I'm Laura Stagno from the University of Genoa.
I'll briefly present some aspect of the celebration
of the Battle of Lepanto in the figurative arts with a focus
on the Republic of Genoa, and we now start and
share my slides.
The Battle of Lepanto fought on October
7th, 1571 was immediately celebrated as the greatest victory
of Christendom over its Ottoman archenemy.
It was not that strategically relevant in the long term.
From a strictly military point of view,
but it was a turning point in the Western perception of the chances
to successfully confront the Ottoman military power, and
destroy the idea of invincible Turk.
A vast media campaign
which included an extensive use of the figurative arts
contributed to create this powerful myth of Lepanto.
Venice, Papal Rome and the
Court of Spain, the latter to a somewhat lesser extent,
where the epicenter of the victory celebration, quite obviously,
so given the role that these powers had
had in the Holy League.
Vasari Fresco the famous was, of course commissioned by the great architect
of the Christian Alliance, Pope
Pius V,
as well as, you can see here
you surely all know them, as well as a number
of great paintings in Venice
are significant testimony to this.
But many other territories also produced significant works.
Important though less famous, which deserve to be known.
The Republic of Genoa is a case in point,
and as I said, the focus of this presentation.
Public patronage did not play a prominent role in Genoa.
In fact, the commission of Lepanto related works of art mirrored
the way the genoese were involved in the event.
The Republic of Genoa had sent
three galleys to the battle,
while 28 other galleys belonging to Genovese nobleman
fought at the service of the Spanish crown.
Giovanni
Anrea Doria was by far the most important geneoese at
Lepanto.
He led the Christian fleet's right wing owned
11 of the fleet's galleys and had a crucial role in the battle.
Though a highly controversial one
as far as the results were concerned.
He commissioned a number of works
to commemorate the battle and, of course, to claim
a positive role for himself.
More specifically, he commissioned to Luca Cambiaso, the greatest
painter in 16th century Genoa a series of large oil paintings,
as well as the cartoons for a set of tapestries.
Both of this series share the same subject depicted at the center.
The highlights of the Holy League's venture,
from its beginning in Messina, where all the galleys
and ships of the Christian powers met to its epilog in Corfu
after the Christian victory.
This series, the two series, have been defined
as the most complete chronicle of the battle of Lepanto
ever executed in the field of the figurative art.
The six canvases, you can see here as well
in the next slide here,
These six canvases
now hang in the El Escorial and the material history
has to be reconstructed on the basis of a serie of clues.
They are not beside documents about them.
It appears that Giovanni Andrea Doria probably sent them as a gift
to the king's powerful Secretary of State for Italy,
Antonio Perez,
before his fall from power and his arrest
in 1579.
Giovanni Andrea set of magnificent tapestries
exceptionally rich in detail, were designed by Cambiaso as well,
as I said before.
Here we have some documents because Cambiaso was payed
for executing the cartoons
in 1582 and 1583
just before leaving Genoa for Spain, having been invited
to enter the service of King Philip the second.
The Tapestries were woven in Brussels and exhibited in the Sala d'Enea
of the Doria's Palace, the Palazzo del Principe in Genoa
where they can still be seen today.
We can see the same main scenes
as in the canvases as we have seen before.
But each narrative scene
is framed by personifications
and emblems, chosen and cleverly adapted to the content
of this visual chronicle, so that the set in its entirety
would provide not only an illustration of the facts,
but also a celebratory and morally uplifting interpretation of them.
The most likely candidate for the role of author of this detailed
iconographic program is Pompeo
Arnolfini
a man of letters and Doria's Secretary at the time.
The sources of the allegories included
Valeriano's hieroglyphica
which are a very important
model for that.
Here are just some examples.
Also, as you can see, Le immagini degli dei antichi di Cartari.
So these are some of the sources used
for these kind of complex allegorical frame.
In the bottom part of the two last tapestries,
we can see figures of defeated Turks,
chained or dead,
but still represented with a degree of dignity.
They afforded their enemies,
they are defeated by they are afforded a degree of dignity,
which resonates with the inscription,
which is in the upper part of the same tapestry
where we can find this figure, which celebrates the valor
and courage of both sides of the battle. It
sais that the two fleet, the Christian one and the Ottoman, both
fought long and valiantly.
So this is important in the construction
of this set of images.
These were not the only
genoese works of art depicting the battle of Lepanto
the most important series in a way, the most documented
but not the only ones.
For instance, it is possible that
the large canvas in, the famous canvas in the Greenwich Museum
was commissioned by the Negrone family,
whose galley is represented in the foreground,
together with Giovanni Andrea Doria's "Capitana".
A remarkable feature that both,
the Doria sets share, and this canvas too,
is a total absence of religious figures or the religious theme.
They all refrain from presenting Lepanto
as miracle's victory, favoured by divine intervention,
which is a different angle prevailing in many other
representations of this battle.
As is well known,
Pope Pius V promoted a religious interpretation
of the victory, which was widely accepted.
More specifically, he credited the Ottomans defeat
to the interception of Mary, propitiated by the prayers
of the Rosary Confraternities.
He established a new liturgical feast
linkd directly to Our Lady of Victory
and then to our Lady of the Rosary by his successor.
These secured a widespread and lasting connection
between the Christian triumph of Lepanto
and the devout practice, of the Rosary.
So it happened that the iconography of the rosary,
which already had a complex history and number of different typologies
absorbed the celebration of the 1571 divine victory
as one of its possible components with a varying degree
of frequency and importance in different territories, of course.
So here are a couple of examples from the territory
of the Republic of Genoa.
These, for instance, is an altarpiece painted
by Giovanni Battista Paggi in the early 17th century
for the
Dominican nuns of the church, convent of San Silvestro in Genoa,
where the Virgin offered the rosary to Saint Dominic
and the 15 mysteries of the Rosary are illustrated
on a sort of wide ribbon of paper here.
On the left, a kneeling Pius V
gaze at the Madonna
while pointing to the seascape at the center of the painting. Here,
the line-up of the two fleets in the first moment
of the confrontation is depicted. Though it's described
as a sketched scene seen from a distance
it presents a legible rendition of the most iconic
image of the battle of Lepanto: the two fleets confronting each other.
A certain number of rosarian altarpieces throughout Liguria
comprise the figures of Pope Pius V and sometimes
of the King of Spain,
often with the
confrontation of the fleet depicted in a separate medallion,
for instance, here
in this work attributed to Bernardo Castello
in the at the end of the 16th century.
And these are just a couple of examples illustrating this
rosary plus Lepanto
iconography which had success in
many Italian areas with high number of combination and variations.
Consider, for instance,
another very important
and internationally lesser known case
that of Southern Piedmont,
then part of the Duchy of Savoy, placed
immediately to the north of Liguria. Pius
the fifth was born and had this early career here.
This seemed to have an impact.
And so the number and scale
of Lepanto representation
are remarkably higher.
It becomes a really important subject in this area at the time.
Often the proportion of the representation here are inverted
if compared to their Genoese and Ligurian counterpart.
A depiction of the battle, as in this case in Mondovi
is associated with smaller figures of Our Lady of the Rosary
and, well, saints at the top of the large
painting. Note that in this work,
for instance,
the Savoy flagship is depicted at the center of the composition.
It's distinguished by a white-crossed red standard and by the flag
with the cross of St Maurice.
So this galley becomes the absolute protagonist
in a painting that evidently shares
both a devotional aim and an agenda of celebration,
political celebration of the Duchy of Savoy's
role in the Christian victory of Lepanto.
This, as well as many of the paintings
in the Genoese is a Ligurian territory we have seen earlier
depict different aspect
of the Battle's Legacy, which
it comprises both the religious
and the political aspects, and for this reason
became such a lasting success that we find
interesting of the representation of the battle
up until the 19th century,
both in Liguria and in Piedmont.
Thank you for your attention.