The development of the concept of the cardinal as we know it today took place between the later Middle Ages and the Renaissance, when the Avignonese period came to an end and the papacy returned to Rome. In particular, the Western Schism led to a fierce debate about the prerogatives and duties of the cardinal, as each (anti)pope created his own set of loyalporporati and the power relations between the College and the pontiff came under pressure. After the Council of Constance, a theological, political, and ecclesiastical debate emerged focused on their function, institutional position, theological status, and social prestige. All these elements were reflected in their public image, which, as the title suggests, is the main theme of this book. The French word visages in the main title has a double meaning; it refers primarily to “faces,” as in portraits, but it can also be read as “character.” The two overlap to some extent in this study, but their precise relationship remains implicit.
The study starts from a historical and ecclesiological perspective that clearly translates into its setup. The first six chapters zoom in on the discussions amongst theologians and late scholastics about the legitimations of the cardinalate and the symbolism used to elucidate its importance, on the basis of biblical, patristic, and classical sources. The function was alternatively compared to the Seventy Elders of the Old Testament, the twelve Apostles of Christ, or the Senators of the Roman State, and with each set of precursors the role of the cardinal vis-à-vis the pope was defined in a different way. The main dichotomy in these treatises was the collective authority of the College of Cardinals against the sole power of the pontiff, defined as the plenitudo potestatis. [1] The debate was characterised by two extreme positions: the corporatist view, in which both the pontiff and the cardinals shared decisional power, and the absolutist view, in which the pope exercised sole authority and the cardinals were dependent on him. The significance of this issue for the Church's organisation is illustrated by the numerous authors who addressed it during the Middle Ages and into the fifteenth century.
It is only in Chapter Seven that the image of the cardinal becomes the subject of discussion--with, however, only a very limited number of well-known examples, such as Botticelli in the Sistine Chapel, the portraits of cardinals Albergati and Trevisan by Jan van Eyck and Andrea Mantegna respectively, and Titian’s group portrait of Paul III and his grandsons. These examples merely illustrate the type of paintings in which cardinals were depicted; in only six pages of text a deeper analysis of the objects, or of the typology itself, cannot be reached, and more detailed art historical questions such as commissioners, audience and specific iconographical significances are lacking. [2] The following chapters, longer and more substantial in character, then zoom in on a particular detail, namely the changes in the cardinal’s vestiary occurring between 1400 and 1550. It is not primarily the type of garments that is the focus of discussion here--although the gradual loss of practical use of the galero and its substitution by the biretta are dealt with, for example--but the colour of their cappa magna, the large cloak with hood they donned at formal (non-liturgical) occasions. Whereas from 1500 onwards, a deep purple red had become the main indication of their elevated status, Roch's main thesis is that cardinals in the later Middle Ages still wore a variety of different hues. These could include a kind of pink, several hues or red and purple, or even range from white to deep blue (which was in Italian indicated with the term paonazzo, which refers to the colour of the peacock). [3]
As this study tries to argue, the apparent lack of visual unity was perceived by theoreticians as an expression of institutional unclarity, weakening the impression of coherence within the College of Cardinals--and thus its image of power. Fifteenth-century authors discussed in this study, mainly Nicholas of Cusa and Domenico de’ Domenicis, therefore called for more coherence (i.e., red as the colour of the cardinal). It was only with the decisions of individual popes such as Pius II that this began to change (which also affected the colours worn by the pope himself, in the direction of red and white, although again, there was no strict colour range adopted by the popes in any period). [4] These changes were accompanied by a gradual shift in power between the two groups and, with it, also the public image of the cardinal.
The last part of this study then concentrates on representations of Saint Jerome, whose growing popularity in the arts in the fifteenth century is taken as a reflection of the changing concept of what a cardinal’s main qualities were; stressing the identity of a devout scholar to the detriment of the more political role. As a result, the saint’s iconography started to include the standard elements of the cardinal’s dress, which means that the galero and cappa magna increasingly became standard features of these representations. Roch’s argument here does not return to the colour of this saint’s dress, since only few examples from the fifteenth century exist that deviate from the standard red. A blue hue is chosen only in Andrea Mantegna’s Saint Jerome in the Desert in São Paolo, but he is not wearing acappa magna but a kind of monastic habit. Subsequently, Roch argues that due to the notoriety of Cardinal Bessarion, who as a Basilian monk continued to wear the colour black of his Order even as a cardinal, this colour was in some instances also applied to Jerome’s garments, thus again interfering with the standard image of the cardinal in the fifteenth century.
The latter argument, that the variety in colour worn by cardinals was determined by their monastic identity, starts to contradict the discussion offered by Roch in the preceding chapters, and this has already been argued by previous authors. In her discussion of the cardinals’ garments, Carol Richardson emphasizes this monastic element as the explanation for the choice of other colours than red or paonazzo (which she argues is a kind of blueish purple, and not straight blue), and the reason that this remained accepted throughout the Renaissance. This discourse persisted well into the sixteenth century, leading to the conclusion that members of any religious order could not negate their previous monastic identity that expressed itself in particular chromatic manifestations. This only goes to show that this conundrum certainly had not been resolved by the end of the Renaissance. [5] Furthermore, it prompts the question of the percentage of cardinals who obtained their status through a monastic career in the fifteenth century, as this would have determined the colour identity of the College. While there are indications that during the fifteenth century the influx of cardinals through this career path remained at least constant in that period, Roch does not address this issue at all. [6]
Although the relevance of the debate on visual unity and uniform colours within the College cannot be negated, one can only conclude that this call had little impact on the reality at the papal court, something that the authors of treatises on the ideal cardinal must have realized. [7] It certainly cannot be stated that the fifteenth century demonstrated a “victory,” as Roch calls it, of red as the single adopted colour of cardinalitial garments. Moreover, the fundamental question of how daily reality in the College of Cardinals related to the proliferation of these theological, political, and ecclesiological texts, and how both texts and reality interact with the painted representations of the ideal cardinal, is not really dealt with. The basic question why some depictions of cardinals actually chose to highlight the differences in garb, whereas others (such as those of Saint Jerome) opted for the red only, remains unanswered, as do a number of other discrepancies. For example, the galero was a standard element in paintings of Saint Jerome, while in reality it was no longer worn by cardinals. In other words, the function and agency of these images, the relation of art to real life, and the role of their audiences is left out. This is surprising since this aspect has been taken along by other authors: Daniel Russo, for example, indicates the popularity of this saint in the context of the Dominican and Jesuit orders, stating that in each social context a different aspect of Jerome’s identity was highlighted, and this had an impact on the iconography. [8]
From the point of view of art history, this study adopts a rather coarse system of classification and, with it, avoids any more profound interpretation and source criticism. It certainly does not deal with the intricate and complex relations between word and image; it simply assumes that if authors discuss the colouristic variety in the cardinal’s dress as problematic, this must reflect itself both in painted images and in reality. While the issue of the cardinals' colours has previously attracted considerable attention from other scholars, and the sources compiled by Roch undoubtedly provide an interesting addition to the debate, this book's analysis falls short of offering a reflective comparison between the sources, or a thorough exploration of the interdisciplinary approach of imagology in the context of the late medieval and Renaissance cardinal.
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Notes:
1. M. Rizzi, “Plenitudo potestatis. Dalla teologia politica alla teoria dello stato assoluto,” in Images, cultes, liturgies. Les connotations politiques du message religieux, eds. P. Ventrone and L. Gaffuri (Rome/Paris: École Française de Rome/Publications de la Sorbonne, 2014), 49-60.
2. For a more profound discussion of cardinals’ portraits in the early modern time see C. Robertson, “Portraits of Early Modern Cardinals,” in Companion to the Early Modern Cardinal, eds. M. Hollingsworth, M. Pattenden, and A. Witte (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 557-580; and P. Baker Bates and I. Brooks, eds.,Portrait Cultures of the Early Modern Cardinal (Amsterdam: AUP, 2021).
3. See also C. M. Richardson, “The Cardinal’s Wardrobe,” in Companion to the Early Modern Cardinal, 535-556.
4. C. Monagle, “The Papal Wardrobe” in The Cambridge History of the Papacy, vol. III, ed. J. Rollo-Koster, R. A. Ventresca, M. H. Eichbauer and M. Pattenden (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2025), 751-767.
5. G. Catena, Della Beretta rossa da darsi ai cardinali religiosi (Rome: Georgio Ferrari, 1592).
6. Some information on the presence of regular members of the College can be gleaned from W. Reinhard, “Herkunft und Karriere der Päpste 1417-1963. Beiträge zu einer historischen Soziologie der römischen Kurie,” inMededelingen van het Nederlands Historisch Instituut te Rome 38 (1976), 87-108; M. Firpo, “Il cardinale,” in L’uomo del Rinascimento, ed. E. Garin and P. Burke (Rome: Laterza, 1988), 82ff.; M. A. Visceglia, “The Social Background and Education of Cardinals,” in Companion to the Early Modern Cardinal, 255.
7. David Chambers, “Treatises on the Ideal Cardinal,” in Companion to the Early Modern Cardinal, 453-469.
8. D. Russo, Saint Jérome en Italie. Etude d’iconographie et de spiritualité XIIIe-XVIe siècles (Paris/Rome: Editions la découverte/Ecole française de Rome, 1987), 52-60 and 275.