(Sant’Angelo in Vado 1540–1609 Ancona)
The Meeting of Saint Francis and Saint Dominic,
oil on canvas, 116.5 x 88.5 cm, unframed

Provenance:
sale, Christie’s, Milan, 29 November 2006, lot 2 (as Tuscan School, end of the 17th Century);
where acquired by the present owner

Documentation:
possibly Inventory of Girolamo Bernieri da Correggio (1540-1611), 22 August 1611: ‘un quadro di san Domenico e san Francesco di Federico Zucchero con cornice’

Literature:
M. Firpo, Per un’iconografia dell’Inquisizione. Un dipinto di Federico Zuccari per l’elezione di Sisto V, in: M Firpo, Storie di immagini. Immagini di storia. Studi di iconografia cinquecentesca, Rome 2010, pp. 173-201, pl. 39 (as Federico Zuccari) [previously published in: A. Prosperi/P. Schiera/G. Zarri, Chiesa cattolica e mondo moderno. Scritti in onore di Paolo Prodi, Bologna 2007, pp. 123-158]

The present painting represents the meeting in Rome between Saint Francis and Saint Dominic, the two celebrated founders of the mendicant orders. The iconography is usual but was known in Umbria and Tuscany especially during the Quattrocento.

In the present painting the meeting of the two saints symbolically takes place before the Basilica of Saint Peter’s, which is represented as it still looked during the sixteenth century. Indeed, its façade is shown as it was prior to its remodelling completed by Carlo Maderno in 1612. Furthermore, in the background there is the Egyptian obelisk in its original location, before it was moved to the centre of Saint Peter’s Square thanks to an extraordinary engineering feat achieved by Domenico Fontana in 1586, at the request of Sixtus V.

The year 1586 therefore provides an ante quem for the chronological placement of the present painting, for which an attribution to the painter from the Marches, Federico Zuccari, has been suggested. The representation of the dome had at the time not yet been completed and it is likely that the artist took inspiration from Michelangelo’s project, to create this image as it does not correspond to the dome that was finally built by Giacomo della Porta between 1587 and 1590.

The representation of the two saints against the imposing background of the great dome, symbol of the universal Church and the papacy of Rome, suggests that the present painting can be interpreted as a political and religious manifesto, tied to the ascent of the Franciscan Felice Peretti, who played a leading role in the fight against heresy. His career progressed in the service of the Sant’Ufficio in Rome, and he was appointed bishop and later cardinal by the Dominican Pius V, the papal promoter of the inquisition. The image of Saint Francis and Saint Dominic evoke the mendicant orders traditionally aligned in the supression of heresy, and the pontiffs Sixtus V and Pius V who belonged to those orders and were strenuous upholders of the Roman Inquisition.

The patron of the present painting fits within this context. It has advanced that this work was executed for the Dominican theologian Girolamo Bernieri da Correggio (1540-1611), the cardinal of Ascoli, an inquisitor, the patron of Federico Zuccari as well as a great supporter of Sixtus V.

It is possible that Bernieri intended to celebrate the elevation of the new pope with this painting. In his inventory of paintings, drawn up on 22 August 1611, there is ‘un quadro di san Domenico e san Francesco di Federico Zucchero con cornice’ (see: S. Schütze, Devotion und Repräsentation im Heiligen Jahr 1600. Die Cappella di S. Giacinto in S. Sabina und ihr Auftraggeber Kardinal Girolamo Bernerio, in: M. Winner/D. Heikamp (eds.), Der Maler Federico Zuccari, Munich 1999, pp. 261-263, no. 26), which can with caution be identified as the present painting. As Federico Zuccari was called to Spain by Philipp II in September 1585, the execution of this painting would have been between 24 April 1585, the day of Sixtus V’s election, and the painter’s departure from Rome during September of that same year.