1
Catholic Transtemporality through the Lens of Andrea Pozzo and the Jesuit Catholic
Baroque
A thesis presented to
the faculty of
the College of Fine Arts of Ohio University
In partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree
Master of Arts
Emily C. Thomason
August 2020
© 2020 Emily C. Thomason. All Rights Reserved. 2
This thesis titled
Catholic Transtemporality through the Lens of Andrea Pozzo and the Jesuit Catholic
Baroque
by
EMILY C. THOMASON
has been approved for
the School of Art + Design
and the College of Fine Arts by
Samuel Dodd
Lecturer, School of Art + Design
Matthew R. Shaftel
Dean, College of Fine Arts 3
Abstract
THOMASON, EMILY C, M.A., August 2020, Art History
Catholic Transtemporality through the Lens of Andrea Pozzo and the Jesuit Catholic
Baroque
Director of Thesis: Samuel Dodd
Andrea Pozzo was a lay brother for the Order of the Society of Jesus in the late
seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries who utilized his work in painting, architecture,
and writing to attempt to create an ideal expression of sacred art for the Counter-
Reformation Catholic Church. The focus of this study is on Pozzo’s illusionary paintings
in Chiesa di Sant’Ignazio di Loyola in Rome as they coincide with his codification of
quadratura and di sotto in su, as described through perspectival etchings and
commentary in Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum.
This thesis seeks to understand the work of Pozzo in context with his Jesuit background, examining his work under the lens of Saint Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual
Exercises, as well as the cultural, political, and religious climates of Rome during the
Counter-Reformation era. Additionally, it seeks to understand how Pozzo and the Order
of the Society of Jesus contributed to Baroque Art, as they are so often discussed
together. Pozzo’s intentions are additionally examined through a study of his
predecessors and contemporaries, such as Andrea Mantegna, Baciccio, Francesco
Borromini, and Pietro da Cortona. The works of these artists were either studied by
Pozzo, or he encountered them directly. Seeking theatricality and striving to visualize the
spiritual realm, Pozzo is finally discussed in the context of the decrees of the Council of 4
Trent from 1543, the theology of the Catholic liturgy, and the theology of Catholic
Temple.
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Dedication
To Philokalia
To Philosophia
To Philothea
Ad majorem Dei gloriam
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Acknowledgments
One of my favorite things to read in books and publications is the acknowledgements section. I read them smiling at the collaborative efforts of so many types of relationships that contribute to written works. And I have always pondered who would be included in my own. I feel so honored that I get to create such a list, a list of people without whom this thesis would not have been possible.
The origins of this thesis can be traced back to my first year of graduate school at
Ohio University. At the time, I was pursuing my Master of Fine Arts degree and trying to get my footing in the first year of intense studio work, teaching assistantships, and theory and history classes. I am indebted to the Athens Catholic Community, OU Catholics, and the Athens Catholic Young Adults for their support in my time in Athens, as well as communities that provided so many friends that let me bounce around ideas and theories with them.
I am equally indebted to my committee members and many mentors from the
School of Art + Design at Ohio University. Julie Dummermuth has always offered support and guidance through my five years at OU. Dr. Marilyn Bradshaw served as not only an amazing professor, but also a wealth of knowledge and expert on the Renaissance and Baroque. I have been incredibly lucky to have her serve on my committee until her retirement. I am also grateful to Drs. Jody Lamb and Jennie Klein for serving on my committee in the middle of summer and during a global pandemic. Quite literally, I would not have passed my defense without your presence. I am thankful for your thoughtful insights and openness to discussion. 7
In the summer of 2017, I met Giovanni Pagani and Laura Ridoni at the San
Gemini Preservation Studies summer program. They have since supported my research endeavors through conversation, accommodations, and mentorship. Because of their friendships, I was able to study Pozzo at Pontificia Università Gregoriana in Rome. I am equally thankful to the brothers at the university who introduced me to their library and aided me in collecting as much scholarship and data on Pozzo as I could glean from their collection. The kindness of my entire Italian contingency will never be forgotten.
My parents, Jim and Sylvia Thomason, taught me my entire life that I could do anything I put my mind to. I could achieve anything with the right attitude and work ethic. I am not sure either of them thought it would lead to two Master’s degrees. Along with my two sisters, Courtney and Sarah, they have supported me through absolutely everything. My entire family has travelled for exhibitions, waited to hear about the outcomes of defenses, and prayed for my successes. I am eternally grateful for the support and love that I receive from them—that which is the unconditional love of family.
In my second year of graduate school, Dr. Samuel Dodd assigned two articles by
Linda Henderson. Henderson discussed the Italian Futurists and the idea of fourth dimensional art. A major idea was that these artists were not describing time as a fourth dimension, as so often attributed, but that they were attempting to depict a fourth spatial dimension. As we humans exist in the third dimension, the Futurists could only attempt to express another dimension by that which they knew in their own. These articles served as a catalyst for my thesis. The parallels between Henderson’s writings and Christian 8 theology were uncanny to me. Throughout the Scriptures and theology, man often encounters or describes the spiritual realm by earthly means. Additionally, Catholicism specifically claims the meeting of earthly and spiritual realms at its liturgy. Dr. Dodd, for years, has indulged me in intense discussion and discourse on this topic. I do not think he knows the monster he created by assigning those articles to our class. I all but demanded that he be my thesis advisor for my art history degree. I was and continue to be so thankful to his agreement, as well as his support to me academically and professionally during my years at Ohio University.
Back during that first year at OU, I began conversations with Fr. Jonas Shell about art, the Church, and theology. Whereas Dr. Dodd provided fuel for the art theory, Fr.
Shell served as an impetus for art and theology. He challenged my ideas on objectivity and subjectivity in art, gave me spiritual readings on art by the saints, and introduced me to ideas of Temple theology and sacred beauty. It was these conversations with Fr. Shell that led me to pursue a Christian and spiritual art practice for my MFA. And these would be ideas that would be carried over to this thesis, where I could ground them in historical research and practices. As the Christian I am, I can only believe that it is the Holy Spirit that guided to such a place and to encounter such people.
Emily Thomason
MFA, Painting + Drawing
MA, Art History
July 27, 2020 9
Table of Contents
Page
Abstract ...... 3 Dedication ...... 5 Acknowledgments...... 6 List of Figures ...... 10 Introduction ...... 12 Chapter 1: Andrea Pozzo: Humble Beginnings, Famous Endings ...... 18 Chapter 2: Pozzo's Architectural Treatise ...... 26 Chapter 3: Pozzo's Masterpiece ...... 30 Chapter 4: Pozzo and His Contemporaries ...... 38 Chapter 5: Pozzo and the Order of the Society of Jesus ...... 44 Chapter 6: Pozzo and the Eschatological Temple ...... 52 Chapter 7: Pozzo, Reform, and Liturgy ...... 56 Conclusion ...... 64 References ...... 66 Appendix: Figures ...... 70
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List of Figures Page
Figure 1.1. Figure 61 in Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum ...... 70 Figure 1.2. Figure 72 in Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum ...... 71 Figure 1.3. San Francesco Saverio in Mondovi altar piece ...... 72 Figure 1.4. San Francesco Saverio in Mondovi altar piece, rear view ...... 73 Figure 1.5. San Francesco Saverio in Mondovi altar piece, side view ...... 74 Figure 1.6. Figure 60 in Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum ...... 75 Figure 1.7. Figure 64 in Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum ...... 76 Figure 1.8. Andrea Pozzo, cupola painting in Sant’Ignazio dy Loyola ...... 77 Figure 1.9. Figure 94 in Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum ...... 78 Figure 2.1. Figure 1 in Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum…..….. 79 Figure 2.2. Figure 2 in Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum…..….. 80 Figure 2.3. Figure 8 in Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum…..….. 81 Figure 2.4. Figure 14 in Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum…..… 82 Figure 2.5. Figure 23 in Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum…..… 83 Figure 2.6. Figure 62 in Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum……. 84 Figure 2.7. Figure 90 in Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum……. 85 Figure 2.8. Figure 91 in Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum……. 86 Figure 2.9. Figure 101 in Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum…... 87 Figure 3.1. Andrea Pozzo, Apotheosis of Saint Ignatius………………………………. 88 Figure 3.2. Mirror in Sant’Ignazio di Loyola………………………………………...... 89 Figure 3.3. Marble marker in Sant’Ignazio di Loyola…………………………………. 90 Figure 3.4. Figure 100 in Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum…... 91 Figure 3.5. Figure 93 in Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum……. 92 Figure 3.6. Figure 88 in Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum……. 93 Figure 3.7. Figure 89 in Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum……. 94 Figure 4.1. Baciccio, Triumph of the Name of Jesus…………………………………... 95 Figure 4.2. Triumph of the Name of Jesus, side view………………………………...... 96 Figure 4.3. Baciccio’s Triumph of Saint Ignatius, Il Gesù…………………………….. 97 11
Figure 4.4. Andrea Pozzo, Apotheosis of Saint Ignatius, detail…………………….... 97 Figure 4.5. Andrea Mantegna, cupola fresco in Camera degli Sposi in Mantua………………………………………………………………… 98 Figure 4.6. Pietro da Cortona, Allegory of Divine Providence and Barberini Power……………………………………………………..99 Figure 4.7. Borromini, San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane floor plan…………………. 100 Figure 4.8. Borromini, San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane floor plan…………………. 101 Figure 4.9. Borromini, Sant’Ivo floor plan with superimposed hexagon……………102 Figure 4.10. Andrea Mantegna, frescoes in Camera degli Sposi in Mantua…………103 Figure 6.1. Steven Smith, Creation Temple diagram………………………………...104 Figure 6.2. Steven Smith, Exodus Tabernacle specifications………………………..105
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“Whatever exists in the universe, and was created by God, either falls under the senses, and is included in the word ‘visible,’ or is an object of perception to the mind, and is expressed by the word ‘invisible.’” Catechism of the Council of Trent, referring to the addition of the words “of all things visible and invisible” to the Nicene Creed. “All art worth the name must go beyond the visible, must reveal, must show us something that is hidden, and in its total effect, not reproduce, but create.” Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry with ‘On Quantitative Metre’
Introduction
Walking the streets of Rome, one finds a church around each corner. Although a long-time reality of the city due to its prominence and centrality to the Catholic faith, the current footprint of Rome is also largely due to the re-urbanization efforts under Sixtus V and the Counter-Reformation. Following Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses in 1517, in which the former Augustinian monk challenged the whole of 1500 years of the codification of Catholic theology—from the sacraments to the saints to the role of Mary, the mother of Christ—the Church first responded with the Council of Trent, convening in
1545 and then 1563, seeking to clarify doctrine and disseminate the Church’s teachings.1
Then, in wanting to restore the Catholic foothold and establish Rome as a major pilgrimage site, Sixtus “Christianized” the city, reappropriating formerly non-Christian objects to become major landmarks for the Church. For example, the obelisks around the city were relocated to be made guideposts in front of major basilicas.2 He also
1 See Thomas Worcester, "Introduction," In From Rome to Eternity: Catholicism and the Arts in Italy, Ca. 1550-1650, (Leiden: Brill, 2002) 1 – 13. 2 Andrew Hopkins, Italian Baroque from Michelangelo to Borromini (London: Thames and Hudson, 2002), 83 – 84. 13
constructed new streets, improved existing ones, and even enlisted private landowners to
include their holdings in the projects, from which resulted the Quattro Fontane
intersection.3 Although the documents from the Council only included a general decree
on the importance of art and architecture in the Church, the spirit of the Council moved
leaders to transform existing structures and include the construction of new church
buildings.4 The result is the major footprint that exists in Rome today—a church around
every corner, alerting residents and tourists that Rome remains the center of Catholicism.
Some of these churches are small and quaint, whitewashed walls with simple altar,
tabernacle, and sanctuary candles. Others, such as St. Peter’s Basilica and the Pantheon,
are so unmistakably recognizable, they are those structures to which tourists flock. These
are those architectural feats with a cross-topped obelisk standing watch in its piazza, their interiors lined with statues and gilded frames. They have a dozen altars, a set aside chapel for private prayer, and a vast collection of relics.
In researching Baroque tourist sites for Rome, Chiesa di Sant’Ignazio di Loyola is often included. Such is the case on reidsitaly.com under the search criteria “Baroque art in Rome.”5 Similarly, Trip Advisor lists Sant’Ignazio in the top twenty of churches and
cathedrals to visit in the city.6 With its close proximity to other major landmarks, such as
3 For more on the history of urbanization in Rome, see Joseph Connors, "BORROMINI AND ROMAN URBANISM," AA Files, no. 2 (1982): 10-21; David Friedman, “Geometric Survey and Urban Design: A Project for the Rome of Paul IV (1555–1559).” Geometrical Objects, January 2014, 107; and Sigfried Giedion, Space, Time and Architecture: The Growth of a New Tradition, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008). 4 Andrew Hopkins, Italian Baroque from Michelangelo to Borromini, 99. 5 Reid Bramblett, "Baroque Art in Rome," ReidsItaly.com, http://www.reidsitaly.com/places/ rome/interest/baroque. 6 "Rome Churches & Cathedrals," Tripadvisor, https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attractions-g187791- Activities-c47-t175-Rome_Lazio.html. 14
the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, and the Jesuit mother church, the Gesù, Sant’Ignazio has a
steady stream of tourists. It serves as a Jesuit landmark, and arguably the most important
art historical work for the Jesuits. It may not be the Jesuit mother church; it does not house the bones of its patron; its original architectural construction did not even come to fruition, although it had lofty goals. The contribution of Chiesa di Sant’Ignazio di Loyola is its interior. Visitors seek it out for its decoration—a church-filled set of illusionistic paintings created by Jesuit brother Andrea Pozzo.
If Chiesa di Sant’Ignazio di Loyola is so pivotal to Jesuit history, as well as art history, one may ask what its contribution is to the Counter Reformation and the Baroque era. What makes Sant’Ignazio and Andrea Pozzo’s frescoes so prominent in discussion of Baroque art? Many, such as Rudolph Wittkower, Howard Hibbard, Evonne Levy, and
Gauvin Alexander Bailey, connect the Baroque period and the Jesuit Order, discussing the period as an overzealous and almost overdramatic time in art that the Order used for a propagandic nature in its promotion of the Catholic Church. Furthermore, although there are claims that a Jesuit artistic style flourished during this period, most scholarship argues that such a style hardly exists, if at all. For example, the opening line of Wittkower’s chapter in Baroque Art: The Jesuit Contribution reads as thus: “To the best of my knowledge, an exchange of views among parties interested in the Jesuit contribution to art has hardly ever taken place.”7 A few pages later, he similarly states, “Turning to
painting, we could easily demonstrate that the Society had scarcely any aesthetic
7 Rudolph Wittkower, “Problem of the Theme,” In Baroque Art: The Jesuit Contribution, (New York: Fordham University Press, 1972), 1. 15
ambitions before 1600 or even in the early decades of the new century.”8 In a later
chapter, Hibbard discusses the sense of fluidity in the Jesuit’s establishment in Rome.
For example, the Jesuit mother church, the Gesù, did not follow the Jesuit’s preference in
architectural style, and instead was highly influenced by its financial patron, Alessandro
Cardinal Farnese. The Order may have been staunch in their ideology and charisms, but
their reliance on patronage, financial and otherwise, led to a more organic attitude in their
physical establishment in the city.9 Levy, in her Propaganda and the Jesuit Baroque,
goes so far to say on the first page of her first chapter that “no one would claim today that
a Jesuit Baroque existed.” And although the so-called “Jesuit style” can be instrumental
in understanding the Catholic Baroque, a specific style being connected to the Jesuit
order, themselves, becomes more synonymous with a means of propaganda.10
As a rebuttal, Bailey, in his chapter “‘Le style jésuite n’existe pas’: Jesuit
Corporate Culture and the Visual Arts” in The Jesuits: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts,
1540 – 1773, describes a religious order whose members were great promoters of images
and icons. Their criticism was not found in a lack of imagery but in its extravagance. Its
“prejudicial” connotation was “devised by Protestants” because they thought the Jesuit
style “signified artistic decadence.” The Jesuit Order and its artistic contribution,
subsequently, “was blamed for making extravagant appeals to the senses as a vehicle for
8 Ibid., 8. 9 Howard Hibbard, “Ut picturae sermones: The First Painted Decoration of the Gesù,” In Baroque Art: The Jesuit Contribution, (New York: Fordham Iniversity Press, 1972), 29 – 49. 10 Evonne Levy, Propaganda and the Jesuit Baroque, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004) 15 – 17. 16
control and domination.”11 One must ask again, then, what is the Jesuit contribution to
Baroque art? If there is no true visual style and little consistency throughout the period,
why does the Jesuit Order and Pozzo coincide so often with Baroque scholarship?
Bailey’s opinion, although critical in tone, may lead one closer to the answer.
In the wake of the Council of Trent and wanting to follow its decrees, the Jesuit
Order sought out decadence and opulence for the structures in which believers thought
that God physically dwelt.12 In combining extravagant interiors with the imaginative
prayer style of Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises, the Jesuit contribution is really
something more cerebral, a conceptual state of mind. In this thesis, I will demonstrate
that the result of combining prayer and imagery created a sensory encompassing
experience that would serve a pivotal role in reforming the function of the Catholic
Church. I will draw on theological teachings, as implemented by the Counter-
Reformation Church and outlined in the Catechism of the Council of Trent, as well as
historical tradition preceding the Council. Under the lens of Michael Baxandall’s period
eye, I will also present a lineage and tradition for both Ignatius of Loyola, addressing his
methods of prayer, and Andrea Pozzo, addressing the influences of his predecessors and
his use of the Spiritual Exercises in his work in the Chiesa di Sant’Ignazio. Using these
methods and examples, as well as Felix Burda-Stengel’s arguments of Pozzo as a
11 G.A. Bailey, “‘Le style jésuite n’existe pas’: Jesuit Corporate Culture and the Visual Arts,” In The Jesuits: Cultures, Science, and the Arts, 1540 – 1773, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 39. 12 From the Catechism of the Council of Trent, 250: “[T]o make and honour such images of our Lord, of his holy and virginal mother, and of the Saints, all of whom appeared in human form, is not only not forbidden by this commandment, but has always been deemed a holy practice, and the surest indication of a mind deeply impressed with gratitude toward them.” Emphasis added. 17
precursor to virtual reality in his book Andrea Pozzo and Video Art, I will propose that
Pozzo, in painting the interior of Chiesa di Sant’Ignazio di Loyola and implementing his
own trompe l’oeil style called quadratura, utilizes the spiritual traditions of the Jesuit
Order and the Catholic Church, as well as his own inventions, to demonstrate that the
Jesuit influence on the Baroque period was not a visual style, but a reforming factor in a belief system, both individually and communally, as well as its art and architectural practices.
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Chapter 1: Andrea Pozzo: Humble Beginnings, Famous Endings
Andrea Pozzo was born November 30, 1642, in Trent. He was educated by local
Jesuit brothers until the age of seventeen, when he began apprenticing under various artists. At the age of twenty-three, he joined the Jesuit order, spending his novitiate in
Piedmont before being sent to San Fedele in Milan.13 Pozzo’s prominent career began due to the Order’s celebrations around The Forty Hours Devotion. The devotion was a prevalent practice at this point in Jesuit history, a means of reintroducing the importance of Eucharistic practices, as they were called into question by Luther in the Protestant
Reformation.14
The Catholic teaching for the Eucharist is sourced from two major parts of
Scripture. The first is what is commonly known as the “Bread of Life Discourse,” found in John 6, in which Jesus establishes himself as the source of eternal life and that he is the bread of life. One must consume his body to achieve such eternal life.15 The other
13 Felix Burda-Stengel, Andrea Pozzo and Video Art, (Philadelphia: Saint Joseph’s University Press, 2001), 21. 14 See Pierre Janelle, The Catholic Reformation, (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1963), 4 – 16. 15 John 6: 32-40, 47-58, NAB: “So Jesus said to them, ‘Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the true bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.’ So they said to him, ‘Sir, give us this bread always.’ Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst. But I told you that although you have seen [me], you do not believe. Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me, because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me. And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it [on] the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him [on] the last day… Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.’ The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us [his] flesh to eat?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal 19
occurs in the accounts of the Last Supper, recorded in both the gospels of Matthew and
Luke, chapters 26 and 22, respectively. This gives the form of the Eucharist to the
Christian, the manner by which it would be implemented in the Church after Christ.16 As
a result of the Church’s desire to reiterate the validity of the sacrament and the
heightened sense of Eucharistic devotion, churches were transformed and decorated to
further emphasize the Forty Hours event: “By means of lateral wings with painted scenes
done in false perspective and special light effects, high altars were transformed into stage
backdrops, the focus of which was the display of the mystery of the Eucharist.”17 This
style of stage set was adopted from the tradition of theatre during the Baroque period.18
These backdrops were similar to the theatrical device deus ex machina (literally, god
from a machine), which were used to stage “supernatural events” and which called
attention to the act of viewing artifice and the push/pull of reality and illusion.19
Pozzo’s first illusionistic machina was created for the Order’s celebrations of the
canonization of Saint Francis Borgia in San Fedele. Unfortunately, there are no surviving
images for the machina, but based on his other works, they would most likely resemble a
life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.’” 16 See also the first-known account of the Liturgy by Saint Justin, Martyr around the year 155, in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1345. 17 Richard Bosel, “Jesuit Architecture in Europe,” In The Jesuits and the Arts: 1540-1773, (Philadelphia: Saint Joseph’s University Press, 2006), 69-70. 18 As discussed in Dunbar H. Ogden, The Italian Baroque Stage (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978). 19 Larry F. Norman and Elizabeth Rodini, “The Theatrical Baroque: European Plays, Painting and Poetry, 1575-1725,” 2001, adapted from Véronique Sigu, "The Baroque Pastoral or the Art of Fragile Harmony," in The Theatrical Baroque (Chicago: The David and Alfred Smart Museum/University of Chicago, 2001), 58-67. 20
structure like that of Figure 61 in his Pespectiva Pictorum et Architectorum (Figure 1.1)
Surpassing all expectations in his design, Pozzo’s work caught the attention of the
Order’s Superior General, Gian Paolo Oliva. Oliva began arranging commissions for
Pozzo, including one for a nephew of then Pope Innocent XI.20 Pozzo’s machina usually
consisted of multiple canvases or frames surrounding the altar and monstrance, as a
means to create three-dimensional visual depth in addition to the two-dimensional decorative paintings (Figure 1.2). Pozzo drew on the knowledge of theatre staging, as can be seen in his architectural treatise, Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum, printed in two volumes in 1693 and 1700. For example, Figure 72 shows the setting of a scene for stage, taking into account the audience and perspective of the seating to the stage (Figure
1.3). Pozzo describes, “Scenes for the Stage have very much Affinity with those lately described, but the Point of Sight is not so easily found in these…Half this space is taken up by the Stage, the other half by the Spectators. O is the Point in which the visual lines concenter. D is the place of those things that are to appear most remote.”21 Pozzo
describes each point on his diagram, in terms of its appearance and sight lines of the
viewer. These staggered pieces would then give the appearance of a greater depth than
the actual stage, while still giving the illusion of accurate perspective.
Pozzo employed a similar structure for the altar at San Francesco Saverio in
Mondovi, his first major permanent commission after leaving Milan. A flat canvas cut in
20 Felix Burda-Stengel, Andrea Pozzo and Video Art, 22. 21 Figure 72, “Of Scenes for the Stage” In Andrea Pozzo, Rules and Examples of Perspective, Proper for Painters and Architects.
21 the shape of the altar fills most of the sanctuary space. An additional shaped canvas
“floats” in the arch of the altar, appearing as an altar painting of the church’s patron saint.
Pozzo layers these canvases to trick the viewer into seeing three-dimensional objects and architecture. From the nave, the illusionistic paintings and layered works read as an accurate three-dimensional space. In the sanctuary, from an oblique angle, the illusion fades (Figures 1.4, 1.5, 1.6). This combination of layering two-dimensional surfaces with three-dimensional paintings became a precursor to Pozzo’s quadratura illusionistic paintings. Pozzo describes in Figure 60 (Figure 1.7) of his treatise, “I have sometimes made use of this Tabernacle for the Exposition of the Forty Hours. If the Colours are laid by a skillful Hand, on two Ranges of Cloth, and the Frame cut away according to the
Out-line of the Work, they will wonderfully deceive the Eye, and appear as solid.”22 And again in Figure 64 (Figure 1.8),
“I have sometimes, for the Solemnity of the Forty Hours, exposed this painted on
a Machine, with an universal Satisfaction; Angels with Clouds possessing the
higher part of the hemisphere within, and Groups of Figures the lower part. The
Manner of designing on the inner Frame, that part of the said Cupola which you
here see, is deduced from what has been before said of putting circles into
perspective.”23
22 Ibid., Figure 60 “An Octangular Tabernacle in Perspective.” 23 Ibid., Figure 64 “A Square Design in Perspective.” 22
Both descriptions give insight to Pozzo’s mind in creating these structures. They were
meant to be cost effective while simultaneously fooling the eye. They were meant to
appear as a solid, three-dimensional object in the accuracy of their perspective.
Between his machina and his work in Mondovi between 1671 and 1680, Pozzo
gained enough artistic attention by the Jesuit order, he was called to Rome by Superior
General Oliva in 1681. Oliva’s death preceded Pozzo’s arrival, and his budding artistic
career was put on hold, as he had no real support from the rest of the Jesuit leadership.24
He once again made a name for himself on the occasion of a Forty Hours Devotion.
According to his eighteenth-century biographers, Pozzo overheard the conversation of his
superiors, in which they were discussing an economical way to construct the stage set for
the event. Pozzo volunteered to construct an apparatus out of scraps of canvas and
rags.25 Up to this point, traditionally from the Renaissance, the quality and expense of
material for a work reflected the subject matter.26 Pozzo’s volunteering to create a
theatrical apparatus for the adoration of the Eucharist—by Catholic standards, the Body,
Blood, Soul, and Divinity of God, present among them—with scraps and rags was
initially rejected. He succeeded in winning over the superiors, and as a result, his work
would be deemed a triumph.27 Pozzo, from then on, would be known for his ability to
create extravagance out of virtually nothing, both materially and monetarily.
24 Felix Burda-Stengel, Andrea Pozzo and Video Art, 22 – 23. 25 Francis Haskell, Patrons and Painters: A Study in the Relations between Italian Art and Society in the Age of the Baroque, (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1963), 88. 26 Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 82. 27 Francis Haskell, Patrons and Painters: A Study in the Relations between Italian Art and Society in the Age of the Baroque, 88. 23
Pozzo’s penchant for resourcefulness and ingenuity in his machina, as well as his
ability to create realistic three-dimensional spaces using only two-dimensional surfaces,
eventually led to winning a commission to paint the dome for Sant’Ignazio. The original
plan for the church included a dome that would be second only to St. Peter’s Basilica in
terms of size and prominence. Due to financial difficulties and disputes among the
descendants of the church’s Ludovisi descendants, the construction of such the planned
dome was no longer possible. The Rector of the Collegio Romano, attached to
Sant’Ignazio, determined that something must fill the empty space, and after the
consideration of many artistic and architectural plans, Pozzo was chosen under the
recommendation of Mattia de Rossi to create the illusion of a high-peaked dome on a
circular canvas.28 Pozzo would strive for the illusion of a dome that matched the
greatness in size and depth for the original plans.
The dome has a long history of theological connections for churches. In biblical
symbolism, the cubic shape represents the renewed earth, and the circular or spherical
shape represents “the unending movement of God.” Domes became the universal,
architectural expression for heaven.29 Frequently used as locations for spiritual
iconography, including biblical stories, heavenly bodies, or important texts, they resulted
in making the spiritual realm visual for the congregant or visitor.30 In bringing the cube
28 Ibid., 89; Mattia de Rossi was the successor of Bernini Sant’Andrea al Quirinale and the then architect of St. Peter’s Basilica, thus the importance of his opinions in the matter. 29 David Stephenson, Visions of Heaven: The Dome in European Architecture, (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2005), 161. 30 Dennis R. McNamara, How to Read Churches: A Crash Course in Ecclesiastical Architecture, (New York: Rizzoli, 2011), 140. 24
and dome together, the building then embodies the joining of heaven and earth.31
Specifically during the Baroque period, there was a heightened interest in worldly
exploration and circumnavigation. This combined with the continued emphasis on
geometry from the Renaissance and resulted in an architectural “stretching” of space.32
These are all things that Pozzo applied to his dome piece in Sant’Ignazio. Pozzo
includes little iconographic imagery, only a group of angels blowing trumpets, grouped
around a large cartouche that shows the monogram of Christ, IHS, also the emblem of the
Order.33 This part of the painting is most difficult to make out due to dirt and damage
throughout the years. The major feat of the 17m painting is its architectural illusion
(Figure 1.9). Pozzo, in foreshortening the architecture and forcing a single ideal
viewpoint, creates the illusion of a much higher dome (Figure 1.10). In his architectural
treatise Perspectiva Pictorum er Architectorum, Pozzo notes the criticism that some of the architectural features he includes may not be accurate: “Some Architects disliked my setting the advances Columns upon Corbels, as being a thing not practised in solid
Structures; but a certain Painter, a Friend of mine, removed all their Scruples, by answering for me, That if at any Time the Corbels should be so much surcharged with the
Weight of the Columns, as to endanger their Fall, he was ready to repair the Damage at
his own Cost.”34 For Pozzo, it was not a matter of the dome being structurally accurate.
It was of lesser importance that the corbels he painted could accurately support the
31 Ibid., 33. 32 David Stephenson, Visions of Heaven: The Dome in European Architecture, 178. 33 Felix Burda-Stengel, Andrea Pozzo and Video Art, 82. 34 Figure 91, “The Cupola of the Ninetieth Figure, with its Lights and Shades” In Andrea Pozzo, Rules and Examples of Perspective, Proper for Painters and Architects. 25
columns above. The point was that the flat surface creates spatial depth. And that depth
appears perspectivally accurate from its ideal viewpoint. This was similar to Pozzo’s
work in San Francesco Saverio in Mondovi.
Contrastingly, Pozzo was commissioned to work in San Francesco in order to
conceal its architectural flaws. His creation of spatial depth by means of an altar machina
offset the unproportional relationship between the steep vault and short nave. Another
painted cupola created a projected second bay (Figure 1.11), concealing the irregularity
of the ceiling.35 Even without much mathematical knowledge—as Pozzo was a self-
taught geometrician—the viewer can understand the interest in using visual distortion and
“stretching” to create illusioned reality.36 It calls into question that bridge between
illusion and perception and reality. For this painting, at its ideal viewpoint, perception
becomes reality. Pozzo’s cupola would be the only this first commission for Sant’Ignazio
that explored such ideas.
35 Felix Burda-Stengel, Andrea Pozzo and Video Art, 45 – 47. 36 Kirsti Andersen, "The Master of Painted Archtiecture: Andrea Pozzo, S.J. and His Treatise on Perspective." In Geometrical Object: Architecture and the Mathematical Sciences 1400 - 1800, (Manchester: Springer, 2014), 179. 26
Chapter 2: Pozzo’s Architectural Treatise
Coinciding with his work in the Chiesa di Sant’Ignazio, Pozzo was working to publish his architectural treatise Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum.37 Although
working in the tradition of ecclesial and architectural writings, Pozzo would achieve
more success than his fellow writers. Before his Perspectiva, there had been eight other
books entirely devoted to perspective, as well as numerous authors coming from the
Jesuit Order.38 Pozzo’s treatise was published in two volumes, first in 1693 and then in
1700. Between 1700 and 1725, the treatise was translated into at least nine languages
and distributed widely, making it as far as China, as the Jesuit Order began missions in
Asia beginning in the sixteenth century.39
Pozzo uses a distinctive style throughout Perspectiva. He pairs architectural and
geometrical engravings as figures with explanatory captions. The captions, themselves,
give some guidance on reconstructing the figures, but one must study and put them into practice to even attempt to recreate them. The explanations are convoluted and complex.
Pozzo’s English translator, John James, provides one explanation for this: “…the Brevity or Silence of our Author…writing in a Country where the Principles of this Art are more
37 As a note, the version of the Treatise referenced throughout this thesis is Andrea Pozzo, Rules and Examples of Perspective, Proper for Painters and Architects, New York: Bloom, 1971. This is a reprint of the original English translation. 38 For more on Pozzo’s place in this lineage, see Kirsti Anderson’s “The Master of Painted Architecture: Andrea Pozzo, S.J. and His Treatise on Perspective,” 170 – 172. 39 Ibid., 172; also see Gauvin Alexander Bailey, “Jesuit Art and Architecture in Asia,” in The Jesuits and the Arts, 1540 – 1773, 311 – 360; for more on the specifics of the influence of Pozzo’s Treatise in China, see Elisabetta Corsi, “Pozzo’s Treatise as a workshop for the construction of a sacred catholic space in Beijing,” In Artifizi della metafora: saggi su Andrea Pozzo, 232-243, Roma: Artemide, 2011; for the influence of the Jesuit Order on the Americas, see Gauvin Alexander Bailey, “The Artistic and Architectural Legacy of the Jesuits in Spanish America,” in The Jesuits and the Arts, 1540 – 1773, 269 – 310, and Gauvin Alexander Bailey, “The Jesuits in North America and Their Legacy in Art and Architecture, 1611 - 1814,” in The Jesuits and the Arts, 1540 – 1773, 361 – 412. 27
generally known than with Us, had no need to insist so long on some things, as may be
thought necessary to Beginners.”40 According to James, then, it becomes clear that
Pozzo was speaking to his artistic peers and, therefore, used his own brand of
perspectival jargon that is difficult to interpret today.
Beyond the instruction and commentary, Pozzo begins his figures with simple
shapes. With the exception of Figure 1 (Figure 2.1), in which he gives a more complex
example to fully describe and demonstrate what he calls the “Principle of Perspective,”
Figure 2 demonstrates both a drawing of a square in perspective, as well as depicting this
square folding over a corner (Figure 2.2). He progresses with more complex and detailed
shapes and objects. For example, Figure 8 (Figure 2.3) shows a pedestal with cap and
base, Figure 14 (Figure 2.4) moves on to circles in perspective, working all the way up to
an Ionic capital in Figure 23, which consists of a combination of circles and squares
(Figure 2.5).
As mentioned earlier, Pozzo also gives examples of his work in the theatrical stage tradition and his machina. Figure 60 (Figure 1.7), again, gives an example of an altar design for the Forty Hours Devotion. Figure 61 (Figure 1.2) gives a side view of such a construction and how to implement the two-dimensional design. Figure 62
(Figure 2.6) even gives a method of gridding preliminary drawings to be able to fit a design to a specific space: “You have jointly in A, the two Designs of a Tabernacle, which are to be drawn separately; the same Net-work serving for both, which is also
40 John James, “Preface to this Translation” In Rules and Examples of Perspective, Proper for Painters and Architects. 28
marked with Numbers. When you have therefore resolved on the Size of your Work, on
the Pavement some Room capacious enough, make a Net-work answerable, and affix thereto the Numbers, as in your Copy.”41
His illustrations continue in complexity, working up to his designs for
Sant’Ignazio. His cupola painting (Figure 1.9) was finished in 1685, eight years prior to
the treatise’s first publication. Plans for the cupola are included in Figures 90 and 91
(Figures 2.7, 2.8). Figures 93 through 100 are devoted to plans for the nave ceiling
painting in Saint Ignatius. The volume concludes with an engraving of the completed
design of the painting (Figure 2.9). It commemorates the unveiling of the finished work.
Overall, Pozzo was working to codify two major techniques for what would become his own quintessential Jesuit visual style: quadratura and di sotto in su. Defined simply, quadratura is “a form of illusionistic mural painting in which images of architectural features are painted onto walls or ceilings so that they seem to extend the real architecture.”42 It is a variant of trompe l’oeil, as it fools the eye, but it is specific to
architectural structures. Pozzo, in his Perspectiva, is publishing a guidebook for
executing quadratura paintings. Di sotto in su, literally translating “from below up”, is a
method in which artists would paint in “an extreme form of illusionistic foreshortening
whereby figures and forms in ceiling painting appear to be suspended or float above the
41 Figure 62, “Of making the Net-work on Frames, for representing the Architecture as solid” In Andrea Pozzo, Rules and Examples of Perspective, Proper for Painters and Architects. 42 "Quadratura: Illusionistic Painting Technique." ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FINE ART. http://www.visual- arts-cork.com/painting/quadratura.htm. 29
spectator below.”43 James Elkins suggests that paintings done dal di in sotto in su are the most successful and effective “when they seem to be extensions of the room in which the viewer stands, and two- and three-point perspectives indicate the viewer’s position by specific constructions.”44 This is the exact manner in which Pozzo employs both techniques in Sant’Ignazio.
43 "sotto in sù," Oxford Reference, 11 Apr. 2019, http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100519256. 44 James Elkins, The Poetics of Perspective, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), 133. 30
Chapter 3: Pozzo’s Masterpiece: Contemporary Experience, Iconography,
and Structure
Upon entering the Chiesa di Sant’Ignazio di Loyola in Rome, the viewer is
immediately overwhelmed with Pozzo’s trompe l’oeil ceiling fresco, Apotheosis of Saint
Ignatius, covering the entirety of the nave ceiling and completed in 1694 (Figure 3.1). In
the present day, the viewer and church goer has two options—crane his or her neck to
stare at the wonder of the church architecture seemingly rising and merging with the
heavenly realm or wait in a short line to view the painting in a mirror (Figure 3.2). The
latter may save the neck muscles, but the former allows for the original, intended effect.
One is meant to immediately look up. An idea dating from the Renaissance, vision had
been considered the most important of the senses, and in using vision, one could meditate
on the realities of Heaven. This is described by Bartholomew Rimbertinus, in his 1498
On the Sensible Delights of Heaven. There were thought to be “three kinds of
improvements on our mortal visual experience: a greater beauty in things seen, a greater
keenness in the sense of sight, and an infinite variety of objects for vision.”45 Pozzo
referenced these ideas while creating his fresco. In attempting to distinguish reality and
illusion, one becomes increasingly aware and wonders at the liminal space that is the
reality of the man-made building you are standing in. It is man-made. It is also spiritual
realm. It is a space where God dwells with man. It is a space where Heaven demands to
be acknowledged. The fresco speaks to this. The viewer is able to experience this before
45 Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style, translated and cited, 103-104. 31
even entering the sanctuary, the space in the building where God physically dwells in the
Tabernacle in the Eucharist (at least to the Catholic mind and visitor). From the Jesuit
tradition, Pozzo adopts the idea of using a conceptual theme in his iconography and
pictorial program.46 In drawing on themes of Jesuits’ missionary works, the work and
life of Saint Ignatius, the Trinity, and Temple theology, Pozzo again utilizes a Jesuit idea,
in which the meditative and programmatic nature of the interior decoration of the church
enables a “sequences pilgrimage of the soul.”47 The viewer, then, in a common and
universal church space can draw on other commonalities of the Catholic experience, in
terms of biblical stories or the lives of the saints, to continue to cultivate the personal
spiritual life.
Presently, Pozzo’s intended experience is interrupted by the modern-day
accommodations. The mirror stands directly in the center of the nave, forcing traffic to
either side. Not long after side-stepping the mirror and subsequent line, visitors are
stopped and offered a free audio-guide for the church. Although informative, the viewer
is once again distracted from an elongated period of looking up. It distracts from noticing
the intricacies of all surfaces, including a pattern in the marble floor, indicating specific
vantage points for church decoration. A marble disk is inserted into the floor, indicating
from which point the viewer should engage Pozzo’s scene (Figure 3.3). Pozzo, in
reacting to criticism of its function, addresses this single viewpoint in his treatise: “Since
46 This is discussed in Howard Hibbard’s Ut picturae sermons: The First Painted Decoration in the Gesu, In Baroque Art—The Jesuit Contribution, 29-49. 47 Gauvin A Bailey, Between Renaissance and Baroque: Jesuit Art in Rome, 1565-1610, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), 269. 32
the Perspective is but a Counterfeiting of the Truth, the Painter is not obliged to make it
appear real when seen from Any part, but from One determinate Point only.”48 He seems to have ordered the marble disk marker himself, positioning it directly under the center of the fresco, as well as falling directly under Christ, as he reaches out to the church’s patron, Saint Ignatius. Consistent to Pozzo’s contemporaries, more recent scholarship notes criticism for Pozzo’s fixed vantage point: “Standing on the marble disk, the observer has the perfect illusion of the structure with an arcade sitting on the beam of the nave to the open sky…If the observer leaves the ideal standpoint, then the architecture begins to ‘tip’…columns turn more and more horizontal, the vault of the ceiling reappears, and the cupola becomes crooked.”49 This distorted view is a result of the
extreme foreshortening di sotto in su method Pozzo used to paint his architectural
structures accurately. The criticism is that the fresco loses its effects because the viewer
becomes aware of its falsity, its illusion, but even Pozzo, again above, states,
“Perspective is but a Counterfeiting of Truth.” Only by viewing the work from the ideal
viewpoint—the marble disk—does one experience what Pozzo intended.
The viewer is overwhelmed by the fresco. The line between physical and painted
architecture blurs. This is also the ideal viewpoint for Pozzo’s painted cupola, completed
in 1685. These “ideal” viewpoints parallel the idyllic push for Catholicism during the
period of the Counter-Reformation. In wanting to counter the denouncements of the likes
48 “An Answer to the Objection made about the Point of Sight in Perspective,” In Andrea Pozzo, Rules and Examples of Perspective, Proper for Painters and Architects. 49 Felix Burda-Stengel, Andrea Pozzo and Video Art, 96.
33
of Luther, Church leaders were seeking to establish Catholicism as the ideal Christian
denomination. It can be argued that although Pozzo was first and foremost promoting the
Jesuit Order and the successes of sainthood from its members, he, too, was promoting
Catholicism as the truest denomination. This may seem incongruous with the fresco
because Pozzo’s “perfect” viewpoint is so easily broken by movement in the space.
However, it is this ideal viewpoint that the viewer can recall in later settings, such as the
liturgy.
The architecture and physicality of the church space, itself, is that of a barrel
vault. Pozzo used a system of projecting candle or lamp light under a grid of strings to
accurately transfer his image to the ceiling surface (Figure 3.4). In Figure 100 of his
treatise, he explains, “Therefore if you imagine a Lamp or Candle fixed in the Night-time
at Point O; the Shadows of the Thread, thrown thereby on the Vault, being traced by a
Pencil, make the third Net-work required for painting the same.” He then warns that the
image transferred to the vault must be exactly the same as your copy (Figures 3.5, 3.6,
3.7).50 It is in this manner that Pozzo was able to so accurately transfer his preliminary
drawing to create a perspectivally accurate work on a curved vault.
At the base of this curved vault sits a row of six clerestory, lunette windows.
Here, in between the windows, Pozzo employs some sculptural stucco, bringing to life
human figures and giving them some three-dimensionality that reinforces the visual
illusion between three-dimensional spaces and two-dimensional painting. On the
50 Figure 100, “The Method of drawing the Net or Lattice-Work on Vaults,” In Andrea Pozzo, Rules and Examples of Perspective, Proper for Painters and Architects.
34
boundary where the barrel vault transitions to the wall, the figures similarly follow. The figures are painted two-dimensionally on the vault and sculpted three-dimensionally on the wall. This transition is seamless, as the figures follow the extreme foreshortening
Pozzo used on the architectural painting. Beyond the clerestory, all architectural elements are painted, and he adds coffered arcade openings between protruding double columns, mirroring the double pilasters below in the nave. It becomes increasing difficult to distinguish the bounds of physical architecture and painting. As the architecture (real and illusioned) is sectioned, so are the figures in the paintings. In the lowest tiers are humans, many allegories for virtues or “corners” of the world. There are putti, but even these represent angelic beings that often manifest in human form on earth.
The next tier depicts more angelic beings and fewer humans. These humans are not necessarily recognizable figures, but are presumably saints, as they exist in the spiritual realm. As the architecture merges with the Heavens, human figures are more intermingled with heavenly bodies. These Heavenly figures are depicted with human bodies, although they are not human by Catholic tradition. Angels have a long-standing tradition of taking human forms for human interaction, so that humans can better understand them.51 This happens throughout scripture, such as the angels that call on
Abraham in Genesis 18 or the archangel Gabriel that appears to Mary in Luke 1, or the prophet Zechariah, also in Luke 1.
51 Catechism of the Council of Trent, (Miami: HardPress Publishing, 2013), 250. 35
Above each lunette window, Pozzo depicts six virtues important to the Jesuit
Order—justice, eloquence, purity, charity, prudence, and fortitude.52 These depictions surround allegories of the four continents where the Jesuits were working. Lady Europe wears a gold crown, holds a scepter of an orb, and sits atop a stallion. Lady Asia wears a turban and, sitting on a camel, is handed a Ming Dynasty vessel from two putti. Lady
America, semi-nude, wears a headdress and feathered skirt and is accompanied by a
puma and toucan. Lady Africa adorns a feathered diadem and holds a tusk while riding a
crocodile.53
There are five recognizable saints depicted—Saint Francis Xavier, Saint Francis
Borgia, Saint Luigi Gonzaga, Saint Peter Canisius, and Saint Ignatius, for whom the
church is named. Each saint, with the exception of Ignatius, rises on a cloud above the
continent on which he was sent for Jesuit mission work.54 Francis Xavier appears before
Asia, Francis Borgia and Luigi Gonzaga above Europe, and Peter Canisius above Africa.
The Heavenly realm in Pozzo’s depiction is engulfed with clouds. Even from the Old
Testament, God dwells in a cloud, and the cloud can demarcate a sign of the presence of
God, such as the tabernacle of the Exodus Temple. The clouds break the plane of the
painted architectural structure where the recognizable saints are ascending into Heaven.
These five saints have been canonized by the time Pozzo paints them—recognized by the
52 Ruud Teggelaar, "Rome Day 6 (continuation 1)," Italian Cities, Walks Art in Florence Rome Venice, 2020, https://www.teggelaar.com/en/rome-day-6-continuation-1/; the inclusion of Pozzo and Sant’Ignazio on this travel bloggers reiterates the point made in the Introduction that Pozzo is often visited and documented by tourists as a major work for Baroque Art. 53 Felix Burda-Stengel, Andrea Pozzo and Video Art, 95. 54 Ibid., 93. 36
Church to be in Heaven and beyond purgatory—and they are all Jesuits. As the church is named for Ignatius, and he is the founder of the Jesuit order, as well as this being a Jesuit church, Ignatius is the most central figure second to Jesus. By the centrality of Saint
Ignatius’s location in the painting, Pozzo reminds the viewer of the celebration of the saint’s life, the work that is attributed to him and the order he founded, as well as the work that led him to sainthood.
Centered near the church’s namesake is the Risen Christ with His cross, with the other two figures of the Trinity, God the Father and the Holy Spirit, depicted behind.
Christ exists in the fullness of the Resurrection while simultaneously existing in the fullness of the Trinity. A ray of light emanates from the Resurrected Christ, striking
Ignatius of Loyola in the heart. This light can represent the wisdom, truth, and divinity that Ignatius receives from his holy and devout earthly life following Christ and that results in his eventual eternal one. The light then shines through Ignatius into five more rays, four of which shine onto the four regions of the world. This represents the mission of the Jesuit Order that Ignatius founded as well as the work that reached the four continents depicted. Pozzo, in a letter to Principale Antonio Floriano di Liechtenstein, describes the work accordingly:
“These are invested with so much light that they reject the deformed monstrosities
of idolatry, or heresy, or other vices, and fertilized by this divine light, like the
seeds of all the virtues, the four corners of the world send back to Heaven a mass
blessed by holy souls, which through the culture of many tireless hardworkers or 37
infidelity pass to the faith, or from a faith that is dead because of the perversities
of habit returns to a state of grace.”55
The last ray reflects back to Christ. That which was gifted to man is regifted and re- reflected back to one who first gave it. This is the basis of Ignatian Spirituality: one should live to find God in everything and then subsequently should live to give glory to
God in everything.56 Pozzo too states this meaning, “…thereby that by glorifying his
name the Redeemer wishes to adorn Ignatius; while every thought, every effect, and
every work of Ignatius was aimed at nothing else but ‘ad maiorem Dei gloriam.’ (for the
greater glory of God).57
55 Published in Peter Wilberg-Vignau, Andrea Pozzo’s Deckenfresko in Sant’Ignazio, (Munich: Uni-Druck, 1970), 45 – 46: Copy of a letter written by Andrea Pozzo to Prince Antonio Floriano of Liechtenstein. 56 Saint Ignatius of Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, Translated by Anthony Mottola, (New York: Image Books, 2014). 57 Peter Wilber-Vignau, Copy of a letter written by Andrea Pozzo to Prince Antonio Floriano of Liechtenstein. 38
Chapter 4: Pozzo and His Contemporaries
Pozzo is hailed as a great master of both quadratura and di sotto in su.58 He was
drawing on a vast tradition of these methods, responding to both predecessors and
contemporaries. For example, Baciccio had finished his ceiling fresco, Triumph of the
Name of Jesus, in the Gesù in 1685, ten years prior to Pozzo’s Apotheosis but coinciding
with the completion of Pozzo’s cupola (Figure 4.1). He too painted in such a way to
highlight the liminal space of the church, creating an illusionary depth in which figures
broke from earth to enter the Heavens (Figure 4.2). The stucco of the painting extends
over the three-dimensional gilded frame and a glaze was painted to simulate shadows
from the clouds, further calling into questions the boundaries of the spiritual and earthly
realms.
Baciccio even painted the same figure—Ignatius of Loyola—as he was the
Order’s founder. Although Pozzo was not commissioned to work in the Gesù until 1695 for the altar in the Saint Ignatius chapel, he was likely still exposed to Baciccio’s work during his 1682 commission to paint the corridor leading from the Gesù to the rooms of
Saint Ignatius is the adjoining Casa Professora. Visual evidence suggests that Baciccio’s work had an impact on him (Figure 4.3, 4.4). They use similar gestures and di sotto in su foreshortening techniques. Pozzo seems to expand Baciccio’s notion of boundary lines.
Baciccio, too, was working in tradition. Illusionary paintings where the Heavens intermingled with church architectural space had existed for at least a century. In
58 Katherine Wheeler, “Fictive and Real Architecture: A Preliminary Drawing for Andrea Pozzo's Vault Fresco at Sant'Ignazio, Rome." Thresholds, no. 28 (2005), 100: “[T]he fresco is one of the finest examples of Baroque quadratura.” 39
addition to Baciccio, one could cite Andrea Mantegna’s painted ceiling in the Camera
degli Sposi in Mantua from 1465 – 74 (Figure 4.5) as an influence on Pozzo. One could
also mention Pietro da Cortona’s illusionistic ceiling, Allegory of Divine Providence and
Barberini Power, painted in Palazzo Barberini from 1633-39, also preceding Pozzo
(Figure 4.6).
Architects sought to achieve similar goals with space. Francesco Borromini,
drawing on geometry and illusion in his architectural design, viewed space as not a void
of structure, but as something corporeal, its own element, molded by the surrounding
architectural shell.59 This is a projected space unto itself. This corporeal projected space,
then, intermingles and acts as an underlying influence and source of information for the
visitor of the space. For example, in his construction of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane
from 1638 – 1646, a resulting shape is created by a series of equilateral triangles, gleaned
by Borromini from Euclidian geometry (Figure 4.7). The use of the triangles is often
interpreted as an instantiation of the Trinity, a nod to the Trinitarian Order, for whom the
church was being constructed. San Carlo’s plan also creates the shape of a mandorla
(Figure 4.8), “the auric vessel and window into heaven that had been a ubiquitous
ideogram in Christian art from at least the ninth century.”60 The almond shape, created
from the intersection of two circles, also represented the merging of heaven and earth,
divine and human, especially when taking the dual nature of Christ into account.61
59 Christian F. Otto, “Francesco Borromini,” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., September 21, 2019, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Francesco-Borromini. 60 Michael Hill, "Practical and Symbolic Geometry in Borromini’s San Carlo Alle Quattro Fontane," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 72, no. 4 (2013), 570. 61 Ibid. 40
Similarly, at Sant’Ivo Church (1642 – 1660), Borromini draws on a equilateral triangles
to create a hexagonal shape, also referencing the shape of the bee (Figure 4.9). The bee
was the symbol for the Barberini family, for whom the church was constructed.62
Symbolism of the bee is a part of ancient Catholic tradition as well. Ecclesiasticus states,
“For my spirit is sweet above honey, and my inheritance above honey and the
honeycomb.”63 The bee is also referenced in the Exultet text sung at the blessing of the
Paschal candle, making the “moral probity of the bee…affirmed not only by the ancients
but also by the Church Fathers and the Scriptures.”64 One entering Sant’Ivo, then, could
not only draw on the knowledge of Barberini patronage, but also the symbolism of bees,
as it pertained to Scripture, morality, and wisdom. The “empty” space of the church,
therefore, holds just as much weight and symbolic information as does the iconography
or the architectural styles of the church. In San Carlo, Borromini, too, employs the
elliptical dome. One could view this as a nod to the geometry that he studied at length
for use in his construction.65 But it also speaks, once again, to a more literal notion of the
“stretching” of space and the Baroque interest in exploration and expanding the world.66
What Borromini creates with constructed buildings, Pozzo eventually achieves
with painting. Even in painting, Pozzo’s work far exceeds that of his predecessors.
Mantegna and Baciccio, although creating illusionistic, depth-defying works, still frame
62 John Beldon Scott, "S. Ivo Alla Sapienza and Borromini's Symbolic Language." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 41, no. 4 (1982), 298. 63 Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) 24: 27, Douey-Rheims 64 John Beldon Scott, "S. Ivo Alla Sapienza and Borromini's Symbolic Language," 301. 65 For more on Borromini, see Leo Steinberg, Borromini’s San Carlo Alle Quattro Fontane: A Study in Multiple Form and Architectural Symbolism, (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1977). 66 David Stephenson, Visions of Heaven: The Dome in European Architecture, 178. 41
their illusions for the viewer. Looking up to the plane where earthly figures rise into
Heaven on a cloud or putti look down upon the those who behold them, each of these
artists break the illusion by framing it. Mantegna also continues his painting to the rest of
the Camera’s ceiling and returns to conventional, earthly architecture (Figure 4.10).
What is earthly and man-made remains on earth, and what is spiritual and angelic
remains within the confines of the painted sky and occulus. There is a clear distinction
and separation of the two. For Baciccio, his painted figures, although breaking beyond a
golden embellished, stucco frame, are still bound by their relationship to the frame.
Again, there is a clear distinction between the painted artwork and the architectural work.
Pietro da Cortona’s work is that which is closest to illusionistic achievement to Pozzo’s.67
But Pietro’s figures and allegories are framed by architecture. Even in the embellished
corbels and simulated stucco, each section of ceiling is just that—sectioned off by
projected architecture for a specific set of figures or a specific allegory. The figures do
not interact with the space. They break their own planes, intermingling with each other,
only engaging the viewer in that it is immersive and overwhelming in size. Similar to
Pozzo’s Apotheosis, the Barberini salon has a floor marker, indicating the center of the fresco. In differing Pozzo’s work, Pietro’s Allegory has no ideal viewpoint due to potential awkwardness when the viewer moved around the room. In addition, because
67 For more on Pietro da Cortona’s inlfuence on Pozzo’s work, see Anthony Blunt “"Two Architectural Drawings by Andrea Pozzo." Master Drawings 20, no. 1 (1982): 22-75. 42
Pietro did not extend the architecture so high above the actual ceiling, the need for a
single viewpoint was not there.68
Pozzo’s projected spaces achieve or exceed all of the above. Like Borromini, he creates an extension of the architectural space that becomes as important of a space of the building as the nave or the side chapels. He, too, relies on geometric principles to achieve his paintings, using a projected grid to transfer a flat two-dimensional sketch to a barrel vault. The resulting projection of space becomes as interactive to the viewer as does the sanctuary, referencing the same intermingling of Heaven and Earth of the sanctuary and
tabernacle, angels and saints and man and God. Pozzo’s quadratura architecture exceeds
that of those mentioned above as the viewer struggles to distinguish projection from
reality. He extends the existing architecture until in breaks into the heavens. And his
figures, painted and stucco, overlap that of the existing architecture, calling into question
the boundary lines between reality and illusion, constructed architecture and projected
space, heavenly realm and earthly realm. His works demands not only the attention and
subsequent participation of the viewer, it also guides the viewer into a particular means of
prayer. This draw on meditation and prayer is then taken into the Mass and allows the
viewer to more actively participate in the liturgy. Pozzo and his work, then, become
popular topics of historical scholarship not only because it is the culmination of multiple
methods of painting and architectural construction, but also because his work can be seen
68 Christian Lovén, "Too Many Levels of Reality: An Almost Abandoned Idea in Pietro Da Cortona’s Barberini Ceiling." Konsthistorisk Tidskrift/Journal of Art History 83, no. 4 (2014), 3 – 4. 43 as a pinnacle of Ignatian Spirituality. He visualizes an imaginative and meditative prayer system. Pozzo’s work can only be fully understood through this lens.
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Chapter 5: Pozzo and the Order of the Society of Jesus
It is also possible that Pozzo looked to the formation of his own religious order for precedence in his work. It can be argued that the Jesuit Order stands as an influencing factor for shift and reform in Catholic Christian spirituality in the way in which it was formed and lived out. This is especially true since it continues to be a major and, sometimes, primary influence for contemporary Catholicism. Following the Protestant
Reformation and coinciding with the Council of Trent, Ignatius of Loyola founded his
Order of the Society of Jesus as a means to help combat the challenging of the Church and its teachings. Ignatius meticulously curated the aspects of previous monastic orders he wanted to include in his own. He followed the likes of the Benedictines and
Franciscans and Augustinians in taking the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. But he evolved his own order in not requiring a distinctive habit, a measure to more easily integrate while working with the laity. The members of the order would still be bound to praying the Divine Office, or Liturgy of the Hours, but they would not do so as a community. And they took a fourth vow—“to God to obey the pope ‘concerning missions.’”69 There was a distinctive focus on personal prayer, as with many other orders,
but Ignatius, especially in creating that fourth vow, would also foster a focus on
evangelizing and educating the masses. The Jesuits would send missionaries across the
world, highlighted in Pozzo’s Apotheosis of Saint Ignatius, and they would open the first
69 John W. O’Malley, S.J., “Saint Ignatius and the Cultural Mission of the Society of Jesus,” In The Jesuits and the Arts: 1540-1773, 3. 45
formal universities.70 Because of the didactic nature of their order, imagery and visuality
would be used to inform and reinforce theology, falling in line with the goals of the
Council of Trent to clarify the Church’s teachings to its followers.
The most prominent form of prayer for the Jesuit is The Spiritual Exercises,
created by Ignatius and published in 1548. The Exercises themselves are outlined into
“weeks,” or groupings, of meditative prayer. These meditations, focusing on the Life of
Christ, Scripture, and theological teaching, guide the participant to examine one’s life
with the hopeful result of purging that which is not holy, to be able to live a devout,
prayerful life, finding God in life’s every aspects to share Christianity beyond oneself.71
The five major themes for meditation include Creation, Mankind, The Kingdom of God,
Christ, and the Trinity.72
The Exercises, too, were a culmination of other works Ignatius was studying
while writing and during his conversion. He was looking at The Imitation of Christ by
Thomas à Kempis, a series of meditations in themselves, offering advice on how to live a
devout life in the imitation of Christ and his teachings. Ignatius also studied The Life of
Jesus Christ by Ludolph of Saxony.73 Coined as the most comprehensive series of
meditations on the life of Christ in the Late Middle Ages, Ludolph writes on Christ as he
is witnessed to in each Gospel, weaving in the writing of the Church fathers and other
70 For more John W. O’Malley, S.J. and Gauvin Alexander Bailey, eds. The Jesuits and the Arts: 1540- 1773 (Philadelphia: Saint Joseph’s University Press, 2006). 71 Author’s definition, based on many readings and references on “overviews” of the exercises. 72 Saint Ignatius of Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, 14. 73 Ibid., 17. 46
medieval spiritual writers.74 He gives advice on meditating on the Scriptures and
applying such to one’s personal prayer and spiritual life. Lastly, it was well-known that
Ignatius was looking at Jacopo de Voragine’s The Golden Legend, a culmination of the
stories of the saints, again meant to be studied and then applied to one’s own life.75
These stories, especially, become inspirational, as they give witness to ordinary people who achieved sainthood through their following of Christ. Clearly Ignatius gleaned the basic structure of the Exercises from these works—meditate on the life of Christ or a devout person who became a saint and use that example to form one’s life similarly to follow Christ as devoutly as possible.76
Ignatius could also look to these writings as a precedence for visually imaginative prayer. Ludolph, in the prologue of The Life of Jesus Christ, states,
“Therefore read what happens as if it were happening now. Make the past present
before your eyes and in this way you will enjoy and love the things more […] It is
wonderful to long for the Holy Land […] but it is even more wonderful to see this
land with one’s own eyes and then to consider mentally how Jesus there worked
our salvation.”77
74 Ludolph of Saxony; Translated and Introduced by Milton T. Walsh, The Life of Jesus Christ, Liturgical Press, https://cistercianpublications.org/Products/CS267H/The-Life-of-Jesus-Christ. 75 Saint Ignatius of Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, 17. 76 One should note that meditative and contemplative definitions in the Christian religion is the opposite of those in Eastern religions. Meditation is a means of “conversing” and thinking about a point in Scripture or Christ’s life or a saint’s life. Contemplation is a means of actively being present with God, being aware of that presence, and existing in it. Meditation is a means to contemplation, but not all achieve it. 77 Ludolph of Saxony; Translated and Introduced by Milton T. Walsh, The Life of Jesus Christ, Liturgical Press, Prologue. 47
Printed in the 1470s, this may have been a precedence for other forms of imaginative prayer that flourished in the Renaissance as well. Similarly, nearly one hundred years before Ignatius’ Exercises, the Garden of Prayer was written for young girls in 1454 and later printed in Venice. The book explains the need for internal (or imaginative) representations and their place in the process of prayer:
“The better to impress the story of the Passion on your mind, and to memorise
each action of it more easily, it is helpful and necessary to fix the places and
people in your mind: a city, for example, which will be the city of Jerusalem—
taking for this purpose a city that is well known to you. In this city find the
principal places in which all the episodes of the Passion would have taken place—
for instance, a palace with the supper-room where Christ had the Last Supper with
the Disciples, and the house of Anne, and that of Caiaphas, with the place where
Jesus was taken in the night, and the room where He was brought before Caiaphas
and mocked and beaten. Also the residence of Pilate where he spoke with the
Jews, and in it the room where Jesus was bound to the Column. Also the site of
Mount Calvary, where he was put on the Cross; and other like places…
And then too you must shape in your mind some people, people well-known to
you, to represent for you the people involved in the Passion—the person of Jesus
Himself, of the Virgin, Saint Peter, Saint John the Evangelist, Saint Mary
Magdalen, Anne, Caiaphas, Pilate, Judas and the others, every one of whom you
will fashion in your mind. 48
When you have done all this, putting all your imagination into it, then go into
your chamber. Alone and solitary, excluding every external thought from your
mind, start thinking of the beginning of the Passion, starting with how Jesus
entered Jerusalem on the ass. Moving slowly from episode to episode, meditate on
each one, dwelling on each single stage and step of the story. And if at any point
you feel a sensation of piety, stop: do not pass on as long as that sweet and devout
sentiment lasts…”78
Compare these excerpts with Ignatius’ explanation and instructions:
“The first prelude is a mental image of the place. It should be noted at this point
that when the mediation or contemplation is on a visible object, for example,
contemplating Christ our Lord during His life on earth, the image will consist of
seeing with the mind’s eye the physical place where the object that we wish to
contemplate is present. By the physical place I mean, for instance, a temple, or
mountain where Jesus or the Blessed Virgin is, depending on the subject of the
contemplation. In meditations on the subject matter that is not visible, as here in
meditation on sins, the mention image will consist of imagining, and considering
my soul imprisoned in its corruptible body, and my entire being in this vale of
tears as an exile among brute beasts. By entire being I mean both body and
soul.”79
78 Anonymous, Zardino de Oration, quoted in Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth- century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), 46. 79 Saint Ignatius of Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, 54.
49
Whereas Ludolph and the Garden of Prayer primarily focus on imagining
tangible events in which the meditator can place oneself, Ignatius expands this practice to
meditate and pray on that which is intangible, or visible and invisible as he explains it.
Ignatius uses these predecessors as an example but then takes them one step further, much like Pozzo, to create a structure of prayer for meditation on anything to do with the spiritual life. In utilizing the common human experience of living on earth in specific
locations and interacting with other humans, an experience shared with God by his
humanity in Jesus, this meditative method of prayer “demonstrates the common practice
in which a concrete geographical location—here, the holy sites in which Jesus performed
his works—is given imaginary spatial form through the inner gaze of the pilgrim. This
space serves as a kind of matrix within which the biblical events of the past come to life
at their historical sites and are experienced by the pilgrim in personal terms.”80
Praying in this manner begins to share some similarities with Baxandall’s ideas of
a cognitive style. Baxandall states that “at some fairly high level of consciousness the
Renaissance man was one who matched concepts with pictorial style.”81 This included a
knowledge in quality of an image or techniques used, such as the cost of a color of
pigment or the use of foreshortening. But the Renaissance cognitive style also referred to
“the equipment that the fifteenth-century painter’s public brought to complex visual
stimulations like pictures,” the public referring to the patrons, merchants, and
80 Steffen Zierholz, “‘To Make Yourself Present’: Jesuit Sacred Space as Enargetic Space,” In Jesuit Image Theory, (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 426. 81 Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style, 36. 50
professionals—those which could afford the luxury of purchasing works of art.82 The
Jesuits sought to cultivate a cognitive style but one that could be shared with the masses.
In their evangelization efforts, the members of the Order would share not only Biblical
knowledge and Church teaching, but also means for prayer and developing a personal
spiritual practice. Those entering a church such as Sant’Ignazio would then remember
such knowledge, a Jesuit cognitive style, an inner eye, that functions similarly to
Baxandall’s cognitive style. The architecture and the painting of it reinforces the literacy
of the theological teachings. With its accessibility, people understand the cues, the
iconography, the theology, triggered by the images in the church and can apply it to their
own lives as well as the church community. In its universality, it promotes the personal.
This is true for Pozzo and his painting as well. The holy site of the church, which acts as parallel to the Temple and to Golgotha, gives a concrete geographical location to meditate on Pozzo’s painting. The church is the space where Heaven meets Earth. Pozzo also paints this reality in a way that the pilgrim can actively participate by way of its fixed viewpoint and meditate on his or her role in that reality. Pozzo first pulls from his artistic predecessors to visually create in one painting what they were doing with multiple paintings, paintings and architectural structures, or just architecture. Like Borromini, especially, Pozzo is creating that corporeal space with which the body and mind can interact. The empty space holds as much weight as the decorated. But Pozzo also pulls from his spiritual predecessors, creating a visual depiction of a method of prayer that was previously entirely cerebral. In one painting, he diminishes the boundary of illusion and
82 Ibid., 37 – 38. 51 reality, both architecturally and in cerebral prayer, while also giving means to meditating on the tangible lives of the saints; the Life, Death, Resurrection, and Salvation History of
Christ; the realities of the Mass; the theological teaching of the Eucharist; the Church as parallel to the Creation Temple; and the relationship between personal spirituality and prayer life in conjunction to the responsibility to the larger church and world communities.
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Chapter 6: Pozzo and the Eschatological Temple
The church building, itself, also acts as this tangible, visual example for the faith.
The architectural layout mirrors the Tabernacle in Exodus, as well as the Temple created
by God at the Creation in Genesis (Figure 6.1, 6.2).83 Temple theology describes the
prototype for the Temple, as it was instituted by God in the creation of the world: the
Garden of Eden with the Tree of Life at the center where God dwelt with man
(Tabernacle and sanctuary), Mount Eden as the nave, with flowing rivers into the world, and the rest of the world, to be fed and cultivated by the rivers and man.84 This is similar
to the Israel’s Temple, which was a microcosm for the entirety of Heaven and Earth, as
ordered in Exodus 25 – 31, 35 – 40. This Temple was composed of three main parts, each
symbolizing a major part of the cosmos: “(1) the outer court represented the habitable
world where humanity dwelt; (2) the outer holy place was emblematic of the visible
heavens and its light sources; (3) the holy of holies symbolized the invisible dimension of the cosmos, where God and his heavenly hosts dwelt.”85 The Church is a reflection of
the Temple, which is a reflection of the Creation Temple, which is a reflection of all the
cosmos.
It can be argued that Pozzo’s Apotheosis of Saint Ignatius, too, follows the
hierarchy laid out in Temple theology and the temple Garden. Instead of just physical
architectural spaces to distinguish between these levels, he uses a combination of
83 Steven Smith, The House of the Lord: A Catholic Biblical Theology of God’s Temple Presence in the Old and New Testaments, (Steubenville, OH: Franciscan University Press, 2017), 45. 84 Ibid. 85 G.K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God, (Downers Grove, IL: Inter Varsity Press, 2004), 31 – 32. 53
physical architecture and painted, as well as types of figures. Just like the Temple
Garden, you have the space outside the temple that is to be cultivated and ordered toward
God; this is still the world outside the physical church. The nave is still the nave, that holds the believers and followers (at least contemporary to Baroque times—now any
visitor is welcome to come and see). This is where the people “work” in the liturgy,
sacrificing themselves back to God during the Mass.
The “uncultivated” world can also be represented by the clerestory. Pozzo, in
painting the regions of the world to which the Order had expanded, represents this
uncultivated world with the places that the Jesuits are sending missions and evangelizing.
The Jesuits, specifically in their missions, is doing what God charged of Adam—to cultivate the Earth. It is also representative of the great commission at the end of
Matthew’s gospel: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”86 This also speaks to the Jesuit charism of teaching and
education. They emphasized education and the teaching of theology, opening the world’s
first formal seminaries and many universities. In this tier, Pozzo also includes the largest
number of human figures and the fewest angelic. There are a few, but the emphasis is on
the human world, specifically those that come from the four depicted continents—
America, Africa, Europe (Europa), and Asia.
In the next tier, also the next painted architectural tier, featuring numerous columns and arches, depicts more angelic figures. The few humans (not the named
86 Matthew 28: 19 – 20, NASB 54
saints) are being supported by the angelic. This is representative of the nave, where
believer intermingles with angelic; earth collides with heaven. There is a specific part of
the Mass, during the Preface of the Liturgy of the Eucharist, where the priest and presider
speaks of joining the choir of angels and saints in one voice. Then the congregation
continues with the Sanctus. The words of the Sanctus are found in both Isaiah and
Revelation. We, humans, join the voices of the angels and sing or say the same words of
praise that the angels sing in the presence of God, at the foot of his throne. This is
another theological point that teaches the simultaneous coexistence of the invisible
spiritual realm and visible earthly realm.
Central to this tier, and arguably separate from it, Pozzo depicts the five saints.
Ignatius is the centermost because he is the subject of the painting and church. In their sainthood, these men have achieved eternal life; they have transitioned to the Holy of
Holies, where God dwells. They see the face of God and rejoice in his presence. For the viewer, though, I think it can also be argued that the saints are also representing the role of the priesthood. The priest, because of the ontological mark on his soul after ordination, shifts between temporal spaces more so than the rest of the followers. He stands in persona Christi, in the person of Christ. He, himself, becomes a conduit between the Earth and the Heavens. The priest dwells in the Garden (the sanctuary) with
Christ, as well as becoming Christ in the sacraments.87
87 The particulars of the realities of Holy Orders can be found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Article 6, 1536 – 1600. 55
The center of the painting is Christ, dwelling in Heaven. This is the Holy of
Holies, the sanctuary. Pulling in the Church’s Jewish roots, this space was traditionally physically veiled from the congregation.88 Iconostases were installed or communion rails were employed as a physical barrier between layman and clergy. Although this was not true of Sant’Ignazio, Pozzo’s fresco, in its three-tier construction, harkens back to the three-tier Temple and, therefore, reiterates the teaching of delineation of spaces in the
Church, the Temple, and unveiled its teaching. Congregants would get a glimpse into
Heaven in the nave, as they do in the Elevation of the Host in Mass. This Temple existed in our temporal world, but it also is a microcosm of the reality and structure of Heaven, as the Passover and Last Supper is that of the great banquet of Heaven.
88 Exodus 26:31-33, NASB. 56
Chapter 7: Pozzo, Reform, and Liturgy
In addition to the Protestant Reformation, beginning in 1517, the institutional
Church had to contend with a rising interest in empiricism. A scientific and
mathematical movement that would eventually result in the Enlightenment, people had a
new sense of believing only what they could see, not only what they were told.89
Interestingly, this was somewhat contrary for traditional philosophical and secular
thought. For example, Plato felt that “the empirical world is evanescent and contingent in
the extreme, made up of unstable objects that pass in and out of existence; whereas the
invisible world of forms and mathematical truths is permanent, reliable, and supremely
beautiful.”90 This heightened empiricism started to move beyond the acknowledgement of the dual beauty of tangible and invisible to a belief in only the tangible. Although
Catholicism was a faith practice that relied heavily on the invisible and veiled visuals, empiricism and its rise seemed to only fuel artists and architects for the era.91
Much of the Catholic liturgy, the realities of the liturgy, as well as the Catholic
view on universal existence rely on believing in that which cannot always be seen with
human eyes. The unknown author of the Letter to the Hebrews reminds first century
followers of this:
“Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.
Because of this the ancients were well attested. By faith we understand that the
89 See George L. Hersey, Architecture and Geometry in the Age of the Baroque, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000). 90 Robert Barron, Vibrant Paradoxes: The Both/And of Catholicism, (Word on Fire Catholic Ministries, 2017), 65. 91 George L. Hersey, Architecture and Geometry in the Age of the Baroque. 57
universe was ordered by the word of God, so that what is visible came into being
through the invisible.” 92
Faith relies of believing in that which is not seen, realizing that not only the universe was created by an invisible God, but that the invisible and immaterial facets of that God continues to coexist with what He made visible. Throughout Biblical history, when humanity has needed visual evidence to strengthen faith, visuality was provided. For example, in their doubt to follow Moses out of Egypt, God appears as a pillar of fire and a resting cloud to the Israelites to remind them of the divine nature of their situation.93
Angels frequently appear as divine messengers throughout scripture to be able to give a
visuality to what is purported as God’s plan, as previously listed. Christ, himself, acts as
a visuality of God, God made man. So too, then, the Church and, subsequently the Jesuit
Order, felt an obligation to better visualize the Mass and the faith to strengthen and
reestablish its following, harkening back to G.A. Bailey’s description of Jesuit brothers
and their great promotion of images and icons.94 Pozzo’s Apotheosis, then, becomes a
contemporary example for the Counter-Reformation Christian. He visualizes, under the
inspiration of his religion and his order, a version of a faithful and devout life. In
depicting human persons who had been known to achieve the singular goal of
Christianity—to be able to triumph into Heaven—he provides a tangible example for something that can seem impossible.
92 Hebrews 11:1-3, NASB. 93 Exodus 13:21, NASB. 94 G.A. Bailey, “‘Le style jésuite n’existe pas’: Jesuit Corporate Culture and the Visual Arts,” 39.
58
The visual experience of Andrea Pozzo’s Apotheosis of Saint Ignatius becomes
important both within the context of Mass, as well as outside of it. Within the context of
Mass, as all images in a church, Pozzo’s fresco acts as a didactic tool, depicting the
reality of the Temple at Mass. It serves as the example of achievable sainthood and
eternal life. Even though Chiesa di Sant’Ignazio did not employ the use of a rood screen,
the fresco remained as a primary visual example as the congregant enters the church,
indicating those atemporal and temporal realities before Mass began. Sight, as already
discussed, was the most important sense for the Renaissance and Baroque Christian. It
can be argued that, for centuries, sight was the least engaged sense during the Mass, as it
was only engaged through church decoration and the Elevation of the Host. Before the
Counter-Reformation, most churches employed the use of a rood screen. This screen
physically separated sanctuary and Holy of Holies from the congregation, keeping veiled
that which was deemed most holy, again following the tradition of Temple specifications
in Exodus 26. The follower’s glimpse behind the veil, the only glimpse of the sacred,
was the Elevation of the Host, directly preceding the distribution of Holy Communion.
The Church of the Counter-Reformation sought to break down these barriers, as rood
screens were removed, or, in the case of Sant’Ignazio, a rood screen was not included in
the plans. The lack of screen and the Tabernacle directly placed on the altar allowed for a
means of spectation, a new sense and knowledge of the visual of the liturgy.95 Arguably,
this follows Scriptural tradition, as the Gospel of Matthew describes the tearing of the
95 Elizabeth Lev, How Catholic Art Saved the Faith: The Triumph of Beauty and Truth in Counter- Reformation Art, (Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute Press, 2018), 222. 59
Temple veil at the moment of Christ’s death.96 Marking the beginning of Christ’s new
covenant, the veil is stripped away, as the iconostasis is removed, signifying the ability
for closer relationship to the Church. Similarly, in the Gesù, the screen was converted to
a communion rail. One could now see the tabernacle from almost any point in the church
and shift in and out of engagement with it and the frescoes. This also allowed for a fuller
engagement of all the senses, playing and responding to the heightened interest in
empiricism and its relationship to the body and human experience.97 The physical barrier still existed, by means of altar rail, a modernized visual cue for the separation between heavenly and earthly realms. But the architectural shift gave congregants something tangible to see and believe with their eyes. Pozzo’s paintings reiterate this point by making visible a part of the spiritual world that is normally invisible to the follower.
Sight is still the first engaged outside of Mass, as previously discussed by
Baxandall. During Mass, hearing and smell and taste and touch work simultaneously with sight. To this point, outside the Mass, vision and sight is the most emphasized sense. Visuals remain after incense and music and audible prayer cease. In the silence, sight is still engaged, the only engagement. Something like Pozzo’s fresco continues to engage and teach and mesmerize, speaking to theology, even outside of the Mass.
During the Mass, one watches the liturgy and the actions of the priest, clergy, and servers. The sense of sight now goes beyond the art and the Elevation of the Host. Smell
96 Matthew 27:51, NASB: “And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth shook, and the rocks were split.” 97 Elizabeth Lev, How Catholic Art Saved the Faith: The Triumph of Beauty and Truth in Counter- Reformation Art, 21. 60
is engaged by incense and flowers and the traditionally beeswax candles; touch, by the
physicality of the movements and the bread and wine; taste, by the actual consumption of
the bread and wine in the Body and Blood of Christ; hearing, by audible prayers and
readings in the Liturgy of the Word, musical instruments, singing, and bells. All senses
are engaged with the intention of making aware the transcendent and other-worldly
realities of the Mass and the space.
The layout of the church and its parallels to the Creation Temple are an important aspect to the relationship to the Mass as well. Practicality comes into play, especially now there is an emphasis on the sensorial experience. If the tabernacle is at the highest point, then the congregation can always see it.98 It arises above the heads of the rest of
those attending and the clergy. Everything in a Catholic church functions in this
manner—symbolic and theological as well as practical and sometimes educational. For
example, stain glass windows practically help educate the congregation, with depictions
of Biblical scenes and figures. It also acts as a means of changing the natural, white light
of the world to point those inside to the transforming nature of the space. Similarly, the
communion rail, again, practically functions as a physical barrier between the Earthly
nave and the Heavenly sanctuary. Symbolically, during Communion, the priest, in
persona Christi (in the person of Christ), reaches across the barrier, from Heaven, to feed
his flock.99 So, too, should the paintings and images in a church function, bridging a
visual gap between Heaven and Earth.
98 Dennis R. McNamara, How to Read Churches: A Crash Course in Ecclesiastical Architecture, 210. 99 Robert Barron, Heaven in Stone and Glass: Experiencing the Spirituality of Great Cathedrals, (New York, NY: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2015). 61
Pozzo’s painting does this, beginning on earth, engaging and grounding the
viewer with its di sotto in su viewpoint. The viewer first sees the architecture and
allegories of four corners of the earth—Asia, Europe, Africa, and America—referencing
the mission work of the Jesuit order. Then there is a shift to human figures, the saints,
who have already achieved rising into Heaven. Pozzo then leads the viewer to the focus
of the fresco—Saint Ignatius, himself, triumphing to meet Christ. It evokes a sense that if
one follows the faith, as well as the ideologies of the Order, the viewer, too, can achieve
Heaven and meeting the Ascended Christ.
The Mass, itself, also acts as this bridge, as it is simultaneously temporal and atemporal. It is celebrated at a specific time on a specific day in a specific church, but it also transcends time back to the Crucifixion on Calvary, re-presenting the same sacrifice
of Christ on the altar. This ties to the ancient Jewish idea of remembrance in the
Passover tradition. In celebrating Passover each year, ancient Jews viewed this
celebration as a way of participating in the original, and they spoke and prayed as such:
““[T]he ancient rabbis saw each annual celebration of the Passover as a way of
participating in the first exodus. At the time of Jesus, the Passover was not just a
sacrifice; it was also a ‘memorial’ or ‘remembrance’ (Exodus 12:14) by which the Jewish
people would both remember and somehow make present the deliverance that had been
won for their ancestors in the exodus from Egypt.”100 Raised in the Jewish tradition and
fulfilling Jewish prophecies and beliefs, Christ establishes and continues this tradition for
100 Brant Pitre, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist: Unlocking the Secrets of the Last Supper, (New York: Image, 2016), 64; also see Mishnah, Pesachim 10:5 62 the New Passover, which is recognized by his earliest disciples, as we can see in many of
St. Paul’s letters in Scripture: ”Just as the ancient Jews saw their Passover as a participation in the exodus from Egypt, so, too, Saint Paul and other early Christians saw the Eucharist as a real participation in both the Last Supper and the death of Jesus.”101 It is logical, then, that churches would be built and decorated in such a way to reflect these realities: to depict something that references truths both of this world and beyond it, of this time and outside of time, simple to understand as well as mysterious, as if divine.
The tradition of opulence and rich and as perfect as humanly possible becomes logical as it is to reflect that which cannot be fully comprehended, as it is more than human.
Christ, in establishing the Eucharist, calls followers to participate in the reality of
His existence in and out of space and time by partaking in the consumption of His resurrected body, as it transubstantiates in bread and wine: – “…Jesus will give his crucified and risen body and blood. For, after his resurrection and ascension into heaven, his body would no longer be bound by space or time. He would be able to appear when he willed, and where he willed, and under whatever form he willed…”102 Therefore, if
Christ exists beyond our temporal reality, the Eucharist exists outside of our temporal reality (a transtemporal object), becoming the fulfillment of Exodus’ manna from
Heaven, as Christ is the Messiah as the New Moses.103
This points to the Jewish roots of the “memorial,” “remembrance,” and “makes present” idea of the Catholic Mass. The Mass re-presents the entirety of the Passion and
101 Ibid., 76. 102 Ibid., 111-112. 103 Ibid., 86 – 89. 63
Resurrection cycles in the manner in which the Body and Blood cycle from separated to combined on the altar. The Crucifixion is made manifest and is represented by the separation of Body and Blood before being joined together to signify the Resurrection.
So, too, Pozzo’s painting brings the full cycle of Passion to Resurrection to the forefront of the minds of the viewer because of his depiction of the Resurrected Christ. The
Resurrected Christ holding his cross reiterates the fullness of the Crucifixion and
Resurrection that is experienced in the Mass. It is a both/and situation. For if the
Crucifixion did not occur, neither would the Resurrection. Upon achieving his sainthood and triumph into heaven, Ignatius would come to understand this fullness in a complete way. Pozzo is reminding the viewer of this fact—that the penitent, faithful congregant can, too, achieve such a thing.
64
Conclusion
One of the oldest accounts of the structure of Christian worship was described by
Saint Justin Martyr between 153 and 155 A.D. and is still found in the Catechism of the
Catholic Church as the basic structure of the contemporary Mass. St. Justin, writing to pagan emperor Antonius Pius, explains that followers would come together on the “day of the sun” to gather in some place, listening to the memoirs and writings of the apostles, followed by an exaltation by “he who presides over those gathered.” Justin then describes a time for prayer, an exchange of peace, and then an offering of bread and wine that is prayed over before distribution to the people in attendance.104 The Council of
Trent harkens back to this account and uses it in its basis of recording the doctrines and dogmas post-Reformation, and it contributes to the lineage of the work of the Jesuit
Order and Andrea Pozzo.
In circling back to our original inquiries, I can agree with scholarship in saying there is no true Jesuit Baroque visual style. I am not even sure that one can classify a true
Baroque visual style. One could argue that each artist working in the Baroque time period establishes his own visual ideal. There are, indeed, consistent themes that run through, such as theatricality and grappling with spatial realities. This is true for Pozzo as well. While drawing on theatricality, spatial realities, a lineage of imaginative prayer, etc., he establishes his own ideal visual iteration of prayer and sacred art for the Jesuit
Order. He believed in it so much so that he would publish his methods to disseminate them in multiple regions of the world by means of the Order’s mission work. The hope
104 Catechism of the Catholic Church, (New York: Doubleday, 1995), 1345. 65
was that Pozzo’s methods of visualizing the spiritual realm would be used in newly constructed churches as Catholicism was spread.
Pozzo believes that his ideal, his iteration, can serve the mission of the Church
well. In coming back to that one ideal viewpoint of his work, Pozzo establishes another
spiritual space on which the viewer can meditate. Although seemingly incongruous by
the ease of breaking the illusion, one can still recall the single, ideal viewpoint in
personal meditation or prayer. By drawing on the heightened sense of empiricism and
the “believe only what you can see” mentality of post-Reformation Europe, Ignatius first
sought to implement such an idea via imaginative prayer. Draw on what you know. Use
the tangible world in your meditative prayer. Pozzo then takes it further. He visualizes
this cerebral prayer. He makes visible what it is to have faith, by using Ignatius as the
example. In doing so, he aided in the explanation of the realities of the doctrine of the
Catholic faith. He simultaneously supports the theology of the Catholic liturgy while also supporting the cerebral prayer space composed in the Spiritual Exercises. His work, as well as the work of his predecessor Ignatius of Loyola, is still a major focal point of the
Catholic spiritual life today. In establishing their methods as prototypes for ideal forms and expressions of prayer, they, too, confirm their place as Catholic reformists.
66
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Appendix: Figures Figure 1.1
Figure 61, Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum 71
Figure 1.2
Figure 72, Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum 72
Figure 1.3
Andrea Pozzo’s altar piece, San Francesco Saverio in Mondovi
73
Figure 1.4
Andrea Pozzo’s altar piece, rear view, San Francesco Saverio in Mondovi
74
Figure 1.5
Andrea Pozzo’s altar piece, side view, San Francesco Saverio in Mondovi 75
Figure 1.6
Figure 60, Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum 76
Figure 1.7
Figure 64, Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum 77
Figure 1.8
Andrea Pozzo, cupola painting in Chiesa di Sant’Ignazio di Loyola 78
Figure 1.9
Figure 94, Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum 79
Figure 2.1
Figure 1, Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum 80
Figure 2.2
Figure 2, Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum 81
Figure 2.3
Figure 8, Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum 82
Figure 2.4
Figure 14, Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum 83
Figure 2.5
Figure 23, Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum 84
Figure 2.6
Figure 62, Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum 85
Figure 2.7
Figure 90, Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum 86
Figure 2.8
Figure 91, Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum 87
Figure 2.9
Figure 101, Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum 88
Figure 3.1
Andrea Pozzo, Apotheosis of Saint Ignatius 89
Figure 3.2
Mirror in Chiesa di Sant’Ignazio di Loyola 90
Figure 3.3
Marble view point marker in Chiesa di Sant’Ignazio di Loyola 91
Figure 3.4
Figure 100, Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum 92
Figure 3.5
Figure 93, Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum 93
Figure 3.6
Figure 88, Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum 94
Figure 3.7
Figure 89, Andrea Pozzo’s Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum 95
Figure 4.1
Baciccio, Triumph of the Name of Jesus in Il Gesù 96
Figure 4.2
Il Gesù, side view, projected spatial depth 97
Figure 4.3
Baciccio’s Triumph of Saint Ignatius, Saint Ignatius of Loyola Chapel, Il Gesù
Figure 4.4
Andrea Pozzo, Apotheosis of Saint Ignatius, detail 98
Figure 4.5
Andrea Mantegna, cupola fresco in Camera degli Sposi in Mantua 99
Figure 4.6
Pietro da Cortona, Allegory of Divine Providence and Barberini Power 100
Figure 4.7
Borromini, San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane floor plan with superimposed triangles 101
Figure 4.8
Borromini, San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane floor plan with superimposed mandorla 102
Figure 4.9
Borromini, Sant’Ivo floor plan with superimposed hexagon 103
Figure 4.10
Andrea Mantegna, frescoes in Camera degli Sposi in Mantua, wide shot 104
Figure 6.1
Creation Temple diagram, Steven Smith, 47
105
Figure 6.2
Exodus Tabernacle specifications, Steven Smith, 13 ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
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