Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T19:15:20.112Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Caprarola's Sala della Cosmografia*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Mary Quinlan-McGrath
Mary Quinlan-McGrath*
Affiliation:
Northern Illinois University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Il pontificato non vuol esser cercato, e chi lo cerca non lo trova

Paul III Farnese to Cardinal Alessandro Farnese

The Massive Palazzo Farnese at Caprarola looms over its plain, a mute witness to the former power of the family (fig. 1). The rocca was initiated by the first Cardinal Alessandro (Pope Paul III) and fully and magnificently developed by the second Cardinal Alessandro, his grandson. Inside, its decoration boasts of family deeds and silently eliminates family failures. Much of the decoration was minutely described by contemporaries, and documents and decoration have been carefully studied by modern scholars. However one of the major halls, that which evoked the greatest contemporary admiration, the Sala della Cosmografia, can profitably be looked at again (figs. 2-4, 8, 9).

Type
Studies
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 50 , Issue 4 , Winter 1997 , pp. 1045 - 1100
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

This article is dedicated to Ernst Gombrich, who first interested me in astronomical and astrological cycles. I would like to thank Jozef IJsewijn, Charles Cohen, John O'Malley, John North, and Bruce Stephenson for their many valuable suggestions. My thanks to Greg Reynolds for his diagram of the room. The present study was accepted in June of 1995; in September of that year Partridge, 1995, published a detailed analysis of this cycle, complete with many excellent photographs. His interpretation is very different from my own. Nevertheless, Professor Partridge and I draw a similar general conclusion, that this decoration was an expression of Cardinal Alessandro's desire for papal power.

References

Almagia, Roberto. “La pittura geografica dell'Italia nel palazzo Farnese di Caprarola.” Rivista Geografica Italiana 26 (1919): 133–37.Google Scholar
Almagia, Roberto. “Sulle pitture geografiche del Palazzo di Caprarola.” Rivista Geografica Italiana 59 (1952): 131–34.Google Scholar
Almagia, Roberto. Monumenta cartographica vaticana, vol. 4. Vatican City, 1955.Google Scholar
Almagia, Roberto. “Sugli autori delle pitture geografiche del Palazzo Farnese di Caprarola.” Rendiconti della Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, ser. 8, 2 (1956): 129–33.Google Scholar
Apian, Petrus. Cosmograpbicus Liber. Antwerp, 1534.Google Scholar
Arditio, Fabio. “Viaggio di Gregorio XIII.” In Miscellanea della R. Societa Romana di Storia Patria: Documenti sul Barocco in Roma, ed. LAJ. Orbaan, 365–418. Rome, 1920.Google Scholar
Baumgart, Fritz. “La Caprarola di Ameto Orti.” Studi Romanzi 25 (1935): 77–179.Google Scholar
Boselli, Alessandro. “D carteggio del Cardinale Alessandro Farnese conservato nella ‘Palatina’ di Parma.” Archivio storico per le province Parmensi, new ser. 21 (1921): 99–172.Google Scholar
Bouche-Leclercq, Auguste. L'astrologiegrecque. Paris, 1899.Google Scholar
Capella, Martianus. De nuptiis Philologiae etMercurii. Ed. Adolf us Dick. Stuttgart, 1969.Google Scholar
Cardano, Girolamo. Geniturarum exempla. Basel, 1554.Google Scholar
Caro, Annibal. Lettere familiari. 3 vols. Florence, 1961.Google Scholar
Coattini, Francesco. Raccota d'orationi, et rime di divers … nella morte del … Cardinale Farnese. Rome, 1589.Google Scholar
Coffin, David. The Villa in the Life of Renaissance Rome. Princeton, 1979.Google Scholar
Comelli, Giovanni. “Delia pianta di Bologna dipinta nel Vaticano e di altre piante e vedute di questa citta.” Atti e Memorie della R. deputazione di Storia Patria per le provincie di Romagna, ser. 3, 13 (1895):153–219.Google Scholar
Cox-Rearick, Janet. Dynasty and Destiny in Medici Art. Princeton, 1984.Google Scholar
Danti, Egnazio. Le due regole della prospettiva pratica di M. Iacomo Barozzi da Vignola con i commentarii del R.PM. Egnatio Danti. Rome, 1583.Google Scholar
Eubel, Conrad. Hierarchia catholica medii et recentioris aevi sive summorumpontificum, S.R.E. cardinalium, ecclesiarum antistitum. Regensberg, 1923.Google Scholar
Faldi, Italo. Gli affreschi del Palazzo Farnese di Caprarola. Milan, 1962.Google Scholar
Faldi, Italo. IlPalazzo Farnese di Caprarola. Turin, 1981.Google Scholar
Gambara, Lorenzo. “Caprarolae descriptio.” Poetnata omnia, 163–211. Rome, 1586.Google Scholar
Gaurico, Luca. Tractatus astrologicus. Venice, 1552.Google Scholar
Giovio, Paolo. Ragionamento sopra i motti e disegni d'arme e d'amore … imprese. Venice, 1556.Google Scholar
Gaurico, Luca. Elogia virorum bellka virtute Uluslrvum… Basel, 1577.Google Scholar
Giuntini, Francesco. Speculum astrologiae. Lyons, 1573.Google Scholar
Giuntini, Francesco. Speculum astrologiae. 2 vols. Lyons, 1583.Google Scholar
Harley, J.B. and D. Woodward, eds. The History of Cartography, Vol. I: Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean. Chicago, 1987.Google Scholar
Hess, Jacob. “Villa Lante di Bagnaia e Giacomo del Duca.” Palatino 10 (1966): 21–32.Google Scholar
Hess, Jacob. “On Some Celestial Maps and Globes of the Sixteenth Century.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 30 (1967): 406–09.Google Scholar
Hyginus. Poetkon astronomkon. Venice, 1482.Google Scholar
Kish, George. “The ‘Mural Atlas’ of Caprarola.” Imago Mundi 10 (1953): 51–56.Google Scholar
Kish, George. “The Caprarola Portrait of Columbus.” Geographical Journal 120 (1954): 483–84.Google Scholar
Koch, Giulia Sacchi Lodispoto. “La ‘Moda’ cinquecentesca dell'affresco geografico e il Palazzo Farnese di Caprarola.” Lunario Romano 9: Rinascimento nel Lazio, ed. Lefevre, R., 201–23. Rome, 1979.Google Scholar
Labrot, Gerard. Le Palais Farnese de Capra-rola:Essai de lecture. Paris, 1970.Google Scholar
Lazzaro-Bruno, Claudia. “The Villa Lante at Bagnaia.” Ph.D. thesis, Princeton University, 1974.Google Scholar
Lilly, William. Christian Astrology. London, 1647.Google Scholar
Lippincott, Kristen. “Two Astrological Ceilings Reconsidered: The Sala di Galatea in the Villa Farnesina and the Sala del Mappamondo at Caprarola.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes (1990): 185–207.Google Scholar
Mercator, Gerardus. Les Spheres terrestre et celeste de G. Mercator 1541,1551. Brussels, 1968.Google Scholar
Montaigne, Michel de. Journal de Voyage en Italie par la Suisse et I'Allemagne en 1580 et 1581, ed. Dedeyan, Charles. Paris, 1946.Google Scholar
North, John D. Horoscopes and History, London, 1986.Google Scholar
O'Malley, John. The First Jesuits. Cambridge, MA, 1993.Google Scholar
Orbaan, J.A.F. “Documents inedits sur la Rome de Sixte Quint et du Cardinal Farnese.” Melanges d'archeologie et d'histoire 42 (1925): 75–112.Google Scholar
Orsi, Aurelio. Carminum libri VIII. Parma, 1589.Google Scholar
Partridge, Loren. “The Sala d'Ercole in the Villa Farnese at Caprarola,” parts one and two. Art Bulletin 53 (1971): 467-86; 54 (1972): 50–62.Google Scholar
Partridge, Loren. “Divinity and Dynasty at Caprarola: Perfect History in the Room of Farnese Deeds.” The Art Bulletin 60 (1978): 494–530. et al. Caprarola:Palazzo Farnese. Milan, 1988.Google Scholar
Partridge, Loren. “The Room of Maps at Caprarola, 1573-75.” The Art Bulletin 77 (1995): 413–44.Google Scholar
Pastor, Ludwig. The History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages, ed. Kerr, R.. 40 vols. St Louis, 1923.Google Scholar
Magnus, Petrus. Oratio pro Octavio Farnesio. Rome, 1586.Google Scholar
Ptolemy. Tetrabiblos. Ed. Robbins, F.E.. Cambridge, MA and London, 1980.Google Scholar
Quinlan-McGrath, Mary. “The Astrological Vault of the Villa Farnesina, Agostino Chigi's Rising Sign.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 47 (1984): 91–105.Google Scholar
Quinlan-McGrath, Mary. “Blosius Palladius, Suburbanum Augustini Chisii: Introduction, Latin: Text and English Translation.” Humanistka Lovaniensia 39 (1990): 93–156.Google Scholar
Quinlan-McGrath, Mary. “The Villa Farnesina, Time-telling Conventions and Renaissance Astrological Practice.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 58 (1995): 52–71.Google Scholar
Redig de Campos, Deoclecio. I Palazzi Vaticani. Bologna, 1967.Google Scholar
Reisch, Gregorius. Margarita philosopbica. Basel, 1517.Google Scholar
Robertson, Clare. Gran Cardinale': Alessandro Farnese, Patron of the Arts. New Haven, 1992.Google Scholar
Ronchini, Amadio and Vittorio Poggi, “Fulvio Orsini e sue lettere ai Farnesi.” Attie Memorie delle RR. Deputazioni di Storia Patria per le Provincie dell’ Emilia, new ser. 4 (1880): 36–106.Google Scholar
Schoener, Johan. Opera mathematica, Nuremberg, 1551.Google Scholar
Schulz, Jurgen. “Maps as Metaphors: Mural Map Cycles of the Italian Renaissance.” In Art and Cartography: Six Historical Essays, ed. Woodward, D., 97–122. Chicago, 1987.Google Scholar
Springhetti, A. “Urbanus VIII P.M. Poeta Latinus et Hymnorum Breviarii Emendator,” Archivum Historiae Pontifkiae 6 (1968): 166–67.Google Scholar
Thorndike, Lynn. A History ofMagk and Experimental Science. 8 vols. New York, 1934.Google Scholar
Tuckerman, Bryant. Planetary, Lunar, and Solar Positwns A.D. 2 to A.D. 1649. Philadelphia, 1964.Google Scholar
Vasari, Giorgio. Le vite de’ put eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori, ed. Milanesi, G.. Florence, 1878–85.Google Scholar
Warner, Deborah. “The Celestial Cartography of Giovanni Vanosino da Varese.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 34 (1971): 336–37.Google Scholar