Michelangelo and the English Martyrs

Anne Dillon

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780754664475
• eBook ISBN: 9781351917773
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Early Modern History
• Index: History

In May 1555, a broadsheet was produced in Rome depicting the torture and execution in London and York of the Carthusians of the Charterhouses of London, Axeholme, Beauvale and Sheen during the reign of Henry VIII. This single-page martyrology provides the basis for an in-depth exploration of several interconnected artistic, scientific and scholarly communities active in Rome in 1555 which are identified as having being involved in its production. Their work and concerns, which reflect their time and intellectual environment, are deeply embedded in the broadsheet, especially those occupying the groups and individuals who came to be known as Spirituali and in particular those associated with Cardinal Reginald Pole who is shown to have played a key role in its production. Following an examination of the text and a discussion of the narrative intentions of its producers a systematic analysis is made of the images. This reveals that the structure, content and intention of what, at first sight, seems to be nothing more than a confessionally charged Catholic image of the English Carthusian martyrs, typical of the genre of propaganda produced during the Reformation, is, astonishingly, dominated by the most celebrated name of the Italian Renaissance, the artist Michelangelo Buonarotti. Not only are there direct borrowings from two works by Michelangelo which had just been completed in Rome, The Conversion of St Paul and The Crucifixion of St Peter in the Pauline Chapel but many other of his works are deliberately cited by the broadsheet's producers. Through the use of a variety of artistic, scientific and historical approaches, the author makes a compelling case for the reasons for Michelangelo's presence in the broadsheet and his influence on its design and production. The book not only demonstrates Michelangelo's close relationship with notable Catholic reformers, but shows him to have been at the heart of the English Counter Reformation at its inception. This detailed analysis of the broadsheet also throws fresh light on the Marian religious policy in England in 1555, the influence of Spain and the broader preoccupations of the Counter Reformation papacy, while at the same time, enriching our understanding of martyrology across the confessional divide of the Reformation.

Chapter 1
Three Cardinals and a Pope

The letter that reached Pole's desk on that January morning in 1555 identifies four of the people involved in gathering information for the broadsheet. Cardinal Juan Álvarez de Toledo who was also Bishop of Albano and Cardinal of Compostela had asked Pope Julius III to use his papal authority to ensure that the information was retrieved quickly. Julius therefore instructed his secretary Cardinal Innocenzo Ciocchi del Monte to write to Cardinal Pole to collect the details of the cases, authenticate them and send the information back to Rome. These four men had been for many years high profile power brokers in Vatican politics, involved closely with the Council of Trent and the newly reconstituted Inquisition. They were at the very heart of papal authority. This clearly was no ordinary broadsheet.

Cardinal Juan Alvarez de Toledo, whose coat of arms is prominently positioned to the right and left of the script, and who commissioned the broadsheet, was born on 15 July 1488 into one of the most powerful Spanish dynasties. He was the second son of Fabrique Álvarez de Toledo, 2nd Duke of Alba (c. 1460-1531) and Isabel de Zúñiga. Fabrique's eldest son had predeceased his father leaving his own son, Alvarez's nephew, Fernando, to succeed to the title. Fernando was the notorious third duke who would be appointed by Philip II to govern the Spanish Netherlands from 1567 to 1573. Juan Álvarez followed the typical career path of younger sons of noble families and entered the Church. In 1504, at the age of 16, he joined the Dominicans of San Esteban in Salamanca where, in April 1507, he made his vows. The following year he was sent to the Dominican College of St Gregory in Valladolid before completing his formation in Paris at the Dominican Convent in the Rue St Jacques. After ordination in 1513, he was named lector of Sentencias in the Dominican Chapter of Genoa and taught philosophy and theology at the University of Salamanca. In August 1531, he was consecrated Bishop of Córdoba and his smooth upward trajectory was set. He was granted the See of Burgos in April 1537 and created cardinal priest in December 1538 at the age of 50, receiving the title of S. Maria in Portico in May 1541. By July of the following year he had been appointed by Alessandro Farnese, Pope Paul III, to the newly reconstituted Tribunal of the Inquisition General.¹ This formidable assembly of cardinals Pietro Paulo Parisio, Bartolomeo Guidiccioni, Dionisio Laurerio, O.S.M. and Tommaso Badia, O.P. - was presided over by Gian Pietro Carafa, the future Pope Paul IV.

Juan Alvarez, a member of the conclave which elected Julius III in 1550, was, in June of that year, promoted to the Spanish See of Compostela, and in 1553 Julius named him Inquisitor of Rome. Later in the same year, November 1553, he was appointed Cardinal Bishop of the suburbicarian See of Albano.² On 29 May 1555, at the age of 67, he relinquished this diocese on his appointment to yet another of the seven suburbicarian sees, that of Frascati. Carafa, who was elected to the papacy on 23 May 1555 as Pope Paul IV, named him as his confessor and on the death of the master general of the Dominicans soon afterwards, he was given charge of the order together with Vincenzo Giustiniani, a future master general and cardinal.³

Cardinal Juan Alvarez was a major player both in Rome and in the Empire. He was also regarded as a serious contender for the papacy not least by himself. He was at the centre of the byzantine manoeuvrings of the ten week long conclave which eventually elected Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte as Pope Julius III on 8 February 1550 and came close to being elected himself. At the final ballot, the result of which had been resolved in advance by those cardinals remaining, all the votes except one were cast for Cardinal del Monte, whose own paper bore Juan Álvarez's name.⁴

Julius III was born in Rome on 10 September 1487, the son of a famous Roman jurist.⁵ An ambitious and successful family, the del Montes had originated in the small village of Monte San Savino near Arezzo in Tuscany and one of the first things Julius's grandfather, Fabiano (1421-1498), had done as he established himself in the professional milieu of Rome was to change the family name from the embarrassing Giochi, meaning 'joker', to the more dignified del Monte. After studying law in Perugia and Sienna, and theology under the Dominican Ambrosius Catharinus,⁶ Giovanni Maria succeeded Fabiano's son, his uncle Antonio del Monte, as Archbishop of Siponto in 1512. He then followed him as Bishop of Pavia in 1520. It was a valuable living, one the del Montes kept in the family. Like Juan Álvarez, Giovanni Maria climbed effortlessly through the church hierarchies as he moved towards the centre of power. In 1534 he became legate of Bologna, and then successively of Romagna, Parma and Piacenza. Pope Paul III created him cardinal priest in December 1536 and cardinal bishop with the diocese of Palestrina, another of the seven suburbicarian sees, in October 1543. In 1542, just before this latest preferment, he was made responsible for the forward planning of the convocation, which would eventually be known as the Council of Trent. It was in his capacity as its first president, to which he was appointed in February 1545, that he opened the Council on 13 December of that year.

In November 1549, Pope Paul III died and the conclave was called.⁷ Immediately both the King of France, Henry II (1547-1559), and the Emperor Charles V (1519-1556) took steps to influence its outcome.⁸ Charles wanted a pope who would align himself with the Empire against France, reconvene the Council and persuade the German Lutherans to attend; the French king, meanwhile, planned to continue to keep the Emperor occupied with religious problems in Germany where he was strapped for troops and cash. Henry's concerns lay with the Italian duchies of Parma and Piacenza. Paul III had given these as papal fiefs to his Farnese grandsons but Henry had his eye on them with a view to using Parma as a base from which to mount an attack on imperial-held Milan and he had formed an alliance with Orazio Farnese by marrying off his daughter to him. This, very briefly, was the political ground on which the conclave began its deliberations.

The Emperor instructed his ambassadors in Rome that only an English or a Spanish pope would be acceptable and at first this seemed as if it might be the outcome. On the first ballot at the beginning of December, Reginald Pole, approved by the Emperor, led with an easy margin and gained twenty-four of the twenty-eight votes needed. Alessandro Farnese, keen to support him, proposed that Pole be elected by a form of acclamation. Pole initially agreed to this but then as quickly changed his mind against a background of complex moves by the two factions.⁹ These moves included well-aimed accusations of his being unreliable in the matter of certain doctrines, in particular those related to the matter of justification, having failed to accept in every detail the Decree on Justification published by the Council of Trent. In addition to which his denials of these accusations had been somewhat opaque as had his expression of faith in the doctrine. With Pole no longer in the running, Cardinal Juan Álvarez then came close to achieving the necessary majority. At this point the Emperor's influence began to falter as the French cardinals implemented the instructions given to them by the King. For the next fifty-seven days the two factions battled it out and by February 1550, still at a deadlock, they realised that a compromise candidate would have to be found, one who would suit both the Emperor and the French king. Finally, when, after interminable days of 'horse trading', del Monte's name emerged, it was Juan Alvarez who swung behind him and helped to ensure his unanimous election. Del Monte could not vote for himself which is why his ballot paper showed the name of Juan Alvarez de Toledo.

Julius was old at his election and in poor health. He attempted to reconvene the Council of Trent but was out-manoeuvred by the French bishops and he suspended it again in April 1552.¹⁰ On the accession of Mary Tudor to the English throne in 1553, Julius sent Reginald Pole as papal legate to England with extensive faculties to be used in the interests of Catholic restoration. Julius's death on 23 March 1555 was followed by the election of Marcello Cervini Spannoli, as Marcellus II.¹¹ Within two months Marcellus too was dead and on 23 May 1555 Giovanni Pietro Carafa was elected to the papacy and took the name Paul IV.¹² There were therefore three popes during the brief period of the production of the broadsheet.

The final person involved in this demand for information about the Carthusian martyrs was the notorious Cardinal Innocenzo Ciocchi del Monte, Pope Julius's Secretary of State. Innocenzo's beginnings are somewhat hazy; indeed there are several different stories about his parentage and very early life, some no doubt supplied by Innocenzo himself. The most persistent, but not necessarily the most accurate, is that he was the illegitimate son of a beggar and was rescued from the streets of Parma by del Monte while still a cardinal and then officially adopted by the Cardinal's brother, Baldovino Ciocchi del Monte, in whose house he was raised.¹³

He was appointed to the Cardinal's household as a footman and made Provost of the Cathedral chapter of Arezzo in order to provide him with an income. Whatever the nature of his relationship with the Cardinal, Innocenzo was a beloved favourite and denied nothing. One of Julius's first actions as pope was to issue a bull to legitimise Innocenzo and he then proceeded to make him a Cardinal. The College of Cardinals, indeed the whole of Rome, was outraged and certainly it was an unwise move in view of Innocenzo's irregular status in the papal household, his lack of education and his obvious unworthiness, but Julius, infatuated with his protégé, would brook no opposition. It was an even more injudicious move at a time when the Church was under attack from the reformers. Carafa argued against it as did Pole, who succeeded in getting Julius to change his mind for twelve hours at least.¹⁴ Then Julius went ahead and created Innocenzo cardinal deacon on 2 July 1550. Pole wrote to Innocenzo and left him in no doubt that Julius had elevated him in the teeth of considerable opposition. He must, Pole urged him, 'show every day that he made a good choice'.¹⁵ Needless to say there was little love lost between the two men.

The new cardinal was then created Julius's chief diplomatic and political agent, which meant that all papal nuncios were obliged to address their letters to Innocenzo rather than to the Pope.¹⁶ Thus it was in this capacity that he could instruct Reginald Pole to find and send to Rome the details of the Carthusian executions.

We now come to Reginald Pole, whose influence on the broadsheet was profound.¹⁷ Pole had left England for Italy before the Carthusian executions had taken place but it is clear that he had received first-hand reports from eyewitnesses. He was certainly sufficiently well briefed to castigate Henry VIII for his treatment and execution of the priests in his work Pro ecclesiasticae unitatis defensione, usually referred to as De imitate - On the Unity of the Church. Pole had written this in exile near Padua between 4 September 1535 and 30 March 1536, as a reply to the King's request for Pole's opinion on the matter of his marriage and the authority of the pope.¹⁸ He sent the manuscript to the King via Michael Throckmorton on 27 May 1536.¹⁹ In this work Pole calls the King to penitence and defends papal supremacy as he carefully argues his beliefs on the nature of the Church and the papacy. It had an important influence on our broadsheet.

In the immediate aftermath of the conclave, Pole was appointed by Julius to a series of posts, including the new commission for the Inquisition.²⁰ Together with cardinals Morone and Cervini, he was made responsible for drawing up the bull to resume the Council which at this point lay...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures and Plates
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Three Cardinals and a Pope
• 2 The Martyrdom of the English Carthusian Fathers
• 3 The Broadsheet Images
• 4 Reginald Pole and the Broadsheet
• 5 Michelangelo and the Cappella Paolina: The Final Frescoes
• 6 Ecclesia Viterbiensis
• 7 Reginald Pole and the Cappella Paolina Frescoes
• 8 Michelangelo in the Broadsheet Images
• 9 Postcards of Rome
• 10 English Martyrs in a Roman Landscape
• 11 Prints, Cartoons and Drawings
• 12 Anatomists and Artists
• 13 The Cardinal and his Physician
• 14 A Demonstration of a Dissection
• 15 Anatomical Research and the Archconfraternity of San Giovanni Decollato
• 16 The Case of Michael Servetus and Pulmonary Circulation
• 17 The Artist
• 18 The Recipient
• 19 Coda
• Appendix: The Broadsheet Script
• Bibliography
• Index