The piece of the month of March 2012

MIRACLE OF SAINT SUNDAY IN SORIANO DE LAS CLARISAS DE ESTELLA
 

Pedro Luis Echeverría Goñi
University of the Basque Country

It is a baroque painting from the first half of the 17th century, in the initial phase of painting from life, in which the first tenebrist luminous programs of study can be seen. This topic tells the story of a miracle that happened in 1530 in the church of the convent of Soriano in Calabria, then belonging to the Kingdom of Naples. The apparition of the Virgin to a Dominican layman with the painted image of St. Dominic, "brought from heaven" takes place inside a church of classicist architecture, schematically representing in the background the apse of the high altar where, according to the vision, the painting was to be placed. The sacristan Lorenzo de Grottería appears kneeling before the "three ladies of sublime aspect", who are the Virgin, Saint Mary Magdalene and Saint Catherine of Alexandria, the latter holding the canvas of Saint Dominic of Guzmán. We find ourselves before the repeated baroque artifice of the "picture within the picture", which shows the effigy of the founder of the Dominicans, with a refulgent halo as a nimbus, a young man with a beautiful white face and a light beard, "little more than five palms" tall, dressed in the black and white habit of the order and carrying as attributes the star on his forehead, the book and the bouquet of lilies in his hands. The Virgin shows him the painting before the attentive gaze of the brother, while Mary Magdalene also points to it, attracting the viewer's attention. The spiritual hierarchy of the three women is well represented, as the Virgin stands out with a dazzling radiance on her head, transparent veil, red tunic and a colorful border of stones and pearls on her blue mantle. The two saints, protectors of the order and who enjoyed great devotion among the Dominicans, are distinguished as a queen in the case of Saint Catherine by a crown, and as an ancient woman of public life in the case of Mary Magdalene, by blond, flowing hair and a luxurious mantle with brocade. She is placed on her back, with her face almost profile and carries the perfume knob decorated with flowers with which she anointed Christ. 

Miracle of St. Dominic in Soriano
Poor Clares of Estella (today in Olite)

 

This painting derives, like many others of the same topic in Spain and America, from a canvas painted by Juan Bautista Maíno for the Dominican convent of Santo Tomás in Madrid in 1629. For his composition he based his work on an Italian print of the image submission , as well as on copies of the original image of Soriano, brought from Calabria by Fray Francisco Pinelo the previous year. The version of the Dominican painter differed from the Italian print in the Bertarelli Collection in Milan, in which the three women hold the canvas and the same number of friars assist to the prodigy. As Marías and De Carlos point out, "the Sorianos de Maíno -of which three are preserved- constitute an important piece in the theoretical speech on the sacred image in the 17th century". The version of the original painted by Vicente Carducho for the convent of Santo Domingo el Real in Madrid has also disappeared, but we know it thanks to an engraving that Pedro de Villafranca made from it, with a legend that identifies it as "RETRATO DE N. Pe SANTO DOMINGO DE SORIANO...". In general lines it repeats canonically the previous composition. The popularity of this iconography is reflected in numerous canvases by painters such as Francisco de Zurbarán (canvas from the old convent of San Pablo el Real in Seville, 1626), Juan del Castillo, Vicente Carducho, the Dominican Juan Bautista Maíno, Pedro de Moya, Bartolomé Román, Diego Valentín Díaz, Antonio Pereda and Alonso Cano, among others. They repeat this outline in Navarre with slight variations other paintings of the 17th century like those of the convents of Santo Domingo in Pamplona (the best invoice with the altarpiece of the Incarnation painted in the background), Poor Clares of Olite and Cistercians of Tulebras and the parishes of Cárcar, San Pedro de la Rua of Estella, coming from the old convent of Santo Domingo, and Urdániz.

The miraculous character of the original icon "that makes God for this painting of Heaven" - in the words of F. Pacheco - extended to each of the copies, although they differed from the image of Soriano, creating local devotions of great rootedness among the faithful. An illustrative example can be found in the convent of Santo Domingo in the city of Ega, where in 1688 we are told that "The image of our father Santo Domingo, which is the image of Soriano and the main image of the main altar, consists of pictures and candles that are hung in the main chapel, has worked many miracles, and the devotion that the whole region has for this image is great". In reality, the painting relates the apparition of the Virgin and the other two saints to the Dominican layman with the submission of the true printed portrait of Saint Dominic to the friar of the Italian monastery. That is to say, it constitutes a plastic synthesis of the two visions that happened in two days, with the "invention" or finding of the "great roll of cloth" that the Virgin carried under her arm. In contrast to the natural portraits of the great founders of Counter-Reformation orders such as St. Ignatius of Loyola or St. Teresa of Jesus, P. Civil tells us that the Dominicans proved the authenticity of the portrait of their founder by the celestial character of this image, not executed by the hand of any painter.

bibliography
-COLLAR DE CÁCERES, F., "De arte y rito. Santo Domingo en Soriano en la pintura barroca madrileña", yearbook del department de Historia y Teoría del Arte (U.A.M.), vol. XVII (2005), pp. 39-49.
-MARÍAS, F., and CARLOS VARONA, Mª de, "El arte de las "acciones que las figuras mueven": Maíno, un pintor dominico entre Toledo y Madrid", in RUIZ GÓMEZ, L. (ed.), Juan Bautista Maíno, 1581-1649, Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, 2009, pp. 71-74.
-CARLOS VARONA, Mª de and others, "Catalog", Santo Domingo en Soriano, pp. 172-177, nº 31 and 32, in RUIZ GÓMEZ, L. (ed.), Juan Bautista Maíno, 1581-1649, Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, 2009, pp. 71-74.
-GOÑI GAZTAMBIDE, J., "Historia del convento de Santo Domingo de Estella", Príncipe de Viana, nº 22, 1961, p. 57. Extract of pontifical documents, royal privileges and private concessions to the convent of Santo Domingo de Estella.
-CIVIL, P., "Retratos milagreros y devoción popular en la España del siglo XVII (Santo Domingo y San Ignacio)", AISO, conference proceedings, V (1999), pp. 352-356.
-AGÜERA ROS, J. C., "La pintura española foránea del XVII en Navarra: notas para un balance y estado de la cuestión", Príncipe de Viana, nº. 198, (1993), pp. 30-31. He describes it as an anonymous painting of transition between reformed mannerism and naturalism of the first decades of the 17th century and of possible Valladolid origin.