Bernini and the Pantheon Bronze

Inhalt Georg Satzinger I Einleitung und Dank 7 Sebastian Schiitze ChristofThoenes Uber die Groi?,e der Peterskirche Nikolaus Staubach 9 Der Ritus der impositio primarii lapidis und die Grundsteinlegung von Neu- Sankt-Peter 29 Thomas James Dandelet Financing New Saint Peter's: r5o6- qoo Jens Niebaum Zur Planungs- und Baugeschichte der Peterskirche zwischen rso6 und I5I3 Christoph L. Frommel Der Chor von Sankt Peter im Spannungsfeld von Form, Funktion, Konstruktion und Bedeutung 83 Hans W . Hubert Fantasticare col disegno Georg Satzinger Sankt Peter: Zentralbau oder Longitudinalbau- Orientierungsprobleme Horst Bredekamp Zwei Souverane: Paul III. und Michelangelo. Das >>Motu proprio<< vom Oktober 1549 Vitale Zanchettin Le verita della pietra. Michelangelo e la costruzione in travertino di San Pietro Federico Bellini La cupola di San Pietro da Michelangelo a Della Porta Christina Riebesell Guglielmo della Portas Projekte fur die Ausstattung von Neu-Sankt-Peter Kaspar Zollikofer »Et Latinae et Graecae ecclesiae praeclarissima lumina [ ... ] micarent.<< Sankt Peter, Gregor XIII. und das Idealbild einer christlichen Okumene 41 49 nr 127 175 195 217 Sible de Blaauw Unum et idem: Der Hochaltar von Sankt Peter im r6. Jahrhundert Stefan Kummer Zur Bildausstattung in Sankt Peter urn r6oo Hannes Roser Sankt Peter in den »Sacri trofei romani<< des Francesco Maria Torrigio Irving Lavin The Baldacchino. Borromini vs Bernini: Did Borromini forget himself? Ralph-Miklas Dobler Die Vierungspfeiler von Neu-Sankt-Peter und ihre Reliquien Rudolf Preimesberger Ein ehernes Zeitalter in Sankt Peter? Louise Rice Bernini and the Pantheon Bronce Sarah McPhee The Long Arm of the Fabbrica: Saint Peter's and the City of Rome Christoph Jobst Cortona und Bernini in der Cappella del Santissimo Sacramento von Sankt Peter. Altarbild und Sakramentstabernakel im Konflikt? 375 Giovanni Morello Alessandro VII e Bernini a San Pietro Sebastian Schiitze »Werke als Kalkule ihres Wirkungsanspruchs<<. Die Cathedra Petri und ihr Bedeutungswandel im konfessionellen Zeitalter 227 243 257 325 337 353 393 A Finger Bath in Rosewater: Cracks in Bernini's Reputation Elisabeth Kieven Die Papstgrabmaler des r8.Jahrhunderts in Sankt Peter Johannes Myssok Antonio Canova: Das Grab mal Clemens' XIII. Werner Oechslin »Ecco la reverenda fabbrica la pili grandee la pili ricca dell'universo<<. Bewunderung, Kritik und Ekstase in Sankt Peter im r8.Jahrhundert 485 5n Abkurzungsverzeichnis 513 275 301 Tod A. Marder Abbildungsnachweis 159 427 435 455 405 147 Bernini and the Pantheon Bronze Louise Rice A pair of elegant marble inscriptions bearing the coat of arms of Pope Urban VIII (r623-44) flank the great bronze door of the Pantheon (Figs.r-3). Dated r632, they commemorate the Barberini pope's intervention in the building's history. The tablet on the right celebrates the additions he made to the fabric: "The Pantheon, the most famous building in the world, impiously dedicated by Agrippa, the son-in-law of Augustus, to Jove and the other false gods and piously [rededicated] by Pope Boniface IV to the Virgin Mary and the most holy martyrs of Christ, Pope Urban VIII embellished with twin bell towers and refurbished with a new roof. In the year of our Lord r632, the ninth of his pontificate." 1 The tablet on the left records, instead, what he took away from the building: "Pope Urban VIII used the ancient remnants of the bronze truss for the Vatican columns and for machines of war, that a useless and all but forgotten adornment might become in the Vatican temple an embellishment for the apostolic tomb and in the fortress of Hadrian the instruments of public defense. In the year of our Lord r632, the ninth of his pontificate." 2 "PANTHEON/ AEDIFICIVM TOTO TERRARVM ORBEfCELEBERRIMVM / AB AGRIPPA AVGVSTI GENEROfiMPIE IOVI CETERISQVE MENDACIBVS DIIS/ A BONIFACIO IIII PONTIFICE/DEIPARAE ET SS. CHR ISTI MARTYRIBVS PIEfDICATVM/VRBANVS VIII PONT. MAX./ BINIS AD CAMPANI AERIS VSVM/TVRRIBVS EXORNAVITfET NOVA CONTIGNATIONE MVNIVJT/ ANNO DOMINI MDCXXXII PONTIF. IX." Stripes of discoloration visible from the ground indicat e that the fifth and seventh lines of the inscription h ave been altered and the physical evidence is co nfirmed by a document kindly brought to my attention by Giovanna Curcio, dated r634, which record s a payment to Frabrito B adesio for adjusting "doi versi in uno dell'Epitaffi della Rotonda, e furno lettere 63." See Archivio di Stato, Rome (henceforth ASR), Cameralei, Giustificazioni di Tesorieria, busta n. 85, fasc. 5· How the text originally re ad is not recorded but could perhaps be learned from a close-up examination of the tablet. 2 "VRBANVS VIII PONT. MAX.fVETVSTAS AHE NEl LACVNARIS/ RELIQVIAS fiN VATICANAS COLVM NAS ET / BELLICA TORMENTA CONFLAVITfVT DECORA INVTILIAfET {PSI PROPE FAMAE IGNOTA fF IE RENTfiN VATICANO TEMPLO/ APOSTOLIC! SEPVLC HRI ORNA- These twin texts portray as a proud accomplishment of the Barberini pontificate what was in fact one of its worst publicrelations blunders: the spoliation of the ancient bronze from the Pantheon portico. They spin a justificatory narrative around the act, first, by suggesting that the removal of the bronze was part of a larger restoration of the building that included the reconstruction of the portico's roof and the addition of two campanili; second, by implying that the metal served no useful function in its original location and was in any case almost invisible there and quite unappreciated; and third, by asserting that Urban took the bronze for two necessary and unimpeachable causes, namely, to create a fitting ornament for the high altar of Saint Peter's basilica and to arm the papal fortress of Castel Sant'Angelo with cannon to protect the city from invasion. Words written in stone tend to be believed and to this day most scholars of Baroque Rome regard it as an established fact that Bernini's baldacchino is made, at least in part, of Pantheon bronze. 3 Yet documents of a less biased sort, less overtly the products of papal propa- MENTA!JN HADRIANA ARCE!JNSTRVMENTA PVBLICAE SECVR ITATIS/ ANNO DOMINI MDCXXXII PONTIF.IX." 3 The claim that Bernini used P antheo n bronze in making the baldacchino was in circulation even before the baldacchino was finished and has enjoyed almos t universal acceptance ever since . The fullest and in many ways the b est treat ment of the subject remains GAETANO Bossi, La pas qui nata 'Quod non Jecerunt ｢｡ｲｾｩ＠ fecerunt 1\ Barberini', Rome r898; the author does an ad mirable job of assembling and analyzing much of the available evidence but cannot bring himself to reject altogeth er the traditional view (see, in particular, his pp.sr-54). Pietro R omano arrives at similarly ambivilant conclusions; see PIETRO RoMANO, Pasquino e Ia satira in Roma: 'Quod non Jecerunt Barbari . .. ' (II pontificato di Urbano VIII), Rome 1937, 48. One of the few scholars to throw ice water on the legend on the Pantheon bronze is Rob erto Lanciani, who in a chapter on the Rotunda bluntly asserts: "The story about the casting of the four columns of the baldacchino is not correct." See RoBERTO LAN CIAN I, The Ruins and Excavations ofAncient Rome, Boston and New York r897, 482. 33 8 Rice: Bernini and the Pantheon Bronze 1 ganda, suggest a different version of events and allow us to glimpse, behind the inscriptions' encomiastic rhetoric, a fascinating episode of calculated myth-making at the court of Urban VIII. The story begins in the summer of r625, when the pope was engaged in a campaign of modernizing and massively strengthening the papal fortress of Castel Sant'Angelo. 4 Needing bronze, and lots of it, to arm the new fortifications with guns, his thoughts turned to the Pantheon and to the 4 EMMANUEL RoDOCANACHI, Le Chateau Saint-Ange, Paris r9o9, r98-2o6. Pantheon portico, bronze door metal truss supporting the roof of the portico or pronaos.This structure, made of U -sectioned bronze girders riveted together with bronze bolts and weighing about a hundred and seventy tons, is recorded in drawings by (or attributed to), among others, Sallustio Peruzzi, Giovanni Antonio Dosio, Sebastiana Serlio, Andrea Palladio, and Francesco Borromini, the last of whom was present at the time of its disassembly and took careful measurements (Fig.4). 5 Originally, the truss 5 For a detailed description and analysis of the bronze roof-truss, including reproductions of a number of the sixteenth-century drawings that show the structure still in situ, see KJELD DE FINE Rice: B ernini and the Pantheon B ronze 2 Pantheon portico, Marble inscription (I632) supported a roof probably made of gilded bronze, while suspended from it on the interior of the portico were ceilings or false vaults of some sort, which effectively hid it from view. 6 By the seventeenth century the ancient roof was long gone and had been replaced by a simpler covering of terra cotta tiles; 7 the suspended ceilings had likewise disappeared, expos- LICHT, Th e R otunda in R ome: A Study of H adrian's Pantheon , Copenhagen I968, 46-58. Other measured drawings are in the Royal Library, Windso r (see IAN CAMPBELL, Ancient R oman Topography and Architecture, 3 vols. [The Paper M useum ofCassiano dal Pozzo, ser. A, vol. 9], London 2004, vol. I, 405-4I6; with th anks to Geoffrey Taylor for the reference), and in the Goldschmidt Scrapbook in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (see EMI LIE D'0RGEIX, "The Goldschmidt and Sch olz Scrapbooks in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Study of Renaissance Architectural Drawings", in: M etropolitan Museum j ournal, 36 [zooi], I76I79). For Borromini's drawings of the truss, see H EINR ICH THELEN, Francesco Borromini. Die H andzeichnungen , vol. I, Graz I967, 32 f., cat. 25-276 FINE LI CHT I96 8 (as in no te s), S4 -s8. See also LoUISE RICE , "Urba:t_VIII e il dilemma del portico del Pantheon," in: B ollettino d'arte [forthcoming]. 7 The Pantheon's bronze roof tiles were stripped by Emperor Co nstans II during his twelve-day visit to the city in 663 and sent to Syracuse, w h ence they were seized by the Saracens and taken to c 3 33 9 Pantheon portico, Marble inscription (I632) ing the truss to view from below and making it more temptingly accessible to bronze-hungry pontiffs (Fig.s) . The fact that the roof, the more visible part of the structure, was made of humbler material than its supporting truss must have struck Urban VIII as paradoxical and was surely one reason he felt justified in removing this tesoro nascosto ("hidden treasure"), a phrase used to describe the bronze in a number of contemporary sources. 8 News of the imminent removal of the bronze triggered an outcry from the Roman people, "who could not help but feel displeased and lament that such a beautiful ancient building, which alone remained untouched by the outrages of the bar- A lexandria; see The B ook of Pontiffs (Liber Pontificalis) . T he Ancient B iographies of the First Ninety R oman Bishops toAD 7IS, ed . and trans. Raymond D avis, Liverpool I989, 72 f.; FRANK MooRE, "The Gilt-bronze Tiles of the P antheon," in: A merican j ournal of Archaeology, 3 (I899) , 40-43. The Pantheon's original bronze doors may have been lo oted already in the fifth century; see LuciLLA DE L ACHENAL, Spolia: uso e reimpiego dell'antico dal III a! X IV secolo, Milan I995, 44· 8 BAV, Barb. L at. 4344 ["Se sia meglio coprire il portico della Rotonda co n volta o con soffitta"] , f. 29; Barb. L at. 473I [ANDREA NICOLETTI, "Vita di Urbano VIII"] , 829; ASR, Cartari-Febei, vol. I90 ["Compendia delle attioni di Urbano Ottavo"], 29 . 340 Rice: Bernini and the Pantheon Bronze ｾ＠ t Ｇ ｾ［ 'ｾ ﾷ＠ Ｎ ｾ＠ Ｌ ｊＮＢ ; - "' Ｌ 4il Ｌ ｾ＠ ?)- .;. ;,., ［Ｑ ｾ＠ ... S> .. . ｾ Ｎｌ＠ '\,. -l· ｾ Ｚｲｾ＠ t -d 1 1 ｾ＠ "'"'" 0 -h (,) ,"" Ｎ［ｾ＠ ...Ｌ ｟Ｚ＼Ｎ＾ｾ＠ .. , ' .... " ,,'· 0 ) "\ ;.-: .• v· -tj ｾ＠ ,, ' ｦＭｾＧＢｌＮＬ＠ '"Jj. Ｍｾ＠ ﾷｾ＠ A-- ...._ t. I"Q -;. ,0 I ｾ＠ / 1,i c' " ｾ＠ < .... 1:;: r; 7-· 1 v ' ｾ＠ / >"-' ? ? 4 ) F. Borromini, Ancient bronze roof truss of the Pantheon portico (1625, Vienna, Albertina) barians and could truly be called eternal, should now be dismantled."9 A satirical pasquinade, composed in reaction to the announced spoliation, was in circulation even before the scaffold went up. Quod non fecerunt barbari,fecerunt Barberini ("What the barbarians left undone, the Barberini finished off"): probably no pasquinade before or since has so captured the public imagination or so rooted itself in the collective memory. 10 An avviso of 20 September r625 attributes the wit- 9 GIACINTO GIGLI, Diario di Roma, ed. Manlio Barberito, 2 vols., Rome 1994, vol. 1, 152: "In questo anno 1625 essendo l'Italia in arme come ho notato di sopra, Papa Urbano attese a fortificar Roma, et sopratutto Castello di S. Angelo, et fece provisione molto grande di armi, et particolare di Artiglierie, onde per havere metallo a bastanza per quest'effetto, fece smantellare il Portico della Chiesa di Santa Maria Rotonda, anticamente detta il Pantheon, il quale era maravigliosamente coperto di bronzo, con Architravi sopra le colonne di metallo bellissimi, et di una manifattura, et havendolo disfatto trovo che quel metallo era in gran parte mescolato di oro et argento, tal che non era in tutto a proposito per l'artiglierie, rna il Popolo, che andava curiosamente a vedere disfare una tanta opera, non poteva far di meno non sentir dispiacere, et dolersi che una si bella Antichita, che sola era rimasta intatta dalle offese de' Barberi, et poteva dirsi opera veramente eterna, fosse hora disfatta." Other sources confirm the strongly negative reaction to the pope's appropriation of the bronze. We hear, for example, about "the masses who judge things at first sight, who look with dissatisfaction at the removal of the beams" (see note n below); about the "malicious tongues and slanderers" who decry "the spoliation of an ancient ornament" (see note 12 below); and about the "many good and pious men who grieve terribly that Your Holiness has seen fit to destroy and deface this most holy temple [ ... ]"(see note 19 below). 10 Bossi 1898 (as in note 3); RoMANO 1937 (as in notq), 44- s6. That the pasquinade was composed explicitly in response to the removal of the Pantheon bronze is made clear by a number of early sources , including the report of the Venetian ambassador Alvise Contarini, who wrote to the Senate concerning Urban VIII's military preparations: "Molti [cannoni] sono stati gettati di nuovo per Castel Sant'Angelo, col valersi anco del metal antico di cui era singolarmente adornato il tempio di tutti i Dei, hoggidi detto la Rotonda. Onde nacque il mo tto di Pasquino, 'Qyod non fecerunt Barbari, Barbarini fecerunt'." See NICOLO BAROZZI and GuGLIELMO BERCHET, Relazioni degli stati europei lette a! Senato dagli ambasciatori veneti nel secolo decimosettimo, III - Italia, R elazioni di Roma I, Venice 1877,364. The pasquinade has continued to delight and fascinate ever since. When the Scottish-born Lord Elgin stripped the Acropolis of its sculptures, an anonymous nineteenth-century wit parodied it in a graffito scratched Rice: Bernini and the Pantheon Bronze 34I ticism, highly implausibly, to the pope's personal physician, the Sienese doctor and art critic Giulio Mancini. 11 Another, later source assigns it instead to Carlo Castelli, the agent of the duke of Mantua in Rome. 12 A more likely candidate than either of these two might be Francesco Mantovani, a notorious satirist who in the r64os was twice arrested for his slanderous pasquinadesY But whoever was the author (and pasquinades were almost by definition anonymous), we may assume that political forces were at work behind the scenes. 14 Roman politics were dominated by intense factional hostilities between the supporters of France and Spain. The newlyelected Pope Urban VIII, although generally perceived as proFrench in his leanings, h ad by the summer of r625 so alienated both parties that he had no shortage of detractors who were happy to seize on the slightest hint of popular discontent and turn it into a cause celebre. Urban VIII seems to have been taken by surprise by the negative reaction; and the pasquinade, in particular, must have on the wall of the Erechtheion: "Quod not fecerunt Goti, hoc fecerunt Scoti." See WILLIAM ST. CLAIR, Lord Elgin and the Marbles, Oxford 1998, 193. 11 BAV, Urb. Lat. 1095, f.57o, cited in ERMETE Rossi, "Roma ignorata", in: Roma, 14 (1936), 99: "[20 Sep r625] Il Signor Giulio Mancini medico secreta del Papa ragionando l'altro giorno con Sua Santita sopra li travi di bronzo, che si levano dal tempio della Rotonda con cancellare si bella memoria dell'antica grandezza de' Romani, disse, motteggiando, che quello che non havevano fatto i Barbari, facevano i Barberini." It is hardly likely that a man in Mancini's position, a personal attendant and intimate of the pope, would have made such a remark, still less that he would have made it in the pope's presence, or, having made it, that he would remain in papal favor. Urban VIII clearly considered Mancini innocent of the charge, for he not only continued to retain him as his physician, a few months after the emergence of the pasquinade he made him a canon of Saint Peter's, a prestigious appointment guaranteeing Mancini a generous monthly stipend for life (BAV, Urb. Lat. 1096, f.9) . How Mancini's name came so quickly to b e associated with the pasquinade is a mystery. But Mancini was himself a collector and writer on art and architec ture, who actively advised the pope on artistic matters and was certainly involved in the discussions surrounding the baldacchino (see MICHELE MACCHERINI, "Ritratto di Giulio Mancini", in: Bernini dai Borghese ai Barberini. La cultura a Roma intorno agli anni venti, ed. Olivier Bonfait and Anna Coliva, Rome 2004, 53). It is not impossible, therefore, that on the subject of the Pantheon bronze he made some inoffensive remark that was later seized on and recast in a satirical vein by others, earning him the undeserved reputation as the originator of the pasquinade. There is in the Vatican Library an anonymous manuscript entitled "Se sia meglio coprire il portico della Rotonda con volta o con soffitta", which must have been written not long after the bronze was removed (see note 8 above). The author was almost certainly Sienese (twice he refers to buildings and urban spaces in Siena) and almost certainly a doctor (he gives himself away when he employs an extended medical analogy to develop a point, comparing the relationship of patron and artist to that of patient and doctor [f. 29]). Mancini may not have been the only learned Sienese doctor with antiquarian interests in Barberini Rome, but in this instance he is the obvious candidate, especially since he regularly used medical analogies of precisely this kind in his writings on art and architecture (see, for example, Gwuo MANCINI, Considerazioni sulfa pittura, ed. Adriana Marucchi, 2 vols ., Rome 1956, vol. r, 156; with thanks to Frances Gage for the reference), and given his close association with the Barberini and his advisory role in connection with the baldacchino it makes sense to attribute the manuscript to him. For our purposes the text is above all interesting for the following passage, in which the author discusses the advantages of covering the interior of the Pantheon portico with vaults rather than ceilings [ff. 29-29v]: "[ ... ] si mostrera al Popolo, che giudica le case al prima aspetto, che senti mal volentieri il buttar giu queste travi, che questo modo [i.e. di far coprire lo spazio con le volte] e piu bello, e di maggior ornato, che non era prima, et si potra dire, che quello era un tesoro nascosto non visto senz'utile od'uso, anzi con pericolo, come altre volte e occorso, che e un miracolo, che i barbari non le habbino robate [italics mine], et in particolare dopo l'uso dell'artiglaria, et come si quieto il popolaccio delle tegole di S. Pietro, cosi si e quietato, et quietara vedendole convertite in uso di difesa."The mention of barbarians immediately calls to mind the pasquinade, but is here innocently meant and lacking any punning bite. If the manuscript is indeed by Mancini, this innocuous phrase might have been enough to lead an ill-informed or ill-willed author of an avviso to attribute the pasquinade to him. For a more detailed discussion of this fascinating text, its attribution and content, see RICE forthcoming (as in note 6); on the "tegole diS. Pietro," see note 19 below. 12 BAV, Urb. Lat. r647, 576; transcribed in Bossi r898 (as in note 3), 57="[ ... ] dalle lingue malediche e detrattori di fama contaminata [sic] fu decantato lo spoglio d'un ornamento antico, benche cio sia stato vera di haver levato que! metallo, rna estimate ancor bene e posto, per esser stata ornata la Chiesa de' SS. Apostoli [i.e. Saint Peter's], e si e vista a tempi no stri sopra di questi critici la maledizione di Dio, perche l'Agente del Duca di Mantova che fu il detrattore di aver affissi i cartelli di quel'infame pasquinata di famiglia Barbera ad Barberina, egli morse d'infermita e nelletto chiedeva perdono a Papa Urbano Ottavo."' Bossi identifies the Gonzaga's agent in Rome during these years as Carlo Castelli, a respectable antiquarian and a canon of Santa Maria in Cosmedin who died in r639 at the age of 74, and attributes the pasquinade to him. 13 I base this admittedly tentative attribution on the same passage cited by Bossi in the previous note, but whereas Bossi takes the text at face value, I suspect a slip of the pen that alters its meaning entirely. Where the author of the passage refers to "the agent of the duke of Mantova", I suggest that he means to refer to Francesco Mantovani, the agent of the duke of Modena. Described by Dirk Ameyden as "un huomo veramente impetuoso e stravagante", Mantovani was a gadfly who irritated both Urban VIII and Innocent X with his poisonous pasquinades. Since he outlived Urban VIII the story of his deathbed contrition must be an invention, but everything else about him fits well and it is perfectly plausible that he was at least suspected of having authored the pasquinade. On Mantovani, see RoMANO 1937 (as in note 3), 64 f. 14 Bossi r898 (as in note 3), 70-74. 342 Rice: Bernini and the Pantheon Bronze 5 G. B. Piranesi, Pantheon portico, showing the wooden roof truss commissioned by Urban VIII (c. 1767/68, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art) stung. That he who fancied himself a humanist pope, a poet and a scholar, whose very name linked him to the city he loved, should be compared to the barbarians who had sacked Rome and looted its treasures must have seemed to him a great injustice. He was hardly the first pontiff, after all, to put antique building materials to modern use. Plundering the monuments of Rome's ancient glory was an established privilege of the papacy. Even in exploiting the Pantheon bronze, other popes had preceded him. In r587, Sixtus V designated "un pezzo di pilastro di metallo antico tolto alia Rotonda del peso libre 263o" to be used in casting the colossal statues of Sts. Peter and Paul atop the ancient columns of Traj an and Marcus Aurelius; 15 and eleven years later, in 1598, Clement VIII combined a section of the Pantheon roof-truss with metal treasure looted from Etruscan tombs to create huge Corinthian capitals and other architectural elements for the new sacrament altar in the Lateran basilica. 16 Perhaps, if Urban had removed what was left of the Pantheon bronze for a similarly sacred purpose, the criticisms leveled against him would have been more muted. But his inten- 15 RoDOLFO LA NCIANI , Storia degli scavi di R oma e notizie intorno le collezioni romane di antichita, ed . Paolo Liverani, vol. 4, Rome 1992, 176. The pilastro in question was listed among other ancient metals deemed to serve no useful purpose in their original location ("bronzi che non servo no a nulla"). On Sixtus's "Christianization" of the two columns and the making of the statues, see CESARE D'ONOFRIO, Gli obelischi di Roma. Storia e urbanistica di una citta dall'eta antica al XX secolo, Rome 1992, 268-28o; Roma di Sisto V Le m·ti e Ia cultura, ed. MARIA LuiSA MADONNA, Rome 1993, 406 f. 16 LAN CIANI 1897 (as in note 3), 342 f.; see also note 26 below. It seems that the canons of Santa Maria della Rotonda, with the permission of Clement VIII, were actively involved in selling off precious materials from their church; see LANCIANI 1992 (as in note 15), 222. Rice: Bernini and the Pantheon Bronze tions were worldlier. The earliest indication we have of his decision to remove the ancient truss, an avviso of 23 August r6zs, leaves no doubt as to his motive: "The pope, having recently had several new cannons cast and installed in Castel S. Angelo, is contemplating having additional pieces of artillery made; but because of a shortage of metal, to comply with His Holiness the government of Rome met privately on the Campidoglio on Tuesday and resolved to give His Holiness the remaining bronze beams from the ancient structure of the Rotonda as well as the bronze door of their church of S. Adriano in the Forum. And yesterday evening, these same conservatori went to make their offer to the pope, who willingly acceded to it, being now in a position to cast more than sixty pieces of artillery."17 Significantly, the avviso makes no mention of the high altar of Saint Peter's.The idea that some of the bronze might be directed to that pious undertaking had clearly not yet been formulated and the pope's desire to arm Castel Sant'Angelo is the sole reason given for his appropriation of the metal. The realization that the bronze was to be used for military purposes may account, at least in part, for the public's hostile reaction. No doubt some of the pope's critics would have objected to the spoliation under any circumstances. As Rome's most famous and admired ancient monument, the Pantheon was inextricably bound up with the city's sense of its own identity. Not only scholars and antiquarians but the citizenry as a whole felt a proprietorial attachment to the building; and indeed the Pantheon was (at least nominally) under the control of the city's secular government. 18 Previous popes had taken a bit of marble here or a strip ofbronze there; but the wholesale removal of the portico's superstructure must have disgusted those who looked on the Pantheon as a symbol of Rome's imperial past. The fact that the building was also a church cannot have helped matters. Known as Santa 17 BAV, Urb. Lat. I095, f.so7v-so8; transcribed in OsKAR PoLLAK, D ie Kunsttatigkeit unter Urban VIII., 2 vols., Vienna I928-3I, vol. I, I75i Rossi I936 (as in note n), 99: "[I9 Aug I625] Il Papa oltr'haver ultimamente fatti fonciere 2 pezzi d 'artegli aria che dopo essere stati provati, sono di questa settimana stati posti in Castel sant'Angelo, ha pensiero di fonderne de gli altri, rna per esservi care stia della materia, il Popolo Romano per compiacere a sua Santita martedi tenne Conseglio segreto in Campidoglio, et risolse di dar a sua Beatitudine li travi di bronzo, ch'ancora rimangano nell'antica fabrica della Rotonda, et anche la porta di bronzo della loro Chiesa di sant'Adriano in Campo Vaccino; et hiersera questi signori Conservatori n'andorno a far l'offerta alla santitit sua, che l'aggradi vole ntieri potendo hora far fonci ere piu di 6o pezzi d 'artelgiaria. " 18 LAURIE NussDORFER, Civic Politics in the R ome of Urban VIII, Princeton I992, 8o, I89; SusANNNA PASQUALI, I f Pantheon. Architettura e antiquaria nel Settecento a Roma, Modena I996, SI- 54· See also the previous note. 343 Maria ad Martyres or Santa Maria della Rotonda, the Pantheon had been consecrated in the seventh century, the first pagan temple in Rome to undergo such a conversion. In stripping the portico of its bronze Urban was not only denuding Rome's finest ancient building, he was desecrating a place of Christian worship. Others, though, found the motive for the spoliation as offensive as the act itsel£ What they objected to, above all, was the fact that the venerable metal was destined for the cannon foundry. 19 Nobody questioned the pope's right to commission weapons for the defense of his city and his territories. He was, after all, a temporal as well as a spiritual ruler; and insofar as the safety of Rome was essential to the well being of the Church, its protection was his sacred responsibility. Nevertheless, the paradox of an armed papacy had always been subject to criticism and satire. One need only think ofJuliusii (r5o3-r3), the most notoriously militaristic of Renaissance popes, whom Erasmus likened to his pagan namesake, the belligerent Julius Caesar: "while you wear on the outside the splendid attire of priest," says Saint Peter to Pope Julius at the gates of heaven in Erasmus's satirical dialogue julius exclusus e coelo, "at the same time underneath you are horrendous with the clatter of bloody weapons." 20 When Urban stripped the 19 See, for example, the comments of the probably-pseudonymous Nicola Zambeccari, who wrote: "A molti buoni, e pij e doluto grandissimamente che quel santissimo Tempio [ ... ] l'habbi Vo stra Beatitudine rovinato e disimbellito per convertire qu ei metalli in artiglieria. Conciosiacosa che non hebbero principia con quei metalli le richezze della Chiesa, e l'autorita de ' Papi con la forza delle armi, e dell'artiglierie, rn a solo co n i santi essempij." To which his opponent responds: "e finalmente in che consis tono i suoi lamenti? Se ne sono fatti de ' Cannoni, dice egli; eccovi il tutto;" see BAV, Ottoboni Lat. 2753 , ff. 26 v-27, I84; tran scribed in Bossi I898 (as in note 3) , 67 f. Urban was not the first to recycle ancient bronze into artillery nor to earn the people's resentment as a result. In I6o7, Paul V took the gilt bronze tiles from the roof of old Saint Peter's for a similar purpose. These tiles h ad been looted by Pope Honorius from an ｡ｮ｣ｩｾ＠ building variously identified as the temple ofJupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline, the temple of Romulus in the Forum, or the basilica ofMaxentius. They had embellished the Vatican basilica for more than a thou sand years; and when, during the demolition of the last remaining section of the Constantinian nave, Paul V ordered them packed up and sen t to Ancona to be used in the defense of that city, the popolaccio expressed their discontent just as they did eighteen years later when they saw the Pantheon girders carted off to the cannon foundry. On Paul V's appropriation of the roof tiles, see TIBERIO ALFARA NO, D e Basilicae Vaticanae antiquissima et nova structura, ed. Michele Cerrati, Rome I9I4, I], 20; and on the people's reaction, see note II above . 20 ERASMUS, The J ulius exclusus' of Erasmus, trans. P. Pascal, Bloomington I968; cited in LOR EN PARTR IDG E and RA NDOLPH STARN, A Renaissance Likeness. Art and Culture in Raphael's J ulius II', Berkeley CA I98o, 45 f. " 344 Rice: Bernini and the Pantheon Bronze Pantheon portico to make artillery, he may have seemed another soldier-pope, more interested in defending his narrow territorial rights than in taking up his greater role as leader of the Church and champion of the true Faith. Subsequent events would reinforce the impression, for throughout his pontificate he devoted himself with uncommon energy to enhancing his military preparedness. In addition to improving and arming Castel Sant'Angelo, he built and stocked an impressive armory in the Vatican palace, expanded the city's defensive ramparts, ordered the construction of Forte Urbano at Castelfranco Emilia, and reinforced the papal fleet; while in his last years his disastrous involvement in the war of Castro (called by his contemporaries the guerra Barberina) proved his willingness to resort to the military option in resolving personal conflicts, even when this meant taking up arms against fellow Catholics. 21 The pope's decision to use the Pantheon bronze for cannon came at a particularly tense moment in European politics, when the conflict between France and Spain over the Valtelline, a strategically-important territory in northern Italy claimed by both nations, was threatening to erupt in all-out war. 22 The fragile peace negotiated by Urban's predecessor GregoryXV (r62r-23), who had sent papal troops to occupy the region until a settlement could be reached between the rival claimants, was crumbling. In r624, France with the assistance of Venice and Savoy marched into the region and seized the fortresses that controlled the area from the papal army. Spain demanded immediate retaliation and, when Urban, insisting on his own neutrality, refused to take action, accused him of favoring France. So hostile was the Spanish reaction that, according to a report from the papal nuncio Giulio Sacchetti, it was openly suggested in Madrid that the pope should be removed from office, by poison if necessary. In Rome, the pro-Spanish party actively sought to turn public opinion against Urban, spreading rumors and pasquinades. Urban realized that he had to take action. On the diplomatic front, he sent his nephew Cardinal Francesco Barberini on a special legation to Paris, to demand of the French a general armistice and the surrender of the Valtelline fortresses to papal troops. When, in the summer of r625, it became clear that the legate was getting nowhere, the pope began making preparations to retake the Valtelline by force, assembling an army of six hundred cavalry and six thousand infantry which was on the march by January of the following year. The maneuver, in the end, proved unnecessary. In April r626, after secret negotiations from which the papal legate was 21 LuDWI G VON PASTOR, H istory of the Popes, trans. E. Graf, 40 vols., London 1924-53, vol. 29, 360-366; W. CHANDLER KIRWI N, Powers Matchless. The Pontificate of Urban VIII, the Baldachin, and Gian L orenzo Bernini, N ew York 1997, 41-53. 22 PASTO R 1924-53 (as in note 21), vol. 28, ss-ns . pointedly excluded, the two super-powers signed the so-called Peace of Monzon, settling their dispute by agreeing to sh are access to the Valtelline. The crisis was averted, but only after Urban had succeeded in antagonizing both Spain and France. His decision to requisition the Pantheon bronze for cannon, coming as it did in the midst of his preparations for war, gave his adversaries in Rome a perfect opportunity to stir up public sentiment against him. The famous pasquinade likening the Barberini to barbarians must have made a welcome addition to their propaganda arsenal; and if they did not invent it, they surely had a hand in popularizing it. It was after the pasquinade began to circulate, spread by word of mouth and by the avvisi that broadcast it to the major courts of Europe and beyond, that we find the Pantheon bronze mentioned in connection with the baldacchino for the first time (Fig.6). Given the chronology, it seems likely that it was in response to the negative publicity that Urban VIII or one of his advisors came up with the idea of diverting some of the material to Bernini's workshop. Here was a way of mollifying the critics and defusing popular resentment. Perhaps Urban calculated that if Clement VIII could get away with using Pantheon bronze for the sacrament altar in the Lateran, he could do the same by funneling some of the remaining metal toward the decoration of the high altar of Saint Peter's. Such a use for the bronze would strike the public as more exalted and generally more in keeping with the pope's priestly role than his original stated intention of devoting the entire quantity to guns.The idea of taking metal from a temple once dedicated to the pantheon of pagan gods, converting it in the fiery furnace, and recasting it as the high altar of Christendom had obvious poetic appeal and the poet pope would not have been insensible to the elegance of the conceit. Over the centuries, spolia have often been used to convey powerful symbolic meanings; 2 3 and in this instance, the translation of the bronze from the Pantheon to Saint Peter's would have had all the more resonance because of the indisputable primacy of the two buildings involved. Bronze is a material that lends itself particularly well to the idea of metamorphosis and the kind of recycling to which it was subject frequently carried overtly symbolic connotations. Creating a work of art out of captured or decommissioned bronze 23 For an insightful discussion of the meaning of spolia, see MARIA FABR ICIUS H ANSEN , The Eloquence ofAppropriation. Prolegomena to an Understanding of Spolia in Early Christian Rome, Rome 2003 . See also DALE KI NNEY, "Rape or Restitution of the Past? Interpreting Spolia", in: The Art of I nterpreting, ed. Susan Scott, University Park 1995, 53 -67; ANTHONY CuTLER, "Reuse or U se? Theoretical and Practical Attitudes toward Objects in the Early Middle Ages", in : Settimane di studi del Centro I taliano di Studi sull'Alto M edioevo, 46 (199 9), ross-1079. Rice: Bernin i and the Pantheon Bronze 6 G.L. Bernini, Baldacchino (r624-33) 345 346 Rice: Bernini and the Pantheon Bronze weapons was, for instance, an effective way of either celebrating victory over an enemy or signaling the arrival of peace after war. 24 Giambologna cast the equestrian statue of Grand Duke Ferdinand! de' Medici (r6or-o8) in Piazza Santissima Annunziata in Florence from captured Turkish cannon, announcing the fact in an inscription across the horse's belly: Dei metalli rapiti a! foro Trace ("Made of metals seized from the fierce Turk''). 25 Five years later, Pope PaulV (r6os-2I) used cracked and corroded guns from Castel Sant'Angelo to make the colossal bronze statue of the Virgin and Child (r6r3/r4) atop the column in the piazza in front of Santa Maria Maggiore, which he deliberately promoted as a monument to peace. 26 Often, the transformation took the opposite direction, with works of art consigned to the furnace to make armaments, as for example in rsrr, when the populace of Bologna, under French sway, reacted against papal rule by destroying Michelangelo's bronze portrait ofJuliusii (rso6-o8); the metal, according to Vasari, was sold to Julius's enemy Duke Alfonso I d'Este of Ferrara, who used the bulk of it to make a cannon he mockingly dubbed "la Giulia," while keeping the statue's decapitated head in his studiolo as a souvenir. 27 When, as happened more rarely, works of art were melted down to make other works of art, the notion of converting and redirecting the numinous power from one image into 24 On the tradition of melting works of art into guns and guns into works of art, see MICHAEL COLE, "Under the Sign of Vulcan", in: Bronze: the Power of Life and Death, ed. Martina Droth (exhibition catalogue), Leeds zoos, 36-s2 . To the examples cited by Cole may be added Richard Westmacott's colossal statue of Achilles (r822) in Hyde Park, cast in honor of the Duke ofWellington out of cannon captured in the Napoleonic wars (MARIE Busco, "The 'Achilles' in Hyde Park", in: Burlington Magazine, So [r988], 9zr), and the fifty-foot statue of the Virgin and Child (r86o) that stands above the town of Le Puy-en-Velay in France, cast from 213 cannons captured at the siege of Sebastapol. 25 CoLE 2oos (as in note 24), 48, citing FILIPPO BALDINUCCI, Notiz ie dei professori del disegno da Cimabue in qua, vol. 2, ed. Ferdinanda Ranalli, Florence r846, sn26 CoLE zoos (as in note z4), 48, citing STEVEN OsTROW, "Paul V, the Column of the Virgin and the new Pax Roman a", in progress; see also HowARD HIBBARD, Carlo Maderno and Roman Architecture rs8o - I6Jo, University Park and London r97r, zorf.; D'ONOFRIO 199z (as in note rs), 283-287. On the use of shattered cannon from Castel Sant'Angelo for Guillaume Berthelot's statue of the Madonna and Child (r6r3/r4), see CESARE D'ONOFRIO, Le Jontane di Roma, Rome 1986, 338; Ponti per Ia storia artistica romana a! tempo di Paolo V, ed. Anna Maria Corbo e Massimo Pomponi, Rome I99S, 28, 7r. The column on which the statue was erected came from the basilica ofMaxentius, which at the time was identified as Vespasian's temple of Peace. Thus the column and the statue were both, in their different ways, associated with peace, a conceit spelled out in the inscriptions on the pedestal. Paul V was not the only pope to recycle decommissioned weaponry into works of art; it must, in fact, have been common practice. In making the bronze capitals and entablature of the sacrament altar in the Lateran, Clement VIII employed not only another was generally implicit, as when dangerous pagan idols were destroyed and recast as Christian saints. A famous pseudoexample of this is the much venerated statue of Saint Peter in the Vatican basilica, which in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was believed to be made of bronze melted down from an ancient statue of]upiter Capitolinus. 28 When he let it be known that he intended to use a part of the Pantheon bronze for the high altar of Saint Peter's, Urban VIII was tapping into this rich tradition. Word of his decision quickly spread and seems to have resonated powerfully with the Roman people. The authors of the avvisi latch onto it with particular tenacity and from then on emphasize the baldacchino over the cannon whenever they mention the Pantheon bronze. Thus, in the first week of October (exactly two weeks after reporting the pasquinade), they announce that the scaffolding went up in the portico of the Pantheon "to bring down the metal beams that support the roof[ ... ] in order to finish the decoration, similarly of metal, being constructed over the altar of the Apostles in Saint Peter's." 29 Again, in late November, as the operation to disassemble the bronze truss neared its end, an avviso informs us that "the bronze beams removed so far from the portico of Santa Maria della Rotonda have been taken to the foundry near the Vatiancient Roman and Etruscan bronze (see note r6 above), but also broken artillery; see LANCIANI 1992 (as in note rs), 224. 27 GIORGIO VASARI, Le opere, ed. Gaetano Milanesi, vol. 7, Florence 1906, 17z. 28 GIOVANNI BAGLIONE, Le nove chiese di Roma, ed. Liliana Barroero, Rome 1990: "alla nave grande [ . .. ] sta sopra un piedestallo di marmo [una] statua che fu gia un simulacra di Giove Capitolino, e poi disfatto, e rifuso, le fu dato forma di S. Pietro in atto di benedire il popolo." The legendary origins of the statue are a late invention; earlier descriptions of it, including the medieval Mirabilia, do not connect it with a statue of Jupiter. See CESARE D'ONOFRIO, Un popolo di statue racconta. Storie, Jatti, !eggende della citta di Roma antica, medieval, moderna, Rome 1990, 66 . 29 BAV, Urb. Lat. ro9s; transcribed in PoLLAK r9z8-3r (as in note q), vol. r, q6; Rossi 1936 (as in note rr), 99: "[4 Oct r62s] Di questa settimana si sono cominciati a far i Ponti necessarij per calar a basso li travi di metallo che sostentano il tetto del Porticale avanti la Chiesa della Rotonda per finir con essi l'ornamento pur di metallo che si fa sopra l'Altar delli Apostoli in San Pietro." Another version of the same avviso is transcribed by Bossi r898 (as in note 3), 30: "Di questa settimana si e dato principia a guas tarlo e mettere a basso quelli travi di bronzo, del quale si deve fabbricare un ornamento da porsi sopra l'altare delli santissimi apostoli nella Basilica di S. Pietro." A week later, another avviso signals the opening of the Vatican foundry; transcribed in PoLLAK 1928 - 31 (as in note r7), vol. z, 336; Rossi 1936 (as in note rr), roo: "[rr Oct r62s] Si sono aperte al Vaticano due fonderie per fondervi li travi di bronzo della Rotonda che riescono d'assai maggior materia di quello si credeva poi che oltre l'hornamento che si fara con essi per l'altare delli Santissimi Apostoli in San Pietro sene potranno cavare pili di 40 pezzi d'artegliaria per servitio di Castel Sant'Angelo." Rice: Bernini and the Pantheon Bronze 347 7 F. Borromini, Bronze bolt from the Pantheon portico, detail of Fig. 4 (r625, Vienna, Albertina) 8 Bronze bolt from the P antheon portico (2"d century AD, Berlin, Staatliche Museen) can Palace to make the columns and other elements that are to be placed over the altar of the Most Holy Apostles in the Vatican Basilica; and they say that any leftover bronze will be used to make artillery." 30 In December, Archduke Leopold of Austria visited the Vatican foundry "where the four metal columns for the high altar of Saint Peter's are being made from the bronze beams taken from the portico of the Rotonda.'>31 And finally, eight months later: "The four columns that are to go over the high altar of the Most Holy Apostles in the basilica of Saint Peter's are finished being cast from the bronze beams taken from the portico of the Rotonda, and also eighty pieces of artillery, both large and small, to be placed in the new fortifications of Castel Sant' Angelo." 32 Relying solely on the avvisi, one could easily have the impression that the greater part of the Pantheon bronze went directly into the melting pot to make the baldacchino. But the avvisi are in this instance misleading, and are better understood as evidence of the effectiveness of Urban's propaganda machine than as reliable vehicles of fact. 33 By spreading it about that some of the Pantheon bronze was to be used for the high altar of Saint Peter's, Urban was planting an appealing conceit in the consciousness of the Roman populace. But it was never anything more than a conceit. A portion of the Pantheon bronze was indeed set aside for Bernini's use, but it was a mere token, amounting to less than 2% of the total. The remaining 98.2% went directly to the cannon foundry. As it happened, the Pantheon bronze divided itself neatly into two unequal portions: the beams and the rivets that held together the beams. According to Francesco Maria Torrigio, the total weight of bronze removed from the Pantheon portico in r625/ 26 was 450,251 pounds, of which the bolts comprised 9364 pounds. 34 We know that a number of these bolts were given away as collector's items 30 Transcribed in Bossi r898 (as in note 3), 40 f: "[29 Nov r625] Li travi di bronzo levati sin hora dal porticale di S. Maria dela Rotonda, vengono condotti nella fonderia so tto il Palazzo Vaticano per farne le colo nne et altri adornamenti, che devono esser posti all' altare delli Santissimi Apostoli nella Basilica Vaticana, dicendosi che del sopravanzo di detto bronzo ha per farsene artiglierie." 31 BAV, Urb. Lat. 1095, f.78ov: "[3r Dec r625] Sua Altezza s'e compiacciuta di veder Castel Sant'Angelo et la nuova fortificatione, lodandola molto, sicome anche la fonderia, dove si fanno le quattro colonne di metallo per l'altar maggiore diS. Pietro con li travi di bronzo levati dal Porticale della Rotonda, havendosi per curiosita e per memoria dell'antica grandezza de' Romani porta to uno de' chiodi delle commissure di detti travi." 32 BAV, Urb. Lat. ro96, f.422v; cited in Rossi 1936 (as in note n), roo: "[r Aug r626] Sono finite di fondersi con li travi di bronzo levati dal Portico della Rotonda le 4 colonne che devono collocarsi nell' altar maggiore delli Santissimi Apostoli nella basilica di S. Pietro, et anche So pezzi d 'artegliaria tra grossi e piccioli, da porsi sopra le nuove fortificationi di Castel Sant'Angelo." 33 To get a sense of how the avvisi twist the facts, consider the avviso of n October, transcribed in note 29 above. It states that, because the ancient girders turn out to weigh more than was at first anticipated, there is now enough metal available not only to make the ornament over the hig h altar of Saint Peter's, but also to cast more than forty pieces of artillery. The clear implication is that the cannons were an afterthought, made possible because of an unexpected surplus of bronze. Yet we know for a fact that the use of the metal for cannon was not an afterthought, but was the first and, for a time, the only reason given for the appropriation of the bronze (see note 17 above). 34 FRANCESCO MARIA ToRRIGIO, Le sacre grotte vaticane, Rome r639 , 475· Here and throughout the article, I translate the Italian word "lib bra/ e" as "pound/ s." Readers are reminded, however, that the Roman libbra was equivalent too. 339 kgs or about three-quarters of a modern pound. In today's measurements, therefore, the total weight of the Pantheon bronze taken by Urban VIII was 336,so23l. lbs (rsz,635 kgs) or just over r6 8 tons. 348 Rice: Bernini and the Pantheon Bronze to friends of the Barberini and other dignitaries. The Barberini kept one for themselves, attached to a plate from one the girders; it was perhaps the very bolt Borromini recorded in the corner of one of his measured drawings of the Pantheon truss (Fig. 7). 35 Angelo Giori, a close friend of the family who was later made a cardinal by Urban VIII, owned a Pantheon rivet which he displayed on a wooden base. 36 The Strozzi, fellow Florentines, also had one in their collection, as did the Gualtieri, which was later acquired by Henry Howard. 37 Archduke Leopold who visited the foundry in December r625 came away with a rivet as a souvenir; 38 so too the Duke of Alcala, the Spanish ambassador who arrived in Rome in r625, just as the bronze was coming down. 39 Cardinal Fabio Chigi is also said to have owned one; 40 and there was one in the collection of Giovanni Pietro Bellori, which was later acquired by Friedrich Wilhelmi, king of Prussia, and is today in the antiquities collection of the Staatliche Museen in Berlin (Fig.8). 41 If we suppose that roughly ro% of the bolts were handed out as souvenirs, we are left with approximately 8428 pounds of bolts, which is very close to the 83741h pounds ofPantheon bronze assigned to Bernini. 42 This leads me to wonder whether the bronze was not simply divided between bolts and beams, with Bernini and his baldacchino assigned the smaller portion (the bolts), and Castel Sant'Angelo the lion's share (the beams).43 But whatever the case, the very unequal partition of the metal demonstrates the untrustworthyness not 35 FRANCESCO FICORONI, Le vestigia e rarita di Roma antica, 2 vols., Rome I744, vol. I, IJI; cited in Bos si I898 (as in note 3), 47· 36 SANDRO CoRRADINI, "La collezione del cardinale Angelo Giori," in: Antologia di belle arti, I (I977), 88, no. I49; with thanks to Karin Wolfe for the citation. 37 Bossi I898 (as in note 3), 4738 See note JI above. 39 GIACOMO LuMBRoso, "Notizie sulla vita di Cassiano dal Pozzo," in: Miscellanea di storia italiana, IS (I876), I75; cited in RoMANO I937 (as in note 3), 46. 40 GIOVANNI INcisA DELLA RoccHETTA, "Il museo di curiosita del Cardinal Flavio I. Chigi", in: Archivio della Societa Romana di Storia Patria, 89 (I966), no. I47; with thanks to Jo seph Connors for the citation. 41 ASR, Cartari-Febei, vol.I85, f. 28I; Bossi I898 (as in note 3), 47; Barock im Vatikan. I572-r676. Kunst und Kultur im Rom der Piipste II, ed. Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik D eutschland (exhibition catalogue), Leipzig 2005, I42. 42 Borromini measured one of the bolts at 2X palmi or approximately 56 ems and this accords nicely with the Berlin example, which is 53 ems long without the flange or collar at one end that originally held it in place. As for the weight, the bolt in the Barberini collection was said to be so he avy that one man alone could not lift it, but thi s may have been something of an exaggeration: the example in Berlin weighs just over 34lbs (IS-5 kgs). Assuming the bolts were all roughly the same size, there must have been about two hundred of them in all. 43 In addition, a minute portion of the Pantheon metal was used for papal med als (see note 49 below). only of the avvisi, but also of the marble inscriptions in the Pantheon portico. Those inscriptions, in twice alluding to the twin uses for the bronze, twice give precedence to the baldacchino over the cannon, so that an uninformed reader would be perfectly justified in supposing that the greater part of the bronze or at least an equal share was designated for the baldachin, whereas in fact the opposite was true. And that is not all. Even the less than 2% that was assigned to Bernini was intended only as a reserve, to have on hand in case his other sources of metal proved insufficient; it was understood- and indeed it was spelled out - that the Fabbrica of Saint Peter's would eventually return it to the Reverenda Camera Apostolica. 44 As it happened, Bernini had plenty of other metal at his disposal. Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin (with other elements sometimes added), and it was in these pure forms that the Fabbrica acquired the necessary metals for the baldacchino. Large quantities of copper were purchased, through the agency of the papal nuncio Giovanni Battista Agucchi, from dealers based in Venice and transported first by sea to the ports of Ancona and Pesaro and from there overland to Rome; the tin came from Cornwall via an importer in Livorno. 45 But Bernini's most plentiful source of metal was Saint Peter's itself In r625 the Fabbrica, acting on instructions from the pope, began removing the copper sheathing from the exterior ribs of the central dome, for use in the baldacchino and other projects in the interior of the basilica. 46 It was initially thought that the ribs would yield about sooo-6ooo pounds of metal each, but this turned out to be a gross underestimation. 4 7 44 Archivio della Reverenda Fabbrica di S. Pietro (henceforth AFSP), Piano I- serie 3- no. I59 , f.36v; transcribed in Bossi I898 (as in note 3), 52: "[4 Feb r626] Sanctissimus Dominus Noster mandavit consignari Equiti Berninio libras 8372 metalli pro opere super Altare SS. Apostolorum perficiendo cum hoc, quod Oeconomus nomine Fabricae promittat illud restituere." 45 See note SI below. On the Fabbrica's importation of copper, see also NICOLETTA MARCONI, Edificando Roma barocca. Macchine, apparati, maestranze e cantieri tra XVI e XVII secolo, Rome 2004, I20 f. The tin was delivered to Livorno rather than Civitavecchia or some other port closer to Rome because of a papal embargo on English shipping. Livorno, in Tuscany, was designated by the Medici grand dukes a free haven, where merchants from all nations, regardless of religion or politics, were encouraged to do business. 46 Completed in I590, the dome was initially sheathed in lead (I594). The addition in I594-96 of gilded copper ribs h as not been commented on in the literature, as far as I am aware, but strikes me as highly significant (for the documents, see ENNIO FRANCIA, Storia della costruzione del nuovo San Pietro da Michelangelo a Bernini, Rome I989, 94, 99). The effect of the golden ribs standing out against the dull grey of the leaded gores, accentuating the dome's structural character, must have been visually striking. 47 AFSP, Piano I- serie I- no.J, busta s6, f. 2JO; transcribed in PoLLAK I928 -3I (as in note q), vol.2, 26. Rice: Bernini and the Pantheon Bronze In fact, the seven ribs that were disassembled and sent to Bernini's forge in 1626 weighed a staggering total of ro3,229 1h pounds, or very nearly 15,000 pounds each. 48 With all these pure metals at his disposal, it is easy to see why Bernini not only had no particular need for the small amount of Pantheon bronze assigned to him, but was even averse to using it. Casting the four colossal spiral columns of the baldacchino was a difficult and dangerous operation. The artist had to maintain strict control over every aspect of the production, and in particular he needed to oversee the precise proportions of the alloy in order to ensure consistency of melting point, viscosity, density, etc. He accomplished this by concocting the alloy himself out of measured parts of copper and tin. The Pantheon bronze was a mystery metal; he had no way of determining its precise composition (it was rumored, in fact, to be tinctured with silver and gold)49 or how it might react when mixed with the other metals. Under the circumstances, it is unlikely that he would have risked using it except as a last resort, no matter how distinguished its pedigree or how conceptually appealing its reuse in this context. 5° In the end, Bernini returned the consignment of Pantheon bronze untouched. The marble inscriptions in the portico make no mention of this, nor do the avvisi which continue to report that the baldacchino was cast from ancient metal. But internal documents in the archives of the Fabbrica di San Pietro tell a different story. The officers of the Fabbrica drew up detailed accounts of the raw materials they acquired and those they used, for they were responsible for keeping the books and accu' of the institution. It is in rately recording the financial dealings 48 AFSP, Piano r - serie 3 - no. 159, f. 2ov; transcribed in Bossi 1898 (as in note 3), 34f; PoLLAK 1928-3I (as in note 17), vol.2, 5IO. 49 GJGLI I994 (as in note 9), vol. I, 152, says that the Pantheon bronze was "in gran parte mescolato di oro et argenta." He was evidently not the only one to believe this. In I625-28, Gaspare Mola cast papal medals from "metallo di corinto [ .. .] havuto da quello leva to dalla Rotonda." See ASR, Cam. II, Zecca, busta 27; cited in J ENNIF ER MoNTAGU, Gold, Silver and Bronze. Metal Sculpture of the Roman Baroque, Princeton 1996, 227 f., n. 4· Corinthian bronze Pliny defines as an especially high quality bronze made with trace amounts of gold and/ or silver (Natural History,XXXJV, I - 3; with thanks to Jennifer Montagu for the reference). The notion that the Pantheon bronze contained gold can be traced back at least to the fifteenth century. D escribing the portico in I45 2, Nikolaus Muffel writes: "auf den XVI seulen sind eren trem, auch mit gold vermuscht als man meint." See NIKOLAUS MuFFEL, Descrizione della citta di Roma nel I452, ed. Gerhard Wiedmann, Bologna I999 >88. 50 Domenico Bernini writes that it was his father's idea to use the Pantheon bronze for th e baldacchino but the claim is unconvincing given that Bernini voluntarily reliquinshed the portion assigned to him, and no other authors, as far as I know, repeat it. See DoMENICO BERNINI, Vita del Cavalier Gio. Lorenzo Bernino, Rome I713 (facs. Todi I999), 39 f. 349 the archives of the Fabbrica, then, that we find out what happened to the small portion of Pantheon bronze set aside as a reserve for the baldacchino. One document in particular clarifies the situation. It is a summary of the metal used by Bernini in crafting the columns of the baldacchino. It makes no mention of the copper from the ribs of the dome (presumably because this was metal already in the possession of the Fabbrica and did not need to be purchased), but it is specific down to the last halfpound about his other sources. It records the 89,341 pounds of copper transported from Venice and the 9200 pounds of tin from Livorno. It then continues: "Fearing that all this copper might not be sufficient, three additional quantities were acquired in Rome as a reserve. The first, 5657 pounds of copper sold by Francesco Franceschi for /:>,. 96r. 69. The second, 4000 pounds of metal sold by Francesco Beltramilli for 6. s6o. And the third, 83741/z pounds of metal taken from the church of the Rotonda and given by the Reverenda Camera Apostolica to Cavaliere Bernini, valued at/:>,. 1423.66. And since a portion of this reserve was advanced, so the 83741/z pounds of metal from the Rotonda were returned to the Reverenda Camera Apostolica in the identical quantity in which they were received; and moreover Bernini supplied the Reverenda Camera Apostolica with a further 3152 pounds of copper from Venice, which was used to cover the flagpole of Castel S. Angelo."51 51 AFSP, Piano I - ser. 3- no. 3, busta 14, f. rr98: "1626. Fu fatto venire da Venezia per mezzo di Monsignore Giovanni Battista Agucchia Nunzio cola della Santa Sede, il rame occorrente per !'opera di metallo per !a confessione. Fu questo rame in qu antita di libre 89,34I, delle quale libre 47,636 furono trasportate per mare da Venezia a Pesaro e da ivi per !a via di terra a Roma, e libre 41,705 da Venezia a Ancona per mare e da Ancona a Roma per !a via di terra. Costa di prima compra bajocchi 23,1( circa !a libra, ed i trasporti, spese, e provisio ni importarono !J. 2696.95, tanto che condotta a Roma si calcola a ragione di bajocchi 26)( !a libra. Temendo non bastass e tutto il sudetto rame, ne furono acquistate in Rom a per una riserva altre tre p artite. La prima di libre 5657 rame venduto da Francesco Franceschi per !J. 961.69. La seconda di libre 4000 - metallo venduto da Francesco Beltramilli per !J. 56o. E !a terza di libre ＸＳＷｾ Ｍ metallo levato dalla Chiesa della Rotonda e dato dalla Reverenda Camera Apostolica a! Cavaliere Bernini, quale fu calcolato !J. I423. 66. Ma siccome di questa riserva ne avanzo una quantitil, cosi restituite alia Reverenda Camera Apostolica [f.rr98v] le libre ＸＳＷｾ＠ metallo tolto dalla Rotonda nella stessa partita che si era ricevuta, e gli furono date inoltre altre libre 3I52 del rame venuto da Venezia, che servi per coprire l'Arbore di Castel S. Angelo. Furono egualmente proved uti in Livorno da Giovanni Ziffi e fatti venire in Rome barili 21 di stagno d'Inghilterra del peso in tutta libre 9200 che importarono !J. I777.04." The return of the metal is also referred to in AFSP, Piano I ser.3 - no.3, busta I, f.3o: "Alia Reverenda Camera Apostolica metallo levato dalla Rotonda libri ＸＳＷｾＭ !J. 1423.66. Restituito il medesimo metallo levato dalla chiesa della Rotonda, che fu 350 R ice: B ernini and the Pantheon Bronze 9 Pantheon portico, northeast corner, bee capital by F. Borromini and oth ers (r626/ 27) The document leaves little doubt that Bernini did not use his portion of Pantheon bronze but returned it to the Camera Apostolica intact. Indeed, such was the surplus of metal available to him at that time, he was able to spare more than 3000 pounds of the copper from Venice for use in cladding the flagpole at Castel Sant'Angelo. 52 In following this paper trail, I h ave come to wonder whether, in fact, there was ever any physical transfer of bronze involved. The casting of the columns and the guns took place simultaneously, in the same Vatican foundry, under the direction of the same master founders.53 The stores of metal destined for the two projects must have been kept in some way separate, since they were paid for and administered by different agencies (the Fabbrica providing the metal for the baldacchino, the Camera Apostolica for the cannon), but they could not have been far apart. If there was no actual transfer consegnato al Cavalier Bernini libri 837¢- /';. r423.66." This mention appears in connection with an entry dated 29 December r626 but seems to be added in a later h and. A memo dated r626 and entitled "Nota del metallo Ram e Stagnio et altri denari spesi per le Colonne di metallo" gives comparable but not identical information (transcribed in PoLLAK r928 - 3r [as in note r7], vol. 2, 338 f.). The quant ities recorded tend to be more approximate. For example, the bronze from the Pantheon is put at 8370 lbs (vs. 837¢ lbs) ; the copper from the ribs at roo,ooo lbs (vs. ro3 ,229X lbs); and the copper from Venice at n2,ooo lbs (vs . 89,34r lbs), this last a very significant difference. The document notes the redeployment of 3r52 lbs of copper for the flagpole of Castel Sant'Angelo but not the return of the Pantheon bronze. This could mean either that th e bronze had not yet been returned when the do cument was drawn up, or that information concern- ing its return was intentionally suppressed. The document in question, being of a more approximate nature than the one transcribed above, allows for greater fudging of the facts. 52 In these years, Castel Sant'Angelo's most arresting feature was its giant flagpole, which supported a huge papal banner from its crossbeam. During the Girandola of r624, a stray firework lodged in the mast and set it on fire; see GIGLI I994 (as in note 9), vol. r, I37· The new flagpole was made of fir trees shipped at great expense from a Camaldolese monastery in Tuscany (RoDoCANAC HI r909 [as in note 4], 205 and n. r). Negotiations between t he Fabbrica and the Camera Apos tolica regarding the purchase of 3000 lbs of the Fabbrica's copper to clad the woo den mast are recorded in March and April, r626. Armor-plated and topped wit h Urban's coat of arms in gilded copper, the flagpole was erected in December r628. 53 KIRWIN I997 (as in note 2r), r26 - r3o . Rice: Bernini and the Pantheon Bronze 10 D. Castello, Pantheon, showing the additions of Urban VIII (c.r644, BAV) of bronze from the Camera to Bernini and from Bernini back to the Camera, it could be that the transactions I have been discussing were never anything more than virtual. There is at least the possibility, therefore, that the whole thing was from the start a premeditated act ofbronze-laundering designed to deceive the public. On this point I cannot, of course, be certain. But it is worth noting that, whereas the decision to set aside a portion of the Pantheon bronze for the baldacchino was widely publicized, the subsequent restitution of that bronze unused was kept a closely guarded secret. Whether or not Bernini was meant to make use of the Pantheon bronze allocated to him, the whole episode smacks of damage control. The pope had not anticipated the negative publicity that his decision to use the ancient roof-truss for cannon would generate, but he was a politician and the instant he recognized his mistake he moved to correct it. He let it be known that a portion of the bronze would go to Saint Peter's, and even though that portion turned out to be only a tiny fraction of the whole it was enough to create a diversion. Those who had opposed stripping the Pantheon to make brute and ephemeral weapons of war could hardly protest once the stated objective became the creation of a majestic and permanent high altar for the mother church of Catholicism. It was a brilliant tactic. The amount of metal involved was too small to make a significant difference to the pope's plans for Castel Sant'Angelo (even if Bernini had held onto his portion, more than 98% of the bronze would still have been earmarked for guns), but it provided a kernel of truth that lent plausibility and substance to Urban's assertion that he took from the Pantheon to give to Saint Peter's. From the moment that it was 35 r first insinuated, indeed even before the bronze came down, the idea that a significant chunk of the metal was destined for Saint Peter's was embraced virtually without question. 54 An urban legend, planted out of political necessity, took root and flourished in the popular imagination; nor has it ever been eradicated but continues even to this day to find acceptance in the scholarly literature on both Saint Peter's and the Pantheon. As the author of the legend, Urban was surely aware that not one ounce of Pantheon bronze found its way into the spiral columns. A chirograph, signed by him on q June r626, is indicative of what he knew at that time: "Having ordered the removal of the metal that held up the roof of the loggia in front of the church of the Rotonda, in order to make artillery for the service ofour papal state (italics mine), we command that the entire cost, both of disassembling and transporting the bronze, and of re-covering the roof and remaking the campanile of said church, will be provided and paid for with money from our Reverenda Camera Apostolica." 55 54 The fact that the bronze was carted off to the Vatican foundry, where both the baldacchino and the cannon were being cast, effectively camouflaged the pope's intentions. Not everyone was taken in. A few early sources refer to the Pantheon bronze only in connection with the cannon, without mentioning the baldacchino. See, for example, the report of th e Venetian ambassador at note ro above; also }ANUS Nrcws ERYTHRAEUS [Gian Vittorio Rossi], Ep istolae ad Tyrrhenum [ ... ], 2 vols., Cologne 1645-49, vol. 2, 70, as transcribed in Bossi r898 (as in note 3) , 49, and in translation in LANCIANI r897 (as in note 3), 482. Whether these authors were unaware of the legend, unconvinced by it, or politically motivated to ignore it is hard to say. Others accepted that Pantheon bronze had gone into the baldacchino but were deeply skeptical about the motive for the re - use. In a letter dated 13 January r627 to a friend in France, Fraw;:ois-Auguste De Thou reports that the pope has h ad twenty-four guns cast from bronze taken from the Pantheo n portico:" ... et pour ernpecher qu'on ne criiit, il a fait faire du reste quattre grosses colonnes pour l'autel de Saint-Pierre ... " ("Lettres de A.-F. De Thou durant les voyages en Italie et dans le Levant, 1626-29," R evue retrospective, ser. 2, III [9], r835, 387; with thanks to Ingo Herklotz for the reference). De Thou's remark proves conclusively that in Rome there were those who saw the decisio n to set aside a portion of the bronze for the baldachin as nothing more than a diversionary tactic designed to defuse the public outcry over the spoliation. 55 "Monsignore Vidone nostro Thesoriere Generale. Havendo noi ordinato che si levasse il rnetallo che serviva per tetto delle loggie avanti la chiesa della Rotonda per servirsene in far delle Artiglierie per servitio del nostro stato ecclesiastico vi ordiniarno che tutta la spesa che occorrera di fare tanto illevare e il portare via detto rnetallo come in ricoprire il detto tetto et rifare il earnpanile della detta Chiesa lo facciate pagare da Marcello Sacchetto D epositario nostro Generale de' denari della nostra Camera al quale quanto per questo servitio havera pagati e paghera co n vostri rnandati, vogliarno siano accettati e fatti buoni a suoi conti. Dato nel no stro Palazzo di Montecavallo questo di 17 di Giugno r626. Urban us Papa VIII." R. Chirografi r625-27, f. 179; tran- 3 52 Rice: Bernini and the Pantheon Bronze Written after the spiral columns had been cast, this official document makes no mention of the baldacchino. Instead it confirms that the pope used the Pantheon bronze, as he had intended from the start, for cannon. The casting of the guns was completed by the end of that year; and on one of them this inscription appeared: Ex clavis trabialibus Porticis Agrippae ("made from the beams of Agrippa's portico"). 5 6 The chirograph is noteworthy for another reason. When it was written, in June r626, Urban had not yet come up with the idea of undertaking a major renovation of the Pantheon's portico. All he had in mind at that point was to replace what he had had to remove in order to get at the bronze, and so the document refers to re-covering the roof and reconstructing the single campanile - it was a modest little medieval structure perched atop the ridge-beam - that had stood there before. Soon after, though, he adopted a more ambitious scheme. Maybe he worried that word would get out that the Pantheon bronze had not been used for the high altar of Saint Peter's after all; maybe he thought he needed to do something more to defend himself against the indictment of pillaging one of Rome's most beloved antiquities and desecrating one of her most ancient churches. At any rate, in the end, he not only replaced the bronze truss with a new one of wood and constructed a new roof, he also paid to have one of the missing columns on the far left side of the portico replaced and given a new marble capital, carved by Francesco Borromini and his team and featuring a Barberini bee sucking nectar from the rosette; and he commissioned twin bell towers to replace the previous single one. 57 At one point, he also considered constructing ceilings or vaults in the interior of the portico, which would have hidden the wooden truss from view and given a statelier, more polished appearance to the space. Architects and amateurs alike submitted proposals, but either because they were unable to reach consensus as to the proper and authentic way of covering the space or because of the cost that would have been involved, nothing came of this particular aspect of the renovation.5 8 Not everyone admires Urban's additions to the Pantheon - the famous ass's ears, in particular, have always been much ridiculed - but no one can deny that in the end he left his mark on the building (Figs.9-ro). The culminating feature of Urban's restoration is the pair of marble inscriptions flanking the entrance into the building with which we began. I have tried to show how through these texts Urban set out consciously to rewrite history, setting in stone for all to read information that he knew to be false linking the Pantheon bronze and the baldacchino, and recasting the whole episode as a pious act of restoration, as though his appropriation of the ancient metal were nothing more than a necessary first step toward the renovation of the building. For epigrammatic pithiness and poetic elegance, the fictions presented in these tablets have an undeniable appeal. They are fictions nonetheless. The facts are messier and more elusive but with a fascination all their own, revealing through the shadowy politics of bronze just how masterfully Urban VIII shaped and manipulated public perceptions to serve his own ends. scribed in ANTONI NO B ERTOLOTTI , Adisti bolognesi, ferraresi ed alczmi altri del gia Stato Pontificio in R oma nei secoli XV, XVI e XVII, Bologna r88 6, rg8 . 56 RI CHAR D L ASSELS, The Voyage of I taly, Paris r67o, 23; cited in RoDO CANAC HI rgog (as in note 4), 2or, n. 9· 57 The team of scarpellini responsible for building the twin camp anili and carving the bee capital and other marble elements for the portico restor ation included Francesco Borromini, Battista C as telli, Agos tino Radi, and Carlo Fancelli. See PoLLAK rg28-3 r (as in note q), vol. r, r78 -r8o ; TH ELEN rg67 (as in notes) , 32-34; R agguagli borrominiani. Mostra documentaria, ed. M . Del Piazza (exhibition catalogue), Rom e rg6 8, 7r f., 199 f.; HIBBARD rg7r (as in note 26), 230 f.; II giovane Borromini. D agli esordi a San Carlo aile Quattro Fontane, ed. M. Kahn- Ro ssi and M . Franciolli (exhibition catalogue), Milan 1999, 248-251. 58 Two manuscript proposals survive in connection with this project, one entitled "Discorso fat t o per occasione di travi di metallo che erano nel portico della Rotonda [ .. .]" (Montpellier, Bibliotheque de !'Ecole de Medecine, cod. H . 267; transcribed in Gm sEPPE BoFFITO and FRA NCESCO FRACASSETTI, II Collegia San L uigi dei PP. Barnabiti in B ologna, Florence 1925,36 - 39, with an erroneous attribution to Ambrogio Mazenta) and the other in the Vatican Library entitled "Se sia m eglio coprire il portico della Rotonda con volta o co n soffltta" and here attributed to Giulio Mancini (see notes 8 and n above). For more on these two texts and Urban's proj ect for covering the interior of the Pantheon portico, see RicE forthcoming (as note 6).