DOI article:
Krasny, Piotr: Exempla viva: the prelates of the Roman Catholic Church as inspirers of Charles Borromeo’s instructions on shaping sacred srt
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.38234#0049
48
12. Santa Prassede in Rome, rebuilt с. 1560, interior towards the
high altar. Photo: P. Krasny
13. Santa Prassede in Rome, rebuilt c. 1560, interior. Photo: P. Krasny
revival in architecture83, which should not obscure the fact
that such a concept of shaping church architecture had ap-
peared as early as in the first half of the sixteenth century.
The evident reservation with which Borromeo ap-
proached the artistic heritage of the pagan antiquity had
been manifested earlier by humanists involved in the task
of the renewal of the Church. Such a stance was assumed,
for example, by Gregorio Cortese (1483-1548), a learned
Benedictine abbot at Polirone in the vicinity of Mantua,
who in a letter written in 1538 to the Benedictine human-
ist Luciano Degli Ottoni (с. 1490-1552) declared that, on
the one hand, he admired Roman baths, porticoes, basili-
cas, temples and other ancient ruins, as ‘monuments of
power’ (‘potentiae monumenta’), but on the other hand,
he was unable to forget about the blood of Christian
83 C. Robertson, Il Gran Cardinale. Alessandro Farnese, Patron of
Arts, New Haven, 1992, p. 162.
martyrs these monuments were soaked with.84 Such a per-
ception of the antique resulted undoubtedly in the focus
of Corteses research on the earliest period in the history
of the Roman Church and on the works of the most an-
cient Latin Christian writers. As early as 1522 he defended
the conviction - questioned by the Protestants who fol-
lowed Marsilius of Padua (1275-1342) - about St Peter’s
stay in Rome. In his treatise, De romano itinere divi Petri,
he argued that the Apostle was indeed the first bishop of
the Eternal City, a fact that should be considered as a ra-
tionale for the primacy of his successors in the Church.
In this work, dedicated to Pope Hadrian VI (Adriaan Flo-
renszoon Boeyens, 1459-1523), then recently elevated to
the Throne of St Peter, Cortese declared that the renewal
of the Church must consist in the return of the papacy
84 R Piva, L’altro Giulio Romano, pp. 54-55 (as in note 26); B.L.
Brown, ‘Veronese and the Church Triumphant. The Altarpieces
for San Benedetto Po’, Artibus et Historiae, 18, 1997, no. 35, p. 54;
M. Tafuri, Giulio Romano, pp. 54-55 (as in note 55).
12. Santa Prassede in Rome, rebuilt с. 1560, interior towards the
high altar. Photo: P. Krasny
13. Santa Prassede in Rome, rebuilt c. 1560, interior. Photo: P. Krasny
revival in architecture83, which should not obscure the fact
that such a concept of shaping church architecture had ap-
peared as early as in the first half of the sixteenth century.
The evident reservation with which Borromeo ap-
proached the artistic heritage of the pagan antiquity had
been manifested earlier by humanists involved in the task
of the renewal of the Church. Such a stance was assumed,
for example, by Gregorio Cortese (1483-1548), a learned
Benedictine abbot at Polirone in the vicinity of Mantua,
who in a letter written in 1538 to the Benedictine human-
ist Luciano Degli Ottoni (с. 1490-1552) declared that, on
the one hand, he admired Roman baths, porticoes, basili-
cas, temples and other ancient ruins, as ‘monuments of
power’ (‘potentiae monumenta’), but on the other hand,
he was unable to forget about the blood of Christian
83 C. Robertson, Il Gran Cardinale. Alessandro Farnese, Patron of
Arts, New Haven, 1992, p. 162.
martyrs these monuments were soaked with.84 Such a per-
ception of the antique resulted undoubtedly in the focus
of Corteses research on the earliest period in the history
of the Roman Church and on the works of the most an-
cient Latin Christian writers. As early as 1522 he defended
the conviction - questioned by the Protestants who fol-
lowed Marsilius of Padua (1275-1342) - about St Peter’s
stay in Rome. In his treatise, De romano itinere divi Petri,
he argued that the Apostle was indeed the first bishop of
the Eternal City, a fact that should be considered as a ra-
tionale for the primacy of his successors in the Church.
In this work, dedicated to Pope Hadrian VI (Adriaan Flo-
renszoon Boeyens, 1459-1523), then recently elevated to
the Throne of St Peter, Cortese declared that the renewal
of the Church must consist in the return of the papacy
84 R Piva, L’altro Giulio Romano, pp. 54-55 (as in note 26); B.L.
Brown, ‘Veronese and the Church Triumphant. The Altarpieces
for San Benedetto Po’, Artibus et Historiae, 18, 1997, no. 35, p. 54;
M. Tafuri, Giulio Romano, pp. 54-55 (as in note 55).