Sacred Image, Civic Spectacle, and Ritual Space: Tivoli’S Inchinata Procession and Icons in Urban Liturgical Theater in Late Medieval Italy
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SACRED IMAGE, CIVIC SPECTACLE, AND RITUAL SPACE: TIVOLI’S INCHINATA PROCESSION AND ICONS IN URBAN LITURGICAL THEATER IN LATE MEDIEVAL ITALY by Rebekah Perry BA, Brigham Young University, 1996 MA, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2006 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2011 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences This dissertation was presented by Rebekah Perry It was defended on October 28, 2011 and approved by Franklin Toker, Professor, History of Art and Architecture Anne Weis, Professor, History of Art and Architecture Bruce Venarde, Professor, History Alison Stones, Professor, History of Art and Architecture ii Copyright © by Rebekah Perry 2011 iii SACRED IMAGE, CIVIC SPECTACLE, AND RITUAL SPACE: TIVOLI’S INCHINATA PROCESSION AND ICONS IN URBAN LITURGICAL THEATER IN LATE MEDIEVAL ITALY Rebekah Perry, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2011 This dissertation examines the socio-politics of urban performance and ceremonial imagery in the nascent independent communes of late medieval Lazio. It explores the complex manner in which these central Italian cities both emulated and rejected the political and cultural hegemony of Rome through the ideological and performative reinvention of its cult icons. In the twelfth century the powerful urban center of Tivoli adopted Rome’s grandest annual public event, the nocturnal Assumption procession of August 14-15, and transformed it into a potent civic expression that incorporated all sectors of the social fabric. Tivoli’s cult of the Trittico del Salvatore and the Inchinata procession in which the icon of the enthroned Christ was carried at the feast of the Assumption and made to perform in symbolic liturgical ceremonies were both modeled on Roman, papal exemplars. The Tiburtine procession, however, became a ritual communal act and its Savior icon an apotropaic palladium that protected the city from spiritual and material dangers. Rather than a mere imitation of Roman practices, the Inchinata was a unique, site-specific rite that preserved communal memory and constructed new religious and social narratives. The sacred geography of the procession drew all of the city’s most strategic religious, defensive, and historical monuments into a self-referential spatial and ritual matrix that sacralized the city’s defensive structures, invoked its protector saints, and celebrated its sacred iv history and local mythology. Through this ritual, Tivoli, a perennial military rival of Rome, “branded” itself as a formidable political and cultural rival as well. I contextualize this tradition by examining a spectrum of analogous cases in Lazio where other late medieval processional “copies” of Rome’s Acheropita icon were in reality powerful local symbols of communal identity and indices of an evolving civic self-awareness. My treatment of this phenomenon addresses fundamental underlying questions about the origins of religious drama and the evolution of urban culture in a transformative period for the Italian city, a period characterized by fierce political ambition, rapid secularization, and artistic innovation. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface………………………………………………………………………………………... xi 1.0 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………. 1 2.0 The Origins and Documentary Record of the Inchinata ……………...…………………. 15 2.1 Introduction…………………………………………………………............... 15 2.2 The Inchinata Procession Today……………...……………..……................. 17 2.3 The Meaning of the Bow…………………………………………………….. 23 2.4 The Textual Record for the Historical Procession……………….…………… 25 2.5 The Model for the Inchinata: the August 14-15 Procession in Rome……….. 36 2.6 The Origins of the Inchinata Procession in Tivoli………………….……….. 44 2.7 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………. 53 3.0 Civic Landscape, Sacred Journey: the Performed Geography of the Inchinata and Construction of a Ritual Narrative ………………………….…………………...………. 54 3.1 Introduction………………………………….………………………………. 54 3.2 Background: Processional Practices and Icons as Civic Palladia…………… 56 3.3 The Urban Topography of Tivoli’s Inchinata Procession and the Apotropaic Function of the Trittico del Salvatore……………………….............. 62 3.4 Comparing the Assumption Processions in Tivoli and Rome……………….. 89 3.5 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………. 95 4.0 Evolving Topography, Evolving Symbolism: the Procession as Pilgrimage………...….. 97 4.1 Introduction………………………………………………………………….. 97 4.2 The Emergence of the Mendicants and Confraternities……………………… 99 vi 4.3 The First Hospitals…………………………………………………………… 103 4.4 “Christ as Pilgrim” in Popular Culture………………..……………………… 109 4.5 The Great Thirteenth-Century Pilgrimage Revival…………………………… 111 4.6 Conclusion………………..…………………………………………………… 114 5.0 The Cult of the Madonna delle Grazie and the Franciscan Church of Sta. Maria Maggiore……………………………………………………………..………. 116 5.1 Introduction……………………………………...…………………………… 116 5.2 The Material History of the Painting…………………………………………. 117 5.3 Historical Context: the Madonna delle Grazie, the Church of Sta. Maria Maggiore, and the Franciscans………………………………………., 121 5.4 The Avvocata and Contemporary Assumption Theology……….,………….., 131 5.5 The Franciscans and Contemporary Assumption Theology…………………. 134 5.6 The Madonna delle Grazie in the Civic Life of Late Medieval Tivoli…......... 138 5.7 Conclusion………………………………………………………..................... 147 6.0 Medieval and Early Modern Assumption Processions in Lazio: the Material and Textual Evidence of a Regional Tradition……….………………………..…………. 149 6.1 Introduction……………………...………….……………………………….. 149 6.2 The Material Evidence: a Laziale Family of Savior Icons…………………… 151 6.3 The Textual Evidence………………………………………………………… 159 6.3.1 Viterbo…….………………………………………………………... 159 6.3.2 Tarquinia…………………………………………………………..... 162 6.3.3 Subiaco……………….…………….................................................. 163 6.3.4 Anagni…………………………………………................................ 169 6.3.5 Perugia…………………………………..………….………………. 172 vii 6.4 Regional Distinctiveness in Ritual Practice…………………….....……......... 176 6.5 Pairing up the Icons: the Role of Marian Imagery in the Lazio Prossions…… 183 6.6 Conclusion…………..………………………………………………………… 188 7.0 Performing the Assumption: Laziale Liturgical Processions and the Rise of Urban Religious Theater in Central Italy………………………………………..……….. 190 7.1 Introduction…………………………..………………………………………. 190 7.2 Assumption Processions and New Visual Media…..………………………… 191 7.3 The Disciplinati and the Lauda Drammatica………………………………… 195 7.4 The Performance of the Laude……..………………………………………… 201 7.5 Sacre Rappresentazioni…………..………………………………….............. 206 7.6 Images as Actors……………………………………………………………... 209 7.7 Performing the Assumption in Lazio………………………............................ 212 7.8 Conclusion……………………………..…………………….......................... 218 8.0 Conclusion………………………………………………...……………………...………. 221 Appendix A. Chapter CCXCVII of the Tivoli City Statutes of 1305………………..………. 241 Appendix B. Chapter CLXXXV of the Tivoli City Statutes of 1305………………..………. 242 Appendix C. Processional Order Given in the Late Fourteenth-Century Tivoli City Statutes for the Professional Guilds in the Inchinata……………………...……………..…… 243 Appendix D. Inscription on the 1580 Dedicatory Plaque in the Chapel of the Savior Triptych in the Cathedral of San Lorenzo, Tivoli…………………………………………...... 244 Appendix E. Giovanni Maria Zappi’s c. 1575 Description of the Inchinata Procession.…..... 245 Appendix F. Text of the Inchinata Liturgy as Performed on August 14, 2009……………… 247 viii Appendix G. Description of the Tiburtine Sybil’s Prophecy of Christ to Emperor Augustus in the Mirabilia Romae………………………………………...………… 255 Appendix H. 1286 Indulgence Conceded by 11 Bishops to the Faithful who Visited the Church of S. Vincenzo in Tivoli…………………………………………………...…….. 256 Appendix I. 1289 Indulgence Conceded by Nicholas IV to Sta. Maria Maggiore, Tivoli…... 257 Appendix J. 1392 Indulgence Conceded by Boniface IX to Sta. Maria Maggiore, Tivoli….. 258 Appendix K. 1417 Inscription on the Façade of Sta. Maria Maggiore, Tivoli………............. 259 Appendix L. Fourteenth-Century Legacies Established for, and Tombs, Altars, and Chapels Founded in Sta. Maria Maggiore, Tivoli……………………………………............. 260 Appendix M. Fifteenth-Century Legacies Established for, and Tombs, Altars, and Chapels Founded in Sta. Maria Maggiore, Tivoli…………………………..………………... 261 Appendix N. 1235 Indulgence Conceded by Pope Gregory IX to the Faithful of Perugia Who Participated in the Assumption Procession from the Cathedral to the Church of Sta. Maria in Monteluce…………………………………………..………..……... 262 Appendix O. Charter of Bishop Bosone of Tivoli in Which He Grants Part of his House in Rome to the Lateran Acheropita……………………………………..…………….. 263 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………..……………… 264 ix LIST OF FIGURES 1. Trittico del Salvatore, Tivoli cathedral……………………………...…….………………. 1 2. Confraternita del Salvatore carrying Trittico del Salvatore in Inchinata procession, Tivoli, 2009……………………………………………………………………. 2 3. Madonna delle Grazie, Sta. Maria Maggiore, Tivoli……………………………………… 3 4. Meeting of Trittico del Salvatore and Madonna delle Grazie at climax of Inchinata procession, Sta. Maria Maggiore, Tivoli, 2011……………………………………………. 3 5. Acheropita icon, Sancta Sanctorum, Lateran palace, Rome………………………………. 5 6. Dormition/Assumption of the Virgin, bottom of left wing, Trittico del Salvatore, Tivoli cathedral…………………………………………………………………………….