Celebrating Teresa of Avila: The Discalced Carmelites in Italy and Their Mission to Persia and the East Indies (Catholic Christendom, 1300-1700) 9004548904, 9789004548909

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C AT H O L I C C H R I ST E N D O M , 1300 - 1700

Pamela M. Jones, Ph.D. (1985) Brown University, is Professor Emerita of Art History at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Her most recent books include Altarpieces and Their Viewers in the Churches of Rome from Caravaggio to Guido Reni (Ashgate, 2008) and the co-edited A Companion to Early Modern Rome, 1492–1692 (Brill, 2019).

CELEBRATING TERESA OF AVILA

Teresa of Avila’s cult was dramatically disseminated in previously unknown celebrations honoring her beatification (1614) and canonization (1622) in Italy and Portuguese Asia, the purview of her Discalced Carmelite Order’s Italian Congregation. Reconstructions and analyses of the festivities in Genoa, Rome, Naples, Hormuz, and Goa center on the presentation of Teresa’s gender, deeds, virtues, and miracles. The geopolitical roles played by religious, secular, and family networks in particularizing and propagating Teresa’s universal cult are emphasized. The desired goal of converting Muslims and Hindus is addressed in light of attitudes toward ethnic and religious diversity shared by lay and ecclesiastical authorities.

CAC

C AT H O L I C C H R I ST E N D O M , 1300 - 1700

Celebrating Teresa of Avila The Discalced Carmelites in Italy and Their Mission to Persia and the East Indies

Pamela M. Jones

pamela m. jones isbn: 978-9004-54890-9 issn: 2468-4279 brill.com/cac

Celebrating Teresa of Avila

Catholic Christendom, 1300–1700 Series Editors Giorgio Caravale (Roma Tre University) Ralph Keen (University of Illinois at Chicago) J. Christopher Warner (Le Moyne College, Syracuse)

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/cac

Celebrating Teresa of Avila The Discalced Carmelites in Italy and Their Mission to Persia and the East Indies

By

Pamela Jones

leiden | boston

Cover illustration: Giovanni Battista Falda, S. Maria della Scala, Rome, in IL NUOVO TEATRO/DELLE FABRICHE, ET EDIFICII,/IN PROSPETTIVVA DI ROMA MODERNA,/SOTTO IL FELICE PONTIFICATO/ DI N.S. PAPA ALESSANDRO VII/Date in luce da Gio. Iacomo Rossi alla Pace//(1665). The Theater That Was Rome (Photo: Brown Digital Library. https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:241012. Collection of Vincent J. Buonanno) The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at https://catalog.loc.gov

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 2468-4279 isbn 978-90-04-54890-9 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-54891-6 (e-book) Copyright 2024 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Brill Wageningen Academic, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau and V&R unipress. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Requests for re-use and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill NV via brill.com or copyright.com. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

For Rosalind and James with love

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Contents

Acknowledgments xI List of Illustrations xIIi



Introduction 1 1 Teresa of Avila and the Renewal of Carmel 1 2 A Radical Rupture: The Papal Creation of the Spanish and Italian Congregations 3 3 Teresa of Avila on the Stage of Universal Catholicism: The Standardization of Official Holiness 4 4 Festivities, the Dissemination of Teresa’s Holy Persona, and the Creation of Communities of Devotees 6 5 Foundations in Europe and Asia Treated in the Book 9 6 The Book’s Structure and Evidence for the Festivities 10

PART 1 Teresa’s Beatification Celebrations in Italy, 1614 1 A Triumphal Procession for Cloistered Nuns in Genoa 17 1 Nicolò Doria and the Discalced Carmelites in Genoa 17 2 Maddalena Centurione Spinola and the Convent and Church of Gesù e Maria 19 3 Father Marcello’s Beatification Apparato for Gesù e Maria 21 4 The Choir of Virgin Martyrs, Early Mosaics, and Verae Effigies 25 5 The Procession of Virgins in Praise of Blessed Teresa 30 2 Matriarch of a Global Missionary Order in Papal Rome 37 1 Father Marcello’s Apparato for the Beatification Festivities in S. Maria della Scala 37 2 The Audiences for the Beatification Festivities 40 3 An Overarching Theme to Engage and Inspire All Audiences: Teresa Likened to the Madonna of Carmel 40 4 Teresa as the Matriarch of a Global Missionary Order in Service of the Universal Church 47

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5 B  lessed Teresa’s Official Persona Proclaimed in the Nave Chapels’ Imagery 52 6 The Harmonious Balance of Teresa’s Active and Contemplative Life 54 7 Teresa’s Miracles in Imitation of Christ and the Apostles, and Compared to Those of Elijah 57 8 Teresa’s Sublime Virtues and Title of Sanctity 61 3 “Founder and Doctor and Virgin”: Spanish Holy Woman in Viceregal Naples 71 1 Pedro de la Madre de Dios, Elite Patrons, and the Italian Congregation’s Expansion to Naples 71 2 The Friary and Church of the Madre di Dio 73 3 Precious Furnishings and Devotional Objects Made for Blessed Teresa’s Beatification Celebrations 74 4 Teresa as the Spanish Crown’s Holy Woman: Viceroy Pedro Fernández de Castro and the Beatification Festivities 80 5 Participants in the Beatification Celebrations 81 6 The Church’s Beatification Apparato 83

PART 2 Teresa’s Italian Canonization Celebrations, 1622 4 Canonizing Five New Saints in St. Peter’s Basilica 95 1 The Politics of Sainthood: Isidore of Madrid 95 2 The Canonization Ceremony 96 3 The Commemorative Engraving of the Canonization with Papal Imprimatur 98 4 The Canonization and Codification of Teresa’s Saintly Image 103 5 St. Teresa’s Canonization Standard: The Transverberation 107 6 St. Teresa, Author-Founder, and Miracle-Worker 112 5 Honoring St. Teresa in S. Maria Della Scala, Rome 119 1 The Procession 119 2 The Solemnizations 126 3 Solemnization Imagery in S. Maria della Scala, Ephemeral and Permanent 127

Contents 

6 A Triumphal Procession for Philip Iv’s New Saint in Viceregal Naples 134 1 Cardinal-Viceroy Antonio Zapata y Cisneros and Lord Councilor Cesare Alterisio, Planner of the Festivities 134 2 Inaugurating the Celebration at the Church of S. Giuseppe Maggiore 136 3 The Procession’s Participants and Objects of Devotion 138 4 The Processional Route: Its Decorations and Innovations 143 5 The Culminating Celebrations at the Madre di Dio 158

PART 3 The Mission to Persia and the East Indies: Conversionary Aspirations and Festivities 7 New Challenges: Confronting Ethnic and Religious Diversity 163 1 Aspirations and Travails in Isfahan 164 2 Conversionary Strategies 167 3 The Limits of Religious Dialogue in Isfahan 172 4 Hormuz and Goa: The Discourse of Ethnicity and Religion in the Estado da Índia 175 5 Ethnicity, Language Facility, and the Admission of Novices 178 8 Celebrating Teresa’s Beatification in Hormuz in Portugal’s Estado da Índia 183 1 The Expansion to Hormuz 185 2 The Friary and Oratory of Our Lady of Mount Carmel 186 3 Father Leandro de la Anunciación, Designer of Teresa’s Celebrations in Hormuz 189 4 Festivities for Hormuz’s Diverse Population 190 5 Celebrating Teresa’s Memoria in 1612 192 6 Captain Luís da Gama and Teresa’s Beatification Festivities 195 7 The Demise of the Hormuz Mission 202 9 Teresa’s Canonization Festivities in Goa, Rome of the East 203 1 The Expansion to Goa 204 2 Celebrations for a Heterogeneous Population 206 3 Teresa’s Cult in Goa and the Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel 207

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4 5 6 7

The Canonization Celebrations 212 Celebrating the News of Teresa’s Canonization in May 1623 213 Publicizing a Poetry Competition in October 1623 220 Canonization Celebrations at Our Lady of Mount Carmel in November 1623 228

Conclusion 232

Bibliography 237 Index 251

Acknowledgments A concern with perceptions of holiness and saint-making has underscored much of my recent scholarship. A little more than a decade ago my attention was drawn to festivities celebrating Teresa of Avila when I discovered a detailed description of the apparato created for her 1614 beatification ceremonies held in the church of S. Maria della Scala in Rome. The church, I soon learned, was the headquarters of the Italian branch of Teresa’s Discalced Carmelite Order, which the papacy had charged with founding missions in Persia. Over the years, my initial concern with Teresa’s Roman festivities grew to encompass those in other Italian centers and in Persia and India. This book is the culmination of a long intellectual journey made possible by many institutions and individuals whom I am most pleased to thank. Much of my research was carried out in Rome, especially at the Archivio Della Casa Generalizia Dell’Ordine Dei Padri Carmelitani Scalzi. I am deeply grateful to Father Angelo Lanfranchi, OCD, Archivista Generale, and Dr. Marcos Argüelles García, Assistente Archivio Generale, for their expertise and generosity. Father Óscar I. Aparicio Ahedo, OCD, former Archivista Generale, kindly introduced me to the archive at the beginning of my project. I am also indebted to Dr. Alberto Bianco, Director of the Archivio della Congregazione dell’Oratorio di San Filippo Neri, and to the staffs of the Archivio di Stato in Rome and the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. In addition, as a Research Fellow at Boston College’s Jesuit Institute in 2012–13, I was able to exchange ideas with many knowledgeable colleagues and to travel abroad regularly. I extend my thanks to the late T. Frank Kennedy, SJ, former Director of the Jesuit Institute, and Tomeu Estelrich, former Assistant Director. In 2018, a Research Fellowship from the Renaissance Society of America supported archival work on the Asian missions. I wrote the book during the Covid pandemic when libraries and archives were closed. The following scholars generously came to the rescue by providing scans of articles and books, their own photographs, and their perspectives on thorny issues: Paolo Aranha, Stefano De Mieri, Simon Ditchfield, José Ferreira, Alison C. Fleming, George L. Gorse, Rachel Miller, Franco Mormando, Miguel Navarro García, Rosalind Rothwell, Sara Rulli, Saverio Sturm, Kelli Wood, and Alessandro Zuccari. I have also benefited from the expertise of Kathryn Brush, Daniele V. Filippi, Giulia Silvia Ghia, Ingo Herklotz, Helen Hills, Fernando Loffredo, Alexander Nagel, Ruth S. Noyes, Steven F. Ostrow, Giancarla Periti, Jorge Tárrego-Garrido, and Helen Wagg. I am grateful to Martine C. Barnaby for her excellent graphic design work that helps bring to life my reconstructions of decorative programs and processional routes. I had the pleasure of walking the

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entire 1622 Neapolitan processional route with my husband Kenneth Rothwell and Randall Colaizzi, whom I thank for their vigor and forbearance. Several scholars have helped me hone my ideas over the years. Cristelle Baskins, with whom I co-chaired the session “Italy, Persia, and Early Modern Globalism” at the 2014 College Art Association conference, has been a stimulating interlocutor ever since and read early drafts of several chapters of this book. Simon Ditchfield read the entire first draft and offered helpful suggestions and insights. Above all, I thank Barbara Wisch for sharing her considerable knowledge, for her tireless, exacting comments on various iterations of the manuscript, and for her unflagging enthusiasm for the project as it took shape. It has been a pleasure to work with Aryan van Dijk, Francis Knikker, Ivo Romein, and Yael Isaacs at Brill, who masterfully guided the project along. I appreciate greatly the astute comments provided by the two anonymous readers. Giorgio Caravale, Ralph Keen, and J. Christopher Warner, editors of the series Catholic Christendom, 1300–1700, deserve special thanks. In particular, Chris Warner provided judicious suggestions as well as keen attention to detail as the production phase approached. I thank all wholeheartedly for their thoughtful contributions. Any mistakes that remain are my own.

Illustrations 1 2 3 4 5

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Giacomo Brusco, Map of Genoa, detail from Description des beautés de Gènes et de ses environs Gènes, Genoa, 1788, Collection of George L. Gorse 20 Schematic diagram of the apparato in the Church of Gesù e Maria 22 St. Agnes, detail of apse mosaioc of S. Agnese fuori le Mura, Rome, c.625 28 Apse mosaic, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome, 9th century 29 Giovanni Battista Falda, S. Maria della Scala, Rome, in IL NUOVO TEATRO/ DELLE FABRICHE, ET EDIFICII,/IN PROSPETTIVVA DI ROMA MODERNA,/ SOTTO IL FELICE PONTIFICATO/DI N.S. PAPA ALESSANDRO VII/Date in luce da Gio. Iacomo Rossi alla Pace//(1665). The Theater That Was Rome 38 Plan of S. Maria della Scala, Rome 39 Interior view of S. Maria della Scala with the dome’s decorations 42 Schematic diagram of the life-cycle paintings in S. Maria della Scala 44 Adriaen Collaert, De fructu manuum suarum vineam feracissimam plantavit, et vtriusque sexus Carmelitarum faecunda parents effecta, toto terrarum orbe, magna gentium devotione colitur, et ab ea coepta reformatio, indies propagantur, pl. 19 of Vita s. virginis Teresiae a Iesu, Antwerp, Johannes Galle, 1630 46 Interior view of S. Maria della Scala with the dome’s decorations and the obelisks in the crossing 48 Schematic diagram of the decorations along the nave arcade of S. Maria della Scala 53 Adriaen Collaert, Antiquam Carmelitarum regulam iam pene collapsam, dum inspirante Deo, pristino vigori inter moniales conatur restituere, Deipara Virgo, sponsusque eius S. Ioseph, ei apparent: ab his veste candida induitur, torque pretioso ornatur, et ambo suam opem spondent, pl. 14 of Vita s. virginis Teresiae a Iesu, Antwerp, Johannes Galle, 1630 57 Adriaen Collaert, Dum Deo duce properat ad primi monasterij constructionem, consobrinum infantulum, parietis ruinâ suffocatum, fiducia exuberans Virgo, Deo suppliciter commendat: mox vitae reddit, et charo pignore moestam matrem solatur, pl. 15 of Vita s. virginis Teresiae a Iesu, Antwerp, Johannes Galle, 1630 59 Adriaen Collaert, Amoris ferventissimo impetu vulnerata e viuis excedit ao1589, aetatis suae 68, eiusque morientis lectulo cum Angelorum et plurium Sanctorum coronâ Christus assistit, et caelo expanso, ex ore Virginis columba candidissima evolat, pl. 24 of Vita s. virginis Teresiae a Iesu, Antwerp, Johannes Galle, 1630 65 Schematic diagram of the decorations in the right crossing chapel of S. Maria della Scala 67 Alessandro Baratta, Fidelissimae urbis neapolitanae cum omnibus viis accurata et nova delineatio aeditam in luce ab Alexandro Baratta MDCXXVII, detail 74

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Illustrations Coat of Arms of Philip III’s Iberian Union 79 Schematic diagram of nave decorations in the Madre di Dio, Naples 85 Giovanni Bernardino Ragano, called Azzolino, Blessed Teresa of Avila Standing in Glory with Angels, 1614 88 Hieronymus Wierix, La B[endita]M[adre] Teresa de Iesvs Fundadora de las Descalças Carmelitas, c.1582–1614 89 Fabrizio Santafede, St. Joseph and the Christ Child, 1614 91 Hendrick van Cleve (designer and engraver) and Philipps Galle (publisher), Castellum S. Angeli, from Ruinarum varii prospectus rurumque aliquot delineations, 1580s, pl. 13. Collection of Barbara Wisch 98 Matthäus Greuter after a drawing by Paolo Guidotti Borghese, Theater in St. Peter’s in the Vatican for the Canonization of Sts. Isidore, Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier, Philip Neri, and Teresa of Avila on 12 March 1622, 1622 99 Matthäus Greuter after a drawing by Paolo Guidotti Borghese, Theater in St. Peter’s in the Vatican for the Canonization of Sts. Isidore, Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier, Philip Neri, and Teresa of Avila on 12 March 1622, detail of the theater, 1622 101 Matthäus Greuter after a drawing by Paolo Guidotti Borghese, Theater in St. Peter’s in the Vatican for the Canonization of Sts. Isidore, Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier, Philip Neri, and Teresa of Avila on 12 March 1622, detail of the saints’ standards, 1622 102 Matthäus Greuter after a drawing by Paolo Guidotti Borghese, Theater in St. Peter’s in the Vatican for the Canonization of Sts. Isidore, Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier, Philip Neri, and Teresa of Avila on 12 March 1622, detail of Teresa’s standard, 1622 108 Adriaen Collaert, Seraphinum vultu decorum, ignito ad summitatem aureo spiculo, cor et viscera sibi trajicientem, flammisque coelicis accendentem, mirabiliter experitur; unde seraphico amore, toto deinceps vitae decursu languida, ad sponsum anhelat, pl. 8 of Vita s. virginis Teresiae a Iesu, Antwerp, Johannes Galle, 1630 109 Adriaen Collaert, Christus Dominus exhibito passionis suae clavo, spiritualis connubij foedera cum ea mirifice celebrat, et amoris tenerrimi indicibus hisce verbis eam affatur, pl. 13 of Vita s. virginis Teresiae a Iesu, Antwerp, Johannes Galle, 1630 111 Adriaen Collaert, Per tres annos continuo fere Christum Dominum a dextris suis gloria praefulgidum conspicit, ipsumque suavia haec verba,”Filia iam tota mea es, et ego totus tuus,” hisque, similia, magno cum amoris indicio proferentem audit, pl. 10 of Vita s. virginis Teresiae a Iesu, Antwerp, Johannes Galle, 1630 111 Matthäus Greuter after a drawing by Paolo Guidotti Borghese, Theater in St. Peter’s in the Vatican for the Canonization of Sts. Isidore, Ignatius Loyola, Francis

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Xavier, Philip Neri, and Teresa of Avila on 12 March 1622, detail of standing figure of Teresa flanked by her miracles, 1622 113 Adriaen Collaert, Divinae lucis radijs repente obumbrata, a Spiritu Sancto, infusa caelitus scientia mentem imbuitur: libros quinque caelesti eruditione faecundos conscribit, qui vario idiomate, Hispano, Gallo, Italo, Polono, et alijs circumferuntur, pl. 23 of Vita s. virginis Teresiae a Iesu, Antwerp, Johannes Galle, 1630 115 Giovanni Maggi, Map of Rome, detail showing the processional route, 1625 from Amato Pietro Frutaz, Le Piante di Roma, vol. 2, Rome, 1962 122 Giovanni Maggi, Map of Rome, detail of S. Maria in Vallicella, 1625 from Amato Pietro Frutaz, Le Piante di Roma, vol. 2, Rome, 1962 123 Giovanni Maggi, Map of Rome, detail of S. Giacomo degli Spagnoli, 1625 from Amato Pietro Frutaz, Le Piante di Roma, vol. 2, Rome, 1962 123 Giovanni Maggi, Map of Rome, detail of the Gesù, 1625 from Amato Pietro Frutaz, Le Piante di Roma, vol. 2, Rome, 1962 124 Giovanni Maggi, Map of Rome, detail of Trastevere with S. Maria della Scala, 1625 from Amato Pietro Frutaz, Le Piante di Roma, vol. 2, Rome, 1962 125 Palma Giovane, The Ecstasy of St. Teresa, 1615. S. Pancrazio, Rome 129 Relic of the right foot of Teresa of Avila, Chapel of St. Teresa, S. Maria della Scala, Rome 132 Alessandro Baratta, Fidelissimae urbis neapolitanae cum omnibus viis accurata et nova delineatio aeditam in luce ab Alexandro Baratta MDCXXVII, detail of Castel Nuovo area 137 Alessandro Baratta, Fidelissimae urbis neapolitanae cum omnibus viis accurata et nova delineatio aeditam in luce ab Alexandro Baratta MDCXXVII, detail of trumpeters leading the procession 139 Alessandro Baratta, Fidelissimae urbis neapolitanae cum omnibus viis accurata et nova delineatio aeditam in luce ab Alexandro Baratta MDCXXVII, detail of the viceroy and sindaco in the procession 139 Alessandro Baratta, Fidelissimae urbis neapolitanae cum omnibus viis accurata et nova delineatio aeditam in luce ab Alexandro Baratta MDCXXVII, diagram of the whole processional route 144 Alessandro Baratta, Fidelissimae urbis neapolitanae cum omnibus viis accurata et nova delineatio aeditam in luce ab Alexandro Baratta MDCXXVII, diagram of the 1st section of the processional route 145 Alessandro Baratta, Fidelissimae urbis neapolitanae cum omnibus viis accurata et nova delineatio aeditam in luce ab Alexandro Baratta MDCXXVII, diagram of the 2nd section of the processional route 148 Alessandro Baratta, Fidelissimae urbis neapolitanae cum omnibus viis accurata et nova delineatio aeditam in luce ab Alexandro Baratta MDCXXVII, diagram of the 3rd section of the processional route 153

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46 Étienne Godefroyd, Gold and Silver Reliquary Bust of S. Gennaro, 1304. Treasury and Chapel of S. Gennaro, Cathedral, Naples 155 47 Schematic map of the Italian Congregation’s Mission to Persia and the East Indies, 1609–22: Isfahan, Hormuz, Thatta, and Goa 164 48 Anonymous 20th-century copy after an early modern artist, Portrait of Father Juan Tadeo de San Eliseo, Casa Generalizia Dell’Ordine dei Padri Carmelitani Scalzi, Rome 166 49 Schematic map of Safavid Persia with inset of Hormuz Island 184 50 The coast of Hormuz Island 184 51 Map of Hormuz Island, Plantas de pracas e fortes possessoes portugesas na Asia e Africa, before 1622, Biblioteca Nacional, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil 188 52 Archbishop’s Palace, Goa 209 53 Sé Cathedral, Goa 209 54 Goa, Metropolis & Emporium of East India,from Jan Huygen van Linschoten, Itinerario, voyage ofte schipvaert, naer Oost ofte Portugaels Indien inhoudende een corte beschryvin, Amsterdam, 1596, detail 211 55 View of Goa from the vicinity of Our Lady of Mount Carmel: L: Sé Cathedral; R: St. Cajetan 211 56 Goa, Metropolis & Emporium of East India,from Jan Huygen van Linschoten, Itinerario, voyage ofte schipvaert, naer Oost ofte Portugaels Indien inhoudende een corte beschryvin, Amsterdam, 1596, detail 216 57 Model of the Viceroy’s Palace, Goa, Museu do Oriente, Lisbon 217 58 Ruins of the Viceroy’s Arch, Goa 217 59 Catafalque (engraving after Giuseppe Cesari?), from Fvnerale della signora sitti Maani Gioerida della Valle. Celebrato in Roma l’anno 1627. E descritto dal signor Girolamo Rocchi, Rome, 1627, unnumbered page following fol. 16 221

Introduction 1

Teresa of Avila and the Renewal of Carmel

Teresa of Avila (1515–82), the Spanish nun and spiritual writer, is one of the most famous women of the early modern era. She was unique in being a female founder of a religious Order for both women and men—the Discalced Carmelites. The Discalced Carmelite Order spread across Europe as well as eastward to Persia and India in the early 17th century, and eventually around the globe.1 Moreover, Teresa’s writings, which during her lifetime offered spiritual direction to members of her Order, soon became known to the regular and secular clergy and to the laity throughout the Catholic world.2 Several of Teresa’s books—especially her Vida (Life), Moradas (Interior Castle), and Camino del Perfección (Way of Perfection)—continue to enjoy a wide readership today. Born Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada in 1515, she is known as Teresa of Avila after the city of her birth, or Teresa of Jesus, the name she assumed in ­November 1526 when she made her profession as a Carmelite nun at the convent of the Incarnation in Avila.3 The Carmelite Order had been founded in the 12th century by crusaders who settled on Mount Carmel in present-day Israel, where the Old Testament prophet Elijah (Elias) reputedly lived. According to the Order’s tradition, Elijah was its founder, and the earliest friars had drawn inspiration from him. Between the fall of Acre in 1291, when Mount Carmel was also seized, and that of Ruad in 1302, the Christians lost all their territory in the Holy Land to the Muslim Mamluks. The Carmelites consequently fled to Europe, where the Order had established houses since 1235. Over the centuries the mendicant Order’s rigorous medieval Rule came to coexist with relaxed (or “mitigated”) versions.4

1 Although the Carmelite Order, which Teresa reformed, was already established in the ­Americas, the Discalced did not found missions there until much later. See Chapter 2; also Jones 2015. 2 “Regular” clergy are members of religious Orders, who live according to a specific Rule, whereas “secular” clergy are priests and deacons who work in Catholic dioceses. 3 Its official name is Ordo Fratrum Beatissimae Virginis Mariae de Monte Carmelo (Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel), abbreviated O Carm. 4 On the origins and early history of the Carmelite Order, see Benedict Zimmerman, “The Carmelite Order,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 3, New York, 1908, http://www.newadvent .org/cathen/03354a.htm. Accessed 13 June 2021. Also see Moriones, Teresian Carmel. For a chronology of the Order, see Carmelites.ie/CarmeliteHistory19.pdf. Accessed 13 June 2021. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004548916_002

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INTRODUCTION

Teresa was deeply dissatisfied with the mitigated Rule of Avila’s convent of the Incarnation, and thus reformed the Carmelite Order to revive its original penitential character. The result was the Discalced Carmelite Order. The word “discalced,” meaning barefoot, had specifically penitential connotations. Members of Teresa’s Order did not forsake footwear, but wore sandals in lieu of enclosed shoes and donned habits of rough cloth. They observed the canonical hours, which punctuated both day and night with prayers and self-­ mortifications (such as self-flagellation and fasting). Between 1562 and  1582, Teresa founded 21 religious houses in Spain, 19 for women and two for men. All of them fell under the Carmelite Order’s jurisdiction. In 1580 Pope Gregory XIII approved the establishment of a separate “province” within the Carmelite Order in Spain that was called the Discalced Carmelite Province. At the time of Teresa’s death in 1582, the Discalced were still just a province, not a separate Order. Like the Carmelites, Teresa’s Discalced Carmelites were cenobites, that is, they lived with other members of their own gender in communal houses called convents and friaries, under the direct authority of abbesses and abbots.5 They discarded their natal names in favor of new religious names, and took vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience.6 Whereas nuns (or sisters) of the Carmelite Order’s relaxed foundations were able to receive visitors and even gain permission to leave the premises, Teresa’s Discalced Carmelite nuns were strictly cloistered in their convents.7 Discalced Carmelite men, known as friars (or brothers), resided in friaries but preached in the outside world.8 The primary duty of choir nuns and brothers was to pray in the choir, or apse, of their 5 Although the earliest Carmelites were hermits (or anchorites), most were cenobites by ­Teresa’s day. The Discalced Carmelite Order also had male hermits, but we are not concerned with them here. 6 Nomenclature is a difficult issue with regard to members of the Order. Because scores of ­Discalced men and women took identical religious names, it is difficult to identify them without knowing their birth names. Another complicating factor is which language to use. For example, a Spaniard who took his vows in Italy, moved to Portuguese Asia, then relocated to Germany, might be named in any of those languages or in Latin. For particularly important members of the Order, I provide basic biographical information, and name them according to native languages followed by English translations at the first mention. 7 A house for cloistered nuns is normally termed a “convent” in English but sometimes a “­monastery,” whereas it is uniformly termed a “monastero” in Italian. In English, a residence for “monks,” men such as the Cistercians and Benedictines who live cloistered lives, is termed a “monastery.” See also next note. 8 Technically, friars live in friaries, which in Italian are termed “conventi.” Despite this fact, in English usage the words “friary” and “monastery” are often used interchangeably for the residences of male regulars.

INTRODUCTION

3

adjacent church, whereas lay sisters and brothers performed manual labor. The Discalced Carmelite men who play major roles in this book were fathers, that is, friars who were also ordained priests. I use the highest rank, father, when naming them. Like those of other religious Orders, the Discalced Carmelite’s convents and friaries were organized into provinces. Teresa’s reform arose in the context of the Catholic Church’s inability to achieve reconciliation with Protestants in order to reunite Christendom. In addition to desiring a victory over Protestant “heretics,” old and new Orders sought to convert “infidels,” including Muslims and other groups examined in this book. Whereas the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) was instituted in 1540 in part to carry out a worldwide missionary apostolate, Teresa’s own conception of the Discalced Carmelites’ ministry was founded on a contemplative, penitential approach that entailed praying for the souls of heretics and infidels from within the walls of their convents and friaries. This, however, was soon to change. 2 A Radical Rupture: The Papal Creation of the Spanish and Italian Congregations Eleven years after Teresa’s death, Pope Clement VIII (r.1592–1605) approved the foundation of the separate Discalced Carmelite Order on 20 December 1593.9 Then, in 1600, he bifurcated the new Order to create two autonomous Congregations, those of St. Joseph and St. Elijah, headquartered, respectively, in Spain and Italy, and consequently known as the Spanish and Italian Congregations. The Spanish branch would remain under the crown’s control, but the Italian one, based in Rome, would be subject to the papacy. The Spanish Congregation retained the original character of Teresa’s contemplative reform; the Italian one did not. This book focuses on the Italian Congregation, which has received far less scholarly attention than has been devoted to the Spanish one, especially with regard to cultural contributions in major centers under its jurisdiction. Having been founded for both religious and geopolitical reasons, the Italian Congregation had a markedly different character than the Spanish branch. For reasons discussed in Chapter 7, Clement VIII wanted to send missionaries to Persia. To do so, he needed to obviate the issue of patronato/padroado (patronage) 9 Its official name is Ordo Fratrum Carmelitarum Discalceatorum Beatae Mariae Virginis de Monte Carmelo (Order of the Discalced Carmelites of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount ­Carmel), abbreviated OCD.

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INTRODUCTION

whereby the Spanish and Portuguese crowns could claim their right to control the influx of missionaries into their territories. Clement chose the Discalced Carmelite Order to spearhead his missionary-ambassadorial initiative in Persia because he had close ties to the Order’s Father Pedro de la Madre de Dios (Pietro della Madre di Dio), the Apostolic Preacher of the papal household in the Vatican.10 Father Pedro had been residing in Rome since 1596, and in 1597 Clement donated the church of S. Maria della Scala to the Discalced Carmelites.11 When he created the Italian Congregation in 1600, the friary of S. Maria della Scala became its headquarters. Although the Italian Congregation’s nuns continued to live contemplative lives, Clement gave the fathers and friars a missionary mandate. This profoundly changed the original character of Teresa’s contemplative Order and gave the Congregation’s men a central role in Catholic missionary initiatives both prior to and after Gregory XV’s establishment of the Congregazione de Propaganda Fide (Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith) in 1622.12 The Italian Congregation’s jurisdiction comprised the Discalced Carmelite Order’s foundations on the Italian peninsula, elsewhere in Europe except for Iberia, and in Asia.13 Prior to Teresa’s canonization in 1622 the Italian Congregation’s Persian Mission expanded into India and became known as the Mission to ­Persia and the East Indies.14 3 Teresa of Avila on the Stage of Universal Catholicism: The Standardization of Official Holiness Teresa is not an historical actor in this book because my subject is not her lived experience, but rather perceptions of her virtue, the worthiness of her deeds, and her exemplarity, that is, the formation and reception of her official holy persona and its presentation in spectacular celebrations in Italy and the Mission to Persia and the East Indies. The festivities were designed to honor Teresa as she ascended the ladder of official sanctity. Starting with her elevation to the rank of “blessed” in 1614 and culminating with her attainment of the ultimate 10 11 12 13 14

He was born Pedro de Villagrassa in Daroca (Zaragoza) on 16 August 1565 and died in Rome on 26 August 1608. On Clement and Pedro, see Sturm 2015, 1–2; Di Ruzza 1987, 17–18. On the church’s history and architecture, see Gigli 1979, esp. 20–34; Sturm 2015, 9–31. See Chapter 7. On the early, unsuccessful mission to Kongo, which predated the foundation of the Italian Congregation, see Jones 2015; also Chapter 2, n.33. Its name was actually the Mission to Persia and the Indies, but because it comprised only the East Indies, I add the word “east” for clarification.

INTRODUCTION

5

rank of “saint” in 1622, papal approval was an absolute requirement at each rung, just as it remains today.15 Secular rulers, popes, bishops, and individual families had always gained prestige through their associations with saints, while cities, towns, and churches where holy persons’ graves and relics were located received considerable income from visiting pilgrims. This resulted in much jockeying for power among supporters of candidates for sainthood. Teresa of Avila’s beatification and canonization occurred during a pivotal era beginning in 1588 and continuing through the 17th century, when canonization procedure was being standardized by the papacy and many new saints were created.16 This phenomenon was closely connected to the creation of new religious Orders, which needed their own saints in order to flourish. In addition, saints were crucial to the papacy’s goal of spreading, intensifying, and controlling the Catholic faith across the globe. As part of its language of legitimation, the standardization of sainthood became one means by which the papacy oversaw worldwide devotion. The year 1588 was momentous with regard to saint-making. Not only did Pope Sixtus V (r.1585–90) put in motion the creation of new saints by canonizing Diego de Alcalá, but he also created a curial committee known as the Congregazione dei Riti (Congregation of Rites) to oversee saints’ causes. Over the next 50 years, the legal process of papal canonization was clarified. Saints were deemed worthy of universal cults, that is, of public veneration worldwide, whereas lesser-ranking “blesseds” were deemed worthy only of non-universal cults, such as in churches of their own religious Orders. In this period, beatification gradually became subject to the same judicial procedure as canonization. It should be noted, however, that when Teresa was raised to the rank of blessed, the codification of rules for beatification had not yet been instated. Therefore, on 24 April 1614, Pope Paul V elevated Teresa to the rank of blessed by decree, which was known as equipollente.17 Under papal authority, the lengthy process for canonization developed into a two-tier model requiring curial oversight in Rome. The first trial, begun by a bishop in the candidate’s diocese or, as in Teresa’s case, by kings and other interested parties, compiled evidence of the candidate’s holiness based on 15 16 17

“Beatification” is the process by which a holy person is designated an official “blessed,” while “canonization” is that for a “saint,” the highest rank of holiness in the Catholic Church. The rise of saint-making after a long hiatus and the standardization of processes for ­official holiness cannot be treated in detail here. See Ditchfield 2010; Jones 2019, 148–51. Casale 2011, 31. The rules for beatification were instated during the reign of Urban VIII (1623–44).

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INTRODUCTION

witnesses’ testimonies. Written lives of holy persons produced in support of their causes were included as evidence. If the first trial succeeded, a second “apostolic” one (i.e., under papal jurisdiction) would be authorized. During this stage witnesses were asked scores of questions devised by the Congregation of Rites. Sometimes, as in Teresa’s case, an engraved series of images depicting the candidate’s life was also submitted to promote her/his cause. After the documentation was submitted to Rome, the Auditors of the Sacra Rota (the most senior Vatican tribunal) ruled on the case in accordance with canon law, and summarized for the Congregation of Rites the material in the relatio (report) consisting of a brief overview of the candidate’s life, a history of her/his deeds, a list of the candidate’s virtues, and a detailed account of her/his miracles, both during the individual’s lifetime and post-mortem. If the pope gave his approval, he issued a bull of canonization, drawing from the relatio. No one was allowed to be termed a blessed or saint, or to be venerated or depicted as one, without having been officially approved according to this standardized process. In this era, the pontiff presided over canonization ceremonies in St. Peter’s basilica to underscore his exclusive right to create saints. Just as the pope’s jurisdiction was universal, so too were the cults of official saints. We will see, however, that canonizations in fact resulted from compromises between secular and religious authorities. And yet no saints could be created without the pope’s imprimatur. Papal universality and the universality of saints became a geographical reality as Catholicism spread from Europe to the other known continents, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. In large part this was due to missionaries of the old Orders, such as the Franciscans and Augustinians, and of newly established religious groups, especially the Society of Jesus, but also men of the Discalced Carmelites’ Italian Congregation. 4 Festivities, the Dissemination of Teresa’s Holy Persona, and the Creation of Communities of Devotees This book explores how perceptions of Teresa’s holiness culminated in the formation of her official sanctified persona that was promulgated in papal Rome from which it spread far and wide, partly through magnificent celebrations in honor of her beatification and canonization.18 A large body of scholarship has demonstrated that festivities were time-honored means of communicating information and ideas, reinforcing 18

My debt to foundational studies of Teresa and her writings is addressed throughout the book.

INTRODUCTION

7

social roles, and creating a sense of community. Considered effective vehicles of persuasion, they incorporated elements designed to delight, instruct, and move participants and spectators. Teresa’s celebrations were intended to inspire devotion to her on the part of the faithful and to promote conversions among non-believers. Although in previous publications I have foregrounded the reception of religious art by various audiences, here I am more concerned with how the celebrations helped project and “particularize” Teresa’s holy persona.19 In creating Teresa’s festivities, the Italian Congregation worked with and for members of highly successful global networks, both religious and secular. Most important to the former was the papacy itself, which claimed a universal purview and exercised an exclusive right to create blesseds and saints. The diocesan and regular clergy, as we shall see, participated to varying degrees in the Italian Congregation’s festivities in the Italian and Asian centers examined here. The Spanish and Portuguese empires in Naples, Hormuz, and Goa were the most significant secular networks involved. Over the last few decades the Spanish and Portuguese empires have been characterized in a variety of ways, as composite, pluricentral, or polycentric monarchies, with the latter gaining currency.20 Given that my concerns are not with the mechanisms of global rule, the word “empire” serves me well because, as Céline Dauverd has noted,

19 20

I use the word “particularize” rather than “localize” to avoid confusion with the term “local saint,” a holy person not officially canonized but regarded as a saint in her/his own community who therefore enjoyed a “local” cult. See Ditchfield 2010; Jones 2019. For a brief overview of this terminology, see Dauverd 2020, 9–10. Also see Herrero ­Sánchez 2011 and Cardim 2012, and reviews of them: Thomas Dandelet in The Journal of Early Modern History 87, no. 2 (June 2015), 403–09 and Kirsten Scultz in Itinerario 37, no. 1 (2013), 122–24. John H. Elliott’s argument that early modern sovereigns were able to rule over “composite monarchies” without establishing a hierarchy among them reinforced the notion that Spain and Portugal could retain separate administrations. Sanjay ­Subrahmanyam has revised this view, demonstrating that even before the Iberian Union subjected the Portuguese to Spanish rule, the two empires were closely entangled due to the growing proximity of their overseas territories and developments in their trade policies and distribution systems. More recently, Graça Almeida Borges has argued convincingly that during the Iberian Union Madrid closely administered Portuguese territories according to “an informal hierarchy of priorities” based on the Spanish crown’s own geographic, political, and economic interests. See Elliott 1992; Subrahmanyam 2007, 1374–85; Almeida Borges 2014, 3, 8–11 (quotation at 3). Silva y Figueroa’s appointment as ambassador was an example of a decision made by Philip III and Council of State that the Portuguese of Hormuz deeply resented, on which see Almeida Borges 2014, 9–11; Gil Fernández 2009, 241–98.

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INTRODUCTION

“empire” has the benefit of indicating the source of power.21 In individual parts of the empire, viceroys and captains, as representatives of the king, also exercised considerable authority.22 The center-periphery paradigm is no longer predominant, and as indicated in individual chapters, the centers I address were not simply peripheral to Madrid or Lisbon, but instead were competing nodes both within and beyond their own imperial networks. This was also true in a spiritual sense because from the Italian Congregation’s viewpoint, Catholic universalism was the sine qua non. It emerges in the individual chapters that viceroys and captains of these empires served as patrons of the festivities through which they expressed their religious beliefs, intellectual ideals, and geopolitical ambitions in splendid celebrations that adapted Teresa’s image to befit their own aspirations. In this respect, my approach is similar to that of Ybeth Arias Cuba, who has demonstrated that in each Spanish imperial city in which Blessed Rose of Lima was celebrated, the festivities “expressed the political, social, and economic position of its populations.” Whereas in Lima and Mexico City Rose’s creole origins were of paramount importance, in Madrid she was presented as “a vassal of the [Spanish] monarchy.”23 Teresa, a contemplative nun who never left Spain, was heralded on the stage of Universal Catholicism as a bride of Christ whose visions were rewards for her reform of the Carmelite Order, a wise teacher whose magisterium (teaching authority) spread throughout Christendom, a fruitful virgin-mother of a global missionary Order, and an efficacious ­warrior-intercessor for all the faithful. Analysis of official written and visual sources connected to her cause for holiness together with the festivities themselves enables me to refine our understanding of perceptions of Teresa’s sanctity. In her groundbreaking 2013 study, María José Pinilla Martín analyzed both written and visual sources for Teresa’s iconography.24 Pinilla Martín traced the major iconographic themes and their development from 1576 into the 18th century. Due to her broader scope, she did not examine in detail the issues most central to my study of festive culture, which include how the relationship between Teresa’s active and contemplative life was expressed in individual images and the similarities and differences between perceptions of female and male virtue. In order to

21 22 23 24

Dauverd 2020, 9. I use the word “state” only in connection with the Portuguese Estado da Índia (State of India), its official name. See Chapters 3 and 6−9. Arias Cuba 2013, esp. 11. Pinilla Martín 2013a.

INTRODUCTION

9

demonstrate these points, particular attention is given in this book to Teresa’s iconography as presented in festivities in visual, literary, and musical imagery. And yet, not only the messages but the forms and artistry of Teresa’s celebrations were important. They appealed to the expectations of powerful elites who appreciated erudite references and could recognize artistic innovations, and simultaneously engaged the senses of all viewer-worshipers. Rather than providing comprehensive descriptions of them, however, I examine the festivities’ most characteristic and revealing aspects. In shifting attention away from the Society of Jesus, whose major contributions to religious celebrations and art during the period are well known, I highlight and interpret the little-known contributions of the Discalced Carmelites’ Italian Congregation. 5

Foundations in Europe and Asia Treated in the Book

The book’s focus on the Italian Congregation’s celebrations for Teresa’s beatification in 1614 and canonization in 1622 establishes firm chronological boundaries. This has important implications for the foundations I examine since many of the Congregation’s houses and missions had yet to be established. In addition to chronology, the relative importance of individual foundations in the Congregation’s early development was a determining factor. Because its headquarters was in Rome where official holiness was promulgated and canonization ceremonies took place, it is essential to attend to the papal city. Likewise, because the missionary mandate was the prime motivation for the pontiff’s creation of the Italian Congregation, the Asian missions also demand analysis. Methodological considerations were crucial to delimiting the geographical scope of the book. In order to allow for sufficient depth of interpretation, I have restricted my study to the Italian peninsula and the Asian missions. Within that framework I have privileged those centers with key roles in the Italian Congregation’s early history: papal Rome; Genoa, the site of the first Discalced foundations in Italy; and viceregal Naples, ruled by Spain but subject to the Italian Congregation. Naples, like Rome, was the location of previously unknown celebrations for both Teresa’s beatification and canonization.25 25

The Italian Congregation’s foundations are documented throughout Fortes 1990. Given the length and complexity of my study, and because Genoa, Rome, Hormuz, and Goa needed to be included, I had to make the difficult choice between including either Naples or Milan. I chose Naples for two main reasons. I aim to analyze Teresa’s celebrations within global power networks, and as a viceregal city Naples had less autonomy from

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INTRODUCTION

Within our time frame, there were only four Asian missions: Isfahan, Hormuz, Thatta, and Goa. The first foundation of the Mission to Persia was established in 1607 in Isfahan in Safavid Persia. In 1612 a foundation was established on the island of Hormuz, a mercantile outpost on the Persian Gulf that was part of the Portuguese Estado da Índia (State of India) ruled by Spain under the terms of the Iberian Union (1580–1640). Sometime after 1614, a third mission was established at Thatta in Sindh, India (today’s Pakistan).26 In 1620 the apostolate expanded to Goa, capital of the Estado da Índia and the Archdiocese of Asia, and the Persian Mission became known as the Mission to Persia and the East Indies. There are no records of public celebrations in Isfahan and Thatta.27 However, as the very first mission beyond Europe, Isfahan begs examination for the view it offers of the Congregation’s expansion into Asia and the missionaries’ aspirations and challenges. The elaborate public celebrations held in Portuguese Hormuz and Goa are interpreted at length. 6

The Book’s Structure and Evidence for the Festivities

The book is organized into three sections, with Parts I and II devoted to Italian centers, and Part III to those in the Asian mission. This separate treatment might seem to imply that two entirely separate topics are being addressed, but this is not the case because members of the Italian Congregation did not regard their ministry that way. They aimed, after all, at expanding Universal Catholicism and disseminating Teresa’s holy image, and their festivities in both regions were meant to serve the same functions. The separate treatment is, however, necessitated by the different states of the scholarship for the two regions, the distinctive kinds of documentation for each, and above all the missionaries’ far greater challenges in attempting to create a sense of community among diverse populations.

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Spain than did Milan, which was ruled by a governor. Chronology was of equal importance: The foundation in Naples was established in 1602, over 10 years earlier than that in Milan, which dated to April 1614, probably too late to have organized major festivities for Blessed Teresa. I hope to investigate the Milanese festivities in a future publication. It is unclear when the foundation at Thatta (or Tatta), which was then part of the Mughal empire, became permanent. Chick (2012:2, 1218–21) suggested a date “after 1614” for the foundation, but it was only in 1616 that the Definitory General (governing body) in Rome decided that a mission in Sindh should be attempted. Teresa’s beatification and canonization would have been celebrated in private at all of the Order’s convents and friaries.

INTRODUCTION

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Italian festive culture and Catholicism in Europe are well documented and have been studied extensively.28 Thus, in Part I, devoted to beatification celebrations in Genoa, Rome and Naples, and in Part II, devoted to canonization celebrations in Rome and Naples, I do not need to introduce the culture in which Teresa’s celebrations were produced and received. Instead, each chapter provides a brief history of her Order’s presence in the given city, then proceeds to an interpretation of the individual festivity. The most salient issues raised by a given festivity are treated at greatest length with the goal of minimizing repetition. Most studies of secular and religious festive culture in Italy (and in Europe in general) rely heavily on festival books and commemorative prints. This is true, for example, of Vittorio Casale’s indispensable 2011 study of 17th-­century beatification and canonization celebrations, which illustrates many such prints and includes a compendium of festival books.29 I make use of such sources for the canonization of the five saints in 1622. It bears emphasis, however, that the Italian Congregation’s celebrations devoted exclusively to Teresa have been overlooked largely because they were not recorded in festival books or commemorative prints. The celebrations that I reconstruct and interpret are based on newly discovered archival material previously unknown in the scholarship.30 There is only one printed text describing the Italian Congregation’s celebrations for Teresa in the areas under consideration, and it is not a festival book. Written by the designer of the festivities, Father Marcello della Madre di Dio, it was published in Rome in 1615. Whereas festival books are readily identifiable by titles beginning with such phrases as “report on the ceremonies” and “festivities for the canonization,” Father Marcello’s book has an exceedingly long literary title that begins De’ Nove Chori De Gli Angioli. Cioe’ De’ Componimenti Poetici Del P.F. Marcello della Madre di Dio Carmelitano Scalzo Choro Primo Che Contiene La Corona della B.V. Teresia Fondatrice de’ Padri, e delle Monache Carmelitane Scalze (On the Nine Choirs of Angels. That Is, On the Poetic Compositions of Father Friar Marcellus of the Mother of God, Discalced Carmelite. First Composition, which Contains the Crown of the Blessed Virgin 28 29 30

Particularly noteworthy studies with a broad scope include: Dekoninck and Delbeke 2019, Majorana 2015, Fagiolo 2002, and Fagiolo dell’Arco and Carandini 1977. Scholarship on festivities in individual centers is cited throughout the book. Casale 2011. Based on these documents, I have published brief studies of two of the festivities. See Jones 2015 and 2014/15. The festivities in Hormuz and Goa were recounted, without interpretation, in little-known books by a Discalced Carmelite: see Florencio del Niño Jesús 1930a and 1930b. My analyses in Chapters 8 and 9 bring to bear additional documentation.

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INTRODUCTION

Teresa, Foundress of the Discalced Carmelite Fathers and Nuns). No one would assume from this title that it contains an unprecedentedly detailed description of the 1614 beatification decorations in S. Maria della Scala in Rome. That only becomes evident in the title’s second part: Overo Raccolta delle Compositioni, che per la Festa della sua Beatificatione si posero, nella Chiesa della Madonna della Scala di Roma, a di’ 5. d’Ottobre 1614 (Or a Collection of the Compositions That Were Placed in the Church of the Madonna of the Stairs in Rome for the Feast of Her Beatification on 5 October 1614). Nor would one suppose that appended to this account was a section describing Marcello’s beatification apparato (decorative program) for the Congregation’s nuns in Genoa. Father Marcello’s book does not fit easily within the genre of festival books because of its elevated literary style, erudition, and focus on recording in minute detail the literary and visual iconography of his Roman program. A similar approach characterizes his much briefer discussion of that for the Genoese nuns. Nearly all the evidence for the other celebrations examined in this book was uncovered in the Order’s Roman archive, the Archivio della Casa Generalizia Dell’Ordine dei Padri Carmelitani Scalzi (AGOCD, The Archive of the General House of the Order of the Discalced Carmelite Fathers). It consists of letters, reports, and histories of individual foundations written by members of the Italian Congregation in Latin, Italian, and Spanish. I have translated numerous salient passages into English for the first time. These and other sources, which address to varying extents the festivities’ visual and literary imagery, costly devotional objects, patrons, participants, and outdoor spectacles such as fireworks, are introduced and analyzed in individual chapters. In some cases, this documentary evidence has allowed me to identify extant permanent altarpieces originally made for the celebrations. Most visual and literary components of the festivities were, however, ephemeral, and I attempt to bring them to life by providing original diagrammatic reconstructions of those that are sufficiently well described. So, too, I locate now-destroyed religious foundations and trace processional routes on contemporary maps to recreate urban space and place. These central concerns of art-historical scholarship enhance appreciation of the ways audiences were engaged and inspired, resulting in the creation of communities devoted to Teresa. Written and visual documents produced in connection with Teresa’s cause for official holiness are likewise essential to my study. Her promoters used Teresa’s own writings as sources for episodes of her life and for interpreting her deeds, virtues, and exemplarity. I cite the standard Spanish edition of Teresa’s writings by Efrén de la Madre de Dios and Ottger Steggink, and I quote the translations in Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez’s English edition. Also I cite passages in the vita (life) of 1610 that was part of her process for official

INTRODUCTION

13

sanctity and drew heavily on Teresa’s books. As mentioned, when a pontiff gave his imprimatur to the elevation of a new saint, he used the Sacra Rota’s relatio as the basis for his canonization bull. Such bulls are crucial sources that promulgate a saint’s official identity. In Chapter 4, I use Teresa’s bull as an ­interpretative aide. This clarifies the role of gender in her pontifically sanctioned persona, thus refining our understanding of Teresa’s perceived holiness. The most important early pictorial source is an engraved series of Teresa’s life, known in several editions published by the Galle family from 1613 to 1630. The original edition of 1613, with engravings by the renowned Flemish artist Adriaen Collaert, was created under the supervision of Teresa’s confessor Jerónimo Gracián and Ana de Jesús, prioress of the Discalced Carmelite convent in Brussels, to promote her cause for sainthood. Its Latin captions were intended for a learned audience, including those charged with adjudicating Teresa’s processes.31 The images’ Latin captions have received insufficient analysis, but, together with passages in Teresa’s own writings, play a crucial role in my reinterpretation of major themes in the series that, as elements of Teresa’s official persona, subsequently appeared in the Italian Congregation’s ­festivities—from painting cycles of her life, deeds, and virtues, to literary references to individual themes.32 Whereas in Italy the Italian Congregation’s decorative programs and processions were addressed primarily to Catholics familiar with prevailing norms of European festive culture, this was not the case in the Mission to Persia and the East Indies, the subject of Part III. There the missionaries encountered new, unfamiliar communities. Catholics in Asia, both Indians and those of European extraction, were at least generally familiar with the kinds of religious festivities through which the missionaries attempted to intensify their faith. But the missionaries also endeavored to convert Muslims, Hindus, and other groups. This was a daunting challenge. We cannot appreciate the extraordinary value the missionaries gave to festivities in Asia without understanding their conversionary strategies founded on European attitudes toward ethnicity and religious difference, and the very real problems they faced in those unusually diverse outposts. Fortunately, despite having received relatively scant attention

31

32

For details about the Collaert-Galle series, see Pinilla Martín 2013c, 184–86. On the various editions, see Diels and Leesberg 2005, 246–63, cat. nos. 1016–40: The Life of Teresa of Avila. The 1630 edition that I reproduce is not listed; it is in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Library in Williamstown, MA. The only difference between the series illustrated here, which was issued in 1630 by Johannes Galle, and that of 1613, is in the use of “Saint” on the title page as opposed to “Blessed.” As emerges in Chapters 2, 4–5.

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INTRODUCTION

in the scholarship, the missionaries’ lived experiences in Hormuz and Goa are very well documented. The AGOCD is the repository of the extensive correspondence of the Italian Congregation’s missionaries, much of which was published anonymously in 1939 and reissued in 2012 with an attribution to Herbert Chick and an introduction by Rudi Matthee.33 Chick did not, however, publish the descriptions of Teresa’s celebrations that I address. Instead, his compendium provides a view of the missionaries’ activities in Isfahan, Hormuz, and Goa. I examine their religious goals, language skills, missionary books, and geopolitical struggles. Moreover, I interpret their attitudes toward race and religion in the context of secular and religious discourse, situating missionary manuals’ categorizations of persons in need of conversion in their broader historical context, particularly that of Portuguese and Spanish guidebooks and histories. These attitudes toward the peoples they aimed to convert and engage through festivities affected the Italian Congregation’s selection of novices and their conception of audiences for their celebrations. The records of their ­festivities in Hormuz and Goa, which have remained virtually unknown, are less detailed than those of their Italian celebrations. It is crystal clear, however, that the missionaries transported European festive strategies to Asia. Although this no doubt appealed to the expectations of their Portuguese and Spanish patrons and secured financial backing for their Asian foundations, its effectiveness as a conversionary strategy is questionable. In the chapters that follow, Teresa’s beatification and canonization festivities are examined through multiple lenses. Nuanced interpretations of their visual, literary, and musical imagery are integrated with documents of the processes for her holiness. These perspectives help to advance understanding of Teresa’s iconography. Also considered in detail are the celebrations’ artistic innovations, expressive modes, and persuasive strategies designed to intensify believers’ piety, encourage conversions, and create a sense of community. The ways in which Teresa’s image was particularized in individual centers in Italy and Asia is explored throughout the book, underscoring the crucial roles of intertwined global networks—both religious and secular—in the dissemination of her worldwide cult. 33

Chick 2012.

PART 1 Teresa’s Beatification Celebrations in Italy, 1614

∵

CHAPTER 1

A Triumphal Procession for Cloistered Nuns in Genoa Genoa, as the location of the first Discalced Carmelite foundations on the ­Italian peninsula, has a special place in the Order’s early history. Established when the Discalced Carmelite Province was still part of the original Carmelite Order in Spain, the Genoese foundations predated the 1593 creation of the ­Discalced Carmelite Order as a separate entity.1 Of utmost importance is the distinctive nature of the documented celebrations for Teresa in Genoa. Whereas all of the other festivities presented in this book took place at male foundations and involved their men and members of the general public as spectators or participants, the 1614 apparato for Blessed Teresa was created for a primary audience of cloistered nuns at the convent church of Gesù e Maria. It is the sole documented festive program for Teresa’s nuns in the centers treated in this book, and the only Genoese decorative program known for Teresa’s beatification or canonization.2 1

Nicolò Doria and the Discalced Carmelites in Genoa

In 1522 Admiral Andrea Doria formed an alliance with the Habsburg Emperor Charles V (who ruled Spain as Charles I from 1516 to 1558), and together they

1 See the Introduction, 1–3, for the early history. 2 Festivities for Teresa’s beatification and canonization would have taken place at all of the Italian Congregation’s foundations, but many would not have had elaborate decorative programs. Although records are relatively scant, it is possible that further research will bring others to light. The only other female foundations at the time of Teresa’s canonization in 1614 were: S. Giuseppe in Naples (f. 1607; no records survive for an apparato), and S. Egidio in Rome (f. 1610, which was so poor that its church lacked a choir and was only partly covered by a roof; it had no decorative program). See Sturm 2015, 34 on the former, 33–67 on the latter. Because Rome’s female house of S. Giuseppe a Capo le Case (f. 1598) was not part of the Italian Congregation, but instead fell under the jurisdiction of the Sacra Congregazione dei Vescovi e Regolari, it lies beyond the scope of my study. See Paola Picardi, “Il monastero di San Giuseppe a Capo le Case a Roma: committenti spagnoli, filospagnoli e artisti italiani,” in Anselmi 2014, 143–59. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004548916_003

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expelled the French from the maritime Republic of Genoa.3 The Doria family and other prominent Genoese bankers soon began to loan funds to Charles. Under his bankrupt successor, Philip II (r.1556–98), the Counting House in Seville, formerly dominated by the German Fuggers, came under the control of a consortium of Genoese bankers to which the Doria family belonged. Recent studies have shown that the Republic of Genoa was strengthened by its bankers’ service as financial intermediaries for the Spanish crown.4 Genoese nobles, both men and women, had crucial roles in the history of the Discalced Carmelites and the foundation of the convent of Gesù e Maria. Nicolò Doria (1539–94), scion of Admiral Andrea, was instrumental in making Genoa the site of the first Discalced Carmelite foundations in Italy. In 1570 at age 31, Nicolò Doria had moved to Seville to work as a banker.5 About a decade later, following his near drowning in a shipwreck, he underwent a spiritual conversion and in 1578 made his profession as a Carmelite in the Sevillian friary of Los Remedios. On 22 June 1580, roughly two years before Teresa’s death, Gregory XIII authorized the creation of a Discalced Carmelite Province within the Carmelite Order in Spain. Soon afterward, in 1581, Father Doria traveled to Italy, where in Rome he received Gregory XIII’s approval of the Discalced’s Constitutions, and in Genoa his compatriots encouraged him to found a friary in their city. Genoa’s first house, S. Anna for men, was founded in 1584.6 In 1585, Doria, who had returned to Spain, began the first of two terms as Discalced Father Provincial. During this period Genoa’s second foundation, Gesù e Maria for women, was established in 1590. Only three years later on 20 December 1593 did Clement VIII create the new Discalced Carmelite Order, and he moved quickly to separate the Italian foundations from those in Spain.7 3 For a readily accessible introduction to Genoese-Spanish ties, see John A. Marino, John Larner, et al., “Spanish Italy” and “The Republic of Genoa,” in the article “Italy,” Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/place/Italy. Accessed 22 July 2020. 4 On Genoese merchants and bankers and the Spanish crown, see Dauverd 2014 and Herrero Sánchez 2011. 5 His religious name was Nicolás de Jesús y María (Nicolò di Gesù e Maria); on nomenclature, see the Introduction, n.6. On Doria, see Giordano 1991, 95–97; Moriones, Teresian Carmel, Ch. 10. 6 Teresa herself did not favor expansion into Italy because she was more concerned with the Order’s needs in Spain. However, when serving as Provincial of the Discalced Carmelite Province in Spain from 1581–84, Father Jerónimo Gracián backed Doria’s plans. See Giordano 1991, 95. The office of Provincial carried a four-year term. 7 Gesù e Maria was founded on 12 December 1590. It is sometimes indicated that Gesù e Maria was founded in 1589. However, Roggero, who has done exacting archival work, gives the date of 1590. Discrepancies encountered in dates of foundation generally amount to a year, based on the following choices: the date when a building was completed (of special interest to art

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On 20 March 1597, the pontiff brought to an end to the Spanish oversight of S. Anna and Gesù e Maria in Genoa and S. Maria della Scala in Rome, and on 13 November 1600 Clement created autonomous Spanish and Italian Congregations. At the time of Teresa’s beatification in 1614, therefore, the Genoese foundations were subject to the Italian Congregation’s Prepositor General in Rome, who was resident at the friary of S. Maria della Scala.8 2 Maddalena Centurione Spinola and the Convent and Church of Gesù e Maria Unlike the male foundation of S. Anna, which is still active, the nuns’ convent and church were suppressed in 1798, and the buildings were partly demolished and restructured.9 As seen in a detail of Giacomo Brusco’s 1766 map of Genoa, the convent and church of Gesù e Maria were located to the west of the old city, between Via Prè and Via Balbi (Figure 1).10 This was a highly prestigious location in the heart of Genoa’s new neighborhood near the Porta S. Tommaso, the primary western entry into the city. Over the course of the 17th century, Via Balbi was lined with palaces and the edifices of new reform groups, such as the Theatines and Jesuits. Without connections to the Genoese elite, the Discalced Carmelites could not have achieved this real estate coup. Noblewomen were leading patrons of religious architecture and art in early modern Italy, as demonstrated by a growing body of scholarship.11 This was the case in Genoa, where Maddalena Centurione, widow of the nobleman Agostino Spinola, financed construction of the convent and church of Gesù e Maria. At the time, Maddalena was living in Spain, where in 1590 she had taken vows as a Discalced Carmelite nun and adopted the religious name Madalena de Jesús y María (Maddalena di Gesù e Maria). Meanwhile, Father Doria, 8 9 10

11

historians), the date when communities moved into them, or consecration dates. See Roggero 1984 for a detailed history of the early Discalced Carmelites in Genoa, including discussion of the nuns to 1597, complete with documents. On 14 May 1617 the Fifth General Chapter, held at S. Maria della Scala, established the provinces of Genoa and Rome. See Fortes 1990, xxvii. On the church and convent, see Martini 2011. I thank George L. Gorse for sharing his expertise on Genoa with me and for providing the digital image of Brusco’s map from his copy of Description des beautés de Gènes et de ses environs Gènes 1788 (foldout at the beginning of the octavo guide). See Amedeo Pescio, I Nomi delle Strade di Genova. Genoa: Tipogr. “Secolo XIX”, 1912, 232. Indispensable classic studies include Valone 1992, eadem 1994, and Reiss and Wilkins 2001. See also Lawrence 1997.

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Figure 1 Giacomo Brusco, Map of Genoa, detail from Description des beautés de Gènes et de ses environs Gènes, Genoa, 1788, Collection of George L. Gorse Photo: George L. Gorse. Graphics: Martine C. Barnaby © Pamela M. Jones

­ aving appointed the Spanish nun Jerónima del Espíritu Santo (­Geronima h dello Spirito Santo) abbess of Gesù e Maria, transferred her to Genoa.12 By 1592, Jerónima presided over three Spanish and three Italian professed nuns at the new convent. Several years later, in 1595, Sister Maddalena moved from Spain to Genoa, where she entered the convent she had built. Gesù e Maria proved to be a flourishing foundation in which 21 women, primarily of the Genoese nobility, made their profession between 1591 and 1599. The Order’s Constitutions of 1592 limited the total number of nuns resident in any given convent to 20.13 Sister Jerónima was recalled to Madrid in the mid-1590s, and Sister Maddalena was sent to Naples to help found the city’s first female house, S. Giuseppe

12 13

Her birth name was Jerónima de Villalobos, and she took her vows as a choir nun at S­ alamanca on 16 January 1576. See Roggero 1984, 120. Roggero 1984, esp. 139, 172.

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a Pontecorvo, established in 1607. Neither nun was still in Genoa by the time of Teresa’s beatification in 1614.14 3

Father Marcello’s Beatification Apparato for Gesù e Maria

Typically for Italian Discalced Carmelite churches of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, as Saverio Sturm has demonstrated, Gesù e Maria had a deep tribune and broad nave flanked by recessed chapels rather than side aisles. A smaller, more intimate space than the Order’s public churches, it had only one chapel on either side of the nave, making it suitable for a community limited to 20 cloistered women (Figure 2).15 The Italian Congregation’s Father Marcello della Madre di Dio (1586–1619), a learned Neapolitan nobleman and former personal secretary to Pope Paul V’s Cardinal-Nephew Scipione Borghese, was the designer of the nuns’ beatification apparato.16 He identified the nuns as his primary audience, but also noted that men (ascoltatori) were present at an oration during the festivities; we can safely assume that they included the fathers of S. Anna charged with the sisters’ spiritual direction.17 Elissa Weaver and Colleen Reardon have demonstrated that guests of both genders, such as nuns’ relatives and secular and ecclesiastical dignitaries, frequently attended musical and theatrical productions in convents during this era.18 It seems likely, therefore, that invited guests were present at Teresa’s beatification celebrations in the small church of Gesù e Maria. Because the Genoese convent had been financed by a noblewoman, and its nuns continued to enter it from the highest echelons of society, it should not be ruled out that noblewomen 14 15

16

17 18

Martini 2011, 101–05 and Giordano 1991, 96–97. See Roggero 1984 (esp. 120–40, 172–73) for a detailed discussion of the convent’s early years. There is not enough documentation to allow a discussion of the individual nuns’ roles in the festivities of 1614 or their responses. The purpose of this schematic diagram is to indicate the placement of the temporary decorations; it is not an accurate plan. For the original plan, see inv. no. 1124/A in the Comune of Genoa’s topographic collection, and also Brusco 1785. See Sturm 2015; idem in Fagiolo 2002, 40–44. Born Marcello Macedonio, he took the religious name Marcello della Madre di Dio (­Marcellus of the Mother of God) when he made his profession at S. Maria della Scala on 1 June 1611. I first introduced him as a festive designer in Jones 2015, in which I called him “Fra Marcello,” but because he was also an ordained priest, here I term him “father,” the distinguishing rank. Previously, he had been recognized as an erudite author, accomplished in both ornamented Latin and vernacular poetry, on which see Miranda 2012, idem 2007. On male listeners, see Marcello, Oratione, 1615, 165. See for example: Weaver 1992; Reardon 2002, esp. 42–43; also their bibliographies for ­additional scholarship.

22

Figure 2 Schematic diagram of the apparato in the Church of Gesù e Maria Graphics: Martine C. Barnaby © Pamela M. Jones

CHAPTER 1

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may even have financed the decorations, since members of the Italian Congregation depended on donations. In comparison with the other festivities interpreted in this book, which were intended for broader audiences including the general public, those at Gesù e Maria were addressed first and foremost to Discalced Carmelite women and men who were already united in devotion to Teresa. They were fully conversant with their founder’s teachings, deeds, virtues, and reform of Carmel. As a result, it was unnecessary to create a festive program that introduced Teresa by means of a comprehensive series of images of her life. Instead, Gesù e Maria’s program created a holy female genealogy that made reference to Teresa’s paradigmatic virtues and deeds as codified in the 1610 vita that had helped promote her elevation to the rank of blessed.19 The main source for this previously unknown program is Father Marcello’s book titled Giunta alla Corona Overo Brieve Relatione Dell’Apparato Fatto per la medesima Festa [della Beatificazione di Teresa] dalla Monache Carmelitane Scalze del Monasterio di Giesù Maria di Genova (Addition to the Crown, Or a Brief Report on the Decorative Program Made for the [Celebration of the] Same Feast [Teresa’s Beatification] by the Discalced Carmelite Nuns of the Convent of Jesus and Mary of Genoa).20 Father Marcello did not identify the artists who brought his designs for the nuns’ program to fruition, but he did address his goals in creating the apparato as well as its principal imagery. He reported that the decorations included many lights, friezes, and paintings that created a “marvelous charm” and made the convent church a “little paradise,” deeming the invention “ingenious and pious.” However, he explained, because Discalced Carmelite abbesses “have no earthly desires, but instead focus on the health of souls, ... high conceits of most exquisite style and artistic excellence” were not the objective.21 Instead, his aim was to enflame the women’s souls. The apparato’s most distinctive feature was Blessed Teresa’s “choir,” a triumphal procession of 14 female saints who sang her praises. The now unidentifiable monumental painting of Blessed Teresa that was placed on the high altar was presumably intended to be the church’s permanent altarpiece. Given the repeated references in the rest of the program to Teresa’s wounds of love suffered in the transverberation, it is possible that this was the theme of the

19 20 21

See Chapters 2, 40–45, 56, and 4, 105, 110, for further discussion of the vita. The Genoese apparato is described on pages 132–49 following Marcello’s De’ Nove Chori description in the following edition: Roma, Appresso Guglielmo Facciotti. M.DC.XV. It is henceforth cited as Marcello, Giunta 1615. Only direct quotations are cited individually. See Marcello, Giunta 1615, 133.

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altarpiece.22 By contrast, the 14 large paintings of female saints, which were placed “around the whole church,” were large temporary oil paintings.23 As was typical for cycles in monastic churches, the imagery moved in a counterclockwise direction, starting with Teresa’s image at the high altar, continuing down the left side of the church, then across the entrance wall, and up the right side, concluding with the Carmelite Angela of Prague (Figure 2).24 Father Marcello recounted that Teresa presided over the choir of holy virgins, who rejoiced with her for the honor of the rank of Blessed that the Holy Church had bestowed. In the painting, below Teresa’s feet, was a Latin ­inscription taken from the Divine Office of the Virgin Mary that translates as: Rejoice together with me all of you who love the Lord, because when I was little I pleased the Most High.25 The nuns, who frequently recited this responsory, knew well that the Divine Office continued with the passage “And from my womb I brought forth to God-and-Man,” and was followed by the verse “Blessed shall all generations call me, for God hath regarded the humility of His handmaid. And from my womb I brought forth God-and-Man.” Father ­Marcello noted “in the apparato these words were accommodated to a servant and daughter [Teresa].”26 Thus, the essential concetto (conceit) of the nuns’ decorations was a comparison between Teresa and the Virgin Mary. In her role as the Madonna of Carmel, Mary, to whom Teresa had had a special devotion, was a patron of the Carmelite and Discalced Carmelite Orders. The analogy united Mary and Teresa, two fruitful virgins, with the Genoese nuns, their founder’s spiritual daughters. The decorative program included two Latin epitaphs that Father Marcello stated were prominently displayed, probably flanking the tribune, as seen in Figure 2. The painted cycle started with Blessed Teresa. To her right the first Latin epitaph stated that Pope Paul V had beatified Teresa, and that the depicted choir of holy virgins was singing her praises. There were also Latin inscriptions above each of the 14 painted saints. The first, repeated for every saint, read, Let us rejoice with you, because you received the bright thrones with 22

23 24 25 26

Marcello did not describe the altarpiece’s appearance or iconography. Palma Giovane’s Ecstasy of St. Teresa (i.e., Transverberation) altarpiece for S. Maria della Scala was created for the Chapel of Blessed Teresa in 1615, the year after her beatification. See Chapters 4, 107, and 5, 128–31. Marcello, Giunta 1615, 133–34: “disposte per tutta la Chiesa.” The support was not mentioned, but paper was typically used for ephemeral works, as was gouache, which dries quickly, rather than slow-drying oils. On this typical arrangement, see Lavin 1990, 224. Marcello, Giunta 1615, 134. Marcello, Giunta 1615, 134.

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us, referring to the thrones of heaven that they all merited as saints.27 Under it was an individualized inscription for each saint stating her own reason for lauding Blessed Teresa. Additional inscriptions, emblems, and lyrics of vernacular madrigals elaborated the main messages. All of these elements were standard features of European festive culture that would have been understood and appreciated by members of Teresa’s Order and their noble relatives.28 Following the first epitaph, the genealogy of holy women proceeded along the walls of the church, starting with six early Christian virgin martyrs: Agnes, Cecilia, Catherine of Alexandria, Agatha, Lucy, and Dorothy. Probably the seventh and eighth saints—the 13th-century Franciscan Clare of Assisi, founder of the Clarissans, followed by the 14th-century Dominican Tertiary Catherine of Siena—were positioned on the end wall on either side of the entrance portal, thus enhancing the procession’s continuous movement. The painted figures then continued up the other side of the nave with the 13th-century charitable Benedictine mystic Gertrude, the 13th-century charitable Franciscan Tertiary Queen Elizabeth of Hungary, and the early Christian Ursula, martyred with her 11,000 virgin followers. The final three holy women, given pride of place closest to Teresa, were all early Carmelite nuns: the 5th-century virgins Euphrasia (also called Eufraxia) and Euphrosyne, and finally the 13th-century Angela of Prague.29 4

The Choir of Virgin Martyrs, Early Mosaics, and Verae Effigies

Considerable learning and engagement with up-to-date intellectual currents informed Father Marcello’s festive program at Gesù e Maria. Like many decorative programs of the era, it combined pictorial and literary imagery, along with lyrics (but not scores) of music. More distinctive was Father Marcello’s use of visual sources from the early Christian and medieval eras as the basis for the depictions of the earliest holy women. He employed as many appropriate and well known mosaics (a medium he explicitly mentioned) as possible, along with suitable paintings that were readily available, such as images in

27 28 29

Marcello, Giunta 1615, 134. See Chapter 2, 67–68, on throne imagery in S. Maria della ­Scala’s right crossing (Star #12). It cannot be assumed that all of the nuns were conversant in Latin, but they certainly understood passages from the Divine Office and Roman Breviary. See Marcello, Giunta 1615, 134–48, for discussion of members of the holy choir. The ­paintings of the saints were not organized according to feast day or life dates.

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manuscripts of various religious Orders, particularly his own.30 Probably some of the figures in his procession were simply rendered in pleasingly varied poses and dressed in their Orders’ habits. Father Marcello’s statement that the paintings of female saints wore their religious habits, and were “based on old mosaics with great variety, and they were delightful, beautiful, and decorous,” deserves analysis.31 His interest in early mosaics lay in their value as historical records, not as stylistic prototypes for the ephemeral imagery. This was perfectly in keeping with the times, for in the late 16th and 17th centuries, ecclesiastical patrons commissioned church historians to copy early Christian, medieval, and Byzantine images for these same reasons. However, Father Marcello’s incorporation of such sources into a festive program was innovative. Due to his close ties to the Borghese family, Father Marcello was surely aware that Paul V had entrusted the canons of St. Peter’s with recording information about the monuments and altars of Old St. Peter’s that were due to be destroyed during the construction of the new basilica.32 This documentary project was headed by Giacomo Grimaldi, a member of the Chapter of St. Peter’s.33 Grimaldi’s watercolor drawing (c.1592–94) of the 4th-century apse mosaic in Old St. Peter’s showed no concern with the materiality of the original: no tesserae were indicated and no gleaming surfaces rendered. Moreover, Grimaldi’s use of watercolor resulted in soft textures and a fluidity of style completely at odds with the effects achieved in the intractable medium of mosaic. The written word figured largely in his drawing, which includes both the original mosaic’s explanatory labels and his own notes about its history. As I have previously demonstrated, Father Marcello valued this and other copies that Grimaldi made of Old St. Peter’s as iconographic sources available for creative reinterpretation.34 In other words, Father Marcello’s interest in Sacred History was far from superficial, which explains his use of mosaics, contemporaneously undergoing serious study by church historians, as the basis for some of the female saints in Gesù e Maria’s apparato.35 Father Marcello did not explicitly state that he turned to early mosaics in order to find verae effigies (true likenesses) of saints. However, in his day 30 31 32 33 34 35

The Carmelite saints included in the decorative cycle were the least commonly depicted, and therefore are very likely to have been based on the Order’s own sources. Marcello, Giunta 1615, 134: “adornate d’habiti diversi, e cavati da gli antichi mosaichi, con tanta varietà.” For further discussion, see Jones 2014/15. On Grimaldi, see Ceresa 2003. On the watercolor drawing, see Jones 2014/15, 350–52, and Figure 12. On the field of Sacred History, see the essays and bibliography in Van Liere, Ditchfield, and Louthan 2012.

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the study of late antique and medieval art in order to identify authentic likenesses was widespread, having been encouraged by such sacred art writers as Johannes Molanus, Gabriele Paleotti, and Carlo Borromeo, who had all advocated contemporary artists’ creation of the most authentic possible depictions of early saints and popes.36 A case in point is the extensive portrait series of famous persons that Federico Borromeo, Carlo’s younger cousin, started to research and commission in the 1590s in Rome, and later augmented while serving as cardinal-archbishop of Milan.37 Some of the oil paintings in his series were based on commissioned copies of early Christian, medieval, and Byzantine works by such church historians living in Rome as Grimaldi and the Spanish Dominican Alfonso Chacón (Ciacconius). The early visual sources for Father Marcello’s festive program, like those for Borromeo’s portrait series, were utilized as repositories of authentic likenesses, vestments, and symbols of holy persons. Because the identities of the individual saints in Father Marcello’s decorative program are known, it is possible to suggest very likely prototypes for some even though the temporary paintings do not survive. Portraits made from life (including those reputedly created miraculously, such as Christ’s likeness on Veronica’s veil) were considered the most authentic, but often were not available. However, Father Marcello lived in Rome, where many churches were the cult centers of virgin martyrs buried in their catacombs. Early images found in those places of worship were considered the saints’ verae effigies. Mosaics were a commonly used medium in the early Christian era, so it is logical that Father Marcello sought them out for portraits. The first saint depicted in the temporary Genoese painting cycle was the Roman virgin Agnes, who was martyred in the papal city in 304. The focal point of her cult was the church of S. Agnese fuori le Mura (St. Agnes Outside the Walls) where her remains originally resided in its subterranean catacombs. Father Marcello’s image of the saint was probably based on the standing figure of St. Agnes in the church’s apse mosaic of c.625, in which she wears a halo, diadem, and clothing studded with gems, and holds a scroll with both hands (­Figure 3).38 It is noteworthy that this church also contained an important painting cycle of St. Catherine of Alexandria, who was martyred in Egypt in the early 4th century. In his description of the Genoese apparato, Father Marcello 36 37 38

See detailed discussions in Herklotz 1985, 58–59; Jones 1993, 183–89. On Borromeo’s portrait collection, housed in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, and his concern with the documentary role of art, see Jones 1993, 168–206 and Catalogue II, 285–336. Jones 1993, 189–90. For the drawing, see Ambrosiana Ms. F221inf, 2, fol. 2r. On the apse mosaic, see Andaloro and Romano 2002, 103 and Figure 37; Oakeshott 1976, 148–49.

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Figure 3 St. Agnes, detail of apse mosaioc of S. Agnese fuori le Mura, Rome, c.625 Photo: José Luis Bernardes Ribeiro. Wikimedia Commons. https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

noted that Catherine, the third figure in his procession, had triumphed over the 50 wise men in a debate, a theme treated in the church’s fresco cycle of c.1280–99.39 Catherine is depicted standing at the left wearing elaborately patterned clothing and employing distinctive oratorical gestures, features indicative of the variety that Father Marcello sought for his image of the saint. The 9th-century apse mosaic in the church of S. Cecilia in Trastevere, to the south of S. Maria della Scala in the same district of Rome, presumably served as the source for the likenesses of the second and fourth virgins in the Genoese apparato, Cecilia and Agatha.40 The Roman patrician Cecilia, who converted her husband Valerian to Christianity and with whom she maintained a celibate life, was martyred in Rome in 230 and buried on the site of the church. Centuries later, in 1599, a dramatic event occurred: Cecilia’s body was discovered under the church’s high altar, thereby inspiring greater devotion to

39 40

On Catherine’s iconography in Rome, see Stollhans 2014, 31–38 and Color Plate II. The very badly damaged frescoed scenes were detached from the walls, and are now in the Pinacoteca Vaticana. Andaloro and Romano 2002, 103, 105; Oakeshott 1976, 212–13.

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Figure 4 Apse mosaic, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome, 9th century Photo: Creative Commons. Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported CC BY-SA 3.0

her.41 Although Stefano Maderno’s marble replica of her prostrate martyred body with hands bound before her and head nearly severed was finished in 1604, its composition was not suitable for use in Father Marcello’s procession. Therefore, he is likely to have based his image of the standing saint in the apse mosaic, in which Jesus stands in the center flanked by three figures on either side. Cecilia, at the extreme right, wears a halo, diadem, elaborate jewelry, and a bright yellow gown (Figure 4). In addition, the image of the Sicilian martyr Agatha, who died in c.251, is represented on the mosaic’s left side. It may have served as a prototype for Father Marcello’s painting of the saint. Although similarly dressed, the two saints’ gestures differ in the mosaic. Whereas early Christian saints were commonly depicted in mosaics, by the lifetimes of the later holy women included in Gesù e Maria’s apparato, tempera and fresco painting were ascendant. If Father Marcello sought out prototypes for the eighth figure in the Genoese procession, St. Catherine of Siena (1347–80), he would have had to turn to paintings. Catherine was a Dominican Tertiary who died in Rome and was buried in S. Maria sopra Minerva. The site of her remains is marked by a reclining marble sculpture under the high altar, which was no more appropriate compositionally for a standing processional 41

On the recovery of Cecilia’s remains and Maderno’s sculpture, see Kämpf 2015 and Witte 2019, 468–70.

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figure than Maderno’s sculpture of St. Cecilia. There were, however, many paintings of Catherine, executed both before and after her canonization in 1461, mainly in Tuscany. A fresco of c.1400 in the Sienese church of S. Domenico often considered (perhaps erroneously) a life portrait by Andrea Vanni, who knew her personally, depicts Catherine in her Dominican habit holding lilies, looking down toward a penitent. In it Catherine’s stigmata, which Father Marcello mentioned as a crucial feature of the figure in his apparato, are visible on her hands. In 1416, a miracle was attributed to Vanni’s image of Catherine.42 Together, these circumstances and visual details would have given the fresco the imprimatur of a true likeness. It is even more difficult to determine what kinds of visual prototypes, if any, Father Marcello may have used for such late medieval saints from northern Europe as the Benedictine Gertrude of Saxony (died c.1302) and the Franciscan Tertiary Elizabeth of Hungary (1207–31), the ninth and tenth virgins in his cycle. Although, for example, Simone Martini’s c.1317 fresco of St. Elizabeth in the Chapel of St. Martin in the lower church of S. Francesco in Assisi could have been used as a source, it had no claims to being a vera effigies.43 Most likely, some of the painted saints were not based on specific prototypes. It should be emphasized that Father Marcello’s concern with authentic images was not merely an academic exercise. Saints’ verae effigies—and copies of them—were believed to be invested with the attributes of the holy person herself. The use of such sources therefore enhanced the power of the choir of holy women as efficacious intercessors for the nuns at Gesù e Maria.44 5

The Procession of Virgins in Praise of Blessed Teresa

Father Marcello’s overall concetto of a painted procession in the church of Gesù e Maria was certainly informed by his experience of real processions, which in his day were avidly anticipated components of secular and religious festive culture.45 The secular noblewomen who likely attended the celebrations for Teresa would have shared this experience of processions that passed by major 42 43 44

45

On the painting attributed to Vanni, see Di Resta 2016. On Martini’s work in Assisi, see Martindale 2003. A recent discussion of these beliefs, centering on miraculous images, is provided by Ditchfield 2019, 142–43. In 1563, the Council of Trent had decreed that “the honor which is shown to them [images] is referred to the prototype which they represent.” See Schroeder 1978, 216. For a brief historiography and an analysis of the uses of processions, see Schraven 2019, 247–65.

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religious and secular buildings in order to demarcate saints’ territories and create a sense of community among their devotees. The cloistered nuns of Gesù e Maria, however, could not take part in an actual procession through the streets and piazzas of Genoa, and for that reason Father Marcello created a simulated, spiritual procession for them inside their church. Starting with St. Agnes and culminating with Blessed Angela of Prague, the 14 holy women in the Genoese cycle praised Teresa’s exemplary virtues: virginity, salvation of souls, wisdom and doctrine, service of the heavenly king (Christ), fortitude, the miracle of a flowering tree at her death, Eucharistic devotion and visions, wounds of divine love, Christ’s paradise of delights, being crowned on earth and in heaven, desire for martyrdom, obedience, penance, and reform of Carmel. These examples of Teresa’s heroic virtues and deeds had been explicitly addressed in the 1610 vita overseen by the Spanish and Italian Congregations to promote her cause for official holiness, which proclaimed her to have achieved a balance in her active and contemplative lives.46 Father Marcello chose the saints in the Genoese procession as role models for the nuns, and the virtues they lauded in Teresa were also the ones they themselves embodied (see Figure 2). Like their painted counterparts, the nuns were intended to exult in Teresa’s virtues. Some of these virtues—such as virginity and obedience—were qualities expected of all Catholic religious, women and men alike. Others—such as wisdom and doctrine, regarded as superseding the conditions of the female sex, were addressed in the nuns’ program.47 The saints’ praises were expressed through mottos, scriptural passages, symbols, and madrigals, as an analysis of some salient examples demonstrates. Above St. Agnes, first in the cycle, was the inscription that all the saints shared, Let us rejoice with you, because you received the bright thrones with us, and from it was suspended her own motto, Because you strove for the Bridegroom Lamb.48 Agnes was painted with her traditional attribute, a lamb (Latin: agnus), which Father Marcello called her beloved Jesus, a play on the derivation of her name and symbol of her purity. She rejoiced on account of Teresa’s own virginity. Lilies, the painted emblems, were symbols of both Teresa and the Virgin Mary, and the apparato’s madrigal compared Teresa’s virginal innocence with that of her bridegroom, Jesus. 46

47 48

On the virtues, see Urkiza 2015, Points 58–83, 168–220. For further discussion see Chapter 2, 61–66. All of these virtues figured in the Roman apparato, but due to its intricacy and copiousness, I have treated them selectively. The miracle of the flowering tree is discussed below. Official and unofficial miracles were included in the Roman program, on which see Chapter 2, 57–61. Gender issues are analyzed in Chapters 2, esp. 40–41, and 4, 103−04 and 112–16. Marcello, Giunta 1615, 134–35.

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Next was St. Cecilia, whose motto, For like a busy Bee you have been devoted to the Lord, derived from prayers in the Roman Breviary that the nuns would have read on her feast day (22 November).49 Father Marcello wrote that Cecilia worked to save the souls of her husband and her brother-in-law, both of whom she converted to Christianity. Like Cecilia’s emblem, the bee, Teresa excelled in saving souls not because of her size and strength, but through her work, and according to Father Marcello, the bee’s fruit was the sweetest. The madrigal, posted nearby, elaborated on service to Christ that busy bees like Cecilia and Teresa shared. It concluded by comparing her yet again to Mary: ... And you are a Virgin, and a Mother [Teresa], Now the Bee, humble Teresa, is your portrait, Which with beautiful art you have made Celestial honeycombs of profound virtue, And you are a virgin intact, and yet fecund.50 The sixth virgin, St. Dorothy (c.279/90–311), who was martyred in Caesarea Mazaca in Cappadocia, was accompanied by the motto, For flowers appeared at your death. Father Marcello noted that when Dorothy was martyred, an angel brought her fresh roses and other colored blooms, and at Teresa’s death a tree near her cell miraculously flowered out of season, in autumn. Teresa’s in specie process of 1609–10 was devoted not only to her heroic virtues, but also to her miracles, a requirement of official holiness. Although the 1610 vita had presented many of Teresa’s miracles under Points #83–117, only some of them subsequently received official approval in the Sacra Rota’s relatio of 1613, which received the Congregation of Rites’ seal prior to being submitted to Pope Paul V.51 The miracle of the flowering tree was listed among those that occurred at the time of her soul’s ascent into heaven.52 In the Genoese apparato Dorothy played a crucial role by presenting one of Teresa’s officially approved miracles, thus highlighting her new status as a blessed.53 Father Marcello’s festive decorations for the nuns also showcased recently sanctified facets of Blessed Teresa’s official persona that had been controversial during her life: wisdom, mystical spirituality, and the reform of Carmel.54 49 50 51 52 53 54

Marcello, Giunta 1615, 135–36. Marcello, Giunta 1615, 136. BAV, Vat. lat. 6345, fols. 49r–80v, which recorded both the miracles and witnesses’ supporting testimonies. The 1616 relatio, discussed in Chapters 4, 103 and 116, and 5, 133, was based on it. See Urkiza 2016, 423–24. On the flowering tree, see Chapter 2, 117. On Teresa’s miracles, see Chapters, 2, 57–61, and 4, 103, 112–13, 116–17. See discussion in Chapter 2, 43, 45, 56, of the 1610 vita’s role in their sanctification.

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Third in the Genoese series of holy women was the early Christian virgin martyr St. Catherine of Alexandria, “who had triumphed over 50 wise men.” She rejoiced at Teresa’s own wisdom and doctrine with her motto, Because you excelled in the spirit of wisdom.55 Father Marcello stated in his book that doctrine was among Catherine’s glories, and “Teresa shone with a similar wisdom.” Catherine’s emblem, “a fountain spurting water way up to the sky—to eternal life,” referred to Jesus’s statement in the story of the Samaritan woman (John 4:14) that a fountain leading to eternal life would rise up in anyone drinking the water he provides. This story, Father Marcello recounted, was greatly appreciated by Teresa, and in it water was understood as signifying grace and wisdom. The madrigal equated the water with those very qualities shared by Catherine and Teresa. The Genoese nuns, as Teresa’s spiritual daughters, had access to her wisdom and doctrine through her books. The 14th-century Dominican Tertiary St. Catherine of Siena, eighth in the cycle, highlighted mystical spirituality. In a vision, she had received the stigmata from the crucified Christ. Catherine’s motto, Because you were seriously wounded by the Seraph, and her emblem, an arrow, referred to the wounds of love that Teresa received during her own vision of the transverberation.56 St. Catherine of Siena’s madrigal extolled Teresa’s wounds, which resulted in her earthly death and eternal life, indicating that fiery arrows from divine love proffered both death and life. As J. Jaime García Bernal has emphasized, both water and fire were symbols used in Spanish beatification programs for Teresa, and they derive from her own writings.57 St. Gertrude, the Benedictine mystic, like Teresa, had a great familiarity with Christ through prayer, as expressed by her motto Because you were the paradise of delights of Christ. Gertrude rejoiced because Teresa embodied the same “delightful” role. Father Marcello described the emblem as “a painting of the earthly paradise whose guard is an armed Cherub with a burning sword.”58 The textual passage was from Genesis 3[:4]: A Cherub was stationed before the paradise of delights, & he [held a] flaming sword. This, of course, was another reference to Teresa’s transverberation. The madrigal recounted that Christ often told Teresa that “the paradise of the spirit is my face, but the earthly paradise that you planted for me, Teresa, is your heart.”59 Father Marcello’s imagery

55 Marcello, Giunta 1615, 136–37. 56 See Chapters 4, 107–12, 114–16, and 5, 127–33, on the transverberation theme. 57 Bernal 2019, 174. 58 Marcello, Giunta 1615, 143. 59 Marcello, Giunta 1615, 143.

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for St. Gertrude is highly significant in anticipating that of his 1616 apparato designed, but never executed, for Teresa’s canonization in St. Peter’s basilica.60 Father Marcello gave special roles to three early Carmelite holy women, who, although relatively obscure today, were well known to the Genoese nuns, their spiritual sisters. The early Carmelites were placed closest to Teresa in the decorative program. First was St. Euphrasia (380–after 410), the daughter of a senator of Constantinople and a relative of Emperor Theodosius.61 She refused an offer of marriage and gave her riches to Theodosius in order to become a nun in Egypt under the Carmelite Order’s austere original Rule that Teresa revived. Euphrasia’s motto, Because you exhibited perfect obedience, underscored Teresa’s similar virtue, specifically her obedience to her confessors and prelates. Euphrasia lauded Teresa for obeying God, moving like lightning at his voice, and for having a fiery soul. Father Marcello noted in his book that if the soul is on fire, it is full of divine love, will be prompt in obedience, and all other virtues, which take form and movement from charity. As the nuns certainly knew, charity was considered the mother of all the virtues, and charity’s ageold symbol was a flame. St. Euphrosyne, the second Carmelite saint, died in Alexandria, Egypt, in c.470. Her father, the wealthy Paphnutius, wanted her to marry but instead she entered the religious life. According to her legend, Euphrosyne disguised herself as a man in order to enter a Carmelite friary near Alexandria where she lived for 38 years. Toward the end of her life her father reputedly came under her care in the friary, but she revealed her identity to him only on her deathbed.62 In the Genoese apparato, Euphrosyne’s motto read, Because you cultivated penance. Father Marcello explained that just as Euphrosyne mortified her flesh, dressed as a man, and lived austerely, Teresa mortified herself, wore rough clothes, and was severe in reform. This is why Euphrosyne rejoiced in Teresa’s penance. Father Marcello wrote that the early saint’s emblem in the program, a lily among thorns (from Canticles 2:2), represented a just soul among evil ones. He added that mystically the lily signifies Teresa and the 60 61 62

See Jones 2014/15. Her feast day is 13 March (Greek Orthodox: 25 July). See Johann Peter Kirsch, “St. Euphrasia (Eupraxia),” in The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 5, New York, 1909, http://www.newadvent .org/cathen/05606c.htm. Accessed 7 April 2012. Also Fornari 1688, 309–14. Euphrosyne’s feast day is 11 January (Greek Orthodox: 25 September). See Fornari 1688, 266–70. Also see Johann Peter Kirsch “St. Euphrosyne,” in The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 5, New York, 1909. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05606c.htm. Accessed 7 April 2012. Also Fornari 1688, 309–14. Because early saints’ lives were not well documented and they were not subject to the rigorous scrutiny that became the norm from 1588 onward, their stories are often similarly fanciful.

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thorns penance, because they are used in the ritual practice. It may come as a surprise that Father Marcello incorporated two cross-dressing virgin saints, but it should be emphasized that both were from the Holy Land where the Carmelite Order originated. Both Euphrosyne and Angela (see below) pretended to be men when necessary to protect their virtue or live under harsh conditions. Like them, Teresa wore coarse clothing and traveled for religious reasons, but not as a man. As author-founder, Teresa’s gender, never hidden, resulted in considerable opposition. But nevertheless she accomplished her goals.63 The last Carmelite holy woman, Blessed Angela of Prague (died c.1230/35), was chronologically closest to Teresa. Although Marcello called her a saint, Angela, the virgin daughter of King Vladislas of Prague, Bohemia, never attained that ultimate rank of holiness.64 In a vision, the Virgin Mary reputedly told Angela to go to the Carmelite convent in Jerusalem and take the habit. Angela did so, dressed as a man during the voyage to protect her virginity. On 10 June 1593, three years after the foundation of the Genoese convent of Gesù e Maria, Clement VIII conceded a plenary indulgence for Blessed Angela’s feast day celebration (6 July) in the Carmelite church of Sciava in Sicily.65 Angela’s motto was Because you restored Carmel. The emblem was a hawk, believed to renew its feathers in the breeze of the south wind, which was derived from God’s question to Job, Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars, spreading its wings to the south? (Job 39:26). The madrigal expatiated on this theme, noting that the hawk changed its old feathers in the wind, while Teresa changed her clothes to don the new Discalced Carmelite habit at the breath of a gentle heavenly breeze. It ended, “The world is amazed, heaven applauds.”66 The procession’s saints presented the Italian Congregation’s nuns with a chain of multilayered exemplarity linking their new blessed to venerated female saints from across the Christian past. And it insisted upon the nuns’ membership in this virtuous community. The cycle culminated with the second Latin epitaph, placed between Angela and Teresa, which translates to: [Blessed] Teresa [was] the most beloved, deserving parent, worthy of emulation. Her mortal daughters, the Discalced [Carmelite] virgin nuns

63 64 65 66

See n. 47. On this comparatively unknown blessed, see Fornari 1690, 6–11. Of course the Genoese nuns would have been familiar with all of the Carmelite saints depicted. Fornari 1690, 7. Marcello, Giunta 1615, 148.

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... of Genoa, lead the immortal [painted] virgins in a triumphal procession and pledge, rejoicing in piety and happiness.67 Notably, Father Marcello conceived of the Genoese nuns themselves, not the painted saints, as leading the procession. The cloistered nuns could not process through Genoa’s streets, but by remaining inside their church the women embarked on a spiritual journey, a procession that superseded earthly boundaries. Teresa’s triumph over the world culminated in closeness to God, and her spiritual daughters emulated her prayerfulness and virtues. Thus, the festive high note on which Father Marcello’s apparato concluded brought together his imagery and his participatory audience in a spiritual realm beyond the ­confines of space and time. 67

Marcello, Giunta 1615, 148–49.

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Matriarch of a Global Missionary Order in Papal Rome Papal Rome was the epicenter for the official creation of blesseds and saints from which their cults were disseminated worldwide. Although new saints were celebrated in St. Peter’s, the headquarters of global Catholicism, in the early 17th century new blesseds were celebrated in churches of their nations or Orders.1 Teresa’s beatification celebrations therefore took place in the Roman church of S. Maria della Scala. It is depicted at the center of Giovanni Battista Falda’s engraving, with the eponymous friary that served as the Italian Congregation’s headquarters at the right and its oratory at the left (Figure 5).2 The decorative program for Blessed Teresa in S. Maria della Scala, like that for the Genoese nuns, was designed by Father Marcello della Madre di Dio. His Roman festive program, however, lauded Teresa in distinctive ways meant to ingratiate Pope Paul V Borghese, who had beatified her, and encourage him to canonize her. In addition, the apparato had to address a large audience of ­secular and religious persons, not all of whom were familiar with the new blessed. To introduce Blessed Teresa and inspire devotion to her, Father ­Marcello incorporated into his program a series of paintings of her life. 1 Father Marcello’s Apparato for the Beatification Festivities in S. Maria della Scala Built on essentially the same plan as Gesù e Maria in Genoa, S. Maria della Scala was, however, far larger (Figure 6). Three small chapels enhanced both sides of the nave. A dome rose over the crossing, which was flanked by two large chapels, and a deep tribune extended the longitudinal axis. Father Marcello’s apparato covered the entire interior with copious, erudite imagery, both 1 The first beatification celebration held in St. Peter’s was in 1662 for Francis de Sales. See Casale 2011, 31, 148–49. In the papal city, communities of non-Romans, both from within and beyond Italy, were known as “nations,” on which see Fosi 2019. They often had their own churches in Rome. 2 See Sturm 2015, 9–31. For an overview including the chapels’ permanent decorations, see Gigli 1979, esp. 20–34; 34 on the oratory, which was razed in 1890. The church and friary remain. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004548916_004

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Figure 5 Giovanni Battista Falda, S. Maria della Scala, Rome, in IL NUOVO TEATRO/DELLE FABRICHE, ET EDIFICII,/IN PROSPETTIVVA DI ROMA MODERNA,/SOTTO IL FELICE PONTIFICATO/DI N.S. PAPA ALESSANDRO VII/Date in luce da Gio. Iacomo Rossi alla Pace//(1665). The Theater That Was Rome Photo: Brown Digital Library. https://repository.library.brown .edu/studio/item/bdr:241012. Collection of Vincent J. Buonanno

written and visual. He described his program in detail in a rare printed book published in Rome in 1615, De’ Nove Chori De Gli Angioli (On the Nine Choirs of Angels).3 Because pontiffs did not attend beatification festivities until they were held in St. Peter’s starting in 1662, Fra Marcello dedicated his description of the apparato to Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the pope’s nephew, in hopes that both would read it and that it “would stimulate devotion toward [Teresa’s] canonization.”4 He had every reason to believe that Paul V would be interested

3 See the Introduction, 11–12, for discussion of the book’s full title. Although printed in 1615, it was signed and dated “From our Friary of the Scala on 12 December 1614,” a mere two months after the festivities occurred. From February to June 1615, the Italian Congregation paid the book’s publisher, Guglielmo Facciotti, 41 scudi 80 giuli for an unspecified print run of De’ Nove Chori, as recorded in ASR: Carmelitani Scalzi in S. Maria della Scala. Busta 120: Entrate e uscite (1600–22), organized by date. See 1615: 15 February, 6 April, 16 May, and 1 June. 4 Marcello, De’ Nove Chori 1615, 1. There is no mention in any documents of Scipione Borghese’s attendance at the beatification festivities, which may have been an additional motivation for the book’s dedication.

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Figure 6 Plan of S. Maria della Scala, Rome Graphics: Martine C. Barnaby © Pamela M. Jones

in S. Maria della Scala’s apparato, since the pontiff had loaned decorations, almost certainly expensive draperies, to Father Marcello for the festivities.5 In his unpaginated remarks to the “learned reader,” Marcello emphasized the importance of sacred poetry and of not profaning Teresa by invoking the nine muses, but instead, the nine choirs of angels, thereby explaining the beginning of his book’s lengthy literary title.6 Despite his focus on the apparato’s learned references and poetic compositions, he also highlighted features that would have drawn the attention of both uneducated and educated worshiper-viewers: brilliantly colored draperies, narrative paintings, and flickering candlelight complemented by a range of musical performances, masses, and liturgies throughout the octave (an eight-day festival period).

5 ASR: Carmelitani Scalzi in S. Maria della Scala, 120. See Jones 2015 for discussion of payment records for elements of the apparato. 6 This was a reference to his book of poetry titled Le Nove muse, published in 1614 with a dedication to Scipione Borghese by Marcello’s brother, Pietro Macedonio. See Miranda 2012, idem 2000, 75–76.

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The Audiences for the Beatification Festivities

Father Marcello proudly noted that on 5 October, Blessed Teresa’s feast day, 14 cardinals participated in the mass, “a number rarely seen outside the Pontifical Chapel.”7 Various high-ranking dignitaries who attended the festivities were identified in two brief, anonymous descriptions sent to the Medici court in October 1614: Cardinals Antonio Maria Gallo and Giovanni Battista Cosenza; the Count and Countess of Lemos, that is, Francisco Ruiz de Castro (the ­Spanish ambassador) and his wife, Lucrezia Gattinara; and Filippo Filonardi, Deacon of the Sacra Rota. According to these accounts, many other prelates and nobles were present.8 Certainly men of the Italian and Spanish branches of Teresa’s Order participated in the celebrations. So, too, members of the powerful Roman Colonna family and scions of the Peretti, whose rise had begun with Pope Sixtus V (r.1585–90), and who had attended the solemnization of Blessed Teresa’s elevation in April, were presumably also present at the beatification festivities, as was the Count of Lemos.9 The growth of religious Orders and the spread of their holy persons’ cults depended on the piety, clout, and financial backing of such secular and ecclesiastical elites. But the widespread devotion of ordinary members of the public also played a significant role. 3 An Overarching Theme to Engage and Inspire All Audiences: Teresa Likened to the Madonna of Carmel The title of Father Marcello’s book announced his apparato’s overall conception: The Crown of the Blessed Virgin Teresa, Foundress of the Discalced Carmelite Fathers and Nuns. Although the Spanish Congregation considered her merely the mother of the nuns, the papacy had a vested interest in Teresa’s being the mother also of the fathers and friars because it had charged the men with carrying out a worldwide missionary apostolate in support of the Universal Church. Significantly, the 1610 vita that was part of Teresa’s apostolic process 7 Marcello, De’ Nove Chori 1615, xii. They may have been the same 14 cardinals who had attended the solemnization, on which see next note. 8 BIA: The Medici Archive Project, Doc. ID #24843[ASF, Mediceo del Principato 4028, fol. 697] & in Doc. ID #24833 [ASF, Mediceo del Principato 4028, fol. 690]. 9 A solemnization gave official public recognition to a new blessed or saint. Whereas those for saints typically followed the canonization itself (see Chapter 5), those for beatifications could precede the official celebrations. The solemnization of Teresa’s beatification was recorded in two avvisi (dispatches) sent to Francesco Maria II della Rovere, Duke of Urbino. See BAV, Urb. Lat. 1082. Avvisi dell’Anno 1614, fols. 269v–270r, 273r–v.

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in Madrid (1609–10) had already interpreted her this very way because the vita had been overseen by the Procurators General of both the Iberian and Italian Congregations—Fathers Juan de San Jerónimo and Pedro de la Madre de Dios, respectively, who were eager for her cause to succeed.10 Teresa’s persona as fruitful virgin mother of the Discalced Carmelite fathers and nuns was central to the apparato’s global imagery in the crossing. Equally crucial were Teresa’s “prerogatives” (that is, virtues, deeds, and miracles), which were inscribed on a 12-pointed crown suspended from the crossing’s dome. The crown was that of the Madonna of Carmel, fecund virgin patron of the Carmelite Order, and Teresa’s own special protector to whom Father Marcello compared her.11 At the apex of the dome, a zone symbolizing heaven that would have been strategically illuminated by numerous candles, a glory of seraphim held simulated red and gold brocade veils, which formed a pavilion that ended at the dome’s cornice. From the pendentives, four papier mâché or plaster ­sculptures—each about 14 ft. high—were painted to resemble bronze. Representing Grace, Glory, Immortality, and Eternity, they leaned out to look at the large 12-pointed crown with stars (Figure 7).12 Above the crown was a Latin inscription in gold letters on a blue field with a phrase from the opening passage of Apocalypse 12:1 (Revelation 12:1): “On her head a crown of twelve stars.”13 This verse had long been associated with the Virgin Mary’s singular privileges, and the 12-pointed crown was a traditional symbol of the Madonna of Carmel, patron of the original Carmelites and of Teresa’s Discalced Carmelites.14 A second inscription raised aloft by two angels, each about 10 ft. high, 10

This was the second stage of the process, known as the processus apostolicus underscoring its ties to centralized pontifical authority. For the vita, see Urkiza 2015, 110–261, which contains the original Latin with a facing Spanish translation. 11 Teresa was also likened to the Madonna of Carmel in Father Leandro’s canonization ­festivities in Goa; see Chapter 9, 224. 12 For a complete discussion of the dome’s decorations, see Marcello, De’ Nove Chori 1615, 9–11. He described (8–9) the sculptured personifications in the pendentives (which may have been reliefs) as being “twenty palmi [high], or a little less” (c. 14 ft. high); in addition, the three-dimensional “little angels” holding the inscription near the base of the crown must have been about 10 ft. high to have been visible from a distance. Other large-scale sculptures in the round (126) were created for the crossing’s right side chapel. On the sculptures’ materials, see n.15 below. 13 Marcello, De’ Nove Chori 1615, 8, on the verse from the Apocalypse (Revelation), which reads in full: “And a great sign appeared in heaven: A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.” 14 See the Introduction, 1−3. The 12-pointed crown of the Madonna of Carmel is seen, for example, in an early-17th-century etching attributed to Francesco Brizio, and in two woodcut copies. See Veronica Birke, The Illustrated Bartsch, Vol. 40, Part 1, commentary,

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Figure 7 Interior view of S. Maria della Scala with the dome’s decorations Graphics: Martine C. Barnaby © Pamela M. Jones

sculpted in the round, and fashioned to resemble bronze and gold, indicated that the Madonna of Carmel’s crown was modified to highlight Teresa’s virtues. The crown itself, a shining symbol that would likewise have attracted considerable attention, was created to resemble gold, and its circular band was set with simulated gems.15 Between the gemstones, in gold letters on a blue field

15

Italian Masters of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (New York, 1987), entries 050, 050 C 1, and 050 C2 on 258. Various sculptures, the crown, and other aspects of the decorations were made to resemble metals, stones, and other materials. The actual materials from which they were created were not mentioned, but are likely to have been inexpensive plaster or papier-mâché (in the case of the sculptures) and wood (in the case of the obelisks mentioned below). See Casale 2011, throughout, on the common use of these materials.

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were 12 Latin inscriptions naming Teresa’s prerogatives. The crown’s stars were keyed to sections of the tribune and to the side chapels, which were ornately adorned with figurative paintings, sculptures, hieroglyphs, and inscriptions that elaborated on the virtues. Let it suffice to convey the complexity of the interlocking design through use of a diagram.16 In Figure 8 each of the crown’s 12 prerogatives is numbered consecutively on the church’s plan.17 Outside the plan the prerogatives themselves are listed beside the numbers. The titles of the life cycle paintings associated with them, which are placed in parentheses below, clarify that a variety of themes touching on virtues and deeds were represented. The paintings, rendered alternately in violet and yellow chiaroscuro, were 14 ft. wide. Intended to be temporary, they do not survive.18 The ephemeral painting keyed to Star #8, whose prerogative was the Renewal of Carmel, is crucial to understanding the apparato’s central conceit of Teresa’s likeness to the Madonna of Carmel. The painting and its surrounding imagery were therefore placed high, but near the entrance portal so that from the tribune it could be seen in conjunction with the crown and upon departure it was the culminating imagery. The painting’s theme was Teresa Gives the Rule to a Brother and a Nun, Who Kneel Beside Her, and its Latin inscription read in translation: By great effort and great virtue For the old rule of flowering Carmel, She [Teresa] founded twenty-one convents and friaries, First devoted to women, then to men.19 Rather than referring to a single episode in Teresa’s life, this image focused on her establishment of 19 female and 2 male houses between 1562 and her death in 1582.20 In founding her contemplative Order, she had traveled from place to place and was an active woman, as clarified in both her own Book of Foundations (written from 1577–82) and the 1610 vita, which expounded on 16

The labels are intended to give the reader a sense of the program’s scope, since my analysis is necessarily highly selective. 17 Adding to the complexity and sophistication of the apparato was its ability to be read in two major ways. The first was a (nearly) chronological treatment of Teresa’s life, moving in a counterclockwise direction, as seen in Figure 8. Secondly, the paintings in the nave chapels were paired thematically in groups opposite each other. These issues cannot be addressed here. 18 See Jones 2015. 19 Marcello, De’ Nove Chori 1615, 81. 20 Marcello, De’ Nove Chori 2015, 80–88.

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Figure 8 Schematic diagram of the life-cycle paintings in S. Maria della Scala Graphics: Martine C. Barnaby © Pamela M. Jones

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Teresa’s role as founder by treating the institution of every single one of her convents and friaries in addition to the many difficulties she faced in establishing them.21 Not only that, but in a discussion of Teresa’s first male foundation, that in Duruelo of 1568, the vita explicitly stated that Teresa had served as “teacher of the male novices” (novitiorum magistra).22 The chiaroscuro painting of Teresa Gives the Rule to a Brother and a Nun was presumably a variant of Image #19 of the Collaert-Galle series of 1613 that codified her iconography (Figure 9).23 Whereas in S. Maria della Scala’s life cycle one friar and one nun knelt on either side of Blessed Teresa, in the engraving many friars kneel on the left, many nuns on the right. Margit Thøfner, who called attention to the engraved series’ comparison of Teresa to Mary, observed that its depiction of Teresa as founder was adapted from the theme of the Madonna of Mercy protecting her devotees with her cloak. However, Thøfner interpreted this depiction of Teresa in “the eminently respectable role of the Virgin Mary” as a way of mitigating her role as teacher and founder.24 And yet the engraving contains two Latin inscriptions that comment on this very role: “She planted a vineyard from the fruit of her hands” at the top, and “She planted a very courageous (feracissimam) vineyard from the fruit of her hands as the fecund mother of both sexes of Carmelites, the devotion of many peoples throughout the whole world is brought together, and from the beginning the reform spread to the Indies.”25 Once it is recognized that these inscriptions make reference to the Madonna of Carmel, it becomes clear that the composition (both in the engraving and in the apparato’s painting) not only forcefully asserted Blessed Teresa’s official role as founder-reformer, but compellingly compared her with her Order’s patron. The engraving’s two inscriptions state that Teresa “planted a vineyard.” Mount Carmel, where the Carmelite Order arose, is in modern-day Israel near Haifa. Hebrew in origin, the word “carmel” means “fresh” or “vineyard.” Thus, the engraving’s inscriptions clearly equate Teresa—termed “fecund mother” 21 22 23

24 25

Urkiza 2015, 130–67. Urkiza 2015, 144. Teresa’s teaching authority, which was controversial during her lifetime, is analyzed at length in Chapter 4, 106−07, 112−16. See the Introduction n.31 on the print series’ creation and editions. My illustrations, which are identical to the originals of 1613, are from an edition of 1630. See Marcello, De’ Nove Chori 2015, 144–45. The prints were produced and published in Brussels, which was part of the Italian Congregation, so it is not surprising that it presents the Italian Congregation’s perspective. The engraved series was issued in multiple versions, on which see Thøfner 2008 and Bernal 2019 (and scholarship cited by him). Thøfner 2008, 76–78. The first inscription mentioned is a quotation from Proverbs 31:16.

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Figure 9 Adriaen Collaert, De fructu manuum suarum vineam feracissimam plantavit, et vtriusque sexus Carmelitarum faecunda parents effecta, toto terrarum orbe, magna gentium devotione colitur, et ab ea coepta reformatio, indies propagantur, pl. 19 of Vita s. virginis Teresiae a Iesu, Antwerp, Johannes Galle, 1630 Photo: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Library, Williamstown, MA

in the second inscription—with Mary, and not merely in her protective role as Madonna of Mercy but in her role as Madonna of Carmel. Like all the life cycle paintings in S. Maria della Scala, this one was part of an ensemble comprising highly complex visual and written imagery along with scriptural passages. Their combined meaning was posted as a written commentary near the painting: “The plant [an almond tree, one of the symbols] is like Carmel, or really the Order, into which, by means of Teresa’s hand a nail of more severe discipline and a more rigid way of life was driven, by means of which the fortunate plant became more fruitful and more abundant in flowers and fruits of virtue.”26 Nearby, the Latin elegy likewise drew attention to the 26 Marcello, De’ Nove Chori 1615, 84.

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obstacles to reform over which Teresa had prevailed to the great benefit of the Universal Church. 4 Teresa as the Matriarch of a Global Missionary Order in Service of the Universal Church In the church’s crossing, under the gleaming crown, the theme of the Discalced Carmelite Order’s global ministry came into play. Four temporary faux-marble obelisks were affixed to the giant pilasters on the piers supporting the dome (Figure 10).27 Each imposing obelisk had painted hieroglyphs on its upper zone, together with a Latin inscription on its base that identified it with one of the then-known four continents—Europe, Africa, Asia, and America.28 The inscriptions stated that the individual continents had erected the obelisks to honor Blessed Teresa and thank her for the particular debts they owed her. Together, the four obelisks’ imagery asserted the worldwide missionary scope of the Discalced Carmelite Order. In 1600 Clement VIII gave the newly established Iberian Congregation purview over missions in Spanish and Portuguese territories in Iberia, Africa, and the Americas, and the Italian branch purview over those in Europe (except Iberia), and in Asia.29 In his placement of the obelisks, Father Marcello gave equal emphasis to the two branches of the Order, despite the fact that the Spanish Congregation had already rejected the papal call to missionary work as incompatible with the goals of Teresa’s contemplative reform Order. This dissension was intentionally disregarded in the apparato because both branches of Teresa’s Discalced Carmelite Order 27

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The obelisks were probably made of wood. Marcello (De’ Nove Chori 1615, 11) refers to these structures, which were painted in chiaroscuro to resemble marble, as “piramidi,” a word then used interchangeably for either pyramids or obelisks. Because there was insufficient space between the four piers in which to erect monumental pyramids, obelisks would have been used. Marcello (De’ Nove Chori 1615, 11–15) discusses the obelisks in this order: Europe, Africa, Asia, and America. That he was viewing them from the nave in counterclockwise fashion is confirmed by the way the obelisks’ imagery interacts with the narratives of Teresa’s life, the locations of which he described explicitly (on 16), starting at the proper right of the  high altar and working counterclockwise around the entire church. The counterclockwise arrangement of the painting cycle is consistent with Marilyn Aronberg Lavin’s statement (in Lavin 1990, 214) that “whatever its genesis in the monastic setting, the counterclockwise disposition [of narrative cycles] became a major element in later ­sixteenth-century counterreformatory ecclesiastical decoration.” Chick 2012. For a brief overview, see Mendiola under the heading “3. Third Characteristic.” The pope’s bull Apostolicae dignitatis culmine was dated 13 November 1600.

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Figure 10 Interior view of S. Maria della Scala with the dome’s decorations and the obelisks in the crossing Graphics: Martine C. Barnaby © Pamela M. Jones

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were equally invested in maximizing the likelihood that Paul V would soon raise Teresa to sainthood. The obelisks’ symbols referred to as hieroglyphs were used to associate the four continents with the four elements—earth, air, fire, and water—and to characterize Teresa’s virtues in that universal context.30 The hieroglyphs were derived from pagan and Christian authorities, especially Pliny the Elder and Pierio Valeriano.31 As Brian Curran observed, Valeriano had indicated in his book Hieroglyphica (1556) that hieroglyphs were a divine symbolic language encoded by God that served as “a universally comprehensive pictorial language.”32 By adopting this language Father Marcello also underscored the papacy’s claim to universal authority, in the service of which the Discalced Carmelites established their missions. Because this book concerns the Italian Congregation, my focus will be on the two continents in which its ministry was situated: Europe and Asia.33 Europe’s obelisk faced the nave, and its Latin inscription read in translation: To Blessed Teresa of Jesus, Recently decorated with a title for long-ago merits. Europe of the very famous Virgin Is illuminated by births, enflamed by virtues, heaped with benefits. Europe, grateful and rejoicing, erected this structure. She distinguished it with hieroglyphic markings Which were changed out of fire and heaven.34 30

For universalist imagery incorporating the Four Continents and related themes, which was used extensively in European secular and religious festivities of the era, see Majorana 2015. 31 Father Marcello made extensive use of passages from The Natural History by Pliny the Elder (23 BCE–79 CE), the imperial Roman author and statesman, whose encyclopedic work was widely used in the early modern era as a source of information about the natural world, art, and artists. The Hieroglyphica is the best-known work of the humanist Pierio Valeriano, or Pierio Valeriano Bolzani (1477–1558). 32 For a discussion of hieroglyphic studies in the Renaissance, see Curran 2007, 227–43; ­quotation at 234. 33 A comprehensive treatment of the imagery is provided by Jones 2015. Africa was associated with the element of air, the Americas with that of earth. While the Discalced were still merely a province within the Carmelite Order, they had established missions in Africa and the Americas. That in Kongo survived for only a few years and was moribund by the time of Teresa’s beatification. The far older Province of Sant’Alberto in Mexico was thriving when in 1593, shortly after the creation of the Discalced Carmelite Order, the Spanish branch disavowed missionary work. They placed the Mexican missions under the aegis of the Carmelite Order. 34 Marcello, De’ Nove Chori 1615, 11–12; 11 for the inscription.

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Above the inscription were various fiery, celestial hieroglyphs. For example, one of the symbols was a comet, because Pliny had written that comets were harbingers of felicitous events.35 Another was a flame, naturally pointing upward toward heaven, “vividly expressive of a heart enflamed by love of God,” as was Teresa’s.36 Visible beyond Europe’s obelisk to the right of the high altar was a now-lost chiaroscuro painting that depicted Teresa’s birth in Avila, Spain, on the European continent (see Figure 8).37 The painting, keyed with the crown’s first star and the prerogative “the Splendor of Her Birth,” bore a polemical inscription: It stated that Teresa had been born to restore to Europe everything that Luther had destroyed.38 This recalls the epilogue to The Interior Castle (begun 1577), in which Teresa wrote to her nuns, “I ask that each time you read this work you, in my name, praise His Majesty [God] fervently and ask for the increase of His Church and for light for the Lutherans.”39 The vita of 1610 that was part of her process had treated Teresa’s prayers for the souls of heretics in France and Germany several times, and her spiritual daughters followed her example in European foundations, such as those at Genoa (1590), Paris (1604), and Brussels (1607).40 Her spiritual sons, by contrast, established apostolic missions, such as those at Prague (1604) and Cracow (1605), from which they proselytized non-Catholics.41 35 36 37 38

39 40 41

Pliny the Elder 1938, Bk. II, XXIII.93; LCL, 330, 236–37. Pliny discussed a comet that appeared at the beginning of the reign of Augustus, who considered it “very propitious to himself.” Marcello, De’ Nove Chori 1615, 12. Marcello, De’ Nove Chori 1615, 16. The other two ephemeral paintings given pride of place in the tribune (see Figure 8) asserted Teresa’s desired role to fight infidels (Star # 2) by attempting to flee to North Africa to seek martyrdom by the Muslims (a very common theme in her iconography), and her conquest of her emotions (Star #3) by entering the Carmelite convent of the Annunciation in Avila against her father’s wishes. Both themes centered on Teresa’s control of her body and will, essential concerns of the in genere phase of her process. The inclusion of a painting of her entrance into the convent directly following that of her failed crusade and martyrdom, extolled her detachment from worldly ties in favor of service to God through prayer and asceticism, considered a form of martyrdom, that her choice of the religious life entailed. For further discussion, see Jones 2015; also Chapter 4, 105. Kavanaugh and Rodriguez 1980, 452; Efrén and Steggink 1976, 450. Urkiza 2015, 140–41, 196–99, 212–15. On the Italian Congregation’s European missions, see Fortes 1990, esp. 3–320. See Moriones, Teresian Carmel, Ch. 18. The nuns’ cloistered foundations, which were restricted to Europe, were not apostolic missions. See Giordano, I Carmelitani Scalzi e le missioni on the fathers’ and friars’ European missions.

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Asia’s obelisk, which faced the tribune, bore this inscription: To Blessed Teresa of Jesus. The [Discalced Carmelites], the magnanimous progeny of so great a mother, Were enticed to the stony path of truth up to this place, Asia. [And through them, Asia] was finally led in this way [of the Faith]. Asia, grateful and rejoicing, erected this structure. She distinguished it with hieroglyphic markings Which were changed out of water.42 Various hieroglyphs connected the continent of Asia with the element of water, and Father Marcello gave special attention to the octopus. He explained that because the octopus turns the color of the rocks to which it clings, it symbolizes the ability of missionaries to accommodate themselves to the customs of others when attempting to convert them to Christianity.43 He stated that the inscription on Asia’s obelisk referred to the arduous work his Order had undertaken in Persia in fulfillment of Christ’s word in the Gospel of John that there was to be but one universal flock.44 The Mission to Persia and the East Indies is the subject of Part III of this book, which includes analysis of ­missionary ­geopolitics and problematizes the degree to which accommodation to Asian cultures was in fact put into practice when attempting to convert “infidels,” such as Muslims and Hindus. The aim in S. Maria della Scala’s beatification decorations was to present a positive view of the Italian Congregation’s response to the pontifical mandate. The motifs employed in festive celebrations were themselves often highly-charged signifiers, and this was the case for Fra Marcello’s choice of obelisks, symbols of Romanitas (Roman character) that underscored the role of Teresa’s Discalced Carmelites in spreading Catholicism from papal Rome across the world. For approximately 30 years prior to Teresa’s beatification, the papacy had experienced unprecedentedly extensive losses of territory and benefices 42 Marcello, De’ Nove Chori 1615, 13–14; 13 for the inscription. 43 Marcello, De’ Nove Chori 1615, 14: “si sa ben accommodare a costumi altrui.” Marcello adapted the meaning that Valeriano attributed to the octopus—its symbolism of man’s ability to accommodate himself to the customs of others—to a missionary context. See Valeriano 1625, 350–51. 44 Marcello, De’ Nove Chori 1615, 13, citing John 7. However, the passage is actually John 10:16, which reads in full, “And other sheep I have, that are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd.”

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at the hands of so-called “heretics” and “infidels,” a theme that, as mentioned, was raised by the inscription on the painting of Teresa’s birth.45 Papal rhetoric countering such challenges and incursions consequently became increasingly universalist in theme, and obelisks were commonly employed as symbols of the pope’s universal authority. In the 1580s Sixtus V had excavated and restored Egyptian obelisks that the ancient caesars had brought to Rome as trophies.46 After first exorcising them, Sixtus had the obelisks erected in front of major basilicas, such as St. Peter’s, to demarcate Rome’s holiest places. Because these obelisks were crowned by crosses, the general public certainly associated them with the Catholic faith even if they could not read the Latin inscriptions. The motif of the obelisk also appeared in a wide variety of paintings, sculptures, and buildings commissioned by pontiffs during the late 16th and 17th centuries.47 Father Marcello assumed, moreover, that educated elites would understand obelisks to be symbols of the universalist environment—radiating from Rome—that Teresa occupied as an official blessed and as founder of a reform Order in service of the papacy. 5

 lessed Teresa’s Official Persona Proclaimed in the Nave Chapels’ B Imagery

The ephemeral imagery along the nave covered the entire width of the individual chapels, blocking off access to them in order to focus attention on Blessed Teresa’s holy persona (see Figure 8). The complexity of each chapel’s adornment, which centered on a painting depicting a scene from Teresa’s life, was elaborated in copious surrounding imagery, as indicated in Figure 11.48 A selective analysis of the life cycle’s primary themes highlights how they were conveyed through word, image, and song.49 45 46

On the theme of infidels, see n.38 and Figure 8: Star #2. For illustrations of the obelisk in St. Peter’s square and a brief discussion of Sixtus’s use of it as a triumphalist motif, including a description of the ceremony for its re-erection, see Jones 2008, 40–41. Also see bibliography therein. 47 Jones 2008, 13–73 and Plate I. Obelisks were widely used in other contexts in ephemeral celebrations as discussed in scholarship too vast to be cited here. 48 Marcello, De’ Nove Chori 1615, 16–19. The description of the nave chapels’ decorative ensembles is not entirely clear, and the sizes of most of the individual elements cannot be determined. My schematic diagram is based on photographs of the nave arcade. Each chapel is 14 ft. 1/16 in. wide, and the chiaroscuro paintings seem to have extended for roughly that full width. 49 This approach also helps minimize repetition throughout the book since given themes were often treated in multiple festivities.

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Figure 11 Schematic diagram of the decorations along the nave arcade of S. Maria della Scala Graphics: Martine C. Barnaby © Pamela M. Jones

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A variety of media were employed to appeal to the senses of both ordinary and educated persons. Above the chiaroscuro painting a life-size angel holding a trophy was painted in faux marble to resemble a relief sculpture, a shining star at the center enlivened the inscriptions around it, while the fascia below was ornamented with a garland flanked by scriptural phrases. A Latin elegy and epitaph were posted on faux marble tablets at the bottom center flanked by columns bearing Latin poetry and lyrics to Latin or vernacular songs. At the outer edges of each chapel were emblems and imprese (mottos) combining word and image, along with further inscriptions. The learned literary and visual imagery placed closest to viewers’ eye levels encouraged elites to read, view, discuss, and interpret it. Music had a central role in amplifying the life cycle paintings’ themes, adding another sensory dimension to the octave celebrations to be enjoyed by all attendees. Attached to the column at the bottom left of each chapel were Latin or vernacular lyrics for madrigals, ottave, and canzonette.50 Daniele V. Filippi has confirmed that the compositions posted in the chapels were intended to be set to music, and suggested that, as was common in the period, their performance would have taken place at the individual chapels where singers could read the lyrics, while lutenists (or other instrumentalists) improvised popular melodies in accompaniment.51 Father Marcello intended worshiper-listener-viewers to be active participants who were to move around the church during the octave in order to garner enjoyment, edification, and inspiration from the multimedia festivities. A brief, anonymous description of the beatification celebrations sent to the Medici court contained an enthusiastic response to this aspect, remarking that “at mass and vespers there was very mellifluous music (suavissime musiche) of voices and instruments.”52 6

The Harmonious Balance of Teresa’s Active and Contemplative Life

The first essential component of Blessed Teresa’s persona to be addressed was the harmony of her active and contemplative life. Teresa’s embodiment of this 50

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ASR, Carmelitani Scalzi in S. Maria della Scala, Busta 120: Entrate e uscite (1600–22), unpaginated, but organized chronologically. On 15 October 1614, 36 scudi were paid to “Singers on the feast of the Blessed Mother, that is, for the feast day and the octave.” On the 20th, another 8 scudi were paid to “the Musicians who came to the church in the evenings to sing and play [instruments] during the octave of our Blessed Mother.” I have benefitted greatly from discussions with Daniele V. Filippi. On madrigals, ­canzonette, and other genres, see Filippi 2008, esp. 181–208. BIA: The Medici Archive Project, Doc. ID #24833 [ASF, Mediceo del Principato 4028, f. 690].

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age-old Christian ideal was explicitly stated in the 1610 vita: “Martha and Mary were together in her, that is, the active and contemplative life were inseparably bound together in her.”53 Because this balance was the foundation of her reform, imagery elaborating it was situated in chapels keyed to Stars #6–#10, which flanked that devoted to the Renewal of Carmel (Star #8; see Figure 8).54 Although the combined imagery in each chapel elaborated that balance, it is not conveyed by the titles of their individual ephemeral paintings, which treated the following subjects: Teresa’s First Ecstasy After Twenty Barren Years, Teresa Levitates in Contemplation of the Holy Trinity, Under Divine Inspiration, Teresa Writes Books Worthy of Immortality, and Teresa Receives a Necklace and a White Dress from Mary and Joseph. The crucial topic of Teresa’s role as author is interpreted in Chapter 4 on the canonization celebrations; here I focus on another popular iconographic theme, her vision of the white dress. Our example is the imagery corresponding to Star #10, whose prerogative was the “Glory of Virginity,” and whose narrative painting treated the theme Teresa Receives a Necklace and a White Dress from Mary and Joseph.55 In Chapter 32 of the Life, Teresa began discussion of her foundation of the convent of St. Joseph’s in Avila, the very first of her reformed houses. Then in Chapter 33, she wrote about a vision that was directly related to her reform efforts there. It took place in 1561 in the Chapel of the Most Holy Christ in the Dominican church of St. Thomas in Avila. She wrote that while attending mass she experienced a rapture that was so strong she could neither see the elevation of the Host nor hear the priest speaking. Then, she experienced the vision represented in the apparato, in which she was being clothed in a white robe (Star #10): I saw our Lady at my right side and my father St. Joseph at the left, for they were putting that robe on me. I was given to understand that I was now cleansed of my sins. After being clothed and while experiencing the most marvelous delight and glory, it seemed to me then that our Lady took me by the hands. She told me I made her very happy in serving the ­glorious St. Joseph, that I should believe that what I was striving for in regard to the convent would be accomplished, that the Lord [Jesus] and those  two [Mary and Joseph] would be greatly served in it, that I shouldn’t fear there would ever be any failure in this matter even though 53

Urkiza 2015, 200–01. “Martha et Maria simul, hoc est, activa et contemplativa vita inseparabili vinculo cohaerebant.” It should be noted that Pinilla Martín (2013a), who treated written and visual sources, was largely concerned with how Teresa’s iconography developed from 1576 into the 18th century. She did not interpret Teresa’s visions as rewards for her reforms. 54 This was the central theme of chapels keyed to Stars #6, #7, #9, and #10. 55 Marcello, De’ Nove Chori 1615, 95–103.

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the obedience which was to be given was not to my liking, because they would watch over us [nuns].56 Next, Teresa continued, the Madonna gave her a gold necklace with a jeweled cross fastened to it as a sign that Christ also promised to protect her and her nuns. Similarly, this vision was discussed in the 1610 vita, under Point #18, “new Reformation of the friars and nuns.”57 How closely the chapel’s ephemeral painting resembled the corresponding engraving in the Collaert-Galle series (Figure 12) cannot be determined, but it is noteworthy that while the largest part of Collaert’s engraving is devoted to the vision, he likewise drew attention to its greater context of Teresa’s reform by including at the right a scene of the construction of the convent of St. Joseph’s. In other words, the vision of being clothed in a white dress is not simply about Teresa’s life of prayer: it is equally linked to her arduous work as a reformer. At the apex of the chapel, the large angel held the trophy of Star #10, a ­garland of flowers symbolizing the Blessed’s purity. The painting’s Latin inscription read in translation: She puts on a very white and very splendid dress, And also a golden, bejeweled necklace, Honorable signs of virginity, From the munificence of the Virgin Mother of God, And Joseph, Her [Teresa’s] Protector.58 Arranged throughout the chapel were plentiful written and visual references to Teresa’s undefiled purity, and a scriptural passage (Revelation 14:4) indicating that virgins follow the Lamb (Christ) who loves and espouses chaste hearts. Here Teresa was again likened to her virgin protector, the Madonna of Carmel. The Latin epitaph stated: “As for the outstanding cultivator of virginity, / So too for the fecund parent, noble governess of chosen virgins [Teresa’s nuns].”59

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Kavanaugh and Rodriguez 1976, 226; Efrén and Steggink 1986, 182–83. In Figure 12, the print-making process reversed the positions of Mary and Joseph in the drawing on which the composition was based. 57 Urkiza 2015, 130–35. 58 Marcello, De’ Nove Chori 1615, 95. The inscription on the engraving reads, “With the old Carmelite Rule now at the point of collapse, under God’s inspiration she endeavors to restore its original vigor among the nuns. The Mother of God and her husband, St. Joseph, appear to her, [and] by them she is clothed in a white dress, and is adorned with a precious necklace, and both vow [to support] her work.” 59 Marcello, De’ Nove Chori 1615, 101.

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Figure 12 Adriaen Collaert, Antiquam Carmelitarum regulam iam pene collapsam, dum inspirante Deo, pristino vigori inter moniales conatur restituere, Deipara Virgo, sponsusque eius S. Ioseph, ei apparent: ab his veste candida induitur, torque pretioso ornatur, et ambo suam opem spondent, pl. 14 of Vita s. virginis Teresiae a Iesu, Antwerp, Johannes Galle, 1630 Photo: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Library, Williamstown, MA

7 Teresa’s Miracles in Imitation of Christ and the Apostles, and Compared to Those of Elijah Miracles had long been requirements for elevation to sainthood, but when in the late 16th century the papacy began standardizing the criteria and processes for official holiness, miracles were given more intensive scrutiny. Eyewitnesses were interviewed and their depositions, letters, and other writings were recorded as “proof” of miracles performed during the candidate’s life, at the time of death, and posthumously.60 Consequently, the 1610 vita overseen 60

On the importance of miracles to official holiness, see Jones 2020b, 484–87, and scholarship cited therein. On the problem of the representation of miracles before they had been authorized, see Noyes 2011, esp. 815.

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by the Spanish and Italian Congregations as part of Teresa’s in specie process placed considerable emphasis on her miracles.61 However, only a few of them had been accepted by the auditors of the Sacra Rota prior to her beatification in April 1614.62 Father Marcello noted in his book that Teresa had performed numerous miracles, “although not all are written down,” and that the Congregation of Rites had approved some of them.63 S. Maria della Scala’s chapel linked to Star #11’s prerogative the “Excellence of Miracles,” contained references to three miracles by Teresa, only one of which had been officially approved. Remarkably, the chapel’s centerpiece itself depicted an unapproved miracle: Teresa Mocks Death by Reviving a Dead Boy. Father Marcello chose to highlight it anyway because its specific theme was needed as a counterpart to the painting across the nave (Star #5 in Figure 8): Teresa Mocks Jewels Shown to Her [by a noblewoman]. Perhaps he assumed the copious imagery around the painting of the unofficial miracle would soften his transgression, but however that might be there is no evidence that any objections were raised. According to Point #85 of the 1610 vita, Teresa’s resuscitation miracle had occurred in 1562 when she was building her first convent, St. Joseph’s in Avila.64 The boy was her nephew, and he was playing on the construction site when a beam fell on him. Teresa, learning of the accident, hurried to the scene only to find her nephew dead. Taking him in her arms, she beseeched God to save him, and the boy was revived in perfect health. This subject had been included in the earlier Collaert-Galle series of engravings (1613) intended to promote Teresa’s cause (Figure 13). The apparato’s ephemeral painting is likely to have employed the same typical narrative strategy of placing the miracle in the foreground with a small scene of the disaster in the background. The Latin elegy posted in the chapel made reference to the miracle of the resuscitation and to two other miracles not depicted. The elegy compares Teresa’s miracles to those of Elijah, the Old Testament prophet of Mount Carmel, from whom the 12th-century founders of the Carmelite Order had drawn inspiration. Eventually Elijah was claimed as the Order’s founder, the Italian Congregation’s official dedicatee. In the apparato, Teresa, founder of 61

Urkiza 2015, 220–59. Of the vita’s 117 Points, #83–117 presented the many miracles attributed to her. 62 See Chapter 1, n.51 on the relatii of 1613 (BAV) and 1616 (Urkiza 2016). On 6 November 1613 the Sacra Rota submitted to Paul V its official relatio that approved Teresa’s miracles. BAV, Vat. lat. 6345, fols. 49r–80v; Urkiza 2016, 408–54. The relatio recorded both the miracles and witnesses’ supporting testimonies. See the Introduction, 4−6 on the processes for sanctity. 63 Marcello, De’ Nove Chori 1615, 104. 64 Urkiza 2015, 220–23.

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Figure 13 Adriaen Collaert, Dum Deo duce properat ad primi monasterij constructionem, consobrinum infantulum, parietis ruinâ suffocatum, fiducia exuberans Virgo, Deo suppliciter commendat: mox vitae reddit, et charo pignore moestam matrem solatur, pl. 15 of Vita s. virginis Teresiae a Iesu, Antwerp, Johannes Galle, 1630 Photo: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Library, Williamstown, MA

the Discalced Carmelites, was proclaimed to be Elijah’s spiritual daughter and miracle-making counterpart. The Latin elegy devoted to Teresa’s miracles read in translation: Observe the miracles and recognize the offspring [Teresa], worthy of her [spiritual] parent, Elijah. He fed the family of Sarephtana; she the cloister of virgins through some months, having increased their flour. He crossed the divided Jordan [River] with dry feet, the waves rising into mounds. She [crossed] a river, having entered with a carriage with the river too high. About to perish, the wheels rubbed the surface of the waters smooth

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like a marble pavement, [and] she escaped [unharmed]. Both [Elijah and Teresa] were safe. With her prayers a boy was revived after he had died. And however many portents [are attributed] to each none are lesser ones [than these]. So happily in this most famous virgin does posterity rival antiquity!65 The first of Teresa’s miracles mentioned in the elegy was her multiplication of wheat at her convent of St. Anne in Villanueva de la Zara, which resembled Elijah’s feeding of Sarephtana’s family. Teresa’s nuns lived on alms, and she taught them that God would provide for their every need. But when their supply of wheat dwindled to feed them for only one month and donations were lacking, Teresa prayed to God, who worked a miracle through her: The wheat supply increased so much it could feed the nuns for six months. The miracle was listed first among those performed during her life in the Sacra Rota’s relatio, where it was compared to Jesus’s multiplication of the loaves and fishes to feed 5,000 persons as recounted in John 6:1–14. Nevertheless it was not selected as the chapel’s visual centerpiece because it did not show Teresa raising the dead.66 Like Elijah, who crossed the turbulent waters of the Jordan without getting wet, the elegy noted that Teresa crossed a swollen river safely due to her carriage’s wheels not having penetrated the water’s surface. Presumably this event occurred during one of her many perilous travels to found reformed convents and friaries, but it does not closely resemble any of the episodes she recounted in her Book of Foundations, nor was it addressed in the 1610 vita. The elegy also briefly alluded to Teresa’s revival of her nephew, but without comparing her miracle to one by Elijah. Many viewers would have been able to make analogies on their own, however, because holy persons’ self-­ mortifications, martyrdoms, deeds, and miracles were understood as inspired by Christ and the apostles. No doubt Teresa Mocks Death by Reviving a Dead Boy would have recalled to many such widely known miracles as Christ’s Raising of Lazarus (John 11:1–44) and St. Peter’s Raising of Tabitha (Acts 9:36–42). In short, Father Marcello chose to represent miracles attributed to Teresa that could elicit in beholders’ minds those of Christ and the apostles. Moreover, he expanded beyond a comparison of the new blessed to the Madonna

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Marcello, De’ Nove Chori 1615, 109. For the relatio’s discussion of miracles, see Urkiza 2016, 408–54; on wheat, 412–16. Also BAV, Vat. lat. 6345, fols. 49r–80v; on wheat, fols. 52r–55r. The miracle was also treated in the 1610 vita, for which see Urkiza 2015, Point 88 on 222–25.

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of Carmel, in comparing Teresa as founder of the Discalced Carmelites with Elijah, founder of the Carmelites. 8

Teresa’s Sublime Virtues and Title of Sanctity

Finally, we turn to the two largest and most elaborately adorned spaces in S. Maria della Scala, the chapels to the left and right of the crossing, in which the apparato’s thematic apogees were reached: Teresa’s heroic virtues and title of sanctity (Stars #4 and 12). Particularly innovative were the imposing decorative ensembles, which Father Marcello termed macchine, that heightened the dramatic impact of these exalted themes. The left crossing chapel was the location of Star #4, whose prerogative was “The Sublimity of Her Virtue,” and its chiaroscuro painting Teresa Takes Her Vows as a Nun.67 After entering the convent of the Incarnation in Avila, the subject of Star #3’s chiaroscuro painting, Teresa spent a year as a novice before taking her final vows at age 22 on 3 November 1537. Although not included in the Collaert-Galle engraved series, and mentioned only in passing in the 1610 vita, Teresa herself wrote eloquently about it in Chapter 3 of her Life: I remember the kind of profession I made and the great resolve and ­happiness with which I made it and the espousal that I entered in with You [Jesus]. I cannot speak of this without tears.68 The ephemeral painting’s Latin inscription, translated here, underlined the seriousness with which Teresa took her final vows, and her determination to live virtuously as a professed nun: The same [Teresa] always performed honestly all things that followed [in her religious life], with very great thanks to God. She greatly, truly put faith in her new vow, and with firmness and loftiness proclaims every resolute virtue.69 Virtues, like miracles, were requirements for official holiness. During the in specie stage of Teresa’s process (1609–10) they were examined under the subtitle 67 68

On this chapel, see Marcello, De’ Nove Chori 1615, 42–58. Urkiza 2015, Point 4, 114–15; quotation at 114. Kavanaugh and Rodriguez 1976, 42; Efrén and Steggink 1976, 35. 69 Marcello, De’ Nove Chori 1615, 44.

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“On the Heroic Virtues of the Servant of God,” wherein her humility and charity received special emphasis.70 In the chapel devoted to the “Sublimity of Her Virtue,” Teresa’s humility, which was highlighted on the right side, was seen first when walking around the church due to the apparato’s counter-clockwise orientation. On the left, the viewer then encountered imagery of her more exalted charity. Among the imagery on the chapel’s right side was an emblem of humility derived from Pliny’s Natural History: a whale, whose long eyelashes would have impeded its sight had it not been for a small fish that guided it.71 Posted nearby was a vernacular madrigal, translated here, treating Teresa’s humility that would have been sung aloud during the festivities while a lutenist improvised a popular melody: If to the immense Whale a little fish did not indicate the path, the way not impressed, it would hit and thus shatter on reefs it encountered, and in places that hindered it. Thus, whatever more considerable virtue arises, if Humility did not perceive it, foolish pride [would take its course]. O, Blessed Teresa, by whom in the sea of this treacherous life the road is secured, [you are] such a beautiful guide!72 At the bottom, the macchina’s centerpiece was a large painting depicting 12 “hieroglyphs” (or symbols) suspended from a cord as trophies. These widely known symbols of virtues would have been recognized by all Catholic beholders: Charity (a flame), Faith (a mirror), Hope (an anchor), Prudence (a serpent), Justice (a balance), Fortitude (a column), Temperance (a bridle), Religion (a thurible), Obedience (a yoke), Gratitude (a stork), Penitence (thorns, whips, and other “instruments of pain”), and Humility (sackcloth or a cilice). Father 70

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Urkiza 2015, 168–220; on charity, 206–10, on humility, 182–84. The vita’s section on virtues included all those that Marcello used in the apparato, with the exceptions of Justice and Temperance. However, a certain fluidity was involved because virtues were also treated in the document’s narratives of her life story. Pliny the Elder 1940, Book IX, XLVII.88; LCL, 353, 220–21. Marcello, De’ Nove Chori 1615, 50.

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Marcello wrote that the symbols were taken from scripture, and he identified each and every source. The macchina’s inscription insisted on the interrelationship between the blessed’s virtues and deeds: “Mystical symbols of Teresa’s virtues in her most honorable deeds, expressed as beautifully as possible, sketched here in colors.”73 On the chapel’s left side under the fascia, an impresa called attention to Teresa’s charity, the mother of the virtues. The small painting showed mortar burning in water, which instead of extinguishing the flame—charity’s time-honored symbol—made it grow higher, as indicated by the motto “On the contrary, to be nourished.” Clarifying this point was the scriptural passage: Many waters could not extinguish charity (Canticles 8:7). Father Marcello explained in his commentary that Teresa’s virtues grew ever stronger over time. The centerpiece of the macchina extolling the Teresa’s charity was a painting of a gold chain composed of 12 large, interconnected rings. At either end hung a painted heart encircled by rays. Each of the rings was labeled with one of Teresa’s virtues. Starting from the top, the virtues were: Charity, Faith, Hope, Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance, Religion, Obedience, Gratitude, Penitence, and Humility.74 His invention, he wrote, was based on Chapter 3 of the treatise On Divine Names by “Father St. Dionysius” who compared the chain to prayer, which connects man to God.75 Father Marcello added: Consider that [in this chain] Humility made almost a base, and Charity almost the capital; the former touched the heart of our Blessed [Teresa], and the latter the heart of God.76 In the macchina Charity—represented as a flame—connected Teresa’s heart to that of God. This was a reference to the transverberation, in which the angel pierced her heart, setting it aflame with love of God. The wounds of love resulted in her earthly death and eternal life. Remarkably, although Father Marcello’s apparato made other similar references to the well-known iconographic theme, the festive program did not include a narrative depiction of the miraculous event. It was only in 1615, a year after the festivities, that Palma

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Marcello, De’ Nove Chori 1615, 58. They included the theological virtues, charity, hope, and faith, and the cardinal virtues, justice, prudence, temperance, and fortitude. For the passage to which Marcello referred, see Rolt 1920, 45. The author is now identified as pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, a Christian philosopher and theologian of the late 5th to early 6th century. Marcello, De’ Nove Chori 1615, 56.

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Giovane’s permanent altarpiece of the Ecstasy of Teresa (that is, the Transverberation), was installed in S. Maria della Scala; it is analyzed in Chapter 5.77 Father Marcello’s decorative program culminated in the large chapel to the right of the crossing, keyed to Star #12, “Title of Sanctity.”78 Its monumental chiaroscuro painting represented Teresa’s Death and Her Soul’s Ascension into Heaven. Teresa died in Alba de Tormes, Spain, on 5 October 1582, which due to the Gregorian calendar’s correction instituted that very year became 15 ­October. However, her feast day was celebrated on 5 October until after her canonization, when Urban VIII (r.1623–44) changed it to the 15th to conform to the new calendar.79 At the chapel’s summit, the angel held a church as a trophy. The painting depicting Teresa’s Death and Her Soul’s Ascension into Heaven bore a Latin inscription that reads in translation: The doer of deeds flourished through autumn, and at a trace past her sixtieth year, rays breaking through the window by night, her very pure soul in the form of a dove flew and hurried toward the army of saints, not to die, but to breathe out love there. 1582.80 The 1610 vita recorded that on her deathbed Teresa received communion and extreme unction. Then it described her final hours and death: At the 17th hour [5pm] she lay back on her side in the way the blessed Magdalene is painted, holding the crucifix, which never left her hands until the time of her burial. While in prayer, she was in great peace and stillness, without any movement of her body, remaining in ecstasy the entire day until nine at night, at which hour she gave her soul to her ­Creator the same day as the [feast] day of St. Francis [of Assisi], in the year 1582.81

77 78 79 80 81

Chapter 5, 128−31. On this chapel, see Marcello, De’ Nove Chori 1615, 110–31. For the Gregorian calendar’s importance for the liturgical calendar and cult of saints, see Ditchfield 2019, 133–37. Marcello, De’ Nove Chori 1615, 111. Urkiza 2015, 226–29; quotation on 228–29.

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Figure 14 Adriaen Collaert, Amoris ferventissimo impetu vulnerata e viuis excedit ao1589, aetatis suae 68, eiusque morientis lectulo cum Angelorum et plurium Sanctorum coronâ Christus assistit, et caelo expanso, ex ore Virginis columba candidissima evolat, pl. 24 of Vita s. virginis Teresiae a Iesu, Antwerp, Johannes Galle, 1630 Photo: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Library, Williamstown, MA

The scene of Teresa’s death as recounted in the 1610 vita and as described in the inscription to the apparato’s painting has several features in common with the image in the Collaert-Galle series (Figure 14). Like the painting in Father Marcello’s chapel, the engraving depicts Teresa’s soul in the form of a dove (just below Christ’s right arm), and portrays Teresa reclining with the crucifix in her arms, as Mary Magdalene was depicted.82 The apparato’s chiaroscuro painting, however, must also have included rays of divine light shining through Teresa’s

82

The engraving’s inscription reads, “Wounded by the very fervent ardor of love, she departed life in the year 1589 [sic] at age 68 [sic], and at her death bed when Christ was nearby with an assembly of angels and saints, heaven opened up and a very white dove flew out of the Virgin’s mouth.” Teresa actually died in 1582 (as noted correctly in the apparato) at age 67.

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window, and the “army of saints” toward whom her soul was hurrying, as mentioned in the inscription. As in the other crossing chapel, the adornments in this one were especially copious. The imagery on its right side focused on the blessed’s incorrupt body, which resulted in the initiation of Teresa’s process for official holiness. The discovery that her unembalmed body had nevertheless remained perfectly intact for nine years following her death inspired devotion among the laity and clergy. As Gillian T.W. Ahlgren noted, when in 1595 Diego de Yepes viewed Teresa’s body in Alba and found fresh blood flowing from it, he soaked it up with some handkerchiefs. He then advised King Philip II, whom he served as confessor, to urge Camillo Gaetano, the papal nuncio, to begin gathering testimonials from all over Spain.83 Not unexpectedly, the miracle of Teresa’s incorrupt, fragrant body was approved by the Congregation of Rites in 1613.84 Among the imagery embellishing this theme was a small painted impresa of a piece of linen with a great flame in the middle, and the phrase “It will be ravaged in vain.” Its scriptural passage derived from Ecclesiasticus 51:6, which reads, From the oppression of the flame which surrounded me, and in the midst of the fire I was not burnt.85 Nearby, was an emblem of a rainbow touching a sapling. Father Marcello explained that Pliny had written in the Natural History that the rainbow’s arc made the tree fragrant.86 The macchina on the right, which bore the inscription “On Teresa on Earth,” consisted of a three-dimensional faux marble sepulcher (probably made of wood), with symbols of Teresa’s perfectly preserved body (Figure 15).87 Around it were five over-life-size statues in the round (probably made of plaster) that were colored to resemble bronze.88 Two of them supported the sarcophagus. Whereas one of the sculptured figures bore the inscription “Incorruptibility of the Body,” the other’s inscription read “Memory of Life.” The remaining three statues, also about 7 to 9 ft. high, were situated above the sarcophagus. The 83 84 85 86 87

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Ahlgren 1998, 148–49. Miracles were in turn attributed to various handkerchiefs and other relics suffused with her blood and fragrant bodily fluids. Also see Eire 1995, 369–510. Urkiza 2016, 425–34 for the miracle’s treatment in the 1616 relatio. In Marcello (De’ Nove Chori 1615, 113) this passage is incorrectly cited as Ecclesiasticus 71. Pliny the Elder 1945, Book XII, LII.110; LCL, 370, 78–79, concerning the aspalathus shrub. Figure 15 is a schematic diagram, an approximation of the appearance of the temporary decorations based on photographs of the chapel itself (for proportions). To allow space for the two macchine, the symbols and inscriptions must have been suspended relatively high up, as shown here. The sculptural groupings are based on Marcello’s descriptions and are sketchily rendered because nothing is known about their styles. Marcello did not provide dimensions of these large sculptured figures. However, the crossing chapels are 58 ft. 7 in. high, and even if the macchine occupied only one third of that height, as seen in Figure 11, the figures would have been about 7 to 9 ft. tall.

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Figure 15 Schematic diagram of the decorations in the right crossing chapel of S. Maria della Scala Graphics: Martine C. Barnaby © Pamela M. Jones

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figure on the right carried the inscription “Grace of Salvation.” The statue on the left held the inscription “Veneration of the People” and looked toward the sarcophagus with her hands in prayer. In the center Fame held a trumpet in her left hand, and with her right pointed to the epitaph on the sarcophagus, which read “Whatever I praise is about Teresa.” The chapel’s left side, which focused on the ascent of Teresa’s soul into heaven, was similarly adorned. Among the many symbols was the chariot of Elijah, founder of the Carmelite Order, to whom Teresa was again compared. The chariot’s scriptural passage was taken from 4 Kings 2:11: Behold a fiery ­chariot, and fiery horses parted them both asunder, and Elijah went up by a ­whirlwind into heaven. Father Marcello indicated in his book that the Discalced Carmelites’ founder, Blessed Teresa, was carried up to heaven by the fiery chariot of love and emerged victorious after her difficult battles. Over the macchina on this side of the chapel was the inscription “On Teresa in Heaven.” Father Marcello explained that the macchina’s imagery depicted the characteristics that accounted for the blessed’s ascent into heaven. A monumental throne was raised on five steps made to look like marble or ivory, on which were inscriptions that Father Marcello stated referred to reasons theologians gave for why persons went to heaven. The first step’s inscription referred to life before the soul’s gradual move toward spiritual ascent: “They are fixed to the body.” The second step’s inscription was “On behalf of suffering, ardor, impassibility of pain”; that of the third step “On behalf of earthly things, ­abdication, subtlety.” The fourth step bore the text “On behalf of toils, agility.” Finally, the fifth step’s inscription read “On behalf of its contempt [i.e., contempt of the world], glory.” Moving upward, the throne’s predella bore the phrase “Souls are rendered.” On the throne’s base were small paintings of the gifts of the soul: “On behalf of Faith, Vision / On behalf of Hope, Understanding / On behalf of Charity, Fruition.” The series of inscriptions culminated with that on the throne’s upright back: “On behalf of great merits, / Exceeding beatitude.” A great splendor of light on either side of the throne—presumably gilded rays of wood or plaster, no doubt enhanced by flickering candlelight— contained the words “Light of Glory.” Last of all, a large angel sculpted in the round that was suspended in the air over the throne’s canopy held a white crown on which was inscribed “On behalf of purest virginity.” The dramatic effects throughout the church, but especially in the dome (discussed earlier) and in the chapel celebrating Teresa’s elevation to the rank of blessed, deserve emphasis for their novelty in this kind of apparato—one honoring a newly elevated holy person. In 2011, before Marcello’s apparato was known in the scholarship, Vittorio Casale credited Gianlorenzo Bernini

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with the introduction of large-scale sculptures in the round, made of stucco or papier mâché, in canonization apparati in St. Peter’s, initially in that for St. Elizabeth of Portugal in 1625—which, however, postdated Father Marcello’s decorative program for Teresa by 11 years.89 I do not mean to imply that the artistic styles of Father Marcello’s monumental sculptures (about which nothing is known) were on a par with those of Bernini, but the concetto was already there. The lighting effects and a variety of media on a monumental scale employed by Father Marcello enhanced the imagery’s visibility, and strongly appealed to beholders’ senses with the aim of inspiring heartfelt devotion. Familiarity with the Quarant’ Ore (Forty Hours Devotion), in which the venerated Host was surrounded by such temporary imagery as blazing light and a host of angels in the clouds, certainly informed his decorative program for S. Maria della Scala.90 In addition, his use of monumental sculptures in conjunction with inscriptions recalls similarly decorated temporary catafalques, the focal points of funeral apparati. That of Sixtus V, erected in S. Maria Maggiore in 1591 when Father Marcello was living in Rome, even incorporated obelisks.91 Many viewers would have noticed these similarities, and elites who patronized the arts would have been especially delighted by them. Returning to the culmination of S. Maria della Scala’s decorations, the right crossing chapel (Star #12) devoted to Blessed Teresa’s title of sanctity, it is not surprising that the beatification itself was addressed explicitly. A vernacular song (canzone) posted on one of its columns, which would have been sung during the octave festivities, together with a Latin elegy on one of its faux marble plaques highlighted the august occasion. The Latin elegy, translated here, praised Pope Paul V for elevating Teresa to the status of blessed. Addressed to beholder-devotees, it read in part: Here, finally, genuflect. The Virgin [Teresa has been] entered into the most noble [register] of the blesseds .... Most deservedly blessed Virgin [Teresa], cultivate 89 90

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Casale 2011, 77 and Plate XL. The pioneering study of apparati for the Quarant’ Ore is Weil 1974; also see Witte 2019 and bibliography therein. For various kinds of ephemeral festivities in early modern Rome and on the relationship between temporary and permanent decorations, see Witte and n.91 below. On catafalques, see Schraven 2014; on that of Sixtus, see 199–201 and Figure 44. Also see n.90.

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the whole world, the whole republic of Christ, your glittering family that has served you with prayers. Protect [us] from dangers, enrich [us] with benefits.92 Father Marcello’s unusually elaborate and artistically sophisticated decorative program in S. Maria della Scala employed words, images, and music to convey the essential features of Blessed Teresa’s holiness. As a fecund virgin mother, Teresa was compared to the Madonna of Carmel; as founder of the Discalced Carmelite Order, she was compared to the prophet Elijah, the reputed founder of the venerable Carmelite Order. The balance of her active and contemplative life was pronounced to be the very foundation of her reform, for which she received visions as rewards from Christ. As a miracle-worker, with God’s grace, she was regarded as an efficacious intercessor for the world’s faithful. Moreover, Father Marcello’s Roman apparato sought to ingratiate the pontiff by triumphantly proclaiming Teresa’s role as the matriarch of a worldwide ­missionary Order in the service of the Universal Church. 92 Marcello, De’ Nove Chori 1615, 124–25.

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”Founder and Doctor and Virgin”: Spanish Holy Woman in Viceregal Naples In 1602, two years after Pope Clement VIII created the Discalced Carmelites’ autonomous Spanish and Italian Congregations, the latter expanded to Naples, capital city of the Kingdom of Naples and part of the global Spanish empire extending from Iberia to the Americas, southern Italy, and the Philippines. Under the terms of the Iberian Union of 1580–1640, Spain also ruled Portuguese Asia, where the Italian Congregation’s missions were located.1 In the 17th century Spanish Naples was still a feudal dependency of the papacy, and therefore the city’s Discalced Carmelite foundations were subject to the Italian Congregation, not the Spanish one.2 The first two Neapolitan foundations were the Madre di Dio for men (1602) and S. Giuseppe a Pontecorvo for women (1607).3 Thus, by the time of Teresa’s beatification in 1614 Naples, like Genoa, had two foundations. Surviving evidence for Teresa’s beatification festivities centers solely on the male foundation, the Madre di Dio. 1 Pedro de la Madre de Dios, Elite Patrons, and the Italian Congregation’s Expansion to Naples Father Pedro de la Madre de Dios, Apostolic Preacher to Clement VIII and first head of the Italian Congregation in Rome, was responsible for its expansion to

1 See the Introduction, 7−8, on the terminology of rule and an explanation of my choice of the word “empire.” 2 Since the early 12th century, the Kingdom of Sicily including Naples and southern Italy, had been a feudal dependency of the papacy, and although the name of the kingdom (and its rulers) changed over the centuries, its feudal status continued until the 18th century. See Astarita 2013, 2. The Italian Congregation was not divided into provinces until 1617, at which point Naples was placed under the jurisdiction of the Roman Province, whose headquarters was at S. Maria della Scala. The Province of Naples was established in 1626, four years after Teresa’s canonization. See Fortes 1990, xxvii. 3 The nuns’ foundation was suppressed in 1800 and the original church does not survive. See Ambrosio de S. Teresa 1950, 369; Alasino, Campi, and di Luggo 2016, 255–56. Greater detail is provided in AGOCD, Plut. 114, a. Fondatione delle Monache Carmelitane Scalze di Napoli sotto il titolo del Gloriosissimo Patriarcha San Gioseppe. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004548916_005

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Naples.4 In 1602 he visited the city at the request of (unidentified) Neapolitan elites to preach in the church of SS. Annunziata, one of Naples’s most important religious complexes. It comprised a church, conservatory for poor girls, and an orphanage that was administered by the Confraternita dei Penitenti (Confraternity of Penitents), whose noble members presumably attended Father Pedro’s sermons.5 At the end of his short stay, Cardinal Alfonso Gesualdo gave Father Pedro permission to found a friary in the city. The friary of the Madre di Dio (Mother of God) and its church were financed by members of the highest echelons of Neapolitan society—regional barons and nobility as well as Spaniards. An anonymous, unpublished manuscript in the Order’s Roman archive states that the friary was funded by the donation of 14,285 scudi from multiple donors, most importantly Marcos de Gorostiolo, Spanish Regent of the Chancellery that was part of the viceregal government. The Neapolitan noblewoman Signora Vittoria Caracciolo, a pious devotee of Teresa, provided 2,000 ducats, while Lord Agostino Saluzzo and Don Alfonso Caetano d’Aragona, the Duke of Laurenzana, also made significant (unspecified) donations.6 This allowed Father Pedro to purchase the Duke of Nocera’s palace outside the walls to the north of the city, which was transformed into a friary.7 Founded on 9 October 1602, the friary was dedicated to the Madre di Dio in homage to Pedro de la Madre de Dios (known in Italy as Pietro della Madre di Dio), who had since returned to Rome, and in honor of Mary herself because its foundation occurred two days after the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.8 A few years later, in March 1605, the Congregation reportedly received the additional donation of 5,000 ducats from high-ranking Neapolitans in order to build the church of the Madre di Dio.9 4 On Father Pedro’s role, see: D’Engenio 1623, 602; Catalani 1845:2, 17; Galante 1872, 399; ­Ambrosio de S. Teresa 1950, 368–69; Regina 2004, 287. Also see the Introduction, 4, and Chapter 2, 41. He served provisionally as the Italian Congregation’s Commissary General at S. Maria della Scala until a Prepositor General could be elected. 5 On the Annunziata, see Galante 1872, 260–71. The church (except for the sacristy) was destroyed by fire in 1757, then reconstructed by Luigi Vanvitelli. The orphanage was abolished in the 1870s. Also see Chapter 6, 142. 6 AGOCD, Plut. 109, a. Prov. Neapoli-Napoli, Madre di Dio-Historia Conv. 1602–1619, 8–9. Some of the donations were recorded in scudi (used in Rome) and others in ducats, the official currency in Spanish Naples. On Gorostiolo, see Gaetana Intorcia, Magistrature del regno di Napoli. Analisi prosopografica, secc. XVI–XVII, Naples, 1987, 320. The Caracciolo, Saluzzo, and Gaetani (or Caetani) were all noble families. 7 Duke of Nocera was a title of the Carafa family. 8 AGOCD, Plut. 109, a. Prov. Neapoli-Napoli, Madre di Dio-Historia Conv. 1602–1619, 2. 9 AGOCD, Plut. 109, a. Prov. Neapoli-Napoli, Madre di Dio-Historia Conv. 1602–1619, 2. The document incorrectly states that the donations were made by the Duke of Miranda and Signora

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The Friary and Church of the Madre di Dio

As seen on Alessandro Baratta’s map of Naples of 1627, the friary and church of the Madre di Dio were outside the city walls along an extension of Via Toledo, one of Naples’s straightest and broadest thoroughfares.10 Via Toledo was a major viceregal processional route, from which Viceroy Pedro Fernández de Castro would have approached the church for the beatification festivities (Figure 16).11 The church conformed with the Italian Congregation’s preferred plan with chapels lining the basilica’s nave and crossing, a deep tribune, and a dome surmounting the crossing.12 The Madre di Dio resembled S. Maria della Scala in Rome, but was larger: It had four rather than three chapels on either side of the nave, and the chapels were separated from each other by broader piers, each of which was veneered with two giant pilasters (cf. Figure 6).13 Consecrated in 1612 by Cardinal Antonio Acquaviva, it was approached through a large piazza and surrounded by verdant gardens. Although in essence the plan of the Madre di Dio still survives in the church S. Teresa degli Scalzi (St. Teresa of the Discalced Carmelites), to whom it was rededicated at the time of her canonization in 1622, considerable changes were made over the centuries. In 1652, the renowned Neapolitan architect Cosimo Fanzago created its new facade. Moreover, when in the early 19th century the French government lowered the original street to create easier access to the Capodimonte district, the church’s piazza was demolished and S. Teresa degli Scalzi was stranded high above the street, necessitating the construction of a steep staircase in 1835. Due to its poor condition, the church has been closed

10 11 12

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Vittoria Spinelli, his wife. In fact Vittoria Spinelli was the wife of Giovanni Carafa, Duke of Maddaloni. Therefore, the funds were either donated by them or by Duchess Vittoria and a member of the noble Gaetani family, who had been Dukes of Miranda since 1298. Alessandro Baratta (Naples 1583–1632 or later) created the first perspectival map of Naples made in the city, an engraving on 15 sheets. See Valerio 2013, 63, 76–78. It was not until 1676 that Via Toledo became the city’s single most important artery. See Sodano 2013, 122. This is not explicitly stated in the documents, but there is no reason why he would have taken a circuitous route in lieu of a direct one normally used for official processions. On the plans, see Sturm 2015; also Chapters 1, 21−22, and 2, 37 and Figure 6, herein­. The manuscript description mentions 11 altars, one of which was the high altar, thus ­indicating that there were four altars on each side of the nave, and one on each side of the ­crossing. See AGOCD, Plut. 109, a. Prov. Neapoli-Napoli, Madre di Dio-Historia Conv. 1602–1619, 79. The engraving by Giovanni Carafa, Duke of Noja, Mappa topografica della città di Napoli e de’ suoi contorni, 1775, shows not the original plan of the Madre di Dio, but a later phase of the church’s development (#524). For the map, see dl.dnnonline.it/­ handle/120.500.12113/1576. Accessed 8 November 2019.

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Figure 16 Alessandro Baratta, Fidelissimae urbis neapolitanae cum omnibus viis accurata et nova delineatio aeditam in luce ab Alexandro Baratta MDCXXVII, detail Photo: © The British Library Board, Maps.*24045.(2) Graphics: Martine C. Barnaby © Pamela M. Jones

for renovation intermittently over the past decades, and permanently in late fall 2019.14 3 Precious Furnishings and Devotional Objects Made for Blessed Teresa’s Beatification Celebrations A detailed “List of Notable Things Made in Naples for the Apparato of the Celebration of the Blessed Mother [Teresa] of Jesus” is included in the unpublished 14

On the additions, including new chapels, and renovations, see: Regina 2004, 287–89; Ambrosio di S. Teresa 1950, 368–69; Catalani 1845:2, 17–23. The Discalced Carmelites no longer occupy the friary, which had to be entirely rebuilt in the late 19th century following the suppressions. Since October 2018, the friary of S. Teresa degli Scalzi has served as the Neapolitan headquarters of the recent religious community known as the Ricostruttori nella Preghiera.

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manuscript history found in the Order’s Roman archive.15 All of Teresa’s festivities considered in my study incorporated expensive furnishings and devotional objects, but similarly detailed records do not survive.16 The list of those made for the beatification festivities in the Madre di Dio, complete with descriptions and valuations of many, offers a remarkable view of the range and richness of the church’s adornments. All were gifts from wealthy patrons and devotees of Teresa, since the Discalced Carmelites relied entirely on donations. The most expensive single item—valued at a staggering 800 ducats—was a life-size, bust-length silver reliquary statue of Blessed Teresa.17 Her head and arms were made of silver, with the rest of her figure presumably made of wood covered with silver and gold leaf. Neither the relic it contained nor a donor’s name was specified. Given the reliquary’s expense, it may have been financed by multiple patrons. The magnificent reliquary was described as depicting Blessed Teresa with her hands clasped in prayer, looking upward toward heaven. The dart in her heart conveyed the suffering she experienced when receiving the wounds of divine love during the transverberation, and the crown signified her new status as a blessed in heaven. In 1715, this now-lost reliquary was presumably melted down so that Andrea and Domenico De Blasio could create its replacement, a reliquary made entirely of silver with gilding.18 Silver itself was an important signifier of Spanish wealth, as many viewers of the Madre di Dio’s numerous silver reliquary statues, artificial flowers, and altar furnishings would have known. Derived from Andean mines, Spanish silver was traded worldwide, bringing considerable income to the crown. At the same time, due to its properties of reflection and refraction, silver had the

15 16 17 18

AGOCD, Plut. 109, a. Prov. Neapoli-Napoli, Madre di Dio-Historia Conv. 1602–1619, 75–76. This supports Hills’s argument that the pervasive framework of meridionalismo has resulted in a biased assessment of Neapolitans’ artistic taste as unduly concerned with ornamental features and expensive materials. See Hills 2017/18, esp. 4–10. AGOCD, Plut. 109, a. Prov. Neapoli-Napoli, Madre di Dio-Historia Conv. 1602–1619, 75; it was described as 3 palmi high (approximately 2 ft. 7in.) and weighing more than 65 Neapolitan libre (roughly 46 lbs). Made for S. Teresa degli Scalzi, the replacement reliquary bust is now in the Treasury of the Cathedral of San Gennaro. See Catello and Catello 2000, 102, and Plate XLVI on 175. The 18th-century reliquary drew attention to Teresa’s wounds of love by means of the gilded flaming heart pierced by a dart prominently situated on her breast. The De Blasios also presented Teresa holding a quill and resting her left hand on a book. The book is inscribed with Teresa’s motto Aut Pati, aut mori. Although Teresa’s role as author was not depicted in the 1614 reliquary, it was an important theme of other imagery created for the beatification festivities at the Madre di Dio.

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ability to animate objects, as Helen Hills has noted.19 In the flickering candlelight of the dark church, Teresa’s reliquary would have shimmered, blurred, and seemed to come alive, thus heightening perceptions of her holiness and appealing to the senses of beholder-worshipers. Another particularly precious object made for the occasion was described as: A frontal for the altar of the Blessed Mother [Teresa] with the gold background worked entirely with the needle, embroidered above with little flowers of silk and gold and, in the middle of the field, there is the Blessed Mother in Glory. On the right is a phoenix in the fire with the motto Aut Pati, aut mori (Either to suffer or to die), on the left a pelican that [pecks] open its breast with the motto Aut Amare, aut mori (Either to love or to die), valued at 500 ducats.20 Like most of the era’s textiles, this one has not survived. An early modern altar frontal with the Madonna in Glory from the Neapolitan church of S. Chiara shares some of the same features: a (partly) gold background, intricately embroidered flowers and birds (including a pelican over the Madonna), and a lavish use of gold and silver threads.21 The Madre di Dio’s altar frontal must have been comparably ornate and finely executed. The iconography of Blessed Teresa’s altar frontal deserves special attention because it connects her role as protector of Naples with that of the Spanish viceregal government, while incorporating widely used elements of her iconography. As an official blessed she was shown “in glory,” presumably surrounded by angels. On the frontal’s right side was embroidered Teresa’s motto, Aut Pati, aut mori (Either to suffer or die). Mentioned in the 1610 vita, part of her in specie process, this motto was also widely used in beatification imagery in Spain.22 The motto’s popularity was due to its expression of Teresa’s suffering of self-mortification in the cloister in lieu of her girlhood desire to be martyred for Christ at the hands of Muslims in North Africa.23 Whereas the 19 20 21 22 23

On the trade in silver and its ability to animate objects, see Hills 2012, 13–18 (esp. 16). See Chapter 6 herein for a discussion of the famous gilt silver reliquary bust of S. Gennaro (Figure 46). AGOCD, Plut. 109, a. Prov. Neapoli-Napoli, Madre di Dio-Historia Conv. 1602–1619, 75. The frontal is in the Museo di S. Chiara. No date is provided for the work, which appears to be from the 17th or 18th century. The silver threads have oxidized. The other birds are doves and eagles. For the 1610 vita, see Urkiza 2015, 184–85. On this motto in a Spanish context, see Bernal 2019, 159–81, esp. 165. On this theme, see Jones 2015; also Chapter 2, n.38 on 50.

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Moors had been Spain’s traditional enemies, in the early 17th century it was the Muslim Turks who posed the greatest threat to Spanish Naples, and from whom the viceroy sought to protect his subjects. The frontal’s accompanying phoenix symbolized rebirth. Legend had it that during the course of its long life, the phoenix periodically immolated itself on a pyre, then arose from the flames rejuvenated. To Christians, the phoenix signified Christ’s resurrection (and that of the faithful). On the altar frontal’s left was the motto Aut Amare, aut mori (Either to love or die), which refers to the transverberation, in which Teresa’s heart, enflamed with love of Christ, was penetrated by the dart. The nearby pelican, believed to love its children so ardently that it would pierce its own breast to feed them with its blood, symbolized Christ’s sacrifice—and by extension, Teresa’s suffering for the salvation of souls in imitation of him.24 One group of altar furnishings was singled out explicitly as having been donated by the Spanish vicereine, Catalina de la Cerda y Sandoval, the Countess of Lemos. Her gifts enriched the Madre di Dio’s newly dedicated Chapel of Blessed Teresa in the right crossing chapel, thus proclaiming viceregal devotion to her and support of her Order. Valued at 800 ducats, these items must have been particularly elaborate. They included another altar frontal with a matching chasuble and two tunics, and for honored guests two seat covers with cushions made of silver-threaded cloth ornamented with gold.25 Also included was a bag for the corporal that was made of “Persian cloth,” that is, the widely prized silk that the Safavid Persians created with Christian imagery for Europeans.26 It is noteworthy that the shah sent embassies to both Madrid and Rome between 1609 and 1615, at the same time that the Italian Congregation had a mission in Isfahan and the Spanish vicereine donated this precious Persian object to their Neapolitan church.27 Whether or not the silk bag was originally a diplomatic gift cannot be determined. Nonetheless, this group of gifts offered by the most exalted noblewoman in Naples, the Spanish wife of the viceroy, was an impressive display of reverence toward Blessed Teresa as 24

25 26 27

Such early Christian authors as Sts. Clement I and Augustine discussed these symbols of Christ. On the phoenix, see “Letter to the Corinthians (Clement),” in New Advent’s Fathers of the Church, Chapters 24–26 (esp. 25), newadvent.org/fathers/1010.htm; on the pelican, see “Exposition on Psalm 101(Augustine),” newadvent.org/fathers/1801101.htm. Accessed 28 January 2023. AGOCD, Plut. 109, a. Prov. Neapoli-Napoli, Madre di Dio-Historia Conv. 1602–1619, 75. The corporal is a white cloth that is laid on the altar during mass. The chalice, paten, and ciborium are placed on it. On Persian silk and Shah Abbas’s diplomatic gifts, see Arcak Casale 2015; Mangilli 2013. I thank Cristelle Baskins for sharing her expertise on this topic.

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well an index of the Italian Congregation’s increasing status in the capital city of Philip III’s Kingdom of Naples. All celebrations of new blesseds incorporated the prominent display of their double-sided standards, which were often carried in procession. The list of objects created for the Madre di Dio’s festivities contains entries for Teresa’s standard and silver lamps that surrounded it. Valued at 100 ducats, the nowlost monumental standard was made of red silk with gold trim and tassels and measured 15 × 11 palmi (approximately 13 ft. × 9 1/2 ft.).28 On one side, Teresa was shown in glory with a book in one hand and a dart and nail in the other. These attributes referred to the blessed’s magisterium, transverberation, and mystical marriage, essential components of her official persona as an active contemplative.29 On the standard’s other side, Teresa was encircled by rays of light, and two angels crowned her with three crowns as “founder and doctor and virgin.”30 This was a remarkable adaptation of heraldic features found on the Iberian Union’s coat of arms, which contained symbols of all its kingdoms topped by three crowns combining Spanish and Portuguese symbols and embellished with white, red, and green gems (Figure 17). Use of this iconography strongly suggests input by the viceregal government, which although undocumented, is logical given Viceroy Castro’s cultural politics and personal participation in the festivities.31 Large-scale paintings were also created for the beatification festivities. Those appraised most highly were two altarpieces intended as permanent fixtures for two newly dedicated chapels. The artists were in great demand in Naples (and elsewhere) for this kind of commission. The first was Giovanni Bernardino Ragano, called Azzolino, whose altarpiece was valued at 80 ducats.32 Its theme was Blessed Teresa Standing in Glory with Angels. Valued at 500 28

29 30 31

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AGOCD, Plut. 109, a. Prov. Neapoli-Napoli, Madre di Dio-Historia Conv. 1602–1619, 76. ­Relatively few beatification and canonization standards from the period survive. For two examples, those of Philip Neri (1622) and Rose of Lima (1668), see Jones 2019, Figures 50 and 51. Also see Chapter 4, 102 for a discussion of the display of standards in St. Peter’s in Rome. See Chapter 2, 54−57, on the harmony of her active and contemplative life. The other themes are analyzed in Chapter 4, 107−16, in relation to surviving imagery. AGOCD, Plut. 109, a. Prov. Neapoli-Napoli, Madre di Dio-Historia Conv. 1602–1619, 77: “­fondatrice e doctora e vergine.” The coat of arm’s Latin inscription reads: “Ready for Both [Alternatives].” Castro’s cultural politics are addressed below. The iconography of the three crowns was also employed in Teresa’s canonization celebrations in Portuguese Goa, which was subsumed into the Spanish empire during the Iberian Union. See Chapter 9, 208, 214. See Forgione in DBI on Azzolino, often called il Siciliano. He was born in Cefalù in 1572 and died in Naples in 1645. I am grateful to Stefano De Mieri for providing me with a

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Figure 17 Coat of Arms of Philip III’s Iberian Union Image: Heralder. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license. Graphics: Martine C. Barnaby © Pamela M. Jones

ducats, its altar surround was made of wood “with columns, capitals, and other ornaments” painted to look like variegated white marble.33 The second artist was the older, more renowned Fabrizio Santafede, whose theme was St. Joseph and the Christ Child.34 His altarpiece was valued at 100 ducats. The roles of these monumental paintings in the beatification festivities are addressed in detail below (see Figures 19 and 21).

33 34

­ hotograph of Azzolino’s painting. Heretofore it was unknown that the altarpiece was p made for the beatification festivities. AGOCD, Plut. 109, a. Prov. Neapoli-Napoli, Madre di Dio-Historia Conv. 1602–1619, 75, 78. On Santafede, see De Mieri in DBI. Santafede was born in Naples in c.1555 and died there in 1626. That the altarpiece was made for the beatification celebrations was previously unknown in the scholarship.

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4 Teresa as the Spanish Crown’s Holy Woman: Viceroy Pedro Fernández de Castro and the Beatification Festivities Remarkably, the unpublished description of the Neapolitan beatification celebrations records no references—oratorical, visual, or literary—to Pope Paul V Borghese, who raised Teresa to the rank of blessed. Standard practice would have entailed at least nominal praise of the pope, and it seems safe to assume that he would have been mentioned in the Latin oration that was a typical feature of octave festivities.35 Yet the church’s apparato itself seems to have lacked any written or visual imagery drawing attention to the papacy. This may be related to the fact that, as Paolo Periati has demonstrated, between 1611 and 1616 diplomatic tensions between Paul V and the Spanish crown were particularly high with regard to the political, religious, and jurisdictional affairs of the Kingdom of Naples.36 These tensions between the papacy and the crown centered in part on the pontiff’s distrust of the so-called Lemos brothers, that is, Francisco Ruiz de Castro, 8th Count of Lemos, who was Spanish Ambassador to Rome, and Pedro Fernández de Castro, Viceroy of Naples (r.1610–16).37 Paul V and his ­Cardinal-Nephew Scipione Borghese accused the Lemos brothers of pursuing their own interests in order to create a “Neapolitan Empire.”38 One aspect of the viceroy’s empire-building in Naples was his patronage of its cultural and intellectual life.39 I propose that Viceroy Castro’s sense of competition with papal Rome in his capacity as the king’s surrogate was a contributing factor in the shift of emphasis in the Madre di Dio’s beatification imagery—that is, away from the papal concerns that so strongly informed the Roman beatification apparato in order to present Teresa as the Spanish crown’s holy woman.40 Viceroy Castro, I argue, also used Teresa’s beatification celebrations as an opportunity to showcase the Spanish crown’s role in supporting the Catholic 35 See AGOCD, Plut. 109, a. Prov. Neapoli-Napoli, Madre di Dio-Historia Conv. 1602–1619, 1–79. Latin orations were commonly delivered during beatification and canonization celebrations at male foundations. 36 This brief synopsis is based on Periati 2018. 37 As mentioned in Chapter 2, 40, Ambassador Castro attended Teresa’s Roman beatification celebrations in S. Maria della Scala. 38 The quotation is taken from the title of Periati 2018 and his unpaginated abstract. 39 For example, Castro put his personal stamp on the character of the university and served as protector of the Accademia degli Oziosi (Academy of the Idle), one of the city’s most illustrious literary societies. See Salvá 1853, 322–23; Carrió-Invernizzi 2013, 393. 40 My suggestion is strengthened by John A. Marino’s and Céline Dauverd’s studies, which have demonstrated in different contexts that Neapolitan viceroys consistently introduced innovations into the city’s religious celebrations. See Marino 2011; Dauverd 2020.

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faith across its worldwide empire, while adding another Spaniard to Naples’s liturgical calendar. Among the city’s numerous saintly protectors, those with the strongest cults included the biblical and early Christian saints John the Baptist, Gennaro (Januarius), and Restituta.41 In the viceregal era, as John A. Marino noted, holy persons whose causes the crown had promoted were also added to Naples’s festive calendar. Salient examples are Philip II’s favorite, the Franciscan lay brother Diego de Alcalá (c.1400–63), and Philip III’s favorite, the medieval farm laborer Isidore of Madrid (c.1070–1130). Following their respective canonizations in 1588 and 1622 they were incorporated into Naples’s calendar of saints.42 The marshaling of Teresa of Avila’s numinous power as a Spanish holy woman should be seen as part of the same strategy. St. Teresa’s ultimate designation in 1664 as a co-patron of Naples marked the culmination of her growing status as a holy woman for the Spanish crown and its viceroyalty that began with the city’s beatification celebrations, and was even more loudly proclaimed in her canonization festivities, as we shall see.43 5

Participants in the Beatification Celebrations

The splendid public celebrations took place over the course of an octave, beginning on Saturday, 4 October, the eve (or vigil) of the feast day.44 Buglers sounding their horns on the friary’s roof signaled the people (il popolo) to rejoice. Every night fireworks, discharged from the roofs of the friary and church, were visible across the city by all its inhabitants, while mortar and artillery fire further enlivened the reportedly well-attended festivities (see Figure 22). On the feast day itself, Sunday, 5 October, celebrations began in private with a sermon in the friary for the Italian Congregation’s friars and fathers. Afterward, the public events began at the church of the Madre di Dio, which was sufficiently spacious to accommodate large numbers of elite and ordinary persons. Trumpets were sounded at the church’s entrance portal, above which was an image of Blessed Teresa flanked on either side by the coat of arms of the Discalced Carmelite Order.45 Inside, the reverend prior sang mass accompanied by three choirs. After sung prayers, Pietro Antonio da Pentre, the Theatine 41 42 43 44 45

On Isidore, see Chapter 4, 95−96. Marino 2011, 89. See Chapter 4, 99−102, on Isidore’s canonization imagery. Marino 2011, 88–89. On the plural identities of Teresa and Santiago as patrons of Spain, see Rowe 2011. AGOCD, Plut. 109, a. Prov. Neapoli-Napoli, Madre di Dio-Historia Conv. 1602–1619, 75–79. Only direct quotations are cited individually. The painting was not described.

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bishop of Isola near Reggio in Calabria, preached from the Gospel in praise of Teresa, making her known to one and all. Every day of the octave mass and vespers were sung with solemn music, thereby appealing to listener-worshipers’ senses, minds, and spirits. A broad spectrum of the Neapolitan religious was involved in praising Blessed Teresa. Each day a sermon and a panegyric were provided by members of the Augustinian, Capuchin, and Carmelite Orders and the Society of Jesus. Reportedly, there was considerable rejoicing on the part of all worshipers. So moved was one (unnamed) noblewoman by the new blessed’s intercessory role that she gave funds for two continuously burning candles to be placed at Teresa’s new altar for an entire year. Blessed Teresa’s persona as Philip III Habsburg’s holy woman was emphasized throughout the octave by the personal participation of many members of the viceregal government. Musicians from the Palazzo Reale performed at first vespers during the vigil, and the royal army and Captain of Naples sounded trumpets at the church’s entrance portal on the feast day, overtly linking the celebrations honoring Blessed Teresa to the Spanish crown and its ­viceroyalty.46 Due to illness, the vicereine was not present during the feast day liturgies, but she was nonetheless there in spirit (and in kind), having donated precious altar furnishings for the occasion. The attendance of Viceroy Castro together with his royal ministers lent considerable prestige to the occasion.47 His presence and that of Prince Filiberto of Savoy, Admiral of the Sea and nephew of King Philip III, proclaimed that the king’s status and that of Blessed Teresa were mutually reinforcing and beneficial to the Kingdom of Naples. The entrance of the viceroy and prince into the Madre di Dio was treated as a grand spectacle, as mortars and about 200 artillery shots were fired from three of the city’s royal castles—dell’Ovo, Nuovo, and S. Elmo. In this way the viceroy honored the crown’s new blessed, while highlighting both of their roles as protectors of the Neapolitan realm. Upon entering the church to see its decorations, Prince Filiberto reportedly “said that since having left Spain he had not enjoyed a day so much as this one.”48 This was precisely the desired reaction: an enthusiastic response to the marvelous

46 47 48

Sánchez 2013, 156. Under Spanish rule, there were normally not more than 4,000 soldiers stationed in Naples. Viceroys were often grandees, the highest-ranking Spanish nobles. On Spanish viceregal courts, see Büschges 2014. AGOCD, Plut. 109, a. Prov. Neapoli-Napoli, Madre di Dio-Historia Conv. 1602–1619, 78: “nel entrar in chiesa a vedere l’apparato et hebbe poi a dire che poi d’esser uscito di spagna et non haveva havuto tanto gusto come questo giorno.”

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celebrations of the Madre di Dio, one that deemed them fit for a king—and his new blessed. 6

The Church’s Beatification Apparato

Just as Roman elites loaned draperies for the festivities in S. Maria della Scala, Neapolitan lords reportedly lent rich furnishings for the occasion, among which must have been some of the draperies in the dome and along the nave together with the carpets that adorned the entire church. Running along the perimeter of the church were lavish damask textiles of red and yellow, colors typically selected to embellish churches on festive occasions.49 They were draped from the main cornice down to the capitals of the pilasters articulating the nave’s side chapels, and were punctuated by brocade portieres with the coat of arms of the Discalced Carmelite Order. The components of the coat of arms of Teresa’s reform Order, prominently displayed over the Madre di Dio’s entrance portal and along its interior, deserve analysis.50 The Discalced Carmelite Order retained the major elements of the original Carmelite Order’s crest, but added a key element as its own distinguishing feature: a cross rising from the stylized image of Mount Carmel at the top center of the shield. The three six-pointed stars on the shield represent the three eras of Carmelite history. The first, that of the prophet Elijah, is represented by the star inside the mountain. The second two periods are indicated by the stars in the upper part of the shield—the Middle Ages when the Carmelites spread both east and west, culminating with their first Latin General, Berthold (d. c.1230); and finally, the ensuing centuries. The motto in the banderole surrounding the shield is from I Kings 19:10: “With zeal I have been zealous for the Lord God of Hosts,” words that Elijah called out on the mountain. The crown signifies the kingdom of God, and above it rises an arm with a hand brandishing a flaming sword referring to Elijah’s fiery spirit, an 49

50

AGOCD, Plut. 109, a. Prov. Neapoli-Napoli, Madre di Dio-Historia Conv. 1602–1619, 77. Both the weaves of the fabrics—brocade and damask—and the colors chosen—crimson and yellow—were expensive but commonly used on festive occasions across Catholic Europe. Crimson dye derived from insects, either kermes from the Mediterranean or cochineal from Central America. Colorfast yellow dye derived from saffron, the dried stamen of the oriental crocus. See www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/dye.htm. Accessed 28 October 2018. See also the essays in Feeser, Daly Goggin, and Fowkes Tobin 2012. Because the OCD reserves the image of its coat-of-arms for its own use, I am not able to illustrate it. To view the image, and for the direct quotation in my description, see https:// ocdfriarsvocation.org/about-us/our-coat-of-arms. Accessed 1 January 2023.

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inspiration to live with an enduring “contemplative awareness” of the presence of God. In this festive context, the repeated use of the prominently displayed coat of arms compared Blessed Teresa as founder of the Discalced Carmelites with Elijah, founder of the Carmelite Order. Below the red and yellow draperies with the Order’s coat of arms in the areas between the pilasters flanking the nave chapels, were gold friezes set with rosettes and 45 temporary paintings of the “Saints of our Order,” meaning those of Elijah’s Carmelite and Teresa’s Discalced Order. A larger painting depicted a group of Carmelite martyrs.51 This genealogy culminated with Blessed Teresa, whose life was depicted in a series of 24 temporary paintings roughly 6 ft. high that were situated in the nave arcade, crossing, and choir (Figure 18).52 Because the Madre di Dio’s life cycle contained 24 paintings, we can safely assume that the Collaert-Galle series of engravings made in 1613 to promote Teresa’s cause, which comprised precisely 24 scenes from her life, served as a source for the painted series in the Madre di Dio in Naples.53 The artists responsible for creating the Neapolitan series were not mentioned, and it is impossible to know how faithfully or freely they interpreted the engravings. Two points, however, bear emphasis. First, the Neapolitan life cycle was so extensive that it surely included narrative scenes of Teresa’s transverberation and mystical marriage.54 Moreover, in the Madre di Dio, each painting’s theme bore four explanatory verses together with an unspecified number of emblems and sonnets that were devised by “our Discalced Carmelite fathers with such beautiful and subtle inventions that everyone was amazed.”55 Because the Madre di Dio’s dome lacked permanent decoration, it was adorned with draperies forming pavilions, as at S. Maria della Scala, and the four crossing piers were similarly draped. The dome’s four arches were ornamented with gilded papier mâché on which were posted eight emblems devised by (unnamed) Neapolitan lords. The nobles who wrote them may well 51 52 53 54 55

AGOCD, Plut. 109, a. Prov. Neapoli-Napoli, Madre di Dio-Historia Conv. 1602–1619, 76–77. No measurements were provided for these works. AGOCD, Plut. 109, a. Prov. Neapoli-Napoli, Madre di Dio-Historia Conv. 1602–1619, 76. They measured 7 × 5 palmi (approximately 6’1” × 4’4”). The schematic diagram is not to scale. On the engraved series, see the Introduction, 13, and Chapter 2, throughout . The Roman beatification life cycle, by contrast, comprised only 12 paintings and the ­transverberation and mystical marriage were not among them. These two themes are interpreted in Chapters 4, 107−15, and 5, 128−31. AGOCD, Plut. 109, a. Prov. Neapoli-Napoli, Madre di Dio-Historia Conv. 1602–1619, 77: “­seguivano varie imprese versi et emblemi et sonetti fatti da nostri Padri con si belle et sottili inventioni ch’ hanno fatto stupire ognuno.”

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Figure 18 Schematic diagram of nave decorations in the Madre di Dio, Naples Graphics Martine C. Barnaby © Pamela M. Jones

have been members of the Accademia degli Oziosi, patronized by Viceroy Castro. However that may be, the nobles’ direct involvement in the decorative program along with members of the Italian Congregation is as noteworthy in creating a sense of community in devotion to Teresa as the participation of numerous religious Orders in the church services.

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The four pendentives supporting the dome were embellished with images of the prophets Elijah and Elisha, and “two pontiffs of our Order.”56 This genealogy began with Elijah and his companion Elisha, and continued with early popes. The Carmelites included four pope saints in their ranks: Clement I (d. 99), Telesphorus (d. c.137), Dionysius (d. 268), and Benedict V (d. 964), all of whom they designated to have been martyrs.57 It is unknown which two popes were depicted. The crescendo was reached in the dome’s architrave, which bore an inscription in large gold letters: “Blessed Virgin Teresa shall sing the Mercies of the Lord in eternity,” based on David’s line in Psalms 88:2. Often used in celebrations for Teresa, this motto, mentioned in Point 72 of the 1610 vita concerning her heroic virtue of Religion, had been inscribed on the banderole in Juan de la Miseria’s 1576 portrait of Teresa, painted from life, discussed below. As a special feature of the octave the document noted that “it seemed appropriate after luncheon to display the Most Blessed Sacrament to the people (il popolo)” on the high altar of the Madre di Dio.58 Not only was Eucharistic devotion widespread at the time, but it had been discussed among Teresa’s own heroic virtues in the 1610 vita.59 We have already noted that temporary imagery for the Quarant’ Ore (Forty Hours Devotion), in which gleaming light and heavenly angels surrounded the Host, set a precedent for Father Marcello’s Roman apparato. In the Madre di Dio, the entire presbytery served as an elaborate, gleaming, celestial setting for the Host’s ostension.60 On the red and yellow draperies attached to the cornice above the high altar were two symmetrically placed portieres with the Discalced Carmelites’ coat of arms. Above them in each of two arches was a large, sculpted silver angel illuminated by numerous candles, some under the cornice, others on the altar. The high altar itself received many adornments that intensified the effects of shimmering light surrounding the Host, while honoring the Eucharist and Teresa. First among them was the elaborately embroidered frontal with symbolic birds, discussed above, that depicted Teresa in glory with the mottos “Either to suffer or die” and “Either to love or die.” Additional decorations were 56 57 58 59 60

AGOCD, Plut. 109, a. Prov. Neapoli-Napoli, Madre di Dio-Historia Conv. 1602–1619, 77. Fornari 1690, 605. The identifications of these popes as Carmelites (due to references to them as hermits or monks) and as martyrs cannot be substantiated according to current historical methods. AGOCD, Plut. 109, a. Prov. Neapoli-Napoli, Madre di Dio-Historia Conv. 1602–1619, 77. The Blessed Sacrament also had a major role in the beatification celebrations in Hormuz, on which see Chapter 8, 198 and 200−01. Urkiza 2015, Point 73, 196–99. Father Marcello employed similar imagery in different contexts. There is no indication that the Host was displayed in the Madre di Dio for 40 hours.

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made of highly reflective materials: a silver chalice, the stem of which was sculpted with figures of Mary, Teresa, and Joseph; an ebony paten ornamented with silver; and six green glass candlesticks interwoven with gilded copper. In addition, carpets on loan from affluent supporters covered the presbytery’s floor, and Blessed Teresa’s red silk double-sided beatification standard, roughly 13 ft. high, was suspended in the middle of the church, presumably from the dome, as was typical during the era (cf. Figure 25.). Dramatically lit by silver lamps containing a plethora of candles, the standard, a major centerpiece of the apparato, did not block its other cynosure, the Blessed Sacrament on the high altar. Only upon her elevation to official sanctity could a permanent public altar be dedicated to Blessed Teresa. Palma Giovane’s Ecstasy of Teresa was not installed in S. Maria della Scala until after her beatification. By contrast, Azzolino’s imposing permanent altarpiece, Blessed Teresa Standing in Glory with Angels, made especially for the occasion, was on display in the newly dedicated Chapel of Blessed Teresa (the right crossing chapel) during the beatification celebrations in the Madre di Dio (Figure 19).61 Blessed Teresa is represented as an imposing figure clad in the Discalced Carmelite habit of rough cloth and sandals that were signs of the Order’s penitential character. With her arms outstretched and her face turned toward heaven, she is ready to receive a blessed’s crown of flowers from an angel at the upper right, while at the left another offers her lilies, a symbol of virginity that she shared with Mary. Despite the painting’s extremely poor condition, it is clear that Azzolino based Teresa’s face on Juan de la Miseria’s 1576 life portrait, considered her vera effigies, or true image (Figure 20).62 As noted in Chapter 1, verae effigies—and copies of them—were regarded as partaking of the sacrosanct qualities of the holy persons themselves. They played significant roles in helping worshipers identify newly elevated holy persons and in spreading devotion to them.

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Caringella and Ferrante each perceptively attributed the Neapolitan altarpiece to Azzolino, an attribution that is confirmed by the documentation in AGOCD. It was not previously known that the painting was made for the Madre di Dio’s beatification celebrations of 1614. On Palma’s painting, see Chapter 5,n.21 and 128−31. Urkiza 2015, Point 72, 194–96. In Figure 20, one of Hieronymus Wierix’s compositions after Miseria’s portrait, Teresa’s likeness is retained along with the inscription quoted. However, Wierix added the domestic setting with the spindle and the book and ink well on the table, as well as a second inscription, “O morir, o padecer” (Either to die or to suffer), a motto discussed earlier in this chapter, 76 and 86. On Miseria’s life portrait, which is in the Monasterio de San José in Seville, and copies of it, see Pinilla Martín 2013a, 29–86; Jasienski 2020, 19–20.

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Figure 19 Giovanni Bernardino Ragano, called Azzolino, Blessed Teresa of Avila Standing in Glory with Angels, 1614 Photo: Stefano De Mieri

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Figure 20 Hieronymus Wierix, La B[endita]M[adre] Teresa de Iesvs Fundadora de las Descalças Carmelitas, c.1582–1614 Photo: Rijksmusem, Amsterdam. Gift of M. Onnes van Nijenrode. Public Domain

On the feast day, the cherished frontal donated by Vicereine Catalina de la Cerda y Sandoval graced the altar on which Azzolino’s painting stood. Other costly furnishings that she donated were likewise placed in Teresa’s new chapel, thereby proclaiming her devotion to the new blessed. Similarly rich furnishings provided by other (unnamed) prominent members of Neapolitan society were rotated with those of the vicereine after the feast day. Below Azzolino’s altarpiece, distributed on the altar’s steps, were numerous intricately rendered, gleaming objects. They included 12 silver candlesticks and six green glass vases ornamented with gilded bronze that contained artificial silver flowers.

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In Blessed Teresa’s new chapel pride of place was given to two relics. At the center of the stairs was a crystal reliquary holding a piece of Teresa’s scapular, the full-length apron-like garment that is part of the Discalced Carmelite Order’s habit, as depicted in Azzolino’s painting. On the step above was the treasured life-size silver bust of Teresa with a dart in her heart and a crown on her head, which contained an unspecified relic of the blessed. The intercessory role of saints, relics, and images, which had been decreed decades earlier by the Council of Trent in 1562, was strongly proclaimed in all of Teresa’s festive programs.63 Relics, in particular, served as focal points for festive programs in churches and were carried in processions.64 Whereas neither Gesù e Maria in Genoa nor S. Maria della Scala in Rome owned relics of Teresa by this time, in 1614 two of the blessed’s relics were proudly showcased in her newly dedicated chapel in the Madre di Dio in Naples.65 In the left crossing, facing Teresa’s chapel, was a second new chapel dedicated to St. Joseph (see Figure 21). As noted in the unpublished manuscript: And because in life the Saint [Teresa] had a particular devotion to St.  Joseph, it seemed appropriate to make a painting of said Saint by the hand of S. Fede [Fabrizio Santafede] so that it could be placed opposite the altar of the Saint [sic; Blessed Teresa]. This painting is considered one of the most beautiful that said painter has made.66 It will be recalled that on account of her particular devotion to Joseph, Teresa had dedicated her first reform convent to him, St. Joseph’s in Avila, Spain.67 Santafede’s St. Joseph and the Christ Child shows the elderly saint as a rugged, stiff, and rather solemn figure, standing beside a sweet-faced child Jesus.68 Joseph takes the boy’s arm in a protective gesture. At the upper left, surrounded by angels with the dove of the Holy Spirit hovering to his left, God the Father 63 64 65 66 67 68

For the decree, which reaffirmed inveterate beliefs, see Schroeder 1978, 215–17. The scholarship is vast. Recent studies offering ample citations include Wisch and ­Newbigin 2013 and Kuntz 2019. S. Maria della Scala owned the relic of Teresa’s right foot by the time of her canonization. See Chapter 5, 131−32. AGOCD, Plut. 109, a. Prov. Neapoli-Napol, Madre di Dio-Historia Conv. 1602–1619, 75–76. See Chapter 2, 55 and 58, on St. Joseph’s. In the 19th century Santafede’s altarpiece was recorded on display in the Chapel of St. Joseph to the right of the presbytery. See Catalani 1845:1, 20; Galante 1872, 401, mentions the chapel but incorrectly identifies it as being on the left side of the presbytery. In 1996, the painting was cited as having previously been in the same chapel, but ­having been removed temporarily as a precaution due to the church’s poor condition. See ­Creazzo 1996, 836.

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Figure 21 Fabrizio Santafede, St. Joseph and the Christ Child, 1614 Photo: Mongolo 1984. Creative Commons Attribuzione-Condividi allo stesso modo 4.0 Internazionale

holds the orb of the world with his left hand while raising his right in benediction. Like the Chapel of Blessed Teresa, this one was richly ornamented. For example, its six candlesticks, reportedly worth “many thousands of ducats,” were probably fashioned of silver.69 The Madre di Dio’s festivities were intended to appeal to and engage all echelons of society, from Viceroy Castro and Prince Admiral Filiberto to the Neapolitan aristocracy, from members of the viceregal government to soldiers, musicians, and the general public. Large crowds reportedly attended the celebrations.70 On 4 October, the opening day of the octave, the nearby Largo degli Incurabili, which extended both inside and beyond the Porta di Constantinopoli, was said to have been overflowing with elites in carriages and 69 70

AGOCD, Plut. 109, a. Prov. Neapoli-Napoli, Madre di Dio-Historia Conv. 1602–1619, 78. AGOCD, Plut. 109, a. Prov. Neapoli-Napoli, Madre di Dio-Historia Conv. 1602–1619, 76, 78–79.

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commoners on foot, all making their way to the Madre di Dio. The church itself was so crowded with devotees that in order for subsequent groups to approach Blessed Teresa’s lavishly furnished altar in the right crossing, others were obliged to exit the church, spilling into the street. So many people attended masses throughout the octave, it was reported, that all 11 of the church’s altars were continuously in use. As the Spanish crown’s blessed, Teresa was the protector and holy intercessor not only for Neapolitans but for all inhabitants of the Kingdom of Naples, and the Madre di Dio was her cult center.

PART 2 Teresa’s Italian Canonization Celebrations, 1622

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Canonizing Five New Saints in St. Peter’s Basilica On 12 March 1622 Teresa was elevated to sainthood by Pope Gregory XV (r.1621–23) in the magnificent ceremony in St. Peter’s basilica known as the ­canonization of the five saints, the first in the 17th century for multiple individuals together. Four of the five saints—Isidore of Madrid, Teresa of Avila, Ignatius Loyola, and Francis Xavier—were Spaniards, and one, Philip Neri, was Italian.1 Unlike the other festivities addressed in this study, which centered entirely on Teresa, the canonization ceremony honored five holy persons. The principal focus of its visual imagery, however, was on Isidore of Madrid.2 1

The Politics of Sainthood: Isidore of Madrid

Each individual elevated in 1622 had been subject to long processes for sainthood, which had dragged on for years and involved considerable grappling for power on the part of their ecclesiastical and lay devotees, both individuals and corporate entities.3 Isidore’s cause merits special attention because it had overwhelming consequences for the festive imagery in St. Peter’s. Indeed, despite the far greater renown then enjoyed by the recent and roughly ­contemporary Teresa of Jesus, Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier, and Philip Neri, it was actually the much earlier and relatively obscure Isidore whose imagery predominated at the time of the celebrations. King Philip III (r.1598–1621) supported all of the Spanish candidates, but Alessandra Anselmi has demonstrated that he was concerned above all with Isidore of Madrid’s canonization.4 Isidore (c.1070–1130) was a layman who had worked as a farm laborer, hence his alternate sobriquets, Isidore the Laborer or the Farmer. Few documents concerning his life or miracles survived, which made his process more difficult to carry out than those for the other four saints in support of whose causes eyewitnesses gave depositions and wrote letters. 1 On the Spanish nation’s power in Rome under Gregory XV, see Dandelet 2001, 181–87. 2 In 1616 the Discalced Carmelites, expecting that Teresa would be canonized imminently and alone, asked Father Marcello della Madre di Dio to design an apparato for St. Peter’s. On his innovative but never realized plan see Jones 2014/15. 3 Saint-making is addressed in the Introduction, 4−6. 4 Anselmi 2003, 221–46. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004548916_006

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But the Spanish crown, which had established Madrid as its capital in 1561, lacked a patron saint for the city, an important role that Isidore was meant to fulfill.5 As a result, the crown pressured Paul V to canonize Isidore. Paul, however, was not an enthusiastic supporter of Isidore, and only agreed to the canonization when the king promised to make a papal relative, the Prince of Sulmona, a grandee of Spain.6 Due to Paul’s death, it fell to Gregory XV to raise Isidore to sainthood roughly a year after Philip IV (r.1621–65) ascended the Spanish throne. Thus, Isidore’s attainment of official sanctity was the result of a compromise between the crown and the papacy. By the time the ephemeral decorations for Isidore’s canonization ceremony had been completed, Gregory XV had decided to canonize four additional candidates on the same day. As the Roman historian Giacinto Gigli (1594–1671) mentioned in his diary, “the Spaniards, who had the Theater made for Saint Isidore, did not want any ornaments or paintings pertaining to the other Saints placed in it, only those for Saint Isidore.”7 The theater made for Isidore was a grand temporary wooden structure erected in the apse ornamented by an elaborate decorative program. The pontiff allowed it to be used for the occasion despite its neglect of the other four saints. Due to the impact of power politics on official sanctity, the Italian Congregation, which had hoped to have a determining role in the apparato for St. Teresa’s ceremony in St. Peter’s, saw its new saint sidelined in favor of the decorations’ decided emphasis on St. Isidore of Madrid. 2

The Canonization Ceremony

Papal canonization ceremonies were elaborate affairs involving liturgies and rituals that were only performed in St. Peter’s basilica.8 The elevation of the five saints reportedly attracted very large crowds. The celebrations were unusually grandiose due to the extraordinary number of holy personages, and thus required planning and oversight by four masters of ceremony: Paolo and 5 Clare Copeland has argued that both the king and the Spanish nation in Rome considered Isidore, the Castilian who never left the vicinity of Madrid, more Spanish than the two Basques, Ignatius and Francis Xavier, who had spent most of their lives abroad. See Copeland 2015, 109–12. 6 Anselmi 2003, 223; Copeland 2015, 109–12. 7 Gigli 1958, 58. See González Tornel 2017, 209–14. 8 On the rituals, see Briccio 1622a, fols. 6r–8v. Rasmussen’s comprehensive studies of the 1610 canonization ceremony for Charles Borromeo provide the best overview of the standard ­rituals. See Rasmussen 1988, 1986.

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Giovanni Battista Alaleone, Carlo Antonio Vaccari, and Pietro Ciamaruconi.9 Seated closest to the pontiff, who presided over the ceremony from his canopied throne, were the most prominent participants, including Spain’s royal ambassadors. Also in attendance inside the theater were dukes and other nobles, cardinals of the curia, patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, and prelates, all dressed in official garb with their insignia. The pope’s cardinal-nephew, Ludovico Ludovisi, served as master of ceremonies for specific rituals, while Monsignor Niccolò Zambeccari was the Procurator and Advocate of the Blesseds.10 Ordinary persons, who sat or stood in the nave, viewed the ceremony through the theater’s arcade. Whereas the theater was devoted exclusively to Isidore, the pontifical ­ceremony itself gave due reverence to all five saints, each of whom was represented by a special advocate of the canonization.11 Cardinal Ludovisi read the official statement declaring the five blesseds to be saints, along with their names and the dates of their individual feast days. Together with Monsignor ­Zambeccari, he offered official thanks to Gregory XV on the part of Philip IV of Spain. The pontiff decreed the saints’ canonization bulls to be official and conceded that altars and churches in their honor could be constructed “throughout the Universal Church,” in which masses could be offered. Moreover, their feast days could be celebrated worldwide “as prescribed [in the rubrics] of the Roman Breviary.”12 During Gregory’s proclamation, which reportedly drew great applause, many mortars and artillery were fired off at the pope’s fortress, the Castel S. Angelo (Figure 22). The ceremony continued with an oration in praise of the five saints, and the papal choir performed music dedicated to them. The ritual gift-giving of candles, bread, and wine by the cardinals who ­represented each new saint then took place.13 Finally, following the pontifical mass, the ceremony concluded with the papal benediction and Gregory XV’s concession of “a plenary indulgence of all the sins of all Christians then present [at the canonization ceremony], and remission [of them] to the praise of God and the glory of his Saints.”14 As this synopsis indicates, when a new saint’s official persona was first presented and decreed publicly in her or his canonization ceremony, the same 9 10 11 12 13 14

Briccio 1622a, fol. 8v. Fontaninus 1729: 311. Briccio 1622a, fol. 8v: Giovanni Garzia Millini, consistorial advocate and Cardinal ­Protector of the Discalced Carmelite Order from 1611–29, served as Teresa’s advocate. Fontaninus 1729: 311. Briccio 1622a, fol. 8v: Teresa was represented by Cardinals Zoleri (i.e., Eitel Friedrich von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen), Cesare Gherardi, and Desiderio Scaglia. The quotation is from Ignatius’s bull: Fontaninus 1729, 338.

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Figure 22 Hendrick van Cleve (designer and engraver) and Philipps Galle (publisher), ­Castellum S. Angeli, from Ruinarum varii prospectus rurumque aliquot ­delineations, 1580s, pl. 13. Collection of Barbara Wisch Photo: Barbara Wisch

points were repeated in a variety of media in order to inspire devotion in as many viewer-worshipers as possible. The spoken, sung, and written word were employed in Latin and the vernacular, while visual imagery ranged from readily recognizable portraits and narratives to learned allegories and symbols. All of these forms of expression would have been comprehensible to elites, including the diocesan clergy and members of religious Orders charged with teaching the public. Although ordinary persons would not have understood the ­portions of the ceremony conducted in Latin nor the erudite visual imagery with Latin captions, they would have been able to follow the vernacular language and appreciate the narrative paintings. In addition, they would have learned to recognize the saint as depicted on his or her large processional standard. 3 The Commemorative Engraving of the Canonization with Papal Imprimatur Although theaters were not used for non-papal celebrations in or beyond Rome, their decorations—above all, the official depictions of new saints’ lives,

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Figure 23 Matthäus Greuter after a drawing by Paolo Guidotti Borghese, Theater in St. Peter’s in the Vatican for the Canonization of Sts. Isidore, Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier, Philip Neri, and Teresa of Avila on 12 March 1622, 1622 Photo: Archivio della Congregazione dell’Oratorio, Rome, C.I.S, XXXVI, 4

miracles, and virtues—were adapted for festivities around the world. As Vittorio Casale has demonstrated, with the completion of new St. Peter’s, this imagery became increasingly copious as more space became available for theaters. In conceptualizing the theater for the canonization of the five saints, Paolo Guidotti Borghese took advantage of this development.15 Matthäus Greuter’s Theater in the Church of St. Peter’s in the Vatican officially commemorated the ephemeral decorations for the canonization of the five saints (Figure 23). The inscription at the bottom center of the impressive engraving, which measures over 14 by 20 inches, states that it was published

15

Casale 2011. Girolamo Rainaldi’s 1610 theater for St. Charles Borromeo set a precedent for Paolo Guidotti (1560–1629), who added “Borghese” to his name after having worked for the family. On Borromeo’s theater, see Casale 2011, 104–14; on that of the five saints, see idem, 116–22.

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“with permission of the [ecclesiastical] Superiors” and “with a Privilege.”16 Guidotti Borghese’s temporary wooden enclosure wrapped around the apse and extended into the crossing (Figure 24). The canopied papal throne was raised on a dais under the apse, whereas temporary seating for cardinals and other participants was distributed along the sides. Commanding the theater’s central space was the high altar under Carlo Maderno’s baldacchino, before which his confessio extended.17 In his detailed description of the decorations, the dramaturge and author Giovanni Briccio reported how extremely expensive they were on account of the materials and workmanship.18 The Corinthian order was chosen for the wooden theater, which featured intricately carved capitals, pilasters ornamented with monumental carved figures on the piers that supported its arches on the facade, an architrave with cartouches and inscriptions, and a cornice with candelabra and statues of angels. Many of the adornments were gilded, silvered, or bronzed, and they sparkled in the light provided by the numerous candelabra on the cornice, and the far larger chandeliers suspended from the basilica’s dome, creating heavenly effects to thrill and inspire beholder-worshipers.19 The theater’s entire imagery centered on St. Isidore of Madrid. In pride of place above the central arch leading into the theater was a large painting of the saint identical to that on his standard suspended from the church’s dome. The painting’s inscription bore a Latin dedication to Isidore as the patron saint of Madrid, flanked on each side with the coats of arms of Pope Gregory XV and King Philip IV of Spain.20 Isidore was dressed as a humble farm hand wielding a shovel in a bucolic landscape, while an angel miraculously guided his 16

17 18 19

20

Greuter successfully applied for a ten-year papal privilege in December 1604, and it was renewed for another ten years in 1621. See “The Greuter Family” in Diefenbacher and Leuchner 2016: on the engraving, 81, cat. no. 61; on the papal privilege, 40 and 66, n.50. Also see Pinilla Martín 2013a, 214–20, and eadem 2013b, 227–50. On papal permission and privileges, see Lincoln 2019, 561–63. For scholarship on Maderno’s baldacchino and confessio, see Jones 2014/15. Briccio 1622a, fols. 2r–6v. Although not seen in the engraving, additional adornments included silk and gold draperies lining the nave up to the cornice along with tapestries of New Testament themes, identifiable as those designed by Raphael for Pope Leo X depicting the lives of Peter and Paul, Princes of the Apostles. Briccio 1922a, fol. 3r: “la nave della chiesa di S. Pietro tutta apparata di drappi papali di seta, & oro, fin alla cima de cornicioni, e con tante tapezzarie tessute di seta, & oro, con historie del testamento novo.” The designs were commissioned in 1514 and the tapestries arrived in Rome in 1519. See Shearman 1972. Briccio 1622a, fol. 3r. It is unclear precisely where the coats of arms were placed; the unnamed cardinals must have included Ludovico Ludovisi and the saints’ representatives mentioned above.

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Figure 24 Matthäus Greuter after a drawing by Paolo Guidotti Borghese, Theater in St. Peter’s in the Vatican for the Canonization of Sts. Isidore, Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier, Philip Neri, and Teresa of Avila on 12 March 1622, detail of the theater, 1622 Photo: Archivio della Congregazione dell’Oratorio, Rome, C.I.S, XXXVI, 4

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Figure 25 Matthäus Greuter after a drawing by Paolo Guidotti Borghese, Theater in St. Peter’s in the Vatican for the Canonization of Sts. Isidore, Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier, Philip Neri, and Teresa of Avila on 12 March 1622, detail of the saints’ ­standards, 1622 Photo: Archivio della Congregazione dell’Oratorio, Rome, C.I.S, XXXVI, 4

oxen so he could pray during working hours. This composition was repeated in the standing portrait of the saint at the upper left of Greuter’s engraving (see ­Figure 23). Forty-one green chiaroscuro paintings, labeled in the vernacular, were suspended from the arches around the theater representing scenes of Isidore’s life and miracles.21 Also featured were references to his most significant virtues, verses from a Latin ode in his praise, and “all the arms of the Most Illustrious Lord Cardinals [officiating in the ceremony], and principally of the Pope and the Catholic King.”22 The eight sculpted figures sheathed in bronze on the theater’s façade personified vices that were vanquished by St. Isidore and had fled his presence. Whereas Isidore’s image was everywhere to be seen, the other new saints— Teresa, Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier, and Philip—were most prominently represented by their double-sided silk standards suspended from the dome below gleaming crowns (Figure 25). The saints’ images were rendered on both sides to maximize their visibility inside the church and during the following day’s grand procession through the papal city.23 In the engraving, St. Philip’s 21 22 23

Briccio (1622a, fol. 4r) recorded the vernacular inscriptions. Briccio 1622a, fol. 3r. See Chapter 5, 119−26.

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standard appears at the top center with that of St. Isidore below, thus conspicuously seen and in pride of place closest to the papal throne. The two Jesuit saints, Ignatius and Francis, were depicted together on the standard on the left and Teresa on that on the right. 4

The Canonization and Codification of Teresa’s Saintly Image

St. Teresa’s official persona is best understood by interweaving interpretations of both visual and written sources connected with the canonization ceremony. In addition to her standard, Greuter’s commemorative engraving included a sanctioned standing portrait of St. Teresa surrounded by her authenticated miracles, seen at the lower left of Figure 23.24 Because she is depicted differently here than on her standard, Teresa’s perceived holiness comes across with considerable nuance.25 St. Teresa’s visual iconography was founded on the persona elaborated in her canonization bull, published in Latin, that Gregory XV explicitly decreed as official during the ceremony,which the clergy could use to instruct the faithful.26 The bull opened by stating that God thought it worthy to visit his ­people by means of the saints, and that he “generally raised up small and humble persons through whom he has granted great favors for the Catholic Church.” To these saints God revealed the “mysteries of the heavenly kingdom” and he endowed them “with the gift of heavenly charism so that they might foster the Church by examples of every virtue and good word, and praise it through the glory of their miracles.”27 Turning to Teresa’s sanctity, it proclaimed: In our days God has truly worked great salvation through the hands of a woman, for he stirred up in his Church, as if [she were a] new Deborah, the Virgin Teresa. Teresa overcame her flesh with a marvelous victory by means of perpetual virginity, overcame the world with her admirable humility, and overcame all the inventions of the devil with her many 24 25 26 27

It is unknown whether or not the five saints’ full-length portraits surrounded by miracles were actually on display in St. Peter’s, but the saints are represented in accordance with their official iconographies, hence the imprimatur given to Greuter’s print. By contrast, all the male saints’ standing portraits closely resemble the imagery of their standards. See Jones 2022. See Jones 2020a for the original Latin passages. The bull was based on the 1616 relatio; see Chapter 1, n.51. Fontaninus 1729, 304.

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exalted virtues, aspiring to higher things and being elevated above the condition of her sex with a greatness of mind. Afterward, she girded up her loins with courage, strengthened her arm, and prepared armies of strong men in order that they might fight with spiritual arms for the house of the Lord God, and for his laws and commandments. For accomplishing so great a task, the Lord filled Teresa abundantly with the spirit of wisdom and understanding, and he so illuminated her with the treasures of his grace that her splendor shall shine forever in the house of the Lord like a star in heaven.28 It bears emphasis that many of the “exalted virtues” for which she was praised, such as humility and obedience, were likewise lauded in holy men.29 In keeping with the era’s misogynistic attitudes, however, Teresa, like the Old Testament judge and prophet Deborah, was also singled out as having qualities “above the condition of her sex.” The first was Teresa’s courage in girding her loins and fighting for God’s laws and commandments. On the metaphorical battlefield of the Catholic Reform, Teresa founded a new penitential Order for women and men, and the men she brought to the battlefield were her Discalced Carmelite fathers, whose worldwide missionary work at the papacy’s command was dedicated to bringing new Catholics into the fold. As a reward for this accomplishment, God filled Teresa with a “greatness of mind” and “the spirit of wisdom and understanding.” This section of the bull culminates with a polemical statement: “In our new afflictions, God defends us with his protections and multiplies his friends [that is, new saints] in order that they shall protect and defend his Church by their merits and intercession.”30 The bull’s longest section presents Teresa’s official life. It is an encomiastic account that follows, in part, standard hagiographical models, including such topoi as her birth to pious, upstanding parents and her demonstration of signs of sanctity “since the most tender age.”31 Because canonization bulls were the culmination of years-long processes for holiness, they drew material from the relatii that summarized the copious documentation. It comes as no

28 29 30 31

Fontaninus 1729, 304. See Jones 2022 for a detailed analysis of Teresa’s many virtues in comparison with those of Ignatius Loyola and Francis Xavier. Fontaninus 1729, 305. On life-writing about saints during this era, see Jones 2020b, 470–75, and bibliography therein. Fontaninus 1729, 305.

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surprise, therefore, that Teresa’s bull presented her life in consonance with the longer 1610 vita that had relied heavily on Teresa’s own books.32 The bull explicitly addresses Teresa’s fight against infidels—first by seeking martyrdom, then by praying for them in the cloister. Based on Teresa’s account in her own Life, the bull recounts that as a young child she attempted to lead her brother on a crusade against the Muslims in north Africa, “where she might pour out her blood and [give] her life as a testimony on behalf of Jesus Christ.” After Teresa was thwarted in this brave endeavor by her uncle, “burning with desire for the alms of martyrdom, she compensated with other works.”33 At age 20, the bull continues, Teresa entered the Carmelite Order of the Mitigation, and was subsequently beset by the devil for 22 long years, but with God’s help overcame his temptations. Among her virtues were her steadfast faith, her devotion to the Eucharist, and her profound love of God, which “was imprinted on her heart.” She lamented “with perpetual tears the darkness of [the souls of] infidels and heretics, and not only poured out continual prayers to God for their illumination, but offered [her own] fasts, flagellations, and other bodily torments.”34 In short, Teresa compensated for not having been able to seek martyrdom in Africa by serving God in the cloister where she prayed for the salvation of souls and practiced self-mortification, which was regarded as a form of martyrdom that cleansed the body of sin and elevated the spirit.35 The bull went on to praise Teresa’s deep faith and love of her enemies, on which her reform of Carmel had relied. Her firm faith was compared to that of the man in Matthew 7:24–27 who built his house upon the foundation of a rock.36 And the suffering Teresa endured while pursuing her reforms was specifically deemed to be Christ-like: “She also imitated our Lord Jesus Christ marvelously in the love of her enemies. For although she suffered great persecutions 32

33 34 35

36

These sources are addressed in the Introduction, 12−13, and Chapter 2, throughout. My aim is to provide sustained analyses of key sources that have been insufficiently studied. Constraints of space preclude a comprehensive treatment of all early sources. On early lives of Teresa, such as those by Francisco de Ribera and Diego de Yepes, see especially Pinilla Martín 2013a and Bernal 2019. Fontaninus 1729, 305. Fontaninus 1729, 306. In the early modern era, mortifications of the flesh were widely practiced by the religious and members of lay confraternities. The term “mortification” derives from St. Paul’s writings (Romans 8:13; also Colossians 3:5, and Galatians 5:24). See S.F. Smith, “Mortification,” in The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 10, New York, 1907, 578. Fontaninus 1729, 305.

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and adversities, yet she loved her persecutors, and prayed for those who hated her.”37 The bull’s comparison of Teresa’s virtues with those of holy men is characteristic of this era, when male and female holy persons were often explicitly likened to each other in bulls and orations. As I have demonstrated previously, virtues were part of the framework of sanctity that underscored all candidates’ processes and subsequently informed their relatii, and, ultimately, the bulls that decreed their saintly personas.38 Next, the theme of Teresa’s gift of grace and wisdom was raised in connection with her authorship of spiritual books. According to the bull, God filled her with the spirit of knowledge so that she might leave examples not only of good works in the Church of God, but might water it with showers of ­heavenly knowledge, edicts of theology, and other little books filled with piety from which the minds of the faithful would perceive [those] very abundant fruits and be excited most greatly to desire for the heavenly kingdom.39 Teresa’s magisterium, or teaching authority, was thereby officially decreed, and her books devoted to prayer were deemed to be useful within the cloister as well as far beyond its walls. Teresa’s reform of the Carmelite Order was the subject of her Book of Foundations, which focused on her establishment of convents and friaries.40 The section of the bull devoted to her life, virtues, and deeds concludes with a forceful statement about the impact of her reform: Instructed by these celestial gifts for the purpose of enlightening [others], she undertook the task [of reforming Carmel], the greatest indeed and most difficult for each person, but useful and profitable for the Church of Christ. For she began with the reformation of the Carmelite Order, and the reformation excelled illustriously, not only for women, but [also] for men. Friaries and convents for men and women were constructed not only throughout the Kingdom of Spain, but also in other parts of the Christian world, without anticipating money and revenues, [but] from the mercy of God alone. Deprived of all human assistance, for the most part [she was faced] with adversaries, and princes and secular powers speaking against her. However, with the Lord upholding her work, the roots [of her

37 38 39 40

Fontaninus 1729, 306. On the framework of sanctity, see Jones 2022. Fontaninus 1729, 307. See Chapters 2, 43−47, and 3, 78−79, and 84, for further discussion of Teresa as founder.

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reform] were laid down and grew, and at last they bore abundant fruits in the house of God.41 5

St. Teresa’s Canonization Standard: The Transverberation

The Italian Congregation’s beatification programs had made numerous references to Teresa’s transverberation, primarily through the use of words and small-scale visual symbols. A year later, in 1615, Palma Giovane’s Ecstasy of Blessed Teresa (that is, her transverberation) brought the theme into Rome’s public arena as a permanent altarpiece in S. Maria della Scala. Although it did not originate as part of a decorative program, Palma’s altarpiece figured in the solemnization festivities for St. Teresa in 1622 examined in Chapter 5.42 Teresa’s transverberation was chosen as the theme of her long-lost processional standard that was suspended from St. Peter’s dome, as reproduced by Greuter (Figure 26).43 It depicted Teresa wearing a halo, a sign of her authorized sanctity. She has fallen back, enraptured, as the angel of the transverberation pierces her heart and a second angel supports her from behind. Rendered on a large scale to promote visibility, this straightforward depiction of the miraculous event was widely known through Teresa’s Life and the 1613 Collaert-Galle engraved series (Figure 27).44 It would have been readily identifiable by attendees of the ceremony and the next day’s procession of the standards. Teresa was favored with numerous visions, and we have seen that in festive programs, which helped spread familiarity with them, her visions were interpreted as rewards for her persistence in prayer and in carrying out her reforms. Only two of Teresa’s many visions, the transverberation and mystical marriage, received attention in her canonization bull. They were discussed together in a remarkable passage: Our Lord Jesus Christ marvelously helped Teresa with many visions and revelations. When, extending his right hand to show her the nail, the 41 42 43

44

Fontaninus 1729, 307. See Chapter 5, 128−31, and Figure 37. Payments totalling 11 scudi 1 baiocco for the standard’s materials (silk taffeta, fringes, and tassels) were made on 1 April 1622. On 3 May, 18 scudi were paid for its painting. See ASR: Carmelitani Scalzi in S. Maria della Scala. Busta 127: Entrate e uscite (1614–25), unpaginated, but organized by date. The artist was not named. Greuter’s representation of Philip Neri’s standard, which survives, is faithful, thus suggesting that his copy of Teresa’s is too. See Jones 2019, 152–53 and Figure 50. The engraved series is addressed in the Introduction, 13, and Chapters 2, throughout, and 3, 84.

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Figure 26 Matthäus Greuter after a drawing by Paolo Guidotti Borghese, Theater in St. Peter’s in the Vatican for the Canonization of Sts. Isidore, Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier, Philip Neri, and Teresa of Avila on 12 March 1622, detail of Teresa’s ­standard, 1622 Photo: Archivio della Congregazione dell’Oratorio, Rome, C.I.S, XXXVI, 4

Lord adopted her as his bride, [and] he thought it fitting to speak these words: “From now on you are my wife and protector of my honor; now I am totally yours and you mine.” And sometimes she saw an angel with a flaming dart that transverberated her heart. The flame in her heart burned from the celestial gifts of divine love, so that, instructed by God, she made a most ardent vow that any of her actions would be more perfect, and that she might understand [how] to reach the greater glory of God.45 45

Fontaninus 1729, 306: “quam etiam Dominus noster Jesus Christus multis visionibus ac revelationibus mirabiliter auxit. Quandoque enim data dextera, clavoque ostenso, illam in sponsam suam adoptavit, atque his verbis alloqui dignatus est: ‘deinceps, ut vera sponsa,

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Figure 27 Adriaen Collaert, Seraphinum vultu decorum, ignito ad summitatem aureo spiculo, cor et viscera sibi trajicientem, flammisque coelicis accendentem, mirabiliter experitur; unde seraphico amore, toto deinceps vitae decursu languida, ad sponsum anhelat, pl. 8 of Vita s. virginis Teresiae a Iesu, Antwerp, Johannes Galle, 1630 Photo: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Library, Williamstown, MA

Teresa had described the transverberation in a chapter of her Life that treated her visions as Christ’s favors. The transverberation, which she “sometimes experienced,” was a sign of the efficacy of her mental prayer that she wrote about in several books, including The Way of Perfection and The Interior C ­ astle.46 Because by 1622 her books were already widely circulating in several European languages, it was unnecessary that the bull describe the transverberation itself.

46

meum zelabis honorem; jam ipse sum totus tuus, & tu tota mea.’ Aliquando etiam Angelum vidit, ignito jaculo sibi praecordia transverberantem, ex quibus coelistibus donis divini amoris flamma in ejus corde adeo exaestuabat, ut maxime arduum votum a Deo edocta emiserit, efficiendi semper quicquid perfectius esse, & ad majorem Dei ­gloriam pertinere intelligeret.” Kavanaugh and Rodriguez 1976, 193–94; Efrén de la Madre de Dios y Steggink 1976, 157–58: “algunas veces.”

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Instead, its miraculous result was emphasized: Teresa’s heart caught fire with the love of God, which ultimately brought her mortal death and eternal proximity to the Creator. Her mystical marriage was also well known due to its inclusion in the Collaert-Galle print series and in Teresa’s Spiritual Relations, also known as the Accounts of Conscience.47 The bull’s discussion of the mystical marriage follows that in the Spiritual Relations, but also incorporates words that Christ said to Teresa in an earlier vision mentioned in Book 39 of her Life.48 The bull’s deliberate conflation of the transverberation and the mystical marriage requires explanation. Collaert’s engraving of the mystical marriage (Image #13 of the series) is set in the convent of the Incarnation in Avila and shows Teresa kneeling before the adult Christ, who takes her hand and holds above it the nail that had pierced his own hand during the Crucifixion (Figure 28). The sharp nail was an appropriate token of marriage for the founder of a penitential Order.49 When Christ extended his right hand to show Teresa the nail, the bull stated, “he thought it fitting to speak these words, ‘From now on you are my true wife and protector of my honor.’” The same passage is inscribed on Christ’s banderole in Collaert’s engraving. The initial phrase of the quotation—”from now on”—signals a vitally important causality. In the Spiritual Relations, Teresa indicated that her mystical marriage to Christ took place following her accomplishment of reforms recorded in her previous entries. Those reforms provided a context for her vision, which occurred on 18 November 1572 during the second year of her office as prioress of the convent of the Incarnation. She had assumed this duty reluctantly, but obediently, at the request of the Apostolic Visitor, who thought that the nuns, who opposed Teresa’s reforms, would benefit from her presence and good example. Teresa wrote, however, that even after becoming prioress she

47

48

49

Teresa wrote these accounts between 1560 and 1581. Both the titles given to the accounts as a whole and the individual entry numbers vary from edition to edition. On these issues, see Efrén de la Madre de Dios and Steggink 1976, 21 (Cuentas de conciencia), and ­Kavanaugh and Rodriguez 1976, 309–10 (Spiritual Testimonies). For Teresa’s account of her mystical marriage, see Efrén de la Madre de Dios and Steggink 1976, Entry #29a, 605–06; Kavanaugh and Rodriguez, 1976, Entry #31, 336. All editors agree on the date and place of this vision. The passage from the Life is discussed below. The 1610 vita also treated these visions separately. On the mystical marriage theme, see Matter 1999. By contrast, the virgin martyr St. ­Catherine of Alexandria received a ring from the infant Jesus. On Catherine’s iconography, see Stollhans 2014.

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Figure 28 Adriaen Collaert, Christus Dominus exhibito passionis suae clavo, spiritualis connubij foedera cum ea mirifice celebrat, et amoris tenerrimi indicibus hisce verbis eam affatur, pl. 13 of Vita s. virginis Teresiae a Iesu, Antwerp, Johannes Galle, 1630 Photo: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Library, Williamstown, MA

Figure 29 Adriaen Collaert, Per tres annos continuo fere Christum Dominum a dextris suis gloria praefulgidum conspicit, ipsumque suavia haec verba,”Filia iam tota mea es, et ego totus tuus,” hisque, similia, magno cum amoris indicio proferentem audit, pl. 10 of Vita s. virginis Teresiae a Iesu, Antwerp, Johannes Galle, 1630 Photo: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Library, Williamstown, MA

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wavered in her resolve. It was only after she made the firm decision to follow through with the reform that Jesus appeared to her: He gave me his right hand and said: “Behold this nail; it is a sign you will be my Bride from this day on. Until now you have not merited this; from now on not only will you look after My honor as being the honor of your Creator, King, and God, but you will look after it as My true Bride. My honor is yours, and yours Mine.”50 The second part of the remark attributed to Christ in the bull—”Now I am totally yours and you mine”—is not part of the mystical marriage vision. It is inscribed on Christ’s banderole in Image #10 of the Collaert-Galle beatification series, which refers to visions that Teresa discussed in Chapter 39 of her Life (Figure 29). She recounted that Christ often appeared to her in visions, and that as a sign of his great love, Christ said to her, “Now you are Mine, and I am yours.” Teresa added that after the Lord appeared to her she sometimes said to her confessor that she thought “more courage is necessary to receive these favors than to undergo the severest trials. When they take place, I am almost completely forgetful of my deeds.”51 Thus, the bull incorporated this passage to underscore Teresa’s courage, one of her attributes as founder-reformer that was perceived as having superseded the limitations imposed by her gender. In the bull both Teresa’s transverberation and her mystical marriage were multivalent. Indicative of a fruitful contemplative life, they were simultaneously signs of the love and support Christ gave her in return for her obedient, indefatigable pursuit of the reform of Carmel. It was enough to highlight these two visions among the many she had experienced because together they encapsulated the essence of her harmonious embodiment of the contemplative and active lives on which her reform was based. 6

St. Teresa, Author-Founder, and Miracle-Worker

At the lower left of his commemorative engraving Greuter depicted the fulllength figure of St. Teresa encircled by the miracles deemed official in her bull (Figure 30).52 Before addressing her miracles, the complex iconography of her 50 51 52

Kavanaugh and Rodriguez 1976, 336; Efrén de la Madre de Dios and Steggink 1976, 605. Kavanaugh and Rodriguez 1976, 274; Efrén de la Madre de Dios and Steggink 1976, 221. Teresa’s miracles will be discussed later in this analysis. For those authorized in the bull, see Fontaninus 1729, 307–09.

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Figure 30 Matthäus Greuter after a drawing by Paolo Guidotti Borghese, Theater in St. Peter’s in the ­Vatican for the Canonization of Sts. Isidore, Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier, Philip Neri, and Teresa of Avila on 12 March 1622, detail of standing figure of Teresa flanked by her miracles, 1622 Photo: Archivio della Congregazione dell’Oratorio, Rome, C.I.S, XXXVI, 4

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standing portrait deserves interpretation. María José Pinilla Martín has established that it was standard by this time to represent Teresa as a middle-aged woman in accordance with Juan de la Miseria’s life portrait of 1576, her vera effigies (see Figure 20).53 Greuter followed suit. The inscription in the c­ artouche below Greuter’s standing figure of Teresa proclaimed her official ­status as a new saint: Virgin Saint Teresa of Jesus, Founder of the Order of the Discalced Reformed of Saint Mary of Mount Carmel. Born in Avila in Old Castille 1515. Died on 4 October 1582. Canonized by Gregory XV on 22 March 1622.54 This image is noteworthy for combining two themes, Teresa’s teaching authority and her transverberation, both of which were discussed in the canonization bull. The saint stands before a table on which rest two books, an ink well, and the quill curving outward which suggest that she has been interrupted while writing. Her breast has just been pierced by the angel’s dart, and a flame bursts forth from her heart. Suffused with divine love, she gazes intently at the angel and the celestial light. Teresa’s left hand hovers in acceptance as she lets her right hand fall away from her work. Teresa’s teaching authority had been hotly debated during her lifetime. Because of her gender, even defenses of her doctrine and wisdom could have condescending overtones. The 1610 vita contributed greatly to the sanctification of Teresa’s magisterium by deeming her mystical visions and doctrine reliable due to her inspiration by the Holy Spirit.55 Alison Weber cited the Jesuit Cipriano de Aguayo’s remark that divine inspiration was the only conceivable explanation for how Teresa, an “‘ignorant woman,’” could have written books filled with “‘divine mysteries.’”56 However, as a saint, Teresa’s authorized iconography as writing under divine inspiration should not be seen one-dimensionally as a mere confirmation of Aguayo’s misogynistic attitude. Instead, Teresa had taken her place in an age-old chain of exemplarity occupied by women 53 54 55 56

Pinilla Martín 2013a, 29–86. Also see Chapter 3, 87 and 89. Because Teresa died during the night of 4–5 October, the date cited is not uniform. On the Gregorian calendar’s correction of 5 October to 15 October, see Ditchfield 2019, 133–37. Ahlgren 1998, 159. Weber 1990, 163–64. By “ignorant” Aguayo meant that she did not read Latin, the language of theology. Women lacked access to educational programs open to men.

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Figure 31 Adriaen Collaert, Divinae lucis radijs repente obumbrata, a Spiritu Sancto, infusa caelitus scientia mentem imbuitur: libros quinque caelesti eruditione faecundos conscribit, qui vario idiomate, Hispano, Gallo, Italo, Polono, et alijs circumferuntur, pl. 23 of Vita s. virginis Teresiae a Iesu, Antwerp, Johannes Galle, 1630 Photo: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Library, Williamstown, MA

and men, and there was a long tradition that regarded writing under the Holy Spirit’s inspiration not as an insult, but as a sign of holiness and divine favor. In the visual arts Teresa was often represented as receiving inspiration from the dove of the Holy Spirit, as seen in Image #23 of the Collaert-Galle print series (Figure 31). By contrast, Greuter’s authorized canonization engraving did not include the dove, but instead indicated the source of Teresa’s divine inspiration by depicting the angel of the transverberation descending from a blaze of heavenly light. The angel points the dart toward Teresa with his right hand, while turning his head away from her to look down at the open book on her desk to which he gestures with his left hand. Thus, although the notion

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that Teresa’s teaching authority relied on divine inspiration was rooted in early modern misogynistic attitudes toward women’s intellectual capabilities, Greuter’s sophisticated author portrait, created at the time of her canonization in 1622, elevated her to saintly status by likening her to highly revered male authors, prime among them, the Evangelists. For centuries, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John had been portrayed at their desks writing while receiving divine illumination in the form of their symbols, which were often depicted descending from heaven. In Greuter’s engraving, the angel of the transverberation, whose dart penetrated her heart causing it to burn with divine love, serves as Teresa’s symbol in the same way that ­Matthew’s symbol, the winged man or angel, inspires him. By combining Teresa’s transverberation with her divinely inspired authorship of books that the bull deemed useful to the Universal Church, Greuter placed the new saint in an illustrious line of admired Christian authors. The fact that as a woman Teresa was not excluded from this elite group is an index of her importance as ­Gregory XV’s new saint. In Greuter’s engraving, eight of Teresa’s miracles flank her standing portrait as author-founder, thereby proclaiming her efficacy as a holy intercessor whom God had brought to earth for the benefit of the Universal Church (see Figure 30). We have seen that “proven” miracles were a sine qua non for new saints, who were understood to have accomplished them with God’s grace. Miracles entailing the cure of bodies (e.g., lameness and blindness) and souls (such as demonic possession) resembled those of Christ and the apostles, as recounted in the New Testament, whereas others involved relics, holy images, and other religious objects, such as crucifixes. Those associated with saints’ deaths typically involved either Christ-like martyrdom or incorruptibility of the body.57 Posthumous miracles, also conceptualized in light of Jesus’s ­salvific power, centered on prayers addressed to the holy intercessor—­sometimes before paintings of her/him—or physical proximity to the saint’s relics, thereby emphasizing Roman Catholic teachings on the efficacy of the cults of saints and relics, codified at the Council of Trent in 1563. In 1616 the Sacra Rota and Congregation of Rites had approved three miracles that Teresa had performed during her life, as well as 12 posthumously, in addition to (unnumbered) miracles that occurred during and shortly following

57

Recent studies of miracles include: Vidal 2007; Duffin 2009; Mesley and Wilson 2014; Greenwood 2022.

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her transitus, that is, her soul’s ascent into heaven.58 Teresa’s canonization bull addressed eight of these miracles, all of which also appeared in Greuter’s official commemorative engraving. Starting at the upper left and moving down are Teresa’s three authorized lifetime miracles, which the bull stated had been accomplished through her merits and God’s intercession. The first was her multiplication of wheat at the Discalced Carmelite convent St. Anne in ­Villanueva de la Zara, which figured in her Roman beatification program, examined in Chapter 2. As noted Teresa’s relatio invoked Jesus’s multiplication of the loaves and fishes at Galilee in comparison. The second miracle occurred at the Discalced Carmelite convent of the Trinity in Medina del Campo, where Teresa laid her hand on Ana de la Trinidad’s wound and cured her instantly. Finally, Teresa touched the side of the ailing prioress of the same convent, then ordered her to rise, and she did so in perfect health. At the bottom left of Greuter’s engraving is a fourth miracle, one that occurred at the time of Teresa’s transitus: A desiccated tree outside her window suddenly blossomed although it was October.59 On the right side, from top to bottom, four of Teresa’s 12 authorized postmortem miracles were depicted. First, a four-year-old boy who had been born with a contorted body and could not stand was cured after having been carried into Teresa’s former cell for nine successive days. Second, despite the deep burial of her body, a “great and marvelous aroma” emanated from her grave, and when exhumed, her corpse was found to be “uncorrupted, flexible, and enveloped in aromatic liquid.”60 In the third miracle, the nun Ana de San Miguel, who suffered from breast cancer, was cured by placing a small part of an unspecified relic of Teresa on her breast and recommending herself to the saint’s protection. And, lastly, the parish priest Francisco Pérez suffered from an abscess in his chest bone that human remedies were unable to heal. He was cured by placing a letter written by Teresa on his chest. Afterward, when he visited Teresa’s tomb in Alba, where the relic of her arm was preserved, his own withered arm was healed. Rendered on a small scale for close viewing by elites conversant in Latin, the scenes flanking Teresa’s portrait as authorfounder, served to recall biblical prototypes to encourage beholders to seek her intercession through sanctioned devotional practices. 58 59 60

See Chapter 1, n.51 on the relatii of 1613 and 1616. Remarkably, her resuscitation of a boy, depicted in Rome’s beatification apparato, was not among those approved. On miracles associated with her earthly death and incorrupt body, see Chapter 2, 66−68. All quotations in the discussions of Teresa’s miracles are taken from the captions under the individual scenes in the engraving.

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At the time of her canonization, when Teresa’s holy image was decreed, a plethora of media were employed—both during the ceremony itself and in commemorative imagery—to delight, instruct, and inspire devotion to this extraordinary new saint. Teresa was officially lauded as an active contemplative, an author-founder whose writings and religious foundations had spread across the globe in service of the Universal Church. As a miracle-worker through God’s grace, moreover, she was likened to Christ and the apostles and proclaimed to be an effective intercessor for the faithful around the world.

CHAPTER 5

Honoring St. Teresa in S. Maria Della Scala, Rome Outdoor festivities, such as processions, fireworks, artillery salvos, music, and theatrical productions, drew large crowds and were recorded in engravings, diaries, and avvisi (news dispatches).1 On both secular and religious occasions, they were typical expressions of public jubilation (see Figure 22). Directly following the canonization ceremony for the five saints, Giacinto Gigli recounted, “very great signs of rejoicing were immediately made, with sounds of trumpets, drums, and bells, with the shooting off of mortaletti (little fireworks), and artillery,” and “on that evening great fires were made on all the streets and in almost all the houses of Rome, with the burning of barrels, and putting candles at the windows.”2 Then, on the next day, Sunday, 13 March 1622—which was also Passion Sunday and the day of St. Peter’s station—the five saints’ standards were carried in a grand procession from St. Peter’s to the churches of their respective religious Orders or nations. The churches were outfitted with temporary decorations for the solemnization ceremonies that gave additional formal, public recognition to the newly elevated saints. 1

The Procession

Canonization processions were intended to inspire devotion to new saints and situate them in the topographies of cities, towns, and rural areas. In Rome, a new saint’s standard was normally carried aloft to her or his church.3 As described by Gigli, Giovanni Briccio, and the Jesuit Antonio Presutti, the 1622 procession was particularly elaborate since five saints’ standards were delivered to their four churches.4 Briccio reported that the streets and piazzas along the route were full of people on foot and in carriages, while others observed from their windows. The procession began after luncheon on 13 March and ended at 1:00am. As was typical for both religious and secular processions, 1 Casale 2011 provides an extensive bibliography on Roman festive culture. 2 Gigli 1958, 58. 3 Briccio 1622b noted that the procession of the standards was undertaken “as always” (al solito); quotation at 3. 4 On national churches see Fosi 2019. As reported by Gigli 1958, 60–62; Briccio 1622b, 3–4; and Presutti Memorie, fol. b recto–fol. c recto. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004548916_007

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“principal Lords and Princesses of Rome,” whose residences looked over the route, suspended rich draperies from their windows.5 It was also common practice to continue the procession into the wee hours to enhance the dramatic effects of torches, fireworks, and mortar shots. On this august occasion, Gregory XV’s Vicar General represented the papal government, while the Senator, Conservator, and Magistrate of the Popolo Romano represented the civic one. These officials seem to have presided at the portal to each church when it was time to deliver the standard.6 At the head of the procession, with crosses held aloft and white candles aflame, were members of such notable brotherhoods and religious groups as: the F­ atebenefratelli, the Redemption of S. Adriano, the brothers of S. Onofrio, and the Minims founded by San Francesco di Paola; many Franciscans, including the Capuchin Friars Minor of S. Maria in Aracoeli, the Conventual Franciscans of SS. Apostoli, and the Franciscan Conventuals of the Third Order called the Zoccolanti; the Carmelites of S. Maria in Traspontina together with a contingent from Mantua; and the priests of S. Maria delle Grazie at Porta Angelica, of the French royal church of Trinità dei Monti, and those of SS. Cosma e ­Damiano in the Roman Forum.7 At the heart of the procession were the new saints’ standards carried according to traditional rules of precedence moving from the least to the most exalted personage or devotional object. Thus, the standard of St. Philip Neri, the only Italian, came first, followed by those of the Spanish saints: St. Teresa of Jesus, the only woman; followed by Sts. Ignatius and Francis Xavier; and culminating with St. Isidore of Madrid, the crown’s favorite. Each monumental, double-sided standard was proudly carried by members of the saint’s Order or Society, or in Isidore’s case by Spanish priests, and was accompanied by many other dignitaries, followed by musicians.8 For example, the Jesuits’ entourage included its priests, students of its German College, and members of its Confraternity of the Assumption along with its illustrious prefect, Orazio Ludovisi, brother of Pope Gregory XV. Each time the procession reached one of

5 Briccio 1622b, quotation at 3; Presutti, Memorie, fol. b verso. Neither mentions carpets, although they were ubiquitous on such occasions. 6 Though garbled, Presutti’s account (Memorie, fol. b verso–fol. c recto) indicates this. It was typical of beatification and canonization processions to give roles to as many officials as ­possible. On Rome’s civic government, see Canepari and Nussdorfer 2019. On the papal ­government, see Pattenden 2019. 7 These were members of the Carmelite Order (O Carm), as opposed to the Discalced ­Carmelite Order (OCD). On the two Orders, see the Introduction, 1−4. 8 Gigli 1958, 60–61.

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the churches, many mortars were sounded and major dignitaries of the given entourage presented the standard to the church. In Figure 32 the processional route is indicated on Giovanni Maggi’s 1625 map of Rome.9 The overall trajectory was conditioned by the locations of the five saints’ churches, but it deliberately reached them via time-honored religious processional itineraries in order to reify the new saints’ holy status.10 A major feature of the cavalcade was its incorporation of Rome’s most prestigious ceremonial thoroughfare, the Via Papale (Papal Way). It was the route taken by the new pontiff, who, after having been crowned in St. Peter’s basilica, made his way in a grand procession to S. Giovanni in Laterano (St. John Lateran) to claim his seat as Bishop of Rome. In this ceremony, known as the possesso, the pope took possession of his bishopric and, by extension, the city of Rome. In the 16th and 17th centuries, possessi became increasingly lavish.11 The pope, who was carried aloft near the end of the procession in his sedia gestatoria (ceremonial litter) in the manner of the ancient caesars, passed through richly ornamented temporary triumphal arches erected along the route. Such imperial imagery was typical of early modern festive culture, as we will see in ­Chapter 6. By contrast, however, the five saints’ procession was not punctuated by triumphal arches. Instead, temporary decorative programs were concentrated at the saints’ four churches, thereby demarcating them as major cult centers. The procession commenced by making its way from St. Peter’s along the Via Alessandria (Borgo Nuovo) to Ponte S. Angelo next to the Castel S. Angelo. ­Continuing over the bridge, it passed through “Banchi,” the site of the great Florentine banking houses (today’s Via dei Banchi Nuovi) that led into Via Papale and moved onward to Piazza Monte Giordano, where it turned to the front of the Oratorian church of S. Maria in Vallicella (known as Chiesa Nuova; ­Figure 33). There the standard of the Order’s founder, St. Philip Neri, was delivered. After walking alongside and toward the back of Chiesa Nuova, the cortege continued up Via Papale, called Strada Parione on Maggi’s map (today’s Via del Governo Vecchio). When it reached the “speaking” statue of Pasquino, it turned into Piazza Navona, the former imperial stadium of Domitian, then a major marketplace and favored venue for festive celebrations.12 It crossed the piazza to S. Giacomo, church of the Spanish nation, where the standard of St. Isidore, Madrid’s new patron, was delivered (Figure 34). 9 10 11 12

My reconstruction is based on Briccio 1622b, 3, and Gigli 1958, 60–62. On early modern processional routes in Rome, see: Schraven 2019; Wisch and Newbigin 2013; and Ingersoll 1985. Here I discuss only that of the possesso. See preceding note; also DeSilva and Rihouet 2020. Keyvanian 2019, 307–14; Schraven 2019, 257–58.

Figure 32 Giovanni Maggi, Map of Rome, detail showing the processional route, 1625 from Amato Pietro Frutaz, Le Piante di Roma, vol. 2, Rome, 1962 Graphics: Martine C. Barnaby © Pamela M. Jones

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Figure 33 Giovanni Maggi, Map of Rome, detail of S. Maria in Vallicella, 1625 from Amato Pietro Frutaz, Le Piante di Roma, vol. 2, Rome, 1962 Graphics: Martine C. Barnaby © Pamela M. Jones

Figure 34 Giovanni Maggi, Map of Rome, detail of S. Giacomo degli Spagnoli, 1625 from Amato Pietro Frutaz, Le Piante di Roma, vol. 2, Rome, 1962 Graphics: Martine C. Barnaby © Pamela M. Jones

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Figure 35 Giovanni Maggi, Map of Rome, detail of the Gesù, 1625 from Amato Pietro Frutaz, Le Piante di Roma, vol. 2, Rome, 1962 Graphics: Martine C. Barnaby © Pamela M. Jones

The procession then proceeded by Piazza Madama and passed the customs house at the near side of the Pantheon, which had long since been transformed into the church of S. Maria ad Martyres. Continuing past the right side of the imposing Dominican church of S. Maria sopra Minerva, the procession then turned right onto the street (today’s Via del Gesù) leading directly to the Gesù, the mother church of the Society of Jesus (Figure 35). During and after the delivery of the new saints’ standard, participants and onlookers could admire the elaborate temporary decorations honoring Ignatius Loyola and Francis Xavier that covered the church’s facade.13 Leaving the Gesù, the procession turned onto Via delle Botteghe Oscure, named for its dark, windowless shops, toward Ponte Sisto, built by Pope Sixtus IV to accommodate pilgrims for the 1475 Jubilee. Although the procession’s exact route from that point to the bridge was not mentioned in the sources, the most direct one would have been along today’s Via Giubbonari, then part of Via del Pellegrino, one of the major processional and pilgrimage thoroughfares, 13

All of the churches’ facades bore some ephemeral adornments, on which see the text below. The sources’ descriptions of the Gesù’s decorations were the most detailed. See Briccio 1622b, 4–6; Gigli 1958, 60; Presutti, fol. 48v.

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Figure 36 Giovanni Maggi, Map of Rome, detail of Trastevere with S. Maria della Scala, 1625 from Amato Pietro Frutaz, Le Piante di Roma, vol. 2, Rome, 1962 Graphics: Martine C. Barnaby © Pamela M. Jones

and making a left turn onto today’s Via dei Pettinari, which leads straight to the bridge. Crossing Ponte Sisto, the procession entered Trastevere, one of the city’s poorest districts, where S. Maria della Scala was a stone’s throw away (Figure 36; also see Figure 5). The Italian Congregation’s church was reachable by bearing right onto today’s Via di Ponte Sisto, continuing down today’s Via Benedetta, and turning left onto Via della Scala. At S. Maria della Scala, the dignitaries delivered St. Teresa’s standard. None of the sources indicated what occurred directly following its delivery, that is, how and to which locations participants in the huge procession dispersed. However, given that it was 1:00am, they must have returned to their residences on either side of the Tiber. Like all processions, this one depended for its success on the involvement of a range of participants and spectators along well-traveled streets and byways, past noteworthy monuments. By using well-worn religious processional paths, the cavalcade deeply inscribed the saints’ churches into the matrix of Rome’s sacred topography. Spectators’ senses would have been dazzled by the variety of religious and confraternal habits—from rich watered silks to rough ­sackcloth—and by the ceremonial dress of civic officials glittering with gold trim. All the while, the sweet scent of candle wax was mixed with acrid

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remnants of the mortar powder that had lit up the night sky with resounding booms—all heightening the drama of the occasion. 2

The Solemnizations

Briccio stated that it would take too long to mention all the festivities that took place in Rome for the canonization of the five saints, but remarked that in general, all the Churches belonging to the Orders of said Saints, such as the Madonna of Traspontina, S. Crisogono, S. Martino ai Monti, the German College, the Collegio Romano’s church of the Annunziata, S. Andrea a Monte Cavallo, the [Jesuit] seminary, the English College, S. Girolamo della Carità, S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini, and other Churches, which for the sake of brevity we omit, showed in those days a great celebration and happiness with fires and ringing of bells, with lights and songs. And many Palaces and Houses of principal Lords of the Spanish and Florentine nations ... did the same.14 According to Briccio, for three days following the canonization ceremony— from 13 through 15 March—bells were rung at the saints’ churches.15 Gigli reported that the saints were celebrated in their churches on the following days: St. Isidore in S. Giacomo degli Spagnoli on 14 March, Sts. Ignatius and Francis Xavier in the Gesù on 15 March, St. Teresa in S. Maria della Scala on 16 March, and finally St. Philip Neri in the Chiesa Nuova on 19 March.16 Pope Gregory XV attended all of the solemnizations, which included masses, recitations of the divine offices, and other liturgies. Both singers and instrumentalists took part. The pope, moreover, conceded a plenary indulgence to everyone who visited the churches during the celebrations, thereby ensuring the presence of large crowds. For the solemnizations, Briccio reported, the four churches’ facades were adorned with the new saints’ coats of arms, friezes, and festoons, and inside the naves were outfitted with precious silk and gold draperies. On the cornices

14 15 16

Briccio 1622b, 4. Four of the saints were Spanish, whereas Philip Neri was Florentine. Briccio 1622b, 4. Gigli 1958, 62.

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above them stood large candlesticks with white candles aflame.17 As stated in the saints’ canonization bulls, it was permissible to dedicate altars to them following their official elevations, and Briccio indicated that on these altars were images of the saints along with reliquaries, large and small candlesticks, silver and gold vases brimming with flowers, and other rich furnishings of great value. The churches’ facades and domes were dramatically lit by candles, making “a solemn sight at night,” and their piazzas were ablaze with fires and served as launching sites for fireworks accompanied by the blaring of trumpets. 3 Solemnization Imagery in S. Maria della Scala, Ephemeral and Permanent A terse avviso sent to Francesco II, Duke of Urbino, on 8 November 1622 read, “On Wednesday in the Church of S. Maria della Scala in Trastevere the feast of St. Teresa was solemnized with the participation of 12 cardinals, and many prelates, and nobles.”18 Although it failed to name the attendees, the avviso is noteworthy for confirming that the event attracted numerous religious and secular personages. A major focal point of the solemnization was Teresa’s standard, which after having been suspended from the dome of St. Peter’s during the canonization ceremony was delivered to S. Maria della Scala.19 There, too, it would have been hung from the dome, and given its enormous size the depiction of Teresa’s transverberation would have been easily seen by all viewer-worshipers (see Figures 25 and 26). As for the church’s apparato, little is known, but Gigli had more to say about it than those for Isidore in S. Giacomo or Philip Neri in the Chiesa Nuova. He reported that the feast of Saint Teresa was celebrated at the Madonna della Scala, which Church had been fitted with new ornaments of paintings, imprese, [and] Verses all around, and the cornice was filled all around with lights that appeared very well.20 17 18 19 20

See Briccio 1622b, 4, for the descriptions and the quotation in this paragraph. BAV, Urb. lat. 1092, fol. 286r. The standard, which would have been carried in procession outdoors on subsequent ­festive occasions, does not survive. Gigli 1958, 62. I found no documents in the AGOCD concerning the solemnization ­decorations.

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Thus, the newly created ephemeral decorations in S. Maria della Scala were remakably elaborate, and their components—paintings, imprese, and verses— were similar to those used for Teresa’s well documented Roman beatification festivities of 1614, analyzed in Chapter 2. In addition to her canonization standard, two cherished devotional objects acquired for S. Maria della Scala after Teresa’s 1614 beatification would have been cynosures of devotion during her canonization solemnization: a monumental altarpiece dedicated to the saint and the holy relic of her right foot. Palma Giovane’s altarpiece depicting The Ecstasy of Blessed Teresa (that is, her transverberation) had been specially made in 1615 for the Chapel of Blessed Teresa in the church’s right crossing (Figure 37).21 Measuring almost 14 ft. by 10 ft., it was the first public altarpiece in Rome dedicated to Teresa. Upon her canonization, the chapel was rededicated to St. Teresa, and the painting became, in effect, The Ecstasy of St. Teresa. To ensure that Teresa would be identifiable, Palma clothed her in the Discalced Carmelite Order’s habit and provided her with a halo as a sign of her new holy status. In Palma’s painting, Teresa appears younger, less wrinkled, than in Juan de la Miseria’s widely disseminated life portrait of her at age 61 (see Figure 20).22 By contrast, Teresa first experienced the transverberation at age 44, and Palma conveys that point by rendering of her flesh as slightly sagging but not wizened. Palma’s interpretation of the theme was highly innovative in conveying its full context as presented by Teresa in her own Life.23 In Chapter 29 she

21

22 23

Palma Giovane was the sobriquet of the Venetian painter Iacopo Negritti (1544–1628). The signature and date (“IACOBVS PALMA F. / MDCXV”) were revealed at the lower left following the painting’s restoration completed in 2016. I have found documents of 1615 in Rome’s Archivio di Stato recording disbursements to Simone Lagi for “the painting for the Altar of Our Holy Mother [Teresa]” in S. Maria della Scala, and to the carpenter Giovanni Brancaforte for construction of the altar itself. Lagi, whom I have previously identified as the apparato’s overseer (see Jones 2015), received payments for the altarpiece totaling 80 scudi between 11 July and 5 October 1615, Blessed Teresa’s second feast day. See ASR. Carmelitani Scalzi in S. Maria della Scala. Busta 120: Entrate e uscite (1600–22); unpaginated, but organized chronologically. There is little doubt that Palma was the artist because he was named in guidebooks a few decades later. In particular, in 1642 Giovanni Baglione described Palma’s painting and reported that it was located on the right side of S. Maria della Scala near the high altar. I cite a later edition: Baglione 1649, 183. It remained in the right crossing chapel until the early 18th century, when the chapel was reconstructed and redecorated. For further information, see Rinaldi 1984, Cat. No. 243, 106. The altarpiece was then transferred to the Discalced Carmelite church of S. Pancrazio on Rome’s Janiculum Hill, where it still remains. See Gigli 1979, 24. On Miseria’s portrait and prints of it, see Chapters 3, 87 and 89, and 4, 114. Palma is likely to have received a synopsis of the key points to be conveyed.

Honoring St. Teresa in S. Maria Della Scala, Rome

Figure 37 Palma Giovane, The Ecstasy of St. Teresa, 1615. S. Pancrazio, Rome. Photo: Bibliotheca Hertziana–Max-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Rome

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discussed Christ’s favors to her in the form of visions. Before recounting her experience of the transverberation, she noted that The Lord almost always showed Himself to me as risen, also when He appeared in the Host—except at times when He showed me His wounds in order to encourage me when I was suffering tribulation.24 Teresa went on to address her visions’ effects on her soul: The soul doesn’t strive for the pain of this wound caused by the Lord’s absence, but at times an arrow is thrust into the deepest and most living recesses of the heart in such a way that the soul doesn’t know what has happened or what it wants. It well understands that it wants God and that the arrow seems to have been dipped in a poisonous herb so that for the love of this Lord it might despise itself; and it would gladly lose its life for Him.25 Toward the end of the chapter Teresa described the transverberation, in which love of God again pivots on pain, contempt for oneself, and longing for mortal death. She wrote that she “sometimes” saw a vision of a “beautiful angel”: I saw in his hands a large golden dart and at the end of the iron tip there appeared to be a little fire. It seemed to me this angel plunged the dart several times into my heart and that it reached deep within me. When he drew it out, I thought he was carrying off with him the deepest part of me; and he left me all on fire with the love of God.26 In his altarpiece Palma sought to portray not only the transverberation itself, but also, in accordance with Teresa’s own extensive account, the essence of her spiritual life. At the bottom of the composition are found episodic details of the vision of the transverberation. Teresa kneels before an altar, arms widely outspread as the angel flies toward her holding the “great golden spear” with a flaming tip, ready to pierce her heart. Teresa’s ecstatic state is expressed by means of her unsteady pose, closed eyes, and head listing to one side. The top half of Palma’s composition is suffused with celestial light. Angels in billowing clouds part as Jesus, likewise in an effulgence of light, swoops down 24 25 26

Kavanaugh and Rodriguez 1976, 189; Efrén and Steggink 1976, 128. Kavanaugh and Rodriguez 1976,192; Efrén and Steggink 1976, 130. Kavanaugh and Rodriguez 1976, 193–94; Efrén and Steggink 1976, 131: “algunas veces.” She first experienced the transverberation in 1559.

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from heaven to cast a shaft of light on Teresa, while simultaneously pointing to his side wound with his left hand. Christ, his angelic messenger, and the swooning saint are united by two signs of Jesus’s divine favor: the flaming dart and the rays of divine inspiration. The anticipation of the dart’s entry into her heart and the divine rays’ illuminating her face add poignant drama to the image. In 1615 Palma’s interpretation of the theme was also novel by including two strategically placed books. The first rests on the altar directly under the angel’s flaming spear emphasizing that liturgical texts contributed to Teresa’s success in prayer. The second book, on the step leading to the altar, projects forcefully into the beholder’s space, encouraging Teresa’s devotees to pick it up and benefit from her teachings. In this way, Palma creatively introduced the theme of Teresa’s magisterium into that of the dramatic transverberation, thereby setting an iconographical precedent for Matthäus Greuter’s 1622 standing portrait of Teresa in his official commemorative canonization engraving (see Figure 30). Both artists sought to capture the physical and spiritual truth of Teresa’s reform based on the harmony of her contemplative and active life. During the solemnization festivities in S. Maria della Scala, beholder-­ worshipers would have been able to compare the two different versions of Teresa’s transverberation as rendered in her standard suspended from the church’s dome and the altarpiece in her adjacent chapel. Their striking differences, which would have been apparent to everyone, were conditioned by their different functions. The purpose of the standard was to represent the theme in such a way that it could be identified from across the grandiose nave of St. Peter’s basilica and subsequently during the procession across Rome to Teresa’s church: hence its close-up focus on the angel’s imminent piercing of the enraptured saint’s heart. By contrast, conceived as the devotional focal point in a chapel dedicated to Teresa (first as a blessed, then as a saint) Palma’s interpretation was far richer and more nuanced. Pious viewers familiar with Teresa’s prayerful reform may have been inspired to seek Teresa’s intercession before Palma’s altarpiece, which had been on view since her second feast day in October 1615. Saints’ relics were also focal points of devotion during major celebrations, including but not limited to their own feast days. Greuter’s canonization engraving depicts authenticated miracles performed by God’s grace through saints’ relics before which pious Catholics prayed when invoking the intercession of blesseds and saints.27 At Teresa’s beatification in 1614, the Italian Congregation lacked a relic of their founder, but that was soon remedied. On 27

The crucial roles of relics cannot be done justice here. See Fleming and Leone 2020 and bibliography cited therein.

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Figure 38 Relic of the right foot of Teresa of Avila, Chapel of St. Teresa, S. Maria della Scala, Rome Photo: Miguel Navarro García

5 October 1616, Teresa’s third feast day as a blessed, the Spanish Congregation agreed to sever the right foot from her holy body, which was buried in Alba, Spain, and donate it to the Italian Congregation. On 12 July 1616, a solemn act was drawn up to that effect, and the relic arrived in Rome on 10 May 1617 (­Figure 38). Several months later, on 4 October, Giovanni Battista Cuccini, an auditor of the Sacra Rota, agreed to have a silver reliquary made in which Teresa’s sacrosanct foot would reside in S. Maria della Scala’s Chapel of Blessed Teresa.28 No further details concerning the original display of the relic have come to light. According to standard practice, however, it was probably covered or even kept in a locked cabinet to be revealed only on special occasions, such as her feast day. Certainly it would have been proudly displayed to the public during the solemnization festivities. 28

Both documents are in ASR, Pergamene, Roma, Carmelitani Scalzi in S. Maria della Scala, Cassetta 28, 8. Cuccini’s silver reliquary was later replaced by the one seen in Figure 38. In 1905 the relic was moved to its current location in a second chapel dedicated to St. Teresa, located to the left of the tribune and not visible from the nave. See Gigli 1979, 26.

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In short, abundant ephemeral imagery reportedly embellished the whole church of S. Maria della Scala that elaborated St. Teresa’s officially sanctioned persona and gave her the proper attention she did not receive in the apparato in St. Peter’s due to its emphasis on St. Isidore. This imagery would have been at least as impressive as that for her beatification, as analyzed in Chapter 2. The solemnization decorations would have expounded Teresa’s new saintly image in accordance with the processes for her sanctity that culminated in the 1616 relatio and shorter 1622 bull. At the same time, cherished permanent fixtures honored Teresa and brought cachet to the Italian Congregation. In the right crossing chapel, newly rededicated to Teresa as saint, Palma’s dramatic Ecstasy of St. Teresa adorned the altar. And the priceless relic of her right foot was on display in its shimmering silver reliquary. Teresa’s monumental processional standard, likewise embellished with a depiction of the transverberation, was suspended from the dome. On the occasion of the solemnization S. Maria della Scala’s Chapel of St. Teresa was firmly established as the locus of her public cult in Rome.

CHAPTER 6

A Triumphal Procession for Philip Iv’s New Saint in Viceregal Naples By the time of Teresa’s canonization in 1622, the Discalced Carmelites’ Italian Congregation had been established in Naples for 20 years, with the friary and church of the Madre di Dio as their headquarters (see Figure 16).1 We have seen that Rome, the papal city, and Naples, the capital of Spain’s Kingdom of Naples, were competing centers in which assertions of pontifical or regal hegemony were crucially important to Teresa’s festivities. In comparison with the Neapolitan beatification festivities, those honoring Teresa’s canonization asserted her identity as the crown’s holy woman even more forcefully. The celebrations for the entire octave are treated in detail in the unpublished manuscript Relatione della processione e festa fatta dalla città di Napoli p[er] la canonizatione della nostra S.ta madre Teresa di Giesù (Report on the Procession and Feast Made by the City of Naples for the Canonization of our Holy Mother Teresa of Jesus), found in the Order’s Roman archive.2 The report’s unnamed author was a member of the Italian Congregation, who addressed briefly the opening ceremonies in the church of S. Giuseppe Maggiore, and provided a detailed account of the procession’s route and magnificent decorations. The procession commenced on the evening of 4 October and continued throughout the night, reaching the Madre di Dio outside the walls to the north of the city on 5 October, the new saint’s feast day. The celebrations continued at the church for rest of the eight-day period. 1 Cardinal-Viceroy Antonio Zapata y Cisneros and Lord Councilor Cesare Alterisio, Planner of the Festivities The manuscript report explicitly states that “The Lord Councilor Cesare ­Alterisio, grassiere, was in charge of this celebration and procession.”3 Alterisio 1 On the church’s foundation and later renovations, see Chapter 3, 72−74. It is now known as S. Teresa degli Scalzi. 2 AGOCD, Plut. 109, c, fols. 1r–2r. 3 AGOCD, Plut. 109, c, fol. 1r. The Alterisio (or Alderisio) family had modest origins; both Cesare and his father served as councilors. See Rovito 1986, 50–54. Viceroy Pedro Fernández de © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2024 | doi:10.1163/9789004548916_008

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was a member of the Collateral Council (or royal parliament). He was also a viceregal appointee in his capacity as grassiere, a member of the Annona, the municipal body charged with providing foodstuffs and with maintaining streets and preparing them for processions. As grassiere, Alterisio was the right-hand man of Cardinal-Viceroy Antonio Zapata y Cisneros (r.1620–22), the king’s surrogate.4 The cardinal-viceroy had much at stake in ensuring that the festivities for St. Teresa, whose cause for holiness had been promoted by the Spanish crown, were suitably magnificent, deferential to Philip IV (r.1621–65), and laudatory of his saint.5 Zapata charged Alterisio with doling out funds for the construction of triumphal arches and elaborately decorated altars along the processional route as well as for many of the decorations lining the major streets, such as draperies and rows of temporary pilasters. Alterisio, certainly in consultation with Zapata, made every effort to highlight royal power and to involve prominent lay and religious individuals and corporate groups.6 In addition, the procession was designed to ingratiate the popolo, with whom the cardinal-viceroy was experiencing an increasingly volatile relationship, as discussed below. John Marino and Céline Dauverd have demonstrated that other viceroys introduced innovations into public festivities in which they were personally involved in order to underscore the legitimacy of Spanish rule, and Zapata was no exception.7 Close analysis of the unpublished description of Teresa’s procession reveals that it combined and creatively adapted four of the major Neapolitan festive routes recognized by Marino. The first was the royal way, which started at Porta Capuana and went through the six seggi (administrative districts) to the Palazzo Reale, thereby connecting “the political bases of the monarchy, nobility, and popolo.”8 This route corresponded to that of the

4

5 6 7 8

­ astro, whose impact on Teresa’s beatification festivities was examined in Chapter 3, 80−81, C had established the norm of appointing a member of the Collateral Council as grassiere. See Sodano 2013, 125. Zapata (Madrid 1550–1635) was the eldest son of the first count of Barajas, but renounced the title in order to pursue an ecclesiastical career. He received a degree in canon law from the University of Salamanca, served as bishop of Cádiz and Inquisitor in Spain, and was elevated to the cardinalate by Clement VIII in 1604. See Salvá 1853. See Chapters 2, 66, and 4, 95,on the Spanish crown’s promotion of Teresa’s cause, first by Philip II at the time of her death, and subsequently by Philip III and Philip IV. No women marched in the procession, but the nuns of S. Chiara contributed decorations and a temporary altar along the route, as discussed below. Marino 2011; Dauverd 2020, including 189 on Corpus Christi. On the four routes, see Marino 2011, 110–13; quotation at 111. See Sodano 2013, 112, on the seggi. There were five noble seggi associated with physical neighborhoods and their nobility. The sixth—that of the popolo—did not correspond to a specific district. Its delegate was elected

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viceroy’s possesso, which started at the Capuana Gate if the entrance was by land, or at the Castel Nuovo if by sea.9 Naples’s second traditional processional route, which Marino called the viceregal way, was more flexible and frequently used. It allowed movement back and forth from the Palazzo Reale to various churches and religious houses on individual feast days. Next was the religious way, established by the annual citywide processions for the feasts of S. Gennaro and Corpus Christi. These started at the archbishop’s palace, situated to the left of the Duomo (Cathedral), and progressed through the six seggi in the following order: Capuana, Popolo, Portanova, Porto, Nido, and Montagna. Finally, the fourth route, for the feast of S. Giovanni Battista, followed the narrow streets associated with the popolo (common people). It progressed from the Largo del Castello through the guild neighborhoods between the seggi and the sea, continued into Piazza della Sellaria (Saddlery Square), then on to Piazza del Mercato (Market Square). Thus, St. Teresa’s novel processional route embraced the entire city, associating her holiness with the crown, the viceregal and municipal governments, and Neapolitans of all social classes. 2 Inaugurating the Celebration at the Church of S. Giuseppe Maggiore It may seem surprising that the Spanish national church of S. Giacomo degli Spagnoli (St. James of the Spaniards) was not selected as the starting point for the festivities in honor of the crown’s new saint, Teresa of Avila.10 Instead, for reasons not addressed in the unpublished description of the festivities, S. Giuseppe Maggiore (St. Joseph Major) was the setting for the opening ceremonies and point of departure for the impressive procession. The church is unfamiliar today because it was razed in an urban renewal project of the 1930s 9 10

by the 58 men who represented the 29 ottine (subdivisions of the city), each of which had a leader called a captain. Marino 2011, 99–113. Many viceroys entered the city by sea. Teresa’s procession started at neither the Porta Capuana (which was excluded from the route), nor the Castel Nuovo (which was along the route). On S. Giacomo, see Sánchez 2013, 157. Throughout this chapter, I cite the first topographic map of Naples, that of Giovanni Carafa, Duke of Noia (or Noja), which was still incomplete at his death in 1768. It was corrected and completed by Niccolò Carletti, and ultimately published in 1775 as an engraving on 35 sheets. The 1775 map is available in the interactive Naples Digital Archive of the Bibliotheca HertzianaMax-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte in Rome. See https://maps.biblhertz.it/map?name=noia. Prior to the creation of this interactive site, Loffredo 2009 was the standard reference. S. Giacomo is Noia map #425; its official dedication is to SS. Giacomo e Vittoria.

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Figure 39 Alessandro Baratta, Fidelissimae urbis neapolitanae cum omnibus viis accurata et nova delineatio aeditam in luce ab Alexandro Baratta MDCXXVII, detail of Castel Nuovo area Photo: © The British Library Board, Maps.*24045.(2). Graphics: Martine C. Barnaby © Pamela M. Jones

along with adjacent buildings. As seen in a detail from Alessandro Baratta’s 1627 map of Naples, the church and its immediate surroundings were once quite imposing (Figure 39).11 S. Giuseppe Maggiore was a suitable venue for the celebrations because, like S. Giacomo, it was easily reached from the Palazzo Reale and Castel Nuovo and large enough for a grandious ceremony. The church’s dedication to St. Joseph must have been a main consideration in its ­selection—perhaps the principal one—because Teresa herself was deeply devoted to Joseph, for whom she named her first female foundation in Spain. Not coincidentally, the Italian Congregation’s first female establishment in Naples—S. Giuseppe al Pontecorvo (f. 1607)—was likewise dedicated to

11

Noia map #88. Alessandro Baratta (Naples 1583–1632 or later) created the first perspectival map of Naples made in the city. The engraving on 15 sheets contains various distortions in order to express a Spanish viceregal viewpoint. Throughout this chapter, my diagrams of Teresa’s processional route are marked on it. For analysis of the map, see Valerio 2013, 63, 76–78.

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Joseph, but was too small to accommodate the large numbers of participants involved in the opening festivities.12 The manuscript report included important, if terse, observations about the celebrations in S. Giuseppe Maggiore. The church was splendidly outfitted with silk draperies and other adornments. Moreover, Teresa’s cherished crystal and silver reliquaries were transported from the Madre di Dio to S. Giuseppe, where they were prominently displayed, perhaps on the high altar, before being carried in the citywide procession. In addition, the report stated in passing that “many titled Lords and other Lords of the government of the city assisted” in the ceremonies there, including Cardinal-Viceroy Antonio Zapata. Because he was a cardinal, Zapata may have served as the chief celebrant of the mass on this august occasion inextricably tied to the piety and prestige of King Philip IV. 3

The Procession’s Participants and Objects of Devotion

According to the report, when the ceremonies in S. Giuseppe Maggiore came to a close on the evening of 4 October, eight trumpets were sounded, and many Spanish soldiers provided artillery salvos and set off 50 mortars. The cardinal-viceroy’s protective role was thereby asserted and linked with that of Naples’s new saintly intercessor. Teresa’s procession that formed outside the church followed Neapolitan precedence, with trumpeters at the fore, followed by secular authorities—lowest-ranking first, some walking on foot, followed by increasingly higher-ranking officials and nobles on horseback. A general idea of the appearance of the secular figures in St. Teresa’s procession is provided by details from a viceregal procession depicted along the bottom of Baratta’s 1627 map of Naples, which bears this label: “The true design of the most noble cavalcade customarily made in this most faithful city of Naples for the entrance of each Viceroy just as on every other occasion ... on which the faithfulness and magnificence of the entire Kingdom [of Naples] is demonstrated.” At the head of Baratta’s procession is the “Leader of the Horn-Players” on horseback followed by equestrian figures sounding horns, who are labeled “Eight Trumpet-players,” the very same number mentioned as having heralded Teresa’s procession (Figure 40). Toward the end of Baratta’s viceregal cavalcade, the “Captain of the Guard” rides ahead of foot soldiers with halberds, who, along with little pages, surround the equestrian figures of the viceroy and sindaco (the noble seggi’s representative), all of whom wear lavish ceremonial garb (Figure 41). 12

On the nuns’ church, see Chapter 3, 71 and n.3.

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Figure 40 Alessandro Baratta, Fidelissimae urbis neapolitanae cum omnibus viis accurata et nova delineatio aeditam in luce ab Alexandro Baratta MDCXXVII, detail of trumpeters leading the procession Photo: © The British Library Board, Maps.*24045.(2). Graphics: Martine C. Barnaby © Pamela M. Jones

Figure 41 Alessandro Baratta, Fidelissimae urbis neapolitanae cum omnibus viis accurata et nova delineatio aeditam in luce ab Alexandro Baratta MDCXXVII, detail of the viceroy and sindaco in the procession Photo: © The British Library Board, Maps.*24045.(2). Graphics: Martine C. Barnaby © Pamela M. Jones

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As a religious procession, Teresa’s differed strikingly from the one Baratta depicted in three major ways. First, many participants were members of religious Orders and confraternities, who humbly walked on foot dressed in their official habits and robes with insignia and carrying their corporate banners.13 Second, the sindaco’s presence was not mentioned. And, third, a variety of devotional objects borne aloft punctuated the procession, calling attention to St. Teresa’s new, exalted status as the crown’s holy woman. Following the trumpeters, an unspecified number of the Madre di Dio’s fathers and friars had a prominent role in the cavalcade, some carrying the Order’s standard described as “richly adorned,” presumably with its coat of arms, while others carried eight silver candlesticks and 10 thuribles, which sent clouds of fragrant incense wafting over the crowds.14 Because the Italian Congregation had only 50 men in Naples, yet aimed to make a strong impression, their ranks were augmented by 50 members of the Carmelite Order (O Carm), who had 184 men in the city.15 Other men of the Madre di Dio were positioned at additional key points in the procession. All of the Italian Congregation’s men left the procession a bit early in order reach the Madre di Dio ahead of time to provide the cardinal-viceroy and other elites with a ceremonial greeting at the entrance portal with torches blazing. Numerous royal and civic office-holders in official ceremonial dress marched next, proclaiming Teresa’s elevated status as saint of the Spanish Kingdom of Naples and its capital city. Giulio Cesare Guadagna, notary of the Real Camera of the Sommaria, the royal government’s fiscal arm, rode on horseback carrying aloft a bright crimson standard bearing Teresa’s image.16 Behind him followed the municipal government’s 60 deputies representing the city’s ottine (subdivisions) together with their 29 “lord captains.” Unidentified “persons of quality” followed.17 Teresa’s processional statue and canonization standard, both now lost, were made for the occasion. They were held on high by another group of the Italian Congregation’s men along with officials from S. Giuseppe Maggiore. First, 26 13 14 15 16

17

On the procession’s participants, see AGOCD, Plut. 109, c, fols. 1r–2r. On precedence, see Marino 2011, 99–110. AGOCD, Plut. 109, c, fol. 1r. D’Engenio 1623 (602) recorded 50 brothers in the Madre di Dio. According to Bacco 1629 (8), the Italian Congregation in Naples numbered 50 males, and the Carmelite Order 184. AGOCD, Plut. 109, c, fol. 1r. No further details about the standard’s iconography were provided. In many cases, the report did not distinguish who rode on horseback and who were walking. However, it would have been unheard of for heads of royal governing bodies and other noblemen to walk alongside pages and soldiers. AGOCD, Plut. 109, c, fol. 1r.

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men of the Madre di Dio carried the statue of “Saint Mother [Teresa]” clad in her habit. As they proceeded, they took care to maintain the statue’s position high above a coffin that was completely ornamented with lights and flowers. Many persons holding lit torches lent further visibility and drama to the scene. S. Giuseppe Maggiore was represented by the 12 masters, or officials, of its carpenters’ confraternity. They bore torches and wore their sackcloth confraternal habits with the image of St. Joseph, one of Teresa’s primary saintly protectors. Following them, six additional fathers of the Madre di Dio had the honor of carrying Teresa’s canonization standard, which was made of crimson damask with silk and gold fringes and tassels. At 20 by 14 palmi (c.17 × 13 ft.), it was slightly larger than the one made for her beatification.18 It deserves emphasis that Teresa’s Neapolitan standard did not duplicate the imagery of her Roman one, which depicted the transverberation (see Figure 26). The Neapolitan standard’s inscription read “Saint Mother,” thereby proclaiming her status as founder, whose nuns, fathers, and friars were her spiritual progeny. At its center were painted figures of the Virgin Mary holding a golden necklace and St. Joseph carrying a white dress, features of a vision that, as we have seen, was interpreted as encapsulating the balance of Teresa’s contemplative and active life on which her reform of Carmel depended (see Figure 12).19 Two angels were positioned above Mary and Joseph on the Neapolitan standard. One held a lily, a symbol of purity (shared by Teresa and Mary) and the other a garland, referring to sainthood. At the top of the composition, the Holy Spirit presided as the source of Teresa’s fruitful wisdom and doctrine. Remarkably, the coat of arms of Lord Councillor Cesare Alterisio, the grassiere, adorned the standard’s lower edge, highlighting his own role as organizer of the celebrations for ­Cardinal-Viceroy Zapata as well as his devotion to the crown’s new saint. Participants in the next group were priests of major churches and members of their confraternities, whose lavishly embellished buildings and piazzas served as devotional stopping points along the processional route. First among them were 30 priests of the church of the Spirito Santo (Holy Spirit) marching with flaming torches. Some were dressed in full sacerdotal vestments; others wore small tunics of shining white brocade.20 It is noteworthy that the Largo (or piazza) dello Spirito Santo was the procession’s final stopping point before it went through the Porta Reale and continued north to the Madre di Dio.

18 19 20

The Neapolitan palmo corresponded to 10.38”. See analysis in Chapter 2, 54−57. The theme had been included in the beatification ­programs in Rome and Naples. Noia map #385; Catalani 1845, 32–39.

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Representatives of two of the city’s most prestigious religious institutions, both under royal jurisdiction, followed. First were 16 priests of the church of the Incurabili (Incurables, or Syphlitics), whose hospital was one of Naples’s largest. Some of the priests marched with their standard elevated, while others carried blazing torches. The complex of the SS. Annunziata (the Most Blessed Annunciate) was one of the city’s most important, and there Father Pedro de la Madre de Dios had preached so compellingly in 1602 that elite Neapolitans and the Spanish Regent of the Chancellery had donated funds to build the church of the Madre di Dio.21 The important complex consisting of a church, conservatory, hospital, bank, and Holy House chapel was not situated near the processional route, and therefore was not a stop along the way, but due to its importance it was represented by more than 200 men.22 First came its 80 priests, who carried precious ecclesiastical furnishings: a silver cross said to have been very valuable, four silver candlesticks, and two thuribles. They were followed by all 100 officials of the Holy House of the Annunciate with lit candles. To add charm and variety to the event, 50 little boys dressed as angels processed after them, playing instruments and singing St. Teresa’s praises. The lord masters of the Annunziata’s Confraternita dei Penitenti (Confraternity of the Penitents), all of them noblemen, marched next bearing lit torches.23 Toward the end of the procession, secular and ecclesiastical personages of the highest rank presided alongside and directly behind the exquisite lifesize silver reliquary bust of St. Teresa that had been made for the beatification ­celebrations and was valued at 800 ducats.24 An unspecified number of the Italian Congregation’s men carried the reliquary statue, which was ­protected and honored by a newly made ceremonial canopy of white silk. The canopy itself was held aloft by many titled lords, among whom were Lord Luigi ­Sanseverino, Prince of Bisignano, scion of an old Neapolitan family with ­Norman royal blood, and “the Most Illustrious Marquis Spinelli,” a member of the noble family from the Seggio di Nido.25 Vittoria Spinelli had donated funds toward the construction of the Madre di Dio in 1605. Other titled men 21 22 23

24 25

On Pedro, see the Introduction, 4, and Chapter 2, 41. For more on the Annunziata complex, see Chapter 3, 72 ; also Noia map #186. The confraternity ran the hospital. As Sánchez (2013, 169) noted, various processions allowed the “viceroy to exhibit his authority in the city’s most prominent devotional centers, such as the churches of the Annunziata hospital or of the great monastic complex of Monteoliveto.” See Chapter 3, 75−76, and further discussion below. On these noble families see: http://www.nobili-napoletani.it/Sanseverino.htm and http:// www.nobili-napoletaini.it/Spinelli.htm, both accessed 14 August 2020. I have been unable to identify this member of the Spinelli family.

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and knights were also present. Following Sanseverino and Spinelli in the procession were Cardinal-Viceroy Zapata and the Lord Count of Montenes, both of whom would have been on horseback as a sign of their exalted status.26 Guards and other officials protected the cardinal-viceroy and the count. This traditional feature also conveyed the cardinal-viceroy’s protection of the Kingdom of Naples. Conversely, however, Zapata himself needed protection from unruly mobs, as we will see. Finally, the manuscript recorded that numerous bystanders, including many commoners, witnessed the spectacular cortege. 4

The Processional Route: Its Decorations and Innovations

The report’s Discalced Carmelite author highlighted Alterisio’s role as organizer of the procession. With Zapata’s approval Alterisio provided the funds from the royal coffers, and in consultation with the cardinal-viceroy, he would have decided how many temporary triumphal arches and outdoor altars there should be and where to place them. St. Teresa’s cavalcade was characteristic of the era in combining pagan and Christian imagery. To classically educated elites, both ecclesiastical and lay, the use of imagery associated with the Olympian gods and Roman emperors seemed well suited to celebrations of blesseds and saints who were understood to have triumphed over the mundane world. The report does not address who devised the Latin inscriptions on the triumphal arches and who designed and brought to fruition the visual and written imagery on the individual altars. The temporary outdoor altars were decorated in large part with precious items already owned by the religious Orders, confraternities, and other corporate entities charged with their adornment. The additional purpose-made statues, paintings, decorative objects, inscriptions, and verses may have been designed by those groups, perhaps in some cases in consultation with the men of the Madre di Dio. It is unknown whether or not the grassiere’s final approval of the written and visual imagery was required, but given his crucial need to please Cardinal-Viceroy Zapata, it would have been prudent for Alterisio to have exerted such authority. The long processional route, reconstructed here and marked on Baratta’s 1627 map of Naples, was designed to encompass the city’s seggi and key viceregal monuments and to welcome all the city’s inhabitants into St. Teresa’s metaphorical embrace (Figure 42). The cavalcade’s first leg started, uniquely, at S. Giuseppe Maggiore and continued down Via Monteoliveto (Figure 43). 26

AGOCD, Plut. 109, c, fol. 2r.

Figure 42 Alessandro Baratta, Fidelissimae urbis neapolitanae cum omnibus viis accurata et nova delineatio aeditam in luce ab Alexandro Baratta MDCXXVII, diagram of the whole processional route Photo: © The British Library Board, Maps.*24045.(2). Graphics: Martine C. Barnaby © Pamela M. Jones

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Figure 43 Alessandro Baratta, Fidelissimae urbis neapolitanae cum omnibus viis accurata et nova delineatio aeditam in luce ab Alexandro Baratta MDCXXVII, diagram of the 1st section of the processional route Photo: © The British Library Board, Maps. *24045.(2). Graphics: Martine C. Barnaby © Pamela M. Jones

According to the report, the street was adorned in the manner of a theater with rows of pilasters. For a distance of 1,100 palmi (nearly 952 ft.), costly silk draperies and elegant tapestries depicting individual figures and narrative scenes— probably loaned by wealthy individuals—were suspended along both sides of the thoroughfare. An ephemeral triumphal arch made by order of Cesare Alterisio stood near S. Giuseppe Maggiore at the outset of this part of the route. It measured 50 by 35 palmi (about 43 × 30 ft.) and had four columns with a cornice above. Atop the cornice facing S. Giuseppe was an image of St. Teresa and the motto, Earthly Teresa Triumphs by Staying the Course. On the other side, an epitaph, read: Trophies of the Restorer of Carmel, Supplications for the Altar of the Protector Saint [Teresa].27 A short distance beyond, on Via Monteoliveto, stood an exquisitely ornamented outdoor altar that underscored Teresa’s role as the Spanish crown’s 27

AGOCD, Plut. 109, c, fol. 2v. Portions of this description are barely legible. The motto and epitaph, here translated, were in Latin.

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saint. It was financed by Lord Angelo Saluzzo, a relative of the nobleman Agostino Saluzzo, who had contributed funds to the construction of the Madre di Dio.28 On the altar, erected by the Observant Franciscans of the nearby church of S. Maria la Nuova, stood two statues, one of St. Teresa and the other of the infant Jesus dressed in gold cloth.29 Above them was a silk canopy, and around them were situated a silver cross, four reliquary statues, silver candlesticks, and flowers. Beside the altar were 23 epitaphs (unrecorded) in praise of the new saint written on silk and gold. Finally, where the altar abutted an alleyway, there was an architrave of green silk over which presided the imperial eagle with the impresa of columns on either side, symbols from the Habsburg coat of arms. These symbols, which appeared throughout the city on permanent buildings, such as over the entrance to the Castel Capuano, would have been easily recognized by all Neapolitans. Whoever selected this royal imagery— Saluzzo, the Franciscans, or Alterisio—clearly understood the importance of asserting St. Teresa’s connection with the Spanish crown near the beginning of the processional route. Farther down Via Monteoliveto was another splendid outdoor altar, this one made by the fathers of S. Maria di Monte Oliveto (today’s S. Anna dei Lombardi).30 As Carlos José Hernando Sánchez wrote, this great monastic complex had long served as “the stage for important political ceremonies; the viceroys visited it on Palm Sunday and on the Feast of the Presentation [of the infant Jesus] in February.”31 Covered by a crimson velvet canopy, the altar had three niches, the central one containing a silver cross and those on the sides angels with mottos. Other decorations included many silver candlesticks and vases, and ceramic jars with flowers. Around the altar musicians played instruments while vocalists sang Teresa’s praises. The repeated use of expensive cloth and devotional objects made from silver deriving from Spain’s American colonies underscored the crown’s wealth, and that of Naples’s illustrious religious and secular communities, while simultaneously honoring the kingdom’s new saint. At the end of Via Monteoliveto was a second temporary triumphal arch funded by Lord Alterisio, this time for the Jesuit fathers. It was similar in size to the first, and likewise had columns and a cornice surmounted by an image of Teresa. The two triumphal arches erected on this part of the route served as brackets around the intervening churches closely associated with viceregal power whose decorations lauded Teresa as the crown’s new saint. 28 29 30 31

See Chapter 3, 72. On the church, see Noia map #93; Catalano 1845, 116–34; Carrió-Invernizzi 2013, 389. Cantone 2013, 333; Noia map #103. Sánchez 2013, 169.

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The second section of the route turned right from Via Monteoliveto onto a street that led to the building where oil was stored, and continued to S. Chiara and the Gesù Nuovo on opposite sides of the piazza (Figure 44).32 The cavalcade then proceeded along the road that corresponded to the Greco-Roman decumanus inferior and is now commonly referred to as Spaccanapoli (comprising the present-day Via Benedetto Croce and Via S. Biagio dei Librai). This was the time-honored second leg of Marino’s “royal way” of the possesso, whose first leg, which started at the Porta Capuana and proceeded along the decumanus major (today’s Via Tribunale), was omitted from Teresa’s procession.33 Immediately after the procession turned right off Via Monteoliveto on the way to Piazza del Gesù Nuovo, a third ephemeral altar came into view. It was also financed by the grassiere for the Jesuits, which underscores the Society’s central role in the city’s religious culture as supported by the crown. At the highest point of this impressive altar, measuring c.30 by 25 ft., were 14 reliquary statues, many silver candlesticks, and artificial flowers in silver urns. In the center was a monumental statue of St. Joseph, flanked by two silvered figural statues holding Latin imprese. As suggested by the verses displayed by one of the flanking figures, both appear to have been personifications of Teresa’s virtues. The sculpted figure on the left carried a tondo with verses addressed by St. Teresa to St. Joseph: Let it be known to one and all Let my triumph go forth from your church O, my defense, my great power, Joseph, my bridegroom of propriety. Truly, always with your guidance I have been in military service, I fought for a vine branch [St. Joseph’s in Avila] Whatever veneration [I receive], Know it will yield into obedience to you.34 These verses conveyed Teresa’s devotion and obedience to her protector, St. Joseph, while simultaneously emphasizing her role as founder of the Discalced Carmelite Order. Because in Hebrew the word “Carmel” means “freshness” or “vineyard,” Teresa’s reform of the Carmelite Order, which returned it 32 33 34

The street is #105 on Noia’s map. On the city’s layout, see Marino 2011 throughout (110–11 on the royal way); also see discussions in many of the essays in Astarita 2013. AGOCD Plut. 109, c, fol. 3v.

Figure 44 Alessandro Baratta, Fidelissimae urbis neapolitanae cum omnibus viis accurata et nova delineatio aeditam in luce ab Alexandro Baratta MDCXXVII, diagram of the 2nd section of the processional route Photo: © The British Library Board, Maps. *24045.(2). Graphics: Martine C. Barnaby © Pamela M. Jones

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to its original severity, was likened to a vineyard she had planted. The vines’ branches were her female and male foundations. As such, she was a fecund virgin mother like Mary, another of her special protectors.35 Given that the Jesuits were known for erudite celebrations incorporating Latin and Greek poetry written by their fathers and the masters and students in their colleges, we can safely assume that they composed the verses on their altars, including this one.36 Starting at the Jesuits’ altar and extending up the street in the direction of their church of the Gesù Nuovo, the popolo devised a theater-like adornment of silk draperies approximately 450 palmi long (c. 389 ft.). Again, the grassiere provided the funds. The draperies ended at a fourth temporary triumphal arch that, like the others, bore a statue of Teresa at the top. Its motto read: In the odor of heroic, divine virtues, for the value of flowering, bejeweled, radiant.37 Women did not walk in the procession, and it is noteworthy that the only female group chosen to contribute decorations along the route were the nuns of S. Chiara, one of Naples’s largest and most illustrious female establishments. It had a royal pedigree, having been founded by the Angevins, and it housed their tombs.38 S. Chiara is situated diagonally across from the Gesù Nuovo, and the nuns created a theater of brocade draperies that extended from the previous arch up to the Jesuit church for a distance of 300 palmi, or roughly 259 ft. In addition, they ornamented an outdoor altar on which they placed “all of their silver, including silver flowers that were considered very beautiful.”39 Although most of the nuns’ precious objects were destroyed 35 36

37 38

39

For further analysis, see Chapter 2, 45. The Jesuits’ 1622 festivities for Ignatius Loyola and Francis Xavier at the Collegio Romano are a prime example. The classically inspired Apotheosis sive Consecratio SS. Ignatii et Francisci Xaverii (The Apotheosis or Consecration of Sts. Ignatius Loyola and ­Francis Xavier), composed by the virtuoso musician Giovanni Gerolamo Kapsberger with a libretto by the Jesuit polymath Orazio Grassi was its centerpiece. An erudite apparato decorated some of the Collegio’s rooms, and students were awarded prizes for their praises of the saints written in Greek and Latin. For a comprehensive description, see Famiano Strada, Saggio delle feste che apparecchiano nel Collegio Romano in honore de’ Santi Ignatio et Francesco da N.S. Gregorio XV. Canonizati. All’Illustrissimo, & Eccellentissimo Signor Principe di Venosa, In Roma, Appresso Alessandro Zannetti, MDCXXII. AGOCD Plut. 109, c, fol. 3v. In 1560 it was home to 300 nuns, and its numbers grew in the 17th century, on which see Chiavarra 2013, 184. Also see Noia map #107. S. Chiara was founded by King Robert of Anjou (r.1309–43) and his wife Sancha of Majorca. Part of the church and much of its original interior decoration were destroyed during World War II. AGOCD Plut. 109, c, fol. 3v. As discussed in Chapter 3, 75 and 89, finely worked silver ­flowers were a prized art form in Naples.

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by bombs during World War II, some of them survived and are now on display in the Museo di S. Chiara. Francesco Leone’s partly gilded silver reliquary bust of St. Bartholomew on a gilded wooden base, made in 1470, was presumably one of the exquisite devotional objects placed on the nuns’ altar in 1622.40 A general idea of the outdoor altar’s appearance, with glimmering, intricately worked ecclesiastical furnishings in glorious array, is provided by the museum’s display of similar costly items dating from the 16th to the 18th centuries. During the nocturnal procession, S. Chiara’s treasures would have shimmered in flickering torchlight. Across the piazza stood the Jesuit church of the Gesù Nuovo (New Church of Jesus), whose name distinguished it from an earlier church with the same dedication that was still in use.41 The Jesuits’ second altar for the canonization celebrations was erected in front of the Gesù Nuovo’s main portal. Covered by a canopy, a painting of St. Teresa with a silver cross in front of it graced the altar, together with 14 silver candlesticks, four silver statues, and many vases of flowers. Around the altar were Latin epitaphs and many imprese on silk draperies.42 The extensive use of learned poetry and inscriptions typified the shared literary culture of the Jesuits and Discalced Carmelites. Moreover, silver from Spanish America appeared in glistening profusion not only at the Jesuits’ altars, but all along the processional route, connecting material and spiritual wealth with the Spanish crown. At the far edge of the Gesù Nuovo’s facade, near S. Chiara’s bell tower, stood another triumphal arch raised by the Jesuits. Like the first arch at the beginning of Via Monteoliveto, it was 50 palmi (c.43 ft.) high. An image of St. Teresa with Jesus stood on its cornice. The triumphal arch bore a Latin epitaph on each side, one of which read in translation: To Teresa, Virgin Mother Teresa, Who, after the men [of her Order] were born Led choirs of them together with All the virgins [her nuns]. And led the procession of priests 40 41

42

The information is found on the museum’s label. For further details, see https:// www.beni-culturali.eu/opere_d_arte/scheda/—leone-francesco-­n otizie-1470-15 -00045527/65338. Accessed 3 February 2023. On the two churches and the architecture of the Gesù Nuovo, see Cantone 2013, 343–44. In 1767, eight years before the map was published, the Society of Jesus was suppressed, and the Gesù Nuovo was given to the Franciscans, who named it Trinità Reale, as seen on the Noia map #106. See Murphy 2008, 71–87; 84–85 on the suppression. AGOCD, Plut. 109, c, fols. 3v–4r. The painting and sculptures were not described, the ­epitaphs are partly illegible, and the imprese and verses were not recorded.

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From the highest ridge of [Mount] Carmel To that, outstandingly, of [Mount] Olympus.43 Learned participants and viewers of the decorations would have understood the triumphal arch’s Latin epitaph, with its classical allusion to Mount Olympus, as continuing the theme of Teresa’s reform. With her elevation to sainthood, members of her Order became associated not merely with the heights of Carmel, but with those of Olympus, or heaven. At the same time, St. Teresa became a celestial intercessor for all members of the Universal Church. Next, the procession made its way down the Spaccanapoli to Largo di S. Domenico, the most spacious piazza along this leg of the processional route. Both its large scale and the royal associations of the Dominican church and friary made it an important site for festive decorations.44 The piazza’s grand temporary decorations included a triumphal arch and an altar. The report’s description of the former, erected by the Jesuits, is largely illegible. The multi-storied altar was created by the fathers and brothers of the Dominicans’ confraternity of the SS. Rosario (Most Holy Rosary). Measuring 20 by 25 palmi (c.17 × 21½ ft.), it was made of gilded wood, with a central niche containing a statue of the Madonna of the Rosary with additional reliquary statues flanking it in separate niches. Placed higher up were 20 gilded reliquary statues, 12 large silver candlesticks with lit candles, and numerous vases of (probably silver) flowers. The cavaliers of the Seggio di Nido made several contributions to the decorations. Just beyond Largo di S. Domenico they constructed a triumphal arch in the street on top of which stood a statue of St. Teresa flanked by statues of two of Naples’s patron saints. Their ephemeral altar, similar to the others, was located nearby at S. Angelo a Nido, the seggio’s church.45 From S. Angelo up to the palace of the Monte di Pietà, where the present-day Via Benedetto Croce becomes Via S. Biagio dei Librai, the Seggio di Nido adorned the street with gold and silk draperies. Culminating the theater-like draperies was a temporary altar made by the Lord Governors of the Monte di Pietà, officials of its confraternity that oversaw its banking practices, which combatted purported Jewish usury by offering charitable interest-free loans on collateral to poor Christians.46 The 43 44 45 46

AGOCD, Plut. 109, c, fol. 4r. AGOCD, Plut. 109, c, fol. 4v. Noia map #117 and #118. On royal associations and its ­Aragonese tombs, see Marino 2011, 17, 20. One of the unnamed patrons saints was surely Gennaro; the other was probably either John the Baptist or Restituta. The church and the Seggio di Nido are #122 and #123 on the Noia map, where they are labeled “Nilo” rather than the alternate “Nido.” Sabatini 2013, 95–96; Carrió-Invernizzi 2013, 391; Black 2003, 229. Noia map #213.

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confraternity’s temporary outdoor altar was adorned with a painting of the new saint flanked by personifications of Mildness and Purity. Twenty-four silver candlesticks, a silver cross, and flowers in silver urns completed the display. The altar’s two architraves bore (unrecorded) epitaphs. Thus, the second section of the route, which was longer than the first, gave important roles to old and new religious Orders, the popolo, lords of the Seggio di Nido, and confraternities. One salient feature of the ornamentation was the predominance of scores of richly decorated reliquaries of a variety of saints, including Teresa. In addition, St. Teresa’s image as fecund virgin founder, expressed by means of words and images, was given special emphasis, particularly in the Jesuits’ decorations. The portion of the manuscript report devoted to the third and fourth legs of the procession contains three largely illegible pages, from which it is at least clear that the same kinds of decorations—arches, altars, and draperies— embellished the streets.47 A synopsis of the entire route provided earlier in the report allows us to reconstruct the basic trajectory of its third leg, which comprised portions of what Marino termed the city’s viceregal, religious, and popolo routes (Figure 45).48 The procession turned north off the Via S. Biagio dei Librai section of the Spaccanapoli and continued up Vico del Sole (today’s Via del Duomo), passed the church and house called the Crocelle at Vicolo Mannisi, whose Franciscan fathers tended the sick, and subsequently went by S. Stefano.49 After a stop at the archiepiscopal complex, the cortege proceeded south to Vico Manocchi, and entered the Seggio di Capuano where it marched down Via Pizzofalcone (now Via della Zecca e di S. Agostino), and entered the area associated with various trades.50 This leg of the procession ended at the Castel Nuovo and Palazzo Reale, the zone of the royal government. The archiepiscopal complex, comprising a grand piazza, the Duomo, and the Archiepiscopal Palace, had a crucial place in the city’s religious life, and consequently, a major role in Teresa’s canonization festivities. We can safely assume that its piazza, like others along the processional route, was richly adorned for the occasion. The manuscript report explicitly stated that the procession went into the cathedral through the main portal and exited through a smaller portal at the other end of the nave, which gave onto Vico Manocchi

47 48 49 50

AGOCD, Plut. 109, c, fols. 5r–6r. AGOCD, Plut. 109, c, fol. 2r. In the order mentioned, Noia map #204, #253, and #254. Vico del Sole became Via dell’ Arcivescovado, and is now Via del Duomo. In the order mentioned, Noia map #255–57, #265, and #164.

Figure 45 Alessandro Baratta, Fidelissimae urbis neapolitanae cum omnibus viis accurata et nova delineatio aeditam in luce ab Alexandro Baratta MDCXXVII, diagram of the 3rd section of the processional route Photo: © The British Library Board, Maps. *24045.(2). Graphics: Martine C. Barnaby © Pamela M. Jones

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in the Seggio di Capuano.51 Thus, the Duomo was one of only three churches that the cavalcade entered. The others were S. Giuseppe Maggiore, where the opening ceremonies took place, and the Madre di Dio, the endpoint of the procession and location of the feast day liturgies. The Duomo, originally dedicated to S. Maria dell’Assunta (St. Mary of the Assumption) and now called S. Gennaro (St. Januarius), had been constructed under three successive Angevin kings, and incorporated, off its nave to the left, the 6th-century church of S. Restituta and baptistery of S. Giovanni in Fonte. At the time of Teresa’s canonization in 1622, the Duomo also included Naples’s most important shrine: the grand Tesoro e Cappella di S. Gennaro Patrono (Treasury and Chapel of St. Januarius, Patron of Naples).52 The chapel was designed to house S. Gennaro’s numinous relics, above all the gem-incrusted gilt silver reliquary bust holding the saint’s head and a vial of his dried blood (Figure 46). His blood is believed to liquify three times a year, and on those days the blood’s receptacle is removed from the reliquary so the miracle may be seen. The display and veneration of relics, as attested by the numerous reliquaries on the processional route’s temporary altars, was a major feature of Teresa’s canonization festivities. Therefore, it can hardly be doubted that S. Gennaro’s chapel, off the right side of the nave only a short distance from the Duomo’s main entrance portal, was a destination for participants in the procession. Keeping in mind that Cardinal-Viceroy Zapata himself, as King Philip IV’s alter ego, was among them, it is highly likely that the celebrations within the Duomo included a ceremonial viewing of the most important reliquary in the Kingdom of Naples. Then as now, the reliquary statue was dressed in richly embroidered vestments on ceremonial occasions.53 Members of the procession may have viewed the reliquary either from the nave or from within the chapel itself. In order to exit onto Via Manocchi, the cavalcade had to make its way down the length of the nave. Whether or not liturgical rites at the high altar were performed for them—perhaps by Archbishop Decio Carafa—is unknown.54 After departing the Duomo, the procession began its progress toward the port area through the narrow streets and commodious squares 51 The Seggio Capuano is #264 on Noia’s map. 52 Francesco Grimaldi constructed the chapel from 1608–13 but its pictorial decorations had not been begun. See Cantone 2013, 344; also Strazzullo 1994. Interpretative studies include Dauverd 2020, 103–46; Hills 2012. 53 In 1304 Charles II of Anjou had commissioned Étienne Godefroyd to create the reliquary. The vestments in Figure 46 postdate our period. 54 This portion of the description is mainly illegible. See AGOCD, Plut. 109, c, fols. 5r–6r. Carafa served as archbishop from 1613–26. See http://cardinals.fiu.edu/bios1611.htm#Carafa. Accessed 17 August 2020.

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Figure 46 Étienne Godefroyd, Gold and Silver Reliquary Bust of S. Gennaro, 1304. Treasury and Chapel of S. Gennaro, Cathedral, Naples Photo: José Luis Bernardes Ribeiro. Creative Commons. Attribution ShareAlike 4.0 International. Public Domain

associated with the popolo. The manuscript report’s descriptions of the decorations along this part of the route are unreadable due to the faded ink, but the route can be reconstructed. Dauverd and Marino have demonstrated that inclusion or exclusion in public religious ceremonies of members of the popolo and the parts of Naples associated with them varied according to the given political situation. It should be noted that the popolo were primarily merchants and artisans in addition to the urban intelligentsia, such as men of the law, civic officials, and university professors. Cesare Alterisio deliberately included the popolo in St. Teresa’s canonization procession created under the cardinal-viceroy’s auspices.55 In addition to having provided funds for the popolo’s extensive display of over 300 ft. of 55

By contrast, for example, under Viceroy Fernando Ruiz (r.1599–1601) the Corpus Christi procession had excluded the popolo and gave leading roles instead to Spanish families, members of the Spanish Carmelite Order (O Carm), and the royal military. See Dauverd 2020, 208–09.

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draperies that lined the street leading to the Jesuits’ Gesù Nuovo, Alterisio had the procession wind through parts of the city near the port where artisans and merchants worked. In October 1622, when the procession took place, Cardinal-Viceroy ­Zapata’s turbulent three-year term—marked by famine, heavy rains, starvation, and inflation—was coming to a close.56 Cesare Alterisio, who was prefect of the Annona charged with providing food for the city, had previously advised the cardinal-viceroy to make a public appearance to console the city’s ­inhabitants by means of “his presence and his exhortations.”57 When he did so three times Zapata encountered increasingly angry mobs who yelled at him and  threw stones at his coach.58 Given these circumstances, it is understandable that Alterisio, the very official who had counseled Cardinal-Viceroy Zapata to console Naples’s starving inhabitants, funded the popolo’s decorations and designed the procession’s route to engage them and heighten their sense of civic community and deference toward the royal government. As seen in Figure 45, the procession continued from the cathedral straight down the narrow Via Pizzofalcone and passed by S. Agostino, church of the Seggio del Popolo.59 Next its participants entered Piazza della Sellaria, which Marino called the “popolo stronghold.”60 Piazza della Sellaria is documented as having a central role in public festivities a few years later, such as in 1624 for the celebration of Corpus Christi, when the catafalque for the host was carried into the square, and in 1629, when it was the site of imposing decorations for the feast of St. John the Baptist.61 Although the description of Teresa’s procession of 1622 is illegible at this point, it is highly likely that Alterisio funded impressive ephemeral adornments for Piazza della Sellaria. The procession next turned left onto Strada degli Armieri, named for the armorers who worked there in the Middle Ages but had since been replaced by silk drapers, and ­continued along additional streets lined with artisanal shops. Finally, it 56 57 58 59 60 61

My discussion is based on Salvá 1853 (408–17), who quoted documents pertaining to ­ ardinal-Viceroy Zapata’s reign. Due to his lack of success his term was not renewed. C Salvá 1853, 416, with an attribution to Pietro Giannone (1676–1748), author of Storia civile del regno di Napoli (Naples, 1723). Eventually he concluded that he would have to start punishing such “criminals” and enlisted “four famous magistrates to initiate the process of taking the criminals to task.” As quoted in Salvá 1853, 416, also with an attribution to Giannone. See preceding note. In the order discussed, see Noia’s map #196, #194, and #166. On S. Agostino’s role as the popolo’s church, see Marino 2011, 101. Marino 2011, 101; Noia map #159. See Marino 2011, 217. The section of the manuscript report devoted to this leg of the ­procession is illegible.

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passed by the Dominican church of S. Pietro Martire, then paraded down the Via dei Lanzieri, the center of rich wool and silk merchants who produced brocades and woolens for the international market.62 This leg of the procession reached a crescendo in the spacious zone of the royal government, as it neared the edifices of the Gran Guardia di Cavalleria, d’ Infanteria, and del Molo (Great Guards of the Cavalry, Infantry, and of the Port).63 Then it advanced into the vast Largo del Castello, the piazza skirting the Castel Nuovo. When St. Teresa’s procession reached this location, the seat of Philip IV’s Kingdom of Naples, there would have been considerable fanfare, including fireworks and artillery fire at the Nuovo, dell’ Ovo, and S. Elmo castles.64 Protocol demanded that participants await the arrival of Cardinal-­ Viceroy Zapata, who rode on horseback near the end of the procession surrounded by the royal guard whose protection he clearly needed, before such pomp and ceremony could begin. Artillery fire presumably marked his arrival, with fireworks subsequently heightening the nocturnal spectacle. The fourth and final section of the route made its way from Castel Nuovo to Palazzo Reale, continued along its far side, and then turned right onto Via Toledo and proceeded through the Porta Reale and up the hill all the way to the Italian Congregation’s church of the Madre di Dio outside the city walls (see Figure 16). Most of this part of the procession took place on the long, broad Via Toledo, one of the city’s primary processional arteries strongly associated with the viceregal government that cut a path between the Palazzo Reale on the east and the Spanish Quarter on the west.65 There was no more appropriate way to celebrate St. Teresa as the Spanish crown’s saint than to approach her cult center outside the walls by processing from the Palazzo Reale up the entire length of Via Toledo. Although festive decorations were certainly in abundance along Via Toledo, the manuscript’s description becomes fully decipherable again only where the procession made a detour off the long straight street in order to enjoy celebrations in Largo dello Spirito Santo, one of the largest open areas in central Naples.66 The cavalcade turned onto Vico dello Spirito Santo, which was 62 63 64 65

66

Marino 2011, 212. Noia’s map #35 and #37. Noia’s map #58–#60. These were features of her Neapolitan beatification festivities discussed throughout Chapter 3. As discussed in Chapter 3, 73, Via Toledo had not yet been lowered, meaning that the procession went up a hill and the Madre di Dio was located at street level. See Guarino 2013, 270; on the Spanish Quarters, see Sánchez 2013, 158–59; Noia map #388 and #362. The Porta Reale was razed in the 18th century. Cantone 2013, 339.

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draped with tapestries for the distance of 600 palmi (c.519 ft.), in order to reach the piazza and church also named for the Holy Spirit.67 In Largo dello Spirito Santo, a temporary altar came into view at the church’s entrance portal, on which was a statue of St. Teresa in her habit along with “everything beautiful that the church owned.”68 Thirty priests of Spirito Santo marched in the procession, and it seems likely that members of its Confraternita degl’ Illuminati dello Spirito Santo were on hand to witness the spectacular fireworks set off there, the most impressive of which were reportedly a giant, a dragon, and a castle. After this exciting display, the procession, now quite close to its ultimate destination, turned north up Via Toledo and exited Naples proper through Porta Reale. It continued by the public granaries and the palazzo of the Regi Studi in order to reach St. Teresa’s church, the Madre di Dio.69 According to the manuscript, the whole route was extremely well lit, so the church and its gardens were easily seen from a distance.70 There, the Discalced Carmelites, holding lit torches, greeted the procession’s participants, lighting their path up the stairs that separated the church from the garden, where, upon the procession’s arrival, more than 70 mortars were set off. 5

The Culminating Celebrations at the Madre di Dio

The Madre di Dio was not only the procession’s endpoint and place of worship during the rest of the octave celebrations, it was also the very heart of Teresa’s cult in Naples. The report mentioned the festivities at the church, but did not focus on the religious services, which, however, would have featured the same standard rituals that are documented as having taken place during Teresa’s celebrations elsewhere—masses, sermons, songs, and prayers in the mornings followed by additional services at vespers. Informal addresses in the vernacular would have presented Teresa’s life, deeds, and miracles to heterogeneous audiences, and because it was a male foundation, a Latin oration in St. Teresa’s honor would have been expected at the Madre di Dio on her feast day. On that day, the Eucharist had been put on display during the beatification ceremonies, and a similar ostension is likely to have occurred at the time of her 67 68 69 70

AGOCD, Plut. 109, c, fol. 6v. Noia map #385. AGOCD, Plut. 109, c, fol. 6v. Noia map #354, #344, and #525. See n.1 above regarding the rebuilding of the Madre di Dio and its later dedication as S. Teresa degli Scalzi.

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canonization.71 The manuscript reported that on St. Teresa’s feast day more than 1,400 mortar fireworks punctuated the celebrations. As the ultimate destination of the canonization procession, whose route was marked by ornate temporary decorations, the church would have received an ephemeral apparato at least as elaborate as that for Teresa’s beatification. A detailed contemporary description of the beatification decorations recorded the nave’s adornment with costly yellow and red damask draperies punctuated with the Discalced Carmelite coat of arms, and the extensive use of verses, emblems, inscriptions, and a series of paintings of Teresa’s life inside the church (see Figure 18). For the canonization celebrations, St. Teresa’s monumental processional banner would have been suspended from the dome, and permanent luxury items would have been donated for the occasion by Spanish and Neapolitan elites as indices of their deep devotion to the new saint. Standard practice was either to rededicate an existing chapel or build a new one at the time of a saint’s elevation. Because the crossing chapels were the church’s largest, and no new chapel was built at the time, I suggest that in 1622 the Chapel of Blessed Teresa in the right crossing was rededicated in honor of St. Teresa.72 There is no indication that Azzolino’s altarpiece with its intricate altar, made at the time of Teresa’s beatification, was replaced to mark her canonization. Indeed, there would have been little motivation to do so given that the painting and its altar were cherished possessions valued at 80 ducats and 500 ducats respectively (see Figure 19).73 Moreover, the painting’s iconography perfectly suited Teresa’s new saintly status. Azzolino’s figure of Teresa is dressed in the Discalced Carmelite habit with a halo-like aureole of light around her head. Arms outstretched in acceptance, she is shown gazing piously toward heaven while angels rejoice above, one holding a flowered crown over her head and another white lilies. The report gave due attention to prized possessions at the Madre di Dio that were taken to S. Giuseppe Maggiore for the festivities, carried in the procession, and then returned to their home church. Among them were the silver and crystal reliquaries originally made for Teresa’s beatification. They had been given pride of place on the stairs to the altar in the blessed’s chapel on her feast day in 1614, and would have been situated in a similarly prominent 71 72 73

See Chapter 3, 86−87. I have found no records of a new chapel for the saint prior to Cosimo Fanzago’s construction of the Chapel of St. Teresa to the left of the presbytery in 1640. On the church and its renovations over the centuries, see n.1 above. The exact location of Azzolino’s painting in 1622 is undocumented, but it was still in S. Teresa degli Scalzi in 2019. See Chapter 3, 78−79 and nn.31, 32.

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position in the chapel dedicated to the new saint in 1622. In addition, the report proudly noted that the processional statue of St. Teresa wearing the Discalced Carmelite habit, created especially for the canonization, was ultimately placed at the Madre di Dio’s high altar in a “beautifully ornamented niche.”74 Teresa’s large, splendid canonization standard was displayed sufficiently elevated above the church’s high altar so as not to block the view of the statue As a principal component of her Neapolitan canonization imagery, the standard conveyed St. Teresa’s exemplarity as an active contemplative, the founder of the Discalced Carmelite Order, author-teacher inspired by the Holy Spirit, and pure virgin. The coat of arms of Cesare Alterisio, the grassiere who had overseen the funding for the celebrations, notably marked its bottom edge. The full scope of St. Teresa’s official persona, as codified in papal Rome, was celebrated at the Madre di Dio in Naples—but with decidedly strong Spanish inflections. The celebrations for St. Teresa in two competing centers, Rome and Naples, were both magnificent. Although each city was located on the Italian peninsula, both of their sovereigns—the pontiff and the king—claimed worldwide dominions. This significantly affected the ways in which Teresa’s new status as a saint was mobilized by these rulers in order to imprint her holy image on each city’s sacred topography and in the hearts of the inhabitants. 74

AGOCD, Plut. 109, c, fol. 1v.

PART 3 The Mission to Persia and the East Indies: Conversionary Aspirations and Festivities

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New Challenges: Confronting Ethnic and Religious Diversity In the Mission to Persia and the East Indies, festivities for Teresa were considered so crucial that the newly arrived missionaries made great efforts to create them despite the fact that they were facing pressing challenges in securing a foothold in unfamiliar lands.1 They had only four missions in this early period, as seen in Figure 47. In two of them, Hormuz and Goa, they held impressive public celebrations for Teresa that are analyzed at length in Chapters 8 and 9.2 This chapter offers a highly selective introduction to the initial problems that the Italian Congregation’s missionaries faced in Shia Safavid Persia and the Catholic Estado da Índia.3 In Isfahan, where their ministry began in 1607, they were enmeshed in the geopolitical and religious tensions between the papacy and the shah. Meanwhile, their conversionary strategies and preconceptions, based largely on missionary manuals, were sorely tested. The missionaries’ letters to their Roman superiors are unusually revealing of their lived experiences in Isfahan and provide perspective on their entire apostolate, including the reasons why they expanded into Hormuz in 1612, and subsequently into Goa in 1620. In Hormuz and Goa, located in the Estado da Índia, the missionaries encountered delays in establishing themselves due to tensions between secular and religious networks, with the Archbishop of Goa playing a key role. Offsetting this problem was the advantage of gaining the patronage of elite Portuguese Catholics. The heterogeneous populations of both centers raised new challenges in light of prevailing attitudes toward religious and ethnic differences. These attitudes were enshrined in the decrees of the Fifth Provincial Council of Goa (1606), thereby limiting the missionaries’ choice of whom to accept as novices. In addition, the Italian Congregation’s men endeavored to engage the highly diverse inhabitants of Hormuz and Goa through celebrations. Both the 1 For clarity, I have added the word “east” to the name of the mission; the Italian Congregation had no missions in the West Indies. 2 The four missions are discussed in the Introduction, 10. 3 Hormuz and Goa were part of the Estado da Índia (State of India), often called Portuguese Asia, which was ruled by Spain under the terms of the Iberian Union (1580–1640). The ­Estado’s chief officials were Portuguese nobles. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004548916_009

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Figure 47 Schematic map of the Italian Congregation’s Mission to Persia and the East Indies, 1609–22: Isfahan, Hormuz, Thatta, and Goa Graphics: Martine C. Barnaby © Pamela M. Jones

selection of novices and the effective use of festivities were considered crucial to the intended growth of the Order and increasing devotion to Teresa. 1

Aspirations and Travails in Isfahan

On 2 December 1607 three fathers of the Italian Congregation, Paolo Simone di Gesù Maria, Juan Tadeo de San Eliseo, and Vicente de San Francisco, arrived in Persia eager to proselytize and to carry out their duties as the pontiff’s ambassadors to Shah ‘Abbas I’s court. When the Genovese Paolo Simone left for Rome in 1608, Juan Tadeo succeeded him as the mission’s superior.4 In Isfahan Fathers Juan Tadeo and Vicente aimed to convert the shah and his Muslim

4 Born Juan Roldán y Ibañez, Father Juan Tadeo de San Eliseo (John Thaddeus of St. Elias) made his profession in Valladolid in 1597 and transferred to Rome in 1600 to join the Italian Congregation. See Ortega García 2012; Chick 2012:2, 920–34. Vicente de San Francisco (­Vincent of St. Francis) was born Juan Gambert in Valencia in 1574, and died in Palermo in 1623. On the mission in Isfahan, see Chick 2012:2, 1029–39.

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subjects, strengthen the faith of Catholics, and bring the substantial Armenian Orthodox population of the New Julfa neighborhood into the Catholic fold.5 It was particularly difficult for the missionaries, who regarded themselves as Blessed Teresa’s spiritual sons, to emulate her persona as an active contemplative that was proclaimed so emphatically in the apparato in S. Maria della Scala in Rome in 1614. The apostolic ministry imposed by the papacy was a heavy burden for the contemplative Order, and as Christian Windler has argued, that tension resulted in “structures that were practically and spiritually dysfunctional.”6 At the time of Teresa’s beatification in 1614, the number of ­Discalced Carmelite missionary fathers in Isfahan could be counted on one hand. And yet, while adhering to their contemplative Rule by observing the  canonical hours and other forms of prayer and study inside their friary, these few men simultaneously endeavored to undertake a multifaceted, complex, and time-consuming ministry in the outside world. Things did not go smoothly in Isfahan. Fathers Juan Tadeo and Vicente soon encountered dire problems, some of which Juan Tadeo (Figure 48) addressed in a letter of February or March 1616 directed to the Definitory General (­governing body) in Rome: Whoever would say that here [in the mission of Isfahan] two or three Religious [Discalced Carmelites] are enough deceives himself greatly, because Religious are needed who can maintain a life in community with the regular Observance, and for that [reason] others are needed to deal with such outside and worldly affairs. Because it is necessary to satisfy the king [Shah ‘Abbas I and] his officials, listening and replying to their arguments.7 Despite his concerns, no further missionaries were sent to Isfahan, perhaps because, as Herbert Chick suggested, sufficiently trained candidates were lacking. As far as language preparation was concerned, Juan Tadeo and Vicente themselves had only begun to study Persian on their journey to Persia from 1604–07, and although in the 1610s Juan Tadeo became famous for his

5 On the conversion of the Armenians, see Windler 2018b and Matthee 2010. 6 Windler 2018a, throughout; quotation at 76: “Solche Strukturen waren aus praktischen und spirituellen Gründen dysfunktional.” Many of the issues raised in Winder’s seminal study, which is organized thematically and extends into the 18th century, lie beyond the scope of my book in which Safavid Persia plays but a small role. 7 Chick 2012:2, 924. The governing body called the Definitory General consisted of the Congregation’s highest officials, the Prepositor General and the four Definitors.

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Figure 48 Anonymous 20th-century copy after an early modern artist, ­Portrait of Father Juan Tadeo de San Eliseo, Casa Generalizia Dell’Ordine dei Padri Carmelitani Scalzi, Rome Photo: Casa Generalizia

command of it and other Asian tongues, Vicente never mastered Persian.8 By contrast, as addressed below, before departing Europe they would have been very familiar with missionary manuals. Father Juan Tadeo’s elaboration of his difficulties in Isfahan in a letter to the Definitory General of 3 January 1619 offers a window on the missionaries’ lived experience: The Religious have to preach and, in order to preach, to occupy themselves in the difficult study of disputations, to learn the errors of each sect: they have to hear the confessions of Christians—to officiate in church, sing in choir, perform the other spiritual exercises of our Order (which usually keep a man occupied day and night), to provide for and manage 8 See Della Valle (1843:2, 227) wrote in a letter of 1621 written in Isfahan that Vicente “still ­stammers a few Persian words, half crippled.”

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the house with its daily needs, to deal with the king [Shah ‘Abbas] and his officials, to give a hearing to and answer questions of Muslims, Jews, heretics, [and] schismatics, who daily come to see us, and of course Christians. They [the Discalced Carmelites] have no time to eat and sleep nor take rest, but have always to be ready and cheerful.9 2

Conversionary Strategies

Father Juan Tadeo’s beleaguered situation, quoted above, is a far cry from the optimistic attitude that Father Jerónimo Gracián (religious name Jerónimo de la Madre de Dios) had expressed in his apology for the Order’s missionary apostolate published in Spanish in 1586 and in Italian translation in Rome in 1610 as Zelo della propagazione della fede (Zeal for the Propagation of the Faith).10 Gracián, one of Teresa’s confessors, had served in the short-lived ­mission to Kongo from 1582–84 as a member of the Discalced Carmelite Province within the Carmelite Order in Spain.11 Thus, he had practical field experience, unsuccessful though the mission had been. In Zelo della propagazione he wrote of the particular suitability of the Discalced Carmelites and “Discalced Franciscans” (i.e., the Capuchins) to missionary work: There are others who say that this [missionary work] should be the concern of other Orders, those that have a greater abundance of subjects of letters, discretion, and prudence, rather than the discalced Orders. To which I respond that converting souls and propagating the Catholic Faith pertain to all the Orders, but because the travails—hot and frigid weather, thirst, hunger—that are necessarily suffered in [working toward] ­conversion, to no one is it more amenable than to them who make the profession of harshness of life, and who educate and perfect themselves in it, so that to them it does not seem strange to sleep on the ground, to eat roots of grasses, to walk unshod and barefoot, as it is suitable for imitating the Apostles, [who were] sent out by Christ without walking sticks, knapsacks, and shoes on their feet [Margin: Matt. 10(:10)]. And one of the 9 10

11

Chick 2012:2, 925. Juan Tadeo and Vicente would have known the original Spanish version, and perhaps also the Italian translation (from which I quote). In Italy Gracián (Valladolid 1545–Brussels 1614), who published under his birth name, was known as Gironimo Gratiani della Madre di Dio (Jerome of the Mother of God). On the Carmelite Order (O Carm) and the history of the Discalced (OCD), see the ­Introduction, 1−3. For the African mission, see Kenny 1983, 15–33.

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most important circumstances of converting souls is utmost and extreme poverty. ... Because the Pagans [i.e., nonbelievers] will see that we do not seek their riches, but only the salvation of their souls, and that we go to faraway Lands to give them light, and that with our lives and customs we subject ourselves to the Gospel. ... Finally, in going unshod, barefoot, poor, and broken (which is what we profess in these two Orders), is to imitate the holy Apostles in all things exterior and interior, to lead an Apostolic life. And if this Apostolic exercise should still pertain to other Orders, nevertheless it is more expedient to ours to convert souls to the faith, traveling throughout the world like the Holy Apostles.12 Thus, in Zelo della propagazione, Gracián had indicated that the discalced Orders’ outward display of poverty in emulation of the apostles would help persuade non-Christians of the sincerity of their ministry. But in Persia Father Juan Tadeo had an entirely different and unforeseen experience. In 1619 he wrote to the Definitory General in Rome that the Isfahan mission required a subvention because Muslims, whose respect he needed to gain, distrusted men who begged and therefore would not give them alms.13 Whereas Gracián’s Zelo was a defense of missionary work, the Discalced Carmelite Father Tomás de Jesús’s widely disseminated De procuranda salute omnium gentium (On the Salvation of the Souls of All Peoples), written in Rome in 1610 and subsequently published in Antwerp in 1613, was a fullfledged practical manual.14 It acquired special importance following Gregory XV’s foundation on 6 January 1622 of the Congregazione de Propaganda Fide in Rome, a curial office for the oversight of all Roman Catholic missionary activities worldwide.15 As Silvano Giordano noted, the Propaganda Fide owned many copies of Father Tomás’s missionary manual.16 That the only member of a religious Order in the Propaganda Fide in 1622 was Father Tomás’s confrere

12

13 14 15 16

Gracián 1610, 21–22. For a particularly useful analysis of Discalced Carmelite missionary treatises, see Hoffman 1960. Although I do not subscribe to the interpretation of such treatises as espousing a “theology of failure,” as argued by Rosemary Lee, her study ­contains useful information. See Lee 2012. Chick 2012:2, 759. Born Tomás Sanchez Dávila in Baeza, Spain, Tomás de Jesús (Thomas of Jesus) lived from 1564–1627. See Thoma à Iesu 1613. On the Propaganda Fide, see Pizzorusso 2014. Domingo de Jesús María (Dominic of Jesus and Mary) was born Domingo Ruzola Lopez in Calatayud near Zaragoza in 1559 and died in Vienna in 1630. On his role in the Propaganda Fide beginning on 13 March 1622, see Giordano 1991, 229.

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Domingo de Jesús María, a member of the Italian Congregation, helps explain De procuranda’s influence. In his book Father Tomás praised the many Orders that had undertaken worldwide missionary work, including the Jesuits, and he also reinforced Gracián’s earlier point about the suitability for it of penitent Orders like his own: “It is manifest that Orders that have the mixed purpose of as much contemplation as action may rejoice in being most perfect.”17 Because Father Marcello’s beatification apparato in S. Maria della Scala underscored that the conversion of different peoples entailed accommodating their customs, it might be expected that Gracián and Tomás would have expounded on that principle. However, Gracián did not mention accommodation at all in Zelo della propagazione, and Tomás de Jesús mentioned it only in passing in De procuranda. His comment that “It is of great prudence in discussing the conversion of souls [for missionaries] to accommodate themselves to the natures and understanding of persons they are striving to convert” was an espousal of an age-old oratorical principle. His lack of further discussion suggests that he either had little concern with a broader application of accommodation to proselytization, or was simply too inexperienced with non-Western cultures to address it.18 Predictably, there was an interface between the Portuguese and Spanish empires’ classifications of ethnic and religious groups and the cataloging of peoples to be converted found in missionary treatises employed in its territories. Let it suffice here to examine the categories used by the Discalced Carmelites Gracián and Tomás de Jesús, both of whom, like Fathers Juan Tadeo and Vicente, were Iberians. Father Juan Tadeo’s reference in his 1619 letter of a need to evangelize “Muslims, Jews, heretics, [and] schismatics” recalls Gracián’s enumeration of seven states of persons “outside the Catholic Faith” who needed to be converted: “1. Gentiles [i.e., pagans or heathens], 2. Jews, 3. Infidels and Moors, 4. Heretics, 5. Apostates, who are all the Greeks, Muscovites, and other Schismatics, 6. Politicians and Machiavellians, who value the faith and hold it to be true to the degree that it serves their own affairs and interests, and 7. Atheists, among whom may be included persons who deny many things of

17

18

Thoma à Iesu 1613, 77: “Religiones ex hoc esse perfectissimas, quod fine mixto, tam ex contemplatione, quam actione gaudeant manifestum est.” For reasons of space the vast scholarship on Jesuit missionary books, both practical and theoretical, cannot be brought to bear in this study. Both Gracián and Tomás cited leading Jesuit authors. Thoma à Iesu 1613, 172: “Praeterea magnae prudentiae est, in animarum conversione ­tractanda accommodare se naturae, & captui eorum quos convertere nitandur.”

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the faith.”19 Most of these are classifications of religious affiliation, some of which—Jews, Moors, as well as Greeks, and Muscovites (i.e., members of Eastern Orthodox churches)—were simultaneously tied to lineage. Other groups, by contrast, such as politicians and Machiavellians, were conceived according to the degree of their commitment to the Catholic faith. In De procuranda Father Tomás addressed the categories of persons needing salvation that Paul V had mentioned in his brief of 15 December 1605 establishing the Italian Congregation’s missionary seminary of S. Silvestro in Monte Compatri, the precursor to its 1613 seminary of S. Paolo Apostolo (St. Paul the Apostle) in Rome.20 With the exception of politicians, Machiavellians, and atheists, who were not listed, Tomás’s classifications closely resembled those of Gracián: infidels, heretics, schismatics, Jews, Saracens or Muslims, and ­gentiles.21 Although lineage figured in his conceptual categories, they were likewise based on religious affiliation. As discussed below, views on blood purity also came into play in the vexed matter of whom the Italian Congregation should accept as novices in their Asian missions. In addition to treatises on conversion, the missionaries made use of ­officially standardized liturgical books—the Roman Breviary (1568), Roman Missal (1570), and Roman Martyrology (1584; reissued with notes 1586)—that were published in the papal city in order to facilitate, in Simon Ditchfield’s

19

20

21

Gracián 1610, 42: “1. de Gentili, 2. de gl’ Hebrei, il 3. de gl’ Infideli, e Mori, 4. de gl’ Heretici, 5. de gl’ Apostati, quali sono tutti i Greci, Moscoviti, & altri Scismatici, 6. de gli Politici, e Machiavellisti, ch’ intanto stimano la fede, e la reputano vera, in quanto gli conduce a’ suoi privati affari, & interesse, 7. de gl’ Atheisti, fra quali si possono comprendere coloro, che negano molte cose della fede.” I use the Italian edition published in Rome, where the Italian Congregation was headquartered. Its members would also have known the ­original Spanish edition. See Giordano 1991, 222, on S. Silvestro in Monte Compatri, which in early sources is often referred to as being “in Tuscolano,” that is, reachable by following the Via Tuscolana beyond the city of Rome into the Alban Hills. Tomás de Jesús subsequently conceived of a seminary dedicated exclusively to training missionaries that was approved by Paul V in 1608 and placed under the Holy See’s direct authority. Called the Congregazione di S. Paolo (Congregation of St. Paul), it was intended to be run by both Congregations, but the Spanish one turned its back on missionary work. The Italian Congregation’s own new seminary of S. Paolo Apostolo on Monte Cavallo (or Quirinal Hill) was established ­adjacent to the church and friary of the same name. They were rebuilt and rededicated to S. Maria della Vittoria on 8 May 1622 following the victory over the Protestants in the ­Battle of White Mountain near Prague. See Giordano 1991, esp. 220–36; also Hoffman 1960, 88–96 and 114–15. Throughout his book, Tomás used this terminology: infideles, haeretici, schismatici, Iudaei, Saraceni or sectae Mahometicam, and gentiles or ethnici.

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words, “global ‘thinking with Rome.’”22 The essential tenets of the Catholic faith were set forth in the Roman Catechism (1566), the official manual of popular instruction. The lengthy catechism was widely published in abbreviated forms for use in schools of Christian Doctrine and in foreign missions.23 Tomás de Jesús emphasized the missionaries’ need to speak the languages of the native peoples they were addressing and to make prayers and catechisms available in those tongues. Book XI of De procuranda is devoted to the conversion of infidel peoples of the East and West Indies, Japan, and China, all of whom are termed ethnici (heathens) in the book’s title, but in the text are also called gentili (gentiles or heathens). At the end of Book XI he included a short catechism in Latin to be translated into local languages “for the conversion of untrained heathens” around the world.24 At the very end of De procuranda Father Tomás included a longer Latin catechism composed by Cardinal Antonio Sanseverino, which he himself had redacted.25 In Isfahan, Hormuz, and Goa, where many Muslims resided, the Italian Congregation’s missionaries, including Juan Tadeo and Vicente, would have used Tomás de Jesús’s Book X on the conversion of “Saracens” (i.e., Muslims) for guidance. Father Tomás listed 38 errors of their religion, which he compared to those of the Nestorians and Arians, and went on to confute Islamic doctrine as put forth in the Qur’an. In order to convert Muslims, he argued, missionaries needed to convince them that Islam was a false religion and Christianity the true one.26 Juan Tadeo shared this perspective. As Luis Gil Fernández noted, Juan Tadeo realized “that for the conversion of infidels, in addition to the purgative way consisting in the refutation of their errors, in the case of the Qur’an it would be suitable to employ as well the illuminative way in order to demonstrate to the Muslims the perfection and purity of Christian doctrine, so 22 23 24

25

26

Ditchfield 2019, 131–47, quotation at 146. On the Roman Catechism, see Joseph Wilhelm, «Roman Catechism,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 13, New York, 1912; http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13120c.htm. Accessed 29 March 2020. On schools of Christian Doctrine, see Carlsmith 2019, 494–96. Thoma à Iesu 1613, 825–27; “rudoribus gentilibus,” on 825. His short catechism was a Latin translation from the “Indian language” of the one that had been approved by the Provincial Synod of New Granada in Bogotá in 1556. In Chapter 9 further attention is given to so-called gentiles in Goa. Thoma à Iesu 1613, 866–926. The cardinal’s first name is not mentioned, but he must have been Antonio Sanseverino (Naples c.1477–Rome 1543), who was raised to the cardinalate in 1527. See “Sanseverino, O.S.Io.Hieros., Antonio (ca. 1477–1543)” in The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, Florida International University Libraries; http://cardinals.fiu.edu /bios1527-ii.htm#Sanseverino. Accessed 29 September 2020. On the errors of Muslims, see Thoma à Iesu 1613, 644–45; on the confutation of their ­doctrine, 646–98.

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that, illuminated by it in faith, they would atone for their errors.”27 This proved extremely difficult to accomplish. The Italian Congregation had only limited success in converting Muslims in their Persian Mission by the time of Teresa’s canonization in 1622.28 Part of the problem was a structural tension between their contemplative and active goals, and part was a lack of sufficient staffing and financial support.29 Most significant of all, however, was the fact that Muslims proved to be the single religious group most resistant to conversion. In his study of early modern Catholic missions, Ronnie Po-Chia Hsia emphasized the difficulty of all Catholic Orders in evangelizing Muslims, noting that they had greater success converting Hindus.30 Even the Society of Jesus, usually presented as the most successful Catholic missionary Order of the early modern era, failed to convert significant numbers of Muslims, especially in the first half of the 17th century.31 The Society’s experience in Hormuz, where they were the first to establish a mission, is telling. At Francis Xavier’s behest, the Dutchman Caspar Barzaeus arrived in Hormuz in 1548, where his intolerant approach involved attempts to ban Jews from the island and transform mosques into churches. Although rumor had it that the Jesuits converted a few high-ranking Muslims, the populace at large was impervious to evangelization.32 In 1568, the Jesuits abandoned their Hormuz mission after having found insurmountable “the habitual difficulty of converting Muslims,” as Rudi Matthee put it, and they did not expand into mainland Persia until 1642.33 3

The Limits of Religious Dialogue in Isfahan

When Fathers Juan Tadeo and Vicente arrived in Isfahan in 1607, Europeans felt optimistic that Shah ‘Abbas would convert. It seemed promising, for example, 27 28 29 30 31 32

33

Gil Fernández 2009, 115. See Chapters 8, 190−92, and 9, 206−07, on Muslims in Hormuz and Goa. See Windler 2018a (throughout). Also see Chick 2012:2, 722–56 (on the governing ­structure) and 757–65 (on the financing). Hsia 2018, 8–9. See below on the term “Hindu.” The Jesuits were great self-promoters, and this has affected views of their success and assessments of their accommodation strategy. For an analysis of these issues, see Muller 2016 and bibliography therein. My overview is based on Matthee 2012 and Matthee 2010, 246. The French Jesuits were in Aleppo, Syria, from 1615, but not in mainland Persia. It should be emphasized that scholars of Persian history like Matthee offer a firm corrective of the typically triumphalist view of Jesuit missions. Matthee 2010, 246. Other factors were involved, but this was certainly the most important.

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that one of his wives was the Christian daughter of a Georgian king. As ­Matthee noted, Georgian women in his harem, who practiced Orthodox Christianity, drew the shah’s attention to the Christian faith.34 And yet, although Shah ‘Abbas’s openness to learning about Christianity and its visual arts was genuine, he had no intention of disavowing Islam.35 Instead, Christianity captured his attention partly because in Islam Jesus is considered a prophet and both he and Mary are mentioned in the Qur’an.36 The Italian Congregation’s men were evidently unaware that ‘Abbas was a theocratic ruler, and that his Safavid kingdom was, in Ghoncheh Tazmini’s words, “’Iranocentric,’ and saw itself as culturally and religiously superior to Europeans.”37 Thus both the Safavid Shia and European Catholics believed in their own superiority and the ultimate truth of their own religions. Despite the intermittently cordial relationship enjoyed by ‘Abbas and the Italian Congregation’s men, their adamant beliefs limited religious dialogue and mutual understanding, which helps explain why so few Shia Muslims forsook their faith. Father Juan Tadeo, in accordance with Father Tomás de Jesús’s manual, was particularly zealous in his efforts to convert the shah and his subjects by ­conversing with them in their own languages and by providing them with Christian works translated into Asian languages. He and Father Vicente brought to Persia four printed copies of the Arabic edition of the Gospels and two of the Arabic-Latin edition, which they had obtained from the Medici Oriental Press.38 In addition, the missionaries welcomed Shia scholars to their library, where they could read scriptural works that might convince them to convert.39 Dennis Halft has emphasized the crucial role that Juan Tadeo had in exchanges between Catholics and Shia Muslims through his efforts to translate Christian works into Persian, finding Arabic translations alone insufficient for his apostolic aims. Juan Tadeo presented a Persian translation of the Psalms to Shah ‘Abbas in June 1618, and also planned to translate the Gospels and Christian

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36 37 38 39

Matthee 2017, 553. Catholic missionaries considered members of the Orthodox churches to be schismatics because they did not accept papal authority. In 1608 the missionaries presented him with a splendid gift from Cardinal Bernard Maciejowski of Cracow, an illustrated Old Testament now known as the Morgan Bible. Matthee 2010, 251–53. For basic information about the bible, which is now in the J.P. Morgan Library in New York, see https://www.themorgan.org/collection/Crusader-Bible. Accessed 27 March 2020. Also see Simpson 2005, 141–50; Noel and Weiss 2002. Matthee 2010, 254. Tazmini 2017, 9. Halft 2016, 72. Halft 2016, 83; 90–95 on the library itself.

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Doctrine.40 Father Juan Tadeo’s language facility and religious learning greatly impressed the shah, but did not convince him to embrace the Catholic faith. Instead, the shah relied on Juan Tadeo as a translator and envoy to European lands.41 The Italian Congregation’s missionaries in Isfahan soon became discouraged, and realized how daunting their apostolic ministry would continue to be.42 Although they had some minimal success in converting Muslims in Persia up to 1622, they became frustrated about their inability to convert the shah and substantial numbers of his subjects.43 They were also deeply concerned about what they perceived as ‘Abbas I’s capriciousness. The shah’s seeming fickleness was actually a deliberate strategy to maintain control of various groups in his kingdom, such as the Shia clergy, New Julfan Armenians, and Catholic missionaries, by exploiting their divisions and setting them against each other.44 Finally, it bears emphasis that Fathers Juan Tadeo and Vicente de San Francisco were living on borrowed land, if not on borrowed time, because rather than giving them a site on which to build a permanent residence and church, 40

41 42 43

44

Halft 2016, 70–86; Matthee 2010, 252–53. It is not clear that Juan Tadeo completed a Persian translation of the Gospels. As a preface to the Psalms, he used St. Augustine’s text. Halft has clarified that a Jewish scholar translated the Hebrew, Juan Tadeo collated it against the text of the Vulgate, and the Shia scholars wrote it out by hand because there was no printing press in Persia at that time. Halft 2016, 78–79; Ortega García 2012, 174–77; Gil Fernández 2009, 115–17. Juan Tadeo, for example, served as the shah’s negotiator with the pope concerning ways for Persian commerce to be rerouted so as to avoid Turkish territories. Chick 2012:2, 1029–33. The most famous case is that of Lady Teresia Sherley, a Circassian who was originally either an Orthodox Christian or a Muslim—probably the latter. When Father Juan Tadeo baptized her in 1608 in Isfahan she changed her original given name Sampsonia to Teresia in honor of Teresa of Avila. For the role of the missionaries, see Chick 2012:1, 291–93; also see Andrea 2019 and her other publications cited within the same volume. The other case involved Shah ‘Abbas’s execution in 1622 of five Persians whom Father Juan Tadeo had converted. A pamphlet based on the missionaries’ own letters emphasized the desirability of martyrdom and its usefulness for disseminating the Catholic faith. See Breve Relatione del Martirio di Cinque Persiani, Nuovamente Battezzati dalli PP. Carmelitani Scalzi, che habitano nella Missione di Persia appresso quel Re nella sua Città di Haspahan, Cavata dalle Lettere, che il Superiore di detti Padri ha scritto ultimamente al loro Padre Preposito Generale à Roma. Si vendono à Pasquino da Marc’Antonio Benvenuti. In Roma, Nella Stamperia d’Alessandro Zannetti, 1622. Also see Gil Fernández 2009, 117 and n.145. On the shah’s diplomacy, see Matthee 2010, 252–60. Shah ‘Abbas had forced the Armenians of Julfa, Azerbaijan, to relocate in Isfahan, where he established a neighborhood called New Julfa. This was a means of gaining a royal monopoly over the production of and trade in silk. See Jeffrey S. Turley and George Bryan Souza’s introduction to Silva y Figueroa 2017, 25. The most detailed study of the Italian Congregation’s ministry to the Armenians in Persia is Windler 2018b.

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Shah ‘Abbas had obliged them to move several times.45 In 1609, when the shah threatened to expel the Augustinians from Isfahan if King Philip III of Spain failed to go to war against the Ottomans in the near future, the Italian Congregation’s men feared that they too might eventually be banished.46 Consequently, they persisted with their mission in Isfahan, but having no idea that it would continue to survive until c.1757, they in the meantime founded a new one in Hormuz in 1612. 4 Hormuz and Goa: The Discourse of Ethnicity and Religion in the Estado da Índia Both before and after the Iberian Union placed Portugal under Spanish rule, the two crowns considered themselves staunch defenders of the faith, and as their evangelization and political expansion progressed, their deplorable attitudes toward ethnic and religious difference were applied to the different peoples they encountered.47 Two highly complex, interrelated aspects of this  development have special importance for the Italian Congregation’s missions in the Estado da Índia.48 First, ideas about characteristics of different lineages encouraged the missionaries’ optimism that Hindus would be easier to convert than Muslims as they moved from Safavid Persia to Hormuz and Goa where many Hindus resided. Second, widely held attitudes toward lineage, skin color, and behavior curtailed their freedom to admit new men into the Order. Gomes Eanes de Zurara in his Crónica dos Feitos Notáveis que se Passaram Na Conquista da Guiné (Chronicle of the Notable Deeds that Took Place During the Conquest of Guinae) of c.1460 articulated crucial ideas that continued to be held for centuries. He described Muslims and “gentios” (i.e., gentiles/­heathens/ infidels) in West Africa as having two different lineages. Giuseppe Marcocci has drawn attention to Zurara’s “biologization of traditionally religious categories” that recalled the Iberian “theory of Jewish blood.”49 Zurara also indicated

45 46 47 48 49

On the moves within Isfahan, see Chick 2012:2, 1029–40; idem, 1039, on the end of the mission in the 18th century. Matthee 2010, 264. For the letter itself, Chick 2012:1, 169. On the Augustinians in Persia, see Flannery 2013. See Marcocci 2016, esp. 41. Although these issues are highly complex, I must provide only a brief and somewhat reductive analysis. The authors cited herein offer far more information and nuance. The quotation is from Marcocci 2016a, 44. In Iberia, Jews and Moors, having been forced to convert to Catholicism or be banished, were termed conversos and mouriscos/moriscos, which designated them as new Christians of particular ancestries.

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that the gentios were easier to convert than the Muslims.50 The Italian Congregation’s men knew that many Hindus—another group of so-called gentios— resided in Hormuz and Goa, and that quite a few had already converted to Catholicism. Secular and religious books written by Iberians in the 15th and 16th centuries consistently made the distinction between Muslims and Hindus by using the words Moor (Mouro/Moro) and Muslim (Moçalmam/Mussulmane) in contrast to Gentile (Gentio) and Hindu (Indu).51 Paolo Aranha has identified a “religious awareness that was specifically Hindu and not merely ‘sectarian’” that arose in contact with Islam during the Indian Middle Ages (6th–13th ­centuries).52 Just as Europeans conceived of the unfamiliar Hindus in contrast to their own all-too-familiar Muslim enemies, so too Hindus defined themselves in contradistinction to adherents of Islam. Over the course of the 16th century, Iberian authors took a variety of interests in Hindu castes.53 Ângela Barreto Xavier has demonstrated that although there had long been many forms of social classification in India, during the Portuguese era the theory of the four varnas, or colors, became predominant. It stated that Indian society was divided into four main social groups ­Brahmans (priests), Kshatriyas (nobles), Vaishas (commoners), and Shudras (servants).54 This hierarchy was related to ethnic origins, endogamic practices, and grades of blood purity. Around 1516 Duarte Barbosa had already addressed these concerns in an account of his travels to countries bordering the Indian Ocean, known as O Livro de Duarte Barbosa (The Book of Duarte Barbosa). He used the word casta primarily to refer to groups in India that combined endogamy and occupation. His terminology was much more precise, however, when it came to skin colors, which he listed in hierarchical order, starting at the top with alvo (snowy), then branco (white), quase branco (almost white), and baço (dim), and finally, at the 50 51

52 53 54

Marcocci 2016a, 44; Zurara 1978, Part I, Chapter XVI, 78. For García de Orta’s Coloquios dos Simples e Drogas e Cousas Medecinaes da India published in Portuguese in Goa in 1538, see García de Orta 1895, 107; also Lorenzen 1999, 630. It also appears in Sebastião Manrique’s Itinerario de las missiones published in Spanish in Rome in 1649, on which see Lorenzen 1999, 640 n.72. Aranha 2015, 217. I am indebted in part to the survey of sources provided by Barreto Xavier 2016, 98–102. My overview is based on Barreto Xavier 2016, 90–96. Despite the fact that “varna” means “color,” the theory that skin color was a fundamental distinguishing trait of the four castes was disproved in the 20th century. For basic information, see the Editors of the ­Encyclopedia Britannica, “Varna,” 22 September 2020; https://www.britannica.com /topic/­varna-Hinduism. Accessed 14 October 2020.

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bottom, preto (black). Barbosa distinguished leys de gente (types of people) according to their skin tones together with what Barreto Xavier has called “’civilizational’ issues, such as the ‘courtesy,’ ‘hygiene,’ and ‘food habits’ of Indian people.”55 By the early 16th century, when the Portuguese had become established in Asia, lighter skin tones—particularly those of the Japanese—were usually equated with cultural and educational superiority.56 James H. Sweet stated that “early modern Europeans believed that ‘a people’s inferior culture implied a biologically inferior people’,” and that any unexpected behaviors they encountered were “’linked to genetically fixed qualities—especially phenotype and skin color.’”57 Thus, Europeans considered gentios of various ethnicities as inferior based on dark skin tones in combination with lifestyles that were considered substandard because they differed markedly from their own. Joan-Pau Rubiés has written that in the 16th and 17th centuries many Europeans considered the Chinese and Japanese more “civilized” than the comparatively darker skinned Hindus, who were regarded as practitioners of “devilish idolatry.”58 The link between skin color and demonic idolatry, however, was not made by Father Tomás de Jesús in Book XI of De procuranda, dedicated to the conversion of ethnici. He wrote: Indeed it is to be regretted that innumerable barbarous nations worship a divine cult for demons who are false gods, and very magnificent temples are dedicated to [these] impure creatures, as is seen here and there among the Japanese, Chinese, and Indians.59 According to Father Tomás and also Father Vicente, as analyzed below, because all infidels were ignorant and superstitious they required instruction in the Catholic faith in order to be saved.

55 56 57 58 59

Barbosa’s manuscript was first published in the 19th century. Because only English t­ ranslations are readily available, I rely on Barreto Xavier 2016, who recorded the original Portuguese terminology: 98–99 on skin color; quotation at 99. Marcocci 2016a, 45–46. As quoted in Mourao 2011, 99. Also see Sweet 1997. Rubiés 2005, 251. Thoma à Iesu 1613, 757: “Tertia ratio: Dolendum est profecto, innumeras barbaras divinum cultum Daemonibus divinitatem simulantibus affere, & magnificentissima templa impuris creaturis dedicari, ut apud Iaponios, Sinas, & Indos passim cernitur.”

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Ethnicity, Language Facility, and the Admission of Novices

In a letter from Hormuz dated 3 June 1613 to the Prepositor General in Rome, Father Vicente de San Francisco discussed ethnic diversity in a specific context: attitudes that five religious Orders, including his own, had toward accepting novices of various lineages in their Asian missions.60 His discussion centered on Portuguese Goa, where he was proposing the Italian Congregation should initiate a new foundation. Vicente, who wrote in Italian, started by explaining that in addition to the Portuguese born in Europe, the city’s inhabitants are of four manners [i.e., categories]: the others are sons of Portuguese men and women born in India and these are called Portuguese, like those born in Lisbon. Others are their sons, and they are called creoles (castizi); others are sons of Portuguese men and Indian women, or vice versa, & these are called mestizi; others are sons of Indian fathers and mothers, & they are called Indians or blacks (Indiani, o neri).61 Although in 1613 Father Vicente wrote his letter primarily in the present tense, indicating that the given criteria for selecting novices were currently in effect, we will see below that he knew otherwise, and therefore probably did so to make his arguments seem more compelling. In any case, he noted that in Goa the Jesuits used to accept mestizos (in this case, children with one Portuguese and one Indian parent), but they currently receive only Portuguese castizi (creoles). The Dominicans, who accept the most mestizos, suffer (unspecified) scandals as a result. Turning to the Augustinians, with whom he was experiencing friction in Hormuz, Vicente noted that in Goa they still admit many mestizos along with Portuguese men of Jewish or Muslim descent (quelli che sono di generat[ion]e Giudei, o Mori).62 The Capuchins, he noted, do not allow any Portuguese of Jewish or Muslim lineage to become novices.63 They do, however, admit mestizi and Indian converts from the two religions that flourish most in India (quelle che fioriscono più nell’India)—that is, Hindus and 60 61 62

63

AGOCD, Pluteo 239b, no. 4, fols. 1r–4v. My focus is on Father Vicente’s analysis, not on the other Orders. Due to constraints of space, the copious scholarship on the Jesuits’ missions in Asia cannot be addressed here. AGOCD, Pluteo 239b, no. 4, fol. 2r. These were the conversos and moriscos who were banished from Iberia in the 15th century. According to Vicente (AGOCD, Pluteo 239b, no. 4, fol. 2v), the real problem was not whom the Augustinians accepted as novices, but instead that the Order had neither “a good institution nor novitiates, and not many examples of the profession.” AGOCD, Pluteo 239b, no. 4, fol. 2v.

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Muslims. Father Vicente noted he had seen some very good religious in the Capuchins’ novitiate. With regard to his own Order, Vicente recounted that an unidentified Portuguese man told him that the Discalced Carmelites had lost their reputation back in Portugal due to not having had sufficient criteria for selecting novices, with the result that they had simply accepted everyone. Father Vicente begged to differ, referring to Acts 10:34–35, in which St. Peter stated that God is not a respecter [that is, a differentiator] of persons. But in every nation, he that feareth him, and worketh justice, is acceptable to him. In other words, since God shows impartiality to everyone, so should the Discalced Carmelites. In the letter, Father Vicente emphasized his own inclination to admit Portuguese men of Jewish and Moorish ancestry as novices, and he also advocated the acceptance of men of Indian heritage.64 He agreed with others that “the nature of mestizi is ordinarily a bit soft,” but thought that the Italian Congregation, like the Capuchins, should receive limited numbers of them.65 This remark is highly significant because it shows that despite his openness  to accepting novices of mixed lineages, Vicente was not totally free of biases toward mestizos, but instead regarded their nature as inferior to that of men whose blood was “pure.” Although he recorded that pure-blooded Indians were termed either “Indians or blacks,” he did not disparage them and may have been open to admitting them to the novitiate. Father Vicente also reported that Father Benigno di San Michele had recently brought from Goa to Hormuz two new novices in order to vest them as choir brothers, “as proposed to you [the Prepositor General] in the Chapter [meeting].”66 One was a Portuguese youth who took the religious name Balthazar da Mãe de Deus (Balthasar of the Mother of God) in 1612. The other was Eliseu da Mãe de Deus (Elias of the Mother of God), whom Father Vicente described as

64

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As is widely known, in the 1940s it was discovered that Teresa herself had Jewish blood on her paternal side. Her grandfather was a converso who then returned to the practice of Judaism, but was ultimately pardoned along with his wife and sons. Teresa never mentioned her Jewish heritage nor did other 17th-century authors, and it was not addressed in any official documents related to her elevation to official holiness. For a particularly useful synopsis, see Weber 1996, 8–9, and bibliography therein. AGOCD, Pluteo 239b, no. 4, fol. 2v: “la natura dei mestizi e un poco morbida per l’ord[ina]rio.” AGOCD, Pluteo 239b, no. 4, fol. 2v. The reference is to the Third General Chapter of 22 April–7 May 1611, held at the friary of Monte Compatri outside Rome. The official records contain no discussion of the issue. See Fortes 1990, 29–45. On Benigno di San Michele (born Orazio Romanini de Sanctis; Rome 1571–1620), see Chick 2012:2, 817–18.

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“the mestizo son of a Portuguese man and a newly converted heathen woman (una gentile di novo convertita).67 The case of the mestizo Eliseu da Mãe de Deus thrust the Italian Congregation into the cultural politics of the Archdiocese of Goa, which was subject to the Iberian Union and in turn had jurisdiction over the secular and regular clergy in Catholic Asia.68 Born in c.1596 in Diu, a small island off Gujarat, Eliseu’s birth name was Miguel Cuello. Father Benigno took Eliseu to Isfahan in 1611, where he was vested. Thus, he arrived in Hormuz as a choir brother in 1612. Shortly thereafter, during a trip to Goa from May to September 1612, Father Vicente learned that because he was a mestizo Brother Eliseu could not be admitted to the Order unless the Definitory General in Rome issued a dispensation. Although Herbert Chick wrote that this was because “the Constitutions” forbade his admission, it was actually forbidden at the Archdiocese of Goa’s Fifth Provincial Council of 1606, over which the Augustinian Archbishop Aleixo de Meneses (r.1595–1612) presided.69 Decree #40 of the council’s third session read: So that, as far as is possible, priestly dignity and the veneration due to ecclesiastical persons may be preserved, the holy Council orders that native peoples (gente da terra) of low castes (castas baixas) not be ordained nor admittted to the ministries of the church, but rather the sons of Brahmans, or Pattanavars, or other castes reputed as nobles in the regions where they are to be ordained, because according to their ranks, these men have a higher reputation, respect, and observance among other Christians and gentiles. And because this province is already sufficiently provided with clergy, and has many Christians of these qualities whose sons, when necessary, can be ordained, [the Council] orders that by contrast, from now on sons of infidels [cannot be ordained].70 67 68 69 70

Chick 2012:2, 857–58. Chick 2012:2, 858–59. Chick 2012:2, 859. No exclusion due to lineage is mentioned in the Italian Congregation’s constitutions of 1611 or 1631. See Regula primitiva 1611; Constitutiones 1631. Paiva Manso 1872, 129: “Para que, quanto for possivel, se conserve a dignidade sacerdotal, e veneração devida áspessoas ecclesiasticas, manda este sagrado Concilio que da gente da terra se não ordenem, nem admittão aos ministerios da igreja castas baixas, senão os filhos dos bragmanes, ou parabus, ou outras castas reputadas por nobres nas partes, onde se houverem de ordenar, porque a estes tem os outros christãos, e gentios conforme a seus foros mais reputação, respeito, e acatamento; e porque esta provincia já está sufficiente provida de clero, e ha muitos christãos destes quilates, cujos filhos, quando for necessario, se podem ordenar, manda que daquy em diante senão ordenem filhos de infleis, nem os que forem baptisados em pé.” Pattanavars, members of a Tamil caste from the Coromandel Coast, were involved in fishing and trade.

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Clearly, in 1612 Father Vicente was not up-to-date with archdiocesan rulings: He was unaware that sons of infidels were to be excluded from admission to “the ministries of the church.” Because in 1612 he went to Goa to negotiate with Archbishop Aleixo about receiving a license for the Hormuz mission (which was still only a “hospice”), it is safe to assume that he heard about the 1606 decree from the archbishop himself. Although in his letter of 1613 Vicente wrote that the Augustinians were still admitting mestizos, Meneses would not have permitted it. After Vicente’s arrival in Hormuz in September 1613, the missionary fathers, learning that Indians could no longer be admitted to their Order, decided to revoke Brother Eliseu’s profession, and send him back home to Diu. But Father Leandro de la Anunciación, the novice-master, reputedly mentioned in a lost report of 1615 that he had received letters from the Definitory General stating that since Eliseu was already a friar, he “should continue in his profession.”71 It seems that Eliseu was transferred back to Hormuz soon thereafter. Then in 1621 Father Eliseu was reported as residing in Goa along with Father Leandro.72 Thus, Father Leandro (possibly along with Father Vicente) pursued the matter of Eliseu’s profession with his superiors in Rome and obtained the desired outcome. Although Eliseu’s profession was reinstated and he became a priest, later in the 1620s the Italian Congregation stopped admitting mestizos into its ranks. Along with lineage, another significant factor played into the choice of novices in Hormuz. At a time when missionaries were in dire need of an influx of new men, the admittance of neophytes who did not know Latin was a time-­ consuming prospect because they could not study theology or learn to administer the sacraments until they gained fluency. Father Vicente ­mentioned to the Definitory General that many of the Portuguese who might enter the novitiate did not know Latin.73 Clearly, the acceptance of non-Westerners as novices would raise the same problem.74 And yet Father Vicente was up for the educational challenge despite the fact that Father Leandro lacked a seminary and teaching staff. Father Vicente wrote that even men who did not know Latin 71 72

73 74

Chick 2012:2, 859. Father Leandro, the designer of Teresa’s festivities in Hormuz and Goa, is discussed in detail in Chapters 8, 189−90 and 193−202, and 9, 207−08 and 212−31. Chick 2012:2, 859. Although Chick raised the possibility that there could have been two different men with the name Elias of the Mother of God, the Order’s records do not bear that out, and it should be kept in mind that there were very few missionaries at this early date. AGOCD, 239b, no. 4, fol. 3r. Decree #40 of the 1606 Provincial Council of Goa also addressed this problem, but by forbidding boys to learn Latin in secular and regular seminaries unless they had the “noble qualities” mentioned in the passage I quoted above. See Paiva Manso 1872, 129.

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should be received as novices as long as they had the capacity to learn it. It seems therefore, that the two were amenable to accepting as novices not only mestizos, but also the kinds of men that Vicente reported the Capuchins were admitting: Hindu and Muslim converts. These were the daunting problems—religious, geopolitical, and even deeply personal—that the Italian Congregation’s missionaries faced as they began their apostolic work in Persia and the Estado da Índia. Even while struggling to meet competing challenges in Hormuz and Goa, however, they expended considerable time and thought to create elaborate public festivities in honor of Teresa between 1612 and 1623.75 In the chapters that follow, the messages and media of Father Leandro’s celebrations are interpreted. Moreover, attention is given to the ways they were meant to engage heterogeneous populations, thereby promoting devotion to Teresa and shoring up the Discalced Carmelite Order’s position in Catholic Asia. 75

Teresa’s canonization festivities were held in Goa in 1623, the year in which news of her elevation to sainthood reached the Indian city.

CHAPTER 8

Celebrating Teresa’s Beatification in Hormuz in Portugal’s Estado da Índia The island of Hormuz, situated in the Persian Gulf about five miles off the mainland, had long been part of the Estado da Índia when the Italian Congregation’s missionaries settled there in 1612 (Figure 49).1 During the 16th century the Portuguese crown had gained control of all commerce and had weakened pre-existing institutions in Hormuz to the extent that its local Muslim king had become its vassal; instead of regulating trade, he retained only an annual stipend.2 Under the terms of the Iberian Union (1580–1640), Hormuz was ruled by Spain but Portuguese elites, who became the missionaries’ patrons, served as the island’s administrators. Meanwhile, from mainland Persia Shah ‘Abbas I imposed customs taxes on trade in Hormuz, which brought him considerable revenue and led to his increasing desire to oust the Portuguese.3 Despite its importance as a mercantile crossroads linking Persia, Africa, and India, the missionaries soon found that life on the island was far from easy due to its inhospitable climate and infertile, salty soil. The streams were merely seasonal and ran thick with salt, as did the island’s deep wells (Figure 50). What scarce rain fell was collected in cisterns, but virtually all fresh water was imported, as was food. García de Silva y Figueroa, Philip III’s ambassador to Persia, who visited Hormuz in 1617, described his view of the island as he approached it by ship, then disembarked: The coastline of this island ... is not as sheer as the coast of Arabia, the mountains of which were accessible from Hormuz, but the rest of the island is full of high red and white mountains, most of them consisting of a very fine salt. This small islet is wholly sterile: what few trees are found here and there do not bear fruit, except for the occasional palm tree ....

1 Afonso de Albuquerque had conquered the island in 1507 and built its fortress, Nossa ­Senhora da Vitória (Our Lady of Victory), which was enlarged over the years. 2 The last king of Hormuz was Mohammed Shah IV (1609–21). See Gil Fernández 2009, 569; Floor 2006, 207–35. On the Portuguese administration of Hormuz, see Salman 2004. 3 On the shah’s capture of Hormuz, which ended the missionaries’ ministry on the island, see the end of this chapter. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004548916_010

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Figure 49  Schematic map of Safavid Persia with inset of Hormuz Island Graphics: Martine C. Barnaby © Pamela M. Jones

Figure 50 The coast of Hormuz Island Photo by ninara - Flickr: IMG_6843, CC BY-SA 2.0, https:// commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32291874

There are other plants as well, which are really more bushes than trees; these produce a few leaves, though they are tiny and sharp.4 This was the forbidding terrain in which the new mission was established.5 4 I cite Jeffrey S. Turley’s English translations in Silva y Figueroa 2017, 273; for the original Spanish, see Silva y Figueroa 1903, 251. Born in Zafra, Badajoz, Spain to an aristocratic family in 1550, Silva y Figueroa died at sea near Persia on 22 July 1624. 5 On the mission in Hormuz (really a “hospice,” as discussed below), see Chick 2012:2, 1040–45; 1023 for the arrival of Vicente and Leandro in Isfahan on 21 May 1611.

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The Expansion to Hormuz

Fathers Juan Tadeo and Vicente de San Francisco, who founded the Isfahan mission in 1607, sought to establish a new one on the island of Hormuz shortly after Shah ‘Abbas threatened the Augustinians with expulsion from Isfahan in 1609.6 Juan Tadeo and Vicente reasoned that should the shah ever banish the Italian Congregation’s missionaries, they could retreat to the proposed foundation at Hormuz, then return to Isfahan should conditions improve.7 In March 1609, Don Henrique de Noronha (r.1607–09), the Portuguese Captain of Hormuz, along with Catholic residents asked Father Vicente to found a Discalced Carmelite house there.8 Because the shah’s permission was also required, the missionaries met with him outside Isfahan in September 1609, but nothing came of the meeting due to ‘Abbas’s ongoing geopolitical struggles with the papacy and the Ottomans.9 In addition, a license to found the mission would be required from the Archbishop of Goa, Aleixo de Meneses (r.1585–1612), who served the crown and had jurisdiction over Hormuz. Because the Portuguese Augustinians opposed the new mission in Hormuz, negotiations with Meneses, himself an Augustinian, were protracted, and the license was not issued until 1610 or 1611. Under these difficult circumstances, Vicente went to Rome in early 1610 to seek permission of his superiors and the pontiff.10 The Order’s Definitory General (governing body) approved the ­mission and appointed the Spaniard Father Leandro de la Anunciación, another member of the Italian Congregation, to help Father Vicente establish it. Upon authorizing the Congregation’s expansion to Hormuz, Paul V gave Vicente a papal brief dated 10 July 1610 commending him and the Italian Congregation to Archbishop Meneses. In January 1612, Vicente left Isfahan for Hormuz. As head of the new mission it fell to him to make periodic trips back and forth to Goa in an attempt to obtain the license from the archbishop.11 Leandro, who was charged with the education and formation of novices, arrived in Hormuz on 30 June 1612. With him came the lay brother Eliseu de São João Batista (Elias of St. John

6 7 8 9 10 11

The missionaries’ early ministry in Persia is analyzed in Chapter 7. Juan Tadeo addressed the matter in a letter of May 1609 to his Roman superiors; see Chick 2012:1, 169; Matthee 2010, 264. On the Augustinians in Persia, see Flannery 2013. See Chick 2012:2, 1042 for a discussion of documentation not in the AGOCD. Chick did not name the Catholics in question. I cannot do justice to the highly complex political situation, on which see scholarship cited in this chapter, esp. Gil Fernández 2009; Matthee 2010. Chick 2012:2, 1022–24. Also see n.15 below. Chick 2012:2, 1043.

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the Baptist), a Portuguese nobleman who had taken the habit in Isfahan.12 Shortly thereafter, Leandro received a new novice, Fra Balthazar, a native of Goa, also from a Portuguese family.13 Fathers Vicente and Leandro intended to found a seminary on the island to train young men from Hormuz and Goa to staff the Asian missions. In a letter of 1613 to the Prepositor General, Father Vicente indicated that a seminary would have to be located in Hormuz rather than ­Isfahan because it would scandalize the Muslims in the Safavid city to see novices wearing the habit.14 Due to strained relations between the ­Portuguese ­authorities and the shah, however, a seminary was never established on the island.15 2

The Friary and Oratory of Our Lady of Mount Carmel

Captain Noronha helped Vicente find houses near the marina in the best area of town, where he lived until new buildings could be erected. The new friary and its church were dedicated to Our Lady of Mount Carmel and St.  Joseph. Technically, they remained a “hospice” and an “oratory” (not a public church)—the terms used in Archbishop Meneses’s license. However, the public did in fact attend many services in the oratory, and contemporary sources commonly refer to the foundation as a “mission” or “friary,” the terminology I also use.16 Financed by alms from Hormuz’s Portuguese residents, the complex was inaugurated on 16 July 1612, the feast of the Madonna of Mount Carmel.17

12 13 14 15 16 17

Chick 2012:2, 1043–44; on 859, Chick, who uses English names, mistakenly identified this man as Elias of the Mother of God, who was a mestizo, on whom see my discussion below. On these men, see Chick 2012:2, 806; Gil Fernández 2009, 99; Florencio del Niño Jesús 1930a, 41. Chick 2012:2, 1045. Chick 2012:2, 1047. A seminary was ultimately established in Goa in the 1630s, after our period. See Chapter 9, 210n.25. The word “hospice” normally denoted a temporary lodging for travelers or a refuge for the needy or ailing. On Noronha’s role from 1607–09, see Gil Fernández 2009, 99. Despite the double dedication, documents routinely refer to the foundation simply as Our Lady of Mount Carmel. The Order was unable to receive a license from successive archbishops of Goa to found a “friary” because the Council of Portugal objected. For details, see Chick 2012:2, 1052–55.

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Our Lady of Mount Carmel was located by the sea, and had a dormitory, oratory (i.e., a small church), and refectory. Because Hormuz was sacked in 1622, the city’s layout in c.1612 is known primarily through written descriptions and an early map. Silva y Figueroa’s 1617 description of Hormuz allows us to situate the hospice in relation to key buildings and topographical features of Hormuz, as indicated on an anonymous Portuguese map dating to c.1595–1610 (Figure 51).18 At the top of the map (which is oriented to the northeast) is the captain’s fortress of Nossa Senhora da Vitória (Our Lady of Victory) with a shallow ditch separating it from a large plaza of about 400 square feet (Figure 51: A). The city itself began on the other side of the square. Silva y Figueroa wrote of the first section of the city: It is dominated by the skyline, which is created by finely crafted houses, with many windows that belong to the wealthy citizens, together with the church, the Misericórdia [Our Lady of Mercy], and the chief mosque of the Moors, although the latter is, for the most part, damaged and in ruins. ... This great mosque was destroyed not so many years ago through a lapse in judgment on the part of some of our ministers, causing great anguish and much indignation, not only among the Moors who live in the city, but also among those that live on the nearest mainland, especially the king of Persia himself.19 On the map, the surviving minaret, labeled “Alcoran,” is seen silhouetted against the square. Between the minaret and the block of buildings to the right is the label “S. Agustin,” indicating the location of the Augustinian friary (Figure 51: B, C). Although the Jesuits and Dominicans had left Hormuz long before Fathers Vicente and Leandro arrived, we have seen that the Portuguese

18

19

The map illustrated here is in the Biblioteca Nacional in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Many printed versions with captions in different languages were produced well into the 18th century. All depict the same monuments. An earlier version, published in Madrid in 1595, is in the British Library. None of the versions with which I am familiar includes Our Lady of Mount Carmel, possibly indicating that they predate its foundation in 1612. For the description of the port, see Silva y Figueroa 2017, 277–78; Silva y Figueroa 1903, 257: “la mezquita prinçipal de los moros.” The church of the Misericórdia belonged to a lay confraternity founded in 1498 that raised ransoms for Christian slaves. It is not to be confused with Our Lady of Mercy on Hormuz’s highest hill outside the city. See Flannery 2013, 70, n.123.

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Figure 51 Map of Hormuz Island, Plantas de pracas e fortes possessoes portugesas na Asia e Africa, before 1622, Biblioteca Nacional, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil Photo: World Intellectual Property Organization. Creative Commons Attribution [BY] 3.0 IGO-license. Graphics: Martine C. Barnaby © Pamela M. Jones

Augustinians were in residence and opposed the new Discalced Carmelite foundation.20 Silva y Figueroa’s description clarifies the location of the Italian Congregation’s new foundation among Hormuz’s nearby churches and seacoast (­Figure 51: E): The port [for large ships] is in the bay between the two capes, the Cabo de Nossa Senhora da Esperança [Cape of Our Lady of Hope] and the fortress ... and [it lies] northeast between the friaries of Carmo [Our Lady of Mount Carmel] and Santo Agostinho [St. Augustine].21

20 21

Matthee 2010, esp. 246–48. Flannery 2013 on the Augustinians in Persia (although his emphasis is on Isfahan). Silva y Figueroa 2017, 280; Silva y Figueroa 1903, 257: “el convento de Nuestra Señora del Carmen.”

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The city’s most imposing residences, Silva y Figueroa explained, were located in the coastal area extending from St. Augustine to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and from there to the road leading to the hermitage of Santa Lúcia (Figure 51: F). The hermitage was high up in the hills, and between it and the city was a plain with cisterns and the tombs of Muslims, Indian gentiles (i.e., Hindus), and Jews. Continuing along the road past Santa Lúcia, one reached Nossa Senhora da Penha (Our Lady of Mercy; Figure 51: D), crowning Hormuz’s highest salty peak, from which the whole city could be seen. In short, the Italian Congregation’s missionaries acquired in Hormuz what they had not been able to attain in Isfahan: a powerful protector and substantial donations that allowed them to build a permanent religious complex in a prestigious area. In this newfound position of security, they were able to hold festivities for Teresa’s memoria (i.e., death day) in 1612 and her beatification in 1614. 3 Father Leandro de la Anunciación, Designer of Teresa’s Celebrations in Hormuz The Discalced Carmelites’ Italian Congregation had two leading festive designers. As we have seen, the first was Father Marcello della Madre di Dio, who designed Teresa’s beatification apparati in Genoa and Rome. In the Mission to Persia and the East Indies, his counterpart was Father Leandro de la Anunciación (1580–1630/31), whom we have encountered as novice-master in Hormuz. Born Luis de Melagoza in Burgos, Spain, Father Leandro entered the Italian Congregation in Rome on 25 March (Feast of the Annunciation) 1605.22 Comparatively little is known about him prior to his apostolic ministry in Hormuz, Isfahan, and Goa. It is noteworthy that he was an accomplished poet who wrote in Castilian.23 His literary prowess served him well in conceptualizing festivities for Teresa in Hormuz and Goa. In the Estado da Índia, he took the same European-style learned approach that characterized Father Marcello’s designs in Italy.

22

The highest office he attained was that of Vicar Provincial of the Mission to Persia and the East Indies, which he assumed in March 1621. Chick 2012:2, 948–51. Also see Chapter 9. 23 See AGOCD, Plut. A233, d, fols. 1r–21r for sonnets, odes, and octavas that he composed on a variety of religious themes in 1625, after our period. I thank Miguel Navarro García for sending me a digital image of the document, which is mentioned in Chick 2012:2, 948. See Miguel Navarro García, “Visión orientalista en los textos de los primeros carmelitas descalzos en misión a Persia en el siglo XVII,” his doctoral dissertation in preparation at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

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Father Vicente de San Francisco’s letters sent to Rome from Hormuz provide first-hand accounts of Father Leandro’s festive designs. In an unpublished, undated overview of events in Hormuz, Vicente discussed the celebration of Teresa’s 1612 memoria, and in a previously unknown two-page letter, he described Teresa’s 1614 beatification celebrations.24 Father Leandro’s brief mention of the beatification celebrations in a now-lost report cited by two early 20th-century scholars, Herbert Chick and the Discalced Carmelite Father Florencio del Niño Jesús, contained some additional details.25 4

Festivities for Hormuz’s Diverse Population

In Hormuz the Italian Congregation’s missionaries encountered a heterogeneous population comprising Muslims, Christians, Hindus, and Jews of various ethnicities, who had been attracted to the island due to its strategic position as a trading crossroads for Persia, east Africa, and India.26 In 1617 Silva y Figueroa estimated the island’s total population to number 2,500 to 3,000 households.27 His description of the city’s inhabitants provides a window on the variety of peoples whom the missionaries hoped to convert, or whose Catholic faith they aimed to strengthen: Most of the residents of this city, except the many native Christians (cristianos de la tierra)—are Moors (moros arabes) but they speak the Persian language. The rest are Indian Gentiles (gentiles indianos) ... Most of them [these groups] are wealthy merchants who conduct trade in Persia and Arabia with merchandise they purchase from the Portuguese. The rest are tradesmen of all kinds. ... There are just under 100 houses belonging 24 25 26 27

AGOCD, Mision de Persia y Mesopotamia: 239e, 3, fols. 1r–2v (on the memoria); 239/a. 2, fol. 1r–v (on the beatification). The long report, which focused mainly on the canonization celebrations in Goa, is ­discussed in detail in Chapter 9, see esp. 212 and n.30. Commodities from multiple continents that passed through the hands of Hormuz’s merchants included pearls, medicinal plants, dates, horses, metal wares, silk and cotton, rice, coffee, tea, sugar, and spices. Silva y Figueroa 2017, 281–82; Silva y Figueroa 1903, 262. Although Chick (2012:2, 1024) estimated the total population to be only 15,000, excluding soldiers, his breakdown of 3,000 households by religious group—500 Portuguese, 300 Indian Christians, 800 Indian Hindus, 200 Jews, and 1,200 Muslims—is reasonably similar to that of Silva y Figueroa, who, however, over-estimated the total population at 40,000 persons.

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to the Jews (judios) who live among these Moors and Gentiles (moros y gentiles), most of them destitute and poor, though some have wealth. The Portuguese who reside in Hormuz comprise no more than 200 households or families; added to that number are a few soldiers who are casados. They all earn their living by trading with their neighboring Persian citizens and with the city of Basra, and by trading in merchandise that is shipped to them from India and the province of Sindh.28 Silva y Figueroa also noted that the Portuguese who were born and raised in Hormuz spoke Persian and had “much darker skin than the Portuguese who lived in India because ... many of them intermarried (averse mesclado) with people from the mainland.”29 Early on, elite Portuguese men had married high-ranking captive Muslim women, who were sometimes widows of their enemies. As John M. Flannery noted, the Augustinians had some success converting these Muslim women to Christianity.30 In any case, the women were obliged to become Catholics in order to wed Portuguese men. Silva y Figueroa also named another group of mestizos, soldiers termed casados (literally “married persons”). This social group had arisen in India at the beginning of the 16th century as part of Afonso de Albuquerque’s policy of intermarriage aimed at creating what Mariam De Ghantas Cubbe has called “a uniquely Indo-­Portuguese Goan race” as a means of achieving political and economic stability in Goa.31 The casados noted by Silva y Figueroa were descendants of 28

29

30 31

Silva y Figueroa 2017, 281–82. In my quotations, I have omitted the changes in the manuscript and the marginal notes that are indicated in Turley and Souza’s edition of 2017; I have added the original Spanish terms for ethnic and religious groups in parentheses. For the original Spanish, see Silva y Figueroa 1903, 262–64. By “native Christians” he meant those of Portuguese and Indian descent who had been born in Hormuz (see discussion below in the text). Although Turley and Souza’s translation refers to “Portuguese citizens who reside in Hormuz,” I omit the word “citizen,” which is misleading since all Christians, regardless of their ethnicity, were Portuguese citizens. The original Spanish reads “Los vezinos portugueses moradores de Ormuz,” which means “the Portuguese neighbors [of other groups mentioned] living in Hormuz.” Basra is in 21st-century Iraq, but was then in Safavid Persia. Sindh is in 21st-century Pakistan but was then in India. Silva y Figueroa 2017, 283; Silva y Figueroa 1903, 264: “El color dellos y dellas muy menos blanco que el de allá [India], porque de mas de averse mesclado muchos dellas con gente de la tierra.” He also remarked that the blazing sunlight of Hormuz was a contributing factor. Flannery 2013, 46. On the lack of an official “mixed marriage policy” in Hormuz, see Tazmini 2017, 12; Matthee 2011, 220. I thank Paolo Aranha for discussing this issue with me. Cubbe 1988, 129. See Chapter 9, 206, for further discussion of casados.

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Portuguese soldiers and Hindu women of similar social status, who, like Muslim women, were required to convert to Catholicism before wedding Catholic men. Although Silva y Figueroa termed only the soldiers casados, not the more elite mestizos, Sanjay Subrahmanyam has clarified that in Portuguese Asia some casados were fidalgos, whereas others were from the lower classes.32 In addition, there was a large Indian population in Hormuz. Numerous Hindu merchants and their families had resided in Hormuz since the 14th century, long before the rise of either the Safavid kingdom or the Portuguese Estado da Índia.33 During the Italian Congregation’s residence on the island, there were about 1,200 Muslim and about 800 Hindu households with Gujaratis dominating both religious groups.34 Indian merchants in Hormuz, as elsewhere in the Persian Gulf, were the leading sellers of the region’s pearls in India, and as the premier bankers they likewise monopolized the credit market.35 Hence, not only were Hormuz’s Indian Hindus wealthy, they were also elite by birth. In the 16th century they were joined by an influx of Catholic Indians from Goa who by the early 17th century numbered approximately 300 households.36 Most were descendants of 16th-century converts from Hinduism, whereas others were casados.37 Through festivities, along with preaching and teaching, the missionaries aimed to strengthen the faith of Catholics and to convert other groups. 5

Celebrating Teresa’s Memoria in 1612

The missionaries lost no time in holding festivities in Hormuz, the first of which was the foundation’s inauguration ceremony on 16 July 1612. It was followed only a few months later by the celebration of Teresa’s memoria.38 According 32 33

34 35

36 37 38

Subrahmanyam 1993, 224–26. He has equated the casado merchants with European ­burghers. Onley 2014, 232. Like all Indian communities along the Persian Gulf, those of Hormuz were formed on the basis of religion, caste, clan, occupation, homeland, language, ethnicity, and ancestry. The practice of endogamy conditioned their business ties and specialized skills, which had a strong effect on commerce. Onley 2014, 236–42. Onley 2014, 240–43. Whereas in India all Jain merchants and most Hindu ones belonged to the third, or merchant caste called Vaishyas, this was not the case in the Persian Gulf. All Hindu merchants in the gulf region seem to have been Kshatriyas, members of the second caste, that of warriors and rulers. Chick 2012:2, 1024. Onley 2014, 245–46. Memorie celebrations took place annually in all the foundations of a given religious Order.

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to Father Vicente’s unpublished overview of events in Hormuz, on 5 October 1612 Teresa’s memoria was celebrated at the new mission.39 Father Vicente wrote that the friary in Hormuz was “well adorned,” and that in a room leading into the oratory there was an altar with an image of Teresa.40 The papacy prohibited the display of holy persons’ likenesses on altars prior to their elevation to official holiness, so this was a transgression of pontifical authority in a faraway mission. Father Vicente’s description indicated that the room was also embellished with “many emblems, hieroglyphs, and verses,” the same kinds of festive imagery that the Italian Congregation employed in Europe.41 Father Leandro, who designed the beatification decorations in Hormuz two years later, wrote that he had also been responsible for the festive imagery for her 1612 memoria, including the painting of Teresa that he commissioned from an unnamed artist.42 On the morning of 6 October, the memoria celebration continued with Father Vicente’s brief, informal talk (platica) in which he addressed—two years before her elevation to the rank of blessed—Teresa’s “life, holy miracles, and foundations.”43 In Rome, Fra Marcello’s musical compositions were integral parts of his beatification apparato, and in Hormuz Father Vicente wrote villanzicos and octavas, songs that were performed for Teresa’s memoria. Because the Hormuz mission was a male foundation, Latin was the language of choice for the requisite formal oration delivered in Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Father Vicente proudly reported that it was given in the presence of elite and ordinary persons, including the captain, the vicar visitor, the whole clergy, the captain’s officials and soldiers, and “almost the whole town.”44 Documents do not mention who financed the celebrations, but Captain Noronha, a main supporter of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, was no longer in office. Presumably his successor and other elite residents donated the funds.45

39 40 41 42 43 44 45

AGOCD, Mision de Persia y Mesopotamia. 239e, 3, fols. 1r–2v. Letter from Vicente de San Francisco. AGOCD, Mision de Persia y Mesopotamia. 239e, 3, fol. 1v: “un altar sobre la puerta con la ymagen de Nostra Santa Madre.” This must be an error because altars were not installed over doors. Perhaps it was beside the door. AGOCD, Mision de Persia y Mesopotamia. 239e, 3, fol. 1v. For Leandro’s mention of his role, see Chick 2012:2, 1045. He did not describe the painting of Teresa. AGOCD, Mision de Persia y Mesopotamia. 239e, 3, fol. 1v. AGOCD, Mision de Persia y Mesopotamia. 239e, 3, fol. 1v: “y casi todo el pueblo.” Due to incomplete records, I have been unable to determine which of the following two men was Captain of Hormuz at the time: Jorge de Castelo Branco (served 1610–12) or Pedro de Brito de Lima (served 1612–13), as listed in Gil Fernández 2009, 570.

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Father Vicente’s comment that “almost the whole town” was present at Teresa’s memoria festivities in Our Lady of Mount Carmel cannot be taken literally since the oratory and anteroom were reportedly quite small. He presumably meant that nearly all Catholics attended. Delio Mendonça and Michael N. Pearson have noted that in the Estado da Índia Catholics of Indian descent had the same rights as those of Portuguese lineage.46 Therefore, Indian converts would have attended the memoria. Given the hierarchical nature of Portuguese society, Portuguese reinois would have been seated closest to the altar, with others, including Indian Catholics, situated behind them according to perceived rank, while the anteroom and even the outdoors would have accommodated the overflow. Public rejoicing, often in front of churches, was a mainstay of Catholic celebrations, so it is likely that conforming to standard practice, songs and blessings took place outside Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Outdoor expressions of devotion and exultation were intended to engage the general public, helping to persuade them to convert. It is noteworthy, as we have seen, that the Italian Congregation had a choir brother of mixed race in Hormuz at this very time, Brother Eliseu da Mãe de Deus, the son of a Portuguese man and a Hindu convert.47 If Brother Eliseu attended the memoria services in Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Indian Catholics would have felt particularly welcome, and if he was present at outdoor festivities in his Discalced Carmelite habit, non-Christians might have been drawn to follow his example and embrace Catholicism. In designing the festivities Father Leandro was apparently more concerned with appealing to reinois and creoles than to viewer-worshipers of Asian ethnicities, but he did endeavor to appeal to persons of different educational levels. The Latin oration and much of the visual imagery, such as emblems and “hieroglyphs,” forms of expression that combined words (in Latin) and images (symbols), were considered the universal languages of the Catholic Church, despite the fact that they were exclusionary, not inclusionary.48 They would have been comprehensible to only the most learned European-educated members of the audience. And according to Father Vicente, even many Portuguese men in Hormuz who might want to become novices did not know Latin.49 On the other hand, Fathers Leandro and Vicente made ample use of Portuguese, the language of the ruling class, which was widely known to merchants of all 46 47 48 49

Mendonça 2002, esp. 177–78, and Pearson 2006. Chick 2012:2, 857–58. See Chapter 2, 49, on “hieroglyphs” as a universal language. Vicente mentioned this in a 1613 letter to his superiors in Rome. See AGOCD, 239b, no. 4, fol. 3r. See Chapter 7, 178−82, on the admission of novices.

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ethnicities and religious affiliations due to its use in trade. Thus, nearly everyone would have understood the songs and homily delivered in that language.50 In addition to Latin, the use of Portuguese was surely a means of ingratiating the captain and other elites whose donations had supported the mission. 6

Captain Luís da Gama and Teresa’s Beatification Festivities

Two years later, Captain Luís da Gama (r.1614–19), a descendant of the illustrious explorer Vasco, enthusiastically supported Teresa’s beatification celebrations.51 Silva y Figueroa observed Captain Luís’s unbridled power in Hormuz: But none of the Portuguese are very wealthy, and in fact, they are getting poorer all the time because the captain of the fortress [da Gama] takes all the profits for himself. All matters pertaining to this city, both secular and ecclesiastical, are subject to the captain’s prerogative, whether for good or for ill.52 Luís da Gama had purchased the captaincy for 145,000 xerafins at a time when governmental offices in the Estado da Índia were being sold to bolster Philip III’s treasury.53 Clearly da Gama, who used the position of captain for his own benefit, believed that financing Teresa’s beatification celebrations was in his own best interest, a way to showcase his authority and magnanimity

50

51

52 53

Persian, the other most widely known language in Hormuz, was not incorporated into the festivities. Father Leandro seems to have considered Persian unsuitable for use in ­Catholic festivities, and encouraged Asians to learn Western languages. We will see in Chapter 9, 219−20, by contrast, that in Goa the Roman aristocrat Pietro Della Valle created a temporary apparato in honor of St. Teresa that incorporated Asian languages. On Captain Luís’s patronage of the beatification celebrations, see AGOCD, Mision de Persia y Mesopotamia, Pluteo 239/a. 2, fol. 1v. Other elites, unidentified in the documents, may have helped finance the festivities. On the da Gama family and their title see VilaSanta 2008–17, 42–45. As we will see in Chapter 9, 213−18, 223, and 229, Captain Luís’s elder brother, Francisco da Gama, the fourth Count of Vidigueira, was Viceroy of Goa at the time of Teresa’s canonization celebrations there in 1623. Silva y Figueroa 2017, 282–83; Silva y Figueroa 1903, 264. Luís da Gama served from June 1614 (or perhaps earlier in the year) until 1619. The crown’s coffers had been depleted due to military expenditures during this turbulent period and a concomitant downturn in commercial traffic in Portuguese Asia. Almeida Borges 2014, 5; Gil Fernández 2009, 278; Subrahmanyam 1993, 155. Hormuz’s captaincy was the most expensive office of those for sale in Goa, Diu, and Malacca, thereby attesting to its importance. The xerafin was the official currency in the Estado da Índia prior to 1666.

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as a representative of the crown. In a letter to the Prepositor General, Father Vicente praised Captain da Gama’s patronage of the beatification celebrations: Your Lordship may believe that our Order does not have another protector who favors, defends, and honors us with more truth and heart. This allowed us to celebrate the octave, and I wish it could have been celebrated for a whole year.54 Father Leandro rose to the occasion by designing impressive festivities to honor Blessed Teresa, which took place over the course of an octave beginning on 1 October 1614.55 By that time, the small oratory on the second floor of the friary had been replaced by a somewhat ampler one on the first floor, which, like the nuns’ church in Genoa, contained a high altar and two side altars (see Figure 2). Father Leandro described the oratory as being built on the proportions of the Temple of Solomon, a traditional conceit that enhanced the sacrality of the space.56 Father Florencio del Niño Jesús’s 1930 account of Leandro’s lost report about the beatification festivities in Hormuz focused solely on those inside Our Lady of Mount Carmel.57 The dignitaries present included Captain Luís da Gama, Vicar Provincial Foráneo, the Archbishop of Goa’s Visitor, and the richest merchants.58 Whether or not Father Leandro himself used the phrase “the richest merchants” is unknown. It will be recalled that in 1617 Silva y Figueroa identified Hormuz’s most affluent merchants as Portuguese and Indian Catholics who had been born in Hormuz, in addition to Muslims and Hindus.59 This suggests 54 55 56

57 58 59

AGOCD, Mision de Persia y Mesopotamia. 239/a. 2, fol. 1v. Rather than providing a day-by-day overview, the surviving documents discuss highlights in a rather disorganized way. An octave is an eight-day festive period. Chick 2012:2, 1045. The letter dates to 1613. Chick recounted the letter as indicating that the oratory was 37 feet wide and the length of the Temple of Solomon. This must be incorrect, because that would have brought its length to an impressive 111 feet. The Jesuits’ church of the Bom Jesus in Goa, for example, was imposing at 83 feet long. Moreover, the primary sources repeatedly mention that the oratory in Hormuz was small. Therefore, Chick must have meant that the oratory was 37 palmi wide (approximately 27 ft.). This is strongly suggested by the detailed proportions recorded for Goa’s Our Lady of Mount Carmel: 60 palmi × 22 palmi. According to 3 Kings (1 Kings) 6, 2:24 and 2 Paralipomenon (2 Chronicles) 3:3 the Temple of Solomon measured 60 cubits long × 20 cubits wide (roughly 90 ft. × 30 ft.). Florencio del Niño Jesús 1930a, 43. Florencio del Niño Jesús (1930a, 43) incorrectly identified the captain as Henrique de Noronha. See the list of captains in Gil Fernández 2009, 570. See quotations above in this chapter, 190−91. Silva y Figueroa 2017, 281–83; Silva y Figueroa 1903, 262–64.

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that Catholics of both European and Asian ancestry were present at the beatification celebrations inside the oratory, probably with the Portuguese seated according to their ranks followed by Indian Catholics according to theirs.60 Notably, the mestizo Brother Eliseu, who had been in Hormuz in 1612 and therefore may have attended Teresa’s memoria celebrations, was not present at those for her beatification because he had been temporarily expelled from the Order due to his racial background.61 As a result, an unparalleled opportunity was missed because his participation in the celebrations could have created a more intensely felt sense of community in devotion to Teresa among mestizos and Indian Christians, and perhaps would have inspired conversions. Because the new oratory was rather small, Father Leandro also had the main part of the friary decorated. At the front he placed an image of Blessed Teresa, which he adorned with rich oriental carpets affixed with allegories, emblems, and symbols.62 After holy persons had attained official sanctity, it was standard practice to commission likenesses of them to adorn their newly dedicated altars. Blessed Teresa’s portrait was probably based on Juan de la Miseria’s “true likeness,” known through print media, which was the standard model at the time (see Figure 20). The additional display of small-scale allegories and symbols characterized the Italian Congregation’s learned approach to festive culture. Father Leandro gave a discourse in Portuguese synopsizing Teresa’s life and deeds, after which poems in various (unspecified) European languages were recited.63 Afterward, songs praising the new blessed were performed. The culminating event was a popular European art form—a dramatic performance of the Apotheosis of Blessed Teresa, Reformer of Carmel. Blesseds and saints of both genders, who served as heavenly intercessors, were frequently compared to the pagan gods and to the ancient caesars who became immortal at their death. Classicizing references were widespread in festivities for blesseds and saints in early modern Europe, and the missionaries transported them to Asia.64

60 61 62 63 64

The oratory was not large enough to hold Hormuz’s entire Catholic population. See discussion in Chapter 7, 179−81. He was sent back home to Diu, India, but later became a priest. Florencio del Niño Jesús 1930a, 43. The iconography of the image of Blessed Teresa was not described. The true likeness is discussed in Chapters 3, 87, and 5, 128. They would all have been European languages, as discussed above. The dramatic production in Hormuz was not described. Good examples of the incorporation of classical references are Teresa’s beatification apparato in Rome and her canonization procession in Naples, on which see Chapters 2 and 6. In 1622, the Jesuits staged an Apotheosis of Saints Ignatius and Francis Xavier at the Collegio Romano in Rome. See Chapter 6, 149 n.36.

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Neither the Latin discourse’s subject matter nor the decorations’ iconography are documented, but they would have presented the same crucial features of Blessed Teresa’s officially sanctioned persona that were proclaimed in the Italian Congregation’s other apparati: She was an active contemplative, a virtuous reformer, teacher, and mother of the friars and nuns.65 In particular, Teresa’s role as fecund virgin mother of a global missionary Order would have been proclaimed in the missionaries’ church, just as it was in one of the two processions through the city of Hormuz. Given the small size of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, the dramatic performance of Blessed Teresa’s apotheosis was probably staged outdoors, perhaps in its square. If so, it would have attracted a cross-section of Hormuz’s population including non-Christians. Performances of this type normally incorporated special effects such as artillery salvos, fireworks, and actors who descended from clouds and ascended again to heaven in order to attract and thrill audiences while aiming to edify and inspire them. The second source on the beatification celebrations is Father Vicente’s unpublished letter, in which he began by remarking that he and his fellow missionaries “celebrated the feast of our Holy Mother [Teresa] as best we could given the short amount of time we had to prepare for it.”66 Ironically, although Hormuz was a crossroads of the silk trade, Vicente commented that the celebrations were not as solemn as desired due to the fact that there was no silk on the island.67 However, he wrote, “the church was adorned so prettily that it appeared to be a jewel.”68 Vicente recounted that on an unspecified day (perhaps the vigil), Father Luis Francisco de la Madre de Dios (Louis Francis of the Mother of God) gave a sermon and celebrated mass, which was followed by vespers, the evening prayers.69 On 5 October, the feast day, the Most Blessed Sacrament was put on display in the church, just as it was in the Madre di Dio in Naples. In Hormuz Father Balthazar, the Portuguese from Goa who had been vested during the 1612 memoria ceremonies, sang the feast day’s mass. Then at 65 66 67 68 69

See Chapters 1–5. AGOCD, Mision de Persia y Mesopotamia. 239/a. 2, fol. 1r–v; quotation at fol. 1r: “Las fiestas de nostra S[an]ta Madre las celebramos lo mejer que podimos, aunque el poco t[em]po que huvo despues de nostra llegada para prevenirla.” AGOCD, Mision de Persia y Mesopotamia. 239/a. 2, fol. 1r: “Y estar la tierra falta todo a seda causa que no fuere tan solenne como yo desseava.” ‘Abbas I sought control over silk routes, one of which ran through the Persian Gulf. See Subrahmanyam 1993, 149. AGOCD, Mision de Persia y Mesopotamia. 239/a. 2, fol. 1v: “La Iglesia e[s]tava lindamente aderecada que pareçia una Joya.” By “the church,” he meant the oratory discussed ­previously. Chick 2012:2, 1044. In March 1613, Father Luis Francisco arrived from Goa to Hormuz to help Father Leandro during Lent.

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vespers Father Vicente preached and proceeded “in our manner for the Intercession of our Holy Mother [Teresa],” whom he called “the divine Mother for all.”70 Thus, the festivities in honor of Blessed Teresa were meant to introduce a new holy woman to Hormuz’s heterogeneous inhabitants, promote devotion to her, and firmly situate Teresa and the Italian Congregation in the Portuguese Estado da Índia. Father Vicente placed special emphasis on two public processions that Father Leandro designed for the octave. Processions, as we have seen, wound through streets and byways and passed through squares and alongside major buildings. They were time-honored means of engaging the sensibilities and minds of persons from all walks of life who experienced the exciting spectacles together.71 In addition, fireworks, artillery salvos, and other outdoor festivities would have been visible to all of Hormuz’s residents regardless of their religious affiliations. Since Captain Luís da Gama was the major patron of the beatification festivities and considering that he exerted supreme power on the island, he is likely to have been involved in planning the two processional routes. The first procession occurred after vespers on 1 October, and it typified those for blesseds and saints around the globe in showcasing Teresa’s official image as represented on specially made, monumental processional standards. The majordomos of Our Lady of Mount Carmel carried four identical standards from the Italian Congregation’s house to what Father Vicente termed Hormuz’s four principal squares. The only square that Vicente explicitly identified was that in front of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, but the enormous square between Captain da Gama’s fortress and the town must have also figured prominently. Vicente described the standards as “very beautiful.”72 On one side they were painted with an image of “our Holy Mother [Teresa], and on the other side, in very large letters, the year, month, and day of her beatification.”73 Each time the cavalcade reached a square, a standard was raised aloft on a pole, followed by the recitation of an Ave Maria. The procession was intended to demarcate Teresa’s territory in the town of Hormuz while inscribing her holy image in the hearts of its Catholic residents. No doubt the Italian Congregation’s men hoped that the public fanfare would attract the attention of possible converts. 70 71 72 73

AGOCD, Mision de Persia y Mesopotamia. 239/a. 2, fol. 1v: “Yo predique y ayadome de manera n[ostr]o por Intercession de la S[an]ta M[adr]e nostra ... divina Madre por todo.” For an overview of the roles of processions, see Schraven 2019. We know that persons of other faiths watched Jesuit processions in Goa from the windows of their homes. AGOCD, Mision de Persia y Mesopotamia. 239/a. 2, fol. 1r–v. All quotations in this paragraph are from fol. 1r. Majordomos were in charge of the hospice’s daily administration. Precisely how Teresa was portrayed on the Hormuz standard is unknown.

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On the night of Hormuz’s procession of the standards, fireworks were set off from the friary’s roof. In the square in front of Our Lady of Mount Carmel many rockets and fireworks exploded while a galley and a ship “fought” each other, martial imagery that befitted celebrations funded mainly by Captain da Gama. At second vespers singers performed motets in praise of Blessed Teresa, and there was music with hornpipes. Rounds of artillery fire dramatically marked the procession’s progress from square to square through the town. Similar pyrotechnic displays lit up the sky every night of the octave. Father Vicente recounted that on the vigil of 4 October, fireworks blazed all over the city. Above all, at the Portuguese fortress a barrel of tar burned and fireworks were shot over the railing “to solemnize and further honor our festivity.”74 This spectacular display at the chief site of Portuguese power asserted the captain’s ability to protect the island’s inhabitants. Many residents reportedly participated in these celebrations, without asking permission, by enthusiastically launching fireworks from their own windows and roofs. These demonstrations of jubilation would have been witnessed by Muslims, Hindus, and Jews in addition to Catholics. Four days later, on Blessed Teresa’s feast day of 5 October, the square in front of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, which had four streets around it forming a cloister, was adorned with very tall poles placed in the corners and decorated with palms and small flags with streamers (banderillas) painted with the coat of arms of the Discalced Carmelite Order. In addition, according to Vicente, there were “pretty images” in each corner of the square. Presumably, they would have depicted the new blessed and her symbols. The decorations marking the perimeter of the square underscored the heightened status in Hormuz that the Order derived from its newly exalted mother-founder, Blessed Teresa. The square’s decorations also had a central role at the beginning of the feast day’s grand procession of the Most Blessed Sacrament. Many of Hormuz’s pious Catholics would have shared Teresa’s own devotion to the Eucharist, which was carried aloft under a canopy from the oratory’s high altar into its square and then through the town.75 Like the procession of the standards on 1 ­October, that of the Eucharist presumably progressed through Hormuz’s streets to its three other main squares that were already adorned with the Order’s coat of

74 75

AGOCD, Mision de Persia y Mesopotamia. 239/a. 2, fol. 1r: “por solenizar, y honorrar mas nostra fiesta.” For feast day’s procession, see AGOCD, Mision de Persia y Mesopotamia. 239/a. 2, fol. 1v.

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arms.76 At the head of the procession the missionaries carried the Eucharist, while “Portuguese Lords and their men” followed behind.77 Four floats (charolos) or biers (andas) displaying specifically Carmelite imagery followed the Eucharist: statues of Elijah, Simon Stock, Angelus, and ultimately a gilded statue of Blessed Teresa together with her reliquary.78 All four sculptured figures were dressed as Carmelites with their insignia. We have seen that Elijah was the legendary founder of the Carmelite Order, to whom Teresa was compared as founder of the Discalced, and that he was also the namesake of the Congregation of St. Elijah (i.e., the Italian Congregation).79 St. Simon Stock, a 13th-century Englishman who established Carmelite houses in Cambridge, Oxford, and Paris, was a stalwart defender of his Order. He was known for his vision in which the Madonna held the scapular, an apron-like garment that is part of the Carmelite habit, and told Simon, “This shall be the privilege for you and for all the Carmelites, that anyone dying in this habit shall be saved.”80 The vision of the scapular underscored the Order’s holy status. Highly significant was the inclusion of St. Angelus, who was ideally suited for the Persian Mission’s procession, but unlike Elijah did not figure in the European celebrations. Born to Jewish parents in Jerusalem in 1185, Angelus converted and entered the Carmelite Order as a youth. He successfully proselytized Jews in his native city and Muslims in Hungary, then part of the Ottoman Empire, and again while en route to Sicily, where he spent his last years. In c.1222, he was martyred while preaching in Licata, Sicily.81 Angelus’s role bespoke the efforts of Fathers Vicente and Leandro to recruit novices of all ­lineages—including conversos—to join their ministry among the Muslims. The beatification celebrations in Genoa, Rome, and Naples highlighted to varying degrees Teresa’s desire to convert the Moors or die in the endeavor, and her eventual prayers for their souls from within the cloister. This theme was 76 77 78 79 80

81

Vicente did not address the Eucharistic procession’s route. AGOCD, Mision de Persia y Mesopotamia. 239/a. 2, fol. 1v. Neither the reliquary nor the relic it contained was described. See the Introduction, 1 and 2, and Chapters 2, 57−61, and 3, 83−84, and 86. See Fornari 1688, 444–62. Also see J. Hilgers, “St. Simon Stock,” in The Catholic Encyclopedia, New York, 1912: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13800a.htm. Accessed 13 November 2018. Devout laypersons often wore over their shoulders small scapulars only a few inches square connected by a ribbon. This kind of scapular, although often depicted in early modern images of St. Simon Stock’s vision, was not the same as the original part of the Order’s official habit. See Fornari 1688, 383–427; also see http://www.carmelites.ie/angelus.html; taken from the “Carmelite Proper of the Liturgy of the Hours,” Institutum Carmelitanum, Rome: 1993. Accessed 3 November 2018. Angelus was murdered by Berenger, a sinner whom he was attempting to win over to a moral life.

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­ erfectly embodied by Angelus. The processional floats presenting this august p Carmelite genealogy in Hormuz reached a full crescendo with Blessed Teresa herself. The missionaries had only been in Hormuz for two years when Teresa was beatified in 1614, and at that point they were completely dependent on the patronage of the Portuguese captain and other elites. As Jeffrey Muller has argued with regard to the Jesuits’ global missions, “political calculation was the first accommodation.”82 This holds equally true for the Italian Congregation’s missionaries. While clearly aiming to address Catholics of all ethnicities and to attract converts, Father Leandro nonetheless had to ingratiate his Order with Portuguese high society, Catholics whose cultural backgrounds most closely resembled his own and on whose financial intervention he relied. Chief among them was Philip III’s primary official in Hormuz, Captain Luís da Gama. 7

The Demise of the Hormuz Mission

Geopolitical issues soon led to the end of Portuguese rule and the concomitant demise of the Italian Congregation’s mission in Hormuz. Only 10 years after the mission was established, Shah ‘Abbas I allied with the English, whose mercantile presence in the region was steadily growing, in order to expel the Portuguese from Hormuz. A 12-week siege began in February 1622, just a month before Teresa’s canonization at St. Peter’s in Rome, and Hormuz was captured in May. The Portuguese lost their island outpost, the Italian Congregation’s three remaining men fled to Isfahan, the city of Hormuz was sacked, and Teresa’s holy footprint was forever erased on the island.83 Nevertheless, Father Leandro’s role as a festive designer continued. His far more spectacular designs for Teresa’s canonization celebrations in Goa in 1623 were created under the auspices of Captain Luís’s elder brother, Francisco da Gama, Viceroy of Goa. 82 83

Muller 2016, 476. On the alliance and siege, see: Chick 2012:2, 1043–53; Cubbe 1987, 134. On Pietro Della ­Valle’s description of the war and the sacked town of Hormuz, see Brancaforte 2008. Political unrest had begun around 1615. By the time of the siege, none of the missionaries under discussion was still in Hormuz. Juan Tadeo had left for Isfahan in spring 1614; Vicente had gone first to Isfahan in 1616 and then to Rome in about 1618; Leandro had moved to Goa in late 1617 or 1618. See Chapter 9 on Goa. The fall of Hormuz significantly lowered Portuguese revenues, but did not end its trade in the Persian Gulf; in the 1620s they still controlled Maskat on the Arabian coast, and later acquired further trade centers. See Subrahmanyam 1993, 157–58.

CHAPTER 9

Teresa’s Canonization Festivities in Goa, Rome of the East The foundation in Goa changed the character of the Discalced Carmelites’ Asian apostolate by expanding it beyond mainland Persia and the Persian Gulf, thereby transforming it into the Mission to Persia and the East Indies.1 As the capital of the Portuguese Estado da Índia and the seat of the Archdiocese of Catholic Asia, Goa was situated in two global networks, one imperial and the other Roman Catholic.2 Pamila Gupta has drawn attention to Goa’s competition with Lisbon, which gave rise to a frequently enunciated Portuguese proverb still current in the late 1630s when the city was past its economic heyday: “If you have seen Goa, you needn’t go to Lisbon.”3 During its 16th-century apogee as a wealthy mercantile city filled with churches, palaces, and lush gardens, Goa had earned the sobriquet Goa Dourada (Golden Goa).4 Due to this epithet’s origins in Portugal’s self image as a colonial power that conquered infidels in far-flung lands, it endured long after the capital’s commercial decline.5 Meanwhile, Goa’s position as Rome of the East was ascendant.6 The Archdiocese of Goa had jurisdiction over lands from Africa’s Cape of Good Hope to China, its Sé Cathedral dedicated to St. Catherine of Alexandria was the largest in Portugal’s worldwide empire, and new saints, above all the Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier whose ministry had begun in Goa in 1542, underscored its critical importance to the Universal Church.7 By the time the Discalced Carmelite missionaries settled there in 1620, Portuguese Goa had been subsumed into the Iberian Union. We have seen that under Spanish rule the captains of Hormuz continued to be Portuguese elites, 1 See Chapter 7, n.1. 2 Portugal’s Estado da Índia is introduced in Chapter 7. 3 Gupta 2014, n.82 on 120, quoting John Alberti Mandelslo, Mandelslo’s Travels in Western India (1638–9), ed. M.S. Commissariat (London, 1931), 63. 4 These aspects of Golden Goa are emphasized by Miller 2016, 169, who also addresses the aspirational dimensions of the sobriquet. 5 On processions for Francis Xavier as expressions of Goa’s wealth during and after its peak, see Županov 2005, 76–85, Gupta 2014, and Miller 2016, 169. 6 On its sobriquet Rome of the East, see Malekandathil 2019, 513–47. 7 Malekandathil 2009, 31–32. On the cathedral, see Osswald 2003, 186–95. On the exalted place of Francis Xavier in Goa and its impact on Leandro’s festive designs, see Jones forthcoming in 2024. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004548916_011

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and the same was true for Goa’s viceroys and archbishops.8 It is noteworthy that whereas Captain Luís da Gama had been the great patron of Teresa’s beatification festivities in Hormuz, his elder brother, Francisco da Gama, Viceroy of Goa (r.1622–28), supported and took part in her canonization celebrations in Goa. In the Rome of the East, moreover, the high-ranking archdiocesan clergy also served as patrons of Teresa’s festivities. 1

The Expansion to Goa

Even before settling in Hormuz in 1612, the Italian Congregation’s men were considering Goa as the location of a future foundation.9 They were attracted to the city because it already had a large Catholic population and its Hindu inhabitants were more amenable to proselytization than Persian Muslims. In addition, at a time when novices were difficult to come by in Isfahan and Hormuz, men from Goa began to enter the Order. Despite facing considerable obstacles, the Italian Congregation’s men ultimately achieved their goal of establishing a full-fledged mission in Goa, rather than a mere “hospice,” as in Hormuz. The friary and public church in Goa, dedicated to Our Lady of Mount Carmel (subsequently destroyed), were founded in April 1620. Only in 1625, three years after Teresa’s canonization, did the Congregation of the Propaganda Fide issue the official license for the mission.10 Correspondence in the Order’s Roman archive reveals that among the missionaries most involved in negotiations for the new foundation in Goa were two fathers whose ministry in Hormuz was also decisive: Vicente de San Francisco and Leandro de la Anunciación, both of whom were Spanish members of the Italian Congregation.11 Their nationality was a significant advantage because during the Iberian Union, Italian religious were resented (even forbidden) in

8

9 10 11

As a viceroyalty, Goa’s government comprised judicial courts and a senate that had a s­ pecial representative to the king’s court. This ensured a direct line of communication for Goa during the deliberations of Spain’s Consejo de Estado (Council of State) and Portugal’s equivalent, the Conselho de Portugal, concerning the Estado da Índia. The most comprehensive account of the highly complex, prolonged negotiations, including quotations from original documents, is Chick 2012:2, 1222–33, on which my synopsis is based. Also see Cubbe 1998. Cubbe 1998, 144. See Chapters 7 and 8 on Vicente and Leandro. The latter devised Teresa’s beatification celebrations in both Hormuz and Goa. For further details and on other missionaries involved, see Chick 2012:2, 1222–33.

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Goa, whereas those from Portugal and Spain were favored.12 Highly complex religio-political hurdles had to be overcome. First and foremost, the Italian Congregation’s Definitory General (governing body) in Rome was not enthusiastic about the idea of expanding its Persian Mission into Goa, and was won over only in 1623, at which point the Propaganda Fide was approached about giving its imprimatur. In addition, a license had to be obtained from the Archbishop of Goa. In 1612 when Dom Cristóvão da Sá e Lisboa was ­Archbishop-Elect of Goa, Father Vicente approached him about the prospective mission, and Dom Cristóvão, a devotee of Teresa of Avila, allowed Vicente to purchase a house owned by the archbishopric to use as an oratory. During Dom Cristóvão’s tenure as Archbishop of Goa (1612–22), numerous obstacles slowed the momentum. From 1618 to 1619, Portuguese opposition to the Italian Congregation prevailed in the viceroy’s council in Goa. In addition, the Orders that had already been active in Goa for decades objected to the prospective new mission. Archbishop Cristóvão advised Father Vicente to mitigate tensions by returning to Persia and attempting to obtain a license from Philip III of Spain while there. This, too, would be problematic because the crown feared that its resources would be depleted if additional religious foundations were to be established in Goa. Finances in the Estado da Índia were a perennial source of friction between Spain and Portugal during the Iberian Union. At the same time, the archbishop had to face Pope Paul V’s potential indignation at having to wait for the crown’s approval. It was Father Leandro who ultimately negotiated successfully with Viceroy Don Fernão de Albuquerque (r.1619–22) to obtain King Philip IV’s consent for the mission in 1620.13 At that point, permission of the Italian Congregation’s Definitory General in Rome was still needed, and it authorized the mission in Goa on the condition that a percentage of its alms, including those earmarked as stipends for masses, were to be used to help subsidize the missions in Isfahan, Thatta, and the neighboring regions—that is, among the Georgians, Arabs, and Jacobite (Syrian) Christians.14 Following his fruitful negotiations, Father Leandro served as the Italian Congregation’s first Provincial Vicar of the Mission to Persia and the East Indies, 12 13 14

By royal decree, Italian Jesuits were banned from Portuguese India from 1610–13, on which see Osswald 2003, 265 (and bibliography therein). Chick 2012:2, 736–37; Cubbe 1998, 144. On Viceroy Fernão (Panóias, Portugal c.1550–Goa 1622), who was a grandnephew of Afonso de Albuquerque, see Vila-Santa 2008–17, 62–65. Chick 2012:2, 736–37. Catholics wanted to convince Jacobite Christians, who used the Syrian rite, to embrace the Roman one. The rulings were discussed in the 1624 Instructions sent from the Congregation’s headquarters in Rome to the mission’s Visitor General. The mission in Goa also helped fund that in Basra, which was established later, in 1623.

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a post he occupied for three consecutive terms from 1621 to 1628. Although Isfahan remained the province’s headquarters, Provincial Vicar Father Leandro chose to live in Goa due to its greater opportunities for evangelization and its more stable political situation. From Goa, Father Leandro provided his superiors in Rome with updates about growing devotion to Teresa, and the layout and furnishings of the mission’s new church. 2

Celebrations for a Heterogeneous Population

Goa’s inhabitants, like those in Hormuz, were notably diverse in ethnicity and religious affiliation. As for the ruling Portuguese population, the hierarchy was the same as in Hormuz with blue-blooded reinois occupying the apex, and below them creoles (castiços/castizos), whose Portuguese parents were not nobles. Near the middle of the hierarchy were the casados, who, as in Hormuz, were the offspring of Portuguese soldiers and local women of similar social status who had converted to Catholicism. Below them were further classifications of persons of mixed ancestry.15 A substantial segment of Goa’s inhabitants were Indian Catholic converts, who in the city’s census of 1623, the very year of Teresa’s canonization festivities, numbered 60,000 strong. Under the law, Indian Catholics—whether pure-blooded or mestizos—enjoyed the same rights and obligations as Portuguese reinois and creoles.16 Although the Catholic naturais (native Indians) were ranked below the reinois on the social ladder, the two groups were known to intermarry. Thus, Catholics of different ethnicities fraternized and could be similarly affluent, and they all attended church services and public religious festivities. Women viewed outdoor events from their homes’ windows or balconies, or sat on specially constructed seating in squares.17 Lower in the social rankings came the naturais of other faiths, mainly ­Hindus and Muslims, who numbered about 100,000 in the 1623 census. They were often prosperous and had key roles in commerce. Michael N. Pearson emphasized that despite the fact that both Portuguese and Indian mores called for separate residential areas for individual ranks of society, Europeans and 15 16 17

Casados’ offspring were further classified according to bloodlines. Major groups included mestiços (those of Portuguese and Indian lineage) and mulattos (those of Portuguese and African lineage). My synopsis is based on Mendonça 2002, esp. 177–78, and Pearson 2006, who indicated that all Christians were subject to Portuguese law whereas Hindus remained subject to their own “dispute-settling mechanisms” (quotation at 94). Gupta 2014, 53, 55.

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locals—even local non-Christians—had considerable interaction in trade.18 As Délio de Mendonça has noted, public festivities were considered a means of intensifying the faith of Goa’s recent converts, and also of attracting new ones.19 It therefore comes as no surprise that Muslim and Hindu naturais are documented as having witnessed Catholic processions for Jesuit saints in Goa, making it safe to assume that they also witnessed those for Teresa.20 3

Teresa’s Cult in Goa and the Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel

In an unpublished letter of 1623 to the Definitory General, Father Leandro indicated that devotion to Teresa was already strong in Goa before her canonization.21 He noted that in the summer of 1621, following (unspecified) calamities, Viceroy Fernão de Albuquerque had planned an intercessory procession with statues of holy virgins, which Archbishop Cristóvão was involved in organizing.22 The archbishop had not only consented to Leandro’s request that Teresa be included, but he had a special niche made in which to carry her processional statue. Leandro stated that he was responsible for commissioning the statue, and although he did not identify the artist, he described his choice of iconography. Father Leandro had the statue, which was probably made of wood, clothed in the Discalced Carmelite habit, but instead of the Order’s regulation rough cloth it was fashioned of silk with a white damask cape and a veil. He wrote that Teresa’s vestments were “completely covered in rich jewels—­ diamonds, rubies, and pearls, and she wore a rich diadem covered in pearls.”23 Whereas the dove of the Holy Spirit, the inspiration of Teresa’s reform, was suspended from the top of the gilded processional niche, the coat of arms of the Discalced Carmelite Order embroidered in gold thread was placed below her feet. Secular and ecclesiastical personages must have financed the statue’s 18 19 20 21 22

23

Pearson 2006, 94. Mendonça 2002, 145. See Gupta 2014, 53, 55; also bibliography therein. AGOCD, Pluteo 261a, 1, Relazione della Fond.ne di Goa. Leandro ab Annunz. a 1623, fols. 1r–5r. For a considerably less detailed reference to the intercessory procession that may have been written as late as c.1636–40, see Chick 2012:2, 1226. Intercessory processions of this type were common responses to plagues and famines in the early modern era. The calamity was probably an outbreak of cholera, a common problem in 17th-century Goa, especially in June and July. See Dominique Buchillet, “Epidemic Diseases in the Past: History, Philosophy, and Religious Thought,” in Michel Tibayrenc, ed., Encyclopedia of Infectious Diseases: Modern Methodologies, Hoboken, NJ, 2007, 522. AGOCD, Pluteo 261a, 1, fol. 1v.

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costly materials because the missionaries depended on alms. The emphasis on pearls from the waters off India’s coast and on gems from its mines projected an image of the city’s affluence (although then on the wane). Moreover, ornamenting Blessed Teresa’s image with typically Indian gems not only fashioned her as Goa’s holy woman but also asserted the city’s religious prestige as Rome of the East. Father Leandro added that in her right hand Teresa held a book, whereas in her left hand she carried a palm (of martyrdom) to which were affixed three crowns embroidered in silk and gold thread. The three crowns had first appeared on Teresa’s beatification standard in Naples where they signified her personas as founder, doctor, and virgin. We have seen that their depiction was a creative adaptation of those at the top of the Iberian Union’s coat of arms, which tied Teresa inextricably to its Kingdom of Naples (see Figure 17). The appearance of this iconography in Goa, the Estado da Índia’s capital city likewise subject to the Iberian Union, was particularly suitable for Teresa’s statue carried in Viceroy Fernão de Albuquerque’s procession. Father Leandro stated that the statue’s three crowns were different colors—white, green, and red. That the colors symbolized her roles as virgin, doctor, and martyr, was made clear in 1623 when he employed the imagery again in announcing the news of Teresa’s elevation to sainthood. Even if members of the general public—­ Catholics, Hindus, and Muslims of all social classes—would not necessarily have understood the full significance of Teresa’s imagery, everyone could learn to recognize her attributes. In addition, because she was included in an intercessory procession, all beholder-worshipers were encouraged to pray to Teresa for assistance in troubled times. The processional statue was highly influential. Father Leandro reported that it so impressed Archbishop Cristóvão that he ordered a copy in wood for an altar in the oratory of the Archbishop’s Palace (Figure 52). On Blessed Teresa’s feast day it was carried into the imposing Sé Cathedral, where it was placed on an altar, thereby greatly enhancing Catholics’ familiarity with the Spanish holy woman (Figure 53). Leandro added that the Portuguese archbishop “expressed such a feeling of devotion to the Saint [Teresa] with her image and with the study he made of her books that going to visit him, I found him reading one of them.”24 In other words, Teresa’s teaching had spread to the Estado da Índia shortly before her canonization. In Goa, as elsewhere, the Italian Congregation’s festivities for Teresa depended on the patronage and devotion of high-ranking secular and ecclesiastical officials. 24

AGOCD, Pluteo 261a, 1. fol. 1v.

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Figure 52 Archbishop’s Palace, Goa Photo: José Ferreira

Figure 53 Sé Cathedral, Goa Photo: Abhiomkar; Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License

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Father Leandro’s description of the new church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, addressed in the same letter, is an essential source because upon the Order’s expulsion from Goa in 1709, both it and the friary were almost completely destroyed, with only ruins surviving today.25 In Figure 54, the complex’s location is indicated by the letter “A” superimposed on Jan Huygen van Linschoten’s map of Goa from his Itinerario, voyage ofte schipvaert, van Ian Huygen van Linschoten naer Oost ofte Portugaels Indien (Itinerary of Jan Huygen van Linschoten’s Voyage by Ship to the East, or to Portuguese India), published in Amsterdam in 1596. Constructed on a hill to the northeast of the city, it overlooked the Mandovi River (Figure 55). Father Leandro proudly wrote that the church had been built in only three months and was considered a “marvel” in Goa.26 It was a basilica with a nave approximately three times longer than its width. The same proportions (not dimensions) had been used for the oratory in Hormuz, which was said to have been modelled on the proportions of the Temple of Solomon.27 Father Leandro provided the actual measurements of Goa’s church as 60 palmi by 22 palmi (approximately 44 ft. × 16 ft.). Two altars faced each other across the transept, one dedicated to the Crucifix and the other to St. Joseph. The high altar was approached by stairs, and doors on either side led to a sacristy in which were found “images, and a gilded retable, white linen ornaments, candelabra, lamps, golden copes, and many other details.”28 When he wrote the letter on an unspecified day in 1623, Father Leandro did not mention an altar dedicated to Teresa in Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Even if the church did not yet have an altar consecrated to St. Teresa, it would have had one dedicated to Blessed Teresa. Because the two side altars had other dedications, her image is likely to have been displayed on the high altar. A sculpted image of St. Teresa was made to adorn the church’s high altar on the occasion of her canonization festivities in November 1623. This suggests that an earlier 25

26 27 28

The Order was expelled by the Portuguese government in 1709 after its missionaries refused to take an oath of obedience to the secular rulers. Their complex was given to the Portuguese Oratorians, but was nearly destroyed sometime later in the century. Around 2018 the ruins were cleaned up, and ceremonies took place. The friary was used as a seminary starting in the 1630s. By that time, a second house had been purchased outside town at La Lagona, and it was used as a friary; it still existed in 1653, but was later destroyed. See Chick 2012:2, 1230–44. AGOCD, Pluteo 261a, 1, fol. 2r. See Chapter 8, 196, on Hormuz’s oratory. As described in 3 Kings 6:2 and 2 Paralipomenon (2 Chronicles) 3:3, the Temple of Solomon measured 60 × 20 cubits. For the dimensions and the quotation, see AGOCD, Pluteo 261a, 1, fol. 2r. Measurement of the palmo differed from region to region, and it is unclear which Leandro was using. Because the letter was addressed to the Definitory General in Rome, my conversions are based on the standard used in the Papal States (1 palmo=8.79”).

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Figure 54 Goa, Metropolis & Emporium of East India, from Jan Huygen van Linschoten, Itinerario, voyage ofte schipvaert, naer Oost ofte Portugaels Indien inhoudende een corte beschryvin, Amsterdam, 1596, detail Photo: J. Carter Brown Library, Brown University, Providence, RI. Creative Commons. Graphics: Martine C. Barnaby © Pamela M. Jones

Figure 55 View of Goa from the vicinity of Our Lady of Mount Carmel: L: Sé Cathedral; R: St. Cajetan Photo: Kelli Wood

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image of Blessed Teresa had previously graced the high altar, and that it too was a statue, perhaps the very one studded with gems that Father Leandro had commissioned for the intercessory procession of female saints in 1621. 4

The Canonization Celebrations

The evidence for Father Leandro’s canonization festivities, which unfolded in a series of events over two months, requires explanation. Because documents concerning the Discalced Carmelites found in the Historical Archives of Goa begin in the 1630s, years after the period in question, we must rely largely on those in the AGOCD, the Order’s Roman archive. Father Leandro mentioned in both a letter and a brief report found in the Roman archive that he was also writing a long, detailed report on the festivities to be sent to Rome.29 The lengthy report was received in Rome, where centuries later it was known to Father Florencio del Niño Jesús, a Discalced Carmelite author who served as the Order’s Roman archivist from 1915–19. When Florencio left Rome soon after World War I, he took Leandro’s detailed report with him to Madrid, where it was subsequently destroyed in 1931 during unrest leading up to the Spanish Civil War.30 Consequently, Father Leandro’s most comprehensive discussion of his celebrations for St. Teresa is known only secondhand through Father Florencio’s 1930 study, which, however, contains significant quotations from the original.31 In addition, the Roman nobleman Pietro Della Valle wrote an eyewitness account of the festivities announcing the news of Teresa’s canonization.32 29 See AGOCD, Pluteo 261p, 6, fols. 1r–2v, an undated letter; also AGOCD, Pluteo 261a, 1, ­Relazione della Fond.ne di Goa. Leandro ab Annunz. a 1623, fols. 1r–5r, esp. fol. 3v. 30 Father Florencio was resident at the Convento de la Plaza de España in Madrid when on 11 May 1931 rebels burned down the friary. Florencio’s personal cache of historical documents (including Leandro’s report), which he kept in a box, was destroyed. Because Florencio’s successor as archivist at the AGOCD in Rome was not appointed until 1928, there was a long hiatus, and by the time the archive was reorganized, Leandro’s detailed report (and several other documents) were marked with question marks, indicating that they could no longer be located. On the documents’ destruction, see Fernández de Cigoña 1990, I: 102. I thank Father Angelo Lanfranchi, Archivist of the AGOCD, for generously helping to reconstruct the loss of this document. 31 Florencio 1930b. Florencio recorded a few examples of the poetry composed for the occasion. Yet elsewhere in his study he did not always clarify whether he was quoting directly from Leandro’s report or merely paraphrasing it. 32 Della Valle, Viaggi, 2: 603–04. Della Valle did not witness all parts of the canonization celebrations, on which see n.54 below.

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A major source in its own right, Della Valle’s description also serves to corroborate many details that Father Florencio provided, thus confirming the accuracy of his account of the celebration of the news, while suggesting that his discussion of the ensuing canonization celebrations, although highly selective, is reliable also. A noteworthy and well-documented feature of Father Leandro’s canonization festivities is the major role played by Viceroy Francisco da Gama, the fourth Count of Vidigueira. Widely regarded as politically ambitious, the ­viceroy was resented for his overweening self-regard, and thus it is safe to assume that Father Leandro did not have to coax his participation.33 Surely Viceroy Francisco helped finance Teresa’s celebrations that afforded him the opportunity to project his identity as her devotee and his authority as protector of Catholicism in the service of the Spanish crown. 5

Celebrating the News of Teresa’s Canonization in May 1623

We have seen that the splendid ceremony of the canonization of the five saints—Isidore of Madrid, Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier, Teresa of Avila, and Philip Neri—took place in St. Peter’s basilica in Rome on 12 March 1622. The news reached the Discalced Carmelites and the Society of Jesus in Goa a little more than a year later, on 11 May 1623.34 Together, they notified the archbishop, who had all the bells of Goa’s churches rung as a call to celebration.35 Viceroy Francisco da Gama also honored the new saints, four of whom were Spaniards, by ordering artillery salvos in the square in front of his palace (Figure 54: B). Public rejoicing reportedly spread throughout the Estado da Índia’s capital city, filling its streets and squares.36 In his account of the festivities announcing the news of Teresa’s elevation to sainthood, Pietro Della Valle wrote that the Italian Congregation “wanted to make a particular celebration of their canonized Saint Teresa—not to be confused on a day with that of the Jesuit Fathers [for Sts. Francis Xavier and Ignatius 33 34 35 36

On both brothers, see Vila-Santa 2008–17, 42–45. Also see Chapter 8, and discussion below. Della Valle 1843:2, 603. See Chapter 4 on the canonization festivities in St. Peter’s. Cristóvão da Sá e Lisboa’s term is said to have ended in 1622, and that of Sebastião de São Pedro to have begun in 1624. Perhaps there is an error in the records, but this means that I cannot determine who was archbishop in 1623. Florencio 1930b, 84. Dom Francisco da Gama served three terms as viceroy, first from 1597–1600, then for two consecutive terms from 1622–28. See Vila-Santa 2008–17, 42–45.

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Loyola].”37 As I argue elsewhere, this underscores Father Leandro’s efforts to compete with the Jesuits, and even to surpass their festive celebrations.38 On 19 May, eight days following receipt of the news, Viceroy Francisco da Gama, the archbishop, members of various religious Orders, and Goa’s municipal authorities gathered in Our Lady of Mount Carmel for a sung mass followed by prayers.39 Two separate processions took place afterward. The first was organized by Father Leandro and began at vespers (that is, around 6pm); the second was organized by (unnamed) Portuguese noblemen living near Our Lady of Mount Carmel and occurred later that night. Each began in the hills above the city, descended into Goa, and wound through its “major” and “most populated streets,” which certainly included Rua Direita, Goa’s premier processional thoroughfare (Figure 56: D).40 The two processions seem to have returned to  their points of origin, and although their routes cannot be reconstructed fully, the significance of their stops along the way merit consideration.41 Father Leandro designed the first procession as a way of proclaiming St. Teresa’s newly elevated status and concomitantly that of her Order.42 The cavalcade began outside the friary of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and comprised elite Portuguese youths in festive attire. Three, bearing colorful escutcheons of the Discalced Carmelite Order on their chests, departed from the friary on horseback (Figure 54: A). The equestrian in the middle held aloft as a trophy of St. Teresa a slender palm (of martyrdom) to which were attached three crowns—one white signifying the saint’s virginity, one green because she was a doctor (doctora), and one red because she was a martyr by wish and in love 37 38 39

40

41 42

Della Valle 1843:2, 603: “che della lor santa Teresa canonizzata vollero fare allegrezza ­particolare e non confusa in un giorno con quella de’ padri Gesuiti.” Jones forthcoming in 2024. Teresa’s celebrations occurred several months before those of the Jesuits. Whereas Della Valle (1843:2, 603) dated the procession to 20 May, Father Florencio (1930b, 84–85) reported that it began on 19 May. This and other slight discrepancies are explained by the fact that celebrations on a given day often began in the morning and finished after midnight. On the Italian Congregation’s processional route, see Florencio 1930b, 86 “recorrieron las principales calles de la ciudad.” On that of the Portuguese noblemen, see Florencio 1930b, 87: “recorriendo de esta manera las más populosas calles de la ciudad.” No individual streets were identified by name. See further discussion below. The endpoints of the processions were not mentioned, but the discussion suggests that they were bi-directional, that is, each one started and ended at the same place. On different kinds of processional routes, see Schraven 2019, 250–51. Florencio 1930b, 85–87; Della Valle 1843, 603–04. Only direct quotations are cited ­separately.

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(mártir en el deseo y en el amor).43 This was the same iconography that Leandro had ideated for the palm held by Teresa’s statue in Viceroy Fernão de Albuquerque’s intercessory procession of 1621. Perhaps the very same crowns were used on both occasions. The two flanking equestrians displayed St. Teresa’s additional (unidentified) devices and emblems. Behind the horsemen, other young men proceeded on foot, likewise carrying escutcheons. At the rear, a herald sounded a trumpet to attract Goa’s diverse inhabitants to the windows and doors of their houses as the procession made its way through town. The trajectory of the first leg of Father Leandro’s procession was clearly stated: Upon entering the city from the east it stopped at the Viceregal Palace, seat of King Philip IV’s government in the Estado da Índia’s capital city (Figure 54: B). Viceroy Francisco da Gama’s crucial role in the festivities can be appreciated by examining the siting, appearance, and ceremonial functions of his palace complex, and its integration into processional routes, as indicated by capital letters superimposed on Linschoten’s map of Goa (Figure 56). A three-­ dimensional model of the palace and a photograph of its only surviving section, the so-called Viceroy’s Arch, offer further specificity (Figures 57 and 58).44 The spacious Square of the Viceroy’s Quay, which on Linschoten’s map is labeled “O Terreiro Alfândega” or Customs’ Square (Figure 56: A), lay before the north facade of the viceregal palace (Figure 56: B). The palace’s several residential and administrative blocks utilized part of Shah Adil’s former fortress and were integrated into the city’s old defensive walls. Notably, when serving his first term as viceroy (1597–1600), Francisco da Gama had helped sponsor the construction of the Viceroy’s Arch (marked by a red arrow in Figure 57).45 A statue of his great grandfather, Vasco, the illustrious explorer, stood in a niche at the arch’s apex. Following the conclusion of Viceroy Francisco’s initial term in 1600, contempt for his vainglory and authoritarian rule had resulted in the statue’s destruction and replacement by one of St. Catherine of Alexandria, Goa’s patron saint.46 Ultimately, however, a statue of Vasco da Gama was returned to the arch and that of St. Catherine was moved to a new niche above it, as seen in the model of the palace complex. At the time of Teresa’s canonization festivities, it may be that both figures were in the niche. These 43 44

45 46

Florencio 1930b, 85. On these monuments, see the following online articles in Património De Influência Portuguesa: Rossa “Goa [Velha Goa/Old Goa], Historical Background and Urbanism” and “Arch of the Viceroys” and Carita, “Palace of the Viceroys.” https://hpip.org/en/contents /Place/579. Accessed 24 January 2021. Viceroy Francisco served again from 1622–28. See Vila-Santa (2008–17, esp. 44) on perceptions of Viceroy Francisco’s rule.

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Figure 56 Goa, Metropolis & Emporium of East India, from Jan Huygen van Linschoten, Itinerario, voyage ofte schipvaert, naer Oost ofte Portugaels Indien inhoudende een corte beschryvin, Amsterdam, 1596, detail Photo: J. Carter Brown Library, Brown University, Providence, RI. Creative Commons. Graphics: Martine C. Barnaby © Pamela M. Jones

statues emphasized Portugal’s hegemony in Asia, for Vasco had been the first European explorer to reach India, and Afonso de Albuquerque’s 1510 conquest of Goa had taken place on Catherine’s feast day. The Viceroy’s Arch (now restored to its original appearance with Vasco presiding) was not used for the ceremonial entrances of the viceroys but instead was an integral part of the palace complex (Figure 58). It led from the Viceroy’s Quay to the Viceroy’s Square (labeled “Terreiro do Vizorey”) on the other side of the palace facing the city (Figure 56: C). Above the arch, as seen in the model of the palace, was a veranda behind which was the viceroy’s ceremonial hall with full-length windows providing a view of the Mandovi River. An uncovered staircase to the right of the arch, used almost exclusively on ceremonial occasions, led to the veranda and from there into the audience hall. The viceroy normally made public addresses from the veranda and received smaller groups in the audience hall. When he participated in ceremonies in the city, he met members of the aristocracy in a walled patio (partially visible behind

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Figure 57 Model of the Viceroy’s Palace, Goa, Museu do Oriente, Lisbon Photo: Walter Rossa. Graphics Martine C. Barnaby  Pamela M. Jones

Figure 58 Ruins of the Viceroy’s Arch, Goa Photo: Prajakt Kamulkar. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License

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the rooftops at the left of the model), from which they would depart the royal complex together on horseback or in palanquins. Father Leandro’s procession stopped first at the viceroy’s palace to receive a special audience with Francisco da Gama and to address him. Although its whereabouts was not specified, the audience probably took place in the Square of the Viceroy’s Quay where da Gama would have appeared to the high-ranking Portuguese youths from the lofty heights of the veranda just outside his audience room.47 One of the equestrian youths then read a sonnet to the viceroy announcing the honor that the “Roman Pastor” (Pope Gregory XV) had given to “Teresa Carmelita,” thereby making explicit the pontiff’s role in official saint-making. In response, Viceroy Francisco reportedly expressed his pleasure at “this delicate and ingenious invitation to the celebrations.”48 Afterward, the procession left the palace and “continued through Goa’s principal streets.”49 To reach the city from the Viceroy’s Quay the cavalcade would have had to follow normal ceremonial practice by proceeding through the Viceroy’s Arch and continuing to the Square of the Viceroys that faced the Rua Direita (Figure 56: B, C, D). About 1,600 feet long, the Rua Direita linked the two main gates of the old Islamic wall. The north gate of the Muslim city, known as that of the fortress or quay, was renovated in 1597 as the viceregal palace’s ceremonial entrance arch, that is, the Viceroy’s Arch. The Rua Direita led to the south gate, which during the Portuguese era was known as that of the Baçais (Cattle Market). The churches of the Misericordia and Nossa Senhora da Serra (Our Lady of the Hill) were located inside the south gate at the far end of the processional thoroughfare (Figure 56: E). As the only street large enough to accommodate the crowds that the cortege reportedly encountered, the Rua Direita was the perfect venue for Father Leandro’s publicity campaign, since diverging at different angles were numerous narrow, winding streets of the original Islamic medina where many residents lived. The youths and the herald in Leandro’s procession are said to have tossed sheets of paper to the crowds inviting them to enjoy the upcoming celebrations for St. Teresa. Remarkably, the flyers also bore (unrecorded) verses praising Teresa’s virtues, presumably composed in Portuguese, thus giving Goa’s literate inhabitants a preview of the rhetoric of sanctity to be presented in word and image in the Italian Congregation’s church. A large number of Goa’s 47 48 49

Because on this occasion the viceroy himself did not leave the palace, it seems unlikely that he would have received the procession on the patio. For both quotations and the text of the sonnet, see Florencio 1930b, 86. Whether or not this is a direct quotation from da Gama cannot be determined. Florencio 1930b, 86: “principales calles de la ciudad.”

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inhabitants reportedly witnessed this and the subsequent processions honoring Teresa’s elevation to sainthood. During the night of 19–20 May, the hill and environs of Our Lady of Mount Carmel were illuminated by spectacular fireworks, while bells pealed and music was played. The nobles living near the friary organized a second procession of their own in which St. Teresa’s (undescribed) standard was carried aloft. Pietro Della Valle, who took part in the cavalcade, recounted that its participants wore elaborate livery and rode lively horses as they paraded through the city to the accompaniment of instrumentalists and singers. He also remarked on the exotic costume that he designed for himself: “Conforming to the liberty that there was in dressing oneself in one’s own way, I went dressed in true and natural dress of a noble Arab from the desert, which in Goa was considered rather beautiful and gallant.”50 Della Valle then described a remarkable invenzione (invention or design) in honor of St. Teresa that he himself created for the celebration of the news of her canonization: I again wanted to participate in the celebration of the Saint, to whom I am very devoted, and on the occasion also made an invenzione to her portrait (ritratto), adorning it with twelve surrounding figures representing her twelve principal gifts, and an impresa about one of those gifts for every figure, which imprese have mottos in twelve different languages. [I wrote] underneath a chapter of many verses in the Tuscan language explaining the imprese. And coming together with those twelve gifts to the Saint, were added at the end four words of dedication in prose to the Discalced Carmelite fathers of Persia, of the college of various oriental languages. In addition, I say, may it please God, that in addition to this invenzione I may have the spirit to have it printed one day in Rome because it would be possible to make many prints of it.51 Della Valle never published his invenzione nor did he explain where it was displayed or comment on its medium. Clearly intended for Goa’s polyglot 50 51

Della Valle 1843:2, 604. His familiarity with Arabic dress was based on extensive travel in the Middle East. Della Valle 1843:2, 604. It is noteworthy that Della Valle’s invention included 12 gifts of Teresa, the very same number of virtues or prerogatives included in Fra Marcello’s beatification apparato in S. Maria della Scala of October 1614. Della Valle was not resident in Rome when Teresa’s beatification celebrations took place, and I am assuming no influence of the 1614 apparato on his invenzione. It is not out of the question, however, that the Roman Della Valle was familiar with Fra Marcello’s written account.

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high society, his erudite design should be considered a precursor to the temporary funeral monument that he created for Sitti Maani Gioerida, his Syrian Christian wife. Erected in the Roman church of S. Maria in Aracoeli in 1627, it consisted of sculptured personifications of virtues with multilingual mottos inscribed on their pedestals (­Figure 59).52 Della Valle’s Roman monument incorporated inscriptions in 12 European and Asian languages—including Chaldean (Syriac), ­Persian, Turkish, Arabic, and Armenian. Because he also used 12 languages on his similar monument to Teresa in Goa, Asian tongues must have been among them, thereby showcasing his impressive erudition. By contrast, no Asian languages featured in Father Leandro’s festive designs in Goa, just as none had appeared in Hormuz, although their use would have strengthened a range of ethnically diverse beholders’ sense of belonging to the worldwide Catholic community. The celebration of the news ended the next day in Our Lady of Mount Carmel with final ceremonies attended by an array of august personages, including Viceroy da Gama, members of his court, and such high-ranking ecclesiastics as Father Domingo de la Piedad, the Augustinian master of theology, whose sermon showered praise on St. Teresa. So many people reportedly showed up for the celebrations that the missionaries’ church could not hold them all. Given these circumstances, it seems highly likely that Della Valle created his invenzione in honor of St. Teresa for display in the church where its numerous inscriptions could be read and discussed at leisure by learned worshipers of various ethnicities. The celebrations of the news of Teresa’s canonization occurred both inside her Order’s church—which was insufficiently large to hold her pious devotees—and outside in Goa’s streets. The use of multiple processions and church services to engage the public is as noteworthy as the use of flyers to generate anticipation for the upcoming autumnal festivities. To keep St. Teresa in the public eye, Father Leandro continued to employ this clever strategy over the months leading up to the eight-day celebrations. 6

Publicizing a Poetry Competition in October 1623

Father Leandro intended to celebrate Teresa’s canonization on her feast day of 5 October, but steady rains were a complicating factor, and his plans were further hindered by the death of three of his four confreres. As a result, he 52

On the funeral monument, see Rocchi 1627; Baskins 2012, esp. 242–49.

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Figure 59 Catafalque (engraving after Giuseppe Cesari?), from Fvnerale della signora sitti Maani Gioerida della Valle. Celebrato in Roma l’anno 1627. E descritto dal signor Girolamo Rocchi, Rome, 1627, unnumbered page following fol. 16 Photo: Internet Archive, Public Domain

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realized that Teresa’s canonization festivities would have to be postponed until November.53 Making the most of the situation, in October he took the opportunity of publicizing a competition for poetry to be incorporated into the canonization celebrations. His publicity campaign again took the form of a public procession. Starting at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, the cavalcade comprised high-­ranking Portuguese youths and boys, musicians, a herald, and numerous (unidentified) followers. After descending the hill into the city, the procession stopped at the viceroy’s palace, and then, because the archbishop was out of town, at the archdeacon’s house.54 Father Leandro’s procession publicizing the poetry contest featured a single, grandiose gilded triumphal cart painted in various colors that was pulled by four ornately caparisoned horses with plumes led by a small boy in fancy dress. The cart was large enough to accommodate 11 men and boys. Three well-dressed young men seated on cushions at the front held aloft a gilded lance on which was affixed a large piece of paper announcing the competition. At the back of the cart nine boys dressed as nymphs and muses held musical instruments and sang Spanish verses in three voices announcing the competition “on the part of the very illustrious and most noble choir of the Sibyls, inviting everyone to praise and celebrate St. Teresa with their poems.”55 Following the triumphal cart, 20 equestrian youths from Goa’s leading Portuguese families wore fashionable plumed hats. Next came a herald on horseback carrying St. Teresa’s standard bearing her portrait.56 There followed musicians, rows of banners, and a very long cortege. 53 54

55

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Florencio 1930b, 87–88. Della Valle 1843:2, 603, also mentioned the deaths of Leandro’s colleagues. For the entire description see Florencio 1930b, 88–90, who relied on Leandro’s now lost report. The end points of processions are rarely addressed in early modern documents. In this case, the processional cart and other accouterments would have been returned to the friary and church. Della Valle, who left Goa for northern India on 14 October 1623, witnessed neither the procession announcing the poetry contest nor Teresa’s canonization celebrations in November 1623. He returned to Goa on 22 January 1624 in time for the Jesuits’ celebrations for Sts. Francis Xavier and Ignatius Loyola. On his return to Goa, see Della Valle 1843:2, 756. Florencio 1930b, 88. It is unclear whether or not Leandro used the exact words that are translated here. Castilian was Leandro’s native tongue, and it was widely used in Goa during the Iberian Union. It is noteworthy that the Fifth Provincial Council of Goa held in 1606 under Archbishop Aleixo de Meneses (r.1595–1612) had prohibited processions that included young boy singers and dancers dressed in either men or women’s clothing. Because the next Provincial Council was not held until 1894–95, theoretically, the decree of 1606 would still have been in effect in 1623. But Meneses had returned to Portugal and the decree was not being enforced. See Paiva 1872, 127, Decree #30. Florencio 1930b, 89. The portrait’s iconography was not described.

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Once again, Viceroy Francisco da Gama’s palace was the first stop, thereby underscoring his preeminent role in Goa as the king’s surrogate. At the palace a youth presented him with a copy of the flyer announcing the poetry competition. Only after addressing the viceroy at the epicenter of state power did the cortege proceed to that of the Catholic Church. Normally the heralds would have headed to the palace of the archbishop, but because he was out of town they went directly to the house of the official who was representing him in his absence, the (unidentified) archdeacon (see Figure 54: C). Reportedly another major benefactor and friend of the Italian Congregation, the archdeacon ordered flowers to be tossed down from his balcony onto Teresa’s standard. His balcony was adorned with an altar ornamented with “a very beautiful image of Teresa that was surrounded by flowers and silver candlesticks.”57 The heralds who gathered below the balcony to address the archdeacon sang rhymed couplets in Spanish, the first of which indicated that the choir of sibyls praising Teresa wanted to have her virtues published. One by one the sibyls praised St. Teresa and invited poets to honor her during the upcoming canonization celebrations.58 Next an allegorical figure of the Church sang a tragic elegy reminding onlookers of the transience of earthly life and the transformation of the world into ashes on Judgment Day. The elegy opened with the first verse of the hymn, Dies Irae, named after its opening words: “The day of wrath, that day / will end the world in burning ash / according to David and the Sibyl.”59 The hymn centers on the Last Judgment, when Jesus was to separate the blessed from the damned, sending the former to heaven and the latter to hell. This reference to Judgment Day in honoring St. Teresa was chosen for two 57

58 59

Florencio 1930b, 89: “en qual tenía él aderezado muy lindamente un altar con una bellíssima imagen de ella, toda rodeada de flores y de candeleros de plata.” The location of the archdeacon’s house was not recorded, but it was in the same complex of buildings near Sé Cathedral as that of the archbishop and the residence of the canons. Florencio called the archdeacon “el mayor amigo y bienhechor de los carmelitas,” but we have already seen that they had other high-ranking supporters. For the first décima, see Florencio 1930b, 89. Florencio (1930b, 89) merely noted that the elegy referred to the conversion of the world into ashes with the testimony of David and the Sibyl. The hymn is usually attributed to the Franciscan Fra Tommaso de Celano (1185–1260). It is a reflection on Christ’s coming in the Last Judgment to separate the good from the evil. In Latin, its first verse reads, “Dies irae, dies illa / Solvet saeculum in favilla, / Teste David cum Sibylla.” For the text of the hymn, see franciscan.archive.org/de_celano/opera/diesirae.html. Accessed 31 January 2021. The sibyl in the Dies Irae was not identified, but the Erythraean Sibyl (via St. Augustine) was often attributed with prophesying the end times. Celano’s hymn was inspired by the so-called “Sibylline oracles,” Judeo-Christian poems (c.2nd to 6th centuries CE) that told the story of the end of the world. On the poems in an early modern context, see De Jonge 2016.

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main reasons. First, a saint’s feast day marked the day of her/his earthly death and ascent into the celestial realm of eternal life. This point would have been clear to all Catholics despite the fact that the celebrations had to be postponed to November, a month after Teresa’s feast day of 5 October. Second, having achieved the rank of saint, Teresa was deemed an official holy intercessor for all faithful Catholics. Poetry composed in her honor was meant to extol her in this exalted context. The poetry’s first ten laudatory themes were to be presented by the sibyls, and the eleventh by the Madonna of Carmel.60 The sibyls were often given attributes—such as a lily or the crown of thorns—that were not fixed, but interchangeable, and referred to their reputed prophecies of the coming of Christ and his Passion and Resurrection. They were easily adaptable in the service of larger iconographic themes, in this case to Teresa’s virginity and Christlike mortifications of the flesh. The praises offered by the Madonna of Carmel, patron of Teresa’s Discalced Carmelite Order, would have centered on the new saint’s virtues and reforms, for Mary was her model of holiness and source of inspiration. The imagery in Teresa’s beatification apparato in S. Maria della Scala had addressed this theme in reference to Teresa’s discussion in her Life of Mary’s appearance to her in a vision in order to thank her for founding the convent of St. Joseph’s in Avila (in 1562). In gratitude, Mary and Joseph clothed Teresa in a pure white dress and gave her a necklace with a pendant cross (see Figure 12). Poets participating in the contest could submit odes, hymns, sonnets, or glosses in the languages and meters of their choice. The contest’s organizers provided verses to be glossed. Florencio recorded one of them, which centered on the well-known theme of Teresa’s girlhood desire to seek martyrdom by the Muslims in North Africa.61 The quintilla to be glossed reads (in translation): If you are going to die thinking That to live is to die for God, He is life, who is calling you: Live, Girl, by obeying; Do not die by sacrificing yourself.62 60 61 62

Florencio 1930b, 91–95. On the theme of Teresa’s childhood desire for martyrdom, see Chapter 2, n.38 on 50, Chapter 3, 76, and Chapter 4, 105; also see Jones 2015. Florencio 1930b, 92: “Si váis a morir pensando / que es vivir por Dios muriendo, / Vida es El, quo os va llamando: / vivid, niña, obedeciendo; / no muráis sacrificando.” I thank Jorge

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An unidentified poet’s interpretation of the quintilla, the only one recorded by Florencio, merits translation in full: Girl, with an honorable heart You abandon your home, Following a loving impulse: Well do I know that you are dying So as to die for your Husband [Christ]. But if happy you leave, Expecting misfortune You will return repentant, Spending your whole life Wondering when you are to die. If God comes to call you, He himself will make you return: Behold that he wants to protect you; Because you have to be the torch That will light up the world. Return in haste and realizing Why he keeps you alive, Holding his mercy in esteem, Although you depart expressing that To live is to die for God. Glory of the Spanish land: Given that in the final martyrdom You walk fearlessly, It is not good that the lily That is to adorn Carmel is withering! Do you go desiring hardships? Return, then; return, thinking that A different fortune awaits you. Tárrega-Garrido for his assistance in translating this poem. The aim is to convey as clearly as possible the poet’s praise of Teresa without regard for meter and rhyme.

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If for God you are going to death, He is life, and he is calling you. Come, Teresa, to see That although you are going to suffer For God, who comes to call for you, It is time to obey Better than to sacrifice. If the world knows you, Showing in you an amazing miracle Of sainthood, Because you die by respecting Live, Girl, by obeying. If blood decorates the martyr, If the task is so heroic, This desire exalts you: Enough, Girl, this desire, You are martyr enough. Although you depart, Trying to die a martyr, Wounded by love for your Husband, So that you may give life to the dead, Do not die sacrificing yourself. 63 63

Florencio 1930b, 93–94: “Niña que con pecho honroso / a vuestra casa dexais, / siguiendo impulso amoroso: / bien sé que muriendo estáis / por morir por vuestro Esposo. // Mas, si alegre caminando / partís, el golpe aguardando, / volveréis arrepentida; / que hará falta vuestra vida, / si váis a morir pensando. // Si os llega Dios a llamar, / El mismo os hará volver: / mirad que os quiere guardar, / porque antorcha habéis de ser /que al mundo habéis de alumbrar. // Volved apriesa advirtiendo / para qué os guarda viviendo, / sus favores estimando, / aunque partáis publicando / que es vivir por Dios muriendo.// ¡Gloria del español suelo: / puesto que en final martirio / caminéis tan sin recelo, / no es bien se marchite el lirio /que ha de adornar el Carmelo! // ¿Trabajos váis deseando? / Volved, pues; volved, pensando / que os esperan de otra suerte. / Si por Dios váis a la muerte, / Vida es El, y os va llamando.// Llegad, Teresa, a mirar / que, aunque váis a padecer, / por Dios, que os llega a llamar, / que es tiempo el obedecer / mejor que el sacrificar. // Si el mundo os va conociendo, / milagro en vos estupendo / de la santidad mostrando, / porque muráis admirando, / vivid, Niña, obedeciendo. // Si al mártir la sangre esmalta, / si es tan heróico

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The anonymous poet’s elaboration of the gloss was presumably a prize-­ winning entry.64 It was highly successful in weaving together the themes of Teresa’s saintly image from her childhood eagerness to serve and imitate Christ through martyrdom at the hands of infidels, to her subsequent virtuous obedience in accepting a different holy path. Speaking directly to the child Teresa, the poet beseeched her not to seek an early death, but rather another kind of suffering according to God’s will. She was intended to serve God as a torch enlightening the whole world and an unblemished lily adorning Carmel. That is, in consonance with her official image as promulgated in her canonization bull, the poet proclaimed that St. Teresa was born to serve God’s Universal Church through her teachings and reform movement.65 In addition to being given glosses to interpret, participants were provided with detailed instructions about how to submit their poems. Each poet had to provide three copies of his composition—one to be put on display in Our Lady of Mount Carmel, a second given to the judges, and the third read aloud during the celebrations if it was awarded a prize. The judges were Gaspar de Melo, Captain of the City of Goa; Licentiate Alvaro Ferreira, Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Goa; Doctor Pablo Rebello, Auditor General of the Chancellery; Pero Leitão de Gamboa, Majordomo of Santa Teresa; Francisco de Sousa Falcão, Majordomo of Santa Teresa; and Miguel Bottelho, Secretary to the Viceroy.66 Father Leandro took care to appoint as judges high-ranking secular and ecclesiastical officials in order to enhance the competition’s cachet and underscore Teresa’s status as Goa’s saintly intercessor.

64

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el empleo, / este deseo os exalta: / basta, Niña, este deseo, / pues de ser mártir no os falta. // Aunque salís caminando, / muerte de mártir buscando, / de amor del Esposo herida, / para que a muertos déis vida, / no muráis sacrificando.”// I am grateful to Jorge Tárrega-Garrido for translating this poem and for discussing with me various passages that are unclear, particularly the fourth and fifth lines of the second stanza. Florencio (1930b, 95) listed names of poets in Goa who were praised in an unidentified “Encomio general” (which, however, did not identify any poems by them). Those given greatest praise were “Celio, Silvio, el ‘Incognito,’ y Fileno,” which seem to be academic noms de plume. Florencio suggested that they may have submitted entries to Father Leandro’s contest. On her canonization bull, see Chapter 4, 103−17; Jones 2020a. Florencio 1930b, 90. Churches’ majordomos were charged with administrative matters. Very few educated women resided in Portuguese Goa, and there is no indication that any participated in the poetry contest.

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7 Canonization Celebrations at Our Lady of Mount Carmel in November 1623 Since Della Valle had already left Goa by the time of Teresa’s canonization festivities in November, we must rely on a letter that Father Leandro wrote to his Roman superiors in addition to Father Florencio’s 1930 account of Leandro’s detailed lost report. Florencio noted that the octave festivities occurred from 17–25 November 1623, but did not provide a chronological overview. Above all what captured Florencio’s attention was the role of poetry. Always attentive to promoting audience participation, Father Leandro posted a schedule of the festivities on the entrance portal to Our Lady of Mount Carmel on Sunday, 12 November.67 The program announced their beginning on the following Friday, and listed the individual solemn masses with panegyrical sermons to be given by members of various religious Orders throughout the eight days. In an undated, unpublished letter to his superior found in the Order’s Roman archive, Father Leandro commented on his thought process in staging the celebrations. He wrote that in order to make a favorable impression on the whole city, they had to start at the friary of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. The streets on either side of the friary, he noted, were used to enclose a large space in front of the Order’s church, where he envisioned a new church would later be built with donations from the whole city because, although “perfect and decorated,” the current church was too small.68 As to the decorations in the friary and church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Florencio noted that the majordomos of St. Teresa were charged with overseeing their finances and installation.69 The whole church was adorned with poetry, placards with Latin distichs, and allegories of the virtues and glories of St. Teresa, Reformer of Carmel. In addition, cornucopias of fragrant flowers, trophies of holiness, and many symbols abounded. Among those that Leandro singled out for praise were, in Florencio’s words, “ingenious imprese and mottos in admirable tercetos composed by the Viceroy’s secretary, Miguel Bottelho,” who also served as a judge of the poetry contest.70 Other imprese and allegories were written in different meters. For example, the apparato incorporated an image of a phoenix with the Latin motto “In my nest,” taken from Job 67 68 69 70

Florencio 1930b, 90. AGOCD, Pluteo 261p, 6, fols. 1r–2v; quotation at 1r: “la ygl.a esta perfecta y acabada, pero es pequena, y sera necess.o hazer otra mayor. ...” As always, since the Italian Congregation’s men lived on alms, the celebrations were financed by donations. Florencio 1930b, 92.

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29:18, which in translation reads in full And I said: I shall die in my nest, and as a palm tree shall multiply my days. The phoenix held a 10-line Spanish poem that Florencio recorded: It compared Teresa, who died in the burning flames of love, to the reborn phoenix, a symbol of Christ’s resurrection.71 As we have seen, the phoenix was already widely used as a symbol of Teresa’s fiery death that led to eternal life.72 The friary’s corridors and cloister leading into the church’s main portal were decorated with lush green plants and fragrant fresh flowers. Persian carpets, luxury items traded in Goa, were laid on the floors of the church’s presbytery and crossing, and on the high altar stood a new sculptured retable adorned with allegorical statues.73 Carved or real flowers were entwined around the elaborate columns, capitals, and architraves. Between the retable’s columns were richly shining draperies of translucent silk, permitting a view of a green field that seemed to be made of emeralds set in gold. In the center, below an imperial pavilion, stood a sculpture of St. Teresa. Her pedestal was a globe, symbol of the world, from which she seemed to be departing in order to ascend into heaven where she would serve as a holy intercessor for the faithful of Goa.74 Every effort was made to appeal to worshipers’ senses of sight, smell, and sound. Early modern celebrations normally featured costly textiles, and those displayed in Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Goa were prized Asian carpets and silk draperies. Father Leandro had a proclivity for using processions to engage the public. The one he had designed for Teresa’s beatification celebrations in Hormuz, under the auspices of Captain Luís da Gama, had stopped at all of the town’s major squares, and included four elaborately decorated floats carrying statues of Carmelite saints, with Blessed Teresa culminating the cortege. In Goa, under the patronage of Viceroy Francisco da Gama, Leandro devised a procession announcing Teresa’s canonization, which went to the palaces of the viceroy and archdeacon. Soon thereafter, to drum up interest in his poetry contest and intensify the public’s anticipation of the upcoming festivities, he designed a second, more impressive procession with an enormous gilded triumphal cart 71 72 73 74

Florencio 1930b, 91. See Chapter 3, 76−77 and n.24, on the symbolism and its use in the Neapolitan beatification festivities. Florencio 1930b, 91. Florencio did not mention the media, but Portuguese and Spanish retables of the era were normally carved of wood and gilded, as were the sculptured figures that adorned them. Florencio 1930b, 91: “En el centro, bajo pabellón imperial, destacábase una imagen bellíssima de la Santa teniendo por pedestal un globo, símbolo del mundo, del cual parecía de esmeralda engastado en oro.”

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carrying 11 persons, some of whom were dressed as allegories. The triumphal cart proceeded to the power centers of both state and church, then down the Rua Direita. Although Florencio was primarily concerned with the poetry contest, it is nevertheless surprising that he did not mention a procession during St. Teresa’s November celebrations. The canonization festivities would have included at least one grand procession incorporating multiple, ornately ­decorated floats and the same kinds of imagery used in Father Leandro’s ­documented processions honoring Teresa. Presumably, just as in Hormuz so too in Goa the theme of the conversion of infidels would have figured prominently in it. Florencio’s narrowly focused discussion recorded that 80 poetic compositions were submitted to the contest. The entries were written in the following languages, listed in descending order: Castilian, Portuguese, Italian, and Latin. All the Portuguese poets living in Goa supposedly submitted compositions. Florencio noted that they represented the literary taste of the Portuguese and Spanish courts, as would be expected in Goa during the Iberian Union. It is no coincidence that the award ceremony took place in Our Lady of Mount Carmel on 25 November 1623 because that was the feast of St. Catherine of Alexandria, Goa’s long-time patron saint, whom St. Teresa was now to join as a special intercessor.75 In this way, devotion to Teresa was intended to be inscribed in the hearts of pious Christians in Goa, capital city of the Estado da Índia and Rome of the East. In short, Father Leandro used every means at his disposal to inspire devotion to St. Teresa on the part of Goa’s heterogeneous inhabitants. His outdoor festivities made strong appeals to the general public, including non-Christians. He conceived of ordinary members of the general public as spectators. But he strongly encouraged erudite members of Goa’s polyglot society to contribute to the expressive content of the celebrations: He invited them to submit their own poetic compositions in praise of Teresa to the decorative program in Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Most of their poetry was written in vernacular languages, and among them Portuguese was known to literate Indian converts, who attended the celebrations, as well as to Catholics of European and mixed heritage. Father Leandro hoped that the involvement of affluent Catholics would result in wider financial support of the missions founded by the Discalced Carmelites’ Italian Congregation, which depended solely on donations. 75

Florencio 1930b, 94. The awards ceremony had been announced publicly four days earlier.

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Above all, he intended his festivities to intensify devotion to St. Teresa and contribute to the flourishing of her cult. Whether or not Teresa’s celebrations were a contributing factor, from the 1630s–1650s the Italian Congregation’s missions did in fact flourish in Goa and Malabar.76 76

The missionaries built a second house and novitiate in Goa by 1630, where they were active until 1709. See Chick, Chronicle, 2: 1230–45. Their missionary activity to the St. Thomas Christians reached its heights in Malabar in the 1650s, on which see Cubbe 1988, 127–60.

Conclusion This book has taken a new approach to studying Teresa of Avila by focusing on her holy persona as expressed in festivities honoring her beatification (1614) and canonization (1622) in the Italian Congregation’s foundations in Italy and the Estado da Índia. The firmly demarcated chronological and geographical scope of the study has allowed for detailed analyses of individual celebrations, their messages, expressive means, and presentation of Teresa’s official iconography. The essential roles of religious, secular, and family networks in particularizing Teresa’s image and disseminating her universal cult has also been illuminated. How the festivities were designed to engage spectators and participants is another crucial issue that has been explored. Yet creating such spectacles also presented many challenges, as in Hormuz and Goa due to their markedly heterogeneous populations. Teresa’s official persona was articulated in the 1610 vita, the 1613 ­Collaert-Galle series of engravings, the Sacra Rota’s 1616 relatio, and in Gregory XV’s 1622 canonization bull, as we have seen. These crucial hermeneutical aides, which relied to varying degrees on Teresa’s own books, shed considerable light on the celebrations. They proclaimed that Teresa was born to combat heresy and infidelity, and that as the mother of cloistered nuns she set the example of praying for the souls of “heretics” and “infidels.” At the same time, she was pronounced the mother of the friars and fathers who undertook an apostolic ministry in farflung missions. She was deemed to be a divinely-inspired author whose books disseminated her magisterium throughout the world. On the basis of her life, deeds, and virtues, Teresa was declared to be an active contemplative who combined the attributes of Martha and Mary Magdalene. The harmonious balance of her active and contemplative life was the basis for her foundation of the Discalced Carmelite Order, and her many visions—the mystical marriage and transverberation prime among them—were proclaimed to be rewards for her decisive role as reformer of Carmel. Thus, as founder of the Discalced Carmelite Order, Teresa was equated with the prophet Elijah, the reputed founder of the Carmelite Order. Her virtues were those expected of all official saints of the era, women and men alike, although like other saints, she carried out her virtues in individual ways. As a miracle-worker, Teresa was compared to Christ and the apostles. Miracles were signs of her sanctity, demonstrating that she was an efficacious intercessor for the world’s faithful. Although the Italian Congregation’s celebrations were designed in accordance with standard European norms, the subject of important studies cited

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throughout this book, Teresa’s festivities were heretofore overlooked.1 This was largely because they were not recorded in published sources, such as festival books and commemorative prints. The sole printed book examined the beatification programs in Rome and Genoa, yet it was not a festival book but rather a learned work with a literary title. Most of my evidence for the celebrations was found in unpublished manuscripts, and it has allowed me to demonstrate that the Discalced Carmelites’ Italian Congregation made significant contributions to religious culture in early 17th-century Italy and the Estado da Índia. The exceedingly well-documented Society of Jesus, which greatly affected cultural developments of the era, has been the subject of the lion’s share of research. And yet we have seen that the Italian Congregation’s Father Marcello della Madre di Dio and Father Leandro de la Anunciación designed erudite apparati for the Italian Congregation, whose men likewise collaborated with secular and religious authorities to create impressive festivities in honor of Teresa. The celebrations made strong appeals to the senses by incorporating fragrant flowers and aromatic incense, blaring trumpets and booming artillery fire, opulent vestments and bejeweled draperies, along with literary, visual, and musical imagery meant to delight, instruct, and inspire beholder-­worshipers. The visual imagery ranged from portraits, devotional paintings, and narrative scenes to emblems, imprese, and allegories. The written, spoken, and sung word was enunciated in orations, homilies, prayers, inscriptions, poetry, and theatrical productions in Latin as well as European tongues. Because most of the imagery was ephemeral, it is impossible to determine the artistic level of its execution. Nevertheless, detailed descriptions, especially of the beatification apparato in S. Maria della Scala in Rome, reveal that some of the designs were truly groundbreaking. Remarkably, all of the festive programs were decidedly erudite, complex, and multilayered. That is, they were every bit as sophisticated as those of the Jesuits. Typically for the era, Teresa was extolled inside the Italian Congregation’s churches by exquisite apparati, and their squares outside were emblazoned with the Order’s coat of arms and banners. Cavalcades along by-ways and city thoroughfares in which secular rulers and elites, the regular and secular clergy, and members of confraternities marched could be viewed by the general public as they passed by venerable churches and shrines, inscribing Teresa and her Order into time-honored sacred routes. In short, the celebrations were 1 See Chapters 8 and 9 for the exceptions, publications by the Discalced Carmelite author Florencio del Niño Jesús (1930a, 1930b), which lack interpretation and have not entered the mainstream scholarship.

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regarded as essential means of fostering devotion to Teresa, intensifying Catholics’ faith and sense of community, and even promoting conversions on the part of nonbelievers. Because these standard elements of European religious celebrations had taken shape over the centuries according to strategies that were already tried and true, the Italian Congregation employed them in Genoa, Rome, and Naples. The Italian Congregation’s missionaries transported European festive norms to Hormuz and Goa, using the same visual, written, and musical modes of expression. To be sure, they did so to appeal to the ruling Iberian Catholics (mainly Portuguese) who shared their own religious and cultural expectations, and, moreover, on whom the newly arrived missionaries relied for geopolitical and financial support to gain a foothold in the Estado da Índia. As in Italy, their festivities in Portuguese Asia were designed for audiences of various educational levels. Processions were particularly suited to thrilling and inspiring the public at large regardless of class, ethnicity, or religious affiliation. Vernacular languages, especially Portuguese (the lingua franca of trade), along with ­narrative paintings, portraits, and coats of arms were widely accessible to viewers and participants. At the same time, however, vernacular tongues could address learned audiences. For example, the poetry contest in Goa encouraged elites to contribute their own compositions for use in Teresa’s canonization celebrations, and most were written in Castilian and Portuguese. It will be recalled that all Catholics regardless of their lineages attended church services in the Estado da Índia. The churches’ decorative programs placed an emphasis on Latin, Catholicism’s universal language, and on imprese incorporating visual symbols with Latin inscriptions—despite the fact that many Portuguese were said to lack facility in it, not to mention the large number of Indian converts. Whereas while visiting Goa, Pietro Della Valle, the Roman aristocrat, created a temporary monument honoring Teresa that incorporated numerous European and Asian languages, to the missionaries the latter were primarily useful for converting “infidels.” As we have noted, in this early period the Italian Congregation’s missionaries were amenable to admitting Indian men and mestizos as novices despite the deplorable hierarchical attitudes toward ethnicity and religious difference that prevailed in the Estado da Índia. In such cases, Catholic converts would have to master Latin in order to celebrate mass, teach, and preach. The missionaries used Latin—­spoken, written, sung, and accompanied by visual symbols—in their celebrations not primarily as a sign of their erudition but as the sine qua non for conveying Catholic truth. All the festivities analyzed in this book helped familiarize believers and nonbelievers alike with Teresa’s official image, thereby helping to spread her cult

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through Italy and the Estado da Índia. As we have seen, however, the ­Italian Congregation’s ministry involved them in complex, time-consuming geopolitical struggles among intertwined worldwide networks. This made their determination to celebrate Teresa especially noteworthy. To mention only a few examples addressed in this book, the Italian Congregation’s men aimed to serve the papacy’s Universal Church, but this was not a simple matter since in addition to owing obedience to their own Order’s superiors in Rome, in Naples they were obliged to collaborate with Spanish viceroys who were sometimes at odds with the pontiff. Moreover, due to issues of patronato/padroado they faced considerable opposition to their missions in Hormuz and Goa. Further complicating the situation in the Estado da Índia, the Italian Congregation’s missionaries were subject to the Portuguese Archbishop of Goa, who in turn served the Spanish crown during the Iberian Union. In one case the archbishop was an Augustinian who did not favor the newer Order’s encroachment on his territory. In Genoa, Rome, Naples, Hormuz, and Goa the celebrations were made possible by the donations of august patrons, including secular elites, viceroys, captains, and members of the clergy who were accustomed to exercising considerable power. By financing and even taking leading roles in planning aspects of the celebrations, they were able to showcase their piety, assert their authority, display their wealth, and even make references to topical events. Moreover, their association with the Universal Church’s new holy woman brought prestige to the patrons themselves, their cities, and the Italian Congregation. While proclaiming the essential qualities of Teresa’s holy persona as approved by the papacy, the splendid, elaborate, and learned celebrations simultaneously particularized her image to suit local exigencies. As “founder and doctor and virgin” Teresa of Avila still serves as a revered intercessor for Catholics around the world.

Bibliography Abbreviations Archives Rome

AGOCD Archivio della Casa Generalizia dell’Ordine dei Padri Carmelitani Scalzi, Rome ASR Archivio di Stato di Roma



Vatican City

BAV Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana



Electronic Sources

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Index Saints and popes are listed by first name. Buildings are listed by location. Many topics addressed throughout the book cannot be indexed comprehensively; see the chapters’ titles and subtitles for the individual festivities’ written, visual, and musical components as well as their participants and audiences. ‘Abbas I, Safavid Shah of Persia 165−67, 173. See also Isfahan Theocratic ruler 173 Agatha, St. 25, 28−29 Agnes, St. 25, 27−28, 31 Ahlgren, Gillian T.W. 66 Albuquerque, Afonso de 191, 216 Albuquerque, Fernão de, Viceroy of Goa 205, 207−08 Alterisio, Cesare, Grassiere of Naples  134–36, 141, 143, 145–46, 155–56 Ana de Jesús, OCD 13 Angela of Prague, Blessed 24, 31, 35 Angelus, St., Jewish convert and proselytizer of Muslims 201−02 Anselmi, Alessandra 95 Aranha, Paolo 176 Arias Cuba, Ybeth 8 Augustinian Order 82, 175, 178, 187−88. See also Meneses, Aleixo de Azzolino (Giovanni Bernardino Ragano), Blessed Teresa Standing in Glory with Angels 78−79, 87−89, 159 Avila, St. Joseph’s convent 56, 58, 90, 224 Baratta, Alessandro, map of Naples 73−74, 137−40, 143−45, 148, 153 Barbosa, Duarte 176−77 Barretto Xavier, Ângela 176–77 Beatification and canonization, standardization of processes for 4−6 Beatification celebrations for Teresa. See Genoa, Hormuz, Naples, Rome Bernal, J. Jaime García 33 Bernini, Gianlorenzo 68−69 Blessed Sacrament. See Eucharist Borges, Graça Almeida 7 Borghese, Cardinal Scipione 21, 38, 80

Briccio, Giovanni 100, 119−21, 124, 126−27 Brusco, Giacomo 19 Canonization celebrations for Teresa. See Goa, Naples, Rome Capuchin Order 81, 178−79 Dominican Order 187 Caracciolo, Vittoria 71 Carmelite Order (O Carm) 1−3, 82, 140 Casale, Vittorio 11, 68−69 Castro, Pedro Fernández de, Viceroy 73, 78, 80−85 Castro, Francisco Ruiz de, Ambassador and Count of Lemos 40, 80 Castro, Lucrezia Gattinara, Countess of Lemos 40 Catherine of Alexandria, St. 25, 27−28, 33. See also Goa, Sé Cathedral and Viceroy’s Arch Catherine of Siena, St. 25, 33 Cecilia, St. 28−30, 32 Centurione, Maddalena Spinola (Maddalena di Gesù e Maria, OCD) 19−21 Chacón, Alfonso (Ciacconius) 27 Charles V Habsburg 18 Chick, Herbert 14, 165 Clare, St. 25 Clement VIII, Pope 3−4, 18, 47, 71 Colleart-Galle engraved series of Teresa’s life (all engravings illustrated are on the pages listed here) 13n31, Chapter 2 throughout 84, 109–12, 115 Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith (Congregazione de Propaganda Fide) 4, 168, 204−05 Congregation of Rites (Congregazione dei Riti) 5, 66. See also Teresa of Avila, documents for her cause

252 Conversos. See Estado da Índia; see also Goa, Hormuz Teresa’s converso heritage 179n64 Copeland, Clare 96n5 Council of Trent on cults of relics, saints, and images 90, 116 Cubbe, Mariam De Ghantas 191 Cult of relics 116, 131, 154–55, 159 Curran, Brian 49 Dandelet, Thomas 7 Dauverd, Céline 7, 135 De Blasio, Andrea and Domenico, Reliquary bust of St. Teresa 75 Della Valle, Pietro 212n32, 222n54, 228 Designer of ephemeral monument in honor of St. Teresa in Goa 219−20 Funeral monument for wife Sitti Maani Gioerida in Rome 220−21 Mention of festive competition between OCD and Society of Jesus in Goa 213−14 Participation in Goa’s celebration of news of Teresa’s canonization 212−13 Diego de Alcalá, St. 81 Discalced Carmelite Order (OCD), early history Coat of arms, description 83−84; use in Teresa’s celebrations 86 Divided into two Congregations 3−4 Jurisdiction of the Italian Congregation 9−10 Jurisdiction of the Spanish Congregation 4 Spanish Congregation’s disavowal of the papacy’s missionary mandate 47 Discalced Carmelite Order (OCD), Mission to Persia and the East Indies. See also Goa, Hormuz, Isfahan; Juan Tadeo de San Eliseo; Leandro de la Anunciación; Vicente de San Francisco Acceptance of novices, ethnicity, and language facility 178−82 Accommodation 51, 169 Casados, conversion, and interracial marriage policy in Hormuz and Goa 191−92

index Categorization of ethnic and religious groups (including terminology) 169−70, 175−77 Earliest missions 13−14, 46−47 Missionary manuals. See Gracián, Jerónimo and Tomás de Jesús Roman Breviary, Roman Catechism, Roman Missal, and Roman Martyrology as conversionary aides 170−71 Ditchfield, Simon 170−71 Doria, Andrea, Admiral 17−18 Doria, Nicolò (Nicolò di Gesù e Maria, OCD) 18−19 Dorothy, St. 25, 32 Duruelo, Teresa’s first friary, whose male novices she reputedly taught 45 Elijah, as founder of the Carmelite Order 1−2, 83−84, 86, 201. See also Teresa of Avila, iconography Eliseu da Mãe de Deus, OCD, mestizo in Estado da Índia 179−81, 197. See also Leandro de la Anunciación, OCD and Vicente de San Francisco, OCD; Goa, Fifth Provincial Council Elisha 86 Elizabeth of Hungary, St. 25, 30 Elliott, John H. 7 Estado da Índia (State of India) 163. See also Goa, Hormuz Discourse and terminology of ethnicity and religion 175−77 Expectations regarding conversionary success with Hindus versus Muslims 175, 204 Portuguese as lingua franca 195 Eucharist in Teresa’s celebrations 86, 159, 200−02 Eufrasia, St. 34 Euphrosyne, St. 34−35 Fanzago, Cosimo 73 Filiberto of Savoy, Prince and Admiral of the Sea 82−83 Filippi, Daniele V. 54 Flannery, John M. 191 Florencio del Niño Jesús 196, 212n30, 212–13, 224–25, 228, 230

index Forty Hours Devotion 69, 86 Francis de Sales, St. 37n1 Francis Xavier, St. 95, 120, 126, 172, 203 Gama, Francisco da, Viceroy of Goa  202, 204 Patron and participant in Teresa’s canonization celebrations 213–15, 218, 220, 223, 229 Gama, Luís da, Captain of Hormuz, patron of Teresa’s beatification celebrations 195−202 Gama, Vasco da 215–18 Gennaro, St. (Januarius) 151 Tesoro e Cappella di S. Gennaro 154−55. See also Cult of relics Genoa, site of first Discalced Carmelite foundations in Italy 18−19 Genoa, Gesù e Maria, OCD church and convent Beatification decorations 17−36 Female patronage 9−32. See also Centurione, Maddalena Spinola Genoa, S. Anna, OCD church and friary 18−19 Gertrude, St. 25, 30, 33−34 Gigli, Giacinto 96, 119−21, 124, 126−27 Gil Fernández, Luis 7 Giordano, Silvano 168 Goa 203, 213. See also Discalced Carmelite Order, Mission to Persia and the East Indies; Estado da Índia; Leandro de la Anunciación; Meneses, Aleixo de; Vicente de San Francisco Capital of the Estado da Índia and Seat of Archdiocese of Catholic Asia 203 Diversity of religions and ethnicity (including terminology) 206−07 Expansion of OCD into 204−06 Fifth Provincial Council of 163, 180−81 Goa Dourada (Golden Goa) 203 Iberian Union, Portuguese-Spanish relations 203, 205 Rome of the East 203 Teresa’s cult prior to her canonization 207−08 Goa, Archbishop’s Palace 208–09

253 Goa, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, OCD church and friary Location, size, and description 210 Teresa’s canonization festivities 214, 227−31. See also Processions, Goa Goa, Sé Cathedral (dedicated to the city’s patron, St. Catherine of Alexandria), largest church in worldwide Portuguese empire 203, 208–09 Goa, Viceroy’s Arch, with statues of St. Catherine of Alexandria and Vasco da Gama 215–18 Goa, Viceroy’s Palace Complex 215–18 Godefroyd, Étienne, Reliquary bust of St. Gennaro 154−55 Gracián, Jerónimo (Jerónimo de la Madre de Dios, OCD) 13 Zelo della propagazione della fede 167−70 Gratiani, Girolamo. See Gracián, Jerónimo Gregorian calendar’s correction and Teresa’s feast day 64 Gregory XIII, Pope 18 Gregory XV, Pope 4, 95, 97, 100, 114, 168, 218 Greuter, Matthäus, Theater in St. Peter’s in the Vatican for the Canonization [of the five saints] Decorations depicted 98−103 Teresa’s imagery depicted 107−08, 112−17, 131 Grimaldi, Giacomo 26 Gupta, Pamila 203 Halft, Dennis 173 Heretics. See also Discalced Carmelite Order, Mission to Persia and the East Indies; Teresa of Avila, iconography, Defender of Universal Church Hieroglyphs as a universal language 49. See also Pliny the Elder; Valeriano, Pierio Hills, Helen 76 Hindus. See Estado da Índia; also Goa, Hormuz Hormuz 183. See also Discalced Carmelite Order, Mission to Persia and the East Indies; Juan Tadeo de San Eliseo; Leandro de la Anunciación; Vicente de San Francisco; Estado da Índia

254 Diversity of religions and ethnicity (including terminology) 190−92 Expansion of OCD into 174−75, 183−86 Iberian Union, role of elite Portuguese officials 183 Seige of Hormuz and end of OCD mission 202 Strategic mercantile crossroads 185, 190 Hormuz, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, OCD church and friary. See also Gama, Luís da; Leandro de la Anunciación Hospice and oratory (as opposed to mission and church) 186 Location and description 187, 196 Teresa’s 1612 memoria festivities 192−95 Teresa’s canonization festivities 195−202. See also Processions, Hormuz Hsia, Ronnie Po-Chia 172

index Conversionary strategies 171−74 Mastery of Persian and translations of Christian works into 166, 172 Translator and envoy for ‘Abbas I 174

Indian “infidels”. See Hindus Ignatius Loyola, St. 95, 120, 126 Infidels. See also Discalced Carmelite Order, Mission to Persia and the East Indies; Teresa of Avila, iconography, Defender of Universal Church Isfahan, the first OCD mission in Asia 163, 186. See also Shah ‘Abbas I Instability of Isfahan mission leads to expansion into Hormuz 174−75 Limits of religious dialogue 172−75 Isidore of Madrid, St. 81, 95−96, 126, 127

Latin as the universal language of Catholicism and sine qua non for conveying Christian truth  234 Leandro de la Anunciación, OCD missionary, novice-master, and festive designer 181–82, 185−86, 210. See also Hormuz, Goa Biography 189 Designer of Teresa’s beatification festivities in Hormuz 189−90, 195−202 Designer of Teresa’s canonization festivities in Goa 213−31. See also Processions, Goa Designer of Teresa’s 1612 memoria festivities in Hormuz 192−95 Designer of Teresa’s statue for 1621 intercessory procession in Goa 207−08 His poetry contest in praise of Teresa’s virtues in Goa 222−27 Role in foundation of Goa mission 205−06 Linschoten, Jan Huygen van, map of Goa from Itinerario, voyage ... ofte Portugaels Indien 210−11, 215−17 Lucy, St. 25

Jerónimo de la Madre de Dios, OCD. See Gracián, Jerónimo Jesuits. See Society of Jesus Jews. See Estado da Índia; also Goa, Hormuz Joseph, St., Teresa’s devotion to 56, 90, 137, 141, 147. See also Teresa of Avila, iconography, Vision of white dress Juan de la Miseria, Fra, OCD, Life Portrait of Teresa of Avila 86, 87, 114, 128, 197. See also True images/likenesses; Wierix, Hieronymus Juan Tadeo de San Eliseo, OCD missionary and linguist 164, 183−85. See also Estado da Índia; Hormuz, Isfahan Attitudes toward religious and ethnic diversity 169−70

Maggi, Giovanni, map of Rome 121−25 Marcello della Madre di Dio, OCD festive designer (Marcello Macedonio) As designer, precursor of Gianlorenzo Bernini 66−69 Biography 21 De’ Nove Chori De Gli Angioli 11−12, Chapter 2 throughout Designer of Genoese beatification decorations 17−36. See also Genoa, Gesù e Maria Giunta alla Corona 23−36 Designer of Roman beatification decorations 37−70. See also Rome, S. Maria della Scala Marcocci, Giuseppe 175

255

index Marino, John A. 81, 135, 147, 152 Matthee, Rudi 14, 172–73 Medici Oriental Press 173 Mendonça, Délio de 207 Meneses, Aleixo de, Augustinian Archbishop of Goa 180−81, 185–86 Mestizos. See Eliseu da Mãe de Deus, OCD; Estado da Índia; also Goa, Hormuz Missions. See Discalced Carmelite Order (OCD), Mission to Persia and the East Indies; also Goa, Hormuz, Isfahan Moriscos/mouriscos. See Estado da Índia; also Goa, Hormuz Muller, Jeffrey 202 Muslims. See Estado da Índia; also Goa, Hormuz Naples and Rome as competing centers  80, 135, 160 Naples, Castel Nuovo 136−37, 152, 157 Naples, Gesù Nuovo (New Church of Jesus) 147, 149−50, 156 Naples, Madre di Dio, OCD church and friary (reconsecrated as S. Teresa degli Scalzi) Beatification celebrations 83−92 Canonization celebrations 158−60. See also Processions, Naples Original siting and plan, later alterations 73−74 Naples, Palazzo Reale 74, 82, 135–37, 152, 157 Naples, S. Chiara 76, 149−50 Naples, S. Gennaro (cathedral) 152−55. See also Gennaro, St. Naples, S. Giacomo degli Spagnoli 136−37 Naples, S. Giuseppe a Ponte Corvo, OCD church and convent 20−21, 137 Naples, S. Giuseppe Maggiore 134, 136–38, 143, 145, 154, 159 Naples, S. Teresa degli Scalzi. See Naples, Madre di Dio Naples, SS. Annunziata 72, 142 Naturais. See Goa, Diversity of religions and ethnicity Noronha, Henrique de, Captain of Hormuz 185–86, 193 Paul V, Pope 21, 96, 185, 205 Beatification of Teresa 5, 24, 37

Conflict with Castro brothers 80 Palma Giovane, Ecstasy of Saint Teresa for S. Maria della Scala 63−64, 87, 107, 128−31 Pearson, Michael N. 206 Pedro de la Madre de Dios, OCD (Pietro della Madre di Dio) 4, 41, 71−72, 142 Periati, Paolo 80 Persia. See Discalced Carmelite Order, Mission to Persia and the East Indies; Isfahan Philip II Habsburg 18, 66, 81 Philip III Habsburg 78, 81–82, 183, 195 Philip IV Habsburg 96−97, 100, 135, 138, 154, 157, 205, 215 Philip Neri, St. (Filippo Neri) 95, 120, 126 Pietro della Madre di Dio. See Pedro de la Madre de Dios Pinilla Martín, María José 8, 114 Pliny the Elder as source for hieroglyphs  49, 50, 62 Portuguese Asia. See Estado da Índia Presutti, Antonio, SJ 119−20, 126 Processions for Teresa’s beatification and canonization Genoa, inside Gesù e Maria for her beatification 31−36 Goa, for her canonization 214–18, 222–24 Hormuz, for her beatification 199−202 Naples, for her canonization 136−58 Rome, procession of the five saints’ canonization standards 119−26 Processional routes, civic and religious Naples 135−36 Rome, papal possesso 121 Quarant’Ore. See Forty Hours Devotion Ragano, Giovanni Bernardino. See Azzolino Reardon, Colleen 21 Relics. See Cult of Relics; Teresa’s relics Rome and Naples as competing centers  80, 135, 160 Rome, Castel S. Angelo 97−98, 121 Rome, Chiesa Nuova. See Rome, S. Maria in Vallicella Rome, Il Gesù (Church of Jesus) 124, 126

256 Rome, S. Giacomo degli Spagnoli 121, 123, 126–27 Rome, S. Giovanni in Laterano 121 Rome, S. Maria della Scala, OCD church and friary Architecture, plan, size of church 37−39 Beatification decorations 37−70 Canonization procession of Teresa’s standard to 120, 124−25 Canonization solemnization’s decorations 126−33 Headquarters of the Italian Congregation 4 Rome, S. Maria in Vallicella (Chiesa Nuova) 121, 123, 126 Rome, St. Peter’s Basilica, canonization of the five saints. See also Francis Xavier; Ignatius Loyola; Isidore of Madrid; Philip Neri; Teresa of Avila; Greuter, Matthäus Compromises between papacy and Spanish crown 95−96 Masters of ceremony 96−97 Presentation of Teresa’s official saintly persona 103−18. See also Teresa of Avila, iconography Procession of the five saints’ standards. See Processions, Rome Rubiés, Joan-Pau 177 Sá e Lisboa, Cristóvão da, Archbishop of Goa, devotion to Teresa 205, 208 Sacra Rota 6, 58. See also Teresa of Avila, documents of her processes Sacred History. See True images/likenesses; Chacón, Alfonso; Grimaldi, Giacomo; Marcello della Madre di Dio Sánchez, Carlos José Hernando 146 Sandoval, Catalina de la Cerda, Countess of Lemos and Vicereine of Naples  77, 89 Santafede, Fabrizio, St. Joseph and the Christ Child 79, 90−91 Secular rule, terminology 7n20 Silva y Figueroa, García de 7, 195 Description of Hormuz 183, 187−89 Description of religious and ethnic diversity in Hormuz 190−92 Simon Stock, St. 201

index Sixtus V, Pope 5, 40, 52, 69 Society of Jesus (Jesuits) 9, 81, 120, 146–47, 149–51, 165, 169, 178, 187. See also Francis Xavier St.; Ignatius Loyola, St.; Naples, Gesù Nuovo; Rome, Il Gesù Lack of conversionary success in Hormuz 172 Subramanyam, Sanjay 7, 192 Sweet, James H. 177 Tazmini, Ghoncheh 173 Teresa of Avila, books Book of Foundations 43, 106 Interior Castle 50, 109 Life 55−56, 61, 105, 109−10, 112, 129−30 Spiritual Relations 110 Way of Perfection 109 Teresa of Avila, documents of her processes for official holiness Canonization bull 13, 103−17 Colleart-Galle print series. See Collaert-Galle Sacra Rota’s 1613 and 1616 relatii (reports) 32, 60, 116 Sanctification of wisdom, mystical spirituality, magisterium, reform 32−33, 104−17 Virtues as required for official saints of both genders 61−62 Vita of 1610 (on life, deeds, virtues, miracles) 12−13, 23, 32, 40−41, 43, 45, 50, 54−58, 64−65, 76, 86, 114 Teresa of Avila, iconography Author inspired by the Holy Spirit 112−16, 160 Charity’s symbol, the flame, in relation to Teresa’s transverberation 34, 63 Comparison with the apostles as miracleworker 60 Comparison with Elijah as founder 58−61, 68, 201 Comparison with Jesus Christ as virtuous and miracle-worker 31, 60, 105 Comparison with Madonna of Carmel 24, 31, Chapter 2 throughout 224 Defender of Universal Church versus “heretics” and “infidels” 50, 52, 104, 201

257

index Founder-Reformer 43, 45−47, 78, 84, 106, 145, 147, 149, 160 Iberian Union’s three crowns imagery used to signify Teresa’s roles as founder, doctor, and virgin 78−79, 208 Incorrupt, aromatic body 66, 117 Magisterium 78, 106, 114, 131, 232 Martyrdom by Moors sought 76−77, 105, 201, 224–27 Matriarch of a global missionary Order 40−52 Miracles 32, 57−61, 116−17 Mother of nuns, friars, and fathers 40−41, 50, 141, 149, 150−51 Mottos Aut Pati, aut mori and Aut Amare, aut mori 76−77, 86 Mystical marriage 84, 107−12 Phoenix symbolism 77, 228–29 Reform based on harmony of active and contemplative life 54−57, 160 Transverberation 23−24, 75, 84, 107−12, 128−31 Virtues. See all themes listed here under iconography because in Teresa’s festive imagery virtues were inextricably linked with her deeds and reforms. See also Teresa of Avila, documents of her processes for official holiness Virtues, cardinal and theological 62–63 Vision of white dress given by Mary and Joseph 55−57, 141 Visions as rewards for her reforms 56, 107−12. See also Avila, St. Joseph’s convent Teresa of Avila’s relics Hormuz, unspecified carried in procession 201 Naples, relic of scapular 90, 138, 159; unspecified relic in silver reliquary bust 75, 90, 138, 142, 159 Roles of her relics in her miracles 66, 117 Rome, relic of right foot 128, 131−32 Thøfner, Margit 45

Thoma à Iesu. See Tomás de Jesús Tomás de Jesús, OCD, De procuranda salute omnium gentium 168−69, 173 Book X on conversion of Muslims 171 Book XI on “infidels” 177 Categories of groups requiring conversion (including terminology) 170 Roman Catechism 171 True images/likenesses (verae effigies; see also Juan de la Miseria; Sacred History Mosaics as sources for images of early saints 25−30 Power of verae effigies and copies of them 30, 87 Urban VIII, Pope 64 Ursula, St. 25 Valeriano, Pierio, Hieroglyphica as source for hieroglyphs 43n51, 49 Verae effigies. See True images/likenesses Vicente de San Francisco, OCD missionary 164−66, 172−73, 180−81 Attitudes toward ethnic diversity and acceptance of novices 178−79 Head of Hormuz mission 183−87, 190, 196, 198−99 Role in foundation of Goa mission 204−05 Weaver, Elissa 21 Weber, Alison 114 Wierix, Hieronymus, copies after Juan de la Miseria 87n62, 89 Windler, Christian 165 Yepes, Diego de 66 Zapata y Cisneros, Cardinal-Viceroy Antonio 134–35, 138, 141, 143, 154, 156–57 Zurara, Gomes Eanes de, Crónica dos Feitos ... Na Conquista da Guiné 175−76

21mm

C AT H O L I C C H R I ST E N D O M , 1300 - 1700

Pamela M. Jones, Ph.D. (1985) Brown University, is Professor Emerita of Art History at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Her most recent books include Altarpieces and Their Viewers in the Churches of Rome from Caravaggio to Guido Reni (Ashgate, 2008) and the co-edited A Companion to Early Modern Rome, 1492–1692 (Brill, 2019).

CELEBRATING TERESA OF AVILA

Teresa of Avila’s cult was dramatically disseminated in previously unknown celebrations honoring her beatification (1614) and canonization (1622) in Italy and Portuguese Asia, the purview of her Discalced Carmelite Order’s Italian Congregation. Reconstructions and analyses of the festivities in Genoa, Rome, Naples, Hormuz, and Goa center on the presentation of Teresa’s gender, deeds, virtues, and miracles. The geopolitical roles played by religious, secular, and family networks in particularizing and propagating Teresa’s universal cult are emphasized. The desired goal of converting Muslims and Hindus is addressed in light of attitudes toward ethnic and religious diversity shared by lay and ecclesiastical authorities.

CAC

C AT H O L I C C H R I ST E N D O M , 1300 - 1700

Celebrating Teresa of Avila The Discalced Carmelites in Italy and Their Mission to Persia and the East Indies

Pamela M. Jones

pamela m. jones isbn: 978-9004-54890-9 issn: 2468-4279 brill.com/cac