Visual Cultures of Secrecy in Early Modern Europe by Timothy McCall;Sean Roberts; & Sean Roberts & Giancarlo Fiorenza

Author:Timothy McCall;Sean Roberts; & Sean Roberts & Giancarlo Fiorenza [Timothy McCall]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Art / History / Renaissance
ISBN: 9781612480930
Publisher: PennStateUP
Published: 2013-04-27T05:00:00+00:00

FIGURE 5.6. Ludovico Mazzolino, The Tribute Money, 1524, oil on wood, Poznan, Muzeum Narodowe.

Courtesy of Muzium Narodowe, Poznan, Poland.

Mazzolino’s Tribute Money would have had personal meaning for Casio, who was an avid collector of rare coins and gems. According to the gospels (Matthew 22:15–21, Luke 20:20–26, and Mark 12:13–17), the Pharisees sought Christ in the temple where he was teaching with parables. They plotted to entrap him by tempting him to speak out on the question of whether it was lawful to pay taxes to the emperor. If Jesus approved of paying taxes he would offend the Jews; if he denounced payment he could be reported as disloyal to the empire. Aware of their ploy, Jesus demands to be shown a coin and asks whose image it bears. When they respond that it is Caesar’s image, Jesus silences them with a retort: “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21). Hearing this, the Pharisees departed from the temple in amazement. In Mazzolino’s painting one Pharisee shows Christ the coin and another inspects it while the crowd reacts in wonder to the divine answer. The Tribute Money privileges Christ’s intuition over the religious and political power of the Pharisees and the secular laws of the Romans. His maxim offers a new solution to an age-old problem regarding the power struggle between church and state. By evading potential conflict, Christ’s actions would have been highly instructive and useful to the patron’s role as courtier and diplomat.

Not only did the subject have personal meaning for Casio, but it also emulates courtly patronage. In Ferrara, Alfonso I d’Este commissioned Titian to paint The Tribute Money (Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden) (fig. 5.7), datable to ca. 1516, possibly to adorn one of his camerini that housed his collection of rare coins and medals.67 The biblical subject was highly relevant to the duke, who had recently ended his role in bloody and prolonged Cambrai Wars against the pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, losing the important territories of Modena and Reggio to Julius II, but nevertheless retaining the sovereignty of the Ferrarese state. Ferrara was traditionally a papal territory with the Este serving as vicars, with the family owed their investitures to the Holy Roman Emperor. For Alfonso, Titian’s Tribute Money could address his delicate political position between the opposing forces of the papacy and the Holy Roman Empire at the conclusion of the Cambrai Wars.68 In contrast to Titian’s dramatic close-up and psychologically intense image, Mazzolino’s painting for Casio extols Christ’s rhetorical skills, his confidence and divine conviction in the face of opposition. The scene of the Sacrifice of Isaac in the roundel of Mazzolino’s painting also stresses obedience to God and is related to his Philadelphia Christ Washing the Apostles’ Feet. Both Titian and Mazzolino adapt a form of humanist theology for their [144] private devotional paintings, which enable their respective patrons to rethink Christ’s divine message as a means to overcome various historical or social predicaments.

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