Giovanni Battista Braccelli’s Etched Devotions before the Vatican Bronze Saint Peter

Abstract

IN THE MID-SEVENTEENTH CENTURY , the artist Giovanni Battista Braccelli (ca. 1584 – 1650) created an etching of the bronze Saint Peter cult statue at the Vatican surrounded by devotees and votives ( fi g. 1). 1 This previously unpublished print, titled The Bronze Saint Peter with Votives , offers a detailed representation of the devotional object in its early modern location ( fi gs. 2 – 3): against the northeast pier of the crossing of Saint Peter ’ s Basilica, where Pope Paul V Borghese (r. 1605 – 21) had installed it on May 29, 1620 (still in situ today). The print details a group of early modern visitors gathered around the sculpture — well-dressed men, women, and children to the left of the composition, and an assortment of humbler lay and religious personages to the right. At the center, two pilgrims with walking sticks in hand and broad-brimmed hats slung over their shoulders approach the foot of the sculpted Saint Peter with great reverence. The fi rst of the two bows down to touch the top of his head to the underside of the sculpted foot in an act of extreme humility, bracing himself against the sculpture ’ s base as the crowd looks on with approval. Emanating up from the devotees, a series of ex-voto offerings blanket the fl anking pilasters of Saint Peter ’ s. One can make out the barest references of standard votive imagery and objects on the sketchily rendered plaques — kneeling fi gures and canopied beds before fl oating apparitions — accompanied by