Notes
1 "Magick Land", Apollo 99 (June 1974), 407. A pen and ink drawing of the project is owned by the Art Institute of Chicago. Pietro Bracci was born in Rome in 1700, and died in the same city in 1773. He sculpted the figures in the Monument to Queen Clementina in St. Peter's Basilica.
2 Antonio Canova was born in Possagno, near Treviso, in 1757, and died in Venice in 1822. He was the foremost sculptor of his time. Queen Louise commissioned him to sculpt the monument to Count Vittorio Alfieri in the Basilica di Santa Croce in Florence.
3The original contract is preserved in the Biblioteca Civica in Bassano del Grappa (Mss. Canoviani, IV. 101); the text is reproduced in Stella Rudolph, "Il monumento Stuart del Canova: un committente dimenticato e il primo pensiero ritrovato", Antologia di belle arti 16 (1980): 49-51. The contract specifies that the 9,000 scudi were to be paid in portions of 1,000 scudi annually. This sum was at the time equivalent to approximately 150 pounds sterling.
4
The design is reproduced in Rudolph, 46.
5 Maria Sofia Lilli, Aspetti dell'Arte Neoclassica: Sculture nelle Chiese Romane, 1780-1845 (Istituto Nazionale di Studie Romani, 1991), 63.
6 50,000 francs (the approximate equivalent of 200 pounds sterling) was somewhat more than the original agreed price of 9,000 scudi. In a letter to his friend Count Leopoldo Cicognara, December 7, 1816, Canova writes: "La somma somministrata dal Governo inglese per il monumento del Cardinale Duca fu di franchi 50.000, a titolo di gratificazione arbitraria e graziosa, per concorrere in qualche parte alla spesa del monumento; ma niuno vi mettera sopra un soldo, e questa somma dovra bastare per tutta l'opera" (The sum granted by the English Government for the monument of the Cardinal Duke was of 50,000 francs, as a sign of arbitrary and gracious favour, to contribute in part to the cost of the monument; but nobody will give a penny more, and this sum must suffice for the entire work); cf. Antonio Canova, Epistolario, 1816-1817 (Roma: Salerno), I, 2002, 553. The figure of 50,000 francs has been misunderstood by a number of English-language writers; one source suggests that the payment was only 5,000 francs, but this is obviously a typographic error. Ceyrep, "Dates of Births and Deaths of the Pretenders", Notes and Queries IX (February 25, 1854), 177, says that the Hereditary Prince of Hanover "sent a donation of fifty pounds for the purpose to Pius VII", but this also is a misunderstanding of the figure of 50,000 francs.
7 Presumably this change took place only as late as 1817 or even 1818. In a letter to Canova, dated January 10, 1817 (the year of the letter is not certain), Queen Louise, King Henry's sister-in-law writes, "Je suis persuadée que vous ferez un beau monument pour le Cardinal mon beau frère" (I am certain that you will make a lovely monument for the cardinal my brother-in-law); cf. Canova, Epistolario, II, 618. In a letter to Leopoldo Cicognara, dated August 9, 1817, Canova writes, "Si preparerà la creta per il modello del papa Pio VI e per quello del Cardinale di Yorck: ma non so se potrò terminarli ambidue" (You will prepare the clay for the model of Pope Pius VI and for that of the Cardinal of York, but I do not know if I will be able to finish both); cf. Canova, Epistolario, II, 946. In an article of March 25, 1818 The Times refers to "the monument to the memory of the Cardinal York", without any mention of the addition of James III and VIII or Charles III.
8 The design is preserved in the Museo Civico di Bassano (e.c.166.1365); it is reproduced in Il Museo Civico di Bassano: I Disegni di Antonio Canova, eidted by Elena Bassi (Venezia: Neri Pozza, 1959), 192.
Image 1 (Stuart Monument): Loretta Santini, Vatican City (Narni, Italy: Plurigraf, n.d.), 45.
Image 2 (Relief portraits): © Noel S. McFerran 2001.