Michelangelo and the English Martyrs. By Anne Dillon. Farnham, U.K.: Ashgate, 2012. xxvii + 356. $134.95 cloth.

Abstract

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)Michelangelo and the English Martyrs . By Anne Dillon . Farnham, U.K. : Ashgate , 2012. xxvii + 356. $134.95 cloth.Book Reviews and NotesFrom research into Roman broadsheet of 1555 Anne Dillon of Cavendish College, Cambridge, has produced an intriguing study of the intersection of Marian English propaganda, Tridentine Nicodemism, and late Italian Renaissance printing and art. The work consists of six scenes of English Carthusians undergoing grisly tortures and deaths at York and London (though the depicted settings are Roman) between 1535 and 1537. They suffered for having refused to accept Henry's headship of the Church of England. Beneath is text that describes each image and specifies the dates of the martyrdoms being depicted. Step by step, through nineteen compact chapters, Dillon unpacks the history and meaning of the images, moving between descriptive and interpretive modes. Along the way Dillon provides useful and well-constructed discussions on topics that underlay her analysis, such as the technology and business of printing broadsides, the presence and nature of Protestantism and other heretical undercurrents in mid-century Rome, and the state of anatomical illustration. The inclusion of 82 illustrations, including 28 in color, makes her points and conclusions come alive.The creation of the work occurred in the context of Mary Tudor's marriage to Spain's Philip II in July 1554 and the Catholic/Counter Reformation initiative to re-Catholicize England. The impetus came from Cardinal Juan Alvarez. The Spanish creator of the images, Gaspar Becerra, was student of Daniele da Volterra, himself pupil of Michelangelo. The book's title stems from this last connection, since Dillon finds in the broadsheet formal similarities to figures in Michelangelo's decoration of the Vatican's Capella Paolina and other Michelangelesque studies to which Becerra may have had access as Daniele's student. She even goes so far as to speculate that Michelangelo himself may have prepared studies for the broadsheet. Here the reader is reminded of Dan Brown's treatment of Leonardo. Dillon connects Michelangelo to the reform-minded English Cardinal Reginald Pole through their common Roman noble friend Vittoria Colonna. All three were Nicodemites, Dillon develops, believers in the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith alone who had to keep their beliefs hidden after their condemnation by the Council of Trent in 1547. The broadsheet, like the Capella itself, she claims, is Trojan horse for sola fide dissent by Michelangelo and other Nicodemite spirituali . Her encapsulation of this thesis refers to the inclusion of similar figures in both artistic works as a signal, code and the broadsheet breathtaking act of subversion (135).Dillon's is bold thesis and in developing it she presents much that is of value to the student of the period. …