The Impresa of Federico Zuccari and the Accademia degli Insensati of Perugia

The University of Perugia historical archive preserves the manuscript collection of the imprese of the Accademia degli Insensati, well-known for its important patronal relationships and its various poetic connections with the first secular works by Caravaggio. This collection of forty-three individual imprese consists of drawings made by different artists and miniaturists and includes the unpublished impresa of the painter and theorist Federico Zuccari, previously proudly known as the Sonnacchioso Insensato and now unexpectedly signed as the Desioso Insensato. Personally drawn with a prose description written by himself, marked by his emblem - the sugarloaf - this folium represents a sort of application to join the Accademia. The allegorical reading of the impresa reveals some of the fundamental ideas concerning the Academies belonging to the cultural universe of the painter and matches with a peculiar phase of his life, moving from Florence to Rome, from an interest on life drawing to a new consideration of the classical culture.