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Prints as Agents of Global Exchange, 1500-1800
Visual and Material Culture, 1300-1700 A forum for innovative research on the role of images and objects in the late medieval and early modern periods, Visual and Material Culture, 1300-1700 publishes monographs and essay collections that combine rigorous investigation with critical inquiry to present new narratives on a wide range of topics, from traditional arts to seemingly ordinary things. Recognizing the fluidity of images, objects, and ideas, this series fosters cross-cultural as well as multi-disciplinary exploration. We consider proposals from across the spectrum of analytic approaches and methodologies. Series Editor Dr. Allison Levy, an art historian, has written and/or edited three scholarly books, and she has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards, from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Association of University Women, the Getty Research Institute, the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library of Harvard University, the Whiting Foundation and the Bogliasco Foundation, among others. www.allisonlevy.com.
Prints as Agents of Global Exchange, 1500-1800
Edited by Heather Madar
Amsterdam University Press
Cover illustration: Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6298 790 6 e-isbn 978 90 4854 001 3 doi 10.5117/9789462987906 nur 654 | 685 © The authors / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2021 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher.
Table of Contents
List of illustrations
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Introduction
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1 Concealing and Revealing the Female Body in European Prints and Mughal Paintings
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2 The Sultan’s Face Looks East and West: European Prints and Ottoman Sultan Portraiture
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3 From Europe to Persia and Back Again: Border-Crossing Prints and the Asymmetries of Early Modern Cultural Encounter
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4 The Dissemination of Western European Prints Eastward: The Armenian Case
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5 The Catholic Reformation and Japanese Hidden Christians: Books as Historical Ties
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6 (Re)framing the Virgin of Guadalupe: The Concurrence of Early Modern Prints and Colonial Devotions in Creating the Virgin
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7 Hidden Resemblances: Re-contextualized and Re-framed: Diego de Valadés’ Cross Cultural Exchange
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8 The Practice of Art: Auxiliary Plastic Models and Prints in Italy, Spain, and Peru
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Heather Madar
Saleema Waraich
Heather Madar
Kristel Smentek
Sylvie L. Merian
Yoshimi Orii
Raphaèle Preisinger
Linda Báez and Emilie Carreón
Alexandre Ragazzi
9 Ink and Feathers: Prints, Printed Books, and Mexican Featherwork
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Index
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Corinna T. Gallori
List of illustrations
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Concealing and Revealing the Female Body in European Prints and Mughal Paintings A Celestial Woman Attendant with a Vina (Stringed Instrument). Artist/maker unknown. 956-973, Sandstone, 25 1/8 × 10 1/2 × 7 1/4 inches (63.8 × 26.7 × 18.4 cm). Philadelphia Museum of Art, Purchased from the Stella Kramrisch Collection with funds contributed by R. Sturgis Ingersoll, Nelson Rockefeller, and other generous donors, the bequest of Sophia Cadwalader, the Popular Subscription Fund, and proceeds from the sale of deaccessioned works of art, 1956-75-12 Pietas Regia, the second title page from the first volume of Plantiin Biblia Sacra (also known as the Polyglot Bible). Printed by Christopher Plantiin in Antwerp between 1568-72. Newberry Digital Collections (Newberry Library) A female figure standing in a landscape holding a four-stringed “khuuchir” and a lotus, South Asia, Mughal, late 16th century (c. 1590). Opaque watercolor with gold on paper, mounted with borders of gold-decorated cream and blue paper; page: 31.6 × 20.7 cm (12 7/16 × 8 1/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift in honor of Madeline Neves Clapp; Gift of Mrs. Henry White Cannon by exchange; Bequest of Louise T. Cooper; Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund; From the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection 2013.311 The Martyrdom of Saint Cecilia, a close copy of an engraving by Jerome [Hieronymus] Wierix (Netherlandish, c. 1553–1619). Artist: Nini. South Asia, Mughal, first half of the 17th century. Opaque watercolor and gold on paper. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London; IM.139A-1921 The Annunciation, from a Mirror of Holiness (Mir’at al-quds) of Father Jerome Xavier, made for Prince Salim (later the emperor Jahangir). South Asia, Mughal, 1602-1604. Opaque watercolor and gold on paper; page: 26.2 × 15.4 cm (10 5/16 × 6 1/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund 2005.145.15.a Detail from the birth of Timur, from an imperial copy of Abul Fazl’s Akbarnama, (Vol. I). South Asia, Mughal, c. 1602. Painting ascribed to Surdas Gujarati. Opaque watercolors with gold on paper. © The British Library Board (Or.12988.f.34v)
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Detail of the baby Akbar and his mother Hamidah Banu Maryam Makani, from an imperial copy of Abul Fazl’s Akbarnama (Vol I). Artists: Sanvalah and Narsingh. South Asia, Mughal, c. 1602. Opaque watercolors with gold on paper. © The Briitsh Library Board (Or.12988.f.22) (left) and 8b (right) Double folio illustration of the marriage festivities of the son of Maham Anga, the foster-mother of the Mughal emperor Akbar, in 1561, from an imperial copy of Abul Fazl’s Akbarnama. Artists: 8a: La’l and Sanwala; 8b: La’l and Banwali Khord. South Asia, Mughal, c. 1590-95. Opaque watercolors with gold on paper. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London; 8a: IS.2:9-1896; 8b: IS.2:8-1896 Birth of a royal infant (detail). South Asia, Mughal, about 1580. Opaque watercolor and gold on paper. 39 × 30.5 cm (15 3/8 × 12 in.). Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Ross- Coomaraswamy Collection, 17.3112 King Putraka in the palace of the beautiful Patali, from a Kathasaritsagara. Pakistan, Lahore, Mughal, c. 1590. Opaque watercolors with gold on paper. Los Angeles County Museum of Art. From the Nasli and Alice Heeramaneck Collection, Museum Associates Purchase (M.78.9.7) Detail from a painting portraying Jahangir in audience, showing Jahangir leaning against the back of his throne that contains an image of Fides. South Asia, Mughal, 1618. Opaque watercolors with gold on paper. 20.2 × 13.8 cm. Photo Credit: bpk Bildagentur / (Museum Fur Islamische Kunst, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Inv. – Nr. I 4597, fol. 5) / Photo: Georg Niedermeiser / Art Resource, NY Detail from a folio from the Gulshan Album (Rose Garden album). South Asia, Mughal, c. 1600. Opaque watercolors with gold on paper. Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.: Purchase — Charles Lang Freer Endowment, F1952.2 Woman holding a portrait of Emperor Jahangir. Northern India, Mughal court, c. 1627. Opaque watercolor and gold on paper. Page: 30 × 22.1 cm (11 13/16 × 8 11/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift in honor of Madeline Neves Clapp; Gift of Mrs. Henry White Cannon by exchange; Bequest of Louise T. Cooper; Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund; From the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection 2013.325
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List of illustr ations
Figure 14 Court Lady, Mughal (reign of Jahangir), ca. 1620. Attributed to Bishandas, (active 1590 – 1640). Opaque watercolor, ink and gold on paper. Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.: Purchase — Charles Lang Freer Endowment, F1984.43 2 Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4
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The Sultan’s Face Looks East and West: European Prints and Ottoman Sultan Portraiture Costanzo di Moysis (Costanzo da Ferrara), Mehmed II, Sultan of the Turks (obverse), c. 1481, bronze, Samuel Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art Sinan Bey or Siblizade Ahmed, Portrait of Mehmed II Smelling a Rose, c. 1480, Topkapi Palace Museum, Istanbul, Photo Credit: Art Resource, NY Sultan Suleyman, from Paolo Giovio, Elogia virorum bellica virtute illustrium, Basel, 1575, woodcut by Tobias Stimmer, Houghton Library, Harvard University Haydar Ra’is (called Nigari), Portrait of François I, King of France (After J. Clouet), 1566-74, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, The Edward Binney, 3rd Collection of Turkish Art at the Harvard Art Museums Haydar Ra’is (called Nigari), Portrait of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, 1566-74, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, The Edward Binney, 3rd Collection of Turkish Art at the Harvard Art Museums. Agostino Veneziano (Agostino dei Musi), Portrait of Barbarossa, 1535, engraving, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1949 Agostino Veneziano (Agostino dei Musi), Portrait of François I, 1536, engraving, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1949 Portrait of Suleyman I (1520-1566), 10th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, miniature from Kiyafet-I Insaniye Fi Semail-I Osmaniye, by Seyyid Lokman, 1579, Istanbul University Library, Photo Credit: Universal Images Group/Art Resource, NY Master of the Vienna Passion, El Gran Turco, c. 1470, Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, Photo Credit: Joerg P. Anders/Art Resource, NY
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Figure 10 Sultan Suleyman, from Guillaume Rouillé, Promptuaire des Medalles des Plus Renommees Personnes, 1553, British Library, General Reference Collection DRT Digital Store 7755.c.20 Figure 11 Vavassore Map of Constantinople, from Braun and Hogenberg, Civitates Orbis Terrarum, 1572, Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division Figure 12 Veronese, Paolo (follower of), Sultan Bayezid I, c. 1579, Staatsgalerie, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Residenz, Wuerzburg, Photo Credit: Art Resource, NY Figure 13 Veronese, Paolo (follower of), Sultan Osman I, c. 1579, Staatsgalerie, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Residenz, Wuerzburg, Photo Credit: Art Resource, NY 3 Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5 Figure 6 Figure 7
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From Europe to Persia and Back Again: Border-Crossing Prints and the Asymmetries of Early Modern Cultural Encounter Heinrich Aldegrever (1502-c. 1561), The Good Samaritan Placing the Traveler on a Mule, 1554, mounted on fol. 8r in Persan 129, 108 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France Heinrich Aldegrever (1502-c. 1561), The Good Samaritan Ministering to the Traveler, 1554, mounted on fol. 10v in Persan 108 129, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France Sultan Ali Mashhadi (d. 1520), calligraphy specimen framed by additional calligraphies in another hand, mounted on fol. 6r in Persan 129, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France 111 Malik al-Daylami (d. 1561–62), calligraphy specimen framed by additional calligraphies in another hand, mounted on fol. 35r 112 in Persan 129, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France Tinted drawing of a seated youth, mounted on fol. 34v in 114 Persan 129, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France Tinted drawing of a man riding an emaciated horse, mounted on fol. 9v in Persan 129, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France 116 Giambattista Pittoni (1687-1767), Head of a Man, restored and mounted by Pierre-Jean Mariette, Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. 5273. Photo by Jean-Gilles Berizzi © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY 120 The Dissemination of Western European Prints Eastward: The Armenian Case The first Bible printed in the Armenian language (Amsterdam, 1666). Beginning of the Gospels, with the four evangelists
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List of illustr ations
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on the left, and the Tree of Jesse on the right, woodcuts by Christoffel van Sichem, pp. 430-431, second pagination. Alex and Marie Manoogian Museum, Southfield, Michigan. 1988.271 (Gift of the Trustees of the Church of the Holy Resurrection, Dhaka, Bangladesh) Baptism (with complete crossbar), woodcut by Christoffel van Sichem, Biblia Sacra in Dutch (Antwerp, 1646/1657), p. 773, first pagination. The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY. PML 126380. Bequest of E. Clark Stillman, 1995 Baptism (with missing crossbar), woodcut by Christoffel van Sichem, Bible in Armenian (Amsterdam, 1666), p. 472, second pagination. Library of Congress, African and Middle Eastern Division, Armenian Rarities, BS95 1666 Armen Cage Baptism (with complete crossbar), woodcut by unknown Armenian artist, in a Miscellany (Constantinople, 1730-1731), p. 175. Private Collection Baptism (with flowers in lower left and complete crossbar), woodcut possibly by Grigor Marzuants’i (note white initials ԳՐ [GR] in lower right), in a Hymnal (Constantinople, 1742), p. 63. Reproduced with permission from the Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center of the Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern), New York, NY. Acc. no. 31 Baptism (with missing crossbar), woodcut by unknown Armenian artist, in a Hymnal (Constantinople, 1802), p. 63. Reproduced with permission from The Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University in the City of New York. VH23 1702 King David with harp, woodcut by Christoffel van Sichem, Biblia Sacra in Dutch (Antwerp, 1646/1657), p. 748, first pagination. The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY. PML 126380. Bequest of E. Clark Stillman, 1995 King David with harp, woodcut by Christoffel van Sichem, Bible in Armenian (Amsterdam, 1666), p. 27, second pagination. Library of Congress, African and Middle Eastern Division, Armenian Rarities, BS95 1666 Armen Cage King David with harp, woodcut by unknown Armenian artist, in a Zhamagirk’ [Book of Hours] (Constantinople, 1721), p. 12. Reproduced with permission from the Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center of the Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern), New York, NY
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Figure 10 Tree of Jesse, woodcut by Christoffel van Sichem, Biblia Sacra in Dutch (Antwerp, 1646/1657), p. 5, second pagination. The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY. PML 126380. Bequest of E. Clark Stillman, 1995 Figure 11 Tree of Jesse, woodcut by Grigor Marzuants’i (initials ԳՐ [GR] or ԳՄ [GM] in lower left), in a Hymnal (Constantinople, 1724), p. 4. Bib. Mazarine 4º A 13192 [res], p. 4 ©Bibliothèque Mazarine. Reproduced with permission Figure 12 Tree of Jesse, woodcut by Grigor Marzuants’i (initials ԳՐ [GR] or ԳՄ [GM] in lower left), in a Hymnal (Constantinople, 1742), p. 6. Reproduced with permission from the Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center of the Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern), New York, NY. Acc. no. 31 Figure 13 Tree of Jesse, woodcut by unknown Armenian artist, in a Miscellany (Constantinople, 1730-1731), p. 138. Private Collection Figure 14 Tree of Jesse, woodcut by unknown Armenian artist, in a Hymnal (Constantinople, 1802), p. 6. Reproduced with permission from The Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University in the City of New York. VH23 1702 Figure 15 Pentecost, engraving by Jan Wierix, in Gerónimo Nadal, Evangelicae historiae imagines[…] (Antwerp, 1593), plate 149. The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY. PML 126345. Bequest of E. Clark Stillman, 1995 Figure 16 Pentecost, woodcut by Christoffel van Sichem, Biblia Sacra in Dutch (Antwerp, 1646/1657), p. 226. The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY. PML 126380. Bequest of E. Clark Stillman, 1995 Figure 17 Pentecost, woodcut by Christoffel van Sichem, Bible in Armenian (Amsterdam, 1666), p. 570, second pagination. Library of Congress, African and Middle Eastern Division, Armenian Rarities, BS95 1666 Armen Cage Figure 18 Pentecost (with circular damage in lower right), woodcut by Christoffel van Sichem, in a Hymnal (printed by Ghukas Vanandets’i, Amsterdam, 1712), p. 358. Library of Congress, African and Middle Eastern Division, Armenian Rarities, BX127 Armen Armen Cage Figure 19 Pentecost, woodcut by Christoffel van Sichem, in a Hymnal (probably Amsterdam, before 1692), p. 358. Reproduced with permission from the Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information
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Center of the Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern), New York, NY Figure 20 Pentecost, woodcut by Grigor Marzuants’i (initials ԳՐ [GR] in right window), in a Zhamagirk’ [Book of Hours] (Constantinople, 1721), p. 312. Reproduced with permission from the Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center of the Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern), New York, NY Figure 21 Pentecost, woodcut by Grigor Marzuants’i (initials ԳՐ [GR] in right window) in a Hymnal (Constantinople, 1724), p. 288. Bib. Mazarine 4º A 13192 [res], p. 288 ©Bibliothèque Mazarine. Reproduced with permission 6 Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4
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(Re)framing the Virgin of Guadalupe: The Concurrence of Early Modern Prints and Colonial Devotions in Creating the Virgin The Virgin of Guadalupe, Basílica de Guadalupe, Mexico City, 16th century. Photo by the author Las horas de Nuestra señora: con muchos otros ofiçios y oraçiones, printed by Thielman Kerver, Paris 1502 © Biblioteca Nacional de España Tota pulchra, Lower cloister of Franciscan monastery, Huejotzingo, Mexico, ca. 1558. Photo by the author Pedro Berruguete, The Assumption of the Virgin, Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College, 1485. Reproduced with the permission of Davis Museum at Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA Michel Sittow, The Assumption of the Virgin, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., ca. 1500. © National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Hieronymus Wierix, The Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, KBR – Prints – S. I 3766, before 1619. Copyright KBR So-called ‘banner of Cortés’, Museo Nacional de Historia, Mexico City, 16th century. Image provided by Archivo Fotográfico “Manuel Toussaint” del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas de la UNAM Madonna and Child in Glory, Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Inv. 140-1, ca. 1460, Netherlandish colored woodcut, 34,5 × 25,0 cm © Kupferstichkabinett. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
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Virgen del Coro, Choir loft of Santa María de Guadalupe, Spain, late 15th century. Photo by the author 197 The Assumption of the Virgin, KBR – Prints – SII 26535, 15th century. Copyright KBR 198 The Assumption of the Virgin, Upper cloister of the Franciscan monastery of San Martin Huaquechula, Mexico, ca. 1560. Photo by Thelmadatter – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https:// commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29426763 (detail) 200 The Assumption of the Virgin, Northeast chapel of the convent San Francisco de Asís, San Andrés Calpan, Mexico, ca. 1550-1555. Photo by Danielllerandi – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index. php?curid=29176141(detail). (Accessed February 24th, 2021) 200 Virgen de los Ángeles, Santuario de la Virgen de los Ángeles de Tlatelolco, Mexico, late 16th or early 17th century, Photograph by Kahlo 1900-1910, Fototeca Nacional, Núm. de Inv. del Neg. 7286 © D.R. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, México, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, http://mediateca.inah.gob.mx/repositorio/ islandora/object/fotografia%3A16864 (accessed February 24th, 2021) 203 Cornelis Cort, after Federico Zuccaro, The Assumption of the Virgin, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, New Hollstein Dutch 99-1(4) (tegendruk), printed in Rome by Luca Bertelli, 1574, engraving, 42,7 × 29,3 cm. Public domain, CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0), http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.collect.98957. (Accessed February 24th, 2021) 204 Samuel Stradanus, Indulgence for donation of alms toward the erection of a Church dedicated to the Virgin of Guadalupe (modern facsimile impression of engraving), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Accession Number: 48.70, ca. 1613-1615, 33 × 21.3 cm. Public domain, CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) 206 Hidden Resemblances: Re-contextualized and Re-framed: Diego de Valadés´ Cross Cultural Exchange “Typus eorum que frates faciunt in novo indiarum orbe…”, in Diego Valadés, Rhetorica Christiana (Perugia: Giacomo Petrucci, 1579), pars quarta, cap. 23, p. 107 Typus Ecclesiae Catholicae (Venezia: Luca Bertelli, 1574), Cracovia, Biblioteca Jagiellońska, Kolekcja Jana Ponęzowskiego, teka 149, n. 9041
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Etienne DuPérac, “Elevation Showing the Exterior of Saint Peter’s Basilica from the South as Conceived by Michelangelo, in Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae (Rome: Lafrery, 1569) Thomasz Treter, “Entrance of Pope Pius IV,” in Theatrum virtutum ac meritorum D. Stanislai Hosii (Editio princeps: Rzym, 1588), emblem 50 Calendar Wheel, in Diego Valadés, Rhetorica Christiana (Perugia: Petrucci, 1579) Toribio de Benavente (Motolinía), Memoriales, manuscrito de la colección del Señor Don Joaquín García Icazbalceta. edición facsímile, 1967 Edmundo Aviña Levy editor, 1903
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The Practice of Art: Auxiliary Plastic Models and Prints in Italy, Spain and Peru Matteo Perez de Alecio (circle of). Capilla Villegas, Iglesia de la Merced, Lima. © Istituto Centrale per il Restauro (Rome) / 273 Photo by Angelo Rubino Luís de Vargas. The Purification, c. 1560. Museo de Bellas Artes, Seville274 Matteo Perez de Alecio. Inés Muñoz de Ribera, 1599. Monasterio de la Concepción, Lima. © Gutiérrez Haces, Juana (ed.). Pintura de los Reinos: Identidades compartidas: Territorios del mundo hispánico, siglos XVI-XVIII. Tomo 2. México: Banamex, 277 2008, p. 649 Ink and Feathers: Prints, Printed Books and Mexican Featherwork Mexican artists, Miter of Carlo Borromeo with the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, Milan, Museo del Duomo © Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo di Milano. Photo: Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut 285 Lombard printmaker, Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, Udine, Archivio Storico Diocesano. Per concessione dell’Archivio Storico / delle Biblioteche dell’Arcidiocesi di Udine 286 Mexican artists, Saint Augustine, Loreto, Archivio Storico della Santa Casa. Photo: Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut293 Maarten de Vos, Saint Augustine, London, Wellcome Collection. London, Wellcome Collection 294
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Mexican artists, Miter with the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, Florence, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Tesoro dei Granduchi. Photo: Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut Mexican artists, Flight into Egypt, detail of the lappets, New York, The Hispanic Society of America. Courtesy of The Hispanic Society of America, New York French engraver, Flight into Egypt, in Prymer of Salisbury use … with many Prayers and goodly Pictures (Paris: Yolande Bonhomme, 1533). Boston, Boston Public Library
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Introduction Heather Madar Abstract Printed works were disseminated beyond the borders of Europe, beginning to move globally shortly after the invention of the Gutenberg press. Brought by missionaries, artists, merchants, diplomats and travelers for motivations including conversion, artistic curiosity and trade, European prints traveled to areas as varied as Turkey, India, Iran, Ethiopia, China, Japan and the Americas. Printed works became important sources of cultural knowledge and sites of inter-cultural dialogue. Analysis of these transmissions raise numerous issues: the agency and motivations of actors on either side; ways European prints were recontextualized and transformed to provide locally specific meanings; aesthetic responses to European prints in global contexts. Analysis of these issues in turn leads to methodological challenges and a reconsideration of previous approaches. Keywords: transculturalism, cross-cultural exchange, Renaissance print circulation, global Renaissance
That printmaking’s ease of replication and comparatively inexpensive nature facilitated the widespread dissemination of printed works within Europe during the early modern period is common knowledge. The significance of what can be understood as the media, communications and even epistemological revolution occasioned by printmaking has been recognized as profound, with printmaking posited as a decisive agent in phenomena ranging from the Protestant Reformation to the Scientific Revolution.1 Less a part of the standard narrative of printmaking’s significance is a recognition of the frequency with which the dissemination of printed works also occurred beyond the borders of Europe and a consideration of 1 The classic discussion is Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, the revised and abridged version of her two volume work The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, first published in 1979. William Ivins posited the significance of the exactly repeatable image enabled by printmaking to the furtherance of scientific knowledge and technological innovation in his Prints and Visual Communication.
Madar, H. (ed.), Prints as Agents of Global Exchange, 1500-1800. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press doi: 10.5117/9789462987906_intro
18 Heather Madar
the impact of this broader movement of printed objects. Within a decade of the invention of the Gutenberg press, European prints began to move globally.2 Over the course of the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, the time frame considered in this collection of essays, numerous prints produced in Europe traveled to areas as varied as Turkey, India, Iran, Ethiopia, China, Japan and the Americas, where they were taken by missionaries, artists, travelers, merchants and diplomats. The means and motivations for this cross-cultural migration of printed media were many, and varied in terms of the dynamics of the cultural exchanges and the primary mode of transmission. These disseminations were frequently ideologically charged, with prints used particularly as essential tools in conversion efforts by Christian missionaries and for didactic purposes. European prints also became image sources for locally produced art, where the source material was frequently modified and reconsidered in light of local materials, interests and concerns, sometimes to unexpected effects. The translation of printed works between cultures and often between media resulted in shifting meanings and altered visualities. Printed works became important sources of cultural knowledge and sites of inter-cultural dialogue. The major role that European prints played in artistic, religious, political and intellectual cross-cultural exchange in the early modern period is not a new discovery, but the discussion of this phenomenon has tended to remain confined to area specialists. In the context of Latin American art, the role European engravings played as sources for colonial art has been frequently examined.3 Scholars of Mughal art have unpacked the interests that prompted emperors Akbar and Jahangir’s consumption of European prints and support of Mughal artists working in a Europeanized style together with the aesthetic concerns that may have led court artists to an interest in these objects.4 The patronage of European artists by Safavid emperors in the seventeenth century, the unexpected references to European prints that appear in Safavid art, where the Annunciate Virgin may be transformed into a secular coquette, for example, as 2 Florentine engravings seem to have been present in Constantinople by the 1460s. See Raby, “Mehmed II Fatih and the Fatih Album.” Other early instances of the transport of prints outside Europe include Cortés, who brought prints to Tenochtitlan in 1519 and the prints that were taken by the Jesuit Francis Xavier on his mission to Goa in 1542. See Cummins, “The Indulgent Image: Prints in the New World,” p. 207 and Bailey, Art on the Jesuit Missions in Asia and Latin America, 1542-1773, p. 6. See also Boyd, Popular Arts of Spanish New Mexico, especially pp. 78-81, González, “The Circulation of Flemish Prints in Mexican Missions and the Creation of a New Visual Narrative, 1630-1800,” p. 6. 3 See Boyd, González, Bailey, and Cummins, ibid., as well as González, “Our Lady of El Pueblito: A Marian Devotion on the Northern Frontier”, Bargellini, “Painting in Latin Colonial Latin America,” and Hyman, “Inventing Painting: Cristóbal de Villalpando, Juan Correa and New Spain’s Transatlantic Canon”. 4 In addition to Bailey, Art on the Jesuit Missions, see also Bailey, The Jesuits and the Grand Mogul: Renaissance Art in the Imperial Court of India, 1580-1630, Rice, “The Brush and the Burin: Mogul Encounters with European Engravings”, Rice, “Lines of Perception: European Prints and the Mughal Kitabkhana” and Subrahmanyam, “A Roomful of Mirrors: The Artful Embrace of Mughals and Franks, 1550-1700”.
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well as the role of the New Julfa Armenian community in this process of exchange have similarly received scholarly attention.5 The work of regional studies is clearly essential, and the dynamics of each individual case differ in important ways which should not be flattened by a more comprehensive or integrative approach. Yet the local focus has meant that the larger dynamics and global nature of the migrations of European prints in this period have remained under-discussed. A concern with the movement of images in time and space and across cultural boundaries can be traced back at least to Aby Warburg’s notions of Bilderfahrzeuge – the migration of images – and Wanderstrasse – migratory paths. Both concepts recognize the translation, recontextualization and adaptation that occur through image travel and motif transmission, which for Warburg principally concerned the migration of images and motifs from antiquity to the Renaissance.6 Various contemporary theoretical models and terminologies for the process of cultural exchange help to conceptualize the dynamics at play in the global spread of European prints in the early modern period. Of particular use are terminologies and paradigms that consider the reciprocal, dialogic nature of exchange, and that recognize the active agency of participants on both sides of inter-cultural exchange. Gauvin Alexander Bailey notes that the concept of transculturation “accommodates the more reciprocal nature of cultural exchange […] allows influence to run in two directions […] each side experiences partial loss and partial gain as they forge a new, third culture.”7 The theme of reciprocity is also underlined by Peter Burke, who writes that “when there is an encounter between two cultures, information usually flows in both directions, even if in unequal amounts.” He further states that “it has become increasingly apparent that reception is not passive but active. Ideas, information, artifacts and practices are not simply adopted but adapted.”8 Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Catherine Dossin and Béatrice Joyeux-Prunel have recently proposed circulation as a way of conceptualizing transcultural exchange “through a historical materialist perspective” as it permits a focus on “the materiality of the object and the image as well as the diverse modes of circulation and the various contexts in which they occur.”9 They are careful to note that circulation is not the 5 See Schwartz, “Terms of Reception: Europeans and Persians and Each Other’s Art” as well as Bailey, “Frankish Masters: A Safavid Drawing and its Flemish Inspiration,” and Landau, “Reconf iguring the Northern European Print to Depict Sacred History at the Persian Court”. 6 See Despoix, “Translatio and Remediation: Aby Warburg, Image Migration and Photographic Reproduction”. Andrea Bubenik also addresses this briefly in Reframing Albrecht Dürer: The Appropriation of Art, 1528-1700, p. 3. There is also currently an international working group: Bilderzeuge: Aby Warburg’s Legacy and the Future of Iconography. 7 Bailey, Art on the Jesuit Missions, p. 22. 8 Burke, “Translating Knowledge, Translating Cultures”, p. 70. 9 Kaufmann, Dossin and Joyeux-Prunel, “Introduction: Reintroducing Circulations: Historiography and the Project of Global Art History”, pp. 1-2.
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familiar study of influence or diffusion but rather allows for a horizontal model of cross-cultural study rather than a hierarchical, vertical one that prioritizes Europe. Their highlighting of agency, the complexity of exchange and the return to the material parallels key themes in recent studies of print circulation in a global context. The necessity of understanding prints as active agents engaged in complex cultural processes rather than as passive bearers of information also speaks to broader recent reconsiderations of the print medium in this period.10 Sanjay Subrahmanyam’s discussion of cultural commensurability and incommensurability – cultural permeability or impermeability – is also relevant in this context.11 In different sites and at varying chronological moments a greater or lesser degree of cultural commensurability is present, leading to a deeper or more superficial level of visual response, or to an outright rejection of the visual forms and ideas mediated through print circulation. Subrahmanyam further points to the need to focus on the “acts that produced commensurability,” noting that these tend to result from the agency of specific influential actors.12 The issue of agency, the particularity of local circumstances and the need to move away from a model of passive, actor-less diffusion is again clear. Stephanie Porras, using Maerten de Vos’s engraving of St. Michael the Archangel as a case study, has recently argued that the rapid, multi-directional spread of certain prints in this period is usefully linked to the contemporary concept of the viral media object.13 Certain specific prints indeed re-appear in multiple, distinct cultural contexts in this period. In addition to Porras’s example of St. Michael the Archangel, which appeared throughout Latin America and also in South Asia, other examples include an engraving of St. Jerome by Mario Cartaro after Michelangelo’s Moses, which appeared in both China and Mughal India,14 or Dürer’s Rhinoceros, “the most internationally received and widely dispersed of his entire print oeuvre.”15 Similarly, a handful of artists are prominently represented in cross-cultural printed exchange, and their prominence seems unlikely to be accidental. Dürer, Rubens, de Vos and the Wierix brothers are just a few such artists. Notably, the artists and prints that were among the most circulated globally reflect some of the most celebrated artists of the European print tradition. It is clear in some instances that the widespread appearance of certain works was intentional, for example the spread 10 See Prints in Translation, 1450-1750, Image, Materiality, Space, particularly Wouk, “Toward an Anthropology of Print,” pp. 1-18. 11 Subrahmanyan, “A Roomful of Mirrors,” particularly pages 39-40 and 76-77. 12 Ibid, p. 77. 13 Porras, “Going Viral? Maerten de Vos’s St. Michael the Archangel”. See also Porras, “St. Michael the Archangel, Spiritual, Visual and Material Translations from Antwerp to Lima”. 14 Bailey, Art on the Jesuit Missions, pp. 97. 119. 15 Bubenik, Re-Framing Albrecht Dürer, p. 100.
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and influence of works by de Vos and the Wierixes through the Jesuit reliance on Jerome Nadal’s Evangelicae Historicae Imagines in their global missions. Yet in some instances the answer is less clear. Why certain printed images became as popular as they did, and what work they performed in their multiple sites of reception are questions of considerable interest and are best studied through a global lens. As the example of Nadal’s Evangelicae Historicae Imagines suggests, some works were created with the global context in mind, typically with the intent of evangelization and conversion to the Catholic faith. In other instances, images that seem to have passed largely without comment in the European context found widespread reception in the global context, seeming to speak in an external context in a way that they did not internally. The Franciscan Allegory in Honor of the Immaculate Conception engraved by Paul Pontius after an oil sketch by Rubens (oil sketch dated 1632, engraving dated c. 1632-1658), for example, seems to have had less influence in Europe, yet resonated broadly and unexpectedly in the context of the colonial Americas.16 The intersection in such instances of artistic intention with multiple receptions across cultural contexts gets at an interesting and under-explored dimension of cross-cultural exchange. Related to the phenomenon of the “viral” image is the question of which cultural agents drove reception of European prints in different global contexts in this period. Europeans clearly instigated and perpetuated the spread and use of prints in missionary contexts for the purposes of conversion and neophyte support, whether in colonial Latin America or the Jesuit missions in Asia. Yet Safavid, Ottoman and Mughal rulers intentionally sought out European art, including European prints. In the case of Iran, some European actors, notably the Dutch East India Company (VOC), were strongly reluctant to participate in the transmission of European images, printed or other. In the case of the Dutch East India Company, this was seemingly a result of a conservative, and indeed inaccurate, reading of Shia Islam and its receptivity to figural imagery.17 In other instances, the spread of European prints seems more happenstance, with prints recorded in European merchant stalls in Iranian markets and transported by European merchants to Istanbul, where it would appear that interested artists and patrons might have had the opportunity to seek them out or perhaps even have simply chanced upon them.18 In the case of the Armenian merchant community of New Julfa, a suburb of Isfahan, European prints were deliberately imported for the use of that community, yet they in turn 16 González, “The Circulation of Flemish Prints,” p. 11. 17 Schwarz, “Terms of Reception,” p. 25. 18 Bailey, “Frankish Masters,” p. 31 notes that European engravings were available at the stalls of European merchants in the Isfahan Maydan, or main public square in the seventeenth century, a fact supported by the travelogue of Pietro della Valle. Raby, “Mehmed II Fatih,” p. 45 posits exchange of European engravings in Constantinople through Florentine merchants residing in Pera.
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appear to have played a secondary mediating role in transmitting European visual ideas to the Safavid court.19 The idea of the active participation and agency of participants on both sides of cultural exchange stresses that while European missionaries, for example, clearly had a specific agenda in disseminating European prints in non-European contexts, non-European recipients were far from passive in their reception and possessed their own motivations for engagement. Two culturally distinct examples of royal engagement with European prints via the Jesuit missionary presence illustrate this point. In early seventeenth-century Ethiopia, Jesuit sources document that a relative of the Ethiopian King Susniyos commissioned a copy of every engraving in Nadal’s Evangelicae Historia Imagines. At the King’s request, Jesuits explained the images to him and he subsequently commissioned his own painted copies of the images. While the motivations of both the King and his relative are not recorded, this occurred during a transformational period in Jesuit missionary activity in Ethiopia.20 The motivations of the actors on either side of the exchange could be in opposition or conflict in subtle or even overt ways. Exchange between monarchs and Jesuit missionaries in Mughal India provides an example where the not so hidden agenda of the Jesuit missionaries conflicted with the interests of the emperors. In this instance, as Bailey describes, “each side [was] attempting to subtly subvert the other.”21 The Jesuits were keen to supply images of Christian subjects and wrote optimistically of the emperor’s imminent conversion to Christianity. The apparent motivations of Akbar and Jahangir, by contrast, are argued to range from a detached interest in world religions to the viewing of Christian devotional art as both powerfully expressive and as a screen onto which their specific political ideology could be projected. The Mughal case is exceptional in that the interests of the various parties are recoverable to at least some extent. While scholars have interpreted the specifics of the imperial interest differently, the fact of their response is evident through the visual record. To fully understand the nature of the reception of European prints in a global context and the transformations and translations that occurred, written responses that record the response of non-European viewers to European art are clearly desirable. There is an overall lack of such written sources, however. A few dismissive comments by Chinese literati about European art in general are the exception rather than the rule.22 Examination of the translations, reframings and 19 Landau, “Reconfiguring the Northern European Print.” 20 Bosc-Tiessé, “The Use of Occidental Engravings in Ethiopian Painting in the 17th and 18th Centuries”, pp. 84-86. The event is recorded in the Jesuit’s 1611 Goa letter. 21 Bailey, Art on the Jesuit Missions, p. 11 22 Ibid., p. 82. Bailey also notes that “very few non-European people wrote about European art,” p. 13. Although not focused specifically on prints, Powers also provides a discussion of Chinese commentary
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repurposing of these objects in many cases provides the only way to re-construct original responses and the larger conceptual frameworks that supported them. To return to the Mughal context, Yael Rice discusses a dimension of aesthetic reception of European prints beyond political utility or curiosity that further suggests how printed works in some cases could enable a kind of cross-cultural theoretical discourse through visual rather than written means. Rice argues that the placement of European prints within Mughal albums highlights a subtlety of aesthetic theory, suggesting a conceptual fluidity between calligraphy and painting that belies a seeming inflexibility in written treatises from the time.23 Also in reference to the Mughal context, Subrahmanyam suggests that the interest in European prints reflects a broader visual eclecticism on the part of Mughal leaders and artists that led to an adaptation of European representational techniques rather than an interest in content or a repurposing of Catholic religious iconography.24 Yet cross-cultural translations of European prints can also highlight what might be seen as failures of cultural encounter in the early modern period, as Kristel Smentek suggests in her contribution to this collection where she explores an example of print transmission that ultimately resulted in little to no impact. Many of the objects discussed in the scholarly literature related to this phenomenon are singular, reflecting an often short-lived moment of influence, openness or experimentation. The hybrid styles that resulted in many cases do not reflect a transformative moment, but rather hint in tantalizing ways at artistic traditions that never developed, for example in the case of Japan, or signal the ultimately temporary nature of the influence of European prints in a number of (although certainly not all) global contexts in this period. In cases where the European influence did persist, it was often accompanied by a suppression of Indigenous traditions, which must surely be seen as a failure of cross-cultural exchange. The recognition of failures and the questioning of successes intersect with larger questions that have been posed about the overall significance of global art traditions on European art in the early modern period. Some scholars have expressed skepticism that objects that reflect cross-cultural exchange, whether European paintings with Arabic calligraphy or Ottoman miniatures that reflect knowledge of European portrait types show anything other than a passing trend rather than signaling a transformative moment on European art in the early modern period in “The Cultural Politics of the Brushstroke.” Schwarz states that “Dutch texts on Persian art are virtually non-existent, and Persian ones on Dutch art completely so.” “Terms of Reception,” p. 26. 23 Rice, “The Burin and Brush,” p. 309. 24 Subrahmanyam, “A Roomful of Mirrors,” p. 53. Subrahmanyam also explicity takes issue with some of Bailey’s conclusions referenced above, particularly Bailey’s assertion that Catholic devotional art was seen as “culturally neutral” and as such able to be repurposed by the Mughals for political aims. See particularly p. 46.
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of engagement.25 The moments of failure or of merely temporary engagement in the context of prints can also usefully contribute to this broader consideration. The global transmission and reception of European prints in the early modern period clearly connects with broader interrogations about the global Renaissance moment.26 Methodological issues specific to the topic are also raised by recent scholarship, including the essays in this collection. Work on this topic has tended to be iconographic. A Warburgian tracing of motifs from their origin in specific European prints to their appearance in non-European copies dominated many earlier discussions, with attention paid to the visual traces of what are often lost originals and to the ways in which the original was modified in copies. While this type of work is clearly foundational, a number of newer studies of the global transmission and reception of European prints have stressed the need to move beyond a purely iconographical approach. Thomas Cummins, describing the tendency for the study of prints in the context of the colonial Americas to focus on this type of source/copy analysis states: “Although such an approach illuminates some of the most obvious functions of prints […] it generally fails to explain the more complex and active functions of printed materials in a colonial context.”27 Yael Rice similarly describes how “the primary attention of studies of the artistic response to these works has been on Mogul compositions painted after or inspired by European sources” with little attention paid to the actual prints themselves.28 One move away from simple source tracing has been to stress the intentional engagement with European prints by artists, patrons and publics outside Europe. In part, this recognizes that even fairly close copies recontextualized and transformed originals to create meanings that were distinct and locally specific. Cruz González, discussing the Franciscan Allegory in Honor of the Immaculate Conception by Pontius after Rubens, for example, shows how the specifically Spanish Habsburg political overtones of the original were transformed in the colonial context to respond to a range of local concerns, whether Franciscan missionary accomplishments or the Royalist cause in the nineteenth century.29 Cummins furthermore suggests the utility of prints in the formation of new publics and in the consolidation of new 25 See for example Grabar, “Review,” p. 190 who describes the effect of Renaissance transculturalism on the visual arts as “quite limited” and restricted to “minor themes.” Harper has similarly suggested that the results of cross-cultural contact on visual arts in the Renaissance period were comparatively limited. “Introduction,” pp. 5-6. See also Subrahmanyam’s discussion of the European response to Mughal art in “A Roomful of Mirrors.” 26 See, for example, Burke, Clossey and Fernández-Armesto, “The Global Renaissance.” 27 Cummins, “The Indulgent Image,” p. 204. González similarly describes the need “to move beyond identification and better understand said sources and the process of appropriation and transformation.” in “Our Lady of El Pueblito,” p. 16. 28 Rice, “The Burin and Brush,” p. 305. 29 González, “Our Lady of El Pueblito” and “The Circulation of Flemish Prints.”
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collective identities: “Prints could quickly create a common visual culture over a vast geographic area […] prints had agency in forming a community of citizens who could imagine themselves as participating in a single culture.”30 Other scholars have turned away from iconography to stress the materiality of prints as objects, examining the way that European prints could be literally reframed and recontextualized in some instances, for instance in the muraqqas or albums found in a number of sites across the Islamic world in the early modern period. A cross-cultural dialogue also emerged around the materials of printmaking, whether print processes – particularly in places without a local print tradition – or the tools of burin and ink. Bailey has commented on the fascination that the print process and its tools had for the Mughal Emperor Jahangir as well as the differing reception that prints had as objects in Japan and China. In China, due to its long tradition of woodblock prints, local artists were able to adapt both the technique as well as style of European prints, which Bailey contrasts with Japan, then without a local printing press tradition.31 A similar turn from iconography to the print as material object can also be seen in scholars who consider the formal or aesthetic response of non-European artists and patrons to the graphic linearity of prints. Yael Rice, for example, has posited that “as heirs to an artistic tradition concerned primarily with line and contour […] Mogul artists and patrons were particularly drawn to the physical and technical qualities of European engraving.”32 Materiality is also central to the consideration of the transformation of prints into different media forms, frequently with local significance, whether feather mosaics in Mexico, crystal statues in Goa, or textiles in Safavid Iran. Yet in other instances, particularly Latin America, the original European prints rarely survive, and a discussion of materiality in part must consider loss and absence.33 The status of original versus copy is a complicated one even in a strictly European context, with the valuation of the original and concomitant denigration of the copy seen in later periods projected back onto the early modern. Yet as scholars such as Andrea Bubenik have discussed, this misses the mark even in a purely European context, where copying was an expected part of workshop practice, and imitative ability was valued in numerous contexts.34 Bubenik has argued that copying in the 30 Cummins, “The Indulgent Image,” p. 204. 31 Bailey, The Jesuits and the Grand Mogul, p. 30 and Art on the Jesuit Missions, p. 78. See also China on Paper: European and Chinese Works from the Late Sixteenth to the Early Nineteenth Century for discussion of prints in the context of European and Chinese exchange. 32 Rice, “Burin to Brush,” p. 305. See also Yael Rice, “Lines of Perception: European Prints and the Mughal Kitabkhana.” 33 Hyman and Leibson, “Colonial Surfaces: Prints, Loss and Latin America.” See also Hyman, “Patterns of Colonial Transfer: An Album of Prints in Mexico City.” 34 Bubenik, Reframing Albrecht Dürer, 74-75.
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early modern period is more appropriately understood as appropriation, with the active, intentional transformation implied by the term. As she states, imitation in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries should be seen as a “creative assimilation with the aim of a new presentation.”35 In discussions of cross-cultural copying there has been a tendency to see a fairly simple binary of original and copy. Non-European examples were reduced to a kind of rote mimesis of lesser artistic value, reflecting an earlier era’s prioritization of the European over the non-European and the problematic narrative of a uniquely Western creative impulse inspired by individual genius. It is clear that the dynamics of this cross-cultural reception were considerably more complicated than the straightforward original/copy model would indicate. Newer studies have stressed the hybridization that often resulted. In some instance, non-European artists developed hybrid styles, reflecting a complex negotiation between local traditions and European pictorial conventions such as shading, perspective and realism. To cite one example, the seventeenth-century St. Michael Slaying the Dragon, painted in Macao by a Japanese artist, is based on Quis Sicut Deus, an engraving by Jerome Wierix (1619). The artist replaced the angel’s lance with a samurai sword, posed him in a stance reminiscent of Buddhist guardian kings and adorned him with decorative patterns that have their origin in Asian rather than European motifs.36 In a Safavid example mentioned above, the sixteenth-century artist Sadiqi Beg transformed a fifteenth-century Flemish engraving of the Annunciation by the Master of the Madonna of the Banderoles into a de-Christianized image that may read simply as the interaction of a young man and woman over a book.37 In other instances, works took on hybrid meanings, where the Virgin Mary could be merged with Mesoamerican goddess symbolism in one context or with the Buddhist figure of Guanyin in another.38 Rather than simply reflecting passive reception and rote copying, the active role of local artists is clear. Local and Indigenous artists in many instances sought out and consciously chose to respond to European prints and selectively appropriated, translated and transformed them. The contributions to this volume contribute to the ongoing evolution of scholarship on the transmission of European prints in non-European contexts in a variety of ways. The individual case studies collectively provide a global lens, demonstrating the scope of this phenomenon in the early modern period. The authors explore specific instances of print transmission and reception in India, the Ottoman Empire, Iran, Japan, colonial Latin America – including both Mexico and the Viceroyalty of Peru – and among the Armenian diaspora in this period. Local differences in 35 Ibid, p. 75. 36 Bailey, Art on the Jesuit Missions, p. 77. 37 Bailey, “Frankish Masters” and Schwarz “Terms of Reception.” 38 Bailey, Art on the Jesuit Missions in Asia and Latin America, p. 29
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reception, motivation and use are highlighted by each case study, while broader trends emerge from the collection as a whole, in particular methodological concerns with materiality, hybridity, intentionality and agency. Kristel Smentek, Sylvie Meriam, Alexandre Ragazzi and Corinna Gallori all focus in various ways on issues of materiality, a theme also identified by Edward H. Wouk as a central one to more recent scholarship on prints.39 Kristel Smentek explores the re-framing and re-contextualization of four prints by Heinrich Aldegrever as tangible objects in a Persian muraqqa while Corinna Gallori stresses the materiality as well as the hybridity of Mexican featherwork. Sylvie Meriam considers the translation of European prints by Armenian artists into multiple media, while Alexandre Ragazzi explores the dual role of prints and plastic models as transmitters of style in the Viceroyalty of Peru. Raphaèle Presinger along with Linda Báez and Emilie Carreón also consider the colonial Latin American context, exploring issues of hybridity of both form and iconography along with issues of intentionality in the examples of the Virgin of Guadalupe and the Rhetórica Christiana, a text about evangelization in Mexico written by the Franciscan friar Diego de Valadés. Yoshimi Orii, Saleema Waraich and Heather Madar focus on issues of reception, examining the motivations and information taken by artists, viewers, and in the case of Waraich and Madar, political agents in Mughal India (Waraich), Ottoman Turkey (Madar) and Japan (Orii). Orii shifts the lens from the Jesuits to Japanese converts in her exploration of the use of printed materials from the Jesuit press. Waraich argues that European secular prints depicting nude and semi-nude female bodies were used to help visualize Mughal notions of female sexuality in the court context, while Madar examines a complex back and forth between European prints and Ottoman paintings in the construction of Ottoman sultan portraits. The essays highlight issues of agency, hybridity and materiality as common concerns at the same time that they underline the continued necessity of focusing on individual examples of the broader phenomenon in their particular circumstances.
Bibliography Bailey, Gauvin Alexander. Art on the Jesuit Missions in Asia and Latin America, 1542-1773. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999. Bailey, Gauvin Alexander. The Jesuits and the Grand Mogul: Renaissance Art in the Imperial Court of India, 1580-1630. Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian, 1998. Bailey, Gauvin Alexander. “Frankish Masters: A Safavid Drawing and its Flemish Inspiration,” Oriental Art, 40:4 (1995): 29-34. 39 Wouk, “Toward an Anthropology of Print,” pp. 12-13.
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Bargellini, Clara. “Painting in Latin Colonial Latin America,” in The Arts in Latin America, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006, 322-331. Bosc-Tiessé, Claire. “The Use of Occidental Engravings in Ethiopian Painting in the 17th and 18th Centuries,” in The Indigenous and the Foreign in Christian Ethiopian Art: On Portuguese-Ethiopian Contacts in the 16th-17th Centuries, eds. Isabel Boavida and Manuel João Ramos. London: Routledge, 2004, 83-102. Boyd, E. Popular Arts of Spanish New Mexico, Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press, 1974. Bubenik, Andrea. Reframing Albrecht Dürer: The Appropriation of Art, 1528-1700, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2013. Burke, Peter. “Translating Knowledge, Translating Cultures,” in Kultureller Austausch: Bilanz und Perspektiven der Frühneuzeitforsching, ed. Michael North. Cologne: Böhlau, 2009, 69-77. Burke, Peter, Clossey, Luke and Fernández-Armesto, Felipe. “The Global Renaissance,” Journal of World History, 28:1 (2017): 1-30. Cummins, Tom. “The Indulgent Image: Prints in the New World,” in Contested Visions in the Spanish Colonial World, ed. Ilona Katzew. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2011, 203-225. Despoix, Philippe. “Translatio and Remediation: Aby Warburg, Image Migration and Photographic Reproduction,” SubStance, 44:2 (2015): 129-150. Eisenstein, Elizabeth. The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, 2nd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Gonazález, Cristina Cruz. “The Circulation of Flemish Prints in Mexican Missions and the Creation of a New Visual Narrative, 1630-1800,” Boletìn: Journal of the California Mission Studies Association, vol. 25 (2008): 5-34. González, Cristina Cruz. “Our Lady of El Pueblito: A Marian Devotion on the Northern Frontier,” Catholic Southwest: A Journal of History and Culture, vol. 23 (2012): 3-21. Grabar, Oleg. “Review,” The Art Bulletin, 85:1 (2003): 189-193. Harper, James. “Introduction,” The ‘Turk’ and Islam in the Western Eye: Visual Imagery Before Orientalism, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011, 1-20. Hyman, Aaron. “Inventing Painting: Cristóbal de Villalpando, Juan Correa and New Spain’s Transatlantic Canon, Art Bulletin, 99:2 (2017): 102-135. Hyman, Aaron and Leibson, Dana. “Colonial Surfaces: Prints, Loss and Latin America,” presented at Books and Prints Between Cultures, 1500-1900, Amherst College, September 1819, 2015. Hyman, Aaron. “Patterns of Colonial Transfer: An Album of Prints in Mexico City,” Print Quarterly, XXXIV: 4 (2017): 393-400. Ivins, William. Prints and Visual Communication. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1969. Kaufmann, Thomas DaCosta, Dossin, Catherine and Joyeux-Prunel, Béatrice. “Introduction: Reintroducing Circulations: Historiography and the Project of Global Art History,” in Circulations in the Global History of Art, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2015, 1-22.
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Landau, Amy S. “Reconfiguring the Northern European Print to Depict Sacred History at the Persian Court,” in Mediating Netherlandish Art and Material Culture in Asia, ed. Thomas da Costa Kaufmann and Michael North. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2014, 65-82. Porras, Stephanie. “Going Viral? Maerten de Vos’s St. Michael the Archangel,” Nederlands Kunsthistorich Jaarboek, 66 (2016): 54-79. Porras, Stephanie. “St. Michael the Archangel, Spiritual, Visual and Material Translations from Antwerp to Lima, in Prints in Translation, 1450-1750: Image, Materiality, Space, eds. Suzanne Karr Schmidt and Edward H. Wouk. London: Routledge, 2017, 183-202. Powers, Martin. “The Cultural Politics of the Brushstroke,” Art Bulletin, Volume XCV, Issue 2 (2013): 312-327. Raby, Julian. “Mehmed II Fatih and the Fatih Album,” Colloquies on Art and Archeology in Asia, 10 (1985): 42-49. Reed, Marcia and Demattè, Paolo, eds. China on Paper: European and Chinese Works from the Late Sixteenth to the Early Nineteenth Century. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2007. Rice, Yael. “The Brush and the Burin: Mogul Encounters with European Engravings” in Crossing Cultures: Conflict, Migration and Convergence: Proceedings of the 32nd Congress of the International Committee of the History of Art, ed. J. Anderson (Carlton Vic.: Melbourne UP), 2009. Rice, Yael. “Lines of Perception: European Prints and the Mughal Kitabkhana” in Prints in Translation, 1450-1750: Image, Materiality, Space, eds. Suzanne Karr Schmidt and Edward H. Wouk. London: Routledge, 2017, 203-223. Schmidt, Suzanne Karr and Wouk, Edward H. Prints in Translation, 1450-1750: Image, Materiality, Space. London: Routledge, 2017. Schwartz, Gary. “Terms of Reception: Europeans and Persians and Each Other’s Art” in Mediating Netherlandish Art and Material Culture in Asia, eds. Thomas da Costa Kaufmann and Michael North, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2014, 25-64. Subrahmanyam, Sanjay. “A Roomful of Mirrors: The Artful Embrace of Mughals and Franks, 1550-1700,” Ars Orientalis, 39 (2010): 39-83. Wouk, Edward H. “Toward an Anthropology of Print,” in Prints in Translation, 1450-1750: Image, Materiality, Space. eds. Suzanne Karr Schmidt and Edward H. Wouk. London: Routledge, 2017, 1-18.
About the Author Heather Madar (Ph.D., U.C. Berkeley) is professor of Art at Humboldt State University. Her research and publications focus on sixteenth-century German printmaking, cross-cultural interactions between early modern Europe and the Ottoman empire and the global Renaissance. She is currently writing a book on Dürer and the depiction of cultural difference.
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Concealing and Revealing the Female Body in European Prints and Mughal Paintings Saleema Waraich
Abstract This essay explores how European female bodies as depicted in Western prints were re-contextualized in Mughal environments of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries and reframed in Mughal paintings. Mughal patrons and artists drew on this body of visual material as they explored possibilities for fashioning Mughal models of female chastity and sensuality in service of the court. In addition to adapting various stylistic techniques and powerful symbols, this process involved locating synergies between Christian, European, Islamic, Timurid/Mughal, South Asian, and Hindu beliefs and practices. In this way, Mughal artists and their patrons cultivated links and located points of convergence between a variety of cultures and belief systems, an important characteristic of early Mughal rule. Keywords: Mughal painting, Akbar, Jahangir, European prints, Pietas Regia
When the first Indo-Persian eyewitness accounts of visits to Europe appeared in the late eighteenth century, these male authors were taken aback by displays of physical intimacy between men and women in the public sphere. Such proximity was read as signaling the disintegration of ‘the moral and the immoral, and the decent and the indecent’ in European society.1 These texts, alongside those penned by Iranian Persian visitors to Europe, share perceptions of zan-i firangi (European women) as objects of their critical and objectifying scrutiny.2 By 1839, Indo-Persian accounts often tied the corrupting influence of European women’s sexual immorality to the political threat embodied by Europe.3 Symbolically, European women came 1 Tavakoli-Targhi, “Imagining Western Women,” p. 76. 2 Farangi (popularly translated as “Frankish” or “European”) refers to someone from a region in farang (“Europe” or the lands associated with Western Christendom). Landau, “Visibly Foreign, Visibly Female,” p. 100. 3 Tavakoli-Targhi, 81.
Madar, H. (ed.), Prints as Agents of Global Exchange, 1500-1800. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press doi: 10.5117/9789462987906_ch01
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to represent the broader political and cultural conflicts between the East and West; as such, the female body became “an important metaphor for demarcating the self and the other.”4 For observers to identify the female body as a marker of cultural difference might not seem surprising, considering that European colonizers, including those who traveled to Muslim courts, had been engaging in a discourse about the “other” for a few centuries as an instrument of colonization. In contrast, however, these Indo-Persian first-person responses about European difference emerged comparatively late in the history of such East-West exchange, in response to the ever-increasing dominance of European colonial might that was taking shape throughout South Asia during the late eighteenth century. This essay focuses on an earlier moment in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries of Mughal rule, remarkable for the relative lack of such othering discourses, when the power dynamics were reversed and the Mughals constituted one of the wealthiest empires in the world. By focusing on early Mughal representations of European women, I seek to explore the extent to which ideas regarding the (Occidental) “other” were already ingrained in elite South Asian society and to ask whether “othering” is inherent to discourses of power. Inspired primarily by European prints, the images at hand were produced by the Mughal court in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, under the emperors Akbar (r. 1556-1605) and Jahangir (r. 1605-27). Although European images certainly informed opinions regarding Europeans in the Mughal court, I do not believe that conveying information about Europeans was their central purpose. Rather, I propose that encounters with European printed material contributed to negotiations over visually representing the Mughals’ courtly culture. Not simply a matter of adapting a variety of stylistic techniques and powerful symbols, this process involved locating synergies between various religions and cultures, an important characteristic of early Mughal rule. In contrast to Europeans, the Mughal court was far more open to exploring points of convergence between cultures – even if ultimately it was utilized to support the Mughals own political rhetoric. In the process, this essay challenges and deconstructs popular and prevailing problematic constructs, including the Mughals (and by extension, Muslims) as “foreigners” and the local as a form of “pure” cultural expression. To establish the framework necessary to understand Mughal attitudes towards Europeans as well as the medium (prints) that facilitated their encounters with European visual culture, I first examine two curious incongruities: 1) although the Mughals valued European prints, they were not interested in European printing technology; and 2) although significant visual material confirming Mughal interest in European imagery exists from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, 4 Tavakoli-Targhi, 74.
Concealing and Revealing the Female Body in European Prints and Mughal Paintings
there are few textual references demonstrating Mughal interest in Europeans and Europe. Thus the Mughals appear to have been uninterested in printing technology for reproducing and disseminating texts even as European prints inspired Mughal paintings and some European prints even found their way into esteemed muraqqas (albums containing an assemblage of prized paintings and calligraphy). Moreover, although the Mughals were apparently unmotivated to document visits by Europeans in their official court chronicles, they commissioned a variety of paintings and drawings containing European subjects. Considering these peculiar inconsistencies, early Mughal translations of European prints are especially worthy of inquiry. A significant body of scholarship addresses the religious-political symbolism and stylistic influence of European prints on painting under the Mughal emperors Akbar and Jahangir.5 As the Mughals did not respond to this body of material as visiting Jesuit priests hoped (i.e., to assist in their conversion to Christianity), studies focusing on Akbar and Jahangir’s fascination with Christian imagery generally examine stylistic transmission and symbolic meaning to help explain their appeal. The focus on stylistic analysis involved demonstrating the indebtedness of Mughal painting to European illusionist strategies, highlighting the transformative influence of naturalism and realism on Mughal painting, a proposition that is challenged in this chapter. Scholarly attention has been also paid to understanding the popularity of Christian imagery and the ways in which the Mughal court understood, interpreted, and utilized elements from this body of visual material to help construct their own imperial images. Additionally, this essay examines a comparatively less explored body of material; while considerable scholarship focuses on the frequent transmission of Renaissance Christian imagery, this essay examines how European prints of a secular nature – often including nude or semi-nude female figures – were re-contextualized in a Mughal environment and reframed in Mughal paintings. More specifically, I compare the influence on Mughal painting of Renaissance Christian imagery – often taking the shape of veiled, cloaked figures – in contrast to the naturalistic treatment of the nude or semi-nude female body in prints of a more secular character. Unlike the later eighteenth century Indo-Persian texts, the early visual encounters of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries demonstrate more varied cultural responses: although recognizing difference, Mughal patrons and artists negotiated and to a certain degree synthesized elements from this body of visual material as they explored possibilities for fashioning Mughal models of female chastity and sensuality in service of the court. In contrast to contemporaneous Western attitudes and to later Indo-Persian discourse, it is important to underscore how early Mughal patrons and artists 5 The influence of European paintings on Mughal painting was considerably less since far fewer paintings reached the Mughal court.
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explored synergies – rather than reified differences – with European material, alongside a variety of other cultural sources. That is not to say that the Mughals of this period ignored or dismissed cultural differences but that perceived differences between cultures could be located through absences (of subject matter, of styles of representation) rather than the proliferation of visual caricatures. Furthermore, early Mughal encounters with European prints may have inspired shifts in how they conceptualized and represented their own women and by extension, themselves. Before proceeding, I must highlight a vital caveat: while this essay focuses on European prints, the Mughals were actively engaged in creating ties to Central Asian, Persian, and local South Asian cultures; European influence was just one of several sources mined, explored, and negotiated. I maintain that European influence did not have a totalizing or even privileging effect on Mughal painting but that it, alongside a variety of cultural influences, provided opportunities for exploration and reflection. By engaging with these other resources, early Mughals asked how “other” cultural representations of women measured up to their own visual imagery: what might they learn, what might they reject, where might cultural overlap exist, and where might lines demarcate difference?
Curious Incongruities: Prints vs. Presses and Visual Representations vs. Textual Absences Two intriguing anomalies involving the history of European prints and European presence in the Mughal court, once unpacked, will help us to better understand this encounter. First, the Mughals clearly valued prints, evidenced not only from the inclusion of prints in muraqqas but also from the large number of Mughal paintings and drawings that reference European prints, either by direct copying or by combining elements extracted from a variety of prints into a new image.6 Mughal patrons and artists’ interest in prints stood in contrast to the patrons’ apparent indifference to the technology that produced them: printing presses. While the prints gifted to Mughal rulers produced changes in Mughal painting, the prints themselves induced no desire among the Mughal emperors to produce engravings or to set up presses.7 Secondly, Mughal court chronicles documented very little 6 Of particular note, Jahangir’s Album, made between 1608 and 1618, now in Berlin, and the Gulshan Muraqqa in Tehran both contain large numbers of European prints and Mughal drawings/paintings based on western prints. Bach, “European Painting and Mughal Miniatures”, p. 33. For a concise and useful history of the European prints that traveled to the Mughal Court (by originary region and artists/ printmakers), please see Beach, The Grand Mogul, pp. 155-56. For a list of significant illustrated European books in Akbar’s possession, please see Bailey, “The Truth Showing Mirror”, p. 386; Bach, 31. 7 Ogborn, India Ink, p. 17; Richards, The Mughal Empire, pp. 289-90; A.H. Qaisar in Stronge, p. 289, fn. 25.
Concealing and Revealing the Female Body in European Prints and Mughal Paintings
about visiting Europeans, which is in sharp contrast to the number of images of Europeans that can be found in Mughal paintings. Addressing both incongruities offers insights valuable to understanding Mughal translations of European prints. The first printing press with movable metal type to reach India was originally destined for Ethiopia; en route from Portugal, it wound up in Goa, where the Jesuits convinced the Portuguese authorities of its necessity. This and subsequent presses were established along the peninsula’s coastline and owned by the Church who used them for evangelical purposes. They were put to use by the Jesuits from late 1556 onwards to produce Christian texts in various south Indian languages in Romanized scripts.8 The Mughal emperor Akbar acquired numerous printed European books from Jesuit missionaries – including the multivolume polyglot Bible, or Biblia Regia – who brought them to the courts of Akbar and his son Jahangir in hopes of converting them.9 By the end of Akbar’s reign, the Emperor “[had] amassed an astounding collection of Renaissance visual and literary artifacts […] [including] a vast number of engravings of the work of artists ranging from Michelangelo, Raphael, and Taddeo Zuccaro to Dürer and Martin de Bos.”10 In 1606, Jahangir expressed an interest in having a printing press that could print works in Persian to Father Xavier but Father Xavier did not deliver it to Jahangir and the Emperor did not pursue it.11 Mughal nobles and intellectuals similarly did not show significant interest in printing. According to Miles Ogborn, some successor states made efforts to suppress printing presses, suggesting they perceived them to be a potential threat to established modes of authority.12 These rulers’ extensive libraries were formed through a combination of patronage (i.e. command of a variety of resources), gift-giving (i.e. representing alliances, political favor, filial legitimacy), and plunder (i.e. military might) – all critical signifiers of power. Handmade books were valuable to the Mughals because they involved great expense, considerable human labor, and skill in the arts of calligraphy, painting, and bookbinding. A manuscript was a vehicle for information but it also potentially conveyed wealth, political alliances, hereditary legitimacy, and military success. As an object of power and prestige, a symbol of elite status, and a luxury item, hand scribed and 8 Subrahmanyam, “A Roomful of Mirrors,” p. 42. 9 The Biblia Regia was printed between 1568 and 1573 by the Flemish printer Christoffel Plantijn (or Chistophe Plantijn) in Antwerp, Approximately 1,200 large folio format copies were produced. The Bible was the result of collaborative efforts between the printmaker and scholars, under the supervision of Benito Arias Montano, a Spanish theologian. Patronized and heavily subsidized by Philip II, the Biblia Regia contained text in Latin, Hebrew, Greek, and Syriac as well as several engravings. Subrahmanyam, Courtly Encounters, pp. 156-157. 10 Subrahmanyam, Courtly Encounters, 157; Bailey, “The Indian Conquest of Catholic Art,” p. 25. 11 Alam and Subrahmanyam, “Frank Disputations,” p. 474. 12 Ogborn, 17.
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painted manuscripts possessed more historical and cultural cache than a recently printed book. Thus it was the prior and possible histories of a given manuscript – merited by the valuable resources that went into its making in terms of materials used, pigments made from gold and semi-precious materials, and human labor and skill – that secured its value and transmission over time. In comparison, printed material – made of less expensive materials and with relatively less human effort – existed in numerous reproductions, making them less valuable and thus less esteemed objects of collection. Thus, hand-produced manuscripts possessed a more singular and enduring quality compared to printed books; although printing technology was known and available to them, the Mughals preferred commissioning hand scribed, hand painted manuscripts in order to uphold established markers of elite patronage.13 Given the preference for works by hand and despite the loss of many European prints that once entered the Mughal court, evidence demonstrates that European prints held value as suggested by the placement of select prints side by side with esteemed works of calligraphy and painting in muraqqas. One might argue that the distance that such prints traveled reflected the scope of the Mughal court’s reputation, while the style characteristic of these prints conferred upon them a sense of novelty and curiosity. Yael Rice persuasively argues that the linear quality of prints – the result of the lines created by etching – mirrored the linear quality of Mughal calligraphy and painting, extolled for the thin fine lines of the brush. Thus, Mughal artists and patrons were drawn to European engravings’ technical qualities due to “perceived similarities in technique and form” between its long established practice of precise brushwork and the products of modern printing practices.14 As Rice observes, “Mughal artists’ fluency in graphic linearity facilitated – indeed made possible, this productive transcultural encounter.”15 Nevertheless Rice notes that the European style was still singled out as distinctive or “other.”16 Rice’s argument that European prints “fit easily into an established system of aesthetics and artistic practice,”17 while retaining a distinctive identity is supported by this essay, although I endeavor to show that the ability of European prints to fit easily into established systems also applies to content and narrative. Rice’s analysis intersects with the work of Gregory Minissale, who compellingly argues that previous claims of Mughal painting’s indebtedness to European art’s strategies for conveying naturalism and realism must be challenged. Studies that repressed or ignored Mughal painting’s “conventional, hieratic […] idealizing 13 14 15 16 17
Ogborn, 17. Rice, “The Brush and the Burin,” p. 309. Rice, “Lines of Perception,” pp. 203, 211-212. Rice, “Lines of Perception,” p. 212. Rice, “Lines of Perception,” p. 217. Rice, “The Brush and the Burin,” p. 305.
Concealing and Revealing the Female Body in European Prints and Mughal Paintings
tendencies”18 – continuities from Persian painting’s anti-illusionist aesthetic – by concentrating on European influence are part of the legacy of colonial efforts to “empower myths of European technical and intellectual supremacy.”19 Moreover, as Minissale argues, the insistence on privileging naturalism (including realistic portraiture and ‘proper’ perspective) has minimized if not suppressed viewers’ ability to recognize and appreciate abstract design and aesthetic content. He points to “so-called natural history painting” that is frequently lauded for its accurate portrayal of animals’ anatomies in miniature scale. If, however, one was to look at such examples from an alternate lens, it becomes possible to appreciate the “purely aesthetic qualities of line, rhythm, sense of balance and overall design attributes.”20 Minissale’s de-privileging of the significance of naturalism is integral to this essay and, as will become clear, it is also vital to consider South Asian ways of seeing and practices affiliated with the development of Mughal visual culture alongside Persian contributions. The early Mughal emperors’ interest in European books and prints can be understood within the larger context of their curiosity in the types of gifts offered by representatives of European imperial powers and from European trading companies.21 While European curiosities are documented in official chronicles and the foreign envoys who brought them are acknowledged under a specific category ( firangi), individuals who visited the Mughal court are infrequently mentioned in court chronicles.22 We do, however, encounter a number of images of Europeans in the illustrations that accompanied court histories (Akbarnama, Jahangirnama and Padshahnama); these figures are usually placed further away from the emperor, often in the lower registers of the paintings, signaling their lower status in the Mughal court.23 Despite the exotic curiosities they brought, European merchants were not considered political equals but rather were viewed as representatives of a lower mercantile class. Nevertheless, their inclusion in court illustrations suggests that the presence of Europeans was desirable alongside visitors from other regions – including Central and West Asia and from elsewhere in South Asia – since visitors from far distances would reinforce the emperor’s image, whose “court was thronged with attendants representing the great kingdoms of the world.”24 Indeed, Akbar commissioned Abdus Sattar to learn the Frankish language to learn about European 18 Minissale, Images of Thought, pp. xxv-xxvi. 19 Minissale, p. xxiv. 20 Minissale, pp. xxv-xxvi. 21 Richards, 287; Beach, “Visions of the West in Mughal Art,” p. 177. 22 Beach, “Visions of the West in Mughal Art,” p. 177; Subrahmanyam, “Courtly Encounters,” p. 163; Subrahmanyam, “A Roomful of Mirrors,” p. 46. 23 Das and Gupta, “Mapping the “Other,” p. 71. 24 Beach, “Visions of the West in Mughal Art,” p. 181.
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kings and the Greek and Latin sciences, based on authoritative European textual sources in the possession of the Jesuits.25 Similarly, Tahir Muhammad Sabzwari, author of the Rauzat al-Tahirin, visited Goa during the early years of Jahangir’s reign as part of a Mughal mission and used his time to gather information on the Portuguese in Asia and the politics of Europe.26 Moreover, most rulers of northern India maintained diplomatic relations with the Portuguese in Goa from the 1530s onward.27 In the end, however, the fact remains that the Mughals did not seek to explore the lands of Europe in person. Existing scholarship on the Mughals probes whether the virtual absence of Europeans in court chronicles suggests that early Mughals viewed the Portuguese and English as insignificant and thus unworthy of mention in official histories. M.N. Pearson’s study of Gujarat proposes that by the last quarter of the sixteenth century, the Sultans (a title differentiating non-Mughal Muslim rulers from Mughal ones) of Gujarat and the Mughals paid scant attention to the Portuguese presence in the area since “glory was not won at sea” but with “horses racing over the plains.”28 Pearson says there was minimal contact between them and that the Mughals’ attitude toward the Europeans was “one of neglect and indifference.”29 Subrahmanyam argues that the Portuguese further lost standing with the Mughals as a result of damaging political events at home, which were to the benefit of the English and the Dutch.30 Even the Jesuit priests apparently slipped in appeal with the Mughals due to their inability to participate productively in court debates, likely becoming tiresome to members of the Mughal court. Broadly speaking, it is probable that Europeans themselves were embarrassingly underwhelmed by how they looked in the eyes of the Mughal court. According to Anthony Parr, “[d]iplomats and other travelers confronted with the opulence and high ceremonial of oriental courts realized that they were looking at highly developed, strongly ethnocentric cultures which could not easily be belittled – indeed, Europeans often felt belittled by them.”31 Never mind what the Mughals thought of Europeans, European visitors to the Mughal court were themselves humbled and perhaps humiliated by their comparatively spartan presentations. The English were especially ignored by Mughal sources, apparently because the Mughals had little need for the types of goods the English brought and English 25 Subrahmanyam, “Frank Disputations,” pp. 471-474. 26 Subrahmanyam, “Introduction,” Explorations in Connected History, p. 9. 27 Subrahmanyam, “Introduction,” Explorations in Connected History, p. 7. 28 M.N. Pearson, Merchants and Rulers in Gujarat: The Response to the Portuguese in the Sixteenth Century, pp. 89-91. 29 Pearson, The New Cambridge History of India, p. 53. 30 Subrahmanyam, Explorations in Connected History, pp. 68-69. 31 Anthony Parr as cited in Richmond Barbour, “Power and Distant Display”, p. 345.
Concealing and Revealing the Female Body in European Prints and Mughal Paintings
presentations failed dramatically when compared to Mughal ceremony and pomp.32 At the Mughal court, “far removed from the ships and ordnance that justified an English posture of power,” the English diplomat Sir Thomas Roe and the merchants (as opposed to political ambassadors) that came before him were made aware of their embarrassing inadequacies.33 Simply put, the merchant status of early English visitors and their paltry gifts failed to impress.34 They were unable to secure commercial advantages since the early representatives could not “persuade Mughal authorities to take England for something more than a tiny island aptly represented by merchants.”35 Banbour persuasively argues that “in their efforts at diplomatic showmanship, these men left, and saw that they left, their Moghul audiences with an impression of England as a peripheral and trifling realm.”36 After all, the official court histories were carefully constructed panegyrics intended to create a particular image of the ruler; there was no room for extraneous/superfluous details – as the English appeared to be – only that which could be manipulated as supporting evidence of a given ruler’s right to rule and the superiority of his reign. Thus, “neglect and indifference” existed side-by-side evidence for the limited curiosity outlined above. The twin poles of neglect and curiosity are evident in the Mughals’ opinions of Europeans as extracted from textual sources and deserve further consideration vis à vis the visual record. The Mughals’ indifference towards Europeans may have been further driven by their negative views of them: Europeans, especially in the Persian and Arabic chronicles, were described as a violent, untrustworthy people, who resorted to devious and underhanded activities to advance their interests.37 The quarrelsome, deceitful, sinister European was also seen as a religious bigot.38 However, these negative assessments must be considered side by side with another view of Europeans, namely as transmitters of the strange and wonderful (ajaib-o-gharaib): the European was the maker of curios and exotic objects. The Akbarnama details a Mughal expedition to Goa in the late 1570s that brought back tobacco, musical instruments, birds, and animals from the New World.39 Reflecting the same interest in European exotica, the few references made to Europeans in the Akbarnama are related to European painting. 40 In addition to 32 Barbour, p. 343; Subrahmanyam, “Frank Submissions,” p. 80. 33 Barbour, p. 345. 34 Subrahmanyam, “Frank Submissions,” p. 83. 35 Barbour, p. 346. 36 Barbour, p. 347. 37 Subrahmanyam, “On the Hat-Wearers,” p. 48. 38 Subrahmanyam, “On the Hat-Wearers,” p. 54. 39 Subrahamanyam, “On the Hat-Wearers,” pp. 51, 65, 77; Subrahmanyam, “Taking Stock of the Franks,” pp. 75, 76, 78, 96. 40 Abu’l Fazl, Akbarnama, vol.1, p. 183. Subrahmanyam, “A Roomful of Mirrors,” p. 53.
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paintings, the Mughals were attracted to other European objects such as clocks and firearms. As Subrahmanyam observes, however, “they dealt with them playfully, as powerful monarchs could in the face of what they imagined were quite minor interlocutors,”41 Mughal interest in European prints – and the styles and contents therein – suggests that prints were viewed within the context of ajaib-o-gharaib and with dynamic curiosity. Indeed, Abu’l Fazl refers to the “magic making [art] of the Europeans.”42 Whereas European accounts of encounters with Mughals are full of negative stereotypes, which participate in what we now refer to as Orientalism, the same cannot be said of Mughal representations of Europeans in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Is it because early Mughal rulers did not aspire to dominate Europe, nor perceive Europeans to be a political threat, that they did not systematically construct them as “other”? Whereas the Mughals found little of the early European visitors to be worthy of mention in the court chronicles, the negative representations of the Mughal emperors by the English were used in service of British endeavors to obtain trading privileges that eventually culminated in territorial conquest and control. In contrast, early Mughal emperors Akbar and Jahangir both honored their Timurid/Central Asian/Persian cultural legacy and simultaneously held cosmopolitan aspirations, ruling over a remarkably diverse geographical area. Thus, they developed a social-political framework that nurtured an ability to look for and build upon synergies between cultures, political ideologies, and religions in order to communicate with their subjects, relate to political contemporaries, create alliances, and maintain allegiances. 43
European Prints, South Asian Sculpture, and the Female Body By the mid-to-late eighteenth century, Europeans and Muslims were engaging in a discourse that to a substantial degree focused on appraising the status of women as a measuring stick of cultural values, with each side voicing critiques about the treatment and behavior of women in the other’s society. We know from seventeenth-century travel accounts that many European visitors were flustered by their inability to meet women who lived in Muslim rulers’ harems, which they expounded as evidence of a given ruler’s misogynistic, despotic ways. Mughals likewise had little direct contact with European women, who were dissuaded from 41 Subrahmanyam, “Frank Disputations,” p. 507. 42 Abu’l Fazl, Akbarnama, vol. 1, p. 183. 43 This approach is confirmed in Gulru Necipoglu’s analysis of Mughal ceremony. Necipoglu, “Framing the Gaze in Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal Palaces,” p. 313.
Concealing and Revealing the Female Body in European Prints and Mughal Paintings
traveling to South Asia. The only substantial resources for examining the nature of Mughal interest in the European female form during this early period are the European prints that entered the Mughal court and the translations by Mughal artists of these prints into Mughal paintings. My examination into the visual record of this period probes what the Mughals assumed and/or imagined about European women and about gendered relationships in Europe. Are we able to determine from existing imagery whether Mughal interest in European women was anthropological, or if they viewed European women as exotica? In what ways did Mughal perspectives on European male visitors – who were seen as inferior to the emissaries sent by the Safavids and Ottomans – influence their framework for understanding and representing European women? What did the Mughal court think these images said about European men’s attitudes toward their women and Western society? Did such representations solidify a Mughal identity by accentuating difference or advance a cosmopolitanism by appropriating them? Perhaps most significantly, to what extent is it possible to take Mughal representations of European women at face value? In regards to the latter, it is important to consider the possibility that perhaps they did not, just like their own representations of Mughal women were not to be taken as veritable records. Although some of the above questions prove difficult to parse without corresponding textual evidence, I seek here to demonstrate what the visual record has to tell us about the Mughal absorption of European images, a corresponding shift in representing Mughal women, and changes in representational approaches to Mughal femininity. It should be underscored first that the Mughal’s incorporation of the European visual record differs markedly from their Persian contemporaries, the Safavids; in her article “Visibly Foreign, Visibly Female,” Amy Landau examines Safavid constructions of the European woman as the object of temptation and desire in the seventeenth century, when an abundance of Persian images of the European woman (zan-i farangi) appeared. 44 These images likely were inspired by the arrival of European prints and paintings beginning around 1600 that contained images of European females depicted scantily clad and in uninhibited postures. 45 To the Safavid viewer, the image of unveiled, bare-headed women with low necklines that exposed their neck and breasts, would have suggested desirability and sexual availability. 46 The recumbent nude, which epitomized sexual availability, became one of the first European themes absorbed into Persian painting. Nudes in Persian painting were relatively rare and when they appear they were justified 44 Landau, p. 99. 45 Landau, p. 101. 46 By contrast, in a European context the style of dress, hairs, and body type invoked neo-Platonic ideals of beauty, chastity, and virtue. Landau, p. 107.
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Figure 1 A Celestial Woman Attendant with a Vina (Stringed Instrument). Artist/maker unknown. 956-973, Sandstone, 25 1/8 × 10 1/2 × 7 1/4 inches (63.8 × 26.7 × 18.4 cm). Philadelphia Museum of Art, Purchased from the Stella Kramrisch Collection with funds contributed by R. Sturgis Ingersoll, Nelson Rockefeller, and other generous donors, the bequest of Sophia Cadwalader, the Popular Subscription Fund, and proceeds from the sale of deaccessioned works of art, 1956-75-12
Concealing and Revealing the Female Body in European Prints and Mughal Paintings
as illustrations for literary narratives, such as Khusraw spying Shirin bathing and Iskandar and the Sirens from Nizami’s Khamsa. 47 Thus, the mostly nude reclining woman removed from a narrative context was a novelty in Persia in the 1590s. Moreover, Landau proposes that Safavid interest in European female nudes was likely heightened by their naturalism, which would increase the degree of sexual enjoyment. 48 The European female became a subject of fantasy and eroticization after being drawn by Riza Abbasi in the late sixteenth century, with many other artists following suit. 49 Significantly, this development reversed the well-known orientalist “East-West” dialectic in which the eroticized and exoticized “Eastern” woman is the object of Western male fantasy.50 Since the Safavids and Mughals share an inheritance of Persian – particularly Timurid – manuscripts, which include rare instances of female nude imagery, one might expect the Mughal encounter with European nudes would be comparable to that of the Safavids. However, Safavid and Mughal artists responded in different ways to such subject matter. This can be understood in part as resulting from their respective cultural and geographic contexts. The Mughals – including Hindu artists in the Mughal atelier – were familiar with South Asian visual culture and its long history of representing nude and semi-nude voluptuous females in sculptural form (Figure 1). Although such sculptures often appear unclothed, upon closer viewing many sculptures reveal thin lines etched into their skin to represent the folds of their clothing.51 This well-established practice of depicting sensuous female bodies in the form of Hindu female deities, pan-Indic celestial nymphs, and yakshis (earth spirits believed to ensure fertility, abundance, and auspiciousness) was a vital part of South Asia’s visual environment.52 While frequently but by no means exclusively shown in anthropomorphic form, Hindu deities are not considered to be human f igures; indeed, meticulous studies of anatomy and musculature would have limited an image’s ability to convey celestial symbolisms, meanings, and aspects of beauty. Thus Hindu sculptors relied on non-naturalistic techniques and styles when fashioning these icons. Although South Asian and European artistic styles may clearly be differentiated from one another, and many 47 Canby, The Rebellious Reformer, p. 32; Landau, p. 110. 48 Landau, p. 123, fn. 44. 49 Canby, Masterpieces from the Department of Islamic Art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, p. 225; Landau, p. 116. 50 Landau, pp. 100, 115. 51 As Vidya Dehejia emphasizes, “the sensuous body of the Indian sculpted tradition is never a nude body; it is always the body adorned.” Dehejia, The Body Adorned, p. 22. 52 I find Dehejia’s definition of sensuous useful and to clarify my use of the term, I cite her definition here: “By ‘sensuous,’ I refer to those images that display the human form in all its bodily glory – smoothly slender, curvaceous, and somewhat provocative […] Sensuous imagery frequently has overtones of the erotic [or] sexually suggestive imagery.” Dehejia, The Body Adorned, 17.
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scholars have explained their differing approaches to modeling the body, taking a step back allows us to recognize some broad similarities between these two influences on Mughal artistic representation. Specifically, it should be noted that the soft, fleshy bodies, ample bosoms, and relatively wide girth of such pan-Indic sculptures are not altogether different from the voluptuous bodies of women in European prints. Indeed, the curvaceous, full-f igured female form depicted in European prints would have been much more familiar to local artists than the almost androgynous female body types in Timurid painting, which were often diminutive in scale. In this sense, one may view South Asian artists in Akbar and Jahangir’s ateliers not only as mediators between their Mughal patrons and European prints but also as intermediaries between Mughal, South Asian, and European conceptions of representing the female figure. Thus, in contrast to Landau’s compelling work on Safavid aesthetics, I propose that the Mughal encounter shifts the discussion from East-West f ixations on sexualizing the “other” toward sensualizing one’s “own” women, and navigating in the process existing Mughal norms of chastity, seclusion, and desire. I am not at all suggesting that European art functioned as an entirely neutral intervention, for Jesuit and Persian accounts document the hostile nature of the Jesuits toward Hinduism and Islam; rather, like Persian and South Asian cultural influences, European influence in this case proved for the Mughals to be another source of reflection, mediation, and transformation. Although I will return to the following image in more depth later, I think it is worth reflecting here how figures such as the Pietas Regia (Figure 2) would be seen from the perspective of the Hindu artists in Akbar’s atelier. The Pietas Regia is the second title page from the first volume of Plantiin Biblia Sacra (also known as the Polyglot Bible) printed by Christopher Plantiin in Antwerp between 1568-1572. It became one of the first books to enter Akbar’s library through visits by the Jesuits. The Pietas Regia stands on a pedestal – akin to a multitude of South Asian icons – and she has a voluptuous body, features exposed breasts, and wears nearly transparent clothing that reveal more than they conceal, features common to both European Renaissance prints and Hindu sculpture. Moreover, the Pietas Regia held particularly close ties with a religious text (other allegorical personifications were of noble virtues and the esteemed arts) and, like other European allegories, her meaning relied upon a variety of symbols and attributes. For the Hindu artists of Akbar’s kitabkhana, such an image of a voluptuous woman may have suggested visual translations of their own sculptural practice, which also relied upon symbols and attributes to signify the identity and specific powers of a given icon. It is thus plausible that printed European images – with figures shown in the round – facilitated a transition and translation between sculpture and paper. Along these lines, Milo Beach also notes that Renaissance techniques appealed to
Concealing and Revealing the Female Body in European Prints and Mughal Paintings
Figure 2 Pietas Regia, the second title page from the first volume of Plantiin Biblia Sacra (also known as the Polyglot Bible). Printed by Christopher Plantiin in Antwerp between 1568-72. Newberry Digital Collections (Newberry Library)
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Hindu artists because the three-dimensionality of Western images resonated with native sculptural traditions at a time when painting was becoming increasingly popular.53 In addition, as Vollmer writes, “[the emperor] Akbar was impressed: the most holy book of the Franks was dedicated to their ruler.” The biblical dedication to King Phillip on the title page doubtless made an impression on Akbar as a sign of political and spiritual authority.54 While the dedication was symbolized by the Pietas Regia, a sensuous woman surrounded by a rich set of meanings, may have been novel to Akbar given his Timurid background, the role and function that such female representations could play resonated with local South Asian traditions and offered the potential for being used in service of his image-making efforts.
The ‘Veiled Ones’ and the Unveiled: Negotiating Models of Chastity and Sensuality While the Safavids reacted to European images of women by exoticizing, eroticizing, and objectifying them, Mughal artists responded to the same techniques and subject matter by internalizing them, a cultural and visual practice that occupies the remainder of this essay. That is not to say that early Mughal responses to European female imagery remained static; on the contrary, Akbar’s atelier and Jahangir’s atelier took notably different approaches to being exposed to European visual material. During Akbar’s reign, Mughal artists engaged in a broad act of translation by frequently depicting Western women with markers of South Asian influence, whether holding lotus flowers, handling a local musical instrument (for example, the woman depicted in Figure 3 who holds a lotus flower and a four-stringed khuuchir), wearing Mughal jewelry, consulting with local ascetics, or sitting in Mughal pavilions. Additionally, the representation of early Christian f igures in European prints, especially the Virgin Mary, influenced depictions of esteemed women of the Mughal harem by drawing upon representations of Christian women’s mode of dress. In contrast, Jahangir’s atelier over time became less interested in representing European women and more interested in adapting aspects of European representational approaches to depict Mughal women as more voluptuous and sensuous. As I will argue, this process did not involve a simple transference of European techniques such as modeling to create more full-bodied women; rather, European treatment of the female form merged with local sculptural practice ideas about the feminine to produce new images of Mughal women under Jahangir. 53 Beach, Mughal and Rajput Painting, p. 105. 54 Vollmer, “Christian Themes in Mughal Painting,” p. 71.
Concealing and Revealing the Female Body in European Prints and Mughal Paintings
Figure 3 A female figure standing in a landscape holding a four-stringed “khuuchir” and a lotus, South Asia, Mughal, late 16th century (c. 1590). Opaque watercolor with gold on paper, mounted with borders of gold-decorated cream and blue paper; page: 31.6 × 20.7 cm (12 7/16 × 8 1/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift in honor of Madeline Neves Clapp; Gift of Mrs. Henry White Cannon by exchange; Bequest of Louise T. Cooper; Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund; From the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection 2013.311
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Figure 4 The Martyrdom of Saint Cecilia, a close copy of an engraving by Jerome [Hieronymus] Wierix (Netherlandish, c. 1553–1619). Artist: Nini. South Asia, Mughal, first half of the 17th century. Opaque watercolor and gold on paper. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London; IM.139A-1921
The thin, revealing clothing that clings to the bodies of female allegorical figures such as the Pietas Regia stands in stark contrast to European prints depicting Christian figures, including the Virgin Mary cloaked in long, heavy veils and robes. During the early years of Akbar’s reign, prints containing images of early Christian female figures, in particular the Virgin Mary and saints, were shown modestly covered in clothing that visually communicated notions of chastity, purity, and piety (see Figure 4 for a Mughal rendering of a European print depicting the martyrdom
Concealing and Revealing the Female Body in European Prints and Mughal Paintings
of Saint Cecilia that provides an example of the type of voluminous, all-enveloping clothing associated with notable women of piety).55 These depictions were in keeping with Islamic views of Miryam (Mary), the mother of Prophet Isa (Jesus) that extol her purity, piety, and virtue. Thus, the European treatment of dress was viewed as an appropriate signifier for “the veiled ones,” the esteemed women of the Mughal zenana, so-titled in the Akbarnama, Akbar’s official court history. Before proceeding with this examination of how Akbar’s court viewed such images, however, a few points must be clarified. First, one must distinguish between European Renaissance stylistic treatment of dress (and European artistic techniques broadly speaking) and “Christian” subject matter. I place “Christian” in quotation marks since certain figures like the Virgin Mary and Jesus may have been considered to be Christian by European court visitors, but they were not necessarily seen as Christian by the Mughals, for many such figures are viewed as part of Islam’s history.56 In this sense, the Virgin Mary was not exclusively viewed as Christian or European by Akbar’s court, but also as an esteemed Muslim figure. Similarly, we may assume that the Mughals differentiated between contemporary European Christians and historic “Christian” (or Muslim) figures from the Middle East. The designation of “the veiled ones” (pardeh giyan) to the women of the zenana coincided with the separation of administrative and domestic spaces as implemented by Akbar.57 By making the private residences and the imperial women who lived in them inaccessible to those outside the imperial household, he tried to create a sanctified/sacrosanct identity for the imperial family.58 Thus, while the arrangement decreased the visibility of the royal women, it elevated their status. As Ruby Lal observes, references to “the veiled ones” invoked an intimate connection to the “advertisement of the purity and sanctity attached to the notion of the familial.”59 For example, Akbar’s mother, Hamida Banu Begum, was given the title of “the veil of chastity and pillar of purity;” Akbar’s foster mother (Maham Anga), his stepmother (Haji Begum), his aunts Gulbadan Begum and Gulchihreh Begum, and Salimeh Sultan Begum, his senior wife, were similarly revered as chaste and pure.60 55 This Mughal painting closely follows an engraving by Jerome [Hieronymus] Wierix (Netherlandish, c. 1553-c. 1619), which can be viewed at the following webpage: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/ search/398774 (accessed February 16th, 2021). 56 Although considered a part of Islam’s history, there are critical differences in how they are viewed; for example, Jesus is viewed as a prophet in Islam. 57 Lal, “Mughal Palace Women,” p. 96. 58 Lal argues that imperial women’s inaccessibility and invisibility was further solidified through the absence of the names of the mothers of future heirs in the annals, even though they were critical to the survival of the empire (Lal, pp. 96-97). 59 Lal, p. 99. 60 Lal, p. 100.
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The link between virtuous early Christian women and “the veiled ones” of Akbar’s zenana was made explicitly in a passage describing Akbar’s birth in the Akbarnama. Here the chastity and purity of the imperial women is established by a set of interrelationships between the Mughal’s Timurid/Mongol genealogy, Christianity, and Islam. The author of Akbar’s official history, Abu’l Fazl, compares Akbar’s birth to the birth of the Mongol line (which includes Chingiz Khan) and Jesus, speaking to a confluence of mythical and religious narratives that was instrumental to Akbar’s rule.61 Alanquva [the semi-mythical ancestor of the Mongol sovereign line] was reposing on her bed one night when a glorious light cast a ray into her tent and entered the mouth and throat of that fount of spiritual knowledge and glory. The cupola of chastity became pregnant by that light in the same way, as did her Majesty Miryam [the Virgin Mary]. That day was the beginning of the manifestation of his Majesty the King of kings who after passing through divers [sic] stages was revealed to the world from the holy womb of her Majesty Miryam Makani [Akbar’s mother] for the accomplishment of things visible and invisible.62
In linking Alanquva’s conception with that of the Virgin Mary (Miryam), Abu’l Fazl establishes a chain of descent to legitimize and propagandize Akbar’s birth by conferring an ideal of purity that was passed down through his mother. Moreover, by referring to his own mother as Miryam Makani (a posthumous title given to Hamida Banu Begum, which means “dwelling with Miryam”),63 and by renaming the wife who gave birth to Jahangir, the daughter of the Raja of Amber, “Miryam az-Zaman” (Mary of the Age),64 Akbar further confirms their chaste, pure nature. From this perspective, the Jesuits’ report of a wall painting of the Annunciation seen over the doorway to Maryam Makani’s (Akbar’s mother) private residence – if accurate – can be understood as having symbolic meaning from and within a Mughal perspective/context.65 The painters in Akbar’s atelier mirrored the text used to describe esteemed women of the court through visual means. Such techniques included the style of dress that concealed the Virgin Mary’s body (covered in a blue veil and pink cloak in Figure 5) 61 Minissale, p. 151. 62 Abu’l Fazl, Akbarnama, vol. I, pp. 179-80; Minissale, pp. 151-52, fn. 107. 63 The Council of Trent (1542-1556) declared the Virgin Mother Mary a “cupola of Chastity,” “the dignified abode of (of her son Jesus)” and the Persian honorific title “makani” is a close approximation of the Latin phrase. Vollmer, p. 71. 64 Minissale, p. 152. 65 The wall mural dates to circa 1575. Vollmer, p. 71. See also Smith, The Moghul Architecture of Fatehpur Sikri, plate CIX.
Concealing and Revealing the Female Body in European Prints and Mughal Paintings
Figure 5 The Annunciation, from a Mirror of Holiness (Mir’at al-quds) of Father Jerome Xavier, made for Prince Salim (later the emperor Jahangir). South Asia, Mughal, 1602-1604. Opaque watercolor and gold on paper; page: 26.2 × 15.4 cm (10 5/16 × 6 1/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund 2005.145.15.a
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Figure 6 Detail from the birth of Timur, from an imperial copy of Abul Fazl’s Akbarnama, (Vol. I). South Asia, Mughal, c. 1602. Painting ascribed to Surdas Gujarati. Opaque watercolors with gold on paper. © The British Library Board (Or.12988.f.34v)
Concealing and Revealing the Female Body in European Prints and Mughal Paintings
Figure 7 Detail of the baby Akbar and his mother Hamidah Banu Maryam Makani, from an imperial copy of Abul Fazl’s Akbarnama (Vol I). Artists: Sanvalah and Narsingh. South Asia, Mughal, c. 1602. Opaque watercolors with gold on paper. © The Briitsh Library Board (Or.12988.f.22)
when illustrating images of their Timurid ancestors (wearing a green veil and white dress in Figure 6), Akbar’s mother (shown swathed in pink in the upper right corner of Figure 7), and his foster mother (depicted on the far left in a white veil and yellow robes, seated next to a young Akbar in Figure 8) as represented in an illustrated Akbarnama from the late sixteenth century. A page from an illustrated Mughal copy of the Jami al-Tawarikh (c. 1596) uses the same style of dress when representing another Mughal Mongol matrilineal ancestor, Ghazan Khan’s mother, in a painting
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Figure 8a (left) and 8b (right) Double folio illustration of the marriage festivities of the son of Maham Anga, the foster-mother of the Mughal emperor Akbar, in 1561, from an imperial copy of Abul Fazl’s Akbarnama. Artists: 8a: La’l and Sanwala; 8b: La’l and Banwali Khord. South Asia, Mughal, c. 1590-95. Opaque watercolors with gold on paper. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London; 8a: IS.2:9-1896; 8b: IS.2:8-1896
depicting his birth,66 as does a folio representing Alanquva and her three sons from a Mughal copy of the Chingiznama (1596), currently in the collection of the Los Angeles Museum of Art. It should be noted that early Christian women covered themselves with veils and long robes similar to those worn by Timurid women in Persian painting. What distinguishes the paintings created for Akbar involves the stylistic treatment of representing their dress on paper. The illusionistic techniques developed by Renaissance painters brought close attention to the way clothing drapes over the body, the fall of the folds, and even its movement. Pre-Mughal Timurid painting by contrast utilizes straight lines to outline garments. In significant scenes (such as births of princes) from the late sixteenth / early seventeenth century Akbarnama, senior female members of the Mughal family are enveloped in heavy textiles much like the ones worn by the Virgin Mary as a means of commenting upon their chaste and pure nature and perhaps confirming their elevated status. However, in several zenana scenes depicted in the same Akbarnama, it is noteworthy that some women of 66 The folio is the collection of the Worcester Art Museum (1935.12).
Concealing and Revealing the Female Body in European Prints and Mughal Paintings
Figure 9 Birth of a royal infant (detail). South Asia, Mughal, about 1580. Opaque watercolor and gold on paper. 39 × 30.5 cm (15 3/8 × 12 in.). Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Ross-Coomaraswamy Collection, 17.3112
lesser status wear similar garments but do not look the same as a result of contrasting treatment of the textile’s volume and drapery. Furthermore, when one looks at an imperial birth scene from an earlier period (Figure 9, c. 1580) before Akbar’s policies related to elevating the status of the Mughal maternal line – one realizes that the reclining mother of the newly born prince (possibly Jahangir) is depicted in more luxurious textiles, which accentuate decorative patterns rather than the folds of heavy, block colored robes. Moreover, the mother is not veiled in the same way; this painting reveals the color of the mother’s hair and arms. I cite this example as evidence for linkage between Akbar’s institutionalization of “the veiled ones” and the corresponding mode of representation, in this instance, through the use of veils and robes modeled after Christian European imagery. Calling on this mode and style of dress as a means of signifying the piety of ‘the veiled ones’ suggests one way that Akbar and his artists selectively drew upon elements from European prints for their ability to convey distinctly Mughal ideas made possible by overlapping beliefs and practices. Although I focus here on one mode of European Christian influence, a variety of religious and cultural sources helped create a multi-vocal but synergistic image, potentially connecting multiple communities or at least constructing an image that could be understood by a variety of viewers (even if partially). In addition to Mughal exposure to images of modestly dressed Christian women, semi-nude and nude images of European women in a naturalistic style also entered the court. Although the voluminous veils and robes that covered the Virgin Mary were invoked in several representations of esteemed female members of the Mughal family, allegorical figures such as the Pietas Regia were instrumental in mediating
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between Akbar’s paradigm of chaste and pious “veiled ones” and a long-standing practice of depicting sensuous female bodies in South Asia, including yakshis, celestial nymphs, courtly attendants, and Hindu deities. The European allegorical prints that reached the Mughal court included female personifications of the Seven Virtues and the Seven Liberal Arts, who were commonly depicted with specific attributes and in acts exemplifying a specific virtue (e.g. Charity could be represented offering alms).67 We can return here to one of the earliest allegorical images seen by the Mughal court: the Pietas Regia, also known as “The Piety of Philip II as Protector of the Catholic Faith” (Figure 2). My intent in revisiting this image is to build upon my previous discussion on similarities between Renaissance female imagery and the feminine ideal in Indian sculptural practice to present the value of such images for Jahangir. An allegorical representation of the piety of Philip II, Pietas Regia represented a continuation of an ancient Roman personification of faithful and pious attachment – whether to Roman deities, one’s country, or one’s family – known as Pietas.68 In the Polyglot Bible, she is surrounded by a collection of symbols, signifying a variety of Philip II’s secular, martial, and spiritual qualifications, and inscriptions that collectively speak to Philip II’s qualifications as protector of the Catholic faith.69 To the viewer’s right, “instruments of arts and crafts are suspended on an olive tree [whereas on the left] the vertical assemblage of weapons […] corresponds to the instruments of war.”70 Pietas Regia stands on a pedestal and wears classically inspired robes that crisscross over her chest in a way that accentuates her exposed breasts; one hand rests upon a shield bearing Philip II’s coat of arms and her other arm holds out an opened copy of the Polyglot Bible (the open pages feature a variety of scripts). A putto (cherubic angel) crowns her head with a laurel wreath. Ebba Koch states that European prints containing western allegories were adapted to express Mughal ideas of rulership and “to represent the reality and the glory of their own dynasty and rule,” and she connects the Pietas Regia to Jahangir’s allegorical paintings, focusing on Abu’l Hasan’s “Jahangir Standing on a Globe and Shooting at the Head of His Enemy Ambar.”71 Gauvin Bailey further suggests that images such as the Pietas Regia and the Gheeraerts portrait of Elizabeth I inspired “the development in Mughal portraiture of the single, standing figure often raised 67 Vollmer, p. 75. 68 “Pietas,” Encyclopaedia Britannica. 69 Koch, “The Influence of the Jesuit Mission on Symbolic Representations of the Mughal Emperors,” p. 2; Bailey, Counter Reformation Symbolism and Allegory in Mughal Painting, p. 382. 70 Koch, “The Influence of the Jesuit Mission on Symbolic Representations of the Mughal Emperors,” pp. 5, 11. 71 Koch, “The Influence of the Jesuit Mission on Symbolic Representations of the Mughal Emperors,” pp. 5, 8.
Concealing and Revealing the Female Body in European Prints and Mughal Paintings
on a dais and dominating a simplified ethereal field.”72 Although these viewpoints speak to the contributions of European allegories to early Mughal imperial portraits, I am interested here in the influence of the Pietas Regia – along with other female allegorical images – on the female form in Mughal painting. That is, I seek to explore how the manner in which her body is represented in European prints was received, contextualized, and translated in the Mughal court. Amina Okada and Gauvin Bailey tie several representations of European women in Mughal drawings and paintings to the Pietas Regia.73 These figures wear the same long garments with billowing sashes, with a gathering of cloth to separate their breasts.74 In these images, Pietas appears in Mughal drawings and paintings as a devotee, as the object of devotion, and in a few instances, as Majnun’s lover Layla.75 Bailey rightly comments that these varied roles stemmed from Mughal artists “[r]ecognizing in these figures the same symbolic value invested in their own representations of female subject, object of devotion – as icon or idol or of a lover, devotee, symbolic of piety.”76 The rich tradition of representing female figures in South Asian visual and literary culture was undoubtedly loaded with symbolic meaning and references, yet it is still worthwhile to explore what specifically facilitated Mughal artists’ recognition of local South Asian conceptions of women in European prints. As discussed above, there exists a long history in South Asia visual culture of depicting voluptuous, sensuous women in sculpture, and local artists may have viewed the half-dressed and undressed women depicted in European prints within the same trajectory of local images including yakshis and Hindu female deities. It is helpful at this point to further examine the matter of dress and clothing as they apply to representing women’s bodies in a South Asia context. Vidhya Dehejia’s analysis of the suggestion of clothing on female sculptures demonstrates the importance of this issue: Drapery is an integral part of alankara (ornament), and the female body, whether sculpted or painted, is invariably a body adorned with fine, often translucent clothing. Indeed, what makes Indian sculpted imagery so very sensuous is the tantalizing reference to the body in clothing […] Sculptors in India depicted their figures seemingly bare, but a close observation will reveal – at ankles, waist, neck, and arms – hints of the delicate folds of fine drapery […] Skirt folds depicted quite prominently and with considerable attention, rarely allowed the folds to obstruct the view of the limbs, placing them so that they swing away from the 72 Bailey, Counter Reformation Symbolism, pp. 77-78. 73 Bailey, Counter Reformation Symbolism; Okada, “Cinq dessins de Basawan au Musee Guimet;” and Okada, Imperial Mughal Painters. 74 Bailey, Counter Reformation Symbolism, pp. 77-78. 75 Bailey, Counter Reformation Symbolism, p. 80. 76 Bailey, Counter Reformation Symbolism, p. 300.
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body. Similarly, a close scrutiny of these figures will generally reveal traces of a scarf-like garment intended to cover the breasts, but sculptors took the artistic liberty of moving the fabric aside in one manner or another.77
Dehejia draws attention to how vital the depiction of drapery was to the ornamentation of an image and further argues that ornament has a more significant role in producing meaning than is usually recognized in Western treatises, which relegate ornament to the merely decorative. Indeed, in a South Asian context, ornament ensured the female image’s sensuousness, which contributed to the function of this imagery: to ensure fertility, abundance and auspiciousness and also to offer pleasure. Given such practices across South Asia, how might we explain how such bodies of images were mediated in the Mughal atelier, where Persian and Central Asian cultural influences also played active roles? Let’s consider the Pietas Regia (Figure 2) side by side with the Mughal painting of a woman in Greco-Roman robes and hairstyle holding a four-stringed instrument (khuuchir) and a lotus (Figure 3); the similarities in pose, style of dress, and the feather above each women’s head suggests that the European print inspired the Mughal painting. A blue scarf depicted on the Mughal image crosses her chest much like the one that separates the bare breasts of Pietas Regia, and her robe’s drapery similarly accentuate rather than cover her body. In the Mughal painting, however, the woman’s breasts while accentuated by the crisscrossing of the blue cloth, are covered by a pink gown. The feathered quill held by the angel above the woman’s head becomes the feather plume of her headdress, mirroring the feathers that were part of Timurid headdresses. While the Pietas Regia’s downward extended arm rests upon a shield while her raised arm holds an open book, the female figure in the Mughal painting is depicted with similarly posed arms hold a khuuchir and a lotus. The choice to replace the shield and book with the musical instrument and flower indicates a purposeful choice to replace the European woman’s emblems with those more relevant to a Mughal South Asian context: the khuuchir is a Mongol bowed musical instrument and the lotus is a long-standing pan-Indic symbol of purity. The allegorical function of Pietas Regia thus intersects with the practice of depicting Buddhist and Hindu figures with objects that function as identifying attributes and here, the associated allegorical symbolisms were made relevant to the Mughal court. Furthermore, the decision to highlight yet cover the women’s breasts in the Mughal painting seems to reveal tensions over the appropriateness of a semi-nude body during Akbar’s reign given the importance of chastity and veiling.78 Similar translations of classical female 77 Dehejia, The Body Adorned, 34. 78 This is not to say that images of semi-nude women do not exist at this time but when they appear, they often require justification (e.g. a mother breastfeeding).
Concealing and Revealing the Female Body in European Prints and Mughal Paintings
forms reappear in other paintings of Akbar’s court, with slight modifications. For example, a similarly dressed woman in the Musee Guimet’s collection holds a palm branch and cross in one hand and an ektar (a single-stringed instrument) and bow in the other, standing on a dragon’s head. To European viewers, the woman may represent Saint Margaret trampling a dragon,79 but in a South Asian context, the dragon’s head may have been interpreted as her vehicle or mount, common to Hindu deities. One finds repeated attempts to give South Asian attributes to figures inspired by those in European prints, including the adornment of jewelry, the wearing of a bhindi, or the depiction of skin painted a slightly darker hue. Other Mughal paintings depict Christian and neo-classical figures sitting in a Mughal pavilion, on a Mughal throne, or surrounded by the type of wares that were in vogue in the Mughal court. These efforts seem to reflect a process whereby many figures and their associated allegorical symbolisms were made relevant to the Mughal court. Despite sharing certain similarities and points of contact, it should be clear by now that the Mughal’s rendition of European female bodies differs noticeably from those shown in the original European prints. Mughal revisions of European models – even when it involved painting over an original engraving – reflected a significant softening of facial features and bodily contours, making the figures slighter and more youthful, even when painting over an original engraving. It would seem that Mughal artists felt European bodies were too large, too muscular, and too harsh; they were not initially the object of temptation and desire – although later images suggest they may have become so – but significantly stylized, and idealized in the translation. Thus, even if executed in a naturalistic style, European female figures may not have been viewed as natural or ideal bodies by members of the Mughal atelier. This may also help explain why European images did not become the subject of exotic and erotic fantasies, as Amy Landau proposes was the case for such images as understood by the neighboring Safavid Dynasty: in South Asia female sensuousness was not unprecedented (rather it was the norm) and what is commonly described as European naturalism was not necessarily seen as “natural.” Before concluding this section, I want to turn to an intriguing Mughal illustration of King Putraka in the Palace of the Beautiful Patali, from a Kathasaritsagara (Figure 10). Dated to c. 1590, this fascinating painting depicts two recumbent women placed below the princess Patali, who reaches her arms out to receive King Putraka. The women on the left feigns sleep while the woman on the right stretches her arms above her head in a way that leaves her bare breasts exposed. Although it is not possible to establish a direct link, it is striking how much these two women resonate with a European print of Cleopatra by Marcantonio Raimondi, which Sheila Canby identifies as the source for Riza Abbasi’s early experiments with 79 Okada, Imperial Mughal Painters, Indian Miniatures from the 16th and 17th Centuries, p. 89.
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Figure 10 King Putraka in the palace of the beautiful Patali, from a Kathasaritsagara. Pakistan, Lahore, Mughal, c. 1590. Opaque watercolors with gold on paper. Los Angeles County Museum of Art. From the Nasli and Alice Heeramaneck Collection, Museum Associates Purchase (M.78.9.7)
reclining nudes.80 While it is impossible to establish a direct connection through textual sources and surviving European prints from the Mughal court, the visual similarities – occurring at the same moment in time – between these images seem to signal an early adaptation of the European reclining (semi-) nude, although it may have come through a Persian source based on a European print. Additionally, her appearance in the private residence of Hindu royalty, cast here as a scene from Medieval literature, is intriguing for its location in a non-Mughal context. Although it is far more common to encounter semi-nude images of European women during Akbar’s reign, it would seem that such early negotiations with and tensions surrounding (partial) female nudity in Mughal paintings were mediated by non-Mughal female bodies. Ironically, over time, such images of Eastern Muslim women lying in wait to please a male ruler would become stereotypical images for European audiences.
80 Canby, The Rebellious Reformer, p. 32.
Concealing and Revealing the Female Body in European Prints and Mughal Paintings
Allegory and Sensuality in Service of the Court The tensions involved in depicting Mughal women partially nude would be further mediated under Jahangir’s patronage (r. 1605-1627). This shift coincides with the popularity of allegorical imagery during Jahangir’s reign as evidenced by a series of allegorical portraits of the Mughal ruler, a genre first developed under his reign. Prints of various allegories depicting the Seven Virtues and the Seven Liberal Arts – both European originals and Mughal translations of the originals – are preserved in muraqqas of the time. The rendering of bodies, both male and female, also changed under Jahangir’s patronage. When it comes to depicting women’s bodies, there is a clear movement from the groups of slim, anonymous, rather diminutive figures in Akbari paintings to individual depictions of comparatively full-bodied women under Jahangir. It is noteworthy that, similar to portraits of male members of the court set against a minimalist background, these solitary female figures serve as the prime subjects of Jahangiri paintings (Figure 14). Yet, what differentiates these images from the single portraits of male court officials is that the women depicted are not known likenesses of real women. Moreover, unlike more common Mughal depictions of unidentifiable, “generic” male (and female) attendants that are typically shown in the margins of a calligraphic page, these anonymous, stylized women often emerge as individual subjects of dedicated paintings. Despite the differences between the paintings of identifiable male portraits and idealized female paintings, I propose that these female images were also used to support the state apparatus. While esteemed members of the Mughal zenana during Akbar’s reign are shown wearing adaptations of Timurid dress, sometimes marked by additional European stylistic elements in the treatment of cloth to signify purity and piety, female attendants depicted during Jahangir’s period typically wear the dominant mode of dress reserved for women. For example, the two women shown on the left side of Figure 7 wear the same thin, diaphanous white Muslin kameez (long shirt), under which one can see the color of their shalwar (baggy pants), as the women in Figures 13 and 14. In other words, we see that “the conventional depiction of the well-covered chaste Mughal women”81 characteristic of the Akbar period gives way to more sensuous depictions of Jahangiri women, whose nearly diaphanous clothing sometimes reveals their breasts. As Syed Zehra observes, “[t]he place of the chaste queen mother, the epitome of purity, was taken over by the lover woman who was of overpowering beauty, sensuality and her body no more remained swathed in shrouds.”’82 Under Akbar, the women most worthy of representing the Mughal line are “the veiled one” but under Jahangir, the women who become the representative 81 Zehra, pp. 73-74. 82 Zehra, pp. 73-74.
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Figure 11 Detail from a painting portraying Jahangir in audience, showing Jahangir leaning against the back of his throne that contains an image of Fides. South Asia, Mughal, 1618. Opaque watercolors with gold on paper. 20.2 × 13.8 cm. Photo Credit: bpk Bildagentur / (Museum Fur Islamische Kunst, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Inv. – Nr. I 4597, fol. 5) / Photo: Georg Niedermeiser / Art Resource, NY
body are modeled after attendants in part because of their potential to symbolize servitude and faithfulness to the ruler and also to invoke pleasure. The shift from modeling female chastity to an embrace of sensuality is not simply the selective application of European techniques related to modeling of the Mughal female figure. Rather one must consider how European allegorical content and the treatment of the female body, as viewed through a South Asian lens, contributed towards this change. The personifications of virtues and arts as depicted in European prints were not attached to recognizable, identifiable women but rather to idealized representations of the female body. This European approach meshed well with the Mughals reluctance to create portraits of real women, at least not in the sense of a portrait as a readily identifiable likeness (as compared
Concealing and Revealing the Female Body in European Prints and Mughal Paintings
Figure 12 Detail from a folio from the Gulshan Album (Rose Garden album). South Asia, Mughal, c. 1600. Opaque watercolors with gold on paper. Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.: Purchase — Charles Lang Freer Endowment, F1952.2
to the vast number of verifiable Mughal portraits of male members of the court). While Renaissance naturalism influenced the representation of portraiture for male members of the Mughal court;83 it could not impact the representation of females in the same fashion since they remained idealized types. Like Pietas Regia, a beautiful, voluptuous woman who symbolized loyalty to Philip II as well as the ruler’s piety, comparable Mughal images could function as more than objects of desire by representing service and faithfulness to the ruler and by extension to the empire. A painting of Jahangir in audience evidences such an interest in mining European allegorical imagery in service of the court (Figure 11). On the back of the throne upon which Jahangir sits, one sees a semi-nude woman, partially wearing classically inspired robes, whose outstretched hand holds a vessel. Although her other hand is obscured by Jahangir’s headdress, Vollmer identifies her as Fides or Faith whose attributes include a chalice and a cross,84 and who symbolizes reliability and trust. That Fides is depicted beside Jahangir on his throne indicates her symbolic value to his image as ruler. As Vollmer states, “Whoever came to Jahangir’s throne did not need any further instruction about the faithful, good governance of the ruler.”85 This image of Fides, along with many other Mughal paintings that depict European women clad in classical dress, are frequently referred to as “allegorical figures” since they drew inspiration from European allegories like the Pietas Regia.86 Recognizing that these paintings share a source of stylistic origin, might we then extend our understanding of Jahangiri depictions of individual female figures associated with the Mughal court as possessing allegorical meaning? In other words, is it possible to read paintings depicting a single Mughal female form as expressing 83 Stronge, p. 288. 84 The cross symbolizes Christian sacrif ice and the chalice signif ies sacrament and thus spiritual nourishment. Vollmer, p. 78. See also Shamos, Bodies of Knowledge, p. 48. 85 Vollmer, p. 78. 86 Bailey, Counter Reformation Symbolism and Allegory in Mughal Painting, p. 299.
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Figure 13 Woman holding a portrait of Emperor Jahangir. Northern India, Mughal court, c. 1627. Opaque watercolor and gold on paper. Page: 30 × 22.1 cm (11 13/16 × 8 11/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift in honor of Madeline Neves Clapp; Gift of Mrs. Henry White Cannon by exchange; Bequest of Louise T. Cooper; Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund; From the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection 2013.325
Concealing and Revealing the Female Body in European Prints and Mughal Paintings
Mughal ideas of rulership, in a similar fashion to how the Pietas Regia expressed Philip II’s rule through Western allegories? To explore this possibility, let’s turn to a set of three images. In Figure 12, a detail from a folio features five women with Western-inspired hairstyles and garments consisting of belted tunics, long skirts and billowing capes. The woman in the upper right corner holds up a print/painting depicting a haloed saint, perhaps for the benefit of the woman in a praying position across from her. As Ettinghausen observes, the saint places his arms on what seems to be the lower edge of a window lined with a luxurious textile indicating that he is seated in the privileged jharoka (window seat). This is the same pose that Mughal emperors adopted when they revealed themselves to their subjects from an imperial jharoka.87 The Musée Guimet possess a painting of Jahangir holding up a painting of his father Akbar (similar to the woman in Figure 12 who holds up an image of a saint), both of whom are shown with halos and within a jharoka lined with a rich textile, like the saint in Figure 12.88 Although he presumably holds up his father’s portrait to demonstrate filial piety and also for the privilege of the viewer, Jahangir carries his father’s image at almost eye-level, denoting his legitimacy as successor. The final example, a painting believed to have been painted after Jahangir’s death, shows a woman – in the style heralded under Jahangir’s patronage – holding a portrait of an elderly Jahangir, who is shown at a jharoka window (Figure 13).89 Like the Western woman whose adoration, piety, and servitude to the saint, and to other devotees, is demonstrated by holding up the image of a saint (Figure 12), and like the Musée Guimet’s portrait of Jahangir exhibiting filial piety, the Mughal woman holding the painting of Jahangir here (Figure 13) similarly demonstrates her dedication and faithfulness to the ruler even in his memory. The relationship between these three images suggests an allegorical role assumed by the Mughal woman: a model of devotion and faithfulness. Similar readings may be applied to earlier Mughal paintings of individual women who wear similar clothing, including the woman in Figure 14 who holds a book and a sprig of flowers, and another Jahangiri attendant figure in the David Collection who carries a fly whisk, a lotus flower, and wears a dupatha (scarf) that crisscrosses her chest, resembling the dress of Pietas Regia.90 Similar to European 87 Atil, The Brush of the Masters, p. 104; and Ettinghausen, “New Pictorial Evidence of Catholic Missionary Activity in Mughal India,” p. 394. 88 Jahangir with a Portrait of Akbar, by Abu’l Hasan, 1614, Musee Guimet, Paris. This image can be viewed at the following webpage: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jahangir_with_portrait_of_Akbar.jpg 89 Ellen Smart proposes that this is a portrait of a noblewoman, despite her inaccessibility; if so a portrait of Jahangir was presumably gifted to the woman represented to confirm her privileged relationship to the emperor. Komaroff, Gifts of the Sultan, p. 226. 90 A Lady with Flower and Fly Whisk, c. 1630, David Collection, Inv. No. 23/1982. This image can be viewed at the following webpage: https://www.davidmus.dk/en/collections/islamic/materials/miniatures/ art/23-1982 (accessed February 16th, 2021).
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Figure 14 Court Lady, Mughal (reign of Jahangir), ca. 1620. Attributed to Bishandas, (active 1590 – 1640). Opaque watercolor, ink and gold on paper. Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.: Purchase — Charles Lang Freer Endowment, F1984.43
Concealing and Revealing the Female Body in European Prints and Mughal Paintings
allegories, these attributes signified values important to the Mughal court: education (book), sprig of flowers (cultural refinement), fly whisk (servitude) and purity (lotus flower). Like the Mughal woman who holds the image of a saint (Figure 12), these women also wear diaphanous blouses that reveal more than they cover – a form of alankara (in this case, translucent clothing as a form or ornament). Their thinly veiled breasts may also signify nourishment and fecundity – in keeping with local expectations – but also intimacy: she presents herself for the pleasure of the viewer. Indeed, the small size of these paintings encouraged close examination and, like all imperial paintings, such images were intended for private, privileged consumption, participating in a politics of pleasure. Earlier scholarship on the Mughals by British colonialists and Indian nationalists devalued Mughal (read “Muslim”) painting by classifying it as secular (in contrast to spiritual “Indian” art) and belonging to the realm of desire.91 Additionally British colonialists cited contemporary South Asian rulers’ proclivity toward debased desires and licentious behavior as evidence for the justification of British rule. In contrast, recent scholarship by Molly Aitken and Dipti Khera92 endeavors to challenge earlier interpretations by arguing that pleasure was a means of creating bonds. As they astutely argue, it is during moments of leisure and enjoyment that meaningful bonding occurs and lasting alliances are formed, not when one political party is forced to sign a treaty under threat or force. In this sense, the politics of pleasure can be understood to include the enjoyment found when admiring a painting of a beautiful women and since the majority of the Mughal emperor’s court consisted of Hindus, it was critical that these women follow local ideals of feminine beauty and by extension, auspiciousness. Thus these women could be interpreted as the Mughal translations of the Pietas Regia while simultaneously fulfilling local ideals and expectations. Understanding the symbolic importance of the paintings of individual courtly attendants that are the sole subject of paintings may also be informed by Mughal paintings that depict Jahangir in the zenana. A well-known painting depicts Jahangir and Prince Khurram within luxurious gardens surrounded by women who attend to him and collectively express their allegiance.93 A woman (popularly identified to be Jahangir’s consort, Nur Jahan) faces and serves him, another woman holds a fly whisk, another carries a wine canister, and still others hold plates of 91 Coomaraswamy, “On Mughal and Rajput Painting;” Coomaraswamy, Rajput Painting. 92 Aitken, “The Laud Ragamala Album, Bikaner, and the Sociability of Subimperial Painting,” pp. 47-52; Aitken, “Aesthetic Pleasure and the Power of Mughal Painting’s Perfectly Beautiful Women To Shape Empire,” and Khera, “Jagvilasa: A World of Pleasure in Eighteenth-Century South Asia,” talks delivered at Skidmore College, April 2, 2015. 93 Freer Gallery of Art, F1907.258. This image can be viewed at the following webpage: https://asia. si.edu/object/F1907.258/ (accessed February 16th, 2021).
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fruits and flowers. These group portraits of women demonstrating allegiance to the emperor suggest how images of Jahangiri women depicted in individual portraits easily may have been extracted and idealized to serve an allegorical purpose. As Molly Aitken observes, scenes of women surrounding a ruler who is the center of activity helped convey his authority, as South Asian ideals of kingship were dependent upon beauty, charm, and virility, along with virtues such as courage, strength, and wisdom.94 However, to express male virility, female sensuality was necessary thus speaking to the need to reconcile models of female piety. This was made possible by the fact that neither the groups of women in the zenana nor the single paintings of Mughal women can be concretely identified as known or real figures; all of these depictions of women were understood to be imaginary representations; only then was it appropriate for them to be enjoyed by members of the court. This was an important part of the function of such paintings, for when viewed by members of the court they enhanced the image of a male elite patron by demonstrating his power in domestic, social, and administrative realms.95
Conclusion In one of Akbar’s debates with the Jesuits – as documented in the Akbarnama – who tried to convince Akbar that monogamy produces greater respect and love between a husband and wife than the harems of the Mughals, Akbar responded: “There are numerous concubines and many of them are neglected and unappreciated and spend their days unfructuously in the privy chamber of chastity, yet in spite of such bitterness of life they are flaming torches of love and fellowship.”96 Here, Akbar links the zenana with chastity and ties it to qualities of love and fellowship, supporting my argument for the development of the symbolic value of courtly women as emblems of fidelity to the emperor, which manifests as chastity and purity under Akbar and through the sensuous female attendant with Jahangir. Additionally, similarities in form between European and South Asian images of women allowed the Mughal atelier to connect (European) women’s allegorical value as symbolizing dedication and faithfulness to a ruler (exemplified by the Pietas Regia) to local South Asian values attached to voluptuous female sculptures that ensured fertility and auspiciousness. These images fulfilled the desires of the Mughal court that needed to reconcile the social-political framework instituted by Akbar for ensuring the chastity and sanctity of “his” women with a long established 94 Aitken, “Pardah and Portrayal,” pp. 267-71. 95 Aitken, “Pardah and Portrayal,” pp. 267-71; Brown, “If Music be the Food of Love,” p. 68. 96 Abu’l Fazl, Akbarnama, vol. ii, 372.
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and deeply ingrained model of South Asian rulership where “sexuality was a valued attribute of a leader or monarch, to be celebrated in official charters and inscriptions.”97 From European prints, Akbar drew on models of early Christian dress to convey the purity and piety of esteemed, senior women of the Mughal family. Under his patronage, Akbar’s artists explored the potential of classically inspired and allegorical prints – a body of material marked by sensuous female bodies – to express established local South Asian and for developing Mughal ideas around femininity. While these women retain their “Western” identity in Mughal translations of the prints, the artists incorporate a variety of local, Mughal references. Central to both of these trends was the ability of patron and artist to perceive similarities and intersections between Persian, South Asian, and European cultures – be it notions of chastity and piety (shared between Christian, Islamic, and Timurid/Mughal sources) or representations of sensuous female bodies (South Asia sculpture and European prints). Rather than concealing senior female members of the imperial family, or experimenting with sensuous forms vis a vis representations of European women, Jahangir’s artists “revealed” their idealized visions of Mughal beauties. European female bodies are no longer the locus of forays into depicting sensuous women, instead idealized Mughal women take their place. That voluptuous, exposed women were personifications of noble virtues and the esteemed arts helped mediate earlier models of Mughal modesty, in a manner that did not compromise the ruler’s reputation but rather enhanced it. Ruling an empire that relied on cultural exchange for success, the Mughals looked for opportunities to create connections with the various cultures they encountered to develop and strengthen their claims of legitimacy and build support. As a result, they were compelled to think through differences when formulating a distinct political, social, cultural identity. In seeking synergies between Christian, European, Islamic, Timurid/Mughal and Hindu beliefs and practices, Mughal artists and their patrons cultivated links between a variety of cultures and belief systems, links that were severed by colonial and nationalist discourses.
Bibliography Abu’l Fazl, Akbarnama, trans. H. Beveridge. Calcutta: Royal Asiatic Society, 1907. Reprint. Delhi: Ess Ess Publications, 1977. Aitken, Molly Emma. “Aesthetic Pleasure and the Power of Mughal Painting’s Perfectly Beautiful Women to Shape Empire.” Talk delivered at Skidmore College, NY. April 2, 2015. 97 Dehejia, “Reading Love Imagery on the Indian Temple,” pp. 98-99.
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Aitken, Molly Emma. “Pardah and Portrayal: Rajput Women as Subjects, Patrons, and Collectors.” Artibus Asiae, 62:2 (2002): 247-280. Aitken, Molly Emma. “The Laud Ragamala Album, Bikaner, and the Sociability of Subimperial Painting.” Archives of Asian Art, 63:1 (2013): 27-58. Alam, Muzaffar and Sanjay Subrahmanyam. “Frank Disputations: Catholics and Muslims in the Court of Jahangir (1608-11).” The Indian Economic Social History Review, 46:4 (2009): 457-511. Atil, Esin. The Brush of the Masters: Drawings from Iran and India. Washington DC: The Freer Gallery of Art, 1978. Bach, P. “European Painting and Mughal Miniatures.” In Intercultural Encounter in Mughal Miniatures (Mughal-Christian Miniatures), ed. Khalid Anis Ahmed. Lahore: National College of Arts, 1995, 29-36. Bailey, Gauvin Alexander. “Counter Reformation Symbolism and Allegory in Mughal Painting.” Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1996. Bailey, Gauvin Alexander. “The Indian Conquest of Catholic Art: The Mughals, the Jesuits, and Imperial Mural Painting.” Art Journal, 57:1 (1998): 24-30. Bailey, Gauvin Alexander. “The Truth Showing Mirror: Catechism and the Arts in Mughal India,” in The Jesuits: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts, 1540-1773, eds. John W. O’Malley et. al. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000, 380-401. Barbour, Richmond. “Power and Distant Display: Early English ‘Ambassadors’ in Moghul India.” Huntington Library Quarterly, 61:3/4 (1998): 343-368. Beach, Milo Cleveland, Mughal and Rajput Painting. Cambridge, New York, 1992. Beach, Milo Cleveland. The Grand Mogul: Imperial Painting in India, 1600-1660. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute: Williamstown, MA, 1978. Beach, Milo Cleveland. “Visions of the West in Mughal Art,” in Goa and the Great Mughal, eds. Jorge Manuel Flores and Nuno Vassallo e Silva. London: Scala Arts & Heritage Publishers, 2011, 170-89. Brown, Katherine. “If Music be the Food of Love: Music, Masculinity and Eroticism in the Mughal Mehfil,” in Love in South Asia: A Cultural History, ed. Francesca Orsini. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, 61-83. Canby, Sheila, et. al., eds. Masterpieces from the Department of Islamic Art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2011 Canby, Sheila. The Rebellious Reformer: The Drawings and Paintings of Riza-yi ‘Abbasi of Isfahan. London: Azimuth, 1996. Coomaraswamy, Ananda. “On Mughal and Rajput Painting,” in Art and Swadeshi. Madras: Ganesh & Co., 1912, 63-80. Coomaraswamy, Ananda. Rajput Painting: Being an Account of the Hindu Paintings of Rajasthan and the Panjab Himalayas from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century. London, New York: Oxford University Press, 1916. Dehejia, Vidya. “Reading Love Imagery on the Indian Temple,” in Love in Asian Art and Culture. Washington DC: Arthur M Sackler Foundation, 1999, 97-113.
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Dehejia, Vidya. The Body Adorned: Dissolving Boundaries between Sacred and Profane in India’s Art. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009. Ettinghausen, Richard. “New Pictorial Evidence of Catholic Missionary Activity in Mughal India (Early Seventeenth Century),” in Perennitas, ed. H. Rahner. Munster: Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1963, 389-396. Khera, Dipti. “Jagvilasa: A World of Pleasure in Eighteenth-Century South Asia,” presented at Skidmore College, NY., April 2, 2015. Koch, Ebba. “The Influence of the Jesuit Mission on Symbolic Representations of the Mughal Emperors,” in Mughal Art and Imperial Ideology: Collected Essays. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001, 1-11. Komaroff, Linda, ed. Gifts of the Sultan: The Arts of Giving at the Islamic Courts. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2011. Lal, Ruby. “Mughal Palace Women,” in Servants of the Dynasty: Palace Women in World History, ed. Anne Walthall. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008, 96-114. Landau, Amy. “Visibly Foreign, Visibly Female: The Eroticization of the Zan-i Farangi in Seventeenth-Century Persian Painting,” in Eros and Sexuality in Islamic Art, eds. Francesca Leoni and Mika Natif. Farnham, Surrey, United Kingdom: Ashgate, 2013, 99-129. Minissale, Gregory. Images of Thought: Visuality in Islamic India, 1550-1750. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2006. Necipoglu, Gulru. “Framing the Gaze in Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal Palaces.” Ars Orientalis, 23 (1993): 303-342. Ogborn, Miles. India Ink: Script and Print in the Making of the English East India Company. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2007. Okada, Amina. “Cinq dessins de Basawan au Musee Guimet.” Arts Asiatiques, 41 (1986): 82-88. Okada, Amina. Imperial Mughal Painters, Indian Miniatures from the 16th and 17th Centuries. Translated by D. Dusinberre. New York: Harry Abrams Inc. Publishers, 1992. Pearson, M.N. Merchants and Rulers in Gujarat: The Response to the Portuguese in the Sixteenth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976. Pearson, M.N. The New Cambridge History of India: Portuguese in India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. “Pietas.” Encyclopaedia Britannica (online), https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pietas (accessed February 16th, 2021). Rice, Yael. “Lines of Perception: European Prints and the Mughal Kitabkhana,” in Prints in Translation, 1450-1750: Image, Materiality, Space, eds. Suzanne Karr Schmidt and Edward Wouk. London: Ashgate, 2016, 202-233. Rice, Yael. “The Brush and the Burin: Mogul Encounters with European Engravings,” in Crossing Cultures: Conflict, Migration, and Convergence; the Proceedings of the 32nd International Congress of the History of Art, ed. Jaynie Anderson. Carlton, Victoria, Australia: The Miegunyah Press, 2009, 305-310. Richards, John. The Mughal Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
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Shamos, Geoffrey. “Bodies of Knowledge: The Presentation of Personified Figures in Engraved Allegorical Series Produced in the Netherlands, 1548-1600.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2015. Smith, Edmund. The Moghul Architecture of Fatehpur Sikri. Delhi: Indological Book House, 1973 (repr. 1893-94). Soujit Das and Ila Gupta. “Mapping the ‘Other’: Changing Representation of Europeans from Mughal to Company School Paintings.” Chitrolekha International Magazine on Art and Design, V:1 (2015): 66-85. Stronge, Susan. “Europe in Asia: The Impact of Western Art and Technology in South Asia,” in Encounters: The Meeting of Asia and Europe, 1500-1800, eds. Anna Jackson and Amin Jaffer. London: V&A, 2004, 284-295. Subrahmanyam, Sanjay. Courtly Encounters: Translating Courtliness and Violence in Early Modern Eurasia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012. Subrahmanyam, Sanjay. Explorations in Connected History: From the Tagus to the Ganges. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005. Subrahmanyam, Sanjay. “Frank Submissions: The Company and the Mughals Between Sir Thomas Roe and Sir William Norris,” in The Worlds of the East India Company, eds. H.V. Bowen, Margarette Lincoln, and Nigel Rigby. Woodridge, UK: Boydell Press, 2002, 69-96. Subrahmanyam, Sanjay. “A Roomful of Mirrors: The Artful Embrace of Mughals and Franks, 1550-1700.” Ars Orientalis, 39 (2101): 39-83. Subrahmanyam, Sanjay. “On the Hat-Wearers, Their Toilet Practices, and Other Curious Usages,” in Europe Observed: Multiple Gazes in Early Modern Encounters, eds. Kumkum Chatterjee and Clement Hawes. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2008, 45-81. Subrahmanyam, Sanjay. “Taking Stock of the Franks: South Asian Views of Europeans and Europe, 1500-1800.” The Indian Economic and Social History Review, 42:1 (2005): 69-100. Tavakoli-Targhi, Mohamad. “Imagining Western Women: Occidentalism and Euroeroticism.” Radical America, 24:3 (1993): 73-87. Vollmer, Franz-Josef. “Christian Themes in Mughal Painting,” in Indian Paintings: Themes, Histories, Interpretations, Essays in Honor of Goswamy, eds. Padma Kaimal and Mahesh Sharma. Ahmedabad, Mapin Publishing, 2014, 65-78.
About the Author Saleema Waraich is an Associate Professor in the Department of Art History at Skidmore College. Her research engages with a variety of issues involving the early modern, colonial, and national eras in South Asia, focusing on the Mughal period and its cultural, social, and political afterlives.
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The Sultan’s Face Looks East and West: European Prints and Ottoman Sultan Portraiture Heather Madar
Abstract Sultanic portraiture is a distinctive element of Ottoman art that was fed by cross-cultural contact. This genre was shaped in formative ways in the fifteenth century by Mehmed II, whose portraits reflect a hybrid of Italian and Timurid portrait conventions. The sixteenth century saw painted and printed series of Ottoman sultan portraits by European artists as well as painted series originating from the Ottoman context. These images played a significant role in the further development of Ottoman sultan portraiture through a complex back and forth movement of images, creating an important, multi-directional moment of visual exchange between the Ottoman Empire and Renaissance Europe. The role of prints seen here also underscores the under-explored significance of printed materials in these types of exchanges. Keywords: Mehmed II, Suleyman the Magnificent, Paolo Giovio, Seyyid Lokman, global Renaissance, Fatih Album
Print technology in Europe was linked to the Ottoman Empire almost from the moment of its inception. An anti-Ottoman polemic, Eyn manung der Cristenheit widder die durken (A Warning to Christendom Against the Turks) from 1454 was one of Gutenberg’s earliest printed pamphlets. Gutenberg also printed broadsides in 1454-1455 to support indulgences that were intended to raise money for the defense of Cyprus against the Ottomans.1 Within only a few decades of the invention of engraving, European prints were brought to the Ottoman capital and seemingly into the hands of the reigning Ottoman sultan, the famously pluralistic Mehmed II. Yet 1 Setton, The Papacy and the Levant, 1204-1571, p. 158.
Madar, H. (ed.), Prints as Agents of Global Exchange, 1500-1800. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press doi: 10.5117/9789462987906_ch02
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Figure 1 Costanzo di Moysis (Costanzo da Ferrara), Mehmed II, Sultan of the Turks (obverse), c. 1481, bronze, Samuel Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art
the late date of the establishment of printing presses in Istanbul and widespread perceptions of the hostility of the Islamic world to print technology have led to a general lack of discussion of the role of prints – both Western European and locally produced – within the Ottoman Empire. Yet it is clear that prints played a much more significant role within the Ottoman Empire and on Ottoman visual and textual culture than has been commonly assumed. A particularly clear and rich example of the cross-cultural movement of prints between Europe and the Ottoman Empire during the early modern period is provided by the complex interactions between European and Ottoman produced images of the Ottoman sultans in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II (1432-1481) famously initiated a moment of artistic exchange between Western Europe and the Ottoman Empire that focused around the creation of portraits of himself.2 His invitations and requests for a 2 Mehmed’s interest in European art and patronage of European artists has received considerable attention in the scholarly literature. See Necipoğlu, “Visual Cosmopolitanism and Creative Translation: Artistic Conversations with Renaissance Italy in Mehmed II’s Constantinople,” work by Julian Raby, including his Venice, Dürer and the Oriental Mode and “A Sultan of Paradox: Mehmed the Conqueror as
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number of European artists to be sent to his court culminated in the 1479 visit of the Venetian artist Gentile Bellini to Istanbul, which resulted in a painted as well as a medallion portrait. Other medallion portraits were also produced at the Sultan’s behest, including one by Costanzo di Moysis, also known as Costanzo da Ferrara. (Fig. 1) The medal shows clear references to classical prototypes and Western European political iconography through its equestrian pose, Latin inscriptions, profile bust portrait and the use of the medallion form itself.3 Mehmed’s artistic interests often looked west, reflecting both a desire to message to the West through a shared visual language as well as Mehmed’s own sense of participation in a shared classical Mediterranean past. Yet Mehmed’s portraits in other instances looked to the Muslim world, drawing in particular on precedents in Timurid royal portraiture in both pose and iconography.4 Connections between the Timurids and Mehmed were close during his reign, with diplomatic contacts between the two, and reports of the presence of Timurid painters as well as Timurid poets, artisans and others present in Istanbul.5 A clear example can be found in the portrait of Mehmed smelling a rose, attributed to either Sinan Bey or Siblizade Ahmed (1480). (Fig. 2) Gülru Necipoğlu has demonstrated how the frontal, cross-legged pose as well as the attributes of flower, handkerchief and archer’s thumb ring in the portrait of Mehmed draw on Timurid royal portrait iconography.6 Yet the depiction of Mehmed’s face is similar to his facial depiction in Bellini’s work and the suggestions of modeling and volume also indicate awareness of Italian Renaissance models. The image thus merges disparate visual traditions and portrait conventions with apparent intention. As Necipoğlu describes, “such culturally hybrid miniature portraits […] seem to have been created in response to the sultan’s wish to formulate a distinctively Ottoman idiom in portraiture that would stand out from both Italianate and Persianate models.”7 Images such as this one were likely intended by Mehmed to communicate to Persianate courts and function in an economy of gift exchange.8 Together with the Western-style images, a Patron of the Arts,” Campbell and Chong, Bellini and the East and Elizabeth Rodini, “The Sultan’s True Face? Gentile Bellini, Mehmet II and the Values of Verisimilitude”. 3 Bellini and the East, p. 72. 4 Uluç describes the cultural and artistic connections between the Ottomans and Timurids thusly: “The Ottomans, tracing their origin back to the Oghuz tribe of Central Asia, had common roots with the various Turco-Mongol dynasties that originated in Central Asia[…]The close cultural ties were felt by the Ottomans for their central Asian cousins, the Timurids, were more overtly manifest in their arts of the book.” Uluç, “The Common Timurid Heritage of the Three Capitals of Islamic Arts,” p. 39. 5 Uluç, ibid, pp. 40-43. 6 Necipoğlu, “Word and Image: The Serial Portraits of Ottoman Sultans in Comparative Perspective,” p. 28-29. 7 Ibid., p. 29. 8 Ibid., pp. 28-30.
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Figure 2 Sinan Bey or Siblizade Ahmed, Portrait of Mehmed II Smelling a Rose, c. 1480, Topkapi Palace Museum, Istanbul, Photo Credit: Art Resource, NY
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Mehmed’s novel collection of portraits indicates a high degree of visual awareness as well as a careful and savvy negotiation of cultural codes. While the portraits produced for Mehmed are perhaps the most well-known instance of artistic exchange between Renaissance Europe and the Ottoman Empire, they are not unique, even within the genre of sultan portraiture. Two episodes from the sixteenth century indicate the mutual awareness and interest in sultan portraiture in both Western Europe and the Ottoman Empire, the high level at which these visual exchanges occurred, and also highlight the degree to which these exchanges were bilateral and reciprocal. In the first instance, a series of sultan portraits by an Ottoman artist was gifted by an Ottoman official to a Western European official whereupon they were widely disseminated in Europe. In the second instance, an Ottoman official requested assistance from a Venetian official in acquiring a series of sultan portraits from Venice. Those portraits in turn influenced a foundational Ottoman work. Details of each instance of exchange are presented below. In 1543-1544 the Ottoman fleet led by admiral Hayreddin Barbarossa wintered at the French harbor of Toulon. During this period, Barbarossa gave an ebony and ivory casket to Virginio Orsini dell’Anguillara, the commander of several ships in the French fleet. The casket contained eleven painted portraits of the Ottoman sultans.9 The portraits were shortly thereafter copied for both Cardinal Alessandro Farnese and Paolo Giovio.10 Giovio, a historian and biographer, famously amassed a collection of over 400 portraits of notable historical and contemporary figures for his villa at Como, and his copies of the sultan series were added to his collection. Giovio’s publications attest to his considerable interest in the Ottomans and his villa included a sala de’Turchi, which included artifacts such as Barbarossa’s kaftan and Qur’an. The sala de’Turchi may well have been the display location for his copies of the sultan portraits, which took the form of oil paintings.11 The issue of authenticity was of great concern to Giovio with regards to his portrait collection – he referred to these images as verae imagines or verae effigies – and his desire was always for images whose accuracy could be documented in some way, typically by being copies of an earlier prototype.12 In one particularly telling instance he questioned four soldiers who had escaped from a Turkish military 9 This would have technically been one sultan too many, as by the Ottoman count Suleyman was the tenth sultan. Since the originals are lost it is unclear how the number eleven was derived, although European historiography had several alternate tallies. Majer, “Giovio, Veronese und die Osmanen: zum Sultansbild der Renaissance,” p. 346-47. 10 See Raby, “From Europe to Istanbul,” p. 145, 162, Majer, “Giovio, Veronese und die Osmanen,” p. 345-348; and Majer, “Nigari and the Sultan’s Portraits of Paolo Giovio” p. 444. 11 Raby, ibid., p. 143. The portraits may also have been displayed together with the majority of his other portraits in his salone. 12 Klinger, The Portrait Collection of Paolo Giovio, pp. 1-10, 157-159.
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camp about the authenticity of his portrait of Sultan Suleyman I (the Magnificent). Presumably to his joy, they claimed it to be an exact likeness.13 The casket images, with their Ottoman provenance, would have met his need and his standards for authenticity. The original images from the casket are lost, but are now generally thought to have been executed by the Ottoman portraitist and sea captain Haydar Reis Nigari.14 While few of Nigari’s works have survived, some sense of Nigari’s style and approach to portraiture can be gleaned from surviving works, which provide enough formal and stylistic correspondences to make the claim of his authorship plausible. Nigari’s surviving works, such as his portrait of Barbarossa in the Topkapi palace museum, indicate that he used either a bust or half-length format in his portraits and typically showed the face of the sitter either in profile or in a three-quarter view.15 Majer sees clear parallels between this work and the portrait of Mehmed I from Giovio’s collection, the only one of his sultan portraits to have survived. He notes the similar pose and framing of the body, the dark backgrounds and calm expressions. The sole significant point of difference he notes is in the depiction of the collars on their kaftans.16 While all of the Ottoman sultan portraits from Giovio’s collection are lost, apart from the portrait of Mehmed I, they survive through copies. Giovio’s portrait collection was copied several times in the sixteenth century, notably in 1579-1580 for the Habsburg Archduke Ferdinand II’s collection at Schloß Ambras in Innsbruck and also in 1552-1558 by Cristofano dell’Altissimo working for Cosimo I de’Medici for eventual display in the Uffizi. Giovio’s series was also copied by Tobias Stimmer around 1570 in the form of woodcuts which were used to illustrate various posthumously published versions of Giovio’s works, including his Elogia virorum bellica virtute illustrium, which included biographies and images of Ottoman sultans.17 (Fig. 3) The relationship between the various copies of Giovio’s lost originals is complex. In general, the existing copies of Giovio’s sultan portraits bear clear similarities to one another while at the same time show differences from one another in both minor ways, such as in details of dress, and in more substantive artistic decisions such as framing, facial expression and body length.18 13 Ibid., p. 173. 14 Majer, “Giovio, Veronese und die Osmanen,” p. 349, Majer, “Nigari and the Sultan’s Portraits,” pp. 444447. While some have suggested these images originated with a European artist, Majer points out that the Ottoman origin of the works is evidenced by the description of the images as on polished paper, which would not suggest a European origin. Giovio himself described the portraits as painted “after the conception of the barbarian masters.” p. 446 15 Raby, p. 146, Majer, “Nigari and the Sultans’ Portraits,” pp. 446-447 16 Majer, “Nigari and the Sultans’ Portraits,” p. 446. 17 Majer, “Giovio, Veronese und die Osmanen,” p. 352, Raby, “From Europe to Istanbul,” 143-144, Klinger, The Portrait Collection of Paolo Giovio, pp. 78-79. 18 Klinger discusses the copies of the sultan portraits in her catalogue of Giovio’s images. Majer, “Giovio, Veronese und die Osmanen” also includes some general discussion of the similarities and differences
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Figure 3 Sultan Suleyman, from Paolo Giovio, Elogia virorum bellica virtute illustrium, Basel, 1575, woodcut by Tobias Stimmer, Houghton Library, Harvard University
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Two additional surviving portraits by Nigari, which represent François I, King of France and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V provide a further indication of the enmeshed nature of Ottoman and Western European ruler portraiture in this period.19 (Figs. 4, 5) The selection of these two figures is not coincidental, as both had significant political interactions with Suleyman the Magnificent. François I made a strategic alliance with the Ottomans and Charles V was a major rival of Suleyman. Both are identified below the images by name and the portrait of François I further states – falsely – that both rulers visited Sultan Selim II to collect an imperial decree. This is despite the fact that François and Charles both died a decade or more before the start of Selim II’s rule. Both images are thought to have been modeled on European images which likely reached Istanbul in the form of prints. In the case of François I, the source is fairly clearly derived from a workshop copy of the famous portrait of the king by Jean Clouet. While the source of the portrait of Charles V is less obvious, it has been related to a painted portrait by Cranach.20 The image also has some similarities to an engraving of Charles V by Agostino Veneziano (Agostino dei Musi) from 1536. Agostino Veneziano also made engraved portraits of François I, Suleyman the Magnificent and Hayreddin Barbarossa in 1535 and 1536. (Fig. 6, 7) The portraits of Charles, François and Barbarossa share close visual similarities. The three figures are all shown half-length with the face in three-quarter view. The sitter’s face and body are placed close to the picture plane in each; all three are set against a dark neutral background and are framed at the bottom by a ledge with an identifying inscription. The portrait of Suleyman shares the darkened background and vertical ledge with inscription, but shows the body as bust length and the face in profile. These discrepancies from the other three are presumably as the portrait is directly based on three Venetian woodcuts that commemorated Suleyman’s acquisition of an elaborate, gem-studded Venetian helmet-crown in 1532.21 The four portraits were likely intended as a set and created in light of the direct or indirect involvement of all four individuals in the conquest of Tunis in 1535, where Charles V defeated the Ottoman forces.22 Suleyman was presumably aware of the printed images showing among the copies, pp. 347-348. He concludes that Stimmer’s copies are overall the more accurate. 19 These images are not discussed extensively in the literature. See brief comments in Majer, “Giovio, Veronese und die Osmanen,” p. 349 and Majer, “Nigari and the Sultan’s Portraits,” p. 445. 20 Sackler Art Museum online image entry. Harvard Art Museums. “Portrait of Francis I.” https://hvrd. art/o/216218. “Portrait of Charles V.” https://hvrd.art/o/215796 (accessed June 30th, 2020). The entry posits a now unknown printed copy of Cranach’s painted portrait of Charles V from 1533 as a possible source. 21 Necipoğlu, “Suleyman the Magnificent and the Representation of Power in the Context of OttomanHabsburg Papal Rivalry,” p. 401-402. 22 Charles V and Barbarossa were directly involved in the Conquest of Tunis as adversaries. Suleyman was sultan at the time, with Barbarossa under his command. While François I was not directly involved in the Conquest of Tunis, the defeat of the Ottomans helped lead to an alliance between the Ottoman
The Sultan’s Face Look s East and West: European Prints and Ot toman Sultan Portr aiture
Figure 4 Haydar Ra’is (called Nigari), Portrait of François I, King of France (After J. Clouet), 1566-74, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, The Edward Binney, 3rd Collection of Turkish Art at the Harvard Art Museums
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Figure 5 Haydar Ra’is (called Nigari), Portrait of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, 1566-74, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, The Edward Binney, 3rd Collection of Turkish Art at the Harvard Art Museums.
The Sultan’s Face Look s East and West: European Prints and Ot toman Sultan Portr aiture
Figure 6 Agostino Veneziano (Agostino dei Musi), Portrait of Barbarossa, 1535, engraving, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1949
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Figure 7 Agostino Veneziano (Agostino dei Musi), Portrait of François I, 1536, engraving, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1949
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him wearing the Venetian crown, given his clear interest in using the crown along with other European trappings of power to communicate with European audiences.23 That Veneziano’s images might have reached Istanbul as a group and influenced Nigari is intriguing, although unprovable. A second instance of artistic exchange related to sultan portraits occurred in 1578. The Ottoman grand vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha contacted the Venetian bailo, the resident ambassador in Istanbul, Niccolò Barbarigo, to request that he send him portraits of the Ottoman sultans, noting that he understood that some existed in Venice. Barbargio responded with a request for clarif ication, asking if Sokollu meant prints that were “so contrived that they bore no resemblance to reality” and further stated that “he did not think the prints were worthy to be seen by him.”24 The result of this exchange was the commissioning of a series of portraits of the Ottoman sultans by the Venetian senate from an artist working in the circle of Veronese that were sent to Istanbul upon their completion in 1579. 25 This request was prompted by the execution of the Kiyafetü ‘l-insaniye fi sema’il-ü ‘l-‘Osmaniye or Human Physiognomy Concerning the Personal Dispositions of the Ottomans. This text, generally referred to as the Şema’ilname, was written by the Ottoman court historian Seyyid Lokman during the reign of Sultan Murad III.26 The text includes a general discussion of physiognomy along with biographical descriptions of various aspects of the reigns of the first twelve Ottoman sultans. A series of portraits of the twelve sultans from Osman I to Murad III accompanied the text, providing visual documentation to support the descriptions of the exterior appearance of the sultans and the physiognomic interpretations. (Fig. 8) The Empire and the French, and François and Charles V were well-known to be adversaries. Necipoğlu also notes that François sent a diplomatic envoy to Suleyman and Barbarossa in 1535 with the goal of inciting a French-Turkish attack on a Habsburg port in Italy, although this did not occur. “Suleyman the Magnificent,” p. 416. Raby and Klinger discuss these images briefly in “Barbarossa and Sinan: A Portrait of Two Ottoman Corsairs from the Collection of Paolo Giovio,” p. 51. Veneziano also made a print of “The Position and Camp of the Armies of Charles V and Suleyman I” in 1532, which depicts the military engagement between Suleyman and the forces of the Holy Roman Emperor in Austria and Hungary. 23 Necipoğlu, ibid. 24 “[S]e ella forse non intendesse di certe carte à stampe, li quali si facevano far cosi d’aviso, si ben non assimigliavano al natural.” Translation from Raby, “From Europe to Istanbul,” p. 151. 25 This exchange is related in a number of sources. See Raby, ibid., p. 150-152, Çagman, “Portrait Series of Nakkaş Osman,” Carboni, Venice and the Islamic World, 828-1797, p. 107. The portraits are now understood to have been completed by Veronese’s studio or by artists working in his circle. Several versions of the series exist. A complete set is preserved in the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, although this is likely a contemporary or slightly later copy of the set sent to Istanbul. There is also a set at the Topkapi palace museum. 26 See Fetvacı, “From Print to Trace: An Ottoman Imperial Portrait Book and its Western European Models” for a detailed discussion of the Şema’ilname, its creation and intent.
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Figure 8 Portrait of Suleyman I (1520-1566), 10th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, miniature from Kiyafet-I Insaniye Fi Semail-I Osmaniye, by Seyyid Lokman, 1579, Istanbul University Library, Photo Credit: Universal Images Group/Art Resource, NY
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Şema’ilname has the distinction of being the earliest Ottoman historical text to include portraits of all of the sultans.27 Lokman describes in his introduction the central importance of accurate knowledge of the physical appearance of the sultans for his text and the historical research undertaken to try to ensure accuracy. Yet Lokman also attests to the difficulties in acquiring accurate information, namely due to a lack of Ottoman source material. The text further describes how awareness arose of the existence of European sources with purportedly authentic depictions of the sultans, and how the grand vizier was used as an intermediary to acquire these materials.28 Because the physiognomies corresponding to the biographies of the holy-war conducting sultans belonging to this renowned dynasty were not available, there was great distress. And because it was extremely necessary to find those famous works in order to insert them in their proper place, this matter was promptly discussed with Master Osman, one of the court’s portrait painters who is without equal in his age. And some were obtained but when it was verified that all of them were in the possession of Frankish masters, this matter was submitted to his highness the Grand Vizier. With his noble care the required portraits, which were the best that one could desire, became accessible.29
The Veronese-circle series was viewed by the Ottoman artist Nakkaş Osman during the finishing stages of his work on the illustrations.30 The Venetian portraits presumably arrived too late to be central to the visual conception of the Ottoman works, and indeed the portraits by Nakkaş Osman show no direct visual relationship to the Veronese works. Nevertheless, the preface of the work states that the manuscript was only completed after the Venetian works had arrived and been studied, presumably as a point of comparison and to ensure accuracy. The sultan portraits from the series, which also show a clear visual relationship to the earlier Timurid precedent, are understood to have established a canon of Ottoman sultan portraiture that would last for the next 350 years.31 The mutuality of these patterns of exchange is already suggested by these two incidents – in one, a sultan series by an Ottoman artist became the source for an influential European collection of sultan portraits. In the other, a sultan series by an 27 Uluç, “The Common Timurid Heritage,” p. 50. 28 Çagman, “Portrait Series of Nakkaş Osman,” pp. 165-170, Necipoğlu, “Word and Image,” pp. 38-41. 29 Quoted in Fetvacı, “An Ottoman Portrait Book,” p. 247. 30 Raby states that the paintings arrived in Istanbul from Venice around the middle of September, 1579 and the earliest copy of the Şema’ilname seems to have been completed by October 1579, leaving only a month for the portraits to have been viewed and to have been used as source material. “From Europe to Istanbul,” p. 159. 31 Necipoğlu, “Word and Image,” p. 31-34.
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Italian artist was created in response to a request by an Ottoman official and became a source for an influential Ottoman series of sultan portraits. Yet the patterns of exchange are further complicated, in fact becoming circular and referential, when the history, sources and influence of both series are further explored. While the works discussed so far have been paintings, it also becomes clear that European printed representations of sultans, despite Niccolò Barbarigo’s dismissive comments about their unworthiness and contrivance, played a central role in disseminating a visual image of the sultans in Europe, and were also well-known to the Ottomans. In the Ottoman context, European prints influenced the production of sultan portraiture both visually and conceptually. European prints of the Ottoman sultans appear frequently from the fifteenth century on in both Northern and Italian Renaissance art. Many such images were polemical, and were designed to further inflame European fears of the expansionist and militarily powerful Ottomans. In numerous instances, however, printed sultan portraits were more neutral depictions that were intended to convey a supposedly accurate representation of the individual portrayed. An early example of this type of image is the c. 1470 engraving titled El Gran Turco, a name commonly applied to Mehmed II in Italy, which is generally attributed to the Master of the Vienna Passion. (Fig. 9) The image is purely fictitious and was done by an artist with no direct knowledge of the Ottomans or Mehmed himself, and in fact appears to be based on a contemporary medallion portrait of John VIII Palaiologus, the second to last Byzantine emperor, by Pisanello.32 Nevertheless, the elaborately patterned costume and fanciful headgear are presumably intended to evoke the luxury and exoticism of the East. The rearing dragon atop the headdress has been subject to several interpretations, and Chong notes that dragons were also common accessories on helmets found in Florentine art at the time. The most likely explanation is that the dragon suggests Mehmed’s status as a fierce warrior.33 The print is known today in only two impressions, one of which is located in Istanbul as the print was compiled into an album at the Topkapi palace, likely during the fifteenth century. Containing an eclectic range of materials, the album H.2153, known as the Fatih album, after Mehmed’s Ottoman sobriquet, includes sixteen Italian prints dating to around 1470 that are believed to have been acquired by Mehmed himself, potentially from an Italian traveler. Mehmed, whom as we have seen was deeply invested in the replication of his own image, must have been fascinated by this foreign depiction of himself.34 Of particular note is the 32 Chong, catalogue entry “El Gran Turco,” in Bellini and the East, p. 66. 33 Ibid. 34 Necipoğlu suggests that the print, specifically the headgear, includes imagery that would have related to Alexander the Great in the Florentine context. “Visual Cosmopolitanism and Creative Translation,” p. 19. While it is unclear if this would have been evident to Mehmed, he is well-known to have modeled himself upon Alexander the Great and would certainly have appreciated the comparison.
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Figure 9 Master of the Vienna Passion, El Gran Turco, c. 1470, Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, Photo Credit: Joerg P. Anders/Art Resource, NY
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early date of this work in comparison to Mehmed’s other portraits, and notably to the portraits commissioned by him from European artists, all of which are dated between 1478-1480. If this print reached Mehmed prior to his commissions from artists like Gentile Bellini and Costanzo di Moysis, this image may have influenced him conceptually in those later commissions and perhaps spurred a visual response. In the sixteenth century, prominent printed series of the Ottoman sultans appeared in several different forms. The Ottoman sultans and their genealogy were subjects of interest in their own right. Their role as historical actors and the closely intertwined histories of Western Europe and the Ottoman Empire were highlighted through their inclusion in historical texts. The dynastic history of the Ottoman line could even intersect with geography when Ottoman sultan portraits were used to visually mark the political shift of the city of Constantinople from Byzantine to Ottoman. Guillaume Rouillé’s Promptuaire des Medalles des Plus Renommees Personnes (1553) was universal history told through a compilation of biographies accompanied by printed medallion portraits of 828 famous historical figures from Adam to the sixteenth century. The text includes Ottoman sultans and their portraits and is notable as the first major European series of Ottoman sultans to show the sultans as clearly differentiated individuals rather than as interchangeable types.35 (Fig. 10) Rouillé’s work circulated widely and had a long lasting influence, with the images of the sultans in particular copied in subsequent works. The source of his sultan portraits is unknown, but the portraits are unlikely to be unique or original to this work, given that Rouillé was a publisher rather than an artist or a printer and the portraits in this work generally were taken from other sources. Closely related to the sultan portraits in Rouillé’s work are the medallion sultan portraits found in Francesco Sansovino’s Sommario et Alboro delli Principi Othomani (1567) with illustrations by Niccolò Nelli. In this broadsheet, the portraits of the sultans from Osman to Selim II adorn a genealogical tree of the Ottoman dynasty.36 The images of the sultans show clear similarities to those found in Rouillé’s text, and may share a common source.37 The so-called Vavassore map, named after its first printer, was perhaps the bestknown depiction of Istanbul for Europeans in the sixteenth century, despite the fact
35 Raby, “From Europe to Istanbul,” p. 138. For a more general overview of Rouillé as a publisher see Zemon-Davis, “Publisher Guillaume Rouillé, Businessman and Humanist”. 36 The German artist Michael Ostendorfer produced an earlier genealogical tree with portraits of the Ottoman sultans, the 1527 broadsheet Der Türgkysschen Keyser Herkomen. The portraits here are generic, however, and do not show an interest in individualization. Raby, “From Venice to Istanbul,” p. 137. 37 Raby suggests that both Rouillé and Sansovino, discussed below, share a common, now-lost Venetian source or that Sansovino’s work is actually the source, and there was an earlier, now unknown edition. “From Venice to Istanbul,” pp. 140-141.
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Figure 10 Sultan Suleyman, from Guillaume Rouillé, Promptuaire des Medalles des Plus Renommees Personnes, 1553, British Library, General Reference Collection DRT Digital Store 7755.c.20
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Figure 11 Vavassore Map of Constantinople, from Braun and Hogenberg, Civitates Orbis Terrarum, 1572, Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division
that it reflected a view of the city as it appeared around 1480.38 (Fig. 11) A version of the map was included in the 1572 Civitates Orbis Terrarum by Braun and Hogenberg, a book intended to codify European knowledge of the world. This version included twelve medallion portraits of sultans on the lower border beginning with Osman and continuing to Murad III. Visually, the portraits connect to the broader tradition of printed sultanic portraits and show a relationship to both Sansovino and Rouillé. The portraits frame the image and bookend a vignette of a sultan on horseback. As Ballon and Friedman describe, framing images such as this one were often used to highlight important aspects of a map or to make the larger claims embedded in a map explicit.39 Here, sultan portraits and the dynastic line intersect with topography and geographical knowledge. This foregrounding of Ottoman history through the line of sultans has the effect of naturalizing the Ottoman claim to the city and integrating 38 For discussions of the Vavassore map see Berger and Bardill, “The Representation of Constantinople in Hartman Schedel’s World Chronicle,” Manners, “Reconstructing the Image of a City: The Representation of Constantinople in Christopher Buondelmonti’s Liber Insularum Archipelagi, and Kafescioğlu, The Ottoman Capital in the Making: The Reconstruction of Constantinople in the Fifteenth Century. 39 Ballon and Friedman, “Portraying the City in Early Modern Europe: Measurement, Representation and Planning,” pp. 681 and 691-694.
The Sultan’s Face Look s East and West: European Prints and Ot toman Sultan Portr aiture
the city and its Ottoman possession into the Ottoman past and present, effectively legitimizing the Ottoman presence within the city for a European audience. Finally, another major printed source for Ottoman sultan portraits in the sixteenth century has already been mentioned, namely the woodcut portraits of the sultans by Tobias Stimmer which accompanied the illustrated version of Paolo Giovio’s Elogia virorum bellica virtute illustrium (1575). The printed portraits were copies of the painted sultan portraits from Giovio’s collection. Stimmer was sent by the publisher of the illustrated version of the Elogia – the Basel publisher Pietro Pema – to view the originals in preparation for creating his woodcuts, visiting Giovio’s villa at Como between 1570-1572. 40 All of these printed sources – Rouillé, the Vavassore map and the Stimmer woodcuts – were influences on the Veronese-circle painted portraits of sultans.41 The artist(s) responsible for the series can be seen as synthesizing the imagery available in the printed tradition despite the fact that it was precisely these types of works that the Venetian ambassador denigrated and warned the grand vizier, Sokollu Mehmed Pasha, against. Yet the Veronese-circle images also stand apart from the print tradition, and do not simply reflect a programmatic translation of print into paint. As Renda states, “the painter made a synthesis of the printed iconographic sources available to him, reworking them in an original way to give the portraits an individual character.”42 Unlike the printed sultan portraits, which have a certain uniformity imposed in part due to similarities in framing and pose, the painted images are dynamic portraits that make an effort to individualize each figure. The artist provided visual interest to the sequence by varying the pose of the figures, typically between profile and three quarter, dramatizing the images through strong contrasts of light and dark, particularly through the emphasis of the heavy white turbans against the dark backgrounds and by hinting at the psychology of the sitters. 43 The portrait of Bayezid I is a particularly striking example, with the strong diagonal of the body, the gleaming gold fabric and the arresting over the shoulder gaze of the sitter. (Fig 12) The costume and accessories shown in the series are inauthentic and indeed are often pure fantasy, for example the crown placed over the turban of Osman I together with the draped string of pearls. (Fig 13) Nakkaş Osman would have been attentive to such inaccuracies, as the text of the Şema’ilname included specific discussions of costume. He is assumed to have
40 Raby, “From Europe to Istanbul,” p. 144. 41 Necipoğlu, “Word and Image” p. 41, Raby, “From Europe to Istanbul,” p. 136. Raby suggests that the artist(s) of the Veronese series likely relied primarily on Sansovino, as it was a Venetian source. p. 156. 42 “An Illustrious Commission,” catalogue entry in The Sultan’s World: The Ottoman Orient in Renaissance Art, p. 189. 43 Carboni, Venice and the Islamic World, p. 308.
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Figure 12 Veronese, Paolo (follower of), Sultan Bayezid I, c. 1579, Staatsgalerie, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Residenz, Wuerzburg, Photo Credit: Art Resource, NY
gained accuracy on this point through observation of original items of costume and headgear preserved in the Topkapi palace treasury. Sokollu Mehmed Pasha was likely well aware of European print series featuring the sultans, and may have been responding specifically to Giovio’s Elogia virorum
The Sultan’s Face Look s East and West: European Prints and Ot toman Sultan Portr aiture
Figure 13 Veronese, Paolo (follower of), Sultan Osman I, c. 1579, Staatsgalerie, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Residenz, Wuerzburg, Photo Credit: Art Resource, NY
bellica virtute illustrium, which had been published in an illustrated version in 1575. 44 As Emine Fetvacı has convincingly shown, there are strong conceptual 44 As Fetvacı points out, as the highest ranking official in the Ottoman court, Sokollu Mehmed Pasha would have been in regular contact with European ambassadors and other visitors. He was also a keen
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parallels between Giovio’s work and the Şema’ilname. The two moreover can be seen to share intellectual roots and to some degree have aims in common. 45 Sokollu may also have been reacting to perceived errors in Giovio’s recounting of the Ottoman dynastic line. 46 In addition to the portraits from the Elogia, Nakkaş Osman is also argued to have used either Sansovino’s Alboro, the portraits from the Vavassore map or the portraits from Rouillé as an image source for his sultan portraits, although scholarly disagreement exists over which source exerted primary influence. 47 Despite the specific request for European imagery, the end result of the portraits in the Şema’ilname is far removed from European prototypes, complicating any argument about influence. The Stimmer portraits from Giovio’s works are typically understood as having a less direct visual relationship to the Veronese-school series than the portraits from Rouillé, Sansovino and the Vavassore map. Yet as seen previously, the directionality of influence on sultan portraits was by no means one way. While Giovio’s work and its illustrations provided impetus for both the Şema’ilname and, less directly, the Veronese-circle paintings, as we have previously seen, the Giovio illustrations were themselves based on copies of Ottoman images. Those images were in turn at least indirectly influenced by the hybrid, culturally eclectic portrait style developed under Mehmed II and created by an artist – Nigari – who was himself responding to the European portrait tradition. The circularity and referentiality of sultan portraiture between Western Europe and the Ottoman Empire indicates a constant and mutually-aware exchange between the two visual and cultural traditions and a fairly seamless passage of imagery through closely connected intermediaries. While the interest in these images overlapped at points – particularly in the common interest in the production of illustrated biographies and the desire for visual accuracy – the points of divergence are also clear. Visually, the various portrait series informed one another both within each cultural and visual tradition and across them. Yet it is also clear that each tradition worked within its own visual logic and language and largely, with the exception of some portraits by Ottoman artists working for Mehmed II, did not attempt to take on the stylistic features of the opposing tradition, indeed consciously rejecting them in favor of local visual conventions. A larger point should also be made about the role of prints as cultural intermediaries between Western Europe and the Ottoman Empire. The role of print and printmaking has often been downplayed with reference to Muslim societies patron of art with a demonstrated interest in European objects. “From Print to Trace,” p. 247. 45 Ibid. 46 Necipoğlu, “Word and Image,” p. 37 47 Raby, p. 161, Carboni, p. 109.
The Sultan’s Face Look s East and West: European Prints and Ot toman Sultan Portr aiture
generally and the Ottoman Empire in particular. A common perception has been of the resistance of Muslim societies to print in large part due to the reverence accorded to the hand-written text. This perception can already be seen in the early modern period, with the sixteenth century Habsburg diplomat to the Ottoman court, Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, commenting in a letter that the Ottomans “have never been able to bring themselves to print books […] They hold that their scriptures, that is their sacred books, would no longer be scriptures if they were printed.”48 An often cited apparent proof of Ottoman hostility to print technology in the early modern period is a prohibition of print and printed materials, supposed to have been made by Sultan Bayezid II in 1485 and then renewed by Sultan Selim I in 1515. Yet actual proof for these bans is lacking and they are first referenced by a French writer in the late sixteenth century. 49 The late date of 1729 as the date of the first establishment of an Ottoman press to print Turkish texts has further marginalized the consideration of print and the print revolution in the Ottoman context.50 More recently, however, scholars have begun to recognize the degree to which printed materials did permeate and circulate within the Ottoman empire. The first press in Istanbul was established in 1493 by David and Samuel ibn Nahmias, Jewish immigrants from Spain who produced their first book in 1493 and their second, an edition of the Torah, in 1505.51 An Armenian press was established in Istanbul in 1567 and Sultan Murad III issued a firman, or official decree, in 1588 that permitted the import of secular books using an Arabic type-face from Europe to serve the Ottoman market.52 The production and distribution of printed books to the Ottoman market was also facilitated by European presses with a goal of outreach through print. The Vatican-sponsored Typographia Medicea, established in the 1570s, for example, published Catholic texts in Arabic, an Arabic translation of the Bible and works by Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and al-Idrisi while the Vatican press issued publications in several South-Slavic languages.53 Even prior to this, however, it is clear that European printed books circulated frequently within the Ottoman Empire and within the court of the sultans. Mehmed II’s library was famously eclectic. In addition to an extensive collection of Arabic and 48 de Busbecq, The Turkish Letters of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, p. 135. 49 Schwartz, “Did Ottoman Sultans Ban Print?” pp. 12-14. 50 Roberts, Printing a Mediterranean World: Florence, Constantinople and the Renaissance of Geography, p. 152. Bloom, Paper After Print: The History and Impact of Paper in the Islamic World, pp. 220-224 also provides a brief overview of the history of printing in the Ottoman Empire. 51 See Ben-Na’eh, “Hebrew Printing Houses in the Ottoman Empire” and Tamari, “Jewish Printing and Publishing Activities in the Ottoman Cities of Constantinople and Saloniki at the dawn of Early Modern Europe”. 52 Barbarics-Hermanik, “European Books for the Ottoman Market,” pp. 394, 403. 53 Ibid., p. 402.
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Persian works, it contained European printed books such as Roberto Valturio’s De re militari as well as manuscripts ranging from Homer’s Iliad to Maimonides’s Guide to the Perplexed to the Diegesis, a compendium of tales related to Constantinople.54 Mehmed must have collected these works, perhaps commissioned some and certainly received some as gifts.55 Mehmed II also reputedly acquired a Venetian propaganda pamphlet in 1466 from Benedetto Dei, which claimed that the Venetians would sing the Latin mass in Hagia Sophia by the next year.56 The Florentine humanist, Francesco Berlinghieri presented a geographical work based on Ptolemy titled Septe Giornate della Geographia to both Sultan Bayezid II and his brother and rival Cem, then residing in Europe. A luxury printed copy arrived at the sultan’s court in 1483. The book was originally intended to be dedicated to Mehmed II, who died before the gift could be sent.57 This suggests an awareness on the part of the author that such a gift would likely be appreciated, perhaps due to the geographic subject which drew on common cultural interests and perhaps also due to the lure of this new technology.58 The presence in Istanbul of the previously mentioned sixteen Florentine and Ferrarese engravings connected to Mehmed II is also suggestive. The prints encompass a wide array of subjects, and have been described as creating a kind of compendium of contemporary Florentine printmaking, suggesting an interest in the medium and perhaps the technology behind them.59 The unexpected request by an Ottoman embassy to Florence in the year 1480 for a maestri d’intaglio – either a printmaker working in the medium of engraving or an engraver of metal – could also suggest a fledgling interest in printmaking on the part of Mehmed, who appears to have kept a close eye on European technological and artistic innovations.60 Roberts additionally points out that Mehmed’s acquisition of one of Jacopo Bellini’s model books from Gentile Bellini could point to an emerging interest in graphic art on the part of Mehmed.61 54 Raby, “East and West in Mehmed the Conqueror’s Library,” p. 301. 55 Roberts, Printing a Mediterranean World, p. 154, Rogers, “Mehmed the Conqueror: Between East and West,” pp. 81-83. See also Raby, “Mehmed the Conqueror’s Greek Scriptorium”. 56 Raby, “Mehmed II Fatih and the Fatih Album,” (1981), pp. 45-46. 57 Roberts, Printing a Mediterranean World, pp. 1-9. 58 Roberts, ibid., p. 153. 59 The subjects of the prints, assembled in album H.2153, are as follows: Mass of St. Gregory, Combat between Women and Devils, Round Dance in the Antique Manner, Cupids at the Vintage, Hercules and the Hydra, Roundel with a Triton, St. Sebastian, Monkeys and the Peddler, Scenes from the Life of St. Jerome, Christ in the Tomb, The Triumph of Fame from Petrarch’s Trionfi, El Gran Turco, Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, Urania from a set of Italian playing cards. Hind, “Fifteenth-century Italian Engravings at Constantinople,” pp. 281-283. An additional engraving not included by Hind is a scroll with putti and penises. Julian Raby, “Mehmed II Fatih and the Fatih Album,” (1981), pp. 44-46. Rogers, “Mehmed the Conqueror” p. 93 also provides details about some of the engravings. 60 Roberts, Printing a Mediterranean World, p. 154. 61 Ibid., p. 153.
The Sultan’s Face Look s East and West: European Prints and Ot toman Sultan Portr aiture
Several other albums in the Topkapi palace collections also contain European prints. The subject matter of the prints is largely religious, but also includes some mythological imagery and at least two landscapes. Album H. 2135 was compiled at the end of the eighteenth century by Mehmed Emin Efendi, and consists of drawings, most of which are of a type known as kalam-e siyahi in Persian, as well as three European engravings from the second half of the sixteenth century.62 The engravings include a Samson and Delilah by the German artist Hans Brosamer (fol. 16a) dated to 1545, as well as a print identified as an Ascension of Christ and a landscape, both by unknown artists (fol. 12b).63 Interestingly, the landscape engraving in this album closely parallels a landscape engraving in album H.2148 in the Topkapi palace collection, which also includes European engravings from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Apart from the landscape, potentially by the French engraver Gabriel Perelle and dated to c. 1650, the album includes an engraving of Daniel and the Dragon after the Dutch artist Hans Vredeman de Vries published in 1585.64 Emine Fetvacı has recently argued that a group of sixteenth and seventeenth century European prints from the so-called Bellini album in the Metropolitan Museum of Art were originally included in the Album of the World Emperor.65 This album, today in the Topkapi palace library (ms. no. B 408), was made for Sultan Ahmed I in 1614-16. While both album H.2148 and H.2135 were not assembled until the eighteenth century, visual evidence suggests that the prints contained in H. 2148 at least were in circulation and known to artists by at least the early seventeenth century. Specifically, works by the early seventeenth century manuscript painter Ahmed Naksi show clear awareness of European visual conventions, particularly in terms of spatial representation, along with accurate representations of European costume and furniture. These aspects of his style have been traced to specific elements in 62 Kundak, “An Ottoman Album of Drawings Including European Engravings (TSMK, H. 2135), p. 425. Kundak describes this drawing type as consisting generally of ink on paper drawings done with a brush, where the focus is on the “expressive line,” made typically from black ink. The images were generally independent of text. 63 Kundak, ibid., p. 423-437. Gunsel Renda, “Redefining the ‘European’: The Image of the European in Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Painting” has a brief mention of these albums on p. 329. Kundak identifies the print as an image of the Ascension, but it appears almost certainly to be an image of the Assumption. 64 I have not to date been able to compile a complete listing of the engravings included in H.2148. Kundak mentions the presence of the Perelle engraving and Atil provides an illustration of the Daniel print, which she identifies only as late sixteenth-century Netherlandish. Atil, “Ahmed Naksi, An Eclectic Painter of the Early 17th Century,” pp. 109, 121. 65 Fetvacı, The Album of the World Emperor, pp. 131-152. The prints are primarily religious in nature, and include a number of common devotional themes, including the crucifixion, a Madonna and child, images of saints and an Annunciation. An image of Mercury by Maerten de Vos is the only secular image. The prints are from Antwerp, Rome and Paris.
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the group of prints now collected in the Topkapi palace album H.2148.66 Details of Naksi’s life and career are few, and it is not entirely clear where and how he would have had access to these images, but Atil suggests that the engravings must have already been present in the imperial collections at this point. Fetvacı states that the prints from the Bellini album were present at the Ottoman court by the early seventeenth century, if not earlier, and were referenced visually by Ottoman artists.67 This provides additional evidence for the circulation of European prints and their collection by Ottoman elites during this period. The presence of fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth century European prints in Istanbul together with the evidence of their reception makes clear that both printed images and printed texts flowed into the Ottoman capital, where they were met by at least some response and interest and even penetrated to the court. The fact that Sokollu Mehmed Pasha is now generally understood to have been responding at least in part to the printed works of Giovio in his request for the Veronese-circle portraits is itself telling, as it is predicated on an assumption of quick transmission of printed texts from European presses to the Ottoman capital. The illustrated version of Giovio’s Elogia was published in 1575 and the grand vizier made his request in 1578. While the specific mechanics of this transmission of European printed materials to the Ottoman capital remain largely opaque, most agree that prints and other printed materials arrived primarily through merchants and diplomatic envoys. Even Vasari, in the “Life of Jacopo, Giovanni and Gentile Bellini,” notes that Mehmed II’s interest in portraiture was piqued by seeing portraits brought to his court by a European ambassador: “Not long afterwards, when an ambassador brought some portraits to Turkey for the Grand Turk, they caused the emperor so much wonder and amazement that, although by the Muhammadan law pictures are forbidden, he none the less very eagerly accepted them.”68 This suggests that Europeans in the sixteenth century understood this to be a means of transmission, a claim with which contemporary scholars concur. Necipoğlu has also described how Ragusa (Dubrovnik) “functioned as an ‘open window to the West,’ supplying books and objects, including ‘images’ that were ordered on occasion for the sultan and his intimates” after 1458.69 Prints were also likely available at markets and acquired in more informal ways, particularly by the later sixteenth century.70 66 Atil, p. 109, Firat, Encounters with the Ottoman Miniature, pp. 181-183. 67 Fetvacı, The Album of the World Emperor, 141-147. 68 Vasari, Lives of the Artists, p. 66. 69 Necipoğlu, “Visual Cosmopolitanism and Creative Translation,” p. 3. 70 Fetvacı, The Album of the World Emperor, p. 139.
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In some specific cases, printed material clearly came as high-level gifts – for example, the Septe Giornate della Geographia by Berlinghieri was brought to Bayezid II by Paolo da Colle, acting as a Florentine diplomat, in 1483.71 One specific figure who has been named as a possible transmitter of printed imagery is the Florentine merchant Benedetto Dei who was in Istanbul from 1460-1466. Raby suggests that Dei brought the fifteenth century Florentine prints now collected in the so-called Fatih album to Istanbul.72 That Dei’s brother was a goldsmith connected to Antonio del Pollaiuolo provides additional circumstantial evidence that links him to the larger orbit of printmaking in Florence at the time.73 While an appealing solution, the current dating of the El Gran Turco print, part of this group of prints, to c. 1470 problematizes this suggestion. Rogers by contrast suggests that the prints could have belonged to an Italian artisan in Istanbul or have arrived via Tabriz, a hot spot for Italian artisans at the time. Necipoğlu has critiqued the Tabriz suggestion, seeing the prints as likely brought by Florentine merchants and perhaps gifted to the sultan as part of their expected tribute.74 It may not be necessary to hypothesize a single point of transmission for the prints, given their considerable divergence as a group. A broader point of interest here is the potential multi-directional movement of European prints prior to their ending up in the Ottoman capital. The suggestion that the prints in the so-called Fatih album were brought first to Tabriz before reaching Istanbul parallels the suggestion that the later sixteenth century prints collected in album H. 2135 might have traveled first to Iran prior to reaching Istanbul.75 As discussed elsewhere in this volume, there is considerable evidence for the presence of European prints in Safavid Iran from the sixteenth century on.76 Scholars including Zsuzsa Barbarics-Hermanik and Sean Roberts have recently and convincingly suggested that the Ottoman territories need to be seen as an integrated part of the world of the early modern book with close ties existing between the Ottoman Empire and the European book market.77 As BarbaricsHermanik argues: 71 Roberts, Printing a Mediterranean World, p. 1 72 Raby, “Mehmed II Fatih and the Fatih Album,” (1985). 73 Rogers, “Mehmed the Conqueror,” p. 128. 74 Rogers, “Mehmed the Conqueror,” p. 93. Rogers also notes that the other contents of this album also suggest a Tabriz connection. Necipoğlu cites various problems with this proposal. “Visual Cosmopolitanism and Creative Translation,” p. 65, n. 94 and 95. 75 Kundak, “An Ottoman Album,” p. 432-33. 76 See the introduction as well as chapters by Kristel Smentek and Sylvie Meriam. See also Schwartz, “Terms of Reception: Europeans and Persians and Each Other’s Art”. 77 Roberts, Printing a Mediterranean World, Barbarics-Hermanik, “European Books for the Ottoman Market,” and Barbarics-Hermanik, “Books as a Means of Transcultural Exchange Between the Habsburgs and the Ottomans”.
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Contrary to the Ottoman’s supposed lack of interest and knowledge about print culture in general and printed books in particular […] from the mid-fifteenth century on, close cultural and mercantile ties between the Ottoman Empire and the European book market had been established. Moreover, printing houses of different non-Muslim religious groups underline that the Ottoman Empire has to be considered an integral part of the early modern book world.78
The much greater degree of fluidity with which printed texts and images appear to have moved between the Ottoman capital and Western Europe than has been typically acknowledged and the degree of cross-cultural communication that this exchange facilitated is in need of far greater scrutiny. Considerable scholarly work on patterns of exchange in the early modern Mediterranean has demonstrated the degree to which Western Europe and the Ottoman Empire were economically, culturally and artistically linked as well as the fluidity and frequency with which individuals and objects often passed between these two spaces.79 Ottoman sultan portraiture in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries provides yet another example of the deep and multiple connections shared between Western Europe and the Ottoman Empire on the visual and textual level and also highlights the under-explored significance of printed materials in these types of exchange. The complex network of exchanges evidenced by the sultan portraits further underscores the reciprocal and even circular nature of visual exchange that existed in this period and showcases the active participation by agents on both sides in acquiring and responding to images and texts. This speaks strongly against any reading of artistic influence in the early modern European/ Ottoman context as a singular event, as occurring in only one direction, or as mere passive reception.
Bibliography Atil, Esin. “Ahmed Naksi, An Eclectic Painter of the Early 17th Century,” in Fifth International Congress of Turkish Art, ed. G. Feher. Budapest: Akademai Kiado, 1978, 103-121. Ballon, Hilary and Friedman, David. “Portraying the City in Early Modern Europe: Measurement, Representation and Planning,” in The History of Cartography: Vol. 3, Cartography in the European Renaissance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007, 680-704. 78 Barbarics-Hermanik, “European Books for the Ottoman Market,” p. 405. 79 See for example Brotton, The Renaissance Bazaar From the Silk Road to Michelangelo, Brotton and Jardine, Global Interests: Renaissance Art Between East and West, MacLean, ed. Re-orienting the Renaissance: Cultural Exchanges with the East.
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Barbarics-Hermanik, Zsuzsa. “European Books for the Ottoman Market,” in Specialist Markets in the Early Modern Book World, ed. Richard Kirwan and Sophie Mullins. Leiden: Brill, 2015, 389-405. Barbarics-Hermanik, Zsuzsa. “Books as a Means of Transcultural Exchange Between the Habsburgs and the Ottomans,” in International Exchange in the Early Modern Book World, ed. Matthew McLean, Sara Barker, Leiden: Brill, 2016, 105-123. Ben-Na’eh, Yaron. “Hebrew Printing Houses in the Ottoman Empire,” in Jewish Journalism and Printing Houses in the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, ed. Gad Nassi. Istanbul: Isis Press, 2001, 73-96. Berger, Albrecht and Bardill, Jonathan. “The Representation of Constantinople in Hartman Schedel’s World Chronicle,” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 22 (1998), 2-37. Bloom, Jonathan. Paper After Print: The History and Impact of Paper in the Islamic World. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. Born, Robert, Engel, Sabine, Faroqhi, Suraiya, Kilidziejczyk, Dariusz, Messling, Guido, Rasmussen, Mikael Bøgh and Renda, Günsel. The Sultan’s World: The Ottoman Orient in Renaissance Art. Berlin: Hatje Cantz, 2015. Brotton, Jerry. The Renaissance Bazaar From the Silk Road to Michelangelo. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Brotton, Jerry and Jardine, Lisa. Global Interests: Renaissance Art Between East and West. London: Reaktion, 2000. de Busbecq, Ogier Ghiselain. The Turkish Letters of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, Imperial Ambassador at Constantinople, 1554-1562, trans. Edward Seymour Forster. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005. Çagman, Feliz. “Portrait Series of Nakkaş Osman,” in The Sultan’s Portrait: Picturing the House of Osman. Istanbul: Isbank, 2000, 165-170. Campbell, Caroline and Chong, Alan. Bellini and the East. London: National Gallery, 2005. Carboni, Stefano. Venice and the Islamic World, 828-1797. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. Fetvacı, Emine. “From Print to Trace: An Ottoman Imperial Portrait Book and its Western European Models,” Art Bulletin, 95:2 (June 2013): 243-268. Fetvacı, Emine. The Album of the World Emperor. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019. Firat, Begüm Özden. Encounters with the Ottoman Miniature: Contemporary Readings of an Imperial Art. London: I. B. Tauris, 2015. Hind, A. M. “Fifteenth-Century Italian Engravings at Constantinople,” Print Collector’s Quarterly, 20 (1933): 279-296. Kafescioğlu, Çiğdem. The Ottoman Capital in the Making: The Reconstruction of Constantinople in the Fifteenth Century, Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1996. Klinger, Linda. The Portrait Collection of Paolo Giovio, Ph.D dissertation, Princeton University, 1991.
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Kundak, Ali Nihat. “An Ottoman Album of Drawings Including European Engravings (TSMK, H. 2135), in Thirteenth International Congress of Turkish Art, ed. Geza David and Ibolya Gerelyes. Budapest: Hungarian National Museum, 2009, 423-437. Majer, Hans Georg. “Nigari and the Sultan’s Portraits of Paolo Giovio,” Proceedings of the 9th International Congress of Turkish Art. Ankara: Kültür Bakanligi, 1991, 443-451. Majer, Hans Georg. “Giovio, Veronese und die Osmanen: zum Sultansbild der Renaissance,” in Europa und die Türken in der Renaissance, eds. Bodo Guthmüller and Wilhelm Kühlmann. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 2000, 345-371. Manners, Ian. “Reconstructing the Image of a City: The Representation of Constantinople in Christopher Buondelmonti’s Liber Insularum Archipelagi,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 87:1 (1997): 72-102. MacLean, Gerald, ed. Re-orienting the Renaissance: Cultural Exchanges with the East. Houndmills: Palgrave, 2005. Necipoğlu, Gülru. “Suleyman the Magnificent and the Representation of Power in the context of Ottoman-Habsburg Papal Rivalry,” Art Bulletin, 71:3 (Sept. 1989): 401-427. Necipoğlu, Gülru. “Word and Image: The Serial Portraits of Ottoman Sultans in Comparative Perspective,” in The Sultan’s Portrait: Picturing the House of Osman. Istanbul: Isbank, 2000, 22-62. Necipoğlu, Gülru. “Visual Cosmopolitanism and Creative Translation: Artistic Conversations with Renaissance Italy in Mehmed II’s Constantinople,” Muqarnas, 29 (2012): 1-81. Raby, Julian. “Mehmed II Fatih and the Fatih Album,” Islamic Art, I (1981): 42-49. Raby, Julian. Venice, Dürer and the Oriental Mode. London: Islamic Art Publications, 1982. Raby, Julian. “A Sultan of Paradox: Mehmed the Conqueror as a Patron of the Arts,” Oxford Art Journal, 5:1 (1982): 3-8. Raby, Julian. “Mehmed the Conqueror’s Greek Scriptorium,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 37 (1983): 15-34. Raby, Julian. “Mehmed II Fatih and the Fatih Album,” Colloquies on Art and Archeology in Asia, 10 (1985): 42-49. Raby, Julian. “East and West in Mehmed the Conqueror’s Library,” Bulletin du Bibliophile, 3:3 (1987): 297-321. Raby, Julian. “From Europe to Istanbul,” in The Sultan’s Portrait: Picturing the House of Osman. Istanbul: Isbank, 2000, 136-163. Raby, Julian and Klinger, Linda. “Barbarossa and Sinan: A Portrait of Two Ottoman Corsairs from the Collection of Paolo Giovio,” in Venezia e l’Oriente Vicino. Venice: L’Altra Riva, 1989, 47-60. Renda, Gunsel. “Redefining the ‘European’: The Image of the European in EighteenthCentury Ottoman Painting,” in Europa und die Türkei im 18. Jahrhundert, ed. Barbara Schmidt-Haberkamp. Gottingen: V&R Unipress, 2011, 325-342. Roberts, Sean. Printing a Mediterranean World: Florence, Constantinople and the Renaissance of Geography. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013.
The Sultan’s Face Look s East and West: European Prints and Ot toman Sultan Portr aiture
Rodini, Elizabeth. “The Sultan’s True Face? Gentile Bellini, Mehmet II and the Values of Verisimilitude,” in The Turk and Islam in the Western Eye, 1450-1750, ed. James Harper. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011, 21-40. Rogers, J. M. “Mehmed the Conqueror: Between East and West,” in Bellini and the East. London: National Gallery, 2005, 80-97. Schwartz, Gary “Terms of Reception: Europeans and Persians and Each Other’s Art” in Mediating Netherlandish Art and Material Culture in Asia, eds. Thomas da Costa Kaufmann and Michael North, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2014, 25-64. Schwartz, Kathryn A. “Did Ottoman Sultans Ban Print?” Book History, 20 (2017): 1-39. Setton, Kenneth. The Papacy and the Levant, 1204-1571, vol. II: The Fifteenth Century. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1978. Tamari, Ittati Joseph. “Jewish Printing and Publishing Activities in the Ottoman Cities of Constantinople and Saloniki at the Dawn of Early Modern Europe,” in The Beginnings of Printing in the Near and Middle East: Jews, Christians and Muslims, eds. Lehrstuhl für Türkiche Sprache, Geschichte und Kultur, Universität Bamberg. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2001, 9-10. Uluç, Lale. “The Common Timurid Heritage of the Three Capitals of Islamic Arts,” Three Capitals of Islamic Art: Istanbul, Isfahan, Delhi: Masterpieces from the Louvre Collection. Istanbul: Sakip Sabanci Müzei, 2008, 39-51. Vasari, Giorgio. The Lives of the Artists, vol. 2, trans. George Bull. London: Penguin, 1987. Zemon-Davis, Natalie. “Publisher Guillaume Rouillé, Businessman and Humanist” in Editing Sixteenth Century Texts: Papers Given at the Editorial Conference, University of Toronto, October, 1965. New York: Garland, 1978, 72-112.
About the Author Heather Madar (Ph.D., U.C. Berkeley) is professor of Art at Humboldt State University. Her research and publications focus on sixteenth-century German printmaking, cross-cultural interactions between early modern Europe and the Ottoman empire and the global Renaissance. She is currently writing a book on Dürer and the depiction of cultural difference.
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From Europe to Persia and Back Again: Border-Crossing Prints and the Asymmetries of Early Modern Cultural Encounter Kristel Smentek
Abstract In c. 1736, the French connoisseur, Pierre-Jean Mariette, encountered a Persian muraqqa or album in the royal library in Paris. Initially drawn to it because of the presence of two German prints within it, Mariette came to recognize an affinity between his practices as a collector and those of the album’s Persian compiler. The muraqqa Mariette saw offers an exceptional opportunity to analyze the reception of two European engravings over two centuries and across three polities: the Safavid empire, the Ottoman empire, and ancien regime France. At the same time, the varied reception of the album exemplifies the multiplicity of responses—from the recognition of similarity in difference, to selective appropriation, to rejection—generated by early modern objects and images on the move. Keywords: muraqqa, Safavid albums, Persan 129, Heinrich Aldegrever, Pierre-Jean Mariette, art collecting and connoisseurship
In March 1727 officials at the Royal Library in Paris finalized their purchase of eight manuscripts sent to them two years earlier from Egypt. Among these items was a late sixteenth- or early seventeenth-century Persian muraqqa, a codex-format album containing a collection of elegantly framed Persianate calligraphies, drawings, and paintings. Also included in the album were two engravings, dated 1554, by the German artist Heinrich Aldegrever from his series depicting the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Figs. 1, 2).1 1 Département des manuscrits, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris (hereafter BnF), ms. Persan 129. The album is cataloged in Richard, Catalogue, pp. 145-153. A digital copy of the album is available on Gallica: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84108960.
Madar, H. (ed.), Prints as Agents of Global Exchange, 1500-1800. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press doi: 10.5117/9789462987906_ch03
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Figure 1 Heinrich Aldegrever (1502-c. 1561), The Good Samaritan Placing the Traveler on a Mule, 1554, mounted on fol. 8r in Persan 129, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France
Figure 2 Heinrich Aldegrever (1502-c. 1561), The Good Samaritan Ministering to the Traveler, 1554, mounted on fol. 10v in Persan 129, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France
From Europe to Persia and Back Again
The presence of Aldegrever’s engravings in a Persian muraqqa testifies to the geographical reach of early modern prints, and their reception in the regions to which they traveled. Prints proved a provocative catalyst for Persian draftsmen and painters, as the selective appropriations of European motifs by Safavid and Qajar artists demonstrate. As the little studied codex housing Aldegrever’s prints shows, they were also collected by courtly patrons.2 Muraqqa means patched, and the heterogeneous contents of albums in the Turko-Persianate world and their collage-like presentation once led scholars to regard them as akin to scrapbooks. As David Roxburgh has established, however, muraqqa are not haphazardly assembled but rather are carefully conceived and arranged collections. Their contents and sequencing embody art historical and connoisseurial discourses while also instantiating the specific interests and tastes of their patrons.3 The interpretation of this muraqqa’s organizing logic and its meanings within the context of Safavid court culture is beyond my expertise. It seems evident, however, that one function of Aldegrever’s engravings within the album was to exemplify image-making traditions outside Iran. 4 In this sense, the German prints served as objects of cultural as well as connoisseurial comparison for Persian collectors and their social networks, and the album itself as a site where similarity and difference were negotiated, in part though strategies of display. Aldegrever’s prints were visibly different from the Persianate art with which they were housed, yet they were also presented as compatible with it. Displayed with the same kinds of calligraphic and colored borders as other works in the muraqqa, the engravings were assimilated to them through the mediation of the frame.5 At some point after its compilation, the album and its prints migrated from Persia to the Ottoman Empire and subsequently to France; as they moved across temporal and geographic borders, they were conceptually reconfigured by viewers. When the muraqqa traveled to the Empire is unknown, but its Ottoman owner(s) evidently appreciated its Persianate aesthetics and kept it largely intact.6 In this context, the resonances of Aldegrever’s engravings were doubly layered. Superimposed on the meanings that accrued to their European origin was their association with
2 Though isolated pages of the album have been published, it has been little studied. To my knowledge the most extensive analysis of the album as a unity is Botchkareva, “Representational Realism.” The album is also unknown to many historians of European prints. An exception is the brief mention in Laporte-Eftekharian, “Diffusion,” p. 60. 3 The key text is Roxburgh, Persian Album; for a discussion of the term muraqqa see pp. 188-89. For a useful overview of album production in Turko-Persianate cultural spheres, see Fetvacı and Gruber, “Painting,” pp. 887-896. 4 Roxburgh, Persian Album, p. 295. 5 Juneja, “Objects, Frames,” pp. 420-421; Roxburgh, Persian Album, p. 190. 6 Roxburgh, Persian Album, p. 320; Fetvacı, “Persian Aesthetics.”
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collectors in Safavid Iran, an empire that was both an Ottoman rival and admired by Ottoman elites for its artistic accomplishments. When the muraqqa arrived in Paris, it was conceptually reframed once again. Formerly a private volume produced for the viewing pleasure of a limited Safavid, then Ottoman courtly audience, the album was now sequestered in a library and transformed into an object of orientalist knowledge for a select group of scholars. The presence of Aldegrever’s prints in the album, however, attracted the attention to it of at least one French art connoisseur, Pierre-Jean Mariette, a respected collector of the graphic arts.7 Mariette was not an orientalist and he was largely uninterested in art from outside Europe, but his encounter with the muraqqa, likely in 1736, prompted him to write a short but informative note about it. We can match Mariette’s commentary to the specific album he saw because he recorded the number, 129, assigned to it by the king’s librarians. Persan 129 is the shelf-mark the album retains today in the collections of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.8 European accounts of Persian art in the eighteenth century are rare, and those we do have are generally generic and dismissive. Mariette’s note, by contrast, documents the dynamics of an actual encounter between a well-known eighteenth-century French art connoisseur and a specific collection of Persianate artworks. It also opens another window onto the topic of prints as agents of cross-cultural exchange. Like the muraqqa that houses them, Aldegrever’s engravings connected viewers with unfamiliar artistic conventions as they moved from sixteenth-century Westphalia, to Safavid Persia, to the Ottoman Empire, and eventually to Louis XV’s France. Initially drawn to the muraqqa because of the prints, Mariette came to recognize an affinity between his practices as a collector and the Persian connoisseur who compiled or commissioned the album. Mariette did not, however, appear to come to appreciate the Persian art he saw within it. Mariette’s encounter with the muraqqa is thus also an opportunity to investigate the multiplicity of responses, from negotiation to selective appropriation to rejection, generated by early modern border-crossing objects and images.
I
A Persian Collection
Little is known about the early history of the muraqqa. There are no inscriptions, seals, or stamps to identify for whom it was assembled. There is also no preface, as there is in some Persian albums, to identify the patron or to frame the viewer’s 7 On Mariette see Smentek, Mariette, and Kobi, Dans l’oeil. 8 BnF, ms. NAF 14903, fol. 63. Mariette’s note on the muraqqa was separated at some point from the larger corpus of his manuscripts and is now in an album of miscellaneous documents on art dating from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries.
From Europe to Persia and Back Again
Figure 3 Sultan Ali Mashhadi (d. 1520), calligraphy specimen framed by additional calligraphies in another hand, mounted on fol. 6r in Persan 129, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France
engagement with its contents.9 The volume’s binding and the works it contains suggest it was compiled in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century for an unknown collector in Qazvin, the Safavid capital until 1598, or Isfahan, where Shah Abbas I (r. 1587-1629) subsequently established his court.10 Measuring 36 × 23.5 cm, the album is bound with richly ornamented leather doublures and elaborate covers of lacquer with gold over pasteboard depicting a simurgh as well as naturalistic animals in a
9 Roxburgh, Persian Album; Roxburgh, Prefacing the Image. 10 Richard, Catalogue, p. 145.
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Figure 4 Malik al-Daylami (d. 1561–62), calligraphy specimen framed by additional calligraphies in another hand, mounted on fol. 35r in Persan 129, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France
flowering landscape.11 The calligraphies, drawings, and paintings pasted on its 36 folios date primarily from the sixteenth century. Mounted individually on the majority of the codex’s rectos and versos are roughly equal numbers of images and calligraphy specimens. Some pages are blank, some images have been retouched, and there is evidence that at least one image or calligraphy was removed from the album. Two images may have been added to it in the Ottoman empire.12 An early eighteenthcentury printed catalogue of the French royal library records that the album came from Constantinople, though when it may have traveled there is unknown.13 All that 11 Richard, “Trois reliures,” pp. 450-452; Arabesques, p. 166, cat. 137. 12 Francis, Catalogue, p. 145. 13 Melot, Catalogus, I, p. 283, no. 129.
From Europe to Persia and Back Again
is certain is that the muraqqa was in Alexandria by 1725 when Pierre-Vincent Armain, a French interpreter of Persian, Turkish, and Arabic resident in the city, offered it along with several manuscripts to the French crown. Whether Armain brought the codex to Alexandria from Constantinople or someone else did is also unknown. In its current configuration, a short note written by Armain precedes a doublepage opening of two sumptuously framed Persian paintings. Both were produced in Tabriz in the second quarter of the sixteenth century, and both were likely extracted from the same poetic manuscript.14 Beautifully arranged pages of calligraphies follow; most are in Persian, some are in Chaghatay (a Turkic literary language of Central Asia), and all are in nasta’liq script. Some of the specimens are signed by such celebrated master calligraphers as Mir Ali Haravi (d. c. 1550), Sultan Ali Mashhadi, (d. 1520, Fig. 3), and Malik al-Daylami (d. 1561–62, Fig. 4). The album’s 38 pages of calligraphies alternate with 28 featuring figurative images. The latter are primarily tinted ink drawings, but also include single-leaf paintings and Aldegrever’s engravings. Many of the Persian sheets feature single male f igures, including dandies and a number of dervishes (Fig. 5). Others depict wounded warriors, animals such as bears and birds, and groups of figures in landscape and garden settings. Each calligraphy specimen and each image is elaborately framed with additional calligraphies, rulings, and colored paper borders. Like the Good Samaritan prints, all of the calligraphies and the figurative representations are mounted close to the codex’s gutter, leaving wider outer margins. These are comprised of colored papers decorated with florals, or with real and fabulous animals in landscapes that echo the codex’s cover imagery.15 The margins are frequently augmented with gold, and in one case with silver. All of the items in the album are placed vertically on the page, regardless of the orientation of the works themselves. A muraqqa would be turned as necessary to view drawings or calligraphies. We can only speculate on how Aldegrever’s engravings traveled to Persia from the artist’s native Westphalia, where he produced them late in his life. Such small, easily portable works on paper could have arrived via several channels. During his rule, Shah Abbas I actively promoted interactions between Europeans and Persians through his political and commercial policies; as interpersonal contact increased so too did opportunities for the circulation of imagery. Diplomatic exchanges, Armenian merchant networks, and European missionary activities are all possibilities.16 Aldegrever’s prints may also have come to Persia via the Mughal empire 14 Grabar, Masterpieces, pp. 40-41, figs. 36 and 37; Richard, Splendeurs persanes, p. 152, cat. 104. Richard proposes that both images, and possibly a third on f. 30v, were removed from same poetic manuscript. 15 Richard, “Trois reliures,” pp. 450-452. 16 For recent overviews on Iranian-European relations during the reign of Shah Abbas I see the essays and catalog entries in The Fascination of Persia.
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Figure 5 Tinted drawing of a seated youth, mounted on fol. 34v in Persan 129, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France
From Europe to Persia and Back Again
where interest in European art among court patrons and painters is documented by the 1570s if not earlier.17 Around the same time the album was assembled, works by Persian artists indicate that some had begun to experiment with motifs they encountered in European prints. As is well known among specialists, in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century, Sadiqi Beg, librarian to Shah Abbas until c. 1596–1597, adapted the figure of the angel Gabriel from a fifteenth-century Flemish engraving of the Annunciation by the Master of the Banderolles. Around the same time, Riza Abbasi (d. 1635), the leading artist at the court of Shah Abbas, merged the subject and pose of Marcantonio Raimondi’s early sixteenth-century engraving of Cleopatra with a Persian treatment of form and space in a drawing dated c. 1595.18 Persian artistic engagements with European imagery would intensify from the mid seventeenth century, notably in the work of Muhammad Zaman.19 Aldegrever’s engravings of the Good Samaritan offer further evidence of the kinds of printed images circulating in Safavid Persia.20 Whether they inspired any Persianate works is unclear, though motifs from another print by Aldegrever depicting Susanna and the Elders (1555) did appear on Qajar lacquerware.21 The muraqqa is evidence of another facet of the Persian reception of European art, one that is less artistic than connoisseurial. In the album, Aldegrever’s prints are dignified, and their aesthetic qualities enhanced, by the same processes of preservation, reformatting, and reframing applied to all of the works selected for inclusion in the volume.22 It seems reasonable to assume that their Safavid viewers engaged with the two prints as much for their aesthetic difference as for their graphic technique and representational content. Within the context of Persan 129, where the Persian figural images are overwhelmingly drawn rather than painted, Aldegrever’s two engravings could also be said to be reframed, metaphorically this time, as drawings rather than as prints. Their virtuosity of line may have also have prompted comparisons with calligraphy specimens, comparisons encouraged in 17 Babaie, “Visual Vestiges,” p. 124. On the circulation and reception of European prints in Mughal India, see Rice, “Lines of Perception,” pp. 202-223, with further bibliography. 18 Bailey, “In the Frankish Manner,” pp. 29-34; Bailey, “Sins,” pp. 264–265. Canby, “Farangi Saz,” p. 51; Canby, Rebellious Reformer, pp. 32-34; Welch and Masteller, From Mind, pp. 56-59 and pp. 68-71. 19 Canby, “Farangi Saz;” Landau, “Reconf iguring.” In a remarkable testament to the global reach of prints, Muhammad Zaman’s painting of the Return from the Flight into Egypt (1689) emulates a print by Lucas Vosterman after Rubens that also inspired a painting executed in Cusco, Peru, in 1681. See Sims, “European Print Sources,” p. 81, n. 15. 20 Laporte-Eftekharian, “Diffusion,” p. 60. An album page with margins identical to some of those in Persan 129 and featuring a sixteenth-century print representing St. Ursula is indicative of other engravings circulating in Persia around the time that Persan 129 was assembled. See Mahir, “Album H.2169,” pp. 469-470, p. 472 and p. 475, fig. 6. 21 Farhad, McWilliams, and Rettig, A Collector’s Passion, p. 33, p. 163, n. 14. 22 Roxburgh, Persian Album, p. 190.
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Figure 6 Tinted drawing of a man riding an emaciated horse, mounted on fol. 9v in Persan 129, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France
the current configuration of the album by the placement of each print opposite a page of calligraphies.23 The Latin legends of Aldegrever’s engravings may have invited comparison between their angular script and the calligraphies in the codex, including the couplets from the same Chaghatay poem calligraphied by the same scribe that framed both engravings. Beyond their formal affinities, there are thematic resonances between the prints, which depict no obvious Christian symbolism, and other images in the album. Aldegrever’s depictions of humans and pack animals as well as their themes of suffering and succor parallel other visual representations included in the codex, such as a scene of a wounded soldier helped by comrades or the tinted drawing of a man riding an emaciated, injured horse (Fig. 6).24 At the same time, Aldegrever’s highly detailed images, with their dense networks of line, use of modeling to define form, and perspectival construction contrast strongly with the comparatively spare Persianate drawings and paintings in the codex. In this sense, the engravings might equally have functioned as foils for the superiority of Persianate art.25 23 Rice, “Lines of Perception;” Rice, “The Brush.” 24 For a full discussion of these thematic resonances, see Botchkareva, “Representational Realism,” pp. 179-186. 25 Roxburgh, Persian Album, pp. 301-304.
From Europe to Persia and Back Again
II Paris Despite their aesthetic difference, the Persian compiler of the muraqqa visually and thematically integrated Aldegrever’s prints into the larger collection within its covers. As carefully and elaborately framed as any other work in the album, the engravings were implicitly to be afforded the same attention as the calligraphies and drawings. Eighteenth-century French viewers of the album, however, seem to have consistently highlighted the presence of Aldegrever’s prints at the expense of the volume’s other contents. In their initial evaluation of the muraqqa, Louis XV’s librarians described it as “a collection of Persian verse, ornamented with several figures in the taste of the Orientals and gilded vignettes, within which are two prints by Aldegrever.”26 In his note accompanying the album, Armain similarly singled out the engravings, even going to the trouble of transcribing their Latin captions.27 It is worth noting that the muraqqa was an unusual purchase for the French royal library at the time. From the 1660s the library actively pursued the acquisition of Persian and Arabic manuscripts – in 1722, Armain had offered his services as an agent to abbé Bignon, the director of the royal library, as part of this buying campaign – but their interests lay primarily in literary and scientific texts rather than in compilations of images.28 Yet, when the sale was concluded in 1727, Louis XV’s librarians paid 150 livres for the muraqqa, making it the most expensive of the eight items acquired from Armain. 29 One can interpret the librarians’ high valuation of the album as a testament to their appreciation of its rarity within the royal collection and the unexpected appearance of European prints within it. In his own account, Mariette wrote that what was most “singular” about the codex was to “f ind two prints by Aldegrever placed among the drawings by the Persians themselves and mounted and embellished with the same ornaments as the other, Persian drawings.”30 Mariette’s reaction is suggestive of the ways in which assumptions about the place of art in Islam conditioned French responses to the muraqqa. The album as whole contradicted blanket claims Mariette made in print about aniconism in the Islamic world. In a rare comment on extra-European art, Mariette linked his claim that “the Orientals [were] little interested in cultivating the arts,” to the assertation that
26 Omont, Missions, II, p. 770. 27 BnF, ms. Persan 129, note on flyleaf. 28 Dew, Orientalism; Bevilacqua, Republic; Omont, Missions, II, p. 768. See also van Damme, “Capitalizing Manuscripts,” pp. 113-115. 29 Omont, Missions, II, pp. 769-70. 30 BnF, NAF 14903, f. 63.
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“the Mohammedan religion absolutely forbade them any images.”31 Just as the inclusion of Aldegrever’s engravings “by the Persians themselves” countered the widely-shared European belief that figurative imagery was forbidden in Islamic lands, they also challenged an implicit presumption that the Safavids were uninterested in foreign works of art. Mariette’s attention had almost certainly been drawn to the album by the king’s librarians, perhaps by Armain himself in whose company Mariette appears to have viewed it. In 1734, after his return to France, Armain was appointed translator of Persian, Turkish, and Arabic at the Royal Library in Paris. In this capacity, Armain cataloged the king’s collection of Persian and Turkish manuscripts, and he was responsible for writing the entries on them published in 1739 in the first printed catalog of the library’s manuscript holdings.32 In 1735, shortly after Armain took up his post, Bignon charged Mariette with inventorying the King’s print cabinet after suspicions arose that its curator, the abbé Chancey, had been stealing from the collection. Mariette worked in the library from September 1735 to September 1736, and his activities there appear to have occasioned his encounter with the muraqqa.33 Though the date Mariette added to his account of the album is hard to decipher, it appears to read 1736.34 Kept in a different division of the library, neither the muraqqa nor its engravings appear in Mariette’s inventory of the king’s print cabinet. The librarians likely brought the album to Mariette’s attention as much for its potential utility for his planned history of European printmaking, a project Mariette had begun to announce in 1730, as for its novelty. For here was proof not only of the wide circulation of prints—in this case of sixteenth-century German prints in whose history Mariette was particularly interested—but also of their appreciation by Persian elites. Mariette’s curiosity at when the engravings arrived in Iran was piqued. Based on information he gleaned from Armain, he deduced that the prints traveled to Persia shortly after they were produced. The evidence for this supposition was found in another Persian album in the French royal collection whose calligraphies Mariette described as “in the same style as the most ornamented page of calligraphies” in Persan 129.35 Mariette did not 31 Mariette, Traité, 1, p. 21. His comment appears in a discussion of the use of engraved seals by the “Orientals.” Though Mariette dismissed what he called the excesses of their scripts, he praised their execution. 32 Armain remained in Paris until 1747, when he departed for Istanbul to report on the Turkish printing press and to acquire further manuscripts for the royal library. He returned to Paris in 1749, and in 1752 he was appointed instructor of languages at Collège Louis-le-Grand, a post he held until his death in 1757. Richard, Catalogue, p. 1, n. 1, and p. 15; Omont, Missions, II, pp. 748-760 and 768-771. 33 Pierre-Jean Mariette, “Bref état des estampes de la Bibliothèque du Roi,” 1735-1736, BnF, Département des estampes et de la photographie, Rés. Ye-15a-pet.fol. 34 My thanks to Valérie Kobi for her help deciphering the date. In an earlier text, (Smentek, Mariette, p. 139), I suggested Mariette encountered the album shortly before his death in 1774. The evidence I’ve developed here, however, indicates he viewed it much earlier. 35 BnF, ms. NAF 14903, fol. 63.
From Europe to Persia and Back Again
identify it, but the album in question was almost certainly Persan 245, a finely-bound, deluxe sixteenth-century volume of Persian poetry also acquired by the library from Armain in 1727.36 In his prefatory note to the poetry volume Armain correctly attributed the calligraphies to the “famous Malik-Ebdelimy” (Malik al-Daylami), and dated it to 967 AH (1559-1560 CE) on the basis of the dated colophon on f. 43. Though it is tempting to imagine Mariette applying his connoisseurial eye to the nuances of nasta’liq as Persian connoisseurs did, it was almost certainly Armain who recognized that one of the specimens in Persan 129 is signed by the same Malik-al Daylami (Fig. 4). Building upon this information and the date of Persan 245 Mariette reasoned that Aldegrever’s prints arrived in Iran shortly after 1554, when the engraver finished his plates. In making this conjecture, Mariette seems to have assumed a commonality between his classificatory practices and those of Persian collectors, that is, that they organized their collections chronologically as he did his own albums of prints and portfolios of drawings. Mariette’s encounter with the codex prompted a recognition of similarity in difference. Describing the volume as “unique” and comprised of “drawings, miniatures and specimens of writing by the most skillful Persian masters,” he continued by observing, “Mr. Armain, the king’s interpreter of the Persian language, remarked that the Persians purposely produce these compilations the way we in Europe form collections of drawings by our greatest masters.” This comparison was likely made by Armain in conversation with Mariette as it was not made by the former in his prefatory note to the album. Armain must also have communicated, as he did in his prefatory note to Persan 129, that the calligraphies bore no relation to the images they framed thus countering any assumption that they served an explanatory role.37 Mariette wrote at some length about the Persian collector’s display practices. After remarking that the works in the album were carefully and neatly pasted onto the album’s pages and commenting on their ornamented and colored borders, he discussed the care for preservation evidenced in the codex: “[T]hey call these albums muraqqa, in their language, which means patched things, and indeed I saw that among the numerous drawings in this album there were some which were in poor condition before being pasted to the page, and that much care was taken to restore them when they were put into the album which is proof of the esteem in which the drawings are held.”38 The album demonstrated that Persian collectors were as
36 BnF ms. Persan 245, note on flyleaf. On ms. Persan 245, see Richard, Catalogue, pp. 257-59, and Simpson, Sultan Ibrahim, pp. 286-288. The album is fully digitized and available on Gallica: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ ark:/12148/btv1b8410890h. 37 See Botchkareva, “Representational Realism,” p. 180, n. 215, for a discussion of the possible links between the content of the calligraphies and the prints. 38 BnF, ms. NAF 14903, f. 63.
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Figure 7 Giambattista Pittoni (1687-1767), Head of a Man, restored and mounted by Pierre-Jean Mariette, Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. 5273. Photo by Jean-Gilles Berizzi © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY
considered in their compilations of artworks and as careful about their conservation and display as Mariette was about his own collection of prints and drawings. Among his contemporaries, Mariette was celebrated as much for his expertise in bringing works on paper “back to life” as for the ornamented paper mats he devised
From Europe to Persia and Back Again
for the 1000s of European drawings in his cabinet (Fig. 7).39 Mariette had begun amassing drawings by the 1730s, a period in France when the legitimacy of artists’ drawings as a field of collecting was being established. To the French connoisseur’s surprise, his impulse to preserve fragile works on paper was shared with a collector in Persia, and his careful repair of graphic works, evident in so many sheets from his collection, was paralleled in the work of the muraqqa’s compiler. So too, was the attentiveness to harmonizing and visually unifying a collection of disparate works through the patient piecing together of cut paper borders that characterized both the muraqqa and Mariette’s mats. 40 Some features of Mariette’s mounts are adaptations of Italian precedents for displaying drawings. His use of multiple colored paper borders and rulings to frame many of his drawings, however, was distinctive for its time. 41 Indeed the display techniques for which Mariette is now so famous among drawings connoisseurs resonate most closely with the Persian models he saw c. 1736, models which elicited both his astonishment and his admiration. Mariette’s encounter with Persan 129 exemplifies the complex ways in which the mobility of prints and of albums connected viewers across time and space. In this specific instance, the return of Aldegrever’s prints to Europe in a Persian muraqqa led a French collector who otherwise seems to have had little interest in Persian art to actively look at it, at least for a short time. In so doing, Mariette came to recognize similarities between his interests and those of a collector in Iran. At the same time, the sense of recognition that Mariette’s note relays relied on shared practices of preservation and ornamentation and not on shared representational ideals. If he appreciated the care taken to conserve and display works of art in the muraqqa, he does not seem to have engaged with the Persian drawings and paintings in it at all. He did not comment on them in his note, and there seems to be no further mention of the album in Mariette’s voluminous manuscript notes. Nor are traces of his encounter with Persan 129 to be found in his many publications. Indeed, his first-hand knowledge of the muraqqa did not prevent him from later claiming in print that there was no figurative imagery in the Islamic world. We can surmise that Mariette’s lack of response to Persian figurative art was shaped by the disdain for the art of the “East” that characterized French commentary on art from Persia. As the traveler Jean Chardin asserted in his Voyage en Perse (1711), a copy of which Mariette owned, almost all the liberal arts in Persia were 39 Smentek, Mariette, pp. 129-189, see p. 163 for the description of Mariette’s ability to bring drawings “back to life.” 40 Though describing Persian albums, Roxburgh’s characterization of the compiler’s “impulse to preserve fragile works and to harmonize the heterogenous gathering by establishing recurrent aesthetic effects and patterns of arrangement” could just as readily be applied to Mariette’s practice. Roxburgh, Persian Album, p. 272. 41 On Mariette’s mounting practice, see Smentek, Mariette, pp. 139-189.
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“crude and unrefined […] in comparison with the perfection to which Europe has brought them.”42 This was the assessment with which Chardin opened his short chapter on Persian painting, an art with which he was unimpressed. If the Persians excelled at ornament and the use of vivid color, their figural representations were awkward, flat, and shadowless; they were the antithesis of European art and the perfection it had achieved through naturalism in drawing and the development of perspective. In Chardin’s estimation, the Persians mastered neither, although they once did. Chardin claimed to have read a Persian summary of an Arab text on perspective by “Ebne Heussein.” Although he does not identify it further, the text was likely the Book of Optics by Ali al-Hasan Ibn al-Haytham (965-c.1040 CE), translated into Latin as Perspectiva and its author identified as Alhazen. Chardin posited that this early artistic knowledge was lost because of Islam’s prohibitions on human portraiture. 43 Mariette had the unusual opportunity to study art from Persia at first hand, but there is little to suggest he engaged with it as equivalent to the Italianate or French traditions he championed. Few readers of Chardin’s book, or of subsequent eighteenth-century elaborations of his claims, would have had the opportunity to actually see Persian art.44 Mariette’s encounter suggests the ways in which texts like Chardin’s conditioned the assessments of those who did. In a text like Chardin’s, Persian art was “a category already totally known prior to its investigation,” one that served as the negative example that defined the superiority of European achievements. 45 One can assume that for a viewer like Mariette, who shared the conviction that modeling and perspective were irrefutable markers of European artistic progress, the worth of the images in the Persian album was predetermined. Mariette’s viewing of the muraqqa thus reminds us of the asymmetries of early modern cross-cultural exchange and the uneven transformative potential of objects and images on the move. If the Persian album, and perhaps also Mariette’s mounts for his drawings, testify to the variegated responses stimulated by some encounters with foreign works of art and alternate modes of display, Mariette’s deliberate
42 Chardin, Voyage, II, p. 204. Similar comments were made about painting from China. See Clunas, “Art,” pp. 165-166. For Mariette’s copy of Chardin’s book, see Catalogue des livres, p. 36, no. 589. 43 Chardin, Voyage, II, pp. 204-205; Ferrier, Journey, p. 154; Rauch, “Oriental Manuscripts,” pp. 103-106; see p. 105 for Rauch’s identification of “Ebne Hessein” as Ibn al-Haytham. 44 Chardin’s comments were repeated by subsequent French writers. In an article published in the Mercure de France in 1721, for example, the author cited Chardin’s claims about the constraints of religion on the progress of painting in Persia and expanded on them by asserting that the state of Persian art was equally due to “an Asiatic lassitude that is contrary to the study and application that the perfection of the arts and sciences demands.” Bourguignon d’Anville, “Mémoires,” p. 27. 45 Clunas, “Art,” p. 168.
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silence about the Persianate figurative images he saw suggests such encounters might equally have had little impact at all. My warmest thanks to Laurent Héricher, Bibliothèque nationale de France, for permission to view the albums Persan 129 and Persan 245 and for discussing them with me, and to Emine Fetvacı for a formative conversation about this project when it was at an early stage. If there are errors here, they are entirely my own.
Bibliography Arabesques et jardins de paradis: collections françaises d’art islamique. Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 1989. Babaie, Sussan. “Visual Vestiges of Travel: Persian Windows on European Weaknesses,” Journal of Early Modern History, 123 (2009): 105-136. Bailey, Gauvin A. “In the Frankish Manner: A Safavid Drawing and its Flemish Inspiration,” Oriental Art, 40 (1994/95): 29-34. Bailey, Gauvin Alexander. “The Sins of Sadiqi’s Old Age,” in Persian Painting, from the Mongols to the Qajars: Studies in Honour of Basil W. Robinson, ed. R. Hillenbrand. London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2000, 264–265. Bevilacqua, Alexander. The Republic of Arabic Letters: Islam and the European Enlightenment. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 2018. Botchkareva, Anastassiia. “Representational Realism in Cross-Cultural Perspective: Changing Visual Cultures in Mughal India and Safavid Iran, 1580-1750.” PhD dissertation, Harvard University, 2014. Bourguignon d’Anville, “Mémoires où il est question de la peinture des Turcs & des Persans, de la façon dont les Turcs meublent leurs apartemens, & principalement de la richesse des apartemens du Sérail du grand-seigneur,” Mercure de France (April 1721), 25-52. Canby, Sheila. “Farangi Saz: The Impact of Europe on Safavid Painting,” in Silk and Stone: The Art of Asia, The Third Hali Annual, ed. Jill Tilden. London: Hali Publications, 1996, 46-59. Canby, Sheila. The Rebellious Reformer: The Drawings and Paintings of Riza-yi Abbasi of Isfahan. London: Azimuth, 1996. Catalogue des livres de M. Mariette. Paris: Pissot, 1775. Chardin, Jean. Voyages de Monsieur le Chevalier Chardin en Perse et autres lieux de l’Orient, 3 vols. Amsterdam: J.L. de Lorme, 1711. Clunas, Craig. “The Art of Global Comparisons,” in Writing the History of the Global: Challenges for the Twenty-First Century, ed. Maxine Berg. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013, 165-176. Dew, Nicholas. Orientalism in Louis XIV’s France. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Farhad, Massumeh, McWilliams, Mary and Rettig, Simon. A Collector’s Passion: Ezzat-Malek Soudavar and Persian Lacquer. Washington, DC: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M.
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Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian, and Cambridge, MA: Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, 2017. Ferrier, Ronald W. A Journey to Persia: Jean Chardin’s Portrait of a Seventeenth-Century Empire. London and New York: I.B. Tauris Publishers, 1996. The Fascination of Persia: The Persian-European Dialogue in Seventeenth-Century Art and Contemporary Art from Tehran, ed. Axel Langer. Zurich: Museum Rietberg and Verlag Scheidegger & Spiess, 2013. Fetvacı, Emine. “Persian Aesthetics in Ottoman Albums,” in Studying the Near and Middle East at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, 1935-2018, ed. Sabine Schmidtke. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2018, 402-412. Fetvacı, Emine and Gruber, Christiane. “Painting, From Royal to Urban Patronage,” in A Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture, eds. Gülru Necipoǧlu and Finbarr Barry Flood. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2017, II, 874-902. Grabar, Oleg. Masterpieces of Islamic Art: The Decorated Page from the 8th to the 17th Century. Munich: Prestel, 2009. Juneja, Monica. “Objects, Frames, Practices: A Postscript on Agency and Braided Histories of Art,” The Medieval History Journal, 15:2 (2012): 415-423. Kobi, Valérie. Dans l’oeil du connaisseur: Pierre-Jean Mariette (1694-1774) et la construction des savoirs en histoire de l’art. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2017. Landau, Amy. “Reconfiguring the Northern European Print to Depict Sacred History at the Persian Court,” in Mediating Netherlandish Art and Material Culture in Asia, eds. Thomas Da Costa Kaufmann and Michael North. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2014, 66-82. Laporte-Eftekharian, Sarah [Sayeh]. “Diffusion et exploitation des gravures religieuses dans la Perse safavide: l’exemple de la Nouvelle Joulfa,” Annales d’histoire de l’art et d’archéologie, 25 (2003): 51-70. Mahir, Banu. “Album H.2169 in the Topkapi Palace Museum Library,” in Thirteenth International Congress of Turkish Art: Proceedings, ed. Géza Dávid and Ibolya Gerelyes. Budapest: Hungarian National Museum, 2009, 465-475. Mariette, Pierre-Jean. Traité des pierres gravées, 2 vols. Paris: Pierre-Jean Mariette, 1750. Melot, Anicet. Catalogus codicum manuscriptorum Bibliothecæ regiæ. 4 vols. Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1739-44. Omont, Henri. Missions archéologiques françaises en Orient aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, 2 vols. Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1902. Rauch, Christoph. “The Oriental Manuscripts and Albums of Heinrich Friedrich von Diez and the Perception of Persian Painting in His Time,” in The Diez Albums: Contexts and Contents, eds. Julia Gonnella, Friederike Weis, and Christoph Rauch. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2016, 74-117. Rice, Yael. “Lines of Perception: European Prints and the Mughal kitābkhāna,” in Prints in Translation, 1450–1750: Image, Materiality, Space, eds. Suzanne Karr Schmidt and Edward H. Wouk. London and New York: Routledge, 2017, 202-223.
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Rice, Yael. “The Brush and the Burin: Mogul Encounters with European Engravings,” in Crossing Cultures: Conflict, Migration and Convergence, ed. Jaynie Anderson. Carlton: Miegunyah Press, Melbourne University Publishing, 2009, 305-310. Richard, Francis. Splendeurs persanes: manuscrits du XIIe au XVIIe siècle. Paris: Bibliothèque nationale de France, 1997. Richard, Francis. Catalogue des manuscrits persans, I: ancien fonds. Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, 1989. Richard, Francis. “Trois reliures persanes laquées à décor animalier de la Bibliothèque Nationale,” Revue française d’histoire du livre, 36 (1982): 445-454. Roxburgh, David J. The Persian Album, 1400-1600: From Dispersal to Collection. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005. Roxburgh, David J. Prefacing the Image: The Writing of Art History in Sixteenth-Century Iran. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2000. Simpson, Marianna Shreve with contributions by Massumeh Farhad, Sultan Ibrahim Mirza’s Haft Awrang: A Princely Manuscript from Sixteenth-Century Iran. New Haven: Yale University Press, and Washington, D.C.: Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1997. Sims, Eleonor. “The European Print Sources of Paintings by the Seventeenth-Century Persian Painter, Muhammad Zaman ibn Haji Yusuf of Qum,” in Le Stampe e la Diffusione delle Immagini e Degli Stili, ed. H. Zerner. Bologna: CLUEB, 1983, 73-83. Smentek, Kristel. Mariette and the Science of the Connoisseur in Eighteenth-Century Europe. Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate, 2014. van Damme, Stéphane. “Capitalizing Manuscripts, Confronting Empires: Anquetil-Duperron and the Economy of Oriental Knowledge in the Context of the Seven Years’ War,” in Negotiating Knowledge in Early Modern Empires: A Decentered View, eds. László Kontler, Antonella Romano, Silvia Sebastiani, and Borbála Zsuzsanna Török. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, 109-128. Welch, Stuart Cary and Masteller, Kimberly. From Mind, Heart, and Hand: Persian, Turkish, and Indian Drawings from the Stuart Cary Welch Collection. New Haven and London: Yale University Press; Cambridge: Harvard University Art Museums, 2004.
About the Author Kristel Smentek is associate professor of art history in the department of architecture at MIT. Her current research focuses on the intersections of international trade and diplomacy with artmaking and art theory in eighteenth-century Europe. She is completing a book on Sino-French artistic exchange, Disorient: Arts from China in Eighteenth-Century France.
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Figure 1 The first Bible printed in the Armenian language (Amsterdam, 1666). Beginning of the Gospels, with the four evangelists on the left, and the Tree of Jesse on the right, woodcuts by Christoffel van Sichem, pp. 430-431, second pagination. Alex and Marie Manoogian Museum, Southfield, Michigan. 1988.271 (Gift of the Trustees of the Church of the Holy Resurrection, Dhaka, Bangladesh)
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The Dissemination of Western European Prints Eastward: The Armenian Case Sylvie L. Merian
Abstract This article demonstrates how Dutch prints were used as models by Armenian artists in the Near East in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The images were transported to the region through illustrated, printed books in European languages and Armenian. A notable example is the f irst Bible printed in the Armenian language (Amsterdam, 1666) decorated with woodcuts by Christoffel van Sichem. Armenian printers in Amsterdam acquired the van Sichem woodblocks, reusing them for over a century even when the presses moved to new locales as far as Constantinople. These popular compositions were even recut into new woodblocks by Armenian artists in Constantinople, and thus these images were replicated until the nineteenth century. New Christian iconography was thereby disseminated throughout the region. Keywords: woodcuts; printing; printed books; Amsterdam; Constantinople; Christoffel van Sichem
Introduction The history of printing in the Armenian language is complicated and somewhat convoluted, but it began in Europe, as is the case with printing in many other Near Eastern languages. (Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and Syriac were all first printed in various cities in Italy between the late-fifteenth and early-sixteenth centuries). One of the main reasons for this European origin is that the technology of printing, a European invention, was not yet available in the Near East. As this new technology became more widely accessible, there was certainly opposition from the scribal community, who well realized the threat it posed to their livelihood. In addition, printing was looked upon with suspicion by Muslim rulers, and early attempts to print in the Near East were often thwarted by the authorities. In fact,
Madar, H. (ed.), Prints as Agents of Global Exchange, 1500-1800. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press doi: 10.5117/9789462987906_ch04
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printing in the Turkish language was not off icially permitted in the Ottoman Empire until 1727.1 The impetus for Armenians’ interest in printing was a long-standing desire to print the Bible in the Armenian language, a goal stimulated, in part, by exposure to Western European religious printed books transported to the Near East through trade and Catholic missionaries. However, printing the Bible was a huge, expensive project and the earliest Armenian printers began by printing more modest works. The first book printed in the Armenian language, the Urbat’agirk’ (Book of Friday) was produced in Venice in 1511 or 1512 by a mysterious printer known only as Yakob Meghapart, or Jacob the Sinful.2 The Urbat’agirk’ is a small book of protective prayers, spells, excerpts from the Gospels and Psalms, and other texts, to protect the book’s owner against all manner of illness and evil. Yakob printed a total of five small books which, like the Urbat’agirk’, would have been of particular interest to Armenian merchants or travelers who were far from their homeland.3 It would be over fifty years before the next attempt to print books in Armenian, this time by the diplomat and cleric Abgar of Tokat. He was sent on an ultimately unsuccessful diplomatic mission to Rome to seek Papal help against the Turks. However, Abgar did manage to obtain permission from Pope Pius IV to print in the Armenian language. He traveled to Venice where he printed two books in 1564-65 (a calendar and a Psalter), and then returned to Constantinople where he opened another short-lived printing press from 1567-69. 4 From the mid-sixteenth to mid-seventeenth centuries, other prospective Armenian printers travelled to Rome to obtain permission for printing the Bible there, but they were never successful in getting authorization for this project from Roman Catholic censors, who considered the Armenian Bible heretical. To circumvent this problem, an attempt was even made around 1650 by an Armenian cleric who had been trained in Europe to print the complete Bible in New Julfa, Iran, far from Catholic censors. This venture was unsuccessful for technical reasons and the project was abandoned.5 By the mid-seventeenth century, this enormous and 1 Neumann 2002, p. 227. 2 The Library of Congress system for transliterating Armenian is used in this article, except for one modification: I have replaced the letter in the names and with a , thus rendering them and which is how they are pronounced. Kévorkian 1986, pp.viii-xii, 23-24; Merian 2018, cat. 137, p. 295. 3 Besides the Urbat’agirk’, he also printed the Pataragatetr (Missal, in 1513), Aght’ark’ (book of horoscopes, astrology, and medicinal plants), Parzatumar (simplified calendar of Armenian feasts, including a key to dream interpretation), and Tagharan (collection of writings, poems, and canticles by Armenian saints and lay poets). 4 Kévorkian 1986, pp. 26-27, 111-113. 5 Yovannēs Jughayets’i was sent to Europe from Iran by Bishop Khach’atur Kesarats’i. See Kévorkian 1986, pp. 114-115; Nersessian 1980, p. 24.
The Dissemination of Western European Prints East ward: The Armenian Case
costly endeavor had not yet been accomplished. Armenians realized that, in spite of the censorship problem, for technical reasons they would have to print the Bible in Europe to be able to achieve their goal. Further attempts to obtain permission from the Roman Catholic Church were in vain, and after years of negotiations the Armenians gave up trying to print the Bible in Italy. They eventually travelled to Protestant Amsterdam; the Dutch Republic was more religiously tolerant about such matters. A printing house was founded in Amsterdam by Matt’ēos Tsarets’i in 1658, who had already spent fruitless years in Rome and Venice trying to arrange for printing the Bible in Armenian. By the seventeenth century, Armenian books had been printed in cities such as Rome,6 Amsterdam, Marseille, Lvov, Venice, Constantinople, and New Julfa, Isfahan (Iran), among others.7 In this article I will concentrate primarily on the Amsterdam press mentioned earlier. The illustrations in the books printed there and in the press’s subsequent locations would not only have an important effect on the dissemination of Western European iconography to artists working in different media in the Near East, but would also have an unexpected impact on later printing in the Armenian language in the region, especially in Constantinople.
Amsterdam and the First Printed Armenian Bible In Amsterdam, Matt’ēos Tsarets’i had Armenian punches and matrices made by the famed punchcutter Christoffel van Dijk.8 He also acquired previously used woodblocks with religious imagery which had been designed by a Dutch artist named Christoffel van Sichem. This was actually a family of four artists all with the same name; it is difficult to determine which van Sichem did which woodcut, although some scholars believe that most were designed by Christoffel van Sichem II.9 (We will not concern ourselves with these distinctions here). They all used the same CvS monogram and in this article I will refer to Christoffel van Sichem in the singular. Many of van Sichem’s compositions were heavily inspired by woodcuts and engravings designed by other European artists, such as Hendrick Goltzius, Jacob Matham, Albrecht Dürer, and the Wierix brothers. The van Sichem woodblocks had been used repeatedly to embellish many different Dutch books printed by Pieter Jacopsz Paets in Antwerp or Amsterdam, such as the Biblia Sacra (Antwerp, 1646/1657, in Dutch) or the 1646 Bibels Tresoor (printed in Amsterdam). But why were 6 These Roman presses were run by the Vatican for the purpose of Catholic proselytizing; the most important and prolific was the Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide. Kévorkian 1986, pp. 153-165. 7 Kévorkian 1986; Pehlivanian 2002; Lane 2012; Nersessian 1980. 8 Lane 2012, pp. 69-76. 9 Lehmann-Haupt 1975; Lehmann-Haupt 1977, pp. 39-72.
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the blocks sold? Perhaps Paets, who presumably owned them, felt the woodcuts had completely saturated the Dutch market and were no longer needed. Paets died around 1657, so it is also possible that the woodblocks were sold by his estate and bought by the Armenian printers.10 We do not know the exact circumstances nor exactly when the woodblocks came into the possession of these Armenian printers. In January 1661, Matt’ēos unexpectedly died before completing the printing of his first book, a long and beloved Medieval poem Yisus Ordi (Jesus the Son) written by the twelfth-century Armenian Saint Nersēs Shnorhali.11 This book was illustrated with approximately 100 van Sichem woodcuts.12 An associate, Avetis Ghlijents’ Erevants’i, completed that book in the press (which had been named the Holy Ējmiatsin and St. Sargis Press). Eventually, an Armenian bishop named Oskan Erevants’i (the brother of Avetis) arrived to head the printing house. With the financial backing of three wealthy Armenian merchants from New Julfa, Oskan finally printed the entire Bible in Armenian in 1666 (Fig. 1).13 It is often called the “Oskan Bible” after him.14 Oskan illustrated his Bible with approximately 160 woodcuts by van Sichem,15 all of which had previously appeared in numerous Dutch publications, including the Biblia Sacra and the Bibels Tresoor. For example, the woodcut of the Baptism is found on page 773 of the Dutch Bibla Sacra of 1657 by Paets (Fig. 2); on page 292 of the Armenian book Jesus the Son printed in 1661 mentioned above; and again in the Armenian Bible of 1666 (Fig. 3), as well as other examples. Van Sichem’s monogram, CvS, appears in the lower left corner. I would like to propose another possible reason for the Dutch printer (or his estate) selling the woodblocks – due to many years of use, some of them were no longer in optimal condition. The Baptism woodblock was still in good condition 10 Lane 2012, p. 87. 11 St. Nersēs Shnorhali (Nersēs the Gracious, 1102-1173) was a theologian, poet, composer of hymns and Catholicos from 1166-1173 (supreme head of the Armenian church). He was renowned for his many literary and theological works. 12 The catalog record for the New York Public Library’s copy of Jesus the Son (Spencer Coll., Neth. 1661 94-174) states that the book was published in 1661 and that it includes 98 woodcuts by Christoffel van Sichem. Oskanyan et al. 1988, no. 48, pp. 36-37 states that the book contains 99 van Sichem woodcuts, giving a date of 1660-1661, while Kévorkian 1986, no. 14, pp. 45-47, states that there is only one van Sichem woodcut and dates the book to 1660. It is not clear how to reconcile the discrepancy between 98 or 99 woodcuts vs. 1. Were there perhaps different editions published? The only copy I have examined is the New York Public Library’s copy. 13 Kévorkian 1986, pp. 39-44; McCabe 1998, pp. 59-71; Merian 2018, cat. 138, 139, pp. 296-297. 14 Pronounced “Voskan.” The Library of Congress’s copy of the 1666 Armenian Bible has been digitized and can be viewed at these links: or (both accessed May 17, 2020). 15 Oskanyan et al. 1988, no. 58, p. 46 states that there are 160 woodcuts.
The Dissemination of Western European Prints East ward: The Armenian Case
Figure 2 Baptism (with complete crossbar), woodcut by Christoffel van Sichem, Biblia Sacra in Dutch (Antwerp, 1646/1657), p. 773, first pagination. The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY. PML 126380. Bequest of E. Clark Stillman, 1995
Figure 3 Baptism (with missing crossbar), woodcut by Christoffel van Sichem, Bible in Armenian (Amsterdam, 1666), p. 472, second pagination. Library of Congress, African and Middle Eastern Division, Armenian Rarities, BS95 1666 Armen Cage
when it was used to illustrate the Dutch 1646/1657 Bible.16 By 1661 the block was damaged when used in Jesus the Son, as a portion of the horizontal cross-bar of the cross held by Christ is missing. The damaged woodblock with the missing crossbar was nonetheless reused in the 1666 Armenian Bible (compare Figs. 2 and 3). Despite its location in Amsterdam, the Holy Ējmiatsin and St. Sargis Press was still subject to pressure by Catholic censors. This may be one of the reasons why Oskan Erevants’i relocated the press to Livorno in 1669 for about two years, where he published three books.17 By 1672, with the authorization of King Louis XIV, he moved the press to Marseille. He published a number of books there, but died two years later. The press continued functioning in Marseille intermittently, publishing a total of seventeen books, in spite of further conflicts with Catholic censors. In addition, a lawsuit was initiated by an Armenian Catholic associate who contested the inheritance of the press by Oskan’s cousin and accused him of printing books
16 The general title page gives a publication date of 1657; the New Testament title page is dated 1646. Some copies of this Bible have both Old and New Testaments bound together into one volume, such as the Morgan Library & Museum’s PML 126380, which nonetheless includes a separate title page dated 1646 for the New Testament. 17 The three books are: Vardapetut’iwn k’ristonēakan (Doctrina christiana), Partez hogewor (Hortulus animae), and Tarets’oyts’ grigorean (Gregorian calendar). Kévorkian 1986, pp. 66-67, nos. 34, 35, 36.
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with heretical content.18 Despite further complicated intrigues, another Armenian press opened in Amsterdam in 1685, run by the Vanandets’i family, former associates of Oskan.19 The Holy Ējmiatsin and St. Sargis Press, confronted by more problems with Catholic censorship, reappeared in Constantinople by 1695-96.20 At least some of van Sichem’s woodblocks travelled with the press to its different locales; others ended up in Constantinople and were still being used there to produce woodcuts in printed works well into the eighteenth century.21 For example, van Sichem’s Crucifixion woodcut was printed in a 1712 Hymnal printed by Ghukas Vanandets’i in Amsterdam.22 By 1718 the woodblock had made its way to Constantinople and was reproduced in a codex book printed there, as well as in a printed phylactery scroll dated 1731 (see the section Printed Woodcuts used as Models for Manuscripts and Other Media below for more information on Armenian printed scrolls).23 The CvS monogram is clearly visible in the lower left of the Crucifixion print. Why did the Holy Ējmiatsin and St. Sargis Press move around so much? It is possible that the admittedly serious conflicts with Catholic censors were exacerbated by internal difficulties. Financial troubles also contributed – for example, around 1670 a shipload of books was lost when the ship sank on its way from Amsterdam to Constantinople.24 This certainly resulted in a great financial loss to the press. Also important is that while there were numerous Armenian communities in Europe, the biggest market for these Armenian books was the Near East. An additional advantage for relocating to Livorno or Marseille is that the press would be situated closer to the Near East, making the books significantly cheaper to export. Finally, the Constantinople locale was sensible, given the large Armenian community there, its proximity to the Armenian homeland and the larger market, and greater distance from Catholic censors (who probably would have had little influence in 18 Kévorkian 1986, p. 41. 19 Kévorkian 1986, pp. 40-42, 80-81. The Vanandets’i press operated in Amsterdam from 1685-1718, and they illustrated their books with many van Sichem woodcuts. 20 Kévorkian 1986, pp. 42-45. 21 Kévorkian 1986, pp. 39-44. Most of the illustrated books printed in Constantinople between 1695-1718 described in Kévorkian 1986 between pp. 125-139 are illustrated with van Sichem woodcuts. 22 The Crucifixion is found on p. 247 of the Hymnal; see the Library of Congress’s copy at: or (both accessed May 17, 2020). 23 The 1718 book titled Chshmarit imastut’iwn kam khokmunk’ omank’[…] [True Wisdom or Certain Meditations[…]] includes van Sichem’s Crucifixion woodcut on p. 2. This was published in Constantinople but the name of the printer was omitted. See Kévorkian 1986, no. 135, p. 138, and Oskanayan et al. 1988, no. 304, p. 226. This book can be viewed on the National Library of Armenia’s Digital Library website: and searching by printing date. The 1731 scroll can be viewed on the same site by first clicking on “Amulets” and then the printing date (accessed March 12, 2019). Oskanayan et al. 1988, no. 393, p. 307. 24 Nersessian 1980, p. 31.
The Dissemination of Western European Prints East ward: The Armenian Case
the Ottoman Empire anyway). Constantinople would eventually become home to around twenty Armenian printing presses in the eighteenth century.25 The van Sichem woodcuts made a definite impact on the literate/artistic world of Armenians in Asia Minor. Even though they had been used and reused for decades in Europe, these Dutch woodcuts must have appeared quite modern to Armenian eyes, and perhaps even exotic. Their popularity led to their replication by later Armenian woodcut artists in Constantinople, some whose names are known, but most who remain anonymous. This phenomenon was first recognized by H. K’iwrtean, who published his initial observations in 1937.26
The Baptism Dozens of van Sichem woodcuts were recut into new woodblocks and printed in Armenian books, a few of which will be discussed here. For example, the Baptism by van Sichem mentioned earlier (Figs. 2 and 3) was recut into at least three new woodblocks by Armenian artists, all used to illustrate books printed in Constantinople. One of these new versions was printed in two Miscellanies, one dated 1710 and the other from 1730-31 by the printers Sargis dpir (clerk) and his son Martiros dpir (Fig. 4).27 Another version appeared in a 1729 Gospel book as well as in a Hymnal from 1742 (Fig. 5), both printed by Astuatsatur Kostandnupolsets’i (i.e., “of Constantinople”).28 This composition includes the addition of two flowers (in the lower left), not seen in van Sichem’s woodcut nor in any of the others. A third interpretation of van Sichem’s Baptism is found in a Hymnal printed in Constantinople in 1802 by Pōghos Yōhannisean (Fig. 6). Comparing these Baptism woodcuts with van Sichem’s print confirms that the Dutch work was undoubtedly the inspiration. However, a close examination of details and style (especially evident in facial features of the figures) shows that they were all printed from different blocks (compare Figs. 3, 4, 5, and 6). Note that the Baptism in the 1802 Hymnal (Fig. 6) is also missing the crossbar of the cross held by Christ (as was the van Sichem woodcut printed in the 1661 Yisus Ordi [Jesus the Son] and the 1666 Armenian Bible). Is this because the replica woodblock was damaged by 1802, or did the artist model his block on the original van Sichem woodcut which was already 25 Pehlivanian 2002, p. 57. 26 K’iwrtean 1937a; K’iwrtean 1937b; K’iwrtean 1940; K’iwrtean 1966. (K’iwrtean is known as Harry Kurdian in English-language publications). 27 The Baptism in the 1710 Miscellany is reproduced in K’iwrtean 1937a, p. 244, f ig. 12. Most of the Armenian books mentioned can be viewed in their entirety in digital form through the National Library of Armenia’s Digital Library by searching the publication date: (accessed Feb. 3, 2019). 28 The Baptism in the 1729 Gospel book is published in K’iwrtean 1937a, p. 244, fig. 11.
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Figure 4 Baptism (with complete crossbar), woodcut by unknown Armenian artist, in a Miscellany (Constantinople, 1730-1731), p. 175. Private Collection
Figure 5 Baptism (with flowers in lower left and complete crossbar), woodcut possibly by Grigor Marzuants’i (note white initials ԳՐ [GR] in lower right), in a Hymnal (Constantinople, 1742), p. 63. Reproduced with permission from the Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center of the Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern), New York, NY. Acc. no. 31
The Dissemination of Western European Prints East ward: The Armenian Case
Figure 6 Baptism (with missing crossbar), woodcut by unknown Armenian artist, in a Hymnal (Constantinople, 1802), p. 63. Reproduced with permission from The Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University in the City of New York. VH23 1702
missing the crossbar by the time it was printed in an Armenian book? If the artist was copying the original van Sichem woodcut directly from an Armenian book (without using a later, intermediary print) it is possible that he did not understand that Christ was supposed to be holding a cross and he simply reproduced exactly what he saw in the (damaged) van Sichem print. (The artist may have assumed that Christ was holding a staff). Another difference between the original van Sichem woodcut and the later Armenian copies is the omission of the Hebrew word “Jehovah” (the tetragrammaton) printed in the center of the rayed sun in van Sichem’s work (compare Figs. 2 and 3 with Figs. 4, 5, and 6).29 The Armenians were probably unsure of the meaning of these Hebrew letters and did not include them in their newly-cut woodblocks. As they rarely included their names or initials on the woodblocks, the names of later Armenian woodcut artists are mostly unknown. However, the woodcut in Fig. 5 includes the letters ԳՐ (GR) in white on the lower right of the print. These letters indicate that it was likely designed and cut by the artist Grigor Marzuants’i (Gregory of Marzuan or Marzvan, active in printing from 1698 to 1734).30 Initially 29 My sincere thanks are due to Abraham Samuel Shiff who translated the Hebrew and who also informed me that the letters in the van Sichem woodcut were cut by someone who did not know Hebrew, as two letters were cut incorrectly. 30 His name has also been transliterated Marzvanets’i or Marzvanec’i. In the colophon of his 1706 Yaysmawurk’ (Synaxarion), he calls himself Գրիգոր Մարզուանցի (Grigor Marzuants’i), so that is the form I have used here, transliterated according to the Library of Congress system.
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Figure 7 King David with harp, woodcut by Christoffel van Sichem, Biblia Sacra in Dutch (Antwerp, 1646/1657), p. 748, first pagination. The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY. PML 126380. Bequest of E. Clark Stillman, 1995
Figure 8 King David with harp, woodcut by Christoffel van Sichem, Bible in Armenian (Amsterdam, 1666), p. 27, second pagination. Library of Congress, African and Middle Eastern Division, Armenian Rarities, BS95 1666 Armen Cage
The Dissemination of Western European Prints East ward: The Armenian Case
Figure 9 King David with harp, woodcut by unknown Armenian artist, in a Zhamagirk’ [Book of Hours] (Constantinople, 1721), p. 12. Reproduced with permission from the Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center of the Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern), New York, NY
trained as a manuscript illuminator, Grigor became a well-known woodcut artist and later even had his own printing house. He printed the f irst Armenian Synaxarion (Yaysmawurk’) in 1706, replete with large, splendid wood engravings.31 He sometimes included his monogram ԳՐ (GR), Գմ (GM) or even his full name in his woodcuts.32 Note that the letters here (and on some other woodcuts) appear white on a lined, dark background. Woodcutting is a relief process, i.e. the areas cut out of the woodblock remain white in the print, and the sticky ink is laid on the raised areas of the block. Initials appearing in white on a print mean that they were incised into the woodblock, as opposed to being raised.33 31 Grigor invented the technique of wood engraving, where the block of wood is cut across the grain rather than along the grain, evident in his Synaxarion. The other, smaller prints might not be wood engravings but regular woodcuts. See Kévorkian 1989, pp. 22-23; for his wood engraving, see Blachon and Kévorkian 1990. 32 The Գմ (GM) seen in some woodcuts may be imperfectly cut or ligatured letters ԳՐ (GR). For the most recent publications in English on Grigor Marzuants’i, see: Kouymjian 2014, pp. 24-25; Kouymjian 2015a; and Kouymjian 2015b, pp. 128-131. 33 Incising letters into a woodblock, rendering them white on a dark background in the resulting print, could have been done long after the original design and cutting of the block. It would not be possible to add anything to be printed in black after the block had already been cut unless it was added on a high, uncut area of the wood. We should therefore keep in mind that these white initials might not have been incised by Grigor Marzuants’i but perhaps by someone who might have added the GR letters later. Grigor’s
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King David with his Harp Another example of a van Sichem-inspired illustration is King David with his harp. An image of David was frequently included in Bibles to illustrate the beginning of the Book of Psalms, as he is believed to be their author. Psalters or Books of Hours might also include an author portrait of David. The van Sichem woodcut was printed on page 748 of the Old Testament of the Dutch Bible of 1646/1657 (Fig. 7), in the Bibels Tresoor (page 488, Amsterdam, 1646), and on page 27 (second pagination) of the Old Testament in the 1666 Oskan Bible (Fig. 8).34 The block was still being used in Amsterdam in 1714 when the woodcut appeared in a Psalter printed by Ghukas Vanandets’i.35 The CvS monogram is clearly visible in the lower right. A new version of David with his harp, printed from a different woodblock, appears in an Armenian Zhamagirk’ (book of hours) printed by Astuatsatur Kostandnupolsets’i in Constantinople in 1721 (Fig. 9), in which the CvS monogram was replaced by a six-petalled flower.36 A similar woodcut of David appears in yet another version (without the flower) in a 1778 Psalter printed by Yōhannēs and Pōghos in Constantinople.37 As suggested earlier for the Baptism woodcut, we cannot always be certain if the Armenian artists were inspired by the original van Sichem woodcut or by a later descendent. Note that the European-style harp depicted in the woodcuts was a stringed instrument that would have been unfamiliar to Armenians. In an Armenian manuscript Psalter dated 1599, King David is instead depicted holding a four-stringed saz, a Near Eastern instrument common in the region.38
earlier wood engravings, such as in his famous 1706 Synaxarion, are extremely high quality. The later woodcuts (with the white or black letters) do not always seem to be of the same caliber. There might even be another artist who used the same GR monogram. This issue deserves further research. 34 The one-volume 1666 Oskan Bible includes two paginations: pp. 1-628, and then beginning with the Book of Job, it restarts the pagination from pp. 1-834. 35 Kévorkian 1986, no. 78, pp. 99-100. The 1714 Psalter can be viewed on the National Library of Armenia’s Digital Library (search under the year 1714-1715); the woodcut of King David with the harp is on p. 5 (accessed March 12, 2019). 36 Oskanyan et al. 1988, no. 322. A copy of the 1721 Zhamagirk’ is at the Zohrab Information Center, Diocese of the Armenian Church, Eastern, New York. However, the Zohrab Center book is a composite book; that is, it was fragmentary (there are still many missing pages), but some of the text was replaced by inserting leaves from two different printed Zhamagirk’ volumes. The text is therefore composed of leaves from three printed Zhamagirk’ books. It is currently in a late twentieth-century modern binding. 37 Oskanyan et al. 1988, no. 684. See Lane 2012, p. 159, for a reproduction of this version of David and his harp. The entire 1778 Psalter has been digitized from a copy at the University of Amsterdam (call number OTM: OK 63-6078) and is available on the National Library of Armenia’s site: (accessed Feb. 13, 2019). 38 Leyloyan-Yekmalyan 2018, cat. 98, p. 217.
The Dissemination of Western European Prints East ward: The Armenian Case
Tree of Jesse Another van Sichem-derived image which became very popular in Armenian printed books is the Tree of Jesse. It was prophesied that the Messiah would descend from the family of Jesse, the father of David (Isaiah 11:1-3). Since the Medieval period, this was often represented in Western European manuscripts or stained glass by a reclining Jesse from whose loins spring a genealogical tree. (One of the most famous of these European depictions is the 12th-century stained glass window at the Cathedral of Chartres). The ancestors of Christ are seen on the branches of the tree, with the Virgin and Christ at the top. The first example of a Tree of Jesse in Armenian manuscript illumination is found in a 1318 Bible from the famed monastery of Gladzor, in Siwnik’, an image known to be derived from Western European manuscripts.39 The van Sichem image portrays a recumbent Jesse from whom a large tree trunk emerges, with the torso of a king placed on each of twelve tree branches extending from the trunk. At the summit of the trunk is the Virgin holding the Christ child. The CvS monogram is discreetly placed at the lower left. This woodcut was used in various Dutch publications including the Dutch Bible of 1646/1657 (on the first page of Matthew’s Gospel, p. 5; see Fig. 10), and the woodblock was reused by the Armenians in their 1666 Bible on p. 431 (second pagination), where it was also positioned at the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew (Fig. 1). Since Matthew’s Gospel begins with the genealogy of Christ, this is a logical placement for the illustration. In the 1666 Armenian Bible, the Tree of Jesse faces the four van Sichem woodcuts of the evangelists on p. 430, which included the evangelist’s name in Latin below his portrait, followed by the CvS initials. The Armenian printer further added the Armenian translation of each evangelist’s name below his Latin name. At least three more Armenian woodblocks were derived from van Sichem’s Tree of Jesse composition: one presumably by Grigor Marzuants’i, and two other versions by two different, unnamed artists. Four books (there are certainly more), all printed in Constantinople, used the exact same Armenian woodblock which includes Grigor Marzuants’i’s monogram ԳՐ (GR), or possibly Գմ (GM), in the lower left in black ink. At least two Hymnals include this woodcut, one printed in 1724, and the other in 1742 (Figs. 11 and 12). Both were printed by Astuatsatur, son of Karapet Kostandnupolsets’i. Grigor’s woodcut was also used in a Gospel book printed in 1729 in Constantinople by the same printer. 40 Amazingly, this same woodblock by Grigor Marzuants’i was still being used to illustrate books into the nineteenth 39 Merian 2018, cat. 44, p. 119. 40 The Tree of Jesse from this Gospel was published in K’iwrtean 1937a, fig. 4, p. 241. The digitized book can be viewed on the National Library of Armenia’s website: (accessed Feb. 13, 2019).
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Figure 10 Tree of Jesse, woodcut by Christoffel van Sichem, Biblia Sacra in Dutch (Antwerp, 1646/1657), p. 5, second pagination. The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY. PML 126380. Bequest of E. Clark Stillman, 1995
century. Over 100 years later the woodcut appears again in a Hymnal printed in 1834 in Constantinople. 41 At this late date the block was now in the possession of the printer Pōghos Arabean Apuch’ekhts’i. A second Armenian version of the Tree of Jesse woodcut by a different artist illustrates a Miscellany printed in Constantinople by Martiros dpir Sargisean in 1730-31 (Fig. 13); this one has no initials. A third version from yet another woodblock was printed by Pōghos Yōhannisean in an 1802 Constantinopolitan Hymnal (Fig. 14). This last woodcut is not of very high quality – there are solid black splotches in some areas (it was perhaps over-inked during printing), many of the faces appear completely flattened, and the reclining Jesse’s right hand seems to have six (or seven?) fingers! These are just a few examples of the many original van Sichem woodblocks that were at first reused by Armenian presses located from Amsterdam to Constantinople, and then later recut into new blocks by Armenian artists, creating new woodcut illustrations replicating van Sichem’s compositions. It is not possible 41 The woodcut is found on p. 4 of this 1834 Hymnal. The entire book can be viewed on the National Library of Armenia’s website: (accessed Feb. 13, 2019).
The Dissemination of Western European Prints East ward: The Armenian Case
Figure 11 Tree of Jesse, woodcut by Grigor Marzuants’i (initials ԳՐ [GR] or ԳՄ [GM] in lower left), in a Hymnal (Constantinople, 1724), p. 4. Bib. Mazarine 4º A 13192 [res], p. 4 ©Bibliothèque Mazarine. Reproduced with permission
Figure 12 Tree of Jesse, woodcut by Grigor Marzuants’i (initials ԳՐ [GR] or ԳՄ [GM] in lower left), in a Hymnal (Constantinople, 1742), p. 6. Reproduced with permission from the Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center of the Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern), New York, NY. Acc. no. 31
discuss all of the resulting woodcuts in this short study, but a partial list includes the Adoration of the Magi, the Entry into Jerusalem, Transfiguration, Last Supper, Crucifixion, Deposition from the Cross, Resurrection, Ascension, and Pentecost. These woodcuts, printed using the later newly cut blocks, are generally found in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century publications from Constantinople. Dozens of van Sichem woodcuts were first published in various Dutch printed books as well as in later Armenian printed books, but not all were originally designed by him. As mentioned earlier, van Sichem often based his compositions on the woodcuts or engravings of other artists. For example, a number of woodcuts published in the book of Revelation of the Dutch Biblia Sacra (and later reused in the Armenian Bible of 1666) are based on Albrecht Dürer’s famed 1498 woodcuts of St. John’s Revelation (Apocalypse). Van Sichem acknowledged this artistic borrowing by including both Dürer’s AD monogram as well as his own CvS monogram in those woodcuts. Of the fifteen van Sichem woodcuts reused in the Book of Revelation in the Oskan Bible, twelve were based on Dürer’s Apocalypse. Note that many European artists copied Dürer’s famed woodcuts and engravings (as well as those
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Figure 13 Tree of Jesse, woodcut by unknown Armenian artist, in a Miscellany (Constantinople, 1730-1731), p. 138. Private Collection
Figure 14 Tree of Jesse, woodcut by unknown Armenian artist, in a Hymnal (Constantinople, 1802), p. 6. Reproduced with permission from The Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University in the City of New York. VH23 1702
by other artists); this was not an unusual phenomenon. Dürer’s prints became the inspiration for later woodcuts or engravings, as well as for enamels, maiolica ceramics, and even bronzes. 42 Van Sichem made extensive use of another printed work as inspiration for his woodcuts, without acknowledging the source or the artist(s): Evangelicae historiae imagines: ex ordine evangeliorum, quae toto anno in missae sacrificio recitantur in ordinem temporis vitae Christi digestae by Gerónimo (a.k.a. Jerónimo, Jerome, or Hieronymus) Nadal. 43 This book of engraved plates was a project begun by St. Ignatius Loyola (d. 1556), founder of the Jesuits, and was continued by Nadal (d. 1580); it was printed posthumously in 1593 in Antwerp. It consists of 153 large, annotated engravings by artists such as the Wierix brothers (Hieronymus, Jan, and Anton II), Adriaen and Jan Collaert the younger, and others. These artists had based many of their engravings on the works of Bernardo Passeri and Maarten de Vos.44 The engravings were designed to accompany Nadal’s text titled Adnotationes 42 See: Caroselli 1993; Thornton 2004; and Gabbarelli and Bober 2017. 43 For a modern facsimile of the Evangelicae historiae imagines[…], see: Nadal 2001. 44 Clifton and Melion 2009, pp. 79-82, 123.
The Dissemination of Western European Prints East ward: The Armenian Case
et meditationes in evangelia, published a year later. The books were intended as an aid to spiritual meditation but also functioned as an important didactic tool for Jesuit missionaries. They were reprinted numerous times (especially the engravings) and translated into various languages up to the eighteenth century. The Jesuits brought these engravings with them all over the world to help in their missionary work, including Ethiopia, Iran, and even China, where they were further copied by local artists. 45
Pentecost One example of a Nadal engraving copied by van Sichem is the Pentecost, plate 149 of the Evangelicae historiae imagines […] (Fig. 15). This depicts the moment during the Jewish feast of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit descended to the Apostles giving them the ability to speak in tongues, portrayed as tongues of fire resting upon each one (Acts 2:1-4). This large, finely engraved illustration by Jan Wierix (at the bottom center of the print, the artist inscribed “Ioan. Wierx fecit,” that is, “Johan. [Jan] Wierix made it”) was reinterpreted by van Sichem into a smaller woodcut. He configured it into a more vertical format to fit within one column of the Biblia Sacra (Fig. 16). The room in which the Apostles and other figures sit in a circle around the Virgin has therefore been made narrower, so that the seated figures form an oval rather than a circle. The gestures and positions of the figures, the drapery over the benches, and views outside the windows are all similar. Van Sichem included his monogram in the left window, almost imperceptibly emerging from the rooftop of a building near the letter “A.” The letters A through I scattered throughout this Wierix engraving function as a key to the Latin explanatory notes given below the engraving which describe a part of the image. As mentioned earlier, the engravings in Nadal’s book were used not only for meditation but also for didactic purposes, and therefore served as visual aids for the Jesuit missionaries who traveled worldwide to proselytize. All the engravings in the Nadal book include letters which are keyed to the descriptions below them. Van Sichem included these letters in the woodcuts that he copied from Nadal’s book, and also incorporated the accompanying explanations in his Biblia Sacra, but in Dutch rather than Latin (see the Dutch text below the woodcut in 45 For European prints (especially those from Nadal’s book) used as models for religious art in Ethiopia, see: Pankhurst 1993, Mercier 1999, and Bosc-Tiessé 2004; for Asia, see: Bailey 2005; for Iran, see: Landau 2012a, Landau 2012b, and Landau 2014. For seventeenth-century China, see: Standaert 2006 and PESSCA (Project on the Engraved Sources of Spanish Colonial Art) at , especially which includes examples of Chinese woodcuts based on Flemish engravings published by Nadal (accessed Jan. 27, 2019).
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Figure 15 Pentecost, engraving by Jan Wierix, in Gerónimo Nadal, Evangelicae historiae imagines […] (Antwerp, 1593), plate 149. The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY. PML 126345. Bequest of E. Clark Stillman, 1995
The Dissemination of Western European Prints East ward: The Armenian Case
Figure 16 Pentecost, woodcut by Christoffel van Sichem, Biblia Sacra in Dutch (Antwerp, 1646/1657), p. 226. The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY. PML 126380. Bequest of E. Clark Stillman, 1995
Fig. 16). However, when the Armenians acquired the van Sichem blocks and reused them, such as the Armenian Bible of 1666 (Fig. 17), they probably did not know the purpose of the letters; it is doubtful that they had a copy of the Dutch Bible to understand their function. The woodcuts with the unnecessary letters were printed in the Armenian books anyway; the letters had to remain in the woodblock because removing them would have required chipping the tiny letters off which would certainly have damaged the blocks and the woodcuts they produced. Note that not all of van Sichem’s woodcuts include such letters, because not all were copied from Nadal’s book. The Pentecost woodcut by van Sichem, inspired by the engraving in Nadal’s book, was reused multiple times by the Holy Ējmiatsin and St. Sargis Press, and then again later by the Amsterdam-based Vanandets’i printing house. For example, it was used in the 1664-65 Hymnal printed by Oskan, then again in the Vanandets’i Hymnal printed in 1685. The woodcut appears yet again in three Hymnals printed
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Figure 17 Pentecost, woodcut by Christoffel van Sichem, Bible in Armenian (Amsterdam, 1666), p. 570, second pagination. Library of Congress, African and Middle Eastern Division, Armenian Rarities, BS95 1666 Armen Cage
Figure 18 Pentecost (with circular damage in lower right), woodcut by Christoffel van Sichem, in a Hymnal (printed by Ghukas Vanandets’i, Amsterdam, 1712), p. 358. Library of Congress, African and Middle Eastern Division, Armenian Rarities, BX127 Armen Armen Cage
in 1692, 1712, and 1718 by the Vanandets’i family in Amsterdam. 46 However, in the latter three editions, it is evident that the woodblock itself was now damaged: the printed woodcut includes a large white circle near the bottom right of the image, just below the head of the second figure to the right of the letter “B” (Fig. 18 shows the damaged woodcut on p. 358 of the 1712 Hymnal). Either the block was dropped or something fell onto it, causing a round portion of the woodblock in relief at this section to break off, leaving a blank white area after printing. This damage is not found in the 1685 edition. 47 This means that the damage was sustained between
46 Another Hymnal was published in 1702 in Amsterdam but uses a different woodcut of the Pentecost on p. 388 (also signed CvS). 47 In the 1685 Vanandets’i Hymnal, the Pentecost is printed on p. 388 and is undamaged.
The Dissemination of Western European Prints East ward: The Armenian Case
Figure 19 Pentecost, woodcut by Christoffel van Sichem, in a Hymnal (probably Amsterdam, before 1692), p. 358. Reproduced with permission from the Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center of the Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern), New York, NY
1685 (block was still undamaged) and 1692 (damaged). 48 All four editions (1685, 1692, 1712, and 1718) include the same text below the Pentecost woodcut (Գալուստ Հոգւոյն սրբոյ յօր Պէնտակոստին. ’Ի դասս առաքելոցն ըստ խոստման բանին։ [The Arrival of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost to the assembly of Apostles according to the promise]). However, all four were typeset differently so there are different line breaks in each edition. The library of the Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center of the Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern) (New York, NY) includes a fragmentary Hymnal, missing its title page, colophon, pp. 381-454, as well as some other scattered pages (replaced by blank leaves). But it still retains the van Sichem Pentecost on p. 358 (Fig. 19), without the damage seen in the later editions described above (as seen in Fig. 18); moreover, the traditional decorative Armenian-style headpiece printed on the facing page (p. 359) is exactly the same as the one used in the 1692
48 In the 1692, 1712, and 1718 Hymnals, the damaged Pentecost woodcut is located on page 358. These books can all be viewed on the NLA website: (accessed Feb. 13, 2019); the 1712 Hymnal belonging to the Library of Congress is also available at these two sites: or (both accessed May 17, 2020).
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Vanandets’i edition.49 In addition, the caption below the Pentecost woodcut of the Zohrab Center’s copy is typeset differently than the others mentioned above (i.e. in the five editions examined, none of the captions are typeset in the same way). The Zohrab Center’s fragmentary book was clearly printed in Amsterdam by the Vanandets’i press before 1692 (by when we know it was already damaged), but does not match any of the other Hymnals known thus far. It might perhaps be a heretofore unknown variant of a Hymnal printed in Amsterdam. The damaged van Sichem Pentecost woodblock was even brought to Constantinople where it was printed in a Hymnal by Barsegh and Yakob Sebastats’i in 1736.50 Other Constantinopolitan imprints are found with Pentecost scenes, but these were printed from a recut woodblock signed Գ (G) (or possibly a ligatured ԳՐ (GR)) visible in the window on the right. Two examples are seen in Fig. 20 (a Zhamagirk’ or Book of Hours printed in 1721) and Fig. 21 (a Hymnal dated 1724).51 K’iwrtean reproduced yet another one from a 1772 Ergaran or Songbook.52 The composition closely follows the van Sichem woodcut, but of course does not include the letters A through I used as a legend for van Sichem’s explanatory text. There would be no reason for the Armenian woodcut artist to include these letters in his newly-cut woodblock. The fact that van Sichem used engravings from the Nadal book as models for some of his woodcuts brings up an interesting question: might the Armenians woodcut artists have used those engravings as their model, instead of van Sichem’s woodcuts? Nadal’s engravings were certainly available in some regions of the Near East; it is also possible that the books could have been brought over by Armenian merchants. The Armenian Church of Holy Bethlehem in New Julfa, Iran was decorated with wall paintings derived from Western European iconography. In many cases these murals depict the same compositions and iconography as the van Sichem woodcuts, and it was long assumed these were modeled on the van Sichem woodcuts from the 1666 Armenian Bible. A recent publication by Amy Landau convincingly proves that these wall paintings were inspired by the engravings in the Nadal book and not by the Dutch woodcuts, since certain iconographic elements are found in both the Nadal engravings and the murals, but are not included in van Sichem’s versions.53 49 The printers commonly combined the new European woodcuts with very traditional Armenian decorative headpieces, marginal decorations, and decorative capital letters. 50 The damaged Pentecost woodcut was printed on p. 386 of the 1736 Hymnal. The digitized book can be accessed on the National Library of Armenia’s Digital Library site: 51 For more information about this Hymnal, see Merian 2012, cat. 27. 52 K’iwrtean 1937a, p. 245 and fig. 20. Note that the caption of fig. 20 in this article includes a typographical error – the date 1722 in the caption is incorrect and should instead be 1772 as described in his text on p. 245; the Pentecost woodcut signed GR is printed on p. 34 of this Songbook. 53 Landau 2012a.
The Dissemination of Western European Prints East ward: The Armenian Case
Figure 20 Pentecost, woodcut by Grigor Marzuants’i (initials ԳՐ [GR] in right window), in a Zhamagirk’ [Book of Hours] (Constantinople, 1721), p. 312. Reproduced with permission from the Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center of the Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern), New York, NY
Figure 21 Pentecost, woodcut by Grigor Marzuants’i (initials ԳՐ [GR] in right window) in a Hymnal (Constantinople, 1724), p. 288. Bib. Mazarine 4º A 13192 [res], p. 288 ©Bibliothèque Mazarine. Reproduced with permission
The opposite situation occurs when comparing a later Armenian version of the Pentecost (Fig. 20 or 21) with the Wierix engraving in Nadal’s book (Fig. 15) and van Sichem’s version (Figs. 16-19). Numerous details in the Armenian version exactly replicate those printed in the van Sichem woodcut. For example, the curvy, bottom window sills of both the left and right windows duplicate the van Sichem print, not the more elaborate ones in the Wierix engraving. The exterior views seen from both windows are also similar in the van Sichem print and the later Armenian version signed GR, down to the extremely simplified renderings of the human figures standing outside. The rectangular moldings in the wall behind the seated figures encircling the Virgin reproduce those in the van Sichem print, and not the Wierix engraving. Because of the extremely close similarities between the van Sichem woodcuts and the Armenian versions made from recut woodblocks, it is clear that the Armenian woodcut artists used the Dutch prints by van Sichem as their models, and not the engravings in Nadal’s book. This Pentecost iconography, originally derived from a Jan Wierix engraving in Nadal’s 1593 Evangelicae historiae imagines[…], was copied by Christoffel van Sichem in the seventeenth century and used in multiple Dutch publications. The
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van Sichem woodblock was then acquired by Armenian printers and reused in the first Armenian printed Bible as well as many other books until at least 1736, even though it had sustained some damage between 1685 and 1692. A recut woodblock of this image was produced by Armenians in Constantinople and used to illustrate Armenian religious books during the eighteenth century. I have shown a few examples here; a complete search of the hundreds of Armenian books produced in this period would certainly uncover many more examples.
Printed Woodcuts Used as Models for Manuscripts and Other Media The van Sichem woodcuts, as well as other Western European woodcuts and engravings, would have a perhaps surprising influence on late Armenian manuscript art. It might seem odd to think that printed images could have any effect on manuscript illumination, since we usually think of manuscripts as being produced before the emergence of printed books. However, manuscripts continued being produced in the Near East long after Western European manuscripts had been supplanted by printed books. In many cultures of the Near East, some traditional manuscripts were still being created until the nineteenth century. Western European printed engravings or woodcuts were def initely used as models for seventeenth-century Armenian manuscripts, and in some cases we know the precise printed book used as the exemplar. For example, the appearance of new Western European-derived imagery in a group of seventeenth-century Armenian manuscript Bibles was inspired by the engravings (in both the Old and New Testaments) of Johann Theodor de Bry, printed in a Latin Bible published in Mainz in 1609.54 Indeed, de Bry’s Apocalypse engravings even led to illustrating the Book of Revelation in seventeenth-century Armenian manuscript Bibles, something that had not been attempted previously.55 In the case of the Book of Revelation, de Bry based many of his Apocalyptic engravings on the famed 1498 Apocalypse woodcuts by the Albrecht Dürer, and thus the Armenian manuscript illuminations were ultimately based on Dürer’s woodcuts, through an intermediary. The latest example known to me of painted illustrations in an Armenian manuscript which were inspired by woodcuts with European antecedents is a recently acquired scroll at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Arménien 348, an incredible 27.7 meter-long phylactery scroll (hmayil or hamayil in Armenian)
54 Merian 2018, cat. 126, pp. 276-277; cats. 128-129, pp. 279-280. 55 Merian 2014.
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handwritten on paper and illustrated in Bursa (near Constantinople) in 1865.56 Such scrolls were used as protective amulets and include prayers, extracts from the Gospels, Psalms, and magical spells, all for the protection of the owner’s health and well-being from sickness, calamities, the evil eye, etc. (the texts in the Urbat’agirk’ are extremely similar to those found in hmayils). They were produced both in manuscript form and, beginning in the late-seventeenth century, in printed form, an indication of their popularity.57 Many of the same woodcuts used in printed codex books were reused in these printed scrolls. The 1865 manuscript scroll was embellished with 31 simplified, painted illustrations, one of which is an image of King David with his harp. The stance of the standing crowned David and the position and form of the harp he holds leave no doubt that the painting was inspired either by Christoffel van Sichem’s woodcut of King David (Fig. 8) or, more likely, a later woodcut printed in Constantinople based on van Sichem’s print (such as Fig. 9 or the one published in the 1778 Psalter; see note 37). Comparing the 1865 manuscript scroll with a printed scroll dated 1725 (albeit incomplete) confirms that such a printed scroll was certainly the model for the 1865 hamayil.58 Most of the woodcuts in the 1725 scroll are very closely replicated in the paintings of the 1865 scroll and are found in the same position vis-à-vis the text. The 1725 printed scroll I examined is fragmentary and does not include the woodcut of King David with his harp. However, almost all of the other extant woodcuts printed in it were closely duplicated in the 1865 manuscript.59 56 This is probably the longest Armenian scroll known thus far, and may therefore be the most complete one extant. The entire scroll has been digitized and can be viewed at: (accessed March 10, 2019). The images can be zoomed; the illustration of King David is found near the end of the scroll. The scribe (and presumably artist) was Yarut’iwn Prusats’i (of Bursa or Brusa), son of Yakob Vank’ean. The description of the manuscript on the BNF link spells his name thus: Harutyun Prusati [sic] son of Hakob Vankyan. I am very grateful to Anna Leyloyan-Yekmalyan for informing me about this scroll. 57 The earliest dated manuscript scroll known thus far dates from 1428; see Feydit 1986, pp. 6-7. The earliest printed scroll on the National Library of Armenia’s digital library site is dated 1698. For descriptions of some manuscript and printed scrolls in the Alex and Marie Manoogian Museum (Southfield, MI), see: A Legacy of Armenian Treasures 2013, cat. 1.12, pp. 50-51 and cat. 1.16, pp. 58-59. For three scrolls in the Musée arménien de France, Fondation Nourhan Fringhian (Paris), see: Armenia Sacra 2007, cats. 201-203, pp. 440-441; for images of their scrolls, both manuscript and printed, see: (accessed May 19, 2020). 58 In 2013 I examined and photographed a printed, hand-colored scroll dated 1725 at the Alex and Marie Manoogian Museum in Southfield, MI, accession number 1988.316 (unpublished). 59 The National Library of Armenia’s website includes digital scans of nine printed hmayil scrolls (dated 1698, 1709, 1716, 1717, 1724, 1725, 1728, 1731, plus one undated), all which are fragmentary. None of these incomplete printed scrolls include the woodcut of King David holding a harp. The Library of Congress has also digitized their two printed scrolls, scroll no. 1 dated May 20, 1727, and scroll no. 2 dated June 15, 1725 (the dates given on the site are incorrect; the dates given above are printed in the scrolls’ colophons); neither include a woodcut illustration of King David. For scroll no. 1, see:
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The van Sichem woodcuts inspired not only later Armenian woodcut artists who used the compositions for illustrating printed books, but also influenced Armenian artisans working in other media. At least twelve van Sichem woodcuts were used as models for liturgical silverwork produced in a workshop of Armenian silversmiths in mid-seventeenth to mid-eighteenth century Kayseri (in central Anatolia).60 In this workshop, it is certain that the van Sichem woodcuts, not the Nadal engravings, were used by the silversmiths because some of the van Sichem compositions utilized do not exist in the Nadal book. In other cases, it is evident that some illuminations in late Armenian manuscripts were based on Western European iconography borrowed through woodcuts, engravings, or etchings in printed books, but the precise models have not yet been identified. One example is the appearance in early seventeenth-century Armenian manuscripts of a new type of Resurrection iconography depicting Christ emerging from or floating above the tomb. This iconography becomes ubiquitous in later centuries, appearing not only in late manuscripts but also in Armenian printed books as well as embroidered liturgical vestments, silverwork (especially silver covers made for books of holy scripture), and even ceramic tiles.61 We do know the origin of at least one of these Resurrection compositions: Christoffel van Sichem directly copied it from plate 134 of Nadal’s book.62 The van Sichem version was then printed in many Dutch books, and after the woodblock’s acquisition by the Armenian printers of Amsterdam, it reappeared in the 1666 Armenian Bible and other Armenian books. A number of printed books with van Sichem’s woodcut illustrations made their way to Kayseri, where the Resurrection image was subsequently used as a model by the Armenian silversmiths there and reinterpreted as a dazzling silver, jeweled and enameled book plaque dated 1691.63 Van Sichem’s composition of the Resurrection was recut into at least two new woodblocks by Armenian woodcut or ; for scroll no. 2, see: or (accessed May 17, 2020). Based on the available digital scans, we do not know, therefore, if any printed scrolls ever included a woodcut of King David; further research on more complete printed scrolls might shed light on this question. However, the artist and scribe of the 1865 manuscript scroll at the Bibliothèque nationale could have certainly copied the David image from another printed book with that woodcut, in addition to copying woodcuts from a printed scroll. 60 See Merian 2013 for eleven examples (Table 2, pp. 182-185); the Last Supper should be added to this list to form the twelfth. See Merian 2018, “Armenian Metalwork in Kayseri,” p. 241, cat. 111, p. 242, and cat. 112A, B, pp. 243-244. 61 See Merian 2019. A c. 1720 ceramic tile from Kütahya inscribed in Armenian and decorated with this Resurrection iconography embellishes a wall of the Holy Ējmiatsin Chapel in St. James Cathedral at the Armenian Patriarchate in Jerusalem. See Narkiss, Stone, and Sanjian 1979, p. 132, fig. 176. 62 See Nadal 2001, plate 134, for a reproduction of this Resurrection in a modern facsimile. 63 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, accession number 16.99. Merian 2018, cat. 112A, B, pp. 243-244 reproduces both the van Sichem Resurrection woodcut and the silver plaque it inspired.
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artists in Constantinople, where it was used in numerous printed books until at least the mid-eighteenth century.64 This is another example of a composition which originated in Nadal’s late-sixteenth century Evangelicae historiae imagines […] and was perpetuated through the vehicle of Armenian printed books until the mid-eighteenth century.
Conclusion Printed illustrations from Western European books would have a profound impact on the artistic vocabulary of Armenian religious art. They became an important source for new religious iconography (as well as style) for Armenian artists beginning in the seventeenth century, a period when their manuscripts and printed books still actively coexisted. The Dutch woodblocks by Christoffel van Sichem procured by the first Armenian printing press in Amsterdam became important sources for this new iconography, although these were by no means the only models. Van Sichem’s woodcuts, as well as engravings and etchings by other European artists, were admired and copied by Armenians and used in manuscript illumination, other woodcuts (especially for books printed in Constantinople), wall paintings, silverwork, ceramics, and liturgical embroidery. There was an openness to new ideas and techniques brought in through the medium of European printed books, while still retaining older traditions in other decorative aspects of the books.
Acknowledgements I would like to thank the following people for providing photographs, giving permission to publish, helpful comments, and more. Any errors are, of course, my own. At The Morgan Library & Museum (New York, NY): Maria Molestina and Polly Cancro of the Sherman Fairchild Reading Room; Marilyn Palmeri, Eva Soos, Graham Haber, Janny Chiu and Kaitlyn Krieg in the Department of Imaging and Rights; Alisa Adamian (National Library of Armenia, Erevan, Armenia); Lucy Ardash (Alex and Marie Manoogian Museum, Southfield, MI); Levon Avdoyan (Library of Congress, Washington, DC); Matthew Baker (Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University, New York, NY); Nina G. Garsoian (Columbia University, New York, NY); Robert Hensleigh (Huntington Woods, MI); 64 For just two examples: one version of this Resurrection (with the monogram ԳՐ [GR]) was printed in a 1721 Zhamagirk’ (Book of Hours). A different version is found in a 1738 Tagharan. Further searching would certainly uncover more examples.
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Lola Koundakjian (New York, NY); Anna Leyloyan-Yekmalyan (Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, Paris, France); Patti and Fred Myers (New York, NY); Christopher Sheklian (Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center of the Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern), New York, NY); Abraham Samuel Shiff (Graduate Center, CUNY, New York, NY); Yann Sordet and Céline Leroux (Bibliothèque Mazarine, Paris, France); Leon Tatevossian (New York, NY).
Bibliography Armenia Sacra: Mémoire chrétienne des Arméniens (IVe-XVIIIe siècle), under the direction of Jannic Durand, Ioanna Rapti, and Dorota Giovannoni. Paris: Musée du Louvre Éditions, Somogy, 2007. Bailey, Gauvin Alexander, “Jesuit Art and Architecture in Asia,” in The Jesuits and the Arts, 1540-1773, eds. John W. O’Malley and Gauvin Alexander Bailey. Philadelphia: St. Joseph’s University Press, 2005, 313-360. Blachon, Rémi and R. H. Kévorkian. “Aux origines de la gravure sur bois debout: l’école arménienne de Constantinople (1705-1782),” Nouvelles de l’estampe, 111 (July 1990): 5-10. Bosc-Tiessé, Claire. “The Use of Occidental Engravings in Ethiopian Painting in the 17th and 18th Centuries,” in The Indigenous and the Foreign in Christian Ethiopian Art: on Portuguese-Ethiopian Contacts in the 16th-17th Centuries, eds. Manuel João Ramos with Isabel Boavida. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004, 83-102. Caroselli, Susan L. The Painted Enamels of Limoges: A Catalogue of the Collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Los Angeles: The Museum, 1993. Clifton, James and Walter S. Melion. Scripture for the Eyes: Bible Illustration in Netherlandish Prints of the Sixteenth Century. New York: Museum of Biblical Art, 2009. Feydit, Frédéric. Amulettes de l’Arménie Chrétienne. Venice: St. Lazare, 1986. Gabbarelli, Jamie, with Jonathan Bober. Sharing Images: Renaissance Prints into Maiolica and Bronze. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art; London: Lund Humphries; Chicago, IL: Art Stock Books, Independent Publishers Group, 2017. Kévorkian, Raymond H. Catalogue des Incunables Arméniens (1511/1695). Geneva: Patrick Cramer Éditeur, 1986. Kévorkian, Raymond H. Les Imprimés Arméniens 1701-1850, Guide no. 11. Paris: Bibliothèque nationale de France, 1989. K’iwrtean, H. [= Kurdian, Harry] “Armenian Woodcuts,” Print Collectors Quarterly, 27 (1940): 69-87. K’iwrtean, H. “Oskani Astuatsashunch’in P’aytap’oragreal Patkernerě,” (“Woodcut images of the Oskan Bible”), Sion, Feb.-March 1966: 105-111. K’iwrtean, H. “P’aytap’oragrch’akan Manrankarch’ut’iwně ew Manrankarich’ner Hay Tpagrut’ean mēj,” (“Woodcut Miniature Illustrations and Miniature Painters in Armenian Printing”), Bazmavep, 10-11 (1937a): 238-248.
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K’iwrtean, H. “P’aytap’oragrch’akan Manrankarch’ut’iwně ew Manrankarich’ner Hay Tpagrut’ean mēj,” (“Woodcut Miniature Illustrations and Miniature Painters in Armenian Printing”), Bazmavep, 12 (1937b): 324-329. Kouymjian, Dickran. “Between Amsterdam and Constantinople: The Impact of Printing on Armenian Culture,” in Die Kunst der Armenier im östlichen Europa, eds. Marina Dmitrieva and Bálint Kovács. Köln: Böhlau, 2014, 19-26. Kouymjian, Dickran. “Grigor Marzvanec’i and Armenian Book Illustration,” Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies, 24 (2015a): 29-43. Kouymjian, Dickran. “Some Iconographical Questions about the Christ Cycle in Armenian Manuscripts and Early Printed Books,” Orientalia Ambrosiana, 4 (2015b): 121-141. Landau, Amy S. “European Religious Iconography in Safavid Iran: Decoration and Patronage of Meydani Bet’ghehem (Bethlehem of the Maydan),” in Iran and the World in the Safavid Age, ed. Willem Floor and Edmund Herzig. London, New York: I. B. Taurus, 2012a, 425-446. Landau, Amy S. “From the Workshops of New Julfa to the Court of Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich: An Initial Look at Armenian Networks and the Mobility of Visual Culture,” in Metalwork and Material Culture in the Islamic World: Art, Craft, and Text…, eds. Venetia Porter and Mariam Rosser-Owen. London, New York: I. B. Tauris and Co., 2012b, 413-426. Landau, Amy S. “Reconfiguring the Northern European Print to Depict Sacred History at the Persian Court,” in Mediating Netherlandish Art and Material Culture in Asia, eds. Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann and Michael North. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2014, 65-82. Lane, John A. The Diaspora of Armenian Printing 1512-2013. Amsterdam: Special Collections of the University of Amsterdam, 2012. A Legacy of Armenian Treasures: Testimony to a People; The Alex and Marie Manoogian Museum, with an introduction by Edmond Y. Azadian; Sylvie L. Merian, editorial coordinator; Lucy Ardash, general coordinator. Taylor, MI: Alex and Marie Manoogian Foundation; Bloomington, IN: Distributed by Indiana University Press, 2013. Lehmann-Haupt, Hellmut. “Christoffel van Sichem: A Family of Dutch 17th Century Woodcut Artists,” Gutenberg Jahrbuch, (1975): 274-306. Lehmann-Haupt, Hellmut. An Introduction to the Woodcut of the Seventeenth Century. New York: Abaris Books, 1977; especially Chapter II: “Masters of the Netherlands: the Christoffel van Sichems,” 39-72. Leyloyan-Yekmalyan, Anna. “Psalter” [cat. 98], in Armenia: Art, Religion, and Trade in the Middle Ages, ed. by Helen C. Evans. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018. McCabe, Ina Baghdiantz. “Merchant Capital and Knowledge: The Financing of Early Printing Presses by the Eurasian Silk Trade of New Julfa,” in Treasures in Heaven: Armenian Art, Religion, and Society; Papers Delivered at The Pierpont Morgan Library at a Symposium Organized by Thomas F. Mathews and Roger S. Wieck 21-22 May 1994. New York: The Pierpont Morgan Library, 1998, 59-71. Mercier, Jacques. “Les sources iconographiques occidentales du cycle de la vie du Christ dans la peinture éthiopienne du dix-huitième siècle,” Journal Asiatique, 287.2 (1999): 375-394.
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Merian, Sylvie L. “The Armenian Silversmiths of Kesaria/Kayseri in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries” in Armenian Kesaria/Kayseri and Cappadocia, ed. Richard G. Hovannisian. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 2013, 117-185. Merian, Sylvie L. [Essay p. 241 and cats. 44, 111, 112A, B, 126, 128, 129, 137, 138, 139] in Armenia: Art, Religion, and Trade in the Middle Ages, ed. Helen C. Evans. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018. Merian, Sylvie L. “Illuminating the Apocalypse in Seventeenth-Century Armenian Manuscripts: The Transition from Printed Book to Manuscript,” in The Armenian Apocalyptic Tradition: A Comparative Perspective, eds. Kevork B. Bardakjian and Sergio La Porta. Leiden: Brill, 2014, 603-639. Merian, Sylvie L. “Reproducing the Resurrection: From European Prints to Armenian Manuscripts,” in Toward a Global Middle Ages: Encountering the World through Illuminated Manuscripts, ed. Bryan Keene. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2019, 148-155. Merian, Sylvie L. “27. Reliure arménienne sur un hymnaire de Constantinople (1724),” in Le Livre Arménien de la Renaissance aux Lumières: une culture en diaspora [Catalogue entry 27 in exhibition catalogue], eds. Mikaël Nichanian and Yann Sordet. Paris: Bibliothèque Mazarine/Éditions des Cendres, 2012, 126-129. Nadal, Gerónimo. The Illustrated Spiritual Exercises, edited by Jerome Nadal [facsimile]. Scranton, PA: University of Scranton Press, 2001. Narkiss, Bezalel and Stone, Michael E. eds. Historical survey by Avedis K. Sanjian. Armenian Art Treasures of Jerusalem. New Rochelle, NY: Caratzas Brothers, 1979. Nersessian, Vrej. Catalogue of Early Armenian Books 1512-1850. London: British Library, 1980. Neumann, Christoph K. “Book and Newspaper Printing in Turkish, 18th-20th Centuries,” in Middle Eastern Languages and the Print Revolution: A Cross-Cultural Encounter, eds. Eva Hanebutt-Benz, Dagmar Glass, and Geoffrey Roper. Westhofen: WVA-Verlag Skulima, 2002, 227-248. Oskanyan, Ninel A., K’narik A. Korkotyan, and Ant’aṛam M. Savalyan. Hay Girkě 15121800 T’vakannerin: Hay hnatip grk’i matenagitut’yun (The Armenian Book in 1512-1800: Bibliography of Old Printed Armenian Books). Erevan, Armenia: Al. Myasnikyani Anvan Zhoghovurdneri Barekamut’yan Shk’anshanakir, HSSH Petakan Gradaran, 1988. Pankhurst, Richard. “A Note on the Coming to Gondar of the Painting of the Virgin of Santa Maria Maggiore,” in Aspects of Ethiopian Art from Ancient Axum to the 20th Century. Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on the History of Ethiopian Art, September 1990, Nieborów, Poland, ed. Paul B. Henze. London: Jed Press, 1993, 93-94. Pehlivanian, Meliné. “Mesrop’s Heirs: The Early Armenian Book Printers,” in Middle Eastern Languages and the Print Revolution: A Cross-Cultural Encounter, eds. Eva Hanebutt-Benz, Dagmar Glass, and Geoffrey Roper. Westhofen: WVA-Verlag Skulima, 2002, 53-92. PESSCA: PESSCA (Project on the Engraved Sources of Spanish Colonial Art) at http:// colonialart.org; for Chinese woodcuts c. 1620 based on the engravings in Nadal’s book: http://colonialart.org/galleries/1#c1131a-1131b. (Accessed Jan. 27, 2019).
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Standaert, Nicolas. “Chinese Prints and Their European Prototypes: Schall’s Jincheng shuxiang,” Print Quarterly, 23:3 (Sept. 2006): 231-253. Thornton, Dora. “The Use of Dürer Prints as Sources for Italian Renaissance Maiolica.” British Museum Occasional Paper 130, 2004. https://www.britishmuseum.org/pdf/8%20 The%20use%20of%20Durer%20Prints.pdf. (Accessed February 24, 2021).
About the Author Sylvie L. Merian received her PhD in Armenian Studies from Columbia University’s Department of Middle East Languages and Cultures, writing her dissertation on Armenian bookbinding. She has published and lectured on Armenian codicology, bookbinding, silverwork, manuscript illumination and printed books. She currently works as Reader Services Librarian at The Morgan Library & Museum in New York City.
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The Catholic Reformation and Japanese Hidden Christians: Books as Historical Ties Yoshimi Orii
Abstract The Jesuit Mission Press and its products in early modern Japan have contributed much to our understanding of how the Jesuits tried to introduce Christianity. How did Japanese novices and believers use the printed materials? One can get a good idea by analyzing the variety of adaptations of manuscripts produced by local believers from books rediscovered after being hidden for centuries by clandestine believers. Without the guidance of clergymen, some transcribed or summarized the full originals, others added and changed some words and phrases, combining important parts of more than one original, etc. They were unique adaptations of Jesuit publications for local believers to maintain their Christian practice without the guidance of clergymen that was considered indispensable among Tridentines. Keywords: Jesuit Mission, The Christian Century in Japan, Global Renaissance, Kirishitan, Book History, History of printing
Introduction The European printing press, brought to Japan in 1590 by the Jesuits, and the subsequent publishing activities over the next quarter-century exemplify the Global Renaissance: the worldwide effects of the European Renaissance.1 The Jesuit mission press in Japan has already been extensively studied in fields including bibliography, linguistics, and Japanese literature since the early 20th century. In particular, a notable body of work has focused on the history of printing technology. For example, from around the early 21st century, computer technology has been used to examine the influence of Jesuit mission publications, Korean letterpress printing technology brought to Japan during the Japanese invasions of Korea of 1
Burke, Clossey and Fernández-Armesto, “The Global Renaissance.”
Madar, H. (ed.), Prints as Agents of Global Exchange, 1500-1800. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press doi: 10.5117/9789462987906_ch05
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1592-1598, and the letterpress technology that emerged around the same period in Japan, especially in Kyoto. Additionally, textual comparisons between publications by the Jesuit press in Japan and their original sources (i.e. European dictionaries/ grammar books or religious/catechetical books) are increasing in number.2 These recent studies, mainly pursued by Japanese scholars, form part of the foundation of recent global history research and illustrate the missionary work conducted by Europeans and Japanese converts, including Japanese laypeople who were accepted into religious orders or received titles like dōjuku (or dojico, auxiliary of missionary that lived in the same residence without taking monastic vows) and kanbō (or kambo, sacristan and lay deputy of missionary). The aforementioned publications were collaborations between the two cultures, and the realities of cultural translation are vividly visible.3 Strictly speaking, however, we can only imagine from descriptions in missionaries’ letters and reports to Europe how the Japanese used these publications. In other words, other historical sources are needed in order to examine how local people used those books outside the church, as well as how and to what extent changes and inculturation occurred in that process. The Tokugawa Shogunate issued a missionary expulsion order in 1614 and later banished Christianity from Japan. A process was organized to censor and confiscate books and religious items related to Christianity, and prosecute missionaries and believers. Furthermore, in the 1630s the Shogunate established the position of Shomotsu Aratame (book inspection officer) and forbade the possession or import of Christian books. 4 However, publications and manuscripts confiscated during that period were passed down and survived several feudal domains. At the behest of the Western powers, Japan’s ban on Christianity was virtually lifted in 1873, after the Restoration of Imperial Rule in 1868. Afterwards, academic societies and literary circles began sharing knowledge about Japan’s early modern Christian history. Publications on national history and literature include works like Nihon Seikyō-shi (1878-1880), which is a Dajō-kan (the Great Council of State) translation of Histoire de l’Eglise du Japon (1689), by Jean Crasset; Dai Nihon Shiryō (1901-present), edited by the Historiographical Institute of the Imperial University of Tokyo; Zoku Zoku Gunsho Ruijū (1907);5 and materials collected from Europe 2 For an overview on the trends in these studies, see Orii, “The Dispersion of Jesuit Books.” 3 For more on cultural translation in early modern Europe, see Burke and Po-Hsia, Cultural Translation in Early Modern Europe. For a recent article on Jesuits of Japan’s publishing and translation activities discussed from a similar viewpoint, see Abé, “Christian Catechisms and Practice.” 4 Ōba, A Study on Imported Chinese Classic Literatures; Ōba, A Study on the Reception of Chinese Culture. For an overview of this situation in English, largely based on Ōba’s studies, see Brokaw and Kornicki, The History of the Book in East Asia, 498-499; McDermott and Burke, The Book Worlds of East Asia and Europe. 5 A compilation of old Japanese books on Japanese literature and history, led by a book publisher Kokusho Kankō kai.
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by Naojirō Murakami (1868-1966), a pioneer historian of Japan–Europe relations. Additionally, Christian relics, including manuscripts hidden and passed down by Japanese believers, were discovered in 1919. Such relics include those possessed by the Nakatani family at Ibaraki Sendaiji in Osaka, a former territory of Christian Daimyō or feudal lord Dom Justo Takayama. These relics have been primarily presented at Japanese academic societies by linguist Izuru Shinmura (1876–1967) and the scholar of Japanese religious studies Masaharu Anesaki (1873–1949).6 Many of the confiscated/confidential documents studied here remained under the scope of reproduction, reprinting, and annotation for a long time, supervised by the aforementioned modern scholars. However, analysis of their content from an intellectual history perspective is underdeveloped. In Japan, these documents reinforced the Catholic Church’s discourse and anchored the Society of Jesus’ 20th-century concepts of praise for martyrdom and hidden faith. In particular, the 1928 arrival in Japan of J. Laures (1891–1959), the greatest contributor to Japan’s collection of Christian historical documents, increased research into early modern Christianity in Japan. On the whole, historical studies of these documents from the perspective of early modern Catholic global missions – or the Global CounterReformation – have only just begun.7 As a case study in the relationship between the Global Renaissance and Christianreligious orders (mainly the Jesuits), this chapter re-examines these Japanese vernacular language materials about early modern Catholic global missions. Specifically, this study examines Jesuit manuscripts and publications in Japan and, in most cases, their original European texts. In analyzing the differences between those texts, this study clarifies the influence of sermons and spiritual literature from the European Counter-Reformation on the inculturation of Japanese Christians. Overall, this chapter will empirically show the footprint of inculturation from the European Renaissance and reveal the state of the Global Renaissance, as it unfolded in Japan through the utilization of the texts considered here.
Publication of Books on Sermons and Faith for Missionary Work in Japan At the Council of Trent (1545–1563), held during Francisco Xavier’s (1506–1552) mission in Japan (1549–1551), the Catholic Church did not provide specific guidelines 6 Ōsaka Mainichi Shinbunsha published 21 codices, one scroll, and four envelopes (each including photographs of religious items or engravings) as Chinsho taikan: Kirishitan sōsho from 1928 to 1929. 7 For more on early modern Catholic global missions, see Hsia, A Companion to Early Modern Catholic Global Missions. For more on the Global Counter Reformation, see Ditchfield, “Catholic Reformation and Renewal.”
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on missionary activities. Indeed, such guidelines did not emerge until the 1622 establishment of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide. This delay is because missionary activities were essentially viewed as the duty of the monastic community and protected by secular rulers, whereas the Council was committed to parish reform; The Council viewed secular clergy as the Church’s support base and emphasized lay people’s moral education efforts.8 Among those efforts, sermons were recognized as the clergy’s most important duty, including preaching on every Lord’s Day and feast day.9 The amount of published sermon literature rapidly increased around the end of the Council; it formed a distinct literary genre.10 Practical manuals emerged on how to fulfil preaching duties. For example, De Rhetorica Ecclesiastica by Agostino Valier (1574) and Luis de Granada (1575) were considered textbooks for artes concionandi (art of making sermons) in the latter half of the sixteenth century. They were recommended by renowned Catholic ecclesiastics, such as Roberto Bellarmino, Antonio Possevino, and Carlo Borromeo.11 While there is no record of these manuals in ministry work in Japan, there are content similarities between the preacher’s service guidelines Avizos para os Pregadores em Japão do Padre Pedro Gomez (“Notice for the Preachers in Japan by Father Pedro Gomez”) by the Jesuit Vice-Provincial of Japan, Pedro Gomez (c.1535-1600), and the text by Granada.12 If Jesuit missionary work in Japan was part of the Global Renaissance, it was largely through incorporating some elements of parish reform in Catholic Europe – which is not necessarily directly linked to overseas mission – into missionary work in Japan. Sermons are part of Jesuit tradition; giving sermons is clearly positioned in the Papal Bull instituting the Society of Jesus and approved by Paul III in 1540. The Jesuits were, in Worchester’s words, “principally instituted to work for the advancement of souls in Christian life and doctrine, and for the propagation of the faith by public preaching and the ministry of God’s Word.”13 Alessandro Valignano (1539–1606), the “Visitador” of the Japanese Jesuit mission, first arrived in Japan in 1579, after having observed the importance of missionary sermons in local languages in India. In 1575, he began sending Jesuits from India to learn Japanese. However, their poor ability to learn Japanese was what got his attention most after he came to Japan; he said that talented students needed at least six years before they could hear confessions in Japanese and more than fifteen years 8 Council of Trent, session 23, Cap. 18. “Method of establishing Seminaries for Clerics, and of educating the same therein.” (Wentworth, The Canons and Decrees, 187) 9 Ibid. session 5, Cap. 2. “On Preachers of the Word of God, and on Questors of Alms.” (Wentworth, 27) 10 Michelson, The Pulpit and the Press, 28–29. 11 The above books were combined and published in Venice in 1578; cf. McGinness, Right Thinking and Sacred Oratory, 50 and 235 (note 153). 12 Álvarez-Taladriz, “Avisos y Reglas,” 15. 13 Worchester, “Catholic Sermons,” 17.
The Catholic Reformation and Japanese Hidden Christians: Book s as Historical Ties
before they could deliver an address to Christians.14 In 1582, he left Japan with four Japanese delegates he chose to represent the three Christian daimyōs in Kyushu. He intended for them to learn European languages and culture to expand the Jesuit missionary work. He also took Japanese servants, namely, Constantino Dourado, Jorge de Loyola, and Miguel Ichicu (their Japanese names are unknown) to learn printing technology. Subsequently, he was ordered to stay in Goa, and responsibility for the delegation was given to Diogo de Mesquita (c.1553–1614). Valignano brought several types of Japanese paper to test in metal letterpress printing. In Lisbon, the aforementioned servants were sent to two well-known printing-houses (those of Antonio Ribeiro and Manuel de Lyra) to learn how to print in different formats and print types.15 They also cast about 200 kana and kanji letters in Europe.16 Upon returning to Japan in 1590 with the delegates, Valignano brought a letterpress printer and the aforementioned letter types, and, in 1594, he had italicized Roman letters newly cast in Japan.17 By 23 November 1595, he was already reporting on the extraordinary effect of their availability: At the moment, ours [Jesuit members] in Japan have not only composed an arte [grammar book] and dictionary, but have also printed many books in the language. […] [I]n less than a year even students of less than average ability know the [Japanese] language well enough to hear confessions and to converse with the Japanese, while the more talented actually learn to preach in one year.18
In 1598, Valignano cast over 2500 kanji characters and used them to publish Racuyoxu, a comprehensive book of kanji samples. Roei Zafit, published in 1600, used about 2800 kanji, exceeding the nowadays typical number of daily-use kanji characters (2136) used today.19 In addition to dictionaries, grammar guides, language-learning materials (in Latin and Japanese), and summary documents for church rituals and sacraments, Jesuit publications in Japan included many translated post–Council of Trent books on sermons, doctrines, and spiritual literature, as Luis de Granada, Marcos Jorge, and Gaspar Loarte later described.20 These books, circulating in Europe at the time, were translated and printed in Japanese in Roman characters for European 14 Shütte, Valignano’s Mission Principles, 250. 15 Toyoshima, “Characteristics of Christian Prints,” 95–96 and 145–147. 16 Ibid. 149. 17 Ibid. 150. 18 Shütte, Valignano’s Mission Principles, 251. 19 Toyoshima, “Characteristics of Christian Prints,” 153. 20 About Granada, see Huerga, Obras Compleatas, and Huerga, Fray Luis de Granada. About Jorge, see O’Neill, Diccionario histórico, 2153, and Jorge, Marcos and J.M. Pinto dos Santos, Doutrina cristã. About
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missionaries’ convenience and in kanji mixed with kana for local clergy members and followers. Valignano said in Sumario de las cosas de Japón (1580) – a mission report on Japan to the Jesuit Superor General – that printing was impossible because of Japanese’s countless characters.21 He dedicated about 20 years of his life to rectify this situation. After returning from Europe, Diogo de Mesquita served as the rector of the Jesuit college in Nagasaki, where the printing machine was housed. When he mentioned the process of printing 1300 copies of Contemptus Mundi, he noted that 1300 pages were printed every day at the print house.22 At the time, Japan was in the early days of printing culture. Books like Kobun Kōkyō (the Confucian treatise Xiaojing or “Classic of Filial Piety”, 1593, of which no copies appear to have survived) were printed on Emperor Go-Yōzei’s instruction using the letterpress printing machine that had been introduced when Toyotomi Hideyoshi invaded Korea.23 However, temples had just begun the practice of hiring nearby bookstores to use woodblock printing to publish Buddhist scriptures. Those bookstores would expand beyond religious texts to commercial publications in the 1630s. During the Edo period, when first-edition woodblock prints sold 1000 copies, they were considered bestsellers.24 However, the Jesuits’ printed materials far exceeded in number as the above example of Conptemptus Mundi has shown. Printing and publishing activities were considered missionary work’s lifeblood; Mesquita’s report dated January 6, 1603 stated that no other approach could save and spread Christianity, even though painting and printing expenses were enormous.25 While distributing vast quantities of books, Valignano also indicated specific guidelines for the books’ use and users. This can be observed in Obediencia, written in 1580 and amended in 1612 by Valignano’s successor, Francesco Pasio (1552–1612). Chapter 10 is entitled “De la conversión de los cristianos” (“On the conversion of Christians”). In the chapter, Principle 5 instructs readers or Fathers to provide sufficient catechism education to those wanting to become Christians. It also prescribes preaching all sermons in the Catechism once a day for one week to those who had sufficient knowledge to understand. Furthermore, it instructed that those sermons Loarte, see O’Neil, Diccionario histórico, 2402, and for a more recent study on him, see Loarte and Keenan, The Exercise of the Christian Life. 21 Valignano and Álvarez-Taladriz, Sumario, 151. 22 Pacheco “Diogo de Mesquita,” 441–442. It is unknown which edition is referred to here. The 1610 edition, published in kanji and kana mixed characters, consisted of 83 folios, and the 1596 edition, in Roman characters, is 461 pages in Octavo format. Therefore, it would have taken an enormous amount of time to publish one book. 23 For an overview of these historical items, see Kornicki, The Book in Japan, 129. 24 Hashiguchi, Bookstores and Book-Making in Edo, 128. 25 British Library, Add. Mss. 9860, ff. 36-36v. (cf. Takase, The Jesuit College, 460).
The Catholic Reformation and Japanese Hidden Christians: Book s as Historical Ties
should always be accompanied by an introductory explanation and a summary of what was taught. On the last day of the week, all sermons should be summarized again. A particular title mentioned in this Principle 5 is Los onze capitulos (“The Eleven Chapters”). Principle 8 in the same chapter directs the placement of literate kambo as building caretakers at each church; they would also teach prayers and instruct the public to read Doctrina Cristiana (“Christian Doctrine”) and other printed spiritual books, not manuscripts in circulation. A book list is detailed in Principle 11 of Obediencia. Preachers were encouraged to read excerpts from spiritual books in missionary churches on Sundays. Recommended titles included Guía de Pecadores (“The Sinners’ Guide”), Gerson, Misterio do Rosario (“Mystery of the Rosary”) and Libro de Fides (“The Book of Faith”), and the lecturer was urged to describe the argument of each chapter of these books.26 Obediencia lists actual titles of books that functioned as sermon substitutes. It refers to kambo as the individuals in charge of such books. A kambo was a local leader who managed an inacas (“countryside”) church that was not situated near a Jesuit college or seminary, where the priest or monks were based. Conversely, the job of conveying doctrine to unbelievers and giving sermons was sometimes assigned to a particularly competent individual among all dojico/dojuku, who did not belong to the official ecclesiastical system, but who were affiliated with the Jesuit organization, lived in the Jesuit residence, and relied on the Society for a living. Some served as dojico/dojuku with the intention of later joining the Society.27 A report dated January 12 1603, approved by Luis Cerqueira (1552–1614), Bishop of Japan, briefly summarized the actual status of kambo. From his remarks, it is evident that kambo could read Japanese characters, understand and explain Christian doctrine, and command respect in their communities as spiritual leaders: Villages under the supervision of the Residencia have a church corresponding in size to the number of villagers. […] kambo is in charge of the sacristy, the maintenance of the village church, and they are entrusted with the task of instructing the children in doctrine, and further, with reading spiritual books to the congregation on Sundays and holy days if no padres, irmaos, or dojuku are available. They visit the sick and call upon the padre for their confession. They also inform the padre of any physical and spiritual crises occurring among the Christians in their village. When people 26 Biblioteca Ajuda, Cod 49-IV-56, 146-204v, “Obediencia do Padre Alejandre Valignano, Vizitador da Provincia de Japão e China, revistas e concertadas pello P. Francisco Pasio, Vizitador da mesma Provincia, para instrucção dos reytores. Anno de 1612” f160. In this paper, I referred to the Spanish version the editor reprinted as a footnote in Valignano and Álvarez-Taladriz, Sumario, 167–168. 27 For more on dojico/dojuku, see ‘Dōjuku’ in O’Neill, Diccionario histórico, 1133. Also see Álvarez-Taladriz, “Hermanos o dogicos?” regarding the issues of office organization within the Society of Jesus caused by this position.
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are near death and there is no time to call the padre, the kambo baptizes them and even performs their burial.28 Kambo activities expanded after the expulsions of missionaries from Japan in 1614 and the subsequent enforcement of anti-Christian edicts. While describing missionary work in Nagasaki, a document dated March 7, 1623 described kambo visiting villages to perform baptisms when the priest was absent, reading spiritual books to teach people Christianity, and looking after the Christian church.29 Kambo were severely persecuted by the Shogunate, because they were proxies for the priests and monks in each Christian territory. According to Gonoi, the number of confirmed kambo between 1613 and 1630 was 31 (27 kambo under the Jesuit order, one kambo under the Franciscan order, and three individuals who informally acted as kambo). After examining missionary reports, Gonoi concluded that 19 kambo had been martyred and that kambo nominated by the Society of Jesus were no longer identified after 1630.30
From Printed Materials to Manuscripts: The Existence of Confiscated and Confidential Documents The Japanese Christian community complied with Obediencia’s instructions and read the recommended books. This is evident from the discovery of manuscripts that copied all or part of these books. Some of these books were confiscated by the Shogunate, while others were concealed by hidden believers and then rediscovered in the early 20th century. Many of these manuscripts are mentioned in the “Japanese Manuscripts” section of J. Laures’ book Kirishitan Bunko (“Christian Archive”). The hypertext version of this catalog, based on the third edition, was first launched in 2004.31 However, in many cases, the whereabouts of and ownership changes to the original collection has not been updated yet. In what follows, I will refrain 28 Jesuit Archives, Rome, Jap-Sin 20-II, f.154. Regarding the kambo, “Kirishitan jidai no kanbō ni tsuite” (“Kambo in the Christian Era”), in Gonoi, A Study on the History of Christians, pp. 362-393. The above-mentioned letter is cited on p. 370. The author of this article also referred to the following English translation: Higashibaba, “Christianity in Early Modern Japan” 27. 29 Jap-Sin 34, 156 (Gonoi, 382). 30 Gonoi, 382-383. 31 Since then, a new version in a completely revamped format has become available; http://digitalarchives.sophia.ac.jp/laures-kirishitan-bunko/ (accessed on 04 June 2021). In what follows, I will note the category number of this catalogue as (Laures no. 24), for example, when referring to the version of the Jesuit Mission Press in Japan.
The Catholic Reformation and Japanese Hidden Christians: Book s as Historical Ties
from repeating the bibliographic information mentioned by Laures and will instead discuss notable findings that supplement Laures. I explore the correspondent relationship between printed books and manuscripts, and discuss some of their textual content. “Onze Capitulos,” recommended by Pasio’s “Obediencia,” corresponds to the summary of Christian principles in eleven chapters under the title “Moromoro no kirishitan shirubeki jōjō” (“What every Christian must know”), which was included in Orashiyo no Honyaku tsuketari Kirishitan voshie no jōjō/Doctrina Christiana rudimenta, cum aliis piis Orationbus (Laures no. 24). The Society of Jesus outsourced printing to Gotō Tome Sōin, a renowned Christian trader in Nagasaki, who published it in his newly established printing house in 1600.32 Until then, Christian prayers had been translated into Japanese and printed on sheets of paper or inserted as appendices of previously printed books. For example, the Romanized Japanese version of Doctrina Cristiana, published in 1592, includes ten points entitled “Moromoro no kirishitan shirubeki jōjō no koto” (“Points every Christian must know”). After adding one point on the Eucharist, it later became the final edition included in Orashiyo no Honyaku (Chapter 10).33 A manuscript of the book Orashiyo no Honyaku, containing these 11 points, is in a collection known as Yasokyō sōsho (“Christian collection”), which consists of documents confiscated during the Kansei years by the Nagasaki magistrate’s office during the First Urakami Crackdown (1790–1795).34 The collection was passed down among hidden Christians living in Ikitsuki, now part of the city of Hirado on the island of Nagasaki, and it is known that believers used to recite the points.35 Doctrina Cristiana, the next book Pasio mentioned, is the only Jesuit publication in Japan that still exists in both the Japanese version (c.1591, Laures no. 8) and the Romanized Japanese version (1592, Laures no. 10), as well as their respective revised editions (both 1600, Laures no. 22 and 23).36 This status might indicate this book’s 32 It is currently housed at the Tenri Central Library. The reprint is Tenri toshokan zō kirishitanban shūsei (“Compilation of Christian books housed at the Tenri Central Library”) (1976), ed. Tenri Central Library. The annotation book is Obara, Prayers by Christians, 55–99. 33 Humbertclaude, “Doctrina en dix Articles”. 34 The original was discovered and its excerpts copied by the aforementioned Naojiro Murakami at the Nagasaki prefectural government in 1896 among Urakami’s hidden-Christian-related documents. The original and the manuscript were lost thereafter. A handwritten manuscript (said to be a copy of Murakami’s manuscript) by Kisō Fujita is currently held at the University of Tokyo. 35 Kataoka, Fumie-Kakure kirishitan, 228–229. 36 It is already known that this book’s source is Jesuit Marcos Jorge (1524–1571). The changes identified by comparing to Jorge’s source book (1602) are detailed in Higashibaba, Chap. 3, titled “The Dochirina Kirishitan.” Higashibaba uses the Lisbon version of 1602 for his comparative discussion, and the aforementioned Abé, Christian Catechisms and Practice, relies on the same version. Meanwhile, Yoshida and Mizutani have already overturned the assumption of comparative study by pointing out the possibility
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importance for missionaries. The 1600 Japanese version was discovered in 1898 by Sir Ernest Satow, a British diplomat and Japanologist; it was discovered along with various Christian relics confiscated from Shimono Country by authorities in Mito Domain during the Kansei years (1789-1801). In addition, a handwritten manuscript of the 1591 Japanese book was hidden by the Nakatani family in Ibaraki, Osaka and discovered in the 1920s.37 Meanwhile, a manuscript bound and stitched in the traditional Japanese style into two volumes was found in 1926 among the book collection of the Mito Tokugawa’s family’s thirteenth head, Tokugawa Kuniyuki (1886–1969). The volumes are thought to have been recreated by taking the 1600 Japanese version and turning its dialogic writing style into a declarative style. As with the Japanese printed version of 1600, we know the declarative volumes originated from the documents confiscated by Mito Domain.38 It is noteworthy that the explanation of the Eucarisuchiya (“Eucharist”) – the third item under the section “Seven Sacraments” – was elaborated by adding 20-page explanations of church design and layout, sacred utensil handling and symbolic meaning, and so on. Ebisawa assumes this to be a revision aimed at the kambos.39 The manuscript’s change from the printed book’s Questions and Answers format to a declarative format also suggests it was read aloud to followers in the place of sermons. “El Catecismo” (Laures no. 2) is a Catechismus christianae fidei (1586) drafted by Valignano and printed in two volumes at two printing houses in Lisbon. 40 It was taught and discussed at the seminario and colegio, in Japanese and Portuguese. The existence of only one intelligent creator, the soul’s immortality, and the refutation of similar creator or supernatural entities in various religious sects in Japan (Kami, fotoque, Xaca, Amida) account for five of the eight sections. That the word “Christ” does not appear in the text until the end of Chapter 5 – that is, halfway through the entire two-volume work – represents the character of pre-doctrinal education in the Japanese ministry. Valignano stated in a letter dated October 20, 1599 that the Japanese dojico Augustino Ōta was studying “las predicaciones del Catecismo” that the source book is the 1566 Lisbon version. Yoshida and Mizutani, The Discovery of Marcos Jorge’s Doctrina Christaa, 29–41. 37 The original book Laures deemed to be lost is currently held at the University of Tokyo General Library (available at https://iiif.dl.itc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/repo/s/christian/page/list). Accessed on 4 June 2021. 38 It was introduced to public under the title of Kirishitan kokoroegaki in Ōsaka Mainichi Shinbunsha (1928). The original is currently housed at the Tokugawa Museum. The annotation book is Ebisawa, Kishino, and Ide, Book of Christian Doctrine, 175–221. 39 Ebisawa, Kishino, and Ide, Book of Christian Doctrine, 501-502. 40 Copies of the book are currently known to exist in five locations in the world (Toyoshima, “Characteristics of Christian Prints,” Appendix p. 1). For a modern version translated to Portuguese, see Valignano, Guimarães Pinto, and Pinto dos Santos, Catecismo da Fé Cristã. For a monograph intended for theological discussion, see Mühlberger, Glaube in Japan.
The Catholic Reformation and Japanese Hidden Christians: Book s as Historical Ties
(“preaching of the Catechism”).41 A Japanese version of these manuscripts still exists today. In 1960, Kiichi Matsuda discovered Japanese documents used as underlayment for an old, damaged folding screen in the Evora public library, in Portugal. Later, he disclosed that some of the contents matched El Catecismo and were bound in the deccho-style, i.e. four sheets of origami paper with the crease facing upwards, stacked together, and threaded in the center. Additionally, a book summarizing the manners of the hermanos (“brothers”) and a church calendar were found together with the folding screen. 42 The next book, Guia do Pecador (Laures no. 21) corresponds to the Japanese translation in two volumes of Guía de Pecadores (“Sinners’ Guide”) by Luis de Granada (1504–1588), the famous preacher of the Order of St. Dominic and author of many spiritual books disseminated not only in the Iberian Peninsula but also in Catholic Europe at that time. Many reports state that this book was used for missionary work. Many printed copies still exist.43 This edition, by the Jesuit mission press in Japan, includes an “Introduction for dokuju Individuals” for Japanese readers. Given that dokuju (it literally means “read and recite”) is a Buddhist term generally referring to scripture recitation, we can presume that the book was intended for silent reading and traditional spiritual recitation. As for the manuscripts, one copy of Volume 2 was discovered with the Nakatani family, descendants of hidden Christians in Osaka. 44 Herein lies a coincidence. In Japan, the book’s recitation replaced sermons delivered by missionaries, while in Europe the original author, Granada, referred to his own books as predicadores mudos (“silent preachers”). 45, The next book, Gerson, was translated into Japanese as Contemutsusumundi, taking the second half of the title De Imitatione Christi et Comtemptus omnium vanitatum mundi, supposedly written by Jean Charlier Gerson (1363–1429), a French mystical theologian and Director of the University of Paris.46 A Romanized Japanese version 41 Jap.Sin.13-II, 331-331v. (cf. Takase, The Jesuit College, 393–394.) 42 Ebisawa and Matsuda, Documents Newly Discovered from the Folding Screen. As an annotation book for this manuscript, see Ebisawa, Kishino and Ide, Book of Christian Doctrine, 221–255. 43 They are housed at nine locations in the world today (Toyoshima, “Characteristics of Christian Prints,” Appendix 3-4). For missionaries’ reports on this book, see García del Moral and Alonso del Campo, Fray Luis de Granada. For a discussion comparing the original European version and the Japanese translation, see Farge, Japanese Translations. 44 Kojima, A Japanese Philological Study. 45 Granada, Memorial de la vida cristiana, 24. Regarding the popularity of Granada’s work in Italy after the Council of Trent, quantitative statistics are provided in Michelson, The Pulpit and the Press, 183–184. 46 For a discussion comparing the original European version and the Japanese translation, see Farge, Japanese Translations. However, identifying which edition in which language was used for translation is necessary as a prerequisite for comparison. The following study deems that there are approximately 740 versions of the original European source before the first half of the seventeenth century: Von Habsburg, Catholic and Protestant Translations.
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(1596, Laures no.16) and a revised Japanese-character version, omitting the chapters on monks and priests and with a more refined writing style (1610, Laures no.32), still exist today.47 The latter version was discovered in 1916 by antiquarian collector Wakaki or Wakakichi Hayashi (1875–1938) in an old box of household goods owned by a local distinguished family in Echizen (currently Fukui Prefecture). This edition is clearly mentioned in the title page as printed in a printing-house owned by Antonio Farada, a lay believer in Kyoto. Regarding this edition, the following letter written by Mesquita, addressed to the Jesuit Superior General and dated October 1613, states: Now [the printing press] here helps us cultivate this Christianity (Christandade), and it has stimulated Japanese, who were moved from their interest, and they have been encouraged to print with blocks (em taboas) our spiritual books in Japanese letter, although imperfectly taking part of our method. This is a great help because many copies of Contemptus Mundi have been printed in Miyako for sale. 48
While “em taboas” literally means “block printing,” it has long been established by studies of printing technology history that this was actually wooden-type printing. However, current discussion also includes other, conflicting possibilities, such as that it was a mixed letterpress (binding mixed printing types and woodblocks) created by cutting woodblocks into printing type and used for later printing. 49 Regardless, this report proves that printing technology was advancing and becoming established eastward. It indicates that Jesuit printing activities led locals to partially adopt European methods (probably the use of printing type). Exactly which work is the “Misterio do Rosario” mentioned by Pasio is unknown. I say this because devotion to the 15 Mysteries of the Rosary has been considered important since the beginning of Xavier’s propagation. As the aforementioned first edition of Doctrina states, “the headings of Fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary are found printed on a sheet;” that is, it is known that they were separately printed and distributed on a sheet of paper. However, considering that Pasio’s Obediencia was dated 1612, it is likely that he is referring to the “Rozariyo no mejitasan” (“Rosary Meditation”) from the first part of the three-part composition Spiritual Xuguio (“Spiritual Exercise”) (1607, Laures no. 30),50 which compiled many ideas on spiritual 47 The third Romanized book of 1596 was discovered in 2017. Triplett, “The Japanese Contemptus Mundi.” According to Laures, Japanese character editions were published also in 1602 and 1613, but any existing copies are still undiscovered. 48 Jesuit Archives, Rome, Jap-Sin 36, f. 28. (See Pacheco, “Diogo de Mesquita”). 49 Shirai, “The Printing Process of the Harada Edition,” 96–80. 50 The owner of the third copy, which Laures noted as a “private collection”, was the late Erin Asai, and the book was acquired by Sophia University in 2018. As an annotation book, see Ebisawa, Spiritual Exercise.
The Catholic Reformation and Japanese Hidden Christians: Book s as Historical Ties
matters that had been circulating. This first part begins with the introduction “Teach the Benefits Gained from Meditating on the Conduct of Lord Jesus Christ and Way of Contemplating the Mysteries of the Rosary.” It clearly states this is a work by the Jesuit Gaspar Loarte (1498–1578), who contributed to the rise of Marian devotions in Rome after the Council of Trent and was praised as “the most prolific, popular, and characteristic of early Jesuit devotional writers.”51 Manuscripts exist for this Spiritual Xuguio as well. The first one was brought to Japan with the printed book by Bernard-Thadée Petitjean (1829-1884). He was a member of the Paris Foreign Missions Society who discovered the printed book in 1869 at the Franciscan monastery in Manila.52 Pages 381–404 of the printed book, which cover the meditation regarding the three vows (honorable poverty, chastity, and obedience) of monk applicants, have not been transcribed. In the next chapter, I will discuss another manuscript that partially transcribes the third part “Somana no Kannen” (“Meditation of the Week”) of this printed book Spiritual Xuguio. The last-mentioned book, Libro de Fides, is a Romanized Japanese translation of Volumes 1 and 5 of Granada’s major work Introducción del Símbolo de la Fe (five volumes in total), under the titles “Fides no Doxi” (1592, Laures no. 11) and “Fides no Qvio” (1611, Laures no. 33), respectively.53 Ebisawa described a manuscript of it being discovered in 1922 at the home (in what is now Watari County, Miyagi Prefecture) of Sen’ichirō Tamura, a descendant of the Iga family affiliated with the Sendai domain.54 This manuscript quoted some segments from various publications; five parts quote Fides no Doxi and one part quotes the aforementioned Giyadopekadoru. The manuscript refers to several books (still undiscovered), such as On nataru no dangi (“Sermon of Nativity”), Go miisa no dangi (“Sermon of Mass”), and Resuresan no dangi (“Sermon of the Resurrection”). These manuscripts prove that Pasio’s instruction was surely embraced by Japanese Christian communities. The next section reveals more precisely how and to which extent they deployed the printed books. They took notes by selecting key points for sermons and recitation at confraternity, for those in leadership positions, or for learning rather than for merely copying printed books.
51 Lazar, “The Formation of the Pious Soul,” 311. For a comparison of the original and Japanese translations, see Kojima, A Study on the Christian Edition of “Supiritsuaru Shugyō.” 52 It is currently held by the Tōyō Bunko. For studies on the manuscript, see Ebisawa, Discussion on Christian Books, 102; Ishizuka and Toyoshima, “Japanese Manuscript of ‘Supiritsuaru Shugyō’.” 53 The Japanese translation published in 1611 was discovered in Houghton Library at Harvard University in 2009. The reprint is Orii, Toyoshima, and Shirai, Hidesu no Kyō. As an annotation book, there is Orii, Hidesu no Kyō. 54 Ebisawa, Mr. Tamura’s Old Collection, 102–134.
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Book Consumption While in Hiding Missionary reports detail leaders’ behaviour during the censorship of Christianity in Japan. Juan de Los Angeles Rueda, missionary of the Order of St. Dominic, who reported on Christian book usage by Japanese followers under persecution, wrote the following letter to the Inquisitor General in Manila. It focuses on Juan Kyuzayemon, Cosme Shobioye, and Miguel Kyuemon, who were martyred on November 21, 1614. It describes their leadership roles in their believer community and their devotion to transcribing works, including hagiographies. In Juan, in particular […,] I saw in him a fear of God; and his conscience was more religious than secular, great zeal for the honor of God. And so, when he was in conversation with others who were Christians, he only talked about things of God as if he were a preacher. […] He was a friend of devotional books. And so when he managed to earn any money (he was already very poor), he bought not gifts for himself but papers, and transcribed Lives of Saints and devout things. When he was on his way, he carried the book. And his brother Cosme was much the same. In these and many other exercises, Miguel was his partner.55
Valignano instructed the irmãos pregadores (“brothers-preachers”) to transcribe books and take notes on sermons. The bylaw “Regras dos irmãos pregadores,” created in 1592 in Japan, provides detailed instructions on how to do so: It would be useful for preachers to have a cartapacio (“binder”) in which they wrote the principles of the Gospels throughout the year, leaving in each Gospel one or more blank sheets where they would write the points that they heard or read that were relevant to such Gospel, and another binder containing the commonplaces of virtues and vices, leaving for every virtue or vice a blank sheet or sheets in order to take notes during the year.56
Furthermore, preachers were recommended to record parts of the texts on the Gospel and moral teachings they deemed important. This suggests that the preachers examined the texts closely and interpreted them actively and autonomously, rather than simply copying them without understanding. It was also recommended they have one cartapacio ready and leave space for each Gospel and moral teaching. While investigating a relic known as “kirishitan shōmono” (“Christian abridged notebook”) discovered in Takatsuki, Sobczyk came to understand the meaning 55 Rueda, Cartas y Relaciones, 70. 56 Álvarez-Taladriz, Avisos y Reglas, 25.
The Catholic Reformation and Japanese Hidden Christians: Book s as Historical Ties
of these blank sheets based on Valignano’s above instruction.57 Note-taking was not a phenomenon particular to Japan, but it also occurred in the sermon reform movement in contemporary Europe. Luis de Granada gave the following instructions in the aforementioned sermon manual: The second and very necessary thing is preparing in advance a cuadernillo (“notebook”) with titles of all things that are usually matters of the sermons, put on their places what had been found; and in this way also making note of many things which belong to the Gospel, that the Church reads on Sundays and Festive days. […] What had been heard from other persons or what one happens to think should be noted in some notebook briefly, in order that when he has the opportunity, he can write it in the placing place of his notebook or folder. […] With this care and diligence […] the result is a considerable increase in the amount of exquisite news.58
Luis targeted clergy preaching in churches. In Japan, however, not only priests and monks, but the dojuku, who supported them, and the kambo, who oversaw the followers, also assumed responsibilities of clerics. Relatedly, Ebisawa notes that characteristic word replacements are present in Spiritual Xuguio, in the weekday meditation subjects and commentary in Chapter 3, “Somana no kannen” (“Meditation of the week”). Ebisawa points out that part of that chapter had been transcribed in the manuscript confiscated by Mito Domain and presented by Izuru Shinmura in the early 20th century with the tentative title Shichika kannensho (“A Book of Meditations on the Seven Sins”). There, the words are modified. The original Spiritual Xuguio, which is a printed book, has the following text about meditation to be done every Friday: The first obstacle is, in general, to understand that there are two obligations for the churchman (rerijiyoso). The one is to avoid deep sins as normal Christians (kirishitan) do. The other is to avoid and hate deeply whatever fault, as monks (shukke) do. Because a churchman who avoids only serious mistakes cannot be called a good churchman even if he could be called a good Christian.59 57 Sobczyk, “On the Process of Completing Christian Abridged Notebook.” This article is included in Sobczyk, Studium nad Kirishitan; in this monograph, Sobczkyk also explains the manuscript includes a part of the aforementioned Guía de Pecadores. According to their acquisition records, the University of Tokyo acquired this document together with the transcription of the “Guía de pecadores,” two rosaries, and one whip-code for flagellation. The reprint is Ōsaka Mainichi Shinbunsha (1928). 58 Álvarez-Taladriz, Avisos y Reglas, 37; Granada and Mora, Obras, p.513. For a study on this book, see López Muñoz, Fray Luis de Granada. 59 Ebisawa, Spiritual Exercise, 216.
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Conversely, in the Shichika kannensho, a manuscript of the Spiritual Xuguio, this is transcribed as follows: The first obstacle is, in general, to understand that there are two obligations for Christians (kirishitan). The one is to avoid deep sins as normal men (tsune no hito) do. The other is to avoid and hate deeply the faults as Christians do. Because the Christian who avoids serious mistakes and does not avoid light problems cannot be called a good Christian even if he could be called a good man (yoki hito).60
Upon comparing these two texts, rerijiyoso (“churchman”) and shukke (“monk”) are downgraded to “Christian” in the manuscript. Additionally, “Christian” in the published book is downgraded to “man.” In other words, the clergy’s duties envisioned by the original European author are presented as duties of Japanese Christians, in general. Furthermore, this text has changed “regarasu,” a transcriptional notation of Portuguese regras, meaning “regulation of the Society of Jesus,” into mandamento “commandment.” There are two possibilities concerning what these changes imply. The first is that another, undiscovered book that had been published by the Japan Jesuits’ initiative in Chinese characters and Japanese syllabaries was used as a source. The second is that the changes reflect the separate intention of the individual who manually transcribed the text by hand. Regardless, these word changes indicate that the clergy’s moral duties were also upheld by secular followers, just as sermons were left to the laypeople. This phenomenon, created by the church’s organizational collapse in Japan due to persecution, could be called the “Priesthood of all believers,” and might be a special phenomenon in the Catholic Global Mission’s history.
Conclusion I have highlighted here the role books played as the Council of Trent’s parish and sermon reforms became accepted by local organizations of Christian followers in Japan. My comments are echoed in a subsequent part of Mesquita’s letter cited earlier, in which he stated: “During these persecutions, especially when priests cannot travel freely through the territories of Christians whose lords are pagan, it is impossible to exaggerate the wonderful results obtained by these books, for they serve as preachers to the Christian.”61 This chapter demonstrates, based on historical local documents, that voluntary work and efforts of devotion existed and 60 Ebisawa, “Supiritsuaru Shugyō and its Old Abstract Manuscript,” 255. 61 Pacheco, “Diogo de Mesquita,” 441–442
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persisted. Christian believers performed acts like reciting books in place of sermons, transcribing books, and selecting key points from books. Further, these actions are consistent with the fact that general followers were encouraged, as part of the European Catholic Church’s sermon/parish reforms, to compile their own sermon books by taking notes on sermons.62 The Global Renaissance is defined not only as the “influence” or “arrival” of European cultural and intellectual development around the entire world, but also the global responses to such influences. The local Japanese phenomenon shown in this chapter indicates the strength of such responses and how inculturation took place in an authentic way through book exchanges and word changes in texts.
Bibliography Abé, Takao. “Christian Catechisms and Practice in Japan in the Era of the Jesuit Mission: An Intercultural Approach,” in Translating Catechisms, Translating Cultures, eds. Antje Flüchter and Rouven Wirbser. Leiden: Brill, 2017, 285–307. Álvarez-Taladriz, José Luis. “Avisos y Reglas de los Predicadores de la Compañía de Jesús en Japón,” Tenri University. Biblia, 39 (1968): 14–41. Álvarez-Taladriz, José Luis. “Hermanos o dogicos?” Sapientia, 8 (1974): 97–132. Brokaw, Cynthia Joanne, and Peter F. Kornicki. The History of the Book in East Asia. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013. Burke, Peter, Luke Clossey, and Felipe Fernández-Armesto. “The Global Renaissance.” Journal of World History, 28:1 (2017): 1–30. Burke, Peter, and R. Po-chia Hsia, eds. Cultural Translation in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Council of Trent, session 23, Decree on Reformation, cap. 18. “Method of Establishing Seminaries for Clerics, and of Educating the Same Therein.” https://history.hanover. edu/texts/trent/ct23.html (Accessed on 4 June 2021). Ditchfield, Simon. “Catholic Reformation and Renewal.” In The Oxford Illustrated History of the Reformation, ed. Peter Marshall. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015, 152–185. Ebisawa, Arimichi, Hisashi Kishino, and Katsumi Ide. Kirishitan kyōri-sho [Book of Christian Doctrine]. Tokyo: Kyobunkwan, 1993. Ebisawa, Arimichi. Kirishitan tenseki sōkō [Discussion on Christian Books]. Tokyo: Takubundō, 1943. Ebisawa, Arimichi and Kiichi Matsuda. Porutogaru Ebora shinshutsu byōbu monjo no kenkyū [A Study on the Documents Newly Discovered from the Folding Screen in Evora, Portugal]. Tokyo: Natsumesha, 1963. 62 Michelson, The Pulpit and the Press, 30.
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Ebisawa, Arimichi. “Tamura shi kyūzō kirishitan kyōsho shahon – rozariyo jūgo no kwannen narabini jū no on okite no koto [Mr. Tamura’s Old Collection of Christian Textbook Manuscripts: Meditation of 15 Rosary and 10 Commandments].” The Journal of History of Christianity, 2 (1952): 102–134. Ebisawa, Arimichi. “Supiritsuaru shugyō to sono kosha shōhon ‘Sichika kannennsho’ [‘Supiritsuaru Shugyō’ and its Old Abstract Manuscript ‘Sichika kannennsho.’]” Kirishitan Kenkyū [Christian Studies], 15 (1974): 235–262. Ebisawa, Arimichi. Supiritsuaru shugyō [Spiritual Exercise]. Tokyo: Kyobunkwan, 1994. Farge, William J. The Japanese Translations of the Jesuit Mission Press, 1590-1614: De Imitatione Christi and Guía de Pecadores. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2003. García del Moral, Antonio, and Urbano Alonso del Campo. Fray Luis de Granada: su obra y su tiempo: actas del congreso internacional, Granada, 27-30 septiembre 1988 [Fray Luis de Granada: His Work and His Time: Proceedings of the International Congress, Granada, September 27-30, 1988]. Granada: Universidad de Granada, 1993. Gonoi, Takashi. Tokugawa shoki kirishitan-shi kenkyū hotei-ban [A Study on the History of Christians in the Early Tokugawa Era]. Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1992. Granada, Luis de, and José J. Mora. Obras Del V.P.M. Fray Luis De Granada, vol. 3. Madrid: D.M. Rivadeneyra, 1849. Granada, Luis de, and Álvaro Huerga. Memorial de la vida cristiana [Memorial of the Christian Life]. Madrid: Fundación Universitaria Española, 1994. Granada, Luis de, José Climent, and Álvaro Huerga. Retórica eclesiástica [Ecclesiastical Rhetoric]. Madrid: Fundación Universitaria Española, 1999. Hashiguchi, Kōnosuke. Edo no hon’ya to hon-dzukuri: Zoku wahon nyūmon [Bookstores and Book-Making in Edo: Introduction to Japanese Books]. Tokyo: Heibonsha, 2011. Higashibaba, Ikuo. Christianity in Early Modern Japan: Kirishitan Belief and Practice. Leiden: Brill, 2001. Hsia, Ronnie Po-chia. A Companion to Early Modern Catholic Global Missions. Leiden: Brill, 2018. Huerga, Álvaro. Obras Competas de Fray Luis de Granada, 44 vols. Madrid: Fundación Universitaria Española, 1994-2004. Huerga, Álvaro. Fray Luis de Granada: una vida al servicio de la Iglesia, Biblioteca Autores Españoles, 1988. Humbertclaude, Pierre. “Doctrina en dix Articles et Doctrina en onze Articles [Doctrine in Ten Articles and Doctrine in Eleven Articles],” Monumenta Nipponica, 5:1 (1942): 234–243. Ishizuka, Harumichi and Masayuki Toyoshima. “Tōyōbunko zō ‘supiritsuaru shugyō’ kokuji shahon [Japanese Manuscript of ‘Supiritsuaru Shugyō’ held by Tōyōbunko].” Toyo Bunko shoho, 27 (1996): 38–48. Jorge, Marcos and J.M. Pinto dos Santos. Doutrina Cristã: Escrita Em Diálogo Para Ensinar Os Meninos. Lisboa: Paulus Editora, 2016.
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Kataoka, Yakichi. Nihon kirishitan Junkyō-shi [History of Christian Martydom in Japan]. Tokyo: Tomo Shobō, 2010. (Reprint of Tokyo: Jiji Press, 1979) Kataoka, Yakichi. Fumie-Kakure kirishitan [Fumie—Hidden Christians]. Tokyo: Tomo Shobō, 2014. (Reprint of Tokyo: NHK Publishing, 1969 and 1967). Kojima, Yukie. Kirishitan-ban “supiritsuaru shugyō” no kenkyū: “Rozairo no kan’nen” taiyaku no kokugogaku-teki kenkyū [A Study on the Christian Edition of “Supiritsuaru Shugyō”: A Japanese Philological Study on the Translation of “Rozario no kan’nen.”]. Tokyo: Kasamashoin, 1987. Kojima, Yukie. Giyadopekadoru hisshabon no kokugo-gaku-teki kenkyū [A Japanese Philological Study on the Handwritten Manuscript of Giyadopekadoru]. Tokyo: Kazamashobo, 1997. Kornicki, Peter Francis. The Book in Japan: A Cultural History from the Beginnings to the Nineteenth Century. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001. Lazar, Lance. “The Formation of the Pious Soul: Trans-Alpine Demand for Jesuit Devotional Texts, 1548–1615,” in Confessionalization in Europe, 1555–1700, eds. John Headley, Hans Hillerbrand, and Anthony J. Papalas. Farnham: Ashgate (2004): 289–318. Loarte, Gaspar de, and Charles R. Keenan. The Exercise of the Christian Life. Boston: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2016. López Muñoz, Manuel. Fray Luis de Granada y la retórica [Fray Luis de Ganada and the Rhetoric]. Almería: Universidad de Almería, 2000. McDermott, Joseph Peter and Peter Burke. The Book Worlds of East Asia and Europe, 450-1850: Connections and Comparisons. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2015. McGinness, Frederick J. Right Thinking and Sacred Oratory in Counter-Reformation Rome. 1995. Reprint, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014. Michelson, Emily. The Pulpit and the Press in Reformation Italy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013. Mühlberger, Joseph B. Glaube in Japan: Alexandro Valignanos Katechismus, seine moraltheologischen Aussagen im japanischen Kontext. St. Ottilien: EOS-Verlag, 2001. Ōba, Osamu. Edo jidai ni okeru tousen mochiwatashisho no kenkyuu [A Study on Imported Chinese Classic Literature During the Edo Period]. 2nd ed. Osaka: Kansai University Institute of Oriental and Occidental Studies, 1981. Ōba, Osamu. Edo jidai ni okeru Chūgoku bunka juyō no kenkyū [A Study on the Reception of Chinese Culture During the Edo Period]. Kyoto: Dohosha Printing, 1984. Obara, Satoru. Kirishitan no Orasho [Prayers by Christians]. Tokyo: Kyobunkwan, 2005. O’Neill, Charles Edwards, ed. Diccionario histórico de la Compañía de Jesús [Historical Dictionary of the Society of Jesus]. Madrid: Universidad Pontificia Comillas, 2001. Orii, Yoshimi. Hidesu no Kyō [Book of Faith]. Tokyo: Kyobunkwan, 2011. Orii, Yoshimi. Masayuki Toyoshima, and Jun Shirai. Hidesu no Kyō [Book of Faith]. Tokyo: Yagi Shoten, 2011. Orii, Yoshimi. “The Dispersion of Jesuit Books Printed in Japan: Trends in Bibliographical Research and in Intellectual History.” Journal of Jesuit Studies, 2:2 (2015): 189–207.
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Nosco, Peter. “Secrecy and the Transmission of Tradition: Issues in the Study of the ‘Underground’ Christians.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 20:1 (1993): 3–29. Pacheco, Diego. “Diogo de Mesquita, S. J. and the Jesuit Mission Press.” Monumenta Nipponica, 26:3/4 (1971): 431–443. Rueda, Juan de los Ángeles. Cartas y Relaciones [Letters and Reports]. Madrid: Instituto de Filosofía y Teología Santo Tomás, 1999. Schütte, Josef Franz. Valignano’s Mission Principles for Japan, vol. 1. St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1980. Shirai, Jun. “Harada-ban ‘kontemutsusumunji’ no hanshiki ni tsuite [The Printing Process of the Harada Edition ‘Kontemutusumunji’).” The Society for Research in Kunten Language, Diacritical Language and Diacritical Materials, 135 (2015): 96–80. Sobczyk, Małgorzata. “Higashi Tōjirō kyūzōbon ‘Kirishitan shōmono’ no seiritsu ni tsuite [On the Process of Completing ‘Christian Abridged Notebook’ Formerly Owned by Higashi Tōjirō].” Kokugo Kokubun, 81:6 (2012): 1–24. Sobczyk, Malgorzata. Studium nad Kirishitan shōmono (dawnej własności Higashiego Tōjirō): ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem związków z kaznodziejstwem [A Study on “Christian Abridged Notebook” (Formerly Owned by Higashi Tōjirō): With Special Emphasis on Relationships with Preaching]. Toruń: Nicolaus Copernicus University, 2016. Takase, Kōichirō. Kirishitan jidai no Korejiyo [The Jesuit College in Japanese Christian Era]. Tokyo: Yagi-Shoten, 2017. Tenri toshokan zō kirishitanban shūsei [Compilation of Christian Books Housed at the Tenri Central Library]. Tenri Central Library and Yushodo, 1976. Toyoshima, Masayuki. “Nihon no insatsu-shi kara mita kirishitan-ban no tokuchō [Characteristics of Christian Prints from the Perspective of Printing History in Japan),” in Kirishitan to shuppan [Christians and Publishing], ed. M. Toyoshima. Tokyo: Yagi Shoten, 2013. Triplett, Katja. “The Japanese Contemptus Mundi (1596) of the Bibliotheca Augusta: A Brief Remark on a New Discovery.” Journal of Jesuit Studies, 5:1 (2018): 123–127. Turnbull, Stephen R. The Kakure Kirishitan of Japan: A Study of Their Development, Beliefs and Rituals to the Present Day. Richmond: Japan Library, 1998. Valignano, Alessandro, and José Luis Álvarez-Taladriz. Sumario de las cosas de Japón (1583); Adiciones del Sumario de Japon (1592) [Summary of the Things of Japan (1583); Additions of the Summary of Japan]. Tokyo: Sophia University, 1954. Valignano, Alexandro, António Guimarães Pinto, and José Miguel Pinto dos Santos. Catecismo da Fé Cristã [Catechism of Christian Faith]. Lisbon: CCCM-FJA, 2016. Wentworth, J. The Canons and Decrees of the Sacred and Oecumenical Council of Trent. Chicago: Christian Symbolic Publication Society, 1848. Worchester, Thomas S.J. “Catholic Sermons,” in Preachers and People in the Reformations and Early Modern Period, ed. L.J. Taylor. Leiden: Brill, 2001, 3–33.
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Von Habsburg, Maximilian. Catholic and Protestant Translations of the Imitatio Christi, 1425-1650: From Late Medieval Classic to Early Modern Bestseller. Farnham: Ashgate, 2011. Yoshida, Shin, and Toshinobu Mizutani. “Baierun shūritsu toshokan zō marukosujoruju Doctrina Christaa (1566-nen Risubon-ban) no hakken [The Discovery of Marcos Jorge’s Doctrina Christaa (the 1566 Lisbon Version) Housed at the Bavarian State Library].” Kirishitan bunka kenkyūkai kaihō, 139 (2012): 29–41.
About the author Yoshimi Orii (Ph.D. University of Tokyo) is Professor of Spanish Language and Culture at Keio University in Japan. Her main area of research is the intellectual exchange, primarily through books, between Iberian countries and Japan during the sixteenth-seventeenth centuries (“El Siglo Ibérico de Japón – The Iberian Century in Japan”).
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(Re)framing the Virgin of Guadalupe: The Concurrence of Early Modern Prints and Colonial Devotions in Creating the Virgin* Raphaèle Preisinger
Abstract It is now recognized that the iconography of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico City evolved from European prints that circulated in the New World in the sixteenth century. The overwhelming signif icance of the devotion to the Immaculate Conception of Mary in the Spanish Empire has led scholars to situate this image within the merging of iconographical schemes that gave birth to the orthodox iconography of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. I repudiate this view by retracing the visual traditions and discursive contexts in which the Tepeyac painting emerged, which point to the devotion to the Assumption of the Virgin and its cultural implications in sixteenth century New Spain instead. Keywords: Virgin of Guadalupe, Immaculate Conception, Assumption of the Virgin, Conquest of Mexico, Franciscan Order
Introduction The Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico City (Fig. 1) has been the object of intense veneration since the early modern period. 1 A quick glance at the painting is sufficient to reveal that this image, which shows the Virgin standing on a crescent moon surrounded by rays of sunlight, her hands folded in a gesture of prayer, * I would like to express my sincere thanks to all those who have shared their thoughts on the topic of this paper with me, especially to Linda Báez Rubí, Clara Bargellini and Gisela von Wobeser. 1 In this article, when I refer to the Virgin of Guadalupe, the image venerated in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City is meant, and not her Spanish namesake in the Extremadura, unless otherwise specified.
Madar, H. (ed.), Prints as Agents of Global Exchange, 1500-1800. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press doi: 10.5117/9789462987906_ch06
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Figure 1 The Virgin of Guadalupe, Basílica de Guadalupe, Mexico City, 16th century. Photo by the author
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depends on European visual traditions, which were imported to colonial Mexico from Spain mostly through prints. While the amount of scholarly work on the Virgin of Guadalupe is impressive, little attention has hitherto been paid to the iconographical antecedents of the image itself.2 This seems to be mostly due to its erroneous identification as an early rendering of the Purísima-type depicting the Virgin Immaculate, a perception first articulated in written sources from the seventeenth century,3 which prevails to this day. It is easily comprehensible that early modern authors, based on the resemblance between the Mexican icon and the iconographical scheme which became established as the orthodox expression of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary sometime after the Council of Trent, identif ied the Mexican cult image as a visual expression of this theological concept. But it is puzzling that contemporary scholars, as if dazzled by the omnipresence of this doctrine and its impact on art in the Hispanic world, have kept on reiterating this unsubstantiated presumption in various formulations. It is true that the Franciscans, who fiercely defended the idea that Mary was conceived without sin – a notion highly contested by the Dominicans – brought devotion to the Virgin Immaculate to colonial Mexico from Spain, where it had flourished since the thirteenth century. However, there is no indication pointing to the existence of any link between the image venerated in an area of Mexico City known as Tepeyac and the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, dating from the period of the image’s creation. The painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe was executed sometime between 1523, when the first missionaries arrived in New Spain from Europe after the conquest with the aim of converting the Indigenous populations to the creed of the European conquerors, and 1556, the year a heated controversy regarding this image broke out between the archbishop of New Spain, a Dominican named Alonso de Montúfar (served 1553–1572), and the Franciscan provincial Francisco de Bustamante (served 1555–1562). In this article, I propose to revise the notion that the Virgin of Guadalupe should be regarded as a visual expression of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary by thoroughly reconsidering the visual traditions brought to the New World by the means of prints and those that subsequently developed in New Spain. Based on this analysis, I will try to delineate the contexts which, in my view, did in fact yield the image painted on cáñamo.
2 For an overview of scholarly work on Guadalupan iconography, which has so far concentrated more on analyzing works based on the Virgin of Guadalupe, cf. von Wobeser, “Antecedentes iconográficos,” which proposes an iconographical analysis of the image, note 11. 3 Cf. Mayer, Flor de primavera mexicana, p. 102–111; Cuadriello, “Virgo Potens.”
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Repudiating a Teleological View on Iconographical Developments Scholarly work on the Virgin of Guadalupe has characterized the Mexican cult image as “an incipient composition that anticipated at midcentury a melding of concepts and typologies,” a fusion that would ultimately lead to the emergence of the La Purísima-type illustrating the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary in the late sixteenth century. 4 Considering iconographical formulations from a teleological point of view precludes a thorough analysis of the intentions connected with the creation of a specific composition. While it is certainly true that the Virgin of Guadalupe displays a conflation of visual elements characteristic of representations of the Assumption of the Virgin and of the woman mentioned in the Apocalypse – a melding that would later characterize the orthodox iconography of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary – the crucial question here is whether this conflation was meant to refer to the sinlessness of Mary at the time and place when the image was created. In order to shed some light on the issues relevant in this context, I would like to briefly outline the doctrinal points referred to by the advocators of the Immaculate Conception of Mary and consider the devotion to this doctrine and the development of Immaculist iconography before and during the sixteenth century in the territories of the Spanish Monarchy. While Mary’s virginity was established early in Church history, the notion that she had been conceived free from concupiscence and thus without sin, emerged only sporadically until a fierce battle of ideas erupted in the fourteenth century, which would divide Catholics for centuries. Dominicans and Franciscans relied on the positions formulated by St. Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus respectively, who had expressed contrary views on the question of Mary’s immaculacy. While the former asserted that Mary had been conceived carnally and later ‘cleansed’ in the womb of her mother, Anne (thus articulating the Maculist view), the latter predicated Mary’s preservation from sin from the moment of her conception, meaning that she had always enjoyed a state of original grace (this being the Immaculist standpoint).5 While the Reyes Católicos, Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, adopted an Immaculist view on the question at stake and even displayed their devotion to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception publicly, royal support for this doctrine somewhat decreased in the sixteenth century. Charles I of Spain (Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire) and Phillip II ceased to overtly embrace the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception for political reasons. Participation in controversies over questions of doctrine would have interfered with their aim of 4 Peterson, Visualizing Guadalupe, p. 129. 5 Cf. Stratton, The Immaculate Conception, p. 1−3.
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Figure 2 Las horas de Nuestra señora: con muchos otros ofiçios y oraçiones, printed by Thielman Kerver, Paris 1502 © Biblioteca Nacional de España
presenting themselves as the secular leaders of a unified faith and with their roles as leaders of the Catholic resistance to the Reformation. In addition, noisy debate on this theological matter would have widened the rift between Catholics and Protestants. Despite the cautiousness displayed by the Spanish monarchs in the sixteenth century, polemics over the Immaculate Conception and the corporeal Assumption of the Virgin lingered on during their reigns.6 During the fifteenth century, essentially three representations were employed to visually express the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary – the Tree of Jesse, the Embrace at the Golden Gate, and Santa Ana Triple. At the beginning of 6 Cf. Stratton, The Immaculate Conception, p. 35−39.
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Figure 3 Tota pulchra, Lower cloister of Franciscan monastery, Huejotzingo, Mexico, ca. 1558. Photo by the author
the sixteenth century, they were replaced by the image of the Virgin tota pulchra, surrounded by symbols of her Immaculacy derived from Marian litanies. St. Bernard was the first to apply to the Virgin the phrase from the Song of Salomon 4:7 “Tota pulchra es, amica mea, et macula non est in te,” which was referred to by Abelard in his treatise on the Immaculate Conception and became the most frequent inscription in Immaculist imagery. Engravings such as that found in the 1502 Las horas de Nuestra señora, published in Paris by Thielman Kerver (Fig. 2) and subsequently reproduced with few changes until the late sixteenth century, were crucial to the dissemination of this iconography. Images of the Virgin tota pulchra spread to Spain almost immediately after they first appeared in France. Examples of this iconography in paintings, relief sculpture and prints can be found in various parts of Spain throughout the sixteenth century.7 The iconography of the Virgin tota pulchra soon crossed the Atlantic, presumably by the means of prints such as the woodcut adorning the frontispiece of the Hortulus passionis by Juana Millán published in Zaragoza in 1537. Examples from the sixteenth century in the art of New Spain include the grisaille mural of c. 1558 in the lower cloister of the Franciscan monastery of San Miguel de Huejotzingo (Fig. 3), the mural painting of c. 1577 in the portería of the Augustinian monastery 7
Cf. Stratton, The Immaculate Conception, p. 39−46.
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of Los Santos Reyes in Metztitlán, Hidalgo, and an anonymous featherwork from the sixteenth century now in the Museo de America in Madrid (inventory n° 12331). An early seventeenth-century painting in the convent of San Gabriel in Cholula, repainted in the eighteenth century, shows yet another rendering of this iconography. As evidenced by the mid-sixteenth century Huejotzingo mural, which includes a phylactery referring to the verse from the Song of Songs quoted above, associated with Mary’s immaculacy, over the Virgin’s head, and the figures of the initiators of the debate between Maculists and Immaculists, St. Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus, to either side of the central tota pulchra-scheme, reference to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was not lost over the Atlantic. Nor was this meaning obliterated in the following century, as can be seen in the Cholula painting: Here the Franciscan Duns Scotus is shown venerating the Virgin tota pulchra, again described as “all beautiful” by a phylactery in reference to Salomon 4:7, accompanied by a fellow Franciscan saint.8 Starting in the twelfth century, following St. Bernard’s identification of the woman mentioned in Revelation 12:1 as the Virgin herself, the image of Mary was conflated with that of the woman “seen” by St. John on Patmos in European art. Iconographical elements referring to the Apocalyptic woman, said to be “clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars,” appeared in different Marian representations, such as the Virgin of the Rosary, the Assumption, and images of the Virgin tota pulchra. The inclusion of the Virgin of the Rosary in this list, an image coined by the Maculist Dominican order, clearly demonstrates that apocalyptic elements originating from the mulier amicta sole from Revelation alone are not sufficient to ascribe Immaculist meaning to a Marian representation. In fact, images showing the Virgin with the attributes of the mulier amicta sole could even serve as emblematic arguments against the idea of the Virgin’s immaculacy.9 Before the late sixteenth century, the most frequent appearance of the Virgin amicta sole in Spanish art was in representations of her Assumption. From the late fifteenth century onward, isolated representations of the Assumption proliferated, especially in Spain. Images of the Virgin of the Assumption shown standing on a crescent moon, in accompaniment of angels, spread widely throughout Spain beginning in the early years of the following century. As argued by Suzanne Stratton, they signified nothing but Mary’s Assumption.10 The Assumption of the Virgin by the 8 For the Cholula painting, cf. Fallena Montaño, “La imagen de María,” p. 354 and fig. 175. 9 Cf. Stratton, The Immaculate Conception, p. 48−50. 10 I disagree with Peterson, Visualizing Guadalupe, p. 120 and von Wobeser, “Antecedentes iconográficos,” p. 206, esp. note 57, who state that in the sixteenth century, before the emergence of a definitive iconography for the Immaculate Conception of Mary, three iconographical themes could convey the notion of her conception untainted by original sin: the apocalyptic woman, the Virgin tota pulchra and the Assumption
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Figure 4 Pedro Berruguete, The Assumption of the Virgin, Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College, 1485. Reproduced with the permission of Davis Museum at Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA
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Figure 5 Michel Sittow, The Assumption of the Virgin, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., ca. 1500. © National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
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Spanish artist Pedro Berruguete, painted in 1485 as a panel intended for a retable, is but one example of the Assumption of the Virgin, conflated with elements of the mulier amicta sole, in Spanish art (Fig. 4); a small panel by Michel Sittow from about 1500 shows a rendition of this theme in Hispano-Flemish painting (Fig. 5). Even though the iconographical conflation of the Assumption with the woman of the Apocalypse did not originate in Spanish, but most probably in Netherlandish art, the consistent use of attributes of the mulier amicta sole in the iconography of the Assumption became a particularity of the former.11 According to Suzanne Stratton, this circumstance has often led art historians to wrongly interpret early representations of the Assumption as references to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.12 As regards the meaning ascribed to iconographical schemes in the sixteenth century, it is noteworthy that in his 1568 treatise De historia SS. imaginum et picturarum, in which he formulates the iconographical preferences of the Council of Trent, the Jesuit Johannes Molanus states unequivocally that the Assumption of the Virgin should be rendered with the features of the woman described in Revelation. In doing so, he describes an essentially Spanish image of Mary’s ascension to heaven. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, in contrast, should, according to Molanus, be represented by an image of the Virgin tota pulchra, i.e. surrounded by symbols from her litanies. Molanus treats the iconographies of the Assumption and of the Immaculate Conception quite separately, and no conflation of their respective elements occurs in his discussion.13 It was not before the late sixteenth century that representations of the Assumption merged with images of the Virgin tota pulchra to form the definitive iconography of the Immaculate Conception, a melding of conceptions substantiated by the decisions of the Council of Trent. As explained by Stratton, a connection between the doctrine of the Immaculacy of the Virgin and that of her spiritual and bodily Assumption was understood to be implicit in the decisions of the Council by exegetical writers of the time. This encouraged the emergence of the definitive of the Virgin. That elements of the mulier amicta sole alone don’t suffice to ascribe Immaculist meaning to an image has been explained above. Even though Mary’s spiritual and bodily ascension to heaven was an important element in the development of the doctrine of the Virgin’s immaculacy, the contexts in which images of the Assumption of the Virgin appeared in sixteenth-century art indicate that they did not per se “express” the idea of her immaculacy. Cf. Stratton, The Immaculate Conception, p. 52–53. 11 Moff itt, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Fig. 34, an anonymous Florentine engraving of the Assumption of the Virgin, c. 1460–1470, showing Mary surrounded by a sun-rayed mandorla, a crown, and stars above the Virgin’s head, is a rather exceptional example of elements of the mulier amicta sole in Italian representations of the Assumption. 12 Cf. Stratton, The Immaculate Conception, p. 52, where a discussion of the panel by Michel Sittow is provided. 13 Molanus, De historia SS. imaginum et picturarum, book 3, chapter 32, p. 332 and chapter 55, pp. 393−394.
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Figure 6 Hieronymus Wierix, The Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, KBR – Prints – S. I 3766, before 1619. Copyright KBR
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iconography of the Immaculate Conception in the late sixteenth century.14 Images of the La Purísima-type showing Mary levitating in the sky (most often represented without her Child), illuminated by harsh light and standing on the crescent moon and/or the globe, around which the serpent is often shown winding, while angels exalt her, would become the most important representation of the Virgin in the Baroque and Rococo era. Through Flemish printmakers, who were connected to Spain, the now-orthodox iconography of the Immaculate Conception spread quickly throughout Catholic Europe. Late sixteenth-century examples indicate that at this time, inclusion of the symbols of the litanies in a miniaturized form or as a textual allusion was still considered necessary to convey the meaning of Mary’s immaculacy. The engraving by Hieronymus Wierix showing the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception in the Prints Department of the KBR in Brussels (Fig. 6) is a case in point. Despite its omission of the mentioned visual symbols, the words “Pulchra ut Luna; Electa ut Sol. Cant. 6.,” which clearly allude to the moon and the sun from the Song of Salomon 6:10, are included beneath Mary’s feet. Later, these elements were frequently ignored. This brief outline of the iconographical developments leading to the emergence of the orthodox iconography of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin in the late sixteenth century shows that considering the Virgin of Guadalupe a visual expression of the belief in Mary’s immaculacy is nothing short of a misconception. It is certainly true that devotion to the doctrine of the Virgin’s absolute exemption from sin was promoted by the Franciscans and was brought to New Spain from Spain early on.15 And there admittedly is a visual affinity between the Guadalupe painting and images of the La Purísima-type, which rests upon the Virgin’s apocalyptic attributes and the absence of the Child. However, as the Mexican icon was created decades before the definitive iconography for Mary’s immaculacy was coined as the result of a conflation of doctrines facilitated by the decisions of the Council of Trent, it is not possible to establish a connection between the image of the Virgin at Tepeyac and the orthodox representation of Mary’s immaculacy. The same applies to the image of the Virgin on the so-called “banner of Cortés” today in the Museo Nacional de Historia in the Castillo de Chapultepec in Mexico City, which shows Mary wearing a crown and praying with an upward gaze, her head surrounded by rays of sunlight and twelve stars (Fig. 7), and most likely dates from the first half of the sixteenth century.16 With regard to the military context 14 Stratton, The Immaculate Conception, p. 58−66. 15 Cf. Vargaslugo, “Imágenes de la Inmaculada Concepción.” 16 According to the nineteenth-century inscription surrounding the image of the Virgin, this banner was carried by Cortés’ troops during the conquest of Tenochtitlán. Even though it corresponds to the standard described by Lorenzo Boturini, which was associated with the conquest of Mexico in the eighteenth
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Figure 7 So-called ‘banner of Cortés’, Museo Nacional de Historia, Mexico City, 16th century. Image provided by Archivo Fotográfico “Manuel Toussaint” del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas de la UNAM
it was created for, we may assume that the image on this standard presents the Virgin in her role as the primary intercessor. She thus corresponds to the description by Lorenzo Boturini according to which Mary is depicted “soliciting her son to protect and strengthen the Spaniards in their efforts to subjugate the idolatrous century, there is not sufficient evidence to identify it as Cortés’ banner with certainty. Elisa Vargaslugo dates it to the sixteenth century on stylistic grounds but indicates that amendments were made at a later date, as suggested by Manuel Toussaint. Cf. Vargaslugo, “Imágenes de la Inmaculada Concepción,” p. 67–72; Toussaint, Pintura Colonial, p. 14.
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empire to the Catholic faith.”17 This apotropaic function of images of the Virgin, quite unconnected to the doctrine of Mary’s immaculacy, can also be observed in the armors of Charles V, which from 1531 onward, customarily carried an image of the Madonna and Child in Glory high up on the breastplate as a declaration of principles in the face of the German Protestant lords who had allied in the Schmalkaldic League.18 In contrast, the iconography of the Virgin tota pulchra, some aforementioned Mexican examples of which contain unambiguous references to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, was developed to symbolically exalt the purity of her soul.19 It is to be considered the prevalent mode of expression of the belief in the Virgin’s immaculacy in sixteenth century New Spain. It wasn’t until the following century that representations of Mary as La Purísima would proliferate in the first Spanish viceroyalty just as they did in Spain. The rapid propagation of the canonical iconography of the Immaculate Conception beginning in the early decades of the seventeenth century was the result of a strategy pursued by the Spanish Immaculist clergy who, strongly aided by the king of Spain, spread the cult of Mary’s immaculacy with the aim of achieving the elevation of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception to a dogma of the church.20
The Virgin of Guadalupe in Tepeyac – an Assumption of the Virgin Based on European Prints? Prints belonging to the tradition of Netherlandish and German art of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries showing Mary with the attributes of the mulier amicta sole have been discussed as possible visual antecedents of the Virgin of 17 Translation mine; the Spanish reads: “como que ruega à su Hijo Santissimo protexa, y esfuerce à los Españoles à subyugar, el Imperio Idolátrico à la Fè Catholica.” Boturini Benaduci, Catalogo del museo historico indiano, p. 75. 18 Cf. Tesoros de los palacios reales, p. 281. The Marian depictions on Charles’ armors, several of which are reproduced in Tesoros de los palacios reales (cf. cat. Nr. 19, 20 (which was the armor worn in 1547 by Charles V during the battle of Mühlberg and was later depicted by Titian in a portrait that is now in the Prado, commemorating Charles’ victory over the Schmalkaldic League at Mühlberg) and Nr. 21), have been misunderstood as references to the Immaculate Conception of Mary. As mentioned above, Charles was reluctant to unequivocally support this doctrine for political reasons. His armors show the Virgin and Child in Glory, an iconography widespread in Netherlandish and German art of the time. 19 Cf. Stratton, The Immaculate Conception, p. 39. 20 Unlike their sixteenth-century forerunners, the Spanish monarchs of the seventeenth century could no longer leave the defense of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary to theologians. The Spanish Immaculist clergy turned to Phillip III to negotiate the matter with the papacy. Finally, Phillip III embraced the Immaculist clergy’s cause. Cf. Stratton, The Immaculate Conception, pp. 67–87.
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Guadalupe.21 The iconography coined Mondsichel- or Strahlenkranzmadonna in German iconographical terminology and referred to as “Madonna and Child in Glory” here shows Mary standing on a crescent moon with the child Jesus in her arms, surrounded by rays of sunlight and adorned by a crown, an allusion to the twelve stars mentioned by St. John. Analogies between the cult image in Tepeyac and woodcuts such as the ‘Madonna and Child in Glory’ by a Netherlandish master from around 1460 belonging to the collection of prints of the Kupferstichkabinett of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Fig. 8) are evident, especially if one takes into account that the tilma-image originally showed Mary adorned with a queen’s crown.22 Beside the attributes of the mulier amicta sole, the similarities include elements recurring often in images of the “Madonna and Child in Glory,” such as the alternating straight and undulating sunrays and the angel reaching up to support the crescent moon or to grab Mary’s garments respectively. However, considering the Mexican icon to be molded on this iconographical tradition leaves open both the questions of why the child Christ should have been removed and why the praying gesture shown by Mary in the Mexican icon was chosen as a motif instead.23 Pointing to the so-called Virgen del Coro in the 21 Cf. most recently: Von Wobeser, “Antecedentes iconográficos,” and Peterson, Visualizing Guadalupe, pp. 119–129. 22 This is indicated by the dark overpainting still visible on Mary’s mantle and by early copies of the Virgin of Guadalupe, which show her crowned such as that allegedly executed by Baltasar de Echave Orio in 1606 (today in a private collection in Mexico City). 23 Von Wobeser, “Antecedentes iconográficos,” p. 206 proposes two reasons for the “omission” of the child: Firstly, she asserts that it is linked to the Franciscans’ desire to express the idea of Mary’s immaculacy, without explaining why leaving the child out of a “Virgin in Glory” should convey the notion that the Virgin was preserved from sin from the moment of her conception, well before the orthodox iconography for the Immaculate Conception was coined; secondly, she links this omission to Franciscan efforts to adapt the figure of Mary to that of Tonantzin-Cihuacóatl at Tepeyac. However, as explained by Peterson, Visualizing Guadalupe, p. 81−89, a deity securely labeled as “Tonan(tzin)” “is completely absent from the pre-Hispanic corpus of images, sculpted or painted, and she is likewise omitted from the cameos of individual deities, with their ‘array’ of specif ic attributes in colonial chronicles.” “Tonan(tzin),” meaning “Our Precious Mother” in the Aztec language of Nahuatl, is thus not related to an “iconographic code” by which she could be identified, making it impossible to “reconstruct a place in the sacred cosmos of central Mexico for a distinct goddess under the rubric of ‘Tonan(tzin)’.” In fact, “Tonan” seems to have served primarily as an honorific title applied to a variety of divine beings and natural phenomena. It was in circulation in the first decades after the conquest and was used as a title for Cihuacóatl, the most prominent of the female deities, among others. Colonial records attest to the sustained demonization of Cihuacóatl. Peterson even suggests that the appellation “Tonan(tzin)” was consciously retained and assigned to the Virgin Mary by the early missionaries in order to replace Cihuacóatl, who, in the period preceding the conquest, had reached the position of the most preeminent goddess in the region. The positive, nurturing aspects of the Aztec earth goddesses were to be retained under the name of “Tonantzin,” whereas their darker, destructive sides, demanding human sacrifices, were to be associated with Cihuacóatl and eradicated from the memory of the newly Christianized Amerindians. In light of the great efforts to extirpate the cult to Cihuacóatl, it is not possible to conceive how this same goddess might have served as a model for a Christian image.
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Figure 8 Madonna and Child in Glory, Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Inv. 140-1, ca. 1460, Netherlandish colored woodcut, 34,5 × 25,0 cm © Kupferstichkabinett. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
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Figure 9 Virgen del Coro, Choir loft of Santa María de Guadalupe, Spain, late 15th century. Photo by the author
choir loft of the royal monastery of Santa María de Guadalupe in Spain (Fig. 9), a sculpted rendition of the “Madonna and Child in Glory” from the late fifteenth century, which has erroneously been believed since the eighteenth century to be the iconographical model on which the Tepeyac image is based,24 doesn’t make 24 This opinion was first expressed by the friar-chronicler Francisco de San José in his 1743 history of the Spanish monastery of Guadalupe, which aimed at elevating the Choir Virgin to a hitherto unequaled
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Figure 10 The Assumption of the Virgin, KBR– Prints – SII 26535, 15th century. Copyright KBR
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it any more plausible why the child should have been “replaced” by Mary’s hands folded in prayer, a gesture stressing her role as the primary intercessor. Indeed, the crescent moon, the sunrays surrounding Mary and the crown were quite simply attributes characteristic of the mulier amicta sole, which have been shown to have appeared in other Marian representations as well. An examination of extant images of Mary’s Assumption from the sixteenth century in Mexico reveals that the visual conflation of this iconography with the mulier amicta sole was brought there from Europe in the decades after the conquest, most probably by the means of prints such as the anonymous fifteenth-century engraving now in the Prints Department of the KBR in Brussels (Fig. 10). At least three examples created in the mid-sixteenth century have survived, which show conspicuous similarities with the Mexican icon.25 The mural painting of the Assumption of the Virgin of c. 1555–1565 in the Sala de profundis of the Augustinian monastery of San Juan Bautista in Tlayacapan, Morelos, shows Mary being lifted skyward by six angels. In the mural of c. 1560 in the Upper cloister of the Franciscan Monastery of San Martin Huaquechula in Puebla (Fig. 11), Mary’s upward movement is indicated by the partially obliterated heads in the severely damaged lower part of the painting, depicting those present at the moment of her ascension into heaven, and by the figure of God the father cheerfully awaiting her above. The stone relief of the Assumption of the Virgin on the northeast chapel of the Franciscan monastery of San Andrés Calpan in Puebla of c. 1550–1555 (Fig. 12) includes an ornamentally displayed cloudbank which situates the scene in the sky. Mary is flanked laterally by four cherubs, while two full-figured angels await to crown her as the queen of heaven. In all three representations, Mary is shown standing on a crescent moon. The visual resemblance between Mary’s depiction in the Tepeyac icon and in these images is striking: While the two wall paintings correlate with the Virgin of Guadalupe with regard to Mary’s gesture, the one in San Martin Huaquechula also shares Mary’s humbly lowered gaze. The inclusion of a winged cherub beneath the crescent moon in both this mural and in the Assumption in San Andrés Calpan is reminiscent of the winged angel holding on to Mary’s cloak in the Tepeyac image and indicates how she moves upward without requiring any further help by angelic figures. Other examples from sixteenth-century New Spain include a relief sculpture in the formerly Franciscan Parish Church of Milpa Alta, D.F., which shows Mary being lifted to heaven by a large cohort of angels, some shown in full figure, some reduced to cherub’s heads, while she is being crowned by the Trinity. Again, Mary stands on importance by associating her with the Tepeyac painting whose cult was by then threatening to outgrow that of its Spanish namesake. Cf. Peterson, Visualizing Guadalupe, pp. 130–132. 25 On these three cf. Peterson, Visualizing Guadalupe, pp. 125–127; the Tlayacapan mural is shown in fig. 4.15 on p. 126.
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Figure 11 The Assumption of the Virgin, Upper cloister of the Franciscan monastery of San Martin Huaquechula, Mexico, ca. 1560. Photo by Thelmadatter – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia. org/w/index.php?curid=29426763 (detail)
Figure 12 The Assumption of the Virgin, Northeast chapel of the convent San Francisco de Asís, San Andrés Calpan, Mexico, ca. 1550-1555. Photo by Danielllerandi – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons. wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29176141(detail). (Accessed February 24th, 2021)
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a crescent moon supported by cherubs, her hands clasped together in prayer. The gremial of the Archbishop of Mexico Pedro Moya de Contreras (1573–1586), now in the Museo Nacional del Virreinato in Tepotzotlán, which shows the Assumption of the Virgin flanked laterally by St. John the Baptist and St. Joseph standing on miniaturized hills, displays a rendering of Mary strikingly similar to that of the Virgin of Guadalupe.26 Besides the crescent moon and the praying gesture, Mary has the same humbly lowered gaze and even the same fur-trimmed sleeves as the Virgin venerated in Tepeyac, a detail which clearly points to Northern European prints as inspirational models for this type of image. Even the way in which the mantle folds over Mary’s left arm is reminiscent of the rendering of the garment in the Mexican icon. All these examples indicate that the Virgin of Guadalupe was, at the time of her creation, iconographically closest to representations of the Assumption of the Virgin as it was depicted in the territories under Spanish rule and their visual antecedents. Even though the best-known Early Modern renderings of this event show the Virgin with arms apart and rising toward heaven, as in works by Titian, El Greco, Carracci, and Rubens, the majority of the aforementioned Spanish and Mexican examples show her with a lowered gaze, her hands folded together as if in prayer. Of course, this analogy is shared by representations of the Virgin tota pulchra; however, the Mexican icon conspicuously lacks the symbols of the litanies and the phylacteries typical for this composition, even though the clouds surrounding Mary would have provided enough pictorial space for the inclusion of at least some of these items. Despite the heavy cropping suffered by the Mexican icon, which is noticeable at first sight,27 these symbols would at least partially remain visible or have left some kind of trace in early copies of the picture if they had originally been included in the composition. In particular, two images of the Assumption of the Virgin, presumably created at the turn of the seventeenth century in New Spain, show conspicuous similarities with the Virgin of Guadalupe. The cult image in the parish church Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles in Tecaxic, which was most likely created in the late sixteenth century,28 resembles the icon in Tepeyac so closely – the rendering of Mary’s gesture, the color and decoration of her garments, the rendition of the rayed mandorla, which 26 For the relief sculpture in Milpa Alta, cf. Fallena Montaño, “La imagen de María,” pp. 210–211 and fig. 80, for the gremial of Pedro Moya de Contreras pp. 180–181 and fig. 69. 27 Peterson, Visualizing Guadalupe, p. 105, explains that the painting was trimmed on all sides over the course of its history. She ascribes this to the practice of gluing the canvas to its wooden stretcher and to the cutting off of little pieces by devotees. In note 4, p. 287, she even claims that in 1766, 20.1 in (51 cm) of its cloth was cropped to make the image fit into a new frame. 28 Roubina, “Los ‘clarines festivos al vuelo’,” p. 74, provides an overview of the different opinions concerning the date this image was created, which range from the sixteenth to the early seventeenth century; Figure 2 shows a photograph taken before the image was significantly cropped.
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blends from a white to a reddish background and is delimited by bulky clouds, and the crescent moon supported by an angel (reduced to a cherub’s head in the Tecaxic Virgin) – that their similarity was mentioned in the prologue to Juan de Mendoza’s 1684 Relacion de el Santuario de Tecaxique by Baltazar de Medina, as noted in Francisco de Florencia’s and Juan Antonio de Oviedo’s Zodiaco mariano.29 The parallels with the Virgin of Guadalupe even include the material support of the image: The Tecaxic Virgin was painted on fabric made of local fibers suited for a native tilma or cloak, the same kind of textile that the seventeenth-century defenders of the Guadalupe apparition legend believed was at the base of the image of the Virgin in Tepeyac.30 Given these close analogies, one might be induced to think that the Guadalupe painting served as a model for this image. However, obvious differences such as Mary’s open mantle and her blonde hair point instead to a common iconographical tradition of the representation of the Assumption.31 As regards the so-called Virgen de los Ángeles in Tlatelolco (Fig. 13),32 the most interesting analogy besides Mary’s lowered gaze, her praying gesture, the color of her garments and the apocalyptic details, consists of the isolated rendering of Mary, which confers an emblem-like status to the image; indeed, this concentration on the Virgin is an irritating characteristic shared by the Tepeyac image. In both works, the resulting effect is an accentuation of Mary’s humility and obedience, expressed by her lowered gaze and folded hands. However, considering the uncertainty regarding the period in which the wall painting in Tlatelolco was executed,33 this peculiarity 29 Cf. Florencia and Oviedo, Zodiaco mariano, p. 174. 30 Cf. Cruz González, “Mexican Instauration,” p. 90. As explained by Cruz González, in the Guadalupe narrative, this detail has the purpose to authenticate the Virgin’s appearance to Juan Diego, whereas in the case of Tecaxic, it underscores the image’s miraculous survival in spite of harsh conditions. Peterson, Visualizing Guadalupe, p. 106−107, explains that the Virgin of Guadalupe was in fact painted on cáñamo, “a canvas-type fabric comparable to sailcloth and commonly used for early colonial paintings.” 31 Regarding the image in Tecaxic, there is no doubt as to the identification of the scene as an Assumption of the Virgin: Figure 2 of Roubina, “Los ‘clarines festivos al vuelo’,” shows the mourning women and apostles gathered around her empty tomb. While two of them are astonished by the absence of a body, most bear witness to the Virgin’s miraculous assumption by gazing upward in the direction of Mary who is being lifted to heaven by full-figured angels, while two additional angels announce her ascension with trumpets, and cherubs frame the Virgin under her feet and above her head. As pointed out by Cruz González, “Mexican Instauration,” note 7, the painting shows modern alterations, which include gilded putti laying a golden crown on the Virgin’s head, and a silver crescent moon at the foot of the Virgin. Michel Sittow’s Assumption of the Virgin of c. 1500 in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., shows a use of the Virgin’s mantle as a mandorla very similar to the Tecaxic Assumption, which is noteworthy because this particular element was not replicated by contemporary Spanish paintings. Cf. Stratton, The Immaculate Conception, p. 52 and Figure 33. 32 Today, the sanctuary is located in the Colonia Guerrero of Mexico City. 33 According to Pablo Antonio Peñuelas Breve Noticia de la Prodigiosa Imagen de Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles, a devotional history published in 1781, the picture painted on the adobe wall of a small oratory is the faithful copy of a painting on cotton representing the Virgin of Angels that was carried by floodwaters
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Figure 13 Virgen de los Ángeles, Santuario de la Virgen de los Ángeles de Tlatelolco, Mexico, late 16th or early 17th century, Photograph by Kahlo 1900-1910, Fototeca Nacional, Núm. de Inv. del Neg. 7286 © D.R. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, México, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, http://mediateca.inah.gob.mx/repositorio/ islandora/object/fotografia%3A16864 (accessed February 24th, 2021)
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Figure 14 Cornelis Cort, after Federico Zuccaro, The Assumption of the Virgin, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, New Hollstein Dutch 99-1(4) (tegendruk), printed in Rome by Luca Bertelli, 1574, engraving, 42,7 × 29,3 cm. Public domain, CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0), http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.collect.98957. (Accessed February 24th, 2021)
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might indicate its dependence upon representations of the La Purísima-type, notwithstanding the reference to “Ixayoc’s Assumption” in Agustin de Vetancurt’s Chronica de la Provincia del Santo Evangelio de Mexico, published in 1697.34 The name still in use today for the paintings in Tecaxic and Tlatelolco prompts us to consider yet another tradition as relevant to the Guadalupe Virgin’s creation. Indeed, devotion to “Nuestra Señora de los Angeles” was promoted by the Franciscans in New Spain since the sixteenth century and this title has been attributed to the Tecaxic and Tlatelolco Virgins from their late colonial transformation onward: Juan de Mendoza ascribes it to the Tecaxic Virgin in 1684 and José de Haro to the Tlatelolco Virgin in 1777.35 Images of the Virgin characterized as “angelical,” however, don’t correspond to a precisely defined iconographical formula. Their sole characteristic seems to be to show Mary levitating up in the sky, with a number of angels hovering around her.36 Angels and cherubs were frequent in European representations of the Assumption of Mary and satisfied the need for explaining the actual mode of her corporeal ascension into heaven. Perhaps the iconography displayed by the aforementioned examples of the Assumption of the Virgin created in sixteenth-century New Spain was influenced by European prints such as the 1574 engraving by Cornelis Cort showing the Assumption of the Virgin with the attributes of the mulier amicta sole, surrounded by angels (Fig. 14). Indeed, angels seem so ubiquitous in images of Mary levitating in the sky that the denomination “de los ángeles” would seem gratuitous if an understanding of the respective representations as depictions of a specific Marian advocation linked to the Franciscan order hadn’t emerged, as will be explained in the last part of this article. Even though it doesn’t seem relevant to the Tepeyac painting at first sight, the tradition of devotion to the “angelical” Virgin might have had a certain impact on the creation of this image. Indeed, even though only one angel is visible in this painting today, documentary evidence points to the inclusion of many more cherubs in the cloudbanks surrounding the Virgin in the past. In his 1688 La Estrella del Norte de México, Francisco de Florencia mentions having been told by sixteenth-century caretakers that several cherubs were added to the image “at the time this blessed into the neighborhood of Coatlan in 1580 and rescued by a native noble named Itzayoque. Peñuelas’ text is the earliest written account ascribing the image a sixteenth-century origin. No documentation regarding the painting from this early period survives. The oratory received official recognition in 1595 and the Franciscan church and monastery in Santiago Tlatelolco were entrusted with monitoring the site. 34 Vetancurt, Chronica, p. 69, is the earliest written reference to this devotion or hermitage. 35 Cf. Cruz González, “Mexican Instauration,” p. 101. 36 Schenone, Santa María, p. 291, describes the Marian advocation “de los ángeles” as follows: “No existe una fórmula iconográfica precisa, pues a veces se asemeja a la Asunción o a la Inmaculada. La Virgen aparece de pie o sedente sobre nubes, rodeada de un numeroso grupo de ángeles. En otros casos tiene al Niño y lleva un ramo de flores en la mano.”
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Figure 15 Samuel Stradanus, Indulgence for donation of alms toward the erection of a Church dedicated to the Virgin of Guadalupe (modern facsimile impression of engraving), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Accession Number: 48.70, ca. 1613-1615, 33 × 21.3 cm. Public domain, CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0)
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image appeared.” These cherubs encircled the solar mandorla and, according to Florencia, were finally erased due to their lamentable condition.37 Astonishingly enough, the cherubs described by Florencia correspond exactly to the almost-erased angelical heads still recognizable in the c. 1613–15 engraving by Samuel Stradanus, conceived to raise the funds necessary for the construction of a new sanctuary for the Mexican icon, which is among the earliest surviving reproductions of the Virgin of Guadalupe prototype (Fig. 15).38 Florencia infers from the deterioration of the cherubs that they were later additions to the Tepeyac painting, quite in keeping with the topos of incorruptibility recurrently employed in relation to devotional images considered “miraculous.”39 It is possible to hypothesize that they were included in the painting from the very beginning – perhaps painted in a different technique than the Virgin herself due to their lesser importance – then left to deterioration and later even overpainted when the legend of the Virgin’s apparition on Juan Diego’s tilma directed the focus away from a more conventional Marian representation and toward her miraculous impression on an Indigenous neophyte’s cloak. Indeed, the perception of the Virgin of Guadalupe that was boosted by the apparition legend approximated it to the tradition of acheiropoietic images, in particular that of the vera icon, as can be seen in the earliest-known depiction of the Virgin of Guadalupe by Baltasar de Echave Orio from 1606, which focusses on the cloth as a canvas for a sacred icon. 40 Thus, not only the faded cherubs were ignored in this otherwise remarkably faithful “copy” of the Mexican icon, but so were the shadows indicating bulky clouds surrounding the Virgin that are still visible in the Tepeyac image today.
Devotional Traditions in Sixteenth-Century New Spain The dedication of churches to the Assumption of the Virgin had a long tradition in Spain before it took root in New Spain. Indeed, many cathedrals related to the Reconquista are among the churches devoted to María Assunta, as are former mezquitas, i.e. mosques “reacquired” by the Christian armies. The feast of the Assumption was introduced in New Spain by the missionaries, especially the Franciscans, and devotion to the Virgin of the Assumption became hugely important there. The conquerors regarded her as a preferred advocation, because, in their view, 37 De Florencia, La estrella de el norte de Mexico, chapter 10, 75, fol. 30v−30r. 38 Cf. Peterson, Visualizing Guadalupe, p. 143, regarding the time range she proposes for the execution of the image, which is customarily dated to sometime between 1615 and November of 1622. 39 Cf. Cruz González, “Mexican Instauration,” who explains how this motif was applied in relation to the Virgins of Tecaxic and Tlatelolco. 40 The painting on canvas generally attributed to Baltasar de Echave Orio, which belongs to a private collection in Mexico City, is reproduced in Peterson, Visualizing Guadalupe, p. 160, fig. 6.1.
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she warranted much-needed protection and military success in the New World. Mary’s Assumption was regarded as a symbol of her victory; thus, she was perceived as a triumphant and glorious socia belli who assisted the conquerors and their Indigenous allies. 41 Tenochtitlán fell just two days prior to her feast on August 15. Henceforth, celebrations would associate the momentous historic occasion with the liturgical festival. 42 Many cities and smaller towns were dedicated to the Virgin of the Assumption, who became the patron of the cathedrals of Mexico City and Guadalajara, amongst others. 43 The dedication of New Spain’s principal church to the Assumption of the Virgin as early as 1534 is attested by a decree signed by Juan de Zumárraga in that year. 44 The city-state of Tlaxcala, a strategic ally in the conquest of Tenochtitlán, also had the Virgin of the Assumption as its patron. 45 The Franciscan order played a significant role in the propagation of the devotion to the Assumption of the Virgin in New Spain. Its predilection for devotion to the Assumption of the Virgin is closely connected to the legend of the order’s founder, St. Francis. His prayer before a crucifix in the church of San Damiano near Assisi, during which Christ spoke to him in a vision, is believed to be the moment his “conversion” took place (i.e. the event that moved St. Francis to consecrate his life to Christ entirely). According to the account in the Legenda maior, the official biography of St. Francis, the saint was instructed by Christ to re-build the Church, an order he initially understood literally. Among the three ruinous chapels subsequently reconstructed by the saint was one dedicated to the mother of God, located at a place called Portiuncula, which he chose to rebuild because of his special veneration for her. From the church’s name, “St. Mary of the Angels,” St. Francis concluded that 41 The belligerent aspect of devotion to the Virgin in the Spanish Empire is the subject of Remensnyder, La Conquistadora and, focusing on the valley of Puebla-Tlaxcala, Fallena Montaño, “La imagen de María.” Remensnyder remarks on p. 294 that the description by Bernardino Vázquez de Tapia of the Marian apparition which allegedly saved the Spanish forces from what would have been a deadly assault by Mexica forces in 1520 resembles depictions of the Virgin associating her with the radiant figure in Apocalypse 12:1. 42 The feast of San Hipólito on August 13 coincided with the day the Mexica forces under Cuauhtemoc surrendered to Cortés. This minor saint’s feast day became the climax of Mexico city’s festival year; its commemoration was characterized by a ritual of reenactment of Spanish victory which stretched over two days to blend into the festival of the Virgin’s Assumption. Cf. Mundy, The Death of Aztec Tenochtitlan, p. 95. For the devotion to the Virgin of the Assumption in New Spain cf. Chauvet, El culto a la asuncion de nuestra señora. 43 Cf. Chauvet, El culto a la asuncion de nuestra señora, pp. 47–88. 44 According to Sandoval, La catedral metropolitana de México, pp. 167-168, in the 1530s, when Mexico City became the seat of a bishopric, there already existed a church dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin, which was elevated to the rank of a cathedral. 45 Cf. Barton Kranz, “Visual Persuasion,” p. 66, who explains that the Virgin of the Assumption “replaced” the precontact Tlaxcalan patron deity Camaxtli.
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it attracted angels, which he also venerated with passion. A site of inspiration to St. Francis, this is where the Franciscan Order was originally established and the location of the founder’s death. 46 Upon their arrival in New Spain, the Franciscans dedicated many of their newlyfounded churches to the Assumption of the Virgin or to the Virgin of the Angels in reference to the Portiuncula. 47 Sixteenth-century New Spanish Assumption iconography connected to Franciscan establishments includes the aforementioned stone relief in San Andrés Calpan, which shows the crowning of the Virgin by angels indicating her heavenly role as Regina angelorum, Queen of Angels;48 the fresco in San Martín in Huaquechula; the relief sculpture in Milpa Alta; and the painting of the Virgin in Tecaxic.49 The name “Virgen de los Angeles,” attributed to the last mentioned painting as early as 1684,50 reveals the close connection between both Marian advocations, the Virgin of the Angels and the Assumption of Mary: In this painting, Mary is shown ascending to heaven with the help of angels who are pulling the Virgin upward at the rims of her ostensibly spread out mantle. In his Monarquía indiana, Juan de Torquemada claims that in the years following the conquest of Tenochtitlán, the Prehispanic sanctuary at Tepeyac was transformed into a Christian hermitage dedicated to “Our Lady and Mother,” the Virgin Mary, by Franciscan missionaries.51 Since the Franciscans carried out their missionary enterprise in the central altiplano, near Mexico City, right around that time, the date given in the Guadalupe legend for the foundation of this hermitage, 1531, is credible. Between 1523 and 1556, i.e. the period when the Guadalupe painting was created, the execution of artworks and other devotional items was almost exclusively in the hands of the Indigenous, under the supervision of the Friars.52 46 St. Bonaventure, The Life of St. Francis, chapter 2. 47 Chauvet, El culto a la asuncion de nuestra señora, pp. 54–64, provides an overview of the Franciscan churches dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin in sixteenth-century New Spain. 48 As indicated by Stratton, The Immaculate Conception, p. 52, her coronation as a narrative event, in contrast, is depicted in this period “with the crown conferred by the Trinity, God the Father, or the Son.” 49 The “Virgin of the Angels” in Tlatelolco also has a Franciscan background, but, as mentioned above in note 33, it is unclear when this image was created. Its iconography is particularly noteworthy if one takes the possibility of the inclusion of cherubs in the Virgin of Guadalupe painting seriously, as it shows an array of cherubs distributed throughout the composition. 50 Cf. note 35. 51 Torquemada, Los veinte y un libros rituales y monarquía Indiana, X, chapter 7, p. 357. This information corresponds with the testimony of Francisco de Salazar in the investigation conducted against the Franciscan provincial Francisco de Bustamante after the sermon held by him in 1556 which had aroused indignation among the adherents to the Guadalupe devotion. According to Salazar, the original hermitage was dedicated to “the mother of God” without reference to any specif ic advocation of Mary. Cf. the testimony of Francisco de Salazar in “Denuncias sobre la casa de nuestra señora de Guadalupe,” p. 58. 52 Cf. Von Wobeser, “Antecedentes iconográficos,” note 5 and p. 204.
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Gisela von Wobeser rightly concludes from these circumstances that the Virgin of Guadalupe must have been a Franciscan commission, and, given the early date of its creation, was likely executed in the context of the Franciscan art school of San José de los Naturales in Mexico City, where most of the religious artifacts for the newly founded religious establishments were produced in this period. In the school of art connected to the convent of San Francisco, European prints were frequently used as models for the elaboration of artworks, since the Indigenous artists taught there had no previous knowledge of Christian iconography and European artistic conventions. The originals were predominantly single-leaf prints or images included in Bibles and devotional manuals.53 Looking at the Mexican icon, the artist’s deliberate choice to not merely copy the European models used while creating it, but to truly appropriate them, is recognizable at first sight. Details revealing the desire to approximate the Virgin’s appearance to that of the Indigenous population include her olive-grey complexion, her straight black hair, and the headdress of Mary, which conforms to that worn by married Indigenous noble women in the sixteenth century.54 They suggest that the image was installed at Tepeyac around the time when the Christian hermitage was established or soon thereafter, as devotion to the Virgin of Guadalupe was initially limited to Christian neophytes.55
Conclusion In this article, I have sketched the visual traditions and discursive contexts which, in my view, were relevant to the creation of the Virgin of Guadalupe, repudiating the widely held opinion that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was decisive among them. To make this point, I revised earlier attempts at analyzing the iconographical traditions on which the Tepeyac image is based. During the initial phase of missionary efforts in the first half of the sixteenth century, printed European models were fundamental to the development of a Christian visual culture in New Spain. The definitive iconography of the Immaculate Conception – often mentioned as an inspirational source for the Virgin of Guadalupe – cannot have influenced its creation, because it didn’t emerge before the end of the sixteenth century, resting upon decisions of the Council of Trent. The Tepeyac image is much more likely based on a lesser-known tradition of the Assumption of Mary – one 53 Cf. Von Wobeser, “Antecedentes iconográficos,” pp. 199–204. 54 Von Wobeser, “Antecedentes iconográficos,” p. 207. 55 As documented by the testimonials delivered in the context of the Montúfar-Bustamante controversy, devotion to the image was first restrained to the Indigenous population before it extended to the entire population around 25 years later. Cf. “Denuncias sobre la casa de nuestra señora de Guadalupe.”
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that became characteristic of Spanish Assumption iconography and shows Mary adorned with the attributes of the mulier amicta sole. However, the prints that helped diffuse these visual traditions did not cross the Atlantic in only one direction. By the mid-eighteenth century, devotion to the Mexican Virgin of Guadalupe challenged that of its Spanish namesake in the Extremadura. Visual evidence for the status achieved by the Mexican icon is paradoxically provided by the polychrome statue of the Virgin in the choir loft of the Guadalupe monastery, the Virgen del Coro, which, as already mentioned, has been erroneously believed to be the iconographical antecedent of the Tepeyac image for centuries. This late fifteenth century relief sculpture was altered in its 1743 restoration by Manuel de Lara y Churriguera, who added the blue mantle with stars to the Virgin, most likely in an effort to visually approximate the Virgen del Coro to the Mexican Virgin of Guadalupe: If it was impossible to claim precedence over the increasingly prominent Tepeyac image for the enthroned Black Madonna on the main altarpiece of the Extremaduran monastery due to a total lack of resemblance, then another image in the same establishment was, apparently, to be turned into its direct antecedent.56 As shown by this occurrence, with regard to Guadalupan imagery, the circulation of prints and other artworks across the Atlantic fueled processes of appropriation that transformed the visual culture in both Europe and in the Americas.
Works Cited St. Bonaventure, The Life of St. Francis, trans. by Ewert Cousins. San Francisco: Harper 2005. Benaduci, Lorenzo Boturini. Catalogo del museo historico indiano del cavallero Lorenzo Boturini Benaduci, published in: Idea de una nueva historia general de la América Septentrional. Madrid: Imprenta de Juan de Zuñiga, 1746. Chauvet, O.F.M., Fidel de J. El culto a la asuncion de nuestra señora en Mexico. Mexico City: Fr. Junípero Serra, 1951. Cruz González, Cristina. “Mexican Instauration: Devotion and Transformation in New Spain,” Religion and the Arts, 18 (2014): 87–113. Cuadriello, Jaime. “‘Virgo Potens’. La Inmaculada Concepción o los imaginarios del mundo hispánico,” in Pintura de los reinos. Identidades compartidas. Territorios del mundo hispánico, siglos XVI–XVIII, ed. Juana Gutiérrez Haces. Mexico City: Grupo Financiero Banamex, 2009, 1169–1263. 56 Cf. Peterson, Visualizing Guadalupe, 129–131, who situates the restoration of the Choir Virgin in the context of efforts to reinforce financial support for the Spanish motherhouse. The original mantle of the Virgen del Coro was executed in the estofado technique.
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“Denuncias sobre la casa de nuestra señora de Guadalupe,” in Testimonios históricos guadalupanos, ed. Ernesto de la Torre Villar and Ramiro Navarro de Anda. Mexico City: Fondo de cultura económica, 1982, 43–141. Fallena Montaño, Rosa Denise. “La imagen de María: Simbolización de conquista y fundación en los valles de Puebla-Tlaxcala: La Conquistadora de Puebla, la Virgen Asunción de Tlaxcala y Nuestra Señora de los Remedios de Cholula.” PhD thesis, Universidad Autónoma de México, 2013. Favrot Peterson, Jeanette. Visualizing Guadalupe: From Black Madonna to Queen of the Americas. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014. Florencia, S.J., Francisco de. La estrella de el norte de Mexico, Historia de la milagrosa Imagen de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de Mexico. Mexico City: por Doña Maria de Benavides, 1688. Florencia, S.J., Francisco de and Oviedo, Juan Antonio de. Zodiaco mariano. First edition: 1755; edition used: Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1995. Kranz, Travis Barton. “Visual Persuasion. Sixteenth-Century Tlaxcalan Pictorials in Response to the Conquest of Mexico,” in The Conquest All Over Again. Nahuas and Zapotecs Thinking, Writing, and Painting Spanish Colonialism, ed. Susan Schroeder. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2010, 41–73. Mayer, Alicia. Flor de primavera mexicana. La Virgen de Guadalupe en los sermones novohispanos. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2010. Mendoza, Juan de. Relacion de el Santuario de Tecaxique, en que està colocada la milagrosa Imagen de Nuestra Señora de los Angeles. Mexico City: Juan de Ribera Impressor, 1684. Moffitt, John F. Our Lady of Guadalupe. The Painting, the Legend and the Reality. Jefferson: McFarland, 2006. Molanus, Johannes. De historia SS. imaginum et picturarum, pro vero earum usu contra abusus, libri quatuor, ed. Joannes Natalis Paquot. Louvain: Typis Academicis, 1771. Mundy, Barbara E. The Death of Aztec Tenochtitlan, the Life of Mexico City. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015. Peñuelas, Pablo Antonio. Breve Noticia de la Prodigiosa Imagen de Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles. Mexico City: Felipe de Zuñiga y Ontiveros, 1781. Remensnyder, Amy G. La Conquistadora. The Virgin Mary at War and Peace in the Old and New Worlds. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Roubina, Evguenia. “Los ‘clarines festivos al vuelo’ como recurso para la identificación de una advocación mariana de origen novohispano,” Cuadernos de iconografía musical, II:1 (June 2015), pp. 69–98. Sandoval, Pablo. La catedral metropolitana de México. Mexico City: Victoria, 1938. Schenone, Héctor. Santa María: iconografia del arte colonial. Buenos Aires: Editorial de la Universidad Católica Argentina, 2008. Stratton, Suzanne L. The Immaculate Conception in Spanish Art. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
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Tesoros de los palacios reales de España. Una historia compartida, eds. Pilar Benito García and others. Mexico City: Chapa, 2011. Torquemada, Juan de. Los veinte y un libros rituales y monarquía Indiana, ed. Miguel LeónPortilla. Mexico City: Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, UNAM, 1975–1983, X, 331–437. Toussaint, Manuel. Pintura Colonial en México. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Imprenta universitaria, 1965. Vargaslugo, Elisa. “Imágenes de la Inmaculada Concepción en la Nueva España,” Anuario de la historia de la iglesia, 13 (2004): 67–78. Vetancurt, Agustin de. Chronica de la Provincia del Santo Evangelio de Mexico. Quarta parte del Teatro Mexicano de los successos Religiosos. Mexico City: Doña Maria de Benavides Viuda de Juan de Ribera, 1697. Wobeser, Gisela von. “Antecedentes iconográficos de la imagen de la Virgen de Guadalupe,” Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, XXXVII:107 (2015): 173–227.
About the Author Raphaèle Preisinger maintains a major focus on image and piety in the Middle Ages although her current research centers on the global circulation of images and objects in the early modern period. She is currently Assistant Professor (UZHFörderungsprofessur) at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, and is preparing a book on the veneration of Christian images in colonial New Spain.
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Hidden Resemblances: Re-contextualized and Re-framed: Diego de Valadés’ Cross Cultural Exchange Linda Báez and Emilie Carreón in memoriam Elenae Estrada de Gerlero, carae magistrae quae vitam arti Novae Hispaniae dicavit “l’istesso sugetto ma non la medesima inventione” Giacomo Lauro, Archivo di Stato di Roma Senatore Tribunale Criminale, 1224, fol. 147v.1
Abstract The Rhetorica Christiana by Franciscan missionary and humanist Diego Valadés (Perugia, 1579) is notable for its engravings and the method used, ars memorativa, to convert Indigenous people to Catholicism. This collaboration centers on two engravings. It contends that their style reflects the process of imitatio: the practice of copying iconographic elements (delineare) from models to reconfigure them in a new composition (inventio), and sheds light on the Humanist learning methods Valadés was trained under. While portraying Indigenous culture adapted to Catholic education to promote Franciscan methods of conversion in New Spain, he developed his own style (maniera), concurrent with the concepts he wanted to express, the restitution of missionary values belonging to the primitive church and the applicability of aspects of Indigenous knowledge (timekeeping). Keywords: Imitatio, style, primitive Church, calendar wheels, missionaries, New Spain
1 Apud Victor Plahte Tschudi, Baroque Antiquity: Archaeological Imagination in Early Modern Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 57.
Madar, H. (ed.), Prints as Agents of Global Exchange, 1500-1800. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press doi: 10.5117/9789462987906_ch07
216 Linda Báez and Emilie Carreón
This study of the Rhetorica Christiana (Perugia: Petruzzi, 1579) by Diego Valadés shares with other kinds of research a concern for its conjunction of text and image related to visual modes of learning.2 In common with other studies focused on the study and practice of rhetoric it considers the relationship with Cinquecento humanist ars memorativa,3 and Valadés’ exaltation of Franciscan missionary efforts in the conversion of the New World in order to frame the Rhetorica within the political and theological program conceived by the papal seat in Rome during the times of Gregory XIII (1572-1581). 4 Like earlier research, this chapter also pays attention to Franciscan missionary relations to encyclopedic-Lullism, developed by humanist thinkers and considers the dependence on iconographic-emblematic discourse of political-religious circles surrounding Benito Arias Montano and the Antwerp printer publisher Christophe Plantin,5 while it records the motifs and iconographic sources of the Rhetorica, as well as the formal variety and style of
2 Diego Valadés, Rhetorica Christiana ad concionandi et orandi usum accommodate […] ex Indorum maximè deprompta sunt historiis (Perugia: Petrus Jacobus Petrutius, 1579). The Getty Institute digital edition https://archive.org/details/rhetoricachristi00vala; the facsimile edition of the Retórica Cristiana with a study by Esteban J. Palomera, (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1989) as well as other research carried out by Palomera was used to develop this research. See: Esteban J. Palomera, Fray Diego de Valadés, O.F.M. evangelizador humanista de la Nueva España. Su obra (México: Jus, 1962); and Fray Diego de Valadés, Evangelizador humanista de la Nueva España. El hombre y su época (México: Jus, 1963). 3 Valadés refers to memory and the ars memorativa in Rhetorica Christiana, pars secunda, cap. 25, 89-124. On the mnemotecnic aspects of Valadés work see: Adriano Prosperi, “Intorno a un catechismo figurato del tardo ‘500’,” Quaderni di Palazzo Te 2 (1985): 45-53; René Taylor, “El arte de la memoria en el Nuevo Mundo,” in Iconología y sociedad, arte colonial hipanoamericano. XLIV Congreso Internacional de Americanistas (México: Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas-Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1987), 43-76; Pauline Moffitt Watts, “Hieroglyphs of conversion: Alien Discourses in Diego Valadés’s Rhetorica Christiana,” Memorie Dominicane 22 (1991): 405-443; and Lina Bolzoni, “Fresken, illustrierte Bücher und menmomische Systeme. Die Gedächtniskunst und die Kunst der Transkodifikation,” in Seelenmaschinen. Gattungstraditionen, Funktionen und Leistungsgrenzen der Mnemotechniken vom späten Mittelalter bis zum Beginn der Moderne, ed. Jörg Jochen Berns and Wolfgang Neuber, Frühneuzeit–Studien 5 (Wien/ Köln/Weimar: Böhlau Verlag, 2000), 463-479, here 472-476. 4 See Fernando R. de la Flor, Barroco, representación e ideología en el mundo hispánico (1580-1680) (Madrid: Cátedra, 2002), 301-331; and Linda Báez Rubí, “La imagen y los imaginarios en la visualidad retórica de Fray Diego deValadés,” in Mitteilungen der Carl-Justi Vereinigung (Frankfurt a. Main: Vervuert, 2007), 81-102, for further information surrounding the relationship between artists and members of Roman Polish humanist circles. These aspects are further studied by Corinna Gallori, “Un’allegoria del segno della croce tra Polonia, Italia e Messico,” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 55, 2 (2013): 238-265. 5 The proposal focuses on Franco Hispanic lullist circles at the beginning of the sixteenth century, see Mauricio Beuchot, “Retórica y lulismo en Diego de Valadés,” Estudios Lulianos 32 (1992): 153-16; and Linda Báez Rubí, Mnemosine novohispánica (México: Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas-Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2005), 61-118 and 138-201.
Hidden Resembl ances: Re- contex tualized and Re-fr amed
its twenty seven copper engravings.6 In mainstream research less interest has been placed on the creative process of Valadés, the sequence of actions, recreation (imitatio) and conception (invention) behind his Rhetorica, perhaps given the lack of sources and information surrounding its making. This fact should not preclude the assessment of its engravings’ place in the field of visual rhetoric as formulated in art treatises of the sixteenth century.7 The Rhetorica Christiana is a reflection of Diego de Valadés’ understanding of Christian Humanism where ars memorativa provide an open creative setting for the configuration of images (mental and material)8 and in which mnemonic methods not only encourage the learning of concepts and matters, they also modify that which is known. Operating within a combination of place (loci) and image (image as agent) to generate knowledge, the Rhetorica engravings integrate, arrange and systematize new knowledge,9 following a rationale which is in need of better understanding.10 The engravings portray catechetical resolutions attacking Protestantism, keeping with the transmission of Catholic educational methods and the promotion of its militants’ mission. The first Franciscans to reach America, as rendered by Valadés, 6 For commentaries on Valadés engravings see pioneer studies by Francisco de la Maza, “Fray Diego Valadés, escritor y grabador franciscano del siglo XVI,” Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas 4, 13 (1945): 15-44 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22201/iie.18703062e.1945.13.396; Also: Brendan R. Branley, Visual Rhetoric in Transcultural Communication in 16th Century New Spain: The engravings of Fray Diego Valadés, Phd. Dissertation (Albuquerque: The University of New Mexico, 2008) (we were unable to obtain this study and are unsure whether it refers to the artistic proccesses this research proposes). 7 For examples of the conflation of sacred and secular art in an early art treatise see Gabrielle Palleotti, Discorso intorno alle imagini sacre et profane (De imaginibus sacris et profanes) (Bologna: A. Benacci, 1582). 8 On the creative potential of ars memorativa see Lina Bolzoni, “Gedächtniskunst und allegorische Bilder. Theorie und Praxis der ars memorativa in Lieratur und Bildender Kunst Italiens zwischen dem 14. Und 16. Jahrhundert,” in Mnemosyne. Formen und Funktionen der kulturellen Erinnerung, ed. Aleida Assmann, Dietrich Harth (Frankfurt a. Main: Fischer, 1991), 147-175; and Jörg Jochen Berns, Film vor dem Film. Bewegende und bewegliche Bilder als Mittel der Imaginationssteuerung in Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit (Marburg: Jonas Verlag, 2000); and Seelenmaschinen: Gattungstraditionen, Funktionen und Leistungsgrenzen der Mnemotechniken vom späten Mittelalter bis zum Beginn der Moderne. 9 Valadés, Rhetorica Christiana, pars secunda, cap. 24, 87 ss. For the functions of ars memorativa as thesaurus and memory see: Gedächtnislehren und Gedächtniskünste in der Antike und Frühmittelalter, ed. Jörg Jochen Berns (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 2003), 538-564. 10 For other examples and engravings, see Linda Báez Rubí, “La visualidad retórica entre dos mundos,” in Transformaciones socioculturales en México en el contexto de la conquista y colonización. Nueva perspectiva de investigación, eds. C. Jiménez, K. Niemeyer, R. Fernández (Guadalajara: INAH/ UdG/ZLK, 2009), 81-106. It is no coincidence that among the treaties Valadés mentions stands the Congestorium artificiose memoriae (Venice, 1520) by German Dominican Johannes Rombech, aimed at Lutheranism from a Catholic humanist program, similar to the missionary program the Franciscans followed. See: Andrea Torre “Divenire memoria” in her prologue to Ludovico Dolce, Dialogo del modo di accrescere e conservar la memoria (Pisa: Scuola Normale Superiore, 2000), IX-LII.
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are models to be “copied” and “imitated;” they are exempla, in terms of mnemotecnic practices.11 In the New World, well before Tridentine resolutions put the practice to use, the Franciscan order employed ars memorativa in their missionary efforts. The images’ maggior efficacia, explains a sixteenth-century account, is as the vehicle opening spaces of contemplation and imagination where the soul is instructed by recollection and remembrance. Images induce and bring to mind sacred things, move affections and persuade; insomuch as they are a source of knowledge that produces and conveys thought. Grasped by a single glance, an image quickly transmits what a text does only gradually: The church instructed by the majesty of the Holy Spirit knew very well that among Christian people there were a greater number of idoti, who do not know letters, other than the number of those, who by reading the scriptures, could contemplate the passion of Christ, the martyrdom of the saints, and all the mysteries of our faith; nevertheless to educate them in a simple manner, reasonably, the use of images was introduced, which were read as in a book. Contemplating the portrait of the things they saw, keeping in memory the favor of Christ, to love him, and the martyrs’ great perseverance, to imitate them. Thus, the believer’s faith and soul’s devotion, both the learned and the unlearned, are more easily exercised and with greater impulse. So, what is acquired little by little from writing is proposed in an instant, and more effectively in images.12
Valadés’ Rhetorica cannot be fully understood outside the complex religiouspolitical-cultural atmosphere vindicating the use of images by Catholicism, which as postulated by the Protestant Reformation, undermined the authority of biblical 11 “Quem honorem quotquot ex D. Francisci societate in novo docendi modo primi desudavimus iure nostro vendicamus. Huc pertinent editiones illae, et imagines quae tanto omnium aplausu in lucem prodeunt, in quibus gravissima nobis injuria infertur quod alii sibi gloriam adscribunt et nostris laboribus famam aucupantur, cum eam rem nos invenerimus, ac promoverimus asiduis ieiuniis, vigiliis et orationibus flectentes dominum Deum, ut nobis quasi virgula divina significare dignaratur.” Diego Valadés, Rhetorica Christiana, pars secunda, cap. 17, 95. 12 “Sapeva ancho molto bene la chiesa istrutta dal magisterio de lo spiritosanto, che tra’l popolo christiano era maggior il numero de li idoti, che non sanno lettere, che il numero di quelli, i quali leggendo le scritture, potevano contemplar la passion di christo, il maritrio de’santi, e tutti i misterii de la fede nostra; e però ad istruzion loro, e commodo de’semplici, fu introdotto ragionevolmente l’uso de le imagini, ne le quali leggendo come in un libro, e contemplando il ritratto de le cose che vedevano, tenessero a memoria il beneficio di Christo per amarlo, e la gran constanza de’santi martiri per imitarli. Anzi per eccitar più facilmente, e con maggior umpulso la defe, e la devozion dell’animo de’ credenti, così dotti come indotti. Perciò che quello che si cava a poco, a poco da le escriturre, in un istante vien proposto, e con maggior efficacia ne le imagini.” Maffeo Albertino and Giovanni del Bene, Confirmatione et stabilimento di tutti i dogmi catholici (Venezia: Ne la contra de Santa Maria Formosa, al segno de la speranza,1555), fol. 273r.
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word. The Council of Trent (1545-1563) nevertheless encouraged this policy. In its educational, religious, edifying, devotional, and missionary aspects, ecclesiastical authorities sought to exalt the image and expand its power of conversion, albeit under regulation, to mold and model non-Christian and faithful alike, through ars memorativa, incorporating visualization techniques linked to religious knowledge and mechanisms that activate and control the effects and affects images inspire.13 Once these parameters are acknowledged, this collaboration will build on the fact that Valadés’ engravings did not seek to represent reality as such – this approach disregards the aesthetic-epistemological aspects of images – but to construct it, in pursuit of specific aims:14 Integrating new knowledge for the configuration of humanist encyclopedic knowledge and transmitting it through images for it to be better retained by memory.15 A tangible manifestation of the ecclesiastical and missionary work the Seraphic order carried out in the New World,16 the Rhetorica is an example of effective Catholic proselytism as promulgated by Pope Gregory the XIII.17 In it, Valadés exploits the “image’s efficiency.” The purposeful visual rhetoric 13 Conversion through “painting” was one of the strategies most used by franciscan missionaries, even before the rules of the Council of Trent were finally established in the New World: “N. Hic per figuras et formas intextas amplissimis peristromatis convenientissima dispositione illis inculcatur doctrina Christiana initio ducto, ab articulis fidei, decem praeceptis domini, et peccatis mortalibus idque magna solertia, et solicitudine sit et in sacris concionibus ex illisperpetuo aliquid recolitur.” Rhetorica Christiana, pars quarta, 221. See Justino Cortés, El catecismo en pictogramas de Fray Pedro de Gante (Madrid: Fundación Universitaria Española, 1986); Isabel Estrada de Gerlero, “Las utopías educativas de Gante y Quiroga,” in Muros, Sargas y papeles. Imagen de lo sagrado y lo profano en el arte novohispano del siglo XVI (México: Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas-Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2010), 299-328; Linda Báez, “La visualidad retórica entre dos mundos,” 81-106. 14 For example, missionary work was not only the teaching of Catholic doctrine in the New World, but also the description of the things and customs the Indians had: “Opportune autem rerum Indicarum.” Valadés, Rhetorica Christiana, praefatio ad lectorem, sig. b2v. Throughout the Rhetorica many references to the American Indians are made, for example: cfr. pars quarta, cap. 4, 167-175. 15 See note 3 for more information on the relationship between memory and encyclopedic structures, and Das enzyklopädische Gedächtnis der Frühen Neuzeit: Enzyklopädie-und Lexikonartikel zur Mnemonik, ed. by Jörg Jochen Berns and Wolfgang Neuber (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1998). See also: Ulrich Ernst, “Memoria und ars memorativa in der Tradition der enzyklopädie. Von Plinius zur Encyclopédie Française,” in Seelenmaschinen. Gattungstraditionen, Funktionen und Leistungsgrenzen der Mnemotechniken vom späten Mittelalter bis zum Beginn der Moderne, 109-168; and Thomas Leinkauf, “Systema menmonicum und circulus encyclopaediae. Johann Heintich, Alsteds Versuch einer Fundierung des unversalen Wissens in der ars memorativa,” in Seelenmaschinen. Gattungstraditionen, Funktionen und Leistungsgrenzen der Mnemotechniken vom späten Mittelalter bis zum Beginn der Moderne, 279-307. 16 “Huius operis scopus erit, ut voces Die simus, organa divinae bonitatis, et tubae christi. Et ad id facilius exequendum totam Memoriae artificialis artem tam diu ab omnibus concupitam quam facillime aperiemus.” Valadés, Rhetorica Christiana, praefatio ad lectorem, sig. b2v 17 The patronage of the Rhetórica by Gregory XIII is yet to be explored. Studies have shown Valadés´ intent to gain his favor through compositional strategies, and several of his engravings endorse his allegiance to the Pope. For more information on the political and religious program conceived by Ugo
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that structures his engravings reveals aspects belonging to American reality. Their composition, the parts or fragments that constitute them (forms and figures) – how these are translated, transferred and fused into a novel visual discourse following a process strongly linked to humanist Catholic thinking and to their operative mechanisms – are the matters our research addresses.
Imitatio-maniera Framed by the development of Christian humanism struggling to integrate the New World to Classical culture and Christian theology in its pursuit of spiritual and militant renewal,18 the knowledge the Rhetorica’s engravings reveal and the manner by which they achieve their objective, must be reviewed. Copper engraving as a medium is not only a vehicle to carry and circulate specific iconographic motifs, transporting ideas, conceptions and concepts, it also fosters their transformation and renewal. Notions surrounding models and copies, prototypes and types, should also be addressed, as composition (invenire), drawing or portrayal (delineare o ritrarre), engraving (excudere) and printing (imprimere) are differentiated steps inherent to Classical Antiquity’s concept of imitation;19 furthermore, the practice of imitating the Classics (imitatio antiquitatis) -a core element to nascent Humanist artistic treatises-, is understood as being “made in the manner of” or “acting in the manner of”. Cennino Cennini in his Libro del’Arte (f ifteenth century), a manual on the practice/techniques of painting, in chapter XXVI advises students to copy and draw (disegnare o ritrarre) the Great Masters: Now you must forge ahead again, so that you may pursue the course of this theory. You have made your tinted papers; the next thing is to draw. You should adopt this method. Having first practiced drawing for a while as I taught you above, that is on a little panel, take pains and pleasure in constantly copying/drawing (ritrarre) the best things which you can find done by the hand of great masters. […] But I Boncompagni see: Marco Ruffini, Le imprese del drago: politica, emblematica e scienze naturali alla corte di Gregorio XIII, 1572-1585 (Roma: Bulzoni, 2005); Maurizio Ricci, Ugo Bologna in Roma, Roma in Bologna: disegno e architettura durante il pontificato di Gregorio XIII, 1572-1585 (Roma: Campisano, 2012). 18 “Litterae humanitatis quid utilitatis asserat ad intelligentiam scripturarum.” Valadés, Rhetorica Christiana, prima pars, cap. 6, 21. This phenomenon is confronted by in Marc Fumaroli, L’ âge de l’éloquence: rhétorique et “res literaria” de la Renaissance au seuil de l’époque classique (Paris: Michel, 1994). 19 For debate on artistic and economic practices associated with the distribution of engravings and prints in Italian circles during Valadés time, see: Michael Bury, The Print in Italy: 1550-1620 (London: British Museum, 2001).
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give you this advice: take care to select the best one every time, and the one who has the greatest reputation. […] You will try to work in this man’s way today, and in the other’s tomorrow, and so you will not get either of them right. If you follow the course of one man through constant practice, your intelligence would have to be crude indeed for you not to get some nourishment from it (maniera and aria). Then you will find, if nature has granted you any imagination at all, that you will eventually acquire a style individual to yourself, and it cannot help being good; because your hand and your mind, being always accustomed to gather flowers, would ill know how to pluck thorns.20
This passage reveals a process key to the formation of painters, engravers and sculptors belonging to Renaissance humanist culture. Cennini’s systematization is the basis of an artistic theory where key concepts such as design (disegno), drawing (ritrarre) and style (maniera), and faculties such as fantasy/imagination and intellect are discussed and reviewed.21 To achieve one’s own maniera in the creation of an individual style requires a degree of contemplation and self-consciousness. And though nowhere does Valadés indicate the exercise he followed when formulating his engravings, he is heir to this legacy. He undoubtedly was trained in drawing at the Convent School of San José de los Naturales in Mexico City (founded 1527) by Pedro de Gante where the mechanical arts and painting were learned.22 He was also closely linked to the Colegio de Santa Cruz in Tlatelolco (founded in 1523), 20 “Pure a te è di bisogno si seguiti innazi, acciò che posse seguitare il viaggio della detta scienza. Tu ài fatto le tue carte tinte. È mestieri di seguire di tenere questo modo. Avendo prima usato un tempo il disegnare, come ti disse di sopra, cioè in tavoletta, affaticati, ediletttati e ritrarre sempre le miglior cose che trovar puoi per mano fatte die gran maestri. […] guarda di pigliar sempre il miglior e quello che à maggior fama; e seguitando di dì in dì, contra la natura sarà che a te non venga preso di suo’maniera e di suo’ aria […] se punto di fantasia la natura t’arà concieduto, verrai a pigliare una maniera propria per te, e non potrà essere altro che buona, perché la mano, e lo inteletto tuo essendo sempre uso di pigliare f iori, mal saprebbe torre spina.” Cennino Cennini, Libro dell’arte, F. (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1859), cap. XXVII, 16-17. English Translation by Daniel V. Thompson, Jr., in Cenino d’Andrea Cennini, The Craftmans Handbook “Il Libro dell´Arte” (New York: Dover Publications, 1960), 14-15. 21 For information on this concept in writings by artists who contemplate and think about their work, and their interpretation of Classical Antiquity in secular and religious settings, see: Trattati d’arte del Cinquecento: fra manierismo e Controriforma, ed. Paola Barocchi (Bari: G. Laterza, 1960-62) and Scritti d’arte del Cinquecento, ed. Paola Barocchi (Milano-Napoli: R. Ricciardi, 1971-77); further information on the topic can be found in: Martin Kemp, “From ‘Mimesis’ to ‘Fantasia’: The Quattrocento Vocabulary of Creation, Inspiration and Genius in the Visual Arts,” Viator 8 (1977): 347-398. 22 See Francisco de la Maza, “Fray Pedro de Gante y la capilla abierta de san José de los Naturales,” Artes de México: Fray Pedro de Gante. IV Centenario de su muerte 150 (1972): 33-38; Ernesto de la Torre Villar, Fray Pedro de Gante. Maestro y civilizador de América y la doctrina cristiana en lengua mexicana de 1553 (México: Seminario de Cultura Mexicana, 2001); Carlos Fernando López de la Torre, “El trabajo misional de fray Pedro de Gante en los inicios de la Nueva España,” Fronteras de la Historia 21, 1 (2016): 90-116.
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where the trivium (grammar, rhetoric and logic) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy),23 and perhaps timekeeping were taught: They [the Indians] learn to paint, sketch images of things with colors and to paint in a precise manner […] In the beginning the great man Pedro de Gante […] taught all the mechanical arts we have ourselves, and because of the assiduity and fervor he showed, (students) learned in an easy and quick manner.24
The stylistic and iconographic range the Rhetorica’s twenty-seven engravings reveal, conveys a conscious and deliberate effort to copy and draw using different models. This is a matter calling for further critical thinking surrounding Valadés’ creative deliberations,25 as conceivably he chose – in the words of Cennini – “to work in this man’s way today, and in the other’s tomorrow”, yet to “follow the course of one man” in each of his different engravings; copying and tracing, drawing and designing, and imitating several different masters. To equate Valadés’ practice of imitatio to the contemporary concept of the copy (as identical to the original) simplifies as well as misunderstands a learning process and practice. When better reviewed and analyzed, it sheds light on the creative method he followed when making and producing the images he conceived for the Rhetorica as well as on the faculties and abilities that contributed to its development. This is above all since imitatio, for Cinquecento Christian humanism, entailed choosing and selecting the finest from several places and gathering them in a composition.26 23 On both educational models see: José María Kobayashi, La educación como conquista (México: El Colegio de México, 1974); Robert Ricard, La conquista espiritual de Méixco (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1986), 320-346. 24 “Discunt etiam pingere, rerum imagines coloribus delineare et acute pingere. Initio maxime vir Petrus Gandensis, […] omnes artes mechanicas quae apud nos in usu habentur illos docebat, quas illi propter assiduitatem et fervorem quo ipse proponebat facile et brevi percipiebant.” Valadés, Rhetorica Christiana, pars quarta, cap. XXII, 210. 25 A review taking into account the role painting had in missionary efforts carried out by Fray Pedro de Gante demonstrates that nineteenth century historians took him to be the founder of New Hispanic painting. See: Juan de Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, ed. León Portilla (México: Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas-Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1975-1983), lib. 20, cap. 19: “junto á la escuela ordenó que se hiciesen otros aposentos y repartimientos de casas, donde se enseñasen los indios a pintar (como en otra parte decimos) y allí se espué las imágenes y retablos para los templos de toda la tierra. (Next to the school he ordered other rooms and quarters built so there Indians would be taught to paint (as we said before), and the images and frontispiece for the temples of the entire land made).” 26 Cicerón tells how Zeuxis, when painting Helena, took on the task of choosing the most beautiful parts of the women of Crotona. See Cicero’s De espuésn, ed. H.M. Hubbell (London/Cambridge: William Heinemann–Harvard University Press, 1968), lib. 2, 1-5, 167-171. The concept, its implications and different interpretations among Renaissance humanist artists is studied by James Ackerman, “Imitation,” in Antiquity and its Interpreters, ed. Alina Payne, Ann Kuttner, Rebekah Smick (Cambridge: Cambridge
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Cennini explains the practice of disegnare in Renaissance humanism meant precisely: Ritrarre, “taking from,” extracting the best examples found in nature or in people,27 and attendant to this approach, missionaries indoctrinated the Indigenous population of New Spain in Christian dogma. Juan de Torquemada, a Franciscan missionary who knew of the Rhetorica,28 describes this important process: Once (the Indians) became Christians and saw our images, coming from Flanders, Italy and other places in Castille and those painted here, there is no altarpiece, nor image, however superior it might be, they can’t portray (retraten) and recreate (contrahagan).29
To portray (ritrarre/retratar) and to recreate (contrahagan) is to extract, to choose and take the best parts from “images from Flanders and Italy and Spain” by drawing and tracing,30 “in the manner of” (imitation); steps essential to “invention”. The imitatio naturae (imitation of nature) went hand in hand with imitatio auctorum/ veterum, the imitation of authorities, the ancient ones, those who embody virtuous values belonging to Christian humanism.31 Valadés made a conscious effort to University Press, 2000), 9-16. Further critical analysis can be found in Leonard Barkan, “The Heritage of Zeuxis. Painting, Rhetorica, and History” in Antiquity and its Interpreters, 99-109. 27 From the Latin: retrahere (to draw, pull back, withdraw, withhold) something from an object, model or image to paper through lines. The philosophical and biblical sources for this concept in humanist artistic theory can be seen in Gerhard Wolf, “Arte superficiem illam fontis amplecti: Alberti, Narziss und die Erfindung der Malerei,” in Diletto e Meraviglia: Ausdruck und Wirkung in der Kunst von der Renaissance bis zum Barock, ed. Christine Göttler, Ulrike Müller Hofstede et al. (Emsdetten: Edition Imorde, 1988), 121-125. 28 Diego de Valadés’ Franciscan preaching engraving is reproduced with variations as the title page of his Monarquia Indiana published in Seville, Spain (1615), and Miguel León Portilla asserts it was perhaps suggested by Torquemada himself. See: Miguel León Portilla, “Fuentes de la Monarquia Indiana,” in Monarquia Indiana. Estudios sobre la vida de Juan de Torquemada, el plan y la estructura de su obra, las fuentes de que se valió para escribir la misma, su idea de la historia, su pensamiento teológico, las imágenes que se formó del mundo indígena y del mundo hispánico, el aprovechamiento que se ha hecho en tiempos posteriores de su obra, bibliografía acerca de ésta, glosario de vocablos indígenas y de arcaísmos e índices analíticos de los Veintiún Libros Rituales y Monarquia Indiana, ed. Miguel León Portilla, vol. VII (México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México-Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, 1983), 93-128, see 114. 29 Fray Juan de Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, lib. 17, cap. 3: “después que (los indios) fueron cristianos y vieron nuestras imágenes de Flandes, de Italia y de otras partes de Castilla y las que acá pintan, no hai retablo, ni imagen, por prima que sea, que no la retraten y contrahagan” 30 “Contrahacer synonim to imitate something or make it similar to another. To follow the same tracks and vestiges of another or to use the same method, order or discipline. To carry out the same actions, movements or gestures the other does.” Diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, ed. Eduardo de Echegaray, vol. 5 (Madrid: 1889), 127. 31 See previous note, and to better explain the concept from literary theory see Eugenio Battisti, “Il concetto d’imitazione nel Cinquecento,” Commentari 7 (1956): 86-104, 249-621; and the concept seen from picture theory, see: R. W. Lee, “Ut pictura poesis: The Humanistic Theory of Painting,” Art Bulletin 22 (1940): 197-269.
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Figure 1 “Typus eorum que frates faciunt in novo indiarum orbe…”, in Diego Valadés, Rhetorica Christiana (Perugia: Giacomo Petrucci, 1579), pars quarta, cap. 23, p. 107
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Figure 2 Typus Ecclesiae Catholicae (Venezia: Luca Bertelli, 1574), Cracovia, Biblioteca Jagiellońska, Kolekcja Jana Ponęzowskiego, teka 149, n. 9041
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choose from different models from several sources and – as understood from Cennino Cennini’s contention – to imitate virtuous characters as well as artistic models. This is a fact that gains relevance in aesthetic-productive research once Valadés’ choices, the extraction and selection (ritrarre) of elements, are understood as iconic-visual evaluations answering to esthetic qualities as well as to moral and religious exempla. Through modifications and adaptations, he makes visible forms that carry values and give meaning. Valadés’ selection of classical forms and motifs stemming from antiquity, architectural elements and gestures, to describe American subjects and Franciscan missionary activity in his Rhetorica, transfers forms as well as values.32 Models from antiquity and Christianity, copied and fashioned in a web of adoptions and adaptations, mirror the epistemic and aesthetic value of images. They show the “productive imitation” and “creative adaptation,”33 inherent to Valadés’ composition (inventio) when portraying American reality and sacred knowledge. Our proposal focuses on showing how his approach, if misunderstood, leaves incomplete the understanding of the Rhetorica engravings. It will present a close analysis of two engravings: the “Twelve Apostles carrying the church to the New World” (Fig. 1),34 and the calendar wheel.
Hidden Resemblances Valadés’ compositional inventio the “Twelve Apostles carrying the church to the New World” is related to an engraving circulating in the sixteenth century that probably served as its model: Typus Ecclesiae catholicae ad instar brevis laicorum Cathecismi (Fig. 2).35 Ecclesiae, personif ied as a matriarch wearing 32 Another case where the transfer of forms carries the transfer of values (with its modifications and adaptations) can be found in research on Gregory XIII’s artistic appreciation by Nicola Courtright, “Imitation, Innovation, and Renovation in the Counter-Reformation,” in Antiquity and its Interpreters, 126-142. 33 Das Originale der Kopie, eds. Tatjana Bartsch, Marcus Becker, et al. (Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, 2010); Imitatio als Transformation: Theorie und Praxis der Antikennachahmung in der Frühen Neuzeit, ed. Ursula Rombach und Peter Seiler (Petersberg: Michael Imhof, 2012), 18. 34 The complete title: “Typus eorum quae frates faciunt in novo indiarum orbe qua dictum est dilataberisad orientem, occidentem, septentrionem ac mediriem et ero custos tuus et tuorum.” The engraving is later reproduced by Jerónimo de Mendieta, Historia eclesiástica indiana, at the beginning of book III. Formal differences between the compositions and contextual references are discussed by Francisco de la Maza, “Fray Diego Valadés. Escritor y grabador franciscano del siglo XVI,” 35-43. 35 An iconographic study of this engreving was carried out by Gabriel Llompart, “Ecclesia Sponsa: tres grabados manieristas,” Traza y Baza, 5 (1975): 63-76, and Tadeusz Chrazonowski, “Typus Ecclesiae. Hozjańska alegoria Kościoła,” in Sztuka pobrzeża Bałtyku (Warszawa: s.n., 1978), 275-299 (though this text was not available for review). Also see: Ugo Rozzo, “Il Typus Ecclesiae nella polemica tra protestanti e cattolici nel Cinquecento,” in Visibile teologia: il libro sacro figurato in Italia tra Cinquecento e Seicento,
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a papal tiara (signifying spiritual and temporal power), is surrounded by the apostles, the Holy fathers, the prophets and Roman pontiffs. From the crucifix that rises from the baptismal font ( fons pietatis) in an ascending axis,36 the stream of blood from Christ’s side wound flows through the Holy Spirit, to the seven sacraments, chained to ecclesiae, and their corresponding virtues (from left to right: confirmation/faith, order/prudence, anointment/fortitude, baptism/hope, marriage/temperance, eucharist/charity, penance/justice). This conf iguration is surrounded by the sea, where those outside Noah’s ark struggle; there is no salvation for heretics condemned to drown, Martin Luther, Andreas Fricius, Theodoro de Beza, among others,37 and it visually emphasizes the role the Roman and apostolic church played as intermediary in the integration of laity to the Christian community. The engraving was dedicated to Cardinal Stanislaus Hosio (1502-1579), theologian of the counter reformation,38 and was created by the draughtsman and engraver Giovanni Battista Cavalieri (1573);39 a second edition was published by Lucas Bertelli ed. Erminia Ardissino and Elisabetta Selmi (Roma: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2012), 72-77; and Grazyna Jurkowlaniec, “La porpora cardinalizia e l’arte nera dell’incisione: Tomasz Treter tra gerarchie ecclesiastiche e stampatori romani e veneziani,” in Italian Music in Central-Eastern europe. Around Mikolaj Zielenski’s ‘Offertoria’ and ‘Communiones’ (1611), ed. Tomasz Jez, Barbara Przybyszewska-Jarmińska, Marina Toffetti (Venezia: Fondazione Levi, 2015), 87-107. 36 Maj-Brit B. Wadell, Fons pietatis. Eine ikonographische Studie, trad. Dieter Rosenthal and Anne-Marie Thiberg (Göteborg, 1969). The fons pietatis as lignum vitae during this period is discussed in Aurora Casanovas, “Catálogo de la colección de grabados de la Biblioteca del Escorial,” Anales y Boletín de los Museos de Arte de Barcelona, 16 (1963-1964), 15, f ig. 6; Real Colección de estampas de san Lorenzo de El Escorial, ed. Jesus María González de Zárate, vol. 2 (Vittoria-Gasteiz: Ephialte, 1993), 85. Critical literature on the subject can be found in Grazyna Jurkowlaniec, “The Crucified Christ as the Source of the Seven Sacraments: Patterns of Reception of a Sixteenth Century Image on Both Sides of the Alps and on Both Sides of the Atlantic Ocean,” in Artistic Translations Between Fourteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. International seminar for young researchers: proceedings, ed. Zuzzana Sarnecka, Aleksandra Fedorowicz-Jackowska (Warsaw: University of Warsaw, 2013), 187-209. 37 The engraving typus ecclesiae seems to have its origin in a triptych found at the parroquial church of Skolity, in Poland. See: Tadeuz Chrzanowski, Działalność artystyczna Tomasza Tretera (Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawn. Nauk., 1984). Certainly, the iconography of the sacraments appears throughout engravings coming from the beginning of the sixteenth century. See also: the woodblock print by Wolf Traut, Heilige Sakramente, c. 1510, 27.3 × 37.3 cm, Badische Kunsthalle. 38 See Stanislaus Hosius. Sein Wirken als Humanist, Theologe und Mann der Kirche in Europa, ed. Bernhart Jähnig (Aschendorff: Münster 2007). For information on Treter see: Franz Hipler, Kupferstecher in Ermland, ivi, 339-356; Tadeuz Chrzanowski, “Uzupełnienia do biografii Tomasza Tretera,” Rocznik Historii Sztuki 15 (1985): 129-162. The relationship between them is discussed by Carlo Bertelli, “Di un cardinale dell impero e di un canonico polacco in Santa Maria in Trastevere,” Paragone 28 (1977): 88-107. 39 Madrid, Bliblioteca Nacional, Estampas, n. 37 954; 52.6 × 39 cm. A broadsheet to explain the engraving issued in 1583 was probably advanced by Stanislao Rescio with the title Explicatio typi ecclesiae Catholicae (Roma: apud Antonii Bladii, 1573). The Italian versión is dated a year later Dichiaratione della figura della chiesa catholica (Roma: Heredi di Antonio Blado, Stampatori Camerali, 1574). Surrounding the didactic
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(1574). 40 Behind its inventio most probably stood the Polish cardinal as well as the draughtsman and engraver Thomas Treter,41 whose other engravings, such as the “Symbol of the Cross”, Valadés was familiar with. 42 While the proposal the Treter engraving served as model for the Valadés engraving rests as a hypothesis –both depict a typus ecclesiae in an allegorical manner– what we will address in this chapter is how Valadés carried out his inventio. An invention (concept, idea), portrayal (retraten) and recreation (contrahagan), open to new knowledge, the American reality, reformulated to become a “Typus eorum que Frates Faciunt in novo indiarum orbe.” 43
Composition or Invention How do the concepts ritrarre and imitatio operate in Valades´ engraving “Twelve Apostles carrying the church to the New World?” As a matrix of the disegno, mnemonic devises structure the composition following letters A through R. Each letter designates a place (locus), where missionaries undertake specific practices (imagines agentes):44 A: Saint Francis (leading the friars) B: Baptism, C: Learning nature of his compositions following Gregory XIII’s religious policies see: Giovanni Battista Cavalieri: un incisore trentino nella Roma dei Papi del Cinquecento: Villa Lagarina 1525-Roma 1601 (Rovereto: Nicolodi, 2001). 40 Firenze, Gabinetto disegni e estampe degli Uffizi, Stampe sciolte, 2779, 53.3 × 38.4 cm; Milano, Civica Raccolta Stampe Bertarelli, S.P., m. 48-77; Cracovia, Biblioteca Jagiellońska, Kolekcja Jana Ponęzowskiego, teka 149, n. 9041. 41 For information on Treter see: Franz Hipler, Kupferstecher in Ermland, ivi, 339-356; Tadeuz Chrzanowski, “Uzupełnienia do biografii Tomasza Tretera,” Rocznik Historii Sztuki 15 (1985): 129-162. The relationship between Hosius and Treter is discussed by Carlo Bertelli, “Di un cardinale dell impero e di un canonico polacco in Santa Maria in Trastevere,” Paragone 28 (1977): 88-107. 42 See note 4. 43 Valadés, Rhetorica, pars quarta, cap. 23, 107 [208]. 44 Mnemonic techniques in the sense that we are before a schematic composition in which the compositional matrix improves memorizing the content to better transmit it, and as found in research focused on gender and its didactic-epistemological use in Christianity. In this case, Valadés assigns each one of the scenes with a letter to serve as a mnemonic devise and to guide the sequence, because by remembering the letter the entire scene is recalled in an orderly fashion, see Christel Meier, “Malerei des Unsichtbaren. Über den Zusammenhang von Erkenntnistheorie und Bildstruktur im Mittelalter,” in Text und Bild, Bild und Text. DFG- Symposion 1988, ed. Wolfgang Harms (Stuttgart: 1990), 35-65; Andreas Gormans, “Imagination des Unsichtbaren. Zur Gattungstheorie des wissenschaftlichen Diagramms,” in Erkenntnis, Erfindung, Konstruktion. Studien zur Bildgeschichte von Naturwissenschaften und Technik vom 16. bis zum 19. Jahrhundert, ed. Hans Holländer (Berlin: 2000), 51-71; Steffen Bogen and Felix Thürlemann, “Jenseits der Opposition von Text und Bild. Überlegungen zu einer Theorie des Diagramms und des Diagrammatischen,” in: Die Bildwelt der Diagramme Joachims von Fiore. Zur Medialität religiös-politischer Programme im Mittelalter, ed. Alexander Patschovsky (Ostfildern: 2003), 1-22; Martin Msulow, “Seelenwagen
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the Doctrine, D: Learning Penance, E: Learning Confession, F: [unlabeled], G: Confession, H: Justice, I: Communion, Mass and Extreme Anointment, L: Learning the Name, M: Marriage, N: Creation of the World, O: Singers, P: Learning of all things, Q: and R: Aid to the sick. 45 Valadés’ composition is condensed, and very unique. Franciscan catechization practices alternate with the Sacraments, 46 set in the rectangular format fitting with the Church atrium – its form evokes the garden of Eden and New Jerusalem47 – conflating two very distinct yet related places. A fine line joins each missionary with the center of the composition, where the symbol for the Holy Spirit, a dove, rests at the core of the church, carried by the twelve Franciscan missionaries who first reached New Spain. Formally the building the “Twelve Apostles” bear on their shoulder displays an ideal church, a type (typus), and a recreation rather than an historical construction of a particular building. Valadés replaces the personification of the ecclesia catholica, as depicted in the Treter engraving, with a building edified all’antica showing Classic motifs, and as seen in reconstructions of Early Roman churches circulating in his time. 48 Prints and engravings shared by antiquarians during the Italian Cinquecento show how reconstructions (civic and religious) were designed by taking and joining elements, combining fragments selected from Roman antiquity and from emblematic literature, and were not a faithful depiction of reality. 49 The Libro di Pyrrho Ligorio Napolitano delle antichità di Roma (Venezia: Tramezzino, 1553), the Speculum Romanae magnificentiae by Antonio Lafréry (Roma: 1554-1573), und Ähnlichkeitsmaschine. Zur Reichweite der praktischen Geometrie in der Ars cyclognomica von Cornelius Gemma,” in Seelenmaschinen. Gattungstraditionen, Funktionen und Leistungsgrenzen der Mnemotechniken vom späten Mittelalter bis zum Beginn der Moderne, 249-277. 45 Valadés, Rhetorica, pars quarta, cap. 23, 107 [208]. 46 The giving of the sacraments and other privileges granted to the Franciscan order was confirmed by Adrian VI in Omnimodam auctoritatem nostram in utroque foro habeant (1522) and later confirmed by Pío V in postridentine Expone nobis (1567). See R. Ricard, La conquista espiritual, 199-222. 47 Francisco Ollero Lobato, “Plazas efímeras del barroco hispano,” in Barroco iberoamericano: identidades culturales de un imperio, eds. Carmen López Calderón, María de los Àngeles Fernández Valles, María Inmaculada Rodríguez Moya, vol. II (Sevilla: Bosque de Palabras, 2008), 27-56, here 48; Guillermo Serés “La monarquía hispánica en la era del Espíritu Santo,” Hipograifo 5, 2 (2017): 261-282. 48 Research on city plans of Rome provide evidence for this, see Giacomo Lauro Antiquae Urbis Splendor (Roma: Vitale Mascardi, 1612), though formulas from the Cinquecento are later implemented, for example from designs by Pirro Ligorio, Delle antichità di Roma: Circi, amphitheatri con numerose tavole e pianta cinquecentesca di Roma (Roma: 1989, reprint of Libro di Pyrrho Ligorio Napolitano delle antichità di Roma [Venezia: Tramezzino, 1553]). See also: David R. Coffin, Pirro Ligorio: the Renaissance artist, architect, and antiquarian (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004); Carmelo Occhipinti, Pirro Ligorio e la storia cristiana di Roma: da Costantino all’umanesimo (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2007). Victor Plathe Tschudi, “Serlio and Sabbioneta: A City Built in Prints,” in Rhetoric, Theatre and the Arts of Design, ed. Clare L. Guest (Oslo: Novus, 2008), 108–25. 49 On this phenomenon see: Mario Carpo, Architecture in the Age of Printing: Orality, Writing, Typography, and Printed Images in the Hisotry of Architectural Theory (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001), 51.
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Figure 3 Etienne DuPérac, “Elevation Showing the Exterior of Saint Peter’s Basilica from the South as Conceived by Michelangelo, in Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae (Rome: Lafrery, 1569)
and later work by Giacomo Lauro, Antiquae Urbis Splendor (Roma: 1612) attest to the widespread practice of copying and tracing to recreate the eternal city as a Roma antica Christiana, where the Pope’s spiritual triumph over paganism was made visible (Fig. 3). Victor Tschudi has established how in this context imitation was “reconstructing the past (it) was not merely about transmitting the formal elements of antiquity but also about resurrecting the idea of virtue that was believed to be embodied in them or, more precisely, about transmitting virtue itself in a concrete form.”50 And an overview of certain concepts associated with this practice of imitatio, as used by engravers and painters in the sixteenth century in order to constitute their own disegno,51 is a fitting approach to further explore the process behind Diego de Valadés’ engravings and their stylistic variety. 50 Victor Plahte Tschudi, Baroque Antiquity: Archaeological Imagination in Early Modern Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 119. 51 On the topic of copies and the introduction of “copyright” in the Cinquecento see: Christopher L.C.E. Witcombe, Copyright in the Renaissance: Prints and the privilegio in Sixteenth-Centruy Venice and Rome (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2004); Victor Plathe Tschudi, “Ancient Rome in the Age of Copyright: The privilegio and Printed Reconstructions,” Acta ad Archaeologiam et Artium Historiam Pertinentiae 25 (2012): 177–194.
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In the engraving “Twelve Apostles carrying the church to the New World,” the four circular temples with a small cupola all’antica in the atrium were evidently not meant to faithfully portray New Spanish monastic architecture; surviving ruins are rectangular.52 Valadés’ emphasis on their round shape addresses knowledge and memory. By relating the circular reconstruction to the Temple of Honor and Virtue all’antica, a recurrent emblem in Cinquecento literature,53 he evoked and “symbolized a moral stage in man’s journey toward salvation or damnation and told of a spiritual triumph over paganism.”54 His disegno rests on a reconfiguration of classical elements charged with moral value, as represented in descriptive engravings that place Classical antiquity in the Christian world. In his portrayal (retraten) and recreation (contrahagan), through the extraction and selection of elements from models circulating in engravings known to him, Valadés also extracts and transfers the moral value the models hold, to a new disegno where the capillas posas alla antica renovate and actualize Catholic humanistic values by means of their formal qualities. Accordingly, the capillas posas placed at each corner of the atrium not only frame the composition. In proportion to the rest of the elements in the composition their size visually accentuates their importance: they are the place where Indigenous people (girls to one side and boys to the other) are spiritually modeled by the pedagogical teachings of Christian doctrine.55
Retratar (Ritrarre) Understanding the practice of learning to retratar (ritrarre) shows how and explains why rather than providing an archaeological-historical representation of spaces and buildings, Valadés selected from architectural formulas and gestures to picture and 52 Nothing indicates that in New Spain chapels shared these features. On the characteristics of Monastic arcuitecture in sixteenth-century México see: George Kubler, The Religious Architecture of New Mexico in the Colonial Period and Since the American Occupation (Colorado Springs: Taylor Museum, 1940); Manuel Toussaint, Arte Colonial en México, 4 ed. (México: Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas-Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1986), 11-14. 53 For example: Cinquecento editions such as Lucio Vtruvio Pollione, De architectura libri dece (Como: P. Magistro Gotardus da Ponte, 1521) and other albums of engravings, such as those of the antiquarians (Pirro Ligorio and Antonio Lafréry) already mentioned. Specifically, for the Temple of Honor and Virtue see Tschudi, Baroque Antiquity, 25. In L. Báez Rubí, Mnemosine, 285-286, the formal correspondence between architectural forms in Valadés, the iconographic repertoire of Arias Montano and prints by Plantain, is explored. 54 Tschudi, Baroque Antiquity, 25. 55 The missionary activities performed at the capillas posas are described in Elena Estrada de Gerlero, “Sentido político, social y religioso en la arquitectura conventual novohispana,” in Muros, Sargas y papeles. Imagen de lo sagrado y lo profano en el arte novohispano del siglo XVI (México: Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas-Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2010), 41-72.
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portray retratar (ritrarre) an allegory in which the values of Antiquity were brought forth,56 from past to present, to reconfigure them under the inventio of a triumphant church on American soil, in the manner of a “triumphant Catholic Rome.” The gesture “carried on the shoulder,” linked to a range of triumphal gestures belonging to human culture,57 celebrates the “elevation” of papal ecclesiastical authority over members of the church, as portrayed in engravings contemporary to Valadés and produced by artists working for Pope Gregory XIII (Fig. 4).58 Valadés chose to copy a gesture linked to the triumphal character of the Roman Catholic Church but in his composition, it is the Franciscan missionaries in America who bear the church. When looking at this engraving, the gesture, signifying “elevation,” would not fail to simultaneously evoke the seraphic order’s submission and support of ecclesiastical authority in the New World,59 though linked to a church rendered all’antica (not personified by the pope’s person), with the holy spirit at its center. Thus Valadés created a novel discourse around the missionary and ecclesiastical work accomplished by the promotion of Franciscan ideals of a reformed church in New Spain, characterized by its return to the primitive sources of Christianity. This renewed spirituality is personified by Saint Francis who guides the missionaries, guarded by the legendary Martín de Valencia, who led the Twelve Apostles once they reached Mexico-Tenochtitlan in 1524 carrying Christian values to American soil. Visual discourse effectively portrays the founder of the seraphic order and the humble leader of the Twelve Apostles, a representation of the ideals guiding Franciscan missionaries in the New World and the reformed church.60 Valadés pictures the models and virtuous characters the renewed Christian Church should imitate. The conversion and spiritual indoctrination carried out by early Franciscans among New Spain’s Indigenous population was indebted to a reformed and reforming 56 In L. Báez Rubí, Mnemosine, 285-286, the formal correspondence between architectural forms in Valadés, the iconographic repetoire of the humanist Arias Montano and the ideological program of Christoph Plantin’s print-press in Antwerpen, is explored. 57 This gesture can be found in panel 7 of Aby Warburg’s Bilderatlas in El Atlas de imágenes Mnemosyne, ed. trad. by Linda Báez Rubí, 2 vols. (México: Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas-Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2013), vol. I, 106-107 and for the explanation, vol. II, 64-66. 58 As can also be seen in Thomasz Treter, Theatrum virtutum ac meritorum D. Stanislai Hosii (Editio princeps: Rzym, 1588), emblem 50. And see an earlier engraving (1572) entitled “Gregorius XIII Pont. Max. Assumptis Pontificalibus insigniis quod coronationis munus nuncupantur” by Giovanni Battista Cavalieri which was possibly Valadés engraving´s the closest model. https://www.gettyimages.ca/license/841265156 59 On several occasions Valadés underlines missionary obedience to the Pope in his Rhetorica. He visually presents ecclesiastical hierarchy. The Pope tops the tree´s branches while the trunk is made of predicating missionaries. See Valadés, Rhetorica, pars quarta, between 180 y 181. 60 “Hic primas tenet Patriracha pauperum Franciscus qui velut origo, et ante signanus est huius faelicissimae, propagationes fidei Christianae eique non infima laus hinc debetur, quod per suos filios, fides et evangelium christi, ab oriente in occidente et a meridie ad septentrionem usque adeo amplificatur, ut illi longe ante revelatum fuerat: ac scriptum reliquit.” Valadés, Rhetorica, 108 [208]
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Figure 4 Thomasz Treter, “Entrance of Pope Pius IV,” in Theatrum virtutum ac meritorum D. Stanislai Hosii (Editio princeps: Rzym, 1588), emblem 50
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spirituality, wrought in imitation of Christ and following core values of humility, poverty and martyrdom,61 that inspired peninsular observance movements and devotional practices.62 Missionary activities were enriched by Classic rhetoric and pedagogy in the sixteenth century,63 and while Erasmus of Rotterdam was a great promoter of the renewal of the classics in a Christian manner, it was Franciscan missionaries in the New World who carried out this practice by following the virtuous example of contemporary friars who made use of humanistic pedagogy, such as Martín de Valencia and Pedro de Gante.64 Their portrayal in Valades’ inventio presents the missionaries as exempla to be imitated by acting “in the manner of.” Valadés work in the midst of the Counter Reformation and in the context of a resolute missionary program before 1579 (Rhetorica’s publication year) cannot be fully understood without better understanding the concept “imitatio veterum” in a broad sense (christianorum). This becomes evident once the extraction and selection (ritrarre) of the elements in this engraving is revealed: Iconic-visual as well as moral and religious exempla, indebted to a primitive church (portrayed in the figure of Saint Francis), as well as to Classical Antiquity (architectural elements and gestures). By recognizing the practice of imitatio, as framed by Renaissance humanism and the artistic theory of the time, the complexity and richness of the engravings can be seen. In their configuration, imitatio sets in motion a process that comprises much more than the decontextualization and recontextualization of 61 On the role Saint Francis played in the American conversion see: Antonio Rubial García, La hermana pobreza. El franciscanismo de la Edad Media a la evangelización novohispana (México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1996); and for a historiography on different attitudes reflected by Franciscan orders see Mónica Ruiz Bañuls “El franciscanismo en el contexto evangelizador novohispano: raíces del mensaje misional,” Semata, Ciencias Sociais e Humanidades 26 (2014): 491-507. 62 See García Oro, José, “Conventualismo y observancia. La reforma de las órdenes religiosas en los siglos XV y XVI” in Historia de la Iglesia Católica (Edad Media), coord. by García Villoslada (coord.), (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1976), 211-349; Andrés Melquíades, Historia de la mística de la Edad de Oro en España y America (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1994). On the influence vows of poverty and humility had on monastic architecture see: Jerónimo de Mendieta, Historia eclesástica Indiana, who writes that “buildings built for the friars must be humble and suited to the will of our father Saint Francis; the Convents must be thus designed. (Los edificios que se edifiquen para morada de los frailes sean paupérrimos y conformes a la voluntad de nuestro Padre San Francisco; de suerte que los conventos de tal manera se tracen),” 255-256. 63 See important studies by Marcel Batailllon, Erasmo y España, 2 ed. (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1956); Bataillon, La conquista espiritual de México: ensayo sobre el apostolado y los métodos misioneros de las órdenes mendicantes en la Nueva España de 1523 – 1524 a 1572, 4 reimpr. (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1995) and Pedro Borges, El envío de los misioneros a América durante la época española (Salamanca: Universidad Pontificia, 1977). 64 Valadés writes on frater Martín de Valencia: “Posteriorem locum obtinet optimus ille Pater Frater Marinus de Valentia vir sanctissimus et frugalissimus, qui ob admirabilem prudentiam primus illarum partium praelatus fuit, et ob animi etiam promptitudinem qua profectionem in Indiam suscipit cum duodecim aliis Religiosis, qui primi in regnis illis inauditis et amplissimis Ecclesiam stabiliuere et Evangelium Christi annunciavere; qua de re in sequentibus plura.” Valadés, Rhetorica, 108 [208].
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elements,65 and the confrontation of the different visual models Valadés had at his disposal provides additional ways to grasp his engraving “Twelve Apostles carrying the church to the New World”, as his disegno reveals he followed a complex process of selection, removal and exchange of elements that promoted their transformation. The process behind the composition (or inventio), the modifications and omissions Valadés made in the transmission of elements and classic gestures, reveals his deliberations and inventiveness when choosing the parts of his engraving. The edification not only portrays the imago of the Apostolic Indian Church restored. Remodeled, it is transferred. The typus ecclesiae within a large atrium rendered all’antica, the Holy Spirit at its center, is carried by Saint Francis and the first Franciscans to reach the New World, “in the manner of”, they follow and simultaneously take the place of Pontiffs, Holy Prophets, Fathers and Apostles to portray an unequivocal Indian and triumphant church replenished and shaped after Franciscan spirituality. The American experience, modelled after early Christianity (imitatio veterorum christianorum), shows how Valadés, heir to this legacy, rethinks and revitalizes it. Once the potential stylistic transformation of the engraving “Twelve Apostles carrying the church to the New World” is recognized, it shows his creative process went beyond extracting and recomposing forms and figures. It is “made in the manner of,” “acting in the manner of” (imitatio); a method that generates identification processes through images to shape historical consciousness, as well as to evoke and bring forth a legacy. Contained in the images’ discourse and composition, not only is it brought to mind and praised, this legacy is projected towards the future, advancing the missionary program in the New World as conceived by the Roman Curia.66 The elements used in this engraving’s composition express and emphasize the relationship between Franciscan missions and militant Catholics, and foster the recognition of seraphic primacy in the New World,67 while seeking to promulgate the faith regarding the missionary programs of Pope Gregory XIII.
Apparent Differences When in 1582 Gregory XIII introduced a more accurate calendar and ordered the Julian calendar recalculated to correct the ten-day delay with respect to real time, Diego de Valadés’ calendar wheel must have received attention and perhaps even 65 For more on the reflexive exercise carried out by painters, engravers and sculptors on their models and sources see: Imitation, Representation and Printing in the Italian Renaissance, ed. by Roy Eriksen and Magne Malmanger (Pisa: Fabrizio Serra, 2009). 66 Georges Baudot, La pugna franciscana por México (México: Alianza, 1990). 67 Rolando Carrasco, “El exemplum como estrategia persuasiva en la Rhetorica Christiana de Fray Diego Valadés,” Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas 22, 77 (2000): 33-66.
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Figure 5 Calendar Wheel, in Diego Valadés, Rhetorica Christiana (Perugia: Petrucci, 1579)
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scrutiny (Fig. 5).68 In the Rhetorica’s Dedication he states that the pope had seen some of his engravings, and provided him with encouragement. While in Rome, when he was procurator general of the Franciscan order between 1575-1577, Valadés showed Cardinal Guglielmo Sirleto, who was then part of the commission carrying out the reformation,69 his inventio, the calendar wheel he published two years later. It is possible that they discussed ancient Mexican chronological systems, their precision, and why they were as accurate as the Julian calendar. The calendar wheel Valadés designed has received insufficient attention in contemporary Central Mexican calendrical studies, and current Hispanic research specialized on the Jesuits provides little insight about the calendar.70 Antonio de León y Gama makes reference to it in his Descripción histórica y cronológica de las dos piedras published in 1792 and Francisco del Paso y Troncoso, in 1882 reviewed León y Gama’s proposals in his essay on pre-Hispanic Mexican calendrics.71 In 1945 68 Valadés was working on his calendar at a time when strong accusations by Bernardino de Sahagún were directed towards a fellow missionary, concerning the Indigenous calendar and the differing conceptualizations of the 260-day cycle, seen by Sahagun as an instrument of idolatry. Georges Baudot, “Fray Toribio Motolinía denunciado ante la Inquisición por Fray Bernardino de Sahagún en 1572,” Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 21 (1991): 127-132; Luis Nicolau D’Olwer, Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Colección Historiadores de América (México: Instituto Panamericano de Geografía e Historia, Editorial Cultura, 1952), 67-77. The audience the calendar and the Rhetorica aimed at was concerned with the transition from Julian to Gregorian time keeping as well as with the Mesoamerican calendar system and its correlation with the soon to be rectified Julian calendar. 69 Esteban J. Palomera, Fray Diego Valadés O. F. M. Evangelizador humanista de la Nueva España, 141. 70 Alfonso Caso, Los calendarios prehispánicos Los calendarios prehispánicos (México: Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas- Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1967), 129-130; Susan Spitler, “Colonial Mexican Calendar Wheels: Cultural Translation and the Problem of ‘Authenticity’,” in Painted Books and Indigenous Knowledge in Mesoamerica, ed. Elizabeth Boone Hill (New Orleans: Middle American Research Institute, 2005), 271-288; Ana Díaz Álvarez, “Las formas del tiempo. Tradiciones cosmográficas en los calendarios indígenas del México central,” Phd thesis (México: Facultad de Filosofía y Letras-Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2011); Ana Díaz Álvarez, “Tlapohualli, la cuenta de las cosas. Reflexiones en torno a la reconstrucción de los calendarios nahuas,” Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 46, (2013): 159-197; Don Paul Abbot, Rhetoric in the New World: Rhetorical Theory and Practice in Colonial (Columbia: The University of South Carolina Press, 1996); Linda Báez Rubí, Mnemosine novohispánica. Retórica e imágenes en el siglo XVI (México: Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas- Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2005); René C. Taylor, El arte de la memoria en el Nuevo Mundo (Madrid: Swan, 1987); Carmen José Alejos-Grau, Diego Valadés, educador de la Nueva España. Ideas pedagógicas de la Rhetorica christiana (1579) (Pamplona: Eunate, 1994); Rolando Carrasco M., “El exemplum como estrategia persuasiva en la Rhetorica christiana (1579) de fray Diego Valadés” Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas 22, 77 (2000): 33-66; Gerardo Ramírez Vidal, “Fray Diego Valadés y los indios,” Acerca de fray Diego Valadés: su Retórica cristiana; eds. Bulmaro Reyes Coria, Gerardo Ramírez Vidal, Salvador Díaz Cíntora (México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1996), 9-33. 71 Antonio de León y Gama, Descripción histórica y cronológica de las dos piedras que con ocasión del nuevo empedrado que se está formando en la plaza principal de México, se hallaron en ella el año de 1790, facsimile ed. by Carlos María de Bustamante (México: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1990), 27-28; Francisco del Paso y Troncoso, “Ensayo sobre los símbolos cronográficos de los Mexicanos,” Anales del Museo Nacional, época 1, tomo 2 (1882): 323-402.
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Francisco de la Maza notes Valadés “provides no explanation, and its insertion in the Rhetorica is purely illustrative.”72 Likewise, Esteban Palomera reproaches Valadés for having “[…] promised to provide an adequate explanation of this calendar and its correspondence with the Julian calendar used by the Europeans, and for omitting an explanation for lack of space and time.”73 Academic literature has overlooked the fact that Diego Valadés does write, although briefly, about the calendar wheel he designed.74 The ribbon scroll underneath it bears his signature,75 and on page 100 of his Rhetorica he writes: “I want to warn the reader in advance that I have omitted an explanation of the calendar of the Indians; because to include it I would have had to do it in their own language.”76 His words help to better understand the process he followed in its conception, and to position the Valadés calendar wheel among other calendar wheels conceived in the sixteenth century by early secular friars interested in Indigenous time keeping.77 72 “No trae Valadés ninguna explicación de este grabado, por lo que creo que es puramente ilustrativo.” Francisco de la Maza, “Fray Diego Valadés. Escritor y grabador franciscano del siglo XVI,” 39. 73 “Valadés había prometido en su retórica dar una adecuada explicación de este calendario y de su correspondencia con el calendario juliano que usaban los europeos, pero por falta de espacio y de tiempo omite esa explicación.” Esteban J. Palomera, “Introducción a la Retórica Cristiana,” in Diego Valadés, Retórica cristiana, intr. Esteban J. Palomera, transl. Tarsicio Herrera Zapién et al. (México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México/Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1989), xv-xvi. 74 John B. Glass in collaboration with Donald Robertson, “A Census of Native Middle American Pictorial Manuscripts,” in Handbook of Middle American Indians, vol. 14 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1965-1984), 81-252, see 229-234 (entries 387-393); George Kubler and Charles Gibson, The Tovar Calendar: An Illustrated Mexican Manuscript ca. 1585, Memoirs of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, XI (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1951), 69. 75 Francisco de la Maza, “Fray Diego Valadés. Escritor y grabador franciscano del siglo XVI” (p. 35), explains that eight engravings are signed: one by laced initials V AS, another F. D. Valadés; a third F. D. Valadés inventor, and the rest F. Didacus Valadés fecit. 76 “Sin embargo quiero advertir de antemano al lector que he omitido la explicación del calendario de los indios; porque para ponerla debería hacerlo en su propia lengua.” Valadés, Retórica Cristiana, 247 (in facsimile, 100). 77 Georges Baudot, Utopia e historia en México (Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 1983), 460-466. Also see Toribio de Benavente (Motolinía), Memoriales o Libros de las cosas de la Nueva España y de los naturales de ella (1541), ed. Edmundo O’Gorman (México: Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas-Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1971), 35-58; Martín de la Coruña, Relación de las ceremonias y ritos y población y gobernación de los indios de la Provincia de Michoacán (1549) (Madrid: Colección Thesaurus Americae, 2001), 515-520. The “Calendario índico de los indios del mar océano” by Francisco de las Navas in Diego Muñoz Camargo, Relaciones geográficas del siglo XVI, Tlaxcala (1581), ed. Rene Acuña, vol. 4 (México: Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas-Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1984), 219-224. Bernardino de Sahagún’s wheels are in Manuscrito de Tlatelolco, Códice Matritense del Real Palacio, Manuscript num. 3280, Biblioteca del Palacio Nacional, Madrid, 1536-1539, fol. 189r and Códice Florentino, Manuscrito 2l8-20 de la Colección Palatina de la Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana (México: Archivo General de la Nación, Secretaría de Gobernación, 1979), book 7, fol. 248r. Diego Durán, Historia de las Indias de la Nueva España y Islas de Tierra Firme, 2 vols. (México: Porrúa, 1984); Códice Ramirez, Relación del origen
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The pictorial calendar is not in Part 4 of the Rhetorica, with the Grand Teocalli engraving and other renderings of Indigenous customs and traditions and of missionary work in New Spain.78 It is in Part 2: “The parts of rhetoric and the mental faculties that befit it.” Presented alongside mnemonic devices, ars memorativa and a schematic diagram of a man’s head showing its parts, the placement of the calendar wheel, formulated to picture the complex system of ancient Amerindian historical time keeping prevalent in Central México at the time of European arrival,79 positions Indigenous timekeeping in relation to that of Europe. It is a clear expression of Valadés’ interest in finding correspondence between Christian and Indigenous calendars and dates, in an effort to favor Christian catechism and dogma. Valadés’ states that he had information “in their own language,” which raises several questions surrounding related calendar wheels and manuscripts, and his sources. Valadés conceivably had a pictorial calendar as well as a manuscript clarifying its workings. He may have had knowledge of Indigenous time keeping from his Tlaxcalan mother and stimulated by his schooling in San José de los Naturales, he ostensibly possessed an understanding of the workings of ancient Central Mexican calendars. Further information is unavailable to determine whether he succeeded in correlating dates, yet what is certain is that Valadés was accomplished in the intricacies of Central Mexican calendric systems, holding knowledge essential to the formulation of his complex time device.
Models and Copies, Prototypes and Types Valadés’ composition (or inventio) of the pictorial calendar is linked to two pictorial calendar wheels,80 and to associated written descriptions: a text elaborated by de los indios que habitan esta Nueva España según sus historias in Crónica Mexicana, ed. Orozco y Berra (México: Porrúa, 1980 [1878]), 17-92. 78 The Great teocalli (Valadés, Rhetorica, pars quarta, between 172 and 173). Francisco de la Maza, “Fray Diego Valadés. Escritor y grabador franciscano del siglo XVI,” 35 and 39. Engravings 15 to 18 represent the Indigenous world. Ferdinand Anders, in his study and edition of Girolamo Benzoni, La Historia del Mondo Nuovo, ed. facsimil 1565 (Graz: Akademie Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1969), v-xxi, has shown the correspondence between Valadés and the traveler´s engravings. 79 Elizabeth Boone, “The Structure of the Mexican Tonalamatl,” in Acercarse y Mirar, Homenaje a Beatríz de la Fuente, ed. Leticia Staines y Teresa Uriarte (México: Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas-Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2004), 377-402; Elizabeth Boone, Cycles of Time and Meaning in the Mexican Books of Fate (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007); John S. Justeson and Terrence Kaufman, “Calendar Round,” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures: The Civilizations of Mexico and Central America, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 121; Ross Hassig, Time, History, and Belief in Aztec and Colonial Mexico (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001), 7-18. 80 John B. Glass and Donald Robertson, “A Census of Native Middle American Pictorial Manuscripts,” 229-234 (entries 387-393) describes how both calendars depict the 260-day 13x20 cycle of time in a
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Francisco de las Navas sometime around 1549; a wheel bound in the Relación de Tlaxcala (1578);81 a manuscript in the Relación de Michoacán (1549);82 a folded pictorial calendar and a text bound in Motolinía’s Memoriales (1549).83 Written in the climate of the evangelization, conceivably written in Nahuatl, the language of Central Mexico at the time of the Spanish conquest and evangelization, their relationship with the information Valadés had in his possession but did not fully account for remains uncertain. Moreover, the Valadés calendar wheel can be linked to an early description of Amerindian time keeping shared by Central México, belonging to the tradition prompted by Pedro de Gante in 1523, by Andrés de Olmos in 1547, and followed by Motolinía in 1536-1549. Collectively this is an example of friars’ initiatives (with the active participation of native collaborators), to explain Indigenous timekeeping and relate it to the Christian calendar.84 In New Spain, with the displacement of ancient American concepts of time, friars sought to impose a new system; sparking interest in Indigenous calendrics and efforts to obtain information surrounding Indigenous time keeping held by elders and in ancient documents.85 Valadés probably learned about and conceived his calendar wheel in this environment, interleaved in a quest determined to learn about ancient practices to promote the conversion effort. And once he left New Spain for Europe in 1571, subsequently traveling to Paris, to Vittoria to visit circular format. 20 day signs in the inner circle, with numbers 1 to 13 repeated 20 times to represent the cycle and the four year-bearer days. They explain how the wheel elaborated by Francisco de las Navas and the folded pictorial calendar in Motolinia’s Memoriales can be linked to Veytia Calendar 2, to Lorenzo Boturini’s explorations on the topic as seen in his Idea de una Historia General de la América Septentrional, to the 7 calendar wheel developed by Mariano Fernández de Echeverría y Veytia (1780) as well as to three calendar wheels published by Francisco Javier Clavijero in 1780, which were adaptations of Calendars 2, 4 and 5. 81 Diego Muñoz Camargo, Relaciones geográficas del siglo XVI, Tlaxcala (1581), 219-224. 82 It must be noted it does not have a calendar Wheel. Martín de la Coruña, Relación de Michoacán, Relación de las ceremonias y ritos y población y gobernación de los indios de la Provincia de Michoacán, 515-520. 83 George Kubler and Charles Gibson, The Tovar Calendar: An Illustrated Mexican Manuscript ca. 1585, 68-70, entries: Motolinía, Valadés, Motolinía insert II (Francisco de las Navas) and Motolinía insert I (Andres de Olmos). See also: John B. Glass and Donald Robertson, “A Census of Native Middle American Pictorial Manuscripts,” entry 388. 84 Georges Baudot, Utopia e historia en México, 273-274; See also: Ana Díaz Álvarez, “Las formas del tiempo. Tradiciones cosmográficas en los calendarios indígenas del México central,” 201-231, see 211; Susan Spitler, “Colonial Mexican Calendar Wheels: Cultural Translation and the Problem of ‘Authenticity’,” 285; and Luis Nicolau D’Olwer, Fray Bernardino de Sahagun, 67-77. 85 Victor Castillo Farreras, “El bisiesto náhuatl,” Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 9, (1971): 75-104, see 100. Many missionary priests, who sought to describe and record them, noted the importance of calendars in Indigenous life. Gante 1523, Motolinía 1536-1541, Olmos 1547, De las Navas 1549, Sahagun 1569-1580; Duran 1570; Ramirez and Tovar 1585; Zorita 1584 and Mendieta 1585 participated actively in the reformulation of calendars to propel the Conversion effort.
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Gerónimo de Mendieta,86 and then to Seville, before reaching Rome in 1575, he probably carried with him papers, material documentation, information and treaties on the topic. To fully establish when, where and how Valadés obtained information on the pictorial calendar wheel is currently beyond the scope of this chapter. There is still a need to understand its nature and content to determine if Valadés had a manuscript with annotations in Nahuatl and a copy of a pictorial calendar wheel to understand the complex process of selection, removal and exchange he followed in his composition (or inventio). A review of his possible shared sources on pre-Hispanic and New Spanish Mexican calendrics is also needed. Then we will move on to closely describe the calendar’s structure “in the manner of” Francisco del Paso y Troncoso in his “Ensayo sobre los símbolos cronográficos de los Mexicanos.”87 Valadés’ calendar has been directly linked to Toribio de Benavente (Motolinía).88 A quick review of his Memoriales will help assess the process by which Valadés collected available information on Indigenous calendars and his decision making, carrying out an exercise of selection, taking from several sources now encompassed in the Memoriales and perhaps other models, to create his singular composition (Fig. 6).89 In Chapter 16 of Memoriales, Motolinía writes about “Del tiempo y movimiento de las cosas variables del año, mes, semana,” listing the names of the 18 veintena (“months”) and provides a description of the workings of the calendar round.90 Bound in this section, in different handwriting from the rest of 86 Gerónimo de Mendieta, Historia Eclesiástica Indiana Historia Eclesiástica Indiana, ed. Joaquín García Icazbalceta (México: Porrúa, 1971), 98, speaks about seeing a Calendar made by a friar in Tlaxcala and is well aware of the conflict surrounding Sahagún and Motolinias understanding of the Indian Calendar. 87 See note 71. 88 Toribio de Benavente (Motolinía), Memoriales. Manuscrito de la colección del Señor Don Joaquín García Icazbalceta, a reprint of the edition of 1903 by Luis Garcia Pimentel (Guadalajara, Jalisco: Edmundo Aviña Levy Editor, 1967), 48-53. “El Calendario está inspirado, con seguridad, del que trae Motolinia en sus Memoriales, pero éste es mucho más completo y bien dibujado,” writes Francisco de la Maza, “Fray Diego Valadés. Escritor y grabador franciscano del siglo XVI,” 39. George Kubler and Charles Gibson, The Tovar Calendar: An Illustrated Mexican Manuscript ca. 1585, 23. Also see: Charles Gibson and John B. Glass, “A Census of Middle American Prose Manuscripts in the Native Historical Tradition,” in Handbook of Middle American Indians, vol. 15 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1965-1984), 322-400, here 350 (see entry 1071). 89 Following Linda Báez’s proposals (see notes 20 and 30 supra), stemming from Cennini’s teachings it can be thought that Valadés took “pains and pleasure copying and drawing (ritrarre) the best; taking care to select the best from each.” Portrayal (Ritrarre Contrahacer se emplea como sinónimo de imitar una cosa o hacerla semejante a otra. Seguir las misma huellas y vestigios de otro, o llevar el mismo método, orden o disciplina. Hacer las mismas acciones, visajes y ademanes que otro hace.” Diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, ed. Eduardo de Echegaray, vol. 5 [Madrid: 1889], 127). 90 The 18 months beginning with Tlacaxipehualizli and ending in Quahuitlehua are listed. George Kubler and Charles Gibson, The Tovar Calendar: An Illustrated Mexican Manuscript ca. 1585, 68. Toribio de Benavente (Motolinia), Memoriales, chapter 16, 35-42. https://cd.dgb.uanl.mx/handle/201504211/13029
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Figure 6 Toribio de Benavente (Motolinía), Memoriales, manuscrito de la colección del Señor Don Joaquín García Icazbalceta. edición facsímile, 1967 Edmundo Aviña Levy editor, 1903
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the chapter are: Motolinía Insert 1 (p. 43-48), “a text recording the operation of the calendar,”91 and Motolinía Insert 2 (p. 48-52), the “Calendario. De toda la Yndica gente,”92 directly linked to the folded pictorial calendar bound at the end of the Memoriales. This pictorial calendar (which was not designed by Motolinía) depicts the 260-day 13x20 cycle of time in a circular spiral format.93 The wheel has signs for the 20 days in the inner circle. The numbers 1 to 13 are repeated 20 times and arranged in a spiral to represent the tonalpohualli cycle, a version of the 260-day calendar. On the border are drawings of the four year-bearer days. The descriptive text details the circular spiral calendar wheel´s workings; glossed in Spanish are the rules for its operation.94 Here are written where the first days of the months of the Indians begin in our calendar to more easily find the day being looked for. Passed these months of 20 days 5 days are left which pass without form… and ended these five lands it is the first day of the following month and year as shown in the written rules at the beginning of the chart. These are the charts where … all the Indians have always annotated their days months and years, and now it is set by the inner wheel of 20 figures how many days months and years. It begins on 1 cipactli, and from day to day the spiral (snail) above will conclude on 13 xochitl and later again it forms the year cipactli once again … the large wheel with 52 figures serves to know what year it is and of what number because each year a figure passes and thus it runs in 52 years year of 1549 and the figure 5 calli xihuitl. The months all begin on the same figure that begins the year, beneath the number. Except… Example this year is 5 calli xihuitl, all the months of this year begin in 1 calli with the number that fits it in the spiral CARACOL above and it should be noted that just as the 52 figure wheel takes 52 years in its course, the small 91 Toribio de Benavente (Motolinía), Memoriales, 43-48, presents an Atlcahualo year beginning. Kubler and Gibson, The Tovar Calendar: An Illustrated Mexican Manuscript ca. 1585, Motolinia insert I (Andres de Olmos). 92 Toribio de Benavente (Motolinía), Memoriales, 48-52: “The Calendario. De toda la Yndica gente, por donde han contado de sus tiempos hasta hoy. Agora nuevamente puesto en forma de rueda, para major ser entendido.” Motolinía does not list the month names but a system of 18 months and 5 nemontemi is presented. The explanations bear a close relation to a description by Francisco de Navas. The year begins January 1. The January 1 beginning need not be regarded as necessarily an artificial equation from the Christian year. See: George Kubler and Charles Gibson, The Tovar Calendar: An Illustrated Mexican Manuscript ca. 1585, 69. Motolinia insert II (Francisco de las Navas). After the conquest mesoamerican calendars were set to the Julian calendar and later to the Gregorian calendar. 93 The wheel bound in the Relación de Tlaxcala (1578) alongside a text elaborated by Francisco de las Navas sometime around 1549, will not be referred to in this chapter. 94 Victor Castillo Farreras, “El bisiesto náhuatl,” 75-104.
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wheel with the 20 figures in 52 years takes a longer course because by that same number it will not be the same day again in 52 years except on leap year that in one figure makes to days as will appear below, the report gives us 260 days.//95
Drawing and Portraying (Delineare o Ritrarre) Francisco de la Maza judged the Valadés calendar much more complete and better drawn than the calendar in Motolinía’s Memoriales,96 while Charles Gibson and George Kubler find the Valadés calendar to be a synthetic arrangement based upon the folded pictorial calendar bound at the end of Memoriales. Over time, scholarly literature has followed suit and concurs with the view that the Valadés calendar round conforms to this folded pictorial (not designed by Motolinía), the earliest colonial source on the Mexican calendar.97 This is another reason why Valadés’ Rhetorica Christiana cannot be thought of without considering complex 95 http://cdigital.dgb.uanl.mx/la/1080028319/1080028319_66.pdf Aqui van escritos donde comienzan los primeros dias de los meses de los indios en nuestro calendario para que más facilmente se halle el día que se buscare. Pasados estos meses de a 20 días sobran 5 dias los quales pasan sin una forma y acabados estos cinco da en el po día del mes y año siguiente como parece en las reglas escritas a las reglas escritas a las delante de esta tabla. Estas son las tablas por do todos los indios han anotado siempre sus días meses y años y ahora queda por la rueda de centro de 20 figuras cuantas días meses y años y Comiença en 1 cipactli. y de en dia en dia el caracol arriba va a concluirse en 13 xochitl y luego forma de nuevo ane çipactli ros la rueda grande de 52 figuras sirve pa saber que año es y de qué numero porque cada año pasa una figura y ansi anda en 52 años año de 1549. esta en la figura 5 calli xihuitl. Los meses todos comiencan en la misma figura que comienza el año de bajo del numero que les viene excepto /exiplo este año es 5 calli xihuitl todos los meses deste año comienza en calli con el número que le cabe en el CARACOL arriba y ase de notar que asi como en la rueda de 52 figuras hace en 52 años por su curso que lo mismo hace la rueda de las 20 figuras que en 52 años hace su curso mayor porque de baxo de su mesmo numero no será un mesmo dia dentro de 52 años salvo el año bisiesto que en una figura hace dos días como abajo parecerá, el informe nos haze en 260 dias//. Translation from Spanish to English by E.Carreón based on a foundational paleography and transcription by Roberto Moreno de los Arcos of fragments of the text written on the folded calendar in the Memoriales in Victor Castillo Farreras, study surrounding the Nahuatl leap year. 96 “El Calendario está inspirado, con seguridad, del que trae Motolinia en sus Memoriales, pero éste es mucho más completo y bien dibujado.” Francisco de la Maza, “Fray Diego Valadés. Escritor y grabador franciscano del siglo XVI,” 39. 97 Probably taking information from Tlaxcala. Gibson and Kubler ascertain Valadés’ calendar stems from Motolinia´s yet note Valadés’ calendar draws upon the same sources as the calendar by Diego Durán. George Kubler and Charles Gibson, The Tovar Calendar: An Illustrated Mexican Manuscript ca. 1585, 51 (table 1) and 23 and 68-69. Also see: John B. Glass and Donald Robertson, “A Census of Native Middle American Pictorial Manuscripts,” 387-393; and Charles Gibson and John B. Glass, “A Census of Middle American Prose Manuscripts in the Native Historical Tradition,” 350 (see entry 1071).
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religious-political-cultural elements of the program conceived by the Franciscans in the New World and the papal seat in Rome during the period. It is a visible testament of a period interested in combinatorial rules of Ancient American calendrics and Indigenous time keeping, with the Julian calendar, and its singularity must be considered; principally because calendar wheels generally display only one or two calendar cycles.98 Central Mexican Colonial period images that display cycles of time in a circular format generally present the solar year of eighteen 20-day months (18 × 20 day annual festivals 360 + 5 intercalary days) or the 260 day cycle of 20 day names and 13 coefficients. The Valadés calendar diagrams calendar cycles that organize the 52 year calendar round, the cycle that results from joining the 260 day period and the 365 solar year. This builds on the principles of Indigenous time keeping scripted on the folded pictorial calendar bound at the end of Memoriales. Valadés juxtaposes a large wheel, a tonalpohualli with a small wheel, a xiuhpohualli, to create a conceptual framework explaining the motion of the preColumbian calendrical system, which in turn he correlates with the Julian calendar. As conceived by missionary priests who before him described and recorded its configuration, his calendar wheel can be understood as a pre-Columbian subject fashioned to European models.99 A diagram of the calendar round, he designed for a European audience to correlate the calendars. He merged the small wheel showing the 365-day cycle (18 × 20+5 days) and the large wheel, the 260-day cycle (20 × 13), to portray the structure of a period of 52 years. The Valadés wheel thus references three calendar systems: the Julian, and both the solar (agricultural) and sacred (ceremonial) ancient Mesoamerican calendars.100 98 Susan Spitler, “Colonial Mexican Calendar Wheels: Cultural Translation and the Problem of ‘Authenticity’,” 274; Susan Milbrath “Calendar Wheels,” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures: The Civilizations of Mexico and Central America, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 128-130; John S. Justeson and Terrence Kaufman, “Calendar Round,” 121; Helga-Maria Miriam and Victoria R. Bricker, “Relating Time to Space: The Maya Calendar Compasses,” in Eighth Palenque Round Table 1993, eds. Merle Greene Robertson, Martha Macri and Jan McHargue, vol. X (San Francisco: Pre-Columbian Art Research Institute, 1996), 393-402. 99 Like other calendar wheels, the Valadés calendar reveals European origins in the disposition of the page and style of illustration. The subject matter and certain iconographic details are of pre-Columbian origin. It is closely linked to a Colonial period calendar-making tradition that displays cycles of time in a circular format that is thought to begin with missionary priests´ efforts. Calendar wheels have been understood as adaptations of European diagrams that place the planets or signs in concentric rings. Susan Spitler, “Colonial Mexican Calendar Wheels: Cultural Translation and the Problem of ‘Authenticity’,” 276. Ana Díaz Álvárez, “Las formas del tiempo. Tradiciones cosmográficas en los calendarios indígenas del México central,” 175-177, describes the process linked to circular diagrams by Isidore of Seville. 100 The relationship circular calendar wheels establish with circular stone sculptures containing solar elements and calendarical signs has been addressed. For example, see the Piedra del sol and other circular monuments studied by Antonio de León y Gama in his Descripción histórica y cronológica de las
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The composition (invenire) The large wheel represents the four year bearers at the center, encircled by the twenty day signs surrounded by the 52 years that border the wheel´s circumference to display the four year bearers combined with thirteen numbers and twenty day signs to name the 52 year cycle; read in a clockwise motion each day is denoted by the combination of a number from 1 to 13 and one of the twenty day signs. In the Valadés wheel, the central disk holds the name of the four year bearers: calli, tochtli, acatl and acatl, instead of year bearer tecpatl as found in Motolinía’s circular spiral calendar, scripted between the spokes that radiate from the wheel’s center. The following section holds the twenty-day signs, named and written in Nahuatl.101 A correlation of the pictorial elements conceived by Valadés and Motolinía shows they are not rendered similarly and the day signs they portray greatly differ from how ancient Mesoamerica represented them. In Valadés the signs that constitute the divinatory or ritual calendar are drafted in skillful lines and measured forms and follow European models for making plants and animals look very realistic. The sign cipactli depicts a reptile, with short legs, a thick tail and a long, rounded snout; this is different from Motolinía´s which is a poor rendition of the crocodilian monster. As in Motolinía, the sign ehecatl in the Valadés calendar is a detail of Wind cherub and differs from the way in which the ancient civilizations of Mesoamerica represent the sign, with the head of the god of wind. The Valadés rendition of the sign calli becomes a confusing shape, losing its contour. The sign miquiztli is rendered frontally in Valadés’ calendar whereas in the Motolinía calendar the skull is pictured in a three quarter view, following Indigenous examples. As for the signs tochtli, izcuintli and ozomatli, in the Valadés calendar they are fully rendered depictions of a rabbit, dog and monkey, and not only the head. The sign malinalli is a broom instead of entwined grass and the signs ocelotl, quauhtli and cozcaquauhtli are a fully rendered body likenesses of a jaguar, an eagle and a vulture, unlike the Motolinía calendar where only the animals’ heads are rendered. Otherwise, like Motolinía, Valadés pictures the sun for the sign ollin instead of movement, and the sign tecpatl is flint, depicted as a rhombus. As for the sign quiahuitl, in the Valadés calendar it is a picture of rain sprinkling from a convoluted cloud as it is in Motolinía, and not dos piedras que con ocasión del nuevo empedrado que se está formando en la plaza principal de México, se hallaron en ella el año de 1790. See also: Alejandra Russo, El realismo circular: tierras, espacios y paisajes de la cartografia indigena novohispana, siglos XVI y XVII (México: Instituto de Investigaciones EstéticasUniversidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2005), for further references to Indigenous New Hispanic spatial representation. 101 Crocodile Cipactli, wind Ehecatl, house Calli, lizard Cuetzpalin, serpent Coatl, death Miquiztli, deer Mazatl, rabbit Tochtli, water Atl, dog Izcuintli, monkey Ozomatli, grass Malinalli, reed Acatl, jaguar Ocelotl, eagle Cuauhtli, vulture Cōzcacuāuhtli, movement Ollin, flint Tecpatl, rain Quiyahuitl, flower Xochitl.
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the head of the god of wind, and Valadés’ conception of the sign xochitl is a flower pictured as a four-petal blossom on a stem with a leaf. Unlike the Motolinía calendar where the coefficients 1 to 13 are repeated 20 times and arranged in a spiral, the Valadés calendar has the Arabic numbers 1 to 13, recurring 20 times and organized in thirteen concentric rings, aligned beneath the day sign and matched to demonstrate how the 13 numbered days ran concurrently with the 20 day signs. Valadés presents the progressive sequence of twenty day signs against a cycle of 13 days repeated 20 times to correlate the twenty day signs with the thirteen numbers. In his composition (invenire), he labels each one of the thirteen-day periods with a singular sign system which he formulated. Each period is marked by a special symbol: a small square (10) surrounded by series of dots. What is more, following the wheels radius, to refer to the 18 veintenas and 5 nemontemi days, time units are assembled in a vertical symmetrical axis. Starting from the bottom of the right column are the numbers 1 to 13, with the numbers 14 to 18 on the left side, and five small disks, representing the 18 × 20 day veintena months, relating it to the small wheel. While the Motolinía calendar depicts the four year-bearer days only once following pre-Columbian canons, the year bearer signs – tochtli (represented as a full bodied rabbit), acatl, tecpatl and calli – are repeated 13 times in the Valadés calendar, and each one has an individual tiny symbol next to it. The different symbols conform to a very original 52 symbol classification that illustrates Valadés effort to identify and label each cycle.102 In the Valadés calendar the name of the year bearers tochtli, acatl, tecpatl, and calli are written above each of the four signs; every series is numbered 1 to 13, and the outer circle is numbered l through 52, with the number also written in Nahuatl, in a shorthand method.103 Another essential difference between the Motolinía and the Valadés calendars that must be underlined is that the Valadés calendar begins with a different year bearer. Motolinía begins with 1 acatl followed by the signs tecpatl, calli, tochtli, whereas the order of the Valadés 260 day calendar wheel follows a cycle beginning with the year 1 tochtli.104 102 Paso y Troncoso doesn’t mention them, whereas Gibson and Kubler identify the 52 symbol system as part of the European zodiac. John B. Glass and Donald Robertson, “A Census of Native Middle American Pictorial Manuscripts,” 232. They are in the process of being studied by Vanesa Álvarez Portugal, and compared to a series of indications set in the Motolinia Calendar Wheel. 103 Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario de lengua castellana a mexicana et mexicana a castellana (México: Porrúa, l977). 104 The correlation which the Valadés calendar records does not follow the tradition established by Motolinia and also followed by Veytia. Veytia follows the system established in Tezcoco, the cycle beginning in the year Ce Acatl, “and the Valadés´ calendar is adjusted to the Aztec system” explains Francisco del Paso y Troncoso, “Ensayo sobre los símbolos cronográficos de los Mexicanos,” Anales del Museo Nacional, epoch 1, tome 2 (1882), 380. See Also: Georges Baudot, Utopia e historia en México. John S. Justeson and Terrence Kaufman, “Calendar round,” 121. Research to establish when the year begins
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Francisco del Paso y Troncoso labeled the elements Valadés added to his calendar “accessories,”105 yet these additions to the Motolinía calendar underline Valadés’ effort to understand and describe the mechanisms of the ancient American calendar system in his Rhetorica Christiana. Building on an established tradition he replicated, updated and transferred knowledge, in relation to other dissertations on the subject. This becomes evident through analysis of the small wheel, and the many extra elements that distinguish this engraving from Motolinía’s. The small wheel is circled by a ring, with representations of eighteen different portraits of women in profile. In a counterclockwise rotation, facing right, each has a particular hairstyle and appearance, and is numbered 1 through 18 to represent the 18 × 20 day veintena months. Written in the inner circle, are the words principium and finis, beginning and end. Joined to the small wheel by rope-like ties are 5 circles, and between them the words 5 dies intercalares, are written.106 The wheels’ 18 × 20 day veintena months are keyed to charts that correlate the Indian and the Christian periods.107 Additionally, each of the 18 portraits is attached to the charts on either side of the small wheel (9 veintenas per panel). Each chart is divided into nine rows, numbered 1-9 from top to bottom and 10-18 from bottom to top, and records the Nahuatl name of each of the eighteen veintenas, to display a month-to-month equation between the calendars to synchronize the months of the Julian calendar and the dates on which the veintenas’ main celebrations took place.108 Valadés makes a Tlacaxipehualiztli – March 1 correlation. The system is based on Motolinía who specified the same month names.109 As noted by Kubler and Gibson, in the 18 month names and variants Valadés lists, he includes Tepupochhuiliztli as a variant of Toxcatl, the fourth veintena, and gives Tenanatiliztli as a variant and alternate of Ochpaniztli, the tenth veintena. In accord with Motolinía, Valadés terms veintena 12 with the name Hecoztli (from yecoa, to wage war) as an alternate in the calendar round, registers cycles beginning in 1 flint were emphasized in some traditions while 1 rabbit cycles figure prominently in the Mexica tradition. 105 Francisco del Paso y Troncoso, “Ensayo sobre los símbolos cronográficos de los Mexicanos,” 380. 106 Valadés identifies the intercalary days with the name of the four year bearers and repeats the name Tochtli. He was possibly trying to insert an intercalary day to fit each year and is signaling a year bearer. I appreciate this observation coming from Ana Díaz Álvarez, July 2018. 107 See George Kubler and Charles Gibson, The Tovar Calendar: An Illustrated Mexican Manuscript ca. 1585, 69. 108 Esther Pasztory, Aztec Art (Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1983), 179-180. Illustrations of the monthly rituals of the solar year are a subject matter prompted by friars. There is no clear evidence showing the ritual months were a subject in the pre-Hispanic codex. George Kubler and Charles Gibson, The Tovar Calendar: An Illustrated Mexican Manuscript ca. 1585, represent the veintena rituals followed European forms as exemplified in the Florentine Codex and Primeros memorials as well as in Diego Durán’s Book of the Rites and Ancient Calendar, and in the Tovar calendar. 109 George Kubler and Charles Gibson, The Tovar Calendar: An Illustrated Mexican Manuscript ca. 1585, 68-69.
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for Pachtli.110 Lastly the eigtheenth veintena Quahuitlehua, is named Ciuauhuit, as found in Motolinía. To identify the period names Valadés drew directly upon Motolinía;111 in Chapter 16 of Memoriales, beginning with Tlacaxipehualiztli, the names of the 18 veintena “months” are listed.112 Motolinia Insert 1 (p. 43-48), a text recording the operation of the calendar thought to be connected to Andrés de Olmos author of the Historia de los Mexicanos por sus pinturas, presents an Atlcahualo year beginning.113 Motolinia Insert 2 (p. 48-52) “Calendario. De toda la Yndica gente,” is directly linked to the folded pictorial calendar bound at the end of Memoriales. It does not give month names, yet it explains a system of 18 months and 5 nemontemi, while it registers that the year begins at January 1.114 There are other differences between the Motolinía and the Valadés calendar such as the correlation dates. Where Valadés begins the year on March 1, the Motolinía calendar begins on January 1.115 As Mexican historiography has shown, the belief that Atlcahualo is the beginning of the year is dependent from the Sahagun tradition, while the belief that Tlacaxipehualiztli marks the beginning is linked to the core of the Motolinía tradition.116 Texts and images of Indigenous calendars authored by several colonial authorities shed light on Valadés’ process. Their review reveals what information was available 110 The eleventh veintena Teotleco is found in the sahaguntine tradition. Like Tlaxochimaco and Xocotlhuetzin, this name was not the most common in recorded sixteenth century usage. Pachtli in Valadés is given as the normal form, perhaps following Motolinia. Pachtli and Huey Pachtli inexplicably appear as alternates instead of Tepeilhuitl, which only appears in the Sahagun tradition. See George Kubler and Charles Gibson, The Tovar Calendar: An Illustrated Mexican Manuscript ca. 1585, 23 and 31. 111 George Kubler and Charles Gibson, The Tovar Calendar: An Illustrated Mexican Manuscript ca. 1585, 68-70, explain that the Motolinia Insert 1 presents an Atlcahualo year beginning, while Motolinia Chapter 16 presents a Tlacaxipehualiztli beginning. Comparison of Motolinia Insert 1 and Motolinia Chapter 16 shows no dates are provided; the Motolinia calendar wheel doesn´t provide names for the 18 months, giving a January 1 year beginning. Surrounding the Tlacaxipehualiztli-March 1 correlation and for further discussion on the Valadés calendar and its association with Tlaxcala and Tlacaxipehualiztli year beginning, see entries N OM MV in George Kubler and Charles Gibson, The Tovar Calendar: An Illustrated Mexican Manuscript ca. 1585, 29). 112 The calendar is a list of months beginning with Tlacaxipehualizli and ending in Quahuitlehua. Toribio de Benavente, Memoriales, 35-42. https://cd.dgb.uanl.mx/handle/201504211/13029 113 George Kubler and Charles Gibson, The Tovar Calendar: An Illustrated Mexican Manuscript ca. 1585, 70. 114 George Kubler and Charles Gibson, The Tovar Calendar: An Illustrated Mexican Manuscript ca. 1585, 69. Motolinia insert II (Francisco de las Navas); Calendario. De toda la Yndica gente, por donde han contado de sus tiempos hasta hoy. Agora nuevamente puesto en forma de rueda, para major ser entendido. Month names are not given but a system of 18 months and 5 nemontemi days is explained. The year begins at January 1. The January 1 beginning need not be regarded as necessarily an artificial equation from the Christian year. 115 George Kubler and Charles Gibson, The Tovar Calendar: An Illustrated Mexican Manuscript ca. 1585, 49, table F. 116 George Kubler and Charles Gibson, The Tovar Calendar: An Illustrated Mexican Manuscript ca. 1585, 47-52, table D.
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to Valadés, which was perhaps shared by Motolinía – maybe the scripted rules to the calendar wheel folded at the end of the Memoriales and the process behind the selected parts. Regardless of some of the other efforts to understand Ancient American time keeping initially collected by Olmos (Motolinia Insert 1), and re-elaborated by De las Navas (Motolinia Insert 2), Valadés approached ancient American time keeping with certain notions about time and space. Like other sixteenth-century calendar wheels his wheel establishes arithmetical concepts and notational forms, both in structure and in presentation, but Valadés additionally correlates the twenty-day signs with thirteen numbers by labeling the thirteen-day periods with a notational system of his own making, and creates a 52-symbol classification, to number the cycles as part of a mechanism to understand pre-Columbian time keeping. The calendar exposes Valadés’s reasoning. His selection of elements from several sources on standard practices of the Mesoamerican calendar system shows he was concerned with some of the most prevalent issues surrounding their understanding and study of the placement of the five intercalary days (nemotemi), the order of the year bearers in the 260 day cycle, the position of the years´ beginning, and the correlation of the 365 day calendar with the Julian calendar, in use before the Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1582. Once the wheels are vertically aligned, the axis that pierces the large wheel between the day signs cipactli and xochitl spans across the numbers 1-18 and the five small disks on the radius – to signal the 18 veintenas and the placement of the 5 nemontemi days – and spearheads the small wheel – keyed to charts that correlate the Indian and the Christian periods – to touch the 5 circles above it linking them to the radius. Set in motion, they position the five intercalary days and determine the structural relationship between the 260 day cycle and the 365-day cycle. It is possible to picture Valadés’ calendar as two parallel circles; the small circle above the large circle; the smaller circle spinning right to left and the larger circle spinning left to right, as mobile parts.117 Accordingly, the Valadés calendar must be understood as a device to aid the mind’s eye in the delivery of Catholic and Indigenous calendars and to fix a date specified in terms of two cycles, the 52 year period and the Julian calendar.
Differentiated Steps Through the analysis of two of Valadés engravings this study demonstrates how the process of copying and incorporating new information into Humanist knowledge 117 The Valadés calendar wheel is not static; it does not determine a year with f ixed beginning and ending. It refers both to a date that is specified in terms of these two cycles and to the 52 year period that correspond to them, and to the correlation of the Central Mexican Indigenous calendars to the European Catholic Calendar in use at the time.
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nurtured the development and elaboration of his engravings. This analysis of their content and distinct stylistic compositional qualities, resulting from the imitatio of models, reveals his creative process. He observed and selected, fusing the local American and the transcontinental, drawing on Christian Humanism. In this sense, far from mirroring a world of realistic forms, Valadés engravings’, provide an account of his critical thinking surrounding the figurative models available to him, making them no less legitimate. The engravings of the Rhetorica are visible testimonies of Christian culture reconciled with Classical antiquity and the Indigenous culture that survived after the Conquest, fitted to Valadés’ personal maniera or style: a style based on reformulations that answered to the religious, political and cultural aims of his times.
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Lee, Rensselaer W. “Ut pictura poesis: The Humanistic Theory of Painting,” Art Bulletin, 22 (1940): 197-269. Leinkauf, Thomas. “Systema menmonicum und circulus encyclopaediae. Johann Heintich, Alsteds Versuch einer Fundierung des unversalen Wissens in der ars memorativa,” in Seelenmaschinen. Gattungstraditionen, Funktionen und Leistungsgrenzen der Mnemotechniken vom späten Mittelalter bis zum Beginn der Moderne, eds. Jörg Jochen Berns and Wolfgang Neuber. Wien, Köln, Weimar: Böhlau Verlag, 2000, 279-307. León Portilla, Miguel. “Fuentes de la Monarquía Indiana,” in Juan de Torquemada, De los veinte y un libros rituales y monarquía indiana, con el origen y guerras de los indios occidentales, de sus poblaciones, descubrimientos, conquista, conversión y otras cosas maravillosas de la mesma tierra, ed. Miguel León Portilla, vol. VII. México: Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas-Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1975, 93-128. León y Gama, Antonio de. Descripción histórica y cronológica de las dos piedras que con ocasión del nuevo empedrado que se está formando en la plaza principal de México, se hallaron en ella el año de 1790, facsimile ed. by Carlos María de Bustamante. México: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1990. Ligorio, Pirro. Delle antichità di Roma: Circi, amphitheatri con numerose tavole e pianta cinquecentesca di Roma. Roma: 1989, reprint of Libro di Pyrrho Ligorio Napolitano delle antichità di Roma [Venezia: Tramezzino, 1553]. Llompart, Gabriel. “Ecclesia Sponsa: tres grabados manieristas,” Traza y Baza, 5 (1975): 63-76. López de la Torre, Carlos Fernando. “El trabajo misional de fray Pedro de Gante en los inicios de la Nueva España,” Fronteras de la Historia, 21:1 (2016): 90-116. Lucio Vitruvio Pollione. De architectura libri dece. Como: P. Magistro Gotardus da Ponte, 1521. Maza, Francisco de la. “Fray Diego Valadés. Escritor y grabador franciscano del siglo XVI,” Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, IV:13 (1945): 1-59. Maza, Francisco de la. “Fray Pedro de Gante y la capilla abierta de san José de los Naturales,” Artes de México: Fray Pedro de Gante. IV Centenario de su muerte, 150 (1972): 33-38. Meier, Christel. “Malerei des Unsichtbaren. Über den Zusammenhang von Erkenntnistheorie und Bildstruktur im Mittelalter,” in Text und Bild, Bild und Text. DFG- Symposion 1988, ed. Wolfgang Harms. Stuttgart: Metzler Verlag, 1990, 35-65. Melquíades, Andrés. Historia de la mística de la Edad de Oro en España y America. Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1994. Mendieta, Gerónimo de. Historia Eclesiástica Indiana, ed. Joaquín García Icazbalceta. México: Porrúa, 1971. Mendieta, Jerónimo de. Historia eclesiástica indiana, ed. Antonio Rubial García. México: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1997. Milbrath, Susan. “Calendar wheels,” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures. The Civilizations of Mexico and Central America, vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001, 128-130.
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Miriam, Helga-Maria and Victoria R. Bricker. “Relating Time to Space: The Maya Calendar Compasses” in Eight Palenque Round Table 1993, eds. Merle Greene Robertson, Martha Macri and Jan McHargue, vol. X. San Francisco: Pre-Columbian Art Research Institute, 1996, 393-402. Molina, Alonso de. Vocabulario de lengua castellana a mexicana et mexicana a castellana. México: Porrúa, l977. Muñoz Camargo, Diego. Relación de Tlaxcala (1578), Glasgow Menuscript, facsimile ed. René Acuña. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1981. Muñoz Camargo, Diego. Relaciones geográficas del siglo XVI, Tlaxcala (1581), ed. Rene Acuña, vol. 4. México: Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas-Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1984, 219-224. Muslow, Martin. “Seelenwagen und Ähnlichkeitsmaschine. Zur Reichweite der praktischen Geometrie in der Ars cyclognomica von Cornelius Gemma,” in Seelenmaschinen. Gattungstraditionen, Funktionen und Leistungsgrenzen der Mnemotechniken vom späten Mittelalter bis zum Beginn der Moderne, eds. Jörg Jochen Berns and Wolfgang Neuber. Wien, Köln, Weimar: Böhlau Verlag, 2000, 249-277. Occhipinti. Carmelo. Pirro Ligorio e la storia cristiana di Roma: da Costantino all‘umanesimo. Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2007. Ollero Lobato, Francisco. “Plazas efímeras del barroco hispano,” in Barroco iberoamericano: identidades culturales de un imperio, eds. Carmen López Calderón, María de los Àngeles Fernández Valles, María Inmaculada Rodríguez Moya, vol. II. Sevilla: Bosque de Palabras, 2008, 27-56. Palleotti, Gabrielle. Discorso intorno alle imagini sacre et profane (De imaginibus sacris et profanis). Bologna: A. Benacci, 1582. Palomera, Esteban J. Fray Diego de Valadés, Evangelizador humanista de la Nueva España. El hombre y su época. México: Jus, 1963. Palomera, Esteban J. Fray Diego de Valadés, O.F.M. evangelizador humanista de la Nueva España. Su obra. México: Jus, 1962. Paso y Troncoso, Francisco del. “Ensayo sobre los símbolos cronográficos de los Mexicanos,” Anales del Museo Nacional, 1:2 (1882): 323-402. Pasztory, Esther. Aztec Art. Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1983. Payne, Alina, Anne Kuttner, Rebekah Smick, eds. Antiquity and its Interpreters. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Prosperi, Adriano. “Intorno a un catechismo figurato del tardo ‘500”, Quaderni di Palazzo Te, 2 (1985): 45-53. Ramírez, José Fernando. “Navas (Fr Francisco de las),” Obras del Lic. Don José Fernando Ramírez. Biblioteca de autores Mexicanos, Adiciones a la Biblioteca Beristein. Opúsculos Históricos, vol. III. México: Imp. de V. Agüeros, 1898, pp. 89-92. http://cdigital.dgb.uanl. mx/la/1080028215_C/1080028217_T3/1080028217_MA.PDF. (Accessed February 25th, 2021)
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Ramírez Vidal, Gerardo. “Fray Diego Valadés y los indios,” in Acerca de fray Diego Valadés: su Retórica cristiana, eds. Bulmaro Reyes Coria, Gerardo Ramírez Vidal, Salvador Díaz Cíntora. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1996, pp. 9-33. Real Colección de estampas de san Lorenzo de El Escorial, ed. Jesus María González de Zárate, vol. 2. Vittoria-Gasteiz: Ephialte, 1993. Rescio, Stanislao. Explicatio typi ecclesiae Catholicae. Roma: apud Antonii Bladii, 1573. Ricard, Robert. La conquista espiritual de México. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1986. Ricci, Maurizio. Ugo Bologna in Roma, Roma in Bologna: disegno e architettura durante il pontificato di Gregorio XIII, 1572-1585. Roma: Campisano, 2012. Robertson, Donald. “A Census of Native Middle American Pictorial Manuscripts,” in Handbook of Middle American Indians, vol. 14. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1965-1984, 81-252. Rodríguez de la Flor, Fernando. Barroco, representación e ideología en el mundo hispánico (1580-1680). Madrid: Cátedra, 2002. Rombach, Ursula and Peter Seiler, eds. Imitatio als Transformation: Theorie und Praxis der Antikennachahmung in der Frühen Neuzeit. Petersberg: Michael Imhof, 2012. Rombech, Johannes. Congestorium artificiose memoriae. Venice: s.e., 1520. Rozzo, Ugo. “Il Typus Ecclesiae nella polemica tra protestanti e cattolici nel Cinquecento,” in Visibile teologia: il libro sacro figurato in Italia tra Cinquecento e Seicento, eds. Erminia Ardissino and Elisabetta Selmi. Roma: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2012, 72-77. Rubial García, Antonio. La hermana pobreza. El franciscanismo de la Edad Media a la evangelización novohispana. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1996. Ruffini, Marco. Le imprese del drago: politica, emblematica e scienze naturali alla corte di Gregorio XIII, 1572-1585. Roma: Bulzoni, 2005. Ruiz Bañuls, Mónica. “El franciscanismo en el contexto evangelizador novohispano: raíces del mensaje misional,” Semata, Ciencias Sociais e Humanidades, 26 (2014): 491-507. Russo, Alejandra. El realismo circular: tierras, espacios y paisajes de la cartografia indigena novohispana, siglos XVI y XVII. México: Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas- Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2005. Sahagún, Bernardino de. Códice Florentino, Manuscrito 2l8-20 de la Colección Palatina de la Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana. México: Archivo General de la Nación, Secretaría de Gobernación, 1979. Sahagún, Bernardino de. Manuscrito de Tlatelolco, Códice Matritense del Real Palacio, Manuscript num. 3280, Biblioteca del Palacio Nacional, Madrid, 1536-1539. Serés, Guillermo. “La monarquía hispánica en la era del Espíritu Santo,” Hipograifo, 5:2 (2017): 261-282. Spitler, Susan. “Colonial Mexican Calendar Wheels: Cultural Translation and the Problem of ‘Authenticity’” in Painted Books and Indigenous Knowledge in Mesoamerica, ed. Elizabeth Boone Hill. New Orleans: Middle American Research Institute, 2005, 271-288.
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Stanislaus Hosius. Sein Wirken als Humanist, Theologe und Mann der Kirche in Europa, ed. Bernhart Jähnig. Münster: Aschendorff, 2007. Taylor, René C. El arte de la memoria en el Nuevo Mundo. Madrid: Swan, 1987. Taylor, René. “El arte de la memoria en el Nuevo Mundo,” in Iconología y sociedad, arte colonial hipanoamericano. XLIV Congreso Internacional de Americanistas. México: Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas-Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1987, 43-76. Torquemada, Juan de. Monarquía Indiana, ed. León Portilla. México: Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas-Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1975-1983. Torre Villar, Ernesto de la. Fray Pedro de Gante. Maestro y civilizador de América y la doctrina cristiana en lengua mexicana de 1553. México: Seminario de Cultura Mexicana, 2001. Torre Villar, Ernesto de la. Fray Pedro de Gante. Maestro y civilizador de América y la doctrina cristiana en lengua mexicana de 1553. México: Seminario de Cultura Mexicana, 2001. Toussaint, Manuel, Arte Colonial en México, 4th ed. México: Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas-Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1986. Trattati d’arte del Cinquecento: fra manierismo e Controriforma, ed. Paola Barocchi. Bari: G. Laterza, 1960-62. Treter, Thomasz. Theatrum virtutum ac meritorum D. Stanislai Hosii. Roma: Editio princeps, 1588. Tschudi, Victor Plahte. Baroque Antiquity: Archaeological Imagination in Early Modern Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Tschudi, Victor Plathe. “Ancient Rome in the Age of Copyright: The privilegio and Printed Reconstructions,” Acta ad Archaeologiam et Artium Historiam Pertinentiae, 25 (2012): 177–194. Tschudi, Victor Plathe. “Serlio and Sabbioneta: A City Built in Prints,” in Rhetoric, Theatre and the Arts of Design, ed. Clare L. Guest. Oslo: Novus, 2008, 108–25. Valadés, Diego. Retórica cristiana, intr. Esteban J. Palomera, trans. Tarsicio Herrera Zapién et al. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México/Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1989. Valadés, Diego. Rhetorica Christiana ad concionandi et orandi usum accommodate […] ex Indorum maximè deprompta sunt historiis. Perugia: Petrus Jacobus Petrutius, 1579. Wadell, Maj-Brit B. Fons pietatis. Eine ikonographische Studie, trans. Dieter Rosenthal and Anne-Marie Thiberg. Göteborg: Elanders Boktryckeri Aktiebolag, 1969. Watts, Pauline Moffitt. “Hieroglyphs of conversion: Alien Discourses in Diego Valadés’s Rhetorica Christiana,” Memorie Dominicane, 22 (1991): 405-443. Witcombe, Christopher L.C.E. Copyright in the Renaissance: Prints and the privilegio in Sixteenth-Century Venice and Rome. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2004. Wolf, Gerhard. “‘Arte superficiem illam fontis amplecti’: Alberti, Narziss und die Erfindung der Malerei,” in Diletto e Meraviglia: Ausdruck und Wirkung in der Kunst von der Renaissance bis zum Barock, eds. Christine Göttler, Ulrike Müller Hofstede et al. Emsdetten: Edition Imorde, 1988, 121-125.
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About the Authors Emilie Carreón is a Professor Researcher at the Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, UNAM, México where she studies American Indigenous Art. She has published on the ritual use of rubber and the role of visual images in the Mesoamerican ballgame, specifically its relationship with human sacrifice, and recently on the representation of Ancient Mexico in playthings. Linda Báez Rubí is a Professor Researcher at the Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, UNAM, México. Her research embraces rhetoric, optics and image theory in the cultural exchange between Latin America and Europe (fifteenth-eighteenth centuries) and focuses on Aby Warburg’s Bildwissenschaft. She is currently editor of the journal Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, UNAM.
8
The Practice of Art: Auxiliary Plastic Models and Prints in Italy, Spain, and Peru1 Alexandre Ragazzi
Abstract In 1582, the Italian artist Matteo Perez de Alecio started to produce engravings of his own paintings. In November 1587, he acquired a set of prints by Dürer in Seville, where he had been living for some years, before he moved to Lima, the capital of the Viceroyalty of Peru. Apparently, the artist wanted Dürer’s engravings to provide him a repertoire of ideas for future projects. Besides working according to this two-dimensional perspective, Matteo de Alecio also used auxiliary plastic models to create his works. That being so, in this chapter I will analyze some peculiarities related to these two tools employed in the production of paintings that may have coexisted in this cross-cultural context. Keywords: Italian painting. Renaissance. Mannerism. Traveling artists.
The names of Bernardo Bitti, Matteo Perez de Alecio and Angelino Medoro are always recalled when the art produced in the Viceroyalty of Peru comes to mind.2 1 I will present here some results of research that has been carried out with the support of a Mellon Visiting Fellowship (2012-2013) from Villa I Tatti – The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, as well as a fellowship from Fundación Carolina (2013-2014), which allowed me to stay for three months working in Seville. Besides that, in this chapter I have assembled some conclusions previously presented at conferences in Colombia (Diálogos Globales: El Renacimiento italiano visto desde América Latina, Bogotá, 2013), Brazil (XXXIV Colóquio do Comitê Brasileiro de História da Arte, Uberlândia, 2014), and Mexico (El Renacimiento italiano desde América Latina, Oaxaca, 2015), but never before published in English. 2 See, for example, Mesa-Gisbert, 1972, p. 11: “No queda duda que este grupo de manieristas Bitti, Medoro y Alesio es el que determina la creación de las escuelas pictóricas americanas; dándoles un carácter indeleble, que conserva de la estética manierista el arte idealizado y circunspecto; las raíces de algunas escuelas indias como la del Cuzco y la del Collao (La Paz y alrededores del lago Titicaca) hay que buscarlos en el arte del renacimiento tardío que llegó al virreinato por medio de estos tres pintores italianos.” See also Chichizola Debernardi, 1983.
Madar, H. (ed.), Prints as Agents of Global Exchange, 1500-1800. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press doi: 10.5117/9789462987906_ch08
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Having been trained in Italy, the arrival of these three painters to the New World in the last quarter of the sixteenth century became a reference point from which art historians, comparing their works to subsequent local artistic production, could identify and reveal the main characteristics of the art created there. It seemed to be clear that the European model had been rapidly adapted to regional needs and expectations, so that this kind of approach, being so obvious, appeared to be unavoidable. Furthermore, it was accepted that it was necessary to find a point of contact with Europe in order to understand the beginning of that artistic production, and it should be something stronger and more consistent than the trade of works of art coming from Seville or the circulation of prints. Hence, these three Italian painters were invoked to prove that the art produced in that region after the arrival of Europeans had arisen in line with the prescriptions adopted by the third generation of Italian mannerists.3 The paintings created by these artists or in their artistic circles spread throughout the Viceroyalty of Peru, in the territory that is composed at present by Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia. However, when one compares these works of art to the contemporaneous production of Italian Mannerism or to the ensuing art made in the New World it is possible to find a huge distance separating all these contexts. Of course, regarding Italian Mannerism, it has to be understood that there were technical problems in the Viceroyalty of Peru due to the difficulties of obtaining proper artistic material to work in those remote places at that time. Moreover, despite the fact that Bernardo Bitti and Matteo de Alecio can be seen as skilled and talented painters, it must be recognized that this direct confrontation with the Italian environment hinders more than helps when the aim is to understand the art produced in the Viceroyalty of Peru in the last decades of the sixteenth century. They simply do not belong to the same sequences. 4 The analysis of the so-called “Americanized Mannerism”5 would probably produce more signif icant results if we try to forget stylistic comparisons with European models. In fact, we should look to the major characteristics of the local temperament, which had nothing to do with the intellectualized European Mannerism. Rather than consider the art produced in the Viceroyalty of Peru as something related to the Italian environment – as if being part of that dominant context was essential to ensure its existence – it would be better to accept that European techniques were absorbed and adapted since the beginning of the colonial period. If we go that route, focusing on the power of transformation of 3 4 5
See Briganti, 1985; Pinelli, 2003. See Kubler, 1970. See Marique, 2005.
The Pr ac tice of Art: Auxiliary Pl astic Models and Prints in Italy, Spain, and Peru
the new continent, we will be able to understand the art created in the Viceroyalty of Peru for what it really is, and not for what it ended up becoming or should have become.6 It must be remembered that this art is not necessarily related to the technical knowledge of artificial perspective or mastery over the volumes of bodies. Instead, painters of the Viceroyalty of Peru often abandoned the sophisticated Italian illusionism to express themselves in a language that was more symbolic and spiritual, closer to pre-Columbian cultures.7 This can explain the noble and enigmatic appearance of sacred f igures, which is evident, for instance, in the abundant representations of the Virgin with Child and arquebusier angels from the Cuzco School.8 These figures belong to another world, to a sphere that is barely revealed to human reality. Having this brief introduction in mind, I would like to present some ideas regarding artistic practices related to this cross-cultural context. In this sense, it is worth questionting what would have been the extent of the use of two- and three-dimensional models in this situation. In order to better understand this point, in this chapter I propose an analysis of some peculiarities concerning the circulation of prints and auxiliary plastic models in the Viceroyalty of Peru. On the one hand, prints will be discussed by considering Matteo Perez de Alecio’s partially failed attempt to introduce the activity of printmaking in Lima. On the other hand, the use of auxiliary plastic models will be examined as a means to enlarge the possibilities of interpretation.
Auxiliary Plastic Models In the fourteenth century, nature once again became a model for artists. This started a process of crystallization of an artistic practice that arose precisely from this new way artists established to interact with the sensible world. Transformed into an artistic program, the observation of nature offered three possibilities for painters when it came to the representation of human figures: they could employ 6 It is worth highlighting that there is already an interpretative tendency in this sense, which can be seen, for example, at the beginning of the overview given by Soldán Boza, 2003. In the middle of the 1970s, Francisco Stastny attempted working in this way, but it must be recognized that, although he was announcing an analysis independent from European models, he couldn’t completely reject theories created to understand European art; see Stastny Mosberg, 2013, pp. 119 ss. (El manierismo en la pintura colonial latinoamericana). 7 See Soria, 1965. 8 See, for example, Virgen del Rosario con Santo Domingo y Santa Rosa (c. 1750, Museo de Arte de Lima), and Arcángel Eliel con arcabuz (c. 1690-1720, Museo de Arte de Lima).
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live models, they could use completed sculptures – classical pieces created by famous sculptors – or they might also use auxiliary plastic models.9 Regarding this last alternative, we can start by saying that this artistic practice consisted in developing malleable figurines of clay or wax, which would act as models for painters. Through an analysis of the scholarship published since the second decade of the twentieth century – when Julius von Schlosser and Joseph Meder first addressed the subject – it is possible to see that these kind of models were usually inserted in the general context of relations between painting and sculpture. The drawback of this sort of approach is that the issue becomes overly broad and covers not only the small models of wax and clay made exclusively as a device for painting, but also sculptural models of any kind used by painters. It is essential, therefore, to understand what it means to restrict the point of view to wax and clay models, thus excluding sculptures made of hard materials such as stone, bronze, and plaster. Actually, in the case of hard sculptures, there was a different attitude of the artist with respect to the model. When a painter used pieces of clay or wax, he was able to manipulate his models. The matter was virtually formless, changeable and uncertain by definition, just waiting for the hand of the artist to receive its first features. There was great artistic freedom, since it was possible to rearrange the forms of the models according to need. It was something like an intermediate stage between live model and sculpture. In contrast, a painter who stood before a model made of rigid materials should necessarily be satisfied with the pose of the sculpture, which had been chosen because it had the capacity to transmit authority to the new work. These statuettes constituted a collection of forms chosen as canons and, as such, they could not be modified – or, at least, they did not need to be. The means by which painters produced these models was very simple. According to Giovanni Battista Armenini, if a painter wanted a clay model, and if he was not skillful enough to make it himself, he should use a plaster mold – made from a good sculpture – to give the initial features to his statuette.10 While it was fresh, he could then manipulate it until the desired pose was attained; once hardened, there was no way of altering it. On the other hand, if the painter was working with wax, then he could transform the pose of the model whenever he wanted to by warming it; simply plunging it into hot water would recover the wax’s plasticity and it could be manipulated anew.11 Reproduction of drapery is perhaps the oldest and most long-lived function associated with auxiliary plastic models. Certainly the artists of the fifteenth 9 On the distinction regarding the possibilities of the use of models, see Fusco, 1982. See also my PhD thesis on the subject (Ragazzi, 2010), available at http://repositorio.unicamp.br and uerj.academia.edu/ AlexandreRagazzi, retrieved 28 April 2020. 10 Armenini, 1587, pp. 97-99. 11 See Armenini, 1587, pp. 97-99; Lamo, 1584, p. 124.
The Pr ac tice of Art: Auxiliary Pl astic Models and Prints in Italy, Spain, and Peru
century used these models for such a purpose, as is well demonstrated by Vasari’s account of Piero della Francesca: “Piero was much given to making models in clay, on which he spread soft draperies with an infinity of folds in order to make use of them for drawing.”12 The fact that these models could remain in the same position for as long as was necessary, leaving to the artist the possibility of interrupting his work whenever he wished and resuming it later, was the determining factor for the survival of this kind of use of plastic models. The intention to simulate drapery and express changes of volume, color, and light in a more characteristic way certainly promoted the use of auxiliary plastic models among painters in central Italy, and soon this function was complemented by the possibility of using these models to resolve issues regarding the pose of the figure. In this sense, the work of Antonio Pollaiuolo may provide an appropriate example, since we know this artist used to remake sculptures from classical antiquity with malleable materials in order to use them as models for his paintings. When we analyze the similitudes among the archers Pollaiuolo made for his Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian (as already pointed out by Laurie Fusco in the late seventies),13 we can easily realize that he must have employed a malleable figurine to pose for him, probably a Marsyas – also known as Uomo (or Ignudo) della paura – made after an ancient sculpture.14 Pollaiuolo can be considered, therefore, an artist who provided a kind of link between the use of antique sculptures and the use of auxiliary plastic models. The forms from the ancient world, recognized for their excellence, needed just a few modifications to adapt to an artist’s intentions, and for this purpose the flexible plastic models presented themselves as the most convenient intermediate apparatuses. Indeed, they turned out to be satisfactory for small changes in pose, they did not bring with them the inconvenience and inconsistency of the live model and they provided a good understanding of relief – one of the most important aspects for Renaissance artists. In addition to these two basic functions, plastic models began to be used in an attempt to solve another critical problem for Renaissance artists. If the encoding of perspective had been successful with regard to the construction of space, there was not a satisfactory theory for the human figure. Only Piero della Francesca 12 Vasari, 1966-1987, III, p. 264: “Usò assai Piero di far modelli di terra, et a quelli metter sopra panni molli con infinità di pieghe per ritrarli e servirsene.” 13 See Fusco, 1979. 14 For the Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian (1475, National Gallery of Art, London), see https://www. nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/antonio-del-pollaiuolo-and-piero-del-pollaiuolo-the-martyrdom-ofsaint-sebastian, retrieved 28 April 2020. For a version of Marsyas, see the bronze statue attributed to Maso di Bartolomeo (c. 1450, Galleria Estense, Modena) in https://www.gallerie-estensi.beniculturali. it/collezioni-digitali/id/39811, retrieved 28 April 2020.
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and Dürer attempted to discover mathematical rules for the representation of the human body, and even they did it more as a theoretical possibility than as a useful method.15 The complexity of the operation made its practical application impossible and an artist could not perform the foreshortening of figures through a method similar to that of artificial perspective – at least not without great effort and consuming more time than a person could afford. Vasari, for example, in the chapter that deals with the foreshortening of figures seen from below, considers the matter in this way: [With respect to foreshortenings], never was there painter or draughtsman that did better work of this sort than our Michelangelo Buonarroti, and even no one could have surpassed him, because he did his figures divinely in relief. For this purpose, he first made models in clay or wax, and from these, because they remain stationary, he took the outlines, the lights, and the shadows, rather than from the live model. These [foreshortenings] give the greatest trouble to those who do not understand them because their intelligence do not help them to reach the depth of such a difficulty, to overcome which is a more formidable task than any other in painting. Certainly our old painters, as lovers of the art, found the solution to this difficulty by using lines in perspective, a thing never done before, and made therein so much progress that today there is true mastery in the execution of foreshortenings […]. Of these [foreshortenings] the moderns have given us some examples which are to the point and difficult enough, as for instance in a vault the figures which, when one looks upwards, are foreshortened and retire. We call these foreshortenings di sotto in su, and they have such force that they pierce the vaults. These cannot be executed without study from the life or from models at suitable heights in the same attitudes and positions.16 15 See Panofsky, 1996, p. 96. Panofsky notes how the author of the Codex Huygens (Carlo Urbino da Crema) attempted to solve this lack by using Euclidean principles. Carlo Urbino abandoned, therefore, the method of perspectiva artificialis to explore the problems of perspectiva naturalis. In addition, Jeanne Peiffer has demonstrated how the gender of Kunstbücher was somehow popularized after the publication of Underweysung der Messung (1525) and Vier Bücher von menschlicher Proportion (1528). Although Dürer sought a balance between theory and practice, for young artists these works were overly complex. That is why the Kunstbücher, which had what was an essentially practical use, were better received (Peiffer, 2006). 16 Vasari, 1966-1987, I, pp. 122-123: “Di questa specie non fu mai pittore o disegnatore che facesse meglio che s’abbia fatto il nostro Michelangelo Buonarroti, et ancora nessuno meglio gli poteva fare, avendo egli divinamente fatto le figure di rilievo. Egli prima di terra o di cera ha per questo uso fatti i modelli, e da quegli, che più del vivo restano fermi, ha cavato i contorni, i lumi e l’ombre. Questi dànno a chi non intende grandissimo fastidio perché non arrivano con l’intelletto a la profondità di tale difficultà, la qual è la più forte, a farla
The Pr ac tice of Art: Auxiliary Pl astic Models and Prints in Italy, Spain, and Peru
It is clear that although the rule of perspective had already been codified by the preceding generations of Michelangelo and Vasari, and despite the fact that good modern artists should master it completely, to achieve the foreshortening of the human figure the procedure adopted by Michelangelo had to be followed. The subjective judgment – the compasses in the eyes – became more important than the rule and measure from the early Renaissance. Vasari therefore suggests the use of live models or models placed at “suitable heights,” an alternative that points out to the use of plastic models suspended by wires or supported on elevated surfaces such as described by Bernardino Campi or Roger De Piles and used by Titian or Tintoretto.17 With an emblematic example, Pietro Roccasecca exposed the universe of practical procedures that were in question.18 When analyzing a drawing by Francesco Primaticcio created around 1543,19 Roccasecca notes that the artist drew on a kind of collage, since although he used the rules of linear perspective for the construction of the architectural space, he did not apply the same strategy to the figure of Minerva. Actually, this figure was made separately, either from a sculpture or from a plastic model, and only then was inserted in that architecture projected in accordance with the rules of artificial perspective. As stated by Cristoforo Sorte, these two methods were quite familiar to Giulio Romano (from whom, incidentally, Primaticcio got his training). In fact, in 1580 Cristoforo Sorte published his Osservazioni nella pittura, and there he explains both methods mastered by Giulio Romano on foreshortenings seen from below. The first one, essentially theoretical, consisted in the utilization of distance and vanishing points. The second one, in contrast, was based on a mechanical device. The artist should prepare a plastic model of the architecture he wanted to represent; then he should place a mirror below the model so that he could comfortably portray it.20 This practical technique allowed the artist to resolve foreshortening problems, but it also had other uses. bene, che nessuna che sia nella pittura. E certo i nostri vecchi, come amorevoli dell’arte, trovarono il tirarli per via di linee in prospettiva – il che non si poteva fare prima –, e li ridussero tanto inanzi che oggi s’ha la vera maestria di farli. […] Di questa specie ne hanno fatto i moderni alcuni che sono a proposito e difficili, come sarebbe a dir in una volta le figure che guardando in su scortano e sfuggono; e questi chiamiamo al di sotto insù, ch’ànno tanta forza ch’eglino bucano le volte. E questi non si possono fare se non si ritraggono dal vivo, o con modelli in altezze convenienti non si fanno fare loro le attitudini e le movenzie di tali cose.” 17 See Lamo, 1584, pp. 124-125; Du Fresnoy, 1668, pp. 109-111 (for De Piles); Lomazzo, 1590, p. 53 (for Titian); Ridolfi, 1648, II, pp. 6-7 (for Tintoretto). 18 Roccasecca, 2005. 19 This drawing represents Minerva sitting on clouds with a semicircular architecture on her back (inv. 8552, recto, Département des Arts Graphiques, Louvre, Paris). See http://arts-graphiques.louvre.fr/detail/ oeuvres/3/5546-Minerve-assise-sur-des-nuees-dans-un-edicule-max, retrieved 28 April 2020. 20 See Sorte, 1594 (1580), f. 20r-v.
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With or without the aid of a mirror, auxiliary plastic models could be employed in other cases, and two more functions were eventually assigned to them: composition and lighting. The use of these models to solve problems of this nature is well known, and perhaps the cases of Poussin and Tintoretto are those that have achieved the most notable fame. And although the fluidity of Tintoretto and the accuracy of Poussin show completely different results, the fact is that the auxiliary plastic models were employed by both artists with the same aim, as tools to express the strong propensity for theatricality that was characteristic of them. Thus, even if they represent cases in which formal results are incompatible, the contrast caused by this confrontation may be useful to demarcate more precisely the point here discussed. Indeed, Tintoretto’s models suspended by threads attached to the roof beams21 and Poussin’s famous box replete of statuettes22 were used by these painters to manipulate, dispose and light up the planned attitudes that had been previously developed in sketches. These models acted as a way to materialize the concepts of artists, who then felt more confident in executing their paintings. If the functions assigned to the auxiliary plastic models can be summarized in this manner, we should emphasize that the appearance of this theme in artistic literature only happened more consistently in the second half of the sixteenth century. Therefore, the information found in Vasari, Cristoforo Sorte, Carlo Urbino da Crema, and Lomazzo, but above all the statements of Bernardino Campi and Armenini constitute the most important testimonies for understanding this artistic practice.23 In fact, even with these reports it is not easy to determine the exact moment of the creative process in which auxiliary plastic models acted. This often varied according to each artist, depending on their training, their work environment and their personal inclinations. However, it is possible to say that not only the moment, but also the way in which they were employed were largely determined by the role they should play. That is why the analysis of the various uses that painters could make of these models is so important, and, to better understand these uses, the comparison among paintings and drawings and the consideration of the reports found in artistic literature constitute the most appropriate way. Recognizing the functions that were assigned to auxiliary plastic models is essential both to understand the emergence of this practice and its vicissitudes and changes over time. 21 See Ridolfi, 1648, II, pp. 6-7. 22 See Bellori; Félibien; Passeri; Sandrart, 1994, pp. 80, 149, 261, 267-268. 23 See Vasari, 1966-1987, I, pp. 112-115, 120-123; III, pp. 264, 543; IV, pp. 17, 106, 299-300, 355, 572; V, pp. 189-192, 203, 281-283, 333, 412, 460-461, 539, 545; VI, pp. 177-179. Sorte, 1594, f. 20r-v. Panofsky, 1996, p. 54, n. 153 (for Carlo Urbino da Crema). Lomazzo, 1584, pp. 127, 159, 184, 212-213, 226-229, 251-253, 317-318, 321, 457; 1590, pp. 36, 53. Lamo, 1584, pp. 121-129 (for Bernardino Campi). Armenini, 1584, pp. 6, 59, 86-87, 91, 93-94, 96-100, 103, 138-139, 155-156, 223-225.
The Pr ac tice of Art: Auxiliary Pl astic Models and Prints in Italy, Spain, and Peru
From Italy to Spain and Peru In the late-sixteenth century, when artistic ideas pointed to a more conceptual and intellectualized perspective, a mechanical practice such as the one that involved auxiliary plastic models could not be openly discussed in artistic treatises. It was at that time, nevertheless, that this method transferred to regions beyond Italy. To consider just one example, we can examine the Italian painter Matteo Perez de Alecio.24 Matteo de Alecio became famous for having painted the Dispute over the Body of Moses in the Sistine Chapel in 1572, but he also played a significant role in other important commissions of Roman Mannerism. Figures as the ones he executed in the Oratorio del Gonfalone are among the most symptomatic works of art produced in that period. Despite that, his colossal bodies of prophets and sibyls, compared with the works painted in the same place by artists such as Federico Zuccari and Raffaellino da Reggio, show a considerable dependence on Michelangelo’s style, something that must have seemed extremely outdated to his fellows. That was probably the reason why Matteo de Alecio left Italy, first moving to Malta, then Seville, and finally Lima. In Seville, Matteo met the young Francisco Pacheco, who, many years later, in his treatise on the Art of Painting, clearly states that he saw the Italian artist using auxiliary plastic models to solve problems related to the drapery of his figures.25 As Pacheco knew, this artistic practice, typical of Italian painters, had been introduced in to Spain by artists who had had contact with the Italian environment in the mid-sixteenth century.26 That being so, we can wonder whether this tradition reached its final boundary in Spain or was continued in the Viceroyalty of Peru through Italian artists such as Bernardo Bitti, Angelino Medoro, and especially Matteo de Alecio. But before analyzing this context, let us turn our attention to another aspect of Matteo de Alecio’s career. We know that he acquired a shotgun, a purple raincoat with ornaments in gold, a book of drawings, and a whole set of prints by Dürer just before leaving for Lima in November 1587.27 He was about to start the greatest adventure of his life; fearing the future, he tried to protect himself against physical dangers, but he also wanted to have at hand a wide repertoire of images to be used 24 This artist is also known as Matteo da Lecce and Mateo Pérez de Alesio. For his origin (in Salento, and not Tuscany as stated in Palesati-Lepri, 1999), see Tosini, 2005, mainly p. 50, as well as what I presented in Ragazzi, 2018, mainly pp. 133-136. See also Francisco Stastny, Pérez de Alesio y la pintura del siglo XVI (in: Stastny Mosberg, 2013, pp. 85-114), Mesa-Gisbert (1972), and Bernales Ballesteros (1973). 25 Pacheco, 2001, p. 443. 26 See Pacheco, 2001, p. 440 for the painter Pablo de Céspedes. 27 Archivo Histórico Provincial de Sevilla (AHPS), Oficio 5 (Diego Fernandez), inv. 3526, 1587, Libro 1, ff. 604v-606v. This contract was partly published in López Martínez, 1929, pp. 192-193.
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in those new and distant lands. Matteo de Alecio certainly knew he was going to be isolated, unable to converse with other artists; predicting future commissions, he was well aware of the fact that he had to have such a huge range of prints and drawings. Matteo de Alecio was also an engraver.28 Having returned from Malta to Rome in 1581, in the following year he executed a series with fifteen prints reproducing the frescoes he painted in Valletta.29 Moreover, he had contact with printmaker Pieter Perret, who made for him both the Conversion of Saint Paul30 and the Baptism of Christ – which was created after the painting Matteo de Alecio executed in Saint John’s co-cathedral, in Valletta. Matteo de Alecio seems to have mastered the techniques of etching and engraving, and the following works are attributed to him: Holy Family del Roble,31 Saint Roch (lost),32 Triumph of Christ (lost),33 Stories of Saint John the Baptist, Martyrdom of Saint Lucy,34 and the Mystical marriage of Saint Catherine.35 Indeed, in October 1585, while he was present in Seville, Matteo de Alecio and his patron, Argote de Molina, revoked a contract signed the year before which stated that the artist should be entirely at his disposal, making for him all the paintings and prints (the text says cortar en bronce) he might desire.36 The reason for canceling the agreement was 28 See Petrucci, 1958, pp. 46-50; Petrucci, 1964, p. 59; Ceán Bermúdez, 1800, IV, pp. 75-78; Los grabados calcográficos de Pérez de Alesio, in: Stastny Mosberg, 2013, pp. 69-84. 29 See Ganado, 1984. 30 See British Museum, inv. n. 1949,1008.197 (https://w w w.britishmuseum.org/collection/ object/P_1949-1008-197, retrieved 28 April 2020). 31 That is the copper plate engraved with the burin after the original from Raphael and Giulio Romano (The Holy Family under the oak tree, Museo del Prado, Madrid) on which the Virgen de la leche was painted over; it is part of the Museo de Arte de Lima’s collection. See Stastny Mosberg, 2013, pp. 69-84 and also http://www.archi.pe/obra/44176, retrieved 28 April 2020. 32 See Ceán Bermúdez, 1800, IV, p. 78: “Grabó al aguafuerte varias estampas de su invención, que son muy raras, y es celebrada y buscada la de S. Roque.” 33 See Baglione, 1642, pp. 31-32: “Vanno di quest’uomo in stampa il Trionfo di Cristo con quantità di figure e diverse storie della guerra di Malta.” 34 See Petrucci, 1958, p. 49; Stastny Mosberg, 2013, pp. 81-82. 35 The Biblioteca Nacional de España holds a copy of this print, which is signed Matthaeus P[erez] F[ecit] 1583; cataloguing data informs us that Matteo de Alecio and Perret are the authors, although their names are spelled as Matteo Perez d’Alleccio and Pedro Perret (see http://bdh.bne.es/bnesearch/detalle/ bdh0000133626, retrieved 28 April 2020). Regarding the Martyrdom of Saint Catherine, see Ganado, 1984, pp. 125-161 (mainly p. 128, n. 8); Witcombe, 2004, pp. 230-233. 36 See AHPS, Oficio 19 (Gaspar de León), inv. 12496, 1585, Libro 6, ff. 606r-608v: “[606r] Sepan quantos esta carta vieren como yo, Gonçalo Argote de Molina, Provincial de la Sa Hermandad Veynte y quatro de esta ciudad de Sevilla e vezino della, otorgo y conozco a vos, Mateo Perez de Alesio, maestro pintor residente en esta ciudad de Sevilla que estays presente y digo que por quanto yo y vos nos convenimos y consertamos en tal manera que vos fuese […] obligado e vos obligastes a que desde primº dia del mes de henero de este año en que estamos de mill y qu[iniento]s y ochenta e cinco en adelante tiempo de cinco […] primeros siguientes haria […] y pintaria […] todas las cosas de pintura que por mi ya fuesen mandadas y cortar en bronçe otra tal para [?] fazer otras quales dichas cosas de suo yngenio y mano que yo os dixese y mandasi así en esta
The Pr ac tice of Art: Auxiliary Pl astic Models and Prints in Italy, Spain, and Peru
that Matteo de Alecio did not want to follow Argote de Molina to Lanzarote and Fuerteventura islands, claiming that “entering the sea” was harmful to his health.37 Matteo de Alecio may have planned to keep making prints when he arrived in the Viceroyalty of Peru bringing with him the set of prints by Dürer and his own experience as a printmaker. Indeed, Luis Enrique Tord discovered, in the church of Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes (Huánuco), a picture with a portrait of Saint Nicholas of Tolentine that was made over a copper plate. Although the engraved surface is covered by paint layers, it is possible to see the following inscription on the left edge of the plate: Appresso Mattheo Perez de Alleccio foglio quinto decimo et ultimo in Roma MDLXXXII.38 It is therefore the matrix for the last picture of the series of the Siege of Malta in which the artist represented the maps of Cità Vechia di Malta and Forteza dell’Isola del Gozo.39 That can prove the artist took the plates made in Rome with him to Seville and Lima, most likely with the intention of using them in these places. Due to incipient printmaking conditions in Lima, however, Matteo de Alecio probably could not execute his plans, so he could do no more than teach the techniques to his assistants, as was the case of Augustinian Friar Francisco Bejarano, the first artist from Lima to sign his own prints. 40 The circulation of prints has been considered one of the main sources of dissemination of European artistic ideas in Ibero-America. Italian, German, and Flemish prints have been repeatedly examined by scholars in order to find models for the art produced in the New World. 41 Low costs and ease of production and transportation encouraged the spread of prints. However, this should not make us think that it was the only way to transfer artistic models and practices. Artists trained in Italy like Matteo de Alecio completely mastered the techniques of painting that had been created and disseminated during the Renaissance. ciudad como en las yslas de Lançarote y Fuerte Ventura y en otras quales dichas partes de estos reynos y fuera dellos que yo os mandase.” According to this document, the original contract was signed in 19 October 1584 at the Oficio 12 (Juan de Velasco), but I could not find it at the AHPS (inv. 7386), since the book is badly damaged. 37 See AHPS, Oficio 19 (Gaspar de León), inv. 12496, 1585, Libro 6, f. 606v. Regarding the relationship between Argote de Molina and Matteo de Alecio, see Argote de Molina, 1588, I, p. 118 for the painting of Santiago Matamoros in the battle of Clavijo; López Martínez, 1929, pp. 192-193; Palma Chaguaceda, 1949, pp. 26-28. Besides that, there is a contract according to which Matteo de Alecio appointed Argote de Molina and his sister, Leonor de Molina, to take care of his son, Felipe de Alecio, who was born from his union to María de la O (see Oficio 15 (Francisco Díaz), inv. 9251, 1587, Libro 3, f. 357r-v); in 1598, Felipe went to Lima to join his father, as can be seen in the catalogue of passengers of the Archivo General de Indias (see Archivo general de Indias, 1986, VII, p. 713: “[5173] FELIPE DE ALECIO, natural de Sevilla, soltero, hijo de Mateo Pérez de Alecio y de María de la O, al Perú como criado del doctor Juan Bautista Ortiz – 31 agosto (5.257, nº 2 r. 7)).” 38 See Tord, 1989. 39 See Ganado, 1984, p. 148. 40 See Estabridis Cárdenas, 2002, pp. 39 ss., 107-108. See also Stastny Mosberg, 2013, pp. 80-81. 41 See Ojeda, 2017.
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According to this tradition, there were many steps involved in the making of a picture, such as sketches, more elaborated drawings, studies from the life model, and cartoons. Auxiliary plastic models, as we have seen, were also inserted in the middle of this process. It was expected, therefore, that Matteo de Alecio had used this kind of model. In fact, as stated before, Francisco Pacheco attests to his involvement in this artistic practice: “I say that many others make the clothes and folds with wet paper and put them on bare models of clay or wax in order to create from them dressed figures in black or red chalk (what I saw Matteo de Alecio doing).”42 Considering this information, it can be asserted that when Matteo de Alecio arrived in Lima he had the habit of working both from two- and three-dimensional models. If the success of European prints as a means to disseminating artistic ideas in America is relatively well known, the situation regarding the possible use of auxiliary plastic models is much less clear. Thus, the analysis of the works executed by Matteo de Alecio in Lima would be of great importance in order to identify the presence of this sort of model among local painters. The problem is that, with the exception of the Virgen de la leche and some portraits, virtually nothing has lasted from what Matteo de Alecio produced in Peru. 43 It has already been demonstrated that the remaining paintings at the Convento de Santo Domingo were not painted by Matteo de Alecio. 44 Besides that, the works he produced for Lima’s cathedral, in San Agustín, and San Pedro were also not preserved. There are also the painted dome and walls of Captain Villegas’s chapel, but not even these can be confidently ascribed to Matteo de Alecio. 45 However, due to the technique of fresco painting and the use of grotesque, the chapel Villegas seems to be related to some artist whose apprenticeship occurred under his influence. It is worth remembering that the Italian painter is mentioned by van Mander as a skilled artist in the making of fresco paintings and grotesque decorations. 46 Otherwise, if not for the presence of this Italian painter in Lima, it would be hard to explain the arrival of a technique as complex as the fresco in that social environment. Assuming the plausibility of this hypothesis, it will be likewise possible to accept that auxiliary plastic models were used in that work. As an example, I would like to draw attention to the angels represented in the chapel, more specifically to the boy 42 Pacheco, 2001, p. 443: “Y, pasando adelante, digo que otros muchos sobre los modelos desnudos, de barro o cera, con papel mojado componen las ropas y trazos para contrahacer de allí de lápiz negro o colorado las figuras vestidas (cosa que le vi hacer a Mateo de Alecio).” 43 Regarding the Virgen de la leche, see Mesa-Gisbert, 1972, pp. 109 ss., and mainly Francisco Stastny (Pérez de Alesio y la pintura del siglo XVI, in: Stastny Mosberg, 2013, pp. 85-114). For the portraits, see Wuffarden, 2004, and Tord, 1989. 44 See Stastny Mosberg, 1998. 45 See what says Jaime Mariazza Foy in Micheli, 2011, pp. 20 ss. 46 See Vaes, 1931, p. 345.
The Pr ac tice of Art: Auxiliary Pl astic Models and Prints in Italy, Spain, and Peru
Figure 1 Matteo Perez de Alecio (circle of). Capilla Villegas, Iglesia de la Merced, Lima. © Istituto Centrale per il Restauro (Rome) / Photo by Angelo Rubino
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Figure 2 Luís de Vargas. The Purification, c. 1560. Museo de Bellas Artes, Seville
The Pr ac tice of Art: Auxiliary Pl astic Models and Prints in Italy, Spain, and Peru
that one of those angels leads by the arm (Fig. 1). 47 This figure brings immediately to mind a plastic model, perhaps even a wooden mannequin, which would explain the hardness in the joints between arms and hands. Regarding the physiognomy of the boy, I would like to suggest a comparison with a painting by Luís de Vargas that is in Seville at the Museo de Bellas Artes (Fig. 2). Luís de Vargas was born in Seville, but spent long periods in Italy, where he was part of the milieu dominated by artists such as Francesco Salviati and Perin del Vaga. There, he learned Italian techniques of painting, hence it is not surprising that he employed auxiliary plastic models in his work representing the Purification. Christ and the angel who looks towards him were made from the same model, but one of these figures was mirrored at the moment of being transferred to the picture. This was indeed a very important aid provided by this sort of model, since the painter could not have children posing for him. 48 The similarity between these figures in Vargas’s work and the boy led by the angel in Captain Villegas’s chapel is considerable. It is not the case, however, of thinking that the Spanish work served as a direct model for the unknown artist from Lima. Instead, it is more likely that a transference of artistic practices has occurred and that an auxiliary plastic model has been used in chapel Villegas’s painting as well. It is possible to see in this situation that we are dealing with circumstances very similar to the ones mentioned in the beginning of this chapter. For what purpose should one compare the results obtained in such different contexts? Would it not be better to simply try to understand the extent and diffusion of this technique in the Viceroyalty of Peru? Once the model has been identified, it is important to put it aside in order to evaluate properly what has been created after it. During the seventeenth century, auxiliary plastic models were very often rejected or hidden in Italy due to an obsession with vivacity and an aversion to the mechanical aspects of the profession. In the Viceroyalty of Peru, however, the issue presented other features. Representation of sacred images was the main goal, and these images, not belonging to this world, should be represented in a singular way. This can explain the preference for the opposite direction, rejecting the plasticity of bodies on behalf of a language meant to be more archaic and linear, which did not need auxiliary plastic models to be attained. If models of this kind were used in Captain Villegas’s chapel, this seems to have been something which was relatively exceptional, whose acceptance was not widespread throughout the Viceroyalty. Nevertheless, after Matteo de Alecio, it is still possible to find some traces of the use of auxiliary plastic models in the work of subsequent generations. As an 47 I am grateful to Angelo Rubino and the Istituto Centrale per il Restauro (Rome) for kindly providing this image. 48 See Vasari, 1966-1987, I, p. 112.
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example, we can consider the painting The resurrection of the young Napoleon Orsini, in the Convento de Santo Domingo.49 It was probably made by Diego Aguilera or one of his assistants in 1661. When we compare the white horse in the center of this composition with the horses Matteo executed in works like the Santiago Matamoros50 or the Conversion of Saint Paul, or even with other paintings displayed in Santo Domingo such as the Battle of Muret,51 we can deduce that auxiliary plastic models have been employed. As Vasari reminds us, these models were useful mostly because they were “motionless and without feeling,” standing still for as long as the painter wished.52 They could be stored, manipulated or simply turned in order to be reused in future situations. After all, as asserted by Anton Francesco Doni in Florence in 1549, painters were aware that “with a horse it is possible to do endless horses, just as with a bull or a lamb it is possible to do a herd.”53 Some years ago, Luis Eduardo Wuffarden attributed the portraits of Inés Muñoz de Ribera (Fig. 3) and Antonio de Ribera to Matteo de Alecio.54 Indeed, after their restoration, the paintings showed the artist’s signature and the date of execution, 1599. Stylistically, however, these portraits could hardly be part of Matteo de Alecio’s catalogue. After all, how could one accept those paintings having being executed by the same artist who made the angels and demons of the Sistine chapel, the prophets and sibyls in the Gonfalone, or Saint Christopher in the cathedral of Seville? It would be easier to acknowledge that these portraits were produced in the artist’s studio, but by one of his disciples. Exactly at this point, however, it is possible to recognize the power of the cultural context. Matteo de Alecio – or one of his followers – had to adapt to the expectations of the local society, which wanted to pay a tribute to Doña Inés, the founder of the monastery of Concepción who died aged 105. The artist surrendered himself to his patrons’ appeals and created a less plastic and more iconic painting, which began to assume the forms of what would be done in the representations of the Virgin with Child referred to at the beginning of this chapter. In this way, “Americanized Mannerism”55 distinguished itself from the European artistic period known as Mannerism; to be honest, I think it deserved a better form to name it.56 49 See Stastny Mosberg, 1998, p. 47, fig. 36. 50 Santiago Matamoros in the battle of Clavijo, Iglesia de Santiago, Seville. 51 This was probably executed by the painter Miguel Güelles. See Stastny Mosberg, 1998, p. 26, fig. 5. 52 See Vasari, 1966-1987, I, pp. 112: “essendo immobili e senza sentimento.” 53 See Doni, 1549, f. 29r: “con un cavallo tu ne farai infiniti; il simile di un toro et d’un agnello una mandra.” 54 See Wuffarden, 2004, p. 187; Wuffarden, 2008, p. 648. 55 See Manrique, 2005. 56 Of course, it is not possible to extend this point of view to all of Latin America. The context of New Spain was different, perhaps closer to European Mannerism. In my view, it is important to deepen the specificities of each context, mainly after the discussions held in the 1970s in the search of the boundaries of Mannerism in Latin America. Ultimately, it is worthwhile acknowledging Stastny’s work (2013, pp. 119-149),
The Pr ac tice of Art: Auxiliary Pl astic Models and Prints in Italy, Spain, and Peru
Figure 3 Matteo Perez de Alecio. Inés Muñoz de Ribera, 1599. Monasterio de la Concepción, Lima. © Gutiérrez Haces, Juana (ed.). Pintura de los Reinos: Identidades compartidas: Territorios del mundo hispánico, siglos XVI-XVIII. Tomo 2. México: Banamex, 2008, p. 649
In an environment in which academic structures were not available and artistic workshops were just starting to flourish around Catholic religious orders, the employ of two- and three-dimensional models certainly represented the simplest and most who asserts the vagueness of the term Mannerism regarding the art produced in the Viceroyalty of Peru; he preferred, instead, to use the concepts of counter-maniera and anti-maniera (see Freedberg, 1971).
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effective way to achieve a transference of European ideas. If Spanish colonizers had implemented a conscious and complete artistic program according to the current rules in Spain or Italy, then the use of auxiliary plastic models would have been part of the making of art in the Viceroyalty. Actually, we can say that if the results expected for the painting were connected to the three-dimensionality of figures, we should at least consider the use of auxiliary plastic models as a possibility. The main issue, however, is that artists were creating their own path, their own sequence, which was different from the one colonizers wanted to be accepted, different from the precepts spread by Medoro, Bitti, and Matteo de Alecio. The plasticity of the bodies in painting was not an essential value in this new context, for this European concept was less important to the people who shared a Pre-Columbian background. Life is three-dimensional, sculpture is three-dimensional, but there was no reason why painting should be too. Therefore, auxiliary plastic models did not represent an indispensable instrument in order to produce paintings. On the other hand, prints could easily be reduced to a two-dimensional form, notwithstanding the fact that, as European products, they usually simulated threedimensional effects. The absence of color emphasizes the importance of drawing, pointing at the same time to the simplification of volumes and to more artistic freedom in the choice of original colors for the new paintings they inspired. This is why Matteo de Alecio’s failed attempt at producing prints in Lima is only a partial failure; he introduced the technique to his assistants, and this was part of the long and lasting process of interaction between the use of prints and the making of paintings. The originality of the art that began to be produced in the Viceroyalty of Peru lies in this characteristic. From this point, the first artists trained in the local context, assuming this aspect as one of their distinctive attributes, initiated their own sequence, which was not entirely connected to or dependent on European models. One can say, therefore, that we are dealing with a situation that did not represent the discovery of a new world ready to be taught, but its very own creation from new ways of thinking.
Bibliography Archivo General de Indias – Catálogo de Pasajeros a Indias durante los Siglos XVI, XVII y XVIII. T. VII. Murcia: Ministerio de Cultura / Dirección General de Bellas Artes y Archivos, 1986. Argote de Molina, Gonzalo. Nobleza del Andaluzia. I. Sevilla: Fernando Diaz, 1588. Armenini, Giovan Battista. De’ Veri Precetti della Pittura. Ravenna: Francesco Tebaldini, 1587. Baglione, Gio. Le Vite de’ Pittori, Scultori, et Architetti dal Pontificato di Gregorio XIII del 1572 in fino a’ Tempi di Papa Urbano Ottavo nel 1642. Roma: Andrea Fei, 1642. Bellori; Félibien; Passeri; Sandrart. Vies de Poussin. Paris: Macula, 1994.
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Bernales Ballesteros, Jorge. “Mateo Pérez de Alesio, Pintor Romanista en Sevilla y Lima”, Archivo Hispalense, 173 (1973): 221-271. Briganti, Giuliano. La Maniera Italiana. Firenze: Sansoni Editore, 1985. Ceán Bermúdez, Juan Agustin. Diccionario Histórico de los Ilustres Profesores de las Bellas Artes en España. IV. Madrid: Imprenta de la Viuda de Ibarra, 1800. Chichizola Debernardi, José. El Manierismo en Lima. Lima: PUC Perú / Fondo Editorial, 1983. Doni, Anton Francesco. Disegno del Doni. Vinegia: Gabriel Giolito de’ Ferrari, 1549. Du Fresnoy, Charles Alphonse. L’Art de Peinture. Paris: Nicolas L’Anglois, 1668. Estabridis Cárdenas, Ricardo. El Grabado en Lima Virreinal: Documento Histórico y Artístico (Siglos XVI al XIX). Lima: UNMSM / Fondo Editorial, 2002. Freedberg, Sydney Joseph. Painting in Italy, 1500-1600. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971. Fusco, Laurie. “Antonio Pollaiuolo’s Use of the Antique”, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 42 (1979): 257-263. Fusco, Laurie. “The Use of Sculptural Models by Painters in Fifteenth-Century Italy”, The Art Bulletin, 64:2 (1982): 175-194. Ganado, Alberto. “Matteo Perez d’Aleccio’s Engravings of the Siege of Malta of 1565,” in Proceedings of History Week 1983. Malta: The [Malta] Historical Society, 1984, 125-161. Kubler, George. The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1970. Lamo, Alessandro. Discorso intorno alla Scoltura et Pittura, dove Ragiona della Vita e Opere in Molti Luoghi e a Diverse Prencipi e Personaggi fatte dall’Eccell. e Nobile M. Bernardino Campo, Pittore Cremonese. Cremona: Christoforo Draconi, 1584. Lomazzo, Gio. Paolo. Idea del Tempio della Pittura. Milano: Paolo Gottardo Pontio, 1590. Lomazzo, Gio. Paolo. Trattato dell’Arte della Pittura. Milano: Paolo Gottardo Pontio, 1584. López Martínez, Celestino. Notas para la Historia del Arte – Desde Jerónimo Hernández hasta Martínez Montañés. Sevilla: Giménez y C. Rodríguez, 1929. Manrique, Jorge Alberto. “El Manierismo Americanizado; el Grabado y la Influencia en la Pintura,” in Manierismo y Transición al Barroco – Memoria del III Encuentro Internacional sobre Barroco, ed. Norma Campos Vera. La Paz: Unión Latina, 2005, 37-44. Mesa, José de; Gisbert, Teresa. El Pintor Mateo Perez de Alesio. Cuardernos de Arte y Arqueología. 2. La Paz: Universidad Mayor de San Andrés, 1972. Micheli, Mario, ed. Cappella Villegas – Chiesa della Merced – Lima, Peru. Roma: Gangemi, 2011. Ojeda, Almerindo. “El Grabado como Fuente del Arte Colonial: Estado de la Cuestión,” in Proyecto sobre las Fuentes Grabadas del Arte Colonial (PESSCA), 2017. http://colonialart. org/essays/el-grabado-como-fuente-del-arte-colonial-estado-de-la-cuestion, (accessed April 28, 2020). Pacheco, Francisco. El Arte de la Pintura. Madrid: Cátedra, 2001. Palesati, Antonio; Lepri, Nicoletta. Matteo da Leccia – La Vita e le Opere. Manierista Toscano dall’Europa al Perú. [Pomarance]: Associazione Turistica Pro Pomarance, 1999.
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Palma Chaguaceda, Antonio. El Historiador Gonzalo Argote de Molina. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas / Instituto Jerónimo Zurita, 1949. Panofsky, Erwin. Le Codex Huygens et la Théorie de l’Art de Léonard de Vinci. Traduit de l’anglais et présenté par Daniel Arasse. Paris: Flammarion, 1996. Peiffer, Jeanne. “Adapter, Simplifier et Mettre en Pratique la Perspective – Les Kunstbücher du XVIe Siècle,” in L’Artiste et l’Œuvre à l’Épreuve de la Perspective. Roma: École Française de Rome, 2006, 123-151. Petrucci, Alfredo. L’Opera del Genio Italiano all’Estero – Gli Incisori dal Sec. XV al Sec. XIX. Roma: Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato / Libreria dello Stato, 1958. Petrucci, Alfredo. Panorama della Incisione Italiana – Il Cinquecento. Roma: Carlo Bestetti, 1964. Pinelli, Antonio. La Bella Maniera: Artisti del Cinquecento tra Regola e Maniera. Torino: Piccola Biblioteca Einaudi, 2003. Ragazzi, Alexandre. “Os Modelos Plásticos Auxiliares e suas Funções entre os Pintores Italianos – Com a Catalogação das Passagens Relativas ao Tema Extraídas da Literatura Artística.” PhD Thesis, Campinas: Unicamp, 2010. Ragazzi, Alexandre. “Teorias e Práticas Artísticas: do Maneirismo Italiano ao Vice-Reinado do Peru,” in El Renacimiento Italiano desde América Latina, ed. by Clara Bargellini and Patricia Díaz Cayeros. Ciudad de México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México / Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, 2018, 127-150. Ridolfi, Carlo. Delle Maraviglie dell’Arte, overo delle Vite degl’Illustri Pittori Veneti e dello Stato. 2 vols. Venetia: Gio. Battista Sgava, 1648. Roccasecca, Pietro. “Modelli, Prospettografi e Scurto delle Figure nella Prospettiva di Primaticcio,” in Francesco Primaticcio Architetto, ed. Sabine Frommel. Milano: Electa, 2005, 246-253. Soldán Boza, Mariano Felipe Paz. “Panorama de la Pintura Virreinal Peruana: Escuela Limeña,” in Memoria del I Encuentro Internacional sobre el Barroco: Barroco Andino. La Paz: Viceministerio de Cultura de Bolivia / Unión Latina, 2003, 231-244. Soria, Martin S. “Pintores Italianos en Sudamerica entre 1575 y 1628,” in Saggi e Memorie di Storia dell’Arte, 4. Venezia: Neri Pozza, 1965, 115-130, 169-176. Sorte, Cristoforo. Osservationi nella Pittura. Venetia: Gio. Ant. Rampazetto, 1594. Stastny Mosberg, Francisco. Estudios de Arte Colonial. I. Lima: Museo de Arte de Lima / Instituto Francés de Estudios Andinos, 2013. Stastny Mosberg, Francisco. “Las Pinturas de la Vida de Santo Domingo en el Convento de la Orden de Predicadores de Lima,” in Redescubramos Lima… Conjunto Monumental de Santo Domingo. Lima: Fondo Pro Recuperación del Patrimonio Cultural de la Nación / Banco de Crédito del Perú, 1998. Tord, Luis Enrique. “Obras Desconocidas de Pérez de Alesio y Morón,” in Pintura en el Virreinato del Perú. Lima: Editorial del Banco de Crédito del Perú, 1989, 320-329.
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Tosini, Patrizia. “Presenze e Compresenze tra Villa d’Este e il Gonfalone,” Bollettino d’Arte, 132 (2005): 43-58. Vaes, Maurice. Appunti di Carel van Mander su Vari Pittori Italiani suoi Contemporanei. Roma: 1931. Vasari, Giorgio. Le Vite de’ più Eccellenti Pittori, Scultori e Architettori nelle Redazioni del 1550 e 1568. Testo a cura di Rosanna Bettarini / Commento secolare a cura di Paola Barocchi. 6 v. Firenze: Sansoni / S.P.E.S., 1966-1987. Witcombe, Christopher L.C.E. Copyright in the Renaissance: Prints and the “Privilegio” in the Sixteenth-Century Venice and Rome. Leiden: Brill, 2004. Wuffarden, Luis Eduardo. “Dos Obras Inéditas de Mateo Pérez de Alesio en el Monasterio de la Concepción,” Historica, 28:1 (2004): 179-192. Wuffarden, Luis Eduardo. “Mirar sin Envidia. Emulación, Diferencia y Exaltación Localista en la Pintura del Virreinato del Perú,” in Pintura de los Reinos: Identidades Compartidas: Territorios del Mundo Hispánico, Siglos XVI-XVIII, ed. Juana Gutiérrez Haces. Tomo 2. México: Banamex, 2008, 642-691.
About the Author Alexandre Ragazzi earned his Master’s and PhD degrees in Art History at Unicamp (Brazil). Since 2015, he has been teaching Art History at Rio de Janeiro State University (Brazil). His research interests focus on the relationship between painting and sculpture in Italy during the Renaissance and Mannerist periods.
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Ink and Feathers: Prints, Printed Books, and Mexican Featherwork Corinna T. Gallori
Abstract This article discusses the role prints played in the crafting of Mexican featherwork. Feather mosaics were a mixed cultural artifact in which Christian images derived from prints interacted with a typical native technique. The resulting images were not mere copies, as the artists were adapting and modifying their visual source(s), choosing specific imagery and, sometimes, combining different prints. Moreover, the final image took on an entirely different vitality, thanks to the feathers’ natural shimmering. Particular attention will be given to how the mosaics’ design was discussed in textual sources from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and how and when prints surfaced in their discourse. Keywords: featherwork, globalization of images, colonial Mexico, artistic literature
One of the main Pre-Columbian crafts that successfully survived the colonization, adapting itself to visualize Christian and European themes, Mexican featherwork has recently been the recipient of substantial scholarly interest, especially thanks to Alessandra Russo’s studies. Preceded by objects decorated with feathers that were noted since Columbus’ arrival, and Brazilian Tupinamba’s capes, the Mexican variation started to arrive in Europe as early as 1519-1520 through a variety of works of art, ranging from headdresses to shields. Feather mosaics (or paintings, as they were also called) with Christian imagery, a combination of material and iconography that was novel for both sides, as rightly stressed by Russo, quickly appeared in the years following the Conquest.1 One of the earliest recorded examples, a standard This paper is the result of a research conducted from 2009 to 2012 at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut. 1 Russo, “Figuras,” p. 785. For a discussion of the term “feather painting” in Felipe de Guevara see ead., “De Tlacuilolli,” pp. 32-33.
Madar, H. (ed.), Prints as Agents of Global Exchange, 1500-1800. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press doi: 10.5117/9789462987906_ch09
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depicting a Virgin and Child, dates from 1529-31.2 The first surviving mosaic, the Gregorymass of Auch, was created under the direction of Franciscan friar Pedro de Gante/Pieter van der Moere in Mexico City in 1539, when Diego de Alvarado Huanitzin was governor, to be presented to Pope Paul III.3 Surviving objects and mentions of Christian featherwork multiply from the 1540s. By 1548 feathered vestments for the clergy existed, as in this year two miters were recorded in the inventory of Mencía de Mendoza. 4 Even portraits were made.5 The fact that colonial mosaics were frequently based on prints is well known, and a list of derivations could be quite long. To name a few cases, the Gregorymass of Auch has been linked to an engraving by Israhel van Meckenem – although I agree with Alessandra Russo that this comparison is not completely satisfactory.6 The Holy Names of Jesus and Mary in the miters of Milan (Fig. 1) and New York replicate quite faithfully a printed prototype of which existed at least four versions, characterized by slight variants (Fig. 2).7 Elena Isabel Estrada de Gerlero has noted that Vienna’s Young Christ and Sorrowful Virgin reprise two engravings after a drawing by the long-deceased Dalmatian-born illuminator Giulio Clovio that were incised by Philippe Thomassin and published by his partner Jean Turpin.8 The Fathers of the Church (Fig. 3) gifted on 7 November 1668 to Loreto’s sanctuary by Pietro Lanfranconi reprise a set of prints by Pieter Cool after Marten de Vos 2 For further information, see Russo, The Untranslatable Image, pp. 95-100. 3 The inscription has been transcribed as interpreted in various ways, as discussed in Alessandra Russo, “Recomposing the Image,” pp. 469-471, but it is “PAULO III PONTIFICI MAXI[MO I]N MAGNA INDIARU(M) URBE MEXICO CO(M)POSITA D(OMI)NO DIDACO GUBERNATORE CURA FR(ATR)IS PETRI A GANTE MINORITAE A.D. 1539”, since the portion in the upper corner (“MAXI[MA E]N”) is but a pictorial integration of unknown dating that does not make any sense in Latin, as “EN” is not a particle, but an interjection. Amongst the interpretations of the inscription, it was suggested that Diego de Alvarado was the author of the mosaic and that the mention of Paul III was a temporal clause. Given the declensions and Latin grammar, both readings are impossible. “PAULO III PONTIFICI MAXI[MO]” is a dative and cannot be a temporal clause which, without particles, would be expressed by an ablative (“Paulo III pontif ice maximo”), as happens in the Gregorymass itself with the “D(OMI)NO DIDACO GUBERNATORE”. As “COMPOSITA” is the perfect passive of compono, either a feminine singular or a neuter plural, and it refers to an implied imago, the (human) agent would be expressed with an ablative preceded by “a” or “ab.” The sentence should be therefore translated as “[This image] was made in Mexico, the great city of the Indies, for the Supreme Pontiff Paul III under the care of Minorite Friar Pedro de Gante in 1539, when Lord Diego was governor.” 4 On Mencía’s inventory see Cummins, “Through the ‘Devil’s Looking Glass’,” pp. 16-17. 5 See Martínez del Río de Redo, “Featherwork,” pp. 126-128; Markey, “A Feather Painting,” pp. 128-135. 6 See Russo, The Untranslatable Image, p. 102. Other comparisons had been proposed by Martínez del Río de Redo, “Featherwork,” p. 118; the one with Meckenem was suggested by Mongne, “La Messe de saint Grégoire,” p. 45, and last discussed in Sifford, “ Hybridizing Iconography,” pp. 132-142. 7 Gallori, “From Paper to Feathers,” pp. 311-312. 8 Estrada de Gerlero, in Painting a New World, pp. 102-105 no. 2; discussed by Alessandra Russo, “A Contemporary Art,” pp. 45-50.
Ink and Feathers: Prints, Printed Book s, and Mexican Featherwork
Figure 1 Mexican artists, Miter of Carlo Borromeo with the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, Milan, Museo del Duomo © Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo di Milano. Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut
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Figure 2 Lombard printmaker, Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, Udine, Archivio Storico Diocesano. Udine, Archivio Storico Diocesano
Ink and Feathers: Prints, Printed Book s, and Mexican Featherwork
that were published by Johannes Baptista de Vriendt in the early 1600s (Fig. 4).9 The so-called Holy Family of the Holy Ghost chapel in the cathedral of Puebla is actually a depiction of the Heavenly and Earthly Trinities that, albeit with a few differences, can be linked to engravings by Antonius II and Hieronymus Wierix.10 There are also many instances of a printed book’s illustration being the most likely source for a feather mosaic.11 As recognized by Alessandra Russo, the Tree of Jesse in the sixteenth-century miters housed in Toledo and Vienna should be linked to a woodcut present in multiple editions of the book of hours published in Paris by Thielmann Kerver and his heirs.12 The Flight into Egypt (Fig. 6) in the lappets of the miter of New York is also derived from a Kerver book (Fig. 7).13 In Vienna’s sacra, a canon table in triptych form, the Virgin, the building behind her, and, partially, the archangel Gabriel are taken from an Annunciation by Johannes Wierix after an anonymous artist which appeared in Christophe Plantin’s Missale Romanum (Antwerp 1574).14 St. Ildefonsus of Toledo Receiving the Chasuble is inspired by an engraving of Hieronymus Wierix that was published in the Officia propria sanctorum ecclesiae toletanae (Antwerp 1616) by Balthasar Moretus I and Jan Moretus II, with the patronage of Felipe de Peralta, Bishop of Toledo.15 For the now lost or never made portrait of Athanasius Kircher, creole priest Alejandro Favián planned to use the “perfect and beautiful print” of the Mundus Subterraneus (Amsterdam 1665), engraved by Theodoor Matham and accompanied by verses of James Alban Gibbes.16 9 Loreto’s mosaics are discussed in Heikamp, “American Objects,” pp. 463, 478 note 27; Feest, “Mexico and South America,” p. 238; Yaya, “Wonders of America,” p. 175; Alcalá, “Reinventing,” pp. 387-389, but without identifying the source material. On De Vos’ prints see Schuckman, Maarten de Vos, I, p. 194 nos. 905-908. 10 See van Ruyven-Zeman and Leesberg, The Wierix Family, IV, pp. 142-144 nos. 769-771, with a list of copies. 11 The role of book illustration was first remarked by Martínez del Río de Redo, “Featherwork,” p. 119. 12 Russo, “El Renacimiento vegetal,” pp. 4-39. On Vienna’s miter see Elke Bujok, in Die Münchner Kunstkammer, I,1, pp. 495-496 no. 1582 (1475). 13 Castelló Yturbide, “Featherwork,” pp. 170-171, has linked the Flight to a scene in the chasuble of Jean Chevrot (Vallereille-les-Brayeux, Petit Séminaire de la Bonne Espérance), but the similarity is generic. 14 On the sacra, see Anders, ‘Der Federkasten,” pp. 130-132; Elena Isabel Estrada de Gerlero, in México, I, pp. 80-81. On the Missal see Stroomberg, The Wierix Family, I, p. 91 no. 15.2; on Plantin and his printing press, see Bowen and Imhof, Christopher Plantin, esp. pp. 122-176 on his liturgical books; Imhof, “The Plantin Book Trade,” pp. 107-121. 15 Officia, p. 50. On the print see Bowen and Imhof, “Reputation and Wage,” pp. 179-184, 188; Stroomberg, The Wierix, I, pp. 156-160 n. 74; Imhof, “The Plantin Book Trade,” pp. 119-121. Martínez del Río de Redo, “Featherwork,” pp. 130, 135, suggested a different printed source for this mosaic, however the rigidness of the chasuble, the episcopal staff and miter lying on the floor, and the Virgin floating on clouds better match the Officia. 16 On this mosaic see Osorio Romero, La luz, p. 147; Bargellini, “Athanasius Kircher,” p. 87; Findlen, “A Jesuit’s Books,” pp. 340-342. On the engraver see Simonato, “Cornelis Bloemaert’s 1692 Estate Inventory,” p. 156; on the portrait, Mayer-Deutsch, “‘Quasi-Optical Palingenesis’,” pp. 110-112; Turner, Adriaen, II (2014) p. 280 no. 271.
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The influence of printed source material extended to other parts of the mosaics. For example, it could provide models for the lettering of inscriptions – the Metropolitan Museum canon missae’s has been linked to Plantin’s types.17 The use of feathers to write was admired and, as a testament to the importance of Netherlandish printing, in 1724 Mexicans were praised for being able to create “even from feathers, letters so round that the celebrated printing presses of Antwerp cannot surpass them.”18 Prints could also provide models for the framing of the main image: the feathered ribbon with rosettes encircling Vienna’s St. Jerome is reminiscent of the one in the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary print (Fig. 1), and the geometrical shapes used for the same purpose in the seventeenth-century recall solutions from the sixteenth.19 Since mosaics are rarely dated or datable, finding a source image has the positive outcome of providing a likely terminus post quem for their creation.20 For example, Thomassin’s prints after Clovio are usually considered to be from 1588-1590, as their inscription mention a 10-years privilege conferred by Sixtus V (r. 1585-1590) and the collaboration of engraver and publisher likely began in 1588, hence Vienna’s Sorrowful Virgin and Young Christ are necessarily later.21 Such considerations should be factored in when scholars try to identify feather mosaics described in inventories with surviving items. However, when dealing with multiple objects such as prints, that could exist in different states, be copied or replicated in a slightly altered form in diverse media including new prints and printed books, it is extremely hard to pinpoint the exact source. At least four different Italian and French sheets with the same Holy Names image existed.22 The Christ at the Column on the recto of the miters housed in Florence, Lyon and El Escorial is based on a Flagellation that was conveyed in two states and at least six printed copies, and even became a book illustration.23 If visual details from a specific version are missing and other sources do not help, 17 See Massing, “South Netherlandish Prints,” p. 84; on the feathered inscriptions see Martínez del Río de Redo, “Featherwork,” p. 125. 18 Castelló Yturbide, “Featherwork,” p. 156. See also Osorio Romero, La luz, p. 85: “[O]ther admire the black letters in the white body [field?] given that they are made of feathers.” 19 The influence of prints on feather mosaics’ frames has been addressed by Alcalá, “Reinventing,” p. 396. For more information on the St. Jerome see Estrada de Gerlero, México, I, pp. 106-107. For an example of geometrical shapes, see for example the framing surrounding John the Baptist in Diuini Dionysij. 20 On the problematic dating of the mosaics, see Russo, “Inventory,” p. 436. 21 See Milan Pelc, in Prints after Giulio Clovio, pp. 106-109 nos. 30-3; on the partnership see Guerrieri Borsoi, “La società,” pp. 149-162. It is unlikely that Vienna’s feather Virgin is the feather mosaic that in 1572 was sent by Francesco I to Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol as proposed by Markey, Imagining, pp. 50-51, considering the dating of the prints and that the mosaics are from Prague’s and not Ambras’ collection. See Elke Bujok, in Die Münchner Kunstkammer, I,1, pp. 493, and 498 no. 1589 (1482), with bibliography. 22 See Gallori, Il monogramma, pp. 70-78. 23 See Gallori, “From Paper,” pp. 312, 319 note 8.
Ink and Feathers: Prints, Printed Book s, and Mexican Featherwork
it is impossible to define whether the source was the original impression, a second (third, fourth…) state, or a copy. Book illustration presents a similar problem, thanks to the systematic use of the same woodblocks and matrixes for decades. Parallel to detecting derivations through the mosaics themselves, other sources have been sought, but written testimonies documenting the use of prints remain unfortunately rare, and furthermore cannot be associated to surviving mosaics. Scholars have canvassed only a few letters mentioning the shipping of broadsheets from Europe to New Spain with the purpose of “getting feathered.” On November 20, 1585 Teofilo Ciotti, an Italian Jesuit living in Tepotzotlán, had received permission to have three feather mosaics made and he asked Francesco Benci to send him from Rome some prints that were to be used as models.24 Other letters inform us of a different route. Most prints reached the Americas thanks to the global trade of goods, or through missionaries, printers and artists, who needed them as either workshop material or tools for teaching and private devotion. Once in New Spain these sheets could end up being chosen as the source for a feather mosaic. For example, an unidentified German engraved portrait of Leopold I which was used as source for a mosaic was bought by Alejandro Favián in Puebla.25 New examples of “matching images” and documents will definitely be discovered. Presently, I want to address some issues regarding the use of prints as visual sources for mosaics that have been touched on studies on singular works of art, but never as a topic to discuss in itself. The impact of other visual sources, such as paintings and sculptures, will not be addressed here because, while it is said that other works of art inspired the mosaics, no convincing comparison has yet been proposed.26 But before proceeding, how a feather mosaic was created must be explained. Crafting a feather painting was a lengthy process: according to Ciotti it could take 5 to 6 months to create a mosaic worth to be “presented to a Pope” and in 24 Mentioned by Martínez del Río de Redo, “Featherwork,” p. 109, citing from a Spanish translation. Ciotti’s original letter has been published in Monumenta Mexicana, II, pp. 688-694 no. 210, esp. 691-692 for the featherwork. In this same letter, his request of a print showing the miraculous Virgin of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome has been linked to one of the three feather mosaics, however the sentence does not allow us to infer that it was meant to be used as a model. Ciotti also asked some agnus Dei (a blessed image, usually of the Lamb, in wax or other materials) and other “devout things,” such as the Madonna’s print, to be gifted to the indios. Ciotti seems actually to plan giving all these items as an extra reward for the feather mosaics that were to be created. 25 Osorio Romero, La luz, p. 57: “[T]aking the effigy from a printed paper, that to my great happiness I managed to find in this city for this purpose, brought from Germany, where the lord Emperor Leopold Ignace is depicted inside the breast of the eagle of the empire, with all the coats of arms of the seven electors of the empire on the wings;” for the mosaic’s shipping see pp. 84-86, 93. Other prints requested by Favián in Bargellini, “Athanasius Kircher,” pp. 89-90; Osorio Romero, La luz, pp. 26, 147. 26 Vandamme, “A particular Adoration,” pp. 94, 96-99, 111 focuses on paintings, especially of Flemish origins, and miniatures as sources, however I am not persuaded by the comparisons suggested. Prints are mentioned on p. 110.
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1665/66 Alejandro Favián recalled that the above-mentioned portrait of Emperor Leopold I was made by ten artists working for 3 months.27 It was also a collective exploit that engaged experts from different fields. According to sixteenth-century Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún, the tlacuilos, the local painters, first created a model that was then given to the amantecas, the artists who actually crafted the feather mosaic.28 The model had to be checked and approved by the feather artists: “First of all, they [the amatecas] saw, by the pattern, how they would make it” and only after “they had seen how it was designed, that it was well done, that the painting was sufficiently detailed” the creation of the mosaic could begin. The composition was redrawn on a piece of transparent carded cotton that was placed on the drawing; the cotton was then glued to another sheet of bark paper. The parts were cut away, creating a template that allowed to recreate the same image in many mosaics. As the surviving sixteenth-century miters show, featherworks were, at least potentially, multiples. The pieces were reassembled on a new sheet and the image yet again drawn. This sheet was then reinforced with cloth (for miters) or pasted to a wooden panel or a copper plate. Finally, the feathers were glued onto this support by more than one amanteca. For example, as noted above, the portrait of Leopold I was created by ten artists. A black feathered outline was created, followed by a layer of glue-hardened “common” or less precious feathers, that could be dyed.29 Over this background were placed the most expensive plumes. There are also instances of gilding specific sections to enhance brilliancy or inserting thin gold or silver sheets in others.30 In the seventeenth century strips of gilded or colored paper were used to contour specific parts of the mosaic (Fig. 3); in the following, faces and hands were not feathered any more, but painted.31 The process therefore followed a sequence that can be summarized as printmodel- mosaic, and it would be interesting, if possible, to compare featherwork with other crafts that required cooperation between a model-creating painter and an artist specialized in creating the final item. The amantecas’ checking of the model seems quite telling from this perspective. The involvement of multiple 27 See Monumenta Mexicana, II, pp. 691-692; Osorio Romero, La luz, p. 85. 28 Bernardino de Sahagún O.F.M., Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España, IX,20-21 (now digitized at: https://www.wdl.org/es/item/10096/view/1/1/); see Id., Florentine Codex, X, p. 93. Detailed descriptions of the process in Castelló Yturbide, “Featherwork,” pp. 202-208; Estrada de Gerlero, “La plumaria,” p. 74; Mongne, “The Crozier,” pp. 284-285. On the term amanteca, see Russo, “Image-plume, temps reliquaire?,” pp. 156-157. 29 On the use of black feathers for outlining see Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex, X, p. 95; Alcalá, “Reinventing,” p. 396. On dyed feathers, see Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex, X, pp. 94-95; Castelló Yturbide, “Featherwork,” p. 207; Phipps, “Cochineal Red,” pp. 16-17 provides an example. 30 An example is discussed in Malgouyres, “Probatio pennae,” p. 27. 31 On changes in featherwork see Martínez del Río de Redo, “Featherwork,” pp. 207-208; Alcalá, “Reinventing,” p. 404 note 11; Russo, “Inventory,” p. 436.
Ink and Feathers: Prints, Printed Book s, and Mexican Featherwork
masters might have been a deterrent to signing mosaics, a step that in Europe had been crucial in claiming and asserting a social status.32 The “drawing phase” in the adoption of the source material means that the tlacuilos were the ones dealing with the prints’ imagery. There is almost no information on how exactly the prints or books were handled, if they were a possession of the painters (unlikely at the beginning, but a possibility at later dates) or were loaned to them, nor if the artists were required to work in a specific location. Only Favián stated that the engraved portrait of Kircher was going to be cut off from his copy of the Mundus subterraneus, and sent to prebends of Michoacán to be feathered and gilded.33 However, since this illustration was placed at the beginning of the book, and its excision would have not caused a substantial damage, it is unlikely that the standard practice when dealing with sources from a book was this destructive. Also, while the underdrawing of the mosaic can be sometimes spotted when feathers detach from the support (in the tip of one side of the New York miter, for example), no example of the tlacuilos’ model survives, depriving us of the possibility to compare it to other similar designs, such as cartoons for tapestries, or to know how large and detailed it was. It was colored, apparently, as Bernardino de Sahagún says that the amantecas “continued consulting the pattern, how it was painted, noting the different colors appearing on it” while laying down the feathers.34 We can also argue that it was shaded and highlighted, since shadows identical to those present in the original print can be seen in some mosaics, these details were conveyed to the amantecas – and it is likely that was through the model. What happened to the tlacuilos’ drawing after the mosaic were created remains unknown. Was it returned to the artists or stored away by the amantecas, to be used as a reference in reassembling the templates in the future? The role of the drawn model and its style could have changed with time, as the mosaics certainly did. If a phase was skipped, it could even disappear and create a more direct bond between prints and featherworks.35 Mosaics dating from the 32 Only two mosaics are known to be signed, the Sorrowful Virgin and Young Christ in Vienna. By contrast, prints were frequently signed, and even distinguished between the inventor who had provided the design, the engraver who executed it, and the publisher. 33 Osorio Romero, La luz, p. 147. 34 Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex, X, p. 96. This might impact on the issue of whether the miters in Milan and New York are from the same workshop or not, since their imagery is definitely similar, but there are minute differences (e.g. in Milan the Evangelists are writing, but not in the other miter), and their color scheme is quite different. Where the amatecas following a different drawing or is there some other explanation? 35 C[alderón de la] B[arca], Life in Mexico, II, p. 358 (letter 50), described the process and mentions a “sketch” that is first created, but it is unclear if this had the same function of the underdrawing on the support or of the model. She still recorded that multiple artists crafted a singular mosaic, and even provided some information on how they worked.
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end of the eighteenth or early nineteenth century were sometimes created by directly pasting feathers onto a print, albeit without covering the entire surface.36 Photographs were also used as a support, but that is an even later story. If we compare prints with their feathery counterparts, a number of divergences and similarities emerges. One of the most basic changes concerned size. Feather mosaics were not always smaller or larger compared to the prints they are based on. Actually, they are often roughly the same size. For example, the Holy Names print in its Lombard variant (Fig. 2) measures 413x303 mm including the frame, while the whole miters are 41.5x31.7 cm (New York), 43.3x30.5 cm (Milan; Fig. 1), 40.5x29 cm (Florence; Fig. 5). The Annunciation of Plantin measures 282x196 mm; the side sections of the sacra 27.8x35 cm. Elena Isabel Estrada de Gerlero noticed that Vienna’s Jesus and Virgin are both 25.4x18.2 cm, while the prints are 255x191 mm, therefore suggesting that the feathers may have been glued onto the engravings.37 I would wonder instead whether a transferring technique was employed by Mexican tlacuilos – there are a variety of possibilities, from stylus-tracing, pricking or other techniques commonly deployed in European workshops up to placing a piece of transparent carded cotton on the print.38 However, in other instances the mosaics are either smaller or larger than their source. Cool’s Augustine measures 290x219 mm, while Loreto’s feathery version is 43x31 cm (Figs. 3-4). Favián wanted the portraits of Emperor Leopold, Alexander VII and Kircher to be as large as possible, and he linked the dimensions of the imperial image to the need for the mosaic to be “more marvellous and impressive,” and those of the papal image to the recipient’s status, as the feather painting had to be large because it was destined to the vicar of Christ.39 No comment was given on the Jesuit’s image, and this mosaic was presented as both a sign of their friendship and as the most important and expensive product that could be sent from New Spain. Again, we have no information on the technique used to magnify the model, but it is worth noticing that, according to Bartolomé de las Casas, sixteenth-century Mexican painters were already extremely proficient at changing an image’s scale. 40 Sometimes and rarely, minor differences from the prototype could have been caused by a mistake in the stage of featherwork-creating where the templates have 36 Anders, “Artes Menores,” p. 44 f ig.; Martínez del Río de Redo, “Comentarios,” p. 94; afterwards mentioned by Castelló Yturbide, “Featherwork,” p. 213; Estrada de Gerlero, “La plumaria,” p. 74; Ead., in Painting a New World, pp. 104-105 no. 2. 37 Estrada de Gerlero, in Painting a New World, pp. 104-105 no. 2. 38 See Bambach, Drawing and Painting, pp. 118-124, other examples of pricking in Laura Aldovini, “The Prevedari Print,” pp. 38-45. 39 Osorio Romero, La luz, pp. 58, 147. Matham’s engraving measures 282x180 mm, including inscriptions and framing devices. 40 Bartolomé de las Casas, Apologética historia sumaria, ch. 62; see Id., Obras, VII, p. 591.
Ink and Feathers: Prints, Printed Book s, and Mexican Featherwork
Figure 3 Mexican artists, Saint Augustine, Loreto, Archivio Storico della Santa Casa. Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut
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Figure 4 Maarten de Vos, Saint Augustine, London, Wellcome Collection. London, Wellcome Collection
Ink and Feathers: Prints, Printed Book s, and Mexican Featherwork
to be reassembled.41 And there is at least one instance of an intentional modification happening. In the miter of Milan, the sequence of the Passion scenes is slightly altered: it shows Pilate, his wife Claudia Procla and the pitcher with a basin (Fig. 1), while in the print(s) featuring the prototypical Holy Names (Fig. 2) and in New York’s miter the order is reversed, and the governor’s head is placed directly above his hand-washing tools. This reversing actually makes sense. Claudia Procla is mentioned only in Matthew’s account and her attempt to convince her husband to free Christ (Matthew 27:19) precedes Pilatus’ act of washing his hands (Matthew 27:24). Hence, the sequence presented in Milan’s miter is the most correct one from a chronological point of view. The inversion of Claudia Procla and hand-washing tools is therefore not a mistake caused by the use of templates, but, conversely, the correction of an error of the (European) prototype. Combining multiple sources to craft one mosaic was also common, at least in the sixteenth century. I have already argued that a Holy Names of Jesus and Mary print might be the source for some details of the Gregorymass, namely Pilate and the man’s head in the upper left. 42 Leaving aside the issue of the pineapples, the feathered miraculous mass depicted in Auch’s mosaic is unique and, even if based on prints, is not a mere copy.43 The same is true in other instances. The Holy Names (Fig. 2) were quite faithfully reproduced in the miters of New York and Milan (Fig. 1). However, when some time before 1571-74 the imagery was reprised in the miters housed in Lyon, El Escorial and Florence, the source was adopted in an innovative way that retains the form of the intertwined letters, but expands the Passion cycle on the verso to include some unprecedented episodes that narrate events from after the Crucifixion (Fig. 5).44 Many of the newly added scenes are based on other prints, such as Ugo da Carpi’s Deposition from the Cross after Raphael, and printed books. At least one episode that was already present in the Holy Names’ imagery, the Christ at the Column, was modified according to a different source. On the verso, the transformation of Mary’s “A” into the Deposition’s ladders is pushing the “animation” of the letters to its limits, turning the letter itself into an image. As suggested by Elena Isabel Estrada de Gerlero, this substitution might have been inspired by an animated alphabet similar to the one depicted in Diego Valadés’ Rhetorica Christiana (Perugia 1579), where the letter A is thus visualized. 45 The Holy Names of the miters of Lyon, El Escorial and Florence do not match any other broadsheet from Europe. 41 As suggested by Vandamme, “A particular Adoration,” p. 100. 42 Gallori, “From Paper,” pp. 311-312. 43 Vandamme, “A particular Adoration,” p. 123. 44 Gallori, “From Paper,” pp. 312-317. The Escorial miter was first recorded in the shipment of 1571-74, see Los Libros de entregas, p. 224 (EI, 246). 45 Elena Isabel Estrada de Gerlero, in México, I, p. 87; ead., “The Amantecayotl,” p. 306.
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Figure 5 Mexican artists, Miter with the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, Florence, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Tesoro dei Granduchi. Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut
Ink and Feathers: Prints, Printed Book s, and Mexican Featherwork
Slightly more substantial modifications to the prints’ image were possible. Heraldic devices present on featherwork (such as the miters in Milan and Vienna) are clearly an addition to the source material, but they are usually placed in areas that do not impact the figurative part. More intriguingly, Favián thought of inserting his own kneeling effigy in the portrait of Alexander VII, but hesitated and, afraid of being too forward, asked the local erudites’ and Kircher’s opinion on the matter. 46 Unfortunately the issue was not mentioned again, and no further information is given on how he had planned to proceed. Newly added details have sometimes been interpreted as significant to the native culture. The Tree of Jesse in the miters of Toledo and Vienna include butterflies and birds that were not present in the Kerver’s woodcut, two additions that have been convincingly linked to the artists’ cultural associations and creative process by Alessandra Russo. 47 The background of most miters with the Holy Names is speckled by a number of small circular items that are probably an adaptation of the starry sky present in some prints and miniatures of the Holy Names. 48 The blue and white circles feathered at Lyon, Florence (Fig. 5) and El Escorial have been compared to chalchihuitl (jade) “in color and form,” or considered “pre-Hispanic symbols from Aztec cosmology, […] symbolizing water and sky.”49 Whether these objects are glyphs or significant objects from Mexican culture should be further investigated, and such research should be extended to the background of the miter in New York, where are displayed a number of items that would be linked to flowers by an European viewer. Yet caution is needed. The small white animals with long necks that frame the Flight into Egypt (Fig. 6) have been linked to PreColumbian imagery, unconsciously shifting to the indios the full responsibility of the “monstrous” part of the miter. However, this detail is actually copied from the European woodcut (Fig. 7.) As usual, imagery was dependent on the patron, on who chose the prints that were to be feathered, and on who was the recipient of the completed mosaics. Unfortunately, for most mosaics we have no direct testimony on why a specific image was chosen. It is however possible to argue for some decision-making processes. The Holy Names were clearly appreciated, since they can be found in five of the surviving miters and there were others, now lost, housed in the collections of Mencía
46 Osorio Romero, La luz, pp. 58, 88, 91. The mosaic had a source, as Favián’s letters mention the “portrait that I received,” but does not specify whether this was a print or a drawing or something else. In the Mundus subterraneus there was certainly an engraving by Theodoor Matham showing the countenance of Pope Alexander. See Simon Turner, Adriaen, II, p. 280 no. 270. 47 Russo, “El Renacimiento vegetal,” p. 25. 48 As proposed in Gallori, “From Papers,” p. 315. 49 Respectively by Wake, “Contact,” p. 344, and Mosco, “I Medici,” pp. 170, 172.
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Figure 6 Mexican artists, Flight into Egypt, detail of the lappets, New York, The Hispanic Society of America. New York, Hispanic Society of America
de Mendoza and of Pope Pius V.50 Part of this imagery’s success might be due to the Pre-Columbian “scattered-attribute space” and that the Gothic Arma Christi could be perceived as “a pictorial language comparable to Nahuatl pictograms,” as argued by Claire Farago.51 And there could have been another decisive factor in the selection. In 1516 Thomas More, probably inspired by Tupinamba capes, assigned liturgical vests made of feathers to the priests of Utopia: 50 For Pius’ miter see Gallori, “Collecting feathers,” p. 67. 51 See Claire Farago, in Painting a New World, p. 100 no. 1; lately also discussed by Sifford, “Hybridizing Iconography,” pp. 137-138 and, in a more polemical fashion, Malgouyres, “Probatio pennae,” p. 28.
Ink and Feathers: Prints, Printed Book s, and Mexican Featherwork
Figure 7 French engraver, Flight into Egypt, in Prymer of Salisbury use … with many Prayers and goodly Pictures (Paris: Yolande Bonhomme, 1533). Boston, Boston Public Library
[T]he priest is clothed in chaungeable coloures, whiche in workemanshyp be excellent, but in stuffe not verye pretious. For theire vestements be nother embrodered with golde, nor set with precious stones; but they be wrought so fynely and connyngly with diuers fethers of fowles, that the estimation of no costelye
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stuffe is able to counteruaile the price of the worke. Furthermore, in thies birdes fethers, and in the dewe ordre of them, whiche is obserued in theire settyng, they saye is conteyned certayn deuyne misteries; the interpretation wherof knowen, whiche is diligentlye tawght by the priests, they be put in remembraunce of the bountyfull benefites of God towarde them, and of the loue and honoure whiche of theire behalfe is dewe to God, and also of theire dewties one towarde an other.52
The first bishops of Mexico greatly admired More and were influenced by his ideas. Juan de Zumárraga († 1548) owned a copy of the 1518 Basel edition of Utopia, and its sentences on the craftsmanship and imagery of the priests’ feathery vests are underlined as in the quote above.53 Sadly, the handwritten notes on the margins of the book do not add much to the discussion on feather vests, being a summary of the section’s content. Vasco de Quiroga († 1565) read More too, and was the first bishop of Michoacán, an area usually linked with the production of featherwork.54 For a few years he was also considered to be the person who brought feather miters to Europe.55 In the liturgical vests of Utopia, the feathers’ “settyng” and disposition conceal “deuyne misteries,” or arcana mysteria as they were originally labeled. Such description matches quite well the scenes of Passion depicted in the intertwined Holy Names, especially since in Latin the Arma Christi were also called mysteria Passionis.56 The miter in Pius V’s collection and the one in Milan were stated to show “Sacri Misterij della Passione.”57 Even the Eucharistic Mass of St. Gregory included in the Holy Names depicts a mysterium, that of the mass. And the scenes of the Incarnation and salvation through the Passion depicted in the miters of Vienna and Toledo can be considered fitting with the idea of “bountyfull benefites of God” to humankind. Some depictions on feather mosaics were chosen because they were significant for a specific recipient. Auch’s Mass of St. Gregory was an appropriate gift for Paul III or any other pope, even simply as an image of papal power and as a depiction of a saint who was considered the ideal pontiff and therefore a role model for his 52 More, Utopia, pp. 294-295; Gallori, “Collecting Feathers,” p. 77. The relationship between Utopia and America has been discussed, see Cave, “Thomas More,” pp. 209-229.
53 Now at Austin, University of Texas, Benson Collection, GZZ 321.07 M813D 1518. See p. 154 for the relevant quote. 54 On Michoacán and featherwork, see d’Anania, La vniversal fabrica, part IV, p. 7v (first mentioned by Alessandra Russo, “L’incontro,” p. 98 nota 90; also available in Spanish as “El encuentro,” pp. 63-91); Botero, Relationi Universali, p. 379. 55 See Anders, “Artes Menores,” pp. 35-36. 56 Gallori, “Collecting,” pp. 77-78. 57 Ibidem.
Ink and Feathers: Prints, Printed Book s, and Mexican Featherwork
successors.58 Even more appropriately, St. Gregory was also credited with sending missionaries to convert the then pagan England, and this rarely-depicted action was recalled when discussion of the Christianization of the “new” continent began. Favián first sent to Kircher a mosaic depicting a saint, Athanasius, who shared the Jesuit’s name and was therefore the most likely candidate to be the erudite’s patron.59 The Jesuit’s Father General, Paolo Oliva, was to receive an image of the founder of the Order, Ignacio de Loyola.60 Finally, the creole priest wanted to gift to Alexander VII mosaics depicting the Fathers of the Church and St. Peter, that were appropriate gifts for a pope as they were all centered on the theme of the Church.61 The four doctors were the authors of the writings and commentaries that, with the Gospels, form the basis of Catholic doctrine, while the Apostle was the first pope. The St. Peter’s mosaic had not been created with the purpose of being gifted to Alexander VII, as it was an already existing item that once belonged to a bishop of Mexico, but it had been selected by Favián to be sent to the pontiff because of both its imagery and excellent quality. As Favián’s letters show, the mosaics’ design was sometimes discussed in textual sources and the information provided should be assessed. These sources were either private writings, rare letters left by those who were directly involved in the process of the feather mosaics’ creation, or treatises that aimed to reach a wider audience and introduced featherwork in a discourse on Mexican culture, society, crafts, etc. Their different purpose leads to quite substantial differences in how featherwork design was discussed. No source of the latter type acknowledged prints as part of the creative process, a silence that can be justified with various arguments. The use of prints could have been simply overlooked as an unimportant issue or it could have been intentionally avoided in an attempt to emphasize Indigenous artistic talent and ingenuity, and avoid casting on featherwork the charge of being a derivative art.62 Post mortem inventories of European artists’ possessions usually overflow with sheets because, even in Europe, prints were used as models and played an important role in workshop practice for the education of young painters. And yet these roles 58 For other interpretations of the mosaic’s imagery, see Estrada de Gerlero, “Una obra de plumaria,” pp. 97-108; Cummins, “To Serve Man,” p. 116; Claire Farago, in Painting a New World, pp. 98-102 no. 1. 59 See Osorio Romero, La luz, pp. 37, 44, 57 and Bargellini, “Athanasius Kircher,” p. 87. The painting was then gifted to the Emperor Leopold and is now lost. 60 Osorio Romero, La luz, pp. 58-59. 61 Ibidem, p. 58; similarily themed mosaics were present in the papal collection since at least the reign of Gregory XIII, see Malgouyres, “Probatio pennae,” p. 22. Russo, “Inventory,” p. 437 suggested that the Fathers of the Church mentioned by Favián could be the four mosaics now housed at Loreto (Fig. 3). 62 Even recently featherwork has been categorized as a derivative, and not inventive, art because of its reliance on a model by Malgouyres, “Probatio pennae,” pp. 18-21. The testimony of Bernardino de Sahagún, however, makes it clear that the amantecas were not completely passive actors.
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were often glossed over in treatises. Giorgio Vasari, who began his biography of Marcantonio Raimondi with a statement that prints are rarely discussed in writings on art, focused mostly on their role in the dissemination of composition and diffusion of style, and only incidentally commented that the Bolognese master created his Apostles’ series to help the painters without skills in design.63 Later, Francisco Pacheco admitted the importance of prints, yet the copying of drawings and prints or paintings was associated for painters with a first, early, stage, while assembling multiple sources into a new image pertained to painters in the secondary stage of development.64 The latter “are owed, at least, the composition, and create a good whole of so many different things.” A master was however supposed to be more creative and rely on his own inventiveness. Given this bias against prints, it is not surprising that most sixteenth-century sources on featherwork which addressed the issue of the mosaics’ design preferred to focus on a different aspect of the relationship between amantecas and painters: the pictorial quality of the image. Another Franciscan, Toribio de Motolinía, went as far as arguing that any imperfect featherwork featuring “ugly” figures and images was due to the tlacuilos who submitted the “sample or drawing,” implicitly because they provided a subpar product.65 Therefore, any improvement of the painters’ ability impacted on the featherwork’s quality. A similar argument can be read also in Bartolomé de las Casas’ Apologética historia sumaria. Focusing on the better quality of featherwork after the arrival of European art, he stated that since “our images and altarpieces are large and well painted in different colors, they [the Mexican artists] could move from more to better and exercise and distinguish in that art so subtle and new when our things want to draw and counterfeit.”66 The idea of improving via the study of a superior work of art (such as Greek and Roman art or Michelangelo’s Battle of Cascina) is a topos that is usually found in Italian art historical treatises starting from the fourteenth century with Cennino Cennini, not missionary writing.67 Usually linked to a beginners’ stage, it appears here to highlight the indios’ ingenuity and ability to learn, in order to further the argument of their humanity.68 63 Vasari, Le vite, V, p. 12. On Vasari and prints see Sharon Gregory, Vasari. 64 Pacheco, Arte de la pintura, bk. I, ch. 12 and bk. III, ch. 1 (ed. 1956, I p. 242; II, p. 2). 65 Motolinia, Memoriales, ch. 33 (ed. 1970, p. 47); mentioned in Toussaint, Pintura, p. 37; Martínez del Río de Redo, “Featherwork,” p. 119; Castelló Yturbide, “Featherwork,” pp. 200, 202. Amongst the subsequent reprises of this source, see Alcalá, “Reinventing,” p. 404 note 10, who remarks that the models the tlacuilos had were often not of the highest quality. 66 Bartolomé de las Casas, Apologética historia sumaria, ch. 62 (Obras, VII, pp. 592-593); discussed by Gerlero, “La plumaria,” pp. 74-75 and others. 67 See Cennino Cennini’s ‘Il libro dell’arte,’ pp. 47-48 (chap. 27). 68 On the connection of ingenium and “humanity” see Russo, “An Artistic Humanity,” pp. 352-363. On the role of featherwork in this argument see also Footnote 87 below.
Ink and Feathers: Prints, Printed Book s, and Mexican Featherwork
Featherwork design is also mentioned in a few Italian sources. Benedetto Bordone in 1528 praised the “composition” of Mexican mosaics made with feathers, precious stones, and other materials, which could compare to the best Italian production.69 Lorenzo Magalotti in 1695 had a different opinion of the pictorial quality of featherwork (albeit admitting that the fall of the Mexican empire might have impacted negatively on the manufacture), and hoped that the mosaics’ design were to improve thanks to the observation of European paintings and portraits, finally managing “some contour a little more to its place.”70 If the idea of the artists’ potential to better the pictorial quality appeared in relation to featherwork, invention (in the Italian sense of invenzione) was not a primary concern. José de Acosta referred to the artists’ ability “to perfectly portray with feathers what they see in brush.”71 While Toribio de Motolinía had remarked that the amantecas faithfully reproduced the drawing provided by the painters,72 the existence of a model was not frequently mentioned. It was only when the imagery of the feather mosaics was discussed in the letters of those involved in the creation process, that conformity to a prototype was presented as important and recommended. In 1585 Ciotti reassured Benci that the feathery image was going to be “in accordance to the print and model that you will send.” When printed source material and final mosaic could be compared, the ability of the amantecas who created a perfect copy, identical to its source, but using feathers, was admired. Recalling the different praises lavished on Leopold’s feathery portrait, Favián stated that some people “notice the great perfection with which the branch was transferred, since in the print it was [depicted] in the same fashion.”73 I will return soon to the issue of craftsmanship, here it will suffice to note that patrons frequently wanted to be sure of what they were going to pay for and even in European contracts prints or drawings of the final product were sometimes referred to. Conformity, especially in early featherwork, also probably had another aim: it helped avoid any doctrinally dangerous, inappropriate or ridiculous image, three problems related to images that were keenly felt in the sixteenth-century Catholic world, after Protestant iconoclasm. In 1552 the viceroy of New Spain Luis de Velasco 69 Bordone, Libro, p. IXr. 70 Magalotti, Varie operette, p. 402. Magalotti actually provides an intriguing list of Spanish portraitists that he considered excellent, “Velasco […] Caregno […] Chignones,” namely Velázquez, Juan Carreño de Miranda, and a yet unidentified painter whose surname should be Quiñones. 71 Acosta, Historia natural, p. 285: “retratan con perfecion de pluma, lo que veen de pinzel, que ninguna ventaja les hazen los pintores de España.” 72 Motolinia, Memoriales, ch. 33: “si á estos amanteca les dan buena muestra de pincel, tal sacan otra de pluma” (ed. 1970, p. 47). 73 Osorio Romero, La luz, p. 85.
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ordered a control on local paintings precisely because of these concerns.74 The fear of potentially idolatrous, “pagan,” motives being included might have favored exact replicas of presumed “safe” European imagery. As a testament to the lively circulation and exchange of prints, the visual sources are not from one singular area of Europe. The preference for some artists’ production transversally unites featherwork and other arts and crafts of Mexico. Marten de Vos’ engravings and paintings were available in Spain and New Spain, and he was a greatly appreciated source of inspiration for local artists.75 Prints by the Wierix family were also popular, and the Deposition of the Cross after Raphael was reprised multiple times.76 Sometimes, the prints chosen to be feathered enjoyed a global success. The Kervers’ Tree of Jesse can also be admired in a pew in Scotland and in the carved-ivory “Robinson Casket” from Kotte, Ceylon.77 The Wierixs’ Holy Family is reprised in a Japanese print from Fukui, now at the Tōkyō Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan.78 Copies after the Young Christ and the Virgin prints include two oil on copper paintings by a Lombard painter of the seventeenth century at the Galleria dell’Arcivescovado in Milan and in 1617-18 Cool’s Fathers of the Church were depicted on the vault of the Church of the Holy Spirit in Palermo.79 If prints were instrumental in creating a shared visual language on a global level, what is peculiar to Mexican featherwork is how the material itself contributed to the print-derived image. Featherwork materiality has been frequently discussed, and is one of the main attractions of the art.80 For Mexicans, feathers were “the shadow of the gods,” a sacred material transmitting tonalli, the life-giving solar essence, and were therefore used in sacrifices.81 In Europe they had different connotations. They all shared the symbolism and associations of the bird they belonged to, but as independent objects were also linked to air and lightness. Such levity sometimes became associated 74 Toussaint, Pintura Colonial, p. 218 doc. A. 75 On de Vos’ success, see Angulo, “Martin de Vos,” pp. 13-14; de la Maza, El pintor Martín de Vos; Ruiz Gomar, “Unique Expressions,” pp. 55, 76; Bargellini, ivi, p. 82; Porras, “Trading with the Enemy,” pp. 93-106. 76 A list of Mexican works of art after the Deposition in Gallori, “From Paper,” p. 319 note 12; to which must be added the triptych at the British Museum (m.n. 1889,0507.7) and the medallion published in Glaube & Aberglaube, p. 238 no. 6.1127. 77 London, Victoria and Albert Museum, IS.41-1980. The casket’s replica was noted by Jaffer, Luxury Goods, p. 16; even the frame surrounding the Tree of Jesse relief derives from the source material, as it appears in the book of hours since at least the 24 September 1506 edition. Other derivations of the Kerver woodcut in Russo, “El Renacimiento vegetal.” 78 Tōkyō Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan, pp. 164 n. 55, 236 n. 55. 79 See Laura P. Gnaccolini, in Quadreria dell’Arcivescovado (Milan: Electa, 1999), p. 207 n. 205 on the Milanese copper; Pugliatti, Pittura, pp. 204-205, 206 figg. 152-154 on Palermo. 80 Russo, “Plumes of Sacrifice,” pp. 226-250, and more recently also Sifford, “Hybridizing Iconography,” pp. 141-142. 81 Russo, “Plumes of Sacrifice.”
Ink and Feathers: Prints, Printed Book s, and Mexican Featherwork
with foolishness (which is why Giotto’s Stultitia wears feathers and Medieval fools were linked to them), inconstancy, and also vanity.82 Feathers’ uses were varied and range from the fourth-century imperial crown of peacocks’ feathers, the thoupha, to the feather bedcover that Philoctetes ingeniously crafted for himself in order to survive when he was stranded on Lemnos.83 The significance of each plume or wing was the result of a context-based renegotiation. Although Felipe de Guevara’s opinion “that the Indians brought something new and rare to art with bird-feather painting” was not one shared by everyone, the idea that featherwork was something typically American was widespread and long-lasting.84 The craft was linked to discussion on the origins of the population of America. The Latin Vulgata version of Exodus specifies that the veil at the entrance of the ark of covenant’s tent was crafted “opere plumarii” (Ex 26:36); this verse supported the identification of Indigenous peoples with the lost tribe of Israel that was to reappear just before the Apocalypse.85 Even the personification of the “new” continent was given a feather headdress and/or other paraphernalia adorned with plumes.86 Given its association with the land and the natives’ pre-Christian religion, featherwork’s shift away from pagan themes suggested the Christianization of the land itself. Its material and imagery mixed new and traditional, creating a different and novel entity. Feather mosaics were a proof of the “inventiveness” and humanity of the Indigenous Americans.87 Starting with Amerigo Vespucci, Europeans presented feathers as a material that was precious to the local population of America.88 The indios were either scorned for their simplemindedness, as they were prizing something that had no actual value, or praised for their lack of appreciation of money, which proved that they were free from greed. Feathers were used for Utopia’s priestly vests precisely because they were not precious – although it must be remembered that, while not precious per se, feathers could be pricey. Beautiful and exotic peacock and ostrich plumes were imported items to Europe and even goose feathers could be expensive, if needed in large quantity. In 1589, the Florentine producers of the Pellegrina’s stage play crafted the feathery costumes of the celestial Sirens and other characters 82 See Gallori, “Penne a teatro,” pp. 13-17. On Giotto see also Frugoni, L’affare migliore, pp. 281-285. 83 On the toupha see Torno Ginnasi, “La toupha e il cavallo.” 84 de Guevara, Comentarios de la pintura, p. 237; I am using the translation of Painting a New World, p. 95. For the discussion on the origin of featherwork, see Russo, “A Contemporary Art,” pp. 36-41. 85 See Russo, “Image-plume,” pp. 158-160; Ead., The Untranslatable Image, pp. 93-95; Ead., “A Contemporary Art,” pp. 37-41. On the discovery of America and Apocalyptic prophecies see Prosperi, “America e Apocalisse;” on the origins on the native population, see Volpato, “El mito.” 86 On the personification see Russo, The Untranslatable Image, pp. 19-20. 87 As argued in Estrada de Gerlero, “La plumaria,” p. 77, Ead., in Painting a New World, pp. 97-98, and see note 68 above. 88 Vespucci, Lettera, p. A4v.
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in colored paper, precisely because purchasing real feathers and dyeing them in diverse shades would have been too costly.89 Craftsmanship was crucial. Thomas More’s mention of the excellent workmanship, or the skill of the artist, bringing new value to an otherwise “low” material such as feathers conforms to an old topos. While the artistic category of inventiveness was not mentioned in relation to the featherworks’ design, it was evoked in relation to the mastering of an unusual material. Feathers and their handling created a criterion for appreciation that was different from design. Since the sixteenth century, the attention of Europeans was focused on the feathers’ colors and the ability necessary to craft a mosaic. Sources emphasized the shimmering colors of Amerindian feathers and their vaghezza since at least the 1525 report of Gaspare Contarini to the Venetian Senate.90 In 1673, the Augustinian Diego Basalenque poetically compared the hummingbird’s variety of colors to the rays of the sun.91 This natural quality was exploited by the artists and heightened into an art. For example, Friar Bartolomé de las Casas praised the skills of the amantecas, in laying down the feathers so that their “lovely color” changed according to the angle from which the painting was viewed.92 Italian sources agreed in praising their ability. Giovanni Lorenzo d’Anania probably derived the idea that the amantecas set down carefully each feather so that it “stands out well” in the sun or shade, “on one side and on its reverse,” and that their images “seem natural” from a written source.93 And yet in the second edition of his book, after personally seeing mosaics, he did not change the old statement, but rather strengthened it, adding an “as I have seen” to the earlier “seem natural.”94 Ulisse Aldrovandi considered featherwork the only art the indios were masters of, stated it was “ingenious” and “difficult to imitate,” and associated to with Virgil’s Labor vincit omnia, or “assiduous labour conquers everything.”95 Much later, Lorenzo Magalotti linked the amantecas’ carefulness to the artistic concept of diligenza.96 Already mentioned by Pliny, diligence was a combination of patience and study, 89 On the production of fake feathers see Gallori, “Penne a teatro,” pp. 20-22. 90 Vaghezza is discussed in Russo, “L’incontro,” p. 76 and Ead., “Plumes of Sacrifice,” p. 236. On Contarini see Raccolta, III,1, p. 129 no. XLI, and feathers’ colors are emphasized also in d’Anania, La vniversal fabrica, IV, p. 7v; Acosta, Historia natural, pp. 284-285. Remarks on the European fascination for feathers’ colors in Russo, The Untranslatable Image, p. 21. 91 Basalenque, Historia, p. 451; Castelló Yturbide, “Featherwork,” p. 166. 92 Las Casas, Apologética historia, ch. 62 (Obras, VII, p. 593); on this excerpt see the remarks of Russo, The Untranslatable Image, pp. 87-89. 93 d’Anania, La vniversal fabrica, IV, p. 7v. 94 d’Anania, L’vniuersale fabrica (1576), p. 311. 95 Virgil, Georgics, I, 145-146; Aldrovandi, Ornithologiae, pp. 655-656. 96 See Magalotti, Varie operette, pp. 397, 402. On diligenza see Cerasuolo, Literature, pp. 100-114; for a discussion in Spain see Pacheco, Arte de la pintura, bk. I, chap. 12 (ed. 1956, I, p. 248).
Ink and Feathers: Prints, Printed Book s, and Mexican Featherwork
that eventually (and hopefully) would be rewarded with prestezza, rapidity and effortlessness. For Magalotti, however, diligenza in featherwork was still related to the issue touched upon by More: how skill can confer value to a material that is not precious per se. The feathers’ natural colors were able to surpass those used by the painters, reversing the usual outcome of the topos of Art triumphing over Nature, imitating it to perfection. Famously, Bartolomé de las Casas and José de Acosta compared featherwork to painting, and stated that amantecas could use feathers to do anything European painters created with their tools.97 Their handling of the feathers could rival the results of painters’ tools – their skill generates the sense of wonder that someone who suddenly sees a featherwork feels. The anecdote of Pope Sixtus V touching a mosaic to ascertain what it was actually made of recalls the surprise that many felt when presented with a feather mosaic.98 After actually seeing some mosaics, Giovanni Lorenzo d’Anania agreed, but his perspective was slightly different. In 1582 he wrote a new praise of the manufacture due to his admiration for a St. Jerome mosaic that belonged to Diana Loffredo.99 His delight is evident: he praises the vaghezza and liveliness of its natural colors, so skillfully “placed” that no ancient nor modern painter could have done better. Incidentally, the artist’s competence in “harmonizing” the colors was also praised in art treatises.100 The pictorial quality of featherwork can be best admired in details such as the depiction of the crucified Christ’s ribcage and stomach in the miter of Milan (Fig. 1) via cut plumes of different shades. At the same time, as it often happens in sixteenth century mosaics, a black feathered outline is used to contour the shape of his body and define some elements of the image. Later, in Vienna’s Virgin, feathers were used to reproduce the shading and highlights achieved through white spaces, lines, and cross-hatching, in the print by Thomassin and Clovio, as especially noticeable on the Madonna’s mantle and dress because of the contrasting purple, bright pink, golden-orange, and green-blue colors. Her face is built with three different hues of a flesh-toned pink that convey her complexion, rosy lips, and the areas darkened because of the shade cast by cape and nose. Discussing this 97 Las Casas, Apologética historia, chap. 62 (Obras, VII, p. 592); Acosta, Historia natural, pp. 284-285. Topos discussed by Russo, “Image-plume,” pp. 155, 158. For a comparison to textiles, such as tapestries, see Russo, The Untranslatable Image, pp. 30-31, 93-95 98 Acosta, Historia natural, p. 285; Id., Historia natvrale 1596, p. 91r; Aldrovandi, Ornithologiae, p. 656. As discussed in Russo, “Image-plume,” pp. 155-156. 99 d’Anania, L’vniuersale fabrica (1582), p. 369. See a discussion in Martínez del Río de Redo, “Featherwork,” pp. 106-109. 100 See Cerasuolo, Literature, pp. 173-174. The amantecas also had to check whether the backgorund’s “common” feathers were going to harmonize with the “precious” ones. See Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex, X, p. 94.
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mosaic, Elena Isabel Estrada de Gerlero remarked that its “shading is flatter than in the engraving, and the use of varying line widths for modelling minimal, as is usual in feather painting.”101 I would say that in Vienna’s Virgin the use of outlines is kept to a minimum, while different hues were used in a highly pictorial way to translate white spaces and lines. Praise for the feathers and their colors, and for the artists’ craftsmanship could be independent from the mosaics’ design. Magalotti unenthusiastically conceded that the artisans’ “diligence” was worthy of admiration. According to Frances Erskine Inglis, the Scot wife of the first Spanish ambassador to independent Mexico, the images she saw at Pátzcuaro in 1840 were “very defective in the sketch, but beautiful in the coloring.”102 Intriguingly, admiring a painting because of its colors was considered the typical reaction of an uneducated audience in Italian art treatises.103 Using pigments to simulate gold instead of the actual mineral was already recommended by Leon Battista Alberti and it is in his De pictura that the value of artifice over the worth of a material first appears.104 Although woodcuts and engravings could acquire color, and literature has shown interest in those impressions which were hand colored or printed on colored paper, prints are usually in black and white.105 It is through parallel, cross-hatched, straight or curved lines, that volume, depth, shadows, and light are conveyed. In this respect, prints are inevitably surpassed by the vibrant uniqueness of each feather mosaic, whose colors are always different, alive, and can change because of the incidence of light – the different “angles” of looking mentioned by Bartolomé de las Casas. This change is most noticeable when the mosaic is held up in the hands of the beholder or if the viewer moves around the object, while in a museum setting it is often difficult to detect. Nowadays featherwork is mostly experienced in a stable light of unvarying intensity and angling. Furthermore, the mosaic is usually placed on a tilted surface in order to avoid the detachment of feathers and better preserve it. The shimmering of the feathers alters the prints-based image, conferring it a new vitality. Eyes light up, infusing a different sense of presence to the saint or person depicted. The pupils of Vienna’s Virgin flash with a golden-orange color from underneath her eyelids. Expressions subtly change. The Virgin in the St. Bernard housed in Bologna displays a slightly softer countenance when the feathers’ colors light up.106 In creating a mosaic, the amantecas might have planned a favored point 101 Estrada de Gerlero, in Painting a New World, p. 105. 102 C[alderón de la] B[arca], Life in Mexico, II, p. 359 (letter 50); Castelló Yturbide, “Featherwork,” p. 213. 103 See a discussion in Cerasuolo, Literature, pp. 132-143. 104 Leon Battista Alberti, De Pictura, bk. II, chap. 49 (On Painting, p. 72). 105 See at least the catalog Painted Prints. Clearly this characteristic of prints might have further encouraged a comparison between featherwork and paintings. 106 See Russo, “Inventory,” p. 451 no. 113.
Ink and Feathers: Prints, Printed Book s, and Mexican Featherwork
of view that prompts a visual change, a lighting up of the image. Alessandra Russo argued that such an angle is best achieved when the viewer kneels in front of the painting, and I agree.107 A sort of transfiguration is accessible to those who display a correct behavior, showing respect and devotion to the image. Such kneeling in the context of the sixteenth century was a sign of Catholicism and conformation to the ideas of the Roman Church – adding another appealing factor for some viewers. The lighting up of the mosaic’s colors could be a visual reward for appropriate behavior and the experience of art. It is not a coincidence that sometimes Christian featherwork was characterized precisely as pious, being able to elevate the viewer’s mind to a “devout reverence,” and not only delight his/her eyes with its “variety of colors” and “fineness of skill.”108
Bibliography Acosta, J. de. Historia natural y moral de las Indias. Seville: Juan de Leon, 1590. Alberti, L.B. On Painting, ed. Rocco Sinisgalli. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Alcalá, Luisa Elena. “Reinventing the Devotional Image: Seventeenth-Century Feather Paintings,” Images Take Flight: Feather Art from Mexico and Europe, eds. Alessandra Russo, Gerhard Wolf and Diana Fane. Munich: Hirmer Verlag, 2015, 386-405. Aldrovandi, U. Ornithologiae hoc est de avibus historiae libri XII. Bologna: Francesco de’ Franceschi, 1599. Aldovini, Laura. “The Prevedari Print,” Print Quarterly, 26:1 (2009): 38-45. d’Anania, G.L. La vniversal fabrica del mondo … dove s’ha piena notitia dei Costumi, Leggi, Costumi, Fiumi, Monti, Prouincie, & Popoli del Mondo. Naples: Giuseppe Cacchi dell’Aquila, 1573. d’Anania, G.L. L’vniuersale fabrica del mondo, ouero Cosmografia. Venice: Giacomo Vidali, 1576. d’Anania, G.L. L’vniuersale fabrica del mondo, ouero Cosmografia …, diuisa in quattro trattati. Venice: il Mischio, ad istanza di Aniello San Vito di Napoli, 1582 Anders, Ferdinand. “Der Federkasten der Ambraser Kunstkammer,” Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien, 61 (1965): 119-132. Anders, Ferdinand. “Artes Menores,” Artes de México, 137 (1970): 4-45. Angulo, Diego. “Martin de Vos en Espana y Mejico,” in Miscellanea Prof. Dr. D. Roggen. Antwerp: Sikkel, 1957, 9-14. Bambach, C.C. Drawing and Painting in the Italian Renaissance Workshop: Theory and Practice, 1300-1600. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. 107 Russo, “A Contemporary Art,” p. 48. 108 Scarabelli, in Terzago, Museo, p. 184. Alcalá, “Reinventing,” pp. 401-403 questions how materials and techniques “related to or interacted with their religious message.”
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B[arca], [F.] C[alderón de la]. Life in Mexico, During a Residence of Two Years in That Country, 2 vols. Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1843. Bargellini, Clara. “Athanasius Kircher e la Nuova Spagna,” in Athanasius Kircher il museo del mondo, exhibition catalogue, ed. Eugenio lo Sardo. Rome: De Luca, 2001, 86-91. Basalenque, D. Historia de la provincia de San Nicolás Tolentino de Michoacán, 2 vols. México: Barbedillo y Compañeros, 1886. Bordone, B. Libro … Nel qual si ragiona de tutte l’Isole del mondo con li lor nomi antichi & moderni, historie, fauole, & modi del loro uiuere, & in qual parte del mare stanno, & in qual parallelo & clima giacciono. Venice: Niccolò Zoppino, June 1528. Botero, G. Relationi Universali … nuovamente riviste (Brescia: per la compagnia bresciana, 1599). Bowen, Karen L. and Dirk Imhof. “Reputation and Wage: The Case of Engravers Who Worked for the Plantin-Moretus Press,” Simiolus, 30:3-4 (2003): 161-195. Bowen, K.L., Imhof, D. Christopher Plantin and Engraved Book Illustrations in SixteenthCentury Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Casas, Bartolomé de las. Obras completas, 14 vols. Seville: Alianza editorial, 1989-1999. Castelló Yturbide, Teresa. “Featherwork in the Indigenous Tradition,” in The Art of Featherwork in Mexico. Mexico D.F.: Fomento Cultural Banamex, 1993, 143-217. Cave, Alfred A. “Thomas More and the New World,” Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies, 23:2 (1991): 209-229. Cennino Cennini’s ‘Il libro dell’arte’. ed. Laura Broecke. London: Archetype Publications, 2015. Cerasuolo, A. Literature and Artistic Practice in Sixteenth-Century Italy. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2017. Cummins, Thomas B. F. “To Serve Man: Pre-Columbian Art, Western Discourses of Idolatry, and Cannibalism,” RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, 42 (2002): 109-130. Cummins, Thomas B.F. “Through the ‘Devil’s Looking Glass’ Darkly: Brazilians, Peruvians, Aztecs, and Zemis in Europe; Serlio and Hercules in the Americas,” in The Arts of South America, 1492-1850: Papers from the 2008 Mayer Center Symposium at the Denver Art Museum, ed. Donna Pierce. Denver: Denver Art Museum, 2010, 11-38. Pseudo-Dionysius, Caelestis hierarchia. Ecclesiastica hierarchia. Diuina nomina. Mystica theologia. Venice: Giovanni Tacuino, November 21, 1502. Estrada de Gerlero, Elena Isabel. “Una obra de plumaria de los talleres de San José de los Naturales,” in Arte y Coerción. Primer Coloquio del Comité mexicano de historia del arte. Mexico City, 1992, 97-108. Estrada de Gerlero, Elena Isabel. “La plumaria, expresión artística por excelencia,” in México en el mundo de las colecciones de arte, 7 vols. México D.F.: El Gobierno de la República, 1994, I (1994): 72-78.Estrada de Gerlero, Elena Isabel. “The Amantecayotl, Trandfigured Light,” in Images Take Flight: Feather Art from Mexico and Europe, eds. Alessandra Russo, Gerhard Wolf and Diana Fane. Munich: Hirmer Verlag, 2015, 298-309.
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Jaffer, Amin. Luxury Goods from India: The Art of the Indian Cabinet-Maker. London: V&A Publishing, 2002. Los Libros de entregas de Felipe II a El Escorial / The Escorial Delivery Books of Philip II, ed. Fernando Checa Cremades. Madrid: Patrimonio Nacional, 2013. Magalotti, L. Varie operette … con giunta di otto lettere su le terre odorose d’Europa e d’America dette volgarmente buccheri ora pubblicate per la prima volta. Milan: Giovanni Silvestri, 1825. Malgouyres, Philippe. “Probatio pennae. Un Credo en amantecáyotl,” in Messe de saint Grégoire, eds. Dominique de Courcelles, Claude Louis-Combet, Philippe Malgouyres. Paris: Éditions Ophrys, 2011, 7-30. Martínez del Río de Redo, Marita. “Comentarios sobre el arte plumario durante la colonia,” Artes de México, 137 (1970): 86-98. Martínez del Río de Redo, Marita. “Featherwork during the Viceroyalty,” in The Art of Featherwork in Mexico. México D.F.: Fomento Cultural Banamex, 1993, 103-139. Markey, Lia. “The Riches of the Indies: Francesco and Ferdinando de’ Medici and the Americas,” in The Grand Ducal Medici and their Archive 1537-1743, eds. Alessio Assonitis and Brian Sandberg. London, Turnhout: Harvey Miller Publishers, 2016, 123-131 Markey, Lia. Imagining the Americas in Medici Florence. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2016. Markey, Lia. “A Feather Painting of Moctezuma, Captured by a Sea Captain and Destined for a Medici,” in The Significance of Small Things: Essays in Honour of Diana Fane, eds. Luisa Elena Alcalá and Kenneth Moser. Madrid: Edicciones El Viso, 2018, 128-135. Massing, Jean Michel. “South Netherlandish Prints Overseas,” Print Quarterly, 27:1 (2010): 82-84. Mayer-Deutsch, Angela. “‘Quasi-Optical Palingenesis’: The Circulation of Portraits and the Image of Kircher,” in Athanasius Kircher: The Last Man Who Knew Everything, ed. Paula Findlen. New York: Routledge, 2004, 105-129. Maza, F. de la. El pintor Martín de Vos en México. México D.F.: UNAM, 1971. México en el mundo de las colecciones de arte, 7 vols. México D.F.: El Gobierno de la República, 1994, I (1994). Mongne, Pascal. “La Messe de saint Grégoire du Musée du Jacobins d’Auch. Une mosaïque de plumes mexicaine du XVIe siècle,” Revue du Louvre, 43:5-6 (1994): 38-47. Mongne, Pascal. “The Crozier and the Feather: The Crucifixion Triptych in the Musée National de la Renaissance, Écouen,” in Images Take Flight: Feather Art from Mexico and Europe, eds. Alessandra Russo, Gerhard Wolf and Diana Fane. Munich: Hirmer Verlag, 2015, 282-289. Monumenta Mexicana, 8 vols. Rome: Institutum historicum Societatis Iesu and Instituto histórico de la Compañía de Jesús, 1956-1991. More, T. The Utopia … in Latin from the edition of March 1518, and in English from the first edition of Ralph Robynson’s Translation in 1551, ed. J.H. Lupton. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1895.
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Mosco, Marilena. ‘I Medici e il fascino dell’esotico’, in Il Museo degli Argenti. Collezioni e collezionisti, eds. Marilena Mosco and Ornella Casazza. Firenze: Giunti, 2004, 168-183. Motolinia, T. O.F.M. Memoriales e Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España. Madrid: Atlas, 1970. Die Münchner Kunstkammer, 3 vols. Munich: Beck, 2008. Officia propria sanctorum eccelsiae Toletanae et dioecesis. Antwerp: ex Officina Plantiniana, apud Balthasaren & Ioannem Moretos, 1616. Osorio Romero, I. La luz imaginaria: epistolario de Atanasio Kircher con los novohispanos. México: UNAM, 1993. Pacheco, F. Arte de la pintura, ed. by Francisco J. Sánchez Cantón, 2 vols. Madrid: Maestre, 1956. Painted Prints: The Revelation of Color in Northern Renaissance and Baroque Engravings, Etchings and Woodcuts, exhibition catalogue. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002. Painting a New World: Mexican Art and Life 1521-1821, eds. Donna Pierce, Rogelio Ruiz Gomar and Clara Bargellini. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004. Prints after Giulio Clovio, exhibition catalogue. Zagreb: HAZU, 1998. Phipps, Elena. “Cochineal Red: The Art History of a Color,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, 67:3 (2010): 4-48. Porras, Stephanie. “Trading with the Enemy: The Spanish Market for Antwerp Prints and Paintings during the Revolt,” in Netherlandish Art and Luxury Goods in Renaissance Spain: Studies in Honor of Professor Jan Karel Steppe (1918-2009), eds. Daan van Heesch, Robrecht Janssen and Jan Van der Stock. London, Turnhout: Harvey Miller Publishers, 2018, 93-106. Prosperi, Adriano. “America e Apocalisse. Note sulla “conquista spirituale” del Nuovo Mondo,” Critica Storica, 13 (1976): 1-67. Pugliatti, Teresa. Pittura della tarda Maniera nella Sicilia occidentale (1557-1647). Palermo: Kalós, 2011. Quadreria dell’Arcivescovado. Milan: Electa, 1999. Raccolta di documenti e studi pubblicati dalla R. Commissione Colombiana pel quarto centenario della scoperta dell’America, 16 vols. Rome: Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione, 1892-1896. Ruiz Gomar, Rogelio. “Unique Expressions: Painting in New Spain,” in Painting a New World: Mexican Art and Life 1521-1821, eds. Donna Pierce, Rogelio Ruiz Gomar and Clara Bargellini. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004, 47-77, 274-279. Russo, Alessandra. “L’incontro di due mondi artistici: l’immagine come strumento della rieducazione missionaria e l’arte plumaria messicana del XVI secolo,” Miscellanea di Storia delle Esplorazioni, 22 (1997), 57-100. Russo, Alessandra. “El encuentro de dos mundos artísticos en el arte plumario mexicano del Siglo XVI,” Prohistoria, 2:2 (1998): 63-91. Russo, Alessandra. “El Renacimiento vegetal. Arboles de Jesé entre el Viejo Mundo y el Nuevo,” Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, 20:73 (1998): 4-39.
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About the Author Corinna T. Gallori received her Ph.D. from Milan’s Università degli Studi. She was awarded fellowships at the Italian Academy at Columbia University, the Warburg Institute, and the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence. Her research focuses on indulgences and Italian images, and images’ transfer across different geographic areas and media. She is currently an Associate Scholar at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institute.
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Index Page numbers in italics refer to images. Abbas I, Shah 111, 113 Abbasi, Riza 43, 59, 115 Abelard 186 Abgar of Tokat 128 Acosta, José de 303, 307 agency 19, 20, 22, 25, 27 Aguilera, Diego 276 Ahmed, Siblizade 75, 76 Aitken, Molly 67, 68 Akbar I, Emperor Akbarnama 37, 39, 49, 50, 52–54, 68 court pictorial style of 44, 46, 54–55, 59, 61, 69 and European prints 18, 22, 32–33, 35, 56–57, 69 and ideals of women 44, 46, 48–50, 58, 60, 61, 68 patronage of 38, 44 policies of 49, 55 See also Mughal Empire alankara 57, 67 Alberti, Leon Battista 308 Aldegrever, Heinrich 27, 107–110, 113, 115–19, 121 Aldrovandi, Ulisse 306 Alecio, Matteo Perez de 261 early career 269–72 paintings in Peru 272–73, 275–77 as printmaker 263, 270–71, 278 use of models 269, 272, 275 working methods of, 269 Alexander VII, Pope 297, 301 Alhazen [Ali al-Hasan Ibn al-Haytham] 122 allegory 44, 56, 62, 69, 229 Altissimo, Cristofano dell’ 78 amanteca 290–91, 302–303, 306–08. See also featherwork Amsterdam 129, 131–32, 138, 140, 145–46, 148, 152–53. See also Dutch Republic amulets 151 Anania, Giovanni Lorenzo d’ 306, 307 Anesaki, Masaharu 161 angels 20, 26, 115, 205, 207, 209, 272–75 appropriation 24 n. 27, 26, 41, 109–10, 211 Aquinas, Thomas, Saint 184, 187 Arabic 23, 39, 97, 117, 127, 247 Armain, Pierre-Vincent 113, 117–19 Armenia 113 import of prints 22, 27, 133, 145 interest in printing 128 manuscripts 151–53 perception of European art 133 Armenian printing Amsterdam presses 129–32 bibles 126, 128–31, 138, 139, 145, 152 and Catholic censors 128, 131, 132 Constantinople presses 132–33, 140–41
early printing efforts 128–29 Erevants’I, Oskan 130, 131 and European prints 129–35, 138–41, 145, 147–50, 152–53 Holy Ējmiatsin and St. Sargis Press 130–32, 145 Marzuants’I, Grigor 134–35, 137, 139 printing history of 97, 127–29 Urbat’agirk’ (Book of Friday) 128, 151 Yaysmawurk’ (Synaxarion) 135 n. 30, 137 See also Sichem, Christoffel van Armenini, Giovanni Battista 264, 268 Bailey, Gauvin Alexander 19, 21 n. 18, 22–25, 56, 57 Barbarics-Hermanik, Zsuzsa 101 Barbarigo, Niccolò 85, 88 Barbarossa, Hayreddin 77–78, 80, 83 Bayezid I, Sultan 93–94 Bayezid II, Sultan 97, 98, 101 Beach, Milo 44 Beg, Sadiqi 26, 115 Bellini, Gentile 75, 90, 98–100 Berlinghieri, Francesco 98, 101 Bernard, Saint 186, 187, 308 Berruguete, Pedro 188, 190 Bertelli, Lucas 204, 225, 227 Bey, Sinan 75, 76 bibles 97, 210 Armenian 126, 128–31, 138, 139, 145, 152 Biblia Regia [Polyglot Bible] 35, 44–45, 56 Bignon, abbé 117, 118 Bitti, Bernardo 261, 262, 269, 278 Book of Revelation 141, 150, 184, 187, 190, 208 n. 41 books of hours 137, 138, 148, 149, 153 n. 64, 287, 304 n. 77 Borromeo, Carlo 162, 285 Brosamer, Hans 99 Bry, Johann Theodor de 150 Buddhism 25, 26, 58, 164, 169 Burke, Peter 19 Bustamante, Francisco de 183, 209 n. 51, 210 n. 55 calendars 128, 169 52-year cycle 243–44, 245, 246–47, 250 260-day cycle 237 n. 68, 239 n. 80, 243–45, 247, 250 Ancient American 238, 239, 248, 250 animal signs in 246 Calendario. De toda la Yndica gente 243, 249 calendar wheels 226, 235–39, 241, 245–48, 250 Gregorian 131 n. 17, 235, 237 n. 68, 243 n. 92, 250 Indigenous 238–41, 245, 250 n. 117 Julian 235, 237–38, 243 n. 92, 245, 248, 250 Mesoamerican 237 n. 68, 243 n. 92, 245, 246, 250
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Prints as Agents of Global Exchange, 1500 -1800
Relación de Michoacán 240 Relación de Tlaxcala 240, 243 n. 93 veintanas (months) 241, 247–50 See also Motolinía [Toribio de Benavente]; Valadés, Diego de calligraphy 23, 33, 35–36, 61, 107, 109, 111, 112–113, 115–19 Campi, Bernardino 267, 268 Canby, Sheila 59 Carpi, Ugo da 295 Cartaro, Mario 20 Casas, Bartolomé de las 292, 302, 306, 307, 308 Catholic Church 23, 161–62, 175, 184–85, 217–20, 232, 235, 301, 303, 309 censorship 128–29, 131–32 Council of Trent 50 n. 63, 161–62, 171, 174, 183, 190, 192, 210, 219 sacraments 163, 167–68, 227, 229, 300 sermons 161–65, 168–69, 171–75, 209 n. 51 See also Dominican order; Franciscan order; Jesuit order; missionaries Cavalieri, Giovanni Battista 227, 232 n. 58 Cennini, Cennino 220–23, 226, 241 n. 89, 302 Chancey, abbé 118 Chardin, Jean 121–22 Charles V, Emperor 80, 82, 184, 194, China 18, 20, 25, 122 n. 42, 143 circulation of print 19–20, 100, 113, 118, 211, 262–63, 271, 304 Classical antiquity 19, 75, 220, 226, 229–32, 234, 251, 265 Clouet, Jean 80, 81 Collaert, Adriaen 142 collecting 34, 77–78, 117–21, 161, 166–67 connoisseurship 109–110, 115, 119, 121 Constantinople 18 n. 2, 21, 90, 92, 98, 113, 128–29, 132–33, 138–41, 148, 150, 153. See also Armenian printing; Ottoman Empire copying 24–26, 34, 135, 151 n. 59, 171, 172, 207, 210, 220, 222, 230, 241 n. 89, 250, 302–03 Cort, Cornelis 204, 205 Cortés, Hernán 18 n. 2, 192, 193 Cranach, Lucas the Elder 80 cross-cultural exchange 18–23, 32, 69, 96, 102, 122 artistic 74, 77, 85, 87–88, 110, 304 Cruz González, Cristina 24, 202 n. 30 Cummins, Thomas 24 curiosities 36, 37, 39, 40 DaCosta Kaufmann, Thomas 19 David, King [Old Testament] 136–37, 138, 151 Dehejia, Vidya 43 n. 52, 57–58 Dei, Benedetto 98, 101 Dijk, Christoffel van diligenza 306–07 diplomats 18, 39, 97, 100, 113, 128 disegno 221, 228, 231, 235 Dominican order 183–84, 187 Doni, Anton Francesco 276
Dossin, Catherine 19 drawing 99, 113, 115–17, 119–22, 220–23, 244, 265, 269–70, 278, 290–91, 302–03 Duns Scotus, John 184, 187 Dürer, Albrecht 20, 35, 129, 141–42, 150, 266, 269, 271 Dutch Republic 38, 129, 130. See also Amsterdam; Dutch East India Company (VOC) 21 Ebisawa, Kishino 168, 171, 173 England 39, 301 engraving 18, 21 n. 18, 34, 73, 98, 220 technical qualities 36 Ethiopia 18, 22, 35, 143 Ettinghausen, Richard 65 Erevants’i, Oskan 130–32, 138, 145 Oskan Bible 138, 141 etching 36, 270 Farago, Claire 298 Farnese, Alessandro, Cardinal 77 Favián, Alejandro 287, 289–92, 297, 301, 303 Fazl, Abul 40, 50, 52–54. See also Akbar I Ferdinand II, Archduke 78, 184 Fetvacı, Emine 95, 99 firangi 31, 37, 41 feathers 25, 27, 58, 187, 288, 290, 305–06, 308 featherwork 25, 187 association with the Americas 298, 305 dating of 288 Holy Names of Jesus and Mary 284–86, 288, 295–98 and inventiveness 302, 305–06 Mass of St. Gregory [See also Gregory, Saint], 284, 295, 300 material qualities of 290, 292, 304, 306–08 miters 284–85, 287, 288, 290–92, 295–97, 300, 307 Passion scenes on 295, 300 relationship to print sources 284, 287–89, 291–92, 295, 297, 301, 303, 308 scale 292 similarity to painting, 307, 308 technique 289–92, 307-08 written sources for 288, 289, 290–91, 298–300, 301-3, 306 See also amanteca; Tree of Jesse Florencia, Francisco de 202, 205, 207 foreshortening 266–67 France 80, 109–10, 118, 121, 169, 186 Royal Library 107, 112, 117–19 Francesca, Piero della 265 Francis, Saint 208–09, 228, 232, 234, 235 Franciscan order 24, 187, 205, 210, 219, 232, 234–35, 245 and ars memorativa 216, 218 and the Assumption of the Virgin 207–09 and Immaculate Conception 183–84, 192, 195 n. 23 François I, King 80, 81, 84
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Index
Gante, Pedro de 221–22, 234, 240, 284 Gerlero, Elena Isabel Estrada de 284, 292, 295, 308 Gibson, Charles 244, 246 n. 101, 248 gifts 34, 35, 37, 39, 65 n. 89, 75, 77, 98, 101, 284, 289 n. 24, 300–01 Giovio, Paolo 77–79, 93–94, 96, 100 Gladzor monastery 139 Global Renaissance 24, 159, 161, 172, 175 Goa 18 n. 2, 25, 35, 38–39, 163 Goltzius, Hendrik 129 Gomez, Pedro 162 Gonoi, Takashi 166 Granada, Luis de 162–63, 169, 173 Gregory, Saint 98 n. 51, 301. See also featherwork Gregory XIII, Pope 216, 219, 226 n. 32, 232, 235 Guevara, Felipe de 305 Gujarat 38 Gutenberg, Johannes 18, 73 Haro, José de 205 Harper, James 24 n. 25 Hasan, Abu’l 56, 65 n. 88 Hebrew 35 n. 9, 127, 135 Hinduism 43–44, 56–60, 67, 69 Hindu artists 43–44, 46 Hosio, Stanislaus, Cardinal 227-28 humanism 98, 216, 217, 222–23, 231, 234, 250–51 and ars memorativa 216–21 hybridity 23, 26–27, 75, 96 hymnals 132–35, 139, 140–42, 145–49 imitation 217, 220, 222–23, 228, 230, 234–35, 251 India See Mughal Empire Iran 18, 25, 26–27, 31–35, 37, 41, 43–44, 54, 58, 69, 75, 101, 109–110, 118–19, 121, 143 New Julfa 19, 21, 128–30, 148 See also Safavid Empire Isabella I of Castile 184 Islam 25, 44, 49, 69 perceptions of attitudes toward images 74, 96-7, 117, 121, 122, 127 Jahangir, Emperor 25, 32–33, 35, 51, 55, 64, 65 court pictorial style of 46, 61, 63, 65 and European prints 56 and ideals of women 56, 61–62, 67–68 patronage of 44, 56, 61 reign of 38, 40, 61 See also Mughal Empire Japan 18, 23, 25, 159–75, 304 dojuku 160, 165, 173 hidden Christians in 161, 166–69 Jesuit publications for 163–64, 167–71, 173–74 kambo 160, 165–166, 168, 173 kanji characters 163–64 relationship to Christianity 160 See also Jesuit order; missionaries Jesuit order attitudes toward other faiths 44 importance of printing for 27, 35, 143, 163–64, 170
missionization efforts 21–22, 162–66, 172–73 at Mughal court 33, 38, 44, 68 sermonization 162, 164–65, 172–73 and transcription 172–74 and translation 35, 162–63, 167–69 John the Evangelist, Saint 139, 141, 187, 195 John VIII Palaiologus, Emperor 88 Jorge, Marcos 163 Joyeux-Prunel, Béatrice 19 Khera, Dipti 67 Kircher, Athanasius 287, 291, 292, 297, 301 Koch, Ebba 56 Kostandnupolsets’I, Astuatsatur 133, 138, 139 Kubler, George 244, 247 n. 102, 248 Kurdian, Henry [H. K’iwrtean] 133, 148 lacquerware 111, 115 Landau, Amy 41, 43, 44, 59, 148 Laures, J. 161, 166–71 Léon y Gama, Antonio de 237 letterpress 159, 160, 163, 164, 170 Loarte, Gaspar 163, 171 Lokman, Seyyid 85–87 Louis XIV, King 131 Louis XV, King 110, 117 Loyola, Ignatius, Saint 142, 163, 301 Macao 26 Magalotti, Lorenzo 303, 306–08 Majer, Hans George 78 Malik al-Daylami 112, 113, 119 Mander, Karel van 272 maniera 221, 251, 276 n. 56 Manila 171, 172 Mannerism 262, 269, 276 manuscripts 35–36, 87, 98, 107, 113, 121, 139 Arabic 117 Armenian 138, 139, 150–53 Japanese 160, 161, 165–74 Persian 43, 117, 118 Turkish 118 Mariette, Pierre-Jean 107, 110, 117–122 Marzuants’I, Grigor 134, 135, 137 n. 33, 139, 141, 149 Master of the Madonna of the Banderoles 26, 115 Matham, Jacob 129 Matham, Theodoor 287 Maza, Francisco de la 238, 244 Meckenem, Israel van 284 Medici, Cosimo I de’ 78 Medoro, Angelino 261, 269, 278 Mendoza, Juan de 202, 205 Mehmed I, Sultan 78 Mehmed II, Sultan as art patron 73–74, 96 collection of printed material 97–98 Fatih Album 88, 90, 101 portraits of 74–77, 88, 90 See also portraits
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Mendieta, Gerónimo de 234 n. 61, 241 Mendoza, Mencía de 284, 297–98 merchants 18, 21, 37, 39, 100–01, 113, 128, 130 Mesquita, Diogo de 163–64, 170, 174 Mexico 25–27, 183, 192, 199, 207–10, 223, 232, 239–40, 300, 304 Conquest of by Spanish 183, 192 n. 16, 195 n. 23, 208–09, 240, 243 n. 93, 251, 283 Puebla 199, 287 San Andrés Calpan 199–200, 209 San José de los Naturales 210, 221, 239 San Miguel de Huejotzingo 186–87 Tlatelolco 202–03, 205, 221 Tlaxcala 238, 239–241 Tenochtitlán 18 n. 2, 208, 209, 232 See also featherwork; Virgin of Guadalupe Michelangelo 20, 35, 230, 266–67, 269, 302 Minissale, Gregory 36–37 missionaries 18, 21, 113, 128, 161–62, 172 Franciscan 24, 209, 216, 226, 229, 232, 234, 235 Jesuit 22, 35, 143, 159–66, 168–69, 174 mnemonic techniques 217, 228, 239 Molanus, Johannes 190 Molina, Argote de 270–71 Montano, Benito Arias 35 n. 9, 216, 232 n. 56 More, Thomas 298, 300, 306–07 Motolinía [Toribio de Benavente] 240–44, 246–50, 302, 303. See also calendars Moysis, Costanzo di [Costanzo da Ferrara] 74, 75, 90 Mughal Empire 18, 20–23, 27 and artistic naturalism 36–37, 54, 59, 63 attitudes toward Europeans 32–33, 38–40 depictions of women 33, 43–44, 48–50, 53– 59, 61–63, 65, 67–68 European attitudes toward, 38, 40, 67 harems [zenana] 49, 54, 61, 68 ideals of women 50, 55–56, 58, 65, 67–69 interest in prints 32–37, 40, 56–57 and manuscripts 35–36 masculinity in 63, 68 and printmaking 35 and South Asian visual traditions 43–46, 57–58 See also Akbar I, Emperor; Constantinople; Jahangir, Emperor; muraqqa Murad III, Sultan 85, 92, 97 Murakami, Naojirō 161 muraqqa 27 as curated collections 109, 121 definition of 25, 107 in European collections 110, 117–19 format of 113, 117 prints in 34, 36, 61, 107–110, 115 Nadal, Jerome Evangelicae historiae imagines 21–22, 143–45, 148–49, 152–53 Adnotationes et meditationes in evangelia 142 See also Jesuit order
Nahuatl 240, 241, 246–48, 298 Nakatani family 161, 168, 169 Naksi, Ahmed 99–100 nasta’liq script 113, 119 naturalism 33, 36–37, 43, 55, 59, 63, 111, 122, 307 Navas, Francisco de las 240, 243 n. 92, 250 Necipoğlu, Gülru 75, 84 n. 22, 100, 101 Nelli, Niccolò 90 New Spain See Mexico Nini 48 Nizami 43 Okada, Amina 57 Olmos, Andrés de 240, 249, 250 Orientalism 40, 110 Osman, Nakkaş 87, 93 Osman, Sultan 85, 90, 92, 93 othering 22, 32, 36, 40, 44 Ottoman Empire 27 artistic exchange with Europe 77, 80, 85, 87–88 Fatih Album 88 influence on European imagery 87, 96 interest in European artistic materials 21, 23, 75, 88, 90, 98, 101–02 and Islamic artistic materials 75 military campaigns 77 and Mughal Empire 41 role of prints in 21, 23, 73–74, 100 Şema’ilname 85, 87, 93, 96 status of printing in 74, 97, 98 See also Giovio, Paolo; Mehmed II, Sultan; portraits Pacheco, Francisco 269, 272, 302 Paets, Pieter Jacopsz 129–30 Pasha, Sokollu Mehmed 85, 93–94, 95 n. 44, 100 Pasio, Francesco 164, 167, 170–71 Paso y Troncoso, Francisco del 237, 241, 247 n. 102, 248 Passeri, Bernardo 142 patronage 18, 33–36, 61, 65, 68, 69, 109, 270, 297, 303 Paul III, Pope 162, 284, 300 Pearson, M. N. 38 Pema, Pietro 93 Peñuelas, Pablo Antonio 202 n. 33 perspective 26, 37, 122, 263, 265–67 Peru 26, 27, 261–63, 269, 271–72, 275, 276 n. 56 Philip II, King of Spain 35 n. 9, 56, 63, 65 Piles, Roger de 267 Pisanello 88 Pius V, Pope 298, 300 Plantin, Christoffel 35 n. 9, 216, 287–88, 292 Biblia Regia [Polyglot Bible] 35, 44–45, 56 Pietas Regia 44–46, 48, 55–58, 63, 65, 67, 68 Pliny 306 Pollaiuolo, Antonio del 101, 265 Pontius, Paul 21, 24 Porras, Stephanie 20 portraits 23, 27 and artistic exchange 74, 77, 85, 96, 102
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Index
European 78, 80, 85, 87–88, 90, 92–94 formats 75, 80, 93 Mughal 56–57, 61–65, 68 and naturalism 37 Ottoman 74–78, 85, 87–88, 102 painted vs. printed 88, 93 See also Mehmed II, Sultan; Suleyman I, Sultan Portugal 35, 169 Lisbon 163, 168 Poussin, Nicolas 268 Primaticcio, Francesco 267 printing presses Armenian 128–130, 133, 153 European 25, 97, 100, 288 Japanese 25, 27, 159, 170 Mughal 34–35 Ottoman 74 See also Gutenberg, Johannes psalters 128, 138, 151 Quiroga, Vasco de 300 Raby, Julian 101 Raimondi, Marcantonio 59, 115, 302 Raphael 35, 270 n. 31, 295, 304 Reformation, Protestant 17, 185, 218 Reis Nigari, Haydar 78 Ribera, Inés Muñoz de 276–77 Rice, Yael 23–25, 36 Roberts, Sean 98, 101 Roccasecca, Pietro 267 Rogers, J. M. 101 Romano, Giulio 267, 270 n. 31 Rouillé, Guillaume 90–93, 96 Roxburg, David 109, 121 n. 40 Rubens, Peter Paul 20, 21, 24, 115 n. 19, 201 Russo, Alessandra 283, 284, 287, 297, 309 Sabzwari, Tahir Muhammad 38 Safavid Empire 18, 21–22, 25, 26 aesthetics of 43–44 albums 109–110 European assessments of art 121–22 and European prints 26, 101, 109–110, 115 in relation to Mughal Empire 41, 43, 46 and representations of women 41, 43, 46, 59 See also Iran; muraqqa Sansovino, Francesco 90, 92, 93 n. 41, 96 scrolls 132, 150–52, 161 n. 6, 238 sculpture 43–44, 57, 68–69, 186, 199, 209, 211 as models 264–65, 267, 278 Sebastats’I, Barsegh and Yakob Selim I, Sultan 80, 90, 97 Shinmura, Izuru 161, 173 Sichem, Christoffel van 129–33, 135–36, 138–43, 145–53, See also Armenian printing silver 113, 152–53, 202 n. 31, 290 Sirleto, Guglielmo, Cardinal 237 Sittow, Michel 189, 190, 202 n. 31
Sorte, Cristoforo 267, 268 Stimmer, Tobias 78–80, 93, 96 Stradanus, Samuel 206–207 Stratton, Suzanne 187, 190 Subrahmanyam, Sanjay 20, 23, 38, 40 Suleyman I, Sultan 78–80, 86, 91 textile 25, 54, 55, 68, 61, 93, 202, 290 cáñamo 183, 202 n. 30 Thomassin, Philippe 284, 288, 307 Timurid dynasty 40, 43–44, 50, 53–54, 58, 61, 69, 75, 87 Tintoretto 267–68 Titian 194 n. 18, 201, 267 Torquemada, Juan de 209, 225 n. 25, 223 transmission of print 18, 19, 21, 23–24, 26, 100–01 treatises 23, 58, 186, 190, 217, 220, 269, 301–02, 307–08 Tree of Jesse 126, 139–42, 185, 287, 297, 304 Treter, Thomas 228–29, 233, Tsarets’I, Matt’ēos 129–30 Tschudi, Victor 230 Valencia, Martín de 232, 234 Valignano, Alessandro 162–64, 168, 172–73 Valadés, Diego de: and ars memorativa 216–19 calendar of 235–41, 244 and imitatio 217, 222, 226, 228, 234–35, 251 and inventio 226, 228, 232, 234, 237, 239 Rhetorica Christiana 216–20, 226, 236–39, 244–50 See also calendars Vanandets’I printing house [Amsterdam] 132, 138, 145–46, 148 Vargas, Luís de 274, 275 Vasari, Giorgio 100, 265, 266–68, 276, 302 Veneziano, Agostino [Agostino dei Musi] 80, 83, 84, 85 Venice 77, 85, 87 n. 30, 128–29 Veronese, Paolo 85, 87, 93–96 Vetancurt, Augustín de 205 Virgen del Coro [Guadalupe, Spain] 195, 197, 211 Virgin Mary: Assumption 187–90, 199–205, 207–11 Immaculate Conception 183–85, 187, 190 Madonna and Child in Glory 194–97 relationship to other traditions 26, 46–50, 54–55 tota pulchra 186–87, 190–92, 194, 201 Virgin of Guadalupe [Tepeyac, Mexico] 26, 206, 209–10 and the Assumption of the Virgin 184–85, 199–202 and doctrine of the Immaculate Conception See Virgin Mary and European prints 181, 195, 199, 205, 207, 210 and Juan Diego 202 n. 30, 207 and mulier amicta sole 187, 190, 194–95, 199, 205, 211 scholarly assessments of 183, 184, 210
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Vollmer, Franz-Josef 46, 63 Vos, Maerten de 21–21, 35, 99 n. 65, 142, 284, 294, 304 Vredeman de Vries, Hans 99
wood engraving 137 Worchester, Thomas 162 Wuffarden, Luis Eduardo 276
Warburg, Aby 19, 24 Wierix brothers 20–21, 129, 142, 149, 287, 304 Hieronymus 26, 48, 49 n. 55, 191, 192 Jan 143, 144
Xavier, Francis, Saint 18 n. 2, 161, 170
Vavassore Map 90, 92, 93, 96 Wobeser, Gisela von 196n23, 210 woodcut 133, 137, 140–41, 148, 153 damage to blocks 145–46 sale of blocks 129–30
Yōhannisean, Pōghos 133, 138, 140 Zaman, Muhammad 115 Zehra, Syed 61 Zodiaco mariano 202 Zuccaro, Federico 14 Zuccaro, Taddeo 35 Zumárraga, Juan de 208, 300