ANDREA BOSCOLI (Florence, c. 1560 - 1607) The Love between Rinaldo and Armida Graphite and watercoloured brown pen on paper, 19X24 cm Autograph inscription in lower centre: Ella del vetro a sé fa specchio ed egli/gli occhi di lei sereni a sé fa spegli; lower left: 4. Provenance: Genoa, Santo Varni collection Milan, private collection The drawing accurately describes Torquato Tasso's text: 'From Rinaldo's side, a very strange tool, hung a shiny, clean mirror. She stood up and placed that mirror in his hands, chosen as a minister to the mysteries of love. She with smiling eyes, he with burning eyes, they look at one object in various objects: she is mirrored in the glass, and he is mirrored in her serene eyes' (cf. T. Tasso, La Gerusalemme liberata, 1581). In fact, the drawing is connected to the series of sheets that Boscoli dedicated to the 'Loves' of Olindo and Sofronia, Erminia and Tancredi and Rinaldo and Armida narrated in the poem and probably executed between 1604 and 1608. At present, fifteen works have been identified in public and private collections related to the theme, and only a few sheets present the author's autograph inscription related to the depicted episode, attesting, as in our case, to the full integrity of the support (cf. Bastogi, 2008, pp. 202-207). Reference bibliography: J. Brooks, Andrea Boscoli's 'lovers of Gerusalemme Liberata', in Master Drawings, XXXVIII, 4, 2000, pp. 448-459 N. Bastogi, Episodi salienti della fortuna della Gerusalemme liberata nella grafica fiorentina tra Cinque e Seicento, in L'arme e gli amori. La poesia di Ariosto, Tasso e Guarini nell'arte fiorentina del Seicento, exhibition catalogue edited by E. Fumagalli, M. Rossi, R. Spinelli, Florence 2001, pp. 85-96 N. Bastogi, Andrea Boscoli, Florence 2008, pp. 202-207