THE INTERSECTION OF REUSE AND ORNAMENT IN THE FAÇADE OF THE CASINO DELL’AURORA Brittany Forniotis A thesis submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Art and Art History in the College of Arts and Sciences. Chapel Hill 2019 Approved by: Mary Pardo Hérica Valladares Victoria Rovine © 2019 Brittany Forniotis ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Brittany Forniotis: The Intersection of Reuse and Ornament in the Façade of the Casino dell’Aurora (Under the direction of Mary Pardo) The façade of the Casino dell’Aurora (1611-1616), a lodge within the garden of the Palazzo Pallavicini Rospigliosi, originally Scipione Borghese’s summer residence on the Quirinal Hill in Rome, presents a case study for the reuse of second- and third-century Roman sarcophagi in a late Renaissance architectural setting. In their original context – embedded within the façade of a garden pavilion belonging to a critical actor in the sociopolitical scene of early- seventeenth-century Rome – the panels of these ancient sarcophagi are pivotal to the façade as architectural ornament. This thesis critically examines the intersection of reuse and ornament in the façade of the Casino dell’Aurora. It concludes that through a nuanced reading of the façade, the reuse of the sarcophagi panels participates in the compositional tension of the façade’s composition while advancing a particular image of Cardinal Borghese through their associations with the ancient past of Rome. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I thank my advisor, Dr. Mary Pardo, for guidance on this project and her boundless enthusiasm for exploring new intellectual terrain with me. For their thoughtful advice and commentary, I would like to thank my committee members, Dr. Hérica Valladares and Dr. Victoria Rovine. Additionally, I would like to express my gratitude to my dear colleagues in the Art and Art History Department, particularly my classmates, Adriana Burkins, Avery Close, Madison Folks, Alex Jones, Devon Murphy, Claire Payne, Colin Post, and Weixin Zhou. Their support and insight made the writing process a gratifying experience. I would also like to acknowledge my family and friends for their love and encouragement during the duration of my Master’s degree program. My thanks especially go to my husband, Tanner Fadero, for his unwavering confidence in my scholarship. Finally, I would like to thank Nikki and Toast for their unconditional love for me and the rectangles that I attempt to use for my work. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES……………………………………………………………………………...vii INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………………...1 CHAPTER ONE: A CONTEXT FOR THE CASINO……………………………………………7 Rome in the Early Seventeenth Century…………………………………………………..7 Cardinal Scipione Borghese……………………………………………………………….9 Carlo Maderno & Architecture……………………………………………………….….13 Casino dell’Aurora……………………………………………………………………….15 CHAPTER TWO: REUSE AND THE SARCOPHAGUS PANELS………………………………………………………………………….……………...20 Sarcophagi…………………………………………………………………………….….20 Antiquarianism in the Renaissance and Baroque………………………………………...24 Frameworks of Reuse……………………………………………………………………25 Implications for the Façade of the Casino Dell’Aurora………………………………….29 CHAPTER THREE: ORNAMENT AND THE FAÇADE OF THE CASINO DELL’AURORA……………………………………………………………34 A Felicitous Discovery……………………………………………………………...…...34 A Framework for Ornament……………………………………………………………...35 Casino dell’Aurora……………………………………………………………………….39 CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………….……….42 The Lives of Roman Sarcophagi…………………………………………………………42 v FIGURES………………………………………………………………………………………...46 REFERENCES. …………………………………………………………………………………61 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 – The façade of the Casino dell’Aurora………….…….………………………………46 Figure 2 – The courtyard of the Palazzo Mattei Giove…………..………………………....……47 Figure 3 – The façade of the Villa Medici……………………………………………………….48 Figure 4 – The façade of the Casino of Pius IV...……………….……………………………….49 Figure 5 – The water theatre at the Villa Aldobrandini…………….……………………………50 Figure 6 – Wide view of the façade of the façade of the Casino dell’Aurora…………………...51 Figure 7 – Center of the Casino dell’Aurora façade …………………………………………….52 Figure 8 – View of the side wing of the façade of the Casino dell’Aurora……………………...53 Figure 9 – Staircase within the hanging gardens of the Palazzo Pallavicini-Rospigliosi………..54 Figure 10 – Sarcophagi panels in the façade of the Casino dell’Aurora………………………...55 Figure 11 – Sarcophagus with Hippolytus and Phaedra…………………………………………56 Figure 12 – Sarcophagus of Meleager reused as a fountain trough……………………………...57 Figure 13 – Sarcophagus reused as a fountain trough at the Palazzo Aldobrandini……………..58 Figure 14 – Ceiling of the Hall of Hector and Andromache in the Domus Aurea………………59 Figure 15 – Ceiling of the Piccolomini Library in the Siena Cathedral…………………………60 vii INTRODUCTION The reuse of architectural fragments and statuary is a long-lived practice, especially in the Mediterranean, which has been inhabited by various peoples since prehistory. Buildings and objects were quickly transformed to meet the new material and cultural needs of their users. Reuse of architectural fragments frequently occurs during the decline of a population in a region or following the abandonment of a settlement or religious site. In many cases, these transformations appear “practical” to the modern viewer, such as reusing columns and other architectural elements in new construction. This phenomenon is not unique to the afterlife of ancient Mediterranean material culture; however, much of the scholarship surrounding reuse, recuperation, and spolia has converged upon this material. This thesis examines the reuse of ancient Roman sarcophagi in the façade of the Casino dell’Aurora (Fig. 1). Set into the geometric, rectilinear façade of the casino, built between 1611 and 1616 by Carlo Maderno (1556 – 1629) under the patronage of Cardinal Scipione Borghese Caffarelli (1577 – 1633) on the Quirinal Hill in Rome, are at least fifteen panels from late second- and third-century Roman sarcophagi writhing with life. The myths represented on the panels share themes of immortality and love. Bacchanal scenes, lion hunts, scenes of Endymion in his eternal slumber, and reliefs of Ariadne and Dionysus on the island of Naxos adorn the sarcophagi panels.1 However, the meaning of the sarcophagi is transformed by their new context in the façade of the casino 1 Daniela Di Castro, Anna Maria Pedrocchi, and Patricia Waddy, Il Palazzo Pallavicini Rospigliosi e La Galleria Pallavicini (Torino: U. Allemandi, 1999), 44-46. 1 I argue that despite the familiar myths represented on the sarcophagi panels adorning the casino, these panels no longer function solely as narrative images in their architectural context. They equally function as ornament. In this ornamental mode, the panels convey the wealth, power, and prestige of the patron. They do not, however, do so with references to the specific myths or narratives they illustrate. Standing before the one-story façade of the casino, the viewer is able to read the panels of sarcophagi in multiple ways. Still readable as narrative to the learned viewer, the carvings can also be received as architectural ornament. In making this argument, this project attends to two lacunae in the scholarship of architectural history. Firstly, it treats the ornamentation of the façade of the Casino dell’Aurora with critical analysis that is currently absent in the English-language scholarship on the building. Secondly, it contextualizes the sarcophagi as the deliberate deployment of antiquities as architectural ornament in an early seventeenth-century garden lodge by a renowned architect for a prince of the Church. When sarcophagi are deconstructed into panels for reuse, they are divorced from their original purpose of containing bodies. Thus, the narrative content and the overall visual program of the sarcophagi loses its connection to Roman funerary customs.2 Art-workers removing and reusing sarcophagi panels do so for their clients, whose choices about which sarcophagi to use were based on perceived value, quality of workmanship, availability, and ornamental and iconographic features – all of which are bound within the aesthetic of the sarcophagi.3 The of the figure in the study of Western art resulted in a plethora of scholarship examining the figural 2 Verity Platt, “Framing the Dead on Roman Sarcophagi,” Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics 61–62 (2012): 213. 3 Michael Baxandall relates multiple examples of this type of informed consumerism in the fifteenth century, and the well-known letters from Cardinal Alessandro Farnese to Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola regarding specific, detailed choices about the construction of the Church of the Gesù (1568 – 1580) indicate a continuation of this behavior. Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988); Clare Robertson, Il Gran Cardinale: Alessandro Farnese, Patron of the Arts (Yale University Press, 1992). 2 representation on sarcophagi in both their original context and the culture in which they were reused.4 Renewed and reinvigorated interest in architectural ornament in the decade and recent developments in the exploration of the agency of art objects have opened intellectual pathways that allow inquiries to address more than the figure in architectural contexts.5 These new directions of inquiry