Intervención profesional:

All this living marble does not leave the spectator unaffected. The common response we encounter is that of stupor, stupore. For Orfeo Boselli, it is marvel, maraviglia, that brings on this stupor, a marvel which arises when we see some-

Auroram, & Solem.’ Refering to psalm 73 here, Borboni speaks here of God’s creation of Man, God who is the real light, ‘sendo il Sole un’ombra di qualla luce, che illuminat omnem hominem venientem in hunc Mundum.’ (ibid., p. 2)

62 _{Fehrenbach 2005, pp. 27-28, Ianniello 1986, p. 232.}

63 _{For ‘literary synaesthesia’ see Chidester 1992, in particular pp. 14-24 and, for further refer-} ences, p. 150, n. 34.

64 _{See e.g. Castagnetti 1991, 1993, Marino/Pieri 1979, vol. 1, pp. 273-277, cf. Cropper 1991b,} pp. 199-201.

65 _{BAV, Barb.lat. 1919, f. 57r and Orsi et al. 1606, p. 193; Castagnetti 1991, p. 1699 (‘In eiusdem} dormientis statuam.’): ‘On the statue of the same sleeping [Cupid]’: ‘Stratus Amor molli per- mulcet 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.’ See e.g. Callistratus’ description of a statue of Narcissus in Philostratus, Philostratus & Callistratus/Fairbanks 1931, pp. 391-395.

thing that exceeds normal beauty and in its ‘rarity draws the spectator’s glances and thoughts to itself, so that one remains distracted by the contemplation of its delights.’66 _{The spectator remains in a state of shock, unable to move, and,}

where the marble seems to live, the spectator is frozen like a marble sculpture. Guidiccioni, now writing on Bernini’s 1632 Bust of pope Urban VIII (fig. 6), names one of his poems explicitly ‘the statue and its viewer’:

The stone glides [insinuate] into the viewer’s chest; unaware, conversely, the specta- tor glides into the stone. From there man (a hard race) draws its rigidity. From there, out of many it draws a soul.67

While man gazes upon marble, its stony essence takes a hold of him, while, conversely, the stone grows soft and alive under the gazes of its spectators. An exchange takes place, Guidiccioni’s somewhat cryptic lines suggest, worlds mingle. Man and image are suspended in time and place, sharing a world where stone and life become one. The sculpture’s power to ‘petrify’ its spectator is often compared to that of Medusa, the mythical snake-haired beauty, a mere glance of whose face would turn a man to stone.68 _{And also in other ways the}

spectator adopts what he finds in the work of art. Luigi Scaramuccia writes on Bernini’s Saint Theresa (fig. 3), that ‘so as she is seen in ecstasy, so ecstatic it will leave he who looks upon her…’69 _{More elaborate is the case of Bernini’s Bust of}

Francesco I d’Este (fig. 9), which according to Giovanni Andrea Borboni was

portrayed so lifelike [al vivo], that when first seen by that prince, it seemed (I almost would have said, if not his singular cunning had forbidden me to do so) that, as a newborn Narcissus, in gazing attentively at his own features [fattezze] in the white-

66 _{Boselli/Torresi 1994, p. 79: ‘Maraviglia dunque è uno stupore, il quale nasce in noi da cosa} veduta, la quale eccede l’ordinario bellezza e quella cosa è maravigliosa, che straordinariamen- te è bella, onde come rara tira a sè il sguardo e la mente, a segno che si rimane astratto alla contemplazione e piacere di essa.’

67 _{Guidiccioni/Newman & Newman 1992, p. 174 (‘De Statua, & eius Inspectore’): ‘Spectanti} insinuat sese lapis; inscius ultro | Spectator totum se lapidi insinuat. | Inde trahunt homines, durum genus, unde regiscant; | Inde unam e multis contrahit ille animam.’ I thank Lex Her- mans for helping me with the translation.

68 _{Francesco Antonio Cappone’s dedication in Cappone 1654 (pages unnumbered). See for the} ‘Medusa effect’ Lavin 1998a, Shearman 1992, pp. 48-50, and Cropper 1991b, pp. 203-204. 69 _{Scaramuccia 1674, p. 18: ‘…e nella Chiesa della Vittoria in particolare, ove espresse Santa}

Teresa, che trafitta dall’amoroso Strale del suo Signore vassene in dolce deliqio, e si come in estasi si vede, così estatico fà restare chi la rimira, mercè l’eccelenza d’un tanto Maestro, che la condusse.’

ness of that marble, he was tremendously charmed by himself, even had fallen in love with his statue; [and] he spoke with it, like a newborn Pygmalion.70

Not the sculptor, now, but rather the spectator is a Pygmalion. Like Narcissus, he is oblivious of the fact that it is an image of himself he gazes at. Narcissus, who, falling in love with his own reflection in a pond, indeed remains immobile at his own sight, ‘like a statue of Parian marble,’ as Ovid writes.71 _Francesco

d’Este, then, responds quite differently, for he speaks with his own counte- nance. Not only do these living marbles invite to speech, but also to songs and poetry. The chisel makes the Sirens sing, muses the Neapolitan poet Gennaro Suardo, and brings about the most extraordinary flights in the ‘Parthenopian swans’, that is to say, his fellow Neapolitan poets.72

As Guidiccioni’s lines on Bernini’s bust of Urban VIII suggest, it is not always a one-way effect: not only does man grow rigid in the presence of Bern- ini’s marble bust, but the bust itself draws its soul from those who watch. Thus, in this cases it is not the sculptor, or at least not the sculptor alone, who gives life to the marble; the bust needs a beholder to grant it its life. Giovanni Michele Silos, in a Latin epigram on Antonio Raggi’s monumental marble relief for the Ginetti chapel in the Roman church of Sant’Andrea della Valle (fig. 10), addresses the spectator directly, writing: ‘Whoever you are, here so ardently fallen to your knees before these marble figures, the sculpted marble will grow soft under your prayers.’73

Where the spectator may occasionally, when lost in his contemplation of the image, be moved to such heights that he speak with it, mostly he keeps silent. Nor do we encounter many of the other behaviours we find in religious ritual involving images. Indeed, the spectator may fall to his knees in admiration of a particular devout sculpture, be even moved to prayers and tears, but we do not find here the more ritual rubbing, kissing, and touching with chaplets of statues

70 _{Borboni 1661, p. 84: ‘effigiato così al vivo; che veduto da quel Prencipe, parve (stetti quasi} per dire, se non mel vietasse le sagacità singolare dello stesso) che a guisa di novello Narciso in rimirando attentamente le sue fattezze nel candore di quel marmo, si compiacesse som- mamente di se medesimo, o vero invaghito della sua Statua; con esso lei ragionasse, come un novello Pigmalione.’

71 _{Ovid/Miller 1977, vol. 1, book 3, pp. 152-155: ‘adstupet ipse sibi vultuque inmotus eodem} haeret, ut e Pario formatum marmore signum…’

72 _{Cappone 1654: ‘Col tuo scarpel, […] | Cantar fai le Sirene, e a’ Cigni rendi | Di Partenope} mia volo più raro.’

73 _{Silos 1673, vol. 2, p. 192, no. XLVII, with an Italian translation in Silos/Basile Bonsante} 1979, vol. 2, p. 178: ‘Quisquis es, hic alacer procumbe ad saxea signa: | Molle tuis votis scul- pti le marmor erit.’

witnessed by Sir Philip Skippon and John Evelyn in the Roman churches.74

That such behaviour would in fact break the ‘spell’ of vivaciousness, becomes eminent if we look more closely at the role of the senses.