Giuseppe Maria Mitelli

Giuseppe Maria Mitelli (1634–1718) was an Italian engraver and painter of the Baroque period. He was the son of the prominent quadratura painter Agostino Mitelli. The younger Mitelli was best known for his prolific engravings, in a great variety of subjects, including scenes from grand epics to mundane page boards for games of chance using dice, Tarot cards, and an Iconophor with anthropomorphized alphabets.[1] He also engraved genre subjects, allegories, moralistic scenes, but even some bizarre cartoons that could be interpreted as sometimes provocatively subversive, or presciently revolutionary, and sometimes imaginatively bizarre.[2] He often depicted dwarfs engaged in buffoonery or satirical depictions of aphorisms, which recalls the Bambocciate di nani or arte pigmeo of genre painter Faustino Bocchi (1659–1742).

The Social Classes, all controlled by the Devil
An Academy of Dwarf Painters drawing a Hunchback Model.

Giuseppe studied or worked under Francesco Albani, Flaminio Torri, Guercino, and Simone Cantarini; he had a long career of over 60 years in Bologna. Mitelli was a flamboyant character who was also a painter and sculptor. He enjoyed a broad set of physical activities including fencing, hunting, fishing, tennis, gymnastics, and acting.

Engravings of Contemporary Trades

Giuseppe Maria produced a series of engravings depicting Arts of the Street, published in 1660.[3] This was part II of a book of engravings, in which part I, Diverse Figure, had been engraved by Simon Guillain II, and published in Bologna by Giovanni Atanasio Mosini. The inspiration for these works was either from Annibale Carracci’s drawings, or subsequent engravings by Simon Guillain II.[4]

Patent-Medicine Quack Hawking Snakes.[5]

The second part, titled The Arts of the Street (Di Bologna. L’Arti per Via) celebrates the tradesmen and workmen who practiced their occupations in the streets of Bologna.[6] A list of the engravings includes:

  • Frontispiece, View of Bologna
  • 1. Man Carrying Bread in a Basket
  • 2. Vendor of Fans
  • 3. Vendor of Earthenware Pots
  • 4. Knife Grinder
  • 5. Vendor of Ciambelle (Biscuit Vendor) 126
  • 6. Fisherman
  • 7. Water Carrier
  • 8. Patent-Medicine Quack Hawking Snakes (see image)
  • 9. Mason
  • 10. Vendor of Cooked Apples and Pears by Moonlight
  • 11. Man Carrying a Barrel of Wine
  • 12. Man Carrying a Butchered Pig
  • 13. Vendor of Dry Goods
  • 14. Porter
  • 15. Mason Going to Whitewash Walls (Imbianchino)(Plasterer)
  • 16. Man Skinning a Lamb
  • 17. Vendor of Ribbons, Lace, and Pins
  • 18. Donkey Driver with his Herd
  • 19. Chimney sweep
  • 20. Woodcutter
  • 21. Vine Dresser
  • 22. Vendor of Chairs
  • 23. Vendor of Rosaries and Sacred Images[7]
  • 24. Vendor of Sieves
  • 25. Vendor of Chicken Dung
  • 26. Man Driving a Donkey Laden with Pots
  • 27 Onion Seller
  • 28. Vendor of Anisette and a Vendor of Matches Playing Morra
  • 29. Fruit Seller
  • 30. Cheese Vendor
  • 31. Vegetable Vendor
  • 32. Tripe Vendor
  • 33. Vendor of Glassware
  • 34. Two Well Cleaners
  • 35. Vendor of Iron Kitchen Utensils
  • 36. Vendor of Grain Sifters
  • 37. Butcher Boy with Two Cats
  • 38. Vendor of Shoes
  • 39. Hat Vendor
  • 40. Vendor of Chicken Heads and Livers

Tarot of Mitelli
Self-portrait of G. M. Mitelli, engraved on the Ace of Coins of his Tarot deck.

Around 1660 Giuseppe Maria Mitelli realized for Count Prospero Bentivoglio - a member of a powerful Bolognese family -, a Game of Tarot with a New form of Tarocchini (a variant of the classic Tarot). This artwork consists of 62 cards in typical Baroque style and it is still today considered one of the highest examples of Mitelli's artistic production.

Italian art historian Giordano Berti, in his study on Mitelli's life and work has defined the Mitelli's Tarocchino «a jewel of creativity, a flight of fantasy, a perfect stylistic exercise».

Mitelli placed his own self-portrait on the Ace of Coins and, to affirm the originality of his masterpiece, he added INV DIS & INT ("Invented, Drawn and Engraved").[8]

Other Images by Mitelli
Doctors from various countries minister to the Dying Sultan.

He drew an enraged Imre Thököly in oriental garb behind bars (though it is unlikely that Mitelli would ever have seen the Hungarian rebel and Ottoman sympathiser as a prisoner in person).[9] The Ottoman menace was still alive for Christian in this era.

In another cartoon, he mocks the assistance that foreign Doctors provide to a dying Ottoman Sultan. The engraving contains the sultans hat under a commode, and a torn Koran. The dying sultan pleads to his parting Vizier to save his realm for Islam (see dying Sultan and doctors). This cartoon highlights the response of the European kingdoms in the signing of the Treaty of Karlowitz of 26 January, 1699.

He also drew a laborer destroying a classical female statue.[10] In 2010, an exhibition of 250 drawings and engravings were displayed in an exhibition titled Il mondo fantastico nelle incisioni di Giuseppe Maria Mitelli at the Galleria Garisenda (Strada Maggiore 14/a) of Bologna.[11]

References and Footnotes
  1. See a similar effort by Giovanni Battista Braccelli.
  2. Lombardia Beni Culturali.
  3. Italian Art at the Utah Museum of Art: a Guide to the Collection. Ursula M. Brinkman Pimentel, contribution by Madelyn D. Garrett. page 118-122.
  4. A pupil of both Alessandro Algardi and Ludovico Carracci, Simon Guillain II, was born in Paris, was the son of sculptor and engraver Simon of Cambrai (1581-1658).
  5. He who from pungent serpents and vipers,/ seeks to make the body anatomy whole,/ only exhibits that his sole true patent/ is the privilege of deceiving the world. or in Italian: Costui, che di angue, e vipere pungenti/ Vuol far de l'anatomico facondo,/ Sol mostra su l'autentiche patenti/ Il privilegio d'ingannare il Mondo.
  6. Also see engravings published by Gaetano Zompini.
  7. Engraving at Art Institute of Chicago.
  8. Giordano Berti, Giuseppe Maria Mitelli and the Tarocchino Bolognese, Araba Fenice, Boves 2017 (english version translated by Vic Berti), page 45.
  9. Morgan Library drawings: Imre Thököly imprisoned.
  10. Morgan Library drawings: Man Destroying a Statue with a Hammer.
  11. Repubblica newspaper of Bologna.


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