Pilgrimage and Portraiture in Medieval and Early Modern Europe

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

Volume 9 Issue 2 Sacred Journeys 7: Pilgrimage and Article 11 Beyond: Going Places, Far and Away

2021

Memory, Imagination, Identity: Pilgrimage and Portraiture in Medieval and Early Modern Europe

Helena Guzik University of Oxford, U.K., [email protected]

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Recommended Citation Guzik, Helena (2021) "Memory, Imagination, Identity: Pilgrimage and Portraiture in Medieval and Early Modern Europe," International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage: Vol. 9: Iss. 2, Article 11. doi:https://doi.org/10.21427/eq5m-j211 Available at: https://arrow.tudublin.ie/ijrtp/vol9/iss2/11

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License. © International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage ISSN : 2009-7379 Available at: http://arrow.tudublin.ie/ijrtp/ Volume 9(ii) 2021

Memory, Imagination, Identity: Pilgrimage and Portraiture in Medieval and Early Modern Europe

Helena Guzik University of Oxford, U.K. [email protected] Despite the wealth of material and textual evidence attesting to the practice of Christian pilgrimage throughout history, comprehending an individual’s understanding of pilgrimage in relation to his or her own identity has always proved challenging. Pilgrimage studies scholars have tended to look to travel accounts, chronicles, and collected pilgrim souvenirs to discern how pilgrims were affected by and responded to their experiences. One form of source material that has gone largely underexamined in this regard is the genre of portraiture. This article explores how and why the concept of pilgrimage could be incorporated into the self-fashioned images of patrons in medieval and early modern Europe. Building on foundational but geographically and temporally specific studies of Jerusalem confraternity portraits, it aims to consider both overt and subtle iconographic references to pilgrimage to broaden our understanding of what constitutes a pilgrim portrait. By engaging with the flexibility of pilgrimage iconography and the multifaceted motivations behind invoking it in a permanent likeness, this paper argues for the dual faculties of memory and imagination present in portraits that manifest allusions to an individual’s pilgrim identity. Furthermore, it paves the way for future studies of pilgrimage iconography generally, and specifically of pilgrim portraits in a more abstract, allegorical sense. Key Words: pilgrimage, medieval art, early modern art, portraiture, self-fashioning, patronage Introduction In April of 1487 Duke Ercole I d’Este (1431–1505) Este family’s pleasure palaces (delizie) located just north departed from the northern Italian city of Ferrara, bound of Ferrara’s city center (Zaniboni, 1987:111–135; Tuohy for Santiago de Compostela in fulfillment of a vow 1996:342–352; Sambin De Norcen, 2012:117–135). As it (Costola, 1996:207–224). The civic spectacle was one happens, both the pilgrimage and the mural were ill-fated: befitting a Renaissance lord: he was accompanied by a the former was aborted on the order of Pope Innocent large and resplendently dressed company that began its VIII (1432–1492) before the company made it too far journey with a procession through Ferrara’s main square, from home (Pardi, 1928–1933:123; Tuohy, 1996:153), accompanied by trumpets and drums, the projected and the latter was destroyed in a seventeenth-century nobility of which reportedly inspired the city’s populace fire (Gundersheimer 1972:69). All that we know of this to tears (Zambotti, 1934:183; Caleffini, 2006:696– image comes from a description recorded by Ferrarese 697; Pardi, 1928–1933:123). While grandeur was not courtier Giovanni Sabadino degli Arienti (1445–1510) unusual for a fifteenth-century ruler’s pilgrimage, its in his De triumphis religionis (1497), a panegyric text commemoration in a large-scale work of art was. A dedicated to Ercole. He writes that the mural depicts: mural cycle depicting the outset of Ercole’s journey was painted in a public loggia of the Villa Belfiore, one of the ... when Your Excellency went forth from the city of Ferrara to go to Spain to venerate the temple of the Apostle James with a most splendid This study draws upon research completed at the University company bedecked in gold and mounted on of Oxford and supported financially by the Clarendon Fund, the Sarah Louise Dale Renaissance Scholarship at Lady beautiful horses, all dressed in the same manner Margaret Hall, the Erasmus Exchange Programme run by with a half-purple and half-black device, having the Univeristà degli Studi di Padova, the Isaiah Berlin Fund, the trumpets ahead with rich pennants with the the Christina Drake Fund, the Royal Historical Society, the gilded ducal arms and with the mules laden with Santander Travel Award (Lady Margaret Hall), and the rich goods, covered with your ducal insignias. Arnold Fund (History Faculty).

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Se li vede anchora seriosamente quando la tua involvement—affords us a richer understanding of the Excellentia exitte fuori dela cità di Ferrara per iconographic details of these images in the context of lived andare in Hyspagna ad venerare il templo dello experiences and enhances our awareness of their social Apostolo Iacobo con splendidissima compagnia significance, both to the individuals depicted and to the torqueata d’oro sopra belli cavalli, tutta ad una viewers who would have beheld them. The existence of fogia vestita, divisata mezo paonazo e mezo these portraits and the overt allusions to pilgrimage that nero, havendo li trombetti avanti con richi they contain offer insight into how and why—drawing penoni al’arma tua ducale posta ad auro et con on Stephen Greenblatt’s (2005) concept of Renaissance li mulli carichi delle riche robbe, copertati ale self-fashioning (see also Woods-Marsden, 2019)—an insignie tue ducale (Gundersheimer, 1972:69). individual might choose to incorporate aspects of the pilgrim identity into his or her enduring likeness. Looking It may seem strange to begin a discussion of pilgrim to portraits as evidence helps address questions central portraiture by considering a portrait we cannot behold. to the broader field of pilgrimage studies, namely: what Yet, the frustration that this mural’s absence instils for does being a pilgrim mean for an individual’s sense of scholars of the Este family highlights the importance self and what is the enduring impact of pilgrimage both of these kinds of commissions. While other portraits of on individuals and on the people around them? Ercole have survived, the most famous of these present an overwhelmingly secular and militaristic image of a This article explores the ways in which the concept of ruler who was notoriously pious in his self-presentation pilgrimage could manifest in the portraits of medieval (Manca, 1989). In losing this mural, we have forfeited and early modern Europe to broaden our understanding a glimpse of one way in which Ercole wished to appear of what constitutes pilgrim portraiture beyond what has to his subjects, his peers, his descendants, and himself: hitherto been considered. It examines how and why glittering and arrayed in finery; surrounded by courtiers, pilgrimage iconography could be incorporated into the allies, and members of his household; and embarking for intentional, visual manifestations of a patron’s personal a distant land in service of pious vows made to the glory identity. Considering both overt and subtle references of himself, his family, and—by extension—his city and to pilgrimage in portraits allows us a glimpse of how its populace. these select few individuals whose likenesses endured might have understood their devotional journeys both in Although questions of self-perception suffuse sociological the abstract and in relation to their own conceptions of studies of contemporary pilgrims, it is a persistent self. Any one of these portraits is complex, with layered challenge to truly comprehend how past individuals meanings and overlapping motivations informing its understood their pilgrimages and their own identities iconography. Nevertheless, the decision to infuse a within that ritual framework. Those researching medieval portrait with allusions to pilgrimage necessarily engages and early modern pilgrims have traditionally turned to with both the past and the future, the result being that each diaries and travelogues, chronicles, correspondence, and of these works invokes both memory and imagination in wills looking for glimpses of how people approached their representation of the self. their pilgrimages and how these journeys affected them personally. In recent decades we have seen a steadily more material turn in pilgrimage studies (for expansive The Pilgrim’s Presentation: bibliographies see Blick & Tekippe, 2005; Gerson, Attire and Accessories 2006; Lee, 2010), with an increased focus on the visual and material culture that pilgrims interacted with and To begin, it is essential to be familiar with the attributes influenced as a pivotal window into how individuals used throughout the Middle Ages and early modernity engaged with this devotional practice. to identify pilgrims in works of art. Some form of designated pilgrim costume has existed in artistic One body of visual evidence that has yet to be examined convention since approximately the twelfth century systematically with respect to pilgrims, however, is that (Von Wilckens, 1984:174), although the fact that few of portraiture. Considering pilgrim portraits—defined, examples of pilgrims’ attire survive makes studying for the purposes of this study, as likenesses containing the actual fashions of pilgrimage challenging (Grebe, clear visual references to the subject’s known pilgrimage 2005:14–16). Partly a result of ritual tradition and partly fulfilling a social function, recognisable pilgrimage

82 International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage Volume 9(ii) 2021 attire and accessories conveniently singled out pilgrims The pilgrim costume also signalled that an individual to onlookers (Grebe, 2005:18–19). These conventions ought to be allowed the freedom to travel unmolested helped alms-givers identify worthy pilgrims, who in foreign lands, a protection afforded to pilgrims upon often relied on the charitable donations of their fellow pain of excommunication following a declaration by Christians for their basic needs. This was a system the 1123 Lateran Council (Hell & Hell, 1966:22). apparently exploited often enough, both by parsimonious Furthermore, the simple attire visually underscored the nobles wishing to take advantage of reduced prices along pilgrim’s humility and piety, possibly helping to assuage pilgrim routes and by opportunistic beggars hoping to any potential concerns about his or her motivations for inspire additional charity, that the 813 Council of Chalon making the journey (on medieval debates regarding the issued a warning: moral dangers of pilgrimage, see Zacher, 1976). There are powerful men who have enriched themselves by obtaining rents under the pretext Not all pilgrims wore pilgrimage-specific attire at all of visiting Rome or Tours, have oppressed many times, notable exceptions being wealthy pilgrims arrayed poor men, and pretend that what they do only in more lavish clothes (as in the case of Ercole d’Este from cupidity is done for the sake of prayer and seen above, or, in a literary example, the varyingly visiting holy places. There are poor men who garbed pilgrims described in the prologue to Chaucer’s do the same in order to have better means of Canterbury Tales: Chaucer, 1987:24–34) and pilgrims begging (Constable, 1976:128). deliberately wishing to travel incognito for various reasons (Saletti, 2015:200–212; Grebe, 2005:11). Moreover, as

Figure 1: Pisanello - Coat of Arms of the Pellegrini Family - 1436–1438 - Fresco

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Figure 2: Habitus Peregrinationis. L'Habit de Pelerin ou de Voyageur - First half of the seventeenth century - Print

Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel: Graph. C 525

Grebe (2005:26–27) observed, to assume that pilgrims and pilgrim badges (see esp. Spencer, 2010; Koldeweij, would wear a single outfit like a sort of uniform is to 2012; Van Asperen, 2018), which were associated with ignore the practicalities of travel. Nevertheless, the particular destinations. By the fifteenth century this set conventions of the pilgrim costume appear frequently of symbols was so well entrenched that the Pellegrini enough in medieval and early modern works of art as family of Verona incorporated the figure of the pilgrim to be iconographically significant and evidently useful (Figure 1)—complete with his staff, rosary, scallop, and signifiers of status and identity. ascetic hair tunic—into their heraldry as a visual pun on the family name (pellegrini translating to ‘pilgrims’ in Pilgrims were usually depicted with some combination Italian). These symbols, which were recognisable enough of the following: a staff, a small cross-body satchel called to be included in costume manuals (Figure 2) well into a scrip (on the symbolism of both the staff and bag, see the early modern period, provided a handy iconographic Grebe, 2005:18), a cape or cloak, a simple tunic, a broad- lexicon from which artists could draw, singly or in brimmed hat or cowl (sometimes a modest headscarf for combination, to conveniently establish a figure’s pilgrim women), worn shoes or bare feet, a flask or gourd, prayer identity when not relying on the context of a scene or an beads, as well as scallop shells (see esp. Pullan, 2016) accompanying description.

84 International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage Volume 9(ii) 2021 Portraits of Pilgrims altarpieces (Cannon, 2013:20). The compositional and stylistic conventions of these portraits also inherently The pilgrim portraits which, to date, have inspired emphasise community—both the literal membership of the most thorough scholarly analysis are those from these individuals in the community of their confraternity, sixteenth-century northern Europe, the majority of which and also, through their timeless representation in the habit are attributable to Netherlandish artists Jan van Scorel and attitude of pilgrims, as part of a permanent spiritual (1495–1562) and his protégé, Antonis Mor (1519–1576) community of Holy Land pilgrims that pre-dated them (see esp. Woodall, 1989; Van Tongerloo, 2005; Holterman, and would persist long past their own lifetimes (Woodall, 2013). These group portraits (Figure 3) depict members 1989:153–154; on the concept of the liminal communitas of lay confraternities associated with the Jerusalem of pilgrims see Turner and Turner, 1978; cf. Coleman, pilgrimage, societies which only admitted those who 2002). As Joanna Woodall (1989:154) observed, had completed a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and which the forward-facing figures, the palms held aloft, the worked to support the pilgrimage route and promote gestures of devotion, and the slight suggestion of the devotion among others (Trio, 2019:33). Each individual group’s forward motion all contribute to the impression represented in these group portraits is recognisable of an ongoing procession. This, combined with the as a pilgrim from the palm frond he or she holds aloft panels’ likely placement in chapels commissioned by (Jerusalem pilgrims were known as ‘palmers’), as well the confraternities, speaks to their power to extend the as by the inscriptions listing sitters’ names and the dates sacred atmosphere of the pilgrimage—through memory of their pilgrimages. Sometimes the easily recognisable of the experience, and imagination mediated by the emblem of the cross of Jerusalem is also present. image—beyond its temporal and geographic liminality (Woodall, 1989:155–156). Prolonging the pilgrimage These images do far more than merely document experience in this way bears a clear, albeit inverse, their subjects’ membership in the order. First, they parallel to the practice of leaving ex votos—which could deliberately commemorate the pilgrimage experiences function effectively like a lasting extension of the self of the individuals depicted, as the trompe-l’oeil textual (Van der Velden, 1998:133; Jacobs, 2013:54; Bacci, elements of these paintings make clear (Woodall, 2016:79–80)—at pilgrimage sites in exchange for saintly 1989:150). They also serve as a lasting reminder, through intercession. This impulse to forge a material connection the animated and engaging likenesses, that the viewer between the self and the pilgrimage site was common should pray for the souls of these individuals (Woodall, enough that Dominican pilgrim Felix Fabri (1441–1502) 1989:156), a function echoing that of donor portraits in saw fit to admonish that:

Figure 3: Jan van Scorel - Twelve Members of the Haarlem Brotherhood of Jerusalem Pilgrims c. 1528 - Oil on panel

Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem. Photo: Margareta Svensson

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Figure 4: The Places of the Holy Land - c. 1541 - Tapestry

Historische Verein Neuburg an der Donau

pilgrims of noble birth must not deface walls tapestries (Figures 4 & 5) for Otto Heinrich (1502–1559), by drawing their coats of arms thereon, or by prince of the Palatinate region of Germany. Otto made writing their names, or by fixing upon the walls a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1521, subsequently papers on which their arms are painted, or by converted from Catholicism to Protestantism, and scratching columns or marble slabs, or boring then commissioned, two decades after the fact, these holes in them with iron tools, to make marks of two elaborate tapestries depicting the Holy Land to their having visited them (Champion, 2017:10– commemorate his journey (Goren, 2007:490). Both 11). tapestries are richly detailed cartographic vistas surrounded by lush foliated borders. The former shows The desire to maintain a connection between the self and the places of the Holy Land: cities and shrines are the pilgrimage site manifested also in reverse, through peppered through verdant hills, with interspersed figural the practice of bringing home souvenirs and even pieces groups representing Biblical and historical events, and of the site itself (see esp. Klein, 2011:56–63). large ships in the lower register heralding the arrival of contemporary pilgrims. An aerial view of Jerusalem Attempting to memorialise one’s pilgrimage experience comprises the latter tapestry, again with small narrative was not restricted to the confraternity portraits. That scenes interwoven into the cityscape and surrounding motivation was also central in the creation of a pair of landscape. Otto himself appears in the lower register of

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Figure 5: The Pilgrimage of Ottheinrich from the Palatinate to Jerusalem - c. 1541 - Tapestry

© Bayerisches Nationalmuseum München. Photo: Karl-Michael Vetters the second tapestry, kneeling devoutly with his attendant in portraiture as a genre. Even as capturing a convincing courtiers and distinguished by his slightly elevated likeness encourages the beholder to accept portraits as position and the coloration of his armour. The group, truth, the decisions surrounding what to depict and how appearing in an orderly line of men in near-profile and to do so renders these images performative (see esp. labelled with their names and family crests, bears a Warnke, 1998; Berger, 2000), either underscoring and striking compositional resemblance to the confraternity enhancing the portrait subject’s qualities or providing a portraits just discussed. Haim Goren (2007:500–501) has model to which he or she could continually aspire. As proposed that the timing of the commission coincided much as these portraits relied on remembered identities, with Otto’s religious conversion and suggests that there they also helped construct and reinforce imagined ones. was also a political motivation at play in hanging these While Otto’s memories of the Holy Land could inform tapestries prominently in the princely residence: namely, the tapestries’ layout of sites and scenery, the depiction that highlighting his demonstrable devotion to Christ of himself and his companions as devout knights of offered a proactive defence of his faith against any critics Christ evokes long standing associations between sceptical of his conversion. pilgrimages and crusades (Sargent-Bauer, 1992; Glass, 1997; Holterman, 2013:17–19, 90; Purkis, 2020). The While portraits may be useful in attesting to lived image presented here of Otto is grounded in reality: he experiences, it is worth recalling the subjectivity inherent had been physically present in the Holy Land, he had

87 Guzik Memory, Imagination, Identity: Pilgrimage and Portraiture in Medieval and Early Modern Europe military experience and was knighted, and all evidence Memory and imagination also commingle in the suggests he was a devout Christian, whether Catholic or portrait of Stephen III Praun (1544–1591) (Figure Protestant. However, the pictorial decisions surrounding 6), a sixteenth-century diplomat from a Nuremberg his depiction in the pair of tapestries present an elevated, merchant family. Stephen was an inveterate traveller idealised vision of himself. Portrayed in a posture of who completed multiple pilgrimages throughout his life, devotion and arrayed in fine armour, Otto embodies here including to Santiago de Compostela, which this portrait the combined virtues of militaristic prowess, leadership, commemorates. Though the portrait offers the context of wealth, and piety that were core qualities of sixteenth- a landscape studded with other pilgrims making their way century masculine nobility (Hadley, 1999). Furthermore, to Santiago, the majority of the composition is devoted to the seamless way in which these tapestries blend both the the outsized figure of Stephen. He stands commandingly past with the present and the celestial with the terrestrial and unambiguously bedecked in pilgrim attributes: most offers Otto an enduring ideal to which to aspire, enshrined notably the cape with a large scallop shell pinned on within this image of a place not strictly within the bounds his chest; the hat covered with additional scallops and of either the chronology or geography of this world. badges; and his pilgrim’s staff with draped rosary. In

Figure 6: Stephen III Praun (1544–1591) as a Pilgrim - c. 1600 - Watercolour on parchment, mounted on wood

88 International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage Volume 9(ii) 2021 fact, the actual elements of his pilgrim costume survive, of this served to bolster the expectations of princely carried home by his brothers and added to the family’s magnificence that had developed out of the literary collections—along with this portrait—after Stephen tradition of mirrors for princes. This helps explain why succumbed to the plague in Rome (Grebe, 2005:4); they Alberto V d’Este (1347–1393) had his 1391 pilgrimage are now housed in the collection of the Germanisches to Rome commemorated on the façade of Ferrara’s Nationalmuseum. There is some debate about whether cathedral in the form of a sculpted marble portrait of this full-length watercolor portrait was commissioned by himself wearing a humble pilgrim’s cowl and holding the him or by his family members after his death (cf. Grebe, rosa d’oro (‘golden rose’), a symbol of papal favour and 2005:4–7; Germanisches Nationalmuseum n.d.). political privileges bestowed upon his arrival in Rome (Rosenberg, 1997:25–32) (Figure 7). Supplementing the In addition to the clear commemoration of Stephen in a civic spectacles and festivities that marked this lord’s practice that was central to his identity, the incorporation departure and return from Ferrara, the statue served as an of the portrait alongside the pilgrim accessories in the enduring public reminder, located in the heart of the city, Praun family kunstkammer (‘cabinet of curiosities’) of the lengths to which he would go to bring tangible and suggests an association of pilgrimage with worldliness spiritual benefits to his citizens. and a degree of exoticism that contributed to the familial legacy (on collecting, exoticism, and self-fashioning, see Figure 7: Alberto V d'Este esp. Ruvoldt, 2007; MacGregor, 2007:54–70). In a clear - Late 14th–early 15th century - Marble parallel to donor portraits, which situate the patron in visual proximity to the divine and invite the viewer to participate in his or her devotions vicariously (see esp. Botvinick, 1992:7–8; Pope-Hennessy, 1966:257–300), so too does Stephen’s likeness in such a thoroughly detailed setting present an avenue for viewers to reflect closely and intimately on the details of this image and to imagine themselves in his place, perhaps experiencing a degree of the pilgrimage’s benefits for themselves. This idea of proxy pilgrimage is closely linked to the well documented phenomenon of what is varying referred to as mental, virtual, or spiritual pilgrimage, in which texts or images—or some combination thereof—acted as a locus for meditation via which one could imagine the pilgrimage destination and move through the expected devotions in absentia while still receiving the spiritual benefits of doing so (see esp. Sumption, 1975:300–301; Rudy, 2011; Luttikhuizen, 2011; Foster-Campbell, 2011).

Regardless of the degree to which an individual was genuinely devout, underscoring this quality in a permanent way enhanced his or her legitimacy in a social system where piety was an essential virtue for all members of the nobility. For rulers, projecting one’s religious devotion by adopting the identity of a pilgrim carried additional significance, given the responsibility that medieval and Renaissance princes were understood to bear for the spiritual well-being of their citizenry. The patriarchal leaders of their community, they acted on behalf of their subjects by commissioning and donating sumptuous Cathedral of Ferrara, attributed to Lungoleno, CC BY-SA works of art or buildings to the Church in addition to 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons providing monetary support for religious orders. All

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Figure 8: Jan Jansz Mostaert - Portrait of an African Man (Christophle le More?) c. 1525–c. 1530 - Oil on panel

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

90 International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage Volume 9(ii) 2021 Subtle Allusions to Pilgrimage favoured accessory. Moreover, the inclusion of the badge in this permanent likeness underscores Christophle’s Not all pilgrim portraits are overt in their allusions piety while also emphasising his participation in the to pilgrimage: it is helpful to look for references in devotional rituals of the court and, by extension, asserting subtler details as well. Jan Jansz Mostaert (c. 1474– his belonging in the social hierarchy. 1552/53)’s portrait of a courtier (Figure 8)—presumed to be Christophle le More, an archer in the Brussels More so than portraits in which the subject is depicted court of Emperor Charles V (1500–1558)—features an in full pilgrimage attire, portraits with subtler pilgrimage unmistakable pilgrim badge on his hat (Filedt Kok, 2010). allusions allowed for a wider range of interpretation and Christophle, presented in three-quarter, bust-length view, conflation with various personal qualities and layered stands in a confident posture, his left fist anchored on his ambitions of the sitter. A case in point is a seventeenth- hip and his right hand resting on the hilt of a side sword century portrait of an unidentified gentleman (Figure sheathed at his waist. He gazes serenely beyond the frame 9), whose body and face are turned slightly to meet of the composition, resplendent in his fine attire: notably the viewer’s gaze as he stands before a dull, olive- the white leather gloves, a deep red velvet doublet and green curtain that has been pulled back just enough to matching red cap, and the ornately embroidered bag reveal a ship sailing on a cloudy horizon on the right- and strap that cradles his sword. The striking red of his hand edge of the composition. Though his arresting attire serves both to contrast sharply with the panel’s stare and the luminosity of his skin, enhanced by the blue-green background, as well as to offset the metallic lightened treatment of the curtain just behind him, draw highlights of the gold- or silver-gilt pilgrim badge pinned the viewer’s eye immediately to his face, the artist’s prominently in the center of the upturned brim of his use of bright highlights guides the focus gradually cap. The badge, rendered in meticulous detail, draws the downward, by way of the billowing whites of his shirt, viewer’s eye due to its position and the way it echoes the to where his pushed back sleeves reveal the contrast of shine of the luxurious weapon and bag below. Though carefully inked designs on his raised forearms. These a small accessory, it is impossible to overlook and its are readily identifiable as Jerusalem tattoos (Ousterhout, inclusion in the portrait cannot have been anything but 2015), functioning as commemorations of this man’s deliberate and considered. pilgrimage, not just generally but specifically in the holy sites visited and rendered permanently on his skin Hat badges, often wearable signifiers of wealth and (Dauge-Roth, 2020:177). The gentleman’s right forearm, refinement, were a common feature of fifteenth- elevated and slightly outstretched before his chest, bears and sixteenth-century fashion and were not always several designs—including the composite Bethlehem- necessarily religious: they could signify civic allegiances Jerusalem seal, the floor-plan of Bethlehem’s Grotto of or membership in guilds or confraternities, or reflect the Nativity, and an incomplete date of ‘166’—which the personal virtues of the owner (Lee, 2009:116–117; Katherine Dauge-Roth (2020:177–188) argues might Spencer, 2010:278–299; Campbell, 2009:51–55; Leino, suggest he made multiple pilgrimages to the Holy Land. 2013:51–55). However, some members of the nobility, Just visible on his right wrist is the word ‘NAZARET’ such as King Louis XI of France (1423–1483), deliberately surmounted by an architectural design symbolising the incorporated pilgrim badges into their public images to site of the Annunciation (Dauge-Roth, 2020:184). To broadcast their piety (Lee, 2009; Blick, 2005:1). The reinforce the pilgrimage connection, he gently grasps badge depicted in this portrait of Christophle has been a certificate, elegantly lettered in red and black but identified as that of the Virgin of Halle, a local pilgrimage only partly visible within the frame of the picture, that destination frequented by members of the Brussels possibly signifies his having achieved membership, by court (Filedt Kok, 2010; Koldeweij, 2012:199; on the virtue of his pilgrimage, in the Knights of the Order of recognisability of badge designs, see Spencer, 2010:3– St. John (Dauge-Roth, 2020:201). The holy solemnity of 4). Though little is known about the circumstances the symbols etched into his skin, the glowing and halo- surrounding this portrait’s commission, given that Halle like effect of the artist’s handling of light and dark, and was a very accessible, local pilgrimage site it is likely the staid and slightly beatific pose combine to assert this that the inclusion of the badge reflects the reality that sitter’s piety and virtue. Christophle indeed made a pilgrimage to Halle and that the detailed, painted badge was a faithful presentation of a

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Figure 9: Portrait of an unknown pilgrim who traveled to Palestine - c. 1667

The tattoos, a permanent signifier of pilgrim identity gesture toward the ship in the background, the slightly (Dauge-Roth, 2020:189), are an embodied change that drawn back curtain, and the expansive horizon visible in mirror this man’s presumed spiritual transformation the distance, the tattoos also evoke connotations of the resulting from his pilgrimage. Highlighted as they are foreign and the exotic, at a time when travels—including in this portrait, they serve to communicate the honour pilgrimages—contributed to the erudition and cultivation and prestige of having completed his pious journey to of young gentlemen in the form of the Grand Tour (see esp. Jerusalem (Dauge-Roth, 2020:200–201). However, Kaelber, 2006:52–53), a custom that was in its infancy when considered in concert with the man’s guiding when this portrait was painted. In F. Thomas Noonan’s

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Figure 10: Jean-Baptiste Oudry - Portrait of a man (Stanisław Leszczyński?) as a pilgrim to Santiago de Compostela – 1730 - Oil on canvas, National Museum in Warsaw

Image: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

(2007:51) observation of early modernity, ‘to travel was to eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Figure 10) replicate be a pilgrim’ and the association of pilgrimage with travel such explicit associations, occasionally even echoing the and exploration naturally persisted, even as recreational gesture toward the landscape—and, by extension, the journeys became more accessible and justifiable (see wider world—used in this earlier portrait. also Goren, 2007:495). Later pilgrim portraits of the

93 Guzik Memory, Imagination, Identity: Pilgrimage and Portraiture in Medieval and Early Modern Europe Conclusion References

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