Gothic Mural Painting in Bohemia and Moravia 1300-1378 by Vlasta Dvořáková; Josef Krása;Anežka Merhautová; Karel StejskalReview by: Mojmir S. FrintaThe Art Bulletin, Vol. 50, No. 1 (Mar., 1968), pp. 105-108Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3048520 .

Accessed: 15/06/2014 20:18

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

College Art Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The ArtBulletin.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.67 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 20:18:09 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

BOOK REVIEWS 105

that can be noted with the Nativity group that Cornacchini made for Cardinal Carlo Agostino Fabbroni, ca. 1714-1716, in the Biblioteca Fabbroniana at Pistoia-the pyrami- dal composition, the graceful arrangement of poses and draperies, the treatment of the ground similar to the signed terra-cotta En- dymion in Boston, and especially the klein- plastik feeling of the whole-lead me to believe that the Victoria and Albert sketch may be a preparatory study by Cornacchini, perhaps also for the Fabbroni commission.

On the other hand, an attribution to Cornac- chini seems to me unlikely for the two bozzetti, St. Peter and St. Paul (663, 664), listed as Roman, second half of the seventeenth century, but suggested as possibly by Cornacchini in the discussion. Both figures, as the author points out, depend on the style of Camillo Rusconi, but I would date them not earlier than ca. 1725 or 1730. The emphatically expressive and emo- tional gesture of the St. Paul is especially close, I feel, to the style practiced by some of the artists-Giuseppe Rusconi, Battista Vacca, Carlo Monaldi-who were responsible for some of the signed sculptures made ca. 1731-1733 for the Basilica at Mafra.

Another terra-cotta sketch model of a St. Paul (665) must surely be identified as a Moses. It is neither Roman, second half of the seventeenth century (as in the catalogue entry), nor Roman, first half of the eighteenth century (as in the caption to the plate), but is a boz- zetto by Giovanni Maria Morlaiter for the Moses completed in 1744 for the Arcipretale at Compangara. Another sketch for the same statue is at Ca' Rezzonico in Venice (C. Se- menzato, La scultura veneta del seicento e del settecento, 1966, figs. 204, 214).

An engaging terra-cotta group, St. Anne Teaching the Virgin (666), does not seem to me to have much in common with the style of Pierre II Legros, as suggested by Pope-Hen- nessy: its tight and precise modeling recalls the handling of certain well-finished terra cottas by G. B. Foggini, especially the David and Goliath group of 1723, now in the Cleveland Museum (F. Den Broeder, "G. B. Foggini-David with the Head of Goliath," B of the Cleveland Mu- seum of Art, 54, 1967, 22-26, fig. 1).

Two terra-cotta reliefs of the Annunciation (692 and 693), purchased in 1957, are especially interesting in that they are two alternative sketch models for the same altarpiece. This has been tentatively identified with the Annuncia- tion altarpiece by Filippo della Valle in Sant'

Ignazio in Rome (1749-1750). Upon close ob- servation, however, the connection with this composition appears to be rather generic, while the strikingly fluid handling of the relief would seem to suggest a date earlier than the middle of the century; that is, closer to 1700 and the pic- torial style represented by the works of the French Legros and Fremin and the Genoese An- gelo de' Rossi (1671-1715), at the time of the decoration of the altar of Saint Ignatius at the Gesh. An undeniable similarity of handling be- tween the two reliefs and De' Rossi's terra- cotta bozzetto for the statue of Alexander VIII in the De Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco (V. Martinelli, "Un modello di An- gelo de' Rossi," Studi romani, 6, 1959, 429, pls. LXXI-LXXIII), and the marble relief on the tomb of the same pope in Saint Peter's, may even suggest him as their possible author. Ac- tually, the sfinimento of many passages and the rippling and corroded surfaces that seem to melt under a raking, supernatural light re- call some of the paintings of Francesco Trevi- sani, such as the sketch for a Deposition at Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass. (A. Gri- seri, "Francesco Trevisani in Arcadia," Para- gone, 13, 1962, 153, pl. 33) or the Death of St. Joseph at Sant'Ignazio (V. Golzio, Seicento e Settecento, 2nd ed., 1960, fig. 826): a significant connection, in view of the friendship, recorded by Pascoli, between Angelo de' Rossi and Trevisani.

As our knowledge of Italian seventeenth and eighteenth century sculpture expands, other centers, besides Rome and Florence, attract our attention. Lombardy, Emilia, and Venice are represented by several recent accessions for which we must be especially grateful, since some of them concern sculptors only recently studied and offer us precious points of refer- ence. Thus, a wooden bust of a female saint (681) that Maclagan and Longhurst connected with Duquesnoy is now accompanied by a polychrome bust of a male saint (682) acquired in 1956. They both exhibit the same degree of vapid Baroque classicism and are shown to be the work of an anonymous Ticinese sculptor. Similarly instructive are the Fury of Athamas (680), signed by Gaspare Vismara, a Bacchus (714)and a Thetis (715), signed by Antonio Tarsia, and an Assumption terra-cotta sketch model (712), by Andrea Brustolon. A Susanna and the Elders (717) in terra-cotta relief, listed as eighteenth century Venetian, seems to me to have closer affinities with Milanese seventeenth century works, for its rather massive modeling

and composing recalls sketches by Gaspare Vismara for the faqade of the Cathedral of Mi- lan, of ca. 1662, still preserved in the Museo del Duomo (compare, e.g., the Sacrifice of Abra- ham, illustrated in V. Bicchi, II Museo del Duomo, Milan, 1956, No. 155).

Curiously enough, Italian nineteenth century sculpture is represented only by a unique group of fourteen works by Bastianini and half a dozen anonymous Florentine works in the Quattrocento style, too unorthodox to have been included earlier among the discussion of spurious fifteenth century works. The entries on Bastianini contain interesting historical de- tails and, like the entries on the three reliefs by Dossena acquired in 1930, should be com- pulsory reading for any student of Quattro- cento sculpture. But one is a bit surprised to realize that even the storerooms of the Victoria and Albert Museum are completely void of those much despised nineteenth century Italian sculptures which seem, on the other hand, to have crossed the Atlantic in fairly large num- bers, and which, some day, we will have to start sorting out.

The influence of Mr. Pope-Hennessy's cata- logue will perforce be felt only gradually. Yet it is encouraging to think that the lofty stand- ards of his constructive and exciting scholar- ship cannot fail to set a brilliant example for some great American museums. To study and present in no less perfect a fashion their smaller but often quite important collections of sculpture would certainly be one of the best ways to fulfill the art historical obligations of our great age of public collecting.

OLGA RAGGIO

The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York University

VLASTA DVORAKOVA, JOSEF KRASA, ANEZKA MER- HAUTOVA, and KAREL STEJSKAL, Gothic Mural Painting in Bohemia and Moravia 1300- 1378, London, Oxford University Press, 1964. Pp. 160; 198 pls. $8.80.

With this volume the English-speaking medi- aevalist is directly introduced to four authorita- tive opinions, and thus to the fountainhead of of contemporary Czech scholarship, on the complex problems surrounding the flourishing of the arts in Bohemia during the rule of the Luxemburgs. With perhaps one major excep- tion (Czech Gothic Panel Painting), our knowl- edge until now has largely depended on the more accessible work of German art historians,

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.67 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 20:18:09 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

106 The Art Bulletin

who have, however, been less preoccupied with the problem in recent times.

The production here examined spans most of the fourteenth century, from the early Gothic period up to the death of the Emperor Charles IV in 1378. The research is primarily, and understandably, focused on the art created during the reign of Charles IV, for a number of outstanding and more or less well-preserved ensembles testify to the remarkable artistic level attained under the patronage of this art- loving ruler. The four researchers have divided the material among themselves. Mural paint- ing, which preceded the court patronage of the arts (1300-1350), is surveyed by Anezka Mer- hautovi-Livorova, whose field is early Bohe- mian art. Murals of this period were exhaus- tively treated by a group of collaborators in the Czech corpus Gotickd ndstennd malba gotickd, I, Prague, 1958 (reviewed by Mojmir Frinta in Speculum, January, 1961, 160-62). Un- like the subsequent Bohemian production, these murals are not artistically superior to the average production of Central Europe; more- over, because of massive abrasions and paint deterioration, they are now no more than skele- tons of the originals, and they attract interest largely because of their iconographical rich- ness. Because historical and social considera- tions are balanced throughout the book with iconographical and stylistic discussions, one wonders if a historical investigation of the Bavor family might not have shed some light on the question of the origin of murals exe- cuted in their domains in southern Bohemia (Pisek); possible reasons for foreign connec- tions might have been established. This passing over a potential source-ground contrasts with the subsequently thorough historical examina- tion of the role of the ruling family of the Luxemburgs.

Most space in the book is, for evident rea- sons, devoted to the works in that splendid repository of Bohemian Gothic art, the Karl- 'tejn (Karlstein) Castle, built 1348-1357 by the Emperor Charles IV as a symbol of the worldly and spiritual power of his rule. In three chap- ters, V. DvofikovA discusses the preserved as well as the destroyed murals, the ideological design of the Karlitejn Castle itself, and its pictorial decoration, divided into the three phases of its execution.

Karel Stejskal, who sketches the historical and social background of the period in the introductory chapter, discusses in two separate

parts the murals in the Emmaus Monastery of the Benedictines in Prague (Na Slovanech). Josef Krisa adds a short chapter on the rem- nants of the mural decoration in the cathedral of Saint Vitus in Prague and concludes with a survey of works done outside the court circle (1350-1378). These last are definitely less ac- complished artistically and can thus be com- pared to works produced before the emperor established his patronage. The court artists ap- parently worked in a milieu of lesser creative ability and did not influence production out- side the court, with the exception of the murals in the chapter house in the Benedictine monas- tery in Sizava (ca. 1370). There is only one example of this period in Moravia, and one won- ders if this fact indicates the relative position of Moravia in the cultural expansion within the kingdom.

The paintings at Karlitejn have long oc- cupied Czech and German art historians be- cause of their originality of style and iconogra- phy, their outstanding artistic quality, and their intriguing anonymity. Their appeal to scholars, open as they are to stylistic scouting, combination, and ingenious deduction, can be compared to the aura surrounding the great frescoes of the Triumph of Death and the Last Judgment in the Camposanto in Pisa. Fortu- nately, however, the anonymity is not com- plete. The names of two painters appear in the court records-that of Nicholas Wurmser of Strasbourg and that of Theodoric. On good grounds it can be assumed that Theodoric was the author of a new scheme of decoration for the chapel of the Holy Cross, dedicated in 1367, a scheme containing 130 panels with painted busts of the "Heavenly Host" and rare sumptuous incrustation of the walls with large, polished, semi-precious stones and gold. Nine of these panels were recently exhibited in the Czechoslovak pavilion at Expo 67 in Montreal.

Although Nicholas Wurmser is named as a painter to the king in a document of 1357, we have no clues that would allow us to associate any of the paintings with him conclusively. If we prefer to attribute to him the decoration of the Karlitejn palace with a genealogical cycle of the Luxemburg dynasty, as A. Friedl has done in one of his books, then we can link his name also to the Emmaus paintings and several works at Karlitejn. Recent studies, however, have distinguished several personalities within this group of works; which one of them shall we call Wurmser? On the other hand, the

catalogue of Gothic Mural Painting in Bohemia and Moravia proposes attributing to Wurmser the decoration of the chapel of the Virgin. The Western character of these paintings (an Apocalypse series and reliquary scenes), and even more the Rhenish character of the Cruci- fixion in Saint Catherine's chapel, favor the attribution. Yet there are marked differences between the Revelation and the reliquary scenes, and even more between the reliquary scenes and the Crucifixion, and I agree with Stejskal's rejection of a common authorship.

Vlasta Dvo.igkova presupposes the existence of an imperial workshop headed by the Master of the Genealogy, a painter who decorated the Emperor's Hall of the castle around 1356-1357 with an extensive series of the largely imagi- nary line of the Luxemburg family. Since the book is aimed at a wide public, I think the reader ought to have been informed at this point (and not only in the catalogue) that these murals perished, but that their appearance was fortunately recorded in the second half of the sixteenth century in two sets of colored draw- ings. Such information would not have greatly disturbed the synthetic type of discussion. Valuable as the drawings are, they can hardly be trusted as foolproof evidence in the subtle game of attribution and the ensuing detection of collaborators' hands. (Stejskal recognizes in the cycle a Master A and a Master B from the Emmaus murals.) Yet even in these copies one can safely perceive the ties to West European styles. Miss Dvofikovi implies that the master was a foreigner. Stejskal, in a subsequent arti- cle on the Emmaus murals in the periodical of Czech art historians, Umeni (January, 1967), goes further by suggesting that the artist (or artists) came from Brabant, following thus an old hypothesis of J. Neuwirth taken up by J. Krofta.

It is not difficult to recognize in the Karl-tejn paintings Western features-Flemish, Franco- Flemish, or German-in the drapery systems and the bodily conformations and postures, which appear side by side with certain Italian forms such as architectural and spatial con- cepts. This amalgamation of the two main traditions is characteristic of Bohemian art, and Stejskal proposes a convenient hypothesis that the artists, perhaps originally in the services of Charles' great-uncle Archbishop Baldwin of Trier, picked up the Italianisms during their travels to northern Italy. A cautious desire to play it safe leads Miss DvofAkovi to enumer-

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.67 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 20:18:09 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

BOOK REVIEWS 107

ate practically all the artists who might have been the inspiring agents: in this way a con- nection is built up, but is then subsequently neutralized by a contrasting indication. The formal comparisons include the name of Tomaso da Modena, who has been suggested in the past, since two painted altarpieces were commissioned from him for Karlitejn, and a tradition has it that he worked in Bohemia. The connection of yet another migrant Italian painter may also be proposed-Matteo Giovan- netti of Viterbo, who communicated Sienese forms to the French in Avignon. The architec- tural settings of his frescoes in the Carthusian church in Villeneuve-les-Avignon and the gentle and elegant bodily forms in the chapel of Saint-Jean in the papal palace in Avignon may be compared to those in the cloister of Emmaus monastery (Na Slovanech), in the chapel of Saint Catherine, and in the staircase in Karl'tejn.

Yet, in defining the nature of the relation- ships, the Czech researchers seem to be curi- ously reticent about actually acknowledging a possible Italian participation in the projects. A case in point is the painting of an enthroned Madonna in a shallow niche above the altar in Saint Catherine's chapel, which Miss Dvo'F- kova assigns to an assistant of the Master of the Genealogy, a painter considered to be of Rhenish origin. The figures of the Virgin and Child, and the execution of the painting on a very smooth surface, are far too Italianate. Miss Dvorikova admits that the work "is very close in the perfection of its execution to a classical Italian fresco," but she apparently considers the drapery style to be a more im- portant indication of the artist's origin. How- ever, her reasoning may well be inverted, to suggest that an Italian artist wished to blend his work with a specific aesthetic feeling of his new environment, which tended to manifest itself most readily in the drapery style. Quite weighty in the argument, I believe, should be the fact that this Madonna is a rather isolated occurrence of an indisputably Italian painting technique, which thus points to the southern background and training of the painter. Of interest is L. Coletti's attribution of the Ma- donna, in his Tomaso da Modena (Venice, 1963), to a Sienese-Avignonese painter. I think that consideration of the painting technique, such as the preparation of the painting surface and the custom of engraving outlines, should play a more important role in any attempt to

group various works, but I must reserve my judgment until I have an opportunity to ex- amine the works in person. Perhaps the schol- ars have avoided hypothesizing a direct Italian participation because no Italian names appear in the guild book of Prague painters, although German names, and even a Frenchman, Mon- sier Johannes Gallicus, are present. But it must be borne in mind that grandiose imperial patronage would transcend the local regula- tions that governed the acceptation practices of the guilds. Indeed, the presence of Italian craftsmen is admitted in the execution of a large mosaic above the south transept in Saint Vitus' in Prague.

This seeming reluctance to admit the pres- ence of Italians is modified by Miss DvoPrkova in her study of the court murals, which ap- peared in Umeni in 1964, the same year as the book presently being considered. There she goes so far as to suggest a possible elaboration of the complex scenes in the Emmaus cloister by Tomaso da Modena, although afterward she reaffirms that "it is almost out of the ques- tion that Italians would have been working in Emmaus." She finds a solution by suggesting that Charles IV sent a group of his painters to study the murals in north Italy.

The stylistic nuances of Bohemian painting are vividly present in the minds of the Czech researchers, and, in the arguments, are set against a rather generalized characterization of the Italian style. Phenomena seen from afar always seem to assume a unified, homogeneous appearance, if a profound familiarity with them is unattainable. Italian painting is not only the celebrated art of Tuscany, well known from hosts of books and illustrations (Giotto's style is evoked in the discussion several times), but also a brilliant canon before which, it must be admitted, the various local schools appear to recede into half-light. Yet certainly not all of them are unimportant nor devoid of person- ality. The panel paintings of the Emilian towns, and of the north Italian region in general, today largely dispersed or even unrecognized, evade a simple characterization. The habitual con- trasting of the northern Transalpine and the Italian styles can easily become oversimplified and unsubtle.

There seems to be an agreement that the origin of the style of the Bohemian imperial workshop must be sought in the West, but the massive destruction of the murals does not allow us to point to any corresponding work. For this

reason all possible clues should be minutely scrutinized in the hope that some information can be culled from them. One of these clues might be found on the south wall of the Em- maus cloister, where the Temple of Peace in Rome is represented, flanked by the enthroned figures of the Tiburtine Sibyl and Emperor Octavianus. (The scene is reproduced in the monograph by E. Poche and J. Krofta, Na Slovanech, Prague, 1956.) The temple is repre- sented as an elaborate Gothic structure of a fully developed Western style that is surpris- ingly specific-unlike the more or less symbolic representations of church architecture found in Bohemian painting-and shows the painter's talent of observation. One may surmise that the painter had in mind a specific school of architecture, perhaps even an actual church. The Gothic churches in Bohemia can hardly be considered as candidates, since there were none of such complexity and completeness, although the radiating chapels of the temple could be compared to Saint Vitus' in progress. The tall porch of the north side and the two western towers resemble those of the church of Saint Mary in front of Tin, but this church is of a slightly later date. Although Stejskal thinks the painted architecture recalls some church in Prague, it displays a distinct feature unknown in Prague churches: the octagonal upper part of the chevet with oculi, surmounted by a lantern tower, which brings to mind a tradition of Rhenish churches, such as the Cathedral of Strasbourg and a number of earlier struc- tures. Could this feature be taken as an indica- tion of the origin of the painter, Stejskal's Master A? Another possibility is forwarded by Miss Dvo~ikova, who thinks that the painter had access to the architectural drawings of the Prague building lodge of the Parlers, whose international connections must be presumed.

One wonders why the two chapters on the Emmaus paintings by Stejskal are separated by the discussion of the Karlitejn murals. The first, "Typological Cycle in the Cloisters of Emmaus. Iconological Analysis," is not thematically harmonized with the book as a whole and is almost superfluous to the aim and scope of the publication. The second chapter, "Work of the Court Painters in the Emmaus Monastery," seems, with only minor additions, to be quite sufficient. In the first chapter, Stejskal presents at length a discussion of the symbolic role of light in mediaeval art, which is not specific enough for the Bohemian situa-

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.67 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 20:18:09 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

108 The Art Bulletin

tion, except possibly for the stress placed on astrological connections. It appears that the rising tide of iconological studies is not solely an American phenomenon, despite the concern about this voiced a few years ago by Jakob Rosenberg in an address to the College Art As- sociation. A recent article by Stejskal on the Emmaus murals, in Umeni, January, 1967, shows him to be a more versatile researcher. By stylistic analysis he differentiates four painters -a distinction important for establishing the precise relationship of the Emmaus work with the individual works of the court circle--and makes generally valid comparisons. In his zeal for discovery, however, he goes too far when he claims that the second of the painters, a most progressive artist, was also the author of the little diptych with an Epiphany and Dormi- tion in the Morgan Library. The spirit and the morphology of this work are far more Italian- ate, and in the quest for its authorship a more direct connection with Italian art must be sought instead.

It is a tricky business to argue for a com- mon authorship of works in such different media and scale as mural and panel paintings. Still, I would like to venture proposing a link, based on analogies in the figure style, between the murals in the staircase in the Great Tower at Karl*tejn and a painted reliquary altar- piece from the Tirol Castle (the heavy damage and the over-restoration on the murals makes the comparison, to be sure, problematic). In both murals and altarpiece the figures appear as if suspended, rather than standing firmly on their feet; they move with similar distinc- tive, slightly awkward gestures, and the folds of their mantles have a similar curvilinear rhythm. We may also compare the head of Christ in the central gable with that on the ceiling of the staircase, as well as the soldiers' types and their armor. Especially noteworthy is the unique manner of depicting a bulky body with the head curiously resting on the chest as if severed and re-attached in an unnatural position (the Miracle at Regensburg and the Baptism of Boinivoj at Karl-tejn, and the Epiph- any and Dormition at Tirol). This mannerism, which is sculptural in its concept and may have had its origin in such representations as a Magus in the Nativity relief of Fra Gugliel- mo's pulpit in Pistoia, is thus typical of a member of the court atelier who painted in 1361-1363 at Karlitejn. The Tirol altarpiece is to be dated between 1366 and 1375, accord- ing to V. Oberhammer, and it is possible that

the artist came to Tirol in the following of Elizabeth, daughter of Emperor Charles IV and bride of Duke Albrecht III, both of whom are portrayed on the altarpiece. In any case the affinity between the Tirol painting and the Bohemian style is obvious.

The illustrations in the book are abundant and of good quality. One only regrets that the color plates represent only one-tenth of the total. The book successfully attempts to pro- vide a balanced coverage of the types of illus- tration, that is, an overall view of the decorated interior, a single scene, and the details. This approach is to be commended in light of the recent vogue for reproducing details only. Though these are often very attractive and important for the study of style and expression, they still have to be seen in proper perspective as parts of the whole composition. An aware- ness of the architectural setting is quite im- portant for the appreciation of the scale, the expressive content, and the artist's adaptation of the design to the challenge of irregular wall surfaces.

It is not easy to imagine the exact distribu- tion and placing of the murals in the staircase at Karl'tejn; in the absence of a suitable photograph a line drawing of the plan would have been welcome. And for the reader who has not seen the works themselves and who depends solely on the illustrations, factual in- formation in the captions about the exact con- dition of the painting is extremely important. The exact meaning of some remarks in the captions, however, needs clarification; for ex- ample, a detail on pl. 104 is described as "state after cleaning," but the painted inscription at the bottom of the picture is hardly original. Cleaning often means also the removal of over- paint. Elsewhere, the stressed linear quality of the forms seems to indicate that some strength- ening of the lines was done by the restorer, but there is no information about it. One would like to know exactly how far the murals in the Emmaus cloister were damaged during the bombing of February, 1945; for example, the painting of the Virgin Clad with the Sun and the church, mentioned above, is referred to in Krofta's book as "before the destruction," but the catalogue makes no mention of the loss (or damage?). It also omits mention of the destruction of the Baptism scene. One would welcome in the catalogue references to the il- lustrations and indication of the size of the paintings. In other words, a more complete and

precise factual apparatus would have been desirable--the bibliography, however, is very good-for the book to serve the researcher as fully as possible. We hope to find all this in- formation in the second volume of the Czech publication on Gothic murals, which is being prepared for publication.

MOJMIR S. FRINTA State University of New York at Albany

FLORIANO DA MORROVALLE, O.F.M. CAP., Loreto nell'arte, Loreto, Congregazione Universale della Santa Casa di Loreto, 1965. Pp. 127; 53 pls.; text ills. (23 in color). Lire 6000.

The house of the Madonna in Nazareth was, according to tradition, miraculously lifted from its foundations in the late thirteenth century and brought, with several stop-overs, to a hill- top in the Italian Marches near Ancona to pro- tect it from desecration by the Infidel. Revered as the site of the Annunciation, the Incarnation, and the early life of the Holy Family, the little Marian shrine became a great pilgrimage center in the following centuries.

By the end of the Quattrocento the sanctu- ary had been placed directly under papal pro- tection and the present fortified basilica had been erected over the Santa Casa itself. Giuli- ano da Sangallo built the great dome, and the interior of the church was decorated by artists like Signorelli and Melozzo da Forli. At the beginning of the sixteenth century Pope Julius II and his architect, Bramante, envisaged the unified sanctuary complex in which the faqade of the basilica was to form the fourth side of a great atrium-like piazza. Bramante was also responsible for a design for the monu- mental marble casing or rivestimento that shelters the fragile walls of the Santa Casa. Only two sides of the atrium were eventually built, however, and the present church facade design dates from the later sixteenth century. The rivestimento inside the basilica, like the complex as a whole, may also have undergone modification in the 1530's or even earlier at the hands of Antonio da Sangallo the Younger. During the Cinquecento Lotto, Barocci, and Annibale Carracci were among the many paint- ers who worked for Loreto, while Andrea Sansovino, Bandinelli, and Tribolo, among others, left important works of sculpture. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw the completion of the sanctuary complex, culminat- ing in the work of Vanvitelli, while the tesoro had become a veritable museum. The museo-

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.67 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 20:18:09 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions