The Cappella Paolina, the Expulsion Drawings, and Marcello Venusti
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CHAPTER 6 Michelangelo the “Lefty”: The Cappella Paolina, the Expulsion Drawings, and Marcello Venusti Margaret Kuntz On 29 May 1555, just six days after he took office, Pope Paul IV Carafa held his first private consistory where he asserted his determination to reform the Church and abolish corruption (Fig. 6.1).1 It was Carafa’s goal to stem all forms of simony, a theme that can be found throughout the accounts of sub- sequent consistories. Approximately seven months later, on 10 January 1556, Paul IV convened a special congregation to create a Papal Reform Commission. The Commission met ten days later, on 20 January 1556, and not surprisingly, simony was the main topic of discussion. Reiterating his determination, the pope vowed that change would occur even if it meant ruining his health.2 He believed simony was “the root of all evil,” and claimed, “that the head of the Church must eradicate simony, all the more so as all calumniators and heretics declared that this was the actual and almost the only reason why no reform had been effected hitherto, as the Popes had put difficulties in the way on account 1 This essay stems from a larger study, currently in preparation, on the Cappella Paolina and new St. Peter’s which includes material on Pope Paul IV Carafa as patron of the arts. As noted by the papal diarist Angelo Massarelli, “Di mercurii 29 eiusdem mensis Maii Paulus ipse IV habuit primum consistorium secretum post eius assumptionem. In quo quibusdam gravi- bus ornatisque verbis gratias Deo retulit, quale sibi munus in universali ecclesia regenda incumberet, et ad id subeundum personae suae infirmitatem atque imbecillitatem ostendit, animi sui propensoinem in tuenda, augenda et propaganda sedis apostolicae auctoritate ac in expurgandis et reformandis corruptis ecclesiae moribus significavit. Et denique cardinales ad eam, quae eos decet, vitam degendam, mores componendos admonuit atque hortatus est, utque ipsi cardinales partem sollicitudinis (ad quam vocati errant) una cum eo in universa- lis ecclesiae regimine sucipere vellent enixe rogavit.” See Concilium Tridentinum: Diariorum, actorum, epistularum, tractatum nova collectio, ed. Sebastian Merkle, vol. 2 (Freiburg: Herder, 1901), 272. 2 Ludwig Freiherr Von Pastor, The History of the Popes, From the Close of the Middle Ages, ed. Ralph Francis Kerr, vol. 14 (St. Louis, Mo.: B. Herder, 1936), 187–89; Reform Thought in Sixteenth-century Italy, ed. Elisabeth G. Gleason (Chico, CA.: Scholars Press, 1981), 88, 90, 92, 97; John O’Malley, S.J., The First Jesuits, (Cambridge/London: Harvard University Press: 1993), 305–6. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi ��.��63/97890043�3637_008 180 Kuntz of the loss of revenue from the Datary.”3 With this statement Pope Paul IV both set his agenda, and made explicit reference to previous reform efforts that had not been successful, particularly those of Pope Paul III Farnese, patron of the Last Judgment that decorates the altar wall of the Cappella Sistina. The Last Judgment is discussed by Erin Sutherland Minter in “Virtuous Prelates, Burdensome Relics and a Sliver of Gold in the Last Judgment” in this volume as an expression of Paul III’s reform ideals and as a construction whereby Paul III is re-creating and reviving an identity for the Church and the papacy that is exemplary and calls upon images of the earliest saints. By extension, and like the visual imagery in the Cappella Paolina, the saints depicted in the Last Judgment were intended to inspire virtuous behaviors and serve as revered models for those in attendance. While Carafa manifest a reform ideol- ogy that ultimately outstripped his predecessor, contrary to current attitudes, Pope Paul IV was a prudent patron and implemented art and ceremony with the express purpose to promote his reform agenda.4 Carafa’s unflagging efforts for reform dominate the reports by the Venetian ambassador Bernardo Navagero who recounts in a letter of 14 March 1556 how the pope explicitly decried the venality of offices, “Everyone who desired a bishopric went to a bank, where a list was to be found, with the price of each, and in the case for an appointment as Cardinal it was calculated how best to draw profit from every slightest circumstance.”5 Navagero also notes that the pope repeated the dramatic statement, “Now we shall carry out this reform, 3 Paul IV’s zeal can be chronicled through the various consistorial reports and avvisi, see Pastor, History, vol. 14, 187–89 and 445–54, appendices 16–25 and especially appendix 19, the Acts of the first congregation of the Papal Reform Commission, “Acta super reformatione Ecclesiae sub Paulo IIII pontifice max. an MDLVI.” This document can also be found in Concilium, vol. 2, 286–87; where the pope made the following claims, “Quare hodie die lunae 20 Januarii supradicti, vocatis in congregationem in palatio apostolico in aula, que Constantini dici- tur, quamplurimis cardinalibus, praelatis, theologis et Urbis magistratibus ac curialibus, eis exposuit S.tis S. animum vacandi ecclesiae reformationi, velleque ad extirpatione simoniae, uti a raddice malorum omnium, initium auspicari, qua in re audire se cupere declaravit eorum sententiam etc., . .” 4 Clare Robertson, “Pheonix Romanus: Rome 1534–1565,” in Artistic Centers of the Italian Renaissance: Rome, ed. Marcia B. Hall (New York/Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 224, “despite Paul’s [IV] very considerable humanist erudition, his reign was an artis- tic desert in terms of Papal commission akin to that of [Pope] Adrian VI. This was largely because Paul chose to go to war with Spain, but also because this severe pope, a founder member of the strict new Theatine Order, concentrated on ecclesiastical reform in a pretty repressive and intolerant manner.” 5 Pastor, History, vol. 14, 192–93..