SAN HERMENEGILDO AS a TROPE of RHETORICAL and THEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION in SPAIN, ITALY, and MEXICO (1590-1690) by Stefano Muner
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SAN HERMENEGILDO AS A TROPE OF RHETORICAL AND THEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION IN SPAIN, ITALY, AND MEXICO (1590-1690) by Stefano Muneroni Laurea in Lettere, Università di Roma, Italy, 1995 M.A. in Italian, University of Pittsburgh, 2002 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2008 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Stefano Muneroni It was defended on August 12, 2008 and approved by Attilio Favorini, PhD, Professor Bruce McConachie, PhD, Professor Francesca Savoia, PhD, Associate Professor Dissertation Director: Lynne Conner, PhD, Associate Professor ii SAN HERMENEGILDO AS A TROPE OF RHETORICAL AND THEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION IN SPAIN, ITALY, AND MEXICO (1590-1690) Stefano Muneroni, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2008 During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, San Hermenegildo, a Christian martyr who died in 585, became a recurrent presence on theatre stages in Europe and the Americas. Tragedies inspired by his death began to surface due to the efforts of the Society of Jesus, the religious order that used him to embody its theological and rhetorical agendas. This dissertation investigates the figure of San Hermenegildo as a stage character in the period comprised between 1590 and 1690. Specifically, it looks at five tragedies, two Spanish, two Italian, and one Mexican, to demonstrate how the treatment of the martyr varied widely according to geo- political and rhetorical necessities. The subtle balance between the evident consistency of the Hermenegildo theatrical trope and the many differences traceable in the individual plays illuminates the powerful ideologies and the propagandistic objectives that Jesuit theatre came to embody during the Baroque era, as well as the struggle for power happening within and without the Society of Jesus. This study also examines how two non-Jesuit playwrights, Lope de Vega and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, challenged the tropological attributes with which the Society of Jesus had charged the saint; the first by focusing on pleasing the audience of the public theatre, the second by reinterpreting the story of Hermenegildo according to her subaltern position as Mexican creole and as a woman. The most relevant implication of this dissertation is that of having demonstrated the tropological significance attached to saints and martyrs as stage characters during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the layered and rich connections existing between drama and iii religious and political discourses. This is a particularly relevant finding especially in light of the fact that American academia has largely neglected to probe the religious theatre of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and much more needs to be accomplished in this field. Given the interdisciplinary scope of the research, the dissertation employs many languages, including French, Spanish, Italian, and Latin, and major theoretical models such as colonial and post-colonial studies, history of ideas, rhetorical studies, and theatre and performance studies. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS 1.0 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 DISSERTATION’S GOALS AND METHODOLOGIES 1 1.2 THEORETICAL FRAME 5 1.3 SCHOLARLY REVIEW 13 1.4 NOTES FOR THE READER 14 2.0 THE JOURNEY OF HERMENEGILDO FROM HISTORICAL CHARACTER TO STAGE HERO 16 2.1 DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE 16 2.2 HERMENEGILDO AND THE JESUIT COLLEGE THEATRE 28 2.3 HERMENEGILDO AND THE FIGHT AGAINST THE LUTHERANS 41 2.4 HERMENEGILDO AND THE ISSUE OF REGICIDE 45 2.5 HERMENEGILDO AND THE REACTIVATION OF CHRIST’S SACRIFICE 57 2.6 HERMENEGILDO AND MISSIONARY WORK 62 3.0 HERMENEGILDO IN SPAIN 75 3.1 LA TRAGEDIA DE SAN HERMENEGILDO 75 3.1.1 Plot description 77 3.1.2 Performing dogmas 80 3.1.3 Seville in La tragedia de San Hermenegildo and in the Entertainment Hércules vencedor de la ignorancia 91 3.1.4 Staging and the imperative of movere 96 3.1.5 The crown between politics and theology 102 3.1.6 La tragedia de San Hermenegildo and the Jesuit tragedy 117 3.2 LOPE DE VEGA’S LA MAYOR CORONA 127 3.2.1 Plot description 131 3.2.2 Genesis and structure 135 3.2.3 Mundo and cielo: differences and similarities between religious and political discourses 141 v 4.0 HERMENEGILDO IN ITALY 162 4.1 ITALIAN THEATRE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 162 4.2 EMANUELE TESAURO’S ERMEGILDO 169 4.2.1 Plot description 173 4.2.2 Rhetoric, politics and religion in Ermegildo 179 4.2.3 Ermegildo as a modern tragedy 196 4.3 SFORZA PALLAVICINO’S ERMENEGILDO MARTIRE 199 4.3.1 The genesis of Ermenegildo martire 201 4.3.2 Plot description 206 4.3.3 Ermenegildo martire and the Jesuit tragedy of the Collegio Romano 210 4.3.4 Ermenegildo martire as a modern and normalizing tragedy 220 5.0 HERMENEGILDO IN MEXICO 230 5.1 SOR JUANA INÉS DE LA CRUZ’S EL MÁRTIR DEL SACRAMENTO, HERMENEGILDO 230 5.1.1 Sor Juana 231 5.1.2 El mártir del sacramento and the challenges of theatre and theology 235 5.1.3 Plot description 240 5.1.4 The journey from sacrifice to sacrament 246 5.1.5 The Eucharist as an Indian ceremony 258 5.1.6 Hermenegildo and Sor Juana’s theological orthodoxy 271 6.0 CONCLUSION 279 BIBLIOGRAPHY 283 vi 1.0 INTRODUCTION 1.1 DISSERTATION’S GOALS AND METHODOLOGIES I developed an interest in the theatre of the Jesuits while I was a student in the Theatre Department of the Universitá La Sapienza in Rome, Italy. My graduation thesis, Teoria e prassi del dramma gesuitico: il punto di vista di Sforza Pallavicino, was an investigation of how Jesuit Cardinal Sforza Pallavicino conceptualized the tragic genre as a didactical and religious tool and exemplified his ideas in his tragedy San Ermenegildo. While researching the topic of Saint Hermenegildo in theatre, I became increasingly aware of the fact that Pallavicino’s version was only one of many tragedies which were staged and published between the late sixteenth and the end of the seventeenth centuries throughout Catholic Europe. According to Jean-Marie Valentin, there were 32 theatrical pieces dealing with the martyrdom of this Spanish saint written between 1622 and 1769. 1 However, Pierantonio Frare believes the actual number might be even higher, as new stage versions of the story continue to be unearthed by librarians and theatre historians.2 I also realized that even though Hermenegildo always maintained his preeminent status as a Jesuitical character, the topic of the saint’s martyrdom also moved outside of the Society of Jesus’s theatrical domain, becoming a key character in professional religious theatre. The omnipresence of Hermenegildo posits fascinating questions to the researcher. What is the 1 Jean-Marie Valentin, Le theater des Jésuites dans les pays de langue allemande (1554-1680) (Bern & Frankfurt: Lang, 1978), quoted in Emanuele Tesauro, Ermenegildo, edited by Pierantonio Frare and Michele Gazich (Rome: Vecchiarelli Editore, 2002), xiv. 2 Ibidem. 1 motivation behind the exhumation of an historical figure who was already, in the sixteenth century, a thousand years old and had been long removed from the national and cultural imagery? What are the tenets of the story of Hermenegildo that helped shape the Jesuits’ vision of the world? What does the “making” of a Jesuitical tragedy tell the modern scholar about the literary aims and practical aspirations of the Society of Jesus? What are the dramaturgical devices operating within each version of the story of Hermenegildo? How does the Hermenegildo story change when it is a non-Jesuit dramatist who writes it? Those were a few of the questions that continued to fascinate me and drive my research. The recurrence, permanence, and internationality of Hermenegildo as a theatrical character is not merely interesting from a scholarly point of view because of its ubiquity, it is also haunting because it has been bypassed and unacknowledged by scholars everywhere. In fact, in spite of the popularity of Hermenegildo during the Baroque, there is neither a complete investigation dealing with his role and relevance as the Jesuits’ Christian hero, nor an in-depth study of more than one of the tragedies inspired by his martyrdom. The story of Hermenegildo as a theatrical character is affected profoundly by the cultural context within which it was created. This dissertation will deal with five versions of the saint’s martyrdom, written in three different countries, the analysis of which will provide a meaningful framework for the discussion of Hermenegildo as stage character. Chapter I will provide a general outlook on the exegesis and history of the Hermenegildo character by looking at the historical personage while illustrating the tenets of his story that appealed to the post-Tridentine Church and to the Society of Jesus. Chapter II will delve into the first two tragedies, the Spanish La tragedia de San Hermenegildo, written in 1590 by Jesuit priests Hernando de Ávila and Melchor de la Cerda together with Juan de Arguijo, and Mayor 2 Corona, attributed to prolific Golden Age dramatist Lope de Vega, who studied in a Jesuit school in 1574 and became a priest in 1614 but never officially belonged to the Society of Jesus. In chapter III, the investigation will move to Italy and address two tragedies written by two well- known Jesuit figures. Emanuele Tesauro wrote his Ermenegildo in 1659, following loosely his own Hermenegildus, a Latin version of the same story he wrote in 1621, and Cardinal Sforza Pallavicino composed his San Ermenegildo for the Jesuit Collegio Romano in 1644. While these two works reflect the same religious concerns about reaffirming the dogmas of the Trinity as well as the divinity of Christ, they are very different in their structure and dramaturgy from the Spanish versions.