The Vision in Stone: Melchiorre Cafà in the World, 1636-1667

Abstract

This dissertation examines the theory and practice of sculpture by the Maltese artist Melchiorre Cafà in the 1660s in Rome. It explores how the concept of a sculptural softness, or morbidezza, cultivated from hard stone, emerged as a predominant aesthetic category in the seventeenth century. Part I of this dissertation traces the development of “soft sculptures” in the Seicento, arguing that physical labor, long expressed as a deficiency of sculpture, was celebrated and aestheticized in Cafà’s many artworks. This quality of supple marble and soft stone was commented on by poets, artists and in the art literature of the time. Part II is a case study of Cafà’s 1665 Rose of Lima and an angel, a performance of these surface qualities. It investigates how the sculpture was first displayed in Rome during the celebrations of the beatification of Rose in 1668, situating it within a network of art theoretical and hagiographical texts, paintings by Lazzaro Baldi, and sonnets by Orazio Quaranta. In 1670, Cafà’s weighty marble sculpture was sent to Lima, Peru, one year before Rose’s canonization as the first saint born of the Americas. Part III investigates how Cafà’s patron mobilized this sculptural softness and its metaphorics in the world as he set out to create a persuasive image for Rose of Lima. Through the examination of Cafà’s sculptures for Santa Caterina a Magnanapoli, Sant’Agostino, and Sant’Agnese in Agone, this dissertation situates Cafà’s practice of sculpture as a precipitating factor that led to the global event of the canonization of Rose of Lima.