“Preparatory Drawings” for some Iconographic Programs (Aesop’s Fables, The Life of Hippoytus, Este Genealogy) by Pirro Ligorio
Résumé
While preparing the general catalogue of Pirro Ligorio’s drawings, I have noted the presence of numerous drafts at different levels of drawing up, made for very different purposes; this is the reason why these works cannot be considered and studied in the same way. This paper will focus on a group of folios which, although very different, have in common the fact that they have also a final version (Aesops’ fables engravings, the Life of Hippolitus and the Genealogy of the Princes of Este) and will try to see if there are specific criteria that allow us to to give them the status of preparatory drawing.