stonescu, livia. ancient prototypes reinstantiated - zuccaris´s encounter of christ and veronica of...

8/10/2019 STONESCU, Livia. ANCIENT PROTOTYPES REINSTANTIATED - ZUCCARISS ENCOUNTER OF CHRIST AND VERONICA

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Ancient Prototypes Reinstantiated: Zuccari's Encounter ofChrist and Veronica of 1594Livia StoenescuPublished online: 30 Jan 2014.

To cite this article:Livia Stoenescu (2011) Ancient Prototypes Reinstantiated: Zuccari's Encounter of Christ and Veronica of 1594, T

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Ancient Prototypes Reinstantiated: ZuccarisEncounter ofChrist and Veronicaof 1594

Livia Stoenescu

The early modern age placed great weight on historical evi-dence in effecting a revival of the ancient art of the past. To

an unprecedented degree, this nascent historical conscious-ness subscribed to the truth value of visual evidence at thesame time that it entertained skepticism about the reliabilityof written history.1 Notorious instances of altered or misin-terpreted documents encouraged the belief that images pro-

vided more reliable insight into historical fact than writtensources.

The considerable attention devoted by the post-Tridentineecclesiastical program of reform to the images subject matterfostered a self-imposed medieval character. The reform pro-gram sought to regulate not only the format and function of

devotional images but also aspects of their istoria in the

treatment of many commissioned artists. The post-Tridentineassertion of venerable traditions expressed itself in the cre-ation of artifacts that directly referenced their reflexive con-

texts, a mechanism that enlisted the specifics of old images tothe system of Catholic truth visually argued. Thus, CardinalFederico Borromeo found theological and didactic value inthe engravings made by the sixteenth-century Antwerp artist

Marten de Vos that portrayed important chapters of churchhistory, and these became one of the principal instruments ofhis canon of sacred art at the Ambrosiana Academy in Milan.2

Early modern artists resolved to reform such post-Tridentinehermeneutical discourses through the expressive models of asubstitutional logic meant to self-consciously repurpose an-tique features in ways that transcended the specific moment

of their creation. The substitutional effectiveness of FedericoZuccaris S. Prassede altarpiece The Encounter of Christ and

Veronica on the Way to Calvaryof 1594 (Fig. 1) emerged fromhis ability to recover ancient prototypes and present them as

recognizably old with the aid of Renaissance altarpiece par-adigms celebrating the artistic merits of Early Christian im-ages.

Despite their differing aims, both ecclesiastical figures and

artists set religious images at the core of debates surroundingthe veracity of historical sources. After the Reformation im-periled the historical legitimacy of the Catholic Church, anda generation of powerful popes, such as Paul II and his

successor, Sixtus IV, made classical antiquity a key area ofresearch, historical religious art acquired the task of shed-

ding new light on the past.3

Writing from the vantage pointof the Counter-Reformation work of devotion, Peter Paul

Rubens pointed to the efforts of Antonio Bossio to conveyhow the catacombs demonstrated the ungainly and substan-dard qualities that characterized Early Christian art in the

views of many ecclesiastical patrons and theorists.4 An artistwith exceptional scholarly and antiquarian insight, Rubenssuggested that he could not defend the visual worthiness ofEarly Christian images against the grace and excellence of

classical antiquity in Bossios illustrated folio Roma sotterranea

(1636). Taking Rubenss conclusion one step further, it wasleft to the early modern artist to reconcile the devotional

power of Early Christian art with its visual crudity in thecreation of sacred images. This reconciliation was especiallyurgent given the new status of visual evidence as the preem-inent historical source for the study of early Christianity.

Scholars generally regard the work of Zuccari as an essen-tially controlled expression of the classicizing aesthetics ofearly modernity, rather than as the achievement of an inde-pendent artist whose intellectual appetite did not need the

stimulation of continuous contact with classical antiquity.5

Not surprisingly, art historians have located Zuccari withinthe classicist framework expounded by Giovan Pietro Bellori,

the distinguished scholar, connoisseur, and theorist who set

himself the task of uncovering the errors of ancient scholar-ship with a view to elaborating his conception of beauty asassociated with ideas, or modes of knowledge.6 Bellori pro-

pounded classicism as an approach to form and an aesthetictheory of beauty that had a sustained counterpart in Counter-Reformation humanism. Prior to this, Giorgio Vasari hadinitiated an early modern discourse on religious painting in

accordance with notions of decorum and appropriateness,7

asserting that artists were to confine themselves to the imita-tion of the timeless values and perfect style of the ancients.8

Yet imitation in Vasarian terms did not square with the Re-naissance practice ofimitatio, keyed to the transmission andre-creation of an authoritative source.9 Even though the ad-

vent of print had driven a wedge between reproduction and

imitation, early modern theorists and theologians found itimpossible to conceive of art outside the parameters of Coun-ter-Reformation antiquarian culture. Central to the project ofthe Counter-Reformation was the confident highlighting of

the age and history of cultural artifacts, regardless of theirrelative artistic merit. Insisting like Vasari and Giovanni Bat-tista Armenini on the retrograde character of Early Christianart, Bellori simply dismissed the significant number of Greek

icons present in the west after the fall of Constantinople in1453.10 Bellori yielded in fact to the temptation of classicistaesthetics and restricted himself to laying stress on the mas-sive unearthing of Roman statues, especially those associated

with Italy, and their presentation as foundational in earlymodern art. He railed against the crudity of ancient artifacts

other than those of classical Greece and Rome, asserting theaesthetic qualities of classical antiquity as the driving forces of

early modern discourse.In contrast to his contemporaries, Zuccari, in his painting

The Encounter of Christ and Veronica, still in situ in Rome at theS. Prassede Basilica, openly affirmed icons and prints as

source material for the modern altarpiece. Zuccari employedthe profile portrait of Christ to recall a period of purerChristian art and rearticulate a different kind of ancientimage within a modern painting. He inflected his devotional


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message in terms of a self-conscious backward glance, depen-

dent on deliberate medievalisms that reinscribe earlier Chris-tian imagery into the edifice of the altarpiece. Zuccari tookpains to reconcile these ancient forms with cultic function,deriving his work securely from Early Christian sources while

at the same time engaging with urgent contemporary con-cern over true likeness in the realm of religious images.Zuccaris specific sources for Christs profile in the S.Prassede altarpiece were medallic portraits transmitting

Christs features as they had been preserved in other media

and a late medieval Italian woodcut recognized in the earlymodern age as an authoritative early modern source for thereplication of Christs image.

Zuccari thematized the relation of prototype to copy in

ways that directly responded to the long-standing concernover the authority of religious images in the decades follow-ing the Council of Trent. Johannes Molanus, the famoustheologian and iconographer of Louvain, had contended,

1 Federico Zuccari, The Encounter ofChrist and Veronica on the Way toCalvary, 1594, oil on panel. Basilica ofS. Prassede, Rome, Olgiati Chapel(artwork in the public domain;photograph provided bySoprintendenza Speciale per ilPatrimonio Storico, Artistico edEtnoantropologico e per il PoloMuseale della Citta di Roma)

424 A R T B U L L E T I N D E CE M B E R 2 0 1 1 V O L U M E X C I II N U M B E R 4


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following Thomas Aquinas, that veneration directed to areligious image was nothing other than idolatry if the image

did not offer an authentic representation of Christ and thesaints. Molanus offered guidance in his 1570 Treatise on SacredImages on how to represent Christ by accentuating the evi-dence of his true likeness recorded in proconsul Lentuluss

letter to the Roman Senate and in a bronze portrait describedby Patriarch Nikephoros Callistos in the last chapter of his

Historia.

11

Nikephoros, writing in the ninth century, had saidthat icons produced in his own day were not invented but

were true depictions of Christ, invested with the authority ofage, contiguous with antiquity and the proclamation of theGospels.12 His observations provided the model and spur for

a definition of the icon as artifact, built on his claim of thedirect relation between icon and archetype. As Charles Bar-ber pointed out, the key terms introduced by Patriarch Ni-kephoros in the formalist discourse of Byzantine art allowed

for the understanding of the icon as a representation formedin the likeness of an archetype.13

Remarkably, Zuccari managed to reconcile this cultic ar-gument with his adaptation of religious concerns to fit a

narrative drama, building on the impetus for the reform of

the altarpiece given by Michelangelo, Raphael, and LorenzoLotto. Zuccari visualized these points inThe Encounter of Christand Veronica,a scene portraying the dramatic moment when

Veronica extends to Christ her famous cloth. Veronica kneelsin front of Christ while Simon of Cyrene lifts the cross fromhis shoulders, presenting the veil in a narrative frameworkseldom explored in the frontal, centering treatment of other

altar paintings that include the relic. This assimilation of theveil to a narrative had been instead the realm of prints andantiquarian culture, at a remove from the altarpiece projectof presenting the true likeness of Christ derived from a

tradition of acheiropoietic images. A telling example likelyfamiliar to Zuccari was The Altar of Saint Veronica made be-tween 1524 and 1527 by Ugo da Carpi for Old St. Peters

Basilica. Like the famous, albeit much contrasting, drawingby Parmigianino at the Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, thealtarpiece shows Carpis effort to present a portrait of Christthat would imitate Romes vera icon, the sudariumof Veron-ica.14 A family of a few portraits of Christ professing to havedescended from the veil of Veronica, a cloth that had beenpressed against Christs bloody face, pretended to be the

sudarium or the double of the Byzantine Mandylion. The

original Mandylion represented the most prestigious achei-ropoietic portrait of Christ, having come to Constantinoplefrom Edessa in the tenth century; it resurfaced in two versionssimultaneously in Rome and Paris after the fall of Constanti-

nople in 1204. A third portrait said to be the true Mandylionappeared in Genoa in the fourteenth century, where it is still

venerated in the church of S. Bartolomeo degli Armeni.15

In the late sixteenth century, El Greco responded to the

emphasis on the acheiropoietic dimension of Christs facewith images of the living appearance of Christ on Veronicasveil. There are several versions, one for the high altar ofSanto Domingo el Antiguo in Toledo and others with Veron-

ica holding the cloth (Fig. 2). El Greco was heir to a traditionthat would continue into the seventeenth century and be-

yond in the work of Francisco de Zurbaran and numerousother Spanish artists. Zurbaran, in his frequent repetitions of

the theme, appropriated the conventions of trompe loeil toimpart a convincing sense of the real presence of Christ,materialized before our eyes like the face miraculously im-

printed on Veronicas cloth (Fig. 3).16 The painters archaismexpresses itself in an imitation of the acheiropoietic portrait,reproducing in paint features of the original Mandylion.

Zurbaran and El Greco secured the authority of their copiesby referring back to the substitutional logic of the most

venerated ancient prototype, the true likeness of Christ in theMandylion. By contrast, Zuccari reminded his viewer that the

veil is the bearer of a story that precedes the relic veneratedin a reliquary at St. Peters, Rome. Late sixteenth- and seven-teenth-century painters did not share his treatment of the

vera icon, nor did it have an established tradition in Renais-

sance altar painting. But, like his contemporaries, Zuccaritook pains to make explicit claims about the origins of hispainting. His image belongs to the time in which it was madeand at the same time to its restaged context, thus narrating its

own production history without pushing it into the realm ofimitation and emulation. Zuccaris motif had enjoyed its

greatest popularity in the late Middle Ages, when Veronicawas a character in Passion plays. Her role spoke to a ground-

swell of popular devotion and a hunger for narrative detail.Zuccaris dramatic and narrative solutions responded directlyto this late medieval sensibility and its attendant embellish-ment of textual evidence in religious imagery. Jacobus de

VoraginesThe Golden Legendprovided the source for Zucca-ris pictorial representation of Veronicas entry on the sceneto offer Christ a cloth to wipe the sweat and blood from hisface. In Zuccaris hands, medieval imagery acquired a re-

2 El Greco, Saint Veronica with the Sudarium, ca. 157778, oilon canvas, 3318 3578 in. (84 91 cm). Museo de SantaCruz, Toledo (artwork in the public domain; photograph byErich Lessing, provided by Art Resource, NY)

Z U C C A R I S E N C O U N T E R O F C H R I S T A N D V E R O N I C A O F 1 5 9 4 425


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newed efficacy in the creation of compelling modern narra-tives.17

Modern Altarpieces Need the PrintIn the S. Prassede altarpiece, Zuccari centered the narrativeaction around a beautiful image of Christ in profile, bearingthe cross. The result bears witness to the survival of Zuccarisartistic influences: medieval portraits of Christ that circulated

during the Renaissance as engravings and woodcuts. SixtenRingbom recognized a half-length northern Italian woodcutof Christ carrying the cross from the late fifteenth century as

a model without precedent north of the Alps, one that wouldevolve into a major source for Italian Renaissance painting(Fig. 4).18 It seems to have originated in Milan, where itsinventor, undoubtedly prompted by new developments in the

iconography of the Ecce Homo and Salvator Mundi subjects,created an original formula of a bust-length Christ in regal

attire carrying the cross. The Milanese woodcut shows Christin profile view, emphasizing his meditative stance in stark

contrast to the cruelty of the narrative. In The Encounter of Christ and Veronica,Zuccari also portrays Christ in profile, butat a different moment in the carrying of the cross. Zuccarisdramatic depiction reframes for narrative purposes the mys-

tical features of Christs face in keeping with the proportionsand physiognomy of the woodcut. It represents a convincingattempt to appropriate Christs image, as captured by the

woodcut, for a rival undertaking that will forcefully assert

Christs character and individuality. The altarpiece is its ownpredecessor and simultaneously its referential context, suchthat the woodcut is no longer prior but present. The woodcut

remains the documentary image to which Zuccari learnedlysubmitted his painting, thus inscribing it within a substitu-tional logic that squared his profile Christ with the renownedmodels of Renaissance antiquarianism.

Accompanying the rise of humanism, an exacting antiquar-

ian preoccupation with true likeness evolved in close kinshipwith the urgent concern over authoritative religious images.Antiquarian discussions of the authenticity of the referredlikeness aggravated worries about the dating of objects, and

specifically about the authenticity of Byzantine imports. Inthis context, the evidentiary status of Christ medals in bronzeallowed them to function as a documentary source for themodern religious image.19 Emerging both from the reen-gagement with the Byzantine icon and the archaeological

revival of antiquity, the bronze Christ medals derived theirexpressive power from the true likeness of ancient statues

and inscriptions on coins.For an antiquarian such as Enea Vico, the authoritative

status of Christs medallic portraits derived from a prototypelikeness of Christ in the form of a Roman statue; in the same

way, he argued, the portraits of kings and emperors onancient coins were copies of their own freestanding statues.20

In hisDiscorsi sopra le medaglie degli antichi(1555), the notion

that the medallist works after the sculptor lay at the core of

3 Francisco de Zu rbaran, The Veil of Saint Veronica, ca. 1635,oil on canvas, 2712 2018 in. (69.9 51.1 cm). NationalMuseum, Stockholm (artwork in the public domain; photographprovided by Art Resource, NY)

4 Christ Carrying the Cross, end of the 15th century, woodcut.Colnaghis, London (artwork in the public domain; photographreproduced with permission of P&D Colnaghi Ltd., London)



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Vicos central numismatic argument, namely, that the origi-nal coin is a form of evidence that comes in multiples.21Vico

fashioned a creative illustration of his thesis in a woodcutprofile portrait of Christ (Fig. 5), placed in an inner roundelthat alluded to the front face of a medal and revealed theimages borrowings from a series of renowned Roman stat-

ues, including the profile view in Michelangelos Risen Christat S. Maria sopra Minerva. That Vicos profile portrait of

Christ is not an adaptation or a translation is stressed througha comparison with Hans Burgkmairs analogous woodcut of

1510 that replicates the true likeness of Christ transferredfrom a medallic documentary image. Burgkmairs profileChrist derives its persuasive power from a bronze medal

Profile of Christby Matteo de Pasti (144050) and the descrip-

tion of Christ in the proconsul Lentuluss letter.22 Vico andBurgkmair are therefore to be numbered among the realantiquarians who were also artists, rather than among the

men of letters and interpreters of antiquity of the emergingCounter-Reformation age.

To an early modern artist like Zuccari, the ability of imagesof Christ to capture a true likeness derived from the princi-

ples of authenticity and inimitability inherent in the Byzan-

tine icon, whose production history was equivalent to that ofthe woodcut.23 Zuccari was familiar with Byzantine icons inhis native Urbino and through the Venetian collections he

was exposed to during his apprenticeship. The official displayof sacred images in the post-Tridentine decades reworked theisolated viewing of the icon. The Counter-Reformationchurch put its most sacred images and relics on public view,

blurring the boundaries between devotion and display duringthe exhibition of thesudariumat the 1575 Roman Jubilee andthe 1578 ostentation of the Shroud of Turin.24 This emphasison the institutional display of the sacred marked the restruc-

turing of an earlier attitude toward icons, when their collec-tion and exhibition was the prerogative of the private collec-tor and donor. The famous collection of Byzantine icons

inherited by Lorenzo de Medici from Pope Paul II served asthe primary source for the expressive systems of Renaissancedramatic paintings.25 Such collections furnished an effectivebackdrop for Zuccaris rearticulation of the medieval image

in the modern altarpiece. The icon, collected with the anti-quarian and philological zeal of Renaissance humanism, pro-

vided a new basis for the authority of the art of painting.These antiquarian interests did not accept the classicist schol-

ars view that icons lacked artistic value, and as scholars likeVico gave visual expression to their antiquarian fascination,they also drew attention to something beyond the age andhistory of the ancient artifacts: their value as potential objects

of artistic imitation.Like icons, woodcuts constituted a source of authenticity in

the early modern age. Christopher Wood has stressed thesignificance of the woodcut as a means of transferring mean-

ing from work to work and of effecting an assimilation ofvarious kinds of images to a single form.26 The referentialrelation of the woodcut to other images made possible anextension of the sacred original, amplifying its miraculous

powers and visual qualities as well as the substitutional func-tion that the woodcut originally filled. In the context of latemedieval piety, woodcuts were primarily efficacious instru-

ments of prayer, reflecting an acknowledgment of the

printed image as a worthy substitute for the saints presenceand power.27 In this regard, the woodcut served as a focus of

devotion and as a reference to a sacred time and place thatwaited to be rekindled in both a present guise and in themodel, or prototype, situated in the future.

In The Encounter of Christ and Veronica, Zuccari integrated

reflections of the woodcut into the painted altarpiece, rein-scribing the image of Christ as an object of modern contem-plation. This reinstantiation of the woodcut forms the repre-sentational core around which Zuccari constructed his

narrative. His ability to create, with the aid of the woodcut, abeautiful Christ that focuses devotional attention within anarrative context is his greatest achievement with this altar-piece.

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Zuccari was not anadept of the Counter-Reformation theory of imitation based

on the idea of style and decorum, or appropriateness topurpose, but rather an advocate of the continuum between

Renaissance and medieval values and the memory of hisbrother, Taddeo Zuccari, whose erudite combination of tra-dition and art had a significant influence on Annibale Car-racci, Caravaggio, and many Roman painters even after his

untimely death in 1566.28 In Zuccaris Lament of Painting, asshown in Cornelis Corts 1579 print (Fig. 6), disegno and

intelligenzaare not presented as the inspirational and innova-

tive concepts on which an image type would be invented.

5 Enea Vico, Jesus Christ, ca. 1548, engraving, 738 512 in.(18.8 13.9 cm) (artwork in the public domain)



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Zuccari instead identified painting with a nude figure seenfrom the back, the personification of vera intelligenza as anaspect of execution and the gooddisegnothat painters attain

in the art-making process itself. The allegorical representa-tion as an evocative means of expressing original and witty

ideas was a commonplace of the Renaissance print. It subse-quently allowed for efforts to formulate a compelling state-

ment of the artists status in the Counter-Reformations cli-mate of upheaval and uncertainty, as Tristan Weddigenobserved.29 In 1572 Cort engraved Zuccaris Calumny of Apelles, in which Zuccari formed an analogy between theclassical account of Apelles calumny and the unfavorablestatus of the artist in an image of pointed allusions to injusticeand misunderstanding as the forces hostile to creativity. Zuc-

cari revealed a marked sensitivity to Renaissance printmak-

ing, especially to Andrea Mantegnas convincing plea in sup-port of Apelles moral point in hisCalumny of Apellesof 1505.The revisions that Mantegna brought to Lucians ekphrasis

were meant to stress the genuine defense of art embodied inthe allegory of his drawing.30 It was this real sense of allegor-

ical representation as a feature of the Renaissance print thatwas reinforced in theLament of Painting. Zuccari evolved his

own apologia for the moral duty of painting, situated withinlate sixteenth-century concerns over imitation and reproduc-tion.

It was not until 1607 that Zuccari gave his well-known

definition of disegno interno in his Lidea de pittori, scultori et

architetti, published in Turin. Inemie Gerards-Nelissen hasaptly drawn attention to a number of art historians who, onthe basis of an unsubstantiated relation with his Idea, have

6 Cornelis Cort after Zuccari, Lamentof Painting,1579, engraving, upperplate 1414 2118 in. (36.2 53.7

cm), lower plate 145

8 21 in. (37.3 53.4 cm). Kupferstichkabinett,Staatliche Museen, Berlin (artwork inthe public domain; photograph byJoerg P. Anders, provided by BildarchivPreussischer Kulturbesitz/Art Resource,NY)



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misinterpreted ZuccarisLament of Paintingas an apologia forimitation.31 In Zuccaris Lament, the smaller painting in the

upper zone shows Faith holding a cross and halting Fortuneat the head of her monstrous train. Here Zuccari maintains aRenaissance tradition according to which Faith is closelyassociated with Justice. This was not the only occasion when

Zuccari made a convincing plea for Faith and Justice as theart of paintings closest allies. The drawings illustrating the

life of his brother Taddeo, the Porta virtutisof 1581 (whichinvolved him in a libel action), and the Allegory of the LiberalArts all established an unequivocal bond between art and

virtue.32 The desire for virt u also reflected an interest in along-standing intellectual and academic tradition meant to

raise the status of the visual arts, one that prompted theCarracci Academy to open under the name Accademia degliDesiderosi, alluding to a desire for virt u, only later changedin the 1590s to the Accademia degli Incamminati, or those

who had embarked on their studies as academy members.33

The acknowledgment that art belongs to a category differ-ent from imitation divided reformers, or adherents of Renais-sance values like the Carracci, from advocates of the new

principles of Counter-Reformation humanism. A model of

imitation involving stylistic invention was striving for recog-nition, and it soon came to a head in the dispute betweenDomenichino and Giovanni Lanfranco. Domenichinos LastCommunion of Saint Jerome, completed in 1614 for the highaltar of S. Girolamo della Carita in Rome (Fig. 7), was osten-sibly a reinvention, on the level of style, of the contrastingrendition of the same pictorial subject by Agostino Carracci

from 1592 (Fig. 8).34When Lanfranco launched his attack onDomenichino, he objected to this invention as an act ofplagiarism and a deliberate downgrading of the status of

AgostinosCommunion.Richard Spears observation that Lan-

franco did not see points of convergence between paintingand the theory of imitation offers a framework for under-standing Lanfrancos irritation at Domenichinos invenzi-

one.35

Lanfranco encouraged recognition of Agostinos Com-munion as opera prima, or prototype, through FrancoisPerriers etching based on a drawing made by Lanfrancohimself (Fig. 9).36 Lanfranco had grounds for his grievance

because the Communion of Saint Jerome had no establishedpictorial tradition before Agostino Carracci. Indeed, Renais-sance painters avoided it as a problematic subject in the wakeof Desiderius Erasmuss criticism of the content of two spu-

rious letters perpetuating a legendary story that would berelayed in the two paintings. Ecclesiastical intervention man-aged to reaffirm the written source, as is made clear by theHieronymite Fray Miguel Salinas in 1563 and Jose de

Siguenza, the librarian of El Escorial, in 1595.37

Lanfranco perceived DomenichinosLast Communionto be

disengaged from a substitutional conception of the imagesplace in time and in relation to a prior work. His complaint

echoed the early sixteenth-century mistrust of images thattended to wander from their prototypes or simply disre-garded the referential power of artifacts. Yet Lanfranco wasless, if at all, interested in canonizing AgostinosCommunionthan in pointing out Domenichinos lack of a link back to aprototype that would make the contemporary image secure.The observation that Domenichinos mechanism of imitationamounted to theft reveals Lanfrancos fury over a mere re-

flexive context or an artifact too obviously grounded in thecontemporary interest in stylistic invention.

The perception that AgostinosCommunionearned a refer-ential status among early modern artifacts was grasped byLanfranco within the framework of printmaking. Lanfrancosdrawing after Agostino for Perriers etching rested on a novel

understanding of the print as the peculiar domain for theartists choice of models and personal evolution in light of

the seminal relationship between Marcantonio Raimondiand Raphael, which brought about a turning point in the

thematics of transmissions in print technology.38 Attemptslike Lanfrancos to develop as a designer of engravings wereespecially suited to the maintenance of Renaissance values

after the Council of Trent, when these receded in the wake ofpatrons demands and a consumerist approach to printmak-ing that even Vasari would deplore.39 Lanfranco cultivatedthe perception of printmaking as Raphaels particular do-

main in a suite of etchings after Raphaels VaticanLoggethathe made with Sisto Badalocchio in 1607.40 He dedicated theetchings to Annibale Carracci in order to underscore oncemore that Raphael was the driving force behind his under-

standing of the relation of painter and engraver, an under-

standing that could not but expose the divergence betweenLanfranco and Domenichino.41 In his dispute with Dome-nichino regarding the Last Communion of Saint Jerome, Lan-

franco articulated his defense of Agostinos original in termsof the relation between painter and engraver, and he saw in

Agostinos Last Communion an authoritative source of(printed) replication.

Zuccari understood the cost of sacrificing free expressionto the reinstantiation of prototypes. He aimed for a reflective,self-conscious rearticulation of late medieval imagery withinhis altarpieces and a dramatization of religious images that

would carefully explore the narrative potential of the author-itative prototype. Zuccaris task was complicated in a latesixteenth-century context where different temporal models

of the image were coming into conflict, nowhere more clearlythan in the realm of religious images. We have seen howDomenichino launched one powerful model in proposingthe replacement of Agostinos image with his own. Lanfrancorailed against the work that reinvented rather than repeated

the prior work, for repetition staged difference for him andimposed a challenge to the artistic mind. While Lanfrancopropounded an artistic process aligned with the Renaissance,Domenichino became absorbed with the execution of Coun-

ter-Reformation paintings connected to the rise of new ico-nography. Domenichinos Last Communion receded into anambiguous status, dubious as reliable evidence for the print-ing process and outside a chain of authoritative substitutions

in painting just at the time when truth, not fiction, was most

needed for the success of the Counter-Reformation.Zuccari anticipated Lanfrancos defense of print technol-

ogy implicit in his attack on Domenichinos Last Communionand at the same time assessed the merits of prints as a foil forthe new direction in religious painting. Zuccaris work wastied not so much to the expression of an artistic personality

which lay at the heart of the dispute between Lanfranco and

Domenichinoas to the need to juggle the very real de-mands and expectations of his age. He had inherited theconcerns about referentiality and authenticity peculiar to the



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Renaissance, and he refused to generate fictions from thetradition. Zuccaris S. Prassede altarpiece is distinguished byits profile portrait of Christ derived from the authoritativeprototypes of both the medallic portraits and statues of Christ

replicated by printmakers and numismatists such as Vico. Hispainting reimagines the living Christ on which the profileportrait had been based and also honors the portraits claimto antiquity as established by his Renaissance predecessors.

Experiments in Renaissance printmaking exerted a tre-mendous influence on Zuccari in The Encounter of Christ and

Veronica.The establishment of Christ as the center of devo-tional attention had broken entirely new ground in engrav-

ings of the Carrying of the Cross, pointing the way to anarrative emphasis on Christ himself rather than on actionrotating around him. Albrecht Durer provided an importantprecedent in The Little Passion (Fig. 10), in which he high-

7 Domenichino, Last Communion ofSaint Jerome, 1614, oil on canvas, 13 ft.9 in. 8 ft. 434 in. (4.19 2.56 m).Vatican Museums, Vatican City(artwork in the public domain;photograph provided by Scala/ArtResource, NY)



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lighted Christ and his encounter with Veronica to a higher

dramatic extent than he had in The Great Passion(Fig. 11).Hendrick Goltzius evocatively rendered Christ as the protag-onist of the carrying of the cross in an engraving that singlesout Christ as the concluding element of the narrative (Fig.

12). Christ bearing the cross here halts all action, establishing

a point beyond which human activity no longer appearsplausible. Zuccari and the Carracci brothers would have

known Goltziuss creative power from the latters extendedtrip to Italy. This gave the Netherlandish artist an opportunityto exchange prints and to impress the Carracci Academy withhis talent and elaborate technique.42

8 Agostino Carracci, Last Communionof Saint Jerome, 1592, oil on canvas,12 ft. 378 7 ft. 414 in. (3.76 2.24 cm). Pinacoteca Nazionale,Bologna (artwork in the public

domain; photograph provided byScala/Art Resource, NY)



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Renaissance Antecedents versus the Rise of LegalisticReligious Imagery

In The Encounter of Christ and Veronica, Zuccaris focus onChrist recalls Durers and Goltziuss stress onfigura,or Gods

presence, in a narrative context. Erich Auerbach has calledattention to the transferences of meaning reflected byfigurain a series of typological associations in late antique andclassical exegesis, with profound implications for the histor-

ical reality and consistency offiguraas opposed to the figuraof the rhetoricians.43 Thefiguradisrupts the flow of discoursein that it belongs to a narrative sequence subordinated to anultimate truth that is enacting the model or prototype situ-

ated in the future. Auerbach also noted that the Greek ety-mology offiguracontained the idea of molding or impressing

a form.44

Figurahad direct implications for the ninth-centurydiscourse on the icon as artifact. Theodore of Studios used

figuraand icon interchangeably to contribute to the construc-tion of a strongly formalist account of Byzantine art.45 Con-demning as outdated and obsolete all forms of representa-tion that would associate the icon with the sign or symbol, this

formalist discourse sought to establish the figuraas the essen-tial model of the Christian image.

The argument that the Christian icon directly descends

from an archetype had particular relevance for the post-

Tridentine desire to assert the contemporary authority of

many religious images. In terms of artistic practice, the callfor consistency between icon and archetype was sustained bya notional model of production for which the artifact was a

substitute for the original. Zuccari submitted his altarpiece toone such act of legitimate substitution, just as his Renaissancepredecessors had done when they cast their artifacts in themold of late medieval images. Ringbom recognized variationsof the Milanese woodcut in many Venetian formulations of

the solitary Christ, as well as in other figural narratives of theItalian Renaissance.46 These experiments sprang from a fas-cination with the half-length format of the Byzantine icon,

here adapted for the intimacy of the dramatic close-up view.A number of fifteenth-century Netherlandish and Venetianpaintings explored the affective interactions of characters

viewed from close up, making a significant contribution to

the early history of portraiture that also had ramifications forthe medium of sculpture. Donatellos images of the Madonna

and Child combined the half-length format of Byzantineicons with medallic profile portraits. The historical citations

in DonatellosMadonna dei Pazzi(Fig. 13), Madonna Chellini,andMadonna Goretti Miniatiderive from an understanding of

figura as a means of dislocating time through replication.Reworking the icon in the medium of sculpture, Donatello

gave to his works the same power as an authoritative portraitof Christ. Jeanette Kohls observation that Donatellos bustsreveal an identity between the portrait and the portrayed thatdisrupts the particular character of portraiture assumes a full

9 Francois Perrier after Agostino Carracci, The Last Communionof Saint Jerome, etching, 1518 1114 in. (38.5 28.5 cm). TheMetropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Harris Brisbane DickFund, 1926 (artwork in the public domain; photograph TheMetropolitan Museum of Art, provided by Art Resource, NY)

10 Albrecht Durer, Christ Carrying the Cross(The Little Passion),1509, woodcut, 5 378 in. (12.7 9.7 cm) (artwork in thepublic domain)



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interrelation between the art of Donatello and forces under-lying the immutable beauty offigura.47

In adapting the profile portrait to the dramatic encounterbetween Christ and Veronica, Zuccari provided a creative

synthesis of Renaissance tradition with the early modernrevival of late medieval devotional practice. The early mod-ern age encouraged portrayals of Christ carrying the cross,along with the deliberate medievalisms that would shape

Zuccaris approach. The power and integrity of medievalreligious imagery dovetailed with Renaissance efforts to inte-grate icons and relics into the representation of Christ. In thesixteenth century, reinstantiation of medieval images took

the form of a dramatization of the Christian icon. Zuccarisdetermination to strengthen the narrative element of his

altarpiece responded directly to the discourse on the benefitsof Christs death for the internal reform of the individual. In

the post-Tridentine decades, this attitude specifically re-sumed the late medieval insistence on Imitatio Christiand theaccompanying adaptation of the icon.48

Zuccari must have gained access to the importantChristCarrying the Cross by Filippo Mazzola in Parma (Fig. 14),

where he was led both by his vivid interest in Correggio andthe urging of the Carracci.49 Mazzolas 1504 painting relies

on the northern Italian tradition of devozione privata that

drove the altarpieces of Antonello da Messina, GiovanniBellini, and Giorgione. The hold this more personal inter-

pretation of Christian spirituality exerted on these mastersresulted in the central position of Christs image in Renais-sance painting. In Parma, the northern configurations ofprivate devotion were heightened by the local embrace of

Erasmuss Enchiridion militis christiani, which proposed thenew ideals of the philosophia Christi.50 The Erasmian unity of

eruditio and pietaswas predicated on a Christian humanismconcerned with recovering both spiritual and intellectual

resources. In Parma such ideas were singled out for specialcomment in the reform-minded quarters that practicedpietas

interiorizzata(inward religiosity), insisting on faith in the ben-efits of Christs Crucifixion and on a deeper Christian spiri-

tuality than institutional practices could offer.51 Mazzola be-longed to a Parmesan family of respected artists who werepractitioners of thispietas interiorizzata.52

MazzolasChrist Carrying the Crossderives from this Parme-

san circle and its interest in establishing the true likeness ofChrist. The painting echoes unmistakably the Milanese wood-cut in its careful graphic expression and distribution of tonaleffects. The graphic quality of the panel refers back to the

11 Durer, Christ Carrying the Cross(The Great Passion),ca. 149899, woodcut, 1538 1118 in. (39.2 28.2 cm)(artwork in the public domain)

12 Hendrick Goltzius,The Bearing of the Cross, engraving,734 518 in. (19.7 13 cm) (artwork in the public domain)



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most striking details of the Milanese woodcut, stressing theroughness of the wooden cross while submitting Christslikeness as depicted in the woodcut to narrative development.Mazzola emphasized the meditative quality of the image by

orienting Christ frontally and showing the haunted expres-sion of his eyes. The panel is replete with powerful descriptivedetails such as Christs arched eyebrows and the contrast of

his pallor with his locks of dark hair. Christs regal attirerecalls northern renditions of the subject, as does Mazzolasexperimental emulation in tempera of the Netherlandish oiltechnique and the effects of light, color, and texture it couldachieve. The artist would have known the many Netherland-

ish images in collections around the city of Parma.53 WhileMazzola had an interest in these paintings visual effects, heprimarily strove to capture not the realism associated with

Netherlandish art but its emotional impact through dramaticgestures.

The spiritual ethos embodied in the Imitatio Christitook itsmost compelling form with Lorenzo Lotto, whose reform-

minded character stands out as particularly significant amonghis Italian contemporaries. His Christ Carrying the Cross(Fig.

15) uses the painters brush to emulate the subtleties of ahand-colored early sixteenth-century Lombard woodcut (Fig.

16).54 Lotto translated into the format of the altarpiece thewoodcuts compelling plea that believers embrace the crossin their own Imitatio Christi. Lottos usage of sfumato in thetormented expression of Christ and of metallic effects in the

crown and armor recalls the refinements of the Lombardwoodcut. Drawing on a printed image, Lotto was able tohighlight the most significant elements of the biblical narra-tive of the carrying of the cross.

Openness to painted and print media was integral to Lot-

tos ability to visualize textual sources. The letters in hisaccount book demonstrate the quintessential union betweenLottos paintings and the Italian reform movement. Thismovement was particularly prominent in northern Italy,

where Lotto lived most of his life and where adherence tosolafides, or faith alone in the power of the crucified Christ,registered its greatest popularity. As Adriano Prosperi hasrecognized, the spirituality of northern Italy was a beacon for

both reformers and artists seeking a more personal relation-ship with Christ in a time of historical and confessional

crisis.55

Lottos paintings clearly reveal his profound involve-ment with the Imitation of Christ,as expounded in Pietro da

LuccasDello imitar di Christo, which Lotto owned.56

In the post-Tridentine decades, the Roman CatholicChurchs official promulgation of doctrinal legitimacy dis-couraged this view of faith as the personal experience and

inner conviction of the benefits of Christs Crucifixion. Itsurvived, however, in the secret activity of the Italianspirituali,

who were both products of the Renaissance and agents of

religious reform in close kinship with the theology of the

13 Donatello, Madonna dei Pazzi, ca. 1420, marble, 2938 2738 in. (74.5 69.5 cm). Staatliche Museen, Berlin(artwork in the public domain; photograph by Joerg P.Anders, provided by Bildarc hiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz/Art Resource , NY)

14 Filippo Mazzola, Christ Carrying the Cross, 1504, tempera onpanel, 1238 858 in. (31.5 21.9 cm). Galleria Nazionale,Parma, inv. no. 1090 (artwork in the public domain;photograph by permission of the Ministero per i Beni el le

Attivita CulturaliGalleria Nazionale di Parma)



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Protestant north.57 The late sixteenth and early seventeenthcenturies saw dramatic changes in the concern over devo-tional continuity with the Early Christian period that had

prompted Michelangelos own attempted reform of art.58

Michelangelo had proposed simply taking religious imagesback to their forma antiquain ways that did not comply withthe Counter-Reformations legalistic affirmation of the con-

tinuity of tradition, expressed in the adherence to moral lawrather than to personal religious faith. In the context of theOratorian-led interest in the archaeological remains of theearly Apostolic church, intended to demonstrate the conti-

nuity with its apostolic origins that the Roman Church hadalways professed, a new sense of continuity as evidence of thelegitimacy of the Roman Church superseded the Renaissanceconcern with reconstructing venerable image traditions.

The investigations of painters and ecclesiastical theoristsserved as the corollary to the post-Tridentine Greek cam-paign of church reform. Pope Clement VIIIs interest in theGreek Orthodox Church and Byzantine liturgy was an exten-

sion of his broader commitment to the reform of the RomanChurch, with the assistance of Saint Philip Neri and Cardinals

Cesare Baronio, Robert Bellarmine, and Silvio Antoniano.59

Their efforts constituted the sobering conclusion of earlierattempts at ecclesiastical reform, after the Council of Trenthad prohibited actual fusion of the Roman and Byzantinerites. The publication in 1568 of the revised Breviarum roma-num, the traditional prayer book for the divine office, ac-quired institutional force in 1588 when Pope Sixtus V estab-lished the Sacred Congregation of Rites and Ceremonies in hisattempt to bring local practices into alignment with Roman

authority as part of the reform of the Roman Curia.60

The post-Tridentine reform of the Roman rites and thenew sacred history were of immediate relevance to artisticcommissions. Emblematic images of the religious order re-

quired considerable attention to the history of their subjectmatter, artfully pegged to the principles of clarity and legiblecontent. The powerful assertion of venerable traditions wasnecessary to justify this orders power. The churchs sense ofits own antiquity expressed itself in a dependence on, and

fascination with, prototypes. One of these from Byzantine art,the saintly character placed in the center of the religiousimage, often with a frontal orientation, became a primefeature of post-Tridentine painting. Many ecclesiastical trea-

tises enthusiastically promoted the antiquity of frontally ori-ented images. Cardinal Carlo Borromeo played a significantrole in formulating the decrees of the Council of Trent, andin his influentialInstructiones fabricae et supellectilis ecclesiasticaelibri duo, completed in 1577, he presented the dignity of

religious painting as integral to church reform.61

CardinalBorromeo was not isolated in his efforts to project a post-

Tridentine prospect back onto Early Christian images. TheDominican theologian Giovanni Andrea Gilio, who con-cerned himself with the recovery of venerable image tradi-tions, defended the old cult of images and prized in partic-

ular their frontality, what he called their prosopopeea, in his1564 Degli errori de pittori circa lhistorie.62

Zuccari participated in the Greek campaign of the reform-ers through altarpieces that self-consciously maintained an-

16 Christ Carrying the Cross, Lombard, 151025, hand-coloredwoodcut, sheet 2014 1638 in. (51.5 41.5 cm). NationalGallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Pepita Milmore MemorialFund, 1984 (artwork in the public domain; photographprovided by National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.)

15 Lorenzo Lotto, Christ Carrying the Cross, 1526, oil on canvas,26 2358 in. (66 60 cm). Musee du Louvre, Paris (artworkin the public domain; photograph by Thierry Le Mage, providedby Reunion des Musees Nationaux, Paris/Art Resource, NY)



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tique features, which he nonetheless reinscribed with thedramatic content of modern painting. His efforts convinc-ingly staged the recovery of ancient Roman art, working

within a substitutional field of cross-references between Re-

naissance engraving and the Byzantine icon. The substitu-tional effectiveness of the venerable traditions Zuccari recov-ered meant they could be both recognizably ancient andfunctional in a contemporary work. Zuccaris profile Christ at

S. Prassede transcends the specific moment of its creation,testifying to the enlistment of old images for the reinforce-ment of contemporary authority. By contrast, the Counter-Reformation interest in establishing historical continuity with

the Apostolic past implied a sequence of unique creations,where every object or event could be securely anchored in

linear time.The Roman Churchs campaign for historicist legitimacy

collided with the interests of painters such as Zuccari. Thealtarpieces that he created for the Basilica of San Lorenzo inEl Escorial led to a dispute with Jose de Siguenza, secretary toKing Philip II and a proponent of the new sacred history of

Hapsburg absolutism.63 After returning to Italy, Zuccarinonetheless resumed his engagement with Early Christianimages. In his 1594 Encounter of Christ and Veronica, figures

and landscape are organized around a vertical axis that fo-

cuses devotional and contemplative attention on the figure ofChrist. His image has its basis in a dramatization of the

frontal aspect of the icon while departing from the frontalportraits of saints espoused by Counter-Reformation art the-orists. This reworking of frontality within the altarpiece for-mat presented a rival model to the institutionally mandated

cult image. The result was a highly dramatic treatment of thefigure of Christ, with a profile view that reveals Zuccaris

devotion to Renaissance experiments in altar painting.Zuccari evocatively adapted the late medieval Milanese

woodcut to his S. Prassede altarpiece by giving the profileview a new motivation in a narrative moment, the bearing ofthe cross. Mantegna had reformed devotional images by turn-ing them into narratives, creating altarpieces that combine

the dramatic character of the Albertian istoriawith the in-wardness of devotional images.64 These qualities allowed thesacred narrative to function both as cult image and as altar-

piece. A popular narrative such as the Carrying of the Crosscirculated in miniatures, reliefs, and printsunderwent var-ious transformations, among them Mantegnas and Bellinisinscription of the Milanese woodcut into the Gospel ac-

count.65 Mantegna and Bellini repurposed the woodcut to

situate Christs true likeness within a complex narrative. Inthe post-Tridentine decades, Zuccari formed a modern link

with the same woodcut in an altarpiece that explored the

dramatic element of Christs portrait even as it acknowledgedcontemporary concerns about the stability of the icon innarrative contexts.

The memory of late medieval images was significant to the

practice of early modern artists and theorists. Zuccaris abilityto lay stress on a beautifully profiled Christ, and, at the sametime, perpetuating the character of medieval images, reflects

what reformists in the post-Tridentine decades termed the

beauty of holiness. Zuccari must have been cognizant of theretrospective of Francesco Bocchis 1592 treatise Opera di M.

Francesco Bocchi sopra limagine miracolosa della Santissima An-

nunziata di Firenze. Bocchi asserted that the head of Mary inthe late medieval Annunciation venerated at SS. Annunziatain Florence (Fig. 17) rivaled the Renaissance canon inbeauty.66 The Mary of the Annunziata, the central image of

the city and its most beautiful landmark, was ostensiblypainted by angels as the artist slept. The beauty of holinesscelebrated in the Annunziata remained a powerful elementin reform-minded circles after Trent, even when the demand

for decorous images ended the call for medieval revivals.67

The miraculous Virgin of the Annunciation, with its inher-ent allusions to the Incarnate Word, provoked an importantresponse at SS. Annunziata, where medieval image rituals

perpetuated the memory of the deceased. Marys mysteriousappearance was tied to a ritual of figural transformation, a

long-standing tradition at SS. Annunziata. The image of Marycrystallized archaic gestures and postures generated by natu-

ral human fear over the life after death, which promptedpeople to portray themselves through death masks, as if toapprehend the unavoidable awaiting them. A stable proto-type controlled subsequent replications, thus restricting the

range of difference carried out in future portrayals. AbyWarburg was the first to draw attention to the tradition ofex-votos as evidence of a central episode in the history ofresemblance.68Warburg also accepted that it was worth study-

17 Miraculous Image of the Santissima Annunziata,detail,Florentine, ca. 1340, fresco. Church of SS. Annunziata,Florence (artwork in the public domain; photograph providedby Scala/Art Resource, NY)



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ing rudimentary art like the waxwork in order to identify ahierarchy of values by which the perfection of Renaissance art

was attained. The tradition of ex-votos, or b oti, immenselypopular in the late sixteenth century, was particularly empha-sized at SS. Annunziata. The ex-votos were imprints of astill-living face, based on the age-old technique of the imago,

or mortuary effigy, a medieval practice meant to connect thedonor with God.69 It was, as Georges Didi-Huberman has

noted, a resemblance conceived as a sacrificial gift offered toGod in anticipation of the forthcoming life after death. By

performing this Imitatio Christi, believers hoped to defeattheir own death in the image of the resurrected Christ.70

Notwithstanding the crude and rudimentary character of the

waxworks, they deserve attention not only for the light theyshed on the history of Christianity but also as a repository ofmodels imitated in Renaissance painting.

The late sixteenth-century survival of the Imitatio Christiwas

predicated on an interest in truthful and inimitable repre-sentations that could reveal an original through a process ofreproduction and imitation. Implicit associations between

Imitatio Christiand the beauty of holiness, as exemplified by

the Virgin of SS. Annunziata, motivated engravers in their

engagement with historical art. Portraits such as Virgil Solissintaglio print of a profile Christ (Fig. 18) possessed thebeauty and holiness sought by Zuccari in his own profile

Christ at S. Prassede. Solis, one of the most prolific Germanprintmakers of the sixteenth century, celebrated inimitabilityas the single most influential quality of his engravings.71 Heno longer used the roundel format for his profile portrait of

Christ, as in Vicos and Burgkmairs portraits, which gave thisvisual evidence of the medals as details gleaned from thetextual source, nor did he appear interested in the medallicformats suggestion of authenticity. Solis illustrates a higher

degree of liberation and emancipation from the philologicaland archaeological ambitions of the print revealed in thepreservation mechanism of the original Christ by treating

concrete evidence as an act of creative intervention. Solisbelonged to those who divined the danger inherent in rep-lication: that it would make it difficult, even to the best-trained eye, to distinguish between the fabrication of visualevidence and an artists imitation of a worthy prototype. His

bold graphic reinterpretation of Christs physiognomy as itappeared in the medallic portraits seemed to him perfectlycompatible with his interest in authentic likeness. After all, hestill conformed to historical evidentiary standards with a clear

identifying label in the form of an inscription at the bottomof the image.

Vico may have admired creative engravers such as Solis,whereas he criticized the fabrication of historical evidence

apparent in prints with unfounded titles and inaccurate

dates.72

Vicos insistence on authenticity resulted in the ear-liest systematic treatment of art forgery, an interest he ex-

tended from numismatics to his own engraved designs afterancient and contemporary art.73 It was within the frameworkof this advanced concept of the historicity of the art ofengraving that Vicos series Portraits and Medals included a

profile Christ of a beauty and serenity that reanimated thelate medieval Christian image within the modern religiousengraving (Fig. 5). The engraved portraits and their fascina-

tion with prototypes may be said to carry on the claims to

authenticity of effigies, tombs, death masks, and epigraphicmonuments.74 They correlate the ancient understanding of

the icon with modern practices of replication, leading to theparticularly significant conclusion that their makers preoc-cupation with finding authentic images of Christ equaled thatof earlier ages. The extension of the referential authority of

cult images like the Virgin of SS. Annunziata into the printmedium reinscribed the medieval icon within individualizedcompositions, in a very different manner from the new sacrediconography of the post-Tridentine era. Vicos interest in

authentic representation led him to derive his replicatedChristian images from ancient portraits of Christ and thesaints. A numismatist, Vico corrected and supplemented tex-tual sources with the assistance of Roman and Greek coins.75

He inaugurated the study of a specific aspect of ancientnumismatics he called sacred imagery on the basis of his

conviction that the deities reproduced on coins bore a trueresemblance to Roman statues. Vico formed a link between

two types of replication, the discourse on engraving and thereproduction on coins, that would prove indispensable forthe truth claims of his printed portraits of ancient figures.

Vicos concern with veracity as the essential attribute of

sacred imagery sheds light on the late sixteenth-century con-cept of the beauty of holiness. For the ecclesiastical programof reform set in motion after Trent, the classical beauty ofGreco-Roman statues played an essential role in the effort to

18 Virgil Solis, Bust of Christ in Profile, ca. 1550s, engraving(artwork in the public domain)



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demonstrate continuities with the past.76 Luba Freedman hasunderscored how ecclesiastical patrons and theorists such as

Gabrielle Paleotti and Federico Borromeo demanded thatartists adhere to the classical beauty of pagan statues in thecreation of Christian paintings for the post-Tridentine canonof sacred art.77 By contrast, for Vico and like-minded engrav-

ers, the affecting power of classical beauty constituted a po-tent reminder of how tied up such an ideal had been to true

likeness in both the past and present tense. The beauty ofholiness attests, therefore, to the chasm between the stylistic

choices of clerics investing Counter-Reformation art withclassicist rhetoric for the sake of demonstrating historicalcontinuity and the pursuits of engravers preoccupied withtruthfulness of representation.

Vicos Jesus Christ is an authentic reworking of Christsimage that secures engraving as the essential link betweenancient past and modern artistic future. Christs replicatedfeatures affirm a new category of cult image that translates

Christs likeness into modern sacred imagery based on thereferential authority of the documentary image. The merit ofengraving was to reframe Christ icons and to reinscribe themin a process of reliable transmissions referring back to a true

effigy of Christ. The print discovered its vocation as a power-ful instrument of knowledge and at the same time as areliable extension of relics, sacred portraits, and miraculousimages.78 Engravers did not yield to the stylistic choices ofmany Counter-Reformation ecclesiastical figures and menof letters, instead pursuing the beauty of holiness as a markof veracity in a series of replications connecting back to the

most ancient images of Christ. Around these Renaissancereinscriptions of the icon as profile portrait, Zuccari con-structed his narrative of the bearing of the cross.

Architecture and the Creation of Zuccaris Early Modern

Altarpiece

Most of Zuccaris contemporaries looked to the past to pro-

vide them with an authorized canon of artistic models. Wehave seen how both Lanfranco and Domenichino made ref-erence back to theLast Communion of Saint Jeromeof AgostinoCarracci in distinctive ways. While Lanfranco made explicitthe substitutional character of his drawing after Agostinos

opera prima, Domenichino dismissed the latter in order toground his invention in the Counter-Reformations cultureof textual authority. Zuccaris interest in authoritative arche-types was reflected in his extraordinary engagement with

Renaissance architectural thought. In 1607 he published histreatiseLidea de pittori, scultori et architetti,in which he advisedthe architect to be both a painter, who must master disegnoinits double meaning of drawing and design, and a sculptor,

who designs bodies and forms in ways that respond directly to

the rules of architecture and the classical orders.79

Zuccarisdescription of the inextricable bond between architecture,

sculpture, and painting would later serve as an inspiration forDiego Velazquez, who deliberately sought to claim the powerand prestige of architecture for painting. The concept of thepainter-architect would also help Rubens to become one of

the most outstanding artistic personalities of his age and themost distinguished disseminator of Italian Renaissance formsin the Low Countries.80

Zuccari explicitly patterned his notion of the artist-archi-

tect on Michelangelo, thereby parting company with theclassicizing aesthetics then in ascendancy. Zuccari main-

tained architectures union with the sister arts of sculptureand painting, endorsing personal creativity as expressed inindividualized compositions that established secure links tothe past. Cammy Brothers has stressed the singularity of

Michelangelos dependence in architecture on the figurativecharacter of his drawings.81 Michelangelos continual trans-

formation and refashioning of his ideas were bound up in therigorous study of formal syntax and the exercise of his deep

knowledge of antiquity. He elevated the antiquarian study ofarchitectural monuments to a fundamentally creative enter-prise by resisting the conventional canon of established mod-els.82

In his framing of Christs likeness within the narrative ofVeronicas veil, Zuccari acted in the manner of those medi-eval architects who made replicas of the Church of the Holy

Sepulchre in Jerusalem to reinstantiate this most prestigiousprototype.83 The architectural model of the Holy Sepulchreensured a fitting context for the Christian cult and, in thatsense, was aligned with Zuccaris pictorial efforts to inscribe

the true likeness of Christ into the narrative of its making.

Zuccaris solution arose from the intermingling of Italian andSpanish culture, on the one hand, and of an emergent clas-sicism with Gothic survivals, on the other.

Zuccaris Spanish sojourn of 1585 to 1588 at the invitationof Philip II to paint the high altarpiece in the Basilica of SanLorenzo at El Escorial, though unsuccessful, gave him re-newed assurance regarding the artist-architect theory he

would formalize in writing in 1607. Unlike in Italy, whereGothic architecture decreased in viability after the secondhalf of the fifteenth century, the construction of the cathe-drals of Seville (1506), Segovia (1526), and Salamanca (1510,

resumed in 1589) ensured the styles continued prestige inSpain throughout the sixteenth century and beyond.84 AsEarl Rosenthal recognized, the cathedral of Granada, de-

signed in 1528 by one of Spains greatest Italian-trainedarchitects, Diego de Siloe, was at once an image of the HolySepulchre and a Renaissance church that differed from me-dieval copies precisely in its painstaking recovery of the orig-

inal architectural plan of the Constantinian monument.85

The Siloe project combined a traditional nave with a rotundaderived from the Early Christian rotunda of the Anastasis.Siloe surpassed his medieval predecessors in basing his cathe-

dral not on the Anastasis alone but on the entire complex ofthe Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Siloe implicitly identifiedhis efforts with Renaissance archaeology by imitating theoriginal spatial disposition of the monument, unlike medi-

eval copies that had evinced little interest in its Early Chris-tian state.86

The replication of the rotunda and aedicule of the HolySepulchre presaged the competing claims between model

and nonmodel in the context of Renaissance architecture.87

Print technology reproduced the churchs current architec-tural state rather than the original Constantinian plan of32526, when a cupola and aedicule were built to shelter the

recently rediscovered tomb of Christ. Subsequent destruc-tions and reconstructions undertaken by either Muslim orChristian rulers remained consistent with the original Con-

stantinian plan of a rotunda, nave, and porch nested together



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to form one architectural whole. The aedicule reproduced inpaint by Jan van Scorel in his 152829 group portrait of the

Brotherhood of Jerusalem Pilgrims of Haarlem may provideone reliable depiction.88 This was the architectural frame-

work duplicated in both medieval and quattrocento art. Itproved as difficult to suppress the many popular legends

surrounding the Holy Sepulchre as to jettison the religiousand artistic traditions of the past. Renaissance thought did

not banish the many variations introduced by pilgrims ac-counts but rather allotted them a fixed place in the typology

of the Holy Sepulchre.Siloes cathedral was a Renaissance reimagining of the

Early Christian form of the Holy Sepulchre, based on thebelief that the cruciform choir and rotunda were originally

joined and that the church had been built in the Romanstyle.89 The lack of reliable models stimulated the Renais-sance architect to ponder the basic architectural structure of

the Holy Sepulchre, from which centrally planned churchbuildings had derived. Siloe used his design to reconcile theincreasing refinements of printed data with the recedingpower of the structures myth. He succeeded in placing his

new building on an equally authoritative footing with the

chain of images of the Holy Sepulchre that had exerted amassive influence on artists for centuries.

The models survival through reliable replication allowed

for the thematization of such transmissions in painting. It wasthe foil whereby figura, here the profile Christ in the S.Prassede altarpiece, could emerge in a sixteenth-century nar-rative painting informed by the icon and the acheiropoietic

image. The centrality of Zuccaris Christ figure in his altar-piece may be seen as an interpretation of the centralizedplans of Byzantine architecture. Pertinently, the Olgiati Cha-pel, where The Encounter of Christ and Veronicastill hangs, is

the pendant of the ninth-century S. Zeno Chapel, locatedacross from it in the main nave of the S. Prassede Basilica(Fig. 19). S. Prassede was one of many churches in Rome and

its outskirts associated with an unprecedented campaign ofchurch building from 380 to 480 that followed the Constan-tinian expansion of the Roman Empire in the west. RichardKrautheimer noted that church building did not regain theauthority it had held in the post-Constantinian age until the

seventeenth century.90 Nonetheless, the powerful and endur-ing legacy of the church under Emperor Constantine mani-fested itself up to the post-Tridentine age in the remodelings

of Roman churches, a process that exemplified through thecenturies the sustained relevance of the fourth- and fifth-century Roman basilica.91

Clerical writers in the late sixteenth century particularly

stressed the continuity of modern cultic sites such as S.Prassede with the early Roman basilicas. The lore of Early

Christian religiosity permeating these sites was especially as-sociated with the halcyon days of the Church following the

reign of Constantine. As John Shearman recognized, thedome and mosaic decoration of the S. Zeno Chapel re-claimed the eastern tradition of the central medallion ofChrist Pantocrator.92 The Counter-Reformation joined im-ages that directly addressed the viewer with the immensity ofChrists sacrifice to an obsessive concern with clear and un-ambiguous content. Such restrictions imposed by convention

and decorum cast Christ as the protagonist of a mere histor-

ical drama. Amid post-Tridentine attention to sacred iconog-raphy, Zuccari confronted the challenge of the highly regu-

lated religious images frontal character. Alternatively, onemight see his solution as an altarpiece reinterpretation of theS. Zeno Chapel that conflates the intimacy of the devotional

woodcut with the narrative of Veronicas veil. The creative

synthesis of architecture, woodcut, and portrait medallionstaged a heightened level of referential power akin to the

reactivation of the mosaic on the dome of the S. Zeno Cha-pel.

Zuccari spared no effort in his attempt to engage themosaic ceiling of the S. Zeno Chapel without resorting to theactual depiction of mosaic, as had been done in the back-grounds of many significant quattrocento paintings.93 Themosaic floor and ceiling decorations of Roman churchessuch as S. Pudenziana, where Zuccari was charged with thedrawings for the restoration of the Caetani Chapel, consti-

tuted powerful reminders of the enduring impact of Byzan-tine art on the west, as preserved in originals as well as infifteenth-century Cosmatesque reconstructions that intro-duced Byzantine patterns to the flooring of the churches of

Rome and in the surrounding province of Latium.94 Like the

icon and the acheiropoietic image, mosaic shared in theauthority granted to antiquity in the Renaissance.95 The high-pitched emotion of late medieval images and references to

ancient art were constants of Zuccaris career, both in hisstance toward religious images and in his sense of how therevival of antiquity had brought about a renewal of the art ofpainting. Earlier, we saw how Zuccari represented the achei-

ropoietic image within the narrative of the medieval legend,a solution utterly different from El Grecos or Zurbaransarchaizing attempts to imitate the acheiropoietic portraititself in the medium of painting. Zuccaris image, by contrast,

narrates its own production history with the same authorita-tive power as architectural models derived from the HolySepulchre complex or the Christ Pantocrator in the dome of

the S. Zeno Chapel.Like any Byzantine vault or dome, that of S. Zeno replicates

the likeness of Christ Pantocrator in the medium of mosaic,inscribing itself within the substitutional logic at work in thecentral plans of Byzantine architecture. The need to adapt

the mosaic tofigurahad become a critical commonplace afterConstantine, and it would have ruled Zuccaris logic in themedium of painting. By associatingfigurawith the retroacti-

vating art of the S. Zeno mosaic, Zuccari attempted to affirm

the antiquity of his own panel painting and its viability as themedium for the narrative account of Veronicas veil. But hisapproach departed from the reproduction of fictive mosaicbackgrounds in quattrocento painting. Zuccaris chief pur-

pose was twofold: to subordinate his painting to the larger

identity of the basilica and to bring his brand of antiquarian-ism back into association with secure modes of replication.

The Basilica of S. Prassede stands as a particularly revealing

case study of Cardinal Baronios fervent desire to demon-strate the continuity of the Roman Catholic Church withEarly Christian practice, articulated as early as 1588 in thefirst volume of hisAnnales ecclesiastici.96 S. Prassede served asthe model for a number of basilicas restored in the ninthcentury to house relics transferred from the abandoned Ro-

man catacombs. When Cardinal Carlo Borromeo set out to



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redecorate his titular church of S. Prassede, it was the restingplace of some twenty-three hundred martyrs whose boneshad been rescued from the catacombs by Pope Paschal I in

the early ninth century. Paschals accommodation of an ever-growing cult of martyrs gave eloquent testimony to the es-teem in which the medieval Roman church held its Constan-tinian past.97 The previous fifteen years of church building

under Constantine had particularly stressed the cult of mar-tyrs and holy sites, bringing about architectural interventions

in both the size and plan of the basilicas to reflect their newfunctions as martyria and funeral halls. Krautheimer noted

that the Constantinian basilica exerted a distinct influencethroughout Early Christian times, engendering later Romanstructures that merged funerary and cultic functions.98 In theearly ninth century, when Pope Paschal I combined the mar-

tyrium shrine and funeral space at S. Prassede, he decisivelyreanimated the Constantinian idea. He reinforced this com-mitment by commissioning large mosaics in celebration ofthe relics translation. Like the mosaics at the Roman basilica

of SS. Nereo e Achilleo, also commissioned in the ninthcentury, the S. Prassede mosaics were reflective of the inter-relationship between relics and images (Fig. 20).99

Proponents of the Counter-Reformation drew on the te-nacity of these early traditions, with the rediscovery of thecatacombs as a source of saints relics suiting their adaptationof historical practices to contemporary imperatives. The new

urgency of establishing historical continuities with the earlyApostolic church expressed itself in a sustained interest in the

catacombs during the late sixteenth century. Their rediscov-ery brought on a stream of saints relics largely untapped

since the pontificates of Paul I (757 67) and Paschal I (81724).100 In the Counter-Reformation, the heroic age of EarlyChristian history became increasingly associated with the cat-acombs and the central role they were believed to have

played in the activity of the early martyrs who were buriedthere. The pope himself sought to harness the sanctity ofthese relics to confirm the Apostolic past of the Roman seeand to profit from the rediscovery of venerable traditions.

19 Pantocrator and Angels, detail of thevault, S. Zeno Chapel, 9th century,mosaic. Basilica of S. Prassede, Rome(artwork in the public domain;photograph provided by Scala/ArtResource, NY)



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Simon Ditchfield has perceptively observed that the relicswere aboveground, and rediscovery is a problematic de-

nomination for these acts of relocation and translation.101

Clement VIII attended the closing ceremony of Baronioscarefully staged translation of the bones of the early martyrsaints Nereo and Achilleo to the recently restored church

bearing their name in 1597, the year when Baronio was madea cardinal.102 Like SS. Nereo e Achilleo, the S. CesareoBasilica was a product of the Roman Counter-Reformationsinterest in restorations.103 The resumption of the ninth-cen-

tury pursuit of relics opened a whole new area of ecclesiasti-cal studies, which has subsequently been termed Christianarchaeology. In concert with Baronios Annales ecclesiastici,this research laid the foundation for the new ecclesiastical

historiography and for innovations in the subject matter ofreligious painting.104

Zuccari adhered to this culture of relics and cult images,

and his S. Prassede altarpiece reverberates with a tragicawareness of the Christian past. But the archaeological rigorof the new religious painting did not suit his ideal of theindividualized composition as a reinstantiation of the medi-

eval icon. The convention and decorum demanded by thenew historiography conflicted with the endeavors of artistslike Zuccari, who drew on ancient figurative sources in anattempt to establish them as models worth imitating beyond

their age and historical value.The S. Zeno dome and its Byzantine mosaics modeled one

way of enlisting the authenticity of Christian artifacts for thedramatic encounter of Christ and Veronica, rather than for

the static display of a relic. The profile Christ holding thecenter of devotional attention in the S. Prassede altarpiece

represents the modern restructuring of the directed center ofthe Byzantine dome tradition. Zuccaris Encounter of Christand Veronicais a compelling substitute for early Christocentricimages and for relics of the kind venerated in medievalchurches. The creation of religious images devoted to cele-brating the artistic merit of Early Christian works was by no

means as unconditional as the Counter-Reformation em-brace of the cult of relics. In combining a heartfelt devotionto the artistic remains of early Christianity with an acknowl-edgment of their aesthetic shortcomings, images like Zucca-

ris altarpiece claimed that a lack of visual grace might itselfbe an inducement to piety.

Restaging the Altarpiece ParadigmsZuccarisEncounter of Christ and Veronicais a dramatic scenepopulated with a few figures, set outside the walls of Jerusa-lem on the way to Calvary. The artist focuses on the pro-

foundly wrenching moment when Christ, weakened by thesuffering he has endured, falls under the weight of the crossand Simon of Cyrene lifts it from his shoulders. The dramaticcore is the encounter between Christ and Veronica, who

kneels in front of him to extend her famous cloth. A numberof altarpiece paradigms are recognizable in The Encounter of

Christ and Veronica.Zuccari reworked Raphaels Ascent to Cal-vary, also known as the Spasimo di Sicilia, a key narrative

interpretation of the carrying of the cross (Fig. 21). By invok-ing Raphaels Ascent, Zuccari aligned his painting with the

reforming trajectory of Renaissance altarpieces that strove forthe legible dramatization of religious stories. A prime objec-

tive of this reform of the altarpiece had been to use pictorialnarrative to reinforce, rather than disperse, devotional atten-tion. Alexander Nagel has stressed how Rogier van der Wey-den was resolute in adapting his dramatic and narrative

compositions to the icon, and thereby provided a subsequentgeneration of Italian painters with a meaningful model forthe development of the Albertianistoria.105Warburg similarlyconcluded that the development of Italian altar paintingrevealed a late medieval religious sensibility in close kinship

with the north.106

The Council of Trent gave official sanction to this reformof altar painting. The challenge of religious image making

thenceforth turned on the reconciliation of an archaic fron-tality with dramaticistorie.Zuccari advanced the cause of the

dramatic composition within religious painting with his altar-piece by creating a successful innovation in a rule-bound age.

The Encounter of Christ and Veronicacasts aside most narrativeaccoutrements of the kind advised by post-Tridentine istoriein order to concentrate devotional attention on the sufferingChrist. Zuccari brought his protagonist into greater focus byaltering Raphaels crowded and dramatic narrative. By con-trast, the turned figure dominating the left foreground of

20 Byzantine mosaics, apse andtriumphal arch, 9th century. Basilicaof S. Prassede, Rome (artwork in thepublic domain; photograph providedby Scala/Art Resource, NY)



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Raphaels Ascent indicates movement out of the altarpiece,distracting us from the mystery of the Passion. Christs col-lapse under the weight of the cross and his anguished en-

counter with the Virgin occupy a narrative continuum, busilypopulated with many figures and details. Raphael fleshed out

narrative incidents for dramatic ends, showing the Romansoldiers as they command Simon of Cyrene to carry the cross

and the crowd of attendants supporting the Virgin.Prints had played a crucial role in emboldening Raphael to

challenge the long-accepted convention of the altarpiece as astable object of prayer and worship. Raphael had associated

altar painting with engraving as early as his 1507 work TheCarrying of Christ to the Tomb(Fig. 22), in which figures appearto move out of the picture in a composition that incorporatesaspects of Mantegnas engravedEntombment(Fig. 23). Rapha-

els adjustments to Mantegnas scene were better suited tothe implicit cultic function of the Lamentation he settled onin the final altarpiece.107 He further responded to printmak-

ing in the Ascent to Calvary, which directly recalls Durersmodel of the Passion, conceived as a continuous story in

which each scene exceeds the separate units of medieval artand contributes to the narration of the whole. The effective

relation between Durers scenes gave Raphael the idea of thealtarpiece as a narrative continuum.

While the model of the engraving determined Raphaelschallenge to the conventions of the altarpiece, it also rein-

forced the association ofAscent to Calvarywith novel dramaticideas. Konrad Oberhuber has examined how Raphael ad-

vanced the tradition of the Spasimo, or the swoon of theVirgin as she sees her suffering Son, by laying stress on Christ

21 Raphael, Ascent to Calvary, 151516,panel, 10 ft. 514 in. 7 ft. 618 in.(3.18 2.29 m). Museo del Prado,Madrid (artwork in the public domain;photograph provided by Scala/ArtResource, NY)


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