My early morning run today took me to the Tate Britain Gallery where I called in to see the Exhibition “Art under Attack.”
The first room of the Exhibition is all about English King Henry VIII’s break with the Roman Catholic Church, which was largely driven by his desire to get his marriage from the all-powerful Holy Roman Emperor Charles V’s niece, Catherine of Aragon, annulled.
This was a change in policy that also enabled him to dissolve the monasteries, smash up all symbols of idolatry and take the Church’s money….whilst still maintaining the plaudit “FID DEF” for Defender of the true Faith on the English currency!
The exhibition shows a small selection of smashed and slashed works of art, as well as beheaded Christs and Virgin Marys. Statues that I would have thought to be difficult for the soldiers to destroy, for their own faith and the cult of idolatry that was raging in England up until this time. Nonetheless, to judge from the limited amount of undestroyed images the curators were able to find, there are few that haven’t been totally smashed or smelted into a sword. Henry’s soldiers were, at least, good at obeying orders.
But to me, the most surprising image in the first few rooms was the painting by Girolamo da Treviso – shown below. -It is called a Protestant Allegory, it depicts the dithering Medici Pope Clement VII, sporting the beard that he grew as a sign of mourning for his part in the Sack of Rome, being stoned to death by the four Evangelists John, Matthew, Luke and Mark. Each Saint holding a stone that bears their name and a testimony to their attempt to write the true words and admonitions of God the Father and Son.
Flanking the fallen Pope are two women bearing the names of hypocrisy and avarice – the latter presumably a reference to the huge increase in the sale of Indulgences that was actively encouraged by all Pope’s of that era in order to swell the coffers of the Curia. The sale of Indulgences being the final infamy that also set Luther off on his path for Reformation – Pope Clement VII having inherited a Papacy somewhat impoverished by his cousin Pope Leo X and his famous words of encouragement “God has given us the Papacy! – Now let us enjoy it!
But Leo’s cheery Spend! Spend! Spend! encouraged his successors to Sell!Sell! Sell! – and revolution was sure to follow – and Pope Clement VII, shown below as painted by Titian was vilified as a Bad Pope and chased from the Vatican by Emperor Charles V troops in 1527 during the Sack of Rome.
And, if this wasn’t ignominy enough, the picture showing the unfortunate Pope being stoned to death for ignoring the true message of the Evangelists, was evidently hung in Henry VIII’s Chamber – perhaps to remind him that some victories, such as taking a new Queen whilst the old one still lived, could be of a somewhat short duration.
