La Salita al Calvario di Scipione Pulzone: le copie, la filologia e il prototipo per Marcantonio Colonna

Since 2012, when Scipione Pulzone’s Way to Calvary (1581-83) was first published, a considerable number of copies and variants of the composition have come to light. In this article, a detailed philological examination of the fourteen versions presently known is carried out, in order to define the exact appearance of the original work and confirm the identification of the version belonging to a private collection in Italy with the replica painted in 1583 for cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici, as well as to validate the hypothesis that the prototype commissioned to Pulzone by Marcantonio Colonna in 1579 is the version now in the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts, which is undoubtedly the best of all for quality of execution. As more or less altered copies, all the other extant examples of the image can be related to one or the other of these originals, according to a model that, in the author’s intention, should be possible to apply to any subsequent versions. Furthermore, the Medici replica is characterised by an interesting detail directly alluding to its patron: in fact, the sword born by the soldier in the foreground reproduces a falchion presently in the Wallace Collection, which was made for duke Cosimo de’ Medici before 1569. Presumably Cosimo gave it to his son Ferdinando, who took it to Rome where it was admired not only by Pulzone but also by Paris Nogari, as can be observed in the latter` s fresco representing the Library of Alexandria in the Salone Sistino of the Vatican Library, painted in 1588-89.