1 00:00:00,240 --> 00:00:13,670 Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, I think I'm going to begin it's just after 5:00 and I'll show you a nice picture to look at. 2 00:00:13,670 --> 00:00:18,280 Correggio is a small town near power Tamar in northern Italy. 3 00:00:18,280 --> 00:00:27,350 It gave its name to Antonia Alegre, who was born there in 14, 89, died in 15 34. 4 00:00:27,350 --> 00:00:33,650 Nowadays, he's an incomparably less famous figure than Leonardo Michelangelo, Rafil, 5 00:00:33,650 --> 00:00:40,400 but was at least they're equal in the estimation of the 17th and 18th centuries. 6 00:00:40,400 --> 00:00:42,590 My subject this afternoon, 7 00:00:42,590 --> 00:00:53,420 his dome fresco in Parma Cathedral is one of the most explosively original and influential works of art of the 16th century. 8 00:00:53,420 --> 00:01:01,760 It went much further than any of its precursors in this department, but it did not come out of nowhere. 9 00:01:01,760 --> 00:01:09,890 As a rule in these lectures, time constraints mean I've reluctantly resisted the temptation to give any background to the works, 10 00:01:09,890 --> 00:01:16,130 which are my subjects week by week. But today I am going to break that rule. 11 00:01:16,130 --> 00:01:24,860 The idea of opening up the heavens in illusionist mystic fashion in a fresco was not completely new. 12 00:01:24,860 --> 00:01:31,370 The first great, if more modest breakthrough came with what you're seeing. 13 00:01:31,370 --> 00:01:34,270 The vault of Under Armour maintained a so-called Kammerer Daily, 14 00:01:34,270 --> 00:01:45,020 supposedly in the Palazzo du Cowley and Mantua, a room which was painted between 14 65 and 14 74. 15 00:01:45,020 --> 00:01:50,180 There is good evidence to support the idea that the teenage Correggio was a pupil of 16 00:01:50,180 --> 00:01:57,020 Montaigne years and the years before the latter's death in fifteen six and soon thereafter. 17 00:01:57,020 --> 00:02:07,730 He was certainly responsible for the frescoes in the cupola of Montanas funerary chapel in the Basilica of Santa Andréa in mantra, 18 00:02:07,730 --> 00:02:13,400 which you see by the late fifteen tens. 19 00:02:13,400 --> 00:02:23,480 Correggio was in Parma, where he frescoed the vaults of a room in the private apartments of the abbess of the Benedictine Convent of Son Paolo, 20 00:02:23,480 --> 00:02:30,110 with an irresistible and resolutely pagan fresco decoration. 21 00:02:30,110 --> 00:02:41,660 Incomparably more crucial for the Duomo, however, was his dome fresco in the Benedictine abbey of San Giovanni Evangelist. 22 00:02:41,660 --> 00:02:53,720 Which, together with the now in large part destroyed apse, fresco and other decorations, dates from the first half of the fifteen twenties. 23 00:02:53,720 --> 00:03:03,920 I cannot dwell on this project, but its importance as a precedent for the even more ambitious Guillermo Fresco is obvious. 24 00:03:03,920 --> 00:03:14,000 I think if you see them together. Moreover, it does seem imperative at least to mention a very recently rediscovered autographed letter 25 00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:21,870 which was hiding in St. Petersburg sent by Correggio on the 20th of July 15 19 to Jerusalem. 26 00:03:21,870 --> 00:03:27,140 Madame on Ferrat, a major figure in the Benedictine order. 27 00:03:27,140 --> 00:03:33,630 Its president in fifteen twenty one and about to send Jovani Evangelist from fifteen twenty 28 00:03:33,630 --> 00:03:41,840 two to twenty four in it correctly states that he has been in power for eight days and that 29 00:03:41,840 --> 00:03:51,080 for the fathers of Sam Jovani I have already agreed to do in the cupola of their church the 30 00:03:51,080 --> 00:03:59,990 ascension of our Lord with the 12 Apostles with other histories and Freese's for the church. 31 00:03:59,990 --> 00:04:08,420 He adds that the whole project is likely to take around four years. 32 00:04:08,420 --> 00:04:15,380 On the 3rd of November fifteen 22, Correggio signed a contract with the Fabbri chair. 33 00:04:15,380 --> 00:04:22,130 The lay factors of Pamela Cathedral in the presence of all the cathedral cannons. 34 00:04:22,130 --> 00:04:31,790 In it, he agreed to paint the cupola, the vote leading to the high altar, the apps and all visible parts, the walls leading to the apps. 35 00:04:31,790 --> 00:04:41,690 The entire surface area was calculated at 150 square petcare, which is perches a colossal expands. 36 00:04:41,690 --> 00:04:47,390 Pareja was to receive the commensurately immense sum of a thousand ducats. 37 00:04:47,390 --> 00:04:54,010 The figure of twelve hundred is crossed out in the document and a hundred ducats for materials. 38 00:04:54,010 --> 00:05:05,720 He was to include whatever storia histories would be given to him, whether to the life or imitating bronze or marble as appropriate, 39 00:05:05,720 --> 00:05:12,470 which seems to suggest that no details of the decorative scheme had yet been determined. 40 00:05:12,470 --> 00:05:26,810 Kuragin further stipulated that he required a large room or closed chapel per family DNA to make the drawings, that must be to say, the cartoons. 41 00:05:26,810 --> 00:05:34,130 It is frustrating that nothing more is said concerning the subject matter, which I will be exploring later on. 42 00:05:34,130 --> 00:05:38,720 However, an agreement drawn up on the 17th of May, 43 00:05:38,720 --> 00:05:49,310 fifteen forty seven between the authorities at the monastery of San Benedito in Ferrara and an all but undocumented painted gold lottery could, 44 00:05:49,310 --> 00:05:55,670 Moderna gives an intriguing insight into what might have been required of Carriger. 45 00:05:55,670 --> 00:06:02,980 No such rescue exists in Ferrara, and it may indeed never have been executed. 46 00:06:02,980 --> 00:06:12,710 Lot of vehicles to paint the main cupola from the top to the bottom of the four Peduto see which means corbels of the crossing. 47 00:06:12,710 --> 00:06:22,910 The document then explains and I quote First That said Messa Ludovico has to begin said work at the beginning of next month. 48 00:06:22,910 --> 00:06:27,710 Work on it continuously and make all the figures with his own hand. 49 00:06:27,710 --> 00:06:33,470 The work has to be in the following manner, namely at the summit of the set down. 50 00:06:33,470 --> 00:06:41,070 The ascension of our Lord with the Apostles. All large figures in proportion to the heightened size, the said. 51 00:06:41,070 --> 00:06:49,670 But the heavens and the angels in clouds so that it is pleasing to a man of judgement, and that the uppermost cornice, 52 00:06:49,670 --> 00:06:57,950 which will be the first one below the apostles, should include eight well painted fictive marble columns. 53 00:06:57,950 --> 00:07:01,520 Then between the columns of the dome where there are no windows. 54 00:07:01,520 --> 00:07:09,550 He is to paint to prophets on an appropriate scale, where there are windows to Putina holding festoons. 55 00:07:09,550 --> 00:07:20,360 Why the side of the windows, in accordance with the drawing, give them the second corners from the top has likewise to be effective marble. 56 00:07:20,360 --> 00:07:25,610 And there he is, bent, festoon, or whatever seems fit to a good judge. 57 00:07:25,610 --> 00:07:29,420 Below the second cornice he has to paint appropriately. 58 00:07:29,420 --> 00:07:40,700 The four patriarchs there then follow the financial arrangements, which, as was customary, involve payments in instalments. 59 00:07:40,700 --> 00:07:51,020 All commentators have accepted that it was courageous work in Central Valley evangelist that had impressed the cathedral authorities. 60 00:07:51,020 --> 00:08:00,440 Indeed, at least in relation to enterprises of this enormity, the idea of such a commission tends not to exist in the abstract. 61 00:08:00,440 --> 00:08:06,950 On the contrary, it is inspired by the availability of an exceptional artist. 62 00:08:06,950 --> 00:08:10,520 What is more, it must have been the overall planned cover. 63 00:08:10,520 --> 00:08:18,560 Sam Giovannelli with frescoes by a team of painters that encouraged the even more grandiose Cathedral project, 64 00:08:18,560 --> 00:08:26,840 which similarly involved vast programme of other frescoes by a number of other artists. 65 00:08:26,840 --> 00:08:34,610 The grand design of the cathedral was arguably overambitious from the start and ran into countless practical difficulties, 66 00:08:34,610 --> 00:08:41,280 such as Parelli Janina's departure for Rome in fifteen twenty four. 67 00:08:41,280 --> 00:08:50,900 At that day, Correggio had not even started to paint, and one has the impression that a leisurely rate of execution was always anticipated. 68 00:08:50,900 --> 00:08:57,890 The cupola in the cathedral was not the centrepiece of a new building, as it Sam Giovannelli. 69 00:08:57,890 --> 00:09:08,810 Instead, it was the heart of an old Romanesque structure and was not suitable for painting without a certain amount of preliminary attention. 70 00:09:08,810 --> 00:09:14,180 This was not arranged until a year later when the contract was signed by Jordan. 71 00:09:14,180 --> 00:09:18,530 Job that and back on the twenty third of November, fifteen, twenty three. 72 00:09:18,530 --> 00:09:24,710 But in the meantime, the scaffolding had been constructed and the cupola inspected. 73 00:09:24,710 --> 00:09:29,720 There are further documents concerned with a temporary wooden covering for the cupola, 74 00:09:29,720 --> 00:09:38,000 which was the responsibility of Malcolm Turnbull Zuki and with the provision of copper to make the dome secure. 75 00:09:38,000 --> 00:09:43,760 Only when this work was completed, Kuruc could Correggio have begun to paint. 76 00:09:43,760 --> 00:09:53,810 Although there is evidence of additional copper laying taking place later wrong, maybe because the initial labour was done in too much of a hurry. 77 00:09:53,810 --> 00:10:00,890 However, the delay no doubt suited Correggio extremely well and had presumably been taken 78 00:10:00,890 --> 00:10:06,700 into consideration from the outset since he had a good deal of unfinished business. 79 00:10:06,700 --> 00:10:11,150 At some of them. It used to be believed. 80 00:10:11,150 --> 00:10:11,740 Not least. 81 00:10:11,740 --> 00:10:22,930 By me in the book, I wrote some courage about 20 years ago that the payment of the 17th of November, fifteen, 30 marks the completion of the day. 82 00:10:22,930 --> 00:10:30,610 But an article by Christina Checky nearly of 2010, which publishes a number of new notarial documents, 83 00:10:30,610 --> 00:10:39,840 above all, concerned with the scaffolding, has demonstrated that work went on well into the fifteen thirties. 84 00:10:39,840 --> 00:10:46,160 Checking Early argues convincingly that the previously known payment of the twenty ninth of November 85 00:10:46,160 --> 00:10:53,980 fifteen twenty six is not as previously believed for fresco work already completed on the dome, 86 00:10:53,980 --> 00:11:00,730 but on the contrary. The Correggio only got started in the summer of fifteen thirty. 87 00:11:00,730 --> 00:11:06,960 One of the new documents dated the 8th of June 15 30 again involves George Roder at 88 00:11:06,960 --> 00:11:12,470 a bar and requires him to construct a scaffolding necessary pair of Deeping Jerry, 89 00:11:12,470 --> 00:11:21,160 a deep, dark Khumba in order to paint the said cupola at the same time obliging him to dismantle 90 00:11:21,160 --> 00:11:27,040 the scaffolding once the fresco is completed and to do so without damaging it. 91 00:11:27,040 --> 00:11:33,430 A second document dated the 1st of August 15th, 30, directly concerns corrected. 92 00:11:33,430 --> 00:11:41,110 It revisits the original agreement of 15 22, not just for the dome, but also for the apps and the crossing of the choir. 93 00:11:41,110 --> 00:11:48,770 It specifies that his guarantor, in connexion with these enterprises, will be shipped only Montejano de la Rosa, 94 00:11:48,770 --> 00:11:53,650 a Parmesan nobleman who was one of the two February chary at the time of the 95 00:11:53,650 --> 00:11:59,110 original signing of the contract and more generally played a considerable part, 96 00:11:59,110 --> 00:12:03,790 encourages career further documents of the twenty third and the third. 97 00:12:03,790 --> 00:12:13,610 First, May fifteen thirty 32 relate to the construction of scaffolding and preparation of the surfaces to be painted in the choir and apps, 98 00:12:13,610 --> 00:12:23,380 and would seem to indicate that by this date Correggio had all but completed his work on the day he died in fifteen thirty four, as I've said. 99 00:12:23,380 --> 00:12:34,210 So the fact that he failed to execute any more of the project is no great surprise if he made drawings for these other areas, they have not survived. 100 00:12:34,210 --> 00:12:38,050 The contract does not specify the frescoes subject, 101 00:12:38,050 --> 00:12:45,220 but merely stipulates that graduates to paint whatever histories are given to him, as previously stated. 102 00:12:45,220 --> 00:12:49,030 This may seem to suggest that the programme remains to be determined, 103 00:12:49,030 --> 00:12:54,820 but in fact there can be no doubt that the assumption of the Virgin was always planned for the pupil. 104 00:12:54,820 --> 00:12:59,260 The Virgin was the patron saint of Panama, and her assumption and coronation, 105 00:12:59,260 --> 00:13:05,740 which both celebrated on the 15th of August, were of particular significance to the city. 106 00:13:05,740 --> 00:13:16,150 The cathedral was actually dedicated to her assumption, and it would have seemed natural to surround her with a subsidiary patron saint of the city. 107 00:13:16,150 --> 00:13:22,660 In the squinch is the areas at the bottom of the dome. 108 00:13:22,660 --> 00:13:31,720 Much as she was flanked by the two most important patron saint John the Baptist and Hillary on the seal of the time, 109 00:13:31,720 --> 00:13:35,740 the details of the iconography would be discussed more fully in due course. 110 00:13:35,740 --> 00:13:44,380 But it is important to realise at the outset that its broad lines were probably defined before the contract was signed. 111 00:13:44,380 --> 00:13:53,140 The idea of an artist planning an exceptionally complex illusionist dick fresco for a cupola is extremely hard to imagine. 112 00:13:53,140 --> 00:14:00,400 And in this instance, there were two particular factors that can only have added to Courreges difficulties. 113 00:14:00,400 --> 00:14:08,410 The first is that although the top part of the cupola is rounded off at its base, it is octagonal. 114 00:14:08,410 --> 00:14:16,930 The second is that each of its eight sides is penetrated by a substantial circular window at its base. 115 00:14:16,930 --> 00:14:20,380 These complications had to be borne in mind from the first, 116 00:14:20,380 --> 00:14:28,360 and it is likely that correctly built himself some sort of scale model upon which to experiment. 117 00:14:28,360 --> 00:14:38,410 His contemporary Rosseau Fiorentino did exactly that when faced by a far less illusionist, actually demanding decorative commission in error. 118 00:14:38,410 --> 00:14:47,890 So needless to say, no such model exists, but a number of preparatory drawings for the cupola have survived. 119 00:14:47,890 --> 00:14:56,680 Sadly, they are less informative about the evolution of the overall design than might have been hoped. 120 00:14:56,680 --> 00:15:10,090 The most instructive by far is a double-sided sheet in the Ashmolean, whose present Recto is currently on display in the museum. 121 00:15:10,090 --> 00:15:17,200 The first point to. Make about it is that the present recto? 122 00:15:17,200 --> 00:15:26,250 There must, in fact, have been drawn SACC and that it is with the current Vasso on the left for you, 123 00:15:26,250 --> 00:15:30,670 that we should begin drawing in hot orange red chalk. 124 00:15:30,670 --> 00:15:37,490 It shows one octagonal section of the day capable of repetition all the way round 125 00:15:37,490 --> 00:15:44,050 and appears to have been cut down to its present curved shape by the artist himself. 126 00:15:44,050 --> 00:15:47,970 He started by drawing the parapet and the prominent Occulus. 127 00:15:47,970 --> 00:15:54,640 He is surrounded by a fairly a wreath decoration based on Atlantica models. 128 00:15:54,640 --> 00:15:58,720 And then drew the figures over the top of the parapet. 129 00:15:58,720 --> 00:16:07,570 Bears of classical order and close inspection reveals that the left right halves are not identical. 130 00:16:07,570 --> 00:16:13,090 This could be interpreted as meaning that the plan involved an alternating rhythm. 131 00:16:13,090 --> 00:16:17,050 But it is far more likely that Correggio was adopting a practise common in 132 00:16:17,050 --> 00:16:23,500 architectural drawings of the period and also found in designs for altarpiece friends, 133 00:16:23,500 --> 00:16:29,560 which issued repetition in order to show alternative options. 134 00:16:29,560 --> 00:16:39,600 In this instance, Grygiel drew a fluted ionic plaster on the left, while its counterpart on the right is fluted Doric. 135 00:16:39,600 --> 00:16:47,590 The figures in front of the parapet are even more obviously different, but not for exactly the same reason here. 136 00:16:47,590 --> 00:16:56,260 The arrangement on the right is the easier to decipher with a seated figure wearing some sort of headdress in front of 137 00:16:56,260 --> 00:17:06,580 whom is a round breasted sphynx seen Desart to Insu resting on its haunches and sitting up on its front legs on the left. 138 00:17:06,580 --> 00:17:14,160 It is possible to pick out a faint echoing sphynx, but the figure behind is very differently conceived, 139 00:17:14,160 --> 00:17:23,890 is drawn on a much larger scale and notably more boldly, with his head slumped onto his forearm and his legs brawling over the edge of the parapet. 140 00:17:23,890 --> 00:17:27,880 In theory, he could be a prophet, balancing the civil opposites. 141 00:17:27,880 --> 00:17:34,960 But it seems more probable that two separate moments in the evolution of the design are involved. 142 00:17:34,960 --> 00:17:43,930 Up above, sitting on the parapet are two boys whose draperies dangle down as they sprawled backwards and look upwards. 143 00:17:43,930 --> 00:17:50,290 Both of them are in charge of their respective candelabra, which quite hard to pick out. 144 00:17:50,290 --> 00:17:58,580 I know it's unclear at this stage where the apostles must always have been part of the grand design. 145 00:17:58,580 --> 00:18:05,070 I meant to go. They are not included. When Correggio turned the sheet over. 146 00:18:05,070 --> 00:18:15,040 So I'm talking about this side. He again pursued the policy of exploring various possibilities on the left. 147 00:18:15,040 --> 00:18:19,650 He more or less repeated the solution from the left of the vase. 148 00:18:19,650 --> 00:18:27,280 So with the bearded prophet sleeping on his hands behind the Sphinx with lowered head and more evidently than before, 149 00:18:27,280 --> 00:18:33,430 sitting on and resting his arms on a block of fluted plaster or possibly half column, 150 00:18:33,430 --> 00:18:40,540 this time Corinthian is again the backdrop and again, he has drawn over it. 151 00:18:40,540 --> 00:18:46,870 Above is the same by still tending the candelabra. The solution on the right, however, 152 00:18:46,870 --> 00:18:56,590 is another new departure and shows considerably more signs of creative energy than anything on the comparatively timid other side of the sheet. 153 00:18:56,590 --> 00:19:05,800 The Sphinx has gone. The fluted plaster is replaced by an order less block, and only the Sleeping Profitt remains. 154 00:19:05,800 --> 00:19:13,150 Behind him is a great bulging hearth column, and there is a drum base at his feet. 155 00:19:13,150 --> 00:19:23,210 The only decorative compensation for the increase in austerity comes with the trace of a garland round the central Tonda on this side only, 156 00:19:23,210 --> 00:19:28,030 and with the addition of a bow at the top of that occulus. 157 00:19:28,030 --> 00:19:32,200 All this architectural detail is very carefully planned. 158 00:19:32,200 --> 00:19:40,600 The baselines and corniest lines are all ruled and incised, as is the Tonda, which must have been drawn with the help of a compass. 159 00:19:40,600 --> 00:19:48,910 Furthermore, blank incised line, which starts at the bow and goes down to the baseline, marks the centre of the bay. 160 00:19:48,910 --> 00:19:50,860 However, the real change has come. 161 00:19:50,860 --> 00:20:00,520 Above the parapet where the seated by is supplanted by a standing used in vigorous motion, still in conjunction with one of the candelabra, 162 00:20:00,520 --> 00:20:07,030 which were always intended to occupy the angles of the octagon and thus help conceal them. 163 00:20:07,030 --> 00:20:11,620 Something of his energy is then transferred to the relative. 164 00:20:11,620 --> 00:20:17,140 Enormous standing figure with raised arms in the middle of the bay. 165 00:20:17,140 --> 00:20:22,630 He was drawn nude with his head in two different positions and then draped. 166 00:20:22,630 --> 00:20:31,300 It seems he must be an apostle. And if so, Courreges plan would have involved a combination of single compare the parcels 167 00:20:31,300 --> 00:20:37,840 to fit all 12 of them on the eight sides of the debt in the final solution. 168 00:20:37,840 --> 00:20:45,610 They were to occupy the corners, not the centres of the bays, and the four pairs were disposed at the sides. 169 00:20:45,610 --> 00:20:50,170 But the principal must have remained the same. This is the nature of drawing, 170 00:20:50,170 --> 00:20:57,070 such as this one that they are unable to inform us whether Correggio conceived of standing boys with standing 171 00:20:57,070 --> 00:21:06,250 apostles or whether his idea of the boy led onto the apostle in a way that made them mutually exclusive. 172 00:21:06,250 --> 00:21:15,340 That may seem the more plausible interpretation, since the Apostles might otherwise have got confused with the FGB, 173 00:21:15,340 --> 00:21:23,950 although and engraving after what must have been an autograph drawing for the side 174 00:21:23,950 --> 00:21:30,730 of the octagon immediately below the Virgin involve just such a melee of figures. 175 00:21:30,730 --> 00:21:36,650 In fact, only one further drawing in Harlem. 176 00:21:36,650 --> 00:21:41,560 A much worried over fragment on the Versova study for the figure of Eve, 177 00:21:41,560 --> 00:21:49,840 which will be discussed in due course, is concerned with the parapet does not at all easy to unravel. 178 00:21:49,840 --> 00:21:54,610 That appears to follow on from the Oxford Recto with which I am comparing. 179 00:21:54,610 --> 00:22:00,250 It shows a solution involving a swelling ballasted in front of the Prophet and a 180 00:22:00,250 --> 00:22:06,520 more elaborated version of the half column and drum based arrangement behind him. 181 00:22:06,520 --> 00:22:17,500 Again, there is no trace of the Sphinx. This Harlem, Vasso, is of considerable importance for the chronology of the planning of the cupola. 182 00:22:17,500 --> 00:22:21,040 It was not uncovered until comparatively recently. 183 00:22:21,040 --> 00:22:30,130 It's quite normal for drawings to be stuck down and we now unstick them and is clearly 184 00:22:30,130 --> 00:22:37,180 cropped from a larger sheet in the Corden's with the extent of the drawing on its rector. 185 00:22:37,180 --> 00:22:41,500 When it is turned through 90 degrees, 186 00:22:41,500 --> 00:22:52,730 it becomes possible to decipher preparatory study for the lower half of the figure of Venus in the School of Love in the National Gallery in London. 187 00:22:52,730 --> 00:23:07,000 So you can see foot knee swelling finds one corresponding with since the Kubla study clearly follows the study of Venus. 188 00:23:07,000 --> 00:23:12,380 And since the School of Love is datable to around fifteen, twenty three to twenty five, 189 00:23:12,380 --> 00:23:17,110 the studies on the Harlem sheet cannot be any earlier than that. 190 00:23:17,110 --> 00:23:26,350 Very probably. Correct. You did not start serious planning on the design until the cupola was fit to paint the whole conception of 191 00:23:26,350 --> 00:23:34,270 profits and symbols with Sphinx's grew out of his designs for the nave freeze in San Giovanni Evangelist. 192 00:23:34,270 --> 00:23:43,750 They were to have no part in the finished fresco, although the Sphinx's came to assume decorative row lower down at the level of the scrunches. 193 00:23:43,750 --> 00:23:48,730 Presumably this zone was what the February cherry encourage you had in mind when they 194 00:23:48,730 --> 00:23:54,430 drew up a contract which Reifler referred to the imitation of bronze and marble. 195 00:23:54,430 --> 00:24:00,340 And they may have intended to have bronze Sphinx's and marble profits. 196 00:24:00,340 --> 00:24:05,650 Their presence in the flesh, even if confined the near side of the parapet, 197 00:24:05,650 --> 00:24:13,420 could hardly have failed, proved distracting in terms of the narrative being enacted higher up. 198 00:24:13,420 --> 00:24:18,040 As far as one can judge, the overall scheme at this stage was very close in spirit. 199 00:24:18,040 --> 00:24:28,630 That of the Dome of San Giovannelli would necessarily involve gigantic apostles around a centrally placed assumption in the event. 200 00:24:28,630 --> 00:24:35,790 Courageous revision was a masterly one which cleared the zone in front of the parapet for the apostles and 201 00:24:35,790 --> 00:24:41,980 therefore allowed them to be even more towering in stature without taking up the whole height of the cupola. 202 00:24:41,980 --> 00:24:53,980 Instead, the Fabi remained relatively low above the parapet, and the centre of the vault was liberated for the full drama of the assumption proper. 203 00:24:53,980 --> 00:25:00,370 Alas, this transformation is not chronicled by drawing's because the rest of them, without exception, 204 00:25:00,370 --> 00:25:06,490 represents studies of details executed after the new conception had been developed. 205 00:25:06,490 --> 00:25:11,300 None of these details relates the simpler initial scheme. But given how many? 206 00:25:11,300 --> 00:25:19,280 Drawings must be made and how few survive it would be unwise to infer that none ever existed. 207 00:25:19,280 --> 00:25:29,750 Although the execution of the fresco necessarily proceeded from the top downwards, the bottom of the design had to be settled before the upper part. 208 00:25:29,750 --> 00:25:37,520 In examining the remaining drawings, it therefore seems best to start at the parapet and move upwards. 209 00:25:37,520 --> 00:25:42,050 To begin with, there are a handful of sheets of the apostles. 210 00:25:42,050 --> 00:25:51,800 They are all consistent in various respects. Each sheet represents a single apostle and they invariably show them without feet. 211 00:25:51,800 --> 00:25:59,450 On account of the Desart in Sioux perspective, because their feet are hidden behind the parapet, 212 00:25:59,450 --> 00:26:05,480 they stand on a visual plie that's already anticipated on the Oxford director. 213 00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:11,010 Another feature they almost all square is their share. 214 00:26:11,010 --> 00:26:20,430 So share is there squaring. As the one on the left shows, this is unsurprising, correct? 215 00:26:20,430 --> 00:26:27,110 You must have been constantly aware of the need to transfer the design and and large. 216 00:26:27,110 --> 00:26:34,850 It threw out a fairly uniform scale was employed. 217 00:26:34,850 --> 00:26:42,860 Some of the studies can be associated with particular apostles in the fresco, while others cannot. 218 00:26:42,860 --> 00:26:47,240 Those that show less recoil may be earlier ideas, 219 00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:55,440 since this may have been an effect along with the billowing draperies, the Corregidor developed only gradually. 220 00:26:55,440 --> 00:27:04,360 There is a big recall of good correspondents in one particular instance, 221 00:27:04,360 --> 00:27:13,000 the same apostle dramatically recoiling from the radiance, the Virgin's ascent is studied twice on different sheets. 222 00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:15,640 Both times distinctly schematically. 223 00:27:15,640 --> 00:27:28,360 But in the earlier, with almost no attention being paid to fascial type or features, the next group of studies concerns the Phoebe. 224 00:27:28,360 --> 00:27:33,250 And again, a number of the sheets correspond closely to actual figures in the fresco. 225 00:27:33,250 --> 00:27:37,630 In reality, the heads of the apostles impinge upon this. 226 00:27:37,630 --> 00:27:43,750 But in the drawing, the boys are invariably shown without these interruptions. 227 00:27:43,750 --> 00:27:52,960 Thus, for example, in this drawing in Lisbon, which is unusual in its use of pen, in addition to the habitual red chalk. 228 00:27:52,960 --> 00:28:03,700 The seated boys trailing left foot is shown, whereas in the fresco it is occluded by the drapery of one of the apostles. 229 00:28:03,700 --> 00:28:11,260 A sheet formerly in the wooden, a collection, and now in the private collection, which has a ground plan on its VASSO, which I am showing you, 230 00:28:11,260 --> 00:28:15,940 shows the same phenomenon with the whole of one segment of the octagon being 231 00:28:15,940 --> 00:28:22,420 included and the standing leaves stretching out towards a non-existent candelabrum. 232 00:28:22,420 --> 00:28:32,230 Similarly, his legs are included, although in the fresco they too are obscured by an apostle only the way he's seated. 233 00:28:32,230 --> 00:28:37,180 Companion's left arm trails away suggests that any provision is being made for 234 00:28:37,180 --> 00:28:42,260 the figures in front of the dispositions and poses of the boys in the drawing. 235 00:28:42,260 --> 00:28:47,590 A remarkably close fresco that there is one fascinating difference. 236 00:28:47,590 --> 00:28:57,670 The standing boys arms half conceal his face in the painting, which is a visual complication or obfuscation of the sort. 237 00:28:57,670 --> 00:29:02,020 The entire work abounds in both the Lisbon and Wood. 238 00:29:02,020 --> 00:29:05,050 Wouldn't the sheets predominantly linear. 239 00:29:05,050 --> 00:29:14,680 But the latter does include some shading and two square drawings in the Louv, which no doubt originally form part of the same sheet. 240 00:29:14,680 --> 00:29:19,570 This is more evident and the candelabra are included. 241 00:29:19,570 --> 00:29:35,050 The pose of one of the figures in one of them matches that of their Phoebe in the engraving after last drawing I showed. 242 00:29:35,050 --> 00:29:39,840 A double sided sheet in the fund, that's your name, Correggio, 243 00:29:39,840 --> 00:29:46,410 which was rediscovered about 20 years ago but previously known through an engraving dating from the 18th century, 244 00:29:46,410 --> 00:29:49,800 has a study, three apostles and the Fabi of the section of the day, 245 00:29:49,800 --> 00:29:58,350 immediately below the Virgin on its Recto and Verso, which you're seeing in black and white, consists of a famous study, 246 00:29:58,350 --> 00:30:06,750 very famous statuary of the same section and red chalk combined with a series of architectural elevations. 247 00:30:06,750 --> 00:30:16,020 Amongst the figures here is the apostle studied in two drawings previously shown like the Lisbon drawing. 248 00:30:16,020 --> 00:30:20,220 This one is executed in simple pan outline over red chalk, 249 00:30:20,220 --> 00:30:25,680 and it is tempting to suppose that this extreme simplification may have represented the 250 00:30:25,680 --> 00:30:32,310 final stage of courageous preparation immediately before the no less schematic schematics, 251 00:30:32,310 --> 00:30:38,970 not PR or under drawing. Also, like the Lisbon drawing, this one is squared. 252 00:30:38,970 --> 00:30:46,650 But in addition has two angled lines which define the limits of the octagonal face of the dome, 253 00:30:46,650 --> 00:30:55,350 as well as curved lines at the top, perhaps suggestive of the rounding off the centre of the cupola. 254 00:30:55,350 --> 00:31:01,650 This is one of the most severely damaged parts of the fresco, 255 00:31:01,650 --> 00:31:15,010 but it is still possible to see the Corregidor made some minor adjustments between this drawing and what he actually painted. 256 00:31:15,010 --> 00:31:23,090 And even more instructive sheet as regards Courreges overall method of planning is drawing in red chalk in Frankfurt. 257 00:31:23,090 --> 00:31:32,660 It is centred on the figure of Eve and the women behind that and must have been made at a relatively late stage in the design process. 258 00:31:32,660 --> 00:31:36,950 It is extensively square that the top where the squiring stops. 259 00:31:36,950 --> 00:31:42,590 It is overlapped by the segment of a circle again evidently drawn with the help of a compass. 260 00:31:42,590 --> 00:31:49,460 The system of squiring involves three different baselines which correspond to the sides of the octagon. 261 00:31:49,460 --> 00:31:57,350 What all this proves is that in order to achieve an effect of infinite space on the surface of an octagonal down, 262 00:31:57,350 --> 00:32:03,380 Correggio felt he had to respect the shape, at least until a certain height. 263 00:32:03,380 --> 00:32:11,570 Furthermore, he considered the composition in large units, even if he then restudy did eighth by eighth. 264 00:32:11,570 --> 00:32:17,840 The simplest way of gauging the extent of his success in achieving the illusion of continuity is to look 265 00:32:17,840 --> 00:32:25,190 at the reproduction of the detail of the upper part only and to try to work out where the joints are. 266 00:32:25,190 --> 00:32:32,840 The proof that this drawing was executed at a late stage is not merely the correspondence between it and the fresco, 267 00:32:32,840 --> 00:32:45,380 but the existence of for further studies of Eve, two of which certainly earlier they illustrate prejudice, economy of invention to perfection. 268 00:32:45,380 --> 00:32:51,950 The first of them on the left here is probably the sheet in Harlem whose Versailles was already been discussed. 269 00:32:51,950 --> 00:33:00,920 It shows Eve as a beautiful naked girl. Her hair unbound and her breasts prominent with her right arm brought back across her body 270 00:33:00,920 --> 00:33:07,430 in a gesture that may ultimately derive from a Venus Boudica classical Venus Pudi cap, 271 00:33:07,430 --> 00:33:17,980 but which conceals nothing. A POTO seated on a cloud faces her arm, holds the apple of her original sin red chalk with the initial medium implied. 272 00:33:17,980 --> 00:33:24,590 And then Pen was used to outline the final positions that the artist deemed most satisfactory. 273 00:33:24,590 --> 00:33:32,870 They, in turn, were his point of departure for a far more worked up red chalk drawing in the British Museum on the right, 274 00:33:32,870 --> 00:33:40,280 where the Karris guru is unusually heavy and the slightly older, grinning child has joined the couple. 275 00:33:40,280 --> 00:33:50,750 This solution was not used for Eve as the Frankfurt drawing a lusciously ripe red chalk sheet in the loo. 276 00:33:50,750 --> 00:33:56,270 Which is what I am showing you here. And the fresco itself all demonstrates. 277 00:33:56,270 --> 00:34:02,150 Instead, Eve was shown proffering the fruit across the great divide to add them. 278 00:34:02,150 --> 00:34:04,880 The first conception of Eve was not wasted. 279 00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:12,800 However, for the woman directly behind her in the fresco as her right arm and face in much the same position, 280 00:34:12,800 --> 00:34:17,950 the only real difference being that she is clothed. Indeed, somewhat damaged. 281 00:34:17,950 --> 00:34:34,930 Red chalk drawing in a private collection which you're seeing, shows both figures and a number of more and less distinctly, realised Putih. 282 00:34:34,930 --> 00:34:43,010 A drawing of Adam with Abraham and Isaac Winzer is almost unique in being connected with the other male side. 283 00:34:43,010 --> 00:34:50,330 It, too, has a curved segment of the circle at the top and is executed in red chalk with pen outlines as the finishing touches. 284 00:34:50,330 --> 00:34:57,320 The emission of the Virgin's outstretched right hand is the only real difference between it and the fresco. 285 00:34:57,320 --> 00:35:05,430 The way in which Adam's left arm is folded back under his chin is a mirror image of the first conception of Eve. 286 00:35:05,430 --> 00:35:10,100 The sequence of execution of the drawings is not easy to reconstruct, 287 00:35:10,100 --> 00:35:16,550 but it is hard to believe that both Adam and Eve were ever intended to be so similar. 288 00:35:16,550 --> 00:35:24,030 On the contrary, Adam's present attitude seems to be a pensive response to Eve's tempting offer. 289 00:35:24,030 --> 00:35:36,950 And now fragmentary head study, which you see below on the left from a severely cropped sheet, is almost a cross between Adam and Abraham. 290 00:35:36,950 --> 00:35:44,690 Three studies survive the all important figure of Vergie, two on the recto and verso of a sheet in the confession cabinet. 291 00:35:44,690 --> 00:35:50,480 Dresden and the third in the British Museum in the case of the Dresden drawing. 292 00:35:50,480 --> 00:35:56,090 And you'll see both sides. It is clear that one side was traced through from the other, 293 00:35:56,090 --> 00:36:04,640 but the initial study probably derived from a tracing to just attempting to suppose that the present Vasso came first. 294 00:36:04,640 --> 00:36:09,200 Not so much because the pose is reversed with respect to the fresco, 295 00:36:09,200 --> 00:36:19,130 but rather because the frontal conception of the head with rolling eyes looking up is profoundly unlike the solution found in the fresco. 296 00:36:19,130 --> 00:36:30,790 By contrast, the recto, which is what you see below, already has the raised profile more or less, as in the finished work. 297 00:36:30,790 --> 00:36:38,120 The British Museum sheet has a very different type of drawing because it represents a late stage anchorages thinking. 298 00:36:38,120 --> 00:36:45,020 It is far more resolved with the red chalk more confidently applied and hardly a contour a pentimento insight. 299 00:36:45,020 --> 00:36:47,750 It also excludes the Putih entirely, 300 00:36:47,750 --> 00:36:56,210 but does show the virgin of the assumption who is supported on Clance in only one respect, albeit a significant one. 301 00:36:56,210 --> 00:37:05,390 Does it differ from the Dresden Raptor and indeed the fresco, namely in the astonishingly spread eagled legs of the Virgin? 302 00:37:05,390 --> 00:37:13,430 Even in a work whose flouting of convention appears to have been the object of adverse comment from the first. 303 00:37:13,430 --> 00:37:18,020 This would have been a uniquely indecorous solution. 304 00:37:18,020 --> 00:37:28,340 Regardless of any intervening clouds or draperies, the bed, the Virgin's bare feet could not have failed to reveal display of her legs. 305 00:37:28,340 --> 00:37:37,520 In the end, Correggio reverted to the solution of the Dresden sheet, most probably without requiring the veto of the authorities. 306 00:37:37,520 --> 00:37:45,140 Self-censorship must have been a fact of life in this period, especially for the most imaginative spirits, 307 00:37:45,140 --> 00:37:50,870 apart possibly from a single angel on a drawing in rugby school, 308 00:37:50,870 --> 00:37:57,590 which also has studies peerages altarpiece, the Madonna, Dallas' Cordella on it, which I'm not showing. 309 00:37:57,590 --> 00:38:05,450 There are no surviving preparations for the extraordinary living stream of the angelic host surrounding the Virgin. 310 00:38:05,450 --> 00:38:10,670 No doubt Correggio made small models out of clay or wax and suspended them 311 00:38:10,670 --> 00:38:15,920 from strings to draw them from a multiplicity of viewpoints for Starry stated. 312 00:38:15,920 --> 00:38:23,770 The Gruffalo, with the first artist in Lumber Day by which he meant northern Italy to employ this practise. 313 00:38:23,770 --> 00:38:33,560 And this may be true, but carriages use of it is self-evident may be demonstrated by reconstructing comparable models. 314 00:38:33,560 --> 00:38:42,530 It seems important before concluding with the squinch is to consider the basic subject matter of the fresco, 315 00:38:42,530 --> 00:38:47,660 which is so self-evident that it is tended to inhibit detailed discussion. 316 00:38:47,660 --> 00:38:52,520 The first thing to understand, as Padbury ARRESTOR did in the 18th century, 317 00:38:52,520 --> 00:39:01,160 is that the open space around which the apostles are thronged is in some sense at least, the Virgin's tomb. 318 00:39:01,160 --> 00:39:05,930 We in the body of the church so far below, look up at the Apostles, 319 00:39:05,930 --> 00:39:13,590 at the Fabi and the burning candelabra and witness the virgin being received in the company of Heaven. 320 00:39:13,590 --> 00:39:21,590 Correct caret you deliberately avoided identifying individual apostles in the usual manner. 321 00:39:21,590 --> 00:39:25,730 There were no affidavits, no colour coded draperies here, 322 00:39:25,730 --> 00:39:33,350 but instead concentrated on the variety of their overtly physical expressions of their emotional responses. 323 00:39:33,350 --> 00:39:45,500 The apostles nearest the virgin here, the ones we first see from the middle of the nave, are the ones most dazzled by the radiance of her passing. 324 00:39:45,500 --> 00:39:47,930 The force as of a mighty rushing wind, 325 00:39:47,930 --> 00:39:55,640 all but knocks them off their feet and their arms raised as if to fend off imaginary blows moving outwards from the marre, 326 00:39:55,640 --> 00:40:02,330 gaze confronts no less surprised but more delighted figures with great swathes of drapery hurrying across 327 00:40:02,330 --> 00:40:09,110 their bodies as they stretch their arms as wide as possible to encompass the extent of their feelings. 328 00:40:09,110 --> 00:40:14,840 And at the same time, to echo the gesture of the Virgin herself. 329 00:40:14,840 --> 00:40:18,320 Since maybe. Well, I'm saying all this. 330 00:40:18,320 --> 00:40:26,870 You can see that since the Virgin was laid in the tomb by the Apostles immediately before her assumption, it is her funeral that is represented. 331 00:40:26,870 --> 00:40:30,680 That explains, at least in part, the inclusion of the Fabi. 332 00:40:30,680 --> 00:40:39,980 They are shown lighting and tending candelabra and also burning branches in the flames to produce clouds of aromatic smoke. 333 00:40:39,980 --> 00:40:44,300 By this period, candles were in the central feature of any funeral, 334 00:40:44,300 --> 00:40:54,050 and they allowed Correggio to fill what would otherwise have been a troublesome hiatus between the earthly and the heavenly Zeins. 335 00:40:54,050 --> 00:40:59,540 As regards the assumption of the Virgin and her immediately subsequent coronation, 336 00:40:59,540 --> 00:41:08,420 two main ways of treating the episode had evolved by this date, both of which allowed of almost infinite variations of detail. 337 00:41:08,420 --> 00:41:16,040 The first tended to favour the coronation and presented the event timelessly taking place before the whole company of heaven, 338 00:41:16,040 --> 00:41:25,970 as constituted at the time of the work's execution and naturally reflecting the preferences in terms of saints of the patrons. 339 00:41:25,970 --> 00:41:36,290 The second was strictly historical and only included those of the blessed whose arrival in heaven preceded that of the Virgin. 340 00:41:36,290 --> 00:41:44,240 This is the way Correggio elected or was instructed to show her appearance in paradise. 341 00:41:44,240 --> 00:41:52,520 And in fact, he has confined himself to the Old Testament worthies whom Christ released from limbo. 342 00:41:52,520 --> 00:41:58,550 Judaism is amongst the religions to segregate men and women in services of worship, 343 00:41:58,550 --> 00:42:07,670 and this circumstance was often reflected in Renaissance representations of the marriage of the Virgin. 344 00:42:07,670 --> 00:42:15,860 With the menfolk standing on Joseph's side and the women folk on Mary's courageous paradise is similarly arranged and some, 345 00:42:15,860 --> 00:42:27,500 but by no means all of its company are identifiable. Sadly, I do not have time to pick them out for you above. 346 00:42:27,500 --> 00:42:34,250 The virgin and descending feetfirst degreaser is a figure whose identity has been much debated. 347 00:42:34,250 --> 00:42:39,260 Most critics have assumed he must be Christ, who does indeed meet his mother. 348 00:42:39,260 --> 00:42:45,860 In most representations of the subject and would otherwise be perplexingly absent. 349 00:42:45,860 --> 00:42:50,860 However, it is well to admit that there are problems with this identification. 350 00:42:50,860 --> 00:42:55,310 The figure in the fresco is beardless and wears green and white. 351 00:42:55,310 --> 00:43:02,930 Nothing about him, such as stigmata or a cruciform halo suggests Christ. 352 00:43:02,930 --> 00:43:10,070 The other possibility is that he is an angel. 353 00:43:10,070 --> 00:43:18,500 Discussion of the assumption on the basis of the photographs is incomparably more deceiving than that exercise usually is. 354 00:43:18,500 --> 00:43:27,200 It diminishes the extraordinarily difficult job of working out who's who. 355 00:43:27,200 --> 00:43:39,710 And it does not give you a crick in the neck. And by the way, if you ever go take binoculars, they will be of inestimable value. 356 00:43:39,710 --> 00:43:44,090 That crick in the neck is an inevitable consequence of trying to see the fresco hole. 357 00:43:44,090 --> 00:43:53,300 The common experience of anyone who has been to Parma, by contrast, from the body of the nave before the steps leading up to the presbytery, 358 00:43:53,300 --> 00:44:03,170 which was necessarily the location from which the majority of the faithful saw the fresco, only part of the cupola is disclosed. 359 00:44:03,170 --> 00:44:09,530 That is where the virgin is. And there is even an hour of the afternoon when the sun's rays passing through one of 360 00:44:09,530 --> 00:44:16,340 the windows put a natural spotlight on her and bathe her in warmth in the cathedral. 361 00:44:16,340 --> 00:44:18,740 The nave view is the main one. 362 00:44:18,740 --> 00:44:29,300 But some parts of the decoration, such as the side apostles, are best seen from the transept and the Western squinched is a best scene from the choir. 363 00:44:29,300 --> 00:44:36,410 However, if the cupola of San Geovanni evangelist had privileged viewpoints for the Benedictines, 364 00:44:36,410 --> 00:44:42,550 then it seems right to describe this decoration as essentially democratic. 365 00:44:42,550 --> 00:44:52,190 The cathedral cupola should have been courageous, crowning achievement, but there is good reason to believe it was nothing of the kind. 366 00:44:52,190 --> 00:45:02,720 The anecdote about one of the canons of the cathedral denouncing it as a stew of frogs legs is apparently supported 367 00:45:02,720 --> 00:45:10,290 by a letter from Baron Albino Gatti written when he was at work on the cupola of the Church of the State. 368 00:45:10,290 --> 00:45:24,560 Carter just a few hundred yards away in Padma, in which he refers ominously to what happened to Carriger in the cathedral in the last analysis. 369 00:45:24,560 --> 00:45:29,720 The criticism is not wholly without substance either. 370 00:45:29,720 --> 00:45:34,460 For although the protagonist is clear enough. 371 00:45:34,460 --> 00:45:44,300 And although there is a real sense of movement, the composition is hard to read and must furthermore have come as a shock to a provincial public, 372 00:45:44,300 --> 00:45:51,470 even one educated by Courreges own recent efforts in Central Valley Evangelist. 373 00:45:51,470 --> 00:45:59,870 Some of Courreges foreshortening is border on the indecent as well as the deliberately virtuosi. 374 00:45:59,870 --> 00:46:05,760 And I'm assuming, by the way, that the V sign didn't mean anything him Rene Syler safely. 375 00:46:05,760 --> 00:46:10,580 So that's just the strange chance for us as Brits. 376 00:46:10,580 --> 00:46:19,010 Legend has it that when the cathedral cannons were minded to destroy the fresco or have it whitewashed over 377 00:46:19,010 --> 00:46:25,490 Titian himself assured them that if they had been able to fill the space of the cupola with gold coins, 378 00:46:25,490 --> 00:46:35,900 they would still not have paid the master enough. The squinch is in the cathedral are by definition separated from the cupola proper. 379 00:46:35,900 --> 00:46:40,310 But the figures in them participate in the heavenly rejoicing above. 380 00:46:40,310 --> 00:46:49,850 Each of the Four Corners is occupied by one of the patron saint of the city, who have not invariably been correctly identified in the Sari's words. 381 00:46:49,850 --> 00:46:53,870 The Saints are St. John the Baptist, who is holding a lamb. 382 00:46:53,870 --> 00:46:58,180 Here on the left, St. Joseph, the husband of our lady. 383 00:46:58,180 --> 00:47:11,180 Here on the right, Saint Bernard Basti of Florence Cardinal and a bishop of that city on the left here, and another bishop, namely St. Hillary. 384 00:47:11,180 --> 00:47:18,380 Until recently, St. Joseph was invariably mistaken for Thomas, who was indeed the patron saint of Palmer. 385 00:47:18,380 --> 00:47:25,490 However, the figures just reversed. However, the figures attributes physiognomy and costume. 386 00:47:25,490 --> 00:47:30,230 All identify him as jokes, as elsewhere, encourages work. 387 00:47:30,230 --> 00:47:43,610 Most obviously in the Madonna Dallas Cordella, Joseph is elderly but robust, grey haired and short, bearded and is dressed in orange and grey. 388 00:47:43,610 --> 00:47:52,790 The inherent interest of this ID is increased by the fact that it leads to a fuller understanding of the history of the commission. 389 00:47:52,790 --> 00:47:59,120 It can be shown that although the original scheme must indeed have required St. Thomas. 390 00:47:59,120 --> 00:48:05,690 That's to say in fifteen twenty two there was a change of programme and he was replaced by St. 391 00:48:05,690 --> 00:48:08,930 Joseph. The Baptist and St. 392 00:48:08,930 --> 00:48:14,580 Hillary were especially revered in power. I've explained they were on the seal of the time. 393 00:48:14,580 --> 00:48:22,370 Bernard, who Battey had longstanding associations with both the city and the cathedral where he is buried. 394 00:48:22,370 --> 00:48:31,220 By contrast, Thomas had joined the number of the patron saints only in the wake of the lifting of the French siege of Panama. 395 00:48:31,220 --> 00:48:37,580 In fifteen twenty one, which took place on the 21st of December, 396 00:48:37,580 --> 00:48:44,300 his feast day less than a year before Correggio scientists contract on the 3rd of November. 397 00:48:44,300 --> 00:48:50,420 Fifteen twenty two. It was the subsequent creation of a new patron saint. 398 00:48:50,420 --> 00:49:00,680 That must, of course, Thomas to be supplanted. On the 19th of March 15th, 28, the Town Council of Parmar unanimously agreed to adopt St. 399 00:49:00,680 --> 00:49:05,690 Joseph, whose day it was as one of their patron saint. 400 00:49:05,690 --> 00:49:14,180 We now know that the squinch is like the rest of the dome could not have been painted before the summer of fifteen thirty. 401 00:49:14,180 --> 00:49:24,890 Much more interesting is the fact that in their present form they cannot have been invented before March fifteen 28. 402 00:49:24,890 --> 00:49:34,280 This is proved by a series of four red chalk drawings for the squinch is all of a piece stylistically, 403 00:49:34,280 --> 00:49:41,220 which include includes St. Joseph along with the three older patrons. 404 00:49:41,220 --> 00:49:48,560 They provide an invaluable touchstone for courage is late drawing style in his final years. 405 00:49:48,560 --> 00:49:57,620 In the case of St. Bernard, whom you see here, there also exists a very similar, if marginally less resolved, study. 406 00:49:57,620 --> 00:50:10,400 The one on the left second drawing of there is you can see him compared with how he ends up a second drawing. 407 00:50:10,400 --> 00:50:19,670 St. John the Baptist reveals more energetic but still remarkably delicate touch and portrays him as altogether slighter and less mature, 408 00:50:19,670 --> 00:50:23,510 executed initially in red chalk and then partially gone over in pen. 409 00:50:23,510 --> 00:50:32,380 The sheet shows the Baptist intensely cradling Islam and represents an earlier conception of the design in the fresco. 410 00:50:32,380 --> 00:50:41,360 He appears much more aware of his surroundings, his gaze blazing with zeal as he confronts the world where the two facing patrons, 411 00:50:41,360 --> 00:50:46,280 those you see from the nave, John the Baptist and Hillary turn inwards. 412 00:50:46,280 --> 00:50:51,530 The two who are visible only from the crossing and the presbytery face outwards. 413 00:50:51,530 --> 00:50:56,040 Again, they divide into one who looks out more or less front. 414 00:50:56,040 --> 00:51:01,740 St. Joseph and one looking sideways. St. Bernard. 415 00:51:01,740 --> 00:51:09,960 This latter is an almost pure profile, and like Hillary, he looks across the divide towards the Baptist. 416 00:51:09,960 --> 00:51:19,740 It is under his feet that there lurks the famous figure of an angel who also plays the part of Ganymede 417 00:51:19,740 --> 00:51:28,750 in a canvas by courage in Vienna when it was assumed that the dome was completed in fifteen thirty, 418 00:51:28,750 --> 00:51:38,280 it was taken as read that he was plucked out of the fresco and repeated in the mythology, which is very much anchorages laughs style. 419 00:51:38,280 --> 00:51:46,830 But this is now far less certain. No less fascinating. 420 00:51:46,830 --> 00:51:56,160 Is the angel in the Saint Joseph squinch, for whom there appears to be a preliminary cartoon in the equal that bows out in Paris, 421 00:51:56,160 --> 00:52:04,650 although a direct link with the head of the Virgin above has often been suggested, 422 00:52:04,650 --> 00:52:10,260 while it is true that they are very similar and therefore shortening and in the turn of the head. 423 00:52:10,260 --> 00:52:13,200 They are not the same way round. 424 00:52:13,200 --> 00:52:24,720 Given what a crucial feature the direction of the Virgin's gaze was, bearing in mind how much depended upon it in terms of the larger composition. 425 00:52:24,720 --> 00:52:29,610 It is hard to believe it was reversed at the Khartoum stage. 426 00:52:29,610 --> 00:52:39,150 What is more? Although the virgins I look straight up at the figure descending to meet her, 427 00:52:39,150 --> 00:52:46,990 it is entirely proper that her whole attitude should tend towards Eve's side. 428 00:52:46,990 --> 00:52:53,740 There has been an enormous amount of speculation about the cartoons for the cathedral, 429 00:52:53,740 --> 00:53:06,010 but all that is actually known is that there was a black chalk scene up here to draw the fragment of it retrieved during restoration, 430 00:53:06,010 --> 00:53:13,090 which you see on the left here now in the gallery. And that Somalian panorama, which shows the head of the Virgin is remarkable, 431 00:53:13,090 --> 00:53:21,010 even by courageous standards, for its combination of simplicity and confidence in the contract. 432 00:53:21,010 --> 00:53:26,580 Correggio agreed to paint figures in imitation of bronze marble as well as to the life 433 00:53:26,580 --> 00:53:31,330 their possible accommodation in his early designs in the form of profits and symbols. 434 00:53:31,330 --> 00:53:36,100 And Sphinx's is being considered in relation to the half million drawing. 435 00:53:36,100 --> 00:53:41,680 But when that scheme was modified, they were not completely forgotten. 436 00:53:41,680 --> 00:53:50,890 There are Garland bearing winged geniuses in imitation of marble at the springing of the options of the dome, which I'm not showing. 437 00:53:50,890 --> 00:53:57,100 More significantly, the art windows in the zone between the squinch is of top by seated Sphinx's looking 438 00:53:57,100 --> 00:54:05,410 upwards and by winged geniuses receiving garlands below all imitating marble gilt. 439 00:54:05,410 --> 00:54:17,170 Bronze reliefs are counterfeited on either side of these openings and show pooty with cornucopia of stray dolphins accompanied by serpents and apples, 440 00:54:17,170 --> 00:54:22,060 presumably an allusion to the Virgin's row as the secondees. 441 00:54:22,060 --> 00:54:29,880 What appears to be an autographed red chalk drawing for one of these is in the Accademia in Venice. 442 00:54:29,880 --> 00:54:40,480 What you see on the left here, if these monochrome areas reveal economy of effort, then the opposite is true of the still life. 443 00:54:40,480 --> 00:54:49,360 Vignettes that fill the span rose above the shell niches inhabited by the patron saints like them and like the frescoes above. 444 00:54:49,360 --> 00:54:58,030 They are based on the colours scheme dominated by muted greens, oranges and violets and based acorns, 445 00:54:58,030 --> 00:55:07,270 chestnuts and turnips as here, as well as more predictable bunches of grapes and oranges and lemons. 446 00:55:07,270 --> 00:55:20,470 They serve as a telling reminder that even this most illusionist stick and fantastical of decorations was grounded in the observation of reality. 447 00:55:20,470 --> 00:55:24,517 Thank you very much.