The Cottabo (c. 1879)

Signed lower right: A. Scifoni/Rome

Provenance: private collection

Exhibitions: London, Royal Academy, 1879, no. 533; Rome, Esposizione di Belle Arti, 1883, no. 29

Bibliography: S. Attilj, Al Palazzo dell’Esposizione, in “Roma Antologia”, s. 3, a. IV, no. 8, 25 February 1883; L. Bellinzoni, Guida critica della Esposizione Artistica Internazionale di Roma (1883), Rome 1883, p. 34; G. D’Annunzio, Art Exhibition (“Fanfulla della Domenica” – 1883), in G. D’Annunzio, Scritti giornalistici, edited by A. M. Andreoli, vol. 1, Mondadori, Milan, 1996, pp. 105-106; Esposizione di Belle Arti Roma, in “The Architect”, vol. 29, 24 February 1883, p. 123; Madonnina Malaspina, La mostra internazionale di Belle Arti in Roma, in “La Rassegna nazionale”, vol. 13, a., V, Florence 1883, pp. 485-486; T. A. Trollope, What I remember, vol. III, London, 1889, p. 375; A. De Gubernatis, Dictionary of Living Artists, Luigi and A. S. Gonnelli Editori, Florence, 1892, p. 461; E. Caetani Lovatelli, Nuova Miscellanea Archeologica, Rome, Tip. Della reale Accademia dei Lincei, 1894, p. 86.

Exhibited at the Royal Academy in London in 1879[1], Il cottabo was later presented, together with I saltimbanchi in Pompei, at the Fine Arts Exhibition in Rome in 1883[2], in whose official catalogue it was reported as “sold”, evidently even before the start of the exhibition, to the banker and entrepreneur from Livorno Matteo Schilizzi, resident in Naples (fig. 3). Exhibited in room II, the work was reviewed by Bellinzoni, who in his Guida critica della Esposizione Artistica Internazionale di Roma (1883) explained the meaning of the theme being represented: “The subject in question this time is Sicilian and illustrates the habit that young people in high society had of casting the horoscope of their loves by throwing a glass of wine into a vase balanced on an instrument called the Cottabeyon. The good omen consisted in the skill of dropping the jar onto an underlying metal surface. If, due to inexperience, the jar shattered on the mosaic floor, then goodbye love. There was a risk of failure for life. Scifoni appeared to have understood the game: his painting makes a good impression and the novelty of the subject engenders sympathy and interest”[3]. “Scifoni – Bellinzoni also noted-, “always paints customs of Roman and Greek civilisations. Regarding distant history, he knows as much as Alma Tadema. To fully understand all the expert details, there’s a need to consult archaeologists and books”[4]. Scifoni was therefore part of the group of artists – many of whom had studios in Rome – known as archaeological painters, who combined refined technical ability with antiquarian expertise, engaging in authentic re-enactments of ancient everyday life, especially Greek and Roman, an authentic delight for a bourgeois public eager to see themselves reflected in the customs of the ancients and to find them, in these paintings, surprisingly close to their own. The undisputed maestro and reference point for archaeological painters was Lawrence Alma-Tadema, a profound connoisseur of antiquity, also present at the Roman exhibition of 1883, who stood out due to his openness to being compared to international artists. Like Alma-Tadema, whose paintings he had long admired in Paris, Scifoni was seduced by the extraordinary evocative power of the ruins that had emerged in Pompeii and in the Vesuvian area since the beginning of the 19th century. While Rome and its majestic ruins represented historical and monumental grandeur, Pompeii was – and still is today – an incredible time machine, capable of exciting and surprising anyone who comes into contact with it. The archaeological painters merely put that extraordinary machine into operation in their paintings, conquering the international public, who also perceived its “exotic” nuance.

While for the majority of his neo-ancient works, in addition to his antiquarian expertise, Scifoni used impressions collected from real in Pompeii, in the Cottabo the placement of the scene in a Greek setting led him to draw on the repertoire of vase decorations and literary sources. The origin of the game is still a matter of debate[5] and one of the most accredited theses is that it was invented in the Magna Graecia Sicilian colonies, from which it then quickly spread to Greece, becoming extremely popular, to the point of being a firm fixture in every symposium, that is, the part of the banquet dedicated to wine tasting, witty conversation, playful and convivial entertainment. The game, much appreciated especially among young people, consisted of throwing the last drops of wine remaining in the cup from which it had been drunk, towards a target, which, as in the painting commented here, was a small metal saucer balanced at the end of a long rod; the latter, reproduced on numerous ceramic specimens[6], sometimes had a tripod-shaped base and another larger disc was attached to its middle: if the apical saucer was struck and, falling, it in turn hit the intermediate disc, making it ring, then you were a winner and, at the same time, you had gained favourable omens for your love life. Scifoni focussed attention on this fatalistic and sentimental aspect of the game, placing two young lovers, with delicate features, at the centre of the composition: the woman, her head slightly bowed, red in the face from embarrassment or emotion, is held by the hand by her young fiancé – with a lean build and a determined look -, pictured just before throwing the wine from the cup.

In the Cottabo, this movement was governed by very specific rules: the feat was normally performed while still lying on the triclinium, with the index finger grasping the cup in a graceful pose, and the throw had to be carried out with a single, firm motion of the wrist. This moment is glorified in Scifoni’s painting, emphasising the pathos of the scene due to the predictable implications, to the detriment of the playful and convivial aspect, relegated to the background through the female figures who observe the scene with a concentrated or complicit gaze.

Given the substantial lack of archaeological evidence on Greek and Magna Graecia wall painting (should we have to imagine the work set in Sicily), Scifoni drew on the many known vase decorations (fig. 1) and, in an act that was both philological and casual, reproduced, on a large scale and in the background, the series of figures of a wedding procession depicted on a crater from the archaic Greek period at the National Museum of Athens (fig. 2). Even the crater with black-figure columns represented on the right, from which a slave draws wine for libations using a simpulum (ladle), is probably the reproduction of an archaic example from the 6th century, a period in which black-figure decoration was more widespread (in terms of the layout of the pictorial space and the decorations, comparable examples are found in the Etruscan collection at the Civic Archaeological Museum in Milan and at the National Museum of Valle Giulia in Rome). Therefore, Scifoni does not recreate a real place – as he had done in other works inspired by Pompeii – but a plausible and convincing setting for a passionate, but non-specialist audience. Furthermore, he adds all those surrounding elements that might fascinate collectors: coloured flowers scattered everywhere, theatrical masks hanging from suspended wreaths, a curtain to filter the light, in a fine chromatic orchestration that Gabriele d’Annunzio did not fail to notice: “The colour lights up. In the Cottabo by Scifoni, the opaque colours of the old Greek vase contrast with the vividness of the nudity, between the dark granite columns, under the white drapes adorned with black, where greyhounds play”[7].

A separate chapter regards the buyer of Scifoni’s work, bought at the exhibition by the Livorno-born banker and businessman Matteo Schilizzi (1861-1905, fig. 3). “Son of a very rich grain merchant, of Greek origin”[8], Schilizzi’s biography constitutes an extraordinary novel, starting from his origins, which link his family to the “leggi livornine” (“Livorno laws”) issued by Ferdinando I de Medici at the end of the 16th century, which had attracted merchants of all origins to the city, especially Jews, with the aim of relaunching the city both economically and commercially. Indeed, Matteo Schilizzi belonged to a family of Cypriot Sephardic Jewish origin, although he was an Orthodox Christian. Bound by a very deep relationship with his brother Marco, they shared philanthropic initiatives and a love for beauty, which led them surrounding themselves, at the Livorno villa in Ardenza, with “a large quantity of rich Greek and oriental furnishings and very valuable art objects”[9]. Having moved to Naples following the death of his brother and the traumatic violation of the family tomb, robbed of the riches that had been contained therein, together with the deceased, in the Neapolitan city he vigorously pursued various types of undertakings, such as involvement in the building renovation of the city, which was the subject of significant speculation, distinguishing himself both for charity and voluntary work (like during the cholera epidemic in 1884). In a short time, he amassed an enormous fortune, becoming one of the most prominent figures in the city, and was also renowned for memorable receptions held at Palazzo Bivona, near the Chiaia Riviera. His name was also linked to the project of a mausoleum on the Posillipo hill[10] (fig. 4), overlooking the Gulf of Naples and surrounded by a park, for which he commissioned the engineer and architect Alfonso Guerra, meticulously dictating the architectural and decorative characteristics, using stylistic elements taken from Egyptian architecture for the exterior of the building and Arabesque elements for the decoration of the interior. According to the architect Guerra, Schilizzi personally dictated the instructions on how to build the mausoleum and the symbolic and esoteric elements that should be adopted. He was, in fact, tormented by the thought of death and otherworldly fate and the mausoleum was supposed to house his mortal remains and pass on his memory and that of his brother forever.

In 1889, the construction of the imposing Mausoleum, now nearing completion, was abandoned by Schilizzi, who, despite being described as a friendly person, suffered from acute depressive crises, leading an increasingly solitary life, which ended in Naples, after various financial failures, in 1905.

Few traces of him remained and the Mausoleum, left neglected for some time and threatened with destruction, was finally purchased by the Municipality and transformed into a shrine for the fallen of the Great War.

[1] See A. Graves, The Royal Academy of Art. A Complete Dictionary of Contributors and their work from its foundation in 1769 to 1904, vol. VII, London 1906, p. 54. The artist’s address was 14 Great Portland Street. That it was the work displayed in London can be deduce, with relative certainty, by the presence on the back of the canvas of an old mark bearing the title, in English, The Cottabo.

[2] In the catalogue, the Roman address was in Via del Babuino 61.

[3] L. Bellinzoni, Guida critica della Esposizione Artistica Internazionale di Roma (1883), Rome 1883, p. 34.

[4] Ibid.

[5] The game was much commented on in the 19th century, see L. Becq de Fouquières, Du Cottabe, in Id., Les Jeux des Anciens, II ed., Paris 1873, pp. 212-240. On its provenance, see R. Campagner, Il gioco del cottabo nelle commedie di Aristofane, in “Quaderni urbinati di cultura classica”, n.s., vol. 72, no. 3, 2002, pp. 111-127.

[6] In 1840, a perfectly preserved example was found in the Volumni hypogeum in Perugia. The news was cited, also naming the painting by Scifoni, by E. Caetani Lovatelli, Nuova Miscellanea Archeologica, Rome, Tip. della reale Accademia dei Licei, 1894, p. 86.

[7] G. D’Annunzio, Esposizione d’Arte (“Fanfulla della Domenica” – 1883), in G. D’Annunzio, Scritti giornalistici, edited by A. M. Andreoli, vol. 1, Mondadori, Milan, 1996, pp. 105-106.

[8] “Illustrazione italiana”, vol. 11, part 2, 1884, p. 236

[9] “Illustrazione italiana”, vol. 11, part 2, 1884, p. 236

[10] C. Palazzolo Olivares, Il Mausoleo Schilizzi: da ara privata a Pantheon degli eroi napoletani. Storia di un monumento dimenticato, in M.R. Nappi (edited by), La Campania e la Grande Guerra, Gangemi editore, Rome, 2015, pp. 71-76.