Ashes to Ashes. Art in Rome Between Humanism and Maniera 8884761034, 9788884761033

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ASHES TO ASHES ART IN ROME BETWEEN HUMANISM AND MANIERA edited by

roy eriksen and

victor plahte tsc hudi

early modern and modern studies · i.

RO M A EDIZIONI DELL’ATENEO 2006

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EARLY MODERN AND MODERN STUDIES a series directed by roy eriksen i.

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ASHES TO ASHES ART IN ROME BETWEEN HUMANISM AND MANIERA edited by

roy eriksen and

victor plahte tsc hudi

RO M A EDIZIONI DELL’ATENEO 2006

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Sono rigorosamente vietati la riproduzione, la traduzione, l’adattamento, anche parziale o per estratti, per qualsiasi uso e con qualsiasi mezzo effettuati, compresi la copia fotostatica, il microfilm, la memorizzazione elettronica, ecc., senza la preventiva autorizzazione scritta delle Edizioni dell’Ateneo ®, Roma, un marchio della Accademia editoriale ®, Pisa · Roma. Ogni abuso sarà perseguito a norma di legge. Proprietà riservata · All rights reserved © Copyright 2006 by Edizioni dell’Ateneo®, Roma, un marchio della Accademia editoriale ®, Pisa · Roma. Uffici di Pisa : Via Santa Bibbiana 28 · I 56127 Pisa Tel. +39 050 542332 · Fax +39 050 574888 E-mail : [email protected] Uffici di Roma : Via Ruggiero Bonghi 11/b · I 00184 Roma Tel. +39 06 70452494 (r.a.) · Fax +39 06 70476605 E-mail : [email protected] www.libraweb.net issn 1828-2164 isbn 88 8476-103-4

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SOMMARIO Preface Paul Davies, The Tempietti on the Ponte Sant’Angelo and the Renaissance of architecture in Rome Victor Plathe Tschudi, The shape of space. An interpretation of the term «area» in Alberti’s De re aedificatoria Roy Eriksen, Alberti, Manetti, and Quattrocento aesthetics Frida Forsgren, The hidden harmonies of the « casa di Mantegna » Lasse Hodne, The Renaissance idea of philosophical concord and Raphael’s School of Athens Anna Lange Malmanger, The legacy of Leonardo da Vinci’s Leda in Cinquecento art William E. Wallace, Michelangelo admires antiquity... and Marcello Venusti Clare Lapraik Guest, Giulio Camillo’s theatre and decorum in mannerist decoration Kristine Kolrud, Maria Lactans and the Council of Trent: a ban on the Virgin’s Bare breast? Magne Malmanger, Embers in the ashes: Cellini and the lingering high Renaissance Paul Barolsky, A brief history of God’s career in art from the beginning of time till the end of the world

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PREFACE

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he present collection of essays offers the fruits of an experiment in interdisciplinarity entitled From Renovation to Reform: The Visual Arts and the Rise of the Papal Capital. The experiment began in 1997 at the Norwegian Institute in Rome on the Gianicolo and continued at a number of seminars and workshops in e.g. Fiesole, Mantua, Vicenza, Padua, and Rome herself. The initiative was a response to the need expressed by young Norwegian scholars to have a forum for the study of Renaissance culture and a basis on which to build was afforded in conversations with learned and generous friends and colleagues met at Villa Tatti, the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance, in Florence. Generous funding from Stiftelsen Thomas Fearnley, Heddy og Nils Astrup and research grants from the Norwegian Research Council (Norges Forskningsråd) in 1998 facilitated the formation of the research and educational programme entitled From Renovation to Reform: The Visual Arts and the Rise of the Papal Capital. The aim of the programme and its various activities has been to provide a place of encounter between well-established international scholars and young Norwegian researchers in the making, who all shared an interest in the cultural expressions of the Early Modern Period, and that of Renaissance Italy in particular. Within the framework of the programme there have been several conferences and workshops every year since 1998, and so far collections of essays have been published, dissertations completed, and books published. The seminar arranged at Baroniet Rosendal on the Hardangerfjord in Norway in May 2001 gathered several of the scholars central to the programme, and who have been sympathetic to it from its inception and have remained active to the present. Without their keen and kind participation and extraordinary generosity the research initiative would not have been possible. Similarily, we would like to extend our thanks to Stiftelsen Thomas Fearnley, Heddy og Nils Astrup and the Norwegian Research Council (Norges Forskningsråd), which have aided us in the pursuit of the studia humanitatis by providing funds for the Rosendal seminar from which this collection stems. Ashes to Ashes: Art in Rome Between Humanism and Maniera is the fourth volume of essays issuing

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from From Renovatio to Reform programme and the first volume in the new series Early Modern and Modern Studies to be published under the directorship of Professor Fabrizio Serra by L’Ateneo. We are grateful to Professor Serra for offering the opportunity to establish the series, as – indeed – we are thankful for the printing grant kindly extended by Mr Hans Rasmus Astrup. The title of the collection, Ashes to Ashes; Art and Architecture in Rome between Humanism and Maniera, refers to the time span within which the scholars and research students in the From Renovatio to Reform programme have worked. It also alludes to the state of Rome on Pope Martin Vs return in 1420 to a sparsely populated Rome after factional wars and to the city left in ruins after the Sack of Rome by imperial troops in 1527. The rebirth of art and architecture in the intervening period is a major theme of the volume.

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THE TEMPIETTI ON THE PONTE SANT’ANGELO AND THE RENAISSANCE OF ARCHITECTURE IN ROME * Paul Davies «

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shes to ashes, dust to dust ». Demolition and redevelopment have claimed many of Rome’s fifteenth - century buildings. But by no means all of them have been consigned to oblivion. A few, known from early images - such as Nicholas V’s St. Peter’s and Pius II’s Benediction Loggia - have found places in the history of Quattrocento architecture. Others, by contrast, have not. Among those still awaiting full analysis by architectural historians are the two tiny tempietti built by Pope Nicholas V (1447-1455) on the Ponte Sant’Angelo (Fig. 1-3). What this essay sets out to do is to reconstruct as far as is possible the

Fig. 1. Hartmann Schedel, View of Rome showing the Ponte Sant’Angelo and the two chapels (from Liber Chronicarum, 1493). * I would like to thank Clare Robertson and John Kenyon for their help during the writing of this paper.

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Fig. 2. Jacopo Siculo (attr.), Apparition of the Archangel Michael to Pope Gregory the Great, Trinità dei Monti, Rome.

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Fig. 3. Battista da Sangallo, Plan of the southern end of the Ponte Sant’Angelo, Uffizi a 600, Florence.

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form of these chapels and to assess their place in the history of Renaissance architecture in Rome. Building History While their design has been relatively little studied, their prehistory (the events that led to their construction) and their history (the details of their construction and demolition) are well known. 1 They were built to commemorate a disaster that occurred towards the end of the Jubilee year of 1450. 2 Late in the afternoon of Saturday 19 December, thousands of pilgrims gathered in front of St Peter’s to see the pope display one of St. Peter’s most treasured relics, Veronica’s veil. 3 But, at the last minute, the pope cancelled the ceremony, and so the mass of disappointed pilgrims set off in the twilight to return to their lodgings on the other side of the Tiber. 4 The only bridge for them to cross without walking downstream as far as the Tiber island was the Ponte Sant’Angelo, and they surged towards it. 5 The weight of numbers was such that pilgrims were packed shoulder to shoulder as they squeezed across the bridge between the clutter of makeshift shops and kiosks. When a mule took fright, effectively blocking the bridge, the crowd panicked and a crush ensued. 6 Some were trampled under foot. Others were pushed off the sides of the bridge into the freezing water of the Tiber. A few were forced into the fl imsy shops overhanging the river which collapsed under their weight. Estimates of the dead varied but most put the figure at over two hundred. 7 1 For the events that led to the construction of the chapels see Pastor, The History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages, Vol. 2, London (1923), 96-101, who gives a full list of primary sources. For the history of the construction, the best analyses can be found in C. Burroughs, 1978, Conditions of Building in Rome and the Papal States in the Mid- Fifteenth Century, Phd University of London., 249-70, and Below the Angel : An Urbanistic Project in the Rome of Pope Nicholas V, « Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes », 45 (1982), 94-125, passim. Also important is the analysis in M. Weil, 1974, The History and Decoration of the Ponte S. Angelo, University Park and London.Weil , 23-7. 2 Pastor (1923), 96-7. 3 Pastor (1923), 97. There is some difference of opinion as to the date of this event. Most however date it to 19 December, which appears to be confirmed by the fact that another text refers to it as having been a Saturday and 19 December fell that year on a Saturday. 4 Pastor (1923), 97 ; Burroughs (1982), 95-6, note 5, points out that the Borgo had few lodgings for pilgrims. 5 Burroughs (1982), 95. 6 See Pastor (1923), 97. 7 See Pastor (1923), 98.

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Nicholas V was deeply saddened by the disaster, which cast a long shadow over the Jubilee celebrations, celebrations that had already been blighted by an outbreak of plague. 1 And to commemorate the catastrophe, he ordered the construction of two chapels, dedicated to Mary Magdalen and the Holy Innocents that were to be located at the southern end of the bridge. 2 He handed the task of supervising their planning and construction to Nello da Bologna, the head of the papal household and principal administrator of the pope’s building programme. 3 In fulfilling his task, Nello appointed three stone masons to build the chapels, Mariano di Tuccio da Sezze, his son Paolo, the celebrated sculptor Paolo Romano, and Pietro Alpino da Castiglioni. 4 A contract was drawn up on or before 3 March 1451 stipulating that the masons were to receive 1000 florins in total for the work on the chapels and 200 florins of this sum as an advance payment. 5 But before work could begin several structures at the southern end of the bridge had to bought and demolished. Five small shops were compulsorily purchased ‘for the chapels’ needs’ in July 1451 and, with the two adjacent sites now freed of encumbrances, work seems to have begun in earnest soon afterwards. 6 In 1452, further houses neighbouring the chapels were demolished, presumably to give the chapels greater visual impact when seen from afar. 7 During the course of this same year, 1452, the three original masons disappear from the records and a certain Giovanni da Lancilotto appears in their stead. 8 This change in personnel has puzzled scholars and has been interpreted as being the result of a rift between 1 For the pope’s distress see, for example, the sources cited in Pastor (1923), 100. For the plague in Rome in 1450 see Pastor (1923), 84. 2 See Pastor (1923), 101. I have not come across any sources that indicate which dedication belongs to which chapel. 3 For Nello da Bologna see especially Burroughs (1982), passim, and Burroughs, From Signs to Designs. Environmental Process and Reform in Early Renaissance Rome, Cambridge Mass, 1990, 99-113. 4 E. Müntz, Les Arts a la Cour des Papes pendant le xv e et le xvi e. Recueil de documents inédits, Paris, 1878, i : 151-54. Nello da Bologna’s involvement is proven by a document asv, Registri Vaticani, 429, fol. 164, published by Burroughs (1982), 102, which refers to «…capellis inibi denuo erectis per te [Nello] et personas alias tuo nomine ». 5 See Müntz (1878), 151-54 and Burroughs (1978), 249. 6 asr, Tesoriera Segreta 1451, fols. 52v and 105v : « …per bisogno delle chappelle… » Published by Müntz (1878), vol. 1, 189, Burroughs (1978), 264, and Burroughs (1982), 102. 7 asr, Camerale, 1, ts 1285, fols. 52v and 104v ; cited in Burroughs (1982), 102. 8 Müntz (1878) 151-154 ; A. Bertolotti, Artisti lombardi a Roma nei secoli xv, xvi e xvii, Milan. (1881), 17 ; and E. Battisti, I comaschi a Roma nel Primo Rinascimento, in

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the workforce and the pope’s representatives or as the result of the three masons finding more attractive or lucrative employment elsewhere. 1 But there is another more likely explanation. The original team of three were workers in stone, «maestri di marmo », whereas Giovanni da Lancilotto was a waller, «muratore ». 2 What this suggests is that the project began with the masons carving the stone detailing and that it was continued by the waller who erected the brick cores of the two tempietti, attaching as he did so the pre-prepared stonework. Construction proceeded at a speedy pace. By November 1453 the chapels were sufficiently finished for their windows to be glazed, and soon after that, on 7 January 1454, bells were acquired and installed. 3 That they must have been largely complete by this time is suggested by another document of January 1454, which describes the chapels «newly built ». 4 But though essentially complete, they had not been finished to the patron’s satisfaction and Giovanni da Lancilotto had to wait until July 1454 to receive his final payments owing to some «mancamento ». 5 The chapels remained a prominent feature of the principal approach to St Peter’s and the Borgo for about eighty years. But their premature fate was sealed during the Sack of Rome in 1527. 6 They were used as cover Arte e artisti dei Laghi Lombardi, i (1959), 3-63 ; 47. The most fully documented accounts of the building history are to be found in Burroughs (1978) and Burroughs (1982). See also the brief analyses in M. Borgatti, Castel Sant’Angelo in Roma, Rome (1931), 167-169 and P. Tomei, L’architettura a Roma nel Quattrocento, Rome, 108. 1 The first of the two suggestions was originally advanced by Borgatti (1931), 169 while the second was suggested by Burroughs (1982), 99. Burroughs notes that Mariano di Tuccio and his son Paolo seem to have left Rome at about that time for Naples where they appear in records soon afterwards and has assumed that they left the site before they had fulfilled their contract. There is nothing in the surviving documents to suggest that they did not complete the work they were contracted to do. As the contract has not survived we do not know what the terms were. 2 For the identification of their respective professions see Müntz (1878), 153-4. 3 For the bells see asr, Tesoriera Segreta, 1454, 68v and 81v ; quoted in Müntz (1878), 154 and Borgatti (1931), 169. For the windows see Müntz (1878), 138-139 and Burroughs (1978), 264-265. The document recording the installation of the windows (asr, Tesoriera Segreta, 1453, fol. 189) specifies that Giovanni d’Andrea was paid for «6 ochi fe ale chapelle del ponte a Chastello colorati di filo di ferro ». 4 «…[D]enuo erectis… » . See note 11 above. 5 Müntz (1878), 151-154 ; Burroughs (1982). For other documents relating to Giovanni da Lancilotto’s involvement in the construction of the chapels see also Bertolotti (1881), Part 1, 17. 6 It is worth noting here that Sixtus IV published a bull in 1476 handing over the running of the chapels to the Ospedale di Santo Spirito ; see Burroughs (1978), 264.

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by some of Charles V’s crossbowmen to snipe at guards on the Castel Sant’Angelo where the pope, Clement VII, had sought refuge and they appear to have been damaged by return fire. 1 Damage can, of course, be repaired, but Clement VII, having witnessed how effectively the chapels had been used to attack the Castel Sant’Angelo, decided to have them demolished. They were not knocked down immediately, however, as they were still standing in 1530 when they were further damaged by the severe flooding that hit Rome year. 2 Not long after this in 1534 they were indeed demolished and replaced by two statues of Sts Peter and Paul, a substitution recorded by inscriptions on the statues’ pedestals. 3 The form of the two chapels Three representations of the chapels, made before their destruction, allow us to reconstruct their appearance. The earliest and most schematic is the one in the view of Rome which appears in Hartmann Schedel’s Liber Chronicarum of 1493 (Fig. 1). 4 The second, and the most detailed, is one which appears in a fresco in Trinità dei Monti, Rome, depict1 For the crossbowmen in the chapels and the popes resolve to have them demolished, see G. Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori sculptori ed architettori, ed. G. Milanesi, 9 vols, Florence, 1906, iv : 580. The passage is mentioned in A.M. Corbo, L’attività di Paolo di Mariano a Roma, in Commentari, 15, 195-226. (1966), 198, and discussed by A. Chastel, The Sack of Rome 1527, Princeton (1983), 193. The damage that the chapels suffered during the Sack of Rome is mentioned by Torrigio (1639), 385. 2 For the floods of 6 October 1530 see A. Cametti, La Torre di Nona e la contrada circostante dal medioevo al secolo xvii, «Archivio Società Romana di Storia Patria», 39 (1916), 409-466 ; 445 ; Borgatti (1931), 300 ; Burroughs (1982), 97, note 12. For the demolition of the chapels see Weil (1974), 24-25. See also the inscriptions in the next note. 3 The inscriptions of the pedestals of the statues read as follows. Under the statue of St Peter on the side facing downstream is clemens vii pont max/ petro et pavlo apostolis/ vrbis patronis/ anno salvtis christianae/ md xxx iiii. Under the same statue on the side facing the road over the bridge is hinc hvmilibvs venia. Under the statue of St. Paul on the side facing the road is hinc retributio svperbis. Under the same statue facing upstream is binis hoc loco sacellis/ bellica vi et parte pontis/ impetv flvminis disiectis/ ad retinendi loci religione[m]/ ornatvmq[ve] has statuas/ substitvit. The inscriptions are discussed in Weil (1974), 25 and note 23. There has been some discussion of whether or not the statues were erected in 1535 under Paul III rather than in 1534 under Clement VII. But this appears to have been based on an erroneous reading of the inscription. 4 This print published by Hartmann Scedel is actually based on an earlier image that appeared in a book published in Venice ; Jacobus Philippus Bergomensis, Supplementum Cronicarum, Venice 1490. The available visual material for the Ponte Sant’Angelo is published in Borgatti (1931) and Weil (1974).

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ing the Apparition of the Archangel Michael to Pope Gregory the Great, a fresco painted probably by Jacopo Siculo c. 1534 (Fig. 2). 1 The third is a plan of the southern end of Ponte Sant’Angelo made by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger’s workshop c.1533-4, in preparation for the restoration of the bridge and the removal of the chapels (Fig. 3). 2 The extent to which these images can be relied on as evidence of the original appearance of the chapels varies. In the case of the Hartmann Schedel view of Rome, the various buildings shown are represented with differing degrees of accuracy. So, for example, the façade of St. 1 The attribution to Jacopo Siculo is based upon a passage from Vasari’s Life of Michelangelo : «Per che volendo Michelagnolo far porre in opera le statue, in questo tempo al Papa venne in animo di volerlo appresso di sé, avendo desiderio di fare la facciata della cappella di Sisto, dove egli aveva dipinto la volta a Giulio II suo nipote ; nelle quali facciate voleva Clemente che nella principale, dove è l’altare, vi si dipignessi il Giudizio universale, acciò potessi mostrare in quella storia tutto quello che l’arte del disegno poteva fare ; e nell’altra dirimpetto, sopra la porta principale, gli aveva ordinato che vi facessi quando per la sua superbia Lucifero fu dal cielo cacciato e precipitati insieme nel centro dello inferno tutti quegli Angeli che peccarono con lui. Delle quali invenzioni molti anni innanzi s’è trovato che aveva fatto Schizzi Michelagnolo e varii disegni, un de’ quali poi fu posto in opera nella chiesa della Trinità di Roma da un pittore ciciliano, il quale stette molti mesi con Michelagnolo a servirlo e macinar colori. Questa opera è nella croce della chiesa alla cappella di San Gregorio, dipinta a fresco, che, ancora che sia mal condotta, si vede un certo che di terribile e di vario nelle attitudini e groppi di quegli ignudi che piovono dal cielo e de’ cascati nel centro della terra, conversi in diverse forme di diavoli molto spaventate e bizzarre ; et è certo capricciosa fantasia » ; Vasari (1906), 6, 208. The fresco referred to here, which depicted St Michael casting the rebellious angels down into hell, was in the Chateauvillain Chapel in the church’s south transept and was located within the chapel on the end wall. This wall was removed in the eighteenth century to provide access to a new chapel. The fresco that survives, located on the transept’s west wall, was part of this cycle dedicated to St Michael. It shows the apparition of the Archangel Michael to Pope Gregory the Great in 590 fulfilling the pope plea to assist in eradicating the plague that was then ravaging Rome. This passage also provides evidence for the dating of the frescoes. As they were based on Michelangelo’s preparatory drawings for the western wall of the Sistine Chapel, they must postdate the autumn of 1533 when the project was first discussed. Moreover, they are likely to predate the death of Clement VII as the apparition scene contains various Medici references such as Medici emblems on the tiara worn by the pope in the foreground and the Medici coat of arms on the Castel Sant’Angelo in the background. See Borgatti (1931), 368-369 ; and especially Chastel, A., La Chapelle de Saint Michel à la Trinité-des-Monts, in Actes du colloque sur les Pieux Etablissements francais, Rome, 1981 : Chastel (1983), 193-198. See also M. Azzarone, Gli affreschi della Cappella Chateauvillain nella Chiesa di Trinità dei Monti a Roma, in C. Carletti and G. Otranto (eds), Culto e insediamenti micaelici nell’Italia meridionale fra antichità e Medioevo, Bari, 1994, 555-564. 2 Gabinetto dei disegni e stampe degli Uffizi, Florence, a 600. The drawing was identified by G. Giovannoni, Antonio da Sangallo il Giovane, 2 vols, Rome,1959, 96 and 417.

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Peter’s is a reasonably faithful depiction of its late fifteenth-century state, whereas the Benediction Loggia just in front of it - well-known from many other representations - is not since it is shown as being three rather than four bays wide and as being only one and a half storeys tall rather than three. 1 Thus it would be dangerous to use this print for anything more that the most general information about the chapels. The fresco in Trinità dei Monti, by contrast, seems to be of much greater topographical accuracy and thus of much more value for this particular task. This accuracy can be demonstrated through an analysis of the care with which the Castel Sant’Angelo in the background has been depicted. To begin with, it is shown with a round tower, situated just in front of the main drum, that was built in the 1490s during the pontificate of Alexander VI (1492-1503), and the tower itself is depicted as bearing Alexander VI’s coat of arms. 2 Although this tower was swept away during the pontificate of Urban VIII, it does appear in other representations of the castle such as Etienne Duperac’s engraving published in 1565, where it is shown as having precisely the same features, a battered basement, a machilocated parapet and Alexander’s coat of arms. 3 What is more, the castle is shown in the fresco as having a three-bay loggia set into the superstructure of the main drum, a loggia built in 1504/5 during the pontificate of Julius II (1503-1513) and a Medici stemma on the main drum, a coat of arms that was added during the pontificate of either Leo X (1513-1521) or Clement VII (1523-34). 4 Of these, the log1 See, for example, Marten van Heemskerk’s topographically accurate drawing of the Benediction Loggia in the Albertina, Vienna, the accuracy of which is confirmed by many other surviving renderings. 2 See Borgatti (1931), 228-32. The coat of arms still survives inside the castle ; see Borgatti (1931), 231, Fig. 84. 3 For the demolition of Alexander’s tower at the Castel Sant’Angelo, see Weil (1974), 27 and Borgatti (1931), 230 and 432-433. The Duperac engraving is also published in Weil (1974), Fig. 16. 4 For the loggia see A. Bruschi, Bramante architetto, Bari. (1969), 909-910, who attributes it to Giuliano da Sangallo. For the Medici alterations to the building see Borgatti (1931) 277-313. The Medici stemma in the background is something of a puzzle. A coat of arms is indeed attached to the Castel Sant’Angelo at this point but it is that of Alexander VI, a shield that predates both the early-sixteenth-century Medici popes. However, close inspection of the coat of arms reveals that three iron rods have been inserted into the stone and project beyond the arms of Alexander VI. These rods were presumably inserted there to support other coats of arms. It is conceivable therefore that there was indeed a Medici coat of arms attached to the front of the front of the castle when the paintings were executed.

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gia alone survives. From this evidence it is reasonable to suppose that the artist set out with the intention of representing the view across the Tiber at this point with great topographical accuracy and, therefore, that the two tempietti shown are just as faithfully rendered as the castle itself is. The Sangallo drawing, too, must be regarded as a dependable rendering as it was intended as a measured drawing showing the layout - both existing and intended - of the southern or Campo Marzio end of the bridge. 1 The images provide enough information to determine precisely where they were sited. While the Hartmann Schedel view of the chapels (Fig. 1) shows that they framed the opening onto the Ponte Sant’Angelo, it is nevertheless difficult to assess from this print alone precisely where they were located. Did they stand on the bridge itself or just in front of it, or beside it on piers ? Did they encroach upon the thoroughfare they flanked or were they set back from it ? These questions are answered for us by the Sangallo drawing (Fig. 3). This shows that the two chapels were located in such a way that they did not impede the thoroughfare over the bridge at all, a design-decision no doubt influenced by the desire to keep pedestrian traffic free-flowing especially in view of the fact that encumbrances on the bridge had exacerbated the disaster of December 1450. In particular, the drawing shows that the side of the octagon facing the road over the bridge was flush with the inner face of the bridge’s parapet wall, and that the side of the octagon facing the river was built upon and flush with the wall of the river bank - indicated only in the case of the lower of the two chapels on the sheet. Thus the two chapels were attached to the bridge but did not, strictly speaking, stand on it. Certain details of the groundplan of the two chapels can also be read from the images. The Sangallo drawing shows that the chapels were both regular octagons. And, by using the scale at the top of the drawing, it is clear that they each had an external diameter of 20 Roman feet. 2 The drawing does not indicate wall thickness and therefore it is possible only to offer the conjecture that the internal diameter might 1 For this drawing see note 27 above. 2 While the scale does not make it clear whether it is in Roman feet (= 0.2979m) or palmi (=0.2234m), it must be feet since feet and not palmi correspond to the width of the bridge. For the metric equivalents of Roman feet and palmi see A. Martini, Manuale di Metrologia, Rome, 1976.

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well have been between 16 and 18 Roman feet, depending upon the thickness of the wall. The position of the door openings also has to be inferred, as none of the three available images shows them. Even the most detailed of them, the Trinità dei Monti fresco, does not show them. What appears at first sight to be a small porch in the left-hand chapel is in all probability a wooden canopy put up to protect a revered image with a small ledge below on which to place flowers and candles. Had it been a doorway, it would almost certainly have been mirrored in the right-hand chapel, and it is not. The door could not have been located on the side that faced the river, nor in the diagonal sides adjacent to it as one was occupied by the parapet of the bridge and the other by the parapet of the river bank. This means that the door must have been located either on the side facing onto the road across the bridge or on the side immediately opposite. Of these two options the former is the more likely, an arrangement that would have encouraged passing devotees to enter and pay their respects. Whether the doors faced the road that led over the bridge or were set into the wall parallel with it on the other side of the building is not known, but what appears to be clear is that the principal axis of these two chapels was at right angles to the bridge. That the chapels had windows as well as doors is demonstrated by the fact that payments survive for their glazing. Indeed, they had six roundels between them, presumably three in each chapel. 1 But as with the doors, there is no reliable indication in the images to show where they were. The Schedel print does show windows in the diagonal faces of the two chapels, but this evidence cannot be relied upon as they do not appear in that position in the Trinità dei Monti fresco. Indeed, no opening is shown at all in the fresco and given the symmetrical character of these buildings it is probable that the sides facing the river were the same. What seems likely, therefore, is that the chapels had their windows located on the principal axis over the altar and door, but for the moment that is all that can be said with impunity. While the fresco provides negative evidence for the position of the doors and windows, it gives much more positive information about each chapel’s external articulation (Fig. 4). Around the bottom of the chapel runs a podium or dado upon which the rest of the structure sits. 1 See above note 3, p. 16.

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Fig. 4. Jacopo Siculo (attr.), Detail of Apparition of the Archangel Michael to Pope Gregory the Great, Trinità dei Monti, Rome.

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Above it, the surface of the main walls is set back slightly to throw into relief the eight pilasters which are folded around the building’s corners. These pilasters appear to rest on bases and to support capitals which seem to be rather squat, suggesting that they are of the Tuscan-Doric or Ionic types rather than Corinthian or Composite (Fig. 5). There is not enough detail to be certain about the form of the capitals. All that can be said is that most of them appear to be Doric-like in form, though one - the second from the right in the right-hand chapel - has marks that could well be interpreted as scrolls and therefore possibly as Ionic. Above the capitals runs a classicising entablature with a continuous frieze of garlands linked by disks. This entablature breaks forward at the chapel’s corners in response to the pilasters below, creating a vertical emphasis which is continued up across the dome by ribs wrapped around the angles like the pilasters below. These ribs run across a dome that has a squat, ogee profile and meet at a finial which looks rather like a large bud, fir cone or a pineapple.1 The chapels and their architectural style These two oratories are quite remarkable in the context of mid fifteenth-century Roman architecture. 2 From 1447 to 1451 Nicholas’s building programme had been characterised by simple functionalism 1 The chapels appear to have had painted exteriors. The figures on the left-hand chapel are now barely visible, perhaps because the artist of the Trinità dei Monti fresco did not define them very clearly in the first place or perhaps because this part of the fresco has been more severely affected by damp. Those on the right-hand chapel are a little more easily decipherable. Above two inscriptions - bearing tablets are two standing saints. The one on the left is bearded and holds a baton-like object in his left hand, perhaps a palmleaf or a knife. The figure on the right appears to be wearing the habit of a friar or monk. Between these two figures are two superimposed roundels. The top one contains an image of the Virgin and Child while the lower one attached to the tablets contains a coat of arms, conceivably that of Nicholas V. The two standing figures have been interpreted by Chastel as being Sts Peter and Paul ; see A. Chastel, Two Roman Statues : Saints Peter and Paul, in W. Stedman Sheard and J.T. Paoletti, Collaboration in Renaissance Art, New Haven 1978, 59-73, and Chastel (1983). But there is not enough detail to be certain of this and in any case the figure on the right does not appear to have the attributes of St Peter. 2 For architectural styles in Rome c. 1450 see especially Tomei (1942), T. Magnusson, Studies in Roman Quattrocento Architecture. Stockholm, 1958, and C. L. Frommel, Francesco dal Borgo e la tradizione michelozziana, in Michelozzo Scultore ed Architetto (1396-1472), G. Morolli (ed.), Florence, 1998, 257-262. An interesting question dealt with briefly by Burroughs (1982), 99-100, is that of why Nicholas decided to build two rather than one commemorative chapel. A single chapel would certainly have been

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Fig. 5. Jacopo Siculo (attr.), Detail of Apparition of the Archangel Michael to Pope Gregory the Great, Trinità dei Monti, Rome.

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with detailing inspired by Florentine architecture of the late Trecento and the pre-Brunelleschian Quattrocento. 1 But around 1451-2, with the scheme to rebuild St Peter’s, a change took place which saw the beginning of the great tradition of Roman Renaissance architecture, a tradition tied more closely to recent innovations in Florentine architecture and to a greater appreciation of the buildings of classical antiquity. 2 It was to this latter trend that these two chapels belong. Designed in 1451, they were among the first Roman buildings conceived in this new style, and perhaps equally significant is the fact that they were among the earliest completed and were thus the earliest to exhibit to other Roman architects and patrons the new style that Nicholas’ architects were promoting in the years from 1451. They were almost certainly the earliest Roman fifteenth-century buildings to be given an external pilaster articulation and a classicising entablature, and they were among the first buildings in Rome to have been capped by domes - only S. Teodoro, an Early Christian rotunda restored during the pontificate of Nicholas V (completed 1451), may have had an earlier one. 3 The sources of inspiration for this classicising garb lie outside Rome. The idea of wrapping pilasters around the angels of polygonal buildings has many medieval precedents in northern Italy. It can be seen, for example, in the articulation of the octagonal baptistery in Albenga (fifth century) where the piers supporting the arches of the drum are designed in such a way that they are folded at the building’s angles, or in the church of S. Sepolcro in Pisa (1150) where the folded piers rise much more conventional as is the case with the other bridge shrines discussed below. The answer probably lies in the Pope’s desire to create an impressive scenographic effect at a site of key importance in the city, a site that marked the point of entry into the Borgo and that provided access to St. Peter’s tomb, the city’s principal shrine. To have had just one chapel, however beautiful, would have reduced the impact of the entrance. Moreover, the symmetrical arrangement of the existing structures in the vicinity would have strongly suggested to patrons and architect alike the adoption of a scheme with two rather than one chapel. The Ponte Sant’Angelo lay on axis with the Castel Sant’Angelo and this symmetry was further enhanced by Nicholas V himself who provided the castle with four identical towers at its corners and a symmetrically designed gateway into the Borgo at the northern end of the bridge. This axial symmetry demanded a similar arrangement at the southern end of the bridge too. 1 Frommel 1998, p. 257. 2 Frommel 1998, p. 257. 3 For S. Teodoro see Müntz (1878), 145, F. Fasolo, San Teodoro al Palatino, Palladio, 5 (1941), 112-9, and G. Urban, Die Kirchenbaukunst des Quattrocento in Rom, « Römisches Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte », 9 (1961) : 73-297 ; 205.

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to the roofl ine without supporting arches. And many other examples of the feature from all over northern Italy could be cited, including such celebrated buildings as the Baptistery in Florence (consecrated 1059). But they all differ from the corner pilasters of Nicholas V’s tempietti in one key respect. Their piers do not have capitals. Earlier buildings which combine folded pilasters and capitals are much less easy to find. The only post-antique structure of this sort, known to me, is Brunelleschi’s lantern atop Florence Cathedral, and consequently it would appear that the designer of Nicholas’s tempietti had Florentine architecture in mind when drawing up his designs. 1 Another of the features inspired by Florentine architecture is the design of the frieze, which as we have seen has garlands swinging from disks. There are about seven garlands for each face of the structure. But what the disks actually represent is difficult to determine as they are not shown in enough detail. This feature of a string of garlands hanging from disk-like motifs would appear to be very close in general terms to works by Donatello (1386-1466), who popularised the idea of garlands suspended from the disembodied heads of cherubs. 2 It appears, for example, in the basement zone of the Tomb of Baldassare Cossa (1421) in the Florentine Baptistery and in a similar position on his Cantoria (1433-9) inside Florence Cathedral. More significant for its use in later architecture is its appearance on the tabernacle framing his St Louis of Toulouse (c. 1422), where the garlands and cherubs appear not at the bottom of a design but in a classical entablature supported by pilasters. The feature was adopted by the younger sculptor-architect Bernardo Rossellino, who used it in his very first architectural commission, the completion of the façade of the Palazzo della Misericordia in Arezzo (1433) where garlands again are supported by the winged faces of cherubim (Fig. 6). 3 What is perhaps important about this example is that it is probably the 1 For Brunelleschi’s lantern see, H. Klotz, Filippo Brunelleschi. The Early Works and the Medieval Tradition, London. (1990), 103-105, H. Saalman, Filippo Brunelleschi. The Buildings, London,1993, 410-419. 2 The feature does appear earlier in the architectural backdrop of the scene of Pentecost from the North Doors of the Baptistery in Florence but here there are no disks and there is only one garland per bay. For the observation that garlands hanging between cherubs derives from the work of Donatello see Bulgarelli (1996), 26 and note 37. 3 For a discussion of the origins of this type of frieze and its use by Rossellino see M. Bulgarelli, La Capella Cardini a Pescia in M. Bulgarelli and M. Ceriana, Architettura del Quattrocento a Firenze e Venezia, Milan, 1996, 13-103 ; 26-28 and 65-67.

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Fig. 6. Bernardo Rossellino, Façade of the Palazzo della Misericordia, Arezzo.

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first appearance of this particular frieze decoration on a building rather than on a tomb or tabernacle. Rossellino went on to use this same feature on the entrance to the Cardini Chapel (c. 1457) in the pieve at Pescia. 1 The design of the dome may also have been inspired by Florentine models. First of all, the ribs marking the corners of the roof are folded at the angles just like the pilasters below, a feature which gives great vertical continuity to the design. The same arrangement of members can be found in the design of Brunelleschi’s dome for Florence Cathedral (1420). Secondly, the unusual ogee shape of the dome was very uncommon in Italy outside the Byzantine-influenced architecture of Venice, but it does have precedents in Florence. There, it appears in the fresco by Andrea di Bonaiuto (c. 1366-1368) of the city’s cathedral in the Spanish Chapel at S. Maria Novella. This dome is especially like those of the two tempietti in that it has eight facets and, being a lantern, is designed on a relatively small scale. Another possible model is the dome (Fig. 7) that Brunelleschi placed on top of the lantern of the Old Sacristy (1421-1428). In this case the ogee-shaped dome is not faceted, but it nevertheless is more likely to have influenced the two chapels in Rome than the fresco since it was not only a more recent design but also built on top of a very high profile building designed by the leading architect of his generation. 2 All this - that is to say their precocity in the context of Roman Renaissance architecture and their dependence upon Florentine buildings - might lead one to suppose that the design was devised by an architect fully conversant with recent developments in Florentine architecture. Among the candidates must figure Paolo Romano and his father, Mariano, two of the masons contracted from the outset to execute the building, especially as Paolo was later very successful in fashioning a career for himself as a figurative sculptor, as an inventive designer not just a craftsman following designs by others. What is more, by March 1451, Paolo had already been involved with architectural projects, having 1 The feature also appears in an architectural work by another Florentine artists just before the chapels on the Ponte Sant’Angelo were designed, namely the portal of S. Domenico in Urbino (1449) designed by Maso di Bartolomeo. The frieze of the portal of the Tempietto Orsini at Vicovaro is not part of the original design and was added probably by Giovanni Dalmata (c. 1464-1477) ; see E. Luzzi, Il Tempietto Orsini di Vicovaro, « Quaderni dell’Istituto di Storia dell’Architettura », 23 (1994), 3-18 ; 15. 2 For a discussion of lanterns in the work of Brunelleschi and his predecessors see Klotz (1990), 103-105.

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Fig. 7. Filippo Brunelleschi, Dome of lantern of Old Sacristy (original now located in the cloister), S. Lorenzo, Florence.

carved among other things some of the finestre crociate of the Palazzo del Senatorio on the Campidoglio. 1 But the question remains as to whether he would have been familiar enough with Florentine architecture to 1 See Corbo (1966), 198.

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have designed the two tempietti himself. A more likely candidate in many respects is Bernardo Rossellino. Not only was he a Florentine working in a Florentine style, but as it happens he became Nicholas V’s favourite architect in the last few years of his pontificate. 1 And, crucially, he seems to have been the first architect to use garlands hanging from cherubs’ heads in a work that could be regarded as a building rather than a piece of architectural sculpture. What stands in the way of Rossellino’s candidature is that, although he move from Florence to Rome in 1451, he is only documented as being on the papal pay roll from 31 December that year, several months after the chapels were designed. 2 It is, of course, not beyond the bounds of possibility that Rossellino sent the designs from Florence, a common enough practice at this time, and that Nicholas’ delight with them encouraged him to offer Rossellino the top job in Rome. Yet, it would be unwise to offer the attribution to Rossellino as more than a mere suggestion, given that the stylistic analysis presented here is based on a mere representation of the buildings and not the buildings themselves. The chapels and their architectural iconography The memorial character of these two chapels is revealed in various ways, some through the written word and others through the buildings’ form. Two lengthy inscriptions were attached in the form of plaques to the right-hand chapel as one approached the bridge from the Campo Marzio, inscriptions that are now lost and seem not to have been recorded, and they would no doubt have told of the events that had led to the chapels’ erection. They may also have informed the visitors of the names of the saints to whom the two chapels were dedicated, that is to 1 That Rossellino was Nicholas’ favourite architect originates with Giannozzo Manetti’s biography of Nicholas V ; see G. Manetti, Vita Nicolai V summi pontificis nunc primum prodit ex manuscripta codice Florentino in L. Muratori (ed.), Rerum italicarum scriptores, Milan, 1734, 3, 2, 907-60. In support of this view is the fact that he was the highest paid of the architects working for the pope. But the absence of Rossellino’s name from the papal documents has caused some scholars to doubt Rossellino’s pre-eminence ; see C. Mack, Nicholas the Fifth and the Rebuilding of Rome : reality and Legacy, in H. Hager and S. B. Munshower (eds), Light on the Eternal City : Recent Observations and Discoveries in Roman Art and Architecture, 1987, 31-58 and Pienza. The Creation of a Renaissance City, Ithaca and London, 1987. See also S. Borsi, F. Quinterio and C. Vasic Vatovec , Maestri Fiorentini nei cantieri romani del Quattrocento, Rome, 1989, 100-107. Borsi, Quinterio and Vasic Vatovec (1989), 100-107. 2 See Borsi, Quinterio and Vasic Vatovec (1989), 101.

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say the Holy Innocents and Mary Magdalen. These dedications may in turn have suggested the buildings’ memorial function. This is because the former is rather uncommon for chapel and church dedications and would have immediately brought to mind the one thing that the Holy Innocents are remembered for, namely their massacre at the hands of King Herod. In addition, it would have struck the pilgrim as a highly appropriate dedication to commemorate a disaster, especially one in which as many as two hundred «innocent » pilgrims had died. The latter dedication is rather less obviously memorial in character. It has been explained as being linked to the existence of a relic of Mary Magdalen in the nearby church of S. Celso, though it seems strange that a chapel should be dedicated to a relic preserved in a different church.1 An alternative explanation can be found in the associations embodied in the character of the Magdalen. She was the archetype of the sinner who had mended her ways, and was thus a highly appropriate model for those pilgrims who, through the act of pilgrimage, were mending theirs. In addition, the dedication to Mary Magdalen could conceivably have had funerary or memorial associations for fifteenth century pilgrims. She it was who anointed Christ’s body after his death, an episode which the church-going public would have been reminded of every time they saw her depicted in altarpieces with her attribute the ointment jar. So both dedications were carefully devised to have memorial resonances that were appropriate to the nature of the disaster that had taken place. The memorial character of the buildings also appears to be embodied in the form of the building itself. The ogee shape of the dome, as has already been pointed out was uncommon in fifteenth-century Italy, but when it was used it may have had a particular significance. It may have been intended to make a visual reference to the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, and in particular to the dome of the lantern above the edicule inside the church which marks the supposed site of Christ’s tomb. 2 Various drawings and built copies of the edicule record the form of this small dome and attest to the fact that its form was known in Italy. 3 Indeed, it has been suggested that the dome of the lantern on top of 1 For the link between the Magdalen Tempietto and the relic in the church of S. Celso see G. Segui, C. Thoenes, and L. Mortari, SS. Celso e Giuliano, Rome, 1966, 83-84 and Burroughs (1982), 98. 2 For the most recent account of the edicule inside the Holy Sepulchre see Biddle (1999). 3 M. Biddle, The Tomb of Christ, Stroud 1999, 28-40 and especially fig 39.

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Brunelleschi’s Old Sacristy (1421-1428) was intended to make such a reference. 1 That this is not a far-fetched idea is suggested by the use of this sort of dome above the copy of the Holy Sepulchre in the Rucellai Chapel at S. Pancrazio designed by Alberti (c. 1458). It is plausible, therefore, that the domes of the two chapels at the Ponte Sant’Angelo were also conceived as making just such a reference, a reference entirely appropriate for memorial structures. The memorial character of the buildings would also have been reinforced by the choice of an octagonal groundplan. This shape belongs to one of a family of plans, generally referred to as centralised, that was adopted throughout the Middle Ages for memorial structures, that is to say for martyria, mausolea and shrines. 2 It is worth noting here that while the octagonal groundplan springs from this tradition in general, the decision to use it may well have been inspired by a particular Florentine building, S. Maria delle Grazie, also sadly lost (Fig. 8). 3 This chapel, commissioned in 1371, has much in common with the two later tempietti. It was memorial structure insofar as it was a shrine housing a miracle-working image of the Virgin Mary ; it stood at the entrance to a bridge, in this case, at the northern end of the Ponte delle Grazie ; and appears to have been octagonal, to judge from the late fifteenth-century Chain Map of Florence and an engraving in Richa’s monumental study of Florentine churches. 4 What is more, this chapel is described by Franco Sacchetti in one of his novelle as being «made in the likeness of the Holy Sepulchre », which, as we have seen, is one of the associations that the chapels on the Ponte Sant’Angelo may have had. 5 That this Florentine chapel may well be the principal source for the two Roman chapels should not surprise us as their ar1 L.H. Heydenreich, Die Cappella Rucellai von S. Pancrazio in Florenz, in M. Meiss (ed.), De artibus, opuscula xl. Essays in honour of Erwin Panofsky, 1961 : 219-29. 2 R. Krautheimer, Introduction to an iconography of medieval architecture, « Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes », Vol. 5, 1942, pp. 1-33 and A. Grabar, Martyrium, 2 vols, Paris 1945. 3 Destroyed during Second World War, it appears to have been significantly altered over the centuries and in nineteenth-century photographs appears to have lost its octagonal shape. For a discussion of its history see Richa (1754), Vol. 1, 162-176 ; Bulgarini (1874), 14-16. 4 See G. Richa, Notizie istoriche delle chiese fiorentine, 10 vols, Florence, 1754. F. Sacchetti, Le novelle, ed. F. Le Monnier, 2 Vols, Florence, 1861, Vol. i. 5 Sacchetti, ii : 125-126 : « [O]ra in fine a una piccola cappelletta che si chiama S. Maria della Grazie sul Ponte Rubaconte, fatta similitudine del sepolcro di Cristo ».

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Fig. 8. Engraving of S. Maria delle Grazie, Florence (from Richa 1754).

chitect is likely to have been a Florentine, or someone conversant with Florentine architecture, and the patron, Nicholas V, had spent many years in Florence, first during his student days when he worked as a tutor in the households of Rinaldo degli Albizzi and Palla Strozzi, and

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later as a member of the papal entourage when the court was based in Florence (1434-14343). 1 The chapels and their influence The two chapels appear to have captured the imaginations of many later architects working in Rome and its satellite cities, influencing many of the later centralised or centralising buildings erected there over the next seventy years. That they should have done so is perhaps not surprising, since, if one excludes the renovation of existing Early Christian centralised churches like those of S. Stefano Rotondo and S. Teodoro, they were the first centralised Renaissance buildings in the city, and the first centralised buildings of the Quattrocento built under direct papal patronage. 2 Also, they stood in a very prominent position on the river bank, and in framing the principal route to St Peter’s and the Vatican they would have been known to all Romans, especially architects. The very next church with a centralised plan built in the city, S. Maria della Pace (1481), took its lead from these small chapels (Fig. 9). It has a large octagonal east end whose exterior is articulated just like the two Ponte Sant’Angelo chapels. From a podium rise pilasters that are wrapped around the angles of the building and that carry a full entablature, broken at the corners to correspond with the pilasters below. 3 These features are shared by the small shrine of S. Giovanni in Oleo (1509), that was built near the Porta Latina on the supposed site where St John the Evangelist emerged unharmed from a vat of boiling oil (Fig. 10). 4 It is octagonal in plan, has pilaster supports clasping the angles, and is topped by an entablature that breaks forward at the angles. The only really significant difference is the absence of a tall podium. 1 Pastor (1923),14-7. 2 For S. Stefano Rotondo, see Gentile Ortona (1982) ; for S. Teodoro see note 37 above. 3 For the history of S. Maria della Pace see H. Ost, Studien zu Pietro da Cortonas Umbau von S. Maria della Pace, « Römisches Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte », 13 (1971), 231-304 and M.L. Riccardi, La Chiesa e il convento di S. Maria della Pace, « Quaderni dell’Istituto di Storia dell’Architettura », 1982, 3-90. 4 E. Renzulli, Borromini restauratore : S. Giovanni in Oleo e S. Salvatore a Ponte Rotto, « Annali di Architettura », 10-11 (1998-1999) : 203-20 ; 218, note 17.

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Fig. 9. S. Maria della Pace, Rome.

Outside Rome, the influence of the two chapels was felt perhaps earliest in Viterbo, north of Rome, at the shrine of S. Maria della Peste (1494) (Fig. 11). 1 Not only is the chapel octagonal with folded pilasters that rise from a podium and a full classical entablature, but, before the area around the chapel was landscaped during the twentieth century, it was built at the mouth of a bridge, the Ponte Tremoli. Given the similarity in both form and siting, S. Maria della Peste’s dependence upon the Ponte Sant’Angelo tempietti could hardly be more marked. The distinctive combination of folded pilasters, podium and classicising entablature can also be found at the slightly later octagonal shrines of S. Maria della Sughera at Tolfa (1504) and S. Maria del Sangue at 1 P. Davies, Studies in the Quattrocento Centrally Planned Church, PhD University of London, 1992, 311-338.

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Fig. 10. S. Giovanni in Oleo, Rome.

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Fig. 11. S. Maria della Peste, Viterbo.

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Fig. 12. S. Maria del Sangue, Velletri.

Velletri (1521-1522) (Fig. 12). 1 Even the much later bridge shrine of S. Rocco at Bagnaia (1568) follows the same basic format (Fig. 13). 2 1 For the shrine at Tolfa see N. Mannino, Maria della Sughera a Tolfa. L’architettura di un santuario mariano, Civitavecchia, 1998 ; for the shrine in Velletri see A. Gabrielli, Il Tempietto bramantesco di S. Maria del Sangue in Velletri, Velletri, 1923, and G. Zander, Il Tempietto di S. Maria del Sangue a Velletri e il suo restauro, Palladio, 1-2 (1954), 85ff. 2 See Zander (1954), 86 ; Sinding Larsen (1965), 243 ; P. Davies, La santità del luogo

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Fig. 13. S. Rocco, Bagnaia.

e la chiesa a pianta centrale nel Quattro e nel primo Cinquecento, in B. Adorni (ed.), La chiesa a pianta centrale. Tempio civico del rinascimento, Milan, 2002, 26-35 ; esp. 33-34.

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One of the most intriguing features of this family of shrines from S. Maria della Pace in Rome to S. Rocco in Bagnaia is that they all have pilasters of the Tuscan-Doric type, an unusual choice especially for the shrines dedicated to the Virgin, and this raises the question of what sort of capitals the two tempietti once had. It has already been shown that the capitals in the Trinità dei Monti fresco appear to be squat rather like lose of the Tuscan, Doric or Ionic orders. Given that all the chapels listed above seem to have descended directly or indirectly from the Ponte Sant’Angelo chapels, it is tempting to ask whether the capitals of the two chapels were themselves of the Tuscan- Doric sort. This question must nevertheless remain unanswered until further pictorial or documentary evidence comes to light. What emerges from this discussion is that the two chapels on the Ponte Sant’Angelo were among the earliest Quattrocento buildings in Rome to embrace the new Renaissance style and that they were also the first fifteenth-century centralised buildings to be built under direct papal patronage. These two characteristics, in addition to any intrinsic appeal the two chapels may have had, contributed to the considerable impact they had on subsequent Roman architecture. Given all this they deserve to be rather better known than they currently are.

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THE SHAPE OF SPACE. AN INTERPRETATION OF THE TERM « AREA » IN ALBERTI’S DE RE AEDIFICATORIA Victor Plahte Tschudi Introduction

W

e unabashedly speak of space in relation to architecture, accepting that space is that part of an interior not occupied by material parts. However the term is not easily defined in itself. Although space is as essential to buildings as materials ; it has no tangible features. The physical boundaries can be sensed and described, but space itself can only be understood. The term is more than anything dependent on the formulation of a thought. This paper argues that Leon Battista Alberti formulated the idea of an autonomous space in architecture, perhaps for the first time, which he again derived from his theory of painting accounted for in De pictura. In Alberti’s works, the vision of architecture shares features with the build-up of a painting. The concepts governing the painterly perspective allowed him to think of - and describe - architectural space 15 years later in De re aedificatoria. Defining « Area » Alberti holds that the matter of building consists of two principal parts : lineaments and structure (De re aedificiatoria, book I : 1) 1 « Lineamentum » is difficult to translate ; it approximate the Renaissance meaning of a design which places it somewhat vaguely between the manifestation of supreme reason, and the more concrete delineation of form. As lineaments belong to the conceptual side of planning, the term « structure » denotes the material aspects of building related to construction work. In short, already from the onset we appreciate the dual character of architecture, conditioning it both in the mind as well as in the material, so to speak. 1 In the following, the references to De re aedificatoria are based on On the Art of Building in Ten Books, translated by Joseph Rykwert, Neil Leach, and Robert Tavernor, the mit Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England, 1988.

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The term «area » in Alberti’s treatise is not easily understood. It is telling that Alberti defines it as consisting of «lines and angles », which from the very start situates area, too, in an ambiguous domain, as these characteristics could refer both to the concrete parts of a building, and also the domain of abstract geometry. «Area » seems to refer to an idea, which is neither exclusively material in nature nor purely conceptual. Few seem able to give a proper translation, nor a single explanation of the term. Rykwert, Leach and Tavernor admits : There is no precise English equivalent for area. Alberti uses it to mean : all that is covered by the building ; aspects of the locality ; the arrangement of the plan ; foundations, and even parts of the walls above the ground. 1

The term is no doubt wide-ranging in use, but the definition does not leave us with any greater understanding of what it really means. The meaning of «area » should be arrived at thoroughly. In Book i Alberti divides all that which is related to building into six elements : locality, area, compartition, wall, roof, and opening.2 Each of these elements he defines in succeeding sections. The first definition of area reads : …as that certain, particular plot of land which is to be enclosed by a wall for a designated practical use ; included in this definition is any surface within the building on which our feet may tread (i : 2). At first glance area seems to be loosely equivalent of a ground plan. Indicated in the passage above, it denotes a fixed extension within the built construction, associated with any floored part. With a similar meaning, writing on the orchestra in the theatre, Alberti states that this area takes the lineaments from the hoof print of a horse (viii : 7). But we cannot read the notion as entirely identical to the groundplan. In the introductory comment referred to above, Alberti emphasises that the floored surface is included in the definition ; in other words, not exhausting it. Alberti’s term requires a broader explanation. For example when discussing polygonal area Alberti states that «…the most commendable are those conveniently raised to their full height from hexagonal or octagonal plans… » (ii : 8). Further on he writes about : «The precise height to which each of the area should be raised… » (ii : 8). Significantly, in Alberti’s words Area can also be raised in height. Clearly the area is not identical to the plan, but seems to exist in a 1 On the Art of Building, p. 420

2 On the Art of Building, p. 8.

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volumetric form too. He recounts an anecdote from the building history of the Temple of Vespasian : A corner of its area was obstructing a public thoroughfare, and in order to clear the way, they made a shortcut through the area, by tunnelling into the fabric of the building ; this left the corner resembling a wayside pillar (iii : 5).

It is hard to understand the phrasing «inter aream » simply as a floored podium ; area seems to hold a three-dimensional form. Still Alberti’s use raises the question of the degree of solidity the term implies. Should we consider area a physical component of the building, or is it a principle in planning it ? On this matter Alberti’s application of the term is ambiguous. In some passages he describes it close to a concrete part. For instance in Book iii, dealing with the matter of construction, he writes : For if an area could be found that was thoroughly solid and secure - of stone, for example, as may be found often around Veioi - there would be no need to lay down foundations before raising the structure itself (iii : 1).

Alberti attributes a material quality to area also in discussing ornamentation : «To have the greatest dignity, the area, as we mentioned above, must be extremely dry, level, and solid… » (vi : 4). Still we cannot without reservation identify area with some part of the building mass. Even in the two examples above Alberti leaves any clear definition of the term pending : it is explained in terms of materials, but not necessarily material itself. In fact the term «area » emerges far from tangible. In Book i for instance Alberti makes the important distinction between area on the one hand, and the walls on the other (i : 11). They are two different entities. We remember Alberti’s initial definition of area as that plot «which is to be enclosed by a wall » (my italics). Similarly, discussing the area of any circular building, he states that these are often preferred as «cheapest to enclose with a mound or wall… » (i : 8). 1 We should note that the area is enclosed by - not comprising - the physical structure. Although the type of theatre that Alberti discusses in book viii is not roofed, he defines the orchestra as a «clear, open area » (viii : 7). Likewise, in discussing the different parts of the private house, Alberti says : 1 We should note that early Italian translations in this instance translate «area » with «spazio ».

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«Some must be large, such as the “bosom” of the house, while others require a smaller area, such as the closets and all internal rooms… » (ix : 3). Alberti presents area as defined by the material elements, like the floor, the walls, the roof, but without having any clear material distinction itself. Instead of regarding the term as having a twofold meaning, it appears to pinpoint a concept, which in itself is ambiguous. Alberti’s notion seems to point to that something which manifests itself between the concrete parts of a building, or, on the more abstract level, between the lines and angles of geometric projection. Alberti recognises that which really has no physical qualities whatsoever nonetheless to possess a distinctive nature. It has a geometric character. Given the geometric basis of Albertian architecture, the precision of a defined form necessarily finds its inversion in a defined void. In other words, Alberti’s adherence in general to geometric structuring leaves him with the inversion of a precise form, namely a precise volume. In Alberti’s conception, then, the interior of a building combines in a single volume which we may recognise as space. In certain passages he equates « area » with the Latin word «spatium ». E.g. Alberti writes that just as the selected plot is a part of a larger territory, «…area totius regionis praescriptum et definitum quoddam spatium… » (i : 7). The meaning of spatium may of course imply the unit we walk on, or the one we erect, but first of all, and embracing the former - the unit into which we enter. With area Alberti seems to catch the idea of an imperceptible «shell » shaping the void into a definable and autonomous space. Architectural spaces have of course always existed, and they are powerfully expressed in the monumental interiors of ancient Roman architecture. But the definition of space as an autonomous unit is not equally ancient. Defining the interior as a volumetric unit would be a novelty with Alberti. De re aedificatoria is greatly inspired by Vitruvius, but differs in the implication of area. Vitruvius fails to single out the idea of a fixed and continuous interior space. In Vitruvius’ text space exists as intervals securing appropriate relations between building members, not the idea of an autonomous whole. Space is understood as modular units, e.g. intercolumniation. 1 Alternatively, Vitruvius uses the term «space » descriptively of the interior in a way that reflects the function 1 Vitruvius’ De architectura, Book iii, chap. 3, in The Ten Books on Architecture, translated by Morris Hicky Morgan, Dover publications, New York, 1960

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of the room, or the office and social standing of the inhabitant. 1 Space exists only as absence of mass. To my knowledge, the formulation of the idea of an autonomous space is absent from the texts of ancient authors, even in relating the overpowering impact of space in structures like the Pantheon. Nor do we find in the following periods anything that seems to point to a conception akin to Alberti’s area. The extension of Gothic interiors was bound up in a modular system ; whatever shape or size of the rooms they were subjected to and their divisions were bound up in relations determined by the parts. Alberti’s spatial continuum is first and foremost conceptual, and seems to result from a new philosophical-scientific view on principles at work in the arts. In fact, Alberti introduces the term in architecture on the basis of his previous knowledge of painting. The picture of space In general when framing the concepts of his architectural discourse Alberti relied on his knowledge and experience of painting. He completed his De pictura in 1435, and to a surprising degree he underlines how painting influenced architecture : «If I am not mistaken, the architect took from the painter architraves, capitals, bases, columns and pediments, and all the other fine features of buildings » (De pictura, ii : 26). 2 Alberti implies that despite its monumental, concrete nature architecture is still the child of painting : «The stonemason, the sculptor and all the workshops and crafts of artificers are guided by the rule and art of the painter ». (De pictura, ii : 26). Painting is a superior art not the least due to its firm basis in mathematics, and especially geometry. Initially, it holds a theoretical advantage over architecture, which Alberti sets out to mend precisely through the spatial idea inherent in the term «area ». Thus Alberti transfers the meaning implied by this term from the new mathematically constructed perspective in painting. The stunning realism achieved by painters of Alberti’s generation, is an artefact guising pure geometry. From the Renaissance painted space 1 See, e.g. : «…forensibus autem et disertis elegantiora et spatiosiora ad conventos excipiundos… » (Book vi, chap. 5). 2 The references to Alberti’s De pictura are from the English translation On Painting by Cecil Grayson, Phaidon Press 1972, reprinted in Penguin Classics 1991.

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did never simply remain a void, but was constructed from a compound of mathematical calculations, offering the skeleton on which visual forms hinge. Space is forced into a shape, a clearly defined volume. The illusion of space is of course the intended effect of the perspectiva artificialis - or the central perspective, which is a major theme in De pictura, and which accounts for Brunelleschi’s method of making pictorial space on the basis of an experimental mathematical procedure. In book i in De pictura Alberti instructs on the construction of a visual pyramid on the canvas converging in a centric point. The effect gives the picture surface an illusion of depth in which all objects can be ordered in exact relations to each other. In brief, Alberti explains space as a geometric shape. It is fixed as a measured volume. Although Alberti does not use the word «area » in De pictura, it is in painting that space is first conceived as something. The perspective space, contained within the picture, is an abstraction brought to light only in the realm of geometric drawing. Space is not a physical component, but a theoretical invention. By being filtered through the painted illusion of depth, space gains an expression (ontological value). Thus space truly wins existence first through its representation. Moving back to De re aedificatoria we may observe how Alberti wrings out the idea of architectural space - of area - from the domain of painting : «Every outline is made of lines and angles ; lines make up the outer perimeter, which encloses the whole extent of the area » (i : 7). The intellectual architect We have to read what Alberti intended with the term «area » within a broader context. In his treaties on painting and on architecture, he strives to legitimise the arts by way of a mathematical-scientific outlook. Thus, one of Alberti’s aims with De re aedificatoria was to give architecture a theoretical standing, which required formulating an idea of building which would transcend the matter of mere construction work. To this purpose, Alberti presents architecture also as a matter for the intellect. Architectural planning he transfers from the site to the mind, so to speak. With reference to geometry and drawing implied by his notion of lineamentum, architecture, as an idea, transcends the building materials conditioning it. From Alberti onwards it seems that the material aspect of architecture falls into an inferior category. Architecture could now be executed in its newly assigned domain of reason :

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First we observed that the building is a form of body, which like any other consists of lineaments and matter, the one the product of thought, the other of Nature ; the one requiring the mind and the power of reason, the other dependent on preparation and selection… (Prologue, De re aedificatoria.)

To this purpose Alberti makes the brilliant move of distilling the idea of an isolated space. It is a sophisticated construction, more residing within the intellect than within the actual architecture. The act of conceiving the material nature of the building requires only a reliance on the senses. Area is conditioned in thought, and secures the participation of the intellect. The term invests physical architecture with that stamp of pure reason which elevates it to the realm of Renaissance science. In other words, by engaging our rational faculty are we able to conceive space. Space becomes the shape of architectural thought. Building space This paper suggests that the idea of a unified space originates with Alberti, an idea that later architects, notably Bramante, develops. Although Alberti’s approach to area is largely theoretical, and his formulation of the concept largely derived from painting, he gives the notion of space a firm articulation in his architectural works. No one can deny the striking impact of space in e.g. Sant’ Andrea in Mantua. Alberti shapes the interior into distinct spatial volumes. Taking the cue from ancient Roman architecture he lets the interplay of light and shadow mould a spatial sculpture surrounding the viewer. In the way pilasters substitute columns Alberti downplays the architectural elements as well as the effect of decorations. Thus he takes care not to undermine the pure spatial construction that our mind perceives, or from another perspective, he makes sure that the senses do not interfere with reason.

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ALBERTI, MANETTI, AND QUATTROCENTO AESTHETICS Roy Eriksen

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ow do the aesthetic assumptions expressed in Alberti’s planned and executed work differ from those of Late Medieval aesthetics ? Are they all new and «modern » compared to the rules compiled in medieval artes dictamini and practised in Trecento poetry, or is the Albertian moment, too, characterised by a judicious engagement with the immediate past ? In the designs for e.g. San Francesco and San Sebastiano, there is a considerable presence of traditional forms,1 and his poetry constitutes no exception. In one sense the presence of traditional material matches the better known impulse in his oeuvre to design «all his actions within the rationally examined limits of the possible », whether they relate to «designing a political action, a painting, a garden, or a city ». 2 Let me briefly consider these questions, taking as my point of departure the special status of rhetoric in Alberti, who from De pictura (1435) applies rhetorical terms when discussing composition in painting and architecture. Then, too, the analogy between a building and a text was sufficiently established by the mid-quattrocento to become pervasive in the following century. 3 Already Cicero in De Officiis and De oratore had applied rhetorical decorum to a man’s character and his house, and compared well-ordered prose to a mosaic, thus setting an example to the Middle Ages. Leonardo Bruni (1370-1444) in Laudatio Florentiae Urbis (1407) lets this implicit kinship structure his thought in relation to the well-ordered 1 Paul Davies discussed the survival of medieval forms in Alberti in Observations on Alberti’s attitude to late medieval architecture, paper given at The Formation of the Genera in the Renaissance - conference, Centro Studi Leon Battista Alberti, Mantua, November 1-6.2001. 2 A. C. Crombie and Nancy Siriasi (eds.), The Rational Arts of Living, Northampton, Mass. ; Smith College Studies in History, 1987, 12. 3 Lina Bolzoni, The Gallery of Memory. Literary and Iconographic Models in the Age of the printing Press. Toronto : University of Toronto Press, 191-196.

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civitas, although he is thinking in terms of a grammar of virtuous action, not buildings per se. 1 To claim that architecture has a grammar regulating its constituent parts just like those of a sentence is of course taxonomically correct, but does it help us to understand how that rhetoric was implemented in a piece of writing or an architectural plan ? The «power of Latin, lexically and grammatically, to clarify and classify artistic and architectural experience » 2 has been said to be perhaps the main distinguishing factor between medieval and Renaissance language use, it is nevertheless, tricky, to say the least, to pass from architecture to writing and vice versa. 3 A telling example is offered by Michael Baxandall, who in two graphs aligns the parts and levels of a sentence with the elements of painting as defined by Alberti in De pictura. The graphs vaguely recall those of transformational grammar, but more appropriately also suggest trees of knowledge like e.g. the one visualising Francesco Robortello’s course of rhetoric at Venice in 1549, 4 or those of Pierre de la Ramée. Such trees can hardly serve as recipies or procedures, or serve as clues to the author-artist’s formal intention. Translated into the terminology of Alberti we are dealing with how e.g. in architecture set categories like lineamenta, opus and ornamentum are combined inventively, so that the concinnitas of the finished building embodies varietas and decorum. For the analogy between text and building to become intelligible and leave the realms of metaphor and taxonomy, we need to see how a 1 To Bruni the city is primarily a locus of civic virtue, but at the same time a piece of oratory praising that virtue : « Quemadmodum enim in cordis convenientia est ex diversis tonis fit harmonia, qua nihil iocundius est neque suavius, eodem modo hec prudentissima civitas ita omnes sui partes moderata est ut inde summa quedam rei publice sibi ipsi consentanea resultet, que mentes atque oculus homines convenientia delectet », Laudatio Florentiae Urbis (iv: 82). Nevertheless, his thinking concerning the city (Firenze) and its surroundings is also perspective in the sense that he uses the geometrical image of three sets of circles around a common centre (i : 30-32), thus anticipating Alberti in De re Aedificatoria, i.7 (i : 53) : « ... uti quidem regio amplioris cuiusdam provinciae certa selectaque est pars, ita est area totius regionis praescriptum et definitum quoddam spatium, quoquidem ad aedifium habendum occupatur ». 2 Georgia Clark and Paul Crossley (eds), Architecture and Language : Constructing Identity in European Architecture c. 1000-c. 1650, Cambridge : Cambridge Univ. Press, 2000, 5. 3 For a discussion of the alignment between sketching a text and a building, see Grayson on Alberti’s use of the verb congettare, Leon Battista and Italian Grammar, ed. Holmes, Art and Politics in Renaissance, 98. 4 Lina Bolzoni, The Gallery of Memory, 24.

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Fig. 1. Hartman Schedel, View of Rome showing Castel Sant’Angelo, the Vatican and the Borgo (from Liber Chronicarum, 1493).

text may also be said to possess a spatial dimension in so far as it exists within clear boundaries. Similarly, we must uncover how the plan (lineamenta), the prospect (or elevation) of a three-dimensional building, or that of an urban plan also are texts with a spatiality related to those of written compositions. David Friedman has pointed out that Alberti approaches «il problema della facciata nell’ architettura civile, insistendo sul suo trattamento come campo compositivo unitario, integrato al progetto dell’intero edificio ». 1 His insight is important in its implications for the aesthetics inherent in Alberti’s contributions to Renaissance culture. In similar fashion that the circumscription, or frame, of a painting facilitates pictorial composition, the placement of tesserae within the confines of a mosaic becomes an image of how words are situated in a piece of prose or poetry. 2 Poetic forms are indeed «framed », being «rooms » (stanze) with a fixed set of verses and established divisions and rhyme schemes appropriate to the various types. 1 David Friedman, Il palazzo e la città : facciate fiorentine tra xiv e xv secolo, in Il palazzo dal rinascimento a oggi, ed. S. Valtieri, Reggio Calabria, 1989, pp. 101-112. 2 Leon Battista Alberti, Profugiorum ab aerumna, iii.

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Fig. 2. G. B. Nolli, Nuova pianta di Roma, Roma, 1748. The Borgo area with Castel Sant’Angelo.

Fig. 3. Albrecht Dürer, Underweising der Messung, Nürnberg, 1538, illustration from Book iv.

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Poetry Turning to Alberti’s Rime, we feel the presence in them of Cicero, Dante, Petrarch and to a lesser extent that of poets like Giacomo da Lentini, the inventor of the sonnet. Cicero is important for concepts of style and ethics, da Lentini and Petrarch were perhaps more influential in terms of technique and conceits. Yet, Alberti is no mere imitator or slave of conventions. His poems reveal both innovations and independence from the tradition. Giuseppe Patota has remarked that «l’originalità e l’indipendenza dalla tradizione siano caratteristiche da attribuire non solo all’Alberti prosatore, ma anche all’Alberti poeta ». 1 When it comes to prose we recall the unexpectedly intricate and balanced shape of his ekphrasis on Brunelleschi’s cupola in Profugiorum ab aerumna, or his preface to Francesco Gonzaga in De pictura. 2 Common to these prose compositions is the prominent use of rhetorical repetitions, which emphasize important points, provide closure and counteract linearity, thus forcing the reader to turn back and survey the entire visual and mental field. We would expect, then, to find that Alberti produces poems that embody similar principles and are equally «compositissimi » as some of his architectural descriptions. 3 The brevity of a madrigal or a sonnet inevitably invites examination in terms of what H. Wayne Storey rightly refers to as a « visual poetics ». 4 Petrarch developed a dual form in which two verse units combine to form one long line with a break in the middle. « With these dual 1 Guglielmo Gorni, Nuove rime di Leon Battista Alberti, «Studi di Filologia Italiana», xxx, 1972, pp. 225-250 (p. 230) ; and Giuseppe Patota, Appunti sulla lingua dell’Alberti poeta, « Albertiana » 2001, iv, 79. 2 In fact, he applies the same geometrical and spatial technique in Profugiorum ab aerumna in his definition of an architectural plan, or lineamenta De re aedifictoria, The Building in the text, 11-12 ; 59ff. However, the technique of presentation, a combination of artificial order with a digression, originates in Poetria nova (c. 1208-16) of Geoffrey de Vinsauf. 3 « E talora ... , composi a mente e coedificai qualche compositissimo edificio, e disposivi più ordini e numeri di colonne con vari capitelli e base inusitate, e collega’vi conveniente e nuova grazia di cornici e tavolati ». (Opere Volgari, iii.182) (« And at one time ... I composed in mind and put together some well-assembled edifice, and there arranged various storeys (ordini) and numbers of columns with diverse capitals and unusual bases, and I added to it a convenient and novel grace by means of cornices and marble plaques »). 4 H. Wayne Storey, Transcription and Visual Poetics in the Early Italian Lyric, New York & London : Garland, 1993.

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forms, » he explains, « Petrarch has at his disposal an additional visualpoetic tool for directing the reader’s orientation toward the structural relationships within each poem ». 1 Short forms like the sonnet and the madrigal display a set of obligatory textual features that makes them immediately recognisable, features that cannot be changed without the poem turning into something other than a sonnet or a madrigal. Added to the obligatory requirements, there is of course a range of optional devices governed by aesthetic or personal preferences. It was fairly easy for an educated reader to monitor and appreciate the visual effect of such elocutionary devices. In fact, madrigals or sonnets function like patterned wholes or planes to be surveyed in its entirety more or less at once, just like Aristotle’s period. 2 Let us therefore consider the combination of obligatory and optional poetic conventions in Alberti’s madrigal Le chiome che io adorai nel santo lauro, 3 a poem that Grayson refers to as « questo grazioso madrigale ». 4 The madrigal discloses a similar play on Laura’s name as found in Il Canzoniere, 5, Quando io movo i sospiri a chiamar voi, a sonnet in which Petrarch skilfully combines the two types of conventions. The 14 rhymed verses display the common division into two quatrains and two tercets or triplets, each unit with a separate rhyme scheme, and the conventional shift of focus from earthly love to its rejection or substitution by divine love after the octave. 5 In addition to this Petrarch introduces an optional, but not unusual pattern of chiastic inversions so as to link the beginning of the first quatrain to the beginning of the first tercet, a devise often used to mark the reversal (volta) of the argument. In the sonnet printed below repetitions are marked by italics : 6 Quando io movo i sospiri a chiamar voi, E ’l nome che nel cor mi scrisse Amore, 1 Transcription and Visual Poetics, 275. 2 Aristotle, The Art of Rhetoric, trans. J.H. Freese, London : Heineman, 1982, iii. ix.1-3 (386-387). 3 A madrigal either consists of two or three tercets and one of two distichs. Alberti’s madrigal comprises eleven rhyming verses (abc/bca/cab/bc) is divided into three tercets (9 - 7 - 9) syllables), and a hendecasyllabic distich. All units are sealed by a full stop. 4 Cecil Grayson, Note sulle Rime dell’Alberti, in Studi su Leon Battista Alberti, « Ingenium », vol. i, Mantova : Centro di Studi Leon Battista Alberti, 1998, 170. 5 S. K. Heninger Jr., The Subtext of Form, 69-118. 6 See Storey’s criticism of modern editorial practice of capitalising the syllables of Laura’s name ; Transcription and Visual Poetics, 243.

alberti, manetti, and quattrocento aesthetics Laudando s’incomincia udir di fore Vostro stato real che ‘ncontro poi Ma « Taci », grida il fin, « ché farle onore Così laudare et reverire insegna O d’ogni reverenza e d’onor degna ; Ch’a parlar de ’ suoi sempre verdi rami

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Il suon de ’ primi dolci accenti suoi : Radoppia a l’alta impresa il mio valore ; E d’altri omeri soma che da’ tuoi. » La voce stessa, pur ch’ altri vi chiami, Se non che forse Apollo si disdegna Lingua mortal presuntosa vegna.

The italicised repetitions form a macro-chiasmus (« a chiamar voi - ‘l nome - laudando // laudare - la voce - vi chiami »), which is unusually comprehensive for this type of linkage in Petrarch. But the most striking feature is the manner in which the poet encrypts his beloved’s name, Laureta (being a Latin diminutive for Laura), twice in the body of the text. It occurs once in the octave in verses three (lau), five (re), and seven (ta) and once in the sestet in lines nine (lau-re) and fourteen (ta). The laurel is the key image in Il Canzoniere, bringing together Petrarch’s aspirations in love (Laura) and poetry (the laurel garland). Petrarch here repeatedly draws the reader’s attention to the fragmented, encoded name (« ‘l nome », 2) of Laureta (Fr. Laurette), whose very name - in its first sweet sounds (3-4) - invites us collect and string together the sounds of her name and thus praise Laura the way he does. In fact, the name itself (« la voce stessa ») teaches us to praise her. In keeping with the ethical code of a Petrarchan sonnet, however, each part stresses the poet’s inadequacy. In the octave he is told to be silent (« Taci ») and that other shoulders than his are better fit to carry her honours, whereas the sestet warns against the presumption of singing Laura’s praises with « mortal tongue » (14). The conceit must have appealed to Alberti, for when composing his 11-verse madrigal « Le chiome che io adorai nel santo lauro, » he reworks and elaborates on the conceit, adding artifice of his own invention. Notice for instance how rather than distributing the four syllables of his beloved’s name, Lauromina (being another diminutive form of Laura) the way that Petrarch had done, he allows them to be read as a close-knit unit of syllables in contingent words : Le chiome che io adorai nel santo lauro mi nascondi in bel velo, candida mia angioletta in veste bruna. Poi che le chiome mi coperse il velo sempre fu l’aer bruna, e scolorito chi ancor ama il lauro.

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roy eriksen In veste alba ti stavi non in bruna, quando adorai il lauro e scorsi el sol, che spiande or sotto il velo. Le chiome e ‘l lauro mi nasconde il velo, che stringe a dolorarmi in veste bruna.

Lauromina

Without being overly explicit, Alberti here achieves the same effect as his predecessor by drawing attention to the way in which Lauromina both is hidden behind the veil (il velo) and can be discovered through ít. Hence Lauromina is present by means of an encrypted code and the figure of synecdoche (le chiome = Lauromina). In fact, « Le chiome che io adorai nel santo lauro » is a poem of multiple metamorphoses. Consider for example how the lover’s hue varies between pale (scolorito) to dark (veste bruna), Lauromina’s dress shifts from dark (bruna) to white (alba), the air is dark (aer bruna), then clear (scorsi el sol), the veil first hides the beloved, then becomes translucent to reveal her. Alberti elaborates on the processes of concealment and disclosure by means of a veil throughout the madrigal, making one wonder whether the author of De pictura alludes to the « velo » (2, 4, 7, and 8) also in a technical sense, introducing a subtle play on the principles of perspective construction in painting, a trait that definitely is « modern ». Perspective presupposes an observing subject and a fixed point of observation from which to order the objects within the visual field that is delimited by the frame and situated beyond the velo. (Fig. 3) As explained in De pictura that point relates to the vanishing point by means of the centric line that strikes the plane 1 and divides the horizontal line into two equal parts. If we read the circumscribed shape of the madrigal as the limits of our visual and spatial field of examination, we should of course expect to find a fixed point of observation from which the artist, i.e. the lyric persona, observes the lady through the veil. If the point is going to be truly centric it cannot be only thematically central, it must also be found in the textual middle of the poem, and Alberti does in fact locate such a point of observation in verse six of eleven. Here - at the exact centre by line-count - we find the suffering but constant poet-lover, who - though pale (scolorito) - still loves the laurel : « chi ancor ama il lauro » (italics added ; 6). The fidelity of the constant lover, his moral stability, constitutes that point. And Alberti 1 Leon Battista Alberti, On Painting, trans. Cecil Grayson with an Introduction by Martin Kemp, Harmondsworth : Penguin Classics ; 1972, 39 and Figure 1.

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takes care to identify the lover as himself in the contingent verse 1 by inscribing his Christian name ba - ti - sta (for Bat[t]ista) : In veste al ba ti sta-vi non in bruna, quando adorai il lauro (my emphases ; 7-8) 2

But this is not all : He may even have wanted the anagram to suggest the rest of his name : a(lberti) l(eone) batista. Be this as it may, the rhetorical foregrounding of this part of the poem is evident in Alberti’s choice of another optional rhetorical device, the figure epanados, which links the beginning and the middle.3 Like sonnets, madrigals have a point of thematic reversal, but often this occurs in the concluding distich(s), not in transition to the tercets as seen in Alberti’s madrigal. Here the reversal implies a change of vision, when in line seven he contradicts (« In alba veste ... non in bruna ») the opening description of Lauromina’s dress (« candida... in veste bruna » ; 3). More importantly, however, is the change of colour caused by the sudden vision of the beloved. The manner in which the constant lover fixes her with his gaze or visive beam, thus recalls us of Alberti’s description in De pictura of the properties of the « constant » centric ray, which is « the last to abandon the thing seen » : Centricum radium ... esse omnium radiorum acerrimum et vivacissimum ... hunc unicum radium quasi unita quadam congressione ..., ut merito dux radiorum plane ac princeps dici debeat. I : 23 This ray, the most active and strongest of all the rays, ... tightly incircled by the other rays, it is the last to abandon the thing seen, from which it merits its name, prince of rays. i : 48

The sudden change is caused by the sun (or « now ») that moves and spreads his beams through the veil (« e scorsi el sol, che spiande 4 or 1 Giovanni Ponte, Il petrarchismo di Leon Battista Alberti, « Rassegna della letteratura italiana » lxii , ii, 1958, 216-222. 2 Verse seven was further explained and emended by Cecil Grayson, who corrected the rhyme-word « imbruna » to the present accepted reading « in bruna ». Cf. Note sulle Rime dell’Alberti, 169-71. 3 Alberti repeats words used in the first verse (« io adorai nel santo lauro ») in verse eight : « quando adorai il lauro ». The repetition is further stressed by vocal temperamento by identical sounds, when « santo » is echoed in « quando ». For a discussion of temperamento see my Enargeia and Temperamento : On the Shape and Meaning of Renaissance Sonnets, in eds. Dag T. Andersson and Roy Eriksen, Innovation and Tradition. Roma : Kappa Editore, 2000, 125-137. 4 The form « spiande » (for « spande ») is a poetic or dialectal form (possibly from ispandere. The meaning of spandere (ispandere) is « diffondere luce anche infrangendola »

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sotto il velo »), causing what we could term a poetic example of « the reception of light ». What was dark becomes bright and visible : ...ac eodem intervallo centricaque positione pristina manente, modo ea ipsa superficies diverso quam prius lumine subiaceat, videbis fuscas illic esse partes eas quae sub diverso antea lumine sitae clarebant, atque esse eas quae prius obumbratae erant. i : 23 Even though the distance and position of the centric line are the same, when the light is moved those parts which were first bright now become dark, and those bright which were dark. i : 49

Looking at the madrigal on the basis of this analysis, we note that the moment of seeing from a fixed centre occurs when the poet-persona - Battista himself - occupies the privileged position from which he can control the visual and textual field. The outgoing visual beam and the objects it touches in the poem may be illustrated as follows : Lauromina Lauromina

It is certainly an intriguing coincidence that Alberti whose personal emblem was the winged eye, should have placed the act of perfect vision awarded to the constant lover - himself - at the centre. Although the famous medal of Alberti made by Matteo de’ Pasti is of uncertain date, the motif certainly existed as early as 1436 when it is found on a manuscript of De pictura. 1 Furthermore, the eye here is not limited to being a rationally controlling and observing eye, the fact that it is propelled by will or desire, reveals it as a quattrocento version of the voluntas alata. 2 Alberti chooses to treat the whole textual field of the poem as if it were the façade of a building that is adorned with string ribbons or fasceola. 3 The repeated progression of ornament on a façade or an elevation in general tightens the composition, in the manner of letters and sounds string together and connect lines and their underlying structure cf. Grande Dizionario delle Lingua Italiana. Gen. ed. Salvatore Battaglia. Torino : utet ; 1998, xix : 691(Senso 12). The gdli gives the following example from Dante, Vita nuova : where the beauty of Laura « per lo cielo spande / luce d’amor » (35-36). 1 Mark Jarzombek argues that the emblem belongs to the period when Alberti composed Intercoenales and the De pictura, On Leon Baptista Alberti. His Literary and Aesthetic Theories. Cambridge, Mass. and London, England : The mit Press, 1989, 63-64n. 2 Geoffrey de Vinsauf, Poetria nova, 39. 3 Paul Oppenheimer argues that the sonnet (sonetto means « little sound ») was the first lyric composed to be contemplated in silence, not sung or recited ; cf. The Birth of the Modern Mind. Self Consciousness and the Invention of the Sonnet, Oxford ; Oxford University Press, 1989.

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of ideas in writing. They are the outward signs of the structure without being the structure. Such ornaments are seen frequently on quattrocento buildings,1 ensuring connectedness between the different parts or architectural members, and they can - Alberti argues in De re aedificatoria - be adorned with sculptural elements or even words combined to form a text. Rursus particulae istiusmodi aut purae habentur, aut interscalptae. In fasceola scalpunt conchilia, volut[il]as, et titulos etiam litterarum, ... (VII.vii.575[120] ; my italics) Again the moldings are either plain or in relief. The platband may be carved with seashells, volutes, or even with a lettered text; ... (vii.7: 295 [120]; my italics)2

We should remember, therefore, that in the 15th century a new graphological and editorial practice arose in which the poems of Il Canzoniere came to be « perfectly centred on the page », 3 and consequently part of Alberti’s late medieval ingenuity was lost to later readers. Then, too, that new centring of his (and others’) poems - I would argue - should be seen as analogous to the development of pictorial perspective and the increased importance of the centre. All this suggests that Alberti regards a poem as one compositional field on a par with a façade or a painting. For him composition in architecture simply does not exist without the projection of elements - and ornaments - against or onto a fl at surface, that is, the elevation or the plan of a building. 4 In this respect architecture could be said to owe its ornaments to painting, and only achieves its objective when joined with painting, for in architecture ornament and pictorial composition are only possible with reference to the two dimensions of a plan without the reception of lights. 5 They could therefore be said to be expressions of Alberti’s desire to exert rational control over his poetic texts by the application of uni1 See for instance Casa Manilli, Rome (the façade), the Ducal Palace at Urbino (the first cortile), and La Cancelleria (façade), all built in the second half of the fifteenth century. 2 Leon Battista Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books. Trans. Joseph Rykwert, Neil Leach, Robert Tavernor. Cambridge, Mass. And London, England : mit Press, 1997 [1988]. 3 Transcription and Visual Poetics, 426. 4 Hubert Damisch, Comporre con la pittura, in ed. Joseph Ryckwert and Anne Engel, Leon Battista Alberti, Electa : Milano, 1994, 189. 5 The light and shadows of a perspective drawing would only reduce the exactness of the composition, although it would of course enhance the visual impact and the illusion of three-dimensionality.

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versal principles born from « the symbiosis between the sciences and the arts within an integrated culture ». 1 At the same time these devices put the highly individual art of the ludic author of the Intercoenales and Momus on display. Indeed, the importance of a shared humanist culture and its personalised practices becomes equally evident when we now Giannozzo Manetti’s description of the Vicus Curialis his In Vitam Nicolae V. Summi Pontificis. 2 When Nicholas V chose Manetti for his biographer and praiser of his own commissioned projects and architectural programme, he appears to have done so in a conscious effort to counterpoise his utopian vision of Rome to the city as left incomplete at his death and to counter criticism within the Curia. 3 Manetti was an excellent choice given his intimate knowledge of Nicholas’s plans, long-standing relationship to the Pope and his interest in architecture, documented already in his Oratio de secularibus et pontificalibus pompis in consecratione basilicae Florentinae (1436). Then, too, Manetti and Alberti belonged to the same circle of humanists in Florence who met regularly at Santa Maria degli Angeli. It is in the context of that avant-guard milieu that we should consider Manetti’s knowledge of Alberti’s theoretical work. And as shown by Caroline van Eck Manettis’s Oratio is the first work to use Albert’s De pictura (1435), thus testifying to early quattrocento humanist interest in architecture (p. 462). 4 Tangible in the Oratio is Manetti’s use of examples and terminology from painting (e.g. adumbratio, adumbrare) to characterise textual strategies of description and his emotional appeal to the senses, a topic discussed by Christine Smith and Daniel Arras in relation to Alberti’s Profugiorum ab aerumna and De pictura, respectively. 5 1 Crombie, The Rational Arts of Living, « Introduction », 13. 2 A. Modigliani, Mercati, botteghe e spazi di commercio a Roma tra medievo ed età moderna, Roma, 1998, pp. 276-284. Lodovico Antonio Muratori (ed.), Rerum italicarum scriptores, Bologna : 1734 ; Arnaldo Forni Editore, 1975. 3 Modigliani, Vita di Nicola V, 59 4 Caroline van Eck, Giannozzo Manetti on Architecture : the Oratio de secularibus et pontificalibus pompis in consecratione basilicae Florentinae of 1436, « Renaissance Studies » 12.4 (December 1998), 449-474. 5 Christine Smith, Architecture in the Culture of Early Humanism - Ethics, Aesthetics, and Eloquence 1400-1470, Oxford, 1992, 84-87 and Daniel Arras, Alberti et le plaisir de la peinture : Propositions de recerche, « Albertiana » i, 1998, 143-52. See also Caroline van Eck cited below at note 54.

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When studying Manetti’s account of the curial city, his terminology and compositional technique strongly suggest that the biographer drew on both of these treatises. This may seem odd, because with the vicus curialis we have moved from architectural ekphrasis to descriptive urbanism. We should, however, remember Damisch’s caveat that « perfino l’ornamento principale delle città consiste nella collocazione geografica, nella scelta del sito, nel tracciato, oltre che nella distribuzione relativa degli edifici, per quel che puó tradursi in termini grafici, o pittorici ». 1 There can in other words be no composition, sequence and distribution in space (collocatio) without delineation, and painting and urbanism are two examples of the same compositional procedure. Urbanism Critics have interpreted variously the information given in Manetti’s description to recreate the plan of the Vicus Curialis, the no longer extant Borgo Leonino quarter between Old San Pietro and Castel Sant’ Angelo. (Fig. 1; 2) 2 In his pioneering Studies in Roman Quattrocento Architecture Torgil Magnuson proposes several possible solutions, all based on the distribution of the three main streets, 3 that is, three streets which run parallel to each other, or converging toward Castel Sant’ Angelo, or converging toward San Pietro. 4 However, the extent to which this plan was executed remains uncertain, but Allan Ceen’s proposal that the Borgo Vecchio is the intended axis and Borgo Santo Spirito the « left » leg or raggio, is to my mind the most likely one. The « right » leg would be the Borgo Novo, opened by Alexander VI in 1499, who thus 1 Hubert Damisch, Comporre con la pittura, in ed. Ryckwert and Engel, Leon Battista Alberti, 189. 2 C. W. Westfall, In this most Perfect Paradise : Alberti, Nicholas V, and the Invention of Conscious Urban Planning in Rome, 1447-1455, University Park, Penn State Press, 1974 ; Charles Burroughs, Below the Angel : an Urbanistic Project in the Rome of Pope Nicholas V, « jwci » 45 (1982), 94-124 and Id., From Signs to Design. Environmental Process and Reform in Early Renaissance Rome, Cambridge Mass. - London : hup, 1990. M. Tafuri, Ricerca del Rinascimento. Principi, città, architetti, Torino, 1992 ; Luca Vagnetti, Lo studio di Roma negli scritti albertiani, in Convegno internazionale indetto nel v centenario di Leon Battista Alberti (Roma-Firenze-Mantova, 25-29 aprile 1972), Roma, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1974, 73-110. 3 Torgil Magnuson, Studies in Roman Quattrocento Architecture, Stockholm ; Almquist and Wicksell, 1958, 74-77. 4 As summarised by Allan Ceen, The Quartiere dei Banchi : Urban Planning in Rome in the first Half of the Cinquecento, Phd ; University of Pennsylvania, 1977, 75-80.

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completed the original scheme by Nicholas and his advisors, be Alberti among them or not. Some kind of centric design was surely involved. 1 the details of which are still a matter of dispute, but Magnuson has nevertheless stated the essential facts in the matter : It seems probable that a form of ideal project was established which, in its execution, was to follow the line of least resistance in that it would have adapted to existing topographical conditions. (75)

In view of the fact that we are dealing with a plan, whose only extant record is Manetti’s text, it is surprising to say the least that critics have studied the ideas inherent in the description without considering the structure of the text itself more closely. Let us therefore consider the textual field provided the author. In fact, the terms Manetti uses to describe the layout of streets hark back to Alberti’s account in Book i of De pictura of perspective construction and the properties of the centric line : Nos hanc ipsam nominemus centricam. Sitque hoc apud nos loco ab ipis mathematicis persuasum quod aiunt lineam nullam aequos angulos a corona circuli signare nisi quae recta ipsum centrum attingat, ... » (i : 2. 48) 2 We term this the centric line ; and let us accept this from the mathematicians, who say that no line makes equal angles at the crown of the circle except the straight line that touches the centre. (Author’s translation)

Of the three streets that were to flow into the great piazza in front of the basilica (ante Apostolicam aedem apparentem pretendebantur), the middle one - in the fashion of the centric ray in perspective construction that « recta ipsum centrum attingat » - leads directly to the central and third door of the church : Per intermediam verò ab area prima usque ad mediam praedictae Basilicae quinque januis distinctae portam iter per rectam lineam dirigebatur. (931c) By means of the intermediate street one is directed in a straight line from the first piazza [at Castel Sant’ Angelo] all the way to the middle of the five gates of the said Basilica. (Author’s translation) 1 Ceen presents graphs of Magnuson’s three alternatives, The Quartiere dei Banchi, 278 (Ill. 17). 2 Leone Battista Alberti, De pictura praestissima, in gen. ed. Theodore Besterman, The Printed Sources of Western Art, Portland, Oregon ; Collegium Graphicum, 1972, i.2.4.

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As is the case in Alberti’s pictorial space delimited by the frame (cornice) of the strumento), 1 the vicus curialis, too, exists within a « frame ». This built frame is only approximately rectangular (although made more so during Nicholas Vs papacy) in being delimited at the upper end by San Pietro and the Vatican Palace, at the lower by Castel Sant’Angelo, and along the sides by the defensive walls. Of course, in Manetti’s text we are dealing with a narrative frame consisting of introductory (i) and concluding references (v) to the enclosing walls (e.g. « à quatuor namque ejus lateribus egregiis propugnaculis circumdabatur »). 2 Within this frame we find a topographia of three places, or topoi, each corresponding to actual places within the curial city. Here Manetti describes the main streets (ii), the internal distribution of places and economic activities (iii), and the main architectural features (iv). The five parts of the description may be expressed in tabular form as follows : i. frame - the description and circumscription of the site ii. major divisions - the three streets and their directions iii. major urban quarters -their hierarchy and functions iv. the architecture - the beauty and utility of the porticoes v. frame - the circumscription of the site Apart from Part iv, the passage dealing with architecture, all is presented in an informative and relatively uniform prose style. 3 For instance, each of the three main ‘places’ or textual segments begins with a reference to the three roads (tres ... viae), 4 are of comparable length, whereas they exhibit slightly different systems of dispositio. In the part II on the streets, the author deploys the figure of ordo naturalis, that is, he mentions the street conducting to San Pietro first, then the street leading to the papal palace, and third the street running to the canons’ 1 « Atque is Curialis, de quo loquimur, Vicus à magnis membris, & altis turribus undique cingebatur, à quatuor namque ejus lateribus egregiis propugnaculis circumdabatur » ; cf. Appendix. 2 Conrad H. Rawski has kindly drawn my attention to his interesting article Petrarch’s Oration in Novara : A Critical Transcription of Vienna. Oesteriche Nationalbibliothek, ms Pal. 4498, fols. 98r-104v, «The Journal of Medieval Latin» vol. 9 (1999), 149-193. Rawski’s analysis of « the Paradigmatic frame » presents an earlier example of a similar framing device (158). 3 For the disposition of the whole segment, see below in note 53. 4 The three sections open as follows : « Ab hac maxima area tres latae, & amplae viae » (ii), « Atque tres commemoratae viae » (iii), and « Atque tres praedictae viae,... » (iv ; italics added). Rawski, op. cit. discusses Petrarch’s use of repetitions to mark off the different divisions of the Oration in Novara, esp. 157-163.

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dormitoria and Nero’s obelisk. Thus he conforms to ecclesiastical and hierarchical decorum (a. basilica, b. papal palace, c. canons’ dormitoria). In the middle part (iii) which focuses on the economic activities of the quarters, Manetti uses ordo artificialis, where central emphasis is awarded to the highest ranking businesses situated along the via intermedia by placing the period on these in medio, although listing the shops of intermediate status first. The porticoes are dealt with in Part iv and here he chooses a balanced, centric design ; where the two brief periods enclose a longer more elaborate one. In fact, a notable change occurs when he turns to the architecture, as the style becomes more ornate and the description turns to panegyric. First he adds the finesse of rhetorically shaped cornice, when a sequence of four words are repeated in the same order in the two enclosing brief periods (« tabernae, supra vero domorum, habitacula » versus « tabernarum, ac superiorum domorum habitacula »). Then in the longer middle sentence we learn that passers-by are ravished by and drawn to the beauty of the porticoed buildings (« voluptate pulcherrimi / aspectus capiebantur »). Here his style and vocabulary suddenly become strongly reminiscent of Alberti, when the latter in Profugiorum ab aerumna praises the aesthetic inherent in the Brunelleschi’s dome. Alberti had written : diletta ch’io veggo in questo tempio iunta insieme una gracilità vezzosa con una sodezza robusta e piena, tale che da una parte compreendo che ogni cosa qui è fatta e offirmata a perpetuità. Aggiugni che qui abita continuo la temperie, si può dire, della primavera : fuori vento, gelo, brina ; qui entro socchiuso da’ venti, qui tiepido aere e quieto : fuori vampe estive e autunnali ; qui entro temperatissimo refrigerio. 1

Christine Smith situates this passage in rhetorical and aesthetic context, explaining how Alberti here develops categories of « linguistic styles ... into terms of architectural description ». 2 The particular terms and aesthetic principles involved - « grazia » and « maiestà » - trigger a series of antitheses : « gracilità vezzosa » balances « sodezza robusta e piena », « fatta a ... delizia » is matched by « offirmata a perpetuità. » As a result « ideal equilibrium » is created. 3 The building produces the climate of spring both during both winter and summer, for inside we experience mildness and calm when winds, frost and brine bite outside ; and while 1 Alberti, in ed. Grayson, Opere volgari, 107. 2 Architecture in the Culture of Early Humanism, 85. 3 Architecture in the Culture of Early Humanism, 60.

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the heat spells of summer and autumn scorch, the dome offers a welltempered refuge. Antithetical qualities are composed to form a balanced whole signalling the inherent classical aesthetic of firmness and delight. This appeal to the senses expresses what Carile van Eck refers to as Alberti’s view of architecture as « persuasive communication ». 1 Manetti’s seizes on this example, but rather than firmitas and venustas (solidity and beauty) he cites the antithesis in a slightly changed version, the principle of utilitas and pulchritudo,when he commends the striking beauty and usefulness of the porticoes adorning the quarter’s three principal thoroughfares : « continuas porticus, duas à qualibet via se invicem respicientes, pulcherrime simul atque utilissime efficerent. » (931e ; italics added) That the beauty of porticoed workshops, a typical medieval architectural feature, 2 should incite desire (voluptas) may be surprising, but not so if we consider that « the very important innovation in the Borgo project is that the porticoes were planned to form continuous arcades along three similar streets ». 3 But in the manner of Alberti he emphasizes the persuasive communication of architecture. The novelty of the extended Borgo Leonino scheme may probably explain the notable change in Manetti’s style and imagery. For, as in Alberti’s description of Brunelleschi’s dome - he marshals a series of antitheses involving meteorological phenomena : Juxta [enim] variae diversorum Opificum tabernae, supra vero domorum, habitacula condebantur. Ac per hunc modum quocumque tempore sub porticibus incedentes homines, & voluptate pulcherrimi aspectus capiebantur, & omni quoque, immoderata, & hyemali, & aestiva tempestate, partim ab jugibus pluviis, partim ab intemperie algoris & aestus, se se tutabantur. Necessaria etiam inferiorum tabernarum, ac superiorum domorum habitacula nequaquam suo lumine privabantur. (931e-932a)

In all kinds of weathers visitors are struck by the porticoes’ beautiful and protective qualities. They shield passers-by in all kinds of immoderate weather during winter or summer, providing shelter both from the 1 Caroline van Eck, Architecture, Language, and Rhetoric in Alberti’s De re aedificatoria, in eds. Clarke and Crossley, Architecture and Language, 72-81 ; 184-88 (79-81). 2 For the use of porticoes in Rome in the fifteenth century. See Studies in Quattrocento Roman Architecture, 78-80. 3 Magnuson, Studies in Quattrocento Roman Architecture 94, suggests that the idea of reworking the medieval feature into a global design « could easily have been developed by a man like Alberti, who it appears was later to be involved in a similar project at Mantua, involving the principal streets leading to Sant’ Andrea and towards the Ducal Palace ».

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yoke of rainfalls (« ab iugibus pluviis »), as well as inclement frost and heat. The combination of beauty and utility parallels Alberti’s praise of the well-tempered qualities of Brunelleschi’s dome. Notable is the series of antithetical or complementary terms, some of which also occur in Alberti. The latter had used words like la temperie and vampe estive, whereas Manetti writes ab intemperie ... aestus and pits winter against summer storms (hyemali [tempestate]-aestiva tempestate), heavy rains (ab jugibus pluviis) against dry cold and hot weather (ab intemperie algoris & aestus). He furthermore emphasises that the downstairs shops and upstairs flats are lighted to an equal degree (inferiorum tabernumsuperiorum domorum). As expert Latinists Alberti and Manetti combine opposite qualities to form a perfectly balanced periodic sentence. 1 Manetti rounds off the Vicus Curialis description with a brief summarizing section (v). He makes a general reference to the Borgo’s great members (Vicus à magnis membris), but singles out the defensive walls on fours sides (à quatuor namque … lateribus). He even seems to have wanted to present the enclosure as being more equilateral by omitting any mention of San Pietro and Castel Sant’ Angelo at this point. It should nevertheless be stressed that this passage also serves as a transition to the next part of the Manetti’s account, a compositional feature found also in Profugiorum ab aerumna.2 Conclusion When surveying the entire passage on the Borgo Leonino, we notice a tangible emphasis on order, hierarchy, axiality, and equal division, 1 The antitheses form a basically chiastic structure on the formula a-b-c || c-b-a : ...homines incedentes... et hyemali, et aestiva tempestate, partim ab jugibus pluviis, partim ab intemperie algoris et aestus, se se tutabantur. [Italics added] Alberti’s period has a similar structure : ...qui abita continuo la temperie, si può dire, della primavera : fuori vento, gelo, brina ; qui entro socchiuso da’ venti, qui tiepido aere e quieto : fuori vampe estive e autunnali ; qui entro temperatissimo refrigerio. [Italics added] 2 The Building in the text, 61-69.

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all of which are the emerging hallmarks of Humanism aesthetics and Early Renaissance Art. However, no attempt is made at establishing a totally rigid grid, and the evidence on the ground as it has survived in later drawings and city plans reveals attention to practical needs and the existing cityscape. An axis was created but it did not cut the Borgo Leonino into two equal halves. The pilgrims on their way to the Basilica had crossed the Ponte Elio and issued into the newly established piazza along the western side of Castel Sant’Angelo, entered it through the Porta San Pietro close to the Tiber. The shortest distance between two points being a straight line and therefore the main axis in the new layout of streets naturally runs from the Porta San Pietro to the Basilica, that is, along the Borgo Vecchio which was made more straight and embellished with new buildings and porticoes. In one respect this flexible and pragmatic approach is expressive of the quattrocento habit of continuing and developing medieval practice that I have discussed in relation to Alberti’s two poems Le chiome che io adorai nel santo lauro and Io vidi già seder(e) nell’arme irato. There we noted how Alberti adopts an architectural and geometrical approach to the poems as distinct compositional fields, which, indeed, is exactly how Manetti composes his description of the Borgo Leonino. When the structure and verbal finish of Manetti’s description reveals a clear preference for a total design this does not necessarily signal a breach with tradition, for the narrative also presents another story. In it is embedded, I propose, the plan that was to serve as a guarantee and guideline for the correct execution of the Vicus Curialis after the death of Nicholas V. Following a practice current since Ptolemy, quattrocento Humanists relied on written descriptions rather than maps and technical drawings, because these were considered more unreliable. Experience had shown that designs or illustrations were prone to become grossly inaccurate when copied and would therefore soon become useless. Alberti’s De pictura, De re aedificatoria, and De statua are all versions of this type of transmission of data which ensures that all copies be made from the original.1 The highly technical treatise Descriptio urbis Romae both relies on this practice at the same time that it represents a first step towards creating a reproducible and even digitalised map. 1 See Mario Carpo, Descriptio Urbis Romae : Ekphasis geografica e cultura visuale all’alba della rivoluzione tipografica, « Albertiana » i (1998), 121-142.

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The unfamiliar preference for a written design is in one sense conservative, but in another sense this use of ordered and specified arguments - made evident by elocutionary patterns - also is « modern » and verges on being formulaic. For Manetti’s description contains embedded as signs what I term the formal intention 1 of Nicholas Vs plan for the Borgo Leonino. That plan definitely belonged to the future and its inherent dynamism gave the impetus to modern urban design, first at Piazza Celso and then Piazza del Popolo. The aesthetics of those highly material manifestations in the urban landscape is one shared with quattrocento rhetoric and poetics. Appendix i. Ad tertiam de Vico, ut ita dixerim, Curiali, juxta nostrorum ordinem procedentes, novam hujus Vici constructionem à Porta Pontis Molis Adrianae inchoandam fore cognovimus, ubi magnam quamdam aream, cunctis habitationibus inter moenia Urbis, quae tanto ulterius in latitudimen extendebantur, ut ad perpendiculum magnae Turris Palatinae ab eo ad hoc ipsum aedificatae dirigerentur, & inter Tiberim consistentibus, funditus demolitis, ante praedictam Adriani Molem instituebat. ii. Ab hac maxima area tres latae, & amplae viae ab invicem distinctae, duae ab utrisque lateribus, tertia intermedia, derivabantur, & ad alteram ingentisimam aream ante Apostolicam aedem apparentem pretendebantur. Per intermediam verò ab area prima usque ad mediam praedictae Basilicae quinque januis distinctae portam iter per rectam lineam dirigebatur. Per secundundam autem, quae a dextris prominebat, recto tramite ad Portam Palatinam, ibatur. At per tertiam à laeva versùs Tiberim ad eum locum tendebatur, ubi nunc ingens ille & altissimus Obeliscus extant, & ubi in nova Apostolicae Ecclesiae reformatione domestica pro Sacerdotibus Canonicis cubilia designabantur, quae vulgo Dormitoria appellantur. iii. Atque tres commemoratae viae diversis habitaculis, variis ergastulis, ac dissimililibus Opificum tabernis per hunc modum ab invicem separabantur. Nam à dextris via eisdem propemodum habitaculis pro mediocribus diversorum exercitiorum Artificibus se se e regione respicientibus distinguebatur. Intermedia verò usque ad laevam similibus nummulariorum, pannorumque mensis, & hujusmodi majorum Opificum tabernis utrimque institutis, ac mutuo se se intuentibus, disponebatur. A laeva autem usque ad murum super Tiberim aedificandum, diversorum generum pro infimis Opificibus apothecae utrique pariter lateribus ordinabantur. 1 The Building in the text, 9.

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iv. Atque tres praedictae viae, sex intercolumnis, usque adeo muniebantur, ut sex continuas porticus, duas à qualibet via se invicem respicientes, pulcherrime simul atque utilissime efficerent. Juxta [enim] variae diversorum Opificum tabernae, supra vero domorum, habitacula condebantur. Ac per hunc modum quocumque tempore sub porticibus incedentes homines, & voluptate pulcherrimi aspectus capiebantur, & omni quoque, immoderata, & hyemali, & aestiva tempestate, partim ab jugibus pluviis, partim ab intemperie algoris & aestus, se se tutabantur. Necessaria etiam inferiorum tabernarum, ac superiorum domorum habitacula nequaquam suo lumine privabantur. v. Atque is Curialis, de quo loquimur, Vicus à magnis membris, & altis turribus undique cingebatur, à quatuor namque ejus lateribus egregiis propugnaculis circumdabatur. Gianozzo Manetti (1396-1456), In Vitam Nicolae V. Summi Pontificis (14471455) ; cited from Ludovico Antonio Muratori, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, Mediolani, Arnaldo Forni Editore, 1734. iii.ii. col. 931-932.

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THE HIDDEN HARMONIES OF THE « CASA DI MANTEGNA » Frida Forsgren

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he design of the house of Andrea Mantegna in Mantua is enveloped in mystery and has thus engendered much discussion. 1 The building has the approximate shape of a square, 25m x 25m, and incorporates at its centre, inserted into a smaller square, a perfectly circular courtyard or atrium, approximately 11m in diameter (Fig. 1). 2 The combination of these two squares with the cylinder inserted into the smaller square can be seen to represent the Renaissance quest of « squaring the circle », that is, the fusing of the material or secular form of the square and the divine form of the circle into one organic body. 3 Furthermore - and as I propose in this article - this combination reflects the Roman and medieval method of construction termed ad quadratum. I shall also discuss how the house’s central axis, from the entrance hall, through the Rotunda, is governed by the golden section, and how the axis issues in a sala that bears strong resemblance to the Camera Picta in the Palazzo Ducale. This suggests that Mantegna in his own house built a realisation of the Gonzaga’s favorite painted illusion.

1 The design of the buildling has been debated in the following studies : Ricciardo Campagnari , La casa del Mantegna, « Civ. Mantovana », anno ix, 1975, Quad. 49/50. Gianfranco Ferlisi , Ab Olympo. Il Mantegna e la sua dimora, Mantova 1995. Giuseppe Fiocco, Andrea Mantegna, Milano 1937. Paul Kristeller, Andrea Mantegna, Berlin 1902. Ronald Lightbown, Mantegna. With a Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, Drawings and Prints, Los Angeles 1986. Raffaello Niccoli, « Bollettino d’arte », p. 390-393, Giugno/Luglio 1941. Raffaello Niccoli, The Restauration Rapport from 1940 (unpublished), Archivio dello Stato, aabb, Divisione ii, 1940/45, Busta 117. Giovanni Paccagnini, Andrea Mantegna, Milano 1961. Earl E. Rosenthal, The House of Andrea Mantegna in Mantua, « Gazette des Beaux Artes », Serie 6, lx 1962. Charles Yriarte, Mantegna, sa vie, sa maison, son tombeau, son oeuvre dans les muses et les collections, Paris 1901. 2 The exact measures are 24,58 m. /51,7 Braccia Mantovani (garden facade) x 25,85 m./54,3 Braccia Mantovani (the wall facing Porta Pusterla). The diameter of the inner square is 11,44 m. /24 Braccia Mantovani whereas the diameter of the cylinder 10,96 m./23 Braccia Mantovani. 3 See S. K. Heninger Jr, The Subtext of Form in the English Renaissance. Proportion Poetical, Pennsylvania 1994.

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Fig. 1. Ground plan of the House of Mantegna. Mantova. Drawing by Raffaello Niccoli, Archivio dello Stato, aabb, Divisione ii, 1940/45, Busta 117.

The compositional formula of the ad quadratum, or the square root of 2-progression is based on a simple principle. First draw a square. Then divide each side of the square to find its centre, and construct a new square from these central points, forming a new, smaller square whithin the original square. This can be repeated ad libitum (Fig. 2). The result is a system of lines and squares deriving from the same figure, related to one another in the same spatial microcosm. The construction method is an easy way of ensuring proportional relations without having to do calculations. All the constructions can be done with straightedge and compass, both done with stretched cord, so it is

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Fig. 2. Ideal representation of the ad quadratum-rule.

easy for an on-site layout. The ad quadratum was the most important geometric modular system in Roman and medieval architecture, being implemented in the single-family urban houses at Pompeii and Herculaneum and determining the ratioes of Gothic cathedrals as different as those at Milan, Fidenza and Trondheim. The system emphasises a center by means of concentric reiterations of the same set of geometric operation, and thus it reflects Roman cosmology. The Roman world view involved placing oneself in the center of the universe, a focus permeating Roman design at all scales, including the organization of the Empire, the layout of cities, and the design of most building types. As a basis for the conception and construction of the domus, the square thus serves a symbolic, as well as pragmatic, function. The Romans applied the ad quadratum to the composition of the central atrium space, as to wall paintings and pavement patterns within the individual rooms. 1 As Carol Martin Watts states : « Analyses of the houses at Pompeii and Herculaneum suggest that two simple geometric systems, both based on the square, underlie the design of the 1 Carol Martin Watts, The Square and the Roman House : Architecture and Decoration at Pompeii and Herculaneum, Nexus ’96 Relationships Between Architecture and Mathematics ed. Ed. Kim Williams, Firenze 1996, p. 169.

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Roman house at all scales ». 1 It is in this Roman domestic context, I propose that Mantegna, too, constructed his atrium house using the ad quadratum method. Marion Harder has discussed Mantegna’s house in relation to the unpublished treatises of Francesco di Giorgio Martini, arguing that the house’s proportions should be considered within the context of the neo-platonic musical harmonies as embodied in contemporary Renaissance palaces. 2 She concludes, somewhat surprisingly, that both the house and the adjacent Church of San Sebastiano played a role in Leon Battista Alberti’s Etruscan revival project.3 But surely there has to be a less contrived and simpler solution to the design of the artist’s house. Is it not more plausible that the court painter Andrea Mantegna constructed his house on a simpler geometrical principle, than on a complex musicological plan, that reflects the ratios discovered in the plans of palaces, or that it is part of a revived Etruria in the marshlands of Lombardy ? By linking the house’s construction to the ad quadratum method, known and practiced on the Italic peninsula since Antiquity, the intrinsic questions pondered by Harder as to who may have seen which drawing when, who was influenced by whom first, who met up in Rome in 1464 etc. become superfluous. These are questions discussed by Harder in her pursuit to reveal the real ideator of the house of Mantegna ; could it have been Francesco di Giorgio, Leon Battista Alberti or Luca Fancelli ? Questions that due to the lack of irrefutable evidence can only yield conjectural answers. Rather, I propose Mantegna was the architect of the buildling and that he constructed his house ad quadratum as the ancient Romans and, indeed, as his medieval predecessors would have done. He created - I propose - a simple geometric plan that is echoed in his painted illusions. Rather than searching for answers in the writings by and on contemporary architects and theoreticians, I believe an equally good point of departure to the house’s design is Mantegna’s oeuvre and the artist’s recorded interest. Mantegna approached Ludovico in 1466 with the desire to improve his lodging by erecting a small house for his wife and his four children. But only ten years later, when Mantegna had finished the impressive 1 Watts 1996, p. 169. 2 Marion Harder, Entstehung von Rundhof und Rundsaal in Palastbau der Renaissance in Italien. Undersuchungen zum Mantegnahaus in Mantua und zu den Traktaten des Francesco di Giorgio Martini, Freiburg (Hochschul Verlag) 1991. 3 Harder 1991, p. 176.

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fresco decoration in the Camera Picta, did the Marquis as a sign of gratitude donate him a building site near Porta Pusterla, the present Pza San Sebastiano. On the foundation stone of the house we read the following inscription : svper/fundo/a di. l. prin./op.dono/dato an/g. mcccc/lxxvi.and./mantinia/haec iecit/fondamen/ta xv kl. novembris/ /in fr.b.lii/retro/b.cl.

In English the inscription reads : On ground given by Divus Lodovicus most excellent prince, in the year of grace 1476 Andrea Mantegna laid these foundations on 18 October (according to the modern calender) : in front braccia 52 behind braccia 150. 1

The piece of land given to him by Ludovico measures, when translated into meters, 24.78m by 71.49m,2 which would indicate that the size, and shape, of the house Mantegna constructed (24.58m x 25.85m) was naturally limited by the size of the land given to him by Ludovico. It would seem that he took as his point of departure the shortest side of the area, 24.78m, and used this as the measurement for his approximately equilateral square building. In theory, Mantegna could have built a long rectangular building, or any other shape actually, if he so desired, judging by the amount of space he had available, but he did not. The remaining 45.64m x 24.58m behind the house was probably planned to be a garden all’ italiana. The actual building measures 24.58m x 25.85m, that is, the building’s area is a rectangle that approximates the shape of a square. I say « approximates » because the difference is sufficiently pronounced - the length of the house deviates from the breadth by 1.27m or 2,6 braccia - to suggest that the deviation is the product of a designed plan. What may that plan have been ? The breadth of the house, the site, and the very placing of the inscribed square and circle all suggest that Mantegna deployed the rule of the ad quadratum in the construction. Applying the rule and starting from the square abcd we see that it produces the measurements of the house, except the entrance part facing the street forms a smaller rectangle cdef. The plan abcd forms two distinct squares, one occupying the different sale grouped around the central square into which the cylinder 1 Translated in Lightbown 1986, p. 121. The inscription was designed by Mantegna and cut under his supervision. 2 1 Braccio mantovano = 0,4766 meters, 1 Onze = 0,0397. 12 Onzi forms 1 Braccia.

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is inserted, the other cdef is thin, long and seems to have no distinct function in the plan (Fig. 3). The slight deviation in the measures of the house could be due to imprecisions made by the builders and the brickwork employed in the construction, and does not distort the clear structural resemblance between the ideal plan of the house and the ad quadratum construction. The discrepancies are far too small to disturb the overall harmony of the structure. Only on one side is there a clear and visible difference. The house is 1,27 meters longer than it is wide, and this extra volume seems to be add-

Fig. 3. Ground plan of the House of Mantegna (as above) with superimposed ad quadratum scheme.

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ed to the ad quadratum construction towards Via Acerbi (cdef), in order to make the rooms facing the street deeper and more spacious. This side holds some of the house’s central spaces : the entrance, and, on the piano nobile the sala grande. Then, too, the room to the left of the entrance on the ground floor was a stately frescoed space thought to have been where Mantegna painted and entertained guests. The entrance is a narrow lunette vaulted space 7,03m long and 2,80m wide, and stands in contrast to the wide, elegant Rotunda it precedes. The andron is, as already stressed, quite narrow, so the first step you make from the hallway into the solemn Rotunda suddenly provides the visitor with air and space giving the immediate feeling of freedom. This contrast would obviously not have been as explicit had the entrance been shorter and wider, as indeed the sala on the opposite side of the Rotunda is, or if the relationship beween the two spaces had been guided by a different ratio. The visual and perceptual contrast between entrance and Rotunda is in fact so powerful it seems to be measured out and calculated geometrically by the house’s architect, who has deployed the division known as the Golden Section. The axis running from the entrance [or andron], through the rotunda and ending at the arched door of the garden sala is 18,47 meters (androne 7.03m + rotunda 11.44m = 18.47m). The golden section of 18,47 is 11,41, that is, at the exact transition point were we enter the rotunda from the entrance area. The golden section of 11,44 is 7,06, at the exact point where we walk out of the Rotunda towards the exit area. In both cases the discrepancy is 0.03 centimeters. It thus appears that the extra volume added to the ad quadratum construction, cdef, was added in order to construct a powerful central axis and to strengthen the impact of entering into the house’s most striking space ; namely the central rotunda. The central axis that runs through the entrance, bisecting the rotunda, divides the garden sala, a space that is of utmost interest to the historian of art. Even though it has been strongly modified, its original appearance is still conceivable. The length of the sala stands in an approximate 1 :2 ratio to the diameter of the Rotunda (5.56 : 11.44), and, like the andron, the space is vaulted by arched lunettes, which contrasts with all the other sale which have beamed, wooden ceilings. The two spaces, the sala and the andron, thus appear to have been symmetrically ordered at opposite ends of the Rotunda, and the connection between the two is strengthened by the repetition of a similar structural element : the vaulted ceiling (only found in these two rooms). In addition to

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this, their structural interdependence is furthermore suggested by the mathematical divisions of the axis, the golden section existing between entrance and rotunda, and the 1 :2 ratio found between rotunda and sala. These various elements indicate that the space fulfills a particular important position and role in the house’s typological hierarchy. Let us therefore take a closer look at the garden sala. In the Restoration Report we read the following passage regarding the sala : L’ambiente n. 6, a differenza dalla quasi totalità degli altri, è coperto con volta a padiglione lunettato. Per mezzo di saggi si è visto che i ricaschi delle volte dovevano poggiare su peducci, probabilmente in cotto, dei quali è rimasta l’incassatura. Una cornice orizzontale, della quale è pure rimasta l’incassatura, correva al disopra dei peducci, a tagliare le lunette. Nella decorazione della Camera degli Sposi, nel Castello Ducale, il Mantegna ha creato una cornice simile, a distacco fra la decorazione delle lunette e quella a figure delle pareti, ma l’ha fatta in pittura.1 English translation : differently from nearly all others Room n. 6 is vaulted by pavillion with lunettes. By means of examinations one has ascertained that the arches were to rest on capitals [small pediments ?], probably in terracotta, of which the mountings remain. A horizontal cornice, of which the mountings also are extant, ran above the capitals, intersecting the lunettes. In the decoration of the Camera degli Sposi, at the Castello Ducale, Mantegna created a similar cornice, between the decoration in the lunettes and the figures of the walls, but he did so in paint.

As Niccoli points out the room in question has the shape of a vaulted pavillion ; its walls end in arched lunettes, three on each wall, which support the ceiling. Niccoli discovered that these lunettes originally had sprung out from terracotta capitals and that a cornice that ran all around the room intersecting the lunettes. The room is approximately 6 meters by 8 meters (length : 5,56m x breadth : 7,50m x height : 5,56m). These features added : the lunettes, the terracotta capitals and the horizontal entablature, and the actual size of the room, show, as Niccoli concludes, strong similarities with the space created by Mantegna in the Camera Picta in Palazzo Ducale (length 8,08m x breadth 8,08m x height 6,93m). In fact, the two spaces are composed of exactly the same building members. This suggests that Mantegna in the garden sala realised a built version of the space he had painted for Ludovico Gonzaga from 1465-1474. As in the case of the Camera Picta, the capitals and the lunetted arches 1 The Restoration Report, p. 17.

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were executed as real architecture, while the walls were decorated with painted architecture, as shown in the following quote : Stanza centrale, verso il giardino. Fregio quasi intatto con decorazione a palmette e architrave, mensole finemente decorate e, in alto, nel mezzo delle due pareti opposte, lo stemma del Mantegna. Molto conservata è anche la decorazione del soffitto ritrovata sotto lo scialbo. 1

English translation : Central space, towards the garden. Nearly intact frieze decorated with palmettes and architrave, corbels elegantly decorated and, above, in the middle of the two opposite walls, Mantegna’s stemma. 2 In a state of good preservation is the decorated ceiling, recovered undeneath the plaster.

Unfortunately, the painted decoration in the room is no longer extant, so it is impossible to get a complete picture of whether Mantegna had further plans to strengthen the reference to the Camera Picta. It must be added though that no similar structure is found elsewhere in the house. Its monumental setting, being situated at the very end of the house’s main axis, indicates that it was an important room in the house’s hierarchy. I believe Mantegna designed the room in the likeness of the Camera Picta to allude to the Palazzo Ducale and the abode of the Gonzagas, showing that he, too, was worthy of such an elegant space. On the strength of these data I propose that Mantegna constructed his house in keeping with the ad quadratum as the ancient Romans had done, and that he, in order to stress the Rotunda’s prominent role in the house’s hierarchy, let its central axis be governed by the Golden Section. Mantegna would have known of these methods from conversation with his learned friends Leon Battista Alberti, Ludovico Gonzaga, or by in situ observations of Roman and medieval buildings, through study at the Gonzaga library, but more probably he knew them from practice. In point of fact, his oeuvre offers several striking examples of his interest in the squared circle : the Camera Picta, his Funerary Chapel in Sant’ Andrea and the Chapel in the Villa Belvedere are all examples of square spaces, domed with circular oculus openings. Also, we know from his paintings 1 The house’s painted decorations are discussed briefly by Niccoli in an article in « Bollettino d’arte » from june/july 1941. Here he states that there is a clear connection between the frescoes in the house and Mantegna’s general painted oeuvre, p. 393. 2 Mantegna’s stemma shows a large radiant sun, in the middle of a crown of laurels among a polychrome net of rings and the inscription « Par un desir ».

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that he was familiar with the Pantheon from the mid-50s, and that he had a thorough knowledge of ancient monuments from the sketchbooks he studied in the Squarcione workshop. The Roman compositional rule of the ad quadratum and the ancient Golden Section would be the appropriate means for an artist like Mantegna, who was passionately involved in strengthening his ties to the Classical past. I believe these to be the hidden harmonies of the house of Mantegna at Mantua.

Fig. 4. Casa di Mantegna. The cortile photographed sotto-in-su, showing the interaction of square and circular forms.

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THE RENAISSANCE IDEA OF PHILOSOPHICAL CONCORD AND RAPHAEL’S SCHOOL OF ATHENS Lasse Hodne

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eing dominated by the figures of the ancient philosophers Plato and Aristotle, one text in particular seems to be of relevance when it comes to explaining the composition of Raphael’s School of Athens. It is Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s De Ente et Uno, written in 1486some twenty-five years before Raphael started his work in the Stanza della Segnatura-as part of his great plan to gather representatives of the church to a discussion of his 900 theses. One of the aims of his theses was to demonstrate the possibility of a philosophical concord and to reconcile apparent contradictions in the teaching of the two greatest philosophers, Plato and Aristotle. His De ente et uno or, in English, On Being and the One, begins with a greeting to his friend, the Florentine poet Angelo Poliziano. The latter, referring to a dispute with Lorenzo de’ Medici on Greek philosophy where he had suggested the possible concord of the two systems, had subsequently turned to Pico for advice on how one could defend Aristotle and «bring him into agreement with his master, Plato». 1 According to Pico Aristotle in more than one place «says that unity and being are convertible and reciprocal ... . This the followers of the Academy [the Platonists] denied, saying that the one is anterior to being; by which they meant that they regarded the former as a concept more simple and universal». 2 Among the Platonist’s arguments for giving the priority to unity over being, is that they have not the same opposites: «to being is opposed non-being, to the one, the many». 3 Hence, the relationship between unity and being is also one between the one-an appellation of God 4-and the many. 1 Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Of Being and Unity, (= De ente et uno), translated from the Latin, with an introduction by V. M. Hamm, Milwaukee : Marguette, 1994, i, 3-4. 2 Of Being and Unity, i, 3-4. 3 Of Being and Unity, i, 3-4. 4 Of Being and Unity, chapter iv.

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Since the School of Athens is part of a picture program including religious as well as pagan subjects, it is, I believe, natural to consider possible religious aspects of Pico’s concordium idea. A Christian parallel to this problem is, perhaps, represented by the passage from the Letter to the Galatians where Paul, discussing Baptism as opposed to Circumcision, says that there will be «no such thing as Jew and Greek, slave and freeman, male and female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus». 1 Just like the Greek philosophers Paul, too, concerned himself with the contrast between the One and Being. Given the existence of religious and theological parallels to the Plato-Aristotle debate, and the fact that the concordium is a Christian utopia as much as a philosophical one, it was quite natural for Raphael to parallel Christianity’s most famous theologians with the pre-Christian philosophers. 2 However, whereas Raphael in a cycle comprising many scenes easily could keep the «religious sphere» separate from the pagan subjects placing the School of Athens and the Disputa on opposite walls, some of the copies seem somewhat confused as regards subject-matter. In the first copy of the School of Athens reproducing the entire picture-the one by Giorgio Ghisi from 1550-the identity of its two protagonists is changed (Fig. 1). Ghisi gave his version the name St. Paul preaching on the Areopagus of Athens, substituting the portraits of Plato and Aristotle with those of the apostles Peter and Paul. Ghisi’s change of identity was followed up by later copyists, creating thus a practice that was to be severely condemned by Bellori. The inscription in the scene’s lower left corner which identifies it with an episode from the Epistles recounting the Apostle’s sojourn in Athens, as well as the presence of a certain diadem which appears in some of the prints, are found, as Bellori observes, neither in Raphael’s original, nor in the first reproductions. 3 However, by their great audience the «erronous» copies were secured 1 Galatians, 3:28. 2 According to Gutman the iconographical program in the Stanza della Segnatura is theological rather than philosophical. Harry B. Gutman, Zur Ikonologie der Fresken Raffaels in der Stanza della Segnatura, « Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte », 21 (1958), p. 28. 3 «Improprio è l’argomento, che si legge impresso sotto l’intaglio di questa Immagine, cavato dagli atti di San Paolo, quando il Santo Apostolo disputava fra gli Epicurei, e gli Stoici nell’Areopago. Il quale argomento vi fu aggiunto da Tomasino intagliatore nel ritoccare la prima stampa di Giorgio Mantovano, ove alle due figure di Platone, e di Aristotile aggiunse lo splendore, e il diadema, che in verità non sono nel primo intaglio, e moltomeno nell’originale in pittura». Giovanni Pietro Bellori (a cura di Melchior

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Fig. 1. Giorgio Ghisi, The Preaching of Peter and Paul at Athens, Vienna, Albertina.

more influence than the masterwork itself, for several later commentaries, such as those of Lomazzo and Scannelli, mentions Peter and Paul as the fresco’s main characters. 1 Is it a mere coincidence that the identity of the two philosophers was replaced by that of the two apostle princes? Probably not. We must remember that we’re in the Vatican, the centre of the Roman-Catholic world. Peter and Paul were both martyrized in Rome, and they are both celebrated as the city’s patron saints. The particular association Messirini), Descrizione delle immagini dipinte da Raffaello d’Urbino nel Vaticano e di quelle alla Farnesina di Gio. Pietro Bellori, Rome: De Romanis, 1821, p. 25. The «Tomasino» mentioned by Bellori is probably to be identified with the artist who made an engraving of the School of Athens in 1648. Cf. Herman Grimm, Leben Raphaels von Urbino, Berlin: Dümmler, 1872, p. 202. 1 «E però venendosi all’altro historiato della Scuola d’Atene si mirano sopra la solita rara inventione, quivi la mirabile dispostitione, e l’attitudini mai sempre singolari. Nel mezo si vedono i Santi Pietro, e Paolo in habito Apostolico con atti gravi, e gratiosamente compiti in forma di predicare la nuova, e più vera scienza de ’ beni eterni, che hanno in ogni parte espresso il proprio, e debito ricercamento; all’intorno stanno diversemante accomodati Platone, Socrate, Aristotile, ed altri simili straordinarj soggetti co’ libri più famosi da loro composti; ...». Francesco Scannelli, Il Microcosmo della Pittura (= Gli storici della letteratura artistica italiana, collana diretta da Angela Ottino Della Chiesa e Bruno della Chiesa, vol. xv), Milan: Labor, 1966, fol. 159-160.

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of the two saints with the papacy is emphasized by the fact that since the time of Pope Gregory VII (1073-1085), portraits of Peter and Paul can be seen on papal lead seals. 1 From later periods, too, we know that Peter and Paul have been represented together with Plato and Aristotle. What I have in mind is the busts or statues made for one of the carts in the procession which was held on occasion of the marriage between Francesco de’ Medici and Giovanna of Austria in Florence in 1565; a figure group with the apostle princes and ancient philosophers was made as an allegory of the victory of religion over worldly wisdom. 2 But of even greater interest in our context is a panel executed by the Tuscan fourteenth century painter Francesco Traini (1321-1363; Fig. 2). The fact that at the feet of Thomas, the picture’s central figure, lies the arab philosopher Averroes, tells us that this too, as the Medici procession, represents the triumph of religion. In this case, however, the apostle princes, in no way inferior in rank with respect to the dominant thinker of scholasticism, are substituted by, precisely, Plato and Aristotle. Aristotle is shown in red on the left, whereas Plato, on the right, is represented in a highly unfamiliar way. On his head he wears a headgear which is the same as that traditionally given to Jews in Christian iconography. This distinction may be compared with that between the two groups of twenty-four elders from the Apocalypse on the (reconstructed 3) triumphal arch of San Paolo fuori le Mura in Rome. At first sight the two groups, twelve on the left and twelve on the right of the arch opening, may appear quite similar, but on closer inspection one discover that a dark line above the front of the twelve elders on the left indicates that their hair is combed in a certain way, whereas the absence of the same among the right hand group may be because their hair is covered. Similarly, the way the members of the left hand group are dressed, with the tunic cast over their left shoulder, makes them closer to Roman tradition than their counterparts on the opposite side. What is particularly interesting, is that the bare headed, Roman-looking elders are paired with Paul, the 1 Erich Kittel, Siegel, Braunschweig: Klinkhardt und Biermann, 1970. 2 Giovanni Attolini, Teatro e spettacolo nel Rinascimento, Rome 1988, p. 172. Cf. also Franz Xaver Kraus, Geschichte der Christlichen Kunst, 2/3, Freiburg: Herder, 1908, p. 395 and Herman Grimm, Leben Raphaels von Urbino. Italiänischer Text von Vasari, Übersetzung und Commentar von Herman Grimm, Berlin: Dümmler, 1872, i, p. 221. 3 The basilica was damaged by fire in the nineteenth century.

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Fig. 2. Francesco Traini, St. Thomas with Plato and Aristotle, Pisa, S. Caterina.

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magister gentium, whereas those with covered hair stand above Peter, apostle to the circumcised. If the similarity between details in the mosaics of the basilica on the Ostian road and the panel painting is not totally fotuitous, it might mean that Traini was not content with limiting himself to demonstrate how the Summa of Saint Thomas unified certain contradictions between the pagan philosophers and Christian doctrine, but in addition wanted to demonstrate some implicit point about the difference between two nations, Jew and Gentile, in his work. This is highly possible. If the figure group representing Thomas, Plato, and Aristotle is a parallel to the famous scheme that we know from Roman apses and many ancient sarcophagi-Christ flanked by Peter and Paul-there may be analogies between the roles of the two philosophers and the different roles acted by the apostles in the dissemination of the Gospel. As regards the apostles, we know from the Letter to the Galatians that a division of labour between the two was decided. Referring to his early missionary activity after his conversion, Paul says that God «whose action made Peter an apostle to the Jews, also made me an apostle to the Gentiles. Recognizing, then, the favour thus bestowed upon me, those reputed pillars of our society, James, Cephas (Peter), and John, accepted Barnabas and myself as partners, and shook hands upon it, agreeing that we should go to the Gentiles while they went to the Jews. 1

With this division between the two apostle princes in mind, may we in the same way assume that since, in Traini’s painting, Plato and Aristotle are dressed differently, the philosophers represent different nations or parties, too? Remembering, moreover, that Paul distinguished between Circumcision in the flesh and Circumcision in the spirit (Baptism), 2 can we also say that the teaching of the philosophers represent two alliances or testaments; knowledge of the worldly and knowledge of the divine, respectively? The School of Athens is part of a program which includes, too, the facing scene Disputa (Fig. 3). On the ground level saints, friars, church fathers, and members of the clergy, occupy the scene. The picture’s upper half is dominated by the persons of the Trinity-the Father, the 1

Galatians, 2:8-9.

2 Galatians, 4:21-31.

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Fig. 3. Raphael, Disputa, the Vatican, Stanza della Segnatura.

Son, and the Holy Spirit as a dove-arranged on a vertical axis. The Trinity is flanked by the Virgin and John the Baptist; the latter two forming with Christ the figure group which in byzantine terminology is called Dëesis. John and the Virgin are, in turn, flanked by twelve seated figures; six on either side. The combination of a central Dëesis and a tribunal of twelve strongly recalls traditional Last Judgement scenes. 1 The mosaics in the vault of the Florentine baptistery, as well as Giotto’s Last Judgement in the Arena Chapel, follow this scheme, and we may even include the iconographically similar compositions in Sant’Angelo in Formis near Capua and Torcello near Venice in the same scheme. There is one important difference, however. Whereas the figures in the Last Judgement scenes always are the twelve apostles, in the 1 Referring to the similarities between the Disputa and a Trinity scene Raphael made together with his master Perugino at San Severo in Perugia, Ernst H. Gombrich states that «Raphael appears to have planned to compose the upper half of the fresco along the lines of a Last Judgement with Christ in the centre, flanked by intercessors and judges». Ernst H. Gombrich, Raphael’s Stanza della Segnatura and the Nature of its Symbolism in The Essential Gombrich, London: Phaidon, 1996, p. 507.

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Disputa we find an alternation between representatives from the two testaments. 1 Reading from the left, we find Peter, Adam, John the Evangelist, David, Stephen, Solomon (?), Joshua, Saint Lawrence, Moses, James the Lesser, Abraham, and Paul. 2 We see that the sequence shifts at the centre between Solomon and Joshua, just to maintain the traditional opposition between the apostle princes, Peter and Paul, at the extremities. It is precisely in the juxtaposition of personalities from the two testaments that Raphal deviates from the traditional scheme. As regards Peter and Paul, it is possible that they are present in the lower section of the Disputa, too. The identity of the two at the centre of the composition, between the fathers of the church and the altar, have always been enigmatic. Whereas the fathers are identified by inscriptions in their halo, few details can help us recognize these two. Dussler said simply that «the figures behind [the Church Fathers] on either side, pointing to the Host, cannot be identified». 3 Giovanni Reale, however, mentioning several possibilities, concludes that they must be Gregory of Nyssa, on the left, and Saint Justin Martyr. 4 By contrast, Heinrich Pfeiffer, stressing that the two not only stand in a position equivalent to that of Plato and Aristotle on the other side, but even repeat their hand gestures, concludes that they must be Peter and Paul. 5 No doubt, the two look very much alike the two that we know for sure to be Peter and Paul in the upper zone. Being closer to the altar than the church fathers they must precede them in rank, Pfeiffer says, and only the apostle princes stand above the fathers of the church. Against this theory one might, of course, object that they lack halo, 6 but the same goes for all ground level figures with exception of the four Church Fathers, St. Thomas, and St. Bonaventura. 1 This fact was observed already by Bellori. Bellori, Giovanni Pietro (a cura di Melchior Messirini), Descrizione delle immagini dipinte da Raffaello d’Urbino nel Vaticano e di quelle alla Farnesina di Gio. Pietro Bellori, Rome: De Romanis, 1821, p. 12. 2 See, for instance, Heinrich S. J. Pfeiffer, Zur Ikonographie von Raffaels Disputa, Rome: Gregoriana, 1975, p. 72. 3 Luitpold Dussler, Raphael. A Critical Catalogue of his Pictures, Wall-Paintings and Tapestries, London and New York: Phaidon, 1971, p. 72. 4 Giovanni Reale, Raffaello: «La Disputa», Milan: Rusconi, 1998, p. 63-65. 5 Heinrich S. J. Pfeiffer, Zur Ikonographie von Raffaels Disputa, Rome: Gregoriana, 1975, p. 68-69. 6 Pfeiffers theory that the figure to the left of the altar represents Peter is strongly criticised by Giovanni Reale. According to Reale the Peter figure that we see in the fres-

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Two of Raphael’s sketches for the Disputa show that a central position was assigned the apostle princes right from the start. A drawing of only the upper zone of the composition now in the Ashmolean Museum shows a two-level solution with, first, Christ flanked by the Virgin and five saints and, beneath, four figures probably representing the Church Fathers flanking, as Matthias Winner in my view correctly has proposed, 1 a central couple which must be Peter and Paul (Fig. 4). By means of a second drawing from Windsor Castle showing the upper as well as the lower parts of the composition’s left half, we may, assuming that it was conceived as symmetrical right from the start, reconstruct the entire layout as it was imagined at a previous stage (Fig. 5). The upper zone is similar to the Ashmoelean version with the apostle princes directly beneath Christ, whereas in the lower part the figures are surrounded by a porticus on each side and a balustrade in the rear end. This early sketch shows that the final fresco’s altar was absent from the early versions. The central idea must from the outset have been to represent Biblical figures (with Christ, the Virgin, and the apostle

Fig. 4. Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, Inv. P ii 542. co’s upper half is represented in a quite different way and his presence in two different spheres «si pone al di fuori del gioco drammaturgico perseguito da Raffaello». Raffaello: «La Disputa», p. 63. 1 Matthias Winner, Disputa und Schule von Athen, in Raffaello a Roma: il convegno del 1983, Rome: Edizioni dell’Elefante, 1986, p. 30-31.

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Fig. 5. Royal Library, Windsor Castle, Inv. 12732.

princes as the central persons) in the upper zone above disputing theologians of the Church on the ground level. This simple scheme was subsequently changed; the apostle princes were moved to the board of twelve persons from the two Testaments, making place for the dove of the Holy Spirit. With the insertion of God the Father above Christ the Trinity is evoked. The Christ figure of the sketches, with clothes covering his entire body, points heavenward with his right hand whereas his left is stretched out, recalling not only his traditional position in Last Judgement scenes, but even the gestures of Plato and Aristotle in the School of Athens (Fig. 6). In the final version, however, Christ has both his hands facing the spectator and the upper part of his body is bare so as to show his wounds. The revelation of Christ’s wounds together with the insertion on the ground level of an altar and a monstrance, show

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Fig. 6. Raphael, School of Athens, the Vatican, Stanza della Segnatura.

that together with the Trinity the pontificate now wanted to stress the dogma of the Transsubstantiation as well. 1 It seems, therefore, that a change in the program took place during the course of execution. The Disputa as it was first conceived was not intended as a demonstration of Christian dogma like the Trinity and the Transsubstantiation. Instead, it was conceived as a staging of Christianity’s most central theologians in just the same way as the School of Athens, which may be compared to a theatrical performance with antiquity’s central philosophers as protagonists. The rear balustrade of the Windsor drawing, moreover, shows that the central position at ground level was left open. This means that only three figures in the Disputa could be claimed to be «central»: Christ and, below him, Peter and Paul. The correspondance between Peter 1 «Das Wirklichheit des Leibes des Herrn in Brotgestalt nach den Einsetzungsworten des Ev. Johannes wurde um 1215 zum Dogma erhoben». Winner probably refers to John 1: 14: «So the Word became flesh; he came to dwell among us, ...». Matthias Winner, Disputa und Schule von Athen, in Raffaello a Roma: il convegno del 1983, Rome: Edizioni dell’Elefante, 1986, p. 35.

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and Paul in the Disputa and Plato and Aristotle in the School of Athens was therefore even more evident in the orirginal plans. 1 The relationship between Peter and Paul and the immanent contrast between Circumcised and Gentiles, may be extended to that between faith and philosophy, or even that between Hebrew and Greek, the languages of the two testaments. In the first letter to the Corinthians we read that «Jews ask for signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified». 2 The contrast between ‘sign’ and ‘wisdom’ in this quotation seems to imply some idea of different types of knowledge which, since the Old Testament comes before the New, in some way is associated with history. Christian exegesis is based on this understanding, since its outset is precisely the typological interpretation of the period sub lege through gratia. 3 According to Bonaventura, to the three readings of Scripture-the tropological, the allegorical, and the anagogical readings-correspond three periods in Biblical history: mosaic, prophetic, and evangelic. 4 To these periods, moreover, correspond three types of law; the mosaic period is governed by the law of nature, in the prophetic period the law of scripture rules, whereas in the evangelic period is introduced the law of grace. Bonaventura even makes the celestial hierarchy fit the scheme. Classifying the nine species of angels into three main groups, «the first three stages correspond to nature (natura) in the human mind, the next three to industry (scientia), and the last three to grace (gratia)». 5 History is 1 Winner agrees that the two Apostle princes were intended as mirror images of the two most important philosophers: «Petrus und Paulus waren, wie wir meinten, zwar höher plaziert als Plato und Aristoteles, waren nichtsdestotrotz aber als deren Spiegelbild konzipiert. Trifft diese Überlegung das Richtige, liesse sich fragen, weshalb eigentlich der kahlköpfige, langbärtige Platon so auffällig einem Paulus-Typ, der Aristoteles aber ebenso unübersehbar einem Petrus-Typ entspricht. Augenscheinlich hat Raffael hier Parallelen bildlich auszudrücken versucht, die bezeichnenderweise eben nichts mit den im Quattrocento überlieferten Kopftypen eines Plato oder Aristoteles zu tun haben». Matthias Winner, Disputa und Schule von Athen, in Raffaello a Roma: il convegno del 1983, Rome: Edizioni dell’Elefante, 1986, p. 31. 2 1 Corinthians, 1:22-23; Augustine, Civitate Dei (Cambridge Mass. and London: Loeb, 1966-1972), Book x, ch 28, p. 381. 3 The idea of a division of biblical periods sub lege and sub gratia finds its support in John 1:17: «... for while the Law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ». 4 St. Bonaventura, The Mind’s Road to God (Itinerarium mentis in Deum), translated by Goerge Boas, Indianapolis and New York: Bobbs-Merril, 1953, ch. iv, 6, p. 31. 5 The Mind’s Road to God, ch. iv, 4, p. 30-31.

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thus bound by the concepts of nature and grace, and the figures of Moses and Christ. Returning to Pico we discover that in his Heptaplus 1 Plato is described as an Attic Moses, and in On the Dignity of Man 2 the description of the world’s creation even suggests a particular relation between the Book of Genesis and Timaeus, which is the book where Plato philosophizes about the beginning of the world. In this book, which is the one Plato holds in Raphael’s painting, the author makes Critias say that we have arranged our entertainment thus that Timaeus, who «is our best astronomer and has made it his special task to learn about the nature of the Universe, it seemed good to us that he should speak first, beginning with the origin of the Cosmos and ending with the generation of mankind». 3 When it comes to the question of Law, a connection between Plato and Moses was observed already by Justin Martyr, who, in his Exhortation to the Greeks, declared all the debts of the greatest of philosophers: His geometry he had from the Egyptians, astronomy from the Babylonians, his knowledge on healing from the Thracians, whereas he for the laws consistent with truth and his sentiments respecting God were indebted to Moses. 4 But again, Pico did not have to go back to the Fathers of the Church for doctrinal support for his view of Plato as a prophet who beforehand had anticiptated and explained, though not fully, central truths of Christianity. Abelard, who repeatedly insisted that even «the pagans» had experienced the benefits of a true revelation, made the testimonies of the philosophers an integral part of his evidence. In fact, his three principal theological works, the Theologia summi boni, the Theologia christiana, and the Theologia scholarum, all begin with a «double documentation» of the Unity and Trinity of God, 1 Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, The Heptaplus. On the Sevenfold Narration of the Six Days of Genesis, in On the Dignity of Man, translated by Charles Glenn Wallis, 1965, p. 68. 2 Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Oratio de hominis dignitate, 4: 13; « Idcirco iam rebus omnibus (ut Moses Timeusque testantur) absolutis, de producendo homine postremo cogitavit». 3 Plato, Timaeus, Critias, Cleitophon, Menexenus and Epistles, transl. by R. G. Bury, London and Cambridge Mass.: Loeb, 1952, p. 47. 4 Saint Justin Martyr, The First Apology, The Second Apology, Dialogue with Trypho, Exhortation to the Greeks, The Monarchy or the Rule of God, New York: Christian Heritage, 1948, Exhortation to the Greeks, especially p. 411-415.

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constituted by testimonies from the prophets (passages from the Old Testament), as well as testimonies from the philosophers, especially the platonists, for the Law of Nature had been given by God also to the pagans. 1 This shows that even the protagonists of scholasticism were familiar with the idea of Christianity’s double historical and intellectual debt to the Hebrew prophets as well as to the philopsophers of the Gentiles. Whereas the teaching of Plato is associated with ‘the one’, i. e. God, creation, and law, Aristotle represents ‘being’, immanence, and matter; the first directs his attention towards the celestial spheres, the second towards this world. According to Bonaventura, Plato teaches heavenly wisdom, while the latter science. Et ideo videtur, quod inter philosophos datus sit Platoni sermo sapientiae, Aristotele vero sermo scientiae. Ille enim principaliter aspiciebat ad superiora, hic vero principaliter ad inferiora. 2

A similar view was expressed by Richard of Bury, to whom Aristotle was the surveyor of all arts and sciences; to Aristotle «belongs all that is most excellent in doctrine, so far as relates to this passing world». 3 Raphael expressed exactly the same view in his School of Athens, where we see Plato with his finger pointed heavenwards, while Aristotle stretches his hand out towards the things of our material world; an iconography that seems to date back to the Late Antique period and the epistles of Sidonius (Fig. 6). Referring to a series of paintings on the Athenian Areopagus representing the Greek philosophers Sidonius describes them all with the attributes by means of which they are recognized: Zenon with knitted brow, Socrates with trailing hair, Heraclitus weeping, Democritus laughing, Euclid with fingers extended, and Aristotle with out-thrust arm. 4 1 Jacques Verger, Jean Jolivet, Bernardo e Abelardo. Il chiostro e la scuola, Milan: Jaca, 1989, p. 88. 2 St. Bonaventura, Sermo 4, 18, Ed. Claras Aquas, v, 572. Cf. also Harry B. Gutman, Zur Ikonologie der Fresken Raffaels in der Stanza della Segnatura, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 21 (1958), p. 35, and Konrad Oberhuber, Polarität und Synthese in Raphaels «Schule von Athen», Stuttgart: Urachhaus, 1983, p. 55. 3 Richard of Bury’s Philobiblion was first printed in Cologne in 1473. The standard Latin text with an English translation was established by Ernest C. Thomas in 1888 and reprinted in the «Past and Present Library» in 1905. 4 Sidonius, Epistle to Faustus in Poems and Letters, London and Cambridge, Mass.: Heinemann, 1956, Vol. ii: 542-544.

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It was, of course, the same division between Plato and Aristotle, higher and lower, that inspired Pico when, in the prologue to On the Dignity of Man, he described man as placed between higher and inferior regions of the world. In this book, man is defined as an «intermediary between creatures; ... by the acuteness of his senses, by the inquiry of his reason and by the light of his intelligence [he is] the interpreter of nature; set midway between fixed eternity and fleeting time ....». 1 «I have placed you at the world’s center so that you may thence more easily look around at whatever is in the world ... It will be in your power to degenerate into the lower forms of life, which are brutish; you shall have the power, according to your soul’s judgement, to be reborn into the higher orders, which are divine». 2 Among scholars Pico’s positioning of man at the centre of the world has traditionally been interpreted as a symbol of growing humanist spirit in the Early Renaissance. It was thus that the initial passages of On the Dignity of Man were interpreted by Jacob Burckhardt in his groundbreaking work from 1860, Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. Pico’s description of man as a free being, placed by the Lord in the midst of the world, was for Burckhardt the first profound expression of a new understanding of man and mankind. 3 His ideas were later followed up by Ernst Cassirer who, with a reference precisely to Burckhardt, repeats the view of Pico’s Oratio as the noblest of that great age. Cassirer regarded free man’s two alternatives-to degenerate towards the animals or to rise towards the angelsas opposed poles in a system where the implicit contradiction creates the moral and intellectual tension which is typical for the Renaissance spirit. 4 Cassirer adds that even if Renaissance philosophy posits a 1 The Latin text reads: «... [E]sse hominem creaturum internuntium, superis familiarem, regem inferiorum; sensuum perspicacia, rationis indagine, intelligentia lumine, naturae interpretem; stabilis evi et fluxi temporis interstitium, ..».. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Discorso sulla dignità dell’uomo (De hominis dignitate), Latin-Italian edition ed. Giuseppe Tognon, Brescia: La Scuola, 1987: 2. See also Augustine, Civitate Dei, v: 11. 2 De hominis dignitate, loc. cit. 3 Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, London: Penguin, 1990, p. 229. 4 «... s’y opposent clairement dont la contradiction produit la tension morale et intellectuelle qui est caracteristique de l’esprit de la Renaissance ...». Ernst Cassirer, Individu et cosmos, Paris: De Minuit, 1983, p. 113 (originally in German: Individuum und Kosmos in der Philosophie der Renaissance (= Studien der Bibliothek Warburg, 10), Leipzig : Teubner, 1927).

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rigorous dualism between man and the world, this is not an absolute dichotomy like that of scholasticism. 1 I find it hard to agree with Cassirer in his description of the difference between early humanism and Medieval scholasticism. The dualism between opposites in scholasticism is not antinomic, since complementary values at some point in the future will come together; the two laws of the world-the law of nature and the law of science or reason-will eventually constitute a higher unity of ecstatical insight through the grace of God. Remembering that these three concepts correspond to three periods of historical time, it is obvious that the synthesis to scholastic theologians only could be possible by the coming of Christ. One could, of course, imagine that the Renaissance humanist, reasoning like a pagan philosopher rather than as a Christian, considered the dialectics as a personal intellectual process and absolute truth as obtainable in this life.2 Personally, however, I find it unlikely that they felt such degree of freedom with respect to religious doctrine. In any case, Pico’s scheme with reasoning man in the middle between dead matter and pure spirit corresponds perfectly to Bonaventura’s threefold mental process. No doubt, there was a structural relationship between Medieval scholasticism and Renaissance humanism, as is evident from Pico’s characterization of man by «the acuteness of his senses, by the inquiry of his reason and by the light of his intelligence», which had been anticipated by Bonaventura in the thirteenth century. Following a threefold progress, the latter says, our mind has three principal aspects. One refers to the external body (coporalia exteriora), wherefore it is called animality or sensuality; the second looks inward and into itself, wherefore it is called spirit (spiritus); the third looks above itself, wherefore it is called mind (mens). 3 1 «La dualité de l’homme et du monde, de l’»esprit» et de la «nature», est rigoureusement maintenue, sans être toutfois poussée jusqu’à un dualisme absolu dans le style de la scolastique médiévale. Cette polarité est une opposition relative, non absolue ...», Cassirer, Individu et cosmos, p. 114. 2 For the common interpretation of the scene as an allegory of philosophy illustrating the traditional theme of «ascension to wisdom», cf. Carl Gustaf Stridbeck, Raphael Studies, i, «A Puzzling Passage in Vasari’s Vite», Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1960, p. 9, and Anton Springer, Raffael und Michelangelo, Bd. i, Lepzig: Köner, 1895. See also the article of Unn Irene Aasdalen, On the Dignity of Philosophers: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s Oration on the Dignity of Man, in Innovation and Tradition. Essays on Renaissance Art and Culture = Collana di Studi sul Rinascimento / Studies in Renaissance Art and Culture no. i, Rome: Edizioni Kappa, p. 26-33. 3 The Mind’s Road to God, i, 4, p. 8.

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A second parallell is the topic of ascension and degeneration, which is found in the text of Bonaventura, too. In the author’s own prologue to the Itinerarium he addresses the one who «previously resisted the pricks of conscience», to raise his «eyes to the rays of wisdom ... lest by chance [he] fall into the lower pit of shadows from the contemplation of those rays». Interestingly, the «raising of the eyes»-metaphor was associated with the two testaments. In his Itinerarium Bonaventura says that «after a consideration of the essential traits [of God] the eye of the intelligence must be raised to look upon the most Blessed Trinity, in order that the second Cherub may be placed next to the first». 1 As we have seen, the Cherubim on the Propitiatory were interpreted as one of the old prophecies of a second testament to come. Thus, Bonaventura and Pico seem to speak of the same threefold process from law of nature through scripture to grace, which corresponds to a historical process through the two testaments ending with the grace of God. Our intellectual process is modelled after the same scheme, beginning with our senses, continuing through the reason of science, and ending with spiritual truth which is arrived upon only through divine revelation. It may seem strange that Plato, being identified with matter, is placed on the lowest step in the ascension process towards wisdom, but, as Pico testifies, «prime matter, that crude and formless matter which is found in all things, ought to be included under the category of the one, and therefore they would exclude it from the category of being». 2 We have thus returned to the beginning of Pico’s On Being and the One: Plato represents the principle of ‘the One’ or unity, wheras Aristotle represents the second step; hence the epithet given to him by Richard of Bury, «the sun of science». 3 It should come as no surprise that references to the Plato-Aristotle opposition occurs in the texts of Bonaventura; indeed this theme seems to have inspired differences at the very core of scholasticism’s intellectual debate: those between «realists» and «nominalists» on the existence of universals. The contrast between the two schools-those who, retaining that universals have a real existance, taught dialectics in re, and those, on the other hand, who retained that universals only 1 The Mind’s Road to God, vi, 1, p. 39. 2 G. Pico della Mirandola, On Being and the One, i. 3 See above, note p. 94, note 2.

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Fig. 7. Raphael, School of Athens (detail).

are words-seems to derive from the reading of Porphyrius’ Isagoge. 1 The teachers and masters of dialectics at Paris were supposed to make comments on the question of universals in connection with the reading of the Isagoge, which was used as an introduction to the dialectics 1 Bernardo e Abelardo, p. 41-43.

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of Aristotle. At the very beginning of his treatise Porphyrius makes a brief reference to a question of great complexity which, he adds, will not be discussed at length since it requires a more profound study. The reference is precisely to the opposition between the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, and its many commentaries, starting out with the critique of the selfsame Plato by his famous pupil. Having mentioned this central and unresolved problem, he immediately proceeds with the question of genus and species. 1 Even though, to a modern point of view, the association between the teaching of the two greatest philosophers and the central ideas of scholasticism may appear quite confusing, the period’s reading of Porphyrius demonstrates how the ancient opposition between platonism and aristotelism was secured a life in the scholastic era, too. Obviously, the reception of classical philosophy in the Middle Ages was coloured by the spirit of the period. Thus, the teaching of the two Greek philosophers, just like that of the apostles Peter and Paul, represented, so to say, two testaments of ancient wisdom (what I have in mind is the opposite tasks of the apostles as missionaries to the Hebrew and the Greek-speaking, the languages of the two testaments). The parallelism between Plato and Aristotle, on one hand, and Peter and Paul, on the other, was a well-known theme in the humanist circles of the Papal courts at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The debate is reflected in the writings of the Cardinal of Corneto, Adriano Castellesis. The Cardinal, who ended his career being degraded from the cardinalate and his Bishopric of Bath after a charge of conspiring with Cardinal Petrucci to poison the Pope, was the author of poems in elegant Latinity such as Venatio and the treatises De Sermone Latino et modo Latine loquendi, and De Vera Philosophia ex Quattor Doctoribus Ecclesiae. 2 Although disfavoured by Julius II, the humanist Castellesis, close to Alexander VI and Leo X, must have had a great influence on the intellectual life of the Papal court during the first two decades of the sixteenth century. The purpose of Castellesis’ De Vera Philosophia, published in Bologna in 1507, was to argue that the sacred fount of philosophy not flows from the garden of the epicureans, from the halls 1 Bernardo e Abelardo, p. 84. 2 On the life of Adriano Castellesis (Adrian of Castello), cf. Polydore Vergil, The Anglica Historia, ed. and transl. by Denys Hay, London: The Royal Historical Society, 1950.

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of the stoics or from the Platonic Academy. Our guides are not Plato or Aristotle, nor Peter or Paul, but Christ alone. 1 By the analogy thus proposed between the apostle princes and the two greatest philosophers, Castellesis seems to confirm our perception of Plato and Aristotle as «twin missionaries». But how can the apparently divergent messages of two testaments be synthesized into one Gospel? In my opinion Pico, like his scholastic predecessors, imagined a unification on a level unattainable by human reason alone. Only by divine revelation can we understand how apparently contradictory propositions will be resolved. Being beyond and above scientific reason, wisdom of the third level was even conceived as a kind of foolishness. Salvation, in fact, requires that one believes what appears as folly, for, according to Augustine, «the world by wisdom knew not God», so it pleased him «by the foolishness of preaching», rather than by philosophical teaching, to save those who believe. 2 Consequently, only a man of the church, not of the philosophical schools, could be assigned the task of synthesizing reason with faith. It is this view that is demonstrated by Traini’s painting where Thomas Aquinas, a man of faith and a representative of the church, is set above the philosophers (Fig. 2). Here, we see the evangelists, the apostle Paul, Moses with the two tables of the Law, Plato and Aristotle, all with open books facing Thomas at the centre. On his lap one book is standing, apparently victorious over all the others. One book triumphs over the rest by containing synthesized all knowledge and insight that previous books could foretell but not fully explain. This is precisely what was anticipated more than a thousand years earlier when, describing his studies in philosophy, Justin Martyr claimed that many have failed to discover the nature of philosophy, and the reason why it was sent down to men; otherwise, there would not be Platonists, nor Stoics, or Peripatetics, or Theoretics, or Pythagoreans, since this science of philosophy is always one and the same.3 1 Hadrani Cardinalis Chrysogoni (Adriano Castellesis), De vera philosophia ex quattor Ecclesiae doctoribus. Libri Quatuor, a cura et studio Benedicti Passionei, Rome, 1775. «Die Quelle des Heils entspringt nicht in den Gärten der Epikuräer, nicht in den Hallen der Stoiker, nicht in der Akademie Platons, sondern in Christus allein. ‘Nicht Platon und Aristoteles, nur Petrus und Paulus dürfen unsere führer sein’». Anton Springer, Raffael und Michelangelo, Bd. i, Lepzig: Köner, 1895, p. 242. 2 Augustine, Civitate Dei, Book x, ch 28, p. 381. 3 Justin, Dialogue with Trypho in The First Apology, cit., p. 149.

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Justin’s statement strongly recalls the one from the Letter to the Galatians cited above, that there will be «no such thing as Jew and Greek, slave and freeman, male and female», 1 for all will be one by the grace of Christ, but, above all, it is an expression of his belief that discord is a falsity. Speaking about the possible concord between Plato and Aristotle in his Exhortation to the Greeks he claims that their teachings should be submitted to a close examination in order to determine whether they openly contradict each other. «If we discover that they do not agree with each other, we should easily conclude that they are also ignorant». 2 Even Justin, stating that what is true in Plato and Aristotle comes from Moses and the Prophets, would confirm the validity of some of the philosophers’ theses. What Traini’s panel as well as the School of Athens express, is, I believe, the idea that the teaching of the philosophers to a certain extent contains divine truth which, however, only will be fully understood and revealed through Christ. Since, moreover, divine truth always is ‘one’, the intellectual process that leads from philosophy to sacred, ecstatical insight, is visualized as a dialectical development from two to one. Whereas the writings of Justin and other early authors in a very general way demonstrate the interest early Christian theologians took in the relationship between Scriptures and the teaching of the ancient philosophers, it is above all thoughts of Bonaventura, Abelard, Thomas Aquinas and others that reveal Pico’s intellectual debts, deeply rooted in the philosophical schools of Medieval scholasticism. According to representatives of scholasticism like Abelard and St. Thomas, the differences between Plato and Aristotle were only apparent, and could be reconciled on a higher level of understanding. And just as Pico’s ideas of a philosophical concord to a great extent were inherited from scholastic theology, Raphael’s School of Athens, in my view, recalls visions like that of Traini where man is placed at the centre not to be defined as a cartesian cogito, centre of perceptions and knowledge, but, rather, as a conjunction of opposites, flesh and spirit, terrestrial and celestial, pagan and Christian. 1 Galatians, 3:28. 2 Justin, Exhoration to the Greeks in The First Apology, cit., p. 379-380.

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THE LEGACY OF LEONARDO DA VINC I’S LEDA IN C INQUECENTO ART Anna Lange Malmanger i.

T

he literature on Leonardo da Vinci is enormous and even though, as Martin Kemp reminds us, most of it is useless, the problems regarding his art and working methods have been thoroughly and competently discussed.1 When I propose to look again at some features of his art it has to do with my own research project, concerning the victory groups made in Florence around mid-century. Michelangelo’s famous group is, of course - together with some other works of his from the 1520s - the main source for these sculptures. But as my work proceeded I felt it necessary to attach considerable importance to Leonardo’s role in the stylistic development leading up to these groups. Even though Leonardo may have considered the beautiful style an ultimate goal of his creative work, what we may in a narrower sense call the aesthetic approach to art has been connected more specifically with Michelangelo’s complex renderings of the human body. Leonardo’s scientific conviction and never tiring observations of the immense variety of nature have frequently led to naturalist interpretations of his attitude to design, proportion and chiaroscuro. Belonging to an earlier generation and more closely linked to the tradition of the Quattrocento, Leonardo felt the necessity of establishing rules in art and, especially in the earlier part of his career, rather emphasised the mathematical basis of the visual arts. But as he went along with the experiments and reflections manifest in his numerous drawings and notes, he came to realise that the visual arts had properties beyond the rules and the scientific dimension. By some scholars this has been understood as an expression of pessimism coming into force in the later years of the aging artist’s life, while others have argued that this was the inevitable conclusion of his search for an ideal art. 1 M. Kemp, Leonardo da Vinci, London 1981, 18.

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Vasari was quite clear on this point. In his biography of the great artist, he saw in this refined grace Leonardo’s godgiven mastery and creative capacity. And further, understanding Leonardo as the most influential source of grazia for later painters, with Raphael as his most direct follower, stressed the importance of this quality for the perfection in art. As is well known, Leonardo studied human anatomy and movements with the purpose of capturing inner states and emotions. The theory that external movements reflect the feelings of the mind, was already stated in Alberti’s treatise on painting. But to Leonardo it was especially significant, leading him to develop his artistic production around this conviction. His preoccupation with movement proved decisive to the following decades. Lifelikeness and grace could best be depicted with a serpentine movement and an asymmetric figure composition. We see an early example of this in Leonardo’s portrait of Cecilia Gallerani, where he gives the torso, neck and head a slight, continuous twist to the right. By introducing this formal invention, he succeded in making the sitter less rigid and more animated. Searching for a somewhat more precise appreciation of Leonardo’s contribution I have chosen to concentrate on his composition Leda with the Swan. The importance of contrapposto in Renaissance painting and sculpture relied on the authority not of antique sculpture only, but on classical rhetoric as well. The equivalent of this statuary pose in rhetoric was the antithesis, a formal means recommended by Quintillian to give variety to a text. He actually used the example of sculpture making the point that deviation from the straight line, a twist or a flexus in the body, would create liveliness and grace, just as deviating from everyday usage in speech gives interest and variety. Such loosening of the rigidity of a scheme was eagerly discussed in Renaissance treatises on art, where contrapposto was generally understood as a way of expressing movement. Its significance for the visual arts had been stressed by Alberti, who did advise painters to adopt this means. According to him, as well as to later statements by Leonardo, Michelangelo and Lomazzo, pleasing movement was defined as the relation of opposites. Alberti gave the formula a fairly open definition, though, so as to refer not only to the pose of a figure but also to differences in age, physiognomi, gesture and dress. Writing in the early Renaissance, Alberti was careful to warn artists against exaggerated use of the contrapposto. Foreshortenings, torsions and movements must conform to the requirements of decorum,

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thus making sure that all parts of the body were correctly represented. During the first part of the 16th century, the understanding of contrapposto changed as naturalist demands lost some of their force and artists developed a new interest in accentuated and refined poses. The Leda and the Swan was made in the beginning of the sixteenth century, its first ideas being conceived around the time of Leonardo’s preparations for the Battle of Anghiari, the monumental fresco commissioned by the Signoria. Both works reveal the artist’s interests in movement and contrapposto: whereas the Leda is characterised by an elegant, sinuous pose and sweet expression the last conveys dramatic motion and forceful action. Leonardo’s experiments with contrapposto were intensified in these years, although he had much earlier adopted an energetic and tense contrapposto in the drawing of St. Sebastian. 1 This drawing shows convincingly that Leonardo was exploring ideas about spiralling movement several years before Michelangelo began to develop the vocabulary of poses which led to the mid 16th century theory of the figura serpentinata. ii. The painting of Leda and the Swan is lost, but its composition is known to us through Leonardo’s drawings of Leda’s face and elaborate hairdressing, his studies of plants and flowers, Raphael’s drawing after a standing Leda, as well as drawn and painted copies by the master’s pupils and followers. From this material we get a fairly clear idea of how the original painting must have looked: a standing Leda embracing a huge swan on the right hand side and on the ground to the left, probably two broken eggs with four babies crawling and twisting. All copies indicate that the figures were placed in a luxuriant landscape with an abundance of plants and flowers. The rich treatment of the landscape was pointed out by Cassiano del Pozzo, who saw the painting in 1625 at Fontainebleau. 2 At that time it was already badly damaged due to its being hung on a wall in the royal bathroom. After that, it appears 1 Hamburg, Kunsthalle, inv. n. 21494. 2 He described it as «a standing figure of Leda almost entirely naked, with the swan at her feet and two eggs, from whose broken shells come forth four babies. This piece, though somewhat dry in style, is exquisitely finished, especially in the woman’s breast; and for the rest the landscape and the plant life are rendered with the greatest diligence. Unfortunately, the picture is in a bad way because it is done on three long panels which have split apart and broken off a certain amount of paint». (Cited by K. Clark, Leonardo da Vinci, London 1993, 181.)

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in the inventories of 1692 and 1694, but when Carlo Goldoni visited France in 1775 he could find no trace of it. 1 Probably it was by then so ruined that the subject was not discernible and its distinguished origin forgotten. This mysterious painting was not mentioned by Vasari in his biography on Leonardo. The picture, however, was recorded by Lomazzo in his treatise Idea del tempio della Pittura (1590) as an example of perfection. He also dedicated a sonnet to the Leda in his Grotteschi (1587), where he gives a description of the painting. 2 We do not know who commissioned the Leda from Leonardo, or whether it was commissioned at all. It has been suggested that it was planned for Antonio Segni, for whom Leonardo made a design of Neptune in 1504, this too a work treating a mythological theme concerned with movement. 3 As in the case of the Leda, the final drawing or cartoon of the Neptune is lost, but one of the two preparatory studies existing shows the god in his chariot drawn by sea-horses. 4 Both the Leda and the Neptune are distinguished from all Leonardo’s other works by virtue of their classical subject matter. In this period his art reveals an interest in antiquity. Scholars generally agree that this must be due to a short journey to Rome probably undertaken in 1501, where he must have studied antique statues. It is a fact that almost all works executed by Leonardo after his return to Florence in 1503 derive from Greaco-Roman sarcophagi situated on the steps of the Ara Coeli. 5 If Leonardo made the Leda on his own initiative, the purpose might have been to explore new formal possibilities, but also to establish an ideal female figure as a counterpart both to his own representations of the battle of Anghiari and to Michelangelo’s recently finished David. Moreover, the subject offered Leonardo an opportunity of rivalling the ancients in the depiction of female beauty and formal perfection. The first ideas for a Leda must have been conceived around 15031504 since they appear on a preparatory sheet for the Anghiari rep1 Ibid. 2 C. Pedretti, A Sonnet by Giovan Paolo Lomazzo on the Leda of Leonardo, in Leonardo’s Projects, c. 1500-1519, C. Farago (ed.), New York 1999, 128. 3 It was Vasari who claimed that Leonardo made his Neptune for Antonio Segni, who already was in possession of a mythological work by Botticelli. This patron’s preference for classical subjects, could favour the hypothesis that he also wanted a Leda composition by Leonardo’s hand. 4 Windsor Castle, Royal Library, rl 12570. 5 K. Clark, Leonardo and the Antique, in Leonardo’s projects, c. 1500-1519, C. Farago (ed.), New York 1999, 144.

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resenting a rearing horse (Fig. 1). On the lower part of the sheet are two small representations of a kneeling female figure in contrapposto. Leonardo’s first thoughts were for a Leda with her children, at this stage apparently without the swan. He experimented with a kneeling Leda in a twisting pose of great complexity, a conception which was to be further developed in the two drawings at Chatsworth and Rotterdam. The pose may have been inspired by antique Venus representations, in particular the Venus Anadyomene which he could have seen in the Massimi collection in Rome. The small drawings are both enclosed in a rapidly indicated frame, a procedure often employed by the artist to understand better how the complex plasticity of a figure can be related to the compressed void between figure and frame. In the Chatsworth and Rotterdam (Fig. 2) drawings the swan has already been introduced and babies are crawling out from broken eggshells. The artist has stressed a sense of increasing compression, inherent in the twisting compactness of form. We do not know whether he developed this scheme into a cartoon or painting, but probably not. Leonardo must have realised that the kneeling figure would have lost its force and clarity on a monumental scale.

Fig. 1. Leonardo da Vinci, Studies for a kneeling Leda. Rearing horse, Windsor, Royal Library, rl 12337r. 2.

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Fig. 2. Leonardo da Vinci, Study for a kneeling Leda, Rotterdam, Boymans-van Beuningen.

Thus, the next step in the creative process of Leda was to replace the kneeling woman with a standing one in intimate relationship with the swan. Except from some small studies of a standing female figure by Leonardo’s hand, 1 the standing version is today known only through copies. This design has no obvious particular model, but a number of 1 Windsor Castle, Royal Library, rl 12642r; Milano, Codice Atlantico, f. 423r; Torino, Biblioteca Reale, inv. n. 15577; Paris, Institut de France, Ms. b, f. d.

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classical sarcophagi have frontally placed female figures with the right arm stretched across their body. 1 Other examples with a crossing arm known by Leonardo could be the antique statue of Eros in the Capitoline,2 the Judith by Mantegna in Washington and Filippino’s Allegory of Musique in Berlin. A carefully worked out drawing of the final design was completed in 1508 at the latest, for it was copied by Raphael before he left Florence for Rome that year. The style of Leonardo’s drawings of Leda’s head, points to a date around 1505-7 when Leonardo’s use of curvilinear modelling was fully developed. 3 The many painted copies were mainly executed by milanese artists, which implies that Leonardo brought the cartoon or a large drawing of the Leda with him from Florence to Milan where he probably finished it. Several painted copies of the composition agree generally in the forms of the Leda and the swan but differ greatly in the backgrounds. This suggests that some of the copies were made from a cartoon in which the background was barely indicated, rather than from the finished panel. Among the painted copies, the version by Leonardo’s pupil Cesare da Sesto at Wilton (Fig. 3) and the one in the Spiridon Collection are considered the best, and must derive directly from Leonardo’s original painting. In these two paintings the pose of the Leda, the swan and the four babies are the same, only the landscape background and the exuberant plant life in the foreground are different. These copies show a standing female figure occupying the central part of the picture. 4 The formal organization of the Leda was later defined by Lomazzo as figura serpentinata, 5 and its flamelike form was 1 K. Clark, Leonardo and the antique, in Leonardo’s Projects, c. 1500-1519, C. Farago (ed.), New York 1999, 152. 2 P. Bober, R. Rubinstein, Renaissance artists & antique sculpture: a handbook of sources, Oxford 1986. 3 M. Clayton, Leonardo da Vinci – A curious vision, London 1996, 76. 4 The painting of the standing Leda was the most highly valued item in an inventory of the estate of Leonardo’s assistent Salaì after the latter’s death in 1524. This painting is probably the original picture of the Standing Leda. Together with other assistents, Salaì had accompanied the master to Rome, and three years later travelled on to France as member of his household. After Leonardo’s death in 1519, he settled in Milan. It is likely that the artist gave some paintings to Salaì before his death. Presumably the paintings left in Salaì’s estate were sold by his heirs and some of them could have been bought by agents of Francis I when he was assembling his collection at Fontainebleau. [J. Shell, G. Sironi, Salaì and Leonardo’s legacy, in 397-410, Leonardo’s Projects, c. 1500-1519, C. Farago (ed.), New York 1999, 397-399]. 5 G. P. Lomazzo, Trattato della Pittura, Scultura ed Architettura, vol. i, Roma 1844, 33-35.

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Fig. 3. Cesare da Sesto (after Leonardo), Standing Leda, Wilton House, Pembroke Collection.

considered the acme of refined complexity. If we compare the stance of the Leda with Filippino Lippi’s Allegory of musique painted in 1503 (Fig. 4), we see to what extent Leonardo had changed the linear contrapposto of Lippi’s Muse into a three-parted rhythm of the figure understood in terms of plasticity and space. Though he must have admired a figure pose like Filippino’s, Leonardo critizised the abundance of distracting

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Fig. 4. Filippino Lippi, Allegory of Musique, Berlin, Staatliche Museen.

ornament so dear to the later Quattrocento. Thus, during 1503-4 he wrote the following words: « Never make in istorie such ornaments in your figures and other bodies as obscure the form and attitudes of such figures and the basic shapes of the other bodies ». 1 The same attitude is 1 M. Kemp, A. Smart, Leonardo’s Leda and the Belvedere River-Gods - Roman sources and a new Chronology, in Leonardo’s Projects, c. 1500-1519, C. Farago (ed.), New York 1999, 174.

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clearly expressed in the Standing Leda, revealing Leonardo’s dominant concern with the essential form and attitude of a figure. The sensual union between Leda and the swan is emphasised by their interwoven limbs and the undulating movements which dominate the spiralling figure composition, Leda’s flowing hair and the swan’s gracious neck. These twisting forms mark the whole composition and relate Leda not only to the swan and the babies, but also to the surrounding vegetation bursting with life. Both the drawing of a Star of Bethlehem 1 among swirling blades of grass and his studies of the elegantly arranged hair of Leda, 2 reflect Leonardo’s enthusiasm for rhythmic movement and for the creative processes of nature. 3 This, together with an over-all erotic quality, connects the composition to the mystery of fertility and creativity, manifest in the artist’s inclusion of the new-born babies and in Leda gazing towards them. In this sense, the picture becomes a good example of how the artist blends his interest in formal novelties with a scientific approach to nature. The ambivalence of Leda’s mind drawn between her babies and her lover is convincingly expressed through the figura serpentinata. This graceful three-parted pose shows how Leda’s attention is divided between passion and maternal instinct. The abstract spiral then becomes an instrument of expression, conveying through the pure, continuous movement Leda’s inner state of mind. 4 To Leonardo the spiral form was not only an artificial means but also a visualization of the organic growth and movement in nature. Thus, the Leda reveals a perfect synthesis of nature and art, and of expression and grace. Nevertheless, the novelty of certain features is clearly pointing towards the ideal of the bella maniera. Leda’s pose derives from classical contrapposto, but has been developed into an artificial formula which bears less resemblance to the movements 1 Windsor, Royal Library, rl 12424. 2 Windsor, Royal Library, rl 12518. The hairdress has been studied from both the front and the back, and as Kenneth Clark has noted, this beautiful composition was not of real hair but intended to be a wig. On one of his drawings of Leda’s coiffure Leonardo has written that «this can be taken off and put on again without damaging it». (Sited in K. Clark, Leonardo da Vinci, London 1993, 183.) 3 This is evident when we observe some anatomical studies that deal with the problem of generation, made at the time of the Leda (K. Clark, 186). 4 S. Fermor, The moving figure in Leonardo’s art, 63-77, in Nine lectures on Leonardo da Vinci, (ed.) F. Ames-Lewis, Sussex 1990, 67.

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of organic life. Movement and grace as closely related proved a quality decisive for the development of 16th century art. Vasari saw these achievements as the main contribution to his third age, linking grace to the movement of the human body. As is well known, the evolutionary scheme of Vasari was defined largely in terms of the artists’ increasing ability to depict the natural world, particularly the human figure in motion. In the third age it was finally brought to its perfection. Vasari maintained that Leonardo had introduced a new period in which the mere technical mastery of movement and expression was transformed by grace and elegance. This achievement is clearly visible in the Leda, where the artist has enhanced natural movement with ideal grace. Both Raphael and Michelangelo were to elaborate the new stylistic ideas conceived by Leonardo, making a conclusive step towards the bella maniera. In particular, Michelangelo was to develop the serpentine form in his sculptures of the 1520s and early 1530s, accentuating its three-dimensional possibilities. His efforts reflect both versions of the Leda. As we have seen, working on his Leda theme Leonardo experimented with two distinct compositional solutions, respectively based on a standing and a kneeling female figure. In their way, these types are equally interesting, but quite different in character. One is mainly conceived in the plane, the other in three-dimensional space. The standing figure develops its expressive and compositional possibilities on the flat surface, the kneeling figure suggests movement in space and demands actual volume for its potentialities to be fully realised. Being above all a painter and being engaged in a pictorial project, Leonardo finally chose to go on with the standing figure. Although in the last resort he did not develop the kneeling Leda into a finished work, he had in the process created new visual possibilities of a dynamic and strongly three-dimensional character. His theoretical and artistic contributions were well known among artists of the time, and drawings and copies circulated widely in the workshops after the master’s death. For the above reasons the kneeling Leda must have appealed especially to sculptors, and in fact it was the sculptors of the mid-century who were challenged by the novelties inherent in these sketches, above all Michelangelo and Giambologna. As I see it, they took over the innovations expressed in both the kneeling and the standing version, unifying them in their intriguing groups. Working in three dimensions they could develop Leonardo’s intentions without necessarily resorting to kneeling fig-

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anna lange malmanger ures. Their standing figures, as well, are stamped by the three-dimensional dynamism of the kneeling Leda. Still, it is worth noticing that kneeling or croaching figures are indeed essential elements in practically all the Victory groups of the time.

iii. The large drawing or cartoon of the standing Leda executed towards the end of Leonardo’s second Florentine period, was received with much attention. This is apparent in the quick assimilation by Raphael of Leonardo’s formal novelties. While still in Florence, Raphael made a pen drawing after Leonardo’s standing Leda (Fig. 5). Whereas the female Fig. 5. Raphael, Study of Leonardo’s Leda, nude is drawn carefully, the Windsor, Royal Library, rl 12759. swan is sketched more hastily as is the child in the left corner indicating the position of the babies. This may be accounted for by the fact that he copied after a cartoon or finished drawing where Leonardo had not yet elaborated all particulars nor the background, but had, as is natural, concentrated on the most important feature in the composition. The rhythmic movement of the pose is faithfully rendered, but we notice also that the physiognomy is typically Raphaelesque. Compared to the copy painted by Cesare da Sesto, the study by Raphael shows a more pronounced twist of the body leaving the woman’s left breast in profile and the left leg more flexed with a protruding knee. This accentuated contrapposto is also to be found in some of Leonardo’s earliest preparatory sketches and in a painted copy in the

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Borghese Gallery, which Pedretti tentatively attributes to Bugiardini. 1 Therefore, we can conclude that initially Leonardo planned an attitude dominated by strongly contrasting parts, suggesting a more advanced solution than the one found in the copy by Cesare da Sesto. Consequently there are two possible explanations of what happened to the Leda figure. One is that Leonardo found it too restless for a finished painting and eventually moderated the pose in accordance with certain rules of decorum, the other that he retained the accentuated contrapposto as conducive to graceful movement. Accepting this hypothesis, Cesare da Sesto’s version must be due to the copyist’s allowing himself certain deviations in the pose of the figure no less than in the landscape. He may have found his master’s contrapposto too violent for his own taste. That Leonardo would have maintained his original conception in the final result, is reasonable enough. A comparable interest in strong movement is evident in the studies for the Battle of Anghiari, presenting a great variety of agitated motions and complex attitudes. Admittedly Leonardo warned painters to avoid excess in movement, stating in his notebooks that they are desirable only in battle pieces. The Leda is, of course, not in such tense and forceful movement. Rather, however, its contrasting curves and twisting form reflect a new understanding of the aesthetic effects of movement. iv. In evaluating Raphael’s later style, the influence of classical art is of course important, and as we know his school was soon distinguished by archaelogical erudition. 2 Like other artists of the period, he admired antiquity and was particularly interested in recently discovered works revealing powerful movement and elegant pose. The Leda by Leonardo conveyed a similar kind of formal refinement. That the figure composition made a lasting impression on Raphael, is apparent in his Galatea, painted about 1511 in villa Farnesina for the banker Agostino Chigi. In this fresco the pose of the central figure, the nymph Galatea, bears evident resemblance to the Leda. The powerful anatomy, however, owes something to Michelangelo’s violent male nudes recently 1 C. Pedretti, Leonardo da Vinci: A Study in Chronology and Style, London 1973. 2 Raphael’s great knowledge of classical works made him a papal inspector of antiquities to Pope Leo X.

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executed in the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Galatea is coming rapidly towards us, accompanied by an agitated crowd and boisterous trumpet musique, standing on a shell carried on the sea by two dolphins. Her nude body is partly covered by a fluttering, red mantle, giving her emphatic contrapposto an even more expressive quality. Raphael has made the pose of Galatea more open and dynamic with a greater twist in the torso, the knee protruding more dramatically towards the picture plane and the outstretched arms breaking the silhouette. The complex stance is brilliantly integrated in a composition full of continuous movement, going a step further in depicting motion and variety in the human body. His fascination with the formal possibilities of the nude is seen in other works realised in this period, revealing a deliberate play with accentuated poses. Another instance of the impact of Leonardo’s Leda, is a figure shown in sharp contrapposto in the foreground to the left in Raphael’s School of Athen. Apart from playing an important role in the development of Raphael’s art, 1 Leonardo influenced Raphael’s followers through shaping a new conception of formal beauty. Next to the formal novelties of the Leda, his chiaroscuro proved crucial to the style and dark manner of the late Raphael and his school. His late style focuses to a great extent on the creation of refined beauty, powerful motion and elegant gestures expressed mainly through a more pronounced chiaroscuro and highly developed contrapposto. Thus Leonardo’s art, through Raphael, lay an important foundation for the new artistic tendency spreading in Central-Italy. 2 v. One must be careful in determining Michelangelo’s debt to Leonardo. Although he was much younger, he soon established his distinct artistic idiom and his lasting preference for expressive male nudes. As a consequence of this interest, and of his studies in anatomy, he started 1 An interesting intermediary between the two masters is Cesare da Sesto. He was one of Leonardo’s students in Milan, and became later a collaborator of Raphael in Rome. Through his profound knowledge of Leonardo’s art, he must have contributed considerably in spreading his ideas in the Roman milieu. 2 For a more extensive account of Leonardo’s influence on Raphael and his followers, see K. Weil-Garris Posner, Leonardo and Central Italian art 1515-1550, New York 1974.

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at an early date to explore the formal possibilities of the contrapposto. The Sistine ceiling displays these efforts. But before this grand Roman commission, Michelangelo had worked in Florence and there received an important impetus from Leonardo’s studies of figure groups. When Leonardo returned to Florence in 1500, he had been away for almost eighteen years. He soon caused sensation with his drawings and cartoons for various Madonna groups. These forebodings of a new art could hardly fail to influence Michelangelo, who worked more or less simultaneously on several Madonna groups. In addition, Leonardo’s Anghiari fresco must have inspired Michelangelo to continue his experimenting with powerful movement and contorted human figures, as he did in his cartoon for the Battle of Cascina. A sketch for the Trivulzio monument is particularly significant in this connection and indicates that the two artists were grappling with similar problems (Fig. 6). Although different, both in attitude and approach, they shared some of the same concerns regarding pose and motion. Leonardo’s intense study of human bodies in movement plays an important role in the preparative drawings for the monument, as planned in Milan around 1508-12, resulting above all in the twisting captives at the corners of the base. Here Leonardo returns to the contorted pose of the early drawing of St. Sebastian, only transposing his formulas to threedimensional space. No wonder that this visual conception has been compared to Michelangelo’s first pair of Slaves made some years later. Michelangelo’s preoccupation with the movement of human bodies was reflected in the project for twelve apostles commissioned from the Opera del Duomo in April 1503. The task was difficult since he had to make twelve standing male figures without rendering them too similar and monotonous. His only option was to make variations on the contrapposto theme, giving them diversity through the movements of the body. The unfinished St. Matthew, the only one that got beyond the preparatory stages, conveys a strong contrapposto with a dynamically protruding leg, but with the torso kept comparatively flat. Bearing in mind that the work is unfinished, it is reasonable to assume that the emphatic twist is not yet fully developed. Similar expressive poses were further accentuated in the various Slaves, intended for the Julius tomb, and in the Allegories in the Medici Chapel. The impact of the Leda on Michelangelo, is seen in a more restrained form in the Risen Christ from about 1518-21. The one exhibited today in

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Fig. 6. Leonardo da Vinci, Study for the Trivulzio monument, Windsor, Royal Library, rl 12355.

S. Maria sopra Minerva in Rome is a replica of the first, which was left behind in 1516 when the artist went to Florence. This statue was abandoned since the face was ruined by a black vein that had appeared in

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the marble, forcing Michelangelo to carve a new version in Florence. 1 The second statue was sent to Rome where his assistent Pietro Urbino gave it the finishing touches, a contribution which according to most Michelangelo scholars has deprived it of the intended, subtle surface treatment. But what is important to us is the moderate contrapposto accentuated by the arm holding the cross, balancing the head turned the other way. There exists a sketch which was probably made for the first statue (Fig. 7). 2 His characteristic hatched technique is confined to the torso, revealing the musculature. The drawing shows the twist of the body, the crossed arm and, more importantly, the head turning downwards. In comparison with the sculpture, the pose in the drawing is closer to the Leda. If this drawing was executed in Rome as a preparatory study for the first statue, the Leda figure would probably have been fresh in Michelangelo’s memory. We must also remember that Leonardo lived in Rome at this time, and even if he had not brought the Leda painting with him, leaving it completed in Milan, there would very probably be several drawings, sketches and maybe even a cartoon, of the famous composition in his studio or circulating among his followers and admirers. 3 The Risen Christ remains isolated among Michelangelo’s works made in the second and third decades of the sixteenth century, probably due to its iconography and the demands of decorum. In other works he went much further in developing Leonardo’s solutions. Michelangelo did not create a fully developed figura serpentinata until he made the Victory towards the end of the 1520s (Fig. 8). This marble group represents a crucial step in the evolution of three-dimensional composition, enhancing the plastic effects of the formula. In spite of obvious differences between the two designs, the standing Leda seems to have affected Michelangelo. Understandably, the sinuous sensuality of Leda’s female beauty was not what most intrigued Michelangelo. But her pose must have influenced him in his search for animated form. 1 H. Hibbard, Michelangelo, New York 1985, 167. 2 H. Hibbard, Michelangelo, New York 1985, 168. 3 However, recent scholarship tends to favour a later date for the completion of the Leda. They accept the fact that the design of the standing Leda had originated towards the end of Leonardo’s second Florentine period, but they maintain that the painting was finished in Rome during the years 1513-1517 instead of in Milan. [M. Kemp, A. Smart, Leonardo’s Leda and the Belvedere River-Gods - Roman sources and a new Chronology, in Leonardo’s Projects, c. 1500-1519, C. Farago (ed.), New York 1999, 173].

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Fig. 7. Michelangelo, Study for the Risen Christ, London, Brinsley Ford Collection.

The Victory has been given unprecedented force: The torso conveys an energetic twist, making the right elbow come dramatically close to the left thigh and knee. The left leg is vigourously flexed with the knee suppressing a bearded victim. It is conceived almost in the round, forcing the beholder to change viewpoints so as to appreciate fully its spatial variety and complexity. The serpentine form of the group develops further both the aesthetic and dynamic effects manifest in the two compositional solutions of the Leda. The elegance of the pose and the spiralling movement emphasise

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Fig. 8. Michelangelo, Victory, Florence, Palazzo Vecchio.

the formal beauty, while the protruding limbs and the interconnected axes explore the spatial possibilities of sculpture. Michelangelo’s preoccupation with style gives the animated figure composition a certain

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display of formal elegance. 1 Thus, the elongated limbs of the male nude reflect a new licence in proportion, going beyond the example of Leonardo. This elongated figural canon represented a new ideal of grace which, according to Giorgio Vasari and Vincenzo Danti, was based on internal subjective criteria of judgment. For these reasons the Victory has been considered a basis for mannerist art, and was greatly to influence the following generation. Still, when comparing the Victory with the Leda it is possible to discern a continuity and to understand the legacy brought by Leonardo to later Cinquecento art. Michelangelo’s Victory was to produce numerous variations by sculptors in the mid-century, all showing an extreme concentration on form. The subtlety of Leonardo, and the strain and tension of Michelangelo evaporated in favour of a purification of form and a consciousness of purely aesthetic effects. The leading mannerist sculptor, Giambologna, followed Michelanglo’s scheme when he executed his monumental figure group, Florence Victorious over Pisa (1565-70, Fig. 9). It goes even further in working out spatial qualities, particularly evident in the protruding limbs and the energetic use of voids. With some imagination, we may see this group as a distant reflection of Leonardo’s painting, although the immediate source is of course Michelangelo. The crossed arm, bent leg and half-turned head are reminisences of the standing Leda. Its plastic forms take on an elegance and mellowness ignoring any psycological depth, and Howard Hibbard aptly described the work as «the ultimate reduction of Michelangelo’s highly-charged emotionality into a beautiful exercise in geometric esthetics». 2 Another interesting testimony of Leonardo’s legacy, is the elegant Rivergod made by the precocious and short-lived sculptor Pierino da Vinci (ca. 1548, Fig. 10). The slender youth is delicately conceived by sensual curves and a spiralling form, defined by the opposition between protruding shoulder and knee. 3 His left shoulder and arm retract while the right arm runs down across his torso holding a vase, supported by putti, against his left hip and raised thigh. The pose with the lowered 1 This formalism, though, never ends up as superficial nor is deprived of emotional impact, being as it is profoundly related to the artist’s ideas about concetto and intelletto. 2 H. Hibbard, Michelangelo, New York 1985, 207. 3 Its gracious, slender limbs, together with a melancholy expression, also pay tribute to Donatello and his famous bronze David in the Bargello. The delicate surface treatment and ambiguous mood of the David has been adapted in an original way by Pierino.

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head has obvious parallels to the Leda, and Pierino has evolved the formal refinement of his uncle in a highly idealised manner. The gently carved torso conveys a sharp twist stressing, together with the retracted arm, vase and receding putti, the third dimension and movement in the round. Thus, the statue is enriched with various views as the beholder moves around it. As was the case with most sculptures of the mid-century, the Rivergod reveals an inevitable impact of Michelangelo’s art. This is particularly apparent in the fine treatment of the anatomy, the serpentine pose and its subtle spatial implications. Even so, these features were all implicit in Leonardo’s aesthetically conceived figure of the Leda, both the kneeling and the standing version. Thus, the stylistic changes of Cinquecento art Fig. 9. Giambologna, Florence Victorious over Pisa, Florence, Bargello. are clearly brought out in the development of contrapposto from Leonardo’s Leda to Pierino da Vinci’s and Giambologna’s sculptures.

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Fig. 10. Pierino da Vinci, Rivergod, Paris, Louvre.

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MICHELANGELO ADMIRES ANTIQUITY... AND MARCELLO VENUSTI William E. Wallace

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iscussion of Michelangelo and antiquity tends to focus on the artist’s early encounter with Rome, and on a group of canonical works, of which the Torso Belvedere and the Laocoön are the two most prominent. It is universally recognized that these sculptures fundamentally challenged and inspired Michelangelo, and many echoes have been detected in his work. But among the many ancient sculptures that Michelangelo is supposed to have admired (and even more numerous are the ones he supposedly restored) are a few lesser-known objects. One is the Lion Attacking a Horse (Fig. 1), which, until recently, was located in a relatively inaccessible garden of the Palazzo dei Conservatori. In Michelangelo’s time, the sculpture - without the restored horse’s head - was situated before the entrance of the Palazzo dei Senatori on the Capitoline Hill. 1 The sculpture marked a traditional site of execution in the Middle Ages, thus it was well-known, and perhaps notorious, but not exactly widely admired. Yet, two different contemporaries record that Michelangelo « praised it to the skies » and considered it « the most marvelous » of ancient sculptures. 2 Michelangelo may have Portions of this essay were presented as conference papers in London (March 1998), Athens, Georgia (November, 2000), and Rosendal, Norway (June 2001). Roy Eriksen and Magne Malmanger deserve special thanks for hosting a symposium in the incomparably beautiful setting of Rosendal, and for shepherding these papers into print. I would like to thank the many symposium members whose comments did much to shape and improve this essay. 1 F. Haskell, N. Penny, Taste and the Antique (New Haven and London, 1981), no. 54. 2 Haskell, Penny, Taste and the Antique, 250. There are many antiquities that Michelangelo is supposed to have admired, but a previously unknown example was brought to my attention by Louis Waldman. In a letter dated 11 February 1551/52 regarding antiquities in the possession of Isabella Deti (widow of Antonio da Sangallo the Younger), Francesco Borghini writes (as paraphrased by Gaetano Milanesi) : ‘Tra queste [antiques] eravi un satiro cosa bellissima e rara e molto commendato da Michelangelo’. Archivio di Stato di Firenze : Manoscritti 811 (G. Milanesi spoglie of Mediceo del Principato), fol. 406. I would like to thank Louis Waldman for generously sharing this document with me.

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Fig. 1. Lion Attacking a Horse, Capitoline Museum (photo: author)

responded to this particular antique as he did to the Torso Belvedere : its reduced and battered condition inspired imaginative restoration. There is no obvious reflection of the ancient sculpture group in Michelangelo’s art ; however, the Tityus (Fig. 2) may reveal something of the artist’s visceral response to the group’s power and violence, as well as his interest in the entwined, writhing struggle between rapacious predator and helpless victim. One other antique for which we have a contemporary record of Michelangelo’s admiration is even more unexpected : the so-called Cesi Juno, currently in the Capitoline Museum (Fig. 3). 1 This statue has received little attention from modern scholars although it was much admired in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. For example, Orfeo Boselli, the seventeenth-century sculptor and author of a treatise on ancient sculpture, considered the Juno an outstanding example of the female figure with an especially beautiful head and drapery. 2 Indeed, 1 Haskell, Penny, Taste and the Antique, no. 51 ; P. Bober, R. Rubinstein, Renaissance Artists and Antique Sculpture (Oxford and New York, 1986), no. 8. In the Renaissance, the figure was sometimes identified as an Amazon. I would like to thank my former student, Pat Vettel Tom, for interesting me in the Cesi Juno. 2 Orfeo Boselli, Osservazioni della scoltura antica, ed. P. D. Weil (Florence, 1978), fols. 3v, 11v, 41v, 78v, 99r, 108v-109r.

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Fig. 2. Michelangelo, Tityus, Windsor Castle, Royal Library no. 12771 (photo: Reproduced by gracious permission of H.M. the Queen).

Boselli recommended that sculptors should begin by imitating the « perfect » head, especially since plaster casts were readily available. 1 The sculpture has since fallen from favor. It is little noted in scholarship and even less noticed in the museum, largely because it shares a room with two more famous icons : the Dying Gaul and the Marble Faun, immortalized by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The Juno, however, recently has been cleaned. With the dirt and grime removed, the figure is once again imposing, the marble surface beautiful. We can better see and appreciate, for example, the delicate square pattern decorating the fictive textile of the drapery. Moreover, the sculpture has been given a new label, which informs us in both Italian and English : « In the early Renaissance, this was considered the most beautiful female statue in Rome according to Michelangelo Buonarroti ». Thus, does the critic Michelangelo help raise the lowered fortunes of a long neglected statue. I suspect that few museum visitors wonder about the origin of Michelangelo’s admiration, or its significance. It was the sixteenth-century naturalist/antiquarian, Ulisse Aldrovandi, who recorded Michelangelo’s praise of the statue. In 1550, Ul1 Boselli, Osservazioni, fol. 15r. An example is illustrated in B. Candida, I calchi rinascimentali della collezione Mantova Benavides nel museo del Liviano a Padova (Padua, 1967), figs. 1-2.

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Fig. 3. Cesi Juno/Amazon, Rome, Capitoline Museum (photo: author).

isse, the young scion of the family, was in Rome gathering material for a guide to antiquities. It is likely that he became acquainted with Michelangelo at this time, and possible that he recorded something the master actually said, or was said to have said, which, for contemporar-

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ies, was very nearly the same thing. Aldrovandi’s guide was published for the first time in 1556 - that is, in Michelangelo’s lifetime, and in it he records Michelangelo’s extravagant praise for the Cesi Juno : « la quale è stata da Michelangelo lodato, per la più bella cosa, che sia in tutta Roma ». 1 It should be noted that this is somewhat different from the misleading museum label. According to Aldrovandi, Michelangelo praised the Juno not as the most beautiful «female statue in Rome » but « the most beautiful object in all Rome » (my emphases) : « La più bella cosa che sia in tutta Roma ». This is praise indeed, unqualified by gender or genre. Yet, surely it is exaggerated ? Can there be any truth to it ? Such a judgment does not seem consistent with Michelangelo’s taste as suggested by his wellknown admiration of the Torso Belvedere and the Laocoön, or even the Lion Attacking a Horse. Nor does the judgment accord with the generally held notion that the male nude was Michelangelo’s aesthetic ideal. As a result, the Juno is scarcely mentioned in the many studies devoted to Michelangelo’s relations with classical antiquity. 2 Confirmation of Aldrovandi’s extraordinary statement may be found in Michelangelo’s art. The majestic figure of Leah from the tomb of Julius II, for example, demonstrates how Michelangelo could intelligently adapt a figure such as the Cesi Juno to his own purpose (Fig. 4). This is especially true if we consider the antique marble without arms, as it was known and drawn in the sixteenth century. 3 Leah emulates the masculine girth, heavily draped form, and classical poise of the antique, as well as specific details such as the high belting of the chiton just below 1 Ulisse Aldrovandi, Delle statue antiche, che per tutta Roma, in diversi luoghi, & case si veggono in Lucio Mauro, Le antichità della città di Roma (Venice, 1562), 115-315. 2 For example, there is no mention of the Juno in A. Hekler, Michelangelo und die Antike « Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte » 7 (1930) :201-23 ; H. von Einem, Michelangelo und die Antike, in Antike und Abendland i (Hamburg, 1944), 55-77 ; G. Kleiner, Die Begegnungen Michelangelos mit der Antike (Berlin, 1950) ; F. Kriegbaum, Michelangelo und die Antike, « Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst » 3 (1952-53) :10-36 ; P. Portoghesi, Michelangelo e l’eredità classica, in Atti del Convegno di studi michelangioleschi, Firenze, Roma 1964 (Rome, 1966), 345-55, and Michelangelo e l ’arte classica, ed. G. Agosti and V. Farinella (Florence, 1987). Agosti and Farinella mention but do not discuss the Cesi Figure in Michelangelo : Studi di antichità dal Codice Coner (Turin, 1987), 43, and Eugenio Battisti noted Michelangelo’s interest in the Cesi sculptures but was not more specific about the Juno/Amazon in E. Battisti, The Meaning of Classical Models in the Sculpture of Michelangelo, in Stil und Überlieferung in der Kunst des Abendlandes (Berlin, 1967), 2 :73-78. 3 As we know, for example, from a drawing by the French sculptor, Pierre Jacques from the 1570s, for which, see S. Reinach, L’Album de Pierre Jacques (Paris, 1902).

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Fig. 4. Michelangelo, Leah, S. Pietro in Vincoli, Rome (photo: gfn ser. e no. 46913).

the accentuated breasts. Similar too are the gentle tilt and introspective beauty of the heads. 1 There was, moreover, ample opportunity and good reason for Michelangelo to have admired this particular antique. 1 Thus, it may be, that Boselli recommended the beauty of the Juno’s head because it had achieved a certain fame, thanks, in part, to Michelangelo’s well-known admiration.

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The Juno belonged to the Cesi, a family well known to Michelangelo and for whom the artist designed an important altarpiece. The Cesi owned a remarkable collection of antiquities that were displayed in their palace and extensive gardens located immediately south of St. Peter’s, alongside the southern entrance to the Vatican Borgo. 1 The Juno was the centerpiece of the collection which was considered by contemporaries to be second only to that of the popes. The two brothers who amassed this impressive collection, Paolo Emilio and Federico Cesi, were long-time friends and patrons of Michelangelo. The Cesi rose high in the ranks of the church largely because of their loyalty to the Medici, which is likely how Michelangelo first became acquainted with the family. Paolo Emilio Cesi was created a cardinal by Leo X in 1517, and that same year he acquired his Roman property. 2 When Florence received news of Pope Clement VII’s fatal illness in 1534, Michelangelo immediately went to Pescia to find the Cardinal, with whom the artist already was on friendly terms. 3 Together the two men rode to Pisa and then sailed for Rome where Cesi participated in the conclave that elected Paul III, and Michelangelo sought protection and patronage, beginning with Cardinal Cesi, at a moment of papal transition. Upon Paolo Emilio’s death in 1537, the Roman property including the already famous antiquities collection, were inherited by his younger brother, Federico Cesi. 4 Federico, a bishop, continued his brother’s friendly relations with Michelangelo. In 1538, for example, Cesi was a witness of the papal brief that conferred upon Michelangelo the income from the Po river ferry. 5 A few years later, the influential cleric again 1 On the extensive Cesi sculpture collection, considered by Pope Paul III as among « le più belle di tutta Roma », see C. Hülsen, Römische Antikengärten des xvi Jahrhunderts (Heidelberg, 1917), 1-42 ; M. van der Meulen, Cardinal Cesi’s Antique Sculpture Garden : Notes on a Painting by Hendrik van Cleef , « The Burlington Magazine » 96 (1974) :14-24, and S. Eiche, On the Layout of the Cesi Palace and Gardens in the Vatican Borgo, « Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz » 39 (1995) :259-81. 2 See Cesi, Paolo Emilio, in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, 24 (Rome, 1980), 259-61. On the family, see E. Martinori, Genealogia e cronistoria di una grande famiglia umbroromano. I Cesi (Rome, 1931). 3 Il Carteggio di Michelangelo, ed. P. Barocchi and R. Ristori, 5 vols. (Florence, 196583), 4 :66. 4 See Cesi, Federico, in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, 24 :253-56. 5 D. Redig De Campos, Il Giudizio universale di Michelangelo (Milan and Florence, 1975), 84-85 ; Carteggio 4 :73-76, and I Ricordi di Michelangelo, ed. L. B. Ciulich and P. Barocchi (Florence, 1970), 279-84.

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favored Michelangelo by presenting him with a gift - apparently some sort of food. Wishing to properly thank Cesi, Michelangelo enlisted his close friend Luigi del Riccio who, according to Michelangelo, was more adept in the social graces. « Thank him in my name », Michelangelo wrote, « when you conveniently can, with that formality which is as easy for you as it is difficult to me ». 1 In 1544, Federico was made a cardinal and sometime after, in the 1540s or early 1550s, Cesi obtained a design from Michelangelo for an altarpiece for his family chapel in Sta. Maria della Pace (Fig. 5). 2 The circumstances suggest that the altarpiece was less a « commission » than an instance in a pattern of favor, gift-giving, and friendly reciprocal relations. 3 It is notable that, although he was busy with many other obligations - including St. Peter’s and the completion of the Julius tomb - Michelangelo 1 « ...vi prego, faccendovene parte e credendo che siate amico di Sua S(ignior)ia, quando vi vien bene in nome mio la ringratiate con quella cerimonia che v’è facile a fare e dura... » (Carteggio 4 :176 ; trans. E. H. Ramsden, The Letters of Michelangelo, 2 vols. [Stanford, 1963], 2 :39). On Michelangelo and del Riccio, see E. Steinmann, Michelangelo e Luigi del Riccio (Florence, 1932). 2 Giorgio Vasari informs us : « Ha fatto poi fare messer Tommaso a Michelagnolo molti disegni per amici ; come per il cardinale di Cesis la tavola là dov’è la Nostra Donna annunziata dall’Angelo ; cosa nuova, che poi fu da Marcello Mantovano colorita, e posta nella cappella di marmo che ha fatto fare quel cardinale nella chiesa della Pace di Roma » (G. Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori, ed. G. Milanesi, 9 vols. [Florence, 1878-86], 7 :272). What Vasari does not mention is that Michelangelo had many reasons, beyond the urging of his friend, to satisfy Cardinal Cesi. The architecture of the chapel and a first phase of decoration was carried out between 1519 and 1530 by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger and his shop ; see G. Giovannoni, Antonio da Sangallo il Giovane, 2 vols. (Rome, 1959), 2 :375-80. I would like to thank Paul Davies for bringing Sangallo’s contribution to my attention. For the history of the chapel, see G. Urban, Die Capella Cesi in S. Maria della Pace und die Zeichnungen des Antonio da Sangallo, « Miscellanea Bibliothecae Hertzianae » (Römisches Forschungen der Bibliotheca Hertiziana, 16), (Vienna, 1961), 213-238, and C. Frommel, Miscellan zu Sangallo dem Jüngeren, Rosso und Montelupo in S. Maria della Pace in Rom, Il Vasari 21 (1963) :144-48. 3 See, for example, M. M. Bullard, Marsilio Ficino and the Medici : The Inner Dimensions of Patronage, in T. Verdon and J. Henderson eds., Christianity and the Renaissance : Image and Religious Imagination in the Quattrocento (Syracuse, 1990), 476-76 ; D. Romano, Aspects of Patronage in Fifteenth and Sixteenth-Century Venice, « Renaissance Quarterly » 46 (1993) :712-33 ; D. S. Chambers, Mantovani a Roma (1471-92) in Arte, committenza ed economia a Roma e nelle corti del Rinascimento (1420-1530), ed. A. Esch and C. L. Frommel (Turin, 1995), 155-70 ; W. E. Wallace, Manoeuvring for Patronage : Michelangelo’s Dagger, « Renaissance Studies » 11 (1997) :20-25, and D. Kent, Cosimo de’ Medici and the Florentine Renaissance : The Patron’s Oeuvre (New Haven and London, 2000), esp. Part v : The Patron as ‘Auctor’. On the evolution of artists’ relations with patrons, see M. Warnke, The Court Artist, trans. D. McLintock (Cambridge, 1993).

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Fig. 5. View of Cesi Chapel, S. Maria della Pace, Rome (photo: gfn ser. e no. 40226).

was willing to satisfy Cesi when so many other prospective clients went begging. At a time in his career when he undertook few private commissions, we should pay particular attention to those infrequent instances when the artist actually satisfied clients. Michelangelo’s biographer, Ascanio Condivi, noted that « ...when he was asked by growing numbers

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of lords and rich people for something from his own hand, and they gave lavish promises, he rarely did it, and when he did it was rather from friendship and benevolence than from hope of reward ». 1 Condivi penned this remark just about the time that Michelangelo, although extremely busy, provided Federico Cesi with an altarpiece design. In a classic article, Johannes Wilde studied half a dozen drawings that he associated with the Cesi commission. 2 The most finished of these, in the Pierpont Morgan Library, is what Wilde aptly termed a cartonetto, a fully realized design that served as the basis for the altarpiece painted by Michelangelo’s friend and collaborator, Marcello Venusti (Fig. 6). 3 The painting was later removed from the chapel and is presumed lost, but several small-scale replicas provide an adequate notion of the fullscale altarpiece. Indeed, the version currently in the Galleria Nazionale of Rome, albeit small, is finely painted and once was believed to be an authentic work of Michelangelo (Fig. 7). 4 The dedication of the Cesi chapel to the Annunciation dictated the subject matter of the painting, but this scarcely explains the novelty of Michelangelo’s conception : in a particularized domestic setting, a thickset, matronly Virgin is interrupted at her reading by an exceptionally large, hovering angel. Unexpectedly, God’s messenger descends from the upper right, from within the dark interior of the picture. The startled Virgin turns from her book, away from the natural light, and away from the viewer. Even before Mary, we are privileged to witness the advent of the surprisingly corporeal Gabriel. The multiple replicas of the composition should not obscure the design’s originality ; this is an unconventional interpretation of one of the most conventional of Christian subjects. The special character of the picture may owe something to the particular circumstances of the commission which includes a purposeful allusion to Federico Cesi’s famous Juno. 1 A. Condivi, Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti, in Michelangelo : Life, Letters, and Poetry, trans. G. Bull (Oxford and New York, 1987), 70. 2 J. Wilde, Cartonetti by Michelangelo, « The Burlington Magazine » 101 (1959) : 370-81. 3 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library Inv. iv, 7 ; C. de Tolnay, Corpus dei disegni di Michelangelo, 4 vols. (Novara, 1975-80), no. 399. Although Bernard Berenson rejected the drawing and assigned it to Venusti himself, most scholars since Wilde, including the present writer, accept the drawing. 4 Wilde, Cartonetti, 377. See the recent discussion of the drawing and painting in Vittoria Colonna : Dichterin und Muse Michelangelos, ed. S. Ferino-Pagden (Vienna, 1997), cat. nos. iv.53 and iv.54.

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Fig. 6. Michelangelo, Annunciation, Pierpont Morgan Library Inv. iv, 7 (photo: The Pierpont Morgan Library).

Immediately adjacent to the Cesi Chapel in Sta. Maria della Pace is the lavishly adorned Chigi Chapel with frescoes of prophets and sibyls by Raphael (Fig. 8). It is universally recognized that Raphael’s decoration, painted directly after the Sistine Chapel ceiling was completed, owes

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Fig. 7. Marcello Venusti, Annunciation, Rome, Galleria Nazionale dell’arte antica (photo : gfn ser. c no. 6044).

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Fig. 8. View of Chigi Chapel, S. Maria della Pace, Rome (photo: gfn ser. e no 40245).

much to Michelangelo, as Vasari and every writer since has stressed. 1 In designing Cesi’s altarpiece, Michelangelo was in effect taking up a 1 Vasari-Milanesi 4 :340-41, 7 :176, and, for example, R. Jones, N. Penny, Raphael (New Haven and London, 1983), 101. For example, Raphael’s sibyl at the far left recalls Michelangelo’s Eve in the scene of the Temptation and Fall, especially in the exaggerated torsion of the body and upraised arm, as pointed out by Michael Hirst in The Chigi Chapel in S. Maria della Pace, « Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes » 24 (1961) : 169.

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challenge posed by Raphael. In fact, a confrontation with Raphael had begun many years earlier when Sebastiano del Piombo was commissioned to paint the altarpiece for the Chigi Chapel « under the figures of Raphael » 1 The contract stressed that Sebastiano’s painting must compare favorably (« a parangone »[sic]) with Raphael. 2 For this earlier project, Michelangelo furnished a design to assist his friend - probably one or more of the remarkable series of Resurrection drawings, made just about that time (e.g. Fig. 9). 3 But in the end, Sebastiano never painted the altarpiece. Michelangelo was clearly disappointed with the increasingly dilatory Sebastiano, but some years later he was again presented with the opportunity to design an altarpiece for the chapel directly adjacent to Raphael’s masterwork. And this time the more reliable Marcello Venusti actually realized Michelangelo’s design. The Raphael decorations in the Chigi chapel, therefore, were a precondition for Michelangelo and Venusti’s work in the neighboring 1 « ...[U]na tavola alla Pace, sotto le fighure di Rafaello ». Letter of Leonardo Sellaio in Rome to Michelangelo in Florence, 15 December 1520 (Carteggio 2 :266, and Hirst, Chigi Chapel, 161ff ). 2 M. Hirst, Sebastiano del Piombo (Oxford, 1981), 126, 130-31. 3 Michael Hirst suggested that the group of drawings for a Resurrection made by Michelangelo in the early 1530s may have been stimulated by Sebastiano’s commission to paint a Resurrection of Christ for the altar of the Chigi Chapel (Hirst, Chigi Chapel, and idem, Sebastiano, 130-31). Hirst further suggested that the highly finished drawing in Windsor Castle (no. 12768 ; Hirst, Sebastiano, Fig. 158) may have been the design in question. However, the letter in which Sebastiano acknowledges receipt of the drawing suggests an alternative possibility. Of Michelangelo’s drawing, Sebastiano writes : « Però el Cristo, de le braze et la testa in fora, è quasi simile a quello de Sancto Pietro Montorio »(Carteggio 3 :419). Although the locution is convoluted, Sebastiano is voicing a complaint that, except for the arms and the head, the Christ in Michelangelo’s drawing is practically the same as the one in Sebastiano’s painting of the Flagellation of Christ in San Pietro in Montorio. The large and finely finished drawing of the Risen Christ in the British Museum (Fig. 9) corresponds closely to the Montorio Christ, especially if one excludes the arms and head (this correspondence was also noted by A. Perrig, Über eine verkannte Michelangelo-Zeichnung, « Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte » 2 [1960], 20-21). Moreover, the drawing is lit from the right, the unconventional feature that recommended the Windsor sheet to Hirst. If Figure 9 is indeed the drawing sent to Sebastiano, then this might offer a context for understanding the small drawings on the verso. These appear to be satiric sketches, part of the banter between friends. One figure may be in the act of painting, and the grotesque animal with weight-like teats may be a play on Sebastiano’s adopted name and office, « del piombo ». For other examples of Michelangelo’s humorous doodling, even on versos of highly finished sheets, see W. E. Wallace, Instruction and Originality in Michelangelo’s Drawings, in The Craft of Art : Originality and Industry in the Italian Renaissance and Baroque Workshop, ed. A. Ladis and C. Wood (Athens ga, 1995), 113-33.

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Fig. 9. Michelangelo, Resurrected Christ, British Museum no. 1895-9-15-501 (photo: British Museum).

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Cesi chapel. Given their proximity and the earlier history just outlined, a response on Michelangelo’s part seems likely, and Vasari may be alluding to it when he described the resulting picture as a « novel thing », implying that it was an innovative composition and, perhaps, in a new or different style. 1 The self-consciously refined manner of Michelangelo’s drawing (Fig. 6) and the enamel-like finish of Venusti’s painting (Fig. 7) were conscious departures from Raphael’s sprezzatura (Fig. 10). Michelangelo’s condensed composition and Venusti’s tightly painted forms may be seen as an implied critique and purposeful alternative to Raphael’s suave style and easy grace, a gravitas that contrasts with the earlier master’s dolcezza. Paul Joannides characterized this as Michelangelo’s « severe » style, which was as attractive to the sixteenth century as it is perhaps distasteful to many today. 2 The invention of this severe, sculptural style, especially in the conception of a substantial and heavily draped female form, may owe something to the Cesi Juno. The Virgin’s heavy-set figure, the diagonal folds criss-crossing the body, the belted chiton accentuating the breasts, and the weighty drapery roll across the broad abdomen all suggest Michelangelo’s attention to Cesi’s famous antique (Figs. 3, 6). Of course, Michelangelo, who warned against slavish imitation, emulates rather than imitates his antique « model ». 3 1 « [C]osa nuova, che poi fu da Marcello Mantovano colorita » (Vasari-Milanesi 7 :272). Michael Hirst has suggested that Vasari may be referring to the iconographic daring of the presentation, especially in comparison with the design utilized for the altarpiece in San Giovanni in Laterano discussed below (see M. Hirst, Michelangelo Draftsman [Milan, 1988], cat. no. 55). 2 P. Joannides, ‘Primitivism’ in the Late Drawings of Michelangelo : The Master’s Construction of an Old-age Style, in Michelangelo Drawings, ed. C. H. Smyth [Hanover and London, 1992], 250). See also, A. Nagel, Michelangelo and the Reform of Art, Cambridge, 2000). The masculinization of the female is a part of Michelangelo’s aesthetic that contrasts markedly with that of Raphael. On Michelangelo’s ‘virile’ females, see Y. Even, The Heroine as Hero in Michelangelo’s Art, « Woman’s Art Journal » 11 (1990) : 29-33 ; C. Gilbert, The Proportion of Women, in Michelangelo On and Off the Sistine Ceiling (New York, 1994), esp. 98ff, and R. Goffen, Mary’s Motherhood According to Leonardo and Michelangelo, « Artibus et Historiae » 40 (1999) :35-69. 3 When an artist boasted that his copies of antiquities were far better than the originals, Michelangelo is supposed to have remarked : « Chi va dietro a altri, mai non li passa innanzi ; e chi non sa far bene da sè, non può servirsi bene delle cose d’altri » (VasariMilanesi, 7 :280). According to a marginal notation by Tiberio Calcagni, Michelangelo is also supposed to have remarked, « ...se tu vòi fare bene, varia sempre... » (C. Elam, ‘Ché ultima mano !’ : Tiberio Calcagni’s Marginal Annotations to Condivi’s Life of Michelangelo, « Renaissance Quarterly » 51 [1998] :492).

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Fig. 10. Raphael, Detail of the Chigi Chapel frescos, S. Maria della Pace, Rome (photo : gfn ser. e no. 40247).

Creative adaptation of earlier art, especially ancient art, was considered good artistic practice. But in this case, an allusion to the Cesi Juno was especially appropriate as it was a means of flattering Federico Cesi, the owner of the celebrated sculpture. Thus, in addition to the paragone with Raphael, Michelangelo consciously created a picture that would appeal to the sophisticated antiquarian tastes of his patron. Indeed, the work is implicated in multiple paragoni : between Cesi and Chigi, between painting and sculpture, between modern art and the antique, between Michelangelo’s disegno and Venusti’s colore. These were, of course, the very years when the paragone was being most vigorously debated. But I would stress that Michelangelo’s invention is more than a competition piece or a pawn in contemporary aesthetic debate ; it is sensitive picture making. Distracted in her reading, the startled Virgin turns with dramatic torsion towards Gabriel. Mary’s contorted body language is a means of suggesting her disquiet in the first frightening instant of a miraculous apparition : Mary « was greatly troubled...and considered

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in her mind what sort of greeting this might be » (Luke 1 :29). Hand raised and mouth agape, Mary’s alarm is silenced by the claustrophobic proximity of the angel with its insistent gesture of address. Mary is transfixed by a suffusing light that falls upon her brow and eye - the faculties of knowledge - and illumines her womb, the vessel of our salvation. More than just artful display, the figural contrapposto lends an appropriately dramatic tension to the subject and keeps us focused on the mystery of the moment. The success of the picture may be judged from its many copies - a measure of widespread admiration and contemporary taste. The formation of this particular taste was effected, in part, by Michelangelo’s longtime collaboration with Marcello Venusti. Through a more generous consideration of their relationship we can recuperate an important but little regarded dimension of Michelangelo’s late artistic production. ii. An essential aspect of Michelangelo’s later career was the steady increase in demands made upon him. As he grew older, so did the number of his patrons grow ; everyone, it seemed, wanted something « di sua mano ». Saddled with the great architectural projects of St. Peter’s, the Capitoline hill, the Porta Pia, and Sta. Maria degli Angeli, Michelangelo had less time - and perhaps less inclination - to paint and carve the sort of work that characterized his early career and helped establish his reputation. In the last thirty years of his life, Michelangelo completed just two sculptures : Rachel and Leah. The artist’s biographer, Giorgio Vasari, was well aware of the paucity when he wrote that « there are few finished statues ... and those he did finish completely were executed when he was young ». 1 Michelangelo occasionally fulfilled requests for work, but increasingly he satisfied demands by collaborating with artist/friends such as Marcello Venusti, Tiberio Calcagni, and Daniele da Volterra. Increased demand coupled with old age partly explains Michelangelo’s association with a comparatively minor figure like Marcello Venusti. But expediency is not a sufficient explanation for Michelangelo’s attraction to this artist, and it belittles their extensive collaboration. Far more than a tool to increase artistic production, Venusti helped 1 Vasari-Milanesi, 7 :243.

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spark Michelangelo’s creativity. Theirs was a long and highly fruitful collaboration ; together they created an important and often innovative body of work that merits our attention. Marcello Venusti’s current poor reputation is in sharp contrast to what he enjoyed in his own day. He had a long and highly successful career, both in collaboration with Michelangelo and, much more extensively, as an independent artist. Venusti was born about 1512 in Como, and after early training, possibly under Giulio Romano, became an assistant of Perino del Vaga. 1 Venusti may be the « Mantovano dipintore » who is documented working in the Pauline Chapel in 1542. 2 He certainly was working there in 1549, at a time when Michelangelo was completing the Crucifixion of Peter. 3 Venusti was among the earliest copyists of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment ; his reputation in this regard was already well established when Cardinal Alessandro Farnese commissioned him in 1548 to paint the large-scale copy now in the Capodimonte Museum in Naples. 4 The painting is Venusti’s best known and most frequently reproduced work, and it also has contributed to defining - I would say delimiting - Venusti’s character as a miniaturist/copyist who is sometimes confused with the better known Giulio Clovio. This is misleading, for in contrast to Clovio, most of Venusti’s prolific artistic production consisted of large-scale altarpieces and fresco decorations. 1 The fullest recent discussions of Venusti’s art and life are G. W. Kamp, Marcello Venusti. Religiöse Kunst im Umfeld Michelangelos (Egelsbach and New York, 1993) ; L. Russo, Per Marcello Venusti, Pittore Lombardo, « Bollettino d’Arte » 64 (1990) :1-26, and Idem, Marcello Venusti e Michelangelo, in Michelangelo e Dante, ed. C. Gizzi (Milan, 1995), 143-48. See also A. Venturi, Storia dell ’arte italiana (Milan, 1901-40), 9 :475-94 ; C. Tolnay, Marcello Venusti as Copyist of Michelangelo, « Art in America » 28 (1940) : 169-76 ; F. Zeri, Pittura e controriforma (Turin, 1957), passim ; P. Borland, A Copy by Venusti after Michelangelo, « The Burlington Magazine » 103 (1961) :433-34 ; A. Perrig, Michelangelo und Marcello Venusti. Das Problem der Verkündigungs- und Ölbergs-Konzeption Michelangelos, « Wallraf-Richartz Jahrbuch » 24 (1962) : 261-94 ; B. Davidson, Drawings by Marcello Venusti, « Master Drawings » 11 (1973) :3-19, and T. F. Mayer, Marcello Who ? An Italian Painter in Cardinal Pole’s Entourage, « Source » 15 (1996) : 22-26. 2 Russo, Marcello Venusti e Michelangelo, 143. 3 F. Baumgart, B. Biagetti, Gli affreschi di Michelangelo e L. Sabbatini e F. Zuccaro nella Cappella Paolina (Vatican City, 1934), 80, n. 2, doc. 33. 4 For this, see Michelangelo e la Sistina : la tecnica, il restauro, il mito (Rome, 1990), cat. no. 143, pp. 234-36 ; Russo, Per Marcello Venusti, 5-6, and P. Barocchi ed., La vita di Michelangelo nelle redazioni del 1550 e del 1568, 5 vols. (Milan and Naples, 1962), 3 :125054. As early as the end of 1541, Venusti was commissioned to execute a copy of the Last Judgment for Ercole Gonzaga (Michelangelo e la Sistina, 235).

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He had significant commissions for work in many Roman churches, including Sto. Spirito in Sassia, Sant’Agostino, Sta. Caterina dei Funari, and several chapels in Santa Maria sopra Minerva. 1 Moreover, the Last Judgment copy is nearly two by one and half meters, and much more impressive than reproductions suggest. At a critical early point in Venusti’s career, the painting helped establish his reputation, gained him important commissions, and earned him Michelangelo’s high praise. 2 Thus, by the early 1550s, but perhaps earlier, Michelangelo and Venusti began their long and fruitful collaboration. Although information is sparse, their mutually beneficial professional and personal relationship lasted at least a decade, and probably continued to the end of Michelangelo’s life. Their intimacy is suggested in a letter to Michelangelo that refers to Venusti as « vostro Marcello », and by the fact that Michelangelo stood as godfather to Venusti’s first child, named Michelangelo. 3 The altarpiece for the Cesi Chapel in Santa Maria della Pace, therefore, was only the beginning of a succession of collaborations that resulted in a large number of paintings, most of which were considered « Michelangelos » by the patrons who avidly collected them. A further example is a second large-scale altarpiece of the Annunciation that Venusti painted utilizing a drawing furnished by Michelangelo (Fig. 11). 4 The drawing, or cartonetto, is contemporaneous with the Cesi commis1 Thus in the eighteenth century Pellegrino Antonio Orlandi wrote : « Sono poche le Chiese di Roma, che non abbiano qualche memoria di questo Pittore... » (P. A. Orlandi, Abecedario Pittorico [Naples, 1763], 308). 2 Describing the Last Judgment panel in 1642, Giovanni Baglione wrote : « ...e gli fe ritrarre una copia del Giudicio di esso Michelagnolo per lo Cardinal’Alessandro Farnese in un quadretto, ed egli lo condusse tanto eccellentemente, che il Buonarroti gli pose grand’affezione, ed imposegli molte altre cose » (G. Baglione, Le vite de’ pittori, scultori, architetti, ed intagliatori [Naples, 1733], 19). 3 The letter of 13 December 1557 is from Cornelia Colonelli, the widow of Michelangelo’s faithful friend and servant, Pietro Urbino (Carteggio 5 :120-22). On Venusti’s child, Baglione wrote : « ...lasciò tra gli altri un figliuolo, e il tenne al battesimo il Buonarroti, e diegli il nome di Michelagnolo » (Baglione, Le vite, 20) ; see also Russo, Per Marcello Venusti, 15 and 24. On the importance of the Godparent, a form of voluntary kinship, see C. Klapisch-Zuber, Compérage et Clientélisme à Florence (1360-1520), « Ricerche storiche » 15 (1985) :61-76, and D. Gaunt, Kinship : Thin Red Lines or Thick Blue Blood, in Family Life in Early Modern Times 1500-1789 (The History of the European Family, vol. 1), ed. D. I. Kertzer, M. Barbagli (New Haven and London, 2001), 283-85. 4 Florence, Gabinetto disegni e stampe degli Uffizi inv. 229f ; Tolnay, Corpus, no. 393 ; Hirst, Michelangelo Draftsman, cat. no. 54, and Vittoria Colonna, cat. no. iv.52. Although

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Fig. 11. Michelangelo, Annunciation, Florence, Gabinetto disegni e stampe degli Uffizi inv. 229f (photo: author).

sion, and perhaps was an alternative design. This second drawing reveals an even more obvious debt to the Cesi Juno. The animated spiral of the ample and heavily draped Virgin, the bunched chiton crossing high on the abdomen, and the drapery that ambiguously clothes yet reveals the female form suggest Michelangelo’s admiration of the famous antique. The painting that Venusti made from this design is large and impressive, with life-size figures (Fig. 12). It was made for an altar in San Giovanni in Laterano but was later removed to the ill-lit Sacristy where we find it today, in poor condition and extremely dirty. Although little regarded, and never reproduced in color, the painting was once one of the marvels of the church, at one time attributed to Michelangelo himself. 1 Michelangelo was considered the author because it was unipossibly drawn for Venusti, the cartonetto, like that for The Agony in the Garden, did not remain in Venusti’s possession. Both were extracted from Jacopo del Duca and given as gifts to Duke Cosimo de’ Medici by Michelangelo’s nephew, Leonardo Buonarroti. 1 For example by Filippo Titi, Nuovo studio di pittura, scoltura, ed architettura nelle chiese di Roma (Rome, 1721), 233, and by Giuseppe Parroni, Michel-Ange ou Venusti,

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Fig. 12. Marcello Venusti, Annunciation, S. Giovanni Laterano (photo: author).

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versally recognized that he was responsible for the design even if he did not paint the actual picture. In the Renaissance, authorship depended on invenzione, not di sua mano. 1 Rather than a lesser object, Michelangelo’s collaboration with Venusti achieved a Renaissance ideal in combining the best of disegno and colore. It is worth repeating that Michelangelo made only a small drawing for the large-scale altarpiece : he left it to Venusti to color the design and to add the many details of the setting. In addition to the two important altarpiece commissions, Venusti’s collaboration with Michelangelo also resulted in several smaller pictures, for collectors’ cabinets and for private devotion. Good examples of this sort of production are paintings of the Crucifixion and Pietà made from drawings presented to Vittoria Colonna, the Expulsion of the Money-Changers, Christ and the Woman of Samaria and the Madonna del Silenzio. Some of these compositions - notably the Pietà, Madonna del Silenzio, and variants of the Crucifixion - were wildly popular and exist in multiple versions, often indiscriminately attributed to Venusti. But not all the painted examples can have been executed by Venusti ; there is too much variation in style and quality. Nonetheless, the sheer number of replicas attest the widespread fame of Michelangelo’s concetti and the central importance of Venusti in propagating these images. Venusti, like Pontormo before him, helped to satisfy a burgeoning clientele hungry for examples of the master’s art. « Gazette des Beaux-Arts » 79 (1937) :283-98. Giovanni Baglione correctly attributed the picture to Venusti « con disegno di Michelagnolo » going on to praise it as « molto bella e divoto » (Baglione, Le vite, 20). Laura Russo has recently drawn attention to the importance and quality of this picture (Russo, Marcello Venusti e Michelangelo, 143). 1 There are several instances where projects were considered by Michelangelo (« di sua mano ») as long as he made the design or supervised the making (e.g. Carteggio 2 :367). See W. E. Wallace, Two Presentation Drawings for Michelangelo’s Medici Chapel, « Master Drawings » 25 (1987) :245, 249 and n. 15. On the ambiguous meaning of ‘di sua mano’, see H. Glaser, Artists’ Contracts of the Early Renaissance (New York and London, 1977), 73-79 ; H. W. Janson, The Birth of ‘Artistic License’ : The Dissatisfied Patron in the Early Renaissance, in Patronage in the Renaissance, ed. G.F. Lytle and G. Orgel (Princeton, 1981), 348 ; M. Kemp, Behind the Picture : Art and Evidence in the Italian Renaissance (New Haven and London, 1997), 37-38 ; J. Montagu, Roman Baroque Sculpture : The Industry of Art (New Haven and London, 1989), 101-02 ; idem, Gold, Silver and Bronze : Metal Sculpture of the Roman Baroque (Princeton, 1996), 66 ; M. O’Malley, Late Fifteenth-and early Sixteenth-Century Painting Contracts and the Stipulated Use of the Painter’s Hand, in With and Without the Medici : Studies in Tuscan Art and Patronage 1434-1530, ed. E. Marchand and A. Wright (Aldershot and Brookfield vt, 1998), 155-78, and J. Cadogan, Domenico Ghirlandaio (New Haven and London, 2000), 162.

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Of these various compositions, the Agony in the Garden is possibly one that Michelangelo specifically made in collaboration with Venusti. At the very least, the episode permits us to consider further the significant role Venusti played in realizing and interpreting Michelangelo’s drawn concetti. A cartonetto in extremely poor condition for the Agony in the Garden is preserved in the Uffizi. 1 Indeed, the worn and faded drawing reproduces so poorly that we can better judge aspects of Michelangelo’s design from its realization in painted form (Fig. 13). As in the case of other compositions executed by Venusti, there are multiple painted examples, not all of which are of the same quality and undoubtedly not all by Venusti. 2 Putting aside the problem of attributing the numerous copies, I would like to examine the invention or concetto in order to better understand why this was once such an admired composition. The modest size and horizontal format of the painting suggest that it was intended for private devotion. Christ kneels alone and isolated at the left ; to the right we see Christ again, and the three apostles who accompanied him to the garden of Gethsemane. As viewers we find

Fig. 13. Marcello Venusti, Christ in the Garden, Rome, Galleria Nazionale dell’arte antica (photo: author). 1 Florence, Gabinetto disegni e stampe degli Uffizi inv. 230f ; Tolnay, Corpus, no. 409. 2 A nice example in Vienna was recently shown in exhibition (see Vittoria Colonna, no. iv.57).

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ourselves restlessly passing from left to right and back again, just as Christ does in the biblical narrative, at least three times to admonish his disciples. The compositional imbalance and the repetition of Christ, both praying and reprimanding, suggest the tension between watchfulness and sleep. The prominence of the apostles emphasizes this liminal moment ; we are near the end of Christ’s earthly ministry and at the very beginning of the apostolic mission. Even the color scheme - and here we must credit Venusti’s sensitivity as a painter - reinforces the compositional tension. The right half is painted in a variety of rich, saturated colors, associated with the apostles and their worldly preoccupations. In contrast, the left portion is coloristically bleak ; Christ’s robes are cool, almost icy, as if bleached by the pervasive light. Ultimately we return to the frontal Christ. He is encircled by an aureole, at once the real light of the coming dawn and a metaphor of God’s presence. The disconnected movement of Christ’s hands suggests his agitated emotions. His right hand is raised as though to ward off the proffered bitter cup. But instead of literally representing an angel bearing the cup as in so many earlier versions of this subject, Michelangelo’s Christ is painfully alone. The landscape and the distant soldiers are subordinated to the stark image of the foreground figures. There is no angel to comfort Christ ; his is an internal struggle. There is little to distract us. Rather, we are encouraged to meditate, and are prompted to recall Christ’s repeated but unanswered plea, « My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me » (Matthew 26 :39). To the right is the narrative encounter between Christ and his somnolent disciple. Michelangelo labored long over this figure in preparing the Uffizi cartonetto. The hooded, repentant disciple recalls Nicodemus of the Florentine Pietà and may be the artist himself, in private converse with Christ, yet alone and unbearably aware of his weakness. The painting effectively evokes Christ’s torment and reluctance ; it is simultaneously an eloquent and agonizing image intended to inspire prayer in the devout. On a sheet containing a small preliminary sketch for the Agony in the Garden, Michelangelo penned a draft of a sonnet, perhaps inspired by thoughts of this poignant encounter : Relieved of this heavy corpse, this importunate alarm Dear my Lord, and freed from the world

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william e. wallace Like a frail ship wearily I turn to Thee, hurled from a frightful storm to sweet calm. The thorns, the nails, this and th’ other palm and your benign humble pitying face promise, for so much repentance, grace and to the sad soul, salvation and balm. Let not your holy eyes in judgment gaze at my past. Heedless be your chaste ear, Nor point out my transgressions with your arm severe. Let your blood alone wash and glaze and touch my faults. Let full pardon enfold me, abounding all the more, the more I grow old. 1

As in the poem, so in the painting : ut pictura poesis. iii. We have a difficult time fathoming Michelangelo’s attraction to a minor artist like Marcello Venusti. But together they created some highly original works that greatly appealed to their contemporaries. These pictures were copied over and over again - a measure of widespread admiration and an indication of contemporary taste. Yet, they have been expunged from Michelangelo’s oeuvre and relegated to the margins of art historical interest. We classify them as mannerist inventions rather than recognizing their deeply humanist and antiquarian origins. And in an insistent reversal of Renaissance attitudes some persons think less of these collaborative projects rather than admiring them precisely for their rare combination of talents. 2 This is partly due to a modern obsession with « authorship » - defined in the narrowest sense, and mostly 1 Tolnay, Corpus, no. 406. Translation by Sydney Alexander, The Complete Poetry of Michelangelo (Athens, Ohio, 1991), no. 239. A further sketch for the Agony in the Garden composition is found on a sheet with a another draft for a sonnet (see Tolnay, Corpus, no. 407, and Alexander, Complete Poetry, no. 243). There is such a close linkage of word and image - in spirit and physical proximity - on these two sheets that it is probably fallacious to suggest that one inspired the other. But given the small nature of the sketches, almost as afterthoughts and clearly secondary to the sonnet drafts, it may be that the drawn composition was suggested by, or was crystallized from, the artist’s intense poetic engagement. 2 The Cesi commission is a perfect example since it is not mentioned in many standard monographs and biographies, including : J. A. Symonds, The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti, 2 vols. (London, 1893) ; C. de Tolnay, Michelangelo, 5 vols., (Princeton, 1943-60) ; H. von Einem, Michelangelo (London, 1959) ; H. Hibbard, Michelangelo (New York, 1974) ; L. Murray, Michelangelo : His Life, Work and Times (New York, 1984) ; A.

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according to the marketplace where a Michelangelo will fetch a price exponentially higher than a Marcello Venusti. Reluctant to acknowledge Michelangelo’s attraction to the refined, polished style of Venusti, some scholars even vacillate about the authorship of the highly finished drawings from which Venusti made his paintings. Bernard Berenson, for example, flatly declared that the Pierpont Morgan drawing (Fig. 6) is « certainly not by M[ichelangelo] himself ». 1 Such a highly finished manner was, in Berenson’s opinion, antithetical to Michelangelo’s temperament and his spirited drafting style. Although currently in the minority, this opinion has been shared by others, with the result that the drawing sometimes has been assigned to Venusti. 2 The vacillation regarding the attribution of the drawing is revealing evidence of how authorship and artistic character - even of such different artists as Michelangelo and Venusti - can be blurred in collective endeavor. The labor and finish of the drawings that Michelangelo made for Venusti are an index of the master’s investment in their joint projects. The finished style was purposeful. Sensitive to Venusti’s manner and to contemporary taste, Michelangelo created drawings that anticipate the refined, enamel-like finish of Venusti’s paintings. Michelangelo perfectly understood what sort of work would result from these drawings and, for his part, Venusti was adept in translating the highly wrought but incomplete designs into paint. Echoing sentiments of earlier writers, the eighteenth century critic, Pellegrino Orlandi, well expressed Michelangelo’s attraction to Venusti : he was a painter « precise in his drawing, masterful in composition, diligent in finishing, subtle in coloring, and willing to serve ». 3 His was a style, « assai devoto, diligente, Schiavo, Michelangelo nel complesso delle sue opere (Rome, 1990) ; G. Bull, Michelangelo : A Biography (London, 1995) ; A. Hughes, Michelangelo (London, 1997) ; neither is it mentioned even among « lost works » in so-called « complete » catalogs such as L. Ettlinger and E. Camesasca, The Complete Paintings of Michelangelo (New York, 1966), and L. Goldscheider, Michelangelo. Paintings, Sculpture, Architecture : Complete Edition, 5th ed. (Oxford, 1975). 1 B. Berenson, The Drawings of the Florentine Painters, 3 vols. (Chicago and London, 1938), no. 1696. 2 Notably by Berenson, Drawings, no. 1696 ; Tolnay, Corpus, no. 399, and Perrig in Michelangelo und Marcello Venusti, and Idem, Michelangelo’s Drawings : The Science of Attribution (New Haven and London, 1991), fig. 101 and passim. 3 « ...perchè era uomo aggiustato nel disegno, maestoso nel componimento, diligente nel finire, vago nel colorire, e facile nel servire » (Orlandi, Abecedario, 308-09).

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e vago » - that greatly appealed to Michelangelo and to contemporary taste. 1 Michelangelo’s long and fruitful relationship with Marcello Venusti can be understood as a collaboration in a narrow sense : Michelangelo providing drawings for a lesser artist. But more properly, I think we should view their relationship as an example of multiple authorship, where, like Pontormo before him, each artist brought equally important and indispensable ingredients to a mutually beneficial collaboration. 2 In fact, the ‘value’ of the objects they created together depended upon and was enhanced by this duality of authorship. We are being historically inaccurate - and slighting of Michelangelo’s judgment - if we underestimate the importance of Venusti in this joint endeavor. And no matter what we may presently think, the paintings attributed to Venusti were until recently considered Michelangelos, and they were more coveted than the drawings made wholly by Michelangelo. These were ‘originals’ designed by Michelangelo and painted by Venusti, or, to use a formula universally understood by their contemporaries : michel angelus inv. marcellus venustus pinxit. My intention in this essay has been less to celebrate a minor artist, Marcello Venusti, or a now little-admired antiquity, the Cesi Juno, but rather to understand better Michelangelo’s attraction to the artist and the sculpture. More than just a component of Michelangelo’s youthful training, antiquity served as a perpetual inspiration and challenge. In his early painting and sculpture, Michelangelo readily assimilated the battered and tortuous forms of the Torso Belvedere and the Laocoön ; so too, in later years, did the artist find a different sort of inspiration in a work like the Cesi Juno. This was a mature master drawing deeply from the well of antiquity. Similarly, late in his career, Michelangelo drew inspiration from other unlikely sources, including Marcello Venusti. Together, the two artists created a body of images that through replica and reproduction were 1 And particularly popular in Spain, according to Giovanni Baglione, Le vite, 20. 2 I take the notion from Jack Stillinger, Multiple Authorship and the Myth of Solitary Genius (New York and Oxford, 1991) ; see also M. M. Bullard, Heroes and their Workshops : Medici Patronage and the Problem of Shared Legacy, « Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies » 24 (1994) :179-98, and F. W. Kent, Patron-Client Networks in Renaissance Florence and the Emergence of Lorenzo de’ Medici as Maestro della Bottega, in Lorenzo de’ Medici : New Perspectives, ed. B. Toscani (New York, 1994), 279-313.

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widely disseminated and much admired. In this enterprise, Venusti was much more than a factotum. It would be a grave mistake to dismiss him as one of the colorless ‘pupils’ of Michelangelo, or worse, as a mere imitator. The fact is that late in life Michelangelo discovered in Venusti a talented and trusted associate who could realize the master’s designs in paint. Moreover, Michelangelo chose to collaborate with Venusti. He evidently was drawn to Venusti’s highly finished, enamellike manner, a style as much in demand in the sixteenth century as it is little regarded now. There is much about that taste, and the role played by Michelangelo and Venusti in helping to shape it, that remains insufficiently understood and appreciated.

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GIULIO CAMILLO’S THEATRE AND DECORUM IN MANNERIST DECORATION Clare Lapraik Guest

O

ur subject here, Giulio Camillo Delminio (c. 1480-1544), fits into the Roman context of the conference in the sense that he provides a link between the Roman world of Bembo in the early sixteenth century and the way in which High Renaissance ideals of imitation become more encyclopaedic, more taxonomic, and, on occasion, diffused with hermetic thought. If Camillo is an exponent of Ciceronianism on one hand he is also the direct source of inspiration for the artistic theory of Lomazzo, published at the very end of the century, in which an account for the variety of artistic styles is founded on an astrological scheme of magical-medical influences, developed from Agrippa and Ficino. In a sense this paper could be read as an attempt to sketch in the relevance of Camillo to some of the speculative and literary background for what one might very hesitantly call a Mannerist grand style represented by a painter such as Salviati, praised by Tasso, which takes its inspiration from the decorated architecture and decorative schemes of Raphael and his followers. In the attempt to develop Raphael’s attainment of « universal excellence » in the fusion of architecture, ornament and painting, Mannerist decorative schemes seem to cultivate variety and ornament which require multiple levels of reading so that the totality of a decorative scheme contained in a room, developed through an entire building as at Caprarola, or through the relations of villa and garden, as at the Villa D’Este, is understood as a complex whole structured in terms of analogical elements. It is my conviction that if we are to grasp such Mannerist decorative schemes in their totality, we must go behind the iconography to see the nature of the underlying analogical ordering, in the awareness that in the work of an architect such as Pirro Ligorio, for example, these structures may be working together in manifold ways at any given point. To give a short example - when Francesco de’ Vieri writes a description of the Medici garden at Pratolino (Discorso delle meravigliose opere di Pratolino et d’amore, Florence 1586), he adopts a mode based on

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scriptural exegesis - but where biblical exegesis employed four levels of interpretation, de’ Vieri uses no less than twelve. I will not attempt to take this twelve-fold explication as a model, but I will suggest that it is useful to search for a structural means of accommodating the invention of arguments, the copious, allegorical and hieroglyphic representations that all have their place in an architectural setting fulfilled by the activity that it houses, whose theatric character is accentuated by perspectival structuring and (in the case of villas) the ‘disclosure ’ of the topography by perspective and iconography. Thus we are looking here for a way here for a way of understanding the continuity of place (locus), of variety in invention and style, and of allegorical or hieroglyphic i.e. metaphoric configurations. To this it must be added that when we look at works such as Salviati’s decorations in the Palazzo Sacchetti, Rome, or the work of Ligorio and the artists probably under his supervision (Barocci and Zuccari among others) at the Casino of Pius IV, we find such an intense concentration of variety within each room or part of the larger scheme of an edifice that we can no longer appeal to notions of decorum based on Cicero which we find in Alberti and Castiglione. Armenini and Vasari, writing in 1586 and 1568 of Giovanni da Udine’s work in the Vatican Loggie, praise not only the archaeological but the almost encyclopedic character of the grottesche decorations which depict everything that one could imagine produced by nature in all seasons in all parts of the world, as well as the images created by the mind, or the phantasia.1 In the coming pages I will suggest very cautiously that the peculiarly rich and ornate style present throughout the arts as the sixteenth century progresses may point to a shift in the understanding of decorum, and so in the notion of fitting style, in which decorum becomes less a matter defined by the demands of each occasion and more related to the exhaustive depiction of the arguments which each situation «contains». The enquiry concerns also the notion of universal attainment, ‘uni1 «[Giovanni da Udine] ha saputo fare la natura […] di tutte le maniere biande, legumi, frutti che ha […] in tutti i tempi prodotti la terra […] che dirò delle varie sorti di frutti e di fiori che in tutte le parti del mondo sa produrre la natura, in tutte le stagioni dell’anno» Vasari, Vite, cited in Barocchi, Scritti dell’arte del cinquecento, Milan, 1971-1976 iii, pp. 2583-2584. In his discussion of the grottesche, Armenini associates them with the random forms (stains, clouds) discussed by Leonardo, and the forms which we read into such shapes, which «si creano da sé nell’intelletto nostro» (Armenini, De’ veri precetti, 1587, cited in Barocchi, op. cit., p. 2698).

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versal style’ or a universal genre that can depict or contain all things, which appears in the various arts (Armenini on the grottesche of Giovanni da Udine as «universal example», Vasari on Raphael as «ottimo universale», Tasso on the epic). One should recall that style is always an enactment of argument and qualities of style correspond to structures of argument and ways of conceiving the thought itself which underlies them. When Tasso spends pages in the Discorsi del poema eroico in arguing that poetry is a species of logical proof he is not giving a display of pedantic erudition but attempting to clarify the structure of thought he sees in poetic representation. Again, if Erasmus’s recommendations for the cultivation of abundant style in De copia are cited in relation to visual art, it is important to remember that copia refers to arguments - to things - as well as to words, and these things require a logical structure in order to be amplified. Thus remarks on the «universal» qualities of the grottesche in the Vatican Loggie do not just concern iconography but a structure of understanding and ordering which corresponds to the structure of decoration. One should remark briefly here on an area of logic identified by Aristotle with rhetorical invention, which becomes an object of interest in the Renaissance, namely the topics or loci, conceived as places or «seats» (sedes argumentorum) where arguments could be found and from which they could be drawn. The topics were discussed by Aristotle in the Topica and in the Rhetoric, and by Cicero in his Topica and De inventione, while topical logic is given its Renaissance form in the treatises of Valla and Agricola. Humanist topical logic is frequently seen as culminating with Ramus, famed for the separation of the logical procedures of invention and disposition from the stylistic areas of ornamentation and expression - I wish here to look at another, very different development of the topics in the Renaissance in the work of the letterato and alchemist Giulio Camillo, in which the loci communes from which to draw forth arguments are identified with a stylistic model capable of containing and generating all possible representations. Like the writers of the Humanist logics who followed Agricola and Ramus, Camillo’s work was geared to textual analysis for the purposes of imitation and the method of inventing arguments in an oratorical situation. Camillo’s singularity lies in his effort to establish correspondences between the topics of invention and the taxonomy of rhetorical figures, and further to conflate these inventive-figurative topics with the loci of the art of

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memory, which he conceived in hieroglyphic and hermetic terms as a reflection of the hidden order of the universe. To make the project still stranger, Camillo’s topical-figurative-hieroglyphic memory art was not to be expounded in a text, but constructed in the form of a Vitruvian theatre which he built in Venice and again in France for François I. In looking at this seemingly bizarre project to see if it can throw any light on our understanding of the structure and decorum of Mannerist decoration, with its copious and hieroglyphic figurations, I should emphasise here that I am not suggesting a mechanical model of influence between literary theory and decorated architecture, although Salviati is said to have illustrated Camillo’s Theatro delle Idee. 1 The aim is rather to consider the discussions of a number of influential writers in the attempt to open up the speculative thought that underlies Mannerist decoration and can illuminate the conceptual structure that underlies and supports the iconography. We spoke above for the need for careful consideration of decorum and the shifts in the understanding of the term, which must be linked to shifts in the character of invention, since decorum always responds to the requirements of an occasion. The principal source of sixteenth century thinking on decorum was of course Cicero, both in rhetorical works and the moral essay on duties in De officiis, which translates Aristotle’s meditations on ethical action - praxis - in the Nicomachean Ethics into the enactment of decorum. In the first part of De officiis Cicero makes decorum central to the elevation of active over contemplative life, or of the demands of communitas over theoretic speculation so that it becomes the embodiment of virtue and measure in each concrete situation, discussed through the metaphor of the harmonious proportions of the body. As Cicero relates human sensitivity to aesthetic beauty to our sense of ethical order as moral or intellectual beauty, so decorum manifests itself in each time and place through order, ornament and aptness. We will make only two comments on Cicero’s immensely important discussion of decorum - firstly that despite the insistence on the centrality of active life, the discussion owes much to Socrates’s assertion in the anti-rhetorical dialogue Gorgias that the virtue in a thing consists in its regularity (taxis) and orderly arrangement (kosmos), and that the 1 See Vasari, Life of Salviati, Opere, vol. 7, ed. G. Milanesi, Florence, 1889, rep. 1973, vii, pp. 5-48.

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presence of these qualities in the soul makes a person law abiding and temperate (503c -508b). At 506e Socrates sets forth the view that «it is a certain order (kosmos tis) proper to each existent thing that by its advent in each makes it good», and in the soul such “orderly order” is temperance, in which other virtues such as piety, bravery and justice have their basis. 1 At 507e - 508 this order is extended to the universe itself, since heaven and earth, the gods and men are held together through communion, friendship ( philia), orderliness (kosmiotes), temperance and justice, and whoever overlooks this fails to perceive the «great power of geometric equality», in the human as in the divine realm. Cicero reiterates this discussion of virtue as the harmonious order that underlies all things both in the treatment of decorum in De officiis and in the section on rhythm in De oratore iii, where the «orderliness» embodied or enacted by eloquent speech is in the fullest sense kosmiotes - seemly arrangement or ornament. To abridge Cicero’s arguments inexcusably, the universal order and harmony in which decorum is grounded manifests itself in seemliness and ornament in each concrete situation, and it is through these concrete appearances of decorum that the greater order is disclosed. Secondly, as early as Quintilian, we find that Cicero’s dual emphasis on decorum as eutaxia - the right thing in the right place, and as the constantia and convenientia (constancy and harmony) which we maintain throughout life, has altered and the character which is portrayed by the orator through words and performance is much closer to a persona i.e. a theatre character (the persona being the mask through which the actor speaks - per sonare). Quintilian repeatedly refers to the poets for their delineation of decor and the greatest of poets, who gives the richest representation of decor, of style, of every possible kind of proof and pathos is Homer, whom Quintilian compares to Oceanos, the ocean, source of all other waters. 2 In this topos of Homer as ocean, the source of all matter and all styles, repeated frequently in the Renaissance, we 1 Plato, Gorgias, trans. W. R. M. Lamb, Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1975. 2 Quintilian, Instituto oratoria, x.i.46. trans. H. E. Butler, Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1921-1922. -Quintilian’s metaphor draws on earlier Hellenistic sources, such as Galaton’s painting of the third century b.c. for the Homereion, or shrine to Homer, which showed the poet as a river god whose great flood was collected by imitators in small jugs. Galaton’s painting is discussed in connection with contemporary Hellenistic literary debate by John Onians, Art and Thought in the Hellenistic Age, London, 1979, p. 134.

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also see the beginnings of the idea of the totalising poem in which all things can be found. There may be a reflection of this in Quintilian’s attempt to present oratory as an encyclios paedeia, a total structure of learning which is no longer based on political praxis but literary study - what concerns us here is the decorum of the totalising poem as it is theorised in the sixteenth century, when the rhetorical works of Cicero and Quintilian are supplemented by two important authors on rhetoric - Aristotle and Hermogenes. In Aristotle’s Rhetoric we find both a treatment of the common topics of rhetoric, and the proofs (enthymeme and example) which they «contain», and a discussion of figurative language which continued to exert immense influence even in the later seventeenth century, forming the basis of Tesauro’s enormous Cannochiale Aristotelico («The Spyglass of Aristotle»), the most extensive of the Baroque anatomies of wit. Camillo’s theatre seems to have been - amongst other things - an effort to merge together the topical, inventive part of Aristotle’s Rhetoric with the remarks on style, which include the famous comment on the liveliness - energeia - of metaphor and its capacity to present things to the eyes - what was called enargeia. 1 Alongside Cicero’s meditations on decorum as founded in the universal ordering which structures each of its particular manifestations, Quintilian’s treatment of oratory as encyclopaedic literary art and Aristotle’s remarks on topical invention, on the proportion (analogia) of argument and style and on the energeia of metaphor, we should place the Graeco-Roman orator Hermogenes, in a treatise suggestively called the Ideas. Hermogenes’s work on rhetoric, which dates back to the second century a.d. and formed the basis of Byzantine rhetoric, was printed by Aldus in 1508 and widely read before dropping from use in the following century; the work inspired the rhetorical theory of Camillo, who wrote a translation and a short treatise, Discorso sopra l’idee di Ermogene, it was translated by Sturm and Natale Conti, and employed extensively by George of Trebizond in the Rhetoricum libri, by Minturno and Scaliger in their poetics, by Tasso in his theoretical 1 One should also recall Aristotle’s other uses of energeia, as the energy that brings virtuous dispositions from potentiality to act, and actuality, in the Nicomachean Ethics as tge actualisation of substances in the Metaphysics, and as the vital force of ensouled life in De anima – in the light of such discussions, we can understand the importance of the attribution of energeia to metaphor.

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writings and by Puttenham.1 The popularity of the treatise rested on the fact that its treatment of style, discussed in terms of qualities or «ideas», was more extensive and flexible than that of Cicero, and proceded by distinguishing qualities which could either govern style or form a part of it, these ideas being clarity (sapheia), grandeur (megethos), beauty (kallos), speed (gorgotes), ethos, verity (aletheia) and gravity (deinotes) - grave or mighty style can be both a quality of style and an idea that illuminates the right use of all style. In a poetics such as that of Minturno, which appears much influenced by Camillo, we find that the treatment of the topics, which Minturno regards as essential not only to invention but to imitation, is followed by an account of Hermogenes’s seven ideas, which he refers to as loci. The ideas do not represent exclusive stylistic choices but should come together to form a replete, composite decorum which Minturno identifies with the «poema [...] tenuto ottimo e perfetto». 2 The synthesis of Hermogenes’s ideas with Aristotle also features in Tasso’s Discorsi del poema eroico, published in 1594 but probably written about thirty years earlier. Tasso takes the second form, grandeur (megethos), and qualities attributed to it such as magnificence, splendour and ornament as the basis for his discussion of the epic, which he conceives as «bellissimo oltre tutti gli altri poemi» (Discorso vi). 3 While the epic is formulated as a combination of the sublimity of tragedy and the ornament of lyric, its greatness is such that it can mix itself with other forms, and exalt them to its own level. In place of decorum as the appropriate delineation of all characters according to their costumi, Tasso advances the idea of «decoro generale», in which decorum comes not from the particular circumstances of each thing but from the genre, which contains stylistic forms as its species and ennobles them as they are united in the grand style of heroic poetry. 4 If the topics provide the sources from which all arguments can be drawn, the ideas provide a complete taxonomy of style and the epic is identified with the decoro generale that can embrace and elevate the other genres. Tasso makes his vision of the totalising character of the epic still more explicit in the famous analogy in 1 On Hermogenes, see Annabel Patterson, Hermogenes and the Renaissance, Princeton, 1970. 2 L’arte poetica, Venice, 1563, p. 443. 3 Torquato Tasso, Discorsi del poema eroico, in Prose, ed. E. Mazzali, Milan, 1959, p. 693. 4 Tasso, op. cit., pp. 557.

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the third discorso of the variety in unity in the plot of the poem, and the variety of the world held together by the one nodo of «discorde concordia». 1 In this celebrated passage, Tasso is drawing on a topos of theologia poetica, employed by Boccaccio, Salutati, and Landino, in which the poet’s mimetic making is the imitation of divine creation.2 What distinguishes Tasso’s employment of this topos from the earlier Humanist defenses of poetry is the comprehensive character attributed to argument, style and decorum, not just to imitation, as they come together in the composite world poem. Tasso’s Discorsi, I would argue, are inconceivable without the work of Camillo, for whom Tasso indeed expressed great admiration, 3 and in Camillo the inter-relationships between style, argument, order and universal order signal the continuity between the oration, the poem, the theatrum mundi and the encyclopaedia. In speaking of the encyclopaedia (i.e. the pre-enlightenment encyclopaedia), we might think of its ambition to represent things as they stand within our knowledge in terms of a circle of learning which reflects the harmony of the true order of things, and may present itself as an inspired divulgation.4 If the encyclopaedia is a system of classification, it should not be divorced from its embodiment in a poem, a spectacle, a studiolo or a garden, since the poetic character of these things, as products of human making is fundamental to their rehearsal of an ordering that discloses universal architecture, just as Tasso’s ideal poem imitates the variety and concors discordia of the world. It is important here not to flatten artistic embodiments into illustrations of theoretical speculation, but to 1 Tasso, op. cit., pp. 588-589. 2 The topos was further fuelled with Ficino’s translation of the Corpus Hermeticum and its celebration of man’s capacity to range through the cosmos; claims obviously taken up by Giovanni Pico in his Oratio. 3 In La cavaletta overo della poesia toscana, Tasso remarked that Camillo was the first person since Dante to realiste that rhetoric was a kind of poetry (Dialoghi, ed. E. Raimondi, Florence 1958, vol. ii, pp. 661-663). 4 Here one could think of the French Academies explored by Frances Yates and figures such as Pontus de Tyard in Le solitaire premier. The present essay is of course indebted to Yates’s work on the revival and development of artificial memory in the Renaissance. The notion of the organisation of knowledge so that its disclosure becomes the discovery of a harmonious pattern to our understanding goes back to antiquity, as in Cicero’s evocation of illa Platonis vera that the teaching contained in the liberal arts is held together as by a chain («uno quodam societatis vinculo contineri»). Once the force or theory (vis) that leads to the knowledge of the causes and effects has been perceived, a marvellous accord and harmony between the sciences is discovered (De oratore iii. v. 20 - vi. 22).

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understand the connections which allow Tasso, for example, to posit the epic poem simultaneously as species of logical proof, as microcosm of a Neoplatonic universal order and as optimum use of a rhetorical model of grandiloquent style, alongside the discussions of plot and imitation which form the core of poetics proper. As we shall shortly see, Camillo brings all these elements together with a transformation of the art of memory into a structure of hieroglyphic figuration, and places this structure within a Vitruvian theatre which embodies in its form speculations on the relation of cosmos and microcosmos (harmonia universalis and astrological chart). This is basically to say that Camillo’s theatre incorporates its manifold and supposedly analogical structures in terms of a constant reflection on the body-soul discussions concerning forms of «hieroglyphic» figuration like the impresa and on the Renaissance Vitruvian thinking on the analogies between human and universal proportion. Thus the theatre embraces speculation that runs throughout the arts: music and architecture as embodiment of harmonious proportion, the verbalvisual configurations of «hieroglyphic» representation, the insistence on the intensely visual nature of figurative language and finally the magical thought which attempts to draw down the inspiring force that lies in music and eloquence into prepared i.e. proportionate vessels. In his Trattato dell’imitazione Camillo also gives a model that is structurally identical for all the arts, based on the universal capacity of the mind to function through images, and the operative character of images. With this much in hand, we should now turn to look at Camillo’s work itself. Camillo set forth his thought on eloquence in a sequence of related works, Della imitatione, La topica o vero della elocuzione, Discorso in materia del suo teatro and the Idea del theatro itself.1 In these works we can remark two strategies - firstly the transformation of the stylistic model of Hermogenes’s Ideas into a rhetorical topics, which turns logical distinctions for the «places» for finding arguments into a model for the invention and imitation of figures. Second, this topics from which all arguments and figures can be drawn forth is extended to the actual 1 The bulk of Camillo’s writings remained in manuscript form until 1544, with the first edition of the Opere printed in 1552 with an introduction by Ludovico Dolce; a more ample two volume Opere was issued by Gabriel Giolito in 1560, with the second volume edited by Francesco Patrizi.

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construction of the theatre, whose places are also the memory loci of classical oratory, and the esoteric images which «explicate» or unfold all lower things from the divine essence which can be used magically to move nature, just as eloquence aspires to move human beings. The theatre in short corresponds to Camillo’s idea of a multiple, transmutatory art, which entails transformation of and through words (rhetoric), of nature (alchemy or magic), and of the soul in its ascent to the divine. Like Tasso in his analogy between the unity of the plot in the epic poem and the nodo which holds in itself the diversity of the universe, Camillo sees a single form or essence from all other things emanate. His aim is to discover the architecture that can order the variety of the world so that the right sequence of transformations can take place and his originality lies in his attempt to create a structure in which the mutations of the word exist explicitly in analogy with those of nature and the soul. Thus Camillo’s project is based on the conviction that from the correct arrangement of arguments and words we can arrive at the understanding of all things which has its stylistic correlative in the ability to speak with such harmony of words that men are moved in the same way that Hermes Trismegistus spoke of the statues of the Egyptians animated by the perfect proportions which they embodied. In utilising the topics to this end, Camillo gives a hermetic dimension to contemporary Humanist debates on relationship between topical logic, rhetoric and the «places» of the art of memory - like Petrus Ramus, whose ends were almost diametrically opposed, Camillo sees a very close connection between the loci of topical logic and the loci of artificial memory, and identifies the capacity to find or invent arguments with the capacity to remember them. If both men create mechanisms for the invention and disposition of arguments for which they claim universal efficacy, the Ramist epitome is founded on the separation of dialectic from rhetoric, while Camillo’s theatre both identifies topics with elocutio and elaborates the visual character of the traditional art of memory so that each of the places or «seats» in the theatre is marked by a quasi hieroglyphic image. Camillo’s extension of the topics from places of argument into style is not without precedent - Rudolph Agricola had likened the topics to treasure chests, and Erasmus developed Agricola’s topical logic into a thesaurus of arguments in De copia verborum et rerum where the second part of the treatise, on copia argumentorum, lists the wealth of

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arguments that may be drawn from a subject, based on the analysis of its predicates. (We might note here that Erasmus regards hieroglyphs in a similar way when he remarks that they allow us to consider the categories of a subject.) The link between the topics and copious style is significant - for Erasmus it seems that the loci for discovering the two-fold copia verborum et rerum are at once the topics of logical invention and the treasure house, or thesaurus, of philology. It is from this thesaurus that the Adagia are drawn, which form a basis for Alciati’s Emblemata and thence pass into Renaissance hieroglyphic figuration. Thus we might see in De copia a basis for Camillo’s identification of the topics with arguments, style and imitation, where Erasmus’s openended model has given way to the tighter scheme of Hermogenes’s seven ideas and their transformation into the transcendent Ideas of Platonic hermeticism. At the core of Camillo’s system is the character of the topic as image, argument and place, which leads to his insistence on the concrete arrangement of the theatre of ideas and on the visual nature of the figures described in the Topica, an influential work consisting of a classification of rhetorical - primarily figurative - locutions, based on logical distinctions which leads to the identification of dialectical invention with elocutio, «sono al creder mio alcuni topici communi agli argomenti et a queste figure». 1 If the Topica runs through the «places» in which one may find various kinds of figures, such as the sources from which epithets may be drawn, or the varieties of metonymy, Della imitatione gives a fuller account of how the topics work in terms of the memory theatre, where the implications of the loci are developed to their fullest. Della imitatione, which is amongst other things a reply to Erasmus’s Ciceronianus (which contained an uncomplimentary portrait of Camillo), talks of the three «orders» of language which can «vestir ciascun nostro concetto: il proprio, il traslato, e quello perfino a qui [...] non è caduto nome e che in tutta l’impresa nostra prima chiamiamo e chiameremo sempre «topico». 2 The topical order of language is that which uses the categories elucidated in the Topica to analyse the distinctive qualities of style in any writer; as well as a classification of figures it is an instrument of imitation which Camillo, as a letterato 1 Topica, in L’idea del teatro e altri scritti di retorica, Milan, 1990, p.225. See also De imitatione, «da quei medesimi lochi possono esser formato le figure che topiche chiamiamo da quali gli argomenti», Op. cit., p. 172. 2 De imitatione, op. cit., p. 170.

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in the Venetian circles of Bembo, identifies principally with the two models of Cicero and Petrarch. Once a text has been broken down into its locuzioni topiche, it is “stored” in the places elaborated, and finally physically constructed in the memory theatre, which is also a model of the human mind as microcosm. Camillo likens the topics to the letters of the alphabet, a limited series of signs from which all things can be written, or the categories ( predicamenti) of Aristotle, «a dieci principi tutte le cose che sono in cielo, in terra e nell’abisso si potessino ridurre». 1 The theatre, as the place where the topics are stored is thus a model of the universe, which contains all things that exist and can be thought «nella gran fabrica del Teatro mio son per lochi e per imagini disposti tutti quei lochi che posson bastar a tener colocati e a ministrar tutti gli umani concetti, tutte le cose che sono in tutto il mondo». 2 The theatre as built for Camillo’s patron, François I of France, was a large wooden structure in Vitruvian form, decorated with forty nine sets of images, designed it seems by Salviati, painted on seven tiers of seats (literally sedes argumentorum) divided into seven rows. At the front of the theatre were seven «ideas» transmuted from stylistic qualities to transcendent forms that served to «explicate» divinity, conceived as the seven measures of the architecture of heaven and earth which contained the ideas of all the things belonging to them, according to a synthesis of Neoplatonism, Cabala and hermetic thought that Camillo learns principally from Francesco Giorgio. In rising tiers above this first order, subsequent images refered to the prima materia, the three fold soul of the Zohar unfolded in the first stage of creation, the mixing of elements, human nature in its inner aspect, the conjunction of body and soul, human creation from nature and finally human artifice - ingegno. These levels Camillo symbolised by the banquet of Oceanus with the gods, the Homeric cave of the nymphs, the Gorgons, Pasiphae, the sandals of Mercury and Prometheus, each level being divided seven fold according to the seven planets. Each image which contained a locus that “stores” a figure or argument to be remembered was coordinated in terms of its Cabalistic-angelic-planetary-mythical alignment and its position in the unfolding of the world, so that the structure of the topics was recalled in terms of the cosmic order, and thus, Camillo said, gave knowledge of the origins of things, not just their effects. From the 1 Op. cit., p. 180. In the Discorsi del poema eroico, Tasso makes a similar comparison. 2 Op. cit., p. 172.

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remarks in De imitatione, we can surmise that what the loci held were quotations from Cicero, arranged according to topic, so that liasons rhétoriques, as Cesare Vasoli says, of the Topica are presented as equivalent to the lines of correspondence which unite all things in the world amongst themselves, and the figures of rhetoric enter into analogy with the images of the magus.1 It seems probable that Camillo envisaged the images of the loci (which form a finite series, the same image being repeated in different places with different meanings) as hieroglyphs corresponding to each of the forms and topics of speech in the loci, and we should note here that Camillo says that topical locuzioni are not sententiae, but represent figures as though one could see them (i.e. they exhibit enargeia). 2 Before we dismiss Camillo as a madman and the theatre as a singularly bizarre product of Ciceronianism, we should remember that Camillo regarded imitation itself as a kind of transformation; when he defends the topics as an instrument of Ciceronianism by saying that they permit a writer to recreate a golden eloquence, to «metter in opera l’oro», he is not just speaking figuratively, but pointing to the analogy of rhetoric and alchemy that sustains the whole work. This analogy is most explicit in the treatise De transmutatione: Laude della transmutazione divina, per la quale l’huomo diventa Dio esso [...] Laude della transmutazione dell’eloquenza, la qual nelle parole, che paiono caduche, fa vedere prodottione et eternità [...] Laude della transmutazione naturale, la qual cosa [...] può sola meter solo il nostro senso la materia prima nel statto inocentissimo nel quale era avanti il peccato di Adamo, et nel quale si ritroverà doppo che tutte le impurità saranno consumate nel fuoco del divino giudizio. 3

The «eternità» perceived through the transformations of rhetorical figures thus seems to occupy a mid way place between the transmutations of matter which disclose the essence or pristine innocence of 1 Giulio Camillo Delmonio et l’art transmutatoire in Alchimie et Philosophie à la Rénaissance, ed. Margolin and Matton, Paris, 1993. 2 It should also be remembered that Camillo opens the Idea del theatro, which is an explication of the esoteric structure of the theatre whose rhetorical aspects formed the subject of his other discussions, with an excursus of on the symbolic figuration of the mysteries, saying «noi nelle cose nostre ci serviamo delle imagini, come di significatrici di quelle cose che non si debbe profanare» (Idea, cit., ed. Linda Bolzani, Palermo, 1991, p. 50). 3 Cited in Vasoli, L’art transmutatoire, cit., p. 201.

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«prima materia», or hyle as Camillo calls it, and the ascension of the human to the divine. 1 If the theatre looks like a development of Ficino’s references to the making of models of the universe in the discussion of planetary magic in De vita iii.xix, it also has a certain mechanical quality and we might give it the self-contradictory name of a poetic instrument. 2 That is to say that while one could almost discern in Camillo’s artificial memory, with its pretensions to contain and transform the macrocosm, something like the archaic ancestor of artificial intelligence, the instrumental tendencies of the representation still dominated by its symbolic and poetic character. In other words, if the trajectory of Camillo’s theatre could in a certain sense be regarded as technological representation, the analogical speculation that penetrates the whole project is carried out in terms of a poetic structure of divulgation, and thus an operative esoteric symbol is easily identified with the kind of world of artifice which it is the peculiar prerogative of poetry to create out of the «discoveries» of metaphorical similitude. It would seem that Camillo’s writings were so widely read and praised in his age by figures such as Minturno, Serlio, Tasso, Patrizi, Lomazzo, and Dolce, because they provided a means of linking a taxonomy of rhetorical argument and figures to a universal structure of meaning, and the continuity between the two is asserted in a model that attaches particular importance to the figures or ornaments of speech codified in the Topica. We have seen above that the topics were associated in De copia with the abundant style, and that for Camillo the diversity of the universe is reflected in a structure of classification (loci ) which can hold and generate all possible arguments and styles. It was also noted that in Minturno and Tasso the ideas of Hermogenes are used to postulate the notion of 1 As against Camillo’s discussion of hyle as the alchemical prima material, one might recall also that in rhetorical and dialectical discussions of the period, we often find wood used as a metaphor for things or matters to be sorted by topical arrangement. This metaphor is noted by Walter Ong in Ramus, Method and the Decay of Dialogue, who adduces Ben Jonson’s book of commonplaces, Timber, but in Camillo we also find frequent references to language as a dense forest to be cleared (selva) and put in place by the rhetorical topics, and Tasso in the second of the Discorsi del poema eroico calls the material of poetry (i.e. what it takes for its subject) as «una selva oscura, tenebrosa e priva d’ogni luce» (Discorsi in Prose, op. cit., p. 514). 2 Ficino recommends that this room take the form of a small room depicted with the figures and colours pertaining to the planetary gods.

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a most perfect form of poetry which can contain the other forms, and the qualities of this perfect or most magnificent form in both writers are influenced by Speroni’s praise of Homer in his Discorso sopra Virgilio as the poet whose works shows both the organic relation of invention and ornament and the display of all ornament, all variety. This cultivation of copious style and ornament should not be approached solely as a taste for lavish excess but as a figuration of a structure of proportion; the elaboration of analogies is not a loss of measure, but an embodiment of measure which displays the rich fulfilment of decorum. As noted above, this understanding of decorum is tied in with ideas of genre and the highest genre which both «contains» stylistic forms as its species and brings these forms together in the composite whole of the highest style, appropriate for epic. To come back to Camillo, the multiple disclosures of the analogical structure generated by the topics constantly work in concert with a vertical scheme of correspondence, which points up to the emanation of all things from a divine source, and whose metaphoric character is highlighted in Camillo’s insistence on the transmutatory character of his art. With these ideas in hand, we might here return at last to the starting point on the speculative character presented by certain copious and ornate decorative schemes of the mid sixteenth century. In the decorated architecture of Salviati in Palazzo Sacchetti, or Palazzo Vecchio, for example, or the work of Taddeo Zuccaro at Caprarola, we see that the cultivation of variety lies both in the density of visual detail and a plethora of strategies of reading which have visual form in the central istorie, illusionistic tapestries, statues or reliefs, framing architectural features, allegorical personifications, trophies, imprese, hieroglyphs and grottesche. In considering this kind of decorated architecture, it seems worthwhile to recall that the qualities of energeia and enargeia, which made figures appear before the eyes and gave them movement (and thus life and soul), were also said to make argument seem as though it were enacted in a theatre. Quintilian associated the capacity to speak with enargeia with the phantasia, also the source of the memory images that Cicero described as personae - theatre masks, so we see the links between a quality of style associated in particular with metaphor, the images of artificial memory and the notion of a theatre where arguments are contained, rehearsed and displayed in visual form. If the room as a locus where arguments are stored and played out is a kind

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of theatre,1 this theatre is universal in character, its copious figurations drawn from the topics and displayed before the eyes, often in the form of a triumph (here one might consider the importance of showing, especially showing of treasure or riches in Mannerist painting), while its hieroglyphic representations figure the structure of mediation between idea and embodiment. The unfolding of variety and the structure of vertical representation in the «hieroglyphs» should be seen as working together, as indeed they appear in the decorations of the Zuccari or Salviati - both variety and the «hieroglyphs» are governed by a structure of proportion (analogia) which applies also to the architectural frame. This «universal» structure is reiterated throughout sixteenth century decorative cycles with the cosmic iconography of elements, seasons, qualities, and planets i.e. the representation of divine providence as the frame for the celebration of human making on earth, commemorated through history and often depicted in terms of the triumph. To return to the relevance of Camillo, these images may also be mnemonic in character; the iconography and structure of a room such as the Studiolo in Palazzo Vecchio refers simultaneously to cosmic order and its apprehension in the human microcosm. The cognitive apparatus of this microcosm is set forth in Aristotelian psychology, which provides the terminology for faculties (memory, imagination) which was extended into the discussion of varieties or elements of certain signs (metaphor, concetto). The links between mid sixteenth century Mannerist decoration and the configuration of topics, memory loci and figures, style and the architecture of the cosmos in Camillo’s theatre are asserted in the artistic theory of Lomazzo, centered on music as source of Vitruvian proportion and magical force of movement and transformation on one hand, and on the other a «hieroglyphic» conception of figuration, which covers all areas from physiognomy to the grottesche. If we search however for an artistic practice, rather than a theory, which might show rich correspondences with the interpenetration of conceptual, iconographic and stylistic levels enacted in the memory theatre, we might conclude by looking at not only at a painter such as Salviati but at Pirro Ligorio, the architect, antiquarian and mythographer whose villas and encyclopaedia on antiquities display the search for an all1 Aside from the scenic character of perspective, we might recall here the frequent depiction of figures holding theatre masks in Bronzino and the Zuccari.

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inclusive structure of figuration as oceanic as Camillo’s is codified. In each case we find a reflection on an analogical-allegorical structure of representation, on the nature of the locus and on attempt to create a totalising scheme of order in which all things can be defined and yet, paradoxically, participate in process of transmutation. If we compare Ligorio’s work to that of his more illustrious predecessors in the Vatican, we find that the elaboration of theatrical spaces, already rich in Bramante and Raphael, has become extraordinarily complex - the villa or garden room as theatre is not just the container for a sequence of topical-allegorical transformations but has become part of the process itself. In Ligorio, the interpenetration of topography, of iconography, of locus in the senses we have discussed above, and of analogical-metaphoric figuration has become so deep that it is impossible to disentangle place, image and argument. A «hieroglyphic» illustration of this interpenetration appears in the central figure in the loggia of the Casino of Pius IV, Ligorio’s most intact work, who symbolises Memoria with persona in hand, mother of the Muses and presiding deity of the Casino as locus as memory theatre that embodies references or «recollections» of the circus, naumachia, Parnassus, cave of the nymphs, sacred grove and so forth. If the divisions between locus as image, place and argument seem to dissolve in the Vatican Casino, we should note that this process is accompanied by the ubiquitous presence of water, and by the lack of distinction between ornament and what is adorned, particularly conspicuous in the penetration of grottesche throughout the work. In their essay on the Casino, Marcello Fagiolo and Maria Luisa Madonna called it a hieroglyph, 1 and we should recall that Ligorio, like Lomazzo, associates hieroglyphs in his writings with the grottesche, whose transformations illustrate not only the combinatory capacity of the phantasia but the transmutations of prima materia, endless permutations of form and matter, which Camillo as we saw viewed as a part of the threefold transmutation of words to «golden eloquence» and the deificatio of the soul.2 On one hand, the multiplication of allegories and analogies in the grottesche is a fitting expression 1 La Casino di Pio IV in Vaticano Pirro Ligorio e l’architettura come geroglifico, « Storia dell’arte » 15/16, 1972. 2 Ligorio, Libro dell’antichità, Turin, Archivio dello Stato, Ms.a.iii.10, heading “Grotta”. Lomazzo, Trattato dell’arte della pittura, scoltura e architettura, Milan, 1584, cited in Barocchi, op. cit., p. 2694.

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of the conflation of decoration, iconography, typology and topography in Ligorio’s work - the impossibility, one might say, of disentangling ornament in the work from the work as a whole as ornament. On the other hand, while the grottesche might act as hieroglyphs for the configuration of matter and form, as images of the metamorphosis that discloses prima materia, they point towards the fountains that form the life force of Ligorio’s work, so that the Casino in not a museum, where the Muses are invoked through static fragments, but, as he calls it, a lymphaeum - a place in which the inspiring iconography is penetrated and animated by a vital lymph.1 In conclusion, the purpose of introducing the Casino as something like an analogy for the memory theatre is not just to display its collage of an encyclopaedic array of material or the analogical-allegorical configurations which can be contained within a locus, but to see how it fulfilled its theatric character as a place of lively representation, with the transformations of its lymph as both symbol and analogy for the contemplative play which it could engender in its beholders. 1 See Ligorio, Libro dell’antichità, Vat. Lat. Ottoboni 3371, fol. 187: « Musaeo Musaeum luogo dedicato alle Muse [...] come Lympho Lymphateum i luoghi dedicati alle Lymphe presidenti delli Fonti ». The Casino is celebrated as « Lymphaeum » in the inscriptions of the grotto.

maria lactans and the council of trent

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MARIA LACTANS AND THE COUNC IL OF TRENT : A BAN ON THE VIRIGIN’S BARE BREAST ? Kristine Kolrud

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he figure of the Mother of God has inspired an infinite number of legends. The nursing Virgin is, one might say, one of the least imaginative. Breast-feeding was crucial to the survival of infants until adequate substitutes were found in the mid-nineteenth century.1 Maternal milk has been credited special powers in diverse cultures and representations of goddesses suckling their baby-gods can be traced back to long before the birth of Christ. Many of the images of the Virgin underwent changes or disappeared as a result of the religious confl icts that divided Europe from the 16th century on. Did the Catholic understanding of the nursing Virgin also change in accordance with the new Counter-Reformatory views on mariology ? My concern here is with the lactating Virgin, particularly in the Italian environment, in relation to the Tridentine reaction to sacred images. As with many religious issues this is a complex field where varying and sometimes clearly speculative methods were employed in the service of faith. A total overview of the many attitudes towards the breast-feeding Mary is beyond the scope of this study, the focus of which will be one particular writer’s interpretation, that of the Flemish theologian Johannes Molanus. In order to investigate the Tridentine influence upon the image it is necessary to first take a closer look at the development of the type. The earliest known Maria Lactans is a second century fresco in the catacomb of S. Priscilla in Rome (Fig. 1). The popularity of the motif in Christian 1 See Valerie Fildes. Fildes notes, however, that poor women still used pap in want of maternal milk. She also says that although wet nurses were not normally employed in Britain in the twentieth century, ‘…in most other parts of the world, in both industrialized and developing countries, wet nursing remained a common alternative to maternal breastfeeding until at least the 1940s’. (Wet Nursing : A History From Antiquity to the Present, Oxford : Blackwell, 1988, pp. 200f and 242). Mortality rates for babies fed on animal milk, pap or gruel always were extremely high and they therefore never represented a good alternative to human milk.

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Fig. 1. Madonna del Latte, 2nd century, Rome, S. Priscilla.

maria lactans and the council of trent 175 art grew steadily from the twelfth century and became one of the most frequent images in the Italian trecento. 1 A new Madonna type appeared at the time : the Madonna of Humility who was seated on the ground, sometimes bare-foot, holding Christ in her arms. 2 The image was often fused with that of the Maria Lactans and the nursing Mother of God thus became a symbol of humility (Fig. 2). 3 The breast-feeding Mother of God must, however, be considered in a wider context. The Virgin’s bare breast is in itself connected with milk even when she is not in the act of feeding the Child. Images that show the bare-breasted, but not lactating, Virgin therefore allude to the breast’s nourishing functions. 4 According to Hall’s Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art the image of the nursing Virgin eventually disappeared because of the ban on nudity in religious painting issued by the Council of Trent in 1563. 5 Having seen such representations from the early 17th century Hall’s statement triggered my interest in the subject. I started searching for post-Tridentine paintings of the Maria Lactans and discovered that there was a substantial number from the latter half of the 16th until the late 17th centuries. Clearly, the subject was not as popular as it had been in the late Middle Ages but nor did it disappear. Does this mean that the ban was not effective or perhaps that the subject was not affected by the ban on nudity ? 1 Victor Lasareff, Studies in the iconography of the Virgin, « Art Bulletin », v. xx, 1938, pp. 26-65 (pp. 27f and 34-36). 2 Millard Meiss convincingly argues that the positioning on the ground was enough to indicate the Virgin’s lowly status. The bare feet seem to have been introduced in the fifteenth century. Later the Virgin was often placed on a cloud and the original symbolic function of her contact with the ground was lost. She was frequently presented with the sun, moon, and twelve stars of the Woman of the Apocalypse. (Painting in Florence and Siena After the Black Death, Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, 1951, pp. 132, n. 1, 139f and 153-156). 3 See Ernst Guldan, Eva und Maria : Eine Antithese als Bildmotiv. Graz and Cologne : Böhlaus, 1966, p.132. 4 According to Susan Marti, Daniela Mondini the Maria Lactans was traditionally closely associated with the intercession, i.e. Mary’s gesture is a referral to the breast that fed Christ. (« Ich manen dich der brüsten min, Das du dem sünder wellest milte sin ! » - Marienbrüste und Marienmilch im Heilsgeschehen’ in Himmel Hölle Fegefeuer : Das Jenseits im Mittelalter, exh. cat, Peter Jezler ed., Schweizerisches Landesmuseum, Zürich : Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 1994, pp. 79 - 90 (p. 79)). 5 London : Murray, 1974, p. 329. Other writers are in line with Hall, among them Marina Warner who says : ‘ It became indecorous for the Virgin to bare her breast’. (Alone of All Her Sex : The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary. London : Picador, [1976] 1985, p. 203). The Council of Trent met intermittently in 25 sessions between 1545 and 1563.

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Fig. 2. Workshop of Simone Martini, Madonna of Humility, Berlin, Kaiser-Friedrich Museum.

The Council of Trent did not pronounce a detailed view on the use of sacred images. The ban on lascivious paintings simply reads : ‘…all lasciviousness [must] be avoided, so that images shall not be painted and adorned with a seductive charm…’, The decree also states that profane images or those based on erroneous beliefs must not be placed in churches.1 The decree was generally interpreted as a ban on nudity and other offensive elements. Lascivious representations of holy per1 Elizabeth Gilmore Holt (ed.), A Documentary History of Art : Michelangelo and the Mannerists : The Baroque and the Eighteenth Century, 3 vols, New York : Doubleday, 1957 - 1966, vol. 2 (1958), p. 65. (‘…omnis denique lascivia vitetur ; ita ut procaci venustate

maria lactans and the council of trent 177 sons had been criticised not only by Protestant Reformers before the Tridentine decree of 1563, but Catholic writers generally directed their attention to the defence of the use of images. 1 After the council Molanus was the first highly influential ecclesiastical writer who sought to clarify the decree. 2 His work, De Picturis et Imaginibus sacris, 1570, was widely read, also in Italy, and although it builds largely on earlier works and therefore raises few entirely new questions ; its interest lies in the fact that it is a post-Tridentine work that sets out to regulate the use of images according to the decree. 3 Later writers were inspired by him ; and already in 1595 the Sienese writer Costantino Ghini, in his Dell’immagini sacre dialoghi, considers Molanus the authority on the issue ; and his work soon acquired an almost official character even with the Church authorities. 4 Considering Molanus’s significance I will study the decree in relation to the Maria Lactans using mostly his treatise. imagines non pingantur nec ornentur…’, quoted in David Freedberg, Johannes Molanus on Provocative Paintings « Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes » 34, 1971, pp. 229-45 (p. 238, n. 1) ). The decree On the invocation, veneration, and relics, or saint, and other images was issued at the twenty-fifth and last session of the Council of Trent on December 3 and 4 1563. 1 The negative attitude to erotic images had a long tradition, back to antiquity and Aristotle. Most pre-Reformatory authorities on the theology of holy images were concerned with the issue. Nudity was generally not acceptable to theologians although a few express more positive attitudes. (Christian Hecht, Katholische Bildertheologie im Zeitalter von Gegenreformation und Barock : Studien zu Traktaten von Johannes Molanus, Gabriele Paleotti und anderen Autoren, Berlin : Mann, 1997, pp. 270f ). Some of the most important pre-Tridentine Catholic writers are Ambrosius Catharinus, De certa gloria invocatione ac veneratione sanctorum, Lyons, 1542 ; Conradus Brunus, De imaginibus, Augsburg, 1548. 2 Gilio da Fabriano’s Degli Errori de’ Pittori had been published four years earlier but it does not relate decency in painting to the new decree. Only the pope had the right to interpret the decree. Molanus therefore points out that he writes what seems correct to him, but this should not be interpreted as hesitation (Hecht, p. 39.). See also Freedberg 1971, p. 229. 3 Pamela Askew argues that Molanus spent his life in Louvain and ‘…his views on how the death of the Virgin should be represented do not seem to have had an impact in Italy’. (Caravaggio’s Death of the Virgin, Princeton : Princeton University Press, c 1990, p. 153, n. 15). She may be right that his views did not have an impact on the representation of that particular theme, but he was certainly read in Italy. Hecht states that the influential Cardinal Paleotti who published the treatise, Discorso intorno alle imagini sacre e profane, twelve years after Molanus was familiar with him. He also says copies of De Picturis et Imaginibus sacris were for instance found in Neapolitan libraries, and he was also well known by Lutheran authors. In 1643 the Roman Congregationis Sacrorum Rituum refers to Molanus when making one of their decisions. (Hecht, pp. 18 and 33). 4 Hecht, pp. 18 and 33.

178 kristine kolrud Lascivious representations had never actually been accepted by the Church, but the criticism by the Protestant Reformers and from within the Church itself, required an official policy. Although nudity is sometimes prescribed in the representations of holy persons the Catholic theologians concerned with the issue condemn all indecent or obscene representations. The ideal, devoid of erotic connotations, could be found in the Eastern Church but such images would give no room for the most important artistic qualities in the art of the Renaissance and after. Molanus explicitly condemns the representation of the naked Christ Child in nativity scenes although he describes it as a ‘scandalum pusillorum’. 1 Yet naked Christs, the Christ Child that is, continued to be frequently represented in devotional pictures. In fact, the ban was not always successfully enforced and it seems that some of the clerics were rather lenient, at least after the first spur initiated by the decree. In general, change was slow, and although the reform movements certainly had some effect, particularly in the northern and central parts of Italy ; it was not until the 18th and sometimes as late as the 19th centuries, if at all, that the decrees of the Council succeeded. Even in Rome the reforms were only partly carried out. 2 This clearly illustrates some of the difficulties involved in attempting to understand what was in fact accepted by the Church. As will be shown below both the official policy of the Church and actual practice was filled with contradictions. The severe Clement VIII (1592-1605), despite his actions to remove indecent works of art, far from censured everything. A deputation of cardinals, among them Gabriele Paleotti, charged with the task to prepare the enforcement of the decrees of the council, decided in 1564 that the pictures in the Apostolic Chapel should be covered ; and that the same should be done in other churches if anything obscene or false was displayed in them. No work is mentioned but it is a clear reference to Michelangelo’s Last Judgement. Yet other works of art, including older ‘indecent’ works in the Vatican, could obviously be removed using the 1 Hecht, p. 275. 2 Émile Mâle, L’Art religieux après le Concile de Trent : Étude sur l’iconographie de la fin du xvie siècle, du xviiie siècle Italie - France - Espagne - Flandres, Paris : Colin, 1932, pp. 1 - 4. Peter Hersche, Italien im Barockzeitalter 1600-1750 : Eine Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte, Vienna, Cologne and Weimar : Böhlau, 1999, pp. 185, 188 and 191f. The well-known Archbishop Carlo Borromeo in Milan and Cardinal Paleotti in Bologna were both more devout and more successful than most of their colleagues, yet even Borromeo encountered many difficulties (Hersche, p. 189).

maria lactans and the council of trent 179 same argument. Nevertheless, not even Michelangelo’s famous fresco was removed, and only the most offensive parts were covered. 1 Thus not even the pope totally abided by the new regulations. It is a well known fact that Michelangelo’s Last Judgement was sharply criticised for indecency. It could have fared even worse for Clement VIII intended to have it destroyed but the appeals of the Academy of St. Luke prevented this. The defence of the total ban on nudity was not uncomplicated considering certain scenes were correctly depicted when showing naked or nearly naked bodies. Veritas historica required nudity in the representations of the creation of Adam and Eve, the Baptism of Christ, the Last Judgement, etc. 2 When works of art were censured or removed nudity alone, if iconographically correct, did not result in modifications. Politics obviously played a role ; and the traditional naked Venus was undoubtedly considered more indecent than the naked allegorical figure of Truth. 3 When Daniele da Volterra set to work in the Sistine Chapel he only draped the breasts of St. Catherine of Alexandria. 4 She was, however, completely nude before the overpainting took place, and her proximity to St. Blaise caused speculation (Fig. 3). 5 One can hardly compare a representation that is clearly prone to be misunderstood with a more solemn image of the Virgin. Molanus who objects to the representation of naked figures even in secular paintings, approves of the image of the Virgin baring her breast as a sign of her intercession on behalf of mankind. 6 This is, of course, no evidence that the exposed breast was always deemed appropriate and decent. It could clearly be considered an erotic site. Although the city where Molanus worked, Louvain, was situated in the Spanish-ruled Netherlands (now Belgium) and he worked as Philip II’s censor of images, Molanus lived in an area where Protestantism must have seemed more threatening than in Southern Europe. The image of 1 The deputation declared ‘Picturae in cappella Apostolica cooperiantur, similiter in aliis ecclesiis, si quae aliquid obscoenum aut evidenter falsum ostendant’, … quoted in Hecht, p. 280, n. 243. See also ibid., pp. 280-282 and 284. 2 Hecht, p. 275f. 3 Hecht, p. 283f. 4 Daniele da Volterra painted breechers (hence il braghettone or breecher’s maker) on the nudes in the Final Judgement at the order of Pope Pius V in 1565. 5 Robert S. Liebert, Michelangelo : A Psychoanalytic Study of His Life and Images, New Haven and London : Yale University Press, 1983, p. 340. 6 Liber ii, Caput xxxi, in J. P. Migné ed., Theologiæ Cursus Completus… 28 vols, Paris : Apud, 1837 - 1845, vol. 27 (1843), p. 82.

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kristine kolrud the bare-breasted Madonna may indeed have been more problematic in Catholic art in Northern Europe because of the greater impact of the Reform movement. Molanus sets out to clarify the difference between the proper exposure of the Virgin’s breast (and those of other saints, etc. in relevant representations) and ordinary women’s indecent nudity. In general women should cover their a) breasts as well as their pudenda. Molanus leans on the authority of St. Bernard whose visions would otherwise have required a less literal interpretation. 1 The signification of female breasts is more compound in the context of indecent exposure than the pudenda. Already in antiquity the bared breast could function as a pledge for mercy ; this associates the breast with food and survival rather than erotic pleasure. The question, then, is not always b) whether or not the breast is Fig. 3. a) School of Giulio Clovio, copy of Michelangelo’s Last Judgement, Florence, covered but if it is depicted Casa Buonarotti, detail. b) Michelangelo, Last in a seductive fashion. This distinction is at the core of Indgement, Vatican, Sistine Chapel, detail. 1 Liber ii, Caput xxxi and Supplementum ad Capu xxxvii, in Migné, pp. 82 and 94.

maria lactans and the council of trent 181 Molanus’ defence of the Virgin’s bared breast. Yet the fact that there is sometimes room for misunderstanding and for exploiting the possibilities inherent in the various symbolic functions of the breast may have contributed to the Protestant - and to some extent the Catholic-reaction against the image. A good example is Correggio’s Madonna del latte, a much copied image, that is somewhat ambiguous where possible erotic content is concerned (Fig. 4).This possibility of equivocal interpretations may also be what eventually caused the decline of the image, or at least the declining approval of it. Freedberg in his Power of Images seems to consider any representation of the naked female breast in Western culture as potentially sexually arousing. 1 Yet the breast represents nourishment as well as desire and the ancient connections of mercy and the mother’s breast can hardly be seen as enticing. Holmes argues that there was a distinction in the traditional Madonna Lactans type that ensured a virtuous reading of the image but that this distinction was blurred in the 15th century with the advent of naturalism.2 However, a naturalistic representation is not necessarily more exciting than a slightly more abstract or schematic image. The alluring effect of nudity depends very much on the context as well as the quality of the picture and the nude person’s pose, gaze, etc. I should therefore like to take a closer look at some of the different images which employ the Virgin’s bared breast in order to understand the cultural context of the Madonna Lactans in Counter-Reformatory Italian art. The vital importance of maternal milk and therefore the breast may have given rise to the abundant legends about the lactating Virgin and this is reflected also in art. The image as a symbol of the Virgin as nutrix omnium associated her breast with food. The nursing Madonna was sometimes associated with grapes especially, but also with other fruits that, apart from their other various references, resemble the breast in shape and, like it, provide nourishment. 1 David Freedberg, The Power of Images : Studies in the History and Theory of Response, Chicago and London : The University of Chicago Press, 1989 (See especially pp. 311f, 320f, 324 and 332). Freedberg refers to an episode where a representation of the Virgin made a spectator (the Russian author Maksim Gorky) respond lustfully, (ibid., 320f ). This is obviously not the only such episode in the history of religious imagery but nor is it proof that Gorky’s reaction was common. 2 Megan Holmes, Disrobing the Virgin : The Madonna lactans in Fifteenth-Century Florentine Art in Picturing Women in Renaissance and Baroque Italy, Geraldine A. Johnson and Sara F. Matthews Grieco eds., Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 167-195 (pp. 172-178).

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Fig. 4. Correggio, Madonna del Latte, c. 1525, Budapest, Szépmüvézeti Múzeum. The painting was copied also long after it was made by among others Van Dyck.

In an age of famine and recurrent plagues one would perhaps expect a revival of the image of the lactating Madonna of Humility, that originally came into being in Tuscany at the time of the Black Death. The humble image of the nursing Virgin could, however, easily be associated with the wet-nurse. Although wet-nursing was by no means a new

maria lactans and the council of trent 183 profession the use of such assistance had increased. In Florence, where the lactating Madonna of Humility enjoyed great popularity in the 14th century, it virtually disappeared from the visual arts after c. 1420. The Virgo Lactans continued to be frequently mentioned in written sources, however, but did not regain popularity in art until c. 1470. 1 The original image was plain and simple yet remote in its lingering relation to the icon. With the emergence of a more naturalistic style the Virgin could more readily be associated with ordinary women. By the mid-fifteenth century even Florentine servants and artisans put their children out to nurse in the country. 2 Despite the original message of humility conveyed by the Virgin who, seated on the ground, would lower herself to nurse her own son, before 1450 the wet-nurse had probably become a far too familiar sight. When the Maria Lactans reappeared in Florentine art the balia, or wet-nurse, also began to be represented in sacred painting, and the image of the nursing Madonna was never to regain its former popularity. Although the use of wet-nurses was more common in Florence than elsewhere it was widespread all over Europe. The obvious visual link to them, and to the poor who could not afford a wet-nurse, might have been disturbing also beyond the boundaries of the Tuscan capital. The elevated or enthroned breast-feeding Virgin could perhaps be seen as a means of dissociating the Madonna with the professional wet-nurse. It may also illustrate the change in attitude from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance and Counter-Reformation. The more familiar Mary who might even be seen swearing in mystery plays was a type the Catholic Church sought to do away with in order to once again elevate the Virgin to a more distant status. The Virgin as a poor breast-feeding mother may have become dubious in this light and this may have led to a predilection for clearly mysterious lactation. Yet the many intimate paintings of the Madonna Lactans clearly point to one of the recurrent problems in mariology : the ambivalent attitudes towards the Madonna. The Church wished to promote the Queen of Heaven type yet showed a preference for the humble girl so the possible confusion that ordinary wet-nurses represented does not fully explain why the image became somewhat problematic. In the age of the Counter-Reformation the simple image of the breast-feeding Virgin could well have been exploited by the Church. 1 Holmes, p. 193.

2 Fildes, p. 49.

184 kristine kolrud Churchmen concerned with the upbringing of children, like their lay counterparts, tended to emphasise the duty of a mother to nurse her own infants. 1 This seems to be one of the primary concerns of Counter-Reformatory treatises on the issue, 2 and the great emphasis placed on maternal suckling both in the writings of theologians and seculars might indicate that it remained an unresolved problem. If the Madonna was to set the example in a propaganda-like manner, surely the Church would have commissioned pictures of her in the act of feeding Christ or recommended the use of such images to the people. One of the main reasons why censuring images was so important was the belief that they could arouse indecent thoughts. On the contrary sacred images could inspire to piety. Furthermore, Cardinal Paleotti claims that by looking at pictures of beautiful figures women could give birth to good-looking babies. 3 He was in line with European scholars who generally believed that by looking at such pictures during sexual intercourse the birth of monstrous children could be avoided. 4 It seems reasonable to believe, then, that the contemplation on images of the Maria Lactans would give good quality milk in abundance. Nevertheless, the use of such images does not, to my knowledge, appear to have been encouraged. 5 Perhaps other tales of the Virgin’s miraculous milk appealed more for Mary did not feed Christ exclusively. In some representations of the lactating Madonna the Child is rather disinterested in his mother’s 1 Wet-nursing was not severely criticised before the end of the 16th century in Italy (see Fildes, p. 68 and Oliver Logan, Counter-Reformatory theories of upbringing in Italy, in Diana Wood, ed., The Church and Childhood : Papers Read at the 1993 Summer Meeting and the 1994 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, (« Studies in Church History », v. 31), Oxford and Cambridge, Mass. : Blackwell, 1994, pp. 275-284 (pp. 276 and 279). It must be noted, however, that this was not a new issue in literature of the genre as maternal suckling had been recommended since antiquity. The more fierce criticism of the seventeenth century could be connected with the Reform movements, (it was particularly strong in Protestant countries) (Fildes, pp. 15, 42 and 116). 2 Logan, p. 279. 3 Discorso intorno alle imagini sacre e profane, 1582 in Paola Barocchi, ed., Trattati d’arte de Cinquecento : fra manierismo e controriforma, Scrittori d’Italia 219, 221, 222, 3 vols, Bari : Laterza, 1960-1962, vol. 2 (221) (1961), Gilio, Paleotti, Aldrovandi, pp. 230f. 4 Caroline P. Murphy, Lavinia Fontana and Female Life Cycle Experience in Late Sixteenth-Century Bologna, in Johnson and Grieco, 1997, pp. 111-138 (p. 121). 5 On Florence see Holmes, 187. I have not come across any evidence that the situation was different elsewhere and thus allowing for a more direct use of the image of the breast-feeding Madonna. The Maria Lactans certainly is a far cry from the didactic images of 18th century France whose mission was explicitly to encourage women to nurse their own infants.

maria lactans and the council of trent 185 milk. Her milk is directed at the beholder, and the Christ Child draws attention to the grace bestowed on mankind through this act. This relates it to such Medieval legend as that of St. Bernard of Clairvaux who, while reciting the Ave Maris Stella in front of a statue of the Virgin, received three drops of milk from her when he came to the words ‘Monstra esse matrem’ (Fig. 5). The theme clearly appealed for it was told of other saints as well and by 1600 came to be applied also to St. Dominic.1 The miraculous milk of the Madonna, then, was not merely a product of the Medieval imagination. It continued to work wonders all over Catholic Europe even after the Council of Trent. Nevertheless, the milk miracles did not always include the figure of the Virgin. Out of charity many holy women fed others with their own milk. Some certainly associated with the Virgin but many more drew parallels to the blood of Christ. The charitable acts performed by these women could also be seen as parallels to the allegorical figure of Charity, and the theme of Caritas Romana remained popular in the post-Tridentine period. 2 The miraculous nourishment that maternal milk represented in a time of famine did not, therefore, necessarily involve the Virgin. Yet miraculous lactation could not be associated with common people for if a woman began lactating without prior conception this too was considered a miracle. 3 Even Christ’s blood was imbued with similar qualities. His breast provided nourishment for the soul that sucked blood from his wounded side. This old belief in the link between milk and blood also connected virginal milk to Christ’s blood. When, as mentioned above, the Maria Lactans included grapes this is a eucharistic reference and an explicit association of milk and blood. 4 The drinking of the Virgin’s milk thus acquired something of the value of the consumption of Christ’s blood. 1 The most famous visions are those of St. Bernard and Henry Suso. The tale was told also of Alanus de Rupe and Peter Nolasco (one of the founders of the Mercendaries). See Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast : The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London : University of California Press, c 1987, pp. 270 and 410f, n. 56. 2 Other Virtues, as well as Ecclesia, were also sometimes thus represented. 3 See e.g. Holmes, p. 193. It might be argued that the image of an older woman miraculously nourishing a baby orphan with her own milk may well be seen as a rather vulgar reference to the Madonna Lactans. This could have contributed to the partly negative reception of the image but the depicted woman was nevertheless elevated from ordinary status. 4 Bynum, p. 271.

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Fig. 5. Alonso Cano, The Vision of Saint Bernard, c. 1658 - 60, Madrid, Museo del Prado.

This was visualised in the Double Intercession with Christ displaying his lance wound and Mary baring the breasts that fed him. Before his birth her body was the vessel of the incarnate godhead. After birth he sucked her breast, this was proof of his full humanity for it showed his entirely human reliance on nourishment. As a symbol of the Incarnation the Christian soul also nourished at the Virgin’s breast. 1 1 It may also be worth noting that in sucking his mother’s breast Christ did the opposite of many saints in medieval hagiography who, it was believed, showed their holiness

maria lactans and the council of trent 187 But if the Madonna’s bared breast was used as a symbol both of the Incarnation, the breast’s nutrient function, Mary’s role as intercessor, and as an allusion to the Eucharist why did Molanus feel compelled to defend the use of the bare-breasted Virgin ? Lasciviousness is not the only reason why the Virgin’s exposed breast could have been considered unsuitable. Luther objects to the bare-breasted Madonna not so much because he considers it shameful nudity but rather because he denies her position as co-redemtrix. 1 For Catholics it became important to clarify the Virgin’s role as mediator. Yet the exposure had to be considered in the light of possible indecency. 2 Zwingli, for instance, seems to object more than Luther to the fact that the pure Virgin exposes her breast. 3 It may perhaps have become problematic for the Church to maintain the view that the Virgin’s breast could not convey erotic significance, especially in the Netherlands where the constant attack by the Protestants was much more present than in the south. The failing ability to distinguish between the naked breast of the Virgin and that of an ordinary woman may eventually have contributed to the abandonment of these images also in other areas. 4 already as infants by refusing to take the breast. According to István Bejczy this would happen particularly on Wednesdays and Fridays, sometimes until they were baptised, sometimes they would refuse to suck a wet nurse of base reputation, etc. (The sacra infanta in Medieval Hagiography, in Wood, 1994, pp. 143-151 (p. 144f ). One may infer that if these saints could survive abstinence from maternal milk, so could Christ. Yet his mandate was the opposite of theirs and therefore a point was made out of showing him sucking. 1 Marti and Mondini, p. 84. 2 Holmes refers to the proceedings of the Council of Strasbourg in 1541. ‘The councilmen discussed the matter of the painter Jost who was said to make « scandalous pictures of the Virgin » (…)…, if the pictures were found to be painted indecorously with bare breasts (…), then the painter should be forbidden to make them’. Holmes notes that this cannot necessarily be transferred to the Italian (or more specifically Florentine) environment, but seems to indicate that it might represent something of the spirit of the time (pp. 168f )). Yet it must be noted that Strasbourg was a Protestant city and this therefore reflects the objection of the Reformed rather than the Catholic. Freedberg also mentions the incident and sees it in the context of non-culturally specific common denominators for desirable body parts (1989, p. 324). 3 Marti and Mondini, pp. 84f. 4 Marti and Mondini refer to Pierroberto Scaramella [Le Madonne del Purgatorio. Iconografia e religione in Campania tra rinascimento e controriforma (« Dabar , Saggi di storia religiosa » 42), Genova 1991, p. 21]. According to the authors Scaramella claims that representations of Mary with an exposed breast only declined after 1620 in Southern Italy. (p. 90, n. 52). Unfortunately I have not been able to read the book and do not know why the image lost ground. However the bare-breasted Virgin was common in Spanish art in the 17th century (as seen below) and I have seen later examples also from Italy. John B.

188 kristine kolrud The Counter-Reformation era was, as seen above, a period of great controversy over the figure of the Virgin. Protestant criticism of mariolatry was met with confl icting responses. In a clearly simplified manner one may say that on the one hand, the Jesuits tried to modify Mariology, on the other the Franciscans continued pre-Reformatory practices. 1 The somewhat unresolved situation might in part explain why the Council of Trent failed to pronounce a more definite attitude towards the use of images. However, the very idea of the Mother of All nursing her Child was perhaps no longer complicated. Her conception was commonly believed to have been immaculate by nearly all Catholic theologians by the end of the fifteenth century. This idea was contradictory to that of the nursing Virgin. If the Virgin was immaculately conceived, i.e. preserved from the taint of Original Sin, she was spared the curses of Eve and all other women. After the Fall Eve was condemned to labour in childbirth, menstruation and lactation. 2 The breast-feeding Mary was thus incompatible with the Immaculate Virgin. The Order of Preachers, or Dominicans, were opposed to the idea of her Immaculate Conception and preached against it. 3 The Dominicans exercised considerable influence and the dispute over the idea of the Immaculate Conception was by no means marginal. Their opposition was primarily based on the writings of their great theologian, St. Thomas Aquinas, whose ideas where highly influential during the proceedings at the Council of Trent. 4 The idea of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin was not new ; and many had sought to interpret St. Augustine’s words about her as the great excepKnipping says Maria Lactans repeatedly appears in the 17th century in the Netherlands and illustrates his point with examples also from after 1620. (Iconography of the Counter Reformation in the Netherlands, 2 vols, Nieuwkoop : Graaf, Leiden : Sijthoff, 1974, vol. 2 Heaven on Earth p. 258). 1 Hilda Graef, Maria : Eine Geschichte der Lehre und Verehrung, Freiburg, Basel and Vienna : Herder, 1964, p. 339. 2 These obviously are added to the curses common to men and women, i.e. the loss of the gift of original justice that entails mortality and diminishing natural inclination to virtue. 3 In 1616 Pope Paul V forbade discussion of the Immaculate Conception from the pulpit and this was reinforced by Gregory xv in 1622. 4 It was only after the proclamation of the Immaculate Conception as an Article of Faith in 1854 by Pope Pius IX that the Dominicans fully accepted the belief. The Dominicans were originally connected with the image of the Madonna of Humility, but it does not appear to have been among their most popular Counter-Reformatory images. This seems rather to have been the Madonna of the Rosary.

maria lactans and the council of trent 189 tion concerning the question of sin. 1 In addition to St. Thomas Aquinas the important Cistercian and Medieval mystic St. Bernard opposed it. They, and many after them, pointed out that if she had not been conceived in sin she did not need redemption. The Franciscan Duns Scotus found an elegant solution to the problem in stating that Christ’s sacrifice was enhanced rather than belittled through the Virgin’s sinlessness. He also suggested that she had been preserved from sin. Duns Scotus called this act Preredemption ; the Virgin was preserved from original sin and saved with the rest of humankind by the Redemption of the Cross. The confl ict over the matter in 14th century Europe was serious, but by the early 15th century the popular belief was beginning to make its way to high-ranking church dignitaries. It was declared the official doctrine of the Church at the Council of Basle in 1439, but made invalid because Pope Felix V was deposed as an anti-pope. 2 In the midst of the Counter-Reformation the Franciscans were joined by the newly founded order of Jesuits (1534) in their struggle for the belief. The belief in the Immaculate Conception was particularly strong in Spain, as it had been since the early 13th century. 3 This is also reflected in art where the Madonna of the Immaculate Conception, discernible as a distinct iconographic type from the late 16th century, is particularly frequent (Fig. 6). Although it was believed by most Catholics the proceedings at the Council of Trent resulted only in a decree which exempted the Virgin from universal original sin, in accordance with St. Augustine. The Council seems to have failed to take sides because of the controversy over the issue, and in the hope that a reserved attitude might win back some more heretics without excluding those who believed in the idea. The King of Spain subsequently sent three royal committees to the pope so that he might promulgate the dogma but the pope did not wish to go further than the council.4 Discussion on 1 See e.g. Mirella Levi D’Ancona, The Iconography of the Immaculate Conception in the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance (« Monographs on Archaeology and Fine Arts » Sponsored by the Archaeological Institute of America and the College Art Association of America vii), New York : College Art Association of America in conjunction with the Art Bulletin, 1957, pp. 5-13. 2 Warner, pp. 244f. 3 Suzanne L. Stratton, The Immaculate Conception in Spanish Art, Cambridge, New York, Melbourne : Cambridge University Press, 1994, p. 5. 4 Philip III appointed the first Real Junta in 1616, the second in 1617, and the third in 1618. Spain no longer was in a position to influence the pope, Paul V, to the degree that she had been. France had now taken the lead ; and the French were clearly less eager to pronounce it a dogma, perhaps fearing that it could initiate another religious war.

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Fig. 6. Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Madonna of the Immaculate Conception Madrid, Museo del Prado.

maria lactans and the council of trent 191 the Immaculate Conception from the pulpit was, however, banned in 1616 and four years later only the Dominicans were given permission to continue the debate within their own communities. The idea was, in other words, widely believed but the official policy of the church was to let it remain unresolved. This could in part explain why Molanus condemns the depiction of the mother of God ill in bed after childbirth, both as indecorous and contradictory to her immaculate conception, 1 yet defends the image of the Virgin with an exposed breast, which as seen above, is a clear reference to the breast’s nourishing function. Although the standard image of the Immaculate Conception was crystallised only in the Counter-Reformation period immaculist symbols had been used in images of the Madonna ever since the Middle Ages. Interestingly there are representations that combine such symbols and the lactating Virgin (Fig. 7). 2 The Virgo lactans, then, equally in confl ict with the Madonna’s preservation from Original Sin, might not have appeared as such a grave offence. It includes positive values, the role of the interceding mother and the nutrix omnium and could thus take on abstract and symbolic values. Labour in childbirth, on the other hand, is more readily interpreted as a curse and can hardly be seen as positive. A representation of Virgin Mary, lying exhausted in bed, is also more obviously indecorous. 3 Nevertheless, many of Molanus’s contemporaries seem to have found the image of the nursing Madonna vulgar. 4 It might have been the idea of the humiliation, originally combined in the Madonna of Humility to show her virtuous and exemplary act of breast-feeding her own child, that seemed inappropriate to the Counter-Reformatory mind. This is, however, a contradiction in terms as most of the theologians seem to favour the Virgin represented in a simple and humble fashion. Molanus himself does not seem concerned with the problem of a lactating immaculately conceived Mother of God. He feels the need 1 Liber ii, Caput xxvii in Migné, pp. 71-73. 2 D’Ancona says « The idea of Mary Mediatrix as the Immaculate Conception was certainly established by the thirteenth century», (p. 35). This connection of the interceding mother and the immaculate conception, though not accepted by all orders, was therefore more than an arbitrary link between the Immacolata and the lactating Virgin. (See also D’Ancona for the use of immaculist symbols in Medieval art.). 3 Molanus also criticises the customary use of the Embrace at the Golden Gate as a symbol of the Immaculate Conception but does not seem to consider it a grave error (Liber iii, Caput lv in Migné, p. 293). 4 Meiss, p. 151.

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Fig. 7. Unknown Austrian, Holy Kinship and the Apocalyptic Woman. Venice, Museo Correr. I have not been able to locate an Italian example but this is not the only representation that combines immaculist symbols and lactation in a single image.

maria lactans and the council of trent 193 to clarify the issue as regards decency, not theological compatibility. The image may have become less popular for want of decorum at a later stage but it certainly survived the Council of Trent although the views on it were equivocal. It is, nevertheless, astonishing that Molanus does nothing to explain why the Madonna may lactate despite her Immaculate Conception. Considering the immense popularity of the idea of the Immaculate Conception in Spain it is worth taking a closer look at the situation in the Iberian peninsula, to see if this may shed some light on his ambiguous attitude. The Spanish artist and overseer of sacred images to the Seville Inquisition, Francisco Pacheco, in his Arte de la pintura, compiled in the first half of the 17th century seems to find the Maria Lactans vulgar rather than theologically inconsistent. In fact, in his passage on the correct representation of the Immaculate Conception he refers to how St. Bernard’s lips were moistened by the Virgin’s milk, 1 and paintings of the legend of St. Bernard were certainly commissioned by the Church in Spain. This supernatural form of lactation was not considered vulgar and well into the 17th century, even Murillo, the painter of the Immaculate Conception par excellence, depicted the Madonna Lactans , as well as the visions of St. Bernard and St. Augustine. To the latter both the bleeding Christ and his lactating mother appeared. 2 Even in the extremely immaculist Spain, then, the Virgin’s ability to lactate was not considered as heretical as one would be inclined to believe. The question remains if the theologians were simply not concerned with the issue or if it was considered unresolvable and therefore not debated at great length. The passage in Luke : ‘Blessed is the womb that bare thee and the paps which thou hast sucked.’ (Luke 11 :27) could be used to defend the idea of the nursing mother but this could also be read symbolically. Judging from the generally more positive attitude towards representations of extraordinary lactation the exceptional about them may indeed have been what appealed. Yet, if the Virgin’s lactation was not a curse but a different kind of milk secretion it is an 1 Quoted in Holt, p. 222. 2 St. Augustine was believed to have said : ‘Positus in medio, quo me vertam nescio’. Knipping inteprets this vacillation in an exaggeratedly literal manner when suggesting that the whole idea of such undecision is ridiculous (p. 273). Yet it may be that theologians feared the layman of the day would come up with precisely such absurd readings. The acceptance of both St. Bernard’s vision and the Immaculate Conception is in itself contradictory since St. Bernard opposed the doctrine.

194 kristine kolrud issue that should have been clarified. Surely, theologians who dedicate lengthy discussions to whether Christ was crucified with three or four nails, would devote themselves to the issue if they found it problematic. It therefore seems that whether or not the Madonna Lactans was contradictory to her Immaculate Conception was not a primary concern with the Counter-Reformation writers on sacred images. Although in dealing with material that is so filled with contradictions one can hardly altogether avoid turbid or even speculative suggestions, it seems established that the ban on nudity in religious painting was not necessarily applied to the representation of the nursing Madonna and that the attitude to her milk was indeterminate. We may conclude that the indecent detail in this early 17th century representation of the theme by Orazio Gentileschi, at least according to Molanus, was the exposure of the Child’s sex and not his mother’s breast (Fig. 8).

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Fig. 8. Orazio Gentileschi, Madonna and Child, 1609, Bucharest, Muzeul de Arta.

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EMBERS IN THE ASHES : CELLINI AND THE LINGERING HIGH RENAISSANCE Magne Malmanger i. ellini experienced the rain of ashes at close quarters and, I am afraid, rather enjoyed it. If this was partly by chance it was certainly by choice that, in the years immediately prior to the Sack of Rome, he experienced the last golden moments of the Roman High Renaissance, the exemplary High Renaissance, we may agree. In these years he shared the life of a hilarious and unruly company of young artists, who probably had more in common with the world of Caravaggio and his cronies eighty years later, than with the everyday existence of renaissance goldsmiths. At the time, Cellini was already a brilliant craftsman, but revelling with friends like Giulio Romano, Gian Francesco Penni, and Rosso Fiorentino, no less insouciant than gifted, taught him something about the possibilities inherent in the novel, exceptional status of gifted artists. It made him aware, not only of a new way of life eminently suited to his intractable temper, but also of his own powers as a creative artist. I like to think that, after what we might call a period of incubation, this youthful experience resulted in the master goldsmith’s metamorphosing into a major sculptor during the early 1540s. If so, it would at least go some way towards explaining why his art remained largely committed to the ‘ideals’ of the High Renaissance even at a later time, when art-historical wisdom expects him to get in line and behave like a mannerist. The tensions in Benvenuto’s confl ict-prone mind may have had something to do with his being poised rather precariously between art and craft. If we can take his word for it, he became a goldsmith at his own choice. Later in life he certainly insisted upon the nobility of the craft, and he tried to boost its standing, ranking it with architecture, sculpture and painting. 1 But he was less than consistent in this respect, and when

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1 So in the introduction to his treatise on goldsmith’s work, cf. La Vita di Benvenuto Cellini, seguita dai Trattati dell’Oreficeria e della Scultura e dagli Scritti sull’Arte, prefazione e note di Arturo Jahn Rusconi e A. Valeri, Roma 1901, 650 : « Ora, ricordiandomi come nella città di Firenze si cominciò, e furno i primi che dessino principio a risucitare tutte quelle arti che sono sorelle carnali de questa ».

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referring to the arts of disegno he would in most cases stick to the favoured three. Towards the end of his life, however, wanting to create a seal for the recently instituted Accademia del disegno, he gave goldsmith’s work rather more than its due. Most of the six designs preserved have a characteristic, diamond-shaped frame and, according to Piero Calamandrei, this was to signify that the arts of design are four not three. 1 As time went by, however, it became clear that Cellini was not content to remain just a goldsmith. Indeed, from the early 1540s onwards he thought of himself mainly as a sculptor and on occasion his ambitions would veer towards the colossal. From the days of Ghiberti at least, Florentines were accustomed to think of sculpture and goldsmithing as closely related. But over the years sculpture must have gained in status and it did, of course, offer Benvenuto greater possibilities for literally exposing himself. Another circumstance is worth considering as well. Sculptors were as a rule ‘freer’, in the sense that they were normally expected to make their own designs whereas, from the late Quattrocento onwards, craftsmen like goldsmiths and interior decorators had mostly to work from designs supplied by other masters, notably by some leading painter. This state of affairs was irksome to Cellini. From his autobiography we learn that he declined to work from other people’s designs, even from those of the revered master Michelangelo who, as the story goes, readily agreed that Benvenuto was quite able to do his own designing. But for a long some time Cellini found it rather difficult to hold his own as a sculptor. Many of his patrons – let alone their women – seems to have preferred his services as a goldsmith, while the artist himself was increasingly manoeuvring for sculptural commissions. Even Francis I, his most generous and easygoing patron, exploded on one occasion, telling Cellini in so many words that all he wanted from him was twelve candle-bearing silver statues. Instead of delivering these as agreed, the artist had been pressing for ever new large-scale commissions, for which his qualifications were perhaps not wholly beyond doubt. On this particular occasion His Majesty was probably spurred on by the unsympathetic Madame d’Etampes, and afterwards he may have regretted his outburst. But he did have a point. 1 Piero Calamandrei, Il sigillo e i caratteri dell’Accademia, in Scritti e inediti celliniani, a cura di Carlo Cordié, Firenze, La Nuova Italia, 1971, 138. Calamandrei’s suggestion gains some support from Cellini’s own comments on his proposals.

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The artist’s life and personality are widely known through his autobiography, and a few facts must suffice to recall an artistic career that, although very much of its time, was in some respects peculiar. Benvenuto Cellini was born in Florence in 1500 and died there in 1571. As a youth he was apprenticed to a succession of goldsmiths, some of them outside Florence since from as early as 1516 his violent behaviour forced him to leave his hometown from time to time. In 1519 he made his first visit to Rome, and for many years to come he was to live mainly in that city, if also travelling quite frequently to other parts of Italy. His first Roman period, which was on the whole a happy one, came to an end with the Sack of Rome, when Benvenuto suddenly found himself in Castel Sant’Angelo taking part with glee in the defence of the castle. A little later in the year, now at Mantua, he designed a reliquary for the Holy Blood and executed a seal for cardinal Ercole Gonzaga, which has stylistically been compared to works by Raphael and his pupils. Indeed, as pointed out by Pope-Hennessy, the composition resembles that of the « Coronation of the Virgin », usually attributed to Giulio Romano or Gian Francesco Penni. 1 In 1530 Cellini committed the first of three murders admitted to in his autobiography, killing one of the bargello’s men, who had caused his brother Cecchino’s death in a street brawl. At the time Benvenuto lived in Rome serving Clement VII both as a goldsmith and a master of the mint. During a stay in Florence in 1535 he was in touch with Duke Alessandro de’ Medici designing some coins for him. In 1537 Cellini made his first trip to France, where he was but coolly received by his former friend Rosso Fiorentino. But he was presented to Francis I and accompanied the king to Lyons, where he also made the acquaintance of his future patron Ippolito d’Este. Back in Rome he was accused – at the instigation of the pope’s son Pier Luigi Farnese – of having stolen papal jewellry during the Sack. In his autobiography he vividly describes his life and experiences in prison, not least a religious vision of sorts, which, two decades later, was to result in his last masterpiece, the marble « Crucifix ». 2 1 John Pope-Hennessy, Cellini, London, Macmillan, 1985, 45. The so-called Monteluce Coronation is now in the Pinacoteca Vaticana. 2 Oct. 3rd 1539 : cf. Benvenuto Cellini, La Vita, a cura di Lorenzo Bellotto, Parma, Fondazione Pietro Bembo/ Ugo Guanda, 1996, 435 ; also Piero Calamandrei (1971), 73f.

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Now the king of France wanted his services, and relying on French pressure Ippolito d’Este secured the artist’s release from prison in December 1539. Early next year Cellini made a seal for Ippolito, recently created cardinal. The works mentioned so far, when small in scale, demonstrate Benvenuto’s talents as a representational artist, and from now on he was to take on commissions of a more ambitious kind. In the late summer of 1540 he left for Paris, where he was to establish himself for about five years. One of his first commissions from the king was the so-called « Salt Cellar of Francis I », for which he had already made a model before leaving Rome. Although a piece of goldsmith’s work it is scuptural in character and of exceptional dimensions. 1 At this time it was becoming quite clear that goldsmithing interested Cellini rather less than sculpture. It may have been at his own instigation that he was allowed to embark on an ambitious sculptural project for the so-called Porte Dorée, one of the entrances to the castle of Fontainebleau. Even though he worked on this commission with great commitment, it was never completed. Apart from some drawings, models and casts – notably a « Satyr » – what remains today is the so-called « Nymph of Fontainebleau » (Fig. 1), which has finally come to rest in the Louvre. In 1545 Cellini was back in Florence and from Cosimo I he soon received the important commission for a statue of Perseus to be placed in the Piazza della Signoria. The first brilliant plastic sketches were quickly made, and after a house and courtyard had been put at his disposal, the artist began work on the full-size model. About the same time he made a colossal bust of the Duke partly, it would seem, to study the technical problems of casting in bronze. The decapitated Medusa under Perseus’ feet was cast in 1548, and the dramatically difficult casting of the standing hero followed in December 1549. 2 To all acts and purposes the splendid group was finished by 1553, although some of the gilding was still incomplete at the unveiling the following year (Fig. 2). The splendid work was well received and highly praised by the cultural set of Florence. Indeed it represents the acme of Benvenuto’s career, whereas the remainder of his life was to be troubled increasingly 1 26 x 33,5 cm., Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. 2 The technical problems of the process are thoroughly treated by Bruno Bearzi, Benvenuto Cellini ed il Perseo, Accademia nazionale dei Lincei, ccclxix (1972), Quaderno n. 177 : Benvenuto Cellini artista e scrittore (Roma-Firenze, 8-9 Febbr. 1971), Roma 1972, 45-55.

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Fig. 1. Benvenuto Cellini, The Nymph of Fontainebleau, c. 1543. Bronze, 205 × 409 cm. Louvre, Paris.

by professional and private difficulties. Early in 1557 he was convicted of sodomy and sentenced to four years of imprisonment. Following a petition to the duke the punishment was commuted to house arrest, thus allowing the artist to continue his work, mainly on the marble crucifix he had begun a couple of years before. It was in this unpleasant situation he began dictating his famous autobiography. His treatises on sculpture and goldsmith’s work too were written mainly during this period, but were not published till 1568. ii. Benvenuto Cellini has fascinated artists, scholars and the general public alike since the early 19th Century. His autobiography – the Vita – was published for the first time in 1728, and it already testifies to a burgeoning international fame that the publication was sponsored by Lord Burlington. The first English edition came in 1771. A little later Goethe translated the book into German, and with the Romantic period it gained what may perhaps be described as a cult status. Over the years it has been very differently received, read and interpreted ; but few or no-one have ever disputed its importance as a literary document. Its dazzling fame proved, however, a mixed blessing in as much as it tended

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Fig. 2. Benvenuto Cellini, Perseus, 1545-1554. Bronze, height 320 cm. Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence.

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to eclipse Cellini’s real importance as a sculptor. It is only to be expected that an autobiography may turn out a trifle egocentric. But Benvenuto’s checkered career and the general tenor of his discourse caused readers of a later age to question his reliability, seeing him as a braggart basking in imaginary successes and overrating his own work. Serious arguments to the contrary were slow in gaining ground. Back in the 1880s Eugène Plon had demonstrated, on the basis of documents, that Cellini’s description of his career in France is in the main, reliable. 1 Admittedly, another French scholar, Louis Dimier, was of a somewhat different opinion. 2 But his argumentation lacks force, and today I reckon most scholars would find Benvenuto’s account about as true as may reasonably be expected from a narrative based wholly on individual memory. 3 The difficulties at present are rather with postmodernist contributions implying that stolid questions of empirical fact are not worth considering. 4 It has taken longer to acknowledge Cellini’s outstanding contribution to the art of sculpture. Doubts about his real importance as an artist go back all the way to his contemporary Giorgio Vasari. 5 In periods the two artists moved in the same circles, and no doubt they knew each other well. But they were as different in their art as in character and manners. The level-headed Vasari had difficulties in accepting the older artist’s boisterous approach and of course, Cellini was not likely 1 Eugène Plon, Benvenuto Cellini, orfévre, médailleur, sculpteur. Recherches sur sa vie, sur son oeuvre et sur les pièces qui lui sont attribuées, Paris, E. Plon et cie, 1883. 2 Louis Dimier, Benvenuto Cellini à la cour de France, « Revue archéologique », 32 (1898), 241-76. 3 But opinions still differ to some extent. Ivan Arnaldi, La vita violenta di Benvenuto Cellini, Roma/Bari, Laterza, 1986, sees Benvenuto’s account as heavily slanted in some respects. The problems of his reliability hang mainly on what he does not tell. Thus, it has been observed that he never mentions being convicted of sodomy, in spite of the fact that he was serving a sentence for this crime at the very moment he began composing his Vita. On the other hand he does not conceal having been accused of sodomy on several occasions, and he tends to deny charges of the sort in a coquettish manner that makes it doubtful whether he really cares to be believed. Calamandrei may have had this in mind when he referred to Cellini as « candidamente e sanamente insincero ». Calamandrei (1971), 6. 4 For an academically correct but otherwise rather dismal example see Victoria C. Gardner, Homines non nascuntur, sed figuntur : Benvenuto Cellini’s Vita and Self-Presentation of the Renaissance Artist, « Sixteenth Century Journal », xxviii/2 (1997), 447-465. 5 Piero Calamandrei, Sulle relazioni tra Giorgio Vasari e Benvenuto Cellini, « Studi Vasariani », Florence 1952, 1955.

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to further a smoothly efficient career at court. At that he had but little respect for Vasari as an artist, and it nettled him that someone he considered mediocre at best, was in the position to influence the Medici duke decisively in art matters. 1 The first art historian to argue consistently for Cellini’s stature as a major sculptor was Friedrich Kriegbaum, in an article that appeared in 1940. This was not the best of moments, and for a time his contribution went more or less unheeded. Calamandrei, who was so intrigued by Benvenuto the man and possibly knew more about his life than anybody else, never quite warmed to his work. 2 It seems fair to say that Cellini’s position as a sculptor of the first rank was not firmly established till the appearance of Pope-Hennessy’s monograph in 1985. Closely related to the problem of critical appraisal is the question of describing and characterizing his sculptural output. Apart from valuable contributions of an empirical kind, notably those of Tassi, Plon and Bacci, 3 little was done to stimulate a more precise understanding of Cellini’s historical position till well after the first world war. In 1926 Paolo d’Ancona called attention to the problem in the introduction to his edition of the Vita. In his attempt to characterize Cellini’s art more adequately than had been done so far, he resorted to the concept of mannerism becoming fashionable among art historians just then : « Il Cellini piuttosto, per incanalarlo in una corrente definitiva, si deve riguardare al pari del Parmigianino quale un grande rappresentante del manierismo ». 4 Still his understanding of the term differs substantially from that of contemporaries like Friedlaender and Pevsner, not to mention the slightly earlier considerations of Dvorák – anticipating instead the stylistic analysis proposed with such success by Shearman 1 Probably he was right as well in suspecting that Vasari intrigued against him and favoured his competitors among sculptors working in Florence. 2 Or he may not have thought aesthetic judgment quite within his competence : no less coquettish than his hero he reminds us on an occasion that, « chi vi parla oggi da questa cattedra, sulla quale avete ascoltato insigni critici ed artisti, è soltanto un avvocato ». 3 Vita di Benvenuto Cellini orefice e scultore fiorentino scritta di lui medesimo, restituita alla lezzione originale sul manoscritto Poirot ora Laurenziano ed arricchita d’illustrazioni e documenti inediti, ed. F. Tassi, 3 vols, Florence 1829 ; Plon (1883) ; Vita di Benvenuto Cellini, testo critico, con introd. e note storiche per cura di Orazio Bacci, Firenze, Sansoni, 1901. 4 Cellini, La Vita, testo riveduto con introduzione e note per cura di Paolo D’Ancona, Milano, Cogliati-Martinelli, [1926], xvi.

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forty years later. The characteristics of Mannerism, D’Ancona tells us, « si possono riconoscere specialmente nella ricerca della grazia, del garbo, della vaghezza, ottenuti mediante la stilizzazione della forma. Raggiungere insomma la leggiadria formale anzichè la classica bellezza è nei suoi fini ». 1 D’Ancona based his characterization of Cellini exclusively on his own perception of the artist’s sculptural style ; indeed he expressly ignored Benvenuto’s theoretical attempts, seeing them as trite and mainly based on « il suo incerto ideale fra classico e naturalistico ». 2 The kind of stylized elegance D’Ancona had in mind, is most easily found in the graceful figure of Andromeda dominating the relief on the base of the « Perseus » (Fig. 3). Indeed, the spiralling movement of the slender body seems to bear out D’Ancona’s characterization. But the impression may prove deceptive. Although a work of exceptional quality, « Perseus rescuing Andromeda » is not necessarily faultless. To execute a bronze relief of substantial size (82 x 90 cm) depicting such a complex and terrifying scene must have been a challenge. The large-scale but otherwise less demanding « Nymph of Fontainebleau » also reveals difficulties in getting all forms and proportions right. The Victories for the Porte Dorée are heraldically disciplined rather than freely acting, and Cellini’s earlier works are all of them too small to be considered in this context. Admittedly some of them – notably 1 Ibid., xvii. The passage continues like this : « So può rimproverare al manierismo di essere uno stile superficiale in quanto in genere prescinde della espressione e si compiace di figure prive di anima e sorde ad ogni interna passione, ma non si potrà mai muovergli quegli appunti di falsità che a buon diritto colpiscono in pieno la maniera ». 2 Ibid., xiii. Hans Hoffmann seems to agree with D’Ancona, only his point is more general : « Oft widerspricht die Theorie der Manieristen der Praxis, da sie auch das nur Wünschbare verzeichnet, wie wenn z. B. Benvenuto Cellini für eine Statue acht gute Ansichten verlangt, dieser Forderung aber selbst nicht genügt ». Cf. Hans Hoffmann, Hochrenaissance. Manierismus. Frühbarock. Die italienische Kunst des 16. Jahrhunderts, Zürich/Leipzig, Gebr. Leemann, 1938, 17. – D’Ancona’s understanding of Cellini’s aesthetic ideas has been criticized by Scarpellini : Benvenuto Cellini, La vita. I trattati. I discorsi, introd. e note di Pietro Scarpellini, Roma, Gherardo Casini, 1967, especially xiii. Still, Scarpellini rather reinforces the characterization of Cellini as a typical exponent of Mannerism. – Wolfgang Braunfels is more to the point, and certainly more sensitive, when writing about the « Perseus » : « Der hoch gestellte Leib, die leichte Drehung der Hüfte, die weitausladende Bewegung der Arme erlauben es dem Künstler, das Spiel aller Muskeln zur Schau zu stellen, wobei nichts manieristisch übersteigert wird. Die Dinge treten am Tonmodell (sic) noch deutlicher zutage ». Cf. Benvenuto Cellini. Perseus und Medusa, Einführung von Wolfgang Braunfels, Stuttgart, Reclam, 1961, 9.

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Fig. 3. Benvenuto Cellini, Perseus rescuing Andromeda. Bronze, 82 × 90 cm. Bargello, Florence.

« Moses Striking the Rock » 1 – represent action quite convincingly. But the reduced scale necessarily called for simplification and a summary treatment. The Andromeda relief is an ambitious work, where beauty of form and attention to detail must combine with a dramatic narrative and intense expression. As is generally held, Donatello’s late reliefs for the pulpits in San Lorenzo may be a main source of inspiration. 2 But no doubt the self-assertive Benvenuto enjoyed competing with contemporaries engaged in comparable endeavours. It seems relevant, for instance, to refer to related features in Pierino da Vinci’s « Count Ugolino 1 The reverse of a medal for Clement VII : Pope-Hennessy (1985), Pl. 34. 2 See in particular, Pope-Hennessy (1985), 181f.

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and his Sons », of about 1548/50. 1 But Cellini’s work is exceptional in the way a complex narrative is organized around one significant moment. Actually, the effectiveness of the composition depends mainly on the central figure. As the art theory of a later date was to insist, expression may endanger beauty of form. In this case the young girl’s dramatic movement strains her proportions no less than her pose. The underlying tension is brought to a focus, as it were, in her left arm – tense while solidly chained to the rock. Unnaturally long it is insecurely located in space, with the shoulder rather awkwardly folded against the neutral ground. The impression of an elongated, « mannerist » body is enhanced by the improbably extended torso : for looking closely we shall find that other features, like her legs and right arm, are closely studied from nature with proportions nothing out of the ordinary. Nor can the girl’s elaborate pose be considered in isolation, as a feature of style. Since in this case her strained attitude is not only justified by the story to be told, but indeed expressive of it, the relief as a whole is quite compatible with Cellini’s repeatedly declared intention to create an art of ideal beauty firmly based on the close study of nature. iii. We have been warned of late against « the poverty of historicism », and probably most art historians today consider it rather beneath them to quarrel over stylistic labels. Even so, general notions of style and period still colour much art-historical discourse and are therefore likely to influence our perception of individual works as well. Overlooking this may easily lead to misunderstandings. Not shunning the obvious, I reckon two points should be made at this stage. One is that several different definitions of « mannerism » tend to mix when talking about Cellini. For D’Ancona the term implied something like « not quite classical » or alternatively « not naturalistic ». But from there it is easy to slip into the much more insistent « antinaturalistic » as understood by Dvorák, « anti-classical » in the tradition of Friedlaender, or even the « art of crisis » suggested by Pevsner and vulgarized by Hauser. My other point is that art historians writing about Cellini tend to accept as a matter of course D’Ancona’s classification 1 Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. For an illustration see e.g. Joachim Poeschke, Die Skulptur der Renaissance in Italien, Munich, Hirmer, ii, 1992, Pl. 240.

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of him as a (typical) representative of Mannerism, – even though their own attempts at describing and analyzing his sculpture hardly bear out such a classification. Already perceptible in Kriegbaum, the confl ict became rather glaring in Pope-Hennessy. Obviously, Sir John did not care a bit. His was not to quarrel over words, and the point about his terminological choice was rather to maintain that within the field of Florentine sculpture Cellini is the one outstanding representative of his generation. The artist’s attempts at a theoretical exposition of the visual arts have hardly been reappraised in the way it eventually happened to his sculpture.1 But this is not to say that he had no such theory, or that it is not worth taking seriously. Cellini’s literary production is quite impressive, for a practising artist. Apart from his autobiography he wrote two art treatises and some shorter texts – fragments rather – on the arts of design. And he wrote poetry. As is well known, Florentines with a pretention to culture have been highly conscious of their grand literary tradition, and in the 16th Century quite a few practitioners in the visual arts tried their hand at writing as well. Benvenuto’s friend Bronzino did quite well in this respect 2 while, incidentally, his enemy Ammanati had to rest content with the literary successes of his wife. In the years around 1540 Michelangelo was preparing an edition of his poems, although nothing came of it at the time. No wonder Benvenuto had his literary ambitions too. He had contacts in literary circles and in a couple of cases he even ventured his opinion on scholarly problems. 3 More specifically, he was on sufficiently friendly terms with Benedetto Varchi to consult him on the text of his Vita. All Cellini’s writings, if different in kind, are much alike 1 One might object that this is actually what Michael W. Cole attempts to do in his Cellini and the Principles of Sculpture, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002. But complex and rich in perspective though it is, his account seems somewhat uneasily posed in relation to Cellini’s conscious attempts at formulating a theory of the visual and, more particularly, the representational arts. 2 For this, see now Robert W. Gaston, Love’s Sweet Poison : A New Reading of Bronzino’s London Allegory, « I Tatti Studies. Essays in the Renaissance », 4 (1991), Firenze, Olschki, 249-288. 3 Cf. Cellini (1996), 114f. (on grotesques, which according to him should properly be called mostri). Ibid., 542f. : Although his freaky interpretation of Dante’s Pape Satàn, pape Satàn aleppe may not have been quite seriously meant, his implied criticism of learned commentators (questi comentatori) certainly was.

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in character. A practical man, he mostly turned his attention towards the concrete and individual, even to the point of being unabashedly egocentric. His poetry expresses his own experiences, as he perceived them, with an immediacy making him less dependent upon topoi than usual in those days. In the same vein, his prose texts contain extensive descriptions of his own work. This is worth remembering, since it may reflect a fundamental unity of purpose which also speaks for a certain consistency in his general approach to the representational arts. Paolo D’Ancona, in the comment already mentioned, supports his rather disparaging judgment by referring to a passage in Cellini’s treatise on sculpture. It is only fair to quote it here : And know, gentle reader, that all the good masters imitate from life, but that consists in having a nice judgment so as to know how to represent the beautiful subject and being able to recognize among beautiful models the most beautiful. And it is necessary to see many, and from all of them take the most beautiful parts which are to be seen in them, and then from these make a beautiful composition completely contained in the work you want to make. 1

Here D’Ancona’s quotation ends, which should not make us forget that Cellini’s text continues like this : « Da poi si vede l’opere di quei maestri, in fra le quali si conosce quelli che hanno buona maniera, cioè graziosa et ubbidiente all’arte : e questi sono rari ». 2 What he says on this occasion agrees with several scattered utterances in the Vita. No doubt Benvenuto studied nature closely, and he was always dependent on models for executing his works. Several of these models are identified, partly in the Vita itself and partly from other sources. His first major work in bronze, the « Nymph of Fontainebleau », was modelled in Paris during his dramatic relationship with the terrific beauty Caterina. Later on he tells, for instance, that when working on the Medusa, he had only a few young boys for assistance : « ...infra i quali ne era uno molto bello : questo era il figliuolo d’una meretrice, chiamata la Gambetta. Servivomi di questo fanciullo per ritrarlo, perché noi non abiamo altri libri che ci insegnino l’arte, 1 Cellini [1926], xiii : « E sappi, benigno lettore, che tutti e buoni maestri tutti ritraggono il vivo, ma la consiste in avere un bel iudizio di sapere il bel vivo mettere in opera e saper cognoscere fra i bei vivi il più bello, e vederne assai, e da tutti pigliare quelle più belle parti che si veggono in essi, e di quelle da poi farne una bella composizione tutta ristretta in quell’opera che tu voi fare ». Cf. La Vita (1901), 784. 2 Ibid.

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altro che il naturale ». 1 No wonder Benvenuto’s god is often referred to as « l’Idio della natura », a phrase which I believe, should neither be overlooked nor overinterpreted. 2 Conceiving of art as beauty based on selective imitation of nature was, of course, essential to the artistic concerns of the High Renaissance, and in this context it is but of minor importance that the notion appealed rather less to latecomers, say of the 1920s. Were we to go a step further and ask just how art can possibly imitate nature, Benvenuto’s answer would surely be : by means of disegno. During his ringing row with Bandinelli in front of Cosimo I and his court he allegedly spoke like this : « Io dissi che chi disegnava bene e’ non poteva operar mai male : ’imperò io crederrò che’l tuo disegno sia come sono le opere’ ». 3 As already mentioned, he was familiar with the three « arts of design » and on one occasion even planned to represent them allegorically. 4 He may also have conceived of them as a strict unity since he could, at times, speak of them as of one art only : « tutta l’Arte del disegno, cioè Scultura, Pittura e Architettura ». 5 Nothing of this is very original, which is not to say that it is without interest. Above all it is worth noticing that Cellini chose to stress the importance of nature rather more than usual in his generation. I believe there are two sides to the matter, one mainly practical and one of some theoretical significance. His brief discourse Sopra l’arte del disegno includes a discussion of different drawing techniques. Prominence is given to red and black chalk ( pietra rossa e nera) because this technique makes corrections easy, thus facilitating the study from nature : « Perchè i buon maestri che vogliono studiosamente disegnare, questo dicono essere il miglior modo di tutti gli altri ». 6 Theoretical concerns 1 Cellini (1996), 618f. He is probably referring to the head of the Medusa, since with his naturalist inclinations he would hardly have been content to make this obviously female body from a male model. Cf. Pope-Hennessy (1985), Pl. 97. 2 Cellini (1996), 425. Also 3 : the introductory sonnet is written to « ringraziar lo Dio della natura ». The phrase is for the most part used briefly and in isolation, which should perhaps discourage attempts to probe deeply into its philosophical implications. Also, it crops up in quite different contexts, e.g. in the beginning of « Sopra la differenza nata tra gli scultori e i pittori », cf. La Vita (1901), 799, and several times in the autobiography, e.g. Cellini (1996), 425. 3 Ibid., 654f. 4 Ibid, 531 ; La Vita (1901), 783f. 5 So also in the fragment « Sopra i principii e ’l modo d’imparare l’arte del disegno », La Vita (1901), 802. 6 Ibid., 793-795, here 793.

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are implied also in a comment of 1563 on some of his proposals for the seal of the Accademia del disegno. Of the six designs known to us, four represent the Ephesian Artemis understood as a symbol of nature and by implication, of disegno. It would have been more helpful if we knew more precisely what he means by « nature ». But even as it stands the text tells us something : Having considered how great they are, these our arts that spring from design, so that man cannot make anything perfect without having recourse to design, from which he always receives the best council : and because I trust I could make everybody understand by cogent arguments, the truth of which could not be contradicted, that design is really the origin and principle of everything man does. And only that true idea of nature which the ancients represented with many breasts, to show that she nourishes everything, as the first and only agent of God, who sculptured the first man out of earth in His image and likeness, and that consequently the masters of the arts could have nothing more true and becoming as the sign and emblem of their endeavours than the said notion of nature... 1

Taking this statement at face value – and I don’t see why we should not – we may conclude that Cellini tied his concept of disegno firmly to his conception of nature so much so in fact, that the first is hardly to be defined independently of the second. Although we better abstain from pushing this line of reasoning much further, we have already at this stage learnt something about Cellini’s ideas and concerns. D’Ancona was right in so far as our master was hardly of a theoretical bent and did not bother much about the more abstract kind of aesthetics. But this is not to say that he was without a considered opinion in matters of art theory and criticism. 2 What 1 « Hauendo io considerato quanto queste nostre arti, che procedono dal disegno, siano grandi, non potendo l’huomo alcuna cosa perfettamente oprare, senza riferirsi al disegno, dal quale egli trae sempr. i miglior consigli, e perch’io crederrei beniss.o far capaci tutti gl’huomini con vive ragioni, à le quali non si potrebbe contradire essere verissimo, che il disegno essendo veramente origine, e principio di tutte le azzioni dell’huomo, e solo quella Iddea vera della Natura, che fu dagli Antiani con molte poppe figurata, p significare, ch’ella nutrisce ogni cosa, come sola, e principale ministra di Dio, che di terra sculpí, e creò il primo huomo ad’imagine, e similitudine di sè, et che p conseguenza non possono i professori dell’Arti havere p Suggello, e p Impresa loro, niuna cosa né piu somigliante al vero, ne piu propria delli esercizij loro, che la detta Iddea della Natura ». Cf. Pope-Hennessy (1985), 286 (facsimile of drawing in the British Museum). 2 The question is briefly touched upon by I. Cattaneo, Il Cellini critico d’arte, « L’Arte », 1929, 272-74.

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D’Ancona found particularly disturbing may have been that Cellini had not realized the difficulties inherent in the idea of choosing the best, or most beautiful, parts of nature. But this is hardly surprising since the same goes for Leonardo and, for that sake, Raphael. The problem is essentially a mannerist one and, as I would like to emphasize, Cellini was not essentially a mannerist. In theoretical matters he fits neatly into a fairly consistent tradition, running back through Raphael and Leonardo to Alberti. It is also in keeping with this trend that his tenets are immediately relevant to the training of artists as well as applicable to everyday activity in the workshop. Indeed, we look in vain for any proposition leading significantly beyond the concerns of Renaissance artists towards the abstract, not to say artificial ideals of Mannerism. Much has been made of Cellini’s insistence on the multiple aspects of sculpture, seen as a new stylistic preference reflecting a perception of space significantly different from that of the High Renaissance. Of course he does consider the question repeatedly, first in his letter to Benedetto Varchi 1 and later in his treatise on sculpture and the brief discourse on design. In the latter we are told that against the one and only aspect of painting sculpture has eight, and is thus seven times better than painting. One wonders how seriously Benvenuto may have taken this calculation. But as an analysis of the Perseus group – on which he was working at the time - the contention is rather illuminating. Later on he would refer to « more than forty » 2 and even, for good measure, eighty vedute. Apart from being based on immediate practical experience, his argument is rooted in the tradition of the paragone and therefore not necessarily open to interpretations in terms of style. 3 This reading of Cellini’s theoretical attempts goes well with the character of his sculptural works. My point is not to support the view, 1 Trattati d’arte del Cinquecento. Fra Manierismo e Controriforma, a cura di Paola Barocchi, Bari (Laterza), i, 1960, 80f. The letter is dated 28th January 1546, cf. 34-52. 2 « Sopra l’arte del disegno », La vita (1901), 793-95, here 795 : « Le quali non tanto otto vedute le sono più di quaranta, perchè un dito solo che un volge la sua figura, un muscolo si mostra troppo o poco, talchè si vede la maggior varietà che immaginar si possa al mondo ; di modo che gli è di necessità di levar di quella bella grazia di quella prima veduta per accordarsi con tutte l’altre prestandole allo intorno : la qual cosa è tanta e tale, che mai si vidde figura nissuna che facessi bene per tutti e versi ». 3 For the multiple aspect in Sixteenth-Century Italian sculpture, cf. Lars Olof Larsson, Von allen Seiten gleich schön. Studien zum Begriff der Vielansichtigkeit in der europäischen Plastik von der Renaissance bis zum Klassizismus, Stockholm, Almqvist & Wiksell, 1974 (Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis).

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quite common nowadays, that the concept of « mannerism » is useless, or worse. If often overfraught and sometimes applied indiscriminately, it still has its uses. Not least, it may be of assistance when trying to apprehend with some precision just how Cellini is different – in stylistic terms – from artists like Parmigianino or Giambologna. I fail to see anything particularly mannerist about works like the Andromeda relief. Keeping in mind that D’Ancona singled out Parmigianino as an artist closely related in style, we may look at one of his best known paintings, the « Madonna dal collo lungo » for comparison (Fig. 4). The difference in subject need not concern us here, since the question is basically one of form. Both works concentrate on the figure of a young woman seated frontally, and in the pose and the play of lines there is a superficial similarity. But – to speak with Wölffl in – the visual interest brought to the subject, is quite different in the two instances : in particular we are up against radically different ways of looking at the human body. Having considered such a representative instance of la stilizzazione della forma, we realize how little of this is actually found in the Andromeda. Here we look in vain for any features not compatible with the rendering of the human body and the organization of form already established in the first quarter of the 16th Century. Numerous closer or more distant parallels come to mind, such as the « Doni tondo », the « David-Apollo », and several figures in the Sistine ceiling. Only Cellini was no imitator. It is worth noticing that although an ardent admirer of Michelangelo, he remained surprisingly independent of the master in his own work. 1 Actually, he came somewhat closer to Raphael and his pupils. We have an early example in the seal for Ercole Gonzaga mentioned above, and a comparison between the Andromeda relief and works like Raphael’s « Galatea » or his « Erato » in the Stanza della Segnatura indicates that the influence was of lasting importance. I have already suggested that it might have something to do with Benvenuto’s early experiences in Rome on the eve of the sacco. On the other hand we cannot ignore Kriegbaum’s observation that several Tuscan sculptors, especially during the 1540s, tried to adapt the idiom of Florentine sculpture of the 1 See, for a somewhat different view, Kriegbaum (1940), 4 : « È solo il Cellini che seppe trarre le conseguenze della statuaria di Michelangelo e creare nel suo Perseo, dai molteplici punti di vista, la statua veramente canonica sulla quale si basa tutto il tardo Cinquecento ».

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Fig. 4. Parmigianino, La Madonna dal collo lungo, c. 1535. Uffizi, Florence.

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later Quattrocento. Such an understanding of the local situation gets additional support from the importance Cellini attached to what he called la scuola fiorentina. 1 Leaving the Andromeda aside for a moment, we have no difficulty in identifying corresponding stylistic preferences in other mature works. As we have seen, Benvenuto insisted on several occasions on the imitation of nature and on the importance of studying from life. The result is seen throughout his oeuvre, but it is nowhere more apparent than in the statuette of « Mercury », made for the base of the Perseus group (Fig. 5). Michelangelo’s early so-called « Dying Slave » may represent an influence of sorts. Even though there is a world of difference between the rhytm and expressive quality of the two works, we can point to some similarities in the perception of the body and, more generally, to a taste for free, organic movement and beautiful, continuously flowing lines. But the sprightly Mercury owes more to the crowd frolicking under the Farnesina vault and, Fig. 5. Benvenuto Cellini, not least, to the young model Bernardino Mercury, Statuette from the Mannellini di Mugello, a workshop assistbase of Perseus. Bronze, ent who for some years was very close to Height 96 cm. Bargello. the master. The spontaneus freshness of this work and in spite of a highly complex pose – its free and unforced movement stand out clearly when compared with Giambologna’s representation of the subject (1580), now on view in the same room in the Bargello. 2 A couple of earlier small – scale versions are, admittedly, less 1 Cf. Charles Davis, Benvenuto Cellini and the Scuola Fiorentina, « North Carolina Museum of Art Bulletin », 13 (1976), 1-70. In my opinion Davis does not quite get on to the more general implications of his interesting topic. 2 Charles Avery, Giambologna. The Complete Sculpture, Oxford, Phaidon, 1987, 22 (ills.14-15), 124-130 ; cat. nos. 30, 34, 44, 68, 72-73.

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formalized, but the ingenious, somewhat ornamental pose is essentially the same. A statuette by Willem van Tetrode 1 which may be the link between Cellini and Giambologna, although carefully studied is noticeably more rigid in pose and handling. A taste for slender bodies and graceful movement is apparent also in the smallscale models for the « Perseus ». Some authors, notably Kriegbaum and Calamandrei, tend to prefer these bozzetti to the statue itself. 2 And indeed they have a ravishing quality rather lacking in the work as finally executed (Fig. 6). Even so, it is not difficult to understand why Benvenuto chose to modify his conception. The lively figures represented in the early models brilliantly suggest the young saviour suddenly alighting from above, but are less convincing as the stalwart hero vanquishFig. 6. Benvenuto Cellini: Perseus ; probably ing not one, but two horrimodel for the statue in Loggia dei Lanzi. ble monsters. What remains Bronze, height 75 cm. Bargello, Florence. of the nimble boy in the final version is the beautiful head with its strange, richly adorned helmet revealing an interest in the fantastic designs of Verrocchio and Leonardo. 1 Ibid., 125.

2 Kriegbaum (1940), 21 ; Calamandrei (1971), 4, 79.

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A somewhat tricky case perhaps, is the marble statue of « Narcissus », which at first glance may seem to resist my attempts to define Cellini’s stylistic position (Fig. 7). But the strained, and in that sense rather artificial, pose is explained by the particular subject represented. Also, as the artist makes a point of telling us, his freedom was in this case severely limited by the shape and bad condition of the marble block from which he had to work. 1 iv. Let us finally return to the Andromeda relief. I have argued that in design and composition Cellini departs rather less from the classical preferences of the High Renaissance than commonly alleged. If, for purposes of analysis, we Fig. 7. Benvenuto Cellini, Narcissus, c. 1548wish to retain some sort 57. Marble, height 149 cm. Bargello, Florence. 1 In the Vita (Cellini (1996), 658 he gives a precise description of his difficulties : et a quel pezzo di marmo greco feci un piccol modellino di cera, al quale posi nome Narciso. E perché questo marmo aveva dua buchi che andavano affondo più di un quarto di braccio et larghi dua buone dita, per questo feci l’attitudine che si vede, per difendermi da quei buchi, di modo che io gli avevo cavati dalla mia figura ». The « Narcissus » is now in the Bargello.

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of Idealtypus like « classic art », it cannot reasonably be limited to disegno, but must hold good as well, with respect to invenzione. We must ask, then : is the story clearly and logically told, without obtrusive additions or unnecessary complications ? That it certainly is, as regards Perseus, the sea-monster, Andromeda, her parents and their courtiers. But what about the violently racing horsemen in the upper zone and the group of warriors in the background on the right ? And above all, what with the infuriated, naked figure immediately to the right of Andromeda ? Do they really fit in ? These figures have not been much examined or commented upon. The raging man and the child at his side are mentioned by Plon as « un enfant et un jeune homme, saisis d’ horreur à l’aspect du dragon épouvantable qui sort des flots et va dévorer la jeune fille ». 1 For Pope-Hennessy, who calls the relief a puzzling work « from a narrative standpoint », the furious figure is Perseus himself. 2 But apart from anything else, it is difficult to explain why the hero, well equipped in the representation on the left, suddenly must appear bareheaded and without wings on his heels. As usual, Pope-Hennessy pays more attention to form than content and is therefore interested in the figure mainly as an indication of stylistic dependence on works like Donatello’s late reliefs and Leonardo’s « Battle of Anghiari ». But sticking to the iconographic problem, it would seem worth our while to consider a reading which, if accepted, might go some way towards making the relief less puzzling. In the absence of other suggestions the best guess is that the representation is based, in some way or other, on Ovid. Therefore it makes sense to read on in the Metamorphoses, to see how the exciting story continues. 3 Upon her rescue Andromeda was given in marriage to Perseus as a 1 Plon, (1883), 218. 2 Pope-Hennessy (1985), 181f., where he goes on to say about Andromeda : « No wonder that she is alarmed by the violence with which Perseus accosts her ». 3 An interpretation along these lines was proposed by Francesco Vossilla, Baccio Bandinelli e Benvenuto Cellini tra il 1540 ed il 1560 : Disputa su Firenze e su Roma. « Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz ». 41 (1997), 254-313, here 290f. It was referred to but rather disregarded by Colle (2002), 142ff., although Cole refers to a possible – and possibly relevant – interpretation of Giambologna’s Rape of a Sabine as reported by Raffaelo Borghini: 138ff. and 85, 213. Thomas Hirthe, Die Perseus-und Medusa-Gruppe des Benvenuto Cellini in Florenz, « Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen », 29/30 (1987/88), 197-216, presents a thorough interpretation of the whole monument as seen in a dynastic context. He suggests that the aggressive figure to the right of Andromeda may be understood as a personification of Furor, 212-214.

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reward for his having saved her. Indeed it was at the ensuing wedding banquet the hero had occasion to tell the story of how he slew Medusa – after all the main theme of the monument as seen in an appropriate dynastic and political perspective. There was, however, one person who did not think it fair to give the girl to Perseus : the king’s brother Phineus, to whom she had originally been betrothed. In Horace Gregory’s translation the story goes on like this : As Perseus, brave son of Danaë, Talked of his famous trials and victories Before a crowd of African commanders, The palace halls began to echo turmoil : Not noise and music of a wedding feast, But racket that precedes a storm of war, And, as a hurricane lashes quiet seas Into roaring tumult of the waves, So the gay feast itself became a riot. The storm was lead by raging Phineus, King’s brother, who thrust a bronze-tipped ash-plant up And shook it in the air. « I’ve come », he said, « To claim my stolen queen ».

There are obvious similarities between Ovid’s tale and Cellini’s intensely expressive pictorial narrative. 1 Moreover, since the scenes in question follow so close upon each other in the text, there is nothing strange in combining them in one and the same pictorial representation. Admittedly, the furious figure in the relief does not wield a lance. But this is arguably a minor point. Since we do not know exactly how and in which form the frightful story reached Cellini, we may even speculate that he was not aware of this particular. In any case, a Phineus lacking his lance would – as the myth goes – seem a negligible problem as compared to a bareheaded Perseus without wings on his heels. At first glance, the horsemen and above all the so conspicuously placed, raging figure are indeed intriguing, and forces us in any case to look for an explanation linking them to the rest of the composition. This is not just a question of iconographic particulars ; it concerns the more 1 This particular incident was sufficiently well known at the time to crop up on a Cafaggiolo majolica of about 1540, now in the Bargello. Although the piece is currently on show with the caption « Perseo che interrompe il banchetto di Polidette e pietrifica gli invitati colla testa di Medusa », the scene is probably meant to represent the tumultuous fight at Perseus’ wedding feast.

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fundamental problem of visual and narrative organization. In short, it is a question of invenzione. If one is willing to go along with such an interpretation, the relief would, from a narrative standpoint, gain a new consistency and simplicity, which is in itself an argument for understanding Cellini’s art as essentially based to the ideals of the High Renaissance.

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A BRIEF HISTORY OF GOD’S CAREER IN ART FROM THE BEGINNING OF TIME TILL THE END OF THE WORLD Paul Barolsky

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s scholars we usually strive to achieve complexity, depth, and profundity in our analyses, all of which require theoretical sophistication. I will aspire instead in what follows to superficiality - as in the simple consideration of what one sees on the surface of a painted roof or enjoys in a tall tale. It is my contention that interpretation, which is usually over-interpretation, should be suggestive. « You cannot begin not to tell », the great theorist, Peter Whiffle, once observed, « until you know more than you are willing to impart ». Most of us, however, seek to tell more than we really know. Against the grain of verbosity and reductiveness, I will be very brief. Necessarily so, since the story to which I allude, the history of God’s career in art from the beginning of time till the end of the world, is rich in incident, and a full account would exceed the limits prescribed here. Besides, as Voltaire once said, « The best way to bore people is to tell everything ». Perish the thought ! 1 We can all envision in our mind’s eye Michelangelo’s so-called Creation of Adam, the powerful figure of God the Creator surging toward Adam, arm extended toward the newly formed man, as Adam, his own arm similarly extended toward God, reclines expectantly upon the earth from which he was fashioned. We take for granted or are unaware, however, of the fact that when Michelangelo pictured this momentous event he poetically and radically revised the traditional Tuscan way of showing God standing upon the earth from which he created Adam as he is shown, standing on the ground, in works by 1 Since I regard this piece as more a suggestive essay than a conventional scholarly article, I have not included the usual notes, citation by citation. Suffice it to say, my principal sources - the Bible, Vasari’s Lives, and Boccaccio’s story of the Baronci in the Decameron - are all readily available. In Vasari, the reader is directed to the discussions of God in both proems to the Lives, to the description of Michelangelo’s fresco of God creating Adam, and to the account of Michelangelo’s Moses, which Vasari likens to the resurrected body.

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Ghiberti, Uccello, and Della Quercia, all well-known to Michelangelo. By showing God instead in fl ight, his drapery billowing in the wind, his beard wind-swept, Michelangelo represents God, Creator Spiritus, as the personification of spirit, for spiritus is the breath of air, a breeze that is here an almighty wind. Michelangelo also evokes the spirit of God by emphasizing the finger of his extended hand. This finger, it has been shown, is the digitus paternae dexterae, which according to a deep tradition that has been traced back to the Gospels, also stands for spiritus, spirit. At the instant when the finger of God, Creator Spiritus, touches Adam, the first man will be filled with the breath of life. Michelangelo emphasizes the dualism of body and spirit in accord with the account of the Creation of Adam in Genesis. God first formed Adam out of the earth ; then he breathed the breath of life into him. That ineffable breath of life is evoked mysteriously by the touch of the divine digit, which is, as St. Augustine said, the Holy Spirit. We should see that by focusing in a singular way, in visual form, on the dualism of spirit and body Michelangelo is able to clarify his allegorical meaning. Michelangelo’s fresco, as often said, is an allegory in which the first Adam foreshadows the new Adam, Jesus. We need to see more clearly, however, how the form of Michelangelo’s image renders his meaning, how Michelangelo poetically gives form to allegory. St. Paul speaks of the first Adam as corpus animale, the second Adam as corpus spiritale. Michelangelo quickens one’s sense of how when the first Adam is touched by the digit or spirit, he will become corpus spiritale. By illustrating Creator Spiritus not standing upon the earth but soaring spiritually toward Adam Michelangelo magnifies the heavenly origins of the second Adam, who descends from heaven, secundus homo de caelo caelestis. According to a rich tradition, when God made Adam, he was the first artist, the first sculptor and painter. It follows from this proposition that, depicting God fashioning Adam, Michelangelo is an art historian, the storia of Michelangelo’s monumental painting is the story of God making the first sculpture. How queer, how very bizarre, therefore, that Michelangelo should appear nowhere in the by now vast modern historiography of art history, especially since his story of the first sculpture is one of the very best known historical accounts of the origins of art in the entire historiography of art.

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We know from other evidence external to his fresco that Michelangelo thought of God the Creator as Deus artifex. In the fragment of a poem about Creation written at the very moment he pictured the Creation of Adam, Michelangelo speaks of God’s divin’ arte, his « divine art ». Depicting the Creation of Adam, Michelangelo purposefully tells the story in medias res, « in the middle of things ». A crucial point ! For as he pictures his story, Michelangelo shows God, having molded the body of Adam from the earth, about to impart to his sculpture the breath of life which is promised by the immanent touch of the divine finger as spirit. We should therefore see that although he depicts Adam as awake and conscious, Michelangelo shows him as not yet alive in the spirit, which is impending. Adam at the very instant, the split second, we behold still lacks the breath or the spirit of life, and in Michelangelo’s allegorical double entendre the very spirit which will make him, homo spiritale, the second Adam. We speak of Michelangelo’s fresco as the « Creation of Adam », but this misleading title or label lacks specificity and deforms Michelangelo’s intention or meaning. For we should more accurately, more carefully, call the fresco « God Creating Adam » in order to convey the fact that having fashioned Adam’s body, God, deus artifex, has not yet completed him with the breath of life or spirit. God’s sculpture, as we see it in Michelangelo’s image, is, strictly speaking, incomplete or non finito. We are left to imagine in our mind’s eye the moment when, in an instant, Adam was completed : Deus fecit. Michelangelo freezes before us, to use the imperfect form of the verb, the image of Deus faciebat, for his statue of Adam, as we see him, is unfinished. And this is no accident. For only a brief time before he painted God creating Adam, Michelangelo was the first artist, the very first artist, of the Italian Renaissance, to use the imperfect form of the verb facere in the signature of his Rome Pietà. When we consider, that Michelangelo’s faciebat on the Rome Pietà precedes God’s implicit or wordless faciebat in the scene of God creating Adam, we may conclude that, in a sense, Michelangelo has portrayed God in his own image and likeness. As Renaissance authors wrote paradoxically of, for example, discors concordia or discordante concordia, so Michelangelo plays paradoxically on the relations of imperfection to perfection, perfezzione imperfetta, one might say. In this way, it was said in Michelangelo’s day by Vasari in his Lives of the artists that God, who created an exemplary art in his

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Adam, nevertheless wished to show in the imperfection of the lump of clay out of which he fashioned Adam so perfectly the possibility to all artists of transforming their own imperfect sketches into the perfection of their finished works. Vasari similarly observed that, looking at Michelangelo’s unfinished sculptures, one saw, could indeed imagine, in the imperfection of his sketched figures the intended perfection of the completed work. In just this fashion, Michelangelo suggests the perfection of Adam who, at the moment we see him, is still imperfect. For physically beautiful but not yet touched by the spirit, Adam is both imperfect and incipiently perfect. In the play between imperfection and perfection, each concept necessarily illuminates and illustrates the other. In Vasari’s history of art, which begins with God’s creation of Adam, bella maniera is the manifestation of perfection. Michelangelo, in his fresco of God creating Adam, renders the Creator fashioning Adam with his right hand, la mano destra, with the destrezza or dexterity essential to the perfezzione of bella maniera. We know full well that maniera has its roots in the word mano or manus, but we do not dwell sufficiently on the fact that the hand of God, the original hand of artifice, is the model against which all maniera is measured. In the history of art after the fall, maniera journeyed imperfectly from darkness and error through the hands of artists – di mano in mano – to illumination and truth, to perfection, indeed the assoluta, as Vasari calls it, epitomized by the « divine hands » of Michelangelo. The perfect manner was, in effect, a conversion, a return to the unsurpassed perfection of the divine hand. In the modern literature on maniera and its off-shoot, Mannerism, the foundational theology of the word, transmuted into aesthetics, has vanished, even though for Michelangelo, spiritual artist and art historian, like Vasari, maniera derives its deepest meaning from the mano di Dio. Michelangelo’s fresco of God fashioning Adam with his right hand foretells, as we have seen, the fashioning of the new Adam. It also foretells God’s final act of artifice when, again with his right hand, God fashions the perfected bodies of the righteous at the end of the world : the manifestation, we might say, of God’s ultima maniera. In a poetically profound condensation, Michelangelo’s fresco contains within itself, ostensibly and allegorically, the entire history of God’s career in art – from creation to the ultimate creation at the end of the

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world. This final act of creation or recreation in the fashioning of the perfected bodies of the blessed was indeed construed as a work of artifice by Vasari who made a stunning paragone or comparison when he likened Michelangelo’s art to God’s. Speaking of Michelangelo in a different context, Vasari wrote that it seems God sought to prepare the body for the Resurrection before any other body through the hands of Michelangelo – what Vasari elsewhere calls Michelangelo’s « divine hands ». As God originally made art with his dextrous hand, so Michelangelo made art based on God’s, an art that in turn prophetically foretells the final work of God’s hand, the perfected body of resurrection. Michelangelo’s artistic prophecy of God’s final artifice is not surprising, since it is rooted in the true example of God’s original mano or maniera. If the perfection of Michelangelo’s art prompted Vasari to contemplate God’s perfection in the beginning and at the end of the world, we should finally pause to contemplate the full implications of the imperfect lump of clay out of which God perfectly fashioned Adam in the first place : the origins in imperfection of God’s perfection, the very origins of God’s career in art. Long before Michelangelo and Vasari contemplated the relations of imperfection to perfection, of perfection to imperfection, Boccaccio did just that in the Decameron in a story which, although well known to scholars of literature, has surprisingly been ignored by art historians. A major contribution to the history of art, to the story of God’s career in art, Boccaccio’s tale is a heterodox alternative to the idea of Adam as God’s first sculpture or painting. For Boccaccio presents evidence of God’s activity as an artist before he fashioned Adam, at a time when he was, to speak in a peculiarly modern way, a « failure » in art. We might say in the very spirit of Boccaccio’s theological joke I am about to retell that the story explores God’s art before he made it big with the success of his tour de force, the splendid sculpture of Adam. Boccaccio’s joking account of God’s previous lack of success in art, his contribution to the biography of God, to our theme here of God’s career in art, appears as the sixth novella on the sixth day of the Decameron – a sly and pointed allusion to God’s fashioning of Adam on the sixth day of Creation. Boccaccio writes of God creating the men of the Baronci family, who were older than any other man, più antichi che niun altro uomo – by which he means Adam. He tells us that God fashioned the Bar-

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onci when he was still learning to draw. Whereas other men had faces « well composed » and « properly proportioned », the Baronci had faces long and narrow or wide beyond measure ; some had long noses, others had short noses, some had chins that stuck out and jaws like those of an ass, some had one eye bigger than the other, and some Baronci had one eye lower than the other, « as they appear on the faces made by children when they first learn to draw » – i visi che fanno da prima i fanciulli che apparano a disegnare. Here we have, in nuce, in a nutshell, the historical scheme of Vasari’s Lives. By invoking God’s childhood in art, Boccaccio implies a biological development that foreshadows Vasari’s more famous historical notion of art developing from its infancy through fanciullezza or childhood to maturity. In Boccaccio, God implicitly personifies the entire history of art, recapitulated by mankind in his image and likeness. In Boccaccio’s novella, God fashioned the Baronci before he was God, that is, God as we know him, before he came to be the accomplished sculptor and painter best known for his subsequent capolavoro, Adam, the true model or vero esemplare of all art. Unlike many artists who came after him, for example, Giotto and Bernini, God was no child prodigy ! God’s early works, his first essays in art were, according to Boccaccio, lacking in proportion, measure, beauty, and grace. They were made before his right hand was truly dexterous or adroit, before his recta manus was capable of achieving the rectitude of correct drawing, before he got things right ! Like many works of art throughout history made by lesser artists, God’s first works were marked by what was then called goffezza or gofferia, in a word, clumsiness. Maladroit, they were goffi, that is, goofy. In short, in his earliest work as an artist, God goofed. Clues to God’s early manner are available to us by analogy in the record of other works similarly defective. Vasari describes, for example, a portrait by Giuliano Bugiardini painted of his good friend Michelangelo in which one eye appeared above the other, indeed in his temple ; here we are reminded of Boccaccio’s description of God’s juvenilia in art, of the Baronci with one eye below the level of the other. Michelangelo was said to be amused by Bugiardini’s portrait. I hate to think of what Michelangelo might have thought of God’s early works. Boccaccio’s playful story has many virtues. It makes a major contribution to art history by drawing our attention to God’s neglected

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early works, which must now be included, along with the universally admired sculpture of Adam, in the divine catalogue raisonné of God’s art. As a good story, indeed a good art historical story, it is a refreshing antidote to the kinds of often lifeless and somber stories we modern scholars write, which are usually devoid of the playfulness or serio ludere typical of Boccaccio. In the spirit of the theology that later informs Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam and Vasari’s Lives, however, Boccaccio’s jest makes a serious point. We have observed that the idea of perfection can only be defined in opposition to its very antithesis, imperfection. Boccaccio’s graphic description of God’s monstrous renderings from the childhood of his art, deformed, deficient, indeed grotesque, dialectically serves to magnify one’s admiration of God’s subsequent success in art, the very perfection which makes God, as Boccaccio indeed believed, long before the advent of the secular modern art history text-book, the single greatest artist in all of history, from the beginning of the world till the end of time.

composto, in carattere fournier monotype, impresso e rilegato in italia dalla accademia editoriale ® , pisa · roma

* Settembre 2006 (cz2/fg9)

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preface

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EARLY MODERN AND MODERN STUDIES a series directed by roy eriksen

1. Ashes to ashes. Art in Rome between Humanism and Maniera, edited by Roy Eriksen and Victor Plathe Tschudi, 2006. 2. Urban Preoccupations, edited by Per Sivefors, in preparazione. 3. Imitation, Representation and Printing in the Italian Renaissance, edited by Magne Malmanger and Roy Eriksen, in preparazione.