After Raphael: Painting in Central Italy in the Sixteenth Century by Marcia B. Hall (review)

BOOK REVIEWS323 printed in the Polish series Textus et Studia. The third problem is broken down into treatments of new views of the plenitude potestatis, the question of the deposition of a pope, and the approach to reform in head and members. Among the interesting insights that come from this chapter are Wünsch's evaluation of John Elgot's originality and creative use of previous traditions and his implication that James of Paradise's contribution has perhaps been too optimisticaUy assessed. What emerges from this study is a picture that shows the indebtedness PoUsh conciliarism had to earlier developments but reveals also the way it clearly expressed the fuUy-developed ideals of BasUean conciliarism. At the same time Wünsch's work argues that Cracovian thought made suggestive contributions on such questions as corporation and representation theory,the role and power of the pope within the Church, and the superior position of the councU vis-à-vis the pope. He also shows the importance of Cracovian conciliarism within the context of Polish inteUectual developments and points to the way in which this tradition had an enduring influence in Poland into the sixteenth century. This is a valuable work that provides a fuUer understanding of the complexity and vitaUty of the concUiar tradition and an appreciation, fully grounded in careful textual and analysis, of the role which Poland played in this European phenomenon . Paul W Knoll University ofSouthern California Early Modern European After Raphael:Painting in CentralItaly in the Sixteenth Century. By Marcia B. HaU. (New York: Cambridge University Press. 1999. Pp. xvi, 349; 16 color plates. $60.00.) A book which seeks to contextualize the painting of sixteenth-century Italy in terms of the period's social, refigious, political, and literary issues has long been needful. In many ways Macia HaU's After Raphael has filled that gap. It is a work in which there is much to praise. Much of it is eloquently written, the limpid descriptive style of her passages on Michelangelo's Last Judgment and Pauline Chapel frescoes, or the religious paintings of Pontormo and Rosso Florentino bring to mind the best of the work of Sydney Freedberg, to whom HaU pays tribute in her introduction and clearly acknowledges as her mentor. Unlike Freedberg, however, she seeks to bring clarity and definition to the chronology of the art of Rome and Florence by providing detaUed accounts of the motives of not only painters but their patrons as weU. She consistently emphasizes the artistic contributions and ideology (or lack thereof) of each Pope, from the impact ofJtuius IFs vision of the new Rome to the renovation (in both practical and spiritual terms) of Sixtus V Particularly useful are her sections on the overlooked Jacopo di Ripanda and the significance of his commissions at 324BOOK REVIEWS the Palazzo dei Conservatori and the Episcopal Palace at Ostia to the development of the iconography of sixteenth-century Rome. She is strong on the relationship between painters such as Salviati and the Farnese family, giving clarity and context to a complex yet pivotal moment in papal patronage. A welcome emphasis is placed on the importance of prints to the dissemination of ideas, as both tools of stylistic influence and in the religio-political arena. She describes the fervor of anti-CathoUc sentiment that Cranach's Pope as Antichrist pamphlet could have whipped up in the German troops as they invaded Rome in 1527. Conversely, toward the end of the book, we see the Jesuits exploiting the medium of the print to depict the martyrs of their own society. Hall also takes pains to refer wherever possible to the art writing of the period, from Vasari through to Gilio, Paleotti, and Borghini. For this reader there is a fundamental flaw to this work, another legacy of the Freedbergian era and that is the application of ahistorical style labels to some (if not aU) of the art of this period. In "a note on style labels" Hall herself writes what might be described as a disclaimer/justification for this usage and assures the reader she has reduced the "labels used to a minimum" —but one can still count six. What is puzzling is that...