Between Heaven and Earth: Ecclesiastical Patronage in Europe, 1400-1600

Third Annual Renaissance Postgraduate Symposium

10.00 – 17.30, Saturday 9 May 2015 (with registration from 09.30) Kenneth Clark Lecture Theatre, The Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN

ABSTRACTS AND BIOGRAPHIES

SESSION 1 Chair: Lydia Hansell

1) De Reformatione Ecclesiae... Councils and architecture: A Normative Language of Architecture?

The Western Schism, the Council of Constance (1414-1418), the particularism of the princes, the growing power of the towns… Such was the complicated situation that confronted Sigismund of Luxembourg (Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in 1433; † 1437). The question arises: To what extent did the causa unionis (questions of unity), causa reformationis (questions of reform) and causa fidei (questions of faith), which Latin Europe had to address at the beginning of the fifteenth century, influence the fine arts? Is it true that only conscious, legitimizing acts such as monumental architecture enabled the various patrons (here we must differentiate between popes, local lords, towns and church institutions) to achieve a corresponding visualization within the context of the prevailing social order that could also be used to foster their own legacies? Did the “crisis of the church” between the Middle Ages and the modern era represent an opportunity for art, and for architecture in particular? Can we apply the theories of political iconography as they have been unflinchingly postulated since the 1960s (Bandmann, Warnke, etc.), or should architecture here be viewed as a heterogeneous phenomenon? Even though it has been understood as “art” only since the Italian Renaissance, this question is still relevant because even north of the Alps at the time, the demand for absolute beauty (Baxandall) was underlined by specific “media foundations” (Boehm). However, these objectives were implemented in various different ways and by varying degrees. It thus becomes necessary to prove whether we can work with a specific “art form” defined by its patrons.

Richard Nemec is a research assistant and lecturer at the Institute for Art History Architectural History and Monument Preservation, Bern University (). He has worked for the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Historic Buildings and Monuments and his academic interests include spatial planning, urban development, political architecture and related questions of ideology and theory formation. He is the author of a number of articles on these subjects and has also written a book entitled ‘The Residences of Charles IV in Prague and the Lands of the Bohemian Crown’ (Publications du Centre Luxembourgeois de Documentation et d’Études Médiévales, 37).

2) The Sacro Monte di Varallo in its paraliturgical function

This paper aims to analyse the paraliturgical function of the Sacro Monte di . Owing its first impetus to the Franciscan friar Bernardino Caimis’ endeavour to transfer ’s loca sancta to his Lombard homeland (1486), thus introducing the general public to this prominent experience,

The Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN tel +44 207 848 2785/2909 web www.courtauld.ac.uk/researchforum/index.shtml the Varallo project soon grew into an ensemble of Holy Sepulchre, Mary’s tomb, and Ascension Chapel. soon populated the site with life-sized polychrome statues, thereby enhancing the Sacro Monte’s imitation of not only the original setting, but also the biblical narrative in order to stimulate the visitors’ imagination. From the 1580s onwards, Varallo’s Sacro Monte became a model for similar ensembles of chapels. Apparently, the reform-oriented episcopé subsequent to Carlo Borromeo found in Varallo a convenient prototype for the generation of experience-based commemoration technique. It was under Carlo Bascapè that the Sacro Monte underwent extensive modifications. An often-overlooked feature answers as to why the project gained such great interest under Borromeo and Bascapè. One of the earliest statues on the site is in fact equipped with moveable arms and feet, thus insinuating the notion of dramatic interaction with the statue in the form of a Good Friday deposition rite. Examples of such paraliturgical staging of the event of salvation exist in Milan under the name of Entierro until the seventeenth century. Enacting the Passion with the use of a wooden crucifix served Counter Reformation bishops for their implementation as well as for lay people’s internalisation of religious truth without having to rely on the increasingly emancipated companies.

Claudius Weykonath is a PhD student in Art History at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen and since February 2013 has also been a predoctoral fellow at the Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max-Planck- Institut für Kunstgeschichte. He obtained his Magister Artium from the Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen where he also studied Theology which he recently completed at the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt- Universität Greifswald. His theological studies had previously brought him to the Pontificia Università S. Tommaso d’Aquino, the Pontificia Università Antonianum and the Facoltà Valdese di Teologia in , Italy.

3) Rome Unveiled: Cardinal Cesare Baronio and the Iconographic Programme in S. Giovanni in Laterano during the post-Tridentine Papacy

The vast urban projects that reshaped the city of Rome since the pontificate of Gregory XIII Buoncompagni reached a climax in Sixtus V’s revival of the stationary liturgy. During this period of the post-Tridentine papacy, a specific interest in Constantinian iconographic programmes took place through the controversy on the Late Antique donation of the emperor to pope Silvester I. It was in this context that the church of S. Giovanni in Laterano on the campus Lateranensis began to retrieve its symbolic status as Mater et Caput Orbis Ecclesiarum. One principal character in this post-Tridentine theological climate was the Oratorian Cesare Baronio who received the cardinal’s hat in 1596. So far, the scholarship regarded his vast work of church yearbooks, the Annales Ecclesiastici (1588-1607), only in the context of being a vital source for iconographic solutions in the artistic culture at the end of the 16th century. The paper thus would like to trace Baronio’s deep involvement in the artistic climate of his times and present his contribution to the design of the iconographic programme in the newly renovated transept of the Lateran basilica by setting this particular Constantinian cycle in a liturgical and ceremonial context by analysing it in close interaction with the two reformed liturgical books, the Pontificale Romanum (1595-1596) and the Caeremoniale Episcoporum (1600). It further intends to show the transept’s liturgical dependency on the removed canon’s sacristy which was also decorated with an iconographic programme and in which Baronio also played a key role.

Filip Malesevich is a PhD student at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, since 2014. He studied History and Art History at the Universities of Zurich and Basel, where he graduated summa cum laude. His research interests are concentrated on the relationship between the cultural history of the Papacy and its artistic patronage in Italy from c. 1250-1625.

SESSION 2 Chair: Harriette Peel

1) Robert of Anjou and the idea of Ecclesia Neapolitana

The Franciscan church of Santa Chiara and the Castelnuovo Palace in rank among the main sites of Angevin patronage. This paper will investigate how royal patronage – a lay patronage – might have followed a religious-political purpose in an ecclesiastical environment, as well as within a secular

The Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN tel +44 207 848 2785/2909 web www.courtauld.ac.uk/researchforum/index.shtml one. It will explore how the Angevins used Christian iconography in these places through a variety of pictorial programs, for example in the Allegory of Poverty in the refectory of Santa Chiara and in the panels of the Apocalypse, today in the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart. Reconsidering the fact that Italy remained free from her ecclesiastical centre because of the Avignon Papacy, this paper will examine the possibility that the king himself wanted to achieve a kind of sovereignty with an ecclesiastical character, rather than a purely political one. Robert, known as ‘Robert the Wise’, was renowned for preaching sermons and the extant number of around 270 sermons proves his laical use of this ecclesiastical privilege. By linking these well-studied sermons to the , for example the Giottesque Neapolitan panel of the Crucifixion in the Louvre, I will differentiate the languages of the artistic politics of the Angevin. This visual strategy not only promoted the French court in southern Italy but established them as a moral exemplum for the Apennine Peninsula and abroad, simultaneously creating an Ecclesia Neapolitana.

Katharina Weiger is a postgraduate fellow a the Kunshistorisches Institut in Florence and is also currently working on her PhD at the Freie Universität Berlin under the supervision of Eberhard König and Prof. Dr. Wolf-Dietrich Löhr. Prior to this, she received her Master of Arts, also from the Freie Universität, Berlin in Art History, Italian Philology and German Literature (2006-2010). She has also studied at the Libera Università Maria SS. Assunta, Rome (2005-2006) and the Albert-Ludwigs- Universität, Freiburg (2003-2005).

2) Mater Omnium: Lay Patronage and Clerical Intentions in the Cadard Altarpiece

In 1449, Jean Cadard, former physician and advisor to the French King, Charles VII died in Avignon. In his will, be provided funds for the construction and ornamentation of a chapel in the Avignon Celestine church. Documentary evidence shows that the patron’s son and heir took little, if any, part in carrying out his father’s wishes. Instead, the Celestine monks coordinated the entire building and decoration campaign. This included the commissioning of Enguerrand Quarton and Pierre Villate to paint the chapel’s altarpiece, choosing the theme of the Madonna of Mercy. Scholarship on the panel (now in Chantilly, Musée Condé) has concentrated on stylistic issues. This paper aims to focus instead on the altarpiece’s patronage context and assess how the monks’ intentions impacted the imagery, form, materials and meaning of this supposedly ‘lay’ work. Key to this understanding is the monks’ decision to place the Cadard altarpiece at the entrance of their annex church dedicated to Saint Peter of Luxembourg, a local saint whose remains drew crowds of pilgrims. Located there, the altarpiece would have been the first thing visitors saw upon entering the church, and the will be studied as a greeting image: welcoming pilgrims from all estates and conditions, offering them a place under the Virgin’s protective cloak. This location would have been beneficial to both the Cadard donors depicted on the altarpiece (commemorating them and earning them suffrages for the salvation of their souls) as well as the Celestine monks (who would have enhanced the beauty and attractiveness of their church as a place of pilgrimage destination). Ultimately, this case study aims to complicate our critical understanding of the frontier between lay and clerical patronage, showing that late medieval chapel locations, appearances and furnishings were more often the result of a negotiation between private donors and the officiating clergy than the implementation of one lay patron’s authoritative vision.

Emma Capron is a second-year PhD student working under the supervision of Professor Susie Nash. She received her BA and MA in Political Sciences from Sciences Po, Paris and a BA in Art History from the University of Lille. She completed her MA in the History of Art with distinction at the Courtauld in 2011, and was awarded the dissertation prize for her thesis on the Avignon School. She has worked for three years as lead researcher for Christie’s Old Master Paintings department in London. She is the recipient of a full doctoral award from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

3) Supra Ossa Sanctorum: An Unusual Case in Sixteenth-century , Italy

The recent discovery of a document dating back to the mid sixteenth century, now preserved in the State Archives of Verona, allows for an original reading of the renovation works in the Chapel of Saints Theuteria and Tosca in the Church of Santi Apostoli. This paper will analyse the unusual dynamics arising from the simultaneous presence in the site of two commissioners – Giambattista Peretti, rector of the Chapel, and the Bevilacqua family, who exercised the ius patronatus over it – and attempt to

The Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN tel +44 207 848 2785/2909 web www.courtauld.ac.uk/researchforum/index.shtml understand their respective roles. Although the document initially suggests a clear division of labour – namely, the selection of workers, the choice of works to be carried out, and the sources of finance – a comparative reading of available sources (also regarding the Bevilacqua Palace located nearby) reveal a coincidence of roles. If the written evidence shows that the rector was the financer of the works, a holistic analysis indicates the possible influence the Bevilacqua family exerted over his decision making process. In such a context, the redefinition of the three key elements of the Chapel – the altars, funerary monuments and the Saints’ sarcophagi – provides a foundation for a thorough investigation of how an ecclesiastic and lay patron expressed the same desire to leave behind a lasting memory.

Francesco Marcorin graduated with honours in Architecture before receiving his PhD in 2014 from the IUAV University . His thesis was entitled, “Michele Sanmicheli: the «loza» in Palazzo Bevilacqua in Verona (1556-1559)”. Francesco’s research mainly focuses on art and architecture from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, with a specific interest in Venice, the surrounding region, and late Antique architecture. He is currently working as inventory manager of the Bevilacqua Fund at the State Archives of Verona.

SESSION 3 Chair: Joost Joustra

1) Seeking Intercession for the Afterlife: The Double Portraits of the Converso Cleric Luis de Oviedo and Cardinal Sandoval y Rojas

This paper investigates the hypothetical existence of particular features in the artistic religious patronage promoted by converso clerics. This heterogeneous group with Jewish ancestors had assimilated into society, filling important posts in both secular and religious institutions. Their difficult – albeit possible – path towards religious salvation came into being through continuous references in the literary works of the Spanish Golden Age. It is therefore legitimate to ask what role commemorative and devotional art played in the search for salvation of the converso community. The two double portraits of the converso cleric Luis de Oviedo and this patron Cardinal Sandoval, included in the elaborate pictorial program developed by the Tuscan painter Angelo Nardi for the cardinal's foundation in Alcalá de Henares, showcase the entwining of life and afterlife intercession. Cardinal Sandoval, the General Inquisitor and Archbishop of Toledo, granted Luis de Oviedo his complete and full support during the long purity-of blood process that Oviedo undertook, fiercely interceding on his behalf against the Pope and the Spanish Monarch. Despite the negative outcome of this process, Cardinal Sandoval remained Oviedo's main patron and supporter. By analysing their double portraits, their participation in the ideation of the pictorial program in Alcalá de Henares, and the role of Nardi in that process, this paper will explore the uses that the ecclesiastical elites made of devotional images.

Cloe Cavero de Carondelet is a PhD candidate at the European University Institute of Florence, with the research project “Art, Patronage and Identity. Cardinal Bernardo de Sandoval y Rojas, Prince of the Church in Early Modern ”. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Art History (2004-2008) and an MA (2010) from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, as well as a Master of Research from the EUI (2012). She has participated in a number of international conferences and workshops and is the author of several contributions on her MA thesis which focused on the construction and decoration of Cardinal Quiroga's Toledan villa.

2) Portraits and Visions in Renaissance Flanders: The Paradigm of Rogier van der Weyden

In the mid-fifteenth century, a Netherlandish artist broke with precedent. Rather than relegate patrons to an outer wing of a polyptych, Rogier van der Weyden set a contemplative couple in the central panel of the Vienna Crucifixion (c. 1443-45). Set in a natural landscape, accessible to the mind’s eye, Rogier’s patrons accompany the anguished Virgin and John at the foot of the Cross. Though bishop and courtier alike would soon after appear in scenes from the life of Christ, scholars have neglected this unprecedented iconographic shift. This paper examines the origin and significance of this portrait-type, termed the “visionary portrait”. The union of portraits and visions flourished in the Netherlands during the fifteenth century reform movement known as Devotio Moderna. A central tenet of this spiritual

The Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN tel +44 207 848 2785/2909 web www.courtauld.ac.uk/researchforum/index.shtml revival became daily prayer with meditation on Christ’s life and Passion. To enrich the exercise, patrons sought inspiration. Rogier’s portraits, now more than a mode of commemoration, document donors in visions drawn from contemplative guides endemic to the Low Countries. Considered alongside the Imitatio Christi (1420-1427), which counsels the study of holy books for communion with Christ, these portraits stage both ecclesiastical and lay donors as practitioners of prescribed meditations.

Elizabeth Dwyer is a doctoral candidate in the MA/PhD program at the University of Virginia, where she specialises in Renaissance portraiture. In 2009, she received a BA summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from UCLA. In 2012, as a Presidential Fellow, she received a Master’s examining the integration of patrons in Biblical narratives. Her dissertation addressed the origin and import of this iconographic pattern, which she labels the “visionary portrait.” Elizabeth presented at the 2013 Renaissance Society of America Conference and received their 2014 Patricia H. Labalme Grant. Internships include: Peggy Guggenheim Collection, V&A and Metropolitan Museum of Art.

3) Reserving a seat (on Earth and in Heaven): The Patronage of Choir Stalls in Europe

A donor kneels in front of a desk decorated with his coat of arms. His patron saint is standing behind him while they both worship the Resurrection of Christ. This carved image is part of the dorsal panels of the choir stalls (1540-1544) in the Saint Gertrude abbey, Leuven. The donor is Petrus Was (1474-1553) who, from 1527 until his death, was the abbot of Saint Gertrude. The commissioner, Abbot Was ordered these choir stalls from the Brussels craftsman Mathieu de Waeyer. In late medieval Europe, choir stalls were standard in ministers and monastic churches and, on a smaller scale, in parish and village churches. Often rich and detailed, but somewhat hidden, the decoration of choir stalls is an abundant source for religious and secular culture. While choir stalls have been studied extensively for the misericords with their profane carvings, little research has been done about the commissions for this type of church furniture. In this paper I will focus on the patrons, ecclesiastical and lay, by looking at the written (contracts) and visual (choir stalls) sources. While images of lay patrons on choir stalls are more common, the depiction of the abbot of Saint Gertrude is a fine, but rare, example of an ecclesiastical patron. However, additional examples in the form of inscriptions and heraldry are known. What other examples are there, who were these patrons and what information provide these examples in a broader sense?

Christel Theunissen is a junior researcher in the Department of Art History at Radboud University, Nijmegen. The title of her PhD project is, “Brabant heritage rediscovered: a reconstruction of the Aarschot choir stalls and the oeuvre of the sculptor and joiner Jan Borchmans”. She has contributed to a number of publications including, Theunissen, C.P.J.G., Maas, P. & Koldeweij, A.M., De koorbanken van Oirschot en Aarschot, gezien door de lens van Hans Sibbelee en Jan Verspaandonk, Nijmegen 2011 and Block, E.C. (ed. A.M. Koldeweij, C. Theunissen, F. Billiet), Corpus of Medieval Misericords: and the Netherlands, Turnhout 2010.

SESSION 4 Chair: Bryony Bartlett-Rawlings

1) Making the Queen's Saint: The Fifteenth Century Altarpiece of San Vincenzo Ferrer from the Church of San Pietro Martire in Naples

Colantonio's Saint Vincent Ferrer altarpiece, displayed today in the Capodimonte museum in Naples, is probably the first altarpiece dedicated to the Valencian Saint, canonized by Pope Callixtus III in 1455. Its commission is closely linked with Isabella di Chiaromonte who is represented in the predella with her two children and her coat of arms. Together with her father-in-law, Alfonso the Magnanimous, Isabella, who was to become queen of Naples in 1458, was one of the main supporters of Vincent's canonisation. She arranged the dedication of a chapel in San Pietro Martire to the new saint and made frequent use of the chapel for her religious practice. This chapel is in fact the family chapel of the Pagano, an old Neapolitan family closely linked to the royal household. Furthermore Isabella arranged to be buried next to the altar of the saint, however, her tomb does not survive. This paper will first aim to clarify the circumstances of the commission of the altarpiece, especially its relation to the chapel in

The Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN tel +44 207 848 2785/2909 web www.courtauld.ac.uk/researchforum/index.shtml which it was located, and to Isabella's tomb; as well as the role the Pagano played in this unusual setting. Second this paper will address the altarpiece itself which makes use of the old structure of the Vita icon but modernises it decisively by making use of an early Netherlandish style and up-to-date visual concepts. Arguably, the communion with saint, which Isabella so eagerly sought, is reflected and suggestively asserted in the altarpiece itself.

Adrian Bremenkamp is a doctoral fellow at the Freie Universität, Berlin with the research topic, ‘Conceptions of Space and Identity in Text and Image at the Aragonese Court in Fifteenth Century Naples’. His thesis is supervised by Prof. Dr. Tanja Michalsky (Universität der Künste Berlin and Prof. Dr. Wolf-Dietrich Löhr (Freie Universität Berlin/KHI Florenz. From 2010-2011, he completed an MA in Art History, Philosophy and Classical Archaeology at the Freie Universität, Humboldt-Universität with a thesis entitled, ‘Der Kindermord auf dem Altar – Eine kritische Bildform zwischen ästhetischem Anspruch und Funkionalität’.

2) Depicted for posterity: Jan Długosz’s Catalogus archiepiscoporum gnesnensium. Vitae episcoporum cracoviensium illuminated by Stanislaus Samostrzelnik

In the collection of the National Library in Warsaw, the signature BOZ cim. 5 has been assigned to a copy of the manuscript by Jan Długosz (1415-1480), containing biographies of archbishops of Gniezno and bishops of Cracow. It aims not only to show the order of succession and convey biographical information, but also to portray the ancient origins of the institutions represented by said high clergy. The copy was commissioned by Piotr Tomicki of coat Łodzia (1464-1535), bishop of Cracow and a major patron of arts in Lesser Poland during the first half of the sixteenth century. The task of providing 45 miniatures was entrusted to the workshop of Stanislaus Samostrzelnik, Cracovian painter whose works combined influences of Italian and German contemporary art. The majority of illuminations in Catalogus archiepiscoporum present bishops and archbishops in pontifical vestments. The artist differentiates them in a creative way, not only through composition, but, more significantly, through the varied depiction of garments. The purpose of the paper is to discuss these miniatures against the backdrop of contemporary works of Polish and European art. The Author focuses primarily on the attire of high clergy, methods of depicting clothing, and its role in particular images. She also examines the iconography of depicted textiles and the origins of their patterns.

Anna Wyszyńska completed an MA in Art History in 2011 and has since been a student at the Institute of Art History of the Jagiellonian University in Cracow (thesis title: Depiction of Dress in Illuminations from Lesser Poland 1490-1540, supervised by Prof. Marek Walczak). Her research has focused exclusively on the subject of dress history, concentrating in particular on the period between 15th and 16th centuries and the iconography of dress in Middle Ages, as well as the artistic and social functions of clothing. Since 2012, she has lectured at the Institute of Art History of Jagiellonian University (covering Medieval Art, Medieval Liturgy and Paramentics, and the History of Dress and Textile). She completed work at the Department of Textiles in the National Museum in Cracow and Textile Restoration Workshop at the Wawel Royal Castle. She is currently involved in the creation of an interdisciplinary database documenting silk supplies stored by members of the Cracow Clergy between the fifteenth and seventeeth centuries. In 2014, she was awarded The Lanckoroński Foundation Scholarship.

The Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN tel +44 207 848 2785/2909 web www.courtauld.ac.uk/researchforum/index.shtml