Mantegna's Meditation on the Sacrifice of Christ: His Synoptic Savior Author(s): Colin Eisler Source: Artibus et Historiae, Vol.

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COLIN EISLER

Mantegna's

Meditation on the Sacrifice of Christ: His Synoptic Savior

Among all Quattrocento images, one of the most memo rable, singular and vivid is that of the dead Christ, as painted by Andrea Mantegna (Galleria Brera, Milan) [Fig. 1]. This rela tively small canvas (66 x 81cm) is usually listed as the Fore shortened Christ, following the designation "Christo in scur as to the the first artist's son, and then to", applied painting by That and of Vasari.1 title, though descriptive by long standing, is somewhat misleading since it implies an orthodox applica tion of a mathematically determined method. perspectival Were this the case, the feet would have been shown as far to make the larger, along with other requisite adjustments correct, numerically image conform with any proportionally devised construction formula. The other commonly used title, The Dead Christ, ismore objective if less visually descriptive. A recent photographic image by Sam Taylor Wood, So//7o quy VII, 1999 [Fig. 2], obviously inspired by the Quattrocento from any formula canvas, makes Mantegna's independence all too clear.2 The same point is also evidenced by Robert Smith's description of the artist's perspectival process, char as one it versus "natural scientific of vision".3 Using acterizing two photographic studies [Figs. 3, 4], Smith demonstrated that the supporting slab, as shown in the canvas, would have
been seen from a distance of one-and-a-half-meters, while the

from

no

less

than

twenty-five

meters

away!4

The

"anti-renais

sance" character of Mantegna's line of sight, as evident in this small painting, was first correctly stressed by Schrade.5 Keith canvas recent study of the controversial Christiansen's affirmed this view, concluding that the monumental figure's in fore presentation was "anything but an academic exercise
shortening".6

Close
commercial

in viewpoint
photographic

to what
circles

is now known
as a "crotch

in the crassest
shot", the can

vas' perspective
camerawork. So

recalls
unfortunate

the dubious
a

genre

of pornographic
association may

present-day

relative neglect among English and explain the painting's American scholars until the recent academic acceptability of and gender. relatively novel studies of visuality, psychology for its pictorial impact, the uniquely "in your Unprecedented face" aspect of Mantegna's image may explain why relatively few painters or scholars chpse to follow its form or signifi
cance.

Before the last few decades, almost all scholarship on the canvas was by Germans, beginning with the classic Kristeller of 1902 and his article of 1908.7 First of the signif monograph icant articles devoted to the canvas is Hans Jantzen's of 1927.8 Contesting all earlier criticism of the image, he viewed in using such a radical perspectival the painter's purpose 9

figure, as represented

by Mantegna,

must

have been viewed

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COLIN EISLER

~J

**&

LV?

1) Andrea Mantegna,

?The Dead Christ?, Milan, Galleria

Brera.

presentation expressive

not one,

so much contributing

as

technical to the

device Savior's

but

rather

an

Masaccio's

perspectiva!

discoveries,

Jantzen

noted

how

Man

secularization

shock tac (Entg?ttlichung) through an almost Expressionistic tic achieved by such an indiscreet vantage point. Referring to 10

tegna was According

Mantegna's

the first to make yet another decisive step forward. to Jantzen, by taking leave of the purely formal,
representation of the sacred image was realized

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MANTEGNA'S MEDITATION ON THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST: HIS SYNOPTIC SAVIOR

2) Sam Taylor Wood,

?Soliloquy

VII, 1999?.

11

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COLIN EISLER

3) Robert Smith,
photographed

?Model posing
approximately

as Mantegna's
25 meters?,

Dead Christ
ca. 1973.

from

use of orthogonals. Those are the through the perspectival lines parallel to the picture plane according to Albertian per to Jantzen the orthogonals spectival construction. According are the bearers of the highest symbolic value, dependent
upon the observer's viewpoint.

Dead Christ 4) Robert Smith, ?Model posing as Mantegna's one and a half meters?, from approximately photographed
ca. 1973.

Still the most comprehensive study of the Brera canvas is that by Hubert Schrade almost all the (1930), anticipating
issues and sources raised by subsequent scholarship.9 ments Graeve's of the notes dramatic anticipate scene a back number to Mantegna's of the major canvas. points that

Another examination, by Herbert von Einem (1983), comment ed upon the "almost spooky, headlong, forceful foreshorten distorted corpse, intensified by the ing of the horrendously
narrow enframement", concentrating upon the image's effec

would
those The

be elaborated
addressing Brera painting

upon

by

later scholarship,
canvas' Northern a startling

especially
source.12 sense of

the Mantuan

tiveness
article

as an Andachtsbildnis
by Andreas Prater,

Two years
all

later, a lengthy
material,

communicates

incorporating

previous

placed

special

emphasis

upon Christ's

resting upon the Stone information This is the of Unction Deposition

traces ele

proximity, wherein the spectator comes uniquely close to the feet of Christ. Incontrast with the tangible presence of the feet
is a scarcely visible halo surrounding the savior's head. As if

of Unction.11

A pioneering study in English has important the Mantegna canvas in its footnotes. concerning article by Mary Ann Graeve on the role of the Stone - the - as stressed in his Epitaphios by Caravaggio
for the Chiesa Nuova. Written in 1958, her work

sharing in the tragic Last Farewell, the viewer comes close to participation in the preparation of the body for burial within the rock-cut sepulcher. Mary is seen in the foreground, drying her tears, with John to her left,wringing his hands. Next to him is a third figure, placed hindmost and seen as a scarcely visible

12

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MANTEGNA'S MEDITATION ON THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST: HIS SYNOPTIC SAVIOR that of the Magdalen,
canvas.

head,
included

probably
in the

whose

unguent

jar is

Canvas,

rare

in Quattrocento

Italian

practice

in compari

The picture's witness/viewer is placed at the end of the Stone of Unction upon which Christ is about to be anointed in the winding sheet for burial.13 As Schrade has and wrapped noted, "None of the mourners dare touch the corpse, He is
untouchable."14

What specific devotional needs and references lead to this representation? Among the most important is the prominence of the Stone of Unction inConstantinople.15 Prater pointed out that its relics, such as the stone fragment from the Holy Sepulcher, long kept at the Saint Chapelle (Louvre)16, along with many other images of, and relics from the Stone of Unction in Italian shrines must have played a role in the genesis of the Brera canvas. Mantegna's "Image as Aperture" affords a confrontational sense of presence and of the present, one going far beyond in its devotional shock effect. His conventional representation its contents picture provides a framework for eternal witness, charged with a quality of verisimilitude so stunning that even a Caravaggio before such patron might have hesitated a daunting image. Significantly, even that daring artist, one of the few to take on a related subject for Rome's Chiesa Nuova,
created a far more conventional canvas.17 The Brera paint

in son with that of the North,21 was employed most effectively several works of Mantegna, always very thinly painted so that the weave showed through, as if to convey a sense of the of the divinely transferred image such as that of miraculous, the veil of the Veronica - the Sudarium. the presentation Strikingly lacking in Albertian decorum, of the Mantegna Dead Christ might appear alien to the Floren tine humanist's outlook in view of his almost puritanical val ues. However, the joint presence of Mantegna and Alberti at the Gonzaga court points to the distinct possibility that a pro interaction between the great artist and the unprece dented^ virtuosic humanist architect-painter-sculptor-theorist existed. The Brera canvas playwright-satirist-cartographer ductive the two, between may very well reflect dynamic exchanges such productive synergy having been key to the development of painting in Northern Italy.22 in which the tomb opening the manner is Significantly, seen as if through a window frame - a device employed by in several other works - is certainly in the Albertian Mantegna idiom.23 Another aspect of the Brera figure, so perspectival described by Schrade, lies in its Cyclopean monumentally.24 the possibility of an Albertian source. For This also suggests that humanist was much taken by Pliny's description of Timan thes' effective presentation - in a similarly small painting - of the gigantic sleeping Cyclops (Pliny, Nat. Hist, XXXV, xxxvi, A contrast vivid between 74-77). pictorial large and small is cited several times inDelia pittura. Alberti noted how Timan thes "understood this form of comparison [...] he put there
several satyrs who were measuring the giant's thumb by com

the most intimate and ing's major purpose is that of accessing at the same time comprehensive views of the Sacrificial Christ, as laid out upon the Stone of Unction seen within the Sepul cher, fusing all three into one singularly potent tableau. the episode variously known as the Mantegna combined Last Farewell, Lamentation or Piet?, together with the Entomb ment, by placing the first scene within the sepulcher itself,
a rectangular rock-cut chamber. In the Lowlands, France and

parison with
sleeper seemed

them [measuring
immense".25

his thumb with a thyrsus],

In the Mantegna canvas,

the
the

Italy, various
mourning,

experiments
and

were made
entombment,

to merge
as explored

the events
by Graeve

of

farewell,

by Roger van der Weyden (Uffizi, Florence), Fra Bellini and Giovanni (Alte Pinakothek, Munich), Ang?lico (Palazzo Ducale, Venice), among others.18 Several of these paintings, probably close in date to the Mantegna, make much of the rectangular opening to the sepulcher.19 Where other Northern artists had been seen to be an influ ence on the Brera canvas, Caroline Elam singled out Hugo van der Goes as important for several works by Mantegna, particu larly so for the Cristo in Scurto.20 Several of the Fleming's canvasses as well as his huge Portinari Altar (Uffizi, Florence) came to Italy in the fifteenth century. The possibility of Hugo's having made an Italian journey, as was certainly true for his friend Joos van Ghent, long resident inUrbino, should be kept inmind. Just as his art may have benefited from exposure to North Italian currents, so may the latter have received valuable stimuli from his presence. in examples

miniscule ointment jar on the viewer's right provides a dramat ic sense of scale for the central figure. A related juxtaposition of a dead divinity and the very small in scale - here diminutive one seizing Christ's hand - is found in mourning angels, a Man of Sorrows from Tempio Malatestiano (Rimini, Pinacote Giovanni Bellini. ca) by Mantegna's brother-in-law, A second of Pliny's passages Timanthes concerning comes strikingly close to Man rival of Zeuxis and Parrhasios With della Francesca, Piero tegna's self-image. Mantegna must have seen himself as Italy's most erudite humanist-artist, readily identifiable with the first painter in classical antiquity to in all branches of learn be recorded as being highly educated arithmetic and ing, especially geometry. Without the aid of such learning, so Timanthes maintained, painting could never
attain perfection.

Another passage of Pliny's concerning the qualities of the Brera canvas: suggests

the ancient master "Indeed, Timanthes 13

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COLIN

EISLER_ in Piero della Francesca or precedents gating possible in later spatial pursuits found in Leonar through continuation do or even D?rer. Possible links to previous foreshortened fig ure representations father-in-law Jacopo Belli by Mantegna's ni have even been suggested by Schrade33 and Martin Kemp, but none of those victims in the Venetian's two Drawing Books London and Louvre, Paris) bear any com (British Museum, pletely convincing relationship with the Brera canvas' almost effect.34 Yet, as Schrade noted, "what Bellini Caravaggiesque He and Kemp singled out began, Mantegna completed".35 a "feet first" view used by Jacopo for a Death of the Virgin (Bri tish Museum "Drawing Book", fol. 67r) in conjunction with the Brera canvas. Yet Kemp cautioned that Mantegna may have one a a full-blown of of any employed variety techniques: in Piero's manner; a rather sim process of planar projection pler version as later illustrated by Leonardo; or a perspective
grade of "machine [...] or the study of sculptural models."

is the only artist inwhose works more is always implied than and whose is execution, though consummate, depicted, always surpassed by his genius. He painted a Hero [...] a work inwhich he has included the whole art of supreme perfection, of painting male figures; this work is now in the Temple of in Rome."26 This was built in the Forum with spoglie Peace the Jewish Wars. Possibly such a location for Timanthes' from work might have been understood as anticipating that of the late 15th-century Roman church of Santa Maria della Pace. The Brera canvas' startlingly documentary character leads to a spiritual pilgrimage, arrived upon through the most imme diate presentation of a sacred site. The role of such a devo tional journey of mind and heart comes close to what Ewert Cousins calls the "mysticism of the historical event", inwhich the participant recalls such an occasion and enters its drama. was particularly current in This sort of spiritual experience Franciscan thought which played an especially active role in Mantua.27 Mantegna would have known the letter of Jerome's wealthy Roman disciple Paula, sent to her friend Marcella, describing Paula's pilgrimage to the Holy Land. She recalled the Savior's Sepulcher, "seeing him in his grave entering clothes [...] the napkin folded at his head" (Jerome, Ep. In the canvas, Christ's head rests upon a damask 46.5).28 cushion. Yet few texts or depictions present the corpse still the within tomb chamber. unwrapped however, provided visibility of all wounds, Mantegna, that remains of the lance scarcely seen.29 The painter though with familiar have been Uccello's employment of a relat might ed vantage point for fallen soldiers found in the three compo nents of the Medici Palace battle cycle (Louvre, Paris; National Gallery, London; Uffizi, Florence) or seen among the flood vic tims in his great Deluge fresco (Chiostro Verde, Santa Maria Novella, Florence).30 Uccello was well known inNorthern Italy, possibly executing having gone to Venice to design mosaics, now lost Paduan works which Mantegna is said to have admired. Frescoes by Pisanello of fallen tournament partici pants, painted for the Ducal Palace in Mantua, also included foreshortened figures, these certainly similarly audaciously
known to Mantegna.31

Whatever

method have been might Kemp employed, the painter "does not follow through the full implica observed, tions of the extreme foreshortening of his figures, and tends in the Camera Picta as in the Dead Christ to play down the rela tive increase in size of the nearest forms, just as Uccello had done".36 This follows Kristeller and Schrade's belief that there the first is no absolute, viewpoint, scientifically worked-out
seeing the canvas as "an artistic experiment rather than as an

independent work of art",37 while

jective element of the canvas'

the second

stressed

the sub

presentation.38

Two tions of devoted between

perspective

of the possible widely ranging explorations implica are of Corrado Maltese, those Mantegna's image to the concept of the canvas' space as suspended "old geometry and oratory39, and George Coppel's
and new vision"40, noting, once again, its unortho

to perspective. Both authors agree as to the dox approach futility of investigating an academic application of perspective
for Mantegna's image construction.

are usually saved for Significantly, feet-first presentations in battle, by flood or the ignoble, reserved for losers - whether indecorous misadventure. Such other exposure was though a fate for those suitable deprived of divine designated pictorial takes over With extraordinary audacity, Mantegna protection. this formula for misfortune or defeat and applies it to the most noble of sacrificial victims.32 in Renaissance have burnt the perspective Specialists so stunning an oil of how the issue addressing just midnight could have been constructed, investi image as Mantegna's 14

raising the issue of "How?", a far more the genesis of Mantegna's rewarding question concerning unusual vantage point, one unprecedented for a devotional image, might far better be, "Why"?41 The canvas may repre in visuality, when what is conventional sent a unique moment as a mathematical device is deliberately distort understood ly to the constructing of ed toward a theological mission, a convincing figure designed to communicate doctrinal truths. for the Only illusion can make the impossible possible effective of visual fidei. So purposes immediately propaganda studies of the Brera canvas' "construction" might first ask which cultic imperatives were privileged by so extraordinary an optical vantage point as the one employed for Mantegna's combination of a Last Farewell and Entombment? Rather than

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_MANTEGNA'S

MEDITATION ON THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST: HIS SYNOPTIC SAVIOR

Doctrinally, why should the feet be seen first? This ungain it is just there that the view may have been selected because ly to be the lowest, humblest aspects closest - feet understood of the body. The Savior's feet were washed by the Magdalen42: "that evil-doing woman saw him and wiped his feet with her tears and her hair. Mary [Martha's sister] saw him and would
not depart from before his feet."43 In the canvas' presentation, spectator's eye and assumed presence is allowed to come

Schrade
space, as

noted

how the feet seem

to come

into the viewer's

if touchable.44

Since no previously known image of a dead Christ affords this particular presentation, quite so striking a perspectival depiction, one with scant pictorial following, may well have
addressed a commissioner's specific requirements. If so, its

than a patron might have effect have proved more devastating no mere for because description or sketch could bargained have prepared the prospective purchaser for the impact of the finished work. The probability of such rejection, as first pro since the canvas was left in posed by Kristeller, is suggested the artist's studio at the time of his death in 1506; nor was it in Mantegna's lavish funerary destined for installation
chapel.45

had originally proposed a dating Crowe and Cavalcaselle of ca. 1470 for the canvas46, Kristeller found its presentation of that of a ceiling figure, one painted the Dead Christ essentially
for experimental purposes, predating Mantegna's frescoes for

the Camera 1457-1459.47

as a graphic

at the canvas degli Sposi of 1474, placing with the work Voll contented himself describing
tour de force48, close to Meder's characterization

of the canvas
rather than

as a horrifying

exercise

in artifice

(K?nstelei)

art.49

closer to later critics have argued for a genesis Though the artist's death in 1506, Caroline Elam50 has returned to Kris
teller's ing mid-career and placement Prater for the canvas' upon genesis, follow Graeve in commenting its extensive

5) ?The Five Wounds of Christ?, from the Prayer Book of IIvon Waldburg, fol. Mr,Stuttgart, Truchsess George Landesbibliothek. W?rttembergisches

and technique.51 While Northern presentation qualities, are found in other works by characteristics Netherlandish in this context they suggest the distinct possibility Mantegna,
of the Prussian-born Barbara of Hohenzollern (the mar

chioness' mother and her daughter of the same name) having ordered the painting. She and her husband Ludovico Gonzaga
were patron tua that the artist's major The was of patrons. Northern given his Saint martyr to Cardinal son.52 Barbara was so was also a holy in Man of Mantua. her name popular

Wounds

in fourteenth-century of Christ. This originated increasingly prominent in the later four Thuringia53, becoming teenth and earlier fifteenth centuries. The cult reflected a new
urge toward visualization, as seen in a depiction of the Five

Francesco

Gonzaga's

Wounds

mistress,

the mother

When, where and how were the stimuli in effect for the genesis of such a challenging and original presentation of the its patron was identified with a rela dead Christ? Presumably new Feast of the that of the movable observance: tively

IIvon Wald in the Prayer Book of Truchsess Georg - this a variant on the Arma Christi providing burg [Fig. 5]54 in a single the pioneering of all five wounds presentation
heraldic format. king's daughter and major martyr, Saint Bar A Northern

bara was associated

with veneration

of the Eucharist

and with 15

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COLIN

EISLER_ and canon tables - those of gospels synoptic were so arranged Matthew, Mark, Luke, and (usually) John as to enable the reader to compare the canonical texts at the same time, their words printed in parallel columns.62 Just so was Mantegna's Christ "foreshortened" to create what may be the ultimate imago pietatis, granting the viewer a uniquely dra These are seen matic, simultaneous viewing of his wounds. with central empha constructed "synoptically", perspectivally sis upon the initial site of blood loss, the Circumcision.63 That event's primary importance is indicated by the veiled penis' placement situated at the exact intersection point of the diagonals of any and all perspectival construction used for the Brera canvas, placed just where, to use a tired but suitable The
expression, "X marks the spot".

the Wounds of Christ. A poem describing the Patronal Feast of the Cologne Carthusian monastery of Saint Barbara states that her Feast Day was also devoted to the cult of the Five these so prominently featured in the Brera canvas. Wounds,55 Long a very considerable source of contemplation and ven eration in patristic literature,56 the Wounds are a particular con cern to Northern observances. A memorial of the Polish bishops to the Saxon-born Clement II (1046-1047) noted how: "[...] the Five Wounds of Christ are honored by a Mass and an Office, and on account of these wounds we venerate also the feet, these parts of hands, and side of the most loving Redeemer, Our Lord's most holy body being more worthy of a special cult than the others, precisely because they suffered special pains for our salvation, and because they are decorated with these wounds as with an illustrious mark of love. Therefore, with living faith they cannot be looked upon without a special feeling of religion and devotion."57 The Wounds were the focus of new pietistic concern at the time of the Second Crusade by Saints and Bernard and Francis. Emphasis upon the Holy Wounds Blood alike could have been of particular interest to a Northern female donor since special meditations upon the Wounds and Blood were provided by Saint Bridget of Sweden who lived in Italy from 1349-1373, as well as by Saint Catherine of Siena. The Arma - that distinctly Northern theme - was the sub ject of a lost painting by Mantegna for the Mantuan church of re-directed pious San Francesco.58 That saint's Stigmatization attention to the Wounds once again, ever more popular in the Vitae Christi. Fran Franciscan Meditationes fifteenth-century to the painter cis must have also been especially meaningful and his wife, selected as their firstborn son's patron saint. the In Northern fifteenth-century pietistic observances, Wounds were subject to the renewed devotional scrutiny of the Brotherhood of Common Life. Its founder, Geert Grote, declared: When a holy mind begins to love the humanity of Christ powerfully, even beyond every delight in this world, and to suck upon the wounds of Christ, as oil from a rock and honey from the hardest crag (Dt. 2:21), and to draw near the inner acts of Christ - oh, how much then will he yearn to be vexed, tried, and reproached so as to be like and to his lover.59

What contributes to the Circumcision's theological impor tance is that just before its performance, Jesus' name (Joshua) was first revealed to Joseph in a dream - "Thou shalt call his name Jesus. For he shall save his people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21). This passage was emphasized by Jacopo da Vor?gine, noting, "He was called Jesus, and Jesus is the Sav ior" (44). Among the most popular of late medieval commen taries, Voragine's singles out the Circumcision's supplementary meaning: "The second event is that today our Lord Jesus Christ blood for us."64 That initial began to shed his consecrated Eucharistie (Gift of Grace) significance of the Circumcision con tributes to the uniquely conspicuous centrality of its site in the Brera canvas. This first shedding of blood also received special in Northern painting near the end of the first pictorial emphasis third of the fifteenth century in the art of Robert Campin.65 Placed on the Stone of Unction, the body of Christ in the Brera canvas is seen as if upon an altar. Close medieval study in texts such as those of of the performance of circumcision the biblical practice of Durandus, Bishop of Mende, described this surgery as already approaching the Eucharist because the officiating surgeon/priest, holding a cup of wine, bathed in this first the wound that sacramental fluid.66 Discussing of Christ's how the noted Circumci blood, Vor?gine shedding sion was followed by the second shedding initiating the Pas in the Garden, sion with the blood sweat of the Agony the of the and the hands and feet, Flagellation, by piercing ending with the Lance wound.67 Blood sacrifice is ever the key to expi ation and propitiation. As stated in Leviticus (17:11), "It is the blood, as the seat of life, that makes atonement." Framed by the Stone of Unction, a pillow at the far end, becomes a glyph of corporeal Christ, radically foreshortened, immediate presentation of the body, sacrifice. A shockingly seven all sites of blood the sacrificial savior is loss, stressing see to the to hard in the fore.68 brought Though reproductions, artist went to considerable lengths to indicate blood loss at the

pleasing Inanother

a spiritual exercise for Fridays, Grote passage, the devout to look at the image of Christ Crucified. the mystic tells his reader to Writing of the open wounds, in the "enter them in your heart and have your sins washed remained central blood flowing from them".60 This veneration to Christian to be as powerfully observed by thought, Lutheranism as it had by Catholicism.61 advises 16

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_MANTEGNA'S site of each wound. Though brutal in its uncompromising the painting, and deceptively brusque technique,
these tormented areas in particular, are actually rendered

MEDITATION ON THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST: HIS SYNOPTIC SAVIOR

viewpoint
and

with
media,

the extreme
so often

delicacy
reminiscent

found

in Mantegna's
finesse.

works

in all

of Northern

of recalls the School relentless Christ's physicality & Albert Donatello Dead Christ mourned by Angels (Victoria
Museum, London) and Rosso Fiorentino's far later, even more

corporeal Dead Christ with Two Angels (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) where all three figures refer to the Eucharist whose became observance increasingly strong throughout the fif
teenth and early sixteenth centuries.69 In 1510, with the con

sent of Isabella d'Est? and her husband,

Gonzaga was permitted to acquire the

Cardinal Sigismondo
Mantegna canvas70,

which,

according

to the present
use. That itmight

writer, was
have been

initially destined
a Mantuan com

for his mother's

is appropriate, especially since the cult and relic of mission the Lance (festum lanceae et claviorum Domini) was intro duced there in 1354.71 Along with the Holy Blood, the Lance was closely to the Holy Wounds. connected Supposedly to Saint Mantua Andrew, Lance and Blood alike by brought
were Ascension the city's Day most and treasured preserved possessions, in its grandest, displayed most modern on

was and classical church, Sant' Andrea. Designed by Alberti, it built to allow a massive viewing of the blood relic, and would
also provide For devotional both housing political for Mantegna's and commercial funerary chapel.72 as reasons, the Holy well as

?The Risen Christ with Saint Andrew 6) Andrea Mantegna, and possibly engraved by the and Longinus?, designed
artist.

purposes,

observances

surrounding

Blood

and Lance

influx of pilgrims. An in a vast annual brought engraving designed by Mantegna shows Saint Andrew bearing the cross (to the left), the resurrected Jesus with the banner cross at the center, and Longinus to the far right, holding the
lance lance [Fig. wound 6]. Curiously, in both his the artist Brera chose canvas to "de-emphasize" and in the Man the of Sor

the gripping of Mantegna

such placement

In all likelihood, the site narrative of the Passion. the Holy Sepulcher, would have image suggested
extending the canvas' emphasis upon the red

[Fig. 7], so (Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen) not if hard this critical aperture impossible to see. It is making as ifby his forefronting and centralizing the site of the Circum the terminal blood cision, location of the initial bloodletting, rows
sacrifice was a scarcely needed visual reference. Supported by

marble Stone of Unction, the Epitaphios. That sacred masonry was recalled in name and liturgical function by the Byzantine
embroidered altar covering of the same name showing the

dead Christ outstretched upon its surface.73 Just as the Virgin was viewed as an altar for bearing
Jesus, by the this Stone canvas extends such understood thought as to her another Son, form framed of altar. of Unction,

two mourning angels, the Copenhagen ?mage may refer to the Mass of the Angels, with Christ seated at the very edge of
a much foreshortened altar/sarcophagus, displaying his punc

tured hands and feet. The tomb is being prepared

cut cave The at the far left, with along the three with crosses so many seen images Brera canvas,

in the rock
above. from the

The pictorial placement of the body upon a sacrificial structure in the Temple, to that part of refers back to the Presentation the Friday Liturgy where the Child is "offered [in the temple]
over the altar to his heavenly Father".74

the new Eucharistie second half of the Quattrocento, concerns of that period, these optically contrived so as to best echo
display their redemptive message, one particularly associated

with the altar itself The Brera painting is synonymous whose five crosses symbolize the Wounds of Christ, following the ritual formula of the Pontifical - Altare Christus est. So this
small canvas not only encompasses the sacrificial aspects of

with the timeless

function of the bread and the wine along with

17

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COLIN

EISLER_
Gonzaga. This was Jules Mazarin, who acquired the painting

was seen in it following the Sack of Mantua (1630), whereupon the prelate's Roman palace by F?libien75. The picture seems then to have entered the collection of a third cardinal, Pietro Aldobrandini. All three prelates doubtless realized - and possi the painting for its original, specifically bly even employed
devotional purpose, as a portable or fixed altar. These three

men of the cloth, keenly aware of what they supposedly gave up upon taking vows of chastity, may have found the relentless
focus of Mantegna's canvas upon the location of the penis, and

of its initial bloodshed,

That ers of site and stress homoeroticism continued He

a source of special
could encountered also prove in works shock

pertinence.76
relevant by for another the pow mas

ter, who art:

some too

of

the

effects

of Mantegna's patronage from

Caravaggio.

received

extensive

members
church,

of the College
all with unusually

of Cardinals.77
close Northern

These

princes

of the
were

connections,

probably aware of the Transalpine

vas' imagery. They certainly

origins of much
how the

of the can
tomb, sec

understood

ond only to the Resurrection itself, represented the triumph of Christ as prophesied by Isaiah (11,10). In the Italian and Latin
text this reads: "His grave will be glorious", and Paul's: "Death

is swallowed
Rembrandt, Mantegna's

up in victory" (Corinthians
who canvas, never but went it was to adapted

15:55).78
not many have seen by Northern

Italy, could

artists such as Hans Baldung

North was referred most and for an to by admired the version. image was Rembrandt's drawings Humility The noted,

and a copy that circulated

Mantegna owning engraved his was painters, Italian's prints

in the
among and of

Chantelou.79

adapting etched

Madonna

Mantuan's for the Dutch

certainly Anatomy

utilized, Lesson

as

is so

often

master's

of Dr.

Deijman

(Amsterdams Historisch Museum) of 1656.80 Just as the Italian's Christian perspective was needed to bring together all the Holy
Wounds for the Brera canvas in novel fashion, forefronting the

feet and crotch, so too did Rembrandt seek a similarly synoptic surgical display of Dr. Deijman's multiple dissections. Whether,
as 7) Andrea Statens Mantegna, Museum ?The for Kunst. Man of Sorrows?, Copenhagen, a Protestant, Rembrandt was conversant with the theological

issues dictating the Mantuan painting's perspective

point. tainly He knew received considerable of Passion Catholic when commissions he saw it. the anatomy

is beside
and

the
cer

Dissection
thyself" head. inscribed Socrates,

theaters were depicted

on the wall immediately upon this commenting

with the Delphic

above cryptic the injunction,

"Know
stat

cadaver's

Christ

the Savior, but with its pronounced optical emphases upon all loci of the Holy Blood and upon the Epitaphios, also
a portable Brera canvas altar par excellence. to have been owned by a sec The is known

will tell you what ed: "I

and what it advises us.

Isuspect
There

the Delphic
are not many

inscription means
analogies to be

becomes

found - except
seen ater, on the Stone the martyred

in the case
of Unction corpse

of sight"
or studied by

(Ale. I, 132d). Whether

in an seeing anatomical his wounds.81 the

ond cardinal 18

long after its possession

by cardinal Sigismondo

is known

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_MANTEGNA'S
Paradoxically, it is a "real" scene, one staging the conse

MEDITATION ON THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST: HIS SYNOPTIC SAVIOR

'lack

expressed

in the

phenomenon

of

castration',

as

Lacan

in the form of a diorama, that quences of rape, as represented provides by far the most inventive continuation of Mantegna's viewpoint in the Forshortened Christ. This is a 20th century per spectival stage set, peopled by one large fallen dummy, that continues those mathematically devised requirements for creat ingminiature theatres as first prescribed by the Mantuan artist's at the Gonzaga architectural associate court, Leon Battista Alberti.82 Mantegna had been the student of the major early Venetian master of perspective, Jacopo Bellini. By marrying the latter's daughter, he became the brother-in-law of yet another virtuoso of pictorial sleight-of-hand, Giovanni Bellini. The latter seems to have been the god-son of the first scientifically trained Venetian master of perspectival construction, Giovanni Fontana, whose concepts were followed in the art of Mantegna.83 Marcel Duchamp, ever enthralled by the sexual magic of viewpoint, presented a voyeuristic "tableau mourant" of viola tion (Philadelphia Museum of Art, Gift of the Cassandra Foun dation 1969). This spectacle of rape's results is entitled ?tant Donn?s: 1? La Chute D'eau 2? Le Gaz D'?clairage, 1946-1966. To this scene of violation's presumably fatal consequences the French artist added further frisson by letting the viewer wit ness the victim's violent fall through a peep-hole. As noted by Hal Foster in his Prosthetic Gods,84 Duchamp's re-enactment is a "direct re-creation of a primal scene, which, in another of the and the uneasy mixing public private [...] [is] reframed almost as a peep show. But what traumatic origin does one revisit here? The diorama brings together two old obsessions of Duchamp: perspectival vision and sexual violation [...]". The critic discerns how ?tant Donn?s "can be read as a making-physical one that connects our view of perspective, ing point, through the holes, to the vanishing point, which
coincides here with the vulva of the mannequin. Duchamp

in a seminar contemporaneous with the unveiling commented of ?tant Donn?s".85 diorama was Long an "Unholy of Unholies", Duchamp's endowed with inverse sanctity, long forbidden submission to the impersonality violence of the camera eye, since the latter
was insensitive to, even unaware of the transgressive vista seen

through the peep-holes. This recently waived prohibition invest ed the artist's construction image with the power of the divine,
beyond reproduction as a "graven image". Even a chart outlin

ing the way inwhich the work perceived) surviving the artist's farmore richly given That a Catholic

demonstrates that perspectival vision is not innocent, let alone scientific, that our gaze ismarked by sexual difference, by this

culatedly dwelling could have subconsciously that alien operation associated with castration is far from unlikely. Active five centuries before the the Duchamp, Mantegna's "Synoptic Christ" anticipated French artist's point of view. The Mantuan master demonstrat ed how perspectival vision can indeed never prove innocent, let alone scientific, demonstrating that our gaze is definitely In that photograph by Sam Tay marked by sexual difference. lorWood [Fig. 2], the self-same "discovery" is re-made once in all its again resplendent obviousity. A sacred peep show, Mantegna's Foreshortened Christ is inmany ways a Duchamp avant le lettre, its perception "realer than real", not needing that artist's fallen light along with all the rest of his sophisticatedly vulgar, shop-window scenography. Where Duchamp counted upon the twin forces of kitsch and exposure for his "In your face" fallen Judy with her run away sacrificial image is keyed to Jack, the power of Mantegna's ultimate violation toward salvation. The force of his "Synoptic Christ", provides a startling anticipation of the Lacanian gaze as sacralized in 20th century art and its literature.

Duchamp's construction was devised (and remains guarded by estate copyright, so death, endowing him with the immortality by the master's ?tant Donn?s. in an image cal artist of the Quattrocento, so centrally upon the site of circumcision

Warmest tance,

thanks to Clare

to Richard Hills Nova,

the

Burnstein ever

for his resourceful

adroit

editorial

assis

Institute

Research

to William at The Morgan curator Librarian, Voelkle, Library, and to Rory O'Dea. 1 P. Kristeller, Andrea Berlin and Leipzig, 1902, pp. Mantegna, 190. See too the mono 242ff, also pp. 583, 585, 588. Also Document graph Dentro Paris, 1901, by Ch. Yriarte, Mantegna, il Dipinto, 1997. This includes Rome, studies of the painting but little of any special pp. 241ff. and P. Petraroia, technical x-ray and other significance has emerged.

2 measures Matthew Marks Gallery, New York. It 87 1/2 by 95 1 /4 in. A C-type with a camera print, and was photographed rotating 360 in five sections. in Art in America, p. degrees Reproduced May, 2000, 159. Commentary Rush. by Michael 3 R. "Natural Versus Vision: the Foreshortened Scientific Smith, Figure 1974), Smith, in the Renaissance", pp. 239-248. 4 For the distant Fig. 4. view, Gazette see Smith, des Beaux-Arts, 3, and 84 (July-Dec. view,

Fig.

for the near

19

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COLIN
5

EISLER_
noch zur Einheit ist eine plausible und suggestive Ver fugt. Was gelingt, in der ganz ausdr?cklich visuelle bzw. geometrische Kon Formen Inhalte wir die formulieren. Was sprachartige eben die Konver of Sir (p. 49). "The Portrait

H. Schrade, in Scurto und verwandte Cristo "?ber Mantegnas zur Symbolik Ein Beitrag des Perspektive", Neue Hei N.F., 1930, p. 78. delbergerjahrb?cher, 6 K. Andrea and Met Christiansen, Mantegna, Royal Academy of Art, Milan, 1992, p. 155. ropolitan Museum 7 f?r vervielf?ltigende der Gesellschaft Kunst, Beilage Mitteilungen in large part with der graphischen K?nste, 1908, p. 17ff. The latter deals Darstellungen. the relationship between the canvas and 8 H. Cristo Jantzen, "Mantegnas zum 6.9.1927, Ernst Fabricius Freiburg, later anatomical in scurto", issues. in Stephaniskop, 11ff. Reprinted with andere Auf

schr?nkung, strukte und

des Bildes in der Renaissance meint nennen, Sprache von Geometrie und Rhetorik" genz beiden Aspekte, See also the very informative article by J. Hand, Brian The Tuke National by Hans Gallery of Christ, Holbein

the Wounds pratiques

the Younger", in the History Studies of Art, of Art, vol. 9, 1979, pp. 33-49 of (for a discussion see pp. 43-48). He cites L. Gougaud, et D?votions

1927, pp. in the anthology den Gotischen Kirchenraum und ?ber s?tze, 1951, Chapter Berlin, 5, pp. 49-51. 9 Schrade, pp. 75-111. 10 H. von Einem, Translation by author. "Mantegnas in der Ca' d'Oro", p. 80. R?misches Jahrbuch f?r Kunstgeschichte,

'Sebastian' XX, 1983,

pp. 77-82, 11 A. Prater, in Scurto", f?r Kunst Cristo Zeitschrift "Mantegnas No. 3, 1985, pp. 279-299. geschichte, 12 M. A. Graeve, of Unction in Caravaggio's "The Stone painting for the Chiesa Art Bulletin, XL, No. 3, 1958, pp. 223-238. Nuova", 13 idea was Andreas Ibid., note 56. The developed throughout to the significance in Mantegna's Prater's of the Stone article devoted canvas. coming sarion enced 14 15 role of Byzantine relics and theology of Cardinal West the Sack, and of the presence Bes following is important for the painter's many Constantinopolitan-influ images. Noted His discussion of the

du Moyen Hand Paris, 1925, pp. 78-90. asc?tiques ?ge, to Saint Bernard as a key early figure for of Clairvaux points (1090-1153) the development of the Cult of the Five Wounds. 20 See her catalogue in Splendours of the entry no. 33, p. 181, exh. cat. Victoria and Albert Museum, 1981. London, Gonzaga, 21 in the north see D. Wolfthal, For the use of canvas The Begin of Netherlandish Canvas and 1400-1530, nings Painting, Cambridge New York, 1989. 22 See M. Muraro, ra a Mantova nel primo il V?neto, ration of refers Della show Keith "Mantegna rinascimento e Alberti", inArte, con in rapporto e cultu pensiero e con la Toscana an initial explo He provided between both men. Muraro it to the famous aspect of in passages must the corpse

Florence, 1961, pp. 103-132. the possible inter-relationship to the Brera canvas (p. 111), linking the Alberti completely dead

pittura where in every limb. Links between Christiansen

p. 77. by Schrade, inGraeve, op. cit. See also F. Fran p. 110, but first found un compianto e qualche indicazione sulle g?, giovanile fonti figurative", XL, 1989, 473 (16), pp. 62-77,135-137. Paragone, 16 Le tr?sor de la Sainte exh. cat. Louvre, Paris, 2000, Chapelle, cat. no. 20, pp. 73-75. But this image, emphasizing the Resurrection, Prater, "II Sodoma: at the very center. Vertical, the open has the large figure of the angel at the right is filled by a vertical, shroud. empty seemingly sepulchre of early of this subject other examples Prater presents along images etc. with reliquaries, of the Stone of Unction, votive reconstructions 17 canvas was also the first to A major Nuova study of the Chiesa canvas in the Brera. See of Mantegna's the complexity explore the Stone of Unction Graeve, p. 231, note 56. By the fifteenth century - was their with the Holy Sepulchre, confused the Epitaphios despite function. separate 18 Prater, op. cit. 19 See Graeve and Prater. Mantegna's Presentation (Gem?ldega a proto-funerary in typically fashion, lerie, Berlin), employs proleptic faux-lapidary Brera canvas. is reminiscent framing, found in so many of his condensation cross-referencing Complex symbolic of the art of Jan van Eyck, a painter who, judging by the was a Grotto Italian master's (Uffizi, Florence), Virgin and Child before artist is among the The Netherlandish studied very closely by Mantegna. a fictive in the Byzantine fash to employ lapidary framing famous As the most of his panels. painter artist of his day, have it is very in both likely that van Eyck would Italy and the North, of Man scientific for some of the encyclopedic, been a source aspects first painters ion for many art. tegna's it to a convergence of of the canvas For a complex relating analysis see G. Boehm, "Der Topos des two aspects and rhetoric, geometry in in der Malerei des Renaissance", und Rhetorik Geometrie Anfangs und tradiertes Wis Visuelle and M. Seidel, U. Pfisterer Topoi Erfindung sen in den K?nsten der Italienischen Munich-Berlin, 2003, Renaissance, a "stupende zwischen Sicht notes Differenz The author pp. 49-59. barkeit und Sagbarkeit [...] eigentlich eine Heterogenit?t, dies sich den subjects, and such as the

were and Mantegna very well described by of even greater (op. cit., p. 34). "However, impor was tance for Mantegna than Alberti's his personality: here writings was a humanist who also practiced painting (or so Alberti claimed), and who had risen to be the foremost in Italy; someone architect who viewed artists as colleagues rather than intellectual inferiors." 23 It in the Quattrocento have first been realized in the work might a painter ever aware of the force of the framework. of Castagno, Paint in the fourteenth fictive altarpieces and niches, realized ings set within and earlier fifteenth also relate to this principle. centuries, 24 Schrade, p. 77. 25 Della edited Florence, 1950, p. 69, see pittura, by de L. Malle, pp. 77, 95, 101. 26 Loeb IX, p. 317. Pliny, Nat. Hist, Book XXV, xxxvi, 74-77. 27 at the E. Cousins, "Francis of Assisi: Christian mysticism traditions, 166-167. ed. by Stephen D.

also

and religious crossroads", Mysticism Katz, Oxford, 1983, pp. 163-190, esp. 28 G. Frank, "The pilgrim's gaze and beyond the Renaissance, ty before bridge goes angel UK, 2000, on to state 29 pp. 98-115, that if she

icons", Visuali Cam Nelson, letter p. 100, and note 20, p. 111. Paula's she can see the watches long enough,

in the age before ed. by R. S.

feet. sitting at Christ's de J?sus, 1937. See R. P. F. M. Braun, La S?pulture Paris, can An unusually of the subject of Mantegna's treatment opaque vas in L. R?au, is found de Tart chr?tien II, part 2, Paris, Iconographie In the Renaissance, to this writer, the subject 1957, p. 520. according bein lost any and religious others, A. significance it supposedly Studi less whatever. served su As solely la dolce used Hol by Mantegna, as a pretext for anatomi 1964. Milan, from the figure in 1930 by first made

cal study! 30 See See his Chiostro

Plate

Parronchi, 175 for a

radically

prospettiva, foreshortened

was Verde This proposal Deluge. Schrade, p. 79. For the foreshortened figure see also K. Rathe, Die Aus extrem of the Warburg Insti druckfunktion verk?rzter Studies Figuren.

Verde frescoes for Man tute, 8,1938, pp. 10ff. The role of the Chiostro in his "Mantegnas in Christo by Hans Jantzen tegna was also proposed Scurto" p. 49) and is followed (op. cit., pp. 49-53, by all other writers.

20

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_MANTEGNA'S
31 See J. Woods-Marsden, lo's Arthurian

MEDITATION ON THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST: HIS SYNOPTIC SAWO/?

in The Dictionary of Art, vol. 20, p. Finaldi, "Mantegna", at ca.1500. the canvas places K. Voll, Vergleichende Munich and Leipzig, Gem?ldestudien, 1907, p. 183 49 J. Meder, Die Handzeichnung, Vienna, 1919, p. 422. 50 of the Gonzaga, p. 123, cat. no. 33. Splendours 51 Ibid. in the artist's middle She dates the canvas Since period. M. A. Jacobsen at considerable in his discusses the canvas length article on "Perspective in some of Mantegna's early panel paintings", See also G. 306. She 48 Arte would Veneta, xxxviii,1982, this, together pp. 20-30, at a relatively indicate his placing the canvas 52 Picotti, Richerche storiche, p. 101. 53 See Sauser's citations Christi", ("Wunden with early his date. f?r The Note 4,

of Mantua and Pisanel The Gonzaga F. Hartt, The 106-107. Princeton, Frescoes, 1988, Plates of Italian Renaissance that Art, New York, 1987, p. 392, noting History is too large and the feet to small in the Mantegna, the head suggested meant were in the Arthurian like the similar frescoes canvas, figures to be seen with a single eye. 32 R. Klein New York, 1979, p. 108) observed (Form and Meaning, that Pomponious in his De Sculptura, refers to Mantegna's Gauricus, in repose". That theorist may have meant vulgar figures "humorously the found once in the painter's allegories. Only was a similar in Mantua, to divinity in the frescoes applied again in the cen foreshort

figures such as those tury after Mantegna's,

more of Giulio ening commonly and Fontainebleau Primat Romano and in Bologna by the Bolognese in the art of Correggio at Parma. In these with iccio, and instances, as their forerunner, such painters may have counted upon Mantegna the elements of reversal to make and paradox their re-application of the perspectival The canvas' Schrade, Borghese. 33 34 p. 105. device He sacrificial so effectively in a fresh context. may first have been accentuated aspect by it to the early Rubens related in the Galleria work

in Lexikon

und Kirche, ninth century monas X, col. 1249) of Irish-Scottish as well as Bede, Petrus Damiani, oth Rupert von Deutz among ers. The major is by I. Bonetti, Le stimate della study of the subject e storia della devozione Passsione. Dottrina alle Cinque Rovi Piaghe, ologie ticism no reference 1952. He makes to the Brera canvas. 54 Fol. Ilr in the W?rttembergisches Landesbibliothek, this image, noted that (p. 283) Prater, showing though go, Stutttgart. they offer no to see He wishes the

Ibid., p. 79. unorthodox by Annibale (Galleria p. 80. The Science p. 245. p. 76. explains infrequent Carracci (Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart); or Wilhelm Tr?bner Spada, Rome) (Ham view its relatively

Mantegna's whether utilization, Orazio Borgianni burger Kunsthalle). 35 Schrade, 36 M. Kemp, 37 Kristeller, 38 Schrade, 39 C. Mattese,

for Mantegna's explanation pictorial discovery. as emphasizing entire purpose of the canvas the Stone of Unction. 55 was von The poem written Karch by Samuel Lichtenberg between 1486-1489. See W. Schmid, Stifter und Auftraggeber im sp?t mittelalterlichen "Stifterbilder als 1994, der K?ln, Trier Ph.D. historische Quelle

of Art, New

Haven,

1990,

p. 43.

16.

Jahrhundert",

N?rnberg, Ein Beispiel Kartause For den

1994. See also thesis, Cologne, in K?ln und N?rnberg im 15. und des Germanischen Nationalmuseums, Anzeiger See H. J. Roth, pp. 111-128. "Kartauserspiritualit?t. um 1500", K?lner Kart?user in exh. cat. Die K?lner 2 vols, text volume, 1991, pp. 213-240. see C. Reichenlechner, in Germany Der in Deutschland aus oder Lebens und Leidensbilder Cologne, Order

"II Pianto tra geometr?a sul Cristo del Mantegna: e oratoria", Arte Lombarda, 64. 1983/1, pp. 60-65. 40 G. Coppel, "Old Perspective and New Vision", Leonardo XV/4, Autumn, 1982, pp. 269-276. 41 the simultaneous Schrade, p. 83, commenting upon visibility of all wounds, that this might have been dictated suggests by cultic it at that. leaving Only Jantzen (op. cit., pp. 11 Iff., repr., pp. 49ff), has paid any to this issue. attention 43 Devotion to the feet of the dead Christ is emphasized by The on the Life of Chrtist Meditations in Chapter 40 (Passion at Meditations In wrapping the Magdalen the body for burial, Complines). pleaded, issues, 42 let me wrap the feet, the place where I received his mercy". And on another feet which occasion she had moistened with tears of now much more copiously she washed with waves of tears of contrition, sorrow and compassion. She gazed and upon his feet, so wounded dried out and blood-smeared; and wept very bitterly. She could pierced, do nothing his feet else; so she did what she could. At least she washed "Please the with on the Life of Christ, trans, of Caulibus, Meditations from the Latin and ed. by F. X. Taney, A. Miller, C. Mary Stallings-Taney, aussere "Inneres Auge, Blick Asheville, 2000, p. 262, see also T. Lentes' zur Visuellen und Heilige Schau. Ein Diskussionsbeitrag Praxis in Fr?m her tears." John

um 1500, the Carthusian

Karthauser-Orden

deutschen Karthausen, 1885, p. 85. W?rzburg 56 and Augustine. See Ambrose For specific references and a discussion, see Sauser, loe. cit. 57 Translation in his entry on the "Wounds, by F. G. G. Holweck The Five Sacred", The Catholic from N. 15, p. 714, Encyclopedia, "De rat. fest. SS. Cord. Jesu et Mariae", Kalendarium manuale Nilles, I, 1896, p. 126. utriusque 58 For the Arma see the pioneering article by R. Berliner, Christi, "Arma Christi", M?nchner der bildenden Jahrbuch Kunst, VI, 1955, pp. zur Ikonographie his "Ein Beitrag also des Christusdarstel 35-116, "Arma Christi. 1961, and R. Suckale lung", Das M?nster, ?berlegun mittelalterlicher Staedel gen zur Zeichenhaftigkeit Andachtsbilder", Jahrbuch, Christian and n.s. 6, 1977, pp. 177-208, and G. Schiller, of Iconography "The Arma Christi' Art, London, 1972, trans, by J. Seligman, the Man of Sorrows", pp. 184ff.

That Mantegna to the Arma Christi in too may have been referring a fashion in his Brera canvas oblique may be indicated by the "correc tion" made in Annibale version Carracci's (Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart). are placed Here the Instruments of the Passion in the foreground. At are the nails and pincers. Far below the Crown of upper right, Annibale placed in the lower right corner. Thorns 59 Letter and the Imitation of Christ", 62, "On Patience p. 88. Devotio Basic trans, and introduced Moderna, Writings, by J. van the the head left, parallel at of Christ to the feet, the New York, 1988, p. 88. Engen, 60 Ibid., "Friday Devotion", see teenth century Limburg in Een Limburgsch reprinted E. A. Flohs Prims, Louvain, to this cult in fif p. 194. For devotions the prayers to the Wounds, directed uit de XVde eeuwe, Gebedenboek ed. by 1926, pp. 77-97. lower

und Moralidaxe des Sp?tenmittelalter", im Mittelal migkeit Fr?mmigkeit visuelle Praxis, k?rperliche Ausdrucksfor ter, politisch-soziale Kontexte, ed. K. Schreiner, 2002. men, Munich, 44 Schrade, p. 77. 45 Kristeller, p. 245. 46 J. A Crowe and G. B. Cavalcaselle, A History of Painting in North London, 1912, p. 96. Italy, ed. by T. Borenius, 47 The late dating has been maintained by the Mostra Mantegna, 1961 on the basis of the canvas' left in the artist's stu Mantua, being dio at his death. See pp. 62-63, a good color plate (viii) follows p. 208.

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COLIN

EISLER_
Elze, "Z?ge Zeitschrift sp?tmittelalterlicher f?r Theologie und in Luthers Fr?mmigkeit The 1965. Kirche, 4, Leidens des heiligen meditations. Voelkle was commissioned former Caracci Toni, by Cardinal Michelangelo of Nazareth. See Christiansen, "Devotional in Works", Archbishop Andrea Museum of Art, New York, 1992, pp. Mantegna, Metropolitan and p. 158, note 32. 150-158, 76 That the of chastity the upper clergy was the among practice out by the rather than the rule in the Quattrocento is borne exception on the monument orations and symbolic unicorn carved for funerary the Cardinal Portuguese 77 of Portugal. See F. Hartt, G. Corti, and C. Kennedy, The 1964. Chapel, Philadelphia, See D. Posner, Homo-Erotic Art Early Works", "Caravaggio's xxxiv, 1971, pp. 301-324. Quarterly, 78 Schrade, p. 77. 79 Paul Fr?art de of the Cavalier to Bernini Chantelou, Journey Princeton 1985. France, Press, University 80 Schrade an extensive of later influence discussion of provides canvas on Italian and Northern art (pp. 83-111). the Mantegna Some canvas are not con of these supposed reflections of the Renaissance on pp. 103ff. For a reveal Its role for Rembrandt is presented vincing. see B. Binstock, of Rembrandt's "I've got ing recent study painting in and the Will of Art History", you under my skin: Rembrandt, Riegl, Formalism He 2001, pp. 219-263. Framing Riegl's Work, Amsterdam, noted "Commentators mod (p. 243): frequently point to Rembrandt's us in images of the foreshortened els body of the dead Christ facing model this (masculine) how he translates first, yet they fail to notice into purely of haptic par excellence representation optical canvas see also J. Bruyn et For the sources of Rembrandt's terms". feet

61 M. Theologie", reformer's

von der Betrachtung Ein Sermon devotional Christi of 1539 followed later medieval 62 Iam to the omniscient William indebted Library for initiating this theme: Tatian's me

tion, and the Canon to the perplexed. le is an unfailing guide 63 to Jacopo of Vor?gine itwas Mary who performs According into Egypt, on the eighth the Flight the Circumcision during day of her in the desert. to Moses, also circumcised son's life, so linking Christ first The cutting of Christ's foreskin is tied to the Massacred Innocents, itwas the in their own blood. Christian baptized martyrs, Significantly to obviate rite of Baptism that was Circumcision (Luke 1, 3; 2, 21). on the Life of Christ, I. Ragusa and R. B. Green, Meditations See of the Fourteenth Paris, manuscript Century, to the Circumcision 1977, p. 42ff. Devotion Princeton, Ms.ltal.H5, at least as far as of Christ's blood the first shedding go back from of the abbess Bohemian Passional (1314-1321) Kunigunde Cited convent of St. George. by G. Schiller, Iconography Prague Christian 1972, p. 192. She refers to the knife of the Art, 2, London, in a panel as added to the traditional Arma Christi cumcision illustrated 1314-1321 64 from the Convent of Saint an BN as the the of cir of

of the Morgan in the mysteries of early Christian literature on of the Four Gospels, the Ammonian Sec Harmony As ever, Mr. Voelk Tables of Eusebius of Ces?rea.

in the Citadel, Prague. George, of Our Green, op. cit., VIII, 44. Of the Circumcision Ragusa, Luke ii., pp. 42-45. Lord Jesus Christ 65 of the Campin "On the iconography See S. Urbach, Virgin and his mother the after in an interior: The Child Jesus Child comforting illu in a European in Flanders circumcision", Manuscript Perspective: and ed. by M. Smeyers and Abroad, around 1400 in Flanders mination see C. Purtle, B. Cardon, 1995. For a different Leuven, interpretation in Interiors: A Search for Madonnas of Campin's "The iconography Common eds. in Scholarship, in Robert New Directions Ground", Campin: and S. Nash, Antwerp, S. Foister 1996, pp. 177-179. 66 Guillaume ou Manuel des divins offices, Rational III, Durande, 1854, p. 434. Paris, 67 H. P. New York, 1941, p. 82. G. Ryan, Golden Legend, Rippberger, 68 the canvas' sacrificial Schrade, aspect. p. 105, stressed 69 For the eucharistie see A. Caron, of such images, significance 1986 (8), pp. 76-86. "Le corps du Christ", LEcrit-voir 70 E. ed. by G. Barbera, 1964, p. 110. Camesasca, Mantegna, 71 nos. 3-4, Das M?nster, A. B?hler, "Die Heilige 1963, Lance", several of these There were Nuremberg. pp. 85-116. including 72 Five Sacred", vol. Catholic 15, "Wounds,The Encyclopedia, of di Stato, Mantua, Archivio p. 7; Splendours Autografi, pp. 714-715; the Gonzaga, op. cit., cat. no. 36, p. 126. 73 The reference was first signaled to the Epitaphios by Graeve, aware of the Byzantine tradition p. 231. No Western painter was more a Man this was due to the Church Whether than Mantegna. Councils, art is hard to know. Such or his own view of Christian tuan source, a cave for the as the Holy Family before features placed Byzantine in point. Epiphany painter's (Uffizi) is a case 74 Van Engen, p. 231, note 56. p. 194 and Graeve, 75 du palais Mazarin, Les Richesses S. Cosnac, Paris, 1884, pp. 413. He may 302, Pietro Aldobrandini. from Cardinal the canvas have perhaps bought See Christiansen, 1991, p. 308 and Gallo, p. 112. Bossis collection. the Brera from the Giuseppe Itentered Dramatically to have been especially of Christ seem foreshortened pop renderings was owned men of the cloth, a Sodoma of that subject ular among by the Massimo family of Rome (Gallo, note 59), and one by Ludovico

of Rembrandt The Hague, 1982, II, pp. al., A Corpus Paintings, 183-186. Chantelou, p. 252. The Dutch painter may have seen a copy now in the Jacob. M. in New York, in the Navarro collection, formerly and reproduced by Prater, Fig. 5, p. 283. This was Gallery in scurto' Art in "II 'Cristo by Mantegna", by Hans Tietze, published not seem to be from It does vol. XXIX, April 1941, pp. 51-56. America, of the various versions the artist's hand. For an extensive discussion see Camesasca, of the canvas, op. cit., cat. no. 67. pp. 110-111. 81 Like the "tableau morte" voyeuristic staged horrendously seen two peep-holes, afforded of "real elements", composed through 2 The Illuminating 1 The Waterfall, Gas Given: Marcel Duchamp's by Museum of Art Philadelphia Mantegna's image on (?tant donn?s), con canvas to be seen under may also have been highly designed Heimann trolled As seen Paul with aters circumstances toward stated Hartt suggested above, one eye (Hartt, op. through Binski and others deals with seen under images Alberti's writings for special allowing a single especially that the canvas telling was perspective. meant to be

cit., p. 392). Recent scholarship by somewhat related views, concerned

screens.

choir controlled conditions highly through teem with references to peep-show like the possibilities and their need role not

so such effects, optical excluded for the Brera canvas. be entirely 82 For a discussion and Uccello of Alberti

in dis

to Northern novel Florentine concepts Italy perspectival seminating as Performance", see C. Eisler, Chapter Perspective "City as Stage of Jacopo Bellini, New York, 1988, pp. 443-448. VIII, The Genius 83 Ties will be the subject of and Fontana between Mantegna a forthcoming study by this writer. 84 H. "Amissing Prosthetic Foster, 8, pp. 303-339, part", Chapter 2004, Gods, p. 328. Cambridge-London, 85 is seemingly taken from Foster, p. 328. The Lacan quotation of Psycho-Analy that philosopher's The Four Fundamental Concepts sis, a seminar given note 29 is to Lacan's on p. 328. in February, p. 77. See 1964. also The reference p. 439, Foster in Foster's given text for his note 29,

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