Permanent-collection catalogues grow slowly over time, absorbing and synthesizing information and opinions collected from scholars around the world. We have been fortunate, in compiling this catalogue, not only to have found a wealth of such material at our disposal but also to have enjoyed the support of so many curatorial and conservation colleagues in museums across America and Europe. To all of them, for their help with access to the objects in their care and for information about them, thank you. For special assistance, thanks are owed to Rita Albertson, Alessandro Bagnoli, George Bisacca, Saige Blanchard, Michael Candelori, Damien Cerutti, Keith Christiansen, Elise Effmann Clifford, Christopher Daly, Andrea De Marchi, Corentin Dury, Cecilia Frosinini, Dillian Gordon, Kate Green, Susan Green, Machtelt Israëls, Claudia Kryza-Gersch, Ian Lewis, Elisabeth Lobkowicz, Mauro Minardi, Fabrizio Moretti, Pierluigi Nieri, Jonquil O’Reilly, Daniela Parenti, Christopher Platts, Susan Rosenberg, Daniele Rossi, Neville Rowley, Erling Skaug, Yvonne Szafran, and Emanuele Zappasodi. Two distinguished scholars of an earlier generation, Miklós Boskovits and Luciano Bellosi, left important notes on their impressions of the Italian pictures at Yale after visits several decades ago, and two others, Everett Fahy and Carl Strehlke, began systematically updating attributions for the Italian collection shortly after the appearance of the last official catalogue of it in 1970. Carl also initiated a program jointly with the staff of the Conservation Institute at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, to redeem some of the damage left by the overzealous cleaning for which Yale had become infamous, and Everett ultimately gifted the Yale University Art Gallery his remarkable library, without which our work could not have moved forward through the difficult years of the pandemic lockdown.
Many colleagues at Yale have contributed to shaping this catalogue over its long gestation. Irma Passeri, the Susan Morse Hilles Chief Conservator, her predecessor Ian McClure, and their staff in the Conservation Department at the Gallery, especially Margherita Morello, have facilitated and enriched our understanding of the complex conservation history of the collection. Assistants and fellows past and present in the Department of European Art—Antonia V. Bartoli, Bennett Harrison, Linsey LaFrenier, Katharine Luce, Meghan Lynch, and Elizabeth Soden—have supported the hundreds of demanding tasks that arise in the organization of a project of this scale, and even more art handlers, photographers (especially Alexander Harding and Richard House), registrars, librarians, and archivists have unstintingly committed time and energy to ensure its successful completion. Our editor, Tiffany Sprague, and her talented team of editors, production assistants, and designers—Chris Chew, Annika Fisher, Zsofia Jilling, Diana Mellon, Julia Oswald, Mary Ellen Wilson, Stacey A. Wujcik, Grace Zhou, and Lesley Zurolo—created first a digital version of exemplary beauty and then a print edition, designed by Jo Ellen Ackerman, of which any author would be proud. Two successive directors at the Gallery, Jock Reynolds and Stephanie Wiles, provided the opportunity and the encouragement to dedicate the huge investment of time to this project that it required. We are humbly grateful to them both for appreciating the value and embracing the challenge of ensuring resources for scholarship in an era when fewer and fewer museums find themselves in a position to be able to do so.
A final word of thanks is due to four friends and supporters who years ago set the wheels in motion that led to the conception of this catalogue and generously stood behind it every step of the way: Richard Feigen, Nina Griggs, and Darcy and Treacy Beyer. But for the four of you, there would be no one else to thank.
Laurence Kanter and Pia Palladino