Guarino Guarini's Invention of the Passion Capitals in the Chapel of the Holy Shroud, Turin Author(S)
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Guarino Guarini's Invention of the Passion Capitals in the Chapel of the Holy Shroud, Turin Author(s): John Beldon Scott Source: The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 54, No. 4 (Dec., 1995), pp. 418-445 Published by: Society of Architectural Historians Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/991083 Accessed: 30/03/2009 15:00 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=sah. 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Society of Architectural Historians is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. http://www.jstor.org Guarino Guarini's Invention of the Passion Capitals in the Chapel of the Holy Shroud, Turin architectural ornament. of Guarini's treatment of the JOHN BELDON SCOTT, UniversityofIowa Analysis orders will show his invention in the manipulation of classical M ost studies of Guarino Guarini'sChapel of the Holy forms for ideological content.6 This we can see especially well in Shroud in Turin (1657-94) have focused either on the the Shroud Chapel in the gilt-bronze, modified Corinthian circular plan, with its superimposed triangle, or on the unusual capitals the architect employed for the eight major-order fluted composition of the dome, with its structure of six nested, pilasters and two freestanding columns around the perimeter arched hexagons rising from a drum supported on three huge, of the chapel rotunda [Figures4-5]. The design of these capitals, tilted arches [Figures 1-3]. The plan constitutes an elegant as often noted, comprises instruments of Christ's Passion. They resolution of preexisting problems Guarini encountered when penetrate the sepulchral gloom of the chapel, forming a prickly he became the project's architect in 1667, ten years after the chiaroscuro pattern when occasionally struck by a ray of beginning of construction. Guarini fit his new design into the sunlight piercing the faceted dome high above [Figure6].7 The built masonry shell and its marble facing, which was already in transcendental effect of the capitals against the tenebrous place up to the level of the large cornice of the major-order setting must have been even more persuasive before the gilding pilasters [Figure 4], stacking on it, vertiginously, tier after tier became dull with age and dust. with scarcely precedented engineering bravura and forming The choice of materials for the chapel, black marble and the openwork dome that has been the object of both marvel bronze, was made decades before Guarini's arrivalon the scene. and indignation for three centuries. There has been little agreement among historians about the extent to which meaning can be imputed to the extraordinary geometry seen in the plan, structure, and black marble facing of the chapel. Some scholars have held that Guarini, motivated by radical and complex philosophical, astrological, alchemical, and even cabalistic speculations, incorporated into his build- ings, especially the Shroud Chapel, forms and meanings unique in Western architecture.2 A less extreme position, held by Rudolf Wittkower, emphasizes a traditional Trinitarian mean- ing in the consistent geometrical triadism of the building.3 Today, however, many scholars seem to concur with Giulio Carlo Argan, who stands on the other side of interpretive possibilities, reductively asserting that "no one more than Guarini has affirmed the non-symbolic, non-allegorical, non- metaphorical-on the contrary-strictly phenomenal, objec- tive or 'thing-in-itself character of architectural form."4 In his recent monograph on Guarini, H. A. Meek, for example, presents a Guarini little interested in symbolic content.5 These extremes of interpretation ignore the contextual requirements of patronage and decorum to which every seventeenth-century architect needed to be attentive. By focusing on Guarini's use of the classical orders, it may be FIGUREI: Guarino Guarini,Chapel of the Holy Shroud, Turin, 1657-1694, plan, possible to isolate his attitude toward content and meaning in engravingfrom Dissegnid'architettura civile et ecclesiastica. (1686), pl. 2 418 JSAH / 54:4, DECEMBER 1995 As early as 1607 Duke Carlo Emanuele I decided to locate between the cathedral and his new palace a chapel built of these somber but opulent materials to house his prized relic of the Passion, the Shroud of Turin.8 The Corinthian order was selected at this time. Ducal patronage and the funereal dedica- tion of the chapel made the Corinthian capital appropriate, with its richness and necrological associations.9 To appreciate Guarini's ingenuity, we might first examine a conventional Corinthian capital, which is easy enough to do as one stands in the chapel, for the minor-order capitals in the same rotunda, designed by Guarini's predecessor for the project, Bernardino Quadri, are thoroughly orthodox [Figure 7].10 Acanthus leaves grow in three tiers from the inverted bell-shaped body of the capital, with spiral-form caulicoli emerging at the top. Uniting these shoots is the lip of the bell. At the top, in the center of the concave abacus, the flower or fleuron blossoms forth, representing the acanthus bud with a fishtail-like stigma (the botanical term for the pollen-receiving part of the flower's stamen) growing from its center. Guarini's Passion capital, as seen in a close-up detail taken from a scaffold, deviates considerably from the traditional type. He reduces the treatment of the foliage to two tiers and uses a plant form closer to olive than to acanthus [Figure 5].11 This modification makes room for the crown of thorns inserted FIGURE2: Section, Chapel of the Holy Shroud, 1657-94 between the helices. Three nails protrude from the fleuron above the center of the crown and, at the top, the titulus or tion for questioning it. Precisely because of his late assumption inscription from the cross appears with the initials for IESUS of design responsibility for the chapel, Guarini's role in the NAZARENUS REXIUDAEORUM. Guarini's decision to modify creation of the Passion capitals has recently even been denied.13 the major-order Corinthian avoided the repetition of the same The production history of these variants of the Corinthian capital type in close proximity to the minor order below; but, as capital is complicated, and it will be important to establish we shall see, the architect's design had behind it a weightier Guarini's part in their design and creation. A chronological conviction than merely the desire for variety.12 analysis of payments for all the chapel's capitals will help resolve this vexing issue. The appendix contains a narrative summary INNOVATION IN THE DESIGN OF THE of the documentation, which demonstrates that the manufac- CLASSICAL ORDERS ture of four of the ten Passion capitals dates from the period Most scholars have tacitly assumed Guarini's authorship of the Guarini was in charge of the design. Two of these are identified Passion capitals, perhaps because of their fantasy of invention. specifically as the capitals of the freestanding fluted columns His intervention in their design, however, has never been of the transitional zone between chapel and cathedral documented and, given that many of the chapel's capitals [Figures8-9]. predate his involvement with the project, there is somejustifica- Since eight major-order pilasters with Passion capitals articu- SCOTT: GUARINI'S PASSION CAPITALS 419 FIGURE3: Viewof pendentivezone, drum,and dome, Chapel of the HolyShroud late the rotundawall, two of these also (in additionto the two Guarinidevoted a majorportion of his theoreticaldiscussion in documentedcolumn capitals) must already have been mounted the Architetturacivile to the design and application of the in place before the final campaign for the completion of all classical orders.16Unlike some of his Italian predecessors, the capitals, which occurred after Guarini'sdeath.'4 These, however, Guarini seems to have been more interested in for want of Guarini's drawings or a full-scale preexisting offeringcreative variants to the standardorders, particularly in wooden model, must have served as prototypes for the the design of capitals,than in repeating definitiveversions of bronzefounders who manufacturedthe remainingsix, as sug- the traditionaltypes.17 Perhaps his most originalproposal is for gested in an instructionissued in May 1688.15The written a spiral-formSolomonic order, in which not only the columns record gives no certain indication about which two of the but almost all other components, including the entablature, eight pilaster capitals were the ones completed under undulate on both the vertical and horizontalplanes [Figure Guarini'ssupervision, but practical construction procedure 10].18 would suggest they were the two conveniently adjacent to He provides three capitalseach for the Doric, Ionic, and the columns. The documentaryevidence therefore makes it Corinthian-each also with three distinctiveproportional sys- virtually certain that all ten of the Passion capitals are tems-and four variantsfor the Composite.The reader may products of Guarini'sthinking, even though only four were easilyinfer from Guarini'stext and illustrationsthat the num- executed in his lifetime.