Powerpoint lecture

1. The Catholic Counter Reformation

2. Image source: http://www.wwnorton.com/college/history/worlds/images/map3_4.jpg
As the Protestant Reformation spread throughout Europe,
the Catholic Church launched a campaign of reform and
renewal

3. Image source: http://www.wwnorton.com/college/history/worlds/images/map3_4.jpg
This movement is known as the Counter Reformation

4. Session of the Council of Trent in Matthias Burglechner, "Tyrolischer Adler," vol.IX
Image source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Konzil_von_Trient.jpg
The Council of Trent was convened in 1545-1563 to review Church doctrine, and plan
a response to the Protestant threat

5. Session of the Council of Trent in Matthias Burglechner, "Tyrolischer Adler," vol.IX
Image source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Konzil_von_Trient.jpg
Many necessary reforms were instituted:
1. An end to the sale of indulgences
2. Improvements in the education of priests
3. More rigid discipline for Catholics, including mandatory attendance at Mass

6. Session of the Council of Trent in Matthias Burglechner, "Tyrolischer Adler," vol.IX
Image source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Konzil_von_Trient.jpg
But the church also took a hard line on several of Luther’s positions:
1. The Council denied the Lutheran idea of justification by faith. They affirmed, in
other words, their Doctrine of Merit, which allows human beings to redeem
themselves through Good Works, and through the sacraments.
2. They affirmed the existence of Purgatory and the usefulness of prayer and
indulgences in shortening a person's stay in purgatory.
3. They reaffirmed the belief in transubstantiation and the importance of all seven
sacraments
4. They reaffirmed the necessity and correctness of religious art

7. Session of the Council of Trent in Matthias Burglechner, "Tyrolischer Adler," vol.IX
Image source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Konzil_von_Trient.jpg
The church also launched a campaign to spread doctrine and stamp out heresy

8. Japanese painting of St. Frances Xavier with Monoyama Inscription Kobe Museum, Kobe Japan
Image source: http://www.artsales.com/ARTistory/Xavier/Xavier_1.html
The Jesuit Order (otherwise known as the Society of Jesus) was founded in 1640 for
the purpose of spreading the Catholic faith in Europe and abroad

9. Salesman (David Maysles, Albert Maysles, and Charlotte Zwerin, 1969)
Image source: http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/37/dvdsampler.php
They were kind of like the marketing department of the church

10. Peter Paul Rubens, The Miracles of St. Francis Xavier, 1617-1618
Kunsthistoriches Museum
Jesuit missionaries traveled the world to spread the word of
God to the so-called “heathen races”

11. Peter Paul Rubens, The Miracles of St. Francis Xavier, 1617-1618
Kunsthistoriches Museum
This painting shows Saint Francis Xavier performing miracles
in Asia

12. Saint Ignatius Loyola, Spiritual Exercises,
Image source:http://dominicanfriars.org/content/uploads/2015/11/St.-Ignatius.jpg
At home the Jesuit Order strove to make religion more popular
with the masses

13. Saint Ignatius Loyola, Spiritual Exercises,
Image source:http://dominicanfriars.org/content/uploads/2015/11/St.-Ignatius.jpg
Saint Ignatius Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises were published in
1548, and became a kind of “how to” guide for forging a closer
and more personal connection with god

14. Saint Ignatius Loyola, Spiritual Exercises,
Image source:http://dominicanfriars.org/content/uploads/2015/11/St.-Ignatius.jpg
He advocated deep personal identification with Christ, and he
believed that religious art could help cultivate a more intense
and personal engagement with religious experience

15. Saint Ignatius Loyola, Spiritual Exercises,
Image source:http://dominicanfriars.org/content/uploads/2015/11/St.-Ignatius.jpg
“Sensual perception played a significant role in the exercises
and was used to stimulate spiritual memory and generate in
the individual an identification with and deep empathy for
Christ. Loyola believed that one must use all five senses when
attempting to understand God and he strongly recommended
the use of religious art to encourage the pupil in his or her
identification with Christ. One should see, for example, Christ
carrying the cross and feel the overwhelming weight of it. One
should "make present" how Christ walked, talked, ate, slept
and performed miracles . . . “
PBS “the Power of Art” with Simon Schama
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/powerofart/view.php?page=bernini

16. Session of the Council of Trent in Matthias Burglechner, "Tyrolischer Adler," vol.IX
Image source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Konzil_von_Trient.jpg
The Council of Trent also discussed the role of art in its “marketing campaign”

17. Michelangelo, Pieta, c. 1498-1500
It was decreed that “great profit” could be derived from sacred images
Through art believers would be “excited to adore and love God”

18. The Builder’s Association, Continuous City, 2008
Image source: http://tropolism.com/archives/technology-vision/
The Council understood that art was the “media” of the day
It could win the “hearts and minds” of the masses

19. But it also understood that such a powerful medium needed to be regulated

20. Parmigianino, Madonna
with the Long Neck, 1534-
1540
The Council instituted rules of decorum regarding religious imagery

21. Parmigianino, Madonna
with the Long Neck, 1534-
1540
“in the invocation of saints . . . and the sacred use of images, every
superstition shall be removed, all filthy lucre be abolished; finally, all
lasciviousness be avoided; in such wise that figures shall not be painted
or adorned with beauty exciting to lust . . . . as that there be nothing
seen that is disorderly, or that is unbecomingly or confusedly arranged,
nothing that is profane, nothing indecorous, seeing that holiness
becometh the house of God.”
http://www.traditionalcatholic.net/Tradition/Council/Trent/Twenty_Fifth_Session,_Second_Decree.html

22. In other words - sacred figures must be beautiful, well-proportioned, and
clothed!

23. El Greco, Portrait of a Cardinal, probably Cardinal Don Fernando Nino ,
de Guevara, ca. 1600
Metropolitan Museum
To enforce its authority the Counter Reformation set up the Inquisition --
a kind of Holy law court

24. In 1616 this court ruled that Copernicus was “foolish and absurd” and his
treatise was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books

25. This edition of 1758 indicates that Galileo’s Dialogo had been prohibited
by a decree of August 23, 1634. The revolutionary scientific treatise was
removed from the Index in 1824.
http://smu.edu/bridwell/exhibits/Science&Religion.htm

26. Artist’s came under attack as well

27. The Council of Trent’s condemnation of nudity in art came soon after Michelangelo
completed his Last Judgment fresco for the Sistine Chapel

28. In 1565 (just one year after Michelangelo’s death), Pope Pius IV hired Daniel de Volterra
to paint over the figures’ genitals

29. The most famous story involving censorship involves the Venetian painter Paolo
Veronese, and his fresco of the Last Supper, for the refectory of a Dominican monastery

30. Humanism and
Profanity
What the Smarthistory conversation
on Veronese’s Last Supper, and
then wath the Monty Python spoof
“The Pope and Michelangelo,”
which is based on Veronese’s
famous trial!

31. Colossal in scale, the painting depicts the Last Supper in a palatial setting, with an
expanded cast of characters that that have no scriptural source

32. In the center we see Christ, in conversation with a young man, while Saint Peter seems
preoccupied with with carving a piece of lamb

33. The Holy figures are surrounded by waiters, busily serving the guests, and in the
foreground an unidentified man dressed in contemporary Venetian costume

34. In the foreground, we see a dog, who seems focused on a cat stretched out under the
banquet table, while another dog stands behind the chair of the man in Venetian dress

35. The banquet scene is filled with characters that have nothing to do with the Last Supper
story, and are so distracting that we might not even notice that something “sacred” is
taking place

36. On the staircase to the left we see a man with a bloody nose, and behind him we see
turbaned figures, reflecting the cosmopolitan atmosphere of contemporary Venice, which
had strong trading ties to the East

37. On the staircase to the right we see German soldiers eating and drinking

38. In another scene we see a small African boy and a dwarf jester, and behind the column
a man is picking his teeth with a fork

39. The monks at the monastery had no problem with the picture, but Veronese was brought
before a Holy Court of the Inquisition, and the transcript of his court case survives

40. Q. In this Supper which you painted for San Giovanni e Paolo, what signifies the figure
of him whose nose is bleeding?
A. He is a servant who has a nose-bleed from some accident.

41. Q. And the one who is dressed as a jester with a parrot on his wrist, why did you put him
into the picture?
A. He is there as an ornament, as it is usual to insert such figures

42. Q. Does it seem suitable to you, in the Last Supper of our Lord, to represent buffoons,
drunken Germans, dwarfs, and other such absurdities?
A. Certainly not.
Q. Then why have you done it?

43. A. It is necessary here that I should say a score of words.
Q. Say them.
A. We painters use the same license as poets and madmen, and I represented those
halberdiers, the one drinking, the other eating at the foot of the stairs, but both ready to
do their duty, because it seemed to me suitable and possible that the master of the
house, who as I have been told was rich and magnificent, would have such servants.

44. The charge was that Veronese had placed Christ in a setting that was unbecoming

45. Veronese had violated the church’s rule of decorum; he made Christ too profane, and
included details that distracted the viewer from focusing on the true spiritual meaning of
the Last supper

46. Veronese claimed “artistic license”, but the Tribunal didn’t buy it. They ordered him to
change the picture

47. Veronese escaped censor simply by re-titling it Feast in the House of Levi

48. Humanism strove to “humanize” Christ; but history has shown us that this could be taken
too far
The Last Temptation of Christ by
director Martin Scorcese created a
controversy when it was released in
1988 because it depicted Christ as too
profane