Vincenzo Camuccini began his career as a painter in the workshop of Domenico Corvi, an artist who focused on revisiting the 16th and 17th century tradition, following in the footsteps of Batoni.  Yet a crucial role in Vincenzo’s formative years was played by his elder brother Pietro who – thanks to his activity as a collector and dealer which allowed him to develop close ties with Rome’s cultural milieu – became the go-between through whom Vincenzo himself drew close to the contemporary art scene.

From his earliest youth Camuccini focused his attention on Renaissance and classical art, as we can see from the numerous drawings addressing ancient Roman subjects that he began to produce in 1787.  In addition to these two major themes, however, he also received numerous commissions both for religious paintings and for portraits.  His work shows that he was extremely au fait with new developments in Rome’s artistic circles. He immediately grasped the innovative thrust of the Neo-Classicism contaminated by an interpretation along neo-Poussin lines that several foreign painters, such as Gavin Hamilton, had introduced to Rome.  Camuccini made his name on the Italian art scene once and for all in the first few years of the new century, and despite his youth he was named Prince of the Academy of St. Luke in 1806, holding the post until Canova succeeded him in 1810.

The scholarship of Federico Pfister and subsequently that of Gianna Piantoni De Angelis have allowed us to gain a deeper insight into the complex working methods that underpinned Camuccini’s entire output.  The painter customarily reached the final version of a painting through a series of intermediate graphic stages.  First he would produce a rapid sketch of the overall composition.  This would be followed by a more detailed exploration of the theme in a set of more elaborate drawings.  Next came a “draft” version in oil paints, followed by the definition of the individual figures, and finally a cartoon of the same size as the finished picture.  Within this sophisticated process, it is quite clear that drawing acquired a value of its own in the painter’s creative practice, as indeed Winckelmann himself taught that it should.  It was not simply the first but also the crucial moment in the creative process.

Camuccini’s works are to be found in famous museums and collections both in his native Italy and abroad.  A large part of his drawings, paintings and cartoons are held in the Fondo Camuccini, currently split between the artists heirs but preserved for the most part in a palazzo in Cantalupo in Sabina which Vincenzo’s son Giovanbattista purchased in 1855.

This drawing of Horatius Cocles was originally bound in a book (volume 28) held in the Fondo Camuccini in Cantalupo along with numerous other albums containing drawings by the artist (De Angelis, 1978, p. 52).  Many of these drawings – often accompanied by autograph lists indicating the subjects and their appropriate evaluation in the event of a sale – were organised by the artist himself, others by his son.  The drawings, covering a range of different subjects, include studies of classical works, copies of old masters, studies in anatomy, studies from life, and mythological, religious and historical themes.

The sketch under discussion here was one of the studies that Camuccini produced for a large painting (now lost) of Horatius Cocles commissioned in around 1810 by Manuel Godoy, Prince of Peace, adviser to King Charles IV and under the personal protection of Queen Maria Luisa of Parma.  Godoy came to Rome in the entourage of the Spanish king after his removal from the throne in 1808.

Camuccini’s interest in historical themes emerged in the late 18th century and grew thereafter, to the point where he was to become one of the most popular painters of such subjects.  He was also strongly encouraged to pursue this vein by his brother Pietro, who writes in a letter sent from London on 10 October 1800:  “I beg you to pursue Roman History with the utmost steadfastness and dedication.  This must be your aim” (De Angelis, 1978, p. 103).  The ideological and ethical tension which is such a feature of historical painting and which was so typical of David’s early work, gradually turned into the more generic exemplum virtutis so beloved of the aristocratic and bourgeois clientele that commissioned Camuccini’s work.  Subjects taken from ancient Greek and Roman history enjoyed  a special popularity that withstood the passage of time, particularly when they were inspired by the work of such classical authors as Livy, Valerius Maximus and Plutarch, but also by 18th century French historian Charles Rollin’s more moralistic Histoire Romaine.  In a letter to Camuccini dated 22 July 1815, Godoy writes that he has heard that the picture which he commissioned is ready, but he also gives the painter his permission to keep it in his workshop for a short time in order to allow foreign visitors to view it.  This has prompted scholars to suggest that the picture was painted between 1810 and 1815 (see De Angelis, 1978, p. 44). Marchetti also made an engraving of the picture.

In the sketch under discussion here, Camuccini has succeeded in combining a compositional stringency worthy of Poussin with a philologically meticulous narrative and a detailed description of the event.  His distribution of mass is skilfully balanced and his overall approach markedly theatrical.  The figure of Horatius Cocles is positioned in the centre of the drawing as he stands poised to attack his enemies, lance firmly gripped in his right hand, his brave stance that of the great warrior.  The entire scene takes place on the Pons Sublicius, history telling us that it was on this famous bridge that Horatius Cocles defended his city against enemy attack and that it was only thanks to his courage in holding off the foe that the Romans were able to destroy the bridge and thus to avert a siege of the city.

In the last years of his life, particularly after 1833, Camuccini’s output consisted primarily of work based on compositions produced many years before.  The composition of his Horatius Cocles was, in all likelihood, reused as a model for his painting of Marcus Furius Camillus Saving Rome from the Gauls (1840–1) now in the Palazzo Reale in Genoa.