On the Interrelation of Sacred Architecture and Music in Pre-Modern Italy (original) (raw)

Exactly 450 years ago, in June 1565, the Cappella di San Luca in Santissima Annunziata in Florence was conceded to the Accademia del Disegno, the first official art academy, which had been founded two years earlier. The academy was not only a school for young artists, but it also functioned as a religious lay confraternity and, from 1571 onwards, as the guild of painters, sculptors, and architects of Florence. In the scholarly literature on this institution (Summers 1969, Wazbinski 1987, Barzman 2000, Pacini 2001) the Cappella di San Luca has always been identified exclusively as the site where the academy performed its confraternal functions, such as celebrating religious feasts and burying deceased members. Furthermore, it is generally thought that the academy used spaces in other buildings as classroom, library, study, administrative office, and meeting room. However, a close scrutiny of the documents in the academy’s archive, and especially of the subsequent Libri dei Provveditori, which contain the minutes of the meetings, reveals a different picture. These documents show that during the first sixteen years of the academy’s existence – from 1563 until 1579 – the Cappella di San Luca was the main location where the academicians held their meetings and carried out their administrative activities, in addition to their religious rituals. For example, the academy elected its officers and new members in this chapel. It also was the site where the academicians drafted the petition to the Grand Duke, in which they asked to be released from the obligations to their respective guilds and to form a guild of their own. This means that during this formative period of the academy the chapel was of greater importance than has hitherto been assumed. This paper presents a new interpretation of the Cappella di San Luca, in which its double function – confraternal and administrative-professional – is taken into account. It does so, moreover, by focusing on the material objects and artifacts that were used for carrying out the various activities. For example, in the context of the confraternal practices, the candles that were carried around in public processions, such as on the occasion of the funeral of Benvenuto Cellini in 1571, will be discussed. And in relation to the administrative function, paraphernalia such as the bags with black and white beans that were used for casting votes on candidate members and officers are included in the analysis. The statues and frescoes that adorn the chapel constitute a particularly important ingredient in this interpretation, because these artifacts performed functions in both religious and professional practices. In the past it has been correctly recognized that the main theme of the iconographic program, i.e. the trinity, alludes both to the three natures of the divinity and to the three arts of design. However, until now it has remained unclear how these allusions were connected to the activities that were carried out in the chapel. With the help of analyses of the archival documents and of the iconographical program these activities can be reconstructed. Archival records reveal that during the period when the bulk of the decorations where completed, 1570-1571, the academicians also discussed the formalization of their institution into an autonomous guild for the three arts (i.e. trinity) of Disegno. This paper considers how the artifacts in the Cappella di San Luca reflect both the religious and the professional self-understanding of the artists in the academy.