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Maffeo Barberini’s ascension to the Papal throne in 1623 as Urban VIII occa- sioned the endorsement of poetry on Christian grounds, the poesia sacra,

newborn Orpheus’ is ‘attributed not as much to Bernini […], but to the poet who celebrates in his verses the Daphne sculpted by the artist.’

10 _{Mascardi 1627, p. 321: ‘Bernino, [...] nell’ età sua giovanile, con lo scarpello sà dar senso di} vita alle pietre meglio, che non fece co’l canto favoloso Anfione.’ For Mascardi see Bellini 2002.

11 _{For the myth of Orpheus and its reception see Rietveld 2007. Cf. also supra, p. 27.}

12 _{Scipione Francucci in BAV Borghesiano 184, f. 8, quoted in Warwick 2004, n. 47: ‘tu solo} Apollo puoi di mille Apelli | L’apre muti adeguar con nobil canto, | E con la penna tu’ de i lor penelli | Dipinger puoi l’intera gloria, el vanto. | Tu puoi l’opre avvivar de gli scarpelli, | E per solo anch’io confido intanto | Pittor canoro, et scultor loquace | Dar vivi accenti a’ chi parlando tace.’

countering the sensual and sometimes downright lascivious marinismo of many

of his contemporaries.13 _{Pindaric poets such as Virginio Cesarini, Giovanni Ci-}

ampoli, Gabriello Chiabrera and of course Maffeo himself came to define the new norm, buttressed by a theoretical underpinning provided by authors such as Agostino Mascardi and Sforza Pallavicino, while Marino’s magnus opus, the 1623 Adone was put on the index not long after.14 _{It is tempting to read the}

treatment of the Adone—other works of Marino would follow—as a way for

Maffeo to get even with his own past. To be sure, an influence of Marino’s work on the young Maffeo cannot be denied. One thing the two share is a pro- found interest in the relation between the visual and the literary arts. In Marino’s case the most significant literary sediment of this interest is, as we have seen, his 1619 Galeria.15 _{Maffeo’s efforts on the other hand are more scat-}

tered, both in his published works and in his manuscripts. For both Marino as Maffeo we may assume that Aurelio Orsi’s Caprarola, a lengthy collection of poetic descriptions of the artworks in and outside the Farnese villa Caprarola,

played an important role in their treatment of works of art in poetry.16 _Subse-

quently, Maffeo’s sensitivity to the art of painting may have developed further during his stay in Bologna, where there was a lively interaction between poets

and painters already at the beginning of the seventeenth century.17

The pope’s literary interest in the visual arts must have been well known by his contemporaries. An anonymous ‘discorso’ on the pope’s poetry, in manu- script in the Vatican Library, is saturated with references to the pictorial quali- ties of his work, echoing Horace’s dictum ut pictura poesis.18 _{On one occasion the}

author writes:

he [His Highness, Urbano VIII Barberini] shows to comprehend in a more elevated manner the arrangement, the poses, and the movements, and the shadows, and the lights, than never comprehended Athens and Rodos, nor their Apelleses and Proto-

13 _{See also supra, p. 22.}

14 _{For the documents pertaining to Marino’s Adone and the index see Bujanda & Richter 2002,} p. 588 (Decree of the Congregation of the Index, 11 June 1624; repeated 17 July 1625 and 5 November 1626). In secondary literature one often encounters the date 1627, but I have found no source for this date. For an exstensive discussion of Marino and the inquisition see Carminati 2008.

15 _{The literature on Marino’s Galeria is extensive; see, among others, Surliuga 2002, pp. 65-84,} Paulicelli 1994, pp. 255-265, Guardiani 1988, pp. 647-654, Nemerow-Ulman 1987, pp. 76-86, Marzio Pieri in Marino/Pieri 1979 and Pieri 1978, pp. 30-49.

16 _{Orsi’s Caprarola has been published in Baumgart 1935, pp. 76-179.For Marino and Orsi see} Leuker 2009. I owe thanks to professor Leuker for letting me read the manuscript of his arti- cle before its publication. For Barberini and Orsi see Castagnetti 1993, pp. 411-450. 17 _{Schütze 2007, pp. 175ff. and 2004, pp. 183-204.}

geneses, and for that matter the garments, the nudes, the foreshortenings and above all the emotions…19

Maffeo’s poems are paintings [dipinture], superseding those of antiquity. But what about sculpture? In a lengthy poem written to celebrate the wedding of Taddeo Barberini and Anna Colonna by monsignor Lorenzo Azzolino, a figure well known at the papal court and a poet of considerable esteem in the seven-

teenth century, we find a reference to the Theban swan:20

You, an equal of Amphion,

Phidias, give not however with soft songs, or lyre, but with hard iron, a soul to stones.

But through more solid dimensions, taking the palm from the Theban Swan, Maffeo arises with his glorious songs…21

The chisel is beaten by the word, the sculptor is defeated by the poet who takes the palm not from the sculptor’s hand, but from that of Amphion himself. ‘Breathing statues arise,’ we read in the strophe that follows.22 _{In the context of}

the poem, the verses quoted above can easily be taken for a statement in the paragone between the visual arts and literature as it was already expressed by Pet- rarch: the visual arts may produce figures that seem very much alive, but they

remain mute bodies—only words can show their inner life.23 _{Yet, the repeated}

reference to Amphion implies that we are still in the domain of living stone, while the ‘through more solid dimensions’ suggests that the poet reaches a simi- lar effect as the sculptor but through another way. What this ‘other way’ is seems evident: where the sculptor brings the stone to life with his chisel, the poet does so with his words—and he does it even better!

19 _{From the anonymous Discorso sulle poesie di Urbano VIII in BAV, Barb. lat. 3836, f. 22v:} ‘mostra ella [Sua Santità, Urban VIII Barberini] d’intendere in più alto modo le positure, l’attitudini, e le movenze, e l’ombre, & i lumi, che non l’intessero Athene, e Rodo, ne i suoi Apelli, e Protogeni, e cosi gli habiti, gl’ignudi, e gli scorti, e sovratutto gli affetti…’

20 _{For Azzolino see DBI, vol. 4, s.v. ‘Azzolino, Lorenzo’.}

21 _{Brogiotti 1629, p. 127 (‘Stanze di Monsig. Lorenzo Azzolini.’): ‘Tu d’Anfione al paro, | Fidia,} non già con molli Carmi, ò Cetre, | ma dà con duro ferro alma à le pietre. || Ma via più salde moli, | quando al Cigno Teban tolse la Palma | s’alzò Maffeo co’gloriosi Carmi…’ 22 _{Lorenzo Azzolino in Brogiotti 1629, p. 127: ‘Sorgan Statue spiranti’.}

23 _{Bettini 1984, pp. 227-231. Evidently, this idea had changed by the seventeenth century, when} it was often stated that also the painter or sculptor not only depicted the body, but also the soul; see Delbeke 2002, pp. 205-207.

We may well assume that Azzolino was aware of the pope’s earlier literary

works; they must have been rather obligatory reading under his rule.24 _Among

these early literary works are several epigrams, published, partly for the first time, in 1991 by Marina Castagnetti, that prove particularly relevant for our dis-

cussion.25 _{Not only do they show Maffeo’s interest in the poetic description of}

works of art, evidently inherited from his master Aurelio Orsi, but what is more, they show a particular interest in the lively character of these images and its

effects on the spectator.26 _{As an example we can refer again to the poem dis-}

cussed in chapter one, first published in 1606 as part of a small collection of poetry by various authors:

Reclining, Cupid rests his members in soft rest while quietly a crystal-clear stream descends from his quiver. Don’t you believe him to be made of marble! With gentle movement he brings forth soft air and the restrained breath resounds from his mouth. Do you deny hearing it? How is it possible [quid ni]! The murmur of the water blends with the murmur of the reclining [figure].27

The deceit here is quite simple. The sleeping Cupid, seemingly not more than a marble fountain, is alive, even if his gentle breath is lost under the soft murmur of the water flowing forth from his quiver. As has been argued by Castagnetti, what is at stake here, is not a philosophical questioning of reality and appear- ance, or a moralizing lesson on the deceitfulness of the senses. Rather, the spec- tator, who, significantly, is addressed explicitly in the poem, is presented with an alternative, more creative way of experiencing the work. The poet, urging him to put aside his skepticism, complements the deceit of the sculptor with a poetic deceit.28

It must have been particularly this aspect of Maffeo’s poetry that prompted Azzolino to argue that he had taken the palm from Amphion’s hand and which, eventually, prompted Bruni to address his poem to the pope. But there is yet another argument for identifying Bruni’s ‘newborn Orpheus’ with Maffeo Bar- berini. As is well known, Maffeo actually wrote something for Bernini’s group,

a distich, now engraved in the base of the Apollo and Daphne. Without a doubt

24 _{Cf. supra, p. 22.}

25 _{Castagnetti 1991, pp. 1693-1703.} 26 _{Castagnetti 2003.}

27 _{BAV, Barb.lat. 1919, f. 57r and Orsi et al. 1606, p. 193; Castagnetti 1991, p. 1699 (‘In eiusdem} dormientis statuam.’, i.e. ‘On the statue of the same sleeping [Cupid].’): ‘Stratus Amor molli permulcet membra quiete | vitrea de faretra leniter unda cadit | Marmoreum ne crede levem leni aera motu | ducit et attractus spiritus ore sonat | Hunc audire negas? quid ni confundit in unum | sternentis simili murmure murmur aqua.’

Bruni knew the distich; indeed he might actually refer to it in his poem. Before turning to this point though, some more attention needs to be paid to the spec- tator, for it was the work’s impact on the spectator that prompted Maffeo to have his words placed at the base of the statue in the first place.