The Private Chapel of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese in the Cancelleria, RomeAuthor(s): Patricia RubinSource: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 50 (1987), pp. 82-112Published by: The Warburg InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/751319 .Accessed: 05/10/2011 14:43

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THE PRIVATE CHAPEL OF CARDINAL ALESSANDRO FARNESE

IN THE CANCELLERIA, ROME Patricia Rubin

IN October 1547 Annibale Caro

wrote to his friend, Lodovico Beccadelli, seeking advice:

The most illustrious Cardinal Farnese is calling me to Rome ... advise me what I should do. My desire would be to serve this lord ... his benign nature, the affection in which he holds me, his application to study, the knowledge of and familiarity with his household which I have already gained, attract me wonderfully. On the other hand the greatness of the Farnese frightens me.t

There could hardly be a more telling appreciation of Cardinal Alessandro's reputation among his contemporaries than this, for Caro was a veteran courtier. He had even been attached to the court of Alessandro's father, Pier Luigi Farnese. There must have been something truly awe-inspiring about the young Cardinal. Twenty-seven years old at this time, he was already an experienced diplomat and political strategist. As Vice-Chancellor of the Church, he handled the correspondence with papal nuncios at foreign courts and the Council of Trent.2 He was also a scholar, antiquarian, collector and connoisseur.3 He lived the life of a gentleman, as well as that of a Prince of the Church: assembling a court which was always filled with many letterati and galant'uomini whose conversation and company he enjoyed.4 This article is based on research for my M.A. thesis at the Courtauld Institute and I should like to thank Michael Hirst for his generous assistance with that project. I am also indebted to Konrad Oberhuber, Arnold Nesselrath, Alessandro Nova and Clare Robertson; and to Pier Nicola Pagliara, especially for help in measuring the chapel. I am most grateful too to Fabrizio Mancinelli, Director of the Pinacoteca Vaticana, and Maurizio de Luca, the restorer, for making possible (and so enjoyable) my visits to the chapel.

S'. .. lI'illustrissimo cardinal Farnese mi chiama a Roma ... consigliate a me qual che debba fare. II desiderio mio sarebbe di servir cotesto signore... la benigna sua natura, I'affezion che mi porta, I'applicazion che mostra a gli studi, la conoscenza e la conversazione che ho di giP presa de la sua casa... m'allettano mirabilmente. E da l'altro canto la grandezza di Farnese mi spaventa...' A. Caro, Lettere familiari, ed. A. Greco, Florence 1957-61, II, 317, PP. 48-49 (Civitanova, 14 October

I547). 2 There is no detailed biography of this remarkable figure. His career is summarized in A. Ciaconius, Vitae, et res gestae Pontificum Romanorum et S.R.E. Cardinalium, edn Rome 1677, uI, pp. 558-66 and L. Cardella, Memorie storiche de' cardinali della santa romana chiesa, Rome 1 793, Iv, pp. 134-40. Further information relating to the period under considera- tion here can be found in L. von Pastor, The History of the Popes, ed. R. Kerr, London I912, xI, xuI. Parts of his massive official correspondence have been published in Concilium Tridentinum ... Epistularum ... nova collectio, ed. G. Buschbell, Freiburg-im-Breisgau 1916, 1937, x, xi and Nuntiaturberichte aus Deutschland, Abt. i (1534-1559), Berlin I910- , XI, xI.

On Cardinal Alessandro's patronage, see F. Zeri, Pittura e controriforma, Turin 1957, PP. 34-36 and Clare Robertson, 'Aspects of the Patronage and Imagery of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, 1520-1589', Ph.D. thesis, University of London, Warburg Institute, 1986. For his activities as a collector see R. Lanciani, Storia degli scavi di Roma, Rome 1903, u and F. Benoit, 'La Bibliothbque grecque du cardinal Farnbse', Milanges d'archiologie et d'histoire, XL, 1923, pp. i66-98. See the series of articles by L. Partridge in the Art Bulletin (LII, 1970, pp. 81-87; LIII, 1971, pp. 467-86; LIV, I972, pp. 50-62; LX, 1978, pp. 494-530) for Cardinal Alessandro's rebuilding and decoration of the Farnese villa at Caprarola.

4 See Vasari's autobiography, Le Vite de' pii eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori, ed. G. Milanesi, Florence 1878- 85, vii, p. 68 1; in August 550 Cardinal Alessandro wrote to Paolo Giovio in Como, trying to lure Giovio back to Rome: '. .. In somma questa vostra assenza della Corte non si puo piii soffrire... E forza finalmente che ce ne torniamo a quel Padre Tevere, e che facciamo insieme una vita da galantuomini', Opere del Commendatore Annibal Caro, IV: Delle lettere del Commendatore Annibal Caro scritte a nome del Cardinale Alessandro Farnese, ed. A. F. Seghezzi, Milan 1807, I, pp. 326-28 (30 August 1550). A tally of the members of the Cardinal's household in I554 totals 305 'mouths' and includes Caro, Tolomei, Giovio and Amaseo among other scholars, poets, writers, musicians and artists. For this, see F. Benoit, 'La Maison du cardinal Farnase en 1554', Milanges d'archiologie et d'histoire, XL, 1923, PP. 198-206.

82

Journal ofthe Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Volume 50, 1 987

FARNESE CHAPEL IN THE CANCELLERIA 83

One of the first official acts of the pontificate of Paul III had been the elevation of his fourteen-year-old grandson to the cardinalate in i534. Following the death of Cardinal Ippolito de'Medici in August 1535, the Pope promoted Cardinal Alessandro to the powerful and profitable position of Vice-Chancellor of the Church.s The young Cardinal subsequently applied his considerable energy and intelligence to furthering the interests of the Church and of the Farnese family, which he saw as inextricably linked. It should be noted, however, that he was primarily concerned with the good of the Church for the sake of the family. This is made quite clear in a letter which he wrote to Cardinal Cristoforo Madruzzo, Bishop of Trent, in November 1548: We ought to consider our interests and by now to reflect that..,. we have an old pope, who can die at any moment after fifteen years of the papacy without (one might well say) having done anything for his family.6

Papal nuncios at the courts of the Emperor Charles V and King Ferdinand of Spain often phrased their reports to the Cardinal: 'As for matters of reform..,. as for the family affairs of Your Illustrious Lordship ...", Cardinal Alessandro's attitude towards reform at this time seems to have been as much pragmatic as dogmatic. Theological debate takes second place to political ends and practical matters in his correspondence. For Cardinal Alessandro reform was the means for the Church to reassert its rightful authority, temporal as well as spiritual.

The imagery of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese's private chapel in the Cancelleria reflects these concerns, just as its style reflects the Cardinal's taste. Its scheme is as personal, as learned and as allusive as an impresa. The importance of the chapel in the wider context of the religious art of the period is the importance of its patron in contemporary political life. A consideration of its imagery may elucidate some of the key issues of the pontificate of Paul III. In spite of this, the Cancelleria chapel has never been thoroughly discussed. No reasonable identifications of the lunette or vault frescoes have been proposed. This was doubtless due to the fact that until recently the chapel was virtually inaccessible; a campaign of restoration made it possible to study the paintings there, and revealed many intriguing features of their design and execution."

s For this promotion (15 August 1535, with the title of S. Lorenzo in Damaso) and his original elevation to the cardinalate (18 December 1534 as Cardinal Deacon of S. Angelo) see C. Eubel, Hierarchia Catholica Medii Aevi, Regensburg I9IO0, IIm, p. 25. For the office of Vice- Chancellor, first formally instituted by Paul III, and its significance for Cardinal Alessandro, see L. Partridge, 'Divinity and Dynasty at Caprarola: Perfect History in the Room of Farnese Deeds', Art Bulletin, Lx, 1978, p. 525, with further references.

6 'ci ... conviene considerare a casi nostri et pensare hormai... che havemo un papa vecchio che a ogni hora p6 morire con quindici anni di papato senza haver fatto nulla per casa sua, come ben si p6 dire.' Nuntiaturberichte (as in n. 2), XI, p. 167 (28 November 1548).

7 'Quanto alle cose della riforma... Quanto alle cose di casa di V. S. Illustrissima ...' Ibid., p. 95 (Pietro Bertano from Brussels, 30 December I548).

8 It is now possible to provide dimensions for the chapel and its decorations: measured at the level of the pavement, the floor is 400 x 685 cm; the height from the pavement to the second cornice is 575 cm. The vault panel of the Forge (P1. 22a) measures, with frame, 95 Xx 132 cm at its edges,

o103 x 132 cm at its centre; the painted surface is 62 x 98 cm at the edge, 67 x 98 cm at the centre. The stucco figures holding musical instruments on the vault (P1. 17) are approximately 65 cm high. The dimensions of the lunette paintings are: Janus receiving Saturn (Pl. 26b), I6o x 368 cm (with frame), 131 x 33 cm (painted surface); Mass (Pl. 22b), 173 x 378cm (with frame), 141 x 343cm (painted surface); Destruction of the Temples (P1. 24b) 168.5 x 376 cm (with frame), 142 x 342 cm (painted surface). The Beheading of the Baptist (PI. 27c) measures 215 x 348cm (with frame), 161 x 296cm (painted surface). The Conversion of Paul (PI. I9b) is 213 x 372cm (with frame), 162 x 322 cm (painted surface). The prophetJonah (P1. i9b) is 162 x 77 (with frame), 15o x 55 (painted surface). The altarpiece is 17o x 177 cm and the church fathers and evangelists in the altar niche are approximately 56 x 24 cm (painted surface) each. The principal earlier discussions of the chapel are I. H. Cheney, Francesco Salviati (1510-1563), Ph.D. thesis, New York University 1 963, I, pp. 105- 1 2, 2 1 9, 222-27, II, pp. 383-86 and A. Schiavo, II Palazzo della Cancelleria, Rome 1964, pp. 1 71-76. Cheney no longer dates the work in the chapel to two periods, 1541-43 and c. 1549, suggesting instead that some designs for the project were

84 PATRICIA RUBIN

While certain questions about the dating and progress of the work remain, it is possible to suggest the circumstances of the commission and the subjects of the frescoes, and to consider the nature and the structure of the chapel's decorative programme.

Exactly what prompted Cardinal Alessandro to redecorate his private chapel is not known. A plan of the piano nobile of the Cancelleria which has been dated c. 1520 shows a chapel of similar dimensions on the present site. The chapel on the plan has a semicircular apse. There is an apse on the exterior of the chapel, but Salviati's altar is set against a flat wall.' Some alterations to the chapel's structure seem to have been made, therefore, in order to incorporate the new decorations. The rebuilding of the altar wall may have been required to support the stone altarpiece and its frame; but the chapel, though modified to receive the altar and the stucco decoration, was not built or totally rebuilt at this time. 1 Vasari says that Salviati was responsible for the partimenti di stucchit and the arrangement of the decorations is asymmetrical and somewhat ad hoc, indicating a painter's rather than a builder's sensibility.

Certain factors favoured the project to update the original chapel. The completion of the stucco ornaments in the Sala Regia in June 1545 and the decorations in the Farnese apartments in Castel S. Angelo in the spring of 1548 (which included a stuccoed chapel) had left a team of skilled stuccatori and decorators free.12 Between 1541-46 a substantial portion of the Cardinal's income had gone towards the building works at the Farnese Palace, but from around I546 the burden of payments for that project passed from the family to the papal budget, so that the Cardinal could spend more freely on other schemes.13 It isprobably not coincidental that Vasari's frescoes in the Cancelleria date from that year. Vasari says that Perino del Vaga painted a chapel for the Cardinal. He does not say where, but he places it towards the end of Perino's life, thus dating the work around I546-47.14 And later Cardinal Alessandro wanted to improve the project for Paul III's tomb by including a small chapel decorated with paintings and mosaic. This turned out to be impractical, but it confirms the Cardinal's taste for precious and richly ornamented chapels.'5

Vasari says that Salviati 'received the commission for the Cancelleria chapel through Annibale Caro and Giulio Clovio' when he returned to Rome from Florence in the

done in the early 154os but that the chapel's execution dates from 1548. She attributes the lunettes toJacopino del Conte and hints that the vault design is from the circle of Perino del Vaga ('The Parallel Lives of Vasari and Salviati', Giorgio Vasari: tra decorazione ambientale e storiografia artistica. Convegno di Studi, Arezzo 1981, ed. G. C. Garfagnini, Florence 1985, PP. 307-08).

9 For a photograph of the apse, see Schiavo, Cancelleria (as in n.8), fig. 103. See C. L. Frommel, Der romische Palastbau der Hochrenaissance, Tiibingen 1973, I, p. 74, pl. I63a for the drawing in the Uffizi (UA 987) attributed to B. della Volpaia. To date no information has come to light regarding the building, decoration or dedication of a private chapel for the palace's original owner, Cardinal Raffaele Riario. Frommel suggests that the present chapel was included among Sangallo's projects for the palace, dating to c. 1514-20. There are Riario arms on the ceiling of the adjacent room.

10o That the altar wall would require some form of strengthening in order to support a stone altarpiece was suggested to me by Michael Hirst.

1' Vasari (as in n. 4), vII, p. 3o. 12 For the Sala Regia, see B. Davidson, 'The Decoration of the Sala Regia under Pope Paul III', Art Bulletin, LVIII, 1976, pp. 395-423. For the progress of the work at Castel S. Angelo, see E. Gaudioso, 'I lavori Farnesiani a Castel Sant'Angelo: precisazioni ed ipotesi', Bollettino d'Arte, serie v, LXI, 1976 nos I-2, pp. 21-42 and for the documents, E. Gaudioso, 'I lavori Farnesiani a Castel Sant'Angelo: Documenti Contabili (1544-48)', Bollettino d'Arte, serie v, LXI, 1976, nos 3-4, PP- 228-62. 13 F. C. Uginet, Le Palais Farnise III.r: Le Palais Farnise a

travers les documents financiers (Ig535-I612), Rome i980, p. 5. 14 Vasari (as in n. 4), v, p. 629. s15 Cardinal Alessandro's intervention in the tomb design

is described in a letter from Caro to Bishop Antonio Elio (5 August i55i), Lettere (as inn. I), n, 372, P. I06.

FARNESE CHAPEL IN THE CANCELLERIA 85

autumn of I548. Salviati bought a house near the Farnese Palace, clearly with hopes of taking up Perino's position as the favoured artist of the Farnese court. It is possible that, as Vasari says, the Cardinal was urged to the project by Caro and Clovio seeking employment for Salviati, who, until then, was occupying himself with 'works of little

importance'.,6 Work on the chapel must have been well advanced before May 1549 when Salviati agreed to complete the Margrave chapel in S. Maria dell'Anima within four months.17 Salviati probably made designs for the Cancelleria chapel over the winter of 1548-49, leaving the execution of the vault to assistants that spring when he returned to the work at S. Maria dell'Anima which had been suspended since 1543. The decorative vocabulary of the vault is extremely close to that developed by Perino del Vaga and his assistants at Castel S. Angelo. But Salviati's reliance on current Roman fashion was tempered by reference to his own ideas. A red chalk drawing in the Uffizi may be connected with designs for the stucco figures in the vault (Pls 17, 18a, b).xs18 The Uffizi figure has a quiver of arrows over his shoulder, replaced in the Cancelleria stucco by a wing, an Amor thereby transformed into something more decorously angelic. The gracefully twisting nude was probably not originally drawn for the chapel, Salviati adapting an elegant design to this purpose, making it the basis for the garland-bearing youths of the vault, an economic use of drawings which occurs elsewhere in the chapel, as will be discussed later. Here it is important in establishing Salviati's authorship of the vault design.

Salviati, like Perino, undoubtedly left the modelling and installation of the stuccoes to specialist assistants, most likely taken from Perino's experienced 6quipe. The modelling of the stucco in the Cancelleria chapel is close to that in the ceiling of the Sala Regia and the cameo stuccoes of the Sala Paolina at the Castel S. Angelo. Possibly, like Perino in the Sala Paolina, Salviati subcontracted the vault panels; as executed their style is quite different from Salviati's, although some figures can be connected with drawings by Salviati.'9 Given their position they would have been particularly tedious to paint and relatively difficult to see, an unrewarding task, reasonably delegated.

Salviati may well have relied on former members ofPerino's shop for the execution of the lunette frescoes as well as for the vault stuccoes. The lunettes are markedly Perinesque: the distinct insistent outlines, exaggerated knobbled musculature of the figures, and features like the broad snubbed noses, recall Perino's frescoes in the Castel S. Angelo. Incisions in the plaster show that there were detailed, diagrammatic cartoons, outlining even the boundaries of the shadows, like the one behind the women kneeling at the right of the Mass (P1. 22b). Such pronounced and literal incisions, indicative of

16 Vasari (as in n. 4), vii, pp. 3-31. Salviati had come to Rome once before, in December 1547 'a l'odor de la morte di Perino', unsuccessfully seeking Farnese support. The visit is reported in a letter from Paolo Giovio to Vasari ( io December I 547), K. Frey, DerliterarischeNachlass Giorgio Vasaris, I, Munich 1923, CIV, p. 209. 17 For the agreement of 2 May 1549 and other documents

relating to this commission, see A. Nova, 'Francesco Salviati and the "Markgrafen" Chapel in S. Maria dell' Anima', Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, xxV, 1981, pp. 355-72.

1s Uffizi 17762 as Primaticcio, also attributed to Rosso. E. Carroll, 'Some Drawings by Salviati formerly attributed to Rosso Fiorentino', Master Drawings, xx, 1971, pp. 17, 2- 22, identified this as a drawing by Salviati, associating it

with figures in the Palazzo Vecchio frescoes. He suggests a date earlier than either the Palazzo Vecchio or the Cancelleria decorations, comparing it with drawings from the 1530s.

19 For an example of this see below, p. 91. For Perino's subcontracting of the panels in the Sala Paolina to Marco Pino, see E. Gaudioso, Bolletino d'Arte, 1976, nos 3-4 (as in n. 12), pp. 244-45, no. 513 (I9 January 1546), payment to Perino: '.. . per due storie di Alessandro Magno che lui a fatto fare da m.ro Marcho sanese pictore in la volta ... sc.12', similarly no.520o (14 March 1546) and no.532 (22 May 1546). There is also a technical difference, for the Cancelleria vault panels are not true fresco, but oil on a surface prepared with gesso and glue.

86 PATRICIA RUBIN

equally detailed cartoons, occur in the frescoes by Perino's shop in the Sala Paolina: as in the bay showing Alexander Consecrating the Twelve Altars.20 The system of modelling within areas of outline, creating sharp contrasts of shadow and highlight in the lunettes, is different from the generalized, nuanced chiaroscuro of the figures in the wall panels below. This is evident if one compares the musculature of the bearded man at the right of the Destruction of the Temples, all twisted lines and patches of light, with the smoothly shadowed contours of the similar kneeling, turning, figure feeding the flames of St Lawrence's grille for example (Pls 24b, 25a). The palette of the lunette frescoes, orange, yellow and violet predominating, is both simpler and harsher than the subtly veiled sfumatura and colouristic variety of the walls. Vasari repeatedly praises Salviati's ability in handling colour, calling him 'one of the most skilful, speedy, bold and expeditious artists of the age';21 and the bravura and self-assurance of the painting in the lower register compares with the style of painting in the Palazzo Vecchio and the Decollato. It contrasts with the workmanlike, but generally uninspired execution of the lunettes, which suggests that Salviati left the vault and lunettes to assistants trained in Perino's bottega, and concentrated his efforts where the work would be more visible: the three wall frescoes, the altarpiece and the altar niche.22 Salviati's dislike of 'having anyone around while he worked'23 may explain the independence of those assistants, left free by Salviati to execute his designs with minimal intervention.

Conflicting engagements and pressure from the Cardinal, who was in Rome, might explain Salviati's marked dependence on assistants here as well as the delays with the Anima commission which was completed only in August I55o, in sixteen and not four months as stipulated. A record of payment made for the scaffolding erected to paint the apostles on the altar wall of the Oratory of the Decollato in August 155o, and a subsequent final payment made in September for the Birth ofthe Baptist there, suggest that Salviati had finished the Cancelleria chapel by this time as well.24 The 'Pauline' imagery of the chapel dates its invention to before the death of Paul III in November 1549. From the documents relating to the Anima and Decollato commissions it seems likely that the design and execution of the Cancelleria chapel took between twelve and eighteen months: a timespan from around November I548 to the spring of I550 at the latest. This compares with the pace of work on similar decorative projects, notably the Sala della Biblioteca in Castel S. Angelo.25

The commission for the chapel probably followed a course analogous to that of Vasari's work in the Sala Grande of the Cancelleria: the Sala de'Cento Giorni. In that

20 Museo Nazionale di Castel Sant'Angelo, Gli Affreschi di Paolo III a Castel Sant'Angelo. Progetto ed esecozione 1543-1548, exhibn 1981-82, exh. cat. Rome 1981, figs I15-17. 21 Vasari (as in n. 4), vii, p. 41. 22 The restorer of the frescoes, Maurizio de Luca, has

noted that there is even a difference between the two registers in the application of the intonaco. The separate applications of plaster in the lunettes are smoother, more accomplished, more workmanlike than those in the frescoes below, making it very difficult to distinguish the borders of the giornate in the lunette frescoes. He has also noted that there is some variation in the use of colour in the lunettes, the colours in the scene of Janus receiving Saturn (P1. 26b), although of the same restricted palette as the other scenes, are, however, darker. This suggests that different artists

were responsible for executing the cartoons on this level. Such inconsistencies do not occur in the wall frescoes. It is to be hoped that Mr de Luca will soon publish the giornate as well as the many other invaluable technical observations he has made about the works in the chapel. 23 Vasari (as in n. 4), vii, p. 25. 24 For these payments (26 August and 5 September I550)

see R. E. Keller, Das Oratorium von S. Giovanni Decollato in Rom, Rome 1976, p. 40.

2s Executed between the end of 1543 and 13 June I545. See Gaudioso, Bollettino d'Arte, 1976, nos 3-4 (as in n. 12), Pp. 232-33, 257 n. 40 for the payments dating from 29June 1544-13 June 1545 and the observation that the large sum dispensed in the first payment indicates that the work was already under way, probably begun in late I543.

FARNESE CHAPEL IN THE CANCELLERIA 87

case, according to Vasari, the Cardinal wished to have the room painted, and Paolo Giovio furthered both the project and Vasari's interests, commissioning Vasari 'to make many designs with various inventions, which in the end were not executed'. When the Cardinal finally resolved to go ahead, Vasari was pressured to work 'with the greatest possible rapidity', Giovio supervising the project, which was executed with considerable assistance and consequent lack of finesse.26 Vasari's payment of 880 scudi was made through the bank of Sebastiano Monteacuto, a Florentine banking house in Rome which handled many of Cardinal Alessandro's financial affairs, including payments for work at the Palazzo Farnese.27 In the case of the chapel, according to Vasari, Annibale Caro, rather than Giovio, acted as the artist's intermediary with the Cardinal. Caro's active and benevolent relationship with Salviati is documented in his correspondence, as is his familiarity with and faith in the artist's creative powers. He was to suggest to one patron, for whom he had invented an impresa: 'If he likes this one, get him to send for messer Francesco Salviati, who will draw it with more grace than others I know; make him do a number of sketches'.28 It is also likely that it was Caro who was responsible for co- ordinating the talents of the painter with the demands of the patron, and who was chiefly responsible for formulating the imagery of the chapel. The allusive, literary and classi- cizing style of the invenzioni coincides with what is known ofCaro's talents and tastes as an iconographer.29

That such talents were called upon here becomes evident from a description of the chapel decoration (Fig. I overleaf). The altarpiece, modified and damaged, is now an Adoration ofthe Shepherds with Pope Paul III asJoseph and Cardinal Alessandro kneeling in attendance. This is surmounted by a fresco of the Annunciation. The altar is set in a niche decorated with small panels of God the Father, Church Fathers and the Evangelists. There are stucco Victories, holding palms and wreaths, in the spandrels of the altar arch. Isaiah is painted in a stucco niche to the right of the altar. Above in the lunette, divided by a window, are an unidentified sibyl (to the right) and the prophet Jeremiah (to the left, identified by an inscription). On each side of the window frame, which slopes upwards, are illusionistically painted niches with partially visible statues: that adjacent toJeremiah has a lyre and is presumably Apollo, whose logical and probable pendant opposite is

26 For this commission and his regrets about the quality of its execution, see Vasari's autobiography (as in n. 4), viiu, pp. 678-81 and the Life of Perino del Vaga, v, pp. 626-27. For Giovio's supervision of the project, recorded in his letters to Cardinal Alessandro ( 5, 25 August, 25 October, 13 November 1546) and for the Cardinal's lukewarm reaction which Giovio reported to Vasari (18 December 1546), see Frey, Nachlass (as in n. 16), i, pp. 176-77, 181-82. 27 For Vasari's payment, see A. del Vita, II Libro delle

Ricordanze di Giorgio Vasari, Rome 1938, p. 55. For Palazzo Farnese, see Uginet, Le Palais Farnise (as in n. 13), pp. 22 and passim. Although some Monteacuto documents survive in the Niccolini archive in Florence, I have not been able to trace their banking records in either Florence or Rome. I would like to thank the Marchesa Niccolini for granting me access to the archive. For the Monteacuto firm, see J. Delumeau, Vie iconomique et sociale de Rome dans la seconde moitie' du XVIsiicle, Paris 1959.

28 ...

se questa le piace fate che mandi per messer Francesco Salviati, il quale la mettera in disegno con pidi grazia che altri ch'io conosca, facendogliene fare piii

schizzi.' Caro (as in n. I), II, 422, pp. 173-74 (Letter to Niccol6 Spinelli 13 August 1544). See also Caro, I, 218, pp. 294-96 for Caro's letter to Salviati (29 February 1544) in which he writes to the artist: 'per un virtuoso e per un amico quale io vi tengo', saying that 'sono andato continuando di far buoni offici a vostra giustificazione: ricordando chi voi siete, come i vostri pari s'hanno a trattare...' Caro's good offices had saved Salviati from imprisonment by Pier Luigi Farnese, to whom Caro had apparently demonstrated 'l'utile, e l'onore, che sarebbe al padrone d'avervi appresso.' For Salviati's work for Pier Luigi in the early 1540s, see Cheney, Francesco Salviati (as in n. 8), I, pp. 13-41 and Convegno 198I (as in n. 8), pp. 305- o07. 29 For this see C. Robertson, 'Annibal Caro and the

Visual Arts', University of London, Warburg Institute M.Phil. dissertation, 1981, particularly pp. 14, i86-88 for the suggestion that Caro devised the iconography for this chapel. See also C. Robertson, 'Annibal Caro as icono- grapher: sources and method', this Journal, XLV, 1982, pp.

x6o8x.

88 PATRICIA RUBIN

a. StJerome f. St Matthew a i b. St Ambrose

Nativity g. StJohn the Evangelist c. St Luke b ity Isaiah h. St Augustine h. Stue

d. St Mark i. St Gregory the Great e. God the Father 3 g j. Annunciation

e

Jeremiah Apollo Minerva Sibyl

Moses and

Aaron

ofethea receives Fl]e Arms[7tDestr-i Beheading Janus olde uction Destruc- Martyrdom of the receives uctotion of of Baptist Saturn Age Idols Temples St Lawrence

Isaiah I 1.6-8

Mass

Jonah David

Conversion of Paul

Door

FIG. I. Plan of the Chapel

FARNESE CHAPEL IN THE CANCELLERIA 89

Minerva, next to the sibyl. The vault panel over the altar shows Aaron before the Tabernacle, a scene derived from Numbers i6- 7. The Conversion of Paul (Acts 26) is on the entrance wall opposite the altar. David and Jonah are painted in stucco tabernacles flanking this scene. In the lunette above the Conversion, St Paul displays the Eucharist to a reverent crowd, an illustration of I Corinthians io- I. The vault painting above this shows a forge where swords are being beaten into ploughshares, following Isaiah 2.4. The other main wall panels are the Martyrdom of St Lawrence and the Beheading of the Baptist. In the lunette and vault panel above the Martyrdom ofSt Lawrence are scenes showing the destruction of pagan temples and idols, events recorded by early church historians, Prudentius and Eusebius. In the lunette above the Beheading of the Baptist, Janus receives Saturn at Rome, an episode described in Ovid's Fasti, here enhanced with details from Virgil's Fourth Eclogue. The vault panel above illustrates Isaiah's messianic prophecy (i 1.6-8) of the time when 'The wolf shall dwell with the lamb...'

The decoration is not based on one text, or even one sort of text. Ovid and Virgil are paired with the Old and New Testaments. There is no consistent play on biblical typology in the structure of the scheme, although prophecy and prefiguration are exploited. The images are linked by thematic, not by narrative or directly historical association. The key to the scheme may be found by considering what seems the most anomalous subject in the chapel,Janus receiving Saturn (P1. 26b). Taken from Ovid and embellished with reference to Virgil, this represents the Golden Age initiated by Saturn's return to Rome. This subject had an established meaning in Farnese iconography. It had been used in a 1539 festival carro and explained by a contemporary as demonstrating the security brought to Rome by the papacy; the double-headed figure ofJanus, representative of the Typo che tene della Sede apostolica, embodied the glory of ancient and modern Rome. Both the identification and the interpretation of this scene would surely have been quite clear - it had literally been paraded through the streets. However current, it was also learned, elaborated by using a number of related texts. The incidental difficulties and novelties introduced by such quotations would have been appreciated by someone familar with those texts and with a taste for ingenious subject matter, like Cardinal Alessandro.30 And the erudite accumula- tion of literary references seems typical of Caro, who devised images by consulting the books of buoni autori.31

The introduction of a classical scene into a chapel is in itself curious. It confirms the inventive nature of the decoration, its scheme based on invenzioni, a novel and pleasing combination of images and ideas, adapted to the site. Invenzioni must be unusual and appropriate, 'cose convenienti al loco e fuor de l'ordinario', as Caro was to write of another programme.32 In a chapel decorum demanded scenes pertaining to religion, even if they were not taken solely from the Bible or saints' lives. For Cardinal Alessandro religion was the Roman Church as championed by the Farnese: an institution divinely sanctioned, triumphant over infidel and heretic, responsible for the blessings of a Golden Age of peace and prosperity. The legitimate sacerdotal power vested in the Church was prefigured in Aaron and confirmed in Paul, both elected priests by God and shown here at

o30 A taste recorded in Cardinal Alessandro's praise for a drawing ofJustice sent to him by Vasari. He congratulated Vasari: 'vedendovi uscire delle inventioni ordinarie', pleased as much by the 'novita dell'istoria come la bellezza delle figure', Frey, Nachlass (as in n. i6), I, p. LI, 125 (24 January 1543).

a' Robertson, this Journal, 1982 (as in n. 29), pp. 164-66. 32Caro (as in n. I) III, 676, 2-3 about the Camera

dell'Aurora at Caprarola.

90 PATRICIA RUBIN

the moments of their election. In the lunette above his conversion, Paul's mission of preaching the faith to the Gentiles is depicted in specifically liturgical terms as he lifts up the Host before a crowd of converted pagans. The theme of conversion to the true faith is taken up in the lunette and vault over the Martyrdom of St Lawrence, whose death, as described by Prudentius, was also 'in truth the death of the temples'; and above, the temples and idols of false religion are destroyed. The resultant blessings of peace are shown here according to both classical and biblical accounts of the Golden Age, messianic prophecies fulfilled in the coming of Christ, whose forerunner, John the Baptist, is also represented here at the moment of his martyrdom, a pendant to St Lawrence. The chapel takes up the themes of the power of the Church and the power of the family set forth in the Sala de'Cento Giorni. There, in a public room, these were detailed in terms of deeds, res gestae, duly inscribed, presenting a glorified record of the Farnese pontificate. In the Cardinal's private chapel they were recast in biblical, patristic and classical forms, the past used as authority for the present in demonstrating the moral, ecclesiastical and political supremacy of the Roman Church. The scheme's author, probably Caro, called upon to find things appropriate to religion, the cose della chiesa and di casa of Cardinal Alessandro's correspondence, looked to fixed points in Farnese iconography (the imprese, theJanus scene, the Conversion ofPaul, for example) and to the texts currently being used to support the primacy of the Roman Church against its Protestant attackers, arriving at a combination of scenes giving Cardinal Alessandro's pragmatic, politic piety a suitable devotional setting.

While the subjects chosen for the chapel form a coherent, topical and appropriate personal ensemble, in many cases they also refer to previous commissions by Salviati: Salviati had once designed a Moses scene for a tabernacle in the Badia at Florence, he had earlier decorated the chapel in Cardinal Salviati's palace in Rome with scenes from the life of StJohn the Baptist, he had a finished drawing of the Conversion of Paul which had been engraved by Enea Vico, and he had just come from Florence frustrated in his hopes of painting the high altar chapel of San Lorenzo.33 Thus Salviati had a ready supply of 'many designs with various inventions' with which to tempt Cardinal Alessandro to the enterprise. It is possible that the scheme of the chapel's decoration was partly evolved from or inspired by these designs, an economical and intellectually engaging approach to its composition, and one entirely in keeping with Caro's stated view of the artist: 'both poet and painter' and recognition that 'in both the one and the other (i.e. poetry and painting) one's own concepts and ideas are expressed with more love and zeal than other people's'.34

A similar, not untypical economy characterises Salviati's designs for the frescoes, which clearly refer to studies made for other works. Salviati's acknowledgedfacilita and prestezza, qualities which undoubtedly recommended him to Cardinal Alessandro, depended on such adaptation. That his works were more assembled than studied had been the basis of factional criticism of him at Duke Cosimo's court in Florence.35 But Salviati was an

33 For these projects, see Vasari (as in n. 4), vii, pp. o10, 13, 30.

34 'Cosi poeta come pittore' and recognition that : 'ne l'una et ne l'altra con piu affettione et con piiu studio s'esprimono i concetti et le idee sue proprie che d'altrui'. Frey, Nachlass (as in n. 16), I, cxII, p. 220 (letter to Vasari, io May I548).

3s Vasari (as in n. 4), vII, pp. 25, 26. The reaction of Duke Cosimo's court to Salviati's style and method of design is presently being studied by Melinda Schlitt of the Johns Hopkins University for her doctoral dissertation on Salviati.

FARNESE CHAPEL IN THE CANCELLERIA 9I inventive, not a repetitive master of self-quotation, considered by himself and by others, Vasari tells us, to be gagliardo and copioso di inventione.36 This kind of design from repertoire undoubtedly made it possible for Salviati to present his ideas to his patrons and advisers for approval and discussion in a collaborative process, compatible with Salviati's taste for consorting both with persone letterate and grand'uomini, and with the kind of company and conversation Vasari reports from Cardinal Alessandro's court, where painters, poets and grandees exchanged views and consulted on their projects: Giovio's Museum becoming Vasari's Lives.37

It is not surprising, therefore, that the drawings which can be associated with the chapel can also be related to earlier projects. Thus, for example, a drawing in the Lugt collection which has been identified as a study for Salome in the Cancelleria Beheading of the Baptist was adapted from the design made for the figure of Psyche in the Worship of Psyche which Salviati painted in the Palazzo Grimani in Venice (P1. 27a, b, c).38 The Worship of Psyche itself formed the basis of the composition, architectural setting and figures at the right of the Beheading and inspired the arrangement of the figures clustered around the column at the left of the Martyrdom of St Lawrence (Pls 27a, 25a).39 The maidservant holding the salver to receiveJohn's head in the Beheading was developed from a study now in the Philadelphia Museum ofArt which was made for the figure kneeling in the foreground of a Joseph tapestry designed by Salviati for Cosimo de' Medici in I548 (P1. 28a, b).40 A variant of this figure appears kneeling to the left of the tabernacle in the vault panel of Aaron before the Tabernacle (P1. 20a). The Dioscuri-derived group directly above the figure in the tapestry was converted to St Paul's companion and horse in the chapel fresco (Pls 28a, i9b). A soldier standing at the right side of the Medicean scene of

36 Vasari (as in n. 4), vII, P. 33, similarly vII, p. 27. Vasari's appraisal of Salviati's facility and giudizio in design contrasts with his criticism of the dry and obvious repetitions of Battista Franco (vI, p. 580) or the reliance on tried and true patterns by 15th-century artists like Perugino. See also J. Fletcher, 'Francesco Salviati and Remigio Fiorentino', Burlington Magazine, cxxI, I979, pp. 793-95 for a letter answering Salviati's request for 'invenzioni' for a figure of Fortune in which his learned friend comments on Salviati's 'ingegno . . . pieno di bellissime e vaghissime inventioni'.

37 Vasari (as in n. 4) vn, p. 42 for Salviati; vu, pp. 681-82 for Cardinal Alessandro's court. Salviati's friendship with men of letters is confirmed in the correspondence of Caro (see n. 28), Giovio and Aretino. The latter wrote to Salviati in August 1542: 'Son molte le cagioni che mi movono a ricordarmi di voi, spirito veramente pellegrino ed eletto. Ecco che mi constringe a ci6 il ben che a me volete, le cortesie usatimi, la gentilezza propria, la bonth che vi move, la conversazion dolce, la modestia, la umanith, e l'altre virtii, che vi adornano con uno splendore tale, che la pittura, nel cui studio site ammirabile, par quasi la minore' (Lettere sull' arte di Pietro Aretino, ed. E. Camesasca, Milan 1957, 1, CLIV, pp. 226-2 7). Salviati had painted a portrait of Aretino, which Aretino sent to Francis I of France, celebrating the gift and the artist in verse (December x539; Capitolo di Messer Pietro Aretino al Re di Francia). For Aretino and Salviati, see also Lettere sull'arte, I, LXXXIII, pp. I29-31 (letter from Aretino to Leone Leoni, II July 1539); II, CCXLVII, pp. 84-87, CCLIX, pp. Io00-0I, CCCXII, p. 137 (letters from Aretino to Salviati, August and October 1545 and January 1546). For Giovio, see P. Giovio, Lettere, ed. G. G.

Ferrero, Rome I956, I, Io8, I I, pp. 235, 238 (letters from Giovio to Aretino, January and 24 February 154o), n, 213, p. 19 (letter from Giovio to Cardinal Alessandro, II September 1545), "I, 254, 267, 286, pp. 78, 91, I16 (letters from Giovio to Vasari, 2 April, 8 July and Io December

I547). 3sJ. Byam Shaw, The Italian Drawings of the Frits Lugt

Collection, Paris I983, no. 29, p. 37, pl. 40. Black chalk, 304 x 205 mm. The painting, the central octagon ofa ceiling in the Palazzo Grimani done in 1539, was removed in the I9th century and has disappeared, but the composition is known from a chiaroscuro woodcut (see for this I. H. Cheney, 'Francesco Salviati's North Italian Journey', Art Bulletin, 1963, P. 341 and The Illustrated Bartsch, 48, ed. C. Karpinski, New York 1983, 26-I [125], pl.200oo). 39 The connection between the Grimani octagon and the

Beheading is noted by Cheney, Art Bulletin, 1963 (as in n. 38), p. 341, n. 30. All three compositions are ultimately derived from Raphael's Martyrdom ofSt Cecilia done for Leo X's villa at Magliana and widely known through Marcantonio's print. For the print, see The Illustrated Bartsch, 26, ed. K. Oberhuber, New York 1978, pl. 153, no. I17 (04). 4o Formerly Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, no. 79.

For the tapestry, which is documented as 'consegnato in guardaroba' 16 May 1548, see the exhibition catalogue, Palazzo Vecchio: committenza e collezionismo medicei, Florence I980, no. 87, pp. 57-58. The drawing then in the PAFA, was first published by R. Bernheimer, 'A Drawing by Francesco Salviati', Pacific Art Review, II, 1942-43, PP. 23-27, who connected it with the Cancelleria Beheading. Cheney, Francesco Salviati (as in n. 8), II, p. 549 notes its previous use for theJoseph tapestry.

92 PATRICIA RUBIN

the Schoolmaster of the Falerians in the Sala di Udienza of the Palazzo Vecchio found a place in the Farnese Martyrdom of St Lawrence (Pls 28c, d, 25a), and there is a drawing in the British Museum which can be related to both frescoes.41 The harvester bending over in the centre of the lunette fresco of Janus receiving Saturn recurs in a design for a tapestry depicting the month of August (Pls 26b, 29a); in this case the sequence of design is uncertain - the tapestry might have followed the fresco - but the principle of self- reference remains, and is here important in confirming Salviati as the author of the cartoons for the lunettes.42

If expediency is one aspect of Cardinal Alessandro's patronage met here by the artist and his advisers, delight in antiquarian opulence, copia and varieta, is another equally accommodated in this chapel. It is indicative of the artistic predilections of Cardinal Alessandro's circle that Salviati's sponsors were, on the one hand, an avid collector of coins and gems (Caro), and, on the other, the most famous miniaturist of the day (Giulio Clovio). It must be remembered that Cardinal Alessandro's other commissions included reduction of Perino del Vaga's frescoes in the Massimi chapel to crystal plaquettes, the casket now at Naples and the Book of Hours illuminated by Clovio. The delight in rich surfaces, refined ornament and classical reference characteristic of those projects is evident in the chapel as well. The frescoes are set into the walls and vault like gems into a piece ofjewellery. The figures in the paintings are depicted as a classicizing corps de ballet in antique fancy dress, pirouetting, pointing and posturing in an elaborate display of graceful poses. Both fresco and stucco demonstrate Salviati's rapid acclimatization to Rome. The tabernacle frames for the prophets are adapted from those designed by Perino for the Massimi chapel at S. Trinitt dei Monti.43 The putti holding the masks and garlands above the principal frescoes are stucco versions of those seated beneath the scenes in Perino's Sala Paolina at Castel S. Angelo.44 The stucco work in the ceiling pendentives is suggestive of that designed by Daniele da Volterra for the Orsini chapel at S. Trinitt dei Monti.45 And the disposition of the vault compartments is modelled after the volta dorata at the Golden House of Nero.46 The altarpiece is Roman too; its technique, oil on peperino, had been invented by Sebastiano del Piombo and received, Vasari tells us,

41 British Museum 1946-7-13-54R, black chalk, pen and ink, brush and grey and brown wash, white heightening, 284 X 213 mm. This figure reappears, with other Cancel- leria motifs, in the Beheading of the Baptist in the Oratory of the Decollato. The Decollato fresco, dated 1553 and now attributed to Salviati's pupil Roviale Spagnuolo, seems to be based largely on Salviati's designs, which suggests the possibility that Salviati had made drawings with the hope of receiving the commission to complete the entire cycle in the Decollato. How such hopes might have influenced the Cancelleria scheme is discussed below, see pp. 97-98. For the Beheading in the Oratory, see Keller, Decollato (as in n. 24) pp. I 14-22.

42 There is no documentation published regarding the August tapestry. D. Heikamp, 'Die Arazzeria Medicea im 16. Jahrhundert. Neue Studien', Miinchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst, xx, 1969, pp. 43-47, dates it c. 1550 on the basis of style. The bending figure is based on the man reaching into the water at the left of Michelangelo's Battle of Cascina cartoon. A complete account of repeated motifs is not attempted here. I have mentioned only those related to drawings. Those drawings are all finished and pictorial, which not only explains their survival, but is, I believe, also a feature of their function as portfolio drawings, resolved

motifs intended for presentation and re-use. To my knowledge, no other preparatory studies which can be definitely associated with the chapel are known. See for this the catalogue of drawings in Cheney, Francesco Salviati (as in n. 8), n and H. Bussman, Vorzeichnungen Francesco Salviatis. Studien zum zeichnerischen Werk des Kiinstlers, Freie Universitiit Berlin, Inaugural-Dissertation, 1969. 43 J. Gere, 'Two late fresco cycles by Perino del Vaga: the

Massimi chapel and the Sala Paolina', Burlington Magazine, Ion, 196o, fig. 16. This type of frame was used in the Landi chapel at S. Spirito in Sassia, which is unattributed, but whose stucco style suggests a member of Perino's shop working c. 1546-47. For a photograph, see Courtauld Institute, Conway collection, B642 1. Similar tabernacles, in fresco not stucco, frame the Virtues in the Sala de'Cento Giorni. 44 CastelSant'Angelo (as in n. 20), I, fig. I 14. 45 NOW destroyed; for a reconstruction, see B. Davidson,

'Daniele da Volterra and the Orsini chapel: n', Burlington Magazine, cIx, 1967, pp. 553-61, fig. 2 (for a copy drawing after the vault stuccoes [Kunstbibliothek, Berlin]).

46 N. Dacos, La dicouverte de la Domus Aurea et la formation des grotesques i la Renaissance, London and Leiden 1969, fig. i i.

FARNESE CHAPEL IN THE CANCELLERIA 93 with great enthusiasm by Sebastiano's Roman patrons, who had included Cardinal Alessandro.47 Equally suited to Roman, particularly Farnese taste, are the classical settings given to many of the scenes. While some are fantastic and stagey, others show views of familiar Roman monuments, ancient and all'antica, such as Bramante's Tem- pietto which is actually being torn down in the Destruction of the Temples, where Salviati conveniently adapted an instructive view of the elevation to his destructive purposes (P1. 29b, c). Careful and canonical citations of buildings, bases and capitals suggest that Salviati consulted architectural and archeological sketchbooks.48 Sketchbooks of this type were certainly known in the Farnese circle, for members of the Accademia della Virti, notably Tolomei, Vignola, Maffei and Cervini, all Farnese dependants and associates, had conceived of a project of checking Vitruvius against surviving Roman buildings.49

In preparing this elegant and informed display, Salviati looked to the art of the French court at Fontainebleau.s50 Not only does the abundance of decorative motifs in various media parallel the Gallery of Francis I, but the pattern of the pictures and frames is reminiscent of that in prints after works in the Chateau, which Cardinal Alessandro had visited in December i544 (P1. i9a, b). The Conversion of Paul is modelled quite closely on Rosso's Dispute between Minerva and Neptune (P1. I9b, c). The shaggily bearded Christ reclining in a cloud bank is a sacred representation of the Olympian vision in the print. The tumbling pile ofputti in the centre of the engraving has become the blinded saint, the figures of Neptune and the rearing horse on the right-hand side of the print appear as Paul's horse and equerry in the fresco. The quizzical Mercury to the left has been adapted as a Roman soldier, the wings of the Victory above the god turned into a drapery flourish.s' The Rosso composition has been thoroughly romanized by Salviati, its

47 Vasari (as in n. 4), v, p. 579. Vasari also reports that Cardinal Alessandro had, in his 'guardaroba', a painting of 'una Nostra Donna, che con un panno cuopre un putto... cosa rara' (v, p. 574; now in Naples). Cardinal Alessandro was also instrumental in handling both patrons and painter in the dealings over Sebastiano's Pieth done on stone and shipped to Spain. For the commission and the correspon- dence, see M. Hirst, 'Sebastiano's "PietY" for the Commendador Mayor', Burlington Magazine, cxIv, 1972, pp. 585-95. Sebastiano's paintings on stone were framed 'con ornamenti d'altre pietre mischie' (Vasari, v, p, 579). This delight in multicoloured stones seems to have influenced Salviati's decorative scheme; it has emerged during the recent cleaning that the basamento of the chapel was painted in imitation of such variegated stones. There are also tapestry hooks, and although these cannot be dated, it is likely that there was some provision for wall hangings. This was the case in Salviati's previous commission in Florence where Duke Cosimo ordered a deluxe set of silk ornamental hangings to go beneath Salviati's frescoes (C. Adelson, 'Bachiacca, Salviati, and the Decoration of the Sala dell' Udienza in the Palazzo Vecchio', Le Arti del Principato Mediceo, Florence 198o, pp. I41-200, especially pp. 192-94). Such a solution to the basamento seems logical given its relatively great height in such a small and confined space. Other solutions typical of the period, coffers, caryatids and garlands (as in the Orsini and Massimi chapels) would have been both ungainly and obtrusive in this context. 48 This was pointed out to me by Dr Arnold Nesselrath

who noted for example that the view of Bramante's Tempietto used in the lunette fresco of the Destruction of the

Temples cited above (Pl. 29b, c) is to be found in drawings in the Gabinetto Nazionale delle Stampe (Farnesina, Rome, vol. 2510o, fol. 42) and at Kassel (Kassel Codex, Folio A45, fol. 42", section, fol. 42' elevation with coffering). I thank Dr Nesselrath for this information and for supplying me with a photograph of the drawing in Rome. That such a view of the Tempietto was known in Cardinal Alessandro's circle is substantiated by its use in a preparatory drawing for a vault panel in the Sala d'Ercole at Caprarola showing Peasants dedicating a Temple to Hercules (1568-69). The drawing (Louvre FZ 10678), which has been attributed to Bertoia (by Partridge) and Federico Zuccaro (by Pouncey) shows a Doric temple, cut open at the left, with scaffoldings taking the place of the mouldings. As painted, the temple is simpler, squatter and less precise than either the drawing or the Tempietto view inspiring it. For illustrations, see Partridge, Art Bulletin, 197 I (as in n. 3), figs 5, 18. 49 G. Zander, 'II Vasari, gli studiosi del suo tempo e

l'architettura antica', II Vasari storiografo e artista. Atti del congresso

internazionale nel IV centenario della morte, Florence

1976, p. 346. 50so For the use of Fontainebleau school prints in the Sala

dell' Udienza and the desire of Italian princes to imitate French kings in their patronage, see Adelson, Arti del Principato (as in n. 47), pp. 160-64, pp. I93-94. st This adaptation occurs with reference to another print

source, the Battle of Love engraved in Rome in 1545 after Baccio Bandinelli (P1. 23a) by Nicolas Beatrizet, see The Illustrated Bartsch, 29, ed. S. Boorsch, New York 1982, pl. 302, no. 44, 262. I thank Dr. Roger Ward for suggesting Bandinelli prints to me as a source for Salviati's compositions.

94 PATRICIA RUBIN classical sources reasserted in the billowing drapery, massive musculature and elaborate armour of his figures, to create a work which is intensely all'antica, and suited to a collector and antiquarian such as Cardinal Alessandro.

Having identified the scenes and outlined the circumstances of their choice and composition, it is now possible to examine them in detail, to consider how they are grouped and linked and how they might have been understood by Cardinal Alessandro and his courtiers. The vault stuccoes seem to celebrate the Cardinal's liberality and promotion of the arts (P1. i7). His arms are in the centre with cornucopia in the surrounds. There are figures with garlands, lamps and musical instruments in the pendentives, flanked by sea monsters and a form of marine unicorn mounted by putti. The latter hybrid creatures, part of the standard repertoire of grotesque ornament, are also a variant of a familiar Farnese device: the unicorn. They occur in other Farnese projects, such as Paul III's addition to the Vatican loggie and the library at Castel S. Angelo. The unicorn had been glossed in I538 as 'an ancient impresa of the most excellent Farnese family . . . meaning that virtui extinguishes falsehood and gives birth to security'.52 The Farnese lily is in the decorative bands bracketing the marine monsters and the musical figures. These figures, along with the cornucopia and the two partially visible statues in the window frame, Apollo and (probably) Minerva, allude to the benefits of that security in the flourishing of the arts. This was a consistent theme in Farnese decorations, as in the Sala Paolina where there are muses in the overdoor frescoes. It was a theme which Caro had elaborated in a poem devoted to the secolo d'oro inaugurated by the pontificate of Paul III.5sa

Imprese are also placed in the centre of the stucco bands beneath the lunette arches: the 'lily ofjustice' (its motto AIKHI KPINON) over the Destruction of the Idols and Saturn receiving Janus and the arrow over the Martyrdom of St Lawrence and the Beheading of the Baptist (P1. I8c). The lily ofjustice was a family emblem, although its invention was later credited to Cardinal Alessandro.54 The arrow lodged in a target was a personal impresa. Caro was later to explain this emblem and its Greek motto BAMAA 'OYrrZ as: 'Homer's words ... which mean "Strike thus", signifying that one must hit the target spot-on'.55ss The context of the quotation, Agamemnon's praise ofTeucer's archery in Book viii of the Iliad, is one of action against the enemy and defence of a just cause. Cardinal Alessandro had commis- sioned a portrait medal with those words on the back, a symbol of the success which graced his undertakings.56 In the context of the chapel, placed over the martyrdoms of St Lawrence and St John and in association with the vigorous attacks upon idolatry and the coming of the Golden Age, it can be taken as emblematic of the inevitable success of the reform of the Roman church and the re-establishment of its hegemony under the Farnese.

This confidence is given conspicuous form in the stucco figures of Victories on the arch over the altar. These Victories provide the keynote to the chapel's imagery (P1. 2Ib),

52 'impresa antica della eccellentissima Casa Farnese... denotando che la virtil extingue la fraude e parturisce la securezza. B. Davidson, 'Pope Paul III's Additions to Raphael's Loggie: His "Imprese" in the Loggie', Art Bulletin, LXI, I979, pp. 396-98.

63 Castel Sant'Angelo (as in n. 20), I, figs I36, I38. Caro, Rime, Venice i 569, pp. 49-52.

54 G. Ruscelli, Le imprese illustri, Venice 1566, pp. 45-46.

ss 'parole d'Omero ... che vogliono dire: Cosi ferisci, significando che si debba dare nel punto'. Caro (as in n. I), II, 680, p. I45 as 'Invenzione di Molza'. It is similarly explained by P. Giovio, Le sententiose imprese, Lyons 1562, p. 63. See also Partridge, Art Bulletin, 1978 (as in n.5) PP. 497-98. 6 I. Affb, La Zecca e moneta Parmigiana illustrata, Parma 1788, p. 172, no. 105.

FARNESE CHAPEL IN THE CANCELLERIA 95

introducing the themes of martyrdom and triumph. Their presence has the effect of turning the altar niche into a triumphal arch. The focal point, dramatically lit, is the Infant Christ of the altarpiece. Celebrated here is the triumph of the religion born with Christ. This is the triumph of the New Covenant prophesied by the pagan sibyls and Jewish prophets represented here in the lunettes (P1. 20b, c). On the left isJeremiah whose prophecies of Christ's coming were set in the context of righteous authority and pastoral care, key themes of the chapel. Jeremiah warned: 'Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture ... I will set up shepherds over them which shall feed them: and they shall fear no more ... I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall executejudgement and justice in the earth' (23. I, 4, 5). The sibyl is not identified. Although the pairing of prophets and sibyls as dual witnesses to the messianic tradition was the norm in central Italy since the late fifteenth century, there was no canonical order or association among them.s7 The Cumaean prophecy of the Golden Age is referred to in one of the vault panels (P1. 26a), but the sibyl here lacks definite attributes and seems to be generically rather than specifically identified. She is present as a pagan witness to the Christian triumph.

The wreaths and palms held by the figures over the arches, attributes ofvictory, were also the traditional symbols of martyrdom; the reward and crown offered to the soldiers of Christ. It was St Paul who first associated military and athletic imagery with the defence and propagation of the Christian faith. Thus in II Timothy 4, Paul exhorted his followers: Preach the word . . . For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine ... But watch thou in all things, endure all affliction, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry ... I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course... Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness...

Paul was the name chosen by Cardinal Alessandro's grandfather as Pope to express his reformatory zeal. St Paul's conversion is one of the three main scenes of the chapel. The other two are, significantly, martyrdoms. The Pauline ideal of Christian militancy is voiced in one ofAnnibale Caro's poems, indicating its currency in Cardinal Alessandro's circle: 'O you, who so worthily adorn yourselves with the purple . .. above every honour and grade True athlete of CHRIST, have the name and burden of Him who was its bearer'.s8 And in the Sala de' Cento Giorni the figure of Religione Cristiana stood on 'a large bunch of palms for the foundation laid in the blood of holy martyrs'.s9

This imagery of religious heroism is one factor explaining Isaiah's presence on the altar wall. Not only did Isaiah urge the faithful to righteous behaviour, promising that: 'Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God' (62.3), but he was held to have been martyred by the enemies of his faith: an Old Testament precursor to the Christian martyrs. He is shown here with the attribute of his martyrdom, the saw (P1. 2 Ib). Certainly Isaiah is also present in conjunction with the Annunciation and the Nativity as a prophet of Christ's birth, a traditional position he

s7 A recent summary of the literature on the development of sibyl iconography in central Italy is given by K. Oberhuber in the exhibition catalogue of Early Italian Engravings from the National Gallery ofArt, Washington 1973, pp. 22-27. See also E. Wind, 'Michelangelo's Prophets and Sibyls', Proceedings ofthe British Academy, LI, I96o, pp. 47-84.

58ss 'O voi si, che di porpora.. . degnamente v'ornate... sovr'ogni onor, sovr'ogni grado/vero Atleta di CRISTO, il

nome, e'l carco/Di lui, che fu suo portatore avete'. Rime (as in n. 53), P. 32. s 'un gran fascio di palme per il fondamento fatto nel

sangue dei santi martiri.' As described by Antonfrancesco Doni in his letter about the Sala de' Cento Giorni, addressed to Lelio Torelli, Raccolta di lettere sulla pittura, scultura ed architettura, ed. G. Bottari and S. Ticozzi, Milan 1822, V, no. xxxvII, p. 158.

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enjoys in the Farnese hours as well, where he is shown on the page opposite the Annunciation (fols 47, 5'). Herald of the messianic era, whose vision of a Golden Age of reformed faith included the lily as a symbol (35.1-2: 'let the desert rejoice and blossom as a lily'), his prophecies are the subject of two vault panels.60

The scene in the vault panel over the altar is not from Isaiah however. It illustrates instead an episode taken from Numbers i6-I 7: the miraculous flowering ofAaron's rod, proof of God's election of Aaron to the priesthood (P1. 20a). Aaron was the type or prefiguration of the consecrated priesthood. He is described as such by Paul in his teaching on the ministry (Hebrews v. I, 4): 'For every high priest being taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins ... And no man taketh this honour unto himself, but that he is called of God, as was Aaron'. This established an uninterrupted line of clerical authority in a priesthood instituted by God in the Old Covenant and continued in the New Covenant by the papacy through Christ's charge to Peter and the apostolic succession. It is for this reason that the Pauline text is inscribed on the arch in the background of the Punishment of Korah in the Sistine Chapel, an integral part of that chapel's illustration of the concepts of primatus papae and potestas ecclesiae, and one undoubtedly familiar to Cardinal Alessandro and his circle.61 Aaron's election is a clear statement justifying sacerdotal privileges so hotly contested by Protestant reformers. Its placement over the altar, the liturgical centre of the chapel, is particularly apt.

The flowering rod, the proof of God's selection of Aaron, is visible through the curtain of the tabernacle. It is probably not coincidental here that God's miraculous confirmation of Aaron's authority was an answer to rebellion. As recounted in Numbers i6-i 7, Korah, Dathan and Abiram led an uprising against Moses and Aaron, seeking the priesthood for themselves. The Lord, as proof of his support of Moses, had the earth swallow up the dissidents and then commanded that 'all tribes put rods into the tabernacle' saying 'that the man's rod, whom I shall choose, shall blossom' and promising that 'I will make to cease from me the murmurings of the children of Israel, whereby they murmur against you'. Aaron was the hero of mid-sixteenth-century polemical texts against usurping Protestant ideas which denied the special powers of the priesthood.62 It is also likely in the context of the chapel that the relative positions of Moses and Aaron were understood and exploited, offering as they did a neat parallel with the Pope, the head of the Church, and Cardinal Alessandro, his chief executive officer: Moses was both king and priest, through him Aaron received his powers, those of priest alone.63

The scene of Moses and Aaron was suitably placed above the altar for another reason. Not only was Moses seen as a prefiguration of Christ, but the miraculous blossoming of Aaron's rod was seen as a type for the birth of Christ. It occurs as such in various editions of the Speculum Humanae Salvationis, for example.64 Thus the descent of sacerdotal power

60 Translated from the Vulgate: 'laetitibur deserta ... et florebit quasi lilium'. The inscription taken from Isaiah 7. 4 in the cartouche of the soffit of the altar arch, although appropriate, is not original. 61For the iconography of Aaron with particular reference

to papal supremacy, see L. D. Ettlinger, The Sistine Chapel before Michelangelo, Oxford 1965, pp. 68-69, r o4 ff. andJohn Shearman, Raphael's Cartoons in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen and the Tapestries for the Sistine Ceiling, London I972, p. 48 and n. 19 for early Christian and I6th-century sources.

62 For example the treatise by Girolamo Negri, Aaron sive de institutione christiani ponteficiis, dated 1543. 63 Shearman, Raphael's Cartoons (as in n. 6;), p. 48. 64 See D. G. Heider, Beitraige zur christlichen Typologie aus

Bilderhandschriften des Mittelalters, Vienna 1861, I, p. I2; M. R. James, Speculum Humanae Salvationis. Being a reproduc- tion of an Italian manuscript of the Fourteenth Century, Oxford I926, ch. viii; and H. Cornell, Biblia Pauperum, Stockholm I925, PP- 254-55.

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from Moses could be linked with the generations of Christ and the transition from the Old Covenant to the New achieved through the birth of Christ - which is shown on the altar (P1. 2Ib).

Whereas the scene of Moses and Aaron before the Tabernacle can be taken as emblematic of the positions of Paul III and Cardinal Alessandro as the legitimate administrators of divinely sanctioned authority, the altar, in its present form, illustrates their support of the Church. The Pope is shown as Joseph, holding the Infant Christ, with Cardinal Alessandro by his side looking outwards (P1.2Ic). The portraits are both additions, however -Joseph's head awkwardly attached to a female torso and Alessandro's body applied over a pre-existing layer of paint.65 The altarpiece originally seems to have shown Mary washing the Infant Christ, with the Child held by one of the midwives. Derived from apocryphal accounts of Christ's infancy and deplored by StJerome as lacking gospel authority, the tradition of the midwives' presence at Christ's birth survived in popular lore and mystery plays.66 The washing was taken to prefigure Christ's baptism.67 The subject of Mary washing the Infant Christ had a certain vogue in Italian painting between c. I52-50.68

There is some possibility that the choice of this scene for the altar resulted, as with the wall scenes, from Salviati (and Caro) proposing and Cardinal Alessandro accepting an adaptation of an earlier composition. It is quite likely that Salviati had made designs for the fresco of the Birth of the Baptist for the Oratory of the Decollato in 1538 before he was thwarted in this commission by Battista Franco. These projects were revived and ultimately painted in I55o, so that Salviati had them to hand, and in mind, on his return to Rome in 1548. The Birth of the Baptist canonically included the washing of the infant St John, and a drawing by Giuseppe Salviati of this subject which probably records Francesco's ideas for the Decollato shows a maidservant in a position similar to Paul III's in the Cancelleria altar (P1. 21ia).69 Moreover a group of maidservants bathing the Infant Mary occurs in the foreground of Sebastiano del Piombo's altarpiece of the Birth of the

65 I thank Maurizio de Luca for this information. The fact that Cardinal Alessandro's head is painted over a layer of varnish that has slightly discoloured suggests that at least a few years had passed. The figures ofJohn the Baptist and the shepherds at the left are also apparently subsequent and possibly much later additions. It is to be hoped that a precise and detailed account of the altarpiece will soon be published by the Vatican Museum. There is no way of dating the changes. Vasari's biography was written after Salviati's death, presumably 1566-68. Vasari (as in n. 4) mentions the portrait of Cardinal Alessandro saying that Salviati painted: 'in una tavola di pietra a olio la Nativith di Cristo, accomodando in quell'opera, che fu bellissima, il ritratto di detto cardinale' (vII, 31), thus dating the change to Salviati's lifetime. It is possible, but not strictly necessary, that the verb used, accomodando, indicates the change. While it can have that sense, Vasari also uses it frequently simply to indicate the inclusion of portraits in historical or religious scenes.

66 See P.J. Nordhagen, 'The Origin of the Washing of the Child in the Nativity Scene', Byzantinische Zeitschrift, xLIV, 1961, PP. 333-37; R. Frauenfelder, Die Geburt des Herrn, Leipzig 1929, P. 334; and C. Musumarra, La Sacra Rappresentazione della Nativiti nella tradizione italiana, Florence 9 7, P. 3. 6 G. Ristow, 'Geburt Christi', Reallexikon zur

Byzantini- schzen Kunst, Stuttgart 1971, i, p. 649 and Lexikon der

Christlichen Ikonographie, ed. E. Kirschbaum S.J., Vienna I970, I, p.99.

6In addition to the painting by Giulio Romano now in Dresden (F. Hartt, Giulio Romano, New Haven 1958, pl. i25), there is one by Lorenzo Lotto in the Siena Pinacoteca (B. Berenson, Lorenzo Lotto, London 1956, pl. 128, pl. I29 shows a version in Florence, Ferroni Gallery). There is a drawing of the subject by Schiavone (Courtauld Institute, Witt Collection 2452; F. L. Richardson, Andrea Schiavone, Oxford 1980, cat. no. 181, fig. I i1) and a series of drawings by Parmigianino which A. E. Popham dates to c. 1526, relating them to an Adoration engraved by Caraglio with that date: Catalogue of the Drawings ofParmigianino, New Haven and London 1971, I, p. 66, and no. 72, Uffizi; nos I88R, I89R, British Museum; no. 297, Metropolitan Museum; no. 366, Louvre; no. 522, Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris; o.c. 49, Windsor (pls 145-48, 152). I am grateful to David Ekserdjian for bringing the examples by Lotto, Schiavone and Parmigianino to my attention. 69 Victoria and Albert Museum, Dyce collection no. 289.

For this drawing and its connection with Salviati's hopes for the Decollato commission, see Cheney, Art Bulletin, 1963 (as in n. 38), p. 337, n. 2. For the Decollato, see also Vasari (as in n. 4), vI, p. 579 (Life of Battista Franco).

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Virgin begun for the Chigi chapel in S. Maria del Popolo. It was precisely this group which Salviati was to complete when he took over the Chigi commission. Although Salviati's work in the Chigi chapel probably dates from the I550s, there seems to have been revived interest in the Popolo chapel in January 1548, the date of an agreement between Chigi's son and Sebastiano's son, the respective heirs to the commission. It is possible that Salviati was approached to complete the chapel at this time, an involvement and/or initiative which might have suggested the execution of a related subject as a form of test piece in the unusual medium of oil on peperino.70

Even if the washing was an adapted invenzione it could have been seen as particularly appropriate to the Cancelleria altarpiece, for it added a baptismal, thus sacramental, association to the Nativity, a liturgical content taking up the sacerdotal theme of the Moses/Aaron scene of the vault. The administration of the sacraments was one of the privileges of the priesthood debated by the Protestants. The final decree on the sacra- ments declaring Protestant beliefs anathema had been passed at the Council of Trent in March i547. Of the thirty canons, fourteen were devoted to Baptism. The 'washing' version of the Cancelleria Nativity thus might have been taken to allude to a subject of current interest. Yet however suitable when first executed, such a Nativity would soon become impolitic, even embarrassing. For during these years the question of decorum in religious imagery was increasingly discussed, and St Jerome's condemnation of apo- cryphal scenes such as the midwives was taken up by contemporary polemicists. In a treatise published in 1552, De Cultu & Adoratione Imaginum, Ambrogio Catarino cited the representation of apocryphal scenes first among the abuses in sacred imagery." This censure was repeated by Giovanni Andrea Gilio in his dialogue dedicated to Cardinal Alessandro, Degli Errori e degli Abusi de' Pittori . . . , citing specifically the Infantia Salva- toris.72 Such arguments, increasingly pressing, suggest a strong motive for 'correcting' the picture in order to transform it into a more canonical scene: thus the rather ungainly conversion of a serving maid to a man.

This change not only made the altar's image more decorous, it made it more direct. As Joseph, Paul III appears as the chief support of the newborn Saviour. Devotion to Joseph as protector of the Church in time of need had been promoted in the early fifteenth century by theologians at the Council of Constance. His cult expanded during the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries; Joseph, the elected bridegroom of Mary, was increasingly

70 M. Hirst, Sebastiano del Piombo, Oxford 1981, p. 140 points out that Salviati was in Rome at the end of 1547 and suggests that there may be some connection between the agreement and Salviati's visit. The agreement, published by G. Cugnoni, Agostino Chigi il Magnifico, Rome 1878, p. 142, no. 4, as evidence of work in the chapel, has since gone astray: 'Die 5a Januarii 1548. Compromissum inter D.Laur.m Chisium ex una, et D. Julium de Lucianis super pictura facienda in capella de gli heredi detti Chisi in Ecc.a S. Mariae de Populo Urbis F. I'. It is discussed by M. Hirst, loc. cit. and J. Shearman, 'The Chigi Chapel in S. Maria del Popolo', this Journal, xxwv, 1961, p. '3'. 71 Enarrationes R.P.F. Ambrosii Catharini Politi Senesis

Archiepiscopi Campsani in Quinque Priora Capita Libri Geneseos, Rome 1552, p. 143. Catarino was a member of the circle of reformers around Vittoria Colonna. He was sent to the

Council of Trent in 1545 as part of the papal party. For the question of religious imagery as related to issues of reform, see H. Jedin, 'Entstehung und Tragweite des Trienter Dekrets fiber die Bilderverehrung', Kirche des Glaubens, Kirche der Geschichte, Freiburg 1966, I, pp. 460-98, which dates widespread Catholic interest to the i550s (pp. 460-64). See also R. de Maio, Michelangelo e la controriforma, Bari 1978, pp. 17-29 for the period of the 1540os and 1550s and Dolce's discussion of propriety, 'con- venevolezza', in religious painting in L'Aretino (Venice I557; PP. I I8-I9, 162-63).

72 Published in 1564, see Trattati d'arte del Cinquecento, ed. P. Barocchi, Bari 1961, II, pp. 42-43, see p. 58 for further 16th-century literature condemning apocryphal sources and citing the midwives.

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exalted as the patron of Christian worship.73 In the Mass celebratingJoseph's feast day in a Roman Missal published in 1550 as 'reformed and approved' by Paul III, Joseph is invoked as Patriarcha inclyte and besought to lead the faithful 'to the stars of heaven, through Christ whom you held in your arms; you sat devotedly and joyfully by the crib with the chaste mother, newly brought to birth', and thus he is shown here at the Nativity.74 The portrait addition probably dates from the early 155os and thus represents a posthumous commemoration of the Pope in the figure ofJoseph, the biblical Patriarcha holding the Infant merging with the historical, venerated patriarch of the Farnese family.7" In the Gospel of Matthew the list of Christ's ancestors ends in Joseph, and perhaps a parallel of generations is suggested here, with Paul III/Joseph as the mediator: representing those leading to the age of the New Covenant and those taking up the burden of defending it. In any event the change to the altar directly associates the Farnese with the beginning of the age of redemption.

The altar wall sets out the themes of divinely sanctioned power, of election and priesthood, of the new age offaith and its champions which are developed on the other walls. The development is not narrative, it depends on significant images, images relating to Farnese offices, interests and activities, which are thematically linked and grouped. Not surprisingly, therefore, the Conversion ofPaul is one of the principal scenes. It is painted over the chapel's entrance on the long wall facing the altar (Fig. I, P1. 19b). The Conversion was a staple of the iconography of the Farnese pontificate: it occurs in the Sala Paolina and was chosen by the Pope for one of the walls in his chapel in the Vatican. It was also the subject ofa medal.76 Alessandro Farnese's choice of the name of Paul, Roman apostle, vas electionis and soldier ofChrist, was undoubtedly meant to express his role as protector of the faith and his sincerity with regard to the reform of the Church. This was the way it was understood by the commission of cardinals he had appointed to study the state of the Church. At the close of their report, the Consilium ... de emendanda Ecclesia, they wrote:

You have chosen the name of Paul: you will imitate, we believe, Paul's charity. He was elected as the vessel which would carry the name of Christ to the people. We hope that you have been elected to restore to our hearts and our actions the name of Christ forgotten by the people . .. to cure the ills and to return to one single fold the lambs of Christ and to preserve us from the wrath of God...77

73 For example Isidorus de Isolanis, Summa de donis S. Joseph, I522, Book 2. For the cult and related literature, see J. Seitz, Die Verehrung des hi. Joseph in ihrer geschictlichen Entwicklung bis zum Konzil von Trient dargestellt, Freiburg im Breisgau 1908, pp. 252-78. The first church in Rome dedicated to Joseph (S. Giuseppe de'Falegnami) was built during the pontificate of Paul III, see A. Rossi, O.S.M., 'I1 culto di San Giuseppe a Roma e un disegno sconosciuto di Perin del Vaga', Studi storici deli' ordine dei Servi di Maria, xvIII, 1968, p. 256 and G. Milone, 'Origine e primi sviluppi dell'arciconfraternita di San Giuseppe de Falegnami in Roma', Cahiers dejosiphologie, xxv, 1977, pp. 691-749, who also notes that three confraternities devoted to Joseph were founded in the 1540s. 74 'ad caeli sydera / Per Christum quem tractasti; cum

casta puerpera, praesepio cum gaudio: devote reclinasti .. ' Missale Romanum .... Lyons 1550, p. I76. 7 Pope Paul was to appear as Joseph in the Flight into

Egypt in Cardinal Capodiferro's chapel in his palace (now Palazzo Spada). In that same chapel the current Pope,

Julius III, was depicted as Joseph in the Adoration where Cardinal Alessandro is included among the Magi, see L. Neppi, Palazzo Spada, Rome i975, p. 44. 76 F. Bonanni, Numismata Pontificum Romanorum, Rome

1706, no. xxxvIii. See also F. Jacobs, Studies in the Patronage and Iconography of Pope Paul III (534--549), Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of Virginia, i979, pp. I79-83, for the Conversion. 77 Sumpsisti, tibi nomen Pauli; imitaberis, speramus,

caritatem Pauli: electus fuit ille ut vas, quod deferret nomen Christi per gentes; te vero speramus electum ut nomen Christi, iam oblitum a gentibus... restituas in cordibus et operibus nostris, aegritudines sanes, oves Christi in unum ovile reducas, amoveasque a nobis iram Dei ... 'Consilium delectorum cardinalium et aliorum praela- torum de emendanda Ecclesia', Monumentorum ad historiam Concilii Tridentini ... collectio, ed.J. Leplat, Louvain 1782, 1, p. 604. See P. Tacchi Venturi, Storia della Compagnia di Gesui in Italia, Rome 1950,, I, pp. I9-25 for an Italian translation and a discussion of the 'Consilium', submitted in 1538.

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This same 'imitation of Paul' was the subject ofAgostino Bonucci's dedication of his tract Conversio Pauli to Paul III: Since this is so, by the will of God the name of Paul has been given to you, since you have been created the Supreme pontiff by the highest providence of the same God. . ; nor indeed is it without significance that you reverently celebrate the conversion of Paul, since in this crucial and most turbulent time for a Christian state, both in your general conduct of things and also in your summoning the Council, you have shown yourself to be the man not only to bring back heretics to the true faith but to convert every last infidel, imitating Paul, who, having first been converted himself by Christ, converted innumerable peoples.7"

Pope Paul's contemporaries gave a topical interpretation to his choice of name, and it is one which accords with a major theme of the frescoes in the chapel: the restoration of the true faith. Paul, like Aaron, was selected by God, his miraculous vocation a transmission of divine authority to an appointed minister. In Ephesians Paul describes his conversion as the 'revelation ... Whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power'

(3.3,7). Paul's ministry ended in

Rome, site of his martyrdom, making that city doubly apostolic. By taking this name the Pope combined the authority of Paul with the office of Peter.79

The conversion was the moment of humiliation and illumination when a persecutor of the faith was chosen to be its chief promulgator. The turbulent intensity of Salviati's rendering of the event, with its blinding light, dazed, fallen saint, bolting horse and centrifugal burst of attendants, links it emotionally with the martyrdoms shown on the other walls. The association of conversion and martyrdom made here repeats that of the Pauline chapel, where the conversion of Paul was paired with the martyrdom of Peter. The association of conversion and martyrdom with the propagation of the faith was sanctioned by Paul who preached as one 'crucified with Christ' (Galatians 2.20). This was to be taken up by the Church Fathers; thus Augustine, commenting on Galatians 6.14, wrote:

Spread the Gospel: scatter with thy mouth what thou hast conceived in thine heart. Let the nations believe; let the nations multiply, let the Lord's empurpled spouse spring forth from the blood of Martyrs. And from her how many have come already, how many members have cleaved to the Head and cleave to Him and still believe.8s

A dazzling shower of yellow light bathes the scene of the conversion here. The intensity of this light is a reminder of Paul's description of his conversion when he '. .. saw on the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me and them which journeyed with me', and when he was appointed by Christ to go among

78 'Quod cum ita sit, nutu Dei, Pauli tibi nomen inditum fuit, cum Pontifex maximus summa eiusdem Dei provi- dentia creareris; neque vero temere tu Pauli conversionem persancte coelebras, cum iis summis ac turbolentissimis christianiae reipublicae temporibus, cum in gerendis rebus omnibus, tumrn etiam in indicendo Concilio talem te praestiteris, ut non modo haereticos ad orthodoxam fidem revocaturus, verum etiam infideles prorsus omnes sis conversurus, Paulum imitatus, qui gentes innumeras ad Christum, a quo prius ipse conversus fuerat, convertit.' Quoted from M. M. Aldrovandi, 'Agostino Bonucci priore generale O.S.M. e la sua partecipazione al Concilio di Trento', Studi storici dell'Ordine dei Servi di Maria, xm, 1963, p. I 18. The manuscript of the Conversio Sancti Pauli (i 545) is

in the Vatican Library and has a special Farnese binding. For this, see Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Legature papali da Eugenio IV a Paolo VI. Catalogo della mostra, Citti del Vaticano 1977, no. 88, Vat. lat. 3638. 79 For the importance of the idea of the 'joint foundation'

of the Roman Church by Peter and Paul, the 'first architects' of the Church of Christ, both in establishing its authority and in bringing about peace, see Shearman, Raphael's Cartoons (as in n. 61), pp. 61, 74-81 and C. Pietri, 'Concordia Apostolorum et Renovatio Urbis', Milanges d'archiologie et histoire, LXXIII, I9g6I, pp. 275-322.

80so A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, New York 1888, Iv, p. 458.

FARNESE CHAPEL IN THE CANCELLERIA IOI the Gentiles 'to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light' (Acts 26.13,18). The spiralling contortions of the saint express both the power of this illumination and the action of turning towards the light. Paul's complicated position, the focal point of the painting, represents a dramatic, formal and religious dificolta, expressing in its convulsive twisting the dynamic of repentance and conversion. It is a demonstration of artistic powers as well as religious forces, formal and religious themes which are reinforced by the flanking prophets David and Jonah (Fig. I, Pls I9b, 23b, c).8' David is composed in a foreshortened spiral, raising his hand upwards. Jonah serpentines down towards the mouth of the whale. One exultant, the other cramped and penitential, both evoke moods which are appropriate accompaniments to Paul's conversion and to traditional character- izations of those prophets.

The figure of David, prophet and king, was one particularly rich in association. Foremost among the ancestors ofChrist, he was the king 'whose house and dominion were to stand forever' (ii Kings 7.I6), a dynastic promise undoubtedly appealing to the Farnese. Repentance as much as kingship was a Davidic theme. The penitential psalms in the Farnese hours, for example, are accompanied by an illumination of David kneeling in penitence (fol. 64r). In the chapel, however, the figure is conceived dynamically, looking upwards as though receiving the illumination which blinded Saul. This is the David of Psalm 24: 'Unto thee, Oh Lord, I lift up my soul ... Mine eyes upon the Lord continually are set ... Turn unto me thy face ... Redemption, Lord, to Israel from all his troubles send'. The Psalms express both 'affliction and pain' at past sins, and confidence in the Lord's mercy 'to those that do his covenant keep and testimonies pure': a sure parallel with the contemporary state of church affairs.82 In the Psalms, David - called by St Augustine 'the mediator', 'the strong in hand' - both exposes his distress and rejoices in his confidence ofGod's protection and salvation. For this reason David's repentance, his triumph in weakness, was traditionally seen to prefigure the victories of the Church against its enemies. Thus in his sermon on Psalm 26: 'The Lord is my light and salvation; whom shall I fear?... Though an host should encamp against me... shall mine head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me: And I will offer in his tabernacles sacrifices ofjoy', St Augustine saw David as representing Christ, rex et sacerdos, a king 'because he rules and leads us; a priest, because he intercedes for us', and the tabernacle as the 'Holy Church'.83 For Augustine, as for other Church Fathers, David's prevailing against his enemies could be referred to the 'honour of the Church, which prevailed over the persecution by her enemies through world-wide faith'.84 The exegetical tradition used the figure of David to validate the fusion of sacred and secular power in the Christian commonwealth, the Church, defended by God against its foes: a concept which was vividly present to Cardinal Alessandro, politician and prelate, ambassador and adminis- trator of that commonwealth, then beleaguered by the infidel Turks, the heretical

81 For contemporary appreciation of precisely this form of 'santa invenzione' see Aretino's ecstatic letter to Salviati written upon seeing Salviati's print of the Conversion ofPaul, where he marvels, for example, at the way in which the Apostle: 'precipita in gid con una si arguta ricadenzia che move a pieth e a terrore insieme' (August 1545: as in n. 37; Lettere, n, CCXLvII, pp. 84-87).

82 In the following discussion, in order to maintain consistent references between early commentators and the

Biblical text, I have followed the numbering of the Psalms in the Vulgate, which is generally one number behind the Hebrew version.

83 'quia nos regit et ducit; sacerdos, quia pro nobis interpellat.. .' Enarrationes in Psalmos, Psalm xxvi, Enarratio n. See Corpus Christianorum, series latina, xxxviim: Aurelius Augustinus, Opera, x, I, Turnholt 1961, pp. 154-55, i6i. 84 Ibid., p. I62.

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northerners and the 'foolish discord of Christian princes'.85 The Nations paying homage to Paul III in the Sala de' Cento Giorni illustrates Cardinal Alessandro's confidence in the benefits of this order, the AUREUM SECULUM, as does the jubilant David in this chapel, confident that 'Though war against me rise ... Even at this present time, mine head shall lifted be I Above all those that are my foes . . .' (Psalm 26).*86

Jonah (P1. I9b) was also a repentant prophet, and likewise for the Church Fathers an instance of the power of God's justice. Gregory of Nazianzus, whose Orations Caro was to translate, wrote ofJonah's attempted flight from God: And the outcome of it all is that when God wants to have and to hold someone in His power, one can flee or defend oneself from nothing less easily than from Him. He overtakes the speedy, confounds the prudent, overpowers the strong, humiliates the proud, makes the daring meek, casts down the powerful: Jonah knew how strong was the hand of God.87

The prophets and Paul are thematically linked in their repentance, their election by God and in demonstrating both the mercy and the power of God against the enemies of the true faith. The scene of Paul's conversion and its message of support for the Church and its divinely instituted power is thus doubly reinforced by the Old Testament prophets.

The lunette also represents a conversion: from pagan to Christian ritual (P1. 22b). To the right there burns a pile of cast-off idols and sacrificial vessels, while to the left a priest holds up the Host to a worshipping crowd. The priest's dark hair and beard, strong features and balding head are traditional in depictions of St Paul and it is likely that this scene illustrates I Corinthians Io-I I, a key Pauline text concerning the institution of the Eucharist. I Corinthians IO-I6 is particularly germane here, for it is an injunction against idolatry preached specifically in terms of 'The cup of blessing which we bless ... a communion in the blood of Christ. The bread . .. a communion of the body of Christ'. In this letter St Paul contrasts true Christian sacrifice to things sacrificed by Gentiles, 'communion with devils' opposed to the community of Christianity as expressed by the Eucharistic rite. The lunette follows an established tradition of illustrating the text by showing 'Paul as a priest celebrating the Eucharist': the doctrinal points becoming dramatic actions.88 Liturgical vestments and cult objects, the host, the paten, the chalice, St Paul's chasuble and the altar cloth, are emphasized here. The priest and his gesture, the elevation of the host, are literally enshrined, raised up on a platform and enclosed by columns. This structure is more than an effective pictorial device, focusing on the ritual, its form is that of the ciborium supported by four columns which was over the high altar of

s85 P. Giovio, Delle Istorie del suo tempo, Venice 158 1, p. 146. For this picture of the times, see also the 1542 Bull of Indiction of the Council of Trent, The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, transl. T. A. Buckley, London 1851, pp. 1-12.

86 The ideal of'rex et sacerdos' represented by David was central to Farnese policy and imagery. It is as king and priest that Paul III is celebrated in the Sala Paolina at Castel Sant'Angelo where the imagery is based on his names and titles: Alexander, the High Priest and Paul; see R. Harprath, Papst Paul III als Alexander der Grosse. Das Freskenprogramm der Sala Paolina in der Engelsburg, Berlin and New York I978. See also Jacobs, Studies (as in n. 76) pp. 89-2Io for the Castel Sant'Angelo, and pp. 65, I22-23 for references to contemporary texts on papal absolutism.

87 'Et la somma di tutto 6, che quando Dio vuol havere, et tener uno in potesti sua, da nessun'altra cosa si puo manco fuggire, ne difender, che da lui. Egli trapassi i veloci, confonde i prudenti, sforza i gagliardi, humilia gli altieri, fa manusueti gli audaci, deprime i potenti, sapeva Jona quanto era forte la man di Dio.' Due Orationi, ed. G. B. Caro, trs. A. Caro, Venice 1569, pp. 68-69, from the first Oration 'On his resumption of the priesthood and the duties of bishops'. 88 L. Eleen, The Illustration of the Pauline Epistles in French

and English Bibles of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, Oxford 1982, pp. 1 28-3 1.

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St Peter's, the saint's tomb and the most sacred altar of the Roman church.s9 The importance given to celebrant and ceremony here develops the liturgical theme present elsewhere in the chapel: in the Moses and Aaron scene above the altar and in the ritual vessels forming part of the stuccoes above the prophet tabernacles. Above David there is a censer, over Jonah an incense burner, over Isaiah a burning lamp (Pls I9b, 21Ib). In the fresco the instruments of the Christian sacrifice cover a pagan altar and are the focus of rapturous attention as the priest raises the Host, since the late Middle Ages the moment of the Mass regarded as the heart of the mystery.90

This scene gives historical form to the Church's teaching about the sacraments, recently reaffirmed in the seventh session of the Council of Trent. There, in March 1547, the Protestant belief that 'the sacraments are merely outward signs of grace or righteous- ness received through faith' had been systematically condemned.91 Thirty canons refuted the Protestant 'errors' point by point, stating unequivocally that the sacraments produce their effect 'through the act performed (ex opere operato)' and not through 'faith alone in the divine promise'.92 Thus in this scene the converted worshippers look up with ardent devotion at the altar, the Host, the chalice and the gesture of the priest. Their desire is for salvation through the sacrament, not faith alone, an attitude proclaimed at the Council.93 Paul is performing his dual role of minister and witness, the charge laid upon him by Christ, as shown in his conversion below, and fulfilled by his successors in the Church. Paul was elected to preach the faith to the Gentiles 'that they may receive the remission of sins and an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith' in Christ (Acts 26. 16-19). It is through Paul, the priest, the vessel ofChrist and not through faith alone, Luther's sola fides, that these Gentiles have been moved to reject false beliefs and accept redemption in Christ. Christian sacrifice, the sacrifice of Christ represented in the miraculous presence of the Blood and Body in the consecrated Host, has replaced pagan sacrifice. The Protestants had challenged the idea of the offering of Christ's body in the Host, substituting commemoratio for representatio passionis in the Mass, thereby denying the special spiritual powers of the priesthood.94 Paul's action here, and its placement in a form of tabernacle, a recurrent metaphor for the Church in Pauline and patristic writings, is a clear statement of the Church's position: sacrament and Church are inextricably linked and grace is given through the sacrament as administered according to the approved rites of the Church.95

A scene showing the veneration of the Eucharist was not only topical, it was particularly apposite in the Cancelleria chapel: the first confraternity in Rome devoted to

89 For the traditional form of the altar in St Peter's, which was also the shrine of the saint's tomb, see I. Lavin, Bernini and the Crossing ofSt Peter's, New York 1968, pp. 4-5 and figs i5-i8. Paul was also associated with this shrine, it was believed that he too was buried under the altar, see E. Kirschbaum, SJ., Die Griiber der Apostelfirsten, Frankfurt- am-Main 1959, PP. 219, 249, n. 65. 90J. Jungmann, S.J., Missarum Sollemnia, Vienna 1948, 1,

p. 155. 91 Quoted from Canon vI, Canons and Decrees (as in n. 85),

p. 52. For the seventh session, see H. Jedin, A History ofthe Council of Trent, transl. E. Graf, Edinburgh 1961, n, P 370--9I.

Canon vnm, Canons and Decrees (as in n. 85), p. 52. 93 Ibid., Canon Iv. 94 E. Iserloh, 'Das tridentinische Messopferdekret in

seinen Beziehungen zu der Kontroverstheologie der Zeit', II

Concilio di Trento e la riforma. Atti del Convegno storico internazionale 1963, Rome 1965, H, PP. 401-90o, especially pp. 417-26. E. C. Messenger, The Reformation, the Mass and the Priesthood, London 1946, p. 203. 9s Canons vini-ximi, Canons and Decrees (as in n.85),

pp. 52-53. For the metaphor of the tabernacle as the Church, see for example Hebrews 8, 9 on the 'greater and more perfect tabernacle' of which Christ is the high priest; and St Augustine, Enarrationes (as in n. 83), Psalm xxvi: 12-1I3, pp. 161-62. For the Church's position on the Eucharist, see the discussion ofCatholic writers in F. Clark, S.J., Eucharistic Sacrifice and the Reformation, London 1g60, and F. Lauchert, Die italienischen literarischen Gegner Luthers, Freiburg im Breisgau g1912.

8

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the Eucharist had been located at San Lorenzo in Damaso, Cardinal Alessandro's titular church, which was annexed to the palace.'96 In the Farnese Hours, Paul III, who had given particular encouragement to devotion to this sacrament, is shown carrying the Host in an elaborate depiction of the Corpus Christi procession (fols 72v-73). And in 1539, with the Bull Dominus Noster: '. .. thanking almighty God that in our times so many beneficial, necessary and useful works have been undertaken, and wishing that they always be continued', he instituted the Confraternita del Sacratissimo Corpo di Cristo.97 This confraternity had extensive powers, not confined to a single parish, but including all the churches of the city, in order that: '. .. the divine sacrament . . . might receive its due homage of reverence and love'.98 The enraptured attitude of the crowd in the lunette seems to express such reverence and love.

The scene in the vault panel above (P1. 22a) is an illustration of Isaiah's prophecy of the days when: out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge between nations, and shall reprove many peoples: and they shall beat their swords into plough- shares, and their spears into pruninghooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore (2.3-4)

Discarded armour lies at the foot of the anvil. The object forged by the three men is obscured by damage, but a curved hook seems to be visible, as is the broken handle of a sword. In the background two oxen rest, presumably awaiting their ploughshare. The scene, based on a text about righteous authority and lasting peace, accords perfectly with Paul III's stated aims and cherished hopes for peace among the Christian princes; a vision and a policy which Cardinal Alessandro was actively engaged in implementing as the Pope's ambassador. One wall of the Sala de'Cento Giorni is devoted to showing Paul III as peacemaker. And the passage from Isaiah accords equally well with St Paul's mission, for his was 'the gospel of peace' (Ephesians 6.I5), he preached 'the peace of Christ', to which Christians 'were called in one body' (Colossians 3.15).

This rather unusual Old Testament scene has been given a quite familiar classical form, that of the forge of Vulcan, the artist taking his cue from the activity rather than working out a more precise visual translation of the text. This might have been simple expediency. It might also have been intentional and rather ingenious, combining topographical allusion with biblical illustration, for the Vulcanalia, the festival honouring the armourer god, was celebrated in the Campo Marzio, the piazza adjacent to the

96 M. Maroni and A. Martini, Le confraternite romane nelle loro chiese, Rome 1963, p. 20. See also G. Barbiero, Le confraternite del santissimo sacramento prima del 1539, Turin 1944, PP. 191--92 and P. Tacchi Venturi, Compagnia di Gesti (as in n. 77), I, pp. 220-21.

97 Venturi, op. cit., p. 223. 98 Ibid. See also Barbiero, Le confraternite (as in n. 96),

p. 142. It was also around this time that a chapel was built in Old St Peter's to house the sacrament. Until then, Vasari (as in n. 4) says it was 'per rispetto della muraglia poco onorato' (v, 625-26; built by Antonio da Sangallo 1542-45, decorated by Perino del Vaga, dedicated 1548, the tabernacle was by Donatello, see H. Caspary, Das Sakramentstabernakel in Italien bis zum Konzil von Trient,

Munich 1964, pp. I8, 182 n. 316). Interestingly Vasari described the Pauline chapel as the chapel 'dove si ha da mettere il Sacramento' (v, 466). Written for the 1550 edition this undoubtedly reflects the view of its primary function in Paul III's time, one which C. Gilbert has remarked upon, pointing out that until this time the chapel by Fra Angelico which was destroyed to make way for the Pauline chapel had simply been designated 'cappella parva' and only in Vasari's day was it called the chapel of the sacrament, indicating that 'the theological importance of the host as the center of ritual was growing' ('Fra Angelico's fresco cycles in Rome: their number and dates', Zeitschrift fir Kunstgeschichte, xxxvmII, 1975, p. 248).

FARNESE CHAPEL IN THE CANCELLERIA 105

Cancelleria.99 This festival also coincided with the feast day of St Lawrence's martyrdom (Io August).

The Martyrdom of St Lawrence is the principal scene on the wall to the right of the entrance (Fig. I, P1. 25a). It has quite direct application to the Cardinal, for the church of S. Lorenzo in Damaso was his titular church. St Lawrence was, moreover, 'The Levite highest in rank . . . in charge of the safe-keeping of the holy things, with trusty keys managing the treasury of the heavenly house ... '- a direct parallel with the Cardinal's rank in the Church as Vice-Chancellor.aoo Another Farnese office and office-holder may be referred to in this fresco as well. The young man at the left looking away from the martyrdom and out into the chapel can possibly be identified as one of Cardinal Alessandro's younger brothers, Ottavio or Orazio (P1. 25b). The turn of the head, creating direct contact with the viewer and contemporary reality, suggests that this is a portrait. As a type this oval-shaped face has a distinctly Farnese cast, with its high broad forehead, prominent nose and curly dark hair, and it resembles known portraits of both Ottavio and Orazio, such as that of Orazio in Taddeo Zuccaro's fresco at Caprarola showing Orazio Made Prefect ofRome by Pope Paul III (P1. 25d). The Caprarola scene and its protagonists are identified by an inscription dating the event to 1538, which was actually the year ofOttavio's investiture with that office. Orazio, born in

153 1, was made Prefect in

I547. The putative age of the Cancelleria figure is closer to Ottavio's (born in I524), and the face is similar to Salviati's portrait of Ottavio (next to Charles V) in the War against the Schmalkaldic League in the Palazzo Farnese (P1. 25c).ao0

The Prefect of Rome was its highest ranking civic official: he was, theoretically, the chief administrator of the city. By the sixteenth century the actual duties of the office were ceremonial, but its symbolic importance was absolute. Held to have been instituted by Romulus, the legendary founder of Rome, the prefecture formed a direct link between imperial power and papal sovereignty.1a2 This unbroken tradition of Roman power, secular and sacred, was stressed by the Farnese as it provided a historical basis for the supremacy and rule of the Roman church. And the continuity of temporal and ecclesiasti- cal authority vested in the Church since biblical times is certainly one of the principal themes of the chapel, and it was one stressed on this wall, which may explain the inclusion of the portrait in this scene (it is the only portrait in the wall frescoes). Here the Farnese prefect, the contemporary Roman looking out at the spectator, is juxtaposed with the ancient Roman who sentenced the saint to death and is watching his martyrdom - the representative of the pagan power superseded through such sacrifices.

While the martyrdom is an obvious choice for Cardinal Alessandro's chapel, its combination with scenes of destruction of temples and idols is not self-evident. The connection is provided by Prudentius's description of the event in the Crowns ofMartyrdom,

99 Schiavo, Cancelleria (as in n. 8), p. 175. Interestingly, Vulcan was also associated with Cardinal Alessandro's astrological sign, Libra. 100oo Prudentius, Crowns of Martyrdom, transl. H. J. Thom- son, Cambridge Mass. and London 1953, n, Book nII, p. 109. x1x See also the portrait bust in the Metropolitan Museum ofArt showing Ottavio with a short beard and moustache as here, datable between 1542 and 1552;J. G. Phillips and O. Raggio, 'Ottavio Farnese', Bulletin ofthe Metropolitan Museum of Art, xu, 1954, PP. 233-40 (P1. 25e). Any reference to Ottavio in the chapel is likely to date before the autumn of

1549 when his rebellious refusal to obey the Pope and his attempts to secure Parma and Piacenza for himself and not the Church were responsible for breaking Paul III's health, leading to the Pope's death on io November. It is a measure of Cardinal Alessandro's combined political concern and family feeling that, acting as mediator, he effected a reconciliation between his dying grandfather and his greedy brother.

o102 For this office, see Partridge, Art Bulletin, 1978 (as in n. 5), PP. 507-o9 with further references.

Io6 PATRICIA RUBIN

where he demonstrates how St Lawrence's death prepared the way for Christian triumph. He writes: 'From that day forward the worship of the base gods flagged ... The death the holy martyr died was in truth the death of the temples'.o3 Prudentius describes the moment of the saint's martyrdom depicted here: After the long-continued heat has burned his side away, Lawrence on his own part hails thejudge and addresses him briefly from the gridiron. 'This part of my body has been burned long enough, turn it round and try what your hot god of fire has done'.'04

St Lawrence, like St Paul, was martyred in Rome, and Prudentius invokes the city and the Church:

Rome, thou ancient mother of temples, but now given up to Christ, Lawrence has led thee to victory over barbarous worship. Thou hadst already conquered haughty kings and held nations in check; now thou dost lay the yoke of thy power on unnatural idols... All (the Church's) members everywhere are now allied in the confession of faith. The world it has subdued grows peaceable. May she see that countries far apart are uniting in one state of grace.xs05

Here the end of 'barbarous worship' and the enduring peace that follows are combined with a statement of Roman power and authority in a manner which conforms exactly with the current ideals of reform as promulgated by Cardinal Alessandro.

Above the martyrdom are scenes showing the temples and 'unnatural idols' being torn down and destroyed. The scenes chosen represent the 'death of the temples' which marked the end of persecution and pagan rule and the triumph of true faith under the first Christian Emperor, Constantine (P1. 24a, b). It was through the conversion and reign of Constantine that imperium and sacerdotium were combined to establish the Christian commonwealth. Constantine, according to Prudentius, taught the Roman world 'how to have power foreverlasting in a supremacy that is from heaven'.o6 Indeed the argument of Prudentius's Reply to Symmachus is that God had sanctioned the 'great successes and triumphs of the Roman power' to prepare the way for Christ's coming, 'determining that all the civilized world should be harnessed to one ruling power' that there might be peace. 107 With Constantine the pax Augusta was converted into the pax Christi and Rome forsook the 'bloodstained altar' ofJupiter and devoted herself to Christ, that 'her earthly realm' might extend 'beyond the lofty stars of the great

firmament'.,0s In his Oration in praise of Constantine Eusebius describes how 'by guidance of the Supreme God and through the agency of the sovereign' the 'terrible delusion' of false belief was exposed and 'the instruments of wanton error were broken up'. Shown in the vault is how, according to Eusebius's description, the 'gods of hoary myth were [made] captive, surrounded by braided rope and led away'. The hidden recesses of the temples were opened, and the 'lifeless idols' were taken from their niches and pedestals. Eusebius says 'what seemed useful of their material, they tested ... in melting pots and fire' and 'what was superfluous and useless they left as memorial to the superstitious

o03 Prudentius, Crowns of Martyrdom (as in n. Ioo), pp. 137-39. For the study of Prudentius in this period, see R. W. Gaston, 'Prudentius and Sixteenth Century Antiquarian Scholarship', Medievalia et Humanistica, n.s. 4, 1972, pp. 161-76. o04 Prudentius (as in n. Ioo), p. 133. 105os Ibid., pp. o109, 135.

o106 Prudentius, A Reply to the Address ofSymmachus, transl. H.J. Thomson, Cambridge Mass. and London 1953, 1, Book il, 11. 539-43, P. 391. 1o7 Ibid., 11. 619-22, p. 57; vol. ni, Book ii, 11. 583-97, pp. 53-55. 1os Ibid., vol. I, 11. 587-90, p. 395-

FARNESE CHAPEL IN THE CANCELLERIA Ol7 worshippers'.109 Here a precious idol is being beaten into coins, while worthless frag- ments lie strewn beneath the anvil (P1. 24a). The lunette shows how 'those who to this time were unrestrained learned by the threat of imperial action to show moderation' - an important lesson for sixteenth-century viewers - as 'a military force'. .. deputized for the purification' of a sanctuary zealously hacks away at a group of temples, urged on by an angel of victory, sign of the divine guidance inspiring their work. Illustrated here (P1. 24b) is an instance of Constantine's particular care: . . lest somewhere he should overlook some hidden remnant of error, (he) searched with a royal eye. And... saw at a glance a certain awful trap of souls unnoticed among the Phoenician people. This was a sanctuary within a grove... Here was a regular school for vandals..,. he ordered the entirety, with its cult objects, to be razed to the foundations."10

Here is shown the vigilance and vigour needed to defend the Church against its enemies, rooting out false belief, so that 'the entire breed of . . . antagonists, both visible and invisible' may be destroyed and peace take hold 'in the habitations of all mankind' in Cardinal Alessandro's day as it did in Constantine's.111

Where the Paul wall shows the aim of reform in the conversion to the true faith and belief in its rites, and the Lawrence wall shows the method of reform in the destruction of false idols, the third wall shows its effect in the achievement of the new age. The principal scene is the Beheading of the Baptist (P1. 27c). Another Farnese title might have prompted the inclusion of the Baptist here. Cardinal Ranuccio Farnese, Alessandro's younger brother, had been made Grand Penitentiary and archpriest of S. Giovanni in Laterano in I547.112 The Lateran was a Constantinian basilica and, most significantly, the site of Constantine's baptism by Pope Sylvester. The sacrament of baptism as defined by the Church had been subject to Protestant attack and reference to it would seem appropriate in a chapel so dedicated to statements of Catholic orthodoxy. The Baptist's presence here might allude to that sacrament, but following the pattern of showing heroes of the faith on the chapel's walls, he is depicted at his death. The Beheading takes up the themes of martyrdom and victory of the faith established by the stucco figures presiding over the altar wall. The Baptist is present here as he is celebrated in the Mass for the Feast of the Decollation, as martyr and as the forerunner of Christ. It was he who proclaimed the advent of the Kingdom of Heaven and who fulfilled Isaiah's prophecy, being 'the voice of one crying in the wilderness, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight"' (Matthew 3-3). In Salviati's composition the headless body of the Baptist is set in the centre foreground of a strong perspectival recession, focusing on both sword and sacrifice, and creating a markedly 'straight path' to the horizon.

Violence gives way to peace in the scenes above, whose subjects are the advent of the Kingdom of Heaven as expressed in classical and biblical terms: the poetry of Saturn's reign and the prophecy of the messianic era (P1. 26a, b). In the lunette,Janus, guardian of

o109 Eusebius, In Praise of Constantine, transl. H. A. Drake, Berkeley 1976, chap. viii, pp. 78, 97-98. For this incident see also the account by the early 5th-century historian Sozomen in his Ecclesiastical History, ed. S. Bagster (The Greek Ecclesiastical Historians, London 1846, Iv), Book ni, chapter 5,

P. 3. 1Eusebius, op. cit., p. 98. 11 Ibid. For the theme of the blessings of peace achieved in the Farnese pontificate, see Jacobs, Studies (as in n. 76), pp.

62-68, 78-86, discussing The Nations Paying Homage to Paul III and the scene celebrating the Treaty of Nice in the Sala de'Cento Giorni - painted, it should be remembered, while Cardinal Alessandro was himself in Germany seeking to restore the rebellious Germans to the fold. 112 Cardella, Memorie storiche (as in n. 2), Iv, p. 282. One of Cardinal Alessandro's own titles was that of S. Sabina, whose feast day coincided with the Decollation (29 August).

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the Temple of Peace, receives Saturn at Rome. This marks the beginning of the Golden Age of Virgil's Fourth Eclogue, the Cumaean song, which proclaims 'redeunt Saturnia regna', the return of Saturn's reign. According to Virgil's account of Roman history in the Aeneid (viii: 31 9-25), Saturn returned to Rome: 'fleeing before the arms ofJove... He it was that gathered into a state that..,. race..,. and gave them laws... Under his sway passed those ages that men style golden: in such serenity of peace he ruled the nations'. Saturn's arrival is described in Ovid's Fasti (i: 233-49) much as painted here: In a ship the sickle-bearing god came to the Tuscan river after wandering over the world... Myself (Janus) inhabited the ground whose left side is lapped by sandy Tiber's glassy wave. Here, where now is Rome, green forest stood unfelled, and all the mighty region was but a pasture for a few kine. My castle was the hill which common folk call by my name, and which the present age doth dub Janiculum. I reigned in days when earth could bear with gods, and divinities moved freely in the abodes of men..,. toil there was not to expound the right to righteous men. I had nought to do with war: guardian was I of peace and doorways, and these (the keys) be the arms I bear.113

Salviati's rendering of this scene is also strikingly similar to a festival carro designed for the rione ofCampo Marzio (rione of the Farnese palace and the Cancelleria) for the Carnevale of 1539 which had: Saturn nude, with a scythe over his shoulder who comes to meet Janus, who descends from the Janiculum to welcome him; and, with one leg in the boat and the other on land, he reverently stretches forth his hand toJanus ...114 This description is so close to the lunette that it suggests that Salviati or his adviser knew the carro or its programme. A contemporary account of the carro explains the significance of the scene to sixteenth-century viewers:

By the boat is the title HIS AGITABIS TUTUS IN ORIS; this means security in Rome. Janus, with two heads and two keys in his hand in a gesture of piety and hospitality, demonstrates the charity appropriate typologically to the Apostolic See. The two heads signify the past and the present, and the glory of ancient and new Rome.11s

Janus was understood as the type for St Peter and his successor the pope. The keys he held were St Peter's attribute and the papal arms. The Carnevale description emphasises charity, the same virtue of compassion and forgiveness recommended to Paul III in the Consilium as the means to reform. This virtue, along with the pontifical associations of the figure, explains Janus's superior position and kindly attitude as he seems almost to lift a supplicant Saturn from the boat. Combined here are traditional Roman gestures of submission and concord."16 Saturn, as told in the Aeneid, came as a ruler, thus in this

113 Ovid, Fasti, transl. Sir J. G. Frazer, Cambridge Mass. and London I976, Book I, 11. 233-49, p. 19. 114 'Saturno nudo, con una falce in spalla qual arrive ad Iano, che descende dal Ianiculo, a riceverlo benignamente, e lui con una gamba in la barca, e l'altra in terra, venerabundo protende la mano ad Iano ...' Cited by V. Forcella, Tornei e giostre, ingressi trionfali efeste carnevalesche in Roma sotto Paolo III, Rome 1885, p. 74. 1s 'Presso a la barca il titolo HIS AGITABIS TUTUS IN ORIS, cid vuol dire la sicurezza in Roma. Iano con doi teste, e con dui chiavi in mano in gesto humano pietoso, e hospitale, mostra quella carita che si conviene al Typo che tene della Sede

Apostolica. Le doi teste significan la provvidenza del passato, e del presente, e la gloria de Roma antica e nova.' Ibid. 116 R. Brilliant, Gesture and Rank in Roman Art, Copenhagen 1963, PP. 18-21, 189-98. For Salviati's conscious adapta- tion of such gestures in another Farnese commission, see C. Dempsey, 'Mythic Inventions in Counter-Reformation Painting', Rome in the Renaissance: The City and the Myth. Papers of the Thirteenth Annual Conference of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, ed. P. Ramsey, Binghamton N.Y. 1981, p. 62 on the osculatio pacis exchanged by Charles V and Francis I in the Sala de' Fasti Farnesiani.

FARNESE CHAPEL IN THE CANCELLERIA o09 fresco regnum and sacerdotium arejoined as these two figures meet, withJanus predominant. This configuration expresses exactly the combination and relationship of temporal and ecclesiastical power which the Church saw as proper to the Christian commonwealth, with monarch subservient to pope. This ideal of papal sovereignty was proclaimed on a medal cast for Paul III showing Alexander before the High Priest and inscribed OMNES REGES SERVENT EI; it was also undoubtedly the basis of Paul III's projects for the decoration of the Sala Regia."l7 The clasped arms of the figures express the strength of their bond, a unity of power which would bear fruit in peace. Pope Paul's activities towards bringing about such peace, closing the doors to Janus's temple, had been repeatedly celebrated in the imagery of his pontificate: in the frescoes in the Sala de'Cento Giorni, for example, and in the decorations for Paul's triumphal return from concluding peace between Charles V and Francis I in Nice in 1538.118

In the Carnevale carro and in the fresco the continuity between classical and Christian Rome is stressed, 'la gloria di Roma antica e nova', imperial imagery becoming papal. The river god and the wolf suckling Romulus and Remus at the right recall a similar combination of references in a verse by Molosso honouring Paul III: 'so that we may see you placed on the seat of Romulus, worthy to feed the sheep of Peter, bearer of the keys'."19 Romulus established the political entity that was to become the Roman empire which at the time of Constantine became Christian.120 Paul III, Peter's successor, was the guardian of that power, the keeper of the keys. The flock to the right ofJanus is a reminder of the pastoral duties of the Church.

In the Sala de' Cento Giorni all the nations of the world pay homage to Paul III, who is flanked by Cardinal Alessandro, in a fresco whose inscription reads AUREUM SECULUM. CONDIT. QUI RECTO AEQUABILIQUE ORDINE. CUNCTA DISPENSAT. In the chapel this connec- tion between the Farnese pontificate and the Golden Age is recast in mythological terms. This is the Golden Age as described by Ovid in Book I of the Metamorphoses when: 'The peoples of the world, untroubled ... enjoyed a leisurely and peaceful existence ... The earth itself. . . produced all things spontaneously, and men were content with foods that grew without cultivation', gathering the fruits and crops thus easily and abundantly produced, as shown here. Illustrated here as well are the flowers freely growing, unthreatened animals, unyoked bullock and grapes hanging in purple clusters of Virgil's Fourth Eclogue which celebrates Saturn's return. Salviati literally quotes Virgil in a bizarre and learned detail taken from this eclogue. The multicoloured flock in the foreground corresponds to Virgil's description of this era when: 'wool shall not be taught to counterfeit varied hues, but of himself, as he feeds in the meadows, the ram shall transform his fleece, now into a lovely purple dye, now into saffron yellow - of its own will, scarlet shall clothe the lambs as they graze'.121

117 For the Cesati medal and what is known about the Sala Regia programme, see B. Davidson, Art Bulletin, 1976 (as in n. I2), pp. 416-19. 11s SeeJacobs, Studies (as in n. 76), pp. 78-84 and Forcella, Tornei (as in n. I 14), pp. 57-58. 119 'Ut te Romulea videamus sede locatum/Clavigeri meritum pascere ovile Petri'. Cited by F. de Navenne, Rome, le Palais Farnise et les Farnkse, Paris 9I14, p. 180. 12o For this view of history in connection with a defense of papal supremacy, see for example, R. Pole, De Summo Pontifice Christi in terris Vicario ..., Lyons I569, pp. I 9-2 .

The figure of Romulus was placed between those of Pope Paul III and Charles V on the arch in the decorations at Porta Capena done for Charles V's entry in 1538 to commemorate 'il primo re ... onde sono poi derivati questi due Imperi Spirituale e Temporale ...' (F. Cancellieri, Storia de' Solenni Possessi de' Sommi Pontefici, Rome 1802, p. 96, quoting from a pamphlet of Paul III's time). 21 The Poems of Virgil, transl. J. Conington, London I902,

'Fourth Eclogue', 11. 41-45. This was noted and discussed by C. Robertson, M.Phil. diss., 9g8I (as in n. 29), p. 187.

I o PATRICIA RUBIN

The Golden Age of the Fourth Eclogue is alluded to in the vault as well (P1. 26a). Virgil's verses not only predict Saturn's reign, but they also herald the birth of a miraculous child marking the beginning of: The last era of the song ofCumae [which] has come at length; the grand file of the ages is being born anew; at length the virgin is returning, returning too the reign ofSaturn; at length a new generation is descending from heaven on high. Do but thou smile . .. on the birth of the boy who shall at last bring the race of iron to an end, and bid the golden race spring up all the world over (lines 4-10o)

Virgil's prophetic vision of the new age had long been associated by Christian writers with the birth of Christ, and linked with the beginning of the messianic era. 122 The Emperor Constantine, himself a convert, converted the pagan references to Christian in his Address to the Holy Congregation ofBelievers.123 St Augustine quotes the sibylline prophecy in the City of God and elsewhere as proof that Christ's coming was foretold by both Gentile and Jewish prophets.'24 The sibylline oracles were in general regarded as foretelling the advent of Christ, the time when 'dragons shall sleep with infants'.'25 The remarkable similarity of the classical imagery to Isaiah's prophecies (Ii 1.6-8) had also long been recognised by Church writers.126 Since the Baptist was regarded as fulfilling Isaiah's messianic prophecies (Matthew 3.3) and since Isaiah is included in the chapel, it is logical that the scene in the vault over the Baptist's death should illustrate Isaiah's words: The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the suckling child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the Cockatrice's den.

The pairing of the classical illustration in the lunette with the biblical one in the vault gives both scenes the resonance of cross-reference. Virgil and the sibyls not only provided a stock of Golden Age motifs, they allowed for a distinctly Roman gloss to the messianic tradition. The association of pax Augusta with pax Christi made here was one confirming the power of an empire without bounds or limits in time, the pagan empire which Constantine made Christian, so that, as Prudentius wrote paraphrasing Virgil: 'the valour of Rome should never grow old, nor the glory she had won know age'.'27

The combination of classical references with biblical and patristic sources in the chapel is not surprising as its decoration is the product of an ambience in which the antique was pursued as avidly as the holy. Thus in a letter concerning his dealings with dissident northerners, Cardinal Marcello Cervini could also congratulate Cardinal

122 See for this, P. Courcelle, 'Les ex6ghses chr6tiennes de la Quatribme Eglogue', Revue des itudes anciennes, LIX, 1957, pp. 294-319 and K. Priimm, 'Das Prophetenamt der Sibyllen in kirchliche Literatur mit besonderer Riicksicht auf die Deutung der 4. Ekloge Virgils', Scholastik, Iv, 1929, PP. 54-77, 22 1-46, 498-533. 123 'Oratio ad Sanctorum Coetum', chapters xix-xx in Migne, Patrologia Latina, viii, cols. 455-62. See for this H. Mattingly, 'Virgil's Fourth Eclogue', this Journal, x, 1947, p. 19. 124 Prfimm, Scholastik, 1929 (as in n. 122), pp. 67-76. 12s M. Monteiro, 'As David and the Sibyls say': a sketch of the Sibyls and the Sibylline oracles, London and Edinburgh 1905, pp. 121-23.

126 Courcelle, 'Les exegeses' (as in n. 122), p. 294, dates the beginning of this tradition to the 4th-century writer Lactantius. 127 See T. E. Mommsen, 'St. Augustine and the Christian Idea of Progress: The Background of the "City of God"', Journal of the History of Ideas, xn, I951, p. 367. See also H.Jedin. 'Rom und Romidee im Zeitalter der Reformation und Gegen reformation', Kirche des Glaubens (as in n. 71), I, pp. 143-52.

FARNESE CHAPEL IN THE CANCELLERIA III

Alessandro: 'on the antiquities you have received and particularly my head of Hadrian, which you must indeed accept as a thing of mine, otherwise I intend to quarrel with you'.12s Cervini's correspondence from the Council of Trent, where he represented the papal interests as legate, also documents the range and depth of contemporary knowledge of patristic literature and its fundamental role in defending the authority of the Church. In I547-48 Cervini wrote to his secretary Guglielmo Sirleto in Rome requesting, among many other things, a translation of'a series of Greek Fathers of the Church' (una catena de' PP. Greci) on Isaiah, a commentary (esposizione) of St Jerome on Jeremiah, the ruling (autorita) of Nazianzus, Augustine and Chrysostom on baptism, Tertullian on the primacy of the Roman Church, and SS. Irenaeus, Ignatius Martyr, Dionysius the Areopagite and Tertullian on the Eucharist.129 In order to satisfy these demands, which he did by return post, Sirleto frequently consulted Cardinal Alessandro's library, also undertaking to identify some of the Cardinal's more obscure patristic books and manuscripts.13 Respect for and knowledge of early Christian writers was respect for Holy Mother Church (Sta madre chiesa) itself. There were projects, originating in Cardinal Alessandro's circle, to translate and publish the works of the Church Fathers, an endeavour which later included Caro's translations of two orations by St Gregory Nazianzus, encouraged by Cervini and dedicated to Cardinal Alessandro.Y31

This was the same circle which formed the Accademia della Virtii, which sponsored the first edition ofVasari's Lives and discussed the composition ofGiovio's Museum. It was one in which classical and ecclesiastical culture were easily combined. It is this context which explains the mixture of poetry and sacred history in the chapel. Heterodox, but not at all heretical, it would nevertheless soon be outdated as Church reformers sought to define a more rigorously orthodox order of religious thought and behaviour. Even in the 1540os, some like Ambrogio Catarino had denied the applicability of the Horatian ut pictura poesis to the painting of religious subjects: 'In matters of religion it is not acceptable that (as somebody once said), "Pictoribus atque Poetis: Quidlibet audiendi semper fuit aequa potestas" (Horace)'.132 And this division of genres was the basis of Gilio's Degli Errori e degli Abusi de' Pittori... which he dedicated to the Cardinal in 1564 'acci6 con quel rettissimo giudizio... la possa giudicare e correggere'.133 The type of invention and style of religious historia in the Cancelleria represents the culmination of classical humanism.

12s 'delle antiquith che ha havute, et in particulare della testa del mio Adriano, con che per6 si degni accettarla come cosa mia, ch'altrimenti intendo di litigare con Lei'. Nuntiaturberichte (as in n. 2), x, p. 397 (2 July 1548). 129 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. lat. 6I 77, part I: no. 4, fols 8-Io (9October 1548); no. 12, fols 23-35 (18 August); no. 15 (31 August); no. I6 (8 May); no. 2o, fols 4-43 (i6January 1547); no.2I (29January); no.22 (2 February). 130 MS Vat. lat. 6177, part 2, fols. 225r and 285' and MS Vat. lat. 6I 78 fols 69 ff. x31 In a letter to Sirleto dated I6 September 553 (MS Vat.

lat. 6177, part 2, fol. 353), Cervini mentions his encourage- ment of Caro who had already begun the translation, but had 'anchora xxx carte' to translate. In a letter dated 19 February 1547 Cervini writes to Sirleto about Niccol6 Ardinghello's project of printing patristic works. See for Cardinal Ardinghello, a correspondent and companion of both Caro and Cardinal Alessandro, M. Rosa, Dizionario bio rafico degli Italiani, Rome 1962, Iv, pp. 3-34. 32 'Non ... in causa religionis probatur quod quidam

dixit: Pictoribus atque poitis quidlibet audendi semper fuit

aequa potestas' (Horace). F. Ambrosius Catharinus Poli- tus, De certa gloria, invocatione et veneratione sanctorum disputationes atque assertationes catholicae adversus impios, Lyons 1542, P. 73. In his later treatise Catarino admonished those clerics who would collect and enjoy 'picturae et sculpturae ... prophanae' (Enarrationes, 1552, as in n. 7 , p. 140; for this seeJedin, Kirche des Glaubens, as in n. 71, p. 473). 133 Scritti d'arte del Cinquecento, ed. P. Barocchi, Milan and Naples 1977, I, pp. 834-35 for Gilio's dedication and P. Barocchi's useful notes on the background to Gilio's treatise. For 'poetic history' in mid-i6th-century painting, see C. Dempsey, 'Mythic Inventions' (as in n.

IX6), pp. 55-75. The change in tenor in the religious life of Italy was so drastic during this period that, as P.M.J. McNair notes:'... you could say things in the market-place in 1540 that you would not dare whisper in 1580' ('The Reforma- tion of the Sixteenth Century in Renaissance Italy', Religion and Humanism, ed. K. Robbins, Oxford 1981, p. 152). And you could certainly not lightly turn into poetry things that ought to be preached. The debate on images took place during Session xxIv of the Council ofTrent (I I November- 3 December 1563).

I 12 PATRICIA RUBIN

While there is no contemporary explanation of the chapel's imagery comparable to Vasari's and Doni's accounts of the storie and imprese chosen by Paolo Giovio for the Sala de' Cento Giorni or Caro's letters about his own ideas for Caprarola, the thinking behind its composition may be compared to that documented in Caro's letters about Paul III's tomb.134 These show Caro acting as arbiter and authority, coordinating the opinions of cardinals and sculptors.3s5 At one point he rejected allegories of the seasons (originally proposed by Paul III) as being 'neither ecclesiastical nor moral matters ...' and noted concerning those selected 'I have made the descriptions according to how the ancients portrayed them'.'16 His concern was to arrive at a scheme which was as correct as it was beautiful in order to do honour to his patron, Cardinal Alessandro.s37

It is likely that a similar procedure was followed here: one of collaboration in order to arrive at descrizioni culled from appropriate texts by buoni autori for the patron's satisfaction and the painter's transcription. Such a process is in accord with Caro's respect for Salviati and Salviati's own taste for gentlemanly discourse.3s8 And it is Caro's sense of decorum, finding the proper measure of the 'moral and ecclesiastical', the suitable and the striking, which is evident here, selecting for illustration heroic deeds and prophetic passages that demonstrated the authority, glory and power of the Church. Victory, Authority, Strength and Peace are the figures which Doni describes carrying Paul III past the temple ofJanus in the Sala de' Cento Giorni - a power at that time vested in Paul III as Pope and administered by Cardinal Alessandro as his Vice-Chancellor. The organization of the invenzioni, their disposiztione in the compartments of the wall and ceiling does not depend upon a single determined sequence, but on cross-reference and correspondence. It can, for example, be appreciated or understood as radiating from the vault whose images of peace (Isaiah 2.4, I.6-8), sacerdotal election (Aaron) and destruction of idols, carried through in the lunettes, are exemplified in the saints and resolved in the age of redemption promised in the altar. But the compartmentalization of the scenes in elaborate stucco frames actually emphasizes their separate identities as exempla which can be appreciated independently or linked and grouped in numerous combinations to reinforce and enhance their messages. Such a scheme, with its wealth of associations and variety of experience, was designed to engage the mind as well as aid the devotion of a learned cleric and Christian gentleman like Cardinal Alessandro Farnese.

COURTAULD INSTITUTE

a134 For the tomb see Caro (as in n. I), ii, 368, pp. 00oo-o2

(letter to Cervini); n, 372, pp. 104-07 (letter to Antonio Elio, Bishop of Pola, 5 August I55I). For Caprarola see Caro, mii, 676, pp. 131-40 (letter to Taddeo Zuccaro, II November 1562); iir, 764, 765, PP. 237-4' (letters to Onofrio Panvinio, i5 May and 9June I565). For the Sala de'Cento Giorni see Vasari (as in n. 4), vii, pp. 679-8o; and for Doni, M. G. Bottari and S. Ticozzi, Raccolta di lettere (as in n. 59), v, 1822, pp. 149-62.

3s Caro (as in n. 1) n, 368, p. Ior; 372, pp. 104-06. 136 Ibid., p. 107. s137 'cose ecclesiastiche ne morali', also noting that for those

he selected 'ho fatte le descrizioni secondo che gli antichi le figurano.' Ibid.

138as For Caro and Salviati see above p. 87 and n. 28. Salviati's reputation as one who was 'd'animo nobile, & di grande spirito, & vivendo, & vestendo alla Signorile... piui che mediocremente nelle buone lettere instrutto' was recalled in 1587 by Giovanni Battista Armenini, who also wrote that: 'si discopriva continuamente co'grandi grave, & di sottilissimo ingegno, & in molte scienze universale ... bellissimo parlatore era' (De'veri precetti della pittura, Ravenna 1587, pp. 16-17). L.Domenichi, on the other hand, records Salviati as having 'un poco del satirico', Facezie, Venice 1584, p. 303.

FARNESE CHAPEL IN THE CANCELLERIA '7

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Photo Alinari

Francesco Salviati, Vault, Chapel ofCardinal Alessandro Farnese. Rome, Cancelleria (pp. 82-112)

18 FARNESE CHAPEL IN THE CANCELLERIA

Photo GFN, Rome

a-Stucco (detail ofPl. 17) (P. 85)

b-Francesco Salviati, Study. Florence, Uffizi (p.85)

Photo GFN, Rome

c-Arrow impresa (detail ofPl. 1 7) (P. 94)

FARNESE CHAPEL IN THE CANCELLERIA 19

..........: : : ......... :,!ii.

a-Antonio Fantuzzi, after Rosso Fiorentino, View ofa Mountain Landscape, print (p. 93)

b.

b--Francesco Salviati,

Conversion ofPaul. Rome, Cancelleria (pp. 91, 93, 99-I 03 passim)

c-Antonio Fantuzzi, after Rosso Fiorentino, Dispute between Minerva and Neptune,

c print (p. 93)

20 FARNESE CHAPEL IN THE CANCELLERIA

Francesco Salviati. Rome, Cancelleria

Musei Vaticani, Archivio Fotografico

a--Aaron before the Tabernacle (detail of P1. 7) (P. 96)

/!

Musei Vaticani, Archivio Fotografico

b--Jeremiah ( p. 95)

Photo GFN, Rome

c-Sibyl (p. 95)

FARNESE CHAPEL IN THE CANCELLERIA 21

a-Giuseppe Salviati, Study for The Birth ofthe Baptist. London, Victoria and Albert Museum (p. 97) b--Francesco Salviati, altar wall. Rome,

Cancelleria (pp. 94f, 95, 97, I03)

Photo GFN, Rome

c-Adoration ofthe Shepherds (detail ofP1. 2 Ib) (p. 97)

22 FARNESE CHAPEL IN THE CANCELLERIA

Francesco Salviati. Rome, Cancelleria

Musei Vaticani, Archivio Fotografico

a-Isaiah 12.3-4 (detail of P1. I17) (p. 104)

Photo GFN, Rome

b-Institution ofthe Eucharist (pp. 85, i02)

FARNESE CHAPEL IN THE CANCELLERIA 23

a--Nicolas Beatrizet after Baccio Bandinelli, Battle ofLove, print (p. 93, n. 51 )

C

b b, c Details of Pl. 9b (p i) 11)

24 FARNESE CHAPEL IN THE CANCELLERIA

Francesco Salviati. Rome, Cancelleria

Musei Vaticani, Archivio Fotografico

a-Destruction ofthe Idols (detail ofPl. 17) (PP. IoI, Io6f)

Photo GFN, Rome

b--Destruction of the Temples (pp. 86, I o6f)

FARNESE CHAPEL IN THE CANCELLERIA 25

a-Francesco Salviati, Martyrdom ofSt Lawrence. Rome, Cancelleria Photo GFN, Rome

(pp. 86, 9If, Io5)

b---Detailof P1.

25a (p.

Io5)

c-Francesco Salviati, War against the Schmalkaldic League, detail. Rome, Palazzo Farnese (p. Io5)

Photo Nevi

Photo Anderson

d-Taddeo Zuccaro, Orazio Farnese made Prefect ofRome. Caprarola, Villa Farnese (p. io05)

e-Attr. to Francesco Pastorino of Siena, Ottavio Farnese, bronze. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of Mary Stillman Harkness (p. o105, n. IoI) e

26 FARNESE CHAPEL IN THE CANCELLERIA

Francesco Salviati. Rome, Cancelleria

Musei Vaticani, Archivio FotograJico

a-Isaiah II. 6-8 (detail of P1. I7) (pp. 95, o07, Io)

Photo GFN, Rome

b-Janus receiving Saturn (pp. 89, 92, I07)

FARNESE CHAPEL IN THE CANCELLERIA 27

a-Antonio da Trento, after Salviati, Worship of Psyche, print (p. 91)

Courtesy Custodia

b--Francesco Salviati, Study of Psyche. Fondation Custodia. Paris, Institut Nierlandais (p. 91)

c-Francesco Salviati, Beheading ofthe Baptist. Rome, Cancelleria (pp 91, o07)

28 FARNESE CHAPEL IN THE CANCELLERIA

Photo GFS, Florence

a-Nicholas Karcher after Salviati, Joseph interpreting Pharoah's Dream, tapestry (p. 91 )

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a, c: Florence, Palazzo Vecchio

Courtesy Trustees, British Museum

d--Francesco Salviati, Study ofa Soldier. London, B.M. (p. 92)

FARNESE CHAPEL IN THE CANCELLERIA 29

a-Francesco Salviati, Study for a tapestry ofAugust. Florence, Uffizi (p. 92)

b--Detail ofP1. 24b (p. 93)

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