world cultures2

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For more than 200 years, from the late sixteenth century until the dawn of the nineteenth, the entrenched traditions of culture were challenged as never before. Not just in the West, but around the world, no era had been entangled in such a complex web of competing values. Indeed, it began with a civil war and ended with two revolutions. England, in the last half of the sixteenth century, was embroiled in conflict between Catholic and Protestant factions that led to civil war, the execution of a king, and abolition of monarchical author- ity. Two hundred years later, in the late eighteenth century, the American colonies would rebel against British control, and the French people against their king.

The question of political power—who possessed the right to rule—dominated the age. In the centuries before,

the papacy had exercised authority over all people. Now, the rulers of Europe emphatically asserted their divine right to rule with unquestioned authority over their own domin- ions. In contrast, the thinkers of the age increasingly came to believe that human beings were by their very nature free, equal, and independent, and that they were not required to surrender their own sovereignty to any ruler. In essence, these thinkers developed a secularized version of the contest between Catholicism and Protestantism that had defined the sixteenth century after the Reforma- tion. Protestant churches had freed themselves from what they believed to be a tyrannical and extravagant papacy. In fact, many people found strong similarities between the extravagances of the European monarchies and the extravagance of Rome. Now, many believed, individuals

P A R T F O U R

Jean-Antoine Watteau, The Embarkation from Cythera (detail). ca. 1718–19. Oil on canvas, 501⁄4" × 761⁄8". (See Fig. 25.3 in Chapter 25.) Staatliche Museen, Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin.

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should free themselves from the tyrannical and profligate rule of any government to which they did not freely choose to submit.

At the beginning of the era, the Counter-Reformation was in full swing, and the Church, out to win back the hearts and minds of all whom the Reformation had drawn away, appealed not just to the intellect, but to the full range of human emotion and feeling. In Rome, it constructed theatrical, even monumental, spaces—not just churches, but avenues, fountains, and plazas—richly decorated in an exuberant style that we have come to call “the Baroque.” This dramatic and emotional style found expression in painting and music as well, and artistic virtuosity became the hallmark of this new Baroque style.

The courts of Europe readily adapted the Baroque to their own ends. In France, Louis XIII never missed an opportunity to use art and architecture to impress his gran- deur and power upon the French people (and the other courts of Europe). In the arts, the stylistic tensions of the French court were most fully expressed. The rational clarity and moral uprightness of the Classical contrasted with the emotional drama and flamboyant sensuality of the Baroque. In music, for example, we find both the clarity of the Clas- sical symphony and the spectacle of Baroque opera.

At the same time, scientific and philosophical inves- tigation—the invention, for instance, of new tools of observation like the telescope and microscope—helped to sustain a newfound trust in the power of the rational mind to understand the world. When Isaac Newton demon- strated in 1687, to the satisfaction of just about everyone, that the universe was an intelligible system, well-ordered in its operations and guiding principles, it seemed possible that the operations of human society—the production and consumption of manufactured goods, the social organiza- tion of families and towns, the operations of national gov- ernments, to say nothing of its arts—might be governed by analogous universal laws. The pursuit of these laws is the defining characteristic of the eighteenth century, the period we have come to call the Enlightenment.

Thus, the age developed into a contest between those who sought to establish a new social order forged by indi- vidual freedom and responsibility, and those whose taste favored a decorative and erotic excess—primarily the French court. But even the high-minded champions of freedom found themselves caught up in morally complex dilemmas. Americans championed liberty, but they also defended the institution of slavery. The French would overthrow their dissolute monarch, only to see their society descend into chaos, requiring, in the end, a return to imperial rule. And, when the Europeans encoun- tered other cultures—for example in the South Pacific, China, and India—they tended to impose their own values on cultures that were, in many ways, not even remotely like their own. But if the balance of power fell heavily to the West, increasingly the dynamics of global encounter resulted in the exchange of ideas and values.

PART FOUR TIMELINE

1625 Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith and Maidservant with Head of Holofernes

1609–10 Galileo Galilei observes moon’s craters

1632–48 Taj Mahal

1643–1715 Louis XIV, the “Sun King,” reigns

1645–52 Bernini, The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa

1662–64 Johannes Vermeer, Lady at the Virginal with a Gentleman

1666 Great Fire of London

1687 Isaac Newton, Principia Mathematica

1719 Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

1721 Johann Sebastian Bach, Brandenburg concertos

1751 William Hogarth, Gin Lane

1756–91 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

1767 Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Swing

1769 Sydney Parkinson, Portrait of a Maori

1770 Captain Cook encounters Aboriginal cultures in Australia

1776 James Watt invents steam engine; Declaration of Independence; Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations

1778 John Singleton Copley, Watson and the Shark

1789 Fall of the Bastille in Paris; Olaudah Equiano’s autobiography describes slave living conditions

1791 Pierre-Charles L’Enfant, Plan for Washington, D.C.

1792 Mary Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Women

1799–1815 Napoleon rules France

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21 The Baroque in ItalyThe Church and Its Appeal

Fig. 21.1 Vatican Square as seen from Michelangelo’s dome, looking east toward the River Tiber. The long, straight street leading to the Tiber is the Via della Conciliazione, cut by the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini in the 1930s. Previously, visitors to the Vatican wandered through twisting medieval streets until suddenly they found themselves in the vast, open expanse of the Vatican Square.

THINKING AHEAD

21.1 Discuss how the Baroque style furthered the agenda of the Counter-Reformation, especially in sculpture and architecture.

21.2 Describe how the Baroque style manifests itself in painting.

21.3 Examine how the Baroque style developed musically in Venice.

As the seventeenth century began, the Catho-lic Church was struggling to win back those who had been drawn away by the Protestant Reforma- tion. To wage its campaign, the Church took what can best be described as a sensual turn, an appeal not just to the intellect but to the range of human emotion and feel- ing. This appeal was embodied in an increasingly ornate and grandiose form of expression that came to be known as the Baroque style. Its focal point was the Vatican City, in Rome (Fig. 21.1 and Map 21.1). The oval colonnade defining the square is considered one of the greatest works of Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598–1680), and it fully captures the grandeur and drama of the Baroque style.

Bernini’s curved porticoes, composed of 284 huge Doric columns placed in rows of four, create a vast open space— nearly 800 feet across—designed specifically for its dra- matic effect. Bernini considered the colonnade enclosing the square to symbolize “the motherly arms of the Church” embracing its flock. Here, as crowds gathered to receive the

blessing of the pope, the architecture dramatized the bless- ing itself.

Attention to the way viewers would emotionally expe- rience a work of art is a defining characteristic of the Baroque, a term many believe takes its name from the Por- tuguese barroco, literally a large, irregularly shaped pearl. It was originally used in a derogatory way to imply a style so heavily ornate and strange that it verges on bad taste. The rise of the Baroque is the subject of this chapter. We look at it first as it developed in Rome, and at the Vatican in par- ticular, as a conscious style of art and architecture dedicated to furthering the aims of the Counter-Reformation, then in Venice, which in the seventeenth century was the center of musical activity in Europe.

Just as in the sixteenth century Pope Julius II (papacy 1503–13) had attempted to revitalize Rome as the center of the Christian world by constructing a new Saint Peter’s Basilica, so at the beginning of the seventeenth century Pope Paul V (papacy 1605–21) began his own monumental

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Fig. 21.3 Left: Michelangelo, plan for New Saint Peter’s. 1546–64. Right: Carlo Maderno, plan of Saint Peter’s Basilica. 1607–12. Maderno’s plan was motivated by Pope Paul V’s belief that Saint Peter’s should occupy the footprint of the original wooden basilica that had stood in the spot until Pope Julius II tore it down in 1506.

changes to Saint Peter’s, which represented the seat of Roman Catholicism. He commissioned the leading archi- tect of his day, Carlo Maderno (1556–1629), to design a new facade for the building (Fig. 21.2). The columns on the facade “step out” in three progressively projecting planes: At each corner, two flat, rectangular, engaged col- umns surround the arched side entrances; inside these, two more sets of fully rounded columns step forward from the wall and flank the rectangular side doors of the portico; and finally four majestic columns, two on each side, support the projecting triangular pediment above the main entrance. Maderno also transformed Michelangelo’s central Greek- cross plan into a basilican Latin-cross design, extending the length of the nave to just over 636 feet in order to accom- modate the large congregations that gathered to celebrate the elaborate ritual of the new Counter-Reformation lit- urgy (Fig. 21.3). The visual impact of this facade, extend- ing across the front of the church to the entire width of Michelangelo’s original Greek-cross plan, was carefully conceived to leave viewers in a state of awe. As one writer described the effect in 1652, “Anyone contemplating the new church’s majesty and grandeur has to admit … that its beauty must be the work of angels or its immensity the work of giants. Because its magnificent proportions are such that

Fig. 21.2 Carlo Maderno, facade of Saint Peter’s Basilica, Vatican, Rome. 1607–15. Originally the end bays of the facade had bell towers, but because Saint Peter’s stood on marshy ground, with underground springs, the towers cracked, and they had to be demolished.

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… neither the Greeks, the Egyptians nor the Jews, nor even the mighty Romans ever produced a building as excellent and vast as this one.” It was, in short, an embodiment—and an announcement—of the Church’s own triumph over the Protestant threat.

BAROqUe STyLe ANd The COUNTeR-ReFORMATiON

How did the Baroque style further the agenda of the Counter-Reformation and what are its characteristic features in sculpture and architecture?

As early as the 1540s, the Catholic Church had begun a program of reform and renewal designed to mitigate the appeal of Protestantism that came to be known as the Counter-Reformation (see Chapter 20). The building and decoration programs that developed in response to this religious program gradually evolved into the style known as Baroque. During the Renaissance, composition had tended to be frontal, creating a visual space that moved away from the viewer in parallel planes, following the rules of scientific perspective. This produced a sense of calm and

balance or symmetry. In the Baroque period, elements usu- ally are placed on a diagonal and seem to swirl and flow into one another, producing a sense of action, excitement, and sensuality. Dramatic contrasts of light and dark often serve to create theatrical effects designed to move viewers and draw them into the emotional orbit of the composition. A profound, sometimes brutally direct, naturalism prevails, as well as a taste for increasingly elaborate and decorative effects, testifying to the Baroque artist’s technical skill and mastery of the media used.

In Rome, the patronage of the papal court at the Vati- can was most responsible for creating the Baroque style. Pope Sixtus V (papacy 1585–90) inaugurated the renewal of the city. He cut long, straight avenues through it, link- ing the major pilgrimage churches to one another, and ordered a piazza—a space surrounded by buildings—to be opened in front of each church, decorating many of them with obelisks that had originally been brought to the city from Egypt by the ancient Roman emperors. In his brief reign, Sixtus also began to renovate the Vatican, complet- ing the dome of Saint Peter’s Basilica, building numerous palaces throughout the city, and successfully reopening one of the city’s ancient aqueducts to stabilize the water sup- ply. Over the course of the next century, subsequent popes followed his example with building and art programs of their own.

250 yards

250 meters

100 miles

100 km

Church

Important building

City walls

City gate

Saint Peter's Basilica

Saint Peter's Square

Sistine Chapel

Vatican Museums

Rome

Naples

Pompeii

Florence

Bologna

Venice

Trento

Tyrrhenian

Sea

Adriatic

Sea

A p

e n n

i n e

M o

u n

t a

i n

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Map 21.1 Vatican City. ca. 1600. From Vatican City, the pope exercised authority over Rome and the Papal States, most of which were in Central Italy.

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Sculpture and Architecture: Bernini and his Followers The new interior space of Saint Peter’s Basilica inspired the same feelings of vast- ness and grandeur as did Carlo Maderno’s new facade. The crossing, under Michelan- gelo’s dome, was immense, and its huge size dwarfed the main altar. When Urban VIII (papacy 1623–44) became pope, he com- missioned the young Bernini to design a cast bronze baldachino, or canopy, to help define the altar space (Fig. 21.4). Part architecture, part sculpture, Bernini’s baldachino consists of four twisted columns decorated with spi- raling grooves and bronze vines. This undu- lating, spiraling, decorative effect symbolized the union of the Old and New Testaments, the vine of the Eucharist climbing the col- umns of the Temple of Solomon. Elements that combine both the Ionic and Corinthian orders top the columns. Figures of angels and putti stand along the entablature, which is decorated with tasseled panels of bronze that imitate cloth. Above the entablature, the baldachino rises crownlike to an orb, symbolizing the universe, and is topped by a cross, symbolizing the reign of Christ. In its immense size, its realization of an architec- tural plan in sculptural terms, and its syn- thesis of a wide variety of symbolic elements in a single form, the baldachino is uniquely Baroque in spirit.

The Cornaro Chapel Probably nothing sums up the Baroque movement better than Bernini’s sculptural program for the Cornaro Chapel. Located in Carlo Maderno’s Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome (Fig. 21.5), it was a commission from the Corn- aro family and executed by Bernini in the middle of the century, at about the same time as he was working on the colonnade for Saint Peter’s Square. Bernini’s theme is a pivotal moment in the life of Teresa of Ávila (1515–82), a Spanish nun, eventually made a saint, who at the age of 40 began to experience mystical religious visions (see Chapter 20). She was by no means the first woman to experience such visions—Hildegard of Bingen had recorded similar visions in her Scivias in the twelfth century (see Chapter 10). However, Teresa’s own converso background—her father was a Jew who had converted to Catholicism— adds another dimension to her faith. Teresa was steeped in the mystical tradition of the Jewish Kabbalah, the brand of mystical Jewish thought that seeks to attain the perfection of heaven while still living in this world by transcending the boundaries of time and space. Bernini illustrates the vision she describes in the following passage (Reading 21.1):

READING 21.1

from Teresa of Ávila,”Visions,” Chapter 29 of The Life of Teresa of Ávila (before 1567)

It pleased the Lord that I should sometimes see the following vision. I would see beside me, on my left hand, an angel in bodily form. … He was not tall, but short, and very beautiful, his face so aflame that he appeared to be one of the highest types of angel who seem to be all afire. They must be those who are called cherubim; they do not tell me their names but I am well aware that there is a great difference between certain angels and others, and between these and others still, of a kind that I could not possibly explain. In his hands I saw a long golden spear and at the end of the iron tip I seemed to see a point of fire. With this he seemed to pierce my heart several times so that it penetrated to my entrails. When he drew it out, I thought he was drawing them out with it and he left me completely

Fig. 21.4 Gianlorenzo Bernini, baldachino at crossing of Saint Peter’s Basilica, Vatican, Rome. 1624–33. Gilt bronze, height approx. 100'. So grand is the space, and so well does Bernini’s baldachino fit in it, that the viewer can scarcely recognize that the structure is the height of the tallest apartment buildings in seventeenth-century Rome.

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Fig. 21.5 Gianlorenzo Bernini, Cornaro Chapel, Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome. 1642–52. The Cornaro family portraits are just visible on the left and right walls of the chapel.

afire with a great love for God. The pain was so sharp that it made me utter several moans; and so excessive was the sweetness caused me by this intense pain that one can never wish to lose it, nor will one’s soul be content with anything less than God. It is not bodily pain, but spiritual, though the body has a share in it—indeed, a great share. So sweet are the colloquies of love which pass between the soul and God that if anyone thinks I am lying I beseech God, in His goodness, to give him the same experience.

Fig. 21.6 Gianlorenzo Bernini, The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, Cornaro Chapel, Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome. 1645–52. Marble, height of group, 11'6".

Bernini’s program is far more elaborate than just its sculptural centerpiece. The angel and Teresa are positioned beneath a marble canopy from which gilded rays of light radiate, following the path of the real light entering the chapel from the glazed yellow panes of a window hidden from view behind the canopy pediment. Painted angels, sculpted in stucco relief, descend across the ceiling, bathed in a similarly yellow light that appears to emanate from the dove of Christ at the top center of the composition. On each side of the chapel, life-size marble recreations of the Cornaro family lean out of what appear to be theater boxes into the chapel proper, as if witnessing the vision of Saint Teresa for themselves. Indeed, Bernini’s chapel is nothing less than high drama, the stage space of not merely religious vision, but visionary spectacle. Here is an art designed to appeal to the feelings and emotions of its viewers and draw them emotionally into the theatrical space of the work.

Bernini recognized in Teresa’s words a thinly veiled description of sexual orgasm. And he recognized as well that the sexuality that Protestantism and the Catholic Counter-Reformation had deemed inappropriate to reli- gious art, but which had survived in Mannerism, had found, in Saint Teresa’s vision, a properly religious context, unit- ing the physical and the spiritual. Thus, the sculptural cen- terpiece of his chapel decoration is Teresa’s implicitly erotic swoon, the angel standing over her, having just withdrawn his penetrating arrow from her “entrails,” as Teresa throws her head back in ecstasy (Fig. 21.6).

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Bernini’s David The Cornaro Chapel program suggests that the Baroque style is fundamentally theatrical in char- acter, and the space it creates is theatrical space. It also demonstrates how central action was to Baroque repre- sentation. Bernini’s David (Fig. 21.7), commissioned by a nephew of Pope Paul V, appears to be an intentional contrast to Michelangelo’s sculpture of the same subject (see Fig. 14.30 in Chapter 14). Michelangelo’s hero is at rest, in a moment of calm anticipation before confront- ing Goliath. In contrast, Bernini’s sculpture captures the young hero in the midst of action. David’s body twists in an elaborate spiral, creating dramatic contrasts of light and shadow. His teeth are clenched, and his muscles strain as he prepares to launch the fatal rock. So real is

his intensity that viewers tend to avoid standing directly in front of the sculpture, moving to one side or the other in order, apparently, to avoid being caught in the path of David’s shot.

In part, David’s action defines Bernini’s Baroque style. Whereas Michelangelo’s David seems to contemplate his own prowess, his mind turned inward, Bernini’s David turns outward, into the viewer’s space, as if Goliath were a pres- ence, although unseen, in the sculpture. In other words, the sculpture is not self-contained, and its active relation- ship with the space surrounding it—often referred to as its invisible complement—is an important feature of Baroque art. (The light source in his Cornaro Chapel Saint Teresa is another invisible complement.)

Fig. 21.7 Gianlorenzo Bernini, David. 1623. Marble, height 5'7". Galleria Borghese, Rome. Bernini carved this work when he was 25 years old, but he was already carving sculptures of remarkable quality by age 8.

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Fig. 21.8 Gianlorenzo Bernini, Four Rivers Fountain, Rome. 1648–51. Each major figure was sculpted by a different artist in Bernini’s workshop: the Nile, representing Africa, by Jacopo Antonio Fancelli; the Danube, representing Europe, by Antonio Raggi; the Ganges, representing Asia, by Claude Poussin; and the Plata, representing the Americas, by Francesco Baratta.

Bernini’s Fountains Bernini is responsible for a series of figurative fountains that changed the face of Rome. One of the most celebrated is the Four Rivers Fountain in the Piazza Navona (Fig. 21.8). Bernini designed the fountain for Pope Innocent X, who commissioned it in 1648 to celebrate his diversion of the water from one of Rome’s oldest sources of drinking water, the Acqua Vergine aqueduct, to the square in front of the Palazzo Pamphili, his principal fam- ily residence. Rising above the fountain is an Egyptian obe- lisk that had lain in pieces in the Circus Maxentius until restored and re-erected for use here. The sculptor intended the obelisk to represent the triumph of the Roman Catho- lic Church over the rivers of the world, represented by the four large figures lying on the stones below—the Danube for Europe, the Nile for Africa, the Ganges for Asia, and the Plata for the Americas.

Bernini’s fountain was executed by a large group of co- workers under his supervision. In fact, it became common- place during the Baroque era for leading artists to employ numbers of skilled artists in their studios. This allowed an artist of great stature to turn out massive quantities of work without any apparent loss in quality. Bernini and other Baroque artists like him were admired not so much for the

actual finished work, but for the originality of their con- cepts or designs.

In fact, Bernini spent much of his time writing plays and designing stage sets for them. Only one of his theatri- cal works survives, a farcical comedy, but we have descrip- tions of others that suggest his complete dedication to involving the audience in the theatrical event. In a play entitled Inundation of the Tiber, he constructed an elaborate set of dikes and dams that seemed to give way as the flood- ing Tiber advanced from the back of the stage toward the audience. “When the water broke through the last dike,” Bernini’s biographer tells us, “it flowed forward with such a rush and spread so much terror among the spectators that there was no one, not even among the most knowledgeable, who did not quickly get up to leave in the fear of an actual flood. Then, suddenly, with the opening of a sluice gate, all the water was drained away.”

The Society of Jesus As Bernini conceived it, the Baroque was a compromise between Mannerist exuberance and religious propriety. He fully supported the edicts of the Council of Trent, set up

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to reform the Catholic Church in response to the Protestant Reformation (see Chapter 20), and the teachings of the Society of Jesus, founded by the Spanish nobleman Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556). From their headquarters at the Church of Il Gesù in Rome, the Jesuits, as they were known, led the Counter-Reformation and, as we will see later in the chapter, the influence of the Catholic Church world- wide. All agreed that the purpose of religious art was to teach and inspire the faithful, that it should always be intelligible and realistic, and that it should be an emotional stimulus to piety.

Originally, Michelangelo had agreed, in 1554, to produce drawings and a model for Il Gesù, and although no trace of these survives, the facade (Fig. 21.9), finally designed by Giacomo della Porta (ca. 1533–1602), reflects a certain Michelangelo flair, especially in the swirled volute scrolls flanking the second level, reminiscent of the stairway of the Lau- rentian Library in Florence (see Fig. 15.19 in Chap- ter 15). Likewise, della Porta’s use of double pilasters (and, surrounding the portal, a double pilaster and column) is reminiscent of both the double pilasters in Michelangelo’s original design for Saint Peter’s and the double columns surrounding the stairway of the Laurentian Library. Such doubling lends the facade a sense of massive sturdiness—a kind of archi- tectural self-confidence—and a sculptural presence, a three-dimensional play of surfaces in contrast to the two-dimensional effects of the typical Renais- sance facade (see Materials & Techniques, page 697).

The forcefulness and muscularity of della Porta’s design is consistent with Jesuit doctrine. In his Spiritual Exercises, published in 1548, Loyola had called on Jesuits to develop all of their senses. By engaging the body, he believed, one might begin to perfect the soul—an idea that surely influ- enced the many and richly diverse elements of the Baroque style. For instance, in the Fifth Exercise, a meditation on the meaning of hell, Loyola invokes all five senses (Reading 21.2a):

READING 21.2a

from Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, Fifth Exercise (1548)

FIRST POINT: This will be to see in imagination the vast fires, and the souls enclosed, as it were, in bodies of fire.

SECOND POINT: To hear the wailing, the howling, cries, and blasphemies against Christ our Lord and against His saints.

THIRD POINT: With the sense of smell to perceive the smoke, the sulphur, the filth, and corruption.

FOURTH POINT: To taste the bitterness of tears, sadness, and remorse of conscience.

FIFTH POINT: With the sense of touch to feel the flames which envelop and burn the souls.

Such a call to the senses would manifest itself in an increasingly elaborate church decoration, epitomized, perhaps best, by a ceiling fresco painted by Andrea Pozzo (1642–1709) for the Church of Sant’Ignazio in Rome depicting the Apotheosis of Saint Ignatius (see Closer Look, pages 698–699). But despite this call to sensual experi- ence, Loyola was a strict traditionalist, as is demonstrated by his set of rules for those who comprise what is known as the Church Militant—that is, the living members of the Church who are struggling against sin so that they may one day join those who comprise the Church Triumphant, those who are in heaven (Reading 21.2b):

READING 21.2b

from Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, Rules (1548)

TO HAVE THE TRUE SENTIMENT WHICH WE OUGHT TO HAVE IN THE CHURCH MILITANT

Let the following Rules be observed. First Rule. All judgment laid aside, we ought to have

our mind ready and prompt to obey, in all, the true Spouse of Christ our Lord, which is our holy Mother the Church Hierarchical.

Second Rule. To praise confession to a Priest, and the reception of the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar once in

Fig. 21.9 Giacomo della Porta, facade of il Gesù, Rome. ca. 1575–84. The church originally appeared much plainer—the sculptures are sixteenth-century additions.

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Materials & Techniques The Facade from Renaissance to Baroque

Typically the facade of a building carries architectural embellish- ment that announces its style. One of the most influential facades in Renaissance architecture is Leon Battista Alberti’s for Santa Maria Novella in Florence. Limited only by the existing portal, doors, and rose window, Alberti designed the facade independently of the structure behind it. He composed it of three squares, two flanking the portal at the bottom and a third set centrally above them. A mezzanine, or low intermediate story, separates them, at once seemingly supported by four large engaged Corinthian col- umns and serving as the base of the top square. The pediment at the top actually floats free of the structure behind it. Perhaps Alberti’s most innovative and influential additions are the two scrolled volutes, or counter-curves. They hide the clerestory struc- ture of the church behind, masking the difference in height of the nave and the much lower side-aisle roofs.

Giacomo della Porta’s facade for the church of Il Gesù in Rome, constructed more than 100 years later, is still recognizably indebted to Alberti’s church, retaining the classic proportions of Renaissance architecture: The height of the structure equals the width. How- ever, it has many more architectural features, and is considered by many the first architectural manifestation of the Baroque. Notice that the architect adds dimensionality to the facade by a projecting entablature and supporting pairs of engaged pilasters (rectangular columns) that move forward in steps. These culminate in engaged circular columns on each side of the portal. A double pediment, one traditional and triangular, the other curved, crowns the portal itself. Together with the framing column, the double pediment draws attention to the portal, the effect of which is repeated in miniature in the aedicule (composed of an entablature and pediment sup- ported by columns or pilasters) above.

cartouche

gable

aedicule

niche

volute

pilasters

entablature pediment

mezzanine

arcade of double

arches

volute

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one of four Corinthian columns on pedestal

bases

triumphal arch

pediment

balustrade

double pediment

cornice

entablature

colossal order

pilaster cartouche niche engaged half column Giacomo della Porta, facade of il Gesù, Rome. ca. 1575–84.

Leon Battista Alberti, facade of Santa Maria Novella, Florence. 1458–70.

the year, and much more each month, and much better from week to week, with the conditions required and due.

Third Rule. To praise the hearing of Mass often, likewise hymns, psalms, and long prayers, in the church and out of it; likewise the hours set at the time fixed for each Divine Office and for all prayer and all Canonical Hours.

Fourth Rule. To praise much Religious Orders, virginity and continence, and not so much marriage as any of these.

Fifth Rule. To praise vows of Religion, of obedience, of poverty, of chastity and of other perfections of supererogation. And it is to be noted that as the vow is about the things which approach to Evangelical perfection, a vow ought not to be made in the things which withdraw from it, such as to be a merchant, or to be married, etc.

Sixth Rule. To praise relics of the Saints, giving

veneration to them and praying to the Saints; and to praise Stations, pilgrimages, Indulgences, pardons, Cruzadas, and candles lighted in the churches.

Seventh Rule. To praise Constitutions about fasts and abstinence, as of Lent, Ember Days, Vigils, Friday and Saturday; likewise penances, not only interior, but also exterior.

Eighth Rule. To praise the ornaments and the buildings of churches; likewise images, and to venerate them according to what they represent.

Ninth Rule. Finally, to praise all precepts of the Church, keeping the mind prompt to find reasons in their defence and in no manner against them. …

Thirteenth Rule. To be right in everything, we ought always to hold that the white which I see, is black, if the Hierarchical Church so decides it. …

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CLOSER LOOK

By the middle of the seventeenth century, one of the techniques most widely used by Baroque painters was foreshortening, a technique in which perspective is modified in order to decrease the distortion that results when a figure or object extends backward from the pic- ture plane at an angle approaching the perpendicular (for instance, a hand extended out to the viewer will look larger, and the arm shorter, than they actually are). With this technique, artists could break down the barrier between the painting’s space and that of the viewer, thus enveloping the viewer in the painting’s space, an effect favored for paint- ing the ceilings of Baroque churches and palaces. To create this illusion, the artist would paint representations of archi- tectural elements—such as vaults or arches or niches—and then fill the remaining space with foreshortened figures that seem to fly out of the top of the building into the heav- ens above. One of the most dramatic instances was painted by a Jesuit lay brother, Fra Andrea Pozzo, for the Church of Sant’Ignazio. Its subject is the Apotheosis of Saint Ignatius.

It is difficult for a visitor to Sant’Ignazio to tell that the space above the nave is a barrel vault. Pozzo painted it over with a rising architecture that seems to extend the inte- rior walls an extra story and then explode into the open sky above. A white marble square in the pavement below indicates to the viewer just where to stand to appreciate the perspective properly. On each side of the space overhead are allegorical figures representing the four continents. Inscrip- tions on each end of the ceiling read, in Latin, “I am come to send fire on the earth,” Christ’s words to Luke (Luke 12:49), and Ignatius’s last words to Francis Xavier as he set out on his mission to Asia, “Go and set the world aflame.” Both passages are plays between Ignatius’s name and the Latin word for fire, ignis, but both also refer to the Jesuit belief in the power of the gospel to transform the world.

Something to Think About … Although Pozzo creates a highly dramatic space by means of foreshortening, how does the painting also impart a sense of physical—and hence moral—order?

America sits on a cougar, spear in hand, and wearing a feathered headdress.

Saint ignatius follows Christ into heaven, beams of light emanating from his chest to the four corners of the globe.

europe, sitting on a stallion, holds a scepter in one hand, while her other rests on an orb, signifying her domination of the world.

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Andrea Pozzo’s Apotheosis of Saint Ignatius

Fra Andrea Pozzo, Apotheosis of Saint Ignatius. Sant’ignazio, Rome. 1691–94. Ceiling fresco, approx. 56' × 115'.

Africa sits atop a crocodile and holds an elephant tusk in her hand.

Saint Francis Xavier, co-founder of the Jesuits, who in 1541 left Portugal for India, Indonesia, Japan, and China, where he died in 1552. He was the model for all subsequent Jesuit missionary zeal.

Asia rides a camel, while the small putti to the left offer her a blue-and-white porcelain bowl, presumably from China.

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Fig. 21.10 Francesco Borromini, facade of San Carlo alle quattro Fontane, Rome. 1665–67. Borromini’s innovative church had little impact on Italian architecture, but across the rest of Europe, it freed architecture from the rigors of Renaissance symmetry and balance.

Fig. 21.11 Francesco Borromini, plan of San Carlo alle quattro Fontane, Rome. 1638.

Loyola’s rules are a clear response to the attacks and posi- tions taken up by the Protestant Reformation. They are a call for a discipline that many in the Church seemed to have forgotten, but, perhaps above all, they ask—particularly in Rule 13—for unquestioning submission to Church doctrine, something the Reformation, from the Catholic point of view, had forsaken altogether. Thus, on the one hand, Loy- ola encouraged the sensual ornamentation of the Church even as he called for an austere intellectual discipline.

San Carlo alle quattro Fontane Thus it was the grandiose, the elaborate, the ornate—all used to involve the audience in a dramatic action—that came to characterize the Baroque style of the Counter- Reformation. Yet another characteristic is surprise. Perhaps the most stunning demonstration of this principle is the Church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane (Saint Charles at the Four Fountains) (Fig. 21.10), the work of Bernini’s pupil Francesco Borromini (1599–1667). In undertaking this church, Borromini was challenged by a narrow piece of property, its corner cut off for one of the four fountains from which the church takes its name. The nave is a long, oval space—unique in church design—with curved walls and chapels that create an uncanny feeling of movement, as if the walls are breathing in and out (Fig. 21.11). The dome seems to float above the space. Borromini achieved this effect by inserting windows, partially hidden, at the base of the dome.

Fig. 21.12 Francesco Borromini, dome of San Carlo alle quattro Fontane. 1638–41. At the top of the dome is a golden dove. A symbol of the Holy Spirit, it seems about to fly out of the roof to the heavens above.

Light coming through illuminates coffers of alternating hexagons, octagons, and crosses growing smaller as they approach the apex so that they appear visually to ascend to a much greater height than they actually do (Fig. 21.12).

The church facade is equally bold (see Fig. 21.10). In Baroque church architecture, the facade would increasingly leave the Renaissance traditions of architecture behind, replacing the clarity and balance of someone like Alberti with increasingly elaborate ornamentation (see Materials & Techniques, page 697). San Carlo’s facade is distinguished

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by colossal columns and concave niches, oval windows on the first floor and square ones above, all topped by a decorative railing, or balustrade, that peaks over a giant car touche (oval frame) supported by angels who seem to hover free of the wall. One four-sided and pointed tower sits oddly at the corner above the fountain; another tower, five-sided, rounded, and slightly taller, stands over the mid- dle of the structure. The balance and symmetry that domi- nated church architecture since the early Renaissance are banished. In their stead is a new sense of the building as a living thing, as an opportunity for innovation and free- dom. So liberating, in fact, was the design of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane that Church fathers answered requests for its plan from all over Europe.

The dRAMA OF PAiNTiNG: CARAVAGGiO ANd The CARAVAGGiSTi

What characterizes Baroque painting?

One of the characteristics of San Carlo alle Quattro Fon- tane is the play of light and dark that its irregular walls

and geometries create. Ever since the Middle Ages, when Abbot Suger of Saint-Denis, Paris, had insisted on the power of light to heighten spiritual feeling in the con- gregation, particularly through the use of stained glass, light had played an important role in church architecture (see Chapter 12). Bernini used it to great effect in his Ecstasy of Saint Teresa (see Fig. 21.6), and Baroque paint- ers, seeking to intensify the viewer’s experience of their paintings, sought to manipulate light and dark to great advantage as well. The acknowledged master of light and dark, and perhaps the most influential painter of his day, was Michelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio (1571– 1610) after the town in northern Italy where he was born. His work inspired many followers, who were called the Caravaggisti.

Master of Light and dark: Caravaggio Caravaggio arrived in Rome in about 1593 and began a career of revolutionary painting and public scandal. His first major commission in Rome was The Calling of Saint Matthew (Fig. 21.13), arranged for by his influential patron Cardinal del Monte and painted about 1599 to 1600 for

Fig. 21.13 Caravaggio, The Calling of Saint Matthew. ca. 1599–1600. Oil on canvas, 11'1" × 11'5". Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome. The window at the top of the painting is covered by parchment, often used by painters to diffuse light in their studios. This makes the intensity of light entering the room from the right especially remarkable.

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the Contarelli Chapel in the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi, the church of the French community (dei Francesi) in Rome. The most dramatic element in this work is light. The light that streams in from an unseen window at the upper right of the painting is almost pal- pable. It falls onto the table where the tax collector Levi (Saint Matthew’s name before becoming one of Jesus’ apostles) and his four assistants count the day’s take, highlighting their faces and gestures. They are dressed in a style not of Jesus’ time, but of Caravaggio’s, making it more possible for his audience to identify with them. With Saint Peter at his side, Christ enters from the right, a halo barely visible above his head. He reaches out with his index finger extended in a gesture derived from Adam’s gesture toward God in the Sistine Chapel ceiling Creation—an homage, doubt- less, by the painter to his namesake (see Fig. 15.10 in Chapter 15). One of the figures at the table—it is surely Levi, given his central place in the composition—points with his left hand, perhaps at himself, as if to say, “Who, me?” or perhaps at the young man bent over at the corner of the table intently counting money, as if to say, “You mean him?” All in all, he seems to find the arrival of Jesus uninteresting. In fact, the assembled group is so ordinary—reminiscent of gamblers seated around a table—that the transformation of Levi into Saint Matthew, which is imminent, takes on the aspect of a miracle, just as the light flooding the scene is reminis- cent of the original miracle of Crea- tion: “And God said, ‘Let there be light: and there was light’” (Gen. 1:3). The scene also echoes the New Tes- tament, specifically John 8:12, where Christ says: “I am the light of the world; he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.”

Caravaggio’s insistence on the real- ity of his scene is thus twofold: He not only depicts real people of his own day engaged in real tasks (by implication, Christ himself assumes a human real- ity as well), but he also insists on the reality of its psychological drama. The revelatory power of light—its ability to reveal the world in all its detail—is analogous, in Caravaggio’s painting, to the transformative power of faith. Faith, for Caravaggio, fundamentally changes the way we see the world,

and the way we act in it. Time and again, his paintings dramatize this moment of conversion through use of the technique known as tenebrism. As opposed to chiaroscuro, which many artists employ to create spatial depth and volu- metric forms through slight gradations of light and dark, a tenebrist style is not necessarily connected to modeling at all. Tenebrism makes use of large areas of dark contrasting sharply with smaller brightly illuminated areas. In The Call- ing of Saint Matthew, Christ’s hand and face rise up out of the darkness, as if his very gesture creates light itself—and by extension Matthew’s salvation.

One of the clearest instances of Caravaggio’s use of light to dramatize moments of conversion is the

Fig. 21.14 Caravaggio, Conversion of Saint Paul. ca. 1601. Oil on canvas, 901⁄2" × 687⁄8". Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome. This painting was designed to fill the right wall of the narrow Carasi family chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo. Caravaggio had to paint it to be seen at an angle of about 45 degrees, a viewpoint that can be replicated by tipping this page inward about half open to an angle of 45 degrees to the reader’s face. The resulting space is even more dramatic and dynamic.

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Conversion of Saint Paul, painted around 1601 (Fig. 21.14). Though painted nearly 50 years before Bernini’s Ecstasy of Saint Teresa (see Fig. 21.6), its theme is essentially the same, as is its implied sexuality. Here, Caravaggio por- trays the moment when the Roman legionnaire Saul (who will become Saint Paul) has fallen off his horse and hears the words, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” (Acts 9:4). Neither Saul’s servant nor his horse hears a thing. Light, the visible manifestation of Christ’s words, falls on the foreshortened soldier. Saul reaches into the air in both a shock of recognition and a gesture of embrace. A sonnet, “Batter My Heart,” by the English metaphysi- cal poet John Donne (1572–1631), published in 1618 in his Holy Sonnets, captures Saul’s experience in words (Reading 21.3):

the slightly plump but also attractively muscular boy offers the viewer a glass of wine at the same time that he seems, with his right hand, to be undoing the belt of his robe. This is not the mythic Bacchus, but a boy dressed up as Bacchus, probably pulled off the street by Caravaggio to pose, as the dirt beneath his fingernails attests. The bowl of fruit in the foreground is a still life that suggests not only Caravaggio’s virtuosity as a naturalistic painter, but, along with the wine, the pleasures of indulging the sensual appetites and, with them, carnal pleasure. In fact, paintings such as this one suggest that Caravaggio transformed the religious paint- ings for which he received commissions into images that he preferred to paint—scenes of everyday people, of erotic and dramatic appeal, and physical (not spiritual) beauty. These same appetites are openly celebrated, in the same spirit, in many of John Donne’s poems, such as “The Flea” (see Reading 21.4, page 713).

elisabetta Sirani and Artemisia Gentileschi: Caravaggisti Women Caravaggio had a profound influence on other artists of the seventeenth century. Two of these were women. Like her sixteenth-century Bolognese predecessor, Lavinia Fon- tana (see Chapter 20), Elisabetta Sirani (1638–65) was the daughter of a painter. Although trained in the refined, Classical tradition, Sirani developed a taste for realism much like Caravaggio’s and shared his willingness to depict

Fig. 21.15 Caravaggio, Bacchus. ca. 1597. Oil on canvas, 373⁄8" × 331⁄2". Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. One of the ways in which Caravaggio exhibits his skill in this painting is in his treatment of the handle of the wine goblet held by the boy. It is at once volumetric and transparent.

READING 21.3

John Donne, “Batter My Heart” (1618)

Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend; That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new. I, like an usurp’d town to’another due, Labor to’admit you, but oh, to no end; Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend, But is captiv’d, and proves weak or untrue. Yet dearly’ I love you, and would be lov’d fain, But am betroth’d unto your enemy; Divorce me,’untie or break that knot again, Take me to you, imprison me, for I, Except you’enthrall me, never shall be free, Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

There is no reason to believe the English poet—who was raised a Catholic but converted to the Anglican Church for his own safety and prosperity—knew the Italian’s painting, but the fact that the two men share so completely in the ecstasy of the moment of conversion, imaged as physical ravishment, suggests how widespread such conceits were in the seventeenth century. Both share with Teresa of Ávila a profound mysticism, the pursuit of achieving commun- ion or identity with the divine through direct experience, intuition, or insight. All three believe that such experience is the ultimate source of knowledge or understanding, and they seek to convey that in their art. Such mystical experi- ence, in its extreme physicality and naturalistic representa- tion, also suggests how deeply the Baroque as a style was committed to sensual experience.

Caravaggio would openly pursue this theme in a series of homoerotic paintings commissioned by the same Cardi- nal del Monte who arranged for the painting of The Call- ing of Saint Matthew. These paintings depict seminude young men, quite clearly youths from the streets of Rome, dressed in Bacchic costume. In his Bacchus (Fig. 21.15),

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closest friends. As a young girl, Artemisia could not have helped but hear of Caravaggio’s frequent run-ins with the law—for throwing a plate of artichokes at a waiter, for street brawling, for carrying weapons ille- gally, and, ultimately, in 1606, for murdering a referee in a tennis match. Artemisia’s own scandal would fol- low. It and much of her painting must be understood within the context of this social milieu—the loosely renegade world of Roman artists at the start of the seventeenth century. In 1612, when she was 19, she was raped by Agostino Tassi, a Florentine artist who worked in her father’s studio and served as her teacher. Orazio filed suit against Tassi for injury and damage to his daughter. The transcript of the seven-month trial survives. Artemisia accused Tassi of repeatedly trying to meet with her alone in her bedroom and, when he finally succeeded, of raping her. When he subsequently promised to marry her, she freely accepted his contin- ued advances, naïvely assuming marriage would follow. When he refused to marry her, the lawsuit followed.

At trial, Tassi accused her of having slept with many others before him. Gentileschi was tortured with thumbscrews to “prove” the validity of her testi- mony, and was examined by midwives to ascertain how recently she had lost her virginity. Tassi further humili- ated her by claiming that Artemisia was an unskilled artist who did not even understand the laws of perspec- tive. Finally, a former friend of Tassi’s testified that Tassi had boasted about his exploits with Artemisia. Ultimately, he was convicted of rape but served only a year in prison. Soon after the long trial ended, Artemi- sia married an artist and moved with him to Florence. In 1616, she was admitted to the Florentine Academy of Design.

Beginning in 1612, Artemisia painted five separate versions of the biblical story of Judith and Holofernes. The subject was especially popular in Florence, which identified with both the Jewish hero David and the Jewish heroine Judith (both of whom had been celebrated in sculptures by Donatello and Michelangelo). When Artemisia moved there, her personal investment in the subject found ready patronage in the city. Nevertheless, it is nearly impossible to see the paintings outside the context of her biography. She painted her first version of the theme during and just after the trial itself, and the last, Judith and Maidservant with Head of Holofernes, in about 1625 (Fig. 21.17), suggest- ing that in this series she transforms her personal tragedy in her painting. In all of them, Judith is a self-portrait of the artist. In the Hebrew Bible’s Book of Judith, the Jew- ish heroine enters the enemy Assyrian camp intending to seduce their lustful leader, Holofernes, who has laid siege to her people. When Holofernes falls asleep, she beheads him with his own sword and carries her trophy back to her people in a bag. The Jews then go on to defeat the leaderless Assyrians.

Gentileschi lights the scene by a single candle, dra- matically accentuating the Caravaggesque tene brism of the

the miracles of Christianity as if they were everyday events. Most of her paintings were for private patrons, and she pro- duced more than 190 works before her early death at age 27; by then she had become a cultural hero and tourist attraction in Bologna for the easy way she could dash off a picture. She painted portraits, religious works, allegori- cal works, and occasionally mythological works and stories from ancient history.

Sirani’s Virgin and Child of 1663 portrays Mary as a young Italian mother, wearing a turban of the kind favored by Bolognese peasant women (Fig. 21.16). The Virgin’s white sleeve, thickly painted to emphasize the rough texture of homespun wool, is consistent with the lack of ornamenta- tion in the painting as a whole. The only decorative ele- ments are the pillow on which the baby sits and the garland with which he is about to crown his mother, in a gesture that seems nothing more than playful.

One of Caravaggio’s most important followers, and one of the first women artists to achieve an international repu- tation, was Artemisia Gentileschi (1593–1652/3). Born in Rome, she was raised by her father, Orazio, himself a painter and Caravaggisto. Orazio was among Caravaggio’s

Fig. 21.16 elisabetta Sirani, Virgin and Child. 1663. Oil on canvas, 34" × 271⁄2". National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C. Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay. Conservation funds generously provided by the Southern California State Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts. The artist signed and dated this picture in gold letters as if sewn into the horizontal seam of the pillow.

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presentation. Judith shades her eyes from its light, presum- ably in order to look out into the darkness that surrounds her. Her hand also invokes our silence, as if danger lurks nearby. The maid stops wrapping Holofernes’s head in a towel, looking on alertly herself. Together, mistress and maid, larger than life-size and heroic, have taken their revenge on not only the Assyrians, but on lust-driven men

in general. As is so often the case in Baroque painting, the space of the drama is larger than the space of the frame. The same invisible complement outside Bernini’s David (see Fig. 21.7) hovers in the darkness beyond reach of our vision here.

Gentileschi was not attracted to traditional subjects like the Annunciation. She preferred biblical and mythological

Fig. 21.17 Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith and Maidservant with Head of Holofernes. ca. 1625. Oil on canvas, 721⁄2" × 553⁄4". The Detroit Institute of Arts. Gift of Leslie H. Green. 52.253. Judith is a traditional symbol of fortitude, a virtue with which Artemisia surely identified.

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The CONTINUING PRESENCE of the PAST

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heroines and women who played major roles. In addition to Judith, she dramatized the stories of Susannah, Bath- sheba, Lucretia, Cleopatra, Esther, Diana, and Potiphar’s wife. A good business woman, Gentileschi also knew how to exploit the taste for paintings of female nudes.

VeNiCe ANd BAROqUe MUSiC

How did Baroque music develop in Venice?

In the sixteenth century, the Council of Trent had rec- ognized the power of music to convey moral and spiritual ideals. “The whole plan of singing,” it wrote in an edict issued in 1552,

should be constituted not to give empty pleasure to the ear, but in such a way that the words be clearly understood by all, and thus the hearts of the listeners be drawn to the desire of heavenly harmonies, in the contemplation of the joys of the blessed. … They shall also banish from church all music that contains, whether in the singing or in the organ playing, things that are lascivious or impure.

In other words, the Council rejected the use of secular music, which by definition it deemed lascivious and impure, as a model for sacred compositions. Renaissance composers such as Guillaume Dufay and Josquin des Prez (see Chap- ters 14 and 15) had routinely used secular music in compos- ing their masses, and Protestants had adapted the chorales of their liturgy from existing melodies, both religious and secular.

The division between secular and religious music was far less pronounced in Venice, a city that had traditionally chafed at papal authority. As a result, Venetian composers felt freer to experiment and work in a variety of forms, so much so that in the seventeenth century, the city became the center of musical innovation and practice in Europe.

Giovanni Gabrieli and the drama of harmony Venice earned its place at the center of the musical world largely through the efforts of Giovanni Gabrieli (1556– 1612), the principal organist at Saint Mark’s Cathedral. Gabrieli composed many secular madrigals, but he also responded to the Counter-Reformation’s edict to make church music more emotionally engaging. To do this, he expanded on the polychoral style that Adrian Willaert had developed at Saint Mark’s in the mid-1500s (see Chapter 15). Gabrieli located contrasting bodies of sound in dif- ferent areas of the cathedral’s interior, which already had two organs, one on each side of the chancel (the space containing the altar and seats for the clergy and choir). Playing them against one another, he was able to produce effects of stunning sonority. Four choirs—perhaps a boys’ choir, a women’s ensemble, basses and baritones, and ten- ors in another group—sang from separate balconies above the nave. Positioned in the alcoves were brass instruments,

including trombones and cornetts. (A cornett was a hybrid wind instrument, combining a brass mouthpiece with woodwind finger technique. The nineteenth-century band instrument has a similar name but is spelled with a single “t.”) Both the trombone and the cornett were staples of Venetian street processions. And the street processions of the Venetian confraternities or scuole (see Chapter 15) were in many ways responsible for the development of instrumen- tal music in Venice. By 1570, there were approximately 40 street processions a year, with each of the six confraternities participating. Each scuola was accompanied through the streets by singers, bagpipes, shawms (a double reed instru- ment similar to a bagpipe, but without the bag), drums, recorders, viols, flutes, and pifarri, or ensembles of wind instruments often composed of cornetts and trombones (two or three of each) (Fig. 21.18). The Venetian love for these ensembles quickly led to their adaptation from secular ceremonies to religious ones (many of the scuole processions were associated with religious feast days in the first place).

Gabrieli was among the first to write religious music intended specifically for wind ensemble—music that was independent of song and that could not, in fact, be easily sung. One such piece is his 1597 Canzona Duodecimi Toni (Canzona in the Twelfth Mode [or Tone]), in which two brass ensembles create a musical dialogue (track 21.1). A canzona is a type of instrumental con- trapuntal work, derived from Renaissance secular song, like the madrigal, which was increasingly performed in the sev- enteenth century in church settings. It is particularly nota- ble for its dominant rhythm, LONG-short-short, known as the “canzona rhythm.” In Saint Mark’s, the two ensembles would have been placed across from one another in separate lofts. The alternating sounds of cornett and trombone or, in other compositions, brass ensemble, choir, and organ com- ing from various parts of the cathedral at different degrees of loudness and softness create a total effect similar to stereo “surround sound.”

For each part of his composition, Gabrieli chose to des- ignate a specific voice or instrument, a practice we have come to call orchestration. Furthermore, he controlled the dynamics (variations and contrast in force or intensity) of the composition by indicating, at least occasionally, the words piano (“soft”) or forte (“loud”). In fact, he is the first known composer to specify dynamics. The dynamic con- trasts of loud and soft in the Canzona Duodecimi Toni, mir- roring the taste for tenebristic contrasts of light and dark in Baroque painting, is a perfect example of Gabrieli’s use of dynamic variety. As composers from across Europe came to Venice to study, they took these terms back with them, and Italian became the international language of music.

Finally, and perhaps most important, Gabrieli organ- ized his compositions around a central note, called the tonic note (usually referred to as the tonality or key of the composition). This tonic note provides a focus for the com- position. The ultimate resolution of the composition into the tonic, as in the Canzona Duodecimi Toni, where the tonic note is C, the twelfth mode (or “tone”) in Gabrieli’s

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Fig. 21.18 Gentile Bellini, Procession of the Reliquary of the True Cross in Piazza San Marco (detail). 1496. Oil on canvas, 12’1⁄2” × 24’51⁄4”. Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice. (See Fig. 15.25 in Chapter 15.) The procession here includes six trombe lunghe, or long silver trumpets, followed by three shawms, and two trombonists.

harmonic system, provides the heightened sense of har- monic drama that typifies the Baroque.

Claudio Monteverdi and the Birth of Opera A year after Gabrieli’s death, Claudio Monteverdi (1567– 1643) was appointed musical director at Saint Mark’s in Venice. A violinist, Monteverdi had been the music direc- tor at the court of Mantua. In Venice, Monteverdi proposed a new relation of text (words) and music. Where tradition- alists favored the subservience of text to music—“Harmony is the ruler of the text,” proclaimed Giovanni Artusi, the most ardent defendant of the conservative position—Mon- teverdi proclaimed just the opposite: “Harmony is the mis- tress of the text!” Monteverdi’s position led him to master a new, text-based musical form, the opera, a term that is the plural of the word opus, or “work.” Operas are works consisting of many smaller works. (The term opus is used, incidentally, to catalog the musical compositions of a given composer, usually abbreviated op., so that “op. 8” would mean the eighth work or works published in the composer’s repertoire.)

The form itself was first developed by a group known as the Camerata of Florence (camerata means “club” or “soci- ety”), a group dedicated to discovering the style of sing- ing used by the ancient Greeks in their drama, which had united poetry and music but was known only through writ- ten accounts. The group’s discussions stimulated the com- poser Giulio Caccini to write New Works of Music. Here, he

describes what the Camerata considered the ancient Greek ideal of music (Reading 21.5):

Over the course of the 1580s and 1590s, Caccini and others began to write works that placed a solo vocal line above an instrumental line, known as the basso continuo,

READING 21.5

from Giulio Caccini, New Works of Music (1602)

At the time … the most excellent camerata of the Most Illustrious Signor Giovanni Bardi, Count of Vernio, flourished in Florence. … I can truly say, since I attended well, that I learned more from their learned discussions than I did in more than thirty years of studying counterpoint. This is because these discerning gentlemen always encouraged me and convinced me with the clearest arguments not to value the kind of music which does not allow the words to be understood well and which spoils the meaning and the poetic meter by now lengthening and now cutting the syllables short to fit the counterpoint, and thereby lacerating the poetry. And so I thought to follow that style so praised by Plato and the other philosophers who maintained music to be nothing other than rhythmic speech with pitch added (and not the reverse!), designed to enter the minds of others and to create those wonderful effects that writers admire, which is something that cannot be achieved with the counterpoint of modern music.

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abissi) of the underworld or of “death” (morte) itself, the melody descends to low notes in harmony with the words. Moment by moment, Monteverdi’s music mirrors the emo- tional state of the character.

Orfeo required an orchestra of three dozen instruments— including ten viols, three trombones, and four trumpets—to perform the overture, interludes, and dance sequences, but generally only a harpsichord or lute accompanied the arias and recitatives so that the voice would remain predomi- nant. For the age, this was an astonishingly large orchestra, financed together with elaborate staging by the Mantuan court where it was composed and first performed, and it pro- vided Monteverdi with a distinct advantage over previous opera composers. He could achieve what his operatic prede- cessors could only imagine—a work that was both musically and dramatically satisfying, one that could explore the full range of sound and, with it, the full range of psychological complexity.

Arcangelo Corelli and the Sonata The basso continuo developed by Caccini and others to support the solo voice also influenced purely instrumental music, especially in the sonatas of the Roman composer and violinist Arcangelo Corelli (1653–1713). The term sonata as we use it today, did not develop until the last half of the eighteenth century. In the Baroque era, it had a much more general meaning. In Italian, sonata simply means “that which is sounded,” or played by instruments, as opposed to that which is sung, the cantata. By the end of the seven- teenth century, the trio sonata had developed a distinctive form. As the word “trio” suggests, it consists of three parts: two higher voices, usually written for violins, but often performed by two flutes, or two oboes, or any combina- tion of these, that play above a basso continuo. One of the results of this arrangement is that the basso continuo har- monizes with the higher voices, resulting in distinct chord clusters that often provide a dense textural richness to the composition.

There were two main types of sonata, a secular form, the sonata da camera (“chamber sonata”), and a religious form, the sonata da chiesa (“church sonata”). Corelli wrote both. The sonata da camera consists of a suite of dances, and the sonata da chiesa generally consists of four movements, or independent sections, beginning with a slow, dignified movement, followed by a fast, imitative movement, then slow and fast again. The distinctive feature of both forms is the primacy of a particular major or minor scale. At the least, the first and last movements of such works share the same key; in the case of the sonata da camera, every move- ment might be in the same key.

Corelli quickly adopted the sonata form because it allowed him, as a virtuoso violinist, to compose pieces for himself that showcased his talents. It was further expected that virtuoso violinists would embellish their musical lines. The following, from a single piece of sheet music from Corelli’s violin sonata, Opus no. 5, shows the basso continuo

or “continuous bass,” usually composed of a keyboard instrument (organ, harpsichord, etc.) and bass instrument (usually a cello), that was conceived as a supporting accom- paniment, not as the harmonic equivalent, to the vocal line. This combination of solo voice and basso continuo came to be known as monody.

The inspiration for Monteverdi’s first opera, Orfeo (1607), was the musical drama of ancient Greek theater. The libretto (or “little book”) for Monteverdi’s opera was based on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. In the opera, shepherds and nymphs celebrate the love of Orpheus and Eurydice in a dance that is interrupted by the news that Eurydice has died of a snake bite. The grieving Orpheus, a great musician and poet, travels to the under- world to bring Eurydice back. His plea for her return so moves Pluto, the god of the underworld, that he grants it, but only if Orpheus does not look back at Eurydice as they leave. But anxious for her safety, he does glance back and loses her forever. Monteverdi did, however, offer his audience some consolation (if not really a happy ending): Orpheus’ father, Apollo, comes down to take his son back to the heavens where he can behold the image of Eurydice forever in the stars.

Although Orfeo is by no means the first opera, it is gen- erally accepted as the first to successfully integrate music and drama. Monteverdi tells the story through a variety of musical genres—choruses, dances, and instrumental interludes. Two particular forms stand out—the recitativo and the aria. Recitativo (or recitative) is a style of singing that imitates very closely the rhythms of speech. Used for dialogue, it allows for a more rapid telling of the story than might be possible otherwise. The aria would even- tually develop into an elaborate solo or duet song that expresses the singer’s emotions and feelings, expanding on the dialogue of the recitative (in Monteverdi’s hands, the aria could still be sung in recitative style). “The mod- ern composer,” Monteverdi wrote, “builds his works on the basis of truth,” and he means by this, most of all, the emo- tional truth that we have come to expect of the Baroque in general. Orpheus’ recitative after learning of the death

of Eurydice is one of the most moving scenes in this opera (track 21.2). He sings passionately

first of his grief:

Tu sé morta, sé morta You are dead, my life, mia vita, ed io respiro? and I am still breathing? Tu sé de me partita, sé da You have left me, left me, me partitat per mai più, mai più non tornare, Never more to return, and ed io rimango? I remain here?

The melody imitates speech by rising at the end of each question. Then, when Orpheus decides to go back to the underworld and plead for Eurydice’s return, the music reflects his shift from despair to determination. But even in this second section, as he expresses his dream of freeing Eurydice, when he sings of the “lowest depths” (profundi

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in the bass clef and the complex violin part, filled with intricate runs of musical notes, as Corelli actually played it in the treble clef:

Antonio Vivaldi and the Concerto Corelli’s instrumental flair deeply influenced Venice’s most important composer of the early eighteenth century, Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741). Vivaldi, son of the lead- ing violinist at Saint Mark’s, assumed the post of musical director at the Ospedale della Pietà in 1703, one of four orphanages in Venice that specialized in music instruction for girls. (Boys at the orphanages were not trained in music since it was assumed they would enter the labor force.) As a result, many of the most talented harpsichordists, lute- nists, and other musicians in Venice were female, and many of Vivaldi’s works were written specifically for per- formance by orphanage girl choirs and instrumental ensem- bles (Fig. 21.19). By and large, the orphanage musicians were young girls who would subsequently go on to either a religious life or marriage, but several were middle-aged women who remained in the orphanage, often as teach- ers, for their entire lives. The directors of the orphanages

From Arcangelo Corelli, Opus no. 5.

Fig. 21.19 Jacopo Guarana, Apollo Conducting a Choir of Maidens. 1776. Oil on canvas. Church of the Ospedaletto, Salla della Musica, Venice. The Ospedaletto church was the performance space for the girls of the orphanage of Santa Maria dei Derelitti. Although Apollo conducts in this painting, the ensemble director can be seen in yellow, just behind the right column, score in hand.

Thus, against the clear notation of the melody in the music, the solo voice performs with rhythmic freedom.

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hoped that wealthy members of the audience would be so dazzled by the performances that they would donate money to the orphanages. Audiences from across Europe attended these concerts, which were among the first in the history of Western music that took place outside a church or theater and were open to the public. And they were, in fact, dazzled by the talent of these female musicians; by all accounts, they were as skilled and professional as any of their male counterparts in Europe.

Vivaldi specialized in composing concertos, a three- movement secular form of instrumental music, popular at court, which had already been established, largely by Corelli. Vivaldi systematized its form. The first movement of a concerto is usually allegro (quick and cheerful), the sec- ond slower and more expressive, like the pace of an opera aria, and the third a little livelier and faster than the first. Concertos usually feature one or more solo instruments that, in the first and third movements particularly, perform passages of material, called episodes, that contrast back and forth with the orchestral score—a form known as ritornello, “something that returns” (i.e., returning thematic mate- rial). At the outset, the entire orchestra performs the ritor- nello in the tonic—the specific home pitch around which the composition is organized. Solo episodes interrupt alter- nating with the ritornello, performed in partial form and in different keys, back and forth, until the ritornello returns again in its entirety in the tonic in the concluding section.

The streams, swept by gentle breezes, Flow along with a sweet murmur. Covering the sky with a black cloak, Thunder and lightning come to announce the season. When all is quiet again, the little birds Return to their lovely song.

The ritornello in this concerto is an exuberant melody played by the whole ensemble. It opens the movement, and corresponds to the poem’s first line. Three solo vio- lins respond in their first episode—“the birds greet it with their happy song”—imitating the song of birds. In the sec- ond episode, they imitate “streams swept by gentle breezes,” then, in the third, “thunder and lightning,” and finally the birds again, which “Return to their lovely song.” The whole culminates with the ritornello, once again resolved in the tonic.

In its great rhythmic freedom (the virtuoso passages given to the solo violin, recalling the improvisational embellishments of Corelli) and the polarity between orchestra and solo instruments (the contrasts of high and low timbres, or sounds, such as happy bird song and clash- ing thunder), Vivaldi’s concerto captures much of what differentiates Baroque music from its Renaissance pre- decessors. Gone are the balanced and flowing rhythms of traditional polyphonic composition in which all voices are of equal importance. Perhaps most of all, the drama of beginning a composition in a tonic key, moving to differ- ent keys and then returning to the tonic—a process known as modulation—could be said to distinguish Baroque com- position from what had come earlier. The dramatic effect of this modulation, together with the rich texture of the composition’s chord clusters, parallels the dramatic lighting of Baroque painting, just as the embellishment of the solo voice finds its equivalent in the ornamentation of Baroque architecture.

As an instrumental composition, The Four Seasons natu- rally forgoes the other great innovation of the Baroque, an emphasis on an actual text, as found particularly in opera. But even in Rome, where sacred music dominated the scene, opera began to take hold. In 1632, an opera by Ste- fano Landi (1590–1639), with stage designs by Gianlorenzo Bernini, premiered at a theater seating no fewer than 3,000 spectators inside the walls of the Barberini palace, home of the Barberini pope Urban VIII (papacy 1622–44). Like many of the Roman operas that followed, its subject was sacred, Sant’Allessio (Saint Alexander), and it convinced the Church that sung theater could convey moral and spir- itual ideas. This conviction would shortly give rise to a new genre of vocal music, the oratorio. Generally based on reli- gious themes, the oratorio shared some of opera’s musical elements, including the basso continuo, the aria, and the recitative, but it was performed without the dazzle of stag- ing and costume (see Chapter 24).

In the course of his career, Vivaldi composed nearly 600 concertos—for violin, cello, flute, piccolo, oboe, bassoon, trumpet, guitar, and even recorder. Most of these were performed by the Ospedale ensemble. The most famous is a group of four violin concertos, one for each season of the year, called The Four Seasons. It is an example of what would later come to be known as program music, or purely instrumental music in some way connected to a story or

idea. The program of the first of these concer- tos, Spring (track 21.3), is supplied by a sonnet,

written by Vivaldi himself, at the top of the score. The first eight lines suggest the text for the first movement, and the last six lines, divided into two groups of three, the text for the second and third movements. Here are the first eight lines:

Spring has arrived, and full of joy The birds greet it with their happy song.

COMPLETE RITORNELLO EPISODE 1

PARTIAL RITORNELLO

OTHER KEYS

PARTIAL RITORNELLO

COMPLETE RITORNELLO

TONIC TONIC

EPISODE 2 EPISODE 3

Ritornello

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In France, the finance minister to King Louis XIV was wise in matters far beyond finance. Jean-Baptiste Colbert counseled the king that “apart from striking actions in warfare, nothing is so well able to show the greatness and spirit of princes than buildings; and all posterity will judge them by the measure of those superb habitations which they have built during their lives.” The king was looking for an architect to design a new east facade for the Palais du Louvre in Paris, which would house the new royal apartments. For such grand plans, the world’s most famous—and original—archi- tect, Gianlorenzo Bernini, was the obvious choice. With the pope’s permission, Bernini departed for Paris. Large and adoring crowds greeted him in every city through which he passed.

In Paris, he received a royal welcome, but the king was far from happy with Bernini’s plans for the Louvre (Fig. 21.20). Although he accepted the plans, and foundations were poured, he con- cluded, after Bernini returned to Rome, that the Italian’s design was too elaborate and ornate. Furthermore, French architects were protest- ing the award of such an important commission to a foreigner. The architect Louis Le Vau, the painter Charles Le Brun, and the physician, mathematician, and architectural historian Claude Perrault together designed a simpler, more Classically inspired facade (Fig. 21.21), consisting of five units, centered by a triangular pediment and paired Corinthian colonnades. Louis was so pleased that he added paired colon- nades to the other facades of the palace.

This debate between the ornate and the Classical, the sensuous and the austere, would define the art of the eight- eenth century. Baroque ornamentation, epitomized in the seventeenth century by Bernini, would become even more exaggerated in the eight eenth, transformed into the fanciful and playful decoration of the so-called Rococo style. Ironi- cally, this happened especially at the French court. The forms of Classical Greek and Roman architecture offered a clear alternative, countering what seemed to many an art of self-indulgence, even moral depravity. Painting, too, could abandon the emo tional theatrics of the Baroque and appeal

instead to the intellect and reason, assuming a solidity of form as stable as architecture.

Louis XIV’s rejection of Bernini’s plan marks the end of the ascendancy of Italian art and architecture in Euro- pean culture. From 1665 on, the dominant artists of Europe would be Northern in origin. Even in the field of music, Northerners like Bach and Handel, then Mozart and Beethoven, were about to triumph. In Holland, France, and England, the Baroque would become an especially potent cultural force, permanently redefining the centers of European culture. ■

Fig. 21.20 Gianlorenzo Bernini, design for the east facade of the Palais du Louvre, Paris. 1664. Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Fig. 21.21 Louis Le Vau, Claude Perrault, and Charles Le Brun, east facade of the Palais du Louvre, Paris. 1667–70.

& CONTINU ITY CHANGE The End of Italian Ascendancy

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THINKING BACK

21.1 Discuss how the Baroque style furthered the agenda of the Counter-Reformation, especially in sculpture and architecture.

As part of its strategy to respond to the Protestant Refor- mation, the Catholic Church in Rome championed a new Baroque style of art that appealed to the range of human emotion and feeling, not just the intellect. Bernini’s majestic new colonnade for the square in front of Saint Peter’s in Rome helped to reveal the grandeur of the basilica itself, creating the dramatic effect of the Church embracing its flock. How does his sculptural program for the Cornaro Chapel in Rome epitomize the Baroque? How are Baroque sensibilities reflected in his sculpture of the biblical hero David? How do action, excitement, and sensuality fulfill the Counter-Reformation objectives in Baroque religious art? What role do the senses play in the theological writings of Saint Ignatius? What role does art play in his set of “Rules”? How is this reflected in Andrea Pozzo’s ceiling for the Church of Sant’Ignazio?

One of the most influential pieces of Baroque archi- tecture is Francesco Borromini’s Church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane in Rome. Borromini replaces the traditions of Renaissance architecture with a facade of dramatic oppositions and visual surprises. How does the architecture of Bernini and Borromini express the theat- rical urge to draw the viewer into the drama?

21.2 Describe how the Baroque style manifests itself in painting. Caravaggio used the play of light and dark to create paintings of stunning drama and energy that reveal a new Baroque taste for vividly realistic detail. His followers, among them Elisabetta Sirani and Artemisia Gentile- schi, inherited his interest in realism and the dramatic. What does Caravaggio share with the mystical writings of Teresa of Ávila and the poetry of Englishman John Donne? What social conditions and aesthetic values of the Italian Baroque particularly interested Sirani and Gentileschi?

21.3 Examine how the Baroque style developed musically in Venice.

If Rome was the center of Baroque art and architec- ture, Venice was the center of Baroque music. Giovanni Gabrieli took advantage of the sonority of Saint Mark’s Cathedral to create canzonas in which he carefully con- trolled the dynamics (loud/soft) of the composition and its tempo. What is a canzona? It was in Venice that a new form of musical drama known as opera was born in the hands of Claudio Monteverdi, who gave text precedence over harmony for the first time in the history of West- ern music. His opera Orfeo successfully married music and drama. What is an opera? The sonata, popularized as an instrumental genre by virtuoso violinist Arcangelo Corelli, provided a model for all instrumental music. Finally, Antonio Vivaldi perfected the concerto as a genre, and many of his concertos were performed by the women at the Ospedale della Pietà, where he was musi- cal director. What are the chief features of the concerto? In general, what features of Venetian Baroque music are analogous to Baroque painting and sculpture?

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READINGS READING 21.4 John Donne, “The Flea” (1633)

Donne’s poetry is often labeled “metaphysical” because it borrowed words and images from seventeenth-century science. It reflects a Baroque taste for dramatic contrast and the ability to synthesize discordant images. This last is reflected particularly in the elaborate metaphor, or “conceit,” of the following poem, first published posthumously, in which a flea is taken for the image of love’s consummation.

Cruel and sudden, has thou since Purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence? In what could this flea guilty be, Except in that drop which it sucked from thee? Yet thou triumph’st, and say’st that thou Find’st not thyself, nor me the weaker now;

’Tis true, then learn how false, fears be; Just so much honour, when thou yield’st to me, Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.

READING CRITICALLY

How would you describe the tone of this poem? Is it sincere? Playful? How does this tone affect how we understand its argument?

Mark but this flea, and mark in this, How little that which thou deny’st me is; Me it sucked first, and now sucks thee, And in this flea, our two bloods mingled be;1

Confess it, this cannot be said A sin, or shame, or loss of maidenhead,

Yet this enjoys before it woo, And pampered swells with one blood made of two, And this, alas, is more than we would do.

Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,2

Where we almost, nay more than married are, This flea is you and I, and this Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is;

Though parents grudge, and you, we are met, And cloistered in these living walls of jet.3

Though use make you apt to kill me, Let not to this, self murder added be,

And sacrilege,4 three sins in killing three.

1 United in the flea are the flea itself, the lover, and the mistress, thus echoing the Trinity, an elaborate metaphor that continues on throughout the poem. 2 The mistress is about to kill the flea. 3 Jet: black; in other words, the living body of the flea. 4 Sacrilege because the flea is portrayed as a “marriage temple.”

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