The Altars and Altarpieces of New St. Peter's: Outfitting the Basilica, 1621-1666 by Louise Rice

Abstract

The Altars and Altarpieces of :YeuX St. Peter's: Outfitting the Basilica, 16211666. By Louise Rice. [Monuments of Papal Rome.] (New York: Cambridge University Press in association with the American Academy of Rome. 1997. Pp. xvi, 478. $95.00.) St. Peter's is. without doubt, among the most intensively studied buildings in the world, the subject of countless articles and books in numerous languages. For all that has been written about its construction and decoration, however. many aspects of its history have gone largely unexplored. Who, for example, beyond the popes, was responsible for decisions concerning the construction and outfitting of the new basilica? How did the altar dedications and relics of the Constantinian basilica survive in the arrangement and titling of the altars in New St. Peter's? To what extent do the altarpieces in the new basilica embody a unified iconographic program? And how did liturgical and aesthetic conerns impact the decoration of the new basilica? These and other related questions are at the core of Louise Rice's copiously documented and carefully wrought study of the baroque altars and altarpieces of New St. Peter's. Although her inquiry extends from 1621 to I(i(iC,, her primary focus is, appropriately; the period of VIII's papac-1 (1623-1644), for it was the Barberini pope who oversaw the vast majority of the campaigns to decorate the altars of the new basilica. Part One, which comprises three chapters, serves as the foundation of her hook and presents some of its most original material. Chapter I provides the first detailed analysis in English of the two institutional bodies involved in the arrangement and decoration of the altars: the Co)igregaziste della Reverenda Fabbrica (consisting of cardinals and other prelates), responsible for the financial administration, construction, and decoration of St. Peter's, and the Chapter (composed of beneficed clergy), which attended to the liturgical life of the basilica. By examining, throughout the book, the distinct interests of these bodies with regard to the altars, and how and why the), competed and collaborated with each other, Rice enables us to understand, for the first time, the complex issues that drove the program of altars in the new basilica. In the second and third chapters Rice traces the transition from Old to New St. Peter's; outlines the contributions of Gregory XIII, Clement VIII, and Paul V to the decoration of the new structure; and discusses the only major undertaking during the papacy of Gregory XV-Guercino's St. Petronilla altarpiece. Much of this material is familiar to specialists, but she also includes new information here. Rice reconstructs, for example, Paul V's program of provisional altarpieces, and in this context offers a convincing explanation for the removal of Caravaggio's Madonna dei Palafranieri only days after its installation. She also analyzes a hitherto unknown aspect of Clement VII's patronage of the basilica-the decoration of the semi-domes of the transept altars with stuccoes-underscoring the Aldobrandini pope's efforts to create a visually and iconographically unified program of decoration. …