Michelangelo and The Reform of Art Compl

MICHELANGELO AND THE REFORM OF ART
Michelangelo was acutely conscious of living in an age of religious crisis and

artistic change, and for him the two issues were related. Concentrating on
Michelangelo's lifelong preoccupation with the image of the dead Christ,
Alexander Nagel studies the artist's associations with reform-rninded circles in
early sixteenth-century Italy and his sustained concern over the fate of religious
art in his own <lay.Understood within the context of reform, Michelangelo's art
reveals an artistic and religious culture where self-conscious archaism mingles
with aggressive innovation, and ambivalence regarding the role of images yields
radical aesthetic experimentation. A reassessment of Michelangelo's work, this
revisionist study sheds new light on High Renaissance and Mannerist art as a
whole.
Alexander Nagel is assistant professor of art history at the University of Toronto.

A recipient of a Getty Postdoctoral Fellowship and a grant from the Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, he has published arrides
on various aspects ofRenaissance art in the Art Bulletin,BurlingtonMagazine, and
Zeitschriftfür Kunstgeschichte.
.../ l
f
MICHELANGELO
AND THE REFORM OF ART
ALEXANDER NAGEL
UniversítyefToronto
\ ~CAMBRIDGE
~ UNIVERSITY PRESS
PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE 'FórWeronika
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© Cambridge University Press 2000
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First published 2000
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\
Contents
j List of Illustrations r<::,,I ix

Acknowledgments r<::,,I xv
INTRODUCTION: Michelangelo's Work asan Art Historian r<::,,.' 1
PART ONE. HlSTORY PAINTING AND CULT lMAGE IN THE ALTARPIECE
CHAPTER ONE: Transport and Transitus r<::,,I 25

History and Figure r<::,,I 25
Ancient Tragedyand ChristianLament r<::,,I 33
The Altarpieceas a Dominant Form r<::,,I 43
CHAPTER TWO: Man of Sorrows and Entombment 49 r<::,,.'
FraAngelicoand the Man of Sorrowsin Italy r<::,,I 49

Rogier van derffiyden and the Northern Man efSorrows r<::,,I 61
Narratíveand Icon r<::,,I 71
CHAPTER THREE: Humanism and the Altar Image r<::,,.' 83

Archaism andAntíque Reviva/ ,._,,, 83
ChrísteníngPaganMysteríes r<::,,I 90
The ParadoxefReform r<::,,I 108
Vll
CONTENTS
CHAPTER FOUR: The Altarpiece in the Age ofHistory Painting - IIJ

The BurdenseftheAltarpiece- II3
History,Myth, and PassíonNarrative - 122
The Partingefthe Genres - 135 List of Illustrations
PART TWO. PRESENTATION AND WITHDRAWAL:

MICHELANGELo's LATE PIETÁS
CHAPTER Passionate Withdrawal -

FIVE: 143
Art and Reform - 143
Christ in Ecstasy - 148
Lamentationas Bacchanal- 158
CHAPTER Artwork and Cult Image - 169

srx:
TheArt efthe Gift - 169
The PassíonAccordingto VíttoriaColonna - 179
Cult and Culture - 186 r Masaccio, TributeMoney. Fresco. Florence, Brancacci Chapel,
Santa Maria del Carmine. 4
CHAPTER SEVEN:Sculpture as Relic - 188 2 Michelangelo, Copy efter Masaccío's TributeMoney. Drawing.
The ControversyoverImagesand the Paragone - 188 Munich, Graphische Sammlung. 5
The FlorencePieta and the IntegrityefSculpture- 202 3 Giotto, Ascension efSt.John. Fresco. Florence, Peruzzi Chapel,
The Sense efan Ending - 212 Santa Croce. 6
4 Michelangelo, Copy after Giotto'sAscensionefSt.John.
Drawing. Paris, Louvre. 7
Notes - 216 5 Bandinelli, Copy efter Giotto'sAscensíonefSt.John. Drawing.
Abbreviationsand FrequentlyCíted Sources - 285 1 Florence, Uffizi. 7
t 6 Michelangelo, Christ Carriedto the Tomb.Panel. London,
Index - 293
National Gallery. 26
7 Michelangelo, Christ Carried to the Tomb, detail ofhead of
female figure to right. Panel. London, Nacional Gallery. 30
8 Donatello, Entombment. Bronze. Padua, Sant' Antonio. 30
9 Michelangelo, Fema/e FigureStudy. Drawing. Paris, Louvre. JI
ro Copy after Michelangelo's London Christ Carried to the Tomb.
Drawing. Siena, Biblioteca Communale. 32
II The Carryingefthe Dead Meleager.Sarcophagus relief. Rome,
Palazzo Doria-Pamphilj. 34
12 Niccolo dell' Arca. Lamentation. Marble. Bologna, Santa Maria
della Vita. 37
13 Giotto, Lamentation. Fresco. Padua,Arena Chapel. 39
14 Giottino, Lamentation. Panel. Florence, Uffizi. 40
15 Pietro Perugino, Lamentation. Panel. Florence, Pitti Palace. 41
16 Sandr0 Botticelli, Lamentation. Panel. Milan, Poldi Pezzoli
\
Museum. 42
Vlll
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
17 Andrea Mantegna, Entombment. Engraving. 44 43 Bartolommeo di Giovanni, The CarryingefChrist to the Tomb.
18 School ofVincenzo Foppa, Lamentation.Panel. Pavia, Predella panel. Florence, Accademia. 78
Malaspina Gallery. 45 44 Albrecht Dürer, Lamentation.Woodcut. 79
19 Michelangelo, Malefigure study. Drawing. Paris, Louvre. 47 45 Albrecht Dürer, The CarryingefChrist to the Tomb.Woodcut. 80
20 Man efSorrows.Mosaic. Rome, Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. 50 46 Mantegna, Dead Christ. Panel. Milan, Brera. 82
21 Follower ofBernardo Daddi, Man efSorrows.Predella panel. 47 German, Man efSorrows.Woodcut. 84
London, Lycett Green Collection. 52 48 Luigi Capponi, Mass efSt. Gregory.Marble relief. Rome, San
22 Bartolomeo Giolfino Tabernaclealtarpiecewith Man of Sorrows. Gregorio Magno. 84
Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. 53 49 Man efSorrows-Trinity,1503.Panel. Frankfurt, Stadelsches
23 Master of Santo Spirito, Madonna and Child and Saints. Kunstinstitut. 85
Florence, Santo Spirito. 54 50 The Drunken Bacchuswith Attendants. Sarcophagus relief.
24 Florentine, Man efSorrows.Woodcut. 54 Vatican City, Musei e Gallerie Vaticani. 87
25 Fra Angelico, Christ at the Tomb.Predella panel. Munich, Alte 51 ]acopo Francia, Bacchuswith Attendants. Engraving. 88
Pinakothek. 55 52 Andrea Mantegna, Bacchanalwith the Wine vát. Engraving. 89
26 Fra Angelico, Coronationefthe Virgin.Panel. Paris, Louvre. 56 53 Andrea Mantegna, Bacchanalwith Silenus.Engraving. 90
27 ]acopo Bellini, Man efSorrows- Lamentation.Drawing book, 54 Michelangelo, Bacchus.Side view. Marble. Florence, Bargello. 91
f. 54. Paris, Louvre. 57 55 Michelangelo, Christ Carriedto the Tomb,detail of Christ's face.
28 Albrecht Dürer, Mass efSt. Gregory.Woodcut. 58 Panel. London, National Gallery. 92
29 Fra Angelico, San MarcoAltarpiece.Panel. Florence, Museo 56 Michelangelo, CreationefEve, detail of Adam's face. Fresco.
di San Marco. 60 Vatican City, Sistine Chapel. 93
30 Rogier van der Weyden, Christ at the Tomb.Panel. Florence, 57 Michelangelo, Dying Slave. Marble. Paris, Louvre. 95
Uffizi. 61 58 Moretto da Brescia, Man efSorrowswith Moses and Salomon.
31 Fra Angelico, Deposítíon.Panel. Florence, Museo di San Panel. Brescia, SS. Nazaro e Celso. 96
Marco. 62 59 Michelangelo, Pieta. Marble.Vatican, St. Peter's. roo
32 Rogier van der Weyden, Deposition.Panel. Madrid, Prado. 63 60 Michelangelo, Christ. Marble. Rome, Santa Maria sopra
33 Gentile da Fabriano, Adorationefthe Magi. Panel. Florence, Minerva. 102
Uffizi. 64
.~ 61 Andrea Sansovino, St.Anne, the Virgin,and Child. Marble.
34 Copy after Rogier van der Weyden, Deposition.Panel. Rome, Sant' Agostino. 104
Sigmaringen, Museum. 65 62 Michelangelo, Medici Madonna. Marble. Florence, San
35 Lorenzo Monaco, Arma Christi. Panel. Florence,Accademia. 66 Lorenzo. 106
36 Giovanni da Milano, Lamentatíon.Panel. Florence,Accademia. 67 63 Michelangelo, Madonna and Child withJohn the Baptist. Panel. London,
37 Jean Malouel, Man efSorrows- Tríníty.Paris, Louvre. 68 Nacional Gallery. 107
38 Robert Campin, Man of Sorrows-Trinity. Panel. Frankfurt, 64 Madonna efSan Zanobi. Panel. Florence, San Lorenzo. 107
Stadelsches Kunstinstitut. 69
,,
65 Raphael, The CarryingefChrist to the Tomb, 1507.Panel.
39 School of Fra Angelico, The Carryingof Christ to the Tomb. Rome, Galleria Borghese. n4
Panel.Washington, D.C., Kress Collection. 72 66 Raphael, Lamentation.Drawing. Paris, Louvre. 120
40 Copy after Rogier van der Weyden, The CarryíngefChríst to 67 Raphael, Lamentation.Drawing. Oxford,Ashmolean Museum. 123
the Tomb.Drawing. Paris, Louvre. 73 68 Luca Signorelli, Lamentation. Fresco. Orvieto, Cathedral. 125
,¡
41 Master bfthe San Miniato Altarpiece, The CarryingefChrist 69 Raphael, Male Figurein theArms ofTwo Carriers.Drawing.
to the Tomb.Panel.Avignon, Palais des Papes. 76 Oxford,Ashmolean Museum. 128
42 Gherardo and Monte, The Carryingof Christ to the Tomb. 70 Raphael, Christ Held beforethe Virgin.Drawing. London,
Miniature.(lorence, Bargello. 77 British Museum. 129
X Xl
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
71 Pietro Perugino, Píeta. Panel. Florence, Uffizi. 130 97 Meister Francke, Man of Sorrows.Hamburg, Kunsthalle. 197
72 Raphael, A Male Figurein theArms ofThree Carriers.Drawing. 98 Michelangelo, Píeta. Marble. Florence, Museo del Opera del
Oxford, Ashmolean Museum. 131 Duomo. 203
73 Raphael, The Carryingof Christ to the Tomb.Drawing. London, 99 Michelangelo, Deposition.Drawing. Oxford,Ashmolean
British Museum. 131 Museum. 204
74 Michelangelo, St. Matthew.Marble. Florence,Accademia. 132 roo Michelangelo, Píeta, side view. Marble. Florence, Museo del
75 Raphael, Study afterMichelangelo's St. Matthew. Drawing. Opera del Duomo. 206
London, British Museum. (Verso of 73.) 133 ro1 Michelangelo, Píeta, back view. Marble. Florence, Museo del
76 Titian, The Carryingof Christ to the Tomb.Canvas. París, Opera del Duomo. 207
Louvre. 137 ro2 Michelangelo, Studiesfor a Pieta Sculpture.Drawing. Oxford,
77 ]acopo da Pontormo, The Carryingof Christ to the Tomb. Ashmolean Museum. 209
Panel. Florence, Santa Felicita. 139 ro3 Copy after Michelangelo, The Carryingof Christ to the Tomb.
78 Michelangelo (?), Dead Christ Supportedby the Virgin. Drawing. Prívate collection. 2IO
Drawing. Vienna, Albertina. ro4 Giulio Clovio, The Carryingof Christ to the Tomb.Drawing.
79 Michelangelo, Male FigureStudy. Drawing. Florence, Casa Paris, Louvre. 2II
Buonarroti. ro5 Michelangelo, RondaniniPieta.Marble. Milan, Castello Sforzesco. 213
So Sebastiano del Piombo, Pieta. Slate. Madrid, Museo del
Prado. 152
81 Bed oJPolycleitusMarble relief. Sixteenth-century copy of
Roman relief. Formerly J.Hewitt collection. 152
82 Michelangelo (?), Studyfor the ÚbedaPíeta. Drawing. París,
Louvre. 153
83 Michelangelo, CreationofAdam. Fresco.Vatican, Sistine
Chapel. 154
84 Rosso Fiorentino, Dead Christ. Panel. Boston, Museum
ofFine Arts. 155
85 Hans Holbein, Dead Christ. Panel. Basel Kunstmuseum. 156
86 Michelangelo, Lamentation.Drawing. Bayonne, Musée
Bonnat. 159
87 Michelangelo, Putti arounda Wine vát. Drawing. Bayonne,
Musée Bonnat. (Verso of 86.) 159
88 Michelangelo, Children'sBacchanal.Drawing. Windsor Castle. 160
89 Battista Franco, Lamentation.Panel. Lucca, Pinacoteca. 162
90 Michelangelo, Deposition.Drawing. Haarlem, Teylers Museum. 164
91 Michelangelo, Lamentation.Drawing. París, Louvre. 165
92 Michelangelo, Lamentation.Drawing. Vienna, Albertina. 166
93 Michelangelo, Pietafor VittoriaColonna.Drawing. Boston,
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. 168
,}
94 Michelangelo, Last]udgment. Fresco.Vatican City, Sistine
Chapel. 190
95 Michelangelo, Doni Tondo.Panel. Florence, Uffizi. 194
96 Michelangelo, LastJudgment. Detail of self-portrait.Vatican
City, Sistine~hapel.
Xll Xlll
Acknowledgments
Research for this book began during my graduate studies, and this means that
it is particularly indebted to my mentors. I am grateful above ali to John
Shearman and Joseph Koerner, the advisors of my doctoral thesis, where I first
explored several of the issues treated here, and to my other principal teachers,
Jim Ackerman, Howard Burns, James Hankins, and Henri Zerner. In more
recent times, I have benefited greatly from dialogue with my colleagues at the
University ofToronto,Jeffi-ey Hamburger, Matt Kavaler, Michael Koortbojian,
Evonne Levy, William McAllister Johnson, Alina Payne, Philip Sohm, Brian
Stock, and Natalie Zemon Davis. For comments and contributions offered
throughout my work on this book, I am grateful to Gadi Algazi, Michael
Allen, Leonard Barkan, Fabio Barry, Lisa Bessette, Erin Campbell, Stefano
Cracolici, Elizabeth Cropper, Neal Dolan,Jill Dunkerton, Marvin Eisenberg,
Reginald Foster, Christoph Frommel, Gisele Gordon, Paula Hayes, Philine
Helas, Michael Hirst, Peter Humfrey, Bernice Iarocci, Merlín James, Bernhard
Jussen, Sarah Lawrence, Jean-Claude Lebensztejn, Thomas Lentes, Stuart
Lingo, Maria Loh, Thomas Mayer, Larry Meyer, Andrea Nagel, Pablo Nagel,
Elisabeth Neumann,John O'Malley, Marjorie O'Rourke Boyle,John Paoletti,
Andréa Picard, Beatrice Rehl, Sheryl Reiss, Elizabeth Sears, Leo Steinberg,
Jack Wasserman, Chris Wood, and Alexi Worth.
I am also grateful to several sources of support during my research, includ-
ing a Harvard University Travel Grant in 1990, a Lemmerman Foundation
Grant for study in Rome in 1991, and a Mellon Foundation Grant for disser-
tation completion in 1992. A Getty Postdoctoral Fellowship in 1995-96
allowed me to expand my research significantly beyond the scope of my doc-
toral thesis. I wish to thank Marta Hallett, Ronald Nagel, and Claudia Nagel
for their support, both logistical and moral, during that crucial year. The ideal
\
XV
. - - - -- -- - - - • -
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION
conditions of a research fellowship at the Max-Planck-Institut für Geschichte

at Gottingen in 1997 allowed me to bring the book into its present form.
Throughout my work on this book, I have benefited primarily from the
resources and assistance offered by the libraries of Columbia University, the
University ofToronto, and Harvard University. I owe a special debt of grati-
Michelangelo 'sWork as an Art Historian
tude to Susan Halpert, librarían at the Houghton Library at Harvard, who has
offered unstinting assistance from beginning to end. I would also like to
express my gratitude to the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome and the Warburg
Institute in London, on whose freely offered resources I have relied exten-
sively throughout my research.
By Michelangelo's time Christian images had strayed far from their origins.
This is not simply a judgment of modern-day historians; it was a matter of
concern for Michelangelo and his contemporaries, who were acutely con-
scious of living in a time of dramatic, even volatile, artistic change. The
spectacle of artistic change in this period is familiar to us. It features cen-
trally in the most influential accounts of Renaissance art from Giorgio
Vasari's time on, where it has almost without exception played a central role
in narratives of progress. If recently published art historical surveys are any
indication, this approach to the period is no longer very compelling to most
scholars, and it has come under direct attack by severa!. And yet, as the nam-
ing of Vasari and the very word rinascita suggest, the preoccupation with
change and progress is itself a legacy of the Renaissance and cannot very
well be thrown entirely out of accounts of the period. Our detachment
from this legacy gives us instead a different purchase on its Renaissance ori-
gins. Something similar could be said about other familiar legacies, such as
modern conceptions of art and artistic genius. As they come under revision
in our time, it has become possible to write very different histories of art
and its functions in the Renaissance - ones that, for example, pay greater
attention to the nature of workshops, the role of patrons, and the institu-
tions and codes within which art functioned. And yet our understanding of
the period would be incomplete if the question of new conceptions of art
and the artist did not play sorne part in it. Again, the point is not to throw
them out but to approach them as historical problems, now that they are no
longer cultural assumptions.
In the Renaissance artistic change meant primarily changes in traditions of
\ Christian art. Change <lidmore than move art forward; it also promoted a ret-
XV1 I
MICHELANGELO AND THE REFORM OF ART MICHELANGELO'S WORK AS AN ART HISTORIAN
rospective sensibility. The awareness that art had a history informed the prac- When Michelangelo made a forged copy of an older work, he also strove
tices of the artists' workshops even before the history of art had become a pre- to make it as accurate as possible, but it was an accuracy of a different kind. If
occupation of writers. Giorgio Vasari wrote at the end of the Lives ef the the workshop copy presupposes that the model is assiinilable and adaptable in
Artists, first published in 1550, that he was greatly helped by notes on the his- the present, the forgery presupposes a gap between model and copy. The
tory of Florentine art compiled by Michelangelo's teacher Domenico workshop copyist is shaped and informed by his model - Cennini adopted
Ghirlandaio - an indication that by the end of the fifteenth century the man- metaphors of filiation to describe the relationship. The forger, instead, begins
ual and oral traditions of the workshops were themselves being committed to with the acknowledgment that the style of the earlier work is foreign and
writing. 1 As a pupil of Ghirlandaio's and then a protégé of the household of (thus) must be recreated by artificial means - that it must be forged and not
Lorenzo de' Medici, Michelangelo had been exposed both to the practica! art just irnitated. The workshop copy concentrates directly on the earlier work's
historical lessons of the workshops and to the historical interests of the content; the forgery, rather, treats the earlier work as an object, an artifact and
humanists in the Medici circle, a circle that included that most sophisticated a document that must be reproduced, stains and all. Workshop copies are
philologist Angelo Poliziano, tutor to the Medici children and advisor to the intended to integrate the pupil into a corporate structure and into a tradition.
young Michelangelo. 2 Forgeries, instead, celebrate the artist's individual ingegno,setting him or her
This combination made of Michelangelo an especially acute observer and apart from, and in sorne sense above, tradition. In what is only an apparent
critic of the history of art, a skill colorfully illustrated in Vasari's account of paradox, the ability to irnitate exactly the work of others signals a freedom
Michelangelo's experiments in forgery. The best known example is that of the from the weight of tradition.5
Sleeping Cupíd, which the artist not only sculpted in the antique manner but The drawings that Michelangelo copied belonged to a fairly remate past -
artificially distressed, revealing- a sensitivity both for the style of the antique they were old enough to require "smoked" forgeries - and this implies that
and for the process by which it comes clown through history. In a less famous they were also stylistically remo te. Michelangelo 's practice as forger was pred-
passage,Vasari also recounted that Michelangelo was an expert forger of draw- icated on a sharp awareness that the works of the past belong to the past and
ings, revealing that Michelangelo's historical attentiveness was not lirnited to are to be appreciated accordingly. It sprang from a developed, quasi-scholarly
works of remate antiquity. Vasari said that he irnitated the styles of the old interest in the documents of the history of art, an interest that anticipates the
masters (maestri vecchi)so effectively that no one could tell the difference art historical writing of the later sixteenth century. As Anthony Grafton has
between the copy and the original. Again, stylistic accuracy in copying the shown, the work of the forger is closely entwined with the work of the critic.
model carne with an awareness of its status as a relic: Michelangelo "tinged The forger not only provokes the critic to make more careful distinctions
them and aged them with smoke and various other means, making them look among sources but also often provides the critic with the methods for doing
dirty so that they appeared old."3 so. And this is .J:hy the critics best equipped to detect a forgery have so often
Michelangelo's preoccupation with past art was rooted in the tradition- been the ones most sorely tempted to produce one. 6
conscious Ghirlandaio workshop and can be understood as an extension of Although none of Michelangelo's forged drawings is known to survive,
the standard apprentice training in the study of earlier masters. But from other evidence we gain sorne idea of how his historical intelligence
Michelangelo's experiments developed these practices into something clase to worked - where, for example, he drew period lines in the art of the past. The
their opposite. In the traditional training, the apprentice sketched after draw- clearest evidence comes in the much-studied drawings after Giotto's and
ings in the workshop and after pµblic works to learn his craft, under the tacit Masaccio's frescoes, among the artist's earliest drawings (Figures 1-4).7 Usually
assumption that the models were relevant and adaptable to present needs. a contentious lot, Michelangelo scholars have in the case of these drawings
When he made a copy of an older work, the apprentice of course strove to offered a remarkable show of unity,joining to celebrate the young draftsman's
make it as accurate as possible. In conforrning to his model the apprentice was emendations of the models. They have observed that Michelangelo gave
in fact shaping himself, literally incorporating himself into a craft and a tradi- greater texture to the garments, a greater sense of the presence of the body
tion. In Cennino Cennini's manual for painters, written about 1400, the first underneath, and a more salid and natural posture to the bodies themselves. 8
thing the aµprentice is instructed to do after learning to prepare materials is to At times the Vasarian bias becomes explicit. Writing about the drawing after
draw, and that means to "take pleasure and pains in constantly copying after Giotto, Bernard Berenson declared: "It is not surprising that [Michelangelo's]
the best masters" - but not too many masters, as that would be distracting. figures are better articulated and have more vibration and tremar of life than
Instead, he advised the apprentice to concentrate on one master, because "it the originals, so much we expect from a hoy genius at the end of the
will be against~ature if you do not get sorne grasp ofhis style and his spirit." 4 Quattrocento.''9
2 3
r. Masaccio, The 2. Michelangelo,

TributeMoney,detail Copy afterMasaccio's
efSaint Peterand TributeMoney.
the Tax Collector. Drawing. Staatliche
Fresco. Brancacci Graphische
Chapel, Santa Sammlung,
Maria del Munich, Germany.
Carnúne, Florence,
Italy. Alinari/ Art
Resource, NY.
How different from the approach taken to Giotto! Rather than reformulate
Giotto entirely according to contemporary stylistic dictates, Michelangelo 's
principal intention was to preservethe characteristic features of Giotto's figures.
Vasari's progressivism is no longer the air we breathe, and it is possible to put He deliberately abandoned a "modern" figure style, such as he used in the
these drawings in a different light. Without disputing any of the earlier obser- drawing after Masaccio, and instead preserved the small head, the small shoul-
vations, it is possible to reframe them by asking different questions: Rather than ders, the high waist, and the barrel-like form that are characteristic of the
asking, "How do these drawings move beyond the past?" we might ask, "How Trecento model. The approach stands in stark contrast to a slightly later draw-
do they approach the past?" If we do, an insufficiently noticed difference ing, after the very same group in the fresco, by Michelangelo's contemporary
between the two drawings emerges with extreme clarity. Michelangelo takes Baccio Bandinelli (Figure 5). Here the Trecento features are almost entirely sup-
an aggressive, "wholesale" approach to Masaccio's St. Peter:He makes subtle pressed and the proportions, postures, and expressions are translated into a con-
changes to every part of the figure, reconstituting it in a new, ampler style. The temporary language. 10 If we had no record of the existence of Giotto's fresco we
relations between the figure's extended arm, back, and neck, for example, have might not know that Bandinelli's drawing was a record of it, whereas we would
been thought through from scratch, resulting in a subtle but complete reinter- very likely be led in that direction by Michelangelo's drawing: lt is both clearly
pretation ofi the figure's posture - a reinterpretation with important implica- of the late fifteenth century and clearly after a Giottesque model.
tions for the subject's significance, because it directly concerns the issue of To appreciate the significance of this fact, it is worth considering sorne of
Peter's will and obedience. Michelangelo has made the figure so much his own the difference between imitation in the apprentice's training and imitation in
that if we had no evidence whatever of the existence of Masaccio's fresco, we literary education. The imitation of classical models was the basis of education
would not nec~ssarily know that this drawing was a record of it. in medieval grammar schools no less than in humanist curricula. This imita-
4 5
exception, of course, would be Jorge

Luis Borges' Pierre Mesnard, who
rewrote verbatim chapters 9 and 38
and part of chapter 22 of the first part
of Cervantes'El Quijote but did not
transcribe them: He reproduced
3. Giotto di them, miraculously, after steeping
Bondone, Ascension 4. Michelangelo,
of St.John the himself in Cervantes' culture.
Drawingof two
Evangelist,detai/of In the case of art, where despite figures (efterGiotto).
groupat left. Fresco. the best efforts of theorists there is Drawing.' Louvre,
Peruzzi Chapel, París, France.
Santa Croce,
no grammar but only objects, there
Giraudon/ Art
Florence, Italy. is no such thing as sameness of Resource, NY.
Alinari/ Art spelling, and we have something
Resource, NY.
closer to analogue copying. Copyists
have to follow the lines of the
model with their hand, and that
means, especially in the case of
drawings, reenacting the physical
performance that produced the
original. This is a physical process of
assimilation of a special kind, and it
tion could be quite mechanical. Memorization was a significant fact oflife for deserves the kind of rigorous study that textual imitation has received. I want
the student, and often, in the days before photocopying, students even had to to make only one simple point about it here, and that is that when the model is
be their own scribes, literally copying out their readings into what would be a remote one, when the effort of copying involves a conscious warping of one's
their own prívate textbooks. u Of course the ultimate purpose of imitation own style - and in this period the word style really meant stylus, or the pen -
¡•
was to use the classical texts as models in a more abstract sense, for example as ¡, then the process raises sorne pressing
models of syntactical or poetical structure, or as models of organization, for questions. In reproducing the
example of the parts of an oration. Needless to say, those wanting to imitate strokes made by the original artist, I
Cícero more closely also could, and all too often did, insert his exact turns of relive them as a series of decisions,
phrase into their compositions. decisions that were natural for the
Art students were both closer and farther from their models. That witty and artist and are not for me. It is not
irritable sixteenth-century English school master Roger Ascham railed against just that the artist's individual style is
5. Bandinelli, Copy
students of letters, who, although they had the excellent models of Plato and different from mine. It is that the
efter Giotto's
Cícero before them, did not imitate these as faithfully as painters, those lowly entire period style, the very premises Ascensionof St.
artisans, routinely imitated their models. "For surely the meanest painter;' he said, on which the artist worked, are dif- ]ohn. Drawing.
"useth more wit, better art, greater diligence in his shop in following the picture ferent. The strange quality of a Uffizi, Florence,
Italy.
of any mean man's face than commonly the best students do, even in the best sleeve, therefore, and my resistance
university, for the attaining of learning itself."12 But in fact students would have to it, prompt questions about the
had trouble following Roger's advice, because textual imitation that is too faith- otherness of those times generally. If
ful is in danger of becoming simple duplication in ways that painting can never those questions preoccupy me
be. It is something like a digital process:A perfectly transcribed or excerpted text enough, I might consider taking the
is, by definition\ the same text, because in texts, as opposed to images, it is possible next step, from archaizing drawing
to have what Nelson Goodman has called sameness of spelling.r3 The one great to outright forgery.
6 7
Again, this is not to deny that Michelangelo also made the emendations to story ofVasari's, designed to dramatize the scheme of the Lives. (On which
Giotto that previous scholars have observed; it is simply to give them a differ- wall would Perino have painted the proposed comparison fresco?) In the
ent significance. His application of the cross-hatching technique learned from drawings by Michelangelo, we see the scheme articulated and dramatized by
his master certainly gave a new pliability to the folds and (thus) a stronger Vasari taking practica! shape more than fifty years earlier. I want to insist on
sense of the presence of the leg underneath. But this tendency to emend this. In these drawings Michelangelo does not simply exemplify Vasari's cul-
remained subordinated to the quite novel cominitment to acknowledge and Ininating third era but goes sorne way toward working out the historical
iinitate the features of a style distant from his own. Michelangelo could not scheme itself. In the drawing after Giotto, what began as a workshop copy, an
completely refrain from altering the model in the direction of a modern fig- act of assiinilation into a tradition, became instead its very opposite, a critica!
ure style; on the other hand, he did not go so far as to reshape the figures acknowledgment of historical distance. In this, if anything, lies a claim to
entirely in his own manner, as he did in the drawing after Masaccio, and as epochality, for a retrospective sensibility is one of the distinguishing features of
Bandinelli did in his drawing after Giotto. much of what we call High Renaissance art. This book argues that the aware-
In sum, Michelangelo wrestled with the father but paid homage to the ness that art hada history pervaded Michelangelo's work, and that it is a key
grandfather. Critics have consistently dated the drawing after Giotto earlier to understanding its relation to the critica! religious culture of the sixteenth
than the drawing after Masaccio, as if the only way to register the difference century.
between the two drawings within a Vasarian schema is as a development in In his Vite d' Artisti, Giovanni Battista Gelli, a contemporary ofVasari, gave
Michelangelo's own artistic progress. But to suggest that Michelangelo should several accounts of Michelangelo's appreciation of the art of the Trecento and
first have been Giottesque and then have become Masaccesque would be to early Quattrocento. He wrote that when Michelangelo was in Florence he
take the dictum "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" to absurd extremes. The was reported to have gone to the Bardi chapel in Santa Croce to adinire
more reasonable conclusion is that there was a historical horizon in Giotto's fresco of the Death of St. Francis,remaining in front of it for three or
Michelangelo's view of the art of the past, and Giotto lay on the far side of it. four hours at a time. Gelli also mentioned a fresco attributed to Giotto on the
It was the same frontier that was perceived fifty years later by Giorgio Vasari piazza of the Gianfigliazzi, "where Michelangelo was on several occasions
and that he placed between the first and second "ages" ofhis Lives.14 seen to be gazing fixedly."17 What about these outmoded works captivated
Vasari articulated his tripartite scheme, as it were, theoretically, in his three Michelangelo's interest? The instances discussed above show that
prefaces. 15 But he also occasionally dramatized it in the narratives of the Uves. Michelangelo's adiniration for these works was different in quality from that
Perhaps, the most obvious instance occurs in the life of Perino del Vaga. which he gave to works produced by immediate predecessors and contempo-
Perino, fresh from the workshop of Raphael, returns to his hometown, raries. The latter formed the ground upon which and against which he
Florence, to spread the gospel of the new Roman grand manner. It is, of ¡. shaped his own style, whether they offered something he wished to emulate
course, in the Brancacci chapel that Perino's colleagues gather to engage in (Masaccio, ]acopo della Quercia, Donatello) or to resist (Niccolo dell' Arca,
"the praise and blame often bandied about among artists." Perino claimed that Francesco Francia, eventually Leonardo da Vinci). •
the Roman painters had surpassed Masaccio's style and proposed to do a On the other hand, the fact that Giotto's frescoes lay on the far side of this
fresco next to one by Masaccio to prove his point. 16 He never gets around to horizon does not mean that Michelangelo's adiniration for them is to be sim-
doing it, but simply the intention to do so reveals an effort to demonstrate art ply thrown together with his adiniration for antique sculpture. Michelangelo's
historical periodization through the method of compare and contrast, long reception of the antique was in fact closely connected with the poleinics of
befare Heinrich Wolfilin made left and right transparencies into an apparently contemporary style. Michelangelo aspired to equal and surpass the figural
indispensable institution of art historical pedagogy. Wolfilin was of course style of antique art; it was the measure against which he judged his own work
working within a well-established discipline and in a classroom. Perino's and those of his contemporaries. Trecento art, especially Trecento painting,
proposed fresco would have been quite a departure from contemporary was not a model in this sense. Michel;\ngelo would have been the first to
practice - it was a work made not on cominission but for the purposes of acknowledge that the figural style of these works was not something to which
critica! dembnstration - and in the time befare the art history classroom, the he or his contemporaries aspired. The deliberate warping to which he sub-
demonstration had to be done in paint, on the traditional church wall, and jected his own style in his efforts at iinitation and forgery gives the measure of
with the perinission of the convent's prior. how far removed they were from his stylistic concerns. Michelangelo
The Perino tnecdote is tantalizing in that it seems to document a form of approached Giotto with a sense of formal estrangement caused by temporal
artists' shoptalk that has gone largely unrecorded, but it remains very much a distance. No artist who makes deliberately archaizing drawings after the old
8 9
masters, let alone outright forgeries, could claim to belong to an unbroken take into consideration the nature of their age, the scarcity of artists, the diffi-
tradition in the way that, say, Cennino Cennini did circa 1400, when he culty of obtaining good assistance, will consider them not merely beautiful, as
claimed a direct lineage back to Giotto and asserted that "he [Giotto] had I have said, but rniraculous. . ." For this reason, he said, "my intention has
more finished craftsmanship than anyone has had since." 18 always been to praise not simply, but, as they say,relatively [non semplicemente,
And yet there Michelangelo was in rapt adrniration befare these works, a ma comes'usa dire,secandoche],and to have respect for the places, and the times,
fact that forces us to qualify our understanding of art historical attitudes in and other similar circumstances." 22
this period. Michelangelo was capable of adrniring these works as effective It is worth stressing how specific this attitude was to the realm of the visual
and powerful works for their own time, and in this sense to be awed and fasci- arts. No one felt it necessary to qualify their praise of the great Trecento poets
nated by them. The recognition of distance need not dirninish fascination, as in the terms of secandoche, despite the fact that it was widely recognized that
the writings of art historians abundantly attest. And yet it would be a rnistake their language was antiquated. The distinction between Latin and vernacular
to ally Michelangelo's attitude too closely with the enthusiasms of modern art literature, for which there is no analogue in the visual arts, made it possible to
historians. For whereas post-nineteenth-century historians confront all peri- celebrate the Trecento vernacular poets as superior models to which modern
ods of history, even recent history, with a developed set of disciplinary tools, poets should aspire. The classic statement was made by Pietro Bembo in his
Michelangelo lived a historical process that was itself marked by a new reflex- Prosedella volgarlingua of 1525. According to Bembo the Italian language had
ivity about historical processes. The continuity of tradition - whether under- increased in refinemént only until Petrarch and Boccaccio: "After this point
stood in religious, political, or social terms - was a topic of passionate debate no one has been seen to reach this level, let alone to surpass it. And this is to
in the years around 1500. Tradition was in a state of disrepair, provoking the great shame of our century." 2 3 Petrarch and Boccaccio could be held up as
efforts both of suturing and of wholesale fabrication. In the terms of Pierre ideal models in the realm of vernacular literature just as Virgil and Cicero
Nora, retrospective continuity was ceding place to the illurnination of discon- were in the realm of Latin literature. There was no parallel to this in the con-
tinuity, and the work of history was being called upon to supplement the temporary criticism of the visual arts: The antique was an ideal model but the
processes of memory. 19 Much of what is most characteristic of early six- art of the immediately preceding centuries was clearly inferior to the art of
teenth-century art and culture derives from this intermediary position, at the present day. The contrast was clearly drawn by Giovan Battista Gelli
once part. of tradition and disjoined from it, and it is little wonder that this toward the rniddle of the sixteenth century. Gelli argued that, in contrast to
critica! climate should have produced stunningly forceful interventions in cul- painting, which after Giotto progressed with "one foot in front of the other"
tural interpretation and historical thought. We see such interventions in the up to the perfection of Michelangelo, in poetry Petrarch achieved such per-
debates concerning a national language and literature, in the prolific political fection that "after him it appears that no one has been able to surpass him, or
self-exarnination undertaken in Florence and Venice, in the growing concern even equal him." 2 4 Thus, Gelli could proceed to give an extended reading of
over religious reform, and of course in the emerging discipline of the history Petrarch's poem on Simone Martini's portrait of Laura as a marvel of poetry
of art. 2 ° For these reasons, medieval art provoked Michelangelo's art historical for contemporaries to study and irnitate, but about Simone Martini himself he
attention in a way that antique art did not. It had become antiquated within could only say that "there is no evidence that he was as famous [as
generational memory, undergoing a Gadamerian process whereby temporal PolycÍeitus], and apart from that one does not see much art in those works of
distance beco mes a productive condition of cultural interpretation. 21 his that have come clown to us."2 5
A passing remark by Giovanni della Casa indicates that Vasari's secandoche
was something of a standard view among íntendentíby the rniddle of the six-
teenth century. In his book of manners, the Galateo, he called Giotto "not
We can gain a better grasp of Michelangelo 's attitudes toward the art of the only master, but without any doubt a singular master according to those times
past by turning to the views of Vasari, who very clearly articulated the princi- [secandoquei tempt]."26 The attitude is well dramatized in another story of
ple of appreciation from a historical distance. Vasari was keenly aware that he Vasari's, where again the protagonist is Perino del Vaga. Upon seeing a
was writin~ for an aggressively modernist artistic culture. Anticipating that Madonna fresco by Giotto in old St. Peter's in danger of being destroyed,
many of his readers would find it "ridiculous to compare the old artists with Perino had it removed from the wall and placed in a safer part of the church,
those of this age;' he defended himself on several occasions by urging an surrounded by a new frame and other pieces of Trecento memorabilia - a
appreciation of the works produced in the first age - that is, in the Duecento restoration assemblage clearly motivated by the comrnitment to see the art of
and Trecento -~n view of the time in which they were made: "But those who the past in the context of its time, or secandoqueí tempi. According to Vasari,
10 11
Perino intervened out of piety, "per pieta a quella pittura. " 2 7 The word pieta ceived historical significance, for the social and religious value they were
meant both pity and piety,28 and here both meanings are at play in a way that believed to have held in their time. In other words, Michelangelo was
is characteristic of sixteenth-century cultural attitudes: The old religious engaged in a form of the social history of art.
devotion originally commanded by Giotto's Madonna has been compounded And yet this was hardly the view of the acadernic historian. For a certain
by the historian's veneration for an old work under threat of extinction. It is brand of reform-rninded person in the sixteenth century, the works of the
difficult to say when one kind of pieta superceded the other, and around 1500 thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were emanations of a more religious time
the two kinds rningled quite a bit. In 1500 we are still a far cry from the culti- and thus guides to the restoration of religion in the present <lay.Their cultic
vated disenchantment of the seventeenth-century doctor Thomas Browne, power was, paradoxically, bound up with their remoteness. Where modern
who was able to say, "Now one reason I tender so little Devotion unto historicism recognizes distance and goes about reconstructing and visualizing
Religues is, I think, the slender and doubtful respect I have always held unto the past, archaism recognizes distance and yet remains comrnitted to the pos-
Antiquities." 2 9 sibility of a physical conjunction with the present, of injecting the presence
The element of pity in the historical piety explains why Vasari's attitude and power of the original in the here and now. Archaism is a strain that runs
toward the Duecento and Trecento is generous but condescending, offering through several aspects of reform thought in the sixteenth century, and is one
something like a handicap clause that makes allowances for the disadvantages of the prime sources of its peculiar pathos.
of earlier times. But for Vasari these allowances do not change the fact that the The association of old art and religious authenticity produced sorne inter-
work of the earlier periods has been superceded "in this time, which is at the esting wrinkles in sixteenth-century aesthetics. There were those who
apex of perfection." The earlier works can be appreciated secondo che, accord- defended the simplicity, even the perceived awkwardness, of the early art as
ing to those times, but it would not be of any particular use for a modern itself a sign of its purer spirituality. In his Dialogues on Painting, written in the
artist to go back to them.3° 1540s, the Portuguese painter Francisco de Hollanda described a comrnission
Michelangelo went beyond Vasari's principle of period tolerance by return- given to him by the queen of Portugal to copy the rniraculous image of
ing, on several occasions, to medieval models in his own art. For example, in Christ in the Sancta Sanctorum. One of the interlocutors asks him, "[D]id
his Medici Madonna in the Florentine church of San Lorenzo Michelangelo you do it with that severe simplicity which the old painting has and with that
followed the unusual composition of a venerated Trecento icon in the same fear in those divine eyes which in the original seem to belong to the very
church (see Figures 62 and 64) Y Somewhat later, in the drawing of the Píeta Saviour?" Hollanda is then accused of being a poor friend to Vittoria
for Vittoria Colonna, (see Figure 93) he introduced a Y-shaped cross, which, as Colonna, also one of the interlocutors, because he has not shown her "a thing
Michelangelo's biographer Condivi has informed us, was based on the cross that was so much to her liking."33
"carried in procession by the Bianchi at the time of the plague of 1348, and Other sources confirm that Colonna, Michelangelo's clase friend from the
afterwards placed in the church of Santa Croce, at Florence."32 This is only 1530s, had a strong interest in the "St. Luke" Madonnas of Rome. In one
one of the drawing's archaizing features, which are discussed in chapter 6. poem about them she adrnitted that their artistry is "lacking" (manco) and
Evidently, Michelangelo <lid have reasons to go back to the forms of the "imperfect" (impeifetto) but defended these qualities as features of a humble
Trecento. These and several other examples discussed in this book indicate style (modo umm with special spiritual effectiveness. At first she propases that
that Michelangelo went back to earlier forrns not in spite of their remoteness the painter produced an imperfect work owing to his inability to contain the
but beca use of it. And what made them both remo te and worthy of emulation divine immensity of such a subject, but then she suggests, more interestingly,
was their aura of authentic religiosity. The point is underscored by the f'act that it was the result of choice: The painting's defects result from a deliberate
that neither the San Lorenzo icon nor the Santa Croce cross could be consid- restraint on the part of the painter. The painter was "perhaps disdaining [forse
ered signal artistic monuments in the way that Giotto's paintings were. If they sdegnando] the grave lights and proud shadows of art," she says, knowing that
were valued, it was for their status as venerable cult images. But here venera- the humble act ascends to God. Made without the blandishments of art, the
ble would have two meanings, just as Perino's pieta had two meanings. painting humbly offers only the alto dissegno, the essential schema or design.34
1 In proposing that earlier artists engaged in intentional simplification Colonna
Antiquarian veneration compounded traditional religious veneration, without
simply replacing it - another instance of the intermediary position of six- was echoing a point already made by Hieronyrnus Emser in his 1522 treatise
teenth-century culture. The acknowledged remoteness of these works against the Wittenberg iconoclast Andreas Karlstadt, where he gives the idea a
dem~nded that;.they be understood secondo quei tempi, and that in turn meant socio-econornic twist. Having seen "quite simple images" in many old clois-
that 1f one wer~ to go back to them, as Michelangelo <lid,it was Jor their per- ters and collegiate churches, he argues that this "was not done because of any
12 13
decline of art (for in earlier times there were no doubt capable painters, with contemporary constructions of Florence's "communal" past, which was
although they were not so common as they are now)" but for two reasons: invoked in sirnilarly idealized terms throughout the constitutional crisis of the
Because people back then preferred to give the "vast amounts of money Savonarolan years, and again during the revived republic of 1527-30.41
which we spend on pictures today" to the poor, and because they were aware Different as they were, both Girolamo Savonarola and Niccolo Machiavelli
that "the more artfully images are made the more their viewers are lost in believed that social cohesion and religious belief went together, and both
contemplation of the art and manner in which the figures have been looked to the past to demonstrate the point. 42
worked."35 The array of meanings attached to the word rozzo, an adjective often
Of course, Colonna and Emser were projecting a sixteenth-century applied to medieval art in the sixteenth century, gives sorne idea of why
predicament back onto the making of the early images. It was the sixteenth- medieval images should have held appeal for reform-rninded sixteenth-century
century artist who had to exercise restraint in arder to preserve the piety and critics. When one called a work of art rozzo one generally meant that it was
authenticity of religious art. The problem arase in the sixteenth century as a crude and imperfect, but one could also mean that it was unfinished, rough in
corollary to the growing awareness that "modern" aesthetic ideals were not the sense of a sketch or abbozzo. Thus it was possible in the sixteenth century
necessarily compatible with religious purposes. No one was clearer about this to see the old images described by Vasari and Gilio as rozze not merely in pejo-
than the Dominican theologian Giovanni Andrea Gilio, who in 1564 declared rative terms but in a more sympathetic light as first efforts or sketches that in
that the "old customs" had been "changed and ruined by the caprices of mod- later periods were brought to refinement, as if the early works offered the pre-
e
ern painters [la consuetudine... chepoi stata mutata e guasta dai capriccide' mod- lirninary outlines that were later colored in.43 The sixteenth-century· art and
erni pittori]." He defended the old cult images, "which to modem eyes look literary critic Vincenzo Borghini said that ali works of nature are "imperfect,
vile,. awkward, lowly, old, humble, without skill or art" as "imagini oneste e rough, harsh, etc. [impeifette,rozze, acerbe,ecc.]and that time smoothes, matures,
devote."36 He prized in particular their frontality, what he called their and refines them [e che il tempo le dírozza, maturae qffinisce].44In the poem dis-
prosopopea,a feature to which he attributed an almost anthropological signifi- cussed above, Vittoria Colonna suggested a similar idea:The old cult image was
cance.37 In ·a frontally oriented image, simplicity and directness inhere in the manco and impeifetto because it had not received the pictorial refinements [i
work as structu,:ally embedded virtues; the forward-facing figure assumes the gravi lumi e la.fieraombra]that would have given it finish, holding instead to the
ethical· responsibility of clear public address. By contrast, for Gilio the self- firm and virtuous lines of the alto dissegno.First or archaic works, according to
involved contorsion of the figura serpentinatawas the emblem of modem deca- Borghini and Colonna, are like unfinished works. The corollary of this notion
dence, the fetish of the modem artistic cult of virtuosity and individualism, is that the strata of the individual work of art offer an archeology, a physical
the hothouse fruit of an elitist preoccupation with the pursuit of difficulties epitome of the history of art. The conceit could be manipulated in other ways:
accessible only to the few.38 In a dialogue of 1490 the humanist Paolo Cortesi compared the rough Latín of
Gilio conceded that at times the old images "deserve rather to be laughed Dante to "an old painting [veteripictura],in which the colors have lost their
at than to be marvelled at," but he proposed a comprornise - a regolata splendor, but the outlines [delineamenta]still please."45Here history strips away
mescolanza - that would elirninate the errors of both the old and the new rather than adds, but the result is the same: The old image lacks color and
art.39 A similar point had already been made by Vasari, in a passage that intro- refinement, presenting simple but satisfying outlines.
duced the 1550 version of his life of Fra Angelico, where he held up the
Dorninican artist as a juste milieu between the artistic deficiencies of medieval
art and the religious indecorousness of the nudes of his own day.4° As it hap-
pens, for Gilio Michelangelo was the prime offender among modem artists. By the rniddle of the sixteenth century, a period haunted by a sense of deca-
Proposals for the reform of art in this period were many and not necessarily dence and belatedness, the simple lines of the old images carne, in many peo-
compatible. Despite their shared concerns, Michelangelo's tortured efforts to ple's eyes, to possess a positive value. It is a prernise of this book that such an
re(orm religious art failed to convince the Counter-Reformation theologian. archaizing taste often went hand in hand with a preoccupation with reform, a
And yet Gilio's views help us to understand what Michelangelo saw in preoccupation that is by definition backward-looking. The idea of renovation
Giotto. It is likely that Michelangelo appreciated Giotto's works, sirnilarly, as went hand in hand with the idea of retuming to an earlier age. Thus, in a typ-
examples of high artistry not divorced from authentic religious meaning and ical flourish of reform rhetoric, the humanist ]acopo Sadoleto could say in
purpose, and it is possible that he believed this unity to be characteristic of 1528 that Pope Clement VII was "the author of a new age, of new times, new
that more "int¿grated" age. Such ajudgment would not have been out ofline institutions, new morals, but nonetheless, the newness of these would draw as
14 IS
MICHELANGELO AND THE REFORM OF ART MICHELANGELO's WORK AS AN ART HISTORIAN
near as possible by imitation to that holy and pious antiquity [of the early was a battle cry of reformers of ali stripes. At a basic iconographic level, there-
Church] :'46 From the beginning of Christian thought this process of reform fore, the return to Christ involved the removal of the later accretions of
has been associated with the visual arts, and specifically with the physical hagiographic piety and the restoration of an "originary" Christocentric
work of artistic restoration. In describing the reform of man and his restora- emphasis in Christian art. More specifically, the theme of Christ's Passion and
tion to the image and likeness of God, the Greek fathers continually com- entombment was significant for Michelangelo because the process of death,
pared it to the process of cleaning a painting that has been marred but not interrment, and resurrection was itself an allegory of stripping, digging, and
completely ruined by the addition of unsuitable colors and by the accumula- restoration. Michelangelo was not alone in drawing this parallel. In the open-
tion of dirt.47 Augustine compared the reform of man to the restoration of a ing address to the Fifth Lateran Council, in 1512, the famed Augustinian
deformed sculpture, a task that only God, "the artist who shaped it," could preacher Giles ofViterbo argued that the Church suffered evils because Christ
accomplish. 48 In our period, the Dominican Girolamo Savonarola, whom periodically withdraws from it, but like Spring after the ravages ofWinter, like
Michelangelo heard preach, invoked an architectural metaphor: Drawing the resurrection after death, Christ would return and effect its reform.5°
distinction between earthly things that grow old and divine things that are Powerfully joining Michelangelo's artistic process and his preoccupation with
not subject to time, he compared the contemporary Church to an old build- reform, the subject became for Michelangelo a lifelong preoccupation bear-
ing in need of repair.49 ing ali the traits of an obsession.
A conception of reform as restoration leads to modes of archaism that go How did Michelangelo reform this central subject of Christian art? In
well beyond the simple quotation of old models. It makes experiments with Michelangelo's view, the artists of his day had beco me overly distracted by the
the very structure of the work of art into a mode of archeological investiga- affiictions •suffered by Christ, lingering with perverse relish on the wounds
tion. This book concentrates on aspects of Michelangelo 's work that reveal a and blood that disfigured Christ's mortal body, on the many circumstantial
consistent preoccupation with processes of excavation, recovery, and remem- details ofhis torture and martyrdom, and on the wild lament ofhis mourners.
brance. It begins with a highly unusual experiment in altarpiece painting, in He countered this enormously widespread trend with a typically humanist
which the narrative of Christ's Entombment becomes a means of thematizing repristinatio: Removing the blotches of blood and the wounds from Christ's
the relation between viewer and cult object as one between present and past, body like so many overpaintings and disfigurations, Michelangelo offered
thus making the problem of distance - and the means by which it is bridged - instead a pristine and radiant dead Christ based on the models of antique
central to the picture's subject. Such a "subjective" address to the viewer was sculpture. This was more than a stylistic preference. It was fundamentally a
unusual in altarpieces and yet very much in line with certain strains of restoring of theological perspective, for it turned attention away from the
humanist and reform-minded piety. Pushing this experiment further, in later immediate story of tragic suffering and death to the ultimate victory that
treatments of the theme Michelangelo moved beyond painting and its official resulted from Christ's sacrifice. This, too, was a preference shared by promi-
public functions altogether to the "subsoil" of drawing - a more withdrawn nent advocates of reform. Gian Matteo Giberti, the celebrated reforming
and less regulated realm, which he attempted to make into an alternative cat- bishop of Verona during the second quarter of the sixteenth century, ordered
egory of religious art in its own right. Finally, he transplanted these efforts to the blood depicted spouting from Christ's hands removed from paintings of
the realm of marble sculpture, whose greatest virtue in Michelangelo's eyes lay the Crucífixion, because it was unfitting to show Christ in an agonizing state
in identifying the making of the work of art with the process of excavation - when he triumphed over death, was resurrected, and ascended into heaven.51
to the point where, in his final work, the Rondanini Pieta, the process yields an Michelangelo - and Giberti for that matter - found this more high-minded
archeology of the Christian image. The fact that virtually ali of these works emphasis in the art of earlier times. For Michelangelo, the early days were
remained unfinished can be explained circumstantially in each case. But it can identified with the time when sculpture still dominated religious art, and
also be seen as a natural concomitant of this conception of art. If art is excava- painting had not yet fallen prey to the distractions of an excessive naturalism.
tion, then it is a reversa! of the finishing process, and the result will be marked Michelangelo's effort to conscript antique pagan statuary into a project of
by an unfinished quality whether it is literally finished or not. Christian reform was in many ways typical of the humanist culture that pre-
To put 'it another way, in these works theme is inseparable from struéture. vailed in papal circles in the early sixteenth century. And yet Michelangelo's
That ali of these experiments involved the image of the dead Christ, I argue, is th~ological commitment and sophistication led him to sorne unusual solu-
not a coincidence or the result of an inscrutable artistic preference. It was a tions even within this cultural milieu. This book argues that bacchic mysteries
significant choice, first because a restored emphasis on Christ's sacrifice, were an especially important part of Michelangelo's effort to purify Christian
in opposition\to the quasi-polytheistic saint worship of the late Middle Ages, art and to restare its theological emphasis on the mystery of Christ's sacrifice.
116 17
To modern eyes the effort to restore the spirituality of Christian art by to be produced and venerated long after 1500 - but it is certainly true that the
recourse to bacchanalia may seem hopelessly abstruse and even overtly fraud- period around 1500 is marked by a crisis in severa! traditional categories of
ulent. But to take such a view is simply to rehearse the condemnations of religious art, that it saw the emergence of new forms of secular art, and that
Counter-Reformation critics and to fail to see these works in the context of these developments raised important questions about the tradicional functions
early sixteenth-century humanist culture. of images. The watershed was especially clear in the north, where the
Michelangelo incorporated the animations of antique sculpture in an Protestant Reformation brought a long-standing debate over the role of
effort to reinvest the narrative expressiveness of contemporary Christian art images violently to a head.
with spiritual and theological significance. This involved a highly motivated The situation in the Protestant north was critica! enough to call for clear res-
adaptation of what Aby Warburg called antique "pathos formulas," one that olutions about images, ranging from outright abolition to new and careful cod-
differed markedly from the practices of severa! other antique-inspired ification. The situation in Italy, however, remained ambiguous, especially before
Renaissance artists. Where other artists found in antique art models of pur- the Counter-Reformation. But it would be inaccurate to claim that concerns
poseful narrative action, Michelangelo found bodies possessed by forces were not present,just as it would be inaccurate to claim that they had not been
larger than themselves. Michelangelo's efforts were designed to reanímate a present in the north before Martín Luther. Clerics, humanists, patrons, and
"dead" Christian art on the one hand while harnessing and neutralizing the artists in Italy continued to believe in the religious vocation of art, even as its
demonic forces of pagan art on the other. Christian repristinatíowas to nature and status was changing. As a result, Italian art of the period is filled with
accompany what Warburg called the aesthetic detoxification [aesthetische implicit but acute concerns over the functions, history, and legitimacy of reli-
Entgiftung]of pagan art. The result was an art as disjoined from both of these gious images. Crisis is not just the fact of dislocation but the perception of dis-
traditions as it was deeply informed by them. It is one of the recurrent location itself, and is thus inseparable from the act of criticism.55 Such "critica!"
arguments of this book that Michelangelo's much-vaunted independence concerns appear in the work of artists as diverse as Michelangelo, Raphael, Fra
from the antique was not simply an assertion of artistic originality and Bartolommeo, Andrea Sansovino, Giovanni Bellini, Tullio Lombardo, Lorenzo
modernity but the result of approaching pagan themes within a Christian Lotto, Rosso Fiorentino, ]acopo da Pontormo, Parinigianino, and ]acopo
context, and specifically within a culture of reform. Sansovino, among many others. They go, in other words, straight to the heart of
This book studies severa! ways in which art historical sensitivity was bound our conceptions of High Renaissance art and give it a stranger appearance. In
up with religious concerns in the sixteenth century. Michelangelo was acutely contrast to the progressivist view, which sees it as a culininating period of har-
conscious of living in an age of religious crisis and rampant artistic moderniza- mony and classicalperfection, this view of the period reveals a more anxious art
tion, and for him the two problems were related. The art of the Duecento and of disjunction, compensation, projection, and desire - and as a result casts a
Trecento was separated from Michelangelo's time by a history of volatile artistic sharper light on the new forms of artistic and historical self-awareness that mark
change. The most significant change, one that concerned Michelangelo particu- the period as a whole. It helps to explain why what we call the High
larly, was the rise of panel painting, which in Italy carne to predoininate over Renaissance was such a brief episode and was so quickly followed by the
sculpture at the center of Christian worship. One of the decisive strengths of strange experiments of the art of the r52os and after. The career of
the medium of painting was its great amenability to formal and technical inno- Michelangelo makes it necessary to see this history as a continuous one.
vation. Foreigners were quick to notice the taste for change in Western art of Although severa! of the artists of this period can be linked to reforining
the late Middle Ages. More than one Byzantine visitor, for example, was aston- circles, only in rare instances can their works be said to originate in anything
ished at what appeared to be the rampant license allowed to Western painters like a reform agenda. Consequently, they do not answer to the methods used
and expressed grave concern over the dangers it posed to Christian tradition to study the art of the Protestant north or the campaigns of the Counter
and orthodoxy:52Alarms were of course also sounded in the West, most often by Reformation, and no doubt this is why they have so far eluded thoroughgo-
attentive clerics of a reform-Ininded or observant persuasion who arose period- ing study along these lines. This book, which studies one artist's response to
ically to castigate novelties and abuses in the making and use of images.53 the problem, is intended as a start in this direction.
By r5ob, however, artistic developments threatened a break with the tradi-
tion of the Christian image altogether. In Hans Belting's view, the artistic
developments of this period mark the end of the era of the Christian image
on the eve of a modern and secular "era of art."54 It is possible to raise objec- Michelangelo's response emerges most clearly in his lifelong preoccupation
tions to this ~iew - by pointing out, for example, that cult images continued with a type of image known in the period as imagopietatis, and commonly
IS 19
known today as the Man of Sorrows. One of the most popular cult images of larger questions that affected cultural production generally (e.g., the debates
the late Middle Ages, it consists of the frontally presented dead Christ, shown concerning irnitation, or the comparison of the arts), as well as taking into
in formats ranging from bust length to full length. The figures surrounding consideration the array of patronal modes and tastes and the institutional con-
Christ varied, but one feature of the image remained decisive:The image stood texts within which art functioned. It also means taking into account how such
as a general symbol of Christ's Passion and sacrifice, and was not linked to any concerns are mediated at a level closer to formal structure, through such ques-
one episode in the Passion narrative. lmages of this sort had become distinctly tions as decorum, function, format, and genre. Connoisseurship pursued in the
old-fashioned in advanced artistic circles by 1500 in Italy, and Michelangelo's absence of such an inquiry has extremely dubious value, especially for works of
versions of the figure are typical of their time in that they attempt to introduce art produced in the sixteenth century and earlier. The aspects of the London
the figure within a consistent narrative setting. And yet the fact that he pre- painting that most strongly suggest Michelangelo's authorship have to do with
served the figure at ali, returning to it obsessively throughout his life and often the work's conception - not only its innovative narrative structure but also its
in the face of extreme compositional and structural difficulties, suggests a interpretation of the status of Christ's body between death and resurrection
deliberate interest in preserving an earlier tradition of religious art within and its reception of the Man of Sorrows tradition. Any serious study of the
"modern" artistic conditions. This conscious effort of preservation becomes painting must also take into account the work's place in the history of the
especially clear in Michelangelo's later treatments of the theme, which show altarpiece, as well as its relation to Michelangelo's late Pietas.These questions
overtly archaizing features. These works have for too long been understood in have received lirnited attention, if any, in previous studies of the painting. The
isolation, as the creations of Michelangelo's brooding genius. Michelangelo's first questions are addressed in the first part of this book; the last question is a
preoccupation with the imagopietatis reveals not only an awareness of artistic recurring concern of the second part.
and cultural change but also a concern over its effects on religious traditions When the painting is understood in light of these questions, it is possible to
and institutions. Idiosyncratic and personal as they are, his works confront see its many unusual - not to say awkward - features as something other than
issues of central importance to reformers and humanists of the period. violations of the standards of artistic "quality" cherished by modern connois-
My focus has led me to pay a good deal of attention to the Entombment in seurs. They can be understood, instead, as part of a (frustrated) effort to
the National Gallery in London (see Figure 6), a work that aroused much respond to the threat of generic disruption, a threat that Michelangelo per-
interest in the late nineteenth century and then fell into relative obscurity ceived as a crisis in a tradition of religious art. Similar things could be said
until recent times. As the work is not mentioned by Vasari or Condivi and is about several drawings that have discomfited Michelangelo scholars and that
first recorded, as far as we know, in the seventeenth century, its place in the here are interpreted as experiments motivated by consistent preoccupations in
Michelangelo corpus has been open to debate.56 Nonetheless, the great Michelangelo's art. By the same token, however, the analysis offered here puts
majority of scholars has favored the attribution to Michelangelo and placed it certain drawings that are now widely accepted in a more dubious light. Thus,
in his early period. The list includes Jakob Burckhardt, Jean Paul Richter, this book offers something to upset everyone. I can say only that I have based
Gustavo Frizzoni, Bernard Berenson, Adolph Goldschrnidt, Aby Warburg, Carl my judgments not merely on a personal sense of the artist's style, but on a set
Justi, Henry Thode, Adolfo Venturi, Johannes Wilde, Cecil Gould, and more of criteria deriving from a historically informed interpretative framework.
recently Howard Hibbard, Michael Hirst, and John Shearman. 57 The fact that Michelangelo's experiments with the Passion subject constitute a fervent partí
the panel remained obscure is due in large measure to the fact that it was pris in a period debate, a debate rife with theological and ideological implica-
excluded from the Michelangelo corpus in Charles de Tolnay's highly influen- tions. Of course, such a framework does not guarantee correct attributions,
tial five-volume study, published between 1943 and 1960. As it happens, and about several I remain unsure, but it does provide a reasonable basis for
Tolnay then reversed himself after the picture's cleaning, but the habit of debate and thus, I hope, a useful alternative to the arguments from dogma and
excluding the work from consideration has persisted.58 authority that characterize so much tradicional connoisseurship.
Michelangelo is a sacred cow, still, and this means that debates about his cor- The first part of this book studies tensions between developments in his-
pus acquire a vehemence usually reserved for religious disputes. The question tory painting and traditions of religious art in the fifteenth century. I focus on
of attributlon is not a central concern of this book, but because it has proven the theme of the entombment of Christ, which by the later fifteenth century
impossible entirely to avoid it is perhaps appropriate to state the creed I follow. had become a kind of proving ground for ambitious history painting, and I
It is my belief, and a prernise of this book, that the question of attribution can- focus on altarpieces, which until the end of the fifteenth century constituted
not be convincingly argued on stylistic grounds alone but must be addressed in the principal venue for large easel painting. The Entombmentsby Michelangelo
the context df a larger historical inquiry. This means taking into account the and Raphael were deliberate efforts to adapt this theme, and this conception
20 21
PART ONE
of painting, to the altarpiece format. They offer a commentary on the status of

this central institution of Christian image making in an era that saw its pre-
dominance thrown into question by the rise of new conceptions of art. Their
responses to the problem, studied in chapters 3 and 4, involve quite novel HISTORY PAINTING AND CULT IMAGE
interpretations of the traditional functions of altar painting, which I attempt
to show are consonant with sorne of the more innovative strains of humanist IN THE ALTARPIECE
thought in the period. The generic tensions confronted in these works preoc-
cupied a whole generation of painters to follow, including Pontormo, Rosso,
and Titian, and provide a historical basis for understanding the archaism of
Michelangelo's late works.
The second part of the book studies Michelangelo's withdrawal from the
traditional categories of religious art. In chapters 5 and 6, I study
Michelangelo's return to the theme of the Man ofSorrows in the realm ofthe
presentation drawing, a new type of drawing made as a finished work in its
own right and presented as a gift. I argue that the new category represented
for Michelangelo an alternative to the public and institucional realm of church
art, specifically of altar painting. Efforts to reinvent the traditional cult image
as a work of art, these works on paper culminated in the Pieta drawing for
Vittoria Colonna of circa 1540. On the basis of Michelangelo's letters and
poems and the writings of Colonna and members of her circle, I argue that
the new and rarefied conception of art embodied in the presentation drawing
served as a privileged model for the spiritual hermeneutics promoted in this
reform-minded milieu.
The late Pieta sculptures, studied in chapter 7, belong to a later phase, when
the hopes of this milieu had been dashed and it had become harder to believe
in the exquisite marriage between aesthetic tastes and spiritual sensibility
embodied in the presentation drawings. The late Pieta sculptures are the fruits
of a more reclusive position, removed even from the interpersonal dynamics
of the presentation drawings, and lie completely outside the artistic categories
known in the peri o d. The most prívate of works carried out in the most pub-
lic of media, monumental marble sculpture, their irony is greater and their
archaism more overt. I argue that they embody a series of reflections on the
relation between sculpture and the history and nature of Christian cult
images, and I attempt in this way to connect issues raised in the paragone
debate to reform concerns prevalent in the period.
22
CHAPTER ONE
t
t
1 Transport and Transitus
'
1
;
1
HISTORY AND FIGURE
A frieze of tightly pressed figures fills the foreground, almost entirely screen-
ing the landscape behind (Figure 6). Upon closer observation, the figures on
this shallow proscenium settle into clear spatial relationships. Nestled between
three figures, one behind and one on either side, the naked body of Christ
occupies the center of the picture. The triangular grouping around Christ
extends to include two figures (one of them not yet painted) kneeling on a
strip of bare ground in front. Anchored in the lower corners of the picture,
the two kneeling figures mark the outermost poles of an arrangement whose
surface symmetry reflects a symmetry disposed in depth. The disposition of
the figures leaves the central foreground clear, affording the viewer a frontal,
virtually unobstructed view of the figure of Christ. The symmetrical relation-
ships initiated in the painting are completed in the person of the viewer, who
is placed, almost ceremonially, at the bottom of the steps, directly opposite
Christ, an analogy to his front-facing, full-length figure. In its basic structure,
this composition posits the presence of the person standing before it. The
viewer, one rnight say,is its organizing principle.
This state of affairs is complicated by the fact that we have here not a sim-
ple grouping of sacred figures, a sacraconversazione,but rather the depiction of
a biblical story. The design of the painting thus insists on the relation that links
the story to the viewer. It implies, even, that in this relation lies its sacred pur-
pose and significance. Sµch a claim falls in line with a venerable exegetical
tradition according to which sacred events, though embedded in history, also
contain what exegetes typically called a "mystery," "figure;' or "sacrament" - a
\ spiritual meaning that lifts the event out of history and connects it to the
25
MICHELANGELO AND THE REFORM OF ART TRANSPORT AND TRANSI'TUS
Middelburg, the compatriot and correspondent of Erasmus who served as

physician and astrologer at the papal court. He applied the idea to argue for a
finer distinction: that moveable feasts, such as Easter, are figural in a way that
feasts fixed to a specific date, such as Christmas, are not. His explanation of
the distinction, debatable as it is, offers a concrete example of figural thinking
at work circa 1500:
No mystery or sacrament is signified by the day of Christ's Nativity; instead, it is

merely denoted that on that day Christ was born. Easter/passover (Pascha)how-
6. Michelangelo,
ever contains a mystery and sacrament, because it signifies a passing over or across
Christ Carriedto the (transítum)- is in fact the phase of the Lord's passage. It prefigures Christ's passage
Tomb.Panel. from death to life and our liberation from the devastating devil.
National Gallery,
London, England. In drawing this distinction Paul was, of course, contravening a long-standing
tradition of highly figural exegesis of the Nativity and of other ev,en~ marked
by fixed feasts. His argument thus stands as a useful rerninder of the 'flexibility
with which these principles were applied, and as a warning against overly sys-
tematic accounts of figural thought in this period. Nonetheless, his funda-
mental principle that figural meaning involves movement is a quite orthodox
one. For Paul the principle was epitornized by the concept of transítusat the
heart of the word Pascha,for an event contains a mystery when it is "figurative
of future things and rememorative of things past." For Savonarola, figural
meaning "does not stay still," for Paul it is "moveable," and it is this quality that
connects Christ's historical sacrifice and resurrection "backward" to the sacri-
larger scheme of Christian belief. 1 In a sermon of 1496, the Dorninican fice of the lamb and the salvation of the Jews at Passover, and "forward" to its
reformer Girolamo Savonarola claimed that this connection between history reenactment in every Mass, where its benefits touch the faithful through the
and "figure" was what most clearly distinguished sacred history from secular sacrament of the Eucharist.3
history and from poetry. Sacred scripture was written not only to record Michelangelo's Entombment confronts the question of Christ's sacrifice
names, places and dates - that is, to document what occurred historically - directly and interprets it in a manner that is in several respects typical of devel-
but also to have a further, deeper meaning - in Savonarola's words, ''persígnifj,- opments in late-medieval Christian devotion. The work does not merely
carealtro." He called this deeper meaning the senso allegoríco(a term that here point to an objective theological dogma or truth but rather locates its signifi-
refers to all the levels of exegetical interpretation beyond the literal, and not cance in the effective relation between the biblical subject and the viewer's
only to the allegorical level in the strict sense). He pointed specifically to the individual experience. The mystery at the heart of the painting's theme con-
absence of this dimension in the history of the ancients: "Look at Livy - his sists in the viewer's becorning conscious that the sacred event has occurred
writings don't signify future things, but only describe what occurred in the "for" him or her. The painting develops this emphasis in ways that bear espe-
past. . . No other writing except sacred scripture has allegory - not even cially close affinities to trends in humanist religious thought, as I attempt to
poetry, as sorne say."Sacred history is unlike poetry, he argued, because it has show in chapter 3. The painting's claims were, however, conceived and real-
the literal, historical level, the veríta dí storia, that is rnissing from the Javole of ized through means specific to traditions of image making, and not simply by
the poets. It is unlike pagan history, because it also has levels of higher mean- a direct application of theological or humanist principles. Accordingly, the
ing. This riieaning "is shifting and can be taken in many ways, that is, it does following chapters are devoted to clarifying these "intra-artistic" processes.
not stay still like history [il qual senso evago e puossí pígliare in píu madi, ita che Such an analysis is necessary to understand the painting's significance, because
non stafermo come la ístoria]:•2 a dialogue with a tradition of Christian image making informs the painting's
The idea rr,at figural meaning "moves" was something of a commonplace. thematic content, which has in part to do with the relation between present
We find it .Rso in a treatise on the celebration of Easier by Paul of and past forms of worship.
27
MICHELANGELO AND THE REFORM OF ART TRANSPORT AND TRANSITUS
The figures carrying Christ are shown in the process of moving backward, The subject's dual nature as historiaand figura affects the very attitudes of the
away from the viewer. They are beginning the climb up a series of steps figures, which are worth observing in sorne detail. The figure of the dead Christ
toward the tomb that is being prepared in the distant background. This funda- is a calm center surrounded by effort and struggle. Those around him strain
mental point about the painting's narrative organization is not readily appar- upward, but his figure describes a relaxed curve against their strict isocephaly.
ent, a fact due in part to the painting's unfinished state. We see only the They pull and hoist, evidently struggling under great weight, and yet Christ's
silhouettes of the figures opening the tomb in the background, and only the figure seems to rise by itself, from the toes upward, weightless and flamelike.
bare underdrawing of the steps leading to the tomb. We are also missing cru- This ambiguity turns on the toes of the left foot, which seem to be pushing,
cial details in the mechanism of Christ's support structure, not to mention the ever so slightly, against the ground.5 His limbs are passive, pushed and turned
key foreground figure of the Virgin on the right, who was meant to be shown amidst the jostling, and yet a hint of torsion gives the sense of a body controlled
kneeling with her back to us. But there is a more fundamental reason for the from within. Christ's body is held up to view, almost inadvertently, in the midst
difficulty in reading this picture. Such a mode of narrative movement, a com- of the carrying, and yet it presides, ambiguously enthroned, in the center of the
bination of frontal orientation and retrogression away from the viewer, is composition. Christ assumes an unwitting majesty in death. The historically
extremely rare in Renaissance painting. It is likely that many contemporaries contingent episode has resolved itself into a structure inviting formal worship.
also would have had difficulty in identifying the painting's subject. The first The work of carrying is distributed among the three figures immediately
thing they would have seen was the figure of Christ, and they probably would surrounding Christ. Standing two steps above the others, the older man behind
have called the picture a Cristo morto or a pieta. Nonetheless, a great deal of bends clown and, biting his lip, pulls Christ up by a strip of cloth stretched across
thought was put into the picture's narrative structure, and it deserves careful the chest and under the arms. At the head of the group, he concentrates on
study. steering the body and steadies Christ's upper torso with his (still unpainted) left
The frontal orientation and symmetrical structure interfere with the hand. The other two figures support the greater part of the weight, using
impression of movement, an effect that is strongly reinforced by a studied another sheet slung under Christ's thighs. St. John, in red to Christ's right, steps
avoidance of figural overlapping. Although it is an extremely crowded com- backward with his right foot onto the first step. He pulls the cloth upward with
position, almost every limb shown in the painting meets but does not trespass his left hand and with his right locks it over his upraised right thigh. 6 The pos-
the contour of the neighboring figure. Look, for example, at the points of ture of the figure to Christ's left is more difficult to read, but it is in fact a ver-
contact between the profiles of the carriers and of those figures closer to the sion of St. John's, turned in the opposite direction.7 She also takes the cloth in
margins. These outer figures, in turn, just meet the picture edge at several her (unpainted) left hand, and, stepping upward with her right leg, presumably
points, without spilling beyond it (a point that would have been clearer befare locks it over a concealed, upraised right thigh in the same way St. John does.
the cropping of the panel). These were deliberate decisions and carry signifi- Even the triangular form described by her robe's neckline, together with her
cance. The figures perform their actions, and yet they are locked into a surface sash, mirror the corresponding features in the figure of St. John.
structure that resists the logic of movement through space. They act in the Michelangelo established a sort of division of labor between the three fig-
open space of history, and yet the relations among them are controlled by an ures who are carrying and the three who are lamenting, keeping the latter at a
arder that operates at the level of the two-dimensional image - that is, at a significant distance from the body. The carriers ·serve as buffers around Christ:
level "external" to the history, and beyond the awareness of the actors them- The bodies of the other three merely touch the outer profiles of the figures
selves.4This "external" level has to do instead with the image's objective exis- making up this inner sanctum. Only the hem of the Magdalene's robe makes
tence as an altarpieée. In making the historical actors conform to dictates at contact with the body of Christ - appropriately enough, given the
the level of surface and framing, Michelangelo in effect adapts the actions of Magdalene's legendary associations with Christ's feet. 8 The standing figure to
sacred history to the structural realities of a ritual setting. But it is not as if we the extreme right is the farthest, physically and psychologically, from the rest
first have the history and then its ritual adaptation. For Michelangelo, such an of the scene, and remains significantly outside the symmetrical structure
adaptation ""ªs always already implicit in sacred history, and this is what makes formed by the other figures. The relation of her head to her shoulders indi-
it sacred and not secular. The "fit" between the represented scene and the for- cates that she has turned away from the central group. With a gesture of
mal organization of an altarpiece suggests that there is an inherent relation renunciation she has given up watching the event and casts a tear-clouded
between. the historical event and the ritual structures of Christian worship. gaze out of the right edge of the picture (Figure 7). Her face does not express
The painting\ entire thematic structure is designed to confirm and celebrate distracted grief of the kind favored by the antique-inspired artists with whom
this relation. ' Michelangelo was especially affiliated, such as Donatello (Figure 8). It shows
29
instead a more muted attitude, suggesting absorption within thought or

memory. The figure kneeling on the left also diverts her attention from Christ
but fixes it on a specific object: A drawing in the Louvre informs us that she
was to hold the nails of the Crucifixion in her left hand and the crown of
thorns, befare her eyes, in her right 9 (Figure 9). Finally, the figure on the
right, unpainted but certainly intended to represent the Virgin Mary, was to
be shown kneeling with her back to the viewer and, probably with joined
hands, gazing directly upon Christ. A drawing in Siena after the painting,
7. Michelangelo, although it contains misreadings, gives sorne sense of the intended posture of
Christ Carriedto the
this figure 10 (Figure 10).
Tomb,detailof head
offema/efigure to These are three different kinds of gaze, and they express three different
right.Panel. attitudes. It would be misunderstanding their significance, however, to read
Nacional Gallery, them, in the spirit of Alberti, as varied dramatic responses to the action at
London, England.
hand. They are emphatically undramatic and are hardly responses. n
Whatever their differences, they share the quality of a sustained attitude, a
state of mind not bound to the single, unrepeatable moment. The gaze of
the standing figure drifts away from the scene and out of the picture. She
9. Michelangelo,
vVcJman on Her
Knees.Drawing.
Louvre, Paris,
France.
8. Donatello, Giraudon/ Art
Entombment. Resource, NY
Bronze.
Sant' Antonio,
Padua, Italy.
,¡
1
30 31
tion, but befare the entombment proper, this is the moment "between sta-
tions" in which a group ofbearers has farmed and begins to break away from
the remainder of the group that had been lamenting over Christ. 12 As the car-
rying group begins the slow procession up the hill, two (unpainted) figures in
the background lift the slab off the tomb that is to receive the body. The
work's novelty and significance, however, lies not only in the representation of
a rare subject but also in the means by which the subject is staged, far the
frontal orientation of the composition places a special burden on the role of
ro. Copy after the viewer. The viewer finds him- or herself placed just beyond the mourning
Michelangelo's
Christ Carriedto the
group from which the body is being separated, and placed, at the bottom
Tomb(Fig. 6). landing of the steps, directly opposite Christ. To attend to the painting is to
Drawing. acknowledge that you are implicated by its subject.
Biblioteca
John Shearman noted that the adoption of a "situated" point of view was a
Communale, Siena,
Italy. strategy typical of medieval devotional texts such as the Meditationes vitae
Christi, which exhort the devotee to imagine him- or herself present at the
sacred event. In this panel, accordingly, we are offered "the experience of the
rupturing group seen from within." 13 In contrast to a lateral composition,
which asserts the self-sufficiency of the scene and reports it to the viewer as if
in the third person, here the narrative structure incorporates a direct second-
person address to the viewer. 14 But, pace Shearman, it does not "include" the
viewer in the event so much as it interprets and thematizes the relation
between the biblical event and the viewer situated in the here and now. The
drama of separation interprets the relation between viewer and image. This
relation is its subject, and it gives the viewer a special responsibility: Christ is
being drawn away, and we remain where we are. History is, as it were, reced-
ing from the present.
has turned away from the outward event and into a world of private
thought. The figure kneeling on the left, her gaze perfectly perpendicular to
the main axis of attention, also ignores the action and contemplates instead ANCIENT TRAGEDY AND CHRISTIAN LAMENT
the artifacts left in its wake. Even befare the historical Jesus has passed out
of the scene, she initiates a mode of reverence that was to be farmalized and r
The many unusual features of the London Entombmentresult from an effort to
perpetuated in the cult of relics. The Virgin, finally, attends directly to the bring a new conception of history painting, derived from anti que models and
facus of the scene but <loes the most to suspend its narrative effect. Christ, explicitly articulated by Leon Battista Alberti, into alignment with the tradi-
having presumably just been taken from her lap, is now set befare her at tions and conventions of the altarpiece. In book 2 of his treatise On Painting,
viewing distance, like a cult image, and she settles significantly into an atti- Alberti laid clown the principles of what he considered "the great work of the
tude of worship. Of all the figures, her position and attitude most resembles painter," the historia.The mark of the Albertian historiais consistency - consis-
that of the posited worshipper befare the painting. The dictates of dramatic tency of material, proportion, gesture, and theme. Consistency is guaranteed
unity have thus given way to modes of contemplation not strictly anchored by a careful construction from part to whole: From the surfaces to the mem-
in histori¿;al time. They have, indeed, more to do with the viewer's time: bers, from the members to the bodies, and from the bodies to tlte entire com-
They are states that could be expected to continue during the viewer's own position. Surfaces are rendered through circumscription, which transfers
contemplation of the image. complex three-dimensional shapes to the two-dimensional surface of the
If we take it in strictly narrative terms, this painting depicts an intermediate panel. For this task Alberti recommends the use of the veil, or squared win-
moment, rar~ly represented in earlier art: After the deposition and lamenta- dow. When he moves on to members, he first addresses the problem of pro-
33
portian and anatomy. Again, these are technical questions; they concern the and feeling." 16 He then goes on to assert that the expression of feeling
rigorous application of procedures for guaranteeing accuracy. through movement is the primary task of the historia.
Alberti appeals to another level of artistic judgment when he discusses, at The tragedy of Meleager lies in the loss of that capacity to "carry out the
greater length, the problem of gesture and appropriateness to function. This duties of life" in one who was especially well endowed to perform great
discussion extends to include his treatment of bodies. "We must ensure," he actions. The scene of his carrying is to be praised, in Alberti's view, beca use it
says, "that all the members fulfill their proper function according to the dramatizes this loss. Meleager's inert limbs "ali combine together to represent
action being performed." He propases an ancient work of relief sculpture, death": His body is the very sign of the incapacity to perform actions and
representing the carrying of the dead Meleager, as a paradigm of this princi- express feeling; it represents the extinction of the capacity that makes up the
ple (Figure n): historia.The theme of the story is the burden of that incapacity on the living:
"All alive and in action," the accompanying figures "strain with every limb" to
They praise a historiain Rome, in which the dead Meleager is being carried away,
because those who are bearing the burden appear to be distressed and to strain support the burden. At the most fundamental visual level, the typical antique
with every limb, while in the dead man there is no member that does not seem composition - a frieze of vertical figures intersected by one horizontal - is
completely lifeless; they ali hang loose; hands, fingers, neck, ali droop inertly organized by the opposition between life and death.
clown, ali combine together to represent death. This is the most difficult thing of The historical interest of Michelangelo's London Entombment derives in
ali to do, for to represent the limbs of a body entirely at rest is as much •the sign of large measure from the effort to adapt this conception to a Christian context.
an excellent artist as to render them ali alive and in action. 15 For a thoughtful Christian artist this adaptation could not be an easy one. The
radical opposition between life and death embodied in the scene of the carry-
The example is artfully chosen to illustrate a limit case of the historia: It
ing of the dead Meleager did not square cleanly with the theology of Christ's
embraces the full spectrum of bodily expression, from the inertness of death
Passion. Both the inertness of the dead Meleager and the efforts and lamenta-
to the activity of life. "A body is said to be alive,"Alberti continues, "when it
tions of the living place dramatic emphasis on the irreversibility of the hero's
performs sorne movement of its own free will. Death, they say, is present
death. The lateral orientation of the composition confirms this effect by
when the limbs can no longer carry out the duties of life, that is, movement
insisting on a transitory, one-way movement out of the scene. These effects
are in implicit opposition to the "figura!" understanding of history developed
in medieval biblical exegesis, discussed briefly above. As we saw, according to
this conception historical events occur within chronological time but they
also play a "suprahistorical" role within the entire Christian eschatological
scheme. 17Viewed according to this scheme, these events had to happen in arder
to fulfill their role within the figura! structure of history. As a consequence,
excessively to lament pitiful episodes in sacred history - for example, the
expulsion of Adam and Eve or the death of Christ - is to lose sight of their
ultimate meaning and importance within Christian eschatology.
II. The Carryingof
This conception stands in implicit contfast to the principles of ancient
the Dead Meleager.
Marble. Palazzo ~ragedy.Tragedy occurl; when the hero is brought down by adverse circum-
Doria-Pamphilj, stances, by forces not entirely within his or her control. These externa! forces
Rome, Italy. make it possible even for a good and heroic person - for example, Oedipus or
Meleager - not to succeed in living a good life. As Martha Nussbaum has
shown, ancient tragedy finds its vocation in the gap between being good and
living well and on these grounds was roundly condemned by Plato. The
poets, he claimed, "speak wrongly about men in matters of greatest moment"
when they show the lives of good and just people being brought down in this
way.18 For Plato, a truly good person is not susceptible to this sort of serious
downfall: There is no gap between being good and living a good life, and
therefore tragedy teaches a falsehood.
34 35
As Nussbaum has argued, Aristotle's ethics allowed for this gap, and this figure of the dead Christ, of course, won the day in the west as well as in the
made him a more sensitive critic of tragedy. That a good person could be east, and by the late Middle Ages it had become a pervasive feature of art,
brought clown by misfortune was, he recognized, the key to tragedy's ability drama, and devotional literature. From the thirteenth through the fifteenth
to arouse the emotions of pity and fear. Pity stems from the belief that the century artists and writers strove to offer ever more effective descriptions of
person is good and thus did not deserve the suffering. 19 Fear stems fundamen- Christ's affiicted body and the lament of his mourners. In the process, of
tally from an identification with the hero's vulnerability, from an awareness course, the original insistence on the mysterious presence of the Holy Spirit
that similar misfortunes may be visited on us. These emotional responses are within the dead body receded from view, a state of affairs that by the early six-
not fundamentally altered even when the tragic event is understood to be part teenth century produced a fresh round of objections from concerned clerics.
of the hero's "fate."The fact that a tragic occurrence was determined by the Gian Matteo Giberti, the prominent reforming bishop ofVerona during the
gods <loes not diminish its truly disastrous and irreversible consequences, and second quarter of the sixteenth century, ordered interventive restorations of
thus its capacity to arouse pity and fear. All of this applies to tragic events in paintings of the crucifixion showing blood spouting from Christ's hands,
history as well, although there, Aristotle pointed out, the effect is lessened because he believed it was unfitting to show Christ in a state of agony when
because the events of history are more idiosyncratic, less generalized, and thus he had triumphed over death, resurrected, and ascended into heaven. 23
not as well suited to the process of identification. 20 Such interventions remained rare before the Counter Reformation. In
The tragic emotions do not entirely apply in the context of Christ's other cases we must match the objections to the works of art. Niccolo
Passion. Tragic fear, for example, depends on identification with the hero and dell' Arca's famous sculpture group of the Lamentation in Bologna, for exam-
the attendant feeling that a similar fate could befall oneself. For such identifi- ple, insists on the tragedy of Christ's death to a degree that stands in potential
cation to develop, the hero must be mortal and, though good, not entirely confüct with the theologically informed attitude just described (Figure 12).
perfect - conditions that are notably disrupted by Christ's special status as That Christian thinkers of the period were capable of identifying the danger
both man and God. There. was, on the other hand, a strong equivalent to in these terms is demonstrated by a Good Friday sermon of 1496 given by
tragic pity in the late-medieval tendency to dwell on the torture and abuse Girolamo Savonarola. He complained of a form of piety - especially popular
infücted on the innocent Christ. But the pitiful aspect of the Passion was, as among women, he implies - that saw only pain and suffering in the Passion:
Christian preachers and theologians repeatedly insisted, only one part of the "These women would like to cry with the Virgin, but don't think that she
story, for through this mortal suffering Christ achieved victory over death and cried the way people say."The sadness of the Virgin, Savonarola argues, was
brought the promise of redemption to humankind. It was, therefore, a pecu- J
t
liarly Christian view of history that could see events such as the expulsion of i
¡
Adam and Eve from paradise, or Christ's Passion, at once as wholly lamentable
and as occasions for theologically informed j oy.21
¡
This is not to say that Christian art, drama, and devotional literature did not
pursue dramatic effects - specifically in the expression of lamentation - that l1
sorely tested the limits of this conception. Already in the eleventh century, the 1
propagation of the image of the dead Christ on the cross in Byzantine art was 12. Niccolo
cause for much controversy and hand-wringing. The papal legate Cardinal dell'Arca.
Humbert of Silva Candida, visiting Constantinople in ro54, expressed outrage Úlmentation.
Marble. Santa
that the Greeks should venerate an "image of a dying man" on the cross. He
Maria della Vita,
did so because he believed that after death the body of Christ was separated Bologna, Italy.
from the Holy Spirit and thus was like the body of any man. The Byzantine Alinari/ Art
theological tradition, on the other hand, had in various ways affirmed belief in Resource, NY.
the continued efficacy of the Holy Spirit within Christ's dead body, a belief
that won the day in the west only with the advent of scholastic theology. The
new image thus became a polemical means of asserting the dual nature of
Christ, and Byzantine theologians strained their poetic abilities in an effort to
explain how \he image of a dead body also represented the living god. 22 The
37
MICHELANGELO AND THE REFORM OF ART t TRANSPORT AND TRANSITUS
tempered by her understanding of the place of these events within the

Christian scheme of redemption. The tendency of "these women" to see the
Virgin solely as a grief-stricken mother stemmed, in Savonarola's view, from a
crippling eschatological myopia. His position rested on solid Christian
authority: On the Gospels first of all, which are notoriously reticent about the
Virgin's lament, and on a long tradition of Christian polemics against exces-
sive, "pagan" forms oflamentation going back to St. Paul. 2 4 Placing himself in
this tradition, Savonarola explained how it was possible for the Virgin to be
paradoxically both happy and sad: 13. Giotto di
Bondone,
And don't think that [the Virgin] walked through the streets screaming, her hair Lamentation.
wild, or with indecent carriage, because she could command her sensible side not Fresco. Scrovegni
to feel pain. She went directly behind her Child, but with dignity and great mod- Chapel, Padua,
Italy. Alinari/ Art
esty, shedding a few tears; she did not appear entirely sad, but happy and sad, in
Resource, NY.
such a way that men marvelled at her, because she did not behave as women nor-
mally do. Nor is it true that she was consoled by Mary Magdalene; she rather
consoled the Magdalene. She did not need to be consoled by the other women;
instead, she consoled them by saying: Be strong, let him suffer; this is what has
been prophesied. 2 s
Savonarola was not the only one to mount this criticism at the time. In
the opening pages of his early sixteenth-century treatise on the Passion, the
popular theolo"gian and preacher Pietro da Lucca railed against those writers
and preachers who write inanities about the Passion, such as depicting the
Virgin as "a woman driven insane by her excessive pain, going around from
house to house and to all those places where her beloved son had been ple, when one compares Giotto's Lamentation fresco from the Arena chapel
taken ... " In doing so, he says, they "insult the perfect knowledge, modesty, (Figure 13) to the closely derived panel from the church of San Remigio now
and patience of the irreprehensible Mother of God," who "with so much in the Uffizi, usually ascribed to Giottino (Figure 14). On an independent
charity wanted that her only son should redeem human nature with his panel, the narrative scene is isolated from the serial structure of the fresco
harsh death." 26 Neither Savonarola nor Pietro da Lucca referred specifically cycle. Hans Belting pointed out that the structural autonomization of the
to works of art, but there can be little doubt that they were aware of similar narrative subject on a single-field panel made it the focus of sustained atten-
abuses in images of the period. As Savonarola spent his novice years in tion different in quality from that which it received as a "station" within a
Bologna, in fact, it is very likely that he had direct knowledge of Niccolo sequence. 28 Belting did not elaborate on this suggestion, which touches on a
dell' Arca's celebrated group. In any case, the passage just quoted gives a fundamental distinction of modern lingnistic theory. Ferdinand de Saussure
good idea of what he would have thought of it. Evidence presented in the described two axes of language, the syntagmatic and the associative, which he
following chapters will suggest that on this point Michelangelo held very suggested corresponded to two forms of mental activity. The syntagmatic axis
similar opinions. This is not to say that his solutions would have pleased his is the "horizontal" combination or sequence of signs, such as we have in a
partisans in the debate. sentence; the associative axis establishes "vertical" relations between any one
The principles voiced by Savonarola were heeded more often in the arena of the units and other similar units of the system. Saussure adopted the exam-
of the altarpiece. Although no clear set of rules existed to prescribe the altar- ple of architecture: This Doric column stands in contiguous, "syntagmatic"
piece's functions, 27 its clase association with the altar naturally encouraged an relation to other parts of the building, such as the architrave, but it can also be
emphasis on those features of the subject that connected it to the scheme of compared to other types of columns, such as Ionic and Corinthian, in a rela-
redemption celebrated in every mass rite. That is, altarpieces were more likely tion of potential substitution, an associative relation, what later semioticians
to stress the "flgural" significance of biblical events. This is evident, for exam- would calla paradigmatic relation. 2 9 RomanJakobson developed the distinc-
38 39
a newly condensed relationship.33 Giottino's panel in the Uffizi, based on

Giotto's fresco, provides a very clear case in point. As A. M. Birkmeyer
showed, the image suppresses the temporal and geographical references of the
historical narrative: The landscape setting of Giotto's fresco is replaced by a
gold ground and a neutral stage. The great cross that occupies the gable struc-
ture "is less the Cross from which Christ has been taken down, than, in the
symbolic sense, one of the arma Christi."34 Moreover, on the left side of the
cross appear patron saints and donors "oflater days."These features break open
the internal consistency of the historical narrative and facilitate its "suprahis-
torical" application in the context of Christian ritual. The historical actors,
particularly the Mary at Christ's feet, serve as models or "figures" of prayer
and devotion for the Christian worshippers kneeling near her - a relation of
14. Giottino, similarity that stood at the basis of a widespread late-medieval devotional
Lamentation.Panel.
strategy that Frank Büttner has termed imitatio pietatis.35The painting is thus
Uffizi, Florence,
Italy. Alinari/ Art designed specifically to operate at what biblical exegetes designated as the
Resource, NY. third or "tropological" level of meaning, by which the biblical event is con-
nected to the heart and mind of the worshipper.3 6
Similar principles are at work in Pietro Perugino 's Uffizi Lamentation,
painted for the church of Santa Chiara in 1495, although here we see them
adapted to the conditions of late fifteenth-century painting (Figure 15).
-"'~-- ... __ 'Nlt};iP

____ _
4r
15. Pietro
Perugino,
tion into one between the metonymic (syntagmatic) and the metaphoric
Lamentation.Panel.
(associative) and suggested its application to a wide array of cultural expres- Galleria Palatina,
sions - pointing, for example, to the preference for metaphorical or associative Palazzo Pitti,
relations in Romantic literature, in contrast to the metonymic or syntagmatic Florence, ltaly.
Alinari/ Art
proclivities of Realist narrative.3° Resource, NY
The distinction can also be found in Christian ritual and thought, for
example in the contrast between the literal level and the allegorical levels, or
between history and figure, in biblical exegesis.31 Giotto's fresco cycle in
Padua offers a rich combination of both modes of signification: One can read
it "horizontally" as a chronological sequence, and one can also read it "verti-
cally" and find figura!, or paradigmatic, associations that connect chronologi-
cally disparate scenes.32 Large-scale narrative painting on panel, as it
developed in ~urteenth-century Italy, brought the two functions together in
40
Disruptions of interna! historical consistency such as we find in the Giottino- Things are stretched to a point of greater tension in Sandro Botticelli's
attributed panel would have been considered archaic in Perugino's time, and Lamentation in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan, which is informed by a
so Perugino opted instead for a more gentle expressive restraint throughout. much stronger interest in antique-inspired expressive motifs, or what Aby
Active, "momentary" gestures - especially gestures of dramatic lamentation - Warburg called pathos formulas (Figure 16).38 The painting shows severa!
are muted or entirely absent, and subsidiary relationships among the figures dramatic gestures of lamentation, at least two of which have distinguished
are kept to a mínimum. Almost every figure establishes a separate and medita- antique pedigrees: The woman to the right cradles Christ's head just as
tive relationship to the dead Christ, who is shown propped on a square (altar- Andromache held the dead Hector in the Iliad, and the figure to the left
like) block covered with a white (altar cloth-like) winding sheet. The muting veils her face - a motif invented by Timanthes to express unimaginable
of lament assimilates the attitudes of the historical actors to the worshipful grief, for which he was celebrated both by ancient writers and by Alberti.39
activity of the viewer befare the painting's real altar. This altarpiece's obedi- Even while introducing these motifs, however, Botticelli manages to main-
ence to the principles voiced by Savonarola might be more than coincidental, tain a significant degree of emotional restraint. We see no wild hair, no flail-
as the principal patron of this church is known to have been associated with ing limbs, no screaming faces of the kind seen in other all'anticaworks, such
the Dominican preacher.37 as those by Donatello (see Figure 8) and Niccolo dell'Arca (Figure 12). The
faces, with the exception perhaps of the figure at the top, conform to the
prescriptions for measured lament voiced by the church fathers and
repeated, in Botticelli's day, by Savonarola. Viewed in this light, the Homeric
and Timanthes-derived motifs may perhaps be read as instances of a very
refined sense of decorum: They are highly expressive antique motifs that
could be considered not to violate the theologically informed code of
lamentation.
All of these works are focused on the immobile body of Christ, a feature
that facilitated their participation within "figura!" structures appropriate to
the liturgical context of altarpieces. The challenge was of an entirely different
order in the case of Alberti's proposal for a historiamodeled on the scene of
the carrying of the dead Meleager. The crucial difference líes in the represen-
tation of movement, which emphasizes both historicity and irreversibility.
16. Sandro This much is suggested, at least, by the fact that nothing like it was attempted
Botticelli, on the principal panels of altarpieces during the fifteenth century. 40
Lamentation.Panel.
Museo Poldi
Pezzoli, Milan,
Italy. Alinari/ Art THE ALTARPIECE AS A DOMINANT FORM
Resource, NY.
Alberti's challenge was indeed taken up in the fifteenth century, but within
the more experimental and flexible medium of engraving, in Andrea
Mantegna's famous print of the Entombment, where the Meleager model is
adapted to the Christian subject (Figure 17). Large, public panel painting
was controlled by more formal conventions than was the new print
medium, and thus it offered greater resistance to this conception of history
painting. A revealing example of the reception of the Alberti-Mantegna tra-
dition within this format is offered by a Foppa-school panel in Pavía, where
elements of Mantegna's composition are clearly quoted but are adapted to a
more conventional Lamentation formula (Figure 18). This state of affairs was
due in large part to the generic control that the institution of the altarpiece
42 43
17. Andrea
Mantegna,
Entombment.
Engraving.
Rosenwald
Collection, © 1999
Board ofTrustees,
National Gallery of
Art, Washington,
D.C., U.S..
18. School of
Vincenzo Foppa,
Lamentation.Panel.
Malaspina Gallery,
Pavia, Italy.
exerted over the format. This is not to claim that large panels were not
occasionally, and even quite often, painted for other purposes. It is to argue
that the altarpiece fulfilled the role of the "dominant" in the sense in tended
by Roman Jakobson:4 1 Not only was it, in most places, numerically the
most common type of painting done in this format in the fifteenth cen-
tury4 2 but it was, more important, governed by a set of conventions that
were more coherent and powerful than those controlling any other venue
for large panel painting.
The dominance of the altarpiece is most clearly demonstrated in the mor-
phological development of the format: It was through the metamorphosis of
the altarpiece that panel painting developed, in the 1430s, the familiar form of
the rectangular picture surrounded by an independent frame, the quadro,
which then became the paradigm for easel painting as such.43 No one would
deny that there were square and unified panels before the 1430s, and in other
categories besides the altarpiece. But, as Max Ernst once said, "Ce n'est pas la
callequiJaít le collage."44The crucial structural claim for the later history easel
painting was not the square shape of the panel per se but the idea that the pic-
torial fiction is notionally independent of the material structure of the pic- of vision, a cropping of a nocional reality that exists independent of it. Later,
ture. This idea was first systematically asserted through the application of once the format was established and the notion of the "picture" had become
mathematical perspective in altarpieces of the late 1430s and early 1440s, such normative, the claim of pictorial autonomy carne as a matter of course with-
as those by Fra Angelico and Domenico Veneziano.45 It is what crucially dis- out the need for rigorous perspectiva! constructions.
tinguishes these experiments from other paintings on rectangular formats, But formats were not independent of institutions. The main venue for the
such as spallíerapainting.4 6 In the new brand of altarpiece the rectangular for- new kind of picture until the early sixteenth century was the altarpiece, and
mat was not iqiposed by the furniture but was an abstract delimitation of the this fact determined the uses to which the format was put. The dominance of
pictorial field. 'rt represented an arbitrary cutoff, a slice through the pyramid the altarpiece was so strong that it affected the nature even of nonreligious
44 45
·painting carried out in this format: It has been observed that altarpiece con- St. John, to Christ's left in the paint-
ventions are at work in Luca Signorelli's now-lost Pan, as well as in Botticelli's ing. The drawing was, however,
Primaveraand Birth efVenus.47 N ew kinds of painting had first to lay claim to clearly made befare Michelangelo
the surfaces of large panels, and this meant that they had to contend with the had definitively settled on the frontal
resistance posed by the conventions of the altarpiece. 48 Whether strictly conception of the theme. The figure
derived from him or not, severa! features in line with Alberti's other proposals is derived from the crucial central
far painting, such as those concerning perspective and proportion, were intro- turning figure in Mantegna's print.
duced into altar painting of the fifteenth century, but not the conception of Like that figure, Michelangelo's
historiaembodied in the Meleager model. When Michael Baxandall corre- stands on his right leg and is shown
lated Albertian principles with the rise of the rectangular, single-field, per- poised between a frontal orientation 19. Michelangelo,
spectivally constructed picture format usually referred to as the Renaissance and a lateral direction. The figure Malefigure study.
pala, he rnight have added that a significant aspect of Alberti's proposals far seems to be designed to be holding Drawing. Louvre,
Paris, France. ©
painting was held back even in this format. 49 the winding cloth in his right hand Réunion des
Michelangelo's unfinished London Entombmentwas an ingenious, and ulti- and locking it over his right shoul- Musées Nationaux.
mately frustrated, effort to effectuate this merger. His fundamental move was der. His head is turned to gaze back
to adapt the lateral conception to a structure of frontal presentation that over this shoulder, presumably at the
would conform to altarpiece conventions of frontality and symmetry. This body of Christ. This motif was pre-
was not merely a formal question. Such a solution not only brought impor- served, in reverse, in the final paint-
tant changes to the treatment of the theme but also occasioned a reevaluation ing, where the figure was put on the
of the very function of the altarpiece. Befare embarking on this argument, other side of Christ. In the drawing,
however, it is necessary to address sorne reasonable initial doubts. Given the however, the implied slinging of the
obvious differences between Michelangelo's painting on the one hand and the winding cloth over the shoulder
Meleager-Mantegna tradition on the other, what is there to connect it to makes it unlikely that the figure is
these precedents, or to Alberti's proposals, at all? Why not simply see it in engaged in a backward movement, as
relation to the often-cited panels by Fra Angelico and Rogier van der Weyden it was finally worked out in the
(see Figures 25 and 30, discussed below) to which it is compositionally closer? painting. Rather, the figure is shown looking over his shoulder while stepping
The main feature that connects Michelangelo's panel to the tradition forward. This progression is equivoca!: The stepping leg shows severa! penti-
discussed in this chapter is the preoccupation with ideas of conveyance and menti, which alternate between an obligue and a frontal view. The drawing is
trajectory, and thus with the mechanics of support and carrying. This probably not operating within a fully worked out conception: It shows
dynarnism sets it apart from Fra Angelico's and Rogier's panels, which both Michelangelo attempting to think it through, as it were, from this turning figure
show a stationary group. The concern with figures in movement was, more- outward. He was exploring the opportunity far torsion and movement occa-
over, as Warburg saw, bound up with the reviva! of antique figura! formulas, a sioned by the motif of carrying but had not yet resolved its implications far the
concern that is largely absent from Fra Angelico's and Rogier's panels. larger composition. It is hard to imagine, far example, what this figure's posture
Moreover, there is a good deal of evidence, as I attempt to show in chapter 4, implies far the body of Christ. A lateral position, with the body enclosed
to suggest that Raphael himself responded to Michelangelo's panel in the lengthwise in the winding cloth as in a hammock, seems to be the most likely
making ofhis own Entombmentnow in the Borghese Gallery, and thus under- possibility, although it is not made clear.51
stood it in relation to the tradition of Meleager, Alberti, and Mantegna. In the painting, the composition has been organized so that Christ is pre-
But there is even more direct evidence: A nude pen study that Michael Hirst sented upright and frontally. The resulting solution offers effective resistance
has plausiblf connected to the London panel shows, I believe, Michelangelo to severa! basic Albertian principles. First, as we have seen, Michelangelo sub-
working directly from Mantegna's print (Figure 19).Sº It reveals Michelangelo's verted the primary lesson of the Meleager model by qualifying the emphasis
efforts to adapt Mantegna's lateral composition into a new configuration. on the deadness of the body: Christ is being carried with great effort and
Pointing to th pose, and above all to the downward gaze cast over an upraised strain and yet he is shown upright, without wounds, and ambiguously sus-
1
shoulder, Hirst proposed that the drawing reveals an early idea far the figure of pended. Second, Michelangelo qualified Alberti's conception of the picture as
47
CHAPTER TWO
an open window through which we see figures freely moving in space. In

contrast to Mantegna's print, where we see complex figura! overlappings, here
the figures are kept from overlapping by an externa! imperative that operates
at the level of the picture surface. Third, the figures who are not carrying are
suspended in undramatic attitudes: One turns away, the other meditates, and
Man of Sorrows and Entombment
the third assumes an attitude of veneration. These are barely movements and
do not conform to Alberti's principies for dramatic response. Fourth, and
most important, Michelangelo broke open what Alois Riegl called the inter-
na! unity (and thus the temporality) of the narrative, and produced an "outer
unity" or "coordination" with the viewer.52 This structural reformulation
transformed the historical episode of the transport of Christ into a figura!
transitusthat moves over and across history.
The resistance to the Albertian model in Michelangelo's panel results from
the effort to accomodate Alberti's conception to the implicit demands of altar
images and, thus, to the ritual setting of Christian worship. The key move was
to adapt the subject to altarpiece conventions of symmetry and frontality. The
frontal presentation of Christ, in turn, overtly attaches the image to the tradi-
FRA ANGELICO AND THE MAN OF SORROWS IN ITALY
tion of the Man of Sorrows (or, as it was known in the period, imagopietatis)-
a cult image tradition with archaic associations to the Christian altar and to
the mystery of the Eucharist.53 Michelangelo responded directly to two sig- The image of the Man of Sorrows was transmitted to the West via
nificant adaptations of this tradition, a predella panel by Fra Angelico in Byzantine icons that began to be imported in large numbers in the twelfth
Munich and a larger panel by Rogier van der Weyden now in the Uffizi, both and thirteenth centuries. 1 The Byzantine examples, such as the famous
of them Medici commissions (see Figures 25 and 30). These works are note- mosaic in Santa Croce in Gerusalemme (Figure 20), typically show a figure
worthy - and were evidently appreciated in their time - for having adapted of the dead Christ represented upright but not nailed to the cross and thus
the traditional image in light of developments in modern narrative painting. not attached to any one episode of the Passion narrative. The image fuses
Michelangelo's painting pushed this effort further, by attempting a more com-
1
¡ the upright image of the Christ of the Crucifixion with the image of the
plex narrative staging and incorporating an explicitly antique-inspired idiom lying Christ on epitaphioi, or altar cloths. 2 In its bust-length format it also
of figura! movement - in short, by coordinating the Man of Sorrows tradition resembles icons of the Pantocrator. The paradox of Christ's dead but stand-
with the demands of the Albertian historia as illustrated, for example, in ing figure expresses a mysterious divine efficacy within the dead body, sug-
Mantegna's engraving. The resulting solution not only brought radical gesting the life-giving virtues of Christ's sacrifice. The Byzantine Man of
changes to the conception of history painting proposed by Alberti but it also Sorrows was one of severa! images developed to meet the changing
offered a critica! reevaluation of the function of the altarpiece and a poignant demands of the Eastern Passion liturgy, which from the eleventh century on
commentary on the status of this central institution of Christian image mak- had been greatly enriched by a series of new texts and rites. Its "synthetic"
ing circa 1500. To understand this critica! response, it is necessary first to qualities enabled this single image to serve for the various readings and
examine the panels of Fra Angelico and Rogier van der Weyden in relation to prayers that composed the new Passion services.
their respective traditions. I. After it was introduced into the West with the importation of Eastern
icons, the image soon achieved enormous popularity. Commonly called imago
pietatis,it brought a new physical and emotional immediacy to the representa-
tion of the mystery of Christ's sacrifice. The image was, indeed, quite early
and quite often associated with the sacrifice of the Mass.3 The reality mysteri-
1 ously present in the bread, in its daily offering on the altar, was commonly
¡ visualized by late-medieval mystics in the form presented by this image. At
\ the elevation of the Host, for example, a vision of Christ appeared to the thir-
49
MICHELANGELO AND THE REFORM OF ART MAN OF SORROWS AND ENTOMBMENT
what the custom of painters [laconsuetudinede'pítton] befare Michelangelo has

demonstrated." 8 Changes resulted from processes interna! to the practice of
image making and were then canonized and standardized by patterns of
patronage and reception.9 This was true even in cases where the changes car-
ried important theological consequences, as Gilio recognized and as we shall
see below. The following account of the reinterpretation of the image befare
1 ' Michelangelo must therefore proceed by direct analysis of the images them-
selves, studied in relation to their respective traditions.
20. Man of Sorrows. The Eucharistic associations of the Man of Sorrows image were made
Mosaic. Santa
explicit, and given widespread currency, by the legend of the Mass of St.
Croce in
Gerusalemme, Gregory. The linking of Gregory with the mystery of the Mass probably
Rome, Italy. derived from the popular tradition that he was the first author of the Ordo
Romanus.10 According to the legend, Christ appeared on the altar of St.
Gregory the Great in response to his prayer for a sign to convince an unbe-
liever of the truth of the Eucharist. The icon in Santa Croce in Gerusalemme
(see Figure 20), despite the fact that it was a relatively recent import, was soon
claimed to be the image originally commissioned by St. Gregory the Great in
commemoration of the event. u On the basis of this legend, huge indulgences
were attached to the Man of Sorrows image in the late Middle Ages: In the
fourteenth century seven Paternosters,seven Ave Mariasand seven short prayers
called the "prayers of St. Gregory" said in front of the ímagopietatisobtained a
true pardon of 6,000 years in Purgatory; by the fifteenth century the sum had
teenth-century mystic Angela of Foligno under the aspect of the imagopietatis: been inflated to 46,000 years. 12 Befo re the advent of the Man of Sorrows
"The image of the blessed Lord and crucified one appeared to me, as if just image, however, the Gregory legend existed in a different form: In the thir-
taken clown from the cross."4 teenth-century GoldenLegend,for example, Christ's real presence in the sacra-
The image thus made the appeal to the emotions a powerful vehicle of ment is manifested by the appearance of Christ's finger upon the altar.13 Ernile
Christian dogma.S In reviewing the double meaning of the word pietas in its Mfile, betraying the iconographer's tendency to make images dependent on
association with this image, Hans Belting showed that the image encapsulated texts, asserted that the legend of the rniraculous Mass does not appear in the
key elements of the Christian doctrine of redemption: pietasrefers, reciprocally, GoldenLegend.14 It does, but in this earlier version that has nothing to do with
both to the empathetically aroused piety of the beholder and to the merey of the visual tradition of the Man of Sorrows, and that thus cannot be adduced as
the Redeemer. The exploration of empathy-inducing effects was thus from the a textual source for the image. The rniraculous legend was visualized in the
beginning a constitutive part of the image's meaning and function, and this in form of the Man of Sorrows only in the course of the fourteenth century -
turn encouraged its remarkably free and open-ended development. 6 From the that is, after the importation of the Byzantine icon formula - and it was only
original Byzantine bust formula, it was expanded throughout the fourteenth then, through the proliferation of images depicting the rniracle, that the legend
and fifteenth centuries by the inclusion of additional figures and gestures, and achieved its vast popularity. In other words, the image gave new form and life
by the introduction of increasingly aggressive devices of pictorial staging. 7 The to a legend, which in turn elaborated an account of the origin of the image. 15
elaboration of illusionistic and rhetorical devices was, indeed, the logical con- The identification of the Man of Sorrows with the consecrated Host of the
sequence of the claim to immediate visual experience celebrated by the image. Mass led to its frequent use on altarpieces, where it remained, however, con-
It is thus not possible to explain the development of the image, every step of fined to subordinate zones. 16 Often called a pieta, the image was commonly
the way, by reference to specific theological prescription. As the theologian found in the predellas and upper registers of Italian altarpieces. 17 An early
Giovanni Andrea Gilio said with great clarity in 1564, it is difficult to give a example of the Tuscan type, Simone Martini's Pisa polyptych of 1319, corre-
hard and fast r\ason why images should be so and not otherwise, because apart sponds to the model of the Byzantine bust-length panels with Chirst's arms
from Guillaum'e Durand's Rationale"we do not have any rule or law, except crossed over his chest. In a slightly later predella by a follower of Bernardo
50 51
Daddi (Figure 21), the figure of Christ is shown in halflength, with his arms
held open and his outstretched hands taken by St. John and the Virgin. The
flanking Virgin and St. John were a part of the earliest Italian Man of Sorrows
images. 18 The Daddi school predella, and many others that are similar in com-
position, "motivated" the presence of the two flanking figures by linking them
to Christ via gestures drawn from narratives such as the deposition. 19 Christ's
open-armed pose and the attitudes of St. John and the Virgin, for example,
show similarities to the monumental sculptural groups of the late thirteenth
and early fourteenth centuries. 20
In the Daddi-school panel (see Figure 21) we also see the half-length for-
mat "rationalized" by having Christ submerged from the waist clown in a sar- 22. Bartolorneo
cophagus. This feature, another effect of the tendency toward narrative Giolfino, Tabernacle
contextualization, was to become a standard element of Man of Sorrows altarpiecewith Man
images in Italy throughout the following century. 21 It carried special implica- efSorrows.Marble.
Isabella Stewart
tions when used on altars, and especially when placed in the predella immedi- Gardner Museurn,
ately above the altar, as it often was in Italian altarpieces. In this position, the Boston, U.S ..
Man of Sorrows image was assimilated to representations of the Mass of St.
Gregory, where the figure of Christ was often shown with his upper half ris-
ing up from the back of the altar (see Figure 28). The idea of immersion was
quite explicitly explored in countless sacrament tabernacles, where the half-
length figure of Christ is shown submerged in the recess containing the Host,
an eloquent means of asserting his consubstantiality with the sacrament. These
ideas carne together in altarpieces that carried a sacrament tabernacle in their
principal fields, such as a mid-fifteenth-century Veronese example in the
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum 22 (Figure 22).
In most Florentine altarpieces of the fifteenth century, however, the Man of
Sorrows appeared in the predella, which, in contrast to the windowlike princi-
pal field, was understood to belong to the physical framework of the altarpiece
itself and thus to be in more direct physical relation to the altar below. In the oblong, as one would expect a tomb to be, but blocklike and squarish -
predellas of several late-Quattrocento altarpieces in the church of Santo Spirito indeed, strikingly similar to the real altar in front of it (Figure 23). These altars,
in Florence, the Man of Sorrows is shown half submerged in a tomb that is not like almost all from the period, themselves have a square recess carved into
their top surfaces. This recess, often described by liturgists as a sepulchrum,was
designed to hold the relics that were necessary for the altar's consecration. 2 3
Often pieces of the consecrated Host were added to the relics for the purposes
of consecration; by the thirteenth century the Host was regularly used as a sub-
21. Follower of
stitute in the absence of relics.2 4 If the altar as a whole was not consecrated, the
Bernardo Daddi, stone covering the sepulchrumserved as the consecration stone and was meant
Man efSorrows. to provide an area large enough to hold the chalice for the wine and the
Predella panel.
Forrnerly Lycett
Host. 2 5 The precinct of the sepulchrumthus served both to contain and support
Green Collection, the body of Christ. A woodcut from a Savonarola tract explicitly connects this
London. element of the altar apparatus with the imago pietatis: It shows the Man of
Sorrows standing on this very stone, the metaphorical tomb slab, effectively
displacing chalice and Host with his physical presence (Figure 24). The image
52 53
MAN OF SORROWS AND ENTOMBMENT
23. Master of
Santo Spirito,
Madonnaand Child 25. Fra Angelico,
and Saints.Panel. Christ at theTomb.
Santo Spirito, Predella panel. Alte
Florence, Italy. Pinakothek,
Munich, Germany.
Scala/ Art
Resource, NY.
in the predella, therefore, clairned a direct analogy to the Eucharist consecrated

'(E;B~e&utí,llfflaátodctlaHumilita(tomP<>!lo.
da•,
• "frate'Mi4ronpn9dwFmm<lellordine_ddli on the altar before it.
·• • • prcdidtori•, ••
Fra Angelico inherited and reformed this tradition in the central predella
panel of the altarpiece he painted for the church of San Marco about 1440
(Figure 25). In the somewhat earlier altarpiece of the Coronationof the Virgin,
painted for the church of San Domenico in Fiesole, Fra Angelico had intro-
duced a largely convencional Man of Sorrowsin this same position (Figure 26).
24. Florentine, In the Coronationpredella, Christ is shown standing in the tomb surrounded
Man efSorrows. by the instruments of the Passion. Before the tomb sit St. John and the Virgin,
Woodcut. By L
at a scale different from the figure of Christ, almost as part of the system of
permission of the
Houghton Library, Passion symbols arrayed around him. In the central predella panel of the San
Harvard University, Marco altarpiece Fra Angelico adapted the traditional Man of Sorrows
Cambridge, Mass., scheme to stricter standards of scenic consistency: The figure of Christ is
U.S ..
shown standing befarethe tomb, and the active presence of the other figures is
R.and"-"'!IW;)ll:rab.ile
prdj,~ptlone miparedileétlí 1 "motivated" by the narrative of Christ's entombment.
fimaln GhtiO:olefti ¡Jnger!Jfi & ínfcgnarc ad :tltrl
quclIP, cheperf,Jhuoíuo non tntendc, maxtme ncl Certain developments in contemporary painting already pointed in this
JecQfel'.llQt'aliÍdl<t1CllwuladeUa
ulrtu, nellaquale non fipuo
jí:étamentée[a doll:o, chl non Iba fn fe ntedefin,o per
l':go & contlniit)exercitlo prouata, Ittmolto plu nella ula
direction. For example, in a nearly contemporary predella panel by the Master
dcll• perfcéfionede.llaulta fpirltuale".1nfopportab1lcla,
Supe¡bfadi choloro ,che ardlfchono lnfcgnlatla ad • ltti 1 &
of the Osservanza, now in Dijon, the traditional half-length Man of Sorrows
maiilori'.conobbono,non dtco purchéhabblno guftatain fe
medefü11tuna mlnlma fclntilla di quella , SI ¡,erche• tutti
in the sarcophagus is set within the cave described in the Gospel texts. Christ
• a
is visible through a square opening, and St. John and the Virgin are shown sit-
ting outside it. A larger panel by Filippo Lippi, in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum
54 55
1,
27. ]acopo Bellini,
1:1 Man efSorrows-
1¡ Lamentation.
l Drawing book, f.
26. Fra Angelico, 54. Louvre, Paris,
Coronationefthe France. ©
Virgin,detail of Réunion des
predella. Panel. Musées Nationaux.
Louvre, Paris,
France. © ¡
Réunion des Jl
Musées Nationaux.
!¡
l
l The figure of Christ is shown frontally, in the pose derived from the deposi-
L tion, his arms hanging open and his hands held by St. John and the Virgin, and
is now supported from behind by Joseph of Arimathea. Most important, he is
shown in full-length and before the tomb. In strictly iconographic terms the
image would be categorized as an entombment, but its origins lie in the Man
of Sorrows tradition, and this derivation is necessary to understanding its sig-
in Milan, shows the Man of Sorrows at three-quarter length, standing in the nificance. 2 9 The figure of Christ, indeed, shows distinct vestiges of the half-
tomb but supported by John and Mary; the conception thus approaches a length formula typical for Man of Sorrows images up to this time: From the
scene of entombment. 26 At the same time, and actuated by similar purposes, waist clown - that is, more or less at the leve! where Christ's body is inter-
]acopo Bellini was also experimenting with expanded narrative settings for sected by the upper edge of the sarcophagus - the legs are concealed by the
the half-length Man efSorrows (Figure 27). Significantly, he elaborated these winding sheet. The upper half of the figure is then carefully delimited from
experiments in his drawing books but did not attempt them in his formal fin- the rest of the image: No part of Christ's upper body trespasses the limits of
ished paintings. 2 7 The "naturalization" of the Man of Sorrows into a consistent the dark rectangular window of the tomb. Even within the naturalistic setting
narrative pictorial conception corresponds in large measure to what Robert of the scene, therefore, the original half-length Man of Sorrows is framed off,
Suckale has, described as a late-medieval "allmiihliche Depotenzierung des decontextualized.
Zeichens," an "umwandlung der Zeichen in eine immer stiirker bildliche Form," a The image's origin in the Man of Sorrows imprints it with sacramental
trend that he associated with an 1emerging conception of high art that was associations. Beyond the body of Christ itself, the entire configuration of the
becoming increasingly differentiated from the visual forms of folk piety. 28 scene preserves much of the presentational quality of the Man of Sorrows
Fra Angelico~ San Marco predella took this effort to new lengths by trans- image. Joseph of Arimathea works to support the body, but the overall impres-
forming the Mdn ef Sorrows into an entirely consistent entombment scene. sion is one of an indefinitely extended halt before the tomb. The gestures of
56 57
St. John and the Virgin are adapted virtually unchanged from the Man of The fact that Fra Angelico's panel falls outside of established iconographic
Sorrows image: Originally abstracted from the scene of the deposition and, as categories confronts the historian with special challenges. The work is an
it were, held in suspension in the image of the Man of Sorrows, the poses have effort to reinterpret the form and significance of a tradicional cult image
not been fully "reactivated" as functional gestures in this scene of entomb- within new pictorial conditions. The result was a novel approach to a central
ment. The sacramental nature of the gestures only confirms the liturgical Christian mystery, and a new series of reflections on the role of representation
associations of the image as a whole:The body is touched only by hands cov- in Christian art. Most artists, of course, simply adopted the new devices as
ered with cloths,just as the sacred elements are handled during the Mass rite, novel means to tradicional ends. For Fra Angelico, the adoption of a new pic-
and the sheet in which Christ is wrapped spreads into an almost perfect rec- torial regime committed to the representation of consistent historical settings
tangle on the ground, a striking analogue to the cloth on which the celebrant made it necessary to find a new approach to representing the "figural" dimen-
sets the paten with the Host and the chalice with the wine - a practice we see sion of sacred events - and thus to come to terms in new ways with how such
clearly illustrated, for example, in Albrecht Dürer's woodcut of the Mass efSt. meaning works. Fra Angelico's discovery - one appreciated by Michelangelo
Gregory(Figure 28) .3° - was to place rhetorical emphasis on controlled lapses in or subversions of
the new claims to pictorial consistency. The usefulness of this device was rec-
ognized in the earliest monuments of perspectival painting. In Masaccio's
Triníty, for example, the figure of God the Father "resists" the conditions of
perspective that govern the rest of the fresco. He is viewed from dead in front
(i.e., in orthogonal projection) from toes to head. His figure <loes not abey
the vagaries of earthbound sight, embodied in and symbolized by the view-
point-contingent system of perspectiveY
In Fra Angelico, these challenges occur, for example, in material disruptions
at the level of the picture plane, such as the "stains" to which Georges Didi-
Huberman has drawn attention.32 But they occur in other ways as well. In this
predella panel, for example, the participation of the event within a suprahistor-
ical structure is everywhere expressed by the subjection of the scene to a for-
mality of design that is imposed, as it were, "from above."The contours of the
28. Albrecht figures, for example, conform to the shape of the rock behind, and Christ's
Dürer, Mass efSt. winding cloth spreads into a rectangle reininiscent of a Eucharistic cloth.
Gregory.Woodcut.
Rosenwald Ultimately - and, perhaps, inevitably - this dialogue between the natural and
Collection, © 1999 the artificial involves a metastatement about the status of the painting itself.
Board ofTrustees, The contents of the represented scene are not simply things we see through
Nacional Gallery of
Art, Washington,
the arbitrary slice of the windowlike picture frame. Rather, they seem to
D.C.,U.S .. "know" the picture frame exists. Here the statement is quite literal: The cave
opening, clown to the bottom of the sarcophagus, is exactly proporcional to
the rectangle of the panel itself. The elements of the historical event already
contain the principle of its figuration. Did the picture frame deterinine the
size and shape of the tomb opening, or vice versa? The question is undecid-
able, because the relation between the two occurs not within the causal logic
of linear time but within the suprahistorical logic of figural associations.
It is no coincidence that this innovative predella panel stood under one
of the first altarpieces to have been made in the modern Renaissance pala
format, the altarpiece painted by Fra Angelico for the high altar of the
church of San Marco in Florence circa 1440 (Figure 29). The experiments
undertaken in the predella panel are of a piece with the revolutionary pro-
59
__
ROGIER VAN DER WEYDEN AND THE NORTHERN MAN OF SORROWS
A strong and early response to Fra Angelico 's predella panel carne in Rogier
van der Weyden's Christ befarethe Tomb now in the Uffizi (Figure 30). This
panel was probably in Florence during Rogier's pilgrimage to Rome for the
jubilee year of 1450-35In 1918, Karl Jahnig first proposed that Fra Angelico's
composition served as Rogier's primary model.36 The connection to Fra
Angelico's full-length treatment allowed Jahnig to correct Adolph
Goldschmidt's earlier proposal that Rogier's panel showed an "Umbildung"of
29. Fra Angelico, the traditional Italian half-length formula of the Man of Sorrows into a full-
Madonnaand Child length depiction with a realistic setting.37 Goldschmidt's assertion was inaccu-
Enthronedwith
Saints.San Marco rate but not insensitive: He had noticed in Rogier's panel, particularly in the
Altarpiece.Panel. upper half of the figure of Christ, with extended arms held by St. John and the
Museo di San Virgin, a link to the tradition underlying its immediate source, the Fra
Marco, Florence,
Italy. Alinari/ Art
Angelico predella. As Jahnig remarked, the half-length formula was relatively
Resource, NY. rare in the north but, as we have seen, widespread in Italy:38 Although it is pos-
sible that Rogier had an independent knowledge of this tradition, it is clear
that he was responding primarily to its adaptation in Fra Angelico's panel.
ject of the altarpiece as a whole. The altarpiece replaced Lorenzo di

Niccoló's Coronationpolyptych on the high altar of San Marco with a new 30. Rogier van der
conception of the altar image: The earlier gold-ground polyptych, an Weyden, Christ at
imposing piece of ecclesiastical furniture, was replaced by a unified and the Tomb.Panel.
Uffizi, Florence,
square panel, conceived in Albertian terms as a window. The new patrons at
Italy. Alinari/ Art
San Marco, Cosimo de' Medici and his brother Lorenzo, evidently chose Resource, NY.
to mark their patronage at San Marco, and more largely the new era of
their patronage in Florence after their return from exile, with a con-
sciously modern design program, whose centerpiece was a new high altar-
piece done according to the rules of mathematical perspective.33 After this
type of altarpiece became standard (in accordance with the process that
the Russian Formalists called "banalization"), painters often reverted to the
1 1 traditional M-an of Sorrows scheme in their predella panels. For this initial
ii i work, however, a greater pressure was evidently felt to modernize the pre-
della in accordance with the claims of the rest of the altarpiece.34
\
60 61
•• . •• •• -- ____ ___._..--....,.... ..----,.--~-

.......
Rogier's response to Fra Angelico's efforts is best understood in light of

earlier experiments with related problems in his own work. Even befare this
encounter, the two painters had struggled with similar problems, and the solu-
tions they developed show sorne striking correspondences-39 Both painters
had, in the 1430s, attempted the considerable task of painting a complex nar-
rative subject - in both cases the deposition - on the principal field of a mon-
umental altarpiece (Figures 31 and 32). Although their solutions are markedly
different, they both respond to a similarly perceived challenge: to reconcile a 32. Rogier van der
drastically widened scope of dramatic pictorial devices with the conventions Weyden,
and perceived functions of altar painting. As there was no established set of Deposition.Panel.
Museo del Prado,
prescriptions for altarpieces in the period, these conventions were only Madrid, Spain.
implicit rules of decorum, and limit-cases such as these serve to bring them Alinari/ Art
into light. Panofsky noted that Rogier's panel, now in the Prado, was a Resource, NY.
"painted critique" of Robert Campin's now lost Depositíonaltarpiece, whose
composition is preserved in a copy in Liverpool. 40 In deliberate response to
the sprawling composition of Campin's colossal altarpiece, Rogier contained
his composition within a compressed, shallow box reminiscent of a
Schnitzaltarand harmonized the movement of the figures by a series of circu-
lating and intersecting rhythmic lines. Energy and movement is continually

redirected inward and contained within the confines of a shrinelike space.
Fra Angelico's Depositionaltarpiece addresses similar issues but offers a very
different solution: The scene is set in an open landscape and contains many
more figures, but a careful restraint is imposed on the action and gestures of
the figures. Whereas in Rogier's Depositionthe figures show a full range of
emotional response, in Fra Angelico's work dramatic gesture is almost entirely
3r. Fra Angelico, contained within attitudes of contemplation: The figures cross their hands
Depositíon.Panel.
Museo di San over their chests, join hands in prayerlike gestures, and kneel in worship. All
Marco, Florence, action is accomplished with the quiet and efficiency of the movements per-
Italy. Alinari/ Art formed at a Mass ceremony: The women at left lay the cloth over the Virgin's
Resource, NY.
lap, preparing it, almost like an altar, to receive the body; in the center the
men in gentle cooperation lower the body from the cross; on the right, a
"congregation" is shown the instruments of the Passion and witnesses the
event with quiet reserve. In both paintings, a gentle circulation of movement
around the body of Christ has the effect of suspending the body in the center
of the panel and counteracting the suggestion of its imminent removal. 41 If
Rogier's panel is an implicit critique of Campin's triptych, Fra Angelico's
altarpiece is a similarly critica! response to Gentile da fabriano's copious
AdorationoJthe Magi, which stood on another altar in the same chapel (Figure
33). Both paintings, in other words, make the implicit but forceful argument
62 63
MICHELANGELO ANO THE REFORM OF ART MAN OF SORROWS ANO ENTOMBMENT
Rogier was therefore well pre-

pared to understand the nature and
significance of Fra Angelico 's inno-
vation in the San Marco predella.
He seized on the idea and adapted
it to a full-size panel. Given the
fact that Rogier's panel was, like
Fra Angelico 's altarpiece, commis- 34. Copy after
Rogier van der
33. Gentile da sioned by the Medici, the compar- Weyden,
Fabriano, Strozzi ison between the two works has a Deposition.Panel.
Altarpiece:Adora/ion
historical basis: It is not difficult to Formerly Fürstlich
of the Magi. Panel.
Hohenzollernsche
Uffizi, Florence, imagine that Rogier's panel was
Hofkammer,
Italy. Scala/ Art commissioned, or at least received, Sigmaringen,
Resource, NY.
in the spirit of a paragone - that is, Germany.
as a characteristically northern
response to the Italian model of
the Medicis' favorite painter. 43
Rogier pushed Fra Angelico's
innovation in new directions by
incorporating a specifically north-
ern conception of the full-length
Man of Sorrows. The full-length
Man of Sorrows had been developed in the late fourteenth century in
France and was the result of a sharply different interpretation of the figure
that pictorial narrative needs to be used with special care on altar panels - that of the dead Christ from that which predominated in Italy.44 In the Italian
is, that it should be used to focus and reinforce devotional attention, not to tradition, as we have seen, the mystery of the life-giving death was expressed
disperse it. through the image of the dead but upright, self-sustaining, and self-offering
The implicit dialogue between these two altarpieces continued in further Christ. Even in the larger elaborations of the theme, for example, Lorenzo
works. In the 1440s Rogier experimented further with the format of the Monaco's panel of 1404 in the Accademia (Figure 35), Christ remains semi-
deposition in ways that can be understood as the inverse of Fra Angelico's active: The open arms of Christ are taken by St. John and the Virgin, but not
experiment in the San Marco predella. A lost painting whose composition is simply for purposes of support; Christ virtually embraces the Virgin and
preserved in several copies presents a close-up of the scene of the deposition, proffers his hand to John, suggesting a somnolent will within the dead body.
showing the three-quarter-length dead Christ with fallen arms surrounded by The full-length conception developed in the north involved a greater
Joseph of Arimathea,John, and the Virgin4 2 (Figure 34). The close-up device emphasis on the effects of death in the figure of Christ. Tendencies in this
was a means of maintaining the intimacy and immediacy of the half-length direction were visible already on Italian soil. It was naturally enough an artist
devotional image within a pictorial regime that had made new claims to nar- from northern Italy, Giovanni da Milano, who took up the theme in this more
rative consistency. Rogier's solution, in effect, restored the borrowings from dramatic key and (conseque~tly) expanded it to the three-quarter length. In
the deposition that had become part of the image of the Man of Sorrows to his remarkable panel in the Florence Accademia, dated 1365, the effects of
their original narrative context. If Fra Angelico in his predella panel expanded death in the figure of Christ are given new emphasis: Christ's mouth is half
a Man of Sorrows image into a narrative, Rogier cropped a narrative scene open and his arms, no longer capable of gentle, half-willed gestures, are rigid
into the form of a Man of Sorrows composition. They are, again, complemen- and cramped (Figure 36). The greater emphasis on the body's lifelessness in
tary responses to the same problem: Fra Angelico expanded the setting while turn invites a more active participation on the part of the attendant figures.
restraining actio\i, and Rogier explored the drama while restricting the focus. Christ is not left alone in the middle of the panel to support himself, as in the
composition. In the famous tondo

ascribed to Jean Malouel in the Louvre
(Figure 37), for example, Christ is
shown fully dead, the obligue view giv-
ing dramatic emphasis to his hanging
head and arms. He is shown in three-
quarter length, and his lifeless body is
supported by the figure of God the
Father placed behind him, again with a 36. Giovanni da
35. Lorenzo hand placed in support of the under- Milano,
Monaco, Arma arm. In several other French works of Lamentation.Panel.
Christi. Panel. Accadenúa,
the period, the figure of an angel fulfills Florence, Italy.
Accadenúa,
Florence, Italy. this function. 47 Rather than having
been mandated by theological author-
ity, these iconographical innovations
were, I believe, the result of an attempt
to resolve a dilemma that had arisen
within the open-ended development of
the image itself. Christ had tradition-
ally occupied a position at the apex of
the composition, a pos1t10n that
expressed his lordship even in death,
and thus the efficacy of his sacrifice. As artists, particularly in the French tra-
dition, gave greater dramatic attention to his hanging and falling body,
more traditional scheme; rather, the attendants now press around Christ, leav- Christ's hierarchical superiority within the composition was ipso facto
ing no cqntour of his body exposed. The placement of the hand in support of threatened. As we have seen, already in Giovanni da Milano's panel the
Christ's underarm is a sensitive index of the new relationship: Christ can no increasing emphasis on the effect of death in the figure of Christ made it
longer be supported by his now entirely lifeless and fallen extremities but necessary to introduce an additional supporting figure above Christ in the
must be taken from a secure place under the arm, by which the torso itself can composition. It was a natural response to the problem, but it diminished
be held upright. This fact entails a closer relationship between Christ and the Christ's preeminent position in the image.
attendant figures and invites the introduction of a third figure lending support By giving this topmost position to an unearthly figure, God the Father or
from above. The new configuration, moreover, necessarily leads to a change in an angel, French artists preserved the sacramental significance of the image.
format: It occasions the removal of the isolating precinct of the sarcophagus The exalted figure above complements and compensates for the increased
and with it, the limit of the half-length formula. The figures are now shown realism in the treatment of Christ's hanging body and thus confirms the effi-
in three-quarter length and are clearly understood to be standing on a shared cacy of his sacrifice. Probably through the Burgundian tradition this idea
ground. passed into Netherlandish painting, where it was developed in several versions
i' These innovations were not aggressively pursued in the following by Robert Campin (Figure 38). As Otto Pacht noted, Campin on the one
decades in ~taly, where the half-length type remained predominant. 45The hand intensified the naturalism of the image by concentrating on the coarse
direction indicated by Giovanni da Milano was pursued, instead, in the flesh and muscle of the Christ figure, and on the other formalized it, by mak-
Burgundian tradition, which received and developed the Italian Man of ing God the Father into a hieratic Majestas figure crowned with a tiara. 48 The
Sorrows tradition beginning in the later fourteenth century.4 6 One of the scheme was adapted from the more traditional Trinitarian scheme of the
most distincti~ features of the type as it developed in the north was the "throne of merey," with the seated God the Father holding the crucifix in his
introduction of"suprahistorical" figures - God the Father or angels - i~ the outstretched hands. The image as it developed in these traditions gave new
66
Rogier's training in this tradition

shaped his response to Fra
Angelico's predella panel. In trans-
forming the Italian half-length Man
of Sorrows into a full-length figure
supported by a venerable bearded
figure from above and behind, Fra
Angelico had strayed into territory
37. Jean Malouel,
Man efSorrows- more familiar to a painter trained in
Trinity.Louvre, the Burgundian and Netherlandish
Paris, France. © traditions. But Rogier did not sim- 38. Robert
Réunion des
Musées Nationaux.
ply re~pond by producing a Campin, Man ef
N etherlandish version of the Man Soffows-Trinity.
Panel. Stadelsches
of Sorrows; he also matched and Kunstinstitut,
surpassed Fra Angelico 's panel in Frankfurt am
the field of narrative painting. He Main, Germany.
Foto Marburg/ Art
therefore deliberately avoided Fra
Resource, NY.
Angelico's solution of placing one
figure behind the dead Christ: To
Rogier's northern eyes (if not to Fra
Angelico's), that formula evoked the
timeless vision of the Trinity images
visual expression to the appeal contained in the Supplicesprayer of the Canon discussed above. Instead, he split the
ofthe Mass: single figure into two historical
actors, Joseph and Nicodemus, and
We humbly beseech Thee, almighty God, let these offerings be carried by the left St. John and the Virgin in their
hands ofThy holy angel to Thine Altar on high, in the presence ofThy Divine places at either side. Everywhere
Majesty, that as many of us, as shall receive the most Sacred Body and Blood of Rogier has naturalized the formal-
Thy Son, by partaking thereof from this altar, may be filled with every heavenly ity of Fra Angelico's image, replac-
blessing and grace, through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.49 ing the latter's strict frontality by an
animating obliqueness. Drawing on Northern traditions, Rogier shows
The prayer, it may be noticed, is served equally well by the Man of Sorrows Christ's body to be dramatically lifeless, broken and turned at an angle. His
with angels, or Engelpieta, as by the compositions incorporating God the feet are precariously perched on the edge of an obliquely placed tomb slab,
Father. I am not proposing the prayer as the source or impetus for the replacing the neat rectangle of Fra Angelico's winding cloth. The slab itself is
image; that would go entirely against the logic of open-ended development placed over a deep ravine in the earth underneath and is propped up by a thin
that I have attempted to trace here.5° The content of the prayer, after all, had log placed under the protruding comer. St. John, adapted from Rogier's other
been just as well represented in the more rigid form of the throne of merey, narrative compositions, echoes the obligue placement of the slab with his
in which God.the Father holds a .Christ on the cross. The form of the image own diagonal movement. FraAngelico's image is marked by confinement and
incorporatin'g the broken, bleeding figure of the Man of Sorrows instead closure: The cave blocks off the view of the horizon and any access to the
expands and develops the meaning of the prayer. It intensifies the theologi- landscape on either side, restricting all attention to the space between the
cal message by the suggestion of a more immediate and affective relation tomb opening and perfectly proportional rectangle of the picture itself.
between Father and Son, and thus of a more dramatic appeal to divine Rogier's panel, by contrast, proposes an expansive and opening setting: A
merey. \ landscape emerges above the cave, extends around the cave and into the fore-
68
ground, and gives the impression of extending beyond the confines of the NARRATIVE AND !CON
picture. It also provides markers of a temporal trajectory, showing the city of
Jerusalem, the empty crosses of Golgotha, and the path to the tomb in the In 1903 the relationship between Michelangelo's London panel and Rogier's
foreground. panel in the Uffizi became the subject of public art-historical debate.51 The
If Rogier elaborated on Fra Angelico's innovations with greater attention point of the discussion was to demonstrate an as yet unnoticed episode of
to narrative setting, he also deliberately preserved many of the features of the influence, and thus its purpose was to stress points of sirnilarity between the
traditional Man of Sorrows scheme. The group is stopped befare the tomb, two works. Adolph Goldschrnidt pointed out, beyond formal sirnilarities, a
and the mechanics of carrying and support are given less emphasis than are sirnilarity in narrative conception: " ... in both there is a certain unmotivated-
motifs of presentation and adoration. Nicodemus stands behind Christ but ness in the situation [einegewisseUnmotiviertheitder Situation],a presentation to
plays virtually no supporting role; he simply presents the body to the viewer. our gaze of Christ held completely upright, rather than as a horizontally car-
The Virgin and St. John, likewise, rather than playing the more actively ried body."52 Goldschrnidt failed to perceive that Michelangelo's panel offered
engaged roles they do in other Rogierian compositions, here stay largely a critique of the precedent on exactly this point. In contrast to Rogier's
within the fünits of the Italian Man of Sorrows scheme: They do not help in panel, we are confronted with a very precise and transitional narrative
supporting the body but rather remain at Christ's extrernities. Their gestures, predicarnent, from which a "befare" andan "after" can be clearly extrapolated.
in fact, bear a strikingly clase resemblance to those found in Lorenzo It is, as we have seen, a moment in between "stations," in which Christ has
Monaco's large panel of the Man of Sorrowsdiscussed above (see Figure 35). been withdrawn from the mourning women and has begun to be carried
Perhaps the unusually large size of Lorenzo Monaco's panel recornrnended it away to the tomb.53 By turning this more transitional conception on axis with
to Rogier's attention as he adapted Fra Angelico's conception to a full-size the viewer, the work makes the motif of frontal presentation - and thus the
format. Rogier's solution thus stands in inverse relation to that of the earlier address to the viewer - an integral part of its narrative structure.
Prado Deposition:Instead of pursuing narrative energy and then"containing it Michelangelo's staging is quite unique, but the idea of depicting this transi-
within a restrictive shrine structure, here he adopted Fra Angelico's approach tional moment in the narrative was not. The late medieval literature on the
of providing an open narrative setting but restricting dramatic movement life of Christ had made it a habit of meditation and devotion to exercise the
within a paradigrnatic figural structure. This structure was designed to pre- imagination in supplying the transitional episodes left out of the Gospel
serve the image's fundamentally Eucharistic message. Rogier's panel was thus accounts.54 In the late thirteenth-century MeditationesVitae Christi, far exam-
an effort to outdo Fra Angelico's panel in narrative complexity while retain- ple, we find an extended passage describing the lament and burial of Christ. It
ing its sacramental significance. gives great emotional emphasis to the scene of Christ's separation from the
In both Fra Angelico's and Rogier's panels the figures are stopped befare Virgin, with whom the figures plead repeatedly to release the body for bur-
the tomb and there is little indication of narrative progression. Indeed, what ial.55A later devotional text, Thomas aKempis's MeditationesVitae Christi, also
we see seems scarcely "motivated" by the story: The figures have, in the rnidst dwells on this moment of separation and quite specifically enjoins the reader
of a narrative setting, assumed a mode of gesture and presentation that con- to visualize it from the point of view of the female mourners. "Consider," he
forms to the tradition of the Man of Sorrows. This is not merely a formal dif- says, "how sorely the loving friends of Christ then sorrowed, and especially
ference but is a difference in the nature of the irnage's function and address. the holy women, when they beheldJesus taken from them, and shut up in thé
The figures have stopped above all to present Christ in this form to the Sepulchre."56 Both Fra Angelico and Rogier van der Weyden, in lesser known
viewer:The viewer's gaze is addressed as a principle "external" to the history. works, experimented with the more transitional episode of the departure of
What we see, therefore, is not so much a moment or an indefinite halt within Christ along just these lines and, for both, this experiment occasioned the
the narrative as a suspension of the logic of the narrative itself. Rogier worked adoption of a laterally oriented composition. A panel by the school of Fra
to soften this discontinuity: He showed a more complete setting and, most Angelico, now in Washington, D.C. (Figure 39), shows again the scene at the
irnportant, he introduced the foreground figure of the Magdalene, who looks tomb, but this time within a more complete narrative setting. 57Joseph of
in toward Christ from a point of view analogous to that of the viewer, thus Arimathea and Nicodemus are shown carrying Christ toward the tomb at
offering an "internal" motivation for the frontal presentation of Christ. Her right, an action whose effect is to break up the irnrnediately preceding scene
attitude implies a continuity between dramatic attention within the picture of mourning. The picture is thus a step beyond the Threnos,the halt that had
and the activity ~f the viewer befare the picture. lt is, in other words, a strong itself been introduced (on the basis of apocryphal texts) between the deposi-
precedent for thé solution adopted later by Michelangelo. But in what sense? tion and the entombment in Byzantine art.58 It explores the following, final
71
40. Copy after

Rogier van der
Weyden, The
Carryingof Christ to
the Tomb.Drawing.
Louvre, Paris,
France. ©
Réunion des
Musées Nationaux.
39. Attributed to
Fra Angelice, The
the Tomb.Panel.
1
Samuel H. Kress 1
Collection, © 1999
Board ofTrustees,
.1
National Gallery of right. The compos1t1on, in which Christ is entirely suspended in the air
Art, Washington, between the two carriers, shows sorne striking similarities to antique reliefs of
D.C., U.S.
the carrying of Meleager. 60
In both of these works the more transitional conception involves a lateral
arrangement and thus a departure from the mode of frontal presentation asso-
ciated with the Man of Sorrows image. This is not merely a formal distinc-
tion. Art historians and semioticians have long recognized that lateral and
frontal compositions involve different modes of address and thus different
functional implications for images. 61 Befare it became a concern of modern-
day scholars, however, the distinction was the subject of implicit commentary
and debate within the history of image making. In the Christian tradition, it
líes at the basis of the never fully theorized distinction between representa-
tional images, or portrait-icons, and biblical scenes, or narratives. 62 Meyer
Schapiro, noting a sharply different treatment of the two types of image in the
same early medieval fresco cycle, suggested that they should be thought of as
instances of different modes, like the modes of music or the genres of poetry.
r He went so far as to describe the eighth-century iconoclastic controversy as a
moment of separation: The Virgin reaches for another kiss - that is, for a pro- conflict over the growing dominance of the icon mode over the episodic or
longation of the Threnos, but is held back as the body is taken away. narrative mode. 63 A similar distinction cropped up during the Western icono-
Fra Angelico's experiment yet again finds an analogue in the work of clastic controversy of the sixteenth century, prompting moderates like Luther
Rogier. A now-lost altarpiece, whose central and left panels are recorded in and the early Zwingli to claim exemption for images of the narrative kind on
drawings in Paris (Figure 40) and (formerly) Leipzig, respectively, also concen- the grounds that they were less susceptible to idolatry. 64
trated on the moment of carrying-59 Although the scene is situated closer to Luther did not invent the distinction between narrative and icon, which
the cross than to the tomb, here again the Virgin is restrained while reaching appears to have been a working part of the way people thought about images
for a last kiss, as\Joseph and Nicodemus proceed with the body toward the in the period. Orthodox polemicists who favored cult images made the oppo-
72 73
MICHELANGELO ANO THE REFORM OF ART MAN OF SORROWS ANO ENTOMBMENT
site argument but used a similar distinction. The thirteenth-century bishop embodies a link to certain traditional modes of attention and worship, and
Luke ofTúy believed the profile or "one-eyed" image of the Virgin to be a perhaps to tradition itself.
heretical degradation of her divine status. As Meyer Schapiro observed, Such a critica! attitude toward the nature and history of religious art was, of
Bishop Luke probably would not have objected to profile images of the Magi course, to become highly articulated in the debates of the Reformation and
but could not accept the Virgin's demotion to the level of narrative action of Counter Reformation. We see it, for example, in the Dialoguesof Francisco de
the lesser figures. Luke similarly objected to the recent development of Hollanda, written about 1540, where he describes a commission he was given
"three-nail" crucifixes, which twisted the traditionally frontal body of Christ by the queen of Portugal to copy the miraculous image of Christ in the
in a way that he saw as a "derision" and an "insult." 65 Sancta Sanctorum. One of the interlocutors asked him, "[D]id you do it with
Luke offered early opposition to a late medieval trend away from the tradi- that severe simplicity which the old painting has and with that fear in those
tional portrait icons. He and other like-minded conservatives were alarmed divine eyes which in the original seem to belong to the very Saviour?"
not only by experiments with profile views, but also in a more fundamental Another interlocutor was Vittoria Colonna, Michelangelo's friend later in life,
sense by the increasingly assertive effects of illusionism. The shock was per- of whom it is said that such a thing was "much to her liking." 68 Colonna was
haps most strongly felt by foreign visitors to the West, who complained that known to have a developed interest in the "St. Luke" Madonnas of Rome,
the images in Western churches had lost all connection to their prototypes. and wrote poems in which she extolled the virtues of their rough and simple
Symeon, Bishop of Thessalonica, observed that "instead of painted garments style, or what she called their "modoumíl".6 9
and hair, they adorn them with human hair and clothes, which is not the Shortly thereafter, Giovanni Andrea Gilio was to offer a critica! apprecia-
image of hair and a garment, but the [actual] hair and garment of a man, and tion of medieval art, noting, for example, that medieval artists represented the
hence is not an image and a symbol [tupos]of the prototype." He was not crucified Christ with four nails because they could not manage the complex-
claiming, of course, that the images in fact carried real hair and clothes; he was ity of placing one foot over another. And yet like Colonna he defended the
objecting to the prevailing ambition to make figures that looked real and not front-facing awkwardness of medieval artists, what he called their prosopopea,
like images based on recognizable venerable prototypes, and in this sense his arguing that it was more "honest and devout" than the ingenious caprices of
outrage was akin to Luke's. The Byzantine Church official Sylvester modern art, for him epitomized above all by the figure serpentínate of
Syropoulos, in Italy for the Ferrara-Florence Council of 1438, declared, Michelangelo. 70
"When I enter a Latin church, 1 do not revere any of the [images ofj saints Although it might well be considered a question specific to the concerns
that are there because I do not recognize any of them. So I make the sign of of visual artists, the special efficacy attached to the motif of frontal presenta-
the cross and I revere this sign that I have made myself, and not anything I see tion was occasionally recognized by writers. For example, the poet and
there." 66 humanist Angelo Poliziano, artistic advisor to the young Michelangelo, used it
A situation like this was bound to produce, even among the proponents of in the context of a Good Friday sermon as a means of inducing a contempla-
the new art, sorne thoughtful essays in archaism. Even if they would not have tive response to the figure of Christ. In the midst of a highly dramatic
satisfied any of these critics, these efforts were informed by shared concerns. description of the events of the Crucifixion, Poliziano suspends the account
One very sophisticated effort of this kind was the dramatic close-up, which and "opens" it to the contemplation of his listeners by presenting the dead
preserved the intimacy and frontal address of the icon without renouncing a Christ frontally, in a.form that appears to be borrowed directly from the visuaÍ
highly developed conception of narrative art. In the last section, we saw this tradition of the Man of Sorrows:
and related experiments in the work of Rogier and Fra Angelico, in both of
whom a mastery of pictorial narrative was combined with a sensitivity for tra- He who has been taken down from the Cross, with his arms spread, with his head
ditions of religious art. Later it was developed in the Venetian tradition. 67 In bowed, with his heart open, calls you, my fathers, invites you to lament with him
these and several other works we find what amounts to a form of implicit art his most bitter pain. Accompany his holy wife, disconsolate widow ... in kneel-
criticism. Dis,tinctions were made between different types of images, and dif- ing and bowing and prostrating yourselfbefore his holy feet.71
ferent compositional modes, and the making of these distinctions involved
interpretations of their efficacy and significance, as well as a certain degree of Poliziano's insertion of the Man of Sorrows, and the forms of attention
historical reflection, that goes well beyond the scope of contemporary writing appropriate to it, within the context of the Passion drama, finds several paral-
on art. The seri~s of paintings discussed here, for example, suggest a distinct lels in late Quattrocento Tuscan painting. Several of these works are elabora-
awareness that frontal presentation is something worth preserving, that it tions either on Fra Angelico's San Marco predella or on Rogier's Uffizi panel.
74 75
They diverge from these models by showing not Christ at the tomb but the
more transitional episode of Christ carried to the tomb, making the effort to
preserve the front-facing Christ more problematic. For this reason they form
the most significant strain of reception leading to Michelangelo's London
Entombment. In a panel by the Master ofSan Miniato inAvignon (Figure 41),
the figure of Christ held up by Joseph of Arimathea has been taken over
almost literally from Fra Angelico's predella, but without the flanking struc-
ture that Fra Angelico himself inherited from the Italian Man of Sorrows tra-
dition. Instead, Christ's arms are shown hanging straight clown, and the lateral
elements now suggest a temporal itinerary: The cross stands at the right and
the tomb at the left. The scene is evidently understood to take place in
between those two stations, but the insistence on the frontal presentation of 42. Gherardo and
Monte, The
Christ makes it unclear whether we are between deposition and lame,ntation
or between lamentation and entombment. That we are witnessing the latter theTomb.
moment is suggested by the panel's derivation from Fra Angelico, and by the Miniature. Bargello
fact that the Virgin is being restrained by St. John, as if Christ were being Museum, Florence,
Italy.
taken away from her-72
A strenuous effort to preserve the frontal arrangement even while attempt-
ing a narrative of transitional movement, the panel reveals how high was the
importance attached to preserving the frontal motif. It is not alone. We find a
similar effort in a rniniature by Gherardo and Monte in the Bargello Museum
in Florence (Figure 42). The work was a Medici comrnission, as is indicated
by the coat of arms at the top of the page, and it is therefore not surprising
that knowledge ofFraAngelico's public altarpiece should be supplemented by
careful observation of Rogier's altarpiece, which was very likely in the chapel
4r. Master of the of a prívate Medici residence. The difference from both lies, again, in a more
San Miniato transitory narrative conception, where Christ is shown still at sorne distance
Altarpiece, The
Carryingof Christ to from the tomb. Another adaptation of the Fra Angelico model, a predella
the Tomb.Panel. panel by Bartolommeo di Giovanni also in the Accadernia (Figure 43),
Palais des Papes, explores the idea of transitory movement even more agressively by showing
Avignon, France.
Arch. Phot.
the actual process of carrying rather than mere gestures of support. The
Paris/CNMHS. painter hit upan the device of a slinglike winding cloth that passes under
Christ's thighs - the very same device later adopted by Michelangelo. It is
indeed quite possible that Michelangelo knew this panel: It was the work of a
fellow Ghirlandaio pupil, and it belonged to an altarpiece that originally stood
in the church of San Marco, where Michelangelo had surely studied Fra
Angelico's altarpiece and predella on the high altar.73
77
43- Bartolommeo
di Giovanni, The
the Tomb.Predella
panel. Accademia,
Florence, Italy.
44. Albrecht
Dürer, Lamentation.
Woodcut from the
Large Passion.
Staatsbibliothek,
Munich, Germany.
Ali of these paintings show evident efforts to preserve the frontal presenta- Foto Marburg/ Art
Resource, NY.
tion of the figure of Christ inherited from the experiments of Fra Angelico
and Rogier, but in adapting the conception to a more transitional narrative
conception they invariably introduced a lateral or oblique axis into the frontal
conceptions of their predecessors. Other experiments preserved the strict
frontality of presentation, but always at the cost of a strict reduction of the
narrative element. The more static scheme seems to have been preferred
when it carne to larger panels. In a panel by Cosimo Rosselli in Berlín, for
example, the group has been placed at the tomb, here interpreted as a mau-
soleum-like structure. In a full-size altar panel by the school of Domenico
Ghirlandaio in Dublin the scene is set before the more tradicional cave, and
the reduction of narrative emphasis is underlined by the presence of anachro-
nistic saints. 74 This example proves, if proof were needed, that Fra Angelico's
experiment was well known to the Ghirlandaio shop, where Michelangelo
received his first artistic training.
The clearest alternative to the relatively convention-bound format of the quite novel scene of the CarryingefChrist to the Tomb (Figure 45), the last two
altar panel was the medium of prints, and in many ways Michelangelo's paint- scenes that belong to the group made before 1500.75 Rather than being repre-
ing was an effort to introduce the latest and most sophisticated experiments of sented as two separate scenes, these images are treated as two moments of the
the printed medium into panel painting. Besides Mantegna's Entombment same scene, virtually as frames within a cinematic sequence. In the earlier
engraving (see Figure 17), discussed in chapter r, another important precedent moment Christ lies in the foreground, his upper body held by St. John, and is
in the investigation of a dramatic Passion narrative was offered by the Great lamented by the holy women; the tomb is already shown in the right back-
Passionof Albrecht Dürer. The problem of transition in a narrative sequence ground. In the next moment a larger crowd has assembled and the lamenta-
was, indeed, what distinguished Dürer's series from its great predecessor, the tion group has broken open: Three men have begun to carry Christ toward
series by Martín Schongauer. Rather than treating each image as a separate the tomb, which is in the same place as in the previous sheet; the lifelessVirgin
entity, in the paradigmatic tradition of the medieval "stations," he conceived has taken Christ's place in the arms of St. John, who watches the carrying
the Passion as a continuous story, in which each scene contributes to the nar- group move away. The narrative ideas derive in part from a knowledge of
ration of the whole. This approach produced new and dramatic relationships classical reliefs, ór Italian adaptations of them, which Dürer might have seen in
1
between one scene and the next. In the sequence, the closest succession Venice or Padua: The Italian derivation is virtually advertised in the female
: 1
occurs between \he scenes of the Lamentation (Figure 44) and the following, figure with upraised arms in the Lamentation.76
79
panel (see Figure 16). Here again the narrative was stabilized by being focused
on the immobile figure of Christ. In these cases, the paintings adopted the
strategies of devotional texts such as the MeditationesVitae Christi:the narrative
scene was used as a means of contextualizing and thematizing the viewer's
devotion on the central sacred figure, and the attitudes of the actors in the
scene served as-exempla of piety for the worshipper. 77
And yet the very use of such scenes within liturgical and paraliturgical
practice motivated a desire for increasing narrative animation in altarpieces of
the period. Thus altarpieces of the deposition, something of a rarity in
Rogier's and Fra Angelico's time (see Figures 31 and 32) became increasingly
45. Albrecht frequent toward the end of the fifteenth century. 78 Quite uncommon in this
Dürer, The Carrying
efChrist to the format, however, was the transitional scene of the carrying of Christ to the
Tomb. Woodcut tomb, despite the fact that, as we have seen, it could be fairly widely found in
from the Large predella panels, miniatures, and prints. Rogier van der Weyden's lost altarpiece
Passion.
(see Figure 40), discussed above, is a significant exception.
Staatsbibliothek,
Munich, Germany. The London Entombment (Figure 6) can be understood as an effort to
Foto Marburg/ Art marry the new modes of narrative art with the conventions and traditions of
Resource, NY. altar painting, now clearly understood as conventions and traditions. It <lid so
by drawing on a wider range of models of narrative composition and by coor-
dinating the narrative structure with the frontal address to the viewer and thus
the liturgical and devotional uses of an altarpiece. The key was to treat the
drama of separation as a moment of visual confrontation. The transport of the
dead body sets Christ at "viewing distance" for the actors within the scene,
thus assimilating their activity to the gaze of the worshipper before the pic-
ture. The traditional narrative composition is turned ninety degrees, thus
making the moment of dramatic confrontation coincide with the frontal
address of the Man of Sorrows. The sequence of the narrative is not inter-
rupted in order to hold Christ up to the viewer in a formal act of sacramental
presentation; instead, Christ is shown almost inadvertently in the midst of the
carrying, and his frontal orientation is motivated by the narrative itself, which
The images and texts so far discussed show that late fifteenth-century interprets and articula tes the transaction between viewer and image. 79 The
readers and viewers were accustomed to imagining the scene of the carrying "Unmotiviertheit der Situation" that Goldschmidt saw as a feature common
of Christ in all its transitions, and even to visualizing it from quite specific both to this panel and to Rogier's Uffizi panel is in fact what Michelangelo
points of view. But though the scene had achieved sorne currency by this most pointedly criticized in his precursor.
time in predella panels and prints, it was only rarely to be encountered on the The effect is not unrelated to the strategies of the implied viewer devel-
principal panels of altarpieces. In this format, as we have seen, it was possible oped in the tradition of the Venetian close-up, but there are important differ-
to find scenes of Christ at the tomb, such as Rogier's panel (see Figure 30), ences. In Mantegna's Brera Dead Christ (Figure 46), for example, the viewer is
and the panels by Cosimo Rosselli and the Ghirlandaio workshop discussed directly implicated by the "cropping" of the scene: What we see is understood
above. A more common narrative subject in late fifteenth-century altarpieces as a fragment of a larger whole. By being given an intimate view, the viewer is
was the _lamentation, in which Christ's recumbent body is oriented laterally, a by implication placed "inside" the scene, here directly at Christ's feet, in a
composition found in the panel for Santa Chiara by Perugino (see Figure 15). position often occupied by historical actors and donors in more "complete"
The greater prevalence of this compositional type meant that even the scene representations of the subject (as we see, for example, in Giottino 's Lamentation
at the tomb was\often given this form, as we see in Botticelli's Poldi Pezzoli [see Figure 14]). When the strategy is expanded to a full-size panel anda full-
So 81
CHAPTER THREE
Humanism and the Altar Image
46. Andrea
Mantegna, Dead
Christ. Panel.
Pinacoteca di
Brera, Milan, Italy.
Alinari/Art
Resource, NY.
ARCHAISM AND ANTIQUE REVIVAL
Michelangelo's London Entombment marks a significant encounter between

humanist culture and traditional Christian institutions circa 1500. It is typical of
its time in that it was not merely the result of cultural change, but was itself a
scale scene, as in M,ichelangelo's Entombment, the consequences are different. critical response to cultural change. The compositions of Fra Angelico and
The scene is not presented as a fragment whose imagined setting includes the Rogier were developed as natural outgrowths from the Man of Sorrows proto-
viewer. Rather, the narrative is complete, and at the same time it is organized type; they expand outward from the original formula, introducing a setting and
"for" a viewer in the here and now. Sacred history is kept "whole," and yet its additional figures. Michelangelo's painting proceeded in the reverse direction:
meaning is fulfilled in its relation to a contemporary viewer. The thematic It took a narrative conception based on classical reliefs and structured by a lat-
structure, with its elegiac coloring, interprets the relation between the viewer eral composition, "turned" it ninety degrees, and (re)introduced the Man of
and the subject as one between present and past. Christ is presented to the Sorrows figure at its core. In this sense it was a more historically conscious ges-
viewer as he is being withdrawn, making the idea of distance - and the means ture, an effort to restage and revive the figure of the Man of Sorrows within
by which it is bridged - central to the picture's meaning. This emphasis bears new artistic and cultural conditions. Michelangelo was aware of the Man of
affinities to certain strains in humanist thought, which are studied in the next Sorrows as a category of image, and he was intent on preserving it. For the
chapter. central group around Christ, Michelangelo seems, indeed, to have drawn
directly on the full-length northern Man of Sorrows type, independent of its
adaptation in Rogier's panel. A German woodcut from the late fifteenth cen-
tury (Figure 47) shows the type as it was popularly available at the time. 1 The
composition of the Man of Sorrows supported by three figures, which is com-
monly found in German art of the period, is strikingly similar to
Michelangelo's core group. 2
Michelangelo's gesture was deliberate and uncommon. The Man of
Sorrows remained extremely rare on the principal panels of altarpieces, being
traditionally reserved for marginal areas, such as predellas, upper registers,
\ reverse sides, and wings.3 Dagobert Frey saw this as a form of resistance, an
MICHELANGELO AND THE REFORM OF ART HUMANISM AND THE ALTAR IMAGE
uneasiness before what rnight have

been a too powerful identification
of the image of Christ with the real
presence of the sacrament conse-
crated on the altar before it. 4 In
support of Frey's thesis, one could
point to many scenes of the Miracle
47. Gerrmn, Man ef
of St. Gregory where Christ, appear-
Sorrows.Woodcut.
Kupferst1chkabinett, ing as the Man of Sorrows, seems to
49. Gerrnan, Man
Staatliche Museen have materialized from out of the efSorrows-Tríníty.
zu Berlin- altar image. In a relief in the church Panel. Stadelsches
Preussischer Kunstinstitut,
Kulturbesitz
of San Gregorio Magno in Rome
Frankfurt am
(Figure 48), for example, the self- Main, Gerrnany.
offering Christ is distinctly figured
as an altar image that has come
alive. 5 The Man of Sorrows as the
principal image of an altarpiece
appears natural in this representa-
tion, and yet it was quite rare in
reality. Curiously, however, this tacit
avoidance seems to have broken down, in both Germany and Italy, in the
years around 1500. For example, a large rniddle-Rhenish panel dated 1503 in
the Stadel-Institut in Frankfurt (Figure 49) shows the Man of Sorrows sup-
ported from behind by God the Father and held at either hand by the Virgin
and St. John - a figural arrangement, again, very similar to the core group in
Michelangelo's panel. 6 A slightly later and better known example is the sculp-
tural group by Hans Daucher in the Fugger chapel in Augsburg.7 In Italy, the
subject appears toward the end of the fifteenth century in a number of altar-
pieces, especially in north Italy.8 As unusual as its solution is, Michelangelo's
panel is a part of a larger trend.
48. Luigi Capponi, A parallel and not unrelated development was the increasing incidence of
Mass efSt. Gregory. sacrament tabernacles on altars at this time.9 As the Man of Sorrows was a
Marble relief. San
favorite Eucharistic image, the two phenomena occasionally coincided, as we
Gregario Magno,
Rorne, Italy. see for example in the early Venetian sacrament altar in the Gardner Museum
Alinari/ Art in Boston discussed earlier (see Figure 22). But the two developments are
Resource. related in a more fundamental sense.As Henk van Os and Peter Hurnfrey have
observed, the rise of the sacrament altar bespeaks the emergence of a new
doctrinal and Christocentric emphasis in altarpieces of around 1500, distinctly
anticipating Counter-Reformation trends. In open contrast to the prevailing
tendency to dedícate chapels to individual patron saints, the sacrament altar
returned altar images to the central mystery of the Christian faith. It was in
this sense an early instance of a largely cleric-driven, top-down effort to
impose a theological agenda on altarpieces, in sharp contrast to normal prac-
rice, where altarpiece dedications were largely pragmatic and saint-oriented Michelangelo's special receptivity to ancient art needs to be understood
and were motivated by what Peter Humfrey has called "the vagaries of prívate in its cultural context and not simply as an instance of the artist's
devotional tastes."ro Later to become a hallmark of the Counter Reformation, inscrutable genius and originality. This book is an effort to see it as the
even in this earlier period the sacrament altar was promoted in distinctly result of approaching pagan art in a Christian context and specifically in a
reform-minded quarters. Girolamo Savonarola and the reforming bishop of culture of reform. In Michelangelo's view, the Christian art of his day suf-
Verona Gian Matteo Giberti were among the strongest early proponents of fered from an excessive preoccupation with the literal details of Christ's
the practice of placing sacrament tabernacles on altars. n earthly life and had lost touch with the spiritual sense of the Christian sto-
The rise of the Man of Sorrows and of sacrament tabernacles on altars in ries - what Paul of Middelburg called their mystery and their sacrament
the period around 1500 can be understood as instances of the "archaism of (see chapter 1). Rather than simply return to the archaic forms of the old
around 1500" noted long ago by Panofsky, and more recently analyzed by cult images, however, Michelangelo drew on the ecstatic animations of
Hans Belting, Bernhard Decker, and Joseph Koerner. 12 For all of these schol- antique sculpture in an effort to reinvest the narrative expressiveness of
ars, this trend shows an awareness of artistic traditions that is characteristic of a contemporary Christian art with spiritual significance. Moments of ges-
mature and self-conscious artistic culture. The more recent literature has con- tural excess beyond instrumental action, these gestures became, for
nected the phenomenon, further, to the increasingly acute concerns over the Michelangelo, a means of pointing to the "figural" dimension that surpasses
status and legitimacy of Christian images that arose in the years around 1500. the literal level of the biblical story.
To call the trends discussed above archaizing is, however, not to claim that This meant contravening sorne powerful cultural trends. In his lifelong pre-
putting sacrament tabernacles or Man of Sorrows images on altars was in fact occupation with the theme of the dead Christ, Michelangelo avoided the
a reversion to earlier practices. Archaism has less to do with historical recon- model of the dead Meleager - the model that Alberti had held up as a classic
struction than with projection and compensation, and this is why its products example of the naturalistic depiction of a dead body and that had been enthu-
appear so distinctly "modern" in retrospect. For concerned humanists and siastically emulated in the art of Donatello, Andrea Mantegna, Giuliano da
reformers, the sacrament altar and other forms of emphatically Christocentric Sangallo, Luca Signorelli, and others. In the place of the carrying of the dead
imagery were forms of purification, means of restoring a clarity and doctrinal Meleager, Michelangelo introduced the equivoca! triumph of the stumbling
anchoring believed to have existed in the past, before the distractions and Bacchus. For the wailing lament over the tragic hero he introduced the ecsta-
abuses introduced in later centuries. Michelangelo's London Entombment was tic participations of bacchic enthusiasm. He adapted the bacchic reliefs, espe-
a highly unusual and sophisticated instance of this trend, and must be under- cially those organized by motifs of frontal presentation and quasi-processional
stood in the context of a convergence of humanist thought and reform con- celebration, to the structures and institutions of Christian art. This effort is at
cerns in Italy circa 1500. work in the early Entombment and persisted ali the way through the late Pietas.
The complications arose from the fact that Michelangelo under took his Michelangelo's interest in bacchic themes in this early work comes as little 50. The Drunken
effort of reform by recourse to the language of antique art, specifically to the surprise, given the fact that the first work he made upon arriving in Rome in Bacchuswith
array of gestures and motifs that Aby Warburg called pathos formulas. It was an 1496 was the Bacchus (see Figure 54). The clearest example of the kind of Attendants.
effort that presupposed a critical distance from both the Christian and the antique work that served Michelangelo as a model in the London painting is a Sarco~hagus re~ef.
, Muse1 e Gallene
pagan traditions, and it prompted special appropriations within the antique famous relief in the Vatican which shows the drunken Bacchus presented Vaticani,Vatican
repertoire. Unlike many of his predecessors and contemporaries, frontally and supported by two attendants (Figure 50). 13 The relief was well City.
Michelangelo was interested in the motifs of physical movement found in
ancient art not only as Albertian moti, those outward gestures that express the
inner emotions and thus make clear the motivations that make up a story. For
Michelangelo, those motifs were not only expressive and denotative but
excessive and 1purgative. They were not simply the expression of a motivated
will, emotions manifesting themselves in instrumental action, but rather the
manifestations of currents of suprapersonal energy passing through the human
body. They were, in this sense, traces of the encounter between the human
body and forces\larger than itself. They were both a symptom of possession
and a means of release.
86
MlCHELANGELO AND THE REFORM OF ART HUMANlSM AND THE ALTAR lMAGE
known to Renaissance artists from Pisanello to Guglielrno della Porta, and the [l
compositional type was publicized in an engraving of 1506 by ]acopo Francia 1
(Figure 51).14 The central group around Bacchus shows a configuration almost "I
1
identical, in reverse, to the central group in Michelangelo's painting: The
swaying figure of the god is supported on one side by a male figure stepping
52. Andrea
back under the weight and on the other by a female figure in profile who Mantegna,
arches her body, intertwining her arm with the god's. In several other ancient Bacchanalwith a
bacchic reliefs, this back-arching figure is shown facing in the opposite direc- Winevát.
Engraving.
tion - that is, in the same direction as Michelangelo's figure. rs The derivation íl Rosenwald
from such a relief figure would, in fact, account for the curious absence of the 1 Collection, © 1999
far leg in the London painting. 16 The motif of the standing but unstable Board ofTrustees,
National Gallery of
Bacchus supported by attendants would already have been familiar to
Art, Washington,
Michelangelo from his days in the Medici household. It figured on a gem D.C. U.S ..
owned by Lorenzo de' Medici, which was in turn copied in one ofthe medal-
lions in the courtyard of Palazzo Medici. 17 t
Other features of the London Entombment bear clase resemblances to the
most famous modern rendition of bacchic themes at this time, Mantegna's
bacchanal engravings. In the Bacchanal with the Wine vát (Figure 52), for '/
1
example, the figure asleep on the vat, sometimes identified as Bacchus, shows
a striking similarity to Michelangelo's Christ: His head is dropped on his left
shoulder, his right arm is obstructed from the shoulder down, his foot just
touches the ground, and his upper body is supported from behind in much
the manner that Christ is supported in the painting. Mantegna's Bacchanal
with Silenus (Figure 53), shows even closer parallels to Michelangelo's paint-
ing: The support structure around Silenus, right down to the strip of cloth
slung under Silenus's thighs, is astonishingly clase to what we see in
Michelangelo's painting. 18
51. ]acopo Francia, The idea of incorporating bacchic motifs in Passion scenes was itself not
Bacchusand His
uncollllllon in the period.Joshua Reynolds noticed the very same back-arch-
Attendants.
Engraving. ing bacchante figure discussed above in a drawing by Baccio Bandinelli of the
Rosenwald deposition. "This figure," he remarked, "Baccio Bandinelli ... has adopted for
Collection, © 1999 one of the Maries, to express frantic agony or grief." 19 Aby Warburg was to
Board ofTrustees,
National Gallery of make this maenad figure a central motif of his study of the revival of ancient
Art, Washington, "pathos formulas" in Renaissance art. He gave particular attention to its adap-
D.C., U.S.. tation in Bertoldo di Giovanni's relief of the Crucifixion, a work made in the
Íllllllediate orbit of the young Michelangelo, where the motif was used to
express, in Warburg's terms, the "orgiastic mourning" of Mary Magdalene
under the cross.20 In these all'antica adaptations, the maenad figure is used as a
means of intensifying the expression of lamentation and thus increasing the
dramatic effect. The resulting solutions are, in other words, not far from the
expressionism of Niccolo dell' Arca's Lamentatíon group discussed in chapter r
(see Figure 12), which was itself informed by antique models.
88
body and thus the prornise of the benefits that derived from Christ's sacrifice.
The figure's very front-facing posture was part of the message, for it epito-
rnized the idea of presentation, of dispensation, and of self-offering. When a
greater emphasis was placed on the deadness of the dead body, as in the
Franco-Flernish tradition, this effect was "compensated," and the Eucharistic
53. Andrea
message preserved, by placing Christ's body in the care of God the Father or
Mantegna,
Bacchanalwith '
1 of angels. The image of the Man of Sorrows thus insisted on the liturgical,
Silenus.Engraving. suprahistorical dimension of the Passion story. Michelangelo was intent on
Rosenwald
Collection, © 1999
preserving this emphasis, with its theological implications, and he found in the
Board ofTrustees, swaying figure ofBacchus a means of preserving and reinterpreting its signifi-
National Gallery of cance within the conditions of modern history painting.
Art, Washington,
The ability to remain upright while out of one's senses was one of the para-
D.C. U.S..
doxical privileges of bacchic inspiration. In one of the Imagines described by
Philostratus, Comus, the god of rev-
elry, appears "flushed with wine and,
though standing, he is asleep under
the influence of drink." 22 Erika
Tietze-Conrat connected this pas-
sage to the youth standing erect and
It has been noted, by Michael Hirst among others, that in his painting leaning on the cornucopia in
Michelangelo imposed a deliberate restraint on this sort of em9tional Mantegna's Bacchanal with the Wine
drama. 21 In chapter 1 I argued that this restraint was part of a deliberate effort vát 2 3 (see Figure 52). Michela~gelo
to draw attention to the sacramental significance of the sacred event, an grappled with the issue concretely
implicit criticism of the widespread trend toward highly dramatic lamenta- in his statue of Bacchus, now in the
tions in the period that was in line with objections raised by Savonarola. In Bargello (Figure 54). The sculpture
adapting antique motifs, Michelangelo proceeded in accordance with these was made for Cardinal Raffaele
concerns. The maenad figure was, for him, less an expression of"frantic agony Riario and was almost certainly the
or grief" than an enthusiastic and ecstatic participant in a divine mystery, an work that Michelangelo mentioned 54. Michelangelo,
aspect of the figure's meaning that Warburg touched on in describing it as a he was about to begin shortly after Bacchus.Side view.
form of"orgiastic mourning."The ecstatic figures who hold up the drunken Marble. Bargello
his arrival in Rome in 1496. 4 The
2
Museum, Florence,
l
Bacchus or Silenus were not simply involved in a mechanical act of support letter clearly indicates that the sculp- Italy.
and carrying but were themselves receiving the influence of divine bacchic ture was intended as a modern rival
inspiration. By adapting such figures for his carriers, Michelangelo was able to to ancient sculpture, well repre-
transform a momentary narrative action into something closer to a proces- 1
1 sented in Riario's impressive collec-
sional, celebratory activity and thus to release the event from its narrow his- !
¡ tion, and indeed the Bacchus is
j
torical frame. among the very first large-scale,
freestanding statues since antiquity. 2 s
Little wonder, then, that in this
CHRISTENING PAGAN MYSTERIES work Michelangelo should have
given special consideration to the
As we saw in chapter 2, the "signs of life" that were a characteristic feature of "problem" of the freestanding fig-
the traditional Man of Sorrows - his ability to stand upright, his half-open ure. The sculpture is remarkable,
eyes, his half-willed gestures - ali expressed a divine agency within the dead and has often been criticized, for
90 91
MICHELANGELO ANO THE REFORM OF ART HUMANISM ANO THE ALTAR IMAGE
having pushed the representation of We see no blood on Christ's

the effects of drunkenness to new body, no visible wounds, no signs of
limits. The soft, fleshy figure lurches violence. Instead, Christ's body is
forward and seems on the brink of soft, languid, and feminine, qualities
losing his balance. As Wind often associated with Bacchus.
55. Michelangelo, explained, the representation was Christ's face does not bear the
Christ Carriedto the justified on the principle that the marks of a violent death but instead
Tomb,detailof
Christ'sJace.Panel. gods should be represented as filled suggests a slumber that is both
56. Michelangelo,
National Gallery, with the power they dispense. 26 peaceful and alert (Figure 55). In Creationof Eve,
London, England. This made of Bacchus a special this sense Michelangelo's interpre- detail of Adam's
tation of Christ falls into a long face. Fresco. Sistine
god, a god whose power is
Chapel, Vatican
expressed in a paradoxical vulnera- medieval tradition that emphasized City.
bility. The passible quality of the the "sweetness" of Christ's Passion, a
god - in sorne legends Bacchus distinct alternative to the emphasis
undergoes death and resurrection - on blood and gore prevalent in
made him a favorite in funerary much late medieval drama and
contexts. 27 For Michelangelo these special qualities had concrete implica- imagery.3° For Michelangelo, Christ
tions, for in affecting the god's bearing, they also affect his "status": Bacchus's is not literally dead but rather in a
drunken nature threatens his ability to remain upright - that is, to have a sweet sleep. The strongest parallel to
statue that stands and in this sense to be like other gods. Michelangelo was the face of Christ in the London
interested in Bacchus as the god of precarious uprightness, an aspect of painting within Michelangelo's
oeuvre is the face of Adam in the scene of the CreationefEve in the Sistine
1
Bacchus most recently emphasized by Marcel Detienne. 28 For Michelangelo, 1
this aspect of the figure was important enough to demand a resourceful rein- 1 Chapel (Figure 56). This is the "deep sleep" into which God throws Adam
terpretation of the function of the "buttress." If in antique statuary the but- befare drawing Eve from him, as described in Genesis 2:21, one ofthe lociclas-
tress typically served as a means of supporting the figure, here it serves the siciof patristic discussions of divinely induced ecstasy.31Another parallel to the
exactly opposite function of a counterweight: It is a tensile element that pre- London Christ can be found in the so-called Dying Slave in the Louvre,
vents the figure from falling forward. 2 9 Michelangelo's interpretation of the where as in London the swoonlike state is combined with an upright position
figure, in other words, draws acute dramatic attention to the question of its (Figure 57). Although the interpretation of this work is still debated, a com-
freestanding status, and in this problem, specific to statuary, líes an under- parison with its pendant, the RebelliousSlave, reveals two significantly different
standing of the nature of the god. responses to their bondage: Where the RebelliousSlave exerts physical effort in
It is therefore not so surprising that these ideas should have come into play a his struggle to break loase, the Dying Slave accepts, his body soft and languicj
few years later, when Michelangelo confronted the problem of reinterpreting as he surrenders to a deathlike swoon (which need not be identified with an
the equivocally upright Man of Sorrows. Again, this was not simply a question actual death).As Adrian Stokes memorably put it, "He submits tenseless to his
of a borrowed motif. The problems of instability and support touch on the dream, yet sustains with the huge, refulgent orbit of his form the vigilance of
very status of the figure, and for Michelangelo this constituted an inherent light. His beauty is the one of a sea-cave's aperture that allows and withstands
affinity. Both Bacchus and Christ are equivoca! figures, powerful in their vul- reverberating waves within ... " The London Christ, similarly bound in strips
1 i
nerability. Bacchus is sovereign in his drunkenness, and Christ assumes a of cloth, is also tender and accepting, and yet he too reverberates: Having
1
majesty in deáth. Both hold themselves precariously upright, and in this liminal taken into himself the effort and suffering of the world, he is vibrant and ani-
state dispense their benefits. As in the Vatican relief of Bacchus supported by ·1 mated in sleep.
attendants (see Figure 50), the attendant figures in the London painting strug- To put it briefly, Michelangelo put the dead Christ into an ecstasy. Christ
gle to maintain the god in an upright posture (see Figure 6). Christ is evidently 1 was not simply dead but in a "transport" until the time of the Resurrection.
dependent on tlle carrying figures, who labor strenuously under his weight, We find this idea not only in the London Entombmentbut throughout the late
but at the same time he appears weightless, miraculously self-supporting. Pietas.The idea of associating Christian mysteries with ecstatic states, specifi-
92 93
cally, ecstatic drunkenness, formed a venerable tradition in Christian thought right, holding a tablet inscribed with
well before Michelangelo. An important source for the later development of the same verse invoked by Ambrose:
notions of ecstasy was Plato's discussion of the good forms of madness, the "Comedite amici et inebríamínicharís-
blessings of heaven-sent madness, in the Phaedrus.There he outlined four simi." We find related ideas in a
types of madness, presided over by their respective deities: the inspiration of vision of Girolamo Savonarola, in
the prophet under Apollo, that of the mystic under Dionysus, that of the poet which a bloody cross creates a river
under the Muses, and that of the lover under Aphrodite and Eros. Through of blood like a fountain, and around
these means, the soul is led (back) to the experience of divine things normally the cross the faithful are removing
beyond the ken of mortals.32 The Jewish Philosopher Philo inherited this tra- their clothes and "bathing and
dition and brought it to bear on the examples of ecstasy he found in the Old becoming drunk in this blood."3 8
Testament, notably the swoon into which Adam was thrown when God drew This patristic tradition left a faint
Eve out of him (see Figure 56). In his discussion of ecstasy, Philo emphasized trace in the Ovide Moralisé,39but it
the soul's joy at leaving the body, celebrating ecstasy as a state where one is was fully revived by the Renaissance
taken ~ out of oneself and the soul tastes a higher knowledge - Philo invokes humanists. The great novelty of the 57. Michelangelo,
both Sophia and gnosis - belonging to divine things. His governing metaphor Renaissance reviva! of the tradition Dying Slave.
Marble. Louvre,
for this sort of spiritual frenzy, as Hans Lewy showed, was the oxymoron of was its open invocation of the pagan París, France. ©
nephalios methe, or sobria ebrietas(saber drunkenness), a notion that was to sources. For good historical reasons, Réunion des
exert a deep influence on the Christian fathers in the East, most importantly the Church fathers refrained from Musées Nationaux.
Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, and in the West, most importantly Ambrose, invoking Bacchus directly, but the
Augustine, and Jerome.33 Renaissance humanists, at a safer
Ambrose described a new wine "pressed from that uncommon grape remove from pagan antiquity, felt no
which, like the fruit in the barrel, hung in the flesh on the cross." This is the such inhibition. To borrow an
wine that "'makes happy the heart of man' [Psalms rn3: 15], that makes it drunk expression from Marjorie O'Rourke
with sobriety [sobrietatemínebríat],that produces a steamy intoxication of faith Boyle, they openly christened pagan
and true piety [crapulam .fidei et veraerel(gionis]."34
In another passage, Ambrose mysteries. The classic statement is the
said that in the drunkenness induced by the Eucharistic wine "the body <loes dithyrambic passage in Giovanni
not stagger, but remains upright, the spirit is not confused, but is sanctified."35 Pico della Mirandola's Orationon the
Commenting on the mystery of the Eucharist,Ambrose invokes Song ofSongs D(gníty efMan, where, invoking the
5:1: "Eat my friends and become drunk O dear ones," which he interprets same verse from Psalm 35 as St.
entirely in the spirit of sobria ebríetas,inviting the faithful to partake in the Augustine, he enjoined his papal
Eucharist, the "mysticumdominicialtarísconvívium."3 6 In ali of these cases, spiri- audience to mystical bacchic rapture:
tual drunkenness is a benefit offered to and received by the faithful. Augustine,
[L]et us be driven by the frenzies of Socrates, that they may throw us into an
for example, invoked the metaphor of drunkenness to describe the enthusiasm
ecstasy as to put our mind and ourselves in God .... Thereupon Bacchus, the
of saints and martyrs, who forget their families and loved ones in the love of
leader of the Muses, by showing in his mysteries, that is, in the visible signs of
God:"Don't be surprised: they were drunk [ebrit].What were they drunk from?
nature, the invisible things of God to us who study philosophy, will intoxicate us
You see, they took the goblet that would intoxicate them ... So let us, brothers, with the fulness of God's house. 4°
become drunk 'from the rich overflow ofhis house' [Psalms 35:8]."37The idea
was used in a.Eucharistic context in at least one Renaissance altarpiece, by Marsilio Ficino, Pico's mentor, also had things to say on the subject of ecstasy.
Moretto da Brescia in Santi Nazaro e Celso in Brescia, which was made for the He took over from Plato's Phaedrusthe four forms of madness or frenzy and
altar of a confraternity dedicated to the sacrament (Figure 58). There we see expounded them with sorne variations throughout his career, consistently
the Man of Sorrows as a figure of the Eucharist, his blood pouring into the maintaining the furor mysterialeunder Bacchus.41 Invoking the same Psalm
chalice. Solomo1¾ the putative author of the Song of Songs, is shown on the verse as St.Augustine and Pico (Psalm 35:8: "Inebriaborah ubertatedomus tuae"),
94 95
soul is temporarily released from the body and becomes susceptible to divine
influence. In these states, when the body is softened and half dead, the vision
of the soul becomes sharper, "since every time that it turns in one itself, it par-
ticipates in celestial mysteries and in divine providence."4 4These ideas became
common patrimony in humanist thought circa 1500. Giles of Viterbo, the
Ficino adrnirer and noted papal preacher, also followed Augustine in likening
the soul's illurnination by love and divine grace to drunkenness, and like Pico
he referred the metaphor directly to the mysteries of Bacchus, calling it a
"furor Bacchi."45 The theme of ecstatic drunkenness, applied in a Christian
context, also played a very large role in the thought ofErasmus.4 6
We have come a far distance from Michelangelo's painting, and in arder
to get back to it it is important to observe that none of these writings con-
58. Moretto da
Brescia, Man ef nect the theme of inspired drunkenness specifically to Christ's Passion. The
Sorrowswith Moses Church fathers and Renaissance humanists generally invoke the idea of
and Salomon.Panel. spiritual drunkenness as a special privilege offered to the faithful. Even
SS. Nazaro e Celso,
Brescia, Italy.
Moretto's painting (see Figure 58), which contains an image of the Man of
Sorrows, invites the viewer/reader to delight in the joys of spiritual drunk-
enness, rather than actually depicting the figure of Christ or attendant fig-
ures as being under its influence. The idea of Christ himself drunk in the
Passion comes up in late medieval Passion tracts, but without exception as
far as I can tell these references are entirely negative, and without relation to
the patristic tradition of sobria ebrietas.The tracts rely on languag~ drawn
from the mocking of the drunken Noah (Genesis 9:20-4) and of Jeremiah
23:9: "My heart is broken within me, all my bones tremble; I am become as
a drunken man, and as a man full of wine."47 Christ's drunkenness is pre-
sented not as a mystical virtue to be celebrated but as an accusation placed
in the mouths of his persecutors: '"Why can't you stand up by yourself? We
see very well that you are drunk."'4 8 The injustice of the accusations arouses
pity for the abject Christ, not admiration for the mystical dispensations of
Christ drunk in the Passion.
Closer to the positive construction is Augustine's typological interpretation
Ficino defended the principle of the two types of drunkenness (duplex ebrí- of the drunkenness ofNoah in the Cíty of God. The drunken Noah prefigures
etas),one the delirious earthly kind where the soul is put below itself and the Christ, who "was drunk and uncovered, that is, suffered in the Passion." But
other the divine kind where the soul is put above itself. 42 For Ficino, it was a this was not a degradation, he argues, for in the words of St. Paul, I
felicitous and significant coincidence that the name Dionysus should have Corinthians I :25, '"The weakness of God is stronger than men, and the fool-
belonged to the Christian mystic he most adrnired, Dionysus the Areopagite, ishness of God is wiser than men."'49 But by far the most extensive descrip-
for modern scholars Pseudo-Dionysus. In Pseudo-Dionysus he found the tion of the Passion in terms of ecstatic drunkenness comes from St.Jerome. In
spirit of the god Dionysus, which "was believed by the ancient theologians one of his commentaries on Psalm So, he proclaimed, "Dominus in passíone
and Platonists to be the ecstasy of disencumbered rninds, when they transgress inebríatusest [The Lord was drunk in the Passion]" and asserted that in irnitat-
the natural lirnits of intelligence ... and rage, as it were, in a bacchic frenzy."43 ing Christ the saints are "daily drunk in the ardor of the faith." The specific
Ficino also took up the theme of ecstatic transgression in a section of the identification of drunkenness with the physical violence of the Passion brings
TheologíaPlatoníca(XIII, 2) where he deals with the vacations or alienations of Jerome, of all the Church fathers, closest to invoking bacchic mysteries, when
the soul (vacatío~esanímae),such as sleep, fainting, and wonder, in which the he concludes this passage with the enigmatic declaration, "There are many
97
things to be said about the mystery of wine and drunkenness [Multa sunt quae the norm in contemporary art. Thus although there is a hint of a maenadic
dícanturde víní mysteríoet de ebríetate]."5° dance in the female figure to Christ's left, an almost ceremonial solemnity
Jerome was clase to Michelangelo's conception in calling Christ drunk in dominates and controls the painting. The effect of clamping is most evident in
the Passion, but there is a significant difference. Both Jerome and Augustine the way the figures are virtually locked into place by the tight surface struc-
saw Christ drunk in his suffering - that is, in the abuse and tortures that he ture and the elaborate bondage of sashes, belts, and winding sheets. The result
suffered in the Passion. In Michelangelo's painting, as in the later Píetas,Christ is a somewhat awkward and unresolved work, an uncornfortable experiment
is dead, his suffering over. The drunken ecstasy interprets not the violence that does not go far enough in any direction - and that has made
and tumult of the Passion but the "transport" into which Christ is thrown Michelangelo connoisseurs uncornfortable to this day. It is not surprising that
after death. Michelangelo's lifelong engagement with the theme of the píeta such an ingenious and frustrated effort should have been left unfinished. This
and entombment can be understood as a sustained investigation into the inicial failure introduces us to the tensions and frustrations that were to mark
ambiguous state of Christ's body in the interval between his death and his Michelangelo's lifelong preoccupation with the theme, right clown to the
resurrection. As we will see, Michelangelo took several approaches to the final version of the Rondanini Píeta.
problem, but one feature remained consistent: For Michelangelo, the dead Michelangelo was not the only Renaissance artist who devised resource-
Christ was not a mere corpse; he was suspended in a liminal, quasi-animated ful solutions to preserve the mysterious, sacramental significance of Christ's
state, which Michelangelo interpreted variously as an ecstasy,a drunken sleep, sacrifice under new pictorial conditions. The works of Fra Angelico and
or a transport. This is not so far-fetched a solution as it might first appear, for Rogier van der Weyden, studied in chapter 2, involved a delicate negotia-
did not Augustine say that in an ecstasy the soul departs the body temporarily, tion between the dictates of naturalism and an adherence to the Man of
leaving the body as if dead?51 Did not Ficino call it a vacation of the soul, in Sorrows tradition, understood as a link to the theology of the Eucharist.
which the soul "participates in celestial mysteries and divine providence?"5 2 Closer to Michelangelo's time, perhaps the most conscientious modern
Ficino repeatedly described those in an ecstasy as tender (tener),soft (mollís), artist was Giovanni Bellini. He made several adaptations of the Man of
intact (íntactus),and immaculate (ímmaculatus).53It is difficult to find better Sorrows image within narrative contexts and always took care to preserve
words to describe Michelangelo's Christ. theologically significant elements of the traditional image.55 In open con-
Both Ficino and Augustine were describing the experience of mortals trast to Mantegna, for example, he imposed a deliberate restraint on gestures
taken out of themselves in an ecstasy. To apply this condition to the dead of lament.5 6 Bellini also found ways to allude to a supernatural efficacy
Christ entails sorne significant alterations. For mortals ecstasy and spiritual within the otherwise naturalistically depicted dead Christ. In the Man of
drunkenness are a means of becoming temporarily dead to the things of the Sorrowsof the upper register of the St. Vincent Ferrer polyptych, for exam-
world. They enter into contact with those divine things that are normally out ple, he sharply emphasized the veins in Christ's arms. As the veins in the
of their reach and thus have a foretaste of the beatitude that awaits them on body are known to go flat at death, this anatomical "violation" indicates a
the far side of mortality.54 In the case of Christ, who partakes of two natures, mysterious virtue within Christ's dead body, and in this way served as a
the reality of death is itself the brief interval. Our ecstasy is a form of little íneans of preserving the theological significance of the Man of Sorrows fig-
death; Christ's little death, which lasts only three days, is a form of ecstasy. ure under new pictorial conditions.5 7
Such an interpretation of the figure of Christ affects the other figures, as Michelangelo adopted a similar device in his early Roman Píeta (Figure
we have seen. In the place of the pathetic expressions of lament that we 59), where Christ appears to be in a deep and animated asleep, and his limbs
expect to find in such a scene, we find instead forms of quasi-ritualistic partic- show pulsing, prominent veins.58 From the London Entombment forward,
ipation; in the place of wild gesticulation, we find a solernn, meditative aware- Michelangelo engaged these concerns primarily in explorations of the mys-
ness. Above all there is restraint, and this means that even the bacchic elements terious implications of a powerless figure who remains upright, a problem
are muted. Even the figures most closely modeled on bacchic prototypes do he had confronted directly in his statue of the Bacchus.Little wonder, then,
not quite rage in a bacchic frenzy; they are not quite caught up in enthusiastic that he should have developed an interest in bacchic scenes generally, and
participatiorl. As we will see, Michelangelo let his bacchic hair clown in his specifically in the type of drunken figure about which Philostratus could say
later experiments with the subject, which were undertaken in a more prívate "though standing, he is asleep." Through these models Michelangelo found
sphere and in less regulated artistic formats. Here Michelangelo's main con- a means of emphasizing the life-giving qualities of the dead Christ, the
cern, as we have seen, was to respect altarpiece decorum, and above all to offer latent animation in the limp figure - not his pitiful suffering, but an incipi-
a clear alternathre to the highly dramatic treatments of the subject that were ent radiance and beauty. The scene is thus understood less as a historical
99
when, recounting a vision of St. Catherine of Siena, he has Christ explain this
mystery: "when my body was suffering and dying on the cross and when it lay
there with all the life gone from it, it still had life latent in it and inseparably
united to it all the time." And yet this latent virtue was so hidden that even the
apostles, when confronted with the body, "all lost faith and hope." Christ
specifies that although his body was no longer alive with the life it had
received from its own soul,
it was still united to the unending life by which all living things live; and by virtue
of this, at the time deterrnined by all eternity, my own spirit was reunited with it
[my body], with a much greater bond of life and vigor than it had had before,
59. Michelangelo,
Píeta. Marble. St. because it was endowed with the gifts of immortality and impassibility and other
Peter's Basilica, gifts which had not been granted to it earlier.62
Vatican City.
Alinari/ Art
Resource, NY.
We find related ideas in a fairly popular Passion tract written by the early
sixteenth-century preacher and writer Pietro da Lucca. In describing the
scene of the lament over the dead Christ, he asserted that already then
"[s ]igns of glory and victory" began to appear on Christ's body. "The dead
and wounded and deformed body of the Lord," he said, "in one instant was
made once again healthy, pure, and white [sano,candidoe bianco],as if he had
never received a wound or a blow." The five wounds, we are told, remained
on Christ's body but only as a sign and testimonial. This transformation, it is
important to note, occurs not at the resurrection but already befare Christ's
entombment. A little further on Pietro da Lucca asserted that although
Christ's body was dead and separated from his soul, nonetheless "it was
always united and conjoined with divinity." 6 3 As I show in part 2 of this
book, related ideas were to play a major role throughout Michelangelo's
later treatments of the subject, and they come up also in the work of Rosso
Fiorentino. We also find very similar ideas in the Passion writings ofVittoria
moment of lament than as a ritual procession, a mysterious triumph. In her Colonna, Michelangelo's friend in this later period and herself the recipient
technical analysis of the painting, Jill Dunkerton observed that the flesh of one of Michelangelo's most important treatments of the subject (see
painting on the body of Christ <loes not quite reach the edge of the reddish chapter 6).
undermodeling. The contours of the body thus "vibrate with a red-brown Michael Hirst noted that the figure of Christ bears a resemblance to that of
aura."59 But the figure's auratic radiance is interpreted above all through the the Santo Spirito Crucifi,x,now in Casa Buonarroti: 64 In both, we find an
ideals of.antique sculpture: Pristine and marmoreal, Christ is shown entirely entirely nude figure, the body beautifully intact and the face radiating peace
nude and without wounds. 60 Adolfo Venturi interpreted the beautiful and repose. The idea of representing a divinity fully nude was of course quite
intactness of this "alabastrine nude" as a sign of Christ's corning resurrec- common in pagan antiquity but had very little precedent in Christian art. The
tion, a suggestion that his death was no more than a sort of sleep befare the ambivalence Michelangelo felt about it can be deduced from the present state
awakening. 61 of the London panel, where the genitalia are conspicuously rnissing in an oth-
Writers also found theologically inventive ways to assert Christ's animate- erwise fairly complete figure. Recent exarnination of the paint surface has
ness after death, and occasionally hit on solutions that carne very close to deterrnined that the genitalia were not painted and effaced later but were
Michelangelo's. The Dominican Raymond of Capua, writing at the end of never paint~d at all.65 The resistance must have been acute, for Michelangelo
the fourteenth \century, embroidered on an established scholastic tradition went so far as to paint the shadow cast by the rnissing genitalia on the left
ro'o IOI
thigh. As Hirst noted, the concep- friends concentrated at the convent when he said that although in other
tion of the idealized nude Christ ages piety was combined with an unpolished manner and elegance tended
that we find in the London painting to be impious, it was the achievement of his own age to marry piety and
is not far from the statue of the elegance. 7° The cultural optimism of the Ro man humanist ambient in the
Christ in Santa Maria sopra Minerva early sixteenth century, which saw in the celebration of beauty, modeled
(Figure 60). Here the idea is overtly above ali on the antique, a path to spiritual enlightenment and Christian
identified with the ideals of antique reform, was to last only a brief time. 71 Later decades saw the advent of a
statuary and receives a distinctly tri- more circumspect and repressive culture, one less inclined to celebrate
umphant interpretation, again openly the marriage of pagan beauty and Christian spirituality. The devel-
despite the fact that the figure opments between Michelangelo's early and later works, as we will see,
belongs to a type of Christ imagery respond q~ite dramatically to this cultural shift.
60. Michelangelo, in which the wounds and blood, the The reviva! of a medieval, Gothic tradition within a resourceful adaptation
Christ. Marble. ostentatio vulnerum, traditionally of the antique was identified by Wilde, and befare him by Dvorák, as the
Santa Maria sopra played a prorninent role. 66 In the characteristic feature of Michelangelo's early works.72 It is in these terms that
Minerva, Rome,
painting the triumph is a more we can best understand the London painting's relation to the Roman Píeta
Italy.Alinari/ Art
Resource, NY paradoxical one, because we do not (see Figure 59), which also interpreted a northern, Gothic form through the
have a Christ sub specie aeternitatís ideals of antique statuary.73The contract for the sculpture stipulated that it be
but a scene from the historical "the most beautiful work of marble in Rome, and that no master living could
Passion: Christ is shown dead but do it so well" - in other words, that it be made to surpass both the ancient and
unscathed, a victim of history and contemporary sculpture of Rome. 74 Shearman has demonstrated that one of
yet the embodiment of a divine per- Michelangelo's primary antique models in this work was a type of Hellenistic
fection. The ideal beauty of the clas- Diana figure - and here again, as Shearman has pointed out, the reference to
sical nude has been made to the anti que prototype, a virgin goddess, is more than merely formal. 75 In a
embody the suprahistorical princi- more general sense, the emulation of classical ideals guided a significant reori-
ple in the Christian story. entation of the subject. In contrast to the traditional emphasis on Christ's bro-
The solution was well suited to ken body and the Virgin's bitter lament, Michelangelo offers an ideal,
the ethos of a papal culture that beautiful, pristine Christ in the tender embrace of an unusually youthful,
linked the renewal of the church to beautiful, spouselike Virgin.
the myth of a new Golden Age Here as elsewhere Michelangelo pushes the traditional subject away from
explicitly visualized on the model of classical antiquity. 67 It was congruent, dramatic sentimentality and toward a high-rninded emphasis on the spiritual
specifically, with the Roman humanist rnilieu one of whose epicenters in benefits of Christ's sacrifice, which find expression in the language of spiri-
the late fifteenth century was the church of Sant' Agostino, a rnilieu to tual love. This was not merely a shift in style and interpretation but a depat-
which Michelangelo was connected through his friend ]acopo Gallo as well ture at the level of format and genre. The work loudly announced its
as through his first Roman patron Cardinal Raffaele Riario, who was uniqueness in modern-day Rome, and its parity with tlie antique, in its sta-
General Protector of the Augustinian Order. Beyond these circumstantial tus as a full-scale, freestanding piece of marble statuary - a highly unusual
connections, we have documentation of an altarpiece commission from sight in Christian chapels at this time. In both the 1550 and 1568 editions of
Michelangelo for Sant'Agostino in 1500, which Hirst and I have argued is the Líves, Giorgio Vasari took special notice of its quality as a sculpture in
to be identified with the commission for the London Entombment. 68 the round ( "tutta tonda").7 6 Jakob Burckhardt, in his history of the altar-
Michelangel~ 's sponsor for this commission was ]acopo Gallo, in whose villa piece, celebrated the Pieta as a "free-standing marble group of a type
]acopo Sadoleto located his neo-Platonic dialogue Phaedrus, which offers a unprecedented in the Christian era" and called it "the final conquest of the
vivid depiction of this cultural rnilieu, and in the context of which Edgar Christian altar by antique statuary."77 Whether or not Michelangelo's Pieta
Wind interpreted the Bacchus.69 Giles ofViterbo, the most prominent figure was intended to stand above the altar of its chapel, it certainly fulfilled its
at Sant' Agostin~ in the early sixteenth century, referred specifically to his function as an unprecedented display of freestanding all' antíca statuary in a
102 IOJ
MlCHELANGELO AND THE REFORM OF ART HUMANlSM AND THE ALTAR lMAGE
This is certainly the spirit that breathes through the Corycíana, the
anthology of poems, many of them in praise of Sansovino 's St. Anne group,
that was dedicated to its patron the German humanist Johannes Goritz
(Corycius), himself a friend of Giles of Viterbo. 80 In these poems
Sansovino's sculpture is consistently celebrated as a triumph of Christian
piety, an achievement that supercedes the achievements of antiquity. And
yet the reference and return to antique forms remains, for the poets, the
basis of its virtue and spiritual significance. In a poem by ]acopo Sadoleto,
also the author of a poem on the recently discovered Laocoon group, Goritz
is celebrated as the genius who has dared to "restare to our age ancient
6r. Andrea images." 81 The group is consistently praised as a Christian triumph over the
Sansovino, St. Anne, pagan cults, and yet its virtues and Christian significance are continually
the Virgin,and described in pagan terms:The figures are referred to in the plural as "gods"
Child. Marble.
Sant' Agostino, and "deities," the Virgin is invoked as the queen of Mt. Olympus, and, in a
Rome, Italy. poem by Baldassare Castiglione, the three figures are asked to distribute
their gifts through the good offices of Ceres and Bromius. 82 Idolatry is a
persistent theme of the poems - it is warned against by sorne, implicitly
embraced by others - but one has the impression that this is above all a
topos invoked by learned poets, not an indication that idolatry was a real
possibility. The living and breathing sculpture, the sculpture inhabited by
the deity, the efficacy of the sculpture in bringing the deity clown to earth
- these are well-worn themes of the epigrammatic tradition and were not
likely to lead any of these poets to the truly idolatrous behavior that we
find elsewhere in the period, such as in the cult of the Fair Virgin that
. flared up only a few years la ter at Regensburg. 83 The "cult" focused on
11 Sansovino's St. Anne group instead revived the pagan cults in sublimated
1,
form; it was a new brand of elegant Christian piety that was as far from the
original pagan cults as from the more recent "excesses" of Christian image
chapel setting. And it certainly set an important precedent for the subse- worship. The freestanding marble statue, which inspired loathing in the
quent trend of placing antique-inspired marble statues on Christian altars, a Church fathers and fearful awe in the Christian Middle Ages, was here
trend enthusiastically promoted in the following years by Andrea and ]acopo ¡'
neutralized in an atmosphere of self-conscious and retrospective humanist
Sansovino. Andrea's St. Anne of 1512 (Figure 61) and Jacopo's Madonna del spirituality. In the words of one of the epigrammists, Sansovino's work her-
Parto of 1521 were, indeed, both made for the church of Sant'Agostino.7 8 It alded "a new conception of statues. 84
is difficult for us, accustomed as we are to the polemics of the Protestant Michelangelo's revival of freestanding antique statuary in chapel settings
Reformation and to the reforms decreed by the Council ofTrent, to imag- continued after the Pieta85 in the Bruges Madonna, the Medici Madonna
ine any relation between this spectacular revival of antique sculpture and a (Figure 62), and above all in the Minerva Christ (see Figure 61). The con-
culture of religious reform. And yet for Giles ofViterbo, Prior General of cerns were also present in Michelangelo's early experiments in panel paint-
the Augustinian Order from 1507 to 1518, the cult focused on Sansovino's ing - in the London Entombment, as we have seen, but also in the Manchester
St. Anne at Sant' Agostino was a shining example of that marriage of ele- (
Madonna (Figure 63). Here we see no description of setting - no landscape,
gance and piety that he believed to be the great achievement of his age and not even a horizon - and the group of the Virgin and Child is treated as a
the mark of an era of spiritual renewal. 79 The antique, even overtly pagan, freestanding block. These features clearly set it apart from other altar panels
allusions of this new brand cult image were, for this audience, an integral of the period, especially those containing elaborate architectonic settings.
(
part of its deep \::hristian significance. Even Francesco Granacci's Rest on the Flight to Egypt, with which it has
104 105
often been compared, appears clut-

tered when compared to the
London Madonna. 86 In the face of
widespread trends in contemporary
altar painting, Michelangelo 's
painting represents a "return" to
the figure, conceived in distinctly
sculptural terms. 87 63. Michelangelo,
The "sculptural" critique that Madonnaand Child
here occurs within the medium of with the Irifant
BaptistandAngels.
62. Michelangelo, painting was later concretized in Panel. National
Medid Madonna. the sculpture groups of the Bruges Gallery, London,
Marble. San
Madonna and the Medici Madonna England.
Lorenzo, Florence,
Italy. (see Figure 62), both of which
incorporate specific motifs found
,11
in the earlier painting. 88 It might
be argued that these works were
carried out in marble simply in
response to the requirements of the
commissions or as the result of
Michelangelo's personal preference
for marble sculpture. The point
remains, however, that in these
works Michelangelo offered a de-
parture from contemporary prac-
tice, proposing a strong, figure-centered alternative realized on the model of
antique sculpture. In the case of an artist with strong religious convictions
and a keen historical sensibility, such a departure could not but involve a
significant critique, informed by an awareness of traditions of religious art.
Michelangelo applied the principles of antique statuary within the context
of Christian altars as a means of restoring the figural focus and simplicity of
64. MadonnaefSan
traditional icons and cult statues. But this was a restoration in a very new Zanobi. Panel. San
guise, well beyond obvious archaism. The complexity and novelty of the Lorenzo, Florence,
Medici Madonna (see Figure 62) are a far cry from earlier traditions of reli- Italy.
gious art. And yet here, where we would least expect it, it has been shown
that Michelangelo modeled his group quite carefully on a Trecento icon
venerated in the same church (Figure 64). 89 The similarities consist first of
all in the subject of the breast-feeding Virgin but also in the treatment of the
figures: in tlie twisted posture of the child and in the faraway gaze of the
Virgin. Michelangelo's much-vaunted independence from the antique is,
here and elsewhere, the result of a collision with traditions of Christian cult
imagery. Michelangelo's "modernity" is crucially bound up with his
. \
areh a1sm.
I06 I07
THE PARADOX OF REFORM Sant' Agostino, declared in a Good Friday sermon delivered in the Sistine
Chapel in 1496 that he was not describing the d_eathof an ancient hero, such
The incorporation of antique sculptural models also occurred in the London as Gavianus or Julius Caesar, but rather the death of the true God and Son of
Entombment (see Figure 6), and there, too, as we have seen, it involved a cri- God. His crucifixion by those whom he had created, and for whose benefit
tique of trends in contemporary religious art. Antique reviva! and Christian he had assumed the fl.esh,went against all laws and norms ( 'Jusfasque"): "This
reform went hand in hand, in a way quite typical of the culture of papal is something that no eloquence can attain, no ingenious acumen can pene-
Rome in these years. Michelangelo found in antique sculpture the basis for an trate, no breadth of rnind can comprehend."9 2 Unlike secular history, the
alternative both to the tradition of the "pitiful" dead Christ in late medieval events of sacred history resist logical or rational explanation; they can only be
art and to the more recent ali'antica renditions (Donatello, Mantegna, celebrated and marveled at.
Bertoldo), which interpreted it as a form of tragedy (see chapter 1). It was a John O'Malley demonstrated that the humanist preachers at the papal
natural link to draw: When Pietro da Lucca attempted to evoke the figure of court, such as Brandolini, responded to the demands of their subject by delib-
the dead Christ that was no longer affiicted but once again rniraculously pris- erately applying the mode of epideictic oratory to the Christian sermon.93
tine, he described the body as "sano, candido, e bianco," the same language O'Malley showed that the choice of epideictic, exemplified in the sermonjust
used to describe high-quality marble, such as the "marmo carrarese novo can- quoted, found its most elaborate theoretical rationale in a treatise written by
dido e biancho" demanded ofMichelangelo for the figures of the Piccolornini the same Brandolini, De rationescribendi.94Epideictic or demonstrative oratory
altar in 1504. 90 In the London Entombment, this thematic reinterpretation involved the distribution of praise and blame and was peculiar to ceremonial
went hand in hand with a structural reorientation that served to maintain rather than legal occasions. Brandolini rather boldly defended the application
altarpiece conventions of symmetry and frontal presentation. Again, of epideictic to the praise of God and asserted that it was especially well suited
Michelangelo's respect for these conventions was more than a formal matter. to describe what is beyond human comprehension, a primary concern of
This and later works were motivated by an awareness that frontal presentation sacred oratory. The passage quoted above is one example of the application of
was a link to a tradition of religious art and a key to its religious efficacy. epideictic in this sense. Epideictic was used to avoid the rationalistic tendency
Within a narrative work, a structure of frontal presentation connected the to lecture and dispute, and instead to "lead men to admiration and contempla-
story directly to the here and now of Christian worship, effectuating and epit- tion of divine mystery."95 For this reason, as O'Malley pointed out, the epide-
ornizing the suprahistorical purpose and significance of the event. It brought ictic preachers were especially fond of a celebratory language of visual
the work quite concretely into dialogue with the protocols of frontality that presentation, inviting their audience to "look;' to "view," to "gaze upon;' to
governed ecclesiastical rites generally - rites whose purpose was, among other "contemplate" - videre,aspicere,ante oculosponere,contemplari.9 6
things, to draw the sacramental significance out of the events of sacred history. Michelangelo's approach to sacred history is analogous to that adopted, and
Even as he is being withdrawn from us, the radiant figure of Christ shines theorized, by Brandolini. Rather than describe the historical event as if it
enthroned in the center of the panel; subject to history, he is also loosened were the death of an ancient hero - "aut Gavianum crucem, ut Tullius; aut
from it and mysteriously presides over it. Cesarem necem,ut Maro" - he took care to preserve the dimension of mystery
In adapting the principies of history painting to these structures of frontal within the history by bringing the narrative structure into alignment with
presentation, Michelangelo offered a solution, within the realm of altarpieces, frontal modes of visual presentation that could be coordinated with the struc-
to a problem that was also directly confronted by humanist scholars. As tures of ecclesiastical ceremonial. The very analogy with epideictic, however,
humanists with a developed interest in the study of secular history, they were suggests that this was a sophisticated rhetorical exercise and not a simple
compelled to give new critica! attention to the question of what distinguished return to altarpiece conventions. Although Michelangelo's recasting of the
it from sacred history. I showed in chapter r that Savonarola, perhaps respond- Meleager-inspired composition was clearly motivated by a respect for the tra-
ing to the humanist climate ofRenaissance Florence, had addressed the prob- ditional functions of altarpieces, the incorporation of a new conception of
lem directly. He argued that Livy's histories were different from biblical pictorial narrative nonetheless produced a significant reinterpretation of those
history in that they did not have a figura! dimension, or what he called "alle- functions, and a powerful commentary on the status of the altarpiece as an
goria"; history, in Livy, <loes not "signify future things."91 The humanists of institution circa 1500.
Renaissance Rome pursued the distinction and, more important, developed For one, the work elaborated a conception beyond the confines of estab-
rhetorical models that they felt were especially well suited to the nature of lished iconography, and as a result no longer strictly operated within the
sacred history. ~or example, Aurelio Brandolini, a prorninent humanist at conventional categories of altar dedication. It is hard to imagine that this
I08 I09
unusual composition, conceived through a resourceful combination of vari- I think there are far too many who count up how many times they attend Mass
ous traditions within the history of image-making, could have been deter- and rely almost entirely upon this for their salvation.They are convinced that they
mined by theological or patronal prescription (unless, of course, it was a owe nothing further to Christ. Leaving church, they immediately turn to their
cleric or donor with an extremely keen awareness of artistic tradition). The former habits. I certainly do not hesitate to praise them for getting to Mass but I
result defies iconographic classification: it is not a Lamentation, it is not a am forced to condemn them for stopping at this point. They have failed to let
what takes place at Mass also take place in their hearts; the death of our Head that
Pieta, and it is not strictly an Entombment. Even to describe it more precisely
is there represented does not take place in their souls.... If you believe in what
as a Christ Carried to the Tomb <loes not take into account the way the treat-
takes place at the altar but fail to enter into the spiritual meaning of it, God will
ment of the theme - a frontally presented dead Christ directly implicating
despise your fl.abbyreligion. roo
its viewer - determines its nature and significance. The specific organization
of the painting is, in other words, crucial to the subject's meaning. More
According to Charles Trinkaus, the shift from a celebration of the objective
specifically, it expressly suspends the subject and demands that the viewer
power of the sacrament to an insistence on its meaningful relation to the indi-
engage in the process of interpreting for him- or herself. The subject is
vidual's conscience was closely connected to humanist literary and rhetorical
completed in the experience of a viewer who assumes responsibility for his
ideals.A literary consciousness derived from the study of ancient letters served
or her relation to it. This relation is the subject - and the very occasion of its
as the conceptual basis for a new understanding of Christian theology:
"mystery."
The ideal of a sincere and internali.zed faith was, of course, not a new The very fact of [the humanists'] commitment to rhetoric, philology and the lan-
development in Christian thought. In the years around 1500, however, it was guage arts led them to a new kind of religious emphasis. Since they were less
increasingly invoked in explicit opposition to the outward forms of worship interested in establishing technical theological niceties or the objective sacred sig-
institutionalized in official church ritual. lt was a commonplace of reformist nificance of the sacraments than they were in moving their readers and listeners
polemics at this time to condemn the increasingly elaborate ceremonial dis- to a receptive and believing state of rnind, they were led to stress in the very con-
plays and the proliferation of masses and to exhort a return to a more sincere tent of their dialogues and sermons this personal, subjective and psychological
faith rooted in a direct relation to Christ and the Gospel. Savonarola (whose aspect of the meaning and importance of the sacraments. roi
living voice, Condivi said, Michelangelo still recalled late in life) was one of
the most pronounced critics of the excessive importance accorded to Church Michelangelo's painting was an analogous effort within the visual arts:
ritual: The exploration of new devices of visual rhetoric, eliciting new forms of
viewer response, produced a stronger emphasis on the relation between the
I have said it to you many times, the exterior divine cult is designated [ordinato]
to Gospel message and the viewer's conscience. In fact, it gives this relation a
the interior, and its entire order is then designated to God .... But those of luke- pointedly elegiac coloring by interpreting it in historical terms: Standing
warm faith have done everything in reverse, because where everything is desig- befare the painting, we are shown the Man of Sorrows as he is being with-
nated to and should be done for the glory of God, they have changed everything drawn from us. The highly "subjective" address to the viewer, and even the
so that it is for their own glory, and they have made their own all those things elegiac tone, can be found elsewhere in Renaissance painting. We have seen,
which should be God's. The lukewarm priests and monks arrange these beautiful for example, that Michelangelo's experiments with the implied viewer were
celebrations, hunt after bread, money and candles, and care little for the honor of close to experiments with the dramatic close-up developed in the Venetian
God. 97 tradition of the prívate devotional image. This tradition was, in turn, given a
more syncretic and elegiac flavor - and a less strictly devotional function -
In another ·place, Savonarola extolled the virtues of an "interior cult" and in the cabinet pictures produced in the circle of Giorgione. But all of these
argued that "the good life <loes not consist in ceremonies but in being inter- works operated outside of the parameters of church art. The significance of
nally well oriented [regulato]towarcl God and toward one's neighbor." "Don't Michelangelo 's panel líes in the introduction of these new pictorial strate-
hope," he s~d, "in altar cloths or in chapels or in externa! things."9 8 Here gies within the arena of the a}tarpiece, an effort that involved a reshaping,
Savonarola was very close to the criticisms of reform-minded humanists.99 literally an interna! reform, of the altarpiece's traditional functions. Earlier
The most infl.uential of these at the turn of the century was Erasmus. In his altarpieces had developed various forms of direct viewer address that sup-
widely read EnchiridionMilitis Christiani, first published in 1503, the Dutch plemented the mediations of ecclesiastical ceremony and institutionalized
humanist declar~d: prayer, but in this case the entire conception is predicated on the viewer's
IIO III
CHAPTER FOUR
individual engagement with the image: the cooperation between viewer

and image is necessary to the painting's thematic coherence. Put succinctly,
the altarpiece's liturgical function has been completely absorbed and inter-
preted by its rhetorical structure.
The Altarpiece in the Age of
In contrast to the tendency to seek the divine in outward objects and cere-
monies, the London panel promotes an orientation inward. Whereas the old History Painting
Man of Sorrows images granted huge indulgences when certain prescribed
prayers were said before them (see chapter 2), in this panel the viewer's rela-
tion to the Man of Sorrows involves an engaged act of interpretative reading
and a high level of self-awareness. The true mystery and benefit of Christ's
sacrifice, it implicitly asserts, comes not through the saying of rote prayers
before the image but through the viewer's reading of the painting and the
consequent realization that Christ's sacrifice has occurred "for" him or herself.
The painting is designed to promote this understanding by its own thematic
means, with or without Mass rite and altar. Working under the auspices of
humanist reform, Michelangelo arrived at the paradox of an altarpiece that no
longer needs an altar.
THE BURDENS OF THE ALTARPIECE
After this strenuous and ultimately frustrated effort to reform altar painting
from within, Michelangelo's later negotiations with the Man of Sorrows
theme were undertaken in a prívate sphere, outside of the tradicional cate- "Every true work of art has violated an established genre, and in this way con-
gories of religious art. But the generic tensions confronted in Michelangelo's founded the ideas of critics, who thus found themselves compelled to broaden
youthful painting preoccupied a whole generation of painters to follow. These the genre." 1 Benedetto Croce might well have pointed to Raphael's
efforts, which are linked to Michelangelo's panel by a shared theme and by a Entombment of 1507, in the Galleria Borghese in Rome (Figure 65), as a classic
history of reception, clearly illustrate the fate of the altarpiece in an era that illustration of his dictum. The work was commissioned as an altarpiece, and
saw the rise of a modern conception of history painting, and thus provide a yet in its final form it presented a significant departure from the altarpiece tra-
historical basis for understanding the archaism of Michelangelo's late Pietas. dition, proposing a conception of history painting that had not previously
staked a secure claim to the format of large easel painting. The theme that
Michelangelo had strenuously adapted to altarpiece conventions here pro-
duced a break with the altarpiece tradition altogether. This process of depar-
ture preoccupied Raphael during the preparation of the panel and informed
his very approach to the painting's theme, which is centrally concerned with
the problem of rupture and loss. And yet the fact that the painting marks a
generic crisis complicates any effort to understand it historically. To approach
this work according to the "normal" requirements of altarpiece painting as
they were known in the period (ante rem) would be to ignore its own claims
to historical novelty. But to treat it simply as a "history painting" of the kind
familiar from later picture galleries is to impose upon it a category established
only later (post rem), and whose very origins are part of the problem that
requires study. The work demands, instead, to be studied historically (in re),as
an instance of sorne of the transformations in the nature and status of painting
that occurred in the opening years of the sixteenth century. 2
The generic instability of the work is best illustrated by setting it within a
\ history of reception. I argue here that Raphael's painting responded directly
112 113
MICHELANGELO AND THE REFORM OF ART THE ALTARPIECE IN THE AGE OF HISTORY PAINTING
rated in altarpieces was, I argued, due to an implicit conflict with altarpiece

conventions and traditions, a conflict clearly in evidence in Michelangelo's
strenuous efforts to effectuate this adaptation. Raphael's altarpiece was not, in
other words, simply intended as a better and grander altarpiece than those that
carne before it; rather, it heralded a departure from the altarpiece tradition as
such, which it clearly confronted as a tradition. 4
The goal of Alberti's treatise was to raise painting to the status of a liberal
art; to this end it provided painting with a consistent set of procedures and
65. Raphael, The
CarryingefChrist to principles. These principles were different from the kind of advice offered in,
the Tomb.Panel. say, Cennino Cennini's Libro dell' Arte, in which the painter is told how to
Gallería Borghese,
produce well-made, marketable goods and run an efficient, productive shop.
Rome, Italy.
Alinari/ Art Although Alberti's treatise had an important practical component, its main
Resource, NY. purpose was to supply painting with a set of aesthetic ideals. Indeed, accord-
ing to Alberti, it was the mark of the true painter to put the ideals proper to
the art of painting before any consideration of monetary profit. These aes-
thetic aims, and the means used to achieve them, were proper to painting
conceived as an art. They applied whether the subject depicted was Christian
or pagan.5Whether derived directly fromAlberti or not, such a conception of
painting as an art was essentially realized in the seventeenth-century picture
gallery, where secular subjects could be found alongside religious subjects, all
of them presented as illustrious examples of "history painting."
Before the gallery picture had become a dorninant institution of art pro-
to Michelangelo's efforts in the London Entombment (see Figure 6) to preserve duction, however, a protracted redefinition of genre boundaries took place. 6
the altarpiece tradition while incorporating a new conception of history N ew conceptions of painting had first to lay claim to the surfaces of large
painting. Raphael's departure from the altarpiece tradition in turn produced a panels, and this meant that they had to contend with the resistance posed by
significantly "forked" history of reception: It was on the one hand recognized the conventions of the altarpiece. The series of works studied in this book
and ratified in Titian's Entombment in the Louvre (see Figure 76), which offer a textbook case of this process, but parallel developments may be noted
belongs firmly to the early history of the modern gallery picture, and on the elsewhere in Italy at this time, with or without Albertian motivation:
other was resisted by ]acopo da Pontormo in the Capponi chapel (see Figure Altarpiece conventions were everywhere being tested and revised under the
77), where we see an effort to integrate anew the theme, and the new concep- pressure of new artistic developments, particularly in narrative painting. This
tion of painting it embodied, with the liturgical function and setting of altar situation produced, in ]acopo Bellini for example, highly sensitive and consci-
images. entious efforts to preserve altarpiece traditions even while incorporating a
Raphael's painting introduced a conception of painting, articulated earlier new array of narrative and descriptive devices. The same situation produced
in the fifteenth century by Leon Battista Alberti, into a format that until that in sorne ofVittore Carpaccio's works a breakdown of altarpiece conventions
time had been governed by the conventions and decorum of the altarpiece. altogether. Not surprisingly, this generic instability also provoked backlashes,
Raphael did so quite deliberately, by carefully following Alberti's precepts on efforts to "reinstate" a traditional conception of altar painting in the face of
the depiction of members and bodies, as well as by depicting a theme - the the new developments.7
entombment of Christ - that had become a paradigm of the Albertian histo- As is well known, Raphael arrived at the final solution for his altarpiece
ria.3 As we saw in chapter I, Alberti had proposed as a model for the history only after an extended process of preparation and self-revision. This process
painter an antique representation of the carrying of the dead Meleager (see can be substantially reconstructed from the unusually large number of surviv-
Figure n), a challenge taken up in the more experimental and flexible· ing drawings for this project. The scholarship on these much-studied drawings
medium of en~raving by Mantegna, who adapted the model to the Christian has tended to see them as documents of a process of free and exploratory artis-
subject of the éntombment ofChrist (see Figure 17). That it was not incorpo- tic creation. I interpret them, instead, as documents of generic tension and
II4 II5
rupture. They reveal, I believe, the powerful resistance of altarpiece conven- ence to the events that preceded the commission: "In composing this work
tions to a new conception of painting, and the process by which that resis- Raphael imagined the grief felt by the closest and most loving relatives in car-
tance was overcome. Severa! scholars have viewed the essential change in rying to burial the body of their dearest, on whom ali the welfare, honor and
composition and theme, from a lamentation to an entombment, as the result advantage of the entire family depended."9 This reading of the painting
of a pivota! encounter, at a certain point in the preparation process, with became standard after the publication, in 1851, of the chronicles attributed to
Mantegna's Entombment engraving, Albertian theory, or with an ancient the Perugian humanist Francesco Matarazzo, which tell the story of the
Meleager sarcophagus of the kind mentioned by Alberti. 8 This view is, I Perugian wars in great detail. Jacob Burckhardt's famous passage on the paint-
believe, contradicted by the very gradual nature of the change documented by ing set the stage for innumerable speculations on the correspondence of the
the drawings themselves. I propose, instead, that even the earliest drawings depicted figures to the personages involved in the Perugian events of 1500. 10
show a knowledge of the Mantegna print and the Meleager model. This ref- Based loosely on a belief in the artwork as a mirror of its time, these accounts
erence was, indeed, a quite appropriate and natural response given its rele- often assume that the picture's dramatic qualities were at least in part inspired
vance to the client, Atalanta Baglioni, whose name and whose family's literary by these extraordinarily dramatic events. n While not denying the relevance of
patronage gave her good reason to be acquainted with the myth. I argue that these events for the intentions of the patron, the following argument insists
Atalanta fashioned her appeal for divine merey on the basis of thematic reso- instead on the mediating factors - thematic transpositions among the histori-
nances among the three registers of pagan myth, Passion narrative, and per- cal, mythological, and biblical registers, as well as structural and generic con-
sonal history - a highly novel strategy in altarpiece painting of the period. siderations - that complicate this model of the relationship between art and
Raphael's compositional studies were, I believe, efforts to meet these devo- the circumstances in which it is made. Let us begin, then, with the chronicle,
tional purposes by incor~orating features of the Meleager model into a tradi- our primary source. Although it is presented as a chronicle, it contains a
tional altarpiece scheme. This process of integration was uneasy, and sharply strong dramatic structure, which in turn makes it susceptible to thematic
illuminates the generic controls and institutional imperatives governing easel transposition. It is thus necessary, for the purposes of thematic analysis if not
painting at this time. In the end, a persistent pushing forward of the prepara- of historical "background," to give it a close reading.
tion process provoked a disruption of altarpiece conventions altogether, to Atalanta Baglioni, herself a descendant of a branch of the Baglioni family,
which painters of the following decades were compelled to respond. was the young widow of Grifone Baglioni, by whom she had had a son
It is well known that this process was marked, especially in its later stages, named Grifonetto. Grifonetto, universally admired for his beauty - "de
by a critica! dialogue with works by Michelangelo, such as the Pieta (see bellezza fu un altro Ganimede," said Matarazzo - was the youngest among the
Figure 59), the St. Matthew (see Figure 74), and the Battle oJCaseína. In this youthful cohort of the ruling Baglioni clan. 12 He was also the richest, and he
chapter, I attempt to show that the final step was a direct response to lived in a house built by his grandfather Braccio that had been decorated in
Michelangelo's own effort to adapt this subject to the demands of altarpiece high style; in it was a room of "uomini illustri," like those that decorated the
painting, in the London Entombment. Michelangelo's singular solution is, I palaces of other humanist princes. 13 The other members of this cohort,
believe, the key to understanding the primary difference that separates although close in age to Grifonetto, were in fact the cousins of Grifonetto's
Raphael's final conception from the Mantegna and Meleager models: The father. Matarazzo implies that these cousins, the most prominent of whom
reorganization of the subject as a drama of separation, in which Christ is were Astorre, Sigismondo, Simonetto, and Giovan Paolo, were closer among
shown being carried away from the lamenting group. Rupture at the level of themselves than they were to Grifonetto, whom he describes as their
genre corresponded to rupture at the level of theme. Michelangelo's work is ''pronipote." Grifonetto's somewhat marginal status thus became a contribut-
thus essential to understanding the process that l<?dto Raphael's final solution, ing factor in the events surrounding the celebration of the wedding of Astorre
and Raphael's is a strong early interpretation of the significance of inJuly of 1500. Two other pronipoti pressed him to join them in a plot against
Michelangelo's work in the history of the altarpiece. their uncles, promising greater power over the city, but Grifonetto managed
Raphael's altarpiece, dated 1507, was commissioned by Atalanta Baglioni to resist their inducements, at least initially. Matarazzo, who remains sympa-
for her family chapel in the church of San Francesco al Prato in Perugia. thetic to the youth throughout the narrative, suggests that he might have
Although the exact date of the commission is not known, it has often been resisted completely had he not been left unguided by the absence of a father.
seen in relation to the events that had recently occurred in Perugia and that He finally succumbed, Matarazzo says, when the plotters managed to arouse
had resulted il\ the death of Atalanta's son in 1500. Already Vasari, in a highly in him suspicions of illicit relations between his wife and Giovan Paolo. On
"familial" readiiig of the work, assumed that the painting was shaped by refer- the night of the wedding he participated in a synchronized raid on the bed-
It6 II7
rooms of the principal men of the Baglioni clan. Astorre, Sigismondo, their upon the noble youth stretched out his right hand to her that was herself so
father Guido, and their cousin Simonetto were all killed in their nightclothes. young, and clasped his mother's white hand in his. Then at once the soul left
The formidable Giovan Paolo managed to escape and leave town; quickly that beautiful body and departed comforted with the infinite blessings of his
gathering forces outside the city, on the following day he mounted a coun- mother in requital for those former curses." 15
teroffensive. Under the ministrations of Atalanta, Grifonetto's death is transformed into
Amidst these events Matarazzo introduces Grifonetto's mother, Atalanta, a scene of Christian forgiveness and redemption - or so, at least, Matarazzo
Raphael's future patron: "Atalanta was her name, a widow she was, young and chose to represent it. (Did it also become the stuff of popular legend?)
beautiful, and was left a widow when not yet twenty years old, and ever lived Matarazzo has, indeed, interpreted the entire story as a series of moral
in widowhood for the love she bore her son Grifone."With the violent turn exchanges and compensations, almost as if it were a morality tale. In retribu-
of events, Atalanta's love for her son quickly turned into scorn. Matarazzo J1 tion for her son's murderous act, Atalanta refused him succor and effectively
notes with approval that she lost no time in sending for the children of l gave him up to execution. At the moment of dying, however, he forgives his
Giovan Paolo, her son's enemy, to protect them from the insurgents. She then killers, communicating the very act of forgiveness directly to hi~ mother
abandoned her son's house, with nothing but the shawl on her back, swearing through the pressure of the hand. This act of forgiveness is itself sealed by his
that she would never return. Together with Grifonetto's wife, Zenobia, their expiration, thus transforming his death into a sort of sacrifice. He dies with
children, and the children of Giovan Paolo, she retreated to the house of her his mother's benedictions, in exchange ( "in cambio") for the curses she had
father. Grifonetto carne to her several times that day to plead forgiveness, but hurled at him earlier. Finally, Matarazzo records that Grifonetto's body was
Atalanta refused him entry and cursed him repeatedly: taken to the main square, where it replaced the body of the assassinated
Astorre, which had been put there exactly twenty-four hours before - a final
And he, not once, nor twice, but again and again returned to speak to his sweet exchange that he notes as a sign of"how God's justice works." 16
mother, and she, for the wrath and scorn that was in her, would not listen to her Matarazzo did not rely solely on these internal correspondences to struc-
son; nay, rather cursed him and the place where she bare him and the hour of his ture his narrative. He also draws parallels, throughout the story, to the events
birth. For the noble Grifonetto had repented him of the great betrayal, but they of Christ's Passion. For example, he describes how, in the days before the fate-
sufficed not. ful coup, those involved in the plot continued to greet their enemies with
"caresses feigned and false, even as Judas Iscariot did Christ." 17 After the coup,
Finally giving up, Grifonetto utters the pathetic final words:"Never again will the friends of the Baglioni were abused by the people "just as the disciples of
I come to you, and the time shall be when you shall wish to speak to me and Christ were by the Jews when their master was taken." 18 These parallels
shall not be able, you that are a harsh mother to your unhappy son Grifone." 14 clearly reveal Matarazzo's partisan leanings toward the Baglioni, who were his
Meanwhile, Giovan Paolo was successfully leading the revanche.Matarazzo patrons. When it carne to Grifonetto, of course, his loyalties were divided, as
hints that Grifonetto, defeated by his mother's rejection, virtually gave himself were Atalanta's and accordingly he uses subtler rhetorical devices in treating
up. He was brought to Giovan Paolo, who, declining to follow Grifonetto's the scene of reconciliation played out between them. Matarazzo transformed
example in staining his hands with family blood, left him in the hands of his the scene of the guilty Grifonetto's death into a drama of Christian atone-
men. Grifonetto was immediately put to the sword and left to die in the ment and reconciliation by, again, drawing parallels to Christ's Passion, but he
piazza, his body lacerated with wounds. When word of this reached Atalanta, did so by means of delicate resonances rather than by explicit declaration. For
she caíne running with his wife Zenobia to his side. At this point Matarazzo example, he enhanced the pathos of the mutilation of Grifonetto's body by
slows clown the pace ofhis narrative and gives an extended, poignant descrip- emphasizing Grifonetto's physical beauty, a device commonly employed in
tion of the scene. At the approach of the mother and wife, Giovan Paolo's the devotional literature of the life of Christ. Likewise,Atalanta is described as
men scattered for fear of being recognized. Atalanta, finding Grifonetto lying a pure and virtuous mother: She has white hands and has preserved her
on the groupd but not yet dead, carne to his side and, finding him unable to youthful beauty, Matarazzo hints, through her chastity ("she ... ever lived
speak, acknowledged the prophetic truth of his warning: '"Son, behold the in widowhood for the love she bore her son"). She was, like the Virgin, a
mother that was wrath with you! and now I would speak to you, but you can- mother without being a wife. Above all, she was "sage and prudent;"
not, even as you said it would be."' Overcoming the initial maternal impulse she understood that her son's life must be sacrificed and her own motherly
to dissolve in 1,ment, however, she recovers her original purpose and exhorts affections set aside for the purposes of a higher redemption. After his death,
him to forgive t>ysorne sign all those who had helped to kili him:"And there- she is described as a "dolorosamatre." Her lamentation, together with that of
118 119
Zenobia, echoes many familiar representations of the Virgin and the one point it was thus considered a "terminus," and it was probably intended
Magdalene at the lamentation of Christ: "The tears that his woeful mother for presentation to the patron.
shed and the wife that so dearly loved him when they saw the street drenched Even without precise knowledge of the terms of the colllilllss10n, 1t 1s
with that noble blood, and how sad was the wailing ofhis wife when she saw important to attempt to understand how such a conception for the altarpiece
herself bereft of her husband, whom she loved deeply, who shall tell?" 19 would have served Atalanta's primary devotional concerns. The altarpiece was
Grifonetto's body is then left at the hospital, and Atalanta, covered in his intended to serve in the Baglioni family burial chapel in the church of San
blood, proceeds through the main piazza, exposing herself to the potencial Francesco al Prato. Astorre, Gismondo, and their father Guido, killed in the
hostility of the crowd; instead of receiving abuse, however, "she was rever- revolt of 1500, were buried in this chapel, as was, probably, Grifonetto him-
enced by all men." 20 To anyone familiar with the rhetoric of Umbrian laude self.22 Masses for their souls, and later for the soul of Atalanta, were celebrated
drammatichein the period, the parallels to Christ's Passion are unmistakeable. at this altar. The tragic events of 1500 thus do not simply constitute a poten-
Raphael's first conception for his altarpiece progressed as far as a highly tially relevant historical circumstance for the painting; they placed a direct
finished squared modello,now in the Louvre 21 (Figure 66). This conception liturgical burden on its chapel and its altar. lt is likely that Atalanta's primary
effectively realizes the parallel to the Christ story only intimated by concern was for her own soul and for that of her traitorous son. The strategy
Matarazzo: It represents a LamentationefChrist that almost exactly matches the she adopted in her altarpiece is not unrelated to the dramatic role she plays in
scene of Grifonetto's death as it was described by the chronicler. Christ lies on Matarazzo's chronicle, where she functions as a crucial intermediary in help-
the ground, his legs supported by the Magdalene and his head by the Virgin. ing her son die a virtuous and Christian death. Her altarpiece was also
Special attention is given to the Virgin, who swoons in grief. The drawing, designed to refer to that episode and to make a parallel to the lamentation of
elaborately finished in pen over a stylus and black-chalk underdrawing, was Christ the basis of an appeal to divine merey on behalf of both their souls.
itself the result of an extensive preparation process. It is, in fact, comparable in This is an uncommon strategy for recommending oneself to divine merey
finish to the squared composition study for the final version in the Uffizi. At in an altarpiece. A more conventional device would have been to represent
herself or her son in worshipful supplication befare the Virgin, and presented
by their patron saints. A strategy somewhat closer to that adopted by Atalanta
was employed by Francesco Sassetti in his chapel in the Florentine church of
Santa Trinita. The chapel comports a double dedication to Francesco's name
saint Francis and to the Nativity. Warburg first suggested that the second ded-
ication was prompted by the death in the preceding year of Francesco's eldest
l son Theodoro, and the birth shortly thereafter of a new son, whom he named
l Theodoro 11.2 3 Ghirlandaio's altarpiece of the Nativity offered a thematic par-
1 allel to Sassetti's story, a parallel then reinforced on the level of the Francis leg-
1 end through the scene of the Resurrectionef the French Notary's Son. The
66. Raphael, altarpiece puts the birth of the new son under the sign of divine intervention
Lamentation. and also celebrates the birth of the Savior who will bring eternal life to the
Drawing. Louvre, dead Theodoro I, as well as to Francesco and the rest of his kin. Both
Paris, France. ©
Réunion des
Francesco Sassetti and Atalanta Baglioni showed great resourcefulness in
Musées Nationaux. building an appeal for divine merey on the basis of a thematic parallel
between their family histories and episodes from sacred history.
What about Atalanta's role in the episode of her son's treason and murder
warranted such an exalted parallel? At the time of the coup, Atalanta was
unwavering in her loyalty to family and state, even though this demanded the
condemnation of her beloved son. She resolutely refused to acknowledge his
appeals to her motherly sentiment, but when he received the punishment that
1 was due him, she finally carne, in the spirit of Christian merey, to minister to
him in his final hour. The events had placed her in an impossible predicament,
120 121
pulled in opposite directions by the two most powerful imaginable demands are kept to a mínimum, and instead the figures engage in independent medi-
on her loyalty. But that intermediary status also allowed her to perform a spe- • tation on the dead Christ, who is shown propped up on a square, altarlike
cial mission of reconciliation. Her strict adherence, until this point, to moral block. In these ways, the attitudes represented in the painting are "dehistori-
right and family loyalty over the appeals to her motherly affection gave a spe- cized" and assimilated to the activity of the worshipper before the altar and
cial efficacy to the noble act by which, she could hope, her son died the painting. Raphael's Louvre composition (s,eeFigure 66), by contrast, while
redeemed. preserving sorne Peruginesque poses, particularly in the two standing men,
This fundamental appeal was concretely connected to the liturgical appara- animates the figures and brings them into more active relation to one
tus of the Mass and the altar through the other elements of the altarpiece another. It places greater emphasis, in other words, on the historical and nar-
structure. The altarpiece was designed to be surmounted by a panel, now in rative coherence of the scene, as something that occurred "back then," rather
the Gallería Nazionale dell'Umbria, which represents God the Father than primarily as a framework for worship in the here and now. Perugino's
acknowledging and blessing the sacrifice of the Son below. This image figures blocklike step is replaced by active figural support: Christ's legs rest on the
the desired response to the opening prayer of the canon of the Mass: "Te igitur, Magdalene's thighs and his head rests on the lap of the Virgin. An intermedi-
clementissimePater,per Iesum Christum Filium tuum, Dominum nostrum supplices ary moment is represented by a composition study at Oxford, which I believe
rogamusacpetimus, uti acceptahabeaset benedicashaec dona. .. " God the Father's to be preparatory to the Louvre modello:The Virgin is shown seated on a
merey is shown to be moved in response to the scene represented below. By block, and Christ's upper body is propped up in a manner more closely
implication, Atalanta might have hoped, his merey would also be aroused by resembling his pose in Perugino's painting (Figure 67).27 In the Louvre sheet
the story of her and her son, modeled as it was on this scene of sacrifice. the Virgin is brought closer to the ground; her left leg is pushed clown by the
Indeed, God the Father's gesture is an explicit double blessing, addressed both weight of Christ's torso, and she faints more dramatically. She now clearly
to Christ and to the Virgin, as if to facilitate the wished-for extension to constitutes a second focus of dramatic attention, apart from the figure of
Atalanta and Grifonetto. 2 4 The frieze originally separating the panel above the Christ.
main field was, moreover, decorated with putti and griffons, the Baglioni
emblem but also a direct reference to Grifonetto. 2 s Representations of the
three theological virtues in the predella, finally, were designed to sustain the
appeal made in the main field. Faith holds the chalice of the Mass, the institu-
tionally sanctioned means of invoking divine merey. Hope makes a more
direct plea, gazing up into the main field of the altarpiece. Charity, in the cen-
ter, protects and nurses the children - perhaps a reference to Atalanta's protec-
tion of the Baglioni children and her commitment to the preservation of the
family line, as well as to her ultimate compassion for her son, by which he
died a redeeming death. 26
67. Raphael,
Lamentation.
Drawing.
HISTORY, MYTH, AND PASSION NARRATIVE Ashmolean
Museum, Oxford,
England.
The scheme for the Louvre composition, as has often been pointed out, was
adapted from that used by Perugino in the Pitti Lamentation of 1495, formerly
in the church ofSanta Chiara in Florence (see Figure 15). If the Louvre com-
position had. been put into execution, however, it already would have consti-
tuted a significant departure from the Peruginesque schema. As I observed in
chapter I, Perugino's Lamentationrepresents a scene of meditative attention on
the body of Christ. As observed in chapter I, active, "momentary" gesture is
softened or en\irely absent, making it possible to imagine an indefinite sus-
pension of the ~arrative sequence. Dramatic relationships among the figures
122 123
MICHELANGELO AND THE REFORM OF ART THE ALTARPIECE IN .THE AGE OF HISTORY PAINTING
Ali of these developments toward a more dramatic conception are clearly

intelligible in light of the special nature of Atalanta's appeal, which involved a
strong "historical" component. In making them, Raphael relied, already at this
early stage, on elements of Mantegna's famous Entombment engraving.
Although it is often thought that Raphael became aware of this print at a later
stage, when the subject was recast into that of the carrying of the body, an
awareness of Mantegna is noticeable, already here, in a number of features: in
the figure of St. John, in the arm of the Magdalene, reaching across Christ's
thighs (a gesture often found on Meleager or Meleager-inspired composi-
tions), and in the group of the swooning Virgin, who is supported by one
Mary while being attended to by a third. 28
Although Raphael's awareness of Mantegna's print at this early stage has 68. Luca
been observed by severa! scholars, the implications of this observation need Signorelli,
Lamentation.
further examination. Raphael knew the print and was clearly interested in Fresco. Cathedral,
incorporating aspects of its composition, yet he did not adapt the narrative Orvieto, Italy.
of the carrying of the body, instead making adjustments within a more tra-
ditional lamentation composition. I have suggested that one reason for this
decision is that the lamentation over the body more closely matches the
story of Atalanta and Grifone as transmitted by Matarazzo (and perhaps as it
was generally known and recounted). A further and related consideration is
that of altarpiece decorum: The lamentation, which in the immobile body
of Christ offers a stable focus of devotional attention, was better suited to
the implicit functions of altar painting. At the very least it was a subject
with an established tradition in altar painting; the subject of the carrying of
the body was, by contrast, quite unheard of, and rather uncommon even in
other categories of religious art.
This is not the only time that the Mantegna print, and the Meleager
model, were adapted in this restricted fashion. For example, a Foppa school
panel in Pavia (see Figure 18) makes precise quotations from Mantegna's print Confraternita dei Battuti di Sant'Antonio of Borgo San Sepolcro.3° This
but likewise adapts them to a composition more closely resembling a lamen- painting shows in the background, again, a scene of the carrying of the dead
tation - and perhaps for similar reasons of altarpiece decorum. Even in other Christ to the tomb - a clear adaptation of the Meleager composition
categories of painting we see evidence of such a conventional resistance. The Signorelli "quoted" a couple of years earlier in the fresco at Orvieto. This and
most famous case in Luca Signorelli's fresco in the chapel of San Faustino and the Orvieto fresco indicate that by this time the reference to the Meleager
San Pietro Parenzo in the Cappella Nuova in the Cathedral ofOrvieto, which model in scenes of Christ's Passion had become virtually de rigueur among
clearly alludes both to the relief composition of the Carrying oJMeleagerand to informed and ambitious painters. They show, specifically, a great interest in
Mantegna's print in the grisaille Carrying oJChrist shown on Christ's sarcoph- this model on the part of a painter who exerted a significant influence on
agus but depicts in front of it a scene of the lamentation (Figure 68). Raphael in these very years. The connections to Signorelli thus reinforce the
Signorelli's v;vorkis especially important in this context, as we have clear evi- hypothesis that Raphael was aware of the Meleager model specifically at the
dence of Raphael's contact with Signorelli, and with his Orvieto frescoes, in stage of the Louvre modello.They suggest that, like Signorelli, Raphael knew
exactly these years. 2 9 The most poignant and innovative gesture in Raphael's the model but did not see fit to make it the main subject of his painting.
Louvre modello,that of the standing Mary who carefully lifts the veil from the In the context ofRaphael's commission fromAtalanta Baglioni the myth of
fallen head of tve Virgin, is quite clase to the gesture of one of the Maries in Meleager was more than an artistic model. Atalanta's very name, as has been
the Crucifixion banner that Signorelli had recently painted (ca. 1505) for the noted, involves a reference to the Meleager story.31But it is more than merely
124
her name and the fact of her son's death that suggest a relation to the myth; But because this blood is that ofher own son, it is a sacrifice of an ambiguous
the entire account of the events of 1500, and especially her complex role kind: She is pious in impiety ("impietate pía est") (8.497). The foremost
within it, unfold in astonishing sirnilarity to the story of Meleager, especially Renaissance commentator of the Latin text, Raffaele Regio, acknowledged
as it is told in the post-Homeric tradition transmitted by Ovid in the seerning contradiction of this line but defended its aptness to the situa-
Metamorphoses8:260-546. In these years Ovid's text was undergoing some- tion: "This line appears senseless. For how indeed can someone be pious in
thing of a revival in Italy generally, and specifically in Perugia. Giovanni impiety? Yet Althaea was pious in avenging her brothers' murder, impious in
Bonsignori's translation of Ovid's text into Italian, complete with woodcuts, killing her son."35 Further on,Althaea compares her son's blood to the costli-
was first published in Venice in 1497. At the same time the Latin text, with est of sacrifices and describes it as "the baleful tribute of my womb" (8.490).
commentary by Raffaele Regio of Padua, achieved great popularity and went If we turn to the medieval allegorical tradition of the Ovide Moraliséand
into numberless editions.32 In Perugia, the humanist Lorenzo Spirito, an asso- Pierre Bersuire, we will not find this passage interpreted "figurally" in refer-
ciate of Matarazzo's, made his own translation from the Latin, a part of which ence to the Virgin and Christ. Meleager is certainly taken as a figure of
was eventually published in 1519with a dedication to Giulia Baglioni.33 Christ: His death by the internal consurning fire is, for example, likened to the
Ovid recounts that when Meleager was seven days old the Fates appeared, burning love of the Lord for humankind, for whom he was willing to suffer
• threw a piece of wood on the hearth, and announced that the hoy would die mortally.36 But these Christian interpretations do not touch specifically on
as soon as the burning billet was consumed. Althaea, his mother, thereupon the drama and excruciating ambivalence of Althaea's situation, which gives a
took the wood from the fire and guarded it in a secret place, thus preserving peculiar character to her "sacrifice." These elements acquire Christian rele-
her son's life. Meleager himself became invincible and already as a young man vance, apparently uniquely, within the peculiar constellation of references
was renowned for his courage and valor. After his ~uccess in the boar hunt, he brought together in Atalanta's altarpiece. The three thematic levels - the
gave his prize, the boar's skin, to his beloved Atalanta, the huntress nymph. Perugian history, the Passion narrative, and the ancient myth - all acquire
This caused disgruntlement among the other hunters, among whom were the meaning by being brought together in this work. The myth, so to speak, pro-
sons of Thestius, brothers to Meleager's mother, who took the prize away vides the thematic mortar that joins Atalanta's story and the Passion narrative.
from Atalanta. Enraged at this offense, Meleager killed them both. Althaea, as After articulating the complexities of Althaea's predicament, Ovid interprets
she was in the temple offering thanks for her son's victory, saw the corpses of her final gesture as a form of sacrifice, by which a paradoxical appeasement is
her brothers carried in. When she discovered who was their murderer, her achieved. It is an extraordinary sacrifice, with her own son as the victim.
grief was transformed into a conflicted wrath. In her rage, she took the billet Interpreted through the lens of the myt):i, Grifonetto's death claims a stronger
of wood from its hiding place and had a large pyre lit. parallel to the sacrifice of Christ and thus offers a more effective appeal to
In an extended and virtuosic passage, Ovid describes the conflicting pas- divine merey. It is difficult to overestimate the novelty of such a thematically
sions that fought within her as she stood befare the flames with the fateful complex, multilayered strategy in altarpieces of the period. For Aby Warburg,
billet in her hand. It is probable, given her name, that Atalanta Baglioni was the Sassetti chapel was an effort to marry Christian traditions and a humanist
aware of the story of Meleager and knew this passage in particular. Nowhere culture nurtured on the study of the antique and thus offered special insight
could she have found a more penetrating description of the conflict she her- into the social and cultural tensions of late fifteenth-century Florence.37
self had suffered. Like her son, Meleager had been moved to commit a rash Here, too, we see tradicional institutions and structures of Christian piety rad-
act of familial murder by the passions aroused for the love of a woman, and he ically reinterpreted within a humanist setting.
had as a consequence put his mother in an impossible predicament of con- Radical reinterpretations can push conventions to the breaking point.
flicting loyalties: "Mother and sister strove in her/ and the two names tore one Viewed in terms of the requirements of the commission, there was no reason
heart this way and that" (8.463-64).34 Ovid gives a vivid description of her for Raphael to proceed beyond the carefully worked up Louvre composition
ambivalent jerking between these opposing passions. As she approaches the (see Figure 66). He nonetheless did, despite the fact that he had brought the
fire, Althaea gathers resolve: "I avenge and I do a wicked <leed;death must be inicial composition to the level of a finished modello.We can only speculate as
atoned by d~ath;/to crime must crime be added, death to death./Through to what induced Raphael to dismantle the composition and to begin in a new
woes on woes heaped up let this house go on to ruin!" (8-483-5). direction after having brought it to this point. But we can be certain of two
Ovid explores the moral complexity of her situation and gives the para- things that have remained unclear in previous analyses of the drawings: (1)
doxical ration;i\e for her solution, described as an uncommon form of ritual The drawings to which we will now turn are, indeed, subsequent to the
sacrifice: She mbst "appease with blood the shades of her blood kin" (8.476). Louvre modello, and (2) they were not the result of the discovery of
127
Mantegna's print or of a Meleager sarcophagus. We know these two things

because the drawings show a gradualdismantling of the first conception, in the
direction of the more mobile carrying conception: Raphael introduced the
Meleager-like conception only through a slow breakdown of the earlier
model, with the result that his final solution presents significant differences
both from Mantegna and from the ancient sarcophagi.
70. Raphael, Christ
A crucial document of the transition is a drawing in Oxford that shows Held Beforethe
two figures bent clase to the ground with the body in their arms (Figure Virgin.Drawing.
69).38 The head studies at the top of the sheet, clearly drawn afterthe group British Museurn,
London, England.
sketched below, show Raphael still thinking through, however, the poses of
© The British
the Louvre composition. Christ's legs also preserve the crossed position of the Museurn.
Louvre composition, as if Raphael were thinking, almost cinematically, of that
same figure now taken into the arms of the carrying figures. So far from
embodying an abrupt change in idea, this sheet thus shows a gradual and ten-
tative effort to introduce a dynamic element within the structure of the initial
scheme. The fact that it is a departure from the Louvre composition but does
not resemble at ali the Meleager composition demonstrates that Raphael was
attempting to introduce the idea of the conveyance of the body "organically,"
from within his initial composition. the carrying, whose leg movements almost exactly repeat those found in the
The attempt to integrate the Meleager and Mantegna model within the print. 4°Their postures also closely resemble the carrying figures in a contem-
traditional scheme reached its limit point in another drawing, in the British poraneous drawing by Raphael himself after a Meleager-like composition,
Museum (Figure 70).39The body is shown lifted entirely off the ground, car- showing that he understood them in these terms.4 1
ried by one figure at either end. Mantegna's print is now explicitly invoked This drawing demonstrates that Raphael knew and studied the print and
but its infl.uence extends only so far as the two figures physically involved in yet was determined to preserve the more static scheme for his altarpiece.
Indeed, apart from the carriers, the composition preserves many of the features
of the earlier drawings. There is no clear indication of lateral movement: The
Virgin, rather than walking with the body, kneels behind it and takes Christ's
hand; Mary Magdalene, sketched in at the right, kneels at Christ's feet; the
other figures remain, for the most part, in the poses of quiet meditation that
characterize the Louvre composition. The composition is, in fact, still closer to
a composition such as the Pieta by Perugino in the Uffizi (Figure 71) than to
69. Raphael, Male Mantegna's half-invoked model.4 2 In Perugino's panel, Christ's horizontal
Figurein theArms of body is similarly raised off the ground, supported in the middle on the lap of
Two Carriers.
the Virgin Mary and on either end by St. John and Mary Magdalene. Even as
Drawing.
Ashmolean he attempted to incorporate the motifs learned from Mantegna and the
Museurn, Oxford, Meleager model, therefore, Raphael accommodated them to the dominant
England. paradigm of the lamentation and pieta. The result was an uncomfortable and
nearly incoherent compromise between the two. This drawing thus docu-
ments the point of greatest tension reached by Raphael in the effort to
accommodate the theme to the implicit demands of altarpiece painting.
After this point Raphael broke with those demands altogether, by making
the scene of carrying, involving ideas of conveyance and trajectory, the main
subject of the altarpiece. The new idea is studied in a sheet at Oxford and
128 129
72. Raphael, A
Male Figurein the
Arms efThree
71. Pietro
Carriers.Drawing.
Perugino, Pieta.
Ashmolean
Panel. Uffizi,
Museum, Oxford,
Florence, Italy.
England.
Alinari/ Art
Resource, NY.
The Oxford study showing the three carriers (see Figure 72) is a crucial
document in the evolution of the new conception offered in the British
Museum sheet (see Figure 73). Raphael drew the Christ, modeled on that of
Michelangelo's Pieta, in red chalk. He then drew, in pen, the group of carriers
worked up into a composition study in a sheet at the British Museum.43 In around it. The carrying figures show substantial differences from those of the
the Oxford sheet (Figure 72), Raphael restudied the mechanism of carrying
with the group now set in motion. He concentrated on the carriers, who are
finished in pen, whereas the figure of Christ is lightly drawn in red chalk (it is
almost invisible in black-and-white photographs). The figures carry Christ
head first from right to left and the two foremost figures climb up a step. This
is an innovation with regard to the Meleager model, and its derivations such
as the Mantegna print, where the dead body is shown (to my knowledge
without exception) carried feet first from left to right, and on level ground. In
most of the sarcophagi the subject represented is the carrying of Meleager feet 73. Raphael, The
forward, towardhis mother Althaea, who is sometimes represented on the right CarryingefChrist to
the Tomb.Drawing.
edge of the relief.
British Museum,
In the sheet in the British Museum, the new conception is elaborated into London, England.
a full composition (Figure 73). The setting of the carrying group in motion © The British
has initiated a separation from the Virgin and the lamenting women, who are Museum.
shown following behind. This change in conception cannot, as we have seen,

be attributed to the intervention at this point of the Mantegna print or the
Meleager sarcophagi. If we are to adduce an influence at this stage, it is over-
whelrningly that of Michelangelo. The figure of Christ, for example, now
shows a striking resemblance to the Christ in Michelangelo's Roman Pieta
(see Figure 59)\~4
130 131
earlier drawings: There are three of

them, they are very clase together,
and they are shown in motion,
with the two foremost carriers
climbing up a step. If the new
Christ figure is modeled on the
Pieta, the new carrying figures
show striking similarities to their
counterparts m the London
Entombment (see Figure 6), which
was then also probably in Rome. 45
Indeed, in its general composition, 75. Raphael, Study
the sheet shows a striking similarity afterMichelangelo's
74. Michelangelo, St. Matthew (verso
to the figural arrangement of the of73). Drawing.
St. Matthew.
Marble.
London panel.4 6 The similarity is British Museum,
Accademia, especially remarkable given the fact London, England.
© The British
that in Raphael's drawing the
Museum.
group is shown moving in a differ-
ent direction.
The drawing is, I believe, an
attempt to adapt the carrying motifs
of the London painting back to the
lateral conception of the theme. As
in the London painting, the two
principal carriers in the Oxford
study form a tight Y-shaped structure.
The figure on the left in both com-
positions is shown moving backward,
with his right foot raised onto a step
and his left leg planted firmly on the
ground. 47The figure on the viewer's right, likewise, resembles the correspond-
ing figure in the London painting, especially from the waist up: His left arm is tomb the principal subject of a large altarpiece panel. The more elaborate
stretched taut, his head is in tense profile, and his shoulders and back are turned composition study for the new conception in the British Museum (Figure
towards the viewer. The carrier in between is an amalgam of the same two car- 73), was, by contrast, probably worked out in Florence, as indicated by the
riers in the London painting. His legs, the left pushing off the ground in an drawing after Michelangelo's St. Matthew on the verso (see Figure 75). In it
arched pro file, the right raised onto a step, follow the posture of the figure to the Raphael introduced his new carrying group and began to work out its conse-
viewer's right in the London painting; his head, however, which looks clown at quences for the entire composition. The Virgin is now shown being left
the Christ figure, is adapted from Michelangelo's St. John on the other side.48 behind by the progression of the carriers, and she extends her arm in a
The Oxford sheet (Figure 72) thus shows the young Raphael sparing no pathetic gesture of farewell. Her outstretched hand, which just meets the pro-
effort to incorporate the impressions of Michelangelo's early Roman works. file of the right-hand carrier, is still another feature that shows clase similari-
In Michelangelo's Roman Pieta Raphael recognized a new and more power- ties to Michelangelo's Entombment. 49
ful conception \;>fthe dead body of Christ; in the Entombment, an innovative, This sheet shows yet further study of Michelangelo, whose St. Matthew is
and ultimately frustrated, attempt to make the carrying of the body to the copied on the verso (Figure 74 and 75). The ecstatic pose of Michelangelo's
IJ2 133
sculpture has been interpreted by Raphael in more rational terms; Michelangelo's work was of crucial importance because it provided a rare
St. Matthew seems, in Raphael's interpretation, to be purposefully engaged example of the subject within the category of altar painting. The episode
in a specific activity. For this reason, and because the figure appears on the embodied in these two works thus offers strong evidence that the conventions
verso of this sheet, it has been reasonably suggested that Raphael was controlling altar painting, though never explicitly stipulated by church
considering adapting the figure for one of his carriers. Significantly, the left authority, were powerful and real.
arm, which in Michelangelo's sculpture is curled around a book, is not
drawn at ali, as if to leave it open to new uses. Indeed, after one sees
Raphael's drawing, the idea of adapting the pose in this manner seems THE PARTING OF THE GENRES
quite plausible; when one is confronted directly with the sculpture it is not
so obvious. The process leading to Raphael's final solution was, we have seen, marked by
It is my belief that Raphael's ability to see in the St. Matthew a potential the breakdown of successive altarpiece paradigms and a critical, ongoing dia-
carrier for his panel was facilitated by the fact that the sculpture is itself an logue with Michelangelo. What we see in the final painting is informed at a
adaptation, in reverse, of the left-hand carrier in Michelangelo's deep thematic level by this process of resistance and rupture. Before this time
Entombment (see Figure 6). This sirnilarity was remarked upon long ago large-format easel painting was dorninated by the altarpiece. By the end of
by Bernard Berenson. "Reverse the figure [in the London painting] ," he the sixteenth century, the altarpiece had lost its near-exclusive nights to the
said, "and in all essentials of movement, and even of drapery, he is the format, and large easel pictures had found a stable home in the picture gallery.
Matthew and nothing but the Matthew, with the difference, however - One rnight even argue that by that time altarpieces were following in the
much in the [former's] favor - that his action has a purpose."5° Raphael's footsteps of the gallery picture. In short, altarpiece painting ceased to function
drawing, as it were, anticipated (and perhaps sublirninally facilitated?) as a generic "dorninant": by the end of the century this role had been taken
Berenson's observation. over by a now-familiar conception of history painting - a conception whose
Raphael did not limit himself to adapting individual motifs; rather, he fundamental rules and ideals pertained to painting understood as an art and
absorbed the central idea of Michelangelo's conception, which was to applied whether the depicted subject was sacred or secular. Raphael's painting
make the drama of separation between the carrying group and the lament- is one early, and highly revealing, moment in this transformation: it was
ing women the core of the picture's themeY This is, indeed, what most shaped by a break with the altarpiece tradition, but it cannot simply be called
clearly distinguishes Raphael's composition from the Meleager reliefs, a gallery picture avant la lettre.
which show the dead Meleager being carried, feet first, toward his mother This process of generic rupture was, as we have seen, directly correlated to
and sisters. In his Entombment engraving, Mantegna adapted the sarcopha- the representation of rupture at the thematic level:The introduction of a tran-
gus relief to the scene of Christ being carried to the tomb, which is located sitory conception involving the carrying of the body of Christ broke open
within the image itself. The tomb is placed endwise in the center, and the tradicional altarpiece paradigms, resulting in a reinterpretation of the thematic
figures are shown carrying the body, again feet first, from left to right - that model - the sarcophagus reliefs as well as Mantegna's print - as a drama of
is, again toward the group clustered around the Virgin ..Thus, although there separation. Altarpieces, even when depicting biblical subjects, generally kept
are two main groups of figures, the scene is not structured by a narrative of the focus of the scene stable, a convention that tacitly respects their function
separation. as a focus of liturgical attention. Even in scenes of the Assumption, the Virgin
It was Michelangelo who, in his effort to adapt the subject to a frontal is most often shown as a static focus of attention at the top of the composi-
composition, elaborated a conception organized by the drama of separation tion; where she is shown in movement a depiction of the heavens and of God
(see Figure 6). Indeed, he made it the very basis of the transaction between 1 the Father usually contains this movement within the lirnits of the altarpiece.
viewer and picture. Raphael grasped Michelangelo's innovation and reincor- In Raphael's more mature years, he found a means of meeting the demands of
porated the 11-ewconception back in.to the classical lateral composition. In the dynarnic narrative without severing the link to the liturgical setting. As John
final painting, Raphael accentuated the separation by showing the Virgin Shearman demonstrated, the planned altarpiece of the Assumption for the
falling away and by introducing the figure of the Magdalene rushing forward Chigi chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome was intended to show swift
to take Christ's hand. This compositionally unlikely detour through movement out of the picture, but this implied movement was to be taken up,
Michelangelo's \xperiment with the subject is a measure of the importance of across the space of the chapel, in the cupola, where God the Father appears in
structural and generic controls in the making of artworks in this period: the oculus in the act of drawing the Virgin toward him.52 Through an inge-
134 135
nious dialogue of elements across the space of the chapel, dramatic movement
out of the picture was given meaning and function in a liturgical setting.
The problem of depicting movement in an altarpiece, as we have seen in
chapter r, provoked Michelangelo to fashion a quite novel solution in his
l
London Entombment. By bringing the narrative in line with altarpiece con-
ventions of frontal display he produced a composition that is "motivated" by
the relation between subject and viewer. The figure of Christ is shown being 76. Titian, The
CarryingefChrist to
withdrawn from the lamentation group, to which the viewer is understood to the Tomb.Canvas.
belong. Raphael's Entombment returned to a lateral conception, and as a result Louvre, Paris,
the conveyance of the body threatened an implicit dislodging of the Christ France. ©
Réunion des
figure "from the field of representation altogether: To attend to the painting's
Musées Nationaux.
cues is to become aware that the center of the picture is about to be left
empty and that the body is about to disappear into the black depths of the
cave depict~d at the picture's edge.
This conception challenges the long-accepted convention according to
which altarpieces were meant to pro:vide a stable object of prayer and wor-
sliip. This convention was strong enough that even narrative subjects were
commonly rendered static and made into vehicles of devotional attention -
that is, coordinated with the structures of Christian prayer and worship.5 3
Raphael's final painting has in important respects lost this overt coordination could also be expected to be moved and edified by a painting from Roman
with the liturgical environment. To imagine the figures in a painting moving history.
out of the picture is to embrace a new form of pictorial attention altogether, . Titian's interpretation of Raphael's altarpiece was part of a larger trend in
one that accepts the painting as a fiction, independent of its surroundings. the history of painting and collecting that would in time retroactively absorb
This more removed gaze is in several respects different from the sort of gaze Raphael's painting itself within the new category. A century after Raphael's
that, say,looked to altarpieces to find an addressee for prayer. This is not to say
that the exploration of narrative and spatial devices had not already produced
} panel was installed on its altar, it was forcibly removed and placed in the prí-
vate gallery of Cardinal Scipione Borghese, where it became a prize posses-
effects of"removal" in earlier altarpieces or that such an exploration necessar- sion. Even when it was still in the church of San Francesco al Prato in
ily and always violates the codes of altarpiece painting. It is only to point out Perugia, it had become an attraction for tourists, dignitaries, and cognoscenti
that in this work, as the sequence of preparatory drawings makes clear, the visiting the city.54The removal of the altarpiece to the picture gallery was the
new devices did indeed test and disrupt the limits of the genre. extreme consequence of a history of response that goes back to the years
The reception of Raphael's work suggests that contemporary painters rec- immediately following the work's inicial installation - and that begins with
ognized it as a watershed. Titian's Entombment of the early 1520s in the Louvre, the fact that Raphael's painting had loudly declared itself to be a departure
for example, carried Raphael's innovations finnly into the world of the gallery from tradition.55
picture (Figure 76). Nothing is known for certain concerning the circum- Such a process frustrates conventional art historical procedures. As stated
stances of the commission, but the painting, on canvas, bears little affinity to earlier, to study this work simply according to the "normal" requirements of
any known altarpiece conventions. Even if by an unlikely circumstance it was altarpieces in the period is to obscure its own claims to historical novelty and
in fact used on an altar, it would have been an altarpiece only in name. In thus to fail fully to address the historical problems it raises. But to study it sim-
form and structure it in every way belongs to the early history of the gallery ply as a gallery picture is retrospectively to impose upon it a category whose
picture, to which Titian himself had already made significant contributions by very formation is part of the historical problem that demands to be studied.
this time. This is not to deny that the painting has religious meaning. It is only The work thus brings into focus the more general hermeneutic difficulty
to claim that here the communication of religious meaning has very little to raised by the fact that the history of easel painting between 1500 and 1600
do with the de~otional and liturgical functions traditionally served by altar- unfolded on undecided terrain. No systematic attempt has yet been made to •
pieces. The painting is addressed to a thoughtful and sensitive viewer, one who write a history of sixteenth-century painting along these lines. 56Such a study
would entail rigorous analysis of the rhetorical devices used in the different
genres and special attention to moments of cross-fertilization. It would also
attend to such concrete issues as the introduction of canvas in altarpiece
painting, where it was resisted well after it had come into common use in
other farms of painting. It would attempt a systematic study of the period
uses of such terms as tavola,tavolad'altare,pala, and quadro.It would assemble
instances in which altarpieces were removed from church altars and placed in
galleries. It would tell the story, ultimately, of how the altarpiece ceased to
play the crucial and leading role in the development of painting that it had
done until the end of the fifteenth century. 77. ]acopo da
Pontormo, The
It is, however, one thing to be sensitive to this history of generic rupture
Carryíngof Christ to
and contamination and quite another to dispense with the categories alto- the Tomb.Panel.
gether. Paul Hills, far example, pointing to the many difficulties in distin- Santa Felicita,
guishing between altarpieces and nonaltarpieces in the period, has suggested Florence, Italy.
that the category of the altarpiece is itself a construction of art historians

whose validity should be thrown into question.5 7 I believe it is less useful to
question the validity of the categories per se than to submit them to more
carefully historicized analysis, as Hills also suggests. As genres develop they
undergo redefinition and are brought into active contact with other genres
and traditions.5 8 A history of volatile generic change pro~uces a good <leal of
runoff and many historically revealing unica.In dealing with the history of the
altarpiece, therefare, it is a good idea to take into account works or traditions
that the altarpiece influences, responds to, or absorbs through the course of its
development. An account of the altarpiece in the early fifteenth century in
Florence that excludes consideration of Masaccio's Trinity on strict categorical The point is confirmed, again, by the work's reception. The departure from
grounds would, far example, be fatally ignoring the active dialogue among the altarpiece tradition, celebrated by Titian, was in turn tellingly resisted by
chapel architecture, tomb design, fresco painting, and altarpieces that marks ]acopo Pontormo: His altarpiece of 1525-28 in Santa Felicita in Florence was
this period. a delibera te effort to put this theme, and the conception of history painting it
Flexibility and a sensitivity to limit-cases need not, therefare, lead to a embodied, once again into meaningful interaction with a liturgical environ-
complete denial of the existence of categories; that would amount to an aban- ment (Figure 77). It offered, in other words, an extreme defence of the altar-
donment of the very effort to understand these processes historically. In the piece - an eloquent counterpoint to Titian, polemically in the tradition of
sixteenth century, the distinction between altarpieces and other farms of easel Michelangelo. Michelangelo had depicted a movement into the picture, away
painting became increasingly blurred, but this blurring has a history and thus from the viewer, and thus had "motivated" the relation between worshiper
carries cultural implications that deserve careful study. The lack of appreciable and subject through a drama of distanciation. On the far side of Raphael's
differences between a Tintoretto canvas made far an altar and one that was painting, ]acopo da Pontormo was more specifically concerned with reestab-
not is not the result of an absolute categorial "fuzziness" (in Hill's words) but lishing the connection to the physical chapel setting - a connection that he
rather of the fact that things had become fuzzy by midcentury, especially in may well have felt Raphael's lateral composition had lost. If Michelangelo had
Venice. This ,state of affairs was one of the consequences of the changes in concentrated almost exclusively on the relation between viewer and picture,
painting that occurred in the late fifteenth century, changes that were struc- Pontormo was concerned to offer a thoroughgoing reinterpretation of the
turally and thematically confronted in Michelangelo's, Raphael's, and Titian's entire relation between the altarpiece and its ritual space. He thus produced
Entombments. Historians may question at will the validity of the category of yet another refashioning of the theme, this time conceived through a diago-
the altarpiece, H+itRaphael, in 1507, was responding to the fact that he was nal, spiraling movement leading out of the picture. It is not necessary far the
tampering with its limits. purposes of this chapter to enter into the debate over where this movement is
138 139
PART TWO
understood to lead. However one interprets it, the movement out of the pic-
ture involves - in contrast to Raphael's conception in the Baglioni
Entombment and in closer affinity to Raphael's conception in the Chigi chapel
- a mobilization of the elements of the chapel setting and thus active claims PRESENTATION AND WITHDRAWAL:
on the altarpiece's liturgical environment.59
The acrobatics of Michelangelo and Pontormo were not simply exercises MICHELANGELo's LATE PIETÁS
in artistic virtuosity. They were extremely resourceful attempts to reaffirm the
purpose of altar painting in an era when pictorial developments had threat-
ened the integrity and dorninance of the institution. Both incorporated the
antique-inspired modes of figural movement and the greater narrativ~ com-
plexity embodied in a new conception of history painting, but both forcibly
reoriented the classical, lateral orientation of their models. In both, the narra-
tive elements are thus employed to reinterpret, on a new and more spectacular
level, the function of the altarpiece and its connection to its liturgical setting.
Both were, in other words, strenuous assertions of the conviction that paint-
ing, even in its modern form, still derived its deepest meaning and purpose
from its position above an altar. But the future of painting lay with the gallery
picture, not with the altarpiece, and these experiments remain, together with
those ofRosso and Parrnigianino, a brief and strange episode in the history of
Western art.
\
CHAPTER FIVE
Passionate Withdrawal
ART AND REFORM
The first part of this book studied efforts by Michelangelo and others to pre-
serve traditions of religious imagery at a time when artistic developments
threatened their integrity and dominance. These efforts were not merely for-
mal experiments but reinterpretations of the nature and function of religious
images, and they deserve to be understood in the light of deba.tes over reli-
gious reform that mark the period as a whole. They constitute one aspect of
the early sixteenth-century "crisis of the image" that has been observed by
Hans Belting, among many others. Crisis is a convenient abstraction invoked
by historians when attempting to describe historical change, but it is very dif-
ficult to point to objective correlatives to such a description, as one can when
one talks of a change in the weather. We do gain historical purchase on the
idea, however, if crisis is understood as a function of criticism. 1 The percep-
tion of change and the framing of critica! attitudes presuppose a reflective dis-
tance, an awareness of cultural disjunction, and thus are themselves instances
of crisis. In the works under study we see a consciousness of artistic tradition
that anticipates the critica! approach to the history of art developed later in
the sixteenth century.
Acute art historical awareness often accompanied a concern for reform.
The prevailing mode of reform thought in Rome in the early part of the
sixteenth century mingled an interest in early Christianity with a general
interest in ur-religions and traditions of archaic wisdom. 2 Such an orienta-
tion encouraged a special openness to nonalphabetic symbolic languages
considered to be primordial, such as hieroglyphs, which many believed to
contain direct insight into religious and cosmic truth. Such an attitude, in
\
143
•
MICHELANGELO AND THE REFORM OF ART PASSIONATE WITHDRAWAL
turn, encouraged a strong belief in the capacity of the visual arts and archi- of my father and brothers, although I have served three popes, which has been
tecture to serve as instruments and symbols of spiritual renewal. This highly perforce.4
open-minded intellectual culture remained predominant only for a few
decades, and the more regulatory and restrictive culture that succeeded it The reference to altarpieces was made in response to a specific request and
did not sustain its belief in the wide scope and license to be accorded to the thus cannot be taken as a programmatic statement on the issue. N onetheless,
visual arts-3 Michelangelo <loes categorically associate the making of altarpieces with the
The strange experiments of Michelangelo, ]acopo da Pontormo, Rosso, inferior, workaday artist. He does not simply decline the commission; he says
and Parmigianino, among others, can be understood as artistic parallels to that this sort of comrnission is beneath him, and always has been. Do not
these investigations. To see them in this way in turn releases them, and thus come to me for an altarpiece, he says, "for I was never a painter or sculptor
our understanding of significant aspects of High Renaissance and Mannerist like the ones who keep a shop." Of course, he had in fact accepted quite stan-
art, from sorne familiar and unuseful historical models. If understood as part dard commissions for church art, such as the tomb/altar of St. Dominic in
of a general advance away from medieval Christianity and toward the era of Bologna and the Piccolomini altar in Siena. The important point is that
modern secular art, the religious aspects of these works can be understood toward the end of his life he preferred to think he never had.
only negatively, as concessions to a continuing and waning tradition, as little The late Pietas are the strongest expression of this neo-aristocratic ethos.
more than a pretext upon which the artists could express "modern" artistic They continued to engage the Man of Sorrows tradition, but in contrast to
values. If they are understood within the humanist and reform-minded cul- the London Entombment they abandoned the realm of traditional church art
ture that dominated the intellectual life of the period - the culture of altogether. It is a historically revealing irony that Michelangelo's efforts to
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, ]acopo Sadoleto, Giles ofViterbo, Johannes preserve a tradition of religious cult imagery appreciated precisely for its asso-
Goritz, Giovan Matteo Giberti, Paolo Giovio, Pietro Bembo, and Pierio ciations with past forms of public, "communal" religious life, should have
Valeriana - then the "innovative" qualities of these works need not be under- been undertaken in a highly rarefied atmosphere of private investigations,
stood in contradiction to their religious purpose, and their archaism need not new conceptions of art, unprecedented claims to artistic originality, and
be understood in contradiction to their modernism. exquisite protocols of aristocratic courtesy. The deliberate withdrawal from
This is not to say that the situation .was stable or that it produced lasting the economy and institutions of traditional church art coincided with a time
solutions. Efforts to reform religious art could produce highly eccentric of increasingly heated debate over the question of reform, and with the emer-
works in traditional categories, such as the Entombments of Michelangelo and gence of an increasingly defined reform faction within the Church - a faction
Pontormo (see Figures 6 and 77) and the Dead Christ of Rosso (see Figure whose acknowledged leaders were Gasparo Contarini and Reginald Pole.
84), and they could also lead to a departure from the traditional categories With the support of Pope Paul III, this reform-IllVlded group reached a peak
altogether. Michelangelo, for example, never again returned to altar painting of influence and activity in the late 1530s, only to have circumstances turn
after the London Entombment, although he continued to be preoccupied by decisively against them in the 1540s. Any implicit affinities Michelangelo
the theme of the Man of Sorrows until the end of his life. It is logical to might have felt for reforming ideas early in life - affinities I explored in the
assume that this was the result of circumstantial factors, such as the absence of first part of this book - developed in these years into an active engagement
such commissions, but what we know about his attitudes on the matter sug- with sorne of the most illustrious members of this group, such as Vittoria
gest a more motivated avoidance. It is well known that in his later years Colonna and Cardinal Pole himself. These friendships placed Michelangelo in
Michelangelo developed a disdain for "normal" artistic work and for the direct contact with the circle that produced that most important document of
entire practice of making works of art on commission - a disdain closely Italian reform thought before the Council ofTrent, the Beneficiodi Cristo-5
bound up with the aristocratic claims, familia! and otherwise, that preoccu- In a study of the Beneficio, Carlo Ginzburg and Adriano Prosperi noted
pied him later in life. In a letter of 1548 to his nephew, Michelangelo irritably how far the culture presupposed by this best-seller of 1543 had come from the
expresses thi~ disdain, betraying regret even at having had to work for popes: culture of civic religion so forcefully in evidence in the late Quattrocento.
The public processions and liturgies, the miraculous relics and the venerated
Tell the priest not to address me any more "to Michelangelo, sculptor," because I saints that were held up as symbols of the city, the pomp of prívate and con-
am known in no way but as Michelangelo Buonarroti, and if a Florentine citizen fraternity chapels - in short, the "ritual setting" studied by, among others,
wants an altarp~ce painted he must find a painter, for I was never a painter or Richard Trexler - stands in stark contrast to the direct relation between
sculptor like the ones who keep a shop. I have always avoided that for the honor believer and God celebrated in the Beneficio,a relation mediated only by the
144 145
_J
MlCHELANGELO AND THE REFORM OF ART PASSIONATE WlTHDRAWAL
figure of Christ crucified. Public rituals, of course, continued to be celebrated of the artist's hand, the figures flicker with an animation that in part belongs
in the Cinquecento, but the enormous success of the Beneficio- a contempo- to them as actors in the story, but everywhere passes through them as a force
rary estimated that between 1543 and 1549 40,000 copies had been sold in of energy that belongs to the drawing as a whole. Their semantic status is
Venice alone 6 - indicates the emergence of deep-seated spiritual needs that unstable: Sometimes they are full-fledged, identifiable characters attached to
were no longer satisfied by these traditional ritual forms. 7 the story, but often they are nameless nude figures, deprived of identity, raw
This transformation is sharply illuminated by developments in the nature figural matter on this side of denotative clarity. It was not just that sketches
and status of religious images in the period. Michelangelo's engagements with allowed for freedom in the composition of a subject; for Michelangelo they
the tradition of the Man of Sorrows not only implicitly reveal such a transfor- offered freedom from the very limits of subject matter. Not yet bound by the
mation at work but also directly confront and interpret its implications. My declarative exigencies of the subject, drawings participate in exchanges at the
purpose is not simply to show in which ways Michelangelo's later works level of motif, exploring affinities at the level of posture and gesture, and thus
reveal the influence of reforming thought. I am more interested in pointing elaborating figures that might be used not only for different subjects but in
out where developments in the claims of works of art became relevant to the entirely different iconographic spheres. In other words, drawings encouraged
concerns of reform-minded thinkers. The drawing of the Pieta that Michelangelo to move one level down, from the depiction of subjects to the
Michelangelo made for Vittoria Colonna about 1540, for example, belonged exploration of themes: Not the Entombment in particular, but in general the
to a new category of artwork altogether: It was a drawing made as a finished problem of death, interment, and a return to the earth. This figure lying on
work in its own right and offered as a gift (see Figure 93). The development the earth in a composition for a lamentation does not only resemble a river
runs roughly parallel to the religious developments noted above: The direct god; in the "pre-semantic" realm of drawing it is quite literally a version of a
and prívate experience offered by the new category of artwork marks a delib- river god, even as it also is a version of the dead Christ. The same goes for
erate retreat from the traditional forms of religious art, such as altarpieces, and wailing figures and bacchic maenads. For Michelangelo similar bodily states
from the entire economy of piety - the system of endowments, paid Masses, were not merely formally similar motifs but the sign of deep thematic affini-
vows, and indulgences - that such forms served and symbolized. ties. The river god combines almost inanimate torpor with a closeness to the
This chapter studies tlíe process by which Michelangelo arrived at the new earth's deeply generated fertility, and so was not far, in Michelangelo's mind,
conception, through a literal "withdrawing" from the traditional institutions from the figure of the dead Christ, brought to earth, entombed, and (thus) the
and repertoire of religious art. Part of the inchoate, preparatory phase of the source of new life.
making of a work of art, the realm of drawing became for Michelangelo a fer- Little wonder, therefore, that this shift downward from subject to theme
tile subsoil in which to continue experiments with the figure of the dead should itself involve the theme of going down. Just as Christ gives up and
Christ free from the restrictions governing more formal artistic arenas, such as goes down, releasing new spiritual energies in his ecstatic death, so the draw-
church art. In this sense there are affinities between Michelangelo's mode of ings abdicate finished art and go down, releasing a fertile creative process that
investigation and the subject that obsessed him. After death Christ descended breaks down the boundaries between separate realrns of subject matter, even
into the tomb and into the depths of Limbo. For Michelangelo, the interval between separate religious systerns. The basic idea, that it is necessary to
between Christ's death and resurrection was not simply a time of darkness and undergo a death, a dismantling, a breaking down in order to undergo renewal,
absence but a time of withdrawal and gathering, a time of stripping and was of course a favorite topos of reform rhetoric. This sequence of investiga-
release that is also a preparation for regeneration. In a state of suspended ani- tions, however, did not surface again in a painting, a new public statement, but
mation between death and life, a state that Michelangelo interpreted alterna- in a drawing of the Pieta offered to Vittoria Colonna, studied in chapter 6. In
tively as a sleep, an ecstasy or a transport, Christ becomes an especially volatile effecting a generic extension of the category of the drawing Michelangelo
and susceptible conduit of spiritual energy. He is taken out of himself, and was perhaps asserting that these experiments, even in their most formal mode,
thus newly connected with his divine nature, yet his body is still there, vibrant still belonged on this side of the conventional categories of religious art.
and palpable; communicating as it were directly, on this side of overt language Michelangelo thus reinvented the traditional cult image as a work of art,
and gesture. offering an exquisite aesthetic experience to suit the rarefied - and ultimately
Michelangelo's drawings were, similarly, a withdrawal into a more obscure ineffectual - reform sensibility of the spiritual circle to which Colonna
and ambiguous realm, on this side of the fmished work of art. In the scrawl of belonged. This chastened and refined proposal carne, significantly, just as the
drawn lines fi~res are not quite embodied: Their boundaries are ambiguous LastJudgment was making the issue of public religious art into a matter of rag-
and their forms are volatile and susceptible to change. Registering the stroke ing cultural and political debate. The late Pieta sculptures, studied in chapter 7,
147
belong to a later phase, when the delicate hopes of Colonna's spiritual circle is delicately suggested rather than fully realized: Shoulders are still squarely
had been dashed and it had become harder to believe in the marriage of art above legs, and all movement is contained within a blocklike rectangle and a
and religion, of elegance and piety, dreamed of since the days of Pico della primarily frontal presentation of the body. This invites the use of foreshort-
Mirandola and Giles oNiterbo. ening, which in turn preserves the ambiguity between a sitting posture and
a standing one. In the first part of this book, I interpreted this ambiguity as
an inheritance from the Man of Sorrows tradition, where it served as a sign
CHRIST IN ECSTASY of the ambiguous status of the dead Christ, who is both pathetic victim and
redeerning Lord. In the drawing, the delicate balance between sitting and
The connection between Michelangelo's experiments in the London standing has been lost. n The figure is placed on the edge of the tomb, but
Entombment and the late Pietas is more than a matter of shared subject. the pose is not reconceived for a seated figure; rather, the drawing maintains
Scholars have noted that a drawing in Vienna of the dead Christ in the arms many of the outward features of the pose from the painting and attempts
of the Virgin shows similarities with the London painting (Figure 78). 8 The somewhat awkwardly to force them into a seated posture. The legs are
similarity is so strong that Henry Thode actually took the drawing as a study turned to the viewer's right, the left leg now being shown more nearly in
for the painting.9 No one now would seriously doubt that the drawing should profile and resting passively on the ground. The torso, however, is now
be dated later, probably circa 1530,and that it shows affinities to the presenta- rigidly upright and front facing. 12
tion drawings produced at that time. It thus documents the reception of the Connoisseurs might point to these features as evidence of the drawing's
London Entombment in the context of the investigations that led directly to "weakness;' and they may well be right, but they are fault lines in a more sig-
the Colonna Pieta. The Christ figure in the drawing is not only strikingly nificant sense. They speak to the difficulty of adapting the delicate and
similar to that depicted in the London painting; it is directly copied from it. ambiguous pose of the London Christ figure to a reduced composition involv-
This is evident above all in the legs and left arm. The torso as well was care- ing only Christ and the Virgin. The figure must be more firmly seated because,
fully drawn after the painting: The in a very practica! sense, the Virgin cannot be expected to hold the Christ fig-
original guiding lines in black chalk, ure in an upright posture all by herself. The only way the Virgin can fully sup-
still visible along Christ's proper port Christ is to lay him across her lap as she did when he was a child - that is,
right profile (but entirely invisible to assume the posture of the Vesperbild.This is what we see in a closely con-
in a black-and-white photograph), temporary and perhaps related drawing in the British Museum, where Christ is
are virtually a tracing of the profile supported laterally across the Virgin's legs. 13 Another solution, offered in the
of the figure in the painting. earlier Pieta that Michelangelo designed for Sebastiano del Piombo in Viterbo,
Another feature confirms the direct was to leave Christ entirely alone on the ground. Rather than opt for a lateral,
dependence of the drawing on the supine Christ, the Vienna drawing maintained the frontal presentation of the
78.
Michelangelo (?), painting: The genitalia, missing from figure of Christ that attaches it to the tradition of the imagopietatis. It recog-
Dead Christ the painting, are dutifully omitted in nized, so to speak, the figure of the Man of Sorrows within the London paint-
Supportedby the the drawing.
Virgin.Drawing.
ing's elaborate narrative, and extracted it once again, producing a composition
Graphische All of these points strongly sug- similar to the Man of Sorrows images of Giovanni Bellini and Antonello da
Sammlung gest that the drawing was made Messina, with the difference that here we have the figure in full length. But it
Albertina,Vienna, from direct study of the painting is not simply a return to a tradicional Man of Sorrows scheme. The drawing
Austria.
rather than having been elaborated preserves the historically embedded form in which the London painting had
freely from memory. 10 And yet the left it, and thus had to find a new accord between the dictates of naturalism
pose has been altered. In the and the tradicional cult image. Quite practically, it meant finding a seated pos-
London painting the body of ture for the frontal and full-length figure of Christ drawn from the painting,
Christ is a gentle helix turned and the result was the somewhat awkward arrangement that we see.
upon the abdomen. The turning of The difficulties encountered in this drawing signal a set of problems con-
the body - the upper torso toward fronted in all of the late Pietas. Rather than simply return to the traditional
the left, the legs toward the right - Man ofSorrows, they investigate the mystery of the sacramental Christ within
149
MICHELANGELO AND THE REFORM OF ART PASSIONATE WlTHDRAWAL
the compass of a modern conception of narrative art. Whereas the traditional "behavior" of Christ's body after
Man of Sorrows was detached from the Passion narrative, Michelangelo 's the crucifixion and before the res-
experim~nts focus on the precise interval between crucifixion and entomb- urrection. In chapter 3 I quoted
ment - that is, between the end of Christ's earthly life and the triumph of his one exceptional passage from a
divine nature within the tomb. Michelangelo - and, as we shall see, Vittoria Passion tract by the preacher Pietro
Colonna - looked for the key to the mystery of Christ's sacrifice in the inti- da Lucca, where he affirmed that
mate and animating contact of the dead body with his mourners, and above through contact with the Virgin and
79. Michelangelo,
ali with the Virgin. As in the London Entombment, the actors are thus not sim- the other mourners the dead and Male FigureStudy.
ply conceived as actors in a historical drama oflamentation but instead as par- mutilated body of Christ "was made Drawing. Casa
once again healthy, pure, and white, Buonarroti,
ticipants in a form of cult to the dead Christ. Such a cultic interpretation of
Florence, Italy.
the subject was, for Michelangelo, closely bound up with the motif of the as if he had never received a wound
front-facing body of Christ - that is, with the tradition of the Eucharistic or a blow." 17 A very similar inter-
Man of Sorrows. The entire series of works, from the London Entombment pretation was offered, not surpris-
through to the Rondanini Pieta, can be understood as a search for a ingly, by Michelangelo's soul mate
Christocentric alternative to the "other" pieta type, the Vesperbild,represented Vittoria Colonna, and will be stud-
by Michelangelo's early group in St. Peter's (see Figure 59) - a search that was ied in the next chapter.
marked throughout by a distinctly archaizing sensibility.14 The Vesperbild tradi- The solution to the problem of
tion served a strain of piety that was primarily Marian in orientation: It was a combining a Virgin "with a front-
form of the devotion to the Virgin, structured by a parallel to the Virgin and facing Christ - of finding, as it were, a Man of Sorrows-based alternative to
Child image. Just as the Virgin and Child image often incorporated a prolep- the Vesperbild- carne in a drawing by Michelangelo now in the Casa
tic reference to the Passion, the image of the pieta in the form of the Vesperbild Buonarroti (Figure 79). 18 The drawing served as the basis for Sebastiano del
is charged with an emotional reminiscence of the image of the Mother and Piombo's Úbeda Pieta now in the Prado, commmissioned in the summer of
Child. 15 Not surprisingly, Michelangelo had also adapted the theme of the 1533 by Ferrante Gonzaga as a gift for the imperial minister Francisco de los
Virgin and Child in this more Christological direction - in the Bruges Cobos (Figure So).19 The sheet also bears studies for the Last Judgment and
Madonna, for example, where he placed a forward-facing, standing Christ probably dates from the beginning of Michelangelo's work on the composi-
Child between the Virgin's legs. In readapting these themes toward a tion for the fresco - that is, shortly after his arrival in Rome in November of
Christocentric focus, Michelangelo was acting in accordance with the 1533. The drawing shows a seated figure in a pose adapted from a famous
reformist tendencies ofhis day.16 antique reliefknown at the time as the Bed efPolycleitus,which shows a semi-
To propase a sacramental interpretation of the figure of Christ while reclined, sleeping male figure attended to by a female figure (Figure 81). A
remaining within the historical interval between crucifixion and entomb- version of the relief was owned by Lorenzo Ghiberti and was at this time still
ment demanded an intensive reevaluation of the nature and status of the dead in the possession ofhis grandson,Vittore, a clase friend of Michelangelo's. 20
body. If traditionally the Man of Sorrows image asserted the redemptive effi- The torso on the Casa Buonarroti sheet was expanded nearly to a full fig-
cacy of the sacrifice by presenting a dead body that was miraculously self-sup- ure, and brought to a very high level of finish, in a sheet in the Louvre (Figure
porting and self-offering - a dead Christ with half-open eyes, capable of 82). 21 The Casa Buonarroti study is a drawing after the nude model and,
willful gestures - in a narrative situation, this efficacy had to be expressed by although it was certainly used as a model for the Louvre sheet, it is not certain
subtler means. Michelangelo's respoilse was to qualify the depiction of the that it was made "for" this commission. It shows an unambiguously vibrant,
dead weight of the body and of the attendant efforts to give it support - to active body 22 and thus had to be adapted for the body of the dead Christ. This
suggest agen~y and radiance in the body, and a corresponding responsive and caused problems, above all in the treatment of the right arm, as the two mar-
participatory animation in the surrounding figures~These difficulties of phys- ginal efforts to correct it reveal. If in the Casa Buonarroti drawing we do not
ical description were not generally ones that writers faced. The life of Christ ask what supports that arm, in this drawing it appears odd: The head falls on
literature surely abounded in meditations on theological mysteries, but these an upraised right shoulder, yet that shoulder receives no support from the
usually took t-li-e form of digressions into doctrine. Very few writers arm, which falls limp. The Vienna drawing discussed above (see Figure 78)
expounded on the life-giving power of the Eucharist by describing the offered a better explanation for the loosely hanging arm: It showed the Virgin
151
82. Michelangelo
(?), Studyfor the
ÚbedaPieta.
Drawing. Louvre,
So. Sebastiano del Paris, France. ©
Piombo, Pieta. Réunion des
Slate. Museo del Musées Nationaux.
Prado, Madrid,
Spain. Fundación
Casa Ducal de
Medinaceli.
b
l
f
I
' supporting Christ from the underarm - a motif taken over from the London
painting, on which the drawing is based - thus allowing the arm to fall
straight clown to the tomb seat. In the Louvre sheet, just to the left of the
problematic arm, an alternative is sketched that follows quite precisely the
arm motif found in the Vienna sheet. The similarity is so strong, in fact, as to
suggest the possibility that the Vienna sheet was an earlier idea for the Úbeda
Píeta, with which it shares severa! features, such as the blocklike seat shrouded
in drapery. 2 3
In the upper right-hand comer of the Louvre sheet another solution is
proposed for this arm, showing it supported on an arm rest, a solution more
or less taken over in the final painting. This is in a sense the opposite solution
to the loosely hanging arm offered in the first altemative sketch to the left. If
there the arm shows utter dependency, here the arm is actively supporting the
body, and this in tum carries significant implications that are best understood
81. Bed of through comparison. It is very close, in fact, to the right arm of Adam in the
Polycleitus.Marble.
Creation of Adam on the Sistine Chapel ceiling (Figure 83). The legs of the
Renaissance copy
ofRoman relief, Christ figure also resemble those of Adam, a motif also adopted for the figure
location unknown. of Lazarus in the painting of the Resurrectionof Lazarus, now in the London
Courtesy of the National Gallery, that Michelangelo designed for Sebastiano del Piombo fif-
Institute of Fine
Arts, NewYork
teen years earlier. These are not simply formal borrowings but thematically
University. related investigations, for all of these works are at bottom investigations into
the process by which an inanimate body comes (again) into life. As has been
eloquently observed on many occasions, the figure of Adam is an exquisite
balance between agency and dependency. He is not simply a passive body
lifted up from the ground by God, as, say, Lorenzo Ghiberti showed him in
152 153
in the Bed efPolycleituswas in a state not far from a bacchic swoon - he even
adapted it in a drawing of a bacchic subject discussed below (see Figure 87)
- and as such it served him as a model in his ecstatic reinterpretation of the
dead Christ. In the end, of course, the figure of Christ as finally painted by
Sebastiano in the Úbeda Pieta - a stiff corpse, inviting pity perhaps, but
nothing in the way of these more mysterious associations - fell far short of
these ambitions. 2 5
83. Michelangelo, Michelangelo was not the only artist in these years to adopt the Bed ef
CreationefAdam, Polycleitusmodel for an image of the dead Christ. As John Shearman noted,
detailefAdam.
Fresco. Sistine Rosso Fiorentino adopted the model in his panel, now in Boston (Figure 84),
Chapel, Vati can i and to very similar ends. 26 Shearman convincingly proposed that Rosso's
City. panel represents the highly novel subject of Christ inside the tomb, where the
angels are holding a sort of vigil over the body of Christ before the resurrec-
tion. The subject is quite unique, and unlike anything Michelangelo
attempted, but it is a response to a similarly perceived problem. Like
Michelangelo, Rosso was also interested in penetrating the mysterious prop-
erties of the dead Christ. Neither Rosso nor Michelangelo, however, wished
.
the doors of the Florence Baptistery. lnstead Adam is shown receiving and yet l1
reaching, languid and yet instinct with an incipient autonomy. His upraised 1
knee, like that of Lazarus, is a primary indicator of his stirring into life. l
1
The main source for the composition of the Úbeda Pieta, the antique
relief of the Bed efPolycleitus(see Figure 81), was also more than a formal
model. The subject of the relief was not known at the time, but its imma-
nent thematic qualities - a powerless male figure receiving the attentions of
a supple female attendant - exerted a fascination over the artists of the day.2 4
Michelangelo evidently found in the figure of sleep and in the activity of
ll 84. Rosso
•
~
Fiorentino, Dead
unveiling and awakening a number of thematic associations that were rele-
vant to his interpretation of the dead Christ. For Michelangelo, as we have I Christ withAngels.
Panel. Museum of
seen, the body of the dead Christ was not merely an inert corpse but was Fine Arts, Boston,
U.S. Charles Potter
endowed with a mysterious and quasi-animate energy. In part I I argued
Kling Fund.
that in the London Entombment the ambiguous figure of the upright dead
Christ was based on the swaying figure of the drunken Bacchus supported
by attendants, a figure well known from antique reliefs and adapted in
Andrea Mantegna's famous bacchic prints. I argued that this conception of
the scene as a kind of bacchic procession, a form of animated rite, was part
of an overall strategy to lift the narrative out of history and to set it into a
more "present" relation with its ritual context. Here, in a less dramatic scene
focused on the intimate relation between Christ and the Virgin,
Michelangelo tdrned to a more quiet and lyrical source, but one with dis-
tinct affinities to the bacchic subjects. For Michelangelo the sleeping figure
1 54 155
entirely to abandon the narrative framework of the historical life of Christ - the sharp-lined profile, the dull blue-green complexion are those of a man who
the conditions, as it were, of modern history painting. They both approached is truly dead, of Christ forsaken by the Father ('My God, my God, why have you
the problem by focusing intense attention on the "status" of Christ's body in deserted me?') and without promise of Resurrection:'3° The unrelenting realism
the interval after the death but before the resurrection, and by finding there a of the depiction extends even to the scale of the painting, which shows the body
quasi-animate quality, an incipient stirring of a life force. 2 7 The difference is at exactly life-size. To set these works against one another is to appreciate the
that Rosso pushed this investigation closer to the outre-tombe. Indeed, he extremes to which art could be pulled in a period of open-ended artistic explo-
pushed it closer than has been recognized. The torch-candles have just blown ration and volatile religious uncertainty.
out, and light enters from the left, reflecting like blades against Christ's shins.
The smoke from the just extinguished candles indicates that a gust has also 1 The important point is that neither extreme stands as the viable, "truly
Christian" solution. Holbein's panel famously horrified and haunted
come from this direction. A moment before the dark, enclosed tomb was lit Dostoyevsky; it appears several times in The Idiot, where it provokes loss of faith
only by the candles of the angels' vigil. But now, as Christ writhes into wake- J. by encouraging doubts about Christ's resurrection.3 1 Historians have cautioned
fulness, the stone gives way and a new <laybreaks. against projecting Dostoyevsky's response back into the Renaissance and have
As in the case of Michelangelo, Rosso's mystery-oriented approach to the rightly connected Holbein's panel to late-medieval devotions that concentrated
dead Christ went hand in hand with a conscious return to the tradition of the on the gruesome details of Christ's suffering and death. 32 And yet Dostoyevsky
imagopietatis. In Rosso's case the figure appears in the truly archaic type of the also had his precursors. His horrified response echoes those of medieval clerics,
Man of Sorrows with angels, or Engelpieta- a type that he now "explains" as such as Humbert of Silva Candida, to the first images of the dead Christ on the
part of a historical episode. As innovative as his painting was, Rosso con- cross, discussed in chapter r. The criticisrns of Girolamo Savonarola, discussed in
sciously connected it to the Man of Sorrows tradition, for he once described chapter 1, and the passage from Pietro da Lucca, discussed in chapter 3, suggest
it specifically as a Christ "in forma Pietatis." 28 Once again, extreme experi- that there were also those in this period who would have seen such a depiction,
mentation went hand in hand with deliberate archaism. and even such devotions, as a threat to Christian belief. I have tried to show that
The affinity between Rosso's panel and the works by Michelangelo and Michelangelo was partisan to this view and that he consciously offered an alter-
Sebastiano studied here is not merely a matter of general approach but of specific native to what he perceived as a predominant tendency in the art and piety of
features: The upturned head and ecstatic, almost smiling expression in Rosso's his time. And yet his proposals, too, had both defenders and detractors.
Christ - a poignant expression of"animatedness" - also appears in the Louvre In this case as in others, we must wait until the latter part of the century for
drawing (see Figure 82), perhaps with distinct knowledge of Rosso's panel. 2 9 an extensive critical commentary on the issue as it concerned the visual arts.
Both Michelangelo and Rosso reshaped the tradicional Man of Sorrows on the One of the most perceptive art critics of the sixteenth century, Francesco
model of antique sculpture. The body of Christ is no longer pitiful but beautiful, Bocchi, addressed the issue in the context of a discussion of Baccio
pristine, add radiant, and death has been reconceived as a languid, ecstatic swoon. Bandinelli's Pieta in the church of Santissima Annunziata in Florence:
These interpretations stand at the opposite extreme to Hans Holbein's Dead
Christ (Figure 85) in Basel, which is perhaps the most exacting and relentless The dísposízionegiven to this figure [of Christ] is most beautiful, and graceful
depiction of a dead corpse produced in the period. Where the Christs of beyond belief. Above ali, it is difficult to express beauty and majesty in 1he head of
Michelangelo and Rosso close their eyes in ecstasy, Holbein's Christ remains a dead body, since this is very contrary to death. As soon as death harshly affects a
open eyed, the gaze dead and empty. As Julia Kristeva put it, "(T)he empty stare, body it takes away ali that splendour which generates reverence. Nevertheless, not
only the body is most beautiful, but also the head displays unique beauty. . .
Beyond the unique artífice it thus seerns to be more than human, and to inspire
reverence by its appearance.33
85. Hans Holbein

the Younger, Dead
The sentiment is directly in line with a more general theological interpreta-
Christ. Panel. tion offered by Vittoria Colonna several decades earlier:
Kunstmuseum,
Basel, Switzerland. Besides having the divinity which never left him, I believe [the dead Christ] had
Giraudon/ Art
the usual great Majesty, indeed even greater, because whereas in others death is an
Resource, NY.
act of violence and deals them an offence [et perho rímangonocomepersoneW'ese],in
Christ who had calied for it and desired it with such sweetness, I believe it was an
157
act so soft, sweet, and pious that it softened ali hard hearts, and inflamed ali cold
minds, the ugliness of death being not only beautiful in this most beautiful face
but the brutality becoming a great sweetness.34
In a period of articulate art critics and art-sensitive theologians, it is not

surprising also to find an opposing voice. The most articulate defender of
the late medieval tradition of the aillicted dead Christ was Giovanni Andrea
Gilio, whose Degli errorídeí píttorí appeared in 1564. His tirade is of special 86. Michelangelo,
Lamenta/ion.
interest in that it comes as a reaction against Michelangelo, whose wide
Drawing. Musée
influence Gilio saw as a disaster for religious art. Pointing to the figure of Bonnat, Bayonne,
Christ (designed by Michelangelo) in Sebastiano's San Pietro in Montorio France. Arch. Phot.
Flagellatíon, Gilio criticized the painters under Michelangelo's influence Paris/ CNMHS.
"who do not know or do not want to know how to express the defonnity
evident in [Christ] at the time of the Passion;' for "it would be a stronger
inducement to devotion to see him bloody and misshapen, than to see him
beautiful and delicate." Let the glorious Christ be shown in the scene of the
transfiguration, resurrection, or ascension, but "in the flagellation, Ecce
Horno, crucifixion, deposition, and entombment let him be shown bloody,
ugly, misshapen, aillicted, ravaged, and dead," so that the pious may see the
extreme humility and charity displayed by Christ in sacrificing himself for
humanity. "Many times I have discussed this with painters, and ali with one (Figure 87) contains drawings for the Chíldren's Bacchanal(Figure 88), thus
voice they responded: 'Painting doesn't allow it; it would go against the dating the sheet to 1533-34.36 It is thus made almost exactly contemporary
decorum of art."'35 Contemporaries of Michelangelo were able to see his with the drawings for the Úbeda Pieta (see Figure So).
antique-inspired conception of the beautiful dead Christ not simply as a In the Bayonne drawing Michelangelo has left behind the focused three-
stylistic choice but as a theologically consequential departure from tradi- quarter-length formula of the Úbeda Pieta (see Figure So) and returned to
tion, and, more portentously, as the sign of a conflict between the ideals of
modern art and the purposes of religion.
LAMENTATION AS BACCHANAL
If Rosso moved into uncharted iconographic territory by presenting an

image of Christ within the tomb, Michelangelo's experiments remained
87. Michelangelo,
within the more traditional sphere of the deposition, lamentation, and Putti arounda Wine
entombment - the open realm of Friday, rather than the darker reaches of Uit (verso of86).
Saturday. Only through these investigations <lid he arrive at a formula more Drawing. Musée
Bonnat, Bayonne.
detached from a historical context, his proposal for a modern Engelpíeta, in Arch. Phot. Paris/
the Colonna Píeta. The help he gave Sebastiano for the Úbeda Píeta in 1533 CNMHS.
appears to ha~e prompted renewed experiments of his own into the Passion
narrative, which are preserved in an understudied drawing in Bayonne
(Figure 86). We would suspect a conrrection .between this drawing and the
Úbeda Pieta on ~he basis of the similarities between the figures of Christ, but
there is harder evidence to connect the two. The versoof the Bayonne sheet
159
between Raphael's composition and Michelangelo's most recent adaptation

of the Man of Sorrows-38
If we needed proof of the fact that the Christ on the rectoof the Bayonne
sheet (see Figure 86) is informed by the Bed ef Polycleituscomposition (see
Figure 81), we need look no further than the bottom right-hand comer of the
88. Michelangelo,
verso (see Figure 87) where we see one of the children in a drunken sleep,
Children's having adopted, in reverse, precisely the pose from the ancient relief. These
Bacchanal. are more than formal associations, and encourage us to open our eyes to the
Drawing. Windsor
inspired dialogue between the bacchic scene on the verso and the Passion
Castle, England.
The Royal scene on the recto. In the Passion scene, the figure of the swooning Virgin
Collection © 1999 shows distinctly bacchic qualities, and in fact bears clase similarities to the
Her Majesty the wallowing, wine-producing river god in the background ofTitian's Bacchanal
Queen.
efthe Andrians, which Michelangelo had certainly seen during his visit with
Alfonso d'Este in Ferrara only a few years earlier in 1529. Michael Hirst has
made the parallel observation that the Chíldren's Bacchanal is generally
informed by Titian's Worship ef Venus, also painted for Alfonso's camerino-39
That Michelangelo should interpret the Virgin's swoon as something clase to
a state of bacchic drunkenness is not a frivolous association but a part of
Michelangelo's interpretation of the Passion. If Christ's body is more than a
the more elaborate narrative preoccupations of the London Entombment (see mere corpse, if his state is closer to the ecstatic sleep represented in the Bed ef
Figure 6). He also returned to the full figure conception of the dead Christ, Polycleítus, then it is only logical that this should affect the activity of the
a conception that was to remain a part of his treatment of the Pieta theme attendant figures, and above all of the Virgin. The Virgin traditionally bears the
until the end of his life-37In fact, the subj ect of the drawing is very clase to closest affective ties to Christ, and thus her traditional compassiobecomes, in
the London painting. In the center, Christ is being lifted from the ground Michelangelo's interpretation, a passionate co-ebrietas.
by several figures. On the right edge of the drawing, a figure - certainly the The parallels do not end there. If Michelangelo's Passion subjects are some-
Virgin - is shown swooning and attended to by other figures. The concep- thing more than historical scenes of lament, his bacchic subjects are some-
tion and arrangement immediately bring to mind Raphael's Baglioni thing more than playful scenes of revelry. They investigate the darker side of
Entombment (see Figure 65) where the Virgin swoons at the right as Christ is the bacchic mysteries, connected to the cycles of death and regeneration, and
being carried off to the tomb at the left. Indeed, the figure at the extreme at this level they approach the concerns of his Passion subjects.4° As already
right supporting the Virgin, shown turning her head away from the viewer, noted, the Bayonne sheet figured strongly in the gestation of the Children's
is virtually a direct quotation from Raphael's painting. That Michelangelo Bacchanal(see Figure 88) and it is therefore no surprise to find that the latter
was specifically remembering Raphael's painting is also suggested by the should contain a wealth of motifs drawn from Michelangelo's experiments
fact - as I show below - that he quoted it in the Chíldren's Bacchanal (see with Passion subjects. The "sleeping" river god-like figure at the bottom of
Figure 88), for which the Bayonne sheet contains a preparatory drawing. the scene adapts the Man of Sorrows-like dead Christ from the Bayonne
The difference from Raphael's painting líes in the fact that Christ is shown sheet (see Figure 86); the shared source in the Bed efPolycleitusis explicitly
still seated on the ground rather than in the process of being carried. It is in declared in the child who lifts the veil from him. The afftliation was clearly
this position that his torso can remain in the crucial front-facing orientation appreciated by Michelangelo's contemporaries: In a Lamentation by the
- that is, in the Man of Sorrows-like arrangement that Michelangelo had Michelangelo epigone Battista Franco the river god from the Children's
recently adapted from the Bed efPolycleitus. It would have been impossible Bacchanalis re:idapted as a dead Christ (Figure 89). In the upper register of the
to show Christ's body frontally while he was being carried - that is, not Children's Bacchanal, we see sorne children around a wine vat and others
without returning wholesale to the strange solution of the London around a cauldron. In the center a <leer is being carried with great effort
Entombment. So instead, we have a somewhat awkward compromise toward the cauldron. Panofsky, among others, noted that the arrangement of
\
1po 161
,--
Although the sacramental orientation of Michelangelo 's Pietas loosens

their links to the historical circumstances of the Passion story, the dramatic
narrative remains an important and necessary part of Michelangelo's rein-
terpretation of the subject. The Passion story is, as it were, the motor that
generates the figural energy around Christ. Apart from the special case of
the Úbeda Pieta, made to satisfy relatively conventional requirements for a
half-length devotional image, Michelangelo's later investigations into the
theme generally start not with the reduced configuration of an Andachtsbild
89. Battista but rather with a fairly elaborate narrative episode, from which they then
Franco,
Lamentation.Panel.
draw out a dense, animated essence concentrated in the dead Christ. The
Pinacoteca, Lucca, Bayonne drawing, as we saw, returned to the narrative of the entombment
Italy. that Michelangelo had first investigated in his early London panel. In the
drawings closer to the conception of the Pieta for Vittoria Colonna (see
Figure 93), we see an effort to extract tighter formulas from the Passion nar-
rative. In these drawings Christ is placed in the most intimate contact with
the Virgin. Her compassiois not alluded to through analogy of physical state
but is realized through passionate physical contact. Michelangelo continued
these investigations in his later sculpted Pietas (see chapter 7), in which the
conditions of marble statuary as it were materially enforced the tendency to
condense.
The new, more intimate conception was the result of exchanging the nar-
rative of the entombment, which Michelangelo understood essentially as a
this middle carrymg group is highly reminiscent of Raphael's Baglioni drama of departure, with the narrative of the deposition, which a long-stand-
Entombment.41 ing devotional tradition had understood as an allegory of approximation. 43 An
In other words, several parts of the Childrens Bacchanalrecapitulate, in a elaborate drawing of the Depositíonnow in Haarlem (Figure 90)44 fueled a
bacchic context, motifs that recur over and over in Michelangelo's experi- series of investigations into more condensed formulas that led directly to the
ments with the Man of Sorrows and entombment. The iconography of the Pietafor Vittoria Colonna (see Figure 93) and culminated in the Pietanow in
Childrens Bacchanalremains elusive, and Hirst rightly noted that the develop- the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo in Florence (see Figure 98).45 He left the
ment from the sketch on the verso of the Bayonne sheet (see Figure 87) realization of the more narrative conception of the Depositionto his followers:
argues against the idea that Michelangelo set out to illustrate a given textual The artist of the relief copy in the Casa Buonarroti and, most famously,
source. 42 If the sheet was the artist's own invention, then what matters is not Daniele da Volterra in Santa Trinita dei Monti. This was not, as we shall see,
the subject per se but the development of ideas at the level of motif and the last time that Michelangelo's followers took up and developed the more
theme. The drawing retreats from specific subject matter and instead explores elaborate narrative conceptions that Michelangelo discarded on his way to
a thematic subsoil that is deeply relevant to his Passion subjects. Whatever more condensed figural formulas.
else the drawing is about, it is concerned with the ritual of sacrifice, and the A recently discovered drawing in the Louvre (Figure 91) allows us to see
relation between death and the larger cycles of regeneration. It goes clown very clearly the process by which Michelangelo extracted a Pieta formula
into a "lower zone," a place of sacrifice and dark stirring, a deathly realm that from the Haarlem Deposition(see Figure 90).46The shift occurred in a signifi-
feeds and makes possible the regions oflight - a place, that is, not so far from cantly circuitous way. At the bottom of the Haarlem drawing, the Virgin is
those Chrih reaches in his ecstatic withdrawal and entombment. shown fainting into the arms ofher attendants. In another sketch at the upper
Michelangelo had spent the previous fourteen years exploring closely related right of the sheet, Michelangelo redrew the group, paying closer attention to
ideas in the Medici chapel in San Lorenzo, a distinctly Christian setting, the means by which the figure is supported. But now it has begun distinctly
proving that i\1 his view this was a common ground where pagan and to resemble a lamentation group around Christ, not the Virgin, an impression
Christian subjeóts met. that is especially strong when the sketch is viewed with a knowledge of the
162 163
MlCHELANGELO AND THE REFORM OF ART PASSlONATE WlTHDRAWAL
91. Michelangelo,
Lamentation.
Drawing. Paris,
90. Michelangelo, Louvre. ©
Deposition. Réunion des
Drawing. Haarlem, Musées Nationaux.
Teylers Museum.
1·
¡ all the while ensconced between the Virgin's legs, a motif that Leo Steinberg
has convincingly interpreted as a symbol of filial "issuance."47 The fact that
1
this motif also serves to maintain Christ's torso facing forward - that is, to
preserve the link to the Man of Sorrows tradition - is a key to its signifi-
later studies. That it is still, however, a sketch for the group around the Virgin cance. As I showed in chapter 2, the Man of Sorrows image was an emblem
is indicated by the fact that the figure to the right is still shown looking up of the life-giving efficacy of the dead Christ, and thus of the redemptive
towards the cross. The Louvre sheet derives directly from this sketch - we can
power inherent in the sacrifice, making it especially common in Eucharistic
almost feel Michelangelo reaching for another sheet of paper - but now it is contexts. The very front-facing posture, which effectuates the idea of an
Christ who occupies the central position, and it is the Virgin who holds him. offering and a benefit made to the faithful, epitomizes this sacramental
This act of figura! substitution is, implicitly, a powerful assertion of the emphasis. Michelangelo refashioned this life-giving emphasis by recourse to
fundamental similarity of their bodily states. It is, in fact, not so much a sub- themes of fertility and regeneration, embodied in the motifs of amorous and
stitution as a kind of nesting and incorporation: Christ has, as it were, been
maternal love that bond Christ to the Virgin - a reinterpretation that, as we
introduced ihto the Virgin's body, and she spreads her legs to receive him.
will see, was very much in line with Vittoria Colonna's interpretation of the
The attendants now work to support both of them. The Virgin and Christ subject. Below, Christ issues from between the Virgin's legs; above, he is
are no longer in "parallel" states but rather in an intimate and animating
turned to receive an embrace of rapturous love. This combination of filial
bond, sealed by expressions of both erotic and filial love. Christ is both and spousal motifs produces a strange, almost untenable configuration that is
spouse and son:\Christ's body is turned to receive a violently amorous kiss, not to be understood merely as an uncomfortable transitional moment in
164 165
into the realm of the ecstatic. These are certainly genuine expressions of
lament, but lament has broken through to catharsis, where grief becomes a
paradoxical euphoria, a form of quasi-erotic participation and release. Christ's
body radiates light and seems almost to dance. The bodies of the attendants
writhe, as if participating in an exchange of energy flowing to and from the
body. As in the Louvre drawing, the figures are not engaged in an activity that
has a clear "before" and "after." Rather than working to move Christ to the
92. Michelangelo,
Lamentation. next "station" in the narrative, they participate in a form of animated cult to
Drawing. the dead Christ. 49The figure to Christ's left pushes his torso up, while the fig-
Graphische ure to Christ's right props up his drooping head, as if their function was none
Sammlung
Albertina,Vienna, other than to keep him upright, to preserve and celebrate his majesty in death.
Austria. This understanding of the attendance on the body as a mysterious rite was one
shared by Vittoria Colonna, as I show at length in the next chapter. Here it will
suffice to quote one ofher sonnets on the Passion:
Con lapiagataman dolcee soave

Giogom'ha posta al eolio,e lieveil peso
SembrarmíJacecolsuo lume chiara.
[With his wounded hand, soft and sweet,

he placed a yoke on my neck, and his weight
Seemed to me to become light to me with his clear radiance.]5°
Like the poem, Michelangelo's drawing works within the framework of the
Passion narrative but moves beyond the mechanics of carrying and the drama
of lamentation. The "yoke" of Christ's weight, rather than being a burden,
becomes a source of light, sweetness and beauty. This mysterious inversion
was something that Michelangelo associated specifically with the figure of the
the narrative. Rather than working to move Christ to the next stage in the Man of Sorrows.
story, the figure above attempts to hold Christ and the Virgin together in All of the drawings in this group contain highly awkward moments. The
their twisted but efficacious union. In this sense the drawing represents a Bayonne study (see Figure 86) adapted the seated pose from the studies for the
movement away from the episodic concerns of the London Entombment (see Úbeda Píeta but, in showing the whole body, produced an awkward and par-
Figure 6) and the Bayonne drawing (see Figure 86), exploring instead an tially obscured figure. The Louvre sketch (see Figure 91) attempted to put
expressive and "invested" bodily configuration. Christ in direct relation to the Virgin but produced a twisted and untenable
These ideas are elaborated in a drawing in Vienna (Figure 92), which I configuration. In the multifigure Vienna drawing (see Figure 92) Christ is
believe closely follows the tiny Louvre sketch.48 Christ's body is still in a held upright, but the Virgin is nearly trampled below. The near absurdity of
twisted pose, but now he is upright. The Virgin, still seated, continues to hold aspects of these drawings is no argument against their "quality" or autograph
Christ between her knees, but now at the level of his legs. The full extension of status. lt instead testifies to the extreme nature of the project, which was an
Christ's body puts it into active contact with a larger number of figures, who effort to preserve and reinterpret the central mystery of the Christian faith
almost trample the Virgin below. What is this surging mass of figures doing? under changing artistic and cultural conditions.
Their frantic activity is far in excess of the actual physical effort required to The Colonna Píeta (Figure 93) was, in one sense, a highly effective and ele-
sustain a body upright, suggesting that in this contáct we are seeing something gant solution to these problems. The crucial move was to introduce a differ-
more than a sil\1-ple"mechanical" moment in the narrative. The activity has ence in ground level, a feature adapted directly from the Children's Bacchanal
moved beyond the purposeful, beyond even the sphere of lamentation, and (see Figure 88). The ground drops away under the Virgin's feet and the lower
166
CHAPTER SIX
Artwork and Cult Image
93. Michelangelo,
Píetafor Vittoría
Colonna.Drawing.
Isabella Stewart
Gardner Museum,
Boston, U.S.
THE ART OF THE GIFT
Michelangelo's Pieta drawing for Vittoria Colonna (see Figure 93) was the
result of unprecedented investigations, essays at the limits of Christian iconog-
raphy. It was a searching effort to interpret the meaning and efficacy of
Christ's sacrifice at a time when this question had become a matter of volatile
controversy - the center, in fact, of the contemporary debate over the role of
works and grace in the scheme of Christian redemption. This circumstance in
turn reinforced Michelangelo's inclination to pursue these explorations in a
prívate sphere, outside of the conventional categories of religious art. The
new category of the presentation drawing that Michelangelo adopted for the
purpose had initially - in the work of Leonardo da Vinci, Rosso Fiorentino,
and Michelangelo himself - served as a venue for secular and pagan subjects,
that is, as an alternative to religious art per se. 1 Here it was adopted as a means
of reforming the religious image itself. In the London Entombment,
part of_C,hrist's body falls neatly into the lower region. The yokelike posture Michelangelo had made a strenuous effort to reform the altarpiece from
0
~ C_h~1st
s arms now fits, almost architectonically, into the Iower part of the within. The Colonna Pieta pursued the effort of reform, marked by a contin-
51
V1rg~ns bod~. The drawing is thus a reduced concentrate of the various uing dialogue with the Man of Sorrows tradition, but now outside of the tra-
phys~cal relat10ns explored in the previous sheets, powerfully focused on the ditional categories altogether. Instead, it based its claims in a new conception
~elatwn ben_veen the Virgin and Christ. 1t also makes explicit the dehistoriciz- of art.
i~g tendenc1~s of these drawings, and their lingering attachment to the tradi- Crucial to these claims was the notion of the gift, a notion inherent not
tIOn of the í~~go ~íetatís, by placing Christ's arms in the care of angels. An only in the drawing's subject, the sacrifice of Christ, but also in the circum-
ov~rtly arc~a1zmg 1mage realized in the most modern of formats, the presen- stances of its making and presentation. As a gift, the presentation drawing
tatwn_ dra~~g _wasvery much an experiment of its time, and deserves closer was deliberately exempt from the normal economy of art production in the
analys1sw1thin 1~ specific cultural context. period. Traditional religious art carne, by definition, with a brief, and thus
with at least basic requirements about iconography, such as the inclusion of
168
169
MICHELANGELO AND THE REFORM OF ART ARTWORK AND CULT IMAGE
certain patron saints, that were determined by the role it played within a judge from the number of remaining copies, very effectively suppressed.
devotional economy. 2 The stipulations that made up the painter's contract Written in a first version by the Benedictine monk Benedetto Fontanini and
were, in other words, a function of the higher system of "contracts" - the revised, possibly twice, by the humanist and poet Marcantonio Flaminio, the
economy of vows, dedications, and endowments - within which religious tract represented the mingled strains of reforming thought in Italy, including
art worked generally. It was the excessive reliance on this contractual system the northern Italian Benedictine reforming movement and the Naples circle
that reformers, from Girolamo Savonarola to Erasmus to Martín Luther, congregated around Juan de Valdés, to which Flaminio belonged until his
most consistently deplored. relocation in the fall of 1541 to the community gathered around Cardinal
The conception of art as a gift elaborated by Michelangelo and Vittoria Reginald Pole in Viterbo. In Viterbo Flaminio completed his revisions of the
Colonna was, among other things, an effort to remove it from this economy. manuscript of the Beneficio.Vittoria Colonna, also heavily influenced by
The new category of the presentation drawing they adopted for the purpose Valdés, moved to Viterbo in the same year, placing herself under Pole's spiri-
was special in severa! ways. It was unlike a preparatory study in that it tual guidance.3
expressly claimed to be a work of art in its own right. As a drawing, on the The connections between Michelangelo, the Viterbo circle, and the
other hand, it retained an experimental quality, a freedom from the conven- Beneficiodi Cristoare somewhat more than a matter of inference; they are rein-
tions that controlled finished panel painting in the period - a freedom that in forced by the circumstances described in Francisco de Hollanda's Four
turn reinforced the exemption from the convencional practice of making Dialogues,in which discussion with Michelangelo and Colonna take place at
works of art on commission. The claim to freedom of invention, and the the church of San Silvestro al Quirinale, after sermons on St. Paul by "Fra
corollary demand for sensitive appreciation, was integral to the conception of Ambrogio" - Fra Ambrogio Catarino Politi, the author of an extended cri-
art as a gift. In this chapter I attempt to show that for Michelangelo and tique of the Beneficio,in response to which Flaminio made his revisions to the
Colonna a "liberal" conception of art served as a model in their efforts to text in Viterbo in 1542.4 The most revealing portrait ofVittoria's religious life
fashion a new conception of faith along reformed lines. I argue that the new in these years was offered by Flaminio's friend, Pietro Carnesecchi, during his
conception of art, the idea that it is an unbidden gift and as such makes special later heresy trial. He remembered that he, Alvise Priuli (also a close associate
claims on its viewer, epitomized and gave interpretative scope to sorne of the of Pole's at Viterbo), and Flaminio would visit Colonna often, and that on
most significant aspects of reforming thought at this time - in particular its matters of dogma they would speak almost exclusively ofjustification by faith:
"subjective" orientation and its preoccupation with the role of the believer's
conscience in acknowledging and receiving divine grace. The relationship ... and on this question as well I wouldn't be able to say exactly to what terms
was, I hope to show, mutual: The form of hermeneutic engagement she held, but suffice it to say that she attributed a good <lealto grace and faith in
demanded by the one activity provided a privileged arena for the develop- her conversations. And on the other hand in her actions she demonstrated a great
ment of the other. These ideas were very well suited to the ideals and con- regard for works, giving alms generously, and always practising charity with
cems of the highly cultivated group of reform-minded thinkers with whom everyone, in which actions she was observing and following the advice that had
Michelangelo, and especially Colonna, were associated. been given her by the Cardinal [Pole], whom she believed in like an oracle, and
that is that it was necessary to believe as if salvation depended only on faith, and
These reform-minded thinkers shared a sympathy for the doctrine ofjusti-
to do good as if salvation depended on works. 5
fication by faith expressed, most canonically, by St. Paul (Ephesians 2:8): "For
by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of
Cardinal Pole was directly connected to the focus of gift giving studied here,
God." They also shared a distaste for the notion that salvatíon could be
for he owned a version of Michelangelo's Pieta for Colonna (see Figure 93),
"earned" through works, insisting on the individual's faith in the redemption
which he offered up as a gift in his turn. 6
freely offered to humankind through the sacrifice of Christ. They were, how-
The very title of the treatise that carne out of this milieu, the Beneficiodi
ever, unable to translate their sympathies into a coherent program of Church
Cristo,gives sorne indication of the central role that it accords to the concept
reform and failed to achieve the hoped-for reconciliation with the Protestants
\ . of the gift. In the concluding paragraphs we read a passage that succinctly
at Regensburg m 1541.
connects this concept to the tract's main arguments and that can stand as a fair
One of the primary documents to come out of this milieu, the Beneficiodi
representation of the attitudes that prevailed in the Viterbo circle:
Cristo, appeared in these very years: Círculated in manuscript form at least
from 1542, the eftion of 1543 enjoyed enormous popularity until 1549, when You will say to me: "I really believe in the rernission of sins and I know that God
the book was placed on the Inquisition's Index of prohibited books and, to is truthful, but I doubt that I am worthy of such a great gift." I reply to you that
171
the renússion of sins would not be a gift and a grace but a payment, if God seemed to him, when someone gave him something, that he was put under
granted it to you because of the worth of your works. But I repeat that God a permanent obligation." 10
accepts you as just and does not impute your sins to you through the merits of The point of Michelangelo's letter, however, was to announce that he was
Christ, which are given to you and become yours through faith. Therefore, fol- able to overcome this resistance by "having recognized and seen that the grace
lowing St. Bernard's saintly advice, do not believe only in general of the renússion
of God cannot be bought" - that is, by invoking the model of divine grace.
of sins, but apply this belief to your own case, and believe without doubt that
Through this parallel he understood that Colonna's gift, like divine grace, is
through Christ ali your iniquities are pardoned. 7
already given; it cannot be earned or paid for. To attempt to do so is to deny
Preoccupations with the operations of divine grace were a pervasive part of its unsolicited, gratuitous nature, and thus to resist it as a gift [ "tenerlaa disa-
the culture of the Viterbo circle, so pervasive that even the exchange of cour- gio'1-The idea is not far from ideas developed in more elaborately theological
tesies and the practice of gift giving were, senúplayfully, couched in the terms terms by Marcantonio Flaminio, coauthor of the Beneficioand associate of
of the debate over grace. 8 The correspondence between Michelangelo and Vittoria Colonna's. According to Flaminio, divine grace is already there, like
Vittoria Colonna, which draws witty and serious parallels between divine the light of the sun. It is not up to the recipient to call it down; instead, it is a
grace and the giving of gifts, specifically the giving of artistic and literary gifts, matter of not acting to reject it, not putting up an obstacle to the light. And it
is one instance of this practice that deserves closer study. is faith that allows one to enact this double negative, to abstain from resisting
There are many unanswered questions surrounding these letters, beginning the gift. n In not accepting the gifts, in attempting to "huy time" in arder first
with the matter of their precise date:They are usually dated between 1538 and to make something so as to be worthy of them [ "perriceverlemancoindegnia-
1541,but they have also been dated as late as 1545-46. Nor has it been possible mente ch'i' potevo,fareprima qualchecosaa quella di mía mano"], Michelangelo
to identify with certainty the works to which they refer. My goal in this chap- was in this sense putting up an obstacle to grace, resisting the prevenient claim
ter is not to resolve these matters - I do not believe it is possible without fur- of the gift. His enlightenment carne in realizing that he could not actively
ther empirical evidence - but to pay closer attention to the rhetoric of the take possession of them, because he was already possessed by them. He
letters themselves. The letters may be unclear as to which works are being dis- expressed this reversa! in an elegant transposition: "And I am sure, when I will
cussed, but they are extremely eloquent on the question of what makes art a have them, I will think myself in paradise, not because they are in my house
gift and what this has to do with art's religious vocation - questions that are, in but because I am in theirs."
turn, basic to understanding works such as the Pietadrawing (see Figure 93). To We are, apparently, far from the conception of the gift proposed in Marce!
come to a fuller understanding of the conception and reception of the Pieta Mauss's classic study of "archaic" societies, where the gift serves as a token of
drawing in particular it is necessary to look beyond these letters. The second exchange and an inducement to reciprocity. 12 It is interesting for our purposes
section of this chapter accordingly studies Colonna's own writings on the that Jacques Derrida's critique of Mauss marks exactly this divide. Derrida
Passion, which allow us to read the drawing througli her eyes. argued that even within the terms of Mauss's argument the gift resists a system
As we do not know the sequence of the letters, it is best to proceed topi- of exchange by always passing "beyond measure," by being in excess of the
cally, beginning with a letter of Michelangelo 's that offers a brief but cogent possibility of repayment - a tendency that Mauss half avowed at key points in
statement on the nature and ethics of gift giving. The fact that this medita- his argument. 13 The gift, according to Derrida, is "beyond recompense or ret-
tion is framed in the language of the theological debate over grace has not ribution, beyond economy," effecting a sort of sacrifice of economy itself. 14
been sufficiently recognized, and this oversight has led to núsreadings of an Derrida's notion of "the gift" is conceived in abstract terms, independent of a
important passage in the letter.9 Having been offered sorne items (most given historical and cultural context. It is not my purpose to espouse or con-
likely poems) by Colonna, Michelangelo confessed that his initial impulse test his conception of the gift, or to make the letters under discussion an illus-
was to make something to give her in return, so as to receive her gift less tration of his theory. Instead, our letters allow us to historicize and
unworthily. He then recognized, he says, that to introduce a gift into an contextualize Derrida's theory itself, for in elaborating his extra-economic
economy of exchange violates the very principle of the gift, which he goes conception of the gift Derrida draws explicitly on a tradition of Christian
on to describe in terms of the operations of divine grace: "Then, having thought - for him embodied above ali in S0ren Kierkegaard - that is in line
recognized and seen that the grace of God cannot be bought, and that to with the tradition of reform thought here under study.1s His critique of
have it with discomfort [tenerlaa disagio]is a grave sin, I say the fault is mine Mauss restaged a historical debate over reciprocity and gratuitousness in gift
and willingly I accept these things." The letter, incidentally, confirms an giving whose terms were clearly established in the sixteenth century. 16 The
observation ofVasari's, that the artist was loath to accept presents "because it rigorous, antireciprocal, Augustinian conception of the gift upheld by
173
Protestant refarmers, and elaborated by Derrida, itself had stoical roots, and quation. 21 As Emerson was later to put it, "There is no commensurability
this relation was in turn reinforced by the popularity of Seneca's De Benefi,ciis between a man and any gift:' 22 The immense claims of the gift demand an
in the sixteenth century. According to Seneca, "The logic of gifts is simple: so attitude of subrnission and trust. This is why far Michelangelo - as far many
much is given out. If something is returned it is called gain; if not, there is no members of the Viterbo circle - the capacity far faith in divine grace was itself
loss. I made the gift far the sake of giving."I7 The gift goes in one direction the "gift of gifts" ["il don de' doni'1-2 3
and is not to be understood as a payment far a service or a loan to be repaid. Despite its pessirnism, Michelangelo's letter does implicitly leave room far a
The idea became a commonplace in sixteenth-century debates over divine conception of art that would conform to this higher principle of grace: It is a
grace and faund clear expression in the Benefi,ciodi Cristo: challenge to make works of art that would, so to speak, cease to be "works"
and would aspire instead to the status of gifts. What, according to
And what can man do in arder to merit such a great gift and treasure as Christ?
Michelangelo, does it take to make a work of art a gift? One criterion, a fur-
This treasure is given only through the grace, favor and merey of God, and it is
ther letter suggested, is that it be made without or beyond any expectations
faith alone that receives such a gift and allows us to enjoy the remission of sins..
on the part of the recipient. 2 4 In this case it was Colonna, not Michelangelo,
. . These things cannot be accomplished or done by all the works of all
humankind put together. 18 who had violated the delicate code of the gift. He scolded her far having left
a "Crocifisso" - an unfinished drawing or sorne farm of modello - with
It is the distinction of the cultivated milieu that produced the Benefi,cioand Tommaso de' Cavalieri so as to prompt him, Michelangelo, to complete the
that constituted its first readership to have reintroduced this theologically finished work far her. Not only does true love not have need of intermedi-
exalted conception of the gift into the human sphere of courtesies and of gift aries, he tells her, but it consists of a faith that does not need reminders and
giving - that is, back into the secular world of Seneca's De Benef,,ciis. that operates in secret: "And although it may have seemed that I had fargot-
Michelangelo's letter is one example of this tendency and is of special interest ten, I was doing what I wasn't saying, in arder to fallow through with some-
in that it applies these ideas to the making and receiving of art. 19 The sonnet thing unexpected [io facevo quello che non dicevo,per giungiere con cosa non
included in the letter develops this association in even more explicit terms. 20 aspectata]." Unlike a work made under comrnission far a client, Michelangelo's
His efforts to repay Colonna's "immensa cortesía"by his own works ["'l míe gift far Colonna, actuated by love, is not subject to the usual surveillance: It is
bassoingegno"]are compared to the errors of those who believe mortal works meant to be done in silence and to exceed her every expectation. 2 5
can equal or somehow earn the immensity of divine grace. In the last three It is this claim to a secret contract between donar and recipient that most
verses the analogy is fully "crossed" in a general statement on the inability of closely associates the drawings to the sonnets that often accompanied them. 26
human works, specifically works of culture ["l'ingegnioe ['arte e la memoria'1, This is not to say that the drawings and sonnets were not available to a wider
to repay a divine gift: • public but only that on those occasions the public was given access to some-
thing understood to be prívate and secret. As Leonard Barkan put it: "As gen-
l'ingegnioe !'artee la memoriacede: res, presentation drawings and sonnets are quite parallel: both are acts of
c'un don celestemai conmillepruoue introspection transferred into privacy adeux, but beyond that often circulated
pagarpuo sol delsuo chi emortale. within a larger, but still prívate, coterie." 2 7 By introducing an intermediary
(Talent and art and memory give way: and by attempting to intervene in the gift's silent gestation - in what Lewis
for a heavenly gift cannot, even with a thousand attempts, Hyde calls the "stirring" of the gift 28 - Colonna violated the gift's condition
be paid by the sole efforts of one who is mortal.] of secrecy, a violation whose ruinous consequences are summed up by
Michelangelo in a deft and bitter pun: "My design [disegno:drawing or plan]
In another sonnet, also dedicated to Vittoria and probably written in clase has been spoilt [E statoguasto el mio d[i}segnio] ."
succession to this one, he made explicit the theological point. What is there to Michelangelo concluded the letter by referring the whole matter to the
repay a great benefit, he asked, so that the debtor is let free? Nothing, far such question of faith, through the quotation of part of a verse from Petrarch: "Mal
a payment wbuld take away or deny the infinity of the gift, its absolute sover- fa chi tanta fe {st tosto oblia}:" one does wrong so soon to farget so much
eignty over the one served, and thus deny that one the chance of receiving it faith. 2 9 Petrarch was scolding Laura far doubting his faithful love. In that case,
in the appropriate spirit and thus of serving in return. Therefore, one must too, the beloved's doubts stemmed from having perrnitted the intervention of
risk ingratitude if one is to acknowledge the true power of the giver; one an intermediary, and thus having broken the secret contract between donar
must subrnit as tp_a lord, far there is no compensation, no possibility of ade- and recipient. (Laura had been made to believe that Petrarch was writing to
1 74 175
-
another woman under her name.) It is characteristic of Michelangelo to have Ask a man who is in love with a woman what love paints in the chamber of his
appropriated the Petrarchan topos within the apposite context of an amorous imagination. He will respond, "her face, her eyes, her movements, her clothes,"
relation and simultaneously to have expanded its semantic scope to apply both and other such things. And love paints them so well that all his powers remain
to religious faith and to his work as an artist. The adaptation of the verse suspended befare these pictures [talipitture]and he is not interested in thinking of
implicitly asserts that in the context of gift giving the discourses of love. art, anything else, or of contemplating anything other than those pictures .... If car-
and divine grace rningle inextricably. nal love produces such effects, spiritual love, that is love of Jesus Christ, produces
Elizabeth Cropper has argued for a correlation between the emergence of even more powerful ones.32
an affective, gendered, subjectivized beholder in High Renaissance painting
and a predorninantly Petrarchan culture of poetic desire.3° She argued that As we have seen, Michelangelo and Colonna understood the claims of art
new conceptions of picture making in this period, Michelangelo's presenta- specifically in relation to the question of divine grace, the crux of religious
tion drawings an erninent case among them, invoked relations to the beholder debate at the time. I suggested above that the association was bound up with
whose closest parallel and cultural model is the relation between lover and the relatively novel practice of presenting drawings as gifts. In Colonna's eyes,
beloved, between io and tu, found in the tradition of the Petrarchan love lyric. the quality that most powerfully elevated such works to the status of gifts was
The crucial element that connects the two is the invocation of an unattainable their claim to a kind of infiµity or inexhaustibility, a claim that, she realized,
object of desire, and the corresponding exploration of the themes of posses- places a special burden on the viewer as interpreter. Their exemption from the
sion, loss, and excess. In thematizing a relation to something that exceeds the normal economy of works made on comrnission involved a semantic open-
possibility of possession (that resists being treated as "property"), the lyrical ing: They were not to be explicated by recourse to traditional iconographic
mode, whether artistic or literary, engages in the dynarnic of the gift - a point conventions, and this meant that they required special hermeneutic receptiv-
Michelangelo made explicitly in the letter discussed above, by invoking ity on the part of the viewer.
Petrarch in the context of the claims of his own artistic gifts. U pon receiving a drawing of the "Crud.fixo",perhaps the work mentioned in
For Michelangelo, this nexus of aesthetic and amorous claims was also con- the last-cited letter, Colonna confesses to Michelangelo that she could never
nected to an explicitly religious discourse of divine grace and faith. It is my fully comprehend its rniraculous qualities: "Certainly I could never explain how
contention that besides the language of the Petrarchan love lyric, the language subtly and adrnirably it is done."The point was of sufficient importance for her
of religious devotion - which, at least since St. Bernard's highly influential to demand to know if the copy intended for her was to be done by
Sermons on the Song of Songs, itself often made use of the rhetoric of amorous Michelangelo or by his assistant,"beca use knowing the difficulty of irnitating it,
love - also served as a means by which the claims of such works were con- I would prefer that he [the assistant] do something other than this."33The draw-
ceived and experienced. These traditions were, indeed, so deep-seated that ing cannot be reduced to its "invention" or "content"; it must be visually real-
they informed the experience even of nonreligious painting - a fact that is ized by the inimitable and unfathomable grace of the master.34The corollary of
not surprising given that many of the new secular venues for art after 1500 this claim is that it demands to be appreciated by an especially sensitive viewer.
emerged from within the traditional religious categoriesY To take an example A further letter, acknowledging the receipt of a finished drawing, revealed
clase to our period, the Dorninican preacher Savonarola explicitly drew the that these claims go beyond matters of technique. In an effort to describe its
parallel between the beholder's experience of beauty in painting and the effects on her, she immediately turned to the language of divine grace and
believer's experience of Christ's love: faith. As the wording is crucial, I quote the uninterrupted Italian text of the
relevant passage first: "Li tdfettivostri excitanoaforza il giuditio dí chí li guardaet per
Love is like a painter. The works of a good painter so charm men that, in con- vedernepíu exsperientiaparlai di accrescer bonta alle cosepe,jette.Et ho visto che omnia
templating them, they remain suspended, and sometimes to such an extent that it possibiliasunt credentí.lo ebbigrandissímaJede in Dio, che vi dessiuna gratiasopranat-
seems that they have been put in ecstasy and have been taken outside of them- ural afar questo Christo."35In an untranslatable phrase, she states in the opening
selves, and seem to forget thernselves. This what the love of Jesus Christ <loes line that his works urge the viewer to new efforts of understanding: "Lí qfetti
when it is iz;ithe soul. vostríexcitanoaforza íl giudítío di chi li guarda." The implications of this aesthetic
judgment- that his works stretch the lirnits ofhuman understanding- moved
In the same passage, he explicitly associated both the effects of painting and her in the following sentence to make a fully theological pronouncement, a
the effects of the divine with the beloved's effect on the lover. The experience renewed declaration of the very principle of Christian faith: "And I have seen
oflover, belie~r, and viewer are thus assirnilated to one another: that all things are possible to those who believe." She underscored the shift in
1176 177
discourse by switching into biblical Latin in rnidsentence: "Et ho visto che The first and principal intent which we who accept the Gospel ought to have,
omnia possibilia sunt credenti [sic]."The words, quoted from Mark 9:23, are believing that in Christ God has chastised all our sins, is to get the experience of
addressed by Christ to the father of the possessed hoy, enjoining him to believe this, to the end that with our faith thus confirmed no man may be able to sepa-
in God's capacity to heal his Son. The healing, crucially, happens only after the rate us from it, or make us doubt or stumble in it, as they are able while our faith
Father squarely faces the trial of faith: "Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbe- is not confirmed with experience.4°
lief" (Mark 9:24). Given what we know about Colonna's religious concerns, it
i~ not surprisin~ that s~e would quote a ~iblical passage that placed an empha- Faith as experience is not a matter of understanding the doctrine pro-
s1snot on Gods capac1ty to perform a rmracle but on humankind's capacity to pounded by preachers. Still less <loes it consist in a superstitious belief in the
believe in its possibility.36 The truly novel thing about this letter is that Vittoria objective power of the sacraments or the virtues of miracle-working images
invoked this trial of faith in describing the hermeneutic challenges of or relics. Nor is it a matter of believing in the objective truth of what is
Michelangelo's drawing, which also tests the viewer's capacity to believe and related in the Bible. This is merely "historical faith:'4 1 Real faith results from
understand. Fittingly, the analogy was completed by the according of a divine the work of the Spirit in making the Word of God speak directly to one's
grace to the work of the artist: "I had the greatest faith in God, that he would individual conscience. 42 This fundamental belief lies at the basis of the highly
grant you a supernatural grace in making this Christ." private orientation of this group of reformers: They formed exclusive circles
Th~t special clairns should be made on the individual's personal capacity in secluded places and used highly intimate and "secret" means of communi-
for belief and understanding is a direct consequence of the workings of grace, cation, not primarily for fear of persecution but because such practices suited
because a gift in the sense elaborated by Michelangelo and Colonna is never their religious orientation.43 Theirs was not a doctrine easily adapted to the
general but singular, exclusive, and secret. As William West has put it, in a traditional modes of public dissernination: As severa! members of the reform-
recent analysis of the theme of the gift in Derrida and Shakespeare, "when ing group noted with dismay, it tended to suffer a notable coarsening when it
something meansfor someone, it is meantJor someone."37 Or, to return to the left their privileged circles and was spread to the larger public. 44
passage in the Benefi,ciodi Cristo quoted above: "Do not believe only in general Parallels to issues in religious art come immediately to rnind. People with
of the rernission of sins, but apply this belief to your own case."This belief is these tastes and this religious orientation, one imagines, would not be inclined
possible only when the individual hears the word of God and the prornise of to see the commissioning and veneration of religious art as a sort of good
redemption addressed to her or him personally and directly. No externa! work or as an effective means of propitiating God's merey through heavenly
assura~ces from authorities or institutional structures can replace this personal advocates or patron saints. Nor would one expect them to be interested in
expenence of having one's conscience addressed. The true gift, therefore, images laden with highly doctrinal iconographical content, such as became
what Michelangelo called il don de' doni, is to feel this capacity to believe stir common in the Counter Reformation. It is also likely that they would have
within oneself. At moments like this, the Benefi,ciois closest in spirit to the had objections to works that represented Christ's life merely as a historical
thinking ofJuan de Valdés, Flarninio's spiritual advisor andan important influ- drama. They would be interested, instead, in Christocentric works that
ence on Colonna. In the prefatory letter Valdés's Commentary on Romans, a directly addressed the movements of the viewer's conscience, works that
copy of which was sent to the community at Viterbo by Giulia Gonzaga, inculcated in the viewer the experience ofbeing personally implicated by the
Valdés's primary pupil and the book's dedicatee,3 8 Valdés termed this inner immensity of Christ's sacrifice. They would be interested, in other words, in
certainty "knowledge," which he opposes to mere "opinion": works that made the sorts of clairns described by Vittoria Colonna in her let-
ters to Michelangelo.
It is very true indeed, that the knowledge which they have that Christ is the son
of God, who feel not themselves reconciled to God, cannot properly be termed
knowledge [conozimiento]: for were it knowledge it would work in them the same THE PASSION ACCORDING TO VITTORIA COLONNA
effect that it <loes in others, making them certain of their reconciliation with
God, and giving them peace in their consciences [zertificándoles
de su reconziliazion Until now, I have described only in general terms the status of the artistic gifts
conDios,i dándolespaz en sus conszienzias].39 exchanged between Michelangelo and Colonna, and the spirit in which they
were given and received. In the previous chapter I described the means by
Elsewhere, Valdés describes this inner conviction and intensity of feeling as which Michelangelo arrived at his solution in the Colonna Pieta. But we have
"experience": yet to see how Colonna rnight have interpreted the specific features of this
\
1 79
ARTWORK AND CULT IMAGE
drawing, and to do so it is necessary to turn to Colonna's own writings- on the to its maximum extent, and was released through her eyes in more bitter tears,
Passion. The most significant work in this context is her Pianto soprala Passione and through her mouth in more burning sighs.48
dí Cristo.45 An extraordinarily personal and innovative attempt to penetrate
the significance of the image of the Virgin holding the dead Christ, the Pianto These effiuences have, in turn, an animating effect on the body of Christ,
presents an approach strikingly close to the approach taken visually by making him appear alive rather than dead: "She washed and warmed him such
Michelangelo - so close as to arouse the suspicion of a relation between the as to make him appear truly alive."49Colonna is thus led to explain why it is
two. This need not be the case; the text is valuable above all for what it tells us that Christ's body, unlike the bodies of regular mortals, retained its dignity and
about how Colonna would have viewed and understood Michelangelo 's majesty in death:
drawing. The Píanto is one of the most powerful and moving expressions of
the conviction that most clearly binds Michelangelo to Vittoria Colonna and Besides having the divinity which never left him, I believe he had the usual great
to the religious thinkers of her circle: that the language of Christian faith Majesty,indeed even greater, because whereas in others death is an act of violence
needs to be reformed and rediscovered, that it is, indeed, the primary chal- and deals them an offence, in Christ who had called for it and desired it with such
lenge to faith to seek the direct and dependent relation that binds it to the sweetness, I believe it was an act so soft, sweet and pious that it softened all hard
promise of redemption embodied in the Passion of Christ. hearts, and inflamed ali cold minds, the ugliness of death being not only beautiful
Colonna began with a physical and affective description of the image of the in this most beautiful face but the fierceness becoming a great sweetness.5°
dead Christ in the lap of the Virgin. Through close attention to its intimate
details she drew her own inferences concerning the properties of Christ's body, She goes on to explain how the divine qualities that had animated his fea-
the nature of the Virgin's relation to it, and, ultimately, the means by which this tures while alive left their "vestigij" on his dead form, even though they had
relation realizes the transmission of divine grace to humankind. This searching departed with his soul upon his death. These qualities were, she argues, still
investigation, and the theologically innovative ideas to which it leads, are of present on the body itself and palpable to those who attended to his body,
exactly the kind that characterize Michelangelo's drawings. As in the drawings, above all to the VirginY The Virgin's response is thus more than a mere
highly intimate relations are described not merely to express pathetic emotion. expression of anecdotal grief. She understands the great benefits that proceed
We are offered something different from a historical scene of lamentation over from the sacrifice and is thus filled with a paradoxical combination of joy and
a dead hero. Physical and affective relations serve, instead, as the path into the pain. We see her "dilettarin questapena," for she is aware that she holds in her
heart of the mystery:The effort to sustain the dead Christ in majesty celebrates arms the source of all grace. Indeed, Colonna imagines her wishing the whole
the efficacy of his sacrifice and the claims made on the believer's faith. This world to be present to participate in its direct transmission: "with what sincer-
arrival at religious understanding through affective "experience," in turn, paral- ity, I believe, did she desire that all the world were there to see what she saw so
lels the forms of response elicited from the viewer and reader. The Pianto pro- that they may enjoy such immense grace."52 She thinks above all of those for
vides a language ideally suited to understanding the nature of the Pieta and whom it was possible, historically, to assist at the event but did not. She calls
thus warrants an especially careful reading. all the apostles, all those who had come into contact with Christ while he was
Although the title given to the printed text was Pianto sopra la Passíonedí alive and, one by one, describes how they could have benefited from direct
Christo,Colonna concentrates on only one "episode" ofthe Passion, the Iamen- contact with the body. She specifically states that their absence was compen-
tation of the Virgin over the body of Christ. She begins by proposing to sated for by the presence of angels, who assumed in their place the task of
describe the "pious effect of seeing the dead Christ in the arms of his attending to the body: "and if not for the angels who compensated for the
Mother." 46She émphasizes above all the closeness of their union; Christ lies not ingratitude of man, those who could have been there but were not would feel
only upon her but virtually within her, as in a tomb: She has made "of her great sorrow and regret."53 Thus she includes the attendance of the angels
nearly dead body a sepulchre in that hour."47 She gives special emphasis to the upon the body of Christ - an idea that if not directly adapted from
means by which the affective relation between the two transforms them recip- Michelangelo's drawing might well have been adapted generally from images
rocally. The Virgin's love and pain, which she had until this moment modestly of the Man of Sorrows supported by angels (the Engelpieta) - and explains
held within, are now, at the touch of the sacred body, allowed to flow forth: their presence as the result of a hístorícalcircurnstance.
It is remarkable how strictly this meditative text adheres to what might be
That fire oflove and torment that consumed and penetrated the intimate reaches called the conditions of historical possibility. The guiding principle of the
of her soul ... rl,ow at the touch of the sacred body of Christ spread through her meditation is that the very transmission of grace to humankind hinges on the
r8<!>
181
virtues of physical contact with Christ in the precise interval postmortem and sangue costa." In the original context, this verse alludes to the spread of the
ante resurrectionem,and this is what brings her close to Michelangelo's under- Gospel; it occurs in a passage condemning the obfuscation of the original
standing of the subject. A significant portion of the text consists of Colonna's Gospel message by the later inventions of preachers (Paradiso,29:91-6):
urging those to whom it was possible to come and attend to the body of
Christ: "And if you do not all come now it will be impossible again to see Non vi si pensa quantosanguecosta
him, adore him and thank him. That time is finished that he has deigned to Seminarlanel mondo,e quantopiace
inhabit the earth." 54 She explains that this is the most propitious moment of Chi umilmenteconessas'accosta.
all, for never was he more full of humility and grace: "And even if you have Perapparerciascuns'ingegna,eface
seen him alive in no other act has he displayed more his humility, indeed all of Sue invenzioni,e quelleson trascorse
Dai predicanti,e il vangeliosi tace.
his excessive graces put together."55 She describes the privilege enjoyed by the
Magdalene, Joseph of Arimathea, and Nicodemus to have been present at the [They think not there how much blood it costs to sow it in the world, nor how
event but gives them clearly secondary roles. The Magdalene laments Christ much he pleases who humbly keeps close to it. Each one strives for display and
and accompanies the Virgin, and Joseph offers his winding cloth and consoles makes his own inventions, and those are treated of by the preachers, and the
the Virgin. Gospel is silent.]61
Nothing, however, mitigates the Virgin's solitude, and the greatness and
exclusiveness of her burden; she is the one "who alone sustained the faith alive By appropriating the verse in the context of the Passion, Michelangelo radi-
in her holy breast."56 For this reason, the Virgin gives infinite thanks to the calized its message in a manner that could not fail to be appreciated by a
angels "who were there to make up for the absence of man."57 Then, in a reform-minded audience: If in Dante the blood refers to the effort expended
curious conclusion, Colonna affirms that in the absence of Christ's soul it was by preachers and martyrs in the spreading of the Gospel, here the blood
left up to the Virgin to preserve the honor and majesty of Christ before God: springs directly from its source in Christ's sacrifice.
But it is the reference to the "cost" of Christ's blood that most clearly links
Thus the Madonna, seeing the absence of the holy soul of Christ, which alone the verse to the reformist context studied here, for it directly contrasts pay-
was sufficient to honor the imrnense grandeur of divinity, saw that it was up to ment and gift. The reference is not made in the calculating spirit that pre-
her to supply such a great debt, and would have wanted to liquefy herself, con- vailed in late-medieval devotions, where it was common to count and
sume herself to the very limit in the fire oflove and in the tears of compassion in measure Christ's blood in exact quantities. In a late fifteenth-century prayer-
order to rid the world and herself of such ingratitude, and to render to God the book, for example, we find the legend of a nun who wanted to know exactly
obsequy and the cult that were due him.58 how much blood Christ spilled and who received a vision from Christ that
gave her a precise answer: "Whosoever should say roo Pater Nosters and Ave
She searches in all of Christ's limbs for a place inhabited by his soul, even Marias every day will at the end of fifteen years have prayed a Paternoster to
though she knows that it is nowhere to be found. Ali of her greatest virtues, every drop (of my blood). This many drops have I spilled for you and all
charity, humility, patience, and obedience, are exhausted and overcome in the men." 62The passage clearly reveals the relationship between this calculating
search. In the end, it is only faith that preserves her: "sololaJede la sostennein mentality and a numbers-oriented approach to the saying of prayers. This
vita." That act of faith in turn plays a crucial role in sustaining the faith at a link, of course, also played a role in the system of indulgences, which had a
time when it was entirely missing in the world. Through her the world is rein- direct bearing on the image of the Man of Sorrows, one of the most heavily
vested with that faith "which if not for her would have been extinguished."59 indulgenced images of the late Middle Ages.63
In very naturalistic terms, Vittoria's text found in the contact with Christ's This entire array of practices was highly distasteful to humanist reform-
dead body the means by which divine grace is transmitted to humankind. She ers. 64 Michelangelo's drawing in every sense offers an alternative. In
implicitly argued that it is transmitted by means of the faith sustained at the Michelangelo's drawing the cost and quantity of Christ's blood are invoked in
death of Christ, and initially and crucially by that of the Virgin. óo Christian a spirit of grandiose irony, to stress the giftlike íncalculability of Christ's sacri-
faith is thus drawn to its origins in the Passion and is specifically forged in fice. The "cost" of redemption is beyond reckoning ( "non vi si pensa"). There
relation to the dead body of Christ. This direct link between the Passion of is no way to render it or account for it, as the nun from Colmar cited above
Christ and the dissemination of the faith sheds new light on the inscription of was able to do through the counting up of prayers. The antinumerical irony is
the verse from '.pante on the cross in the drawing: "Non vi si pensa quanto offered in the same spirit as that voiced by Christ when asked by Peter,
182 183
ARTWORK AND CULT IMAGE
'"Lord, how many times must I forgive my brother when he has sinned Colonna explained, Christ is dead, but because he "had called f~r ~t and
against me? Seven times?' Jesus said to him, 'Not seven times, seventy-seven desired it with such sweetness" - in the drawing Christ is shown sermwillfully
tim~s"' (Matthew 18:21-22). In stark contrast to the number-crunching pointing downward69 - his body <loes not show the violence of death but
Chn~t ~hat appeared in the nun's vision, the Christ of the Bible compounds rather a radiant beauty that suggests life. As we have seen, Colonna was careful
t~e ~g1t seve~ not to correct Peter's calculations but to explode Peter's quan- to point out that the animated "vestigij" of life that were discernible in_the
htat1ve reasomng altogether and to point him to infinite, unaccountable for- dead body (even before it was "glorified in a better life" in the resurrect1on)
giveness, like that offered by divine grace. Christ goes on to illustrate the were not quite objective features: They shine for those who see them, and
p~int (in the explicit language of money and gifts) through the parable of the above all for the Virgin who was closest to him. They shine, that is, for those
kin~ who frees the indebted servant of all payment (Matthew 18:23-35)_65 who see the life in the death, the redemption in the sacrifice. As Colonna put
L1ke Colonna's text, and a host of other writings produced in her circle the it in another place, "il vero Chrísto qual nudo e puro, ex .fide vivít" - the true
drawing was an effort to establish a direct relation to the source of grac~ in Christ, nude and pure, lives from faith. 70
Christ's Passion. The Pieta and the Píanto have several motifs in common: the We are far, here, from the emphasis on Mary's grief found in so many late
centrality of the body of Christ, its enfoldment within the lap of the Virgin, medieval Passion dramas, and in general we are far from the entire Marian
the presence of the angels "who wished to assume the human weight," and orientation oflate medieval piety.71 The reference to birthing, for example, is
finally the special role given to the Virgin. What binds them above all is the not simply a version of the sentimental tradition associated with pieta imagery,
emphasis they both place on engendering and amorous motifs, a tendency according to which the Virgin remembers having the Child in her lap. The
already signaled in Dante's use of the verbs seminareand accostarsíto describe motif insists, instead, on the more profoundly theological point of Christ's
the· spreading and reception of the Gospel. In both Colonna's and death as a source of regeneration. The drawing, like Colonna's text, is concen-
~chelang~lo 's works, these metaphors assumed a physical immediacy in trated on the mystery of redemption through Christ's sacrifice and locates it
di~ect relat10~ to th_e body of Christ. The series of studies that prepared in the stirring of a life force within the dead body. The implied descent t_o~b-
M1chelangelo s drawmg for Colonna are the closest imaginable visual ana- ward simultaneously releases a lifeward energy. Christ's downward-pomnng
logue to Colonna's passionate and highly erotic rhetoric: "That fire of love arms are answered by the Virgin's upward gesture, a movement that would
and torment • • • that had consumed and penetrated the intimate reaches of have continued, before the drawing was cropped, up the arms of the Y-shaped
her soul • • • was released through her eyes in more bitter tears, and through cross. This combination of downward and upward movement is
her mouth in more burning sighs."
Michelangelo's most consistent "figure" for the paradox of Christ's sacrifice:
The compact solution offered in the final drawing replaces the overt Where the historical blood of Christ's mortal body ran clown the cross, the
rhetoric of physical intimacy with more abstract metaphors of generation and "verse ofblood" - the ever-flowing wellspring of grace - runs up the cross.
fertility. Christ is nestled deep clown between the Virgin's legs, and the lower Colonna's letters to Michelangelo, studied above, reveal that for her such a
half of his body is submerged below ground. At a concrete and literal level drawing <loes not merely depict the mystery of the gift: It emb~dies and
such an arrangement effectively displays the heaviness of the dead body and enacts it, both through its unfathomable technique and through 1ts figural
-suggests its imminent interment. 66 At a "figural" level, however, Christ's inexhaustibility. Its meaning is not reducible to an objective doctrinal content
simultaneous embeddedness in the Virgin's body and in the earth combines a but arises through the viewer's experience of the configuration and energy of
metaphor of birthing with a metaphor of horticultura! growth. There is, in the drawing. And the viewer's receptivity to the drawing's delicate ambigui-
fact, very little emphasis placed on Christ's wounds or the deadness of the ties so far from merely being a path to understanding a mystery, is itself an
b~~y. Instead, the drawing throughout suggests an incipient stirring, a life- ins;ance of the mystery at work. When Colonna asserted that Michelangelo's
g1vmg energy that contrasts the deathward tendency. 67 The two "senses" in works move the viewer to new efforts of understanding ( "li effetti vostrí exci-
the drawing, deathward and lifeward, are simultaneous, inseparable, and mutu- tano a forza íl giuditio di chi li guarda"), she was not only makin~ an aesth_etic
ally reinforcipg. The womb, as Leo Steinberg has put it, is conjoined with the judgment. Rather, she was making an aesthetic judgment that, 1~ her rmnd,
tomb, an idea clearly expressed by Colonna when she said that the Virgin had carried theological implications. For Colonna, to be receptlve to the
made "of her nearly dead body a sepulchre in that hour." 68 Because Christ's hermeneutic challenge of this kind of art - an art, that is, conceived as a gift -
death is it~e~ the source of regeneration, the process of entombment, the gift is to engage in the very movements of faith, to open oneself as one <loes in
of dea_th,1s.ms,parabl_e from the renewing of life, the giving of birth. His receiving divine grace. It is to see that "all things are possible to those who
death 1s a birth, and h1s dead body ambiguously flickers with signs of life. As
believe:'
CULT AND CULTURE The overtness of the archaism is one signal of the fragility of the enterprise,
which was as short-lived as the culture for which it was made. Michelangelo's
In an illuminating study on books as gifts in the sixteenth century, Natalie drawing for Vittoria Colonna is one very clear instance of the optimism and
Zemon Davis studied the effect of the early modern book market on the hopes for reconciliation that mark this earlier, more fluid phase of reform in
medieval tradition that conceived of knowledge as a gift that cannot be sold. Italy - and it is, by the same token, also an expression of its conflicts. These
"Could such a cultural ideal," she asked, "survive the desacralising technology reformers proposed their brand of thoughtful piety as an antidote to the
of the printer's shop?"72 The problem was, for her, an instance of the larger abuses and superstitions that plagued the church, and as the basis of their hope
problem, raised by Mauss, of the decline of a premodern culture of gift to heal the Protestant schism. The proposition was full of weaknesses, as the
exchange with the rise of modern conceptions of private property. Davis history of their efforts, especially after the failed colloquy at Regensburg in
showed that although it succumbed to various pressures, the tradition of 1541, was to show. A majar weakness was that their attitudes were in the end
knowledge as a gift was powerful enough to ensure that the book continued that of a sophisticated elite, and were not clearly adaptable to a true program
to be treated, in various ways, as "a privileged object that resisted permanent of reform - a point repeatedly made by Delio Cantimori. 75As a group, they
appropriation." The book's status as a gift was reaffirmed especially forcefully, were united as much by their aesthetic and cultural tastes as by their religious
she noted, in Protestant circles. convictions, and this combination was the source of acute interna! conflicts.
Michelangelo's and Vittoria Colonna's preoccupation with the ethics and
aesthetics of the gift was part of a similar reaction. They, too, sought an alterna-
tive to the latter-day "economization" of religious devotion, to the prevailing
system of works, indulgences, and "endowments" in which art production had
become so centrally implicated. And their rejection of these "modern" abuses
likewise led to an emphasis on gift giving as a means of restoring originary and
thus purer religious values, a project of restoration and reformation bound up
with a distinct reassertion of aristocratic ideals. Their insight was to see that an
emerging conception of liberal art served their enterprise very well. In a form
of art that was free from the economy of works made on commission they saw
the possibility for a reformed religious image, and a privileged model for the
type of personalized religious experience they espoused. This circumstance
helps to explain why a work made to satisfy the most sophisticated artistic
tastes should be marked throughout by a conscious archaism.
The archaism is present in the adoption of the strictly frontal Christ
(stricter than in any of the preceding drawings), in the return to the
Engelpieta, and in the quote from Dante on the cross. It is there also in the Y-
shaped form of the cross, as it appeared befare the drawing was cropped. The
medieval associations of this form would be plain from the visual evidence
alone, but in this case Condivi explicitly states that the cross in the drawing
was based on the cross "which was carried in procession by the Bianchi at the
time of the plague of 1348, and afterwards placed in the church of Santa
Croce, at Florence."7 3 As it happens, Condivi's (and perhaps Michelangelo's)
historical knowledge was not entirely accurate: The Bianchi arase in the year
1399, and their crosses were not Y-shaped. 74The important point, however, is
that the reference to the medieval past was a considered one: The cross in the
drawing was adopted in imitation of a cross in Santa Croce (Michelangelo's
parish church), which Michelangelo associated with the history and peniten-
tial movements \,f the Tuscan Trecento.
SCULPTURE AS RELIC
CHAPTER SEVEN
This period produced other short-lived cultural experiments. Amed~o

Quondam has studied the efforts made at this time to f~und a new .~o~t~c
typology that would adapt the. for~ and la~guage of IYJ:1~po~try to sp1~1~
Sculpture as Relic tual" subjects. These efforts, which mclude G1rolamo Malip1ero s Petrarcaspm-
tuale (1536),Vittoria Colonna's Rime spirituali (1546), and Luca Contile's Ri~e
cristiane (ready for the press in 1546, but never printed), attempted to coordi-
nate two axes that one might see as vertical and horizontal: The vertical axis
of the Petrarchan tradition ( "íl codice lírico petrarchistico") and the horizontal
axis of the contemporary religious context ( "la questione religiosa del primo
Cinquecento").3 We saw a similar effort of coordination in the Colonna Pi~ta,
although there the axes are reversed: The dominant artistic tradition (vert1c~
axis) was the Christian cult image, which was here adapted to the aesthet1c
tastes of humanist culture (horizontal axis).
These experiments in poetic typology did not survive the Council of
Trent. Contile's own comments on his poems, written in 1560, revea! the
somewhat tortured effort required to explain them in a radically changed reli-
gious and cultural environment. 4 The open condemnations were, in turn, not
THE CONTROVERSY OVER !MACES AND THE PARAGONE
slow in coming. A text dating from the 1570s, entitled Avertimento sopra le rime
dell'Ariosto, del Bembo et del Sannazaro, offered a ruthless assault on the poetic
H oly Father, the College of Cardinals has no need of men who know how to
1 culture of the early part of the century. Most objectionable, in the author's
write sonnets." This was, reportedly, the reaction of Gian Pietro Carafa, the
view, was the mingling of the sacred and profane - the "deification" of the
future Pope Paul lV, to Pietro Bembo's assumption to the cardinalate in 1539.
Petrarchan Donna and the dubious introduction of Christian themes in the
In this one dry remark we have the lit fuse of a culture war. The marriage of
context of courtly love.5
elegance and piety celebrated by Giles of Viterbo, the consciously antique-
Already in the earlier period, tensions were palpably high. In the midst of
inspired atmosphere whipped up by Johannes Goritz around Sansovino's St.
the Viterbo circle no one felt the conflict more acutely than did Giberti's for-
Anne - in short, the festive convergence of religious authority and humanist
mer secretary Marcantanio Flaminio, who was a poet befare he was a religious
refinement that dominated papal culture in the early part of the century - was
no longer an obvious cultural mode after the Sack of Rome and the hardening author. A letter of 1540 from Francesco della Torre to Donato Rullo, both
friends of Flaminio and Reginald Pole, casts a sharp light on the repercussions
of the Protestant Schism. By the 1550s Ludovico Beccadelli, a survivor of the
of this conflict among Flaminio's readers:
earlier era who speIJ.t his last years avoiding the wrath of Pope Paul rv,had
transformed those early days into an object of intense nostalgia, and even of
I have received from him [Cardinal Pole] verses by Messer Marcantonio
formal artistic and literary commemoration. 2 In the 1530sand 1540s Pope Paul
[Flaminio], and when I have collected sorne others I will send you those as well,
III, himself a product of the earlier culture, attempted to adapt the earlier ideals
which in my judgment will satisfy you much more, since they are that much
to the new conditions by supporting the strain of humanist culture most
more lovely [vaght] and more beautiful [venusti] when they treat of matters that
closely allied with the spirit of religious reform. Severa! people afftliated with
are more capable ofloveliness [piu capad di vaghezza], far in truth in trying to treat
the Viterbo circle - people such as ]acopo Sadoleto, Pietro Bembo, these matters of religion in a lovely manner [vagamente]more often than not one
Marccantonio Flaminio, and Ludovico Beccadelli - were children of the earlier merely makes the sacred profane: and I believe it is a difficult thing to do it well,
culture who, with the support of Paul III, attempted to adapt humanist ideals and with dignity. These others are of pastoral and amorous subjects, but be careful
to more sharply reform-minded ends. The result was a highly refined spiritual- not to show them to certain Stoics who are scandalized by everything. 6
ity that made literary and artistic communication a model for religious experi-
ence - a spirituality well suited to the claims of Michelangelo's Pieta drawing The incompatibility appears to have become axiomatic also in the arena of
(see Figure 93). The work's status as a near unicum is the clearest mark of its the visual arts by this time. This is the clear impression given by a letter of
tenuous and reJealing historical position. 1541 by Nino Sernini, an agent of the Gonzaga, reporting on the initial recep-
188
MICHELANGELO AND THE REFORM OF ART SCULPTURE AS RELIC
rooms" - that is, in a secular environment - so that the effort and expense
would not be in vain. 8 Sickingen's cultivated and accommodating sense of
decorum was, of course, to become a point of doctrine for Calvin, for whom
ünages were inherently in contradiction to the tenets of the Christian reli-
gion. As a man oflearning, Calvin <lidnot condemn image making per se but
instead believed that it should be cultivated as an art, which he considered a
gift from God. The only "pure and legitimate use" of art, for Calvin, was thus
as a secular pursuit.9
The separation was never so sharply drawn in Italy, but as the letter of
Francesco della Torre quoted above clearly shows, there was a clear conscious-
ness of an emerging incompatibility, an uneasy awareness that "matters of reli-
94. Michelangelo,
LastJudgment.
gion" <lidnot so easily,or appropriately, lend themselves to elegant expression.
Fresco. Sistine When Federico Gonzaga, in 1524, asked Baldassare Castiglione to acquire a
Chapel, Vatican work by Sebastiano del Piombo, of any kind "so long as it is not about Saints,
City. Alinari/ Art
but sorne picture that is lovely and beautiful to look at [non síano cosedí sanctí,
Resource.
ma qualchepícture vagheet belleda vedere],"he was not merely stating an icono-
graphical preference. 10 The phrasing ( "ma") implies, quite clearly, ~hat reli-
gious images tend not to belong to the category of pictures that are lovely and
beautiful to look at. Without leaning too heavily on the phrasing, the main
thrust of Gonzaga's comment is clearly that secular subjects offer better
opportunities for the display of artistic excellence - that they are, in della
Torre's neat phrasing, ''píu capacidí vaghezza."
By Vasari's time the question had become a matter of open debate. In a pas-
sage that introduces his 1550 Life of Fra Angelico, Vasari clearly identified the
problem, referring to paintings made by "men of little belief," which "excite
dishonorable appetites and lascivious desires, so that the work is blamed for
what is disreputable, while praise is accorded to its artistic excellence."
Nonetheless, he held out the possibility that modern aesthetic ideals -
embodied above all in the beautiful human figure - could still serve the pur-
tion ofMichelangelo's Lastjudgment (Figure 94):"The work is of such beauty poses of religion. People should not, he said, be fooled into thinking that only
that your excellency can imagine that there is no lack of those who condemn an awkward, clumsy thing - "geffo et ínetto," terms he uses repeatedly to
it." For Sernini, as for most íntendentíof the period, "beauty" in visual art was describe medieval art - can be devout, and that modern paintings with more
embodied above all in the nude, and "(t)he very reverend Theatines are the beautiful figures must be more lascivious.
first to say that the nudes do not belong in such a place."7 In just. two decades By the second edition of 1568 circumstances had changed. The decree on
we have come a significant distance from the optimistic pronouncements on images was issued by the Council ofTrent in its closing session of 1563, and
the unity of beauty and religion, of elegance and piety, that pervaded the censorious interventions were undertaken on Michelangelo's LastJudgment in
writings of Giles ofViterbo and the poems of the Coryciana. 1565. Vasari's optimism, accordingly, grew more cautious, and in the second
The parting of the ways between art and religion acknowledged here was edition he surrounded his earlier plea for the unity of beauty and religion
already clearly recognized in the north, owing to the earlier and more violent with carefully worded caveats. In the same passage from the Life of Fra
impact of the Reformation. In 1522, for example, Martín Luther's protector Angelico Vasari now explained that he <lidnot want anyone to believe that he
Franz von Sickingen acknowledged that church images were all too often approved of "those figures in the churches that are painted practically nude,
appreciated for their "art and beauty" rather than for their religious signifi- because in them one sees that the painter has not had the appropriate respect
cance and sugg~~ted that they should be used instead as "ornaments in fine for the place." Fra Angelico was thus given a more motivated role within
191
Vasari'shistorical scheme, representing a pinnacle of Christian art between the closet Protestant to espouse this kind of anticlericalism: It had become fairly
artistic clumsiness of the "devout" Middle Ages and the religious indecorous- common by the rnid-sixteenth century, affording among other things a rich
ness of the nudes ofVasari's own day,fine and good work though it may be on mine of material for jokes. 18 A few of Michelangelo's jibes were, in fact,
artistic grounds. n recorded by Vasari.19
In incorporating a condemnation of the depiction of "practically nude" In de Hollanda's dialogue, Michelangelo's antidote to the sensual and emo-
figures in a church setting in the 1568 edition, Vasari was implicitly agreeing tional appeal of Flernish art was an intellectual art that arouses a noble, high-
with the critics of Michelangelo 's LAstJudgment, even if his description of the rninded piety. There is nothing more "noble and devout" than Italian painting
fresco itself remained unchanged. He had indeed come around to a position at its best, he said, "for with wise persons (nos discretos)nothing causes devo-
close to that which Pietro Aretino had adopted two decades earlier in his tion to be remembered, or to arise, more than the difficulty of the perfection
attack on Michelangelo's fresco. In his public letter of 1545, Aretino ques- which unites itself with and joins God." 20 The dispersiveness of Flernish
tioned not Michelangelo's artistic genius but his judgment. His nude figures painting, in this view, bespeaks a narrow, subjective bias, for its effects invite
were, Aretino claimed, more appropriate to a loggia than to the central chapel the viewer's curious, roarning gaze and excite her or his emotions. Such an
of Christendom. Beyond condemning the display of nudity, Aretino also con- individualist orientation was most eloquently described by Aby Warburg, for
demned the obscurity and intellectual difficulty of Michelangelo's art, which whom it was epitornized in the donor portraits so often found in this forro of
he also felt to be inappropriate to a religious work. With an opportunist's painting, and it was those same donor portraits that Michelangelo, from what
unerring sense for the shifting ideological winds, Aretino already in 1545 set we can gather, particularly disdained. 21 The more high-rninded art, by con-
out the fundamental points to be developed in the Counter-Reformation trast, puts the viewer in touch with noble, suprapersonal ideas, which "intel-
polernic on images: that what is good for art (the depiction of the nude, the lect only can appreciate, and with great difficulty."22
pursuit of dljficulta)is not necessarily good for religion and thus that it is nec- Other sources corroborate the ascription of these views to Michelangelo
essary to observe a sense of appropriateness to place, or decorum. 12 and indicate further that for him the difference between the two kinds of
Michelangelo also had things to say about art and religion, and sorne of the painting was not so much a difference of nationality as of mode and tech-
most significant comments attributed to him date from the period of the l..Ast nique, a difference embodied in the difference between oíl painting and fresco
Judgment. The most famous appear in Francisco de Hollanda's Dialogueson painting. Michelangelo had occasion to express his opinions on the matter
Painting,which was purportedly based on conversations that took place in with characteristic harshness, for it was at the heart of his break with
1538.13 In a famous ·passage, Michelangelo condemned Flernish painting for Sebastiano del Piombo at the beginning of work on the l..AstJudgment.Vasari
appealing to women, "especially very old ones, or very young ones;' and also wrote that Sebastiano had wanted Michelangelo to paint the fresco in oíl and
to "friars and nuns and also sorne noble persons who have no ear for true har- had prepared the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel accordingly. This incensed
mony." 14 These comments are not just part of an aesthetic debate. The Michelangelo, who removed Sebastiano's preparations, applied a proper arric-
Dialoguestake place at the church of San Sílvestro al Quirinale, after sermons cio, and proceeded to pour abuse on Sebastiano, calling oíl painting a
by "Fra Ambrogio" (Ambrogio Catarino Politi, the author of an extended cri- "woman's art" (arteda donna).2 3 Michelangelo's criticisms of Flernish painting
tique of the Benefi,ciodi Cristo,latera harsh critic of the l..AstJudgment),and in were in fact part of a disdain for oíl painting in general - quite logically, as oíl
the company of Vittoria Colonna. These circumstances strongly encourage us painting encourages and allows for the description of "the grass of the fields,
to read them in the context of the concerns over reform that mark the the shadows of trees, and bridges and rivers" 2 4 in a way that buonfrescodoes
period. 15 The absence of an intellectual basis in Flernish painting is directly not. Indeed, there was a good deal of this kind of oíl painting being produced
linked to a form of sentimental piety that Michelangelo particularly dis- on Italian soíl by the 1530s.Michelangelo very likely got to see sorne prime
dained. This was the piety of the women who, in the words of Girolamo examples of it - by Giovanni Bellini and Titian, among others - in 1529 dur-
Savonarola (discussed in chapter 1), "want to cry with the Virgin" and who in ing his visits with Alfonso d'Este in Ferrara.
their sentimentalism reveal their blindness to a proper theological understand- Within panel painting, Michelangelo rnight well have exempted tempera
ing of the necessity of Christ's sacrifice within the Christian scheme of painting from censure, and for related reasons. For this the evidence comes, as
redemption. 16 It is a forro of piety that leads to superstition and gullibílity, it were, intrapictorially in the Doni Tondo,where it is no surprise to find an
and, in the humanist tradition from Lorenzo Valla to Erasmus, was associated implicit polernic given that it was, among other things, a conscious response
with the corrupt and hypocritical practices of the "religiosi," the "friars and to Leonardo da Vinci (Figure 95). Recent analysis has shown that in this panel
nuns" deride~ by de Hollanda's Michelangelo. r7 One did not have to be a Michelangelo used the oíl technique but applied it in a tempera-like way.2 5
193
MlCHELANGELO AND THE REFORM OF ART SCULPTURE AS RELIC
a wholesale retreat to the art of fresco, from whose scaffoldings he could shout
e
"il colorirea olio arte da donna!"The blandishments of the easel painters, associ-
ated with a soft and woolly-headed feminine piety, now stood in the starkest
contrast to the masculine and high-minded virtu of buonfresco, whose consum-
mate example he was about to offer in his depiction of the end of the world.
It is not my intention here to give a comprehensive account of the Last
Judgment. I only want to make the point that, as an effort to prove that mod-
ern artistic excellence was (still) congruent with art's Christian purpose, it was
a colossal failure. Rather than being unveiled to universal celebration in 1541,
95. Michelangelo, the fresco immediately became a matter of debate. As noted above, one of the
Doni Madonna. very first eyewitness reports of the unveiling noted that "[t]he work is of such
Panel. Uffizi,
beauty that ... there is no lack of those who condemn it."What should have
Florence, Italy.
Alinari/ Art been a timeless vision of the end of human history became instead a touch-
Resource. stone of early modern debates on the question of cultural contingency.
The idea that the Last Judgment not only depicts but itself marks an
"epochal" turning point informs the earliest written responses to the fresco.
For Vasari, it was a summa of Michelangelo's art and thus served as a consum-
mation of the entire historical scheme of the Lives - a role that was especially
clear in the first edition of 1550, which concluded with the description of the
fresco. Aretino had also acknowledged its consummate artistic excellence but
added the damning and fateful caveat that these artistic ambitions were not
necessarily appropriate to a Christian chapel. 28 Aretino's distinction became
the keynote of a wave of Counter-Reformation criticism. The Dominican
Ambrogio Catarino (who makes an appearance in Hollanda's Dialogues)
declared: "I commend the art used in the matter, but I vehemently vituperate
and detest the matter itself. For this nudity of limbs appears most indecent on
The result is a highly sculptural treatment of the figures, amounting to a pic- altars and in the most important of God's chapels." 29 For Giovanni Andrea
torial manifesto of a partí pris. Ali of these indications suggest that Gilio, Michelangelo was at the head of those modern painters who "twist the
Michelangelo's true enemy was not Flemish art per se but the mode of oil purity of the subject to satisfy the charms of art." Gilio perceived this as a cul-
painting that was developed there and that was so enthusiastically received in tural crisis and put it in clear historical perspective. He saw these excesses as
late fifteenth-century Italy. In Florence, this taste was satisfied above all by the modern abuses that needed to be stripped away in order to restare religious
workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio, which produced Leonardo and Pietro art to its "first purity." He was among the first to offer a sustained modern
26
Perugino, and in northern Italy by the circle of Francesco Francia and appreciation of medieval art, to which he was drawn by his conviction that
Lorenzo Costa, and later the circle of Giorgione, which of course produced "the painters befare Michelangelo attended more closely to truth and to
Sebastiano.
devotion than to pomp."3° By the end of the century, not even Michelangelo's
We perhaps get a direct whiff of this disdain, shortly after the painting of the supporters could discuss the fresco without qualification, defensiveness, or
Doni Tondo, in Michelangelo 's extraordinarily abusive treatrnent of Francia in outright irony.31
Bologna in 1506, as recounted byVasari in the first edition:"You and Costa can In sum, Aretino's criticism prevailed, a victory sealed by the irreversible
go fuck off, because you are both royal fools in art. [¼! a bordello tu e'l Cossa addition of patches of clothing to the figures, carried out in the 1560s by
[sic], che siete due solennissimi geffi nell'arte]."2 7 By 1530, however, Michelangelo Daniele da Volterra. Less often noticed is that Michelangelo anticipated his
had to concede that the soft and pleasant oil painting manner, whether of the defeat. It has been shown that Michelangelo included a rather gruesome self-
Giorgione-Titian persuasion or of the Leonardo-Raphael variety, had won portrait in the skin of St. Bartholomew, and it is also generally agreed that the
the <layin the\arena of the easel picture, and this meant that he was forced into saint bears the features of Aretino (Figure 96). It is reasonable to assume that
195
abnegation, quite literally a deflation of the ideal body. In _many w~ys the fig-
ure seems a conscious reversion to what, from the pomt of v1ew of the
period, would have been considered medieval artless~~ss. ~ we hav~ seen,
Giovanni Andrea Gilio admitted that "to modern eyes medieval cult 1mages
"look vile, awkward, lowly, old, humble, without skill or art" and that they are
characterized by a rude frontality or prosopopea- all qualities that, in his view,
bespoke their authentic piety.32
Michelangelo's self-portrait, indeed, bears comparison with certain earlier
Man of Sorrows images. As we have seen, Michelangelo was fascinated with
the figure of the Man of Sorrows throughout his life and perceived it as a vital
96. Michelangelo, link to the tradition of the Christian cult image. Like Michelangelo's self-por-
l.AstJudgment, detail trait, Meister Francke's Man of Sorrows(Figure 97) is thin and fragile, a pathetic
efse!f-portrait. victim of physical mortification. It is difficult to imagine a starker contrast to
Sistine Chapel,
Vatican City. Michelangelo's normative style of hernie figures than the invertebrate form of
Alinari/ Art this weak and vulnerable Christ. Michelangelo 's self-portrait, however, is the
Res ource.
obvious, glaring exception.
But there is a crucial difference even between Michelangelo's self-portrait
and Meister Francke's Man of Sorrows.One affirms and the other denies. One
belongs to tradition and the other howls over the loss of tradition. Meister
Francke's Man of Sorrowsis pathetic but also beautiful and triumphant. We see
his wounded, mortal flesh already clothed with the new, pristine skin of divin-
ity, figured as a white mantle. Here Christ's suffering is paradoxically the
source of his efficacy, and he himself displays his wounds, which are the guar-
antors ofhis redemptive virtue. In Michelangelo's work, the paradoxical unity
of the Christian cult image is lost:
We have, in the rest of the fresco,
beautiful figures that contempo-
raries deemed to be of dubious
Michelangelo, even befare finishing the fresco, had advance notice that he was Christian relevance, and, in the self-
going to be flayed alive by Aretino. He thus shows Aretino/Bartholomew portrait, a Christian and penitential
holding the knife in one hand and in the other, the skinned self-portrait, pre- gesture that takes the form of the
cariously hanging over the boat of Caron. The fact that it is Aretino who wretched abnegation of all beauty
holds the skin has not been sufficiently incorporated into readings of the self- and artistry. In contrast to the care- 97. Meister
portrait. In my view, it strongly encourages us to understand the self-portrait ful contours of the other figures, Francke, Man ef
in relation to the polernic brewing around the fresco and as a kind of antici- Sorrows.Kunsthalle,
this figure is made up of violent, Hamburg,
pated response to Aretino's critiques. But what kind of response is it? slashing, formless strokes that clearly Germany.
Michelangelo's skin is the antithesis of all the other figures in the painting. leave the mark of the brush: It is,
The other figures, endowed with strong, athletic bodies, twist and turn in paradoxically, an act of iconoclasm
complex contrapposti. Michelangelo's figure, by contrast, is emphatically flat assurning figura! form. 33
and frontal: the front limbs hang directly in front of the "hind" limbs. The Embedded in the triumphant
other figures are nude, whereas Michelangelo's figure is, as it were, only cloth- claims of the work as a whole,
ing. The other figures in the fresco embody the highest achievements of art, as therefore, is a brooding adrnission of
was often proqlaimed at the time. This flat, hanging skin represents, instead, an failure. In the abject self-portrait we
197
have a moment of ironic admission, an acknowledgment that perhaps Aretino their conception of faith - the idea that art is made "liberally" and not plied as
(and other like-minded critics) would be right to condemn his work, that in a trade, that it results from a process of free invention, that it presents as yet
the end real piety might indeed mean abandoning high artistic ambition. It unrealized ideas and thus makes special hermeneutic demands on its viewer -
was a theme that was to crop up quite regularly in Michelangelo's late poems, these were to become the basis of a secular conception of art whose primary
most famously, perhaps, in one written in the 1550s: locus was to be the cabinet and the picture gallery. Likewise, the notion of art
as a gift, so far from providing the basis for a reformation and preservation of
Onde l' qffettüosafantasía
che l'arte mífece ido[e monarca religious ideals, became the basis for an even more radical marketing of art as
conoscoor ben com'erad'errorcarca a commodity:The claim of the art work's autonomy and disinterestedness was
e que!c'a mal suogradoogn'uomdesia. in effect the cornerstone of a truly free art market, one no longer grounded in
the premodern system of art made on commission. The idea that this concep-
[So the affectionate fantasy tion of art could form the basis of a "reformed" religious image was a short-
that made art an idol and sovereign to me lived dream.
I now clearly see was laden with error, After the retreat from panel painting to fresco, and from painting to draw-
like all things men want in spite of their best interests.]34 ing, in the final phase of Michelangelo's engagement with the theme of the
Man of Sorrows we see a full retreat into sculpture. If the economy of draw-
Whether or not the Pieta for Vittoria Colonna (see Figure 93) was made ing was a means of chastening the religious image, the structural laws of mar-
before the LAst]udgment was fully completed (the convencional date of 1540-42 ble statuary provided an even stronger built-in ascetic principle. The turn to
would put it just at the end of work on the fresco), it can be understood as an sculpture was also an archaizing gesture, since it represented a return to a
effort to respond to sorne of these conflicts. It was a stripped clown, less hubris- mode of cult statuary that historically preceded the ascendancy of easel paint-
tic effort to salvage the union between aesthetic and religious ideals. Rather ing. According to Vasari, Lorenzo de' Medici's regret over the decline of sculp-
than attempting to join modern aesthetic ideals with a tradition of monumen- ture in relation to painting was his main motivation in establishing his
tal public art, the Pieta for Vittoria Colonna worked more comfortably within a sculpture garden/academy.3 6 If this is true, then Michelangelo's very training
new, more private category - the presentation drawing - that was in line with in the San Marco garden unfolded within an archaizing cultural program
contemporary developments both in religious and aesthetic attitudes. designed to revive sculpture's former doininance. By the end of his life
Michelangelo had initially used the presentation drawing for the exploration of Michelangelo associated this former doininance explicitly with an earlier
sometimes obscure, largely pagan subjects, often with strongly erotic associa- period of a purer and more pious Christian art. Free-standing marble statuary
tions. In the Colonna Pieta he attempted to make this most modern of artistic had become for him the last outpost of the Christian image.
arenas the site of a new kind of religious image, to forge a new link between The idea that sculpture has more "integrity;' in every sense of the word,
artistic and divine grazia - "a difficult thing to do ... well, and with dignity," as and the idea that it bears a stronger relationship to tradition were leitmotifs of
della Torre said. The old cult image was thus in a sense preserved, but in arar- the debate on the comparison of the arts, known as the paragone,a debate to
efied and attenuated form, one that offered an introversion of the image's tradi- which Michelangelo contributed in his response to the forum on the subject
cional public function and address. The Man of Sorrows, one of the most organized by Benedetto Varchi in 1547. Michelangelo's late sculptures demand
heavily indulgenced cult irnages of the Middle Ages, was reinvented as a work that we set the paragonedispute, which has most often been treated as an aes-
of art and thus accommodated to the tastes and religious inclinations of thetic and acadeinic question, into the wider context of the concerns over
Vittoria Colonna and her circle. The drawing can be understood, in this sense, reform that mark the period as a whole - an approach that seems especially
as a tradition of religious art reduced to a purified and refined form. It is as if justified given the fact that Benedetto Varchi himself was associated with
only in this vestigial form - where the monochrome and inherent economy of "spiritual" circles at this time.37 The characteristics routinely attributed to
drawing constitute an ascetic virtue - could the two-dimensional image be sculpture - that it lasts longer, that it has greater public utility, that it is onto-
"safe" from the secularizing/paganizing tendencies of modern painting and logically more "grounded," even that it requires harder work- all have special
could contiime to serve as a viable purveyor ofreligious values.35
resonance in the Inidst of the debates surrounding religious art at this time.
This, too, was a dead end. The conception of the drawing as a work of art Perhaps the most-often repeated argument in favor of sculpture was that
was inherited by the modern collector, not the religious reformer. The artistic it stands the test of time better than painting. Whereas few paintings survive
claims that Michelangelo and Colonna upheld and made into a model for from antiquity, many works of sculpture have come clown through history.
\
199
This is an inherent virtue but also a question of utility, for, in Baldassare front of his work," a contrast that remained standard even in comparisons that
Casti~lione's words, "being made to preserve memory, sculptures fulfill this were less hostil e to sculpture. 44
funct10n better_ than painting."3 8 The relation between endurance and utility For many Renaissance commentators all of this was to the greater glory ~f
also comes up m the letter of Agnolo Bronzino to Varchi, where he reports painting, but in a Counter-Reformation climate it was also cause ~or susp1-
the sculptors' argument that sculpture is a magnificent adomment for cities cion. Did not Aretino make the point - to be frequently repeated m subse-
"because it serves to make colossi and statues . . . that honor illustriou~ quent decades - that Michelangelo had put art and beauty before re~gion in
men, and adom the land." Sculptures also play an architectural function his Last]udgment?The theologian GiovanniAndrea Gilio wrote an ent1re tre~-
"since one can use its figures for architectural support instead of columns 0 ; tise, published in 1564, devoted to exposing the breach between tre~ds m
corbels, or for water spouts on fountains, for tombs, or for an infinite num- modem painting and the purposes and traditions of religious art. He <lid not
ber of other things one comes across all the time." With painting, on the doubt that modem painters, following the example of Michelangelo, were
other hand, "one can only make fictitious things of no utility other than pursuing the highest goals of art. He merely qu:stioned whether the
pleasure." 39Sculpture's durability, on the other hand, gives it a civic function "vaghezza dell'arte11 cultivated in his <laywas appropnate to the pur~oses of
and makes it an appropriate omament for enduring institutions such as religious images. The "simple truth" of a wooden cross, he argued, 1s ~~re
buildings and tombs. ' conducive to religious devotion than the "richness and ornament, th~ nob~ty
The point about sculpture's utility is in fact connected to the more abstract of the matter, and the excellence of the artist" that ask to be apprec1ated m a
point, also often repeated, concerning sculpture's objecthood. Leonardo da work of modern art.45 His quite modern solution was to opt for a "regolata
Vinci was the first clearly to articulate the point that painting includes more mescolanza," a conscious and regulated compromise between the unreligious
" com~etences "th a~ _scu1pture. Where nature "aids" the work of the sculptor, beauties of modern painting and the pious rudeness of earlier art. Such a
supplymg the condit1ons oflighting and color, painters must supply these and reform of art, he realized, cannot be carried out without subjecting art to
all other conditions, such as viewing distance, through their own artifice. 40 rules and controls, and he recognized that this would be a novelty in itself, for
Bronzino followed Leonardo in rejecting the sculptor's claim to a more faith- "we do not have any rule or law, except what the custom of painters (la con-
ful imitation ~f na~ure: ~eca~se t~ey "take over the object that was already •
suetudine de' píttori) before Michelange 1o h as demonstrate d". 46
made three-dimens1onal the1r achievement is attributable to nature whereas Peo ple with similar concerns could have different .vi~':s. about
painters' achievements are due entirely to their art.41 By the same tok~n, how- Michelangelo. Writing in 1571,the Florentine Francesco Bocchi cnt1e1zed the
~ver, sculpture's existence in the world makes it more suitable to public func- excessive affectation of painters, whose works revea! "troppadíligenza" and "í
t1on~:.Com~leted by the world around it, it is part of the city fabric and troppí ísquísití ornamentí." Unlike Gilio, however, he found a great alternative
part1e1patesm the arena of public life. in the works of Michelangelo, which are not "involved in ornaments" but
. The greater self-sufficiency and universality of painting, which "includes rather display "gravity of design, profound intelligence, and sage awareness
within itself all things," was instead an inducement to private delectation. This [gravitadí disegno,profondaintellígenza,e savia avvíso]."47 His primary counterex-
':ªs a favorite theme of the defenders of painting, and is developed in the sec- ample to the decadence of modern art, however, ':ªs Donatell_o,on whose St.
t1ons devoted to the paragonein Castiglione's Courtieras well as in Paolo Pino's Georgehe lavished the longest single-work analys1s so far :ritte~ b~ any art
Dialogue on Painting.42 And yet, as David Summers has stressed these critic. There he found "semplíce ragíone,senza ornamento as mev1table as
~enaissance celebrations in fact overturned a long-standing tradition.' reach- Brunelles_chi's "simple and natural" solution for the cupola of the Duomo,
mg back ~hrough Alain de Lille, Isidore of Seville, and St. Augustine to Plato, about ~hich it is impossible to say whether one admires the strength or the
that assoc1~ted the fictitious nature of painting with sophistry and deceptive- beauty, because they are so inextricably conjoined. The criticism of_conte~-
ness. The licence of the painter, which produces delectation in the viewer is
an unreliable guide to truth and is downright dangerous in the illustration 'of
scripture. 43 Bronzino himself declared, as we saw above, that painters "can
only make ,fictitious things of no utility other than pleasure."The association
l porary painting was once again bound up with a distinctly retrospe~tive sens1-
bility, here combined with a developed appreciation of the e~dunng nature
and public function of sculpture. Bocchi's concern was not w1t~ _the refor~
of religious art per se - his concerns were primarily moral and c~v~c. - bu~ his
of painting' with pleasure bears a relation to another major paragonetheme, criticisms and his tastes were in line with a reform-minded sens1bility. G1ven
also first developed at length by Leonardo, that compares the hard labor of the implications of the paragone debate in the context o~ Counter-
sculpture with the_ease of painting. Leonardo famously contrasted the dirty, Reformation critiques of painting, it was but a short step to see m sculpture
sweaty sculpt°{ with the well-dressed, gentlemanly painter "at great ease in the path to a reformed religious art.
200 201
THE FLORENCE PIETÁ AND THE INTEGRITY OF SCULPTURE
So far from simply ignoring or rejecting the lessons of painting, the very project
of the late sculptures was determined by an effort to address the challenges set
by painting to sculpture. HenryThode once made the observation that even the
effect of the unfinished in the late sculptures, like the unclear outlines of the late
drawings, showed a final opening of the plastic realm to the world of pictorial
effects.48 But it was above all the pictorial preoccupation with narrative that
affected the nature of the late Pietas. In the London Entombment Michelangelo
had adapted sorne of the most sophisticated devices of pictorial storytelling to 98. Michelangelo,
Pietil.Marble.
the demands of altar painting. It was precisely the elaboration of such devices Museo del Opera
that, in Italy, had spelled the victory of painting over sculpture on the Christian del Duorno,
altar. The late Pieta sculptures, like the drawings studied in chapter 5, incorpo- Florence, Italy.
rate many of these ambitions: They were shaped and conceived by a continua!
and searching dialogue with the episodes of the Passion. In the drawings we saw
Michelangelo intensively exploring the physical relationships "motivated" by
the events of Christ's deposition, lamentation, and entombment and from these,
attempting to draw a figural formula concentrated on the front-facing figure of
Christ - an investigation whose theological motivations are clearly expressed in
Vittoria Colonna's writings on the Passion. From the London Entombment (see
Figure 6), or the highly narrative conception for the Depositíonin the Haarlem
drawing (see Figure 90), Michelangelo developed ideas for more condensed
groups. The process tended, inevitably, to lead away from scenic narrative
description, yielding, for example, the concentrated solution of the Pieta for Henry Thode, this was not just a failure of Michelangelo's art but instead the
Vittoria Colonna. The narrative composition, once surpassed, was left to his fol- swan song of Christian sculpture at the beginning of the modern age. "The art of
lowers to study, copy, and develop. The Colonna Píeta, for example, had a more Michelangelo;' he said,"is the last act in the tragedy of Christian sculpture."50 It is
elaborate narrative cousin, preserved in a miniature by Giulio Clovio in the Pitti not my purpose in this study to pronounce objectively on epochal endings. I am
Gallery that was engraved by Diana Scultori. 49 more interested in showing that the sense of an ending itself shaped the concep-
From the Florence Pieta (Figure 98) forward, these investigátions became tion and making of the late Píetas.
efforts to extract figural formulas that could, as it were, be submitted to the con- To view them in this way is to acknowledge their strangeness, beginning
ditions of sculpture. It is as if for Michelangelo the laws of sculpture provided an with the fundamental irony that these are the most private of works carried out
inherent test of the image's efficacity and viability - a test of integrity in every in the most public of media, monumental rnarble sculpture. These works
sense. Sculpture stipulated the reduction of movement and pathos to an essential occupy an even more private realm than the drawing for Colonna, whose func-
meaningful form. As Irving Lavin has pointed out, the Florence Pieta was to be tion as a gift at least contained an interpersonal dimension. But whereas the
the first multifigure group carved from a single stone and was thus conceived as a I
personal address of the Colonna Pieta was suited to the nature and claims of the
direct challenge to Pliny's claims for the Laocoon.The Laocoon,as Michelangelo new category of the presentation drawing, here an even more private statement
knew, was in fact carved from various pieces, and in making good on the claim is made in the language of public art, and that extreme misrnatching is the root
to integrity, Michelangelo's Pietawas to surpass the antique, providing a Christian cause of the conflict that critics have so often recognized in these works. This
response to \:he ideals of antique sculpture. The dramatic language of pathos for- sense of conflict is not very profitably studied psychobiographically as an
mulas inherited from the antique and developed in Renaissance art was to be expression of Michelangelo's inner anxiety - not because he <lid not have any
castigated, reduced to lasting form, given religious efficacity. In the end, the effort but because such an inquiry is a fruitless speculative enterprise. It is, however,
broke down under the strain: The Florence Píeta ended in a violent act of possible to point to a structural, objective tension, a conflict between a work
destruction, th~ Rondanini Pieta in a terminal process of consumption. For
1 and its genre, that can be studied in historical terms.
202 203
The Florence Píeta (see Figure 98) was begun circa 1547-1548 and was, the leg resting on the shoulder of the figure below, derives from the group
according to Vasari, in tended for Michelangelo 's tomb in Santa Maria sketched at the upper left of the Haarlem sheet.
Maggiore.51 The conception is significantly more dynamic than that of the I have argued elsewhere that the extreme scholarly uncertainty over the dat-
Colonna Píeta, made not long before. The strict symmetry of the latter is ing of the Oxford sheet (see Figure 99) - proposals range from the 15ros to the
replaced by an oblique arrangement, articulated by a dramatic crossing of 1550s- derives in part from the fact that the drawing is physically a palimpsest,
limbs. A somewhat perplexing sheet in Oxford, showing Christ being low- drawn not only in different techniques but at different times.54The central three
ered to the ground with great effort by at least six figures (Figure 99), docu- figures, as Parker affirmed, have been worked over in a darker red chalk and
ments the transition (or return) to the more narrative conception.52 It reveals with a technique of denser modeling. Robinson remarked that the execution is
that this shift involved a return, once again, to the Haarlem drawing of the unequal, and Frey noted "einfremdartigesElement in der Behandlung."55 The parts
Deposition (see Figure 90), produced roughly twenty years earlier. The Oxford of the drawing that were not worked over, the more lightly sketched marginal
sheet develops the two marginal sketches on the Haarlem sheet, themselves figures, show the drawing's original state. If one isolates those figures, it becomes
alternative solutions to the central composition: Christ's contorted pose on clear that they are drawn in exactly the mode of the drawings made in the early
the Oxford sheet, especially the upper body, corresponds quite closely, in 1530sin the wake of the Haarlem sheet (studied in chapter 5). They resemble in
reverse, to that of the Christ sketched just to the right of the arm of the cross their frenetic energy above all the figures of the Vienna sheet (see Figure 92). If
on the Haarlem sheet, 53 the lower part of the figure, in particular the motif of the Vienna and Louvre sheets (see Figure 91) discussed above developed the
ground-based group around the dead Christ (derived originally from the group
,: J ---,,-¡:-.....-·--.-- -·--·· ii"' ,..,. - around the fainting Virgin in the Haarlem Deposition, Figure 90), this sheet
""" .,_ L, •.. ~ explored the motifs of the deposition proper, bringing together precisely those
..,.
sketches thrown off at the margins of the Haarlem sheet. The figures that have
been worked over are, by contrast, in the figura! style of the Pauline chapel fres-
coes of the 1540s.The drawing thus shows Michelangelo, in the aftermath of
the Colonna Pieta, going back into his file of narrative drawings deriving from
the Haarlem Deposition.This dramatic energy was then, once again, reduced to a
sculptural formula in the Florence Pieta.
In the Oxford sheet (see Figure 99) Christ is still off the ground and thus
requires the attentions of many figures. As in the Vienna sheet discussed earlier
(see Figure 92), the figure of Christ appears animated in the contact with the fig-
ures, and the figures press against Christ with a passionate, even erotic energy that
99. Michelangelo,
Deposition. exceeds the merely mechanical act of lowering Christ from the cross. In strictly
Drawing. Oxford, narrative terms it is in fact unclear what they are doing with the body, other than
Ashmolean tenderly and passionately propping it into a quasi-standing posture - a posture
Museum.
not unlike that shown in the Vienna drawing (see Figure 92). Christ's right foot is
about to touch ground and his upper body is being pushed into an upright pos-
ture. Again, the activity produced by the narrative situation is transformed into
an enthusiastic and cultic participation, focused on preserving and celebrating the
majesty of the dead Christ. In adapting this idea to a freestanding sculptural
group in the Florence Pieta (see Figure 98), Michelangelo brought the figure to
the ground and reduced the number of figures. In the process, the raging temper
of the drawing has been modulated to a slow-burning intensity.
In the Pieta for Vittoria Colonna, we saw the twisted configuration of the
J'
1 Louvre sheet (see Figure 91) resolved into almost geometric regularity, and the
passionate rhetoric of amorous and maternal love transformed into more
( abstract metaphors of fertility and birthing. I argued in the last chapter that
,
'1
¡
t 205
T
1
1
SCULPTURE AS RELIC
these severe restrictions, together

with the use of the monochrome
and abbreviated medium of drawing,
produced a chastened and reformed
cult irnage in a highly modern form.
Sculpture, however, carne with its
own inherent restrictions, and this
meant that the restraints did not need
to be self-imposed. Michelangelo 101. Michelangelo,
could reintroduce the pathos formu- Pieta, back view.

100. Michelangelo, Marble. Museo del
las and then push them to the very
Pieta, side view. Opera del Duomo,
Marble. Museo del limits that sculpture would organi- Florence, Italy.
Opera del Duomo, cally allow. Rather than placing
Florence, Italy. Christ entirely between the knees of
the Virgin, a strictly frontal orienta-
tion that recapitulates the conditions
of the two-dimensional image,
Michelangelo attempted a more
dynamic and oblique conception
that articulates the possibilities of
sculpture in the round.
In the Florence Pieta (Figure 98),
the Virgin supports Christ's torso the Virgin, that divine grace is transmitted to humankind. The gift of redemption
from behind and yet he is seated on made possible by Christ's incarnation reaches humankind through the passionate
her lap, and this means that Christ's love released in his sacrifice. As we saw in Colonna's account, the figure most
shoulders turn in one direction and his hips in the other - a helix formation directly consumed in this passionate fire is the Virgin. Like Christ, she doses her
continued in the zigzag of the right leg. The center line <loesnot run clown eyes and, with an ecstatic expression on her face,joins her head to his. The "ben-
the valley in the middle of Christ's torso, as it <loes in the strictly frontal efits" of this union, its transmission to larger humanity, are manifested on the
arrangement of the Colonna Pieta, but is instead a protruberance, a sharp other side of the group, where Christ semiwillfully embraces the figure of the
ridge formed by the meeting of the two "edges" of the helix, the pronated left Magdalene, the symbol ofhuman love, as she looks out at us.57
arm and the inward bent right knee. The twisted posture multiplies the points The multisided communication of love has forced Christ's body into a con-
of contact with the Virgin, allowing Christ to sit on her lap and at the same torted and splayed posture and, as a result, into a three-dimensional testing of the
time to join his head to hers. This is not merely a piece of formal virtuosity lirnits of the sculptural block. The view from the side (Figure 100) shows that the
but rather an effort at semantic and theological enfoldment: The pose allows protruding arm and knee extend to the very front lirnit of the original marble
Christ to be both on her and next to her, both son and spouse. The two roles block. Likewise the right arm and leg test the left edge, and the left leg originally
are expressed emblematically in the two legs: One falls between the Virgin's met the right edge. The containing power of the block is, as it were, embodied in
knees, and the other (now missing) was slung over the Virgin's thigh. Leo the figure of Nicodemus, who towers above and behind the figures. Seen from
Steinberg has shown that the one position carries associations with birthing behind the figure is a sheer face of marble; there is no differentiating the figure
or "issuancei' and the other with erotic love.56 and the monolithic mass of the stone (Figure 101). The figure, as it were, trans-
To have both of these associationsin one work reinforces the essential theo- lates the material integrity of the block into the rhetoric of dramatic action:With
logical argument of the work, which is still grounded in the understanding of the one hand he holds Christ's right arm, the arm that embraces the Magdalene, and
Passion promoted by Vittoria Colonna: that it is through the intimate and ani- with the other he presses the Virgin against Christ, his entire massive form lean-
mating contact ~f the dead body of Christ with his mourners, and above all with ing forward in an effort to sustain and preserve their union. Nicodemus' role in
206 207
the group is at once humble and privileged: He labors at one remove from the from the antique and developed in Renaissance art. In a very straightfor-
central action and yet he helps to consummate the ecstatic,grace-giving contact ward sense, the frontal orientation of the Man of Sorrows was in inherent
between Christ and the Virgin, and he aids in its communication to larger conflict with the bodily contact demanded by these gestures of"passionate"
humanity by supporting Christ's embrace of the Magdalene. love. The frontal orientation mattered a great deal to him, as is evident from
As has long been recognized, the figure is a self-portrait, a natural identifi- his persistent efforts to preserve it in the face of the enormous awkwardness
cation given the legend that Nicodemus himself was a sculptor.58 Other and difficulty it caused him. The twisted, splayed, and yet beautiful figure of
Renaissance sculptors had, for similar reasons, portrayed themselves as Christ in the Florence Pieta - testing and prodding the very limits of the
Nicodemus in their works.59 But Michelangelo was doing more than apply- block - was Michelangelo 's virtuosic and ultimately frustr-ated effort to
ing his features to a patron Saint. The very work that this figure is doing in resolve the problem. The work was intended for his own tomb and was
the group symbolizes the labor of the sculptor and embodies the material clearly in tended as a final testament to the unity of his art and his piety. But
virtue of the stone. The mountainous figure of Nicodemus-Michelangelo it was a unity strenuously achieved, and after eight years of struggling with it
physically holds the group together, epitomizing the efforts of the artist to Michelangelo concluded that a crude iconoclasm was preferable to - and
craft and sustain a meaningful union among his figures - a union that, in spiritually less dangerous than - a strained and artistically pretentious
Michelangelo's understanding of the subject, held the key to the mystery of integration.
Christian redemption. His work in the group, symbolizing his work on the An alternative was simplification, as it were a modulated iconoclasm.
group, is the expression of a piety that belongs specifically to the sculptor. Already while Michelangelo was working on the Florence Pieta he was
The intense rhetorical emphasis placed on the effort to hold the group exploring simpler, more strictly frontal solutions. The germ of the new con-
together, of course, implies the looming threat of disintegration. ception is preserved in a famous sheet in Oxford, probably dating to the years
Michelangelo often expressed frustration with the group and, at sorne 1552-53 (Figure 102).62 In all of the sketches on this sheet, Michelangelo had
point before the end of 1555, attacked it with a hammer. The struggle for abandoned the motif that had caused him such trouble up to this point: The
integration, symbolized by Michelangelo's figure within the group, yielded frontally presented Christ in the lap or between the legs of the Virgin. Instead,
to the destructive impulse of the hammer-wielding artist before the group. we see once again a return to the fully upright posture, where Christ is sup-
He seems to have approached it from in front, breaking the left arm into ported by standing figures. Three of the sketches show Christ supported by a
pieces and, presumably, also the now-missing left leg. He then also broke single figure and are related to the first version of the Rondanini Pieta in the
the right arm. Vasari said that Michelangelo intended to destroy the group Castello Sforzesco in Milan (see Figure 105).The large right arm and the legs
entirely but was stopped by his servant Antonio del Franzese, who asked on the present sculpture are remnants of this first version of the gro u p.63 The
Michelangelo to give it to him as it was and to allow it be repaired and fin- configuration is now very clase to northern Man of Sorrows/Trinity images
ished by Tiberio Calcagni. 60 That the now-missing leg was a prime source in the tradition ofRobert Campin (see Figure 38), with the significant differ-
of difficulty is suggested by Vasari's anecdote of a nocturnal visit before ence that in Campin Christ is supported by a male figure and in
1553 to Michelangelo's studio: Michelangelo he is supported by a female figure. Such an arrangement chal-
lenged a rational understanding of bodily support.
At one o'clock one nightVasari was sent by Julius III to Michelangelo's house for
a drawing. He found the master engaged upon the marble Pieta which he broke.
Recognizing the knock, Michelangelo rose from his work and took a lantern.
When Vasarihad explained his errand, he sent Urbino upstairs for the design and
began to speak of other things.Vasari'seyes wandered to a leg of Christ on which
he was working and attempting to alter, and in order that Vasarimight not see it • 102. Michelangelo,
he let the lantern fall, and so they were in the dark.61 ¡ Studiesfor a Pieta
sculpture.Drawing.
( Ashmolean
Even if Michelangelo had not broken the group, we would know from Museum, Oxford,
Vasari's account that the leg caused particular difficulty. And this difficulty England.
was, as I have attempted to show, part of the larger difficulty of reinterpret-
ing the Man of Sorrows tradition by incorporating new motifs of physical
and amorous \ontact - that is, by introducing the pathos formulas inherited
208 209
The other two drawings are, as it were, a more reasonable alternative to this
conception, showing Christ carried by two male figures to either side. This
idea evidently held Michelangelo's attention, as he elaborated it in several
studies, sorne of which are known only through copies. One copy, formerly in
the Gathorne-Hardy collection, contains the essential carrying conception of
the three-figure groups on the Oxford sheet and develops them in the direc-
tion of an entombment scene: It shows the figure of Christ supported at
shoulder height and led forward by two figures who support him at the thighs
(see Figure 103).64 The important novelty of the "two-carrier" conception is
that the Virgin is no longer part of the group, and there is, accordingly, a
reduction in the expression of passionate love. The investigation of the motif
of carrying leads to a composition remarkably clase to that of the London
Entombment of fifty years earlier (see Figure 6), where the Virgin was placed at
104. Giulio
sorne distance from the body. 65 As in the London painting, Christ's feet graze Clovio, The
the ground, thus alluding to a paradoxical self-supporting efficacy within the Carryingof Christ to
dead body. But if in the London painting Michelangelo proposed the novel the Tomb.Drawing.
Louvre, Paris,
conception of Christ's being carried away from the viewer into the picture, France. ©
here the figures are shown proceeding forward, as if out of the block. The Réunion des
"presentation" gesture of the Magdalene in the Florence Pieta has now Musées Nationaux.
become a more purposeful element in a narrative of conveyance, possibly now
understood as a carrying of Christ towardthe Virgin after the deposition. In
103. Copy after

Michelangelo, The
the Tomb.Drawing.
Formerly either case, the relation between the dead Christ and the viewer is once again
Gathome-Hardy made a part of the subject a~d supplants the immediate physical contact
Collection.
between Christ and the Virgin.
A roughly contemporary Michelangelesque drawing in the Louvre
(Figure 104), recently attributed to Giulio Clovio, adapted the conception
explored in these studies once again in the direction of a more elaborate
"pictorial" representation of the Entombment scene. 66 Yet another narrative
"spinoff" elaborated by a pupil from a conception explored by
Michelangelo on the way to a Pieta composition, 67 the drawing din ches the
\ connection between these "carrying" studies and the ideas explored in
210 211
Michelangelo's early London panel. lndeed, in expanding the conception the block by a thin bridge of mar-
back into a fully scenic narrative, the drawing reverses the forward-striding ble. For Dagobert Frey, this was a
direction of the "carrying" studies into a backward movement towards a form of vanítas, left there by
tomb depicted in the distance - that is, it returns full circle to the concep- Michelangelo to rernind himself of
tion of the London Entombment. 68 what he had left behind. 7° Without
speculating about the artist's inten-
tions, it is certainly true that having
THE SENSE OF AN ENDING the old arm there could only
emphasize the contrast between the
This return speaks of a consistent process of investigation over a fifty-year old and the new conception.
period. From the London Entombment through these late studies, The contrast is not simply the
ro5. Michelangelo,
Michelangelo had experimented with every stage between crucifixion and result of an effort to conceive the Rondanini Pieta.
entombment in an effort to give expression to the mystery of Christ's sacri- theme afresh. The second version Marble. Castello
fice within the compass of"earthly" historical conditions and "natural" bod- was almost passively deterrnined by Sforzesco, Milan,
Italy. Alinari/ Art
ily relations. Michelangelo's experiments continually put him at a what was left of the block, and this
Resource, NY.
crossroads, and his twisted solutions were his efforts to negotiate it. in itself was a different approach to
Throughout this book I have argued that the front-facing figure of Christ, sculptural conception. The thin,
and the motif of frontal orientation generally, served as a link to a Christian arching piece of stone that remained
tradition of cult imagery. This link was not merely formal but inherently after the elirnination of the first
functional, for the frontality of the image articulated and effectuated the group allowed no more room for
relation between image and believer, between sacred history and ritual the pathos formulas of hanging
observance, a relation underwritten by an enduring socioreligious consen- heads and intertwined limbs "moti-
sus. To give oneself over entirely to the virtuosic exploration of expressive vated" by the narrative of support
gesture would be to lose contact with this tradition, whereas abandoning and carrying. Michelangelo knew
that figura! language altogether would be to fall into wholesale archaism and this. In deciding to continue with
thus to abandon contemporary relevance. We have seen severa! instances of what was left of the block, he effec-
Michelangelo's acute sense of decorum in applying an antique-inspired fig- tively renounced the rhetoric of
ura! language in a Christian context, a tact that matches that of the most physical movement upon which his
sensitive humanist stylists of the period. Michelangelo attempted, over and art had hitherto been based. The resulting union between Christ and the Virgin
over again, to find in the animating physical contact between the dead body is not the product of dramatic gesture but is imposed on them by the condi-
of Christ and his mourners a new path into the theological significance tra- tions of the sculpture. It transcends the laws of physical weight and support, and
ditionally embodied in the traditional Man of Sorrows image. After severa! even of human drama. The figure of Christ is literally sculpted out of the figure
earlier efforts in painting and drawing, sculpture became for Michelangelo
the privileged arena of this enterprise, and the ultimate test of its feasibility.
j of the Virgin: His head, carved out of her shoulder, is thus joined to her chin;
his arms, carved out of her body, are pressed against her hips and thighs. The
This lifelong project was abandoned in the second version of the Virgin no longer actively supports him - for example from under the arm, as in
Rondanini Pieta, which was probably begun shortly after 1560 (Figure ro5). 69 the first version - but simply presses his shoulder against her chest.
The state in which Michelangelo left the block emphasizes the radical nature At first her head, and to a lesser degree that of Christ, were turned upward.
of the rupture: The powerfully sculpted right arm of the first version stands This last vestige of a dramatic conception then disappeared in the very final
juxtaposed to the withered form of the new Christ. The arm is no longer state, which shows them both looking clown. The passionate gestures of strug-
necessary to the block and could easily have been removed - work on the gle and desire are gone, the laws of physical support are overcome, and the fig-
new grouJ? would certainly have been made easier as a result - but ures stand there, one pressed against the other. The result is something that has
Michelangelo chose to keep it there, standing free in the air and connected to always rerninded critics of Romanesque sculpture. But this is not a mere
,1
\
212 213
instance of archaizing quotation. It resulted from the whittling away of the quality - the quality of something stripped down, something that is both a
stone, as if the stripping away of Renaissance gestural language was also a kernel and a vestige - whether or not it had been brought to technical com-
form of archeological digging, a means of excavating an earlier conception of pletion. The Rondanini Pieta abandons the idea of the image as complete
sculpture. work and instead strives for Christian significance in a slow iconoclasm that is
Throughout his career, Michelangelo's works had been forged on the basis at once a form of historical meditation. Stripping away the present without
of a negotiation with the laws that here are finally suspended. He had made it restoring the past, it does not effectuate reform so much as it stages the
his life's work to make the expressive resources of figural art a carrier of "fig- predicament of reform. It offers the figmentary result of the present's digging,
ural" theological meaning. He reformulated Christian mysteries within a marked by the uncanny fragmentariness that past things have in the eyes of
conception of figural movement and expression inherited from the antique the present. It engages an unending effort of recovery that is also a path to
and developed in Renaissance art, a conception of art whose cultural implica- historical self-awareness. Dismantling the image, it subsumes Christian piety
tions were most eloquently described by Aby Warburg. This effort of reconcil- in the art historical imagination.
iation, which finds parallels in the writings of contemporary humanists, is
clearly at work in the London Entombment, as it is in his later revisions of the
theme of the Píeta. It was a tortuous task that often involved an extreme
warping of that figural language, and at times even the incorporation of pre-
Renaissance, medieval forms, or elements of the art of the north. Here the
effort itself reaches an end. As Wilhelm Worringer put it, the greatest expo-
nent of Renaissance art was the one most significantly to come up against its
lirnitations, and it is this encounter that constitutes, at a metathematic level,
the "tragedy" of the Rondanini Píeta.71
Michelangelo's lifelong preoccupation with the theme of the Pieta, and
specifically with the cult image tradition of the ímagopíetatís, constitutes a sus-
tained meditation on the fate of the religious image at the beginning of the
modern era. It reveals Michelangelo's efforts to puta humanist conception of
art in the service of the tradicional functions of religious images, and in the
process to reinterpret and reform those traditional functions. It is one reveal-
ing example of the way that humanist culture and reform concerns informed
historical attitudes in sixteenth-century Italy. It also casts a sharp light on
sorne of the period's central cultural conflicts. Michelangelo's last work is
notable for acknowledging that these conflicts adrnitted of no solution. In its
unfinished state, surrounded by the ruins of the earlier conception, it stands,
indeed, as no more than an acknowledgment.
As we have seen, there were those in the sixteenth century who saw a rela-
tionship between unfinished works and archaic works. The crude and rough
images of the earliest times, it was believed, were slowly brought to refine-
ment by history,just as the artist brings a sketch (abbozzo) to perfection in the
finished work.72 When Vittoria Colonna looked at a "St. Luke" Madonna, she
saw a work without finish, a work that stopped at the basic outlines and was as
yet innocent of the refinements of color and shade that were to come in later
times. The remnant of a process of artistic stripping, the Rondanini Píeta
stages a reversa! of history's refining process, rendering moot the question of
whether it was meant to be finished. The work would have an unfinished
•'
1
\
j
~
,,
,l
~14 ,},
215
NOTES TO PP. I-8
important role that the physical and visual aspects of texts have played in
processes of textual imitation and interpretation, a subject that has received much
attention in recent times. See, among many other studies, John Sparrow, Visible
Words:A Study of Inscriptions in and as Books and Works of Art, Cambridge:
Notes Cambridge University Press, 1969; Armando Petrucci, "La concezione cristiana
del libro," Studi Medievali, 3rd ser., 14, 1973, 961-84, and "Aspetti simbolici delle
testimonianze scritte," in Simboli e simbologíanell'alto medioevo, Spoleto: Centro
italiano di studi sull'alto medioevo, 1976, 813-44, both ofwhich appear in English
in idem, Writers and Readers in Medieval Ita/y: Studíes in the History of Written
Culture, ed. and trans. Charles M. Radding, New Haven: Yale University Press,
1995, chs. 2 and 6, respectively; Linda Nix, "Manuscript Layout and Re-
Production of the Text in Anglo-Saxon England: A Preliminary Examination,"
Gazette du livre médiéval, 25, 1994, 17-23; Paul Saenger, "Word Separation and its
Implications for Manuscript Production," in Die Rationalisierung der
Buchherstellungim Mittelalter und in derfrühen Neuzeit, eds. Peter Ruch and Martín
Boghardt, Marburg an der Lahn: Institut für Historische Hilfswissenschaften,
1994, 41-50, and, more broadly, idem, Space between Words:The Origins of Sílent
Readíng, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997; and Christopher Wood,
"Layout, Lettering, and Illustration in the Earliest Archeological Publications,"
INTRODUCTION: MICHELANGELo's WORK ASAN ART HISTORIAN Word and Image, forthcoming.
14 We encounter an awareness of the same historical divide in other areas of
1 Vasari,VI, 411.
Michelangelo's youthful work. The tomb/altar of St. Dominic in Bologna, which
2 Vasari, VI, II, Condivi, 19u, 12. On the relationship between Poliziano and was begun in the late thirteenth century and received additions in the fifteenth
Michelangelo, with reference to Michelangelo's early imitations, see Summers, century, is virtually a laboratory for Michelangelo's response to the art of the past.
1981, 242-9. See also Giovanni Agosti's entry on Michelangelo's Battle of the In the two saints above, the nineteen-year-old Michelangelo was clearly vying
Centaurs in Agosti and Farinella, 1987, 25-7. On Poliziano's philological methods, with his immediate predecessor on the tomb, Niccolo dell' Arca, as well as with his
see Anthony Grafton, Defendersof the Text: The Tradítionsof Scholarshipin an Age of recent predecessor in Bologna, ]acopo della Quercia, whereas in the angel below
Scíence,1450---1800, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991, 47-75. On the Michelangelo adopted an archaizing mode, in imitation of the original work on
extension of Poliziano's philological interests to the field of artistic monuments, the tomb, which then as now was attributed to the late thirteenth-century sculp-
see Michael Koortbojian, "Poliziano's Role in the History of Antiquarianism and tor Nicola Pisano. According to Alison Luchs, "Michelangelo's Bologna Angel:
the Rise of Archeological Methods;' in Polizíano nel suo Tempo, ed. L. Secchi 'Counterfeiting' the Tuscan Duecento," Burlington Magazine, CXX, 1978, 222-5,
Tarugi, Florence: Cesati, 1996, 265-73. Michelangelo's angel was the result of a deliberate effort to counterfeit the earlier
3 Vasari,VI, 8-9. See also Condivi, 19n, 8. style by imitating not only physiognomic idiosyncracies but also the generally
4 Cennini, 1960, sec. l, part 17, 15.
rounded and abstract appearance of the forms, which require an elaborate tech-
5 Kris and Kurz, 1970, 97-98. nique of finishing. As noted by Luchs, the distinction in style between angel and
1 6 Anthony Grafton, Forgersand Crítics:Creativity and Duplicíty in WesternScholarship, saints had been observed by Tolnay, 1947, 141 (who dubiously took itas grounds
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990. for a slightly earlier dating of the angel) and Frederick Hartt, Michelangelo:The
' 1 7 The drawing after Giotto, Paris, Louve, 706r., Corpus 3r., pen and ink on paper. Complete Sculpture,New York: Abrams, 1968, 65. The documentary evidence indi-
The drawing after Masaccio, Munich, Graphische Sammlung, 2191, Corpus 4r., cates that the angel was originally meant to be placed directly next to the Pisano
pen and ink on paper.
reliefs, leading Luchs to suggest that Michelangelo might have wanted this figure
8 See Tolnay, 1947, 65-6 and 176-8;Wilde, 1978, 22-3; and Hirst, 1988, 59. to be perceived as an integral part of the "original" work on the tomb. It is also
9 Berenson, 1938, I, 186.
possible that Michelangelo felt this archaizing mode, characterized by a general-
ro The drawing is reproduced in Tolnay, 1947, pl. 70. ization of features, was appropriate to the ethereal qualities of an angel, in contrast
11 II See, for example, Paul E Gehl, A MoralArt: Grammar,Socíety,and Culture in Trecento to the saints above. Whatever the explanation, the fact that Michelangelo adopted
1
Florence;Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993. this mode for the angel but not for the saints reveals that his archaism was a matter
1 12 Roger Ascham, The Schoolmaster(1570), ed. Lawrence V. Ryan, Ithaca, NY: Cornell of choice, that it was the result ofreflection. It is little surprise that this considered
University Press, 1967, u9.
1 appreciation of the art of the late thirteenth century should have occurred at the
13 Nelson Goodman, "Art and Authenticity," in The Forger'sArt, ed. Denis Dutton, same time that the young artist was being introduced to the reading of Dante
Berkeley: t¿"niversity of California Press, 1983, 93-II4. This is not to disregard the Alighieri by his Bolognese host, the letteratoGiovan Francesco Aldovrandi.
217
NOTES TO PP. 8-10 NOTES TO PP. I0-12
15 Vasari's primary statements concerning his historical schema occur in his three Controriforma:G.M. Ciberti (1495-1543), Roma: Edizioni di storia e letteratura
prefaces. On Vasari's historicism, see Panofsky, 1970. See also C. A. Isermeyer, "Il 1969; Cado Ginzburg and Adriano Prosperi, Ciochi di pazienza: un seminariosu/
Vasari e il restauro delle chiese medievali," in Studi vasariani;atti del Convegnointer- Beneficio di Cristo, Turin: Einaudi, 1975; Elisabeth Gleason, "On the Nature of
nazionale per il IV. centenariodella prima edizione delle "Vite" del Misari,Firenze, Sixteenth-Century Italian Evangelism: Scholarship, 1953-1978," Sixteenth Century
Palazzo Strozzi, 16--19settembre1950, Florence: Sansoni, 1952, 228-36; Paul Frankl, Journal, 9, 1978, 3-25; Paolo Simoncelli, Evangelismoitaliano del Cinquecento:ques-
The Cothic: Literary Sourcesand Interpretationsthrough Eight Centuries, Princeton: tione religiosae nicodemismopolitico,Roma: Istituto storico italiano per l'eta mod-
Princeton University Press, 1960, 284-315; Giovanni Previtali, La Fortuna dei erna e contemporanea, 1979; Barry Collett, Italian Benedictine scholarsand the
Primitivi:Da/ Vasariai Neoclassici,Turin: Einaudi, 1989, 3-21; and Antonio Thiery, Reformation: the Congregationof Santa Ciustina of Padua, Oxford [Oxfordshire]:
"Il Medioevo nell' Introduzione e nel Proemio delle Vite," in JI MisariStoriogrefoe Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1985; Elisabeth Gleason,
Artista: Atti del CongressoInternazionale ne/ IV Centenario della Morte, Florence: "Italy in the Reformation," in Reformation Europe:A Cuide to Research II, ed.
Istituto Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento, 1974, 351-81. William S. Maltby, St. Louis: Center for Reformation Research, 1992, idem,
16 Vasari,V, 125-8. Casparo Contarini:Venice,Rome, and Reform, Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of
17 Girolamo Mancini, "Vite d' Artisti di Giovanni Battista Gelli," Archivio Storico California Press, 1993; Massimo Firpo, Riforma Protestanteed Eresie nell'Italia del
Italiano,5th series, XVII, 1896, 41, 42. Cinquecento:Un Pro.filoStorico, Roma: Laterza, 1993. On the rise of art-history
18 Cennini, 1960, sec. 1, part 1, 2: "I was trained in this profession for twelve years by attitudes, see above ali the sources cited in n. 15.
my master, Agnolo di Taddeo [Gaddi] of Florence; he learned his profession from 21 See Hans Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald
Taddeo [Gaddi], his father; and his father was christened under Giotto, and was his G. Marshall, 2nd rev. ed., New York: Crossroad, 1992, especially 291-300: "The
follower for four-and-twenty years; and that Giotto changed the profession of Hermeneutic Significance of Temporal Distance," and Hans Robert Jauss,
painting from Greek back into Latin, and brought it up to date; and he had more "Literary History as a Challenge to LiteraryTheory,"inJauss, 1982, 3-45.
finished craftsmanship than anyone has had since." 22 Vasari, III, 13-14;VI, 410. Panofsky, 1970, has provided an excellent analysis of these
19 See Pierre Nora, "Between Memory and History: Les lieux de Mémoire;' and other passages.
Representations,26, 1989, 7-25. 23 Pietro Bembo, Prose della volgarlingua, in Prose e rime di Pietro Bembo, ed. Carlo
20 My comments here are informed primarily by Felix Gilbert, Machiavelli and Dionisotti, Turin: Unione Tipografico, 1966, 131: "Vedesi tuttavolta che il grande
Cuicciardini:Politics and History in Sixteenth Century Florence(1965), New York: cresceredella lingua a questi due, al Petrarcae al Boccaccio, solamentepervenne;da indi
Norton, 1984, esp. 153-200 and 236-'70, and by Pocock, 1975, especially 3-u3. innanzi, non che passar piu oltre, ma pure a questi termini giugnere ancoraniuno s'e
On the questionedella lingua, see Bruno Migliorini, Storia della lingua italiana, 2nd veduto.Il che,senza dubbioa vergognadel nostroseco/osi trarra."
ed., Florence: Sansoni, 1960, ch. 8; Cado Dionisotti, Cli umanisti e il volgarefra 24 Gelli, 1549, 15-17.
Quattro e Cinquecento,Florence: Le Monnier, 1968; Maurizio Vitale, La questione 25 Gelli, 1549, 34: "Et maestroSimone da Siena, non ci e memoriaa/cuna,cheJussi di tanta
della lingua, 9th ed., Palermo: Palumbo, 1978; and the period texts collected in fama [as Polycleitus,just discussed]; & oltrea di questo,non si vede ancoramolta arte,in
Pozzi, 1988. On developments in political thought in eady sixteenth-century quelle opereche si truovanoa i tempi nostri di suo, che ne sono a/cunein santo Spirito &
Florence and Venice, see Felix Gilbert, "Bernardo Rucellai and the Orti quellafacciatadel capitoldi Santa Maria Novella. .. "
Oricellari: A Study on the Origins of Modern Political Thought," Journal of the 26 Giovanni della Casa, Ca/ateo ovverode' Costumi, in Opere di BaldassareCastiglione,
Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XII, 1949, 101-31; idem, "The Venetian Ciovanni della Casa, Benvenuto Cellini, ed. Cado Cordié, Milan: Ricciardi, 390.
Constitution in Florentine Political Thought," in Florentine Studies, ed. Nicolai 27 Vasari,V, 152-3. On this and other restoration efforts in the eady modern period,
Rubinstein, London: Faber and Faber, 1968, 463-500 (these two articles repub- see Alessandro Conti, Storia del restauroe dellaconservazionedelleopered'arte, Milan:
lished in idem, History: Choiceand Commitment, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, Electa, 1988, 7-60.
1977, chapters 9 and 8, respectively); Nicolai Rubinstein, "Politics and 28 See Belting, 1981, 281-8.
Constitution in Florence at the End of the Fifteenth Century," in Italian 29 Religio Medid, I, 28.
Renaissance Studies, ed. Ernest Fraser Jacob, London: Faber and Faber, 1960, 30 Vasari,VI,4ro: "0/tre chein questoseco/o,il qua/ee ne/ colmodellapetfezzione,non sarebbono
140-83; and now Patricia Fortini Brown, Veniceand Antiquity: the VenetianSense of ne/gradochesono,se quellinonfasseroprimastati ta/i e que/chefurono innanzi a noi."
the Past, New Haven, CT:Yale University Press, 1996. On the relation of political 31 Sheryl E. Reiss, "A Medieval Source for Michelangelo's Medici Madonna,"
thought to reform concerns, see Felix Gilbert, "Religion and Politics in the Zeitschriftfür Kunstgeschichte,L, 1987, 394-400. See also the discussion in chapter 3
Thought of Gasparo Contarini," in Action and Conviction in Bar/y Modern Europe, of this book.
ed. Theodore K. Rabb and Jerrold E. Seigel, Princeton: Princeton University 32 Condivi, 19n, 73, and see the full discussion in chapters 6 and 7 of this book.
Press, 19~9, 90-u6 (republished in idem, History: choiceand commitment, supra, Michelangelo also used the Y-shaped cross in several late crucifixion drawings,
chap. 10). On reform concerns in the eady sixteenth century, see Delio which are among severa! examples of Michelangelo's archaism studied by Paul
Cantimori, Eretici italiani del Cinquecento[1939] e a/tri scritti, ed.Adriano Prosperi, Joannides, "'Prirnitivism' in the Late Drawings of Michelangelo;' in Michelangelo
Turin: Einaudi, 1992; Hubert Jedin, A History of the Council ofTrent, trans. Ernest Drawings,eds. Craig Hugh Smyth and Ann Gilkerson, Washington, D.C.: National
Graf, St. L<\uis: Herder, 2 vols., 1957-61; Adriano Prosperi, Tra Evangelismo e Gallery of Art, 1992, 145-6r.
218 219
NOTES TO PP. lJ-15 NOTES TO PP. 15-16
33 Hollanda, 19n, 274. Confirmation ofColonna's - and Michelangelo's - interest in Machíavelli, Cambridge: Heffer, 1969, 87-no and Donald Weinstein, "Savonarola
archaic images has been presented by William Wallace, "Friends and Relics at San and Machiavelli," in Studies on Machiave/li, ed. Myron P. Gilmore, Florence:
Silvestro in Capite, Rome," Sixteenth Century ]ournal, 30, 1999, 419-39, who has Sansoni, 1972, 253-64; and Pocock, 1975, ro3-n3. Certain affinities were recog-
shown that the "testa di Cristo che Sua Gratia disse mostrami" referred to in a let- nized in the period: Ideas from both Machiavelli and Savonarola can be found, for
ter from Michelangelo to Vittoria Colonna (Carteggio, IV, 122) was the miraculous example, in the writings of the Florentine republican, reformer, and exile Antonio
"Veronica" cloth held at San Silvestro in Capite in Rome. Brucioli, whose Dialoghi della morale filosofia was published in 1526, see Delio
34 Colonna, 1982, S2 23, 188: "Mentre che quanto dentro avea concettol dei misteri di Dio Cantimori, "Rhetoric and Politics in Italian Humanism;' ]ournal of the Warburg
ne Jacea degnol la vergin Luca oprava egli ogni ingegno/ per formar vero i/ bel divino Institute, I, 1937/38, 83-ro2. Brucioli was a friend of Michelangelo's; a letter of
aspetto,I ma de l'immensa idea si' colmo il pettol avea che, come un vaso d'acqua pregnol ·1529 from Giambattista della Palla to Michelangelo in Venice (Carteggio, III, 285)
che salir non puo,Juor /' alto dissegnoI a poco a poco usd manco e imperfetto.l In parte finse asked the artist to recommend him to Brucioli. Condivi, 19n, 67, informed us
l'aer do/ce e grave;/ que/ vivo no l'mostro,forse sdegnandol de /'arte i gravi lumi e lafiera that, later, when the Venetian Signoria attempted to persuade Michelangelo to
ombra;/ basta che /'modo umil, /'atto soave,I a Dio rivolge, accende,move, e quandol si reside in their city on a permanent basis, their emissary to the artist in Rome was
mira il cor d'ogni altra nebbia sgombra." Both the Hollanda passage and the Colonna none other than Brucioli. The other major thinker close to Michelangelo who
poems have been discussed by Deswarte-Rosa, 1997, 363. The archaizing aesthetic mingled Savonarolan and Machiavellian strains was of course Donato Giannotti.
became a programmatic concern of the Capuchins, which benefited from the 43 The association of older art with strong outlines and later art with refined shading
early patronage of Colonna; on this, see Stuart Lingo, "The Capuchins and the Art and coloring is an ancient one. A locus classicus is the account of the origin of
of History: Retrospection and Reform of the Arts in Late Renaissance Italy," doc- painting in Pliny, Historia Natura/is, XXXV, 16.The idea is elaborated by Dionysius
toral dissertation, Harvard University, 1998. of Halicarnassus, Isaeus, 4, in The Critica/ Essays, trans. Stephen Usher, I,
35 A Rejormation Debate: Karlstadt, Emser, and Eck on Sacred Images, ed. and trans. Bryan Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974, 180-8: "There are sorne old
D. Mahgrum and Giuseppe Scavizzi, Ottawa: Dovehouse Editions, 1991, 86. paintings which are worked in simple colours without any subtle blending of tints
36 Gilio, 1961, no-n. but clear in outline, and thereby possessing charm; whereas the later paintings are
37 Gilio, 1961, 55-6. less well-drawn but contain greater detail and a subtle interplay oflight and shade,
38 On the associations between contrapposto and the rhetorical traditions of orna- and are effective beca use of the many nuances of colour which they contain." This
ment and license, see David, Summers, "Contrapposto: Style and Meaning in passage is cited and discussed by Philip Sohm, Style in the Art Theory of Bar/y
Renaissane Art," Art Bulletin, 59, 1977, 336-61. Modern Ita/y, forthcoming, Cambridge University Press, to whom I am grateful to
39 Gilio, 1961, 56: "Se quelli [the medieval artists] erravano ne/ poco, e questi [the modern him for giving me an advanced viewing of the manscript and for several discus-
artists] errano ne/ molto; pero sarebbe bene di quel poco e di questo molto fare una regolata sions on these and related matters.
mescolanza e cavare un mezzo che suplisse al difetto degli uni e degli altri, accio ['opere 44 Vincenzo Borghini, Modo di salvare il Bembo, in Pozzi, 1988, 742: " .. .che le lingue
abbino le debite proporzioni." Zeri, 1957, is still the most concerted effort to study ne' lor principii, come le altre opere della natura, sono impe,fette, rozze, acerbe,ecc.e che il
stylistic trends in sixteenth-century Italy that are consonant with Gilio's ideas. tempo le dirozza, matura e effinisce."
40 Vasari, III, 273-4. The passage is discussed at further length in chapter 7 of this 45 Paolo Cortesi, De Hominibus Doctis Dialogus, ed. Maria Teresa Graziosi, Rome:
book. Perhaps views similar to Vasari's were at the basis of Pius V's 1571 commis- Bonacci, 1973, 16.
sion to Bartholomeus Spranger to make a copy of Fra Angelico 's Last Judgment in 46 Quoted and translated by Kenneth Gouwens, Remembering the renaissance:
San Marco. So much is suggested, at least, by the analysis of the episode offered by Humanist narratives of the Sack of Rome, Leiden: Brill, 1998, 132. On the association
Zeri, 1957, 52. For Spranger's picture, see Michael Henning, Die Tefelbilder of reform concerns and historical thought during this period, see John O'Malley,
Bartholomiius Sprangers (1540-1611): Hii.fische Malerei zwischen "Manierismus" und "Historical Thought and the Reform Crisis of the Early Sixteenth Century,"
"Barock," Essen: Die Blaue Eule, 1987, 18-20, cat.A3. Spranger had been a guest in Theological Studies, 28, 1967, 531-48, esp. 537. (Reprinted in O'Malley, 1981 essay
the house of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, to whom Gilio dedicated his treatise. 11.) See also Minnich, 1969, esp. 233.ff. for the "basic orientation backward" found
41 See Gilbert, "The Venetian Constitution in Florentine Political Thought," and in the proposals for reform presented at the Fifth Lateran Council (1512-17).
Rubinstein, "Politics and Constitution in Florence at the End of the Fifteenth 47 See Gerhard B. Ladner, "The Concept ofthe Image in the Greek Fathers and the
Century," as in n. 20. Byzantine lconoclastic Controversy," Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 7, 1953, 1.ff.
42 See Donald Weinstein, Savonarola and Florence: Prophecy and Patriotism in the 48 St. Augustine, Sermon XLIII, 3, 4, in PL, XXXVIII, 255: "We, therefore, ... must
Renaissance, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970. For Machiavelli, see The after a fashion resculpt [the image] and reform it. But who would be able to do
Discourses on Livy, ed. Bernard Crick, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983, I.12-13, this, except if he were the artist who shaped it? We could deform the image of
142-8, but see also 11.2,277-8, and 111.1, 385-90. Machiavelli's quasi-anthropologi- God in us, but we cannot reform it." Quoted in Gerhart B. Ladner, The Idea of
cal approach to the study of religion has been studied by J. Samuel Preus, Rejorm: Its Impact on Christian Thought and Action in the Age of the Fathers,
"Machiavelli's Functional Analysis of Religion: Context and Object;' Journal of the Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969, 194.
History of Ideas, XL, 1979, 171-90. On the relation between the two, see J. H. 49 Girolamo Savonarola, Prediche Italiane ai Fiorentini, I, Novembre-Dicembre del 1494,
Whitefield,\ "Savonarola and the Purpose of The Prince," in Discourses on ed. Francesco Cognasso, Perugia: La Nuova Italia, 1930, 108 (December 7, 1494):
220 221
NOTES TO PP. 17-20 NOTES TO PP. 20-27
"Dio li beatied el cielonon invecchiano, che non sono sottopostial tempo,ma le cosetem- the work's provenance, a Farnese inventory of 1649, was presented by Hirst, 1981a,
porali e compostedi elementi mancanoed invecchianoe pero hanno bisognodi rinno- 584.
vazione.Similmente la Chiesa di Dio chefu costruttaed edificatadellaunione de'fedeli e 57 These scholars' views are discussed over the course of this book. The principal
delle loro buone opere operazioni,quando quelle mancano,si chiama invecchiataed ha arguments against the attribution were made by J. C. Robinson in- The Times,
bisognodi rinnovarsi. .. " lt is significant that he should have made this point at the September 1, 1881, and by Heinrich Wolffiin, Die Jugendwerkedes Michelangelo,
same time that he was fervently advocating the building of the new Great Council Munich, 1891, 82, and were answered in their time by Jean-Paul Richter, Italian
Hall as a symbol of the reformed Christian republic. Art in the National Gallery,London, 1883, 81-84, and Berenson, 1938, I, 179-82,
50 Minnich, 1969, 170. respectively. Hirst, 1981a and Nagel, 1994, presented documents that suggest a link
51 I have not had access to the original source for this information, G. della Corte, between the London panel and a documented altarpiece commission to
Dell'istorie della citta di Verona,Verona, 1592, which is cited by Antonio Fasani, Michelangelo for the church of Sant' Agostino in Rome in 1500. Many parts of
"Verona durante l' episcopato di Gian Matteo Giberti;' in Riforma Pretridentina Wolffiin's and Robinson's arguments have been recently revived by James Beck,
dellaDiocesidi Verona:Visitepastoralidel vescovoG. M. Giberti 1525-1542, ed. Antonio "Is Michelangelo's Entombment really Michelangelo's?" Gazette des Beaux-Arts,
Fasani,Vicenza: Istituto perle ricerche di storia sociale e di storia religiosa, 1989, ser. 6, 127, 1996, 181--98, and by Michael Daley, "How to make a Michelangelo,"
CXXX. Art-Review, 46, 1994, 28-33, who remain opposed to the Michelangelo attribution.
52 Writing ca. 1420 Symeon, Bishop ofThessalonica declared: "What other innova- The most sustained treatment of the panel, and the strongest argument so far
tion have they [the Latins] introduced contrary to the tradition of the Church? made in its favor, are offered by Dunkerton and Hirst, 1994.
Whereas the holy icons have been piously established in honor of their divine 58 Tolnay, 1975, 233.
prototypes and for their relative worship by the faithful ... these men, who sub-
vert everything, as has been said, often confect holy images in a different manner
CHAPTER ONE. TRANSPORT AND TRANSITUS
and one that is contrary to custom." The passage is excerpted and translated in
Cyril Mango, The Art of the Byzantine Empire, 312-1453, Englewood Cliffs: 1 The best account of medieval figura! thought is still Auerbach, 1984.
Prentice-Hall, 1972, 253-4. 2 Savonarola, 1971,75: "[Dio}hafatto scriverequellescritturee quelleistorieconquellinomi e
53 The early fifteenth-century reformer Giovanni Dorninici, for example, couched con quelliloci(comeabbíamodichiaratodi sopra)non soloper dimostrare che coslellefussino,
his critique of images specifically in terms of an appeal to earlier religious art: he ma per significarealtro.Non e cos1dellealtrescritture:vedi Livio che non scrisseperchéquella
believed images that were "old, smoky" [vecchieaffumate]to be closer to "the fig- scritturasignificassicosefuture, ma solo le passate;non lo puofare ancoranessunoquesto. ...
ures, or to the truth represented by those figures" than the highly ornamented pic- Peronessunaaltrascrittura,se non la Sacra,ha allegoria: non lapoesía,comediconoalcuni,per-
tures of his day. See Giovanni Dominici, Regola del governo di curajamiliare, ed. che tre cosesi richiedonoalfaallegoria:prima, la istoria;secondo,la significazionedi altrecose;
Donato Salvi, Florence: Garinei, 1860, 133. For an English translation of the pas- terzio,che quellaistoriasia stattafatta per significarequello.Dunque leJavo/ede' poeti non
sage, see Gilbert, 1980, 146. Ernst Kitzinger, "The Cult of Images in the Age before hannosensoallegorico, perchein essenon e veritadi storia.Similiter,non lo hannole istoriede'
Iconoclasm" (1954), in 1976, 91-156, argued that the eighth-century iconoclastic pagani,perchenonfuronofatte ne scritteper significarealtro,ma se qualchevoltapare che si
controversy resulted from the largely unregulated development of new kinds of allegorizzino,e quellaallegoriasensolitterale . ... Dunque dobbiamocredereche la Scrittura
images and image cults in the preceding centuries. For the interrnittent critique of Sacrasoloha la allegoria,e bisognati,quandotu vuoi cavareallegoriadellaScrittura,intendere
images in the medieval West, see William R. Jorres, "Art and Christian Piety: beneprima la istoria,e la veritadi quellaservareimmobile,e sopraquellafondare el senso
Iconoclasm in Medieval Europe," in Joseph Gutmann, ed., The Imageand the J:¼rd: moraleo allegorico, el qualsensoe vagoe puossipigliarein piu modi,ita chenon stafermocome
Confrontationsin ]udaism, Christianity and Islam, Missoula, MT: Scholars Press for la istoria."The point that poetry is unlike sacred scripture because it lacks the literal,
the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature, 1977, historical level was made already by Dante in his introduction to the Convivio,where
75-105, and Horst Bredekamp, Kunst als Medium sozialerKonflikte:Bilderkiimpfevon he recapitulates the fourfold system ofbiblical exegesis precisely to make this polem-
der Spiitantike bis zur Hussitenrevolution,Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, IJJ75-The prolifera- ical point. lt is discussed in relation to Iáte-medieval Christian narrative painting by
tion of cults and images in the later Middle Ages produced, inevitably, more varied Nagel, 1993, 93-5. It is likely that Dante's polernic was fashioned in response to thir-
criticism; see, for example,William R.Jones, "Lollards and Images:The Defence of teenth-century efforts (for example, by Guillaume de Lorris) to claim this system of
Religious Art in Later Medieval England;' Journal of the History of Ideas, 34, 1973, textual exegesis for poetry. On the question of the uses of typology in medieval secu-
27-50. The question of independence from theological authority in the making lar literature, see Hans Robert Jauss, Genesede lapoésieallégorique franfaise,Heidelberg:
and use of images has been directly addressed by Berliner, 1945, and, more Winter, 1962, and Robert Hollander, "Typology and Secular Literature: Sorne
recently,1by Belting, 1994, especially n-19. Medieval Problems and Examples," in LiteraryUses efTypologyfrom the Late Middle
54 Belting, 1994, esp. chap. 20: "Art and Religion: The Crisis of the Image at the Ages to the Present,ed. E. Miner, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977, 3-19.
Beginning of the Modern Age." 3 Paulus de Middelburgo, De rectaPaschaecelebratione et de diepassionisDomini nostri
55 Paul de Man, "Criticism and Crisis," in De Man, 1983, 3-19. jesu christi, Fossombrone, 1513, f. 79: "Nullum autem mysteriumvel sacramentumper
56 For the principal literature and provenance see Cecil Gould, The Sixteenth Century diem nativitatis domini significatur,sed solum denotaturquod eo die natusfuit Christus.
Italian Schobls,London: Nacional Gallery, 1975, 147. The oldest documentation of Paschaevero habet in se mysterium et sacramentum,quia transitumsignificat,est enim
222 223
phase transitusdomini.Et praefiguravittransitumChristi de mortead vitam et liberationem drawn from a female tradition of bacchic maenad figures. Furthermore, she wears
nostrama diabolodevastante."Cf. f. 8: "In hocnamquefesta quae lunae motum consequ- a headdress of a type worn only by women in the Sistine Chapel lunettes. A very
untur, et quae mobiliavocantur,differuntafestis fixis, quiafixa festa nullam habent in se close example occurs in the lunette of Ezekias, Manasses, and Amon.
figuram vel sacramentum,sed solum sígnificantremgestam.Festaveromobi/iahabent in se 8 Leo Steinberg suggested to me the possibility of an allusion to the Magdalene's
mysterium aliquod, et ultra rem gestam aliquid aliud praefigurant.Exempli gratia dies devotion to Christ's feet, as recounted in the story of the supper with Simon the
nata/is domini nihilfutur demonstrat,sed solum significat,Christum eo die natumfaisse. Pharisee (Luke 7:36-50). If this is true, then Michelangelo was adapting, within
Paschaveroa deo institutum habet in se mysterium,quia non solum significatrem eo die the conditions ofhis unusual frontally oriented conception, a long-standing tradi-
gestam vel agni immaculatiimmolatione,sedfuit etiamfigurativ·umreífuturae et rememora- tion of Passion seenes in which the Magdalene's special affective relation to Christ
tivum rei praeteritae.Praefigurabatnamque Christum tanquam agnum immaculatum is expressed through an attachment to his feet. Two examples among many: the
eodem die in cruceimmolandum,per cuius sanguinem in ara cruciseffusum humanum panel by the Master of the Fogg Pieta in the Fogg Museum, and Fra Angelico's
genus liberaretura diaboloinsidiante,sicutfilii Israelper sanguinemagnipostibus illitum Santa Trinita Depositionin the San Marco Museum in Florence.
liberatisunt ab angelodevastan/e."On Paul of Middelburg, who is buried in the 9 París, Louvre, inv. 689r.; Corpus23r. Black chalk, pen and ink, and white heighten-
church of Santa Maria dell' Anima in Rome, see D. J. Struik, "Paulus van ing, on pink paper; 27 X 15 cm.
Middelburg (1445-1533)," Mededeelingenvan het NederlandschHistorischInstituut te 10 The drawing was published by Cecil Gould, "Sorne Addenda to Michelangelo
Rome, 5, 1927, 79-n8, and Lynn Thorndike, A History efMagic and Experimental Studies:' BurlingtonMagazine,XCIII, 1951,279--83.The drawing should be used with
Science,NewYork: Columbia University Press, IV, 1934, 560-1, andV, 1941, passim. caution: It is an effort to interpret this unfinished and confusing work, rather than
He makes several appearances in Aby Warburg's study, "Heidnisch-antike merely a simple record of its appearance at a time when it was less damaged than it is
Weissagung im Wort und Bild zu Luthers Zeiten (1920)," in Warburg, 1932, now. It is doubtful, for example, that the painting ever showed the Magdalene's left
487-558, 647-56. arm around the Virgin's shoulder, as the drawing has it - the two figures occupy posi-
4 At issue here is the important distinction between the presupposed story - the tions too far apart in space to make this possible. The draftsman most likely intro-
"fabula" or "diegesis" - and the level of representation, the particular structure of duced this feature in an effort to interpret and explain this obscure passage.
the work - the "discourse." See Jean Genette, Narrative Discourse:An Essay in n The "impassivity" of the figures in this painting was observed by Hirst, 1981a, 588,
Method, trans.Jane E. Lewin, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980; Seymour who also discussed it in Dunkerton and Hirst, 1994, 64.
Chatman, Story and Discourse:Narrative Structurein Fiction and Film, Ithaca, NY: 12 The moment represented in this painting was correctly identified by Shearman,
Cornell University Press, 1978; Jonathan Culler, The Pursuit ef Signs: Semiotics, 1971, and more extensively analyzed in relation to other representations of the
Literature,Deconstruction,Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981, ch. 9: "Story subject by Shearman, 1992, 79-94.
and Discourse in the Analysis of Narrative"; and Mieke Bal, Narratology: 13 Shearman, 1992, 85.
Introductionto the Theory ef Narrative, trans. Christine Van Boheemen, Toronto: 14 The analogy of lateral images with third-person accounts and frontal images with
Toronto University Press, 1985. first person accounts addressing an implied "you," was suggested by Schapiro,
5 Jill Dunkerton, paintings conservator at the National Gallery, has informed me 1996, 73.
that she believes the feet are hovering above the ground. In the painting's present 15 Alberti, 1991, paragraph 37.
éondition, this point cannot, I believe, be conclusively determined. Nonetheless, 16 Ibid.
even ifDunkerton's view is correct, the essential ambiguity I am describing in the 17 Auerbach, 1984.
figure of Christ - between sitting and upright, between heavy and weightless, 18 Republic,392A-B. Nussbaum, 1986, 382 and, generally, 378-94.
between inanimate and anímate - remains an important aspect of the figure's con- 19 Poetics,1453a5 and Rhetoric 1385b10-15, cited and discussed by Nussbaum, 1986,
ception and a crucial link to the Man of Sorrows tradition, as is argued below. loe. cit.
6 The motif may well have been adapted from Filippino Lippi's fresco of the 20 Poetics,1451b4-n, cited and discussed by Nussbaum, 386.
Crucifixionof St. Peterin the Brancacci chapel:There the figure pulls downward on 21 See Auerbach (1946), 1968, ch. 7, "Adam and Eve," especially 157-8.
a rope that is part of a pulley mechanism used to hoist Peter up. Michelangelo, 22 On this and related controversies, see Grondijs, 1941, especially ch. VII; John
indeed, seems to have studied this group quite carefully: As Hirst, 1988, 43, has Martín, "The Dead Christ on the Cross in Byzantine Art," in Late Classicaland
observed, a few years later Michelangelo derived from it his group of two figures MedievalStudíes in Honor of Albert Mathias Friend, Princeton: Princeton University
holding up a third for the Battle of Caseínafresco; see the drawings in the Louvre Press, 1955, 189-96; Hans Belting and Christa Belting-Ihm, "Das Kreuzbild im
(Corpus47r.) and in the British Museum (Corpus46 r. and v.). 'Hodegos' des Anastasios Sinaites: Ein Beitrag zur Frage nach der altesten
7 A word about the gender and identification of the figures, which has been the Darstellung des toten Crucifixus," in Tortulae:Studien zu altchristlichen und byzanti-
subject\of sorne debate. Although there is certainly an ambiguity in these figures, nischen Monumenten, ed. Walter Nikolaus Schumacher, Freiburg: Herder, 1966,
there is just as certainly an emphasis, in each figure, on one gender over the other. 30-39; and Belting, 1994, 120-21 and 269-71.
Thus, the figure in red to Christ's right, despite its ambiguity, falls predominantly 23 See Introduction, n. 51.
into a long and established tradition oflong-haired St.Johns dad in red in Passion 24 The most comprehensive collection of medieval texts on the question is Georg
scenes. Se\ Hirst, 1981a, 589. The figure on the other side, as I argue in ch. 3, is Zappert, "Über den Ausdruck des geistigen Schmerzes in Mittelalter,"
224 225
NOTES TO PP. 3 8-40 NOTES TO PP. 40-44
1 i'
'I Denkschriften der KaiserlichenAkademie der Wissenschaften,Philosophisch-Historische 31 Schapiro, 1996, n-67, offered a sustained analysis of the relation and relative
1
'
Klasse, 5, 1854, 73-136. Ernesto de Martino, Morte e pianto rituale: Da/ lamento priority of the two modes in Christian narrative art, arguing that the literal or
funebre antico al pianto di Maria, Turin: Boringhieri, 1975, 322-59, discussed the historical mode became increasingly prevalent toward the end of the Middle
early Christian polemic against pagan forms of lamentation and the rise of a Ages.
specifically Christian ethos of measured lament, conceived in accordance with 32 The structures of reading are clearly described by James Stubblebine in his intro-
the belief in Christ's resurrection and the doctrine of redemption. Nonetheless, ductory essay, in Giotto: The Arena Chapel Frescoes,ed. James Stubblebine, New
as de Martino shows, dramatic lamentation never disappeared, a fact demon- York: Norton, 1969, 71-100.
strated by the later history of the Planctus Mariae and the late-medieval Passion 33 The problem has been addressed by Julian Gardner, "The Louvre 'Stigmatization'
plays, as well as by works of art such as Niccolo dell' Arca's gro u p. Mosche and the Problem of the Narrative Altarpiece," Zeitschriftfür Kunstgeschichte,24,
Barasch, Gestures of Despair in Late Medieval and Early RenaissanceArt, New York: 1982, 217-47.
New York University Press, 1976, 92-3, correctly noted that a decorum of 34 A. M. Birkmeyer, "The Pieta from San Remigio," Gazette des Beaux-Arts ser.6, 60,
restraint was still observed even in relatively late examples of devotional litera- 1962, 464.
'1 ture, such as the famous late thirteenth-century Meditationes Vitae Christi by 35 Büttner, 1983. I do not mean to argue that only altarpieces perform such a figural
Pseudo-Bonaventure, where the Virgin's grief <loes not involve violent wailing function. Büttner's book, indeed, offers abundant examples in many other cate-
and frantic movement. Diane Owen Hughes, "Mourning Rites, Memory, and gories of image. Giotto's frescoes in the Arena chapel, as is well know, are them-
Civilization in Premodern Italy," in Riti e rituali nelle societamedievali,ed.Jacques selves connected to one another, and thus to the Christian scheme of redemption,
Chiffoleau, Lauro Martines, and Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, Spoleto, 1994, through figural and specifically typological correlations. The difference in the case
23-38, studied the means by which public and violent forms of lamentation - of the single-scene altarpiece is that there is no recourse to a serial structure in
which, as Savonarola suggested, were enacted above all by women - were subject order to multiply meanings: The representation of the event and of its figura!
to legal controls and enforced "domestication" in late-medieval Italy. See also dimension occur in the same picture and thus are more densely folded into one
Sharon Strocchia, "Funerals and the Politics of Gender in Early Renaissance another.
Florence," in Refiguring vViiman:Perspectiveson Gender and the Italian Renaissance, 36 See Henri de Lubac, Exégese médiévale:Les quatre sens de I'Ecriture, París: Aubier,
1
ed. Marilyn Migiel and Juliana Schiesari, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991, 1959-64, II, 549-620.
1:
,, 155-68. For the modes and social functions of lament in the later Middle Ages, 37 See F.W. Kent, "Lorenzo di Credi, his patron Iacopo Bongianni and Savonarola,"
with sorne very useful comments on their adaptation in Passion images, see BurlingtonMagazine, CXXV, 1983, 539-41.
Bernhard Jussen, "Dolor und Memoria. Trauerriten, gemalte Trauer und soziale 38 See Aby Warburg, "Dürer und die italienische Antike," in Warburg, II, 1932, 443-9,
Ordnungen im spaten Mittelalter," in Memoria als Kultur, ed. Otto Gerhard and "L'Ingresso dello Stile Ideale Anticheggiante nella Pittura del primo
Oexle, Gi:ittingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995, 207-52. The question of the ,· Rinascimento," in Warburg, 1966, 285-307.
Virgin's role in Passion images has been studied in relation to Reformation and 39 Alberti, 1991, paragraph 42. The Homeric association was pointed out by
Counter-Reformation debates by Harvey E. Hamburgh, "The Problem of La Shearman, 1992, 89, who also suggests that Botticelli's altarpiece is probably to be
Spasimo of the Virgin in Cinquecento Paintings of the Deseen!from the Cross," identified with that seen by Vasari in the Florentine church of Santa Maria
Sixteenth Century]ournal, XII, 4-,1981, 45-75. Maggiore; see Vasari, III, 513.
25 Savonarola, 1971, 263-6: "Queste donne vorrebbonopiangere con la Vergine.Ma non 40 One exception is a lost altarpiece that shows the transport of Christ by Rogier
pensate chepiangessecomesi dice. ... E non pensareche ella andassiper le stradegridando, van der Weyden, whose composition is preserved in drawings in Paris and Leipzig
non scapigliata,ne con modo indecente,perchepoteva comandareallaparte sensitivache non (see Figure 2.40) and in a painted copy in the Getty. To judge by these copies,
si dolessi.Andavabene drietoal Figliuolo,ma con mansuetudinee congrandemodestia,git- Rogier framed the scene in a shrinelike box like the one depicted in the Prado
tando qualchelacrima;non erafuora tutta triste,ma lieta e triste,in modo chegli uomini se Deposition, which can be understood as a form of restraint imposed on the narra-
ne maravigliavano, perché lei nonfaceva comesoglionofare le altre donne.Ne anche e vero tive. The work is discussed at greater length in chapter 2 of this book.
che da Maria Maddalenafussi consolata,ma lei consolavabene Maddalena. Non aveva 41 Jakobson, 1971, 82-7.
bisognodi essereconsolata dalle altredonne,essache confortavaquelle nellaJede e diceva:- 42 The best single source of information on the range of formats and genres in
State salde,lasciatelopatire:questoe que/loche e statoprofetato." which a very conventional and busy painter's shop of the mid-fifteenth century
26 Pietro da Lucca, 1527, 3 11.-4,: worked is Neri di Bicci's Ricordanze.The greater part ofhis commissions are for
27 See Braun, 1924, vol. 2, 282; Hope, 1989; and Nagel, 1996b. tavole, which are almost always designated as tavole d'a/tare;see, for example, Neri
28 Belting, 1981, 28-30. di Bicci, 1976, 12 (n. 23), 25 (n. 50), 33 (n. 64), 48 (n. 95), 56 (n. rn), 60 (n. 121),
29 Ferdinahd de Saussure, Cours de Linguistique Générale,París: Payot, 1972, part 2, chs. etc.
V and VI, 170--80.And see also Roland Barthes, The Elements ef Semiology,trans. 43 The link between the modern easel picture and this form of altarpiece was first
Annette Lavers and Colin Smith, NewYork: Hill and Wang, 1967, 58-88. explicitly hypothesized by Burckhardt, 1988, 64: "As is well known, the modern
30 RomanJakobson, "Deux aspects du langage et deux types d'aphasies;' in Essais de Italian word quadro signifies any type of picture, irrespective of its shape, size or
Linguistique,_Générale,I, París: Editions de Minuit, 1963, 43-67. subject. But the fact that the most numerous and important Italian altarpieces
226 227
were painted on a square (or near-square) picture field prompts the suspicion that 5 Belting, 1981,281-8.
it was in the context of the church altar that the term quadrofirst originated." 6 The image's freedom from specific theological prescnption has been stressed
44 Max Ernst, "Au-dela de la peinture,"in idem, Ecritures,Paris: Gallimard, 1970, 256. above ali by Berliner, 1956, 97-n7. For a more general statement of the principle,
My thanks to Elizabeth Legge for giving me the exact reference of this proverbial see Berliner, 1945.
remark. 7 See Belting, 1981, ch. 4: "Realismus und Bildrhetorik."
45 The concrete circumstances of the rise of the new format have been analyzed by 8 Gilio, 1961, rro: "Dite bene,risposeM. Francesco; or dunque dite voi, M. Ruggiero,come
Gilbert, 1977, and Gardner von Teuffel, 1982 and 1983. The fact, stressed by vog/ionoesseredípinte le sacreímmagini." Rispose M. Ruggiero:"Difficilcosaea volerne
Gardner von Teuffel, that in these early experiments elements within the painting renderevera e indubitata ragioneche cosi sia e che altramenteessernon possa,perchédi
throw fictional bridges to the picture frame, and to the painting's physical archi- questo non abbiamoleggea/cunané regola,se non quanto che la consuetudinede' pittori,
tectural surroundings, <loes not contradict the principle of a notional disjunction innanzi che Míchelagnolofusse, n'ha dimostrato(la qualepero, come voi signori leggisti
between picture and frame. It presupposes this principle. sapete,elegge),e quantoche GuglielmoDurantene/ Razionale de' divini effizii ne scrive."
46 For this reason, I am in disagreement with the claim made by Anne B. Barriault, 9 Belting, 1981, 253: "die [mago Pietatis ist nicht aus einer theologischenKonzeption
Spalliera Paíntings of Renaissance Tuscany: Fables of Poets for Patrician Homes, 'geboren',wie mancheneinschliigigen Studienglaubenmachen,sondernals ost/ichesTefelbild
University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, r994, that spalliera paint- in den vVéstengelangt. .. "
ing is the ancestor of the modern easel picture. 10 See Ferdinand Cabrol, The Mass efthe WesternRiles, London: Sands, 1934, 43. For
47 Sarah Lawrence, "Conversazioniprofane:In dialogue with the Pagan Gods," doc- an account of Gregory's involvement in the writing of the earliest liturgical
toral dissertation, Columbia University, 1994. books, see Jungmann, 1986, 61-6.
48 The role played by the altarpiece in the rise of the modern easel picture is a recur- II See Carla Bertelli, "The Image of Pity in S. Croce in Gerusalemme," Essays in the
ring concern in the work of Hans Belting; see, most succinctly, Belting, 1987. History of Art Presentedto RudolfWittkower, London: Phaidon, 1967, 40-55.
49 The passage concludes Giotto and the Orators:Humanist Observersof Paíntingin Ita/y 12 See Male, 1908, 93.An intermediate stage in this inflationary process is represented
and the DíscoveryefPictorialComposition1350-1450, Oxford: Oxford University Press, by a highly informative mid-fifteenth-century Umbrian indulgence panel of the
r986, 139:"Seen through composítio the replacement of a Pisanello by a Mantegna, or Man ef Sorrows - Gregory Mass in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne
indeed of the triptych form by the form of the Sacra Conversazione, is part of the (reproduced in Belting, 1981, 285, Fig. 108), whose inscription reads that the
same movement as the replacement of Guarino 's prose by that of the generation of 14,000 years of true pardon traditionally accorded to worshippers who say the
George ofTrebizond: the dissolutumwas becoming compositum." prayers befare this image has since been increased to 27,036 years: "SanctoGregario
50 Hirst, 1988, 64. essendopapa et dicendola messagl' aparveel nostrosignoreyhu xpo in forma de piatate
51 We find such a composition in an ancient sarcophagus of the CarryíngefSílenus, onde vedendolosanctogregorio fo mossoapiatateet devotioneet sifece questaorationea sua
1 Matz, 1969, n. rr9. The reception of the composition, which was well known to reverentia.Et si a concessoad omnepersonaconfessaet contritache le dirainanfe alapiatate
Renaissance artists, is discussed in ch. 5 of this book. cum cinquepater nostri et cínqueave maria avera{?] quatordecemília anni di veraindul-
1
52 See Alois Riegl, Das Hollandische Gruppenportrat, Vienna: Ósterreichische gentia. Et molti a/tripape anno agiontointanto che suma in tuctovintasettemilia anni et
Staatsdruckerei, 1934. trentasei de veraindulgentía."
53 Hirst, 1981a, 589, was the first to note that one consequence of Michelangelo's 13 Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend, trans. Granger Ryan and Helmut
unusual composition was to attach it to the tradition of the Man of Sorrows. Ripperger, London: Longmans, Green, 1941, 185:"Then Gregory prostrated him-
self and prayed to God for the woman's unbelief; and when he arose the Host
which lay upan the altar had been changed into a piece of flesh in the form of a
CHAPTER TWO. MAN OF SORROWS AND ENTOMBMENT
finger. He showed this flesh to the incredulous woman, who immediately carne
1 This part of my dicussion relies fundamentally on Hans Belting," An Image and its back to the faith."The source of the story transmitted by the Golden Legendis the
function in the liturgy: The Man of Sorrows in Byzantium," Dumbarton Oaks Life of Gregory written by Paulus Diakonus (Migue, P.L. LXXV, 52); it is quoted
Papers,34-5, 1980-81, 1-16; and ídem, 1981, ch. 5. and discussed in J. A. Endres, "Die Darstellung der Gregoriusmesse im Mittelalter,"
2 Panofsky, 1927, 261. Zeitschriftfür ChristlicheKunst, 30, 1917, 147.ff.
3 Vetter, 1963, 218, showed that one of the earliest Western examples of the subject, 14 Male, 1908, 92.
a miniature of the Man of So"ows from a Roman Missal of 1254 in the Museo 15 Cf. Millard Meiss, Paintíng in Florenceand Siena after the Black Death, New York,
Archeologico of Cividale (Cod. LXXXVI, f. 167), decorates the Canon of the 1964, 124, n. 75.
Mass. 16 This fact, together with sorne exceptions, was noted by Braun, 1924, II, 451.
4 Quoted\ in Belting, 1981, n2-13: " .. .apparuit mihi effigiesillius benedictiDei et 17 By the fifteenth century it had become standard practice to include the image,
homíniscrucifixi,quasi tune noviterde crucedeposítí:cujussanguisapparebatsic recens... often called a pieta, in one or the other position. The demand comes up regularly,
et per vulneraeffluens." Further examples quoted by Vetter, 1963, 218 and 224. The for instance, in Neri di Bicci's records of altarpiece commissions. See, for example,
eucharistic associations of the image have been stressed above ali by Bauerreis, Neri dí Bicci, 1976, 60 (f. 26.r.): " .. .e nellapredellala Piata e quattromeze.fighureda
1931,3-14 and passim. lato,da ogni lato dua."
\
228 229
18 See Henk van Os, "The Discovery of an Early Man of Sorrows on a Dominican stipulated for ali the altars, and the Medici chapel in the church transept was held
Triptych," Journal of the Warburgand CourtauldInstitutes, 41, 1975, 65 ff. up as the model to follow; see Jeffrey Ruda, "A 1434 Building Programme for San
19 See Millet, 1916, 483 ff. Lorenzo in Florence," Burlington Magazine, CXX, 1978, 361. Hood, 1993, ro4-7,
20 See the excursus in Panofsky, 1953, 273-4, and Belting, 1981, 229. argued plausibly if not conclusively that Fra Angelico's Annalena altarpiece stood
21 See Berliner, 1956, ro7. on the altar of the Medici transept chapel at the time. Howard Saalman, "The 1434
22 The tabernacle-altarpiece is ascribed to Bartolomeo Giolfino by Ulrich Chapel Project," Burlington Magazine, CXX, 1978, 363, saw the document as part
Middeldorf, "Three Sculptors of the Veneto Represented at Fenway Court," in of an anti-Medici project, proposing that the new nave chapels planned in the
Fenway Court 1973, Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 1974, 6-8. 1434 document were intended for people "outside the Medici circle" who saw an
23 See, for example, Guillaume Durand, PontificaleRomanum, ed. Michel Andrieu opportunity to gain rights at San Lorenzo during the Medici exile. Caroline Elam,
(Studi e Testi 88, vol. III), Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1937-41, lib. "Cosimo de' Medici at San Lorenzo," in Cosimo 'il Vecchio'de' Medici, 1381r1464, ed.
2, cap. 3, no. 30: ".. Joraminisseu sepulcriin quo reliquiedebent recludi", and no. 38: Francis Ames-Lewis, Oxford: Clarendon, 1992, 175, convincingly rejected this
".. foramen seu sepulcrumfit in medio areseu altarisin parte superiori... " view, contending that "the chapter and canons of San Lorenzo continued to be
24 See Durandus, 1937-41, lib. 2, cap. 2, no. 3: " ... vel, deficientibus reliquiis, ponat ibi firrnly associated with the Medici during 1433-34 ... and that Cosimo was
corpus dornini." On the question in general, see G.J.C. Snoek, Medieval Pietyfrom informed of its affairs."
Relics to the Eucharist:A Processof Mutual Interaction,Leiden: Brill, 1995, 175-202. 34 Although Fra Angelico's panel enjoyed a rich history of reception later in the cen-
25 See Gaetano Moroni, Dizionario di Erudizione Storico-Ecclesiastica, Venice, 1851, vol. tury, the earliest known response to Fra Angelico's panel, a drawing in the Uffizi
LIII, s.v. "Pietra." formerly attributed to Andrea del Castagno, Florence, Gabinetto dei Disegni e
26 The panel is close to one in the Cherbourg Museum, where the narrative ele- delle Stampe, 252E; pen, 22.1 X 18.7 cm, shows how uneasily its innovations w'ere
ments are strengthened. The Cherbourg panel has recently been reattributed to assirnilated into the Florentine tradition. The drawing was mentioned in general
the young Filippino Lippi by Patrizia Zambrano, "The 'Dead Christ' in relation to Fra Angelico's panel by von Einem, 1940, 91, n. 2. Once attributed to
Cherbourg: A New Attribution to the Young Filippino Lippi," Burlington Andrea del Castagno, the drawing is now attributed tentatively to Francesco
Magazine, CXXXVIII, 1n8, 1996, 321-4. Pesellino. The drawing concentrates on the quite new motif of the full-length
27 See Belting, 1986, 48-56. Humfrey, 1993, 167-8, has pointed out a parallel discrep- Christ supported from behind; Fra Angelico's experiment with narrative consis-
ancy between the innovative altarpiece designs found in his drawing books and tency was, however, evidently of little importance to him. Christ stands supported
the more conventional formats and designs he adopted, or was forced to adopt, in by a figure adapted directly from the figure of Joseph of Arimathea in Fra
his panel paintings. Angelico's panel; St. John and the Virgin, however, have returned to seated posi-
28 Robert Suckale, "Arma Christi: Überlegungen zur zeichenhaftigkeit rnittelalter- tions on either side, an arrangement familiar from more convencional Man of
licher Andachtsbilder," StiidelJahrbuch,n.s. 6, 1977, 190, 196 and passim. Although I Sorrows compositions. The figure behind Christ has, evidently without knowl-
find his description of the process illurninating, I take issue with Suckale's terrni- edge of the drawing's dependence on Fra Angelico, often been taken as a figure of
nology. In my view, the more "pictorial" treatments that emerge in the fifteenth God the Father. This idencification is presumably due to its sirnilarity to northern
century are moresignlike than the earlier images. European images of this kind, but this sirnilarity is probably coincidental. The
29 Cf. Gertrud Simon, Die Ikonographieder GrablegungChristi, Rostock: Hinstorff, drawing is more reasonably read as a natural readaptation of Fra Angelico's full-
1926, 51: "Das Bild des Fra Angelico triigt mehr noch den Charakter einer length motif back into the traditional Man of Sorrows scheme. The drawing
Schmerzensmannes-Darstellung als einer Grablegung." shows, indeed, just how strong the pull of this tradition remained for contempo-
30 On the use of cloths and veils in Christian ritual see,Joseph Braun, Die liturgische rary viewers. The panel <lid eventually provoke less hesitant responses, which are
Gewandung im Occidentund Orient, Freiburg: Herder, 1907, 515-61, and ídem, Die discussed below.
liturgischenParamentein Gegenwartand Vergangen,2nd ed., Freiburg: Herder, 1924, 35 More conclusive arguments than those proposed by Ernst Kantorowicz, "The Este
228-31. The Eucharistic associations of the depiction of veils, above ali in Portrait by Rogier van der Weyden," Journal oJthe Warburgand Courtauld Institutes,
Epiphany imagery, are discussed by Rab Hatfield, Botticelli's Uffizi 'Adoration':A 3, 1939-40, 165-80, need to be put forward before the occurrence of this trip can
Study in PictorialContent, Princeton, 1976, 38, n. II. be called into question. Michael Hirst (Dunkerton and Hirst, 1994, 62) has said he
31 I am grateful to John Shearman for first opening my eyes to this feature of the believes the panel to have been made "in the orbit ofRogier" rather than by him.
fresco. Again, until arguments are produced to sustain such scepticism there is, it seems to
32 Georges Didi-Huberman, Fra Angelico: Dissemblance and Figuration, trans. Jane me, no compelling reason to change the tradicional attribution. Although the
Marie Todd, Chicago, 1995. See also my review in Art Bulletin, 78, 1996, 559-65. analysis of the panel's relation to the Fra Angelico predella proposed here will, in
33 Hood, 1993, ch. 2, discussed the innovative stamp given to the San Marco complex fact, serve to support the attribution to Rogier himself, the attribucion question is
under Medici patronage. He also specifically suggested (45) that the modern of rninor importance to my larger arguments. The important matter remains the
Renaissance pala was a form that Cosimo rnight have wanted to associate specifi- panel's fifteenth-century provenance from Florence, which is attested by evidence
cally with his patronage. The argument receives support from the program of adduced by Hirst (see especially Dunkerton and Hirst, 1994, So, n. 35), and abun-
chapels proJ\cted for San Lorenzo in 1434, where the new altarpiece format is dantly confirmed by the Florentine reception of the panel studied in this chapter.
231
36 Jahnig, 1918, 171-6. Italian flanking-figure scheme with the half-length, self-supporting Man of Sorrows
37 Gol~chmidt, 1903, 56-7: ".. . der obereTeil der Komposition- etwa bis zu den Hiiften in between. See, for example, the predella of the stone altarpiece by Tommaso Pisano
der Figuren- griif3teVerwandscheft aufweistmit jener symbolischenDarstellungder 'Pieta,' in San Francesco at Pisa (illustration in Belting, 1981, Fig. 35). The composition sur-
derenin OberitalienbesondersbeliebtenTypus Cario Crivellioftersgemalt hat." vived in later works, such as the predella of Matteo di Giovanni's St. Matthew altar-
38 F~r exceptions in the north, see the Man of Sorrows standing in the sarcophagus piece in the Cathedral of Pienza (illustration in van Os, 1990, Fig. 208). .
w1t~ St: John and the Virgin on the back of the Irnhof altar in Nuremberg (illus- 8 Otto Pacht, ván Eyck and the Founders of Early Netherlandish Painting, trans. David
4
tratton m Car! von Gebhardt, Die Anfange der Tafelmalereiin Nürnberg, Strasbourg, Britt, London: Miller, 1994, 39-40.
190_8,pl. III, cited by Jahnig, 1918); or, interestingly, the Man of Sorrows placed
4 For an account of the development and meaning of the prayer, see Jungmann, II,
9
behtnd the sarcophagus and supported by angels in the lower central register of the 1986, 226-37.
small Mosan altarpiece of ca. 1415, in the van Beuningen collection in Vierhouten 50 The relation of this prayer to the Man of Sorrows-based images is discussed,
(Panofsky, 1953, Fig. ro7). By the end of the century, perhaps as a result of greater unfortunately with too rigid a concern for whether or not it is a "source," by Gert
contact with Italy, the composition became more common: See, for example, the von der Osten, "Engelpieta," in Reallexikon zur Deutschen Kunstgeschichte,vol. 5,
print by Martin Schongauer (B. 69) and the copy of the Santa Croce in Stuttgart, 1960, 603, and Hubert Schrade, "Beitrag zur Erklarung des
Gerusalemme icon by Israel van Meckenem (B. 135). It also existed, of course, in Schmerzensmannbildes," in Deutschkundliches- FriedrichPanzer zum 60. Geburtstag
half-length versions of the deposition deriving from Rogier's lost panel; for these, überreicht,Heidelberg: winter 1930, 178-9.
see Ringbom, 1965, n7-41, and the remarks below.
51 Goldschmidt, 1903, passim. The discussion transpired largely between Goldschmidt
39 For sorne initial steps toward a comparative analysis, see Penny H. Jolly, "Rogier and Aby Warburg.
van der Weyden's Escorial and Philadelphia Crucifixions and Their Relations to 52 Ibid., 56: " .. . in beidenfiillt eine gewisse Unmotiviertheit der Situation, ein zum
Fra Angelico at San Marco," Oud-Holland, 95, 1981, n3-26. Schaustel/en des in ganzer Vertikale aufrechtgehaltenen, nicht horizontal getragenen
40 Panofsky, 1953, 168 and 258.
Leichnamsins Auge."
41 One wonders, as a matter of purely biographical interest, whether Rogier ever had 53 See the more sustained reading of the work offered in the opening of ch. 1, above.
the opportunity to examine Fra Angelico's panel and make the comparison for
54 The clearest description and justification of the practice was offered by Ludolph
?irnself. lt is probable that at least Gentile da Fabriano's AdorationoJthe Magi, orig- of Saxony (1300-77 or' 78) in the "Proernium" to his widely read Life of Christ
mally on the adjacent altar in the Strozzi sacristy in SS. Trinita, would have been ( VitaJesu Christi ex Evangelioet approbatisah EcclesiaCatholicadoctoribussedule col-
high on the list of any artistic visitor to Florence. lecta, ed. Louis-Marie Rigollot, Paris: Palmé, Brussels: Lebrocquy, I, 1878, 1-ro).
42 For the tradition deriving from this lost panel, see Ringbom, 1965, n7-4r. Much of Ludolph's prologue was taken over, almost verbatim, from the
43 Rogier's panel is almost certainly to be identified with the chapel altarpiece MeditationesVitae Christi, especially from the prologue and the theoretical ch. 50,
described, with great precision, in the 1492 inventory of the villa at Careggi; "On the three kinds of contemplation."
Müntz, 1888, 88: "Una tavola d'altare chon corniciedorato atorno,dipintovi drento el 55 Meditations, 1961, 342-5. In this account, the Virgin accompanies the body to the
sepolcrodel nostroSignoreschonfittodi crociee cinquealtrefigure." Its nonidentity with tomb.
the panel recorded by Fazio and Ciriaco d' Ancona in Ferrara was argued in 1903 56 Thomas a Kempis, Meditationson the Lije of Christ, ed. and trans. Henry P.Wright
by Aby Warburg in dialogue with Adolph Goldschrnidt (Warburg, 1903, 58, and Samuel S. Kettlewell, NewYork: Dutton, 1892, 222.
reprinted in Warburg, 1932, 215-16). It is very likely that Michelangelo had had 57 This panel rnight correspond to one recorded in the 1492 Medici inventory;
occasion to make the comparison for himself during his years in the Medici Müntz, 1888, 64: "Una tavolettadipintovi il nostroSignaremortochon molti santi che lo
household.
portano al sepolcro,di mano difra Giovanni."
44 Panofsky, 1927, 276-8. 58 See Millet, 11, 1916, 489-516, and Kurt Weitzmann, "The Origin of the Threnos,"
45 The resilience of the half-length format in Italy is demonstrated by a moment in in De Artibus OpusculaXL: Essays in Honor of Erwin Panofsky,NewYork: NewYork
the reception history of Giovanni da Milano's panel: In Masolino da Panicale's University Press, 1961, I, 476-90.
fresco in the Baptistery at Empoli, for example, the posture of the Christ figure is 59 The altarpiece recorded in these drawings has been hypothetically identified with
taken over almost verbatim from Giovanni da Milano, and yet it is reinserted into that described by Ciriaco d'Ancona in 1449 in the collection ofLionello d'Este in
the still dominant half-length format. Ferrara. For the text of Ciriaco's description, see Friedrich Winkler, Der Meister
1 1
46 For the role of this and other Italian Trecento elements in late fourteenth-century von Flémal/e und Rogier van der vVeyden, Strasbourg: Heitz, 1913, 181.ff.; it is
French art see Erwin Panofsky, Renaissanceand Renascencesin vVesternArt (1960), reprinted, with sorne emendations, by Panofsky, 1953, 361. For the most e~phatic
NewYork: Harper & Row, 1972, 159-160. argument in favor of the identification, see W. Houben, "Raphael and Rog1er _va~
47 See Georg Swarzenski, "Insinuationes divinae pietatis," in FestschriftHeinrichWii!ffiin; der Weyden," Burlington Magazine, 91, 1949, 312-15, who argues that Rog1ers
Beitragezur Kunst- und Geistesgeschichte zum 21.Juni 1924übe"eichtvon Freundenund composition influenced Raphael's Borghese Entombment. Warbur?, 19~3, 58,. in
Schülern,,München: Schmidt, 1924, 65--74.The idea of the Man of Sorrows presented refuting the admittedly less believable suggestion that the work be 1dent1fied w1th
by angels had already been developed in Italy in the fourteenth century, usually in a the Uffizi Entombment, asserted that the text can only be understood to describe a
specifically Eucharistic context. The composition, however, conformed to the typical deposition, but the text does not seem to support such a definitive reading: "tabel-
\
232 233
1amnobis ostendit ... e suppliciohumanatiJovis depositipientissimo agalmatecircumet Schwartz, 1974, no. 27. Berenson, 1963, vol. 1, 145-7, attributed both to the Master
plerumquevirum [virorum]imaginibusmulierumquemoetissimedeploratum[deplorantium} ofSan Miniato.Van Os and Prakhen attributed the Rotterdam panel to a different
imaginibus.. . " Perhaps the strongest evidence against the identification of the hand. The Rotterdam panel shows a strictly frontal composition more closely
altarpiece recorded in the drawings with that recorded by Ciriaco is the latter's related to the Fra Angelico predella, although the cave has been replaced by a sim-
enthusiastic description of the landscape elements in the painting [ "... virentiaque ple sarcophagus at the foot of the cross. Christ is supported by St. John and Joseph
prata,flores,arboresetfrondiferosatque umbrososcol/es. .. '1,which are not represented from his underarms, whereas the Virgin and the Magdalene sit on the ground at
in the shrinelike conception of the altarpiece as shown in the drawings. On the Christ's feet; the group is further amplified by St.Jerome and St. Bernardino, who
other hand, the painted copy by the Master of St. Bartholomew in the J. Paul touch Christ's outstretched hands. This arrangement and certain details, such as
Getty Museum, although maintaining the shrinelike box, <loes show a ground Christ's legs and the pose of the Magdalene, perhaps show that Fra Angelico's
covered with foliage. Did he add this feature? If the work recorded in the París model was enriched by an acquaintance with Rogier's panel. The near-Rückenfigur
and Leipzig drawings is to be identified with the altarpiece seen by Ciriaco of the Virgin shows sorne sirnilarities to that projected by Michelangelo. As far as
d' Ancona, then the question of its relation to Mantegna's print of the Entombment the thematic conception is concerned, however, the Master of San Miniato's
also arises: Mantegna's work would become, in part, an "Italian" classicizing Avignon panel (Figure. 41) is a clearer precedent for the attempt to reconcile a
response to Rogier's altarpiece. narrative scene, involving transitional movement, with the frontal composition. I
60 Cf., for example, Koch, 1975, n. 98. believe this painter is also the painter of a panel in Sta. Felicita in Florence (given
61 The classic statement is by Schapiro, 1996, especially ch. 4, "Frontal and Profile as the unlikely attribution of Francesco d' Antonio by Berenson, 1963, 63), which
Symbolic Forms," 69-95, 107-12. proposes a similarly ingenious but awkward experiment with the theme of the
62 See, for example, Klaus Wessel, "Frontalitat," in Reallexicon zur Byzantinischen adoration of the Magi.
Kunst, ed. Klaus Wessel, 11,Stuttgart: Hierseman, 1971, ca. 586-93. 73 Ugo Procacci, La Reale Gallería dell'Accademiadi Firenze, Roma: Librería dello
63 Meyer Schapiro, "The Frescoes of Castelseprio" (1952), in Late Antique, Bar/y Stato, 1936, no. 8628. lt was originally flanked by predella panels of St.Jerome and
Christian, and Mediaeval Art: Selected Papers. New York: Braziller, 1979, 85. The of the Stigmatizatíon of St. Francis,nos. 8627 and 8629, respectively. For the prove-
increased emphasis on portrait-icons, and its relationship to the "intensification" nance, see Walter and Elizabeth Paatz, Die Kirchen von Florenz, 111,Frankfurt:
of the cult of images in the era before the iconoclastic controversy, was observed Klostermann, 1952, 48, who record the altarpiece in San Marco "an unbes-
by Kitzinger, "On Sorne lcons of the Seventh Century" (1955), in 1976, 233-55, timmten Ort." The theme is taken in a similar direction in a predella panel by
especially 244-5. See, also, idem, "The Cult of Images in the Age before ]acopo del Sellaio also in the Accademia (no. 8655), which is closer to the Fra
lconoclasm" (1954), in 1976, 91-156, and "Byzantine Art in the Period between Angelico predella. Christ, still upright and frontal, is being dragged toward the
Justinian and lconoclasm" (1958), in 1976, 157-232, especially 199-202. tomb at the right while the Virgin faints into the arms of the holy women at the
64 See Hans von Campenhausen, "Die Bilderfrage in der Reformation," Zeitschriftfür left. As they fall away from each other, their limp arms cross - a trace of the tradi-
Kirchengeschichte, LXVIII, 1957, 96-128. tional Man of Sorrows composition now poignantly treated as an "accident" of
65 Schapiro, 1996, 81-2. Túy's polemic is also discussed by Berliner, 1945, 278-g, 282. the scene.
66 Both passages are excerpted and translated in Mango, 1972, 253-4. 74 These works were adduced in relation to the panels of Fra Angelico and
67 Ringbom, 1965. Michelangelo by Hirst, 1994, 62. A similar effort to preserve the frontality of the
68 Hollanda, 1911,274. dead Christ within a narrative subject can be found in Ghirlandaio's Lamentatíon
69 Colonna, 1982, S2 23, 188.This and the passage from Hollanda are cited and dis- over the altar of the Vespucci chapel in Ognissanti. Michael Rohlmann, "Ein
cussed by Deswarte-Rosa, 1997, 363. See also the Introduction ofthis book. flamisches Vorbild für Ghirlandaio's 'prime pitture,"' Mitteilungen des
70 Gilio, 1961, 55-6. Zeri, 1957, studied several examples ofthis archaizing sensibility KunsthistorischenInstitutes in Florenz, XXXVI, 1992, 388-96, set this work in rela-
in Italian painting of the middle and later sixteenth century. tion to Rogier's Uffizi Entombment. The trend to "historicize" Man of Sorrows
71 Angelo Poliziano, Prose Volgari inedite Poesie Latine e Greche edite e inedite, ed. images was not confined to the tradition stemrning from Fra Angelico and Rogier.
Isidoro del Lungo, Florence: Barbera, 1867, 7: "Luí dispostogiu di croce,collebraccia By the late fifteenth century the traditional Man of Sorrows image was distinctly
distese,col capochino,col cuoreaperto,vi chiama,Padri miei, v'invita a piangersecoil suo old-fashioned for most painters, and increasingly we find the image contextual-
acerbissimodo/ore;far compagniaa la sua santa sposa, vedova sconsolata . .. ; a inginoc- ized in a scene of entombment or lamentation. Two fairly typical examples, north
chiarvi a inchinarvi e prosternervi dinanzi a' suoi santissimi piedi." Presentational and south of the Alps: The Dürer-school Lamentatíon in the Ca' d'Oro in Venice,
devices were also a common feature of epideictic oratory, which O'Malley, 1979, and the Lamentation by Giovanni Agostino da Lodi, also in the Ca' d'Oro, where
showed -»7asapplied with great frequency in the sermons delivered at the papal the effort to maintain Christ's frontal orientation in a narrative context produces a
court in this period. Sorne examples of this form of oratory are studied in relation solution similar to Ghirlandaio's Vespucci chapel fresco discussed above.
to Michelangelo's experiments in ch. 3. 75 Although the Great Passionwas not published in complete form until 15II, it is
72 This panel is an innovative adaptation of the more conventional composition rep- generally agreed that the seven woodcuts made before 1500 originally circulated
resented by a panel in the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen in Rotterdam; Henk as single prints. See Erwin Panofsky, Albrecht Dürer, Princeton: Princeton
van Os and, Marian Prakhen, The Florentine Paintings in Holland, Maarssen: University Press, 1945, 45.
234 235
76 Beyond the moment chosen, certain further particulars are close to altarpiece at all. I argue below that it did originate in an altarpiece commission
Michelangelo's conception. In both scenes, Dürer has been careful to show Christ for the church of Sant' Agostino in Rome in 1500, but apart from this external
entirely nude; the bodies and drapery of the other figures "accidentally" cover his evidence, the internal evidence of the panel is paramount. The panel's design is
genitalia. Michelangelo shared this conception of Christ, and in his panel showed the result of a conscious adherence to altarpiece traditions and paradigms. It
him, quite remarkably, frontally and completely uncovered. Also, the highly would be a statement about the category and institution of altarpieces even in
expressive figure sitting on the left in the Lamentatíon, her body facing away from the unlikely instance that it did not officially belong to the category; indeed, in
the scene but her head turned against her shoulders to cast a teary gaze back, was, that case it would be an even more overt statement.
I believe, adapted by Michelangelo for the figure at the right of his panel; he has 4 Frey, 1956, 122: "Vielleicht war es eine Sheu gerade vor der zu gro/3en und unmittelbaren
even preserved her particular kind of cloak and fastening device. Realítiit, die dem 'Bílde' durch die enge Verknüpfung mit der realen Gegenwart Gottes im
77 See Büttner, 1983. Me{3opfer verleihen wurde, die sich der Verwendung des Schmerzensmannes im Schrein
78 On the rise of narrative themes in fifteenth-century altarpieces, see Eva Friederike entgegenstellte." This idea, only suggested here, is one application of the more
Werner, Das italíenische Altarbild vom Trecento bis zum Cinquecento: Untersuchungen elaborate theory articulated in Frey's fascinating essay, "Der Realitatscharakter
zur Thematik italienischer Altargemalde, Munich: Inaugural-Dissertation, Ludwig- des Kunstwerkes," Festschrift Heinrich Wo!fflin, Munich: Schmidt, 1935, 30-67.
Maximilians-Universitat, 1971. On the increasing incidence of Deposition altar- 5 In sorne representations of the scene Christ's appearance takes the place of the
pieces during the period, see Harvey E. Hamburgh, "Aspects of the Descent from altarpiece, almost as if the living reality were substituting the altar image. Three
the Cross from Lippi to Cigoli;' doctoral dissertation, University oflowa, 1978. examples among many: the Mass of St. Gregory formerly in Paris attributed to
79 The effect was perceptively described by Justi, 1909, 121: "Bei Michelangelo ist }ene Andrea di Niccolo by Berenson, 1970, 11,n. 838; the Mass of St. Gregory by Bernt
Schaustellung nur ein zufalliges, ganz transitorischmomentanes Ergebnis des mechanischen Notke in the Marienkirche in Lübeck of 1501-4 (illustration in Wiltrud
Vollzugs: ... Christus ist nur für uns, die Betrachter des Gemiildes, in diese Stellung Mersmann, Der Schmerzensmann, Düsseldorf: Schwann, 1952, pl. 31); and the
gebracht worden." Rhenish Mass of St. Gregory of ca. 1500 in the Augsburg Gallery (illustration in
Berliner, 1945, Fig. 16). The issue appears to have been a special concern for
Israhel van Meckenem, in whose engravings of the Mass of St. Gregory (B. rno,
CHAPTER THREE. HUMANISM ANO THE ALTAR IMAGE
IOI, and rn2) the Man of Sorrows is placed in sensitive and ambiguous relation-
1 Paul Kristeller, Holzschnitte im koniglíchen Kupferstichkabinett zu Berlín, Graphische ships with the altarpiece structure. For illustrations see The fllustrated Bartsch, IX,
Gesellscheft, XXI, Berlin: Cassirer, 1915, n. 89. New York: Abaris, plates 99, rno, and IOI. The Man of Sorrows also makes an
2 Even the other aspects of Michelangelo's composition, such as the kneeling fig- appearance as a sort of paradigmatic altar image in other scenes of miracles
ures in the foreground, find precedents within the Man of Sorrows tradition: An involving altars. In Taddeo di Bartolo's predella panel of the Miraculous Mass at
engraving by the Housebook Master (Lehrs, n. 22), for example, shows the Man Greccio,for example, the altar is mounted by a triptych with the Man of Sorrows
of Sorrows supported by God the Father and adored by the kneeling figures of in the central panel. (For an illustration, together with a reconstruction of the
the Virgin and St. John. entire altarpiece, see Gail E. Solberg, "A Reconstruction ofTaddeo di Bartolo's
3 The rarity of the Man of Sorrows as the main subject of altarpieces was noted, Altarpiece for S. Francesco a Prato, Perugia," Burlington Magazine, CXXXIV,
with sorne exceptions, by Braun, 1924, 11,451. See also Von der Osten, 1935, 33, 1992, 646-54, Fig. 30.) The fact that in such scenes the Man of Sorrows could
who observed, "Selten zeigt er sich an den Alta,flügen und an der Rückseite,fast gar figure as the altar image par excellence gives more pointed significance to the
nicht im Schrein" and also noted exceptions on p. 34, n. 54. A few further excep- fact that it only very rarely figured as such in reality.
tions in Italy may be noted.An altarpiece byTaddeo Gaddi in the Yale University 6 Frey, 1956, 120.
Art Gallery features a Christ in the tomb with the Virgin that shows distinct 7 Other examples include the Man of Sorrows - Trinity panel by Jan Polack in
affinities with Man ofSorrows images; a similar arrangement is found in an altar- Blutenberg of 1491 (brought to my attention in a graduate seminar paper by
piece by Mariotto di Cristofano in the parish church of Carda di Rosa Berland); a large late fifteenth-century German Man of Sorrows - Trinity
Castelfocognano (Arezzo). The figure appears in more distinctly recognizable panel in the sacristy of Sant' Alessandro in Colonna, Bergamo; and a Lübeck
form in an early fifteenth-century panel showing the Man of Sorrows between the School retable of the same subject in Hald, Denmark (illustration in Steinberg,
Virgin and St. Lucy in the church of Santa Lucia in San Giovanni Valdarno (illus- 1996, fig. 250). In a notable case ofliteral archaism, in 1473 an earlier (ca. 1400?)
tration in Frederick Antal, Florentíne Painting and its Social Background, London: K. Man of Sorrows sculpture was introduced into the main corpus of an altarpiece
Paul, 1948, pl. 120A); in Lorenzo Monaco's Accademia panel (Figure 35); and in a in Breslau (discussion and illustration in Von der Osten, 1935, 33, n. 54, Fig. So).
panel by Niccolo di Pietro Gerini derived from Lorenzo Monaco's, originally in 8 See, for example, the triptych by Francesco dai Libri in SS. Nazaro e Celso, illus-
Santissima Annunziata and now in the Uffizi (illustration in Luisa Marcucci, trated in Berenson, 1970, II, n. 1286, as well as the relief sculpture in San Lorenzo
Gallerie nazíonalí di Firenze: i dipinti toscani del seco/o 14, Roma: Istituto poligrafico attributed to Giro lamo Benaglio, and the canvas in the Museo d' Arte in
dello Stato, 1965, pl. 75). There is also the Angelico-school triptych of the Man of Castelvecchio, both illustrated in Rudolf Berliner, "Arma Christi," Münchener
Sorrows between St. Francis and St. ]erome in the Archiepiscopate of Florence. It ]ahrbuch der Bildenden Kunst, 6, 1955, Figs. 26 and 27. See also the Man ofSorrows
may be ob)ected that it is not certain whether the London Entombment is an altarpiece in San Lorenzo in Vicenza; for an illustration, see Peter Humfrey, "The
236 237
Bellini, the Vivarini, and the Beginnings of the Renaissance Altarpiece in restored, cleaned, removed from their traditional obscure locations, and placed on
Venice," in Borsook and Superbi Gioffiedi, 1994, Fig. 101, who ascribes it to a the high altar of the church. An entirely typical example appears in his early pas-
Paduan sculptor and dates it to the late fifteenth century. A Man of Sorrows panel toral visit within the city ofVerona in 1529, on a visit to the church of Santa
by Benedetto Diana in the Museo Correr in Venice measures about 1 meter in Maria della Rocca Maggiore: "... ubi factis debitis officiis et exequiis pro defunctis
height and thus could also have served on an altar. For a slightly later example, iuxta solitum, primo se contulit ad locum sacratissimi Corporis Domini nostri Iesu
see the wood sculpture by Stefano Lamberti in the parish church of Condino, Christi, quo viso, mandavit vas seu tabernaculum restaurari et poni in eofrustum corpo-
dated 1530 (illustration in !mago Lignea: Sculture lignee ne/ Trentino da/ XIII al XIV ralis, ut mundius conservetur et reponi in medio altaris maioris ut in aliis imposuit."
seco/o, ed. Enrico Castelnuovo, Trent: Temi, 1989, cat. 35). Other solutions were Riforma Pretridentina della Diocesi di Verona:Visite Pastorali del VescovoC. M. Giberti,
closer to Michelangelo's in offering a historiated scene organized around a Man 1525-42, ed.Antonio Fasani, III,Vicenza: Istituto perle Ricerche di Storia Sociale
of Sorrows-like Christ. We see deliberate and rather awkward efforts to preserve e di Storia Religiosa, 1989, 1557. On Giberti's Christocentric emphasis, see
the Man of Sorrows at the center of a narrative scene in, for example, a lost Prosperi, 1969, 270-r. Giberti's most spectacular intervention, of course, occurred
Lamentation by Polidoro da Caravaggio formerly in San Silvestro in Rome whose in the choir ofVerona Cathedral, where a sacrament tabernacle was placed on the
composition is preserved in a drawing in Chantilly (see Lanfranco Ravelli, high altar and surrounded by Michele Sanmicheli's tornacoroin 1534.
Polidoro a San Silvestro al Quirinale, Bergamo:Edizioni dell'Ateneo di scienze, let- 12 Panofsky, 1953, 250-8; Belting, 1994, 432-42; Bernhard Decker, Das Ende des mit-
tere ed arti, 1987, figure 3). Another example is a never-executed Lamentation by telalterlichen Kultbildes und die Plastik Hans Leinbergers, Bamberger Studien zur
Baccio Bandinelli, the preparatory drawings for which show an extremely the- Kunstgeschichte und Denkrnalpflege, ed. R. Suckale and A. Hu bel, III, Bamberg,
atrical staging; see, most dramatically, the drawing in the Uffizi, Annamaria 1985; ídem, "Reform within the Cult Image: The German Winged Altarpiece
Petrioli Tofani, Gabinetto disegni e stampe degli Uffizi. Inventario. III. Disegni di before the Reformation," in Humfrey and Kemp, 1990, 90-ro5;Joseph Koerner,
figura, Florence: Olschki, 1991, inv. n. 539F, p. 229; the drawing is discussed in The Moment of Self-Portraiture in German Renaissance Art, Chicago: University of
relation to the commission by Philippe Costamagna, "La création de I' ordre des Chicago Press, 1993, 80-126.
théatins et ses répercussions sur I'art de Rosso Fiorentino et de ses contempo- 13 Matz, 1969, n. 171. On this type of thiasos sacrophagus, see Erwin Pochmarski,
rains," in Pontormo e Rosso, eds. Roberto P. Ciardi and Antonio Natali, Venice, Dionysische Gruppen: Bine typologische Untersuching zur Geschichte des Stützmotivs,
Marsilio, 161, n. 17. I discuss the case ofRosso's Dead Christ in Boston in chapter Vienna: Osterreichischen Archaologischen Instituts, 1990, 157-8. The known
5. drawings by Renaissance artists after this work are: Pisanello (sometimes attrib-
9 For the trend of placing tabernacles, traditionally kept on side walls, on altars uted to Gentile da Fabriano), Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, inv. F. 214 inf., n. 15
toward the late fifteenth century, see Braun, 1924, II, 349 and 589. See also Otto r.; Girolamo da Carpi, "Contraffazioni," Turin, Biblioteca Reale, T. 91, fol 15 r.;
Kurz, "A Group of Florentine Drawings for an Altar," Journal of the Hlarburgand Guglielmo della Porta, "Della Porta Sketchbook," Düsseldorf, Kunstmuseum, fol.
Courtauld Institutes, 18, 1955, 35-53; Hans Caspary, Das Tabernakel in Italien bis zum 7r. I am grateful to the Census of Ancient IM1rks of Art Known to the Renaissance,
Konzil von Trient, Munich: Inaugural-Dissertation, Ludwig-Maximilians- Humboldt University, Berlín, for this information, and I wish to thank Professor
Universitat, 1964, 68-88, van Os, 1984--90, II, 207-12; and Humfrey, 1993, espe- Horst Bredekamp for facilitating my access to it. The relief also appears to have
cially 73-4. The strength of the trend can be gauged by listing only the Italian been known to Lorenzo Ghiberti; see Richard Krautheimer and Trude
cathedrals that saw sacrament tabernacles placed on their high altars in this Krautheimer-Hess, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
period: in Florence (1496, under Savonarola, see n. rr),Aquileia (ca. 1500), Siena 1956, 349 and Fig. 144.
(1506),Vicenza (1532),Verona (1535).At San Marco in Venice (not a cathedral at 14 Hind,V, 232, n. 7; see also Oberhuber, 1973, 494, n. 179, and Emmerling-Skala,
this time, of course), the Pala d'Oro was unremovable, but in 1517 a sacrament 1994, 387.The print is based on a sarcophagus now in Blenheim palace; see Matz,
altar by the Bregno shop was placed in the apse directly behind it. 1969, n. 45, and Bober-Rubinstein, 1986, n. So.
ro Humfrey, 1993, 72. For examples of the contractual manifestations of these prí- 15 See, for example, Matz, 1969, ns. 3, 4, 35, 40, 77, and 278.
vate interests, and their manifestation in a saint-oriented piety, see Hope, 1990. 16 Bacchic subjects did not have a monopoly on this figure type, and Michelangelo
rr The diarist Luca Landucci reported an episode that reveals a clear link between would have seen it in other ancient works. Hirst, 1981a, 588, in arguing for an
Savonarolan policy and the placement of a sacrament tabernacle on the high altar early dating for the London panel, pointed out similarities between the figure
of Florence Cathedral; A Florentine Diary from 1450 to 1516, trans. Alice de Rosen style in the painting and the famous drawing of a nude figure seen from behind
Jervis, London: Dent, NewYork: Dutton, 1927, 128--9:"29th November [1496]. in the Casa Buonarroti, which Wilde, 1932-34, had shown to be based on a
The crucifix was taken off the high altar at Santa Maria del Fiore, and put clown Hercules relief, a version of which now exists in the Vatican. Wilde also argued,
below, where the canons sit; and on the high altar was placed instead a carved on the basis ofJacopino del Conte's 1541 Baptism in San Giovanni Decollato in
wooden tabernacle for the host, not yet gilt but beautiful to see." And then, in Rome and a Flagellation by another Michelangelo student now in the Prado,
1498, after the fall ofSavonarola (141):"2nd May. The tabernacle which had been that Michelangelo has also made a study of the figure in the pro file view, a view
placed on the high altar in Santa Maria del Fiore to contain the host was taken that brings it very close to the female arching figure in the London painting.
away again, and the crucifix replaced there as before." It was a standard feature of Another Flagellation, by Marten van Heemskerk, from the St. Lawrence altar in
Gian Matte~ Giberti's pastoral visits to demand that sacrament tabernacles be Alkmaar, now in Linkoping, shows the same figure and bears an even more
238 239
NOTES TO PP. 88-91
NOTES TO PP. 91-92
striking resemblance, in reverse, to the figure in the London painting: It shows 25 Dvorák, 1989, 80-1 called it "das erste heidnischgedachteBildwerk seít derAntíke."
the arching back and the downturned head, and even supplies the far leg in the Wind, 1968, 177-90, also stressed the relationship of the Bacchusto the antique in
act of stepping up. In both this and the Prado Flagellatíoncited by Wilde, the fig- the context of Renaissance debates de imitatíone, although with dubious conclu-
ure is positioned on one side of a nude Christ, flanked on the other side by a sions as to Michelangelo's position in the debate. One wonders, of course, also
figure seen from in front. More recently, Andrew Butterfield, "A Source for about the colossal marble Herculesthat Michelangelo made between 1492 and
Michelangelo's National Gallery Entombment," Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorisches 1494, which was first recorded in the Strozzi family and was later sent to France.
Institutes in Florenz, 33, 1989, 390, has adduced a similarly posed figure from a See Tolnay, 1949, 197-8, Paul Joannides, "Michelangelo's Lost Hercules,"
Hunt of Meleagersarcophagus - one of the dancing figures in the "procession" Burlington Magazine, CXIX, 1977, 550-4, and ídem, "A supplement to
behind Meleager - as a model for this same figure in the painting. All of these Michelangelo's lost Hercules," BurlíngtonMagazine, CXXIII, 1981, 20-3. Michael
figures share an ecstatic quality most consistently found in bacchic representa- Hirst, "Michelangelo, Carrara and the Marble for the Cardinal's Pieta," Burlíngton
tions, and the further bacchic models to be discussed below suggest that in the Magazine, CXXVII, 1985, 154-9 suggested that Piero de' Medici originally com-
case of the London Entombment the bacchic associations were paramount and missioned this work; see also his remarks in CarteggíoIndiretto, II, App. 2, n. 1,
colored Michelangelo's response even to sarcophagi without explicitly bacchic 497-500.
themes. 26 Wind, 1968, 178. See also Gesing, 1988, 44-5.
17 On the gem, see Antonino Giuliano, "Catalogo delle gemme che recano l'is- 27 On Dionysus as a "suffering god" and his relation to festivals of the dead, see
crizione: LAV.R. Med.," in Il Tesorodi Lorenzo il Magnifico.Repertoriodellegemme e Walter E Otto, Dionysus: Myth and Cult, trans. Robert Palmer, Bloomington:
de/le vasi, Florence: Sansoni, 1980, 61-2, n. 33, Fig. 26. Condivi, l9II, II specifi- Indiana University Press, 1965, chs. 9 and 17. On Dionysus' role in funerary con-
cally mentions that Lorenzo de' Medici showed Michelangelo his gem collec- texts see also Pierre Boyancé, Le culte des Muses chez les phílosophesgrecs:Études
tion.Vasari,VI, n, states that Lorenzo's son Piero often called on Michelangelo's d'histoireet de psychologiereligieuse,Paris: Boccard, 1937, ch. 3; Susan Cole, "Voices
opinion regarding the gems in the Medici collection. On Michelangelo and from beyond the grave: Dionysos and the dead," in Masks of Dionysos,ed. Thomas
antique gems, see Agosti and Farinella, 1987, 37-42. For the Medici palace Carpenter and Christopher Faraone, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993,
medallions, see Nicole Dacas, "La fortuna delle gemme medicee nel 276-95; and Dirk Obbink, "Dionysos Poured Out: Ancient and Modern
Rinascimento," in Il Tesoro,(supra), 85-n4, esp. 106-8. The cycle reveals a strong Theories of Sacrifice and Cultural Formation," in ibid., 65-86.
bacchic orientation (three, and possibly four, of the medallions represent bacchic 28 Marcel Detienne, Dionysos at Large, trans. Arthur Goldhammer, Cambridge, MA:
subjects) and thus shows a significant bacchic strain in both the art and thought Harvard University Press, 1989, 46-56 and 79-83.
of Michelangelo's milieu in Florence. There was a bacchic atmosphere in other 29 I am grateful to John Shearman for having first pointed this out to me. Could it
Medici homes besides that of Lorenzo the Magnificent; an antichamber of the be that this departure from the antique was at the basis of Riario's decision to
house of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco was festooned with "uno panno lino depinctoni reject the work (see Hirst, 1994, 31)? Michelangelo carne to Riario's notice
[sic] l'istoria dí Bacho, apicatoneintorno a le mura. .. " (see John Shearman, "The through a convincing forgery (the lost Sleeping Cupíd), and the work was
Collections ofthe younger branch ofthe Medici," BurlingtonMagazine, n7, 1975, returned to the artist when it was discovered not to be a true antique. In the
25, n. 40).
Bacchus,Michelangelo openly declared his freedom from antique models, as has
18 Christopher Lloyd, "A Short Footnote to Raphael Studies," BurlingtonMagazine, often been recognized, and it is likely that this pleased Riario even less. As Hirst
II9, 1977, u3-14, proposed this engraving as a source for a drawing by Raphael noted, Riario's rejection ofthe Bacchuswould explain the disparaging comments
made in preparation for his Baglioni Entombment (Figure 65), discussed in ch. 4 of about the cardinal made in Condivi's biography (Condivi, 19u, 20: "Cardinal di
this book. He suggested, further, that it might have acted as a common source for San Giorgio understood little and was no judge of sculpture"). If rigid classicism
both Raphael's and Michelangelo's paintings.
was at the basis ofRiario's aversion to "modern antiquities" (Hibbard, 1985, 42),
19 Quoted by EdgarWind, "The Maenad under the Cross,"journal of the Warburgand then this episode may well constitute a "practical" instance of the debate de ímíta-
CourtauldInstitutes, 1, 1937-38, 70. tíone: Riario, in this case, represents the side of the strict Ciceronians and
20 Aby Warburg, La Rínascita del PaganesímoAntíco, Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1966, Michelangelo represents the side of those in favor of eclectíc emulation, on the
303, Fig. 120.This essay,"Der Eintritt des antikisierenden ldealstils in die Malerei model of hís recent advisor Angelo Poliziano. For the distinction between imita-
der Frührenaissance," appears only as a précis in Warburg, 1932, 175-6. See also tion and emulation, see G. W Pigman, "Versions of Imitation in the
Friedrich Antal, "Sorne Examples of the Role of the Maenad in Florentine Art of Renaissance," Renaissance Quarterly, 33, 1980, 1-32. For the exchange between
the Later Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries," journal of the vVarburgand Poliziano and Paolo Cortesi, see ProsatoriLatíni del Quattrocento,ed. Eugenio
CourtauldInstitutes, 1, 1937-38, 71-3. Garín, Milan: Ricciardi, 1952, 902-10. For the later exchanges between Giovanni
21 Hirst, 1981a, 588.
Pico della Mirandola and Ermolao Barbaro, and between Giovanfrancesco Pico
22 Philostratus, Imagines, trans. A. Fairbanks, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
and Pietro Bembo, see Giorgio Santangelo, Le epistole "De imitatione" di
Press, 1979, 9 (r.2.7-9).
Giovanfrancesco Pico dellaMirando/ae di PietroBembo, Florence: Olschki, 1954, and
23 Erika Tiet2r-Conrat, Mantegna, London: Phaidon, 1955, 243. idem, Il Bembo criticoe íl principio d'imitazione, Florence: Sansoni, 1950. See also
24 Hirst, 1981a\ For the letter, see Carteggío,I, letter I, r.
Scott, 1910, which contains English translations of the Pico-Bembo letters, as
NOTES TO PP. 92-96 NOTES TO P. 97
well as of Erasmus' Ciceronianus.For sorne applications of these debates to the earliest treatment of the problem occurs in his epistolary tract of 1457, De divino
visual arts see Eugenio Battisti, "Il concetto d'imitazione nel Cinquecento," in furore, addressed to Peregrino Agli; see Ficino (1570), 1962, I, 612-15, and English
Rinascimentoe Barocco,Turin: Einaudi, 1960, 175-215. On Riario's antiquarianism, translation in The Letters of Marsilio Ficino, trans. Members of the Language
see Margaret Daly Davis, '"Opus isodomum' at the Palazzo della Cancelleria: Department of the School of Economic Science in London, London:
Vitruvian Studies and Archeological and Antiquarian Interests at the Court of Shepheard-Walwyn, I, 1975, 44-8. For other accounts of the madnesses, see his
Raffaelle Riario," in Roma, centroidea/edellaculturadel/'Antico nei secoliXV e XVI: Epitome of Plato's Ion in Ficino (1570), 1962, II, 1281-4, and his In Convivium
da Martino V al saccodi Roma, 141¡-1527, ed. Silvia Danesi Squarzina, Milan: Platonis sive de amore (7.14, 15), ed. and trans. Raymond Marcel as Marsile Ficin:
Electa, 1989, 442-57. On Michelangelo's alliance with Poliziano in the imitation Commentairesur le banquet de Platon, París: Les Belles Lettres, 1956, 258-60. For
debate, see Giovanni Agosti's entry on the Battle ef Lapiths and Centaursin and Ficino's alterations to and elaborations on Plato's account of the madnesses, see
Farinella, 1992, 25-7, which offers ample evidence against Wind's puzzling posi- Allen, 1984, 43-68. See also Chastel, 1954, 129-35. For our purposes, two things
tioning of Michelangelo on the "intransigent" or "Ciceronian" side of the debate are interesting about Ficino's adaptation of the Platonic schema: The order is
(1968, 182, n. 14). not stable, and the four forms of frenzy are often mingled. Ficino devoted a
30 For the emphasis on blood and gore in representations of the Passion, see small chapter in his commentary on the Phaedrusto explaining why this mutual
Marrow, 1979. For the tradition of the "sweetness" of the Passion, see Friedrich contamination of the frenzies must occur. It is an important passage, because in
Ohly, Süsse Niigel der Passion:ein Beitragzur theologischenSemantik, Baden-Baden: Michelangelo's preoccupation with the theme, especially in his late Pietas,there
Koerner, 1989. is a mingling of love ecstasy and the religious or mysterious ecstasy associated
31 Daniélou, 1944, 277 andff. with Bacchus, very much along the lines described by Ficino. Allen, 1981,
32 Phaedrus,244A-245B; 249E; 265A-B. 142-5, cap. XIIII (245A), "How thefour divinefrenzies arejoined together.The mun-
33 On Gregory ofNyssa, see Daniélou, 1944, esp. 275-308. On Ambrose,Augustine, danegods.The divine and human souls: In describing any one frenzy, Socrates in a
and Jerome, see Lewy, 1929, 146-64. Lewy's patristic citations are often unreli- way recalls the others: not unjustly so, for they are mutually joined (coniugat1).In
able; where I cite from Lewy, I have corrected them. the intelligible world the illuminating power of Apollo possess the related incit-
34 St. Ambrose, De .fide libri V (ad GratianumAugustum), book I, ch. 20; Migne, PL, ing (provocantem)and, as it were, heating (calefactoriam) power of Bacchus. The
XVI, 559 (excerpted and discussed in Lewy, 1929, 148): "Ex hoc ergobotryoneest power for prophecy and poetry flourishes in the illuminating power, the power
vinum quod laetificatcor hominis,sobrietateminebriat,crapulam.fidei et veraereligionis for love and [priestly] prayer in the inciting power (in provocatrice). In the heav-
exhalat,crapulamcastitatisinfudit." ens there is a similar bond in the Sun and near the Sun. For light and heat refer
35 St. Ambrose, Expositio in Psalmum CXVIII, sermo 15, 28; Migne, PL, XV, 1428 to both Apollo and Bacchus. Furthermore, the Sun's power incites us via
(cited in Lewy, 1929, 148, n. 2): "Hac ergo ebrietate corpus non titubat, sed resur- Mercury to the Muses [that is, to poetry], and via Venus to love .... Finally, in us
git; animus non confunditur, sed consecratur." the understanding and the will are kin: prophecy and poetry pertain to the for-
36 St. Ambrose, De mysteriis,ch. IX, paragraph 58; Migne, PL, XVI, 426. Here, too, mer, but priestly prayer (mysteriale votum) along with love to the latter.
Ambrose invokes Psalm ro3:15. Accordingly, we often flee from prophecy to prayers, and often from prayers we
37 St. Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, Psalm 35, paragraph 14; Migne, PL, acquire prophecy. On the one hand we sing divine hymns with the Muse [that
XXXVI, 351 (excerpted in Lewy, 1929, 161-2): "Nolite mirari;ebriierant.Unde ebrii is, with poetry]; on the other we are incited to the love of divine things. In turn,
erant?Videte:acceperuntcalicemunde inebriarentur.... Ergo,fratres,simus.filii hominum, by always loving such ardently, we prophesy many matters and perform myster-
et speremussub tegminealarumeius,et inebriemurah ubertatedomus eius." ies effectively and sing hymns of admiration." See also Allen, 1984, 66-7.
38 Savonarola, III, 1971, sermon XLVIII, 396-7. 42 The passage occurs in his Epitome of the second dialogue of Plato's Republíc;
39 The Ovide Moralísé, n8-19, interprets the myth ofSemele asan example ofwhat Ficino (1570), 1962, II, 1399: "Ebrietasergosit duplex: alteraquidem sub Luna, letheo
happens to a "corpsdissolu et plain d'yvresse et de glottonie." After a conventional induct potu, per quam anima extra se posita, et infra se posita oblívisciturdivinorum,
condemnation of the sins of drunkenness and luxury, the author then invoked circaterrena delirans:altera vero super Lunam, nectareaprovenienspotione, per quam
the alternative reading: "Autre sentencey peut on prendre comme il s'en suit, c'est animus extra se positus,supra se positus, morborummortaliumoblíviscitur:suscipiensque
assavoirque par Semele nous est signifié la voulenté devote de creaturehumaine qui est divina, quasi primo illorum splendorecaligat. .. " Giovanni Pico della Mirandola
enyvreede divine amour et tousiourssubgetteet soubzmise a craintede Dieu ojfenser.... took over the distinction in his Conclusiones;Opera omnia (reprint of edition of
De te/ amour one esté enyvrez les glorieux saincts et sainetes,dont les ungs par force Basel, 1572),Turin: Bottega d'Erasmo, 1971, I, ro4, n. 6. Gesing, 1988, 78, argued
d' amourse sont voluntairementsouffersmartirez,et les autressont es cieulx volez et collo- that the distinction is acknowledged and respected in Mantegna's bacchic
quez en pardurablegloire." prints.
40 Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Orationon the Dignity of Man, in The Renaissance 43 The passage, which occurs in Ficino's preface to the MysticalTheologyof Pseudo-
Philosophyof Man, eds. Ernst Cassirer, Paul Oskar Kristeller, and John Hermann Dionysus (see Ficino [1570], 1962, ror3), is quoted by Wind, 1968, 62, whose
Randall, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1948, 234. translation I follow. Cf. Summa ro from the Commentarium in Phaedrus;Allen,
41 See above all his Commentariumin Phedrum, part ofhis Commentariain Platonem 1981, 138:"Finally since he [Socrates] has become ecstatic through Bacchus, per-
published in\plorence in 1496; text and translation in Allen, 1981, 82-6. Ficino's haps the Apollonian demon enraptures him (for Apollo is closest to Bacchus)
243
NOTES TO PP. 98-IOI
with the result that he even exceeds the bounds of human behavior and there- in such an ecstasy (I quote from Screech's translation): "The apostle ... himself
after treats of the divine love that excites us through sorne frenzy." did not know whether, when he was caught up into the third heaven, he was still
44 Ficino, TheologiaPlatonica(1474), ed. Raymond Marce!, París: Les Belles Lettres, in the body as the soul is in the body when the body is said to be alive ... or
1964, 222 (XIII, 2): "Let us conclude now that by these seven types of presage the whether on the other hand it had entirely left his body, which lay dead until the
superiority of the human soul with regard to matter is so great that, when the soul carne back to those dead limbs once the revelation was over. In that case he
body is dorninated, softened and half-dead, its vision is much clearer, its activity was not in a waking sleep, nor did he come back to his senses again [after] having
is more remarkable than when the body operates, as if it did not need the coop- been alienated in ecstasy, but, being dead, he was brought back to life again ....
eration of the body to realise all manner of marvels. This is how it is shown how His rnind was alienated from his body; but it is not certain whether his body was
great is the accord between the soul and the divine beings, how great is its rela- left quite dead or whether his soul [anima]remained there as it does when the
tion to God, since every time that it turns in on itself, it participates in celestial body is alive.... That is no doubt why he said: 'Whether in the body, whether
mysteries and in divine providence." Allen, 1984, 59, n. 55 believed that Chastel, outside the body, I know not."'
1954, 44, drew an overly rigid distinction between the vacationesmentís described 52 See n. 43.
here and the furores described in the Phaedruscommentary and elsewhere, rightly 53 See Allen, 1984, 45.
pointing out the similarity between Ficino's descriptions of the two states. As 54 Cf. Erasmus, The Praiseof Folly,in Erasmus, 1964, 172:"In this way the entire man
Allen notes, the similarity was also observed by Frances Yates, The French will be outside of himself; and his happiness will be due to no other fact than
Academiesof the Sixteenth Century, London: Warburg Institute, 1947, 128-9. that, so placed, he will share in the Highest Good which draws all to Itself.
45 O'Malley, 1968, 148. The passage is quoted and set into cultural context by Although this happiness is perfected only when the souls are rejoined to their
Bober, 1977, 234 and passim. I have benefited greatly from exchanges withJohn bodies, yet since in this mortal life there is, for the pious, a meditation and a fore-
O'Malley on these matters. shadowing of this, they occasionally have a foretaste of the reward to come."
46 See Boyle, 1981, 51 and passim, and Screech, 1980, 35, ro5, and passim. On sorne 55 See above all Belting, 1986.
of these associations in Rabelais, see Florence Weinberg, The Wine & the Will: 56 Bernhard Jussen, "Dolor und Memoria. Trauerriten, gemalte Trauer und soziale
Rabelais'sBacchicChristianity,Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1972. Ordnungen im spaten Mittelalter," in Memoria als Kultur, ed. Otto Gerhard
47 Marrow, 1979, ch. 2, sec. G, 64-5:"Christ drunk." Oexle, Gottingen:Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995, 207-52, made this important
48 Ghent, Bibliotheek der Rijksuniversiteit, MS 220, n3; quoted in Marrow, 1979, observation and connected the forms of expression adopted by the two artists to
64. different "registers" in the late-medieval social code oflament. Using these crite-
49 St. Augustine, The City of God (16.2), trans. John Healey, London: Dent, 1945, ria,Jussen was able to argue, quite convincingly, that a drawing in the Accademia
roo. of the Man of Sorrows (his Fig. 17), disputed in attribution between Bellini and
50 St.Jerome, Tractatussive homiliaein psalmos,Psalm 80, in AnecdotaMaredsolana,III, Mantegna, should be attributed to Mantegna. True connoisseurship needs to be
part 2, ed. Germain Morin, Oxford: Parker, 1897, 69-70 (excerpted in Lewy, historically informed.
1929, 162, n. 1): "Sicut ergoDominus in passione inebriatusest, sic et sancti in ardore 57 My reading adapts an oral communication from Leo Steinberg concerning a
fidei cotidieinebriantur,et inebrianturSpiritu sancto.Tu qui die hesternaaurum colligebas, similar feature in the Christ of Caravaggio's Chiesa Nuova Entombment, now in
hodieprocis:nonne apud ignotosvideris insanus?Denique et apostoli,quoniam Spiritus the Vatican. See Steinberg, 1996, 81-94, 195-203. These visual solutions involve
sanctusdescenderatsuper eos et inpleverateos,et loquebanturUnguisvariis,proptereadice- theological ideas not far from those at the basis of the long-held ritual of the
bantur musto pleni." The two major sets of Jerome's Psalms hornilies were not Byzantine mass ceremony, the zéon, in which warm water was rningled with the
completely published until Morin's edition. This hornily, which does not appear wine after consecration in recognition of the belief that they had issued warm
in Erasmus' 1516 Jerome edition, does not seem to have been known to from the body of Christ even after death, due to the vivifying presence of the
Renaissance readers, although I hear a possible echo of Jerome's idea in Tullio holy spirit within the dead body. See Grondijs, 1941, ch. 3 and passim.
Crispoldi's reference to the "pazzia della croce" in his Historia dellapassione of 58 See Rumy Hilloowala and Jerome Oremland, "The St Peter's Pieta: A Madonna
1539 (see Prosperi, 1969, 274-5). The influence of Origen on these hornilies has and Child? - An Anatornical and Psychological Reevaluation;' Leonardo, 20,
long been recognized and rnight well explain Jerome's ecstatic emphasis.Vittorio 1987, 87----92.
Peri, Omelie Origenianesui Salmi: Contributoall'identijicazionedel testo latino, Citta 59 Dunkerton, 1994, n7.
del Vaticano: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1980, argued that these hornilies 60 According to Hirst, 1981a, 589, n. 59, the only historian to remark upon this fea-
were not merely influenced by Origen but were actually loose translations of ture was Venturi, 1925, 730: "Eppure il nudo alabastrinonon epiagato,non porta segni
sorne of Origen's lost hornilies on the Psalms. I wish to thank Brian Daley for di martirio, di struggimento,di morte." Dunkerton, 1994, n8, confirmed that
this refetence and for his comments on this hornily. although the painting is unfinished in certain parts, these areas are brought to a
51 St. Augustine, De genesi ad litteram, book 12, ch. 5, paragraph 14; Migne, PL, level of finish such as to have shown wounds had Michelangelo intended to paint
XXXIV, 458. The passage, quoted and discussed by Screech, 1980, 49 and 197, them.
comments on St. Paul's rapture to the third heaven (II Corinthians 12:1-4, n). 61 Venturi, 1925, 731: " .. . dopo il riposo,il corpo intatto, incorrottoe incorrottibiledel
Augustine 'X,ªsinterestingly undecided about the relation between soul and body Redentorebalzeracatapultacontroil male e il peccato."
245
1
NOTES TO PP. IOI-102 NOTES TO PP. 103-104 i
1
1
;
62 Raymond of Capua, Vita Sanctae Catherinae, ch. 111, Acta Sanctorum, ed. Jean Viterbo, dedicated both his De rationescribendiand his In sacramHebraorumhisto-
Carnandet, Paris: Pahne, 1863-1940, XII, 889:"Quis enim putasset corpus meum, riam Epithoma to Piccolomini. (Both treatises are discussed below). Piccolomini
dum tam dure patiebatur et moriebatur in cruce, ac dum pos tea jacebat exanime, was to commission fifteen statues from Michelangelo far his altar in the Siena
vitam habere semper in se latentem, et unione indivisibili unitam? Certe nedum cathedral only ayear later in 1501,just after Michelangelo left Rome. The cardi-
extranei ac perversi, sed nec ipsi Apostoli mei, qui tanto fuerant mecum tempore, nal very probably entered into negotiations with Michelangelo about this project
hoc creciere potuerunt: omnes perdiderunt fidem et spem. Et tamen, licet veris- while the artist was still in Rome engaged in the Sant' Agostino commission, a
sime hoc corpus meum non viveret vita, quam percipiebat ab anima propria; commission in which, as I mentioned above, Piccolomini had a hand. It is almost
habebat tamen secum unitam vitam interminatam, qua ornnia viventia vivunt: certain that the cardinal knew the artist already befare the Sant' Agostino com-
cujus virtute, tempore quo ab aeterno fuit decretum, spiritus ei proprius fuit mission. Piccolomini was the executor of the last will of Cardinal de Bilheres, the
reunitus, cum longe majori vitae ac virtutis collatione quam prius: quia cum patron of the St. Peter's Pieta, and thus would have been aware of the artist from
immortalitatis, impassibilitatis et aliarum dotium dono, quibus prius donatum 1497; see Kathleen Weil-Garris, "Michelangelo's Pieta far the Cappella del Re di
non fuerat." Francia," in 'II se rendit en Italie,' Études offertesa André Chastel, Rome: Edizioni
63 Pietro da Lucca, 1527, the section entitled "Contemplatione sopra le venerande del Elefante, 1987, 97, n. 60. I thank John Shearman far first alerting me to this
exequie e la molto honorata sepoltura del nostro Signare," n7 v.: "Comincianoad fact.
appariresegni di gloria e di vittoria.Imperhoche lo extinto e vulneratoe deformatocorpo ?9 Wind, 1968, 177-90.
del signorein uno istanteper respirode la povera madre et de li circonstantifu fatto tutto 70 Giles ofViterbo, fals. 197v.-198r., quoted and paraphrased byWind, 1968, 187.
sano, candido,e bianco come se mai ferita ne battitura a/cuna ricevesse. JI And 118 v.: 71 See Bober, 1977; and now, most importantly, Rowland, 1998.
".. . benchefusse morto e da /'anima separato,niente di meno semprefu con la divinita 72 Wilde, 1932-34, and Dvorák, 1989, So: "So war Michelangeloder erste unter den
unito e congionto.JI Less theologically inventive, the simple idea that Christ was Künstlern der Neuzeit, der den grundsiitzlichenGegensatz zwischen derAntike und der
"asleep" rather than dead appears to have been rather widespread. The metaphor Kunst seiner Zeit empfand und sich von dieserabwendendjener sich nicht nur wie seine
appears in Byzantine religious poetry (see Belting, 1994, 270), and is invoked vir- Vorgiingerin einzelnenforma/en Vorzügen,sondern in derganzen Auffassung der Kunst
tually as a commonplace in Hartmann Schedel's Líber chronicarum,Nuremberg, und ihres Verhiiltnisseszu den naturlichen Gegegebenheitenund zum christlichen
Koberger, 1493 (reprint New York: Landmark Press, 1979), lxxxi v., where in Vorstellungslebenniiherte.JI
Jerusalem he mentions "der Grab in dem der herrvon unf3ernwegengeschleffenhat. JI 73 This is not to say that the type had not already been adapted in Italy (see
64 Hirst, 1981a, 588. Wolfgang Korte, "Deutsche Vesperbilder in Italien;' Kunstgeschichtliches Jahrbuch
65 Dunkerton, 1994, n8. der BibliothecaHertziana, I, 1937, 1-138), but given that Michelangelo's commis-
66 Hirst, 1981a, 589, n. 59. On the relation between classical nude and Christian cult sion carne from a French patron, it seems reasonable to assume a more direct
image in the statue, see also Wolfgang Lotz, "Zu Michelangelos Christus in S. relation to the northern tradition.
Maria sopra Minerva," in Festschriftfür Herbert von Einem zum 16. Februar 19651 74 Milanesi, 1875, 614: " .. .sara la piil bella operadi marmo che sia hoge in Roma, et che
eds. Gert von der Osten and Georg Kauffman, Berlín: Mann, 1965, 143-50, and maestronisuno lofaria megliorehoge."
Steinberg, 1996, 19-22 and 146-7. 75 Shearman, 1992, 236-7.
67 Aspects of this culture that are especially relevant to my concerns are studied by 76 Vasari,VI, 16.
O'Malley, 1979. See also idem, "The Theology Behind the Sistine Ceiling;' in 77 Burckhardt, 1988, 36. For a thoroughgoing study of the group, see Weil-Garris (as
Carlo Pietrangeli et al., The Sistine Chapel: the Art, the History, the Restoration in n. 65). Her reconstruction has been contested by William Wallace,
(NewYork: Harmony, 1986), esp. roS-22, and the essays collected in idem, 1981. "Michelangelo's Rome Pieta:Altarpiece or Grave Memorial?" in Verrocchioand
See also D'Amico, 1983, Charles Stinger, The Renaissancein Rome, Bloomington: Late QuattrocentoItalian Sculpture, eds. Steven Bule, Alan Phipps Darr, Fiorella
Indiana University Press, 1985, and most recently Rowland, 1998. Superbi Gioffredi, Florence: Le Lettere, 1992, 243-255, who proposed that the
68 See Hirst, 1981a, Nagel, 1994, and Hirst, 1994, 59. Whether or not this hypothesis group originally stood on the ground and was not associated with the altar. The
is accepted, the commission of an altarpiece from Michelangelo far this church, issue will most likely not be settled until further evidence comes to light.
under the sponsorship of ]acopo Gallo (Hirst, 1981a, App. B, Doc. 5), establishes 78 On Andrea Sansovino's sculpture and its context, see Virginia Arme Bonito, "The
the connection between the artist, his friend Gallo, and Sant' Agostino, a connec- Saint Anne Altar in Sant' Agostino, Rome: A New Discovery," Burlington
tion that extended to Michelangelo's first Roman patron, Raffaelle Riario, who Magazine, CXXII, 1980, 805-12; idem, "The Saint Anne Altar in Sant'Agostino:
was Cardinal Protector of the Augustinian Order and was also involved in the Restoration and interpretation," BurlingtonMagazine, CXXIV, 1982, 268-76; and
Sant'Agqstino commission (Hirst, 1981a, App. A, Doc. 1). An important and idem, 1983. For more on its cultural context, see also Bober, 1977. My thinking
underappreciated link to the humanist milieu located at Sant' Agostino might about Sansovino's group has benefited greatly from a 1997 graduate seminar
well have been Cardinal Francesco Piccolomini, the future Pius III. He had a paper by Elisabeth Neumann, "The Saint Anne Altar in Sant'Agostino
hand in the negotiations over the endowment far this chapel (Nagel, 1994, 166), Reconsidered." On Jacopo's Madonna see Bruce Boucher, The Sculptureof]acopo
and was a well-known patron to the humanists there.Aurelio Lippo Brandolini, Sansovino, I, New Haven, CT;Yale University Press, 1991, 25-28, and II, cat. ro.
the most ptpminent figure at the convent of Sant' Agostino befare Giles of Jacopo's remarkable figure of St. James far the church of San Giacomo degli
247
Spagnuoli (original now in Santa Maria di Monserrato) is also part of this trend most popular cult statues in Rome, as can be seen from the ex votos that still sur-
and is notable particularly for reviving the antique type of the standing figure in round it. What was projected as a reviva! of the antique under sophisticated
the context of a Christian altar. Christian humanist auspices was, at a lower social level, taken up into living cult
79 Giles of Viterbo, 197v. Under the heading "Scriptorumsacrorume/egantia,"the pas- practices. The sculpture's popular audience responded with familiar forms of
sage assesses the writings of the church fathers and culminates in the present Christian image worship, and it is likely that the overt references to antique
century, "quo post eversam aurei seculi veram elegantiam nulla aetas pervenit." He models touched a still-vital pagan undercurrent latent in popular piety. By con-
mentioned Pontano's hymns and Sannazzaro's De partu Virgínisand then the fact trast, Andrea Sansovino's St. Anne group, with its more contrived artistic refer-
that "ad Divae Annae aram meo in templo per Coricium erectam:certamenPoetarum ences and involved figura! structure, <loes not seem ever to have made much of
visum" (a reference to the poems of the Coryciana),and asserted that these sacred an impression on popular audiences. Conceived in a sophisticated scholarly and
celebrations were the chaste successors of the poetic contests of antiquity: "cessit artistic ambient, it remains the concern of scholars to this day.
venus virgini, impudicitia [unreadable], luxuria castitati." A fuller description of 85 In Michelangelo, typically, we find sorne ambivalence over this departure, Wilde,
these celebrations is given in the published edition of these poems, Coryciana,ed. 1978, 41, noticed that the Pieta, though freestanding, is finished only in front, a
Blossius Palladius, Rome: Ludovicus Vicentinus and Lautitius Perusinus, 1524, feature that led him to suggest that it should be called "a high-relief rather than a
iv-v; see Bonito, 1983, 21-22. Giles expressed similar sentiments when discussing free-standing group." Despite the highly plastic treatment and the references to
the greatest artistic project of the period, the new St. Peter's (193r.-194v.), where freestanding antique sculpture, therefore, the group shows a continuing attach-
he asserted that Julius II "solíposuit tabernaculumhuius saeculiultimus ... quod in ment to a tradition of relief sculpture more common to Christian altars. On the
maiorís templis ut sol noctis syderibuscomparatur."On Giles's reform thought, see traditional attachment of Christian sculptures to columns, tabernacles, and
O'Malley, 1968, and "Giles of Viterbo, a reformer's thought on Renaissance niches, see Walter Paatz, "Von den Gattungen und vom Sinn der gotischen
Rome," in O'Malley, 1981, 1-n. For an excellent study of the relation between Rundfigur," in Sitzungsberichte der HeidelbergerAkademie der Wissenschaften,
this papal culture and the visual arts see Ingrid Rowland, "Render unto Caesar Philosophisch-historische Klasse, 38, 1951, 6-32.
the Things which are Caesar's: Humanism and the Arts in the Patronage of 86 Hirst, 1994, 42-6, offered an acute analysis of these features and a cogent com-
Agostino Chigi," Renaissance Quarterly, 39, 1986, 673-730, and also Rowland, parison to Granacci's panel. He also argued, convincingly, that the Manchester
1998. Madonna prepares, rather than reflects, the solution found in the Bruges
So On the Corycianaand Goritz's feasts, see Bober, 1977, Bonito, 1983,Jozefljsewijn, Madonna.
"Poetry in a Roman Garden: The Coryciana," in Latín Poetry and the Classical 87 The related case of the Doni Tondois discussed in chapter 7 of this book.
Tradition:Essays in Medieval and Renaissance Literature, ed. Peter Godman and 88 In the Bruges Madonna the motif of the Child stepping onto the fold of the
Oswyn Murray, Oxford: Clarendon, 1990, 2n-31, and Julia Haig Gaisser, "The Virgin's robe, and in the Medici Madonna the turn of the Virgin's shoulders.
Rise and Fall of Goritz's Feasts," RenaissanceQuarterly,48, 1995, 41-55. 89 Sheryl E. Reiss, "A medieval source for Michelangelo's Medici Madonna,"
81 I quote from the more easily accessible selection provided by Bonito, 1983, Zeitschriftfür Kunstgeschichte,L, 1987, 394-400. Reiss pointed out (400, n. 25) that
where Sadoleto's epigram appears on p. 240: "Doctum,et nobilete simul coegit,/ Has the icon, known as the Madonna di San Zanobi, would have had special signifi-
Jane ingenii locareformas/flla est Nobilitas quae unus audes/ Nostro aeuo veteresreferre cance for Giulio de' Medici, Michelangelo's patron, both because Cardinal
vultus. . . " (The critica! edition of the Coryciana by Jospeh Ijsewijn [Rome: Giulio, as archbishop of Florence, was Saint Zenobius's spiritual successor and
Herder, 1997] did not become accessible to me in the preparation of this study.) because Giulio, who was born on May 27, shortly after Saint Zenobius's feast day,
82 See the poems by Blossius Palladius, B. Dardanus, Castiglione, and Delius was himself given the middle name of Zanobi.
Hieronymus Alexandrinus; Bonito, 1983, 251-3, 261, 285-6, 300-03, respectively. 90 For Pietro da Lucca's text, see n. 63. For Michelangelo's contract for the
See also Bober, 1977, who shows that in Goritz's circle the .cult of St. Anne was Piccolomini altar, see Milanesi, 1875, 616-19.
associated with the cult of the nymph Corycia, the virgin bride who presided 91 The distinction was evidently also a concern for Erasmus. See the Enarratio in
over a grotto-fountain. Bober stresses the dionysiac orientation of this cult, and Psalmum XXXIII ASD, I, 3, ro1: "Haec eo pluribus inculcarevisum est, quo simul et
of the assemblies held at the villas of Goritz, Angelo Colocci and, until his death i/lorum errori mederemur, qui non multo religiosíus legunt sacras historias, quam
in 1505,Jacopo Gallo. Herodotumaut Titum Livium, et eorumfidem ac vigilantiamexcitarem,quibuspersuasum
83 On the pilgrimage to the Fair Virgin at Regensburg (1519-21), see Qavid est in omnibus scripturisdivino spiritu proditis latere Christum. Littera occidit,inquit
Freedberg, The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response, Paulus,spiritus vivifica/."
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989, roo-o4; Belting, 1994, 453-7; and 92 Del/e virtu mostratecinella Passioneda/ nostrosignor Gesu Cristo, Rome Stamperia
Christop 1her Wood, "Ritual and the Virgin on the Column: The Cult of the Ermateniana, 1767, 22-4: "Non enim nunc aut Gavianam crucem,ut Tullius; aut
Schone Maria at Regensburg,"Journa1 of Ritual Studíes, 6, 1992, 87-ro7. Cesaremnecem,ut Maro;aut principisalicujusmortem,ut veteressaepefecere,deploramus
84 In a poem by Panhormitanus; Bonito, 1983, 280:• "Inter naturam atque artem cum aut describimus:sed eam Crucem, in qua Christus Rex Regum, PríncepsPríncipium,
Jactafuissent/ Haec tria signa,fuit mens nova de statuis." It is interesting to observe verus Deus, Deique Filius, ab iis ipsis, quos creaverat,quos legibuserudierat,quos innu-
that a split emerged between this high-level humanist "cult" and more popular meris beneficiisa.ffecerat,
quorum denique caussafactus Romo, ad homines venerat,contra
cultic traditl1;>ns.Jacopo Sansovino's Madonna del Partowas to become one ofthe jus fasque omne crucifixusest. ... Hanc veroquum nulla vis eloquentiaeattíngere,nullum
249
NOTES TO PP. 109-111 NOTES TO PP. IIJ-IIÓ
ingenii acumenpenetrare,nullius mentís amplitudo comprehendere, aut complectiqueat." retelling of the Old Testament, In sacramHebraorumhistoriamEpithoma (Biblioteca
Not ali the humanist preachers observed Brandolini's sense of Christian deco- Apostolica Vaticana, Ottob. Lat. 438), where he appeals to his dedicatee cardinal
rum, as Erasmus made devastatingly clear in the Ciceronianus,where he described Francesco Piccolirnini to support him in a typically humanist battle against the
another Good Friday sermon at the Sistine Chapel (given by a Ciceronian scholastic guardians of biblical exegesis, pleading for a more direct contact to
whom he refrains from narning) who deplored the death of Christ "as he would Christian truth through a rhetorical, rather than theological, exposition of the
i
have the death of Socrates or Phocion, who, though they had comrnitted no Bible. The text is discussed in Trinkaus, II, 1970, 601-13, and D'Arnico, 1983, 1
crime, were compelled through the ingratitude of their fellow-citizens to drink 146-7.
the hemlock; or of Eparninondas who on account of his brilliant campaigns was
compelled to plead for his life before the people; or of Scipio who after so many
CHAPTER FOUR. THE ALTARPIECE IN THE AGE OF HISTORY PAINTING
services to the Republic went out to exile .... I ask what could be more uncon-
vincing or inappropriate than this?" (I quote from Scott, 1910, 64.) 1 Benedetto Croce, Estetica, 2nd ed., Bari, 1902, 40. Quoted by Hans Robert Jauss,
93 O'Malley, 1979. "Theory of Genres and Medieval Literature," in Jauss, 1982, 78.
94 The treatise, De rationescribendilibri tres,is discussed by O'Malley, 1979, 45-51. It 2 Jauss, "Theory of Genres," as in n. 1, So.
was dedicated to Cardinal Francesco Piccolornini, who became Michelangelo's 3 Charles Rosenberg, "Raphael and the Florentine Istoria," in RbR, 175-87, argues
patron in 1501 and who very likely knew the artist at least from the time of the persuasively that Raphael deliberately followed Alberti's precepts in this painting
comrnissioning of the Vatican Pieta, i.e., 1497 (see n. 68). and offers sorne suggestions as to how Raphael rnight have obtained knowledge
95 O'Malley, 1979, 49. of Alberti's treatise.
96 O'Malley, 1979, 63. 4 This point was clearly perceived by Locher, 1994, 109: "Diese Konzeption wird in
97 Savonarola, II, 1971, sermon XVIII, 21: "fl culto divino esterioret'ho detto altrevolte ein Bildmedium übertragen,in dem sie nicht entstanden ist, wo sie sich aber bewiihrtund
e e
che ordinatoalfo interiore,e tutto l' ordinedi questo ordinatoa Dio. ... Le cerimonie durch die Leistung des Künstlers mit der traditiondieses Bildmediums harmonisiertist."
della Chiesa sono ordinatealli sacramenti,li sacramentisono ordinatia l'uomo e l'uomo al Although he sees it as an important innovation and turning point, therefore,
e
ben e beatovivere,il ben e beatoviverea pe,fezione del universo,e quella ordinataa Dio. Locher tends to place the work within a continuous altarpiece tradition: It
... Ma li tepidi hannofatto tutto a rovescio, e
perchédove ogni cosa ordinata.e debbasifare effected an "Ausdrucksweiterungund Modernisierung" (119) of the Aufgabe of the
per gloria di Dio, eglino hanno convertitoogni cosain gloria loro e hannofatto sua ogni altarpiece; 119-20: "Das neue Konzept wiire der Idee nach eine konsequente
cosache dovevaesseredi Dio. Li tepidipreti e religiosiordinanola quelle bellefeste e uccel- Weite,führungder Entwicklung,die mit der E,findung des Quadro und derEinführung der
lano a pane, danari e candele,e poco si curanodello onore di Dio." These are sorne of . Perspektiveim Altarbild zu Beginn des 15.Jahrhunderts ihren Anfang genommen hat."
the fiercest sermons that Savonarola gave, and they include his famous tirades This leads Locher, in turn, to see the Baglioni altarpiece as part of a harmonious
against the errors of the painters. For Condivi's statement that Michelangelo kept development that is continued in Raphael's own later altarpieces. I approach the
"always in rnind the memory of [Savonarola's] living voice," see Condivi, 1911, work, instead, as an instance of generic tension and conflict. The problem was
76. It is perhaps worth noting that of ali the sermons that Savonarola gave while addressed by Belting, 1987. An analogous case is the typological disruption that
he was in power these are the only ones that Michelangelo could have heard: In occurred in early sixteenth-century Italian villa architecture, studied by Manfredo
Bologna from October 1494, he did not return to Florence before late 1495; he Tafuri, "Comrnitenza e tipologia nelle ville palladiane," Bollettino del C.I.S.A. 11,
left again for Rome in June of 1496 and remained there until 1501. 1969, 120-36. Although Raphael's later altarpieces lie beyond the scope of this
98 Savonarola, III, 1971, sermon XLVIII, 390: "E non consisteel vivere bene nelle ceri- book, within the logic of the argument presented here they represent a mature
monie, ma nello esseredrento bene regulatoverso di Dio e verso il prossimo.Revocate reaction against the youthful experiment embodied in the Entombment: The
adunquela mente vostraa Dio, e non dite:- Noi siamo ricchi-, non speratein paramentiné Madonna of Foligno,the Sistine Madonna, and, most important, the Tranifiguration
in cappellené in coseesteriori,perchéio vi avvisoche questecosevi sono a peccato. ... [391] represent, in my view, a deliberate effort to reinstate values proper to the altar-
Lasciatedunque andaretante ipocresiee atendeteal cultointerioreefate penitenzia." piece tradition, now consciously distinguished from the emerging institution of
99 See Eugenio Garin, La culturafiloseftcadel Rinascimentoitaliano:ricerchee documenti, the gallery picture.
Florence: Sansoni, 1961, 166-82, for the relation between humanist reform con- 5 See Jack M. Greenstein, Mantegna and Painting as Historical Narrative, Chicago:
cerns and critiques of institutional religon in Quattrocento Italy. Chicago University Press, 1992, 39.
100 Erasmus, 1964, 65. 6 The most global effort to date to study the changing status of easel painting in the
101 Trinkaus, II, 1970, 648--9. The view is closely related to the humanists' "rhetorical sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries is Stoichita, 1993.
critique of scholastic theology," for which see Trinkaus, I, 1970, 150-70, and II, 7 Many aspects of the situation in the Venetian context have been accurately
563-721, 'and passim, and Salvatore Camporeale, "Renaissance Humanism and observed by Humfrey, 1993, especially the section "Altarpieces and Non-
the Origins of Humanist Theology," in Humanity and Divinity in the Renaissance Altarpieces," 79-86. See also my review in Art Bulletin, 77, 1995, 139-42.
and Reformation:Essay..sin honor of CharlesTrinkaus, ed. John O'Malley, Thomas 8 According to Irma A. Richter, "The Drawings for the Entombment," Gazette des
Izbicki, and Gerald Christianson, Leiden: Brill, 1993, 101-24. One example of Beaux-Arts 6 ser. 28, 1945, 344-5 the change of subject from lamentation to
such a critiqpe comes in the polernical preface to Aurelio Brandolini's "literary" entombment "may have been influenced ... by Mantegna's famous engraving of
NOTES TO PP. II6-I2I NOTES TO PP. 121-124
that subject." According to Pope-Hennessey, 1970, 52, "with the change of subject, secondoaltri a S. Maria Nuova. "The wording of this document unfortunately leaves
Raphael turned to a new source of inspiration, a classical sarcophagus with the unclear whether the uncertainty has to do with where he was buried or with
death of Meleager." where the funeral services took place.
9 Vasari, IV, 164: "ImmaginossiRciffaellonel componimentodi quest' opera il doloreche 23 Aby Warburg, "Francesco Sassetti's letztwillige Verfügung" (1907), in Warburg,
hanno i piil stretti ed amorevoliparenti nel riporreil corpod' alcunapíu carapersona,nella 1932, 131-2. See also Eve Borsook and Johannes Offerhaus, FrancescoSassetti and
quale veramenteconsistail bene,l'onoree l'utile di tutta unaJamiglia." Ghirlandaioat Santa Trinita,Florence,Doornspijk, Holland: Davaco, 1981, 15-18.
ro Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, trans. S. G. C. 24 I owe this observation to John Shearman.
Middlemore, I, NewYork: Harper & Row, 1958, 48. 25 The question of the attribution of the cimasa and the frieze, and their original
II See, for example, von Salís, 1947, 61-73. position on the altarpiece, is treated by Francesco Santi, Gallería Nazionale
12 Cronache, ro 3. For the purposes of readability, I quote longer passages from the dell'Umbria:Dipinti, sculturee oggettidei secoliXV-XVI, Rome: Istituto Poligrafico
English translation ( Chronicles). dello Stato, 1985, cat. nos. 101-02. The autograph drawing in Lille, Musée des
13 Cronache,104: ".. .dove erauna sala nella quale eranopente tutti li capitaneeche mai ebbe Beaux-Arts, inv. 465, for the figure of God the Father appears to belong to the ear-
peroggiasino a que/ di, e similmente tutti li dottorefamose, ciascunode propio." This liest phase of the project.
palace had been built by Braccio, Grifonetto's grandfather. The inscriptions under 26 Locher, 1994, 79-80, also connected the figure of Charity to Atalanta's role as
the portraits of famous men were written by the young Matarazzo himself; they mother.
are fondly remembered in a letter from his friend ]acopo Antiquari. See Giovanni 27 Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, n. 529; pen over stylus with traces of black chalk,
Battista Vermiglioli, Memorie di ]acopo Antiquari, Perugia: Baduel, 1813, 2, who 17.8 X 20.5 cm. I therefore concur with the opinion of Pope-Hennessy, 1970, 52,
claimed (roo) that the two humanists were related, and Guglielmo Zappacosta, that this sheet, the nude study of the right-hand group (Oxford Ashmolean, Parker
FrancescoMaturanzio umanistaperugino,Bergamo: Minerva Italica, 1970, 11. From a no. 530), and the clothed study of the same group in the British Museum (no.
letter written in 1428 from Bologna by the sculptor ]acopo della Quercia we learn 1895-9-15-636) precede, rather than follow, the Louvre composition. For a differ-
that this castlelike palace was built by the Bolognese architect Fioravante ent reconstruction of the sequence, see Joannides, 1983, 163.
Fioravanti: " ... and it is true that there is another architect here in Bologna, who is 28 The influence of the Mantegna print already at this stage was observed by Crowe
called Fioravante, ... and he did the castle ofBraccio in Perugia ... " Gilbert, 1980, and Cavalcaselle, 1882, 301; Mitsch, 1983, 93; Rosci, 1991, 35-6, and Locher, 1994,
4; original text in James Beck, ]acopo della Quercia e il Porta/e di San Petronio a 75. The figure of St. John is most often singled out in comparisons with the
Bologna,Bologna:Alfa, 1970, 103. Mantegna print, above all because he appears to stand alone on the right side of
14 Chronicles,135-6. the sheet. This point needs to be refined, first of all because the figure's main
15 Chronicles,138-9. provenance is certainly the Perugino repertoire: In the Pitti Lamentation two fig-
16 Chronicles,139. ures stand in a similar pose. The pose can, however, be interpreted as an adaptation
17 Chronicles,n3. of the more strictly Peruginesque stance in the previous composition sheet
18 Chronicles,125. (Ashmolean, n. 529), via the nude study onAshmolean, n. 530, in the direction of
19 Chronicles,139. the statuesque solidity of Mantegna's St. John. Moreover, the figure's solitude is
20 Ibid. misleadingly reinforced by photographic reproduction: There is a head just
21 París, Louvre, inv. 3865; Pen over stylus and black chalk, 33.4 X 39.7 cm. sketched in behind and another figure drawn lightly in chalk in front. The St.John
22 The Cronache,125, said that Guido, Astorre, and Sigismondo 'Jurno portato,senza figure was, evidently, intended to be surrounded by those other figures that appear
lume ne altrasolennita,quelli tre a San Francisco,e el corpodel nobile Simonetto a Santo on the sheet of nude studies just mentioned. It remains significant, however, that
Domenico." Alison Luchs, "A Note on Raphael's Perugian Patrons," Burlington only this figure was brought up to the level of finish that characterizes the rest of
Magazine, CXXV, 1983, 29-31, stated that there is no firm sixteenth-century evi- the sheet: This specific decision might have been affected by Mantegna's example.
dence to support the hypothesis that Grifonetto was buried in the family chapel Further evidence of Raphael's knowledge of Mantegna's print in this period is
in San Francesco and pointed out that he is not mentioned among those buried offered by drawings after the print preserved in a sketchbook in Venice, which also
there in Cesare Crispolti's PerugiaAugusta of 1648. As evidence for the opposite includes motifs from Raphael's early works.As Silvia Ferino Pagden, Disegni umbri
view, Locher, 1994, 131, n. 48, quoted a document discussed without citation by del Rinascímento da Peruginoa Rciffaello,Florence: Olschki, 1982, 158-62, Figs. 164
Astur, 1964, 137, n. 1: "Un anno prima della tragediail giovane Grifonetto ed i suoi, and 165, argued, the references to Raphael's early works in the sketchbook imply a
senza certoprevederegli eventi, avevanogia dispostoil luogodellasua e lorosepoltura:Con date in the period before Raphael left definitively for Rome, i.e., before 1508. If
atto del 5 marzo 1499 il Capitolo di S. Francescoconcedevaa Grifonetto Baglioni che her attribution of the sketchbook to Domenico Alfani, the artist who oversaw the
accettavaa nome proprioe di sua madreAtalanta, la cappelladi S. Matteo,per se, per l' ava Baglioni commission from Perugia, proves to be correct, it strongly reinforces the
Angela d' Acquaviva,per Atalanta e i loroeredi.1'Locher, 1994, 159, n. 56 also quoted connection of these drawings to the Perugian commission. Although the evidence
an eighteenth-century Dizionario del/ Famiglie Perugine (Archivio di Stato di San is not conclusive as to the exact date, the references to Raphael's early works sug-
Pietro, Perugia, C.M. 220, vol. II, f. 143), which says about Grifonetto: 'Ju congran gest that the sketches after Mantegna as well were already in existence at the time
solennitafatto~l Funere a San Fran[ces ]co del Convento,oveJu sepolto,secondoalcuni, e the Baglioni commission was undertaken. The connection to Mantegna vía the
25,2 253
Venetian sketchbook was also discussed by Locher, 1994, 75. That the young Gentile Baglioni (brother of the murdered Astorre) in 1513; see Astur, 1964, 213.
Raphael grew up with a close awareness of Mantegna is also indicated by the On Ovid in the Perugian context generally, see Bodo Guthmülier, Ovídío
extended passage which Raphael's father, Giovanni Santi, wrote in praise of MetamorphoseosVu(g-are, Boppard: Boldt, 1981, 143-64.
Mantegna in his CronacaRímata, book 22. For an English translation, see Gilbert, 34 I quote from Ovid, Metamorphoses,trans. Frank Justus Milier, 2nd ed., 2 vols.,
1980, 9sff Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960-64.
29 A connection to Signorelii's Orvieto Lamentatíon fresco has been seen by many 35 Ovidíí Metamorphosiscum commentaríísRaphaelis Regíí, Venice, 1497, unpaginated
scholars in a drawing by Raphael of the carrying of a dead body, sometimes (8.497): "Videtur stulte esse díctum. Quo namque modo quís pius possit impietate?Sed
described as the Death of Adonis, now in the Ashmolean (see discussion in Parker, pía videturfuisse Althaeafratrum caedemulcíscendo;impíafilíum necando."
1956, n. 539r). For the young Raphael's relations to Signorelii see Creighton 36 See, for example, Ovide Moralisé,232: "Quant Dieu le Pe.reot envoyéczá jus son seul
Gilbert, "Signorelli andYoung Raphael," in RbR, 109-24. Tom Henry, "Signorelli, Filsz pour y devenirhomme et homme rachapterde la prinson d'enfer,ilfut tant chault et
Raphael and a 'Mysterious' ·Pricked Drawing in Oxford," Burlíngton Magazine, afumé du tyson et du feu de charíté, qu'il voulut en son humanité souffrir la mort."
CXXXV, 1993, 612-19, has recently strengthened the connection between Locher, 1994, 93, cited an edition of the Ovíde Moralisé in which the Fates are
Raphael and Signorelli - particularly the Signorelii of the Orvieto frescoes - in likened to the three theological virtues that figured in the predelia of Raphael's
the years when Raphael was involved in the Entombment. He demonstrated that a altarpiece.
Raphael pen drawing at Oxford, probably dating to 1506, was made on a sheet of 37 See "Francesco Sassetti's letztwiliige Verfügung" (1907) and "Bildniskunst und flo-
paper that had also been used by Signorelii, as a cartoon for a figure in the rentinisches Bürgertum" (1902), in Warburg, 1932, 127-63, 353-65, and 89-126,
Resurrectíonof the Flesh at Orvieto (Parker, 1956, n. 523). He was unable to identify 340-52, respectively.
the subject or purpose of the nude figure studies on the verso of this sheet, which 38 Oxford,Ashmolean, no. 531; pen, 218 X 307 cm. Mitsch, 1983, 94, interpreted the
have been connected to Michelangelo's David by Anna Forlani Tempesti, Rajfaello: figures to be lowering the body into a grave represented by the dark shaded area
L'Opera, Le Fontí, La Fortuna, Novara, 1968, II, 337. To my eye, they more closely on the ground. This reading is supported by the activity of the figures in the mor-
resemble his studies for carrying figures, for example those found in the Oxford tuary study on British Museum 1963-12-16-111.
drawing (Parker, 1956, n. 539r) just mentioned. The similarity between the figures 39 London, British Museum, inv. no. 1963-12-16-1; pen, 21.3 X 32.0 cm. Until 1963
on these two sheets, beyond confirming the attribution of these nude studies to this drawing was known only through an engraved copy, in reverse direction,
Raphael (which sorne have doubted, see Henry, supra, 612, n. 2), also confirms a made by the Comte de Caylus when it was in the coliection of Crozat. For a
dating to the period. ca. 1506. reproduction see Oskar Fischel, Raphaels Zeíchnungen, IV, Berlin, 1923, n. 170.
30 The Signorelli banner is mentioned by Mitsch, 1994, 96, and Locher, 1994, 76, in 40 This drawing also incorporates features of Meleager sarcophagi: The arms of the
relation to the later Oxford drawing discussed below (see Figure 69). left carrier are shown extended and straight, as in the sarcophagi, and not in the
31 Von Salis, 1947, 72, for example, mentioned the possible connection between the implausible position shown in Mantegna's print. My attention was drawn to this
use of the Meleager motif in the final painting and "víelleichtschon der Klang des detail by the observations of Gilbert, "Signorelli and young Raphael," in RbR,
seltenenNamens Atalanta." Joannides, 1983, 165, mentioned that "(t)he coincidence 122-3, who plausibly believes this drawing shows Raphael's interest in Signorelii's
of names with Atalanta Baglione may have had sorne significance." Rosci, 1991, 39, grisaille in the lamentation scene at Orvieto and Meleager sarcophagi and, less
repeated the suggestion but also left it undeveloped. Kurt Forster, review of Pope- plausibly, that "Mantegna is not yet a major source" at this stage in the drawing
Hennessey, 1970, in Art Quarterly,35, 1972, 426-'7, mentioned "the uncanny paral- process. The right carrier shows, I believe, Raphael's absorption of ali these mod-
lel to the mythical story of Atalanta [sic] and her son Meleager" but did not els. My point about the British Museum sheet was most closely anticipated by
develop it into a thoroughgoing analysis of the drawings and painting. Locher, Charles M. Rosenberg, "Raphael and the Florentine Istoria," in RbR, 177: "This
1994, 92-3, also addressed the problem, noting sorne of the above-cited opinions; composition is the least successful of the series, suggesting an almost schizophrenic
his own analysis did not, however, go further than pointing to the paraliels drawn division between the movement and tension of an Entombment and the static
in the Ovíde Moralisébetween Christ and Meleager. These parallels are, however, emotionality of a Pieta.It is as though Raphael were somehow trying to fulfill two
somewhat generic. They do not, as I point out below, place interpretative emphasis commitments in a single composition, one to himself to exploit the possibilities of
on those aspects of the Meleager story most relevant in the context of Atalanta's the Florentine narrative, and another to his patroness, to reflect her personal loss."
commission, above ali Althaea's moral crisis. It is my intention to show how the See also the foliowing note.
three thematic levels - biblical narrative, ancient myth, and personal and political 41 Oxford, Ashmolean, n. 539; pen, 26.5 X 33.0 cm. The drawing corresponds to no
history - combine in this work to produce a unique set of associations, beyond known Meleager composition and in fact turns the entire group in the opposite
those offered in the allegorical tradition. direction from those examples that are known. A significant antique precedent for
32 See Bodol Guthmülier, "Lateinische und volksprachliche Kommentare zu Ovid's the carrying of a dead body in this direction is the scene of the carrying of Hector
Metamorphosen,"in A. Buck and O. Herding, Der Kommentar in der Renaíssance, in the "Tabula Iliaca" in the Capitoline Museum in Rome. See Von Salís, 1947, 67.
Boppard: Boldt, 1975, II!)-39- It is not certain that the drawing comes at precisely this point in the development
33 On Spirito, see Giovanni Battista Vermiglioli, Bíogrefiadegliscríttoríperugini e notízíe of the Entombment composition; indeed, Parker, 1956, n. 539, believed it to be
de/le operelor~.Perugia: Bartelli, II, 1829, 300. Giulia Baglioni, née Vitelli, married entirely unrelated to the drawings for the Entombment. I introduce it merely to
25,4 255
point out that in this drawing and in the drawing under discussion the figures of Molini, 1840, 92, cited in Barocchi, II, 1962, 227. Tolnay, 1975, 175-6, has identified
the carriers are understood in a similar fashion. In the British Museum sheet, it with the St. Matthew, because it is the only one ofwhich we have any trace. One
however, Raphael attempted to integrate the carrying motif into the more static thus imagines Raphael confronting it upon returning to Florence. Raphael's
lamentation or píeta-derived composition. drawings after Michelangelo's works in this period tended to be made soon after
42 Cf. Mitsch, 1983, 95. their appearance. Indeed, one has the impression that in these years Raphael was
43 Oxford,Ashmolean Museum, n. 532; pen over rubbed black chalk, Christ's body in deliberately stalking Michelangelo, determined to incorporate as quickly as possi-
red chalk, 28.2 X 24.6 cm; and London, British Museum, Department of Prints ble every new step taken by the older artist. This behavior was to continue
and Drawings, inv. n. 1855-2-14-1; pen over black chalk, 23 X 31.9 cm. through the period of the Sistine ceiling. Michelangelo never quite forgot it, and
44 This point, noted already by Crowe and Cavalcaselle, I, 1882, 307, is generally decades later it was to provoke his bitter comment, in a letter of October 1542,
agreed upon by scholars, but its implications for an early trip by Raphael to Carteggio, IV, 155:"cío che [Raphael] haveva dell'arte, l'aveva da me." By this reason-
Rome have, unaccountably, not been fully drawn. John Shearman, "Raphael, ing, the appearance of a figure adapted from the Virgin in the Doni Tondo in
Rome and the Codex Escurialensis," Master Drawíngs 15, 1977, 133, has presented Raphael's final painting would suggest that the tondo, like the St. Matthew, is to be
strong arguments for two visits by Raphael to Rome before his definitive arrival dated to 1506. Certainly there is more room in Michelangelo's chronology for
in 1508. these two works in 1506 than in the period before leaving Florence, in March
45 The Roman provenance of the painting has been discussed by Hirst, 1981a,who pro- 1505.
posed a connection between the panel and the commission of an altarpiece from 51 Locher, 1994, 101-03, offered a sensitive analysis ofRaphael's "Trennungsgedanken"
Michelangelo for the church ofSant'Agostino in Rome in 1500.See also Nagel, 1994. and "Kontrastregie."
46 Christopher Lloyd, "A Short Footnote to Raphael Studies," Burlíngton Magazine, 52 John Shearman, "The Chigi Chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo," Journal ef the
119, 1977, 113-14, has proposed that the Oxford sheet is derived from the central vVarburgand Courtauld Instítutes XXIV, 1961, 129-60.
carrying group in Mantegna's Bacchanal wíth Silenus (Fig. 3.9). I believe this model, 53 The general phenomenon in images as well as in devotional literature has been
if it is relevant, was transmitted through Michelangelo's panel. I argued in chapter studied by Büttner, 1983.
1 that Mantegna's print was an important inspiration, not only in composition but 54 The principal documentation surrounding Scipione Borghese's acquisition of the
also in theme, for Michelangelo's composition. On the Oxford sheet, Raphael painting has been collected by Paola della Pergola, Gallería Borghese. I Dipíntí, II,
abandoned the frontal motif but adapted the mechanics and trajectory of the car- Rome: Istituto poligrafico dello Stato, Librería dello Stato, 1959, 195-215. One let-
rying group, using motifs that show a much more specific, point-by-point resem- ter (201) pro tests the loss of "una nobílissima et rarissima píttura celebrata da varíí
blance to Michelangelo's group. The features that appear most to resemble autori, et dí una gíoia incomparabile,la qua/e erano andati piu vo/te varii Cardinalí et prin-
Mantegna's group - the presence of three carrying figures, the stepping motion of cipii a vagheggíare. .. "Another (208), testifying to the importance of printed books
the left carrier, and above ali the tight compression of the group - are ali, I believe, in these developments, complains of "il do/ore di veder levato Tesoro sí pretioso, lodato
transmitted through the London painting. da/ Vcisarí,da/ Borghini, e da a/tri Autori stampati . .. "
47 Interestingly, in the worked-up and squared modello in the Uffizi, Raphael 55 This point is confirmed by Silvia Ferino Pagden, "From Cult Image to the Cult of
switched the pose of the legs - that is, back to the pose for that carrier which he Images," in AR, 165-89, who showed that the transformation of Raphael's altar-
knew from Mantegna's Entombment print and which he had already used in the pieces into aesthetic monuments began at the very earliest stages of their recep-
earlier drawing in the British Museum discussed above. In following this detail we tion.
can virtually measure the impact that Michelangelo's conception first made on 56 The problem has been most directly addressed by Stoichita, 1993, although with
Raphael and then witness Raphael's efforts to absorb and control it. minimal reference to Italian art. For Italy, the best starts in this direction have
48 This head is the only one for which there exists an elaborate head study, in been made above all in studies ofVenetian painting. See Patricia Fortini Brown,
Chantilly, Musée Condé FR. VIII, 4411.In this drawing, Raphael has turned the Venetian Narrative Painting in the Age of Carpaccio, Princeton, 1988, and Humfrey,
eyes so that they look back toward the left, thus increasing the pathos of the 1993.
expression. The pose now comports a triple reversal: The body is oriented toward 57 Paul Hills, "The Renaissance Altarpiece: A Valid Category?" in AR, 48 _
the left, the head turns back toward the right, and the eyes turn back again toward 58 See Jurj Tynyanov, "On Literary Evolution," in Readings in Russian Poetics:Formalíst
the left. The pose of the head and the investigation of expressive qualities seem to and Structuralíst Views, eds. Ladislav Matejka and Kristina Pomorska, Cambridge,
be a dire<;:tresponse to the challenge of the Laocoiin and thus further support the MA: M.I.T. Press, 1971, 66-77. Cf. Jakobson, 1971, 85: "The hierarchy of artistic
idea that Raphael had been in Rome in the year 1506. devices changes within the framework of a given poetic genre; the change, more-
49 A similarity first pointed out to me by John Shearman. over, affects the hierarchy of poetic genres, and simultaneously, the distribution of
50 Berenso1t, 1938, I, 181. The appearance of this study at this stage would seem to artistic devices among the individual genres. Genres which were originally sec-
indicate that Michelangelo sculpted the St. Matthew in 1506, during his time in ondary paths, subsidiary variants, now come to the fore, whereas the canonical
Florence betweenApril and November.A letter ofSoderini dated November 1506 genres are pushed toward the rear."
states that Michelangelo had begun work on the apostles for the cathedral. See 59 John Shearman, Pontormo's Altarpíece in Santa Felicita, Newcastle upon Tyne:
Giovanni Gaye, Carteggio Inedíto d'Artístí dei Secolí XIV, XV, XVI, II, Florence: University of N ewcastle upon Tyne, 1971, and idem, 1992, 87-94, has interpreted
\
1
'
2 57
what we see in the painting as a rotating movement of Christ's body downward, ro This procedure is foreign enough from what we know of Michelangelo's working
toward the real altar in the chapel. Leo Steinberg, "Pontormo's Capponi Chapel," methods to instill legitimate doubts about the authorship of the drawing.
Art Bulletin, 56, 1974, 385.ff.,interpreted the two carrying figures as angels poised Michelangelo's other studies for Pietas and Lamentatíons all reconceive the pose of
to lift the body of Christ toward God the Father in the cupola above. the body; familiar postures, even from quite early in his career, reappear in the
process, but this process does not begin, as this drawing has, with an act of direct
CHAPTER FIVE. PASSIONATE WITHDRAWAL copying.A similar point was made by Hirst, 1988, 20, in discussing Michelangelo's
use ofhis own drawings: "Michelangelo must have been the readier to destroy his
1 See Paul de Man, "Criticism and Crisis," in De Man, 1983, 3-19. drawings because, unlike artists as diverse as Andrea del Sarto or Rubens, he did
2 See O'Malley, 1968, especially ch. 5, Bober, 1977, and Rowland, 1998. not reuse them. It is difficult to find a single case where we can point to his having
3 The clearest exponent of the new ethos was perhaps the Bolognese bishop picked up, for example, a study made from life, and re-employed it for a subse-
Gabriele Paleotti, who argued in his 1582 Discorso intorno al/e imagini sacre e prefane quent work ... For every invention, Michelangelo started, as it were, from scratch."
for the superiority of Western alphabets over ancient and non-Western hiero- His example is the Leda, which, though deriving from the pose of the Medici
glyphs (1961, 142-9). Gianfranco Cantelli, Mente corpo linguaggio: Saggio sull'inter- Chapel Night made shortly before, was designed on the basis of new drawings,
pretazione vichiana del mito, Florence: Sansoni, 1985, 346-57, saw Paleotti's position rather than on the reuse of the ones made for the sculpture. Condivi, 19n, 76,
as an initial step in the early modern overturning of the belief in archaic symbolic stressed Michelangelo's conscious avoidance of self-irnitation: "Michael Angelo
wisdom. His thesis is discussed by Anthony Grafton, "The Rest vs. The West," New had a most retentive memory, so that although he has painted so many thousand
York Review of Books, XLIV, 6,April ro, 1997, 63. Fragnito, 1988, 31ff. studied the figures, as may be seen, he has never made one like to another, or in the same
"technico-juridical culture" that replaced the refined humanist culture of the pose; indeed, I have heard him say that ifhe ever draws a line which he remembers
papal court beginning with the pontificate of Paul IV (1555-59). She also shows to have drawn before, he rubs it out if it is to come before the public." (The point
that already by the late 1550s the earlier period was being mythologized as a was repeated and amplified byVasari,VI, u4-15.) The importance ofthe issue for
heydey of intellectual refinement and cultural freedom by its survivors, such as Michelangelo is demonstrated by his own comment on the Condivi passage,
Ludovico Beccadelli, who had been closely connected to both Bembo and Pole. which was noted in the margin of the printed text by a contemporary; Ugo
On the changing relation between humanists and the curia during this period, see Procacci, "Postille contemporanee in un esemplare della vita di Michelangelo del
also the classic studies of Cario Dionisotti, "Chierici e laici," and "La letteratura Condivi;' Attí del convegno dí studi Michelangíoleschí, Rome: Edizioni dell' Ateneo,
italiana nell'eta del concilio di Trento," in idem, 1967, 47-'73 and 183-204 respec- 1966, 293: "Díssemí [Míchelangelo) evero, e se tu voifar bene, varia sempre efa piii tosto
tively. male." [Paraphrase: It is better to risk failure innovating than to play it safe by
4 Quoted after the translation in Buonarroti, 1965, 276. Carteggio, IV, 299: "Al prete copying oneself.] These claims to absolute originality, like Michelangelo's
di' che non mi scriva piiia Michagniolo scultore', perché io non ci sono conosciuto se non per Condivi's assertion that Michelangelo had never had a teacher, have rightly been
Michelagniolo Buonarroti, e che se un cictadinoflorentino vuol fare dipigniere una tavola da contested by modern scholars, who point to his abundant reliance on previous
a/tare, che bisognia che e' truovi un dipintore: ché non fu' mai pictore né scultore come chine models and techniques. The point here, however, is not whether Michelangelo was
fa boctega. Sempre me ne sono guardato per l'onore di mie padre e de' mia frategli, ben io always able to avoid unconscious irnitation and self-imitation but that his conscious
abbi servito tre papi, che é stato forza." For a fine discussion of this letter and its aim was to avoid doing so. He rnight, despite himself, repeat a pose; it is far less
implications, see William Wallace, Michelangelo at San Lorenzo: The Genius as likely that he would make a drawing directly copied after his own work and then
Entrepreneur, Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1994, Introduction. proceed carefully to work it up. In any case, this would be an extremely rare
5 These associations are studied in chapter 6. instance of such a procedure in Michelangelo's work. Sylvia Ferino Pagden's entry
6 The estimate, perhaps exaggerated, was made by Pier Paolo Vergerio; see on the drawing, in VC, cat no. IV.47, 454, also raised sorne doubts about the draw-
Fontanini, 1972, 444. ing's authorship and also suggested a date toward the early 1530s.
7 Ginzburg and Prosperi, 1975, 187: "Nel 1480 (per usare una data simbolica) il rapporto II The difference in posture between painting and drawing was observed by the
del/' individuo con Dio passava attraverso tutta una serie di istituzioni in cui era diificile anonymous R. A. in his letter to the London Times, September 12, 1881, but
distinguere le componenti religíosi da quelle civili. Nel 1540 (altra data símbolica) queste because he believed the drawing to be preparatory to the painting, he was led to
medíazíoni si erano logorate, lasciando insoddíifata una domanda religiosa che la crisí gen- believe that the paínting was the awkward variation on the authentic drawing. My
era/e della societa aveva resopíii acula." position was most clearly anticipated by Richter, 1883, 43-44, who wrote in
8 Vienna, Albertina, inv. n. ro3; Corpus 432r. Black and red chalk, 40.4 X 23.3 cm. response to R. A.'s letter: " ... a close comparison [of picture and drawing] ... seems
The relati<¡mshipbetween the drawing and the painting received the most consis- to me to point to a totally different conclusion about the importance of the draw-
tent attention in a flurry of letters on the London panel written to the London ing. I would only draw attention to the weakness in the outline of the thigh and
Times throughout the month of September 1881. The debate, involving J. C. the calf of the right leg, and to the want of anatornic accuracy in the outline of the
Robinson, E.J. Poynter, F.W. Burton andan anonymous R.A., was usefully sum- corpse near the hip, deficiencies in the drawing which are not to be met within
marized by Richter, 1883, 41-4. the picture. Therefore if the drawing, as seems to be the case, proves to be not only
9 Thode, 1908,\84-485, and idem, 1912, 174. a later work, but also an inferior production to the picture, which I maintain to be
2 59
by Michelangelo, it would follow that the drawing is one of the finest pasticcios Wilde, 1949, 422r.; Corpus 99r.), and incorporated the entire composition in the
ever produced after the great Florentine master, and perhaps copied direct from inlay decoration of the floor of the Biblioteca Laurenziana. See also the pen sketch
the painting." which reproduces the entire group, Casa Buonarroti 53r., reproduced in Dussler,
12 These features have, I believe, important implications for the attribution question. 1959, 438r., pl. 184.
In the drawing the unity of the London Christ figure is disrupted but not recon- 21 Paris, Louvre, lnv. n. 716; Corpus 92r. Black chalk; 25.5 X 32 cm. Again, although
ceived as a new whole. Instead, the parts are dislocated from one other: One could this drawing is much loved, I believe the attribution to Michelangelo is question-
imagine the torso being moved without occasioning any shift in the legs, or the able. The first dubious fact about it is that, like the Vienna sheet discussed above
left arm being raised or lowered without its affecting the posture of the torso. (see Figure 78), it is directly copied from another work: It follows the Casa
Such "regional autonomy" is essentially foreign to what we know of Buonarroti sheet quite precisely (the figures in the two sheets are almost identical
Michelangelo's figural (as well as architectural) style. in size). Please see n. 10 for a discussion of such a practice of copying in relation to
13 Inv. n. 1896-7-10-ir.,Wilde 64r., Corpus 27or. Michelangelo's known working habits. The second point is that the lines of the
14 Cf. Dvorák, 1989, 130 (comparing the Florence Pieta to the Vatican Pieta): "Nicht Louvre drawing copy the Casa Buonarroti sheet in a dutiful, almost myopic man-
die Madonna,sondernder tote Christus ist die Haupifigur- wie er hier aufgerichtetgezeigt ner. This procedure led to difficulties where different parts of the figure meet, as
wird, entsprichtmehr dem Trecentoundfrühen Quattrocento- nicht als sü{3eLast, sondern noted by Perrig, 1960, 140. The right profile of the torso (to our left) is followed
als der Gottessohn,der Helfer and Erliiser,derfür die Menschheitgestorbenist." Frederick clown to the hip area; there it arrives too close to the upper profile of the right
Hartt, "Power and the Individual in Mannerist Art," in The Renaissance and thigh:The buttock, a round and ample form in the Casa Buonarroti sketch, is here
Mannerism:Studies in i#stern Art (Acts of the Twentieth International Congress of virtually omitted in the conjunction of hip and thigh. Precisely this sort of flat-
the History of Art), 11, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963, 222-38, saw tened treatment of the hip area occurs in Sebastiano's drawing of God the Father
this sacramental emphasis as a general trend in the depiction of Pietasin the years for the Chigi chapel in Windsor (Popham-Wilde, 1949, n. 924; Hirst, 1981b, pl.
after 1517. 174). This specific sort of problem does not occur in known Michelangelo draw-
15 See the classic essay by Wilhelm Pinder, "Die dichterische Würzel der Pieta," ings: Exaggerations and distortions of proportion certainly do occur, and quite
Repertoriumfür Kunstwissenschaft,42, 1920, 145-63. These devotional parallels are often, but not this sort of anatomical omission. The draftsman of the Louvre sheet
recapitulated in the formal derivation of the Pieta from the image of the Virgin attempted to correct his error by simply drawing another contour for the thigh a
and Child. See Panofsky, 1927, 266, and Hanns Swarzenski, "Quellen zum little farther up and another for the buttock a little farther clown. Is it likely that
deutschen Andachtsbild;' Zeitschriftfür Kunstgeschichte,4, 1935, 142. The structural Michelangelo would have lavished such attention on the modeling of a figure
parallel between the image of the Virgin and Child and that of the Pieta is on whose contours show such obvious miscalculations? Once the possibility is enter-
occasion made explicit by their pairing in a pendant relationship. See, for example, tained that Sebastiano was the draftsman of the Louvre sheet, certain features fall
the two frescoes painted by Perugino in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore at into place. The legs, which were not included in the model sketch in the Casa
Spello. Buonarroti, repeat a formula adapted (ultimately from the Sistine Adam [see
16 For Christocentric trends in the visual arts and their relation to reform agendas, Figure 83]) for the figure of Lazarus in Sebastiano's altarpiece now in London.
see Humphrey, 1993, 73-6, and idem, "Altarpieces and Altar Dedications in One immediately feels the loss of Michelangelo 's guidance in these looping,
Counter-Reformation Venice and the Veneto," Renaissance Studies, 10, 1996, anatomically indifferent forms. A cursory comparison of this rounded knee with
371-87. See also Adriano Prosperi, "The Religious Crisis in Early Sixteenth- the quickly sketched but anatomically sensitive knees on the verso of the Casa
Century ltaly," in David Alan Brown, Peter Humfrey, and Mauro Lucco, Lorenzo Buonarroti sheet (for figures in the Last ]udgment) shows a difference so marked as
Lotto: RediscoveredMaster of the Renaissance,ex. cat., New Haven:Yale University to make it difficult to attribute them to the same hand. The two arm studies at the
Press, 1997, 21-6. corners of the sheet are, however, not so easily dismissed. As I point out below, I
17 See chapter 3, second section. believe these small sketches are Michelangelo's efforts to demonstrate how prob-
18 Florence, Casa Buonarroti 69r.; Corpus 91r. Black pencil; 39.9 X 28.2 cm. lems in the treatment of the figure could be resolved by changing the pose of the
19 The first record of this commission appears in a letter of December 1533, which arm.
itself refers to an earlier agreement probably dating to June of the same year. See 22 This point was stressed by Perrig, 1960, 139.
Michael Hirst, "Sebastiano's Pieta for the Comendador Mayor," Burlington 23 Further similarities reinforce the hypothesis. The seated posture, the blocklike
Magazine, 114, 1972, 587. tomb seat shrouded in drapery, and the Virgin supporting Christ from behind - all
20 See Julius Schlosser, "Über einige Antiken Ghibertis," Wiener Jahrbuch für of these features are also present in the Úbeda Pieta. The British Museum compo-
Kunstgeschichte24, 1904, 125-40, and Ghibertis Denkwürdigkeiten, 11,Berlin: Bard, sition mentioned above (see n. 13) is formally very distinct, but it, too, may be an
1912, 172 for the textual documentation. To Christian Huelsen, "11 Letto di earlier idea, also superseded, for the Úbeda commission, especially when we con-
Policleto," ]ahreshefte des osterreichischen archiiologischen
Institutes, 28, 1915, 130-7, sider that Sebastiano himself initially proposed to make a composition "similar to
goes the credit for identifying the relief type to which Ghiberti's belonged. the Pieta in St. Peter's" [ "a guisa di quella delafebre", see Hirst, "Sebastiano's Pieta,"
Michelangel~ made a drawing after the sleeping figure in the mid-152os while he as in n. 19, 587]. This hypothesis is independent of the attribution question. If the
was working ,on the Medici projects in San Lorenzo (Windsor Castle, Popham- drawings are Michelangelo's, then they are earlier efforts superseded by the final
260 261
Bed of Polycleitus - based composition. If the drawings are by Sebastiano, then they the Man of Sorrows with angels, in which Christ is flanked by angels rather than
represent his efforts, before Michelangelo's arrival in Rome in Autumn 1533, to supported from behind by one, as observed by Panofsky, 1927, 268. Early examples
fashion a composition by his own lights, using the two most thematically related of this type include the relief by Giovanni Pisano in Berlin and the predella of the
works by Michelangelo (the Entombment and the Pieta) then available to him in stone altarpiece by Tommaso Pisano in San Francesco at Pisa (illustrations in
Rome. (For the Roman provenance of the London painting, see Hirst, 1981a, and Belting, 1981, Figs. 31 and 35).The two types were combined in Andrea del Sarto's
Cecil Gould, "Sorne Addenda to Michelangelo Studies;' Burlington Magazine, lost Puccini Pieta (see John Shearman, Andrea del Sarto, II, Oxford: Clarendon,
XCIII, 1951, 279-82.) We will probably never find proof of the connection of 1965, 229-30), which Shearman, 1966, proposed as a source for Rosso's Boston
these drawings to the Úbeda commission, but in the end it is not really necessary. panel.
If the drawings are by Michelangelo and to be dated circa 1530, then they are 29 The similarity was noted by Shearman, 1966, 170, n. 30; and by Sydney Freedberg,
related to the drawings for the Úbeda painting by their shared thematic problems Painting in Italy 1500-1600, Middlesex: Penguin, 1979, p. 201, n. 31, who seems to
and should be understood in relation to one another and to the conception of the believe that the relation goes the other way around: "There is a dense complex of
Úbeda Pieta whether they were made expressly "for" that commission or not. If references to Michelangelo in the Christ [of Rosso 's Boston panel], but the most
the drawings are by Sebastiano, then it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that they exact is to the drawing (Paris, Louvre), disputed in attribution between
are directly related to the Úbeda commission. Michelangelo and Sebastiano del Piombo ... "There is good reason to believe that
24 Bober and Rubinstein, 1986, 127. The work's Renaissance reception is brilliantly Sebastiano was aware of Rosso's panel, which had been left in Rome during the
studied by Leonard Barkan in Unearthing the Past, New Haven, CT: Yale Sack (see Franklin, "New Documents;' as in previous note).
University Press, forthcoming. I thank him for an advance viewing of this section. 30 Julia Kristeva, Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia, trans. Leon S. Roudiez, New
25 As Hirst, 1981b, 131, put it, "Berenson's strictures cannot be gainsaid." I would add York: Columbia University Press, 1989, uo.
only that this "woodenness" is not merely a matter of a simple weakness in 31 The best analysis of Dostoyevsky's reception of the panel is by Victor Stoichita,
Sebastiano's ability to depict figures. It stems from a difference in conception, a "Ein Idiot in der Schweiz: Bildbeschreibung bei Dostoiewsky," in
tendency to see the dead Christ merely as an inert and pathetic corpse. Beschreibungskunst - Kunstbeschreibung, eds. Gottfried Boehm and Helmut
Sebastiano's painting is a sentimental Andachtsbild, of the kind later - and partly on Pfotenhauer, Munich: Prestel, 1995, 425-44.
Sebastiano's model - to be turned into an industry in Spain by Luis de Morales. 32 See, for example,John Rowlands, Holbein. Tñe Paintings of Hans Holbein the Younger.
26 Shearman, 1966. Complete Edition. Oxford: Phaidon, 1985, 52-3, and Oskar Batschmann and Pascal
27 Connections between Rosso's investigations and contemporary debates over the Griener, Hans Holbein, London: Reaktion, 1997, 89.
interpretation of the Eucharist have been proposed by Regina Stefaniak, 33 Francesco Bocchi, Le bellezze della citta di Fiorenza: doue a pieno di pittura, di scultura,
"Replicating Mysteries of the Passion: Rosso's Dead Christ with Angels," di sacri tempij, di palazzi i piu notabili arti.fizij, & piu preziosi si contengono, Florence,
Renaissance Quarterly, 45, 1992, 677-738. 1591; facs. ed. with an introduction by John Shearman, Farmborough: Gregg, 1971,
28 The description comes in a document requesting that the panel, left in Rome 223-4. Quoted by Thomas Frangenberg, "The Art of Talking about Sculpture:
during the Sack, be returned to him in Borgo San Sepolcro. It was published by Vasari, Borghini and Bocchi," Journal ef the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 58,
David Franklin, "New Documents for Rosso Fiorentino in Sansepolcro," 1995, 130, whose translation I follow.
Burlington Magazine, CXXXI, 1989, Document 5, 827: " .. .et specialiter unum 34 Colonna, 1979, 423: "Ultra che essendovi la divinita che non lo lasso mai, credohaveva la
quadrum lignaminis, ornatum picturis, et in quo inest pictafigura domini nostri Iesu Christi solita Maesta et grande, anzi molto maggiore,perche la morte che ne li a/tri usa violentia et
in forma Pietatis, cum quibusdam Angelis circumcirchadictamfiguram." The terms pieta perho rimangono come persone offese, in Christo che con tanta dolcezza l'haveva chiamata
or immagine della pieta, it should be noted, were more often used to describe what et desiderata,penso ne rimase un atto tanto do/ce suave et pietoso che reinteneriva ogni duro
we would call a Man of Sorrows, the ímago pietatis proper, than the configuration core,et accendevaognifredda mente, la brutezza della morte era non solo bella nel bellissimo
that the term is now generally understood to describe, i.e., the Vesperbild.This is volto ma lafierezza se convertt in do/cezza grande. " I discuss Colonna's Passion tract at
the way, for example, Neri di Bicci used the term; e.g., Le ricordanze, ed. Bruno length in the following chapter.
Santi, Pisa: Marlin, 1976, 60 (f. 26r.): ".. .e nella predella la Piata e quattro mezefighure 35 Gilio, 1961, 39-41.
da lato." See also the illuminating chapter on the meaning of the word pietas in 36 Hirst, 1988, u6.
relation to the Man of Sorrows image in Belting, 1981, Excursus A, 281-8. On the 37 Hirst, 1981b, 131, has observed that the figure of Christ for the Úbeda Pieta was
specific tradition of the Man of Sorrows with angels, or Engelpieta, see Georg conceived with an eye to Sebastiano 'sVenetian sensibilities, in particular by incor-
Swarzenski, "Insinuationes divinae pietatis," Festschrifi Heinrich Wii!f!lin, Munich: porating the "Venetian tradition of representing the dead Christ, supported from
Schmid, ~924, 65-74; Hubert Schrade, "Beitrag zur Erklarung des behind and depicted to the knees" exemplified in Giovanni Bellini's treatments of
Schmerzensmannbildes," Deutschkundliches - Friedrich Panzer zum 60. Geburtstag the subject.
überreicht, Heidelberg: Winter, 1930, 178--9; and Gert von der Osten, "Engelpieta," 38 The resulting arrangement bears a striking resemblance to the strange Lamentation
Reallexikon zur Deutschen Kunstgeschichte,V, Stuttgart: Druckenmüller, 1960, 603. It painted by the young Ghirlandaio in the Vespucci chapel in the church of
should be noted that Rosso's image - like Michelangelo's Pieta for Vittoria Ognissanti in Florence.
Colonna to b~ discussed below - conforms particularly to an Italian tradition of 39 Hirst, 1988, u6.
262 263
40 See Wind, 1968, 152-90. Hirst, 1988, n6, emphasized the dark and funereal aspects of New Sacristy: The cornice of the doors serves also as the base of the tabernacles
the Childrens Baahanal. On the association of Bacchus with death and funerary con- above; the volutes, which hang, not unlike Christ's lower arms, to either side, are
texts, see Walter E Otto, Dionysus: Myth and Cult, trans. Robert Palmer, Bloomington: both corbels to the <loor and "knees" to the tabernacles. Michelangelo, after sorne
Indiana Universi~ Press, 1965,chs. 9 and 17;Pierre Boyancé, Le culte des Muses chez les difficulty, arrived at a similar solution in his model for the two-story far;ade for
philosophiesgrecs:Etudes d'histoire et de psychologie religieuse,Paris: Boccard, 1937, ch. 3; San Lorenzo: An indeterminate middle zone acts both as entablature for the lower
Susan Cole, "Voices from beyond the Grave: Dionysos and the Dead," in Masks ef order and as basamento for the upper order.
Dionysos, ed. Thomas Carpenter and Christopher Faraone, Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 1993, 276--95;and Dirk Obbink, "Dionysos Poured Out:Ancient and
CHAPTER SIX. ARTWORK ANO CULT IMAGE
Modern Theories ofSacrifice and Cultural Formation," in ibid., 65-86.
41 Erwin Panofsky, Studies in Iconology (1939), NewYork: Harper, 1962, 222. This allu- 1 On the question of drawings as finished works in their own right, see Wilde, 1978,
sion lends further credence to the idea, proposed above, that Michelangelo was 147-58, and Hirst, 1988, chapter X, "The Making of Presents." I followWilde and
recalling Raphael's painting in the closely contemporary Bayonne sheet (see Hirst in describing this type of work as a presentation drawing, and thus distinct
Figure 86). from a modello, which is a finished design for a project yet to be realized, more
42 Hirst, 1988, n5. often than not in another medium. This is, of course, not to deny the fact that
43 See the liturgical texts, Passion dramas, and devotional literature studied in E. modelli were often deemed worthy of being collected in their own right. I follow
Parker, "The Descent from the Cross: Its Relation to the Extra-Liturgical Robinson, Tolnay, and Hirst, among others, in identifying the Colonna Pieta with
Deposition Drama," doctoral dissertation, NewYork University, 1975. the drawing now in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston (Corpus 426r.
44 Haarlem,Teylers Museum, n.A 25; Corpus 89r. Red chalk; 26.1 X 18.5 cm. Black chalk; 29.5 X 19.5 cm.). An especially strong argument in favor of this attri-
45 In Nagel, 1996, I argued that a drawing of disputed date in Oxford (see Figure 99) bution is Tolnay's observation of a pentimento in the left foot of the left-hand angel
was one of the condensed formulas drawn from the Haarlem Deposition drawing at (see Corpus, III, 77). None ofthe arguments made here, however, depend on this
this time. The central group was then, I proposed, reworked by Michelangelo in attribution.
the 1540s,and it played an important role in the conception of the Florence Pieta. 2 See, for example, the negotiations involved in the making of Francesco
The drawing is accordingly discussed in ch. 7. Pesellino's Trinity altarpiece, now in the London National Gallery, which can be
46 Paris, Louvre, lnv. n. ro16r.; Corpus 268r. Red chalk; II X 9.3 cm. reconstructed from the documentation published by Peleo Bacci, Documenti e
47 Steinberg, 1970. commenti per la storia del/' arte, Florence: Le Monnier, 1944, n3-51. An informative
48 Vienna,Albertina, Sc.R. 136, Inv. n. ro2r; Corpus 269r. Red chalk; 32 X 25.1 cm. account of the situation in the Venetian context is offered by Peter Humfrey,
49 These qualities frustrated Berenson enough for him to take the sheet away from 1993, part 1, ch. 2, "Purposes and Uses." See also Gilbert, 1977, and Hope, 1990.
Michelangelo. He found the drawing distasteful because it <loes not satisfy On the development of the private mass in the late Middle Ages, see Jungmann,
Albertian expectations of purposeful activity. Having no other criteria by which I, 1986, ro3.ff., John Bossy, "The Mass as a Social Institution 1200-1700," Past and
to assess these qualities, he could see the drawing only as an example of outra- Present, C, 1983, 29-61, and Jacques Chiffoleau, "Sur l'usage obsessionnel de la
geously bad artistic judgment. Even if couched in negative terms, the description messe pour les morts a la fin du Moyen Age," in Paire Croire: Modalités de la diffu-
of the sheet succeeds in drawing attention to sorne of its most important features; sion et de la reception des messages religieux du XIIe au XVe siecle, Rome: École
Berenson, 1, 1938, 241: "The Florentine [Michelangelo] would have treated this franr;aise de Rome, 1981, 238-45. On its place within the economy of late-
subject as a study of weight and support. Rapidly as he might have done it, he medieval piety generally, see John Bossy, Christianity in the Wést 1400-1700,
would have jotted down no limb which did not serve this purpose. Still less would Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985, especially 3-75. For the specific case of
he have sketched out whole figures which do nothing, or worse than nothing, Florence, see Richard Trexler, "Ritual Behavior in Renaissance Florence: The
while forming part of the same compact group. Not only is the dead figure badly Setting," Medievalia et Humanística: Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Culture, n.s.,
constructed, but it is too boneless and limp for artistic treatment, there being IV, 1973, 125-44.
apparently no part of it which <loes not require separate outside support. And of 3 See Fenlon, 1972, 70-71. On the northern Italian Benedectine reform movement,
this support it gets little if any, except by way of flourish and alarum. The author with which Pole had early associations (Fenlon, 1972, 30 .ff.), see Barry Collett,
of this sketch had of course seen studies by Michelangelo for this theme, but had Italian Benedictine Scholars and the Reformation: The Congregation of Santa Giustina of
so little understood their purpose that he supposed it to consist in a pell-mell of Padua, Oxford: Clarendon, 1985.
figures and limbs of any proportions, any attitudes, any shapes, provided they 4 For Catarino's text see Fontanini, 347-422. For the date ofFlaminio's revisions, see
formed an fgitated mass." Ginzburg and Prosperi, 1975, 69-70, where they also entertain the hypothesis that
50 Vittoria Colonna, Rime e lettere di Vittoria Colonna, Rome: Barbera, 1860, sonnet the manuscript of the Beneficio reached Catarino 's hands through Vittoria Colonna
21, 171. herself. Although the historical reliability of de Hollanda's dialogues is still
51 I say "architectonic" because the clearest analogies to this solution appear in debated, especially with regard to the opinions attributed to Michelangelo, it
Michelangelo's architectural designs. A compressed merging between two verti- seems that he would be least likely to invent these matters of setting and circum-
cally arranged Yorms characterizes, for example, the design of the doors of the
264 265
stance. The strongest arguments in favor of de Hollanda's reliability as a recorder of the grace of God is not to be bought and it is a great sin to keep you in suspense .
Michelangelo's views have been offered by Bury, 1981. . ." E. H. Ramsden, The Letters of Michelangelo,II, London: Owen, 1963, 4, offered
5 Manzoni, 1870, 269: "Non mi ricordoche si sía par/ato ne trattatotra noí et que/la sig- a largely similar reading: "Then I carne to realize that the grace of God cannot be
nora d' altro dogma che della gíustificazioneper la Jede, et ne anch' questo sapreí díre a bought, and that to keep you waiting is a grievous sin." My reading of the text,
punto con che círconstantieella se tenesse,ma bastache l' attribuivamolto al/agratía et a/la where the pronoun la refers to la grazia di Dio and not to Colonna, is borne out
Jede in suoi ragionamentí.Et d' altraparte ne/la vita et ne/le attíoní suoe mostravadi tenere by the poem included in the letter, which I discuss below. My thanks to Leonard
gran conto dell'opere,facendogrand'elemosine,et usando charítauniversalmentecon tutti, Barkan, Stefano Cracolici, and Brian Stock for discussing the translation of this
ne/ che veníva a osservareet seguíreíl conisglíoche ella dicevahaverli dato il Cardinale letter with me.
[Pole], al qua/e ella credevacomeun oracolo, cioeche ella dovesseattenderea crederecomese ro Vasari,VI, rr2: "ne volevapresentídi nessuno,perchepareva,comeuno gli donavaqua/cosa,
perla Jede sola s'havessea salvare,et d'altraparte attenderead operarecomese la salute sua d'esseresempreoblígatoa colui."William Wallace, "Friends and Relics at San Silvestro
consestessene/le opere." in Capite, Rome," Sixteenth Century]ournal, 30, 1999, 439, has proposed that the gift
6 The evidence comes in a well-known letter from the bishop of Fano to Cardinal of Colonna's that so burdened Michelangelo in the letter and sonnet under discus-
Ercole Gonzaga; Karl Frey, Michelangelo:Que/len und Forschungen,Berlin: K. Curtis, sion was a chance to view the "Veronica" cloth with the rniraculous image of Christ,
1907, 139: "Monsignor Polo ha per notizía, ch'ella desidera un Cristo dí mane dí a prize relic of the church of San Silvestro in Ca pite, where Colonna resided when
Míchelangelo,et amme impostoche io íntenda secretamentela veríta dí cotalsuo desíderío: in Rome. This would be the image referred to in the closing of the same letter;
perche,essendoin effetto,eglí ne ha uno dí manopropriadel detto,che volentíeriglíelo man- Carteggio,IV, 122: "L'aportatore di questa sara Urbino che sta meco, al quale Vostra
derebbe;ma e in forma di Pieta,pure se glí vede tutto il corpo.Dice che questonon sarebbe S(igno)ria potra dire quando vuole ch'i' venga a vedere la testa di Cristo che Sua
un privarsene,percíochédalla marchesadi Pescara[i.e.,Vittoria Colonna] ne puo avereun Gracia disse mostrarni." Wallace has made an exciting discovery in connecting the
altro." On the meaning of the expression "informa di Pieta" or "in forma pietatís" head of Christ mentioned in Michelangelo's letter to the Veronica at San Silvestro,
see ch. 5, n. 28. Here the reference is quite clear, as the author felt it necessary to but his further claim, identifying the gift referred to earlier in the letter and in the
specify that Christ is shown in full length, as opposed to the half-length type of sonnet with this special viewing opportunity, is difficult to sustain. First,
the Man of Sorrows commonly found in Italy.Thomas Mayer, who has consulted Michelangelo refers to gifts in the plural ("Le coseche VostraS(igno)riam'a piu volte
the original letter in Mantua, has kindly informed me that the author of this letter dare"),and, second, he refers to their being in his house, an arrangement that is diffi-
was not Cosimo Gheri, as Frey suggests, but Pietro Bertano, his successor, and that cult to imagine in the case of the San Silvestro relic.
it is to be dated ca. 1546. rr Flaminio introduced the sirnile in a letter to Gasparo Contarini, probably from
7 Quoted after the translation in Gleason, 1981, 159. Fontanini, 1972, chap. VI, f. 1538, in an effort to clarify a debate over whether the act of faith was itself the
67v., Sr: "Mí diraí:- lo credobene la remíssionede' peccati e so che Dio e verace,ma result of divine grace or of free will. Quoted in Pastore, 198 r, 97: "Dico che sono due
dubito dí non esser degno di tanto dono-. Tí ríspondoche la remissionede' peccatinon opinioni, /'una delle qualí par che dica che la grafía del Signaresía come il sale, íl qua/e
sarebbedono e grazia, ma mercede,se Dio te la concedesse per la dígnítadelle operetue: ma quanto e in sé illumina egualmenteognuno et che cosí il non por come il parre obstacoloa
tí replicoche Dio ti accettaper gíusto e non ti imputa íl peccatoper í meríti di Cristo,i quali questo supercelestelume e mera operationedel nostro liberoarbitrio.La altra opinione dice
ti sono donatí e diventano tuoi per la Jede. Adunque, seguendo íl santo consiglíodí san che senza particolargratia et aiuto de Dio lo huomo non se astienedí mettereoppositionea
Bernardo,non credersolamente in genera/e la remissionede' peccati,ma applica questo quellalucebeata.La prima opinioneedifesada V.S.; la secondada Ms. Tu/lío [Crispo/di]."
credereal tuo particolare,credendoindubitatamentecheper Cristo to sonoperdonatetutte le (Flarninio was on Crispoldi's side of the debate.) In a letter to Marguerite
tue iniquita.JJ d'Angouleme (Ferrero and Müller, 1892, letter CXII, 186-7), Colonna spoke in
8 I quote examples as the argument proceeds. To take one example, however, in a similar terms of an interna! resistance to grace, and like Michelangelo she invoked
letter of 1541 to Cardinal Pole, Colonna toyed, not entirely playfully, with the the divine parallel in the context of an interpersonal relationship of courtesy (in
analogy; Pagano and Ranieri, 1989, 95: "La supplico che con la sua carita anzi de this case, the issue is a hoped-for personal visit). Marguerite's generosity and wis-
Chisto [sic] con la quale ogni molestiasuffre,me perdoni se 'l molesto in mandarlecerte dom is like the celestial manna to the Hebrews, "et se a quelli l'effetto dellagrazia
frascarie,et se ben con San Paulo V.S. suol dire che e piu beata cosael dare che 'l recevere, superodi gran lunga ogni loroaspettatione,a me similmente l'utilita di vederela M. V.credo
contentisedaread me questa beatitudine."Another case of Colonna's serniserious the- che avanzara ogni mio desiderio . .. " She warned, however, that it will require great
ological punning is discussed by Fenlon, 1972, 214-15. charity, ''perchein me troveraresistenzaa saperriceverle sue gratie."
9 Carteggío,IV, 122: "Volevo,Sígniora,prima che io piglíassi le coseche VostraS[igniori]a 12 Marcel Mauss, The Gift: Forms and Functions efExchange in Archaíc Socíeties,trans.
m'a píu volte volute dare, per riceverlemanco índegníamente ch'i' potevo,Jare prima Ian Cunnison, NewYork: Norton, 1967.
qua/checose¡a quella di mia mano; dípoi riconoscíutoe visto che la gratia d'Iddio non si 13 Jacques Derrida, Given Time: 1. Counte,feit Money, trans. Peggy Kamuf, Chicago:
puo comperare,e che'/ tenerlaa dísagioe pechatograndissimo,dico mie colpa,e volentieri Chicago University Press, 1992, and esp. 1-83. See also the discussion of the gift's
dette coseaccecto.E son certo,quando /'aro, non per ave[r]lein casa,ma per essereio in "increase" in Hyde, 1979, 25-39.
casaloro,mi parra esserein paradiso. .. " Creighton Gilbert, in Buonarroti, r 96 5, 267, 14 Derrida, 1995, 95.
rnissing the analogy between divine grace and gift giving, offered what I believe 15 Derrida, 1995, is essentially an extended commentary on S0ren Kierkegaard's con-
to be a flawe~ translation of the passage: "[T]hen, having realized and seen that ception of faith.
266
16 See Natalie Zemon Davís, Gifts and Bribes in Sixteenth-Century France,Lancaster, 22 Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Gifts," in The Works of Emerson, vol. 1, NewYork:Tudor,
UK, 1995. n.d., 344.
17 Seneca, Moral Essays, trans. John W Basore, III, London and Cambridge, MA: 23 The expression appears in Buonarroti, 1960, 136: "Non e píu bassao vil cosaterrena."
Harvard University Press, 1935, book l, ch. 2, sec. 3, 10-n: "Beneficiorumsimplex In the terms ofFlaminio's letter (Pastore, 1981, 97) quoted above, this would put
ratioest: tantum erogatur;si reddetaliquid, lucrumest, si non reddet,damnum non est. Ego Michelangelo in the more radical camp.
illud dedi, ut darem." Seneca's text, which was edited by Erasmus in 1515 and 1529, 24 Carteggio,IV, rn2. Michelangelo was, of course, speaking idealistically and was
was translated into Italian by Michelangelo's correspondent and commentator quite capable of treating artistic gifts in a calculating spirit in his practical life. One
Benedetto Varchi. It is interesting to find that in his version Varchi stresses the example is the dagger that he offered to Filippo Strozzi in 1507 after it had been
"unidirectionality" of the gift and generalizes the message in what could be read rejected by its original comissioner.As William Wallace has argued ("Manoeuvring
as a reformist direction; Benedetto Varchi, Seneca De Benifizii, Florence: for Patronage: Michelangelo's Dagger," Renaissance Studies, II, 1997, 20-26),
Torrentino, 1554, 4: "Il modo di dare i benifizii e un solo,perchesi danno solamente,se Michelangelo was careful to offer it as a gift - he instructed his brother
poi te n'e rendutoa/cuna,questosi chiamaguadagno:se no, non si chiamadanno,perchei Buonarroto: "make him a present of it, as from yourself, and do not say anything
benifizii si dannoper dare,non per ricevereil cambio."On Varchi's reformist sympathies to him about the cost" - and in this way to maintain good relations with the
and affinities with the Viterbo circle, see the very fine analysis of Simoncelli, 1979, Strozzi, who proved to be important sources of support in Buonarroto's rise to a
330-95, which proves Varchi to have been a very close reader of the Beneficiodi position of prominence in Florentine politics. Closer to the time of the Colonna
Cristo. Pieta, Michelangelo revealed a quite calculating conception of gift exchange
18 Gleason, 1981, 128. Fontanini, 1972, 29r.-v., 41: "E che cosapuo operarel'uomo, che when writing epitaphs for the tomb of Cecchino Bracci for Luigi del Riccio.
meriti un tanto dono e tesoroquanto e Cristo? Questo tesorosi da solamenteper grazia e Each variant epitaph appears to have been extorted by a gift (usually of delicacies)
Javoree misericordiadi Dio, e laJede sola e quellache ricevecota/ dono,e cifa goderedella from del Riccio, so that Michelangelo felt compelled to account semifacetiously
remissionede' peccati. ... Le quali cose tutte le opere,che possonoJare tutti li uominí for each one: "For the salded mushrooms" (Saslow, 1991, n. 198); "For the fennel"
insieme,non potrano conseguireneJare." (Saslow, 1991, n. 199);"the trout and trufiles would compel heaven" (Saslow, 1991,
19 The parallel between the gift and the work of art - the idea that works of art are n. 194). Sometimes his return gifts included drawings: "I'm paying you back for
not like other commodities but are giftlike in that their value is irreplaceable and the melons with a scribble, but not yet the drawing; but 1'11certainly do it, since I
incommensurable - is by now taken quite for granted. Hyde, for example, took it can draw better" (Saslow, 1991, n. 206).
as the premise ofhis study. It is, I believe, necessary to historicize this premise and 25 On the "discourse of secrecy" surrounding the presentation drawings, see Barkan,
attempt a genealogy of the identification. Hyde's own examples, and his guiding 1991, 82.
conception of what constitutes art, implicity suggest that the identification is a 26 The association was noted, but not pursued, by Hirst, 1988, rn7: "The real parallel
feature of post-Kantian aesthetics. One might argue, in fact, that the very project for these drawings of Michelangelo is love poetry, above ali sonnets, actuated by
of marking off and defining the realm of the work of art as such by stressing, as profound personal feeling."
Immanuel Kant <lid in the Critique of]udgment, its disinterested quality or gener- 27 Barkan, 1991, Sr.
ally by claiming its exemption from conceptual logic or the logic of"economic" 28 Hyde, 1979,48-9.
relations - a project served especially well by the notion of the gift - is perhaps 29 Carteggio,IV, 102. Michelangelo is quoting from sonnet 206, "S' i' 'l dissi mai, ch' i'
the most peculiarly modern feature of modern aesthetics. The case here under vegna in odio a quella," in Francesco Petrarca, Le rime, eds. Giosue Carducci and
study offers one early, experimental moment in the history of this identification, Severino Perrari, Florence: Sansoni, 1956, 292-4, where it is noted that the canzone
before it received theoretical elaboration, and thus stands as a warning against was adapted to sonnet form in the sixteenth century by Francesco Maria Molza, as
adopting it as a universal premise. well as by Michelangelo's friend Claudio Tolomei. The metaphors invoked by
20 See the variant in Buonarroti, 1960, 342-3: "Per essermanco almen, signiora,indeg- Michelangelo in this letter-poem do not end there. The poem included in the let-
nio." ter is written at a right angle to the body of the letter, between it and
21 Buonarroti, 1960, 86, 343-44: "S' alcun legatoepur tal piacer molto,/ come da marte Michelangelo's signature. In other words, it forms a calligram of the "crocifisso"
altrui tornarein vita,/ qual cosaé chepo' paghi tanta aita,/ che rendeil debitarliberoe sci- itself. Moreover, his signature is written upside clown, making the entire page a
olto?/Ése pur fusse, ne sarebbeto/to/ il soprastard'una mercéinfinita/ al ben servito,onde gloss on the theme ofthe included poem, "Or in su /'uno, ora in su l' altropiede! var-
sarie 'mpedital da l'incontroservire,a que/lavolto./ Dunche,per teneralta vostragrazia, / iando. .. " (Buonarroti, 1960, 87-8), which describes the poet's disoriented soul, so
donna,sopra'l mie stato,in me sol bramo/ ingratitudinpiu che cortesia:/ che dove /'un del- topsy-turvy he can no longer see the heavens.
/' altro.al pa~si sazia, / non mi sare'signarque/ che tant' amo:/ ché 'n parita non capesig- 30 Cropper, 1995, 159-205.These ideas were developed by Cropper in earlier articles,
noria."The sentiment is echoed in a letter from Vittoria Colonna to Marguerite d' "On Beautiful Women: Parmigianino, Petrarchismo, and the Vernacular Style," Art
Angouleme in 1540; Colonna, 1892, 185: "Sereniss.Regina. Le alte et religioseparole Bulletin, LVIII, 1976, 374-94, and more recently, "The Beauty ofWoman: Problems
della humanissimaletteradi V.Maesta mi dovrianoínsegnareque/ sacrosílentío,che in vece in the Rhetoric of Renaissance Portraiture;' in Rewritíng the Renaissance:The
di lode s'offerisceal/e cose divine; ma temendo che la mia riconoscentianon si potesse Discoursesof Sexual Differencein Bar/y Modern Europe, ed. Margaret W Ferguson,
ríputareíngratít~dine,ardiro,non gía dí ríspondere,ma di non tacerein tutto. .. " Maureen Quilligan, Nancy J.Vickers, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986,
268 269
175-90. For a cogent summary of these views, see also Elizabeth Cropper and tiful drawing. In other words, invention must appear, not just in words addressed
Charles Dempsey, NicolasPoussin:Friendshipand the Love efPainting,Princeton, NJ: to the rnind but also embodied in visible representation in order to become beau-
Princeton University Press, 1996, 177-82. tiful to the eye." Cf. Nagel, 19936, 18.
31 On the secularization of traditional categories ofreligious images toward 1500, see 35 Carteggio,IV, ro5.
above ali Belting, 1994, especially ch. 20: "Religion and Art: The Crisis of the 36 Campi, 1994, 75-6, stressed the fact that the rniracle happened after the apostles'
Image at the Beginning of the Modern Age." For more in-depth accounts of the failed efforts and thus interpreted the quotation as an expression of Colonna's
genres of portraiture and landscape along these lines, see Joseph Leo Koerner, The Christocentrism. He also believed that this letter, which mentions a "Christo"
Moment of Self-Portraiturein German RenaissanceArt, Chicago: University of rather than a "Crucifixo,"refers specifically to the drawing of the Pieta. Hirst, 1988,
Chicago Press, 1993, especially ch. 4, "The Artist as Christ," and Christopher S. n7, believed that this and the other letters refer to the British Museum Christ on
Wood, Albrecht Altdorfer and the Origins of Landscape, Chicago: University of the Cross.
Chicago Press, 1993, especially ch. 1, "Independent Landscape." In Nagel, 19936, I 37 William West, "Nothing as Given: Economies of the Gift in Derrida and
argued that through devices such as sfumatopainting "internalized" modes of con- Shakespeare," ComparativeLiterature,48, 1996, II.
cealing and revealing traditionally associated with the presentation of cult images, 38 See Colonna's letter to Giulia Gonzaga ofDecember 8, 1541, which gives a strong
and with the mysteries of religious cult generally. Painting thus acquired a quasi- sense of the connections between Valdés and Viterbo; Colonna, 1892, 240: "Ho
religious mystique in its own right, quite apart from the religiousness of its subject intesocheV.S. ha mandatola espositionesopraSan Paoloch'eramolto desiderata,et piu da
matter - a development that was later to be fundamental to Kantian philosophical me che n'ho piu bisogno." Our understanding of Vittoria's connection to the
aesthetics and Romantic conceptions of the artist and the work of art. thought ofValdés, independently and through the mediation of Ochino, has now
32 Girolamo Savonarola, Sermonisoprail salmo "Quam bonus,"in Sermoni e predichedi been significantly enriched by Campi, 1994.
F. Giro/amoSavonarola,Prato: Guasti, 1846, sermon 16, 434-5 (excerpted in French 39 Juan de Valdés, La Epístolade San Pabloa los Romanos,i la l. a los Corintios,Madrid:
translation in Gustave Gruyer, Les illustrationsdes écritsde]érJme Savonarolepubliés Impresora de Alegria, 1856 (Comentarioó declarazionbrevei compendiosasobrela ep{s-
en Italie au XVe at au XVIe siecleet les paro/esde Savonarolesur l'art, Paris: Firrnin- tola de San PabloApóstol á los romanos,Venice: Juan Philadelphio, 1556), XV: "Es bien
Didot, 1879, 199): "L'amoree comeun dipintore.Un buono dipintore,se e' dipignebene, verdadque el conozimientoque tienen de que Cristo es Hijo de Dios, los que no se sienten
tanto delettanogli uomini le sue dipinture,che nel contemplarlerimangonsospesi,e qualche reconziliadoscon Dios, no se puede llamarpropriamenteconozimiento:porque si fuese
volta in tal modochee' pare che e' sienoposti in estasiefuora di loro,e pare chee' si dimen- conozimiento,haría en ellos el efectoque haze en los otroszertificándolesde su reconzili-
tichino di loro medesimi. Cosrfa l'amore di Gesu Cristo quando e nell' anima. ... azion con Dios, i dándolespaz en sus conszienzias."
Domanda uno che sia innamoratod'una donna,che cosagli dipingal'amorenella camera 40 Le cento e dieci divine considerazionidel Giovanní Uildesso,Halle: Ploeta, 1860,
dellafantasía; rispondera,lafacciasua, gli occhie gesti, le veste e simili cose;e tanto bene Considerazione CII, "Che laJede Cristianaha necessitád'esserconfermatacon la espe-
gliele dipigne,che tutte le potenze dell'anima sua rimangonosospesea tali pitture, e non si rienza;qualee la esperienzae comes'acquista,"376: "Onde intendoche il primo e princi-
diletta di pensare ad altro,ne di contemplarealtro che quellepitture. ... E se questofa pale intento che debbiamoaverenoi che accettiamol' Evangelio,credendoche in Cristo Dio
l'amorecarnale,moltopiu l'amorespirituale,cioedi Gesu Cristo." Not surprisingly, this ha castigatotutti li nostripeccati,e acquistarela esperienzadi questo,affinecheessendocosr
passage is followed by a commentary on the Song of Songs. confermatala nostraJede, non sía bastanteuomo alcuno di appartarcida essa ne di farci
33 Carteggio,IV, 104: "Certo io nonpotrei mai exsplicarquantosottilmenteet mirabilmentee dubitarene titubarein essa,comesono bastantimentrela nostrafedenon sta confermatacon
fatta, per il che son risolutade non volerlode man d' a/tri. Et pero chiaritimi:se questo e la esperienza." According to Pietro Carnesecchi (Manzoni, 1870, 495), during
d' altri, patientia;se e vostro,io in ogni modo vel torrei.Ma in casoche non sia vostroet Colonna's residence at Viterbo, Flarninio had with him Valdés's Considerations,
vogliatefariofare a quel vostro,ciparlaremoprima,perchecognoscendo io la difficultache ce which he was translating from Spanish into Italian for Giulia Gonzaga - again
e di imitarlo,piu presto mi resalvoche coluifacciaun' altracosache questa."The question reinforcing the connection between Viterbo and Valdés.
of the making of copies raised by this letter (as well as by the letter mentioning 41 A theme taken up in the Beneficio,Fontanini, 1972, ch. IV, 30-3ov., 41-42: "E pero
Pole's version of the Pieta drawing, quoted in n. 6, is, unfortunately, not at ali clear. niun s'inganni ... che la veraJede consistanel credereal/a istoria di Iesú Cristo nella
It is one ofthose instances in these letters where, as Hirst, 1988, n7, put it, "their manierache si credea quelladi Cesaree di Alessandro.Questo modo di crederee unaJede
language is difficult to interpret." Alexander Perrig, Michelangelo'sDrawings:The istorica,fondata in mera relazionedi uomini e di scritturee impressaleggiermentenell'
Scienceof Attribution, trans. Michael Joyce, New Haven, CI: Yale University Press, animoper una certausanza. ... Questa cos{fatta Jede é una immaginazioneumana, che
1991, 48, also admitted that "their contents are filled with riddles." The narrative non innovaniente il cuordell'uomo,né lo risca/dadell' amordivino. .. " It was a distinc-
he offered (48) to solve these riddles - which attempts to establish their sequence, tion typical of the thinking of Christian humanists and provoked by the fact that
the works to which they refer, the purpose of the unfinished drawing mentioned as humanists with a developed interest in the study of secular history they were
in the letter quoted above, and finally their date - is filled with dramatic supple- compelled to give renewed critica! attention to the question of what made sacred
mentation not substantiated by the evidence. history different. In ch. 3 I present a fuller discussion of the humanist views and
34 The point corresponds to an assertion of Lodovico Dolce, elucidated by Cropper, argue that Michelangelo grappled pictorially with this issue in the London
1995, 177: "T\iough Alberti had said that invention by itself could be beautiful, Entombment, in attempting to adapt the principies of history painting to the
Dolce insists tliat, no matter how beautiful the invention, it requires equally beau- demands of altar images.
271
NOTES TO P. 179 NOTES TO PP. 180-181
42 Cf. José C. Nieto, Juan de Vtildés and the Origins of the Spanish and Italian 1984, 47. Already in 1538 Gasparo Contarini, earlier a defender of the public dis-
Reformation, Geneva: Droz, 1970, 253: "Valdés' hermeneutical principle is rooted in semination of reforming doctrine, saw the danger of "alcunipredicatorili quali have-
the experience of the word of God as it affects human self-consciousness. Thus, vano predicatolibero arbitrio,della predestinazione,onde havevanofatto gran confusione,
the ultimate hermeneutical question addressed by Valdés to the biblical text is pre- havendoposta in capoa molti che la salute e la dannationefussero necessariee non contin-
conditioned by the redemptive and soteriological quest for the text's effect upon gente, et pero che si poteva far male et compíacersia suo modo." Letter to Ercole
his consciousness. The hermeneutical organon is therefore man's own conscience, Gonzaga, 19 January, 1538, in Walter Friedensburg, "Der Briefwechsel Gasparo
and whatever does not touch him is passed over with the hope that in sorne other Contarinis mit Ercole Gonzaga nebst einem Briefe Gian Pietro Carafas," in
occasion it will speak to his conscience:' Quellen und Forschungenaus italienischenArchivenund Bibliotheken, II, 1899, 185.
43 A point aptly emphasized by Susanna Peyronel Rambaldi, "Ancora 45 The relevance of the treatise to the drawing was observed by Nagel, 1993a,
sull'Evangelismo italiano: categoria o invenzione storiografica?" Societa e Storia, 222-30, and by Campi, 1994, 49-51. The treatise has been set into the context of
18, 1982, 951: "Una culturafondata su una esperienza interiore,aristocraticacomepiu reformist writing and concerns over images by Adriano Prosperi, "Zwischen
volte e stata definita, e índíviduale,i cui cardinierano la giustificazioneper Jede da una Mystikern und Malern: Überlegungen zur Bilderfrage in Italien zur Zeit Vittoria
parte e ['odioperla superstizione,le pratichenon spirituali, dall'altra,non era una cultura Colonnas," in VC, 283-92. It is written in the form of a letter addressed to a cer-
che potesse esserfacilmente divulgata e divenirepatriminio comune della Chiesa della tain "Padre;' whose authority is invoked at various points in the course of the text.
Controriforma."The point is close to that made long ago by Cantimori, 1939, 24, Simoncelli, 1979, 2n-13, showed that several passages, and those in particular that
who observed that in Valdesianism "il motivo della riforma interioreconducevaa una make reference to the "Padre," contain remarkably close allusions to Bernardino
religiositapuramente individua/eo di piccoligruppi, non adatta a produrreo a guidare un Ochino's PredicheNove. On the basis of this evidence, he argued convincingly that
movimento largoe radicatoin tutti i ceti dellapopolazione, come dovevaessereun moví- Ochino, Colonna's spiritual advisor from 1534 to 1541, was the addressee of the
mento di riforma generale." This passage was quoted and discussed by Massimo text. This in turn helps to determine its date: Ochino's PredicheNove were deliv-
Firpo, TraAlumbrados e "Spirituali": Studi su Juan de Vtildése il váldesianesimonella ered in Venice during Lent of 1539 and were published in 1541; in August 1542 he
crisi religiosadel '500 italiano, Florence: Olschki, 1990, 16, n. 23, and 13-43. He fled to Geneva. Vittoria Colonna thus probably composed her text between 1539
specificaliy made the point (28) that the "reserve" typical of the group around and 1542 - that is, in the same period to which scholars usually date
Valdés was due not simply to fear of persecution but rather to the nature of the Michelangelo's drawings for her, and the correspondence that mentions them.
piety they practiced: "Mi pare lecitoindividuarein questa teorizzazione dellaprudenza Prosperi, supra, 292, noted that many of these arguments were also made by Eva
(di cuí risultano evídenti le implicazioni nicodemítíche)non solo la consapevolezzadella Maria Jung, "Il Pianto della Marchesa di Pescara" (1957), Archivio Italiano per la
necessitadi erigereuna sorte diflessibile schermoprotettivo contrasospetti e accuse,che del Storia della Pieta, X, 1997, an article I have not been able to consult. On Colonna's
restonon tarderannofarsi sentire,ma anche uno strumentofunzionale a un' operad'inseg- relations with O chino, who was himself heavily under the influence ofValdés, see
namento, di iniziazione graduale dei nuovi adepti a dottrine religiosediverse da quelle Alfred von Reumont, Vittoria Colonna, marchesadi Pescara:Vita,fede e poesía nel sec-
tradízionalie via via píu apprefonditee ríposte,scanditea livelli successívidi radicalismo olo decimosesto,trans. Ermanno Ferrero and Giuseppe Müller, 2nd ed., Turin, 1892,
dottrinalee destinatequindi a esserecommunicatepocoper volta,passoper passo,accompag- 151-72, and Campi, 1994, 21-54.
nando sapientementeil processodi 'esperientia'e progressivarigenerazionecristianache si 46 Colonna, 1979, 423.
venivasviluppandonell' animo dei discepoli." 47 Colonna, 1979, 423: 'Jar del suo corpoquasi morto una sepolturain quella hora." For
44 In 1545, Benedetto Varchi noted with amused exasperation that the question of Colonna, as for Michelangelo, the lap was the very seat of love. And it was not
free will was debated "non solamentedai teologie.filoso.fi,ma da tutte le sorti di letterati, exclusive to women. In a letter to Pietro Bembo (Colonna, 1892, 174), for exam-
anzi pure da qualunche idiota e volgareuomo; ed io mi ricordoessendo in Padova, che ple, she stated, "veggoil grandeciffettosuo versome, che da ogniparte soprabondaalla ver-
in.finoi ciabattini e Jruttaroli, non che i sarti ed i calzolaí, erano venuti a tale, dopo le ita et si spande con la pienafalda del suo caldoamare. .. "
prediche di non so che frate degli Scappuccini[he is feigning not to remember 48 Colonna, 1979, 423: "quelfuoco de amor et de tormento che se era desdignatoperla
Bernardino Ochino], che mai non ragionavanod'altro,ma sempredisputavanodella lib- grandezza sua mostrarsitutto di fore, haveva consumatoet penetrato ['intimo del'aníma,
erta dell' arbitrioe conseguentementedellapredestinazionedí Dio, dellagrazia e dell' opre, hora nel toccarel sacroCorpo de Christo se alfargocon maxima abondantia,et usciper li
di manierache ... sano venute quelle dissensioniche ciascunosa." Benedetto Varchi, occhiconpiu amarelacrime,et per la boceaconpiu accesisuspiri."
Lezioni su[ Dante e Prose várie, ed. Giuseppe Aiazz and Lelio Arbib, I, Florence: 49 Colonna, 1979, 423.
Societa Editrice delle Storie del Nardi e del Varchi, 1841, 49-50. Quoted by 50 Colonna, 1979, 423.
Simoncelli, 1979, 342-3. In a letter of 1540 to the bishop of Modena Giovanni 51 Colonna, 1979, 424: "questevirtu ancorche se ne andasserocon ['anima ... ne restocol
Morone, his vicar Giovanni Domenico Sigibaldi reported with great alarm: "Tutta santo carpo la impressionein sin la sua resurrettioneper viver poi con fui glorificatoin
questa cid (per quanto e lafama) e maculata,ínfetta,del contagiodi diverseheresiecome megliorvita, st che tutte rilucevanin que/loaspettovisibilpiu a li altri a la Madonnaperche
Praga.Per le botege,cantoni,caseetc. ognuno {intendoche) disputa defede, de liberoarbi- piu ardentementelanguisse." [Although these virtues had left with his soul ... they
trio, de purgatorio et eucharistia,predestinazione." Quoted in Massimo Firpo, "Gli left imprints on the holy body until his resurrection when they were again united
'spirituali', l'accademia di Modena e il Formulario di Fede del 1542: Controllo del with him glorified in a better life, so that they ali shone in that visible aspect and
dissenso relig,ioso e nicodemismo," Rívista di Storia e LetteraturaReligiosa, XX, especially to the Madonna who yearned ali the more ardently.]
273
-
52 Colonna, 1979, 425. 65 This part of my discussion has benefited greatly from conversations with Thomas
53 Colonna, 1979, 425. Lentes.
54 Colonna, 1979, 426. 66 The ground drop that accommodates the lower half of Christ's body was inter-
55 Colonna, 1979, 426. preted as a tomb in several copies after the design, beginning with the relief in the
56 Colonna, 1979, 426. Vatican. This point was made by Leo Steinberg, 1970, 266-7, who also emphasized
57 Colonna, 1979, 427. the collapsing of the narrative span from birth to entombment.
58 Colonna, 1979, 427: "cos1la Madonna vedendoche non vi era la beataanima de Christo, 67 Steinberg, 1970, interpreted the motif of Christ between the parted legs of the
qua/ sola era suffidente ad honorarl'immensagrandeza de la divinita, li pareva che a leí Virgin as a metaphor of parturition and progeniture in the Colonna Pieta, as well
sola appartenesseel grand' offitio de supplirea tanto debito,onde havria voluto liquefarsi, as in Michelangelo's other works and in Renaissance art generally. The interpreta-
consumarsianzi farsi ultima ne/ fuoco del'amore et ne le lacrimede la compassioneper tive context adduced here serves, I believe, to confirm, and nuance, Steinberg's
toglieral mondo et a se stessa l'ingratitudine,et rendera Dio lo ossequioet il coitoche li observations on this and on a number of other points to be noted.
convenía." 68 See also Yrjo Hirn, The SacredShrine:A Study of the Poetry and Art of the Catholic
59 Colonna, 1979, 428. Church, London: Faber, 1958, 162-3, for the theological tradition of comparing
60 Colonna thus preserved a role for the Virgin but subsumed it firmly within a Christ's tomb and the Virgin's womb.
Christocentric orientation, thus offering a "reformed" version of the Catholic tra- 69 A feature noted by Steinberg, 1970, 267, who interpreted it in this sense.
dition of Marian piety, and of medieval Passion literature. Campi, 1994, 48-54, 70 From the "Viaggio dell'anima al porto celeste," a letter-treatise addressed to Alvise
offered a sustained analysis of this "silenzíoso ma vasto ridímensionamentomario- Priuli attributed to Vittoria Colonna by B. Fontana, "Nuovi documenti vaticani
logico,"in both the Pianto and in the Rime, and its relations to the thought of intorno a Vittoria Colonna," Archivio della sodeta romana di storiapatria, X, 1887,
Valdés and O chino. I have attempted to show, both in the analysis of the drawings 616.
offered above, and more broadly in Nagel, 1993a, 8-89 and 182-247, that the 71 A point made repeatedly and effectively by Campi, 1994, who made the important
corollary of this shift of emphasis, in the arena of visual traditions, was caveat (74): "Tutto do non implicacertamentel'esclusionedi Maria dal/'orizzonte della
Michelangelo's shift from the Marian Vesperbild to the Christocentric imago Jede. In una linea dí pensieroevidentementeaffine al giudizio di Ochino e, in buonaparte,
pietatis. della Colonna, la madre del Signoreereffigurata[in the drawing] non nell'atto di inter-
61 Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, trans. Charles S. Singleton, Princeton, NJ: cedereper l'umanita, ma di chi effida se stessa umilmente all'iniziativa salvíficadi Dio e
Princeton University Press, 1975, 329. jede/mente cutodiscene/ propriocuorela parola divina asco/tata."
62 "Wer 15Jahre lang taglich 100 Paternosterund Ave Maria betet, hat nachAblaef der 15 72 "Beyond the Market: Books as Gifts in Sixteenth-Century France," Transactionsof
Jahre jedem tropfen ein Paternostergebetet. So viele Tropfen habe ichfür dich und a/le the Royal HistoricalSociety,5th series, 33, 1983, 72.
Mencshen vergossen:"The text, from a prayer book belonging to the convent of 73 Condivi, 19n, 73.
Unterlinden in Colmar, is published and discussed in Thomas Lentes, Gebetbuch 74 See Dariiel E. Bornstein, The Bíanchi of 1399:PopularDevotion in Late MedievalIta/y,
und Gebarde: Religíoses Ausdrucksverhalten in Gebetbüchern aus dem Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993. For images of their crosses, see the
Dominikanerinnen-Kloster St. Nikolaus in Undis zu Strassburg (1350-1550), illustrations to Giovanni Sercambi's chronicle, in Le illustrazioni del/e cronichene/
University of Münster, 1997, 550 and 10947 . On the medieval "piety of count- codiceLucchese,II, Genoa, 1978, 190--1 and 195-202.
ing" more generally, see Arnold Angenendt, Thomas Braucks, Rolf Busch, 75 Cantimori, 1939, especially 22-23, "Umanesimo e religione nel Rinascimento," in
Thomas Lentes, and Hubertus Lutterbach, "Gezahlte Frommigkeit," idem, 1975, especially 277-80, and "11circolo di Juan de Valdés e gli altri gruppi
FrühmittelalterlicheStudien, 29, 1995, 1-71. evangelici," in idem, 1975, 193-203. Much literature since Cantimori has labored
63 See Emile Male, L'art religieuxa lafin du moyen dge en France,Paris, 1908, 93: In the to show the relations between reform ideas and institutions (rather than distin-
fourteenth century seven Pater Nosters,seven Ave Marias, and seven short prayers guished individuals) and their diffusion beyond the elite studied by Cantimori, a
called the "prayers of Saint Gregory" obtained a true pardon of 6,000 years from reevaluation that in turn has shed light on continuities in reformist thought and
time in Purgatory; by the fifteenth century the sum had been inflated to 46,000 practice throughout the Cinquecento and thus has drawn emphasis away from the
years. An intermediate stage in this inflationary process is represented by a highly "crisis" of the reform movement traditionally dated to 1542. The literature of the
informative mid-fifteenth-century indulgence panel of the Man of Sorrows - last generation is usefully summarized by Anne Jacobson Schutte, "Periodization
GregoryMass in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne (reproduced in Belting, of Sixteenth-Century Italian Religious History: The Post-Cantimori Paradigm
1981, Fig. 108), whose inscription reads that the 14,000 years of true pardon tradi- Shift," Journal of Modern History, 61, 1989, 269-84, who however somewhat over-
tionally ac,:corded to worshippers who say the prescribed prayers before this image states their revisionist implications. Many of the contributions cited by Schutte -
has since been increased to 27,036 years. for example Massimo Firpo's and Dario Marcatto's account of the war over the
64 In the Praiseof Folly (1964, 129), Erasmus has Folly exclaim: "Then what shall I say control of the Church that began in the 1530s, and the complementary accounts
about those who happily delude thernselves with false pardons for their sins?They cal- offered by Gigliola Fragnito, Adriano Prosperi, and Vincenzo de Caprio of the
culate the time to be spent in Purgatory down to the year, month, day,and hour as if it demise of the influence of the spirituali in the Church around the middle of the
were a contaii\er that could be measured accurately with a rnathematical formula." century - reveal that the new contributions broaden and refine rather than "over-
2 74 275
turn" the picture offered by Cantimori. Much of the new literature has, in fact, 6 Lettere volgari di diversi nobilissimihuomini, et eccelentissimiingegni scritte in diverse
served better to contextualize the situation of the spirituali as described by materie,Venice: Figliuoli di Aldo, 1551,libro secando, n3-n3v.: "Ho ricevutoliversi
Cantimori. For example, Ronald K. Delph, "From Venetian Visitor to Curial di Marcantonio,& quando ne habbiaricuperatialcuni altri che sono in mano d'uno amico
Humanist: The Development of Agostino Steuco's 'Counter' -Reformation mio, io vi manderoanchorquelli,che vi satiiferanmoltopiu a mio giudicio,percheson tanto
Thought," RenaissanceQuarterly,47, 1994, 102-39, has revealed contemporary resis- piu vaghi et piu venusti, quanto che trattanodi materiepiu capacidi vaghezza cheper la
tance to reform-minded critiques of externa! ceremony, on the grounds that they verita questemateriedella religionea trattarlevagamentesifanno spessodi sante prophane:
risked undermining the principies of civic humanism, that is, the celebration of & credoche sía difficilcosaafario bene, & con dignita. Queste altre materiesonopastorali,
the virtue of the active life and of the beneficent effects of good political and reli- et amorose:ma guarderetevidi gratia di mostrarlipoi a certi Stoici che si scanda/izanodi
gious institutions. Steuco was not against an inner spiritual piety that approached ogni cosa. .. " On della Torre's activities as secretary of Gian Matteo Giberti, see
God without ritual and ceremony - indeed, he acknowledged it as a more exalted Adriano Prosperi, Tra Evangelismoe Controriforma:Gian Matteo Giberti (1495-1543).
path - but he argued that only a small number of sensitive and intelligent people Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1969, xv, 150, 164, 184, 188, 196, and passim.
were capable of such a spiritual relationship with God, while the "ignorant" Deswarte-Rosa, 1997, 358, noted that on January 30, 1540, seven days after della
needed ceremonies, the usefulness of which he celebrated with great humanist Torre's letter quoted above, della Torre wrote Cario Gualteruzzi asking to be sent
gusto. Steuco's two-tiered system was in many ways opposed to the beliefs of the sorne recent sonnets by Vittoria Colonna, about which he had heard from
Viterbo circle, and yet the positions were not unrelated in that they both presup- Lattanzio Tolomei (one of the interlocutors in de Holanda's dialogues), suggesting
posed a critica! distance from Church tradition and ritual. The spiritualiwere dis- that his skepticism about the possibility of an elegant religious poetry did not
tanced from and dissatisfied by Church ceremony, and they withdrew from it or in dampen his enthusiasm for it. On Rullo, see Cario de Frede, La restaurazionecat-
various ways adapted it to a more private piety. Steuco's distance from it, instead, tolica in Inghilterrasotto Maria Tudor nel carteggiodi Girolamo Seripando, Naples:
promoted a quasi-anthropological appreciation of its social usefulness, a critica! Libreria scientifica editrice, 1971, 27-31, 128, andJ. Ignacio Tellechea Idigoras, Fray
and practica! approach that he shared with Machiavelli. Bartolomé Carranza y el Cardenal Pole: un navarro en la restauraci6ncat6lica de
Inglaterra,Pamplona: Diputación Foral de Navarra, 1977, 124-5. The connections
between Rullo and Flaminio and Pole were described by Pietro Carnesecchi at
CHAPTER SEVEN. SCULPTURE AS RELIC
his tria!; Manzoni, 1870, 198: "Venendo da Napoli il Flaminio et io verso Roma ne/
1 "Padresanto, noi non habbi[a)moin collegiodi bisognodi huomini che sappianofare i 1540,o 1541,salvo il vero [later in his testimony (211) Carnesecchi confirmed that it
sonetti." The comment, reported in Niccolo Franco's life of Carafa from the late was in the month ofMay 1541], s'accompagn6con noi per terzo questoRullo, comegia
1550s,is quoted in Massimo Firpo, "Pasquinate romane del Cinquecento," Rivista conosciutodel Flaminio a Venetiao a Padua o Veronache si sía, perchefacevaprofessionedi
StoricaItaliana, XCVI, 1984, 614. My attention was drawn to it by Fragnito, 1988, esser molto servitoredi Giberto vescovodi Veronaet Cardinal Polo, ambeduipatroni del
29, who went on to discuss the replacement of the refined humanist culture with detto Flaminio; et giunti chefumo a Roma, il detto Rullo resto appressoil Cardinale
a technico-juridical culture at the papal court under Paul IV and after. Her d'Inghilterra[Pole] comehospite. ... Essendopoi il detto Flaminio et io andati in Viterbo
description of the situation largely corroborates the account of Cario Dionisotti, ... ce ritrovamodi nuovo insiemecolprelibatoRullo. "The split alluded to in this letter
"Chierici e laici," and "La letteratura italiana nell'eta del concilio di Trento," in was, of course, not new to writers. Writing to Arnold of Bost in 1486, Ermolao
idem, 1967, 47--'73 and 183-204 respectively. The view has come under revision Barbaro declared: "Duo agnoscodominos, Christum et litteras."For Eugenio Garin,
recently, for example by Frederick McGinness, Right Thinking and SacredOratoryin "Lo spirito cristiano di Pico della Mirandola;' in Penséehumanisteet traditionchréti-
Counter-RejormationRome, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995, who has enne aux Xve et XVIe siecles,Paris: Centre nacional de recherche scientifique, 1950,
argued that humanist ideals and oratorical practices continued to play a vital role 172ff., the letter signaled an emerging split, one that is not yet evident in Coluccio
in the post-Tridentine papal court. Nonetheless, the remark ofGian Pietro Carafa Salutati and Lionardo Bruni, and that Pico della Mirandola, with typical flair and
with which I begin this chapter does signal an emerging battle for control of the idealism, did his best to heal.
Church that the humanistically-inspired spiritualiwith whom Bembo was associ- 7 Quoted and translated by Barnes, 1998, 78.
ated were to lose. This battle has been sharply illuminated by Massimo Firpo's and 8 Ulrich Oelschlager, "Der Sendbrief Franz von Sickingens an seinem Verwandten
Dario Marcatto's critica! edition of the Inquisition tria! of Giovanni Morone, fl Dieter von Handschuchsheim," Bliitterfür pfalzische Kirchengeschichteund religíiise
processoinquisitorialedel cardinal Giovanni Morone: Edizione critica, I-VI, Rome: Volkskunde, 37/38, 1971-72, 723: "wenn aus falschem Glauben die selben [images]
Istituto storico italiano per l'eta moderna e contemporanea, 1981-1989. See also, angebetetwurden, wiireesAbgiittereiund offensichtlichgegen das Gebot Gottes,wenn man
more synthetically, Adriano Prosperi, "Un'esperienza di ricerca nell' Archivio del aber in derenAnschauung ihr standthaftesLeben und ihrenfesten Glauben in Christum
Sant'Uffizio," Belfagor,53, 1998, 309-45. betrachtet,und wir von daher ein Ebenbild ihres Leben und Wirken niihmen und uns
2 See Fragnitb, 1988. bejleissigten,denselbennachzufolgen,wiirensie uns fruchtbar and desto besserzu dulden.
3 Quondam, 1991, 271. Ich sorgemich aber,dass so/cheswenig geschieht,sondern mehr die Kunst und Schiinheit
4 Quondam, 1991, 278--9: "dopoTrentosembranon esservipiu spazio per dialoghi'spiritu- und Pracht in ihnen angesehenwird und dadurch das Gemüt und die rechteinnerliche
ali' e per rime 'cristiane'di questo tipo." Betrachtungim Gebet vom rechten hohen aufsteigendenWeg in Gott abgezogenwird,
5 The text is dis\ussed in Fragnito, 1988, 45-6. weshalbsie beinahemeines Erachtensin schiinenGemiichernzur Zierde nützlicher wiiren
277
als in der Kirche, damit nicht der Aufwand und die vergebeneMühe unnütz verloren 18 See, for example, Lucien Febvre, The Problemef Unbelief in the Sixteenth Century:
wiiren."The passage was quoted and discussed by Martin Warnke, "Durchbrochene Tñe Religion of Rabe/ais, trans. Beatrice Gottlieb, Cambridge, MA: Harvard
Geschichte? Die Bilderstürme der Wiedertaüfer in Münster 1534/35," in University Press, 1982, 39-40, 79, 159, 171-3, 304, 312, and passim.
Bildersturm:Die Zerstorung des Kunstwerks, ed. Martin Warnke, Munich: Hanser, 19 Vasari, VI, n7. When attempting to dissuade Sebastiano del Piombo from in-
1973, 73, who believed the suggestion to remove art from the church to the secu- cluding the portrait of a friar in the chapel of San Pietro in Montorio,
lar sphere of the private room "markiertden künftigen *g des Kunstwerkes im gross- Michelangelo quipped that those who have ruined the whole world will have no
bürgerlichenHaushalt und zugleich die Doppelrol/e,die es dort als Verwertungs- und trouble ruining a small chapel. This anecdote is followed by another, in which
Verinnerlichungsgegenstand spielen wird." My attention was drawn to the passage by Michelangelo feigned not to recognize a former friend who has become a monk
Belting, 1994, Appendix 42B, 552, where part of it is excerpted. and appears in Rome decked out in an elaborate habit. Forced to recognize him,
9 Jean Calvin, Institutio ChrístianaeReligionis (1559 ed.), ed. A. Tholuck, Edinburg: Michelangelo feigned pleasant surprise and delivered a thoroughly Erasmian
Clark, 1874, Book I, ch. u, section 12, Sr: "Neque tamen ea superstitioneteneor ut dressing clown: '"O, voi siete bello! Se fossi cosi drento come io veggiodifuori, buon per
nullas prorsus imaginesferendas censeam.Sed quía sculpturaet pictura Dei dona sunt, /' anima vostra."'
purum et legitimum usum requiro:ne quae Dominus in suam gloriam et bonum nostrum 20 de Hollanda, 19u, 240.
nobis contulit, ea non tantum polluanturpraeposteroabusu, sed in nostramquoqueperni- 21 See "Francesco Sassetti's letztwillige Verfügung" (1907) and "Bildniskunst und flo-
ciem convertantur."This and other relevant passages from the Ins-titutesare collected rentinisches Bürgertum" (1902), in Warburg, 1932, 127-63, 353-65, and 89-126,
in Belting, 1994,Appendix 41, although with unreliable citations. The best account 340-52, respectively.
of Calvin's views on images is Scavizzi, 1992, 9-29. On the secularizing conse- 22 de Hollanda, 19u, 240. See also the discussion of this passage in Summers, 1981,
quences of the Protestant polemic on images, see also Werner Hofmann, "Die 332Jf.As pointed out by Summers, 1981, 550, Michelangelo's position vis-a-vis
Geburt der Moderne aus dem Geist der Religion," in Luther und die Fo/genfür die Flemish art as described by de Hollanda is corroborated by the letteratoGiovan
Kunst, ed. Werner Hofrnann, Munich: Preste!, 23-71. Batttista Gelli. Defending Dante, he argued that whereas other poets write with
ro "Vorressimoanche neJacestifare a Sebastianel/oVenetianopittore un quadrodi pittura a leggiadriaand elegance, Dante displays both ''grandezza dei concetti"and "/'arte ne/
vostro modo, non siano cose di sancti, ma qua/chepitture vaghe et bel/e da vedere." sapereexprimergli." He then compared those who prefer other poets to Dante to
Published by Alessandro Luzio, La gallería dei Gonzaga veduta al/'Inghilterrane/ those who prefer Flemish painting to the painting of Michelangelo: they are
1627-1628 (1913), Milan: Bardi, 1974, 28. Quoted by Hirst, 1981, 158. charmed by the "vaghezza de' colorí e per la varieta de paesi che sono in quelle."
II Vasari, III, 273-4. On Vasari's periodization and his use of the words geffo and rozzo Giovanni Battista Gelli, Letture edite e inedite ... sopra la Commedia di Dante, ed.
with medieval art, see Patricia Rubin, GiorgioVtisari:Art and History, New Haven, Cado Negroni, I, Florence: Bocea, 1887, 330. The passage was also adduced by
CT: Yale University Press, 1995, i'sr-4. Vasari's description of a split between the Barocchi, BVM, IV, 1985.
piety of a rough medieval art and the impiety of modern artistic elegance echoes 23 Vasari,V, ro1-02: ".. finalmente disseche non volevafarlase non afresco,e che il colorire
the wording adopted by Gilio, 1961 (for which see Introduction). Gilio's treatise a olio era arte da donna e da persone agiate et infingarde,comefra' Bastiano." Vasari
appeared only a few years before Vasari's second edition and was dedicated to stressed the extreme offense taken by Michelangelo over this episode, which
Vasari's patron Alessandro Farnese. caused a permanent falling out between the two artists. See also Hirst, 19816,
12 For an English version, see Klein and Zerner, 1966, 122-4. See Barnes, 1998, 80-8, 123-4.
for the echoes of Aretino's position in later Counter-Reformation critics. 24 Hollanda, 19u, 240. One of course wonders what Michelangelo thought about
13 On the authenticity ofthe Dialoguesas a record ofMichelangelo's views, see Bury, the hermit landscape frescoes by Polidoro da Caravaggio at San Silvestro.
1981. Summers, 1981, 332 jf., implicitly endorsed the authenticity of the passage 25 See Dunkerton, 1994, 95-99, 1n-13. See also the analysis by Ezio Buzzegoli in fl
discussed here. Barnes, 1998, 89, explicitly defended it. The further context Tondo Doni di Michelangeloe il suo restauro,exh. cat., Florence: Uffizi, 1985, 57-70.
adduced here also, I believe, corroborates the reliability of this passage as a repre- That the tempera technique was considered archaic at least byVasari's time is sug-
sentation of Michelangelo's opinions. gested by his account of the lost panel of St. Francisin San Pietro in Montorio.
14 Hollanda, 19u, 240. The first edition ofVasari, VI, 13, said Michelangelo "[d)ipínsenella manieraantica
15 For Catarino's criticism of the Last Judgment, see below. For Catarino's polemic una tavola a tempera d'un San Francescocon le stimite. .. " In the second edition,
against the Beneficio,which,prompted Marcantonio Flaminio to make revisions of Vasari specified that it was designed by Michelangelo but painted by his barber,
the text while in Viterbo in 1542, see Fontanini, 1972, 347-422. Ginzburg and who only knew how to color in tempera, again suggesting that tempera was the
Prosperi, 1975, 69-70, entertained the hypothesis that the first manuscript of the less advanced medium. Vasari's wording allows for the possibility that beyond
Beneficiorea¡¡:hed Catarino's hands through Vittoria Colonna herself. For more on being carried out in an old-fashioned medium the very design of the panel was
the personages and setting of Hollanda's Dialogues,see Deswarte-Rosa, 1997, esp. archaizing. So much is also allowed by the phrasing of Varchi's mention of the
358. See also ch. 6 of this book for more on the connections between panel in his funeral oration; Benedetto Varchi, Orazione funerale di M. Benedetto
Michelangelo, the Viterbo circle, and the Beneficiodi Cristo. Vtirchifatta, e recitatada luí pubb/icamentenell'essequíedi MichelagnoloBuonarroti in
16 For the full text, see ch. r, n. 2. Firenze, ne/la Chiesa di San Lorenzo, Florence, Giunti, 1564, 16 (reported by BVM,
17 See Garin, 1961\ 166-82, and Trinkaus, II, 1970, 674-82. 158): "Lascieroindietro una tavola,che egli dipinse a temperasecondola maniera antica
278 279
dove eun devotissiomoSan Francesco . .. " In his own life, Vasari, VI, 392, noted that sculpture in the context of altar decoration perhaps reflect in microcosm a larger
he painted a room in his house in the tempera technique to preserve the memory battle within the history of western art that was eventually to result in the
of the old technique: "E perché adoravasempre la memoria e le opere degli antichi, victory of painting?"
vedendo tralasciarei/ modo di colorirea tempera, mi venne voglia di risuscitarequesto 37 See Simoncelli, 1979, 330-95, which showedVarchi to have been a close reader of
modo di dipignere,e la feci tutta a tempera;il qua/ modo per certo non merita d'esser the Beneficiodi Cristo.
affatto dispregiatoo tralasciato." 38 Castiglione, 1960, 83. Adducing the same point, Bronzino concludes (BT, I, 64):
26 See Lome Campbell, "Memlinc and the followers of Verrocchio," Burlington e
"adunque piu utile che la pittura."
Magazine, CXXV, 1983, 675.ff. 39 Bronzino, in BT, I, 65-6. The final phrase reads: " .. . dove dellapittura non puo Jarsi
27 Vasari,VI, 32.As Cossa died in 1477, I assume thatVasari meant Costa, who was altro che cosefinte e di niuna utilitade,altro che di piacere;e per questo esserepiu utile la
still alive at the time of this purported remark. It is likely that Tura's more sculp- scultura." I follow the English translation in Klein and Zerner, 1966, n-12.
tural style escaped Michelangelo's criticism, a point suggested by the fact that Bronzino's unfinished letter <loes not offer an answer on this particular point from
Michelangelo emulated his drapery style in the figure of St. Petronius for the altar the painter's side.
of St. Dominic in Bologna, as observed by Wilde, 1978, 29. 40 da Vinci, 1956, 38, 40.
28 Cf. Barnes, 1998, 82 (paraphrasing Aretino): "Art and religion are set against each 41 Bronzino, in BT, I, 66; Klein and Zerner, 1966, 13.
other, as though they are mutually exclusive. By valuing art so highly, 42 Castiglione, 1960, 84. Paolo Pino, Dialogo di Pittura, in BT, I, 127-8.
Michelangelo has proved himself to be without religion." And 84: "That 43 See the excellent discussion by Summers, 1981, part 1, II: "Que/lo che non sia." e
Michelangelo put art before religion became a leitmotif of the opposition." 44 da Vinci, 1956, 36. In his 1549 treatise Disegno,Anton Francesco Doni offered a
29 Ambrogio Catarino Politi, Commentariain omnes divi Pauli epístolaset alias septem description of two (invented) visual figures of the sister arts, wherein the "pleas-
canones, Venice, 1551, 645. The passage is discussed by Romeo de Maio, ant" image of Painting, who is brightly colored, gay, ornamental, and graceful, is
"Michelangelo e Pio IV," in Riforme e miti della Chiesa del Cinquecento,Naples: contrasted to the grave, severe, and pure image of Sculpture. See the discussion in
Guida, 1973, 98, and ídem, Michelangeloe la Controriforma,Rome-Bari: Laterza, Leatrice Mendelsohn, Paragoni:BenedettoVarchi'sDue Lezzioni and Cinquecento1rt
1978, 19-20. See also Deswarte-Rosa, 1997, 358, and n. 62. Theory,AnnArbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1982, 71. On the feminine gendering
30 Gilio, (1564) 1961, 39, 38, and 55, respectively. See also my discussions of Gilio's of oil painting in period art theory, see Philip Sohm, "Gendered Style in Italian
medievalism in the introduction, in chapter 2, third section, and in chapter 5, sec- Art Criticism from Michelangelo to Malvasia," RenaissanceQuarterly,48, 1995, esp.
ond section, above. 785-91.
31 See, for example, the accounts of Lomazzo and Comanini, studied by Barnes, 45 Gilio, 1961, 97-8.
1998, 86-7, and 100-01. 46 Gilio, 1961, no.
32 Gilio, 1961, 55-6, no-u. 47 Francesco Bocchi, Eccellenzadel San Giorgio di Donatello,dove si tratta del costume,
33 Cf. Gianluigi Colalucci, "Tecnica e Metodologia Operativa di Michelangelo sul della vivacitae della bellezza di detta statua (1584), in BT, III, 188-9. Bocchi's retro-
Giudizio Universale," in Michelangelo:La Capella Sistina. Documentazioni e interpre- spective sensibility and his distaste for trends in contemporary painting also come
tazioni, II, Vatican City: Musei Vaticani, 1999, 71: "I cartonisono stati tutti trasferitia through in his Discorsosopral' eccellenzadel/'opered' Andrea del Sartopittoreflorentino
spolveroma la pelle appessaa/la mano di San Bartolommeo,pur essendodi grandi dimen- of 1567, published and discussed by Robert Williams, "A Treatise by Francesco
sioni, non recatraccené di spolveroné di incisione." Bocchi in Praise of Andrea del Sarto," ]ournal of the v½irburgand CourtauldInstitutes,
34 Buonarroti, 1960, n. 285. LII, 1989, 1n-39.
35 This point is in part inspired by Warburg's analysis of the use of grisaille in the 48 Thode, 1912, 697. The passage is worth quoting in full: "Nichts anderesnun, als was
works of Domenico Ghirlandaio, which Warburg interpreted as a sort of den Stil jener Zeichnungen bestimmte, bestimmt den Eindruck der unvollendeten
"Ve,fremdungseffekt,"a means of neutralizing the disturbing effect of pathos formu- Skulpturen. In ihnen erscheintdie einzelne Form nicht scha,f ausgebi/det,sondern.. nur
las, or, as he put it, "sub adumbratione... dieAntike in typologischerDistanz {zu] hal- angedeutet,wie aus der Ferne gedacht. ... Und dies besagteben so viel als eine Uber-
ten." See Charlotte Schoell-Glass, "Warburg über Grisaille: Ein Splitter über einen führung des Plastischenin das Malerischezu Gunsten der Vorstellungeines zart vibriren-
Splitter," in Aby Warburg:Akten des internationalenSymposions Hamburg 1990, ed. den, reichbewegtenLebens."
Horst Bredekamp, Michael Diers, and Charlotte Schoell-Glass, Weinheim: VCH, 49 Ernst Steinmann, "Kompositionen Michelangelos in seltenen Stichen," in
1991, 199-212. FestschriftPaul Ciernen,Bonn: Cohen, 1926, 422-3.
36 Vasari, VI, 9: "Dolendosi adunque Lorenzo, che amor grandissimoportava a/la pittura 50 Thode, 1912, 57: "Die Kunst Miche/angelosist der letzte heroischeAkt derTragodieder
et al/a scultura, che ne' suoi tempi non si trovasseroscultori celebratie nobili, come si christlichenPlastik."
trovavanomqlti pittori di grandissimopregio e Jama, delibero,come io dissi, di Jare una 51 Vasari,VI, 77: ".. .ancorache egli avessiavuto animo che la dovessiservireperla sepoltura
scuola." On the rise of panel painting as a rival to sculpture in Christian settings di lui, e pié di que/lo a/tare dove e' pensava di por/a." The group is mentioned in
during the Duecento and Trecento, see Belting, 1981, ch. 1. See also Collareta, Vasari's first edition and was thus begun before 1550.That the figure of Christ was
1988. Cf. Burckhardt, (1898) 1988, 41: "Does the battle between painting and already well defined by this time is suggested by the fact that it provided the
280 281
model for ]acopo Salviati's figure of Jonah in the Cappella del Pallio in the Palazzo this book have served to confirm - but according to Steinberg they also pro-
della Cancelleria, painted between 1548 and 1550, a point made by Nagel, 1996, duced acute psychic conflict, in the end causing him to destroy the group. The
563, n. 33. (For the dating of the Cappella del Pallio, see Patricia Rubin, "The hypothesis that this conflict motivated Michelangelo's destructive act arose
Priva te Chapel of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese in the Cancelleria, Rome," Jo urna/ within a more encompassing discussion concerning Michelangelo's innovative
efthe Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 50, 1987, 82-n2.) This is not incompatible use of amorous motifs in the context of the Passion (see Steinberg, 1970), but it is
with the argument of Perrig, 1960, 37-9, that Vasari did not see it before leaving not necessary to this discussion. One can accept many of Steinberg's points con-
Rome in October 1546 (he was not to return until February 1550) and that his cerning the significance of the motifs - and they have informed parts of my own
somewhat laconic passage on the piece in the first edition was probably interpo- argument - without accepting the hypothesis about the motive for destroying the
lated into his manuscript on the· basis of a report by one of the Roman readers group. In the end the hypothesis is unprovable, as it postulates unconscious
shortly before January 1548 - thus placing the beginning of work on the sculpture processes.
in 1547. From Condivi's quite detailed description of the work it is evident that 62 Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, Parker 339r.; Corpus 433,: Black chalk; ro.8 X 28.1
the most intensive work on the group was done before 1553. I concur with the cm. The date of 1552-53 was proposed by Baumgart, 1935, 44ff. Frey, 1956, 218-19,
dominant view that the group was mutilated not long before the death of proposed the date 1552.Perrig, 1960, 93, concurred with this dating and placed the
Michelangelo's assistant Urbino in December 1555. beginning of the work on the first version of the Rondanini Pieta in 1553 (82).
52 Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, Parker, 1956, n. 342 r.; Corpus 431r. Red chalk Charles de Tolnay, "The Rondanini Pieta," Burlington Magazine, LXXIII, 1934,
worked over with a darker red in the central area; 37.5 X 28 cm. 285.ff.dated the sheet to 1550-56. Vasari, VI, 93, mentioned that after the destruc-
53 Daniele da Volterra, also in the 1540s, made a worked-up drawing based on this tion of the group Michelangelo turned to "un altro pezzo di marmo dove era stato gia
same sketch, Uffizi u38E, in preparation for his fresco altarpiece in the Trinita de' abbozzato un'altra Pieta, varia da que/la, molto minore." This statement has almost
Monti, which was begun in 1541. Another copy by Daniele from the Haarlem universally been taken as a reference to the Rondanini Pieta, but this is not so cer-
sheet, London British Museum 1946-7-13-326, is a study of the man climbing the tain: the Palestrina Pieta is 253 cm tall; the Rondanini Pieta is 195 cm tall in its pre-
ladder. Another sheet in the Louvre reproducing the group around the fainting sent state and was significantly taller in its first version; neither can be described as
Virgin in the Haarlem sheet, although closer to Michelangelo in style, is attributed "molto minore" than the Florence Pieta (226 cm). Thus, either Vasari was wrong or
to Daniele by Charles de Tolnay, "La Deposizione di Cristo, Disegno attribuito a he was referring to a work which we do not know. In Nagel, 1996, 570, n. 51, I
Michelangelo a Haarlem," Pantheon, 25, 1967, 20. The first two examples, at least, agreed with Perrig that the Palestrina Pieta was a critique of the first version of
indicate that the Haarlem sheet was, still in the 1540s, available for study in the Rondanini Pieta, in turn superseded by Rondanini II. I would now not be so
Michelangelo 's shop. certain about the sequence; I would say simply that both Rondanini I and the
54 Nagel, 1996, 565-6. Palestrina Pieta are responses to the frustrations of the Florence Pieta and that the
55 Parker, 1956, n. 342r.; Robinson, r870, n. 37; Frey, 1909-n, n. 150. conceptions for both carne even before Michelangelo's destroyed the Florence
56 Steinberg, 1972. group - that is, before 1555.
57 I am not convinced by the attempt to switch the identities of the Virgin and the 63 I disagree with the view ofWilde, 1978, 188-90, that in the Christ figure the right
Magdalene made by Moshe Arkin, '"One of the Marys .. .': An Interdisciplinary arm is all that remains of the first version and that the legs "on a smaller scale than
Analysis of Michelangelo's Florentine Pieta," Art Bulletin, 79, 1997, 493-517. the arm and too far removed from it" belong to a second version. The succession
58 Wolfgang Stechow, "Joseph of Arimathea or Nicodemus?" in Studien zur toskanis- of"states" was clarified by Frey, 1956, 208-II, who observed in the legs and the
chen Kunst: Festschrift für Ludwig Heinrich Heidenreich, Munich: Preste!, 1964, right arm of Christ the remnants of the first version and then distinguished two
289-302, offered the most comprehensive survey of the depictions and legends states within the second version: one in which both the Virgin's head and Christ's
involving these two personages and concluded that "the scales seem to be tipped" are turned upward, and the second and final state, in which both heads are turned
in favor of identifying Michelangelo's figure as Nicodemus. Schleif, 1993, espe- downward. We thus have Rondanini I and Rondanini II, a and b.
cially 6n-12, offers an array of supporting evidence for this identification. 64 Prívate collection; formerly Newbury, Collection Gathorne-Hardy, n. 6; Corpus
59 See Schleif, 1993. 426Ar. Black chalk; 32.4 X 22 cm. Illustration in Hirst, 1988, pl. 146.There is also a
60 Vasari,VI, 93. copy in reverse in the Stedelik Museum in Amsterdam, reproduced in Corpus, text
61 Vasari, VI, 120. This vmt, which occurred during Julius III's pontificate illustration to 427-30. The figure of Christ was also studied in two autograph fig-
(1550-1555), must have taken place before Vasari left Rome at the end of 1553. ure studies, originally part of the same sheet, now in a Swiss prívate collection and
Leo Steinberg, "Michelangelo's Florentine Pieta: The Missing Leg," Art Bulletin, in the Casa Buonarroti in Florence, as was demonstrated by Hirst, 1988, 69. There
50, 1968, 343-53, offered the hypothesis that beyond technical or "formal" con- is also a series of studies (Corpus 427-30) for the figures of the forward-striding
siderations, 1Michelangelo's uneasiness with the leg derived from its thematic carriers.
associations: The motif of the leg slung over the Virgin's thigh carried with it a 65 The compositional sirnilarity to the London painting was also noted by Tolnay,
strong charge of erotic associations, as is evident by its frequent use in amorous Corpus 426Ar.
scenes. The spousal, amorous associations were an important part of 66 See Catherine Monbeig-Goguel, "Giulio Clovio 'nouveau petit Michel-Ange': a
Michelangelo\interpretation ofthe subject - as the works and texts discussed in propos des dessins du Louvre," Revue de l'Art, 80, 1988, 41 and 46, n. 44.
282
NOTES TO PP. 2II-2I4
67 Wilde, 1978, 184 and 192, n. 26 believed this series of"carrying" studies to be con-
nected to the Palestrina Pieta. The carryings studied in these sheets do indeed
show sorne similarities to the figure of the Magdalene in the sculpture, who is
shown striding forward rather than simply standing, as in the Florence Pieta.
However, the figure of Christ in the Palestrina Pieta is clearly supported by the Abbreviations and Frequently Cited Sources
single figure of the Virgin behind, an idea that is absent from the "carrying" stud-
ies discussed here, which without exception explore a lateral, two-carrier system.
This is not simply a formal difference but an important thematic difference, for in
removing the Virgin they also remove the intense amorous gestures that connect
her to Christ. Much closer in every respect to the Palestrina group is a drawing in
the Teylers Museum (Inv. A 35r.; Corpus 434r.), which shows the Virgin passion-
ately kissing Christ's head.
68 Hirst interpreted the motif in the "carrying" studies as one of entombment, as we
see in the Clovio drawing, but the fact that there the direction of movement is
reversed might suggest otherwise. The forward-striding movement shown in the
"carrying" drawings might involve another episode, such as the presentation of
the body to the Virgin after the deposition, as we see it in a panel of the subject by
the Master of the Virgo in ter Virgines in the St. Louis Art Museum.
69 The date of the beginning of work on the second version was established by
Baumgart, 1935, 48, on the basis ofTaddeo Zuccaro's Dead Christ with Angels in
the Borghese Gallery in Rome, which is based on the first version of the sculp- AR TheAltarpiecein the Renaissance.
Eds. Humfrey, Peter and Martin Kemp.
ture and datable to ca. 1560. Perrig's arguments, 1960, So, n. 25, against the con- Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
nection between the two works are not convincing. Equally unconvincing on the ASD OperaOmnia DesideriiErasmiRoterodami,I -.Amsterdam: Elsevier Science,
other chronological end is Tolnay's citation, 1960, 154-5, of Daniele da Volterra's 1969-.
famous letter of June II, 1564, in which Daniele says that he saw Michelangelo B. Bartsch,Adam von. Le peintre-graveur. I-XXI.Vienna: Degen, 1803-21.
working on the sculpture six days before his death, as evidence that the new ver- BT Trattatid' Arte del Cinquecento. Ed. Paola Barocchi. I-III. Bari: Laterza, 196o-ó2.
sion of the Rondanini Pieta was begun only at the very end of the artist's life. Carteggio n Carteggiodi Michelangelo.Eds. Giovanni Poggi, Paola Barocchi, and Renzo
This letter establishes only that Michelangelo was sti// working on it at that time. Ristori. 1-III. Florence: Sansoni, 1965-73.
Thus we cannot date Rondanini II any more precisely than 1560-64. I am Carteggio n Carteggioíndirettodi Michelangelo. Eds. Paola Barocchi, Kathieen Loach
inclined to believe that the great shift to the new conception occurred toward Indiretto Bramanti, and Renzo Ristori.1-II. Florence: S.P.E.S.,1988 -.
the beginning of this period and that the work that preoccupied Michelangelo Corpus Tolnay,Charles de. Corpusdei disegnidí Michelangelo. 1-IV.Novara: Istituto
just before his death (as recorded by Daniele) concerned precisely those more Geografico De Agostini, 1975-80.
local changes to the head of the Virgin and the head of Christ observed by Frey, Hind Hind, Arthur M. EarlyItalíanEngravíng; A Crítica/Cataloguewíth Complete
1956, 208-II. ReproductionefAli the PrintsDescribed.I-VII. London: Quaritch, 1970.
70 Frey, 1956, 212: "Es ist, als ob aus dem stiindigenschmerzlichenErleben der Zerstorung
\ Lehrs Lehrs, Max. Geschichteund kritischerKatalogdes deutschen,niederliindischen und
für ihn eine treibende,schopferischeKraft augegangenwiire,als ob die Vernichtungwie ein f JranzosischenKupferstiches im XV.]ahrhundert,I-IX.Vienna: Gesellschaftfür
Nein-Sagen, wie eine asketischeAbsage an das Vergangeneerlebtwurde, die er sich immer \
1
VervielfültigendeKunst, 1908-34.
wiederzu vergegenwiirtigen suchte, um in ihrer Überwindungein Letztes und Endgültiges Migne,PL Migne,Jacques-Paul. Patrologiae cursuscompletus[mícreform]: sive biblioteca
univer-
zu gesta/ten." sa/is,integra,uniformis,commoda,oeconomica, omniumSS. Patrum,doctorumscripto-
71 Wilhelm Worringer, "Die Pieta Rondanini," Kunst und Künstler, 7, 1909, 356. rumqueeccelesiasticorum qui ab aevoapostolicoad usqueInnocentiiIII tempora
72 Vincenzo Borghini, Modo di salvarei/ Bembo, in Pozzi, 1988, 742: " .. . che le lingue fioruerunt... / {seriesLatina,in quaprodeuntPatres,doctores scriptoresqueEcclesiae
ne' lorprincipii, come le altre operedella natura,sono imperfette,rozze, acerbe,ecc.e che i/ Latinae,a Tertullianoad InnocentiumIII]. I-CCXXI. París: Garniere, 1844----96.
tempo le dirozza, matura e affinisce."See the discussion of this and other passages in RbR RaphaelbeforeRome, ed.James Beck, in Studiesin the HistoryefArt, Washington:
the introduction. The Gallery, 1986.
ve VittoriaColonna:Dichterinund Muse Michelangelos. Exh. cat., Kunsthistorisches
Museum.Vienna: Kunsthistorisches Museum, 1997.
Vasari Vasari,Giorgio. Le vite de'piu eccellentipittori,scultoríe archittetori
ne/leredazioni
del 1550 e 1568. Ed. Rosanna Bettarini, with comments by Paola Barocchi.
I-VIII. Florence: Studio per Edizioni Scelte, 1966-87.
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Summers, David. Michelangeloand the Language of Art. Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press, 1981.
Thode, Henry. Michelangelound das Ende der Renaissance.l. Das Genie und die ITTlt.
Berlin: Grote, 1902.
--- . Michelangelound das Ende der Renaissance.II. Der Dichter und de Ideen der Index
Renaissance.Berlin: Grote, 1903.
--- . Michelangelound das Ende der Renaissance.III. Der Künstler und seine ITTrke.
--- . KritischeUntersuchungen.I-II. Berlin: Grote, 1908.
--- . KritischeUntersuchungen.III. Verzeichnissder Zeichnungen,Kartons und Modelle.
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--- . MichelangeloV: The Final Period. Princeton, NJ:Princeton University Press,
1960.
--- . Michelangelo:Sculptor,Painter,Architect. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
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1984-1990. Adam, Creation of, 153-4 Andachtsbild,163,262 n25
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Vetter, Ewald M. "La Iconografía del 'Varón de Dolores': Su Significado y Origen." Agli, Peregrino, 243 n41 Angelico, Fra (seeFra Angelico)
ArchivoEspañoldeArte, 36, 1963, 197-231. Alain de Lille, 200 Antiquari,Jacopo, 252 n13
von der Osten, Gert. Der Schmerzensmann: Typengeschichte eines deutschen
Andachtsbildwerkes von 1300 bis 1600. Berlin: Deutscher Verein für Kunstwissenschaft,
Alberti, Lean Battista, 31, 33, 47-8,
60, 86-7, 115-6, 251 n3,
Antonello da Messina, 149
Aphrodite, 93
l
1
1935.
von Einem, Herbert. "Bemerkungen zur florentiner Pieta Michelangelos." Jahrbuchder 264 n49 (seealsoMeleager) Apollo, 93, 243 n41 1
Preu/3ischen Kunstsammlungen,61, 1940. Alberti, Lean Battista, historia,concept archaism, 13, 15-6, 74, 86-7, 106,
l
von Salis,Arnold. Antike und Renaissance.Erlenbach-Zürich: Rentsch, 1947. of, 33-5, 43, 46, 48, 114 143,150,168, 186-7, 199,214,
Warburg, Aby. Intervention on Michelangelo's London Entombment. Sitzungsbericht Aldovrandi, Francesco, 217 n14 217 n14, 234 n70, 237 n7
Dezember 11, 1903. SitzungsberichtederKunstgeschichtliche GesellscheftBerlín, 8, 1903, Alfani, Domenico, 253 n28 Aretino, Pietro, 192, 195-6, 198,
56-8.
Alighieri, Dante, 15, 183-4, 186, 201,278 n12
--- . GesammelteSchriften.I-II. Die Erneuerungder heidnischenAntike. Ed. Gertrud
Bing. Berlin: B. G. Teubner, 1932. 217 n14, 279 n22 Aristotle, 36
Wilde, Johannes. "Eine Studie Michelangelos nach der Antike." Mitteilungen des
Kunsthistorischen Institutesin Florenz,4, 1932-1934, 41-64.
altar (seealtarpiece)
altarpiece (seealsoMan of Sorrows)
Augsburg, Fugger Chapel, 85 ~
--- . Italian Drawingsin the Departmentof Prints and Drawingsin the British Museum. conventions of, 38, 41, 43-6, 48, Bacchus,18,87-8,92-3,95-9, 102,
Michelangeloand His Studio. London:Trustees ofthe British Museum, 1953. 154,241 n25, 241 n27, 264 n40
51-2,55,59-60,62-5, 72, 75, 1
--- . Michelangelo.Six Lectures.Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978.
Wind, Edgar. PaganMysteriesin the Renaissance.2nd ed. NewYork: Norton, 1968. 77-8,80-1,83-5,98, 108-9, (seealsoMichelangelo) 1
Zeri, Federico. Pittura e controriforma:
Einaudi, 1957.
L' arte senza tempo di Scipione da Gaeta. Turin: 111-6, 120-2, 124,129,132,
135-40,145, 169,202,
227 n35, 251 n4, 271 n41
Baglioni, 140, 160,162,251 n4,
253 n28
Baglioni,Astorre, 117-9, 121,
'
dedications, 86, 109 252 n22
tabemacle, 53, 85-6, 238 n9, Baglioni,Atalanta, 116, 118-22,
238 n11 124-7
Althaea, 126-7, 254 n31 Baglioni, Braccio, 117, 252 n 13
\ Ambrose (seeSaints) Baglioni, Gentile, 255 n33
293
't
lNDEX lNDEX
Baglioni (continued) Brandolini,Aurelio Lippo, 108-9, deposition of, 32, 56-7, 62-3, Comus, 91
Baglioni, Giovan Paolo, 117-8 246 n68, 250 n92, 250 n101 70-1,81, 158,163,202, Condivi,Ascanio, 12, 20, 110, 186,
Baglioni, Giulia, 126, 254 n33 Bronzino,Agnolo, 200,281 nn38-9 284 n68 241 n29, 250 n97, 259 n10,
Baglioni, Griffonetto, 117-22, 127, Browne, Thomas, 12 entombment of, 16- 7, 20-1, 282 n51
252 n13, 252 n22 Brucioli,Antonio, 221 n42 26-33,35,43,55-8,71, Constantinople, 36
Baglioni, Grifone, 117, 124 Brunelleschi, Filippo, 201 78-83,86-7,93,98-9, 110, Contarini, Gasparo, 145,267 n11,
Baglioni, Guido, 118,121,252 n22 Bruni, Lionardo, 277 n6 114,116, 132-3, 136,140, 273 n44
Baglioni, Sigismondo, 117-8, 121, 144-5, 147-8, 150,159,160, Contile, Luca, 189
252 n22 Caesar,Julius, 109 162-3, 166, 169,202,210-2, Cortesi, Paolo, 15
Baglioni, Simonetto, 117-8 Calcagni, Tiberio, 208 214,235 n72, 235 n74, Costa, Lorenzo, 194, 280 n27
Baglioni, Zenobia, 118-9 Calvin,John, 191, 278 n9 251 n8, 255 n41 Council ofFerrara-Florence, 74
Bandinelli,Baccio, 89, 157, 5 Campin, Robert, 62-3, 67,209, 38 flagellation of, 158 Council ofTrent, 104, 145, 189,
Barbaro, Ermolao, 241 n29, 277 n6 Capponi, Luigi, 114, 48 lamentation of, 33, 37, 39, 41, 43, 191
Bardi (seeFlorence) Carafa, Gian Pietro (seePope Paul IV) 71,78-81,89, 103,110,120, Crispoldi, Tullio, 244 n50
Bartolommeo di Giovanni, 77, 43 Caravaggio, 245 n57 122,124,129,167,202, Crispolti, Cesare, 252 n22
Bartolommeo, Fra (seeFra Carnesecchi, Pietro, 171,271 n40, 226 n24, 235 n74, 251 n8,
Bartolommeo) 277 n6 256 n41 Daddi, Bernardo, 51-2
Bartolo, Taddeo di (seeTaddeo di Carpaccio, Vittore, 115 resurrection of, 98, 100, 146, Da Lucca, Pietro, 38, 101, 108, 151,
Bartolo) Castiglione, Baldassare,105, 191, 200 155-8,185 157 '
Beccadelli, Ludovico, 188,258 n3 Catarino Politi,Ambrogio, 171,192, transfiguration of, 158 Da Milano, Giovanni, 65- 7, 232 n43, 1
Bellini, Giovanni, 19, 99,149,193,
263 n37
195,265 n4, 278 n15
Cavalieri,Tommaso de', 175
sacrifice of, 49, 91, 103, 127, 158,
162,165, 169-70, 179-80,
36 'I
D' Ancona, Ciriaco, 232 n43,
Bellini,Jacopo, 56, 115, 27 Cennini, Cennino, 2-3, 10, 115 185,192,212 233--4 n59
Bembo, Pietro, 11, 144, 188-9, Chigi (seeRome) Christocentrism, 17, 85-6, 150, 179,
241 n29, 258 n3, 273 n47, Christ (seealsoMan of Sorrows) 239 n11, 260 n16, 271 n36,
Daniele da Volterra, 163, 195, 1
282 n53, 284 n69
276 nl Byzantine iconography of, 36, 274 n60
Dante (seeAlighieri, Dante)
Beneficiodi Cristo,145-6, 170-1, 49-50, 71, 245 n57 Cicero, 11
D'Antonio, Francesco, 235 n72
173--4, 178, 192, 265 n4, ecstasy of, 93-8, 146, 148-151, Clovio, Giulio, 202,211,104
Daucher, Hans, 85
268 nl 7,278 n15, 281 n37 153-8,161-2,167 Cobos, Francisco de los, 151
Da Vinci, Leonardo (seeLeonardo)
Bersuire, Pierre, 127 miraculous images of, 13, 75 Colocci, Angelo, 248 n82
D'Este
Bertoldo di Giovanni, 89, 108 Northern iconography of, 67, 69, Colonna,Vittoria, 13-5, 22, 75,
D'Este,Alfonso, 161, 193
Boccaccio, Giovanni, 11 83,103,209,235 n74, 101, 145-8, 150-1, 157-8, L
D'Este, Lionello, 233 n59 1
Bocchi, Francesco, 157,201,281 n47 267 n73 163,165,167, 169-87, 198,
l
De Hollanda, Francisco, 13, 75,
Bologna,37-8, 145,194,217 n14, Passion of, 16, 20-1, 35-8, 49, 55, 202, 205, 263 n28, 266 n8,
171, 192-3, 195,265-6 n4,
250 n97, 252 n13, 280 n27 63,75,78,89,91-2,97, 101-2, 267 nn10-1, 268 n21,
Borghese, Scipione, 137,257 n54 277 n6, 278 n15, 279 n22
116, 119-20, 125,127,150, 273 n47, 277 n6 1
Borghini,Vincenzo, 15 Piantosoprala Passionedi Cristo, Del Conte,Jacopino, 239 n16

151,158, 161-3, 167,172,180,
Botticelli, Sandro, 182-3, 185,202,206-7, 180,184,274 n60 Del Franzese,Antonio, 208
Birth ofVenus,46 242 n30, 264 n43, 274 n60, Rime spiritualí,189, 274 n60 Dell' Arca, Niccolo (seeNiccolo
LAmentation,43, 80, 16 283 n61 San Silvestro dialogues and, 171, dell'Arca)
Primavera,46 ascension of, 158 192,265 n4, 278 n15 Della Casa, Giovanni, 11
Bracci, Cecchino, 269 n24 crucifixion of, 49, 74-5, 89, 101, Viterbo circle and, 179-81, Della Palla, Giambattista, 221 n42
Brancacci (seeFlor~ce) 124,146,150,151,158 271 n38, 271 n40, 273 n45 Della Porta, Gugliemo, 88
294 295
INDEX INDEX
Della Quercia,Jacopo, 9,217 n14, 232 n47, 262 n27 (seealso Santissima Annunziata, 157, Gilio, GiovanniAndrea, 14-5, 50-1,
252 n13 altarpiece, tabemacle) 236 n3 158,195,197,201,
Della Torre, Francesco, 189, 191, Santo Spirito, 52, 101 220 nn39-40, 278 nl 1
198,277 n6 Fabriano, Gentile da (seeGentile) Foppa,Vincenzo, school of, 43, 124, Giorgione, 111, 194
De Lorris, Guillaume, 223 n2 Farnese, 223 n56 18 Giottino,39,41-2,81,14
Del Piombo, Sebastiano (see Farnese,Alessandro, 220 n40, Fontanini, Benedetto, 171 Giotto, 3, 5, 9, 11-12, 14, 39-41,
Sebastiano del Piombo) 278 n11, 282 n51 Franco, Niccolo, 276 nl 218 n18, 227 n35, 3, 13
Del Riccio, Luigi, 269 n24 Ferrara, 193,232 n43, 233 n59 Francia, Francesco, 9 Giovanni Agostino da Lodi, 235 n 74
Del Vaga,Perino (seePerino del Ficino, Marsilio, 95-8, 243 n41, Francia,Jacopo, 51 Giovio, Paolo, 144
Vaga) 244 n44 Fra Angelico, 14, 44, 46, 48, 55-6, Golgotha, 70
Diana, 103 Fiesole, 55 58-9,61-5,69-70,72,74-8, Gonzaga, 189
Diana, Benedetto, 238 n8 Fioravanti, Fioravante, 252 n13 81, 3-5, 99,191,220 n40, Gonzaga, Ercole, 265 n6, 273 n44
Di Bicci, Neri, 227 n42, 229 nl 7, Fiorentino, Rosso (seeRosso) 225 n8, 231 nn34-5, 232 n41, Gonzaga, Federico, 191
262 n28 Flaminio, Marcantonio, 171, 173, 235 n72, 235 n73, 25-6, 29, Gonzaga, Ferrante, 151
Di Cristofano, Mariotto, 236 n3 178, 188-9, 265 n4, 267 nl 1, 31,39 Gonzaga, Giulia, 178, 271 n38,
Di Giovanni, Matteo (seeMatteo di 269 n23, 271 n40, 277 n6, Fra Bartolommeo, 19 271 n40
Giovanni) 278 n15 Francia, Francesco, 194 Goritz,Johannes, 105, 144, 188,
Dionysus (seeBacchus) Florence, 9-10, 14, 52, 61, 65, 76, Francisco de los Cabos (seeCobos, 248 nn80-1
Dionysus the Areopagite (see 108,127,145,154,163,194, Francisco de los) grace, divine, 169-78, 184, 266--7 n9,
Pseudo-Dionysus) 238 n9,240 n17,250 n97, Franco, Battista, 161, 89 267 nl 1 (seealsogift)
Dionysus of Halicarnassus, 221 n43 256-7 n50 Frizzoni, Gustavo, 20 Granacci, Francesco, 105,249 n86
Dolce, Lodovico, 270 n34 Churches Gregory of Nyssa, 94
Dominici, Giovanni, 222 n52 Duomo (seeSanta Maria del Gaddi, Taddeo, 236 n3 Gualteruzzi, Cado, 277 n6
Donatello, 9, 29, 43, 87,108,201, 8 Fiare) Gallo,Jacopo, 102,246 n68, 248 n82
Doni,Anton Francesco, 281 n44 Ognissanti, Gelli, Giovanni Battista, 9, 11, Heemskerk, Martin van, 239 n16
drunkenness, theme of, 95-8, 161, Vespucci Chapel, 235 n74, 279 n22 historia(seeAlberti)
242 n39 263 n38 Gentile da Fabriano, 63,232 n41, history painting, conventions of,
Durand, Guillaume, 50 San Lorenzo, 12, 162, 230-1 n33, 33 113,115,156,271 n41
Dürer,Albrecht, 58, 78-9, 261 n20, 265 n51 Ghiberti, Lorenzo, 151, 153, Holbein, Hans, 156-7, 85
235 nn74-5, 236 n76, 28, San Marco, 55-6, 59-60, 64-5, 239 n13, 260 n20 Homer, fliad, 43
44-5 75, 77,230 n33, 235 n73 Ghiberti, Vittore, 151 Humbert of Silva Candida, 36, 157
Santa Chiara, 122 Ghirlandaio,Domenico, 2, 77-8, 80, humanism, 6, 16-9, 27, 75, 82-3, 86,
ecstasy (seeChrist; see drunkenness; Santa Croce, 9, 12, 186 121,235 n74, 263 n38, 280 n35 95,97, 102-3, 105,108,111,
see soul) Bardi Chapel, 9 Giannotti, Donato, 221 n42 117,144,171,189,192,212,
Emser, Karl, 13 Santa Felicita, 139,235 n72 Giberti, Gian Matteo, 17, 37, 86, 214,246 n68, 248-9 n84,
epideictic oratory, 109, 234 n 71 Santa Maria del Carmine, 144, 189,238-9 nll,277 n6 250 n92, 250 n99, 250 n101,
Erasmus, Desiderius, 27, 97, 110, Brancacci Chapel, 8 gift, theme of, 146, 169-79, 183-6, 258 n3, 271 n41, 276 n75,
170, 192, 242 n29, 244 n50, Santa Maria del Fiare, 201, 266 n9, 268 nl 9, 269 n24 (see 276 nl
249 n91, 250 n92, 268 nl 7, 238 n11 alsograce)
274 n64, 279 n19 Santa Maria Maggiore, 227 n39 Giles ofViterbo, 1, 97, 102, 104-5, iconoclasm, 73, 197, 209 i
,I
Eucharist, 27, 48, 51, 55, 59, 70, 85, Santa Trinita, 121,138,225 n8, 144, 148, 188, 190, 246-7 n68, icons, 74
91,94,99, 150,165,230 n30, 232 n41 248 n79 icons, Byzantine, 49, 51
297
INDEX INDEX
idolatry, 73, 105 full-length, 61, 65, 69-70, 266 n6 Meister Francke, 197, 97 Doni Tondo,193-4, 249 n87,
images, controversy over, 188-201, Michelangleo and, 20-2, 83-6, Meleager 257 n50, 95
222 n53, 278 n9 (seealso 91-2,111-2, 144-6,149-51, Alberti and, 34-5, 43, 46, 87, 114, Entombment,16, 20, 26-33, 46,
iconoclasm) 161-2, 165, 167-9, 181,183, 116 71,76,81-3,92-3, 101-3,
imagopietatis (seeMan of Sorrows) 197-9,208-9,212,214 Dead Christ, model for, 73, 87, 114-6, 132-3, 136,138-40,
imitation, 6-8, 241 n25, 241 n29 origins of, 49-51 109,114,124-6,128-30,133, 144-5, 148-50,153-4,210-2,
Isidore of Seville,200 sarcophagus and, 52-8, 232 n38, 240 n16, 254 n31, 255 nn40-1 236-7-n3, 271 n41, 6-7, 55
275 n66 myth of, 126- 7 Last]udgment, 147, 151, 190-3,
Jerusalem, 49, 51, 70,232 n38 theme of, 41, 48, 60, 64, 73, 75-6, Messina, Antonello da (see 195,198,201,261 n21,94,
Joseph of Arimathea, 57, 64, 69, 81, 90, 99, 197-9, 235 nn73-4, Antonello da Messina) 96
71-2, 76,182,230 n34, 236 n3, 237 n5, 237-8 nn7-8, Michelangelo Sistine Ceiling,153, 56, 83
235 n72 262 n28, 274 n60 antique art and, 2, 9, 17-8, 87, 90, Raphael and, 113-6, 130-4, 160-2
Justi, Carl, 20 Mantegna,Andrea, 81, 87, 99, 108, 103, 105-6, 108, 154-5, sculpture, 22, 106
245 n56, 46 160-1, 199,202,239-40 n16 Bacchus,87,91-2,99,102,54
Karlstadt,Andreas, 13 engravings, 234 n59, 243 n43, architecture and, 264-5 n51 BrugesMadonna,105-6, 150,
Kempis, Thomas a,71 251 n8, 253-4 n28, 255 n40, as forger, 2-3, 8, 10,241 n29 249 n88
256 nn46-7 Bacchic themes and, 18, 87-92, Christ, 102, 60
Lamberti, Stefano, 238 n8 Bacchanals, 88-9, 91, 154, 52-3 98-9, 102, 154-5,161, Dying Slave,93, 57
Landucci, Luca, 238 nl 1 Entombment,43, 46-8, 78, 114, 239-40 n16,241 n25,243 n41 MediciMadonna,12, 105-6, 62
Laocoon,105,202 116, 124,128-30,135,17 criticism and praise of, 1, 11, 14, Pietas,16, 93, 99, 103, 112,
Lateran, Fifth Council of, 17, Martini, Simone, 11, 51 188-201 130-2, 145, 147-50, 163,
221 n46 Masaccio, 3-4, 59, 138, 1 drawing, 3-9, 12, 21-2, 47, 202-12, 250 n94, 260 n14,
Leonardo daVinci, 9,169, 193-4,200 Mass of St. Gregory (seeSaints) 147-68,188,202-6,209-11, 283 nn62-3, 284 n67,
Lippi, Filippo, 55,224 n6 Master of San Miniato, 76,235 n72, 259 n10, 265 nl 284n69,59,98,100-1,105
Livy,26, 108 41 Children'sBacchanal,159-162, St. Matthew, 116, 132-3,
Lodi, Giovanni Agostino da (see Master of the Osservanza, 5 167,89 256-7 n50, 74
Giovanni Agostino da Lodi) Matarazzo, Francesco, 117-21, 124, ColonnaPieta,147-8, 158, 163, self-portrait of, 195- 7
Lombardo, Tullio, 19 126,252 n13 167,169, 171-2, 179,184, Milan,43,55,209
Lorenzo di Niccolo, 60 Matteo di Giovanni, 233 n47 188-9, 198, 202-5, 269 n24, Molza, Francesco Maria, 269 n29
Lotto, Lorenzo, 19 Meckenem, lsrahel van, 237 n5 275 n67, 93 Monaco,Lorenzo,65, 70,236 n3,
Ludolph of Saxony, 233 n54 Medici, 2,199,233 n57, 259 n10, HaarlemDeposition,163, 202-5, 90 35
Luke ofTúy, 74,234 n65 261 n20 LouvreLamentation,166-7, 205, 91 Moretto da Brescia, 94, 97, 58
Luther,Martin, 19, 73,170,190 as patrons, 48, 65, 77, 230-1 n33 Oxford Deposition,204-5, Morone, Giovanni, 276 nl
Medici, Cosimo de', 60, 209-10,99
Machiavelli, Niccolo, 15, 276 n75 230-1 n33 ViennaLamentation,166-7, 205, Naples, 171
Madonna (seeVirgin) Medici, Giulio, 249 n89 92 Niccolo dell'Arca, 9, 37-8, 43, 89,
maenads,90,99, 147 Medici, Lorenzo de', 2, 60, 88, early renaissance art and, 3-4, 217 n14,226 n24, 12
Majestas,67 199,240 n17 8-10, 15 Nicodemus, 69-72, 182, 207-8,
Malouel,Jean, 67, 37 Medici, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco Medici and, 12, 88,162,240 nl 7, 282 n61
Malipiero, Girolamo, 189 de',240n17 259 n10
Man of Sorrows Medici, Piero de', 240 nl 7, 241 n25 medieval art and, 3-9, 12, 18 Ochino, Bernardino, 271 n38,
Engelpieta,66-8, 156, 168, 181, 186, Meditationesvitae Christi,33, 71, 81, painting, 273 n45, 274 n60
232 n47, 233 h5o, 262 n28 226 n24 Battle of Caseína,116 Oedipus, 35
299
lNDEX lNDEX
Origen, 94,244 n50 Pisano, Tommaso, 233 n47, 263 n28 Raymond of Capua, 100 Sack of, 188,262 n28
Orvieto, 124-5, 254 n29, 255 n40 Plato, 35, 93, 95,200,243 n41 .Reformation, Counter, 14, 18-9, 37, St. Luke Madonnas in, 13, 75,214
Ovid, reception of, 95, 126-7, Pliny, 202,221 n43 75,85, 179,192,195,201,
254 n31, 255 n33, 255 n36 Pole, Reginald, 145, 171, 189, 226 n24, 278 n12 Rosselli, Cosimo, 78, 80
258 n3, 265 n3, 266 n8, Reformation, Protestant, 19, 75, Rosso Fiorentino, 19, 22,101,140,
Padua, 126 270 n33, 277 n6 104,188,190,226 n24 144, 155-8, 169,262 nn27-8,
Chapels,Arena, 39-40 Polidoro da Caravaggio, 238 n8, Regensburg, 170,187 263 nn28-9, 84
pala (seealtarpiece) 279 n24 Regio, Raffaele, 126-7 Rullo, Donato, 189
Paleotti, Gabriele, 258 n3 Politi,Ambrogio Catarino (see relics, 2, 32, 53,267 n10
paragone,188-201 Catarino) Riario, Raffaele, 91, 102, Sadoleto,Jacopo, 15, 102, 105, 144,
Parrnigianino, 19,140,144 Poliziano,Angelo, 2, 75,216 n2, 241-2 n29, 246 n68 248 n81
pathos formulas, 18, 43, 86, 202, 213 241-2 n29 Richter,Jean Paul, 20 sacrament (seealtarpiece, tabernacle;
Paul of Middelburg, 26- 7, 87, 224 n3 Pontormo,Jacopo da, 19,22, 114, Rome,34,61,91, 103,108,113, see Christ; see Eucharist)
Pavia, 43 139-40, 144,77 132, 137, 143,151,221 n42, Saints, 17, 74,170, 191,207-8
Perino del Vaga, 8-9, 11-12 Popes 247 n68, 249 n85, 250 n97, Saint Ambrose, 94-5
Perugia, 117, 126-7,252 n13, Pope ClementVII, 15 253 n28, 256 n44, 256 n48, SaintAugustine, 16, 94-5, 97-8,
253 n28 Pope Julius II, 248 n79 262 n23, 282 n61 173, 200, 244 n51
Churches, San Francesco al Prato, Pope Julius III, 208,282 n61 Churches Saint Bartholomew, 195-6
116,121, 137,252n22 Pope Paul III, 145, 188 Chiesa Nuova, 245 n57 Saint Bernard, 172, 176,235 n72
Perugino, Pietro, 41-2, 80, 122-3, Pope Paul rv,188,258 n3, 276 nl Saint Peter's, 11,248 n79 Saint Catherine of Siena, 101
129,194,253 n28, 260 n15, Pope Pius III, 246-7 n68, 250 n94, San Giacomo degli Spagnuoli, Saint Dorninic, 145,217 n14 n57
15, 71 Pope Pius V, 220 n40 247 n78 Saint George, 201
Pesellino, Francesco, 265 n2 Portugal, Queen of, 13, 75 San Giovanni Decollato, 239 n16 Saint Gregory, 51-2, 58, 84,
Petrarch, 11, 175-6, 189 presentation drawings, 146, 169-87, San Gregario Magno, 84 237 n5, 274 n63
Philo, 93-4, 99 198,265 nl San Pietro in Montorio, 158, Saint Jerome, 94, 97-8, 235 n72,
Philostratus, 91 Priuli,Alvise, 171 279 n19, 279 n25 244 n50
Piccolornini, 108,145,249 n90 Protestants, 170,174, 186-7, 193, San Silvestro al Quirinale, 171, SaintJohn, 29, 47, 52, 55-6, 58, 61,
Piccolornini, Francesco (seePope 278 n9 192,238 n8 64-5,69-70,76,79,85, 124,
Pius III) Pseudo-Bonaventure, 226 n24 San Silvestro in Capite, 220 n33, 129,132,224 n7, 235 n72,
Pico Della Mirandola, Giovanni, 95, Pseudo-Dionysus, 96 267 nl0 253 n28
144,148,241 n29, 277 n6 Raphael, 19, 21, 46, 124-5, 127, Sant'Agostino, 102, 104, 109, Saint Luke, 13, 74-5
Pienza, 233 n47 135-7, 194,233 n59, 251 n3, 237 n3, 246 n68, 247 n78, Saint Mary Magdalene, 29, 38, 70,
píeta, theme of, 12, 28, 50-1, 98, 253-4 n28, 255 n36, 255 n40,
f 256 n45 89,120, 123-4, 129,134,182,
l
103,110,112, 129-32,145-8, 256 n44, 256 n8, 257 n51, Santa Maria dell' Anima, 224 n3 207-8, 225 n8, 235 n72
t
153-60, 163,167,169, 171-2, 257 n55, 66-7, 69-70, 72-3, Santa Maria del Popolo, 135 Saint Matthew, 116, 132-3, 233 n47
180-1, 184-6, 255 n40, 75 Chigi Chapel, 135,140,261 n21 Saint Paul, 38, 97,170,244 n51
256 n41, 260 nn14-5, Michelangelo and, 113-6, 130-4, Santa Maria in Monserrato, Saint Peter, 183-4
262 n28, 266 n6, 274 n60 160-2, 256 nn46-7, 250 n50, 248 n78 Saint Zenobius, 249 n89
Pino, Paolo, 200 264 n41 Santa Maria sopra Minerva, 102 Salutati, Coluccio, 277 n6
Pisa, 51,233 n47, 263 n28 painting, Entombment,113-6, 120, Santa Trinita in Monti, 163, Salviati,Jacopo, 282 n51
Pisanello, 88 123, 128-30, 138-40,160, 282 n53 Sangallo, Giuliano da, 87
Pisano, Giovanni, 263 n28 162,240 n18, 251 n4, Sistine Chapel, 93,109, 193, Sanrnicheli, Michele, 239 nl 1
Pisano, Nicola, 1'17 n 14 254 n29, 256 n41, 65 225 n7, 250 n92 Sannazzaro,Jacopo, 248 n79
300 301
INDEX INDEX
Sansovino,Andrea, 19, 104-5, 188, Titian, 22, 114, 136--9, 161, 193-4, devotions to, 105,150,248 n83, Vesperbild,149-51, 262 n28,
247 n78, 249 n84, 61 76 274 n60 274 n60
Sansovino,Jacopo, 19,247 n78, Tolomei, Claudio, 269 n29 rniraculous images of, 13, 75,214 Viterbo, circle of, 171-2, 175, 178,
248 n84 Tolomei, Lattanzio, 277 n6 representations of, 12, 38, 74-5, 79, 189,268 n17, 271 n38,
Sarto, Andrea del, 263 n28 tragedy, theories of, 35-6, 108 151,163-8,180-1,206,213 271 n40, 276 n75, 278 n15
Sassetti,Francesco, 121, 127 SaintJohn with, 52, 55-6, 58, 61, Volterra, Daniele da (seeDaniele da
Savonarola, Girolamo, 15-6, 26-7, Valdés,Juan de, 171,178,271 n38, 64,6?-70, 76,85, 129 Volterra)
37-8,43,53,86,90,95, 108, 271 n40, 272 n43, 273 n45, separation from Christ, 71-2, 76,
110,157,170,176,192, 274 n60 134 Zuccaro, Taddeo, 284 n69
238 n9, 238 nl 1,250 n97 Valeriano, Pierio, 144 spouse, iconography of, 103, 164, Zwingli, Ulrich, 73
Sebastiano del Piombo, 149, 151, Valla,Lorenzo, 192 206,282 n61, 284 n67
156, 158, 191,193,261 n21,
261-2 n23, 262 n25, 263 n29,
van der Weyden, Rogier, 46, 48,
61-5,69-72, 74-5, 77-8,80-1,
' .
263 n37, 279 n19, 80 83,-99,227 n40, 231 n35, 1
secondoche,11-12 232 n41, 232 n43, 233 n59,
Schongauer, Martín, 78, 232 n38 235 n72, 30, 32, 34, 40
Scultori, Diana, 202 Varchi,Benedetto, 199--200,268 nl 7,
Sellaio,Jacopo del, 235 n73 272 n44, 279 n25, 281 n37
Seneca, 174,268 n17 Vasari,Giorgio, 1-2, 4, 8-12, 14-5,
Sernini, Nino, 189-90 20,103,116, 172,191-5,199,
Siena, 31,145,238 n9, 247 n68 207-8, 227 n39, 259 n10,
Signorelli, Luca, 46, 87, 124-5, 278 nl 1,279 n23, 279-80 n25,
254 nn29-30, 255 n40, 68 280 n27, 281-2 n51, 282 n61
Silenus, 89-90 Vatican (seeRome)
Soderini, Piero, 256 n50 Veneziano, Domenico, 44
Song of Songs, 94, 176, 270 n32 Venice, 10, 74, 79,85, 111,126,138,
soul, 93--4, 98,101,243 n41, 146,221 n42, 238 n9,
243 n43, 244 n44, 245 n51 263 n37, 265 n2
(seealsoChrist; see also Verona, 17, 37, 86,238 n9, 239 n11
drunkenness; see alsoecstasy) Veronese, Paolo, 52
Spirito, Lorenzo, 126 Verrocchio, Andrea del, 194
Spranger, Bartolomeus, 220 n40 Vesperbíld(seeVirigin)
Strozzi farnily,232 n41, 241 n25,
269 n24
Symeon ofThessalonica, 74,
Vespucci (seeFlorence)
Vicenza, 237 n8, 238 n9
Virgil, 11
'
222 n52 Virgin (seealsopieta)
Syropoulos, Sylvester,74 Assumption of, 135
birth imagery and, 149, 164-7, 184
tabernacles (seeiltarpiece) Child and, 105, 150, 168, 185
Taddeo di Bartolo, 237 n5 Dead Christ and, 31-2, 41, 63-5,
Threnos,71-2 120--4,129-30,132-3,150,
Timanthes, 43 \ 160-1, 182,207,210,233n55,
Tintoretto,Jacopo, 138 235 n72
302 303

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MICHELANGELO AND THE REFORM OF ART

Michelangelo was acutely conscious of living in an age of religious crisis and

Alexander Nagel is assistant professor of art history at the University of Toronto.

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

© Cambridge University Press 2000

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

First published 2000

Printed in the United States of America

TypefaceBembo n/r3.5 System Quark XPress™ [HT]

ISBN o 521 66292 3 hardback

j List of Illustrations r<::,,I ix

INTRODUCTION: Michelangelo's Work asan Art Historian r<::,,.' 1

PART ONE. HlSTORY PAINTING AND CULT lMAGE IN THE ALTARPIECE

CHAPTER ONE: Transport and Transitus r<::,,I 25

CHAPTER TWO: Man of Sorrows and Entombment 49 r<::,,.'

FraAngelicoand the Man of Sorrowsin Italy r<::,,I 49

CHAPTER THREE: Humanism and the Altar Image r<::,,.' 83

CHAPTER FOUR: The Altarpiece in the Age ofHistory Painting - IIJ

PART TWO. PRESENTATION AND WITHDRAWAL:

CHAPTER Passionate Withdrawal -

CHAPTER Artwork and Cult Image - 169

conditions of a research fellowship at the Max-Planck-Institut für Geschichte

r. Masaccio, The 2. Michelangelo,

exception, of course, would be Jorge

of painting, to the altarpiece format. They offer a commentary on the status of

HISTORY AND FIGURE

Middelburg, the compatriot and correspondent of Erasmus who served as

No mystery or sacrament is signified by the day of Christ's Nativity; instead, it is

instead a more muted attitude, suggesting absorption within thought or

tempered by her understanding of the place of these events within the

a newly condensed relationship.33 Giottino's panel in the Uffizi, based on

-"'~-- ... __ 'Nlt};iP

an open window through which we see figures freely moving in space. In

what the custom of painters [laconsuetudinede'pítton] befare Michelangelo has

in the predella, therefore, clairned a direct analogy to the Eucharist consecrated

ROGIER VAN DER WEYDEN AND THE NORTHERN MAN OF SORROWS

ject of the altarpiece as a whole. The altarpiece replaced Lorenzo di

•• . •• •• -- ____ ___._..--....,.... ..----,.--~-

Rogier's response to Fra Angelico's efforts is best understood in light of

lating and intersecting rhythmic lines. Energy and movement is continually

Rogier was therefore well pre-

composition. In the famous tondo

Rogier's training in this tradition

40. Copy after

Humanism and the Altar Image

ARCHAISM AND ANTIQUE REVIVAL

Michelangelo's London Entombment marks a significant encounter between

uneasiness before what rnight have

having pushed the representation of We see no blood on Christ's

often been compared, appears clut-

individual engagement with the image: the cooperation between viewer

rated in altarpieces was, I argued, due to an implicit conflict with altarpiece

Ali of these developments toward a more dramatic conception are clearly

Mantegna's print or of a Meleager sarcophagus. We know these two things

shown following behind. This change in conception cannot, as we have seen,

earlier drawings: There are three of

that the category of the altarpiece is itself a construction of art historians

ART AND REFORM

85. Hans Holbein

•• . •• •• -- __ _._..--....,.... ..----,.--~-