Prier à la campagne : art et dévotion dans les chapelles de villas romaines de la Contre-Réforme
The taste for countryside palaces among the Princes of the Church was already well established when the Council of Trent (1545-1563) moved to counter the protestant Reformation. This council asserted catholic dogmas and significantly reformed clerical mores. In this context, villas are seen as the perfect stage to realize spiritual ambitions. This thesis thus studies extra-urban devotional practices by examining three chapels in countryside palaces around Rome decorated after the Council of Trent: Cardinal Alessandro Farnese’s (1520-1589) chapel in his villa at Caprarola; the Villa d’Este chapel at Tivoli built for Cardinal Ippolito II d’Este (1509-1572); and the Villa Mondragone chapel at Frascati, ordered by Cardinal Marco Sittico Altemps (1533-1595) for Pope Gregory XIII (1502-1585). We seek to examine the influence of contemporary devotional practices on the iconographic cycles in the private sphere. The public’s perception and spiritual response to the frescoes will be probed through an anthropological approach to images.
Rome Counter-Reformation Religious art Domestic devotion Villa chapels