Commissioned by Luís de la Cerda Fernández de Córdova Folch de Cardona y Aragón, 9th Duque de Medinaceli, in circa 1700;
Thence by descent.

Inventario General de Todos los trastos y Vienes Muebles Pertenecientes a la Cassa del Exmo. Sr. Marques Duque de Medinazeli, mi Señor, [manuscript in the archives of the Duques de Medinaceli, Seville], 1711, no. 187, 'Prespectiva de Tibuli..... 3,000 rs';
V. Lleó Cañal, "The art collection of the ninth Duke of Medinaceli", in The Burlington Magazine, vol. CXXXI, no. 1031, February 1989, pp. 109, 110 and 115, no. 187;
L. Trezzani, in Gaspare Vanvitelli e le origini del vedutismo, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Chiostro del Bramante, 16 October 2002 - 9 February 2003, & Venice, Museo Correr, 28 February - 18 May 2003, p. 45, no. 187, 'Prespectiva de Tivoli... 3,000'.

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting has a fairly recent lining and stretcher. The restoration is also not very old, although some rather older varnish can be seen in faintly uneven streaks in the sky, and the present upper layer of varnish is showing a tendency to crystallise in a few places, for instance in the lower right corner. There has been some brittleness in the past along the base, and the tiny craquelure in the immediate foreground appears still slightly insecure. Various old retouched patches of flaking along the base edge are mainly towards the left base corner where there is a quite wide retouching reaching about five inches up the left edge, with various small retouchings in the dark lower left area of the ravine. The right side of the base edge has fewer small retouchings, although some are clustered in the right base corner, and a band of retouching runs all the way up the right edge into the top right corner, with other retouching also in the top left corner and a little way down the upper left edge into the clouds. The main body of the painting is largely in beautiful condition, with a few of the accidental damages that large paintings tend to have, but much lovely intact detail, which is particularly finely preserved on the right in the circular temple. This has one long narrow wavering horizontal line of retouched creasing running from the edge across the columns into the tree. A similar though briefer retouched line crosses the waterfall just by the arch, and a diagonal line of little old flakes runs into the central wall of the chapel from just above to the left. Minor small retouchings can be found in the lower right vegetation and occasionally elsewhere, with a little unretouched old filling in the houses above the bridge and another in the terrace nearby. Slight thinness in this central area is not characteristic of the painting overall. There are also a few old accidents in the lower central sky: a three cornered tear in the central clouds, about three by three inches, and two other brief knocks a little further to the right in the band of clouds, with one other by the lower right skyline. These have been broadly retouched apparently quite freely over surrounding paint. The sky remains however beautifully rich and unworn, as is most of this remarkable painting. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

This painting, which has never before been seen in public, is a highly significant rediscovery and has remained in the collections of the heirs of Don Luís de la Cerda Fernández de Córdova Folch de Cardona y Aragón, 9th Duque de Medinaceli, since circa 1700 when he commissioned it.

Don Luís amassed an extraordinary collection of paintings during his lifetime and the inventory taken on his death in 1711 lists 388 paintings, including fifteen by Guido Reni,¹ eleven by Carlo Maratta, and six by Giordano.²  By far the most numerous however are those by Vanvitelli who painted no less than thirty-six works for the Duque. Don Luís attained high office at an early age, Charles II appointing him Commander General of the Galleys of Naples at the age of twenty-four and three years later, in 1887, he was appointed ambassador to Rome. It was here that Don Luís would have made Vanvitelli's acquaintance and indeed later, in 1700, the artist was to choose the Duque as his son's godfather.³  In 1691 Don Luís's father died and he inherited the Dukedom of Medinaceli and the following year he was appointed Viceroy of Naples. In 1699 he invited Vanvitelli to Naples and the artist remained there under Don Luís's patronage until 1702, receiving 120 scudi per month, as recorded by Pascoli.⁴  Don Luís himself returned to Spain in 1701 and during the two years that they were both in Naples Vanvitelli executed at least thirteen views of Naples and its environs for him. It is more than likely that Vanvitelli continued to paint views for the Duque after his return to Spain, a view supported by Charles Beddington's recent proposal that identifies no. 182 in the 1711 inventory, Plaza del Palacio de Napoles, with a painting signed and dated 1706 now in the Cincinnati Art Museum.⁵

As with all of the Vanvitellis in the Medinaceli inventory, the actual commission of this view of Tivoli is not recorded and it is thus not known whether the artist executed it in Rome (while Don Luís was ambassador), in Naples (during his period of patronage), or after Don Luís returned to Spain. It seems likely however that the artist executed it in his studio based on drawings made in situ, just as, for example, the above-mentioned Plaza del Palacio de Napoles must have been executed in the artist's Roman studio, dated as it is to 1706. Briganti records five further versions of this view of Tivoli, all of them of significantly smaller dimensions.⁶  In terms of viewpoint this painting is most♌ similar to Briganti's nos. 242 and 243, although even these differ markedly in the arrangement of the foreground and the figures therein.

Until now, this painting has been known only through the reference made to it in the inventory taken on the death of Don Luís where it is listed as no. 187: 'Prespectiva de Tibuli... 3,000 rs'.⁷  Valued at 3,000 reales, the same sum as Velásquez's Hilanderas,⁸ this painting was given the highest valuation of all the thirty-six works by Vanvitelli listed, presumably on the basis of its monumental dimensions. Indeed there is some correlation between size and value in the inventory; of those that can be identified today, the smaller works tend to have been given lower values than the larger ones. Interestingly, of the four works listed in the inventory at 3,000 reales, three (including this one) are still in the Medinaceli collection, and one (no. 196: Prespectiva del Castillo del huevo de Napoles) only left the collection very recently when it was sold in these Rooms, 13 December 2001, lot 86, for £1,818,500.⁹&ꦚnbsp; The family have therefore kept hold of the largest, most valuable, ♔works while they gradually disposed of the less important. 

Of the thirty-six works by Vanvitelli listed in the inventory, thirteen describe views of Naples, only four of which can be connected with works listed by Briganti in the 1996 catalogue raisonné or which have subsequently come to light; a further five describe views in Venice, of which only one is today identifiable with certainty; similarly only one of the six Roman views, and not one of the three Florentine views, can be identified. Seven are described with no specific location and are so far untraced, and the final work, the only view of Tivoli, is the present painting. Of the few Vanvitellis securely identified as Medinaceli commissions, four were recently exhibited together for the first time; the View of Posillipo (1711 inv. no. 181), the View of Naples from the sea (inv. no. 196), the View of Pizzofalcone from the beach of Chiaia (inv. no. 203) and the View of Sorrento (inv. no. 185 or 186).¹⁰

The collection of the 9th Duque was gradually dispersed and subdivided amongst his descendants, particularly following the abolition of the laws of primogeniture in Spain in 1841. Medinaceli's patronage of Vanvitelli, which was second only to that of the Colonna family who owned one hundred works by the artist, was of immense importance not only to the development of view painting but also to the development of collecting on a grand scale, both in Naples and in Spain. His patronage inspired future generations, not least the 13th Duque de Medinaceli who, amongst many other acquisitions, gathered together eighty-two works by Luca Giordano. The Neapolitan veduta itself owes a great deal to the Duque; in bringing Vanvitelli to Naples Medinaceli was directly responsible for the completely new visual vocabulary that the artist brought to the depiction of the city, that was to inspire the next generations of vedutisti in Naples, through Vernet and Lus๊ieri, into the 19th century.

1. One of which, described as a 'School of children', was the most highly valued item at 20,000 reales.
2. For the inventory see Lleó Cañal, under Literature, pp. 112-15.
3. Vanvitelli's son, Luigi, was to become the foremost architect in Naples in the 18th century.
4. See L. Pascoli, ed. G. Briganti et al., Vite de' pittori, scultori ed architetti viventi..., Treviso 1981, pp. 10, 17, 23 (footnote 21) and 24 (footnote 31).
5. C. Beddington, in Capolavori in Festa: Effimero barocco a largo di Palazzo (1683-1759), exhibition catalogue, Naples, Palazzo Reale, 20 December 1997 - 15 March 1998, p. 143.
6. G. Briganti, Gaspar van Wittel, eds. L. Laureati & L. Trezzani, Naples 1996, pp. 220-21, cat. nos. 242-46.
7. Lleó Cañal, op. cit., p. 115.
8. No. 18 in the inventory.
9. The other two valued at 3,000 scudi are nos. 176: Otra pintura de Gasparo Vambitel de la Palza Navona, no. 222, and 177: Otra de la Plaza de San Marcos no. 104, both of which are now in the Medinaceli collection at the Hospital de Tavera, Toledo.
10. See L. Trezzani, under Literature, nos. 69, 70, 71 and 74 respectivel💜y. Nos 69 and 70 are now in private collections having been sold sold in these Rooms, 13 December 2001, lots 85 &a🐻mp; 86; the other two are in still in the Medinaceli collection at the Hospital de Tavera, Toledo.