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PRESENT IN THE PERFORMANCE: STEFANO MADERNO’S SANTA CECILIA AND THE FRAME OF THE JUBILEE OF 1600 by KELLY ANNE WHITFORD A THESIS Presented to the Department of Art History and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts December 2011 THESIS APPROVAL PAGE Student: Kelly Anne Whitford Title: Present in the Performance: Stefano Maderno’s Santa Cecilia and the Frame of the Jubilee of 1600 This thesis has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts degree in the Department of Art History by: Dr. James Harper Chairperson Dr. Nicola Camerlenghi Member Dr. Jessica Maier Member and Kimberly Andrews Espy Vice President for Research & Innovation/Dean of the Graduate School Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School. Degree awarded December 2011 ii © 2011 Kelly Anne Whitford iii THESIS ABSTRACT Kelly Anne Whitford Master of Arts Department of Art History December 2011 Title: Present in the Performance: Stefano Maderno’s Santa Cecilia and the Frame of the Jubilee of 1600 In 1599, in commemoration of the remarkable discovery of the incorrupt remains of the early Christian martyr St. Cecilia, Cardinal Paolo Emilio Sfondrato commissioned Stefano Maderno to create a memorial sculpture which dramatically departed from earlier and contemporary monuments. While previous scholars have considered the influence of the historical setting on the conception of Maderno’s Santa Cecilia, none have studied how this historical moment affected the beholder of the work. In 1600, the Church’s Holy Year of Jubilee drew hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to Rome to take part in Church rites and rituals. This thesis employs anthropological theories of performance as a means of analyzing how this context influenced the interaction of Jubilee pilgrims with Maderno’s Santa Cecilia. The work’s innovative form and the context of the Jubilee composed a dynamic relationship between sculpture and viewer and resulted in a profound intercessory experience. iv CURRICULUM VITAE NAME OF AUTHOR: Kelly Anne Whitford GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED: University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota DEGREES AWARDED: Master of Arts, Art History, 2011, University of Oregon Bachelor of Arts, Art History, 2006, Carleton College AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST: Renaissance and Baroque Rome Performance theory PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Graduate Teaching Fellow, Department of Art History, University of Oregon, 2010-2011 English Teacher, Peace Corps, Benin, 2006-2008 GRANTS, AWARDS, AND HONORS: Dean’s Graduate Fellowship, University of Oregon, 2011 Marion Dean Ross Book Prize in Architectural History, Department of Art History, University of Oregon, 2011 Mark Sponenburgh Research Award, Department of Art History, University of Oregon, 2011 Marian Donnelly Award for Excellence in Academic Performance, Department of Art History, University of Oregon, 2010 v Mark Sponenburgh Research Award, Department of Art History, University of Oregon, 2010 Marian C. Donnelly Conference Travel Grant, Department of Art History, University of Oregon, 2010 Gloria Tovar Lee Scholarship in Art History, Department of Art History, University of Oregon, 2009 Graduate cum laude, Carleton College, 2006 vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION............................................................................................ 1 II. THE CONTEXT OF THE COMMISSION.................................................... 13 III. THE PERFORMATIVE FRAME OF THE JUBILEE OF 1600.................... 25 IV. KEYING THE DISCOVERY OF ST. CECILIA’S CORPSE........................ 34 V. CONCLUSION................................................................................................ 46 APPENDIX: SUPPLEMENTAL SOURCES........................................................... 50 REFERENCES CITED............................................................................................... 54 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. Stefano Maderno, Santa Cecilia, 1600, marble. The church of Santa Cecilia, Rome ....................................................................................................... 2 2. Crypt (with a view of St. Cecilia’s sarcophagus through the fenestella). The church of Santa Cecilia, Rome ................................................................... 36 3. Stefano Maderno, Santa Cecilia, 1600, marble. The church of Santa Cecilia, Rome ....................................................................................................... 37 4. Inscription in the floor of the church of Santa Cecilia, Rome....................... 39 5. Stefano Maderno, Pope Lucius, Pope Urban, and St. Maximus, 1600, gilt. The church of Santa Cecilia, Rome ................................................................... 41 6. Stefano Maderno, St. Valerian, St. Cecilia, and St. Tiburtius, 1600, gilt. The church of Santa Cecilia, Rome ................................................................... 41 7. Apse mosaic (with Pope Paschal I, St. Cecilia, St. Paul, Christ, St. Valerian, and St. Agatha), ninth century, mosaic. The church of Santa Cecilia, Rome ....................................................................................................... 42 viii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION On October 20, 1599 the incorrupt remains of St. Cecilia were dramatically discovered lying in a sarcophagus under the main altar in the Church of Santa Cecilia in Rome. After a month-long period when the preserved body was kept on display and received such illustrious visitors as Pope Clement VIII (r. 1592- 1605), the saint was reinterred under the altar. Subsequently, for the occasion of the Jubilee of 1600, Cardinal Paolo Emilio Sfondrato (r. 1590-1618), the titular cardinal of the church, commissioned the young artist Stefano Maderno to produce a sculpture commemorating the fortuitous recovery of the saint’s relics and their incorrupt state (fig. 1). Maderno’s work presents the viewer with a broken female form. St. Cecilia lies on her right side, appearing as though she has been unceremoniously abandoned. Her long, full-length dress gathers between her stacked knees, surprisingly revealing the shape of the virgin martyr’s legs and outlining the rise and fall of her small waist and hips. Her hands fall, lifeless, in front of her body, while her head, grotesquely turned away, displays sharp cuts across the back of her neck. The unkempt appearance of her sanctified body is incongruous in the sumptuous church setting and conveys a sense of reality and immediacy, drawing the viewer into her space and her story. 1 Figure 1. Stefano Maderno, Santa Cecilia, 1600, marble. The church of Santa Cecilia, Rome. (Photo: author) While previous scholars have considered the influence of the historical setting in 1600 on the conception of Maderno’s Santa Cecilia, none have studied in depth how this historical moment affected the beholder of the work.1 In 1600, the Church’s Holy Year of Jubilee drew hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to Rome to take part in Church rites and rituals. The field of performance theory allows for a more thorough response to the question of how the events which defined the Jubilee year (the celebratory processions, acts of veneration, and displays of 1 Pamela M. Jones, Altarpieces and Their Viewers in the Churches of Rome from Caravaggio to Guido Reni (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2008), 6. Scholars like Jones, David Freedberg, and Hans Belting have conducted studies of the theories of response, but have not considered Maderno’s Santa Cecilia. While Freedberg addresses the psychological response of the beholder, Jones considers the context as a means of understanding the historical responses to works of art. See David Freedberg, The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989); and Hans Belting, Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image Before the Era of Art (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994). 2 Church power) affected visiting pilgrims and influenced their interaction with Maderno’s Santa Cecilia.2 At the turn of the seventeenth century, the gruesome and bloody martyrdoms of early Christian saints had developed as one of the most popular motifs for church decorations in Rome, but Maderno’s Santa Cecilia was unlike any monument or image that had come before it. Shocking paintings and sculptures of the attempted burning of St. Agnes, the shooting of St. Sebastian with arrows, and the flaying of St. Bartholomew constituted part of the Church’s efforts during the Counter-Reformation to reinvigorate the cult of the first saints and to inspire contemporary piety with the selfless acts of devotion and sacrifice by the earliest Christians. The naves, side aisles, and apses of prominent churches in Rome underwent refurbishment at the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries to incorporate such inspirational iconographic programs.3 Many examples, like those in the church of San Vitale, displayed these violent scenes as a means of demonstrating the holiness and valor of the martyrs. Agostino Ciampelli’s frescoes of St. Vitalis (ca. 1595) reveal the saint’s torture by stretching and death by burial. In each image the nude saint, contrasted with the profane clothed figures of his persecutors, is portrayed as an example of spiritual 2 Performance studies is a widely defined area with contributions from
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