Book Alert / Zelotti's Epic Frescoes at Cataio

Zelotti's Epic Frescoes at Cataio -- The Obizzi Saga by Irma B. Jaffe with Gernando Colombardo, Fordham UP '08 coffee table-format, $55, 143 pages, ISBN #0823227421. Index, selected bibliography, source notes, dozens of full-color glossy images sprinkled through text.

This reviewer's conundrum is whether the saga of the author or that of her subject is the more fascinating. Most of us face our most formidable career challenge before our 86th birthday, but hey, who can time these things? Art historian Irma Jaffe's came with an invitation from an Italian art professor to view six palatial reception rooms at the Castle of Cataio, outside of Venice, rooms that had been hidden from public view for some five centuries.

Pio Enea Obizzi, a filthy-rich Venetian condottiere, had built the castle and commissioned artist Battista Zelotti to paint 40 frescoes, depicting the Obizzi's family triumphs from 1010 to 1420. Because Obizzi and his heirs wanted the castle to be for the exclusive use of the family, Zelotti's name was gradually forgotten along with his masterpiece.

"With the revelation at Cataio," writes Jaffe, now 91, "a full understanding of mannerism, the style that characterizes sixteenth-century visual art, must now include the contributions of Zelotti. In the forty frescoes that constitute the Saga he reveals the possibilities accessible to Mannerist style in his countless poses of the human figure and horses, his variety of settings -- indoor and outdoor, land and sea -- and in expressing the range of pre-eminent sixteenth century values such as family rank and pride, personal courage, and religion....Viewing the scenes of fierce battles, magnificent weddings, bloody assassinations and triumph after triumph suggests to the modern viewer something of the grandeur of grand opera.

Author Irma Jaffe has authored or edited 18 books. She earned her PhD from Columbia in mid-life and established an Art and Music Department at Fordham. Based in New York City, Jaffe continues to research and write on Italian culture.