Mass of St. Gregory

The Mass of St. Gregory created by Marcantonio Raimondi in Rome some time after 1511 is one of his least studied burins: a list of its repositories does not exist, and it is mostly mentioned in relation to its author’s plagiarism of Albrecht Dürer’s woodcuts. And yet, the imagery displayed in this engraving is infrequent in the Italian printed production of the fifteenth and sixteenth century, and therefore a quite unusual choice for a single-sheet print.
After a short introduction that focuses on previous literature and on Raimondi's Mass of St. Gregory’s states, this essay addresses why Rome in the second decade of the sixteenth century was the perfect stage for the apparition of this engraving. Other Roman reprises after Dürer’s woodcut, most likely mediated by Marcantonio’s copy, and the circulation of this image until the late sixteenth century are then discussed.

The book discusses the development of the legend of the so-called Mass of St. Gregory, or the apparition of Christ as the Man of Sorrows to Pope Gregory the Great during a Mass. The role of the Roman Basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme and its icon is throughly studied, as well as other early sources on the event. One section is devoted to the prayer associated to the event, the O Domine Jesu Christe adoro te in cruce pendentem, and its evolution.

In the late Trecento, after a long period of disregard, the Roman basilica of Santa Croce in Gersualemme attracted the attention of Napoleone Orsini, count of Manoppello, and Nicola Orsini, count of Nola, who financed the creation of a Carthusian monastery. This article will focus on the Orsini's patronage, its motivations and long-term results. The project of building a certosa in Rome was part of a series of charterhouses that were patronized by members of the Angevin court of Naples -  as both Napoleone and Nicola were. After outlining the documentary evidence for the building enterprise up to circa 1400, are considered, particularly the so-called triptych of Saint Gregory, which, thanks to a new interpretation of the arms on the frame of its central Man of Sorrows icon, can now be established to have been donated by Nicola Orsini. The issue of why these object were chosen to be presented to Santa Croce and how they impacted on the liturgical life of the basilica in the following centuries is addressed.

Book project, to be completed in 2024.
Related publications:
> Gallori, Corinna T.  Alle origini di una leggenda: la Messa di san Gregorio Magno tra testi e immagini. Milan: Scalpendi, 2021.
> Gallori, Corinna T. "A Mass of St. Gregory from Santa Maria Assunta in Fiera and Italian Indulgence Prints." Print Quarterly, XXXVII/3 (2020), pp. 243-253
> Gallori, Corinna T. “La Pietà di Bramantino, Santa Croce in Gerusalemme e la Messa di san Gregorio Magno." In Bramantino e le arti nella Lombardia francese (1499-1525), ed. by Mauro Natale, pp. 131-150. Milan: Skira editore, 2017.
> Gallori, Corinna T. "The Late Trecento in Santa Croce in Gerusalemme: Napoleone and Nicola Orsini, the Carthusians, and the 'Triptych of St. Gregory'." In: Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 58, 2 (2016), pp. 156-187.
> Gallori, Corinna T. “Sull’iconografia della Messa di san Gregorio di Girolamo Romanino.” Arte Cristiana, 199, 864 (2011), pp. 211-222.
> Gallori, Corinna T. “Il monogramma dei Nomi di Gesù e Maria in Sant’Andrea ad Asola.” In La memoria della fede: studi storici offerti a Sua Santità Benedetto XVI nel centenario della rivista "Brixia sacra", eds. Gabriele Archetti and Giovanni Donni, vol. 1: 365-417. (= monographic issue of Brixia Sacra, 14, 1-2 [2009]).