Federico Borromeo, Della pittura sacra [On Sacred Painting]. Edited by Barbara Agosti

Translation by Francesco Mazzaferro
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Federico Borromeo
Della pittura sacra – Libri due
[Two Books on Sacred Painting]
Edited by Barbara Agosti

Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, 1994

Review by Giovanni Mazzaferro

Giulio Cesare Procaccini, Portrait of Federico Borromeo, 1610. Milan, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana
Source: it:Museo diocesano di Milano via Wikimedia Commons

About Barbara Agosti’s publications see in this blog: Barbara Agosti, Paolo Giovio. A Lombard Historian in 1500 Artistic Culture; Barbara Agosti, Giorgio Vasari. Locations and Times of the Lives; Federico Borromeo, Two Books on Sacred Painting, Edited by Barbara Agosti

Federico Borromeo (1564-1631) must have suffered of a sort of graphomania. His papers, preserved in Milan at the Ambrosiana Library, one of his most famous creatures, contain dozens of dozens of manuscript texts, to which, of course, his printed books must be added. All together, they cover various topics, from theology to art. The distinction between manuscripts and printed books was never as weak as in the case of Federico (archbishop of Milan from 1595 onwards). It is evident that the press was simply a production stage of a work, and not always the final one. It was the establishment of a "beautiful copy" that did not prevent Borromeo from returning to the text, modifying it with margin notes and records tracked in his papers or by adding references to other works, either manuscript or in print. The number of printed copies for circulation was almost nil. About the De pictura sacra, the object of this review, we know to date only two Latin print copies [1] and a manuscript in Italian (ms G. 25 inf. at the Ambrosiana).

Before talking about issues concerning the precedence between the Italian and the Latin versions, it is perhaps the case to offer a picture of the artistic publications by Cardinal Borromeo. They were essentially two works, published one year apart from the other: De pictura sacra – On sacred painting (1624) and Musaeum – Museum (1625). It would not be easy to find two more different texts. The former was impregnated with the doctrine of the Counterreformation, to repeat concepts dating back to sixty years before, and already exposed by his cousin as well as his predecessor Saint Charles Borromeo in the Instructionum Fabricae et Supellectilis ecclesiasticae (1577) and by Gabriele Paleotti in the Discorso intorno alle immagini sacre e profane (Discourse on Sacred and Profane Images) (1582). The latter was intended as a guide of the pictures of the cardinal's collection, donated in 1618 to the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, and was a much freer and richer text. It testified a critical and collecting culture that, in my view, fits well with the indications provided by Giulio Mancini in his basically coeval Considerazioni sulla pittura (Considerations on painting). Such a difference among the two writings almost revealed a 'basic schizophrenia', like if one was intended for one audience and the other for a different one. This cannot be the case, however, since - as said - the cardinal's writings were not intended for dissemination, if not among a circle of friends. Moreover, in a series of recently rediscovered and printed preparatory notes to the Musaeum, the cardinal himself wrote of the two works as intended to be complementary to each other.[2]

In fact, many notes written on other manuscripts (such as the Rerum Memorabilium books I and II published by Alessandro Rovetta [3]) discussed art topics; moreover, the cardinal planned the (never made) edition of a De antiquis christanorum picturis (On the ancient Christian painting), while two writings published at the end of the last century by Scheiwiller with the title Le colonne per la facciata del Duomo (The columns for the façade of the Cathedral) concerned the design of the facade of the Milan Cathedral in a "modern" style, whether you call it classic or roman. Indeed Rovetta made the point that probably the necessary step at this point is to achieve a more systematic reconnaissance of Cardinal's sheets and the complete publication of his art writings. 

Project for thr faced of the Milan Cathedral by Pellegrino Tibaldi (about 1593-1596)
Source: http://blog.urbanfile.org/2016/02/27/milano-duomo-quanti-progetti-per-la-facciata-del-duomo/

Della pittura sacra – the Italian edition

The occasion for writing this review was the reading of a most remarkable edition of both the De pictura sacra and the Museum (here shown without diphthong) in a volume of the famous I Tatti Renaissance Library (see note 1). It seemed to me easier, however, to make use of the Italian editions of the two works. The Della pittura sacra in the version edited by Barbara Agosti in 1994 is the subject of this post, while in the following one I will speak of the Musaeum in the 1997 edition commented by Mgr Gianfranco Ravasi.

The first thing to be clarified with regard to Della pittura sacra is that the English translation was conducted against the two 1624 printed copies, while the Italian one curated by Ms Agosti was based on the already quoted manuscript G 25 inf. (in Italian), different from the Latin text. The curator (see page 7) believes that the Italian version was more complete than the Latin one, in particular taking into account a series of manuscript notes referred to that, which would reflect a subsequent revision of the print. In addition to the Italian text, in fact, the following is reproduced:

• The margin notes placed laterally with respect to the text (between curly brackets directly in the work);
• The final sheets of the same manuscript ms G 25 inf., in which appear the passages numbered by Federico with the indication of the place where they had to be placed in a possible reprint;
• Some scattered pages, also called De pictura sacra, of ms F 11 always in the Ambrosiana, including also additional parts of the text (missing in the Latin version).

The purpose of the work is what Federico exposed immediately, when he referred to what the Council of Trent indicated: bishops were to teach the mysteries of faith not only with words, but also with paints (p. 18). We are back to the concept of painting (indeed, painting and sculpture, because for Federico, just as for Paleotti, there is no hierarchy between them) of a purely ethical and catechistic nature, whose fundamental purpose is to move people to faith. The two parts of the Della pittura sacra (the first containing general principles of decoration, the likelihood of stories, nakedness, garments, etc .. and the second relating to specific examples (the representation of the Trinity, the Crucifixion and so on) were directed to avoid abuses in the representation of sacred images. The question of the Protestant iconoclasm was not addressed at all, because it was already the subject of theological clarifications provided in the Council. To be honest, I think that Federico, in his Della pittura sacra, was even more severe than Paleotti in his Discourse on Sacred Images. The latter aimed at entering into a dialogue with the interested parties (the clergy, on the one hand, and painters and buyers on the other). Rather, Borromeo adapted to the second writing by Paleotti, De tollendis imaginum novissima consideratio – the latest consideration on the need to remove abuses of images (1596). While this last writing had very limited circulation, I would be surprised if Borromeo had not read the latter text.  

Saint Carlo Borromeo and saints Filippo Neri and Francesco di Sales, Milan, Church of Santa Maria Incoronata
Source: Giovanni Dall'Orto tramite Wikimedia Commons

The Art of Early Christianity

The Good Shepherd, Rome, Fresco in the Catacombs of Saint Callisto
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Speaking of Della pittura sacra, at least two aspects must be underlined. The first is the well-informed presence of information about the use of images by early Christianity. More than a claim of 'chronological primogenity' against Protestants, it seems to me that Federico wanted to point out to the readers that the antique use of images was simpler and more genuine, and certainly more decent. Ancient paintings, moreover, assumed the value of the source precisely in fixing the canons of representation of saints and evangelical events. There is little doubt that Borromeo's attention to the world of catacombs (or 'sacred cemeteries' as they were called at the time) revealed a biographical record. It is important to remember that Federico, before settling permanently in Milan, lived for more than ten years in Rome at the end of 1500. Antiquarian studies on Christianity were one of his great passions, so much so that, in old age, he planned a De Antiquis christianorum picturis. From this point of view - Barbara Agosti says - the information provided in Della pittura sacra can be seen as a kind of anticipation of the studies of Antonio Bosio, recognized as the highest expert in the subject, who for decades was working on a publication on the subject. That publication was being delayed, so that the erudite circles sharing the passion for the early Christian antiquity became impatient (Bosio's Roma Sotterranea was only posthumously published in 1632). Always according to Agosti, during his Roman stay it was produced a first draft of Della pittura sacra, precisely for its pedantic and doctrinal character, which would conflict with the Cardinal's personal tastes then exposed in the Musaeum. In essence, Della pittura sacra was devoid of any historical view of art (a perspective that Borromeo seems to have instead in the Musaeum) and there was no stylistic analysis. Assessments were expressed in mere terms of the appropriateness of the images according to their correspondence with the biblical text, with the educational function of Christian art and with decorum. 

A Latin translation by Paolo Aringhi of Antonio Bosio’s Roma sotterranea, published in Paris in 1658
and exhibited at the antiquarian book fair in Madrid in May this year

Against Mannerism or against Michelangelo?

Michelangelo, The Last Judgement. Detail: Charon and his boat od damned soul, Vatican City, Sistine Chapel
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Michelangelo, The Last Judgement. Detail: Charon, Vatican City, Sistine Chapel
Source: Wikimedia Commons

The theme brings us directly to the second aspect to be highlighted: the anti-Mannerist or anti-Michelangiolesque polemics. I believe that it is necessary to be extremely cautious even in the use of certain terms. To speak of an anti-Mannerist Borromeo would imply that the cardinal was able to conceive 'Mannerism' as an 'artistic movement' in its own right. Just as in the case of Paleotti with Prospero Fontana, one should then also understand why Borromeo highly esteemed a mannerist like Federico Zuccari, always quoting him with positive connotations. The truth is that Borromeo's words seem to be directed especially against Michelangelo. A few elements should be taken into account. First, in the last decade of the sixteenth century, the cardinal was in Rome, where he was the first protector of the Roman Academy, indeed directed by Zuccari. Second, a fierce controversy was mounting in Rome during those years against Vasari and his Tuscan-centric world, all focused on the exaltation of Michelangelo (think only of the margin posts written by Annibale Carracci and Zuccari himself). Therefore, it seems more likely that the criticism against Michelangelo was inscribed in a wider climate of resentment towards the Tuscan world. Naturally, that criticism was fed with valid arguments from the point of view of Counter-Reformation. Borromeo (not only in this work) therefore complained that Michelangelo only thought of representing his naked figures, in an excess of athleticism and in exerting poses, with shepherds and saints looking more like culturists than anything else. He argued with Buonarroti for having depicted in the Pietà di San Pietro a dying Christ in the arms of a young woman; for mixing in the Universal Judgment the sacred aspect with "pagan tales" by painting Charon, who carries the damned in hell (a criticism that might well fit to Dante as well); or even, for having represented St. Paul with a great beard in the Pauline Chapel, when it is known that, at the time of conversion, he was not old. In short, his criticisms seemed to address Michelangelo in person, taking on a long series of critical observations against him since the end of his work in the Sistine Chapel. Moreover, it is evident that Borromeo did not even dedicate a single word to the most characteristic theoretical aspect of Mannerism, or that Idea that was first mentioned by Lomazzo and then by Zuccari as an internal and mental aspect before it became external and concrete, although he was definitely aware of both texts. Simply, the cardinal was not concerned with the theory of art.

It should also be said that his judgment on Michelangelo was not always negative. For example, he was seen as exemplary when Borromeo wrote that the artist must be cultivated: "Michelangelo's testimony and authority could prove it, for he became a writer, since we still see a whole volume of Dantesque verses composed by him, which he certainly could not do without feeling the love for good letters" (39). Many of the notes to the Rerum Memorabilium published by Rovetta [5] are dedicated to Michelangelo and have a moral value with positive connotations. In one of these, the Universal Judgment of the Sistine Chapel was even described as "marvellous."

In short, the cardinal expressed his views in the Della pittura sacra by taking an extreme tone. They certainly did not concern mannerism as a whole, and most probably referred only to certain aspects of Michelangelo's work.

Michelangelo, The Conversion of St. Paul (detail), Vatican City, Pauline Chapel
Source: Sailko via Wikimedia Commons

On architecture

Finally, the last chapter in the second book of the work is devoted to the "form of sacred temples." It is curious because, in this respect, Federico actually deviated from Paleotti’s path (where architecture was not discussed) to regain instead some of the arguments of his late cousin Saint Charles. It was therefore a recovery of some themes, which were dear to his predecessor. The "question of form" was understood in a strictly liturgical sense. In this sense, the abandonment of the divisions typical of early Christianity was deprecated. Such divisions allowed a more ordinate enjoyment of religious function by separating clergy from the laity, and then among them the males from the females, the virgins from the married, and so on. Not to mention, he said (his vision was totally independent of historic aspects) that once churches resembled much more to the Temple of Solomon and so it was highly recommended to go back to imitating them. Again, just as in painting, the discussion did not concern the 'style' with which a church is built. We might think that, for Federico, this did not matter; however, this was not the case, as we now know well from the beautiful volume of Francesco Repishti and Richard Schofield on the debates for the facade of the Milan Cathedral between 1582 and 1682. This is a further confirmation that the Della pittura sacra had essentially doctrinal value and was not written to expose the cardinal's tastes on art.

NOTES

[1] Federico Borromeo, Sacred Painting - Museum, edited and translated by Kenneth S. Rothwell, jr. Introduction and notes by Pamela M. Jones. The I Tatti Renaissance Library, Harvard University Press, 44, 2010), p. 218.

[2] Alessandro Rovetta, Gli appunti del cardinale. Note inedite di Federico Borromeo per il Musaeum (The Records of the Cardinal. Unpublished notes by Federico Borromeo for the Musaeum), in Annali di critica d’arte n. 2, 2006, Turin, Nino Aragno, 2006, pp. 105-142 and especially p. 108.

[3] See note 2.

[4] The quotation opens a still unanswered question to date. What was the volume of michelangiolesque rhymes quoted by Borromeo? And did the term 'Dantesque rhymes' generally indicate the fact that it is poetry or the connotation of some compositions in particular? Barbara Agosti points out that, in his Treatise on painting, Lomazzo recalled a manuscript volume of verses by Michelangelo. Borromeo visited the collection and tried to buy it in 1615. Previously, Benedetto Varchi mentioned the Rhymes in 1547 in the first lesson at the Accademia Fiorentina. According to the curators of the recent critical edition of the Rhymes, the accuracy with which Varchi cited the titles of certain compositions indicates that he was probably in possession of a (partial) collection of Michelangelo’s verses, which has been lost. It should not be forgotten that Michelangelo the Young published the first edition of his ancestor’s Rhymes in 1623. However, in today's Ambrosian Library, the 1623 edition of the Rhymes is absent.

[5] See note 2.