MASP

The Continence of Scipio represents a legendary episode from the life of the great artificer of Roman rule in the Mediterranean, Publius Cornelius Scipio, Scipio Africanus, consul in 205 and 194 BC and conqueror of Spain, Africa, and Asia Minor. His victory over Hannibal’s previously undefeated army in the battle of Zama (202 BC) paved the road to the wars against Carthage and – although opposed by the Senate on this – he pointed to Africa as the main arena for military campaigns, hence his epithet. Scipio was a declared admirer of Hellenic culture and – due to his precocious military genius, prestige and unrivaled power in Rome – was often historically compared with Alexander, a similarity he cultivated and brought out in acts of stoic virtue such as the scene depicted in this work. The episode portrayed in this painting was based on Titus Livy and particularly on the Nine Books of Memorable Deeds and Sayings of Valerius Maximus, a moral and philosophical compilation for the use of rulers (after 31 AD), which was later accorded great importance. Scipio, as part of the pillage after the conquest of Carthage, was entitled to take a young woman betrothed to another man, but he renounced this act, returning the woman to her husband-to-be. This theme had been greatly revered from the 15th century and had already appeared in Venice, commissioned to Mantegna and Bellini by the Cornaro family, who claimed they had descended from the gens Cornelia. However, the theme of Scipio is usually connected to the values of neo-Stoicism greatly favored by European culture and iconography from the second half of the 16th century up to the late 18th century. Zugno, like Tiepolo, had probably explored this topic more than once – Tiepolo in the well known frescoes of the Palazzo Dugnani in Milan and in the painting now at the Stockholm National Museum, in contrast with which our Masp painting shows indubitable creative freedom. There are no other known versions of this theme by Zugno, but judging by its size and extremely free style – almost a sketch – this work was probably a bozzetto or modello for a large-scale painting, most certainly a part of a larger decorative piece. When it was still part of the Prince of Hessen’s Collection, this work was exhibited at the Il Settecento Veneziano (p. 61, n. 14, fig. 36) in Venice in 1929 with the title Scene from Scipio’s Life. It was attributed to Tiepolo on the basis of an expertise by A. Venturi in 1925 and this attribution was maintained in the short anthological catalogue published in 1963; however in the 1982 summary catalogue the work was correctly attributed to Zugno.

— Unknown authorship, 1998

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