Category Archives: Catherine de’ Medici

Clementines

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Giorgio Vasari applied more than one identity – usually two or four – to most of the figures in his fresco depicting the Marriage of Henry, Duke of Orleans, and Catherine de’ Medici.

The marriage between Henry, Duke of Orleans and Catherine Medici, Giorgio Vasari, Palazzo Vecchio

In previous posts I revealed four identities to the moustached man placed at the shoulder of Pope Clement VII:
Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan
Giovanni Andrea Lampugnani, assassin of Galeazzo Maria Sforza
Alessandro de Medici, Duke of Florence
Gaston de Foix, Duke of Nemours, nicknamed The Thunderbolt of Italy

The central figure in the fresco, Pope Clement VII, bishop of Rome, is one of four identities. Not surprisingly two of them relate to previous popes: Clement I, and the anti-pope Clement VII (Robert of Geneva). The fourth identity connects to the two Roman mythology figures portrayed in the corner of the frame, Saturn and Ops. They parented five children, Jupiter being one of them, and it is Jupiter, representing the god of sky and thunder, who Vasari has embedded as the fourth identity.

Jupiter, the god of sky and thunder and protector of laws and the state

Two symbols associated with Jupiter are an eagle and a lightening bolt. The latter connects to the identity of the head on Jupiter’s shoulder, Gaston de Foix, the Thunderbolt of Italy. As for the eagle, noted for its large hooked beak, we can recognise this feature in another identity given to the head on Jupiter’s shoulder, Galeazzo Maria Sforza. 

The head of Jupiter can also be visualised as the head of a raptor, perhaps a bearded vulture, the red cape spread out like wings, and hands represented as claws digging into the arms of Henry and Catherine – or even the head of the bearded Jupiter as depicted in ancient statues of the chief deity of the Roman State religion.

Primavera by Sandro Botticelli, Uffizi, Florence

This figure represented as both a god of the sky and Pope Clement VII connects to the central figure in Botticelli’s Primavera representing the Assumption of the Virgin Mary into Heaven and to a lost fresco in the Sistine Chapel. The Chapel was dedicated to the Assumption of Mary by Pope Sixtus IV on her feast day of that name, August 15, 1483.

A drawing made by Pinturicchio, one of Perugini’s assistants, of the lost Assumption of the Virgin, the fresco covered by Michelangelo’s Last Judgment fresco.

Covering the whole wall behind the altar in the Sistine Chapel is a fresco illustrating the Last Judgement, painted by Michelangelo between 1535 and 1541. However, the wall was originally frescoed by Pietro Perugino in the early 1480s depicting the Assumption of the Virgin. 

The Last Judgement by Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel

It was Pope Clement VII who commissioned Michelangelo to overpaint or cover up Perugino’s Assumption fresco with the Last Judgment painting shortly before his death in September 1534, less than a year after attending the wedding of Catherine de’ Medici and Henry of Orleans at Marseille in France.

A 14th-century miniature symbolising the schism.
Grandes Chroniques de France, BnF, department of Manuscripts

The French connection introduces the anti-pope Clement VII (Robert of Geneva) who was elected pope in September 1378 by cardinals who opposed the return of the papacy from Avignon to Rome. His reign as anti-pope lasted until his death in September 1394, but what became known as the Papal Schism within the Catholic Church lasted until 1417. Robert of Geneva’s claim as pope was never recognised by the Church of Rome, hence Giulio de Medici taking the name Clement and listed as the legitimate Pope Clement VII. The irony is that Giulio himself was born illegitimate, the son of Fioretta Gorini. Illegitimacy is one of the themes iulioembedded in the Vasari fresco.

Giulio’s birth was legitimised with a papal dispensation issued by Pope Leo X in 1513 when it was declared that his parents, Giuliano de’ Medici and Fioretta had been “wed according to those present”. However, the declaration was made 35 years after Giulio was born and the witnesses were said to be two monks and a relation of Fioretta Gorini. Seemingly Fioretta had died by then and was not able to verify the witnesses evidence. So were the claims of the three witnesses legitimate? 

Close inspection of Pope Clement VII’s red bonnet, shows it partially covering another. This reflects the suppression of Robert of Geneva’s false claim to the papacy. It also refers to the covering up of Perugino’s Assumption fresco that showed Pope Sixtus IV kneeling among the group of the Twelve Apostles. It is said that Sixtus instigated the Pazzi Conspiracy which resulted in the assassination of Giuliano de’ Medici, considered to be the father of Clement VII, hence the reason for the Medici pope wanting Michelangelo to cover the scene with a new fresco.

Sixtus IV also makes a connection to Jupiter. His birth name was Francesco della Rovere. Rovere translates as “oak”, and the oak tree was another symbol associated with Jupiter the “sky god”. Sixtus incorporated the oak tree in his papal arms. Arms and armour is another embedded them in the Vasari painting.

Pope Clement I, and the coat of arms for Pope Sixtus IV

The iconography related to Clement I is the purse hanging from the side of the papal figure. Clement I was martyred by being thrown into the sea and weighed down by an anchor. He is usually portrayed with an anchor at his side. The purse feature relates to the anti-pope Clement VII, an ambitious and stubborn man who resorted to extortion and simony – “the act of selling church offices and roles or sacred things”. Simony relates to the account of Simon Magus (Acts of the Apostles), a magician whom the people considered a divine power and called Great (another connection to the Magnificat and its meaning of greatness as explained in the previous post).

Simon Magus offered the apostle Peter money to receive the power to be able to lay hands on people for them to receive the Holy Spirit. But Peter, who had ordained Clement I by laying hands on him, dismissed the offer of money by Simon Magus and said: “May your silver be lost forever, and you with it, for thinking that money could buy what God has given for nothing” (Acts 8  20). Then Simon, weighed down by guilt and fear, pleaded with Peter to pray for him. 

Clement VII was not without his faults in a manner that drained the Vatican treasury. He assigned positions in the Church, titles, land and money, in favour of his Medici relatives. This also makes a connection to Simon Magus as a magician. Note the proximity of Catherine de’ Medici’s dark right hand to Clement’s purse. It is claimed that Catherine was a practitioner of the dark arts, who relied on soothsayers, seers, mystics and astrologers to forecast her own and family’s future.

But this juxtaposition of hand and purse is another piece of iconography adapted from Botticelli’s Primavera. With Pope Clement substituted for the figure of Mary’s assumption (Venus), Catherine is a replacement for the figure of Botticelli’s Flora dispensing flowers from her apron purse.

So now the four identities associated with the central figure in the marriage scene are:
Pope Clement VII (Giulio de’ Medici)
Anti-pope Clement VII (Robert of Geneva)
Pope Clement I (Clement of Rome)
Jupiter, son of Saturn and Ops

• I hope to continue posting information about this Vasari fresco when I can source a higher resolution digital image of the work. The low-res version available on the internet lacks important visual detail to explain clearly some of the narratives embedded by the artist. If anyone out there has access to a better-quality version than I have used so far for my posts on this subject, please contact me.

The Antelope Nose and the Carmelites

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Here’s another set of figures from Vasari’s painting of the marriage of Henry, the second son of the French king Francis I, with Catherine de’ Medici, daughter of Lorenzo de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino.

The way they relate to each other is by their association with the Carmelites, a religious order for men and women.

In a previous post I pointed out that the moustached man represents both Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan and his assassin Giovanni Lampugnani who attempted to escape the scene of his crime by concealing himself amongst a group of women inside Milan Cathedral. Hence the man being shown ‘veiled’.

In the mid-fifteenth century a Carmelite convent and church (Santa Maria del Carmine) was built near to Castello Sforzesco, home of the Sforza ruling family of Milan. The church and convent were patronised by the Sforza’s, including Galeazzo Maria Sforza.

Vasari has linked Galeazzo’s prominent nose to a similar profile associated with Mt Carmel, a mountain landmark referred to by ancient Egyptian seafarers as the Antelope Nose. Turn the image on its side and see how Vasari incorporated the profile of the mountain as a shadow area inside the veil.

Another connection to the House of Sforza is the veil worn by the woman opposite to Galeazzo. In this instance she represents Fioretta Gorini. Notice the shape of a snake head on the edge of the veil pointing in the direction of Galeazzo, its body represented by the veil’s wavy edge, snaking both down and across. The snake reference is to the Milanese and a Sforza emblem known as the Biacione

Fioretta was said to be the mistress of Giuliano de’ Medici, who’s was assassinated a month before she gave birth to his son and who later went on to become Clement VII, the Pope she stands behind in Vasari’s painting. After giving up her child to the Medici family she later joined a Carmelite convent in Florence, and was enclosed or ‘walled-up’ as an anchoress.

That she was walled-up links back to Galeazzo who was not adverse to walling up alive anyone who may have upset him. Enclosure or walling up is also a clue to the other veiled woman, another Carmelite, the mystic Teresa of Avila who was later declared a saint by the Catholic Church. The wall reference is associated with where she came from, Ávila, the Spanish city known for it magnificent encircling wall that still stands today.

The Spanish city of Ávila with its centuries old walled enclosure.

Teresa seems to rise above the others and that’s a pointer to the occasions she is said to have levitated. It’s also another reference to Botticelli’s Primavera and it central figure depicting the Virgin Mary seen to be raised off the ground, but a feature that indicates her assumption into Heaven. Teresa of Ávila claimed she experienced moments of ecstasy as if she had been raised into Heaven.

• Vasari also applied second identities to the two women which I shall explain in a future post

The marriage between Henry, Duke of Orleans and Catherine Medici, Giorgio Vasari, Palazzo Vecchio
Primavera, by Sandro Botticelli, Uffizi, Florence

A touch of the Tetrarchs

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I had intended for this post to explain how Pontormo’s portrait of Lorenzino de’ Medici connected with the image of King Francis I in the Vasari painting of the marriage between Henry II and Catherine de’ Medici, but instead I shall focus on the group of four figures to the right of the French king (shown below).

Tucked in immediately behind Francis is Lorenzino de’ Medici. Next is Cardinal Ippolito de’ Medici. Behind him is the Spanish priest and former soldier Ignatius Loyola, placed next to another cardinal, Girolamo Verallo.

What binds these four men together is that they all have a connection with Venice. The group can also be split into two pairs: Lorenzino connects with Ippolito; Ignatius links with Verallo.

Giorgio Vasari or his assistant Giovanni Stradano (and I’m beginning to sense it was Stradano who was responsible for the composition) connected the four-man group to a famous porphyry sculptured group of figures known as the Portrait of Four Tetrarchs and attached to the façade of St Mark’s Basilica in Venice. The two sets of sculpted tetrarchs are located on the south corner of the Basilica and were brought to Venice as loot following the Sack of Constantinople in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade.

This also makes a connection to the figure of Pope Clement VII and the Sack of Rome in 1527 by rogue troops of Emperor Charles V. Clement was kept captive for six months in Castel Sant’Angelo. While imprisoned, Clement grew a beard which he kept for the rest of his life as a sign of mourning for the sack of Rome, an example followed by his successor Paul III, placed at Clement’s right shoulder and looking upwards.

An earlier Sack of Rome by Visigoths happened in 410, about a century after the figures of the Four Tetrarchs were said to have been sculpted. As to their identity one theory is “they represent a dynastic group of the Constantinian dynasty”. If so, this in turn would connect with the figure of Lorenzino de’ Medici who, in a drunken state as a youth, set about decapitating and mutilating some of the statues on the Arch of Constantine in Rome. His actions would have served as a painful reminder to Pope Clement VII of the sack of Rome and his own captivity. For his crime, Lorenzino was exiled from Rome.

Left to right: Lorenzino de’ Medici, Ippolito de’ Medici, Ignatius Loyola and Girolamo Verallo.

Now to the Venice connections. Lorenzino was assassinated in Venice on February 26, 1548; Ippolito was once a papal legate assigned to the Republic of Venice by his cousin Pope Clement VII. They are paired because of their same interest in deposing Alessandro de Medici as Duke of Florence.

Ignatius Loyola was ordained priest in Vienna on June 24,1537. He renewed his vows of poverty and chastity to the then papal legate to Vienna, Cardinal Girolamo Verallo who became the priest’s protector. Verallo was already acquainted with Pope Paul III as his father served as the pope’s personal physician. Hence Girolamo’s placing behind the figure of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, standing in line for the papacy behind Pope Clement VII. Girolamo’s head is also placed immediately behind the head of Henry, Duke of Orleans, later to become Henry II of France. After Julius III was elected to the papacy in 1550 the new pope made Girolamo legate a latere to Henry II the following year.

It’s important to note that some of the figures in the marriage scene have been assigned more than one identity by the painter.

• More disclosures on this work in my next post.

Heads, helmets, hats and caps

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The Portrait of a Young Man in a Red Cap was painted by Jacopo Carucci (also known as Pontormo). It’s dated at 1529 and said to depict a young Florentine aristocrat named Carlo Neroni.

But I believe it to be someone else: Lorenzino de’ Medici, the man who claimed he assassinated his ‘friend’ and distant cousin Alessandro de’ Medici, Duke of Florence, on the eve of the Epiphany, January 6, 1537.

A few days later Lorenzino, who was a gifted writer and dramatist, declared openly the reason he murdered the duke was political, to free Florence from a tyrant and Medici rule and preserve the Republic of Florence. He compared his actions to those of the ancient Roman politician Brutus, famous as one of the assassins of Julius Caesar.

In my previous post about Giorgio Vasari’s painting of the marriage between Henry, Duke of Orleans, and Catherine de’ Medici, I explained how the head placed on the shoulder of Pope Clement VII represented three people: Alessandro de’ Medici (Duke of Florence), Galeazzo Maria Sforza (Duke of Milan), and one of the latter’s assassins, Giovanni Andrea Lampugnani. I made no mention of the name of Galeazzo’s assassin. But he is placed elsewhere in the picture, his head also on a shoulder, that of the French king Francis I (see image below).

Unfortunately, I haven’t yet been able to source a higher resolution of this painting, so the important detail embedded in this section of the picture is difficult to pick out. Nevertheless, this group of three men provides some clues to be able to identify Lorenzino as the head in the middle.

An episode in Lorenzino’s early life confirms his connection to the cardinal featured on the right. He is Ippolito de’ Medici, an illegitimate son of Giuliano di Lorenzo de’ Medici and therefore a distant cousin of Lorenzino. As can be seen by his attire he was a cardinal, though never an ordained priest. He was made Cardinal by another illegitimate cousin, Pope Clement VII, on January 10 1523. On the same day he was also appointed as Archbishop of the Avignon diocese in France, which explains one of the reasons Vasari has placed him on the French side of the marriage scene.

Another reason is that while he was serving in Rome he pleaded for Lorenzino who in 1538 upset Pope Clement VII by mutilating the heads of some of the statues on the Arch of Constantine. The outcome was that Lorenzino was expelled from Rome, a lighter punishment than the one the Pope had first threatened – execution. And so from this we have another ‘head’ connection.

Ippolito and Lorenzino also shared an interest in deposing Alessandro de’ Medici from his position as Governor and Duke of Florence. However, Ippolito wanted the title for himself and lobbied Clement VII for the position, but the Pope’s choice was his own son. Ippolito never tired of conspiring against Alessandro and seemingly paid the the price for his efforts when he became ill on a journey and died a few days later after claiming he had been poisoned on the orders of the Florentine duke. He was just 24 years old.

Vasari’s image of Cardinal Ippolito is probably based on his portrait painted by Titian in 1546.

It’s hardly apparent, but as in the Pontormo portrait, Lorenzino is wearing a red cap. Neither is his head completely visible. It is eclipsed by the head of Francis I.

Here, Vasari, has referenced the mythological “cap of invisibility” also known as the “cap of Hades” that turns the wearer invisible, a cunning devise to conceal their true nature – as in the perceived ‘friendship’ offered by the assassin Lorenzino to Ippolito.

Hades helmet of invisibility was also shared with the messenger god Hermes who wore the cap in his battle with Hippolytus the giant. And so this makes the connection with the name of Cardinal Ippolito, who wears a red biretta in the painting.

The cap or helmet of invisibility also features in Botticelli’s Primavera painting and in a section referencing Hades (god of the dead and the underworld) and the watchdog Cerebus. The symbolism also points to the Dominican Order of Preachers sometimes known as the “Hounds of the Lord” or “God’s Dogs”.

In the clip below (left) is the ‘shade’ of an ‘invisible’ monk’s cowl and hood; and (right) the outline of a hound’s head.

  • More on this in a future post.

The nose have it!

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In a post made earlier this month – Every picture tells story – I explained how one of the figures in Vasari’s painting of the marriage of Henry II and Catherine Medici represented both Galeazzo Maria Sforza and his assassin, Giovanni Andrea Lampugnani.

Detail from the Room of Pope Clement VII, Palazzo Vecchio. Photo by Jonathan at Flicker

But Vasari also attached a third identity to the head resting on Clement VII’s shoulder, that of Alessandro de Medici. The paternity of Alessandro, Duke of Florence, is disputed. Although generally believed to be an illegitimate son of Lorenzo II de’ Medici and raised in his household, some consider Cardinal Giulio de Medici (later Pope Clement VII) was his father.

Seemingly Vasari, or his assistant Giovanni Stradano held the belief that the Pope was indeed the “Father”, hence Alessandro’s attachment to his father’s shoulder in the painting.

Like the Duke of Milan, the Duke of Florence was also regarded by many as a cruel despot with a reputation and lust for rape and murder. And, like Galeazzo, he was eventually assassinated.

Below is a splendid portrait of Alesandro de’ Medici, completed by Giorgio Vasari in 1534 and three years before the duke’s assassination. It is this painting which provides clues to revealing a third identity for the head on the Pope’s shoulder.

Alessandro de’ Medici by Giorgio Vasari, Uffizi, Florence

Note the similar shape of the armour plate – the pauldron – on Alesandro’s shoulder to the helmet-shape cap on the head seen on Clement’s shoulder. Note also the beak feature on the pauldron, a pointer to Alessandro’s ‘beaky’ nose as opposed Galeazzo’s the rather large ‘rhino’. Noses are a prominent and intended theme in the marriage scene.

It’s not without coincidence that Alesandro de Medici’s emblem was the image of a rhinoceros he adapted from a woodcut (shown below) by the German artist Albrecht Dürer. See how Dürer’s rhino is shown heavily plated, just as the duke is in Vasari’s painting. And the rhino’s horn is echoed by the pauldron’s horn-shaped beak.

What else in the Allesandro portrait can be paired with the head-on-shoulder feature in the marriage painting? The most obvious is the red cloth covering the stool to match with the Pope’s red mozzetta.

The stool is a pointer to Alessandro’s rhinoceros emblem. Its short legs, be there only three, echo the short legs of a rhino, except that in this case the animal is portrayed headless and with the feet of a lion. Its decapitated head is the helmet on the ground and facing in the opposite direction. Perhaps an indication of Alessandro de’ Medici conquering his enemy, the beast within.

The short legs theme and beast is echoed in the marriage scene by those of the dwarves and the prowling lion.

Marriage of Henry II and Catherine de’ Medici, Giorgio Vasari, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence

More on this in a future post.

When opposites attract

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This post presents more details about Vasari’s marriage scene between Henry, Duke of Orleans, and Catherine de’ Medici, and how it was inspired by Sandro Botticelli’s Primavera painting. 

The male and female mythology figures, Saturn and his consort sister Ops, placed at the right edge of Vasari’s picture, simulate the pairing of Zephyr and Chloris in Primavera, with one head turned and another looking down, except the male and female roles are reversed. Their disguised identities in both paintings are Leonardo da Vinci and Fioretta Gorini. Yes, Fioretta appears more than once in each work, and there are several references to Leonardo embedded in both, too.

A third level of identities given to the pair is Adam and Eve. This introduces another painter into the scenario, Michelangelo, and is a pointer to one of the ceiling scenes he painted in the Sistine Chapel. I shall post about this connection at another time.

Michelangelo appears in Vasari’s marriage scene and is placed at the extreme left of the painting, depicted as the Archangel Michael – hence the arch shape of the frame next to the figure. Note also the frame’s arch connected to Saturn and Ops, and how it corresponds with the arched trees and figures of Zephyr and Chloris in Primavera.

That representations of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci are placed at opposite walls of the frame is also a pointer to the occasion when both artists were commissioned to paint battle scenes on opposite walls in the Palazzo Vecchio’s Hall of Five Hundred which was later extended and decorated by Giorgio Vasari.

Hall of the Five Hundred, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence

Matching pairs

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Galeazzo Maria Forza, Duke of Milan, by Piero Pollaiuolo c1471, Uffizi Gallery, Florence

This portrait is of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, the fifth Duke of Milan. It was painted c1471 by Piero Pollaiuolo (also known as Piero Benci) and one which Giorgio Vasari sourced as a reference for the duke’s profile featured in his marriage picture of Henry II and Catherine de’ Medici (see previous post).

Vasari also utilised the portrait to connect with the figure of Giuliano de’ Medici depicted in Botticelli’s Primavera painting, and incorporated some of the Florentine’s features to create the dwarf figure standing beside the groom in the marriage scene.

Vasari colour-matched the Galeazzo portrait to the dwarf’s clothes, red and green, and both men hold leather gloves in their right hand. 

Vasari’s dwarf wears boots and stands with a hand on hip, as does Botticelli’s figure of Giuliano. Both men look up, Giuliano at the cloud formation, the dwarf at the wool collar worn by the bridegroom intended to imitate the passing cloud, but also shaped to represent a sheep’s head and its horn. 

This was intended to echo a reference Botticelli made to John the Baptist in the Primavera painting. Vasari instead selected a biblical verse in which the Baptist points out Jesus as he ‘passed’ by at the river Jordan and says, “Look, there is the Lamb of God” (John 1 : 36).

The raising of the Eucharist (the Lamb of God) during Mass was the signal for the assassins to attack Lorenzo and Giuliano de Medici in Florence’s Duomo where Giuliano died from his wounds.

The passing cloud in Primavera is a reference to the Passover but in Vasari’s painting he translates this as a passing from one side to another, a crossover – for example, the figure of Galeazzo transitioning from the men’s section to the women’s.

There are other examples of change-over in Vasari’s painting and more narratives connected to the dwarf which I shall explain at another time.

Note also Galeazzo’s pointed forefinger (and his gloves), and its match to Giuliano’s pointed forefinger. Vasari links this feature by shaping the dwarf’s gloves to represent a serpent’s head to connect with the serpent features on the caduceus raised by Giuliano in the Primavera painting.