RKD STUDIES

The Legation of Ferrara welcomed the Flemish painter Johannes van Beyghem (1601–1654) into an inspiring cultural and artistic milieu in the 1620s.¹ The story of this previously anonymous master slowly came to light through documents that we found in the Archivio di Stato di Ferrara (ASFe, State Archive of Ferrara) and Stadsarchief Mechelen (SAM, City Archives of Mechelen), and through some works of art recently ascribed to his catalogue.

The rediscovery of this painter began in the 20th century thanks to some local historical publications, although some aspects of his life and artistic career remained unknown, including the mysterious Italianised name found in 18th-century city guidebooks, ‘Giovanni Vangembes’.² Investigation of the State Archive of Ferrara, guided by the strange Italian spelling of the painter’s Flemish surname, made it possible to have new insights into two very important documents, which were known to local historians: the inventory of the goods and the testament of the artist’s son-in-law, the French barber Giacomo Cosua (1689). Research in the archives of his birth town near Antwerp revealed new elements that confirmed the Flemish origin and the family network of the painter.³

Born in Mechelen in 1601, Jan van Beyghem moved to Italy very young, around the age of 14. It is very likely that after spending some time in Rome he reached Ferrara, a city with a great Renaissance past under the Este rule, which had just been incorporated into the Papal States. Ferrara then had a strategic position and role that made it the farthest Papal State in Northern Italy. It lay on the southern bank of the Po River, with direct access to the sea to the east, the Republic of Venice to the north and the Legation of Romagna to the south. On the west it bordered on the Legation of Bologna and the Duchy of Modena and Reggio.

Because of its unique geographical position, Ferrara was an obligatory stop for those who wanted to cross the Duchies of Emilia in order to reach Lombardy, the gateway to mainland Europe. It was therefore quite common to find renowned art patrons in its streets. One was Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio (1579–1644), a distinguished statesman and historian. He became an important intermediary between Brussels, Paris and Rome when he served as papal nuncio at the courts of Archdukes Albert and Isabella of the Habsburg Netherlands (1607–1615) and of France (1616–1621).⁴ Bentivoglio was able to maintain an extraordinary social network in Ferrara, his place of birth, through his brothers Ippolito (died 1619) and Enzo (1575–1639): they were not only important art collectors but also patrons of music and theatre in Ferrara, Modena, Parma and Rome.⁵ They owned what is now the Palazzo Pallavicini Rospigliosi on the Quirinal Hill in Rome, a majestic building erected in the early 17th century for Cardinal Scipione Borghese.⁶ The famous portrait of Cardinal Bentivoglio painted in 1623 by Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641), one of his Flemish protégés in Rome, combines outward magnificence and introspective psychology, showing the ‘robustness’ of the Cardinal through the ‘alertness of his gaze’ [1].⁷

It was perhaps by following Bentivoglio back to Italy from his embassy in Flanders that Jan van Beyghem, like other Flemish painters engaged by Italian patrons, reached Ferrara.⁸ Bentivoglio was highly appreciated at the Coudenbergh Palace in Brussels by Archduke Albert VII of Austria (1559–1621) and Isabella Clara Eugenia (1566–1633), sovereigns of the Habsburg Netherlands between 1598 and 1621. As papal nuncio he visited Antwerp and Mechelen, where he often took part in synods on the application of the laws of Catholic reform in the Spanish Netherlands. It was probably here that he came in contact with some members of the Van Beyghem family. The painter’s uncle, Jacob, brother of his father Cornelis, was one of the most important bailiffs (deurwaarder) of the Great Council of Mechelen. The latter was the supreme court of all the Burgundian Netherlands and one of its most important institutions: it controlled all the legislative and executive powers, and it included the people who ended up under direct royal protection. The ancient seat of the Great Council was the Schepenhuis, a building close to the diamond workshop of the Van Beyghem family where, as we read in the documents in the City Archives of Mechelen, Jan spent his childhood.⁹

The social network that the family of the painter established in their home town probably supported him in his move to Italy for his professional training – first in Rome and then in Ferrara, as many Flemish artists did at the time, or perhaps in Ferrara first and only later in Rome, thanks to the influence of the papal nuncio, who at the time was one of the most influential patrons of Northern artists, from Van Dyck to Claude Lorrain (1604/5–1682).¹⁰ The name of the Bentivoglio family appears several times in the documents concerning Jan van Beyghem in Ferrara.¹¹ It was also not unusual for Northern artists to be welcomed in the Bentivoglio house in Rome: a ‘master Gian’, often referred to as ‘maistre Jan’ in French, appears from 1618 in the correspondence between Parma and Ferrara of the Bentivoglio family, thanks to a very close friendship with marchese Enzo, Guido’s brother. In May 1645 another name appears at the top of the list of servants of the Bentivoglio family in Rome: ‘Monsù Gianni’ who, according to Fabris, might have been a Flemish artist, a musician, or most likely a painter.¹²

From a stylistic point of view, Jan van Beyghem's treatment of objects and fabrics shows a great maestria in realising some technical traits, recalling the Flemish obsessive attention to details [2]. His works are close to Italian paintings not only because he spent some time in Rome but probably also because he reached Italy very young. Here he met exponents of Flemish and French Caravaggism; his style can be seen as a synthesis between Nicolas Tournier (1590–1638/9) [3-5] and Simon Vouet (1590–1649) [6-9]. He could also enrich his painting, and look at contemporary Emilian masters such as Carlo Bononi (1569–1632) and Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, known as Guercino (1591–1666) [10-11].¹³

1
Anthony van Dyck
Portrait of cardinal Guido Bentivoglio (1579-1644), documented 1623
Florence, Galleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti)

2
Jan van Beyghem
Saint Anthony of Padua and the Miracle of the Mule (detail), 1627-1630, oil on canvas, 220 x 165 cm
Ferrara, Church of St. Francis of Assisi. (photo: Enrico Ghetti)

3
Johannes van Beyghem
The Wedding at Cana, c. 1624
Ferrara, Church of St. Francis of Assisi

The first mention of the painter in Ferrara found in the archives dates to 1635: a painter called ‘Giovanni Cappelli’ was given permission to use a house in the Ferrarese parish of Santo Stefano.¹⁴ The document was written in the ‘painter’s room’ in the house of Sgr Girolamo Magnanini, member of one of the most powerful families in the city at the time (the building can be admired today – Strada Giovecca 47 [Palazzo Magnanini-Roverella). This document provides us with some important geographical details, such as his house in Ferrara – he was living in the parish of San Clemente – and his home town: in the document he introduces himself as the son of the late Cornelius ‘de Cappellis de Mallinis’, which can be the small town of Kapelle-op-den-Bos, near Mechelen. That explains the versions of the strange surname – Capellum, Cappello, Capellus – added to identify the painter in several Ferrarese documents. Another document, released by the city government in 1637, suggests that Jan had been living in Ferrara for ‘ten, or more years’.¹⁵

An investigation in the City Archives of Mechelen gives new insights in Jan van Beyghem’s Flemish family and into his human and professional life in Italy.¹⁶ Here, for instance, we find Jan dealing with the support of his disabled (‘innocent’) sister Marie, and with the administration of family properties in Mechelen. These documents always referred to him simply as living in Italy (‘woonende in Italie’), until an amazing paper was discovered concerning the sale of a house owned by Van Beyghem in Mechelen, dated 1 March 1646: here, Cornelis van Beyghem testifies in place of his brother Johannes, who lives in Ferrara, Italy (‘woonende binnen Ferraren in Italien’) [12-13].¹⁷

Discovered simultaneously with the signature of the painter in the State Archive of Ferrara, this leaves no doubt about the correct spelling of the Flemish surname, and, most importantly, clarifies the uncertainties concerning the two characters: Johannes van Beyghem from Mechelen is identifiable with the ‘Signor Giovanni Vaimbegms Fiamengo’ who on 21 June 1653 signed the settlement of a debt of 50 lire, paid to the Mamai family in Ferrara.¹⁸ This receipt includes a line written by the painter in which he promises to pay the sum within the following twenty days. The signature (‘Io G[i]oanin Beijghems’) [14-15] restores the correct version of the Flemish surname, constantly distorted in notary documentation of the 17th century (‘Vambaigems’, ‘Vambeyghems’), and completely misspelled in the 18th-century guidebooks of the city of Ferrara (‘Vengembes’, ‘Vangembes’).

The Ferrarese archival evidence on the artist provides us not only with details of his career developed between the centre and its hinterland but also reveals a man with a difficult character, which led him to frequent disputes. Among these we find the rape of Dorotea Savani, a poor 15-year-old servant, who served Van Beyghem in his house in Ferrara. The assault was perpetrated there, and the painter managed to get away with the crime without being charged with any type of punishment, since the victim was of humble origin: in the end he only paid a sum of money.¹⁹ The sum of ‘lire 125’ in Ferrarese coins was equivalent to almost one third of the value of the rooms (a kitchen and a cellar) located in Ferrara in the parish of Santo Stefano, which the painter had pawned in that same year as a security deposit.²⁰ All this happened in 1651, when Giovanni van Beyghem was 50 years old, and had already had three marriages and three daughters. These aspects of his personality perfectly embody the dark side of the Baroque.²¹ That may seem of secondary importance, but in fact it plays a crucial role in some still little-known itineraries of the Flemish Masters of Mobility of 17th-century Italy.

12 SAM, Schepenakten, Serie I, no. 267, 1646, f° 53r-v. Courtesy of City Archives, Mechelen (photo: Federica Veratelli)

13 SAM, Schepenakten, Serie I, no. 267, 1646, f° 53r-v, detail. Courtesy of City Archives, Mechelen (photo: Federica Veratelli.)

14 ASFe, ANA, Domenico Villani, matr. 954, 1653-1654, p. 13 (1653), fasc. sciolto, cc. 1r-2v, all. 1, 2, 3, detail. Courtesy of State Archives, Ferrara (photo: Federica Veratelli)

15 ASFe, ANA, Domenico Villani, matr. 954, 1653-1654, p. 13 (1653), fasc. sciolto, cc. 1r-2v, all. 1, 2, 3. Courtesy of State Archives, Ferrara (photo: Federica Veratelli)