Crushing the Serpent

In a dark room, three figures are lit from the left by a strong shaft of light. The Virgin is holding the baby Jesus, whose left foot is on top of hers, while both are crushing the head of a snake. On the right, an astonished St Anne is observing the scene.

This altarpiece was commissioned from Caravaggio on 1 December 1605 by the Confraternity of the Palafrenieri (stable-servants) for their altar dedicated to St Anne in St Peter’s in Rome. The painting was brought to St Peter’s on 16 April 1606, and the painter was paid on 19 May. It left St Peter’s almost immediately, perhaps because of its controversial iconography, but also on account of Caravaggio’s personal vicissitudes: on 16 June its sale to Cardinal Scipione Borghese was approved, just a couple of weeks after Caravaggio had murdered Ranuccio Tomassoni (28 May).

The altarpiece is an extremely rare interpretation of the theme of the Immaculate Conception, a doctrine according to which the Virgin is untouched by Original Sin. This particular iconography has only one precedent: Ambrogio Figino’s altarpiece, today in Sant’Antonio Abate, Milan.

It has been observed that it is a sophisticated interpretation of Genesis 3:14–15, and in particular of verse 15’s reference to the crushed serpent. During the sixteenth century, the phrase in question was read in different ways by Catholics and Lutherans. The Latin version of the Bible used by Roman Catholics (the Vulgate) translated the verse as ‘she will crush your head’ (ipsa conteret capum tuum). The Lutherans translated it ‘he will crush your head’ (ipse conteret capum tuum). The former translation suggested Mary’s triumph over sin, and therefore refers to the Immaculate Conception. The latter suggested Christ’s.

Caravaggio—like Figino—chose a compromise between the two interpretations, with both feet crushing the serpent. It was too much for Counter-Reformation Rome.

References

Pierguidi, S. 2009. ‘Nascita e diffusione di una rara iconografia dell’Immacolata Concezione: da Figino e Caravaggio a Bourdon e Quellinus II’, Arte Lombarda, 157.3: 39–48

Settis, S. 1975. ‘Immagini della meditazione, dell’incertezza e del pentimento nell’arte antica’, Prospettiva, 2: 4–18

A dead Christ lies on the lap of the Virgin, who struggles to hold his dead weight. While his limp right arm hangs down to the floor, his lifeless right foot nevertheless crushes a female-headed snake.

Lorenzo di Pietro, known as il Vecchietta, carved this extraordinary Pietà from a single piece of walnut wood. The Sienese sculptor and painter here interpreted—in a very personal manner—the Northern European iconography of the Vesperbild (literally ‘Vespers image’ in German, on account of its use in the evening service on Good Friday), which spread through the Italian peninsula from the end of the fourteenth century and gained wide currency in Italian art during the fifteenth century, culminating with Michelangelo’s Vatican Pietà (1497–99).

The wooden sculpture was rediscovered only in the 1980s in the church of San Donato in Siena, even though it was already described there by Fabio Chigi in 1625–26. Chigi reported an inscription—now lost—that accompanied the sculpture: hoc opus fecit Laurentius dictus Vecchietto pro sua devotione. The latter formula indicated that the artist executed it ‘for his own devotion’. It was a phrase that Vecchietta employed for at least one other sculpture and painting, both destined for his funerary chapel in the church of the Annunziata in the Hospital of Santa Maria della Scala, Siena.

The snake in Vecchietta’s Pietà alludes to the redemption of humanity from Original Sin through Christ’s sacrifice. In this sense, it relates to Genesis 3:15, as it represents the passage ‘he will bruise your head’ (ipse conteret capum tuum). The perpetual physical threat from human heels to the reptile which crawls on its belly suddenly takes on a new meaning here. For the power of evil which the serpent embodies will be spiritually crushed, once and for all, by the second Adam.

References

Bagnoli, A. 1987. Scultura dipinta. Maestri di legname e pittori a Siena 1250–1450 (Florence: Centro Di), pp. 177–80

Seidel, M. et al. 2010. Da Jacopo della Quercia a Donatello. Le arti a Siena nel primo Rinascimento (Milan: F. Motta), pp. 312–13

A monumental Virgin is supporting the Christ child, who tramples a snake with his left foot. On the right, an elderly woman holding a book reclines at the bottom of a column.

Sébastien Bourdon, a French painter of Protestant faith, was in Rome between 1634 and 1637, and there almost certainly saw Caravaggio’s Madonna of the Serpent. Once in Paris, he executed this print, in which there are substantial departures from Caravaggio’s model. First of all, it is the child alone who crushes the snake, while the Virgin merely observes. This is perfectly in line with the Lutheran way of interpreting Genesis 3:15: ‘he will crush your head’ (ipse conteret capum tuum).

Another typically Lutheran aspect is that the figure on the right no longer represents St Anne, as most Protestant traditions do not acknowledge Anne as a saint. She has been replaced by the figure of what seems to be a prophet, holding a book. (Indeed, it has often been argued that an extra-biblical Anne has been exchanged for a biblical one, and that this is the female prophet Anna described in Luke 2:22–38). A representation of the Immaculate Conception—one of the pillars of the Counter-Reformation—is here transformed into an image against the cult of the Virgin.

Sébastien Bourdon probably perceived all the discussions and controversies that surrounded Caravaggio’s altarpiece, and decided to offer an interpretation which is compositionally similar yet powerfully different in meaning.

References

Thuillier, J. 2000. Sébastien Bourdon 1616–1671: catalogue critique et chronologique de l’oeuvre complet (Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux), p. 259