 |
Roman Empire
Figure of Emperor as Philosopher
(probably Marcus Aurelius)
AD 180-200
bronze
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio |
 |
Parmigianino (Francesco Mazzola)
Garzone grinding Pigments
ca. 1535
drawing
Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
 |
Aubrey Beardsley
Mermaid
(design for Malory's Morte d'Arthur)
ca. 1893
drawing
Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
 |
Heinrich Friedrich Füger
Seven Men in Antique Dress
1798
drawing
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
 |
John Singer Sargent
Figure Studies for The Winds
ca. 1922-25
drawing
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
 |
John Singer Sargent
Figure Study for Fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary
ca. 1910
drawing
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
 |
John Singer Sargent
Figure Study for Hell
ca. 1905
drawing
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
 |
John Singer Sargent
Figure Study for The Unveiling of Truth
ca. 1922-25
drawing
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
 |
Anonymous Italian Artist
Académie
ca. 1750
drawing
National Gallery of Norway, Oslo |
 |
Anonymous Italian Artist
Seated Draped Figure
17th century
drawing
Morgan Library, New York |
 |
Wilhelm Lehmbruck
Fallen Man
1915
cast stone
Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart |
 |
Giulio Cesare Procaccini
Sheet of Studies
ca. 1615
drawing
Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
 |
Henry Raeburn
Colonel Alastair Ranaldson Macdonell
of Glengarry
1812
oil on canvas
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh |
 |
Salvator Rosa
Seated Youth reading under a Tree
ca. 1670
drawing
Princeton University Art Museum |
 |
Anonymous German Artist
St Sebastian
ca. 1600-1620
painted and gilded wood
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio |
 |
Benjamin West
King David rising after the Death of his Child
1775
drawing
Princeton University Art Museum |
"Were it not for what we believe to be a conscious or unconscious repression of the sack and its perpetrator, Charles de Bourbon, one would be hard put to understand why not a single contemporary engraving or painting of the event has come to light. It would have been easy, for example, to make use of the battle of allegorical animals that Maurice Scève later described in a lovely though obscure dizain:
Le cerf volant aux abois de l'Autruche
Hors de son gite éperdu s'envola;
Sur le plus haut de l'Europe il se juche,
Cuidant trouver sûreté et repos là,
Lieu sacré et saint, lequel il viola
Par main à tous profanement notoire . . .
The flying buck [Charles de Bourbon] summoned by the Ostrich [Charles V]
Hastened from his lost lair [Bourbon's confiscated land in France];
He came to roost on the highest point of Europe [Rome]
In that sacred and holy place which he violated
By means of a hand notoriously profane [the Lansquenets] . . .
"A view of Rome during the five or ten years following the sack would be invaluable for locating the damage . . . and in particular the fires. But instead, it is as though there had been a refusal in Italy to portray the event, a kind of instinctive censorship."
* * *
"The arrival of the news from Rome initially met with what seems to be embarrassed silence in official Spanish circles. But some measure of its psychological impact can be gleaned from two bitter and impassioned texts, dating from the end of 1527 and the beginning of 1528, which set the tone for the inevitable debate over the justifiability of the sack. Charles abstained from comment. His counselors therefore took it upon themselves to speak for him. Alfonso de Valdès, the emperor's own secretary, drafted the Dialogo de las cosas ocurridas en Roma, which justifies the sack of Rome as "providential" intervention. All responsibility falls to the pontiff who, instead of incarnating the evangelical spirit, acted like a reckless head of state. However dreadful the horrors reported, they can hardly suffice to expiate the abominations of the corrupt city: "Every single horror of the sack is a precise, necessary, and providential punishment for each of the iniquities that soiled Rome." This is the interpretation, give or take a subtlety, that the imperial side would continue to hold."
"But Valdès's Dialogo was not immediately publicized, for not everyone agreed with it. The emperor himself was undecided because of the violent protest made by the papal nuncio whom Charles respected highly, and who was none other than Baldassare Castiglione, author of Il Cortegiano. Castiglione's rebuttal is a biting indictment, with noble indignation. He calls the tendentious explanations of the Dialogo a moral and intellectual affront that puts the finishing touches on the bloody humiliations of the sack. None of the weaknesses, corruptions, or iniquities of modern Rome are denied. To this Castiglione merely replied that the degradation of the Roman See cannot justify such an unparalleled attack or condone such a sacrilege. He elevates the drama to a level on which it ceases to be a political happenstance. He would accept the global denunciation of a debased society, but he places the institution, its symbols, and its tradition above its unworthy servants. He pays homage to Rome's unique position which no Christian nation has the right to abuse, and points out that under no circumstances can Rome, hallowed by the Church and its history, be subjected to unspeakable indignities under the pretext of reform. One can imagine that remonstrances of this gravity, coming from a distinguished gentleman, a caballero, esteemed moreover by Charles, only added to the emperor's embarrassment. He subsequently indicated his eagerness to erase all memory of the sack."
– André Chastel, The Sack of Rome, 1527, translated by Beth Archer, 1983 (expanded from the A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, 1977, and published by Princeton University Press and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.)
-Group-Portrait-Weaving-Workshop-Bauhaus-Dessau-1928-gelatin-silver-print-National-Gallery-of-Australia-Canberra.jpg)
-Frost-on-Moorland-1928-gelatin-silver-print-National-Gallery-of-Australia-Canberra.jpg)
-Cubist-Still-Life-with-Typewriter-1928-oil-on-canvas-Museo-de-Bellas-Artes-Gravina-en-Alicante.jpg)
-National-Gallery-of-Australia-Canberra.jpg)
-National-Gallery-of-Australia-Canberra.jpg)
-Ch%C3%A2teau-Mus%C3%A9e-de-Dieppe.jpg)
-Zwei-Akte-1928-drawing-with-added-watercolor-Agnes-Etherington-Art-Centre-Kingston-Ontario.jpg)
-Dresden.jpg)
-Delaware-Art-Museum-Wilmington.jpeg)
