Carlo Rainaldi and the Quarantore As Precursor to Santa Maria in Campitelli
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Permanent Devotion: Carlo Rainaldi and the Quarantore as Precursor to Santa Maria in Campitelli Iara A. Dundas In the Jubilee year of 1650 the architect Carlo Rainaldi In the seventeenth century the Renaissance tradition of designed and constructed a devotional theatrical set for the festal ephemeral structures turned to the monumental and Quarantore, or Devotion of the Forty Hours, for the Jesuit the dramatic in an unprecedented manner. Patrons, religious church of Il Gesù in Rome. At the conclusion of the Devotion, and secular alike, took to commissioning the most prolific the set was dismantled and its parts recycled. Twelve years and renowned artist-architects of the age for the design of later the foundation stones were laid for the church of Santa these temporary theatrical sets, often referred to as apparati. Maria in Campitelli, Rainaldi’s first major solo commission.1 Gianlorenzo Bernini frequently participated in the creation A comparative look at the extant print of the Quarantore of ephemera and Andrea Pozzo included designs for the and the interior of the church reveals striking visual paral- Quarantore in his treatise on perspective; Carlo Rainaldi lels, suggesting an immediate link between the two designs was no exception in this regard. Born in 1611, Rainaldi (Figures 1 and 2). This relationship has been noted in the was truly of the Baroque generation. Like other architects past by only a few scholars, but while it has been suggested before him, he was trained as such by his likewise employed that the Quarantore influenced only the high altar of Santa father, Girolamo Rainaldi, who was architect of the Palazzo Maria in Campitelli, this paper will argue that the impact of Pamphilj on the Piazza Navona between 1645 and 1647.4 the ephemeral stage Rainaldi completed for the Gesù was far The two Rainaldis worked collaboratively on a variety of greater.2 By suggesting that the Quarantore may have acted major commissions, but so-called “minor” works, such as the as a large-scale model for Rainaldi’s subsequent construc- Quarantore for the Gesù, were the works of the younger with tion, Santa Maria in Campitelli thus becomes, formally, an architectural assistants.5 Of the many works, following the expanded and monumentalized version of the 1650 Quaran- elder Rainaldi’s death in 1655, Santa Maria in Campitelli was tore – an ephemeral devotion made permanent.3 Moreover, the first instance in which Carlo Rainaldi worked indepen- by studying both the circumstances of the commission for dently on a major commission and, given the conditions of the church and the history behind the Forty Hours Devotion the project, it is somewhat appropriate that Rainaldi should and its associated ephemera, it becomes clear that Rainaldi’s return to a type of construction with which he had already church is not only formally but also symbolically linked to the experimented in the Gesù Quarantore. Quarantore, commissioned as a votive offering to the Virgin Theater and spectacle pervaded much of what charac- in an effort to combat the plague of 1656. terizes the Baroque period, and the Quarantore was itself 1 John Varriano, Italian Baroque and Rococo Architecture (New York: dai Borghese ai Barberini: la cultura a Roma intorno agli anni Venti, Oxford University Press, 1986), 131-135. eds. Olivier Bonfait and Anna Coliva (Rome: De Luca Editori d’Arte, 2004), 86. 2 This relationship has been most notably mentioned by Marcello Fagiolo dell’Arco. Marcello Fagiolo dell’Arco, L’effimero barocco (Rome: Edizio- 4 Girolamo Rainaldi’s oeuvre includes numerous other commissions. For ni De Luca s.r.l., 1977). This stance is modified slightly in the follow-up the most extensive biographic discussion of the Rainaldis, see Furio publication but the connection remains the same, explicated in its Fasolo, L’opera di Hieronimo e Carlo Rainaldi (1570-1655 e 1611-1691) entirety in one sentence: “L’apparato per le Quarantore al Gesù…un (Rome: Edizioni Ricerche, [1960?]). However, Fasolo glances over antecedente sicuro per la chiesa di Santa Maria in Campitelli iniziata C. Rainaldi’s Quarantore, calling it only an “apparato.” For a more sei anni dopo.” Maurizio Fagiolo dell’Arco, La Festa barocca (Rome: comprehensive discussion of the 1650 Quarantore for the Gesù see Edizioni De Luca s.r.l., 1997), 2:88. For the previous quotation, there Fagiolo dell’Arco, L’effimero barocco, 70-71; slightly differing, though is no additional information in the respective footnote. abbreviated, information can be found in Per Bjurström, “Baroque Theater and the Jesuits,” in Baroque Art: the Jesuit Contribution, ed. 3 Martine Boiteux also argues that the ephemeral architecture of the Rudolf Wittkower and Irma B. Jaffe (New York: Fordham University Quarantore had an impact on permanent architecture but her focus Press, 1972), 99-110. is, like Fagiolo dell’Arco, on a somewhat smaller scale than I suggest. “Les apparats crées pour mettre en scène la devotion nouvelle des 5 “Fra il 1644 e il 1650 Carlo opera in prestazioni professionali minori: Quarante Heures, introduite à la fin du XVIe siècle, sont les archi- così dicasi per l’arco trionfale di Innocenzo X al Campidoglio, per una tectures éphémères qui ont eu l’effet peut-être le plus important sur ‘apparatura’ per feste in Piazza Navona a per una, analoga sistema- les architectures durables.” Martine Boiteux, “Le Bernin, les fêtes et zione dell’interno della Chiesa del Gesù; queste ultime due sono del l’architecture éphémère à Rome au début du XVIIe siècle,” in Bernini 1650.” Fasolo, L’opera di Hieronimo e Carlo Rainaldi, 104. ATHANOR XXIX IARA A. DUNDAS transformed from a relatively simple candlelit devotion into a an aspect of the Devotion has remarkable parallels with the sumptuous spettacolo.6 The Devotion of the Forty Hours was circumstances under which the church of Santa Maria in one of the most important liturgical services of the Counter Campitelli was commissioned. In 1656 a plague made its way Reformation, introduced to Rome by St. Philip Neri. With to Rome from Naples during the first year of Alexander VII’s origins in the Middle Ages, the Quarantore of the seven- pontificate. In an effort to combat the pestilence the Pope teenth century developed into a major theatrical event.7 “called on the people of Rome to pray for divine aid and The premise of the devotion is the veneration of the Host ordered that the Blessed Sacrament should remain exposed before which clergy would pray for a period of forty hours in two churches in the city everyday.”12 — forty being the duration (in days) of the biblical Flood, The festivities in which various performances and the number of days during which the Israelites wandered spectacles of the age could be found were both secular the desert before receiving the Commandments, the length and religious. Events were held throughout the year, but it of time during which Jesus fasted and battled temptation was the Carnival season which produced some of the more from the devil, and finally, perhaps most significantly in this elaborate stages for dramatic spectacle and also saw the case, forty is the number of hours during which the body Church responding to its secular competitors with their own of Jesus Christ lay interred in the Sepulcher.8 Because the brand of sumptuous theater.13 Sacred theaters, into which the veneration of the Host was central to this commemorative Quarantore may be classified, were organized by religious devotion, the apparato became the most important part of bodies (e.g. the Jesuits) at specific moments throughout the the ephemeral decorations, for in the Quarantore the ap- liturgical year “designed to divert but also to overawe and parato built around the high altar was a complete theatrical control the common populace through the use of visual spectacle that transformed the church from nave and choir spectacle.”14 It is within this context of Carnival and its as- into auditorium and stage, requiring no dramatic action on sociated spectacles that the Forty Hours Devotion took on a the part of actors — only the participation of the worship- particularly sumptuous monumentality.15 The relationship at pers in the Devotion.9 The Eucharist itself was elevated and this time, however, between theater and religion was more illuminated within the elaborate altar decoration and would than just a competition for the attentions of the laity and it remain so for forty hours while the clergy rotated before it is more than just a form of entertainment. Both theater and in a sequence of perpetual prayer. At the conclusion of the religion are, in their most basic form, concerned with another Devotion, the apparati were generally dismantled and de- world; they differ in that religion makes the so-called “other stroyed.10 The Devotion was preceded by a Mass and was world” accessible through belief and faith, whereas theater accompanied by music, illuminations and perfumes so as offers a view into another world through the willing suspen- to appeal to all the senses — “a conception rooted in the sion of disbelief on the part of the spectator.16 The Sacred Council of Trent’s declaration that those hearing appropriate Theater was important as part of the Catholic Reformation, settings of sacred words would be ‘ravished by a longing for and religious plays and theatrical devotions performed a sort heavenly harmony and by contemplation of the joys and of public service, drawing people back to the church during the blessed.’”11 The ritual of the perpetual prayer itself as times when they were prone to engage in debauchery and 6 “The Italian word spettacolo is used to refer to theater in the broadest 12 Joan Barclay Lloyd, “The Medieval Church of Santa Maria in Portico meaning of the English term; it refers not only to the building (teatro) in Rome,” Romische Quartalschrift fur Christliche Altertumsckunde or the play (drama, commedia, tragedia), or to the stage design and und Kirchendgeschichte Freiburg i.