The subject, taken from Canto XX of Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered, diverges from the most frequent representations, which favour the first meeting between the two lovers. 

The painting belongs to the production of Gioacchino Assereto, one of the key figures of early 17th-century Genoese painting. Neither the commissioner’s name nor the original location are known. Tiziana Zennaro has pointed out that there is an “Armida who is prevented from killing herself by Rinaldo” by Assereto listed in an inventory of the property of Carmelite Father Felice Tassorello, drawn up on 6 April 1688; but the absence of measurements makes it impossible to identify that work with the canvas under examination.¹ 

This work was bought from the Galleria Carlo Orsi in Milan between 1989 and 1990 and was displayed, at least from 2002, in Cerruti’s office in Via Ludovico Bellardi, Turin. It depicts the sorceress Armida as she is about to plunge a pointed arrow in her breast, after taking it from the quiver lying at her feet. Rinaldo rushes to her aid from the right, while on the opposite side a putto, the personification of Cupid, stays her arm. The figures are enlivened by a powerful tension and dynamically occupy the space, shifting the epicentre of the composition towards the left edge. 

The subject, taken from Canto XX of Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered, diverges from the most frequent representations, which favour the first meeting between the two lovers. Here, in fact, Assereto innovates the theme by adding the figure of Cupid and combining two different moments in the one scene: Armida’s suicide attempt, thwarted by Providence, and her subsequently fainting in her rescuer’s arms. The iconographic interest in Tasso-inspired themes, on which several of Assereto’s canvases were based, spread in Genoa through engravings made from drawings by Bernardo Castello for illustrated editions of the poem. Be that as it may, the particular subject addressed here, according to Franco Boggero,² “appears to be unprecedented in the Genoese milieu itself”. 

The work was published for the first time with an attribution to Gioacchino Assereto by the art critic and collector Vittorio Sgarbi,³ who, on the basis of the unusual iconographic choice, assigns to him a prominent place in 17th-century Genoese painting. Assereto’s authorship has been accepted by Martha Ausserhofer,⁴ Camillo Manzitti⁵ and Tiziana Zennaro;⁶ the latter has also admired the remarkably rich colour of Armida’s bodice and Rinaldo’s armour, seeing the shimmering iridescent effects and meticulous detail as indicating a renewed interest in the painting of his teacher Andrea Ansaldo. On the strength of the more textured brushstrokes with respect to his early works, the scholar has proposed dating the painting to the mid-1630s and in any case no later than 1639,⁷ when the artist made a trip to Rome, as attested by his biographer Raffaele Soprani.⁸ As proof that Assereto and his pupils were, to a certain degree, accustomed to depicting themes taken from Jerusalem Delivered, there exist two other renderings of the subject, one formerly in the Koelliker Collection in London⁹ and the other in the Galleria Sabauda¹⁰ collection in Turin, which it entered in 1982. Both paintings are held by Zennaro to be copies of the Cerruti canvas.¹¹ Lastly, a fragment depicting Cupid and Armida’s right arm, whose whereabouts is unknown, indicates the existence of a third version.¹² 

Francesca Romana Gaja

¹ Zennaro 2011, vol. I, p. 340.

² F. Boggero, in Ferrara 1985, p. 314.

³ Sgarbi 1992, no. 43.

⁴ Ausserhofer 1997, pp. 129, fig. 5; 131; 141, note 42.

⁵ Manzitti 2005, p. 44, note 50.

⁶ Zennaro 2011, vol. I, pp. 340-342.

⁷ Ibid., vol. I, p. 341.

⁸ Soprani 1674, p. 170.

⁹ Sotheby’s, London, The Luigi Koelliker Studiolo: Old Master Paintings and…, 3 December 2008, pp. 340-341.

¹⁰ C. Arnaldi di Balme, in Turin 2004, p. 140; inv. no. 1066.

¹¹ Zennaro 2011, vol. I, p. 341.

¹² Ibid., vol. II, p. 528.