Title: The papacy and the art of reform in sixteenth-century Rome : Gregory XIII's Tower of the Winds in the Vatican /
Authors: Courtright, Nicola.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press,
Year: 2003
Subjects: Gregory; Vatican Palace (Vatican City); Torre dei venti (Vatican City); Vatican City Buildings, structures, etc.
Abstract: From his election in 1572 to his death in 1585, Pope Gregory XIII schooled in the upheavals in the Catholic Church that marked the preceding violent decades, spent a great deal of money on the building and restoration of Rome's streets, churches and public monuments. One major, unknown and unstudied monument, the three-story apartment rising up from the Vatican Palace called the Tower of the Winds, was built and painted to celebrate the most famous achievement of Gregory's papacy, the calendar reform. The program of the entire tower proclaimed with assurance not only Gregory's political and religious authority over the capital, but also Gregory's domination of nature, time, and past and present cultures. Its innovations in architecture and decoration, efflorescent Flemish landscapes in all of its seven rooms and its wider religious and political purpose in the culture of Gregorian Rome and the Counter-Reformation, are all subjects of the book.
Contents: Part I. Imagery of Counter-Reformation Rome, the Vatican, and the Papacy Under Gregory XIII -- Reformed Rome and the person of the pope -- The Tower of the Winds and calendar reform -- Part II. Architecture unifying imagery of rule and retreat -- The meridian room: art of time, cosmos, and the counter reformation -- Cycles: rooms of old testament patriarchs, apostles, Tobias, and old testament women views: room with topographical views room of imaginary views -- Conclusion