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The Madonna delle Carceri in Prato and Italian Renaissance pilgrimage architecture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

Paul Davies
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Extract

I shall deal first of all with private houses, and then with public buildings; and I shall briefly discuss roads, bridges, squares, prisons, basilicas which are places of judgement, xisti and palestre which were places where men took exercise, temples, theatres, amphitheatres, arches, baths, aqueducts, and finally the way to fortify cities and ports. (Palladio, Quattro Libri, Preface, 1570)

Architectural theorists from Alberti to Palladio thought about architecture typologically. For them buildings were identified principally by their function rather than their form. This way of categorizing architecture has long been recognized by scholars and it has been profitably applied to the study of Italian fifteenth- and sixteenth-century architecture, especially that of villas and palaces. And yet the church, together with its typological subdivisions, such as the oratory, the monastic church, and the pilgrimage church, has remained relatively neglected. As a consequence many aspects of the design of individual churches have been ignored or misunderstood. One example is the church of the Madonna delle Carceri in Prato (Figs 1 and 2). It has generally been discussed either as one of the most beautiful of fifteenth-century centralized churches, or as part of an attempt to characterize the style of its Florentine architect, Giuliano da Sangallo. Although these approaches have revealed much about how the Madonna delle Carceri’s design came into being, when the building is seen from a different perspective, that of its function as a pilgrimage church, it becomes easier to explain aspects of its form, and to suggest alternative models for its design.

Type
Research Article
Information
Architectural History , Volume 36 , 1993 , pp. 1 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1993

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References

Notes

1 The principal art-historical studies of the church are, Marchini, Giuseppe, Giuliano da Sangallo (Florence, 1942)Google Scholar; Marchini, Giuseppe, ‘Della costruzione di S. Maria delle Carceri in Prato’, Archivio Storico Pratese, 14 (1936), 1–14 Google Scholar; Bardazzi, S. et al., S. Maria delle Carceri (Prato, 1978)Google Scholar; and Morselli, Piero and Corti, Gino, La Chiesa di Santa Maria delle Carceri in Prato (Florence, 1982)Google Scholar. There are also important discussions of the church in Wittkower, Rudolf, Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism, 3rd edn (London, 1973)Google Scholar; Marchini, Giuseppe, ‘Aggiunte a Giuliano da Sangallo’, Commentari, 1 (1950), 34–38 Google Scholar; and Tönnesman, Andreas, Der Palazzo Gondi in Florenz (Worms, 1983)Google Scholar.

2 Much of this article draws upon a chapter in my dissertation: Davies, Paul, ‘Studies in the Quattrocento Centrally Planned Church’ (doctoral thesis, London University, 1992), pp. 213-88Google Scholar.

3 S. Maria delle Carceri is a very well-documented church. Most of the documents have been collected and published by Morselli and Corti, S. Maria delle Carceri, pp. 81-186, but they ignored a few of those earlier published in Bardazzi et al., S. Maria delle Carceri; these are listed in Davies, ‘Studies’, Appendix 6, pp. 386-95. The history of the church, with the origins of the cult, is related in two contemporary manuscripts: Andrea del Germanino, Miracoli et gratie della gloriosa madre vergine Maria delle Charcere di Prato, l’anno 1484, Biblioteca Roncioniana, Prato, MS 86; and Giuliano di Francesco Guizzelmi, Miracoli della Madonna delle Carceri di Prato, Biblioteca Roncioniana, Prato, MS 87. The former manuscript has been published in part by Laura Bandini, ‘II quinto centenario della “mirabilissima apparitione”‘, Archivio Storico Pratese (1984), pp. 55–96.

4 Guizzelmi, Miracoli, fols 8v-iir.

5 Germanino, Miracoli, fol. 37; Bandini, ‘Quinto centenario’, p. 60.

6 For the authentication of the miracles see Guizzelmi, Miracoli, fols IIv-12r. For the text of the Bull see Morselli and Corti, S. Maria delle Carceri, doc. 1.

7 Germanino, Miracoli, fols 41-44r; Bandini, ‘Quinto centenario’, pp. 68-73.

8 Morselli and Corti, S. Maria delle Carceri, does 6 and 7.

9 A proportional analysis of the building is in Morselli and Corti, S. Maria delle Carceri, pp. 38-53.

10 They are, S. Sebastiano in Mantua, S. Maria di Bressanoro in Castelleone, S. Maria della Pietà at Bibbona, S. Maria della Passione in Milan, S. Maria delle Carceri in Prato, S. Maria delle Grazie at Orciano, S. Giovanni Crisostomo at Venice, S. Sebastiano in Forlì.

11 Marchini, Sangallo (1942), p. 21; Foster, Philip, ‘Alberti, Lorenzo de’ Medici and S. Maria delle Carceri in Prato’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 30 (1971), 238 Google Scholar; Morselli and Corti, S. Maria delle Carceri, p. 29.

12 For the evidence concerning the original appearance of S. Sebastiano see Lamoureux, Richard, Alberti’s Church of S. Sebastiano in Mantua (New York, 1979), pp. 5–24 Google Scholar.

13 See Protocolli del carteggio di Lorenzo il Magnifico per gli anni 1473-74, 1477-92, ed. del Piazzo, M. (Florence, 1956), p. 333 Google Scholar; Foster, ‘Alberti, Lorenzo de’ Medici’, p. 238.

14 The phrase espedisca et mio modello is discussed in Martelli, M., ‘I penisieri architettonici del Magnifico’, Commentari, 17 (1966), 107–11 Google Scholar; and Morselli and Corti, S. Maria delle Carceri, p. 29.

15 For the dating of the villa see Foster, Philip, A Study of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s Villa at Poggio a Calano (New York, 1978), pp. 108-68Google Scholar.

16 Germanino, Miracoli, fol. 44r, Bandini, ‘Quinto centenario’, pp. 73-74: ‘et venendo qua due volte decto Lorenzo, del mese d’oghosto per veder el luogo et di poi, veduto che egli ebbe, vide tucti e’ modoni, et disse agli operai: verrete a Firenze et faremo buon proposito di quello s’à a pilguare. Andò a Firenze chi era sopra a cciò; disse Lorenzo che si toglesse el modello di Giuliano da Sangallo’.

17 Lorenzo’s high regard for Alberti is well known. In 1484, for example, he lent Alfonso d’Esté a copy of De re aedificatoria but asked that the manuscript be returned speedily because ‘I hold it very dear and read it often’. Cited in Hook, Judith, Lorenzo de’ Medici (London, 1984), p. 126 Google Scholar.

18 These sketchbooks, respectively housed in the Vatican Library and the Biblioteca Comunale, Siena, have both been published in facsimile. See Hülsen, C., Il libro di Giuliano da Sangallo. Codice Barberiniano Latino 4424 (Leipzig, 1910)Google Scholar and Falb, R., Il taccuino senese di Giuliano da Sangallo (Siena, 1902)Google Scholar.

19 Hülsen, Codice Barberiniano, fol. 8.

20 For an analysis of this drawing see Keller, F. E., ‘Alvise Cornaro zittiert die Villa des Marcus Terentius Varro in Cassino’, L’ Arte, n.s. 4 (1971), 29–53 Google Scholar; and Borsi, S., Giuliano da Sangallo. Idisegni di architettura e dell’antico (Rome, 1985), pp. 73–74 Google Scholar.

21 Hülsen, Codice Barberiniano, fols 8r, 37v, 41v.

22 The mausoleum at S. Maria Capua Vetere has a cross vault at the crossing. See de Franciscis, A. and Pane, R., Mausolei romani in Campania (Naples, 1957)Google Scholar, fig. 79.

23 See Borsi, Disegni, pp. 74-75. Leandro Alberti appears to refer to the building as Grazie, S. Maria delle in his Descrittione di tutta Italia et isole pertinenti ad essa (Bologna, 1550)Google Scholar. Another factor that may have suggested the Capuan building as a model to Giuliano is its popular name: the ‘Carceri Vecchie’. Thus both the Carceri in Prato and the Carceri Vecchie in Capua Vetere were associated with ‘old prisons’. However, it is not clear when the Capuan building first got this name.

24 Croce, A. della and Mongeri, G., Le rovine de Roma al principio del secolo XVI. Studi del Bramammo (Milan, 1880)Google Scholar, plate 32.

25 Croce and Mongeri, Rovine, plate 32. The full inscription is as follows: ‘Questo sie poso S. iano de fora adre dde alimure e depeperino e longho chane 6 e palme nula. Alto li colonne tesste * e 3/7 li cholone sono ghrose palm 3. Aveva suxe li quatre cholone uno tiborio quadracto asindeva uno cholonacto de spora de la chornixa chon lo piedistolo propocionato’. The precise location of the building is problematic because there is no record of a ‘S. Giovanni di Fuori’ in the fifteenth century though the name may refer to S. Giovanni in Laterano, which at that time was well outside the inhabited part of the city.

26 The plans of earlier Greek cross schemes are usually more complex. One is S. Maria di Bressanoro in the small town of Castelleone, just east of Milan, built in the 1460s under the patronage of Bianca Maria Sforza, at the suggestion of her confessor Amedeo Menez de Silva. The plan bears a greater similarity to Alberti’s S. Sebastiano than it does to the Carceri. For this church see Sacchi, G., ‘La Chiesa di S. Maria di Bressanoro’, in IV Congresso Nazionale di Storia dell’Architettura (Milan, 1939), pp. 11–53 Google Scholar; Carubelli, Licia, ‘La Chiesa di S. Maria di Bressanoro presso Castelleone’, Arte Lombarda, 61 (1982), 13–22 Google Scholar; Giordano, Luisa, ‘La fondazione della fabbrica Sforzesca di S. Maria di Bressanoro’, Bollettino della Società Pavese di Storia Patria, n.s. 34 (1982), 241–44Google Scholar. The principal proponent of the Greek cross plan in quattrocento architectural theory was Filarete, who promotes it for church design above all other types, offering no fewer than five versions. See in particular J. R. Spencer’s Filarete’s Treatise on Architecture (New Haven and London, 1965) and ‘Filarete and Central Plan Architecture’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 17 (1985), 10-18. Filarete gives no explanation for his preference; nor does he attempt to justify its use. Here, perhaps for the first time in quattrocento architecture, however, appears the Greek cross with three entrances, one in each of three arms. This may have been important for the Carceri, which has a similar disposition of openings. Lorenzo de’ Medici almost certainly knew the treatise because Filarete dedicated a version of it to his father, Piero de’ Medici. All Filarete’s church plans differ from the Carceri, however, in one vital respect. The Greek cross is in each case inscribed within a square. Not one, therefore, can be cited as a close model for the Carceri.

27 This church is little known and consequently little studied. The principal literature to date is Righi, G., La Badia dei Magi, ed. Soldani, M. (Florence, 1934)Google Scholar; and Marchini, G., ‘Vittorio Ghiberti architetto’, in Scritti in onore di Mario Salmi (Rome, 1961), vol. II, pp. 187 fr.Google Scholar; it is mentioned briefly in Marchini, G., Ghiberti Architetto (Florence, 1978), p. 32 Google Scholar.

28 I would like to thank Liz Real and Rino Giordano for their help in measuring these structures.

29 See Landuci, Luca, Diario Fiorentino dal 1450 al 1516, ed. Badia, I. della (Florence, 1883), p. 41 Google Scholar. See also Righi, Badia; and Marchini, ‘Vittorio Ghiberti’, pp. 190, 193.

30 In Bibbona’s case this can be inferred from the communal arms beside the main portal. Underneath are the intitials C.B. (Comunis Bibbonae), noted by Righi, Badia, p. 35.

31 For Soderini involvement see Marchini, ‘Vittorio Ghiberti’.

32 For the dating of S. Maria della Pietà at Bibbona see Marchini, ‘Vittorio Ghiberti’, p. 193.

33 See the Edizione nazionale delle opere di Girolamo Savonarola. Poesie, ed. Martelli, M. (Rome, 1968), pp. 85–90 Google Scholar. The relevant passage from the poem is cited by Morselli and Corti, S. Maria delle Carceri, p. 13 but the cult and church at Bibbona are not discussed.

34 See Landucci, Diario, p. 47.

35 Of the cult at Bibbona Landucci writes: ‘La quale cominciò insino a dì 5 d’ aprile 1482, la quale [i. e. the image] si trasfigurava, cioè diventava ď azzurra rossa, e di rossa poi nera e di diversi colori’. See Landucci, Diario, p. 41. For the Carceri see Guizzelmi, Miracoli: he recorded innumerable miracles of this sort.

36 See Marchini, ‘Vittorio Ghiberti’. Although there is no documented association between Guiliano da Sangallo and Vittorio Ghiberti before 1485 they almost certainly knew one another. Indeed, one year later in 1486 both architects fell into the same camp in the debate about how many doors the S. Spirito façade was to have; see Borsi, Disegni, pp. 339-40.

37 The diameter of its single dome (20 braccia) is much larger than that of the central dome at Bibbona (13 braccia).

38 The suggestion ofthe Badia in Fiesole as a model for the vaulting appears in Tönnesman, Palazzo Gondi, p. no.

39 According to a document of 1484, the church of S. Maria del Letto in Pistoia was not yet finished: ‘è imperfecta et volendola alla vera perfezione ridurre secondo el disegno et modello presentato non si può senza grave spesa’. Cited by Ferrara, ‘S. Maria delle Grazie’, p. 571. This raises the distant possibility that the church was never completed according to the design mentioned, and that it was later finished to a design reflecting that of S. Maria delle Carceri. Even if this were the case, it would nevertheless illustrate the influence of one Marian shrine upon another.

40 For the history ofthe shrine see in particular Tonini, P., Il Santuario della Santissima Annunziata di Firenze. Guida itorica-illustrativa compilata da un religioso dei Servi di Maria (Florence, 1876)Google Scholar; Bulman, L. B., ‘Artistic Patronage at SS. Annunziata 1440-1520’ (doctoral thesis, London University, 1971)Google Scholar; Ferrara, M. and Quinterio, F., Michelozzo di Bartolomeo (Florence, 1984), pp. 231–34 Google Scholar; Zervas, D. F., ‘“Quos volent et eo modo quo volent”: Piero de’ Medici and the Operai of SS. Annunziata, 1445-55’, in Florence and Italy. Renaissance Studies in Honour of Nicolai Rubinstein, ed. Elam, C. and Denley, P. (London, 1988), pp. 465–79 Google Scholar.

41 Michelozzo may have borrowed this motif for several reasons. If he knew of its appearance at the Pantheon he might have considered it appropriate for the Virgin as this most famous of antique buildings was also a church dedicated to her. Perhaps it was simply because the richness ofthe form was appropriate for a shrine; medieval shrines, like that at Orsanmichele, were as a matter of course encrusted with costly ornament. Michelozzo was simply substituting classical form for Gothic; the underlying aesthetic had not changed.

42 See Morselli and Corti, S. Maria delle Carceri, p. 78; and Morselli, P., ‘Sixteenth-century Florentine Artists in Prato. New Documents for Baccio da Montelupo and Francesco da Sangallo’, Art Bulletin, 64 (1982), 52–54 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 See Morselli and Corti, S. Maria delle Carceri, doc. 93.

44 For the history of the tabernacles at Impruneta see Ferrara and Quinterio, Michelozzo, pp. 351-53. For the cult see Trexler, R., ‘Florentine Religious Experience: the Sacred Image’, Studies in the Renaissance, 19 (1972), 7–41 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45 For the history of the Cappella di Piazza see J. T. Paoletti, ‘Antonio Federighi: a Documentary Re-evaluation and a New Attribution’, Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen (1975), 87-143; and Cairoli, A. and Carli, E., Il Palazzo Pubblico di Siena (Siena, 1963), p. 43 Google Scholar. For the church of S. Maria di Fontegiusta see Marelli, A., S. Maria in Portico a Fontegiusta (Siena, 1908)Google Scholar.

46 For medieval ‘copies’ of the Holy Sepulchre see Krautheimer, R., ‘Introduction to an Iconography of Medieval Architecture’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 5 (1942), 1–33 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

47 Alberti, L. B., De re aedificatoria (Florence, 1485), VII Google Scholar, 5. The translation is taken from On the Art of Building in TenBooks, ed. Rykwert, J., Tavernor, R., and Leach, N. (London, 1988), p. 199 Google Scholar. The association of this passage with the Carceri was first made by Wittkower in Architectural Principles, p. 20. This idea has been perpetuated by Morselli and Corti, S. Maria delle Carceri, p. 36, and Tönnesman, Palazzo Condi, p. 109.

48 The bench is referred to only as such in documents. See, for example, Morselli and Corti, S. Maria delle Carceri, docs 57 and 75.

49 For a fuller discussion of processions at pilgrimage shrines see Davies, ‘Studies’, pp. 122–33. The possibility that processions tended to move across pilgrimage shrines along the transverse axis was first suggested in Zanker, J., ‘Il primo progetto per il Santuario di Santa Maria della Consolazione a Todi e la sua attribuzione’, in Studi Bramanteschi (Milan, 1974), pp. 603-15Google Scholar.

50 Germanino, Miracoli, fols 50v–52v, Bandini, ‘Quinto centenario’, pp. 81–82. On Sunday, 29 August 1484 (the feast day of S. Giovanni Decollato), the procession set out from the Pieve and moved down the Via de Valdigora past S. Domenico and down the Corso by S. Nicolò and then to the Cambioni and S. Jacopo and S. Chiara. It passed through the arch and went by S. Marco and the Spedale del Dolce and up to the Mercatale and S. Margherita. It then passed the three ponds, the little pond and continued on to S. Matteo and S. Michele. Then it went on to the vescovado and up through the piazza to the pieve and along the Via dei Pillicciai. It continued on to S. Giorgio past the new well and S. Giovanni del Tempio and then reached the image. Then from here it went to the tower near the loggia of Giovanni Migliorati and into the piazza of the Comune up through the Via dei Sarti and returned to the pieve where it finished. Further descriptions of processions to the image undertaken between 1484 and 1505 can be found in Guizzelmi, Miracoli.

51 See Morselli and Corti, S. Maria delle Carceri, doc. 5.

52 The description of the procession discussed above (note 50) suggests that the church would have been approached from the liturgical south side.

53 For the history of the balustrade in the Renaissance see Davies, P. and Hemsoll, D., ‘Renaissance Balusters and the Antique’, Architectural History, 26 (1983), 1–23 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54 See Spencer, Filarete, vol. II, fol. 122r. Brunelleschi’s choir is recorded in a medal struck to record the death of Giuliano de’ Medici in the Pazzi conspiracy of 1478.

55 For the history of the shrine see Marchini, G., La Cappella del Sacro Cingolo nel Duomo di Prato (Prato, 1975)Google Scholar. The screen (1438–67) was designed by Maso di Bartolommeo; see pp. 31 ff.