The Façade of San Michele in Isola Daniel Savoy
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A Ladder of Camaldolite Salvation: The Façade of San Michele in Isola Daniel Savoy The church of San Michele in Isola, located on the north dows embellished with tracery and sculptural decoration in corner of the island of San Michele between Venice proper the niches crowning the lateral sections and in the five cano- and Murano, boasts a façade that is credited with having cata- pies that rise from the façade’s corners, all of which features pulted Venetian architecture into the Renaissance (Figure 1). can be found in the early-thirteenth century decoration of San Executed by the Bergamese architect Mauro Codussi between Marco (Figure 3).2 Codussi’s divergence from these traditional 1469 and 1478 under the auspices of the local Camaldolite architectural references was partly stimulated by the congregation, the façade was the first in Venetian ecclesiasti- Camaldolites’ long-standing propensity for classical learning, cal architecture to be designed in the classical mode, to ex- as demonstrated most prominently by Ambrogio Traversari. hibit rustication, and to be sheathed in gleaming white Istrian Living in Florence as the general of the Camaldolite order stone. This sudden eruption of classical motifs led scholars to from 1431 until his death in 1439, Traversari was a leading characterize the façade as a product of various all’antica trends patristic scholar who produced Latin translations of the ora- introduced by the works of Leon Battista Alberti in Florence tions, sermons, and treatises of the Greek fathers such as Ba- and in Rimini, yet there has never been a study that investi- sil and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite.3 gates the meaning of these architectural innovations. In this Although patristics continued to dominate Camaldolite paper I will argue that Codussi integrated all’antica elements studies during the construction of the façade of San Michele, with local architectural traditions to communicate a unique correspondence between the monks at that time offers one tes- statement that addresses issues of Camaldolite doctrine, Ve- timony that praises the church’s new classical frontage. In a netian history, and devotion to the Archangel Michael, to whom well-known letter dated to 1477, the voluble Pietro Dolfin, a the church and its monastery had been dedicated since their monk at the monastery between 1462 and 1478, wrote ardently foundation in 1212.1 about the façade to Pietro Dona’, the prior of the congrega- Before Codussi began San Michele, architects of ecclesi- tion, stating “Come, then, to see something great and rare, astical buildings in Venice were continuing to borrow stylistic which adds adornment and decorum not only to our order, but elements from the Byzantine and Gothic vocabulary of the also to the whole city...Everyone is amazed that it could have venerated Basilica di San Marco (Figure 2). The church of the been built so quickly, and with such artistic merit, a building Madonna dell’Orto, begun in 1399 and still under construc- of such greatness that it not only emulates antiquity, but even tion in the mid-fifteenth century, exhibits pointed arched win- evokes the finest works of the ancients.”4 For this paper I am indebted to the assiduous guidance and encouragement 2 The church of the Madonna dell’Orto was built for the Frari Umilita’, and of Dr. Jack Freiberg, as well as the insightful input of Neil Stratford. is designed according to the Mendicant architectural tradition. For the per- sistence of Byzantine and Gothic architecture in Venice see Deborah Howard, 1 The most comprehensive study of San Michele in Isola is Vittorio Meneghin, “The Triumph of Gothic Culture: Civic and Religious Architecture in Re- San Michele in Isola di Venezia, 2 vols. (Venice: Stamperia di Venezia, naissance Venice,” Venice: Art and Architecture (Udine: Magnus Edizioni, 1962). For additional information, on this and other works by Mauro 1997): vol. 1, 118-155. Codussi, see Loredana Puppi and Olivato Puppi, Mauro Codussi (Milano: Electa, 1977); Luigi Angelini, Le opere in Venezia di Mauro Codussi 3 For the life and work of Ambrogio Traversari, see Salvatore Frigero, (Milan: Edizioni d’arte Emilio Bestetti, 1945); John McAndrew, Venetian Ambrogio Traversari: un manaco e un monastero nell’ umanesimo Architecture of the Early Renaissance (Cambridge, MA and London: MIT fiorentino (Siena: Edizioni Camaldi, 1988); Charles Stinger, “Ambrogio Press, 1980) 236 - 61; and Deborah Howard, The Architectural History of Traversari and the Tempio degli Scolari at Santa Maria degli Angeli in Venice (London: BT. Batsford Ltd., 1980) 114-127. The first Camaldolite Florence,” Essays presented to Myron Gilmore (Florence: La Nuova Italia congregation was founded at Camaldoli in 1012 by St. Romualdo (c. 952- Editrice, 1978): 271-86. 1027) in the mountains of Arezzo. Before founding Camaldoli, St. Romualdo lived briefly on this island in the Venetian lagoon with an old 4 Meneghin vol. 1, 309-10. The architectural campaign of 1469 may have hermit named Marinus. It was on these grounds that Guido, the prior gen- been intended to mirror the maturation of San Michele as a distinguished eral of Camaldoli in 1212, petitioned for the island’s release from the dual member of the religious community in Venice. In 1434, San Michele be- control of the Bishops of Castello and Torcello. Shortly thereafter he dis- came an independent monastery and the monks were allowed to elect their patched monks Alberto and Giovanni to the island to found the new own prior with only the approval of the prior general of the order. In 1475, Camaldolite church dedicated to the Archangel Michael. For a brief syn- the congregation merged with the Abbeys of San Severo in Ravenna and thesis of Camaldolite doctrine, see Gordon Wakefield, “Camaldolese Spiri- Sant’ Apollinare in Classe, where Saint Romualdo, the founder of the tuality,” A Dictionary of Camaldolese Spirituality (London: SCM Press, Camaldolite order, had spent three years as a monk in the last decades of 1983) 107-110. the tenth century. ATHANOR XX DANIEL SAVOY The desire to build in the classical manner was fueled as Michele was a microcosm of Christ’s house of prayer, that it much by the monks’ esteem for classical architecture as it was had a profound prior history in Venice, and that the Archan- by contemporary Italian architects such as Alberti, whose gel Michael was the church’s steadfast protector. To convey mastery of antique forms has caused scholars to draw close this multilayered statement, Codussi assigned to each level of parallels between his work and the façade of San Michele. the façade a distinct meaning. Deborah Howard argues that Codussi gathered all’antica ideas The lowest zone was devoted to the patron of the church, from the façade of Alberti’s Tempio Malatestiano in Rimini— the Archangel Michael, who, in Christian scripture, was seen completed on its foundation medal by Matteo de’ Pasti charged with safely guiding pious souls to Heaven at the hour from 1450—which exhibits engaged Corinthian columns sup- of their death, weighing the souls at the last judgment, and porting a projecting entablature and forms a trilobed silhou- commanding Christ’s army against Satan and his evil band of ette (Figure 4).5 As a prototype for the highly unusual rustica- fallen angels.8 As opposed to the other Archangels Gabriel and tion on the façade of San Michele, the façade of Alberti’s Raphael, Michael alone was considered the protector of the Palazzo Ruccelai in Florence, begun in 1453, has been put universal church, and can be seen depicted in this role in a forth as a possible source, while the rusticated pilasters of San relief over the cloister entrance of San Michele, executed be- Michele have been traced to Bernardo Rossellino’s Palazzo tween 1444 and 1453.9 The relief shows the archangel in ar- Piccolomini in Pienza, executed between 1460 and 1462.6 mor while holding the scales of the law and a lance with which Lastly, we know that Alberti’s influential treatise on architec- he spears Satan in the guise of a dragon below. ture, the De re aedificatoria, which was first presented to Pope Codussi continued the evocation of the archangel in ar- Nicholas V in 1452, was available in Venice and of great in- chitectural terms by employing a specific type of rustication terest to Pietro Dolfin. Dolfin reported to his friend Pietro that alluded to the militant role of the archangel as the leader Barozzi that he had commissioned written transcriptions of of Christ’s army and the protector of the church.10 In contrast the work of Alberti, proving his cognizance of Alberti’s theo- to the more artful rustication of Alberti’s Palazzo Ruccelai, to ries, and most likely his promotion of the white color in the which it has been compared, the rustication at San Michele is construction of sacred edifices.7 rendered with deeper channeling that delineates two distinct Albertian conventions expressed the humanism of the local sizes of white slabs which are repeated in a symmetrical pat- Camaldolites, but the manner in which they were arranged tern, as opposed to Alberti’s example which is arranged in an and seamlessly integrated with traditional Venetian architec- asymmetrical pattern of unequally sized blocks (Figure tural motifs underscored fundamental characteristics of local 5).11 The more ordered style of rustication at San Michele is Camaldolite identity. The primary intention for the façade of not consistent with Florentine palace architecture as commonly San Michele was to synthesize three related ideas: that San thought, but rather with Medieval and Renaissance fortifica- 5 Howard 1987, 114-127. In addition, McAndrew argues that “To an eager 8 For the role of the Archangel Michael in Christian scripture see Filippo architect-to-be in his twenties, working thirty miles away, this building Caraffa, Bibliotheca sanctorum, (Rome: Citta’ Nuova Editrice, 1967) 429; [Tempio Malatestiano] must have been by far the most stimulating sight in Hippolyte Delehaye, The Legends of the Lives of the Saints (New York: the neighborhood.” McAndrew 239.