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Don Marcello Massarenti (
Budrio Budrio ( Eastern Bolognese: ) is a town and ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Bologna, in Emilia-Romagna, Italy; it is east of Bologna. Budrio is the birthplace of Giuseppe Barilli, better known under his pseudonym of Quirico Filopanti, an ...
, 1817 — 1905), a Vatican official who helped
Pope Pius IX Pope Pius IX (; born Giovanni Maria Battista Pietro Pellegrino Isidoro Mastai-Ferretti; 13 May 1792 – 7 February 1878) was head of the Catholic Church from 1846 to 1878. His reign of nearly 32 years is the longest verified of any pope in hist ...
escape from Rome at the time of the Roman republican uprising of 1849, rose to become
Almoner An almoner () is a chaplain or church officer who originally was in charge of distributing money to the deserving poor. The title ''almoner'' has to some extent fallen out of use in English, but its equivalents in other languages are often used f ...
of the Pope. In his official position he traveled extensively and amassed a collection of Italian paintings and Roman antiquities especially during the years following the
Unification of Italy The unification of Italy ( ), also known as the Risorgimento (; ), was the 19th century Political movement, political and social movement that in 1861 ended in the Proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, annexation of List of historic states of ...
, when the suppression of many monastic communities and the displacement of many aristocrats from hereditary positions brought a great number of works of art onto the market in Italy, both privately and publicly. He received an honorary knighthood from
Franz Josef of Austria Franz Joseph I or Francis Joseph I ( ; ; 18 August 1830 – 21 November 1916) was Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, and the ruler of the other states of the Habsburg monarchy from 1848 until his death in 1916. In the early part of his reig ...
and was decorated with the
Order of the Red Eagle The Order of the Red Eagle () was an order of chivalry of the Kingdom of Prussia. It was awarded to both military personnel and civilians, to recognize valor in combat, excellence in military leadership, long and faithful service to the kingdom, o ...
of Prussia. His private lodgings were modest, but he rented space for his gallery in Palazzo Rusticucci-Accoramboni, Rome, where he welcomed visitors. The palazzo, in the former piazza Rusticucci, was demolished by
Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who, upon assuming office as Prime Minister of Italy, Prime Minister, became the dictator of Fascist Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 un ...
along with the rest of the ''spina'' of medieval and renaissance houses to make way for the expansive
via della Conciliazione Via della Conciliazione ("Road of the Conciliation") is a street in the Rione of Borgo within Rome, Italy. Roughly in length, it connects Saint Peter's Square to the Castel Sant'Angelo on the western bank of the Tiber River. The road was constr ...
, leading to piazza San Pietro. A catalogue of the Galleria Massarenti was printed in 1881, when the prelate contemplated selling the collection to Prince Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst at Strasbourg. At that time
connoisseur A connoisseur (French language, French Reforms of French orthography, traditional, pre-1835, spelling of , from Middle-French , then meaning 'to be acquainted with' or 'to know somebody/something') is a person who has a great deal of knowledge ...
ship of Old Master paintings was in its infancy, and the works received highly optimistic traditional attributions. An English-language ''Catalogue of pictures, marbles, bronzes, antiquities... Palazzo Accoramboni'' (Rome: Forzani) was published in 1894, with a view to attracting prospective purchasers. The catalogue was assembled by a painter Edouard van Esbroeck, still with such wishful attributions that the catalogue cast somewhat of a temporary cloud over the collection as a whole.
Joseph Duveen Joseph Duveen, 1st Baron Duveen (14 October 1869 – 25 May 1939), known as Sir Joseph Duveen, Baronet, between 1927 and 1933, was a British art dealer who was considered one of the most influential art dealers of all time. Life and career Jo ...
, his famous nephew recalled, had been less than impressed by the authenticity of the paintings, and Duveen's close associate
Bernard Berenson Bernard Berenson (June 26, 1865 – October 6, 1959) was an American art historian specializing in the Renaissance. His book ''The Drawings of the Florentine Painters'' was an international success. His wife Mary is thought to have had a large ...
, played an uncertain role in the sale of the collection, disparaging the attribution to
Raphael Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), now generally known in English as Raphael ( , ), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. List of paintings by Raphael, His work is admired for its cl ...
of Massarenti's ''Madonna of the Candelbra'' in a letter to
Isabella Stewart Gardner Isabella Stewart Gardner (April 14, 1840 – July 17, 1924) was an American art collector, philanthropist, and patron of the arts. She founded the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Gardner possessed an energetic intellectual curiosity ...
in 1897. The purchase ''en bloc'' in 1902 of his collection of paintings, Renaissance bronzes, Greek vases and Roman antiquities, 1700 items in all, by the American railroad magnate and established collector
Henry Walters Henry Walters (September 26, 1848 – November 30, 1931) was noted as an art collector and philanthropist, a founder of the Walters Art Gallery (now the Walters Art Museum) in Baltimore, Maryland, which he donated to the city in his 1931 will f ...
of
Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the List of United States ...
, formed a nucleus of the
Walters Art Museum The Walters Art Museum is a public art museum located in the Mount Vernon, Baltimore, Mount Vernon neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland. Founded and opened in 1934, it holds collections from the mid-19th century that were amassed substantially ...
in Baltimore. Its loss to the nation raised no protest among Italians, and was dismissively remarked upon by
Wilhelm von Bode Wilhelm von Bode (10 December 1845 – 1 March 1929) was a German art historian and museum curator. Born Arnold Wilhelm Bode in Calvörde, and known as Wilhelm Bode for most of his career, he was ennobled in 1913, and thereafter adopted the ar ...
, who was informed that Walters was advised in the purchase by William M. Laffan, an owner of the ''
New York Sun ''The New York Sun'' is an American conservative news website and former newspaper based in Manhattan, New York. From 2009 to 2021, it operated as an (occasional and erratic) online-only publisher of political and economic opinion pieces, as we ...
''. Bode's account of Massarenti's personality was less than flattering: the man whom others would describe as affable, Bode found wily and agreeable, amassing the wealth to indulge his passion for art.Bode, noted by Johnston 1999, 154. The collection, for which Europeans of the time considered Walters to have greatly overpaid, has weathered a century of close study with new, less inflated attributions, and greater confidence in their authenticity, providing the city of Baltimore with a first-rate gallery of art.


Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Massarenti, Marcello 1817 births 1905 deaths Italian art collectors