Steven Ostrow
University of Minnesota, Art History, Emeritus
From almost the beginning of his pontificate, the Quirinal Palace was a major focus of the patronage of Paul V Borghese (r. 1605-1621), who wished to make it the equal to the Vatican Palace. Key to this effort was the construction of the... more
From almost the beginning of his pontificate, the Quirinal Palace was a major focus of the patronage of Paul V Borghese (r. 1605-1621), who wished to make it the equal to the Vatican Palace. Key to this effort was the construction of the Sala Regia and Cappella Paolina, in which could be staged all the ceremonial and liturgical functions formerly served only by the Vatican. While considerable scholarly attention has been paid to the Sala Regia, especially to the frescoes that adorn its walls, the Pauline Chapel, both as planned and as executed under Paul V, to a large extent has been ignored. This essay addresses this lacuna, interpreting the chapel's program of decoration-both in relation to the contiguous Sala Regia and, more broadly, with regard to the most pressing religious and political concerns of the Borghese pope's papacyas a carefully formulated proclamation of papal authority and the Church's role in defeating heresy.
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Collecting Copies of 'the most charming fountain in Rome': Taddeo Landini's Fontana delle Tartarughe Although the taste for garden fountains goes back to antiquity, a particular enthusiasm for them re-emerged in the mid-to-late nineteenth... more
Collecting Copies of 'the most charming fountain in Rome': Taddeo Landini's Fontana delle Tartarughe Although the taste for garden fountains goes back to antiquity, a particular enthusiasm for them re-emerged in the mid-to-late nineteenth century, especially in England and the United States, and the words quoted above, written in 1900 by the British garden designer and landscape architect Thomas H. Mawson, speak directly to this vogue. 1 Indeed, books and magazines of the period devoted to gardens are replete with calls for fountains to adorn gardens of any kind, from the smallest and most intimate planted lot to the grandest of landscaped estates. As the American horticulturalist and author, Phebe Westcott Humphreys, wrote: 'We are gradually awakening to the charm and the possibilities of the "poetic spray" in our garden pools. It is true that many landscape architects insist that fountain statuary is fitting only in formal gardens and parks. But all agree that the sparkling fountain spray […] is appropriate and desirable for every form of garden'. 2 The combination of water-what J. B. Waring called 'the very life and soul of pleasure-grounds' 3-and sculpted and architectural forms distinguishes fountains from all other types of what was then often referred to as garden furniture and accounts for their unique allure, as Steuart Erskine noted in an article in House and Garden of 1904. 'Fountains have', he wrote, 'from time immemorial, exercised a particular fascination over the mind of man. The combination of the artist's skill with the resources of Nature, the mingling of stone and marble with the ever-changing, sparkling, dripping, tumbling
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Research Interests:
Pietro Tacca's wonderfully bizarre Fontane dei Mostri Marini (Fountains of the Sea Monsters) in Florence's Piazza SS. Annunziata – designed and cast in bronze in the third decade of the seventeenth century – were widely praised in... more
Pietro Tacca's wonderfully bizarre Fontane dei Mostri Marini (Fountains of the Sea Monsters) in Florence's Piazza SS. Annunziata – designed and cast in bronze in the third decade of the seventeenth century – were widely praised in English-language guidebooks, travel literature, and scholarly texts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They also attracted the attention of collectors, and between 1902 and 1920 four exceptionally affluent patrons – in Rome, Washington, dc, Minneapolis, and London – purchased copies of one of the fountains, three of them installing them in the grounds of their respective stately homes. This article examines the history of these copies – their patrons, their installation, and their manufacture – tracing the afterlife of Tacca's original fountain and illuminating a little-studied aspect of the history of collecting in Italy, the United States, and England at the beginning of the twentieth century.
In "Isaac Laughing : Caravaggio, Non-traditional Imagery, and Traditional Identification," co-written with the Baroque scholar Steven Ostrow, I have stepped outside of the Middle Ages to collaborate on a complex reinterpretation one of... more
In "Isaac Laughing : Caravaggio, Non-traditional Imagery, and Traditional Identification," co-written with the Baroque scholar Steven Ostrow, I have stepped outside of the Middle Ages to collaborate on a complex reinterpretation one of the most enigmatic paintings of the great early-seventeenth century Italian painter, Caravaggio, now in the Capitoline Museum in Rome. Rather than accept traditional interpretations of this enigmatic painting as John the Baptist or some idyllic shepherd, we argue that this very unusual image depicts the Sacrifice of Isaac, with Isaac joyfully embracing his savior in the form of the ram that God sent to be offered in his place, rising up from the altar on which he was to be sacrificed by his father, Abraham, whose place is taken by the viewer in one of the most creative object-viewer dynamics of the early modern period.
Largely as the direct result of "Isaac Laughing," the title The Sacrifice of Isaac is now given alongside the traditional title (John the Baptist) in the Capitoline. My contribution to this study consists of the original observation of the subject-matter of the painting, the exegetical and visual arguments (pp. 653-670), and the recognition of the painting's psychological dynamic (the main conclusion).
Largely as the direct result of "Isaac Laughing," the title The Sacrifice of Isaac is now given alongside the traditional title (John the Baptist) in the Capitoline. My contribution to this study consists of the original observation of the subject-matter of the painting, the exegetical and visual arguments (pp. 653-670), and the recognition of the painting's psychological dynamic (the main conclusion).
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Just out with Officina Libraria! Chapels of the Cinquecento and Seicento in the Churches of Rome, edited by Chiara Franceschini, Steven F. Ostrow, and Patrizia Tosini, Milano: Officina Libraria, 2020 Nine studies of early modern private... more
Just out with Officina Libraria!
Chapels of the Cinquecento and Seicento in the Churches of Rome, edited by Chiara Franceschini, Steven F. Ostrow, and Patrizia Tosini, Milano: Officina Libraria, 2020
Nine studies of early modern private chapels as multimedia “laboratories” for social and devotional display and for artistic invention and innovation in 16th- and 17th-century Rome.
Roman church interiors throughout the Early Modern age were endowed with rich historical and visual significance. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in anticipation of and following the Council of Trent, and in response to the expansion of the Roman Curia, the chapel became a singular arena in which wealthy and powerful Roman families, as well as middle-class citizens, had the opportunity to demonstrate their status and role in Roman society. In most cases the chapels were conceived not as isolated spaces, but as part of a more complex system, which involved the nave and the other chapels within the church, in a dialogue among the arts and the patrons of those other spaces. This volume explores this historical and artistic phenomenon through nine examples involving the patronage of prominent Roman families such as the Frangipane, Spadas, Caetanis, Cybos and important artists and architects such as Federico Zuccari, Annibale Carracci, Giacomo della Porta, Francesco da Volterra, Carlo Maderno, Alessandro Algardi, Carlo Maratta.
Table of Contents:
Chapels: An Introduction
Chiara Franceschini, Steven F. Ostrow, and Patrizia Tosini
Map of the Churches
The Frangipani Chapel in San Marcello: Farnesian Devotion, Antiquarian Taste, and Municipal Pride
Patrizia Tosini
Between all’Antica and Acheiropoieton: The Cappella Gregoriana in the Ekphrases
of Lorenzo Frizolio (1582) and Ascanio Valentino (1583)
Fabio Barry
Caetani’s Blood: Magnificence, Lineage, and Martyrdom in the Family Chapel of Santa Pudenziana
Enrico Parlato
“A Gem Set in Most Resplendent Gold”: Girolamo Rusticucci’s Confessio Chapel in Santa Susanna
Steven F. Ostrow
A Splendid Shrine for an Ugly Image: Visual Interactions in the Salviati Chapel at San Gregorio al Celio
Chiara Franceschini
Carving Out Identity: The Boncompagni Family, Alessandro Algardi, and the Chapel in the Sacristy of Santa Maria in Vallicella
Guendalina Serafinelli
The Angelic Balustrade of the Spada Chapel in San Girolamo della Carità
Louise Rice
The Arm Relic as Index of the Body: The Chapel of Francis Xavier in the Gesù
Alison C. Fleming and Stephanie C. Leone
A Chapel in Dialogue: The Cybo Chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo
Fabrizio Federici
List of abbreviations
Bibliography
Contributors
Index of Names
Index of Places
Photo Credits
Chapels of the Cinquecento and Seicento in the Churches of Rome, edited by Chiara Franceschini, Steven F. Ostrow, and Patrizia Tosini, Milano: Officina Libraria, 2020
Nine studies of early modern private chapels as multimedia “laboratories” for social and devotional display and for artistic invention and innovation in 16th- and 17th-century Rome.
Roman church interiors throughout the Early Modern age were endowed with rich historical and visual significance. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in anticipation of and following the Council of Trent, and in response to the expansion of the Roman Curia, the chapel became a singular arena in which wealthy and powerful Roman families, as well as middle-class citizens, had the opportunity to demonstrate their status and role in Roman society. In most cases the chapels were conceived not as isolated spaces, but as part of a more complex system, which involved the nave and the other chapels within the church, in a dialogue among the arts and the patrons of those other spaces. This volume explores this historical and artistic phenomenon through nine examples involving the patronage of prominent Roman families such as the Frangipane, Spadas, Caetanis, Cybos and important artists and architects such as Federico Zuccari, Annibale Carracci, Giacomo della Porta, Francesco da Volterra, Carlo Maderno, Alessandro Algardi, Carlo Maratta.
Table of Contents:
Chapels: An Introduction
Chiara Franceschini, Steven F. Ostrow, and Patrizia Tosini
Map of the Churches
The Frangipani Chapel in San Marcello: Farnesian Devotion, Antiquarian Taste, and Municipal Pride
Patrizia Tosini
Between all’Antica and Acheiropoieton: The Cappella Gregoriana in the Ekphrases
of Lorenzo Frizolio (1582) and Ascanio Valentino (1583)
Fabio Barry
Caetani’s Blood: Magnificence, Lineage, and Martyrdom in the Family Chapel of Santa Pudenziana
Enrico Parlato
“A Gem Set in Most Resplendent Gold”: Girolamo Rusticucci’s Confessio Chapel in Santa Susanna
Steven F. Ostrow
A Splendid Shrine for an Ugly Image: Visual Interactions in the Salviati Chapel at San Gregorio al Celio
Chiara Franceschini
Carving Out Identity: The Boncompagni Family, Alessandro Algardi, and the Chapel in the Sacristy of Santa Maria in Vallicella
Guendalina Serafinelli
The Angelic Balustrade of the Spada Chapel in San Girolamo della Carità
Louise Rice
The Arm Relic as Index of the Body: The Chapel of Francis Xavier in the Gesù
Alison C. Fleming and Stephanie C. Leone
A Chapel in Dialogue: The Cybo Chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo
Fabrizio Federici
List of abbreviations
Bibliography
Contributors
Index of Names
Index of Places
Photo Credits
Research Interests:
Introduction to "Chapels of the Cinquecento and Seicento in the Churches of Rome form function meaning", Milano: Officina Libraria, 2020
Research Interests:
This essay examines the history and decoration of the Salviati Chapel at San Gregorio al Celio in Rome as the repository of an image of the Virgin and in relation to two other chapels created by the same patron (Antonio Maria Salviati) in... more
This essay examines the history and decoration of the Salviati Chapel at San Gregorio al Celio in Rome as the repository of an image of the Virgin and in relation to two other chapels created by the same patron (Antonio Maria Salviati) in the church of San Giacomo in Augusta. In considering this dialogue among the chapels, I analyze the rationale behind the project at San Gregorio and its purpose to valorize antique images, reconstructing the particular design and function in the space of the now lost altarpiece with St. Gregory by Annibale Carracci. I also discuss more broadly th theme of the artistic experimentation and confrontation between "old" and "ruined" 'images' and "new" and "beautiful" 'works of art', that took place in Rome at the turn of the seventeenth century.