Antonio del Massaro (Il Pastura) and the Roman School 1478-1508

Abstract

Born in Viterbo in c.1450, the artistic output of Antonio del Massaro (il Pastura) spans over thirty years (1478-1508) and includes both documented and attributed work in Rome as well as in outlying centres of the Papal States. This thesis considers Pastura’s career to open questions about the status of both collaboration and artistic mastery as defining features of a Roman School. The delineation of a late-fifteenth century Roman School of artists remains elusive despite the efforts of art historians to date. This study will offer a more dynamic model that relies less on the tropes of individual artistic genius. The first chapter introduces the artist Pastura by outlining both the historical record and his construction in the literature, as new documentation of his work continues to be discovered. The role of Pastura is much more important than so far recognised to the extent that his is one of the founding signatures on the 1478 Roman Painters’ Guild Statutes. Chapter Two therefore examines this document in the context of fifteenth-century Rome and artistic production, as the guild warrants further consideration in its own right.

The second half of the thesis consists of two case studies which explore details of Pastura’s work and the networks he and the Roman School relied on. Chapter Three addresses Pastura’s early career and the Ponziani Chapel at Santa Cecilia in Trastevere in the context of artistic collaboration. This case study opens evidence of social and economic activity generally overlooked regarding the guilds, revealing a family nevertheless connected with artisan and papal networks. Pastura’s fresco cycle unveils a theme of Roman martyrology, and Chapter Four elucidates Pastura’s special role in the creation of the hagiographic imagery for the Ponziani family’s female saint, Francesca Romana. This case study addresses the process of attribution and workshop production.

Chapter Five completes the thesis by presenting Pastura as an independent master in the creation of the 1508 decorative programme for the Vitelleschi Chapel in Corneto (present-day Tarquinia). By contextualising the artist Pastura within the fifteenth-century Roman School, and by viewing him as a member of this group, this study reveals artistic production and patronage networks in Rome in the last decades of the fifteenth century and beginning of the sixteenth as a rich field for future scholarly research.