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RIVISTA DI STUDI ITALIANI INEDITI THE EVOLUTION AND TRANSFORMATION OF THE JUDITH AND HOLOFERNES THEME IN ITALIAN DRAMA AND ART BEFORE 1627 (CHAPTER II) by FRANK CAPOZZI A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (Italian) At the UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN – MADISON 1975 © FRANK CAPOZZI 1975 1072 FRANK CAPOZZI CHAPTER II Didacticism and Realism during the Years of the Council of Trent hurch prelates were summoned to Trent on December 13, 1545, by the Papal Bull Laetare Hierusalem (November 19, 1544) to bring unity to C the religiously divided West by reaching a compromise between the Lutheran North and the Catholic South, to purge and cleanse the Church of its worldly corruption and paganism, to attack any heresy present in the writing of theologians and philosophers, and to restate and clarify the doctrines and the dogmas of the Church. By the time of the Council’s closing session some twenty years later, on December 4, 1563, after several interruptions, one transfer to Bologna and innumerable debates, it had become evident that the Council marked the end of the humanistic period of the Catholic reform movement and the beginning of the intolerant Counter-Reformation. 1 The Council of Trent was the triumph of the most uncompromising orthodoxy. The power and authority of the pronouncements of the Council were felt not only in matters of faith and morals but also in the arts, including the theatre. The Catholic Reformation introduced the Inquisition (1542), the censorship of printed matter (1543), the Congregation of the Index (1571), and, in the twenty-fifth and last session (December 4, 1563), the Council made a pronouncement on the role of sacred images within the Church. Protestants, in their religious fervor to purge the Church of anything which might detract from a personal dialogue with God, destroyed in a paroxysm of hate and hysteria paintings and statues of the saints and of the Virgin. 2 Luther, Calvin and the Anabaptists were hostile to art and culture and made no attempt to distinguish between worshipping an image and taking pleasure in a 1 As Indro Montanelli and Roberto Gervaso say in L’Italia della Controriforma (Milan, 1968), instead of the “humanistic” priest of the Catholic reform movement, the Council produced the priest “inquisitor” of the Counter-Reformation (p. 478). For a general account of the Protest Reformation and of the Catholic Counter-Reformation see Mario Bendiscioli, “La Riforma Protestante,” in Questioni di Storia Moderna , ed. Ettore Rota (Milan, 1951), pp. 101-180; Delio Cantimori, “La Riforma in Italia,” in Quetioni di Storia Moderna, pp. 181-208; H. A. Henno Van Geldern, The Two Reformations in the 16 th Century (The Hague, 1964), pp. 14-105; Paolo Prodi, “Riforma cattolica e Controriforma,” in Nuove Questioni di Storia Moderna (Milan, 1964), I, 357-418. 2 Eugenio Battisti, “Reformation and Counter Reformation,” Encyclopedia of World Art (New York, 1966), XI, Cols. 900-903; John Phillips, The Reformation of Images: Destruction of Art in England, 1535-1660 (Berkeley, 1973), passim. 1073 CHAPTER II Didacticism and Realism during the Years of the Council of Trent work of art. 3 On the other hand the Catholic Church reasserted its own stand on the positive role of images and the Council decreed that great profit is derived from all holy images, not only because the people are thereby reminded of the benefits and gifts bestowed on them by Christ, but also because through the saints the miracles of God and salutary examples are set before the eyes of the faithful, so that they may give God thanks for those things, may fashion their own life and conduct in imitation of the saints and be moved to adore and love God and cultivate piety. 4 As weapons against heterodoxy, the bishops were advised to use “paintings and other representations” for teaching articles of faith and “the images of Christ, of the Virgin Mother of God, and of the other saints are to be placed and retained especially in the churches, and that due honor and veneration is to be given them.” Religious images were to be a powerful means of indoctrination and propaganda; they were the open Bible for the illiterate and uneducated, those who could not read the written word of the Bible, and an inducement to piety and salvation. But if the Church emphasized the positive role of religious images, it also set forth warnings against the danger of their misuse. They were not to be adored because divinity or virtue is believed to be in them by reason of which they are to be venerated, or that something is to be asked of them, or that trust is to be placed on images, as was done of old by the Gentiles who placed their hope in idols; but because the honor which is shown them is referred to the prototypes which they represent. 3 Arnold Hauser, The Social History of Art (New York, n.d.), II, 124. 4 The English translation of the decree on sacred images is in A Documentary History of Art , ed. Elizabeth G. Holt (New York, 1958), II, 63-65; all quotations are from this edition. The Latin text of the decrees of the Council, with French translation, was published by Charles-Joseph Hefele, Histoire des Conciles d’après les documents originaux (Paris, 1938), X, pat. 1. 1074 FRANK CAPOZZI Moreover sacred images were to be completely devoid of any false doctrine, superstition and lasciviousness, and the Council decreed “that no one is permitted to erect or cause to be erected in any place or church, howsoever exempt, any unusual image unless it has been approved by the bishops.” This statement gave rise to a large number of trattati d’arte on the subject of how to avoid religious and theological inaccuracies. 5 As Hauser says, ‘art produced for Church purposes was placed under the supervision of theologians.” 6 Paolo Lomazzo wrote that the artist should not be ignorante delle hiftorie facre, & delle cofe appartenenti alla Theologia, apparandole almeno per via di frequente converfatione con Theologi, accioche fappi come fi debba rapprefentare Iddio, gli Angioli, l’anime, i demoni, i luochi doue ftanno, i loro habiti, & colori fecondo gli vfficij, & generalmente tutte le fante, & diuote hiftorie, nel più degno, & eccellente modo che poffa effere. 7 Andrea Gilio and Raffaele Borghini took a stand against nudity and anything which suggestive and indecent; they were especially opposed to the nude figures painted by Michelangelo in his Last Judgment. 8 Realism was desired in all its brutality and horror, in contrast to the idealization of the Renaissance. Christ, if the subject required, had to be represented “afflitto, sanguinoso, pieno di sputi, depelato, piagato, difformato, livido e brutto, di maniera che non avesse forma d’uomo.” 9 By distinguishing between religious and profane art, the Council established the iconography of the Church for the following 5 Some of the treatises relevant to the Church position on art have been published in Trattati d’arte del Cinquecento fra manierismo e Controriforma, ed. Paola Barocchi (Bari, 1960-1962), 3 vols. 6 Hauser, The Social History of Art, II, 121. 7 G. Paolo Lomazzo, Idea del tempio della pittura (1590; rept. Hildesheim, 1965), p. 33. 8 Luigi Grassi, Teorici e storia della critica d’arte (Rome, 1970), I, 220-221; Giovanni Andrea Gilio, Dialogo nel quale si ragiona degli errori e degli abusi de’ pittori circa l’historie in Barocchi, Trattati d’arte del Cinquecento , II, 77-80. 9 Gilio, Dialogo , p. 40. 1075 CHAPTER II Didacticism and Realism during the Years of the Council of Trent centuries. 10 One must be careful not to place the Council of Trent, as Wylie Sypher does, at the center of two distinct movements in art and literature. 11 Indeed, Carlo Dionisotti affirms that during the period of the convening of the Council there was an uninterrupted activity in literature, especially in the novella and in the theatre, despite a division and a break in religious thought. 12 It is true, however, that Veronese was summoned in 1573 by the Inquisition to justify the secular elements introduced in his religious paintings; that some of Caravaggio’s paintings were vilified by the clergy for their indecency and profanity; and that the Church tried to restrain the non-devotional elements in the religious dramas and to ban totally the staging of plays. 13 Nevertheless, during the years of the Council and afterwards, art and literature did not entirely embrace the religious and moral spirit of the Church. Artists and writers continued to take many artistic liberties in the representation of biblical subjects, as can be seen in the several paintings of Judith by Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto, and in Sacchetti’s sacra rappresentazione La gloriosa e trionfante vittoria donata dal grande Iddio al popolo hebreo per mezzo di Giudith fua fedelifsima serua, published in Bologna in 1564. During the years of the Council and afterwards, although the Church tried to regulate art and literature, it made use of them to abate the tide of Protestantism and to glorify the dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church. The many religious orders founded during the decades of Church reform were a great aid in carrying out the moral, political and artistic reforms: the Theatines (1524), the Capuchins (1525), the Somaschi (1528), the Barnabites 10 Hauser, The Social History of Art , II, 122-125; Émile Mâle, L’Art religieux de la fin du XVI e, du XVII e et du XVIII e siècle: Etude sur l’iconographie après le Concile de Trente (Paris, 1951), passim. 11 Wylie Sypher, Four Stages of Renaissance Style (New York, 1955), p.