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Between Iconoclasm and Conformity: Paolo Veronese’s Allegory of the Battle of Lepanto (1572)
Rojas, Daniel
Rojas, Daniel
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Abstract
The Ecumenical Council of Trent was the nineteenth ecumenical council that was encouraged by Emperor Charles V of Spain and convoked by the Roman Catholic Church under the papacy of Pope Paul III in the city of Trent, as the official response to the Protestant Reformation. This council ultimately would have the goal to re-define Catholic dogmas and with the implementation of several edicts that would be discussed in several of the sessions, it would focus on re-defining the Catholic church amidst the Protestant Reformation. One of the main edicts that the council would issue in one of the last sessions would be the complete abolishment of the iconoclastic controversy. Sponsored personally by Queen Catherine de’ Medici of France and other notable Catholic monarchs, this edict specified how the images of the saints, the holy family and the Virgin Mary should be venerated in the church secular setting. This thesis addresses the edict’s profound impact on artistic production in the Republic of Venice during the late sixteenth century and takes as its focus Paolo Veronese’s 1572 Allegory of the Battle of Lepanto. Veronese was one of the many painters forced to reckon with the strict specifications of this edict, the guidelines of which encouraged artists to portray religious iconographies in a more “pious” way, that is, in a way that would increase the religious piety of the devotee. His 1572 Allegory is marked by a change in iconographical style, which previous scholarship has suggested might be explained by none other than the reformative decrees of the last session of the Council of Trent. Through a contextual methodology, this thesis explores how Veronese adheres to the decrees in his 1572 Allegory. Using Veronese’s 1572 Allegory as a guide, it shall be firstly analyzed how the Virgin Mary in the heavenly realm is given visual priority to convey that this commission follows closely with the decrees of Trent; Veronese inputs secondary and tertiary elements such as the gathering of the saints and the naval battle at Lepanto as least important elements for the viewer to focus and meditate on. This will be the same case for a 1582 commission of the same subject matter, where it will also be contextually analyzed how the figure of Christ the Redeemer is the main focal point and further, how the least important 2 elements such as the two commanders and the naval battle are the secondary and tertiary visual elements for the viewer’s focus.
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Thesis (B.A. in Art History)--John Cabot University, Fall 2023.
Date
2023
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Allegory of the Battle of Lepanto (Veronese)
Citation
Rojas, Daniel. "Between Iconoclasm and Conformity: Paolo Veronese’s Allegory of the Battle of Lepanto (1572)". BA Thesis, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy. 2023.