Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T19:22:49.412Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Exorcising the Borgia from Urbino: Timoteo Viti’s Arrivabene Chapel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Robert G. La France*
Affiliation:
David Owsley Museum of Art, Ball State University

Abstract

Bishop of Urbino Giovanni Pietro Arrivabene selected the foreign saints Thomas Becket and Martin of Tours as patrons for his burial chapel. Montefeltro court artist Timoteo Viti decorated the chapel with the saints’ images, including a fresco of Saint Martin exorcising a demon from a cow. This article argues that the chapel’s unusual, allegorical iconographic program condemns Cesare Borgia’s campaigns to dominate Central Italy. It also proposes that the kneeling figure in the altarpiece’s lower right register portrays the bishop’s heir. Finally, the accomplishment of the Arrivabene chapel demonstrates Timoteo Viti’s artistic independence from his famous colleague and collaborator, Raphael.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 2015

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.)

References

Bacou, Roseline. Autour de Raphael: Dessins et peintures du Musée du Louvre. Paris, 1983.Google Scholar
Baldi, Bernardino. Della vita e de’ fatti di Guidobaldo I. da Montefeltro, duca d’Urbino. 2 vols. Milan, 1821.Google Scholar
Bambach, Carmen C. Drawing and Painting in the Italian Renaissance Workshop: Theory and Practice, 1300–1600. Cambridge, 1999.Google Scholar
Basini, Teresa. “Achillini, Giovanni Filoteo.” In Dizionario biografico degli italiani. 1:148–49. Rome, 1960.Google Scholar
Beck, Egerton. “The Ecclesiastical Hat in Heraldry and Ornament before the Beginning of the 17th Century.” Burlington Magazine 22.120 (1913): 338–44.Google Scholar
Bemis, Elizabeth. “The Sword of Cesar Borgia: A Redating with an Examination of His Personal Iconography.” MA thesis, University of Florida, 2007.Google Scholar
Bertelli, Sergio, ed. Opere di Niccolò Machiavelli. 11 vols. Milan, 1968–82.Google Scholar
Borenius, Tancred. Saint Thomas Becket in Art. London, 1932.Google Scholar
I Borgia. Ed. Alfano, Carla and Llombart, Felipe Vicente Garin. Milan, 2002.Google Scholar
Borgia, Luigi. “L’araldica dei Borgia dalle origini ai primi anni del cinquecento.” In I Borgia (2002), 201–13.Google Scholar
Borgia, Luigi. “L’araldica di Cesare Borgia.” In Cesare Borgia di Francia (2005), 369406.Google Scholar
Bradford, Sarah. Cesare Borgia: His Life and Times. New York, 1976.Google Scholar
Cesare Borgia di Francia, gonfaloniere di Santa Romana Chiesa 1498–1503: Conquiste effimere e progettualità statale. Ed. Marinella Bonvini Mazzanti and Monica Miretti. Ostra Vetere, 2005.Google Scholar
Chambers, David S.Giovanni Pietro Arrivabene (1439–1504): Humanistic Secretary and Bishop.” Aevum: Rassegna di scienze storiche, linguistiche, filologiche 8.3 (1984): 397438.Google Scholar
Chambers, David S. A Renaissance Cardinal and His Worldly Goods: The Will and Inventory of Francesco Gonzaga (1444–1483). London, 1992.Google Scholar
Christiansen, Keith. “Pietro di Spagna, Federigo da Montefeltro and His Son Guidobaldo .” In The Renaissance Portrait from Donatello to Bellini. ed. Keith Christiansen and Stefan Weppelman, 287–90. New Haven, 2011.Google Scholar
Cleri, Bonita. “Timoteo Viti tra Cesare Borgia e Guidubaldo da Montefeltro.” In Cesare Borgia di Francia (2005), 407–26.Google Scholar
Cleri, Bonita. “Timoteo Viti.” In Raffaello e Urbino (2009), 7477.Google Scholar
Clough, Cecil H. “V. The Chronicle, 1502–12, of Girolamo Vanni of Urbino.” In The Duchy of Urbino (1981a), 335–53.Google Scholar
Clough, Cecil H. “XIV. Baldassare Castiglione’s Ad Henricum Angliae regem epistola de vita et gestis Guidubaldi Urbini ducis.” In The Duchy of Urbino (1981b), 227–52.Google Scholar
Clough, Cecil H. “XI. The Relations between the English and Urbino Courts, 1474–1508.” In The Duchy of Urbino (1981c), 202–18.10.2307/2857168CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clough, Cecil H. “IV. Sources for the History of the Court and City of Urbino in the Early Sixteenth Century.” In The Duchy of Urbino (1981d), 6779.10.1484/J.MSS.3.323CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clough, Cecil H.La successione dei Della Rovere nel ducato di Urbino.” In I Della Rovere nell’Italia delle corti. ed. Bonita Cleri, Sabine Eiche, John E. Law, and Feliciano Paoli, 1:3562. Urbino, 2002.Google Scholar
Clough, Cecil H., and Conti, Antonio. “Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, duca di Urbino: Fu mai gonfaloniere di Santa Romana Ecclesia?Studi montefeltrani 27 (2006): 115–36.Google Scholar
Curran, Brian A. The Egyptian Renaissance: The Afterlife of Ancient Egypt in Early Modern Italy. Chicago, 2007.Google Scholar
Dempsey, Charles. “Malvasia and the Problem of the Early Raphael and Bologna.” Raphael before Rome: Studies in the History of Art 17 (1985): 5770.Google Scholar
Dennistoun, James. Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino, Illustrating the Arms, Arts and Literature of Italy, 1440–1630. 3 vols. London, 1851.Google Scholar
Diotallevi, Daniele. “Arte e armi per Cesare.” In Cesare Borgia di Francia (2005), 427–45.Google Scholar
The Duchy of Urbino in the Renaissance. Ed. Clough, Cecil H.. London, 1981.Google Scholar
Duggan, Anne J. “IX. The Cult of St. Thomas Becket in the Thirteenth Century.” In Thomas Becket (2007a), 2144.Google Scholar
Duggan, Anne J. “VII. Diplomacy, Status, and Conscience: Henry II’s Penance for Becket’s Murder.” In Thomas Becket (2007b), 265–90.Google Scholar
Duggan, Anne J. “VIII. Ne in Dubium. The Official Record of Henry II’s Reconciliation at Avranches, 21 May 1172.” In Thomas Becket (2007c), 643–58.10.1093/ehr/115.462.643CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fadda, Elisabetta. “Amico Aspertini, Ritratto di Alessandro Achillini.” In Santi poeti navigatori (2009), 5658.Google Scholar
Faietti, Marzia. “Aspertini e i due fratelli Achillini.” In Santi poeti navigatori (2009), 4247.Google Scholar
Faietti, Marzia, and Daniela Scaglietti Kelescian. Amico Aspertini. Modena, 1995.Google Scholar
Falcioni, Anna. “Documenti urbinati.” In Timoteo Viti (2008), 572.Google Scholar
Ferino Pagden, Sylvia. “Timoteo Vitis Zeichnungen zum verlorenen Martinszyklus in der Kapelle des Erzbishofs Arrivabene im Dom von Urbino.” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 23 (1979): 127–44.Google Scholar
Ferino Pagden, Sylvia. Disegni umbri del rinascimento da Perugino a Raffaello. Florence, 1982.Google Scholar
Ferriani, Daniela. “Il Viti fu ritrattista? Un indagine sul tema.” In Timoteo Viti (2008), 151–66.Google Scholar
Ferriani, Daniela. “Timoteo Viti, I Santi Tommaso Beckett e Martino con ll vescovo Giovan Pietro Arrivabene e il duca Guidubaldo.” In Raffaello e Urbino (2009), 140–41.Google Scholar
Forlani Tempesti, Anna. “Viti disegnatore.” In Timoteo Viti (2008), 167–98.Google Scholar
Gaeta, Franco, ed. Niccolò Machiavelli, Lettere. 7 vols. Milan, 1960–64.Google Scholar
Galbreath, Donald Lindsay, and Geoffrey Briggs. Papal Heraldry. 2nd ed. London, 1972.Google Scholar
Giovio, Paolo. Elogi degli uomini illustri. Trans. Andrea Guasparri and Franco Minonzio. Turin, 2006.Google Scholar
Grendler, Paul F. The Universities of the Renaissance. Baltimore, 2002.Google Scholar
Henry, Tom. The Life and Art of Luca Signorelli. London, 2012.Google Scholar
Henry, Tom, and Carol Plazzotta. “Raphael: From Urbino to Rome.” In Raphael: From Urbino to Rome. ed. Hugo Chapman, Tom Henry, and Carol Plazzotta, 1565. London, 2004.Google Scholar
Hillgarth, J. N.The Image of Alexander VI and Cesare Borgia in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 59 (1996): 119–29.10.2307/751400CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hirst, Michael. “The Chigi Chapel in S. Maria Della Pace.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 24 (1961): 161–85.10.2307/750794CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hollingsworth, Mary. “Art Patronage in Renaissance Urbino, Pesaro, and Rimini.” In The Court Cities of Northern Italy: Milan, Parma, Piacenza, Mantua, Ferrara, Bologna, Urbino, Pesaro, and Rimini. ed. Charles M. Rosenberg, 325–66. Cambridge, 2010.Google Scholar
Jones, Roger, and Nicholas Penny. Raphael. New Haven, 1983.Google Scholar
Kanter, Lawrence, and Tom Henry. Luca Signorelli: The Complete Paintings. New York, 2002.Google Scholar
La France, Robert G.Timoteo Viti and Raphael.” In Late Raphael: Proceedings of the International Symposium. Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, October 2012. ed. Miguel Falomir, 126–35. Madrid, 2013.Google Scholar
Lazzari, Andrea. Memorie di Timoteo Viti di Urbino. Urbino, 1800.Google Scholar
Ligi, Bramante. I vescovi e arcivescovi di Urbino: Notizie storiche. 2 vols. Urbino, 1953.Google Scholar
Ligi, Bramante. I santi protettori di Urbino. San Crescentino, soldato martire, Beato Mainardo, vescovo di Urbino, Maria Assunta in Cielo, San Pietro Celestino Papa, comprotettore. Urbania, 1968.Google Scholar
Luzio, Alessandro, and Rudolf Renier. Mantova e Urbino: Isabella d’Este ed Elisabetta Gonzaga nelle relazioni famigliari e nelle vicende politiche. Turin, 1893.Google Scholar
Madiai, Federico. “Commentari dello stato di Urbino.” Archivio Storico per le Marche e per l’Umbria 3 (1886): 419–64.Google Scholar
Malke, Lutz S., ed. Italienische Zeichnungen des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts. Frankfurt am Main, 1980.Google Scholar
Mallett, Michael. The Borgias: The Rise and Fall of a Renaissance Dynasty. Chicago, 1987.Google Scholar
Marani, Ercolano, and Perina, Chiara. Le arti. Vol. 2 of 3 vols. of Mantova: La storia, le lettere, le arti. 3 parts in 9 vols. Mantua, 1961.Google Scholar
McCarthy, Michael Francis, and Alan Fennely. Heraldica Collegii Cardinalium: A Roll of Arms of the College of Cardinals. 2 vols. Darlinghurst, 2002.Google Scholar
McGrath, Thomas. “Federico Barocci and the History of Pastelli in Central Italy.” Apollo 148 (November 1998): 39.Google Scholar
Miretti, Monica. “Il ‘bellissimo inganno’: La strage di Senigallia.” In Cesare Borgia di Francia (2005), 353–67.Google Scholar
Montesano, Marina. “Il toro dei Borgia: Analisi di un simbolo fra tradizione araldica e suggestioni pagane.” In Roma di fronte all’Europa al tempo di Alessandro VI. ed. Maria Chiabò, Silvia Maddalo, Massimo Miglio, and Anna Maria Oliva, 759–79. Rome, 2001.Google Scholar
Montevecchi, Benedetta. “Raphael, Ritratto di Guidubaldo da Montefeltro.” In Raffaello e Urbino (2009), 182–83.Google Scholar
Moroni, Giovanni. Timoteo Viti nell’ambiente artistico urbinate tra quattrocento e cinquecento. Urbino, 2007.Google Scholar
Nardi, Bruno. “Achillini, Alessandro.” In Dizionario biografico degli italiani. 1:144–45. Rome, 1960.Google Scholar
Negroni, Franco. Il Duomo di Urbino. Urbino, 1993.Google Scholar
Negroni, Franco, and Cucco, Giuseppe. Urbino: Museo Albani. Bologna, 1984.Google Scholar
Pasini-Frassoni, Ferruccio. I cappelli prelatizzi. Rome, 1908.Google Scholar
Petrioli Tofani, Anna Maria. “Per Girolamo Genga.” Paragone 229 (1969a): 1836.Google Scholar
Petrioli Tofani, Anna Maria. “Per Girolamo Genga II.” Paragone 231 (1969b): 3956.Google Scholar
Pungileoni, Luigi. Elogio storico di Timoteo Viti da Urbino. Urbino, 1835.Google Scholar
Raffaello e Urbino: La formazione giovanile e i rapporti con la città natale. Ed. Lorenza Mochi Onori. Milan, 2009.Google Scholar
Rebecchini, Guido. Private Collectors in Mantua, 1500–1630. Rome, 2002.Google Scholar
Rebecchini, Guido. “Portraits by Objects: Three Studioli in Sixteenth-Century Mantua.” In Mantova e il rinascimento italiano: Studi in onore di David S. Chambers. ed. Guido Rebecchini and Philippa Jackson, 7794. Mantua, 2011.Google Scholar
Reiss, Sheryl. “A Taxonomy of Art Patronage in Renaissance Italy.” In A Companion to Renaissance and Baroque Art. ed. Babette Bohn and James Saslow, 2143. New York, 2013.10.1002/9781118391488.ch1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reposati, Rinaldo. Della zecca di Gubbio e delle geste de’ conti e duchi di Urbino. 2 vols. Bologna, 1772–73.Google Scholar
Santi poeti navigatori . . . : Capolavori dai depositi degli Uffizi. Ed. Francesca De Luca. Florence, 2009.Google Scholar
Simonetta, Marcello. “Guidovbaldus dvx vrbini: Ritratto del principe da giovane.” Humanistica: An International Journal of Early Renaissance Studies 4 (2009): 118.Google Scholar
Stefani, Luigi, ed. Nicola Grasso, Eutichia. Florence, 1978.Google Scholar
Stornajolo, Cosimo. I ritratti e le gesta dei duchi d’Urbino nelle miniature dei codici vaticano-urbinati. Rome, 1913.Google Scholar
Severus, Sulpitius. “The Dialogues of Sulpitius Severus.” Trans. Roberts, Alexander. Vol. 11 of A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, ed. Schaff, Philip and Wace, Henry, 2454. 14 vols. New York, 18901900.Google Scholar
Timoteo Viti: Atti del convegno. Urbino, Palazzo Albani, Istituto di Storia dell’Arte 25–26 ottobre 2007. Ed. Cleri, Bonita. Sant’Angelo in Vado, 2008.Google Scholar
Thomas Becket: Friends, Networks, Texts and Cult. Aldershot, 2007.Google Scholar
Ugolini, Filippo. Storia dei conti e duchi di Urbino. 2 vols. Florence, 1859.Google Scholar
Varazze [Voragine], Iacopo da. Legenda aurea. Ed. Maggioni, Giovanni Paolo. 2 vols. Florence, 1998.Google Scholar
Vasari, Giorgio. Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori scultori e architettori nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568. Ed. Bettarini, Rosanna and Barocchi, Paola. 6 vols. Florence, 1966–87.Google Scholar
Vickers, Michael. “Saints Martin of Tours and Thomas of Canterbury in Urbino.” In Pagans and Christians — from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, Papers in Honour of Martin Henig, Presented on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday. ed. Martin Henig and Lauren Adams Gilmour, 309–12. Oxford, 2011.Google Scholar
Von Pastor, Ludwig. The History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages. 40 vols. St. Louis, 18941951.Google Scholar
Von Ranke, Leopold. History of the Popes, Their Church and State and Especially of Their Conflicts with Protestantism in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Trans. Foster, E.. 3 vols. London, 1847–48.Google Scholar
Voragine, Jacobus de. The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints. Trans. Ryan, William Granger. 2 vols. Princeton, 1993.Google Scholar
Yorke, James. “Fodero della spada di Cesare Borgia.” In I Borgia (2002), 193.Google Scholar