Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-x4r87 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T08:43:18.865Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Drawing Christ’s Blood: Michelangelo, Vittoria Colonna, and the Aesthetics of Reform*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Una Roman D’Elia
Una Roman D’Elia*
Affiliation:
Queen’s University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article discusses Michelangelo’s drawings for Vittoria Colonna in relation to poetry and prose by Michelangelo, Colonna, and their circle. It focuses on the intersection between debates about Church reform and the polemic about disegno (drawing or design) and colore (color or finish). Vittoria Colonna used the distinction between disegno and colore repeatedly in her spiritual poetry. In these and other writings, reform-minded thinkers did not offer consistent aesthetic and theological positions, but rather consciously articulated contradictions. Likewise, Michelangelo’s drawings for Vittoria Colonna display a strategy of deliberate paradox, in that they are highly colored black-and-white drawings of a tearless tearfulness and a bloodless bloodiness.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 59 , Issue 1 , Spring 2006 , pp. 90 - 129
Copyright
Copyright © 2006 Renaissance Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

I am grateful to Stephen Campbell and to the other, anonymous reviewer for Renaissance Quarterly, and to Creighton Gilbert, Lino Pertile, the late John Shearman, Stuart Lingo, Katherince MacDonald, and Anthony D’Elia for their invaluable assistance. Alexander Nagel was particularly generous in reading and responding in detail to an argument very much indebted to, but not entirely in agreement with, his own work on the subject. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own (though done with much assistance from Lino Pertile and Creighton Gilbert).

References

Noel, Annesley, and , Hirst, Michael. “‘Christ and the Woman of Samaria’ by Michelangelo.” Burlington Magazine 122 (1981) : 608–14Google Scholar
Aretino, Pietro. Lettere. Ed. Francesco Erspamer. Parma, 1998.Google Scholar
Bainton, Roland H. Women of the Reformation in Germany and Italy. Minneapolis, 1971.Google Scholar
Barbaro, Daniele. Della eloquenza. Ed. Girolamo Ruscelli. Venice, 1557.Google Scholar
Barnes, Bernadine. Michelangelo’s Last Judgment: The Renaissance Response. Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1998.Google Scholar
Michael, Baxandall. “A Dialogue on Art from the Court of Leonello d’Este: Angelo Decembrio’s De Politia Litteraria Pars LXVIII.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 70 (1963) : 304–26Google Scholar
Benedetto da Mantova. Il Beneficio di Cristo, con le versioni del secolo XVI documenti e testimonianze. Ed. Salvatore Caponetto. DeKalb, 1972.Google Scholar
Bianco, Monica. and Vittoria, Romani. “Vittoria Colonna e Michelangelo.” In Vittoria Colonna e Michelangelo (2005), 145–64Google Scholar
Brucioli, Antonio. Nuovo commento . . . ne divini et celesti libri evangelici secondo Mattheo Marco Luca et Giovanni, De sacrosanti libri della vecchia, & nuova scrittura & dottrina Christiana. Venice, 1542–44.Google Scholar
Brucioli, Antonio. [Sermoni]. The work is without a title page, but is bound with Expositione sopra la Epistola di S. Paolo ai Romani (1545) in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Stampati, Capponi V. 513.Google Scholar
Brucioli, Antonio. La Bibia. Geneva, 1562. Bury, John Bagnell. Two Notes on Francisco de Hollanda. London, 1981.Google Scholar
Cairns, Christopher. Pietro Aretino and the Republic of Venice: Researches on Aretino and his Circle in Venice 1527–1556. Florence, 1985.Google Scholar
Camillo, Giulio. Le idee, overo forme della oratione da Hermogene considerate, & ridotte in questa lingua. Udine, 1594.Google Scholar
Campi, Emidio. Michelangelo e Vittoria Colonna: un dialogo artisticoteologico ispirato da Bernardino Ochino. Turin, 1994.Google Scholar
Cantimori, Delio. Eretici italiani del Cinquecento: ricerche storiche. Florence, 1939.Google Scholar
Caponetto, Salvatore. La Riforma Protestante nell’Italia del Cinquecento. 2nd ed. Turin, 1997.Google Scholar
Caracciolo, Roberto. Opere in volgare. Ed. Enzo Esposito. Galatina, 1993.Google Scholar
Cicerchia, Niccolò. Istoria della passione e morte di Gesù scritta nel buon secolo della lingua. Florence, 1822.Google Scholar
Cimino, Guido. Il Crocifisso di Michelangelo per Vittoria Colonna: storia di un ritrovamento. Rome, 1967.Google Scholar
Colonna, Vittoria. Carteggio. Ed. Ermanno Ferrero and Giuseppe Müller. Turin, 1892.Google Scholar
Colonna, Vittoria. Rime. Ed. Alan Bullock. Rome, 1982.Google Scholar
Colonna, Vittoria, and Rinaldo Corso. Tutte le rime . . . con lespositione’ del Signor Rinaldo Corso, nuovamente mandate in luce da Girolamo Ruscelli. Venice, 1558.Google Scholar
Condivi, Ascanio. Vita di Michelagnolo Buonarroti. Ed. Giovanni Nencione. Florence, 1998.Google Scholar
Alighieri, Dante. La Divina commedia. Ed. Giuseppe Vandelli. Milan, 1929.Google Scholar
De Bujanda, J. M., ed. Index des livres interdits. Sherbrooke, 1990.Google Scholar
de Campos, Deoclecio Redig. “Il Crocifissso di Michelangelo per Vittoria Colonna.” In Atti del convegno di studi michelangioleschi, 356–65. Rome, 1966.Google Scholar
de Hollanda, Francisco. Four Dialogues on Painting. Trans. Aubrey F. G. Bell. London, 1928.Google Scholar
De Laurentiis, Valeria. “Vittoria Colonna e le arti figurative.” Accademia Clementina atti e memorie n.s., 30–31 (1992): 83–101.Google Scholar
Andrea, Del Col. “Il Controllo della stampa a Venezia e i processi di Antonio Brucioli (1548–1559).” Critica storica 17 (1980) : 457 – 510 Google Scholar
D’Elia, Una Roman. The Poetics of Titian’s Religious Paintings. Cambridge and New York, 2005.Google Scholar
de Martino, Ernesto. Morte e pianto rituale nel mondo antico: dal lamento pagano al pianto di Maria. Turin, 1958.Google Scholar
Charles, De Tolnay. “Michelangelos Pietà Composition for Vittoria Colonna.” Record of the Art Museum Princeton University 12, no. 2 (1953) : 44 – 62 Google Scholar
De Tolnay, Charles. Michelangelo. Vol. 5. The Final Period. Princeton, 1971.Google Scholar
De Tolnay, Charles. Corpus dei disegni di Michelangelo. 5 vols. Novara, 1978.Google Scholar
Dolce, Ludovico. Dolce’s Aretino and Venetian Art Theory of the Cinquecento. Ed. and trans. Mark Roskill. Princeton, 1968.Google Scholar
Ferino-Pagden, Sylvia, ed. Vittoria Colonna : Dichterin und Muse Michelangelos. Vienna, 1997.Google Scholar
Firpo, Massimo. Inquisizione Romana e Controriforma: studi sul Cardinal Giovanni Morone e il suo processo d’eresia. Bologna, 1992.Google Scholar
Flaminio, Marcantonio. Apologia del Beneficio di Christo e altri scritti inediti. Ed. Dario Marcatto. Florence, 1996.Google Scholar
Folengo, Teofilo. Opere italiane. Ed. Umberto Renda. 3 vols. Bari, 1912–14.Google Scholar
Fragnito, Gigliola. “Vittoria Colonna e il dissenso religioso.” In Vittoria Colonna e Michelangelo (2005), 97–105.Google Scholar
Gelli, Giovan Battista. Letture edite e inedite . . . sopra la Commedia di Dante. 2 vols. Florence, 1887.Google Scholar
Ginzburg, Carlo, and Adriano Prosperi. Giochi di pazienza: un seminario sul Beneficio di Cristo. Turin, 1975.Google Scholar
Harvey E, Hamburgh. “The Problem of Lo Spasimo of the Virgin in Cinquecento Paintings of the Descent from the Cross.” Sixteenth Century Journal 12, no 4 (1981) : 45 – 75 Google Scholar
Hartt, Frederick. The Drawings of Michelangelo. New York, 1971.Google Scholar
Haussherr, Reiner. Michelangelos Kruzifixus f ü r Vittoria Colonna: Bemerkungen zu Ikonographie und theologischer Deutung. Opladen, 1971.10.1007/978-3-663-02702-7CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herrmann Fiore, Kristina. “Disegni di Michelangelo in omaggio a Vittoria Colonna e tracce del poema di Dante.” In Michelangelo e Dante, ed. Corrado Gizzi, 95–112. Milan, 1995.Google Scholar
Hibbard, Howard. Michelangelo. 2nd ed. New York, 1974.Google Scholar
Hills, Paul. Venetian Colour: Marble, Mosaic, Painting and Glass 1250–1550. New Haven and London, 1999.Google Scholar
Hirst, Michael. Michelangelo and His Drawings. New Haven and London, 1988.Google Scholar
The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. New York, 1989.Google Scholar
Joannides, Paul. “’Primitivism’ in the Late Drawings of Michelangelo: The Master’s Construction of an Old-Age Style.” In Michelangelo’s Drawings, ed. Craig Hugh Smyth and Ann Gilkerson, 245–61. Washington, 1992.Google Scholar
Kamp, Georg W. Marcello Venusti: Religiöse Kunst im Umfeld Michelangelos. Egelsbach and Cologne, 1993.Google Scholar
Kennedy, William. Authorizing Petrarch. Ithaca, NY, 1994.Google Scholar
Landino, Cristoforo. Comento sopra la Comedia. 4 vols. Ed. Paolo Procaccioli. Rome, 2001.Google Scholar
R.N, Lear. “Brucioli, Antonio.” Dizionario biografico degli italiani 14 (1972) : 480–85Google Scholar
Léon, Mahieu. “L’Abandon du Christ sur la croix.” Mélanges de science religieuse 2 (1945) : 209–42Google Scholar
Marrow, James H. Passion Iconography in Northern European Art of the Late Middle Ages and Early Renaissance. Kortrijk, 1979.Google Scholar
Buonarroti, Michelangelo. Rime. Ed. Ettore Barelli. Milan, 1975.Google Scholar
Buonarroti, Michelangelo. Complete Poems and Selected Letters of Michelangelo. Trans. Creighton Gilbert. 2nd ed. Princeton, 1980.Google Scholar
Minturno, Antonio. L’arte poetica. Venice, 1563.Google Scholar
Alexander, Nagel. “Gifts for Michelangelo and Vittoria Colonna.” Art Bulletin 79 (1997) : 647–68Google Scholar
Nagel, Alexander. Michelangelo and the Reform of Art. New York and Cambridge, 2000.Google Scholar
Ochino, Bernardino. Prediche . . . predicate nella inclita città di Vinegia, del MDXXXIX. Venice, 1541.Google Scholar
Parker, Deborah. Commentary and Ideology: Dante in the Renaissance. Durham, NC and London, 1993.Google Scholar
Perrig, Alexander. Michelangelo’s Drawings: The Science of Attribution. Trans. Michael Joyce. New Haven and London, 1991.Google Scholar
Lino, Pertile. “Apollonio Merenda, segretario del Bembo, e ventidue lettere di Trifone Gabriele.” Studi e problemi di critica testuale 34 (1987) : 9 – 48 Google Scholar
Lino, Pertile. “Vettore Soranzo e le Annotationi nel Dante di Trifon Gabriele.” Quaderni veneti 16 (1992) : 37 – 58 Google Scholar
A, Piscini. “Folengo, Teofilo.” Dizionario biografico degli italiani 48 (1997) : 547–52Google Scholar
Maurice, Poirier. “The Disegno-Colore Controversy Reconsidered.” Explorations in Renaissance Culture 13 (1987) : 52 – 86 Google Scholar
Pollitt, J. J. The Ancient View of Greek Art: Criticism, History and Terminology. New Haven, 1974.Google Scholar
Ragusa, Isa, and Rosalie B. Green, eds. and trans. Meditations on the Life of Christ: An Illustrated Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century. Princeton, 1961.Google Scholar
Reilly, Patricia L. “The Taming of the Blue: Writing out Color in Italian Renaissance Theory.” In The Expanding Discourse: Feminism and Art History, ed. Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard, 87–99. New York, 1992.Google Scholar
Sabbatino, Pasquale. La Bellezza di Elena: l’imitazione nella letteratura e nelle arti figurative del Rinascimento. Florence, 1997.Google Scholar
Anne Jacobson, Schutte. “Periodization of Sixteenth-Century Italian Religious History: The Post-Cantimori Paradigm Shift.” Journal of Modern History 61 (1989) : 269–84Google Scholar
Shearman, John. Only Connect . . . Art and the Spectator in the Italian Renaissance. Princeton, 1992.Google Scholar
Simoncelli, Paolo. Evangelismo italiano del Cinquecento: questione religiosa e nicodemismo politico. Rome, 1979.Google Scholar
Summers, David. Michelangelo and the Language of Art. Princeton, 1981.Google Scholar
Tornabuoni de’ Medici, Lucrezia. Sacred Narratives. Ed. and trans. Jane Tylus. Chicago, 2001.10.7208/chicago/9780226808574.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Valdés, Juan de. Commentary upon the Gospel of St. Matthew. Trans. John T. Betts. London, 1882.Google Scholar
Vasari, Giorgio. Le Vite dei più eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori. Ed. Gaetano Milanesi. 9 vols. Florence, 1878–85.Google Scholar
Vasari, Giorgio. La Vita di Michelangelo nelle redazioni del 1550 e dell 1568. Ed. Paola Barocchi. 5 vols. Milan and Naples, 1962.Google Scholar
Vittoria Colonna e Michelangelo. Ed. Pina Ragionieri. Florence, 2005.10.7208/chicago/9780226113937.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilde, Johannes. Italian Drawings in the Department of the Prints and Drawings in the British Museum: Michelangelo and His Studio. London, 1953.Google Scholar