ST. PETER'S IN THE VATICAN

Wherein lies the significance of St. Peter’s in the Vatican? – in its role as first church of Roman Catholicism? as preeminent symbol of an ancient city? as major monument of Western civilization? This book posits an answer to the question (while recognizing that it is only one among many): the significance of the edifice lies in its extraordinary and extraordinarily tormented history. Founded in the fourth century to honor the tomb of Saint Peter, the church gained enormous prestige in the Middle Ages as a repository of holy relics and objects, and as the site of epoch-making events. But with the return of the papacy from Avignon and the shift in papal residence from the Lateran to the Vatican, the building needed to be renovated. Beginning in the fifteenth century and over the course of the next three hundred years, Old St. Peter’s was gradually torn down, and in its midst arose the new structure now in place. The transmutation was far from easy. It involved many changes in design and concept, and interwove the careers of some of the most brilliant – and contentious – architects and artists of the day, including Bramante, Michelangelo, and Bernini. This volume, focusing on selected and key moments in the history of the church from the late antique period to the twentieth century, offers an expertly researched and thoughtful overview of St. Peter’s, full of new insights and appreciation.

William Tronzo is Professor of Art History at Tulane University, where he has also directed the Medieval Studies Program and the Program in Italian Studies. A scholar of medieval Italy, he is the author of The Cultures of His Kingdom: Roger Ⅱ and the Cappella Palatina in Palermo.

ST. PETER'S IN THE VATICAN

Edited by

WILLIAM TRONZO

Tulane University

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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© Cambridge University Press 2005

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First published 2005

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

St. Peter's in the Vatican / [edited by] William Tronzo.
p.  cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-521-64096-2 (HB)
1. Basilica di San Pietro in Vaticano – History.  2. Vatican City – Buildings,
structures, etc.  I. Title: Saint Peter's in the Vatican.  II. Tronzo, William.
NA5624.S7    2003
726.5′09456′34–dc21        2002074068

ISBN-13    978-0-521-64096-1 hardback
ISBN-10    0-521-64096-2 hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for
the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or
third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this book
and does not guarantee that any content on such
Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

CONTRIBUTORS

ALESSANDRA ANSELMI is Professor of Iconography and Iconology at Università degli Studi della Calabria. She received her degree in art history from the Università degli Studi di Roma, “La Sapienza,” and her doctorate from the Universität Autònoma de Barcelona. She has been a Fellow at the Warburg Institute in London and the Casa de Velásquez in Madrid. Her research concerns principally seventeenth-century Rome and, specifically, relations between the pontifical court and Spain. Her publications include “The High Altar of S. Carlo ai Catinari, Rome,” in The Burlington Magazine, 1996; “Arte, politica e diplomazia: Tiziano, Correggio, Raffaello. L’investitura di Piombino e notizie su agenti spagnoli a Roma,” in The Diplomacy of Art (Milan, 2000); “I progetti di Bernini e Rainaldi per l’abside di Santa Maria Maggiore,” in Bollettino d’Arte, 2001; and Il Palazzo dell’Ambasciata di Spagna (Rome, 2001). She is currently preparing a critical edition of the travel diary of Cassiano dal Pozzo in Spain.

GLEN W. BOWERSOCK received his A.B. from Harvard in 1957 and his B.A., M.A., and D.Phil. from Oxford in 1962. He holds honorary degrees from the University of Strasbourg and the École Pratique des Hautes Études. He was Professor of Classics and History at Harvard University from 1962 to 1980 and since then has been Professor of Ancient History at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ. He is the author of more than a dozen books on such subjects as the Roman East, the Second Sophistic, Julian the Apostate, Roman Arabia, late Hellenism, early martyrdom, and ancient fiction. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, and Membre de l’Institut de France.

RICHARD A. ETLIN is Distinguished University Professor at the School of Architecture, University of Maryland. His most recent books include In Defense of Humanism: Value in the Arts and Letters and the edited volume Art, Culture, and Media under the Third Reich. Richard Etlin is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome and a Senior Fellow in Landscape Architecture, Dumbarton Oaks, Harvard University. He also serves as editor for the Cambridge University Press book series “Modern Architecture and Cultural Identity.”

ANTONIO IACOBINI is Professor of Byzantine Art History and of the History of Manuscript Illumination at the University of Rome, “La Sapienza,” as well as editor of the journal Arte medievale and of the Enciclopedia dell’arte medievale. His publications include L’albero della vita nell’immaginario medievale (1994), Il Vangelo di Dionisio (1998), and Visioni dipinte. Immagini della contemplazione negli affreschi di Bawit (2000). He has also collaborated on the exhibitions “Fragmenta picta” (Rome, 1990) and “Il primo giubileo: Bonifacio Ⅷ e il suo tempo” (Rome, 2000).

DALE KINNEY is Professor of History of Art and Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Bryn Mawr College, where she has taught since 1972. Her interest in spolia originated with her dissertation on S. Maria in Trastevere and has resulted in articles in the Art Bulletin (1986), the Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome (1997), and other venues, as well as a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar in 1993. Her current research is focused on twelfth-century Rome and the milieu of the Mirabilia urbis Romae. She is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome and past editor of Gesta (1997–2000).

IRVING LAVIN is Professor Emeritus of the History of Art at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ. For many years previously he taught at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. Best known for his work on Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680), his research and publications cover a wide range of subjects from Late Antiquity to Jackson Pollock. Among his distinguished lectureships and guest professorships: Charles T. Mathews Lectures, Columbia University, 1957; Franklin Jasper Walls Lectures, Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, 1975; Collège de France, 1984, 1990; Slade Lectures, Oxford University, 1985; Jerome Lectures, University of Michigan and American Academy in Rome, 1985–6; Una’s Lectures in the Humanities, University of California, Berkeley, 1987. Lavin is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; member and past-President of the U.S. National Committee for the History of Art; past-President of the International Committee for the History of Art; Foreign Member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Rome; and Foreign Member of the Accademia Clementina, Bologna. Among his books are: Bernini and the Unity of the Visual Arts (New York and London, 1980); Past-Present. Essays on Historicism in Art from Donatello to Picasso (Berkeley, 1993); Erwin Panofsky. Three Essays on Style (Cambridge, MA, and London, 1995); (with Marilyn Aronberg Lavin) The Liturgy of Love. Imagery from the Song of Songs in the Art of Cimabue, Michelangelo, and Rembrandt (Lawrence, KS, 2001).

HENRY A. MILLON is Dean Emeritus of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art. Educated at Tulane University and Harvard University in architecture and history of art, he has served as Visiting Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1980 and was Professor of History of Architecture and Architectural Design at MIT from 1960 to 1980. He was Resident Art Historian at the American Academy in Rome in 1966, where he served as director from 1974 to 1977. He was a Fulbright Fellow and Fellow of the American Academy in Rome from 1957 to 1960 and was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in 1978. Professor Millon has also received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Council of Learned Societies. He is a delegate of the International Committee for the History of Art, a member of the U.S. National Committee for the History of Art, and a convener of the Architectural Drawings Advisory Group, and he served on the editorial board of the Architectural History Foundation. He is a member of the American Philosophical Society; American Academy of Arts and Sciences; Deputazione Subalpina di Storia Patria; Accademia di San Luca, Rome; and the Accademia delle Scienze di Torino. His selected publications include The Triumph of the Baroque: Architecture in Europe 1600–1750 (editor), 1999; The Renaissance from Brunelleschi to Michelangelo: The Representation of Architecture (with Vittorio Lampugnani), 1994; Michelangelo Architect (with Craig H. Smyth), 1988; Filippo Juvarra: Drawings from the Roman Period. 1704–1714, 1984; Key Monuments of the History of Architecture, 1964; and Baroque and Rococo Architecture, 1961.

CHRISTOF THOENES lives in Rome where he is a Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter der Bibliotheca Hertziana (Max-Planck-Institut). He has studied art history, German language and literature, and philosophy in Berlin and Pavia. His field is Italian art history with a special focus on Renaissance architecture, on which he has written numerous books and articles. He has taught in Berlin, Hamburg, and Venice, and he is a member of the Consiglio Scientifico of the C.I.S.A. Andrea Palladio in Vicenza, the Accademia Nazionale di San Luca in Rome, and the Accademia Raffaello in Urbino.

WILLIAM TRONZO is Professor of Art History at Tulane University, where he has also directed the Medieval Studies Program and the Program in Italian Studies. His main field of interest is medieval Italy, on which he has written extensively beginning with his dissertation on the Via Latina Catacomb in Rome (College Art Association Monograph, 1986). Recent publications include studies of narrative art (Spoleto, 2000) and gardens (Parma, 2000), and a monograph on the palatine chapel of the Norman kings of Sicily, The Cultures of His Kingdom: Roger Ⅱ and the Cappella Palatina in Palermo (Princeton, 1997). In addition to numerous fellowships and awards he has held research appointments at Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, the Bibliotheca Hertziana (Max-Planck-Institut), and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. He is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome.