The "Eternal City of Rome Exhibition" will be held at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum from Saturday, 16 September 2023, to Sunday, 10 December 2023.
This article is the third in a series of articles explaining the unique city of Rome through the ages in conjunction with the "Eternal City of Rome Exhibition". Studying art history at a graduate school in Rome, the author will explain in detail the three keywords for understanding Renaissance Rome.
1)
The Eternal City of Rome Exhibition [Renaissance No.1]: Classical revival led by the Pope
The Renaissance, which began mainly in Italy, greatly influenced the European art that followed. The Renaissance was a great revival of classical antiquity, centred on the humanists.
Florence was a city that played a vital role in the Renaissance, which began in the early 15th century. However, Rome's influence on the Italian Renaissance was no less potent than that of Florence.
2)
If the Florentine Renaissance was a private movement led by the Medici family, the Roman Renaissance was characterised by being sponsored by the Pope.
After the Pope was imprisoned in Avignon in the 14th century, Rome lost its leader and fell into disrepair, losing its former glory. So Pope Sixtus IV tried to use art to revitalise the "Jubilee Year" to restore Rome's prosperity.
3)
A Jubilee is a holy year celebrated every 25 years since the birth of Christianity. Pope Sixtus IV welcomed many pilgrims to Rome during the Jubilee of 1475 to restore the Eternal City's authority and finances.
In the lead-up to 1475, Sixtus IV focused on large-scale urban planning for Rome and expressed his jurisdiction through the arts.
4)
Pope Sixtus IV is also the founder of the Capitoline Museums, which house around 70 works of art on display in the Eternal City of Rome.
He is also famous for building the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. (Michelangelo's ceiling paintings "The Creation" and "The Last Judgement" were added later).
5)
Exhibition Eternal City Rome [Renaissance No.2]: Masterpieces of the Vatican that remain today
Even after the death of Sixtus IV, the papacy's enthusiastic investment in the arts continued. The most prominent Pope to support the golden age of the Roman Renaissance was probably Julius II.
6)
Pope Julius II is known for having commissioned Raphael to paint the four Raphael Rooms in the Vatican Palace and Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, The Creation.
7)
Julius II and Michelangelo had a close relationship as patrons and artists but were stubborn and had constant conflicts. There is also an anecdote that Julius II became angry and hit Michelangelo with a cane while he was working on a ceiling painting, causing Michelangelo to leave Rome in anger temporarily.
8)
A common feature between Raphael's "Raphael's Room" and Michelangelo's "The Creation" is that they incorporate motifs from classical antiquity into a Christian context. Raphael's most famous fresco, The School of Athens, depicts the ancient Greek philosopher.
9)
Ancient Greek mythology is considered 'paganism' from a Christian perspective. In other words, at first glance, the classical revival during the Renaissance had elements that could be viewed as a "pagan revival movement" from a Catholic perspective.
10)
The Roman Renaissance was an ideology established after overcoming this severe problem by interpreting "Christianity as the ultimate solution that transcends everything.". Instead of completely denying ancient Greece and ancient Rome as "paganism", they incorporated them into Christianity by showing that modern Christianity was based on their great past.
11)
Exhibition Eternal City Rome [Renaissance No.3]: Resonance with Antiquity
Even without the Pope's arbitrary and political 'classical revival', Rome has elements that resonate strongly with the concept of the Renaissance. Rome was the city that best preserved the "antiquity" that needed to be restored.
12)
One of the main characteristics of Renaissance art was the movement to reproduce ancient sculptures and paintings. Although many of Rome's buildings were lost during the long and lonely Middle Ages, it was still a city with incredible ruins, incomparable to others. And so it is today.
13)
Walking through the streets of Rome, you can see the ruins of ancient buildings everywhere. New sculptures are constantly being unearthed as the underground railway is built, so progress is slow. For Renaissance artists, seeing the living ancient ruins of Rome was an irreplaceable status.
14)
The ancient Roman sculptures and bronze statues preserved in Rome for many years have been painted by countless artists. The Roman Renaissance, supported by two main pillars: a strong link with antiquity and the papacy, was characterised by the fact that its development was supported by unique needs (a fusion of antiquity and Christianity) and a powerful patron (the Pope).
15)
The idea that "Florence is synonymous with the Renaissance" is not wrong. What is interesting about the Renaissance in Rome, however, is that it developed uniquely due to its history and location, not found in other cities.
To learn more about the Eternal City of Rome exhibition, please read this article: [Eternal City of Rome Exhibition] Many masterpieces from the Capitoline Museums are coming to Japan!
Eternal City of Rome Exhibition: A resident explains three points to understand [Medieval Rome]
https://irohani.art/study/14861/
