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Passion in Venice: Crivelli to Tintoretto and Veronese (New York, Museum ofBiblical Art [MOBIA], 11 February–12 June 2011). Catalogue, Passion inVenice: Crivelli to Tintoretto and Veronese, The Man of Sorrows in Venetian Art, editedby Catherine Puglisi and William Barcham, with essays by Catherine Puglisiand William Barcham, and Xavier Seubert. New York: Museum of Biblical Artin association with D. Giles Limited, London, 2011. 176 pp. with 91 illus., 82in colour. £30.00/ $45.00. ISBN: 978-1904832829 (hb).

The greatest painter in fifteenth-century Venice, Giovanni Bellini, painted thesubject of the Dead Christ in more than fifteen works, often as a half-length figure,posed frontally and exhibiting the wounds of the Crucifixion. Bellini’s non-narrativeimages, and the many other similar ones that have survived from the late medievaland Renaissance periods, have come to be called the Man of Sorrows. Fascinated bythe high number of Man of Sorrows images in Venice and the Veneto, WilliamBarcham and Catherine Puglisi curated the exhibition devoted to the theme:‘Passion in Venice: Crivelli to Tintoretto and Veronese’ at the Museum of BiblicalArt (MOBIA), New York. The goal of the exhibition was to show the evolution of theMan of Sorrows over the period 1350–1600, and to enrich our understanding of thesubject further by including examples of related themes such as the Mass of StGregory and the Ecce Homo. ‘Passion in Venice’ was a handsome and stimulatingpresentation of sixty-two Venetian and non-Venetian works, and the accompanyingcatalogue provided learned essays and entries on the Man of Sorrows in Renaissanceart and religious culture.

Initiating the exhibition, a wall text and two printed Bibles open to the Book ofIsaiah (cats. 1–2: New York, MOBIA) emphasized the importance for Christians of thisHebrew Testament book, especially its words describing the Suffering Servant, the Virdolorum, translated at Man of Sorrows (Isaiah, 53.3). The suffering Christ was longassociated with the Vir dolorum, but only in the modern era has the term Man ofSorrows been applied to representations of the Dead Christ. As carefully detailed in thecatalogue, other terms were used earlier: imago pietatis, Christ de pitié, and in Venice,Christo passo (Passion in Venice, 11–14). In each case, the paradox of Christ’s life anddeath – the vertical upright position of Christ’s body implying life, and the woundsfrom the Crucifixion denoting death – would have reminded the Christian devotee ofChrist’s sufferings but also of the promise of the Resurrection.

Although the exhibition space at MOBIA is essentially one large rectangulargallery, clever placement of dividing walls and intelligently chosen wall colours pro-vided five principal subdivisions within the overall space. Nearest to the entry,

Renaissance Studies Vol. 26 No. 3 DOI: 10.1111/j.1477-4658.2011.00743.x

© 2011 The AuthorRenaissance Studies © 2011 The Society for Renaissance Studies, Blackwell Publishing Ltd

fourteenth- and fifteenth-century paintings were hung on the left, and dramaticsixteenth-century canvasses on the right, but the chronological organization wasclearest if one moved clockwise from the earlier works through a central ‘corridor’and into the further corner ‘rooms’, where works of art on paper were in the major-ity. Wall texts signalled general themes for the various areas: ‘Beginnings’, ‘Traditionand Innovation’; ‘Liturgy and Devotion’; and ‘Catholic Renewal’. Strategically posi-tioned glass cases housed three-dimensional objects ranging from tall processionalstandards (cats. 42–43) to a tiny German boxwood memento mori with the head ofChrist on one side, a skull on the other, and a miniature Man of Sorrows emergingfrom the top (cat. 37: San Francisco, Legion of Honor Museum).

As hinted by the objects just mentioned, ‘Passion in Venice’ included works of art inan astonishing array of media: paintings in tempera and gold on wooden panels; oilpaintings on wood, on canvas, and on copper; pen and ink drawings on linen and onpaper; sculptures and reliefs in marble, Istrian stone, polychromed and gilded wood,polychromed papier-mâché, and boxwood; plaquettes in bronze and gilt-bronze, asilver niello plaquette, a gilded copper plaque with champlevé coloured enamel, a verreéglomisé plaque (glass, gilded and engraved), a pyx (container for the eucharistic Host)in gilded silver; a painted and gilded marble tabernacle; woodcuts, engravings, etch-ings, illuminated manuscripts on parchment and printed books on paper; and a video.This variety alone made a significant contribution to understanding the technicalinventiveness of Renaissance artists and craftsmen.

Half-length images of the Man of Sorrows predominated in the first segment of theexhibition. A panel by the Venetian Jacobello del Bonomo from the late fourteenthcentury showed the half-length Christ against a glowing gold background, arms foldedin front of his body, head inclined to the proper right, and wounds prominent (Fig. 1,cat. 3). Christ’s body emerges from a rectangular sarcophagus, and behind him appearthe dark rectangles of the partially visible cross. The panel would originally have beenlocated in the top tier center of a polyptych (altarpiece composed of multiple panels).As argued by the curators, its composition and position were inspired by the seminalMan of Sorrows of the pala feriale (or daily altarpiece) by Paolo Veneziano of 1345, stillon the high altar of San Marco in Venice (Passion in Venice, 15–17, and fig. 5). TheJacobello panel formed an instructive introduction, encapsulating visual, emotional,and religious components that reappeared repeatedly throughout the exhibition.

Also in the ‘Beginnings’ section, a horizontally rectangular panel of around 1365attributed to the Florentine monk Silvestro del Gherarducci suggested an alternativeplacement of Man of Sorrows images. In Tuscany these normally appear in the predella(or lowest tier of panels) of an altarpiece rather than its pinnacle (cat. 9: Denver ArtMuseum). The Gherarducci panel includes figures of the mourning Virgin Mary, StJohn the Evangelist, and a kneeling donor, and thus also demonstrated one way inwhich the Man of Sorrows image could be visually and emotionally enriched.

Perhaps the most striking wall of the exhibition exhibited works that exemplified‘Tradition and Innovation’. ‘Tradition’ applied to a late fifteenth-century panel byNikolaus Tzafouris, a painter from Crete (cat. 25: Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland),whose composition evokes the Byzantine past of the Man of Sorrows. The rigid abstractforms of Christ’s body echo the style of a famous icon brought from Byzantium to Santa

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Croce in Gerusalemme, Rome, around 1385, and much later around 1500 popularizedby an engraving by Israhel van Meckenem inscribed with the words ymagis pietatis(Passion in Venice, 10–13, and figs. 1, 4).

‘Innovation’ was found in the varied poses and facial expressions in three more panelpaintings by Venetian artists – Michele Giambono, Carlo Crivelli, Bartolomeo Vivarini –and in two reliefs by artists working in nearby Padua. The Giambono showed Christstanding as if in a marble sarcophagus with his wounded hands extended out toward theviewer (cat. 19: Padua, Museo d’Arte Medioevale e Moderno). Blood spurts from his

Fig. 1 Jacobello del Bonomo, Man of Sorrows with two censing angels, late fourteenth century, London, NationalGallery, NG 3893

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wounded side and his mouth is partially open, as if expressing terrible pain. Even moreanguished than the Giambono were the faces of the two cherubs who support theslumped and copiously bleeding body of Christ in an extraordinary polychromed papiermaché relief from the Princeton University Art Museum (cat. 21). This intense compo-sition derives from the influential bronze relief of the Man of Sorrows Mourned by TwoAngels created by the great Florentine sculptor Donatello for the high altar ofSant’Antonio, Padua, in 1449 (Passion in Venice, fig. 16). The title for the Princeton relief,Dead Christ supported by Two Angels, evinced slippage in terminology between ‘Man ofSorrows’ and ‘Dead Christ’. The term ‘Dead Christ’ was more often used for sixteenth-century works showing the entire body of Christ, but that designation also crept intotitles of fifteenth-century panels and reliefs for which one would have expected to findthe title ‘Man of Sorrows’. This lack of consistency (perhaps imposed by the lendinginstitutions?) worked against the intent to present a formal evolution for the Man ofSorrows image.

Grimacing expressions on the faces of cherubs were found again in the poignant DeadChrist Supported by Two Angels by Carlo Crivelli, but in this painting Christ’s body fallsbackwards at an angle emphasizing its three-dimensionality (Fig. 2. cat. 22). Knowingthat the painting would have been placed in the upper tier of a polyptych, Crivellidepicted the figures as seen di sotto in su (from below upwards) with no view into themarble sarchopagus as had been the case with the Jacobello or the Giambono.

Cleverly organized in a corner area were a single large mid-fourteenth centurymanuscript leaf and four complete fifteenth-century Books of Hours (prayer books) allrevealing miniatures of the Man of Sorrows, and two fifteenth-century Paduan draw-ings. One miniature attributed to Liberale da Verona (cat. 15: Philadelphia FreeLibrary), but also given in the scholarly literature to Girolamo da Cremona, showed thecontinuing impact of Donatello’s Paduan relief. Two angels wearing bright pink tunicsstand on the sarcophagus flanking the seated Christ, but far more of his body is shownthan in the Donatello, as Christ’s upper legs, covered by a white loin-cloth/shroud, andprojecting knees are visible. The Mill of the Host dated 1466 is an exceptional survivingexample of a drawing appended to a contract for a now lost Paduan eucharisticaltarpiece (cat. 17: Los Angles, J. Paul Getty Research Center). In this sketch ofextreme iconographic complexity, the infant Christ hovers above a grinding stonefrom which are scattered holy wafers; at the bottom of the sheet the Man of Sorrows islabelled Christo passo. Thus the body of Christ appears to the kneeling devotees inmultiple forms. Exhibited, but not illustrated in the catalogue, was the conjugate leafon which the name of the famous Paduan scribe Bartolomeo Sanvito appears as well atthat of other witnesses to the contract.

The central passage to the further end of the gallery was effectively defined by wallspainted dark blue in contrast to the cool grey of the previous spaces. On the left was anoil-on-canvas painting of around 1515, belonging to the Scuola Grande di San Rocco,one of the most famous of the Venetian charitable confraternities (cat. 44). Against asombre black background only the upper part of Christ’s body is depicted; his head isgently tilted and his wounds minimized, creating a meditative mood. Well known toVenetian specialists, this beautiful painting had been attributed to Titian, to Gior-gione, and to Giovanni Bellini, but recently the signature of Vittore Belliniano, a pupil

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of Giovanni’s, was uncovered. Its peaceful and idealized forms made a suggestivetransition to works of the later Renaissance.

On the wall visually terminating the central space were exhibited two objects ofEucharistic significance, appropriately placed near a wall text titled ‘Liturgy andDevotion’. One of these was a silver and silver-gilt pyx made in 1474 for the Cathe-dral of Treviso (Fig. 3, cat. 26). Delicately fashioned rosettes in silver and gold articu-late the sides of the container, and a three-dimensional silver Man of Sorrows formsthe handle of the lid. According to doctrine of transubstantiation promulgated atthe Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, the consecrated Host mystically contains theBody of Christ, and the silver statuette thus symbolically duplicates the contents ofthe pyx. On the wall nearby was a polychromed marble sacrament tabernacle with

Fig. 2 Carlo Crivelli, Dead Christ supported by two angels, c. 1470–75, Philadelphia Museum of Art, John G.Johnson Collection, 1917; PMA acc. cat. 158

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the Man of Sorrows in relief above the sacrament door (cat. 33: University ofChicago, Smart Museum). The tabernacle is of a type found in multiple examples inand near Vicenza (Passion in Venice, 22).

The two bays at the far end of the gallery each contained one or two paintings anda number of works of art on paper. Additionally, cases exhibited bronze plaquettes,manuscripts, a small boxwood Ecce Homo statuette (cat. 60: Oberlin College, AllenMemorial Art Museum), an early printed copy of Handel’s Messiah open to Aria 23: a‘Man of Sorrows’ (cat. 62: New York, Morgan Library and Museum), and a wall-mounted video by Bill Viola titled Man of Sorrows from 2001 (cat. 65: Bill Viola Studio).Several of these works served to demonstrate how the ‘pure’ Man of Sorrows imagerelated to other eucharistic subjects. For example, a handsome large Renaissancepainting of around 1500–1520 by an anonymous Spanish artist represented the Mass ofSt Gregory (cat. 34: New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art). Kneeling and accompa-nied by two clerics, the richly robed St Gregory holds up a chalice to receive the bloodof Christ, flowing from the side of a miniature Christ standing on the altar. In the

Fig. 3 Anonymous Venetian goldsmith, Hexagonal Pyx, with the Man of Sorrows as the lid handle, 1474, Treviso,Museo Diocesano

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legend, the vision of Christ himself replaced the Host, thereby convincing a doubtingworshipper of the true nature of the Eucharist.

Extending the eucharistic theme were images in two manuscripts, a drawing byPalma Giovane (cat. 57: Venice, Museo Correr), and an anonymous late sixteenth-century woodcut (cat. 56: New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art), all showing thehalf-length or three-quarter-length Dead Christ rising out of a eucharistic chalice. Themanuscripts, called mariegole, are registers of Venetian confraternities devoted to theHoly Sacrament; their texts articulate the regulations and names of the confraternitymembers. In the miniature attributed to the Veneto miniaturist Benedetto Bordon(Fig. 4. cat. 40), the members of the confraternity kneel holding the large candles theywould carry in processions. A priest holding a monstrance stands beside a tall proces-sional standard atop which is the image of Christ in the Chalice, accompanied by twoangels. Even more spectacular than this impressive miniature were two actual stan-dards mentioned previously from the Church of San Trovaso in Venice, each overseven feet in height, on which appear three-dimensional polychromed and gildedwooden images of the Dead Christ (cats. 42–3). These standards aptly conveyed thedrama of the processions in which they were carried.

By the early sixteenth century, Venetian painters more frequently represented theentire body of Christ, or nearly the entire body, and a tragic mood was also emphasized

Fig. 4 Benedetto Bordon (or workshop), Members of the Confraternity of the Holy Sacrament kneeling by a processionalstandard with Christ in the Chalice, Mariegola from San Giminiano, Venice, c. 1505, Boston, Isabella Stewart GardnerMuseum, 14.2.b.2

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by darkening the backgrounds. Paintings by well-known sixteenth-century Venetianpainters Lotto, Tintoretto, Veronese, and Leandro Bassano provided the dramaticfinale for the exhibition, although these later Renaissance works were puzzlingly notdiscussed in the otherwise wide-ranging essay by Puglisi and Barcham. An early andheretofore little-known painting by Tintoretto of Christ Mocked (cat. 49: Private Collec-tion) presented an isolated, semi-nude, and muscular Christ against a dark back-ground, alive and engaging the viewer with a mournful gaze. The powerful paintingdemonstrated how images of other moments in the Passion drew upon the tradition ofthe Man of Sorrows.

Three paintings by Paolo Veronese and two related prints dating from the 1560s tothe late 1580s beautifully represented the era of the ‘Catholic Renewal’, alluding to theperiod after the Council of Trent when the importance of religious art had beenreasserted by the Catholic Church. Most triumphant was the gigantic fragment of analtarpiece (Fig. 5. cat. 50), originally in a Veneto church in Lendinara, which had beencut into several segments in the Napoleonic period. The original composition showedkneeling donors and patron saints in an area defined by tall fluted classical columns,gazing up into the sky where the full-length Dead Christ rested on clouds attended byangels. Although the figures are naturalistically depicted in rich colours before the

Fig. 5 Paolo Veronese, Dead Christ supported by angels, 1563–65, fragment from the Petrobelli altarpiece,formerly in San Francesco, Lendinara. Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada, inv. 3336

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glowing clouds of heaven, the position of Christ at the extreme top of the altarpiecemaintained the Venetian tradition for the placement of the image, a position that canbe traced back to the Paolo Veneziano polyptych of 1345 on the high altar of SanMarco.

About two-thirds of the catalogue entries for Passion in Venice were written by Puglisiand Barcham, while the remaining ones owed to graduate students at Rutgers Univer-sity. Each of the discursive page-long entries is footnoted, providing ample scholarlyreferences. An extensive bibliography and index (the latter much to be appreciated,since often exhibition catalogues omit one) accompany the essays and entries. Thecolour reproductions are good with the exception of the processional standards (cat.42–43) which the reviewer understands to have been made before the wooden statueswere conserved and revealed their brilliant gold and polychrome. Conveying therelative size of objects is difficult in exhibition catalogues, as it is in Passion in Venice. Inseveral cases, perception of the works would have been enhanced by scaling up thereproductions to be as nearly full-page as possible (cats. 5, 8, 29, 34, 49). But these areminor criticisms, and although, alas, there was no Man of Sorrows by Giovanni Belliniin it, Passion in Venice was nevertheless a highly informative exhibition of intriguing andoften strikingly beautiful works.

Lilian ArmstrongWellesley College

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