Per l'iconografia del Profeta Elia di Girolamo Savoldo

Despite having been extensively studied, Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo’s (1480 ca. - post 1548) initial pictorial production still raises many questions. Among these, the iconographic origin of the Elijah Fed by the Raven 1515- 1516 (Washington, National Gallery of Art), which is still unknown. My analysis of the painting attempts to pinpoint the influence on Savoldo of the Portinari Tryptich by Hugo van der Goes and of Vincenzo Foppa’s Four Evangelists in the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Brescia. It will also highlight the original similarities with Zenale’s works of 1500-1510 as well as the influence of Leonardism as evidence of Savoldo’s recent past. Besides these possible pictorial references, I believe Giovanni Girolamo already belonged to and was attentive to the contemporary Venetian artistic and cultural environment. This is seemingly testified by the flaming tower/furnace – probably inspired by Bosch’s paintings presumably available in Venice since the first decade of the 16th century – along with some features that Savoldo could have drawn from the Venetian oeuvres by Lombard painters active in Venice between 1495 and 1505, such as Giovanni Agostino da Lodi and Andrea Solario. Another aspect scholars have so far overlooked is the contribution to the Elijah Fed by the Raven of Byzantine art, a visual culture which played a centuries-old fundamental role in the Venetian artistic scene. Supported by both historical and artistic evidence I will argue that Savoldo used a Byzantine icon of the Prophet Elijah in the desert fed by the raven – akin to the one in Naxos by Angelos Akotantos († 1457 ca.) – as the iconographic model for his Elijah, which I believe also proves the presence of the painter in Venice since the first half of the second decade of the 16th century.