrath insisted on it on the base of a very rare Vatican engraving, representing the Hours in the vault of the Sala dei Pontefici. My research, based on the incongruity of planetary association and on comparative iconography, reveals now a fascinating and very intricate story of forgery in the rising milieu of art counterfeit in Rome and Naples at the beginnings of the nineteenth century. The Hours of Raphael are definitely an astute pastiche of various figures painted by the School of the old Master, brought together following the instructions for allegorical representations contained in the famous iconological manual of Cesare Ripa.

Biography

I am a planetarian, science communicator and member of Società Italiana di Archeoastronomia (SIA), interested in the connection between astronomy and astrology and art, as of late especially visual arts. Since 2012 I have worked on Renaissance astral iconography and presented at workshops and congresses talks about 1) Raphael’s controversial horoscope of Jules II in the Stanza della Signatura (SEAC 2013), 2) a new reading of astrological symbols in Giorgione’s Frieze in Castelfranco Veneto (TV) (SIA 2013), 3) the evolution and diffusion of the so-called ‘astrologer’, an engraving by Giulio Campagnola (SIA 2012), and 4) the first complete interpretation of the puzzling astrological fresco in the Duomo of Montagnana (PD) (SIA 2014).