The Altar and Altarpieces of New St. Peter's Outfitting the Basilica 1621-1666.

Louise Rice, The Altar and Altarpieces of New St. Peter's Outfitting the Basilica 1621-1666

New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, in association with the American Academy in Rome, 1997. xvi + 350 pp. illus. $95.00. ISBN: 0-521-55470-5.

When the new basilica of St. Peter's was consecrated in 1626, 1300 years after the original Constantinian basilica, the great challenge to decorate the immense church was taken as a stimulating opportunity by the reigning pope Urban VIII. Of the ambitious decorative program for the new chapels, only three altarpieces of the original nineteen and none of the seven sopraporti commissioned during the papacy of Urban VIII survive in the basilica today. The "outfitting" and decoration of St. Peter's between 1623 and 1637 is the subject of this exceptionally erudite and grippingly interesting book. The modern visitor, who can feel baffled by the glacial distance and flatness of the altarpieces in St. Peter's, will welcome this study that reconstructs the thematic and artistic program realized under Urban VIII, and shows how this achievement disintegrated during the eighteenth-and early nineteenth-century restoration campaigns: the altarpieces were turned into mosaics, initially following the composition of the ori ginal paintings, then updating their composition, and finally replacing them with replicas of famous altarpieces in other churches. Thus Louise Rice illustrates how St. Peter's eventually became a museum of mosaic reproductions of the masterpieces of religious painting, although the decorative program initiated in the reign of Urban VIII intended the interior to serve as a gallery of the best contemporary art.

This innovative and lavishly illustrated book is organized in two parts: the history of the altars and a catalogue of the paintings. The first part is further subdivided into three sections on the history of the altars before 1624, the altars during the reign of Urban VIII (1623-1644), and the artists involved in their making, while the second part consists of a catalogue of the completed nineteen altarpieces and the sopraporti. This arrangement seems fully justified by the fact that only three altarpieces have remained in situ. Of these original altars, two have sculptural decorations (Gian Lorenzo Bernini's Cathedra Petri and Alessandro Algardi's San Leo), and the third is an amalgam (of a painting by Pietro da Cortona and a cyborium by Bemini); thirteen painted altarpieces survive elsewhere.

While the building of St. Peter's was the most demanding construction project of the Renaissance, Urban VIII was the protagonist in charge of furnishing the completed basilica. Rice justifies her study by the fact that "never before or since have so many top-ranking artists been involved in a single enterprise of this kind" (2). The author adroitly clarifies the two administrafive bodies whose interests eventually converged on the dedication and decoration of the altarpieces. The Congregation of the Fabbrica had been constituted under Julius II to oversee the reconstruction of the building, while the Chapter of St. Peter's carried on the work of the church in the extant third of the old building sealed off by an administrative wall from the construction site where the new transepts and dome were being built. In a remarkable feat of writing, Rice conveys the extraordinary parallel operations of the two agencies, which had overlapping members (the archpriest of the Chapter often served on the Fabbrica committe e), but whose interests appear diametrically opposed. The Fabbrica, a congregation of cardinals, was keenly interested in the artistic opportunities implicit in the new building, while the Chapter was equally concerned to transfer as many of the relics and associations from the old basilica's altars to the new (the extant third of the building included many objects moved from the demolished two-thirds). The two agencies followed closely the interest of the pope, the Chapter continuously making arguments for its more conservative position in successful attempts to sway the pontiff.

The subject of the first part of this book, then, is the collaboration and competition between the Chapter and the Fabbrica in the decoration campaign that began in the 1620s, at the beginning of Urban VIII's reign. It is preceded by an extraordinarily lucid and useful history of the separation of the two parts of the building. Pointing out that altars in old St. Peter's were refurbished in the sixteenth century, and burial there continued, Rice demonstrates that as late as the turn of the seventeenth century the demolition of the entire old St. Peter's was not a foregone conclusion. The new basilica came to be viewed as the palatine papal chapel, while the old building was left to the members of the Chapter, to administer and operate some eighty-five altars on a daily basis -- a source of wealth that made the Chapter the single largest land-owner in the Roman campagna and the papal states.

The turning point came in 1605, when Paul V decided to demolish the remaining basilica and complete the new church, opening the debate about the final form of the building. Rice vividly reconstructs the deconsecration of altars in old St. Peter's, drawing on the important contemporary records of Giacomo Grimaldi and the decoration of the area around the dome, which proceeded while the new nave was under construction. The new aesthetic direction, Rice shows, was established when Gregory XV commissioned Guercino to paint the altarpiece of St. Petronilla; this work of "unsurpassed achievement" (56) and splendor set the standard for the paintings commissioned in the 1620s. Beginning with this commission and continuing through the decoration sponsored by Urban VIII, Rice is interested in the observance and promotion of the cult of saints, carefully considering the issues of transferal from the old to the new building, the veneration of relics, and the critical approach of the Fabbrica to the matter of the saints' lives, demonstrating that the altars were "worked out in defensive awareness of protestant derision" in order to make St. Peter's the theatre of papal magnificence. She concludes that the altarpieces in St. Peter's should be considered "a kind of proclamation of the church's steadfastness and self-confidence in the face of Protestant challenge" (56).

During the reign of Urban, for whom Rice claims a position equivalent to that of Julius II (65), the liturgical concerns of the Chapter and the aesthetic interests of the Fabbrica converged to promote the rapid completion of the basilica. But they found it harder to agree on the dedicatees of the new altars. Among the early programs of the Fabbrica were decorative projects focused on lives of Christ and of Peter. These were countered by the Chapter, which urged the transferal of the numerous old saints orphaned by the destruction of old altars, even though there were fewer locations available in the new building. Since the Fabbrica members appeared oblivious to this liturgical requirement, the Chapter had to defend its inherited obligations. Thus the agreement on the titles and themes for each altar had to be negotiated before the awarding of commissions began in 1626 and 1627. Where the cardinals of the congregation viewed this task as an opportunity to establish order and symmetry in the basilica, and to p romote dedications associated with the pope and his office (90), the Chapter preferred the reuse of relics and images from the old building and titles that supported the continuity and ancient association of the church (96). Thus the Chapter countered the matching symmetrical titles suggested by the Fabbrica, and promoted its own conservative program of preservation.

The artists were chosen by the members of the Fabbrica, although the patronage of cardinals was superseded by the pope's preferences. Twenty-two artists were commissioned (137), and fifteen altarpieces were completed and installed between 1626 and 1632. Even though it was agreed that the altarpieces should be painted by the most distinguished artists, only one artist, Guido Reni, was approached by the committee of cardinals. Other artists petitioned to be considered, relying on the support of individual cardinals to obtain a commission. Their wide stylistic range was to be unified by the architectural framework of the chapels. Another linking element was "dramatic narratives," since each altarpiece depicted stories of "miracles, revelations and martyrdom" (151). In addition the artists shared a "common rhetorical language of broad gestures meant to evoke powerful emotions" (152). The theatricality created by these animated narratives transformed the altarpieces into a homogenous whole, evaluated by critics a s representing the second golden age of Italian painting. Intensely scrutinized at their well-attended unveilings, the paintings inspired much admiration, but within fifty years smoke and dampness had eroded this proud gallery.

Rice's elaborate history of the planning and the commissions for the altarpieces and sopraporti is accompanied by an equally thorough catalogue of the individual works of art. There are detailed descriptions and subtle analyses of each painting, including well-documented accounts of the work's critical afterlife and deeply nuanced evaluations of color, composition, iconography, and psychological impact.