Archbishop Francisco Jimenez de Cisneros and the decoration of the Chapter Room and Mozarabic Chapel in Toledo Cathedral.

摘要

This dissertation examines the decoration of the Mozarabic Chapel and Chapter Room in Toledo Cathedral commissioned by Archbishop Francisco Jimenez de Cisneros (r. 1495-1517) during the first decade of the sixteenth century. Each room is an ensemble of Mudejar, Gothic, and Renaissance decoration and, unusually for Spain, fresco painting. The frescos in the Chapter Room by Juan de Borgona (d. c. 1438), which represent the life of the Virgin and Christ's Passion, and the Last Judgment set within a feigned gallery of columns, have long been understood to be the first introduction of a Renaissance painting style to Castile. They have provided the only evidence for Borgona's presumed but undocumented sojourn in Italy, where he is thought to have experienced the great age of quattrocentoo fresco painting that flourished in Florence and in Rome during the pontificate of Sixtus IV. Art historians have been content to examine Borgona's frescos solely from a stylistic point of view and relate them to the works of Domenico Ghirlandaio and his contemporaries. Restricting our analyses to the putative effects of the influence of Italian art upon Juan de Borgona, results in the conclusion that this significant period in the history of Spanish art is merely derivative. It negates any active choices made by the patron and artist. It also ignores all other aspects of the decorations, such as the Mudejar artesonados and yeserias, Gothic portals, and the other frescos by Borgona in the Mozarabic chapel, which celebrate Cardinal Cisneros' victory over the Muslims at Oran (North Africa) in 1509, and constitute a unique example of historical narrative in Spain. This dissertation seeks to redress this previous limited interpretation with one that takes into account the political and aesthetic prerogatives of the patron, Archbishop Cisneros, the dynamics of the Cathedral bureaucracy and Cisneros' relationship with the Cathedral Chapter, and the aesthetic culture of artists in Toledo Cathedral during these years. The analysis depends upon a reexamination of the documentary evidence, which, while relatively well-published (but not without mistakes) has never been carefully examined, along with other unpublished primary sources.