One of the must-sees in Rome is the beautiful Piazza Navona, in the heart of the Eternal City, always crowded with tourists pointing their cameras and cell phones at the Fountain of the Four Rivers, which was one of the most famous ‘tour de force’ in the History of Art between Bernini and Borromini. On one side of the square stands majestically a 17th-century baroque church, Sant’Agnese in Agone (Saint Agnes in Agony). But perhaps few remember another church, just opposite, with a much more modest façade: Nuestra Signora del Sacro Cuore (Our Lady of the Sacred Heart), which was originally the Church of Santiago de los Españoleslinked to the Crown of
Castile. From the mid-16th century to the 18th, when its decline began, “it was one of the places of greatest religious, symbolic and representative importance of the Spanish monarchy in Rome.”
Inside was a splendid family chapel –currently destroyed–, which was built between 1602 and 1606 and whose decoration was commissioned by the Palencia banker Juan Enriquez de Herrera (c. 1539-1610) to the Italian painter Annibale Carracci (Bologna, 1560-Rome, 1609) in honor of San Diego de Alcalá, an Andalusian Franciscan who died in 1463, to whom Herrera entrusted the healing of his sick son.
An exhibition in
Prado Museum brings together, for the first time since 1833, the 16 wall paintings preserved of the 19 that this exceptional set consisted of. For the access of the visitors it is essential to select a time pass. Annibale Carracci. The frescoes of the Herrera chapel’which opens from March 8 to June 12 with the sponsorship of the Fundación Amigos del Prado, has been organized in collaboration with the National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC) and the Palazzo Barberini in Rome, where it will travel next: in July It will stop at the MNAC in Barcelona and in November at the Gallerie Nazionali di Arte Antica in Rome.
Despite the artistic importance of the complex (it is the last major project by Carracci, one of the greatest reformers of Baroque painting, along with Caravaggio), it remains «a black hole in his biography» and the most unknown of the master’s production, due, in part, to its dispersion. It was fair to value it. It has been possible thanks to the research and study carried out by the three institutions involved and the comprehensive restoration that in 2012 he undertook the Prado of the seven frescoes that he treasures in his collections and that had not seen the light for a long time. His condition discouraged it. The complex restoration, carried out by Ignacio Fernández (external to the museum, who does not have specialists in mural painting), lasted about three years.
We tour the exhibition with Andres Ubedadeputy director of conservation of the Prado and curator of this very special show. As an introduction to the visit, a video is projected on a large curved screen, which talks about Carracci, his technique, the Herrera chapel and the restoration of the works. Particularly noteworthy is the gimmicky and dramatic montagewhose design is signed by Francisco Bocanegra, with dark walls and the deconstruction –a la Ferran Adrià with the potato omelette– of the chapel: we go through its different heights not vertically as it would be done ‘in situ’ (the measurements of the Prado rooms did not allow it, but it will be done in the Palazzo Barberini), but room by room. From the frescoes outside the chapel, exhibited in the first space of the exhibition, through the mural paintings inside that the faithful contemplated at eye level, to the painting of the lantern of the vault, which hangs like a frame more. The ‘Eternal Father’ was the first fresco painted. Being a very narrow space, Carracci gave his place to Francesco Albani, one of his disciples. The master designed the entire ensemble for the Herrera chapel and even executed some frescoes, but in 1605 he suffered an illness that forced him to delegate the execution of the paintings to Albani, under his supervision.
They used to start fresco paintings at the top to prevent them from getting dirty. There are attribution problems of some of these works, due both to their delicate state of conservation and to the way of working in Carracci’s workshop. Along with Albani, artists such as Sisto Badalocchio and Giovanni Lanfranco were present. Rafael Sanzio was the model for Carracci to follow.
In 1833 the paintings were stripped from the walls of the chapel due to the deterioration of the church (Pellegrino Succi took care of it) and transferred to canvas. The sculptor Antonio Solá directed the complex operation. “They are very delicate, they suffered a lot,” explains Andrés Úbeda. The building, which was in ruins, was sold by the Spanish State. «Spain and the Vatican broke diplomatic relations because of the Mendizábal Disentailment. They were not restored until 1850, when 16 paintings were shipped from the port of Civitavecchia, bound for Barcelona. It was necessary to request a papal permission for its export, “says the commissioner.
It is not known why they were separated: seven fragments go to Madrid and today they are kept in the Prado; nine, to Barcelona. They arrived at the Real Academia Catalana de Bellas Artes de San Jorge and were deposited at the MNAC. The remaining three were moved to the Roman church of Saint Mary of Montserrat, linked to the Crown of Aragon, but they have lost track. The painting on the altar, ‘San Diego de Alcalá intercedes por Diego Enríquez de Herrera’ (oil on panel), present in the exhibition, is preserved in that church. Above, the holes of the of the lost tondos.
The Prado treasures four trapezoids that decorated the vault of the chapel and narrate the life of the saint and three of the four ovals that were located in the pendentives: ‘San Lorenzo’, ‘San Francisco’ and ‘Santiago el Mayor’. The fourth has been lost: ‘Saint John the Evangelist’. For its part, in the MNAC of Barcelona another nine mural paintings are kept as a deposit: the two from outside the chapel (the ‘Assumption of the Virgin’ and the ‘Apostles around the empty tomb of the Virgin’), four of the side walls of the interior, and three others: the ‘Eternal Father’, extracted from the hemispherical closure of the lantern; ‘San Pedro’ and ‘San Pablo’, which flanked the altar painting.
In addition to the fresco paintings, on display a dozen of his preparatory drawings (exquisite, on loan from the British Royal Collection), prints that reproduce the lost fragments and funeral books of the Kings of Spain where you can see the interior of the church. This is the case of one published in 1725 on the occasion of the death of Luis I, on loan from the National Library of Spain. Thanks to an oil painting by Gaspar van Wittel, on loan from the Carmen Thyssen Collection, we can see what Plaça Navona looked like in 1699. At the end of the exhibition hangs ‘San Diego de Alcalá and the miracle of the roses’, by Zurbarán, property of the Prado. “Until the 1970s, these mural paintings were exhibited in marginal places in the Prado,” says Andrés Úbeda. Will they now be exhibited permanently in the Prado? The deputy director of the museum warns that they are studying how to do it.