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The Vatican's Cortile del Belvedere - Page 2


© Kirk Johnson
Page 2

Nov 1, 2004


While the new architecture is impressive, most gardeners would have preferred the earlier sculpture garden because it really was a garden. Even people who lacked a taste for ancient art were impressed by the waterworks in this courtyard which were fed by an aqueduct. At the center of the courtyard there was a pool flanked by large sculptures of river gods - two of the finest sculptures to survive from Ancient Rome. The photo below shows the Nile as it is now displayed in the Vatican Museum. The 16 children represent the 16 cubits that the Nile could rise when in flood. The children were in a fragmentary state throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. This was very unusual; until the 19th century most important ancient statues were fully restored. The children were only restored in 1774.

This pool watered a grove of orange trees which were planted in orderly rows among the courtyard's paving tiles. There were also fountains along the walls. The drawing below is by Francisco d'Hollanda and dates from 1539-40. It shows how an ancient sculpture of a sleeping nymph (it was believed to portray the dying Cleopatra and is still often called by that name) was placed in one of the corner niches as a fountain. The niche was elaborately decorated like the grottos which Renaissance explorers found in the ruins of ancient Roman gardens.

Even before the 1527 sack of Rome many Catholics were unsure of how appropriate it was to house pagan images at the Vatican. Pope Adrian VI (1522-23) saw the Laocoon and other ancient sculptures on display at the Belvedere as "idols of the ancients". The sack of Rome has always been seen as the end of the Roman Renaissance and while construction of the Cortile del Belvedere continued, the entire project went against the spirit of the Counter-Reformation. Pope Pius V (1566-72) didn't approve of the secular nature of the cortile and refused to allow anyone access to the sculpture courtyard, but he came close to completing the project. Under his successor Gregory XIII (1572-85) the courtyard was essentially complete, as we see in the engraving at the top of this article, but this grand space wasn't allowed to exist much longer.

In 1587, Pope Sixtus V (1585-90) divided the Cortile del Belvedere in two by constructing a library across the lower flight of steps. In his book on the Cortile del Belvedere, James Ackerman wrote that the location for this new library "was no doubt prompted more by the wish to veil the worldly character of the Belvedre than by the appropriateness of the site. A vast undeveloped tract within the Vatican was available, much of which would have accommodated a library building to much better advantage and allowed it more space and flexibility; but in the cortile its function was ethical - it rose authoritatively over the pagan theater as the bronze evangelists stand on the summit of the columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius."

       

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Here's the follow-up discussion on this article: View all related messages
5.   Nov 5, 2004 8:05 AM
In response to Re: Great Article! posted by Kirk_Johnson:

Yes, Kirk,

I did...and was very impressed with the technology as w ...

-- posted by Cercis
4.   Nov 5, 2004 2:52 AM
In response to Great Article! posted by Cercis:

Did you check out the hyperlink at the beginning of the article? It is to a CAD ...

-- posted by Kirk_Johnson
3.   Nov 4, 2004 6:30 AM
In response to Correction posted by Kirk_Johnson:

Kirk,

Thanks so much for another informative and interesting article :) T ...

-- posted by Cercis
2.   Nov 2, 2004 4:52 PM
I have made a correction to this article. I had said that Pope Adrian VI had refused to allow anyone access to the sculpture courtyard and had given away ancient sculptures, but it was Pius V who did ...

-- posted by Kirk_Johnson
1.   Nov 2, 2004 6:13 AM
Thank you Kirk for a very interesting article! I am fascinated by the detailed engineering that landscape architects created in their Renaissance gardening. The work invested into their gardens, it's ...

-- posted by FYNFAN



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