Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Vesuvius Quenched

Giovanni Battista Gaulli
Pope Alexander VIII  (1610-1691)
c. 1689-91
Morgan Library

Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Cardinal Scipione Borghese  (1576-1633)
drawing for bust in the Villa Borghese
1632
Morgan Library

Luigi Baccio del Bianco
Cardinal Fleeing on Mule from Violent Attack
1643
Morgan Library

Continuing the series of 17th century Italian drawings, and starting with ecclesiastical figures. Moderns often write as if the rich and powerful Roman Catholic Church maintained a tight grip of power on the whole of Italy unbroken for many centuries. Yet even during the most robust periods of the Church's political influence, surviving evidence often tells a different story. In the illustration above from the middle of the 17th century, citizens with basins as shields and rocks as weapons pursue a cardinal-prelate and his terrified mule, driving them out of their city.

Giovanni Balducci
Angels Appearing to Abraham
17th century
Morgan Library

Valerio Castello
Salomon's Sacrifice to the Idylls
17th century
Morgan Library

Giovanni Biliverti
Joseph & Potiphar's Wife
17th century
Morgan Library

Guido Reni
Study for the Figure of Holofernes
c. 1625-40
Metropolitan Museum

Marcantonio Bassetti
The Flagellation
17th century
Morgan Library

Giovanni Andrea Ansaldo
The Crucifixion
17th century
Morgan Library

Gioacchino Assereto
The Lamentation
17th century
Morgan Library

Gregorio de Ferrari
Vision of St. Teresa of Avila
17th century
Morgan Library

Filippo Napoletano
San Gennaro Saving Naples from an Eruption of Vesuvius
17th century
Morgan Library

In the final drawing, angels carry gargantuan buckets of water through the sky to quench volcanic violence under the direction of a cloud-borne Bishop-Saint.

Drawings are from collections at the Metropolitan Museum and at the Morgan Library.