WELCOME FRIENDS, FAMILY & FACULTY!

This blog is an art history experiment for our Italian Renaissance travel course. We hope that you, our visitors, will not only take some time to read about what we are studying, but will ALSO feel free to make comments or ask us questions...especially after we see (most of) these things in person. As we travel, we will offer personal reflections on our experiences. After we fly out on the 17th, follow us as we visit Rome (May 18-20), Florence (20-24), and Venice (24-25). We return on Thursday, May 26...just in time for the holiday weekend.

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Mass of Bolsena, Raphael


  • 1512
  • Located in Papal apartments in the Vatican Palace, commissioned by Pope Julius II
    • stanza di Eliodoro room, theme of God's intervention in human destiny, developed specifically for Julius II
    • Above a window (to the right of Expulsion of Heliodorus)
  • Depicts miracle said to have taken place in 1263, which resulted in a relic located in the Cathedral of Orvieto
Story of the Miracle
  • "A [visiting] Bohemian priest who did not believe in the presence of Christ in the Eucharist [transubstantiation] was celebrating Mass [at Bolsena] when, to his astonishment, the consecrated bread shed drops of blood...on the corporal"
    • Corporal - white cloth on which elements are placed during celebration of the Eucharist
  • The bloodstained cloth was preserved in the Cathedral of Orvieto as a relic
    • still there today
Julius II
  • Visited the relic in 1506
  • Attributed military success in North and triumph over French after Ravena to the relic
  • Shown in the fresco as if calmly observing the original event 
The Work
  • Arranged compositionally around the window, from left to right
  • Heavy Ionic architecture
  • Richness of color new to Raphael
  • Includes a self-portrait of Raphael as one of the Swiss guard














-Abbie
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