“Visualizing Starry Skies”, extrait inédit de mon prochain article issu des actes du colloque “Before Michelangelo: ‘Revisioning’ Sixtus’s Sistine Chapel as Sensorium”, Australian Catholic University, Rome, 18-22 octobre 2024 (1/2)

Je suis ravi de partager aujourd’hui un extrait exclusif (en anglais, sans les notes de bas de page) de mon prochain article, écrit à l’occasion du colloque “Before Michelangelo: ‘Revisioning’ Sixtus’s Sistine Chapel as Sensorium”. Cet événement, organisé à Rome du 18 au 21 octobre sous la direction de Peter Howard et Shannon Kuziow, invite à redécouvrir la Chapelle Sixtine avant les célèbres interventions de Michel-Ange sous un angle inédit, à savoir celui de l’expérience sensorielle.

L’extrait que je publie ici – une partie cette semaine et la suivante la semaine prochaine – est tiré d’un chapitre consacré à la représentation visuelle des cieux étoilés dans la première décoration de la Chapelle Sixtine, réalisée sous le pontificat de Sixte IV entre 1481 et 1482. Ce chapitre s’appuie notamment sur le dessin conservé aux Offices à Florence (à découvrir ci-dessous), qui éclaire notre compréhension des liens entre l’art, la cosmologie et la spiritualité à cette époque.

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Visualizing Starry Skies (Part I)

I have previously argued that the concept of a starry sky in the Sistine Chapel as depicted in the Uffizi drawing was certainly not unprecedented in ceiling art and can be linked to other examples in the broader history of Renaissance art, such as Fra Angelico’s renowned Annunciation in the Prado. However, additional research into more specific representations of starry skies that may have had direct relevance or significant influence on the decoration of the Sistine Chapel under Sixtus IV is necessary to provide a more comprehensive historical picture. This investigation must naturally continue with Fra Angelico, who, approximately thirty years earlier, made a pivotal contribution in the Vatican Palace with the decoration of the Niccoline Chapel, commissioned for Pope Nicholas V. In this cycle, dedicated to Saints Lawrence and Stephen—often regarded as the ‘Sistine Chapel’ of Pope Nicholas—we indeed encounter a starry vault with the Four Prophets in a conventional composition. More intriguingly and interestingly, starry skies also appear in the backgrounds of certain scenes, and notably in The Consecration of Saint Lawrence, a fresco that could be considered one of the most important in the entire cycle due to its prominent location (Fig. 5).

In this image, the starry sky—which might more accurately be termed a night sky, as the stars are not evidently visible—encompasses the entire ceiling of what resembles a basilica. Its deep blue harmonizes with the gold of the altar below, both of them contributing significantly to the beauty of the sacred space. What stands out is that, as in many of Fra Angelico’s works, color plays a crucial role in interpreting the composition by linking different elements. For instance, in the Prado Annunciation, the blue starry sky clearly mirrors the robe of the Virgin, and this analogy is based on early Christian symbolism associated with the Virgin as the Woman of Apocalypse—‘clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars’ (Rev. 12:1)—and later formalized in the Middle Ages through the connection of the Mary’s mantle with the celestial vault, particularly the ‘firmamentum’ and the ‘sun’. 

In the Niccoline Chapel, the starry sky connects here not with the Virgin but with the blue and gold mantles of the two friars at the center and, most decisively with the blue and gold mantle of Pope Sixtus II, whose visage resembles that of Pope Nicholas V— a very meaningful example of intericonicity between the Virgin iconography and that of the pope. This combination of blue and gold plays here upon the correspondence between the basilica’s architecture and the starry sky, symbolizing the celestial, divine, and eternal, in contrast to the figures of the pope and the friars, which embody the terrestrial, temporal, and human. Such a powerful and evocative image of papal authority in the Niccoline Chapel, albeit somewhat belated, must have left a deep impression on Sixtus IV as he was planning planned the decoration—possibly as early as 1475—for what was known as the Cappella Magna in the Vatican Palace. This connection is further emphasized by Peter Horward’s observation regarding Botticelli’s fresco The Punishment of the Sons of Aaron, where the painter dresses Aaron, the high priest, in the blue and gold colors of the Della Rovere family. 

Other images of starry skies may have particularly captured the interest of Sixtus IV. One might reasonably consider the two astronomical skies in the Sagrestia Vecchia and the Pazzi Chapel in Santa Croce, Florence. These were well-known, especially since the Sistine Chapel was part of a broader reconciliation effort with Florence following the peace of 1480. I will refrain from further elaboration on this potential source for the Sistine starry sky, as I have addressed it elsewhere. Instead, I would like to explore an interesting document located in the papal library that could offer a compelling connection: a manuscript by Christophorus Persona titled Theophylacti expositionem in s. Pauli epistulas that was dedicated to the first Pope Della Rovere. 

This manuscript—one of the most lavishly decorated among those dedicated to Sixtus IV—has, to my knowledge, never been examined in connection with the Quattrocento decoration of the Sistine Chapel. Authored by Christophorus Persona (1416-1486), a Roman friar, prior of the Monastery of Santa Balbina, and a distinguished Greek scholar, this influential commentary on Saint Paul’s Epistles by Théophylacte Héphaistos (1078-1107) was completed in 1478. While the manuscript contains many fascinating details, I will focus on its most visually striking and evocative feature: the dedicatory page. This page showcases a full-page illumination (Fig. 6), where Persona is depicted presenting his opus to Sixtus IV, surrounded by members of the papal court, in a manner characteristic of Quattrocento manuscript tradition. Notably, the scene takes place beneath a deep, richly colored blue sky, possibly painted on the ceiling of what seems to be a loggia. This sky closely resembles the one depicted in The Consecration of Saint Lawrence in the Niccoline Chapel, adding a profound atmospheric element to the presentation.

The presence of this starry night sky in the manuscript is significant for at least two reasons. First, it highlights that the trend of depicting night skies, which gained prominence during the pontificate of Nicholas V, continued into the reign of Sixtus IV and may have become a distinctive element of papal patronage. More intriguingly, this type of celestial imagery—while not exclusive to them—emerges as a hallmark of the Della Rovere family’s artistic commissions. For instance, in fresco cycles, one can reference Luca Signorelli’s Cappella di San Giovanni at the Santuario di Loreto (circa 1481–1485), commissioned by Girolamo Basso della Rovere, the nephew of Sixtus IV. Similarly, starry skies feature prominently in manuscripts commissioned by the Della Rovere family, such as the Missal della Rovere housed in the Morgan Library, ordered by Domenico della Rovere around 1485, who was closely linked to Sixtus IV but not a direct relative. 

Second, the deep blue sky in the Persona manuscript bears an even more interesting connotation: the clear association of blue and yellow with the Della Rovere family’s coat of arms. This color scheme is also reflected in the Uffizi drawing and undoubtedly contributes to the family’s repeated use of starry skies in their visual representations, symbolically aligning their legacy with the eternal and divine realm of the heavens.

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