Fresco Reveals Pope's Mistress
Pastor Dale Morgan
*Fresco Reveals Pope's Mistress*
By David Willey
BBC News, Rome
A fresco painting by a Renaissance master which once decorated the
bedroom of Pope Alexander VI in the Vatican has gone on show in Rome.
A leading Italian art historian and curator says he has documentary
proof that it was once part of a much larger painting depicting the aged
Pope kneeling in front of his youthful mistress, Giulia Farnese.
This is an unusual example of "damnatio memoriae" - a Latin phrase
meaning "damnation of memory".
It refers to a custom dating back to antiquity - the attempted removal
of a famous person from the historical record for reasons of dishonour.
Roman Emperors used to order the destruction or removal of portraits or
statues of disgraced members of their family.
Debauched lifestyle
Pope Alexander VI, the notorious Borgia Pope from Spain, discredited the
Church by his debauched lifestyle.
He fathered seven children including Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia by at
least two mistresses.
His surname became a byword for the debased standards of the Renaissance
papacy.
Such was Alexander VI's unpopularity that when he died - perhaps by
poisoning, perhaps from the plague - in 1503 at the age of 72, that the
priests of St Peter's Basilica at first refused to accept his body for
burial.
Pope Alexander's portrait, commissioned from Pinturicchio to decorate
the papal bedchamber inside the Apostolic Palace at the Vatican, was
later hacked away from the wall, most likely during the 17th Century,
and was believed lost until very recently.
The painting showed Alexander kneeling in front of the Child Jesus and
the Virgin Mary, whose face, according to documentary evidence from
several contemporary sources, was that of one of his mistresses, a
handsome young Roman noblewoman called Giulia Farnese.
The small segment of this much larger original fresco painting now on
display is an exquisite portrait of the child Jesus. The child has a
halo of pure gold painted around his head.
This extraordinarily fine painting came onto the international art
market three years ago and was bought by an Italian industrialist from
Perugia.
Mystery hands
There are five hands shown on the painting. Professor Franco Nuccirelli
from Perugia, the curator of the exhibition, who rediscovered the
painting, told me he believes that two of the hands belong to the
missing figure of the Virgin Mary who clasps the child gently around his
waist.
The child has one hand raised in a blessing and holds a golden orb
surmounted by a cross in the other.
Lucrezia Borgia
One of Pope Alexander VI's children was the notorious Lucrezia Borgia
The fifth hand, according to Professor Nuccirelli, is that of the
missing figure of Pope Alexander himself. His hand gently fondles the
child's right foot.
We know exactly what the picture in the Pope's bedroom looked like. It
was copied by a 17th Century artist called Pietro Facchetti while still
in situ.
This copy is now in the possession of another Roman noble family.
Professor Nucciarelli's proof that this fragment belongs to the lost
masterpiece of Pinturicchio looks very convincing.
The famous art historian and scholar Giorgio Vasari writing in the
second edition of his Lives of the Artists in 1568 mentioned that
Pinturicchio's painting was "over the door of a room in the Apostolic
Palace".
It was, said Vasari, "a portrait of Signora Giulia Farnese with the
countenance of Our Lady, and in the same picture the head of Pope
Alexander adoring her".
Frustratingly, there is only one surviving portrait of Giulia Farnese,
whose brother Alessandro Farnese later became Pope Paul III.
The portrait is in the Museum of the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome where it
is attributed to the Roman painter Luca Longhi.
It shows a young woman rather wistfully seated in a mountain landscape
next to a unicorn - the fabled beast is one of the heraldic emblems of
the Farnese family.
Naturally [the Vatican] are not very happy about publicity of this sort
Professor Nucciarelli
I asked Professor Nucciarelli what had been the reaction from the
Vatican to his discoveries.
"Naturally they are not very happy about publicity of this sort," he said.
"But we have been in Alexander's bedroom which is one of the clearly
identifiable rooms in the Borgia apartment of the Apostolic Palace.
"There is the exactly the right space above the door where the painting
would have fitted. But so far we have not received permission to examine
the present state of the wall which is hidden by a tapestry."
First mistress
Pope Alexander VI's first and best known mistress was called Vanozza dei
Cattanei.
She was the mother of Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia and several portraits
of her are in existence.
Detail of a portrait of Giulia Farnese, from Museum Castel Sant'Angelo
in Rome
The one surviving portrait of Giulia Farnese shows her with a unicorn
You can see her tomb and a portrait bust in a rather dark side chapel
inside the church of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome.
After visiting the exhibition I went back to view her portrait which I
had not looked at for some years. Decidedly matronly, I thought.
Vanozza had three husbands in addition to her relationship with Pope
Alexander, by whom she bore four children altogether.
The nice thing about living in Rome is that most events here are
historically well documented. You can walk into any church to check the
facts.
In Rome you actually touch history every day by simply walking down the
street.