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Guarino Guarini's Invention of the Passion Capitals in the Chapel of the Holy Shroud, TurinAuthor(s): John Beldon ScottSource: The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 54, No. 4 (Dec., 1995), pp.418-445Published by: Society of Architectural HistoriansStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/991083Accessed: 30/03/2009 15:00

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Guarino Guarini's Invention of the

Passion Capitals in the Chapel of the Holy Shroud, Turin

JOHN BELDON SCOTT, University ofIowa

M ost studies of Guarino Guarini's Chapel of the Holy Shroud in Turin (1657-94) have focused either on the

circular plan, with its superimposed triangle, or on the unusual

composition of the dome, with its structure of six nested, arched hexagons rising from a drum supported on three huge, tilted arches [Figures 1-3]. The plan constitutes an elegant resolution of preexisting problems Guarini encountered when

he became the project's architect in 1667, ten years after the

beginning of construction. Guarini fit his new design into the

built masonry shell and its marble facing, which was already in

place up to the level of the large cornice of the major-order pilasters [Figure 4], stacking on it, vertiginously, tier after tier

with scarcely precedented engineering bravura and forming the openwork dome that has been the object of both marvel and indignation for three centuries.

There has been little agreement among historians about the

extent to which meaning can be imputed to the extraordinary

geometry seen in the plan, structure, and black marble facing of

the chapel. Some scholars have held that Guarini, motivated by radical and complex philosophical, astrological, alchemical, and even cabalistic speculations, incorporated into his build-

ings, especially the Shroud Chapel, forms and meanings unique in Western architecture.2 A less extreme position, held by Rudolf Wittkower, emphasizes a traditional Trinitarian mean-

ing in the consistent geometrical triadism of the building.3

Today, however, many scholars seem to concur with Giulio

Carlo Argan, who stands on the other side of interpretive

possibilities, reductively asserting that "no one more than

Guarini has affirmed the non-symbolic, non-allegorical, non-

metaphorical-on the contrary-strictly phenomenal, objec- tive or 'thing-in-itself character of architectural form."4 In his

recent monograph on Guarini, H. A. Meek, for example,

presents a Guarini little interested in symbolic content.5 These

extremes of interpretation ignore the contextual requirements of patronage and decorum to which every seventeenth-century architect needed to be attentive.

By focusing on Guarini's use of the classical orders, it may be

possible to isolate his attitude toward content and meaning in

architectural ornament. Analysis of Guarini's treatment of the

orders will show his invention in the manipulation of classical

forms for ideological content.6 This we can see especially well in

the Shroud Chapel in the gilt-bronze, modified Corinthian

capitals the architect employed for the eight major-order fluted

pilasters and two freestanding columns around the perimeter of the chapel rotunda [Figures 4-5]. The design of these capitals, as often noted, comprises instruments of Christ's Passion. They

penetrate the sepulchral gloom of the chapel, forming a prickly chiaroscuro pattern when occasionally struck by a ray of

sunlight piercing the faceted dome high above [Figure 6].7 The

transcendental effect of the capitals against the tenebrous

setting must have been even more persuasive before the gilding became dull with age and dust.

The choice of materials for the chapel, black marble and

bronze, was made decades before Guarini's arrival on the scene.

FIGURE I: Guarino Guarini, Chapel of the Holy Shroud, Turin, 1657-1694, plan,

engraving from Dissegni d'architettura civile et ecclesiastica . . . (1686), pl. 2

418 JSAH / 54:4, DECEMBER 1995

As early as 1607 Duke Carlo Emanuele I decided to locate

between the cathedral and his new palace a chapel built of these

somber but opulent materials to house his prized relic of the

Passion, the Shroud of Turin.8 The Corinthian order was

selected at this time. Ducal patronage and the funereal dedica-

tion of the chapel made the Corinthian capital appropriate, with its richness and necrological associations.9

To appreciate Guarini's ingenuity, we might first examine a

conventional Corinthian capital, which is easy enough to do as

one stands in the chapel, for the minor-order capitals in the

same rotunda, designed by Guarini's predecessor for the

project, Bernardino Quadri, are thoroughly orthodox [Figure 7].10 Acanthus leaves grow in three tiers from the inverted

bell-shaped body of the capital, with spiral-form caulicoli

emerging at the top. Uniting these shoots is the lip of the bell.

At the top, in the center of the concave abacus, the flower or

fleuron blossoms forth, representing the acanthus bud with a

fishtail-like stigma (the botanical term for the pollen-receiving

part of the flower's stamen) growing from its center.

Guarini's Passion capital, as seen in a close-up detail taken

from a scaffold, deviates considerably from the traditional type. He reduces the treatment of the foliage to two tiers and uses a

plant form closer to olive than to acanthus [Figure 5].11 This

modification makes room for the crown of thorns inserted between the helices. Three nails protrude from the fleuron

above the center of the crown and, at the top, the titulus or

inscription from the cross appears with the initials for IESUS

NAZARENUS REXIUDAEORUM. Guarini's decision to modify the major-order Corinthian avoided the repetition of the same

capital type in close proximity to the minor order below; but, as we shall see, the architect's design had behind it a weightier conviction than merely the desire for variety.12

INNOVATION IN THE DESIGN OF THE

CLASSICAL ORDERS

Most scholars have tacitly assumed Guarini's authorship of the Passion capitals, perhaps because of their fantasy of invention. His intervention in their design, however, has never been documented and, given that many of the chapel's capitals predate his involvement with the project, there is somejustifica-

FIGURE 2: Section, Chapel of the Holy Shroud, 1657-94

tion for questioning it. Precisely because of his late assumption of design responsibility for the chapel, Guarini's role in the

creation of the Passion capitals has recently even been denied.13

The production history of these variants of the Corinthian

capital is complicated, and it will be important to establish Guarini's part in their design and creation. A chronological

analysis of payments for all the chapel's capitals will help resolve this vexing issue. The appendix contains a narrative summary of the documentation, which demonstrates that the manufacture of four of the ten Passion capitals dates from the period Guarini was in charge of the design. Two of these are identified

specifically as the capitals of the freestanding fluted columns of the transitional zone between chapel and cathedral

[Figures 8-9]. Since eight major-order pilasters with Passion capitals articu-

SCOTT: GUARINI'S PASSION CAPITALS 419

FIGURE 3: View of pendentive zone, drum, and dome, Chapel of the Holy Shroud

late the rotunda wall, two of these also (in addition to the two documented column capitals) must already have been mounted in place before the final campaign for the completion of all the capitals, which occurred after Guarini's death.'4 These, for want of Guarini's drawings or a full-scale preexisting wooden model, must have served as prototypes for the bronze founders who manufactured the remaining six, as sug- gested in an instruction issued in May 1688.15 The written record gives no certain indication about which two of the

eight pilaster capitals were the ones completed under Guarini's supervision, but practical construction procedure would suggest they were the two conveniently adjacent to the columns. The documentary evidence therefore makes it

virtually certain that all ten of the Passion capitals are

products of Guarini's thinking, even though only four were executed in his lifetime. If we combine this knowledge with the generous number of imaginative capital variants Guarini illustrates in his treatise, Architettura civile [Figures 10-13], there can be little doubt about his authorship of the Passion

capitals. Like most architect-treatise writers who preceded him,

Guarini devoted a major portion of his theoretical discussion in the Architettura civile to the design and application of the classical orders.16 Unlike some of his Italian predecessors, however, Guarini seems to have been more interested in

offering creative variants to the standard orders, particularly in the design of capitals, than in repeating definitive versions of the traditional types.17 Perhaps his most original proposal is for a spiral-form Solomonic order, in which not only the columns but almost all other components, including the entablature, undulate on both the vertical and horizontal planes [Figure 10].18

He provides three capitals each for the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian-each also with three distinctive proportional sys- tems-and four variants for the Composite. The reader may easily infer from Guarini's text and illustrations that the number of permutations need be limited only by the creative

imagination of the designer.19 In addition to the twelve differ- ent capitals illustrated for the orders, many of them based on unusual plant or floral motifs [Figure 11], Guarini presents still other capitals for the reader's consideration [Figure 12].20 Among these we find fruit baskets, phoenixes, cornucopias,


crowns, angels, feathers, and other elements implying symbolic

meaning. In some instances Guarini explicates the significance of the

imagery, as in the case of the capital with the stacked crowns

[Figure 12, number 33], which he tells us he invented for a

chapel dedicated to Louis IX of France.21 Here the pointed bands of the crowns substitute for the curling acanthus leaves.

Since Louis was both king and saint, he merited two crowns.

The Passion capitals in the Shroud Chapel derive from this

regard for decorum and design logic combined with creative

license.

Sensitive to the visual effect of his new capitals, Guarini did

not merely add the relics to the standard Corinthian com-

ponents. Instead, he incorporated them harmoniously into

the canonical parts of the capital-the titulus echoing the

concavity of the abacus, the nails becoming the styles and

stigmas of the fleuron, and the crown of thorns replacing the lip of the bell. Guarini created a variation on the standard

capital type without violating the classical syntax of the

composition.22 The positioning of the crown with its rich, coloristic effect

transforms the capital into a quasi-Composite. When the Ionic

volutes and echinus molding enriched with egg-and-dart com-

FIGURE 4: View of rotunda with major-order fluted pilasters and portal to palace,

Chapel of the Holy Shroud

bine with the Corinthian abacus and acanthus, the Composite

capital results, the most elaborate of all the orders, as seen, for

example, on Bernini's Baldacchino in Saint Peter's [Figure 14].

Conceptually we should imagine the echinus, a crucial component of the Ionic, continuing around behind the volutes and

thus forming a crown-like cushion or ring, which must be the

generating source for Guarini's idea of inserting the crown of

thorns in this position between the spiral tendrils of his

capital.23 We do not see the entire crown but only its forward

edge as it merges with the compositional structure of the

capital. The sculptural effect of the thorns imitates the carved

egg-and-dart molding it replaces. Guarini's reasoning, however, goes beyond the visual and

FIGURE 5: Passion capital, gilt bronze, Chapel of the Holy Shroud

FIGURE 6: Passion capital, Chapel of the Holy Shroud


formal elements. The placement of the crown of thorns fits

logically with Vitruvius's anthropomorphic interpretation of the

orders, with the capital representing the head (caput/capo) of a

human figure.24 Furthermore, we see here a reprise of the

inventive thinking behind the crown capitals for the chapel of

Saint Louis. Guarini created a decorous variation on the

traditional capital type without violating the compositional

logic of its constituent parts. Like the Passion capitals, the capital variants illustrated in

the Architettura civile are usually meaningful rather than arbi-

trary.25 Guarini offers, for example, number 21 [Figure 11], where large irises substitute for acanthus. The broad, plastic leaves create a sculptural effect with a strong light-dark con-

trast. This type is useful, Guarini says, when the capital can be

observed only at great remove, like those on the second register of the facade of Santa Maria Annunziata in Messina and on the

exterior drum of the Shroud Chapel [Figures 15-16].26 Under

these conditions details of delicate carving would be lost and

ineffective. Here the architect appears at first to give primacy to

visual apperception. Guarini justifies his unorthodox application of the iris,

which he calls the "blue lily," with reference to a competition for

the invention of a uniquely French order initiated by Louis

XIV's minister, Colbert.27 We can see the ultimate results of this

endeavor in the symbol-laden pilaster capitals in the Hall of

Mirrors at Versailles, where fleurs-de-lis sprout amid palms, Gallic roosters peer out between the caulicoli, laurel and

lightning bolts form the bell of the capital, and the head of the

Apollonian sun deity substitutes for the fleuron [Figure 17].28

FIGURE 7: Bernardino Quadri, minor-order Corinthian capital, gilt bronze, Chapel of

the Holy Shroud

But, if irises had any other meaning for Guarini, he made no

mention of it in the text, and no one standing at ground level

could be expected to identify the exact botanical forms on

capitals at such high locations. Like the French minister's

enterprise, which was more political than aesthetic, Guarini's

FIGURE 8: Fluted column with Passion capital, viewed from cathedral choir, 1669-71


FIGURE 9: Passion capital of fluted column, viewed from cathedral choir

use of the iris cannot, however, have been without meaning, for the iris is a flower laden with Christian significance. Because of its commonplace association with both the Annunciation and the Passion, a seventeenth-century reader of Guarini's treatise would hardly have overlooked the architect's fitting choice of the flower for buildings dedicated to the Annunciation and to a

major Passion relic.29 In his treatise Guarini may have empha- sized the optical virtues of the iris-form capital, but he was

perhaps also sensitive to the symbolism and associative values of the imagery with which he worked, even when he did not

explain the obvious. The overtly thematic category of capital variant employed

by Guarini thus carries a comment on the function or dedication of the building it adorns. We have already noted the

special capitals with crowns Guarini created for his chapel dedicated to Saint Louis, although, in that case, too, he did not elaborate on his iconographic or architectural reasons for

employing the crowns.

Again in the Architettura civile, Guarini tells us that he invented a new type of Ionic capital for the lower register of the fa;ade for Santa Maria Annunziata in Messina [Figure 13, number 24], the church of his own Theatine congregation.30 The architect strung a necklace ofjewels between the eyes of the

volutes, while pendant earrings and a ribbon hang beneath the

spirals. Here Guarini did not avoid the punning superimposition of the necklace over that part of the capital termed the collarino. This capital appears in the lower register of the facade as engraved in the treatise.31 In this case Guarini simply adorns

FIGURE 10: Guarino Guarini, Corinthian columns, engraving, from Architettura civile

(1737), treat. 3, pi. 4

the capital, leaving almost untouched the basic elements of the traditional type.

This innovation is unapologetically gender based. Guarini

says that the dedication of this church is to the Virgin and, since women are in the habit of adorning themselves withjewelry, the modified capital thus makes a suitable allusion to the dedicatee.32 This usage would come under the heading of the rule of decorum as it was understood in the period-the application of

imagery appropriate to the nature and status of the context into which it was to be placed. Vitruvius associated the Ionic order with his notion of female characteristics, stating that the

proportions were like those of a fair maiden and the volutes like the curls of her hair.33 Guarini thus elaborated, wittily, on this venerable anthropomorphic interpretation as he loaded his

design with meaning. We see here a Guarini who remains distant from the dark speculations imputed to him by some


writers. Instead we find a free-spirited designer who works well

within the traditional meanings of the Christian imagery and

architectural culture of his time.

THE PASSION CAPITALS AND THEIR MEANING

To appreciate the motivation behind Guarini's creation of the

Passion capital, with its obtrusive display of the instruments of

Christ's suffering, we must consider the object the chapel was

intended to house. Antonio Bertola's Berninesque altar-

reliquary (1685-1693), designed after Guarini's death, con-

tains the celebrated relic [Figure 18].34 Casual visitors to the

chapel could not see the Shroud itself. It belonged to the ruling house of Savoy and the dukes exhibited it only occasionally and

even then forjust a few minutes, usually to solemnize important

dynastic events such as baptisms and marriages.35 At all other

times the object remained rolled up in its reliquary box [Figure

19] and locked behind the gilded iron grating seen in the

rectangular mid-section of the altar superstructure. Details of the relic itself are important for our understanding

of Guarini's capitals. The dimensions of the Shroud (4.36 by 1.10 meters) are extraordinary. When unfurled, it displays two

faint, sepia-toned figures placed head to head, one frontal and

one dorsal [Figure 20]. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries gave issue to a vast

literature on the Shroud of Turin.36 These works run the range from substantial scholarly studies exhibiting enormous erudi-

tion to small practical manuals intended as guides in private devotion, but almost all focus particular attention on the details

of the images.37 There could be no mistake that this was the

true Shroud of Christ, as the treatise writers explain, because

one could verify with one's own eyes the marks of his suffering on it.38 Thus we see the blood from the wounds made by the

crown of thorns, the spear thrust, and the nails. Even the

forearms display coagulated streams, the blood that dripped down the suspended arms as Christ hung on the cross. To

emphasize the importance of these details, during the feast-

day ritual of public exhibition of the relic-an elaborate court

ceremony attended by the ruling family-the duke and the

hereditary prince kissed the major wound marks as the Shroud

lay extended on a specially prepared table near the altar.39 The

court poet of Carlo Emanuele I, Giambattista Marino, sang of

this heavenly gift to the house of Savoy and of the five

major wounds impressed upon it, noting that Christ himself

painted this image with nails as brushes and his own blood as

pigment.40 Outside Piedmont, traditional pictorial enumerations of the

instruments of the Passion rarely included the Shroud.41 But, since the marks of the other instruments could be read on the

image on the cloth, promoters of the Savoy Shroud advocated

the relic notjust as one among many but as a compendium of

the major sacred objects by which Christ suffered.42

/ g~~~ ~~~ I -- -I

I 7

.L._

=_

FIGURE I I: Corinthian capitals, engraving, from Architettura civile (1737), treat. 3, pi. 5

FIGURE 12: Corinthian capital variants, engraving, from Architettura civile, detail

(1737), treat. 3, pl. II


I

FIGURE 13: Ionic capital variants, engraving, Architettura civile (1737), treat. 3, pi. 3,

detail

In the chapel this same imagery dominates, as with the

gilded angels holding the instruments (cross, spear, column,

sponge) at the comers of the reliquary housing.43 If early prints of the altar are reliable in their detail, the cherubim on the

encircling balustrade, too, once held various instruments.44

The reliquary box itself has relief medallions with the same

objects (see Figure 20).45 More readily visible is the carved

pattern on the fascias of the tilted arches at pendentive level

above the rotunda [Figure 21], where every other rib motif

consists of two nails placed point to point against a central boss.

Guarini's earliest idea for the chapel appears in an engraved section first published in 1682, reflecting the opened half of the

large wooden model of 1667 [Figures 22-23].46 This design was

subsequently modified, but in the engraving we can discern in

the spandrels flanking the oval dome windows small representations of the instruments of the Passion. Nails and dice, for

example, appear next to the openings of the first tier. Heart-

FIGURE 14: Gianlorenzo Bernini, Composite capital, Baldacchino, Saint Peter's,

Rome, 1624-1633. FIGURE 15: Guarino Guarini, iris-petal Corinthian capitals of

exterior drum, Chapel of the Holy Shroud, c. 1680

shaped ornaments and seraphim occupy the spaces beneath

the windows, just as angels and the wounded heart of Christ

often appear accompanying depictions of the instruments in

devotional images, as in imaginative creations of Christ's coat of

arms. This we see, for example, in a mid-sixteenth-century woodcut [Figure 24]. The print demonstratesjust how common

and widespread was the notion of the Passion instruments as

components of Christ's imaginary heraldry. The German artist

has even placed the crown of thorns in the position of a crown

above a royal shield, with the titulus above, anticipating Guari-

ni's Passion capital. In the completed chapel the redesigned windows eliminated

the spandrel fields and their imagery, but, in the triangular

spaces beneath each window, instead of hearts and angels, Guarini added inverted pentagons-quite illogically, given the

shape of the space [Figure 25]. If this obtrusive geometrical element has any significance, it would be as a traditional

reference to Christ, as seen, for example, in an early seventeenth-

SCOTF: GUARINI'S PASSION CAPITALS 425

Revelation (1:8): "I am Alpha and Omega."49 The Theatine

preacher, Eugenio Quarant'otto, quoting Valeriano, intro-

duced the concept into the Shroud literature in 1624 with the

publication of his sermons, calling the pentalpha "hieroglyph" and "knot" of the "Christ of the Passion, and of the five

wounds....The Holy Shroud is therefore the standard on

which the salubrious pentalpha is stamped in characters of

blood...."50 Thus the pentagons of the chapel dome are

germane to the Passion iconography of the instruments origi-

nally planned for those same spaces. A geometric form alluding to the wounds replaced depictions of the objects that caused

those same marks. Rather than repeating in the dome the

sculpted nails of the arch fascias of the pendentive zone, Guarini more visibly and succinctly represented their traumatic

consequences. Such ornamental abstractions need not carry precise mean-

ing, but the pentagon is an awkward configuration for architec-

ture, and, given the original programmatic context here, a

neutral reading of such an obtrusive motif may not be justifi- able.51 In the completed project the suppressed Passion imag-

ery of the original dome reemerged not only in emblematic

form inside the cupola but also in literal form at the pinnacle of

the external spire, where nails, crown of thorns, and cross with

FIGURE 16: Chapel of the Holy Shroud, drum and dome

century drawing for an incised and inscribed meditational

plaque explicating the eucharistic significance of the name of

Jesus [Figure 26]. Guarini's five-sided figure surely refers to the Devotion of

the Five Sacred Wounds of Christ, a cult practiced in the

veneration of the Shroud. The geometry itself is explained as a

sacred emblem by G. P. Valeriano in the 1602 edition of his

Hieroglyphica, where the inverted pentagon forms the matrix of

five connected alphas (forming a five-pointed star called a

pentalpha or pentagonum) inscribed with the Greek letters for

salus or health [Figure 27; part A].47 The relation to spiritual

well-being and the five wounds becomes clear in Valeriano's

superimposition of the geometric form over the figure of a

Christus patiens exhibiting the marks of the crucifixion [Figure 2 7; part B], which demonstrates why the apex of the pentagon is

inverted.48

Although such symbolism may seem obscure, Valeriano's

discussion of the pentalpha had wide currency in the seven-

teenth century, especially among theologians and preachers. It appears, for example, in the published Bible commentaries

of the Jesuit Cornelius a Lapide (1567-1637) in his gloss on

FIGURE 17: Charles Lebrun, "French order" capital, Hall of Mirrors, Versailles,

1678


FIGURE 18: Antonio Bertola, reliquary altar, Chapel

of the Holy Shroud, 1685-93

the Savoy arms surmount a wrought-iron orbis terrarum [Figure 28].52

The liturgy of the Holy Shroud would have reinforced this

lugubrious imagery:

Let us honor in your name, Christ, your standard the victorious cross,

your thorny crown, your holy shroud, your bloody red nails, and the

lance thrust into your sacred side.53

We must understand the innovative design for the Shroud

Chapel capitals in this context of well-established devotional

imagery at Turin.

Guarini may have taken more direct inspiration in his use of

the instruments of the Passion from temporary installations

made in the cathedral for the annual feast of the Holy Shroud, celebrated on 4 May throughout Savoy and Piedmont. For the

feast day in 1670, for example, a special display model of the Crucifixion was placed in a chapel near the Shroud, which, at that time was kept in a reliquary-ciborium above the main altar.54 In addition to figures standing at the foot of the cross,

FIGURE 19: Reliquary of the Holy Shroud, c. 1604, silver, precious stones, and relief

plaques, 1.23 x .30 x .22 m.


FIGURE 20: Shroud of Turin, linen, I. I x 4.4 m

the installation incorporated arabesques with crowns of thorns

and placards with scourges, pliers, nails, and various other

instruments.55

In one detail of the Passion capital Guarini's imagination was

especially active-the bizarre fleuron with the nails [Figure 29].

Guarini was by no means the first to experiment with the floral

component of the Corinthian and Composite capitals, as we

can see in a capital Guarini would have known well from his

years of study in Rome (1637-47). The sun fleuron on the

FIGURE 21: Guarino Guarini, detail of arch fascia with sculpted nails, Chapel of the

Holy Shroud

capitals of Bernini's Baldacchino at Saint Peter's, where the

petals become rays of the papal patron's family solar impresa

[Figure 14], drew from a venerable tradition of manipulating the constituent parts of the orders for purposes of conveying meaning.56 Guarini must also have noticed a replacement

SCENOGRAPHIA SD I S * REGLI

SACRATISSIMIE SINDONI DIC- ATk' .

FIGURE 22: Section of model for Chapel of the Holy Shroud, 1682, engraving, from

Johann Blaeu, Theatrum sabaudiae (Amsterdam, 1682): I, pl. 19


AC I

IEDI S

iE.l SIND(C

FIGURE 23: Detail of section of model for Chapel of the Holy Shroud, engraving, from Johann Blaeu, Theatrum sabaudiae (Amsterdam, 1682): 1, pl. 15


FIGURE 24: Deutscher Monogrammist G B, Coat of Arms of Christ, c. 1550, woodcut.

FIGURE 25: Detail of dome spandrel with pentagonal panel, Chapel of the Holy

Shroud

capital on the Pantheon portico, mounted there during Urban

VIII's reign, where the Barberini bee extracts nectar from the

fleuron [Figure 30].57 To understand precisely what Guarini did with the fleuron

of the Passion capitals, however, we must examine a well-known

FIGURE 26: Anonymous, Design for a Meditational Plaque, c. 1630, pen and ink

drawing, 27.8 x 19.8 cm from, BAV, Barb. Lat. 9910, I r

flowering vine-the passion vine, genus Passiflora, of which

there are more than 400 species [Figure 31].58 Tradition holds

that the delicate corona of this blossom represents the crown of

thorns placed on Christ's head and the spreading styles and

stigmas, at the top, the nails which held him to the cross.59

The passion vine is indigenous to the Western Hemisphere, and horticulturists identify the species here, Passiflora caerulea, which is especially common in Brazil, as the one introduced

into Europe in the seventeenth century and the one associated with the passionflower legend.60 The earliest known mention of

the passion vine and its fruit, the granadilla, is in Cieza de

Leon's chronicle of Peru, published in 1553.61 The first refer-

ence to the vine's blossom that recognizes the instruments of the Passion in its parts is in Nicolas Monardes's 1569 treatise on

medicinal plants of the New World, where the author recom-

mends the fruit as a stomach remedy, and observes that the

flower has "figures which are things of the Passion of our

lord... .62 Samuel Purchas's world geography of 1613 states, not without some circumspection, that it "hath in it the markes

of the Passion, and that therein they [the missionaries who first

identified it] note the nailes, pillar, whips, and crowne of

thornes, and the wounds, wherein they are not altogether without reason, and yet to find out and observe these things, it

requires some pietie to cause beleefe: but it is very exquisite and

faire to the eye... ."63

The earliest indication of knowledge of the passionflower at

Turin occurs in verses penned by Carlo Emanuele I's court


political theorist and ducal tutor, the Jesuit Giovanni Botero,

composed in 1607.64 The poem, dedicated to the duke,

catalogues the instruments embodied in the flower of the

granadilla-among them, the "sharp nails."65

If Guarini ever saw a living passionflower, he made no

mention of it. We do, however, have record of one growing in

Cardinal Odoardo Farnese's garden on the Palatine Hill in

Rome in 1625, and this garden still flourished in the 1640s

when Guarini was a novice at the local Theatine house.66Already

by the 1630s the renowned Jesuit floriculturist, Giovanni

Battista Ferrari, declared the passionflower commonplace, since it had been seen by "everyone" in Rome.67 The numerous

references to botanicalworks in Guarini's discussion of architec-

tural ornament, particularly in his treatment of floral motifs for

capital variants, make it clear that he paid attention to such

things.68 In any case, as reported the prefect of Cardinal

Farnese's garden, Pietro Castelli, this flower was as famous as it

was rare. The maracot, as he calls it, is "... the famous plant

A

B

FIGURE 27: (A) Piero Valeriano, pentalpha, Hieroglyphica (Lyon, 1602); (B) Christo-

logical pentalpha

FIGURE 28: Guarino Guarini, finial with instruments of the Passion, wrought iron,

1682-83, Chapel of the Holy Shroud

SCOTU: GUARINI'S PASSION CAPITALS 431

FIGURE 29: Detail of Passion capital

sung by poets and celebrated by orators, the plant reasoned about by philosophers with the utmost subtlety, praised by physicians for its marvelous virtues, sought for eagerly by the

sick, wondered at by theologians, and venerated by all pious Christians."69 Interest in the passionflower was, however, not

generated by its status as a botanical rarity alone. Already in 1609 Paul V had been presented with a specimen, as reports the Olivetan monk Antonio Canali, who produced a theological encomium in praise of the passionflower in that same year.70

Comparing the parts of the actual flower with Guarini's

fleuron, however, we observe that most of the details do not

appear. An exact reproduction perhaps could not be expected, since all the morphological intricacies would have been difficult to render in bronze and, moreover, would have been wasted on the observer standing in the dark chapel below. Instead, the architect chose to represent only the petals and the nail-like

stigmas, with the difference that the latter project markedly from the center of the flower, whereas the stigmas of almost all

Passiflora species spread and lie flat at the top, as in the example illustrated [Figure 31]. As we shall discover, this salient feature of Guarini's fleuron, the projection of the nails, has amplejustifica- tion.

Guarini may not have seen a passionflower, but he probably had seen one of the earliest published illustrations of the plant. It appeared not in a botanical study, but in a religious tract on the nature of the true cross, authored and published by Giacomo Bosio in Rome in 1610 [Figure 32].71 Bosio's extended discussion of the flower is the most exhaustive printed version of the passionflower legend with a gloss on its theological significance. He states that he has not seen the flower himself and finds it so fantastic that he would be unable to

credit its reality were it not that many reliable people, i.e., missionaries from Mexico, with whom he had spoken and who

supplied him with drawings, reported on the veracity of its existence.

Precisely because of its inaccuracies, early Protestant bota- nists condemned Bosio's illustration of the passionflower as a

Jesuitical lie invented by the devil. In his 1629 treatise on

floriculture, the Englishman John Parkinson accused Bosio of distorting the features of the flower to make them look more like the instruments of the Passion.72 Bosio's version of the passionflower, according to Parkinson (who prefers to call it the Virginia climber), was the work of "superstitious brains" and about as plausible as that the sea should bur. What is

important to note is that unlike the passionflower, but like Bosio's rendering of it, Guarini's fleuron has the three nail-like

stigmas markedly projecting out from the flower rather than

lying flat, as in nature. However exact their knowledge of the

living plant may have been, both Bosio and Guarini chose to

depict the exotic bloom in its moralized form, so as to emphasize the theological meaning.

If Guarini happened to know Bosio's woodcut, we might suppose he paused to read the author's exegetical comment on its significance. The author states that Spaniards refer to the blossom as the "Flower of the Five Wounds," alluding to the five

major wounds of Christ, the ones made by the nails and by the

spear of Longinus (which is represented by the pointed leaves of the vine).73 The wounds themselves appear in the five

anthers, which the print represents as five dots around the base of the inner part of the flower.74 Bosio elaborates a Christian moralized meaning of the passionflower, seeing it as a sign placed by God in the New World to enlighten, at his chosen


to visualize mentally a series of images appropriate to the stimulation of pious feelings, with the aim of achieving the plane of contemplation and other spiritual benefits.75 In this

practice the imagery operates as a mnemonic device to aid the worshiper. As Giovanni Pozzi has noted, this explains why devotional representations of the passionflower do not

correspond more precisely with the actual bloom.76 The distor- tions indicate a moralized interpretation of the flower and, in

that sense, are truly jesuitical lies. The arma Christi iconography widely diffused through print media [Figure 24] and devotional practices focusing on concrete images such as the Five Wounds exemplify this phenomenon. Guarini's idio-

syncratic passionflower, too, fits securely into the tradition. Christian meaning takes precedence over botanical exac- titude.

Whether or not Guarini took notice of Bosio's gloss, his architectural reference to the passionflower need not have

depended on a single text or image.77 Moreover, he cannot have overlooked the obvious analogy between passionflower

FIGURE 30: Capital with bee fleuron, Pantheon portico, Rome, c. 1640 and Passion relic. Curiosities of nature, such as exotic animals,

FIGURE 3 1: Passifloro caerulea

moment, the native peoples there about the salvation brought to humanity through Christ's Passion. Its existence is therefore no mere curiosity of nature, but at once a witness to God's presence throughout Creation and his providential ordering of human history.

The seventeenth-century devotional literature on the passionflower indicates a connection between a mystical interpretation of the instruments in the blossom and private prayer practices common at the time, such as that advocated by St. FIGURE 32: Giacomo Bosio, Possionflower engraving, from Lo gloriosa e trionfante

Ignatius. In the Spiritual Exercises the author advises the reader croce (Rome, 1610), 164


I

I

FIGURE 33: Vittorio Amedeo Barralis, Sacred

Anatomy of the Image of Our Lord Christ Imprinted

on the Holy Shroud, woodcut, 1685

FIGURE 34: Vittorio Amedeo Barralis, Sacred

Crown to be Presented to the Christ of the Passion on

the Holy Shroud, woodcut, 1685

strange seashells, oddly shaped stones, and pictures of rare flowers-the kinds of objects collected in princely Wunderkam- mern through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries-were

objects of moralized interpretation as much as scientific scru-

tiny. They embodied signs placed by God in the world to illustrate his omnipotence.78 Bosio explicated the passionflower in this way, and the treatise writers on the Shroud viewed that relic in much the same light-as a sign placed by God in the world to demonstrate his suffering and love for humankind.79 Like the passionflower it displayed the five major wounds of Christ. The authors of devotional treatises of the

period recommended to their readers that upon seeing or

meditating on the relic itself they should take care to concen- trate their sight in particular on the five bloody spots corre-

sponding to the major wounds inflicted on the Savior's body,

just as the elite ducal owners of the relic took advantage of each

opportunity to kiss ceremoniously those same marks.80 Guarini was probably acquainted with at least one such

author. Vittorio Amedeo Barralis, a fellow Theatine at Turin,

published his instructional manual on the veneration of the Shroud in Turin in 1685, two years after Guarini's death.81 The author mentions the architect in the text, and it is likely that the two Theatines lived together in their congregation's house in

Turin, not far from the construction site of the Shroud Chapel.82 Since Guarini himself left no recorded comment on the Shroud, this is about as close as we are likely to get to his thinking on the relic. Barralis's tract does not, in any case, exceed widely held

commonplaces about the history of the relic and the manner of veneration due it.

In order to understand Guarini's design for the Shroud


Chapel we must investigate not only his use of symbolism but

also how the space functioned ceremonially and devotionally. The architect and his patrons surely wished the design to

accommodate the ritual exhibition of the relic and the courtly

display surrounding it, but the desire to reinforce the modes of

private spirituality already practiced around the Shroud was

also a significant factor in the thinking behind the new chapel and its ornamentation.

Barralis's manual provides useful insight into this world of

personal worship and its connection to the cult of the Sacred

Wounds. The little book is entitled Anotomia per la novena della

Santa Sindone con una corona composta d'efetti sopra li principali misterii dellapassione (Sacred anatomy for the novena of the Holy Shroud with a crown composed of expressions of sentiment on

the principal mysteries of the Passion) and belongs to the same

genre of devotional literature as the passionflower treatises of

earlier in the century. Barralis provides a mnemonic device in

the form of a fold-out engraved plate to aid the reader with

visual stimuli in meditating on the otherworldly value of the

image on the Shroud [Figure 33].83 We see the figure from the

Shroud surrounded by an octagonal enframement. This Barra-

lis calls a "Sacred Anatomy of the Image of Our Lord Christ

Imprinted on the Holy Shroud," and he instructs the reader to

meditate on the wounds on Christ's body made by the instru-

ments depicted in the border, among them the visage of Christ

crowned with thorns seen on Veronica's veil prominently

positioned at the top center.84 The wounds, on the front and

back of the figure, are lettered and keyed to the written list at

the lower left and right (A and K indicate the nail wounds, F and

G the marks of the crown of thorns). Through the instruments

represented around the edge, the worshiper meditates on the wounds and ultimately achieves a deeper understanding of the Passion.

A second engraving in Barralis's manual [Figure 34] carries the designation "Sacred Crown to Be Presented to the Christ of the Passion on the Holy Shroud."85 Here a lozenge-shaped frame divided into labeled blocks forms a corona around the Shroud figure. Thirty-three numbered sections, interspersed with five Aves, refer to scenes of the Passion beginning with the

washing of the disciples' feet (number 1), passing through the

crowning with thorns at the midway point at the bottom

(number 17), and concluding with the spear wound in Christ's side (number 33). This "Corona Sacra," as Barralis calls it, reflects a private devotional practice associated with the Shroud and encouraged by successive Theatine preachers at the Savoy court long before the publication of his little manual.86 It consisted of the oral recitation of a rosary-like string of beads

representing narrative events of the Passion.87 The instruments of the Passion seen in Guarini's capitals

and in various other parts of the chapel evince this devotion, but one additional pictorial component of the program was

never realized. The engraved section of Guarini's first model

for the chapel shows that narrative paintings of scenes of the

Passion were intended for placement above the four subsidiary altars in the spaces between the pilasters with the Passion

capitals [Figure 22].88 Two of these scenes appear in the section-a Crucifixion and a Lamentation, corresponding

respectively to meditation number 28 and the last of the five Aves.89 The Passion imagery incorporated into the capitals and

other ornamental components of the chapel formed a kind of

spatial "Corona Sacra" to advance the cult of the Shroud and assist the worshiper in gaining the maximum spiritual benefit

from the relic, just as Barralis's visual aids with their depicted instruments and inscribed scenes did for the viewer outside the

chapel. The authors of devotional tracts on the Shroud, of whom

Barralis is typical, manifest a desire to explicate the relic as a direct witness of the Passion. The image impressed on the linen

cloth is no mere abstraction but a God-given means for

attaining unmediated experience of Christ's suffering and

sacrifice. Since the figure on the Shroud consists of Christ's own

blood, that object deserves the adulation due to God himself

(latria), not just the lesser form of veneration due to the saints

and their relics (dulia).90 Guarini's inclusion of the instruments

of the Passion in the capitals of the chapel rotunda reflect these

traditional beliefs about the Savoy relic.

REGALIA AND RANK IN THE PASSION CAPITALS

The function of the chapel as a theater of dynastic self-

representation influenced Guarini's thinking about the space and its ambient imagery. As the inscription "Aedes Regiae" on

the engraved section from the Theatrum sabaudiae designates, this was a royal chapel [Figure 22]. The principal actors on this

stage were the ducal family and court, with whom the Theatines had close association.91 We can get an idea of the exalted audience at which Barralis aimed from the dedicatee of his

book, Fabrizio Buniato, ducal counselor and general treasurer of Vittorio Amedeo II. The Theatines received signs of special favor from the Savoy, who frequently appointed one from

among their number to preach the Lenten sermons at the cathedral in the presence of the entire court.92 A Theatine also often delivered the oration presented on the occasion of the relic's exhibition.93 The Savoy even paid for the construction of the new Theatine church and adjoining house, Guarini's San

Lorenzo, and made it a ducal chapel to complement the more

specialized reliquary-palatine Shroud Chapel.94 Both Guarini and Barralis would therefore have been familiar with the aulic modes of devotion practiced around the cult of the Shroud.

The three instruments Guarini employed in the pilaster capitals betoken the actual objects employed in Christ's Pas-

sion, relics whose locations were well known in the seventeenth

century and whose regal connotations were appropriate to the


FIGURE 35: Guarino Guarini, portal to Chapel of the Holy Shroud, 1667-69, Palazzo

Reale, Turin

palatial setting of the Savoy chapel.95 The Roman church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme contained not only nails and

portions of the cross but also the titulus-all sacred remains collected by Saint Helena, mother of Constantine.96 Relics of the nails could be found in many other places, but the one

venerated in the cathedral of Milan (given to Constantine by Helena) and especially promoted, together with the Savoy Shroud, by San Carlo Borromeo, was perhaps the most fa-

mous.97 The crown of thorns, attractive to royalty, was the

central treasure of the hoard of relics (including more nails) for

FIGURE 36: Overdoor, portal to Chapel of the Holy Shroud. FIGURE 37: Annunciate

capital, portal to Chapel of the Holy Shroud

which Louis IX, Saint Louis, built the Sainte-Chapelle adjacent to his palace on the Ile-de-la-Cite in Paris-a model not lost on the pious Savoy possessors of the Shroud, whose own reliquary chapel was constructed in similar proximity to their palace.98

In his collecting of Passion relics the French royal saint served as a role model for the Savoy. Ducal ideologues found it useful to parallel the lives of the sanctified Capetian monarch and Duke Louis of Savoy, who acquired the Shroud for his

dynasty, a relic of status comparable to that of the crown of thorns in Paris.99 Significantly, a spine from that relic was

among the other sacred objects installed in the Shroud Chapel by the Savoy.'00

In the case of the nails and crown of thorns, not only were

they, like the Shroud, major instruments of the Passion; their

doleful marks were recorded on the cloth, as Barralis and every other treatise writer observed. As for the titulus, with its

proclamation of Christ as King, none of the Passion relics, save the crown of thorns, could have a more regal connotation for the aristocratic worshipers in the Shroud Chapel. Noting that


its constituent parts were the regalia of the King of Kings, the

moralizers of the passionflower called it the "King of Flow-

ers."101 Thus the three emblematic components of Guarini's

Passion capital all reinforce the idea of royal rank so fundamen-

tal to the political meaning of the ducal chapel. Guarini's task entailed the creation of imagery appropriate

not only to the religious function of the chapel but also to the

social and political status of the patrons who built it for their

use. This he achieved through the incorporation of Christ's

regalia, the arma Christi, into the major order of the chapel rotunda. The signification of rank through the classical orders

has a long tradition, but, to understand how Guarini expressed this in the Shroud Chapel, we must return to the principal ceremonial entrance, which leads in from the palace gallery

[Figures 35-36].102

Because this door is now kept closed, its exterior portal is

seldom seen, but, from the gallery side, its dark imagery

unambiguously conveys the somber but courtly purposes of the

chapel.103 The projecting components of coat-of-arms, broken

pediment, polygonal cartouche, fluted pilasters, and flanking

funerary urns dominate the ample space of the gallery and

assertively announce access to the Shroud Chapel. The gilded bronze capitals Guarini designed for the flank-

ing pilasters here are unique among those he created for the

FIGURE 38: Bernardo Giustinian, grand chain and pendant medallion of the Supreme

Order of the Santissima Annunziata, engraving, from Historie cronologiche della vera

origine di tutti gl'ordini militari e di tutte le religioni cavalleresche .. . (Venice, 1672)

chapel and they appropriately conform to the exalted rank of

the personages who frequented that portal [Figure 37]. They consist of a modified conflation of two examples illustrated in

the Architettura civile [Figure 12]. As in Guarini's number 37, the

acanthus spirals curl in the opposite direction of the canonical

type, and, with this outward-sweeping movement, support the

extended wings of the descending dove of the Holy Spirit, much as do the flames in the capital with the phoenix illus-

trated in the treatise (number 36).104 The wings of the dove

parallel the concavity of the abacus much as does the titulus of

the Passion capitals. This new variant could appropriately be called the Annunci-

ate capital, for no one at court would have failed to notice the

allusion to the senior of the two chivalric orders patronized by the Savoy, the Supreme Order of the Santissima Annunziata, whose insignia consisted of a knotted golden chain with pendant medallion representing the Annunciation with the Holy

Spirit alighting from above [Figure 38].105 The Savoy sovereign, as commander of the order, wore this chain, and we can see it

surrounding his arms [Figure 39] and in mass-produced images of the Shroud.106 The twenty individuals decorated with this

honor constituted an elite group among the knighted aristoc-

FIGURE 39: FranSois Capre, Savoy coat of arms with grand chain and pendant

medallion of the Supreme Order of the Santissima Annunziata, engraving, from

Catalogue des chevaliers de I'ordre du collier de Savoye, dict de I'annonciade (Turin, 1645)


FIGURE 40: L. Gaultier, Saint-Louis, King of France, engraving from Jean de Joinville,

Histoire de S. Loys IX (Paris, 1617)

racy at the Savoy court, with the reigning duke as Grand

Master.107 In this capacity they were principals in the ritual

exhibitions of the Shroud when the relic would be removed

from its housing and carried ceremoniously out of the chapel

through the gallery portal [Figure 35] and adjoining royal

apartments to the square in front of the palace for public ostension.108

At the summit of the portal, putti crown the large Savoy arms with an unusually prominent royal crown closed at the

top. After decades of dispute, the dukes of Savoy had once

again in 1660 republished their claim to the royal tite of king of

Cyprus.109 This achievement constituted a major event for the

dynasty, for it trumped the pretensions of their chief rivals in

Italy, the grand dukes of Tuscany, who, as elevated dukes, were

wont to claim precedence over the Savoy. In this political context, the inclusion of the titulus in the Passion capitals, with

its declaration of Christ's kingly status, reiterates not only the

courtly function of the chapel but also the recently acquired

regal rank of the House of Savoy.

Collecting relics of the Passion was the passion of kings and

emperors long before the Savoy achieved political prominence. As we have already seen, for the francophone dukes the most

admired example to follow in this pious and politically useful

endeavor was Saint Louis, who knew well how to exploit the

worldly power of the Passion relics in his possession. The

equation between the emblems of Christ's sovereignty and

those of the French king as perpetuated in widely disseminated

imagery of Louis, as in the portrait of the royal saint that

illustrated the 1617 edition ofJoinville's early biography of the

king [Figure 40]. 10 The parallelism between Christ's crown and

Louis's haloed diadem cannot be missed, nor the allusion to

sacral kingship. Even the fleurs-de-lis on the king's tunic and

surmounting his scepter recapitulate the tripartite configuration of the nails. Guarini's Passion capitals not only refer to the

Savoy Passion relic; they embody in Christological form the

most cherished social and political aspirations of its dynastic owners.

Guarini's allusion to the newly reasserted title of the dukes of

Savoy through the use of Christ's regalia would unquestionably have appeared logical to contemporaries. If the dukes gained their royal designation through their legal claim on the kingdom of Cyprus, they also held moral right to the Shroud

through that same connection. The title to the Cypriot crown

came from the marriage of Duke Louis of Savoy's son, Louis, Count of Geneva, to Charlotte de Lusignan, Queen of Cyprus, in 1459.11 As court historians noted, since the dukes of Lusig- nan also held title to the defunct Latin Kingdom ofJerusalem, it therefore was only proper that the Savoy held the Shroud, for

that same relic had, after its removal from Constantinople, for a

time been the revered possession of the Lusignan.112 Thus both

Shroud and royal tide derived, at least in the thinking of the

ideologues, from the Cyprus connection. For the court poets and treatise writers this concatenation of privileges was the

handiwork of Divine Providence, which favored the Savoy above all other ruling houses of Christendom.113

No one, moreover, had to be reminded that the Savoy coat

of arms itself consisted of the most important of all the Passion

relics. The silver Greek cross against a red field appears in the

family shield [Figure 39], and Guarini repeated the motif,

literally ad infinitum, in the coffering of the chapel pendentives

[Figures 41-42].

CONCLUSION

The Passion capitals participated actively in the devotional and

dynastic programs of the Shroud Chapel. They served as

stimuli to courtly piety, but, more than that, the innovative

incorporation of the instruments of the Passion into the capitals

surrounding the altar-reliquary would have assisted the wor-

shiper visually, for want of the Shroud itself, much as did

Barralis's pious schematic illustrations. Just as the engraved

wound-bearing figure of Christ appears encircled by instru-


FIGURE 41: Guarino Guarini, pendentive coffering

with Savoy cross, Chapel of the Holy Shroud

ments of the Passion in the visual aid, so do Guarini's Passion

capitals with their decorous imagery surround the central

reliquary and encourage the viewer's recollection of the events

that made the wound marks on the image-stained Shroud

itself-narrative events that were originally to have been de-

picted in the spaces between the pilasters. Guarini expanded the meaning of the Corinthian order

without violating the nature or basic composition of the canoni-

cal type. Within the sacred space around the Shroud, he

eschewed the sometimes trivial and anecdotal punning of his

predecessors and contemporaries by manipulating the components of the classical orders to convey thematic significance,

making of them visual means of spiritual communication. Yet

the content of Guarini's imagery, while fresh and creative, still

rests well within the parameters of seventeenth-century Chris-

tian iconography.

We see in the design of the Passion capitals, as well as in the

text and illustrations of the Architettura civile, an architect who, for all his searching curiosity and imaginative power, refuses to

fit the molds created for him in the extremes of the scholarly literature. Examining his treatment of the classical orders, we

find neither Guarini the occultist nor Guarini the moder

formalist. Thus, whether advocating or disallowing a place for

meaning in Guarini's works, we must first understand the

architect fully in the context of seventeenth-century piety,

patronage, and architectural culture.

Appendix The documentation ofthe Passion capitals

In the construction period before Guarini's assumption of

project supervision, 1656-67, there were numerous expendi- tures related to the manufacture of the capitals (materials,


FIGURE 42: Guarino Guarini, detail of pendentive coffering with Savoy cross, Chapel

of the Holy Shroud

equipment, foundry space, transport, etc.) in addition to payments made directly to the bronze founders Lorenzo Frugone and Simon Boucheron."' Many payments for gold and labor

for the gilding by Giovanni Battista Perico and Francesco

Buonpiede occurred in the same period, as did disburse-

ments to the carpenter for cloth and wooden boxes to protect the newly gilded capitals as construction progressed. These

documents indicate that some capitals were already in place by the end of the pre-Guarini period.l15 Although there can be no

doubt that these were produced from Bernardino Quadri's

design before Guarini's appearance on the scene, they were for

the minor-order columns of the chapel rotunda and the small

pilasters facing them [Figures 4 and 7].116 There is no mention

in this early period of capitals for the major-order pilasters. The first payment for the new wooden model for the Shroud

Chapel, based on Guarini's design, is dated 30 April 1667.ll7

During the initial six years of work under the Theatine priest's direction, the bronze work was primarily for the elaborate

pilaster-flanked door on the palace gallery side of the entrance

to the chapel seen at the top of the plan (at the apex of the

triangle), which was the major ceremonial portal [Figures 4 and

35], and for the minor-order column capitals inside that same

opening. 18 This period of work also produced the comparably sized capitals of the stair landing on the left leading in from the

cathedral.119

For the remaining capitals of all minor-order columns inside

the chapel Guarini followed Quadri's standard Corinthian

rendering, as already in place on the columns of the stair

landing on the right and on the minor-order columns in the

four recesses in the upper half of the rotunda plan [Figures 4

and 7]. Payments to the sculptor-bronze founder Bernardo Falconi began on 3 October 1669 for the capitals of the two

freestanding columns flanking the opening to the cathedral

[Figures 8-9] and, possibly, also for two of the corresponding

pilaster capitals of the rotunda.120 These four capitals reflect a

new design. A payment of 15 July 1672 indicates that some three-sided

capitals (as are those of the major-order pilasters seen in

Figure 5) had been removed and sent back to Boucheron

because they did not follow Guarini's instruction.121 This activ-

ity records Guarini's intervention to enforce conformity to his

model for the capitals in the chapel, but, surprisingly, no

further payments for capitals occurred between that date and

Guarini's death in 1683. The only Passion capitals we can be

certain were executed and put in place under Guarini's supervision are those of the two fluted columns facing the cathedral

choir located between the flanking stairs [Figure 9].

By persisting in a chronological review of the payments, however, we learn the full production history of the Passion

capitals. Documents of 10 and 26 May 1688 indicate that the

casting of six of the eight pilaster capitals still remained to be

accomplished at that late date.122 Awork order given to Falconi

and signed by Guarini's successor, Antonio Bertola, who was in

charge of completing the chapel and its furnishings, clarifies

the issue.123 The six capitals to be cast for the chapel pilasters, the document tells us, were to be of the same "ornate"

Corinthian as those already made (i.e., like Guarini's); the nails

and crown of thorns should be well executed and rendered in

high relief. The facture should not be of inferior quality and

beauty to that of the bronze works already completed in the

chapel.124 But the capitals were still not finished at Falconi's

death, as we learn from the document of 3 December 1692

contracting another founder, Francesco Amonet, to complete the project.125 By 11 February 1694 the final six pilaster

capitals were at last in place in the chapel, just three and

one-half months prior to the installation of its relic on 1 June of

that same year.126

ABBREVIATIONS ACT Archivio Capitolare, Turin

AFMCT Archivio Fotografico dei Musei Civici, Turin

APRMN Archives Photographiques de la Reunion des Musees Nationaux art. articolo ASTR Archivio di Stato di Torino, Riunite

BAV Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana BRT Biblioteca Reale, Turin CIST Centro Interazionale di Sindonologia, Turin

DBI Dizionario biografico degli Italiani (Rome, 1960-) GFSGF Gabinetto Fotografico della Soprintendenza alle Gallerie,

Florence GGIB Guarino Guarini e l'internazionalita del barocco, 2 vols. (Turin, 1970) KB Kupferstichkabinett Berlin ? Lire m. mazzo

reg. registro SBAAP Soprintendenza per i Beni Ambientali e Architettonici del

Piemonte, Turin SBASP Soprintendenza per i Beni Artistici e Storici del Piemonte,

Turin


Notes I wish to thank the following individuals who contributed to the research for

this study: Dorothy Crispino, Giuseppe Dardanello, Giovanna Giacobello Bernard, Luigi Fossati, Irving Lavin, Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, Gino Moretto, Franco Ormezzano, Chiara Passanti, Ada Peyrot, Marika Smith, and Thomas Gordon Smith. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are by the author.

'The fundamental studies on the Shroud Chapel are Mario Passanti, Nel mondo magico di Guarino Guarini (Turin, 1963), 163-94; Nino Carboneri, "Vicenda delle cappelle per la Santa Sindone," Bollettino della Societd Piemontese di Archeologia e BelleArti 18 (1964): 95-109; Luciano Tamburini, Le chiese di Torino dal rinascimento al barocco (Turin, n.d. [1968]), 217-31; and Harold Alan Meek, Guarino Guarini and His Architecture (New Haven, 1988), 61-79. For Guarini's fortuna critica, intimately tied to the Shroud Chapel and nearby church of San Lorenzo, see Daria de Bernardi Ferrero, I "Disegni d'architettura civile et ecclesiastica"di Guarino Guarini e I'arte del maestro (Turin, 1966), 15-34 and Silvia Bordini, "La critica guariniana," in Guarino Guarini e l'internazionalita del barocco, 2 vols. (Turin, 1970), 2:283-305.

2 Eugenio Battisti, "Note sul significato della Cappella della Santa Sindone del Duomo di Torino," inAtti del X Congresso di Storia dell'Architettura 10 (1959): 359-67; Marcello Fagiolo dell'Arco, "La Sindone e l'enigma dell'eclisse," in GGIB 2:205-27; Kevin OrlinJohnson, "Solomon, Apocalypse and the Names of God: The Meaning of the Chapel of the Most Holy Shroud in Turin," Storia Architettura 8 (1985): 55-80;Jacqueline Gargus, "Guarino Guarini: Geometrical Transformations and the Invention of New Architectural Meanings," The HarvardArchitecture Review 7 (1989): 116-31.

3 RudolfWittkower, Art andArchitecture in Italy, 1600-1750, 3d ed. (Harmond- sworth, 1973), 406-10; expanded by Claudia Muller, Unendlichkeit und Transzen- denz in der Sakralarchitektur Guarinis (Hildesheim, 1986), 38-48.

4 Giulio Carlo Argan, "La tecnica del Guarini," in GGIB 1:36. Meek, Guarino Guarini, esp. 77, 154-55. Also, Daniela Del Pesco, book

review of Guarino Guarini and His Architecture by H.A. Meek,JSAH 48 (1989): 396-98. For a critical assessment of this anticontextual stance, see Martha Pollak, book review of Guarino Guarini and His Architecture by H. A. Meek, in Art Bulletin 71 (1989): 699-700.

6 The most important studies to treat Guarini's use of the classical orders are Passanti, Mondo magico, 205-22; Augusto Cavallari-Murat, "Struttura e forma nel trattato architettonico del Guarini," in GGIB 1:451-96; and Juan Antonio Ramirez, "Guarino Guarini, Fray Juan Ricci and the 'Complete' Solomonic Order,"Art History 4 (1981): 175-85.

7 See Thomas Gordon Smith, ClassicalArchitecture: Rule and Invention (Layton, Utah, 1988), 77-79.

8 Gaudenzio Claretta, "Inclinazioni artistiche di Carlo Emanuele I di Savoia e de' suoi figli," Atti della Societa diArcheologia e Belle Arti per la provinica di Torino 5 (1887): 351-52. For initial payments to marble worker and metal supplier, see ASTR, Art. 180, reg. 3, credito 2621 and 2625, debito 71 and 271.

9 On the theory of the Corinthian order in the Renaissance and Baroque periods, see Erik Forssman, Dorisch, jonisch, korinthisch: Studien uberden Gebrauch der Saulenordnungen in der Architektur des 16.-18. Jahrhunderts (1961; rpt. ed., Braunschweig-Wiesbaden, 1984), 89-103.

'0 Some of these minor-order capitals may even date back to the period 1611-14 and 1621-24, when abortive attempts were made to build a reliquary chapel on the same site after a design by Carlo di Castellamonte. Carboneri, "Vicenda," 99-102; Tamburini, Chiese di Torino, 220-21. An inventory of 30July 1657,just as work on the new Shroud Chapel was about to begin, indicates that bronze capitals left from the earlier project were available for reuse. ASTR, Art. 195, reg. 1, 6r, as cited in Carboneri, "Vicenda," 101 and n. 20.

For Quadri, see Alessandro Baudi di Vesme, Schede Vesme: l'arte in Piemonte dal XVI al XVIII secolo, 4 vols. (Turin, 1963-1982), 3:879-80 and Carlo Brayda, Laura Coli, and Dario Sesia, Ingegneri e architetti del sei e settecento in Piemonte (Turin, 1963), 57.

l According to Guarini, in addition to acanthus, the Ancients used three types of plant leaves for the Corinthian and Composite capitals: lily, olive, and oak. Guarino Guarini, Architettura civile... (see n. 16), ed. B. Vittone (Turin, 1737),128-29.

12 The proportional system used for the major-order pilasters, 10:1 in basal diameters, is Vitruvian, whereas, in his treatise, Guarini recommends 9: 1 for the Corinthian order proper, which he calls the "ordine secondo corinto." Ibid., 113.

'3Johnson, "Solomon," 80, n. 44, states that the Passion capitals "date from

before Guarini's assumption of the directorship of the works.... '4 See the appendix to this article. 15 "Saranno di quel med.mo ordine Corinto ornato conforme si vedono li gia

fatti...."ASTR, Art. 199, reg. 9, 32v. 6 Guarini, Architettura, 83-157. Guarini's treatise was written in the late

1670s-1683. The plates illustrating the orders and their application, together with plans, elevations, and sections of Guarini's own buildings, were first published, without text, as Guarino Guarini, Dissegni d'architettura civile et ecclesiastica... (Turin, 1686), where the frontispiece states that the images were "invented and drawn" by Padre Guarini. The text was first published in 1787. The Dissegni is reprinted in Bernardi Ferrero, Disegni (see n. 1), 89-. Few of the original drawings have survived, but the plates seem to have been engraved before Guarini's death and subsequently left with his Thea- tine brothers in Turin, who undertook to have them published (ibid., 7). Inscriptions on many of the plates declare Guarini's authorship, and the dedications of individual engravings also seem to confirm the involvment of the architect. These dedication inscriptions were removed from the plates before the printing of the 1737 edition. On the authenticity of the engravings and the mediocrity of the engravers, see Aldo Bertini, "I1 disegno del Guarini e le incisioni del trattato di Architettura civile," in GGIB 1:597-610.

17Guarini may have been encouraged toward this liberal, open-ended attitude by the treatise of the Spanish Benedictine Juan Ricci Ramfrez, "Gua- rini," 175-85.

18 Guarini names this the "Third" or "Supreme" Corinthian order. Guarini, Architettura, 113-17, 123, and pl. 4; Ramirez, "Guarini," 175-85.

19 Ramirez (ibid., 177) holds instead that Guarini actually sought to stop the multipication of orders and limit them to a set, if expanded, number. The tone of Guarini's discussion and the large number of variations he presents in both text and illustrations seem to contradict such an intention.

20 Such as the Peruvian nasturtia he places at the angles of the capital of the "Third" Doric order. Guarini,Architettura, 93, pl. 3.

21 Ibid., 129. In Rome, about this same time, Borromini inserted saintly crowns and other symbolic elements into his design for the facade capitals of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane. Smith, ClassicalArchitecture, 13-14.

22 These being the female reproductive parts of the flower's stamen. 23 In the Architettura civile, Guarini similarly positioned a laurel crown in the

capital of his 'Third" Corinthian (Solomonic) order (Figure 10) and in a related Corinthian variant (Figure 11, number 22). Guarini, Architettura, pls. 3 and 5.

24 Vitruvius, 4.1.7-12. 23 Guarini, like many of his predecessors, starts from the premise that the

orders carry meaning. On this tradition, see John Onians, Bearers of Meaning: The Classical Orders in Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance (Princeton, 1988), esp. 141-330.

26 Guarini, Architettura, 121-22. Franco Borsi, "Guarino Guarini a Messina," in GGIB 1:71-90, fig. 6, illustrates one of the damaged iris capitals salvaged from the destroyed church and now abandoned in the courtyard of the Museo Nazionale, Messina.

27 Guarini, Architettura, 122. On Colbert's competition, which took place in 1671, seeJean-Marie Perouse de Monclos, Histoire de l'architecturefranfaise de la Renaissance a la Revolution (Paris, 1989), 226-32. A century before Colbert's competition Philibert Delorme proposed an ideologically based order, the "French Column," but focused his invention on the shaft rather than the capital. Philibert Delorme, Le premier tome de l'architecture (Paris, 1567), bk. 7, chaps. 11-12.

28Jean-Marie Perouse de Montclos, "Le sixieme ordre d'architecture, ou la pratique des ordres suivant les nations,"JSAH 36 (1977): 223-40, esp. 231.

29 Mirella Levi d'Ancona, The Garden of the Renaissance: Botanical Symbolism in Italian Painting (Florence, 1977), 185-89, analyzes the literary and pictorial context of these common meanings of the iris in the Renaissance.

30 Guarini,Architettura, 103. 3' Ibid., pl. 28. 32 Ibid. 33Vitruvius, 4.1.7. 34 Eugenio Olivero, "L'altare della SS. Sindone ed il suo autore," II Duomo di

Torino 2(1928): 6-11. 35 Pietro Savio, Ricerche storiche sulla Santa Sindone (Turin, 1957), 305-32;

Giuseppe Maria Pugno, La Santa Sindone che si venera a Torino (Turin, 1961),


211-15; Maria Luisa Moncassoli Tibone, "La Casa Savoia e la presenza della Sindone in Piemonte," in Cesare Bertana et al., La Sindone, di qua dai monti: documenti e testimonianze (Turin, 1978), 31-35; idem, Vita del ducato sabaudo ed ostensione della Sindone allegenti (Turin, 1980).

36 Gian Maria Zaccone, "Contributo allo studio delle fonte edite sulla Sindone nei secoli XVI e XVII," in La Sindone: nuovi studi e ricerche, Atti del III Congresso Nazionale di Studi sulla Sindone, Trani, ed. P. Coero-Borga and G. Intrigillo (Cinisello Balsamo, 1986), 35-73. The first official history and defense of the relic's antiquity is Emmanuel Philibert Pingon, Sindon evangelica (Turin, 1581).

37 Alfonso Paleotti, Esplicatione del sacro lenzuolo ovefu involto il signore et delle

piaghe in esso imprese col suo pretioso sangue ... (1599; rpt. ed., Turin, 1975), in which the wounds are represented in a fold-out woodcut and are letter-keyed to the text, where the individual wounds are represented in detail. In separate plates Paleotti represented the nail-punctured soles of Christ's feet. He appar- ently examined the Shroud firsthand and with intense scrutiny. He seems to have been the first person to notice (but only in the first edition of 1598) that the nail wounds were located not in the hands, as tradition held, but in the wrists, as would have been necessary for support. On Paleotti and his book, see Mario

Fanti, "Genesi e vicende del libro di Alfonso Paleotti sulla Sindone," in L.

Coppini and F. Cavazzuti, eds., La Sindone: scienza e fede, Atti del II Convegno Nazionale di Sindonologia (Bologna, 1983), 369- 79.

38 Paleotti, Esplicatione, 16-17; Agaffino Solaro di Moretta, Sindone evangelica, historca e theologica (Turin, 1627), 41-48.

39 For a description of the court ceremony surrounding the exhibition of the

relic, see the manuscript collection of Savoy court ceremonials in BRT, Storia Patria 726/2-4, 12 v-1 28v (1676), 314v-317v (1683); BRT, Stora Patria 726/3, 63v-72v (1692), 261v-269r (1697); BRT, Storia Patria 726/9-1, 87 (1775).

On his pilgrimage to see the Shroud in 1578, Carlo Borromeo and some members of his famiglia gained privileged access to the relic and kissed the wound marks on the side and feet. For the contemporary account left by Jesuit Francesco Adorno, a member of Borromeo's entourage, see Pietro Savio,

"Pellegrinaggio di San Carlo Borromeo alla Sindone in Torino," Aevum 7

(1933): 423-54, esp. 448. 40 Giambattista Marino, II ritratto del Serenissimo Don Carlo Emanuello, Duca di

Savoja, panegirico (Venice, 1628), 80 [Ist ed., Turin, 1608]: E fu legge fatal, forse da Dio

Con caratteri d'or lassi scolpita, Che de le piaghe, onde in sanguigno rio Per cinque ampi canali usci la vita, La sacra stampa in bianco drappo impressa Non fusse in terra ad altra man commessa.

O di prezzo infinito alto thesoro, O sovr'ogni altra al ciel casa diletta. Non di terrena man basso lavoro, Non d'oscuro maestro opra imperfetta, Figura il cui pittor fu Cristo essangue, Pennelli i chiodi, e fu colore il sangue.

But Marino's most sustained encomium of the Shroud and its owner appears in

the Dicerie sacre: "Pittura: diceria prima sopra la Santa Sindone, al Serenissimo Don Carlo Emanuello Duca di Savoia." Giambattista Marino, Dicerie sacre e la

stragedegl'innocenti, ed. G. Pozzi (Turin, 1960), 79-201 [Ist ed., Turin, 1614]. 41 Rudolf Berliner, "Anna Christi," MiinchnerJahrbuch der Bildenden Kunst 4

(1955): 35-152; Gertrud Schiller, Iconography of Christian Art, trans.J. Seligman, 2 vols. (Greenwich, Conn., 1971-72) 2:184-97.

42 Giovanni Francesco Blancardi di Sospello, Tesoro celeste, in Discorsi morali

sopra la S. Sindone di N.S. Giesu Christo, reliquia della sereniss. casa di Savoia (Turin,

1625), 29. Even the scourge marks are visible on the back. 43The reliquary-altar assemblage, with its flanking angels and sunburst

above, derives from Bernini's Cathedrapetri in Saint Peter's and from the sculpted

Angels Holding the Instruments of the Passion on the Ponte Sant'Angelo, Rome

(1667-1672). On Bernini's angels with the instruments, see Mark S. Weil, The

History and Decoration of the Ponte S. Angelo (University Park, 1974), 31-88. 44 See, for example, Lione da Daudet, The Altar of the Holy Shroud, engraving

on silk, 1737, 29 by 46 centimeters, illustrated in Carlo Lovera di Castiglione and

Carlo Merlo, eds., L'ostensione della Santa Sindone (Turin, 1931), 60, cat. 54, pl. XLV.

45The reliquary is undocumented but probably dates from circa 1604, according to the reasoning of Luigi Fossati, "Ure e reliquiari nelle vicende della

Sindone," Piemonte 9 (1979): 29-36, and idem, "Furono due gli incendi che minacciarono la Sindone," Piemonte 11 (1981): 30-32.

46 Guarini signed a detailed estimate of the completed model on 30 Novem- ber 1667. ASTR, Art. 197, reg. 12, 92v-95v. Giuseppe Dardanello, "La scena urbana," in Torino, 1675-1699: strategie e conflitti del barocco, ed. G. Romano (Turin, 1993), 64. The engraving, together with a plan, appeared in Johann Blaeu, Theatrum statuum regiae celsitudinis sabaudiae ducis, Pedemontii principis, Cypris regis..., 2 vols. (Amsterdam, 1682), 1:25-26, pl. 19. The drawings for the

engravings were made by Giovanni Tommaso Borgonio in 1669-70. His

request for compensation was recorded on 31 December 1680. Luigi Firpo, ed., Theatrum sabaudiae (teatro degli stati del Duca di Savoia), 2 vols. (Turin, 1984-85), 2:124. The drawings are almost certainly based on the painted wooden model of 1667. Henry A. Millon, "Guarino Guarini," in Macmillan Encyclopedia ofArchitects, ed. Adolf Placzek, 4 vols. (New York, 1982), 2:268; Dardanello, "Scena," 47 and n. 18. The treatment of the dome differs from both Guarini's plate in the Architettura civile (pl. 3) and the actual dome as completed.

47 Giovanni Pietro Valeriano Bolzano, Hieroglyphica (Lyons, 1602), 507-508, 639. On the late medieval devotion to the Five Sacred Wounds of Christ, see The Catholic Encyclopedia, 16 vols. (New York, 1907-14), 15:714-15.

48 Valeriano Bolzano, Hieroglyphica, 508. 49 Cornelius a Lapide, Commentaria in Scripturam Sacram ..., 11 vols. (Venice,

1740), 11:714[lsted., Antwerp, 1618-37]. 50 "... Gieroglifico e questo nodo dell'appassionato Christo, e delle cinque

piaghe ... La Sacra Sindone dunque e lo stendardo dove a caratteri di sangue e

stampata la pentalpha salutare...." Eugenio Quarant'otto, La sacra sindone,

componimenti... (Verona, 1624), 40. On Quarant'otto, see Antonio Francesco

Vezzosi, I scrittori de' cheric regolari detti teatini, 2 vols. (Rome, 1780), 2:201. 51 Guarini proposed to use pentagons in design components of other

churches. See, for example, the pentagons in the pendentives of San Lorenzo as

represented in the section in the Architettura civile. The geometry is less regular and apparent in the pendentives as executed in the Theatine church. The unexecuted project for San Gaetano, Nice, rose on a pentagonal plan. Guarini, Architettura, pls. 6, 12-13. Because the contexts are not as charged with Passion

imagery, a Christological reading of these forms would be less obvious but still

appropriate. 52 The payment of ?80 to the locksmith who fashioned it, Giovanni Pietro

Farino, is dated 10 April 1683. ASTR, Art. 267, 115. 53 "Adoremus in nomine tuo, Christe, tue victoriose crucis vexillum, tuum

spineum, tuam Sanctam Syndonem, tuo rubentes sanguine clavos, ac tuo sacro lateri immersam lanceam." From the "Missa Sancte Syndonis," published in

Savio, Ricerche, 229. 54 A diary entry of 24 May 1685 records the demolition of the reliquary. Dina

Rebaudegno, Torino racconta, diario manoscritto di Francesco Ludovico Soleri... (Tu- rin, 1969), 26-27. For the payments to the workmen, ASTR, Art. 201, 1684-86,

reg. 26, 32v- 33r. 55 For the payments to the painter Giovanni Antonio Mossino for covering

these elements with bronze paint, see ASTR, Art. 197, reg. 12 (1657-73), 117v. 56 On the sun as the personal and family impresa of Urban VIII Barberini, see

Giovanni Ferro, Teatro d'imprese, Venice, 1623, 370, 406, 650-54. For its

appearance on the Baldacchino, see Sebastian Schutze, "'Urbano inalza Pietro, e Pietro Urbano': Beobachtungen zu Idee und Gestalt der Ausstattung von

Neu-St. Peter unter Urban VIII," RomischesJahrbuch der Bibliotheca Hertziana 29

(1994): 246-48. Eugen von Mercklin, Antike Figuralkapitelle (Berlin, 1962),

catalogues hundreds of examples of variant capitals from antiquity. 57 Kjeld De Fine Licht, The Rotunda in Rome: A Study of Hadrian's Pantheon

(Copenhagen, 1968), 241. 58 Ellsworth Paine Killip, The American Species of Passifloraceae... (Chicago,

1938), esp. 11-18 for the general morphology; and John Vanderplank, Passion Flowers and Passion Fruit (Cambridge, Mass,, 1991).

59 Ibid., 21-24. 60 Killip, Passifloraceae, 423-26; Vanderplank, Passion Flowers, 66-68. On the

legend, see Richard Folkard, Plant Lore, Legends, and Lyrics: Embracing the Myths, Traditions, Superstitions, and Folk-lore of the Plant Kingdom (London, 1884), 181-83, 486-88. The vine is most common in tropical areas, but spreads as far

south as Argentina and as far north as southern Indiana, where one species, passiflora incarnata, has been identified. Ellsworth Paine Killip, "Supplemental Notes on the American Species of Passiforaceae, with Descriptions of New

Species," in Contributions from the United States National Herbarium 35 (1960): pt.


1, 19. About fifty species are found in Asia, Australia, and Madagascar. The New York Botanical Garden Illustrated Encyclopedia of Horticulture, ed. T. H. Everett, 10 vols. (New York and London, 1980-81), 8:2502-6.

61 Pedro Cieza de Le6n, La Cronica del Peru, in Obras completas, 3 vols. (Madrid, 1984), 1:41 [ st ed., Seville, 1553].

62 Nicolas Monardes, Dos libros, en uno que trata de todas las cosas que traen de neustras Indias occidentales que sirven al uso de la medicina, y el otro que trata de la piedra bezaar, y de la yerva escuerconera . . . (Seville, 1569), chap. 66, 17 [Lat. ed., Simplicium medicamentorum ex novo orbe delatorum, quorum in medicina usus est, historia, liber tertius.. ., trans. C. de L'Ecluse (Antwerp, 1581), 16-17; 1st Lat. ed. (Antwerp, 1574)]. Republished in Charles de L'Ecluse, Exoticorum libri decem: quibus animalium, plantarum, aromatum, aliorumque peregrinorum fructum historiae describuntur... (Antwerp, 1605). For a complete list of the numerous editions and translations of Monardes' celebrated work, see Francisco Guerra, Nicolas Bautista Monardes: su viday su obra (ca. 1493-1588) (Monterrey, Mexico, 1961), 117-74. Monardes bases his understanding of the utility of plants on the Doctrine of Signatures, which holds that God, in his providence, placed flowers, fruits, and roots in the world for the benefit of humankind. In such plants God has left a sign to inform us of the medicinally beneficial properties of each, and those signs take the shape of the organ of the body for which it is palliative. Thus, for example, since the granadilla (passion fruit) somewhat resembles the human stomach, it therefore possesses healing potential for digestive disorders.

63 Samuel Purchas, Purchas: His Pilgrimes..., 4 vols. (London, 1625), 3:959 [ st ed., London, 1613].

64 Reprinted in Simone Parlasca, Ilfiore della granadiglia... (Bologna, 1609), 9-10. On Botero, see DBI 12:352-62.

65 Giovanni Botero, Laprimavera (Turin, 1609), 60: Ma non convien lasciar la Granadiglia

Supremo honor di Messicani fiori, Quivi se ben tua vista s'assottiglia, Vedrai del tuo Giesu gli asperi dolori La Colonna, e le piaghe, e la vermiglia Corona, e cio, che nel la Croce adori, I coperti di sangue acuti chiodi, E (se pieta t'aiuta) e funi, e nodi.

Onde awien santo, incomparabil fiore, Che in terra naschi, e in clima si lontano, Co' rei tormenti, ch'hebbe il Redentore, Da popol disleal, empio inhumano? Quanto staresti meglio entro il mio core, Per opra dell'artefice soprano? Non temeresti tu rigor di verno; E destaresti in me fervor interno.

On Botero's influence on architecture and urbanism in Turin during the early decades of the seventeenth century, see Martha Pollak, Turin, 1564-1680: Urban Design, Military Culture, and the Creation of the Absolutist Capital (Chicago, 1991), 3640.

66 Pietro Castelli [Tobia Aldino], Exactissima descriptio rariorum quarundam plantarum, que continentur Rome in horto farnesiano, Tobia Aldino cesenate auctore illustr.mi et rev.mi principis et cardinalis Odoardi Farnesii medico chimico, et eiusdem hortipraefecto (Rome, 1625), 49-56. On the Orti Farnesiani, see David R. Coffin, Gardens and Gardening in Papal Rome (Princeton, 1991), 69-75, 208. On Guarini's years in Rome (1639-47), see Tommaso Sandonnini, Del Padre Guarino Guarini chierico regolare (Modena, 1890), 7-9. The Farnese specimen was not the sole passionflower to be found in Rome at the time. Georgina Masson, "Italian Flower Collectors' Gardens in Seventeenth Century Italy," in The Italian Garden, ed. David R. Coffin (Washington, D.C., 1972), 78-79.

67 Giovanni Battista Ferrari, Flora overo cultura difiori (Rome, 1638), 193 [1st ed., Deflorum cultura, Rome, 1633].

68 These included lilies, irises, tulips, jonquils, columbines, carnations, and poppies. Guarini, Architettura, 108-9, 112, 115, 117, 122, 129. See also Guarini's references to various flowers used to create dyes useful for architectural drawings (ibid., 10-11, 13-14).

69 Castelli, Descriptio, 49, as quoted in Folkard, Lore, 487. Castelli illustrates the plant in three full-page engravings depicting the entire flowering vine, the blossoms, and the fruit (pls. 50, 52, 58). On Castelli (1570/75-1661), see DBI 21:747-50. The extensive literature produced in the seventeenth century on the passionflower is discussed in Giovanni Pozzi, Sull'orlo del visibile parlare (Milan,

1993)329-41. 70 Antonio Canali, "Primo discorso nel quale si descrivono il fiore, e il frutto

della granadiglia, overo della passione de N.S. Giesf Christo," in Parlasca, Fiore, 4. The engraved plate accompanying Canali's encomium, opposite page 1, appears to be the earliest published image of the passionflower.

71 Giacomo Bosio, La trionfante, e gloriosa croce .. . lettione varia, e divota . . . (Rome, 1610), 163-65. On Bosio (1544-1627), see DBI 13:261-64. Although Castelli's primary interest was scientific, he, too, subsequently discussed the flower from a theological perspective. Castelli, Descriptio, 55-56.

72John Parkinson, Paradisi in sole. Paradisus terrestris, or a Garden of all Sorts of Pleasant Flowers... (1629; rpt. ed., London, 1904), 396.

73 Bosio, Trionfante croce, 163. 74 In the flower itself, the five pollen-carrying anthers forming a pentagon

shape under the styles represent the major wounds of Christ (Figure 31). 75 On Loyola's use of the senses for attaining spiritual ends, see George E.

Ganss, The Spiritual Exercises ofSaint Ignatius (Chicago, 1992), 163-65. 76 Pozzi, Orlo, 331-32. 77 For example, the engraving published in 1609 by Parlasca, Fiore, opposite

page 1, also represents the flower in moralized form. 78 Giuseppe Olmi, "Science-Honour-Metaphor: Italian Cabinets of the Six-

teenth and Seventeenth Centuries," in The Origins of Museums: The Cabinet of Curiosities in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Europe, ed. O. Impey and A. MacGregor (Oxford, 1985), 12-13. The Savoy court historiographer Emanuele Tesauro interpreted flowers and other natural phenomena as hieroglyphs and symbols. Emanuele Tesauro, II cannocchiale aristotelico (Turin, 1670), 73-78. The Doctrine of Signatures may be seen as the medical branch of this same thinking.

79 Paleotti, Esplicatione (see n. 37), 56-58; Solaro di Moretta, Sindone evangelica (see n. 38), 198-99; Francois Victon, Histoire ou breftraite du S. Suaire de N.S. lesus Christ, pretieuse relique de la maison de Savoye, qui se garde a Turin (Paris, 1634), 16.

80 Solaro di Moretta, Sindone evangelica, 13-14. For engraved images of the major wounds, intended for meditational use, see Paleotti, Esplicatione.

81 Vittorio Amedeo Barralis, Anotomia per la novena della Santa Sindone con una corona composta d'affetti sopra li principali misterii della passione. Opera spirituale (Turin, 1685). Following a brief history of the relic (1-12) the main body of the text (13-119) is devoted to an essay on the spiritual significance of the Shroud entitled "Anotomia sacra divisa in affetti proposta a contemplativi divoti di Christo appassionato nella Santa Sindone." On Barralis, see Vezzosi, Scrittori, 1:105-6.

82 Barralis,Anotomia, 11-12. 83 Ibid., between 12 and 13. 84 Ibid., 13-14. 85 Ibid., 60-61. 86 See the report of the papal nuncio dated 6 April 1650 and transcribed in

Savio, Ricerche (see n. 35), 312-13: "II padre Pepe teatino predicatore in questo duomo ha di tal maniera cattivati gli animi di queste AA. e di tutta la corte con il suo modo di predicare all'apostolica, e per haver istituita una nuova devotione verso questa Santissima Sindone, che si rende cospicuo a tutta la citta per il zelo che dimostra della salute dell'anime." On Stefano Pepe, see Vezzosi, Scrittori (see n. 50), 1:171-74; Antonio Bosio, Ipredicatori quaresimalisti della real casa di Savoia (Turin, 1874), 21.

87 Gaetano Moroni, Dizionario di erudizione storico-ecclesiastica, 103 vols. (Venice, 1840-61) 17:193-200. Barralis's "Corona" is clearly derived from the rosary, which also consists of decades of Aves interspersed amid the fifteen mysteries, the middle five of which are "sorrowful," i.e., of the Passion: Agony in the Garden, Flagellation, Crowning with Thorns, Carrying of the Cross, and Crucifixion. Ibid., 59:150-51.

88 The papal nuncio in Turin described the chapel in some detail in his report on its consecration in 1694, indicating that the scenes of the "four mysteries" (of the Passion) had yet to be completed. There is no evidence that they were ever painted. Transcribed in Savio, Ricerche, 329. In the 1840s Carlo Alberto filled the spaces with dynastic tomb monuments.

89As explained in Barralis, Anotomia, 106-8, 117-19. Other scenes (a Resurrection and Angels Holding the Cross) were to appear just outside the chapel on the cathedral choir walls, as seen in the lower left of the Theatrum engraving (Figure 22).

90 Paleotti, Esplicatione, 50. 91 Like the medicant orders, the Theatines took vows of poverty, but, at the

SCO7T: GUARINI'S PASSION CAPITALS 443

same time, their rule forbade them to seek alms in public. In consequence the Theatine congregation depended heavily on princely benefaction, not only in Turin but also in other urban centers such as Paris and Munich where they had

major houses. For the Theatines, the Savoy, and the Shroud at Turin, see

Giuseppe Silos, Historiarum clericorum regularum..., 3 vols. (Rome and Palermo, 1650-66), 2:358-59,441-44.

92Luigi Cibrario, Storia di Torino, 2 vols. (Turin, 1846), 2:383-85; Bosio, Predicatori, 16- 29; Savio, Ricerche, 305-32.

93Cibrario, Storia di Torino, 2:397; Bosio, Predicatori, 16-17, 20; Savio, Ricerche, 305-32.

94 Giuseppe Michele Crepaldi, La Real Chiesa di San Lorenzo in Torino (Turin, 1963), 31-50, 67-74. On the Theatines and Savoy patronage, see Elwin Clark Robison, "Guarino Guarini's Church of San Lorenzo in Turin," (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1985), 70-82, and Susan E. Klaiber, "Guarino Guarini's Theatine Architecture," (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1993), 200-49.

95 The iconographic tradition of Christ as king is found among the earliest

major examples of Christian art. On the Early Christian concept of the crown of thorns as the regalia of Christ, see Klaus Wessel, "Christus Rex," Archdologischer Anzeiger 68 (1953): 127-29.

96 Charles Rohault de Fleury, Memoire sur les instruments de la passion de N.-S.

J.-C. (Paris, 1870), 80, 184; Balduino Bedini, Le reliquie della passione del Signore (Rome, 1987), 49-62. On the history of the titulus, see Honor6 Nicquet, Historia et mysterium tituli s-crucis D.N.J.C. (Paris, 1648). For its relevance to the image of the crucified figure of Christ on the Shroud, see Paleotti, Esplicatione (see n. 37), 39-41.

97 Giovanni Battista Corno, II Santo Chiodo, tesoro del duomo di Milano (Milan, 1641); Fausto Ruggeri, I1 Santo Chiodo venerato nel duomo di Milano (Milan, 1989); Rohault de Fleury, Memoire, 165-81. On San Carlo and the Shroud, see Savio,

"Pellegrinaggio" (see n. 39)," 423-54. 98 Sauveur-Jro6me Morand, Histoire de la S.te-Chapelle Royale du palais...

(Paris, 1790); Rohault de Fleury, Memoire, 199-224. In addition to his extensive verses in honor of the Savoy Shroud, Marino also composed a canzone, first

published in 1627, entitled "La Corona di Spine." Giambattista Marino, La lira... (Venice, 1674), pt. 3, 180-81. On the Sainte-Chapelle and its collection of Passion relics as a model for the Savoy, see Victon, Histoire, 58-59.

99 Camillo Balliani, Ragionamenti sopra la Sacra Sindone ..., 2 vols. (Turin, 1624) in the dedication to volume 2 (n.p.), explains that God gave the two most

precious relics of his Son, one each, to the two most faithful princes of Christendom, Louis IX of France and Duke Louis of Savoy.

100 Giovanni Gaspare Craveri, Guida de'forestieri per la citta di Torino (Turin, 1753), 25.

10' Canali, "Discorso" (see n. 70),17-19. 102 On rank and hierarchy in the application of the orders, see Onians, Bearers

ofMeaning, 162-70. The gallery and the profile of the portal appear in the lower

right of the 1682 section (Figure 22). Blaeu, Theatrum sabaudiae, :pl. 19. 103 This portal was conceived as the principal entrance to the chapel. See the

report of the papal nuncio dated 4 June 1694: the chapel "ha la sua porta maggiore nella galleria al piano dell'appartamento del palazzo nuovo del signor Duca...." As transcribed in Savio, Ricerche, 329.

'04Guarini, Architettura, pl. 11. On the history and incidence of inverted volutes in Corinthian and Composite capitals, see Leo Steinberg, Borromini's San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane: A Study in Multiple Form and Architectural Symbolism (New York, 1977), 208-17. For Borromini's use of the motif, see ibid., 201-7, and Ingamaj Beck, "II capitello composito a volute invertite: saggio su una forma antica nella struttura borrominiana," Analecta Romana Instituti Danici 6 (1971): 225-34.

105 On the Supreme Order of the Santissima Annunziata, see Luigi Cibrario, Notizia storica dell'ordine supremo della Santissima Annunziata ... (Florence, 1869). The order was the Savoyard equivalent of the Habsburg Order of the Golden Fleece and especially the French Royal Order of the Saint-Esprit. The knots of the chain are devices of the Savoy.

106 Lovera di Castiglione and Merlo, Ostensione (see n. 44), 55, cat. 9, pl. 26. 107 The number of knights represented the fifteen Mysteries of the Virgin and

the five Wounds of Christ. Francesco Cognasso, "Ordine della SS. Annunziata," in Enciclopedia italiana discienze, lettere ed arti, 35 vols. (Rome, 1950), 3:409-11.

108 See the late eighteenth-century manuscript history of the order and the function of its members in cermonially exhibiting the Shroud. Giovanni Domenico Pisceria, "Memorie storiche compend.te sull'Ordine Supremo della

SS.ma Annunziata coi ceremoniali per la tenuta de' capitoli, cappelle, ed

esposizione privata e pubblica della reliquia della Santissima Sindone," BRT, Storia Patria 905.

109 Samuel Guichenon, Histoiregenealogique de la royale maison de Savoie, 2 vols. (Turin, 1778-80), 1:97-98 [1st ed., Lyon, 1660]. The claim had been made by the Savoy much earlier, but the title was disputed, especially by Venice, and not

universally recognized. Pierre Monod, Trattato del titolo regio dovuto alla serenis- sima casa di Savoia, insieme con un ristretto delle rivolutioni del reame di Cipri appartenente alla corona dell'altezza reale di Vittorio Amedeo ... (Turin, 1633); idem, Coelum allobrogicum, hoc est, Victoris Amedei, serenissimi Cypriorum regis, atque

allobrogum ducis potentissimi, corona regia panegyricus (Lyon, 1634). The island realm had been under Turkish control since 1571, and remained so until the British obtained it in 1878, but for the Savoy the title was the substance of the claim.

"'?Jean de Joinville, Histoire de S. Loys IX du nom, roy de France.... (Paris, 1617).

1 Guichenon, Histoire, 2:111-14; George Hill, A History of Cyprus, 4 vols.

(Cambridge, 1940-52), 3:543-616. Charlotte formally ceded her Turkish- controlled kingdom to Duke Carlo II of Savoy in 1485. Ibid., 611-13.

112 Pingon, Sindon (see n. 36), 16-17; Victon, Histoire (see n. 79), 57-58. 13 Ibid., 13-15, 25-27, 50-53, and esp. 57-58. As Marino put it, their

possession of the Shroud demonstrated that the Savoy were "above every other house, beloved by heaven." See above, n. 40.

114 The earliest of these dates is 7 February 1659 (ASTR, Art. 195, m. 1, reg. 1, 16r) and the last 21 March 1667 (ASTR, Art. 197, reg. 12, 87r). The intervening entries follow in order of document location: ASTR, Art. 179, m. 8, reg. 1

(1657-66), nos. 78, 83, 97-99, 103, 106, 109, 112-13, 115-16, 120, 125, 139, 143, 153, 169, 191, 199, 205, 212, 215, 232, 246, 271, 278, 283, 288, 292, 294, 304-5, 315, 322; Art. 195, m. 1, reg. 1 (1667-77), 19r-20v, 32r, 33r, 35r; Art. 196, reg. 1 bis (1660-61), 26r; Art. 197, reg. 12 (1657-73), 23v-24r, 26r-27r, 28r, 31v-33r, 34v-36r, 37r-v, 38v, 39v, 40v, 43r-v, 45r, 48r, 51r-v, 52r, 54r, 55v-56v, 60v, 62v, 67r, 69r, 75r, 77r, 78v-79v, 81r, 83r-84r, 85r, 87r. Also see

Cibrario, Storia di Torino (see n. 92), 2:399; Carboneri, "Vicenda" (see n. 1),104; Tamburini, Chiese di Torino (see n. 1), 223. On Boucheron, see Baudi di Vesme, Schede(seen. 10), 1:202-4.

15 These payments began in 1661 and ended in 1666. ASTR, Art. 179, m.

8, reg. 1 (1657-66), nos. 114, 117, 122, 126-28, 131, 134, 137-38, 140-41, 145, 147-48, 150, 154-55, 157, 159-61, 164, 168-70, 172-73, 175-77, 181, 183, 185, 188-89, 192-93, 198, 206-7, 211, 220, 233, 238, 242, 248, 252, 255, 262, 264, 270; Art. 195, m. 1, reg. 1 (1667-77), 21r-35r; Art. 197, reg. 12

(1657-73), 37r-v, 38v, 40r-43r, 44r-49r, 50r-v, 52r-53v, 56v, 60v, 63v, 67r, 68r-v, 71r-v, 72v, 73v-74v, 83v-84r. Also, Tamburini, Chiese di Torino, 224.

116 The documents in this early period refer only to capitals for columns and for the piers facing them. The payment of 7 February 1659 refers to "capitelli di bronzo che mancano alli grossi colonne..." (ASTR, Art. 195, reg. 1, 16r); another document records the completion of 14 pier capitals ("contracapitelli") between 24July and 22 December 1659 (ASTR, Art. 197, reg. 12, 24r); and a later payment of 1 December 1661 (Ibid., 39v) indicates "capitelli e basi di metallo che fa per le collonne di marmo alla capella..."

117 ASTR, Art. 179, m. 8, reg. 2, no. 8, as cited in Carboneri, "Vicenda," 106 and n. 38; also see ASTR, Art. 197, reg. 12, 87v.

118 The pilasters appear clearly on the plan, marking the entrance in the

gallery connecting the chapel to the palace at piano nobile level. For capitals and other bronze work for the entrance from the palace (both inside the chapel and outside in the palace gallery), beginning 6 February 1668, see ASTR, Art. 179, m. 8, reg. 2 (1667-69), nos. 6, 8, 18, 31, 35, 37, 41; Art. 195, reg. 1 bis

(1667-77), lv, 2r; and Art. 197, reg. 12 (1657-73), 96v, 97r-98r, 106r-v, 107v, 110r, 11 v-112r, 144r.

119 For the capitals of the left stair landing beginning on 12 June, 1669, see

ASTR, Art. 197, reg. 12 (1657-73), 144v-145r. For capitals without specified location but because of document dates, probably to be associated with either the

palace entry portal or the left stair landing, see ASTR, Art. 179, m. 8, reg. 2

(1667-69), nos. 2,12,15,27,28,33,36,40,42,44-45,54,64; Art. 195, reg. 1 bis

(1667-77), lv, 5r; and Art. 195, reg. 12 (1657-73), 92v, 97r, 98r, 102v, 105r, 107r-108r, 109v, 110v, 112v, 113r-v, 114v, 115v-116r, 117r, 119r-120v, 121v-122r, 125r, 142v-143r.

120 Falconi received ?1080 for metal for the "gran capitelli delle due colonne


grosse per la capella..." (ASTR, Art. 179, m. 8, reg. 2, no. 50), with similar payments on 5 October 1669, 12 February 1670, and 4 October 1670 (ASTR, Art. 197, reg. 12, 113v-114r, 115v, 120r). On 5 October 1669 he received another ?900 for "gran capitelli di metallo che fa fare per li pilastroni et grosse colonne per la capella..." (ASTR, Art. 179, m. 8, reg. 2, no. 49; see also ASTR, Art. 197, reg. 12, 113v, at same date), with similar payments on 15July 1672 and 6 April 1673 (ibid., 143r). The fully rounded capitals of the two fluted columns have the titulus. On Falconi, see Baudi di Vesme, Schede, 2:448-51.

121 "... Capitelli triangolari disfatti che non havuto potuto servire conforme al dissegno del Padre D. Guerini, e percio rimessili per reffondere ..." (ASTR, Art. 197, reg. 12, 143r).

122 The bronze founder received an advance of? 1500. ASTR, Art. 199, reg. 9, 3r-4r and 31v-36r; ASTR, Art. 193, 43r-52v. By 11 October 1688 Falconi had completed two of the capitals and finished the molds of the other four. ASTR, Art. 199, reg. 9, 88r-89r.

123 On Bertola, see Baudi di Vesme, Schede, 1:127-28; Brayda et al., Ingegneri (see n. 10), 16; Nino Carboneri, "Antonio Bertola," in DBI 9:562-63; and Millon, "Guarino Guarini," in Macmillan Encyclopedia ofArchitects, 1:265-79.

124 26 May 1688: "Instruzione da osservarsi nella constructtione delli capitelli. Li capitelli che si devono construere per li sei pilastroni nella Capella del Sant.mo Sudario sarano di quel med.mo ordine Corinto ornato conforme si vedono li gia fatti.... Che li fiori o chiodi, e corona di spine in luoro vece sii ricercato, e ben rillevato ... Che le foglie siino attacate alla campanna con viti o chiavi; et in tal maniera che facendo un homo forza con la mano non le possa staccare. Che ogni parte del resto de capitelli sudetti habbi li suoi angoli ben proffillati rillevati, limati, puliti, e lustri in modo che tutta la fattura de medesimi non sia inferiore alli piii belli; che si trovano in opera nella detta capella." ASTR, Art. 199, reg. 9, 31v-36r.

The wording makes clear, as does close examination of the capitals themselves, that they were not cast as a unit but are made up of many individual parts pieced together and held in place by pins and screws (Figure 29).

125 ASTR, Art. 199, reg. 10, 77v-85r. 126 Ibid., 186v-187r.

Illustration Credits

Figures 1, 10-11,26,32, 38,40. BAV

Figures 2, 15. Mario Passanti, Mondo magico Figure 3. AFMCT Figure 4. SBAAP Figure 5. Giuseppe Dardanello, "La scena urbana," in Torino 1675-1699 (Turin, 1993), 83

Figure 6. Thomas Gordon Smith, Notre Dame, Ind. Figures 7, 16, 19, 41. SBASP Figures 8, 12-13, 21,25, 27,29-30,35-37,42. Author Figure 9. Paolo Robino, Turin

Figure 14. Franco Borsi, Bernini (New York, 1984), 246 Figure 17. APRMN

Figure 18. Brogi (Alinari/Art Resource) Figure 20. CIST

Figures 22-23.Johann Blaeu, Theatrum sabaudiae (Amsterdam, 1682) Figure 24. KB

Figure 28. ACT

Figure 31.John Vanderplank, Passion Flowers (Cambridge, Mass., 1991), 68 Figures 33-34,39. BRT
