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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
Walter Goffart*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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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
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 51 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1998 , pp. 788 - 827
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1998

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