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Christian Pessimism on the Walls of the Vatican Galleria delle carte geografiche

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Walter Goffart*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto

Abstract

The Vatican Map Gallery (1579-81) contains fifty-one historical paintings in its vault and twenty-three historical vignettes on its monumental maps of Italy. Inspired by an early-Christian conception of the past, the vault paintings illustrate a "perfect" history, typified by saints' miracles. The contrasting vignettes demand more painstaking interpretation. Embedded in geography, they appear to exemplify a terrestrial history (reminiscent of Orosius) that, when not bathed in blood, teaches the vanity of earthbound strivings. Maps for history did not again take this form.

Type
Studies
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1998

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