(Florence 1772 - Milan 1850)
THE DEATH, BY A MUSKET SHOT, OF THE SPANISH CAPTAIN DIEGO SARMIENTO DURING THE SIEGE OF VOLTERRA OF 1530, 1835-36
Pen with brown ink on thick laid paper; 250 x 364 mm. Two pen inscriptions in the lower right, relating to the subject and by the hand of Sabatelli. One, canceled, reads Valorosissimo capitano Spagnolo / Sermiento ucciso nell'assalto a Volterra contro il Ferruccio / Capitan generale dei fiorentini. The second reads Sermiento, valoroso capitano Spagnolo / ucciso da una fucilata nel dar l'assalto / alla città di Volterra difesa con gran / valore dal Ferruccio, capitan generale dei / Fiorentini. A third inscription Sabbatelli is not by the artist.
In Luigi Sabatelli's autobiography, edited by his son Gaetano and published in Milan in 1900, Sabatelli wrote Al marchese Gino Capponi feci un bozzetto che rappresenta la difesa della città di Volterra fatta dal Ferruccio. And Gaetano specifies: Fece dapprima colla penna differenti composizioni di varii episodio del combattimento, alcune delle quali su fogli grandi appiccicati insieme colle ostie, siccome era solito fare, e finalmente un bel giorno, dato di piglio alla tavolozza e ai pennelli, improntò sulla tela una composizione affatto nuova e animatissima, che aveva per punto culminante il Ferruccio, il quale, malamente ferito, sta seduto su una scranna sull'alto delle mura, ed impartisce ordini e dirige la difesa.
See Cenni biografici sul cav. prof. Luigi Sabatelli scritti da lui medesimo e raccolti dal figlio Gaetano, pittore (a cura di C. Stroppa Pedrazzi), Milan 1900 p. 21.
We no longer know the oil painting, but other drawings are known, in addition to ours, relating to the subject of the defense of Volterra. One is kept in the Milanese Gabinetto dei disegni at the Castello Sforzesco.
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Sabatelli was the most talented of the Tuscan painters of the generation after Pietro Benvenuti. He was born in the house of Marchese Pier Roberto Capponi, in Florence, while his own father was in domestic service there. The Marchese Capponi was Sabatelli's early sponsor, financing his education at the Florentine Academy and his sojourns in Rome and Venice. In 1808 Luigi Sabatelli was appointed to the chair of painting at the Brera Academy in Milan. There he remained over forty years, although he continued to carry out commissions in Tuscany. During his mature years, Sabatelli established himself as a decorator and fresco painter, with numerous public and private commissions. Sabatelli was a fine painter and one of the premier pre-romantic draftsmen of nineteenth century Italy. He was also an accomplished etcher. See Beatrice Paolozzi Strozzi, Luigi Sabatelli, disegni e incisioni, catalogue of the exhibition at the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi, Florence, 1978.
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