The Early Drawings of Domenichino at Windsor Castle and Some Drawings by the Carracci

Abstract

Nearly three hundred and fifty years ago Lanfranco, in order to expose the source of Domenichino's altarpiece in San Girolamo della Carità, distributed throughout Rome an engraving of Agostino Carracci's Last Communion of St, Jerome, charging Domenichino with flagrant plagiarism, and paucity of invention and seeking to harm his career. By mid-century, however, various critics spoke out in defense of Domenichino and sought to dismiss the charge—not denying the existence of the influence but repudiating its validity as grounds for censure. The altarpiece, Bellori wrote, “non merita nome di furto, ma di lodevole imitatione.”¹ Again in the twentieth century the cycle of taste has brought us back to an appreciation of the art of Domenico Zampieri. We recognize that there lived on in his work a tradition which the Carracci had founded and carefully cultivated; that Domenichino was a product par excellence of the Accademia degli Incamminati and of Annibale Carracci in Rome.