Chapels: An Introduction

Chiara Franceschini, Steven F. Ostrow, and Patrizia Tosini

According to the Accademici della Crusca, in their first Vocabolario of 1612, a chapel (cappella) is “a place within a church where one situates an altar for celebrating [a Mass]. Lat. sacellum , aedicula , sacrarium .”1 This simple definition, as vague and open-ended as it might at first seem, is, in fact, the most appropriate and flexible one to describe a place that in the early modern period assumed and served a variety of forms and functions, as this book demonstrates. The Crusca definition is also useful precisely because it indicates that although every chapel is a sacred space endowed with an altar, it can be a shrine or templelike structure, intimate in its scale or as large as that of an independent church (sacellum); it can be a simple architecturally framed altar, either freestanding or placed against a wall (aedicula); and it can function as a place for housing liturgical vessels, relics, or tombs (sacrarium).2 The chapel’s one constant feature—the altar—and its variety of forms and sizes also figure in Filippo Baldinucci’s Vocabolario of 1681, in which he defines a chapel as a “place, or room in churches where one situates the altar. Lat. Sacellum , aedicula, Sacrarium . And [the term] chapel, one also uses [to describe] a small church, which one also calls [an] oratory.”3

The root of these definitions can be traced back to Durandus’s Rationale divinorum officiorum (Rationale for the Divine Offices), a late-thirteenth-century liturgical treatise on the symbolism of church architecture, furnishings, and rituals of worship, which—through its thirty-nine published editions between 1473 and 1678 (including in 1568 and 1612)—enjoyed widespread popularity and authority. Durandus, in his discussion of priests, writes that “in many places, priests are called chaplains [capellani]; because among the old kings of France, when they went forth to war, they carried with them the cope [capa] of Blessed Martin, which they kept in a certain tent; and from [the word] cope [capa] the tent was called chapel [capella], and the clerics who presided over this place are called chaplains [capellani].”4 This explanation of the origin of “chapel” lives on today, as exemplified in the Oxford English Dictionary, where we read that the etymology of the word derives “from the Middle English chapele, the Old French chapele, and the Latin cappella , originally little cloak or cape, diminutive of cappa cloak, cape, cope. From the cappella or cloak of Saint Martin, preserved by the French kings as a sacred relic, which was borne before them in battle, and used to give sanctity to oaths, the name was applied to the sanctuary in which this was preserved under the care of its cappellani or ‘chaplains,’ and thence generally to a sanctuary containing holy relics, attached to a palace, etc., and so to any private sanctuary or holy place, and finally to any apartment or building for orisons or worship, not being a church.”5

Durandus’s emphasis on the chaplain (capellanus), rather than on the physical space over which he presided, also informs the third edition of the their essays. Funding for this volume was generously provided by the Adele Hartmann-Programm of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, as well as the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement no. 680192/ SACRIMA). We also wish to express special thanks to Alison K. Frazier and the Society of Friends of the American Academy in Rome, for their sponsorship of the panels at the RSA 2017 conference that led to this volume; to Maurizio Righini of the Fondo Edifici Culto (Ministero dell’Interno), for his various efforts on behalf of this book; to Mauro Coen, for the photographic campaign that greatly enriched a number of the essays; to the Bibliotheca and Fototeca Hertziana, which generously provided a number of photographs (and we wish to thank particularly Marga Sanchez for her valuable assistance); to a number of friends and colleagues who lent their advice and expertise; and finally, to the publisher and the staff of Officina Libraria, who offered their unequivocal support and encouragement.

Notes

1 Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca 1612, 155: “cappella , luogo nelle Chiese, dove si pongono gli altari per celebrare. Lat. sacellum, aedicula, sacrarium.”

2 Moroni 1853, LX, 132–133, sub vocem “Sacrario.” Citing Magri’s Notizia de’ vocaboli , Moroni also defines Sacrario (Sacrarium) as “anticamente era denominato anche il luogo vicino all’Altare, circondato da’ cancelli, ove soltanto il sacerdote e altri ministri sagri potevano entrare nel tempo del s. Sacrificio.”

3 B aldinucci 1681, 28: “Cappella f. Luogo, o stanza nelle Chiese dove si pone l’altare. E Cappella dicesi anche una piccola Chiesina, la quale si chiama ancora Oratorio.” See also Moroni 1841, VIII, 95, sub vocem “Cappella.”

4 Durando 1612, Lib. II, 8, De Sacerdote, 60v: “In plerisq[ue] locis sacerdotes, capellani vocantur. Nam antiquitus reges Franciae ad bella procedentes, capa[m] B. Martini secum portabant, quae sub quodam tentorio servabatur: quod ab ipsa capa dictum est capella. Et clerici in quorum custodia ipsa capella erat, inde capellani dicebantur.”

5 See the entry “chapel, n.” in the Oxford English Dictionary Online (OED) accessible with subscription at https://www.oed.com/. See also the entry for “chapel” in The Catholic Encyclopedia , which repeats this etymology: http://www.newadvent. org/cathen/03574b.htm. An overlooked aspect of the origin of the chapel, as both a term and a liturgical space, is its close connection to a vestment––a cappa (cape). We are grateful to Kristin Makholm for bringing this to our attention.

6 Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca 1691, II, 284.

7 Franceschini 2002, 345–413, esp. 355–357.

8 R ice 1997, 19–23.

9 Borromeo 1577 [1962], I, cap. X, 18. See also the annotated English translation in Voelker 1977 [2008], 124–125, whose translation we follow here and below.

10 Borromeo 1577 [1962], I, cap. XIV, 24–29; Voelker 1977, 174–182.

11 A s noted by Sénécal 2000, 258. Despite the virtual impossibility of regulating church architecture, a number of churches constructed in Rome in the last decades of the sixteenth century, including notably the Gesù and Santa Maria in Vallicella, conformed to many of Borromeo’s “instructions.”

12 B aglione 1642, n.p. (Al Virtuoso Lettore): “E perché Roma è compendio delle maraviglie del tutto, per brevità dell’Opera ho giudicato esser bastevole, che il solamente l’Opere, che in questa Città essi formarono, comprenda anche l’esquisitezza di tutte le altre, che per il Mondo risplendono; che ciò altrove l’Arte disperse, qui la Virtù raccolse.”

Map of the Churches

lineage has existed since the early Republican age, greatly honored and awarded consular and triumphal status of the highest dignity, and in the successive imperial age [it was] the only one, among the twenty-eight principal families that we shall list, that obtained the consulship … therefore the house of Frangipani, from that moment, for eight hundred years, excelled among the Roman families.12

Panvinio dedicated his work, written in 1556, to Mario Frangipani, as an homage to the Gens Fregepania. It was also intended as an expression of gratitude to Curzio, who had died shortly before in 1554 and who, as the maestro di casa (house steward) of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (junior) and a man well versed in art, served as an intermediary between the powerful Farnese and Panvinio in 1552.13

Panvinio also reconstructs Curzio’s biography, mentioning his familiarity with Pope Paul III Farnese (r. 1534–1549), who kept him at court with great honors, entrusting him with the education of his grandson Ottavio and awarding him with the title of Urbis Cancellarius (Chancellor of the Roman People). He informs us that:

Curzio had such an influence and courteous authority over Alessandro [the pope’s grandson] that he administered everything on his own with a single command, and at court none of the more serious business was ever dealt with without Curzio being consulted. Indeed, he was above all the other courtiers in his prudence, humanity, and honesty of character.14

Panvinio also underlines Curzio’s friendship with the antiquarian Mariangelo Accursio from Aquila and with other contemporary intellectuals, including musicians and mathematicians, as well as his interests in moral philosophy and the Etruscan language.15

From the papal court, Curzio moved to that of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, the pope’s grandson, where he served (as noted above) as his maestro di casa, as well as an intimate and most trusted intermediary in the cardinal’s relations with artists and men of letters.16 And it is in this context of profound erudition—the world of the Farnese court—with its intense focus on antiquity that one must understand the extraordinary event of the discovery in 1546 of the Fasti Capitolini in the Roman Forum.17

Curzio Frangipani was inextricably tied to the Capitoline Senate and the Campidoglio, on account of his charge as deputy for life (from 1540 to his death in October 1554).18 In this capacity, he was directly involved in the discovery of the epigraphs of the Fasti (FIg. 8), whose excavation was promoted by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese himself, who moved the finds to Villa Farnesina in order to have the inscriptions copied before donating them to the Popolo Romano. Degrassi published the Capitoline decree of June 18, 1548, which established that the epigraphs were to be placed on the Capitol—a decree that was underwritten by, among others, Curzio in his capacity as Chancellor of the Roman People.19 Gentile Delfini and Tommaso de’ Cavalieri were charged with reconstructing the Fasti in the courtyard of the Palazzo dei Conservatori,20 with the help of various intellectuals in the court of the “Gran Cardinale” Alessandro, among whom were Panvinio himself, Bartolomeo Marliano, Benedetto Egio, Antonio Agustín, Gabriele and Ottavio Pantagato. The design of their installation—placed on a wall divided by pilasters into three vertical sections—was, according to Panvinio, by Michelangelo, although the attribution has been questioned.21 In 1558, only two years after writing De gente Fregepania , Panvinio published the first annotated transcription of the Fasti , meant as another homage to his protector Curzio, in which, through the publication of the lists, he intended to demonstrate his descent from the Gens Anicia 22

To return to the Frangipani Chapel, it seems evident from the above that it was Curzio, who signed the concession of the chapel by the friars of the church of San Marcello,23 who was responsible for conceiving the design and program of this sepulchral space, which was intended to be a celebrative monument to himself, in his role as Capitoline Chancellor, as well as a place to immortalize the entire Gens Fregepania. Upon Curzio’s death in 1554, however, it was his brother Mario who assumed the role of carrying out his brother’s wishes with respect to the new chapel.

Mario’s uninterrupted engagement with his family’s antiquarian tradition was further advanced in December 1556, with his nomination as Conservatorem Antiquitatum et Statuarum (Conservator of Antiquities and Statues).24 His constant interest in ancient finds is also attested by the fact that in 1568, he rented an ancient palace of the Frangipani, near the church of Sant’Anastasia on the slopes of the Palatine, to Giovanni Forti (probably an excavator), with the agreement that Forti would share with his landlord any statue, gold, silver, or other metals that might be found on the site.25

The History of the Frangipani Chapel

A consideration of a detailed history of the Frangipani Chapel will allow us to better understand its significance inside the church of San Marcello. That history begins with the father of Curzio and Mario, Antonino, who is described by Panvinio as a man of “modest erudition” but very pious and merciful. At the time of his death, in October 1545, his children, respecting his will, had him provisionally buried in a chapel that had been the property of that branch of the Frangipani family for two centuries, in the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva.26 Then, in 1554, although the chapel in the Minerva was still in use, Curzio and Mario decided to build a new chapel to honor their descendants in a different place, one closely associated with the Farnese family. That different place was the church of San Marcello, which, beginning in the sixteenth century, housed various chapels belonging to individuals and groups who were directly and intimately associated with the circle of Paul III and his grandson, Cardinal Alessandro. These included the chapel of the Confraternita del Santissimo Crocifisso, historically tied to the Farnese through its cardinal protectors, Ranuccio and Alessandro (Farnese), and through Tommaso de’ Cavalieri; the chapel of Bishop Ascanio Parisani, treasurer of the pope; and the one assigned to Matteo Grifoni, who was named bishop of Trivento by Paul III and was an intimate of the Gran Cardinale.27 Thus, in choosing San Marcello as the site for their chapel, Mario and Curzio vividly demonstrated their family’s close ties to the Farnese. Moreover, the painters involved in the decoration of these four chapels (from around the middle of the work of Danese Cattaneo, an opinion with which I agree. Convincing, too, are Grisebach’s observations about the bust of Antonino (FIg. 13), a work, as he noted, that displays a certain rigidity in the treatment of the beard, the drapery, and the eye sockets, qualities absent in the portraits of the sons, which points to the likelihood of a posthumous execution.42 Wittkower also saw a strong Venetian influence in the sculptures, which he views as “Romanized versions of a type of Venetian bust.”43 A significant Morellian detail, which may facilitate a possible identification of the bust’s author, is the complete absence of any rendering of hair on the protruding arches of the eyebrows, a very rare characteristic in Roman portrait sculpture of the mid-sixteenth century. A parallel line of investigation worth exploring is the Farnese court—an extremely active site for various patrons allied with the family 44 —which Curzio engaged with intimately and on a daily basis and in which Taddeo Zuccari was involved in the years between 1555 and 1560. It is not easy, however, to identify a likely candidate among the various sculptors working for the Farnese at the time. The style of Guglielmo Della Porta is evidently foreign to the Frangipani busts. Similarly, the few known works by the two sculptors and marble restorers on the Farnese payroll, Giovanni Battista de’ Bianchi da Saltrio and Tommaso