POLYBIBLION. — With the aim of providing information on the content and value of the principal contemporary literary production, both French and foreign, P. first appeared in Paris under the subtitle Revue bibliographique universelle, under the auspices of the Société bibliographique, on 12 February 1868, as a monthly publication.
Each issue is divided into two parts. The first, « littéraire », contains extensive reviews of works, especially French ones, arranged by subject, and several pages of miscellaneous material, such as chronicles and bibliographical information. The second part, « bibliographie », gives instead a simple list of the books published and a survey of various French and foreign journals and of the literary articles in the principal French newspapers. Each of the two parts has its own pagination, continued throughout the semester. The whole is provided with systematic indexes. In August 1870 (6th vol.) P. suspended publication, to reappear in March of the following year.
In 1875 the 2nd series (13th vol.) began, richer and more substantial than the first and consisting not of one but of two monthly issues, one containing the « partie littéraire », the other the « partie technique ». The literary issues as a whole form 2 vols. per year, the technical ones 1 vol. In 1931 the 3rd series (vol. 181) appeared, considerably reduced and with only one issue per month, divided, like the first series, into 2 parts. In December 1937, owing to financial difficulties, the journal P. was forced to cease publication. A new publisher brought it out from July 1938 to June 1939 (vol. 195).
Renata Orazi Ausenda
POMARANCIO, ANTONIO CIRCIGNANI, detto il. — Born ca. 1580, died ca. 1640 (Baumgart places the limits of his life between 1570 and 1630): documentary information is available up to 1629. Son of Niccolò, from whom he inherited his nickname.
The biographers provide scant information about the painter, whose personality, until the most recent criticism, had been confused with that of his father Niccolò (the Crucifixion in the Galleria Estense, formerly in S. Bartolomeo, Modena, commissioned in 1620, was attributed to him on the basis of the sources). The painter’s stylistic profile gradually came to be defined through features differing from those of a generic Mannerism in his father’s manner; P. in fact appears to have assimilated Caravaggesque elements, which he also employed in the frescoes and altarpiece of the chapel of S. Alberto in the church of S. Maria in Traspontina in Rome, a work dating from the painter’s mature period. Under the pontificate of Urban VIII, he worked on the decoration of the church of S. Pietro in Rome, and in 1629 he was paid for the overdoor painting with the Tradizione delle chiavi for the Chapter room. A letter of his to Cardinal Rivarola, dated June 1626, contains a list of the works he had completed, including works executed, besides Rome, in Florence (in the porticoes of S. Maria Nuova), Narni, Terni, Amelia, Spoleto, Assisi, Sezze, Modena, and Urbino; as well as numerous drawings for prints. Among the known works, in addition to those already mentioned, are: in Rome, the frescoes with Storie di Maria in the last chapel on the left in S. Maria della Consolazione; the vault of the first chapel on the right in S. Andrea della Valle; a chapel in the Palazzo Altemps; in Città di Castello, a Concezione in the church of S. Francesco, an Incoronazione di Maria in S. Domenico, and the high altar in the church of Ognissanti.
BIBL. F. Baumgart, s. V. in Thieme-Becker, XXVII, p. 232 (with bibl.); O. Pollak, Die Kunsttätigkeit unter Urban VIII, II, Berlin 1931, pp. 38, 72, 74, 582–84; A. Venturi, s. V. ENOCH. Ital., XXVII, p. 791; R. Longhi, Ultimi studi sul Caravaggio, in Proporzioni, 1 (1943), pp. 32, 57 note 78, fig. 76; R. Pallucchini, I dipinti della Galleria Estense, 1945, p. 227.
Maria Vittoria Brugnoli