St. Charles Borromeo, Church Art and Architecture and the Council

THE CRUCIFIX AND THE PEN:
ARCHBISHOP FEDERICO BORROMEO
AND THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
JOHN MATTHEW BUTLER
A Senior Thesis Submitted to the Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University,
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts
Princeton, New Jersey
April 4, 2012

This thesis represents my own work in accordance with University regulations.
Signature
I authorize Princeton University to reproduce this thesis by photocopying or by other
means, in total or in part, at the request of other institutions or individuals for the purpose
of scholarly research.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS........................................................................................................................ IV
ILLUSTRATIONS.......................................................................................................................................V
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................................1
EXTENDING THE AGE OF BORROMEO............................................................................................................2
THE STATE OF CATHOLIC REFORMATION SCHOLARSHIP..........................................................................5
CHAPTER 1............................................................................................................................................ 10
THE COUNCIL’S CLOSE ......................................................................................................................................10
NATURALISM AND MANNERISM: THE ROOTS OF REFORMATION........................................................14
EARLY EFFORTS AT REFORMATION...............................................................................................................19
CHAPTER 2............................................................................................................................................ 26
REALIZING TRENT: CARLO BORROMEO AND GABRIELE PALEOTTI...................................................26
THE REFORMATION SAINT: CARLO BORROMEO .......................................................................................27
RESPUBLICA CRISTIANA: GABRIELE PALEOTTI’S BOLOGNA................................................................. 34
CHAPTER 3............................................................................................................................................ 45
THE EARLY YEARS: FEDERICO’S YOUTH IN MILAN AND ROME ..........................................................45
THE MILANESE EPISCOPATE............................................................................................................................50
DE PICTURA SACRA..............................................................................................................................................56
FEDERICO’S INTERPRETATIONS OF TRENT................................................................................................. 58
VERISIMILITUDE AND HISTORICAL ACCURACY .................................................................................................61
DECORUM.................................................................................................................................................................63
THE VALUE OF ART................................................................................................................................................65
CONTEMPORARY INSPIRATION: ......................................................................................................................66
CARLO’S INSTRUCTIONES AND PALEOTTI’S DISCORSO.............................................................................66
CHAPTER 4............................................................................................................................................ 77
LANDSCAPES AND STILL LIFES ........................................................................................................................79
RELIGIOUS NARRATIVES AND DEVOTIONALS............................................................................................83
RELIGIOUSLY LAYERED WORKS .....................................................................................................................88
CONCLUSION......................................................................................................................................... 93
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my advisor, Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, for his support and
guidance in my research throughout this past year. Since the nascent stages of my Junior
Paper on Carlo Borromeo’s architectural patronage, he has been an invaluable mentor in
reading drafts of my work, pointing me towards pertinent literature, and guiding me through
the vast sea of scholarship on the Counter-Reformation. This project would also not have
been possible without the support of the Roundtable Senior Thesis Fund and the Center for
the Study of Religion, which provided me funding and counsel as I undertook summer
research in northern Italy.
I would also like to thank my classmates and peers who supported me throughout
this process, especially William Plunkett, Ann-Marie Elvin, Lindy Li, Claire Branch, Brittany
Kelleher, Alison Malkowski, Matt Arons, and Sibley Lovett. From reminding me that
extensive research alone does not create a final product to proofreading my written drafts,
they have exemplified the kindness and good-natured support by which one recognizes a
true friend.
Finally, I would like to thank my parents. Of the many gifts I have been given, their
selfless love and steadfast devotion to my wellbeing and development has truly been the
greatest blessing I could have ever received.
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ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure 1. Federico Zuccaro; S. Agata in carcere da S. Pietro; Duomo, Milan; 1600; Oil on
Canvas. (Photo: Cristina Acidini Luchinat, Taddeo e Federico Zuccari: fratelli pittori del Cinquecento
(Milan: Jandi Sapi Editori, 1999), Vol. 2, 199.)
Figure 2. Orazio Borgianni; S. Carlo Borromeo; 1610-16; Oil on Canvas; The Hermitage, St.
Petersburg. (Photo: St. Carlo Borromeo. State Hermitage Museum.
. 1 April 2012.)
Figure 3. Anonymous Lombard; Ritratto di Federico Borromeo; 17 th Century; Oil on Canvas;
Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan. (Photo: Carlo e Federico: La luca dei Borromeo nella Milano
spagnola, ed. Paolo Biscottini (Milan: Diocesan Museum, 2005), 82.)
Figure 4. Anonymous; Gabriele Paleotti; Late 16 th Century; Oil on Canvas; Archivio Storico of
the University of Bologna. (Photo: Ritratto del cardinal Gabriele Paleotti. Storicamente:
Laboratorio di Stoia, University of Bologna.
. 1 April 2011.)
Figure 5. Federico Zuccaro; Self-Portrait; c. 1588; Oil on Canvas; Uffizi, Florence. (Photo:
Self-Portrait. Web Gallery of Art. .
1 April 2012.)
Figure 6. Attributed to Nicolò Dorigati; Sessione conclusive del concilio di Trento; 1711; Oil on
Canvas; Diocesan Museum, Trent. (Photo: L’Uomo del Concilio: Il cardinal Giovanni Morone tra
Roma e Trento nell’età di Michelangelo, ed. Roberto Pancheri and Domenica Primerano (Trent:
Diocesan Museum of Trent, 2009), 345.)
Figure 7. Franz Hogenberg; The Calvinist Iconoclasm of 20 August 1566; 16 th Century;
Engraving; Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg. (Photo: Marcia Hall, The Sacred Image in the Age
of Art: Titian, Tintoretto, Barocci, El Greco, Caravaggio (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011),
32-3.)
Figure 8. Pietro Perugino; Vision of S. Bernard; S. Maria MAddalena dei Pazzi, Florence; 1490-
94; Oil on Wood; Alte Pinakothek, Munich. (Photo: Vision of S. Bernard. ARTstor.
. 1 April 2012.)
Figure 9. Girolamo Frencesco Maria Mazzola, called Parmigianino; Madonna with the Long
Neck; Intended for Church of Servites, Parma; 1535-40; Oil on Wood; Uffizi, Florence.
(Photo: Madonna with the Long Neck. ARTstor.
. 1 April 2012.)
Figure 10. Giovanni Battista di Jacopo, called Rosso Fiorentino; Dead Christ with Angels;
1524-27; Oil on Canvas; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. (Photo: The Dead Christ. ARTstor.
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. 1 April 2012.)
Figure 11. Tobias Stimmer; Gasparo Contarini; Paolo Giovio, Pauli Iouij Nouocomensis Opera
quotquot extant omnia : a mendis accuratè repurgata, viuisque imaginibus eleganter & opportunè suis locis
illustrata, Vol. 4; 1577; Woodcut; The Warburg Institute Library. (Photo: Gasparo Contarini.
ARTstor.
. 1 April 2012.)
Figure 12. Anonymous Lombard; Gian Matteo Giberti; Oil on Wood; Museo di Castelvecchio,
Verona. (Photo: A.G. Dickens, The Counter Reformation (Norwich: Harcourt, Brace, and
World, 1969), 53.)
Figure 13. Michelangelo Buorronati; Last Judgment; Sistine Chapel; 1534-41; Fresco; Vatican.
(Photo: Last Judgment. ARTstor.
. 1 April 2012.)
Figure 14. Michelangelo Buonarroti; S. Maria degli Angeli; 1561; Rome. (Photo: S. Maria degli
Angeli.
ARTstor.. 1 April 2012.)
Figure 15. Surviving Cross Vaults of the Baths of Diocletian; Concrete; 3 rd -4 th CE. In
Michelangelo Buonarroti; S. Maria degli Angeli; 1561; Rome. (Photo: S. Maria degli Angeli.
ARTstor.
. 1 May 2011.)
Figure 16. Pellegrino Tibaldi, Church of San Fedele, begun 1569, Milan. (Photo: The Jesuits
and the Arts, 1540-1773, ed. John W. O’Malley and Gauvin Alexander Bailey (Philadephia: St.
Joseph’s University Press, 2003), 56.)
Figure 17. Pellegrino Tibaldi; San Sebastiano; 1576; Milan. (Photo: Author.)
Figure 18. Giovannino de Grassi and Simone da Orsenigo; Milan Cathedral (Duomo di
Milano); c. 1386-1858; Milan. (Photo: Milan Cathedral. ARTstor.
. 1 May 2011.)
Figure 19. Pellegrino Tibaldi; Exterior of Rotunda of S. Sebastiano; 1576; Milan. (Photo:
Author.)
Figure 20. Pellegrino Tibaldi; Peristyle surrounding Pirro Ligorio’s Tabernacle; 1564-81;
Bronze; Duomo, Milan. (Photo: Thomas Nagel, The Controversy of Renaissance Art (Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press, 2011), 255.)
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Figure 21. Pellegrino Tibaldi; Central View of Nave of San Fedele; 1576; Milan. (Photo:
Mario De Biasi and Guido Lopez, Chiese di Milano (Milan: CELIP, 1991), 113.)
Figure 22. Paolo Veronese. The Crucifixion; c. 1582; Oil on Canvas; Musée du Louvre. (Photo:
The Crucifixion. ARTstor.
. 1 April 2012.)
Figure 23. Agostino Carracci; Portrait of Ulisse Aldrovandi; The Illustrated Bartsch, Vol. 30, Pt. 1;
c. 1585; Engraving; Accademia Carrara, Bergamo. (Photo: Portrait of Ulisse Aldrovandi.
ARTstor.
. 1 April 2012.)
Figure 24. Hieoronymus Wierix; B. Ignatius Loyola; 16-17 th Century; Engraving; Fine Arts
Museums of San Francisco, CA. (Photo: B. Ignatius Loyola. ARTstor.
. 1 April 2012.)
Figure 25. Pellegrino Tibaldi; Collegio Borromeo; 1561; Pavia. (Photo: Carlo e Federico: La luca
dei Borromeo nella Milano spagnola, ed. Paolo Biscottini (Milan: Diocesan Museum, 2005), 82.)
Figure 26. Bernardo Cane; Decoration of the Chancel of the Chapel; After 1584; Collegio
Borromeo, Pavia. (Photo: John Alexander, “Shaping Sacred Space in the Sixteenth Century:
Design Criteria for the Collegio Borromeo’s Chapel,” Journal of the Society of Architectural
Historians, Vol. 63, No. 2 (June 2004): 172.)
Figure 27. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio; Basket of Fruit; c. 1597; Oil on Canvas;
Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan. (Photo: Basket of Fruit. ARTstor.
. 1 April 2012.)
Figure 28. G.B. della Rovere, called Il Fiammenghino; Detail of Durante la peste, san Carlo porta
in processione il Santo Chiodo; 1602; Oil on Canvas; Duomo, Milan. (Photo: San Carlo Borromeo:
La casa costruita sulla roccia, ed. Archdiocese of Milan and the Biblioteca Ambrosiana (Bari:
Pagina, 2011), 95.)
Figure 29. Relic of the Holy Nail; Duomo, Milan. (Photo: Kirsch, Edith W, “An Early
Reliquary of the Holy Nail in Milan,” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, Vol.
30, No. 3 (1986): 575.)
Figure 30. Domenico Ghirlandaio; Birth of the Baptist; 1485-90; Fresco; Cappella Maggiore,
Santa Maria Novella, Florence. (Photo: Birth of the Baptist. ARTstor.
. 1 April 2012.)
Figure 31. Daniele Crespi; Last Supper; Church of S. Pietro, Brianza; c. 1630; Tempera on
Panel; Brera, Milan. (Photo: Last Supper. ARTstor.
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. 1 April 2012.)
Figure 32. Leonardo da Vinci; Last Supper; 1495-8; Fresco; S. Maria delle Grazie, Milan.
(Photo: Last Supper. ARTstor.
. 1 April 2012.)
Figure 33. Tiziano Vecellio; Adoration of the Magi; 1560; Oil on Canvas; The Cleveland
Museum of Art, Cleveand, OH. (Photo: Adoration of the Magi. ARTstor.
. 1 April 2012.)
Figure 34. Detail of Pisa Baptistery; Giovanni Pisano and Nicola Pisano; c. 1260; Marble;
Pisa. (Photo: Pisa: Baptistery. ARTstor.
. 1 April 2012.)
Figure 35. Paul Bril; Seascape; 1618; Oil on Canvas; Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan. (Photo:
Marco Rossi and Alessandro Rovetta, La Pinacoteca ambrosiana (Milan: Electa, 1997), 120.)
Figure 36. Jan Brueghel the Elder; Landscape with Hermit Reading and Ruins; 1597; Oil on
Copper; Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan. (Photo: Marco Rossi and Alessandro Rovetta, La
Pinacoteca ambrosiana (Milan: Electa, 1997), 127.)
Figure 37. Paul Bril; Seascape; 1611; Oil on Canvas; Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels.
(Photo: The Port. Web Gallery of Art. .
1 April 2012.)
Figure 38. Jan Brueghel the Elder; Seascape (Marina); 1617; Oil on Canvas; Uffizi, Florence.
(Photo: Seascape (Marina). ARTstor.
. 1 April 2012.)
Figure 39. Paul Bril; Night Place (Landscape with Harbor and Lighthouse); 1601; Oil on Copper;
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. (Photo: Night Place (Landscape with Harbor and Lighthouse).
ARTstor.
. 1 April 2012.)
Figure 40. Jan Brueghel the Elder; Forest Landscape with a Brook; 1597; Oil on Copper;
Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan. (Photo: Marco Rossi and Alessandro Rovetta, La Pinacoteca
ambrosiana (Milan: Electa, 1997), 129.)
Figure 41. Jan Brueghel the Elder; Flowers in a Glass; 1618; Oil on Copper; Pinacoteca
Ambrosiana, Milan. (Photo: Marco Rossi and Alessandro Rovetta, La Pinacoteca ambrosiana
(Milan: Electa, 1997), 135.)
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Figure 42. Jan Brueghel the Elder; Vase of Flowers, with a Gem, Coins, and Shells; 1606; Oil on
Copper; Pincacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan. (Photo: Bouquet. Olga’s Gallery.
. 1 April 2012.)
Figure 43. Pellegrino Tibaldi with Federico Zuccaro; Altar of S. Agatha; 1600; Stone, Marble,
Oil o Canvas; Duomo, Milan. (Photo: Fermo Zuccari and Giovanni De Castro, Il Duomo di
Milano (Rome: Editalia, 1992), 79.)
Figure 44. Pellegrino Tibaldi; Floor Plan to Duomo; 16 th Century; Duomo, Milan. (Photo: Il
Duomo di Milano: Dizionario storico artistico e religioso, ed. Giulia Benati and Anna Maria Roda, 2 nd
Ed. (Milan: Nuove Edizioni Duomo, 2001), 23.)
Figure 45. Camillo Procaccini, Giuseppe Meda, and Ambrogio Figino; Organ Shutters; 1590;
Oil on Canvas; Duomo, Milan. (Photo: Duomo: Anima di Milano, ed. Rosa Auletta Marrucci
(Milan: Federico Motta, 2000), 162-3.)
Figure 46. Sebastiano del Piombo; Martyrdom of Saint Agatha; 1520; Oil on Wood Panel;
Galleria Palatina. (Photo: Martyrdom of S. Agatha. ARTstor.
. 1 April 2012.)
Figure 47. Jan Brueghel the Elder; Daniel in the Lion’s Den; 1618; Oil on Copper; Pinacoteca
Ambrosiana, Milan. (Photo: Marco Rossi and Alessandro Rovetta, La Pinacoteca ambrosiana
(Milan: Electa, 1997), 135.)
Figure 48. Jan Brueghel the Elder with Peter Paul Rubens; Madonna and Child with Angels in a
Garland of Flowers; c. 1617; Oil on Canvas; Musée du Louvre. (Photo: Madonna and Child with
Angels in a Garland of Flowers. ARTstor.
. 1 April 2012.)
Figure 49. Jan Brueghel the Elder and Hendrick Van Balen; Virgin and Child in a Garland of
Flowers; 1618; Oil on Panel and Copper; Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan. (Photo: Marco Rossi
and Alessandro Rovetta, La Pinacoteca ambrosiana (Milan: Electa, 1997), 134.)
Figure 50. Johan Sadeler; S. Anthony Abbot; Solitudo sive Vitae Patrum Eremicolarum; Late 16 th
Century; Engraving. (Photo: S. Anthony Abbot. ARTstor.
. 1 April 2012.)
Figure 51. Jan Brueghel the Elder; Mountain Landscape with a Hermit; 1597; Oil on Copper;
Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan. (Photo: Marco Rossi and Alessandro Rovetta, La Pinacoteca
ambrosiana (Milan: Electa, 1997), 131.)
Figure 52. Paul Bril; Landscape with Mutius; 1607; Oil on Canvas; Pinacoteca Ambrosiana,
Milan. (Photo: Marco Rossi and Alessandro Rovetta, La Pinacoteca ambrosiana (Milan: Electa,
1997), 44.)
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Figure 53. Paul Bril; Landscape with Two Capuchins; 1605; Oil on Canvas; Pinacoteca
Ambrosiana, Milan. (Photo: Marco Rossi and Alessandro Rovetta, La Pinacoteca ambrosiana
(Milan: Electa, 1997), 123.)
Figure 54. Paul Bril; Landscape with a Bridge and Pilgrims; 1605; Oil on Canvas; Pinacoteca
Ambrosiana, Milan. (Photo: Marco Rossi and Alessandro Rovetta, La Pinacoteca ambrosiana
(Milan: Electa, 1997), 123.)
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“…con un Christo in l’una delle mani,
e con la penna in l’altra,
egli morir voleva.”
Francesco Rivola, Vita di Federico Borromeo
xi

Introduction
__________________
For the modern visitor to the Duomo of Milan, signs and stanchions quickly swing
one from the leftmost front entrance to the right-hand side of the nave. As reproductions of
the Quadroni gently ripple between the pillars to the left, freestanding placards outline the
construction of the Duomo and its important place in Milanese history. However, despite
their usefulness, these displays also hide an important part of the Duomo’s past, for in
looking behind them to the actual wall, one finds a series of three altars dedicated to S.
Agata, the Sacro Cuore, and S. Maria delle Neve, respectively. Although largely ignored by
scholars and tourists in favor of the Duomo’s more renowned organ covers or candelabra,
the altar of S. Agata nevertheless proves an important monument in Milan’s history.
Designed by Pellegrino Tibaldi, Archbishop Carlo Borromeo’s close assistant and the chief
architect of the Duomo from 1567 until his death in 1596, the altar was completed in 1600
with the addition of S. Agata visitata in carcere da S. Pietro [Fig. 1], a work by Federico Zuccaro,
a close associate of the then-archbishop Federico Borromeo. 1 This altar thus serves as a
bridge between the episcopates of these two cousins. While Tibaldi assisted Carlo not only in
writing his architectural treatise but implementing its policies on his famous parochial
visitations, Zuccaro so influenced Federico’s understanding of artistic theory that the
archbishop borrowed his guidelines when designing his own art academy within the
Ambrosiana. Indeed, the very structure of the altar symbolizes these cousins’ relationship
and the place of the younger in history. Supported by the firm structure laid down by Carlo,
the work of Federico maintained and enriched these policies, supplementing firm episcopal
1

oversight with artistic patronage and a classical perspective. Attentive to the decrees of the
Council of Trent exemplified by his predecessor, Federico sought to imbue Tridentine
reforms with a humanistic spirit that would sustain it well into the seventeenth century.
* * *
EXTENDING THE AGE OF BORROMEO
On April 26, 1595, the Duke of Sessa sent two letters to the Spanish Court. The first,
an official report, expressed optimism at the prospect of the Church’s new nominee to the
See of Milan. 2 The second proved less complementary, preoccupied with the nominated
cardinal’s youthful lack of experience and overeager nature. 3 With the memory of the former
Archbishop Carlo Borromeo [Fig. 2] – soon to be canonized in 1610 – still fresh in their
minds, they worried that this new archbishop, Carlo’s cousin Federico Borromeo [Fig. 3],
would prove just as stubborn and resistant to the Spanish Crown’s jurisdictional claims. For
the Borromeo family, long-established within the Duchy of Milan, this nomination of
Federico proved their last hope of maintaining their stakes within the region, and they, along
with the anti-Spanish factions in Milan and Rome, looked to him to reassert Carlo’s
successful rule and regain the ground loss during the interim episcopate of Gaspare
Visconti. 4
For ecclesiastical officials in Rome, and in the Church more broadly, Federico
symbolized more than just a political rallying point, however, for he also represented the
future of the Catholic Reformation. 1 With the death of Carlo Borromeo in 1584 and
1Although a full discussion of the history of this period is beyond the scope of this thesis, it is important to
acknowledge the long-standing debate over how to frame and characterize the transformation of European
Christianity between the fifteen and seventeenth centuries. Hubert Jedin, in his seminal study of the Council of
Trent, proposed a distinction between the “Catholic Reformation,” which involved the Roman Church’s
introspective self-examination and subsequent reform, and the “Counter-Reformation,” which pertained more
to the response of the Roman Church to the Protestant movements throughout Europe. Jedin himself wavered
over the exact nuances of these distinctions, and since the publications of the first two volumes of Geschichte des
2

etirement of Archbishop Gabriele Paleotti of Bologna in 1589 [Fig. 4], the end of the
sixteenth century saw the loss of much of the first generation of Tridentine reformers, and
the Church looked to Federico to extend this reform movement into the seventeenth
century and to revive Milan as the archetypal Tridentine archdiocese. 5 Although at first
unprepared to take on the political challenge of the Spanish Habsburgs, Federico eventually
proved an able and worthy successor to his elder cousin, reviving many of Carlo’s policies
while infusing the See of Milan with a new appreciation for humanistic inquiry that would
serve it well in the new century. 6 Inspired both by the example of his elder cousin and the
mentorship received during his University years in Bologna under Paleotti, Federico
combined the former’s restless administrative oversight with the latter’s appreciation of the
arts and nature and, in doing so, created what would become a lasting model for bishops
throughout the seventeenth century
Nowhere is Federico’s episcopate symbolized more fully than in his artistic treatise
De pictura sacra. Like Carlo and Paleotti before him, Federico attempted to concretize the
vague decrees of the Council of Trent concerning religious artwork, and, indeed, Federico’s
writing reveals an intimate familiarity with the work of both these reformers. At the same
time, De pictura sacra expresses an artistic appreciation and depth of humanistic engagement
not found in the previous generation’s work. Inspired by his interactions with Christian
optimists, like S. Filippo Neri and S. Roberto Bellarmino, and the Roman artistic culture,
embodied by theorists like Federico Zuccaro [Fig. 5] as well as the wealthy patrician patrons,
the archbishop sought to move away from the narrow-minded approaches of previous
Konzils von Trient in 1949 and 1957, many revisionists, including Delio Cantimori and Paolo Prodi, have taken
aim at his distinctions and overall characterization of the period. For the sake of clarity, this study shall refer to
the period as the Catholic Reformation, which includes both the nascent and scattered efforts of early
reformers like Girolamo Savonarola, Gian Peitro Carafa, and Gian Matteo Giberti, as well as the later reforms
made at Trent and under the leadership of Gabriele Paleotti and Carlo and Federico Borromeo. For an
introductory account of the historiography of the Council of Trent and Reformation period more broadly, see
O’Malley’s Trent and All That (2000).
3

Church reformers, like the stringent Theatines or even his elder cousin, in favor of a
Tridentine approach informed by classical education and the liberal arts. De pictura sacra
represents the embodiment of this approach, combining sincere religious devotion with an
earnest and learned appreciation of the inherent value of artistic accomplishment.
Despite its historical significance, however, this treatise still remains largely understudied.
Aside from biographical accounts written by his contemporaries, several modern scholars
have researched the writings and legacy of Federico Borromeo, with much of the resultant
literature focusing on his relationship to his cousin Carlo and his creation of the
Ambrosiana, a complex consisting of a library, a gallery, and an art academy. These scholars’
breakthrough research has, however, provided the necessary background information and
historical framework to begin asking broader, more comparative questions. This thesis
represents a significant departure from this existing literature in its attempt to position
Federico Borromeo within the overall Catholic Reformation by means of a textual analysis
of his De pictura sacra. Through analyzing its connections not only to the writings of Carlo
and Paleotti but also to the text of the original Tridentine decrees, this thesis will
demonstrate Federico’s role as not only the successor to the See of Milan but a legitimate
doctor of Tridentine artistic reform.
In order to place the writing of the De pictura sacra within the proper context, Part I
of this thesis will establish a historical framework of the evolution of the Catholic
Reformation throughout the sixteenth century. Chapter 1 will begin with the early protests
of Savonarola in the Piazza della Signoria and Gasparo Contarini’s efforts to reform the
Roman Curia. From there, it will trace the development of the Catholic reform movement
through important figures like Gian Matteo Giberti and Gian Pietro Carafa to its ultimate
culmination in the Twenty-Fifth Session of the Council of Trent. Chapter 2 will then study
4

the example of two of the most prominent Tridentine reform bishops, Carlo Borromeo and
Gabriele Paleotti, both of whom took the spirit of the Council and concretized it through
their devoted service to their local archdiocese.
Part II of this thesis will then explore the specific personal and archdiocesan history
of Federico before conducting a textual analysis of his De pictura sacra. In addition to
identifying the key themes of the text and exploring their implications for his aesthetic
theory, this textual analysis will also compare De pictura sacra to the writings of other
prominent religious leaders, particularly Carlo and Paleotti, as well as Federico’s colleague
and close friend in Rome, Federico Zuccaro. Part II will also look to draw specific
connections between De pictura sacra and the text of the decrees of the Twenty-Fifth Session
of Council of Trent in order to demonstrate Federico’s concerted effort to grapple with the
Church’s teachings and embody in the Tridentine reforms through his episcopate. Lest these
historical and textual analyses remain too theoretical and abstract, Part III of this thesis will
conduct a formal analysis of several works from Federico’s art collection as well as the
Duomo of Milan. Through exploring both sacred and secular works, this study will examine
the practical impact of Federico’s theoretical writings as well as the full range of his artistic
patronage. In synthesizing the existing scholarship with the support of original textual and
formal analysis, this thesis will thus look to establish Federico’s pivotal role within the
Catholic Reformation as a bridge between the close of the Council 1563 and the start of the
new century.
THE STATE OF CATHOLIC REFORMATION SCHOLARSHIP
Given the size of the body of literature on the Catholic Reformation, any attempt to
summarize the scholarship on the subject will necessarily prove sparse and inadequate.
5

Nevertheless, as Parts I and II of this thesis rely heavily upon secondary literature to
construct a historical framework for understanding the significance of Federico’s De pictura
sacra, it will be useful to provide a brief summary of the state of modern scholarship
surrounding Federico Borromeo as well as the broader Catholic reform efforts of the
sixteenth century.
To gain an understanding of the Council of Trent and the Catholic Reformation in
its broadest sense, this thesis makes use Hubert Jedin’s four-volume Geschichte des Konzils von
Trient (1949-75), of which Ernest Graf has translated the first two volumes into English, as
well as a number of revisionist histories. 7 Several single-volume treatments of the subject,
including Guy Bedouelle’s Reform of Catholicism, 1480-1620 (2008), Michael A. Mullett’s
Catholic Reformation (1999), and John C. Olin’s Catholic Reform: From Cardinal Ximenes to the
Council of Trent, 1495-1563 (1990) and The Catholic Reformation: Savonarola to Ignatius Loyola
(1992), also proved enormously helpful as reference sources during the writing of the first
two parts of this thesis.
In order to establish Federico’s historical place within the Catholic Reformation, this
thesis will also call upon the literature surrounding his mentors – Carlo, Paleotti, and
Zuccaro – as well as the archdiocese of Milan more broadly. At least in part due to Carlo
Borromeo’s esteemed position within Catholic history, the scholarship concerning his
episcopate and the historical importance of Milan to the Tridentine reforms is quite
extensive. While John M. Headley’s and John B. Tomaro’s San Carlo Borromeo: Catholic Reform
and Ecclesiastical Politics in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century (1988) and Wietse de Boer’s
Conquest of the Soul: Confession, Discipline, and Public Order in Counter-Reformation Milan (2001)
both provide excellent overviews of Carlo’s episcopate, Jedin’s 1971 monograph provides
valuable insight into his personal development from a more biographical standpoint. Carlo’s
6

legacy as a patron and critic of the arts and architecture has also received fair treatment,
particularly within the last decade. Two highlights from this scholarship include John
Alexander’s From Renaissance to Counter-Reformation: The Architectural Patronage of Carlo Borromeo
during the Reign of Pius IV (2007) and the catalogue for Carlo e Federico: La luca dei Borromeo nella
Milano spagnola shown at Milan’s Museo Diocesano from 2005 to 2006. The former work in
particular provides important insights into Carlo’s influences in approaching diocesan reform
and the patronage of religious architecture. His involvement in the construction of the
Duomo has also been extensively documented in the many volumes on the Milanese
cathedral’s construction. 8
Although less discussed than Carlo, Paleotti has also attracted a fair amount of
scholarship. Although the foremost text remains Paolo Prodi’s 1959 biography, this thesis
will also look to Paul D. Hilbrich’s The Aesthetic of the Counter Reformation and Religious Painting
and Music in Bologna, 1565-1615 (1969) and Anton W.A. Boschloo’s Annibale Carracci in
Bologna: Visible Reality in Art after the Council of Trent (1974). Although the latter work has
received criticism since its publication for lacking evidence to support the causal link
between Paloetti’s theoretical writings on art and the development of a new formal
naturalism in the Carracci workshop, Boschloo’s study still proves useful as an overview of
Paleotti’s writings and intellectual influences, as well as his episcopal legacy more broadly.
Federico Borromeo himself has also drawn a fair amount of attention from art
historians, particularly in connection with his founding of the Ambrosiana. While Arlene
Quint and John W. O’Malley, S.J., have each discussed the subject, the foremost authority on
Federico and his art patronage is unquestionably Pamela M. Jones, whose Federico Borromeo
and the Ambrosiana: Art Patronage and Reform in Seventeenth-Century Milan (1992), in combination
with her 1985 dissertation and other subsequent articles, forms the core of modern
7

scholarship on the topic. In these works, Jones focuses on Federico’s involvement in the
creation of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, analyzing his writings, particularly Musaeum, only to
the extent that they provide insight into this more concrete project. Cognizant of this past
research, this thesis will look to supplement Jones’s work by providing an in-depth analysis
of De pictura sacra first at a textual level and then through examples of his patronage drawn
from within the Ambrosiana as well as the Duomo. 9 Distinct from the writings of Jones and
O’Malley, 10 this thesis will employ this primary and secondary literature to establish
Federico’s role not only as a Christian humanist and Borromeo’s successor but a legitimate
heir to the Tridentine reforms.
8

PART I
HISTORICAL ANALYSIS:
CATHOLIC REFORM IN THE
SIXTEENTH-CENTURY
9

CHAPTER 1
___________________________
THE COUNCIL’S CLOSE
The pope was ill. 1 Upon the arrival of this notice from Rome on November 30, the
delegates at Trent scrambled, shifting up the timetable of the final session by six days and
hoping to complete their task lest all their efforts collapse. 2 Although Pope Pius IV did not
pass away until December of 1565, two years after the close of Trent, it was amid this
atmosphere of hurry and anticipation that the Council passed its final decrees concerning
purgatory, the Index of Books, the Catechism, the sale of indulgences, and the place of relics
and sacred images within the Church [Fig. 6]. 3 Particularly in regards to indulgences and
sacred images, their treatment in this ultimate session indicates their centrality to the
Protestant controversy and Catholic Reformation. Although standard history marks Luther’s
nailing of the Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Wittenberg castle church in 1517 as the
opening salvo of the Reformation, discontent with the sale of indulgences and discomfort
with the state of the Church had been building since the late medieval period. 4 Ecclesiastical
negligence and luxury, particularly within the Roman Curia, became increasingly intolerable
for the Catholics outside of Lazio. This resentment eventually expressed itself in efforts to
ban images and remove them from churches, for they came to represent Roman Catholic
authority. 5 At the same time, the images themselves, even when stripped of their Roman
associations, came under question. The export of Italian naturalism to Germany and
northern Europe caused a dramatic shift in artistic production and a correspondingly startled
and trenchant reaction from critics. 6 Even within the Italian peninsula, the rise of Mannerism
10

and investment of Church funds on courtly art sparked resistance among more conservative
Catholic authorities.
Aware of this widespread unease about the state of religious art and pressured by the
time constraints of the Twenty-Fifth Session, the Council’s decrees concerning sacred art left
much of the work of interpretation and elaboration to the bishops. “On the Invocation,
Veneration, and Relics of Saints, and on Sacred Images” opens by specifically
“command[ing] all bishops and others who hold the office of teaching and have charge of
the cura animarum, that… they above all instruct the faithful diligently in matters relating to…
the legitimate use of images.” 7 This directive reflects two significant trends throughout the
Council regarding the important role of bishops in reforming and leadings the Church. First
and foremost, bishops were expected to implement and actualize the changes made at Trent
through daily engagement and oversight of their dioceses. 8 At the Twenty-Fourth Session
the previous November, the Council mandated that provincial and diocesan synods be
organized “for the regulation of morals, the correction of abuses, the settlement of
controversies, and for other purposes permitted by the sacred canons.” 9 While the
metropolitans were called to convoke a provincial synod every three years, the Council
anticipated that bishops would oversee annual synods to handle local problems and keep
track of their dioceses. Lest any confusion arise, the Council rearticulated the bishops’ role
within the Twenty-Fifth Session’s “Decree Concerning Reform.” Citing “[t]he distress of the
times and the malice of increasing heresies,” they decreed that all holy men present at the
first provincial synod, and all those who join at each subsequent diocesan synod, publically
adopt and affirm the teachings of “the sacred canons and general councils and especially [of]
this council.” 10 Again, it is left to the bishops to make real the vision for reforming and
strengthening the Catholic Church created in Trent.
11

Bishops were also compelled to take an active pedagogical role within their dioceses
and thus called not only to supervise in an administrative capacity but to become integrally
involved in the actual teaching of parishioners. Although the Council allowed for some
variation in the specific shape that education would take within each bishop’s episcopate, it
also passed several decrees covering specific responsibilities of the bishop, particularly in
regards to preaching and educating parishioners’ about the sacraments. For the most part,
Tridentine reforms maintained the traditional role of the bishop as the chief preacher within
his diocese, a practice which dates back to the early Church; however, they also required him
to supervise the preaching of parish priests and visitor preachers throughout the diocese.
Indeed, the Council decreed that “no one, whether secular or regular, [should] presume to
preach, even in churches of his own order, in opposition to the will of the bishop,” for they
served as the local safeguard against heresy and false teachings. 11
Beyond just preaching and interpreting the Scriptures, the bishops’ teaching
requirements also included a clarification of and re-emphasis on the fundamental role of
sacraments in the Church. One of the key projects of Trent was to reestablish the Church as
the center of Christians’ lives. This emphasis on the importance of the sacraments served as
a rebuttal to Luther’s advocacy of solitary prayer and personal study of the Scriptures as well
as a reminder of the necessity of ecclesial engagement to a well-ordered Christian life.
Bishops played a crucial role in this effort. They not only educated the parishioners at the
Masses they celebrated but also insured “that the same [was] done piously and prudently by
every parish priest, and in the vernacular tongue.” 12 Explanations were to be clear and
straightforward, “in a manner adapted to the mental ability of those who receive” them. 13 In
these decrees, the Council evinces its concern for reaching all of the faithful, whether
12

wealthy and educated or poor and illiterate, and making sure that the foundational aspects of
the Church are clear and followed.
In the Council’s decree concerning sacred images, these two functions of the bishop
– as diocesan overseer and pedagogue – manifest themselves again. Particularly for the
illiterate who attended Mass, the religious artwork displayed in a church could be an effective
means of teaching important lessons and conveying a sense of the holy. 14 To that end, the
Council directed bishops to teach not only through sermons and talks but also “by means of
the stories of the mysteries of our redemption portrayed in paintings and other
presentations.” 15 Bishops were to incorporate sacred images into the prayer life of their
parish, installing them in their churches “that due honor and veneration [might be] given.” 16
In these directives, the Council drew much of its understanding of the role and function of
images from the Second Council of Nicaea, thus framing the Protestant objection to images
as if it were a rehashing of old heresies dismissed in principle long ago. 17 In 787, under the
leadership of Constantine VI and Empress Irene, it was declared that “the honour which is
paid to the image passes on to that which the image represents.” 18 Although the first
articulations of this argument arise in Plato’s Timaeus, Christian forms of this argument date
back to St. Basil’s fourth-century treatise, On the Holy Spirit, 19 and even in articulating the
Tridentine reforms, the Church fathers borrowed the decrees from Nicaea almost word-for-
word. Christians ought to venerate and trust in images “because the honor which is shown
them is referred to the prototypes which they represent, so that by means of the images…
we adore Christ and venerate the saints whose likeness they bear.” 20 Moreover, this
relationship between images and facilitated prayer adds an important element to the
Church’s position on images, for rather than being neutral and inoffensive, they actually
become a proper and important means of worship – honoring the image of Christ uniquely
13

allows people to honor the prototype. 21 In this way, the Council not only justifies image
veneration as harmless but positively argues for it as a valuable practice.
Despite the Council’s emphasis on the importance of images to enhance worship
and religious education, they also acknowledged the significant potential for misuse. Images’
strong evocative power could prove problematic when mishandled, for even if a painting is
not directly contrary to Church doctrine, an ambiguous subject matter or too little regard for
a clear message can lead viewers astray. Engaging with the visual arts, rather than with a
sermon, necessarily involves more interpretation on the part of the viewer – there is more
left up to chance in terms of the final message that a parishioner might take away from his
engagement with the work. To eliminate such problems, the decree specifically stipulates
that “all superstitions [superstitio] shall be removed, all filthy quest for gain [turpis quaestus]
eliminated, and all lasciviousness [lascivia] avoided,” and that the responsibility of oversight
fall to the bishops so “that nothing… appear that is disorderly [inordinatum] or unbecoming
[praepostere] and confusedly arranged [tumultuarie accomodatum], nothing profane [profanum],
nothing disrespectful [inhonestum], since holiness becometh the house of God.” 22 When such
abuses are found, bishops are to remove the artwork lest it mislead the parishioners either
through direct heretical teachings or just providing “the occasion for grave error [periculosi
erroris] [among] the uneducated.” 23 In line with the overall tenor of the Council’s decrees,
these provisions make an effort to clarify the official position of the Catholic Church while
also leaving room for specific interpretation and application by each bishop.
NATURALISM AND MANNERISM: THE ROOTS OF REFORMATION
Although the importance of the Council of Trent cannot be overemphasized, its true
impact and contribution to the Catholic reform movement can only be understood when
contextualized against the endemic corruption of the Roman Curia and the influential voices
14

of a few earnest and committed diocesan reformers. Much of the problem arose from
ecclesiastical neglect as the Church essentially ceased to be a “parochially-grounded
institution.” 24 By the beginning of the sixteenth century, many bishops and priests had
abandoned their pastoral posts in favor of serving as officials in the Curia or at the court of a
cardinal or secular ruler. 25 Despite their lack of residence, these members of the clergy
continued to receive the revenues of their benefices, draining the coffers of their local
dioceses and parishes while leaving auxiliaries and vicars – poorly paid journeyman clergy –
as their substitutes. 26 Such arrangements not only bankrupted the local regions but left them
without the competent and effective pastoral care necessary to foster a robust faith among
parishioners. People were left to founder in their religion, either ceasing to care or
attempting to understand it on their own, which frequently resulted in Protestant sympathies
and heretical viewpoints.
Religious artwork faced a similarly bleak situation in the early decades of the
sixteenth century. As Bob Scibner and Marcia Hall have both argued, the introduction of
full-fledged Italian artistic naturalism into Germany at the end of the fifteenth century
caused significant commotion. 27 In this period, pious German worshippers still felt a deep
sense of identification – an almost personal relationship – when viewing a sacred image, and
this “sacramental gaze” 28 involved a strongly sensual component. Hall and Scribner point out
that, because Germans had not had the opportunity to acclimate themselves to artistic
naturalism slowly, viewers still treated highly naturalistic artwork in the same way they wood
a medieval icon, but rather than stimulating only directed prayer and religious devotion, such
artwork also stirred the viewers’ physical desires. 29 Although Luther himself was not fiercely
iconoclastic, one of his peers, Andreas Karlstadt, passionately opposed the central role of
images in the Roman Church, took issue with their sensuousness and the almost cult-like
15

worship they drew. 30 Calling for their removal and destruction by secular forces, Karlstadt
argued that images could only mislead, that although the Catholic church – and iconodules
more generally – claim to teach about Christ and God through graphic representations, “[o]f
the power of Christ they teach nothing at all.” 31 Deriving this argument from St. Paul’s
rejection of divine knowledge through the physical world, 32 Karlstadt convinced Wittenberg
to institute a ban on religious images and have those already installed removed from the
city’s churches, both of which Ulrich Zwingli achieved in Zurich not too long afterwards
[Fig. 7]. 33
Although the transition to naturalism occurred more slowly in Italy, controversy still
arose as to the proper use of naturalistic detail as well as the development of Mannerism
towards the middle third of the sixteenth century. In Florence, Fra Girolamo Savonarola led
a fierce battle against luxury and indecorous art as part of a large campaign to reform the
city. After seizing effective control of Florence in 1494, he and his followrs, the piagnoni
[weepers], undertook a purging of the city, removing corrupt clergymen and instituting bans
on what he saw as sinful practices. 34 In 1497, he organized what has become known as the
Bonfire of the Vanities, soliciting young children to gather worldly goods from throughout
the city to be destroyed as metropolitan purge. 35
In terms of art, although not opposed to images outright, Savonarola objected to
secularizing religious artwork with well-executed but unnecessary naturalistic detail or the
inclusion of anachronistic dress or ordinary people amid a holy scene. 36 For instance, in
Pietro Perugino’s Vision of Saint Bernard [Fig. 8], the Virgin is depicted wearing common
clothing and standing in an arcade as if merely speaking to St. Bernard rather than occupying
his holy vision. But for the six delicate haloes hung atop each saint in the scene, one might
assume that the painting portrayed a purely commonplace scene. For Savonarola, while the
16

naturalism of the scene clearly evinces artistic skill, Perugino’s concern for naturalistic detail
and innovation obscures the work’s religious content. Fra Angelico’s frescoes for the
monastery at San Marco, on the other hand, embody Savonarola’s artistic preferences, for
even though they include contemporary depictions of prayerful Dominicans and much
naturalistic detail, their simple treatment of a clear religious scene makes them ideal for
facilitating contemplation and religious worship. Anticipating the attitudes of Tridentine
reformers, he wished for religious artwork to be clear and straightforward so that any viewer,
whether an aristocrat or peasant, might be able to view it and understand the subject matter.
Indeed, although Pope Alexander VI, sick of his radical reforms and disdain for the papacy,
ultimately had him excommunicated and executed – hanged and burned on the Piazza della
Signoria – in 1498, Savonarola’s passionate efforts prefigured those of Protestant and
Catholic reformers throughout the sixteenth century. 37
The Council’s warning against “lasciviousness [lascivia]” and compositions that are
“confusedly arranged [tumultuarie accomodatum]” also alludes to another artistic controversy
that arose by the 1530s as central Italian artists sought to go beyond pure naturalistic
accuracy and begin imbuing their works with more idiosyncratic and personal qualities. 38
Such strategies looked to appeal to the artists’ wealthy and learned patrons, who would
“catch the references to earlier works of art and understand the strangeness as artistic
ornamenti.” 39 Foremost among these Mannerists were Parmigianino, Rosso Fiorentino,
Domenico di Pace Beccafumi, and Bronzino, and particularly in looking at Parmigianino’s
celebrated Madonna dal Collo Lungo (1543-40) [Fig. 9] and Rosso’s Dead Christ with Angels
(1524-7) [Fig. 10], one can gain a clearer understanding of the characteristics of Mannerism
that the Council later sought to avoid. Although never completed, the Madonna dal Collo
Lungo was ordered in 1534 by Elena Tagliaferri as an altarpiece for the burial chapel of her
17

husband, and in looking at its overall composition, one can see a stark contrast between
more traditional representations of the Madonna and Child and Parmigianino’s treatment in
this work. 40 Displaying the Virgin as a wealthy woman, surrounded by angelic attendants as
she looks down on the sleeping Christ, this painting is “highly literate” and can thus
incorporate stylistic grace and an innovative composition into a still legible religious scene. 41
Beyond just its evocative appeal, the work also incorporates a sophisticated series of
references to treatises on standards of beauty and architecture. 42 In this way, the altarpiece’s
strength is also its weakness, for while Parmigianino creates a true masterpiece in terms of
artistic skill, compositional grace, and learned allusion, the vast majority of viewers visiting
Tagliaferri’s tomb in the Servite church in Parma would never have understood its references
to Vitruvius or Petrarchan standards of beauty. 43 Once the Council of Trent officially took
up the spirit of the Catholic Reformation and codified it through decrees, Church officials
had to shift their attention to serving these average parishioners for whom such works
would be a source of mystery and confusion, not spiritual assistance.
A study of Rosso Fiorentino’s Dead Christ with Angel at the Museum of Fine Arts,
Boston, provides another important example of the quest for originality and inventiveness in
Mannerist art. Rather than being highly allusive to other works within Italian culture, Dead
Christ with Angels derives from the well established iconographic type of the dead Christ
supported by angels, but within this series of works, Rosso breaks from tradition. 44 Christ,
surrounded by angels, two of whom hold candles, is shown sitting atop a sarcophagus;
although, its position atop a platform would also seem to allude to an altar. The scene is
complicated by the subtle contentment and smirks of the angels, as well as the Christ
himself. While John Shearman has speculated that this scene ought to be interpreted
conceptually, rather than depictive of a certain moment in time, he also hypothesizes that the
18

work “may refer to a frequently represented, apocryphal, miraculous aspect of the
Resurrection,” as if the angels have come to gather the resurrected Christ from the sealed,
dark tomb. 45 Regardless of the specific allusions and concept that Rosso intended to portray,
the most radical aspect of Dead Christ with Angels from a religious perspective is its treatment
of the Christ. Naked and bearing a subtle, “sensual smile” as the angel inspects the wound in
his side, the figure is disturbing, particularly for a viewer initially anticipating a mournful and
somber scene. 46 While certainly provocative, the painting also runs the risk of repelling
viewers and making them feel shame because of the sexual tension and ambiguity it evokes.
The work is highly sensual, and even if it represents an interesting artistic move on the part
of Rosso for an educated and sophisticated audience, like Parmigianino’s Madonna con Collo
Lunga, it would likely confuse and mislead its broader audience. In the phraseology of the
Council’s decree, the painting flirts with “lasciviousness [lascivia]” and the “profane…[and]
disrespectful [profanum…inhonestum].”
EARLY EFFORTS AT REFORMATION
By the time Paul III commissioned the Council of Trent in 1545, the spirit of the
Catholic Reformation was already in the air. In the work of Erasmus of Rotterdam and
Francisco Ximénes de Cisneros of Toledo, Renaissance concepts on humanism and
individualism began to merge with Catholic spirituality, resulting in an emphasis on personal
prayer, interior religious experience, and a Christocentric life. 47 Derived from readings of the
Scriptures informed by “moralistic tendencies” and the Platonic spiritualism, these attitudes
were taken upon by early lay religious groups, confraternities, and the other reformers of the
late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. 48 Even given these common roots, however, a
divide formed between two schools of thought, the spirituali and the intransigenti. Although
19

views varied to a certain extent, most spirituali believed in justification by faith alone, the
importance of an inner spiritual life informed by the Scriptures, and a peaceful reconciliation
between the Protestants and Catholics, while the intransigenti advocated for a stricter
observance of Catholic theology and canon law, the necessity of good works to one’s
salvation, and the firm rejection and resistance of Protestant views. In looking towards 1545,
both schools played a major role in articulating their views and shaping the background
against which Tridentine decrees were passed.
Among the spirituali, Gasparo Contarini [Fig. 11] provides one of the earliest
examples of bishop concerned with the practical responsibilities of clergy. Born into a
prominent Venetian household, he studied philosophy and theology in Padua before
entering the Great Council of Venice in 1509. 49 After turning down an offer from his friends
Tommaso Giustiniani and Vincenzo Quirini to join the Camaldolese Order, 1 Contarini
devoted his efforts to an active life of service. 50 After serving a as a Venetian diplomat in the
court of Charles V, he became a prominent cardinal in the Roman Curia, where he helped
the Jesuits to become recognized, represented the Pope Paul III as head of the Catholic
delegation to the Colloquy of Ratisbon, and wrote the Consilium de emendanda ecclesia (1537), a
harsh critique of the corruption and power politics of the papal court. 51 While Paul III never
actualized its recommendations, this document stirred much controversy throughout the
Curia, and, in combination with his earlier treatise, De officio viri boni ac probi episcopi (1517),
Contarini’s work succeeded in laying the foundation of the spirituali reform movement.
Moreover, Contarini’s advocacy that standards for the episcopacy and for the priesthood be
1 Despite their entering the Camaldolese Order, Giustiniani and Quirini also made serious reform efforts in the
Church, particularly through their publication in 1513 of the Libellus ad Leonem X, an extensive memorandum
specifying the changes that needed to be made to the Church under then new pope’s leadership. Reforms
included improved clerical education in the Scriptures, the reform of liturgical books, and the incorporation of
the vernacular into of the Church’s liturgical celebrations. In the words of Hubert Jedin, the suggestions for
reform put forward by Giustiniani and Quirini preoccupied the Church for the next century. For more
information look to Olin 1990: 18 and Olin 1992: 81.
20

aised, that bishops and priests reside in their churches and care for their parishioners, that
lax standards be eliminated, and that the Roman Curia reform inspired another prominent
leader of the spirituali, Gian Matteo Giberti. 52
Born out of wedlock to a Genoese merchant, Giberti [Fig. 12] began his religious
career in a Dominican friary but soon ascended the ranks of the Curia to become the
Datarius under Clement VIII in 1523. 53 As Clement’s leading foreign policy adviser, he
sought to offset the growing power of the Habsburgs in Spain by allying with Francis I of
France as well as the other Italian states. 54 In 1526, he orchestrated the formation of the
League of Cognac, consisting of the papacy, France, England, the Duchy of Milan, the
Republic of Venice, and the Republic of Florence. From the beginning, this policy
underestimated Emperor Charles V’s power and overestimated the strength and cohesion of
this potential union, and after siccing a barbarous army on the Italian peninsula in 1526, the
Emperor quickly demonstrated Giberti’s gross miscalculation. 55 In May of 1527, Rome was
sacked.
After this political disaster, Giberti withdrew from the Roman Curia and shifted
focus to reforming the Church and fulfilling his ecclesiastical responsibilities in Verona.
Perhaps having “retired [from Curial politics] of his own accord,” though still likely out of
shame and exhaustion, beginning in 1528, he became active in reforming his diocese and
making it function effectively. 56 Trained in the humanities and a strong advocate of a
rigorous education, Giberti first visited other dioceses and Italian leader to study the
strategies of his contemporaries, including Gian Pietro Carafa and Vittoria Colonna in
Pescara, and looked to writings like Contarini’s De official episcopali for inspiration. 57 In light of
the strengths and weaknesses of each of these episcopal models, he then formed his own
system for administering to the needs and concerns of his parishioners.
21

Giberti dedicated himself to making the Scriptures a central part of the lives of those
in his diocese, thus one of his first priorities was to surround himself with capable clergymen
to assist him in his administrational and pastoral responsibilities. He formulated a series of
diocesan regulations, the Constitutiones Gibertinae, which he published in 1542 and again in
1563 and which served as the standard for his reform efforts in Verona. 58 To that end, he
continuously monitored his diocese, conducting visitations of local parishes and religious
houses, forcing clergy to live in residence, and stressing the centrality of the Mass and
gathered worship through the formation of a Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament. 59
Giberti also sought to improve the civic life of Verona by founding orphanages, almshouses,
and an “accademia” for scholars and poets. 60 Both for his love of the humanities and his desire
to distribute his episcopal teachings and edicts more effectively, he even established his own
printing press in his residence to produce religious and secular texts. 61 At the same time,
Giberti remained unabashed in wielding the full force of his office when challenged by
incompetent or recalcitrant clergy, and over the course of his bishopric, he suspended,
expelled, imprisoned, and excommunicated so many parish priests, indulgence salesmen, and
members of regular orders, particularly women, that his diocesan system laid out in the
Constitutiones Gibertinae became known as the Gibertalis disciplina, “a mechanism of admonition
whose essential weapon was excommunication.” 62
Contemporaneous with the work of such spirituali as Contarini and Giberti, there was
also the creation of a number of new religious orders throughout the Italian provinces.
Inspired by the writings of Erasmus and Ximénes, which emphasized the importance of
inward piety and life centered around morality, charity, and devotion to Christ, faithful men
and women formed lay religious societies and confraternities, such as Giberti’s Confraternity
of the Blessed Sacrament in Verona or the Oratories of Divine Love in Genoa and Rome,
22

where they could gather to “cultivate spiritual lives through the faithful practice of religious
devotions and works of charity and benevolence, specifically assistance to one another in
times of need and the care of the sick.” 63 Founded sometime prior to 1517, the Roman
Oratory became particularly influential because of the many prominent reformers who
associated with it, including Gaetano de Thiene, a devout priest and member of the Curia
who would become St. Catejan; Gian Pietro Carafa, the archbishop of Chieti who would
become Pope Paul IV; Contarini; Giberti; and many other high-ranking Curial officials and
religious authorities. 64
The Roman Oratory also saw the genesis of a more conservative offshoot, the
Congregation of Clerks Regular, or Theatines. The first half of the sixteenth century
witnessed the creation of many religious orders, including the Capuchins, Barnabites,
Oratorians, Jesuits, and in 1524, the Theatines, which founded by da Thiene and Carafa and
other devout reformers from the Roman Oratory. 65 Like Contarini in his youth, Thiene and
Carafa realized that contemplative monasticism had ceased to be an effective tool for
advancing the Church, thus they formed the Theatines as a society of priests devoted to
pastoral work and worldly engagement but still guided by vows of poverty, chastity, and
obedience and directed by a superior. 66 As the Theatine Order, written by Carafa in 1526,
prescribes, each member shall “live in the ordinary dress and in the way of life of clerics
according to the Sacred Canons and the profession of the three vows, Poverty, Chastity, and
Obedience” with a firm commitment “to mastering himself and looking toward the
advantage and obeying the will of another, as becomes servants of God.” 67 United by a
commitment to service, the Theatines strove for improved the spiritual and catechetical
education of clergy so that they might more effectively enrich the lives of the laity with
religious virtue. This commitment frequently took the form of strict asceticism and concern
23

for potential heresy. 68 Indeed, the Theatines were so conservative that, in viewing
Michelangelo’s Last Judgment [Fig. 13], they were the first group to object to the fresco,
arguing that the vivid depictions of the naked human form might divert viewers’ attentions,
particularly those of common laypeople, away from the holy and towards the physical and
lustful. 69 The group remained a small but elite cohort of reformers, with only twenty-one
members by 1533; although, as Ludwig Pastor notes, the carefully selected group included
many influential bishops, including their first Superior, Carafa, who became Pope Paul IV,
and Cardinal Michele Ghislieri, who became Pope Pius V. 70
Carafa also provides an excellent example of the more conservative wing of the early
Church reformers, the intransigenti, several of whom became associated with the Theatines.
Unlike their more liberal counterparts, the intransigenti sought to remain close to the
scholastic method, rejecting the notion of justification by faith alone and advocating severe
punishment of religious deviants. No Catholic reformer embodied the spirit of this group
more than Carafa, who after moving the Theatines to Venice after the Sack of Rome in 1527
returned to Rome in 1536 at the bequest of Paul III to help in curial reform. 71 In 1542, he
implemented a “restructured and more effective inquisition” to combat the spread of
Protestant ideas in the Italian provinces; although, the importance of his strict reform efforts
can only be fully appreciated in light of two other contemporaneous events: the apostasy of
the great preacher and Capuchin leader Bernardino Ochino to Calvin’s Protestant Geneva
and the death of the liberal reformer and prominent spirituali Contarini. 72 With few liberal
voices to challenge his policies, Carafa could point to Ochino’s revealed Protestantism as a
sign of corruption and religious decay in Italy, thereby justifying his Roman Inquisition and
further elevating his status within the Curia. After the scandalous tenure of Pope Julius III,
these conservative voices took hold of the Catholic Reformation overall, seizing the papacy
24

in 1555 with the election of Marcello Cervini (Marcellus II) then Carafa (Paul IV) just
twenty-two days later. As pope, he created the first Index of Books forbidden by the
Church, established a more permanent council of inquisitors to purge Italy of heretics,
encouraged clergy through the Church to remain attentive to their diocesan responsibilities
and the needs of their parishioners, and yet consolidated much power within the Roman
Curia and papal authority. 73 Although Pius IV, who would both bring this early period of the
Catholic Reformation to a close and recognize its importance through the codification of
reforms at Trent, outwardly opposed what had by the end become the dictatorial reign of
Carafa, he nevertheless maintained the Italian Inquisition as well as the Index of Books. 74
Although the spirituali helped to shape the early days of this period, the Council of Trent
ultimately concluded under the strong influence of the intransigenti.
25

CHAPTER 2
__________________________
REALIZING TRENT: CARLO BORROMEO AND GABRIELE PALEOTTI
Prompted by the Council of Trent and inspired by the example of men like Giberti,
Contarini, and Carafa, a new generation of committed bishops took charge of implementing
Catholic reform in the closing decades of the sixteenth century. Although the Council
specified certain responsibilities for bishops, like convening diocesan synods on an annual
basis, the most important mission for these early reformers was to complete the task begun
at Trent by interpreting the vague and ambiguous passages of the Council’s decrees and
deriving specific and practicable standards from them. 1 Nowhere was this role seen more
clearly than in the interpretation of the Twenty-Fifth Session’s pronouncements on art. In
their writings and ecclesial activities, reformers looked to define the actual limits of
acceptable religious artwork, though the standards and severity of each reformer clearly
reflected personal as well as pragmatic and theological considerations. 2 Among Italians, the
two most prominent reformers were Carlo Borromeo and Gabriele Paleotti, although other
figures like Bartolomeu dos Martíres and Johannes Molanus were also fundamental to the
overall reform movement. Each reinvigorated his diocese by reestablishing the local
residency of the archbishop and overseeing the overhaul of ecclesiastical offices. Borromeo
and Paleotti also contributed to fleshing out of the Council’s rulings on art. While Borromeo
focused on architecture in his writing and reforms, Paleotti treated painting and the graphic
arts. When taken together, particularly in light of the contributions of other leaders like
26

Molanus, these two bishops’ treatises on art and architecture provided the groundwork for
this first generation’s understanding and approach to religious art.
THE REFORMATION SAINT: CARLO BORROMEO
Born in 1538 to a prominent Milanese family, Carlo Borromeo was destined for an
ecclesiastical career from an early age. 3 He received his education at the University of Pavia,
and when his uncle, Gian Angelo Medici, was elected Pope Pius IV in 1559, Pius appointed
the young Carlo Borromeo to cardinal-nephew within the Roman Curia. During his six
years in this role, Borromeo’s work assisting his uncle trained him to be an able
administrator, and his integral involvement in directing the final sessions of the Council of
Trent helped to shape his reform-minded approach to ecclesiastical office. 4 Similarly,
Borromeo’s intimate involvement in Pius IV’s papacy exposed him to several important
building projects in Rome, including the completion of the Belvedere Palace, the realignment
of the Via Nomentana and the Via Pia, and the construction of the Porta Pia and Santa
Maria degli Angeli by Michelangelo [Fig. 14]. 5 This latter project in particular reinvigorated
the city’s appreciation for and understanding of ancient architecture, especially the vault [Fig.
15], and Michelangelo’s work inspired Borromeo to such an extent that, in documenting the
artist’s death in 1564, he described him to Guido Borromeo in Milan as “the great sculptor.” 6
This period also brought Borromeo immense personal turmoil. In November 1562, his
elder brother died suddenly of a recent illness, and shortly thereafter, Giovanni de’ Medici,
his friend and colleague in the College of Cardinals, also passed away. 7 Overwhelmed by
grief after these sudden losses, Borromeo entered a tumultuous phase of his life, but
although some in the Curia worried that he might quit his Holy Orders, a period of intense
prayer and focused piety ultimately renewed his faith and refocused dedication to the
Tridentine reforms. 8
27

Under his uncle’s guidance, Borromeo was finally ordained a priest in 1563 and
appointed archbishop of Milan in 1564, at which point he was required by Tridentine law to
take up residence in the Lombard capital. 9 After Pius IV’s death the following December,
Borromeo shifted his attention entirely to his ecclesiastical duties and devoted his attention
to implementing the Tridentine reforms throughout his diocese. Even in his first return visit
to Milan in 1565, he began the implementation of a hierarchical system to enforce the
directives he set out, defining the priests’ and prelates’ roles and responsibilities in terms of
their impact on the laity. 10 This hierarchical structure extended throughout the entire
diocese, grouping small local parishes into larger zones and, within Milan itself, dividing the
city into jurisdictions based on the city gates. Once implemented, this system allowed
Borromeo to distribute his reforms down a clear chain of command, making the process of
reforming the diocese more orderly and manageable.
To the extent that Giberti can be taken up as the preeminent model for the Church
fathers at Trent, so Borromeo can be seen as the foremost realization of the Council’s
decrees on the role of bishops in the Church. Not surprisingly, Giberti’s rule provided an
important model for Borromeo as he approached the position; indeed, soon after his
consecration, he appointed Nicolò Ormaneto and two other priests employed by Giberti in
Verona to serve as his representatives while Borromeo remained attentive to the Pope’s
needs in Rome. 11 Borromeo’s reliance on Ormaneto and trust in the example of Giberti can
be seen in the extensive correspondence between the two men during Borromeo’s time in
Rome. 12 The archbishop not only trusted him with implementing his proposals but with
making personal judgments as to the state of affairs in Milan. One of Borromeo’s central
concerns was with the proper condition of the archdiocese’s churches, for as the Council
had emphasized in its decrees, the setting and context for the sacraments bear strongly on
28

the way in which the faithful interpret these sacred rites and understand their religion. In
directing Ormaneto to visit and review several rural parishes, Borromeo asked that he
“inform [him] diligently of the quality of the living… and if the church requires any repairs,
and to give to [him] then all detailed advice.” 13 Both due to the constraints of his
responsibilities in Rome and in following the model of Giberti, Borromeo required the
priests and other bishops in his archdiocese to be educated and capable pastoral leaders and
administrators, and consequently, he could rely on them to such an extent that, in 1564,
Ormaneto held a synod to issue the decrees of the Council to the local ecclesiastics. 14
Upon actually arriving in Milan in September 1565, Borromeo rededicated himself to
these reform efforts. With the help of Ormaneto, he organized a provincial council in
October of that year, and thereafter began touring the entire archdiocese, reaching such far-
flung locations as the Swiss cantons by 1567. 15 In these and his other actions, he closely
followed the episcopal model set forth by Giberti: sponsoring the education and training of
capable clergy, leading and overseeing the preaching and religious education provided to the
faithful of the archdiocese, establishing orders and seminaries, and maintaining a firm line in
regard to canon law and heretical teachings. Indeed, in looking at the edicts from the
provincial council in 1565 that Ormaneto prepared for publication, many closely resemble
the initiatives put forward by his previous superior in Verona. 16 To an even greater extent
than Giberti, he oversaw and partnered with lay and religious orders to increase the number
of capable people ministering to the needs of the city, and he made a particularly strong
connection with the Jesuits, who helped to create schools throughout the archdiocese. He
also partnered with the Barnabties, the Somaschi, the Theatines, and an archdiocesan society
of priests and seminarians, named the Oblates of the Blessed Virgin and S. Ambrose, to
implement Tridentine reforms and improve the spiritual life of Milan. 17 He used this latter
29

order in particular to counter-balance of effects of the Humiliati, a Milanese lay religious
society that resisted his reform efforts and, as a consequence, were dissolved in 1578. 18 At
the same time, Borromeo also sought to distance himself from some of Giberti’s more
draconian reform strategies, making less frequent use of excommunication while still
remaining a disciplinarian. 19 In 1568, he instructed all Jesuits to remove all non-Christian
ancient texts from their syllabi for fear that the lascivious nature of these authors might
corrupt the youth they were teaching. 20
Borromeo also engaged in the civic life of Milan, developing charities for the city’s
poor and homeless and attempting to establish himself as the clear successor to St. Ambrose.
Like Borromeo, Ambrose had taken office amid conflict over heresy and at a time when the
city needed a religious rallying point. Blending devout and earnest personal piety with
effective leadership, Ambrose dealt effectively with the Arian controversy, oversaw the
upkeep and renovation of Milan’s churches with decorations that celebrated God “with
fitting splendor,” and ministered to the faithful constantly through preaching, celebrating the
sacraments, and providing charity to the poor. 21 Borromeo would have been able to read
Ambrose’s De Officiis Ministorum, which attempted to infuse Cicero’s De Officiis with lessons
for Christian clergy, blending the classical virtues of prudence, temperance, and fortitude
with the Christian virtues of faith, hope, and love. 22
Borromeo’s hierarchical system proved especially useful as he began reviewing and
evaluating Church architecture throughout the archdiocese. Through a series of visitations
to the local parishes and religious houses, Borromeo sought to gain a better understanding
of the city’s architectural condition and to determine the extent to which buildings needed to
be refurbished or reformed to the new Tridentine standards for architecture and
ecclesiastical practice. To that end, although the archbishop of Milan had jurisdiction over a
30

number of religious houses, Borromeo arranged to obtain authority over all convents and
the majority of the city’s monasteries. 23 Moreover, he established a new officer – the
Praefectus Fabricae – who was responsible for approving each alteration, renovation, or
addition to existing buildings in the diocese. 24 This new position allowed Borromeo and his
personal architect to focus on the most important and large-scale projects throughout the
diocese while leaving more clerical and quotidian matters to this administrator. Borromeo
filled this role with Ludovico Moneta, a tireless companion and advocate of more
conservative architecture, preferring simpler form and a more academic style. 25
For the important role of chief architect for the diocese, Borromeo turned to the
painter and architect Pellegrino Tibaldi. Initially hired for the construction of the Collegio
Borromeo in the early 1560’s, Tibaldi advocated for a much more elaborate style than
Moneta. Trained as a painter in the Mannerist style of Rome, Tibaldi took inspiration from
Michelangelo and attempted to bring that maniera style to his architectural projects. 26 Within
the Collegio Borromeo alone, his talent for architectural flair became apparent in the
elaborate façade for the building’s later enlargement; although, this magnificence must also
be weighed against his simpler and more conservative early designs, which demonstrated his
ability for self-restraint. 27 Through his relationship established in the court of Pius IV and
the commission of the Collegio, Tibaldi later took on more commissions for Borromeo,
becoming the head engineer for the construction of the Duomo in Milan as well as the
smaller churches of San Fedele [Fig. 16] and San Sebastiano [Fig. 17]. 28 With this title also
came the responsibility of monitoring and providing consultation on the important church
architecture throughout the diocese. Indeed, beyond just providing oversight for the
construction of the Duomo [Fig. 18], Tibaldi toured many less important churches with the
Archbishop, either accompanying Borromeo and assisting in their evaluation or arriving after
31

Borromeo’s visit to review his recommendations and provide his own suggestions and
criticisms. 29
Although Borromeo’s personal visitations to parish churches and monasteries
throughout the city was certainly an important aspect of his image as an attentive pastoral
shepherd and embodiment of the Tridentine reforms, his greatest architectural contribution
to the city – and to the Church overall – was the writing and dissemination of his Instructiones
Fabricae e Supellectilis Ecclesiasticae. Included as part of the archdiocese’s complete record of all
synods, decrees, councils, and issued instructions, the Acta Ecclesiae Mediolanensis, this two-
volume treatise provides details as to the proper form and decoration of religious buildings
under the reformed Church. More importantly for Borromeo, it also served as a codified
means of standardizing practices, for despite his perfectionism and meticulous attention to
detail, the size of the archdiocese and scope of his responsibilities required Borromeo to rely
heavily upon his representatives in implementing reform and overseeing conduct throughout
Milan. 30 Thus, even after learning the necessary architectural lessons from Tibaldi and his
other advisers, like Ormaneto and Moneta, such that he could visit and judge the
archdiocese’s religious builds on his own, Borromeo still made use of his assistants as his
eyes and his ears but regulated their architectural standards with his preferences through the
Instructiones. In looking at the actual text of the treatise, many of the recommendations follow
already existent standards and practices for church construction. In Chapter II, he advocates
for churches to follow a cruciform plan with arms extending off a central nave; however, he
provides for the judgment of the bishop to trump all other considerations. 31 An example of
such considerations can be seen even in Borromeo’s Milan, where the church of San
Sebastiano (1576), but a few minutes’ walk from the Duomo, which in embodies many of
Borromeo’s directives, consists of a large rotunda connected by a short arched sanctuary to a
32

second, smaller rotunda in which Tibaldi placed the tabernacle [Fig. 19]. Thus, although
Borromeo preferred longitudinal crosses to “round edifices,” he also saw the need to adapt
his standards based on existing circumstances. 32
The recommendations in the Instructiones also reveal the key role of Tibaldi and
Moneta to Borromeo’s architectural style. Although these two advisers’s styles differ,
Borromeo may have considered their preferences and strengths in writing the Instructiones.
Based on a letter from a Milanese priest to his close friend, the publication of the first book
of the Instructiones was initially delayed due to Moneta, whose contributions on “the
monastery of nuns… come at the end of the first book,” and this attribution seems accurate
given Chapter XXXII-XXXIII’s focus on the austerity and conservative nature of monastic
living. 33 Unlike Moneta, Tibaldi enters the text indirectly through his advice to Borromeo as
well as the examples he provided of Reformation architecture, such as San Fedele or the
Duomo. In Chapter XIII, Borromeo discusses the shape and placement of the tabernacle
and recommends that the tabernacle be supported on within the main chapel either “by a
firm decorated base” or “statues of angels or some other kind of base displaying religious
ornamentation.” 34 The plans for the Duomo mirror this vision almost exactly, with four
angels supporting the tabernacle in the main chapel [Fig. 20]. As Thomas Nagel has recently
argued, this design may also reflect Ormaneto and Tibaldi’s engagement with Michele
Sanmicheli’s work for Giberti in Verona, where he designed a tabernacle “of precious
marbles and crystal carried aloft by four bronze angels.” 35 Moreover, Tibaldi’s early plans for
San Fedele – his commission for the Milanese Jesuits – echoes Chapter XIV of the
Instructiones, for the side altars are elevated off the floor of the nave as Borromeo encourages,
dictating that “the floor of the smaller chapels ought to be at least eight units above the floor
of the main church, and it may sometimes be higher, as shown below.” 36 San Fedele is also
33

consistent with the treatise’s more general prescriptions for the form of the nave, the
construction of a roof, and the necessary visibility of the main altar to parishioners
throughout the church [Fig. 21]. 37
While the Instructiones do broach the topic of sacred images, Borromeo contributes
little to the conversation and, for the most part, just reiterates the directives of the Council
of Trent on topic. In Chapter XVII, he specifically dictates that a “Bishop must be mindful
of the decree of the Council of Trent and of provincial constitutions,” 38 and in the following
sections, quotes the Tridentine decrees as he provides general advice against allowing
occasions for “grave error [periculosi erroris],” “superstition [superstitiosum],” or “anything
profane, obscene, or dishonest [quidquid profanum,… obscenum, inhonestum].” 39 Much of the rest
of his advice pertains to practical matters, advising against painting or installing images on
the pavement or a damp location, where it might undergo decay. 1 Though the second book
of the Instructiones discusses church decorations, Borromeo once again avoids recommending
specific artistic styles or tackling the question of what exactly religious art ought to look like.
One rare exception that can be found is a letter concerning the decoration of the large
cabinet that would hold the Duomo’s organ, wherein he directs the building officials to
select a painter based upon their virtue and ability to bring beauty to the cathedral. 40
RESPUBLICA CRISTIANA: GABRIELE PALEOTTI’S BOLOGNA
In order to find a more full-bodied and robust analysis of the role of painting in the
Tridentine Church, one must look to the example and writings of another prominent
1 Robert Sénécal has noted that this recommendation likely derives from the time Borromeo spent in Rome,
where the flooding of the Tiber River posed a perennial problem and lead many architects to begin establishing
churches atop elevated foundations (for instance, Il Gesù). Sénécal’s suspicion is further supported by
Borromeo’s recommendation, in Chapter I, to build churches outside of marshy areas and to build a
foundation with channels so that any floodwater that accumulates around the sub-structure might flow away.
See Sénécal’s “Carlo Borromeo's Instructiones Fabricae Et Supellectilis Ecclesiasticae and Its Origins in the Rome of
His Time,“
34

archbishop, Gabriele Paleotti. Born in Bologna in 1522, he was the son of Senator Alessando
Paleotti and descendant of a distinguished Bolognese family. After studying civil and
canonical law at the University, he left for Rome as the Giudice di Rota for Paul IV in 1556.
Appointed Consigliere dei Legati al Concilio from 1561-63, he participated actively in the Council
of Trent’s final sessions, and during this period, he learned to find the middle ground
between radical Church reformers – exemplified by Carafa and his fellow intransigenti – and
the more conservative Roman Curia. Upon completion of the Council, Gabriele
distinguished himself as one of three co-leaders of the Congregazione del Concilio, which helped
to implement the Tridentine reforms through clarifying ambiguities and providing the
Curia’s official interpretation of the text. In March of 1565, after being elected to the College
of Cardinals, he was appointed bishop of Bologna – he would later become archbishop in
1582 – by Pius IV, 2 and from February of 1566 until 1586, when he returned to Rome, he
committed himself entirely to his office and sought to reorganize the archdiocese along the
specific guidelines of the Council of Trent. 41
Subordinate to only the Legato, Paleotti was an active archbishop of Bologna, seeking to
exemplify the spirit of Trent through both his personal piety and his proper execution of the
episcopal office. He devoted himself completely to his faith, and “[t]he feeling for
responsibility and the idealism with which he fulfilled his task attracted universal attention.” 42
Paleotti wished to transform Bologna into a “respublica christiana,” and thus he cared for not
only the Bolognese nobility but the people of the lower classes as well, who had frequently
been ignored by previous bishops. 43 In order to realize this vision for a flourishing Christian
Bologna, Paleotti implemented an extensive set of reforms throughout the archdiocese. Like
2 The camaraderie and close relationships maintained between Tridentine reformers can be gleaned from the
fact that, in addition to Pope Pius IV, Paleotti’s consecration was presided over by his close friend, Cardinal
Carlo Borromeo (Paul D. Hilbrich, “The Aesthetic of the Counter Reformation and Religious Painting and
Music in Bologna, 1565-1615” (Diss. Ohio University, 1969), 25).
35

Giberti and Borromeo, he first demanded a high level of dedication and efficiency from his
priests, holding them to the same standards as to which he held himself, for he believed that,
when united together, he and his fellow clergy could reform the Church and restore it to its
former glory. He also subdivided the diocese, distributing duties and organizing the whole
operation around his two primary assistants, the Vicar General and the Visitor General, who
reported to Paleotti on the behavior and problems in each parish. 44
Second, Paleotti recognized the importance of surrounding himself with capable
assistants and creating an effective ecclesiastical administration. Thus, he founded a seminary
to train new clergy, and “[f]rom 1568 future priests were educated there under the
supervision of his friend, the Jesuit Francesco Palmio, in the liturgy, the catechism, grammar
and rhetoric[,]… [for t]hey could not enter the ranks of the clergy until they had passed an
examination in Paleotti’s presence.” 45 Fulfilling Trent’s vision of the pedagogical bishop,
Paleotti took great care in preaching and educating the laity. He established an Oratory in the
Cathedral in Bologna similar to S. Philip Neri’s Oratori Romano, which provided parishioners
further religious education through sermons and directed discussions, and he made use of
various congregations [congregaziones] as part of his ecclesiastical structure. 46 Paleotti trusted
these institutions with considerable bureaucratic power in overseeing key aspects of the
archdiocese’s operation, including implementing reforms, conducting visitations, running the
seminary, administering examinations, directing the inquisition of heretics, and tending to
catechumens. He also complemented these administrative institutions with other
congregations, or “sodalities,” that served as charitable organizations for the entire city of
Bologna, ministering not only to church parishioners [Congregazione della Dottrina Cristiana] but
also to students [Congregazione della Perseveranza], prisoners, and the sick and homeless. 47 His
service to the city did not end with these bureaucratic measures, however, for Paleotti
36

himself took an active role in realizing the respublica cristiana. He attended daily Mass,
preached every Sunday and throughout the week, and granted an audience for anyone who
wished to speak with him. 48
Third, and to a greater extent than both Giberti and Borromeo, Paleotti cared deeply for
the University, Bolognese education, and humanistic inquiry. Although the Alma Mater
Studiorum remained one of Europe’s premier universities, the conditions within the
University had grown increasingly poor after Julius II seized the city in 1506 and officially
made part of the Papal States. 49 Admittedly, it is difficult to discover the exact reason for the
University’s difficulties, but several factors can be linked to its decline, including the
intrusion of the papacy, through the Legato, into the life of the University; the restrictions
placed by the Inquisition on the books that students and faculty could consult; and the
increasingly indifferent and lackadaisical attitude of students towards their professors’
authority and academic work, respectively. 50 To amend these problems and reform Bologna,
Paleotti realized that not only the clergy’s religious curricula but the whole city’s overall
education system needed to be improved and returned to its former glory. Unlike Borromeo,
who became hesitant to cite ancient pagan texts for fear of their lasciviousness, Paleotti
recognized the importance of an overall education to the health and success of the clergy, of
the University, and of Bolognese society more broadly. He believed in reaching out to the
laity with examples and rhetoric that could touch their souls and personal experience, and
“[h]e asked the same not only of all preachers, but also of the painters.” 51 Insistent upon the
role of the bishop as shepherd over his city, Paleotti opposed the interference of outsiders in
his diocese. From 1566 to 1570, he continuously complained about the intrusions of
Governor Andrea Doria into ecclesiastical matters, and, on several occasions, he even
opposed the Pope’s involvement in approving University professors’ salaries, ultimately
37

defending several scholars that were attacked amid the Roman Inquisition, the most famous
of whom was Ulisse Aldrovandi, a natural philosopher and advisor to Paleotti. 52 Whether
due to the centrality of the University in Bolognese society or his personal preferences,
Paleotti expressed a concern for humanistic inquiry that few of his peers shared, and this
manifested itself in his care not just for increasing parishioners’ religious faith but improving
Bologna overall through secular and religious education. To that end, he wrote the Doctrina
parva for children and the Doctrina maior for the more advanced layperson, which provided an
overview of the major tenets of the Church, and facilitated discussion within the
Congregazione della Dottrina Cristiana. 53
Paleotti’s concern for the virtue and flourishing of Bologna also expressed itself in his
concern for the state of art, particularly sacred images, in his archdiocese. Like the reformers
before him, Paleotti realized images’ power to move and educate worshippers, but he also
appreciated the potential for misuse or confusion should they be ambiguous or misleading.
He distinguishes himself, however, in the extent to which he seeks to view art from the
perspective of the public and appreciate their reaction. Rooted perhaps both in his classical
education, with its appreciation for each person’s telos, and in his Christian faith, Paleotti was
guided by “the conviction… that man must not be judged according to his handsome
appearance, degree of culture, or origin, but according to his ‘dignità cristiana’, according to
the degree in which he fulfills his Christian calling. [Indeed, t]hrough their very lack of
earthly goods the poor often stand closer to God than the rich,” 54 and Paleotti sought to
respect that dignity and incorporate it into his Christian vision for the city, particularly as
embodied in his Discorso intorno alle imagine sacri e profane.
Although he only completed the first two books of the treatise, Paleotti intended for his
Discorso to consist of five parts. Beginning with a general discussion of the nature of images,
38

he then planned to distinguish between the sacred and the profane, including specific
warnings about lascivious and dishonest artwork, before providing a critique of actual images
from throughout the city and West Emilia and a concluding admonition regarding his future
standards for sacred art in Bologna and throughout his archdiocese. 55 The parts that he did
publish, however, still provide an important lens into his understanding of the role of
religious images in people’s faith, and given the lack of other contemporary treatises on the
specifics of painting in the Tridentine Church – only two other works approach the Discorso’s
prominence – served as the basis for future studies of the topic, foremost among them
Federico Borromeo’s De pictura sacra.
In taking the work overall, Paleotti’s primary concern is to describe the proper function
of art in his respublica cristiana. To that end, he argues that the painter works for the benefit of
people, helping those who believe to understand the world and their relation to God more
fully and providing those who don’t believe with a spark from which to kindle their faith
anew. Given this responsibility, the artist himself ought to “be an expert at his job and…
must also be a professing Christian who reflects what he paints in his own life.” 56 In terms
of actual artwork, Paleotti argues in Chapter XXII of Book I that art can appeal to three
distinct pleasures – sensuality, reason, and the spirit – and while purely decorative or
naturalistically accurate images may appeal to the first two pleasures, a Christian artist is
called to stimulate the third as well, to evince the perfection and grandeur of God through
his artwork. 57 Given this goal, the inclusion of any details that might confuse a composition’s
narrative or make the subject matter unclear – let alone contrary to Church teachings or the
Scriptures – was anathema to Paleotti’s standards. Among many examples, he specifically
criticizes the Mannerists’ tendency to skew proportions, both of human bodies as well as of
religious importance, for the sake of innovation; the representation of Christ without any
39

noticeable wounds or signs of suffering through the Passion; the misrepresentation of
patrons in their portraits, either by removing natural flaws or improving their appearance;
and any other practices that violate the ideal of il verisimile through the inclusion of
erroneous, dubious, heretical, or superstitious pictures. 58
For Paleotti, the source of many of these misgivings and recommendations was his
worry that religious artwork not aimed at verisimilitude would be at least confusing if not
harmful to the populace of Bologna, much of which could not read or interpret densely
allusive or intricate artistic compositions. As Anton W.A. Boschloo has argued, while
“[b]ooks give a review of people’s good, but also of their bad, qualities, so that the reader
knows where he is… [w]ith a sculpture or a painting,… the situation is different. There is
nothing to tell the ignorant man that the person portrayed [is] an unbeliever,” and this
ambiguity might not only cause that particular viewer confusion but also lead to the birth
and spread of heretical views. 59 In all these concerns, Paleotti’s sympathies were with the
average Bolognese parishioner, for rather than ignore those at the bottom of society, Paleotti
viewed them as a key part of his archdiocese, the embodiment of Christ’s lessons in the
Beattitudes. In this way, he fostered the possibility of believing in the average parishioner’s
own value and rights, and unlike his fellow reformers Giberti or Borromeo, he attempted to
view art from the perspective of the average citizen and base his recommendations on that
insight. Indeed, it is fitting that he dedicated the Discorso “to the populace of his City and
Diocese” and wrote his original version in Italian, so that Bolognese artists might be able to
access it and incorporate its recommendations into their work. 60
While Paleotti’s fundamental regard for the populace and vision for the Christian
artist as part of the respublica cristiana are certainly his distinct contributions to discussion over
Christian art, his Discorso also relies heavily upon the writings and example of several other
40

prominent Tridentine reformers. Although written in large part as a response to the
perceived religious errors in Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, Giovanni Andrea Gilio’s Dialogo nel
quale si ragiona degli errori e degli abusi de’ pittori circa l’istorie, which was published within a year of
the close of the Council, anticipates much of the argumentative content of the Discorso. Gilio
harkens back to Pope Gregory I’s classic description of painting and the graphic arts as the
educators of the illiterate masses, and he thus frames the painter as a historian who must
portray his subject in the most direct and accurate manner possible. For him, a painter who
breaks from historical accuracy for the sake of a more visually appealing or emotionally
charged image betrays his vanity and immaturity; such an artist is not concerned with
treating religious scenes properly but only with promoting his personal celebrity. In the same
vein, Gilio emphasizes the need for a realistic depiction of historical events and the
importance of verisimilitude in properly depicting religious events. Although he provides
many specific examples, his view is best epitomized in his discussion of Christ’s Crucifixion,
for he criticizes those artists who paint the thieves next to Christ with their hands bound to
the cross with ropes rather than nailed to it [Fig. 22]. Citing the difficult Helena faced in
deciding which of the three crosses she exhumed was actually the True Cross of Christ, Gilio
insists that all three must have been nailed to their respective crosses, and any other depicted
versions are therefore historically inaccurate and misleading, not befitting the proper
Christian attitude towards religious artwork. 61 The first to write about religious painting in
the wake of Trent, Gilio clearly had a strong impact given that Johannes Molanus, Paleotti,
and Federico Borromeo all incorporate this example into their writings. Although largely
concerned with architecture and mostly a reiteration of the decrees of the Council in regards
to graphic arts, Borromeo’s Instructiones would also have likely had an influence on Paleotti’s
understanding of Tridentine art and architecture. Moreover, at least in his specific
41

prohibition on the inclusion of animals or other indecorous objects in religious artwork, as
well as his consideration of practical matters like water damage and other physical
deterioration, Borromeo shared a concern with Paleotti for beginning to make the Council’s
decrees on sacred images more specific and attentive to the needs of local ecclesiastical
administrators and parish priests. 62
Paleotti’s focus on historical and naturalistic accuracy, while reflective of the
importance of Gilio’s treatise on his own work, also reflects his intimate involvement with
the University of Bologna. Having studied there in his youth, he maintained an interest in
humanistic inquiry and a close friendship with one of his classmates, Ulisse Aldrovandi [Fig.
23], who became an advisor to the archbishop and whom Paleotti saved from the
interrogation before the Inquisition. 63 Aldrovandi studied natural philosophy at the
University and was convinced of the power of naturalistically accurate images to impart a
much clearer picture of reality than any verbal or written description could. At the same
time, although the graphic arts could serve as an excellent tool for better understanding
nature, these images needed to mirror the visible world as closely as possible, and in
discussing and editing Paleotti’s drafts for the Discorso, Aldrovandi emphasized the need for
clarity and naturalistic imitation. As he wrote to Paleotti in one of their correspondences,
“there is no doubt that a picture must be an model and imitation of all natural things.” 64
While Paleotti attended these suggestions eagerly, he also contextualized them within his
immense Christian piety. For him, painters’ efforts to portray the grandeur and complex
beauty of the natural world also served as a means of revealing the physical manifestations of
God’s divine plan. In studying and appreciating a artist’s accurate rendering of a holy scene,
or even a beautiful pastoral scene, the viewer could better appreciate his place both within
the physical world and, necessarily, within God’s cosmological scheme.
42

Inspired by his education in Antique literature and rhetoric, Paleotti extended the
role of the artist one step further, however, for rather than relegating them to the status of
historian or journalist, artists were also called to be argumentative like orators. Just as Cicero
directed Roman rhetoricians to teach, delight, and emotionally move their audience, so
Paleotti expected Christian painters not only to delight their viewers’ senses and to teach
them about Christianity but also to evoke their passions and spirit. 65 He saw art not only as
an administrative matter to be handled, a source of heresy to be dodged, or even a mere tool
for educating the lower classes, but as a powerful tool by which to unify and excite all the
members of his respublica cristiana.
43

PART II:
A TEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF
FEDERICO BORROMEO’S
DE PICTURA SACRA
44

CHAPTER 3
__________________
THE EARLY YEARS: FEDERICO’S YOUTH IN MILAN AND ROME
From his youth, Federico Borromeo lived in the shadow of his elder cousin, Carlo.
Born in Milan on August 18, 1564, to Giulio Cesare and Margherita Trivulzio, Federico grew
up in a patrician household whose ancestral lineage extended well into Milanese and Italian
history and whose current patriarch had become archbishop of Milan only months before
his birth. 1 As a youth, he spent his days in relative ease in the family’s palace in Milan or at
their villa in Isola Bella on Lago Maggiore. 2 When his father died in 1572, Carlo took over as
Federico’s guardian and became a major influence on the young man’s spiritual and
intellectual development. Largely raised by his own uncle – Gian Angelo Medici – after
losing his father early in his life, Carlo could relate to Federico’s situation and saw him as a
son, protégé, and potential successor to the See of Milan. Although Federico’s first
inclination was to study civil science in Milan and Bologna and to follow in his father’s
footsteps, Carlo eventually convinced him to begin applying himself to religious studies and
to pursue a life committed to the Church. In this decision, “Federico was following the
religious tradition of the Borromeo family, the devout and pious sentiment of his mother,
and the example” of his Carlo himself. 3
At the age of fourteen, shortly after losing his father and with encouragement from
his cousin, Federico began attending the University of Bologna, where he studied rhetoric,
philosophy, and mathematics under the guidance of Carlo’s close friend and associate from
the Roman Curia, Gabriele Paleotti. Paleotti had played a central role in developing of the
decrees of the Council of Trent into more actionable guidelines that local bishops and parish
45

priests could apply. As embodied in his Discorso, he understood the purpose of art to be the
excitement of religious fervor and the facilitation of devotional prayer. These views would
become prove to Federico’s development, for upon becoming archbishop of Milan, he not
only founded an artistic academy and gallery but also wrote his own art treatise, De pictura
sacra, which borrows heavily from Paleotti’s thought. During this period in Bologna,
Federico also became enamored with the Society of Jesus. 4 Likely due in part to Carlo’s
encouragement that he practice Ignatius Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises [Fig. 24], Federico soon
joined the Jesuits’ Congregazione della Perservanza at the University and became a novice in
the order. Carlo quickly put a stop to this behavior, however, and convinced him that his
talents could be applied more effectively through ecclesiastical office. 5 By 1580, Federico too
subscribed to this vision and firmly committed himself to the religious life and ecclesiastical
ministry.
Shortly thereafter, the Carlo sent him to the Collegio Borromeo [Fig. 25], which the
archbishop himself had established in 1564, to complete his study of theology and
philosophy as well as to oversee the operation of the institution itself. Just as Pius IV had
used the Collegio as a training ground for Carlo’s development into an effective
administrative leader, so “Carlo used the Collegio for similar purposes: he placed Federico in
a position of authority as a student-director of the Collegio Borromeo, which opened under
his supervision in 1581.” 6 In this position, he divided his attention between overseeing the
physical completion of the Collegio and attending to the spiritual enrichment of student life.
Federico’s administrative duties at the Collegio also provided him valuable opportunities to
develop as a bureaucratic supervisor, particularly in regard to finalizing the construction and
decoration of the actual building. Just as Carlo had served as a representative of Pius IV
during the initial phases of the Collegio’s construction, so Federico served as an agent for
46

Carlo over these final phases. During the summer of 1584, he helped to select Bernardo
Cane, a local painter, to decorate the chancel of the Collegio’s chapel and provided him a
detailed outline of the archbishop’s planned iconographic scheme [Fig. 26]. 7
Despite these managerial responsibilities, Federico was also formally a student at the
Collegio during this period, and even in this capacity, he served as a leader for his fellow
classmates. As his peer Francesco Rivola, noted in 1581, “Federico attempted to promote
the spiritual development of his schoolmates by encouraging them to study nature, so as to
awaken their souls to deeper consideration of the power of divine providence.” 8 In this view,
one can see the nascent stages of what would become Federico’s Christian optimism;
although his emphasis on meditation and contemplative prayer also reflects his time spent
with Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises and his personal predisposition for solitary worship.
Looking to unify motivated students at the Collegio, he founded the Accademia degli
Accurati in 1582 for the study of theology, allowing for a more free-ranging discussion of
subjects from mathematics and arithmetic to philosophy and aesthetics 9 . The Accademia also
pulled in such prominent religious minds as a young Luigi Gonzaga; Nicola Sfondrati, who
would later become Gregory XIV; and Hippolito de’ Rossi, the bishop of Pavia. 10 While at
Pavia, Federico also formed a secret society, the Congregazione della Beata Vergine, which
he dedicated to S. Ambrose and the Virgin, as a group committed to daily mediation, prayer,
and – before being censured by his spiritual advisor at the Collegio – mortification. 11 In
many ways prefiguring Federico’s approach to balancing his desire for personal
contemplative prayer with his public ecclesiastical responsibilities, he led the Congregazione
to engage in charity work by visiting the ill and serving as catechists, which Federico himself
did for the common parishioners of Pavia on feast days. 12
47

With the early death of Carlo in 1584 to over-work and a harsh ascetic lifestyle,
Milan was left with an elaborate and efficient administrative system but no leader of
sufficient competence or authority to run it. 13 To fill this power vacuum, the Borromeo
family turned to Federico to replace his elder cousin and take on the archbishopric, and in
the autumn of 1586, he journeyed to Rome to enter into Curial politics and seek Carlo’s
office. 14 On a personal level, the loss of Federico’s spiritual and vocational adviser, in
addition to his transition to the urban environment of Rome, proved a difficult challenge,
and he found himself regularly turning to Carlo’s close friend, Filippo Neri, as well as
Agostino Valier, a Catholic reformer and the successor to Gian Matteo Giberti’s bishopric in
Verona, for guidance. 15 Together, these two men brought Federico tremendous tranquility
and peace through introducing him to the Christian humanism of the Oratorian orders in
Rome and encouraging him to devise his own method for achieving spiritual peace. 16 Neri
and Valier also exposed him to what would become known as Christian optimism, a
reformation school of thought that sought to incorporate concepts from classical humanism
into contemporary theology. One of the primary proponents of the movement – and
another associate of Federico during his time in Rome – was Roberto Bellarmino, whose De
ascensione mentis in Deum per scalas creaturarum (1615) “outlined a method of spiritual ascension
through meditation on the mundane world.” 17 Rooted in Plato’s Timaeus and Plotinus’s Neo-
Platonism, this approach aligned well with Federico’s personal preference for solitary prayer
and contemplation in nature, and although he never became as cental a fixture to the school
as Valier or Bellarmino, he certainly embodied its efforts to unify humanistic inquiry with
Christian piety.
As a result of the influence of these prominent theologians and reform leaders,
Federico’s years in Rome proved tremendously formative to his character and lifelong
48

approach to balancing the competing interests of his personal piety and public administrative
commitments. Although he lived in a “sumptuous palace” for the sake of entertaining
ecclesiastics and other noble guests and fulfilling his Curial duties, Federico devoted most of
his free time to prayer and study in his stark and sparsely furnished personal quarters. 18 An
engaged member of the Curia, he also continued his classical and theological education
through serving as a member of the Congregation of Rites, which established standards for
liturgical worship, and the committee to revise the Vulgate, through which he gained wide
exposure to patristic texts and learned Greek, Hebrew, Chaldaic, and Syriac, in addition to
his previous knowledge of Latin. 19 This period also witnessed the excavation of early
Christian catacombs on the periphery of the city, and Federico became fascinated with the
inscriptions, artifacts, and antique images discovered inside them. 20 As in Pavia, he yearned
to spend time in nature, contemplating the beauty of God’s creation, but his residence in
Rome prevented him from spending much time outdoors. In a letter to his mother in May of
1599, he describes the spiritual renewal he achieved in just being alone and contemplative in
a garden. 21
Despite his personal asceticism, Federico’s years in Rome also brought him into
close relations with many wealthy nobles and elite circles of society. Moreover, even though
Carafa’s Roman Inquisition and the spirit of Trent had led to a general reduction in the
levels of corruption and decadence in the Roman Curia, many cardinals, like Federico, still
came from patrician backgrounds. Amid this culture, Federico became intimately involved in
the city’s art scene, patronizing Jan Brueghel the Elder and Paul Bril and purchasing works
by such artists as the German Johann Rottenhammer and Caravaggio. 22 As Pamela Jonea has
noted, many of the early works Federico commissioned during the 1590s were landscapes
and still lifes, nearly all by Flemish artists, with the exception of Caravaggio’s Basket of Fruit
49

(1599) [Fig. 27], and thus it is tempting to agree with Jones that this early patronage is
connected to Federico’s desire to see natural beauty even if only by means of oil on a
canvas. 23 However, even if this desire for a pastoral escape motivated the young cardinal’s
initial engagement with the city’s art market, over the course of his almost fifteen years in
Rome, with only a quick residency in Milan from July of 1595 to March of 1597, his artistic
apprecation expanded well beyond just landscapes and still lifes. In 1593, he was actively
involved in the formation of the Accademia di San Luca in Rome, of which he came its first
Cardinal Protector on November 14, 1593. 24 Through his engagement with the Accademia,
he also met many artists, theorists, and fellow patrons, including Bril, Brueghel,
Rottenhammer, and Federico Zuccaro, who served as the Accademia’s principe. With Bril and
Brueghel in particular, he not only patronized them during his time in Rome but also formed
a close relationship that lasted throughout their lives. Such close ties to prominent artists and
exposure to Zuccaro’s pedagogy within the Accademia would both play an important role in
Federico’s future sponsoring of the arts as the archbishop of Milan.
THE MILANESE EPISCOPATE
Upon being appointed archbishop of Milan by Clement VIII in June of 1595,
Federico quickly became embroiled in what would be the central political controversy of his
episcopate – the feud between the Church and the Spanish crown for jurisdictional power in
Milan. 25 Extending beyond just the boundaries of Lombardy, the debate over what role the
Spanish Habsburgs should play in Italy had been raging since the early sixteenth century. In
Spain, Ximénes had been a key factor in reconciling the Church with Ferdinand of Aragon
and Isabella I; however, even within this compromise, they still played an important role in
the daily execution and teachings of the Church. Indeed, although the Spanish
50

epresentatives to Trent provided some of the strongest critiques of the established Curial
procedure and Church operations, such radical reforms had already become well-established
precedent in the Spain. 26 In Milan, this feud manifested itself in a debate over whether
ecclesiastical courts could claim to have jurisdictional supremacy over secular courts not only
in clerical matters but also in regard to any cases involving laypersons’ “ultimate
redemption.” 27 Although the absolute authority of the Spanish Crown over the Church had
already been established in Sicily and Naples, Milan was more resistant, and particularly
given the Borromeo family’s longstanding prominence in the region, Carlo refused to yield
to secular authority once he became archbishop. Upon taking office, Carlo challenged the
Spanish Crown and defied the rule of the local governor, the Duke of Alberquerque, by
publishing the Decrees of the Council of Trent and the papal bull In caena domini against their
wishes. In retaliation, the governor arrested Carlo’s agents and took control of the Borromeo
family’s estates by force; however, when the archbishop responded by placing the Duke of
Albuquerque “under curse and interdict,” the governor was left no other choice but to beg
for absolution and yield to Carlo’s authority. 28
While these measures worked for Carlo and established a relative calm in the feud
for the duration of his episcopate, Federico faced a more difficult time in establishing his
legitimacy and gaining respect before the secular authorities. The intervening archbishop,
Gaspare Visconti, had failed to maintain the ecclesiastical supremacy that had previously
been gained, and although Federico attempted to maintain his political ground and assert his
authority over the strong-willed Juan de Velasco, who had taken over as the leader of the
Spanish forces in the region, Pope Clement VIII refused to support him in the same way
Pius V had assisted Carlo. 29 Unable to maintain any political legitimacy without the backing
of the papacy, Federico was forced to return to Rome and wait another four years until Don
51

Pedro Enriquez de Acevedo, Count of Fuentes, became the Milanese governor under Philip
III, who proved more willing to negotiate with both Clement VIII and Federico. 30
Having achieved a reasonable peace with Count Fuentes and learned much from the
intervening years in the Curia, Federico returned to Milan in 1601 as a mature and capable
administrator, and although problems with the Spanish Crown would continue to arise
throughout his tenure in office, he refused to allow such concerns to detract from his plans
for improving Milan. Like Carlo, Federico implemented a system of visitations, whereby he,
as well as his ecclesiastical representatives, would inspect all of the urban churches and rural
pieve in order to ensure the general upkeep of the archdiocese. These visitations also allowed
him to gain an understanding of the progress that had been made towards implementing the
Council of Trent’s directives. To that end, “he enforced the decrees on ecclesiastical and
secular conduct that Carlo’s diocesan synods and provincial councils had established,
ensured that Carlo’s educational standards were maintained in the seminaries that he had
founded, and stipulated that lay confraternities continue to meet Carlo’s requirements in
teaching in accordance with the Roman Catechism.” 31 Federico also expanded upon the
spirit of Caro’s reforms by founding the Collegio Elvetico, a seminary dedicated to training
priests to combat the Protestantism that threatened the Swiss cantons in the northernmost
regions of the archdiocese.
Under Carlo, Milan had become an exemplar for implementing Tridentine reforms;
however, much of this gain was at least in part attributable to his severe and dictatorial rule.
A perfectionist and taskmaster, he not only overworked himself but also strong-armed many
others into abiding by his rules and systems. As Paolo Prodi noted in reviewing the records
of Milan’s councils and synods, Federico took a milder approach to the office, and in this
way both won others’ favor and distinguished himself from his legendary predecessor. 32
52

Indeed, despite never attaining the same fame or recognition – let alone canonization – that
Carlo achieved so quickly, Federico still maintained Milan as a prime example of a Tridentine
archdiocese guided by the Council’s ideas and vision for Church reform. Milan’s continued
status as a paradigm for reform efforts is made clear in a series of letters between Claudio
Rangoni, the Bishop of Piacenza, and Federico, wherein Rangoni asks not only for
information and a relic of the recently canonized Carlo but also practical advice and
guidance from the archbishop. 33 Part of the appeal of Federico to Rangoni may have been
the former’s conscious effort to make reforms not only to the highest administrative offices
of the Church and episcopacy but also in the daily lives of the faithful. Federico wished to
make the Tridentine reforms not only a matter of combating Protestant heresy or
eliminating corruption within the Roman Curia but also about improving the Church’s
attentiveness to the needs of parishioners and fostering the faithful’s spiritual development.
He attempted the convey the personal weight and importance of his teachings through his
“holy discourses [sacri ragionamenti],” a series of allocutions that applied the Church’s doctrine
through teachings on the everyday issues that affect most parishioners’ lives. 34 One such
allocution, delivered as an archiepiscopal address and subsequently published in 1640,
treated the question of parental care of children from a doctrinal and Scriptural perspective,
attempting to strike a balance between the harsh severity with which some parents treated
their children and the excessive indulgence that others doled out. 35 Given both of their
commitments to overseeing the daily operation of the archdiocese, perhaps the differences
between Carlo and Federico can best be understood through comparing their attitudes
towards and solutions for two very different but fundamental aspects of each archbishop’s
tenure: the plague and the role of religious artwork.
53

To begin, it must not be thought that Federico’s concern for the average Milanese
parishioner was a new feature of Church reform in Milan. Carlo too had shown enormous
concern for the poor and lowly in his time as archbishop. In line with the Council’s decrees,
he had mandated that priests explain the nature of the sacraments as they deliver them, and
he oversaw the preaching throughout the diocese, rooting out heretical views and assuring
that priests and other bishops not only preached but also spoke to the parishioners and
helped them to develop in their faith and understanding of the Church’s teachings. As noted
above, Federico, in large part, only sought to maintain these high standards among all the
parishes of the archdiocese, visiting its 750 parishes and 1779 churches, oratories, and
chapels at least once during his tenure as Carlo himself had striven to do. 36 Both Borromeos’
concern for the needs and spiritual development of the average person were exemplified
most poignantly in their reactions to the plague outbreaks of 1576-7 and 1629-30, but while
each administered to the needs of the sick and sought to provide comfort for their faithful
flock, each also followed a different model for how best to serve their parishioners.
For Carlo, the arrival of the plague required a collective act of penitence for the city,
and in October 1576, he arranged for three public processions from the Duomo to three
different major city churches and back. Granting a plenary indulgence to anyone who
participated, Carlo led the procession and “[w]ore a purple pontifical cape in a token of
penitence… [and r]ound his neck…bore a rope like the halter of a condemned criminal; in
his hand he carried a crucifix... on which he kept his eyes fixed throughout the whole way,
like a malefactor led forth for execution [Fig. 28].” 37 For the third of these events, he
followed the example set several popes, including Stephen II, Leo IV, and Gregory the
Great, in affixing the city’s palladium, a nail from the True Cross [Fig. 29], to the
processional cross and bearing it through the city. 38 After this final procession, he then
54

placed the nail on display atop the altar of the Duomo and began a Forty-Hour Veneration
during which he delivered a meditation on the mysteries of the Passion every hour. 39 When
the plague abated shortly after these processions, Carlo declared it a miracle and offered
thanks through stipulating that each year, on May 3, the relic of the holy nail must be carried
in a procession and then venerated for forty hours by the faithful of the archdiocese. 40 In all
of these ceremonies and penitential offerings, Carlo clearly fostered not only contrite fervor
and religious devotion amongst the Milanese worshippers who joined him but also a cult
following of his leadership and of the Church more generally. According to the existing
accounts of observers that witnessed these processions, Carlo remained entirely devoted and
focused on the penitential act throughout all three processions – it was not a Potemkin
procession. 1 At the same time, it clearly followed from his Tridentine attitudes about the
importance of the Church as the source of salvation and of the bishop as the leader of his
diocese. No one but Borromeo could have become the penitent in the procession, for no
one else could have taken on the weight of the sin and suffering of the entire city.
In contrast to this elaborate and ceremonial offering, Federico sought instead to
make his ministry more personal and particular. When many residents of the city wished to
conduct another procession with the relic of the holy nail, as they had done under Carlo,
Federico refused and urged them to refrain from creating such a crowded public event, and,
indeed, the weeks after this massive public gathering saw some of the highest fatality rates of
the entire Milanese outbreak. 41 Despite this hesitance over overt religious ceremonies and
elaborate ecclesiastical rituals, Federico remained attentive throughout the entire epidemic.
Even as the rest of his household passed away from the illness, when he might have fled to
1 As his biographer Giussano recounts, “[a]s he walked along with bare feet, carrying a large crucifix in his
hand, rapt in contemplation of the passion of Jesus Christ, his foot caught in an iron grating, so that one of
his nails was torn off to the quick. He would not, however, stop to apply any remedy, but bore the pain
without flinching.” (Jones in Hope and Healing, 70.)
55

him family’s country estate to decrease his likelihood of catching sick, Federico maintained
his residency and ministered to his people, personally visiting the sick houses, or lazzarettos,
and delivering the Holy Sacraments and moral encouragement to those in need. 42 In this
approach, Federico’s milder manner manifests itself, for unlike Carlo, who insisted upon
realizing his vision and then memorializing its success, Federico administered more from the
background and sought to hear the specific needs of the people. While Carlo likely would
have censured and condemned any that went against his wishes, as the worshippers who
processed in 1629 did to Federico, the latter just took sympathy on the many that died as a
result of the event and continued his ministry. Although both administered the sacraments
to the sick, Carlo did so within the formally ecclesiastical environment of the Church, while
Indeed, Federico visited the ill on the streets and in their lazzarettos. Federico was so
thoroughly implanted in the plague-stricken society of Milan that, according to his secretary
Giuseppe Ripamonti, he even acquired some valuable paintings by salvaging them from
homes deserted after the outbreak. 43
DE PICTURA SACRA
Despite Carlo Borromeo’s notoriety for combatting the plague of 1576-7, dismissing
the Duke of Albuquerque’s secular encroachment, and making Milan a paragon of
Tridentine reform and episcopal rule, Federico could claim at least one distinction from early
in his episcopate: under his reign, the humanities in Milan flourished. Whether due to his
years spent studying in Bologna and Pavia or his close ties to patrician society and the
Roman art market, Federico was active in promoting scholarship and learning in Milan from
the moment of his return in 1601. As Prodi noted in reviewing the sacri ragionamenti,
Federico’s approach to the role of archbishop was less severe and more open to differences
of opinion than Carlo’s episcopate, and this liberalism aligned well with his approach to the
56

humanities. Unlike Carlo, who became skeptical of all non-Christian ancient texts, Federico
eagerly sought to collect any text he could find. 44 To that end, he employed several agents to
gather books and manuscripts for what would become his Ambrosiana Library, dedicated to
the city’s legendary former archbishop, St. Ambrose. Moreover, in 1603, he began the formal
construction of the building to house these works, relying on the architect Lelio Buzzi for
much of the rather plain design and turning to Francesco Maria Ricchino, who beat out the
bid of Fabio Mangone, for the design of the interior of the Sala Federiciana in 1609. 45 After
the completion of the main building and installation of the books and manuscripts, Federico
officially signed the Ambrosiana into existence on September 7, 1607, but shortly thereafter,
he decided that he thought it would be beneficial for Milan to have an art academy, similar
to the Accademia di San Luca, with which he had been associated in Rome, where young
men could be trained to create art in line with the standards set forth at Trent. Having
obtained the rules and regulations of the Carracci workshop in Bologna from Ludovico
Carracci in 1613, with whom Federico was familiar from his days in Bologna, he sponsored
the construction of a new building, separated from the original library by a small garden,
between 1611 and 1630. Moreover, in 1618, concerned that the young men studying at the
Ambrosiana ought to be able to study and observe examples of great artwork, he donated a
large part of his personal collection to the library. Although a proper study of this collection
must wait for the next section of this volume, it is, for now, helpful to note that the donation
included pieces by his associates at the Accademia, like Zuccaro and Scipione Pulzone, as
well many examples of Flemish and Italian Cinquecento painting, with ten landscapes by
Bril, over thirty paintings by Brueghel, and a whole series of Italian works, including
“Leonardo (two), Luini (six), Marco d’Oggiono (one) and Boltraffio (one).” 46 Other
highlights include ten works by Titian, Caravaggio’s Basket of Fruit, and an excellent
57

collection of copies of original works that Federico either respected highly or wished to
preserve from breakdown and rot.
To accompany the construction of the Ambrosiana complex, particularly its art
academy and gallery, Federico followed the example set by many of his predecessors in
writing a treatise concerning the proper function of painting and the graphic arts within the
Tridentine Church. However, despite its many precedents, including Gilio’s Dialogo,
Paleotti’s Discorso, and even Carlo’s Instructiones, which briefly discusses sacred images amid a
longer treatment of architecture and liturgical decorations, Federico’s De pictura sacra [DPS],
which he completed in 1624, as well as his subsequent volume, Musaeum, which he published
the next year, provide a unique and important perspective on the question of ecclesiastical
art. Having had the singular privilege of developing under the tutelage of both Carlo
Borromeo and Gabriele Paleotti, Federico frequently straddled two worlds in his life, divided
between a personally ascetic lifestyle of solitary prayer and contemplation and a sumptuous
public life dominated by patrician sensibilities, between serving on the Congregation of Rites
and the committee to revise the Vulgate and actively patronizing the Roman art market,
between his elder cousin’s strict concern for abiding by the strictures of the Council’s
reforms and his university days’ openness to classical texts and humanistic inquiry in its own
right. Finally, given Federico’s exposure to various thinkers and traditions both inside and
outside of the Church, particularly Zuccaro, DPS becomes a valuable landmark from which
one can better understand the artistic transition that took place between the first generation
of post-Tridentine reformers to the second and, more broadly, between the sixteenth to
seventeenth centuries.
FEDERICO’S INTERPRETATIONS OF TRENT
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Written in Latin, the actual text of DPS consists of two books, each of thirteen
chapters: the first devoted to a general study of the nature and guidelines for art and the
second covering the portrayal of holy figures, sacred symbols, religious iconography, and
ecclesiastical buildings. Federico began contemplating the shape of this work in the 1590s;
however, it took him until after the formation of the Ambrosiana in 1624 to publish the
work. 47 Recent research has shown that Federico wrote the both the Latin version and an
unpublished Italian version simultaneously, moving back and forth between multiple drafts
of each as he revised his thoughts and sought to prepare the final version. 48 Although a
detailed study of Federico’s writing process is beyond the scope of this study, his meticulous
approach to writing the text of DPS reveals the care and thought that he placed in its
precepts and recommendations. It is truly a study not only of Federico’s artistic preferences
but also of the various classical and Christian arguments competing for his loyalty.
Federico opens the treatise by noting that, in writing this work, he attempts to abide
by the directives of the Council of Trent “that ordered bishops to give people instructions
about the mysteries of the faith and sacred stories…not only with words but also with
paintings or other visual media, since images, by working on both rational and emotional
levels, can stimulate people to reflect on the articles of faith.” 49 In this acknowledgement,
Federico strikes on a number of separate but integral points to the Council’s decrees on
religious artwork put forward in the Twenty-Fifth Session. First, he references one of the
Council’s most important and influential teachings that manifested itself throughout its
numerous decrees, namely that bishops should not only be involved in the Curial matters of
the Church but actually reside in their dioceses and take part in the daily preaching and
pedagogy expected of their office. He then combines this idea of the bishops’ duties with the
Twenty-Fifth Session’s specific ruling that bishops should “diligently teach that by means of
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the stories of the mysteries of our redemption portrayed in paintings and other
representations the people are instructed and confirmed in the articles of faith.” 50 On the
most basic and practical level, this idea makes sense because, given the high illiteracy rate
among the Church’s common parishioners, sacred images could serve a valuable role in
educating people about their faith and the doctrines of their religion. Federico does not
discuss this practical notion in detail, however, and touches on it again only briefly in his
treatment of historical inaccuracies in the fourth and subsequent chapters. Instead, he
focuses on the more complex and nuanced idea that images operate “by working on both
rational and emotional levels [animos sensusque… recolenda].” 51 Although the Council never uses
that exact phraseology, Federico may have picked up on two separate elements of the
decree, for the Council argues that sacred stories and important lessons can be effectively
learned by being “borne in mind and constantly reflected upon [commemorandis et assidue
recolendis]” and that, through images, people would “be moved to adore and love God and
cultivate piety [excitenturque ad adorandum ac diligendum Deum et ad pietatem colendam].” 52 All three
passages make use of the Latin colere, meaning “to worship, foster, or cultivate,” and when
the two passages from Trent are combined together, one arrives to similar argument to
Federico’s point: images stimulate and resonate within people’s rational and emotional
faculties, thereby fostering a thorough grappling with the articles of one’s faith. In this
formulation of the power of images, Federico also seems to anticipate his later argument for
the parallels between rhetoric and painting
Cognizant of this power within images to evoke robust rational and emotional
responses, Federico lays out general prescriptions for artists so that their talent and gifts
might be put to good use rather than squandered on poor productions or, even worse,
applied in a manner that would create confusion or misbelief among the faithful. Although a
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chapter-by-chapter analysis of the sources for Federico’s arguments and an analysis of their
relation to the Catholic Reformation remains to be undertaken, an exploration of three key
themes will be crucial to understanding how Federico expands upon the Tridentine decrees
and to assessing his arguments in comparison to other prominent reformers of his time,
particularly Carlo, Paleotti, and the Christian optimists. These themes are (1) verisimilitude
and historical accuracy, (2) decorum, and (3) the integral value of art and its preservation.
VERISIMILITUDE AND HISTORICAL ACCURACY
In his emphasis on the importance of naturalistic and historical accuracy in the
painting and sculpture, Federico enters into a long line of post-Tridentine writers concerned
with reforming religious art and curtailing Italian art’s shift towards Mannerism over the
sixteenth century. Indeed, since the publication of Gilio’s Dialogo, no Catholic reformer failed
to mention the importance of artistic verisimilitude, whether it be called “verisimile” as in
Gilio and Paleotti or “similitude” as in Carlo’s Instructiones. For Federico, artists should foster a
“care for likeness [similitudinis cura]” 53 and strive to replicate nature as closely as possible
while paying particular attention to avoiding any untruths or factual inaccuracies. Artists
should not depict the Virgin teaching Jesus how to read, for the Christ child was born with
such abilities already, and in depicting religious scenes, like the Adoration of Baby Jesus, they
should refrain from adding anachronistic visitors, whether they be contemporary patrons or
even saints [Fig. 30]. 54 He urges artists to avoid nudity not only for its impropriety but also
because “the bodies of neither [men nor women] are seen undressed in public squares or
streets,” and he provides similar advice in regard to clothing each figure in attire befitting his
social station; to depicting historical figures at their proper age relative to events represented;
and to maintaining the naturalistic accuracy of persons and objects depicted, the system of
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perspective employed, and the emotions and attitudes rendered in each work. 55 Although all
of these errors could be censured for various reasons, whether it be distraction of the
viewer’s attention from the central event of the adoration in the manger or the incitement of
indecent thoughts within one viewing the exposed breast of the Virgin feeding the Baby
Jesus, Federico’s central concern in all of them is their historical inaccuracy and, thus, their
failure to render reality properly.
In addressing the topic of historical accuracy directly, Federico distinguishes between
four understandings of a depicted event’s historical accuracy: factual truth, extreme
implausibility, plausibility, and clear falsehoods; however, he only provides a definitive guide
to handling the first and the last of these possibilities. Artists should intend upon depict
actual events – particularly of a religious or sacred nature – with absolute accuracy and to
exclude outright any clear falsehoods; however, Federico does acknowledge that artists
themselves must determine, “with mature judgment [maturitate iudicii],” which truths and how
many of them to depict in a given work 56 For instance, in representing Christ’s Last Supper,
Federico warns artists against including anachronism or elements in conflict with the
Scriptures, such as the blessing of the meal in the Sign of the Cross or the serving of a lamb
to the guests [Fig. 31], respectively. While the Scriptures only mention that bread and wine
was served at the meal, which also holds strong theological significance both in the
institution of the Eucharist and in the symbolic replacement of a sacrificial lamb with the
Agnus Dei, the Sign of the Cross clearly would not have been used before Christ’s Crucifixion
the next afternoon on Good Friday. 57 Federico leaves the remaining question of whether to
depict probable, or even improbable but still possible, events up to the individual artist’s
judgment; however, he does seem to hesitate before allowing artists to include any
unsubstantiated detail, he also acknowledges the usefulness and evocative power that such
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elements normally bring to a work. Ultimately, although he explains what general
characteristics a meritorious religious painting would feature, this openness to innovation
and artistic originality in depicting holy subjects betrays Federico’s trust and comfortableness
within the world of art.
DECORUM
Federico’s concern for verisimilitude and absolute naturalistic accuracy derives
mostly from his understanding of decorum. After discussing DPS’s purpose and relation to the
Council of Trent, he begins the actual instructive part of the treatise with a discussion this
concept; however, while his analysis can be rather opaque and convoluted when taken
sequentially, its overall content can best be understood in two steps. First, mankind
recognizes decorum in nature as that quality which “brings particular pleasure to the minds of
viewers…as a kind of luminous splendor, or perhaps as a flower growing out of every
movement and activity, that refreshes the mind.” 58 In this view, he connects to Cicero’s
discussion of human nature and reason. He cites De Officiis, wherein Cicero describes how
“Nature and Reason… [permit in mankind] a feeling for order, for propriety, for moderation
in word and deed… [as well as] a sense of beauty, loveliness, [and] harmony in the visible
world.” 59 Thus, given man’s capacity to reason and create order, he derives a sense of
pleasure from recognizing a similar order and grace in the world around him. The question
remains, however, where this inherent order and grace – this natural decorum – originates, and
for Federico, it derives from God’s creative act, wherein He filled the world with
multitudinous examples of decorum, or inherent beauty set in harmony with context. By this
view, God “implant[s decorum] into anything that is charming or graceful” in the world,
including the static beauty of landscapes, the cosmic beauty of the heavens, and the dynamic
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eauty of living creatures, including humans. 60 Indeed, humans too can exemplify decorum not
only in their physical beauty – a woman’s attractive elegance – but also in their actions and
behavior, for instance in playing beautifully and in harmony with an orchestra as its lead
violinist.
This relationship between human achievement and decorum also pertains to the
second aspect of Federico’s understanding of decorum, namely, decorum as virtue, which shall
be approached first in general and then from the specific perspective of an artist. Citing the
Pythagoreans, Federico argues “that virtue is nothing other than a state of decorum,” such that
any lack of virtue is necessarily indecorous and flawed, whether due to excess or dearth, an
intrinsic and harmonious beauty. 61 In this view, the notion of decorum in nature, exemplified,
for instance, by a fluttering butterfly amongst the flowers, is extended to mankind, which
fulfills its nature through the cultivation and achievement of human virtues. Rooted in
Aristotle’s Ethics, this view draws a parallel between the natural decorum embodied in a
butterfly and the decorum embodied in a human’s virtuous actions, for, rather than fluttering
among flowers as butterflies are wont to do, mankind is by nature aligned to pursue
excellence in the human virtues. In other words, to apply the argument of the Pythagoreans,
while the virtue of butterflies is to flutter, and humans can perceive decorum in the fulfillment
of this virtue, so the virtue of human beings is the pursuance of excellence in scholarship,
athletics, or any such activity, and when humans succeed and achieve excellence in this
fields, they are not only virtuous but also decorous, “bring[ing] particular pleasure to the
minds of viewers.” 62
Federico takes this analysis one step further, however, in arguing that, although
decorum might be ascribed to the excellence achieved in any human virtue, it is also uniquely
suited to – and identical with – the virtue of the artist, for the artist seeks to transfer the
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eauty and decorum observed in the natural world and replicate it through a painting or
sculpture. As with all virtues, the pursuit of decorum is challenging because, like Catullus in
Cicero’s De oratore, the artist is called to create art such “that any addition or alteration or
subtraction [one] might make would be inferior – an alteration for the worse.” 63 At the same
time, the reward for a successful artist’s efforts is significant, for he essentially recreates the
decorum achieved by God in nature, thus taking part in a small but meaningful reenactment of
the divine creation.
In connecting this idea back to Federico’s practical discussion of art, any artist who
fails to achieve a mimetic representation of the grace of the natural world or to report the
pertinent and inspiring details of a religious event, which can also be seen as an unfolding of
God’s plan and similarly natural and graceful, fails to reproduce the decorum in the world and,
therefore, also fails to achieve decorum in his individual performance. In other words, in
lacking the virtue of decorum, he fails to achieve the highest and proper virtue of the artist.
THE VALUE OF ART
Federico’s concern for verisimilitude and decorum naturally relates to the third major
theme of DPS, the author’s love and appreciation of art for its own sake. As will be
discussed in the next section, Federico’s treatment of art is distinct from those of his
predecessors in its clear and earnest concern not only for abiding by the decrees of the
Council of Trent or preventing the inclusion of indecent, heretical, or superstitious material
but also for the quality and merit of artwork itself. Particularly when coupled with his
subsequent treatise Musaeum, DPS clearly demonstrates Federico’s passion for art in its own
right as well as his respect for its mimetic capacity to capture natural beauty and, therein,
God’s grace. As can be seen in his willingness to leave the propriety of only probable – or
even improbable but possible – historical events in work up to the artist’s “mature judgment
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[maturitate iudicii],” Federico trusted artists and felt comfortable within the patrician world of
art markets and academies. 64
This appreciation for art also seems to have related to Federico’s commitment to
humanistic inquiry in general. He enjoyed the pursuit of knowledge and saw artistic
production and preservation as valuable components within the larger historical project.
During his time in Rome, Federico had studied the work being undertaken by archaeologists
at the catacombs, and throughout DPS, he cites the early Christian artwork discovered
therein as important landmarks in the development of an accurate iconography. For
instance, the depictions of a dove “holding a little branch in its mouth” and “the peacock” in
the Ostrianum catacombs establish both figures as early, and therefore legitimate, Christian
symbols. 65 These excavations and archaeological discoveries may have also fostered a desire
in Federico to preserve the artwork of his age for future generations. Like Pliny the Elder,
whose Natural History documents many works of art now lost, the archbishop sponsored the
copying of deteriorating works, including Leonardo’s Last Supper [Fig. 32] in Milan’s Santa
Maria delle Grazie, and the “writing [of] descriptions of works in his collection” and the
critical assessment of their artistic merit. 66 Musaeum itself can be seen as such an attempt not
only to publicize and teach using the works within the Ambrosiana but also to document the
gallery’s contents for future generations. In all these efforts, Federico displayed an
appreciation for the worth of art that was not purely instrumental but also integral, for just
as he saw the inherent value given by God to nature, so he recognized the decorum and value
created in an excellent painting or sculpture.
CONTEMPORARY INSPIRATION:
CARLO’S INSTRUCTIONES AND PALEOTTI’S DISCORSO
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Aside from the actual decrees of the Council, the two most important contemporary
textual sources for DPS were Carlo’s Instructiones and Paloetti’s Discorso. While Gilio’s Dialogo
had certainly been fundamental as the first treatise on art released after the close of Trent in
1563, much of polemical weight was directed specifically at Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, and
those parts that were generalizable were, for the most part, adopted by Paleotti in his text.
For instance, the discussion of the need to show all three of the men at Calvary, Christ and
the two thieves, crucified using nails rather than rope ties [Fig. 33] originates in Gilio’s text
but is then adopted in turn by Paleotti and Federico. 67 Similarly, although Gilio clearly
emphasizes similitude as an important factor in religious artwork, it is Paleotti, with
assistance from Aldrovandi and classical sources, that outlined the need for naturalistic and
historical accuracy most clearly in the years prior to DPS.
From a chronological standpoint, Carlo’s influence on Federico’s development far
precedes that of Paleotti. The city’s spiritual and civic rallying point, Carlo became the young
man’s guardian in 1572, when his father Giulio Cesare died, and it was Carlo himself who
encouraged Federico to attend the University of Bologna, where he met and came under the
influence of Gabriele Paleotti. At a practical level, Carlo provided the very model upon
which Federico sought to realize his reforms, for both archbishops used an intensive
visitation process, administered with the assistance of an extensive bureaucracy, to manage
the enormous Milanese archdiocese. Church architecture and decorations were among those
elements judged on these trips, and in many ways, Carlo’s Instructiones could be seen as a
guidebook for his assistants and the many parish priests throughout the archdiocese in
approaching the question of how to achieve proper decorum in a religious setting.
In comparing DPS to the Instructiones, two main points of comparison become
evident. Although each author focused on a different field for his treatise – Carlo on
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architecture, Federico on painting – both also briefly treated the other field in a passing but
summary chapter, and thus, although an point-by-point comparison of their views is not
possible, one can glean a fair understanding of how each saw art and architecture factoring
into the Church. Federico’s treatment of architecture arises in the final chapter of DPS and,
assuming that Federico was intimately familiar with his elder cousin’s work, borrows almost
all of its recommendations and theory from Carlo. Framing it as a natural extension of his
discussion of painting, and to a lesser extent sculpture, Federico defines the function of a
church as “a residence for faithful Christians,” which he likens to the ancient Roman
tradition of building temples with a “consideration [towards] the shapes, proportions, and
lighting… so that the statues would delight and instruct the viewers.” 68 He then advocates
for a similar, goal-oriented Christian architecture, wherein a church’s design serves a clear
purpose towards the enhancement of parishioners’ worship experience and the facilitation of
their connecting with God. Federico also includes several more specific and practically
applicable details, which almost entirely derive from the Instructiones, including the inclusion
of traditional structures like a vestibule and porticos, the prominent placement of the chapel
toward the east, the construction of a choir for the clergy between the laity and the main
altar, and the separation of men from women within the nave. 69 Federico even extends
Carlo’s sometimes cynical pragmatism – confessionals ought to have a locking door “in
order to prevent laymen, vagabonds, or dirty people from idly sitting or sleeping therein” –
to the behavior of the clergy, who he insists should be seated “in full view of the
congregation” lest they be tempted to act or speak in a way unbefitting the sanctity of a
religious service. 70 For the most part, however, it seems that he trusted in and agreed with
Carlo’s architectural recommendations, seeing the Instructiones as a sufficiently comprehensive
treatise that he did not need to add to it but could rather refer his readers to the examples set
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y Carlo and his favorite architect, Pellegrino Tibaldi. Contrasting these two men’s
patronage with the spottier and less traditional church architecture that he criticizes
throughout the chapter, Federico cites the Duomo as “the greatest church of this city…
constructed in appropriate dimensions and with all the care and elegance a work of
architecture could have, but in such a way that art would be subordinated to ecclesiastical
function,” which both Carlo and Federico set as their “underlying motivation and goal” for
ecclesiastical buildings. 71
Unlike with architecture, where Federico deferred to the teachings of his elder cousin
and the precedent set by the Instructiones, in writing about paintings and the graphic arts more
generally, he expresses no qualms about disagreeing with his predecessor and setting a new
course for the archdiocese. As noted above, the title of Chapter XVII of the Instructiones is
“De sacris imaginibus,” and in it Carlo lays out an agenda largely supporting and then
reiterating the vague decrees of the Council with only a few specific recommendations.
These include a strict prohibition against false teachings or “anything that is uncertain,
apocryphal, and superstitious;” 72 an urging of artists to strive for the greatest level of
“verisimilitude [similitude]” 73 in their representations of saints, a censure of those who include
unnecessary animal in religious scenes, practical advice concerning the placement of artwork
out of the reach of the elements and common hands, and a exhortation to represent saints
and religious subjects in a manner “respond[ing] to the dignity and sanctity of [their]
prototype [prototypi dignitati & sanctitati… respondeat].” 74 Although Federico certainly does not
look to contravene the decrees of Trent or in any way detract from the reform efforts in
Milan, his strategy for realizing these changes is distinct from that of his elder cousin, for
while he “will try…to comply with the decree of the Scared Council of Trent [satisfacere
conabimaur in hac etiam parte Sacri Concilii Tridentini Decreto],” he also wishes to demonstrate how
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“both arts can encourage reverence for God [divine cultus Artium istarum ope etiam augeatur]”
independently of the directives of Trent. 75 Indeed, given his lifelong appreciation of art and
its ability to capture nature’s beauty and God’s grace, the Tridentine mandate for bishop’s to
make use of art in their reform efforts hardly seems the primary motivation behind his
treatise.
In terms of the specific points of clash between the Instructiones and DPS, most arise
at least in part due to Federico’s more liberal attitude towards the value of art for its own
sake and as a means of accessing the divine. While both writers agree that historical events or
saints ought to be portrayed “accurately [similitude],” or “faithfully [cum fide],” 76 in Federico’s
phraseology, 2 the latter takes a more conservative stance towards uncertainty and potential
error, allowing for “nothing uncertain or apocryphal [nihil incertum apocryphumve],” 77 than
Federico, who argues that “probable and improbable things [probabilia sive non probabilia]” can
be substituted for facts “in the same way that [an orator] resorts to arguments based on
probabilities [quo Orator etiam… probabilia quaedam argumenta minime adsperanatur]” when
attempting to make a point about a factual event. While Federico does reject “[o]utright
falsehoods [caeterum falsa],” he yields room to the inventiveness of artists to make a point
more compelling or better express the emotion of a scene through relying on some
uncertainty and ambiguity in the Scriptural or traditional accounts. 78 In this position, he
reveals the influence of his classical education on his theory of art, for while many
ecclesiastics of this period employed rhetorical theory to help better understand the
evocative elements of art, he leaned towards more artistic liberty rather than Scriptural and
traditional conservatism. Such liberality can also be seen in his approach to including
unnecessary or controversial details in religious scenes, best exemplified in the debate over
2 Although Federico uses various phrases to refer to artistic accuracy throughout CPS, he and Carlo both
use the same Latin word for verisimilitude, similitude.
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Titian’s inclusion of a puppy in his celebrated Adoration of the Magi. After this painting had
entered the possession of the Boromeo family, one of Carlo’s assistants, potentially at the
archbishop’s direct command, ordered that a puppy depicted in the bottom corner of the
painting be removed from the work. 79 Such an action follows directly from Carlo’s views on
sacred art, for the Instructiones state that “whatever is merely curious or does not incite to
piety… should be avoided” and that “representations of beasts of burden, dogs, fish, or of
other animals ought not be shown in a church or in any other sacred place” 80 unless
specifically required for the sake of the scene. For Federico, this instance of censorship
proved too severe, and in DPS, he mentions the specific incident, and holding “an austere
and inflexible [torvus rigidusque]” 81 household aid responsible, he appeals to the general
atmosphere of the scene – outdoors with other livestock present in the manger – as well as
the naturalistic accuracy and artistic merit of the puppy as grounds for its legitimacy.
Although recent studies have found that the puppy may have actually been urinating, which
potentially could have changed Federico’s attitude towards the superfluous detail, his defense
even of an entirely innocent dog still establishes a clear division with Carlo and betrays his
more developed appreciation for naturalistic beauty and artistic accomplishment than his
cousin. 82 Although Federico clearly relied on Carlo as a model for organizing the diocese and
implementing his reform policies, his education at the University of Bologna in addition to
the Collegio Borromeo and his exposure to the patrician art markets and Accademia di San
Luca in Rome made his approach to artwork more trusting and nuanced than that of the
previous archbishop.
With the encouragement and backing of Carlo, Federico also came under the
influence and tutelage of Gabriele Paleotti during his years at the University of Bologna. The
archbishop oversaw Federico’s daily activities and supervised his studies. 83 During this
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period, Paleotti was also writing his Discorso intorno alle imagine sacri e profane, and in comparing
the two works, it is clear that his time spent with Paleotti had a large impact on his future
understanding of art and its role in the reformed Church. In general terms, both authors
seek to address the question of the proper role of art within the Tridentine Church, but
unlike in the comparison of the two Borromeos, Paleotti and Federico share much in
common, including roots in the University of Bologna and a strong appreciation for
naturalistic accuracy in art. Each elevates the skills of the artist to the level of a public orator,
capable of moving the masses towards piety and a better understanding of their faith, but
each also then stipulates the artist’s need to serve his place in society. According to the
Discorso and DPS, the artist’s vocation requires a combination of extreme skill at naturalistic
accuracy and personal piety -- the artist ought to “be an expert at his job and… a professing
Christian who reflects what he paints in his own life.” 84 As Federico writes, “every painter
must first arouse some sense of religious devotion in his own mind, or he will not be able to
impart to his own works the devotion or a sensibility that one can praise.” 85
Paleotti’s and Federico’s mutual care for naturalistic accuracy highlights another
similarity between the authors, namely their conviction that one could gain insight into
God’s divine plan and grow closer to the Lord through attentive contemplation and quiet
prayer amid nature. For Paleotti, this care might have begun, at least in part, due to his close
friendship with Ulisse Aldrovandi, a classmate at the University and then an advisor to his
episcopate. As a natural philosopher, Aldrovandi believed that naturalistically accurate
images imparted more knowledge and fostered a greater understanding of a subject than any
text was capable of producing, and in reviewing Paleotti’s drafts of the Discorso, he
emphasized the need for clarity and naturalistic imitation, “that a picture must be an model
and imitation of all natural things.” 86 While Paleotti made use of Aldrovandi’s theory of
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aesthetics and knowledge, he combined it with a personal belief that the natural world
reflects God’s plan and is thus worthy of study.
Although likely introduced to Aldrovandi during his time in Bologna, Federico’s
affinity for nature and emphasis on the need for artistic verisimilitude seems much more
closely linked with his personality and lifelong dispositions. Particularly during his years in
Rome, when he had little chance to go outdoors and appreciate nature, the naturalistic works
of Brueghel and Caravaggio provided him comfort and a locus for veneration even in the
dead of winter. 87 Pamela Jones has made the argument that Federico’s religious appreciation
of nature, and subsequent predilection for landscapes and still lifes, was an embodiment of
his connections to Christian optimism, particularly as associated with Neri, Valier, and
Bellarmino. 88 Admittedly, Federico did turn to Neri and Valier after his loss of Carlo as a
mentor in 1584; however, it seems incorrect to understand Federico’s appreciation of nature,
still lifes, and landscapes as an expression of his Christian optimism, particularly given his
previous exposure to and development under Paleotti in Bologna. The similarities between
Federico’s DPS and the Discorso provide further evidence that, in thinking about the
importance of verisimilitude as a means of accessing nature and achieving artistic decorum,
Federico looked to Paleotti as a mentor, rather than the more prominent Christian optimists.
Paleotti and Federico also shared a number of practical concerns in their treatises,
worrying about improbable or scandalous images in religious paintings as well as a lack of
accurate perspective and proportion. 89 Paleotti understood proportion as “the implied
intelligence between [a work’s] parts,” an equilibrium which many Mannerist artists
throughout the sixteenth century had flouted but which the Catholic reformers sought to
restore. Moreover, both authors express some concern and uncertainty as to the proper
teaching in regard to improbable – but not factually incorrect – images in religious paintings.
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Like Federico, who trusted in the artist to determine whether or not a painting called for an
improbable detail or passage for the sake of its evocative power, Paleotti vacillates between
thinking that a “temerarious painting is considered to be more reprehensible than books or
acts because the picture is exposed to the sight of everyone,” thus any misteaching will
necessarily have strongly deleterious effects, and yielding that exceptions can “be made in
[regard to improbable content] since the error is sometimes made unintentionally” and for
the sake of persuasiveness. 90 He does not concede quite as much ground to artistic license as
Federico, who believes artists can knowingly include improbable content in their work, but
he does acknowledge the need for a different standard when considering evocative art.
Despite these deep similarities, Federico and Paleotti do disagree on some issues as
well. While the Discorso looks to identify the role of the artist within the respublica cristiana,
Federico seems less concerned with running an entire archdiocese than with providing a
useful guide to artists and scholars who might begin producing quality art fit for the
Tridentine Church. With many specific allusions to classical literature and patristic texts,
Federico’s treatise is a learned document meant to complement the development of the
Ambrosiana and, in combination with Musaeum, prepare the next generation of Milanese
scholars, artists, and religious leaders that would train there. Federico also seems less
concerned with the distinction between the sacred and the profane than Paleotti, who
devotes a large part of the first book of the Discorso to this topic. In fact, Federico never
formally distinguishes between the sacred and the profane but only discusses them in
relation to “outlandish images” that were discovered in early Christian churches that had
incorporated spolia from older pagan temples and sanctuaries [Fig. 34]. 91 In regard to
particular issues, the two authors for the most part agree, differing only slightly on their
views concerning the place of coats of arms in churches and other practical concerns;
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although, one rare example where they do disagree is over the propriety and usefulness of
portraiture. Paleotti worries that portraiture has the negative consequences of fostering
vanity and pride as well as encouraging artists, frequently patronized by their subject or
someone close to the subject, while Federico cares more for the preservation of people’s
likenesses for posterity, for people frequently “forget to take into account the usefulness to
the public of portraits of great-souled men.” 92 Even this disagreement, however, the two
men largely clash along the same lines: Paleotti shows concern for the development of the
respublic cristiana, worrying about misleading the illiterature populace even with fabricated
portraiture, while Federico – though he would certainly encourage accurate portraiture –
focuses more on the scholarly preservation of great men’s portraits, which might inspire the
public or at least the students within the Ambrosiana.
In comparing Federico to both Carlo and Paleotti, it becomes clear that his DPS,
while it can function as a stand-alone treatise on religious artwork, was part of a larger
project within Federico’s vision for reform. As Jones argues, Federico did not wish for his
tract to become the operating orders for parish visitations but rather another element in his
creation of an educated and academically sophisticated culture centering around the
Ambrosiana. He looked to foster an understanding of art not only as a pragmatic tool for
instructing the illiterate masses or a rhetorical flourish by which to move parishioners’ hearts
and attract them to the Church but as a legitimate locus for religious experience and
connection with God. Rooted in his appreciation for nature and galvanized by his
engagement with Paleotti and the Christian optimists, Federico promoted not only religious
imagery but great artistic production because, in venerating and grappling with truly
decorous artwork, the faithful could engage with God.
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PART III:
A FORMAL ANALYSIS OF
FEDERICO’S ARTISTIC
PATRONAGE
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CHAPTER 4
______________________
Parts I of this thesis sought to place Federico Borromeo’s DPS within the historical
context of the Catholic Reformation. Drawing on the writings of his ecclesiastical mentors,
Carlo Borromeo and Gabriele Paleotti, as well as his close associate within Rome’s
Accademia di San Luca, Federico Zuccaro, Part II then presented a textual analysis of DPS,
which demonstrated the archbishop’s active engagement with the predominant secular and
religious art theorists of the sixteenth century. Part II also revealed that, despite his
divergence from the approach taken by more conservative Church reformers like his elder
cousin, Federico conceived of DPS as a response to the Council of Trent’s call for episcopal
engagement. Effectively the last Tridentine art treatise, DPS can be seen as an important
landmark, representing both a summary of the artistic theory of the sixteenth century and a
model for how religious fervor ought to combine with humanistic inquiry in the seventeenth
century. Part III of this thesis will attempt to demonstrate the concrete implications of
Federico’s treatise and to explore the relationship between his writings and his patronage of
the arts.
In approaching this formal analysis, this thesis will divide Federico’s patronage into
roughly three categories: natural landscapes and still lifes, devotional religious scenes, and
religiously layered landscapes. 1 Although the boundaries between these categories are
1 As will become clear once specific examples are engaged, the distinction between these three categories can
be understood based upon the centrality of overt religious figures and content within the artwork. Landscapes
and still lifes depict only pastoral scenes or natural subjects and include no overt religious content. Conversely,
religious scenes consist of those works wherein the primary focus on the painting is a religious event or subject
matter. Zuccaro’s painting for the altar of S. Agata will be a primary example within this category; however, Jan
Brueghel the Elder’s Daniel in the Lion’s Den also fits because, despite the inclusion of many figures crowding
around the pit, the overall attention of the scene and the majority of the composition is focused on Daniel and
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somewhat permeable, each looks to inspect a different aspect of Federico’s appreciation and
engagement with the arts so that, when taken as a whole, these numerous concrete examples
provide a representative sample of both the archbishop’s patronage and theoretical claims.
Moreover, to highlight their distinguishing characteristics, Part III will focus on one key
example from each category: Paul Bril’s Seascape (1611) [Fig. 35] for the landscape and still
lifes, Federico Zuccaro’s S. Agata visitata in carcere da S. Pietro (1600) [Fig. 1] for the religious
narratives and devotional images, and Jan Brueghel the Elder’s Landscape with a Hermit Reading
and Ruins (1597) [Fig. 36] for the religiously layered landscapes. One immediate concern in
approaching such a project is the question of which works from Federico’s massive
collection and artistic patronage ought to serve as case studies. Although any cross section of
the Ambrosiana’s galleries, let alone of Federico’s wider patronage throughout the
archdiocese, will prove incomplete and deficient in representing the breadth of his
engagement with the arts, measures can be taken to mitigate this arbitrariness and provide a
fairly representative study. Part III will only include works commissioned or directly
purchased by Federico with the aim of limiting the study to just those examples that
represent his personal taste and artistic preferences. For the sake of comparability, Part III
will also restrict itself to the study of paintings, as they are the primary subject of both DPS
and Musaeum.
the lions. The third category, religiously layered works, bridges the divide between the first two groups and
includes some religious figures within a composition that primarily features the natural world. This hybrid
category also highlights Brueghel’s and Bril’s paintings of hermits, which emphasize the intimate relationship
between these eremitic figures and their surroundings. Even if the religious figure takes a primary role in the
physical composition, the very subject matter itself – an individual removed from society and committed to a
contemplative life in nature – suggests a sharing of importance between the hermit and the natural landscape
that he inhabits. Federico’s collection of paintings featuring the Madonna and Child in a garland of flowers will
also be placed in this category because of the paintings’ internally competing claims for the viewer’s attention.
Such works are neither entirely devotional nor entirely pastoral or decorative and thus belong to this hybrid
category.
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LANDSCAPES AND STILL LIFES
According to Jones’s research, Federico’s art collection contained about 172
paintings, twenty-nine percent of which were landscapes or still lifes. 1 Although the study of
the final category, as well as of those landscapes containing religious content, shall be
bracketed until discussion of the religiously layered works later in Part III, the extent to
which Federico incorporated natural scenes and still lifes into his art collection evinces his
sincere conviction in the value of contemplating nature through artwork. Rooted in his
Christian optimism and engagement with Zuccaro’s theory of disegno and human interaction
with natural world, Federico believed that one could perceive the order and decorum of God’s
creation through contemplating scenes of natural beauty.
Bril’s Seascape provides a prime example of the type of art that can allow the viewer
to engage with and contemplate the divine order evident in the natural world. During a visit
to Bril’s studio in Rome in 1610, Federico saw and was impressed by a Seascape that Bril had
painted for Giovanni Batista Crescenzi [Fig. 37], and after being commissioned to make a
straight copy of the work, Bril painted him “an inspired variant,” for which Bril received 50
scudi d’oro upon its completion in September of 1611. 2 The work features a quiet harbor
settlement, with several boats pulling into an inlet for repairs or mooring while a sailboat
catches a gust of wind as it heads out towards the open water. Bril employs a low vantage
point in the work, making the viewer feel as if he just emerged from the forest – the last few
trees of which shade the canvas’s right-hand side – to a vista over this peaceful port. Like the
protagonist of the painting, the viewer at first glance pauses on the boats gathered in the
lower inlet and the fortified settlements upon the coastal hillside; however, in looking
towards the last building on the promontory, his view is drawn out from the forest and into
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the wider sea. The work invites the viewer to walk down to the waterside, beyond the
shadowy forest, and gaze out at the brightly lit ocean.
Like many of Bril’s canvases, the Ambrosiana Seascape features faithful naturalistic
detail that renders the scene as if the viewer were staring out from a seaside window into the
harbor below. However, it is also apparent why Federico would have been attracted to
Crescenzi’s commission as opposed to another of Bril’s works on a similar subject [Fig. 38].
This inviting aspect of the composition, present already in the Crescenzi version, makes the
work ideal for contemplation. Although some of the ships’ crew settle down around a fire
made in the shadow of a seaside ledge, the evening light invites one to peak around the bend
and stare out to sea as the last ships of the day come into port. As Federico describes it in
Musaeum, Seascape provides “a view of the sea that is so soothing, peaceful, and panoramic
that anyone who sees it would think that he is looking at the real thing or walking along the
seacoast.” 3
Although Federico’s praise of the painting in part results from the actual
accomplishment of the artist’s work, it is also a reflection of his agreement with several of
the Bril’s stylistic choices, particularly in comparison to his other works, which deserve “less
praise [for] not depart[ing] from his usual” Mannerist style [Fig. 39]. Given this critique, one
of Federico’s first priorities in assessing a work of art is its naturalistic accuracy. Artists
should foster a “care for likeness [similitudinis cura]” 4 and strive to replicate nature as closely
as possible while paying particular attention to avoiding any untruths or factual inaccuracies.
In DPS, the archbishop focuses initially on the need for historically accurate depictions of
religious events, citing the Council’s decree that nothing disorderly, confusing, profane, or
disrespectful may be included in a sacred work. 5 Although this warning to artists clearly
pertains to religious subject matter, when taken as a whole, DPS also applies these same
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guidelines to the creation of natural landscapes, still lifes, and secular narrative scenes. In
discussing the question of composition, Federico emphasizes that a painting must be
“historically valid [Ad veritatem… historiae]” 6 and not seek to include too many “gratuitous
[absque causa] depictions… [so] as to be utterly preposterous [absurdius].” 7 Such suggestions
ultimately concern themselves with Federico’s central emphasis on the pursuit of decorum, of
replicating the virtuosic creative act of God through artistic skill and attentiveness to nature.
With these artistic concerns in mind, one can much more clearly understand Seascape
to be the embodiment of Federico’s expectations for a naturalistic landscape. Although Bril
includes many details, ranging from the puffs of smoke rising out of the towers to the ripples
of the water as they roll against the rocks, each adds to the scene without obscuring its
central purpose – placing the viewer at the seaside. Moreover, although it is difficult to
highlight the lack of detracting elements, one can point to the fact that nothing within the
composition is “gratuitous [absque causa]” or “preposterous [absurdius],” 8 and, indeed, to
remove almost any of its elements – the two men securing the boat’s sideboards in the
foreground, the tall ship anchored off the coast – would necessarily be to take away an
aspect of this seaside experience. In this way, Bril’s landscape approaches Federico’s artistic
standard of decorum in that Seascape’s representation of the peaceful harbor “is what [the]
thing ought to be [quale debet esse].” 9 To add or subtract any details would detract from the
intended experience.
In this way, Bril’s work embodies the aspect of landscapes and still lifes by which
Federico both evaluates their merit and justifies their patronage. Inspired by the example of
Zuccaro – whose entire understanding of human nature and experience revolves around the
concept of disegno – and the Christian optimism of Neri and Valier, Federico sees artists as
participating in a God-like act through their craft. The virtue of the artist is not only to
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engage in the mechanical act of painting a canvas that looks like the seaside, but to undertake
the intellectual and spiritual act of truly viewing the seaside and then reproducing it.
Although human limitations always result in an imperfect copy – we can never achieve the
same creative power that God does – the artists’ products gain value not only from
conveying a part of the good of the seascape to the viewer’s eye but from providing the
viewer an example of the decorous human act, of mankind’s potential to be like God. The
Seascape captures a part of the valuable, God-given beauty of the ocean, but it also represents
the product of well-trained and well-executed human capacities.
In assessing the place of landscapes in his collection overall, these theoretical
concerns also seem to take on a personal dimension for Federico. Beginning his art
patronage in earnest in the 1590s, the young cardinal and then archbishop concentrated
almost exclusively in acquiring landscapes to the exclusion of almost every other subject
matter. As Jones points out, this period also saw the escalation of his responsibilities first
within the Curia and then to his archdiocese, and this predilection for landscapes – “and one
still life” – may have been the result of his desire to spend more time in prayer and
contemplation outdoors than his ecclesiastical responsibilities would allow. 10 In his 1625
devotional treatise I tre libri delle piaceri della mente christiana, Federico argues that “[s]olitary life
preserves and nurtures a high peace,” that it rejuvenates the soul, and in viewing Bril’s
Seascape as well as other examples from the Ambrosiana, one can easily image Federico
taking time to center himself and contemplate the natural landscapes within the archbishop’s
palace. 11 In Musaeum, Federico withholds no praise in his assessment of Brueghel, whom he
describes as “encompass[ing] almost everything that is magnificent and outstanding in art
[quidquid fere in arte magnificum praeclarumque est].” 12 Among his works, the Forest Landscape with a
Brook (1597) [Fig. 40], as well as his still lifes Flowers in a Glass (1608) [Fig. 41] and Vase of
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Flowers, with a Gem, Coins, and Shells (1606) [Fig. 42], all exemplify DPS’s concern for
naturalistic accuracy. While Forest Landscape, like Bril’s Seascape, recreates the peaceful calm
and diffuse light of a gentle brook that invites the viewer’s gaze into the composition, the
two still lifes not only capture the decorous beauty of the natural world but do so in a way
that is “ongoing and everlasting [perpetuum aeternumque].” 13 Even in the dead of winter, these
flowers provide an escape for Federico amid his ecclesiastical responsibilities and urban
environment. Federico’s collection of landscapes and still lifes thus not only embody his
artistic theory but also serve as reminders of its practical implications and usefulness in daily
life.
RELIGIOUS NARRATIVES AND DEVOTIONALS
While the link between Federico’s Tridentine reform efforts and advocacy of
landscapes and still lifes largely derives from his Christian optimism and commitment to
humanistic inquiry, his patronage and support of religious artwork follows almost directly
from the Council’s decrees. Like his elder cousin, Federico saw narrative scenes and religious
devotional pieces as useful pedagogical tools to impart the basic Scriptural lessons and
traditional teachings of the Church. Moreover, he recognized that paintings possess a
tremendous evocative power capable of “mov[ing parishioners] to adore and love God and
cultivate piety [excitenturque ad adorandum ac diligendum Deum et ad pietatem colendam]” 14 When
combined with his humanistic and artistic concern for historical accuracy and verisimilitude,
these views embodied themselves in a fairly conservative patronage of religious narratives
and devotional scenes, which Jones found to make up almost half of Federico’s overall
collection of paintings. 15
Zuccaro’s S. Agata visitata in carcere da S. Pietro [Fig. 1] in the Duomo serves as a
paradigmatic example of Federico’s episcopal patronage and artistic preferences for religious
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artwork. Federico himself first commissioned the painting in 1597 to complete an altar
constructed by Tibaldi, whom Carlo Borromeo had appointed as the Duomo’s chief
architect, and the work was finally delivered and installed at a price of 330 scudi d’oro in 1600
[Fig. 43]. 16 According to Voraigne’s Golden Legend, Agatha was a rich Sicilian noblewoman
who dedicated her virginity to the Lord and, upon rejecting the lustful advances of the
lowborn Quintianus, a Roman prefect, underwent brutal punishment for her vow of chastity
and Christian faith. 17 Initially placed in the custody of Aphrodisia, who ran a brothel along
with her nine daughters, she refused to sacrifice to their pagan idols, insisting that such
practice was misguided and that her courage and thought was established upon her firm faith
in Christ. 18 As a result, Quintianus imprisoned and tortured her, slicing off her breasts and
rolling her naked body across hot coals, after which she died in prison. Zuccaro’s painting
shows another scene from Voraigne’s account in which, on the eve of her death, S. Peter
visits Agatha and heals the wounds inflicted during the removal of her breasts. The moment
depicted captures this visitation and shows Agatha contemplating the heavenly vision above
her. Zuccaro includes traditional symbols of Agatha’s sainthood – the excised breasts atop a
silver platter, her chest stained with blood – as well as an allusion to Voraigne’s account in
the placement of her foot atop a stone. In the Golden Legend, Agatha resists Aphrodisia’s and
her daughters’ attempts to lure her towards a life of lust; she remains chaste, declaring “My
soul rests on the solid rock, and its foundations are in Christ.” 19
For Federico, this painting symbolizes his vision for Milan under his episcopate.
Commissioned only months after his frustrated return to Rome in 1597, the work embodies
the spirit and artistic direction of the Catholic Reformation. Wounded and facing imminent
death, Agatha turns not only to prayer but to the intercession of S. Peter – the symbol of the
Church and progenitor of the papacy – to give assistance in her time of need. The very
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character of Agatha herself speaks to the historical grounding of the Roman church in the
sacrifices and martyrdom of faithful witnesses, and in her steadfast rejection of the pagan
idols, she represents the Roman Church’s earnest rejection of idolatry, of which many
Protestants had accused the papacy. Zuccaro emphasizes this point by depicting her right
foot atop a rock, echoing her insistence that her “soul rests on the solid rock” of Christ and
thus representing not only her firm convictions but her foundation within the Church of
Peter, the rock. 20
This painting’s specific placement within the Duomo is also significant. After being
appointed chief architect of the Duomo by Carlo in 1570, Tibaldi executed a number of
changes and additions, including the creation of altars along the sides of the nave, and to the
visitor entering from the main façade, the altar to S. Agatha represents the first of these one
encounters along the right-hand side. In its architectural shape and placement, the altar
embodies the style and form emphasized by Carlo in his Instructiones, and, likely not in small
part due to Tibaldi’s influence the chapel’s final shape, it reflects Carlo’s conservative
aesthetics and practical architectural concerns. Set forward within the Duomo, Tibaldi abides
by Carlo’s instruction not to construct an altar “between the first pier or column… and the
front wall of the church.” 21 Built in a classical style, with a triangular mantle supported by
side columns, the work does not obstruct the side aisle of the Duomo nor distract from the
cathedral’s central altar, and through this subtlety and inconspicuousness, it aligns with
Carlo’s standards [Fig. 44].
In finishing this first and prominent altar with the inclusion of the painting of S.
Agatha, for which the altar is named, Federico thus artistically staked his claim as the
legitimate heir to Carlo’s episcopate. As in the final chapter of DPS, which concerns itself
with religious architecture, Federico follows and pays tribute to Carlo’s directives in regards
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to Church decorum and architecture; however, he also transcends the Milanese tradition with
his own expertise and character. Unlike the other altarpieces and paintings throughout the
Duomo, such as the celebrated organ shutters completed by Camillo Procaccini, Giuseppe
Meda, and Ambrogio Figino in 1590 [Fig. 45], S. Agata is the work of a Roman painter, for
although Zuccaro would gain international within his lifetime, he still remained fairly
disengaged from the Milanese art market. Thus, Federico’s choice of Zuccaro to paint S.
Agata not only acts as proof of their close friendship through the Accademia di San Luca but
as a sign that, despite his clear connections to Rome, Federico deserved a central place in
Milan. Although the Spanish Crown might resist his rule, he would ultimately finish what his
elder cousin had begun.
Zuccaro’s work served as more than just a political propaganda, however, for in its
artistic composition and implied theology, the painting also presents a clear statement of
Federico’s artistic sensibility. Agatha and Peter are both displayed with historical accuracy,
dressed in clothes “correspond[ing] to the kind used during the [third century and]…
appropriate to its customs.” 22 Following the traditional hagiography of Agatha, Zucarro
employs the silver platter with the excised breasts and her bloody chest to indicate her
identity, a practice which Federico acknowledges is frequently “more elegant, appropriate,
and convenient for painters… [than] using inscribed letters.” 23 Moreover, although this
portion of Agatha’s martyrdom allows for the inclusion of Peter and a symbolic link to the
papacy in Rome, Zuccaro’s selection of the prison scene also enables him to maintain a more
somber mood in the piece and to avoid the potentially indecorous exposure of her naked
body either during the cutting off of her breasts or the burning of her body atop hot coals
[Fig. 46]. Even in terms of their physical appearance, Zuccaro achieves the level of
verisimilitude later promoted by DPS, for he shows the saints “at their proper ages,” with
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Peter as a mature but by no means elderly man and Agatha in her youth, as both would have
looked at the time of their executions. 24 Evocative and moving without being lascivious or
crude, S. Agata embodies Federico’s practical and religious sensibilities.
An analysis of the religious pieces donated to the Ambrosiana also helps in fleshing
out the concrete implications of the archbishop’s artistic theory. In Brueghel’s Daniel in the
Lion’s Den [Fig. 47], one sees a large crowd watching the fate of the praying Daniel, but
despite the multitude of figures depicted, Brueghel still manages to maintain order and direct
the viewer’s gaze downwards, towards the most religiously significant aspect of the painting.
As Federico describes in Musaeum, “Brueghel’s technical skill in depicting these lions
surpasses that of [even his finest peers], and he makes the people mingle in such a way that,
amidst the apparent chaos of the crowd, one can detect an underlying order.” 25 This ability
to include many and multifarious details while maintaining an overall unified direction within
the work exemplifies the artistic skills necessary to achieve decorum. In comparing Daniel to S.
Agata, one can also gain a sense of the important role of devotional prayer in Federico’s
appreciation of religious artwork, for both works display the saints deep in prayer even when
faced with the threat of imminent death. In line with the Council’s decrees, such works cause
the viewer “to be moved to adore [excitenturque ad adorandum]” the Lord and trust in His
Providence. 26 At the same time, as noted in Part II, Federico’s defense of the puppy erased
from Titian’s Adoration of Magi reveals a broader artistic sensibility that, even in regards to a
religious narrative, still obtains in his appreciation of art. Although the puppy may have been
superfluous to the scene and perhaps even a distraction from the central message of the
work, Federico still respects and defends any artistic work executed “with such skill and
beauty [tanto artificio e venustate].” 27
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RELIGIOUSLY LAYERED WORKS
The balance Federico strikes between conservative religious piety and a humanistic
appreciation for artistic skill is best exemplified in a series of works from his collection that
combine a detailed treatment of nature – whether in a still life or a landscape – with the
inclusion of overt religious content. Encompassing a large swath of the Ambrosiana’s
collection and admittedly ambiguous at its limits, this group is distinct in its attempt to
balance the two genres in a unified composition. In looking at the category overall, it can
largely be divided into two types: depictions of the Madonna and Child in a garland of
flowers and religious landscapes. The first type seems, at least in part, to have been the
invention of Federico, for whom such works provide a unique combination of the pure
devotional painting of the Madonna and Child with masterful still lifes of flowers, as
exemplified by Brueghel’s and Peter Paul Rubens’s The Madonna and Child in a Garland of
Flowers with Birds and Animals [Fig. 48], for which Brueghel completed the garland and
Rubens the devotional image. As Jones notes, this compositional type may have derived
from the cult practice in Brueghel’s era of draping wreaths of flowers around icons and other
venerable religious images, and thus, in surrounding the Madonna and Child with verisimilar
garlands of flowers, Brueghel may not only have been playing to Federico’s dual interests in
still lifes and devotional scenes but also suggesting an almost miraculous rendering of the
Mother and Child. 28 In contemplating the image, one’s attention shifts from the Madonna
and Child to the resplendent garland and back again, and in considering the two together,
one comes to appreciate the full range of God’s gifts. On one end, the composition
highlights the bounty of the natural world – flowers and fruit, rabbits and fowl – and, at the
other, God’s greatest and ultimate gift to the world – Christ. 29 Presented with these two
extremes, the quotidian and the miraculous, the image leads the viewer to consider the
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manifold blessings between these two poles and to enter into further appreciation of God’s
goodness. Lauded as one of the premier pieces in his entire collection, this work – and those
of its type – provide a unique contemplative experience that not only includes contemplation
of a religious and natural scene but combines these two experiences into a unified and
enriching experience that visually draws the viewer’s gaze while calling him to consider the
full and enormous range of God’s gifts. 30
Nevertheless, one question still does persist in considering these paintings. While this
type may have originated in order to laude the composition’s devotional image and juxtapose
it to blessing and bounty of nature, a difficulty in their veneration and contemplation arises
when the two components are not made with the same degree of artistic skill. Even in
assessing the work of Brueghel and Rubens, which features a devotional image by Peter Paul
Rubens and a garland by Brueghel, Federico finds that “[t]here is not much point in saying
anything about the image that is enclosed within the garland since it is, as it were, a lesser
light outshone by brighter ones.” 31 Thus, although the image still draws in the viewer’s
attention and allows for the contemplation of the natural beauty and artistic skill concretized
in the masterful flowers, the asymmetry in painters’ abilities creates a tendency to ignore and
turn away from the internal devotional scene. This imbalance only increases as one considers
other examples, such as the work of Brueghel and Hendrik van Balen [Fig. 49], wherein the
disparity between the artistic skills embodied in the Madonna and Child and the garland is
even starker.
Religious landscapes, the second image type within this broad third category, tend to
avoid this same ambiguity, potentially because one artist normally completes the entire
painting but also due, particularly in the depictions of hermits, to the intimate connection
between the work’s religious and natural passages. Unlike the garlands, these images,
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exemplified by Brueghel’s Landscape with a Hermit Reading and Ruins [Fig. 36], combine the
religious and natural components into one unified and undivided composition wherein the
landscape not only captures the decorum and gift of nature’s bounty but complements and
contributes to the painting’s religious subject matter. Signed by Brueghel in 1597, Landscape
with a Hermit is based on a series of engravings – Solitudo, sive Vitae Patrum Eremicolarum – by
Jan and Raphael Sadeler. As Jones observes, Federico owned a copy of this series of
engravings, and given Brueghel’s position within his Roman entourage from 1595 to 1597, it
seems possible that archbishop used the prints as a model when commissioning the
painting. 32 Although Brueghel, as well as Bril, executed a number of landscapes featuring
hermits, this one in particular is based on the engraving of S. Anthony from the Sadelers’
Solitudo series [Fig. 50]. In borrowing the formal structure of the engraving, however,
Brueghel leaves out any iconographic references to Anthony, thereby generalizing the peace
to a broader representation of the hermitic lifestyle. 33
The painting depicts a hermit sitting before a rustic cross and in deep contemplation
of the Bible. Dressed in flowing robes and carrying a rosary, he resides among the few
remaining arches and piers of an ancient hilltop settlement. As one inspects these crumbling
structures, covered in weeds and nascent vegetation, his gaze is drawn to the right-hand side,
where a break in the rocks provides the promise of a path down into the verdant valley
below. While the Sadelers’ initial print featured a few grotesque creatures, Brueghel’s
painting includes birds, rabbits, deer, a fox, and a dog – perhaps the hermit’s only
companion besides the other robed figure walking among the distant ruins. Like Zuccaro’s S.
Agata, this painting captures essential aspects of Federico’s relationship with art. On a basic
level, Brueghel’s abstraction of S. Anthony to an anonymous hermit allows for greater
identification with the figure on the part of the viewer, particularly his patron Federico. Like
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the hermit depicted in the painting, the archbishop spent much of his free time in the stark
setting of his personal chambers, where he prayed and studiously poured over religious and
academic texts. 34 Moreover, this work captures the beauty and grace of nature, and in
juxtaposing the hermit’s devotional prayer with his natural surrounding, Brueghel captures
the essence of Federico’s religious practices – sincere and learned prayer combined with
contemplation of the natural world. Indeed, in creating this painting, Brueghel enabled
Federico, even amid the time constraints and pressures of his episcopate, to be like the
hermit and, in turning towards the verdant valley, take a moment to contemplate the beauty
of nature.
While Jones’s argument that these works exemplify the archbishop’s Christian
optimism explains them in part, Federico’s preference for landscapes with hermits,
represented also by Brueghel’s Mountain Landscape with a Hermit (1597) [Fig. 51] and Bril’s
Landscape with Mutius (1597-1601) [Fig. 52], also seems to have its roots in something more
than his personal theology. As Jones herself argues, “[a]lthough depicting hermits and monks
in landscapes was the most obvious way of visualizing [Federico’s aesthetic views], only one
logical step was required in order to get to the very crux of the matter: nature
itself.” 35 However, if such a link is so clear and obvious, then the question remains why
Federico would commission the painting of hermits at all. Particularly in looking through the
numerous patristic references throughout DPS and considering Federico’s efforts to combat
Protestantism, the answer seems to lie in their important role within Church history. In
responding to the Protestants’ advocacy for personal prayer and contemplation of the
Scriptures, these hermits show the long-standing tradition of religious solitude and personal
devotion within the Roman Church. In DPS, Federico cites the teachings and examples of
several prominent hermits, including S. Anthony Abbot of Egypt and S. Simeon Stylites, as
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well as S. Jerome, whose Vulgate allowed for a much wider readership of the Bible and,
therefore, prefigured Luther’s German translation. 36
To the contemporary observer, these works thus represented not only the infusion
of Christian thought with humanistic inquiry and an appreciation of nature but also the
return to the Church’s eremitic roots. From S. John the Baptist’s cry in the wilderness to the
more modern examples of S. Bruno of Cologne and S. Romuald, the Church has been the
institution through which these saints’ teachings have been fostered and their memories
preserved. Through invoking the example of the hermit, Federico challenges the Protestants’
claims to personal piety and devotion and argues for the centrality of the Church even for
Christians seeking the contemplative life. Other examples from the Ambrosiana further
support this idea. Bril’s Landscape with Two Capuchins [Fig. 53] and Landscape with a Bridge and
Pilgrims [Fig. 54] both serve a similar purpose. In addition to showing the monks’ and
pilgrims’ engagement with nature and providing a verisimilar depiction of the forest, these
paintings connect to the Capuchins’ conservative practices amid the early days of the
Catholic Reformation and to the pilgrims’ quest to connect with the Church’s history and
venerate its saints. Like Brueghel’s Landscape with a Hermit, these works both embody
Federico’s personal aesthetic theology and promote the return to the Church.
92

Conclusion
In looking once more at The Madonna and Child in a Garland of Flowers with Birds and
Animals by Brueghel and Rubens [Fig. 48], one finds a nearly perfect encapsulation of
Federico’s personal piety and episcopal philosophy. The painting depicts a simple yet elegant
devotional image of the Madonna and Child set amid a beautifully rendered garland of
flowers. The composition is arresting, for as the viewer looks at the garland, attending to its
lovely details and incredible verisimilitude, the devotional image in the center continually
catches his eye. He cannot help but circle around the painting and, in finally taking the entire
work in, position the Madonna and Child as the central aspect of his gaze. The process
repeats, moreover, as he glances back at the flowers in their particularity and then back to
the Madonna and Child once again. Taken as a whole, the painting leads one to contemplate
the many gifts with which the Lord blesses mankind, ranging from the natural beauty and
bounty of the physical world to the promise of eternal life and salvation through His Son.
The work also creates a clear visual hierarchy, for Christ occupies the central space in the
composition just as he ought to occupy the central focus of our prayers and contemplation.
At the same time, and particularly through his Incarnation, mankind finds the physical world
itself filled with beauty and goodness. The loveliness of the flowers is just as much a gift
from God as is Christ, but of much less importance. In considering the image, the viewer
thus shifts back and forth between these two extremes – the gift of the physical world and
the Savior by which we reach the heavenly world – and is led to appreciate the full range of
God’s goodness and grace.
On a personal level, Federico’s combination of traditional Catholic piety and a
contemplative appreciation of nature often united to form a similar prayerful mentality to
93

that achieved through viewing the Madonna and Child in a Garland. Although absolutely
doctrinal in his care for the sacraments, Scripture, and clerical responsibilities, Federico also
perceived the value in studying ancient architecture, reading classical texts, and creating art
purely for the sake of aesthetic beauty, of capturing the decorum inherent in God’s creation
within the limits of a painted canvas or chiseled block. This set of priorities also applied to
his episcopate. Like his elder cousin, he obeyed the official teachings of the Church and
dutifully executed his ecclesiastical responsibilities, engaging on pastoral visitations, tending
to the city’s poor and lowly, and overseeing the education of parishioners through sermons
and liturgical explanations of the sacraments. At the same time, while Carlo willingly gave up
his private art collection in order to maintain his vow of poverty, Federico perceived
holiness in the natural and artistic world as well. His appreciation of religious art was not just
didactic or evocative but aesthetic. Art allowed people to connect with God’s beauty through
the decorum captured on the canvas. Paralleling The Madonna and Child in Garland, Federico
supplemented his religious study and prayer with an openness and affinity for connecting
with God in nature, of seeing not only Christ but every gift and piece of good fortune as a
blessing from God.
Like this painting, Federico’s development was one divided between two different
schools of thought. Largely raised by his older cousin Carlo and educated under the watchful
eye of Paleotti, Federico learned both the value of a religious and ascetic lifestyle from Carlo
and the richness and Christian value of humanistic inquiry from Paleotti during his days at
the University. When combined with his personal attraction to nature and the cultivation of
his artistic understanding through interactions with Zuccaro in Rome, these influences
united to form a singular personality within the Catholic Reformation. Just The Madonna and
Child in a Garland sought to juxtapose traditional Catholic devotional imagery with
94

naturalistic still lifes in order both to enhance the viewer’s engagement with each individually
and to create an entirely new contemplative aesthetic experience, so Federico not only
replicated the individual accomplishments of Carlo and Gabriele – administrative efficiency,
a renewed focus on the faithful parishioners, the rejuvenation of the archdiocese’s public
institutions – but also made unique and valuable contributions of his own, particularly
through founding the Ambrosiana.
Not satisfied with merely censoring the religious art throughout the archdiocese’s
parishes or publishing his views in a treatise or pamphlet, Federico sought to transform the
next generation of religious leaders’ appreciation of art through education and training. In
opening the Ambrosiana, he took the first steps towards realizing this vision, for within one
complex, he united a vast library of classical and ecclesiastical texts, a considerable collection
of paintings and sculptures, and an art academy through which to turn theoretical
understanding into practical skill. Although comparable libraries existed at the time, never
before had one been formed with the intention of rejuvenating a population, of training
young ecclesiastics to understand and appreciate the liberal arts so that they might
incorporate them into their ministry. At the same time, this emphasis on the
complementarity of religion and the liberal arts anticipated the shift in the seventeenth
century towards a more humanistic Christianity.
Given the innovation and creativity demonstrated in the founding of the
Ambrosiana, it is little surprise that that the vast majority of modern scholarship on Federico
has focused on his involvement with the institution. This thesis has sought to complement
these studies by focusing on De pictura sacra, Federico’s understudied artistic treatise.
Designed as a response to the Council of Trent’s decrees concerning sacred images, the
work follows in a long line of practical treatises written about the role of art in the Church;
95

however, unlike the work even of his mentor Paleotti, whose associations with the
University of Bologna fostered humanistic sympathies, Federico’s treatise also reveals a deep
appreciation and respect for the role of aesthetics within daily life. Although concerned with
the Council’s specific recommendations – his writing echoes that of the Tridentine decrees –
De pictura sacra moves beyond mere questions of altarpieces and church décor to address
deeper concerns about perceiving God in the world and responding to that experience.
Although the treatise focuses on the painter, its discussion of decorum holds implications for
people of all vocations.
When a viewer enjoys a painting, he appreciates more than just the natural beauty
replicated on canvas, for he also values the artistic skill manifested in the work, the decorum of
the achievement itself. In advising the painter in how best to attain this decorum, Federico also
plants the seeds for a wider humanistic reformation in which, having perceived the order and
grace of God evident in nature and artistic accomplishment, others might also seek to
participate in such a project, truly forming Paleotti’s respublica cristiana. Bridging the gap
between the sixteenth to the seventeenth centuries, Federico thus serves as an important
historical landmark, for in his example, one can see the potential for harmony between deep
religious conviction and sincere humanistic inquiry. While still rooted in the orthodoxy of
Trent, Federico embodies the spirit of Christian humanism that would come to flourish in
the new century.
96

Introduction
Notes
1 Il Duomo di Milano: Dizionario storico artistico e religioso, ed. Giulia Benati and Anna Maria Roda, 2 nd Ed. (Milan:
Nuove Edizioni Duomo, 2001), 22.
2 The text of both this letter and the one cited below (n3) are difficult to understand at least in part due to
literally transcribed shorthand as well as antiquated Spanish vocabulary and spellings. Despite these difficulties,
the Duke’s general tone and attitude in each epistle remains fairly apparent: “...siendo sus ermanos I el vassallos
de V.M.d I de la Calidad que son es de creer que procurarà hazer su oficio de manera que cumpliendo con el
servicio de Dios I obligaciones del sirva tanbien a V.M.d – I suplicarle se sirva de concerderle el placet con
brevedad—“ El Duque de Sessa to Spanish Royal Court, 26 April 1595, cited in Anthony D. Wright, Federico
Borromeo and Baronius: A Turning-Point in the Development of the Counter-Reformation (Reading: University of Reading,
1974), 18-9.
3 “...lo q tengo a añadir a lo que escrivio a Su M.d es que creo q la principal causa que ha movido a proveer
aquella Iglesia en Cardenal ha nacido de las differencias que estos dias otras han passado en aquella ciudad
sobre cosas de Jurisdicion en que esta tan celoso y recatado como otras vezes he dicho y assi antier antes de
proponer le en el Consistorio quiso q todos los Cardenales Votassen si en una Iglesia de aquella calidad
convenia en los tiempos presentes proveer Cardenal ò no y todos dixeron q si aunque ninguno toca
espressamente el punto de defender la Jurisdicion ecclesiastica si bien nadie dexo de entender que era lo que
principalm[en]te a Su. S.d le movia, y el Cardenal Piato q ha pocos dias q ha buelto de Milan – a proposito de
dezir quan bien recibida seria en aquella ciudad esta election testificò el obsequio y reverencia con que los
Tribunales y ministros Regios de aquel Estado respecta las cosas de esta Sede Apostolica, y q assi entendia que
tendrian mucho contento de q Su S.d huviesse favorescido aquella ciudad con enbiar les un Cardenal natural y
de tal calidad y parte y verdaderamente las tiene muy buenas salvo ser todavia moço que no passa de 33 años y
algo animado à su opinion lo qual procede de demasido zelo, y alguna falta de experiencia y podria ser q
procure seguir los mismos passos del Cardenal su primo q aun que fueren tan buenos no dexo de Inquietar en
las cosas de Jurisdicion, pero no pudiendo dar otra causa que esta para procurar estorvar esta election la mano
[…] solamente no fuera acceptada de Su S.d sino antes le pusiera mayor sospecha y gana de proveer le me haga
usado dexar lo correr, y despues de hecho he mostrado muchos contento y satisfacion por q si tratara de
excluyr Cardenales en general fuera offender todo el Collegio y en particular à los Cardenales Milaneses que son
muy firmes en el servj.o de Su M.d y quanto à la pers.a de Borromeo no le se otro deffecto del q he dicho q Su
S.d no le tiene por tal, y espero q con su buen Juizio y los recuerdos q el Conde su hermano le hara y la
Voluntad que el ha siempre mostrado es de creer q procedera de manera que de satisf.on a Su M.d y a sus
ministros, pero con todo esso, me ha parescido escrivir esto a V.M. para q ay se sepa lo que puntualmente ha
passado y acuerdo a V.M. que tanto mas conviene despachar le luego el placet por q Su S.d y el no entren en
alguna sospecha de q. la provision no ha sido con entero gusto de Su M.d y entiendo q embia este correo y ente
y Viniente con la gana q tiene de salir – aqui antes que entren la mutaciones –“ El Duque de Sessa to Spanish
Royal Court, 26 April 1595, cited in Wright, 19-20.
4 Pamela M. Jones, Federico Borromeo and the Ambrosiana: Art Patronage and Reform in Seventeenth-Century Milan
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 20-28.
5 Wright, 20.
6 Jones 1993, 20-28.
7 These works include, among others, H. Outram Evennett’s The Spirit of the Counter-Reformation: The Birkbeck
Lectures in Ecclesiastical History Given at the University of Cambridge in may 1951 and his student and editor John
Bossy’s “Postscript” to that edition (1968); Sergio Zoli’s La Controriforma (1979); Paolo Prodi’s Il sovrano pontefice:
Un corpo e due anime: La monarchia papale nella prima età moderna (1982); and Wolfgang Reinhard’s and Heinz
Schilling’s Die katholische Konfessionalisierung (1995).
8Although the bibliography concerning the Duomo is massive, for the sake of this thesis, Il Duomo di Milano, ed.
Maria Luisa Gatti Perer (1969); Laura Tettamanzi’s Il Duomo: Milano anno domini 1386 (1986); Fermo Zuccari’s
and Giovanni De Castro’s Il Duomo di Milano (1992); and Duomo: Anima di Milano, ed. Rosa Auletta Marrucci
(2000) proved the most useful resources.
97

9 In terms of primary literature, in addition to De Pictura Sacra and Musaeum, recently published together with
commentary by Jones through The I Tatti Renaissance Library, this thesis will primarily look to Carlo’s
Instructiones and Paleotti’s Discorso, both presented in Paola Barocchi’s 1961 Trattati d’Arte del Cinquecento as well
as Zuccaro’s L’idea de’ Pittori, Scultori e Architetti in Detlef Heikamp’s 1961 volume. 9 For transcriptions of the
decrees of the Council of Trent, this thesis uses the definitive English translation of Rev. Henry Joseph
Schroeder, O.P.
10 Pamela M. Jones, “Federico Borromeo as a Patron of Landscapes and Still Lifes: Christian Optimism in Italy
ca. 1600,” The Art Bulletin 70, no. 2 (Jun. 1988): 261-272; John O’Malley, “Patronage, Spirituality, and the
Power of the Beautiful: Some Historiographical Considerations,” in Federico Borromeo: Principe e mecenate:
Atti delle giornate di studio 21 – 22 novembre 2003 – Accademia di San Carlo, Milano (Rome: Bulzoni, 2003),
26-30.
Chapter 1
1 Marcia B. Hall, The Sacred Image in the Age of Art: Titian, Tintoretto, Barocci, El Greco, Caravaggio (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2011), 19.
2 Hall, 19.
3 Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, trans. Rev. Henry Joseph Schroeder, O.P. (Rockford, Illinois: Tan
Books and Publishers, 1978), 214ff.
4 John Bossy, “The Counter-Reformation and the People of Catholic Europe,” Past & Present, No. 47 (May,
1970): 52-3.
5 Hall, 20.
6 Robert W. Scribner, Religion and Culture in Germany, 1400-1800, ed. Lyndal Roper (Boston: Brill, 2001), 131-2.
7 Schroeder, 215.
8 Joseph Bergin, “The Counter-Reformation Church and Its Bishops,” Past & Present, No. 165 (Nov., 1999):
37.
9 Schroeder, 192.
10 Schroeder, 234.
11 Schroeder, 196.
12 Schroeder, 197.
13 Schroeder, 197.
14 Hall, 20.
15 Schroeder, 216
16 Schroeder, 215.
17 Hall, 20.
18 Paul Halsall, The Decree of the Holy, Great, Ecumenical Synod, The Second of Nicea, Medieval Sourcebook, Fordham
University, Feb. 1996, , 5 March 2012.
19 Gerhart B. Ladner, “The Concept of the Image in the Greek Fathers and the Byzantine Iconoclastic
Controversy,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 7 (1953): 3.
20 Schroeder, 216.
21 This relationship between the image of Christ and the prototype—the Logos—provides the Catholic Church
with not only a justification for using icons in worship but a normative argument for employing them, for they
provide a unique line of access for worship and an exceptional avenue for honoring Christ.
22 Schroeder, 216-7.
23 Schroeder, 216.
24 Bossy, 53.
25 Hubert Jedin, A History of the Council of Trent, trans. Ernest Graf., 2 Vol. (London: T. Nelson, 1957-61),I:416.
26 Jedin, I:416
27 Hall, 20.
28 Scribner, 131.
29 Hall, 20; Scribner, 131-3.
30 Bryan D. Mangrum and Giuseppe Scavizzi, A Reformation Debate: Karlstadt, Emser, and Eck on Sacred Images:
Three Treatises in Translation (Ottawa: Dovehouse Editions, 1991), 26.
31 Mangum and Scavizzi, 26.
32 2 Corinthians 5:16, English Standard Version, BibleGateway.com,
. 5 March 2012.
98

33 Hall, 21-22.
34 Hall, 62.
35 James A. Connor, The Last Judgment: Michelangelo and the Death of the Renaissance (New York: Palgrave
MacMillan, 2009), 6.
36 Hall, 41-2.
37 Lauro Martines, Fire in the City: Savonarola and the Struggle for Renaissance Florence (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2006), 274-6.
38 Hall, 84-6.
39 Hall, 92.
40 David Franklin, The Art of Parmigianino (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 21.
41 Franklin, 21-4.
42 Elizabeth Cropper, “On Beautiful Women, Parmigianino, Petrarchismo, and the Vernacular Style,” Art Bulletin
58 (1976): 374-82.
43 Franklin, 21; Cropper, 378-82.
44 John Shearman, “The ‘Dead Christ’ by Rosso Fiorentino,” Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 64
(1966): 151.
45 Shearman, 151-2.
46 Hall, 89.
47John C. Olin, Catholic Reform: From Cardinal Ximenes to the Council of Trent, 1495-1563: An Essay with Illustrative
Documents and a Brief Study of St. Ignatius Loyola (New York: Fordham University Press, 1990), 4-12.
48 Olin 1990, 12-3.
49 Olin 1990, 17.
50 Nelson H. Minnich, Councils of the Catholic Reformation: Pisa I (1409) to Trent (1545-63) (Burlington: Ashgate
Varorium, 2008), 6-7.
51 Olin 1990, 19-23.
52 For a comprehensive discussion of Contarini and De officio episcopali, see Elisabeth G. Gleason’s Gasparo
Contarini, esp. 93-102.
53 Guy Bedouelle, The Reform of Catholicism, 1480-1620 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2008),
62-3; Adriano Prosperi, Tra evangelism e controriforma: G.M. Giberti, 1495-1543 (Rome: Edizioni di storia e
letteratura, 1969), 3-92.
54 Michael A. Mullet, The Catholic Reformation (New York: Routledge, 1999), 134.
55 Mullet 134.
56 Mullet, 134-5.
57 John Alexander, From Renaissance to Counter-Reformation: The Architectural Patronage of Carlo Borromeo during the
Reign of Pius IV (Milan: Biblioteca Ambrosiana, 2007), 188.
58 Olin 1990, 16.
59 A.G. Dickens, The Counter Reformation (Norwich: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1969), 54.
60 Olin, 16; Dickens, 54.
61 Bedouelle, 63.
62 Mullet, 136.
63 Olin 1990, 12-3.
64 Olin 1990, 13.
65 Dickens, 68-90; Olin, 13.
66 Dickens, 68-9; John C. Olin, The Catholic Reformation: Savonarola to Ignatius Loyola: Reform in the Church, 1495-
1540 (New York: Fordham University Press, 1992), 128-9.
67 Olin 1992, 130-2.
68 James A. Connor, The Last Judgment: Michelangelo and the Death of the Renaissance (New York: Palgrave
MacMillan, 2009) 192.
69 Connors, 192-3.
70 Ludwig Pastor, The History of the Popes from the Close of the Middles Ages (Minneapolis: Consortium Books, 1977),
X:418; John O’Malley, Trent and All That: Renaming Catholicism in the Early Modern Era (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 2000), 83.
71 Olin 1990, 13-4; Olin 1992, 128-9.
72 Olin 1990, 14-5.
73 Dickens, 118-9.
74 Dickens, 119-121.
99

Chapter 2
1 Bergin, 46.
2 Bossy, 46.
3 Wietse De Boer, The Conquest of the Soul: Confession, Discipline, and Public Order in Counter-Reformation Milan
(Boston: Brill, 2001), xiv.
4 De Boer, The Conquest of the Soul, xiv.
5 Carlo Borromeo, Charles Borromeo’s Instructiones Fabricae Et Supellectilis Ecclesiasticae, 1577: A Translation with
Commentary and Analysis, trans. Evelyn Carole Voelker (Ph.D dissertation. Syracuse University: 1977), 11.
6 Borromeo, 11.
7 Hubert Jedin, Carlo Borromeo (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1971), 11; Alexander, 40.
8 Jedin, Carlo Borromeo, 11-3; De Boer, The Conquest of the Soul, xiv. John Alexander, From Renaissance to Counter-
Reformation: The Architectural Patronage of Carlo Borromeo during the Reign of Pius IV (Milan: Biblioteca Ambrosiana,
2007), 40.
9De Boer, xiv.
10 Alexander 2007, 227.
11 Alexander 2007, 189.
12 Borromeo, 14.
13 Archivio Arcivescovile di Milano, section IX, Carteggio Ufficiale, vol. III, 31. Original: “informandovi diligentemente
delle qualità di quell benefitio et del vero valore, et se la chiesa ha bisogno di riparatione alcune, et di tutto daretemi poi particular
avviso.” From Borromeo, 14.
14 Mullet, 138.
15 Alexander 2007, 198-9; Mullet, 138-9.
16 Alexander 2007, 198-9.
17 Mullet, 103-4.
18 Mullet, 103-4.
19 Mullet, 136-9.
20 Alexander 2007, 191.
21 Alexander 2007, 194-5.
22 Alexander 2007, 194-5.
23 Alexander 2007, 230.
24 Alexander 2007, 230-3.
25 Borromeo, 18-9.
26Alexander 2007, 86-7.
27Alexander, 87-8.
28 John Alexander, “The Collegio Borromeo: A Study of Borromeo’ Early Patronage and Tibaldi’s Early
Architecture” (Ph.D dissertation, University of Virginia, 2001), 468.
29 Alexander 2007, 230.
30 Alexander 2007, 91-101.
31 Borromeo, 51-2.
32 Borromeo, 51-6.
33 Borromeo, 18, 389-449.
34 Borromeo, 161.
35 Thomas Nagel, The Controversy of Renaissance Art (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2011), 240-59.
Sanmicheli’s work, as well as most of the sixteenth-century church, were since lost in a fire in 1895. Nagel
attempts to recover some of the details, such as those provided above, from the writings of Pier Francesco
Zini, an associate of Giberti and his earliest biographer.
36 Carlo Borromeo, Acta Ecclesiae Mediolanensis (Milano: Lugdoni, 1683), 474; My translation: “Cappellarum
minorum pavimentum altius quam ecclesiae solum octo uneiis strui debet, amplius vero aliquando ut infra
permitti poterit.”
37 AEM, 468-71.
38 AEM, 478.
39 AEM, 478.
40 Alexander 2007, 201.
41 Anton W.A. Boschloo, Annibale Carracci in Bologna: Visible Reality in Art after the Council of Trent (New York: A.
Schram, 1974), 108-110.
100

42 Boschloo, 110.
43 Boschloo, 111.
44 Paolo Prodi, “The Application of the Tridentine Decrees: The Organization of the Diocese of Bologna
During the Episcopate of Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti,” in The Late Italian Renaissance, 1525-1630, ed. Eric
Cochrane (London: MacMillan, 1970), 228-36.
45 Boschloo, 111.
46 Prodi, 236.
47 Prodi, 236-7.
48 Boschloo, 110.
49 Boschloo, 103.
50 Boschloo, 103-4.
51 Boschloo 110-2.
52 R. Po-Chia Hsia, The World of Catholic Renewal, 1540-1770 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998),
102.
53 Boschloo, 112.
54 Boschloo, 112.
55 Paul D. Hillbrich, “The Aesthetic of the Counter Reformation and Religious Painting and Music in Bologna,
1565-1615,” (Diss. Ohio University, 1969), 27-9.
56 Hillbrich, 34.
57 Boschloo, 123-4.
58 Gabriele Paleotti, Discorso intorno alle imagini sacre e profane in Paola Barocchi, Trattati d’arte del Cinquecento: fra
manierismo e Controriforma (Bari: G. Laterza, 1962), II:272ff.
59 Boschloo, 129.
60 Boschloo, 138.
61 Giovanni Andrea Gilio, Dialogo nel quale si ragiona degli errori e degli abusi de’pittori circa l’istorie in Barocchi, II:5-
115.
62 AEM, 478-9.
63 Boschloo, 111.
64 Boschloo, 113-4.
65 Boschloo, 123-5.
Chapter 3
1 Arlene Quint, Cardinal Federico Borromeo as Patron and Critic of the Arts and His Musaeum of 1625 (New York:
Garland, 1986), 3.
2 Pamela M. Jones, Federico Borromeo and the Ambrosiana: Art Patronage and Reform in Seventeenth-Century Milan
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 21.
3 Quint, 3.
4 Jones 1993, 22.
5 Jones 1993, 22.
6 John Alexander, From Renaissance to Counter-Reformation: The Architectural Patronage of Carlo Borromeo during the
Reign of Pius IV (Milan: Biblioteca Ambrosiana, 2007), 248.
7 John Alexander, “Shaping Sacred Space in the Sixteenth Century: Design Criteria for the Collegio Borromeo’s
Chapel,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 63, no. 2 (June 2004): 170-1.
8 Jones 1993, 22.
9 Jones 1993, 22.
10 Quint, 4-5.
11 Jones 1993, 22.
12 Quint, 5-7.
13Peter Cannon-Brookes, Lombard Paintings, c. 1595-1630: The Age of Federico Borromeo (Birmingham: City
Museums and Art Gallery, 1974), 10.
14 Cannon-Brookes, 10-11.
15 Pamela M. Jones, “Federico Borromeo as a Patron of Landscapes and Still Lifes: Christian Optimism in Italy
ca. 1600,” The Art Bulletin 70, no. 2 (Jun. 1988): 262.
16 Jones 1988, 262.
17 Jones 1988, 271.
101

18 Jones 1988, 262.
19Federico Borromeo Sacred Painting [1624], Musaeum [1625], ed. and trans. Kenneth S. Rothwell, Jr., intro and
notes by Pamela M. Jones (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010), x.
20 Borromeo 2010, xi.
21 Jones 1988, 262; Federico Borromeo, Lettere del cardinal Federico Borromeo ai familiari, ed. Carlo Marcora (Milan:
L’ariete, 1971) 192-3.
22 Cannon-Brookes, 15-6.
23 Jones 1988, 261.
24 Cannon-Brookes, 15-6; Jones 1993, 27.
25 Jones 1993, 27-8.
26 Cannon-Brookes, 4.
27 Jones 1993, 27.
28 Cannon-Brookes, 4.
29 Jones 1993, 27-8.
30 Jones 1993, 28; Cannon-Brookes 4.
31 Jones 1993, 29.
32 Jones 1993, 29.
33 Ditchfield, 82.
34 Michael A. Mullet, The Catholic Reformation (New York: Routledge, 1999), 149.
35 Mullet, 153.
36 Jones 1993, 29.
37 Pamela M. Jones, “San Carlo Borromeo and Plague Imagery in Milan and Rome,” in Hope and Healing:
Painting in Italy in a Time of Plague, 1500-1800 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 65..
38 Anastasius, Anastasii bibliothecarii, de vitis romanorum pontificum…, 56-94.
39 Jones 2005 68-73; , Edith W. Kirsch, “An Early Reliquary of the Holy Nail in Milan,” Mitteilungen des
Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 30, no. 3 (1986): 571-3.
40 Kirsch, 573.
41 Cannon-Brookes, 15.
42 Cannon-Brookes, 11-5.
43 Cannon-Brookes, 16.
44 Alexander 2007, 191.
45 Cannon-Brookes, 16.
46 Cannon-Brookes, 15-6.
47 Borromeo 2010, 220.
48 Borromeo 2010, 218-221.
49 Borromeo 1624, 3-4.
50 Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, trans. Rev. Henry Joseph Schroeder, O.P. (Rockford, Illinois: Tan
Books and Publishers, 1978), 216.
51 Borromeo 1624, 5.
52 Schroeder, 216.
53 Borromeo 1624,52.
54 Borromeo 1624, 15.
55 Borromeo 1624, 21-45.
56 Borromeo 1624, 13.
57 Borromeo 1624, 87, n.110-11.
58 Borromeo 1624, 5.
59 Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Officiis, Trans. Walter Miller (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1928), I.iv.14.
60 Borromeo 1624, 5.
61 Borromeo 1624, 9.
62 Borromeo 1624, 5.
63 Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Oratore III, De Fato, Paradoxa Stoicorum, De Partitione Oratoria, Trans. H. Rackham
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1948), III.viii.29
64 Borromeo 1624, 13.
65 Borromeo 1624, 99.
66 Borromeo 2010, xv.
67 Borromeo 1624, 79.
102

68 Borromeo 1624 137.
69 Carlo Borromeo, Acta Ecclesiae Mediolanensis (Milano: Lugdoni, 1683), 466-500.
70 Carlo Borromeo, Charles Borromeo’s Instructiones Fabricae Et Supellectilis Ecclesiasticae, 1577: A Translation with
Commentary and Analysis, trans. Evelyn Carole Voelker (Ph.D dissertation. Syracuse University: 1977), 199-229.
71 Borromeo 1577, 137-43.
72 Borromeo 1557, 299.
73 AEM, 478.
74 AEM, 478.
75 Borromeo 1624, 2-3.
76 Borromeo 1624, 12-3.
77 AEM, 478.
78 Borromeo 1624, 12-3.
79 Borromeo 1624, 33.
80 Borromeo 1577, 229.
81 Borromeo 1624, 33-4.
82 Borromeo 2010, 233.
83 Jones 1993, 21.
84 Paul D. Hillbrich, “The Aesthetic of the Counter Reformation and Religious Painting and Music in Bologna,
1565-1615,” (Diss. Ohio University, 1969), 34.
85 Borromeo 1624, 97.
86 Anton W.A. Boschloo, Annibale Carracci in Bologna: Visible Reality in Art after the Council of Trent (New York: A.
Schram, 1974), 113-4.
87 Jones 1988, 262-70.
88 Jones 1988, 261-2.
89 Gabriele Paleotti, Discorso intorno alle imagini sacre e profane in Paola Barocchi, Trattati d’arte del Cinquecento: fra
manierismo e Controriforma (Bari: G. Laterza, 1962), 272-3, 373-5.
90 Paleotti, II.267-72.
91 Borromeo 1624, 19.
92 Borromeo 1624, 77.
Chapter 4
1 In total, the collection consisted of forty-eight percent Christian narratives or devotional themes; twelve
percent portraits, especially of contemporary secular subjects; twenty-nine perfect landscapes, still lifes, and
garlanded images of the Madonna and child; and eleven percent “undisclosed subjects and… classical
examples.” Pamela M. Jones, Federico Borromeo and the Ambrosiana: Art Patronage and Reform in Seventeenth-Century
Milan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 53.
2 Jones 1993, 232.
3 Federico Borromeo Sacred Painting [1624], Musaeum [1625], ed. and trans. Kenneth S. Rothwell, Jr., intro and
notes by Pamela M. Jones (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010), 179.
4 Borromeo 1624, 52.
5 Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, trans. Rev. Henry Joseph Schroeder, O.P. (Rockford, Illinois: Tan
Books and Publishers, 1978), 216-7. Original: “ut nihil inordinatum aut praepostere et tumultuarie accomodatum nihil
profanum nihilque inhoenstum appareat” from
6 Borromeo 1624, 31.
7 Borromeo 1624, 30-1.
8 Borromeo 1624, 30-1.
9 Borromeo 1624, 9.
10 Jones 1993, 78.
11 Pamela M. Jones, “Federico Borromeo as a Patron of Landscapes and Still Lifes: Christian Optimism in Italy
ca. 1600,” The Art Bulletin 70, no. 2 (Jun. 1988): 262.
12 Borromeo 1625, 164-7.
13 Borromeo 1624, 4-5.
103

14 Schroeder, 216-7.
15 Jones 1993, 53.
16 Cristina Acidini Luchinat, Taddeo e Federico Zuccari: fratelli pittori del Cinquecento (Milan: Jandi Sapi, 1999), 229.
17 Jacobus De Voraigne, The Golden Legend, trans. Granger Ryan and Helmut Ripperger (New York: Arno Press,
1969), 157.
18 Voraigne, 157-9.
19 Voraigne, 158.
20 Voraigne, 158.
21 Carlo Borromeo, Charles Borromeo’s Instructiones Fabricae Et Supellectilis Ecclesiasticae, 1577: A Translation with
Commentary and Analysis, trans. Evelyn Carole Voelker (Ph.D dissertation. Syracuse University: 1977), 177.
22 Borromeo 1624, 25.
23 Borromeo 1624, 131.
24 Borromeo 1624, 27.
25 Borromeo 1625, 167.
26 Schroeder, 216-7.
27 Borromeo 1624, 32.
28 Jones 1993, 85.
29 Jones 1993, 84-7.
30 Borromeo 1625, 171.
31 Borromeo 1625, 171.
32 Jones 1988, 263.
33 Jones 1988, 263-4.
34 Jones 1988, 262.
35 Jones 1993, 79.
36 Borromeo 1624, 105, 127, 131.
104

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Illustrations
Figure 1. Federico Zuccaro; S. Agata in carcere da S. Pietro; Duomo, Milan; 1600
110

Figure 2. Orazio Borgianni; S. Carlo Borromeo; 1610-16
Figure 3. Anonymous Lombard; Ritratto di Federico Borromeo; 17 th Century
111

Figure 4. Anonymous; Gabriele Paleotti; Late 16 th Century
Figure 5. Federico Zuccaro; Self-Portrait; c. 1588
112

Figure 6. Attributed to Nicolò Dorigati; Sessione conclusive del concilio di Trento; 1711
Figure 7. Franz Hogenberg; The Calvinist Iconoclasm of 20 August 1566; 16 th Century
113

Figure 8. Pietro Perugino; Vision of S. Bernard; S. Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi, Florence; 1490-
94
Figure 9. Girolamo Frencesco Maria Mazzola, called Parmigianino; Madonna with the Long
Neck; Intended for Church of Servites, Parma; 1535-40
114

Figure 10. Giovanni Battista di Jacopo, called Rosso Fiorentino; Dead Christ with Angels;
1524-27
Figure 11. Tobias Stimmer; Gasparo Contarini
115

Figure 12. Anonymous Lombard; Gian Matteo Giberti
Figure 13. Michelangelo Buorronati; Last Judgment; Sistine Chapel; 1534-41
116

Figure 14. Michelangelo Buonarroti; S. Maria degli Angeli; 1561
Figure 15. Surviving Cross Vaults of the Baths of Diocletian; Concrete; 3 rd -4 th CE
117

Figure 16. Pellegrino Tibaldi; Church of San Fedele; begun 1569
Figure 17. Pellegrino Tibaldi; San Sebastiano; 1576
118

Figure 18. Giovannino de Grassi and Simone da Orsenigo; Milan Cathedral (Duomo di
Milano); c. 1386-1858
Figure 19. Pellegrino Tibaldi; Exterior of Rotunda of S. Sebastiano; 1576
119

Figure 20. Pellegrino Tibaldi; Peristyle surrounding Pirro Ligorio’s Tabernacle; 1564-81
Figure 21. Pellegrino Tibaldi; Central View of Nave of San Fedele; 1576
120

Figure 22. Paolo Veronese. The Crucifixion; c. 1582
Figure 23. Agostino Carracci; Portrait of Ulisse Aldrovandi
121

Figure 24. Hieoronymus Wierix; B. Ignatius Loyola; 16-17 th Century
Figure 25. Pellegrino Tibaldi; Collegio Borromeo; 1561
122

Figure 26. Bernardo Cane; Decoration of the Chancel of the Chapel; After 1584;
Figure 27. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio; Basket of Fruit; c. 1597
123

Figure 28. G.B. della Rovere, called Il Fiammenghino; Detail of Durante la peste, san Carlo porta
in processione il Santo Chiodo; 1602
Figure 29. Relic of the Holy Nail; Duomo, Milan.
124

Figure 30. Domenico Ghirlandaio; Birth of the Baptist; 1485-90
Figure 31. Daniele Crespi; Last Supper; Church of S. Pietro, Brianza; c. 1630
125

Figure 32. Leonardo da Vinci; Last Supper; 1495-8
Figure 33. Tiziano Vecellio; Adoration of the Magi; 1560
126

Figure 34. Detail of Pisa Baptistery; Giovanni Pisano and Nicola Pisano; c. 1260
Figure 35. Paul Bril; Seascape; 1618
127

Figure 36. Jan Brueghel the Elder; Landscape with Hermit Reading and Ruins; 1597
Figure 37. Paul Bril; Seascape; 1611
128

Figure 38. Paul Bril; Seascape (Marina); 1617
Figure 39. Paul Bril; Night Place (Landscape with Harbor and Lighthouse); 1601
129

Figure 40. Jan Brueghel the Elder; Forest Landscape with a Brook; 1597
Figure 41. Jan Brueghel the Elder; Flowers in a Glass; 1618
130

Figure 42. Jan Brueghel the Elder; Vase of Flowers, with a Gem, Coins, and Shells; 1606
Figure 43. Pellegrino Tibaldi with Federico Zuccaro; Altar of S. Agatha; 1600
131

Figure 44. Pellegrino Tibaldi; Floor Plan to Duomo; 16 th Century
Figure 45. Camillo Procaccini, Giuseppe Meda, and Ambrogio Figino; Organ Shutters; 1590
132

Figure 46. Sebastiano del Piombo; Martyrdom of Saint Agatha; 1520
Figure 47. Jan Brueghel the Elder; Daniel in the Lion’s Den; 1618
133

Figure 48. Jan Brueghel the Elder with Peter Paul Rubens; Madonna and Child with Angels in a
Garland of Flowers; c. 1617
Figure 49. Jan Brueghel the Elder and Hendrick Van Balen; Virgin and Child in a Garland of
Flowers; 1618
134

Figure 50. Johan Sadeler; S. Anthony Abbot
Figure 51. Jan Brueghel the Elder; Mountain Landscape with a Hermit; 1597
135

Figure 52. Paul Bril; Landscape with Mutius; 1607
Figure 53. Paul Bril; Landscape with Two Capuchins; 1618
136

Figure 54. Paul Bril; Landscape with a Bridge and Pilgrims; 1618
137