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CONTENTS

Correggio’s Art and the Cassinese Congregation: Vision, Music and Illusionism Giancarla Periti La pala vasariana dell’Assunta nella Badia Fiorentina Eliana Carrara Appendice Documentaria Veronica Vestri

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Alessandro Nova, Giancarla Periti

171 189 202

III. NETWORKS, ARTISTIC GEOGRAPHY AND CIRCULATION “The mode of painting with green earth […] in the monasteries of the Black Monks”: Monochrome Wall Paintings and the Santa Giustina Congregation Katharine Stahlbuhk

225

Qualche considerazione sulle abbazie meridionali, tra Cava, Montecassino e i Santi Severino e Sossio 243 Anna Bisceglia

I. MODELS, MOBILITY AND IDENTITY Ein Idealer Auftraggerber? Mobilität der Architekten im Dienst der Cassinensischen Kongregation Claudia Marra

Architecture and Self-Representation of Religious Orders: A Case Study of the Secular Canons of San Giorgio in Alga Jőrg Stabenow

Vita spirituale, pratica liturgica e architettura. Verso un nuovo modello architettonico di monastero benedettino cassinese (XV-XVI secolo) Gianmario Guidarelli

Intermediality, Image & Text in the Construction & Circulation of Cassinese Identity Tracy E. Cooper

II. WORKS AND AGENTS Not an Eyewitness: the Art of Saint Luke in his Chapel at Santa Giustina 115 Robert Brennan Raphael, Riccio, and Romanino in a Letter by Gregorio Cortese, Cassinese Monk and Man of Letters Alexander Nagel

131

Gli inizi del Correggio nella Congregazione Cassinese, Ignazio Squarcialupi e Girolamo dal Monferrato Andrea Muzzi

157

Kirchenpolitische Netzwerke im Licht der Gegenreformation – Die Cassinesische Kongregation, Kardinal Alessandro Farnese und das Kloster Santa Maria di Farfa im Latium 261 Claudia Steinhardt-Hirsch Federico Barocci and the Legacy of the Renaissance at San Vitale Stuart Lingo

277

Transforming S. Pietro in Perugia (ca. 1591-1594): The New Pictorial Decoration and the Network of the Cassinese Congregation Michael G. Gromotka

297

Plates

321

Index

337

Photographic Credits

341

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Alessandro Nova, Giancarla Periti

171 189 202

225

Qualche considerazione sulle abbazie meridionali, tra Cava, Montecassino e i Santi Severino e Sossio 243 Anna Bisceglia

I. MODELS, MOBILITY AND IDENTITY Ein Idealer Auftraggerber? Mobilität der Architekten im Dienst der Cassinensischen Kongregation Claudia Marra

Architecture and Self-Representation of Religious Orders: A Case Study of the Secular Canons of San Giorgio in Alga Jőrg Stabenow

Vita spirituale, pratica liturgica e architettura. Verso un nuovo modello architettonico di monastero benedettino cassinese (XV-XVI secolo) Gianmario Guidarelli

Intermediality, Image & Text in the Construction & Circulation of Cassinese Identity Tracy E. Cooper

131

Gli inizi del Correggio nella Congregazione Cassinese, Ignazio Squarcialupi e Girolamo dal Monferrato Andrea Muzzi

157

277

Transforming S. Pietro in Perugia (ca. 1591-1594): The New Pictorial Decoration and the Network of the Cassinese Congregation Michael G. Gromotka

297

Plates

321

Index

337

Photographic Credits

341

alessandro nova, giancarla periti

introduction

Fig. 6 Digital mapping of the expansion of the Cassinese Congregation across the Italian peninsula, 1409-1459, only monastic sites with identified affiliation dates to the Congregation.

Fig. 7 Digital mapping of the expansion of the Cassinese Congregation across the Italian peninsula, 1409-1509, only monastic sites with identified affiliation dates to the Congregation.

alessandro nova, giancarla periti

introduction

Fig. 6 Digital mapping of the expansion of the Cassinese Congregation across the Italian peninsula, 1409-1459, only monastic sites with identified affiliation dates to the Congregation.

Fig. 7 Digital mapping of the expansion of the Cassinese Congregation across the Italian peninsula, 1409-1509, only monastic sites with identified affiliation dates to the Congregation.

alessandro nova, giancarla periti

Fig. 16 Benvenuto Tortelli and assistants, Choirstalls, ca. 1560, Naples, Santi Severino e Sossio.

In ca. 1560, new choir stalls were designed and carved for the latter church by Benvenuto Tortelli, a woodcarver who had been active in Montecassino two years earlier.66 Corporate prayer, chants, and the celebration of communitarian masses became fundamental to Cassinese spirituality as a response to the prescriptions promoted by the Council of Trent advocating the relocation of choirs behind the main altar. In the Neapolitan retro-choir (fig. 16), the large stalls abut the walls in a pattern that mirrored the typical Tridentine U-shaped configuration.67 The panels of the stalls are covered with relief decoration featuring small saints’ busts set within aediculae at the center, with classicizing ornamental motifs (aquatic monsters, masks, putti, festoons, and acanthus leaves included) filling the remainder. The choir’s lower stalls display grotesque motifs, while terminus sculptures adorn and demarcate the seats’ arms. During

introduction

services in the Renaissance, monks tended not to sit on the stalls but rather to kneel in front of them.68 Between 1561 and 1592, the church of San Martino delle Scale in Palermo was built ex-novo in a monumental order, and the monks asked that their choir stalls be modeled to those of San Severino and Sossio. It is a corpus of forty large stalls and twenty-eight smaller wooden stalls with rich ornaments (fig. 17) carved by Nunzio Ferraro and Giovanni Battista Vigliante.69 Within a network system replicas stress a relationship of transferability between the original and the copy. Especially in peripheral locations, patrons often requested that their commissioned works be copied after an existing artwork, creating repetition of a particular, successful model or prototype as part of a performance of updating and connectivity.70 Within the network system the Fig. 17 Nunzio Ferraro, Giovanni Battista Vigliante, Choirstalls, 1591-97, Palermo, San Martino multiplication of repeated iconographies, delle Scale. forms, and models becomes relevant, casting new light on the mechanisms of the Cassinese visual infrastructure. The reconstruction of the Cassinese network ultimately contributes to narratives of the Italian Renaissance visual culture that are more sensitive to the multiple roles of the arts in religious, social, and institutional life. To be meaningful in art historical studies, the analysis of network systems must remain conversant with other approaches, be attentive to discussions based on formal, iconographic, and technical information, and to scholarship on the theory and practice of art.71

66. Letizia Gaeta, “Ancora su Benvenuto Tortelli e gli altri tra concorrenza, collaborazione e prezzi,” Kronos 7 (2004): 57-79; Serenella Greco, “I cori delle chiese napoletane tra la fine del XVI e la prime metà del XVII secolo: tipologie e maestranze,” in Scultura e intagli lignei tra Italia meridionale e Spagna dal Quattrocento al Settecento, ed. Pierluigi Leone de Castris (Naples 2015), 151-59. 67. On the configuration of Tridentine choir stalls and their planning see Massimo Ferretti, “I maestri della prospettiva,” in Storia dell’arte italiana, 9: 457-585.

68. Angela D. Glover, “Keeping body and soul together: sixteenth-century choir stalls in the Low Countries,” Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art 67 (2017): 188-213. 69. Teodoro Fittipaldi, “I contratti dei cori delle chiese benedettine dei SS. Severino e Sossio di Napoli e dell’abbazia di San Martino delle Scale di Palermo,” Atti dell’Accademia Pontaniana 27 (1978): 11-29 and Santo Campanella, Anselmo Lipari, Cosimo Scordato, Il coro ligneo di San Martino (Palermo 2006). 70. O’Malley, “Models,” in The Business of Art, 221-50. 71. Both Kienle and Porras have expressed similar cautionary views: Miriam Kienle, “Between Nodes and Edges: Possibilities and Limits of Network Analysis in Art History,” Artl@Bulletin 6.3 (2017): 4-22 and Stephanie Porras, “Keeping our Eyes Open: Visualizing Networks and Art History,” Ibidem, 41-49.

alessandro nova, giancarla periti

Fig. 16 Benvenuto Tortelli and assistants, Choirstalls, ca. 1560, Naples, Santi Severino e Sossio.

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jőrg stabenow

architecture and self-representation of religious orders

more traditional way than the Secular Canons, combined visual isolation with the spatial centrality of their choir stalls. In a later period, the traditional position of the choir in front of the main altar was to be inverted. Characteristic of the reorganization of ecclesiastical space during the period following the Council of Trent was the relocation of choir stalls behind the main altar. Cassinese churches participated in this process beginning in the 1560s. Thus the more remote position of the choir behind the presbytery would become the monks’ equivalent to the segregated choir galleries of the Canons of San Giorgio in Alga. Finally, when trying to define the architectural profile of a religious community, it is also necessary to consider the level of ambition associated with the buildings, as described by the German term Anspruchsniveau. It has become clear that the Canons of San Giorgio in Alga displayed different degrees of ambition in their churches, alternating between basic typologies and more elaborate architectural solutions, and producing church buildings that ranged from the relatively modest to the more costly. In contrast, it seems that the Cassinese monks generally aimed for the highest architectural standard in terms of dimensions, material execution and architectural prestige. In both orders, however, expenditure was regulated by the resources that an abbey or convent had at its disposal, as well as by the order’s legislation on financial matters, which would not permit it to incur debts for building purposes.35 Fig. 22 Plan, Padua, Santa Giustina.

factors in decision-making

Fig. 23 Plan, Ferrara, San Benedetto.

Another field on which a religious community could practice self-representation was the liturgical organization of space, and the most important question in this respect is the location of the choir. The various choir solutions tested by the Canons of San Giorgio in Alga have been already discussed, but the accommodation of the choir in Cassinese churches was certainly of equal importance. Unlike the canons, the reformed Benedictines tended to claim the most prominent parts of their churches for themselves.34 Cassinese choir stalls could be found in the eastern part of the central aisle—as was the case in San Benedetto Po—or in an extended choir chapel preceding the main altar—as in Santa Giustina in Padua. Most common was a location in the crossing and thus at the focal point of the entire edifice. In Santa Maria di Praglia, the crossing dome was to canopy the area containing the choir stalls. At the same time, visual seclusion was obtained with the help of carefully-placed choir screens. Thus, the Cassinese Benedictines, in a

A final question that can be addressed to both orders concerns the way in which architectural decisions were actually made, and in this respect the Secular Canons and the reformed Benedictines operated along similar lines. Within both orders, all administrative functions were newly distributed each year.36 As can well be imagined, this was hardly conducive to the implementation of large building enterprises. Despite the principle of job rotation, however, there were elements of continuity in the self-government of the orders. Respected members exercised a continuous authority independent of their current office, and smaller circles of experienced monks or canons would exchange leading offices amongst themselves. Among the Secular Canons, it is possible to identify notable individuals who likely played a significant role in architectural decisions: most notably among them were Francesco Paradiso, who served fifteen terms as general rector; Girolamo Cavalli, a prior of San Pietro in Brescia during several periods;

34. On the position of choir stalls in Cassinese churches, see Kilian, S. Giustina in Padua, 304-30. See also the discussion of changing choir solutions in one particular building in Michael G. Gromotka, “Transformation Campaigns of Church Interiors and their Impact on the Function and Form of Renaissance Altar Pieces. The Examples of S. Pietro in Perugia and Pietro Perugino’s ‘Ascension of Christ,’” Marburger Jarbuch für Kunstwissenschaft 42 (2015): 79-125.

35. For the Canons of San Giorgio in Alga, see the instructions contained in Regula B. Augustini, et Constitutiones Canonicorum Congregationis S. Georgii in Alga Venetiarum (Venice 1590), ff. 48v-49v (II, 25). For the Cassinese congregation, cf. Kilian, S. Giustina in Padua, 279-83. 36. The annual redistribution of senior positions within the community of the Canons of San Giorgio in Alga is reported in Tomasini, Annales Canonicorum. On the administrative structure of the Cassinese congregation, see Kilian, S. Giustina in Padua, 76-82; Beltramini, “Modelli antichi,” 253-55.

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architecture and self-representation of religious orders

factors in decision-making

Fig. 23 Plan, Ferrara, San Benedetto.

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intermediality, image & text in the construction & circulation of cassinese identity

then has been another information revolution in technology, as profound in its own way as the print revolution that coincided with the Congregation origins, and with it new potential to revisit earlier scholarship and access materials with digital tools and, in particular, chart patterns of circulation.3 A core change in the Congregation structure from that of the original Benedictine order was the circulation of abbots—with term limits—and monks, and this produced unprecedented exchange connecting individuals with different centers, establishing networks of influence and artistic transmission.4 1982 also coincided with the five hundred-year anniversary of the birth of the Venetian reformer, Ludovico Barbo (1382 Venice-1443 Venice), who after ten years as Abbot of S. Giustina in Padua founded the new Congregation “de Unitate” in 1419, where he remained until becoming Bishop of Treviso in 1440.5 In brief, Martin V in the 1419 bull “Ineffabilis summa providential Patris” established the Congregation “de Unitate” under S. Giustina (Padua), with S. Giorgio Maggiore (Venice), SS. Felice e Fortunato (Ammiana, a now lost center in the Venetian lagoon), and the Badia (Florence). There followed a period of ‘anti-congregazione’ departures, that included founding member S. Giorgio Maggiore, but the growing success of the new corporate model led to Eugene IV’s 1432 “Et si ex solicitudinis” ratifying the Congregation structure, and in 1443 his “Ad exequendum debitum” restoring S. Giorgio Maggiore to the fold. Barbo, now bishop (r. 1440-1443), died at S. Giorgio in Venice in that same year, his body was then transferred back to what now was considered the mother house of S. Giustina in Padua, where his tomb remains in the coro vecchio, affirming his eternal association with the Congregation.6 The next major shift of corporate identity came under Julius II, whose 1504 “Super cathedram” added the historically potent 3. Witness the theme of this conference, as the organizers demonstrate, see the introduction by Alessandro Nova and Giancarla Periti, in this volume. 4. A critical resource that made possible the wider study of this phenomenon was the publication of professions by Arcangelo Bossi da Modena, together with Leandro Novelli, Giovanni Spinelli, Matricula Monachorum Congregationis Casinensis Ordinis S. Benedicti (Cesena 1983). 5. Still valuable, a succinct account in Mario Fois, “I movimenti religiosi dell’osservanza nel ‘400: I Benedettini,” in Riforma della Chiesa, 255-62; Alessandro Pratesi, s.v. “Barbo, Ludovico,” Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (Rome 1964), 6: 244-49. 1982 also saw the loss of a venerable contributor to the study of the Congregation, Don Tommaso Leccisotti (1895-1982), whose publication of the early Chapter General decisions of the nascent Congregation is another fundamental source: Congregationis S. Iustinae De Padua O. S. B. Ordinationes Capitulorum Generalium, 2 vols., Miscellanea cassinese, 1617; 35 (Montecassino 1939-1970), references hereafter as OCG; Gregorio Penco “D. Tommaso Leccisotti storico della Congregazione di S. Giustina (1895-1982),” in Riforma della Chiesa, 505-18; a full account of his scholarship in Tommaso Leccisotti: monaco e scrittore, 1895-1982: bibliografia e scritti vari, ed. Faustino Avagliano (Montecassino 1983). 6. Critical sources in Francesco G.B. Trolese, Ludovico Barbo e S. Giustina: contributo bibliografico: problemi attinenti alla riforma monastica del Quattrocento (Rome 1983). For Don Trolese’s manifold contributions especially on the Congregation and S. Giustina, see “Bibliografia degli scritti,” in S. Giustina di Padova nel quadro del Monachesimo Italiano: Studi di Storia e Cultura Monastica, eds. Francesco G.B. Trolese, Giannino Carraro, Rosetta Frison Segafredo, Cristina Marcon (Rome 2014), xix-xxxiii. I

have summarized this history from a fuller account in Tracy E. Cooper, The History and Decoration of the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1990, 11-42. 7. This phase of expansion is fully discussed in Massimo Zaggia, Tra Mantova e la Sicilia nel Cinquecento. II La Congregazione Benedettina Cassinese nel Cinquecento (Florence 2003), 417-44.

Fig. 1 Ludovico Barbo, Epistola ad monacos Congregationis de observantia Sancte Justine. Initial “D,” “De initiis Congregationis S. Iustinae de Padua,” Saint Justina at right, kneeling author at bottom, Lombardy and Treviso, ca. 1440, Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Kupferstichkabinett, ms. 78, c.21, fol. 2r.

Benedictine site of Monte Cassino, whereby the Congregation formerly known as Santa Giustina was renamed Cassinese. The effects of this expansion would be to create new poles of influence with different axes in play throughout the peninsula.7 On becoming Bishop of Treviso in 1440, Barbo had been requested to reflect on the history of the beginnings of the Congregation. He did this in an open letter known as “De initiis Congregationis S. Iustinae de Padua.” A precious contemporary illuminated copy executed in a Venetian late Gothic hand (Berlin, Staatliche Museen,

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intermediality, image & text in the construction & circulation of cassinese identity

eliana carrara

la pala vasariana dell’assunta nella badia fiorentina

Sono parole che rivelano la sorte ormai segnata dell’opera, che era sul punto di essere rimossa per far posto ad una tavola che Vasari stava completando mentre scriveva la propria Autobiografia: “Ai monaci Neri della Badia di Fiorenza dipingo similmente una tavola, che è vicina al fine, d’una Assunzione di Nostra Donna, e gl’Apostoli in figure maggiori del vivo, con altre figure dalle bande, e storie et ornamenti intorno in nuovo modo accomodati”.11

La pala vasariana si trova oggi, dopo gli spostamenti determinati dall’intervento di Segaloni, al di sopra del monumento funerario ad Ugo di Toscana di mano di Mino da Fiesole (1469-81) (fig. 7 e tav. XI).12 Ulteriori informazioni sull’opera di Vasari ci giungono da un passo delle Ricordanze in data 2 febbraio 1568: “Ricordo come a dì due di febraio [1568] si messe su la tavola della Badia di Fiorenza alta braccia 7 larga 4½ drentovi l’Asuntione di Nostra Donna con la predella piena di storie di figure piccole et dua quadri con 4 santi che la mettono in mezzo et duo tondi di sopra con Santa Scolastica et Santa Iustina, quale si pattuì che se n’avessi scudi 300 che 50 se gli donava al signor Spedalingo de’ Nocenti et 250 ne dovevon pagar loro, se n’è auti finora scudi 200”.13

Nel trasferimento dell’opera vasariana dall’altar maggiore alla nuova collocazione, stabilita dalla ristrutturazione seicentesca, sono stati conservati la parte centrale, i laterali con i santi Benedetto e Nicola di Bari (fig. 9), a sinistra, e Agostino e Lorenzo a destra, come pure i tondi con le sante Scolastica e Giustina, mentre, invece, è stata rimossa e smembrata la predella di cui Paola Barocchi ha individuato due parti attribuendole a degli Uffizi di Firenze, si vedano Ugo Procacci, “La tavola di Giotto dell’altar maggiore della chiesa della Badia fiorentina”, in Scritti di Storia dell’Arte in onore di Mario Salmi, a cura di Filippa Maria Aliberti Gaudioso, Valentino Martinelli (Roma 1962), 2: 9-45, cui spetta il “ritrovamento” del polittico fino ad allora considerato disperso (dopo le soppressioni napoleoniche, infatti, se ne era persa memoria mentre esso era giunto al convento di S. Marco e da qui era poi passato all’Opera di S. Croce) e Angelo Tartuferi, “La Badia Fiorentina: il Polittico per l’altar maggiore”, in Giotto, l’Italia, ed. Pietraroia et al., 54-63, con il rinvio alla vasta bibliografia. 11. Cfr. Vasari, Le Vite, 6: 406. 12. Sull’opera, Thomas Pöpper, “Artistic Self-Representation and the Perception of Art in the Florentine Renaissance: Mino da Fiesole’s Sculptures in the Badia as ‘Exempla Artis’ for an ‘Artist’s Museum’?”, Sculpture Journal 25.1 (2016); 29-44, spec. 34-36 e fig. 7, si vedano anche Giovanni Poggi, “Mino da Fiesole e la Badia Fiorentina”, Miscellanea d’Arte 1 (1903): 98-103 e Shelley Zuraw, “Vasari’s Sculptors of the Second Period: Mino da Fiesole”, in Reading Vasari, a cura di Anne B. Barriault et al. (London 2005), 67 e nota 22. 13. Si cita da Il libro delle Ricordanze di Giorgio Vasari, a cura di Alessandro Del Vita (Arezzo 1929), 96. Sul testo vasariano mi permetto di rinviare a Eliana Carrara, “Vasari e l’autobiografia: dalle Ricordanze alla Descrizione dell’opere di Giorgio Vasari”, in Scritti autobiografici di artisti tra Quattro e Cinquecento. Seminari di Letteratura artistica, a cura di Maria Pia Sacchi, Monica Visioli (Pavia 2017), 27-48. 194

Fig. 7. Giorgio Vasari, Pala di Badia, 1568, Firenze, Badia.

Francesco Morandini: 14 la Natività della Vergine e la Visione del Conte Ugo (entrambe 14. Cfr. Paola Barocchi, “Complementi al Vasari pittore”, in Accademia Toscana di Scienze e Lettere “La Colombaria” 28 (1963-1964): 295; Eadem, “Appunti su Francesco Morandini da Poppi”, Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 11. 2-3 (1963-1965): 130-131 e figg. 14 e 16. Si vedano inoltre Claudia Beltramo Ceppi (a cura di), Palazzo Vecchio: committenza e collezionismo medicei (Firenze 1980), 283, (sch. 550 e 551, a cura di M. Collareta, con l’attribuzione, per la Visione del Conte Ugo, a «pittore della cerchia vasariana» e, per la Natività della Vergine, alla «cerchia del Vasari») e Cristina Acidini Luchinat (a cura di), Magnificenza alla corte dei Medici. Arte a Firenze alla fine del Cinquecento (Milano 1997), 194195 (sch. 150-151, a cura di Alessandra Giovannetti, con l’attribuzione, per la Visione del Conte Ugo, a «Jacopo Zucchi» e, per la Natività della Vergine, a “artista della cerchia vasariana”). 195

eliana carrara

la pala vasariana dell’assunta nella badia fiorentina

Fig. 7. Giorgio Vasari, Pala di Badia, 1568, Firenze, Badia.

claudia steinhardt-hirsch

kirchenpolitische netzwerke im licht der gegenreformation

Anteil des Kardinals Alessandro Farnese an der ikonographischen Ausgestaltung des Programms aus: “Si può dunque desumere che il ruolo del cardinale Alessandro Farnese, fu non solo quello di finanziatore, ma anche di attento suggeritore della tipologia decorativa degli affreschi farfensi, in linea con altre sue iniziative artistiche all’insegna del revival paleocristiano, di cui fu uno dei più precoci e consapevoli promotori.”33

Abb. 11 Maestro di Orvinio und Werkstatt, Evangelist Lukas, 1576-86, Chor, Klosterkirche S. Maria di Farfa.

Wie Patrizia Tosini bemerkt hat, handelt es sich bei der malerischen Ausstattung um eine programmatische Inszenierung frühmittelalterlicher Kirchenausstattungen.31 Dazu tragen insbesondere die vorgetäuschten Marmorinkrustationen und Nischen mit den Aposteldarstellungen bei. Im Gegensatz zur bewegten Dramatik der Westwand, ist die malerische Sprache im Langhaus und im Chorbereich bewusst von einem ruhigen Gesamtton getragen. Klarheit und Lesbarkeit vermitteln neben der prachtvoll inszenierten Materialästhetik den Eindruck einer frühchristlichen Basilika. Als ausführender Künstler wird in der Forschung ein Maler aus dem Umkreis Federico Zuccaris genannt, was kürzlich durch einen lokalen Künstler mit dem Notnamen ‚Maestro di Orvinio‘ präzisiert wurde.32 Entscheidend für das Verständnis des Zyklus erscheint aber weniger die Meisterfrage als die Frage der Auftraggeber. Robertson und Tosini sprachen sich für einen erheblichen

31. Tosini, “La decorazione pittorica,” 184. 32. Die Zuschreibung wurde zu Beginn der 1920er Jahre von Ildefonso Schuster iniziiert und in der Forschung immer weiter tradiert. Vgl. Ildefonso Schuster, L’imperiale abbazia di Farfa. Contributo allo studio del ducato mano nel Medio Evo (Rom 1921), 372. Robertson, ‘Il gran Cardinale’ 173. Patrizia Tosini spricht sich aus stilistischen Gründen für den aus dem Umkreis Girolamo Muzianos stammenden Maestro di Orvinio aus: Tosini, “La decorazione pittorica dell’abbazia,” 179-97, bes. 186. 274

Dies betrifft jedoch nur eine Ebene des Verständnisses der malerischen Ausstattung. Zwar lässt sich die Handschrift Alessandro Farneses in der Vorliebe für große malerische Ausstattungen in der sti- Abb. 12 Maestro di Orvinio und Werkstatt, Maria mit Kind als Patronin der Klosterkirche, 1576-86, listischen Bildsprache Federico Zuccaris Querschiff, Klosterkirche S. Maria di Farfa. nachweisen. Tatsächlich ist sein besonderes Interesse an einer Wiederbelebung mittelalterlicher Dekorationen insbesondere in den Klöstern des Latiums nachgewiesen, wie sein Einsatz für die Konservierung der mittelalterlichen Mosaiken im Langhaus der Kirche von Grottaferrata aber auch derjenigen im Kloster Monreale zeigt.34 Es bleibt aber festzuhalten, dass sich die Ausmalung in Farfa mit ihrem Rekurs auf frühchristliche Marmorinkrustationen, ihren didaktischen Texten auf den Inschriftenbändern der dargestellten Figuren und dem entschiedenen marianischen Programm sehr gut in die allgemein etablierte Bildpropaganda der Gegenreformation einfügt.

Konsolidierung und gegenreformatorischer Kurs Der Fall Farfa ist paradigmatisch für den theologischen Kurswechsel, den die Kongregation seit Mitte des 16. Jahrhunderts vollzogen hat. Innerhalb weniger Jahrzehnte fand ein Einlenken der geistigen Führungselite der Cassineser statt, dessen visueller Ausdruck die Ausmalungskampagne in Farfa war. Wie Massimo Zaggia gezeigt hat, beschloss das Generalkapitel des Ordens diesen Kurswechsel gerade in dem Jahr, in dem die Umbauten des Klosters begannen: 33. Tosini, “La decorazione pittorica,” 184. Zu der Rolle Alessandro Farneses als Förderer eines neo-frühchristlichen Stils vgl. auch Robertson, ‘Il gran Cardinale’ 170-74. 34. Robertson, ‘Il gran Cardinale,’ 171. 275

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kirchenpolitische netzwerke im licht der gegenreformation

Abb. 11 Maestro di Orvinio und Werkstatt, Evangelist Lukas, 1576-86, Chor, Klosterkirche S. Maria di Farfa.

stuart lingo

federico barocci and the legacy of the renaissance at san vitale

Fig. 1 Federico Barocci, Calling of Saint Andrew, 1580-83, Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts.

Fig. 3 Federico Barocci, Madonna del Popolo, 1575-79, Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi.

Fig. 2 Federico Barocci, Immaculate Conception, early-to-mid-1570s, Urbino, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche.

Fig. 4 Federico Barocci, squared study for the Immaculate Conception (?), Florence, GDSU, inv. 11446 F (r).

and elucidates much of his distinctive appeal for pious yet ambitious patrons in decades marked by religious and artistic crisis and re-orientation. His persuasive melding of retrospection and innovation becomes particularly marked in a series of important altarpieces of the 1570s, exemplified by the Immaculate Conception (fig. 2) and the Madonna del Popolo (fig. 3). Drawings that can be linked to one or both of these works, particularly this highly-developed compositional study (fig. 4), reveal just how self-consciously Barocci might reflect on traditional image types (here the Madonna della Misericordia) and painstakingly reconceptualize them to produce his ultimately modern, glowing visions. The drawing also hints, however, at Barocci’s struggles with this challenging process, particularly in his increasing hesitation as he labors to flesh out the forms of the devotees he has attempted—in ever greater defiance of spatial logic—to squeeze around and behind the Virgin under her protective mantle. When faced with an explicit request for a Madonna della Misericordia in these years Barocci would respond emphatically “It does not seem to me that the mystery of the Misericordia is apt to make a very beautiful painting.”3

In the context of such strategies and struggles, the monumental altarpiece of the Martyrdom of San Vitale (fig. 5 and plate XV), commissioned in 1580 by the Cassinese Benedictines of the glittering, mosaic-encrusted Justianianic basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna, presents something of an aporia. Initiated just after the Madonna del Popolo was completed, the Martyrdom of San Vitale seems to swerve away from all Barocci had been laboring towards in his principal works of the previous decade. The painting certainly exhibits the vaghezza that can inhere in what Vasari called cose piccole, such as the charming detail of the little girl offering a cherry to an importuning bird: a detail explicitly remarked, and noted as subtly meaningful, by the Seicento critic and theorist Giovanni Pietro Bellori, who read it as an attractive way to remind viewers that the saint’s martyrdom had occurred in the spring.4 And the canvas is suffused with extraordinary

3. See Lingo, Federico Barocci, 13-121 for extended discussion of these and related works and issues (39 for Barocci’s remark). Generally associated with the Immaculate Conception, the Uffizi drawing has

occasionally been read as an initial, frustrated attempt to respond to the request for a Misericordia by the Confraternità di Santa Maria della Misericordia in Arezzo. The eventual outcome of the confraternity’s negotiations with Barocci was the Madonna del Popolo. 4. Giovanni Pietro Bellori, Le Vite de’ pittori, scultori et architetti moderni (Rome 1672), ed. Evelina Borea (Turin 1976), 190 (Saint Vitalis’ feast day is April 28). Some of the arguments that follow originated in my exploration of Barocci’s investment in the art of the body and the question of art historical periodization in Stuart Lingo, “Federico Barocci, History, and the Body of Art,” in Art and Reform in

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federico barocci and the legacy of the renaissance at san vitale

Fig. 1 Federico Barocci, Calling of Saint Andrew, 1580-83, Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts.

Fig. 3 Federico Barocci, Madonna del Popolo, 1575-79, Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi.

Fig. 2 Federico Barocci, Immaculate Conception, early-to-mid-1570s, Urbino, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche.

Fig. 4 Federico Barocci, squared study for the Immaculate Conception (?), Florence, GDSU, inv. 11446 F (r).

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II. View down the nave toward the altar, Padua, S. Giustina.

III. Interior view, Padua, Santa Maria in Vanzo.

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II. View down the nave toward the altar, Padua, S. Giustina.

III. Interior view, Padua, Santa Maria in Vanzo.

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X. Correggio, Painted dome, Parma, San Giovanni Evangelista.

XI. Giorgio Vasari, Badia Altarpiece, 1568, Florence, Badia.

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X. Correggio, Painted dome, Parma, San Giovanni Evangelista.

XI. Giorgio Vasari, Badia Altarpiece, 1568, Florence, Badia.

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