Terracotta Tableau Sculpture in Italy, 1450-1530
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PALPABLE POLITICS AND EMBODIED PASSIONS: TERRACOTTA TABLEAU SCULPTURE IN ITALY, 1450-1530 by Betsy Bennett Purvis A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy Department of Art University of Toronto ©Copyright by Betsy Bennett Purvis 2012 Palpable Politics and Embodied Passions: Terracotta Tableau Sculpture in Italy, 1450-1530 Doctorate of Philosophy 2012 Betsy Bennett Purvis Department of Art University of Toronto ABSTRACT Polychrome terracotta tableau sculpture is one of the most unique genres of 15th- century Italian Renaissance sculpture. In particular, Lamentation tableaux by Niccolò dell’Arca and Guido Mazzoni, with their intense sense of realism and expressive pathos, are among the most potent representatives of the Renaissance fascination with life-like imagery and its use as a powerful means of conveying psychologically and emotionally moving narratives. This dissertation examines the versatility of terracotta within the artistic economy of Italian Renaissance sculpture as well as its distinct mimetic qualities and expressive capacities. It casts new light on the historical conditions surrounding the development of the Lamentation tableau and repositions this particular genre of sculpture as a significant form of figurative sculpture, rather than simply an artifact of popular culture. In terms of historical context, this dissertation explores overlooked links between the theme of the Lamentation, the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, codes of chivalric honor and piety, and resurgent crusade rhetoric spurred by the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Reconnected to its religious and political history rooted in medieval forms of Sepulchre devotion, the terracotta Lamentation tableau emerges as a key monument that both ii reflected and directed the cultural and political tensions surrounding East-West relations in later 15th-century Italy. For the confraternity of Santa Maria della Vita in Bologna, Niccolò dell’Arca’s Lamentation represented an opportunity to resurrect the crusade origins of the sodality and establish the group as a major social and political voice within the city. For Guido Mazzoni’s princely patrons, Lamentation groups spoke of a devotion to the cause of the Holy Sepulchre and were used to craft aspects of a ruler’s political image that were rooted in traditional chivalric ideals of honor and religious duty. Polychrome terracotta is also discussed as the ideal medium to embody and communicate the immediacy of the piety, the grief, and the political and religious anxieties provoked by events in the East and engage viewers with the call to action at the heart of the Lamentation theme. Lastly, this project considers the relationship between Lamentation tableaux and the sacri monti, with the Sepulchral theme as their conceptual linchpin. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS “Remember now, that you have made me as clay.” Job 10:9 First thanks go to my committee members, Professors Philip Sohm, Evonne Levy, and Christy Anderson and my readers, Professors Barbara Wisch and Giancarla Periti, for all their help, advice, and encouragement along the way and particularly in the last phases of the completion of this dissertation. The marks of their wisdom and the intellectual debts I owe to each of them are great and run throughout this study. Special thanks go to Professor Wisch for turning my attention to Niccolò dell’Arca’s Lamentation sixteen years ago as a seminar paper topic in my first semester as a Master’s student at Syracuse University and to Professor Sohm for his help and guidance in bringing this project to completion as my doctoral thesis at the University of Toronto. “Is my strength the strength of stones, or is my flesh bronze?” Job 6:12 Many heartfelt thanks go to Joanne Wainman, Margaret English, and Gaby Sparks for all their encouragement and help in navigating the practical necessities and financial vicissitudes of life as a graduate student. Special thanks go to Joanne Wainman and Professor Jill Caskey as well as Heather Kelly and Pat Singh at SGS for making monetary miracles happen that kept this project (and its author) afloat in moments when it seemed all might founder. Many thanks go to Professors Alison Syme, Carl Knappett, and Elizabeth Legge for all their help in moving bureaucratic mountains as well. This work would not have been possible without their help. I am also thankful for travel grants from the Kress Foundation, the University of Toronto School of Graduate Studies, and the Art Department of the University of Toronto that provided much needed funds for travel and research in Italy. iv “All things are touched with color.” Job 38:14 Finally, I am very fortunate to have been surrounded all these years by wonderful friends and colleagues in the Art Department who have been a great source of support and inspiration. Special thanks go to Hannah Moland, Tara Bissett, Guita Lamsechi, Angela Glover, Carolina Mangone, Alma Mikulinsky, Rebekah Carson, Alex Hoare, Margo Beggs, Wendy Sepponen, and Karine Tsoumis. Special thanks go to Klara Kovar as well for all her help assembling images and bibliography. Finally, my deepest thanks go to my mother, Juanita Miller Purvis, and to Tanya Sulatyski and John Tomaselli, who have all in their own ways never let me believe I could not do this. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………...ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………………….iv TABLE OF CONTENTS……………………………………………………………….vi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS………………………………………………………….viii INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………….1 Issues Past and Present and the State of the Research…………………………………….2 Chapter Overviews…………………………………………………………………….......8 CHAPTER 1: Renaissance Sculpture and the Place of the Polychrome Terracotta Tableau: Context and Issues……………………………………………………………..16 Renaissance Sculpture: Materials and Materiality……………………………………….22 The Place of Terracotta…………………………………………………………………..29 The Paragone, Visual And Written, and Embodied Forms……………………………...44 Terracotta Lamentation Tableaux………………………………………………………..54 CHAPTER 2: The Holy Sepulchre and Its Replicas: Symbolism and Ideology in the Western Imagination and Its Implications for Sepulchre Chapels of the 15th Century….67 The Holy Sepulchre and Its Constantinian Origins……………………………………...68 Charlemagne and the East……………………………………………………………….73 The Palatine Chapel at Aachen as Sepulchre Replica…………………………………...79 The Wider Influence of Jerusalem and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Carolingian Architecture……………………………………………………………………………...86 Liturgy…………………………………………………………………………………...89 Westworks and Sepulchre Replicas…………………...………………………………....91 Fulda and Constance……………………………………………………………………..96 Pilgrimage and the New Jerusalem………………………………………………………98 1009-1099 and the First Crusade……………………………………………………..100 Baptisteries, Sepulchre Replicas, and Civic Pride – Florence and Pisa……………..….111 Bologna, the Holy Land, and Santo Stefano……………………………………………119 The Image of the Sepulchre Post-1187………………………………………………....133 CHAPTER 3: The Confraternity of Santa Maria della Vita, Niccolò dell’Arca’s Lamentation, and Crusade Politics, 1453-1464………………………………………...135 Santa Maria della Vita: The Origins of the Confraternity………...……………………136 The Sepulchre Shrine and Lamentation Group…………………………………………145 Santa Maria della Vita, the Sepulchre Shrine, and the Politics of Lament……………..159 The History and Rhetoric of the 15th-Century Crusades………………………………..172 The Crusades Under Nicholas V and Calixtus III……………………………………...177 The Crusades Under Pius II…………………………………………………………….186 The Crusade Agenda After the Death of Pius II………………………………………..198 Post-Script for Santa Maria della Vita and Politicized Art……………………………..208 vi CHAPTER 4: Harnessing the Rhetorical Power of the Sepulchre: The Lamentation Tableaux of Guido Mazzoni and Agostino de’ Fondulis and the Beginnings of the Sacro Monte di Varallo………………………………………………………………………218 Busseto………………………………………………………………………………...221 Modena………………………………………………………………………………...225 Ferrara………………………………………………………………………………….228 Naples………………………………………………………………………………….241 Milan…………………………………………………………………………………...256 The Sacro Monte di Varallo…………………………………………………………...264 From Preaching the Sepulchre to Narrating the Holy Land…………………………...278 CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………….280 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………….284 ILLUSTRATIONS........................................................................................................345 vii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Introduction i.1) Niccolò dell’Arca, Lamentation, 1462-1463, Santa Maria della Vita, Bologna. i.2) Guido Mazzoni, Lamentation, 1476-1477, Santa Maria degli Angeli, Busseto and Guido Mazzoni, Lamentation,1477-1480, San Giovanni, Modena. i.3) Guido Mazzoni, Lamentation, c.1480-1485, originally in the church of Santa Maria della Rosa (now in the church of the Gesù), Ferrara and Guido Mazzoni, Lamentation, 1490-1492, Santa Maria in Monteoliveto (now Sant’ Anna dei Lombardi), Naples. i.4) Gaudenzio Ferrari, Chapel of the Crucifixion, 1515-1520, Sacro Monte di Varallo. i.5) French Entombment groups from Fribourg, c.1432 (top left) and Tonnerre, c.1454 (top right) and Italian Entombment from Moncalieri (Turin), mid 15th century. i.6) Niccolò dell’Arca, Mary Cleofa and Mary Magdalene from the Lamentation, 1462- 1463, Santa Maria della Vita, Bologna and Ercole de’ Roberti, Wailing Magdalene from destroyed fresco cycle in the Garganelli Chapel, 1478-1485, San Petronio, Bologna. Chapter 1 1.1) Lorenzo Ghiberti, St. John the Baptist, 1412-1417, Orsanmichele, Florence.