Lot 26: Gherardo Cibo Geona 1512 - 1600 Rocca Contrada , poplar trees along a road and other tree studies pen and brown ink and wash

inscribed in brown ink, lower margin: arbori di pioppi che stanno sotto al molino del m...gb ta [?] gi à can... proprio al prato in forma di... del _22. li. 7. di_7. bre [settembre] 1564 ; and at the upper left: libro del .1564. pen and brown ink and wash

measurements note 209 by 284mm

This is very characteristic of Gherardo Cibo's charming drawings from nature, and, as clearly revealed by the inscription at the top, was once part of a sketchbook. A similar sketchbook by the artist (at that time still called Messer Ulisse Severino da Cingoli) was sold in these Rooms, 3 July 1989, lot 106. It contained twenty-two pages, mostly pen and ink views taken in the neighborhood of Sinigallia in 1564, the same year as the present study. At the time of the exhibition in San Severino Marche, Arnold Nesselrath identified the so-called Messer Ulisse as Gherardo Cibo and told the story of his life. Born in 1512 into an important and influential Genoese aristocratic family, he decided to abandon an ecclesiastical career and to pursue his interests as a musician and botanist far from the papal court. Cibo spent his long life in the Marche, in Rocca Contrada, where he had lived with his family in his childhood. He died there in 1600.υ1 1. See Arnold Nesselrath, 'Gherardo Cibo: 'qui non è cognito', in Gherardo Cibo, exhibition catalogue, Comune di San Severino Marche, 1989, pp. 5-16