User:Ngomes99/St. Cecilia (Stefano Maderno)

St. Cecilia is a Baroque sculpture by Stefano Maderno and commissioned by Cardinal Paolo Emilio Sfrondrato in the church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome. Stefano Maderno was a famous Italian sculptor from the early 1600s best known for his statues of saints. St. Cecilia was the Roman saint of music who was executed for baptizing her fellow romans and as such became a martyr for Christianity. The statue was part of a renovation done to the St. Cecilia Basilica in Trastevere, Rome which displays the saint lying on her side with her dress tucked between her knees in a baroque art style as part of an exhibit which also displays a new tomb of St. Cecilia's actual body. St. Cecilia's body was moved during Pope Paschal I campaign to move Christian saints' bodies inside the walls of Rome. The sculpture exists as a christian symbol of overcoming hatred and prosecution.

Patron
In 1599, Cardinal Paolo Emilio Sfrondrato began renovating the Santa Cecilia Basilica in Trastevere, Rome. During construction, the body of St. Cecilia was found unchanged underneath the basilica. In 1600, he hired Stefano Maderno to create the sculpture of her for the altar.

Artist
Maderno was an Italian sculptor born in Palestrina, Italy in 1576. Maderno started his career in Rome like many artists of his time, he started by restoring antique statues. He is known as one of the outstanding sculptors in 17th-century Rome before Bernini and during Pope Paul V. He is best known for the statue of St.Cecilia in Trastevere which was commissioned by Cardinal Paolo Emilio Sfrondrato. It is said that the inspiration for his statue was the body of St. Cecilia herself, as her body had seemed to be unaffected by the passage of time and so he supposedly modeled it the way she was found.

His St.Cecilia statue was so well received that it opened doors to more saint statue commissions. In 1601, Maderno made a statue of Prudence for Cardinal Alessandrino. In another commission to the Academia di S Luca, Maderno sculpted bigger than life-size statue of Francesco Caporale and of St. Epaphras. This commission only led to many more sepultures of saints. Along with the St.Cecilia sculpture, the ones he made of Peace and Justice for S. Maria della Pace are equally well known. After getting so many commissions Maderno’s pieces were seen by many people, which led him to land a position in the customs office at the Pot of Ripetta in Rome. However, scholars don't know if Maderno stopped being a sculptor or not after accepting the position. One thing to note about Maderno as an artist is that his work as a sculptor contributed to a change in the history of Italian sculpture. His interest in classical antiquity and naturalism still lives to this day in his sculptures.

Subject
St. Cecilia is the Roman saint of music. Just like many female saints, St. Cecilia was also a virgin, and she was known as a Bride of Christ. St. Cecilia was a married noblewoman however, she never intended to lose her virginity, which she told her husband on their wedding night. When she got married she was already devoted to Christ. She ended up being killed for wanting to keep her religion and for baptizing fellow Romans.

Description
The St.Cecilia statue can be found lying on her right side, with a long dress that is stuck in between her knees. The dress tucked in between her knees makes possible for the viewer to see her body shape. The folds on her dress creating spots of light and shadow is a characteristic of baroque style. Her hands are located in front of her legs, has if her arms were bonded before. Her right index finger extends off the marble breaking the barrier between the statue and the pilgrims. St. Cecilia has her face turned away from the audience and straight down to the earth. Her face being turned away helps display the cuts shown on the back of her neck, that were made by the executioner. Even after the executioner hit her neck three times, St.Cecilia stayed alive for three days before bleeding out.

Historical Context
St. Cecilia lived in 180AD, at this time people were buried in the catacombs of St.Callixtus I outside the city. In the 9th century, Pope Paschal I started a campaign to get the bodies of Christian saints inside the walls of Rome. One of those saints was St.Cecilia, her body was retrieved and found rolled in gold-colored fabric and then placed underneath the new church that was built on top of her old house. She was buried underneath the altar in 821 until she was discovered again in 1599 during renovations. Once the renovations were done, she was once again placed underneath the altar with her new tomb top made by Maderno.

The statue created by Maderno not only displays the gruesome end of St.Cecilia but it's also a way of immortalizing her death for her religion and belief in Jesus. Burials created for Saints and Popes between the 14th to 16th centuries, were designed to represent the dead as if they were sleeping. The V&A mentions that scholars have now found out that her body was not found intact which is why Maderno sculpted her on her side and not facing towards the ceiling as was the standard back then.

St.Cecilia's body was discovered one year before the jubilee pilgrimage, which happened every quarter century. Since the jubilee pilgrims visited many churches in Rome the commissioning of the St.Cecilia statue and the renovation would make it easier for the pilgrims to visit and look at the saint's relics. Following the side aisle leading downstairs to the annular crypt to see St.Cecilia's sarcophagus, which then lead back up the stairs to where the statue is located. Once in front of the St.Cecilia statue not only would they be sharing the room with her but they are being welcomed by index finger that hangs out beyond the marble base.

Located in front of the statue of St.Cecilia is an inscription which was written by Cardinal Sfondrato which says " Gaze upon the likeness of the most holy virgin Cecilia, which I saw myself lying in an entire state in the sepulcher. I had this same likeness, precisely in the same position her body lay, expressed for you in marble."

Interpretation
It was believed for many years, that the statue was a complete recreation of how the body was found in 1599. On the other hand, Ostrow, writes that the sculpture is entirely Maderno's invention. Maderno's St.Cecilia is a very straightforward sculpture that is supposed to express strong emotions, and it can be viewed from multiple positions as the baroque nature of the statue creates layers of dark and light which shift with the viewpoint of the observer.