The Papacy and the Art of Reform in Sixteenth-Century Rome
The Papacy and the Art of Reform in Sixteenth-Century Rome
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From his election in 1572 to his death in 1585, Pope Gregory XIII schooled in the upheavals in the Catholic Church that marked the preceding violent decades, spent a great deal of money on the building and restoration of Rome's streets, churches and public monuments. One major, unknown and unstudied monument, the three-story apartment rising up from the Vatican Palace called the Tower of the Winds, was built and painted to celebrate the most famous achievement of Gregory's papacy, the calendar reform. The program of the entire tower proclaimed with assurance not only Gregory's political and religious authority over the capital, but also Gregory's domination of nature, time, and past and present cultures. Its innovations in architecture and decoration, efflorescent Flemish landscapes in all of its seven rooms and its wider religious and political purpose in the culture of Gregorian Rome and the Counter-Reformation, are all subjects of the book.
- Explores how change in calendar was connected to devotional and religious reform, and how it took artistic shape
- Rare inter-disciplinary investigation of Rome's art, culture and ideological rule during critical time of post-Reformation Europe
- Includes never before translated On the Winds by Egnatio Danti and never before seen views of Rome
Reviews & endorsements
"...richly illustrated...This superbly organized book will prove to be an indispensable resource for further study of landscape as an important philosophical and spiritual genre." College Art Association
"A masterful study, beautifully produced with lavish illustrations, Courtright's work considerably deepens our understanding of how Gregory III's Tower of the Winds, by joining scientific motivation, politics and art in the service of his program of reform, is the tangible and lasting expression of his rulership."
Rebecca Leuchak, Roger Williams University, Religious Studies Review
"Meticulously researched and carefully argued, Courtright's study will certainly be recognized as the definitive monograph on the overlooked monument. Cambridge University Press is also to be applauded for the high production quality of this volume" - Steven F. Ostrow, University of California, Riverside
Product details
January 2003Hardback
9780521624374
344 pages
282 × 223 × 30 mm
1.508kg
244 b/w illus. 10 colour illus.
Unavailable - out of print September 2015
Table of Contents
- Part I. Imagery of Counter-Reformation Rome, the Vatican, and the Papacy Under Gregory XIII:
- 1. Reformed Rome and the person of the pope
- 2. The Tower of the Winds and calendar reform
- Part II. 3. Architecture unifying imagery of rule and retreat
- 4. The meridian room: art of time, cosmos, and the counter reformation
- 5. Cycles: rooms of old testament patriarchs, apostles, Tobias, and old testament women views: room with topographical views
- room of imaginary views
- 6. Conclusion.
