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Large Bronzes in the Renaissance STUDIES IN THE HI STO RY OF ART • 64 • Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts Symposium Papers XLI Large Bronzes in the Renaissance Edited by Peta Motture National Gallery of Art, Washington Distributed by Yale University Press, New Haven and London / Editorial Board JOHN OLJVER HAND, chairman SUSAN M. ARf.NSBERC SARAH FISHEi\ THERESE 0 1MALLEY Editor·in· Chief JUDY METRO Managing Editor CAROi. LEHMAN ERON Production Manager CHRIS VOCE!. Editorial Assistant CAROLINE WEAVER Copy editing and design by Princeton Editorial Associates, Inc. Copyright C :ioo3 Trustees of the National Gallery of Art, Washbigton All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without the written permission of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. 20565 This publication was produced by the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts and the Publish­ ing Offlcc, National Gallery of Art, Washington Proceedings of the symposium "Large Bronzes in the The type is Trump Mediaeval, set by Renaissance," sponsored by the Samuel H. Kress Princeton Editorial Associates, Inc., Foundation. The symposium was held 15-16 October Scottsdale, Arizona 1999 in Washington. The text paper is Leykam Matt ISSN 0091-7338 ISBN 0·300·10094·9 Printed by CS Graphics Pte. Ltd., Singapore Frontispiece: Attributed to Danese Catt:i.neo, Distributed by Yale University Press, Mars as a mythological personification of the New Haven and London Choleric Temperament (detail), c. 1540/:1:550, bronze. The Detroit Institule of Arts, Founders Society Abstracted and indexed in BHA Purchase with funds from Mr. and Mrs. Edgar B. (Bibliography of the IIistory of Art) Whitcomb, 49.417; photograph by Dirk Bakker and and Art Index Robert Henslcigh IRVING LAVIN Institute for Advancc:d Study, Princeton !emeritus) The Angel and the City: Baccio Bandinelli's Project for the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome et me first explain the title of this essay. In Vasari in his life of Bandinelli, and a sadly the end, there is really only one city, Rome; rubbed drawing in the Louvre, rediscovered L and in the end there is only one angel, the and published thirty years ago by Maria 2 Archangel Michael (figs. 11 2). These two Grazia Ciardi Dupre (fig. 3). Here is Vasari's supreme entities were celebrated together in account of the project, which originated a wonderful exhibition held in 1987, titled when Clement VII, Giulio de'Medici, hav­ L'angelo ela citta, at the Castel Sant'Angelo ing crowned Charles V emperor in Bologna on the occasion of the restoration of the in October 1529, returned to Rome with gigantic bronze figure of the archangel- Bandinelli in his entourage: 9 braccia (5 m) high, the size of Michelan­ His Holiness resolved to fulfill a vow which he gelo's David-by the Flemish sculptor Peter had made in the castle of St. Angelo to finish Verschaffelt (I?I0-1793), cast in thirty-five the marble tower in front of the Ponte a pieces and set atop the building in 1752.1 Ver­ Castello, by placing seven bronze figures, sLx schaffelt's spectacular image was the last in bracci:a high, lying in various attitudes and a long series of such sculptures stretching crowned by a bronze angel with a sword in its back into the Middle Ages. My concern here hand, to stand on a column of variegated is with a brief, abortive, but nonetheless marble. The angel was tO be Michael, the pregnant moment in that millennial history cust0dian of the castle, who b.ad released him of urban sacrality. from prison. The seven figures were the seven mortal sins, to show that with the help of the angel the Pope had overcome all his impious My purpose is to give twenty minutes of enemies. A model was prepared, and the Pope fame to a not unknown, but I think, still ordered Baccio to make the figures in clay of not fully appreciated project by Baccio the proper size, to be afterwards cast in bronze. Bandinelli, the sculptor who is by all odds Baccio completed one of the figures in the most reviled and underestimated artist Belvedere, which was much praised. To pass of the Renaissance. He was also-and the the time, and as an experiment in casting, be two characteristics were often. interrelated­ made many small figures, such as Hercules, one of the most inventive and intensely Venus, Apollo, Leda and others, which being expressive artists of the Renaissance. The cast in bro=e by Maestro Jacopo della Barba of Florence succeeded e.xcellently.3 Baccio Bandindll, work in question, never executed, forms pan The Archangel Michllel of the endlessly tormented history of with Two Deadly Sins. Although it shows an abbreviated version c. IS 30, drawing 13anclinelli's life, character, and largely unful­ with no column and only two defeated ene­ Musee du i.ouvre, P.m!i-; filled potential. The project is known from mies of the angel, Dupre's association of photograph RCunion des Musl:es Nationoux inv. 91 only two sources, a brief description by the drawing with the Castel Sant' Angelo 309 I I I project is certainly correct and has never secular power, and he conceived the sculp­ r. Castel Sant'An gelo, tomb of t!mperor Hadrian been questioned. ture as a commemoration of this act of divine jA.D. 117- 1)81, Rome To grasp the project's art-historical sig­ intervention and as a warning to future ene­ Cl.I.std S.ant'Aiigelo1 Rome nificance, one must first grasp its political mies of the church. i. Peter Verschaffelt, significance, for it was conceived in response The conception of this grandiose monu­ The A rchangel Michael. to one of the most disasuous and perilous ment drew upon three distinct uaditions 1747, bronze situations in the entire history of the church. pertaining to what might be caUed angelic Castel S.uH 'Angelo, Roine When Vasari says that it was commissioned intervention in the affairs of the church, of by Clement in fulfillment of a vow, he can which Michael is the protector saint. The only refer to what Clement regarded as his most obvious is the tradition that associated miraculous escape from the Castello during St. Michael with the city of Rome, from the siege and sack of the city by the merce­ which the Castel Sant'Angelo derives its nary troops of Charles V in r 5 2 7.4 Having name, and the monumental figure of the fled t0 Orvieto~ where he had been able to saint that had replaced the bronze image of recoup and regain control, Clement regarded the Emperor Hadrian atop his mausoleum this dramatic event as a veritable liberation after it was converted into the stronghold of of the church itself from the predations of the papacy. This substitution of angelic for 3 ro L A V l N imperial rule was accomplished by a famous bloody sword, an<l putting it up into its sheath. salvific apparition of che archangel co Pope From this sign Gregory understood that his Gregory the Grear in 590, according to The prayers were heard, and erected a church at Golden Legend: that same place in honor of the angel, whence the Castle h;1s since been called the Fortress of When Gregory ha<l instituted the Greater 1. Baccio Bandinelli, the Holy Angel. This apparition is commemo­ The Archangel Michael with Litany, and was praying devoutly that the rated on May s.s 1\vo Deadly Silis. c. 1 5 30, people of Rome might be delivered of the drawlng plague, he saw an angel of the Lord standing The event was often included in depictions Mu;-,ce <lu Louvre, P.ms; phcno~r.1ph Rcunu.m dc:'j Mu.:.l!c:, upon the castle which was once called the of the life of St. Gregory and the deeds oif che Nnuun.1ux iuv. \ll 6 Tomb of Hadrian; the angel was drying a archangel (figs. 41 5 ). In recollection of _.. -..- - ,_ ..,. 'J•' I j ...... _..- - JOU 16 !WWW ; i LAVIN 3I1 the event and of the penitential procession Raffaello da Montelupo's marble statue witl1 in which the city celebrated it, Nicholas Ill bronze accoutrements, including the sword (1277- 1280) erected a great marble sculpture outside the scabbard, commissioned by Paul of Michael a top the castle. 7 The figure seemed III in Is 44 (fig. 6I; 10 this work stood on the to reenact the heavenly apparition of the Castello until it was replaced by Verschaf­ angel with his sword in its scabbard, signaling felt's monument. The pestilential deliverance the cessation of God's just ire at man's sins, was in fact twofold. The plague had also as the rage of the plague was always inter­ taken hold during the siege and there was preted. The angel over the city was replaced danger from this quarter as well as from the several times, including a figure with cop­ Lutheran landsknechts who made up the per wings and sword commissioned by bulk of the imperial forces. 1 l The provi­ Nicholas Vin 1453,Bbeforea "statuadorata dential liberation in the night of 6-7 Decem­ dell' angelo tenente la spada fuori del fodero" ber 1527 thus also echoed the original ("gilded statue of the angel holding his sword Gregorian episode that occasioned the bap­ 4. Spinello Aretino, out of the scabbard") was destroyed by an tizing of Hadrian's tomb as the Castel Sant' Apparation of St. Michael exploding powder keg in 1497 .9 Bandinelli's Angelo. co Gregory the Great, project was evidently intended to succeed Bandinelli clearly intended to reiterate late 1300s, fresco Snn Fr.1nccsco, Arcuo, this figure, which seems to be reflected in and magnify this traditional image of the photograph Alin•ri 1927 312 LAVIN divine surveillance of the city of the popes.
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