17th century AD

The Pallione incorporates the Jesuit saints into a hagiographical septet. They appear alone, however, as the city's only saintly intercessors in two prints by Jerome David (ca. 1605-ca. 1670) of 1630 that commemorate the public vow and Bologna's new protectors; one print is reproduced here (Fig. 7). In contrast, Reni assigned Loyola and Xavier subordinate positions, which betray their newcomer status as city patrons and suggest that a conscious protocol determined where he placed each figure. Loyola stands at the left edge of the composition and in the rear of the saintly assembly, next to Florian and behind Petronius, while Xavier kneels between but slightly behind Francis of Assisi and Dominic. Occupying the back row, the two new patrons nonetheless are visually distinguished from Florian and Proculus by the divine light illuminating their faces with the same intensity with which it bathes the kneeling saints in the foreground.(37) Reni further emphasized the preeminence of Petronius, Francis, and Dominic by the language of gesture; their crucial roles in beseeching and interceding are communicated by the clasped and praying hands of Francis at center and, just below and to either side, by the open-palmed hands of Petronius and Dominic presenting the city. Dominic's position opposite Petronius and in the right foreground accords slightly greater visual prominence to him than to Francis, recognizing the conspicuous contribution of the Dominicans to the procession and the fulfillment of the civic vow. Moreover, the Dominicans had cemented an influential political position in Bologna since about 1600, based upon their support of and close alliance with the papacy, and bolstered further by the growth of popular devotion to the rosary.(38) But Reni took care to give pictorial precedence over the whole group of saints to Petronius, the city's most venerated patron. Vertically aligned with the Madonna and Christ Child, Petronius is also linked to them by the golden brilliance of his cope and by two of its visible panels embroidered with scenes in which they figure. Finally, Reni set the miter of the bishop saint at the bottom left of the composition, and close examination of its placement reveals that its cast shadow situates it not on the clouds supporting the saints but directly on the earth, where it stands symbolically as the city's sentinel. Thus, in the Pallione del Voto, saints old and new, local and imported unite to protect Bologna. For Reni and his audience, Loyola and Xavier represented the new saints of the post-Tridentine Church, and along with Dominic, asserted Roman authority in the papally controlled city, whereas Florian, Proculus, Francis, and Petronius embodied age-old civic piety and Bologna's heritage of independence.(39)

[Figure 7 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]